# Is fideism compatible with Reformed theology?



## ThomasT (Sep 11, 2016)

By 'fideism' I mean fideism only in the theological, and not in the broader philosophical, sense. 

I know that the Catholic Church strongly condemns fideism, but I’m not familiar with the position of Reformed theologians on this question.


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## Scott Bushey (Sep 11, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> By 'fideism' I mean fideism only in the theological, and not in the broader philosophical, sense.
> 
> I know that the Catholic Church strongly condemns fideism, but I’m not familiar with the position of Reformed theologians on this question.



This may be helpful:

http://www.puritanboard.com/showthread.php/23876-WCF-and-Fideism


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## ThomasT (Sep 11, 2016)

Scott Bushey said:


> ThomasT said:
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> > By 'fideism' I mean fideism only in the theological, and not in the broader philosophical, sense.
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Thanks for the link. It seems, according to the discussion you pointed me to, that Reformed theology takes a dim view of fideism. What I'm wondering now is how close, according to Reformed theology, reason alone can take us to the Gospel. Can it take us from naturalism to deism? From deism to theism? From a vague theism to a god who becomes incarnate? From a generic incarnation to the actual Incarnation? Past all of that to a certain belief in the entirety of the Bible's claims?

Where does unaided reason have to give way to faith?


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## TylerRay (Sep 11, 2016)

Thomas,

Perhaps you should explain what you mean by _fideism_.


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## Justified (Sep 11, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> Scott Bushey said:
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The light of nature clearly evidences that there is a God (WCF 1). I will go further and say that reason tells us the following about God: that he exists, that he is simple, therefore his essence and existence do not differ, he is necessary, he is the creator of all things, all good, all loving, just, and in everyway maximally perfect. This can be known through reason, though because of sin and ignorance (consequences of the fall), not all men attain to these conclusions.

Only special revelation, however, that God is a Trinity, that God pours himself out for us in Christ, to we must go if we hope to inherit everlasting life. Special revelation is a voluntary act of God's condescension, and hence is a necessary condition for the salvation of man. In essence the heavenly preaching of the gospel cannot be known apart from the revelation of God.

A general theism will not avail one, on that day when our Lord comes on the clouds on That Day.


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## MW (Sep 11, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> Where does unaided reason have to give way to faith?



The question supposes the validity of Thomas' two-step method of reasoning towards faith. In contrast the Reformed prefer the Augustinian and Anselmic method of faith seeking understanding. Faith must exist in a reliable source of authority in order for man to know aright. If relying upon a source of authority is defined as "fideism" then it is an inescapable concept, and Thomas himself did not escape from it because he had to have faith in reason in order to affirm his two step method.


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## ThomasT (Sep 11, 2016)

TylerRay said:


> Thomas,
> 
> Perhaps you should explain what you mean by _fideism_.



I'll start with a reference-text definition instead of my own attempt at one so I don't let any personal biases creep in:

"[F]ideism teaches that rational or scientific arguments for the existence of God are fallacious and irrelevant, and have nothing to do with the truth of Christian theology." http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Fideism

Basically fideism is a school of Christian epistemology (for our purposes; there's a non-Christian version of fideism as well) that takes all essential Christian dogmas as given truths but finds reason insufficient as a source of belief in these dogmas (to include the mere existence of anything outside the natural world). Pascal is a well known example of a fideist. Pascal wrote that arguments for the existence of god show only the weakness of the arguments and bring us no closer to belief. 

Reformed theology, as far as I understand it, isn't very sympathetic to fideism, but I'm wondering how far Reformed theologians go in asserting that reason can open doors of apprehension into the supernatural world.


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## TheOldCourse (Sep 11, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> TylerRay said:
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It seems to me that there's a substantial difference between the "fallacious and irrelevant" of the first definition and the "insufficient" of the second.


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## ThomasT (Sep 12, 2016)

MW said:


> ThomasT said:
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> > Where does unaided reason have to give way to faith?
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Fideists would argue that whether reason is regarded merely as a formal exercise of the intellect (meaning that it has its own fixed set of rules) providing no necessary connection to truth, or whether reason, by faith, is taken to be a reliable avenue into truth, that either way reason cannot arrive at truth about the supernatural, except in a negative sense, by exposing contradictions in claims about God.


