A few weeks ago, Hunter asked why evangelicals seem obsessed with the proper interpretation of Genesis when, ahem, we are evangelicals. Which means we’re centered on the gospel, the good news about the historical reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It’s a fair question. I suspect that you can draw a line between more traditional evangelicals and the so called “young evangelicals” based on how they want to read Genesis. And if I may unfairly stereotype for a moment, both sides of the movement tend to emphasize their preferred aspects of the book.
So on the one hand, old-school evangelicals discover both sanction for traditional sexual arrangements therein and that making the text compatible with evolution is extremely tricky, if not impossible. On the other hand, the younger set takes their sexual cues from the resurrection (preferring not to think about the so-called “order of creation”) while using Genesis to highlight their culture-making activities and their environmental concerns.*
Of course, each side might want to claim elements of the other side for their own. The above is simply what both sets tend to emphasize in their interpretations of the book.
I’d like to suggest–in strictly tentative fashion as a hypothesis that I am amusing myself with these days–that as important as each of those questions are, none of them should be the starting point for our doctrine of creation. Prior to the question of how the world comes into being is a question of the nature of being itself. Which is to say, metaphysics, which evangelicals seem particularly averse to. In the order of questions, how the world came into being, or whether the world is good, or what responsibilities we have toward the world are all derivative upon the questions of what the world is and how it is to be understood in reference to the Creator.
In that sense, the doctrine of creation must be a doctrine. It must be explicitly theological. And so our knowledge of creation cannot be separated from our knowledge of the creator, for what does it mean to know creation as creation if we do not understand its relationship to its Maker? ”We believe in God, the maker of heaven and earth.” It is a reality that we must confess, but it is a reality about God and his relationship to creation, not the means by which he created the creation. While that can be read to provide cover for theological evolutionists (of which I am not one), my point is simply that our problems in the doctrine of creation might be further upstream than we imagine.
Here, then, is the second part of my hypothesis: the evangelical focus on certain aspects of Genesis have to do with our sense that the Resurrection breaks with the created order, rather than re-establishes it. As Oliver O’Donovan has put it, “New creation is creation renewed, a restoration and enhancement, not an abolition…God has announced his kingdom in a Second Adam, and “Adam” means “Human.”
If we thought that, then we may be able to fit creation as a doctrine more easily into our theological systems, rather than reducing it to the relationship between science and the Bible or us and the environment.
In short, our doctrine of creation is simply too small. We need to move back beyond the first pages of Genesis to the reality of God Himself, a God who brings being out of non-being (a metaphysical claim if I’ve ever heard one!). Only when we know him will we understand the creation which he has fashioned.
*As a side note, I’m not sure how many people noticed in Andy Crouch’s excellent book how he integrates the family into culture, but it’s probably the most interesting aspect of his book that was maybe the least talked about.
Addendum: Did I mention that these are hypotheses? I’m no expert in these matters, so if you want a full treatment on the topic, I suggest reading this. And if you want the cliff’s notes version to that, check out here.
September 8th, 2010 | 9:43 am | #1
Matthew Lee Anderson: “Only when we know him will we understand the creation which he has fashioned.”
Steve Drake: As a follow on, one might ask, “And how are we to know God?”
As evangelicals, our metaphysic must be combined with our epistemology. The two should not operate independent of one another.
September 8th, 2010 | 11:59 am | #2
Steve,
Yeah, we have to ask that question, but not combine it with the metaphysical one. I think that conflation is a sure route to confusion.
Matt
September 8th, 2010 | 12:35 pm | #3
The two are interrelated in the sense that if you hold to a particular construal of total depravity, then you may think that human nature has been so vitiated as to be unable to form true knowledge of God.
Oliver is a good Anglican, and as such has a slightly different understanding of the ways in which sin has vitiated human nature.
If evangelicals do hold that the resurrection breaks apart the created order, they do so because of the dominance of a particular view of total depravity that sees creation itself as so fallen that new creation almost means a second creation ex nihilo.
Maybe the fixation on epistemology goes hand in hand with a divine command theory of ethics, a voluntarist conception of God, and other theological ideas commensurate with humans being thoroughly vitiated in every way. As I said, Oliver is a good Anglican, and he will have none of that.
September 8th, 2010 | 12:36 pm | #4
“Which is to say, metaphysics, which evangelicals seem particularly averse to.”
Perhaps I run in different circles, but I have not seen evangelicals “particularly averse” to metaphysics.
September 8th, 2010 | 12:53 pm | #5
Dale,
Great thoughts, and lots to chew on there. I have a couple points in reply:
“The two are interrelated in the sense that if you hold to a particular construal of total depravity, then you may think that human nature has been so vitiated as to be unable to form true knowledge of God.”
Well, even here it seems important to keep the questions distinct. O’Donovan doesn’t think that nature on its own gives us the ability to form the “true knowledge of God.” He’s not a natural law theorist. The order of creation is only (epistemically) accessible in and through Christ.
“If evangelicals do hold that the resurrection breaks apart the created order, they do so because of the dominance of a particular view of total depravity that sees creation itself as so fallen that new creation almost means a second creation ex nihilo.”
I suspect that if you’re right here, it has more to do with bad readings of Calvin, who seems to like “the theater of God’s glory” quite a bit. : )
“Maybe the fixation on epistemology goes hand in hand with a divine command theory of ethics, a voluntarist conception of God, and other theological ideas commensurate with humans being thoroughly vitiated in every way.”
Evangelicals should none of those either, I think. : ) I *think* I can have total depravity without voluntarism/divine command theory.
@TUAD,
Yeah…I don’t have much at stake in the claim, but I was thinking of the voluntarism/divine command theory, which seems to actually undercut metaphysics, at least insofar as it is tied to nominalism.
