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Ho'-V J:=>abney Looked At the -W-odd:
The Worldvicw of Robert L. Dabney PART ONE
Rev. Joseph c:. Morccraft. III
It is written of Abel, the son of Adam, that though he is dead,
he still speaks , Hebrews II :4. By his example of faith ' and
righteousness Abel still speaks to us today, although he ,has been
de.ad for . almost six millennia. "The spectacle of his
trustfulintegrity, .even in the face of violence, should inspire us
to persevere and to overcome. by the same means. "1 The purpose of
my paper is to be a mouth-piece for Robert t. Dabney, so that he
who is in the grave can still speak to us and inspire us to
persevere and to over- .' comeby our trustful integrity, even in
the face of a violent, anti-Christian culture.
Another 'reason for letting Dabney speak for himself is not
orily 'soyoucan see the kind of men a'nd viewpoint that was
dominant in the Old South, but a lso so you can see that Dabney'S
character and viewpoint, although on it scholarly level,
represented the . character and worldview of the rank and file
Southerner from all levels of society.
I make this poiht becallse many today who prOfess to love the
South and who have battleJlagdecals on their cars and trucks have
no real' commitment to that Biblical Christianity that was. the
bed-rock foundation of the Old South as Richard Weayer has shown in
'his out- , standing book, SOUTHERN TRAPITION ATBAY .. To tho se
for wh'om' fove for the South means racism, . nostalgia ,. rifgged
' . individ.ualism and rebel-attitudes,yo'u " have Iio idea what
thit bloodcs iaine4 . ': battle" flag represe!'ts. And so I plead
witbyou to~ read with .me. abotit that de.-voted Conf~d .erate,
Rob.ei:t ~:Pabhey, .. with the wjlJingnessto have your' mind '
~hanged 'til'riJligh him. , ' , ' . ' .
I. WhO was Robert le. D;lbney? Dabney ' s biogtapher and friend
, Tho-
mas Cary Johnson, wrote of this Nine-teenth Century Titan of the
South: "There' were giants in those days, stars of m.agnitude,
iUl,d among them all not a greater giant than R.L, Dabney."2
Robert Lewis Dabney was a "man with penetration and insight to
discern be-tween ,good .and evil and with heroic boldness to \yarn
[people] against an evil course, and with the thllnderbolt of Thor
to demolish the ramparts of error. 3 - . In point of intellectual
energy and power we not only regard him as superior to ~very other
man we; have ever seen , ' bllt as having had no equal so far
ashistory has had anything to say, in the whole history of
Christianity in this country.';' "He loved not low things. He
delighted in hi.ghthings. He loyed devotedly, and was a good hater,
as every good lover mllst be. He loved passionately. andhated
passionately the evil. - Men who sat nnder his teaphing before he
had reached his prime have given expression ... to their conviction
that Dr. Dabney was even then the most godly man whom they had ever
met. "s
At his funeral, Dr. Moses Drury Hoge of Richmond gave an address
eutitled, "Regnant Men," incillding Dabney as such a man. He
defined "regnant men" as "the kingly men of the world, not because
of hereditary rank and power, bllt because of commanding infiuenpe
through services rendered by which th~ intellectual and moral
progress of mankind has been advanced. - Such men are the
ac-knowledged leaders in the State, tbey are the lights and
landmarks in tile Chllrch, they are the grand pillars in the temple
which. God is.rearing in the world to the glory of His grace. Among
the gifts of God are the gifts of sllch men to the
. . .
Church and to the world. "For they are the instIllments by which
society is moul-ded, and the moral and spiritual inflllence of
mankind strengthened and advailced from age to a'ge,. - 'N 0 chmch
on this
August/September, 2000 THE COUNSEL of ChalcedoD. - 29
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continent has, been mOfe favore,\! of, heaven in baviJ;i,g at
its, very organizatioI) tbree sl,lch; lI)ep as Tbornwel,l,
Palmer"anli , Dabney ... "6
Co\. L. S.Mitrye asked ',a:professot"of" Columbia Tbeological
Seminary to ,com~ pario tliree great Southern ,Presbyterian '
ministers, two of whom were stillli"ing, and so tbeir, names were
no t mentioneq. , "Replying slowly and Illeditatively he said: ,, '
Dr ___ ~ __ ~_ ~s perhaps tbe best furnished of tbe three . Dr.~
___________ is the mo~t eloquimt and attractive in 'the pulpit; but
for blast~ ing rocks , I wouidt~ke Dr. Oablll,y.';7 .