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## ThomasT (Sep 12, 2016)

TheOldCourse said:


> ThomasT said:
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Any rational argument purporting to be sufficient to its end that isn't sufficient is by definition fallacious. Fideists say that those who claim to have sufficiently demonstrated the existence of God through reason are guilty of fallacious reasoning. Lack of sufficiency, when a claim for sufficiency is made, is what establishes the fallacy.


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## MW (Sep 12, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> Fideists would argue that whether reason is regarded merely as a formal exercise of the intellect (meaning that it has its own fixed set of rules) providing no necessary connection to truth, or whether reason, by faith, is taken to be a reliable avenue into truth, that either way reason cannot arrive at truth about the supernatural, except in a negative sense, by exposing contradictions in claims about God.



On that definition fideism must be rejected. There is a positive ministerial role for reason under the conduct of faith. The truths of general revelation are rational; and while the truths of special revelation are beyond reason, they are not against reason, and they presuppose clarity in natural revelation.


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## ThomasT (Sep 12, 2016)

MW said:


> ThomasT said:
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> > Fideists would argue that whether reason is regarded merely as a formal exercise of the intellect (meaning that it has its own fixed set of rules) providing no necessary connection to truth, or whether reason, by faith, is taken to be a reliable avenue into truth, that either way reason cannot arrive at truth about the supernatural, except in a negative sense, by exposing contradictions in claims about God.
> ...



How do we know which truths are accessible to unaided reason and which truths are accessible only through special revelation?


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## MW (Sep 12, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> How do we know which truths are accessible to unaided reason and which truths are accessible only through special revelation?



I wouldn't speak of unaided reason for the reasons before mentioned, but that which is accessible to reason by nature is described in broad outline in the Westminster Confession, 1:1; 19:1, 2, 5; and 21:1. I would also reaffirm that nature everywhere points to the need of special revelation to direct it to its created purpose and end.


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## ThomasT (Sep 12, 2016)

MW said:


> ThomasT said:
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Two more quick questions: 

1) Do the WCF passages you cited generally reflect the broad tradition of Reformed thinking?

2) Since the Bible offers no fully formed rational arguments for the existence of God, presenting instead only fragments of rational arguments and generally taking the existence of God as a given; and since theologians and philosophers are strongly divided in their approach to the rational arguments that theologians have developed, how can we know that a particular argument for the existence of God is rationally sound?


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## MW (Sep 13, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> 1) Do the WCF passages you cited generally reflect the broad tradition of Reformed thinking?



It depends how "broad" that tradition is conceived. Barthians, for example, are opposed to natural theology. But I would think the reformed "orthodox" will see the WCF passages as reflective of their thought. See, for example, Heppe's Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 2-4.



ThomasT said:


> 2) Since the Bible offers no fully formed rational arguments for the existence of God, presenting instead only fragments of rational arguments and generally taking the existence of God as a given; and since theologians and philosophers are strongly divided in their approach to the rational arguments that theologians have developed, how can we know that a particular argument for the existence of God is rationally sound?



Each argument should be tested on its own merits. Personally I don't think any argument "proves" the existence of the God of the Bible. I am inclined to think the arguments are collaborative and corroborative. As far as I can see, rationality, morality, teleology, etc., are themselves clear evidence for the existence of God. Without an infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God none of these things could possess any value. So the choice for man is between theism or destruction.


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## KGP (Sep 13, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> What I'm wondering now is how close, according to Reformed theology, reason alone can take us to the Gospel. Can it take us from naturalism to deism? From deism to theism? From a vague theism to a god who becomes incarnate? From a generic incarnation to the actual Incarnation? Past all of that to a certain belief in the entirety of the Bible's claims?
> 
> Where does unaided reason have to give way to faith?



Reason alone can take a person as far as he or she will be willing to go toward God, according to their own ideas and conceptions. Some may start exploring various religions; some may begin to be more charitable; some may attend a church; some may read a bible; etc.

But unaided reason cannot give way to faith until the Spirit gives life.

