# Barth and Van Til: a comparison-contrast



## Philip

On this thread, the following question was asked:



jwright82 said:


> You know Philip on this point I have been curious with exactly what was Barth's problem with natural revealation, from the point of view of a national church and his dealings with Nazism (that no doubt affected his views). I think that he might have some intersting things to say, or not.



I responded with a slight comparison to Van Til which I would like to expand (I need to note that this analysis is fairly superficial and will need lots of refining):

Both Barth and Van Til are responding to 19th-century liberalism within a post-Kantian continental tradition. Thus, both are united in their distaste for the interference of natural theology (read: science) in theology. Thus, both will charge liberalism (rightly) with too much emphasis on general revelation and common grace to the point where it can no longer be called Christianity at all, instead becoming a kind of syncretism.

Barth saw this happening in the German Reichskirche in its compromise with Nazism and the rejection of elements of Christianity that conflicted with Nazi ideology. I think Barth really did want to return the German Church to a really Christian faith (not completely orthodox, by our standards, but still Christian). Like Van Til, then, Barth ended up aligning with a splinter of the mainline church.

The difference between the two, though, lies partly in their background. Barth, we must remember, was a product of the German academy of the liberal era. Thus, we shouldn't be surprised that he doesn't embrace inerrancy: instead, he embraces Kierkegaard's view that study of the original texts tells us nothing about Jesus. Instead, in Barth's view (Kierkegaard never deals with revelation), one treats the Scriptures as the occasion for revelation, which is why we base theology on it (BTW, occasionalism of a slightly different sort was the view of Gordon Clark). Again, we are right to reject this view, but we have to understand it as the defense of someone who wanted to take Scripture seriously and still be taken seriously himself.

Van Til, in contrast, was coming out of the Dutch neo-Calvinist movement that included Hermann Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper among its luminaries. One of the distinctive features was its high view of inerrancy, which Van Til pretty much took for granted. Unlike Barth, he's not coming out of liberalism and so isn't dealing with it in the same manner that Barth is. With regard to liberalism Barth is an insider breaking out, while Van Til is an outsider critiquing.

Again, though, there is a commonality in that both neo-Calvinism and Liberalism were post-Kantian theological movements that took things like a noumenal/phenomenal distinction (the source of the Clark-Van Til controversy) for granted. The difference between the two theologians is that, while both are working in a post-Kantian framework, Barth is working his way out of a liberal mindset (which is why the later Barth looks more orthodox than the earlier) whereas Van Til is critiquing a tradition to which he is an outsider (two traditions, actually, if you count the Old Princeton tradition, which was pre-Kantian).

Again, this is a more or less preliminary analysis, which is open to massive revision.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Both Barth and Van Til are responding to 19th-century liberalism within a post-Kantian continental tradition. Thus, both are united in their distaste for the interference of natural theology (read: science) in theology. Thus, both will charge liberalism (rightly) with too much emphasis on general revelation and common grace to the point where it can no longer be called Christianity at all, instead becoming a kind of syncretism.



You are very insightful in your historical analysis by the way. Van Til actually held a high view of natural theology, he just thought that it was impossible to interpret corectly apart from special revealation. In his book Christian Apologetics he uses the some of the qualities ascribed to the bible to talk about natural revealation. Barth as far I can tell never beleived in any kind of natural revealation, his work Nien! and his commentary on the Barmen Declaration, I don't know his exact problem with natural revealation apart from his view of special revealation, but there are key fundenental differences between the two. 

1. Van Til held that special revealation although cannot give us direct info about science but does furnish us with indirect theological principles that help us to completly understand science. So there is a connection between the two forms of revealation. 
2. Barth held to a view of revealation that made all of it a german word that roughly translates into super-histrory or something like that. It is a history that is above and beyond normal history but it can never have any connection to it all. So there is no informing of special revealation to the natural world, that would rob revealation of its transcendental staus. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Barth saw this happening in the German Reichskirche in its compromise with Nazism and the rejection of elements of Christianity that conflicted with Nazi ideology. I think Barth really did want to return the German Church to a really Christian faith (not completely orthodox, by our standards, but still Christian). Like Van Til, then, Barth ended up aligning with a splinter of the mainline church.



Well you are never going to believe it but I mixed the times that I have to pick my daughter up and thought I didn't have to pick her up until 4 but I was wrong and it is in about an hour. So I promise I will finish maybe some time tonight. Thank you for being patient.


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## Philip

> Van Til actually held a high view of natural theology



I think you mean general revelation here: one can believe in general revelation without doing natural theology. Natural theology is what Thomas Aquinas did with his "five ways" and his synthesis of Scripture and Aristotle. 



> but there are key fundenental differences between the two.



Not saying there aren't---I agree. It's just that there's more similarity than either of them would ever have admitted (as I've said before, their common treatment of Anselm is telling).


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> I think you mean general revelation here: one can believe in general revelation without doing natural theology. Natural theology is what Thomas Aquinas did with his "five ways" and his synthesis of Scripture and Aristotle.



Thanks for the correction. You are correct.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Barth saw this happening in the German Reichskirche in its compromise with Nazism and the rejection of elements of Christianity that conflicted with Nazi ideology. I think Barth really did want to return the German Church to a really Christian faith (not completely orthodox, by our standards, but still Christian). Like Van Til, then, Barth ended up aligning with a splinter of the mainline church.
> 
> The difference between the two, though, lies partly in their background. Barth, we must remember, was a product of the German academy of the liberal era. Thus, we shouldn't be surprised that he doesn't embrace inerrancy: instead, he embraces Kierkegaard's view that study of the original texts tells us nothing about Jesus. Instead, in Barth's view (Kierkegaard never deals with revelation), one treats the Scriptures as the occasion for revelation, which is why we base theology on it (BTW, occasionalism of a slightly different sort was the view of Gordon Clark). Again, we are right to reject this view, but we have to understand it as the defense of someone who wanted to take Scripture seriously and still be taken seriously himself.



Well your historical analysis is excellant here. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Van Til, in contrast, was coming out of the Dutch neo-Calvinist movement that included Hermann Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper among its luminaries. One of the distinctive features was its high view of inerrancy, which Van Til pretty much took for granted. Unlike Barth, he's not coming out of liberalism and so isn't dealing with it in the same manner that Barth is. With regard to liberalism Barth is an insider breaking out, while Van Til is an outsider critiquing.



Can't disagree here either.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, though, there is a commonality in that both neo-Calvinism and Liberalism were post-Kantian theological movements that took things like a noumenal/phenomenal distinction (the source of the Clark-Van Til controversy) for granted.



I am not sure I completly understand you here. Van Til would admit that we can only gain knowledge of God as He reveals it, and that there is immadiate awareness of God in nature by people, but it is limited. I would recomend Micheal Horton here in nhis analysis of post-reformation theological method, it provides an interesting solution to the phenoumenal/noumenal distinction of Kantian/post-Kantian thought. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> The difference between the two theologians is that, while both are working in a post-Kantian framework, Barth is working his way out of a liberal mindset (which is why the later Barth looks more orthodox than the earlier) whereas Van Til is critiquing a tradition to which he is an outsider (two traditions, actually, if you count the Old Princeton tradition, which was pre-Kantian).



You definantly seem to be situating them historically speaking in simlier places, which I agree with your historical analysis a lot, very insightful. You correctly allow for fundemental differences between the two, my question is on theological/philosophical matters where do you see simeraties?


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## Philip

> Van Til would admit that we can only gain knowledge of God as He reveals it, and that there is immadiate awareness of God in nature by people, but it is limited.



Ok, but he went further than that. He said that all of our knowledge of God is analogical, in contrast to Clark. That's the Clark-Van Til controversy.



> my question is on theological/philosophical matters where do you see simeraties?



Mainly in the rejection of natural theology as such. Barth goes so far as to reject reason almost entirely (following Kierkegaard---though I think Kierkegaard had something else in mind) while Van Til merely rejects the discipline of natural theology. Then too, I think that in the Clark-Van Til controversy, there is something strikingly similar between Van Til's view of truth about God as analogical (ie: accommodated to our finite language) and Barth's view of God as "wholly other."

Again, I need to note that I don't think that Van Til embraced Barth's view on these matters: it's clear that CVT never went as far and denied vehemently that he was anywhere close. Nonetheless, is it possible that CVT was a bit too vehement in his rejection? That maybe the charges hit a bit closer to home than he wanted to admit?

Here's why I think there's something to this idea:

Last year I was doing research on Anselm of Canterbury, the great medieval philosopher, ecclesiastic, and theologian. As Anselm is particularly known for his formulation of the so-called "ontological argument" for the existence of God (considered by most to be possibly the most rationalistic of all theistic arguments), I was quite surprised to find a short work on Anselm by Karl Barth where Barth asserts that the OA is essentially presuppositional and thus theology, not philosophy. Naturally, I was interested, and went so far as to address it in my work. Fast forward a semester and I am reading up on Van Til on autonomy. While I was at it, I decided to look at his historical surveys of western thought to see how he treated Anselm, out of curiosity. Curiously, Van Til spends less than a sentence (in all the reading I did) on Anselm, simply saying that he was a good "theonomous" heir of Augustine.

So there is a question: why does Van Til consider Anselm to be on his side, apologetically? If anyone would ordinarily be candidate for autonomous arch-rationalist apologist of the millennium, it would be Anselm. Thomas Aquinas thought the ontological argument was over-the-top (I'm a lot more sympathetic with Thomas than Van Til, but that's another conversation), so shouldn't Van Til?

There are two possibilities: first, Van Til might have forgotten about (or ignored) the ontological argument and just remembered _Cur Deus Homo_, where Anselm develops the classic theory of substitutionary atonement. This is unlikely, given that Barth's analysis of Anselm's argument is generally considered to be the key to Barth's method. Van Til, as Barth's major conservative opponent, had to have been familiar with this work.

The second is that, while disagreeing with Barth's theology, Van Til actually agreed with his analysis of Anselm, which to me would suggest more similarity in their thinking than either would have been likely to admit.

I say this also because I notice a tendency: the people with whom I to have the most heated discussions tend to be those with whom I have the most in common. The conflict arises precisely because we are not talking past each other: because of our similarity, each knows almost precisely what the other means and therefore disagrees more strongly on that point. It's a strange fact.

Again, note that I am not criticizing Van Til here---there is certainly a great contrast with Barth. But they have more in common than is ordinarily thought, in my analysis, (and I could be very wrong here).


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## Semper Fidelis

Philip,

Have you studied the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in historical Reformed thought?

I've seen some treatments of Anselm that dispute he's an "arch-rationalist" as you claim he is. In his disputes he even makes some proto-presuppositional refutations of those who would approach his argument as if they were not Christian.

I'm not trying to rescue CVT, per se, but two men can appeal to Anselm for two completely different reasons.

For those who have not read _The Infallible Word_ here is a summary of Van Til's treatment that I had to complete as part of an assignment about a year ago:


> *How is natural theology necessary?*
> 
> Scripture does not claim to speak to man in any other way than in conjunction with nature. God's revelation of Himself in nature combined with His revelation of Himself in Scripture form God's one grand schem of covenant relationship of Himself with man. The two forms presuppose and complement one another.
> 
> It was necessary in the garden as the lower act of obedience learned from avoiding the tree of knowledge of good and evil man might learn the higher things of obedience to God. The natural appeared in the regularity of nature.
> 
> After the fall, the natural appears under to curse of God and not merely regular. God's curse on nature is revealed along with regularity. The natural reveals an unalleviated picture of folly and ruin and speaks to the need for a Redeemer.
> 
> To the believer the natural or regular with all its complexity always appears as the playground for the process of differentiation which leads ever onward to the fullness of the glory of God.
> 
> *What is the authority of natural revelation?*
> 
> The same God who reveals Himself in Scripture is the God who reveals Himself in nature. They are of the same authority even if the former is superior in clarity than the latter. We are analogues to God and our respect for revelation in both spheres must be maintained and it is only when we refuse to act as creatures that we contrast authority between natural and special revelation. What comes to man by his rational and moral nature (created in God's image) is no less objective than what comes to him through the created order as all is in Covenant relationship to God. All created activity is inherently revelational of the nature and will of God.
> 
> *What is the sufficiency of natural revelation?*
> 
> It is sufficient to leave men without excuse for their sin and denying the God they know they are created to worship but insufficient at revealing the grace of God in salvation. Natural revelation was never meant to function by itself (as above) but it was historically sufficient as it renders without excuse. God's revelation in nature is sufficient in history to differentiate between those who who would and who would not serve God.
> 
> *What is meant by the perspicuity of natural revelation?*
> 
> God's revelation in nature was always meant to serve alongside His special revelation. God is a revealing God and the perspicuity of nature is bound up in the fact that He voluntarily reveals. Both natural and special revelation would be impossible if God remained incomprehensible as He is in Himself (archetypal theology). Man cannot penetrate God as He is Himself - he cannot comprehend God. But created man may see clearly what is revealed clearly even if he does not see exhaustively. Man need not have exhaustive knowledge in order to know truly and certainly.
> 
> God's thoughts about Himself are self-contained but man is an analogue who thinks in covenant relation to the One who created him. Thus man's interpretation of nature follows what is fully interpreted by God. Man thinks God's thoughts after him - not comprehensively but analogically.
> 
> The Psalmist doesn't declare that the heavens possibly or probably declare the glory of God. Paul does not say that the wrath of God is probably revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Scripture takes the clarity of God's revelation for granted at every stage of human history. The God who speaks in Scripture cannot refer to anything that is not already authoratively revelational of Himself for the evidence of His own existence. Everything exists that is His creation.
> 
> It is no easier for sinners to accept God in nature than it is for them to accept Him in Scripture. The two are inseparable in their clarity. We need the Holy Spirit to understand both. Man must be a Christian to study nature in a proper frame of mind.
> 
> *How does Greek natural theology and the natural theology of Kant result in denying any rationality higher than itself?*
> 
> Neither allow analogical reasoning to understand the world. They start from nature and try to argue for a god who must be finite in nature. It starts with a "mute" universe that has no revelation and makes it revelational only with respect to the autonomous mind of man. No distinction is made between Creator and creature.
> 
> Kant's great contribution to philosophy consisted in stressing the activity of the experiencing subject. It is this point to which the idea of a Copernican revolution is usually applied. Kant argued that since it is the thinking subject that itself contributes the categories of universality and necessity, we must not think of these as covering any reality that exists or may exist wholly independent of the human mind. The validity of universals is to be taken as frankly due to a motion and a vote; it is conventional and nothing more.
> 
> Plato and Aristotle, as well as Kant, assumed the autonomy of man. On such a basis man may reason univocally (have the same mind as God) and reach a God who is just an extension of the creature or he may reason equivocally and reach a God who has no contact with him at all. Man is left with either God being part of nature (pantheism) or being so transcendent that He cannot get into nature (deism).
> 
> We're now left with a world where the scientist supposedly interacts with the physical world and can learn about the world apart from any reference to God and "ministers" who speak about God's revelation that has no reference to history and interaction with the world. Man is fractured intellectually where reason deals with things of the world and faith deals with things that cannot affect reason or the world.
> 
> The very idea of Kant's Copernican revolution was that the autonomous mind itself must assume the responsibility for making all factual differentiation and logical validation. To such a mind the God of Christianity cannot speak. Such a mind will hear no voice but its own.


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## Philip

> I've seen some treatments of Anselm that dispute he's an "arch-rationalist" as you claim he is.



Don't misunderstand me: I don't think he's a rationalist---I actually agree with the analysis of Barth and Van Til with regard to his thought. No, I consider Anselm to be one of the greatest theologians I've ever read.



> Have you studied the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in historical Reformed thought?



Not really, no. Didn't Clark deny the distinction?


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## Semper Fidelis

I don't know if Clark directly denied the distinction or even ever interacted with it. His method is certainly not consonant with the distinction.

I think (based on Van Til's quoting of it) that Van Til's view is consistent with the distinction. What he calls "analogical" can be seen as the distinction between Archetypal and Ectypal theology.


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## Philip

> I think (based on Van Til's quoting of it) that Van Til's view is consistent with the distinction. What he calls "analogical" can be seen as the distinction between Archetypal and Ectypal theology.



Right---that's what the Clark-Van Til controversy was over, as I understand it.


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## MW

Semper Fidelis said:


> For those who have not read _The Infallible Word_ here is a summary of Van Til's treatment that I had to complete as part of an assignment about a year ago:


 
That's an excellent summary, Rich.


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## Porter

Semper Fidelis said:


> I don't know if Clark directly denied the distinction or even ever interacted with it. His method is certainly not consonant with the distinction.
> 
> I think (based on Van Til's quoting of it) that Van Til's view is consistent with the distinction. What he calls "analogical" can be seen as the distinction between Archetypal and Ectypal theology.



Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction. His position on univocal knowledge does not reflect, nor entail, a denial or a sullying of that distinction - it is in harmony with it. Re: Van Til - the affirmation of knowing analogically is not identical to - or does not equal - the Creator/creature distinction. In his thought the latter may necessitate the former, but a "Clarkian" affirms the latter and would affirm - with the Van Til-ian - what the Creator/creature distinction demands: the derivative, dependent, and quantitative aspects of human knowledge in relation to God's knowledge (while maintaining, in contrast to the Van Tilian, that we know univocally).


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## Philip

> Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction.



So for Clark, the difference is only one of degree? That is, God's knowledge of Himself differs from His revelation only in that not everything that could be known about God is revealed? Nothing in revelation is accommodated, right? Just trying to clarify this.


