Chapter 2.9

A Critique of Rationalism

The Potential Abuse of Reason Does Not Diminish its Value or Authority

Overall Objective

To defend the importance of reason against common philosophical and practical attacks.

Table of Topics

A) Rationalism vs. Rationality

B) Objective vs. Subjective Authority

C) Rationalism & Understanding

Publications & Particulars

Primary Points

• The rationalist creed contains three major beliefs: 1) Nothing supernatural or miraculous can possibly be real, 2) Only what can be understood by human reason can be real, and 3) Our only source of data is human research, there is no divine revelation.
• Unregenerated Enlightenment rationalism promoted human reason without divine revelation, regenerated Christian rationalism insists on reasoning with & from divine revelation.
• Unregenerated rationalism claims that our God-given faculty for processing truth (i.e. reason), is also our ultimate source of truth. The rationalist who relies only on reason and ignores the divine revelation in Scripture is a fool.
• If our minds are not yielded to God’s purposes, then all the right reasoning in the world will be vain. Contrary then to rationalists, logic is not the greatest of virtues, but love is.
• Unfortunately, many Christian theologians today do not distinguish between the value and use of regenerated Christian reason and unregenerated pagan rationalism. As a result, they use the Enlightenment as a cuss word to disparage what they perceive as an illegitimate use of reason in Christianity today.
• Subjective authority is what we accept as our authority and which practically controls our life. Objective authority is what in reality has authority over us and will rightfully judge our life.
• Keeping the distinction between objective and subjective authority in mind can help us correct what would be many misleading discussions regarding the issue of authority in the Christian life.
• We need not understand everything about something in order to believe it.
• The Triune God is a complex Being but not a contradiction!

A) Rationalism vs. Rationality

One of the major misconceptions regarding the use of reason in the Christian life is confusing it with rationalism. ^[1] Contrary to those who are guided by Spirit-liberated reason, the rationalist creed contains three major beliefs: 1) Nothing supernatural or miraculous can possibly be real, 2) Only what can be understood by human reason can be real, and 3) Our only source of data is human research, there is no divine revelation. ^[2]

Right away then, we are alerted to the fact that rationalism reflects devil-darkened reason, not the Spirit-liberated kind, ^[3] a point that is too often missed in modern discussions on the topic. ^[4] For example, Douglas Groothuis writes: “The greatest problem with human reasoning occurs when it vainly attempts to become autonomous of God and divine revelation.” ^[5] This is true of unregenerated rationalism, but not Spirit-liberated reason. In essence, rationalism is like sex outside of marriage: using something God meant to be a blessing (i. e. reason) in a wrong and harmful way.

The genesis for rationalism is normally described as the Enlightenment period which generally covered the eighteenth century. It was led by the European philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), of whom NT scholar Colin Brown says: “No other thinker has so profoundly influenced the course of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy and theology.” ^[6] Kant wrote an article in 1784 to answer the question “What is enlightenment?” He replied that:

Enlightenment was man’s coming of age. It was man’s emergence from the immaturity which caused him to rely on such external authorities as the Bible, the church, and the state to tell him what to think and do. No generation should be bound by the creeds and customs of bygone ages. To be so bound is an offense against human nature, whose destiny lies in progress . . . The motto of the enlightenment was Sapere aude– “Have courage to use your own understanding.” ^[7]

Likewise, William Baird gives the following description of Enlightenment beliefs:

The human mind, in this view, could comprehend and explain everything. Given time and industry, all the problems of the world could be solved, all mysteries mastered. Humanity had progressed out of darkness and into a new light, and the glories of the future knew no limits. . . . Opposition to authority, especially ecclesiastical, was widespread. . . . Old orthodoxies concerning the inspiration of Scripture and the reliability of tradition came into question, and radical views, once held heretical, were tolerated in the theological discussion. ^[8]

Norm Geisler explains that on the American scene during the Enlightenment period:

Thomas Paine [1737-1809], in his famous book The Age of Reason leveled a bitter attack on the numerous passages of Scripture that seemed to him to contradict human reason. And Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826] literally cut the miracles from the four Gospels and pasted the desupernaturalized remains in a scrap book. It was later published as The Jefferson Bible. It ends thus: “There laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.” The rest of the story–the resurrection of Christ–is a miracle that cannot, thought Jefferson, be accepted by good reason. ^[9]

Accordingly, in our opinion, many of the teachings coming from this movement earn it the label of the “Unenlightened Enlightenment” because it was led by those with devil-darkened reason. Accordingly, NT scholar N. T. Wright comments, “The Enlightenment (whose leading thinkers include Hume, Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson and Kant) was, in fact, for the most part an explicitly anti-Christian movement.” ^[10]

While unregenerated Enlightenment rationalism promoted human reason without divine revelation, regenerated Christian rationalism insists on reasoning with and from divine revelation. Unregenerated rationalism claims that our God-given faculty for processing truth (i.e. reason), is also our ultimate source of truth. To the contrary, the Christian with Spirit-liberated reason understands that divine revelation is an essential source of data that needs to be worshipfully, diligently, and accurately recognized, interpreted and applied by reason.

