The following is a production of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. For more information about the seminary, visit us online at gpts.edu. Prepared for that last hymn. We sang that at my father's funeral. And just as an introduction, I didn't grow up in the Reformed camp, but it was Machen's book, Christianity and Liberalism, that really the Lord in his providence used to win me and eventually my father. I'm good. Thank you. It's a privilege for me to be here. So thank you, Dr. Piper, and thank you, faculty of the seminary. I appreciate it. I should be honest and say that a few days ago I read the remarks I'm going to give to my wife and she fell asleep. And I'm continuing to tell myself that it's because of all that cold medicine she was taking. And so you have your warning. The verses that I asked Dr. Piper to read. in 1 and 2, 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, in my estimation, capture the essence of old Princeton's religious epistemology. Epistemology is the study of knowledge. How do we know? What I'm going to be dealing with tonight is I'm going to try and lay out the standard assessment of the old Princetonians. The standard assessment of the old Princetonians is that they were rationalists. They were committed to a high view of scripture, the inerrancy of scripture. They were committed to the objective nature of religious truth. They were committed to the knowable nature of religious truth because, the consensus goes, of their commitment to Scottish common sense realism. I don't agree with that. I think that that's a caricature, a misrepresentation of the old Princetonians, and I will try and show that this evening. I think that the old Princetonians insisted that knowing is more than a merely rational or intellectual thing. It has to do with the whole person. And here's just one quote from Charles Hodge, and I'll get to this later. in in the presentation. Here's what Hodge says. Now, I don't think this sounds like a rationalist. The knowledge of Christ is not the apprehension of what he is simply by the intellect, but also a due apprehension of his glory as a divine person arrayed in our nature and involves not as its consequence merely but as one of its elements, the corresponding feeling of adoration, delight, desire, and complacency. First Corinthians 118. Can the natural man understand the propositions of the gospel? Yes. Can the natural man love the gospel? Can the natural man discern the spiritual wisdom of the gospel? Can the natural man see the beauty and excellence of Christ? No. And I think that this is what is driving the old Princetonians, not Scottish common sense realism. So, introduction. The contemporary state of historical studies. The word on the streets is that the theologians at old Princeton Seminary were not who they claimed to be. According to the consensus of critical opinion, While the Princetonians claimed to be the faithful defenders of the reformed tradition and the champions of reformed orthodoxy in the context of 19th and early 20th century American culture, in fact, they accommodated the assumptions of the age in which they lived and in so doing lost a firm hold on the essential commitments of the tradition that they claimed to be standing in. Indeed, their insistence upon the objective nature of religious truth, their endorsement of an inductive approach to the interpretation of scripture, their spirited advocacy of the doctrine of inerrancy, and their commitment to an evidentialist approach to apologetics were all grounded, many of their critics contend, not in faithfulness to the assumptions of the Reformed tradition, but in an implicit and at times even explicit commitment to precisely that kind of enlightenment rationalism that is largely responsible for the decline and fall of Calvinism as the dominant force in the American church. The problem, these critics insist, is not that the Princetonians were rationalists like the more radical thinkers in the age of reason were rationalists. To the best of my knowledge, no one is claiming that the Princetonians regarded the human intellect as the ultimate arbiter of what is true, good, and beautiful. Rather, they were rationalists because they accommodated a form of Enlightenment philosophy that subverts the essential assumptions of a consistently reformed epistemology. And it does so by calling into question the sacramental nature of the world in which we live, by denying that the quality of our knowledge is determined not by the power of our intellects alone, but by the disposition, inclination, or moral character of our hearts, and by ignoring the blinding effect that sin has on the human capacity to see, know, and act rightly. Section two, the Scottish philosophy and the Princeton theology. So what form of enlightenment philosophy is thought to be responsible for this subversion? In his recent biography of Charles Hodge, Paul Guttiar argues that Calvinism and the Scottish common sense realism of philosophers like Francis Hutcheson and Thomas Reed formed the two central pillars of old Princeton's theological thinking. It was the influence of Hutcheson's sentimentalist ethics and later of Reed's realist epistemology, that by the end of the 19th century had generated an intellectual atmosphere in which habits of mind or ways of thinking that were once thought to be antithetical to the epistemological assumptions of the reformed tradition were being taken for granted by those who should have known better. According to Noll, these habits of mind represented what is perhaps best described as a series of overlapping intellectual commonplaces that gave the life of the mind in 19th and early 20th century American culture a distinctly Scottish flavor. And I'm only going to say quote and unquote this evening when I'm reading a longer quote. I'm doing a lot of quoting. If it sounds good, I am more than likely quoting, but I'm not going to say it very often. So, quote, first was an ethical common sense or the assertion that just as humans know intuitively some basic realities about the physical world, so they may know certain foundational principles of morality by reflecting on their own consciousness. Second was epistemological common sense. It was the assertion that under normal conditions, when regulated carefully, human sense impressions revealed the world pretty much as it was. The significance of this axiom for theology lay in the conviction that impressions from the moral sense and simple ideas from the Bible revealed the moral universe as accurately as impressions from the physical senses revealed the physical world. The third commonplace was a methodological common sense, or the assertion that truths about consciousness, the physical world, and religion could be authoritatively built by strict induction from the irreducible facts of experience." In short, for the critics of the Princeton