A fool for Christ, but no man's fool!

Remembrance of Dr. Stuart C. Hackett, beloved professor

My first brush with philosophical thought was reading Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, as well as other Russian novelists, while I was studying Russian Language and Literature at Penn State.  The Russians love the “eternal questions”.

In the summer before I graduated from Penn State, I read just about all of Francis Schaeffer’s books.  He was my first taste of Christian apologetics. 

But my first real taste of philosophical rigor was under the tutelage of Dr. Stuart C. Hackett at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.  I just saw that Apologetics was required for my Master of Divinity and signed up for his class, knowing nothing about him.

You only had to meet Stu once to either love him or be repelled.  He was at once a ridiculous (I say that kindly) and a magnificent character.  Stu loved to “mug up”.  He would open his brief case and extract with exaggerated care a bamboo back scratcher and luxuriously scratch his back and make a very loud sigh of contentment.  All the while his eyes sparkled beneath and above the Hackettian “rational haircut”: beard and hair all two inches long. He always had a joke or two to start.  Philosophy was too serious not to begin with nonsense.

This exchange below exemplifies Stu’s sense of humor:

During a discussion of Hegel, Küng, and the nature of God:

Dr. Hackett:"If I talk about it, it's because I think it's important, otherwise I wouldn't talk about it...that's except for the nonsense I give out from time to time. It's just an ineradicable aspect of my personhood, if I may put it that way. Well, you know, it's just that I thrive on nonsense."

Student:"But there is, of course, a metaphysical distinction between you and your nonsense."

Dr. Hackett:"Absolutely. It is an accidental quality. However, sometimes I fear it is also invading my essence." 

http://www.cheapersunglasses.com/docs/hackettquotes.html

Accessed October 30, 2012

I won’t go on quoting Stu’s silly quotes, but they always had a point.  I urge readers to go to the link above and enjoy!  That would be one of the greatest acts one could do to remember Stu.  Philosophical fun!

If Stu’s exterior was silly (he tended to dress in a rather unconventional way, e.g. orange trousers, a shirt with bell sleeves and a cravat with a gold ring or a bolo tie), he was nonetheless a formidable philosopher of the first rank.

Stu’s trilogy is still a magnificent achievement by any standard: The Resurrection of Theism (free here http://www.cheapersunglasses.com/docs/stuarthackett.html ), The Reconstruction of the Christian Revelation Claim: A Philosophical and Critical Apologetic, and The Rediscovery of the Highest Good. A Philosophical and Critical Ethic.

Stu was a philosophical apologist.  He was interested in answering serious, academic philosophical challenges to Christian belief and specifically to theism.

Stu was not everyone’s cup of tea. He was definitely not a Calvinist.  When asked how many of the “Five Points” he held, Stu would say, “I’m a Whisky Calvinist. … I only hold a fifth.” (Perseverance of the Saints, if I recall rightly.)  While Stu was interested in philosophical rigor he was suspicious of answers that were too neat.

Stu’s philosophical rigor sometimes repelled students, who were not so interested in philosophy.  Thankfully for these students, Dr. Paul D. Feinberg, gave a more popularly aimed apologetics course.

For many, though, Stu was an example of evangelical scholarship and excellence in academics.  Stu inspired among others, Dr. William Lane Craig, a well known Christian philosopher and apologist.  Though I do not consider myself to be on the same plane as Bill Craig, I am glad to be able to trace the beginnings of my philosophical career to Stu’s encouragement and thought.

Stu’s original work had been on Mahayana Buddhism and his book Oriental Philosophy is still in print and widely used.  He is recognized for his academic excellence, even outside of evangelical circles.

Once a semester, Stu would invite his students round to his house for an evening of food and fun.  He would pull out his banjo and his guitar and sing both country songs (he loved Johnny Cash) and gospel hymns.  His dog would lie there at his master’s feet content.  Stu would tell his jokes and everyone would have a great time.

As a student in a seminary you sometimes think your professors are akin to the gods on Mt. Olympus. Stu wanted to make sure that we weren’t under any such delusions, but he was nonetheless our professor and a formidable one at that.

While Stu’s thought was anything but easy to understand, as a person he was approachable and warm.  He was a great teacher and mentor.

He asked me if I would stay around and do an MA at TEDS in 1984. I was headed to Communist Yugoslavia to learn Serbo-Croatian and teach at the Eastern European Bible Institute of Greater Europe Mission.  He didn’t object or try to change my mind.  He was a passionate supporter of world missions.

I’m thankful for Stu’s teaching and example.  I’m thankful to for the MA and PhD I got later in Leuven, but I sometimes wish I had stayed around to write an MA with him.  Maybe I could have learned a few new chords!

Below is Stu's Obituary

http://hultgrenfh.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=1742397&fh_id=10184 

honesty and humility – respect

One of my students suggested that I ought to write about the flip side of the blame shifting and pride.

