By Good and Necessary Consequence

A Preliminary Genealogy of Biblicist Foundationalism

Bovell

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781498276719
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Religion

By Good and Necessary Consequence presents a critical examination of the reasoning behind the "good and necessary consequence" clause in the Westminster Confession of Faith and makes five observations regarding its suitability for contemporary Reformed and evangelical adherents. 1) In the seventeenth century, religious leaders in every quarter were expected to respond to a thoroughgoing, cultural skepticism. 2) In response to the onslaught of cultural and epistemological skepticism, many looked to mimic as far as possible the deductive methods of mathematicians. 3) The use to which biblicist foundationalism was put by the Westminster divines is at variance with the classical invention, subsequent appropriation, and contemporary estimation of axiomatic and deductive methodology. 4) Although such methodological developments in theology might have seemed natural during the seventeenth century, their epistemological advantage is not evident today. 5) When a believer's faith is epistemologically ordered in a biblicist foundationalist way, once the foundation--the axiomatic use of a veracious scripture--is called into question, the entire faith is in serious danger of crashing down. In a nutshell, Bovell argues that it is not wise to structure the Christian faith in this biblicist foundationalist way, and that it is high time alternate approaches be sought.

1

The Seventeenth Century Context

The seventeenth century was a time during which a number of profound cultural revolutions were underway. The present treatise attempts a preliminary genealogy for the revived interest in methodological deduction and its introduction to theology as the methodological ideal in the form of biblicist foundationalism. During the late Renaissance, “[s]keptical questions about the natural world were often stated in terms of whether one can deduce from one’s representations alone that there exists a natural world outside ourselves that causes us to have these representations in the first place.”1 But not until 1637 would Rene Descartes publish the Discourse on Method where he proclaims that he has finally found a way to methodically inquire into the general principles of whatever is said to exist and also to determine what can properly be deduced from them. His third rule, composed several years earlier, reads:

Concerning objects proposed for study, we ought to investigate what we can clearly and evidently intuit or deduce with certainty, and not what other people have thought or what we ourselves conjecture. For knowledge can be attained in no other way.2

By 1687, pressures regarding methodological procedure culminated in such a way that Isaac Newton writes:

But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena, is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.3

Surely there is an important connection to be made between the seventeenth century’s interest in methodological deductivism and how during the middle of the century the Westminster Confession of Faith introduces to Protestant confessionalism a deductivism of its own—a deductivism that requires that theology be done by deducing good and necessary consequences from statements expressly set forth in scripture. This chapter briefly describes the cultural context for the entrance of what I call biblicist foundationalism: the decision to restrict confessional theology to the deduction of good and necessary consequences from express biblical statements.

In the eighteenth century, the mathematician Maclaurin lectured on Newton’s methods, promulgating its authority in establishing truth and encouraging its application in every discipline “in order to proceed with perfect security, and to put an end forever to disputes.”4 By claiming only to accept what has been deduced from phenomena, Newton is reassuring his readers that what he has adumbrated in the Principia can be regarded as more sure than the theories of Descartes or Leibniz. For in the Principia, Newton presents an argument more geometrico and wherever in his train of mathematical proofs he posits the existence of some entity as the cause of other phenomena, at some later stage in the investigation he also sets out to verify that entity’s existence (except in the case of gravity) via a synthesis a posteriori.5 Yet as Cohen observes:

It is a feature of the Newtonian style that mathematics and not a series of experiments leads to a profound knowledge of the universe and its workings . . . He hoped that his readers would go along with him and would not reject the physics of the Principia on philosophical grounds without going through the mathematical development he had presented and then seeing how the physical universe would prove to be an analogue of the mathematical system he had developed.6

In a similar way, Galileo appealed to mathematics in defense of his scientific proposals. Strong explains: “the strongest argument that Galileo can advance . . . is that the proposition can be demonstrated mathematically and that experiment will support the principles upon which the demonstration is based.”7 Galileo, before Newton, argued that mathematics procured the most certain knowledge humans can possibly achieve. In fact, he insisted that mathematical arguments brought one as close to divine knowledge as humans can get.8