Robert Lewis Dabney was born in Louisa County, Virginia on March
5,1820 and died in Victoria, Texas on January 3, 1898. He was
a.farmer, teacher, scbolar, tbeologian; pastor, autlior,
pbilosopber, . logician" historian; soldier, ,statesman and,
Chri~dan. He taqgbt in Union Theologi-cal Seminary (1853-1882),
was on the faculty of tbe Universi ty of Tex as and was tbe virtual
f,ounder of Austin Thea-' logical Seminary (1883-1894).
Iie was described by Arcbibald Alexander Hodge Of Princeton
Seminary as "tbe best teacber of tbeology in tbe United States, if
notin the world." s Anotber said of bim, "He was a good practical
farmer, a good teacher, a good pastor, a' capital member of a
military staff. He was a skillful mechanic and furniture maker ...
He bound books well, drew maps and plans for buildings.'" He was
valued as "one of the greatest stu-dents of pbilosopby tbat
Am,erica had yet produced," wbose pbilo sophical writings would .be
ranked in ,brilliance and impor-tant, with those of Immanuel
Kant,lO A contem'porary said of bim that: "Dabney'S writing a
entitie bim to tbe first place amongst tbe theological thinkers and
writers of bis century."" As a con-vinced CalVinist and Puritan of
the 17'h Century Englisb type; be was in complete agreement witb
tbe Westminster Confes-sion of Faitb, tbe Lilrger and tbe Shorter
C.atechisms, " of which be was perhaps
, tAe mpst sYQJlRathetic and, ablee~:pouncjel i :in his .
c.~ntur.y."12 "He was a ,.p,reemjnent i preac]:te.r to p):,eacher,s
... ,.,He: is,isaicj to: , bave lgiViep enough material ina single
,' serJllon :for tbe ,aYera;ge,minister .to de- , ,
v'e~op , anywnNe from two to ':sh se.~ c; ,,, mQns~~'P - ,~ i
.
'Major Oabney ' is m'ost widely r'eme'irt'"' , heredas Stonewall
Jackson's chief-'Of-: staff for a short dme (1862) 'during the ,
War Between ' the States. Jae"kson safd tif bim th'at he Was "' the
most efficient of-
. ficer he knew." "Wben Jackson ap ~ pointed him as his
A'djutant-Gener~l,
, Colonel Grisby of 'the Stonewall brig'ade was asked by
'General Jackson what he tbolIght about his new Adjutant. Gfisb'y '
later cjescrlbed what he thought at tpat ' "
, moment: "Iconc1uded that old Jack must ' be a fatalist sure
enough, when he put.in , an Ironside Presbyterian parson, as his'
cbief of staff, but I bave brigbt hopes of
: beadquarters, seeing they are no longer ,omnisicient."1S But
after seeing Dabney ' s bravery and hearing him preacb to the
soldiers, Grisby said of him: "Our parson is , not afraid of Yankee
builets , and I tell you he preaches like hell."" Jol1n Schildt has
poiilted out tbat " at Port Republic on Sunday, June 8, 1862,Dabney
wasgive'n c redit for saving Jackson's trains. - [and] CoI.G.F.R.
Henderson, in writing on failures at Cedar Run in mid-summer
,[after the resignation of Dabney due to illness] states: 'The
absence of Major Dabney, struck down by sickness, is a possible
explanation of
. faulty orders. "'17 So, 'now, we go to tbe distinctively
Christian worldview of the great Dabney, the champion of liherty
and justice for all.
