Rationalism and the Chain of Being

Rationalism inherits a Greek idea that treats good and evil as metaphysical states on a “chain of being” rather than moral obedience or rebellion against God. This view assumes a continuity of being between God and man, making human reason capable of accessing ultimate truth and reducing sin to a “thinness of being” instead of lawless defiance of God’s law. Biblically, however, God is uncreated and man is created; sin is moral rebellion, not metaphysical decline. The chain-of-being idea undermines creation, predestination, and the historic atonement, replacing them with autonomy, deification, and a rationalized, impersonal god ultimately leaving man to enthrone his own reason as supreme.