Consider the following quotation by rationalist Edward Gibbon Wakefield on the Protestant Reformation:
...the loss of one mystery (of transubstantiation) was amply compensated by the stupendous doctrines of original sin, redemption, faith, grace, and predestination, which have been strained from the epistles of St Paul. These subtle questions had most assuredly been prepared by the fathers and schoolmen; but the final improvement and popular use may be attributed to the first reformers, who enforced them as the absolute and essential terms of salvation. Hitherto the weight of supernatural belief inclines against the Protestants; and many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God, than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
Wakefield was, of course, a standard Enlightenment scorner of the Christian faith. Here, he is extending his mockery of Western Roman Catholicism to the Protestant Reformation. There is nothing unusual nor new in his polemic--but it does give us a clear representation of how the mind of an Unbelieving rationalist works.
Almost to a man, rationalists suppress their most basic and fundamental assumptions. They are unable to deal with them honestly, probably because they know instinctively that they would end up like Hume, diffident and uncertain about everything. In this quotation, one of the most common rationalist assumptions, is plainly evident: if there is a divine being it can only subsist under the frame and limits of human reason. If a deity does not conform to what men consider reasonable, it cannot exist. The Mind of man trumps the Mind of God, although the Rationalist would carefully hide this, and would cloak his pretension in vague, amorphous notions like "truth", "reasonableness", "evidence", "fairness", and so forth."It is not that I would presume to 'trump' God, but 'reasonableness' compels me, or 'evidence' forces me to, or 'the consensus of fair minded men' cannot be evaded"--and so forth.
Here, the fundamental religion of the rationalist lies exposed--Man is the measure of all truth, both ultimate and derived. Only that which man can weigh, verify, and affirm can be considered real and true. Thus, if the God revealed in Scripture does not conform to conceptions of goodness as conceived and laid down by human beings, then God clearly is to be both rejected and despised. If the God revealed in Scripture is deemed to be a cruel and capricious tyrant when measured by human standards, then He clearly cannot exist, or if He does, He must be despicable.
But, and here is the rub, if such a God could only exist if He were approbated by humans and authenticated by the bar of human reason, then such a being, whatever else it might be, would clearly not be the God of Scripture. Rationalists, then, exclude from the outset the very possibility of the Triune infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God. Moreover, in so doing, they implicitly assert their own claims to deity. Rationalism has always been the very essence of human arrogance, rebellion, and idolatry.
God's question to Job exposes how empty rationalist pretensions are: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth! Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty" (Job 38:4; 40: 2). Job's response, when confronted with God, is the only one which could be considered rational:
I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of Thine can be thwarted. . . . Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." Job 42: 2-3)We note in passing that the central theme of the book of Job is the arrogance of rationalists trying to subject God to their world-view and make Him conform to what they consider to be fair and reasonable. Both Job and his friends were culpable of rebellion against God. Job repented of his sin of idolatrous rationalism. Edward Gibbon Wakefield did not. So passed an arrogant, lesser son from the sight of mortal men.
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