“EACH MAN’S LIFE TOUCHES so many other lives. When he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?” One of the most memorable lines in movie history—this is of course the question the angel Clarence asks George Bailey in the enduring Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life. Never was its answer a more resounding “yes” than when applied to the life and ministry of J. P. Moreland: Christian leader, philosopher, professor, and friend. Over the last thirty years and more, J. P. has touched thousands and thousands of lives through his scholarly and popular writings, university lectures, public debates, sermons, and interviews. He has spawned a movement of younger evangelicals, who have caught the vision of loving God with the mind for the sake of the body of Christ and our fallen world. Thirty years ago, the idea that it was important (nay, imperative) as a disciple of Jesus to develop a distinctly Christian mind, one able to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5), was still very much in its infancy in the church. What a difference three decades of tireless service have made. The Christian intellectual and apologetic landscape looks vastly different today: apologetic clubs, conferences, summer camps, parachurch groups, radio programs, blogs, and websites now litter the cultural horizon. So much of the energy and push behind this ever-growing movement has been J. P.’s tireless kingdom work. If he hadn’t been around, it would have indeed left an “awful hole.”
This is certainly the case for the editors of the book you now hold in your hands. One of us (Richard) was working as an accountant in a large corporation, and struggling (as a very young Christian) to figure out how to communicate my faith to work colleagues in an intellectually respectable way—indeed, to simply discover for myself why I believed what I did. The more I shared my faith, the more questions I was asked—questions for which I had no answers. The questions seemed to grow at an exponential rate, the answers at a snail’s pace. It wasn’t until 1987 that the clouds began to dispel, when I stumbled upon a light blue book with the title Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity emblazoned on the cover. It had been published that year. I bought it, read it, re-read it, photocopied parts for people at work, and eventually became so absorbed by the ideas it contained that I left the world of accounting to become a Christian philosopher. Over the years, and without even knowing it, J. P. discipled me through his writing and speaking. In human terms, whatever I am today, it’s mostly due to him.
The other of us (Paul) was working as a young staff member for a Christian organization on a university campus, and trying to communicate the truth of the gospel in a (sometimes) hostile environment. I noticed two things early on: first, truth is on our side (as Christians) yet we seemed to be losing in the classroom. Second, there was a growing passion within myself to learn—to know at a deeper level—the great truths of Christianity. These twin observations led me to pick up two books by J. P.: Scaling the Secular City and Love Your God with All Your Mind.1 Both books were instrumental in my intellectual and spiritual development. After reading and pondering these books, with my appetite whet, I packed up our family and moved to Los Angeles to study philosophy at Talbot with J. P. At Talbot, through his teaching, ministry, and example, J. P. continued to shape my life. I took every class I could from him; we had J. P. and Hope over for dinner (an impactful event as a young grad student); and I watched his life. And I learned—yes, about how to be a good philosopher, but more importantly—how to be a fellow pilgrim on the way, an apprentice of Jesus. And to this day, J. P.’s influence continues to manifest itself in my life—it’s his fault that I am a Platonist (and wrote a dissertation on Platonic Theism at Purdue University); it’s his fault that I expect my students to aspire to greatness; it’s his fault (and through his example) that I am learning to make self-denial natural in my own life. I am personally grateful to God for J. P. Moreland.
There are hundreds of stories just like these from people all across the country and around the world. This book was birthed out of conversations between its editors on the scope and impact of J. P.’s ministry influence, and our desire to pay tribute to him for his service and sacrifice on behalf of the body of Christ. (If you know J. P.’s story, he could easily have taken a wholly different path, pursuing doctoral work in chemistry instead!) He has led us well, worked “hard at preaching and teaching;” he is unquestionably “worthy of double honor” (1 Tim. 5:17).
This book aims to do that, but much more. It is also for you, the reader, to introduce you to the rich intellectual resources of J. P.’s thinking. And with over thirty books and hundreds of publications to his credit, that is surely no mean feat! To that end, we’ve assembled a team of leading Christian scholars and thinkers: experts in their respective fields who can draw together the strands and plumb the depths of J. P.’s vast corpus, packaging it in a way that is both illuminating and user-friendly, while innovatively extending J. P.’s ideas to address emerging ideas in the academy, the church, and the culture. Many of the contributors to this volume are household names in the areas of philosophy, theology, apologetics, spiritual formation, and church ministry. They are J. P.’s colleagues, former students, and partners in ministry. They are friends who deeply love and admire the man—just for being J. P.
The volume is neatly divided into three interrelated parts. In the first, “The Building Blocks of the World,” you’ll be treated to a panorama of J. P.’s comprehensive vision of all of reality (his metaphysics). Christians, of course, believe that in addition to physical reality, there is a “God who made the world and everything in it” (Acts 17:24). According to metaphysical naturalists, however, everything that exists is purely material: no God, no angels, demons, or human souls. As Daniel Dennett sometimes puts it, naturalism is the view that there are “no spooks.” J. P.’s response to the naturalist is perfectly captured by the words of Hamlet to Horatio: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Act 1, Scene 5).
