When my wife asked what I wanted for Christmas this past year, I gave her a list of several books that I have been wanting. On the list was Dallas Willard's new book, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge. Well, I didn't receive it for Christmas but just figured it was because we were on such a strict budget. Until... last Wednesday we were headed to lunch with my dad & stopped at the mailbox & to my surprise was a package for Joy. She opened it & it was the book. Apparently it had not been released yet & Amazon shipped it when it came in stock.
So... I have read only 2 chapters but they have been great! I do warn you that this is not a devotional book. Willard states, "it will require considerable mental effort to understand." He was right. May I let you in on a few things that stood out to me during the Introduction.
The thesis of the book is stated in the introduction: "This book is about knowledge & about claims to knowledge in relationship to life & the Christian faith. It is concerned, more precisely, with the trivialization of faith apart from knowledge & with the disastrous effects of a repositioning of faith in Jesus Christ, & of life as his students, outside the category of knowledge" (1).
Willard's argument via my paraphrase is this: Christians have gone to church but left their minds at the door. He states, "This means that Christian teachers are left in the position of trying to coax & wheedle people into professing things & doing things by some means other than providing them knowledge of reality--hoping, perhaps, for "divine lightning" to strick their souls & bring them around" (2).
I especially benefit from Willard's argument that Christianity expresses a coherent philosophical system & intransigent historical claims. "A life of steadfast discipleship to Jesus Christ," Willard states," can be supported only upon assured knowledge of how things are, of the realities in terms of which that life is lived" (7).
He ends his introduction with a wonderfully fitting quote by C.S. Lewis,
"God has room for people with very little sense, but He wants everyone to use what sense they have. The proper motto is not 'Be good, sweet maid, & let who can be clever,' but 'Be good, sweet maid, & don't forget that this involves being as clever as you can.' God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains & all... One reason why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself" (11).
So far I have been highly encouraged by this book as it calls each of us to a higher level of pursuit of God. Willard seems to well support the Lord's claim in Hosea 4:6, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."
Stay tuned as I delve deeper into Knowing Christ Today.
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