Sometimes people change their minds and come, for a variety of reasons, to reject belief in God. What has always been very surprising to me is how often the God they are rejecting is not the God I believe in either.
For example, suppose someone says:
“I just got to the point where I could no longer believe in the bearded guy in the sky.”
Okay, but the only problem is neither do I. And neither does any thoughtful Christian I know.
Now I realize that the “bearded guy in the sky” moniker may just be shorthand or a kind of tongue-in-cheek way to refer to a more robust conception of God. However, the point is this conception, or anything that it may refer to, is radically different from the biblical conception of God. The biblical conception of God is one where God is wholly other, eternal, maximal in all perfections, knows and intends the end from the beginning, the creator of all, the self-existent being and upon whom all other being depends. So if we imagine a spectrum of concepts where the bearded guy in the sky is at one end and the very rich biblical conception of God at the other, I want to suggest many times people are objecting to something closer to the bearded guy in the sky rather than the biblical understanding of God. Said somewhat differently, the biblical God can withstand many of the objections the bearded guy in the sky cannot.
We can see this with discussions about the problem of evil. The key premise in an argument from evil is to say there is evil for which God would have no justifying reasons. On this version of the argument, it is conceded that the concept of God is not logically contradictory with just any evil. Rather it is evil that has no justifying reason that is inconsistent with the existence of God. It unlikely that every ounce of evil in the history of the world has a justifying reason, the atheist claims, thus, this implies a good and all powerful God does not exist.
I can’t help but think there is something like a bearded guy in the sky in view in the key premise of the argument (namely, that there is evil for which God would have no justifying reasons). It’s true there’s a lot of evil, pain and suffering in the world. But is it really plausible that God could have no justifying reason for allowing it? Well this seems plausible only if we are talking about God as the bearded guy in the sky. But it doesn’t seem at all plausible (at least to me) if we are talking about the biblical God. Why couldn’t the eternal, self-existent God who sees the end from the beginning have justifying reasons for allowing the evil we see in the world? We need not know what those reasons are specifically to reasonably believe that the infinite God of the Bible could have them.
It’s important to see that this isn’t a dodge or an appeal to mystery. It is more of an appeal to the bigness and holiness (in the technical sense) of God and to say that many times perhaps we struggle because we have a much smaller and less interesting view of who God is.
I recently heard a former Christian say the turning point for him came one night while camping out under the stars. He asked God, if he was there, to give him a sign. He hoped to hear an audible voice or see a shining light. But nothing happened. He moved to looking for something out of the ordinary like a shooting star or a big wave to crash. Nothing happened. He got desperate and asked for anything, a fuzzy feeling or the wind to pick up. But nothing happened. He subsequently walked away from the faith.
I can certainly relate to having the desire to see God show up in obvious ways to help assure me he is truly there and he loves me. But doesn’t it seem a little unreasonable to demand that God relates to us in the way we want him to? Maybe the way we want him to doesn’t serve God’s purposes and maybe, just maybe, God’s purposes are far higher and far better than mine.
I close with a passage from a very insightful essay confronting the issue of the silence of God by Mike Rea. In the essay, he stresses the need for us to approach God on his terms and not the terms we set for him. He says:
You might be tempted to object that, on this view, God is like a father who neglects his children, leaving them bereft and unloved while he sits in stony silence thinking “I just gotta be me.” But to object like this is to fail to take seriously the idea that God might have a genuine, robust personality and that it might be deeply good for God to live out his own personality. One odd feature of much contemporary philosophy of religion is that it seems to portray God as having a “personality” that is almost entirely empty, allowing his behavior to be almost exhaustively determined by facts about how it would be best for others for an omnipotent being to behave. But why should we think of God like this? God is supposed to be a person not only of unsurpassable love and goodness but of unsurpassable beauty. Could God really be that sort of person if he’s nothing more than a cosmic, others-oriented, utility-maximizing machine? On that way of thinking, God—the being who is supposed to be a person par excellence—ends up having no real self. So, as I see it, silence of the sort we experience from God might just flow out of who God is, and it might be deeply good for God to live out his personality. If that’s right, and if our suffering in the face of divine silence is indeed unreasonable, the result of immaturity or other dysfunctions that we can and should overcome anyway, then I see no reason why even perfect love would require God to desist from his preferred mode of interaction in order to alleviate our suffering.[1]
So I think we should be very careful when we say a good, all powerful God would (or wouldn’t) do _____________________. Maybe God is bigger and richer and far more confounding than that.
