Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet,
Studying Hume for exam.
Said she, 'I can't see, if ideas are me,
Just exactly where all of me am.'

On a well-known thinker of the past with whom Stu strongly disagrees:

"I pray to God before my classes that if I speak what is untrue, my students would not remember it, and if what I say it is true, that they would never forget it . . . . If _______ had prayed that prayer, he would have died in utter obscurity."


Stu signals a didactic event of great import:

"I'm gonna' lay this stuff on you like one great big metaphysical egg!"


On how he keeps his edge:

"I showed up for the weekly advisee group meeting, and no one else showed up--so I just stayed in my office and contemplated truth for an hour."


Stu primes us for a student gathering at his home:

". . . and we'll have Sara Lee sweets for those of you who want to provoke an early death."


On when to call:

"I don't want to talk to anyone before 9:00 AM except God, my wife, and my dog."


On classroom etiquette at Trinity Seminary:

"You can drink whatever you want in this class--just as long as it conforms to the most rigorous demands of the evangelical subculture."


On imputed competence:

"If I gave you more grace on your paper than you deserved, I congratulate you on being the object of such a marvelous and magnanimous inadvertance."


The standard opener:

"Welcome to another jolly session of this class."


Stu's promise of quality:

"I'm not trying to fool you . . . . All I'm giving you is TRUTH!"


Quoting Francis Thompson (The Hound of Heaven) to alert students to the fact that a lot needed to be crammed into the day's lecture:

"We must move with 'deliberate speed' and 'majestic instancy.'"


Stu invokes Nietzsche to keep his kids in line:

"All things in order, moving according to reason."


On solipsism:

"I'm the only pebble on the beach, and there is no beach."


On identity during a conference at Wheaton:

"I have a terrible identity crisis. I was born with a twin and after a while, one of us died--and I still can't figure out whether it was the other guy or me."


On the joy of teaching:

"That's one of my favorite raves."


On what philosophers think about in church:

"If all the people who sleep in church were laid end-to-end, they'd be a lot more comfortable."


On the cost of being a full-time 13th century Catholic philosopher:

"Both Bonaventure and Aquinas were celibates and had plenty of time for philosophising--that is until they died premature deaths."


On focus:

"I try to think about 'The Absolute' when I have to clean up after the dog."


On the theology of John Calvin:

"Augustine was the fountainhead into which Calvin plugged his intellectual umbilical chord."


He loves me, he loves me not...:

"I'm a whiskey Calvinist--of the five points, I can only swallow one fifth."


After confronting a student with a mind boggling epistemological question:

"People often get flabbergasted when they are asked a tough question--it's kind of fun to see that."


More on the student body:

"Many students can't understand definitions, so they memorize them instead."


On academic exhibitionism:

"I've asked you, in this test, to expose your metaphysical undergarments."


On Anaxagoras:

"He is one of my friends, so I give him the benefit of the doubt...to my enemies I give nothing."


To a student on whom Stu was calling in class:

"I'm sorry I don't remember your name--you must be aware, of course, that you don't have to remember mine."


After receiving a complex answer to a complex question:

Dr. Hackett: "Do you have another question?"
Student: "Well, I don't know. It took me quite a while to think of this one--maybe tomorrow."


In response to a request for a "quick and simple" answer to what was really a very complex question:

"If you're interested in a stupid answer, I can give you one instantly without any reflection at all."


On student dissent:

"I've had some brilliant students who believed my head was full of rocks--or some other analagous material. In fact, some even suggested what that material might be in a more determinate manner."


More on dissent:

"I don't mind your arguing with me--the only thing I don't like is being ignored."


On the rewards of study:

"Study and reflect on this stuff until you are catapulted into transcendental intellectual ecstacy."


In reference to a letter he and several other Trinity professors had received from an individual claiming to be the incarnation of the angel Michael, in which "Michael" challenged the faculty to either help him dispense the prophetic content of his "visions" or publicly face him in debate:

"If I thought I was Gabriel I might consider debating Michael."


On aging:

"Outwardly I display incredible calm, if not docility. The passing of the years has dulled my exuberance and my posture."

"I'm keyed up, but I'm layed back..."

"I want to go to heaven, but it's the last place I want to go."

"I heard that one back when the dead sea was still sick."

