There has been
quite a bit written lately about ‘right’ reason in connection with the
Princeton theology. It is less easy to say what ‘right’ treason is than it is
to cite the phrase. This is an attempt to put flesh on the bones.
Various influences
There are certain
matters which are clear, and certain
matters not so clear. Here’s one that is not so clear. Many of the later
Reformed thinkers who appealed to right reason did so because they emphasised the unity of the self, endorsing the biblical
language about as a man is as he thinks in his heart, and that out of the heart
are the issues of life. Often they coupled this with the thought that the will
(say) as such is neither free nor unfree, but it is the man who is free, or not, not the will.
In this way they
saw themselves as moving away from faculty psychology of the scholastics,
including the Reformed Orthodox. On this view a person is composed of a set of
faculties – the reason, the will and so on each of which have the ‘room’ to
exercise themselves independently of the other. (I must say that apart from the
will, to which was by some ascribed the liberty of indifference, I have never
encountered a version of this wholesale faculty psychology in which each
faculty has this sort of independence.
But that’s what the textbooks say.) Much depends I suppose on whether
the faculties are thought of as departments, or as homunculi – as mini-persons constituting the person. And of course ascribing a freedom of
indifference to the will was often the only prize that certain faculty
psychologists were after.
But if, in turning
our backs on faculty psychology, we think that we are at the same time turning
towards an outlook which is more biblical, because more holistic, and free from
‘alien’ philosophy, we would mistaken. For John Locke was an influential
anti-scholastic.
For
when we say the will is the
commanding and superior faculty of the soul; that it is or is not free; that it
determines the inferior faculties; that it follows the dictates of the understanding, etc; though these and the
like expressions, by those that carefully attend to their own ideas and conduct their thoughts more by
the evidence of things than the sound of words, may, be understood in a clear
and distinct sense: yet I suspect, I say, that this way of speaking of faculties, has misled many into a
confused notion of so many distinct agents in us, which had their several
provinces and authorities and did command, obey, and perform several actions,
as so many distinct beings; which has been no small occasion of wrangling ,
obscurity and uncertainty in questions relating to them (Essay II.21.6)
And Locke
influenced Jonathan Edwards.
And
therefore to talk of liberty, or the contrary, as belonging to the very will
itself, is not speak good sense; if we judge of sense, and nonsense, by the
original and proper signification of words. For the will itself is not an agent
that has a will; the power of choosing, itself, has not a power of choosing.
That which has the power of volition or choice is the man or the soul and not
the power of volition itself. And he
that has the liberty of doing according to his will, is the agent or doer who
is possessed of the will; and not the will which he is possessed of. (Freedom of the Will, Pt. I Sect.5)
Edwards must in turn have been influential on what
became the Princeton tradition of theologizing, and particularly the Princeton
anthropology. For from time to time one finds the Princeton theology, early and
late, expressing itself using the Lockean/Edwardsean terminology, to take the
anti-faculty psychology line. So Machen
If
we regard the will as a sort of separate somewhat inside of a man, going about
its business in its own ways…We are really making of something that we call the
will a little separate personality; we
are doing away with the unity of the man’s personality.’
(One of many good things about Paul Helseth’s
book is the way in which he has drawn such matters together. The Machen passage is from 1,2, 3 in Helseth.
Those interested should also look at 40-1, 52-4, 153 and no doubt other
places.)
I’m not saying
that the only influence upon the Princeton people was Locke via Edwards. It’s
pretty certain that another influence was the Augustinian teaching, transmitted
through Calvin and others, that the voluntas
is the will not in the sense of choice, but as a characterization of the heart,
or self. It is the way that the self is ‘set’, either in active response to the
grace of God or in continued hostility and rebellion against God. As a man’s voluntas is set, so is he.
But, as if matters
were not complicated enough, Scottish Common Sense (which also influenced Princeton) can also be thought of as
resuscitating a form of faculty psychology, an endowment by God with a set of
faculties permitting knowledge of the external world, an external sense, and of
morality, a moral sense. These days these are more likely to be referred to as
belief-forming mechanisms. So in the formulation of the belief in the unity of
the self and how they expressed it, the Princetonians’ thought does not have a clear
pedigree.
Coming to right reason
You might well ask, what has all this to do with reason, and
especially with right reason? We might
try an answer to that question using the theological categories of creation,
fall and redemption.
Creation
Reason is said to
be at least part of that in which the imago
dei consists. We could debate that, asking whether reason has the requisite
degree of relationality about it. In any case there are creatures, the heavenly
messengers, who have reason a plenty, but lack the image, or so it seems,
though arguments from silence are not the most robust. Anyhow reason is one of
several features which, if the image does not consist in them, in their
combination, are at least apt for the image, that which the image fits atop. It
is reason in that sense that is used in the phrase ’right reason’. No equivocation.
What makes reason it right reason is not that it is a peculiar sort of reason.
It is human reason, but possessed of a certain kind or orientation.
One perennial
enemy of the faith, not much discussed at present, is Gnosticism, the idea that
true religion consists in a certain kind of knowledge or insight, discontinuous
with natural languages and senses, and what they convey, which the would-be
Christian must be initiated into. In contrast to such an approach, it must be
insisted Christians occupy the natural world as their Messiah did, that’s why in
his first letter John was ready to emphasise that the Word of life, whom he
proclaimed, was heard and seen and touched. The Word made flesh was a public
figure.
Fall
In the Fall, whatever
happened reason is not lost, otherwise
humanity would have been lost. But reason was skewed, because mankind
was skewed; in the Fall, and as a consequence of it. The skewing of reason is,
or leads to, the loss of ‘right’ reason.
Redemption
In the work of
redemption and restoration, all aspects of the soul, including reason, begin
the process of being restored. There is no perfection, sinless moral
perfection, or complete restoration of the reason. But there is a definite
beginning, a reorientation of the self, the mind, the voluntas., including its autonomy. The reasoning regenerate person
recognizes the limitations of creator-creature distinction, and the limitations
intrinsic to being a creature, and the presence of ineradicable mysteries of
the faith. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are, as Calvin
taught, intrinsically related.
The influence of
regeneration
The influence of
such regeneration upon reason can be felt far and wide, insofar as Christian
influence on the wider culture becomes effective. So that while the impetus and
energy for right reason is a fruit of regeneration, effects of that fruit can
be felt more widely. Conversely, what we call secularism or modernism, includes
the eclipse of a recognition that we have a Creator about whom it us right to
recognize that many matters about him and his ways are mysterious. Instead it asserts
the autonomy of reason, and eliminates creaturely dependence from public
discourse. A prominent example of such autonomy is when the theory and practice
of natural science is changed into scientism, the idea that scientific
understanding and explanation is the only valid type of explanation.
So we are not to understand right reason as a gift that helps us to do our sums better, or to be quicker than others at drawing inferences from data, but in terms of an orientation that befits creatures made in God's image.
So we are not to understand right reason as a gift that helps us to do our sums better, or to be quicker than others at drawing inferences from data, but in terms of an orientation that befits creatures made in God's image.
Next time I hope
to look at right reason as considered by Francis Turretin.