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## Semper Fidelis

Porter said:


> Semper Fidelis said:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know if Clark directly denied the distinction or even ever interacted with it. His method is certainly not consonant with the distinction.
> 
> I think (based on Van Til's quoting of it) that Van Til's view is consistent with the distinction. What he calls "analogical" can be seen as the distinction between Archetypal and Ectypal theology.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction. His position on univocal knowledge does not reflect, nor entail, a denial or a sullying of that distinction - it is in harmony with it. Re: Van Til - the affirmation of knowing analogically is not identical to - or does not equal - the Creator/creature distinction. In his thought the latter may necessitate the former, but a "Clarkian" affirms the latter and would affirm - with the Van Til-ian - what the Creator/creature distinction demands: the derivative, dependent, and quantitative aspects of human knowledge in relation to God's knowledge (while maintaining, in contrast to the Van Tilian, that we know univocally).
Click to expand...

 
Did you read the distinction I was referring to? I didn't say that Clark denied the Creator/Creature distinction. I said that his thought implicitly denies the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in Theology.

I was also noting that, per Van Til's presentation, his view of revelation falls along the lines of that distinction.


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## jwright82

Porter said:


> Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction. His position on univocal knowledge does not reflect, nor entail, a denial or a sullying of that distinction - it is in harmony with it. Re: Van Til - the affirmation of knowing analogically is not identical to - or does not equal - the Creator/creature distinction. In his thought the latter may necessitate the former, but a "Clarkian" affirms the latter and would affirm - with the Van Til-ian - what the Creator/creature distinction demands: the derivative, dependent, and quantitative aspects of human knowledge in relation to God's knowledge (while maintaining, in contrast to the Van Tilian, that we know univocally).



Analogical knowledge is essential to any kind of personal revealation at all. If we were sitting and talking face to face you would take a basic understanding of the words I was using combined with reading my body language as best as you possibly could. But do you know exactly what I am saying all the time, meaning that there is no difference in meaning whatsoever (univocal view of knowledge, Clark)? Or we mean absolutly different things all the time (equivocal view of knowledge, possibly Barth)? Or do we generaly mean the same thing with allowable differences do to the nature of language (Analogical view of knowledge, Van Til)? How you answer those questions determines what view you have in mind.
1. Option one does not tak into account the slippery nature of our very language. Words change meanings based on how they are used. But we come to all mean such simlier things that communication is possible and life goes on but if option 1 were correct than why is there such disagreements in life?
2. This option ends only in skepticism. No one would ever know what anyone else meant. 
3. Option 3 it seems to me allows for disagreement between meanings but also acounts for a general unity of meaning with regards to language or knowledge.

So when a transcendent being reveals things about themselves to us in our finite limited language will there be absolute one to one meanining, basically draging God down to us (the error of open theism and a univocal view of knowledge)? Will there be no one to one relation of anykind whatsoever (Barth's radical view of the wholly other God and His wholly other revealation, equivocal view of knowledge)? Or is there a general but not completly exact relation between the words so that we understand as far as we can as creatures but there is a limit to what we can know, hence a qualitative difference between our knowledge and the Creator's (Van Til and traditional Reformed thought)?

This is the Clark/Van Til controversy in my opinion but I could be wrong about Clark. I don't see how he avoided the errors of option 1 but this is far from a detailed analysis of the philosophical elements underpinning the whole debate. I just hope it makes sense.

---------- Post added at 02:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:34 PM ----------




P. F. Pugh said:


> I think that in the Clark-Van Til controversy, there is something strikingly similar between Van Til's view of truth about God as analogical (ie: accommodated to our finite language) and Barth's view of God as "wholly other."



Barth's view is equivocal not univocal or analogical.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Last year I was doing research on Anselm of Canterbury, the great medieval philosopher, ecclesiastic, and theologian. As Anselm is particularly known for his formulation of the so-called "ontological argument" for the existence of God (considered by most to be possibly the most rationalistic of all theistic arguments), I was quite surprised to find a short work on Anselm by Karl Barth where Barth asserts that the OA is essentially presuppositional and thus theology, not philosophy. Naturally, I was interested, and went so far as to address it in my work. Fast forward a semester and I am reading up on Van Til on autonomy. While I was at it, I decided to look at his historical surveys of western thought to see how he treated Anselm, out of curiosity. Curiously, Van Til spends less than a sentence (in all the reading I did) on Anselm, simply saying that he was a good "theonomous" heir of Augustine.
> 
> So there is a question: why does Van Til consider Anselm to be on his side, apologetically? If anyone would ordinarily be candidate for autonomous arch-rationalist apologist of the millennium, it would be Anselm. Thomas Aquinas thought the ontological argument was over-the-top (I'm a lot more sympathetic with Thomas than Van Til, but that's another conversation), so shouldn't Van Til?
> 
> There are two possibilities: first, Van Til might have forgotten about (or ignored) the ontological argument and just remembered Cur Deus Homo, where Anselm develops the classic theory of substitutionary atonement. This is unlikely, given that Barth's analysis of Anselm's argument is generally considered to be the key to Barth's method. Van Til, as Barth's major conservative opponent, had to have been familiar with this work.
> 
> The second is that, while disagreeing with Barth's theology, Van Til actually agreed with his analysis of Anselm, which to me would suggest more similarity in their thinking than either would have been likely to admit.



Barth's point in interpreting Anselm the way he did was to strip any last vestage of philosophy out of his theological method, his socalled existentialism. He would have no part in philosophy, or any other science, having any bearing on theology whatsoever (to do so would be paramount to a natural theology and hence the acceptance of Nazism). Van Til was against the idea of natural theology as an autonoums discipline, you could say that he rejected rome's whole nature/grace scheme. He seems to have not liked autonomous conceptions of it as a historical philosophical view. So although he can affirm very strongly the idea of general revealation he was against just about all historical developments on the place of natural theology, if that makes sense. Look at my critique of natural law in other threads it is about the same type of argument.

Van Til tended to talk a lot about the ideas underlying a particuler philosophy but always in the context of critiquing an historical example of his general critique of unbelieving thought. He was much like Dooyeweerd in this respect.

---------- Post added at 02:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:48 PM ----------




P. F. Pugh said:


> Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So for Clark, the difference is only one of degree? That is, God's knowledge of Himself differs from His revelation only in that not everything that could be known about God is revealed? Nothing in revelation is accommodated, right? Just trying to clarify this.
Click to expand...

 
I do believe that it is possible that Van Til was right in his criticism of Clark but I shy away from throwing Clark into a box like that. But if Van Til was correct than essentially two whole different philosophies were at work.

---------- Post added at 02:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:53 PM ----------




Semper Fidelis said:


> Porter said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Semper Fidelis said:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know if Clark directly denied the distinction or even ever interacted with it. His method is certainly not consonant with the distinction.
> 
> I think (based on Van Til's quoting of it) that Van Til's view is consistent with the distinction. What he calls "analogical" can be seen as the distinction between Archetypal and Ectypal theology.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction. His position on univocal knowledge does not reflect, nor entail, a denial or a sullying of that distinction - it is in harmony with it. Re: Van Til - the affirmation of knowing analogically is not identical to - or does not equal - the Creator/creature distinction. In his thought the latter may necessitate the former, but a "Clarkian" affirms the latter and would affirm - with the Van Til-ian - what the Creator/creature distinction demands: the derivative, dependent, and quantitative aspects of human knowledge in relation to God's knowledge (while maintaining, in contrast to the Van Tilian, that we know univocally).
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Did you read the distinction I was referring to? I didn't say that Clark denied the Creator/Creature distinction. I said that his thought implicitly denies the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in Theology.
> 
> I was also noting that, per Van Til's presentation, his view of revelation falls along the lines of that distinction.
Click to expand...

 
Nice Rich! When I refered to Horton earlier it was this distinction that I had in mind, but I just couldn't remember it. Nice summery too!


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## Philip

> Barth's point in interpreting Anselm the way he did was to strip any last vestage of philosophy out of his theological method, his socalled existentialism. He would have no part in philosophy, or any other science, having any bearing on theology whatsoever (to do so would be paramount to a natural theology and hence the acceptance of Nazism).



But why Anselm, of all people?



> Van Til was against the idea of natural theology as an autonoums discipline



He was against Natural theology period. Again, he believed natural theology, as a bottom-up discipline (particularist), could never be "theonomous" in any meaningful sense. 

As for the three views of language: I doubt that Barth viewed revelation as entirely equivocal---certainly no one outside the Van Til/Clark sphere thought he was. The rest of the theological world outside the US thought of him as a theological conservative. Now it may well be that his whole system is supposed to be poetry, not theology. Given the heavy influence of Kierkegaard on his early thought, I wouldn't be surprised if some of his statements are a bit hyperbolic. Nonetheless, I do agree that he opened a door to such equivocal thinking, such as we see in post-Heideggerian theology (Tillich in particular).



> I don't see how he avoided the errors of option 1



I think his occasionalist view of Scriptural interpretation was meant to clear this up.

One thread that I see throughout mid-20th-century conservative reformed thought (Barth exhibits this in spades, though he's not in this group) is a tendency to produce grand beautifully-constructed philosophical-theological systems (including sweeping historical surveys) without a whole lot of thought for what Luther called, "plain reason" or what Reid called "common sense." These systems created whole new theological vocabularies that are often useful to us, but which often ignored the ways in which people actually think. For example, in the past fifty years, Clark's view of Scriptural language as univocal has predominated---how many of us have heard people say, "Oh, I take the Bible literally"? The result today is that people are turning away from Scriptural truth because they have discovered that this hermaneutic doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny, or else it leads us to open theism.



> Barth's view is equivocal not univocal or analogical.



Not quite. Barth is a good post-Kantian, so God in Himself is unknowable. What we do have, though, is the phenomenon of God's revelation in Scripture. The reason that Barth rejects natural theology and general revelation is because He recognizes that a phenomenological account of religion will be really Christian if and only if it allows no religious experience other than that of Christians. Barth has it in for Schleiermacher and wants to shut that door utterly. Therefore, Barth argues that true religious experience comes only through the word read and preached in the Church. Barth also doesn't have a particularly good religious tradition to draw from, so it's no wonder that he's not orthodox.

Van Til's version of this is his rejection of the 19th century "Princeton Apologetic". He (mistakenly, I think) thought that the Princeton School's embrace of the Scottish School of Common Sense had led to liberalism and so rejected it entirely as another form of natural theology.


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## jwright82

To elaborate on what I mean by Barth being equivocal in his view of knowledge let me explain. When I interchangably used the terms knowledge and language I was pointing to the fact that in a way these are the same thing. I don't think I explained that at all so I will clear up that now. We use language to express and reveal knowledge to others, when we think about what we know in our brains we always do so withen our own langauge (whatever language that is). So langauge and knowledge although two seperatly logical things are none the less probably too similer to seperate. 

So for Barth he viewed all theology as based on revealation directly from God. This is how he attempted to overcome the whole phenomounal/noumanal distinction in Kant. Remember that for Kant we have have an active formation of knowledge that is limited to the phenomounal realm. So science is something we can know about but God is beyond our thought proccess. The philosopher Feurbach insisted, based on this, that therefore all theology is anthropology. That is to say that since all our ideas and words must only have meaning when applied to phenoumanl things and God, if He exists, is noumanal we cannot talk about Him at all. So all of our church talk is just guarded language about ourselves in some way. Barth who accepted both Kant and Feurbach on these points attempted to overcome this problem with his theology of the Word of God. 

Revealation, or the Word of God, must be able to do two things in a sort of paradox, or contradiction:
1. Not be part of the phenomounal world at all, since that violates Kant and plays into Feurbach's claims about theology.
2. Must be able to shater into this reality in some fashion, his thoughts on the freedom of God.

So he used two different german words about history to attempt to acheive this, geishicte and historie.
Historie represents the phenomounal realm of experience in which history takes place. Geishicte on the other hand is above or beyond historie. It travels parallel to historie but never touches it, in a sense. Geshicte is God's self revealation. It cannot be associated with historie but must be parralel to it. This means that the concepts and ideas of the phenoumanal, or historie, must not be used to explain or discribe Geishicte, he would have considered this a violation of the first commandment. So we don't use philosophy, which is phenomounal, to explain or describe any sort of revealtion at all. We only use the categories and ideas revealed in God's free-self-revealation to talk about that revealation, which is essentially dogmatics in his view.

Now the charge of equivocationalism in regards to knowledge itself. So when one reads his church dogmatics, which he changed the title too from christian dogmatics to reflect his view that dogmatics was essentially church talk about God, do they read purely new concepts and ideas fresh from the nomounal realm or ideas stated in the phenoumanal realm of discourse? Well either way he ends up in equivocation, I'll try to explain. 

1. Option 1 we are facing totally new ideas that even he can't conceptualize, hence a complete difference in knowledge, because we all are limited, via Kant, in our concept formation to the phenomounal realm only. This ends in equivocation because we can't use our phenomounal brains to understand noumanal revealation.

2. Option 2 betrays his insistance on geshicte being transcendental to historie. We cannot therefore in principle rip geishicte down into our own historie and violate his seperation of the two. This again is equivocation because we can't translate revealation into the only language we know phenomounal/historie language, hence equivocation of knowledge.

So we see that in principle he was an equicalist in his view but in practice he couldn't possibly be. This only betrays his own self-contradiction and sets him off against Van Til and Gordon Clark.

---------- Post added at 05:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:02 PM ----------




P. F. Pugh said:


> But why Anselm, of all people?



I suppose that it was Anselm who changed his mind on things, that may be why.



P. F. Pugh said:


> He was against Natural theology period. Again, he believed natural theology, as a bottom-up discipline (particularist), could never be "theonomous" in any meaningful sense.



I don't know if any natural theology would be beyond him but you are right most is, but in the sense I gave before as historical examples of what he found wrong with autonoumas natural theology.



P. F. Pugh said:


> As for the three views of language: I doubt that Barth viewed revelation as entirely equivocal---certainly no one outside the Van Til/Clark sphere thought he was. The rest of the theological world outside the US thought of him as a theological conservative. Now it may well be that his whole system is supposed to be poetry, not theology. Given the heavy influence of Kierkegaard on his early thought, I wouldn't be surprised if some of his statements are a bit hyperbolic. Nonetheless, I do agree that he opened a door to such equivocal thinking, such as we see in post-Heideggerian theology (Tillich in particular).
> 
> 
> I don't see how he avoided the errors of option 1
> I think his occasionalist view of Scriptural interpretation was meant to clear this up.
> 
> One thread that I see throughout mid-20th-century conservative reformed thought (Barth exhibits this in spades, though he's not in this group) is a tendency to produce grand beautifully-constructed philosophical-theological systems (including sweeping historical surveys) without a whole lot of thought for what Luther called, "plain reason" or what Reid called "common sense." These systems created whole new theological vocabularies that are often useful to us, but which often ignored the ways in which people actually think. For example, in the past fifty years, Clark's view of Scriptural language as univocal has predominated---how many of us have heard people say, "Oh, I take the Bible literally"? The result today is that people are turning away from Scriptural truth because they have discovered that this hermaneutic doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny, or else it leads us to open theism.
> 
> 
> Barth's view is equivocal not univocal or analogical.
> Not quite. Barth is a good post-Kantian, so God in Himself is unknowable. What we do have, though, is the phenomenon of God's revelation in Scripture. The reason that Barth rejects natural theology and general revelation is because He recognizes that a phenomenological account of religion will be really Christian if and only if it allows no religious experience other than that of Christians. Barth has it in for Schleiermacher and wants to shut that door utterly. Therefore, Barth argues that true religious experience comes only through the word read and preached in the Church. Barth also doesn't have a particularly good religious tradition to draw from, so it's no wonder that he's not orthodox.



I guess see my next post which you are probably reading as I write this.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Van Til's version of this is his rejection of the 19th century "Princeton Apologetic". He (mistakenly, I think) thought that the Princeton School's embrace of the Scottish School of Common Sense had led to liberalism and so rejected it entirely as another form of natural theology.



His critique of it would be the same as mine, although you know I am favorable to your version as it relates to everyday common-sense experience but it would brakedown at the presupossitional level. This issue may be too large to involve in this discussion.


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## Semper Fidelis

Philip,

I need to back you up because this discussion seems to be focused on proving your thesis in the OP. There you state:


P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, though, there is a commonality in that both neo-Calvinism and Liberalism were post-Kantian theological movements that took things like a noumenal/phenomenal distinction (the source of the Clark-Van Til controversy) for granted. The difference between the two theologians is that, while both are working in a post-Kantian framework, Barth is working his way out of a liberal mindset (which is why the later Barth looks more orthodox than the earlier) whereas Van Til is critiquing a tradition to which he is an outsider (two traditions, actually, if you count the Old Princeton tradition, which was pre-Kantian).



If by post-Kantian you are only referring to time (that is that they came after Kant arrived on the scene), I would agree. If by post-Kantian you believe Van Til was (like Barth) operating under an Enlightenment mindset then that is not the case at all.

I'm not certain what kind of parallel you're trying to draw between Barth and Van Til. Sure they both were critiquing Liberalism but a critically dialectical realist like Barth can't be said to be anything like Van Til on a fundamental level simply because they both critiqued Liberalism.

Even pointing this out is problematic:


P. F. Pugh said:


> hus, both will charge liberalism (rightly) with too much emphasis on general revelation and common grace to the point where it can no longer be called Christianity at all, instead becoming a kind of syncretism.



As I quoted above, Van Til's critique had to do with a criticism that man is fallen. He doesn't reject natural revelation (real history) but points out:


Semper Fidelis said:


> After the fall, the natural appears under to curse of God and not merely regular. God's curse on nature is revealed along with regularity. The natural reveals an unalleviated picture of folly and ruin and speaks to the need for a Redeemer.



In other words, by natural revelation, the Curse is revealed in natural revelation and points all men to their need for a Redeemer.

Barth, in contrast, doesn't see God acting at all in the phenomenal realm. History cannot tell us anything about God. His problem with natural revelation is that he rejects all history as revealing anything at all about God.

I just don't understand what you're trying to get at here because their views are so diametrically opposed to each other that your thesis seems to amount to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."