The rationalist who relies only on reason and ignores the divine revelation in Scripture is a fool. Accordingly, we read in Proverbs: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Prov 3:5-6). This is not a warning against using reason, but rather a warning against reasoning merely from our own whimsical thoughts without the revelation that God provides. Our “own understanding” apart from God’s revelation is inadequate, but acknowledging, using, and applying such revelation is crucial to good reasoning, and a will yielded to God will do so.

Along these lines, Dr. Wright comments concerning the sixteenth century Anglican theologian and reformer Richard Hooker (1554–1600), that because of the rise of rationalism:

[T]he word “reason,” which for Hooker and his contemporaries meant primarily thinking clearly and logically, has gained a capital R and an independent, autonomous identity, and is now often appealed to both as a separate source and as referring to the supposed results of modern science. . . .

Hooker would have been horrified. For him, “reason” was part of a total natural order which led the mind up to the one true God, who had been fully and finally revealed in Jesus Christ. The thought of “reason” as an entirely separate source of information, which could then be played off against scripture and/or tradition, flies in the face of his whole way of thinking. ^[11]

First, by recognizing the God-given place of human reason we are not advocating such idolatry. Rather, we insist that when human reason is regenerated and used rightly it will recognize the real God as the ultimate objective authority in a person’s life. Reason is not God Himself, but a creation and gift of God enabling us to have a relationship with Him. ^[12] Secondly, the desire of the unregenerated rationalist for self-sufficient independence is impossible because no human being is truly autonomous. All of us have received the ideas that guide us from someone or something else, whether it be parents, teachers, books, or nature, and these exercise objective authority even over the rationalist.

Here, we will note how a neglect of understanding the affects of the devil-darkened reason of the unregenerate can result in rationalism, which is a corruption of our logical reasoning and simply assumes that proper reasoning is a matter of good logic, not recognizing that only a heart yielded to the Creator will consistently reason rightly. It was to rationalists that the Apostle warned that mere, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1). An intellect not controlled by love will result in empty and blinding pride, thwarting the purpose of our God-given reason. Accordingly, the Apostle wrote as well, “If I . . . can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge [with my reason] . . . but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor 13:2). If our minds are not yielded to God’s purposes, then all the right reasoning in the world will be vain. Contrary then to rationalists, logic is not the greatest of virtues, but love is.

Neither do postmodern philosophers distinguish between unregenerated devil-darkened reason and regenerated Spirit-liberated reason. As a consequence they erroneously disparage the latter. Accordingly, John MacArthur writes:

As we are seeing, postmodernism is largely a reaction against the unbridled rationalism of modernity. But many postmodernists’ response to rationalism is a serious overreaction. Lots of postmodernists seem to entertain the notion that irrationality is superior to rationalism. Actually, both ways of thinking are dead wrong and equally hostile to authentic truth and biblical Christianity. One extreme is as deadly as the other. Rationalism needs to be rejected without abandoning rationality. Rationality (the right use of sanctified reason through sound logic) is never condemned in Scripture. Faith is not irrational. Authentic biblical truth demands that we employ logic and clear, sensible thinking. ^[13]

Norm Geisler explained the difference between reason and rationalism when he wrote:

Others protest that making truths about God subject to human reason is a form of rationalism. However, this objection overlooks several important things. First, God is not being subjected to our reason. God is the author of reason, and he created us to be like himself. So the basic principles of reason are not arbitrarily imposed on God; rather, they come from God.

Second, the basic laws of reason are not opposed to God’s revelation; they are an essential part of God’s general revelation. Human rationality, with its basic laws, is a manifestation of God’s rationality. God is rational, and humans are made in his image. So using logic is not opposed to revelation; it is part of it.

Third, even special revelation [like Scripture] cannot be known or communicated apart from logic. We would not even be able to distinguish the revelation from God from that of the Devil unless the law of noncontradiction is valid. Furthermore, when the Bible reveals that “God so loved the world,” we could not know that love is not hate unless the law of noncontradiction is valid. So logic is essential to special revelation as well as to general revelation.

Finally, there is a difference between using reason and being a rationalist. A rationalist tries to determine all truth by human reason. A reasonable Christian merely uses reason to discover truth that God has revealed, either by general revelation or by special revelation in the Bible. ^[14]

Likewise, John Henry Newman very well described the difference between the Spirit-librated reason of the Christian and the devil-darkened reason of the rationalist regarding divine revelation when he wrote over a hundred years ago:

As regards Revealed Truth, it is not Rationalism to set about to ascertain, by the use of reason, what things are ascertainable by reason, and what are not; nor, in the absence of an express Revelation, to inquire into the truths of Religion, as they come to us by nature, nor to determine what proofs are necessary for the acceptance of a Revelation, if it be given, nor to reject a Revelation on the plea of insufficient proof, nor, after recognizing it as divine, to investigate the meaning of its declarations, and to interpret its language . . . This is not Rationalism . . .

