Introduction
Alexander Campbell (1788–1866), a controversialist and prolific writer, often addressed his theological opponents with an acid-tipped pen. Early in his career, few topics received as much attention as regeneration, conversion, and the role of the Holy Spirit.Footnote 1 Campbell and his coreligionists on the frontier were hardly the only theologians who focused on these doctrines during the first half of the nineteenth century.Footnote 2 Campbell's early polemics make it clear that he had substantially modified or rejected many of the major tenets of the Presbyterianism of his youth regarding these topics.Footnote 3 His early writings find his literary resources arrayed against such doctrines as human inability and metaphysical regeneration that his Reformed opponents held. Campbell's biographer even tells us that Campbell's views of regeneration and conversion shifted.Footnote 4 In this paper, I argue that one of the major factors driving Campbell's rejection of these widely held Reformed doctrines was his appropriation of the thought of John Locke and Scottish Common Sense Philosophy (SCSP).Footnote 5 More specifically, I argue that Alexander Campbell's understanding of testimony, firmly rooted in the thought of Locke and SCSP, was the sine qua non of his conception of regeneration, conversion, and the work of the Holy Spirit.
Alexander Campbell's use of SCSP is hardly surprising since SCSP pervaded American theology around the turn of the nineteenth century.Footnote 6 Hardly any corner was left untouched by its influence, and Campbell's opponents also made extensive use of SCSP. I propose that where Campbell's opponents, who themselves relied on SCSP, gave pride of place to certain Reformed doctrines, Campbell emphasized testimony and the ability of the human mind to receive it. Campbell's emphasis on these themes revealed the extent to which his theology was influenced by the thought of Locke and SCSP.Footnote 7 Because Campbell's theology weighted the findings of SCSP more heavily than the received doctrines of regeneration, conversion, and the role of the Holy Spirit, he disregarded those very doctrines when they ran counter to his understanding of testimony, which was underwritten by SCSP.Footnote 8
Scholars have long noted the substantial influence of SCSP on American theology during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. E. Brooks Holifield notes, “no other single philosophical movement has ever exerted as much influence on theology in America as Scottish Realism exerted on the antebellum theologians.”Footnote 9 These scholars have often traced the influence of SCSP from its early introduction by John Witherspoon at Princeton in the late eighteenth century.Footnote 10 From Witherspoon, they have followed the role that SCSP played in the theology of highly educated American theologians and clergy—often Presbyterians trained on the East Coast. Theodore Bozeman deftly narrates the ways in which Baconian inductive methodology, championed by SCSP, significantly shaped the discourse of Old School Presbyterianism in antebellum America.Footnote 11 Less studied, however, have been the ways in which SCSP underwrote the theology of some of the more populist streams of American Christianity.Footnote 12 Holifield observes in passing that even populist traditions were influenced by SCSP.Footnote 13 Noll points out that different traditions employed different aspects of SCSP. He notes that SCSP has been the “sole intellectual tradition” of some Evangelicals and places the heirs of Alexander Campbell in this category.Footnote 14
In order to examine Campbell's thought, I first survey major statements about conversion and regeneration in Reformed confessions of faith before narrating the American emphasis on regeneration and conversion. Second, I offer a condensed summary of these core doctrines in the thought of Barton W. Stone, who had protracted conflict with Presbyterians in Western Kentucky on these very doctrines before eventually separating from them. As Campbell and his influence spread westward, the paths of Stone and Campbell began to converge. Their continued contact and dialogue on these issues before and during the merger of their movements influenced Campbell's thinking. Finally, I locate and examine Campbell's thinking on regeneration within this context and highlight the ways in which SCSP motivated his divergence from the standard Calvinist positions.
Regeneration and Conversion in Reformed Confessions
The debates about regeneration, conversion, and the Holy Spirit that consumed so much energy in the early nineteenth century were not a novelty. Holifield draws attention to the fact that regeneration was such an important doctrine because theologians thought it encompassed so many other crucial doctrines.Footnote 15 This cluster of interconnected doctrines had been a point of contention among members of Reformed traditions since their earliest years. The Canons of Dort set out the terms of the debate clearly in the early seventeenth century, stating that regeneration is the work of God and that it is not brought about through the means of moral suasion. It is a supernatural work that is not dependent upon the cooperation of the one being regenerated. The Canons did declare, however, that once a person had been regenerated, that person's will became able to act as a consequence of the grace received.Footnote 16
The Westminster Confession, like the Canons of Dort, contains many of the terms of the debate that were still present in the nineteenth century. The Westminster Confession held that the fall's damage incapacitated human faculties.Footnote 17 As a result, humans also lost the ability to do anything spiritually good with regard to salvation.Footnote 18 Because humanity is unable to do anything spiritually good toward salvation, the work of quickening and renewal is the act of God alone; the human is passive until the Holy Spirit confers grace.Footnote 19
When the first Puritan settlers crossed the Atlantic and arrived on the East Coast, they brought with them a distinctly covenantal theology that had as its basis doctrines such as we find in the confessions surveyed above.Footnote 20 This covenantal theology pervaded the thought of early Protestant Christianity in America, and one of its central features is an emphasis on conversion. Indeed, the conversion of the believer was necessary to be considered fully a member of the covenant.Footnote 21 Jerald Brauer summarizes the Puritan theology of conversion as follows: “It is a profound, overwhelming, totally transforming experience in which a person believes that he has experienced death and rebirth through the powerful working of the Spirit of God.”Footnote 22 Within a few generations, however, it became clear that this normative expectation of a conversion experience was not being met in large sections of the population. The disparity between expectations and reality eventually led to the development of the “half-way” covenant, which allowed the unconverted to be partial members of the church.Footnote 23
Even as the notion of covenant receded slightly from the forefront of American Protestant Christianity, the conversion experience remained at the center of its theology. As the Protestant denominations multiplied, fractured, and grew, so did the different conceptions of regeneration and conversion—some of which made their way from England to the United States.Footnote 24 The Puritan and Reformed theology that the early settlers brought with them lent itself to precise and detailed thinking about the specifics of the conversion process.