theologians, These distinctly Scottish habits of mind fostered a kind of rationalism in America generally, and at Old Princeton specifically, because they led the Princetonians and others to presume that the truths of science, religion, and morality are universally accessible, that finite and fallen human beings have the ability to detect and be moved by truth without supernatural assistance, and that certain knowledge of the truth that God has revealed can be obtained through the collection and careful analysis of the facts that are received by our senses. They also generated what one scholar has called an evidence-based conception of faith that practically reduces faith to the mere ascent of the understanding, simply knowing certain true propositions, a reduction that helps to account for nearly all of what critics regard as the more troubling aspects of old Princeton's enduring legacy, including its commitment to the doctrine of inerrancy, and what some contend is its wooden approach to what has come to be known in the unnecessarily cumbersome phrase and language, the propositionalist understanding of the theological enterprise. an enterprise that, as one critic puts it, turns the word of God into something cold and clinical, something which we possess and which we manipulate, a set of propositions that at the end of the day is under the theologian's control. So is there any merit to this assessment of the Old Princetonian? In other words, are there grounds for concluding that the Princeton theologians did in fact accommodate certain elements of the prevailing mindset of the age in which they lived, and that their accommodation of these elements did in fact lend an aura of rationalism to certain aspects of their theological labors? While one could argue that the Scottish philosophy fostered a kind of rationalism at Old Princeton, because it discouraged the old Princetonians from embracing a full-blown religious enthusiasm on the one hand and the modern distinction between scientific truth and religious truth on the other. Both moves that would have reduced the essence of the faith to something subjective rather than objective. Such an argument, even if it is true, would simultaneously seem trivial at best and far too ambitious at worst. For it would suggest that anyone who is committed to any form of realism and realism basically says that the world is independent of the knower. Reality is independent of me. I don't construct reality by how I see reality. Reality is, and I either know it rightly or wrongly. So anyone who is committed to any form of realism, according to this way of thinking, should be regarded as a rationalist, a suggestion that would reduce even some of the more outspoken critics of old Princeton's alleged rationalism to rationalists themselves. A more accurate and certainly more constructive response to the question would acknowledge that since the Princetonians were the children of their times just as we are of ours, we shouldn't expect that the standard critique of old Princeton is entirely without merit. Even if we insist, as I believe we must, that in the main, the Princeton theologians remained more or less consistently reformed as they labored to combat the rising tide of religious subjectivism in their day. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that in their writings, they advanced a number of positions that, important qualification, especially on a superficial reading, lend plausibility to the charge of accommodation and thus to the charge of rationalism. Three examples from the writings of Charles Hodge will suffice. The first is found in Hodges repeated appeals to human consciousness to what he calls the universal judgments of men to confirm and sometimes establish the theological positions that he finally embraces. For example in his discussion of Providence in his systematic theology. Hodge rejects the doctrine of concursus, which he notes is grounded in the principle that, quote, nothing created can originate action. So concursus is God and the human agent both acting at the same time concurrently. He rejects that not just because it attempts to explain the — it attempts to explain the inexplicable, he says, Or because it raises at every step the most perplexing metaphysical questions which no man is able to solve, that's Hodge. But because it denies what he insists all moral agents know about themselves to be true. Namely, that they are free agents who have the ability to originate their own action. The objection to the doctrine of concursus is not, Hodge argues, quote, that it intentionally or really destroys the free agency of man or that it makes God the author of sin, but that it is founded on an arbitrary and false assumption. It denies that any creature can originate action. This does not admit of proof. It is an inference from the assumed nature of the dependence of the creature upon the creator or from the assumed necessity of the principle in question in order to secure the absolute control of God over created beings. It, however, contradicts the consciousness of men. That we are free agents means that we have the power to act freely, and to act freely implies that we originate our own acts. The power of spontaneous action is essential to the nature of a spirit, and God, in creating us in his own nature as spirits, endowed us with the power to originate our own acts." If we ignore for now the question of whether and to what extent the position that Hodge defends in his discussion of Providence is orthodox or not, what is immediately, and some would say disturbingly striking, is the decisive role that human consciousness appears to play in his decision to reject the doctrine of concurses. The consciousness of men and not an explicit appeal either to scripture, or to the Westminster standards is finally conclusive, it seems, thus suggesting that Scottish realism may play more than just a supporting role in at least this aspect of Hodge's theology. The second example has to do with the fact that Hodge's writings are filled not just with appeals to the apparent authority of human consciousness, appeals to the decisive nature of what Mark Knoll calls common sense moral reasoning, but also with references to the activities of the two faculties or powers of the soul, namely the faculties of the understanding and the will. And I think this might be about the point where my wife started to nod off. So hang with me, but this is important for where we're going. When Hodges references to these faculties or powers, are considered alongside of his clear emphasis upon the basic reliability of human consciousness, which apparently is essentially unaffected by the disposition or inclination or moral character of the heart. There seem to be grounds for concluding that Hodge embraced a version of the faculty psychology that contrasted sharply with the faculty psychology of the