There is something chivalrous about vindicating the misrepresented. How often have our heroes been made out to be devils and we rejoice, throwing our fists in the air, when we see them so gloriously made right by a writer who can not only display the error, but also the mischievous motivations. This is Paul Helseth’s goal in “Right Reason” and the Princeton Mind: An Unorthodox Proposal: to vindicate his—and so many of our—heroes, the Princetonians.
Paul Kjoss Helseth, professor of Christian thought at Northwester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, wants to put to rest the accusation that Old Princeton was compromised by Enlightenment rationalism and Common Sense Realism. The interesting challenge Helseth faces is trying to argue against, not only one, but three different sets of opponents, who have their own unique indictments of the Princeton guard. The three opponents are:
- The post-conservatives, who accuse the Princetonians of “bald rationalism.” The system-driven, blind determinism of these old Calvinists isn’t useful, according to post-conservatives, for the postmodern mind. Since knowledge is finite, doctrinal conclusions must be conditional and non-final. Anything different, i.e. confessionalism of Reformed orthodoxy, is dubbed as modernistic or Enlightenment rationalism. They were too Calvinistic, you might say.
- Mark Noll asserts that Princeton theology was built on the “common sense of moral intuition.” The appropriate reformed epistemology (or Protestant, for that matter) was abandoned and the contemporary evangelical mind suffers for it.
- Much like Noll’s critique, reformed presuppositionalists, like Cornelius Van Til, made significant critiques of Warfield and other Princetonians’ epistemological assumptions in their apologetics. Warfield and others, according to Van Til, made an effort to find common ground with skeptics and liberals and, with the use of “right reason,” persuade them back to right orthodoxy. The response of Van Til and others was that this method disregards noetic affects of sin and worldview assumptions, effectively abandoning a reformed apologetic.
There’s a lesson here for Christians. We can’t assume to always find a sympathetic hearing. We must always imagine our critics over our shoulders while we write, asking us the hard questions and forcing us to be clear and articulate, foreseeing objections. We’ll be better thinkers and writers for it. However, in the case of Old Princeton, they were accused of being system-driven, rationalistic Calvinists on the one hand, and on the other, not Calvinistic enough. Sometimes you just can’t win! But Helseth is determined to vindicate them despite naysayers from every side.
The first part of Helseth’s book is all positive work. In other words, there is little engagement with his opponents. Rather, he establishes the Princeton theologians as best as he can in their own words. His effort is to show that Alexander, Hodge, Warfield, and Machen were in fact not “bald rationalists” but theologians of the heart. Helseth is persuasive that the Princeton theologians were consistent Calvinists who held to total depravity. They argued that there is an “ethical state to the knowing soul” in need of regeneration; otherwise “right reason” is an impossibility. The “right reason” of the Princeton mind, according to Helseth, was not Enlightenment rationalism after all but an epistemology from the Reformation.
The second half of the book is a full engagement with Helseth’s opponents that dips back to his conclusions made in part one as its evidence. So the formula goes something like, My opponents say this, but as we’ve already concluded in part one, that can’t be true.
It is at this point that the effectiveness of Helseth’s work begins to wane. Since he is juggling three different types of opponents, none of his arguments is packaged nicely for any one accusation. Instead, each of his conclusions multitasks, never really landing a square punch.
"Right Reason" and the Princeton Mind: An Unorthodox Proposal
Paul K. Helseth
"Right Reason" and the Princeton Mind: An Unorthodox Proposal
Paul K. Helseth
The “orthodox” consensus is that Presbyterian professors at Old Princeton Seminary (1812–1929) betrayed traditional Reformed theology by claiming that human reason was in certain significant ways unaffected by the fall. Through a masterful examination of the Old Princetonians’ writings, Paul Helseth turns the orthodox interpretation on its head, showing what Alexander, Hodge, Warfield, and others actually believed regarding the power of reason.
For example, Helseth spends the majority of his time arguing against the post-conservatives. It’s strange because he utilizes the arguments that the Princetonians were consistently Reformed to show post-conservatives that Old Princeton was not driven by Enlightenment epistemology. I don’t want to push the presuppositional irony too far, but showing that the old Princeton theologians were Calvinists in good form doesn’t seem to put to rest the problems post-conservatives have. At best, Helseth’s tactics are better suited for an intramural debate-for those who think being consistently Reformed is a good thing!
But when Helseth finally gets to presuppositionalists like Van Til and others, he is far too dismissive. In fact, much of his arguments are made indirectly, by implication in many cases. A good example is where Helseth identifies Greg Bahnsen’s argument that Machen was actually a good presuppositionalist, unlike Warfield and his earlier Princeton predecessors. But, according Helseth, there is no disconnect between the apologetics of Machen and Warfield; therefore, the argument goes, that Bahnsen (à la Van Til) has misread Warfield. As far as I can tell, Helseth’s reasoning is less than convincing.
Even more curious, there is no extensive interaction with Mark Noll. This is odd since Noll’s critiques are far more accepted and established than who Helseth’s spends most of his energy refuting.
Helseth makes a subtle admission in the introduction that I think has more significance than he lets on:
I am not suggesting that Scottish philosophy had no impact whatsoever on the substance of Old Princeton’s Reformed commitments or that Scottish Common Sense Realism was totally irrelevant to the Princetonians’ religious epistemology. . . . Rather, what I am suggesting is that we ought not to overestimate the impact of Scottish philosophy on Old Princeton, for this impact, I would argue, was largely held in check by the Princetonians’ classically Reformed commitments despite the fact that they were-as all of us are-children of their time to one degree or another.
It is precisely the “impact” of Common Sense Realism that many Reformed critics of Princeton theologians point to. Although Helseth dismisses the significance of this effect by stating they were simply “children of their times,” he doesn’t clearly articulate how Common Sense Realism affected their epistemology, nor does he give a fair shake to the presuppositionalists’ critique that it had significant consequences for their apologetical method.
In the end, I don’t think Helseth accomplishes his goal of vindicating Old Princeton. The post-conservatives are left shrugging their shoulders, the presuppositionalists feel misunderstood, and Mark Noll wonders, What about me?
