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Introduction to Contemporary Theology · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine you are scrolling through your news feed right
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now. You see a headline from a
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credible outlet reporting that a man in a local hospital was
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verifiably resurrected from the dead.
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What is your immediate reaction? I mean, your brain probably
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looks for the trick right away. Right, you start assuming there
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must be a medical error, or a misdiagnosis, or maybe some
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undiscovered scientific explanation.
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Why is that? Why is my modern default setting
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immediate skepticism toward the supernatural?
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Well, it is because about 500 years ago a specific group of
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philosophers completely rewired the operating system of the
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human mind. And that's is what we are
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tracking today. Welcome to reformed thinking.
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Today, you and I are going to trace the specific philosophical
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dominoes that fell between the 1300s and the 1800s.
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We are tracking the precise intellectual shifts that set the
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stage for contemporary religious liberalism and modern
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skepticism. To build this case, we are
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pulling from a rigorous stack of sources.
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Our primary text is Paul Ends and his work in the Moody
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Handbook of Theology revised and expanded.
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Yes, specifically his introduction to contemporary
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theology in that volume. We are also bringing in the
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broader scholarly tracking done by figures.
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He cites thinkers like Carl Barth, Bernard Ram, and John D
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Woodbridge who track these historical shifts to set the
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stage for you. Think about human intellectual
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history like a massive solar system.
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Oh, that is a good way to picture it.
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Yeah, for centuries, divine revelation was the sun.
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It sat at the absolute center, and human thought, culture and
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science all orbited around it. Today, we are tracking the
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moments humanity collectively decided to swap out the sun.
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Taking divine revelation out of the center and placing
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autonomous human reason right in the middle.
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Precisely, we are not treating this like a typical podcast
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episode, but rather a custom tailored deep dive into these
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historical shifts. That solar system analogy gives
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us the perfect framework for the sheer scale of the shift we are
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tracking. So where do we start?
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What is the first domino? The first major movement in this
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restructuring of the intellectual universe is the
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Renaissance. The word itself means new
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birthright. Yeah, new birth historians
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generally date this era from around 1350 to 1650.
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The core shift here is a massive change in how human beings
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viewed their place in the world. And to really grasp the size of
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this, you have to look at the medieval mindset that came
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before it. Absolutely.
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During the Middle Ages, society operated on a very corporate,
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religious approach to life. What does that mean for the
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average person back then? Well, people understood
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themselves primarily as parts of a large, larger whole.
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You were a member of a church, or a village or a Guild.
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You were not really an isolated individual in the modern sense,
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right? The overarching canopy of life
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was a divine order. Truth was something handed down
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from God through established authorities, and you simply
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received it. And the Renaissance substituted
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that medieval framework for a secular, individualistic view of
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life. Yeah, the focus moved away from
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the glory of God and settled firmly upon the glory of man.
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You can actually see this in the art of the period.
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Oh for sure. Think about moving from the
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flat, symbolic religious icons of the Middle Ages.
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Right, the ones where the Saints have those golden Halos and look
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almost 2 dimensional. Exactly.
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Moving from that to hyper realistic anatomically perfect
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statues like Michelangelo's David, it is a visual
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representation of the philosophical shift.
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The interest shifted away from heaven, locking instead onto the
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material world and what human beings could achieve right here,
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right now. And with this intense new focus,
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reliance upon human reason began to supersede reliance upon
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divine revelation. If you crown human reason as the
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ultimate authority, you naturally get a rising tide of
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skepticism concerning the Bible and the supernatural.
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Right, we see thinkers entering the scene like Renee Descartes,
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Bruch Spinoza and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
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So what was their main argument? They argued with immense
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confidence that human reason and the emerging scientific method
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were entirely sufficient to comprehend the riddles of life.
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And by doing this, their philosophy laid the ground floor
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for what would later become religious liberalism.
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Secular humanists basically built the foundations by
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systematically denying supernaturalism.
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They did. When you shift focus to the
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individual objective, external revelation is naturally
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subjected to personal internal scrutiny.
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I think we need to clarify something here though.
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Did these philosophers, Descartes, Spinoza, Lightness,
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did they actively set out to destroy orthodox religion?
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That is a really common misconception.
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Right, because it is easy to look back and think they were a
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bunch of atheists trying to tear down the church.
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But they were not. Many of them did not view
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themselves as destroyers of religion at all.
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So it was more a case where their soaring confidence in
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human capability just naturally crowded out the need for the
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supernatural. Yeah, that is a great way to put
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it. Descartes, for example,
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considered himself a devout Catholic.
