A Survey of Christian Epistemology

Since it is upon God’s command that the work must be undertaken, it is God’s command that gives one the assurance that the work will accomplish its purpose. Looking at matters by themselves, it would be worse than useless to undertake reasoning with unbelievers. But it is the deep conviction of the total depravity of man that makes one throw his whole reliance upon God in all respects, and not the least in this question of reasoning with unbelievers. It is only he who deeply believes in the total depravity of man that can really preach with conviction that his work will not be in vain. Since he is convinced that the ethical alienation has been against God and against nothing else, he also knows that God is able to remove the ethical alienation. He, therefore, trusts that the Holy Spirit to whom, in the economy of redemption, the task has been assigned of convicting the world of judgment, will use the means of rational argumentation to accomplish his task. This hope is not inconsistent with the conception of the immediacy of the work of the Holy Spirit. That immediacy is complete. Our arguments taken by themselves effect nothing, while the Holy Spirit may very well convict without the use of our argument as he may convict without the use of our preaching. Yet because God is himself a completely rational God and has created us in his image, there is every reason to believe that he will make argumentation effective.

Then further it should be remembered in this connection that because man is a creature of God, it is impossible that he should ever be alienated from God metaphysically. He can never actually become the independent being that he thinks he is.

Even the king’s heart is in the hand of God as the watercourses. We have seen above that it was exactly because of this fact that man is, as a matter of fact, utterly dependent upon God, that a complete ethical alienation could take place. And it is for the same reason that the ethical alienation can be removed. It is this that had entered so deeply into Augustine’s soul when he told God to command him anything whatsoever, because it was God who first had to give what he commanded. And God can give what he commands because man has always remained his creature. There is then even in the consciousness of the non-regenerate a formal power of receptivity. It is this that enables him to consider the Christian theistic position and see that it stands squarely over against his own, and demands of him the surrender of his own position.

Still further we should recall that the ethical alienation, though complete and exclusive in principle, is not yet complete in degree. It is this conception of the relatively good in the absolutely evil that underlies the contention of Hodge that there is a general moral consciousness of man that may be trusted in moral matters to some extent.

Everybody admits that murder is wrong. Even the non-regenerate admit that. And though this fact must ever be taken in connection with the fundamental difference between the two types of consciousness, it is, taken together with the metaphysical considerations of the preceding paragraph, once more a formal power of receptivity on the part of the nonregenerate by virtue of which he can consider Christianity as a challenge to himself.

If we thought of the non-regenerate consciousness what it thinks of itself, we should not attempt to reason with it. By that we mean that the non-regenerate consciousness thinks itself to be independent of God metaphysically and ethically. If we thought there was any truth in this we could not argue with it, because with a being metaphysically independent, it would not be possible to come into any intellectual or moral contact at all.

We hold, then, that though the ethical miracle of regeneration must occur before argumentation can be really effectual, such an ethical miracle will certainly occur. Not as