By the early nineteenth century, distinctively American conceptions of regeneration and conversion had developed, thanks to leading figures like Jonathan Edwards. Charles Hodge and other defenders of Reformed orthodoxy had reasserted what they considered to be classical Reformed doctrines of regeneration and conversion. Others, like Charles Grandison Finney, were drastically modifying the dominant conceptions of regeneration and conversion in order to account for and underwrite revivalism. The debates of Finney, Hodge, Nathaniel Williams Taylor, and others on the East Coast during the middle of the nineteenth century have been well documented. As will become clear as the essay progresses, Stone, Campbell, and other Christians on the frontier were debating these same issues independent of the discourse of the academies on the Eastern seaboard. The lived experiences of Christians on the American frontier prompted these debates, not the running discourse of the academic theologians. In the case of Campbell, however, the extra-academic setting of the controversy did not stop him from employing the full array of philosophical and theological resources at his disposal.Footnote 25
Barton W. Stone and the Conflict with the Presbyterians
Barton W. Stone (1772–1844) was born into a family that belonged to the Church of England. He eventually pursued an education at the academy of David Caldwell, a New Light Presbyterian; and there, he gradually began to subscribe to New Light views.Footnote 26 While at Caldwell's academy, Stone came under the influence of the preaching of James McGready and began the tortuous road to conversion that was marked by alternating periods of assurance and deep doubt about his salvation. Because of the understanding of conversion common among New Light Presbyterians, Stone writes,
I anticipated a long and painful struggle before I should be prepared to come to Christ, or, in the language then used, before I should get religion. This anticipation was completely realized by me. For one year I was tossed on the waves of uncertainty—laboring, praying, and striving to obtain saving faith—sometimes desponding, and almost despairing of ever getting it.Footnote 27
Stone was eventually converted and began the process of seeking ordination within New Light Presbyterianism, but the experience of anguish and doubt during his conversion experience profoundly shaped his theology for the rest of his life.Footnote 28 As Stone approached his ordination, his doubts about major tenets of New Light theology intensified. He was only able to affirm the Westminster Confession “as far as [he saw] it consistent with the word of God.”Footnote 29 In 1803, Stone and four others withdrew from the Synod of Kentucky. D. Newell Williams has convincingly demonstrated that Stone's rejection of the Presbyterian doctrine of predestination (and saving faith) was a primary factor for this withdrawal.Footnote 30 Williams has also contended that, even though Stone withdrew from the Synod of Kentucky, he retained a distinctly Calvinist piety.Footnote 31
As Stone was growing increasingly uneasy about many of the Calvinist doctrines he had been taught, he was swept up in the Great Revival in the West (1797–1805).Footnote 32 His experiences of revival coalesced with his earlier doubts and prompted him overtly and repeatedly to oppose the doctrines of faith, election, and regeneration of the Presbyterianism from which he had separated. Regarding the experience of the revivals, Williams notes, “Stone observed that under the influence of preaching at meetings of the revival, many persons were converted—from start to finish—within a matter of hours.”Footnote 33 The condensed nature of the conversion experience in these revivals stood in stark contrast to the protracted and painful conversion experience of Stone.
Because Stone wrote so much about faith, regeneration, and related doctrines, I only treat select passages where Stone's views on these topics are explicit, concentrated, and representative of his larger corpus as a whole.Footnote 34 A good place to start this examination is his “Compendious View of the Gospel.”Footnote 35 Stone begins by discussing the depravity of humans, a move that demonstrates that his thought was still deeply shaped by the Calvinism against which he inveighed.Footnote 36 He argues that even though humans are alienated from God, they still possess rational faculties and are capable of “knowing and enjoying God.”Footnote 37 Even though Stone addresses the depravity of humans, it is clear that this is not the systemic, crippling depravity that his Presbyterian contemporaries taught. However debilitating the effects of this depravity, Stone did not think that they destroyed the human capability of “knowing and enjoying God”—a stark contrast to a strong Calvinist notion of inability.