[1] Rae (2011) “Divine Hiddenness, Divine Silence” in Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, 6th edition, edited by Louis Pojman and Michael Rea (Boston: Wadsworth/Cengage). See here for a copy of the full article.
There’s considerable debate on just what apologetics is or at least what it’s supposed to be. A typical definition is something along the lines of this:
Apologetics is the defense of Christian beliefs.
But the problem with this definition is this doesn’t uniquely pick out the discipline. After all, the systematic theologian seems to be defending Christian beliefs when he or she defends a particular doctrine. A Sunday morning sermon even seems to be a defense of Christian beliefs. The pastor provides reasons for how to understand a passage and how it should be applied in our lives. So this definition isn’t going to work.
I want to suggest that what uniquely picks out apologetics is that, in doing apologetics, one defends Christian beliefs in an unassuming way. That is, we think about and formulate reasons for believing that do not, in making the case, assume the truth of Christianity already. This doesn’t mean that one doesn’t believe Christianity is true, in making this unassuming case, and it doesn’t mean that we aren’t obviously arguing for the truth of Christianity, in making the case. It is simply that we don’t only cite a passage or some belief from Christian theology and call it a day.
Think about how easy it would be to give a case for the existence of God if all we had to do was cite a passage. Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning God…”…and we’re done here! We’ve proven God’s existence.
Citing Scripture as a way to justify our Christian beliefs is of course a very fine practice. In fact, I think this is precisely how it should be when we are having discussions about Christian theology amongst Christians and how your pastor should do it when he is preaching to the church on a Sunday morning. The pastor certainly cannot be burdened with proving the general reliability of Scripture before he ever begins to give an exposition.
The problem, of course, is that, outside of Christian circles, people do not believe Genesis 1:1 is true. Or someone may be doubting the existence of God and they already know what Genesis 1:1 says. Or (and this is important) we might just wonder whether there are other reasons outside of Scripture that point to the existence of God. According to the Psalmist, the world declares, pours forth speech, and provides knowledge about God (Ps. 19:1-2). Paul says, in Romans 1:S19-20, that God’s attributes (including presumably his existence) can be clearly seen and understood in what has been made. If this is right, it is thoroughly biblical for Christians to reflect on and consider (what I’m calling) the unassuming reasons for the existence of God. This extends also to our other Christian beliefs as well.
What I mean by unassuming reasons is just that these reasons are not controversial. There are, for example, facts about the universe that no one really denies. Unless you are insane you believe the universe exists. There’s a wee bit of consensus on this fact! But how do we explain the existence of the universe? The Christian answer says the universe points to the existence of God as creator. Or take the so-called fine tuning of the universe. There may be quibbles about calling this “fine tuning,” but no one really denies that there exist certain contingent conditions of the universe that have to be just so for life to exist in the universe. Again, this seems to point to the existence of God. The point is the consensus gives us an unassuming reason to believe that God exists. Said differently, a person does not need to already be a theist (Christian or otherwise) to affirm these reasons. In short, they are unassuming.
Now, one can argue that the existence or the fine tuning of the universe do not point to God, but one cannot simply dismiss these as Christian propaganda. One must grapple with these reasons and what they provide reason for believing. This shows the great value of apologetics both for the believer and the unbeliever. For the believer, it helps us to address our doubts and to lean in to a deeper and fuller knowledge of God as we love him with our minds. For the unbeliever, it shows what reasons there are for believing in Christianity and, it seems to me, he or she must contend with these reasons without simply dismissing them as beliefs without evidence.