Protestant reformers. Indeed, his emphasis upon the basic reliability of the moral sense seems to support the notion that he treated the faculties or powers as if they were distinct entities rather than different abilities or functions of a unitary mind. So the mind, the brain, the intellect is an independent power. The will is an independent power and they don't interact at all with one another. Okay. We'll say more about this below, but for now we should note that if it is indeed true that Hodge and his colleagues at Old Princeton treated the faculties as if they were independent entities rather than the functional manifestations of a unitary whole, then this would be significant because it would indicate that the Princetonians advanced an understanding of rational autonomy that is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with the central epistemological assumptions of the Reformed tradition. The third example is related to the first 17 pages of Hodges systematic theology. The section of Hodges magnum opus that contains his famous, or as some would put it, his infamous discussion of theological method. It is now generally assumed in certain quarters of the evangelical camp that Hodge's discussion of the inductive theological method represents one of the best examples of precisely that kind of, as Mark Noll puts it, enlightenment biblicism that sired American fundamentalism and gave rise to the contemporary scandal of the evangelical mind. The biblicist heart of this method which proposes that theology is a science that deals with facts that are arranged by induction into a coherent system by a believing theologian, is stated concisely by Hodge as follows, quote, the Bible is to the theologian what nature is to the man of science. It is his storehouse of facts. and his method of ascertaining what the Bible teaches is the same as that which the natural philosopher adopts to ascertain what nature teaches the duty of the Christian theologian is to ascertain collect and combine all the facts which God has revealed concerning himself in our relation to him. These facts are all in the Bible. This is true because everything revealed in nature and in the constitution of man concerning God and our relation to him is contained and authenticated in scripture. It is in this sense that the Bible and the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants and quote. In the discussion that follows, we will see that a number of important factors undermine the notion that Hodge, and by implication as colleagues at old Princeton, embraced an understanding of the theological enterprise that was naively Biblicist. For now, though, we must concede that statements like the one I just read do lend an air of plausibility to the charge of rationalism, for the apparent reduction of theology to a science that is on par with the natural sciences does lend at least a rationalistic tone to the form of Biblicism that Hodge commends. In the first place, then the first 17 pages of Hodges systematic theology suggest that the standard assessment of old Princeton may have some merit because on its surface, Hodges discussion of theological method certainly seems rationalistic, particularly when it is considered apart from what is arguably the key to understanding his conception of the theological enterprise, namely his insistence near the end of the The infamous 17 pages that quote the question is not first and mainly what is true to the understanding but what is true to the renewed heart. The effort is not to make the assertions of the Bible harmonize with the speculative reason but to subject our feeble reason to the mind of God as revealed in his word and by his spirit in our inner life and. In the second place, the charge also sounds plausible because, regretfully, some evangelicals who would claim the mantle of the old Princetonians for themselves really are, or at least they really seem to be, Enlightenment biblicists. For they ignore the larger context of Hodge's discussion of theological method just as much as old Princeton's critics do. Indeed, like the critics of old Princeton, they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of old Princeton's biblicism. And they do so because they mistakenly presume that knowing for the Princetonians is a merely rational enterprise. An enterprise that has to do with the intellect alone and not with a kind of whole-souled aesthetic capacity that is grounded in the disposition or inclination or moral character of the heart. As a consequence, these evangelicals expose themselves to the charge that they are not just committed rationalists who deny that subjective and experiential factors play an important role in knowing God and the truth that he has revealed, but committed modernists who are beholden to epistemological assumptions that, as one critic has recently somewhat harshly put it, were rightly abandoned by informed thinkers a long time ago. Section 3, Philosophy of Mind at Old Princeton Seminary. In an essay that is somewhat dated yet still quite relevant, the distinguished American historian George Marsden argues that by the middle of the 19th century, quote, American theologians were champions of scientific reasoning and scientific advance. Their own work was modeled on that of the natural scientists, and they had full confidence in the capacities of the scientific method for discovering truth exactly and objectively." However, these theologians were not unrelievably scientific and analytical in their approach to scripture, Marston contends, for, quote, their main interest in scripture was as a practical book to challenge the heart in matters of life and death. The heart-changing work of the Holy Spirit, they emphasized, complemented the objective understanding of scripture, end quote, though it was not essential to it. And that's an important phrase. In this regard, Marsden suggests that Charles Hodge, who was second to none in stressing the intellectual content of the faith, was no different from most of his contemporaries. Indeed, he acknowledged that there is an important place for religious experience and the truths of the heart in the doing of theology, even though he tended to subordinate these themes to the hard facts of the scientific theological enterprise. A more recent study by Harriet Harris draws a similar conclusion regarding Hodge and the old Princetonians more generally. While Harris insists that there was a pronounced rationalistic tendency at Old Princeton because of its emphasis on reason and the primacy of the intellect in faith, nevertheless, she acknowledges that, quote, it is misleading to accuse the Princeton theologians of rationalism, for they regarded the inner testimony of the spirit as crucial for arriving at faith. However, in their apologetics, they had difficulty in saying so because they allowed religious experience to affect only one's acceptance