But it is Rationalism to accept the Revelation, and then to explain it away, to speak of it as the Word of God, and to treat it as the word of man; to refuse to let it speak for itself; to claim to be told the why and the how of God’s dealings with us . . . and to assign to Him a motive and a scope of our own; to stumble at the partial knowledge of what he may give us of them; to put aside what is obscure, as if it had not been said at all; to accept one half of what has been told us, and not the other half; to assume that the contents of Revelation are also its proof; to frame some gratuitous hypothesis about them, and then to garble, gloss, and colour them, to trim, to clip, pare away, and twist them in order to bring them into conformity with the idea to which we have subjected them. ^[15]

Unfortunately, many Christian theologians today do not distinguish between the value and use of regenerated Christian reason and unregenerated pagan reason. As a result, they use the Enlightenment as a cuss word to disparage what they perceive as an illegitimate use of reason in Christianity today. Accordingly, R. C. Sproul writes:

Since rationalism in its various forms has been a traditional foe of biblical Christianity, some Christian scholars look askance at using principles of logic as tools for biblical interpretation. In this they often are confusing rationalism (which is an ism) with rationality, which only implies “being reasonable.” Logic is seen as the invention of Aristotle and its use an unhealthy intrusion of pagan thought forms into the purity of faith. ^[16]

Several respected Christian teachers have seemed to fail to consistently and clearly distinguish between reason and rationalism. For example, Presbyterian theologian Donald Bloesch at times seems to fall into the fallacy of equating unregenerated rationalism with Spirit-liberated reason. He disparagingly labels Charles Hodge (1797–1878) as a “Christian rationalists” ^[17] and implies that Hodge had no place for faith in contrast to St. Augustine (354–430). What Dr. Bloesch seems to ignore is the fact that Hodge is speaking of the Christian’s Spirit-liberated reason throughout his discussion of the topic in the magnificent introduction to his Systematic Theology. In addition, Dr. Bloesch’s dependence on fideistic neo-orthodoxy ^[18] becomes evident in his criticisms of Hodge as well.

Unfortunately, Dr. Bloesch is not the only contemporary theologian to falsely accuse the “Old Princeton” scholars such as Hodge and B. B. Warfield (1851–1921) as rationalist. Alister McGrath of Regent College, and Mark Noll, Professor of Church History at Wheaton, both criticize Christians for wanting to hold on to the idea that a revelation from God would be inerrant and they label such a view as rationalism. ^[19]

The Church historian Ian Murray rightly responds that such a view, “depends on giving a new twist to that word [rationalism]”:

In the McGrath and Noll connotation (and they are preceded by other authors) confidence that the human mind is able to relate words to realities, and consequently to hold that the Bible gives us truth in propositional form, is rationalism. . . .

This thesis rests on a fallacious definition. The use of the mind is not ‘rationalism’; it all depends on whether that use is right or wrong. Rationalism is a use of the mind which trusts in its own ability to arrive at truth about God without his aid and apart from revelation; it treats the mind as a source of knowledge rather than as a channel.

The Enlightenment was a classic demonstration of innate human pride in the exaltation of the human intellect. To equate that spirit with the teaching of [those who insist that a revelation from God must be inerrant] is to stand truth on its head. ^[20]

While many Christians disparage reason in general, theologian Thomas Oden remarks:

The struggle of Christian teaching against various exaggerated rationalisms is not a struggle against reason but against the misapplication of reason-such as when reason . . . completely refuses to credit true revelation. There can also be an overdependence upon speculative reasoning, or a distorted technical reason that functions without moral constraints. Hence excessive rationalisms pervert the function of reason and thereby undermine the appropriate service of reason to the study of God. Rationalism can turn into a tight and uncritical dogmatism just as religion can. ^[21]

Likewise, although he reflects the “faculty psychology” we have rejected, ^[22] R. C. Sproul explains the importance of reason when he writes:

To suggest the primacy of the mind is outrageous to some, particularly to those who equate rationality with rationalism . . . The mind has a primacy of order, while the heart has a primacy of importance. By this we mean that one can have no meaningful love or passion for that which is utterly unintelligible to the mind. Man is so constituted that his heart is to follow his head, just as love blossoms in the fertile ground of understanding. Though the mind is first in temporal and logical order, it does not settle our standing before God. . . .

To be flowing with love toward Him, even when confused or less than precise about doctrine, is to be numbered among His children. Were we to be forced to choose between mind and heart, between reason and faith we would say, “to the gallows with reason,” that we not miss the kingdom. But such would be a false dilemma, an illegitimate rupture of that which God has joined together, each enjoying its particular kind of primacy.