So…
Apologetics is the unassuming defense of Christian beliefs.
For some, I’d be the last guy you’d expect to be extolling the value of dogmatism. On this blog, I typically urge the value of doubt and questioning our faith. I do always try to be careful to say that doubt is not good in itself. It has value, but the value comes when we lean into doubts and are led to truth, knowledge and a more confident faith. And faith certainly is a virtue. So I don’t want anyone to stay in a place of serious doubt. And through the doubt, I want to suggest it’s important to stay somewhat dogmatic about the (important and fundamental) beliefs we have.
Okay, so what do I mean by dogmatism? For our purposes, let’s understand dogmatism as sticking with our convictions in the face of countervailing evidence.
Now there is no question there are forms of dogmatism that are clearly inappropriate. We should of course follow the evidence where it leads. At some point, the evidence will likely lead all of us to reject some belief we have long held. This can be very, very difficult, especially when we have organized our lives, to some degree, around this belief. This can be a belief in the integrity of some person, organization or institution, or a belief in some political theory, or a theory of science, or even something having to do with sports or a hobby, etc. It can also of course have to do with one’s Christian beliefs. When we remain absolutely stubborn in our beliefs despite unassailable evidence, this is not an intellectual virtue and it’s not what I’m suggesting here.
There is, as usual, another extreme. We can also be unstable in our deeply held beliefs where we fold, so to speak, in the face of any challenge at all. So, as usual, the virtue is somewhere in the middle. The big question is where is that line? To what degree should we be dogmatic?
Well the answer seems to clearly turn on the evidence. We should give up our beliefs when we lack any substantial reasons for believing them to be true. Also we should give up our belief if there is a fatal objection and it cannot be adequately addressed after sustained inquiry. However, this is often not where we are at when we doubt our Christian beliefs. When I was in my strongest periods of doubt, I still had plenty of reasons for maintaining my beliefs. There were just a few things with which I was deeply struggling. But, even in this, there were numerous other lines of evidence for the truth of Christianity that more than justified my Christian faith. So it seems we should be dogmatic about a belief in the face of countervailing evidence when we still have, all things considered, good reason for that belief.
To illustrate, suppose a mom finds out her son is being charged with murder. Things don’t look good for him. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and substantial evidence points to his guilt. His mom, though, has unique perspective. She knows him well and believes for good reason that murder would be completely out of step with his character and life. She sees the countervailing evidence and feels the pull of it. At a certain (probably early) point, the mom should stay dogmatic about her son’s innocence even in the face of this evidence. Why? Because she has good reason to believe he didn’t do it. As the evidence gets sorted out, it may be that the mom’s evidence will be defeated and she should change her belief. But it could be that her unique perspective was completely right. Likewise, when it comes to our Christian faith, we should be dogmatic to a certain extent. This is a good thing while we sort out the evidence that’s before us.
I often encourage folks who are doubting to hang on. The reason is it can be difficult when one is in the throes of doubt to keep in view the other evidence one has for one’s Christian beliefs. Our doubts have a way of being in our face and clamoring for our attention. Again, this can be valuable because it is very likely that we should lean in and investigate those areas in which we are doubting. I’m not saying hang on and blindly trust that Christianity is true in the end. But hang on as you address the moment of doubt. After investigation, you may change your belief. But you may find as you lean in that the doubt can be adequately addressed. Either way, you will be more rational and on a surer intellectual foundation.
The Bible calls us to faith. Many Christian thinkers have seen faith as a moral virtue. At the same time, the Bible pictures Jesus as our moral exemplar. He’s the example after whom we should model our lives. What’s curious is the Bible never says that Jesus had faith. It would be odd if our moral exemplar lacked this primary Christian virtue.
One may be lead to think Jesus did not have faith. This, I think, could be plausibly argued for. I don’t think it follows merely from the fact that the Bible never says Jesus had faith. This would be an argument from silence and we need to be careful in basing a claim on silence. A position like this should be motivated, I think, by other considerations. Ultimately, the issue seems to turn on what we mean by faith.
