There is no such thing as a religiously neutral intellectual endeavor

There is no such thing as religiously neutral intellectual endeavor — or rather there is no such thing as serious, substantial and relatively complete intellectual endeavor that is religiously neutral. – Alvin Plantinga

This is a very important point to bring up. After all, as Christians we have a point of view. A perspective on God in general and Jesus in particular. Plantinga’s point is that if you give serious thought to ultimate questions, you can’t be neutral. Neutrality in and of itself is not a virtue. Too much is at stake.

But what this observation doesn’t mean is that if you have a point of view about ultimate reality, you can’t be objective. We should always be honest about where we are coming from but we must also allow evidence and reason (reality) to correct our point of view. This is the kind of critical realism that allows us to make genuine progress in discovering more about the way reality actually is.

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