The Forgotten Apologist – Edward John Carnell (Part Three) "Common Ground and the Third Way of Knowing"
Carnell on Common Ground – The Descriptive But Not the Normative
An important area in Carnell’s apologetic method is his treatment of common ground.[39] Carnell outlines what he describes as three levels of meaning: (1) the personal, (2) the scientific, and (3) the ultimate or metaphysical. According to Carnell, all people share the personal level of meaning, but Christians and non-Christians do not share the metaphysical level. However, Christians and non-Christians do share a portion of the scientific level—namely, the realm of mere observation—which is not governed directly by metaphysical presuppositions. Since Carnell views the metaphysical as the ultimate level of meaning, it extends into most of the scientific realm. In practice, then, common ground is minimal and largely limited to observation (the descriptive).
While all descriptive aspects of reality and life ultimately point to the metaphysical, as we have seen, there remains common ground in the personal realm regarding what we observe and experience in the world. Carnell’s emphasis on “soul sorrow” and a shared personal level with non-Christians highlights the fact that acknowledging such common experience and observation leads us toward the normative—that is, the explanatory metaphysical ultimate. Observation and experience can tell us what is, but not what it means. Thus, whatever common ground exists at the personal level and within portions of the scientific (i.e., the observable), it is continually given through general revelation, which is ongoing. The things we experience and observe demand an explanation—the normative. While there may be some common ground between Christians and non-Christians, it is not and cannot be "neutral." This is a hostile environment for non-Christians, who, as Scripture teaches, must suppress the truth in unrighteousness to avoid facing the normative truth (cf. Romans 1:18-25).
The “Third Way of Knowing”
Another very important element in Carnell’s apologetic is the proposal which he describes as the “third way of knowing.” In his book, Christian Commitment, Carnell begins with a very introspective chapter. He concludes,
I intuitively grasped the following truth: One’s ability to see reality is somewhat conditioned to the tone of one’s affections . . . . There is a real causal connection between the tone of one’s affections and his ability to perceive reality. An imbalance in the neurophysical life will be reflected in the moral-spiritual life. An angry person can appreciate neither the lily or the God behind the lily.[40]
It is surely ironic, as well as a sign of Carnell’s ongoing battle against insomnia and depression when he describes how, otherwise healthy, his insomnia “prevailed over weariness.”[41] Carnell understood how the condition of one’s life circumstances can influence how we process data. He was no armchair speculator, but a grizzled veteran who could see in his own suffering the impact the body has upon the mind.
Carnell goes on to develop his thesis:
Here is the truth which is as absolute as either the laws of logic or the axioms of geometry: Man is not the author of his own existence. The fact that this assertion cannot be formally demonstrated is quite beside the point, for only an individual so utterly pompous as to overlook his own finitude would deny its truth. This absolute needs only to be impressed, not demonstrated . . . . Reflect, for example, on the mystery of our beating heart. What sustains this complex muscle? And what is the relation between moral freedom and the flow of blood? No really profound answers to these questions can be given. And even more mysterious than the circulation of blood, and thus more shattering to self-sufficiency, is the baffling fact of rational and moral self-transcendence. What is thought? And how can an immaterial idea affect a material body? Whoever meditates on these questions with an eye to the mystery of life will immediately acknowledge that he is not the author of his existence. If one does not even know the meaning of life, how can he pretend to be its creator? Here, then, is the first clue to the third method of knowing: Ultimate reality cannot be grasped unless rational knowledge is savored by spiritual conviction.[42]
As Carnell develops it, this seems to be a rather sophisticated synthesis both of a moral argument (from where does morality come?), and a cosmological argument (what presently exists points to a creator).
After arguing for the bankruptcy of philosophy in finding truth, Carnell goes on to conclude, “a known attribute of ultimate reality is this: we are dependent on it for our existence. If a philosopher fails to build his approach on this one known attribute, his final metaphysic, though he have a millennium in which to develop it, it will remain truncated.”[43]
It is at this point that Carnell criticizes the weakness of the two traditional approaches to knowing,
“Whatever is, is true, to the extent that something participates in being, it is true. This is called ontological truth . . . . But how can reality be known? How can we critically distinguish reality from appearance? If ontological truth is to be of any service, therefore, a procedure must be devised that will put man’s mind in touch with reality. This procedure is rational inference. Whenever a person enters into a new environment, he is compelled to make inferences, for man is curious by nature, symbols or terms represent concepts, and the valid construing of these symbols is truth. Propositional truth, thus, is the second kind of truth. Whenever judgments conceptually house the real, they possess the quality of truth . . . . But what if a third kind of truth exists, one that is the precise equivalent of neither ontological nor propositional truth? . . . . By the term `third kind of truth’ I mean truth as personal rectitude . . . . For example, if one ought to be transformed by the fact that he is dependent on powers greater than himself, truth as personal rectitude has no existence until one morally and spiritually conforms the whole of his life to this relationship, essence and existence are united by right moral decision.”[44]
Thus, Carnell explains the dilemma of man in the language of existentialism (from his study of Kierkegaard), without adopting the existentialist epistemology, as we will see below.
