VI - Fuller Seminary
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2009
Summary
It does not take a powerful imagination to appreciate the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment with which Carnell undertook his teaching duties at Fuller Seminary in September 1948. Still a year short of his thirtieth birthday, he had not veered one degree off course since that time ten years earlier when he had caught the vision of how the life of the mind could serve the cause of Christ. With a doctorate from Harvard, the prospect of a second doctorate from Boston University, a prizewinning book on apologetics, a prestigious teaching position, a wife and a baby daughter, and (no small acquisition for the man whose primary interest in high school was a cherished Model T Ford) a brand new Buick Road-master, he was moving ahead with a sense of inner authority. For the first time, the future did not present a formidable array of higher and tougher obstacles. Rather it seemed to level out on a high plain of anticipated accomplishment where he could continue to fulfill even more successfully what he had already demonstrated was his sacred calling.
And for a while, that is exactly how it was.
The pre-presidential years: 1948–1954
“I would like to see this exchange of letters symbolize the titanic struggle between supernaturalism and naturalism.”
Carnell to Tompkins, April 29, 1953“As you see, I have no very clear cut pattern of investigation in mind; but if we play with these ideas long enough, the friction of handling may turn them into fireballs.”
Tompkins to Carnell May 31, 1953The westward move and the new job were exhilarating but not without problems. Finding a place to live topped the list.
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- Information
- The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical MindThe Case of Edward Carnell, pp. 73 - 122Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988