The Fall of Practical Reason 1

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Proverbs 9:10

Practical reason refers, roughly speaking, to whatever counts in favor of us performing certain actions. For example, I might say that you have reason to save a drowning person. You might have reason not to cheat in an exam, or to go get some food at the hawker centre. (There is also theoretical reason, which are also known as reasons for us having certain beliefs. But I will not discuss that here.)

Now the Bible tells us that we are fallen, and in Reformed theology, the understanding is that a proper reading of the text entails that the 'fallenness' affects all aspects of the person - the emotions, the desires and the mind. So then, this implies that there must be something very wrong with our rationality. And if our rationality includes practical rationality, then there is something very wrong with our practical rationality.

Now the problem is, this last part might not seem apparent to many. Consider, for example, the fact that many brilliant scientists, philosophers and politicians are non-Christians. Or the fact that my neighbour can very well perform actions rationally - when he is hungry, he goes to the fridge to get food, and not to the wardrobe. Our non-Christian classmates might know how to score on an exam better than we do. The upcoming entrepreneur whose business is growing fast due to his innovative products might not believe in God at all. All these people seem to be using their reason rather well. In particular, the latter examples seem to be examples of good usage of practical reason. And since Christians are on the road of sanctification and having their fallenness, so to speak, redeemed in a sense, shouldn't Christians be doing much better than non-Christians in terms of acting in accordance to reason? What's the difference?

How then, is our practical reason fallen? I suggest a possible way of looking at this in the next post.