Jay Adams on Discernment: Continuum Versus Antithesis

Jay E. Adams, in his book A Call to Discernment: Distinguishing Truth from Error in Today's Church, has an interesting section on the need to think antithetically. There's a need to think in contrasts. I heard John MacArthur quote from this book in a sermon a long time ago, so I ended up buying the book. Here is an excerpt from the section on Continuum Versus Antithesis:

With church discipline in ruins, the line between the church and the world smudged, and the church's shift of concern toward friendship with the world well established, the biblical concept of antithesis all but vanished. People who study the Bible in depth develop antithetical mindsets: They think in terms of contrasts or opposites. From Genesis to Revelation God's thoughts and ways are set over against all others. The Bible does not teach that there are numerous ways to please God, each of which is as good as the next. Nor does it teach that various opinions are more or less God's ways. What it teaches—everywhere—is that any thought or way that is not wholly God's is altogether wrong and must be rejected. According to the Bible, a miss is as good as a mile. There is only one God, and there is only one way of life—His! 

People today don't like to hear such things—even people within the church. Why? Because they have a different mindset. Many of them have not known the Bible from childhood or ever made an intensive study of it later on, so their mindset is unbiblical. Modern mentality, even in the church (too often taught by the church and Christian schools), is a continuum mentality: Truth and values are not absolute but relative. Such thinking predominates in our culture. Stop and reflect for a moment: What kind of mindset do you have? Do you think in terms of absolutes? Or is life a series of value judgments that vary according to the situation? 

According to continuum thinking, the mode of thinking taught outside the church (and largely within), every idea is a shade of gray. There is no right and wrong or true and false, but only shades of right and wrong or true and false spread along a continuum. The poles of this continuum are extended so far out toward the wings that for all practical purposes they are unattainable and therefore worthless. Nothing, then, is wholly right or wrong. All is relative; most of it is subjective.

That is one reason why biblical preaching, with its sharp antithesis, rubs many people the wrong way: It is hard for modern minds to accept. For a long time now educational institutions, newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, etc. have inculcated continuum thinking. Antithetical thinking is dismissed as fanatical or worse. Consequently, when Christians (all of whom have been affected by their environment) hear antithetical views expressed, they sound discordant. And indeed they are! Because anything goes, discernment is not placed at a premium. The word selected to describe racism was discrimination. Prior to that it was a compliment to call a person discriminating. If the true cannot be distinguished from the false, the right from the wrong, the good from the bad, then discernment is not only unattainable but it is unnecessary, and its pursuit is foolishness. Discernment thrives in an atmosphere of absolutes, among people whose minds have been molded to think antithetically.

In the Bible, where antithesis is so important, discernment—the ability to distinguish God's thoughts and God's ways from all others—is essential. Indeed, God says that "the wise in heart will be called discerning" (Proverbs 16:21). 

From the Garden of Eden with its two trees (one allowed, one forbidden) to the eternal destiny of the human being in heaven or in hell, the Bible sets forth two, and only two, ways: God's way, and all others. Accordingly, people are said to be saved or lost. They belong to God's people or the world. There was Gerizim, the mount of blessing, and Ebal, the mount of cursing. There is the narrow way and the wide way, leading either to eternal life or to destruction. There are those who are against and those who are with us, those within and those without. There is life and death, truth and falsehood, good and bad, light and darkness, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, love and hatred, spiritual wisdom and the wisdom of the world. Christ is said to be the way, the truth, and the life, and no one may come to the Father but by Him. His is the only name under the sky by which one may be saved.

Not only will you find such antithetical teaching, and much more, on nearly every page of the Bible, but even the construction of the Hebrew language itself seems designed to teach antithesis. Much scriptural poetry, many proverbs, and even some narrative is antithetical in structure.

Perhaps you have wondered about the principle underlying the clean/unclean distinctions of the Old Testament. Various rationales have been given for some of these distinctions, yet many seem to be purely arbitrary. May I suggest that all problems of arbitrariness are resolved when you see the clean/unclean system as a means of alerting the Jew to the fact that all day long, every day, in whatever he does, he must consciously choose God's way. Choices about food, clothing, farming techniques, justice, health care, holidays, and methods of worship were made either God's way or some other way. In other words, the clean/unclean system was designed to develop in God's people an antithetical mentality. Forbidding the mixing of materials in clothing, for example, doesn't seem so arbitrary after all when considered in the light of the biblical concern to create an antithetical posture toward life.

But with pastors and people alike growing up in an environment that stresses continuum thinking, antithesis is dulled as more and more people attempt to integrate sociology, psychology, and business management principles with Scripture. Teachers in Christian colleges now consider it "one of the key tasks of Christian higher education" to "seek to integrate his [the professor's] faith with his learning." The key task, you see, no longer is to distinguish God's ways from others but to find places of agreement "to the extent to which it is possible." There is a great difference between the two mentalities. According to the one, the task is to find out how one's faith integrates with what he has learned from the world. According to the one, the task is to find out how one's faith integrates with what he has learned from the world. According to the other, the key task is to determine in what ways a Christian may keep himself unspotted from the world (James 1:27) in both thought and life. He is to remember in all he does that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4).

In those disciplines for which God did not give us special revelation (while always being careful to discern good from evil at all levels, including the presuppositional) the Christian may learn from the world. But his task is not to integrate. Rather, his task is to discover God's truth in what he is doing. His task is to discover how to properly draw the antithesis in reference to his work. He must refine and remold all "learning" according to his fundamental Christian presuppositions and biblical beliefs. He may not merely integrate "learning" as it stands. This is true even of methods, because methods are means committed to the ends of a system. Methods, therefore, must always be considered in the context of the systems they serve. But, in all of this, the important thing to see is that the Christian's task—in whatever he does—is to be sure he is going God's way, a way that is always in antithesis to the world's way ("My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways"—Isaiah 55:8); he must recognize God's stake in all of life. 

That is why the psalmist in Psalm 1:1,2 was concerned, at the very beginning of the psalter, to set forth the two ways: God's and all others, distinguishing them sharply as he knew how. (He did not try to integrate them!)

The book of Proverbs, at the outset and throughout, does the same thing. The modern educational emphasis on integration is at odds with the educational thrust found in these two biblical textbooks. The biblical axiom is that "the fear of the Lord [belief in and submission to Him] is the beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7). But this way of thinking is contrary to modern thought, even in the church. In the Bible, Christ and the apostles warn against wolves who attack the flock and urge alertness on the part of elders and pastors who are to protect God's flock (Matthew 7:15). Paul warned the Ephesian elders, "I know that after my departure savage wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among yourselves men will arise speaking distorted things to drag away disciples to follow them" (Acts 20:29,30). The note of antithesis and the need for discrimination is struck in that warning. Christ and the apostles were not constantly involved in controversy and beaten and stoned and killed because they sought agreement with the world and attempted integration wherever possible. They suffered because of the firm, antithetical stand they took for truth over against the world's deceptions. In contrast, today the shift against antithetical thinking and toward humanistic thinking has contributed much to the softness of the church and her frightful lack of discernment.

Jay Adams, A Call to Discernment: Distinguishing Truth from Error in Today’s Church (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1987), 29–34.