Are the Holy Spirit and Reason at Cross-Purposes? Part II

Since God is reasonable and we are not, lost and rebellious sinners have but one hope for salvation (which includes the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation, and restoration).  The Holy Spirit does not bypass rationality.  To the contrary He, and He alone brings sinners into an encounter with the most important objective truths of all, which pertain to our relationship with a Holy God who, in love has done everything needful for sinners to be in relationship with Him.  He brings us to salvation by, to put it crudely, “knocking sense into us.”  He does so by leading us to see for the first time, at conversion, the actual truth about the reality, the nature and character of God, His good will, His saving ways, and about our desperate need to receive His gifts and be received by Him.

So returning to the question of today’s blog title, are the Holy Spirit and reason at cross-purposes with each other?  Up until now I had argued “no.”  But now I am turning the language around by declaring, “Yes, in another sense they are indeed at cross-purposes.”  The first three chapters of the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians he powerfully lays bare the Biblical vision that Christ Jesus is the point, and His salvation is the goal of all history.  The destiny of every human being is wrapped up in the work Jesus did on behalf of the world by His death on the cross and resurrection.  Consequently, all of reality serves as a reminder (confronts us as “law”) that we are at odds with the God who made us all (Romans 3:19,20), which is exactly how Paul uses the word” law” in this passage.  In His calling sinners to faith the Holy Spirit uses many means.  He uses the proclaimed Word of Holy Scripture.  And He uses as additional means the testimony of nature (Romans 1:18f) and our own consciences (Romans 2:1f).  He uses them for the very purpose that we might accept the cross of Christ as the means for a restored relationship with the Triune God.  In that sense the Holy Spirit and reason, both, are indeed at cross purposes”