rather than one's understanding of faith. It is their insistence on the rational apprehension of faith, even the reasonableness of faith, that invites the charge of rationalism." What is noteworthy about the analyses of Marsden and Harris is that while both acknowledge that subjective and experiential factors play an important role in the theology of the old Princetonians, both nonetheless insist that the Princeton theologians failed to integrate these factors with the more cerebral aspects of their theology. While Marsden recognizes that Hodge stressed the primacy of heart overhead, yet insists that he, quote, treated scripture quite frankly as a compilation of hard facts that the theologian had only to arrange in systematic order, end quote. Harris says explicitly that although the Princetonians, quote, were not lacking in personal piety, they did not adequately incorporate this side of their faith into their apologetics, end quote. Mark Noll reaches a similar conclusion in an essay on Charles Hodge's understanding of the spiritual life. According to Noll, quote, the difficulty with Hodge's view of the spiritual life was not a neglect of lived religious experience, of the person or of the affections. It was rather his predilection for affirming Christianity, both as a set of scriptural doctrines and as a living connection with Christ, while yet never finding a way to bring these two affirmations into cohesive unity, end quote. But did Hodge and his colleagues at Old Princeton utterly fail in this regard? We have already conceded that critics may plausibly conclude that the Princeton theologians were not perfectly consistent in working out the epistemological implications of their theological commitments. They were, I would argue, more or less consistently reformed, but not perfectly reformed. But must we concede that in the main, they failed to integrate the head and the heart, the objective and the subjective components of their theology, as their critics would have us believe? Moreover, must we grant that this alleged lack of cohesive unity was grounded in an understanding of the faculty psychology, that separates the understanding and the will and treats the understanding and the will as if they were autonomous, independent realities or powers, so that people think and understand exclusively with the rational faculty and decide and believe exclusively with the will, as the analyses of both Marsden and Harris suggest above. In my estimation, While the standard assessment of the Princeton theologians seems plausible in one sense, it is completely implausible in another because it reads the Princetonians in light of a philosophy of mind or an understanding of philosophical psychology, the relationship of the powers of the soul to one another, that Hodge and his colleagues at Old Princeton insisted was, to use Hodge's word, peculiar at best. Indeed, it imagines that the Princeton theologians embraced what Bruce Kuklick calls a three-substance view of the faculty psychology, which regards the faculties or powers of the soul as distinct realities, not unified in a unitary whole. And for this reason, its advocates feel justified in concluding that old Princeton's emphasis upon reason and the primacy of the intellect and faith is evidence that the Princetonians were committed rationalists who presumed, among other things, one, that all human beings, whether regenerate or unregenerate, have the ability to reason rightly, that is, to use the scientific method to discover truth exactly and objectively, as Marsden puts it above. And two, that truth is known rightly, that is, exactly and objectively, when it is apprehended by a movement of the intellect alone. But were the Princeton theologians in fact rationalists in this sense of the term? In the forthcoming examination of the relationship between right reason and the study of theology at Old Princeton Seminary, I suggest they were not. For now, though, and in anticipation of that discussion, let me propose three reasons for why we should regard the standard assessment of the Princeton mind, which presupposes that Old Princeton's philosophical psychology was grounded in the assumptions of the Scottish Enlightenment, as suspect. First, The published and unpublished writings of the old Princetonians are filled with references to the unitary operation of the soul. That is, to the notion that the soul is a single unit that acts in all of its functions, its thinking, its feeling, and its willing as a single substance. In fact, from the founding of old Princeton under Archibald Alexander to what some would call the dying of the light during the tenure of J. Gresham Machen, The best of the old Princetonians recognized that the division of the soul into separate faculties or powers not only has, as Alexander puts it, no place in scripture, but it is also founded upon what he insists is an imperfect philosophy, a philosophy that denies the fundamental unity of the soul. For example, In an unpublished lecture on the nature of faith, Alexander maintains that the act of faith cannot be reduced to the mere ascent of the understanding on the one hand, a strictly intellectual operation, nor should it be regarded as simply a new act of the will on the other, even if that act of the will is produced by the work of the spirit. Rather, the act of faith is a simple act that includes both the understanding and the will. According to Alexander, quote, in the exercise of saving faith, both the will, both the understanding and the will concur. For in faith, there is included a firm conviction of truth, which is the proper object of the understanding and a persuasion of the excellence and suitableness of that truth, which is the object of the will. But it must not be inferred from this that faith cannot exist unless there be secured successive acts different in their nature, for faith is a simple exercise and all its acts are of the same nature, except so far as they are modified by the object believed, by the circumstances of the believer, or the degree and kind of evidence exhibited." Second, explicit references from the old Princetonians not only point to a functionalist rather than a three substance view of the faculty psychology, But they also make it clear that the Princeton theologians were aware that subjective and experiential factors play a critical role in the life of the mind. Indeed, these references establish that for the Princetonians, subjective and experiential factors are essential to knowing rightly. because they have a decisive bearing on whether or not a particular person has the subjective capacity to see revealed truth more or less for what it objectively is, namely glorious. As we will see in the forthcoming discussion, this explains why the Princetonians insisted that regeneration is essential to knowing rightly. Indeed, as Archibald Alexander puts it, In regeneration, the