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## Philip

> If by post-Kantian you are only referring to time (that is that they came after Kant arrived on the scene), I would agree. If by post-Kantian you believe Van Til was (like Barth) operating under an Enlightenment mindset then that is not the case at all.



I see Van Til as operating under the Kantian system in a different form. If, for the grid between noumenal and phenomenal we were to substitute "presupposition", we would have Van Tillian epistemology. Van Tillian is not straight Kantian, but he's not a direct realist either (like, say, Hodge, Reid, or pretty much any pre-Cartesian). It is, if you will, a post-enlightenment view. 



> I'm not certain what kind of parallel you're trying to draw between Barth and Van Til. Sure they both were critiquing Liberalism but a critically dialectical realist like Barth can't be said to be anything like Van Til on a fundamental level simply because they both critiqued Liberalism.



Again, I think that both are operating under the Post-Kantian assumption that things in themselves are unknowable or at least unintelligible (which is the same thing). Both see revelation as somehow breaking through the divide between noumenal and phenomenal.



> In other words, by natural revelation, the Curse is revealed in natural revelation and points all men to their need for a Redeemer.



But according to Van Til, it does so only if one is approaching it in faith already. This is post-Kantian, the difference being that Kant would argue that we all perceive things the same way.



> His problem with natural revelation is that he rejects all history as revealing anything at all about God.



Actually, I would reverse this, but in any case . . .


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## Semper Fidelis

P. F. Pugh said:


> I see Van Til as operating under the Kantian system in a different form. If, for the grid between noumenal and phenomenal we were to substitute "presupposition", we would have Van Tillian epistemology. Van Tillian is not straight Kantian, but he's not a direct realist either (like, say, Hodge, Reid, or pretty much any pre-Cartesian). It is, if you will, a post-enlightenment view.


Huh? I'm sorry Phillip but Van Til hardly describes the phenomenal as unknowable apart from Special Revelation. I quoted his very words above and it is quite clear that he views natural revelation as operating historically and in such a way as man knows he needs a Redeemer. He clearly articulates God as revealing Himself in nature. He sees the Curse as revealed in general revelation and not in some noumenal realm. I don't know how much more clearly Van Til could have rejected the Kantian view than he does in my summary above. I'm only left with the impression that you do not really understand the phenomenal/noumenal division of Kantian thought or what Van Til's concern was.

Van Til, like Calvin, understood that man could not have fruition in natural revelation but that is an ethical problem due to his rebellion and not due to the lack of clarity of general revelation.

You seem to imply that common sense realism posited a way for man to overcome this rebellion and approach an understanding of "things in themselves" simply by general revelation. The Reformed have always taught that man has no comprehensive knowledge but that all knowledge is apprehended insofar as God reveals it either through nature or special revelation.

I really think you need to study the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in theology.


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## jwright82

Semper Fidelis said:


> Huh? I'm sorry Phillip but Van Til hardly describes the phenomenal as unknowable apart from Special Revelation. I quoted his very words above and it is quite clear that he views natural revelation as operating historically and in such a way as man knows he needs a Redeemer. He clearly articulates God as revealing Himself in nature. He sees the Curse as revealed in general revelation and not in some noumenal realm. I don't know how much more clearly Van Til could have rejected the Kantian view than he does in my summary above. I'm only left with the impression that you do not really understand the phenomenal/noumenal division of Kantian thought or what Van Til's concern was.



Well Rich, Philip has demonstrated beyond certianty to me that he does understand the philosophical ideas he is laying out. That does not make him correct always but at least possibly so, contra what you just said regarding him. I don't think calling into question his credibuility as a philosopher is any way to engage in a fruitful apologetical debate. He has demonstrated over and over again that he understands the currents of philosophical thought, even though he and I disagree on some things. 



Semper Fidelis said:


> You seem to imply that common sense realism posited a way for man to overcome this rebellion and approach an understanding of "things in themselves" simply by general revelation. The Reformed have always taught that man has no comprehensive knowledge but that all knowledge is apprehended insofar as God reveals it either through nature or special revelation.



As I understand common-sense realism it can be aduquitly adopted to deal with normal everyday experiences. It actually locates itself outside of natural theology in a sense because its basic beleifs are basic not derivied other beleifs in the normal analytical understanding of beleifs. I do think this model breaks down at the presupossiotional level but it is very nice when dealing with everyday beleifs.


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## Semper Fidelis

James,

It's not a matter of denying Phillip's credibility by calling into question his training. One only has to read Van Til's presentation of Natural Revelation, however, to see that he's not operating under a post-Kantian view in some sort of modified noumenal/phenomenal distinction.

In fact, I think the basic problem here is trying to deal with Van Til's thinking primarily along philosophical lines.

Presuppositionalism is not a "bridge" for Van Til's thought as noted. It seems that it's wrong to primarily view this as a philosophical question, strictly speaking, to try and pin down Van Til's concern here. There are always going to be men who try to put things into categories that will fit within a philosophical system of thought and, consequently, what Van Til is noting is forced into some sort of model where his concern is not to provide a "replacement philosophy" so much as to note how man comes to a true knowledge of God.

Mind you, I'm not one to be bothered greatly about whether or not we disagree with Van Til but I am disturbed by a tendency in some to try to push all theology into the realm of philosophy and its categories as men have sought to gain knowledge by beginning with themselves and putting together building blocks as they attempt to construct a view of the world around them and how God fits into it.

The issue of the knowledge of God is not that men reason to God but that God reveals to man. Apart from God regenerating and the Holy Spirit illumining the mind, there is no knowledge of God and man is left in a state of futile thinking. In other words, there is no starting with man and his reason to get to God but God must condescend to reveal Himself. Van Til never would have argued that a dead sinner simply needs to autonomously adopt a Christian presupposition to come to the right answers about the Universe.

For me the verdict is still out on whether or not I agree with Van Til on what his issue was with some of the common sense realists. It wasn't that he didn't respect them but I think he saw the common scholastic methode of "proving God" first before you talk about His attributes as giving too much away to autonomous reason. His concern was that we don't prove God but proclaim Him. God is and it is only by His revealing of Himself that we'll come to a knowledge of Him.

It's interesting to me to see so many readers of Van Til to come to differing ways to form his thoughts into systems of philosophy. Bahnsen's organization of his thought differs from Frame's for instance. Personally, I think the reason Van Til can be pushed into either view, if forced, is that he was not concerned to be put into philosophical system that would be fully comprehended by the mind of man. I'm not saying he was trying to be obscure but was noting that man is never going to approach a knowledge of God through human philosophical systems and I think attempts to categorize Van Til strictly according to them are always going to be wanting.


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## Philip

> Huh? I'm sorry Phillip but Van Til hardly describes the phenomenal as unknowable apart from Special Revelation.



Of course not: that's the noumenal.



> He sees the Curse as revealed in general revelation and not in some noumenal realm. I don't know how much more clearly Van Til could have rejected the Kantian view than he does in my summary above. I'm only left with the impression that you do not really understand the phenomenal/noumenal division of Kantian thought or what Van Til's concern was.



Noumenal: "things in themselves" Phenomenal: "things as they appear." According to Van Til, we do not see _anything_ properly until we are regenerated and have the lens of special revelation. For Van Til, the fall is the reason for such a distinction because the natural man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness.

Understand that I think there is something incredibly right about this: in our natural state, we cannot know God. It has to be God breaking through the barrier, not us at all.



> You seem to imply that common sense realism posited a way for man to overcome this rebellion and approach an understanding of "things in themselves" simply by general revelation.



Not quite. Direct realism (in its Christian forms) takes our cognitive faculties, though affected by the fall, as reliable at some level, even for nonbelievers. The difference lies in what Calvin calls the _Sensus Divinitatus_, which for the unregenerate is either dead or effectively non-functional. The result, for unbelievers, is that though God's revelation is all around them, they do not see it for what it is.

Sometime I need to post some of my work on autonomy and realism and let yall take shots at it (I think Frame's definition of autonomy holds up better than that used by Bahnsen or Van Til in his critiques of realism). 



> I really think you need to study the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in theology.



I probably will, after I get done the massive amounts of reading for Christology and Continental Philosophy this semester.



> I am disturbed by a tendency in some to try to push all theology into the realm of philosophy and its categories as men have sought to gain knowledge by beginning with themselves and putting together building blocks as they attempt to construct a view of the world around them and how God fits into it.



I recall Calvin saying something about it being fine to start with the self (I.1, I believe). I agree that most instances of this do end in autonomy and a God made in our image (a la Descartes, Locke, and Leibniz), but one can also start with the God of the Bible and end in a God made in our image. It's less about starting points and more about attitudes: are you reasoning in autonomy, trusting in yourself, or are you reasoning in faithful dependence? Can God use someone's reason to bring him to faith? Sure. Church history has many examples, from Augustine to C. S. Lewis, of people who searched everywhere and finally found that when pursued faithfully, reason led them to God.

The attitude of the Christian doing philosophy was summed up nicely by the phrase that (cough) Barth identified as central to Anselm's theological/philosophical method: _Fides quaerens intellectum_---faith seeking understanding.


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## Semper Fidelis

P. F. Pugh said:


> According to Van Til, we do not see anything properly until we are regenerated and have the lens of special revelation.


That's not what Van Til writes. Special revelation is not a lens through which man understands natural revelation. Men have fruition in neither special nor natural revelation due to their rebellion. Special revelation serves to convert and regenerate and removes the scales from men's eyes and the rebellion in his heart that keeps him from understanding things as revealed by God.

He notes above that God's revelation is perspicuous (both natural and general revelation) but his rejection of comprehensive knowledge or understanding "things in themselves" is not an issue of agreeing with the phenomenal/noumenal distinction but noting that man, as creature, can never know anything as the Creator does. There is no such thing as "knowledge" or "facts" that exist outside of the Creator that both men and God can access and come to some sort of understanding of.

This really sums up Van Til's thought and is classic archetype/ectype theology: 


Semper Fidelis said:


> Both natural and special revelation would be impossible if God remained incomprehensible as He is in Himself (archetypal theology). Man cannot penetrate God as He is Himself - he cannot comprehend God. But created man may see clearly what is revealed clearly even if he does not see exhaustively. Man need not have exhaustive knowledge in order to know truly and certainly.
> 
> God's thoughts about Himself are self-contained but man is an analogue who thinks in covenant relation to the One who created him. Thus man's interpretation of nature follows what is fully interpreted by God. Man thinks God's thoughts after him - not comprehensively but analogically.



The archetype is God in Himself. The ectype is theology as God has revealed to creatures. This is classic Reformed theology and is not post-Enlightenment by any stretch of the imagination.


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## Philip

> Special revelation serves to convert and regenerate and removes the scales from men's eyes and the rebellion in his heart that keeps him from understanding things as revealed by God.



Again, I don't see how this differs: all that he's done is to change the names of the categories.

It still looks incredibly similar, even with your background. It might have helped if Van Til could have acknowledged that man is his natural state still does know stuff---his knowledge is much more limited, due to the fall and suppression of the truth in unrighteousness, but nonetheless, the natural man does know that there are rocks and trees and skies and seas. Does he comprehend their meaning? No, but if that precludes knowledge, then no human could possibly know anything.


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## jwright82

Semper Fidelis said:


> It's not a matter of denying Phillip's credibility by calling into question his training. One only has to read Van Til's presentation of Natural Revelation, however, to see that he's not operating under a post-Kantian view in some sort of modified noumenal/phenomenal distinction.
> 
> In fact, I think the basic problem here is trying to deal with Van Til's thinking primarily along philosophical lines.
> 
> Presuppositionalism is not a "bridge" for Van Til's thought as noted. It seems that it's wrong to primarily view this as a philosophical question, strictly speaking, to try and pin down Van Til's concern here. There are always going to be men who try to put things into categories that will fit within a philosophical system of thought and, consequently, what Van Til is noting is forced into some sort of model where his concern is not to provide a "replacement philosophy" so much as to note how man comes to a true knowledge of God.



Well he is dealing with epistomology, a philosophical concern. Also many critics of Van Til fail to recognize that he was developing his thought withen a clear theological and philosophical landscape (in Christian Apologetics he says that apologetics deals primaraly with philosophy). His transcendental argument was essentially developed in different forms by idealist philosophers, which he wrote his doctoral thesis on. Your concern is well noted but if your talking theology and he is talking philosophy (particuleriy epistomology), than that is a miscommunication. You can't isolate theology completly from philosophy or historical perspective. I'm all for bringing theological understanding into philosophy. In fact I was just thinking about the archtypical/ectypical distinction provides a nice solution to Kant's thought last week.
I agree that Van Til is not operating under those categories per se, I think that argument is more of logical conclusions and not outright that Van Til is consciously doing so. I am a commited Van Tillian but I used to not be. In fact my ex reminded me the other day that back around 2003-4 I was a member of this site under a different name and I debated a Van Tillian who thought I was outright accusing Van Til of certian things but I was pointing to the logical conclusions I thought he was drawn into, obviously I have come to see the errors in my understanding of Van Til. As far as Van Til goes it took me 12 years of intensive personal study in philosophy to finaly get him. He understood philosophy so threw and threw that he made all these connections that no one else got because they were still looking at all small pieces of the puzzle.


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## Semper Fidelis

P. F. Pugh said:


> Special revelation serves to convert and regenerate and removes the scales from men's eyes and the rebellion in his heart that keeps him from understanding things as revealed by God.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Again, I don't see how this differs: all that he's done is to change the names of the categories.
> 
> It still looks incredibly similar, even with your background. It might have helped if Van Til could have acknowledged that man is his natural state still does know stuff---his knowledge is much more limited, due to the fall and suppression of the truth in unrighteousness, but nonetheless, the natural man does know that there are rocks and trees and skies and seas. Does he comprehend their meaning? No, but if that precludes knowledge, then no human could possibly know anything.
Click to expand...

 
Where does Van Till deny this? When I note that regeneration is necessary for man to have fruition in that knowledge that is not saying that man knows nothing but Van Til never says a man has to know something comprehensively in order to know anything.

I'm sorry Phillip but you're being awfully "broad brush" here. You start a thread essentially accusing Van Til of holding to a modified post-Kantian philosophy by his use of Anselm and provide not a single quote that says: "See, right here Van Til is clearly seen as saying...."

Calvin:


> Section 14. Though irradiated by the wondrous glories of creation, we cease not to follow our own ways.
> 
> In vain for us, therefore, does Creation exhibit so many bright lamps lighted up to show forth the glory of its Author. Though they beam upon us from every quarter, they are altogether insufficient of themselves to lead us into the right path. Some sparks, undoubtedly, they do throw out; but these are quenched before they can give forth a brighter effulgence. Wherefore, the apostle, in the very place where he says that the worlds are images of invisible things, adds that it is by faith we understand that they were framed by the word of God, (Heb 11: 3) thereby intimating that the invisible Godhead is indeed represented by such displays, but that we have no eyes to perceive it until they are enlightened through faith by internal revelation from God. When Paul says that that which may be known of God is manifested by the creation of the world, he does not mean such a manifestation as may be comprehended by the wit of man, (Rom 1: 19) on the contrary, he shows that it has no further effect than to render us inexcusable, (Acts 17: 27) And though he says, elsewhere, that we have not far to seek for God, inasmuch as he dwells within us, he shows, in another passage, to what extent this nearness to God is availing. God, says he, "in times past, suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness," (Acts 14: 16, 17) But though God is not left without a witness, while, with numberless varied acts of kindness, he woos men to the knowledge of himself, yet they cease not to follow their own ways, in other words, deadly errors.





> Section 11. The second part of the chapter, which describes the stupidity both of learned and unlearned, in ascribing the whole order of things, and the admirable arrangements of divine Providence, to fortune.
> 
> Bright, however, as is the manifestation which God gives
> 
> both of himself and his immortal kingdom in the mirror of his works, so great is our stupidity, so dull are we in regard to these bright manifestations, that we derive no benefit from them. For in regard to the fabric and admirable arrangement of the universe, how few of us are there who, in lifting our eyes to the heavens, or looking abroad on the various regions of the earth, ever think of the Creator? Do we not rather overlook Him, and sluggishly content ourselves with a view of his works? And then in regard to supernatural events, though these are occurring every day, how few are there who ascribe them to the ruling providence of God - how many who imagine that they are casual results produced by the blind evolutions of the wheel of chance? Even when under the guidance and direction of these events, we are in a manner forced to the contemplation of God, (a circumstance which all must occasionally experience,) and are thus led to form some impressions of Deity, we immediately fly off to carnal dreams and depraved fictions, and so by our vanity corrupt heavenly truth. This far, indeed, we differ from each other, in that every one appropriates to himself some peculiar error; but we are all alike in this, that we substitute monstrous fictions for the one living and true God - a disease not confined to obtuse and vulgar minds, but affecting the noblest, and those who, in other respects, are singularly acute. How lavishly in this respect have the whole body of philosophers betrayed their stupidity and want of sense? To say nothing of the others whose absurdities are of a still grosser description, how completely does Plato, the soberest and most religious of them all, lose himself in his round globe?[8] What must be the case with the rest, when the leaders, who ought to have set them an example, commit such blunders, and labour under such hallucinations? In like manner, while the government of the world places the doctrine of providence beyond dispute, the practical result is the same as if it were believed that all things were carried hither and thither at the caprice of chance; so prone are we to vanity and error. I am still referring to the most distinguished of the philosophers, and not to the common herd, whose madness in profaning the truth of God exceeds all bounds.


I don't see any substantive difference between Calvin and Van Til on this point. Neither deny that men have some knowledge but that knowledge is ultimately twisted. Van Til and Calvin both recognized the glory that is man (as created in the image of God). Men even have marvelous gifts but they use these, in a sense, as weapons of war against God or take credit for them as belonging to themselves.

