The fact/Value Split

There is a tendency in Christians to relegate their spiritual life to the arena of values, while considering science and the material world as part of the arena of facts. This is a fallacy that is having major consequences.

This was first pointed out to me in Nancy Pearcey’s insightful book Total Truth. She writes about the failure of the typical Christian to adopt a thorough Christian worldview.  

...many believers have absorbed the fact/value, public/private dichotomy, restricting their faith to the religious sphere while adopting whatever views are current in their professional or social circles. We probably all know of Christian teachers who uncritically accept the latest secular theories of education; Christian businessmen who run their operations by accepted secular management  theories; Christian ministries that mirror the commercial world’s marketing techniques; Christian families where the teenagers watch the same movies and listen to the same music as their nonbelieving friends. While sincere in their faith, they have absorbed their views on just about everything else by "osmosis" from the surrounding culture (p.33).

God created all the laws of nature and science. That means any true quality of physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology come from His mind. But science will never be able to disprove the Bible. Contrary to popular belief, there are brilliant scientists who start with the Bible and with all their intellect and training, set out to understand God’s creation.  Some of them are afraid to speak out because they’ve seen what happens to those that do, but WalkWiser Ministries and others have really started a movement to put science back under the authority of the Bible, rather than the other way around.  Those involved with the Creation Museum and Noah’s Ark Encounter in KY/OH come to mind. They employ a host of geologists, biologists, botanists, and scientists from other disciplines who are doing rigorous research to help Christians to have a biblical scientific worldview.  

There are other areas besides science that suffer from the dissonance of the fact/value split.  Politics is a particularly troubling area for Christians. I asked a family member who I suspected of being a Christian only in name if he thought that the Bible was true.  He said yes.  I asked if he thought the Bible taught that a fetus is a person. He said yes.  I asked if he thought murdering a person is wrong. He said yes. I asked if he thought abortion was murder. He hesitated and squirmed, then said, yes with a question mark at the end.  Then I asked him if he thought abortion should be illegal. He said, “Well, I don’t think I have to right to tell a woman what to do with her own body.”  There is the fact/value split, writ large. 

The fact value split says, “I believe that God is God, the Bible is true and Jesus is the only way.  But that’s just my opinion.” 

Christians, face the reality that this is inconsistent, and even incoherent.  If you cannot get there, then you are probably not actually a Christian. If deep down you know you are there, but you don’t want to suffer the consequences of “coming out” as a Christian who actually believes the Bible and wants to obey God, then you need to do some hard work now and wake up. 

It is hard work to bring your entire worldview into a complete and unified whole, but we Christians must do the work. The WalkWiser website is a great place to start. 

-  JM, Pastor, USA

Further reading:

A New Kind Of Tyranny: The Global State's War On Those Who Speak Truth To Power