spirit implants a principle of holiness in the soul of a moral agent. It is this principle of holiness that enables the regenerated person to reason rightly because it is this principle of spiritual life that renders him, quote, susceptible of impression from divine truth, end quote. Finally, old Princeton's acknowledgment that there is more to knowing rightly than merely assenting to propositions that are objectively true is noteworthy because it suggests something significant about the nature of the truth that is being known. And this, I realize this is a discussion about obscure philosophical kinds of things, but this actually is pretty good stuff. Not because I wrote it, but because they're onto something here I think that is good. What it suggests, in short, is that because God is, quote, the only, the infinite, and inexhaustible fountain of all knowledge, end quote, truth is freighted with a kind of God-centered sacramental significance. And for this reason, truth is, as Hodge puts it, not merely speculative, the object of cognition, but it has moral and spiritual beauty. It just is subjectively compelling, in other words, because it just is morally and spiritually excellent. And an essential component of its objective truthfulness, the way it really is, therefore, just is the fact that it exudes moral and spiritual excellence in some sense. If this is the case, then it follows that not only is there an intellectual or cognitive dimension to the knowledge of God and the truth that he has revealed, but there is a moral or ethical, what some might call an aesthetic dimension as well. And this dimension must be seen and valued and appreciated in order to have objective knowledge in the fullest sense of the term. Hodges articulation of this point in a presentation entitled the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord is striking. Quote the knowledge of Christ is not the apprehension of what he is simply by the intellect but also a due apprehension of his glory as a divine person arrayed in our nature. and involves not as its consequence merely, but as one of its elements, the corresponding feeling of adoration, delight, desire, and complacency. If you just know about Jesus, you don't know him rightly. To know Jesus rightly just is to love him. That's the point. For the old Princetonians then, knowing something rightly entails more than just knowing true propositions about something. For knowing rightly has to do with an organic or whole-souled capacity to see revealed truth more or less for what it objectively is. And since the truth that God has revealed just is beautiful and glorious because it just is declaring his glory in some sense than knowing it rightly entails seeing it to be beautiful and glorious for that is what it just is. If this is the case and if the old Princetonians did in fact embrace a kind of whole sold theological aesthetic. then I would suggest that we ought to remain skeptical of the standard assessment of old Princeton's understanding of the theological enterprise, for it ignores the Princetonian's insistence that subjective and experiential factors play a critical role in the life of the mind, and in so doing, it imagines that they were so naive that they were oblivious to how destructive reducing theology to a science that is on par with the natural sciences would be. But if what I am proposing here has any merit, then it would seem that in the main, this is precisely what the Princetonians did not do. For not only did they recognize that the true theologian needs to have, quote, a very sensitive religious nature, a most thoroughly consecrated heart, and an outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon him, such as will fill him with that spiritual discernment without which all native intellect is in vain," end quote. But they also insisted that, as the most thoughtful expositor of old Princeton's understanding of theological science, B.B. Warfield puts it, quote, There are two ways of looking at the world. We may see the world and absorb ourselves in the wonders of nature. That is the scientific way. Or we may look right through the world and see God behind it. That is the religious way. The scientific way of looking at the world is not wrong any more than the glass manufacturer's way of looking at a window. This way of looking at things has its very important uses. Nevertheless, the window was placed there not to be looked at, but to be looked through. And the world has failed of its purpose unless it too is looked through and the eye rests not on it, but on its God. Yes, it's God. For it is of the essence of the religious view of things that God is seen in all that is and in all that occurs. The universe is his and in all its movements speaks of him because it does only his will." And if you want a fuller discussion of that point, I would highly recommend a book in the bookstore by David Smith on B.B. Warfield, B.B. Warfield's Scientifically Constructive Theological Scholarship. David's here and he could sign that, I'm sure. Section four, right reason and the normal state of man. I have argued elsewhere that old Princeton's emphasis upon right reason is not evidence that the Princeton theologians accommodated the assumptions of the Scottish Enlightenment, but on the contrary, that they stood in the epistemological mainstream of the Reformed tradition. They recognized, in other words, that only the regenerate have the ability to reason rightly. And for this reason, they insisted that the doing of biblically faithful God honoring theology requires that the theologian be, as Warfield put it, a divine. Support for this claim is found in a number of places, including Charles Hodge's lecture notes on theology. In the first file of the first box of the Charles Hodge manuscript collection in the archives of Princeton Seminary, and I say that simply to say that it's not that hard to find if you want to find it, Hodge argues that although grasping the true relation of reason to revelation is made difficult by the ambiguity of the word reason, nevertheless the word, quote, is commonly and properly taken for the whole cognitive faculty in man, end quote. While this allusion to the whole cognitive faculty in man is certainly relevant to our present purposes, because it supports the notion that knowing has to do with more than just the intellect alone. What is especially noteworthy about Hodge's discussion is not just his reference to the concept of right reason, but his rudimentary definition of the phrase. The word reason is sometimes used in theological discussions, he argues, to refer to, quote, right reason. That is, reason as it should exist or as found in the normal state of man." It goes without saying that whether or not this definition supports or subverts the argument I am advancing depends upon what Hodge believed the normal state of man to be. Is the normal