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## Semper Fidelis

jwright82 said:


> Well he is dealing with epistomology, a philosophical concern.


Depending upon how one defines "philsophy". I think it is first a _theological_ concern. Epistemology is not a subject that stands as a set of facts for men to organize using the function of their minds to make sense of but knowledge is God's self-revelation.

I think the reason people see Van Til as primarily being concerned with epistemology as a proper philsophical science is that he had such pointed critiques about how philsophy operating according to the kingdom of this world can never provide the answers it seeks to discover because it begins and ends with man.

Consider this Scripture about how knowledge is said to come to disciples:



> *Luke 10:21-22* 21 In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
> 
> *John 16:7-15* - 7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
> 
> *1 Corinthians 2:6–16* - 6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. 14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.



This is the kind of knowledge that I believe Van Til was concerned with.


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## Philip

> accusing Van Til of holding to a modified post-Kantian philosophy by his use of Anselm



Back up here: I am not _accusing_ Van Til of anything. Calling him "post-Kantian" is not intended to indicate where he is morally, but where his thought is coming from. No thinker writes in a vacuum: we all know this. To say "He is essentially Calvinist" is simply to state the obvious: we all knew that. Obviously, he's drawing on Calvin and obviously he dislikes Barth and his ilk. My question is whether there is more in common than either would have been likely to admit. I'm not assigning blame here, just trying to figure out how it fits together (unlike most of you, I don't view the statement "he's similar to Barth" as necessarily a put-down).

My point in bringing up Anselm was to wonder why exactly Van Til devotes a total of one sentence in _Defense of the Faith_ to such an important figure. His only comment is a complimentary, "yeah he's good: he's on our side." I found it peculiar because a) this statement shows that Van Til _really knows_ Anselm b) despite this fact, Van Til says nothing more. Is it simply that Van Til is in a rush? The size of the book makes that unlikely. Or is it that Van Til agrees with Barth and doesn't want to admit it? Again, I'm not blaming him, merely trying to figure out what the deal is---I was pleasantly surprised to find that Van Til likes Anselm.



> Van Til never says a man has to know something comprehensively in order to know anything.



So what about the idea that there is no epistemic common ground between believer and unbeliever? Van Til's whole transcendental project is something that could only have been conceived post-Kant.

Something I probably should have brought up earlier, too, is the radical divide in Western Philosophy that took place in the late 18th century. David Hume was famous for destroying the empiricist project utterly. The result looked like skepticism, so two philosophers made it their business to refute him. The first, of course, was Immanuel Kant. This is the mainstream view up until the 20th Century, when the real break between analytic and continental philosophy takes place. Neo-Calvinism, and therefore Van Til, is coming out of the post-Kant scene, which means that they are dealing with Hegelianism and Kantian thought, and are thinking in those categories.

The second answer, though, came from Thomas Reid, an ordained Church of Scotland minister who served as librarian at the University of Aberdeen. Reid advocated the "Philosophy of Common Sense" or "Direct Realism." His solution is to take inventory of our beliefs, to identify their origins, and then to ground them. The grounding faculty that he identifies is that of "credulity" or belief-willingness. He argues that the reason why we should believe our senses and other cognitive faculties, is because they are given to us by God. Granted, Reid is not doing theology, so he's not going to discuss noetic effects of the fall or even Christian belief persay: however, Reid's work would become the mainstream answer to Hume in America and Scotland. This is the basis of Dabney's apologetic, as well as the assumed approach of Old Princeton. So far as I know, Van Til was unaware of Reid, which is why he is somewhat unfair to Old Princeton (in the 20th century, analytic philosophy would come up with a non-theistic version of "common-sense realism" that is laughable in its attempts to dismiss Christian belief).

Because Van Til's background is in the former tradition, with a later exposure to the latter, he ends up looking more like Kuyper and Dooyeweerd than Hodge and Warfield, and therefore more like a post-Kantian than like the Scottish School of Common Sense.


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## Semper Fidelis

P. F. Pugh said:


> My point in bringing up Anselm was to wonder why exactly Van Til devotes a total of one sentence in Defense of the Faith to such an important figure. His only comment is a complimentary, "yeah he's good: he's on our side." I found it peculiar because a) this statement shows that Van Til really knows Anselm b) despite this fact, Van Til says nothing more. Is it simply that Van Til is in a rush?



I don't know, provide the quote in context so it can be discussed. What's he driving at where he mentions Anselm in passing?



P. F. Pugh said:


> So far as I know, Van Til was unaware of Reid, which is why he is somewhat unfair to Old Princeton



How do you know he wasn't aware of Common-sense realism? In what way is he "unfair" to Old Princeton? Again, provide some specific quotes to interact with.

You're assuming an awful lot here by "association" and what stream he came out of. He might have been Dutch but spent his entire career at Princeton and then Westminster.


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## MW

Semper Fidelis said:


> I'm sorry Phillip but you're being awfully "broad brush" here. You start a thread essentially accusing Van Til of holding to a modified post-Kantian philosophy by his use of Anselm and provide not a single quote that says: "See, right here Van Til is clearly seen as saying...."


 
I remember Nash compared Van Til's disconnect between man's knowledge and God's knowledge with Hume and Kant's disconnect between the real and perceived world. It is a strained comparison, to say the least.


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## jwright82

Semper Fidelis said:


> Depending upon how one defines "philsophy". I think it is first a theological concern. Epistemology is not a subject that stands as a set of facts for men to organize using the function of their minds to make sense of but knowledge is God's self-revelation.


Philosophy is defined as the logical analysis of reality. Epistomology has a history to it, one that Van Til clearly understood. Theology provides us christians with the presupossitions that we frame a worldview around and withen that worldview are answers to questions of epistomology. A practical warning, never underestemate philosophical concerns, Van Til didn't, becauase you are doomed to never see certian logical objections against your argument that you would have seen had you taken philosophy serious.



Semper Fidelis said:


> I think the reason people see Van Til as primarily being concerned with epistemology as a proper philsophical science is that he had such pointed critiques about how philsophy operating according to the kingdom of this world can never provide the answers it seeks to discover because it begins and ends with man.



Your mistaken about Van Til here. No commentator of him would ever suggest that he was not entering into philosophical analysis (see Frame, Bahnsen and Van Til's book Christian Apologetics). If you are suggesting that he was not intemently involved in philosophical concerns is simply, if that is what you mean, to be very naive about Van Til or his successors. He did philosophy, his most gifted successors did philosophy too. 



Semper Fidelis said:


> This is the kind of knowledge that I believe Van Til was concerned with.


Rich, these scriptures do not invalidate a philosophical dimension to Van Til's thought. In fact if you do not admit such a dimension, which I am not saying you do, than you do not understand Van Til. Again it took me 12 years to understand the philosophy behind Bahnsen and Van Til.


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## Philip

> I don't know, provide the quote in context so it can be discussed. What's he driving at where he mentions Anselm in passing?



The context of the quote is his analysis of the history of epistemology. Unfortunately I don't have the book here---if I have time, I'll go and find it.



> How do you know he wasn't aware of Common-sense realism?



He's not unaware of common-sense realism, he's unaware of Reid---Reid wasn't well-known in the academic world in the early 20th century and was only rediscovered (by analytic philosophers) in the later 20th century (Plantinga, for example, is heavily influenced by Reid). I'm guessing that Warfield, Hodge, and Old Princeton didn't lay out a systematic epistemology in their work: they left that to Reid and the philosophers. 

Again, I'll have to go back and look at what I read up on---I actually worked more with Bahnsen's critique of Schaeffer than I did with the critiques of Old Princeton.


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## Philip

Ok, so I took a study break to check up on the relevant passges:

The quote on Anselm is a passing reference in _Survey of Christian Epistemology_ where Van Til puts him as the Augustinian opponent of Abelard. Also, he clearly has _Proslogion_ in mind (it's referenced as a source).

I also have _Defense of the Faith_ in hand, where Van Til critiques "less consistent Calvinists" (ie: Warfield and Hodge) as not taking the fall and our suppression of truth in unrighteousness seriously enough. If this were all he were saying, I'd admit it, and move on.

However, Van Til ends up arguing (V, III) that any sort of "common sense" notions reached outside a Christian framework must be categorically rejected as autonomous and opposed to God, being products of a depraved mind. Instead he offers a story in which we suppress the truth in unrighteousness and any facts that the unbeliever knows are just proof that he has done so.

Here's the trouble: first, I don't think that Van Til takes the doctrine of common grace seriously enough here. Second, I don't think his phenomenology of how we come to our beliefs reflects reality. How did I come to believe that there is a desk in front of me? I saw it: I did not go through any sort of chain of reasoning to get there---I just looked and found myself believing that there was a desk. Now, a believer and an unbeliever are going to have radically different stories about why they trust the senses (sometimes the unbeliever will have no story at all), but they can agree on some basic reliability of the senses. The phenomenon is a given: the question is how you ground it.


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## MW

P. F. Pugh said:


> However, Van Til ends up arguing (V, III) that any sort of "common sense" notions reached outside a Christian framework must be categorically rejected as autonomous and opposed to God, being products of a depraved mind. Instead he offers a story in which we suppress the truth in unrighteousness and any facts that the unbeliever knows are just proof that he has done so.



We must remember a basic point for Van Til: "we may observe that all the various methods of investigation that have been advanced may be used theistically or they may be used antitheistically, according as God is taken into or is left out of consideration at the outset" (SCE, 202). What is claimed for common sense realism would apply to any theory of knowledge which did not begin with the self-attesting God of Scripture.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Here's the trouble: first, I don't think that Van Til takes the doctrine of common grace seriously enough here.


 
He devoted a complete work to the subject.


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## Semper Fidelis

jwright82 said:


> Rich, these scriptures do not invalidate a philosophical dimension to Van Til's thought. In fact if you do not admit such a dimension, which I am not saying you do, than you do not understand Van Til. Again it took me 12 years to understand the philosophy behind Bahnsen and Van Til.



James,

Your responses to my post indicate you complete missed my point.

I didn't say that Van Til was unconcerned with philosophy and I wasn't asking for a definition to philosophy in my response. The scriptures I posted were apropos because there is a knowledge of God that cannot simply be arrived at no matter how hard a man tries to arrive at it. Of course, Van Til understood and cared about philosophy. I care too but it, as it operates according to the "wisdom of this age" it does not arrive at true knowledge.

It's not that I haven't read Bahnsen, Frame, and many others but I'm also somewhat studied on Calvin and some of the early Reformers. More fundamentally, I study the Scriptures and God has condescended to make me alive and reveal things to this babe.

Ponder on the Scriptures I quoted and consider this question: if there is knowledge that _God has not revealed_ to the wisdom of this age then how is that knowledge to be articulated according to the "philosophical organization" of the wisdom of this age? Is it merely a re-shuffling or re-prioritization of the standard concepts of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics or is there something outside of the approach to knowledge that Biblical wisdom seeks? (Incidentally, these are rhetorical questions that I do not want you to answer. I want you to ponder things like the fact that the Lord _learned_ obedience through His suffering.)

If the only grid by which one can primarily see the issue of knowledge is a philosophical category of epistemology and how such things are organized then one is only going to see Van Til's concern along those lines. They're going to miss the primary theological concern about knowledge being about Revelation rather than simply trying to counter-propose a new epistemological paradigm around which to form a new "wisdom of this age". 

That is to say, Van Til is saying in effect: "Yes, I know how philosophy has sought to understand life, knowledge, and being but here is the primary pursuit of the Christian...." If one truly grasps what Van Til is speaking about then there is a knowledge that Van Til is concerned with that is beyond the grasp of any man as he seeks, by his power, to take it. That knowledge has to be granted him by God and it only comes to babes and not those who would seek to be wise according to the wisdom of this age.


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## jwright82

Semper Fidelis said:


> I didn't say that Van Til was unconcerned with philosophy and I wasn't asking for a definition to philosophy in my response. The scriptures I posted were apropos because there is a knowledge of God that cannot simply be arrived at no matter how hard a man tries to arrive at it. Of course, Van Til understood and cared about philosophy. I care too but it, as it operates according to the "wisdom of this age" it does not arrive at true knowledge.



Well it seems that we are both missing eachother's points. I am sorry that I missed your point, I will be more dillegent to understand your points in the future. But you have missed my points too. Ever since I joined this site I have defended a pretty strong view of Van Tillian Apologetics. I have never to my mind made a statment that suggested that man could through his own auotonomous reason arive at knowledge about God. God must reveal Himself to us for us to have any knowledge of Him, albeit analogical knowledge. It appears to me that you think that was my point. If you did think that than you will be happy to know that that is not what I think. 

As far as your view of philosophy goes and Van Til I think we are also in agreement there, If I understand you. I would like to point a distinction about philosophy that Van Til made at least implicitly. Philosophy, like science, has two distinct ways in which it can be talked about. 
1. As a historical attempt by people to interpret reality from their own autonomous perspective. In this sense we can call these philosophies in the plural sense. This is the sense in which you seem to be talking about philosophy exclusivly. 
2. As a normative creational aspect of the logical nature or element of things, it is an awkward metaphysical situation to describe. In this sense of term, which I primaraly meant, philosophers (christian or otherwise) deal with and study the same criteria you could say. We use our own pressupositions to interpret them, our's come from God's revealed word. In the sense there is a commonality between the beleiver and the unbeleiver. 

So in the first sense, which Van Til always meant when criticizing an unbeleiving philosopy, there is in principle no commonality between the beleiver and unbeleiver. The second sense would include logical principles and the questions of philosophy. We as beleivers take our general views about reality from scripture and work out our own biblical answers to these questions utilizing the normative logical principles that God created us with. The indescernability of indenticals was a logical principle before the fall and it will be to the end of time, and probably beyond. That is that if two things are exactly the same or indentical than there can be no difference between them in regards to predication, or to assighn an attribute to something. 

I like to point these distinctions out to people who may not understand (I don't mean you but other people who might be reading this discussion in curiousity) Van Til can better understand him, even if they disagree. When I was not a Van Tillian it used to drive me crazy when Van Tillians would just sort of seemingly parrot Van Til's phrases and not explain to me the apparant contradictions in what he said. So I as a strong supporter of Van Til now have vowed never to do that. I always try to explain what he was saying rather than just quote him. I try to explain, probably not that well, these apparrant contradictions away. In fact it is a passion of mine to Van Tillianize the church as much as possible, that is to say to get people thinking about these things and apply him in their own lives. 

As far as my defense of Phillip's OP question or argument is that he and I are both well versed in philosophy and what he said was what philosophers do. We as Van Tillians should always be checking ourselves and others for our philosophical pressupositions, are we operating with biblical presupossitions or apostate ones? To make the argument he made is not forieghn to my ears because although I think he is somewhat mistaken he is doing what philosophers do. That is how we talk when we get together. So that is why I took no offense to it but treated it as a legitmate argument worthy of discussion.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Here's the trouble: first, I don't think that Van Til takes the doctrine of common grace seriously enough here. Second, I don't think his phenomenology of how we come to our beliefs reflects reality. How did I come to believe that there is a desk in front of me? I saw it: I did not go through any sort of chain of reasoning to get there---I just looked and found myself believing that there was a desk. Now, a believer and an unbeliever are going to have radically different stories about why they trust the senses (sometimes the unbeliever will have no story at all), but they can agree on some basic reliability of the senses. The phenomenon is a given: the question is how you ground it.



This is one area of Van Til's thought that is in my opinion underdeveloped, how we come to aquire beleifs. He was open to many different methods without a clear worked out theory. He was mainly concerned with sets of beleifs or worldviews. The point he is making about unbeleivers is not unlike the distinction I made between different sense of the word philosophy. The unbeleiver is an "awkward mixture" to use Banhsen's discription. In principle the unbeleiver cannot know anything at all, that is in principle not in actuality. The difference is that they will always be collecting info about creation and be interpreting that based on their faulty autonomous principles which guarantees a certian very fundemental level of untruth in their worldviews, they will always have skewed vision you could say. On the pschological level we all share many of the same beleifs because we inhabit the same world. Epistomologically, or how Van Til used the phrase theory of knowledge, we have different ultimate authorities. The issue of authority in epistomology was essential to Van Til's thought. 

To the unbeleiver their ultimate authority is themselves. The problem from evil is on the one hand essentially as misguided view that God must have a good reason, one that they agree with of course, for allowing evil. But who decides what a good reason is? The unbeleiver who is at emnity to God in their thinking, they will have a fairer perception of what constitutes a good reason? I don't think so. For us we demend no such good reason from God because we know from the bible that He owes us no explinaition for what He does.

So the unbeleiver will spout about rationality being the ultimate authority for them. But what they mean is a philosophy or system of what they think constitues rationality rather than just the creational normative aspect of logical laws. Think John Rawls, he doesn't argue that the principle of logic should decide what reasons can be given in the public square but some view of a privileged unbiased (especially nonreligous) reasons, whatever those are, that one must submit their argument to for it to be allowed in the public square. Wolterstorf does a nice job of showing the internal contradictions or unreasonableness of this view.

So what Van Til was against was putting some set of reasons or basic beleifs up that everyone could agree on as the ultimate authority in epistomological matters and now the beleif in God must pass this test as well as the bible. To different people who disagree at the most basic religous will have trouble with compliling such a list. Don't confuse his distinction between philosophy and philosophies, when making those extreme statments of principles he was refering to phlosophies of various unbeleivers, not the normative excersize of philosophical or logical thought.


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## Philip

armourbearer said:


> What is claimed for common sense realism would apply to any theory of knowledge which did not begin with the self-attesting God of Scripture.



It's at precisely this point that I take issue with Van Til. He takes it as a given that "starting point" and "standard" are necessarily the same. This is not the case. One does not simply start with God in a vacuum, one starts with what one has where one is. Again, I would point to Augustine: did his journey to faith begin with God? No! What he found, though, was that when pursued to its conclusion with Truth as its object, reason leads one to God. This is why he could say, "all Truth is God's Truth." 

