A bit more on presuppositionalism

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steven-nemes

Puritan Board Sophomore
It seems to me that presuppositionalists claim that revelation is necessary for knowledge; if there is no revelation, there is no knowledge.

Why is that?
 
Could it be that all truth is God's Truth? ;)

It is from revelation that God, and thus Truth, is known. It is from reason that God, and Truth, becomes knowable.

AMR
 
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Could it be that all truth is God's Truth? ;)

It is from revelation that God, and thus Truth, is known. It is from reason that God, and Truth, becomes knowable.

AMR

That's not really an answer. I can believe things that are true but not know them.

How are non-revelational epistemologies impossible or deficient?
 
Could it be that all truth is God's Truth? ;)

It is from revelation that God, and thus Truth, is known. It is from reason that God, and Truth, becomes knowable.

AMR

That's not really an answer. I can believe things that are true but not know them.

How are non-revelational epistemologies impossible or deficient?

This is another example of why definitions matter.

Can you explain what you mean, specifically, by:

"I believe X is true"
"I know X"

Thanks.

Understand that presuppositionalism, at least of the Van Til variety, does not limit "revelation" to "special revelation" as you seem to have.
 
Well there are two definitions of "know" that I am aware of.

S knows p just if (1) S believes p, (2) p is true, and (3) S is justified in believing in p.

That seems to be a common definition. Another would be:

S knows p just if (1) S believes p, (2) p is true, and (3) p has sufficient warrant for S.

Either of those definitions would work; I'm not stuck one way or the other.

And as for believe:

S believes p just if S holds that p is true.
 
Steven,

Under either definition, though, I would not be justified in stating that there is a computer in front of me. Why? Because I am not absolutely certain of it.

This is why I define knowledge as S knows p if 1) S believes p enough for practical purposes 2) S has some justification for believing p 3) p appears to correspond to reality
 
You don't have to have certainty to be justified in believing something. I don't know why anyone would accept that.
 
What I'm suggesting, though, is that correspondence to reality has less bearing on whether I can claim to "know" than has traditionally been suggested because I will never have absolute certainty. This is why I say that p must appear to correspond to reality.
 
I'm not sure that I understand your point.

A requirement for knowledge is not that a person know certainly that his belief is true; it is rather just that his belief is true.

I might not know that my belief that God exists is true. Yet, if I believe that God exists, and he does, and I have justification/warrant, then I can be said to know that God exists.

Knowing that you know is not necessary for knowing simpliciter.
 
I honestly don't know what this has to do with requiring revelation or not, which was the original question, Steven.

What's your objection to the presuppositionalist requirement that all knowledge is revelational? (special and general both, as I pointed out earlier) Surely you're not trying to construct some sort of apologetic built on "neutral ground"?
 
I honestly don't know what this has to do with requiring revelation or not, which was the original question, Steven.

What's your objection to the presuppositionalist requirement that all knowledge is revelational? (special and general both, as I pointed out earlier) Surely you're not trying to construct some sort of apologetic built on "neutral ground"?

I am asking why non-revelational epsitemologies are deficient. It seems to be the presup argument that if God does not exist and (therefore) nothing is revealed to man, then man cannot know anything.
 
I honestly don't know what this has to do with requiring revelation or not, which was the original question, Steven.

What's your objection to the presuppositionalist requirement that all knowledge is revelational? (special and general both, as I pointed out earlier) Surely you're not trying to construct some sort of apologetic built on "neutral ground"?

I am asking why non-revelational epsitemologies are deficient. It seems to be the presup argument that if God does not exist and (therefore) nothing is revealed to man, then man cannot know anything.

You should get this book:



Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended, Greg L. Bahnsen

Besides being an absolutely superb book overall, in the first appendix, Bahnsen deals explicitly with this question.
 
Thanks for your recommendation!

I have a book by Bahnsen called "Always Ready" and I did enjoy reading. I don't think I'll be able to buy any books any time soon, though, as school has started and I'm low on money.

Could you briefly summarize his points, if you have the time?
 
Thanks for your recommendation!

I have a book by Bahnsen called "Always Ready" and I did enjoy reading. I don't think I'll be able to buy any books any time soon, though, as school has started and I'm low on money.

Could you briefly summarize his points, if you have the time?

I've only briefly skimmed the appendix (I'm still in chapter 4) :)

His argument begins with the discussion of self-sufficiency in knowledge. Non-revelational epistemology requires self-sufficiency of at least two knowers. Revelational, only one.

Thus he begins by demonstrating that there can be only one, and this by the following sequence: a) it is impossible to deny that there is at least one such knower. (because the only one who can deny it with certainty is a self-sufficient knower) b) there cannot be more than one such knower (because if there were two, then neither could be certain he wasn't being fooled by the other). So we cannot deny a self-sufficient knower - but there can be only one, if there is one.

