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The Word of God and the Mind of Man
The last two centuries of Christian theology are the record of an evolving attack on the role of knowledge in the Christian faith. The purpose of this book is to challenge the major forms of Christian agnosticism and offer an alternative theory that makes human knowledge about God possible. In other words, is there a relationship between the human mind and the divine mind that is sufficient to ground the communication of truth from God to humans?
138 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1982
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About the author
Ronald H. Nash
49 books39 followersRonald H. Nash (PhD, Syracuse University) was a longtime professor at Western Kentucky University, Reformed Theological Seminary, and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
He was an heir of the theological tradition of Carl F.H. Henry, and was an lifelong admirer and student of Augustine of Hippo, his favorite philosopher.
He was the author of numerous books, including The Concept of God, Life's Ultimate Questions, and Faith and Reason.
He was an heir of the theological tradition of Carl F.H. Henry, and was an lifelong admirer and student of Augustine of Hippo, his favorite philosopher.
He was the author of numerous books, including The Concept of God, Life's Ultimate Questions, and Faith and Reason.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 21, 2018
The possibility of our having cognitive knowledge about God was denied on three grounds: God is too transcendent; 2) human knowledge is de jure problematic; 3) human language was de jure problematic.
Question of the book: Can the human logos know the Logos of God (Nash 14)?
Hume’s Gap: our pivotal beliefs must rest on something besides knowledge.
Kant’s wall: there is a wall between the world as it is and the sense world.
For the Neo-Orthodox, revelation is always an event. It is never cognitive knowledge about God.
Defense of Propositional Revelation
(A) All S is P (E) No S is P
(I) Some S is P (O) Some S is not P.
(A) All revelation is propositional (E) No revelation is propositional
(I) Some revelation is propositional (O) Some rev. Is not propositional
We can rule out O as irrelevant to the discussion. The Neo-Orthodox thinks that all evangelicals hold to A, but that’s false. We hold to I. Further, holding to I doesn’t entail the claim that all revelation is propositional.
In short God reveals knowledge to his creation and some of this knowledge about himself is contained in the form of propositions (45). And even if one wants to claim that revelation is personal, saving faith still presupposes saving faith about something.
The Christian Logos
This is the heart of Nash’s project. Key idea: “Jesus Christ, the eternal Logos of god, mediates all divine revelation and grounds the correspondence between the divine and human minds” (59).
The Christian Rationalism of St Augustine
Augustine has some sort of interplay between the uncreated Light of God and the mutable light of the human mind (81). How can the human mind understand the eternal Forms within God’s mind? Nash suggests three ways:
(1) The human intellect is both passive and active with respect to the forms (85). It is passive, pace Kant, in that it doesn’t create the conditions for knowledge. It is active in the sense that it judges and receives.
(2) The forms are and are not separate from the divine mind.
(3) The human mind is and is not a light that makes knowledge possible.
While Nash had a fine discussion on how Augustine modified Plato’s essentialism, and I don’t necessarily disagree, the chapter just feels “short.” I know he wrote a book on the topic and it is worth pursuing there.
In Defense of Logic
When Nash wrote this book, the Dooyeweerdian school in Toronto was a force to be reckoned with (one sees something similar in John Frame’s works). Nash gives a fine rebuttal to the Dooyeweerdians: if human reason is valid only one one side of the cosmonomic boundary, “then any inference that God is transcendent must be an illegitimate application of human reason” (99). In other words, if God is transcendent, you are in error for saying he is transcendent!
Conclusion
The Logos of God has created the logos of the human mind in such a way that that it can receive cognitive, propositional knowledge about a transcendent God.
Question of the book: Can the human logos know the Logos of God (Nash 14)?
Hume’s Gap: our pivotal beliefs must rest on something besides knowledge.
Kant’s wall: there is a wall between the world as it is and the sense world.
For the Neo-Orthodox, revelation is always an event. It is never cognitive knowledge about God.
Defense of Propositional Revelation
(A) All S is P (E) No S is P
(I) Some S is P (O) Some S is not P.
(A) All revelation is propositional (E) No revelation is propositional
(I) Some revelation is propositional (O) Some rev. Is not propositional
We can rule out O as irrelevant to the discussion. The Neo-Orthodox thinks that all evangelicals hold to A, but that’s false. We hold to I. Further, holding to I doesn’t entail the claim that all revelation is propositional.