“Let us call the stuff of rectitude the `imperative essence.’ Even as the descriptive essence comprehends all that man is, so the imperative essence comprehends all that man ought to be. Moral and spiritual existence cannot be shunned without deteriorating character, for essence and existence are not in harmony until one elects to live uprightly. . . . Man is a spiritual creature; praiseworthy moral decision forms the very essence of his dignity . . . . I shall call the third way of knowing knowledge by moral self-acceptance. The content of the imperative essence cannot be apprehended until one is spiritually transformed by the sum of those duties which already hold him.[45]
Carnell explains the epistemology of this:
“As a formal fact, knowledge by moral self-acceptance can do nothing without the aid of knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by inference. Even as the mind functions through the brain, but is not the same as the brain, so the third way of knowing functions through acquaintance and inference, though it is not the same as these . . . . Though knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by inference are the only ways in which the content of the imperative essence can be brought before the mind, only moral self-acceptance can release the data which make up this essence. If a person will not submit to the moral sense, he will remain spiritually blind; for neither acquaintance nor inference has access to the pith and marrow of the imperative essence. Only moral self- acceptance can release a sense of duty into consciousness. Once duty has been released, of course, it then can be directly experienced or conceptually represented.[46]
The third way of knowing is not a new form of knowledge, or a rejection of classical categories, but an acknowledgment that there is a moral aspect to knowing which may have been overlooked in previous formulations.
Carnell concludes by arguing that the necessary conditions of true knowledge are:
“First, to know is to experience . . . . Second, to know is to enjoy a conceptual account of reality . . . . This is precisely what is meant by the third condition of knowing: To know is to be morally responsible for knowing. Although one does not meet the first condition of knowing until he experiences something, and although one does not meet the second condition of knowing until he reasons consistently, one already meets the third condition of knowing by virtue of his being a normal human being. Moral responsibility is the third condition of knowing. A person must spiritually anticipate the outcome of his actions . . . . It is my conviction that man’s difficulty is not lack of knowledge, but lack of moral courage to act on the knowledge he already has.”[47]
In some ways, this is similar to B. B. Warfield’s argument that the Holy Spirit does not provide new evidence for Christianity to bring someone to personal trust in Jesus Christ, but is the agent who supplies them with a new subjective willingness (regeneration) to accept facts that the mind already knows to be true. Objective truth is suppressed by human sinfulness until the Holy Spirit gives us the capacity to embrace what we knew to be true but refused to accept.[48] Carnell does not mention the Holy Spirit here as providing the insight necessary to understand the moral component of knowing, but affirms the Spirit’s work elsewhere.
Carnell attempted to develop the moral aspects of knowing without abandoning traditional epistemology or eliminating all common ground, as Van Til and Clark do. Carnell may even have succeeded in establishing the non-neutrality of common ground by arguing that knowledge requires accountability, and that actions based on knowledge have consequences. Such dependence, therefore, implies the necessity of a transcendent ethic for right action. Knowledge without action, Carnell suggests, is a denial of the basic human essence shared by all people. This represents an expansion of his earlier treatment of common ground and is certainly thought-provoking. This area of Carnell’s thought is fertile ground for further inquiry.
A Closing Postscript
Carnell was very pleased that his book Christian Commitment—which he considered his best work on the subject of apologetics—was published in 1957 by the Macmillan Company, a well-known secular publisher. At a time when such publishers typically avoided evangelical works, he was encouraged by the possibility that his defense of the Christian faith might reach a broader audience than An Introduction to Christian Apologetics had. Carnell hoped for decent sales and meaningful influence, and he even told fellow faculty members that he believed the book would change the way apologetics would be done in the future.[49]
We can only imagine Carnell’s great disappointment when the book received mixed reviews in only a few Christian publications and little attention outside Christian circles. Christian Commitment did not sell well, and the rights were soon sold to Eerdmans. Carnell later admitted that this was “the greatest disappointment of his professional life.”[50] How many sleepless nights were haunted by such an intrusive thought of failure? We can only imagine.
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[39] Carnell, An Introduction to Christian Apologetics, 211-222.
[40] Carnell, Christian Commitment, 11-12.
[41] Carnell, Christian Commitment, 10-11.
[42] Carnell, Christian Commitment, 13.
[43] Carnell, Christian Commitment, 13.
[44] Carnell, Christian Commitment, 15-16.
[45] Carnell, Christian Commitment, 21-22.
[46] Carnell, Christian Commitment, 23.
[47] Carnell, Christian Commitment, 25-27.
[48] Warfield, Apologetics, 15.
[49] Nelson, The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind, 103.
[50] Nelson, The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind, 103.