J. P. has argued rigorously and at great length that the world contains an invisible, non-spatio-temporal realm of abstract objects: properties, relations, and the like. These are the things that underlie the visible, sense-perceptible world of particulars, and account for its fundamental characteristics, structure, and order. Without them, the world (as we know it) simply wouldn’t exist. Moreover, in addition to God and angelic persons, there are human (immaterial) souls. J. P. stands against the tide of recent trends in Christian philosophy, which attempt to reduce immaterial entities (whether abstract or personal) to concrete, physical objects. Not only is this philosophically untenable, it actually undermines Christian doctrine. Papers by Paul Gould and Stan Wallace, Robert Garcia, Timothy Pickavance, Stewart Goetz, and R. Scott Smith skillfully defend the idea that the world can be known, and known to include these sorts of things.
Part Two is titled “Thinking for Christ in the World.” Given that there is a world that can be known, a host of questions arise: Can we know anything about God “from what has been made” (Rom. 1:20)? Can we know, for example, that God made it? And if so, how? Are there other evidences that reason can discern in discovering truths about God? In short, is Christianity a knowledge tradition that makes truth claims that can be supported by adequate evidence? Or is it a mere belief tradition: a sort of glorified self-help program in which Christian beliefs are grounded in nothing more than our personal, subjective preferences? Most of J. P.’s intellectual muscle has been devoted to demonstrating that the claims of Christianity are true (they correspond with reality) and amply justified (they are evidentially supported by reason and experience).
His work in this area has involved him in a serious and substantial engagement with the factual data of general revelation, which can be excavated from the information rich areas of philosophy, science, and ethics. His audience is both a church skeptical of apologetic reasoning (see the expanded 2nd edition of Love Your God with All Your Mind) and an unbelieving culture (as in The God Question: An Invitation to a Life of Meaning). There is a literal treasure trove of evidence and encouragement in J. P.’s writings here. And if you think about it, the potential benefits are incalculable, especially if thinking for Christ in these areas dismantles or even just loosens the suffocating stranglehold that evolutionary scientism and the “Culture of Death” have on our public schools, the courts, and our institutions of higher learning. The chapters by Douglas Groothuis, Paul Copan, Richard Davis and Paul Franks, Michael Keas, and Scott Rae all dig in, resisting the new wave of apologetic opposition to push the cause forward.
Way back in 1987, J. P. wrote: “Anyone who engages in the rigors of apologetics and philosophy runs the risks of becoming dry and out of touch with the emotional side of life.”2 Section Three, “Living for Christ in the World,” explores this vital issue. The world we Christians find ourselves in is, as C. S. Lewis put it, “enemy-occupied territory.”3 There is “a Dark Power in the universe—a mighty evil spirit who [is] held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin.”4 Something has gone drastically wrong—the world isn’t the way it is supposed to be! We live in a sin-shattered, shalom-violated world. And it is not just the world that is broken, it is us as well. We are fallen creatures in need of the forgiveness of sin and the restoration of our broken selves. But God, in His great love and mercy has sent His Son into the world so that we can be made whole. This is the “good news” of the gospel: humanity can be redeemed and shalom can be restored in Christ.
In recent years, J. P. has directed some of his energies to providing us with tools, insight, and motivation to live faithfully for Christ in this broken world. In books such as Kingdom Triangle and The Lost Art of Happiness, J. P. ushers the thinker for Christ into a compelling vision of the good life: a life of spiritual formation in which the soul is restored as it yields to the Holy Spirit’s rejuvenating activity in the heart. It might be outside our comfort zones; but we need to hear this. It is the only way to avoid running out of apologetic fuel; it ensures we won’t succumb to missional lethargy, robbing us of our character, our zeal, and our effectiveness in authentically communicating Christ to our dying culture. You will be challenged and refreshed as you hear what Tim Muehlhoff, Klaus Issler, Michael Austin, and Mike Erre have to say about this neglected aspect of Christian discipleship.
And then, finally, there is J. P.’s “Afterword.” This is the essence of J. P. It’s what individuates him, what makes him specifically different from all the other Christian philosophers we know. “[Him] we proclaim,” says the Great Apostle, “warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28 NRSV). The “Afterword” looks forward; it is J. P.’s advice, not just to Christian philosophers, but to all disciples of Jesus. It takes a firm stand, it proclaims and warns; it is a rallying cry—a charge to demonstrate Christian courage and to resist compromise. We don’t know of anything, anywhere, even remotely like it. You’ll read it again and again. It will clear the cobwebs from your mental attic, and strengthen you in your spirit. It is J. P.’s commission to those who would love God with their minds: planting, watering, and reaping until the Lord of the harvest returns.
A special thanks is in order to Brandon Rickabaugh, a current student and friend of J. P.’s, who put together the timeline of J. P.’s life and the bibliography of J. P.’s nearly three hundred published writings. It is again a testimony to J. P. that he attracts, befriends, trains, and sends into the world such able servants of Christ.
This book is dedicated to J. P. Moreland, of whom it will always be said, “When he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace” (Acts 18:27 NASB).
1. For publication details on the titles we mention here, see the complete listing of all J. P.’s books and articles in the section “The Writings of J. P. Moreland” near the end of this book.
2. J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1987), 10.
3. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001 edition), 46.
4. Ibid., 45.