In short God reveals knowledge to his creation and some of this knowledge about himself is contained in the form of propositions (45). And even if one wants to claim that revelation is personal, saving faith still presupposes saving faith about something.
The Christian Logos
This is the heart of Nash’s project. Key idea: “Jesus Christ, the eternal Logos of god, mediates all divine revelation and grounds the correspondence between the divine and human minds” (59).
The Christian Rationalism of St Augustine
Augustine has some sort of interplay between the uncreated Light of God and the mutable light of the human mind (81). How can the human mind understand the eternal Forms within God’s mind? Nash suggests three ways:
(1) The human intellect is both passive and active with respect to the forms (85). It is passive, pace Kant, in that it doesn’t create the conditions for knowledge. It is active in the sense that it judges and receives.
(2) The forms are and are not separate from the divine mind.
(3) The human mind is and is not a light that makes knowledge possible.
While Nash had a fine discussion on how Augustine modified Plato’s essentialism, and I don’t necessarily disagree, the chapter just feels “short.” I know he wrote a book on the topic and it is worth pursuing there.
In Defense of Logic
When Nash wrote this book, the Dooyeweerdian school in Toronto was a force to be reckoned with (one sees something similar in John Frame’s works). Nash gives a fine rebuttal to the Dooyeweerdians: if human reason is valid only one one side of the cosmonomic boundary, “then any inference that God is transcendent must be an illegitimate application of human reason” (99). In other words, if God is transcendent, you are in error for saying he is transcendent!
Conclusion
The Logos of God has created the logos of the human mind in such a way that that it can receive cognitive, propositional knowledge about a transcendent God.
Want to read
August 21, 2014Very excited to have found this book for a dollar at Goodwill bookstore. Nash is a strong thinker and I have enjoyed some of his other books. Contemporary theology is a disease which has greatly plagued the church and society, so looking forward to reading this one. Actual review to follow.
November 7, 2013
Very well done, best Nash has produced imo. An issue that has, for the most part, moved on with time but lots of good stuff and extremely interesting! Whiffed it on Van Til though but that's expected.
September 5, 2021
Great book on intellectualism and human understanding of real truth.
April 5, 2023
"My accounts of rationalism, the Logos, logic, and language fit together into one package. A blank mind (tabula rasa) cannot know anything; human knowledge of anything depends upon an a priori possession of innate categories of thought. These categories are ours by virtue of having been created in God's image, a fact that guarantees that the human structure of reasoning matches the divine reason. Reason subsists in the mind of God eternally. Reason also characterizes the human mind. And reason is objectified in the world because of its relation to the divine Logos. Language is a divinely-given gift to facilitate a communion between God and humans that is both personal and cognitive. Evangelicals have good reason therefore to protest the "needless relinquishment of cognitive knowledge of the spiritual world that is such a prominent feature of contemporary theology. Any flight from reason and of logic is a flight from reality. All who repudiate logic automatically cut themselves off from any possible knowledge of God and His creation. The Word of God (that includes revealed information from God and of God) is not alien to the human mind. Neither the nature of God nor the nature of human knowledge and language preclude the possibility of the human mind attaining cognitive knowledge of the Word of God." pp. 131-132.
A fascinating read. Very though provoking. I'm with him on a lot, but will need to think some details through a little more. IMO Nash didn't give Van Til a completely fair go. In my understanding, Van Til's insistence that human knowledge is always analogous to God's rather than exactly the same never meant that God could affirm logical contradictions etc etc. But maybe I'm not reading Van Til carefully enough. Anyway. A good read to be sure.
A fascinating read. Very though provoking. I'm with him on a lot, but will need to think some details through a little more. IMO Nash didn't give Van Til a completely fair go. In my understanding, Van Til's insistence that human knowledge is always analogous to God's rather than exactly the same never meant that God could affirm logical contradictions etc etc. But maybe I'm not reading Van Til carefully enough. Anyway. A good read to be sure.
May 20, 2019
God is the light of all knowledge. Nash proves this reality by logic and revelation. He supports this maxim Biblically and philosophically. His reasoning is subordinate to faith but not irrational. A good read for intellectuals as well as those trying to apprehend how theology and philosophy can cohere.
October 3, 2022
A defense of reason by appeal to the divine Logos.
October 14, 2016
Good book on epistemology (study of knowledge). It really digs into the source of bad ideas that have infiltrated the church and gives an alternative to them.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews