“Stay in your lane”

In modern academia, the winning formula for a successful career seems to go as follows: “Find your niche, dig down deep, and go farther than anyone else.” Received wisdom says it is foolhardy to generalize across multiple fields of study. Perhaps one could get away with such an approach in the past, when humanity waded in the shallow end of the knowledge pool. But in the depths of the information age? Forget it.

Perhaps in no academic area is this more apparent than in the natural sciences. For example, biology alone appears well-nigh impossible to master, with its seemingly endless genomic (DNA code), transcriptomic (RNA transcript code), proteomic (protein code), and other “-omics” data sets growing vaster and more complex by the day.

Because there is far more to know on any given topic in the natural sciences than anyone could productively assimilate over the course of a lifetime, much less a career, the goal of the modern scientist should be to specialize in one subject and stick as closely to this expertise as possible. The idea is that if you play your cards right, and pile up a sufficiently high stack of Science and Nature publications, then perhaps one day you’ll get that coveted promotion and maybe even a phone call from the Nobel Committee— a man can dream, can’t he?

Conversely, those who spread themselves too thin fail to make substantial progress in any field, let alone one. Better to “stay in your lane” and the finish race than to bounce around, step on others’ toes, and gas out prematurely.

Now let’s admit that there is certainly some wisdom in this approach. All of us must restrict our physical and intellectual energies to a limited number of tasks. After all, we can’t all be Elon Musk, and even he has his limits.

However, it has been evident for some time that our modern, compartmentalized approach to academics is not broadening our horizons, but shrinking them. For abundant evidence of this, one need look no further than the conceptual framework surrounding both teaching and research in the modern academic-industrial complex.

Academic echo chambers

Our approach to studying the natural sciences, as well as just about every other field, has led to widespread academic siloing, the modern habit of placing each discipline in its own separate, hermetically-sealed thought container. Consequently, each discipline, and increasingly even subdiscipline, becomes at best a world unto itself, and at worst an isolated wandering star, whizzing past the other disciplines like space ships passing in the night.

Such a conception would have been totally foreign to the classically-trained scholar of the Western tradition, who often had a surgeon’s scalpel in one hand and a sculptor’s chisel in the other, carving both men and men from stone. Today, we smugly dismiss such well-rounded individuals as “jacks of all trades, masters of none,” forgetting that many of them were in fact literal “masters” of their primary trade. In place of the “Renaissance man” we have substituted the modern specialist, the “master of one,” if master of even that. If that sounds hyperbolic, just ask the scores of aspiring scholars, from graduate students to pre-tenure assistant professors, suffering from “imposter syndrome,” that nagging doubt that, in spite of one’s expertise, one is still, at bottom, a fraudulent know-nothing.

Is it just me, or is there something profoundly demoralizing, even dehumanizing, about our modern approach to academics, one which seems to have sacrificed balanced breadth for the depths of despair? Have towering figures like da Vinci, Kepler, and Pascal all gone the way of the dinosaur? Is there hope for humane science at the dawn of artificial intelligence?

I believe the answer is “Yes,” but only if we reject modern reductionist approaches to science and embrace the older vision of science as a liberal art.

Stunted science

The term “scientist” is a relatively recent label, and a rather restrictive one at that. Previously, politically-incorrect terms such as “gentlemen naturalist,” “natural philosopher,” or even the scandalous “natural theologian” were preferred in the Christian West, the birth place of modern science. More than merely reflecting the professional demographics of those times, such titles encompassed the breadth of knowledge those thinkers drew upon to understand the universe and how it ticked.

Modern approaches to scientific inquiry, however, stem overwhelmingly from a naturalistic worldview, which reduces all of existence to the supposed rube-Goldberg-like machinations of molecules in motion. Worse still, the philosophy of “scientism” that stems from this worldview goes even further by claiming that science, and science alone (“sola scientia!”), is the only means by which we can arrive at the truth about any topic.

But this is surely a stunted vision of the sciences, an unnatural view of nature. As important as physical mechanisms may be, scripture and universal human experience indicate that there is more, indeed much more, to the story of the cosmos than this.

Classical Christian educators should lead the way in rejecting the false choice between matter and meaning and instead wholeheartedly embrace both. Indeed, expanding one’s exploration of the creation (i.e., biology, geology, astronomy, etc.) to include, for example, the study of the Creator (i.e., theology), is about as natural and obvious a thing to do as studying da Vinci’s creations alongside the writings and biographies of the man himself. It is only our modern naturalistic bias that lead us to feel otherwise.

True, many “enlightened” thinkers of the past may have opted for “reason over revelation,” but the classically-trained scientist emphatically chooses both.

