Graduate Personal Statement

This is the personal statement I wrote for my application to Regent College, for admission in Fall 2009.

“Wonder, Think and Hope”
Evan Christopher Rosa
Regent College Personal Statement

Just before I graduated from Berkeley, an old philosophy professor of mine told me that armchair philosophers really don’t exist anymore… not unless you have some sort of independent wealth to support your work.

After graduating in 2005, I interned at my church, travelled to India and New Zealand, then took a job in a corporate cubicle as a communication consultant (I wrote health benefits material… exciting, I know), and got married. And while I do have an armchair and did my best to keep up with stimulating philosophical reading after 5 p.m., I found my professor’s remark to be true: I simply didn’t have the time or focus (or trust fund) to immerse myself in the issues and ideas I loved—and simply needed—to think about. So I quit my job for a different sort of life.

But this “different sort of life” I’m talking about is more than just being an unemployed armchair philosopher. (Actually, I’ve met quite a few of those in Berkeley.) And it’s more than simply having the time or occupation to live an examined life. This change of direction is about realizing a vocation—a calling—that was spoken into my living soul by the living God.

“Now wonder is a kind of desire for knowledge; a desire which comes to man when he sees an effect of which the cause either is unknown to him, or surpasses his knowledge or faculty of understanding.”
—St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

I suppose my journey of faith started in wonder. Like Thomas (following Aristotle, who follows Plato, who’s precursor is Solomon), this intense desire for knowledge fueled my faith and intellectual inquiry early on. I don’t think I realized it then. I grew up Roman Catholic, inheriting the faith of my family and fear of God. And while I no longer practice Catholicism, I’m now coming to appreciate the fear and love of God that I learned from my parents and grandparents.
The Christian gospel and tradition presents a God of mystery, who produces profound wonder in the individual Christian. It is this sense of wonder and mystery that Solomon, the wonderer of Proverbs, must mean in saying, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” In wonder and fear, we worship the triune God; and in wonder and fear, we hope for his revelation. I suppose in this way, all Christians are philosophers.

I sense that my vocation is to help others (Christians and non-Christians alike) realize this for themselves: to come to wonder, fear and know the triune God, and to meaningfully and virtuously live out their humanity.

Most of the research and study I’ve conducted recently has been for a course I’m teaching that introduces the basics of Philosophy and Worldview (the syllabus and description are posted at http://philosophyandworldview.wordpress.com). My goal for the class is simply to point the people in my community toward the breadth of issues which have always incited wonder in humanity. In my experience, wonder practiced alone can perplex; but wonder practiced in faithful community leads to fear and hope. I hope to incite further wonder about these important questions and encourage those around me to think hard about their lives and culture.

My wife, Lani, and I also work with the Center for Bioethics and Culture (www.cbc-network.org) as editors and contributors. We write and publish articles through weekly e-newsletters, and I’m currently editing a book on bioethics and reproductive technologies written by the national director. The CBC’s mission to fight for a truly human future deeply resonates in my wife and I, and we enjoy our joint calling to stand and speak out for the most vulnerable human persons of the human community—or as Jesus names them, “the least of these.”

I want to play a humble part in preserving the good in our culture and rebuilding that which is destroyed. And I believe the best way to pursue this is by engaging with culture—living fully in the world, and completely not of it. This tension—between the worldliness of modern culture and God’s call to humanity to find its identity in him—greatly motivates my study and work.

This tension emerges in two sub-cultures in particular: Christianity and Secularism. Having learned a great deal about each of these by experience and study, I’m often very disheartened and disturbed by both. The ardent and intentional practical atheism present in secular society is now even present in the lives of Christians who have sought to navigate the modern world with a split identity: acknowledging the Lord’s glorious control on Sunday and living under man’s attempt at technical-rational control for the rest of the week. It is the ease and ubiquity of living this double-life that chills me the most.

I’m very curious about the intellectual history and relationship between Christianity and secular society. Certainly, each has had a great deal of influence on the other, and I think a greater understanding of this would serve members of both communities, as well as help bring to the surface possible answers to the temptation of practical atheism. Craig Gay, who I’ve been reading for the past year, suggests in The Way of the (Modern) World that a renewed theology of personhood (founded on the Trinity and exercised with Christian patience) is needed for such a time as this. Ultimately, I believe that it will take thoughtful, virtuous individuals, living faithfully in community, to reconnect the empty selves of our (post)modern culture with the triune God who created us.

I see that there are many ways to realize this lifestyle of wonder, thought, virtue and hope. So I’ve considered some other—perhaps more specific—reasons and goals for pursuing graduate study in philosophy and Christian thought.

• As a foundation, my very existence is to honor God with reasonable service—lovingly rendering heart, soul, mind and strength to him, and serving others through a graceful presentation of truth and mystery.

• Lani and I both deeply value a whole Christian life of faith seeking understanding, and it’s my desire to provide for my family—relationally and financially—through teaching, writing and speaking.

• I hope to encourage others to think hard and live virtuously. In particular, I’m inspired at the prospect of engaging with high school, college-aged people and young adults. So many people experience an intellectual and spiritual awakening as they approach, enter and exit college (I certainly did). The mentors we learn from and content we encounter during this awakening are extremely influential in forming us into the adults we become.

• Getting more specific, I see junior college and university communities as an area of great need for focused, intentional and thoughtful leaders. For this reason, I intend to pursue doctoral work after completing a masters degree. Teaching at either a junior college or a university appeals to me for its promise of engaging with students who might not otherwise get to know the joy of philosophical reflection and a whole, integrated life of faith and reason… love and discipline… truth and grace.

• Finally, I want to use my mind to contribute to a community of faith—one that reaches out missionally to the culture around it and of which it is a part. I believe that real hope and real change (toward virtuous ends) come by individual persons acting as families and communities—living in, but not of, the world; and as many Christian scholars have recently noted, there is a general lack of patient and loving thoughtfulness in our technological, information- and progress-oriented, Googled, Wikied, multitasking, and increasingly impersonal world. I want to lead by example in the family and community where God has placed me.

Lani and I are excited for this new season of realizing our calling to wonder, think and hope about the Lord and his goodness in our lives. We’d love to share in this wonder at Regent.