One of the most influential figures in the history of Christian theology, Thomas Aquinas, saw this. He said:
Faith…implies a certain defect…and this defect was not in Christ. And hence there could be no faith in Him (ST, ch. 9: ques. 7: article 3).
I would certainly agree that if faith implied a defect, then Jesus did not have faith since, as Christians, we are committed to a sinless Christ. But it’s not clear to me that faith necessarily implies a defect. What is the defect? For Aquinas, it is the lack of directly beholding God. Faith, for Aquinas, was a way of having knowledge of religious matters without direct experience of those things. We do not directly behold God–that is, he is unseen–therefore, we must know God by faith. Faith, he thought, was the for things unseen in his reading of Heb. 11:1. Unlike us, Aquinas thought Jesus had a kind of direct vision of God throughout his earthly life such that religious matters were not unseen for him. He didn’t have this defect or this lack. So faith was unnecessary for Jesus.
Now if Aquinas was right that faith is a way of knowing and this way is necessitated because of a lack or defect, then surely it follows that Jesus did not have faith. I just don’t think Aquinas is right here. As I’ve argued before, even though there are a number of epistemological issues related to faith, I don’t think faith is an epistemology. That is, on my view, faith is not a way of knowing.
The gist of the view is that faith is a form of active or, what I call, ventured trust. It is where we stake our faith or trust in some object. I venture my life on the well-functioning of an airplane…but only when I get on board. This is analogous to Christian faith except that I venture my life on the person of Christ and truths of the gospel. Epistemology comes into it precisely because I need to know who (or whom) I should trust. Evidence should guide us to those things that are worthy of our ventured trust.
But if faith is ventured trust, then it seems Jesus is a paragon of faith. We see, in Christ, a full and whole life ventured in trust on the reality of God. Again, even if Jesus had a direct view of God, then this in no way counts against his having faith understood as ventured trust. In fact, if Jesus had a direct view of God, then this would provide him with ideal reason to trust. Jesus could rest certain (literally) in the trustworthiness of God.
A benefit of this view is it avoids the awkwardness of saying Jesus is our moral exemplar but except for faith. It seems much more plausible to think of Jesus as our model for all the virtues.
Seeing evidence as important for faith is, I think, good news because evidence matters for most areas of our lives. Why should our Christian beliefs be any different? With this understanding, if someone has doubts or questions, then they should investigate the evidence. In other words, investigating is not somehow inconsistent with having faith. It is, in my view, part of what it means to pursue the knowledge of God.
What do we find when we investigate the evidence? Do we have reason to venture our life on the reality of God? I and many others find the evidence very compelling and have given our lives to it.
[Related post: The Risk of Doubting One’s Faith]
Having recently completed a discussion of Plato’s Republic with a terrific group of college students, I am once again reminded of its beauty and depth. When teaching the Republic, I am always struck by the seemingly innocent back and forth of the dialogue that inevitably entices us straight into discussing life’s deepest issues. I am convinced that the genius of Plato is that we, in a way, cannot help but become a participant in his dialogue.
The influence and importance of the Republic as a single work is hard to match. It finds its way onto every self-respecting list of the most influential books, often ranking in the top five. Alfred North Whitehead famously said,
“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”[1]
Many philosophical topics that are live discussions today are traceable to Plato’s Republic. In short, the Republic is really, really good and worth our time.
One of my favorite discussions to have with students in reading the Republic is Plato’s allegory of the cave. In the dialogue, the main character, Socrates, tells a story according to which people are held captive within a cave and are bound such that they are only able to see the shadows on the wall of the cave. They have been there their whole lives, and so they think the shadows are all there is. It is possible to escape, but it is exceedingly difficult and no one really wants to because they are not sure there is anything beyond the shadows. The way of escape is an arduous journey, and, if one is successful, one encounters blinding light. It is so bright it’s painful. It takes some time for one’s eyes to adjust, but once they do, one sees the true world—the world as it really is.
