The unaided light of reason

Anyone who's familiar with the Origins debate has read and heard a lot of talk about religion vs reason. They've also come across a lot of claims about the need to disavow superstition and to rely strictly upon reason. Let's see if this makes any sense.

Quotes and comments;

A. 'Within the sphere of nature a relative autonomy was ascribed by [St.]Thomas to the human reason, which he supposed to be capable by its own unaided light of discovering the natural truths about the universe and of man’s place within it. [1]

- There's no such thing as the 'unaided' light of human reason. This notion is a Humanist pretense. If man was created by God (in God's image) it's impossible for man to do anything unaided. The pretense that man does things without aid is a pretense based on pride. Not only is man the creation of God; the whole universe is. Man cannot learn anything without the aid of his creator. At times one gets the feeling Humanists would like to pretend that man created his own mind :=) There is no such thing as the unaided light of reason. (This would be like saying; 'I created this webpage with the unaided help of Frontpage.')

The essence of Humanism is to deny God the credit for anything. This project includes giving man the credit for thinking, reason, language, logic, mathematics, science, music, art, etc. Humanists hate the idea of creation because it denies this pretense that man is the fount of all intellectual skills and accomplishments.

The long project we call science has involved many discoveries by humankind about the universe; but none of this was done unaided. Neither was any of this done without the aid of god's spoken word. It's taken as fact that the greeks knew nothing from god's revealed word, and so deserve all the credit for what they came up with. I agree with the scholars who reject such a Humanist view of things. The revealed word of god has been alive in the world since god (in whatever vehicle) spoke to Adam. The accumulated word of god, whether written down or not, was a component of every ancient culture. (It's true this word became debased in various degrees and at various times.) The influence of this revealed word has never been absent from human culture.
- I personally see much of ancient Greek thought as a response to this revealed word. The Greeks were descendents of one of Noah's sons after all. Stories like the creation and the Flood were far too powerful to have ever disappeared.

When we say 'reason' is capable of x, it's vital we know what is meant by reason. The humanist claims that man's ability to reason (often sadly reified as Reason) is a product of chemical evolution; and the biblical creationist claims it's a gift of God (designed by Intelligence for a specific purpose and role). If man's ability to reason were merely the product of matter and chance we wouldn't be here to talk about it. There is no evidence that matter can produce intelligence. This is a Humanist myth. The fact men reason (and can disagree about Origins) is evidence that the materialist pretense is fallacious.

Notes;
1. The Reformation and the Development of Modern Science - E. L. Hebden Taylor/p.6
2. 'As Professor David Knowles writes in his excellent work The Evolution of Medieval Thought:
‘As a follower of Albert who outran his master Aquinas accepted human reason as an adequate and self-sufficient instrument for attaining truth within the realm of man’s natural experience, and in so doing gave, not only to abstract thought but to all scientific knowledge, rights of citizenship in a Christian world. He accepted in its main outlines the system of Aristotle as a basis for his own interpretation of the visible
universe’ (p. 257). ''
3. The allusion to Frontpage might be a bit out of date; but when I started creating websites this was a popular way for non-coders to accomplish the task.