"I could be dead in another eight years--it's just a passing comment."

"She turned all colors of whatever rainbow was left in her cheeks."

"I'm tottering on the brink of eternity, as you all know..."

"I've always been neurotic, but, at my age, I don't even try to fight it any more."


...and speaking of which:

"I have to take a second to adjust the table a quarter of an inch or so--I can't live without perfect symmetry."


On titles:

"Don't call me Mr. Hackett--it would be better to call me 'Big Stu.'"


On eschatology:

"Ultimately I'm a 'pro-millennialist'--whatever the millennium is, I'm for it."


After intimating that he never learned to play cards because his parents frowned on the activity:

"Of course, it may also be the case that I don't play cards because I could never learn how to shuffle."


Acknowledging the fact that not everyone finds him and his eccentricities lovable:

"I know I rub a lot of people the wrong way--but the feeling is mutual."


In reference to a long-time friend of his:

"I don't want to call her an 'old maid.' I'll just say an unclaimed blessing."


In reference to his feeling that he is never in the right place at the right time, he once told us of a conversation he had with a church brother in rural New York:

"We were talking about this one farmer in the church who just had a knack of turning whatever he touched into money. This guy said to me that old so and so could fall into a load of manure and come up with a handfull of hundred dollar bills. I told him that I was the kind of guy who would fall into a load of hundred dollar bills and come up with a handfull of manure."


In reference to a couple characters from his past that he was using in an illustration:

"They were so crooked they couldn't stretch out at night."


In the middle of one of his Friday afternoon, just for fun anecdotes:

"Some of you are thinking right now that you're wasting your tuition money, and you're right."


On his legendary wardrobe:

"My wife wanted me to be sure to tell you that she does not approve of what I'm wearing today."

"Everyone knew what color pants Hackett was wearing today because they were absurd to begin with."

"I usually don't even notice the clothes other people wear, and certainly not my own, because if I did I would be unable to wear them."

"I only wear neckties when, one: I go to weddings, two: I go to funerals, three: I'm behind the pulpit preaching...also whenever my wife orders me to."

"I don't mind your gawking at me--you're paying for it--but they're not, so shut the door."


Gazing down upon one of his more profoundly mismatched outfits:

"You know, you just don't do this."


On persuasion:

"...of course he [an epistemic oponent] didn't understand me--to understand me is to agree with me."


On classroom etiquette:

"If I ever come to see you speak--which is conceivable under certain bizarre circumstances--I won't be reading a magazine."

"It's even okay if they [class visitors] do interrupt and cause trouble--as long as it's interesting."


Preparing to take questions from a very confused looking group of students:

"I don't know which of these hands was first--there's a whole vegetable garden of them."


In reference to the fact that he will give his class a take-home midterm:

"If you cheat, you will only contribute to the deterioration of your character which is already rotting in moral turpitude."


In reference to his book, The Reconstruction of the Christian Revelation Claim:

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink--particularly if the horse perceives the water to be muddy."

"It [the book] is initially unintelligible, but will subsequently bring great floods of illumination."


After elaborating on an esoteric aspect of epistemology:

"I gather from your laughter that you feel as though I've just run you over with an unabridged dictionary."


On one of his more biting asides:

"I'm not trying to be sarcastic--I'm just trying to give myself a moment of comic relief."


On his plastic cup full of water from which he routinely sips during class:

"I drink this water for a reason--if I didn't, I'd be as dry as this lecture I'm giving you."


On dreaming the impossible dream, fighting the unbeatable foe:

"If you can't make a quantitative impression on infinity, why even try?"


Advice for the pilgrim in progress:

"Fine, go out and look for God--but take a lunch."


In reference to the way Jonathan Edwards argues an issue in the book Freedom of the Will:

"He wants to baptize his point into a doctrine."


In reference to a photograph of he and his wife on their honeymoon, sitting in rowboat:

"You can't really see the boat--all you can see is the two of us going at it with great exuberance--but never mind that."


Stu defines his terms:

"...and by 'universe' I mean 'the works.'"


In reference to his making his own appointments without a secretary:

"I am often described as a weird person...I don't know that I'm weird in an absolute sense--I mean I'm not a werewolf or a vampire or anything like that. I'm just highly individualistic."