The allegory is intended to illustrate how philosophy can free us from a fixation on the world of sensation. We are, in a way, bound by the shifting and ever-changing material world—the shadowlands, to use C.S. Lewis’ turn of phrase. For Plato, the material world is not necessarily evil, but it is a world in a constant state of flux and change. Thus, one cannot have genuine knowledge or even say true things, because before one finishes one’s inquiry, the world has already changed. The true world—what Plato calls the world of the forms—is the world of eternal and fixed ideas. This is a world discoverable not by empirical inquiry, but by philosophy.
In the shifting material world, one experiences things that have beauty to some degree. Or one may experience things that are somewhat good. But these are, at best, the mere shadows of beauty and goodness as they really are in themselves. In the world of the forms, one experiences beauty and goodness themselves along with the rest of the forms. And by knowing beauty and goodness themselves (as well as the rest of the forms), we are able to live well—at least, better—in the material world since there will be less confusion about what is beautiful, good, etc.
At this point in our discussion of the Republic, I always try to show how profound this is. What motivation to do philosophy! You can gaze on beauty and goodness themselves in doing philosophy! But here’s the thing. As good as that is, there’s something better still. For the Christian philosopher, there’s something (or someone!) that stands behind the forms [Read more]
[1] Process and Reality, p. 39 [Free Press, 1979]
(this post originally appeared on www.theologicalmatters.com)
In his An Essay on the Divine Authority of the New Testament (1804), 19th Century theologian, David Bogue once said:
God never requires us to believe without evidence: but where sufficient evidence is given, he is highly and justly displeased at men’s unbelief.[1]
Is this right? Does God ever require us to believe without evidence? I say he does not.
I’ve often asked my students whether they can come up with even one example in Scripture of someone who is asked to believe blindly—that is, to believe without evidence. It’s harder than you might think…okay, I think it’s impossible, since it is not there. But feel free to try. Every time God requires belief, there are experiences that accompany the request. Take, for example, Moses being asked to confront Pharaoh. There’s of course the burning bush as well as other confirming miracles. Or take Paul’s conversion experience on the road to Damascus. He’s literally blinded by an unexplainable light and talked to by Jesus himself. It’s not that these couldn’t have questioned these experiences and disbelieved. In fact, disbelief is always possible with experience (more on this below). The point, however, is it was very rational for them to believe. That is, these extraordinary experiences provided good evidence that rationally supported their beliefs.
The prime example that people often allege as a clear case of blind faith is Abraham’s being asked to sacrifice Isaac. But, as crazy as this experience must have been, when we look closely at the account (Gen. 22), we see that Abraham acted rationally. How so? We should keep in mind that just having Isaac was already a miraculous experience. God appeared to Abraham and verbally told him that Sarah, Abraham’s wife, would give birth. Abraham actually didn’t even believe this at first because Sarah was a wee bit beyond the child-bearing years at 90 years old! But her becoming pregnant and giving birth to Isaac seemed to change his mind rather quickly. This same divine voice spoke again verbally to Abraham and commanded him to go up to sacrifice the miracle child. Given this history and the verbal expression of God himself, Abraham clearly believed God on the basis of evidence.
There’s no doubt Abraham had competing reasons. Isaac was the promised child after all. All the promises that God had given to Abraham were to be given and furthered by Isaac. There’s also his obligations as a father to protect his child that had to have caused him to question whether he should do this thing. All of this, I would think, would provide Abraham with a tremendous intellectual conflict. Does this mean he therefore acted in blind faith? No! It seems to me he made the rational evidentially-based choice in believing God (even if he didn’t understand just what God was up to) and even rationalized it by expecting God to raise Isaac from the dead (according to Heb. 11:19).
We often find ourselves in similar situations. We are confident we are called to something we don’t understand. We don’t have the first clue how things will play out or even how all the ends will meet. And yet we are called to believe. We are called to trust. However, this is not blind faith. I suspect we have very good evidence for the belief. It’s just that we don’t know all details and we are going to have to trust. The point is, though, trust is the rational thing to do in this case.
