Video Transcript: Introduction

Henry - Hi, I'm Henry Reyenga, president of Christian leaders Institute, and I  love philosophy. And Christian leaders Institute offers you philosophy insights,  philosophy classes and a philosophy program. So why do I love philosophy? Do  you know that I was a philosophy major at Dordt college. Why do I love  philosophy? Philosophy is one of the things that changed my life. I'm going to  introduce our philosophy professor, Dr Roy Clouser in a moment, but I want to  launch this with this Bible passage from the book of Romans 15. I myself am  convinced. So this is the apostle Paul my brothers, that you yourselves are full  of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.  This is what the Apostle Paul is saying to you, that, as Christian leaders, you are good, but not yourself. In Christ, you are complete in knowledge that is like  every all the tools are here for you, and you're competent to instruct. And really,  that's what being a Christian leader is all about. It's about helping others. So  philosophy is to think simply cognitively, and what starts happening is it changes your whole world. So this is so important. So with that, I want to introduce you,  Dr Roy Clouser, and welcome him to Christian leaders Institute.  

Dr. Clouser - Thank you very much.  

Henry - So first of all, how long have you been teaching philosophy?  Dr. Clouser - Altogether, 53 years.  

Henry - 53 years. Okay, so in this 53 years, you decided and were called by God to get into Christian philosophy. Yes, exactly. I mean. What I love about you. Did  you ever think that philosophy is actually Christian? Is there such thing as  Christian philosophy,  

Dr. Clouser - most Christian thinkers have thought there is not but my  association is with a strain of thought that goes back to Orthodox theology, to  the Cappadocian fathers, to the reformers, especially to Calvin. And there is a  strain in there that has continually held that there is a distinctively Christian  approach to philosophy and to the sciences, that theory making is not religiously neutral.  

Henry - So explain that in terms of, why is that important for a Christian leader?  

Dr. Clouser - It's important because if there's no neutral ground, then you look  for what kind of religious commitment is controlling the theory theorizing in  whatever field that is. And of course, philosophy has the great overarching fields of theory of knowledge, theory of reality, and so it asks the most fundamental  questions of all, raises the issues. And philosophers are famous for not being 

happy till they go all the way to the bottom of a problem, of an issue. And that is  the bottom layer in the in this view that I hold. And then I'm going to present that  

Henry - really, that that very essence belief drives at all.  

Dr. Clouser - Oh yes. And it matters belief in what so my contention is that  everyone has, whether they call it this or not, what I call a divinity, belief. There's something that functions in the way God does in Christianity. And so you either  have the true God or you have a god substitute. But whichever you have. It  determines the way you interpret all of the postulates that arise in all the  sciences. That determines the way you see the theory of reality and the theory  of knowledge, which is what philosophy is fundamentally about.  

Henry - So get this everybody. You get to be part of someone who's been  teaching for 53 years. You have a PhD from Penn.  

Dr. Clouser – University of Pennsylvania. 

Henry - Shake my hand everybody. I just shook the hand of the man who shook the hand of Dr Herman Dooyeward, the father of Christian philosophy. And he  died in that what mid 70s?, 77 and you were, I understand, one of the last  people to do your dissertation with him before he passed away,  

Dr. Clouser – I was the first in the United States, one of the last before he died. 

Henry - This shape for Schaefer studied under Dr Herman Dooyeward. So we're talking like Francis Schaeffer, who we have his archive videos in our ethical  class. Okay, so people some of you might have heard of. I mean, so Dr Herman  Dooyeward is a legend in Christian philosophy 

Dr. Clouser - especially in this strain of Calvinist thought that I was talking  about. He's the one who. Following Abraham Kuyper gives a real, detailed  elaboration to this idea and shows how it works, how it works itself out, both in  philosophy and in the special sciences.  

Henry - Wow. Okay, so philosophy, you know, I don't know to think simply I was  raised, I went to the public school. I didn't read that early. Well, I had a lot of  obstacles and everything. And then God called me into ministry. So somebody  said, Well, I don't know if you're going to make it. And then I said, Well, what's  the hardest subject? Because if I can get the hardest subject, then I'm going to  be able to get to ministry training. So this guy said to me, I was joking with me or not, but it turned out, he says philosophy is the hardest subject. So at Dordt 

college, I enrolled in philosophy, and the very first paper in philosophy with Dr  John Vander Stelt, he wrote on the bottom of the paper, D minus, maybe you  should not go into the ministry. Maybe you should do business. I get the true  story. Okay, so that just made me determined that I was going to learn how to  read better, think clearer. And I tell you, I feel a lot of people are in this situation,  and they're a little bit when they think about taking philosophy, they're a little  nervous too. I mean, you represent, like I understand that. Why? Why is  philosophy so challenging?  

Dr. Clouser - Because it does focus on those very fundamental issues, the  things that have people have worried about and have been bothered by for  millennia. And there's a long history to it. It's older than any science except for  mathematics. So there's been a long history of extremely brilliant people who  have contributed this. It's daunting. So when you when somebody like me goes  to work, go to work every day, it's this long history of super bright people that  you're dealing with, and you have to come up with why you agree or you  disagree, and you have to figure out, first, whether you do agree or disagree,  and then why, and you have to justify your position. And philosophy still requires, everywhere, to get a PhD, you have to write a dissertation in which there's  something original, all right, so you have to think, after two and a half 1000  years, you've got to come up with something nobody came up with.  

Henry - Wow. So it's intent, yes, is it approachable? I mean, is untouchable for  somebody who haven't had that much of an education, it is.  