Stone briefly turns to the doctrine of regeneration after his discussion of depravity. Rather than undertake a detailed technical analysis of the doctrine, Stone quotes a number of passages from the New Testament before arguing that the Gospel is the means God uses for regeneration.Footnote 38 Stone's key emphasis in his discussion of the gospel is that it teaches that the whole world is the object of God's love—not merely some circumscribed elect. He explicitly rejects the Calvinist doctrine of election in this section, and he labors at length to demonstrate that the love of God extends to all. He writes, “So it is a fact, that God has absolutely given his Son to the world, with all his fullness; whether we believe or disbelieve; whether we receive or reject the gift.”Footnote 39
Stone then details how the gospel is the means of conversion, stating, “It is evident that the word of truth is the means of enlightening, quickening, regenerating and sanctifying the soul. But how does the gospel effect these mighty works? We answer, through faith. . . . Faith is applying the means or admitting the truth into the heart. When the sinner believes it, he is quickened, renewed and sanctified.”Footnote 40 Stone's introduction of the centrality of faith in the gospel is representative of one of his strongest emphases—and one that he has in common with Alexander Campbell. He argues that God does not operate on humans as passive objects but rather presents things to our understanding because we are rational creatures.Footnote 41 Because it was so important to his theology, Stone felt compelled to offer a more precise definition of faith: “it is admitting testimony upon the authority of the testifier. Or it is simply believing the testimony of God.”Footnote 42 In Stone's scheme, faith necessarily preceded regeneration. He repeated this claim a number of times because it was directly opposed to the ordo salutis of the New Light Presbyterians. He draws out his opposition with no equivocation, writing, “To assert that regeneration precedes faith, is to destroy the very foundation and nature of the gospel. No unregenerated person, would then have any warrant to believe.”Footnote 43 Stated differently, “Faith does not depend upon grace; for by faith we receive grace.”Footnote 44 Stone attempted to avoid the charge of making regeneration a human act and denying the operation of the Spirit by stressing that the gospel was the gift of God to humans—which gift contained the testimony of God that was the basis of faith.Footnote 45
In an imagined dialogue, Stone addresses a number of these issues again.Footnote 46 Here, he highlights one of his biggest objections to the prevailing theory among New Light Presbyterians:
Ah! this is the rock on which thousands have made shipwreck of the true faith. They suppose that God works faith and salvation in us by the same physical power as that by which he created the world. . . . If by physical power he works faith and salvation in the soul, then there is no need of Jesus as a savior, no need of the ministry of reconciliation, no use of the Bible, no need of preaching, no need of using any means to obtain them. All evidence that Jesus is the Christ is useless: all the intreaties, wooings, and admonitions of the gospel are but solemn mockeries; for of what avail can they be to produce faith and salvation, when nothing but the almighty physical power of God can effect them.Footnote 47
As the dialogue continues, it is clear that Stone's experience of conversion and his experiences during the revivals had a strong impact on his theology. He reiterates that if an immediate act of God on the human soul is the only thing that can produce faith, then preaching is futile.Footnote 48 Recall that in the Great Revival, Stone had witnessed the conversion process condensed and had seen people respond without delay to the exhortation of the preachers.
Stone held that sinners are dead and that the effects of depravity are real, but he argued that they are still able to hear—and that this is all that is necessary to believe the gospel.Footnote 49 He thought that this belief or faith was not unlike that common to everyday life: “To believe God, and to believe man, are the same act of the mind. . . . The only difference between believing God and man, is, the object of faith—the one is divine; the other is human.”Footnote 50 Because the act of faith was such a common occurrence in human life, Stone could easily argue that humans possessed this capability and need not wait upon God for it to be imparted by some immediate act.
An examination of Stone's “Of the Operations of the Spirit in Salvation from Sin” will be sufficient to conclude this outline of the contours of his thinking on regeneration.Footnote 51 Stone observes that everyone believes that “divine operations are absolutely and indispensibly [sic] necessary for salvation from sin.”Footnote 52 People cannot agree about whether these operations of God are immediate (without the use of means) or mediate (with the use of means). He examines the extreme forms of each of the positions and claims that the former has no use for scripture while the latter attributes too much to scripture and seems to “put it in the place of God himself.”Footnote 53 Stone firmly believes that God uses means to bring about salvation, but he does not take the extreme form of this position. The process of salvation is an interplay between the gracious gift of God (primarily in the word), the response of the human in faith to the testimony to God, and the subsequent bestowal of the Holy Spirit.Footnote 54
Stone's conversion experience, which conformed to the prevailing New Light schema, was the starting point for his later developments on thinking about faith, conversion, and regeneration. He could never palate the paradox implicit in the New Light understanding of conversion: namely, that God commands something of humans that they do not possess the capacities to complete.Footnote 55 He resolved this tension by claiming that faith is a simple belief in the testimony of God, not something physically and immediately imparted to a circumscribed elect. Because this faith was within the capabilities of humans, Stone exonerated God from the charge of condemning recalcitrant humans for their failure to do something that was not within their power. Stone's understanding of faith placed the guilt for the rejection of the gospel on humans. Stone's theology of conversion and faith was well suited for revivalism and preaching. Using Stone's theology, the preacher could exhort hearers to respond to the gospel without delay because they possessed the capacity for faith and did not need to wait for some mysterious act of God upon their soul.
Stone's theology drew serious critique from the New Light Presbyterians from whom he had separated. Stone came into contact with Alexander Campbell in 1824, and they eventually united the reforming movements that they were leading.Footnote 56 During their relationship, they found that they could make common cause on these specific issues. Although they agreed on the majority of points relating to these doctrines, there were some differences that had to be negotiated.Footnote 57 It appears that both rejected the prevailing understanding of regeneration, conversion, and faith as a result of their own difficult conversion experiences and fresh readings of scripture. As their connection grew stronger, they began producing a new understanding of these doctrines in dialogue with each other.
