Every freshman who comes to Covenant College has to take Core: The Christian Mind. For the past few years, they have used Why College Matters to God by Rick Ostrander. In a passage about truth and to what extent the fall effected the mind, Ostrander quoted Richard Lewonton.

"We have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori [from before] adherence to the material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, the materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

This passage has always bugged me. It's a niggling thought that I haven't really worked out yet, but I'm giving it my best shot.

This is somewhat superfluous, but institutions, in the sense of peer review etc., do force people to leave any form of Divine Aid out of any study or argument. Which is what happens when, as a group, you are determined to keep away any form of the supernatural from science. It's man's sinful nature, to gang up on God, particularly the God of Israel, and to try to squelch His message.

That wasn't what bugs me. Ostrander totally misses the point. Or at least I think so, I'm just an ignorant freshman, it will only be next year that I will have earned the title of sophomore, learned fool. As I said, the passages leading up to the quotation speak to the nature of truth and how much the intellect has been corrupted by the fall. The other part was how much you can rely on a non-Christian's perspective, as they aren't in a personal relationship with the Word. Well, both Christians and non-Christians can know truth, though an argument for another time, or right now, would be to what extent. What Lewonton says is true. If you cannot allow a God into your calculation, that is what happens, and that is what has happened. When I read this passage, I had to read it again, and I kept looking for something that wasn't there. I realized that what I was searching for was the refutation of the statement. I was looking for him to say that that is indeed what happens, but praise God, we can see the bigger picture, so we don't have to settle for counterintuitive or mystifying apparati. Then I realized I had skimmed the paragraph leading up to it, and I saw that Lewontin wasn't a Christian at all.

When it comes down to it, both Ostrander and Lewontin missed the point. Ostrander failed to point out that there was an example where truth blazed forth like shining from shook foil. Lewontin missed the bigger picture entirely. In short, the passage surrounding the quotation is much like the central melody section from Gustav Holst's Jupiter. It's gives a great deal to ponder, but it leaves you wanting more.