Bahnsen then argues that there are only three other possibilities - solipsism, skepticism or revelational epistemology. Bahnsen doesn't spend time on solipsism, since it's so stupid as to require no direct assault as a concept. Skepticism, Bahnsen argues, is denied by the fact that it is equivalent to a denial of a self-sufficent knower (which he's already shown to be impossible).
He is left, then, with the result that a single self-sufficient knower is required. All non-autonomous (non-self-sufficient) knowers require revelation for grounding truths and knowledge (and further that knowledge will thereby be analogous, rather than autonomous knowledge) As such, reasoning and knowledge is only possible in the revelational framework.

That's my poor attempt at summarizing the first part of his first appendix. Hope it helps.
 
S knows p just if (1) S believes p, (2) p is true, and (3) S is justified in believing in p.

Steve,

That would seem to be an inadequate definition of knowledge. Consider,

Belief: It is approximately 12 noon
Justification: Clock on the wall
True: It is approximately 12 noon

Does one have knowledge if the justification is based upon a clock that stopped working twelve hours earlier (at 12 midnight)? Certainly the person would have been justified in his belief. Accordingly, “justification” must have more veracity than a rational inference. Not only must the person have a justification for his belief, there must also be a justification for the truth. Be careful though, having a justification for both belief and truth does not mean that knowledge only obtains if one is able to defend his justification and belief. For instance, the person who has never been confronted with Scripture indeed believes the truth “God exists”. God has justified this belief of the truth to all men everywhere through conscience, creation and providence; yet apart from special revelation (Scripture) man cannot produce a justification for the truth he believes about God. Though we need God’s spoken word to justify knowledge, we need not have this revelatory word to have knowledge.

With respect to “sufficient warrant”, whether one has knowledge or not would depend upon what is meant by the term.

As for your original query, even the law of contradiction, apart from general revelation, would reduce to inductive inference since nobody has tested every instance of the law. Yet even induction is only irrational to maintain if God has revealed the uniformity of nature. Accordingly, all worldviews that do not begin with revelation fail. They cannot account for univeral laws of logic or rational, inductive inference. One would have to be omniscient to know or even rationally infer anything. You might begin by positing something that can be known apart from revelation.

Best,

Ron
 
Howdy Ron!

I agree with your case that justification is not enough. I said earlier that I don't lean one way or the other, so it doesn't matter what definition one uses.

As for your original query, even the law of contradiction, apart from general revelation, would reduce to inductive inference since nobody has tested every instance of the law. Yet even induction is only irrational to maintain if God [hasn't--you wrote has, but I am assuming you meant hasn't] revealed the uniformity of nature. Accordingly, all worldviews that do not begin with revelation fail. They cannot account for universal laws of logic or rational, inductive inference. One would have to be omniscient to know or even rationally infer anything. You might begin by positing something that can be known apart from revelation.

I think I understand your argument. You are claiming that all beliefs reduce to induction if God doesn't exist, because all beliefs are formed on the basis of experience.

Induction is this:

1. At t1, X was the case.
2. At t2, X was the case.
3. At t3, X was the case.
...
4. At tn, X was the case.
5. Therefore, X is always the case.

But obviously not all beliefs are like this.

What about my current belief that I am in a room? I believe I am in a room; it appears to me that I am, I don't have any reason to think I am being deceived, and so on; I am not experiencing cognitive dysfunction; I happen to actually be in a room. Therefore I know I am in a room.

That seems easy, and no need of anything to be revealed to me.

Or perhaps this. I currently believe I have been sitting here for more than 5 minutes. I don't see any reason to think my memories are unreliable, any reason to think that the world was created 4 minutes ago, and so on; I am not experiencing cognitive dysfunction; I kept a timer next to me and watched it for the whole of what appears to be 5 minutes 10 seconds. It actually is the case that I have been sitting here for more than 5 minutes. Therefore I know I have been sitting for more than 5 minutes.
 
Steve,

For starters, your conclusions that begin with "therefore I know" go beyond the scope of the premises, making all your syllogisms invalid. Moreover, having "no reason" to believe contrary to what you believe is hardly sufficient for knowledge. Remember the clock example? (I have “no reason” to think the clock on the wall is not working is hardly sufficient for knowledge.) Even your attempt to predicate presupposes a reality that a non-revelational epistemological worldview wouldn’t afford you. After all, apart from revelation, on what basis do you suppose that the there can be any fruitful connection whatsoever between your immaterial thoughts and the material world? Unless a sovereign God stands behind your mind and the mind-independent stuff outside your mind, you would have no rational basis for believing that anything you think about the outside world affords you any truth about how things actually are in the world. You’d simply be imposing arbitrary categories of thought upon otherwise unintelligible, chaotic matter in motion - even without accounting for your use of a priori knowledge. At the very least, how, being finite, would you know that you are not being tricked by a wicked sovereign? You are assuming way too much, like there can be truth after all. As Jesus said to cynical pagan-Pilate, what is truth?