–Matt
September 8th, 2010 | 1:18 pm | #6
Matthew,
I’m not quite sure that ‘conflation’ does lead to confusion. Or, better, can you tell me how it does?
I don’t think I’m saying that both should be ‘fused’ (maybe your definition of conflation is different here) into one. What I’m saying is that one needs to answer both questions, and it’s arguable that the epistemological question should be answered first. In other words, what is the epistemic grounds for God.
September 8th, 2010 | 2:22 pm | #7
Steve,
Thanks for the questions. These are super-hard issues. When I say “conflation,” I mean something like what I critiqued here: http://mereorthodoxy.com/?p=4060
Sorry to self-reference, but it’s just easier/faster. : )
I agree that both questions have to be answered. But I *think* I would argue that the ordering should go the other direction, that it’s precisely our knowledge of God (which we really have) that must inform our account of reality, and that our understanding of HOW we know God is derivative of that. I think I’m a particularist, so I think we can know God, even if we don’t necessarily have a theory of knowledge worked out.
But when I start saying this, I’m swimming in the deep end and am going to drown quickly. : )
–matt
September 8th, 2010 | 2:46 pm | #8
“But when I start saying this, I’m swimming in the deep end and am going to drown quickly.”
Don’t worry! A life saver ring will be tossed out to you. God will grant you the ability to grasp the life saver ring. It’s all God. You do not save yourself. He does all the saving. Remember that.
;-)
September 8th, 2010 | 3:00 pm | #9
Dear Matt,
You’re not alone brother. To continue I guess, how is it that we can know God, even if we don’t necessarily have a theory of knowledge worked out?
Romans 1 tells us that man ‘is without excuse’, “for since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made”.
Are you saying that ‘general revelation’ (as spoken to here in Romans 1) is ‘sufficient’ to give us knowledge of God? If so, then I would have to agree.
But is it ‘sufficient’ for the skeptic (autonomous man) to then believe in the resurrection of Christ, or creation ‘ex nihilo’ by God? For this I would have to say ‘No’. Special revelation is needed.
So as to one’s epistemology, if we as evangelicals start with this self-attesting God, and his self-sufficiency as described in Scripture, basing our epistemology on this self-sufficient, self-attesting, omnipotent authority, then the resurrection and creation ‘ex nihilo’ make sense within our own starting point.
The metaphysical questions need to be addressed and answered in ‘any’ philosophical construct, but it seems to me that we must also form a reasoned defense of how we come to knowledge in the first place.
September 8th, 2010 | 3:38 pm | #10
“it seems to me that we must also form a reasoned defense of how we come to knowledge in the first place.”
Reformed epistemology in a nursery song:
“Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.“
September 8th, 2010 | 4:02 pm | #11
This is not just O’Donovan. The basic confession that redemption is creation restored can be found in the Reformed Christian tradition extending through Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, Herman Dooyeweerd, Dirk Vollenhoven and many others. See my colleague Al Wolters’ Creation Regained, where this basic insight is worked out at a somewhat more popular level.
September 8th, 2010 | 6:48 pm | #12
David,
I agree it’s not just O’Donovan. But I like his account because he really does set it within the competing claims of the voluntarists and the rationalists.
@Steve, I don’t think creation gives us the knowledge of God outside of special revelation. So we might disagree about that.
But you say, “How is it that we know God even if we don’t have a theory of knowledge worked out?” I might say that we know God by virtue of his self-revelation in Jesus Christ which the Scriptures are authoritative witnesses of. But the Scriptures are authoritative because of the God they bear witness to, not the other way around. In that sense, our doctrine of Scripture–i.e. epistemology–has to be subordinated to our doctrine of God.
All this is tentative, though, and I really am drowning in the deep end. : )
Best,
matt
September 8th, 2010 | 7:11 pm | #13
Matt,
You said: “@Steve, I don’t think creation gives us the knowledge of God outside of special revelation. So we might disagree about that.”
Are you denying ‘general revelation’ then in your statement above? Are you saying that we can ‘only’ know God through ‘special revelation’? I’m sorry if I’m being obtuse here, but I’m just trying to clarify.
September 9th, 2010 | 12:44 am | #14
Steve,
Clarification = awesome. I haven’t been a model of it.
I might say this: I am skeptical about knowledge of God that comes through creation, at least *unmediated* creation. When creation is mediated by Scripture? That might be a different story.
That doesn’t mean, though, that creation is meaningless to us outside of Jesus. We might still be able to discern lots of the moral order (because it’s tied to the structure of creation), like the role of family, children, etc. But again, I’m still working that out.
Best,
matt
September 9th, 2010 | 3:15 am | #15
But resurrection as an event doesn’t have its full meaning except in the context of the historic fall/redemption narrative that God has given us. And the meaning of that narrative depends, in significant part on…what happened in Genesis. It’s like saying, “Don’t worry about whether a person was born on a given day, think about what a great person he is on his 40th birthday!” The problem is that “40th birthday” is lot more problematic if “what day he was born on” isn’t defined.
September 9th, 2010 | 3:56 am | #16
The bible’s job was to inform people, that God created the world, not how it was done. The latter is a job for empirical scientists.
September 9th, 2010 | 10:17 am | #17
Bret Lythgoe:
“The bible’s job was to inform people, that God created the world, not how it was done. The latter is a job for empirical scientists.”
And with that, ladies and gents, discussion is closed.
September 9th, 2010 | 11:27 am | #18
I dunno…”And God said…and there was…” sounds a lot like a “how” to me.
But then, I’m one of those childish guys who just believes what I’m told in the Bible.
September 9th, 2010 | 12:05 pm | #19
Daryl – really? Poke your eye out lately?
September 9th, 2010 | 12:22 pm | #20
Daryl: “But then, I’m one of those childish guys who just believes what I’m told in the Bible.”