I think it's helpful at this point to show the distinction between the two attitudes through a contrast: between Thomas Reid and G.E. Moore.

Thomas Reid, the father of Common Sense Realism (which was really just a throwback to pre-Cartesian assumptions) embraced the fact that our beliefs must be grounded in God. He takes it as a given (contra Hume) that God exists and is the ground for our basic beliefs. His argument is, "Our senses are God-given, therefore we can trust them." 

G.E. Moore, the 20th century logician and father of analytic philosophy, wrote an essay defending common sense thinking. However, in the middle of it, he abruptly dismisses belief in God as groundless. This section is so jarring and abrupt as to make me think that he really did see clearly that if pursued, his line of thinking would lead one to God. He didn't want to accept this conclusion, so he denied it from the outset.

That's the difference between autonomy and faithful dependence.



jwright82 said:


> So what Van Til was against was putting some set of reasons or basic beleifs up that everyone could agree on as the ultimate authority in epistomological matters and now the beleif in God must pass this test as well as the bible.



Putting basic beliefs as the ultimate authority is shortsighted. My basic belief set includes such beliefs as "there is a desk in front of me", "the world is more than five minutes old", and "there are other minds." These beliefs are basic because I trust (credulity) certain authorities: namely, my senses, my memories, and my reason.

This is why I do not agree that putting my belief in God through the same sort of tests that I put my belief in this desk through is not justified. Of course it's justified! It's a basic belief! I don't believe in God because of some argument or even because He's a nice second-order belief for me to ground my trust in the senses with: I believe in God in a basic way because I have the _Sensus Divinitatus_ which has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit.



> In principle the unbeleiver cannot know anything at all, that is in principle not in actuality.



Principles should reflect actuality. Our epistemology needs to be at least partially descriptive.


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## MW

P. F. Pugh said:


> It's at precisely this point that I take issue with Van Til. He takes it as a given that "starting point" and "standard" are necessarily the same. This is not the case. One does not simply start with God in a vacuum, one starts with what one has where one is. Again, I would point to Augustine: did his journey to faith begin with God? No! What he found, though, was that when pursued to its conclusion with Truth as its object, reason leads one to God. This is why he could say, "all Truth is God's Truth."


 
I believe the usual presuppositional response to the idea of beginning with a search for truth is to simply point out the idolatry of exalting impersonal truth to the status of something which one should spend one's life in search of obtaining.


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## Philip

> I believe the usual presuppositional response to the idea of beginning with a search for truth is to simply point out the idolatry of exalting impersonal truth to the status of something which one should spend one's life in search of obtaining.



Can one begin where one is not? Is all Truth God's Truth or is it not?


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## MW

P. F. Pugh said:


> Can one begin where one is not? Is all Truth God's Truth or is it not?


 
See WCF 7.1. Seeking for truth as blessedness is idolatry. Knowing truth as God's covenantal condescension will set you free.


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## Semper Fidelis

armourbearer said:


> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> It's at precisely this point that I take issue with Van Til. He takes it as a given that "starting point" and "standard" are necessarily the same. This is not the case. One does not simply start with God in a vacuum, one starts with what one has where one is. Again, I would point to Augustine: did his journey to faith begin with God? No! What he found, though, was that when pursued to its conclusion with Truth as its object, reason leads one to God. This is why he could say, "all Truth is God's Truth."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I believe the usual presuppositional response to the idea of beginning with a search for truth is to simply point out the idolatry of exalting impersonal truth to the status of something which one should spend one's life in search of obtaining.
Click to expand...

 
Indeed. "All Truth is God's Truth" not because there are impersonal "truths" that stand apart from God's revelation but because God is a revealer. One only has to read Augustine's Confessions to see him constantly praising God for every aspect of his knowledge. It wasn't a matter of what *Augustine* thought he was pursuing when he began his philosophical inquiries but what the Creator was molding and unfolding. Augustine would certainly be shocked to have his words twisted that "All Truth is God's Truth" meant that there was a moment in his life where his reason led him to understand impersonal truths that stood apart from but built up to a personal God.


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## Afterthought

Excuse me for budging in, but if this is all so, how can one seek truth without being idolatrous (is that even possible?)?


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## Semper Fidelis

Augustine:



> CHAPTER VIII
> 
> 13. Did I not, then, as I grew out of infancy, come next to boyhood, or rather did it not come to me and succeed my infancy? My infancy did not go away (for where would it go?). It was simply no longer present; and I was no longer an infant who could not speak, but now a chattering boy. I remember this, and I have since observed how I learned to speak. My elders did not teach me words by rote, as they taught me my letters afterward. But I myself, when I was unable to communicate all I wished to say to whomever I wished by means of whimperings and grunts and various gestures of my limbs (which I used to reinforce my demands), I myself repeated the sounds already stored in my memory by the mind which thou, O my God, hadst given me. When they called some thing by name and pointed it out while they spoke, I saw it and realized that the thing they wished to indicate was called by the name they then uttered. And what they meant was made plain by the gestures of their bodies, by a kind of natural language, common to all nations, which expresses itself through changes of countenance, glances of the eye, gestures and intonations which indicate a disposition and attitude--either to seek or to possess, to reject or to avoid. So it was that by frequently hearing words, in different phrases, I gradually identified the objects which the words stood for and, having formed my mouth to repeat these signs, I was thereby able to express my will. Thus I exchanged with those about me the verbal signs by which we express our wishes and advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life, depending all the while upon the authority of my parents and the behest of my elders.





> CHAPTER XII
> 
> 19. But in this time of childhood--which was far less dreaded for me than my adolescence--I had no love of learning, and hated to be driven to it. Yet I was driven to it just the same, and good was done for me, even though I did not do it well, for I would not have learned if I had not been forced to it. For no man does well against his will, even if what he does is a good thing. Neither did they who forced me do well, but the good that was done me came from thee, my God. For they did not care about the way in which I would use what they forced me to learn, and took it for granted that it was to satisfy the inordinate desires of a rich beggary and a shameful glory. But thou, Lord, by whom the hairs of our head are numbered, didst use for my good the error of all who pushed me on to study: but my error in not being willing to learn thou didst use for my punishment. And I--though so small a boy yet so great a sinner--was not punished without warrant. Thus by the instrumentality of those who did not do well, thou didst well for me; and by my own sin thou didst justly punish me. For it is even as thou hast ordained: that every inordinate affection brings on its own punishment.


Augustine, everywhere, thanks God for the most mundane of Providences.


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## Semper Fidelis

Afterthought said:


> Excuse me for budging in, but if this is all so, how can one seek truth without being idolatrous (is that even possible?)?


 
What Matthew has in view is the seeking of knowledge as blessedness apart from God. That is to say, when Paul says that Greeks pursue wisdom, he's referring to an idolatrous pursuit of the wisdom of this age with no reference to the Creator.

I believe the Book of Ecclesiastes is a prime example of Scripture warning about this kind of pursuit of wisdom and knowledge "under the Sun" in contradistinction from the Book of Proverbs that sees Lady Wisdom as standing at the top of the street calling out to all men to heed her.


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## Philip

> Indeed. "All Truth is God's Truth" not because there are impersonal "truths" that stand apart from God's revelation but because God is a revealer.



And if one seeks this truth truly, then one is not reasoning in autonomy. General revelation can lead one to God just as surely as special revelation can. It is the spirit in which one reasons, not the starting point from which one starts.


----------



## Semper Fidelis

P. F. Pugh said:


> Indeed. "All Truth is God's Truth" not because there are impersonal "truths" that stand apart from God's revelation but because God is a revealer.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And if one seeks this truth truly, then one is not reasoning in autonomy. General revelation can lead one to God just as surely as special revelation can. It is the spirit in which one reasons, not the starting point from which one starts.
Click to expand...

 
Philip,

It may be that we're agreeing violently.

I don't believe one has to be _cognizant_ of how God's revelation is acting upon him. That revelation is acting upon a man is axiomatic. How a man understands he comes to understand things is another. I don't believe the issue is really haggling over whether or not some men think they came to understand certain things but that, ultimately, we are to understand God is the revealer of all truth and no fact stands apart from Him. I believe this is Van Til's main point - knowledge is bound up in Revelation. Read what I quoted Van Til states about natural revelation above again and you'll see that. This is the essence of the theology of the ectype.


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> Excuse me for budging in, but if this is all so, how can one seek truth without being idolatrous (is that even possible?)?


 
In context, one cannot seek "truth" apart from God without being idolatrous. Why seek it? Why rest upon it when it is found? It could only be because some absolute value is given to the truth which belongs to God alone. It is one thing to believe truth because God is truth itself and all truth is of God; it is altogether different to seek for truth in the place of God and ascribe God's attributes to the truth. The first acknowledges the rightful Owner of truth while the latter violently dispossess the Owner of what is rightfully His.


----------



## Philip

Rich,

I think maybe we are just agreeing violently. I tend to look at epistemology from a phenomenological standpoint: that is, I'm more interested in the internal story of how one comes to true faith. When I look at someone like Augustine, I see a man who looked everywhere but God for Truth and finally realized that if he was to really be a lover of Truth, he had to be a lover of God first.

It probably doesn't help our communication that when I see the term "revelation" used, I usually interpret it as "special revelation."



> I don't believe one has to be cognizant of how God's revelation is acting upon him.



Let's be honest, is any of us really cognizant until after the fact?


----------



## Semper Fidelis

P. F. Pugh said:


> Rich,
> 
> I think maybe we are just agreeing violently. I tend to look at epistemology from a phenomenological standpoint: that is, I'm more interested in the internal story of how one comes to true faith. When I look at someone like Augustine, I see a man who looked everywhere but God for Truth and finally realized that if he was to really be a lover of Truth, he had to be a lover of God first.
> 
> It probably doesn't help our communication that when I see the term "revelation" used, I usually interpret it as "special revelation."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't believe one has to be cognizant of how God's revelation is acting upon him.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Let's be honest, is any of us really cognizant until after the fact?
Click to expand...

 
I don't think we're very cognizant of a lot of things. One of the profound things about Augustine's Confessions is the manner in which he praises God for all of the Providences that led him. A pastor friend of mine noted that one of the things he's noticed in people that begin to deny the faith is that they don't have a sense of God's Providence over all things. If we see our lives (including our knowledge) being in His Sovereign Hands then we may retrospectively look at moments in our lives and marvel how He revealed things to us. This was not _immediate_ revelation but mediate. He formed our minds and, not only so, used a host of instructors to impart knowledge unto us.

It is interesting if you step back for a moment and think how like our conversation might be to a Calvinist arguing with an Arminian. The Arminian keeps objecting because, phenomenologically, he states that _he_ believed and he remembers the details how he first understood spiritual things. He sees the Calvinist as stating that God had to make him alive as amounting to "God forcing him to believe" or "God believing for him". We understand the principle but it's hard for some to get behind what is being stated. Furthermore, we don't preach to anyone to wait to believe until God has regenerated them. Nevertheless, we understand that God is the author of salvation and we, who have eyes to see, retrospectively give glory to God for all the good He has done for us.

I believe Van Til's concern is primarily apologetic. He speaks imprecisely at times but I see his concern as limited to the issue of how the _Christian_ is to understand these things. If the Christian understands that knowledge is the fruit of God's constant revelation after he becomes aware of this fact, does he abandon that understanding and adopt philosophical ideas that deny what he now understands? In other words, I believe Van Til brings up Anselm because Anselm is criticizing Abelard for reasoning as if he's an unbeliever and has no light. Abelard's objections, Anselm noted, were as a scoffer would reason and not one who believes.

Thus, I think it's important to recognize that Van Til nowhere denies mediate knowledge nor that men gain knowledge through natural revelation and common grace. He even states repeatedly that men borrow from the Christian religion in order to reason. He never denies their gifts nor some of the light that's manifest in them. His concern is that he can see underneath and behind all the methods and see them as media for the God Who is the revealer. He reminds us not to give this up in our dialog. He reminds us that in our conversations with an unbeliever that we are never to gain "common ground" by agreeing with the unbeliever that God is nowhere in the room when we're reasoning together and destroying objections. It doesn't mean that we have to tell the unbeliever to follow a certain discursive method to reason to God but it is an awareness that every moment is lived Coram Deo and that we can never abandon this and assume knowledge or any fact stands outside of Him.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Putting basic beliefs as the ultimate authority is shortsighted. My basic belief set includes such beliefs as "there is a desk in front of me", "the world is more than five minutes old", and "there are other minds." These beliefs are basic because I trust (credulity) certain authorities: namely, my senses, my memories, and my reason.
> 
> This is why I do not agree that putting my belief in God through the same sort of tests that I put my belief in this desk through is not justified. Of course it's justified! It's a basic belief! I don't believe in God because of some argument or even because He's a nice second-order belief for me to ground my trust in the senses with: I believe in God in a basic way because I have the Sensus Divinitatus which has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit.



Well you still involve yourself in a circuler argument in that you think your Sensuses are operating fine but you do not know because there is no outside them. So round and round you go with the question of faith in your Sensuses. But did my explination of what Van Til meant make more sense?


P. F. Pugh said:


> Principles should reflect actuality. Our epistemology needs to be at least partially descriptive.



Depending upon what you mean by descriptive please elaborate. What it sayd here is a hypothetical situation since the unbeleiver is seeking to supress the truth of God in unritoussness if they could consistantly work this worldview out it would because of its starting principles be completly false, if they could than they would deny everytruth they could. But they do not live in this hypothetical world in fact metaphysically speaking they are made in the image of God so every time they use this image to deny God they are in fact contradicting themselves, this a point of contact between the two sides. Also they live in God's creation so no worldview or theory who starts without that assumption can yeild truth. But unbeleivers do make truthful statements and do make cultural advancements. Is it because God's creation hides the fact that it is creation from the scientist or they are psychologically betraying their most fundemental presupossition, that they are god and God is not. That is why we can point out the inconsistencies in their worldview. They cannot in practice work out their worldview.
Your view works well in deciding trivial common everyday beleifs. The same issues of justification and authority are there but on a much less important level. So I would adopt your scheme to decide if I should listen to my brother's advice on which is the best route to a particuler destination without looking at his ultimate presupossitions in life. So I would say that your scheme works well at a particuler everyday level and not at a broad entire worldview level. Just Van Til works well at the broad worldview level but not so much at the particuler everyday level.

---------- Post added at 12:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:03 PM ----------




Afterthought said:


> Excuse me for budging in, but if this is all so, how can one seek truth without being idolatrous (is that even possible?)?


 
It depends on how you define truth and what truth you are seeking. The unbeleiver does not want to seek God's truth so they try not to, which is impossible to do in practice. Also there are many different theories of what truth is, each one has its own pros and cons. I follow Bahnsen who pointed out that the beleiver out to accept all the theories in their pros and not limit ourselves to a particuler theory of truth. Truth corresponds to its object, it coheres to other truths, it is pragamtic in that a true theory should work, but most importantly things are true if the line up with God's revealation about things.


----------



## Philip

> Well you still involve yourself in a circuler argument in that you think your Sensuses are operating fine but you do not know because there is no outside them.



What exactly are you getting at? I'm not sure what was circular there. A sense is simply a cognitive faculty, so of course there's no getting outside them: why would I want to?

Now, in philosophy I can provide a nice theory of how they work and why, but the beliefs remain regardless of the theory.



> if they could than they would deny every truth they could.



Why think this? Again, I would point you to G.E. Moore, who is interested in knowing stuff about the world: he's just not interested in knowing God. 



> if they could consistantly work this worldview out it would because of its starting principles be completly false



Again, what do you mean by "starting principles." This presupposes that all people have an internalist coherentist epistemology. It only applies if we all work deductively outward from a few starting principles to formulate a theory of knowledge. The trouble is that no one actually does it. I did not reason from God's existence to the fact that I have hands---both are basic beliefs. I know of non-theistic systems that believe that we have hands. I know of non-theistic systems that doubt that we have hands (Gordon Clark comes to mind). The two beliefs may be independent of each other, depending on the type of system.

I happen to have an externalist and foundationalist view of epistemology because, frankly, it reflects the way in which our beliefs are actually formed. 



> They cannot in practice work out their worldview.



Neither can we (Romans 7). 



> Depending upon what you mean by descriptive please elaborate.



I mean this: our epistemology needs to be able to not only provide not only explanations for why unbelievers deny God, but also for how they know a lot of the same stuff we do. One transcendental argument does not demand another (I've checked with a couple logicians). 



> Is it because God's creation hides the fact that it is creation from the scientist or they are psychologically betraying their most fundemental presupossition, that they are god and God is not



Yes.

The trouble with Van Til is that he wants everything to be nice and smooth and logical. He wants to give us a method for worldview analysis that works on everything: apologetic versions of duct tape and WD40 (the only things you really need for home improvement, so it's claimed). The trouble is that it ain't so: worldviews are messy animals that defy simple categories. I don't think there is one method that works on every worldview or even on every variation within a worldview. We in our fallenness are the kind of people who, to quote Lewis Carroll, "believe six impossible things before breakfast every morning." 

Epistemology should reflect how people actually think. Once we disconnect epistemic theory from the way in which we actually form beliefs, we are disconnecting it from the way that God actually made us.


----------



## Afterthought

jwright said:


> It depends on how you define truth and what truth you are seeking.


Well, I wouldn't be able to define truth in any way right now given my current knowledge. I was mainly talking about seeking truth that is true in order to know what is true. I guess that would be called seeking truth for truth's sake? Though that still doesn't define things well. Thanks all for the answers (**stops diverting conversation**)!


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> And if one seeks this truth truly, then one is not reasoning in autonomy. General revelation can lead one to God just as surely as special revelation can. It is the spirit in which one reasons, not the starting point from which one starts.