state of man for Hodge man as created man in his state of original righteousness man before the fall enjoying union and communion with God in the garden or is it man as he presently is man has fallen man in his natural and depraved condition man as dead in sin and alienated from God. While Hodge does not answer this question in the lecture to which we are referring, he elsewhere makes it clear that the normal state of man is not man as we presently find him, but prelapsarian man, man before the fall. Man is originally created, man imbued with holy habits or dispositions so that all of his acts were both holy and good. Indeed, in a sermon on 1 Corinthians 121 entitled The Foolishness of Preaching, Hodge argues that one of the many truths that the Bible assumes and thereby authenticates is that, quote, man by sin has forfeited his normal relation to God so that by no resources of his own nor by any power of the creature can he be restored to that relation, end quote. If this quotation is at all suggestive of how Hodge conceived of the normal state of man, and it seems to me that it very obviously is, then it would seem that he associated right reason, or reason as it should exist, with a moral state and an attendant epistemological capacity and ability to know that was lost when Adam fell. If this is the case, and if it is therefore true that Hodge anticipated Warfield's insistence that, quote, man as we know him is not normal man, end quote. Then the problem with man in his natural or not normal condition is not that he has no mind, nor is it simply that the faculties or powers of his soul are disordered and he habitually follows the dictates of passion rather than the deliverances of right reason, as some insist. Rather, the problem is that he cannot reason rightly. He cannot have any correct knowledge of God or of divine things because he is dead in sin and lacks the moral capacity to perceive the excellence that is peculiar to spiritual truth, the excellence that must be perceived in order to have true knowledge of divine things. What this suggests, among other things, is that the epistemological capacity of fallen man, fallen man's ability to know, has been significantly compromised. For he cannot see clearly, not because his mind has been destroyed, nor because one faculty or power of his soul usurps the primacy of another faculty or power of his soul. but because the disposition or inclination or moral character that governs the activity of his whole soul, including the activity of his whole soul in cognition, is corrupt. As Hodge puts it, quote, that which makes us the children of wrath, that which constitutes a necessity for redemption and regeneration, that which makes us the victims of death, and that which assigns us our place in the kingdom of darkness is not a mere law of our nature as to the order in which our faculties unfold or relate to one another. Rather, it is a deeper, darker, more moral evil, something adequate to the effect of excluding us from the fellowship of God and all holy beings and which needs for its pardon and removal, the incarnation of the sun and the almighty power of the spirit. End quote. If those who are dead in sin cannot reason rightly because souls that are governed by a corrupt disposition cannot discern the excellence of what God has revealed. And what hope is there for those who are blind to the things of the spirit? The Princetonians insisted that the only hope for those who remain dead in sin is found in the work of Christ as it is applied to their souls by the inward operation of the spirit in regeneration. The design and effect of this operation, they argued, is the kind of knowledge that is synonymous with true religion. because it has to do not with, quote, the mere intellectual apprehension of its object. It has to do not with the mere intellectual apprehension of its object, but such a perception of its nature as implies and secures conformity to the excellence which it beholds, end quote. The theologians at Old Princeton Seminary recognized that just as there are two elements in divine knowledge, the intellectual apprehension of the object and the spiritual discernment of its excellence, so too the work of the spirit has to do with both the understanding and the will. Indeed, in regeneration, the spirit neither changes the essence of the soul nor operates on one of its faculties or powers to the exclusion of the others. Rather, the spirit enters the soul as a new principle of life and changes, quote, that inward imminent disposition or spiritual state, which is back of all voluntary and or conscious activity and which in the things of God determines that activity and quote. For this reason, the Princeton theologians were consistently opposed to any view of regeneration that confines the work of the spirit to the heart as distinguished from the understanding, for they were persuaded that such views are founded on a number of mistaken assumptions. According to Hodge, they are founded, quote, one on a mistake as to the use of the word heart in scripture, which often means the whole soul and not nearly the seat of the affections. Two, on a wrong view of the nature of original sin, as though the intellect was unaffected thereby. Three, on a wrong psychology, assuming too great a distinction between the faculties of the soul, which is an indivisible unity, one part of which cannot be depraved or renewed to the exclusion of the other parts. And four, on a disagreement with the biblical account of the matter, for the Bible speaks of illumination, opening the eyes and turning man from darkness to light. For the Princetonians, then, regeneration has to do with that immediate and instantaneous change in the nature of the soul that brings the whole soul from death into life. It consists, quote, not in any one act or series of acts, nor in a change in any one faculty of the soul, but in such a change affected by the spirit in the moral state of the whole soul as to be a permanent foundation of specifically new moral action that is new apprehensions, new affections, desires, purposes, and conduct. In short, regeneration is that change of heart or opening of the eyes of the mind or renewal of the soul after the image of God that enables those who are once dead in sin to see reveal truth more or less for what it objectively is. For it enables them to see that the substance of what God has revealed is not just true, propositionally true, but altogether excellent, lovely, and divine. Charles Hodge's summary of the doctrine highlights its relevance to our consideration of right reason and points to its significance for the study of theology at Old Princeton Seminary. The doctrine of regeneration, he concludes, teaches, quote, one, that the subject of this change is the whole man, the understanding, will, and heart. Two, that its author is the Holy Spirit. Three, that man being the