Journal: Global Journal of Classical Theology
Volume: GJCT 03:1 (Apr 2002)
Article: “Ever Hearing But Never Understanding” A Response to Mark Hutchins’s Critique of John Warwick Montgomery’s Historical Apologetics
Author: Craig J. Hazen

“Ever Hearing But Never Understanding”
A Response to Mark Hutchins’s Critique of
John Warwick Montgomery’s Historical Apologetics

Craig Hazen

Graduate Program in Christian Apologetics
Biola University
La Mirada, California, USA

Nearly ten years ago I attended a scholarly symposium at a state university in southern California that featured a number of luminaries in the fields of religious studies and philosophy. The capstone paper to the symposium was one that I was really looking forward to because I knew that it would be utterly out of place at such a meeting. I knew in advance that it would be provocative because the presenter was an influential former professor of mine, John Warwick Montgomery. I doubt very much that many of the mainstream religion and philosophy scholars in attendance knew his name or had read any of his works, but the lecture hall was packed—probably due to the stimulating title of the paper: “The Search for Absolutes: A Sherlockian Inquiry.”1 In a very creative presentation, Montgomery made his arguments about discovering religious truth through the voices of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson—as if he were reading a long lost manuscript penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Of course, as one might imagine, Holmes was working his way through these important questions utilizing the factual and logical approaches for which this character is famous.

As the presentation went forward, however, some in the audience were visibly disturbed. One local religious studies professor sitting right across the aisle from me was a fair-skinned fellow whose earlobes I noticed were turning various shades of purple. The lecture was obviously raising his blood pressure, but I was anxious to find out exactly why it was causing him so much difficulty. He didn’t let me wonder for long, because the moment the formal lecture was finished he jumped to his feet—even before time for questions was officially opened—and blurted out “Dr. Montgomery, you do tremendous damage to religion!”

Now, what exactly had Montgomery done to “damage religion” in this person’s mind? Montgomery had subjected religious questions and claims—those about ultimate reality and ultimate human concerns—to methodologies available to all of us. He employed techniques by which we all attempt to examine mundane questions and claims in everyday life. This local religious studies professor had clearly represented the sentiments of a number of people in the room that evening who were also decidedly uncomfortable to hear this approach to their field of study. If the tools and methods of the scientist, the historian, the lawyer, or the sleuth could legitimately be brought to bear on the actual truth claims made by the vast variety of reli...