Can we save ourselves eternally because of implanted and acquired knowledge of God without God?

 

We cannot escape innate ideas in some form or how it has influenced Christian theology.  Herman Bavinck the Master Theologian here looks at Luther, Calvin and the Reformers.  Something he hasn’t said, and I think ought to have been said is; How much did the Reformers depend on Augustine?  Gunton reminds us that Augustine did bring some (unintentionally) baggage from Manicheism and Plato.  So then do some doctrines of creation and election needs to be revisited

 

I took this photo and zoomed in a little. I got a paint effect

Luther didn’t have much time for innate ideas as Bavinck writes:

“In Lutheran theology the wholesome and true element inherent in the theory of innate ideas could not come into its own. Natural theology, both “implanted” and “acquired,” was not well received there. By virtue of Luther's rejection of the scholastic doctrine that “what pertains to nature has remained unimpaired,” Luther allowed himself to be driven to an opposite extreme. According to him, the image of God in humanity was totally lost. “Apart from the Holy Spirit [human] reason is simply devoid of the knowledge of God. When it comes to divine matters, humans are totally in the dark.” Actually, what is still left to humans is only a “passive capacity,” the capacity to be saved. For the rest their understanding, will, and affections are limited to “civil affairs.”

In spiritual things they are completely blind and dead. Luther does indeed recognize that God still reveals himself in his works, that creation is a mode of revelation, God’s mask; but humans no longer know him through this means. Luther sometimes even goes to the extreme of calling sin “the essence” of humans and humans “nothing but sin” – expressions that we must not press unfairly, but which are still telling for his view of the innate and acquired knowledge of God” (Reformed Dogmatics volume 2; Bavinck; pages 65 - 66)

I tend to agree with Luther that within the fall every aspect of humanity and its civilizations have been marred by sin. I also agree that without the Holy Spirit there is no way of saving ourselves. However, as you can see Luther sometimes possibly took things too far.  Bavinck shows that Calvin was a little friendlier:

“Calvin made a distinction between general and special grace and explained all the good still left also in sinful humans in terms of the former." He specifically believed that an “awareness of divinity” (sensus divinitatis) was present within the human mind “by natural instinct. ‘God himself implanted in all humans an understanding of his divine majesty, persistently renewing its memory and constantly instilling fresh drops” (Inst. Liii.1). Another name he gives to this awareness is “the seed of religion” (semen religionis), which explains the universality of religion (ibid.). The conviction that there is a God is “naturally inborn.” It conviction can never be eradicated (Liii.3). “But barely one in a hundred can be found who nourishes in his own heart what he has conceived and not even one in whom it matures” (Liv.1). Added to “this seed of religion” comes the revelation of God in his works; hence, now

“people cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see him” (I.v.1). 

“There is no spot in the universe in which you cannot discern at least some sparks of his glory” (Lv.1). First of all, as microcosm, a human being as such is an excellent workshop for the innumerable works of God (I.v.3—4), but this is also true of the entire realm of nature, which, speaking reverently, we may even call God.” (page 67)

The theory of innate ideas per se was completely rejected by Christian Theology because it could go down two roads:

·        Rationalism

·        Mysticism

If then from birth humans were endowed with ‘a clear distinct knowledge’ of

·        Ideas (Plato)

·        God (Descartes)

·        Being (Gioberti)

Humans would be independent of the world.  They could easily get rid of God’s revelation and his Word. “Furthermore, the theory of innate ideas creates an unbridgeable chasm between mind and matter, soul and body.” (Page 69)

Reflection

My own observation is that we have been created in the image of God and like Calvin and Luther every aspect of the human soul and culture has been marred by sin. Both Luther and Calvin agree that for us to come to Christ it has to be a work of the Holy Spirit. 

I have also just been reading Gunton’s book on the Triune Creator and perhaps the Reformed Theologians have relied at times too much on Augustine.  I like Augustine myself and I think he says some great things, but we also have to realize that when he left Manicheism and became a Christian, he didn’t leave all the baggage behind.  If Gunton is correct, Augustine focused too much on the Eternal Son and not enough on the Son ‘becoming’ (createdness of the Son as a human being).  Augustine focuses too much on the omnipotence of God (the will of God).  This is a serious charge perhaps we need to revisit Calvin’s doctrine of election for example that gives us a double predestination.  I still have a lot to read and I’m not in the same calibre of Augustine and Gunton, but I do want genuine answers to my questions.  Obviously when we look at the human being on this side of the finite, we are looking at an aspect of the doctrine of creation.  It begs the question how much of the innateness baggage Augustine brought from Plato and what doctrines need to be revised!