JERRY WALLS: A GREAT MAN AND TEACHER, PHILOSOPHER AND FRIEND

Image Courtesy Capturing Christianity

It was July of 1989, and there I sat in my first class at Asbury Theological Seminary. I had actually gone to Wilmore, KY to start school the month before, but didn’t last long in the summer Greek course. Having dropped out of that class, I decided to go with something more familiar and take the Christian philosophy course on offer starting in July. I majored in philosophy as an undergrad, so I figured I’d have an easier time finding my footing. Little did I know, sitting there that day, that the teacher who was about to walk into the class would change my life. He had started teaching at Asbury just two years before; his teaching career was young, as was he. I was 23 that July day, and he was barely 34. That fellow was Jerry Walls.

            I had studied philosophy at Michigan, and then felt like I should assuage my guilty conscience and augment my studies with some theology at seminary. Since all my college philosophy professors had been decidedly secular, my interests in philosophy and theology seemed destined to diverge. All of that changed in the first five minutes of Dr. Walls’s class. That bearded young professor almost immediately enabled me to see how my dual tastes and disparate intellectual interests actually converged quite naturally. Faith and reason, philosophy and theology, the head and heart, rigor and creativity dovetailed and resonated altogether. The world-colliding moment felt epiphanous to me. I instantly fell in love with this charismatic, erudite philosopher brimming with energy and intelligence. And little did I know but our story was just beginning.

            Over the next nearly forty years, Jerry would have an incalculable influence not just on me, but on countless students—at Asbury, at Notre Dame, and then at Houston Christian. For the past five years, at long last, I achieved a long-held dream to be his colleague—and to boot, to share a weekly dinner and movie (usually with the Gagnon).[1] With the end of this term, Jerry, now 70, is closing out his career. This short reflection is my effort to mark the momentous occasion by sharing some anecdotes, by reviewing some of his life story, and discussing some of his prodigious philosophical accomplishments. As his former student, longtime friend, co-author, and now colleague, I am privileged to spend a few moments sharing about the man, his life, and career.

            When I first got to know Jerry at Asbury in the late eighties and early nineties, he was in his element. It really was a sight to behold. He was wildly popular; students flocked to his classes. He was a fixture: everyone had their Walls stories to recount. Jer’s delightful idiosyncrasies made Walls impressions ubiquitous on campus—always done with nothing but fondness. If there was a spiritual retreat, Jerry was the preferred choice for the invited speaker; if a prof was going to be invited to give a presentation in a dorm, Jerry was the man. Jerry and Asbury were synonymous in my mind; even now I have a hard time thinking of one without the other. It’s fitting that later this month he’ll be moving back to Wilmore. It was never the same without him. His departure from the place resulted in the near-complete loss of my incentive to visit my alma mater.

            Jerry was always “Dr. Walls” to me until, one day, we were playing tennis together, a doubles match featuring Jerry and me against two fellow seminarians. Jerry kept trash talking them mercilessly, as is his wont. I called him “Dr. Walls” at one point, and he replied, “We’re on the tennis court. Call me Jerry.” And Jerry it’s been from then until now. Speaking of tennis, as a quick aside, in Jerry’s mind he was (and is) an incredible player (and equally so as a ping pong and billiards player). Suffice it to say that his penchant for revisionist history has few rivals. Let’s just leave it there.

            Jerry was, though, a philosopher and teacher extraordinaire. Only eternity will tell of his tremendous influence. Seeing this guy operate on all thrusters—leading a discussion, trashing Duke, getting animated, navigating complex ideas, being moved by the problem of evil, challenging students to their best—was sheer joy. I had many great teachers at Asbury, but none exerted a bigger influence on me than he.

            I well recall so many occasions going up to his office on the fourth floor of the central administration building and looking through the opaque glass on his office door. If he was there, and he usually was, his desk light would be shining, and he was hard at work. In addition to touting himself as the most ecumenical person he knows, he also didn’t hesitate, with his signature understatement, to dub himself the hardest-working man in Wilmore (or of whatever city he’s in). Of course, he also claims to be the humblest person he knows.

