Autonomous reason

William Vallicella has been commenting on Van Til's The Defense of the Faith. It's nice to have a philosopher of Vallicella's stature interact with Van Til: 

Why am I bothering to read Van Til?

I have been told that I am wasting my time with Van Til.  One, but not the only, reason I am ploughing through The Defense of the Faith (4th ed.) is because his striking formulations help me focus certain questions that concern me deeply.   One of these questions concerns the tension between Athens and Jerusalem, the tension between the autonomy of reason and the heteronomy of obedient faith. (Leo Strauss is very good on the is tension.) Here is a Van Til passage that turns my crank:

So we cannot subject the authoritative pronouncements of Scripture about reality to the scrutiny of reason because it is reason itself that learns of its proper function from Scripture." (130) 

The Bible, then, is an absolutely infallible and finally authoritative source of truth which man cannot question and to which he must submit.  But what exactly does the Bible say? Does it say that God is triune? Yes, says Van Till. But now it should be clear that it is his Bible that he speaks of, the Bible as interpreted by him, using his finite, fallible, and indeed totally depraved reason, which somehow is not so totally depraved as to prevent him from discerning the truths that God reveals to us.

i) Vallicella misconstrues Reformed theology, probably because his default frame of reference is Catholic theology. That's what he knows best. In Reformed theology, not everyone is totally depraved. The reprobate and unregenerate are totally depraved. By contrast, the regenerate undergo spiritual renewal, including intellectual renewal. 

ii) Of course, even regenerate, sanctified reason remains finite and fallible. In that regard, Vallicella's objection seems to be that finite fallible reason can never be on a par with "an absolutely infallible and finally authoritative source of truth". The instrument (human mind) necessary to interpret revelation never rises to the level of divine revelation, so we never escape our capacity for error. Having an infallible source of truth doesn't automatically save us from error. Assuming that's what he's angling at, there is a sense in which that's true. 

iii) That said, suppose I have an inerrant roadmap. Although the roadmap is inerrant, that doesn't mean it's foolproof. I can still get lost. I can misread the map or make mistakes in comparing the map to the actual road.

But without a roadmap, I may be hopelessly lost. I have no frame of reference to correct my mistake. Indeed, I may keep going down the wrong road, becoming increasingly lost, increasingly distant from my destination. 

If I use a roadmap, I can still get lost, but that's usually temporary. Although I may make a wrong turn or drive too far, if I keep on driving I will see a street sign that matches a street on the map. That gives me a landmark, a frame of reference to tell me where I am in relation to the map. I can then find my destination by turning around or driving further. 

But without a roadmap, I can easily become totally lost. There are so many streets going in the wrong direction compared to streets going in the right direction. The ways of getting lost, the streets that never go to that address, vastly outnumber the streets that go to that address. So even though I remain fallible, having an inerrant guide can immeasurably improve my chances of success. 

For every true answer there are ever so many mistaken answers. Having an infallible source of truth, even if we remain fallible, eliminates a vast number of false starts and blind alleys. 

iv) In addition, Reformed theology has a doctrine of meticulous providence, including special providence. God doesn't leave his people to their own resources. God orchestrates their circumstances and experiences so that they will come to a saving knowledge of the truth. That doesn't preclude error or doctrinal disunity, but it does preclude damnable error. Scripture doesn't operate in a vacuum, but in conjunction with God's special providence, directing the lives of his people to his intended goal. 

v) You can be right without being infallible. Knowledge doesn't require infallibility. True belief doesn't require infallibility. Even fallible methods can and often do discover the truth. God uses fallible (as well as infallible) means to guide his people into the truth. To recur to my illustration, using a roadmap to find your destination isn't foolproof, yet it's often successful. 

But that a putative revelation is a genuine revelation is something for us to decide by a critical and autonomous use of our God-given intellects. 

i) If a putative revelation is spurious, then it never was infallible or absolutely authoritative, so that questioning a spurious revelation isn't an insubordinate use of reason. That's different from submitting to genuine revelation. 

ii) Human reason ought to be independent in relation to spurious revelatory claimants. There's an asymmetrical relation between genuine revelation and spurious revelation vis-a-vis reason.

iii) Except for Pelagianism, most Christian traditions regard divine grace as a necessary enablement for the mind to have faith in revelation. Reason is not autonomous in that regard, but requires enlightenment to trust and be receptive to revealed truth. 

If we have been created in the image and likeness of God, then we have been created as autonomous persons, centers of awareness and self-awareness in our own rights, endowed with free will and reason. 

There's a long theological tradition of overloading the imago Dei with lots of philosophical cargo that has no exegetical warrant in what the imago Dei means in the original context of Scripture. There's nothing in the OT or NT occurrences of the imago Dei that includes "autonomous persons, centers of awareness and self-awareness in our own rights, endowed with free will…" That's an example of a theological development which has taken on a life of its own, unmoored from what the category originally meant. It becomes a false premise on which to build a towering sandcastle. The claim that we've been created as autonomous persons, centers of awareness and self-awareness in our own rights, endowed with free will, if justifiable at all, requires some other justification than that much-abused prooftext. 

What sort of God would want us to remain forever children?

What does that mean? Vallicella concedes that "we are obviously in need of help that we cannot provide for ourselves either individually or collectively."

Although children outgrow their parents, and some students outgrow their teachers, humans never outgrow God. As the omniscient Creator, he forever remains our intellectual guide and guardian.