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He actually tried to construct a rational proof for the existence
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of God. Wait, really?
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He tried to prove God with this new system.
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He did. However, by making human reason
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the supreme judge and jury of what is real, they inadvertently
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change the standard of truth. When the focus shifts to the
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individual mind, objective external revelation from God is
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suddenly forced to submit to personal internal scrutiny.
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Right. The individual now demands that
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truth meet their personal standard of rational proof.
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If someone builds a machine they believe can answer every
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question in the universe, they might not actively hate the old
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methods of finding answers they. Just render them obsolete.
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I asked this because this 14th century shift still dictates how
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you, the listener, interact with information today.
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It absolutely does. We are hardwired by this
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specific era to trust the human mind above all else.
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We demand material explanations because these men convince the
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world that the human mind is capable of solving every
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mystery. Without needing a voice from
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heaven to intervene. But once the Renaissance
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established, human reason is the undisputed king of the universe,
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the subsequent era had to tackle a massive logistical problem.
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Which is if. Human reason is the king.
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How does that king actually acquire knowledge?
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That is the pivotal question. Answering that helps explain
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what happened next in the timeline.
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This leads us directly into the Age of Enlight Men.
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Yes, a mechanics of acquiring knowledge take center stage
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here. The central figure of this era
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is the English philosopher John Locke.
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He lived from 1632 to 17 O 4. Right, that is correct.
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Locke introduced a concept known as empiricism or subjectivism.
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He taught that knowledge comes exclusively from experience.
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So how does that actually work in practice?
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Locke argued for a strict 2 step process for acquiring knowledge.
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Step 1 involves sensations. Sensations, meaning the physical
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senses. Yeah, this is the physical
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process where a person becomes aware of external surroundings
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through the five physical senses.
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So you see an apple. You touch its smooth skin.
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You taste its sweetness. Exactly.
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Then Step 2 involves reflections.
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And reflections are internal. Right.
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This is the internal process where the mind contemplates the
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meaning of those physical sensations.
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It categorizes them and forms the abstract idea of an apple.
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Locke's grand thesis was that the human mind at birth is a
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blank slate. The tabula rasa, right?
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He argued nothing exists in the mind that is not first in the
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senses. And while Locke did try to
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maintain some room for God, his system had a massive catch.
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He firmly rejected any tenets of the Christian faith that
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contradicted experimental reason.
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Which is a huge problem for orthodox theology.
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This experiential requirement built the underpinnings of
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theological liberalism and neo orthodoxy.
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Because it demanded that all truth, even divine truth, pass
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through the checkpoint of human sensory experience.
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Yes, we need to pause and unpack the practical reality of Locke's
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view here, because applying this strictly seems to break down
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when we look at the full scope of human experience.
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How so? Well, if knowledge absolutely
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requires physical sensation as its starting point, what happens
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to concepts that have no physical properties whatsoever?
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Oh, I see where you're going. Think about justice or love or
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the divine. You cannot touch justice.
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You cannot smell love. You certainly cannot put God in
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a test tube and observe him with a microscope.
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Trying to validate spiritual or moral realities using only
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sensory experience is like trying to measure the weight of
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an idea using a grocery store produce scale.
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That is a brilliant way to visualize the flaw in Locke's
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system. You are using the wrong tool for
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the job. A physical scale is fantastic
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for weighing a bag of apples, but it is entirely useless for
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weighing the concept of human rights.
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When you place justice on that physical scale, the scale
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registers 0. So by demanding that all
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knowledge originate from the five senses, Locke is
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essentially declaring that anything the produce scale
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cannot weigh does not actually exist.
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Or at least cannot be known as objective truth.
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Locke's method forces spiritual and theological concepts to pass
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through a physical checkpoint. Which inherently disadvantages
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any claim of divine revelation. Right, because Locke made
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experimental reason the ultimate judge of reality, anything
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miraculous was immediately placed on trial.
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If a miracle by definition defies the normal sensory
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experiences of the natural laws, Locke's system struggles to
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accept it. Even though Locke himself tried
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to maintain a space for Christianity, the philosophical
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filter he built caught and discarded the supernatural.
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Scholars like Bernard Rahm have pointed out how this specific
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rationalistic filter forced later theologians into a corner.
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Think about what we call Neo Orthodoxy, which emerged much
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later with figures like Karl Barth.
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Barth was trying to respond to this right?
