c.1841 BAPTIST APOLOGETICS. 22pp Unpublished MSs Argues Rationalism Useless - Divine Revelation Necessary

A fascinating 22pp manuscript discourse that begins with the address, “Sir,” “Mr. President”, and was likely written for a theological or missionary symposium. Only initialed H. B., we can likely locate the author as a Baptist [he calls Judson "our own" missionary], and can date it fairly precisely as he mentions that Benjamin Griswold was about the depart for Africa. Griswold graduated Yale in 1841 and departed for Africa almost immediately, where he perished of disease in 1844. 

Our lecturer argues rather intensely against the presuppositions of the kind of rationalistic apologetic in vogue in the early and mid-19th century which attempted to work its way up from the observable, "natural" principles of the world and creation up to the inevitable result of divine revelation via the Scriptures and to Christ. It also tended to view humanity as being innately a group of spiritual searchers, with religious desire built into them, thus making false religions potential stepping stones to Christianity, given their agreement on the existence of a deity, etc. But he resists this:

Sir, I have been taught from my youth up, I have heard it from the pulpit proclaimed time and again, that all men have some religion—that man was a religious animal... now Sir, is this right? Is this conveying correct ideas to the mind? Should the ridiculous absurdities of Boodism... be dignified by the name of religion?"

Instead, our author argues something akin to a Evangelicalized restatement of the thought of Soren Kierkegaard or Blaise Pascal, i.e. that human rational thought is itself incapable of "logically" deducing Christ, but that Christ must reveal himself and generate faith via the encounter, i.e. a fideist approach. There are similarities to someone like Cornelius Van Til in the critique of rationalism. The author is deeply concerned that the then-burgeoning missionary movement and the home mission and evangelistic movement in America were driving down a road which would to atheism and confusion, agnosticism at best, and that insisted on conversion by distributing endless copies of William Paley and various other "evidences" books. Needless to say, he would not have been visiting the Creation Museum or the Ark Encounter. 

The author provides the core question under consideration, i.e. "Does reason, assisted by the light of nature, prove the existence of a God?"

The author flows between intellectual disciplines, referencing first Enlightenment epistemology (specifically Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding), explaining that intuitive knowledge is instantaneous (e.g., "white is not black," or basic geometric axioms). He concludes however that God's infinite attributes (omnipresence, omniscience) cannot be known intuitively, and indeed suffer from evidence contradictive of the intuitive imperative. 

He then notes that demonstrative proof requires an intermediate idea (medius terminus) to connect two concepts (using examples like measuring timber with a two-foot rule, or the Pythagorean theorem). He asserts no such intermediate idea exists between finite material nature, i.e. the intuitive, and an infinite God. 

He also notes that as simple evidence, there are many 18th and early 19th century sources demonstrating that millions of people throughout history lived without a natural concept of a supreme creator God, but who "rationally" concluded that nature and God were equivalents or that there were many gods, or no god at all. He quotes William Ward's observations on Buddhism, Adoniram Judson's letters and correspondence regarding the beliefs of those in Burma, and Samuel Marsden's account of the Australian Aboriginal belief systems., etc. 

In the end, he surmises, we have not a solitary example wherein "reason enlightened by the works of nature" has ever independently generated proof of anything akin to the Christian God. Instead, the Scriptures themselves demonstrate that belief in Christianity's God is again and again generated by an encounter with the Christ or Christ by the Spirit, etc., If human reason alone were sufficient to prove God, he reasons, biblical miracles (e.g., the sun standing still, raising the dead) and divine revelation itself would be completely superfluous, a "work of supererogation" that contradicts God's efficient nature.

If we were left wondering his specific concern, the author directly attacks the popular Watchmaker-style argument (teleological argument), citing a "Doc'r Fuller" in The Gospel its Own Witness, "Says Doc'r Fuller, a contrivance necessarily shows a contriver; order involves design and design involves intelligence."  Our author points out the logical flaw in applying this axiom to God: if every contrivance requires a contriver, then applying that logic one step further forces the question, "Who made God?" If God is self-existent and uncaused, the design axiom breaks down.

19th century Christianity's appreciation for Plato as a model is also attacked, correcting that Plato did not know God, but "viewed God merely as a great architect working with pre-existing matter, rather than a self-existent creator ex nihilo." To which he adds corresponding citations from Democritus and Aristotle, who similarly believed in the eternity of matter rather than an absolute, self-existent deity.            

The manuscript appears complete and includes 16 pages of the near final draft, with minor emendations, all on the right hand page, with various notes and drafts appearing on the right hand page, i.e. an additional six pages. Some handling and rodentia at inner margin, not impacting the manuscript.