Daryl, I’d rather be you than to be like one of those liberal Catholics who pick and choose whatever they want to believe from the Magisterium’s Catechism, acting like a cafeteria Catholic in exercising their private judgment about what they’ll take.
You say that you’re one of those “childish guys” who just believes what you’re told in the Bible. Well, let’s look at this verse from Genesis 1:25
“God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.”
Daryl, since you’re a “childish guy”, what do you think “according to their kinds” mean?
September 9th, 2010 | 12:24 pm | #21
Mathew – is your title a rif on the title of JB Phillips book, Your God is too Small?
September 9th, 2010 | 12:36 pm | #22
David,
I would, but I kept reading and saw the Jesus paid the full price for my sin.
So I get to struggle against sin, realizing that no matter how unsuccessful I will be, I’ve been named holy by God himself and the work will be completed in a moment, when I die or Christ returns.
My righteousness doesn’t depend on the success of my struggle, not on whit, so I get to keep my eyes.
September 9th, 2010 | 1:49 pm | #23
Then there’s the issue of what it means for your eye to cause you to sin. Probably that was an illustration of the price we should be willing to pay to renounce sin, not a commandment, because I can’t honestly think of a single way in which someone’s eye can cause him to sin, rather than his heart.
September 10th, 2010 | 2:23 am | #24
Steve Drake: No, discussion is not closed. The Bible was never meant to provide scientific information, and a lot of the supposed “conflict” between science and religion, would disappear, if more people realized that.
Dawkins, and other “New Atheists”, seem to believe that the Bible was meant to be scientific, and then they point out how wrong it is! But their mistake is misunderstanding the point of the bible: in the words of one of the greatest scientists who ever lived: “The Bible is meant to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go”. Wise point.
September 10th, 2010 | 10:46 am | #25
@David Carlson, yes, it was.
@pentamom, I think your first comment is right on the money. We can’t understand Jesus outside the Old Testament context. But once Jesus comes, he transforms the Old Testament in such a way that we can no longer properly understand it without reference to him (“and the rock was Christ!”).
So the interpretation seems to go two ways. Christ doesn’t destroy the Old Testament–it’s a development from within the tradition, but any development from within a tradition never leaves it untouched.
September 10th, 2010 | 11:28 am | #26
A lack of understanding with regard to genre is probably the biggest issue in all this. It doesn’t matter if the earth/universe is old or young. It doesn’t matter if man goes back millions of years or just thousands. It doesn’t matter if man evolved (physically, not spiritually) from lower life forms or if man was created directly by God. I say that because there are two important points that are missed: one, no matter the case, God is responsible; two, the literature of the Bible isn’t concerned with the all of the how questions. It’s wrong to impose the canons of modern science on an ancient document. The Bible was written for us, but not to us.
September 10th, 2010 | 11:32 am | #27
@Daryl – ok – so, does your church require women to wear head coverings before the pray or prophesy?
September 10th, 2010 | 5:15 pm | #28
Bret Lythgoe:
“The Bible was never meant to provide scientific information, and a lot of the supposed “conflict” between science and religion, would disappear, if more people realized that.”
Steve Drake: And I suppose it would be fair to say with an equally pretentious, authoritative statement (as yet unqualified and arbitrary), that the Bible was never meant to be wrong when it touches on science and speaks authoritatively to what God ‘did’, and how He did it, no?
September 11th, 2010 | 2:09 am | #29
Steve Drake: Do you believe that the Bible is meant to provide “scientific content”?
September 11th, 2010 | 2:33 am | #30
orthodoxdj: Very well said.
September 11th, 2010 | 8:07 am | #31
Bret Lythgoe,
Do you believe science can speak to the supernatural resurrection of Christ?
September 11th, 2010 | 8:15 am | #32
Steve Drake: Probably not, since the resurrection was a singular, historical occurrence, and scientific methodology demands experimentation, and replication. Obviously, one cannot replicate what happened on the cross, and after.
Now, one can, use empirical data, to support the notion that the resurrection occurred, but this would not be turning the resurrection into a scientific hypothesis, for the above mentioned reasons.
One could argue that the resurrection is plausible, based on empirical, historical, and deductive reasons.
September 11th, 2010 | 8:23 am | #33
Bret Lythgoe,
So ‘why’ do you believe that Christ was resurrected and now sits at the right hand of the Father?
September 11th, 2010 | 8:40 am | #34
Steve Drake: because the testimony of those who wrote the gospels, is believable, the 500 witnesses mentioned by Paul, and it makes sense of the human condition.
Fair is fair: how about you answer my questions now?
September 11th, 2010 | 11:20 am | #35
Bret Lythgoe said:
“because the testimony of those who wrote the gospels, is believable, the 500 witnesses mentioned by Paul, and it makes sense of the human condition.”
You’re basing your belief in the resurrection of Christ on human witnesses and the testimony of the writers of the gospels? So in other words, it’s other ‘finite’ humans like yourself that ultimately give you epistemic certainty for a belief in a resurrected Christ? I would argue that this can certainly be supporting evidence, but not for ‘ultimate’ epistemic certainty.
I base my epistemic certainty on the self-revelation of God in Scripture. This knowledge of God is rooted in His own self-disclosure, self-sufficiency, and sovereign counsel. God’s revelation of Himself as a self-sufficient knower implicitly carries with it a mind whose judgments are incorrigible, infallible, and never in need of verification by independent standards.
If one is to claim with certainty that there is no self-sufficient knower, his claim would be credible only if he had knowledge of every state of affairs. In other words, the only person who could deny that there is a self-sufficient knower would have to be a self-sufficient knower himself.
