How Should We Then Live Part 7: The Age of Non-Reason (II)

Schaeffer rightly critiques men like Sartre for their utter inconsistency, especially in terms of applying their philosophy to life and ethics. Moral rebels suddenly become moral on certain questions and yet they cannot account for these things – let alone the terms and concepts they use.

And yet contrary to Schaeffer I would argue that human reason leads to pessimism. This is not to suggest scepticism or chaos should be absolutised but is rather an admission of reason's limitations and man's incapacity due to his fallenness. This admission grants no credence to the likes of Jaspers, Heidegger or Huxley. It's simply an admission that the wisdom of this world is foolishness. It's non-wisdom as indeed apart from Christ that's all man is left with. Man's epistemology fails, the thoughts of the wise are vain.

Because of the Fall we've lost our ability to predicate or even truly grasp the Spiritual. It stares us in the face as an unavoidable reality but it eludes – our epistemology can't get us across the chasm that emerged East of Eden. It requires eyes to see granted by the Spirit working though faith. This isn't philosophy – it's revelation that's only understood by means of regeneration. Faith is not an empowered right reason to build a holy unified theory (a sanctified philosophy) that can sacralise the Earth – but a living relational obedience, a blessed eschatological hope and as such it is an expression of trust. You can't build a civilisation with faith rooted in revealed mysteries and we're not meant to. We're meant to bear witness and glorify Christ by following Him and instead of taking up the kingdoms of the world offered by its god – we choose the cross.

The turn to the esoteric and occult are sad but still point to the fact that man can't live as a purely materialist creature. That too is not a livable philosophy, although I must say that I cannot agree with Schaeffer's characterisation of Eastern thought. If in some respects it embraces contradiction, then it's because in many cases their cultures and religions have already gone through the philosophic cycle and have realised the problems in creating a unified theory in the realm of epistemology. Reason rooted in experience attempts to pursue metaphysics resulting in antinomy. Just as in Western philosophy there are various schools that have wrestled with the same problems. There is a spectrum of thought though rooted in different narratives. And while there is a kind of pantheistic force-dynamic at work and an acknowledgement of evil as having its due place, it would be a grave mistake to think the East embraces evil and has no concept of morality. Rather I think it more accurate to say that in their view (generally speaking) evil (as death and destruction) has its role or purpose, but this is not a wanton acceptance of it. For example the Kali inspired Thuggees were not embraced but were viewed as an aberration of the principle. All non-Christian thought is bound to succumb to evil. Non-Christian thought operating under the aegis of equally false Christo-sacral theology is hardly exempt.

As far as turning inward for knowledge – that's as old as Plato arguing for innate knowledge of the Forms. If Whitehead was right and Western philosophy is but a series of footnotes to Plato then I think Schaffer might want to reconsider his narrative. Of course his narrative also fails to account for the proliferation of the occult in the Middle Ages – a period in which society was closely bound, a period in which non-reason or scepticism was largely absent if not eschewed.

Liberal Theology is to be condemned and Schaeffer's stand against is to be applauded but he does not understand its origins and the fact that just as pessimism was born of the Enlightenment, so the Enlightenment was in many respects a secularised reiteration of Scholasticism. As argued previously whether secularised or spiritualised, the epistemology and methodologies of philosophy and philosophical scholasticism will always lead to deconstruction and pessimism. The problem isn't the wrong unified theory but the very quest for one.

His comments on Barth, Tillich and his passing visual references to Bultmann, Robinson and the like will receive little criticism from my pen and his narrative evokes Machen's Christianity and Liberalism. The God is Dead movement was a logical consequence of the epistemology. I wish he would have mentioned Bonhoeffer in this context simply to counter the contemporary narrative and the attempts by activists and revisionists to make him into an Evangelical.

I enjoyed the scene of Schaeffer standing in the midst of wreckage and desolation – in a kind of nod to Elliot's The Wasteland, and yet to find meaning in a cultural theology, creating a unified theory that rules men's actions and yet possesses no Spirit is to me a fruitless exercise and I can find to exhortation in the New Testament to pursue the project. The means utilised by the Spirit are defined by the Spirit. Using the New Testament you cannot argue that the culture, the state and the arts are God-ordained means used to build the Kingdom and bring about reconciliation with God. We dwell in a state of conflict and opposition to the world – this present evil age. We resist and bear the cross and wait for Christ. Our call to occupy has been transformed by some into a call for conquest and even worse appropriation. The Church loses its identity in the process and while the real world will always be wasteland, the theology of Schaeffer turns the Church into the same.

