An excerpt from an ongoing writing project:
In countless Christian colleges and universities
today, the phrase “All Truth is God’s Truth” has become a frequent part of
conversations about the “integration” of faith and learning. The notion that
truth is true no matter where one happens to discover it has been popularized
by educators in the Reformed tradition and, at least in its modern context, is
rooted in the work of Abraham Kuyper, an influential Dutch theologian and
statesman in the 19th century. In this model, the integration of
faith and learning is a means of “reforming” the knowledge of the world—that
is, reshaping the conclusions of one’s academic discipline so that it conforms
to Christian principles. These Christian principles are often referred to as a
“worldview,” or a foundational lens or framework through which we view the
world and engage in the process of organizing knowledge and determining truth.
Yet the notion that truth is unified by its
transcendent quality, no matter who advances it or how it is discovered, is not
simply a Reformed idea. The unity of truth was an important idea for the late
Medieval mystics -- rooted in a belief that everything that exists shares an
essential unity that was rooted in God as the originator of all things. While
scholastics (the champions of orthodoxy) recognized the heterodox tendencies in
mysticism – that it blurred the qualitative distinction between God and the
created order – the idea that all truth shared a common connection with the
Divine provided a profound platform for human discovery. For such mystics, the
path toward true knowledge could begin with thoughtful examination of God’s
universe. This mystical emphasis on the unity of truth found expression among
pietists such as Friedrich Christoph Oetinger. Oetinger is hardly a
recognizable name and is not as well known as other pietist leaders. Yet he was
an important part of a circle of Pietists centered around Württemberg, in the
early decades of the 18th century. Oetinger, whose eclectic
interests included alchemy, pursued the knowledge of God in an integrated way
that reflected his respect for the Bible as well as scientific discovery.
Oetinger claimed that truth, whether found in “holy things” such as the Bible,
or in “nature” which he studied through his alchemic experiments, was united in
internal “harmony.” “In so skeptical a time,” Oetinger declared, “the truth of
God in nature and Scripture is my basis.”[1]
While evangelicals today may be wary of more mystically inclined pietists such
as Oetinger, it is important to note that the idea of “All truth is God’s
truth” was not foreign to the pietist tradition and can be found within this
stream long before Kuyper articulated it so well.
[1]
Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, “A Confession of Thought” in Peter C. Erb, ed. Pietists: Selected Writings (New York:
Paulist Press, 1983) 277.
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