Alexander Campbell: Testimony and the Human Mind
Alexander Campbell (1788–1866) arrived on the shores of the American continent in September of 1809.Footnote 58 Campbell was born in Northern Ireland to Thomas, of Scottish ancestry, and Jane, of French ancestry.Footnote 59 The young Campbell was taught by his father, who had been educated at the University of Glasgow; and Alexander quickly demonstrated a precocious intellect.Footnote 60 Campbell's biographer, Robert Richardson, notes that Alexander was particularly fond of the works of John Locke—especially his “Essay on Human Understanding.”Footnote 61
While Campbell was being educated at the hands of his father, he exhibited an increasing interest in religious matters and began to struggle through the conversion process. Richardson describes this period as follows:
As his convictions deepened, he underwent much conflict of mind, and experienced great concern in regard to his own salvation, so that he lost for a time his usual vivacity, and sought, in lonely walks in fields and by prayer in secluded spots, to obtain such evidences of Divine acceptance as his pious acquaintances were accustomed to consider requisite; it being universally held by the Seceders that “an assured persuasion of the truth of God's promise in the Gospel, with respect to one's self in particular, is implied in the very nature of saving faith.” Of this particular period in his religious history he himself gave, many years afterward, the following account: “From the time that I could read the Scriptures, I became convinced that Jesus was the Son of God. I was also fully persuaded that I was a sinner, and must obtain pardon through the merits of Christ or be lost for ever. This caused me great distress of soul, and I had much exercise of mind under the awakenings of a guilty conscience. Finally, after many strugglings, I was enabled to put my trust in the Saviour, and to feel my reliance on him as the only Saviour of sinners. From the moment I was able to feel this reliance on the Lord Jesus Christ, I obtained and enjoyed peace of mind.”Footnote 62
Like Stone, Campbell's conversion experience was one marked by a profound sense of doubt and intense struggling. Later in his career, Campbell was suspected of being a rationalist who denied religious experience and the influence of the Holy Spirit. In order to assuage the fears of John Smith, Campbell recounted his own experience of conversion, which seemed to satisfy Smith.Footnote 63 Before leaving Ireland, he undertook a detailed study of the Holy Spirit that was spurred by a desire to understand the Spirit's assurances of conversion—assurances which Campbell himself seemed to be lacking.Footnote 64 As Campbell recounts it, this study led him away from the Calvinist orthodoxy he had inherited.Footnote 65 Campbell relates that he came to the conclusion that “God's Spirit imparts light only to them who read or hear the Oracles, and as he blesses the labors of the diligent husbandman with the early and the latter rain, so is he blessed who devotes his energies to the written word.”Footnote 66
In 1808, Alexander and the family set out to join Thomas in America; but they were delayed for a year by a shipwreck.Footnote 67 Alexander spent this year in Glasgow, and the people whom he met there would prove to be of great importance for his later thought and career.Footnote 68 While at the University of Glasgow, he took classes from George Jardine, who had also taught Thomas Campbell while he was a student at Glasgow.Footnote 69 Jardine, known primarily for his curricular reform, was a friend and admirer of Thomas Reid.Footnote 70 Alexander's time in Glasgow under the tutelage of Jardine provided fertile ground for his deepening contact with SCSP.Footnote 71
After his reunion with his father in America, Alexander began to exert an increasing influence on the reform movement started with his father's “Declaration and Address” (1809). The young Campbell busied himself preaching and teaching and was formally ordained on January 1, 1812.Footnote 72 Campbell's influence continued to increase as he preached, taught, and debated. By the early 1820s, Alexander had begun his vast literary output. In 1823, he set up a printing press and began publication of The Christian Baptist.Footnote 73 Shortly after, Campbell started a nine-part series entitled “Essays on the Work of the Holy Spirit in the Salvation of Men” that ran from August of 1824 to April of 1825.
Richardson recounts that in 1811, Campbell held the predominant Reformed view—that faith was an effect of “almighty power and regenerating grace.”Footnote 74 This fits well with Richardson's account of Campbell's lengthy conversion. Although Campbell still held these views when he arrived in America, he would soon reject them in favor of his own distinct interpretation of scripture.Footnote 75 In order to clarify Campbell's divergence from the Reformed positions he once held, I preface my analysis of Campbell's views on regeneration and conversion by surveying his conception of the consequences of the fall, which will help us to spell out with more precision what it is that he thinks happens in regeneration and conversion.
For Campbell, the life of Adam and Eve in paradise was one marked by order and harmony. He held that humans were made up of three components: body, soul, and spirit/intellect. In their paradisiacal state, the intellect was enthroned as the ruler, while the body and soul were subordinated to it.Footnote 76 Campbell considered the spirit/intellect to be the ruler of the soul and the body and viewed all of these as working harmoniously together. For Campbell, a disruption of this proper order and subordination would be disastrous:
Reason was already enthroned, and had full command of all his passions, affections, and propensities; and so long as it continued at the helm, perfect subordination was to be expected and enjoyed. But if, by any means, his passions should gain the ascendant, and dethrone his reason, then disorder, confusion, and an awful reverse of circumstances, must inevitably ensue.Footnote 77
Campbell's discussion above is more theoretical, but he quickly fleshes out what this means in practice.