What could be more enlightening than that?

Liberating the natural sciences

Scientific giants like St. Albertus Magnus, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, and Gregor Mendel studied the Bible and theology (among many other subjects) as much as, if not far more than, the natural sciences, and their scientific work was all the better for it. As a good friend of mine has written, “A humanities-rich version of science is more beneficial and engaging than a humanities-poor version” because “There is a natural and synergistic traffic of great ideas among the liberal arts, including science.”1

Yes, you read that last quotation correctly: Science is indeed a liberal art! Say it with me a thousand times over. Shout it from the rooftops. Science is a liberal art! As such, scientific studies, when paired with the study of the other liberal arts, expand both the mind and the heart to encompass far more than the myopic methodologies of the nit-picking naturalists. Microscopes are fantastic tools for examining the world below, but their focus is all the more clear when paired with a telescope aimed at the heavens above.

The Renaissance man may be extinct, but he is not beyond the hope of resurrection. C. S. Lewis, a holdover “specimen” of “Old Western men” and self-described medieval “dinosaur,”2 provides us with a glimmer of hope. To paraphrase and repurpose an oft quoted passage from his address “The Weight of Glory,”3 if we refuse to content ourselves with tinkering over small problems in the dimly lit slums of scientism, then perhaps we can find our way back to the expansive shores of the liberal arts tradition, tackling the “big questions” under the starry firmament above, basking in the light of another world.4

That, in a nutshell, is the difference between modern, reductionist approaches to science and classical, holistic approaches. The former envisions science as imprisoned, the latter, as liberated.

Science pedagogy in the West largely neglects the rich heritage of the Western liberal arts tradition that nurtured it in its formative years. To reach intellectual maturity, science must move beyond its adolescent prodigality and humbly return to the vast inheritance it is currently squandering. There are tremendous, untapped possibilities for conducting science in a Classical Christian paradigm. The time is long overdue for us to reject the meager methods of modernity and dive headlong into creation in its fullness.

The wind is at our sails. The sea is beckoning.

As Newton famously said, “To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me.” Clearly, Newton conducted his science on “holiday at the sea.”5

Let’s join him there, shall we?

Biology and the “big questions”

To learn more about this approach to the sciences, check out my online course offered through Kepler Education, “Biology: Studying Life in Light of the Logos,” now accepting registrations for the 2024–2025 academic year.

Thanks for reading the League of Believers.

We are committed to offering our newsletters in their entirety completely free of cost. If you have not yet subscribed, you can support our free newsletters by becoming a subscriber using the button below.

Subscribe now

You can also support this ministry by sharing our newsletters with friends or family that may profit from them.

Share League of Believers

As always, we would love to hear your feedback, including prayer requests, in the comments section below or through emails to:

garrettpleague@proton.me

Want to print this article or read it on your e-reader device? We’ve got you covered. Click the “Download” button below for an easy-to-print, downloadable PDF file containing this newsletter.

Resurrecting the Renaissance Scientist

1.79MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Click the "Download" button to download a PDF version of this newsletter.

Download

“Warrior with a spear”

Literature is filled with prophecies that foreshadow the trajectories that characters will take on their lives journeys. As the father of three budding book worms, and an aspiring one myself, I have encountered a number of such prophecies in the fairy tales I have read to my children over recent years.

For example, in Arthurian legend, the wizard Merlin prophecies the rise of king Arthur, urging his father to entrust the child to the care of others to protect the boy from those who would seek his life.1

In C. S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, we read of a dryad who sang a prophetic lullaby over a young mouse named Reepicheep:

Though I am a grown man, I blush not to admit that I find these prophecies to be deeply moving and highly significant. True, Paul did put away childish things when he became a man (1 Corinthians 13:11), but surely he was not referring to wizards and talking mice. There are some aspects of childhood that we were not meant to grow out of, but rather into (Ephesians 4:12). Have you not read that “unless you are converted and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3; cf. Mark 10:15, Luke 18:17)?

Everything we encounter in far-off fairy tale worlds has an analog in the world God made, including prophetic utterances (1 Thessalonians 5:20). As “people of the Book,” we Christians should know this better than anyone, for prophecy—like giants (Genesis 6:4; 1 Samuel 17; etc.), angels (Genesis 3:24, 19:1; Exodus 25:17–22; Matthew 28:2, 3; etc.), and dragons (Genesis 1:21; Job 41; Isaiah 51:9; Revelation 12:9; etc.)—is a very real phenomenon, and not merely the stuff of legend.