We affirm reason without rationalism, personal love without personalism, faith without fideism. It is because we believe that the capacity of the heart to increase its passion for God is inseparably bound up with the increase of the understanding of the character of God that we care so much for the intellectual dimension of faith. The more we know of God the greater is our capacity to love Him. ^[23]

We see then the importance of distinguishing between Spirit-liberated reason and unregenerated rationalism. Rationalism is proud and idolatrous, boasting like Celsus (c. 170), the second century critic of Christianity who said, “I know everything.” Spirit-liberated reason, on the other hand, is humble and worshipful toward the One Who gave it new life. Contemporary theologians Bruce Demarest and Gordon Lewis aptly summarize our point when they write:

Like any other instrument, logical reasoning can be used either for the ultimate glory of God or for the glorification of created beings. The misuse of reason by people who made logic or something in creation their God need not keep others from responsible use of the tool in support of God’s revealed purposes in the church and throughout the world.

Logic is not an invention of unbelieving philosophers, but a reflection of God’s mind in minds made in his image. Our ability to reason, like every other capacity, has been affected by our fallen sensuality and pride, but it has not been destroyed. The Holy Spirit renews the minds of believers so that they grow not only in grace, but also in knowledge (Col. 3:10). ^[24]

B) Objective vs. Subjective Authority

In Christianity’s efforts to defend itself against the pagan extremes of rationalism and postmodernism, it has not always been honest about the great amount of personal authority God has granted human reason. While many fail to distinguish between Spirit-liberated reason and unregenerated rationalism, others fail to maintain the equally important distinction between subjective and objective authority which we discuss thoroughly in Book 3, Biblical Authority. There we have written:

[W]e must recognize in such a discussion that there is a difference between objective authority and subjective authority. Traffic laws, for example, possess objective authority in that they have the right to exercise control over how we drive. However, such laws, or any authority for that matter, do not practically or subjectively exercise any authority in our lives until we choose to recognize their authority. All beliefs, whether in certain authorities, or otherwise, are subject to the acceptance of our God-given faculties of conscience and reasoning.

No real belief or authority can bypass our moral or logical reasoning, not even our belief in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. No human will believe something that their reason concludes is impossible, ^[25] nor will we willingly or sincerely succumb to authority that our reason deems illegitimate. ^[26] This is not to say that there are not obvious consequences to ignoring a legitimate objective authority, as God Himself is certainly such an authority, and those who refuse to recognize it will surely suffer the consequences.

If someone asks which aspect of authority is more important, we would answer both are important. While it is our subjective authority that we live by (i.e. private judgment), it will be our objective authority that we will be judged by (i.e. God). Subjective authority is what we accept as our authority and which practically controls our life. Objective authority is what in reality has authority over us and will rightfully judge our life.

For example, we would suggest that Scripture is an objective authority instituted by God, but that it is really our personal acceptance and interpretation of it that operates as our subjective authority. In a sense then, we would suggest that God can be said to be our ultimate objective authority, private judgment our final subjective authority, and Scripture our direct objective authority.

Accordingly, when the choice is ours, each person decides for themselves what objective authorities will become their subjective authorities. . . and they had better choose correctly. ^[27]

Keeping the distinction between objective and subjective authority in mind can help us correct what would be many misleading discussions regarding the issue of authority in the Christian life. For example, the rightly respected Protestant theologian Bernard Ramm (1916-1992) in his book, The Pattern of Authority, does not seem to clearly distinguish between subjective and objective authority when he writes:

In Christianity the authority-principle is the Triune God in self-revelation. This is the central piece of the mosaic of authority, and the first and most impressive link in the chain of authority . . . [but not our final subjective authority]. Such a principle is free from subjectivism. This principle of authority finds its locus outside the individual [and is therefore epistemically useless]. It is a frank recognition that the final authority in religion is God Himself. There are not as many authorities as there are individuals, and there are not as many religious truths as there are religious thinkers. There is only one [objective] authority – God; and only one truth – divine revelation. ^[28]

However, after Dr. Ramm apparently ignores the presence of any subjective authority in our lives, he concedes the following, and finally makes some sense:

Proper [objective] authority exists independently of personal recognition, but proper authority becomes [subjectively] authoritative to a given person only as that person recognizes the [objective] authority as such . . . Denial of proper [objective] authority does not dissolve the [objective] authority, but it does render it inoperative in the consciousness of the denier unless force brings him to terms. ^[29]

Wayne Grudem, former Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity would also seem to be imprecise in distinguishing between subjective and objective authority when he writes in his popular Systematic Theology:

The deductions [interpretations] we draw from the statements of Scripture are not equal to the statements of Scripture themselves in certainty or authority, for our ability to reason and draw conclusions is not the ultimate standard of truth-only Scripture is. ^[30]

Dr. Grudem seems to ignore the fact that the “authority” of Scripture depends on our reason accepting it, and that Scripture will have no more authority for us other than from those “deductions” and “conclusions” which our reason makes.