Dr. Clouser – Not at all. It's like, Look, let me make an analogy, okay? It's like  playing chess. Okay? Anybody can learn the moves, right? Anybody can sit and  play with somebody else so they can have fun. Is it a difficult game? Well, that  depends on your opponent, right? And it can be the most difficult game in the  world, but it could be a lot of fun that anybody can any two people can sit, really,  but you learn little kids can learn the moves and make them. 

Henry - think about that. And I found that Okay, so at in my daily life, I'm part of,  like a kind of a goth League and whatnot, and there's this one leader who  constantly throws me questions, because this leader knows I'm ordained, and I  will tell you right now, he's playing chess with me, okay? And what? And having  my philosophic background really has helped me, So I have overcome some of  my learning disabilities and then learn how to play chess. And now I will tell you  everybody I've been playing chess with him the last couple the last 24 hours,  we've been talking together, and he knows how to make the moves, and he  knows how to teach you the moves. So this is, like, you know, an important thing to do to understand, 

Dr. Clouser - yeah, I think anybody that's going to view this interview in the  course should take courage from the fact that I've spent almost the majority of  my career teaching freshman, okay? And that means, like, new chess players,  sure. And the difference between high school senior and college freshman's  three months at the beach, yeah, so there's not much difference, if you could, if I can, make this stuff clear to college freshmen, anybody can understand it.  

Henry - So I want to talk about the importance before we wrap this up, and then  you're launching into doing these classes, the importance of the cognitive in  today, where the cognitive brain thinking knowledge is sort of being sort of put  aside in a lot of people opposing Philosophy departments, even though  philosophy is one of these classes that if you go to, like the Michigan Business  School, you were telling me something yesterday about that, what was that?  

Dr. Clouser - It was a while ago, but the University of Michigan Business School  of Business did a survey among the people that among the MBAs they had  granted had made it to Vice President. Or president in the in their field, and it's  something like 52% were philosophy majors, yes, I mean all the majors, and that major has very few students, percent by percentage of any we had student  body.  

Henry - We had six my year. Yeah, but I graduated six  

Dr. Clouser - the college where I taught, 5% of the student body were  philosophy majors and that's considered good,  

Henry - and 52% of that number are at the University of Michigan who are  presidents, vice presidents. Now I'm not saying you're going to become a  president of this, but the point back to thinking clearly, cognitive thinking in a day that is being downgraded. Why is that so important that everybody here actually  learns how to think in this cognitive way?  

Dr. Clouser - Understanding a field is essential. It's not a frill, okay, without  whatever field, in whatever field you're going to work, or do your work, or try to  work in helping other people, you have to have the most profound possible  understanding of it that you can manage. And so when philosophy dredge up  these really basic issues, and looks at the general problems, and then looks at  the points of view that people presented and says, well, but against this one,  there's this, against this one, there's that that gets you into something that is an  old tradition in studying God's word and in doing theology as well as philosophy,  right, right, the Jewish tradition was filled with this. They meditated. The joke 

was that were there are four Jewish scholars. There are five opinions. They  debated this stuff. They refined it, they commented on it. And all the early  Christians were Jews, yes, Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah. You see  that in Paul. You read from Paul, but yeah, he was a he was a rabbi. He was an  orthodox rabbi, he debated this stuff in the same way, and he raises  philosophical issues.  

Henry - And like in the book of Romans that we read from you, see him dealing  with some of the deep issues, like in Romans 1 about like the knowledge of God is plain. What is that true? Philosophy is the answer question.  

Dr. Clouser - Sure, he takes positions that philosophers have worried about and  thought about and debated. And I think that Scripture does give us a number of  answers to these. I mean, it's not that the Christian comes this with no bias, you  know, like a blank sheet of paper? No, no. We know God is real. We know God  

has created everything other than God, right? And it all depends on him at all  times. But how do you bring that into theorizing? That's the question. That's,  what Dooyeward did so well. 

Henry - well, so we are in for a treat. You are in for a treat, and you're going to  learn things that is are going to change you personally as a believer. You're  going to learn things are going to change you personally as a Christian leader.  You're going to learn, if you're ordained, let's say you're here at Christian  leaders, those who seek ordination, you're going to grasp that as an ordained  leader, you want to be able to understand your faith and understand what others are going to ask of you, some of your personal struggles and questions that  sometimes you wonder about you say, You know what? I just have doubt. It's  nagging up. I know I'm a believer, I know I've been transformed, but I have  doubt these are the kinds of questions that we're going to empower our  students. We're empowering you to be able to start grappling with at a very  simple, philosophic level. Yes, well, I want to welcome you aboard, and we have  matching shirts we do, and I'm excited about that, and excited, most importantly, what's going to happen to your life as you learn to think philosophically as Dr  Clouser brings you through various teachings, and I'm going to just begin or end the session with a prayer for you as you are teaching these classes. Let us pray, Lord. I thank you so much that Dr Clouser, after 53 years of grappling and  studying, and is healthy and he is ready to share insights and thoughts. And I  pray Lord that this will be world changing, leader changing, transforming for  everyone who participates in these philosophic thinking and philosophic  thoughts. Lord, I pray for Dr Clouser, as he is sharing this, that you give him  energy and enthusiasm, that as if is as fresh like he's 35 years old, and these  ideas are as vivid and alive as ever. I pray Lord, that you will bless us and fill us 

with the Holy Spirit. Protect us from the attacks of the evil one. We pray in  Jesus, name Amen. Amen.