Whatever role reason plays in a life prior to the dawn of faith should be considered as a part of Gods providential dealings in the out working of his purposes for that person; but should not be considered as preparatory for salvation. To use Paul the apostle as an example; his wonderful ability to reason that is so evident in his epistles was formed through God's providential dealings with him in his training and upbringing; but it was powerless in relation to his faith; which came by the Spirit at the time of his encounter with the risen Lord.

Perhaps a more succinct way to say it: reason must give way to faith when it encounters special revelation in the Power of the Spirit. If the power of the Spirit is absent; then fallen human reason will still sit in judgment over the gospel and deem it foolish/stumble over it. But when it is received not as word only but as the Word with Power it subdues fallen reason and produces faith.

Also; I think Jesus says how close Reason can get you in John 6.
The Spirit gives life. The flesh (even in all the wisdom and reason it can muster) profits nothing.

No life; no true faith; that's my understanding of the Bible's testimony.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## ThomasT (Sep 13, 2016)

KGP said:


> ThomasT said:
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> > What I'm wondering now is how close, according to Reformed theology, reason alone can take us to the Gospel. Can it take us from naturalism to deism? From deism to theism? From a vague theism to a god who becomes incarnate? From a generic incarnation to the actual Incarnation? Past all of that to a certain belief in the entirety of the Bible's claims?
> ...



But reason that serves our will isn't the kind of reason I had in mind. That kind of reason would have to be regarded as reaching the right conclusions (when this happens) only by accident. I was thinking of reason properly followed. Reason is more than the ability to create arguments we find appealing. Theology would be pointless if reason had to be relegated to the status of an aid to our private beliefs. 

Reason can't get us to heaven. I agree with you there. But in the Reformed tradition, reason -- without any special revelation -- is seen as an avenue to truth about the supernatural. Not to all truth about the supernatural; even special revelation doesn't get us that far. God has chosen to leave many truths hidden from us. But reason is seen as reliable, without special assistance from God, at least up to a point. My question merely asked what that point is. Are we justified, purely as rational beings, not as Christians with a privileged claim to revelation, in accepting the cosmological argument? The teleological argument? The ontological argument...?


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## ThomasT (Sep 13, 2016)

MW said:


> ThomasT said:
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I agree that each argument has to pass the test of reason. But theologians are deeply divided, for example, over the standard arguments for the existence of God. Moreover, some of these arguments are notoriously subtle and difficult. Bertrand Russell, if I'm remembering this correctly, said that it took him two years to understand the ontological argument. And this was as an adult, not a child.

So I guess I'm wondering how any consensus can be reached on particular arguments?


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## MW (Sep 13, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> I agree that each argument has to pass the test of reason. But theologians are deeply divided, for example, over the standard arguments for the existence of God. Moreover, some of these arguments are notoriously subtle and difficult. Bertrand Russell, if I'm remembering this correctly, said that it took him two years to understand the ontological argument. And this was as an adult, not a child.
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> So I guess I'm wondering how any consensus can be reached on particular arguments?



Any rational argument makes an intuitive appeal to the necessary existence of perfection and thereby validates the ontological argument.

I doubt you will find consensus on details within the Christian community, but you can look for broader streams of agreement. Outside of it you will be hard pressed to find any philosophical consensus at all, especially when it is all turned into a language game or a psycho-sociological study.


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## KGP (Sep 14, 2016)

ThomasT said:


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I don't think we have two types of reasoning; I think we have a (single) faculty of reason that operates under varying conditions and influences producing varying results. So the reason that serves our will is the same faculty that might also be properly followed to a good and right conclusion or solution. If our will is to reach a reasonable conclusion, then our reason may be properly followed while serving our will. 




ThomasT said:


> But reason is seen as reliable, without special assistance from God, at least up to a point.



If you have quotes or resources on this, I would be glad to read them. Responding to your comments have had me type and delete a lot; this is an area that I have not thought or read widely about. If we are speaking of unaided reason being reliable pertaining to matters of faith; I have a hard time reconciling this statement with my understanding of the Bible.