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Yeah, Neo Orthodoxy was in many ways an attempt to bypass this
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rationalistic filter. It suggested that Revelation is
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not objective historical data you can weigh on lock scale.
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So what did they say it was? They said it was a subjective,
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existential encounter with God. But the root problem remains.
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It does. Once you can see that the human
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mind and its sensory inputs are the ultimate arbiters of truth,
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Truth, you lose the ability to claim that an infinite God has
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spoken objectively into human history.
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In a way that is binding on everyone, right?
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If Locke demanded physical sensation for knowledge, the
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thinkers who followed him took that rule and pushed it to an
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astonishing reality bending extreme.
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This is where things get really wild.
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We moved next to George Berkeley, who lived from 1685 to
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1753, and David Hume, who lived from 1711 to 1776.
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Let us start with Berkeley. He took Locke's focus on the
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senses and formulated a principle that sounds like a
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Riddle. To be is to be perceived.
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That is the one, he argued, that things are precisely what they
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are experienced to be. The experienced qualities make
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up the codal essence of the object.
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So, according to Berkeley, all knowledge exists strictly in the
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mind. Yes, I like in Berkeley's
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philosophy to the classic thought experiment about the
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tree falling in the forest. If a tree falls and no one is
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around to hear it, does it make a sound?
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Exactly. Berkeley's arguing that without
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a perceiving mind, the tree's sound, and in fact the tree
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itself lacks essence. He pushes the focus on human
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perception so far that the material world almost evaporates
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into pure mental experience. Which seems crazy.
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Why would anyone push it that far?
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Well, the tragic irony of George Berkeley is one of the most
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fascinating developments in this entire intellectual progression.
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Because of who he was. Right.
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Berkeley was an Anglican Bishop. He actually developed this
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highly unusual sense oriented system as an apologetic.
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Wait, he was trying to defend the faith with this?
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Yes, he was trying to defend belief in God against the rising
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tide of secular materialism. How does saying to be is to be
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perceived defend God? Berkeley argued that since
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things only exist when they are perceived, and since the
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material world obviously continues to exist even when no
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human is looking at it, there must be an ultimate infinite
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mind who is constantly perceiving everything.
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And that infinite mind is God. Exactly.
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He tried to defend God using human experience, but the
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practical result was catastrophic for Orthodox
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theology. Why?
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What went wrong? By arguing that all knowledge
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exists strictly in the mind and that things are only what we
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experienced them to be, he accidentally created an anti
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supernatural framework. He exalted human reason and
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experience to such heights that he inadvertently denied the
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validity of special, objective divine revelation.
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He made the human mind the absolute boundary of reality.
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And then comes David Hume. A Scottish skeptic.
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Hume looked at Berkeley's locked door of mental perception, threw
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away the key and ushered in an era of pure skepticism.
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Hume carried the ideas of Locke and Berkeley to their ruthless
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logical conclusion. If all we have are our
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subjective sensory impressions, Hume argued, then we cannot
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actually prove anything beyond those impressions.
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We cannot even prove cause and effect.
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Wait, really? Not even cause and effect.
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No. Hume used the example of
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billiard balls. If you see one billiard ball hit
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another, you only perceive the sequence of events.
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You see ball A hit ball B. Right, but you do not see the
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invisible force causing the second ball to move, you just
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see the sequence. So Hume famously attacked the
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miracles of the Bible. He asserted that no amount of
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human testimony could ever outweigh the uniform experience
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of natural laws. He denied the possibility of
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knowing objective truth altogether.
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And the Age of Enlightenment, peaking with Hume, brought
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widespread agnosticism. It's the scientific method as
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the sole acceptable basis for proving truth.
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I want to point out to you, the listener, that the ghost of
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David Hume is still haunting our modern culture.
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Oh, heaven. Notice how often people demand
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strict scientific empirical proof for any spiritual claim.
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If you bring up a claim about God, the immediate cultural
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responses show me the data. Show me the peer reviewed study.
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Prove it in a lab. That reflexive demand is a
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direct inheritance from David Hume.
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We've completely internalized his conclusion.
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That is, something cannot be empirically measured.
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It cannot be considered objective truth.
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But with empiricism dismantling traditional belief in the
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supernatural, society was left with a terrifying void.
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Because human beings still had an innate sense of morality,
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they still felt a psychological need for spirituality.
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But the philosophers had just destroyed the intellectual
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permission to believe in a supernatural God who reveals
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himself. Hume's skepticism caused an
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existential crisis for Western civilization.