subject and not the agent of the change, he is passive in it. It is effected without his cooperation and for, and I like this one, that it's effects and evidences are right views, right feelings, right purposes, and right conduct, end quote. Section five, right reason in the study of theology at Old Princeton Seminary. As we have seen, the standard assessment of Old Princeton's understanding of the theological enterprise is that the Princeton theologians accommodated the assumptions of the Scottish Enlightenment and in so doing embraced an understanding of the task of theology that was covertly, if not overtly, rationalistic. According to Daryl Hart, quote, most assessments of Princeton have viewed its allegiance to common sense as either incompatible with its commitment to reform theology or naive. According to Sidney Alstrom, the price Princeton paid for aligning itself so closely with Scottish realism was that it lost its Reformation bearings, its Augustinian brand of piety suffered, and the belief that Christianity had a proclamation to declare lost its vitality. At Old Princeton, doctrine became less a living language of piety than a complex burden to be borne." But did the Princeton theologians embrace an approach to theology that in the end proved to be both wooden and naive? To put it crassly, were the Princetonians really little more than enlightened theological eggheads who were so preoccupied with inerrant propositions and the finer points of systematic theology? that outside of their more explicit pastoral endeavors, they allowed subjective and experiential factors to play next to no role in their theological labors. Again, while there is certainly some merit to this charge with respect to some who would claim the mantle of the old Princetonians, A close examination of the primary sources reveals that not only did the Princetonians recognize that the theological enterprise is a spiritual enterprise requiring a regenerated nature, but it also demonstrates that their preoccupation with inerrant propositions was grounded neither in excessive confidence in the competence of the human intellect, nor in the presumption that they, and they alone, saw things with unvarnished objectivity. It was grounded, rather, in their recognition that the capacity to reason rightly is a God-given capacity that has important consequences, especially for the study of theology. Indeed, such an examination reveals that the Princetonians rejected the false antithesis between inerrant propositions and systematic precision on the one hand and religious experience on the other. For they recognize that since human beings are whole persons and there is therefore a kind of symbiotic relationship between the head and the heart, both are essential to the pursuit of biblically faithful God honoring theology. That this is the case is made particularly clear in two unpublished lectures from the old Princetonians. The first was delivered by Charles Hodge in 1847 and is entitled The Study of Theology. What is especially noteworthy about this lecture is Hodges insistence that two qualities are essential to the successful study of quote that class of truths which confessedly transcend our reason and which are matters of special revelation and quote. The first relates to the nature of the subject itself and has to do with the state of mind that should inform the labors of the theological student. reverence and humility are essential to the successful study of theology. Hodge contends because quote knowledge which is a revelation a matter of gift rather than of acquisition must be received as a gift or it will be withheld and quote. What this suggests, among other things, is that in order for the theological student to be successful in studying the things of God, he must place his mind in the proper posture. And remember that, quote, and this is a fairly long quote, forgive me. There is an essential difference between an independent investigator and a mere learner, between one who undertakes to discern truth for himself and one who waits to be told what truth is. The latter is our true position in relating to the word of God. If the scriptures contain an infallible revelation, then our province is not so much to determine whether what it teaches is true, as to ascertain what it does teach, and to receive its instructions as true because they come from God. Every one of us sees that the inward state of mind proper for the study of a system of truth, which purports to be a matter of revelation, is different from that which is proper in matters of human research or speculation. And consequently, those make a fatal mistake who come to the Bible with the same spirit in which they open a book on science, history, or philosophy. Our Savior, therefore, tells us that no man can see or enter the kingdom of God. He can have no right apprehensions of its nature. He cannot see the things of God nor receive or enjoy them unless he be converted and become as a little child. Nothing prospers, nothing succeeds that is out of its proper relation. And our souls cannot succeed in attaining divine knowledge unless they are placed in their proper relation to God, the relation suitable for the weakest and lowest of intelligences to the infinite mind." In short, the theological student must always keep in mind that, as Hodge very cleverly puts it, quote, the portal to the temple of divine truth is very low. And the high headed find it difficult to enter, end quote. The second qualification that is essential to the successful study of theology has to do with our own moral condition. And it relates to the Apostle Paul's contention that the natural man cannot receive the things of the spirit of God. According to Hodge, quote, the sincere and practical recognition of this truth is essential to the successful study of theology. If a man comes to the sacred scriptures, either ignorant or unmindful of the darkness of his own mind and of the natural opposition of the unrenewed heart to the things of God, or who is unconscious of the necessity of divine teaching, he comes without, note this, the key to knowledge. These are not mere pious commonplaces. They are real and important truths, truths which cannot be overlooked or denied with impunity. If it is true that the mind is perverted and darkened by sin, and if it is true that the teaching of the Spirit is indispensable in order to produce that state of mind which is necessary to the perception and reception of the things of God, than to be unmindful of these truths or to make them of no practical account in our religious studies is the most fatal of all mistakes. It is not, therefore, merely a matter of pious duty, becoming and seemingly, but it is of the nature of an indispensable qualification that we should know and feel that the things of God are things which he hides from the wise and prudent and reveals only unto babes. They