The Problem of the Fact/Value Split

Every now and then I’ll come across a statement about faith and science, faith and politics, or faith and economics being mutually exclusive. So one can speak openly in public on science, politics, and economics; however, one must always keep faith or religious matters private. Some might even attempt to expunge from its science, political, and economic vocabulary anything that might be considered “religious.” This is something of a fact/value split, which places faith in an upper story of personal, private, beliefs, and science, politics, and economics in the lower story of public matters.

Nancy Pearcy in her book Total Truth observes that this fact/value spirit ultimately “traps Christianity in the upper story of privatized values, and prevents it from having any effect on public culture.” She then encourages Christians to overcome this dichotomy and to recover their rightful place in the public square through developing a biblical worldview. It is a worldview that beings with the submission of one’s mind to the Lord of the universe. It is a commitment to Christ command, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind” (Luke 10:27). It is ultimately “taking every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).

It is ultimately a biblical worldview that can offer to all the spiritual foundations for the development and promotion of science, politics, and economics. For example, science in the West was birth out of the notion that God created the heavens and the earth, so as man explores the external world, and discovers truths about the cosmos, he is in fact learning more about its Creator. Scriptures also offer us the basis for representative governments. God establishes the rulers and authorities (Rom. 13:1-2), but no one is above the law, nor the Divine Lawmaker. If rulers began to rule as tyrants, they were opposing the divine law and God, and citizens could remove them from office. Biblical ethics also serve as key elements to economic growth. Solomon observed, “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight” (Prov. 11:1). In places where corruption reigns, where people must offer bribes, steal, of scam others to do business, real economic growth is stifled and severe poverty results.

Faith is not to be excluded from public discourse on matters related to science, politics, and economics. A robust biblical worldview in fact calls for Christians to think christianly upon these matters.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grappling with the Craziness of an Election Year with the Book of Kings

Image
Well this is another election year, which makes the Tuesday after the first Monday in November the terminus ad quem for all the political madness that comes beforehand in the USA. With all the mudslinging, rioting, and overall incivility, it is hard to believe were still have over five months to go. I am going through the Book of 1-2 Kings at the moment, and the refrain “Only the high places were not taken away” caught my eye, and as I began to meditate upon them, I found them to be a bit helpful in grappling with all that goes on during these turbulent election years. Here a little background is needed. After the days of Solomon there came about a civil war that divided the children of Abraham living in the promise land into two nations—the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. There eventually came about a series of rulers in the kingdom of Judah whose reigns the biblical writer describes this way: Jehoash did right in the sight of the LORD…Only
Read more

The Good Thing About God and Judgment

Image
Today, I was continuing my trek through the extensive Paul and the Faithfulness of God by N.T. Wright. There is so much content in this extensive two-volume work, I can only soak in a small percentage of it. Working through Wright is always a work in progress. He is just one of those astute theologians who leaves no stone unturned in developing a point. Wright makes this observation about the way the larger story of the New Testament conveyed in Paul’s works concerns God’s judgment in the world, which is part of the way he has come to setup his rule over the world. On p. 481 Write notes,  The word “judgment” has of course been allowed to slip into negative mode in the contemporary western world, with “judgmentalism” one of the classic postmodern villains. But even a postmodernist whose car has been damaged by a drunk driver wants a court to pass “judgment” against the offender. “Judgment” is in fact a positive thing. It is what restores health to a society, a balance
Read more

As the Dust Settles in Haiti…

Last Sunday as I was getting my groceries totaled up, the checker asked if I would like to make a donation to Haiti, which I did. The amount was practically nothing, but it did remind me that for the entirety of the previous week, it seemed as if the entire world zeroed in on what was going on that half of the Island of Hispaniola, which was devastated by a massive earthquake on January 12, 2010. News sources consider this the largest earthquake that country had experienced in the last 200 years, and many report an estimated 50,000 lives perished. Events like this always remind me that human life is so precious, yet at the same time, one can never know when life’s flame shall be extinguished. There were lots of voices chiming in on the Haiti situation, and many of them were quite helpful, instructing people on what they could do to help survivors. I even had an acquaintance share his intention to travel to the island to do some aid work. I say Godspeed! I also heard a few disheartening
Read more