Herman Dooyeweerd said on more than one occasion that the vocation of Reformational scholarship is a call to war against the spirit of apostasy. "This warfare," he wrote, "is a struggle even with ourselves, in the power of the Holy Spirit, a struggle which finds its dynamic in a life of prayer." I suspect that this way of scholarship is known to be more than a pious-sounding (if not foolish-sounding) platitude only by those who practice it.Sometimes the struggle gets mighty emotional (albeit, no more spiritual for all that). Last night I broke into tears of frustration while wrestling through a theoretical problem that was beyond me but crucial to my tentative thesis question. Through the sobs, I begged the Lord to have mercy and open my mind to find a solution. This afternoon, while meditating on a Scripture (Hebrews 2), an answer came to me.
Since special revelation has ceased with the close of the Biblical canon until the Consummation, my insight remains fallible. Whether the insight is a true one or not, whether it serves to obediently answer God's call or not, is yet to be seen. But I know that I cannot be faithful upon my own power.
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