Or perhaps we have doubts about our Christian faith. Again, I don’t believe God expects us to believe blindly. The good news: there no shortage of evidence for the truth of Christianity. As long as there have been Christianity, Christians have explored the evidence for its truth.
For Abraham, he was ultimately rational given his knowledge of God. I suspect that it took the very voice of God very God, the creator of the universe, whom Abraham knew very well to be trustworthy to move forward. His neighbor’s voice wouldn’t have been sufficient. A priest or a prophet’s voice perhaps wouldn’t have done it. But that familiar voice, given the bigness of his theology, gave him reason to believe.
[1] You can find the context of this quote and a link for Bogue’s full work at The Library of Historical Apologetics http://historicalapologetics.org/god-never-requires-us-to-believe-without-evidence/
Are faith and doubt in conflict? Can one have faith while doubting? I argue that these are not necessarily in conflict and that doubt can (somewhat ironically) produce greater faith. Here’s the interview:
Thanks to Truth Matters at Ratio Christi TV
Every survey and researcher says that students have a lot of questions about their faith. This seems to essentially define Millennials and Gen Y from older generations. Whereas older generations were content with certain presuppositions about faith, youth today are suspicious and often doubtful of these things. But here’s a funny thing. I get the privilege to speak regularly to students about faith and apologetics. At these events, there will occasionally be a Q and A time. When it is thrown open for questions, it’s very often the case that there is…awkward silence (crickets in the background). (whispering) Psst, where’s all the questions? What’s going on?
What is going on here? Well I don’t think the researchers have it wrong. I do think students have questions and they can, often times, be burdened by these. I think it is that the questions haven’t always coalesced in their minds into English language yet.
This can be a really rough place to be. One has a question that’s bothering them and creating cognitive dissonance, but they cannot even ask the question that’s there. It can be especially rough since that question may continue to nag them and even create further doubts. If they could just ask the question, it may be there’s a really good answer waiting in the wings. But it’s currently stuck and, thus, they are currently stuck.
We must get our kids asking their questions and seeing the resources of the Christian faith. An important role for youth leaders and parents to play is to help their kids articulate the questions they in fact have. To be clear, this isn’t telling your kids what to think. It is not telling them what questions they should have. It is helping them surface and articulate their questions.
Here are 4 steps to help kids ask the questions stuck in their heads.
The first thing is to enter their world. This is perhaps the most difficult step, especially if you haven’t done this much to date. But we’ve got to meet them where they are at. We need to notice what they like, what bothers them, what repulses them, what do they tend to emphasize, what sorts of things change their mind on issues, etc. Every generation is different. There is said to be one of the greatest generation gaps that has ever existed today. I’m not sure if that’s right or even how that is measured, but it seems clear the world they move in is substantively different and you need to get to know it to help the ask their questions.
I want to also suggest you create a safe space for them to ask any question at all. This is perhaps the scariest part. My wife and I have always told our kids they can ask us any question in the world and we’ll do our best to answer it (always in age appropriate ways) without any condemnation. There is, for us, no question that is off limits.
Now you have to cultivate the art of listening in these situations. Listen to them. Listen to what they are saying on their terms. Listen especially to what they are not saying. It’s often that the good stuff hangs just behind what they say.
Now it’s not my view that every question is a good one. There are dumb questions. But any question, insofar as it is a genuine question, is good to ask. And again, ill-formed questions will often stand just on the outside of a great question. Thus I think we should always affirm our kids in the questions they ask. If it is interesting to my kids, it is thereby interesting to me. If you make them feel bad in asking a question, they will start going elsewhere for answers.
If they’ve begun to ask some questions, great. But it may not be the question that’s bothering them. Clarify what they are saying. State their question back to them in different words to make sure you’ve got it. “I hear you asking…” and be ready to have missed their point.
If they still don’t know what to ask, give them some prompts. I find that I can typically start in talking about God or the Bible and the questions often come. By pushing them to dig deeper, they’ll find things that don’t make sense to them.