Both Galileo and Newton are representative of a general trend taking place in seventeenth century thought. As Janiak points out, “Euclidean geometry and its methods were seen as a fundamental epistemic model for much of seventeenth-century philosophy . . . ”9 In fact, some English mathematicians had even gone so far as to look to mathematics to find “the distinct expression of all things and notions that fall under discourse” and in this way reduce every manner of discourse to just a few basic laws.10 Yet the skepticism that plagued seventeenth century Europe was so thoroughgoing that even the foundations of mathematics were being called into question. As a result, many disciplines were under severe pressure (insofar as theoretically possible) to substantiate their claims via argumentation more geometrico.11

In due course, theologians, too, were expected to give a legitimating account of their discipline’s foundational authority. Protestant theologians were not immune to mounting cultural pressures to propose an “analogy of science” for their theologies.12 The certainty associated with mathematical method and knowledge was the only ray of hope. For example, a letter written in 1659 by mathematician John Wallis reveals the motivation behind his unlikely embroilment in a dispute with Thomas Hobbes:

As if the Christian world knew nothing sound or nothing that was not ridiculous in philosophy or religion; and as if it has not understood religion because it does not understand philosophy, nor philosophy because it does not understand mathematics. And so it seemed necessary that now some mathematician, proceeding in the opposite direction, should show how little he understand this mathematics (from which he takes his courage).13

The looming skepticism was trenchant and an antidote desperately sought.

How were Protestants to respond to such a seething skeptical ethos? Guillory summarizes their strategy: “Needing to offer more than a rational basis for reformation, and at the same time fearing the probing that claims to divine inspiration might provoke, the original reformers restricted the Wort Gottes to the Bible, a finished revelation that is only extended into the present by the act of reading.”14 In a manner similar to Descartes, seventeenth century theologians began concentrating on two chief methodological aims: 1) To procure a sure basis for normativity in theology, and 2) To contrive an absolute certainty for theology, a certainty that would be capable of providing the psychological stability requisite for serious religious commitment, especially in the face of rampant skepticism.15

A retreat to origins as epistemological foundation is par for the course for seventeenth century thinking. As Snider remarks: “The seventeenth century’s attempt to ground truth in a non-contingent absolute made the equation of knowledge with the recovery of origin a matter of ‘common sense.’”16 Stout says of the seventeenth century: “It was reasonable for Descartes, in a way that it could not be for us, to view the category of probable opinion with the gravest kind of suspicion and to turn instead to the quest for certainty, even as a prelude to empirical inquiry.”17 It was precisely this dual role—to provide theological normativity and psychological stability—that the Bible was gradually nominated to fill. Such a methodological development quickly culminated in the Protestant principle of sola scriptura.18

The emphasis on scripture as foundation came to a head during the course of the seventeenth century when various skeptical impulses had finally coalesced, cumulatively intensifying in cultural effect.19 Stout has already recounted how the skeptical response to having a multiplicity of Catholic authorities could not be resolved by a Reformed emphasis on singular authority.20 For it did not take long for the skeptical attitude directed towards Protestant enthusiasts to turn back upon authorized interpreters of the single Protestant authori...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Seventeenth Century Context
• Chapter 2: A Preliminary Genealogy Outlined
• Chapter 3: The Pythagoreans and the Beginnings of Deduction
• Chapter 4: Deduction and Dialectic in Plato
• Chapter 5: The Use of Mathematics for Philosophy in Aristotle
• Chapter 6: Euclid’s Deductive Procedure
• Chapter 7: Proclus’ Deductive Metaphysics
• Chapter 8: Boethius’ Recourse to Axiomatics
• Chapter 9: Aquinas’ Commentary on Boethius
• Chapter 10: By Good and Necessary Consequence
• Chapter 11: A Consequence of Biblicist Foundationalism
• Chapter 12: A Husserlian Alternative to Biblicist Foundationalism
• Bibliography