II. What is a Wo'rldview? A. The Definition of a World view
Worldviews are inescapable. Every-body has one. You have one ,
whether you are aware of it or not. A worldview is the. way you
look at God, yourself; life ,
, the world, and everythin,g that happens
30 THE COUNSEL of Chhlcedon Angust/September, 2000
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around you. It is your perspective on life and those basic
assumptions you have about life which determine the way you think,
live and relate in this world. A worldview is "a set of beliefs
about the , most imponant issues of Iife ... a concep-tual scheme
by which we consciously or unconsciously place or fit everything we
believe and by which we interpret and judge reality."- Ronald Nash,
WORLDVIEWS IN CONFLICT, p. 16, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1992). "What man thinks about the world when he
is driv,en back'to his deepest reflections and most secret
promptings will finally determine ' all that he does."- Richard
Weaver, THE SOUTHERN TRADITION AT BAY, p. 375, (Washington, D.C.:
Regnery Gate-way, 1989).
One's view of life and the world grows out of the
presuppositions he has about God, life , and the world. A
presupposition is "an elementary assumption in one's reasoning or
in the process by which opinions are formed. :. [It is a1s'o) a
,per-sonal commitmeI\t that is held at the most basic )eve1 of
one"s network of beliefs. Presuppositions form a wide-ranging,
foundational perspective (or starting point) in terms of which
everything else is interpreted and evaluated. As such,
presuppositions have the greatest author-ity in one's thinking,
being treated as one's least negotiable beliefs and being granted
the highest immiInity to revi-sion."- Greg Bahnsen, VANTIL'S
APOLOGETIC, p. 2, (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing Company, 1998).
Dabney understood the reality and role of presuppositions to
one's worldview, although the popular word for a
pr'esuppositionalist in his day was "abstractionist." He knew that
as a person thinks within himself, so he is, Proverbs 23:7, that i
s, we live like we live becanse we think like we t4ink. Therefore,
we must guard our hearts and
~inds, i. e., what we think and desire
about the world, with all diligence, mak-ing sure that our
thinking " desiring and conduct are in accord with the Word of God,
for from the heart flow the bask issues of life, Proverbs 4:23.
Dabney could say that "there are two ways of reasoning about
human affairs. , One is , to bring measures to the te s t of
fundamentaj"principles, and abide by their decisioll firmly. The
other is, to inquire: 'What is the dictate of policy, of expedi"
ency, of present utility?' - The former ' looks at general laws;
the latter at imme-diate results. Now the latter class of people
have applied to the former, in these days of ours, a name, which is
at le ast new in its present sense: abstractionists. - An
abstraction, properly nnderstood, meanS, a proposition considered
as naked' and gen'eral, stripped of all the accidental
circumstances which belong to any individual case under it. -Among
the many good re sults
- abstractionist. And the v'eriest red-Republican of them all,
who thinks he has trampled down every abstraction, [in the name of
pragmatiSm], still relies on,his own favorite .ones , to sustain
his radical~ ism. ,Says [he] : 'Here is my r,ich rteigh-bar" who
has more than he 'can possibly use, or even waste. How much better
to take away a part, and give it to me, who needs a little c apital
tn enable me to be a producing citizen. You will thereby ben-efit
me, the state, and my rich neighbor himself: , for he is so rich
that it.is an actual i ,njury to him.' You nbje.ct, that the
rights.of property are in , the way; and that it is of more
fundamental impnrtance to the state, that those rights sh.ould be
pr otected, and that every man should qe certain of the rewar
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ture", inflation and the gold standard", various aspects of
economics" , voting rights", the legal profession", litera-ture",
geology", preaching', science", the emotions", private
corporations" , logic", death" , human and civil rights",
motherhood and parenting 43 , life in Eu-rope", p sychology",
prosperity', Church-State relations" , music", and the future" . He
also wrote several poems, some of which are in the style of John
Milton" .
Because of Dabney's self-conscious and comprehensive Biblical
view of life and the world, "he was consequently at war with much
in the world-with the atheistic and infidel theories of physical
science which have so largely prevailed , with the various forms of
evolution, anti-Biblical in their essence, with false psy-chologies
and false philosophies, whether panthei stic or materialistic ,
with Jacobinism, and 'mobocracy' in politics, with Pelagianism in
every form and Uni-tiuianism in every shade ... - Though Calvinism
pure and simple had been on the wane in his day, he knew that
Augus-tinianism once waned , died 'and was bUried for a thousalld
years, but was iesurrected at the Reformation, because itwas
largely Go'd's ,truth. He expected confidently in God's own time
the revindi-cation of Calvinism."'!