Chances are you will get thrown for a loop. I know I do all the time with students. I often have to give my best stab at something and then apologize and promise to get back to them. But I make it a point to get back to them. And this is the good stuff. Walking together in a dialogue (rather than preaching at them in monologue form) will draw you closer together and help both of you to clarify your thoughts and believe in more rational ways.
A revolution
Just over 500 years ago, Martin Luther helped begin a revolution when his Ninety-Five Theses were nailed to the wall of Wittenberg chapel. I proudly stand in that theological tradition along with many other protestant reformers and revolutionaries. It is a tradition that values the Bible as a unique authority for our Christian beliefs. Luther threw off, among other things, the pronouncements of the papacy as equally or (perhaps functionally) more authoritative than Scripture.
I’m no Luther scholar. Let’s just get that out of the way. But I know enough to know he faced down fierce opposition at a time when one’s theological views could cost one one’s life and livelihood all because he became convinced Scripture was the authoritative Word of God.
When called upon to recant his revolutionary idea about the Bible, Luther gives one of his most famous lines:
Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.
Philosophy as the devil’s whore
I’m certainly not on board with all of Luther’s beliefs, especially towards the end of his life when he expressed strong anti-Semitic sentiments.
When it comes to philosophy, let’s just say Luther also did not have the highest regard. In fact, he once called philosophy the “devil’s whore”! I’m not exactly sure what it means to be the devil’s whore, but he’s clearly not a fan. In light of this, many have argued that Luther believed philosophy was contrary to Christian faith. However, others have argued that Luther had not a low view of philosophy and reason, in general, so much as a low view of “secular” philosophy (i.e., philosophy that is not informed by Scripture and theology) standing as arbiter over revelation. On this view, philosophy played an important role, even though it would be, in a way, secondary to revelation as a handmaid in doing Christian theology.
Now we won’t settle Luther’s view on this issue here, but what’s worth noticing is Luther’s reference to reason in this famous passage. Luther couples Scripture and plain reason as his (epistemological) basis for his being captive to the Word of God. He seems to be saying that plain reason is as at least a possible source for what would cause him to change his views about Scripture’s unique authority. Notice too he points out that the deficient position of “the popes and councils” is that they have contradicted each other. He seems to be emphasizes the fact that he could not accept the authority of the popes and councils because when taken in whole, it was an irrational (i.e., contradictory) position. Here again his appeal is to reason.
Knowing that Scripture is authoritative
Sometimes Christians act as if they have simply received their view straight from Scripture and that reason plays no role. However, this is quite impossible. There is no way to read and interpret Scripture itself without the exercise of our reason in deciding on what the passage says and what it means. It takes reason to construct a coherent doctrine and systematize the various things we believe on the basis of Scripture. And it takes reason to apply these doctrines to our lives. Reason plays a role for all of our intellectual pursuits. Reason, for Luther, was able to lead us to what is and what isn’t a divine authority.
Does conceding the role of reason here take away from the authority of Scripture, etc. and put the authority instead on reason? No, I want to suggest it puts the authority of Scripture on a solid rational basis! Through reason we are arguing for the authority of Scripture. Let’s assume that Scripture is the divine authority. The problem is that a person doesn’t automatically know that it is the divine authority even when it is. It seems we’re going to need reasons to know it is the Word of God. Some of these reasons can come within the text, but this has a circularity worry if this is all we have. In other words, it can’t be authoritative only because it says so. The pope was also claiming to be authoritative in Luther’s day. All religious texts claim to be authoritative, in some sense or other. It seems we need to turn to matters outside of scripture that may provide support and a case for this belief.
Now once we come to the belief that scripture is authoritative, we have presumably figured out what this thing is. It is the divine revelation of God! It is the Word of God. It is a source of knowledge sufficient for all matters of life and godliness. Once we know what it is, we then make appeal to scripture as our ultimate authority…full stop. And we can say along with Luther, “Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason…my conscience is captive to the Word of God.”
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