One feature of the Houghton situation is that many of the students come from fundamentalist homes, and may take a dim view of opinions that depart from a strictly literal adherence to Genesis. I explained that both the fundamentalists and the accommodationists in the Christian world need to change their thinking if they are to mount an effective challenge to evolutionary naturalism in the secular world. Christian faculty can't prepare students to meet the intellectual challenges of evolutionary naturalism in the graduate schools, and in the culture in general, unless students, parents and trustees understand the program and give them plenty of elbow room. It is futile to try to counter naturalistic thinking either by downplaying the conflict with theism, or by invoking a Biblical authority that the secular culture does not acknowledge. The only effective way of countering evolutionary naturalism is to learn how Darwinists reason, and to become skilled at recognizing hidden assumptions and critiquing the arguments.
Good education requires a willingness to take risks.
My aim was to assure Houghton faculty that I have a sympathetic understanding of their situation, and that it is possible to address these issues successfully without just generating a lot of unproductive conflict. Wednesday, Oct 4. We professors had a high level discussion in the classroom with occasional student participation. I left Houghton with the sense that I had made some friends, and given faculty there a much clearer idea of what the theistic realist program is about. The subject of conversation at the end was when they would be able to get me to come back for another visit.