Jack Crabtree: Christianity and the Great Books

In the third quarter of our series on Intersections, we focus on Christianity and the “Great Books.” The ideas and attitudes that permeate our lives did not form in a vacuum. They are instead the result of thousands of years of conversation among philosophers, theologians, artists, economists, scientists, and others. To understand ourselves, it is well worth the effort to understand where we came from. To that end, speakers this quarter talk about “Great Books” authors who have influenced our world and how we as Christians can think about what they accomplished. We invite you to join us. “Some Insights in the History of Philosophy and the Biblical Worldview” In this talk, Jack will briefly explore a handful of important and distinctive doctrines advanced by various philosophers in the idealist tradition (Plato, Leibniz, Malebranche, Berkeley, and Hegel) and compare their doctrines to corresponding truths found in the biblical worldview. Jack will attempt to show that the idealist tradition in philosophy strikes us contemporary human beings as too odd to be true. And he will suggest that an accurate understanding of the biblical worldview shares this same feature with the idealist tradition. An accurate grasp of the biblical worldview will strike most modern people as too odd to be true. Jack Crabtree has a Ph.D. in philosophy and was a tutor at Gutenberg College and the director of McKenzie Study Center, an institute of Gutenberg College, from 1994 to 2016. He is currently a Bible teacher in Eugene, Oregon, where he teaches at Reformation Fellowship and publishes papers and podcasts on the Sound Interpretation Project website. This lecture was presented by Jack Crabtree at Gutenberg College on April 3, 2019. The copyright for this video is held by Gutenberg College, Inc. 2019. Gutenberg College is a non-profit organization. *At Gutenberg, we hold two simultaneous convictions about truth seeking. First, freedom of inquiry is critical, and second, an authentic pursuit will lead toward God and Truth. In keeping with these convictions, community classes are intended to be a forum for exploration. They may or may not represent the beliefs and positions of Gutenberg College but are designed to explore topics of significance for our lives.