e commonly think of skepticism as the domain of anti-Christian thinkers. Skeptics like Hume aim to debunk miracles; Nietzche mocks religious morality; Russell undermines arguments for God; Flew questions the meaningfulness of religious language.
Nonetheless, this close association between skepticism and anti-Christian thought hasn't always been so obvious. Christian thinkers, especially of a Reformed outlook, have a fascinating heritage of skepticism, though obviously of a different sort than the thinkers noted above. Christian skepticism seeks to show that non-Christian reasoning is uniquely self-defeating and vain, or as one of the most noteworthy of Christian skeptics declared, Christ's "design was . . . to confound all Philosophy, and to shew the vanity of it. He was willing that his gospel should clash not only with the religion of the Heathens, but with the aphorisms of their wisdom." So wrote Pierre Bayle (1647-1706).
Bayle is certainly one of the most interesting characters in the history of Christian thought. He was a Huguenot, a French Reformed thinker, whose devastating attacks on non-Christian thought forced some of the leading philosophers of his day, such as Hume and Leibniz, to defend themselves against his criticisms of autonomous reason.
Bayle was the son of a Huguenot pastor and, along with his three brothers, was trained in the Protestant catechism, Latin, and Greek, and surrounded with scholarly works. The young Bayle had a consuming passion for his studies and, as one biographer describes him, he "was never happier than when completely absorbed in his books and his papers." At an early point in his studies under the tutelage of Jesuits, he converted to Roman Catholicism, for which he was given a small grant. Gradually though, as he was overcome by the crass idolatry of his new faith, he abjured Roman Catholicism for the Reformed faith, from which he never parted again.
As the anti-Reformed policies of Louis XIV increased, Bayle and other Huguenot scholars fled to Holland. There he filled a chair of philosophy and history, edited an academic journal, and wrote profusely, opposing among other things, popular superstitions, civil intolerance, and Roman Catholicism.
His most noteworthy work, the Critical Dictionary, was and is an amazing multi-volume encyclopaedia of one person's scholarship, surveying historical figures in a clear, painstakingly detailed, and Christian Skeptical manner. The volumes sold very well, extending Bayle's influence beyond his century, and stirring controversy among Reformed and non-Reformed alike. Despite the politics, bitterness, and controversy, Bayle unashamedly confessed near his death, "I die a Christian philosopher."
Bayle's emphases, drawing on those of Calvin, have persisted and reappeared in the last two centuries in the like of Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd, and Cornelius Van Til, all part, to varying degrees, of the heritage of Christian Skepticism. Though, like us all, Bayle has his theological and philosophical blind spots,
the virtues of his Christian Skepticism is worthy of imitation. At its heart, it is simply an application of Scripture's exhortation to "cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God" (2 Cor. 10:5).
So what are the virtues of Bayle's Christian Skepticism? Or, similarly, how might one briefly summarize the features of Christian Skepticism? Consider the three following features as given in some of Bayle's own statements.
Christian Skepticism radically challenges all forms of non-Christian reasoning, displaying their inherently self-defeating character. For Bayle, theories based on autonomous reason "are big with contradiction and absurdity." Bayle explained that the Christian ought to see, "in a perfect tranquility, the weakness of reason, and the errors of men who have no other guide. Every Christian who suffers himself to be startled and offended with the objections of unbelievers, is in the same lamentable condition as they are."
The basis for this conclusion is that, "[humanistic] Reason is like a runner who doesn't know that the race is over or like Penelope constantly undoing what it creates." It is common, then, in non-Christian thinking to find that, "in order to reason consistently with [its] principles, [it] must reject as false everything which reason cannot understand."
The cause of the non-Christian's use of Reason in this vain manner is not intellectual. Explains Bayle in sound Reformed style: "the obstacles to objective judgment do not come from a mind that is ignorant but from one that is full of prejudices."
Christian Skepticism recognizes the superior authority and rationality of trusting God's self-disclosure. "Christianity . . . centres in the supreme authority of God . . . that we may believe [it] . . . with all the humility that is due an infinite being, who neither can deceive nor be deceived." Given this focus, Bayle contends that with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as "our instructors and directors, we cannot err having such guides, and reason itself commands us to prefer them before its own direction." If God indeed is Lord over all, and the supreme standard by which we ought to measure truth, then we would be irrational to measure truth by the inferior standard of autonomous reason.
Christian Skepticism stems from a heart that fears God. The two preceding features -- the vanity of non-Christian thought and the supreme authority of the Christian God -- are properly understood only in the context of a genuine fear, a holy reverence, of God. Bayle had no patience for the idolatrous and impersonal gods resulting from deistic speculations. Genuine reverential fear of God will not only produce a Baylean boldness which can say that "a true Christian will only laugh at the subtleties of the philosophers," but it will also do so because of "the sole motive of God's authority."
One passage from Bayle summarizes these three features well: "Neither the Dogmatists nor the Skeptics will ever be able to enter into the kingdom of God, unless they become like little children, unless they change their maxims, renounce their wisdom, and make a burnt offering of their vain systems at the foot of the cross to the pretended folly of our preaching."
Given this perspective, only Christians can be genuine skeptics. May the Lord soon grant us more Christian skeptics.