For Campbell, the fall is in fact the triumph of the passions over reason and the pure intellect.Footnote 78 With the triumph of the passions over reason, the harmony of the human moral constitution was thrown into a state of utter disarray. Because Campbell thought that the children of Adam were born in the likeness of Adam, not God, he held that they were born with passion already having usurped reason.Footnote 79 With reason thus dethroned and in tatters, the passions reigned without challenge. Campbell views reason as having been damaged in the process and unable to regain control. Although Campbell repeatedly argues against notions of “inability” such as we find in his contemporaries, this would seem to be some version of inability—albeit not nearly as systemic or debilitating. Nevertheless, and even though humans lost the image of God in the fall, they still have the “susceptibility of being restored to the image of God.”Footnote 80
Though the passions hold sway over reason and the intellect, Campbell optimistically asserts that humans still have the ability to hear and believe the testimony of God. Following his discussion of the fall, Campbell lays out a theory of sensation and ideas, employing Locke's categories of simple and complex ideas.Footnote 81 Whatever deleterious effects Campbell thinks the fall had on the human mind, he does not appear to think that it hindered the basic operations of sensation, reflection, and formation of simple and complex ideas. Even when describing the fallen state of humanity, Campbell cannot shake his optimism about the ability of the human mind. Campbell then expands on Locke's theory of ideas, arguing that revelation introduces new ideas that could not have been had through reflection on the natural world alone.Footnote 82 Campbell's belief that this most basic functionality of the mind remains working—even if not at full capacity—is of great importance for his later conceptions of regeneration. It is through the senses that Campbell thinks humans receive, apprehend, and believe the testimony of God—one of the key elements of his understanding of regeneration.Footnote 83 Despite the damage caused by the fall, Campbell is confident that the human mind is functional enough to receive the testimony of God.
In his first article on the Holy Spirit, Alexander Campbell focuses heavily on the importance of testimony, which Campbell seems to have been using in a technical sense.Footnote 84 He states, “Faith is necessary to salvation. . . and that testimony is necessary to faith.”Footnote 85 For Campbell, testimony was needed to authenticate the message of scripture. This authentication took place on two different levels. The first pertained to the direct testimony of the apostles; the second consisted of the signs, miracles, and acts worked to attest to the testimony of the apostles. Thus Campbell states,
It was not enough that the Apostles were qualified by the Spirit to deliver a correct, intelligible, and consistent testimony, but for the reasons above specified, that this testimony be attested by such accompaniments as would render the rejector of it damnably criminal, as well as afford the fullest ground of certainty and joy to all that received their testimony. . . . Miracles were wrought by the influence of the Holy Spirit in confirmation of their testimony—that is, signs or proofs of supernatural character followed their testimony.Footnote 86
Campbell believed that the testimony of the apostles was marvelous—that it made claims that could easily seem incredible. Accordingly, he found it only fitting that miracles and acts of power be used to authenticate the testimony of the apostles. Faith in the apostles’ testimony, in Campbell's thought, is essential for salvation, but this faith is not possible without the work of the Holy Spirit to attest to the apostles’ testimony: “It may then be safely affirmed that no man could believe the gospel facts without this work of the Holy Spirit in attestation thereof.”Footnote 87 Furthermore, the signs and miracles that attested to the apostolic testimony were such that a rejection of them was nothing less than resisting the Holy Spirit.Footnote 88 Campbell's emphasis on the necessity of the Holy Spirit here is significant because he was often accused of denying the influence of the Spirit. Barton Stone notes that even he doubted that Campbell “was not sufficiently explicit on the influences of the Spirit.”Footnote 89 Campbell was able to allay Stone's fears and convince him that they were of the same mind.
Campbell's discussions of testimony here and elsewhere in his oeuvre are similar to the use of the concept in Locke and Thomas Reid.Footnote 90 Per Richardson's statement above, we know that Campbell was fond of Locke's Essay and that it was deeply influential for his thinking.Footnote 91 Furthermore, Theodore Bozeman notes that the declining influence of Locke in early nineteenth-century America was largely mediated through the lens of SCSP.Footnote 92 Locke discusses testimony at multiple points in his Essay.Footnote 93 For Locke, testimony is one of the key pieces in determining the probability of certain propositions.Footnote 94 Even more germane for the present discussion, however, is that Locke considers miracles within the framework of testimony. He argues that miracles can confirm other truths or testimonies: “This is the proper case of miracles, which well attested, do not only find credit themselves; but give it also to other truths, which need such confirmation.”Footnote 95 Although Campbell does not explicitly quote Locke in his above discussion of miracles, like Locke, he argues that miracles attest to the veracity of “truths” or propositions that otherwise would be difficult to believe.Footnote 96
Campbell's indebtedness to the thought of Thomas Reid is particularly evident in his discussions of testimony. A prime example of this can be seen in Campbell's debate with Robert Owen on the evidences of Christianity. Campbell states:
I do not know that I am able to designate this power by its appropriate name; but there is a native, inherent power in human nature of believing upon testimony. This power is sometimes called credulity, which is as inherent in the infant mind as any other faculty. Now upon this credulity, are predicated all systems of instruction. Were it not for this innate principle of credulity in human nature, there could be no docility in Children.Footnote 97
For Campbell, the minds of human beings are specially designed to believe the testimony of others. Compare Campbell's statement above to that of Reid in his Inquiry:
Another original principle implanted in us by the Supreme Being, is a disposition to confide in the veracity of others, and to believe what they tell us. This is the counter-part to the former; and as that may be called the principle of veracity, we shall, for want of a more proper name, call this the principle of credulity. It is unlimited in children, until they meet with instances of deceit and falsehood: and it retains a very considerable degree of strength through life.Footnote 98
To be sure, Campbell follows Reid in calling this the principle of credulity. Elsewhere, Reid further emphasizes that this reliance upon the testimony of others is strongest in young children who have not yet been deceived.Footnote 99 Furthermore, both Campbell and Reid argue that this principle of credulity is a proper component of the human mind from birth, and this because of the intent of the creator.Footnote 100 The similarity between Campbell and Reid here is so apparent that some sort of dependence cannot be denied.
