More reasoning about reason itself


To my surprise, the line of reasoning mentioned here undermines the whole basis for the theological disputes that have so long divided the Christian faith. If the use of human reason does not reliably extend and increase our store of revealed truth, we exceed our warrants when we act as if it does. That is to say, it is claiming too much to say that my church doctrine or yours stands equal with the word of God. This is a touchy point with some people, who place the pronouncements of their churches on a par with holy writ. It will be difficult for those people to enjoy the point I am making here, but I invite them to try.

If we separate revealed truth from reasoning about revealed truth, seeing them as different and incommensurate, belonging to two different orders of things entirely, we will not be nearly so offended by those other Christians who reason differently about some matters. It is not God and His truth they are sinning against; at worst, they are guilty of not reasoning as well as some other human beings.

It is easy to see that this viewpoint greatly reduces the number of things we can call heresy, which is really the underlying charge when we start flinging the distinguishing doctrines of our particular churches at one another. I call for an end to all that. If church A believes they have reasoned matters out better than church B, they may be right or wrong. But it is also surely irrelevant with respect to the revealed truth they started with, which remains the same no matter what they or we say about it. Here we have a pretty good reason, or excuse, not to take other people's doctrinal divergences all that seriously.

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