C. The "Prophetic" Nature of Dabney's Worldview
Dabney has been called a prophet and a Jeremiah, "bequse of his
profound insight of current events of his day and foresight as to
the re sults of these events upon future generations,"- J.H.
Varner, Editor's Preface, in DISCUS-SIONS, Vol. V. In fact, he
referred to himself as "predestined to prophesy truth and never to
be believed until too late."-quoted in THE JOURNAL OF CHRIS-TIAN
RECONSTRUCTION , Vol. XIII, No.2, 1994, p. 348.
Dr. Douglas Kelly has pointed out in ' his "Preface to New
Edition" of THE PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY that:
While Thornwell and Shedd probably had greater literary gifts
than Dabney, and Hodge was perhaps Dabney's superior in organizing
and outlining theological material; while Archibald Alexander and
B.M. Palmer undoubt-edly exercised greater sway over the popular
mind of their time than Dabney, yet in one important way-if in no
other-the events of this rapidly concluding twentieth centnry have
shown that Dabney excels them all. Dabney was a far-seeing prophet
in a way that few theologians of the nineteenth century-or any
other time-have ever been. Like Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the
development of Dabney's pro-phetic gift was very costly to himself:
he passed through the fires of experiencing the bitter defeat of
his homeland and the conse-quent breakup of the Southern culture
that was the pride and joy of his heart. Through it all he worked
and fought, wept and confessed, preached and taught, and above all
else-even at eighty years old-combined the school boy's sense of
wonder with the penetrating eye of the ' learned professor ...
THE PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY (1897) was Dabney's last book: the
ripest fruit of his learning and living. It is appropriate tMt his
final work should contain some of his most remarkable prophecies.
Believe it or not, Dabney foresaw the life and death struggle that
would take place between secular totalitarian-ism and Christian
liberty in America in the latter part of the twentieth century.
Consider these words [of Dabney]:
"The history of human rights is , that their intelligent
assertors usually learn the true grounds of them 'in the furnace of
affliction;' that the posterity who inherit these rights hold them
for awhile, in pride and ignorant prescrip-tion; that after a
while, when the true logic of the rights has been forgotten, ,and
when some plausible temptation presses them to do so, the next
generation discards the precious rights bodily, and goes back to
the practice of the old tyranny ... You may deem it a strange
prophecy, but I predict that the time will come in this once free
America when the battle for religious liberty will have to be
fought over again, and will probably be lost, because the people
are already ignorant of its true basis and condi-tions." (p.
394)
AugusUSeptember, 2000 - THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon - 33
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In attackinlli "Anti-Biblical ,Theories 9f Rights," Dabney
sho'ws what would hap" pen to the United'S tates if the prevalent
view of rights imported from the Ftench Revolution in contradiction
to the view of our founqing fathers won the ,day., Now, in the year
2000, we can see that his words ' were right on the money, He said:
"If the Jacobiri theory be true, then woman must be allowed access
to every male ,avocation, 'including government', and war if she
wishes it, to suffrage, to every political office, to as ab so lute
fr.eed.om fr om her husband in the marriage relation as she enjoyed
before her ullion to ',him, and to as absolute ,control of her own
property and earnings as th,at' c1a'imed by the single gentleman,
as against her own husband. " - DISCUS-SISlNS, Vol. III, p. 501
III. The Presuppositions of Dabney's .Worldview
Three. of those pre.suppo'sitions that formed Dabney 's view of
the world were: (1). God is to be fe ared; (2), The Creator and
creature, are distinct; and (3). ' The Bible is of inerrant and
comprehensive divine authority.
