📖 Biblical Definition
The Argument from Reason holds that human rational thought cannot have arisen from purely non-rational physical causes. If our reasoning faculties are the product of blind processes, we have no reason to trust them; the very thought that ‘all is matter’ would be itself the product of matter and not necessarily true. C. S. Lewis (Miracles, 1947) developed it; Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism extends it. Reason itself implies a rational ground — God.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
(Theistic argument.) Reason cannot arise from non-rational causes; reason itself implies a rational ground.
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C. S. Lewis's Miracles (1947, ch. 3) is the classic Christian formulation. Lewis argued that if naturalism is true, all our thoughts are products of irrational processes; therefore we cannot trust our thoughts; therefore we cannot trust the thought that naturalism is true.
Alvin Plantinga's Warrant and Proper Function (1993) extends with the ‘Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism’: if our cognitive faculties are products of unguided evolution selected only for survival (not truth), we cannot trust them on questions far removed from survival, including whether naturalism is true.
📖 Key Scripture
Genesis 1:27 — "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him."
John 1:9 — "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."
Proverbs 20:12 — "The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD hath made even both of them."
1 Corinthians 2:16 — "But we have the mind of Christ."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Modern atheism often invokes evolution to explain reason without realizing this undercuts its own claims; the argument from reason exposes the self-defeating logic.
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The argument is structurally self-defeating for the naturalist: if naturalism is true, the argument that naturalism is true cannot be trusted (it's a product of non-rational processes). The Christian claims our minds are made in God's image; reason has divine grounding.
The household's implication: trust in reason is itself a Christian doctrine. The world's capacity to be known by minds rests on the rationality of the Creator who made both. Christianity grounds the science it is often accused of opposing.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Greek logos (reason, word) plus argument.
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Greek logos — word, reason, account; behind English logic and the Logos of John 1.
Note: the argument has analogues in Plato, Augustine, and others; Lewis revived it for modern audiences.
Usage
"If naturalism is true, the thought that naturalism is true cannot be trusted."
"Trust in reason is itself a Christian doctrine."
"Christianity grounds the science it is often accused of opposing."