Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism have long stood against the idea that truth can be apprehended through reason. At best reason is akin to a boat that one uses to get to a certain desired point in the process after which it can be left behind.
Yet even in Western philosophy cultural factors throw considerable doubt on the ability of human minds to apprehend truth through reason. Consider, for example, the differences between British philosophy and Continental philosophy. British philosophy is typically weighted towards an empirical approach, presupposing the importance of sense experience, whereas Continental philosophy is typically very analytical.
Add to this the effect different languages have on the way people think. It has long been recognised that language does not merely reflect culture but also tends to set limits within which culture operates.
In order for reason to have any realistic hope of apprehending ultimate truth it would need to be able to transcend all language, all culture. This is a sheer impossibility for any human or, indeed, for any human society. Such a quest is even more radically compromised not by the limits placed on rationality by culture, but by the fact that humans are fallen creatures, radically sinful by nature. That is, there is an inbuilt predisposition to suppress truth (Romans 1:18), that is, to refuse to glorify God AS GOD. In other words, even though people may be very religious - and most people on the planet do pursue religious or spiritual paths - there is in an inherent tendency not to allow God to reveal himself AS HE IS, but rather to fabricate our own ideologies and worldviews and philosophies and even religious systems. Clearly, if what Paul teaches in Romans 1 is true then the implications are profound. So profound in fact that with Paul we must recognise that it is precisely when people claim to be wise that they make the biggest charlies of themselves (Romans 1:22)!
Not that rationality is to be jettisoned. Rather revelation precedes rationality and rationality must take its place within the context of a wholistic human response to God’s self-revelation. The presupposition of God’s self-revelation is not to be confused with a philosophical cum rational premise, though, of course, it does include human rationality. Part of our problem is that we are so anthropocentric that we find it difficult to think of “God” as anything but an object of knowledge. The reality is that we live in a theocentric universe which centres around God and his activity, not ours. God is first and foremost the subject of revelation and only secondarily the object of revelation.
Writing to the Thessalonians Paul communicates:
And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers (1 Thessalonians 1:13).
God’s self-revelation via his Word is a reality not merely a rational premise. In this theocentric universe God has taken the initiative to break through the barriers of culture and moral failure to communicate truth to people incapable of otherwise knowing it through their own attempts to exercise reason or any other human faculty.
Posted July 3, 2009
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