Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Lynne Wilson on Alexander Campbell's Theology of the Spirit Pre-Conversion

  

Alexander Campbell (1788-1866), like many American Protestants (including Joseph Smith), sought to return to the primitive church of the New Testament. Although possibly to separate himself from Smith, Campbell never called himself a “restorer” and opposed the claim that he “restored the gospel.” But he searched the Bible for details on the primitive church and applied them in his church. Campbell’s model did not tolerate any demonstrative gifts of the Spirit outside the biblical usage. In his mind, a God of reason would not encourage the spiritual chaos he saw around him during the Second Great Awakening. Driven by the rational influences of the Enlightenment and particularly the Scottish Common Sense Realism (SCSR), Campbell approached biblical pneumatology from his head rather than his heart. He believed that God created humanity with a rational mind capable of receiving truths from the Bible through common sense. From his perspective, it was illogical to think that the Holy Spirit worked in sinful people. Applying this view left Campbell no room for the Spirit’s intervention in conversion— belief became a logical choice. He denounced nineteenth century uncontrolled impressions (like the ones Cartwright fostered in revivals), categorizing them as satanic influences. He believed that only after people aligned their lives with the truths of the Bible and believed through their rational capacities could the Spirit peacefully commune with them. In this way he was not a pure rationalist but saw the Spirit working within an orderly realm to bring peace and joy to Christians.

 

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4) A Rational Conversion through Accepting the Bible

 

In Campbell’s pneumatology, a conversion of one’s mind to the truth must precede the witness of the Spirit. He felt strongly that the Bible was sensible enough—that all believing and faithful minds could rationally see its truths. In his preface to the New Testament Commentary, Campbell admonished his audience to appreciate the Bible’s power to convert the rational mind:

 

Reader! This is . . . designed to accomplish an object superlatively grand, transcending—in degrees inexpressible—the most magnificent scheme that created intelligence ever conceived. To convert a race of polluted, miserable, and dying mortals, into pure, happy, and glorious immortals . . . Yes! this is the benevolent and glorious design of these Testimonies. Books, written with such a design, with a design to purify, elevate, and glorify the debased and degraded children of men. And the bare hypothesis, to say nothing of the moral certainty, that they came from God, with such a design, methinks, is quite enough to woo our whole rational nature, to constrain all our moral powers, to test their high pretensions to a character so philanthropic and divine . . . fired with God's own inspiration. (Campbell, Sacred Writings, xxiii.)

 

In Campbell’s flowery invitation to study the Bible, he empowered the Bible to “woo our whole rational nature” to convert mortals to believe in God. He explained the Bible’s sacred origin that called for “attention and examination” which in turn would work on the rational mind to convert them to their God. Once that rational step was taken, he believed that fallen man was elevated. For Campbell, conversion was a rational, step-by-step process, not a Spirit-filled leap. He taught that the Spirit functioned only in obedient, converted Christians—not in sinners who sought a spiritual witness as their conversion. (Lynne Wilson, “Joseph Smith’s Doctrine of the Holy Spirit Contrasted with Cartwright, Campbell, Hodge, and Finney” [PhD Thesis; Marquette University, 2010], 81-82, 105-6)