            That first class with Jerry was a game changer, and I ended up taking him for several more classes in the MDiv program. I knew very early on that he and I had business to do together, although I could hardly have imagined how much. By the end of seminary, after thinking and praying hard about what course of study to pursue for my doctorate—a little torn between church history, systematic theology, and philosophy—I finally concluded it was to be philosophy. But Jerry was one guy I couldn’t muster the guts to tell in person. I held him in such high esteem and on such a pedestal it seemed wholly presumptuous to admit to him that I wanted to pursue philosophy. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him before I graduated.

            Seminary graduation came, and my parents attended from Michigan. That graduation was one year before I’d lose my dad to cancer. I made sure that he and Jerry got to meet. My mom would get to know Jerry well in the years to come, and they loved each other. The two of them together were nothing but mischief personified. I don’t think I told Jerry on graduation day how much he had meant to me; I probably didn’t fully realize it at the time. So Jer, I’m telling you now. You changed my life, and I thank God for you. You taught me to be unapologetic exploring the profound implications of God’s unspeakable love. After graduation, I drove back to Michigan, and a few weeks later I wrote a letter. I enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope in case Jerry wanted to write me back. In the letter, I ever so gingerly broached the topic and told Jerry, with tepid tentativeness, that I thought I might like to get a PhD in philosophy. It still felt egregiously presumptuous, but I was tremendously relieved to receive a letter back within days conveying Jerry’s enthusiasm at the idea—along with a curt reminder that he had access to envelopes and stamps of his own. That affirmation, coming from him, meant the world to me.

            I had gotten to know Jerry very well during my three years in Kentucky. I actually house sat for him one summer, and, while doing that, I perused a family picture album on the coffee table. He and his young family were vacationing somewhere—maybe Myrtle Beach, where they often went—and I felt like Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life (which is one of Jer’s and my favorite movies, and one we’ve had occasion to watch together several times here in Texas). I had a chance, owing to that album, to see Jerry grow up from a little boy. One of six kids, born in Knockemstiff, Ohio, a blue-collar town in Ohio that shaped his sensibilities, Jerry was a teenage preaching prodigy. By the time he was eighteen, he had preached dozens of times. When he went to college, he at first figured he’d be a country preacher who’d write the occasional book. He wasn’t wholly wrong, but God had additional plans for him.

            He married young. He and his wife had two beautiful children—Angela and Jonathan. His intellectual proclivities led him to Princeton for his MDiv, to Yale for a Masters in Sacred Theology—then did do some pastoring—and finally to Notre Dame for his doctorate. There he wrote his dissertation on the doctrine of damnation under the tutelage of the legendary Tom Morris. He was a Wesley Fellow and, after Notre Dame, found himself in the bluegrass of Kentucky, soon to become an iconic part of Asbury Seminary. His third year was my first. So I was with him near the start of his career, and I’m with him now near its end all these years later.

            Our relationship has evolved quite a bit. First he was my teacher, then my friend, always a mentor, eventually a co-author, and finally a colleague. His leaving HCU, admittedly, reduced by probably at least half my motivation to remain. He’s retiring; Marybeth and I are planning to move to Missouri for law school. He will be returning to Kentucky, which is fitting, and he’ll live just a few houses down from his son. I think his years in Texas were difficult in several ways. HCU blessed him, and vice versa; but truth be told, he hated being so far from his family, and neither of us is a fan of the frenetic traffic or blazing heat of the place. Returning to Kentucky and living near family again will be good for his soul, and I’m glad for him.

            Having written on hell in his dissertation, he would eventually publish that work with Notre Dame. Later he would write a book on heaven and, after that, purgatory, publishing those books with OUP. That trilogy in eschatology was and remains a significant achievement and major contribution to the discussion, and if that’s all he’d done with publishing in his career, it would have been impressive enough. But he was just getting started. He published a book of his poems (he’s an award-winning poet); he critiqued Calvinism, compatibilism, and Roman Catholicism; he co-edited a major collection of essays inspired by Alvin Plantinga’s reflections on natural theology; he single-handedly edited the mammoth Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. Very early, while still in graduate school, he wrote The Problem with Pluralism, an adroit analysis about the United Methodist church and its efforts to forge its theological identity, the denomination in which he had been ordained. He co-edited a major work on C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, and more besides.