I think you have a different view in mind than Van Til did. For you there is a linear line of reasoning much like a syllogism in that there is a starting point and an end point, this is Sproul's criticism of Van Til. What Van Til meant was itstead of starting point substitute foundaional beleifs about reality. My most fudemental beleifs or presupossitions are for me the most authoritative beleifs I have. They determine in a way what shape my worldview will take from the most basic level to the most mundane everyday experience. So in a sense that is the starting point for analysisng someones argument and what they will take as reasonable or not. If someone doesn't believe that the ressurection took place I would ask why? They ussually give a few answers that clue me into their hidden assumptions.

1. Things like that don't normaly happen so it is fantastical and unreasonable to believe in it.
2. There is not enough evidence to support the claim.

I will lay out a hypothetical discussion on this matter between me and an unbeleiver and how I would handle it from a presupossitional perspective. This will be based on my own experience debating and reading ubeleivers so it cannot be perfect but hopefully helpful in laying out Van Till's thought.

Unbeleiver (UB): I don't believe in the ressurection because of (points 1 and 2 that I mentioned above)
Beleiver (B): Really so what you are saying is that it is unreasonable to assume that God could raise someone from the dead?
UB: Well of course, but I don't believe in God either, first prove that he exists to me than I will believe it.
B: Well hold now lets deal with one issue at a time, so you admit that your assumption 1 is incorrect?
UB: Well no it is not incorrect I mean this is the 21rst centurey who beleives in that sort of thing anyway. I believe that that is impossible like I believe it is impossible that fairies or santa clause exist.
B: Ah but you said it was perfectly reasonable to believe that God could raise someone from the dead.
UB: Ok yes I guess it could be but I still don't see enough evidence to puersuade me to believe it. 
B: Well do you admit that there is a lot of history that could never meet your extreme burden of proof?
UB: Yes but we are not talking about those, we are talking about Jesus, what evidence is there that he rose from the dead?
B: So you admit that it could have happened regardless of whether or not there was enough evidence per se? 
UB: Well yes but come on something that fantastical would be well documented.
B: Like the new testament?
UB: Yeah but they were just a bunch of guys who were trying to control others so they took advantage of the people's ignorance.
B: What evidence do you have to suggest that this beleif is true?
UB: Well come on that is all religion is any way.
B: No what I want to know is what evidences historically you have to back up your claim about the new testament which allows you to rationally rule out what ever it says on principle?
UB: Well none but there are many experts out there who would agree with me.
B: What reasons do they give?
UB: Well none.
B: Than you hold a beleif about history that you use to rule out legitmate evidences on grounds to which you have no evidence whatsoever to believe in. That is your beleif about the new testament doesn't even pass your own standered of truth.

The ending there I will admit is a little literary creativity on my part as I have never had anyone admit that they had no reason to believe something so important as to rule out the whole legitemacy of the new testament itself, which I introduced as evidence of the ressurection but always in a presupossitional perspective. I kid you not it is like taking a pig out of the mud of their invalid pressupositions and cleaning them off with the tool of reason but they always want to go back to that same mud. Like wise our hypothetical UB if you look kept going back to his original assumptions implicitly. He would talk about how unreasonable the idea of the ressurection was just in different forms( its like beleiving in fairies, who could believe in that in this day and age, etc.). 
I have dealt with this over and over again they will always want to go back to their original assumptions which I showed were not as rational as they thought. But they go back there anyway. So the idea that they are just these neutral rational people looking for enough evidence is absurd. They hold basic beleifs about reality and what counts as reasonable or not and that determines if they will in principle except something like the new testament. They have no actual evidences to not believe it only their own biased presuppositions.

Also I have noticed how quikly the skeptic wants the discussion to go to a classical apologetical basis. They love to go there for probably the same reasons Van Til disliked it. They can just stand there and act fair by saying you don't have enough evidence to convince me. No I layed out my reason for beleiving in the ressurection, it is perfectly reasonable to believe in on christian presuppositions. 

So my starting point was God as a presupposition when asking myself whether or not the resurection was reasonable which it is. Not as a starting point of a premise to an argument like "God exists" yada yada the ressurection happened. That is classical apologetics and to convince the UB of the syllogism you would have to keep revising it to meet his or her standered of proof which they never consistantly apply in there own lives and is a standered devised as fair by someone who hates God and wishes to suppress any of God's truth in unritoughsness. That hopefully illustrates how to apply Van Til to everyday discussion and answers the question of starting point.

---------- Post added at 01:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:23 PM ----------




P. F. Pugh said:


> What exactly are you getting at? I'm not sure what was circular there. A sense is simply a cognitive faculty, so of course there's no getting outside them: why would I want to?



That statment is a transcendental one. You are describing the cognitive faculties in way that cannot be proven by any fauculty or module. My own module may think it is functioning right but how does it know?



P. F. Pugh said:


> Now, in philosophy I can provide a nice theory of how they work and why, but the beliefs remain regardless of the theory.



True and Van Til admitted that many people don't have nicely worked out philosophies but if you have a baleif that you hold for no rational reason than you hve no reason to hold that beleif. That act of holding a beleif does not justify the beleif itself. Even logical tautologies can be invalidated on the grounds of someones other more presupossitional beleifs. If there beleifs about reality do not allow for logic to exist as it does than no logical tautologies can be introduced as free standing neutral basic beleifs that we can build a nice neutral and fair basis to judge everything else. Because your individual beleifs are affected by your most presupossitional ones.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Why think this? Again, I would point you to G.E. Moore, who is interested in knowing stuff about the world: he's just not interested in knowing God.



To take an actual historical example who is subject to the rest of what I said doesn't say anything about what the bible says about unbeleivers most basic motives or presupossitions. Moore lived in God's creation so his worldview is subject to the qualifiers that I mentioned about working a worldview out in practice.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, what do you mean by "starting principles." This presupposes that all people have an internalist coherentist epistemology. It only applies if we all work deductively outward from a few starting principles to formulate a theory of knowledge. The trouble is that no one actually does it. I did not reason from God's existence to the fact that I have hands---both are basic beliefs. I know of non-theistic systems that believe that we have hands. I know of non-theistic systems that doubt that we have hands (Gordon Clark comes to mind). The two beliefs may be independent of each other, depending on the type of system.


What I presented was a hierarchy of beliefs. Not a string of beleifs.



P. F. Pugh said:


> I happen to have an externalist and foundationalist view of epistemology because, frankly, it reflects the way in which our beliefs are actually formed.



Which cannot deal with the big picture of worldviews which is why you seem reluctant to admit in the worldview as a concept because once you apply your scheme to the big picture it breaks down. For your scheme basic beleifs are immediate beleifs for me basic beleifs are foundational presupossitional ones that is the difference.



P. F. Pugh said:


> I mean this: our epistemology needs to be able to not only provide not only explanations for why unbelievers deny God, but also for how they know a lot of the same stuff we do. One transcendental argument does not demand another (I've checked with a couple logicians).



And I haven't on a Van Tillian basis provided an explination as to why your scheme works on a lower level and mine on a higher one? I have shown that the unbeleiver can know many things to be true on a surface level of beleifs not on the presupossitional level, they are at odds with the very creation they are seeking to form beleifs about.

---------- Post added at 01:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:41 PM ----------




P. F. Pugh said:


> Yes.
> 
> The trouble with Van Til is that he wants everything to be nice and smooth and logical. He wants to give us a method for worldview analysis that works on everything: apologetic versions of duct tape and WD40 (the only things you really need for home improvement, so it's claimed). The trouble is that it ain't so: worldviews are messy animals that defy simple categories. I don't think there is one method that works on every worldview or even on every variation within a worldview. We in our fallenness are the kind of people who, to quote Lewis Carroll, "believe six impossible things before breakfast every morning."
> 
> Epistemology should reflect how people actually think. Once we disconnect epistemic theory from the way in which we actually form beliefs, we are disconnecting it from the way that God actually made us.



You are right only if you accept your scheme about worldviews in which there is no hierarchy of beleifs. If that were so than yes you would be correct. But on Van Til's scheme a worldview is like a house.


----------



## Philip

James,

I noticed a problem with your dialogue:

Your hypothetical unbeliever seems incredibly dimwitted. Assumptions 1 and 2 are much too weak, frankly. I would put the assumptions as these:

1. Miracles do not happen.
2. Miracle claims are the result of exaggeration or falsification.



> My most fudemental beleifs or presupossitions are for me the most authoritative beleifs I have. They determine in a way what shape my worldview will take from the most basic level to the most mundane everyday experience.



Again, I'm not sure of this. My belief in this desk appears to me to be independent of my belief in God. Granted, the metaphysical story behind the belief in the desk would be a lot weaker without God, but it would probably still be there. Pretty much all I'm doing is putting Van Til in reverse.

Granted, Van Til does make a lot of sense of interpretation of evidence, but I think we can attribute such "hidden assumptions" to attitudes rather than propositions. That is, when we unmask these, what we are really finding are attitudes toward what the unbeliever wants to believe and what he/she does not want to believe.


----------



## jwright82

Afterthought said:


> jwright said:
> 
> 
> 
> It depends on how you define truth and what truth you are seeking.
> 
> 
> 
> Well, I wouldn't be able to define truth in any way right now given my current knowledge. I was mainly talking about seeking truth that is true in order to know what is true. I guess that would be called seeking truth for truth's sake? Though that still doesn't define things well. Thanks all for the answers (**stops diverting conversation**)!
Click to expand...

 
There is nothing wrong with your question. The answer I think is that both a beleiver and an unbeleiver can claim to seek truth for truths sake but mean two different things. The unbeleiver could seek it because for them reason is practically god and we must bow all of our ideas to it in some religous fashion. The beleiver can do this on the grounds that all truth is God's truth and that is an obediant thing to do.


----------



## Philip

> if you have a baleif that you hold for no rational reason than you hve no reason to hold that beleif. That act of holding a beleif does not justify the beleif itself.



True. However, if I was not warranted for holding the belief, I would not hold it. That is, from the fact that I hold belief A, it follows that I think myself warranted in holding belief A.



> Because your individual beleifs are affected by your most presupossitional ones.



Not really. It would just affect where I placed them.



> Which cannot deal with the big picture of worldviews which is why you seem reluctant to admit in the worldview as a concept because once you apply your scheme to the big picture it breaks down. For your scheme basic beleifs are immediate beleifs for me basic beleifs are foundational presupossitional ones that is the difference.



I do indeed think that worldview plays a significant role in our belief system---as a filter or grid through which we categorize and arrange beliefs. You see it as a structure, where I see it as a filing system. Beliefs that don't fit into the system are discarded.



> I have shown that the unbeleiver can know many things to be true on a surface level of beleifs not on the presupossitional level



Again, no one thinks this way. Presuppositions are not a basic level, or else the unbeliever would _de facto_ know nothing. 



> You are right only if you accept your scheme about worldviews in which there is no hierarchy of beleifs.



I don't deny a hierarchy of beliefs, just the order in which you place them. 



> That statment is a transcendental one. You are describing the cognitive faculties in way that cannot be proven by any fauculty or module. My own module may think it is functioning right but how does it know?



You are assuming doubt here. Knowledge only arises through cognitive faculties (warrant). Now, if you can give me a good reason to think, in fact, that my cognitive faculties are not functioning properly, I will take that into consideration.

Example:

A man says that the leaves are grey. His companion realizes that the man is colorblind and informs him of the fact, calling in several others. The man now has good reason based on one (higher-order) cognitive faculty (credulity) to believe that another (sight) is not functioning properly. 

Also, I am not attempting to prove anything except that there is a rationally (and Christianly) acceptable counter-model to Van Til's.

EDIT: Here's an example of how this model would work. A skeptic is challenging my belief that there is a tree outside:

(S)keptic: Why do you believe that there is a tree outside?
(P)hilip: I see it.
S: So you trust your senses?
P: Yes.
S: Why?
P: I'm fearfully and wonderfully made by God. I trust Him and therefore I trust the faculties He has given me.

Now, a Van Tillian will rightfully point out that I've just used a transcendental argument here, but how did I do it?

1) The belief (there is a tree)
2) Phenomenal basis (I see it)
3) Transcendental argument based on other basic beliefs (reason).

For step 3, here's how I get there:

1) I know from revelation (credulity+_Sensus Divinitatus_) that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
2) I trust God (SD)
3) Therefore, I trust what God has given me: my faculties.

Notice here what I did: reason (guided rightly) has combined beliefs to form an argument. The end result is not a more basic belief, but a transcendental justification of a basic belief on the basis of other equally basic beliefs. However, I was no less warranted in my belief before I formulated the argument and I would still be warranted if I went to my grave without formulating it. What I did not do was to use a higher-order belief.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> James,
> 
> I noticed a problem with your dialogue:
> 
> Your hypothetical unbeliever seems incredibly dimwitted. Assumptions 1 and 2 are much too weak, frankly. I would put the assumptions as these:
> 
> 1. Miracles do not happen.
> 2. Miracle claims are the result of exaggeration or falsification.



Yes my dialoge was intentionaly simple but my exact same questions would hold true to your two statements. It is perfectly rational to believe in a God who makes miracles. Again what burden of proof are they stating for point two, if they claim every so called miracle could be explained away from science but they will and never know if it was science or God so again they have no reason to believe as they do but they demand a very high level of proof for the Christian. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, I'm not sure of this. My belief in this desk appears to me to be independent of my belief in God. Granted, the metaphysical story behind the belief in the desk would be a lot weaker without God, but it would probably still be there. Pretty much all I'm doing is putting Van Til in reverse.
> 
> Granted, Van Til does make a lot of sense of interpretation of evidence, but I think we can attribute such "hidden assumptions" to attitudes rather than propositions. That is, when we unmask these, what we are really finding are attitudes toward what the unbeliever wants to believe and what he/she does not want to believe.



Alright state one beleif that is dependent on no outside authority but itself?

---------- Post added at 06:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:24 PM ----------




P. F. Pugh said:


> True. However, if I was not warranted for holding the belief, I would not hold it. That is, from the fact that I hold belief A, it follows that I think myself warranted in holding belief A.



First of all warrant is subjective and second of all what counts as warrant from person to person seems affected by their presupossitions. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, no one thinks this way.



How do you know? You do seem to believe that this cognitive picture is accepted it is only skepticism so Van Til must pass the muster and measure up to your viewpoint or he is wrong. I have never once, though I like your scheme, any proof of its actuality. You put a lot of eggs in one basket because you seem to think that unless your right there is no hope for knowledge at all it is all skepticism. 




P. F. Pugh said:


> You are assuming doubt here. Knowledge only arises through cognitive faculties (warrant). Now, if you can give me a good reason to think, in fact, that my cognitive faculties are not functioning properly, I will take that into consideration.



On your view you couldn't know that it was functioning properly or not. Because you would have to have a functioning sensus to gather my informastion to you and however it appeared is what you will think is the truth because there is no info from outside these fauculties. Therefore logically you do not know if they are functioning or not.


P. F. Pugh said:


> A man says that the leaves are grey. His companion realizes that the man is colorblind and informs him of the fact, calling in several others. The man now has good reason based on one (higher-order) cognitive faculty (credulity) to believe that another (sight) is not functioning properly.
> 
> Also, I am not attempting to prove anything except that there is a rationally (and Christianly) acceptable counter-model to Van Til's.
> 
> EDIT: Here's an example of how this model would work. A skeptic is challenging my belief that there is a tree outside:
> 
> (S)keptic: Why do you believe that there is a tree outside?
> (P)hilip: I see it.
> S: So you trust your senses?
> P: Yes.
> S: Why?
> P: I'm fearfully and wonderfully made by God. I trust Him and therefore I trust the faculties He has given me.
> 
> Now, a Van Tillian will rightfully point out that I've just used a transcendental argument here, but how did I do it?
> 
> 1) The belief (there is a tree)
> 2) Phenomenal basis (I see it)
> 3) Transcendental argument based on other basic beliefs (reason).
> 
> For step 3, here's how I get there:
> 
> 1) I know from revelation (credulity+Sensus Divinitatus) that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
> 2) I trust God (SD)
> 3) Therefore, I trust what God has given me: my faculties.
> 
> Notice here what I did: reason (guided rightly) has combined beliefs to form an argument. The end result is not a more basic belief, but a transcendental justification of a basic belief on the basis of other basic beliefs. However, I was no less warranted in my belief before I formulated the argument and I would still be warranted if I went to my grave without formulating it. What I did not do was to use a higher-order belief.



Like I said your model works great on common lower level beleifs you don't in presupositions because they cannot be accounted for by your model. To avoid the skepticism of previous generations you are proposing a model that relies on properly functioning sensuses. But you can never know if those sensuses are functioning properly so you just end up having faith in them that is it. But your model could never account for justifying your most general beleifs about reality because your model can't handle that level of justification. It requires you to justify a whole set of beleifs not just independent ones.


----------



## Philip

> It is perfectly rational to believe in a God who makes miracles.



On your model of rationality, which is contingent on God's existence (mine is too, BTW, so that's not a criticism).



> Alright state one beleif that is dependent on no outside authority but itself?


 
Why do I need one? Beliefs believed on authority are basic (credulity).



> First of all warrant is subjective and second of all what counts as warrant from person to person seems affected by their presupossitions.



Correct, it depends on one's model of rationality.



> I have never once, though I like your scheme, any proof of its actuality.



That's because it's primarily phenomenological.



> On your view you couldn't know that it was functioning properly or not.



Sure I can---give me a good reason to doubt whether they are.



> To avoid the skepticism of previous generations you are proposing a model that relies on properly functioning sensuses. But you can never know if those sensuses are functioning properly so you just end up having faith in them that is it.



All beliefs involve faith. I can indeed know if they aren't functioning---just give me a good reason to think so.