In his second essay on the Holy Spirit, Campbell introduces a new element: the evidences of Christianity. He connects his prior emphasis on testimony with a broader evidential tradition that enjoyed prominence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The vast majority of Campbell's second article on the work of the Holy Spirit is a lengthy quotation from George Campbell's Dissertation on Miracles.Footnote 101 A co-member with Thomas Reid in the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, George Campbell published his Dissertation only two years before Reid's Inquiry on the Human Mind. The Aberdeen Philosophical Society was the epicenter of the Common Sense response to the skepticism of Hume, whom Alexander explicitly had in his sights with the inclusion of the extract from George Campbell.Footnote 102 Alexander's inclusion of this extract from George Campbell is valuable because it makes explicit the philosophical substrate of Campbell's reasoning about the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion, regeneration, and salvation.
In his fourth essay, Campbell makes it clear that he views a proper conception of the work of the Holy Spirit to be of paramount importance: “Correct views of the office of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of men, are essential to our knowledge of the christian religion, as also to our enjoyment of it. On mistaken views of it are engrafted most of the extravagant systems of our times.”Footnote 103 This assertion early in his literary career signals why Campbell spent so much time writing about the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion, regeneration, and salvation: it is a foundational piece for the development of many other doctrines.
While Campbell's earlier essays on the Holy Spirit were primarily concerned with testimony and the evidential tradition, in essay eight, he turns to address fully the role of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. The section is worth quoting at length:
The means are always suited to the end. In the accomplishment of moral renovation, or regeneration of the human mind, the same fitness in the means employed is exhibited in every respect. No new faculties are created in the human mind, nor any of the old ones annihilated—no new passions, nor affections are communicated. . . . If, then, as is proved no new faculties are created, no new passions nor affections bestowed in regeneration, it may be asked, What does the renewal of the Holy Spirit mean? The scriptures authorize us in declaring that it consists in presenting new objects to the faculties, volitions, and affections of men; which new objects apprehended, engage the faculties or powers of the human understanding, captivate the affections and passions of the human soul, and, consequently, direct or draw the whole man into new aims, pursuits, and endeavors.Footnote 104
As this quotation demonstrates, Campbell considers the human mind and all of its faculties to be operational after the fall. Furthermore, Campbell here does not have the Spirit operating immediately or directly on the human soul—a notable deviation from the Reformed orthodoxy articulated by his contemporaries.
This, then, helps explain Campbell's lengthy discourse on testimony and evidence. The office of the Holy Spirit, in Campbell's scheme, is to convince humans of the veracity and trustworthiness of the gospel, thus enabling salvation. This position could not be further from those who argued that the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit was needed precisely to restore these broken faculties. In Campbell, as in Thomas Reid, these God-given faculties of the mind remain functioning properly and reliably. Furthermore, Campbell here expands on his notion, mentioned earlier, that revelation and the testimony of God introduce new ideas to the mind that could not be had through reflection on nature.Footnote 105 These new objects or ideas, when introduced into the mind and assented to, reboot the moral constitution of humans.Footnote 106
For Campbell, one of the chief ways that humans overcome the disordered moral constitution inherited from the fall is to believe the testimony of God. As noted above, this does not entail a direct operation of God upon the unruly passions and disordered minds of humans. Rather, God presents to and impresses upon the mind new information (or testimony).Footnote 107 The introduction of this testimony to the mind of humans—accompanied by belief—allows reason to be re-enthroned above the erstwhile disordered passions.Footnote 108 Testimony was such an important part of his theology that an article on the “Confirmation of Testimony” was the first thing he published when he began the Millennial Harbinger in 1830.Footnote 109
Campbell is concerned that those who teach that the Holy Spirit creates something new in the human soul are in fact devaluing the role of scripture and preaching.Footnote 110 Campbell found it absurd that preachers would tell their hearers that it was beyond their ability to believe, and Barton Stone strongly agreed with Campbell on this.Footnote 111 For both Campbell and Stone, the act of preaching was futile if humans did not have the ability to respond.
