Olson - The Essence of Christian Thought: Seeing Reality Through the Biblical Story

T his book grew out of a concern for Christians who either shun philosophy altogether as hostile and antithetical to vital, robust Christian faith or absorb unbiblical, and therefore unchristian, views of reality into their own perspectives on life and reality. The world, including America, is filled with alternative, competing visions of realitywhat is ultimately and really real behind what everyone sees every day. These visions of reality are philosophies of life, worldviews, or metaphysical perspectives. This book proposes to help especially Christians devoted to the Bible as Gods Word understand its implicit philosophy of realitywhat is really real behind and beyond appearances. And it proposes to help them distinguish between the Bibles implicit vision of reality and competing onessome of which are sometimes even labeled Christian or compatible with Christianity.

A secondary purpose of this book is to provide administrators and faculty members of Christian institutions of higher education with a relatively simple elucidation of the faith part of faith-learning integrationa central reason for such institutions existence. Numerous Christian colleges and universities, sometimes even Christian high schools, expect their faculty members to practice faith-learning integration. However, that project is often poorly explained. Many administrators and faculty members want to know what the faith part of that project includes. For most Christian thinkers involved in explicating faith-learning integration, the faith part is not a whole system of doctrines or inward spirituality but the biblical-Christian view of realitythat is, basic biblical-Christian philosophy.

This book contains an archeology of the implicit philosophy of the Biblethe Bibles assumed view of reality. It is called The Essentials of Christian Thought because this philosophy is foundational to everything the Bible teaches, and orthodox, thinking Christians of all denominations throughout the centuries have believed it. The meaning of the title will be more fully explained in the Introduction.

I thank Zondervan, and especially editors Madison Trammel and Stanley Gundry, for inviting me to write this book. Thanks also goes to the writers assistant Jared Patterson and to many blog commenters who have stimulated me to compose this book. Finally, much thanks goes to my late mentor John Newport (d. 2000), who planted the seeds of the book in the writers mind during seminars at Rice University in the late 1970s. This book is dedicated to his memory.

T his book is primarily intended for Christian believers, although others are more than welcome to read it. The intended audience is people who believe the Bible is a truthful and trustworthy guide not only to spirituality and ethics but also to the nature of ultimate reality. That is, it is especially for people who believe the Bible is more than just a book of human wisdom or even an expression of Gods moral will. This book is for people who believe the human authors of the Bible were instruments of God, albeit active and not passive ones, in revealing what would otherwise be his secrets. What secrets? The true nature of ultimate realitythe realities behind appearances. Philosophers call the study of such secrets metaphysics, but more about that later. Dont let a word scare you away.

This book presupposes that the Bible is Gods narrative, Gods story, about himself and his relationships with people. It also presupposes that, like every story, the biblical narrative about God and people in history past, present, and future has certain hidden features that need to be explored and drawn out. They are not hidden by design as in esoteric religion. They are hidden because they are taken for grantedby God and by his human instruments, the Bibles authors.