Above vs. Contrary to Reason: How to Determine?

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Taylor

Puritan Board Post-Graduate
Hello, friends.

I am trying to read through Turretin's Institutes this year. Right now I am early in the prolegomena, specifically where he is asking whether reason has any place in theology.

He makes the distinction between something which is above reason (e.g., the Trinity or predestination) and something which is contrary to reason (e.g., Ubiquity or transubstantiation). My question is, How do we determine what is above reason and what is contrary to reason? I can imagine a Unitarian, when presented with this argument, saying, "That's all well and good, but the Trinity is still contrary to reason."

I find the distinction between being above vs. being contrary to reason to be very helpful, but it still remains to be demonstrated, for example, that the Trinity is indeed above and not contrary to reason (I obviously, for sake of clarity, affirm the former).
 
Contrary to reason means it entails a contradiction. But since we don't say the Trinity is One Nature and Three Natures, then it is not a contradiction, hence not contrary to reason.
 
Doctrines contrary to reason are simply unverifiable. How could one have firm conviction, even if they held to one, of the truth of a doctrine that is contrary to reason? They cannot. Something contrary to reason is contrary to God.

What is above reason is simply incomprehensible, beyond the ability of reason to discover for itself, e.g., unity of body and soul in one conscious life, divine and human natures united in one Person. We receive matters of faith on the authority of God, not because they can be understood or proven.

Something against reason is impossible. Why is the acceptance of the transcendent necessary? Simply because reason itself is inextricably bound to the truth, which is transcendent. Truth is immutable. Thus man's reason, ever developing and changing, acknowledges a transcendent quality which is beyond itself. For example, it is against reason for a contradiction to be true.
 
To follow-up on the thoughts already expressed, there is a categorical distinction which shows that we speak of the One and the Three in different senses. God is One in substance and Three in subsistence. If it were claimed that God is One and Three in the very same sense it would be a contradiction. One part of the proposition would nullify the other part of the proposition and render the proposition meaningless to a reasoning creature.

Supra-rationalists require everything to be in accord with reason. This is the most unreasonable claim of all because it means that man must transcend his limited capacities in space and time in order to be able to validate everything. Everything about the human situation demonstrates that there are things beyond the ability of man to understand; and if that is relatively true with respect to the creature it is absolutely true with respect to the Creator. It is reasonable to believe that God, who is infinitely greater than man, should be beyond the power of man to understand; just as it is reasonable to believe that God, who made man as a reasoning creature, would communicate something of Himself to man in order to lead him by his reason to Himself, giving man both a general and a special revelation fitted to his limited capacities as a creature.
 
...since we don't say the Trinity is One Nature and Three Natures, then it is not a contradiction, hence not contrary to reason.

God is One in substance and Three in subsistence. If it were claimed that God is One and Three in the very same sense it would be a contradiction. One part of the proposition would nullify the other part of the proposition and render the proposition meaningless to a reasoning creature.

This is helpful and helps me to distill what I have read in Turretin thus far. This is making sense; what is key is the terminology used in a statement. Turretin argues such, as well. I have not given enough weight to Turretin's most basic definition of a contradiction: "For the same thing to be and not to be is impossible" (1:32). To say that God is one in substance and three in subsistence is not a contradiction because the terms are different. It may not make sense to fallen reason, but it is most assuredly not a contradiction.
 
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