OLD PRINCETON APOLOGETICS: COMMON SENSE OR REFORMED?, THE

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Dec 2003 by McConnel, Tim

The third theory with which Greene dealt was the "Transcendental Theory," which he traced in its development from Kant through Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. While this theory upheld the identity and unity of the self, it failed to secure the individuality of the self, because it determined human self-consciousness and the Absolute to be identical, and the latter swallowed up the former.68

And so Greene arrived at his theory of "Personality." The "person" is aware of self as a unity in spite of varying attributes and faculties; self as an identity that persists through time and change; and self as an individual distinct from other personalities and realities. He again used the argument of "self-evidence" to support his view:

We cannot practically deny personality any more than we can practically deny reality or duality. Just as we are constrained, whatever may be our theories, to live as if we were in a real world and as if the distinction between mind and matter were real; so, whatever may be our views, we cannot help acting as if we stood in relation to persons. To do otherwise is impossible; for it would be to go against the ultimate self-evident reality of things.69

Greene concluded his article by arguing that in our awareness of our own personal dependence upon God, we sense that God, though infinite, is still a person. Thus personality is in a sense the "reality of reality."

The fourth fundamental truth of "The Metaphysics of Christian Apologetics" with which Greene dealt was "Morality." He stated that in this article he was moving from the realm of "facts," what is, to the realm of the ideal, what ought to be. The notion of "oughtness" implied two separate issues: whether there is an objective obligatory ideal, and whether we have free agency. After disposing of the objections to the former, Greene supported an objective obligatory ideal by several arguments. He defined his position by stating, "There is objective truth to which rational beings are under obligation to conform their characters and actions."70 Among his arguments in support of this position was that the various positions all admitted to a phenomenon in human consciousness of an apparent objective obligatory ideal. If such were to exist, that would be an adequate explanation of the phenomenon, whereas the other positions had to construct elaborate, inconsistent arguments to explain it away. Greene further argued on the basis of universal human distinction between right and wrong (although he admitted disagreement as to the particulars). He also saw the persistence of the idea of duty as strong support for the notion. He wrote,

This proof that we are elaborating is much strengthened by the persistence of the idea of duty. Persistence of belief is, as we saw also in the first number of this series, the final test of that self-evidence and necessity which characterize a genuine intuition, and which we have clearly observed in the case of our conviction as to an objective obligatory ideal. This is so because everything is against its fulfillment. Naturally man is not friendly to the idea of duty. He would give much to be emancipated from it. Yet he cannot silence its imperative.71