Campbell took up the issue of regeneration again in 1830 in four essays entitled, “Metaphysical Regeneration; or Fullerism Exposed.”Footnote 112 In these essays, Campbell is dealing with the work of Andrew Fuller, and more specifically, his views in The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation.Footnote 113 Campbell takes issue with Fuller's theory that the Spirit operates directly and physically on the soul without the use of any means.Footnote 114 As Campbell had expressed in his earlier essays on the Spirit, the means of evidence and testimony are used to produce faith. He further argues that faith precedes regeneration, while Fuller held that the work of the Holy Spirit was antecedent to faith.Footnote 115 Campbell states, “Hence the Scripture doctrine of regeneration is born of water and of the Spirit, or immersion for the remission of sins—not in order to faith, but as a consequence of the belief of the glad tidings of remission.”Footnote 116 In these essays against Fuller, we have an early instance of what will be a distinctive part of Campbell's thought going forward: the identification of regeneration with baptism by immersion. The practice of immersion did not arise in Campbell's earlier essays on the Holy Spirit. There, he treated the topic of regeneration primarily in terms of the way in which the Spirit acted upon the human soul.
Campbell reiterated this identity between regeneration and immersion in his “Extra No. 1” on the remission of sins. Here, he seems to be able to use conversion, regeneration, and immersion as synonyms: “‘Into Christ’ is a phrase only applicable to conversion, immersion, or regeneration, or what is called putting on Christ, translation into his kingdom, or submission to his government.”Footnote 117 On Campbell's reading of the New Testament, “No person was said to be converted until he was immersed; and all persons, who were immersed, were said to be converted.”Footnote 118 As Campbell's later polemics indicate, it was only a short while before his contemporaries picked up on Campbell's doctrine and noted that it was a radical departure from the mainstream of Reformed theology.
In 1831, Campbell published a multi-part dialogue on the Holy Spirit in the Millennial Harbinger. At the outset, Campbell addresses the view that the work of the Spirit is “the naked Spirit of God operating upon the naked spirit of man, without any instrument or means, moral or physical.”Footnote 119 Campbell rejected this because he optimistically believed that the intellectual faculties of humans were operational enough to receive the testimony of God and, therefore, did not need to be restored by the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit upon a passive subject. For Campbell, the intellectual faculties remained functional, but the moral character of humans was perverted and turned to the wrong ends by the passions that usurped reason. The remedy for this situation, then, is a “moral reformation,” which is accomplished by moral means.Footnote 120 According to Campbell, these moral means are chiefly, if not exclusively, arguments:
The argument is the power of the spirit of man, and the only power which one spirit can exert over another is its arguments. . . . And when we think of the power of the Spirit of God exerted upon minds or human spirits, it is impossible for us to imagine that that power can consist in any thing else but words or arguments.Footnote 121
Campbell later goes on to state that “all the converting power of the Holy Spirit is exhibited in the Divine Record.”Footnote 122 Campbell held that the scriptures were the arguments used by the Spirit in the moral reformation of humans. Miracles do not convert, but they do “obtain a favorable hearing of the converting arguments.”Footnote 123
In the second part of his dialogue, Campbell strongly reasserted the position he laid out in his earlier essays on the Holy Spirit in The Christian Baptist. The role of testimony again comes to the fore, and it remains a constant element in Campbell's thought: “Had the gospel not been confirmed by demonstrations of the power of God inimitable, no one's heart or ears would have been opened to attend to it.”Footnote 124 Although Campbell consistently and categorically rejected the notion that the Holy Spirit operates directly on the soul in regeneration and conversion, he did hold that the Holy Spirit worked immediately to guide the life and practice of the “primitive church, during its infancy.”Footnote 125 This assertion appears to have been driven by Campbell's need to affirm that the New Testament church constituted a reliable and authoritative guide or testimony for all subsequent Christians. In the third part of the dialogues, Campbell argued that “faith in the testimony must precede all conviction, repentance, reformation.”Footnote 126
By the time Campbell wrote The Christian System, he seems to have hardened his views on the role of the Holy Spirit. If nothing else, Campbell clearly draws out the implications of what he had been saying for the last ten years. He states,
Now we cannot separate the Spirit and word of God, and ascribe so much power to the one and so much to the other; for so did not the Apostles. Whatever the word does, the Spirit does; and whatever the Spirit does in the work of converting men, the word does. We neither believe nor teach abstract Spirit nor abstract word, but word and Spirit, Spirit and word.Footnote 127
In his earlier writings, Campbell had described the activity of the Spirit in terms of testimony, and always in ways connected to scripture. With this statement, Campbell makes clear his underlying commitment—the Spirit and word never work separately.Footnote 128 It should be noted here that Campbell's insistence that the Spirit and word always work together has distinct echoes of the position in the Westminster Confession—even if Campbell restricts the operations of the Holy Spirit much more than the Westminster Confession.Footnote 129
Nearly twenty years later, Campbell still held the same strong views about the conjunction of the Holy Spirit and the word: “In conversion and sanctification, the Holy Spirit operates only through the Word of Truth.”Footnote 130 In the two tracts on “Conversion and Sanctification by the Holy Spirit” that Campbell wrote in 1849, he forcefully repeated the above assertions—and often with a sharper edge than before. In many ways, these two tracts sum up Campbell's main emphases on the role of the Holy Spirit in regeneration during his whole career. Campbell emphasized the importance of testimony in one of his more polemically charged statements:
The whole system of Calvinism, of Arminianism, is crazy just at this point. They build a world upon the back of a tortoise; they build palaces upon ice, and repose upon couches of ether. They have not one clear idea on the subject of regeneration. It is to them a mystery—a cabalistic word—a mere shibboleth. The philosophy of mind is converted into a heap of ruins. They have the spirit of God operating without testimony—without apprehension or comprehension—without sense, susceptibility, or feeling: and all this for the sake of an incomprehensible, unintelligible, and worse than useless theory. I, therefore, ex animo, repudiate their whole theory of mystic influence, and metaphysical regeneration, as a vision of vision, a dream of dreams, at war with philosophy, with the philosophy of mind, with the Bible, with reason, with common sense, and with all Christian experience.Footnote 131
He then reiterated his conviction that if the theories of the Spirit's immediate operation on the soul are true, then preaching and the written word are emphasized in vain.Footnote 132 He also repeated his assertion that the Holy Spirit always uses rational means.Footnote 133 Campbell's rejection of the positions of his opponents in the above quotation reveals the extent to which SCSP had influenced his positions. Campbell inveighs against his opponents for multiplying useless theories—a sentiment championed by SCSP's use of the inductive method. Furthermore, Reid frequently rejected complicated metaphysics in favor of common sense.Footnote 134 Campbell's worry that his opponents disregarded a proper “philosophy of mind” reveals the foundational nature of his understanding of the human mind, which he derived from Locke and SCSP.