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A new philosophical system had to emerge to try and salvage the
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spiritual realm. But it had to be rebuilt
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strictly on human terms, staying within the boundaries the
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Enlightenment had drawn. Which leads us to idealism.
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Idealism was the philosophical movement that declared reality
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does not lie in the physical material realm, but rather in
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the mind. The basic premise is that behind
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all reality is a divine mind moving the world toward good.
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And the pivotal figure who constructed this new framework
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was the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
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Kant lived from 1724 to 18 O four.
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He looked at the massive void left behind by Hume skepticism
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and tried to rescue human knowledge and morality.
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He realized that if Hume was right, civilization would
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collapse into moral anarchy. Exactly so Kant insisted that
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one's concept of God must come strictly from reason.
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Consequently, Kant attacked all the traditional historical
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proofs for the existence of God, denying their validity entirely.
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According to Kant, knowledge cannot exist apart from
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experience that can be proven through rigorous testing.
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In doing this, Kant achieved a massive philosophical synthesis.
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He combined rationalism, which relies on human reason, with
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empiricism, which relies on the scientific method.
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Because he restricted true knowledge to what can be tested
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and experienced, Kant left absolutely no room for the
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supernatural intervention of God in history.
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And because of this highly restrictive focus, scholars
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frequently identify Kant as the theoretical founder of religious
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liberalism. Yes, if you cannot have a
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supernatural God who intervenes, performs miracles and reveals
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truth objectively, you have to redefine the core figure of the
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Christian faith. For Kant, Jesus could no longer
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be the Incarnate Son of God, performing miracles and rising
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from the dead. Instead, Jesus was reduced to
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being a good teacher who modeled a high ethical ideal.
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Liberal theology seized upon Kant's premise and built an
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entire paradigm, asserting that Christianity is fundamentally an
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ethical system governing human behavior.
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Rather than a supernatural revelation from the Creator.
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This shift Kant makes is staggering.
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If you strip the miraculous out of Christianity, and you remove
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the divine incarnation, the resurrection and supernatural
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intervention, and all you leave behind is a system of ethics, do
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you even have Christianity anymore?
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A lot of Orthodox thinkers would say no.
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Or do you just have a 19th century self help program
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dressed up in religious terminology?
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That is a harsh but accurate way to frame it.
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If Jesus is simply a good teacher with a high ethical
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ideal, then he's no different than Socrates or Confucius,
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right? The entire historical weight of
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the Christian faith is built in the claim that something
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supernatural actually happened in real time and space.
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Kant's maneuver reduces religion entirely to moral behavior.
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He takes the vertical relationship between God and
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humanity and flattens it into a horizontal rulebook for how
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humans should treat one another. We see this today in what
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sociologists call Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.
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What is that? It is the idea that God just
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wants you to be a nice person and be happy, but he does not
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actually intrude on your life. Wow, that is Kant's legacy right
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there. It really he is.
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He hit the nail on the head regarding the critique Orthodox
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theologians levy against Kant's system.
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When you remove the supernatural, the resulting
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religion is powerless to save. It can only instruct.
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This flattening of theology paved the way for George WF
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Hegel. Hegel.
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He lived from 1770 to 1831. Hegel took the concept of
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idealism to its absolute maximum.
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He taught that only the mind is real and everything else is just
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an expression of the mind. For Hegel, all reality is an
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expression of what he called the Absolute.
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Which is his term for God. He summarized this view with his
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famous motto, The real is rational and The rational is
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real. But Hegel is most famous for his
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concept of the dialectic. Yes, the dialectic was his
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explanation for how God or the absolute is at work in history.
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How does the dialectic operate? It operates in a three-step
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rhythm. First, you have a thesis.
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A thesis being an established idea or state of affairs.
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Right. This thesis inevitably gives
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rise to its opposite, an antithesis.
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So. You have idea A, and then idea B
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comes along to oppose it. Exactly.
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The conflict between the thesis and the antithesis results in a
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synthesis. A blending of the two diverse
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concepts into a higher, more evolved truth.
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The crucial element of Hegel's system is that this process is
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unending. Unending, so it never stops.
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The moment the new synthesis is established, it immediately
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becomes the new thesis. It generates its own antithesis
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and the cycle continues forever. I often compare the Hegelian
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dialectic to a giant philosophical blender.
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A blender? Yeah, you put 2 opposing
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contradictory ideas into the picture.
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You hit the Zen button and you get a brand new intellectual
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smoothie. I like that.
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That is your synthesis, but instead of pouring it out and
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drinking it, you immediately toss a new opposing ingredient
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into the blender and hit the button again.