For example, we take the liberty of making some insertions in an otherwise excellent discussion of the authority of Scripture by J. I. Packer in Honoring the Word of God:

The evangelical Christian asserts that all [objective] authority belongs to God the Creator, and not, therefore, to human reason; for human reason is not God. The seat of [objective] authority is not in the minds of men [although the seat of our subjective authority is], but [the seat of objective authority is] in the Word of God before which [Spirit-liberated] human reason must [and will] bow. ^[31]

Again, not distinguishing between what is our final subjective authority and our ultimate objective authority will unnecessarily and inaccurately result in a disparagement of the God-given purpose, importance, and authority of Spirit-liberated reason in the Christian life. With both of these distinctions in mind (i.e. Spirit-liberated/devil-darkened reason and final subjective/ultimate objective authority) we can wholeheartedly agree with J. I. Packer’s indictment of unregenerated rationalism when he writes:

The appeal to the [objective] authority of [devil-darkened] reason is, of course, the root-principle of secularism. Hence our present subject has a direct relevance to the troubles of our times. For of this we may be sure: that the apostasy of the Western world will not be brought to an end till the [objective] authority of [devil-darkened] reason is rejected, and the [objective] authority of God in Holy Scripture is acknowledged [by our subjective authority- reason] once more.

What will break men of the habit of looking to the [objective] authority of [devil-darkened] reason in religion? Answer: Only regeneration will break it in the natural man, and only revival will break it in a regenerate church. . . . Only the man who is born again of the Spirit of God will repent of the sin of intellectual self-sufficiency, and consent [with their Spirit-liberated reason and final subjective authority] to be taught of God [ultimate objective authority] through his written Word [our direct objective authority]. ^[32]

C) Rationalism & Understanding

It was noted above that a major tenet of unregenerated rationalism is that we cannot believe something which we cannot understand. This is why, for example, that such miracles as the Incarnation are rejected outright, simply because they cannot be fully explained by the human mind. The very influential twentieth century “Christian” theologian Rudolph Bultmann (1884–1976), for example, wrote:

It is impossible to use the electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles. We may think we can manage it in our own lives, but to expect others to do so is to make the Christian faith unintelligible and unacceptable to the modern world. ^[33]

Likewise, describing the philosophy of the popular author of theology, John Hick, one author states:

The [heretical] revisions of incarnational theology in the direction which has been indicated are urged upon us, according to Hick and his co-authors, by the peculiar situation of the late twentieth century. The modern mind, it is argued, no longer operates with the naive view of the world in which a literal incarnation of God was thought possible. ^[34]

Unregenerated rationalists such as Bultmann, Hick, and a huge host of others have ignored St. Augustine’s dictum: “That which you understand is not God.” ^[35] Indeed to Spirit-liberated reason it is obvious that we need not understand everything about something in order to believe it. Some generations ago, Charles Hodge explained:

The fundamental principle of . . . rationalists is that nothing can be rationally believed which is not understood . . . This form of rationalism is founded upon a false principle. It is not necessary to the rational exercise of faith that we should [fully] understand the truth believed. The unknown and the impossible cannot be believed, but every man does and must believe the incomprehensible. Now we of course admit that mysteries, or truths which we are unable to comprehend, may be and are proper objects of faith. We repudiate the rationalistic doctrine that we can believe only what we understand. ^[36]

More recently the Oxford theologian Alister McGrath has written concerning the Christian concept of “mystery”:

[T]he concept allows us to argue that a failure to grasp fully the rationality of a complex reality does not oblige us to draw the conclusion that it is incoherent. . . . [T]here are limits to our understanding and capacity to represent the divine fixed both by our limitations as fallen, finite human beings and by the nature and extent of divine self-revelation. It has long been recognized that systematic theology encounters serious difficulties of language and imagery in attempting to convey even a hint of the wonder of the vision of God.

When Augustine wrote his famous words ‘if you can grasp it, it is not God’ he was making the fundamental point that the coherence of divine reality cannot be adequately grasped by human reason, or represented by human language. To affirm that this reality may, in some sense of the word, be explained is not to suggest that it may be reduced to the level of our comprehension. Rather, it means that we are enabled to catch such a glimpse of its structures as sufficient to allow us to grasp its fundamental characteristics.

To affirm that it may be represented is not to suggest that it may be fully and exhaustively disclosed in human words and images, but rather that such words and images are pointers to a greater whole which simply cannot be conveyed in all its totality. The essence of a mystery is the fact that it simply cannot be reduced to something smaller, or even to its individual parts – and part of our task as theologians is to acknowledge the reality of this situation, and respond and work within the limits it imposes upon us. ^[37]

The claim of unregenerated rationalists is that such doctrines as the Incarnation and Trinity are contradictory and therefore impossible. If they are indeed contradictory, then we would agree that they are impossible. As we have discussed elsewhere, God is not asking anyone to believe something that defies the laws of logic or is unreasonable. ^[38] Amazing and mysterious of course, but not unreasonable. Accordingly, in spite of such doctrines as the Trinity and Incarnation, the Evangelical philosopher/theologian and former President of Wheaton, J. Oliver Buswell (1895-1977) wrote:

I believe that all that is contained in the Christian revelation is reasonable. Nothing violates the principles of logic. We do not believe contradictory propositions. ^[39]

For the regenerated Christian, such doctrines are perfectly reasonable because we have experienced our own “incarnation,” having God live in us (cf. John 14:17, 20; Gal 2:20). Also, our Spirit-liberated reason is tuned to accept the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity because the deity of Jesus Christ, and our salvation, depends on believing them (cf. Rom 10:9). ^[40] Finally, the Incarnation, for example, is simply another miracle of God, and that is the real problem that unregenerated rationalists have with it. Because Spirit-liberated reason has no problem with a miracle-working God, it has no problem with the Incarnation. Anyone who can accept the virgin birth of Christ (cf. Matt 1:18, 20), can accept the Incarnation.

Contrary to rationalists, such doctrines are mysterious, but not unreasonable, and acceptable to Spirit-liberated reason. Accordingly, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), one of the most intelligent Christians who ever lived, believed that while the Incarnation could not have been discovered by human reason, it was not contrary to it. ^[41] John Locke (1632–1704) and Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), two of the most logical theologians in history, and foremost promoters of the place of reason in the Christian life, did not deny the doctrine of the Trinity or Incarnation, but rather, wished to point out that the Scriptures do not specifically describe how these can be. Edwards, for example, wrote:

It is not necessary that persons should have clear ideas of the things that are the subject of a proposition in order to their being rationally convinced of the truth of the proposition. ^[42]

Concerning specifically the Trinity, John Gerstner relates that in a particular writing:

Edwards begins in a polemic tone, observing that “there has been much cry of late against saying one word particularly about the Trinity [except] what the Scripture has said, [because] we should err in a question so much above us.” Edwards disagrees vigorously, believing that it is within the “reach of naked reason to perceive certainly that there are three distinct persons in God, the nature of which is one. ^[43]

Likewise, Christian philosopher Gordon Clark (1902-1985) said that the often supposed contradictions of, “the number of angels at the tomb Easter morning and the impossibility that God can be both one substance and three Persons” are the type “which any Christian garage mechanic can handle.” ^[44]

More specifically concerning the Trinity, R. C. Sproul explains:

Some see in [the Trinity] an exercise in irrational mathematics where 1 + 1 + 1 = 1. Again, the formula-one in essence, three in person-is not contradictory. It can be broken down to read one in A, three in B. If we said the Trinity is one in essence and three in essence at the same time and in the same relationship, we would violate the canons of logic.

What the incarnation and the Trinity manifest are examples of profound mystery. A mystery is a truth that is beyond the scope and grasp of human reason. There is much about God that our finite minds cannot penetrate. The incomprehensibility of God is a basic article of Christian faith. But again, to labor the point, incomprehensibility is not irrationality. Because all that is irrational is incomprehensible does not mean that all that is incomprehensible is irrational. ^[45]

In fact, the Christian claim that God cannot be fully understood by humans is very logical.

Along the same lines, Robert Reymond, Professor of Theology at Knox, writes:

[D]oes not the classical doctrine of the Trinity present, if not a real contradiction, at least an apparent one? . . . [T]his is not what the church teaches by its doctrine of the Trinity, although this representation is advanced all too often not only by lay people but also by good theologians. For example, rejecting the traditional distinction that God is one in one sense (essence) and three in another sense (persons), [Cornelius] Van Til writes:

It is sometimes asserted that we can prove to men that we are not asserting anything that they ought to consider irrational, inasmuch as we say that God is one in essence and three in person. We therefore claim that we have not asserted unity and trinity of exactly the same thing. Yet this is not the whole truth of the matter. We do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one person . . . within the ontological Trinity we must maintain that God is numerically one. He is one person.

But no orthodox creed has ever so represented the doctrine. . . . The church has never taught that three Gods are one God or that one person is three persons but rather that “in the unity of the Godhead there are three persons” (Westminster Confession of Faith, II/iii), the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that while each is wholly and essentially divine, no one person totally comprehends all that the Godhead is hypostatically. . . . Thus construed, the doctrine of the Trinity does not confront us with even an apparent contradiction, much less a real one. The Triune God is a complex Being but not a contradiction!