To be fair most of my students show me respect.  Only one or two have ever really been disrespectful.

Most of my students are from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.  They have a very highly developed sense of rank and order.  They usually address me as “Professor” or “Dr. Gottschalk”.  They may disagree with me, but they are almost always respectful.

Unfortunately, some students feel that they can humble me into agreeing to something, which is inappropriate, by using an exalted sense of respect.  Using exaggerated terma of respect is in fact showing disrespect.

I don’t mind if students are familiar with me.  Still, I prefer to be “Dr. Gottschalk” because I am Dr. Gottschalk.  I worked for many years to earn the right to be addressed as Dr. Gottschalk, and practically it is just good to keep some distance between myself and my students.  I love them, and I think they know it.  However, I do have to grade them, and there are always times when we disagree about something and there has to be order.

Some students misunderstand the nature of a graduate school and a church.  They think that because we are Christians and they live together in a dormitory, we are all equals.  That is not true.  Yes, we are all equal before Christ as regards salvation, but we are not all equals in the classroom.  Giving a poor grade to a student and criticizing a project or paper should never be a question of favoritism or dislike.  Students earn their grades by their performance.

Some students seem to think that since they have been pastors or church executives in their home countries they should be treated with special deference.  Basically the culture of Tyndale is the same as most evangelical American seminaries:  we are friendly and open, but we try to maintain order. 

I sat in classes at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with guys who were medical doctors and had PhDs in physics.  Intellectually they were every bit of a match for our professors, who were Cambridge and Harvard PhDs.  Yet, I don’t recall any of them being impolite or rude to a professor.  In fact just the opposite they were more deferential than others, since they knew what the professors had done to reach this position.

When a student is criticized his character shows immediately.  If he or she begins to become defensive or argue, it generally means he or she has a pride problem.

Some students have had very impressive ministries before coming to Tyndale and others have pretty impressive ministries while they are at Tyndale.  But whatever they did in terms of evangelism or church planting has no bearing on how they performed on a particular assignment. 

Sometimes a student who was a very well respected preacher is offended that their grammar, diction and writing are criticized.  “I speak well!  I have published books!” That may be true, but very likely, certainly your English (which is your second or third language) is not as good as your professor’s.  Humility is accepting criticism in the spirit in which it is given (i.e. with a good intention of improving your performance).

I am always amazed when a student opens up a bit and I see something I didn’t know.  I generally see applications for admission, since I am on the admissions committee.  Still there is much we do not know about one another.

One student was a model student his entire three years at Tyndale.  He was a married student, a pastor.  He got up at 0400 every day to deliver newspapers, so that he could send some money home to his wife.

He was from a village in Myanmar.  He was always respectful and soft spoken.  He always did all of his community duties (e.g. vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, cutting grass…) without complaint.  He never objected to a grade he was given.  He did very well, but not stellar.

Just before he graduated he told me a story…

“Professor”, he said, “we went to the next village to evangelize.  While we were evangelizing the police came.  They arrested us. They held us for ten days.  They made us build the pagoda (Buddhist temple) in that village.  Then they beat us and told us never to come back to that village to preach again… So, we went to the next village instead and started to evangelize.”

Little wonder he was such a godly man. It was a privilege to be his teacher.

Blame shifting and Pride...

Why is it when someone doesn't fulfill requirements they shift blame to the rule keeper. 

No one is prepared to say, "I failed. I am to blame."  The reason is pride.  No one wants to be wrong.  

No one wants to admit they shirked their duty or waited until the last minute and produced an inferior product.  The person who was helping them was at fault or the system is unfair. 

Some of us aren't cut out for certain jobs.  I am red green color blind.  It kept me out of the Navy; was that fair?   Fair or no; that was the way it was.  Was the Navy at fault?  No, I just didn't have the genes.

I am average at mathematics (69% SAT).  I wanted to be a theoretical physicist (Big Bang Theory sitcom type dude [hopefully without the neuroses]), but my mathematical aptitude was not good enough.  I got Cs in calculus.  Was it the professor's fault?  No. Was it the Teaching Assistant's fault?  No.  It was my fault. 

Sometimes we don't get what we want and we can't do what we want.  Wisdom is embracing what we can do well and doing it with all our might as unto the Lord. 

For me, that meant changing my college major to Russian language. (My verbal aptitude was 96% SAT)  I did well! Surprise, surprise! I went on to seminary and studied OT Hebrew and NT Greek.  I learned German and Serbian while connected to Yugoslavia.  I don't speak Dutch well, but I have learned a lot of Dutch in Belgium and Holland. 

I also moved my area of interest to philosophy and apologetics and have done very well, as they are language related fields. 

Some people are great church planters.  I am not.  Some people have gifts to allow them to be executives.  I do not. 

We must accept our limitations as God's direction in our lives and MOVE ON!  Blaming someone else is a cheap and lazy way to avoid one's own responsibility to use one's talents wisely.