Top 30 Apologetics Books (#9): Hugo Grotius, On the Truth of the Christian Religion
Quotable
While Augustine and his followers reject the notion that reason can draw us toward faith, Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) disagrees. His faith completes reason position says that God uses reason to reveal his existence, attributes, and expectations to humanity. Although this revelation through reason is faint, partial, and susceptible to error, it can make us receptive to a higher truth that is embraced by faith and brings salvation. In this way, faith completes what begins in reason.
Aquinas refers to human reason as a natural power. Nature, in this case, refers to a God-given capacity that all human beings possess. God designs us with a nature that desires knowledge, and when we use reason properly, we can acquire truth about the world and knowledge about God. Aquinas takes an a posteriori approach to epistemology in which our senses gather data that is then processed and ordered by the mind in order to arrive at knowledge. Because knowing begins from sense data, we can never have direct knowledge of a God who cannot be seen or touched. However, effects provide clues about causes. Thus, just as careful examination of the size and depth of a crater offers information about an unwitnessed meteor strike, reason derives indirect knowledge of the Creator through the created world. . . .
While reason is sufficient to reveal some truths about God, its limitations are such that our natural abilities can discover only what Aquinas refers to as the "preambles of faith." These preambles (e.g., there is a God, you should not murder) are consistent with Christian belief and can be known by anyone who thinks clearly. At the same time, knowledge of these preambles is insufficient for salvation. First, it is possible to accept them intellectually without a trusting faith, and without faith there is no salvation. Moreover, while the preambles of faith are consistent with the doctrines of Christianity, they lack the content that brings us to the heart of Christian truth.
Aquinas argues that natural reason can bring us to the doorstep of faith, but something more is needed for our salvation. God graciously provides this something more in revealed truth, knowledge given to us through Scripture and church tradition. While natural reason informs us that God exists, revealed truth goes beyond this by teaching us, for example, that God is Trinity and was incarnate in Jesus Christ. The theological truths we know via revealed truth are called the articles of faith since we must believe them on the authority of God rather than on the authority of natural reason. In other words, the articles of faith are known by faith.
The "faith completes reason" model assumes a close relationship between philosophy and theology. In fact, Aquinas refers to philosophy as the "handmaiden to theology." Describing philosophy as a handmaiden makes clear that theological truths are superior to those attainable by reason alone. Not only is revealed truth more complete than what can be known by reason, it is also infallible, since God is its source. Another way this superiority is evident is in Aquinas' assertion that while reason can move us toward faith, this step is not necessary. One can have saving faith apart from rational evidence.
On the other hand, the handmaiden metaphor indicates that reason provides valuable services for faith and theology. First, philosophy's considerations can lead us toward the deeper truths of theology. Second, because some truths of faith can also be demonstrated by reason, faith can be strengthened by rational confirmation. The continuity between faith and reason is also important because it allows believers to address criticisms of nonbelievers on common ground. Reason, according to Aquinas, can at least show that many of the truths of faith are rational. Finally, while reason is incapable of discerning the articles of faith by its own resources, it is a useful tool for helping us understand the implications of these theological truths and for guiding our application of revealed truth to concrete situations. Thus the idea that faith completes reason is paralleled in Aquinas' assertion that grace does not destroy nature but completes it.
— From Introduction to Philosophy: Christianity and the Big Questions by Steve Wilkens and Alan G. Padgett. Copyright © 2018 by Baylor University Press. Reprinted by arrangement with Baylor University Press. All rights reserved.
Note: Below, Dr. Rob Bowman continues his series on the 30 most important apologetics books in church history. See his earlier posts in previous weeks of Useful Things.
#9: Hugo Grotius, On the Truth of the Christian Religion (1627)
The first widely influential modern book of Christian apologetics was written by Hugo Grotius, whose main claim to fame lies in a completely different field. Grotius is widely credited with articulating for the first time a clear theory of international law, in which nations form legally binding agreements for the purpose of peace. He was also a significant figure in the development of Arminian theology, though he was mainly concerned for its tolerance in his predominantly Calvinist country. Imagine John Warwick Montgomery as an early modern Dutchman and you will be pretty close to imagining Hugo Grotius.
Grotius wrote his apologetics book originally in Dutch verse, while he was in prison. Fittingly, he escaped in a book chest. In exile in Paris, Grotius translated the work into Latin prose as De veritate religionis Christianae, “On the Truth of the Christian Religion.” The book enjoyed great success for the next two centuries, going through 74 editions and 87 translations of either the Dutch or Latin work. Its originality lay not so much in its content, much of which Grotius had derived from a few earlier sources, but rather in the way this material was put together and the specific purpose for which it was written. Grotius deliberately focused his apology on the truth of Christianity in general, seeking to present a defense of the Christian faith to which Christians of differing—and sometimes violently clashing—theologies could all give assent. In a way, Grotius’s On the Truth of the Christian Religion was a kind of “Mere Christianity” three centuries before C. S. Lewis.
Grotius’s work exhibits the apologetic method commonly called classical apologetics. He first argues that God exists and does miracles (Book I), that Jesus was a real person who presented noble teachings and performed great miracles, including his resurrection from the dead (Book II), and only then defends the authority of the New Testament as Scripture (Book III). The rest of the work offers a refutation of the three main alternative belief systems known in Grotius’s civilization: paganism or heathen religion (Book IV), Judaism (Book V), and Islam, known in the West at the time as Mahometanism (Book VI).
On the Truth of the Christian Religion deserves to be remembered as one of the most influential works of Christian apologetics.
—Rob Bowman Jr. is an evangelical Christian apologist, biblical scholar, author, editor, and lecturer. He is the author of over sixty articles and author or co-author of thirteen books, including Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ, co-authored with J. Ed Komoszewski. He leads the Apologetics Book Club on Facebook.
A Wide Open Door
By Edgar Andrews
In the two previous articles (part one, part two), I extended C. H. Spurgeon’s famous caged-lion allegory by suggesting that freeing the lion (the Bible) to defend itself involves three steps. We must:
(1) find the key to the cage door (adopt a biblical doctrine of Scripture);
(2) lubricate the door hinges (employ biblical apologetics and argumentation, as did Christ and his apostles); and
(3) open the door wide enough for the lion to get out.
The problem with lions is that you can’t let them out of a cage paw-by-paw. It has to be the whole lion or nothing. Opening the door just a little won’t work. That is why Paul felt it essential at Ephesus to declare “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27; emphasis added). Of course, it took time. He spent three years in that city, “reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God”—first in the synagogue and then in the school of Tyrannus. But consider the result! “All who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:8-10). So it is clearly important for us also to proclaim “the whole counsel of God.” But what does this entail?
Joined-up Bible Teaching
When he spoke of “the whole counsel of God,” I don’t think Paul meant that he had finished taking the Ephesians through some kind of theological syllabus. He was referring not to the duration of his ministry at Ephesus but to its character and quality. Think of the “whole counsel of God” as a shining road that runs through the Bible from beginning to end and consists of God’s cosmic plan of redemption through Jesus Christ. To proclaim the whole counsel of God would then be to follow that road and not turn aside from it, heeding the injunction: “This is the way; walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21). Good advice, for on one side of this road lies the wilderness of incomprehension and biblical illiteracy, while on the other side stretches the swamp of error, heresy, and cults.
To put it more simply, the shining road is Christ himself. Jesus rebuked the Emmaus disciples for failing to grasp this fundamental truth. “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:25-27). Note the threefold use of “all.” Again, Jesus chastised the unbelieving Jews of his day: “You search the Scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). He didn’t just say “these testify of me,” which might imply “among other things.” He said, “these are they which testify of me,” signifying that the Scriptures are the very things that bear uniform witness to his person and redeeming work.