            When I was his student, I had to write a paper on the Euthyphro Dilemma, which, unbeknownst to me at the time, put me on a forty-year trajectory. After I got my doctorate, I knew that he was the guy I wanted help from to turn it into a book, which initiated a remarkable decades-long ongoing conversation. Our writing collaboration eventually resulted in no less than six books. The first was Good God. Thanks to Jerry, we procured a contract with Oxford University Press. I remember when I was still in Lynchburg, VA and got the e-mail on my phone from OUP with the good news. I parked, wept, and called Jerry. A moment I’ll never forget. (Another enduring memory was our getting root beers at the Eagle & Child at Oxford as we did last-minute preparation for a paper we were co-delivering there—my first ever professional presentation.) Later came God and Cosmos; The Moral Argument; The Good, the Right, and the Real, the cover proofs of which we approved just this morning. It was neat to wrap up the tetralogy here in person before his retirement. With Jeremy Neill, we also co-edited Venus and Virtue; and with Gary Habermas, we co-edited (three editions of) C. S. Lewis as Philosopher. Bar none and by far, my collaboration with Jerry has been the most important professional collaboration of mine to date, and it’s been a source of great satisfaction and personal fulfillment. I’m always so greatly pleased to see my name associated with his.

            Just recently, Jerry and I visited Galveston to celebrate his seventieth birthday. Having watched him grow up (in that picture album), having seen him operate with seemingly unbridled energy as a young man in his prime, having marveled to see how he could hold a crowd in the palm of his hand, having seen him engage in a lifetime of faithful service and tremendous productivity, having seen him wield a considerable influence on a generation of pastors and theologians and philosophers, I listened in rapt attention as he waxed eloquent about the passage of time, the brevity of life, how quickly it all goes, what it was all about. We called our mutual friend Robert Gagnon while we were at Fisherman’s Wharf—for the last several years Rob would always be with us for these annual birthday jaunts to Galveston—and afterwards we drove over to the Gulf (that Jerry and I might be inclined to call by different names). We parked there and watched the waves come in, and reflected, retrospected, and reminisced some more. When I mentioned that it might be our last trip to Galveston, he resisted the idea; his penchant for nostalgia was definitely rearing its head, a trait I know Jonathan inherited.

            Soon our paths, having crossed in significant ways in this world, will diverge, but just for a season. God has more to do with Jerry in this world. I look forward to seeing what Jerry’s new adventures in retirement will be. A force of nature, he’s altogether too ebullient and buoyant a spirit not to do more great things, including, no doubt, building precious memories with his grandchildren.

            I couldn’t have possibly known that July of 1989 how significant a divine appointment awaited me. And I was just one of thousands into whose life Jerry poured his inimitable and irrepressible energy. His retirement is worth marking, eminently so. Let all the host of heaven say, “Here lived a great Christian philosopher who did his job well.” Well done, my friend. I love you, mon frere; God speed. And thank you.

[1] When I shared this piece with the Gagnon ahead of time, he couldn’t resist the urge to chime in. With his characteristic erudition and garrulousness, here’s a portion of what he wrote:

“Admittedly,” your mention of our Friday night get-togethers had some serious omissions. There is no mention, for example, of how I was forced to endure Dumb and Dumber and Kill Bill, and various other films that seriously strained my cinematic sensibilities. Nor is there any mention of how Jerry would repeatedly commit verbal violence upon me, egged on by your provocations, typically introduced by “If I hear what you are saying, Jerry, and I think I do....” Our good-natured banter was first-rate, and the laughter mixed in with thoughtful exchange and mutual love, now forming part of what Lincoln in his First Inaugural called “the mystic chords of memory,” will be a point of gratitude in our hearts before God, indelibly imprinted, as we go forth from our collective Houston experience.