Conclusion
From the beginning of his literary career, Alexander Campbell was preoccupied with the role of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and conversion. The mass of literature produced by his contemporaries on these subjects demonstrates that Campbell's emphasis was nothing out of the ordinary. Although Campbell's chief opponents on these topics were predominantly Baptists, he shows knowledge of numerous views on the subject.Footnote 135 Campbell's own thoughts were often couched in the terms of his contemporaries (immediate, physical, etc.), even though he viewed his use of these terms as a concession—meeting his opponents on their own turf.Footnote 136
Although Campbell did not identify immersion and regeneration in his “Essays on the Holy Spirit” in 1824–1825, this emphasis is consistent through the rest of his corpus. This is one of the distinctive features of Campbell's thought on conversion and regeneration, and it seems to have attracted the attention of many outside of his camp.Footnote 137 Campbell's emphasis on regeneration as baptism by immersion set him in stark opposition to many of his contemporaries. Among other things, Campbell's identification of regeneration and baptism was a means of providing assurance of salvation. Campbell's persistent doubts about his salvation early in his life left him desiring a less subjective means of assurance, and the concrete act of baptism provided that.Footnote 138
As much as he claimed to be reading the “naked text” of scripture, Campbell's emphasis on testimony, rational means, and credibility in the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion and regeneration placed him squarely within the tradition of SCSP—to which his father introduced him and with which he was further acquainted during his time in Glasgow. His reliance upon this Scottish philosophical tradition gave him optimism about the ability of the human mind to respond to the testimony of God. This can clearly be seen in the earlier quotation where Campbell complains that the views of his opponents on regeneration do violence to the “philosophy of mind.” Certainly Campbell did not find such phrases as “philosophy of mind” while he was reading the “naked text” of scripture.
Campbell's views were strikingly similar to those of Barton Stone. For both, the human mind remained operational after the fall. Because of this, they both viewed it as fitting that God (and preachers) should address rational arguments to the human intellect.Footnote 139 Although the Scottish Common Sense tradition pervaded American thought in the nineteenth century, Campbell's distinct emphases allowed him to use it in a way that separated him from many of his contemporaries. Campbell had an understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit in faith, regeneration, and conversion that was shaped by his use of SCSP. To be sure, Campbell's understanding of faith, conversion, and regeneration would have fallen apart if it had not been undergirded by SCSP's confidence in the functionality of the mind. For Campbell, the ability of the mind to receive and assent to the testimony of God—an ability safeguarded by his employment of Scottish Common Sense Realism—was the touchstone of his teachings on faith, conversion, and regeneration. It was this same emphasis that caused him to oppose so vehemently the positions of Reformed orthodoxy. Barton Stone shared Campbell's emphasis on the role of testimony in regeneration, but he did not deploy as many philosophical sources as Campbell to undergird the emphasis. Campbell developed his theories in conversation with Stone, and Campbell further substantiated their views by buttressing them with the philosophical resources of Locke and SCSP.
As noted earlier, scholarship on the role of SCSP in American theology has tended to focus on highly educated streams of American Christianity such as the Old School Presbyterianism that was centered at Princeton. This is quite understandable—especially since it is easier to trace the direct transmission of SCSP through leading figures like Witherspoon. By focusing on SCSP's influence on Alexander Campbell, I have sought to fill in missing details in the life and thought of a leading figure of a populist strand of American Protestantism who continued to gain prominence as the nineteenth century progressed. Indeed, Alexander Campbell appropriated SCSP in such a way that it set him at odds with many of his contemporaries on the doctrines of regeneration, conversion, and the work of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the polemics of Campbell indicate that the debates occurring in the rarified air of New England schools were raging contemporaneously (and in some cases earlier) among the emerging populist streams of Christianity on the American frontier. The fact that these revisionist positions of populist leaders like Stone and Campbell often sprang from their lived experience does not preclude the same positions from having a sophisticated philosophical underpinning. Campbell's emphasis on the ability of the human mind to receive testimony, funded by Locke and SCSP, gave him the resources to reject prevailing understandings and develop a theology of regeneration, conversion, and the work of the Holy Spirit that accounted for the experience of one of the populist streams of Christianity on the American frontier.