are things which escape the knowledge of those who think they have no need of divine teaching, but which are disclosed in their truth and beauty to those whose constant prayer is, open thou my eyes that I may see wondrous things out of thy law, end quote. The second lecture that demonstrates that the Princetonians were not committed rationalists was delivered by Archibald Alexander in June of 1840. and is one of the 17 introductory lectures that he delivered during his tenure at Princeton Seminary. In this lecture, echoes of which reverberate throughout the lecture by Hodge that we just looked at, Alexander argues that, quote, humility is the proper state of mind with which we should approach the study of theology and the most indispensable requisite for our success, end quote. But why is humility necessary? According to Alexander it is necessary for four reasons and I'll just quickly go over these because of the nature of the subject matter itself because we are fallen and finite. Because all true theological knowledge rests on the authority of God not on human authority and finally humility is necessary for the simple reason that wisdom is a gift. While this lecture covers much of the same territory that Hodge covers in his lecture on the study of theology. And here's where those of you who are familiar with the standard critique of old Princeton, particularly the assertion that the Princetonians embraced Scottish common sense realism and in embracing Scottish common sense realism became rationalists. And because of that abandoned reformed orthodoxy, this is significant. While this lecture covers much of the same territory that Hodge covers in his lecture on the study of theology, what is striking about Alexander's presentation, particularly to those who are interested in the place of old Princeton and the historical study of North American evangelicalism, is the manner in which he sets the true theologian's posture of humble receptivity in opposition to what he regards as the rationalist's confidence in common sense. In his attempt to establish that the theological student should regard himself as a mere recipient and not as an independent investigator that comes to him from a higher, an investigator of that which comes to him from a higher source. Alexander argues that the student of theology should recognize that his proper position is, quote, like that of a child to whom his parent makes known the truth, and who receives it not because he has tested it or proved it, but because he has been told it end quote. Justice, the child should not challenge the authority of his parent by presuming to stand in judgment over what he says. So to the theological students should not challenge the authority of God by presuming to stand in judgment over his word. Imagining that he and not God is the final arbiter of what is true, good and beautiful. Yet in this lecture, And here's the striking point. It seems that for Alexander, this is precisely what reliance upon common sense encourages the theological student to do. For it encourages him to study, to engage in the study of theology, not by, quote, bowing down before God as he speaks to him in his word, end quote, but by relying, quote, on his own understanding, giving more confidence to common sense and human reason than to the declarations of God, by making the declarations of God bend and square to the declarations of men." For those who are familiar with the standard assessment of the old Princetonians, this is remarkable indeed because it reveals an assessment of common sense that is diametrically opposed to what we would expect it to reveal if the standard assessment of the old Princetonians were true. The word on the streets, it seems, may not be entirely trustworthy. I only have a few minutes, I think. So let me, I want to read two passages from Alexander's introductory lecture. that fill out this last point I'm trying to make a bit. And again, I'd argue that these are significant precisely because they challenge and thus call into question the standard assessment of the Princeton mind. The first suggests that Alexander and his colleagues at Old Princeton, far from being rationalists themselves, were themselves opposed to rationalism, particularly the kind of rationalism that is grounded in reliance upon common sense. The state of mind that is essential to success in the study of theology, Alexander argues, quote, is a rare and difficult attainment. It requires that form of self-renunciation, which to most men is the more painful than any other. It is not enough that we should acknowledge in words our ignorance and dependence on divine teaching. We must be brought really to feel our weakness and blindness. The loud talk that we hear of the march of mind, of common sense, of the light of the 19th century, of new discoveries and progressive improvement in theology, all show how many are on the wrong path. This language is but the varied expression of confidence in human nature, of forgetfulness of our true relation to God and of our real character both as creatures and as sinners. If the loud talk that we hear was but the renunciation of dependence on human authority, it would be harmless or praiseworthy. But it is obviously, in most cases, the assertion of self-dependence. It is the vaunting of common sense or human reason as the instructor of men and the arbiter of truth. Humility, however, is not noisy. It vaunteth not itself and does not behave itself unseemly. Because I'm out of time, I'll skip to my conclusion. A revolution in old Princeton studies, question. Alan Strange has recently argued that a revolution is currently underway in the academic study of old Princeton. Scholars like Strange himself and others like David Calhoun, Terry Chrisop, Ligon Duncan, James Gerritsen, Michael Gurney, Paul Helm, Peter Hicks, Andrew Hoffaker, Gary Johnson, David Smith, Gary Stewart, Greg Wills, John Woodridge, Fred Zaspel, are all challenging the accepted wisdom on Old Princeton, and they are doing so by returning to the primary sources of the Old Princetonians themselves. In my estimation, for whatever it's worth, this is a good thing. The Princetonians have become the proverbial whipping boys of much contemporary theological discourse, and the historical record stands in need of correction. It is my hope and prayer, however, that those of us who are eager to participate in this revolution, who are jealous for the names and reputations of the old Princetonians, would not be more jealous for the names and reputations of the old Princetonians than we are for the name and reputation of the God of the old Princetonians. That is certainly a danger for those who, particularly in their less guarded moments, imagine themselves to be the last standing defenders of an embattled tradition. Lord, let that not be true of any of us. Please, Lord, let that not be true of me. Thank you.