Reason is a God given and God reflecting faculty given to man and so it should be seen as reliable wherever it functions rightly. It was designed for a function; to lead us into ever expanding truth and understanding, amongst other things. I believe it's place or priority was originally to be 'above' the will so to speak, or at least in tandem with it; to harness the will toward and direct it toward the good, reasonable and God honoring goal. Since sin has entered the creation however; the faculty of reason is no longer able to direct the will continuously toward the knowledge of God, as right knowledge of the true and Holy God involves increasing knowledge of sin and coming judgment, and is ultimately threatening to the sinner. God is indeed terrifying outside of Christ; and so the will, now bent on serving and preserving self, will rise up against such threatening imaginings and suppress the march of reason toward understanding of the Holy One.

This does not mean reason has been destroyed; as many fallen men maintain an amazing ability to reason in relation to earthly matters and man made philosophies, even to 'supernatural' ideas if we use the term broadly. It does mean however that reason cannot attain to a saving knowledge of God, which you recognize already.

I think the biggest trouble with your question is that it requires a precise understanding of exactly what constitutes 'special assistance' and what we could say is due to reason properly followed; and given that God's providence is absolute I don't know that we can rightly determine in the life of a convert at what point unaided reason left off and where God's special assistance picked up. I don't know that we can know the difference; especially if we want to be among those who look back and say truly it was 'all of grace'.




ThomasT said:


> Are we justified, purely as rational beings, not as Christians with a privileged claim to revelation, in accepting the cosmological argument? The teleological argument? The ontological argument...?



I think this deserves a separate response, one that others here may be more qualified to give. I am aware that on this topic I may end up speaking out of ignorance if I'm not careful.


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## ThomasT (Sep 16, 2016)

KGP said:


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You covered a lot of ground in your note but I think the main issue comes down to a single question, which is what we can expect a normally functioning human mind in unregenerate man to be able to discover simply by using a standard rational approach to the basic problem we’re concerned with here – the basic problem being reason's ability to apprehend the supernatural. (We agree that reason can’t take us to the Gospel, so on this point we have no question to answer.) We’re assuming the best of conditions, meaning principally that the unregenerate mind is motivated purely by genuine curiosity and is willing to let its reason take it wherever it goes. We’re further assuming that God has not given this mind any revelation other than the revelation given commonly to all.

Can this mind work its way from an evaluation of available evidence (this, again, would be evidence available to all, not to those with special grace), governed by logic, to any knowledge of the supernatural, even if it’s just of the existence of a vague supreme being? Or can it achieve only a conviction of the _plausibility_ of a supreme being? 

If it’s the former, there should be far more agreement than there is among people in general and intellectuals in particular. (Reason being a universal human ability, without which social cooperation would be impossible.) If it’s the latter, then what our curious mind has gained isn’t actually knowledge – it’s at best a less-than-certain belief or leaning. 

So when we say that reason can answer some questions about God (at a minimum the question of His existence or non-existence), are we really speaking about reason in its pure form, or are we fatally biased when we talk about reasoning our way to a knowledge of God, having already arrived by faith at beliefs about God and allowing those beliefs to fill in the blanks that reason can't?


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## MW (Sep 16, 2016)

> the unregenerate mind is motivated purely



It seems to me that a term like "unregenerate mind" supposes a quality which rules out the possibility of being "purely motivated." If it is "unregenerate" this "mind" has already done specific things with the knowledge derived from natural revelation -- e.g., exchanged the truth for a lie; chosen to serve the creature instead of the Creator -- and this suppression creates an impure effect from the light of natural revelation. The light remains pure. The receptacle is impure.


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## ThomasT (Sep 19, 2016)

MW said:


> > the unregenerate mind is motivated purely
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> It seems to me that a term like "unregenerate mind" supposes a quality which rules out the possibility of being "purely motivated." If it is "unregenerate" this "mind" has already done specific things with the knowledge derived from natural revelation -- e.g., exchanged the truth for a lie; chosen to serve the creature instead of the Creator -- and this suppression creates an impure effect from the light of natural revelation. The light remains pure. The receptacle is impure.



Are we saying, then, that the unregenerate mind is incapable, using reason but unaided by special grace, from arriving at any knowledge of the supernatural?