Islands or Icebergs?
In my little book “Preaching Christ” I illustrated this by contrasting islands with icebergs. Both are solid masses that protrude above the ocean surface and look superficially alike. But an island is a permanent structure integrated seamlessly into the sea-bed—itself a hidden, uninterrupted, underwater world having its own rich geography. An iceberg, by contrast, is an unanchored floating object of no lasting significance. In the same way, the Christological passages in the Old Testament are not incidental icebergs. They are visible islands that manifest the existence of a hidden bedrock underlying all the Scriptures—a foundation which testifies in every place to God’s plan of redemption by grace through Christ.
To teach this truth of “Christ in all the Scriptures” is, I believe, to declare the whole counsel of God. There are myriads of good things we can teach from the Bible, but unless we relate them to the Christological bedrock, we shall never proclaim the whole counsel of God. Let us take to heart, then, the way Paul sums up his own ministry: “We preach not ourselves,” said the apostle, “but Christ Jesus the Lord. … For it is the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:5-6).
—Edgar Andrews is Emeritus Professor of Materials Science in the University of London, England. Formerly Head of Department and Dean, he holds PhD and DSc degrees in physics and has published over 100 scientific research papers. In retirement, he serves as co-pastor of the Campus Church, Welwyn Garden City, UK. He is the author of Who Made God? Searching for a Theory of Everything and What Is Man? Adam, Alien or Ape?
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Book Highlight
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Asking "big questions" is fundamental to our humanity. What is the meaning and purpose of life? What is truth? How do we know what we claim to know? What is justice? What happens after death? Veteran teachers Steve Wilkens and Alan Padgett guide readers to wrestle with twelve of the most foundational, philosophical questions facing humanity, and they reflect on these big questions with a lens rooted in faith.
Christians, according to Wilkens and Padgett, should embrace their ability to probe these questions that have occupied some of the most brilliant minds in history. Instead of avoiding hard questions, a Christian approach to philosophy begins with the conviction that God invested humanity with a restless mind. From an early age, we are riddled with curiosity about the world, our place in it, and how the whole of it fits together. As Wilkens and Padgett show, questions about the inner world of our being are tied to the outer world that includes the entire created cosmos and God. Like all good gifts, the gift of questions comes with a challenge—of responsibility and hard thinking. We have a spiritual duty to pursue life’s deepest queries with virtue, fairness, reason, and, above all, a sense of worship and gratitude.
Introduction to Philosophy: Christianity and the Big Questions is a perfect primer for students of philosophy and anyone interested in a Christian perspective on the timeless and universal perplexities of human existence.
Steve Wilkens is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at Azusa Pacific University.
Alan G. Padgett is Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary.
Praise for Introduction to Philosophy
“Wilkens and Padgett’s volume is engaging and informative. It clearly reflects the work of seasoned scholars and will be an excellent introduction to philosophy.”
~Paul Copan, Pledger Family Chair and Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, Palm Beach Atlantic University
“Wilkens and Padgett’s Introduction to Philosophy: Christianity and the Big Questions is superb. Historically informed and highly readable, it will be of great use to those wanting to think Christianly about philosophy’s central questions. I recommend it enthusiastically.”
~Thomas M. Crisp, Professor of Philosophy, Biola University
“This is an extraordinarily accessible and engaging introductory text for students who are encountering philosophy for the first time—and especially for students in Christian colleges who may be bringing with them some doubts about the value of this encounter. Wilkens and Padgett have a long-standing commitment to the project of philosophical education in Christian contexts and share pastoral sensibilities that allow them to anticipate objections and develop compelling motivations. In addition, they have selected an admirably wide set of topics to address that could be very usefully supported by any number of collections of primary sources. I recommend this text warmly and enthusiastically for philosophy instructors looking for a secondary resource that puts emphasis on Christian integration.”
~Daniel Speak, Professor of Philosophy, Loyola Marymount University
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