To restrict Biblical categories to propositional knowledge is to strip it of its supernaturalistic revelatory nature. God's knowledge cannot be equated with ours, we can but apprehend what we're being told. God does not 'know' things the same way we do. The difference between the knowledge of God is not merely quantitative but qualitative and as such his statements to us are understood in an analogical and relational context. Propositional theology (especially some forms of Pseudo-Scripturalism) are little more than rationalism in disguise, a kind of theological snake oil that claims to understand all but in actuality understands nothing.

Schaeffer decries scepticism and indeed it has often been said that Kant destroyed the house of Western Metaphysics. As previously stated Kant like Rousseau is another figure that straddles the Enlightenment/Counter-Enlightenment debate and yet for Schaeffer these figures are the originators of what he calls Non-Reason, the abandonment of the holistic worldview or unified theory project. Knowledge is fragmented and man falls into what he calls despair.

Kant's system cannot accommodate revelation and indeed he struggled with any knowledge of the so-called noumenal realm and yet pursued the questions utilising transcendental reasoning. And yet such reasoning cannot be authoritative as it relies on phenomenal experience. The spiritual world and a concept like revelation defy epistemology. This led Kant to state: “I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.”

Unlike Schaeffer, I agree with Kant and even Hume to a degree and yet this does not destroy my faith – it only furthers my disbelief and scepticism with regard to philosophy. I applaud the destruction of the Schaefferian Circle, the quest for a unified theory. And I don't think Schaeffer possesses it either. But unlike Kant I believe that Subordinate or Revelatory logic based on the Incarnation itself and actuated by the Spirit will give us the tools for a level of knowledge – limited to the revelation given. This revelation was given to the apostles and we have their words.

Rather than pursue the unified theory or Schaefferian circle, I argue that the New Testament itself contains the very 'foolish' message of the gospel – in philosophical terms it posits a new epistemology, that of Christ. Paul so powerfully elaborates this in the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians and the theme carries throughout the epistle. Faith in Christ requires the suspension of our flawed and limited philosophical apparatus. Excellency of wisdom will not grant us access to the divine. We know it by Jesus Christ and Him crucified, in demonstration of the Spirit and of the power of God – that our faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Please note the apostle does not say in the faulty wisdom of men, or suggest that we now possess the right wisdom of men. No, he breaks the category. The wisdom we possess – the sophia that we love – is not of this world or of the princes of this world but revealed mystery and hidden wisdom. The wisdom (as revealed even in the Proverbs) is Christ.

This is an epistemological revolution. Kant's problem isn't his breaking of the circle but rather a failure in faith. And for others we must ask what faith they have when it is rooted in the wisdom of this world?

The Christian suspension of philosophical categories and epistemology is not to 'leave your brain at the door' or to embrace non-reason but is rather a case of submission. It's not a call to abandon reason but to recognise that a different ordering of thought is necessary – we must have eyes to see and ears to hear. Indeed these things are revealed by the Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is required to compare 'spiritual with spiritual' then earthbound epistemologies and hope in and reliance upon propositional models and modes is an impossibility. Such a notion is not faith but merely an actuated 'right reason' – faith becomes like a light switch that's turned on – the light being man's capacity to pursue philosophy. Is this the message of the New Testament? The gospel is transformed into empowered logic? Tragically, some have thought so. Is it any great surprise that their progeny end up embracing theological liberalism?

Understanding this reality dashes the hope Schaeffer puts in a theology tied to propositional statements – and all the more the faulty and doomed-to-fail notion of constructing a public universal model that can be applied to society and culture. The natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. Only by redefining faith and indeed the faith can this become a possibility. 1 Corinthians 2 allows us to applaud the sad and flawed projects of a Hume or a Kant. They merely show the limitations, failings and ultimately the destruction of the world's philosophical systems. They have nothing positive to contribute but we can laud their powers of demolition. The answer isn't to embrace true philosophy through some kind of spirit-empowered philosophy but to reject the world's categories and focus on Christ. Indeed, it is foolishness in the world's eyes and that's why the philosopher-friendly theologians cannot embrace this simple, profound but ultimately humbling truth. 

Continue reading Part 8