A. The,Fear of God Dabney also understood that the fear
of God is the starting point for the obtain-ing of knowledge and
wisdom,Proverbs 1:7 ,9 ;10 .. If the quest for kno'wledge ; wIsdom
and a true perception' of the Cieato!" and His Creation i s to ,be
s uc-cessful, a perso.n must begin with rever-ent and adoring
submission to the triune God and to His.reyealed Word, i.e" the
Bible. ,An ac curate worldview is n9t based on reason or experience
but ,on divIne revelation and our faith in the di vine authority of
that revelation . Dabney agreed with Augustine, that we inust
believe in' order to know. True knowledge is impossible without
Biblical presuppositions, and, the most basic of all is that the
living God is to be feared" loved, and obeyed in all thought an,d
conduct.
Dabney explains the nature and value of the fear of God in his
descriptions of his beloved General Stonewall Jackson. In June ,
following the death of Jackso ll on May 10,1863, in a memorial
sermon by Dabney entitled , "True Courage," he , explained that
what made Jackson great and courageous was preeminently his ' fear
of God,
. .. he is the bravest man who is the best Christian. It is he
who truly fears God, who is entitled to fear nothing else, He whose
conduct is governed by the fear of God is brave, be-cause the
powers of his soul are in harmony, There is no mutiny or war
within, of fear
"If the quest for knowledge, wisdom and a truc percepl ion
of
t he Creator and His Creation is to be sl1ccessfl1l, a person
musr begin
with reverent attd adoring sl1bmission to the triulle God
and
to lIis revealed Word,"
against shame, of duty ag~inst safety, of 'c~n- ' science and
evil desir,e,. by which the bad man has his beart unnerved. - In
conscious recti-tude there is strength,
This strength General Jackson eminently possessed. He walked in
the fear of God,: with a perfect heart, keeping all his
commandments and ordinances, blameless: 'Never has it been my
happiness to know one of greater purity of life, or more regular
and devout habits of , prayer, As ever in his great taskmaster's
eye, he seemed to devote every hour to the senti-ment of duty, and
only to live to fulfill his charge as a servant of God. Of this be
assured, that all his eminence and success as a great and brave
soldier, were based on his eminence and sanc-tity as a Christian.
Thus, ev~ry power of bis soul was brought to move 'in sweet accord;
under the guidance of an enlightened and honest conscience. How
could such a soul fail to be courageous for the right?
B. The Creator-Creature Distinction ~n ' ' Dabney's Thinking '
.
"
Dabney believed in the Biblical doc-trines of creation and
providence, 'arid
34 - THE COUNSEL of Cbalcedon - August/September, 2000
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because he did so, he understood that a clear and unequivocal
distinction exists between the infinite and independent Creator and
His finite and dependent creation. In other words he understood the
implications of creation and provi-dence.
Dabney held tenaciously to the Bibli-cal, orthodox and Reformed
doctrine of creation that God created the universe out of nothing,
suddenly, and gave it light, life and order in six literal days
about 6000 years ago." He believed this be-cause the "creator has
uttered His testi-mony" regarding the supernatural orig in of the
universe in the book of Genesis,
.and that divine testimony, of necessity, takes precedence over
all the arguments of science, because of the fallibility of
science, and because all the books of the Bible are the very word
of the Crealor. Therefore, unless you are "ready to surrender the
infalliblity of your Bibles," you must not follow the theories of
anti-Christian, evolutionary science . Rather, "you must resist, or
you must practically surrender your Bible s. You will have to 'take
sides' for or against your God. -Unless our Bible-when cautiously
and candidly interpreted by its own light-is inspired and
infallible, it is no sufficient rule of faith for an immortal soul.
Such the Bible is, notwithstanding all the pre-tended d iscoveries
of vain philo sophy. Modern events have not loosened a single
foundation stone of its authority, nor can any such discoveries,
from their very nature, affect it."- pp. 167, 123, DIS-CUSSIONS,
Vol. III
He WaS so insistent in his repudiation of even the smallest step
away from the Biblical and Reformed doctrine of cre-ation toward
evolutionism, as was evident in the writing of James Woodrow of
Columbia Seminary, because he under-stood clearly that one
intellectual step away from the Bible's doctrine of cre-ation ex
nihilo by God toward evolution-ary science is one step toward
atheism. He wrote: "And I as k, with emphasis, if
men are not in fact reaching after athe-ism; if their real
design is not to push God clean out of past eternity, why this
craving to show His last intervention as Creator so remote? Why are
they so eager to shove God back six billions of years from their
own time rather than six thousand? Is it that they do not like to
retain God in their knowledge? -Naturalism is virtnal atheism, and
athe-ism is despair. Thus saith the apo s tle: They who are without
God in the world are without hOJle. (Eph. 2:12) Young man, does it
seem to you an alluring thought, when appetite entices or pride
inflates, that this false science may re-lease you from the stern
restraints of God's revealed law? Oh ! beware, lest it despoil you
thus of hope and immortal-ity."- DISCUSSIONS, Vol. III, pp.