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## MW (Sep 19, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> Are we saying, then, that the unregenerate mind is incapable, using reason but unaided by special grace, from arriving at any knowledge of the supernatural?



I suppose that instead of "arriving" we could say there is a "departing." The knowledge of the supernatural is used by the world to "know not God." It is such a knowledge as always seeks to justify its position of revolt. Even when God is acknowledged, it is such a God as coincides with its own independent reason.


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## Toasty (Sep 19, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> MW said:
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He can have a knowledge of it, but it will be twisted.


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## ThomasT (Sep 19, 2016)

MW said:


> ThomasT said:
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So when Paul says that man is without excuse, is he referring to intuition rather than reason?


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## KGP (Sep 19, 2016)

ThomasT said:


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I think at this point you're on the verge of unhelpful extrapolation. Paul is referring to the whole man being without excuse; to divide that down further does not serve us in any practical way that I can see. We might be able to identify more specifically the nature of the sin or malfunction in the reason or intuition were we to have a case to study; but again I don't know that that is for us to do. The intuition is as unreliable as our reason in spiritual matters; it is enough to leave it there, remembering that scores of those who were 'not many wise' have been set aright by the Spirit and the Word.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## MW (Sep 19, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> So when Paul says that man is without excuse, is he referring to intuition rather than reason?



The apostle uses "reason" as one of the witnesses against man. "Professing themselves to be wise they became fools." We might liken it to a war criminal who is fully convicted in the court of law concerning all his crimes, but he justifies himself because he believed he was on the right side of the war.


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## KGP (Sep 19, 2016)

My 2cents


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## ThomasT (Sep 19, 2016)

MW said:


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In Romans 1 Paul argues not just that man is guilty of not obeying God but that man is also without excuse – “for since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…”

But if the unregenerate mind is constitutionally incapable of understanding the attributes of God that are displayed in nature, that mind certainly has an excuse for not taking a cue about the supernatural from nature. It may not be an exculpatory one, but it’s still very much an excuse. Indeed Paul doesn’t seem to believe that this constitutional inability you’re arguing for (if I’ve understood you correctly) is a real condition of fallen man. Fallen man has other inabilities, but this isn’t one of them.

To extend your war-criminal analogy, if an illiterate 16 year-old peasant conscript is put on trial for war crimes, he could easily offer as an excuse that he'd never heard of such a thing as the law of war. The court might still find him guilty, ignorance of the law not being an exculpatory defense, but the court couldn’t reasonably claim that the defendant had no excuse at all.

Paul’s aim in Romans 1 is to use nature as a means of denying man any claim to an excuse for his disobedience. But this aim of Paul’s is self-defeating if man can’t see the attributes of God in the natural world around him. Now maybe you're saying that man _can_ see these attributes but that he immediately rebels against them. If that's your position, then my question (again) is this: By what faculty does fallen man see these divine attributes, even if he rebels against them a moment after seeing them?


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## ThomasT (Sep 19, 2016)

KGP said:


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And yet Paul declares fallen man to be without excuse precisely because man rebels against the attributes of God that are apparent to him in nature. Paul isn't concerned with the whole-man concept in this passage. Paul's scope is very narrow here...


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## MW (Sep 19, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> But if the unregenerate mind is constitutionally incapable of understanding the attributes of God that are displayed in nature, that mind certainly has an excuse for not taking a cue about the supernatural from nature.



Again, I think the term, "unregenerate," supposes something has already been done with those things which are understood from "nature." Its incapacity is not constitutional. It has abused its constitution to its own demise.


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## ThomasT (Sep 20, 2016)

MW said:


> ThomasT said:
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I think we’re side-stepping the epistemological question. If man at some point in his life has no “plain” knowledge of God from nature then it’s impossible to make sense of Paul’s commentary in Romans 1:18-20 (beyond saying, which neither of us is doing, that he was wrong).


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## MW (Sep 20, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> I think we’re side-stepping the epistemological question. If man at some point in his life has no “plain” knowledge of God from nature then it’s impossible to make sense of Paul’s commentary in Romans 1:18-20 (beyond saying, which neither of us is doing, that he was wrong).



