Had a wonderful time reading about faith and reason this morning in Turretin (1.1.8). He carefully thinks through how reason is useful in the field of theology. He makes a very careful distinction between the use of reason as an instrument and as a foundation.
Historically, he is mainly arguing with the Socinians. These folks are forerunners of modern day liberals because they make reason the foundational principle of what can or should be believed. If something is taught in the Bible, but does not make rational sense, then it is to be rejected or relegated to myth or metaphor. Turretin rejects this saying that folks like this have missed the true relationship between reason and theology and therefore are mislead concerning how it is to be used by the Christian (and especially by the theologian). He describes this relationship beautifully:
A ministerial and organic relationship is quite different from a principle and despotic. Reason holds the former relation to theology, but not the later.
Thus, reason can be used to help people see through errors in their thinking (for our reason is either broken and blinded by the Fall or is renewed but imperfect by grace) and as a useful tool to help people see the truth (it ministers them toward it). It does not and must not be allowed to have despotic rule over theology. God is not bounded by reason and the world that He has given to us must be viewed through the lens of His revelation. Reason should be used to support this revealed faith.
Where does this type of teaching make an impact today? It does give us an approach to the study of origins. Believers are often tempted to compromise with the unbelieving Naturalists and dismantling the content of Genesis 1 and 2. If you do this, the question is why do you do it? I think that well meaning folks do this because they actually want to deal with the data (light seems to have been traveling for a long time and carbon dating seems to make it look like the world is very old). My concern is that they have at this point misunderstood the relationship between reason and faith rejecting things that are clearly revealed because reason has become the principle by which things are affirmed or denied in the faith. Most just want to do this with origin issues, but if the despotic relationship of reason over faith is established then it should also be applied (with disastrous results) to things like sun standing still in the sky, the Virgin birth, the wine at the wedding feast at Cana, and the resurrection. If here, why not there?
Turretin provides a better way by giving reason a ministerial instead of a despotic role. As a minister, reason supports the things of faith, but when it finds scientific or deductive data that seems to conflict with faith it first seeks to find a way to question whether we have misunderstood the data (our reason being blind or hazy though renewed). It might leave believers in an awkward situation at points: not being able to explain data without non-scientific (or super-scientific) assertions (e.g., the light that comes from stars far away that seems to have been traveling in this direction for millions and millions of years might have travelled faster in the beginning, or it might have been created in route because God wanted us to see the stars). These assertions are not scientific. They make us blush when we are dealing with the local unbelieving hard data scientist (who happens to believe that life arose from inorganic matter which is a belief that would be called magic if it were in a Harry Potter book). These assertions strike and the underlying uniformity assumptions of science. They will not win you friends at the local community college biology department, but they will leave in tact the ministerial relationship of reason to faith. One can also believe that the days of Genesis might be meant to be longer periods than 24 hours period, but they should be convinced of this from the Scriptures or that this can leave us with a consistent picture of what God is telling us in His word. It can not or should not be believed because reason has taken the despotic relationship holding judgment over the Scriptures and the doctrine derived from them. Thus, we should not chuck the story of Genesis 1 and 2 because reason points more toward the evolutionary story so we slice and dice our Bible to make it fit with the data we think we understand. We MUST not believe this in order to win friends at the local unbelieving university because if we hold to our guns, they are not going to like us for long or as Jakob Dylan says, "Cheap lovers make expensive wives."
Today is the birthday of Thomas Jefferson who practiced the despotic relationship of reason to faith. Yesterday was the day on which Galileo's trial by the Inquisition began. Christians have erred in both directions. Today, they are tempted much more in the Jeffersonian direction. What an apt time to run into this question in Turretin!
