CCS Reflections: Genuine-Gratitude

I recently read the following quote by C. H. Spurgeon:

Young men have flung away all hope of salvation in order that they might be thought to be men of culture; they have abjured faith in order to be esteemed "free-thinkers" by those whose opinions were not worth a pin's head. I charge you, dear friend, if you are beginning at all to be a slave of other people, break these wretched and degrading bonds.

This thought by Spurgeon struck a chord within me.

I remember struggling through the "intellectual" questions raised during coursework at university. (I was a Religion and Philosophy major.) I remember struggling with how best to reconcile (on the one hand) "faith" and (on the other hand) "intellectual integrity" -- e.g., the problem of Theodicy, inspiration of Scripture and the New Testament canon, etc. (I was afflicted with doubts regarding God's goodness, his existence, the perspicuity and truth of Scripture, etc. Those were dark days, indeed.)

However, I vividly remember when a compelling idea - nay! - it was a conviction - surfaced in my head: it was sometime during my senior year, I realized that "intellectual integrity" for a Christian was a myth, in so far as it is constructed as something that must be reconciled with one's faith. The fact of the matter is this: "intellectual integrity" for a Christian is part of the warp-and-woof of faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for; faith is the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Faith is a Christian's "intellectual integrity" - faith is a gift from God, and accepting, receiving, clinging to, persevering in that gifted-faith is "intellectual integrity" for a Christian.

So. Genuine-Gratitude is Intellectual Integrity.

However, in general, the Higher-Education/Peer-Reviewed/Tenure-Seeking/"Free-thinkers"/Men-of-Culture Christian-subculture (whose opinions, as C. H. Spurgeon said, are "not worth a pin's head") have chosen to disagree. If you have genuine-gratitude, then, as I've said before, prepare yourself to be called names. *Shrug*

But the trick is to count it all joy: look beyond the name-calling, look beyond being mislabeled (e.g., Fundamentalist, Anti-Intellectual, etc.), look beyond the complexity of providence, look beyond and lose sight of yourself, and look solely to God who is the author and provider of all.

And if you are looking to God, then you will be able to "respond to each providence in an appropriate way" (see John Flavel's The Mystery of Providence).