Please appreciate that there is enough in my first post and now this one to challenge your theory; so I would implore you hold off on responding for a while, at least until you’ve had time to deal with what has already been said. At the very least, do keep in mind that you assumed the law of contradiction in everything you wrote, but not having universal experience you wouldn't know that the law is valid unless God implanted you with that knowledge.

Most sincerely,

Ron
 
I honestly don't know what this has to do with requiring revelation or not, which was the original question, Steven.

What's your objection to the presuppositionalist requirement that all knowledge is revelational? (special and general both, as I pointed out earlier) Surely you're not trying to construct some sort of apologetic built on "neutral ground"?

I am asking why non-revelational epsitemologies are deficient. It seems to be the presup argument that if God does not exist and (therefore) nothing is revealed to man, then man cannot know anything.

You should get this book:



Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended, Greg L. Bahnsen

Besides being an absolutely superb book overall, in the first appendix, Bahnsen deals explicitly with this question.

Steven -

Also, if you have Van Til's Apologetic by Bahnsen, his chapter 4 on epistemology and apologetics addresses the issue of knowledge and revelation.

 
Also, if you have Van Til's Apologetic by Bahnsen, his chapter 4 on epistemology and apologetics addresses the issue of knowledge and revelation.

Todd,

Great suggestion! In my humble opinion, that is the chapter in the book. It alone is worth the cost of admission!

Ron
 
Hello Steven,

You asked...

It seems to me that presuppositionalists claim that revelation is necessary for knowledge; if there is no revelation, there is no knowledge.

Let me make some distinctions between this claim and TAG. TAG argues that knowledge, rational inquiry, morality, etc..., require an appropriate ontological foundation of which only God supplies. This is expressed in statements like...

K: "If God does not exist, then there is no knowledge."

Now, what is being said in the quote at the beginning of this post is different than K. What is being said is along the lines of...

R: "If God does not communicate to His creation, i.e., provide revelation, then there is no knowledge."

R is a fundamentally different claim than K in that R seems to be some type of epistemological foundation rather than ontological. Also, K seems to be independent of R. That is to say, it seems K can be true when R is false. As such, one can be a presuppositionalist and reject R, which I do. Here is why...

My awareness of my mental states (like "I am feeling pain") is considered knowledge. This awareness does not seem to depend on general or special revelation. It seems to simply depend upon God creating me with the appropriate mental faculties. For those who assert R, God creating me with the appropriate mental faculties is not sufficient for me to gain knowledge through those God given mental faculties. They say revelation is needed. This seems absurd when you consider that revelation must come through those God given mental faculties in the first place - even if that revelation is immediate! In other words, if my God given mental faculties cannot give me knowledge, then God's revelation to me (both general and special), even if immediate, cannot be knowledge because it must come through those very mental faculties. But the Bible contradicts this. The Bible says that my mental faculties are sufficient to know general revelation. As such, I suspect R is false.

Sincerely,

Brian
 
What about my current belief that I am in a room? I believe I am in a room; it appears to me that I am, I don't have any reason to think I am being deceived, and so on; I am not experiencing cognitive dysfunction; I happen to actually be in a room. Therefore I know I am in a room.

That seems easy, and no need of anything to be revealed to me.

Or perhaps this. I currently believe I have been sitting here for more than 5 minutes. I don't see any reason to think my memories are unreliable, any reason to think that the world was created 4 minutes ago, and so on; I am not experiencing cognitive dysfunction; I kept a timer next to me and watched it for the whole of what appears to be 5 minutes 10 seconds. It actually is the case that I have been sitting here for more than 5 minutes. Therefore I know I have been sitting for more than 5 minutes.

:popcorn: i'm enjoying this...

from a autonomous point of view you really can't know you're in the room right now, sure you say you have no reason to believe you're being deceived but that is the nature of deception. you could be dreaming, you could be in a coma and some scientist are probing you brain for stimulation.

if you dropped your pen would it go down or up? past experiences tell you down but you have no reason to believe that next time it will go down, the laws can change.

according to philosophy without divine revelation, we should be a skeptic about everything because we can't lay down the basic foundation for knowledge, we cannot know if the laws of logic we are used to reason are accurate or not.
 
K: "If God does not exist, then there is no knowledge."

Now, what is being said in the quote at the beginning of this post is different than K. What is being said is along the lines of...

R: "If God does not communicate to His creation, i.e., provide revelation, then there is no knowledge."


