Introducing INTR: The Institute for Interdisciplinary Theological Research

I am excited to invite you to preview and support my academic research.

About a month ago, I sent my doctoral advisor a draft of my Ph.D. dissertation.

He said he’d take a close look at it and give me detailed comments — in a few months.

As a result, since then, my studies and writing have gone in other directions. But I’ve struggled to know what to focus on.

Gradually, it dawned on me that this difficulty is the same as the question people keep asking me: What are you going to do after your Ph.D.?

No wonder it’s hard to answer.

But I’m coming gradually to an answer as I reflect on how to translate the project of The Natural Theologian into academic form.

My vision here on Substack and on YouTube is to produce theology that fearlessly utilizes secular sources. My choice of a Ph.D. in philosophy, rather than theology is exemplary of my attempt to learn from secular thinkers on matters of ethics and anthropology, when Christians usually retreat to the Bible.

But academically, my next step is to realize my natural-theological vision via academic publication. It is one thing to be a theology blogger; it is another to publish papers of academic theology.

If I can write, for a theological journal, theology that engages with philosophical and scientific research, then my vision becomes reality.

In fact, I have already sent one paper to a journal. This last week, I finished drafting another. I have a couple more drafts begun.

This research takes much longer to see the light of day than my writing on Substack. But I’d rather not be alone in this work. That’s why I’m writing to inform you about it.

It’s also why I’m giving my research project a name.

INTR: The Institute for Interdisciplinary Theological Research

Me researching interdisciplinary theology. Substack-generated image.

As I do this work, I am going to think of it as the research of a theological institute. I call it INTR: The Institute for Interdisciplinary Theological Research.¹

INTR has three interrelated aims:

1. The first aim of INTR is to develop theological research, for a believing audience, that uses an interdisciplinary approach.

Unlike the usual method of evangelical theology, deduction and inference from the propositions of Scripture, the research of INTR integrates the results and methods of another discipline, whether philosophy or one of the sciences. This openness to secular sources enables real progress in theological reflection, rather than a standstill at the traditional battle-lines of biblical interpretation.

2. The second aim of INTR is to research the theological foundations of interdisciplinary theology.

Here, some of my favorite topics at The Natural Theologian come to the fore: The relationship of natural to revealed theology, and the role of nature rather than common grace in cultural engagement. As you’ll see below, those are the topics of the next couple of papers I’ve begun.

3. The third and final aim of INTR is to develop original research in those other disciplines, for a wider audience.

After all, competent interdisciplinary theology requires competence in the other disciplines. Accordingly, interdisciplinary theological research should lead to contributions to other disciplines by the standards of those disciplines. But I would be excited to see contributions to those other disciplines that arise from theological motivations. In other words, the cross-pollination goes both ways.

The Integrity of Integration

Another way to describe the work of interdisciplinary theology is as “integration,” a term common from debates over biblical counseling and Christian appropriation of secular psychology. Essentially, in doing interdisciplinary theology, I am arguing that the process of integration should occur in all areas of theology and Christian reflection. (I read a great article recently on the subject titled “Everybody Integrates: Biblical Counseling and the Use of Extrabiblical Material.”)

The common objection to integration is that it involves compromise with secular ideologies.

But I find this spurious. As you’ll see below, interdisciplinary or integrative theology, by giving greater attention to psychological phenomena, attends even more closely to the categories of theology. In going through human experience with a fine-toothed comb, the theological integrationist understands theology in a more fine-grained way.

I think you’ll see the truth of that as you preview my current research below.

Current Research at INTR

Where I wish I could be writing.

In this section, you’ll find descriptions of five papers I am working or have drafted. If you’re interested to read one before publication, reply to this email to let me know. If you can offer helpful academic comments on one of them, then be sure to reach out.

And…

The five papers fit into three categories, directed at one of the three aims of INTR described above:

Category 1: Interdisciplinary Theology

1. Does Sexual Orientation Exist? Implications for Christian Theology

My interdisciplinary method is best-exemplified by my first paper, which addresses the question whether same-sex attracted Christians may describe themselves as “gay,” a question of evangelical theology. (Try publishing on that in a secular journal!)

But the paper begins with contemporary psychological research on sexual orientation; in other words, sexology – not a common research area for Christian theologians. I summarize the methods, evidence, and results of this research, concluding that human beings vary in their sexual orientation and, thus, that sexual orientation is a real facet of human psychology.

Then, I return to theology, asking how the categories of sexual psychology – 1) Sexual behavior, 2) sexual identity, 3) direction of sexual attraction, and 4) direction of sexual arousal – relate to those of theology – 1) actual sin, 2) concupiscence, 3) original sin, and 4) misery. Not to boast, but I’m not sure anyone has done that. The tendency is to flatten the categories of sexual psychology, at least for the same-sex attracted, to attraction and quickly categorize it as concupiscence and sin.

Yet with careful attention to the differences and relations between both sets of categories – the theologians have yet to adequately relate actual and original sin, much less sin and misery – the results are much more complicated and less directly condemnatory.

As I demonstrated in my series on sexuality, the contemporary debates over same-sex attraction are a place where I think the methods of natural, and interdisciplinary theology have much to say. Unsurprisingly, it is where my research begins.

2. Tempted Yet Without Sin: No Temptation Is Purely External

In this paper, which I finished drafting this week, I apply philosophical observation and methods to the debates over internal and external temptation. Philosophy, rather than science, is the other discipline serving as handmaiden in this theological contribution.