133,135
The Biblical doctrine of providence" was also vital to Dabney's
worldview. Again in his memorial to General Stone-wall Jackson,
"True Courage," he pointed out that , although others had s aid
that Jackson was a fatalist 54 , he most cer-tainly was not.
[Rather] "he was a strong believer in the special providence of
God ... [which] ... teaches that the regular, natural agency of
second causes is sustained, preserved, and regulated by the power
and intelligence of God ; and that in and through that agency,
every event is directed by His most wise and holy will, according
to His plan, and the laws of nature which He has ordained. Fatalism
tends to apathy, to absolute inaction: a belief in the providence
of Scrip-tures, to intelligent and hopeful effort. -Hence it
produces a combination of courageous serenitY,-with cheerful
diligence in the use of means. My illustrious leader was as
labo-rious as he was trustful; and laborious precisely because he
was trustful. Every-thing that self-sacrificing care, and
preparation, and forecast, and toil, could do, to prepare and to
earn success, he did. And therefore it was, that God, without whom
the watchman waketh but in vain, usually bestowed success. So
likewise, his belief in the superintendence of the
August/September, 2000 THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon - 3S
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Almighty was a}l;lOst strong and living convic-tion. In every
order,or dispatch, announcing a victory, he was prompt to ascribe
the result to the Lord of Hosts. - More than once, when sent to
bring one of hi$ old fighting brigades into action,I had noticed
him sitting motionless upon his horse with his right hand uplifted;
while the war worn column poured in stern silence close by his
side. At first it did not appear whether it was mere abstraction of
thought, or a posture to relieve his fatigue., BUt at Port
Republic, I saw it again; and watching him more narrowly, was
convinced by his clo$ed eyes and moving lips, that he was wrestling
in silent prayer. I thought that I could surmise what was then
passing through his fervent soul; the sovereignty of.that
Providence which worketh all thirrgs after the counsel of His own
will, and giveth the battle not to the strong, nor the race to the
swift: his own fearful r~sponsibility, and need of that counsel and
sotind wi$dom, which God alone can give; the crisis of his beloved
country, and the balance trembling between defeat and victory; the
precious lives of his veterans, which the inexorable necessities of
war compelled him to jeopardize; the immortal souls passing.to
their account, perhaps unprepared; the widowhood and orphanage
which might result from the orders he had just beeu compelled to
issue. And as his beloved men swept by him to the front, into the
storm of shot, doubtless his great heart, as tender as it was
resolute, yearned over them in unutterable longings and
ihtercessions, that the Almighty would cover them with His
feathers, and that His truth might be their shield and buckler.-
DISCUSSIONS, Vol. IV, pp.442-444. [Such is the effect of the
doctrine of providence on one's view of the world.]
C. The Divine Authority of the Bible Thomas Cary Johnson said of
Dabney
that "he planted himself oh Scripture teaching as upon a rock.
No man has shown a more devoted allegiance to the Word of God. - It
is easy to speak of the Bible as the Universal Book, touching and
inspiring human life and action every-where, giving tone and color
at every
never so happy as when all his thinking was consciously shaped
by God.'s
Dabney strove to toot his worldview in the Bible, because he
considered the Bible the inerrant, compre'hensive and complet()d
revelation of the way God looks at the world. He said: "I hold the
Scriptures to be, in all its ,parts, of ple-nary inspiration; ...