We often refer to prophecies as “words from the Lord” (e.g., 1 Samuel 3:1) because, though they are spoken through human agents, their ultimate origin is divine. They are “good news from far country” (Proverbs 25:25), messages from a realm the Bible calls “heaven,” the dwelling place of God (Deuteronomy 26:15).

One such word was given to me in childhood by my parents, and it came in the form of my name, “Garrett.” Scripture is of course replete with examples of men and women, both small and great, whose names carried prophetic significance.2 Indeed, this was rather customary for given names in the ancient Near East, as it is to this day in cultures around the world. Names naturally befit the named, speaking to his or her purpose, character, and destiny, and parents of good will have often sought to embed their highest aspirations for their children into their very names.

In my case, the name “Garrett” is a medieval English Christian name (c.12th century A.D) that is derived from ancient Germanic names like Gerhardus and Gerard, which came to England through the Norman invasions.3 Etymologically, these names are comprised of two basic elements: “ger” or “gar,” meaning “spear,” and “hard” or “ard,” meaning “hard,” “brave,” or “strong.”

As a child, my mother made it a point of telling me, more times than I can remember, that my name meant, in her words, “warrior with a spear.”4 Consequently, this meaning, and the image that came to mind with it, was ingrained in me from my youth and formed an important part of my identity. I believe this is exactly what my mother was getting at with her frequent reminders: “You are a warrior with a spear, so take courage, be brave, and act valiantly” (Joshua 1:9; 2 Samuel 10:12).

What a message to instill in a young boy’s heart. Godly mothers, take note.

In retrospect, however, it was not until I was a teenager, and then again in my twenties and thirties, that I began to more fully grasp the deeper meaning behind my name and calling.

Mein Meisterstiche

Of all my high school teachers, by far the one who impacted me the most was my art teacher Anita Hunt, or “Mrs. Hunt” as her students knew her.

Though I was often little more than an average student in most subjects growing up, the one thing I always really excelled at was art. Mrs. Hunt recognized, appreciated, and fostered my artistic abilities more than anyone else I ever studied under. She was an extremely gifted artist and guide and I was her favorite protégé at that time.

One of the greatest gifts Mrs. Hunt gave me during my time with her was an introduction to, and an apprenticeship under, the great Northern Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg, my personal all-time favorite artist.5 Because I was so taken with his Biblical woodcuts, his still life watercolors, and his stunning oil portraits, Mrs. Hunt tasked me with reproducing them as best I could.

In the course of emulating the man’s works, I discovered that he was something of a kindred artistic spirit, a muse for the sort of art I aspired to create, even if I fell woefully short of attaining it. I feel no shame whatsoever in admitting this obvious fact, for I am convinced to this day that he alone renders the renowned Italian Renaissance masters somewhat overrated. He was that good.

Dürer achieved much of his fame through his widely circulated prints, which were derived from his almost inconceivably intricate engravings, etchings, and woodcuts. Without doubt, they are unparalleled in their craft, being universally recognized as the work of pure genius. Of his many prints, Dürer’s greatest are the Meisterstiche, or “master prints,” which include Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), St. Jerome in His Study (1514), and the surreal Melencolia I (1514). Of these three, Melencolia is known as Dürer’s summa, or single greatest work.

Much could be said of these fascinating pieces and I would encourage you to look them up and read about them for yourself. For our purposes at present, it is important to note that the Meisterstiche are commonly thought to represent the theological, intellectual, and moral virtues of medieval scholasticism, which Dürer sought to promote through his art.6

The more I studied these works, the more I came to realize that the reason I gravitated to them is because they were an uncanny encapsulation of my life: a stoic “warrior with a spear” in Knight, a lover of scripture, contemplation, and writing in St. Jerome, and a frustrated artist-scientist in Melencolia. Like Dürer’s intimate sketch Mein Agnes (“My Agnes”),7 over time, these works had become Mein Meisterstiche.

While I was conducting research in upstate New York, I had framed copies of the Meisterstiche prints hanging above my home office desk, where I did a great deal of scientific manuscript writing during the COVID-19 pandemic. One day, while I was working at my computer, I looked up at these prints and my eyes landed on the knight in Knight, Death, and the Devil. At that moment, I had the distinct impression that the knight was me, that his lance was my “pen,” and that God would use my writing to fight for Him and defend His honor.

This apparently out-of-the-blue epiphany, with its resonance with my name, artistic bent, and penchant for writing, seemed to me too profound an insight to merely shrug off as coincidence. There was something there, something that I discovered, rather than invented.