Similarly, the Christian church has never creedally declared that Christ is one person and also two persons or one nature and also two natures. Rather, the church has declared that the Lord Jesus Christ, “being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was and continues to be God and man, in two distinct natures and one person forever” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 21). Note again: Christ is one person possessing the full complex of divine attributes and the full complex of human attributes. Christ is complex, surely, but he is not a contradiction! ^[46]

Publications & Particulars

1. For further discussion of rationalism as it is related to pride see section 2.4.A.2. ↑

2. Norm Geisler and Paul Feinberg write concerning the relationship between revelation and reason:

   There is some truth in all of the basic views on reason and revelation:

   (1) “Reason is over revelation” is correct in that reason is epistemologically prior to revelation. The alleged revelation must be tested by reason.

   (2) “Revelation is over reason” is right in the ontological sense. God created reason and it must be His servant, not His master.

   (3) “Revelation only” is correct in the sense that ultimately and ontologically all truth comes from God.

   (4) “Reason only” has some truth, since reason must judge epistemologically whether the alleged revelation is from God.

   (5) “Revelation and reason” is correct because it properly assigns a role to each and shows their interrelationship. One should reason about and for revelation, otherwise he has an unreasonable faith. Likewise, reason has no guide without a revelation and flounders in error. (Introduction to Christian Philosophy [Baker, 1980], 270). ↑

3. The term devil-darkened reason reflects the Apostle’s description of unregenerated humans as “darkened in their understanding” (Eph 4:18) by “the god of this age [who] has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, Who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:4). Christians however have been “made new in the spirit of [our] mind” (Eph 4:20), giving us alone the ability to receive and understand spiritual truth (cf. 1 Cor 2:12-14). For further discussion of the epistemological differences between these human states see chapters 4.12-16. ↑

4. While it is common to use the word rationalism in a negative way, just as we do here, Dr. Geisler makes the point that:

   C. S. Lewis would not blush at the appellation “rationalist.” Repeatedly he exalts human rationality. He writes, “I couldn’t get at the universe unless I could trust my reason. If we couldn’t trust inference we could know nothing but our own existence” (God in the Dock, 277). “The heart never takes the place of the head; but can and should obey it” (The Abolition of Man, 30). (Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, (BECA) [Baker, 1999], 421). ↑

5. Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism (InterVarsity, 2000), 123. ↑

6. Dr. Brown goes on to say of Kant:

   In his thought, the Age of Enlightenment reached its peak. No other thinker has so profoundly influenced the course of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy and theology . . . he undertook an examination of the scope and limitations of the human mind . . . This was the common theme of his three great critiques: Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and Critique of Judgment (1790) . . . He set out his enlightened view of religion in Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793). ( “Kant, Immanuel,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (EDT), Walter Elwell ed., [Baker, 1984], 599).

   Gareth Jones also describes the great influence of Kant:

   It is a truism to state that Kant’s work is central to everything “modern” about modern thought; that his critical philosophy lies at the heart of every modern attempt to think through the character and status of knowledge, and consequently – for theologians faith, too. And yet the claim has substance, because of the abiding strength of Kant’s philosophy, and in particular the clarity of his processes of reasoning. It is in this respect – epistemology as a way of thinking through questions and issues – rather than the provision of a self-sustaining system of thought or belief, that Kant remains the preeminent philosopher of modernity. (“Kant,” in The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology [Blackwell, 2004], 279).

   Not surprisingly, Kant was not a Christian, as he wrote: “It is not essential, and hence not necessary, that every human being know what God does, or has done, for his salvation; but it is essential to know what a human being has to do himself in order to become worthy of this assistance.” (Ibid., 283). ↑

7. Quoted by Colin Brown, “Enlightenment, The,” in EDT, 355. ↑

8. William Baird, History of New Testament Research, 2 Vols., (Fortress, 1992, 2003), I.5. ↑

9. Norm Geisler, Introduction, 262. ↑

10. N. T. Wright, The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture (Harper Collins, 2005), 83. ↑

11. Ibid., 20, 80. ↑

12. Concerning the error of confusing the promotion of Spirit-liberated reason with idolatry, Gordon Clark wrote:

    Systematic theologians are wary of any proposal that would make an abstract principle superior to God. . . . The law of contradiction is not to be taken as an axiom prior to or independent of God. The law is God thinking. (Religion, Reason, and Revelation [Presbyterian & Reformed, 1961], 67)

    Likewise, E. J. Carnell addresses the claim that, “If we rest only in the reasonable, reason replaces God.” Carnell rightly responds, “Not so. Reason is the test for truth. It detects truth; it does not manufacture it. Truth is always superior to the logic which establishes it.” (An Introduction to Christian Apologetics [Eerdmans, 1956] , 86). And God is always superior to logic as well because He established it.

    Finally, David Basinger remarks as well, “To view things this way [the importance of reason] is not to give human reason preeminence over revelation or faith. It is simply to take a certain position on the essential categories of thought with which God made us.” (“Biblical Paradox: Does Revelation Challenge Logic?” JETS 30:2 (June 1987), 213.) ↑

13. John MacArthur, The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception (Thomas Nelson, 2007), 13. ↑

14. Geisler, Apologetics, 428. ↑

15. Quoted by Sire, 40-1. ↑

16. R. C. Sproul, “Biblical Interpretation and the Analogy of Faith” in Inerrancy and Common Sense, Roger R. Nicole and J. Ramsey Michaels eds. (Baker, 1980), 124. ↑

17. Donald Bloesch, The Ground of Certainty (Eerdmans, 1971), 182. ↑

18. Neo-orthodoxy is a relatively complex theological perspective best known as the position Karl Barth (1886-1968) promoted. R. V. Schnucker relates in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (EDT):

    Neo-orthodoxy . . . does not have the popularity it enjoyed earlier in the [20^th] century. Certain inherent elements have precluded its continuing influence. For example . . . its view of Scripture, “The Bible is God’s Word so far as God lets it be his Word” (Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/2, 123), has been seen as a rejection of the infallible sola Scriptura of conservative Protestantism. . . .

    Perhaps the greatest weakness within the movement has been its pessimism concerning the reliability and validity of human [even Christian] reason. [Its critics claim] If human reason cannot be trusted, then it follows that since neo-orthodoxy relied on human reason, it could not be trusted. (“Neo-orthodoxy,” [Baker, 1994], 756)

    Which is the same inevitable result of any philosophy or theology that degrades the God-given place of especially Spirit-liberated reason. ↑

19. See Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided (Banner of Truth Trust, 2000, 2001), 195-7. ↑

20. Ibid., 196-7. ↑

21. Thomas C. Oden, The Living God: Systematic Theology: Volume One (Harper, 1994), 397. ↑

22. For further discussion of what we see as the error of “faculty psychology” in which there is a dichotomy claimed between mind/heart or reason/will see chapter 4.2.. In our view, because reason dictates our beliefs, which all desires and decisions are essentially based on, it is the real source of all human activities normally associated with our “heart” or “will.” ↑

23. R. C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsey, Classical Apologetics: A Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics, (Academie Books, 1984), ix-x. ↑

24. Bruce Demarest and Gordon R. Lewis, Integrative Theology, 3 Vols. (Zondervan, 1987, 1990, 1994), I:33. ↑

25. Saying that reason will not accept the impossible is related to saying that God did not make us to believe the contradictory. For example, if we deem the Trinity as a contradictory concept as rationalists do, then we should not and cannot believe it. ↑

26. Accordingly, we make the case elsewhere that biblical faith is founded on objective evidence, although not the direct kind, but evidence nonetheless. For further discussion see chapters 6.12-14. ↑

27. Quoted from section 3.1.C.1. Two common, but illegitimate claims can be dealt with here. First, even those who would claim that they themselves are their own authority, have chosen an objective authority. In other words, while someone might claim that they have not accepted any authority outside of themselves, in reality they have. This is because they have been persuaded by some objective evidence outside of themselves to “trust themselves” rather than someone or something else. They have their reasons, and the source of those reasons has operated as an objective authority in their life. On the other hand, those who would claim that their authority is uniquely objective, cannot dismiss the subjectivity of their decision of what or who will exercise authority in their life. ↑

28. Bernard Ramm, The Pattern of Authority (Eerdmans, 1957), 21. ↑

29. Ibid., 40. ↑

30. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Zondervan, 1994), 34. ↑

31. J. I. Packer, Honoring the Written Word of God: The Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer, Vol. 3 (Paternoster, 1999), 51-53. ↑

32. Ibid., 55. ↑

33. Rudolph Bultmann, “The New Testament and Mythology” in Kerygma and Myth, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch (Harper and Row, 1961), 5. ↑

34. Murray Rae, “The Status of Doctrine: Kierkegaardian Explorations” in The Task of Theology Today: Doctrines and Dogmas, Victor Pfitzner and Hilary Regan eds. (Eerdmans, 1999), 201. ↑

35. Bloesch, Certainty, 178. ↑

36. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Edward N. Gross ed., Abridged version, (Presbyterians & Reformed Publishing, 1992), 50, 446. ↑

37. Alister McGrath, The Science of God (T & T Clark, 2004), 196-7. ↑

38. For further discussion on God’s expectation that all true knowledge we hold will be logical see section 2.4.B ↑

39. J. Oliver Buswell, A Christian View of Being and Knowing: An Introduction to Philosophy (Zondervan, 1960), 174. ↑

40. For further discussion of the content of saving faith see section 6.2.B. ↑

41. See Kenneth Latourette, A History of Christianity (Hendricksen, 1975), 516. ↑

42. John Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 3 vols. (Berea, 1991), I.100. ↑

43. Ibid., II.66. ↑

44. Gordon H. Clark, Faith and Saving Faith (Trinity Foundation, 1990), 6. ↑

45. Sproul, “Biblical Interpretation,” 125-6. ↑

46. Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Thomas Nelson, 1998), 108-109. ↑