From this starting point of God as self-sufficient knower, and His proclamation that all Scripture is ‘breathed out’ by Himself, I am epistemically certain (in an ultimate sense) of the truth to Christ’s resurrection, to His claims of creation, to the certainty of the first Adam and his sin, to God’s judgment on that sin in the Curse, and ultimately to Christ’s atonement in payment for sin by a physical and brutal death on my behalf.
If one starts epistemically with human witnesses, or autonomous finite man, then one has no basis ‘epistemically’ for any ultimate knowledge whatsoever.
September 11th, 2010 | 7:27 pm | #36
Steve Drake: I certainly respect your standpoint, and you’ve ably defended it. But I think that I come about it differently. I consider myself an empiricist. I believe that knowledge begins with our sensory experiences. On this basis, one can deduce God’s existence, and the reliability of Christ’s resurrection.
But because one cannot be “certain” of one’s sensory experiences, one cannot be “certain” of God’s existence, or Christ’s resurrection. there’s always room for doubt. But, I think, based on my empiricist approach, that there’s always room to doubt my sensory experiences. That is, I doubt my own sight, smell, hearing, etc.
But doubting something, is entirely congruent with believing it.
September 12th, 2010 | 8:29 am | #37
Bret Lythgoe,
I think we’re moving forward with good discussion. Continuing on in our discussion of knowledge, and becoming ‘epistemically concious’, how do you ‘know’ (in an epistemically certain way), that sensory experiences lead to ‘true’ knowledge? If your experience and my experience are two different things, and lead to two different conclusions, how are we to decide which one is correct? How can your experience from which you deduce that God exists and Christ was resurrected, and my experience from which I deduce that God doesn’t exist and that Christ was not resurrected be reconciled? Your knowledge through sensory experience which leads to conclusion ‘x’, and my knowledge through sensory experience that leads to conclusion ‘y’, do not produce any ultimate epistemic certainty that either one of us is correct, or that both of us are wrong, and Sue’s conclusion of ‘w’ is really the correct one, does it not? In terms of ultimate knowledge, where is the ‘final’ resting point?
September 12th, 2010 | 8:54 am | #38
Bret Lythgoe: “But doubting something, is entirely congruent with believing it.”
In your case, no.
Do you believe in the existence of Hell? Yes or No?
In a previous thread, you doubted the existence of Hell. You are a bad liberal Catholic because the Magisterium affirms the existence of Hell.
September 12th, 2010 | 6:56 pm | #39
Steve Drake: Thank you, for your intelligent contribution.
Sensory experience should be trusted, even though it’s not certain, in an epistemological sense, for pragmatic reasons (if I run into this door, because I doubt the door’s existence, then I hurt myself), but also, as has been pointed out by others, in response to Descartes distrusting of the senses, one bases one’s doubt of the senses on other senses. For example, I see, in the distance, what appears to be a puddle of water on the road, then I drive up close to it, and it’s not really a puddle of water. But it’s THIS sensory experience that refutes the previous one (where I erroneously thought it was a puddle of water), so, people rely on the senses, for their refuting of the senses! An account of this is provided in the late philosopher Ralph McInerney’s book, introducing people to Thomas Aquinas, “A handbook for peeping thomists”.
As for your question, as to how our experiences can be reconciled, they can’t. You have your own experiences, I have my own, I cannot “get inside” your head, or vice versa, I can only trust what you say, and vice versa.
One’s own experiences, are unmediated, meaning one does not have to trust anyone else (one must only trust one’s senses and memory), but, when I listen to someone else’s experience, I must not only trust my senses, but also you, and your senses.
relgious experiences are actually more trustworthy, than accounts of (any) experience from others, because I only trust my own mind, whereas, with others, I must trust my experience of them, and their minds, as stated above.
September 12th, 2010 | 11:15 pm | #40
Dear MLA: Dale Coulter wrote, “If evangelicals do hold that the resurrection breaks apart the created order, they do so because of the dominance of a particular view of total depravity that sees creation itself as so fallen that new creation almost means a second creation ex nihilo.”
You responded, “I suspect that if you’re right here, it has more to do with bad readings of Calvin, who seems to like “the theater of God’s glory” quite a bit. : )”
If I may risk heresy on the Evangel blog :) I don’t think these ideas are necessarily “bad readings of Calvin.” I think these ideas arise because Calvin on this point was quite ambiguous–to the point of self-contradiction.
To be fair, so was the later Luther. So was the later Barth.
Thomists, arise!
September 12th, 2010 | 11:40 pm | #41
Craig Payne: I think that large doses of Thomas Aquinas, are needed for humanity, stat! Large injections of the Summa Contra Gentiles, Summa Theologiae, will bring these patients back from their comotose states!
September 13th, 2010 | 1:10 am | #42
Aquinas’s empirical approach, provided the foundation for modern science emerging. He took seriously, sensory experience, and realized that all knowledge must be derived from sensory experience.
September 13th, 2010 | 8:51 am | #43
So now that we understand each other’s epistemological starting points do we really want to get into a discussion of the Thomistic and Calvinistic traditions? It’s the old war between Catholics and Protestants all over again?
September 13th, 2010 | 7:34 pm | #44
Bret Lythgoe said:
“He took seriously, sensory experience, and realized that all knowledge must be derived from sensory experience.”
In asserting this are we forgetting the debate between the rationalists and the empiricists? The rationalists would say that things such as math and logic cannot be derived from the senses.
The statement itself seems to be self-refuting, in that “all knowledge is derived from sensory experience” cannot be ‘known’ from sensory experience itself.
September 13th, 2010 | 10:39 pm | #45
Dear Steve Drake: Nothing (I think Aquinas would argue) can be “known” from sensory experience alone, any more than a camera “knows” the image on its lens. It is “derived from” sensory experience by the action of the intellect. Those aspects of existence not directly perceived via the senses (mathematical axioms, logical laws, God, the soul, and so on) may be inferred by means of the action of the intellect upon our sensory observations. In other words, our experiences are a posteriori, but the intellect itself is not.
