College is a scary place. One moment you are in the nice safe environment of your high school and the next, you are placed on a college campus filled with thousands of people dominated by an unforgiving and unrelentless evangelical secular worldview. Added to that is the fact that almost everyone around you has seemingly thrown morality to the wind in pursuit of a million different lifestyles. Needless to say, it can be hard to stay a Christian in college.
But I think that if you can stay a Christian in college, you might could very well keep it up for your entire life. There are two dimensions to Christianity that are both very important during your college life. The first is your spiritual life. This is your sanctification, your love for Christ, and your growth in becoming more like Him. Of this I could never say enough and whatever I do say here about intellect is greatly overshadowed by this. But also important is the second dimension of Christian life at campus: the intellectual and academic life. You see, your spiritual life is of the greatest importance, but since your academic Christian life is challenged by the seculars on campus, giving way in your intellectual Christian life could very easily lead to giving way in your spiritual life. It is primarily this dimension that I wish to discuss: keeping a Christian mind.
The way I see it, there are two very important things you need to do in order to stay an intellectual Christian in college. The first is to develop an adequate concept of antithesis. What is antithesis? Quite simply, if something is true, then its opposite cannot be true. Easy right? Well not too many people see things this way. Rejecting antithesis leads to ideas like relativism. An example of how antithesis might work in the Christian life can be seen by looking at evolution. For example, if the Christian account of creation is correct, then it follows logically that the Darwinian-natural selection-evolution theory of creation is wrong. We, as Christians, must believe that there is an objective right and wrong in this life.
Secondly, we as Christians must use Scripture as our primary epistemology. What does this mean? It means first that we accept the inerrancy of Scripture. Secondly, it means that every question about God, Christ, and all things religious and many more things must be answered only by Scripture. We can’t go around hypothesizing or guessing about God when all we need to know about Him is found in the Bible. Scripture must be carefully read, meditated upon, memorized, and worshipped. Our method of knowing is reading, preaching, and expositing the Bible. Anything that contradicts the Bible must be thrown right out. Scripture is God’s revelation to mankind. Once we base all our primary presuppositions on the Bible, then we will see that God’s worldview is much more consistent and lovely than any secular worldview offered at a university.
So there you have it. Believe and base your life on objective truth, antithesis, and being skeptical of anything not consistent with Scripture. Think critically about what the Bible says and you will come to own your faith more. Believe and trust in the Bible. And along the way, you just might grow to love Christ more as well. We would do well to remember that.