This havin'g been settlea, we may proceed to assume them as
inspired and infaIIible,"- Smith, p.202, And so he bowed before the
Bible as his final and absolute authority for under-standing God,
life, the world' and himself. As one scholar has said of him: This
final, unassailable aI1d absolute authority of both, the Old
Testament and the New Testament was the basis of the structure and
viewpoint of his view of the world.
No human being is without fault in his character and his
reasoning, because we remain sinners until we die. Dabney was nO
exception. He, as most theologians of the 19 th Century, was
committed to a Scottish school of philosophy known as
, "Common SenSe Philosophy," which had confidence in the power
of human reason unaided by revelation and Spiritual en-lightenment
to attain valid kJi6wledge, thus ' gi ying a primacy to human
reason,
, without consistently taking into account the effects of moral
qepravity on the
, human mind, I Corinthians 4:3f, "Insofar as Dabney's thought
was affected with this form of 'rationalism' there is an
inconsistency with Biblical thought, which insists on the blindness
of natural reason, which must be enlightened by the Holy Spirit
before it can see truly. That such an inconsistency existed in
Dabney and Thornwell ... is eviden,t in their works. Yet, when
expounding the Biblical view of
, the Bible and of man, they both submitted their thinking to
the Bible. Whether they were aware of their inconsistencies or not
may be questioned."- Smith, 203
point, bUI. .. few men have so realized this It is his worldview
as influence,d con-as Robert L. Dabney' ' He brought everY 7'
sistently by 'the written Word of God that thing to this Divine
touch"stone, and was we are considering. Dabney's own testi-
36 - THE COUNSEL of Chalced()n - August/September, 2000
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many as to the dependence of reason upon divine revelation to
understand the world is this: "Let the student, from the. first,
discard all the false and mischie-vous ideas. generated by the
slant of 'the contest between reason and faith. '-of the propriety
of having 'reason conquer faith, or faith conquer reason.' There is
no such contest. The highest reason is to believe implicitly what
God's word says, as soon as it is clearly ascertained to be God' s
word. The dictate of reason her-self is to believe; because she
sees the evidence to be reasonable."- Smith, p . 204
He summarized his view of the Bible with these words: "It is our
doctrine that 'the Bible alone is the religion of Protes-tants.' -
We admit no title to do any -thing as a part of public, religious
service of God , except those things which He hath appointed in His
word .... It is also the creed of Protestants , as of the Bible,
that this book is 'all given by inspiration of God,' and is our
divine and supreme rule of faith and life ... . But this word is
only made effectual to the calling and sanctification of any
rational adults, by the almighty in working of God's Holy Spirit."-
Smith, 204. From this statement, Morton 'Smith makes this
assessment: "From this we see first the basic rule of all our faith
and life is none other than the Bible. On the other hand, because
of our depravity and blindness, we are un-able to appropriate the
Scripture without the work of God's Spirit enlightening our minds
and enabling us to receive the teaching of His Word."- p.
204-205
Dabney said that "the highest reason is to believe implicitly
what God's word says , as soon as it is clearly ascertained to be
God's word."- p. 204. What is that "reasonable evidence" by which
the Bible is "clearly ascertained " to be the very Word of God? In
a sermon entitled, "The Bible, Its Own Witness," Dabney answers
that question. His text for this sermou was John 4:41-42: And many
more believed because ,of His Word; and
they were saying to the woman, "It is no longer because of what
you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know
that this One is indeed the Savior of the world." His answer from
this text was this:
To him who reflects, the claim with which the gospel presents
itself must appear exceed-ingly remarkable. Wherever it comes it
de-mands immediate belief, as the first duty, and on pain of
damnation ... To the unlettered laborer, as to the laborious
antiquary, she [the gospel) says alike, "Believe, and thou shalt be
saved," and, "He that believeth not shall be damned." On the other
hand, the gospel demands an intelligent and rational faith; it
condemns and sternly rejects the pretended assent of igno-rance,
prejudice, and subserviency, requiring us to be "able to give a
reason for the hope that is in us." - Vol. I, p. 115
Since Christ demands of us an intelligent faith, and that
irrespective of our possession or lack of literary culture, it
appears plain that He regards His gospel as containing its own
self-evidencing light. The literary evidence of its divine origin,
drawn by the learned from antiq-uity, have their value; but
wherever the Bible is read with honesty, it presents, within
itself, sufficient proof to evince that its claims are reasonable.-
p. 117
So the gospel brings its own self-evidencing light. (p. 118) -
And here is the answer to the sneer, that the faith of such
Christians is but senseless prescription or prejudice. To the
right
. heart, the gospel is its own sufficient witness. From this
point of view you will see it to be a reasonable proposition, that
the best book to be read by him who is inquiring into the evidence
of the Bible is the Bible itself. - Search the
. Scriptures honestly and diligently, and you will find out
whether they are from God ... - p. 131
His confidence in the self-authenticat-ing divine authority of
the Bible is the outworking of his faith in the Biblical nature of
the teachings of the Westmin-ster Confession of Faith, to which he
committed himself in his ministerial ordi-nation vow, and of which
"he was perhaps the most sympathetic and able expounder
August/September, 2000 - THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon - 37
-
in his century'::. (Smith, p. 194). That Confession states:
The authority of the Holy Scripture, for it ought to be believed
and obeyed; 'dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church,
but wholly upon God; (who is truth itself) the author thereof; and
therefore it is to be received, because it is the word of God.