The apostle describes a situation which is under the wrath of heaven. Man knew. Man has used his knowledge to exchange the truth for a lie, to serve the creature instead of the Creator. God has judicially given men over to their choice. This is the state of affairs in which every man is born into the world. It is a state of sin and misery. The apostle does not argue that the creation provides the means by which more truth can be brought to men in order to make them inexcusable. He states that under the present condition of wrath being revealed from heaven against the ungodliness of men fallen man is without excuse because he holds the truth in unrighteousness.


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## ThomasT (Sep 22, 2016)

MW said:


> The apostle does not argue that the creation provides the means by which more truth can be brought to men in order to make them inexcusable.



I don’t pretend to be an exegete, but your interpretation of the passage we’re considering strikes me as problematic. This is from Calvin’s commentary on Romans 1:20 -- 

“We are not however so blind, that we can plead our ignorance as an excuse for our perverseness. We conceive that there is a Deity; and then we conclude, that whoever he may be, he ought to be worshipped: but our reason here fails, because it cannot ascertain who or what sort of being God is. … But this knowledge of God, _which avails only to take away excuse_, differs greatly from that which brings salvation…”

Calvin clearly affirms that men have a partial knowledge of God ("we conceive that there is a Deity"). He goes on to say that this partial knowledge, which all men possess or are at least capable of possessing, is given to us only to deprive us of an excuse for failing to worship Him.


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## MW (Sep 22, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> Calvin clearly affirms that men have a partial knowledge of God ("we conceive that there is a Deity"). He goes on to say that this partial knowledge, which all men possess or are at least capable of possessing, is given to us only to deprive us of an excuse for failing to worship Him.



Going backward he says, "It hence clearly appears what the consequence is of having this evidence -- that men cannot allege any thing before God's tribunal for the purpose of showing that they are not justly condemned."

Going forward he says, "He plainly testifies here, that God has presented to the minds of all the means of knowing him, having so manifested himself by his works, *that they must necessarily see what of themselves they seek not to know* -- that there is some God; for the world does not by chance exist, nor could it have proceeded from itself."

The inexcusability is owing to the truth already established, not to a truth yet to be proven.


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## ThomasT (Sep 22, 2016)

MW said:


> ThomasT said:
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> > Calvin clearly affirms that men have a partial knowledge of God ("we conceive that there is a Deity"). He goes on to say that this partial knowledge, which all men possess or are at least capable of possessing, is given to us only to deprive us of an excuse for failing to worship Him.
> ...



I think we’re taking the same position here. We’re saying that God’s existence is somehow apparent rather than lying in wait for a clever person to discover it through sophisticated reasoning, reasoning that may not be accessible to some.

But this brings up another epistemological question: When Calvin says that “we conceive that there is a Deity,” by what faculty does he suppose that we arrive at this conception? Is it simple reason? Intuition? Innate knowledge…?


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## MW (Sep 23, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> But this brings up another epistemological question: When Calvin says that “we conceive that there is a Deity,” by what faculty does he suppose that we arrive at this conception? Is it simple reason? Intuition? Innate knowledge…?



Calvin's well known expression is "the sense of divinity." Scholars have different ways of explaining what Calvin meant by this. Perhaps somewhere between intuition and innate knowledge. Not innate ideas, but a kind of constitutional imprint which causes man to naturally reason this way, even when corrupt reason follows idols.


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## ThomasT (Sep 24, 2016)

MW said:


> ThomasT said:
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> ...



Thanks for the comment. I was unaware of Calvin's view on this point. Calvin's "sense of divinity" seems to be related to the "sense of the numinous" that some theologians have discussed...


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## MW (Sep 25, 2016)

ThomasT said:


> Thanks for the comment. I was unaware of Calvin's view on this point. Calvin's "sense of divinity" seems to be related to the "sense of the numinous" that some theologians have discussed...



Calvin even used the word "numen." Whether the way others appropriate the idea is in agreement with Calvin's use of it requires examination. He had a well defined structure in which he thought about the sense of divinity, including a full recognition of the incomprehensibility of God, the noetic effects of the fall, and the necessity of special revelation.


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