> But your model could never account for justifying your most general beleifs about reality because your model can't handle that level of justification. It requires you to justify a whole set of beleifs not just independent ones.



Sure it can. How do I get more general than my belief in God?


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> On your model of rationality, which is contingent on God's existence (mine is too, BTW, so that's not a criticism).



What do you mean by model of rationality and how does it differ from Van Til's notion of a theory of reason?



P. F. Pugh said:


> Why do I need one? Beliefs believed on authority are basic (credulity).



Yes but authority can be logicaly analysed to reveal that it was not authoritative at all. Meaning that these beleifs are not independent logically they require other beleifs to be true in order to justify their credulity.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Correct, it depends on one's model of rationality.


If you mean basically what Van Til meant than we are in complete agreement. Is there any other way to overcome this subjectivity in your view besides a strictly de facto basis? Which by BTW assumes their model of rationality which affects what is credibule evidence or not, thus it is a presupossitional antithesis.





P. F. Pugh said:


> That's because it's primarily phenomenological.



Well phenomenom can be especially problamatic philosophically.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Sure I can---give me a good reason to doubt whether they are.



Ok you tell me that you believe Bush is still president of the USA. I say no he is not but your sensus for what ever reason are malfunctioning so badly that you hear me say or cognitivly deduce I'm saying "yes your right." Since there is no way to step out of your sensus you will go on beleiving as you do and nothing I say on a de facto basis will affect that because you will always pick up that I agree with you when I don't. This is the major problem , as I see it, with your model it provides no check on the autonomous sensus you describe that are the ultimate authority on all things, man is the measure of all things here.



P. F. Pugh said:


> All beliefs involve faith. I can indeed know if they aren't functioning---just give me a good reason to think so.



I am still confused here don't they have to be functioning fine in order to aprehend that I am telling you they are malfunctioning which is a contradiction. But if they are malfunctioning than I can never tell they are because I need them to be properly functioning to communicate with you?



P. F. Pugh said:


> Sure it can. How do I get more general than my belief in God?



If knowledge of God is dependent upon creation than God is dependent on something, which denies His aseity. I can no better defend my view of immediate awarness of God but I am prepairing an argument to post on a thread to discuss with you and anyone else I think should be enlightning. What I meant by general beleif is that you seem apprehensive to metaphysical justifications of epistomology. Your model seems to demand that epistomology be autonomous in its claims and remain unaffected by a metaphysical theory. I'm not saying that matrerialists can't know things only that a materialist metaphysics worked out destroys knowledge. So that their metaphysics contradicts their epistomology leaving a huge gap in their worldview. Also by presupossition I don't mean that they are not developed or derived from immediate beleifs, what you would call basic beleifs or common sense beleifs, only that they are the most important beleifs in a persons web of beleifs and therefore the hardest to change, and our most important beleifs affect how we recieve other beleifs.


----------



## Philip

jwright82 said:


> What do you mean by model of rationality and how does it differ from Van Til's notion of a theory of reason?



A model of rationality is simply a model of which kinds of beliefs can be rationally warranted.



> Yes but authority can be logicaly analysed to reveal that it was not authoritative at all. Meaning that these beleifs are not independent logically they require other beleifs to be true in order to justify their credulity.



They usually require other _authorities_ to establish their non-credibility. For example, what if you had said, when you were a child, "I am not going to believe anything my parents say until they can establish their credibility"? I have a good feeling that you do not want your daughter to have this kind of attitude (I wouldn't). 

If I read in a history book that George Washington crossed the Delaware, that is a basic belief. I have no reason to mistrust the source nor the information, therefore I believe it.



> Is there any other way to overcome this subjectivity in your view besides a strictly de facto basis? Which by BTW assumes their model of rationality which affects what is credibule evidence or not, thus it is a presupossitional antithesis.



I can't think of a way other than arguing from that set of beliefs that results from living in the same world with the unbeliever.



> I am still confused here don't they have to be functioning fine in order to aprehend that I am telling you they are malfunctioning which is a contradiction. But if they are malfunctioning than I can never tell they are because I need them to be properly functioning to communicate with you?



At least a couple of them have to be, sure. Those whose faculties are not functioning properly are known as the insane or handicapped. Of course communication is contingent on proper function---so is revelation. Again, when doing a transcendental analysis, I find that I can trust my faculties given that God is their maker (again, other basic beliefs).



> as I see it, with your model it provides no check on the autonomous sensus you describe that are the ultimate authority on all things, man is the measure of all things here.



For the unbeliever yes. Not so for the believer.



> If knowledge of God is dependent upon creation than God is dependent on something



This is just absurd. Of course knowledge of God is dependent upon creation so far as I am concerned---there cannot be knowledge of God without a knower and faculties of knowing. Therefore, since God is the creator of both, naturally my knowledge of God is contingent upon creation---at the very least upon my own creation.

The only thing that would destroy God's aseity epistemically, would be if He depended upon creation to know Himself---which I did not say, and which is absurd.



> Also by presupossition I don't mean that they are not developed or derived from immediate beleifs, what you would call basic beleifs or common sense beleifs, only that they are the most important beleifs in a persons web of beleifs and therefore the hardest to change, and our most important beleifs affect how we recieve other beleifs.



And I would say that those presuppositions would be better called attitudes or predispositions because they are less propositional than personal. I tend to agree with Michael Polanyi that all knowledge involves personal commitment.

Again, I don't see beliefs in terms of "webs" but of architecture. Here's where I come from: in terms of epistemology there are two approaches: faith and doubt. You either begin by doubting your God-given faculties (Descartes) or you begin with faith in them (Newbigin, Reid). If I start doubting my faculties, I end by doubting the God who made them. 



> So that their metaphysics contradicts their epistomology leaving a huge gap in their worldview.



And that's why hardcore materialists are so hard to find these days.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> A model of rationality is simply a model of which kinds of beliefs can be rationally warranted.



Than this is basically what Van Til meant would you agree that everyone is biased in their models?



P. F. Pugh said:


> They usually require other authorities to establish their non-credibility. For example, what if you had said, when you were a child, "I am not going to believe anything my parents say until they can establish their credibility"? I have a good feeling that you do not want your daughter to have this kind of attitude (I wouldn't).
> 
> If I read in a history book that George Washington crossed the Delaware, that is a basic belief. I have no reason to mistrust the source nor the information, therefore I believe it.



You got me there I would not want my daughter to have that attitude but the original question was a beleif that required no other beleifs for any support logically speaking. Because that is basicaly what Van Til is getting at. Sure you could rest assured with an unbeleiver both agreeing that there is a tree outside but when you get into deeper matters the affects of presupossitions become more pronounced and more pronounced. There are beleifs stacked upon beleifs and than there are our most prized beleifs our presupositions. They are not cronologicaly speaking the first beleifs we build upon to form a foundationalist epistomology. Van Til never struck me as a foundationalist. Logically speaking they are most important, I do believe you could agree with that?



P. F. Pugh said:


> I can't think of a way other than arguing from that set of beliefs that results from living in the same world with the unbeliever.



Well the argument goes like this:
1. The bible says that unbeleivers minds are fallen.
2. Fallenness in part is rebellion against the truth.
3. Unbeleivers form a model of rationality, what is rational or not.
4. Their minds are fallen therefore their model of rationality is fallen as well.



P. F. Pugh said:


> At least a couple of them have to be, sure. Those whose faculties are not functioning properly are known as the insane or handicapped. Of course communication is contingent on proper function---so is revelation. Again, when doing a transcendental analysis, I find that I can trust my faculties given that God is their maker (again, other basic beliefs).



I am uncomfortable with making God another basic beleif along side other basic beleifs because this implies a shared ontological status. Most of what what you call basic I call immediate beleifs this gives them less authority than you would but it avoids making them the foundation for all other knowledge, thus avoiding the pitfalls of foundationalism. Since I don't the problem as one between foundationalism or skepticism I am not hampered by that serious dilema by which Reid, it seems to me, argued that without these common-sense notions all would be lost epistomologically. This is just the story of autonomous unbeleiving thought it ends up in skepticism or unfounded faith in foundationalism because they are afraid of the alternantive. The whole discussion is can man be measure of all things or not? Either something in us is the ultimate decider of what is reasonable or not, autonomy, or all is lost because unbeleiving thought refuses to alknowledge a Divine authority by which all other authorities gain their authority, including reason.
Also You never really delved into how to differentiate between a sensus that is faulty and one that isn't. I transcend my car so I klnow if it is working or not but it could never know that. How it works is how it works. Also basic beleifs that you mention are either almost all empirically derived thus empricism or simply shared beleifs by a great many people. Which equals you right back in the epistomological problems of modernism and the whole of western philosophy, Van Til charted a path outside those problems.





P. F. Pugh said:


> This is just absurd. Of course knowledge of God is dependent upon creation so far as I am concerned---there cannot be knowledge of God without a knower and faculties of knowing. Therefore, since God is the creator of both, naturally my knowledge of God is contingent upon creation---at the very least upon my own creation.
> 
> The only thing that would destroy God's aseity epistemically, would be if He depended upon creation to know Himself---which I did not say, and which is absurd.



This is not absurd if you look at the critiques of natural theology. In them God as creator is less important than the foundation of creation. Creation is more important than God. An immediate awarness of God puts the whole thing in perspective up front. Thus we are without exscuse. If God can only come in at the end of a syllogism than the person has the right to doubt and exscuse to doubt because the God proven at the end of the syllogism is hardley the God of the bible, plus the traditional arguments all break down so in the end nothing is proven. In this sense yes God than becomes less important because creation takes on an ontological autonomy. It is selfexistant in a sense if it can be the foundation for the ifinite God. If it cannot be the foundation for God but must assume God as its own ontological foundation than that is different. You see for you it seems epistomology has no affect on any other area of philosophy. But for Van Til and me what I believe about epistomology affects what I believe about ethics and metaphysics, they are all interelated. This is why we can say that the materialist has no buissness talking about reason because his metaphysics destroys the very possibility of reason. So rather than the materialist's use of reason prove that he can do reason and thus it is off limits to criticize it only aggravates the problem of if he is right metaphysically than he cannot be right about the fact that he is reasoning. But he is reasoning so something is wrong either his theory or his practice?





P. F. Pugh said:


> And I would say that those presuppositions would be better called attitudes or predispositions because they are less propositional than personal. I tend to agree with Michael Polanyi that all knowledge involves personal commitment.
> 
> Again, I don't see beliefs in terms of "webs" but of architecture. Here's where I come from: in terms of epistemology there are two approaches: faith and doubt. You either begin by doubting your God-given faculties (Descartes) or you begin with faith in them (Newbigin, Reid). If I start doubting my faculties, I end by doubting the God who made them.



Dooyeweerd might be closer to your view about predispositions, in a sense, but you seem not like to believe, I could be wrong, that this affects their whole model of rationality and their sensuses, they don't want to know the truth so they try not to. But for Van Til they decide what is our greatest authority in life as well as affect every other area of our worldview. Your scheme below is just a false dichotomy you only have to decide between Descarte on the one hand, and thus Hume, or Reid on the other if you place yourself withen the unbeleiving philosophical history of western soceity. If you place yourself withen that development of the creational aspect of logical analysis than yes you are doomed to repeat the failures they made. But if you reject that like Van Til and Doyeweerd did than you stand a better chance of successful philosophical analysis of creation.


----------



## Philip

> You got me there I would not want my daughter to have that attitude but the original question was a beleif that required no other beleifs for any support logically speaking.



Sure: "there is a tree outside." I did not come to hold this belief based on any other belief. Transcendental arguments are there to explain basic beliefs, not to be more basic. You are confusing the order of knowing with the order of being.



> Sure you could rest assured with an unbeleiver both agreeing that there is a tree outside but when you get into deeper matters the affects of presupossitions become more pronounced and more pronounced.



Again, this has more to do with attitudes than it does with propositions. 



> Well the argument goes like this:
> 1. The bible says that unbeleivers minds are fallen.
> 2. Fallenness in part is rebellion against the truth.
> 3. Unbeleivers form a model of rationality, what is rational or not.
> 4. Their minds are fallen therefore their model of rationality is fallen as well.



Is the Bible's authority basic or not?



> I am uncomfortable with making God another basic beleif along side other basic beleifs because this implies a shared ontological status.



Again, you are confusing the order of being with the order of knowing (I think Van Til, at least as interpreted by Bahnsen, does this too).



> Most of what what you call basic I call immediate beleifs



Which would make all other beliefs mediate.



> Also You never really delved into how to differentiate between a sensus that is faulty and one that isn't.



To know whether a faculty was functioning improperly, one would have to simply know (based on authority, most likely) what proper function looks like and realize that faculty A was not functioning properly. You could compare it to the way in which we realize that proposition X, which we had thought true, is actually false. 



> Also basic beleifs that you mention are either almost all empirically derived thus empricism or simply shared beleifs by a great many people.



So? I also happen to believe, in a basic way, that George Washington was the first president under the US constitution and that Jesus rose from the dead. Just because I believe certain things on an empirical basis does not make me an empiricist.



> Which equals you right back in the epistomological problems of modernism and the whole of western philosophy



I don't see how it does.



> An immediate awarness of God puts the whole thing in perspective up front.



I have not denied an immediate awareness of God---the faculties are intended to do just that: give me an immediate awareness of stuff.

All that natural theology is supposed to prove is that even if we take into account broken faculties on the part of the unbeliever, he still has no excuse for not believing in God.



> This is why we can say that the materialist has no buissness talking about reason because his metaphysics destroys the very possibility of reason.



Again, you would be hard-pressed to find many materialists today in philosophy.



> Dooyeweerd might be closer to your view about predispositions, in a sense, but you seem not like to believe, I could be wrong, that this affects their whole model of rationality and their sensuses, they don't want to know the truth so they try not to.



Yes, I agree with Dooyeweerd here. I do indeed think that it affects an unbeliever's model of rationality---he doesn't want God to exist, so he leaves God out of the equation and makes those of us who believe in Him out to be people with improperly-functioning faculties. Plantinga calls this the Freud-Marx complaint and counters it with a model of rationality that is contingent on God's existence.

The idea is that the Christian model is false if and only if Christianity itself is false.



> Your scheme below is just a false dichotomy you only have to decide between Descarte on the one hand, and thus Hume, or Reid on the other if you place yourself withen the unbeleiving philosophical history of western soceity. If you place yourself withen that development of the creational aspect of logical analysis than yes you are doomed to repeat the failures they made. But if you reject that like Van Til and Doyeweerd did than you stand a better chance of successful philosophical analysis of creation.



James, you can't dismiss the dichotomy that easily: do you begin with doubt or faith? Remember here that Reid is a believer, and an orthodox one (WCF) whose metaphysical account of the fact of our knowledge is grounded in the fact of God as our maker. If we distrust our faculties, argues Reid, we are distrusting what God has given us and therefore distrusting God.

Again, do we repeat the Cartesian mistake, or do we begin with faith? The fact is, James, we can't transcend creation because we are created---only God can transcend creation. To try is to attempt to be God---and that is always idolatrous. We can't get outside creation because we are created.


----------



## markkoller

> Originally Posted by Semper Fidelis
> For those who have not read The Infallible Word here is a summary of Van Til's treatment that I had to complete as part of an assignment about a year ago:
> 
> 
> armourbearer said:
> 
> 
> 
> That's an excellent summary, Rich.
Click to expand...

Agreed. This is very helpful, thank you for posting it.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Sure: "there is a tree outside." I did not come to hold this belief based on any other belief. Transcendental arguments are there to explain basic beliefs, not to be more basic. You are confusing the order of knowing with the order of being.



Well you trust the authority of your senses that is a seperate beleif. But they could be wrong or malfunctioning so you need some transcendental analysis to prove that they are authoritative, another beleif so this beleif that was supposed to be so obvious as to not need any other beleif for its reliability turns out to need other beleifs just to support itself. That is not to say that I do not hold such a beleif as obvious just that you cannot produce a foundation, if I understand you alright, of these beleifs to formulate a foundation to have an apologetical discussion over.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, this has more to do with attitudes than it does with propositions.



So these attitudes are are non conceptual? They cannot be proven to be false or unreasonable, hence propositional?



P. F. Pugh said:


> Is the Bible's authority basic or not?



It depends but my scheme doesn't rely on basic beleifs to hold all the other beleifs up, if I understand you. I must confess that most of my points are questioning in nature because I do not understand your scheme completly. You seem to hold to a view that our foundation epistomologically is based on what I would define as immediate beleifs, does that make sense? So please don't mistakre my tone for argumentitave merely inquisative.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, you are confusing the order of being with the order of knowing (I think Van Til, at least as interpreted by Bahnsen, does this too).



Not necessaraly only pointing out that a theory in one area of philosophy affects all other areas and vice versa.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Which would make all other beliefs mediate.



I would not like to say so. For Van Til he didn't really sort out how a person came by their beleifs only that they did. This isn't really a problem for him or me because we don't base all of our authority on how or why people have beleifs, only that they do and have a general scheme of beleifs.



P. F. Pugh said:


> To know whether a faculty was functioning improperly, one would have to simply know (based on authority, most likely) what proper function looks like and realize that faculty A was not functioning properly. You could compare it to the way in which we realize that proposition X, which we had thought true, is actually false.



Still on what authority could we possibly verify one person's falculties, or sensus, as being the standered for all others, without involving somesort of transcendental argument to rationally explain the possibility of knowledge at all?



P. F. Pugh said:


> So? I also happen to believe, in a basic way, that George Washington was the first president under the US constitution and that Jesus rose from the dead. Just because I believe certain things on an empirical basis does not make me an empiricist.



No not at all, but your authority for such a beleif may rest on your senses alone which could be an empirical basis which could be logically empiricism in logical form.



P. F. Pugh said:


> I don't see how it does.