We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an
high tind reverend esteem of the holy scripture, and the
heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the
majesty of the style" the consent of all the parts, the scope of
the whole, (which is to give all glory to God,) the full discovery
it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other
incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are
arguments whereby it doth, abun-dantly evidence itself to be the
word of God; yet, notwithstanding, 01fT full persuasion and
assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is
from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and
with the Word in our hearts.-Chapter J. paragraphs IV and V.
Because the Bible for Dabney was God's revealed truth, he love'd
it with all his heart and so he would defend it at all costs.
Johnson said of him: ' "Loving truth for herself , he sought her as
one might seek to win his bride; and so hi~ convictions went down
into the substance of his whole being. ' His holy reverence for
truth wrought in him a holy intoler-ance of error; and he fonght
for the one, and against the other, with a passionate earnestness
which many mistook for bitterness of spirit.""
Dabney strove with every fiber in his being to be faithful to
the teachings of the Bible and to think and live cop.sis-tently in
their light. Because he believed those teachings to be God's truth,
he would expose, refute and correct contra-dictions to that divine
truth.in the philoso-phies and theologies of his day with "great
strength ... and most delicate analy-sis . " He firmly believed
that some things
were true and some were false, some were good and some were
evil, and th~t falsehood and evil led away from God and
life, and so he was always prepared to answer falsehood and to
resist evil for the benefit of mankind and to the glory of the God
of truth. As Thomas Cary Johnson said of him: "It is not often that
the same hand can wield the sledge ham-mer the scalpel and the,
microscope ... He found the weak spot in a system of er-rors, and
hurled his missile with the same
precision and power as when David over-threw Goliath, and then
... he decapitated error with its own sword, and exposed the
bleeding trophy so relentlessly that some people thought him cruel,
and most of all the errorist.
"As a teacher, in the pulpit and in the classroom, he was a
dogmatist. - Away with that namby pamby courtesy and politeness
that smirks and bows and extends its mantle of charity to falsehood
and sin, and concedes to heresy equal rights and standing with
truth under the deceitful plea of honest conviction and the right
of private judgment. He always treated the errorist courteously and
never allowed his denunciation of the false in theory or practice
to degenerate into personalities. And yet his denunciations often
remind us of Him who took a scourge of small cords and drove out of
the temple those who profaned it, crying, The zeal of Thy house
hath eaten me Up ... " S7
TO BE CONTINUED (FOOTNOTES ON PAGE 40)
38 THE COUNSEL of Chl\lcedon -August/September, 2000
-
I Phllip'~. Bughell. A COMMBNTARTY ON 'rRE BPISTL~ TO THE
HEElREWS, (Glud Rapids, Micbila~:' WilliamB. Eerdman5 Publishing
CompDny, 1977), p, 451:
Z Quoted by HeilJ"y M. Woods in a memorial booklei, ROBERT LEWIS
DABNEY 1820-1898, writt \\ til ,[ 9 O. _