I argue against the thesis, popular in conservative Reformed rejection of Side B, that temptation can be purely external. If Christ was tempted only externally, none of his desires being engaged, than he was not tempted. While temptation can be analyzed into its internal and external components, there is no temptation without the internal component of desire.

Secondarily, I argue against a thesis of Denny Burk’s and Jared Moore’s that divides desires into desires for bad objects and good objects, attributing only the latter to Christ. Rather, I argue, all desire is for good objects, yet sin presents the temptation to have these good objects under conditions that are proscribed by God.

Accordingly, Christ truly was tempted as we are, and not even the homosexual desires of same-sex attracted Christians can be singled out as uniquely bad.

Category 2: The Foundations of Interdisciplinary Theology

3. Why Believe? Natural Theology Is Logical Prior to Revealed Theology

While there has been a resurgence of interest in natural theology in Protestant circles, many proponents still aver that natural theology is still logically posterior to revealed theology. Natural theology, they suggest, can be done faithfully as long as one already accepts Scripture as its epistemic context.

But I argue that a discourse A is logically prior to a discourse B if 1) A addresses questions that are logically fundamental to B, justifying the practice of B, and 2) A justifies B utilizing only resources from outside B.

But natural theology meets these criteria relative to revealed theology. Natural theology addresses questions that logically fundamental to revealed theology, like whether God exists and would reveal himself. And natural theology answers these questions from resources outside of Scripture, that it may give people reason to believe Scripture even if they do not yet accept its testimony. Therefore, natural theology is logically prior to revealed theology.

4. Against Common Grace: Why Nature, Not Grace, Explains Civil Righteousness and Provides Common Ground

Contemporary Christians recognize both moral and intellectual virtue among non-Christians. Yet some formulations of our theology, and especially our doctrine of sin, make this fact seem surprising. The doctrine of common grace is widely assumed to provide the answer to this question.

But in this paper, I challenge the theological foundations of common grace, arguing that nature (i.e., human nature) serves the roles customarily assigned to common grace, of explaining non-Christian moral and intellectual virtue. I argue that the doctrine of common grace rests for its justification on an exaggerated doctrine of sin, according to which the operation of nature has been destroyed.

On the contrary, I argue that the correct doctrine of sin is that sin has wounded, but not destroyed, the operation of nature and of man’s natural faculties, both moral and intellectual. Accordingly, while man is incapable of supernatural good, he is not incapable of natural virtue, whether moral or intellectual, even though these will always be mixed with sin. Accordingly, it is not necessary to postulate common grace to explain the workings of nature, when human beings act in accord with the law written on the heart. Recognizing the intactness of nature gives credit to God’s work as creator, rather than attributing all finite good to God’s miraculous intervention after creation as common grace.

Nature, I argue, provides a better theological foundation than common grace for Christian cultural engagement, priming us to receive the good gifts of natural moral virtue and natural human knowledge and wisdom even from those who do not know the Redeemer. (This paper is indebted to my series on common grace.)

Category 3: Theologically-Motivated Work in Adjacent Disciplines

In this paper, I plan to “secularize” my thesis with regard to Christians and same-sex attraction, translating “sanctification” to “virtue,” and “concupiscence” to “moral disorder,” etc. See if you think the translation is successful!

5. Moral Disorder, Enkratic Virtue, and Egalitarian Hope

The existence of moral disorders presents a previously unrecognized threat to a prominent doctrine of virtue ethics.

Many virtue ethicists hold that virtue is distinct from mere continence (self-control) and, hence, that right feeling is necessary for virtue. But people who suffer “moral disorders” are constitutionally subject to wrong feeling. Moral disorders are psychological conditions that incline their bearers toward wrong action, making continence their best possible moral outcome. This situation conflicts with the egalitarian aspirations of many contemporary renditions of virtue ethics. Either the distinction of virtue from continence or egalitarianism must go.

First, I will establish the category of moral disorders, which arises in the philosophy of mental illness. Psychological disorders count as moral disorders if they inhibit the agent’s capacity to exhibit some dimension of right action or moral virtue. If wrong feeling is disqualifying for virtue, then those disorders that involve constitutional subjection to wrong feeling are moral disorders.

Second, I will discuss the state of the virtue-continence distinction in contemporary virtue ethics. John McDowell’s silencing thesis, a famous contemporary account of that distinction, is discovered not to imply the lack of wrong feeling of the virtuous person, as shown by Denise Vigani and the present author (my MA thesis). Meanwhile, in her paper “Enkrates Phronimos,” Agnes Callard has presented a challenge to the reading of Aristotle on which the pedigree of the virtue-continence (enkrateia) distinction rests. Continence may be sufficient for virtue.

Finally, appealing to Thomas Nagel’s category of “moral luck,” I argue that it is objectionable to hold that some are disqualified from virtue on account of psychological conditions. Accordingly, the existence of moral disorders presents a challenge to the traditional distinction of virtue from continence. Either the virtue-continence distinction or moral egalitarianism – that all people may be virtuous – must go. Those who, moved by egalitarian hope, believe that all human beings can exhibit moral virtue must abandon the virtue-continence distinction. Even the morally disordered can exhibit virtue.

---

Again, if you’re interested to read one of these before publication, reply to this email. If you can offer helpful academic comments on one of them, then definitely reach out.

Thanks for supporting INTR, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Theological Research.

1. I know, “interdisciplinary” begins with an “I.” Give me this one – I need the acronym “INTR” in my life.