As we both know modernism was very much an inflated version of modern phylosophy. The problems of modernism were fleshed out by postmodernism. These problems were not unique to modernism they were just the working out of the assumptions of western thought since the pre-socratic philosophiers. So to assume their basis is to accept their autonomous foundation which can only lead to their conclusions. It could be the case that you have reformed their assumptions along biblical lines but you seem to hold to their assumptions on one level or another. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> I have not denied an immediate awareness of God---the faculties are intended to do just that: give me an immediate awareness of stuff.
> 
> All that natural theology is supposed to prove is that even if we take into account broken faculties on the part of the unbeliever, he still has no excuse for not believing in God.



Than we agree but I still don't feel that God can be reached at the end of a syllogism.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Yes, I agree with Dooyeweerd here. I do indeed think that it affects an unbeliever's model of rationality---he doesn't want God to exist, so he leaves God out of the equation and makes those of us who believe in Him out to be people with improperly-functioning faculties. Plantinga calls this the Freud-Marx complaint and counters it with a model of rationality that is contingent on God's existence.
> 
> The idea is that the Christian model is false if and only if Christianity itself is false.



In one sense you are Van Tillian, the first part, than you assume a classical apologetical position with the last part in that you feel that the only way to deal with the unbeleiver's biased model is on a de facto basis. But If their model is is biased than how they deal with facts are biased as well. You cannot assume nuetrality were there is none.



P. F. Pugh said:


> James, you can't dismiss the dichotomy that easily: do you begin with doubt or faith? Remember here that Reid is a believer, and an orthodox one (WCF) whose metaphysical account of the fact of our knowledge is grounded in the fact of God as our maker. If we distrust our faculties, argues Reid, we are distrusting what God has given us and therefore distrusting God.
> 
> Again, do we repeat the Cartesian mistake, or do we begin with faith? The fact is, James, we can't transcend creation because we are created---only God can transcend creation. To try is to attempt to be God---and that is always idolatrous. We can't get outside creation because we are created.



Well I would like to know how we define faith? As you know I define humans as primaraly religous, so I would say yes to starting with faith but only in a religious point of view, everyone is religous for something. But this is a third option, contra western thought, because it is a religous faith and not a general trust in something.


----------



## Philip

> Well you trust the authority of your senses that is a seperate beleif.



True, but I come to the conclusion "I trust my senses" from the propositions "there is a tree" and "I see a tree." In other words, I come to the conclusion that I trust my senses based on the fact that there is a tree.



> So these attitudes are are non conceptual? They cannot be proven to be false or unreasonable, hence propositional?



They may disguise themselves as such. But to call an attitude "propositional" is a category mistake.



> You seem to hold to a view that our foundation epistomologically is based on what I would define as immediate beleifs, does that make sense?



I'll bear that in mind. What I would say is that I believe what the Bible says in a basic way and infer from that, that the Bible is authoritative and inerrant.



> Not necessaraly only pointing out that a theory in one area of philosophy affects all other areas and vice versa.



And this (order of being vs order of knowing) where Van Til's rejection of scholasticism (to which Calvin was heavily indebted) proves problematic.



> I would not like to say so. For Van Til he didn't really sort out how a person came by their beleifs only that they did.



But this proves problematic. If you hope to describe the structure of worldview, then you must have an idea of how beliefs are formed and how they are warranted ("justified" is a deontological term so I try to avoid it).



> Still on what authority could we possibly verify one person's falculties, or sensus, as being the standered for all others, without involving somesort of transcendental argument to rationally explain the possibility of knowledge at all?



They are co-dependent. Transcendental arguments only serve to provide explanations: they provide no epistemic authority.



> No not at all, but your authority for such a beleif may rest on your senses alone which could be an empirical basis which could be logically empiricism in logical form.



Again, that's just my story of how the belief got formed. If you would like to provide a good reason why that method of belief formation is illegitimate, you may attempt to do so.

Empiric_ism_ would claim that empirical knowledge is the only legitimate form of knowledge---a claim that I reject.

Of all the things I could be skeptical about, I am most skeptical of skepticism.



> It could be the case that you have reformed their assumptions along biblical lines but you seem to hold to their assumptions on one level or another.



We all hold autonomous assumptions to some degree. Thank God that the blood of Christ is sufficient to cover even our attempts to be a law unto ourselves.



> Than we agree but I still don't feel that God can be reached at the end of a syllogism.



I beg to differ: Anselm, I think, is right that the Christian God _can_ be proven, it's just that the proof will never convince an unbeliever because he doesn't want to accept it.



> than you assume a classical apologetical position with the last part in that you feel that the only way to deal with the unbeleiver's biased model is on a de facto basis. But If their model is is biased than how they deal with facts are biased as well. You cannot assume nuetrality were there is none.



But there is neutrality in some areas. The unbeliever and I both affirm that there are "rocks and trees and skies and seas." I can show him that God is there, but I can't make him believe---only God can do than that. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."



> Well I would like to know how we define faith?



I'll let Webster do it, since he's the dictionary man:



Webster's 1828 Dictionary said:


> Faith (n): The assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition advanced by another; belief, or probable evidence of any kind.



Or Johnson



Johnson's Dictionary said:


> Faith: Belief, fidelity, confidence



That help?



> because it is a religous faith and not a general trust in something



Religious faith is indeed in view, ultimately, for Reid, but he isn't dealing with it directly, since he's basically just countering Hume and showing him up as absurd. His argument basically boils down to: as soon as you try to make skeptical arguments to an ordinary hardworking (and faithful) human being, such as would have been found in his congregation (remember he's a pastor at the parish level in addition to being a librarian) you get laughed at for good reason. His idea is that the skeptic has too much time on his hands and needs to get back into God's world. On a theological level, we might say that the cure for skepticism is the cultural mandate.


----------



## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> True, but I come to the conclusion "I trust my senses" from the propositions "there is a tree" and "I see a tree." In other words, I come to the conclusion that I trust my senses based on the fact that there is a tree.



True no one is doubting whether or not you can trust your senses because you see a tree. It is whether or not a whole edifice of a foundation with its own authority can be erected from them. A foundation is axiomatic like Clark but your axioms must be self-sustaining logically, or to put it another way they must have their own authority and need no beleifs to be true to in order for them to be true.



P. F. Pugh said:


> They may disguise themselves as such. But to call an attitude "propositional" is a category mistake.



Fair enough but you may conceptualize these attitudes into propositions about the attitude, contra Dooyeweerd here who held that our inner spiritual attitude was supra-temporal and therefore beyond any human conception.



P. F. Pugh said:


> And this (order of being vs order of knowing) where Van Til's rejection of scholasticism (to which Calvin was heavily indebted) proves problematic.



There is no versus here it is that one area affects another area. Can you really argue that if someone either logically assumes or consciencsly assumes a theory of reason that is proven reductio ad asbsurdeum to be false than that is a problem for them, and if this theory is a logical conclusion of their general theory of metaphysics than that would be a problem for them as well?



P. F. Pugh said:


> But this proves problematic. If you hope to describe the structure of worldview, then you must have an idea of how beliefs are formed and how they are warranted ("justified" is a deontological term so I try to avoid it).



No one is arguing for that only that you jump from immediate beleifs to those same beleifs becoming the ultimate beleifs epistomologically as basic beleifs or foundational beleifs so that even our presupossitions are based on their authority. Since they have no inherent authority in and of themselves they fail to be stable enough to base all other beleifs on.



P. F. Pugh said:


> They are co-dependent. Transcendental arguments only serve to provide explanations: they provide no epistemic authority.



I still don't see how you can justify the sensus of anyone? Can we see these sensus? No we have no way of knowing if they are there or not, but if you argue for them as the necessary precondition for knowledge at all than that is as classic a transcendental argument as you can get.



P. F. Pugh said:


> Again, that's just my story of how the belief got formed. If you would like to provide a good reason why that method of belief formation is illegitimate, you may attempt to do so.
> 
> Empiricism would claim that empirical knowledge is the only legitimate form of knowledge---a claim that I reject.
> 
> Of all the things I could be skeptical about, I am most skeptical of skepticism.



All my point is that describing how a beleif is formed does not provide the authority necessary to make these immediate beleifs the most important foundational beleifs in a whole worldview. If you do believe that they are the most important beleifs than how they are formed must provide the addequite authority upon which they become authoritative and normative which is a hallmark of empiricism if we are mostly talking about empirical beleifs. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> I beg to differ: Anselm, I think, is right that the Christian God can be proven, it's just that the proof will never convince an unbeliever because he doesn't want to accept it.



Well my major argument against Anselm would be his notion of perfection. Where did he derive his notion of perfection from? Also he must accept a scale of being scheme that I do not like, nor did Van Til, that has being as a seperate concept from a thing, which is very problamatic.



P. F. Pugh said:


> But there is neutrality in some areas. The unbeliever and I both affirm that there are "rocks and trees and skies and seas." I can show him that God is there, but I can't make him believe---only God can do than that. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."



Some neutrality in some areas doesn't equal enough neutrality to base an entire apologetical philosophy off of. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> That help?
> 
> 
> because it is a religous faith and not a general trust in something
> Religious faith is indeed in view, ultimately, for Reid, but he isn't dealing with it directly, since he's basically just countering Hume and showing him up as absurd. His argument basically boils down to: as soon as you try to make skeptical arguments to an ordinary hardworking (and faithful) human being, such as would have been found in his congregation (remember he's a pastor at the parish level in addition to being a librarian) you get laughed at for good reason. His idea is that the skeptic has too much time on his hands and needs to get back into God's world. On a theological level, we might say that the cure for skepticism is the cultural mandate.



I mean religous faith in a broad sense that we all have something that we love and desire to worship and form our whole lives around, either it is our love of God or love of some idol.


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## Philip

> True no one is doubting whether or not you can trust your senses because you see a tree. It is whether or not a whole edifice of a foundation with its own authority can be erected from them. A foundation is axiomatic like Clark but your axioms must be self-sustaining logically, or to put it another way they must have their own authority and need no beleifs to be true to in order for them to be true.



That's a Cartesian picture, though (Clark is basically a Cartesian with special revelation in place of the _cogito_). What Descartes is doing is asking his epistemology to function in the way that an ontology (or a geometry) does, with blasted obvious axioms leading through deduction to conclusions. The trouble is that our beliefs are not designed to function this way.

My beliefs don't have to be logically self-sustaining. For one thing, if they did, I'd be back at skepticism, because how would I know I hadn't committed a fallacy? That my reason was functioning properly?

I would say that these basic beliefs end up supporting one another, but they are individually basic, ie: I did not come to the conclusion "there is a tree" based on another belief. I looked and found myself believing "there is a tree." Similarly, I read Scripture and find myself believing "God created the world." Now, do these require other things to be true? Sure, but beliefs arrived at in such a manner are transcendental and therefore second-order. However, I have no problem with belief A being believed both at a basic level and on a transcendental level.

For example: I believe in God on a basic level based on Calvin's _Sensus Divinitatus_. So when I look out my window at the beautiful view (Covenant College is on a mountain), I find myself in an attitude of worship directed at God and I form the belief, "God is awesome" or (in Russellian form) "There is an x such that x is God and x is awesome."



> Fair enough but you may conceptualize these attitudes into propositions about the attitude



Sure, but such propositions are a mask for the attitude. These attitudes may be helpful or detrimental. Again, I agree with Polanyi that there is no knowledge without personal commitment.



> Can you really argue that if someone either logically assumes or consciencsly assumes a theory of reason that is proven reductio ad asbsurdeum to be false than that is a problem for them, and if this theory is a logical conclusion of their general theory of metaphysics than that would be a problem for them as well?



Yes, but all that it requires is a modification of the metaphysic.



> No one is arguing for that only that you jump from immediate beleifs to those same beleifs becoming the ultimate beleifs epistomologically as basic beleifs



Again, what I mean by "basic" here is simply "arrived at in a basic manner." Again, presuppositions are just attitudes that shape conceptions of what sorts of beliefs can be basic.



> I still don't see how you can justify the sensus of anyone?



Justify it to whom? In what duty have I failed if I provide no such justification?

Again, transcendental arguments are descriptive in nature.



> Well my major argument against Anselm would be his notion of perfection. Where did he derive his notion of perfection from? Also he must accept a scale of being scheme that I do not like, nor did Van Til, that has being as a seperate concept from a thing, which is very problamatic.



I happen to think you differ from Van Til here.



> I mean religous faith in a broad sense that we all have something that we love and desire to worship and form our whole lives around, either it is our love of God or love of some idol.



Absolutely---personal commitments are central to how our beliefs form.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> That's a Cartesian picture, though (Clark is basically a Cartesian with special revelation in place of the cogito). What Descartes is doing is asking his epistemology to function in the way that an ontology (or a geometry) does, with blasted obvious axioms leading through deduction to conclusions. The trouble is that our beliefs are not designed to function this way.
> 
> My beliefs don't have to be logically self-sustaining. For one thing, if they did, I'd be back at skepticism, because how would I know I hadn't committed a fallacy? That my reason was functioning properly?
> 
> I would say that these basic beliefs end up supporting one another, but they are individually basic, ie: I did not come to the conclusion "there is a tree" based on another belief. I looked and found myself believing "there is a tree." Similarly, I read Scripture and find myself believing "God created the world." Now, do these require other things to be true? Sure, but beliefs arrived at in such a manner are transcendental and therefore second-order. However, I have no problem with belief A being believed both at a basic level and on a transcendental level.
> 
> For example: I believe in God on a basic level based on Calvin's Sensus Divinitatus. So when I look out my window at the beautiful view (Covenant College is on a mountain), I find myself in an attitude of worship directed at God and I form the belief, "God is awesome" or (in Russellian form) "There is an x such that x is God and x is awesome."



Well than I do not understand the argument you are making. I do not see how your view of basic beleifs differs from mine. If you do not make these beleifs the foundation for any apologetical debate than what purpose do they serve? We can agree on this but how is it that you now differ from Van Til? The rest of your responses indiquate that I probably misunderstand so how do these basic beleifs function apologetically?


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## Philip

jwright82 said:


> Well than I do not understand the argument you are making. I do not see how your view of basic beleifs differs from mine. If you do not make these beleifs the foundation for any apologetical debate than what purpose do they serve?



Well first off, many of these basic beliefs are shared between the unbeliever and I. If it is possible for me to "prove" that belief in X requires belief in Y, then that's a good argument.

More importantly, though, this model of rationality is meant to bring the debate precisely to that _de facto_ level where the unbeliever's personal commitments must be laid bare. He can't hide behind the claim that my belief in God is somehow violating some standard of what is rational. A model of rationality, in order for him to attack it, must be attacked on that _de facto_ level such that the only way for him to claim that Christian belief could not be warranted would be to prove that Christianity is false.



> We can agree on this but how is it that you now differ from Van Til?



I differ in that I am a direct realist about the way in which we know most stuff.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> Well first off, many of these basic beliefs are shared between the unbeliever and I. If it is possible for me to "prove" that belief in X requires belief in Y, then that's a good argument.
> 
> More importantly, though, this model of rationality is meant to bring the debate precisely to that de facto level where the unbeliever's personal commitments must be laid bare. He can't hide behind the claim that my belief in God is somehow violating some standard of what is rational. A model of rationality, in order for him to attack it, must be attacked on that de facto level such that the only way for him to claim that Christian belief could not be warranted would be to prove that Christianity is false.



Well than I apologize for the misunderstanding on my part. We differ but not in any significant way. I prefer the transcendental argument but that does not preclude the use of evidences, just evidences in perspective. 



P. F. Pugh said:


> I differ in that I am a direct realist about the way in which we know most stuff.



Well Van Til did maintain that we have real knowledge about things he just qualified how nuetral said knowledge is. 

To get back to your OP, and off this misunderstanding on my part, how do you feel that Barth's insistance of there being no possibility for christian apologetics/philosophy and Van Til's insistance on both a christian apologetics/philosophy reflect perhaps a fundemental disagreement between the two?


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## Philip

> how do you feel that Barth's insistance of there being no possibility for christian apologetics/philosophy and Van Til's insistance on both a christian apologetics/philosophy reflect perhaps a fundemental disagreement between the two?



To me, Van Til always feels very guilty and defensive about apologetics. That is to say, his whole project seems to be to develop a system of apologetics apart from natural theology. The difference would be that Barth didn't think apologetics apart from natural theology was possible.


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## jwright82

P. F. Pugh said:


> how do you feel that Barth's insistance of there being no possibility for christian apologetics/philosophy and Van Til's insistance on both a christian apologetics/philosophy reflect perhaps a fundemental disagreement between the two?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To me, Van Til always feels very guilty and defensive about apologetics. That is to say, his whole project seems to be to develop a system of apologetics apart from natural theology. The difference would be that Barth didn't think apologetics apart from natural theology was possible.
Click to expand...

 
I don't think Van Til was defensive at all. He had a place for general revealation and evidences in his apologetic. What most people don't understand about him was that he was trying to put them in there place so to speak. He worked out very complex philosophical arguments against various philosophers. He seems to be inline with Dooyeweerd on a number of topics, so I like to view them together where I can. I believe Van Til to have have worked out the philosophical implications, not in exaustive detail, of the more or less dutch reformed tradition. I think that he worked out more of a method for doing apologetics than a detailed argument. If you read him and you think of what he is saying as developing a method than it makes more sense. 

As far as Barth goes his unique views of revealational history seem to me to drive his views on natural theology and general revealation. Barth just ruled it out altogether because revealation has no point of contact in actual history at all. 
What Van Til disliked about natural theology was that it was disatached from biblical theology and given its own autonomy, in the form of natural law. He pointed out that even in the garden of eden Adam needed special revealation from God to know what to do with nature. So for Van Til nature is authoritative but only when interpreted rightly. His disagreements with Dooyeweerd over christian philosophy have nothing to do with a christian philosophy per se but with the order of influence of philosophy on theology.


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