The Zeal of Phinehas

Several years later I found myself sitting with my parents in their living room during a time of prayer. My father told me that he sensed that God would fill me with zeal for His house (Psalm 69:9; John 2:17), like Phinehas of the Old Testament. Immediately, I understood something of the significance of this word, for I recalled that Phinehas the priest had impaled the audacious Israelite, along with his Midianite consort (Numbers 25:14, 15), with, of all things, a spear. Here is that dramatic episode, in context (Numbers 25:1–15):

“While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the LORD, that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.’ And Moses said to the judges of Israel, ‘Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.’

And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.

And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in My jealousy. Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him My covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and to his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.’”

When I told my father the meaning of my name, and how mom had drilled it into me throughout my childhood, he was stunned—he had never heard her tell me that before.

Then, I told him the story of the Knight, Death, and the Devil and how it reinforced something he had told me years earlier upon reading an article of mine on science and faith, namely, that it was but one of many topics that I would put pen to paper on in the years to come.

And, now, here we are.

It is in moments like the one I just described that a sense of awe floods the soul and one is reminded in the most poignant of ways that God is real and that He knows us by name (Psalm 139:1–6, 16–18; cf. Psalm 8, Isaiah 43:1):

In sharing these stories with you, the reader, my aim is not at all to convey how “special” I am or how “unique” my calling is, for that would be flat out false. God has written a unique story for each and every believer, and He has poured out His Spirit on all flesh (Acts 2:17).

The goal of my sharing this personal narrative is to convey not only the genesis of this publication and its name, but to show how their backstory displays, in their own small way, the holiness and glory of God, who in spite of His greatness, invests rich meaning and high purpose into even His most ordinary of saints: “Now we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be from God, and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

John the Baptist once said that “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven” (John 3:27). Before him, David said that “Everything comes from You [i.e., God], and we have given You only what comes from Your hand” (1 Chronicles 29:14). Truly, He has bestowed His riches on all who believe (Romans 10:11–13; Ephesians 4:8). In turns, He commands us to share what we have received from Him with one another, to serve and build up the body of Christ until He returns (Ephesians 4:1–16; 1 Peter 4:10, 11).

With these letters, I intend to do just that, with the strength that God supplies (1 Peter 4:11).

Pen & Spear

Believer, I give you this humble newsletter, Pen & Spear.

In it, I offer you my writings on theology, science, education, art, literature, culture, and current events, all informed by the scriptures and my particular gifts and callings as a member of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12).

Like the tip of a spear or the nib of a pen, some of Biblical truths we will explore here will be as pointed and sharp as a double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12), others as smooth and weighty as a polished stone, penetrating and beautiful (1 Samuel 17:40). My prayer is that God would pierce our hearts with truths we uncover here (Acts 2:37) so that the love of the One whose heart was pierced for us by a Roman lance (Isaiah 53:5; John 19:34) would flow into our hearts by faith (Ephesians 3:14-19):

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Here, I present to you my treasures (Matthew 6:20, 13:52), my pearls (Matthew 13:45, 46), my silver and gold mined thus far in my journey with God and His word (Job 28; Psalm 12:6, 7; Proverbs 3:13,14). They are of course not mine alone, but I have, to some extent, made them my own. Do not trample them underfoot or turn and tear me to pieces (Matthew 7:6). What I share with you is not without its dross (Isaiah 1:25), and even its occasional wood, hay, and stubble (1 Corinthians 3:12, 13), but I trust, by God’s grace, that it is not wholly without value. What I lack in the natural, may God make up with His true riches from above (Matthew 6:19–21; Luke 16:11). As Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have I give to you” (Acts 3:6).

Whatever good comes to you through these letters I credit up front to the Spirit of God working through the scriptures (John 6:63; Romans 7:18; James 1:17), and not to my own supposed skill or cleverness (1 Corinthians 1:18–31, 2:1–5).

May the offerings presented here be an instrument for your blessing and a sweet smelling aroma to our God (Genesis 8:21; 2 Corinthians 2:15–17; Philippians 4:18).

Your servant for Christ’s sake,

—Garrett P. League

Thanks for reading the League of Believers.

We are committed to offering our newsletters in their entirety completely free of cost. If you have not yet subscribed, you can support our free newsletters by becoming a subscriber using the button below.

Subscribe now

You can also support this ministry by sharing our newsletters with friends or family that may profit from them.

Share League of Believers

As always, we would love to hear your feedback, including prayer requests, in the comments section below or through emails to:

garrettpleague@proton.me

Want to print this article or read it on your e-reader device? We’ve got you covered. Click the “Download” button below for an easy-to-print, downloadable PDF file containing this newsletter.

Introducing "Pen & Spear"

21.6MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Click the "Download" button to download a PDF version of this newsletter.

Download