Strawman Alert — Reason is Not Self-Reliant

This morning my del.icio.us tag feed for “Anglican” picked up a set of raw notes of a lecture in November 2004 by renowned evangelical theologican J.I. Packer.  According to the note taker (The Rough Woodsman), Dr. Packer claimed that scriptural authority has fallen by the wayside in modern thought because “[c]ivil society replaced scriptural authority with self-reliant reason” (emphasis mine) in four respects:

1) skepticism of the Bible
2) rationalism as answer for all difficulties
3) Biblical criticism
4) evolutionism as an alternative
5) postmodernism – no absolute truth

This is certainly not inconsistent with my limited knowledge of Packer’s other writings, but it seriously overstates the case.

First, thoughtful modernists in the church are no more skeptical of the different documents of the Bible than they are of any other historical accounts.  To be sure, they may be especially rigorous in their scrutiny of the Bible as compared to, let’s say, histories of ancient Rome.  But then, nobody holds up histories of ancient Rome as the definitive standard for how we should live our lives, whereas scripturalists do just that with the Bible.  Under the circumstances, not only is enhanced scrutiny of the Bible appropriate, it’d be foolish and even idolatrous to do otherwise.

Second, so far as I know, few modernist Christians claim that rationalism is the answer for all difficulties.  For most, rationalism is simply a tool that helps us get through life — perhaps our most powerful tool, yes, but still a tool.

Third, in the remarks attributed to him, Dr. Packer sets up two strawmen:  Evolutionism and postmodernism. 

• Certainly there are people who have adopted evolutionism as their entire worldview.  Richard Dawkins comes to mind.  But most of the modernist Christians whom I have observed are decidedly more pragmatic — to them, evolution is simply a useful theory, not a way of life. 
• Likewise, I doubt that many modernist Christians believe there is no absolute truth.  I think many would say that there is indeed an absolute truth, but that we humans are limited in our ability to learn, understand, retain, and communicate it.

Finally, I doubt that many modernist Christians would regard reason as self-reliant.  Sensible people recognize that reason is limited, first by the data available to it (which is always incomplete), and second by the well-known limitations of the mortals who try to use it.