In this respect, Aquinas seems to stake out a middle position between empiricism and rationalism, but definitely much closer to empiricism.
September 14th, 2010 | 11:34 am | #46
Steve Drake: I would echo Craig Payne’s helpful comments, and add that Aquinas concluded that the act of knowing something, is a synthesis of sensory information, and the active intellect. The active intellect deciphers those aspects of sensory experience, that are universal, and come to a conclusion, about universals. That is, for example, if I have an experience of computers, through sight, touch, perhaps even smell, the universal intellect, of my mind, “picks” or ”abstracts” those components, from all of my sensory experiences with computers, that form the “essence” of computers, and then I have knowledge of computers. I know the “universal” of computers. The same with everything else.
How the mind does this, is indeed mysterious. but it seems to me, to make more sense (no pun intended) than the rationalist account.
September 14th, 2010 | 12:27 pm | #47
Bret, Craig,
Okay guys. our intellect is a priori, but our experiences are a posteriori. Is that correct? Would you say that Aquinas understood and believed in the noetic effects of sin? Is this an accurate statement, or would Aquinas say that he did not believe in the noetic effects of sin, and that our reason was untouched by sin?
September 14th, 2010 | 1:02 pm | #48
Dear Steve Drake: Reason AS SUCH is untouched by sin; it is a creation of God, like your arms. Your arms AS SUCH are untouched by sin. However, since the Fall, the sinful human tendency is always to use God’s gifts in a twisted, “unnatural” way–which is why I might beat someone up with my arms, and then use my reason to come up with some self-justification for the action.
Once someone acts upon their sinful tendencies enough, they develop what might almost be called a second nature; that is, it is much easier to do the sinful thing than it is to do the “natural” thing (the way God created it).
What is of something’s true nature is never wrong. What is contrary to something’s true nature is never right. Our rational natures are innately good, Imago Dei. How we use those rational natures is sinful and corrupted by the Fall. But to quote a famous (and highly controversial) statement from Thomas, “All things are good insofar as they exist.”
September 14th, 2010 | 1:12 pm | #49
Steve Drake: those who argue that human reason is corrupted by sin, can place themselves in a difficult position (maybe there’s a way out, i don’t know), and that is: if human reason is so corrupted by the fall, how is it that one can trust one’s reason, when it tells one that the Bible is true, or that one is saved? Why can it be trusted in these circumstances, but not others?
September 14th, 2010 | 2:11 pm | #50
Bret, Craig,
Thank you for both your comments. I take it then that the answer is ‘No’, Aquinas did not believe in the noetic effects of sin.”
This defines our differences, does it not? As Catholics, you take Thomas Aquinas as a spiritual father who denies that ‘reason/intellect’ was affected by the Fall, and as a Protestant I take my cues from John Calvin who said in following Augustine that Adam was able not to sin (posse non peccare), but that once he did sin, the results were disastrous, affecting not only the sensual, but the mind/intellect/reason as well.
So where do we go from here, and does this shape our views on creation? Obviously, one of us is wrong, either reason/mind/intellect was affected by the Fall or it was not. And does this not shape our epistemological starting point for how we come to knowledge?
September 14th, 2010 | 4:13 pm | #51
Steve Drake: You wrote, “Thank you for both your comments. I take it then that the answer is ‘No’, Aquinas did not believe in the noetic effects of sin.””
To clarify a bit: he did, but not as in the Reformed tradition. He thought of three aspects to the Fall: First, our original innocence, our gift of original righteousness (as opposed to original sin) was entirely destroyed by the Fall. Second, our innate tendencies are now directed toward sin; in noetic terms, our tendency is toward misusing our rationality for sinful purposes, and also toward obscuring obvious ethical norms (see, for example, the current debate over same-sex “marriage”). However, thirdly, nature itself is not destroyed by sin: reason is still a good gift, our bodies are still a good gift, free will is still a good gift, etc., even though all of these are easily corrupted by our sinful tendencies.
I think you are right that this shapes our approaches to epistemology. It’s difficult for me to see how a Calvinist / Barthian can avoid fideism. However, I am open to correction. Anyone want to share on this point?
September 14th, 2010 | 5:19 pm | #52
Craig,
Fideism? Man, this thread could go on forever if we want to get into that discussion. Wasn’t it Augustine who said that faith precedes belief though?
September 14th, 2010 | 6:02 pm | #53
Steve Drake: I respect your viewpoint, but it seems that the fideist, is commited to relying on reason, to support faith in the bible (one must use reason to decide what to have faith in), which means you have to be commited to the notion that our reason is not affected adversly by the fall? At least to some extent?
September 15th, 2010 | 9:36 am | #54
Bret,
The Apostle Paul says in Romans 1 that all men know God, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (verse 20).
Verse 18 says that men ‘suppress’ this truth/knowledge of God in unrighteousness, and verse 21 carries this thought forward by saying that even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks, but became futile in their speculations and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Let me start here, and we can go on from here once we establish agreement or disagreement: Would you agree or disagree that this passage of Paul is talking about ‘general revelation’, and that man uses both his senses and reason/intellectmind to know God and thus be charged by God as ‘without excuse’ for rejecting this knowledge?
September 16th, 2010 | 2:58 am | #55
Steve Drake, I would agree with Paul’s statement, which precisely makes the notion, in my view, of the intellect being “defective”, due to original sin, untenable. Otherwise, how could we make the proper deduction, about God’s existence, from the design of the world, that Paul states, if our reason, and senses,were so defective as a result of the fall?
Being able to accept revelation, presupposes that the mind is capable of proper reason, and judgment, which seems impropbable, if the fall severely affected these traits.
September 16th, 2010 | 8:03 am | #56
Bret,
So, yes, we’re in agreement here, that man is charged ‘without excuse’ for the knowledge of God gained through his senses and reason/mind/intellect. No one can escape on the last day, or after leaving this earthly life, as they stand before God, and tell Him ‘Hey, you didn’t give me enough evidence to believe in you’.
So, reason/mind/intellect and the senses are operative and valid. I hope you’re not assuming that I’m saying they’re not. My point, I think, in terms of the noetic effects of the Fall, is that our reason was ‘affected’ however. We can’t reason our way to salvation in Christ without Special Revelation. For man to start autonomously from himself and ‘reason’ about the world, without acknowledging the God in whose image he is made, is vain thinking (Rom. 1:21-22) because he will always come to wrong decisions concerning the nature of ultimate truth and reality, professing to be wise he becomes a fool, and worships the creature (created order) rather than the Creator.
I apologize, I’m going to have to stop here, even though my thoughts are not quite complete (am teaching today), but I’ll try to pick this up later this evening when I get back.
Blessings
September 16th, 2010 | 8:23 am | #57
Dear Steve Drake: Aquinas would agree with everything you said in Post 56. We cannot use natural reason to reason our way to faith in Christ; such salvation requires special revelation and the gift of faith.
Does this make you an honorary Thomist, perhaps? :)
September 16th, 2010 | 8:41 am | #58
Steve Drake: True, but there’s alot we can know through reason alone. Aquinas believed, that through reason alone, one could prove the existence of God, no small feat! This would be a “preamble” to faith. But as far as the specifics of Christian Revelation, one would need faith.
Aquinas’s view on the acquisition of knowledge has to be distinguished from Augustine’s, who believed that all knowledge that one obtains, is a result of a direct, divine illumination. Aquinas, on the other hand, believed that all humans (of course, differences in intelligence would affect this) obtained knowledge “naturally”, through one’s sense organs, to one’s brain, and soul. (interestingly, Aquinas, although his understanding was quite primitive, and erroneously assumed that the brain’s ventricles were involved, in thinking, at least recognized the brain’s role in thought processes). Obviously, he believed that God created this whole system, but unlike Augustine, and Anslem, Aquinas did not think that God’s illuminattion was necessary, for each person’s knowledge attainment (Aquinas denied, I guess God’s micromanagement here).
A good question is: how much of human reason was affected, adversely, by the fall, and how do we know this, and when does a person, who accepts the fall’s affects, enter into self refutation by going to far, or, conversely, when does one think reason is TOO efficatious?
September 16th, 2010 | 7:25 pm | #59
Craig,
“Does this make you an honorary Thomist, perhaps? :)”
Steve Drake: I like that, but no, I’m not quite convinced that Aquinas had it all correct. I’ll explain in a moment.
Bret, Craig,
So here’s the question and trying to bring it all back to creation I guess: If we need special revelation to lead us to Christ and to tell us the way of salvation in Him and Him alone, (in other words that God’s Word is authoritative when it comes to how we are saved), what precludes us as Christians from saying the same thing about creation, viz. that God’s Word is authoritative in Genesis when it speaks on creation?
Are we simply all saying that yes, God is the creator, he tells us that in Genesis, but that we are now only debating the ‘how’ of that creation and whether ‘science’ has anything to say about it? If we are, then this brings in the magisterial and ministerial roles of Scripture and science, one’s interpretation of the data, and then of course, maybe especially, one’s exegesis of the actual text in Genesis, correct?
I’d like to hear your views on this, and whether epistemologically, if one starts with human reason and purported empirical observation from science on ‘origins’, without the use of Special Revelation, whether one might not go off track a bit.
So now back to Aquinas. But let me start with Augustine first. Augustine said: “I believe in order to understand”. Understanding (reason) presupposes faith (the truth of the Christian message). Augustine I think here and if I understand him correctly, argued that man’s understanding and reasoning, function only upon the foundation of faith in God. That reason has no self-sufficient ability to interpret experience and no true ‘authority’ to judge the veracity of Christian faith.
I think it could be argued however that Aquinas reversed this, saying that faith in God had to be founded upon the independent results of man’s reasoning and understanding. In other words, the Thomistic approach assumes that fallen man is capable of reasoning properly (prior to repenting of sin and submitting to Christ as Lord and Savior) and that knowledge and intelligible interpretation of experience are philosophically possible apart from God’s revelation.
If true, and you may disagree with me here, man’s ‘own’ intellect, when used at it’s best, is thus granted the ability and the right, to pass judgment on the credibility of God’s Word. Or to say it another way, reason (set up as a judge and not simply as a tool) takes a privileged position alongside faith.
I believe there are fatal flaws with this, but I’ll stop here and let you respond.
September 16th, 2010 | 7:51 pm | #60
“I think it could be argued however that Aquinas reversed this, saying that faith in God had to be founded upon the independent results of man’s reasoning and understanding. In other words, the Thomistic approach assumes that fallen man is capable of reasoning properly (prior to repenting of sin and submitting to Christ as Lord and Savior) and that knowledge and intelligible interpretation of experience are philosophically possible apart from God’s revelation.”
I would say yes to the second sentence, no to the first. Yes, humans are capable of proper reasoning prior to Christian faith–Aristotle being Aquinas’s primary example. But no, reason is not the foundation to faith in God. It can be seen as a “preamble” to faith in God; for example, reason could give good reasons to believe that there is a God, but that is not the same as “faith in” God, in the sense of a religious commitment. One’s Christian faith does not need to be “founded” in reason in order to be genuine. In fact, as Augustine notes, it is usually the other way around: One finds faith in God and later finds rational certainty as well.