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And you do this forever. The blades never stop spinning.
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The recipe is never finished under Hegel's system, nothing is
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ever final and nothing is ever absolute.
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The theological casualties of Hegel's method were staggering.
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Because truth is constantly evolving through this dialectic.
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Hegel did not view Christianity as a revealed final religion.
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Instead, he saw it simply as a synthesis of developing culture
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that was actively evolving into something else.
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So typically evolving into speculative philosophy.
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To Hegel, Christian doctrines were not concrete truths.
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Terms like the Son of God were not to be understood in a
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literal historical sense. They were only symbolic.
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Paul Ends links Hegel's methodology directly to the rise
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of higher critical methods in theology.
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Like the documentary hypothesis? Yes.
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The Documentary Hypothesis severely questioned the
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traditional, historically held authorship of the first five
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books of Scripture. And that is intensely rooted in
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Hegelian thought. Instead of accepting that God
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revealed the law to Moses, higher critics applied the
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dialectic. They argued that the biblical
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text must be a patchwork synthesis of evolving tribal
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religions over centuries. I want you to clarify the stakes
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here for the listener, OK? If truth is constantly evolving
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through this endless dialectic, if yesterday's absolute truth is
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just raw material for tomorrow's synthesis, how can a person
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trust historical texts? Or any truth claim for that
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matter. Right.
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How can they trust it to be objectively real if the meaning
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of the biblical text is constantly shifting?
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Based on the current cultural synthesis, the text itself seems
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to lose all its authority. The stakes are incredibly high
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and you have identified the exact crisis that Hegelian
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thought created for modern theology.
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It is a massive crisis. If truth is a moving target that
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constantly evolves through the dialectic, then no historical
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text can possess objective, lasting authority.
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A text like the Bible becomes a historical artifact.
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A snapshot of a previous synthesis rather than a living,
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authoritative voice. If doctrines are just symbols
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that change meaning as human philosophy advances, then the
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individual believer has no solid ground to stand on.
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You cannot trust a promise in the text if the concept of that
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promise is scheduled to evolve into its opposite a generation
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later. Hegel's system turns all
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theology into sociology and history.
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It assumes that humanity is always progressing upward,
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becoming more rational and therefore outgrowing the literal
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supernatural beliefs of the past.
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When liberal theology built extensively on the foundations
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of Kant and Hegel, it fully adopted this evolutionary view
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of truth. The Bible was no longer viewed
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as God speaking to man. It was seen simply as a record
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of man's evolving thoughts about God.
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Which explains the rise of higher criticism.
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Treating the scriptures as purely human documents to be
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dissected rather than divine revelation to be obeyed.
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Synthesizing this entire progression for the listener
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reveals a stunning centuries long trajectory.
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It really does. We started in the Renaissance,
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watching the intellectual center of gravity shift away from the
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glory of God to put humanity and human capability directly at the
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center of the universe. From there, we watch John Locke
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and David Hume establish the rules of the new universe.
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Manding strict physical sensation and empirical proof
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for anything to be considered real, which plunge the world
22:53
into skepticism. Then Immanuel Kant stepped in,
22:56
trying to save religion from the void by completely gutting it of
22:59
the supernatural. Reducing faith to a set of
23:02
ethical behaviors. Finally, GW UF Hegel took
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everything history, culture and doctrine and threw it into the
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endless dialectic blender. Turning concrete truth into
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evolving symbols, every single step we trace today
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systematically stripped away the supernatural.
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They built a philosophical universe where human reason sits
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on the throne and divine revelation is locked outside the
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gates. As we start to wrap up, what
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should the listener take away from all this?
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I want to leave you, the listener, with a final concept
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to Mull over as we conclude. Go ahead.
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We have seen how placing human reason at the center of the
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universe dismantled the supernatural.
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But look closely at the final destination of this
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philosophical progression. The end of the line with Hegel,
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right? If human reason and human
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experience are constantly evolving through Hegel's
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unending dialectic, if every truth we hold today is destined
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to become just a thesis that will be contradicted and
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synthesized away, what happens when our current synthesis of
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truth becomes obsolete tomorrow? That is a chilling thought.
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Does placing humanity at the center of the universe actually
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elevate us, or does it leave us with no solid ground to stand on
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at all? When the Son of divine
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revelation is extinguished, the human mind might feel like it
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rules the solar system, but it is ruling in the dark.
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That sums it up perfectly. Ruling in the dark.
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Thank you for joining us for this deep dive on reformed
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thinking.