Reasoning about Creation is also Christian, in that Christ is the Creator. I am probably sticking my neck out here, but when Scripture in Genesis speaks of God in Creation, I have no problem in accepting both that account and a scientific account of the origins of the universe, because the Genesis account is completely, as far as I can see, non-scientific.
That’s not a pejorative at all, nor is it meant as such. It just seems to me to be a fact. Creation, and God as Creator, is first of all a theological category. We can learn all we can from science without compromising the idea that behind every scientific fact, God is both ontologically and logically necessary and prior.
Here’s a paragraph that will maybe irritate a few folks as well: Because of what I just stated, the interesting argument seems to me to be the philosophical one: Is the universe contingent in nature, and if so, does it require a sustaining and necessary Cause behind it? (Aristotle, via reason, thought of this as the Uncaused Cause; Christians go even further via revelation and say, “That’s Jesus Christ.”) The BORING argument, on the other hand, is the typical “science vs. religion” one: Did evolution occur?
I’d answer “Yes” to both questions, without a qualm.
September 16th, 2010 | 7:53 pm | #61
I just realized I didn’t really answer one of your primary questions, so: Yes, one can definitely go off track with reason alone; as Aquinas says, one reasons “with a great admixture of error.” To correct this tendency, God in His grace also gives us special written revelation.
September 17th, 2010 | 2:50 am | #62
Steve: I think that Craig’s answers are great. I would add, that, we often juxtapose faith and reason, and often assume that they’re opposed to each other. Both are God’s creations, and are necessary, to understand reality. The problem arises, when we tend to deviate too much toward one or the other. The Bible, is book geared principally toward our faith. To believe it, requires faith, but also, to a lesser extent, reason. It seems to be the opposite, with regard to nature, or “the book of the world”, as Descartes put it. To know about it, requires one to use reason, predominately, but, to a lesser extent, faith (e.g., one must have faith in one’s senses, that God created the world orderly, that one’s reason is efficacious, etc.).
The problem, that I see, is what to have faith IN. For example, people, in India, have faith in Hinduism. But, without reason, as one’s guide, how does one know that one;s faith is not misguided? That’s why, in my limited judgment, faith and reason must exist TOGETHER, and feed off each other, to prevent either one from going astray.
The problem is, people can and do, start with faith, and they end up wrong.
I’m not sure that reason takes a “privileged place along side faith”, I think that they have different duties. If we knew everything, there would, obviously, be no need for faith. But it’s important, I believe, to take reason as far as it can go.
As Craig pointed out, Aquinas believed that Aristotle was an excellent example, of reason going very far, without Christianity. Indeed, Aquinas often, out of great respect for the brilliant greek, referred to him, often, as “The Philosopher”. But Aquinas considered the incarnation, and the trinity, to be doctrines, that only faith could answer.
Somewhat ironically, although Augustine did believe that faith comes first, he believed that, once one received the proper “illumination” from God, one could use reason, to prove all of the Christian doctrines, and it;s Aquinas, who says, in effect, wait a minute, we need faith here, to beleve these things!
September 17th, 2010 | 2:55 am | #63
Steve, I would also add, that reason, with respect to the bible, is required, to properly interprete it. If one merely has faith, in what one’s reading, there can be a propensity, on the part of the reader, to interpret it too literally, without reason’s guiding influence.
September 17th, 2010 | 5:05 pm | #64
Bret, Craig,
Not sure who’s going to out-last the other here guys, but I’ve been out all day and just got back to read your responses to this thread, which is how many days old now? Before we know it we’ll have to click on ‘archives’ to find each other again. I’ll digest your thoughts, but no guarantees it might not be until next week before I’ll have any responses.
September 18th, 2010 | 10:57 am | #65
Dear Steve: I actually have said about all I have to say; really, I don’t even think of this as arguing. It appears to me that Bret, you, and I have been discussing two different approaches to the topic of original sin, and beyond that, different views of the role of reason–sort of like epistemology as starting with anthropology, which I think is the right way to progress.
At any rate, you are right, the thread is about ready to move to Page 2, and so I’ll bow out for now. Best regards, Craig
P.S. Of course, I reserve the right to jump back in anytime!
September 18th, 2010 | 2:44 pm | #66
Steve,Craig: Thanks to both of you, for an intelligent, civil discussion. You both deserve great credit, for discussing these issues, respectfully.
September 19th, 2010 | 5:32 pm | #67
Bret, Craig,
And I was just about ready to jump back in. Are we possibly confusing the word ‘reason’ as our rational, cognizant ability, as made in the image of God, and ‘reason’ as an entity, as the starting point for epistemic certainty, as opposed to starting epistemically with the Word of God, and our reason as a tool in understanding God’s words to us? Thank you both for your discourse. Let me leave you with this thought which I think sums up my position:
On the basis of autonomous reasoning, man cannot give an adequate and rational account of the knowledge we gain through science and logic (especially as it relates to origins). Scientific procedure assumes that the natural world operates in a uniform fashion, in which case our observational knowledge of past cases provides a basis for predicting what will happen in future cases. However, autonomous reason has no basis whatsoever for believing that the natural world will operate in a ‘uniform’ fashion. For that we need Special Revelation. The self-attesting, self-authenticating Word of God.
This might be what separates us as Protestants and Catholics, among other things, including the Protestant belief in the noetic effects of sin, but starting with autonomous or unaided reason has several flaws I think which I alluded to above. First, I think that Scripture is made one’s final authority only after it has been authorized by one’s own reasoning (which is then, the real ‘final’ authority). So, in effect, every teaching or action of Christ, for example, could then be required on its own to pass the scrutiny of human reason. Second, the autonomous thinker using unaided reason mistakenly assumes himself to be capable of right reason, contrary to the testimony of Scripture that he abuses his mind and becomes ‘vain’ and ‘futile’ in his reasoning (note the references to Romans 1 that I cited in an earlier post).
I realize that we are not the only ones to grapple with this, as better minds than ours I think, have gone before us in this pursuit. I look forward to interacting with you on a future thread. Blessings to you both.
September 19th, 2010 | 9:40 pm | #68
Thanks, Steve, for your thoughtful, and indeed, thought provoking questions.
Any human being, finds herself, intially, in the world of sense perceptions. The latter provide the raw materials, for knowlege. I don’t claim, certainly, that Aquinas got the epistimology absolutely correct, but it does seem to me right that, subsequent to sense perceptions entering the mind, the mind goes to work, on generating knowledge, as Aquinas said.
Of course, the rationalist, more or less, believes that knowledge is obtained in the opposite way: we reason from self evident axioms, to deduce knowledge, and find a way to somewhat reluctantly incorporate sensations, into this picture.
September 19th, 2010 | 10:29 pm | #69
Steve: sorry, I got distracted, and had to finish my comments early. It sounds to me, that you accept the notion that reason is what one must submit the Bible to, and if reason finds the Bible trustworthy, one can accept it. That makes sense to me.
One of the steps one must take, and I have not yet, been able to do so, in a way that satisfies me, is be able to properly incorporate all of one’s knowledge: sensory, religious, scientific, mathematical, that makes sense, and is coherent. I like Aquinas’s approach, but I haven’t wedded myself completely to it; I’m certainly open to other approaches.
One of the difficult problems, is determining if religious beliefs, must “submit” themselves to reason, or science. I’m tempted to say yes, at least concerning reason.
You mention, correctly, that science presupposes the uniformity of nature. I agree, and consider it to be a good indicator of God’s existence.
One finds, at least how I see it, through sensory experience, that nature is not haphazard; it’s regular, and stable. One uses this uniformity as a basis for making scientific predictions, and as a basis for formulating hypotheses that can be tested.
One also uses this to reason that, a being with tremendous power created the uniformity, in nature, since it cannot account for its own existence.
This is sufficient to show that Theism, of some sort, is reasonable. Then, one examines the Gospel accounts, and finds that Jesus’s resurrection, withstands the rigors of reason. Form there, one can make deductions, about the Bible. One can determine whether or not, any, or all, of its contents, withstand reason.
It’s my view, that all of them cannot, if one is trying to interpret them literally. For example, I don’t believe that God literally turns people into salt. This would contradict His Justice.
September 20th, 2010 | 8:43 am | #70
“It sounds to me, that you accept the notion that reason is what one must submit the Bible to, and if reason finds the Bible trustworthy, one can accept it. That makes sense to me.”
Dear Bret: I didn’t get this from what Steve was saying, but we’ll see what he says. I don’t really submit the Bible to reason as a reading approach; what I would hold to is that the same Logos Who gave us the Bible, gave us logic and reason. Both are a type of revelation: the light of Scripture and the light of natural reason. Fides et Ratio, in briefer terms.
September 20th, 2010 | 7:17 pm | #71
Bret, Craig,
I guess we’re not finished. Good, I think this discussion is enlightening.
Bret said:
“It sounds to me, that you accept the notion that reason is what one must submit the Bible to, and if reason finds the Bible trustworthy, one can accept it. That makes sense to me.”
Steve Drake: Well, no, just the opposite. Man’s autonomous reason will never find the Bible trustworthy. Because man (beginning with himself) reasons from his own autonomous nature, vain and futile in his thinking, angry at God, even a God-hater, he will find all sorts of problems with accepting or believing what the Bible says. Yet he knows that God exists. He is in denial of course, but Romans 1 makes this clear that ‘no one’ is without excuse, but that they ‘suppress’ this truth in unrighteousness.
So, what is man to do? He knows that God exists through what has been made, and through his own inner constitution (using his rational, cognizant mind) but must seek further to know more about this God. What is this God’s requirements? How am I supposed to be in relation to Him? Why am I here, and what is the ‘why’? For this he needs Special Revelation. The self-attesting, self-authenticating Word of God in Scripture. Because it is this God who speaks propositionally about who He is, what His character is like, and what are the requirements to be in relation to Him, he must go to Special Revelation for this source of ‘knowledge’. He can’t find it anywhere else.
So, as Christian apologetes, we start with the self-attesting, self-authenticating Word of God (if God can’t tell us accurately who He is and what His character is like, and if he can’t speak propositionally about what He did or how he acted in history then really what kind of God is He?) and submit all our ‘reasoning’, both philosophically and scientifically, to this self-attesting, self-authenticating, propositional word from God to us as ‘created’ ‘finite’ humans.
September 20th, 2010 | 8:02 pm | #72
Craig, Steve: Thanks to both of you, for a great discussion. I’ve learned a lot.
I guess I do believe that reason has the final word, if you will, on these matters. And i think that Christianity stands up very well, agianst this standard.
The problem, or one of the problems, is that honest, intelligent people, throughout the world, believe, based largely on faith, that Hinduism, or the Koran, in Islam, represent the truth. Who’s right? One can say, that one has been given special faith, by the Holy Spirit, and I in no way discount that. However, it’s also more than conceivible, that one is, and I in no way say this disparagingly, or condescendingly, delusional, or misinterpreting one’s thoughts, and/or feelings. Therefore, reason, which all must submit to, strikes me as being the final artiber.
Blessings to both of you, as well.
September 20th, 2010 | 8:18 pm | #73
Thanks Bret,
May I see you on another thread. I have appreciated your gentle and irenic posts. Not saying there isn’t something to be said for polemics, but your replies to me have been with the utmost respect. May we both be always diligent in a search for the ‘truth’. To God be the glory. Blessings.
September 20th, 2010 | 8:38 pm | #74
Thanks, Steve. God bless you.
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