Brian,

I actually had typed out that same nuance but decided to delete it from my second post. Let me comment though since you raise the distinction. Steve had written after his first inquiry: “It seems to be the presup argument that if God does not exist and (therefore) nothing is revealed to man, then man cannot know anything.” For sake of time I assumed that Steve would agree with K, that if God does not exist then there can be no knowledge. The reason being, I trust he agrees that apart from God nothing would exist, including knowledge. Accordingly, I decided for the sake of time to interpret no relevant distinction in his use of words, thereby assuming he wanted to deal only with claim R, that knowledge presupposes revelation.

You said: “it seems K can be true when R is false.”

Indeed, K does not imply R, but of course (and as you appreciate), that does not imply that R must be false.

You further wrote: “As such, one can be a presuppositionalist and reject R, which I do.”

I guess one may choose to define “presuppositionalist” any way one likes, but I would suggest that Clark, following Augustine on this matter, as well as Van Til were not as all-encompassing as you might have us to believe. :) Maybe you have other presuppositionalists in mind, but I find it a bit passing strange that you would assert that one can be a presuppositionalist while denying “knowledge, therefore, revelation” since both Clark and Van Til agreed on that point (and many others). First consider Van Til: “We may characterize this whole situation by saying that the creation of God is a revelation of God. God revealed himself in nature and also revealed himself in the mind of man. Thus it is impossible for the mind of man to function except in the atmosphere of revelation. And every thought of man when it functioned normally in this atmosphere of revelation would express the truth as laid in the creation by God. We may therefore call a Christian epistemology a revelational epistemology.” Yet you demur: “For those who assert R, God creating me with the appropriate mental faculties is not sufficient for me to gain knowledge through those God given mental faculties. They say revelation is needed.”

Maybe Van Til was wrong (though I don’t think so), but there is no doubt that he affirmed that it is impossible for the mind of man to function without revelation. Accordingly, revelation was necessary for a functioning mind and if so, for knowledge too. Yet you would have us believe that presuppositionalism makes room for the idea that “appropriate mental faculties” apart from revelation is sufficient for one to gain knowledge. Consider Clark, following Augustine. Clark not only believed that apart from revelation there could be no knowledge; his view of knowledge had all the marks of revelation. Not only was all knowledge predicated upon revelation for Clark; it was also revelatory in and of itself. Clark states:

“With consideration such as these Augustine was able to explain the learning and the teaching process. The teacher in the classroom does not give his students ideas. The ideas or truths are discovered by the student in his own mind; and as he contemplates the truth within the mind, it is not a product of the student. The truth is not individual, but universal; truth did not begin when we were born, it has always existed.

Is all this any more than the assertion that there is an eternal, immutable Mind, a Supreme Reason, a personal, living God? The truths of propositions that may be known are the thoughts of God, the eternal thoughts of God. And insofar as man knows anything he is in contact with God’s mind. Since, further, God’s mind is God, we may legitimately borrow the figurative language, if not precise meaning, of the mystics and say, we have a vision of God.”

Clark, following Augustine, appreciated that man is not autonomous and that any knowledge received can only be by God’s quickening of the human mind, as opposed to reception by way of autonomous pursuit. Accordingly, any eternal truth man knows is, as Van Til put it here (and as Clark said even more clearly and consistently in other places), “… true if it corresponds to the knowledge God has…” This knowledge available to men is not possible apart form the mind of man functioning “in the atmosphere of revelation” (Van Til), and not apart from receiving a “vision of God” (Clark).

Clark and Van Til agreed that knowledge presupposes truth and those otherwise unintelligible brute particulars, unorganized by a Divine Mind, cannot be known. God must preinterpret the particulars and grant knowledge of their unified relationship. When a man with “appropriate mental faculties” (as you put it) gains knowledge, he receives knowledge that is not a product of the student (Clark). The student discovers truths, yet not new truths to God. The student receives as it were “a vision of God”, a piece of God’s eternal knowledge. He receives and embraces truth that God has been pleased to conceal until a predetermined time when the concealment is unveiled. That unfolding of concealed truth for Augustine, and I would suggest Clark as well, has all the marks of revelation if it is truth at all, for all truth is concealed in the Omnipotent One until he determines to release it; it does not exist in nature as intelligible in and of itself. To suggest that “appropriate faculties” are sufficient for the apprehension of God’s truth would seem to imply the possibility of autonomous pursuit of brute particulars – apart from God’s determination to grant / reveal that which can be known of that body of truth that is contained in the Mind of God. Moreover, if appropriate faculties are sufficient, then why don't men with appropriate faculties have all the knowledge they'll ever have upon having such faculties? Obvously, there must be at least another variable in the equation, like God's determination to enlighten, which is peculiar to a revelational epistemology.

At the very least, given that God alone is omnipotent and is alone the source of all truth, any truth that can be known must be due to God's sovereign unleashing of those truths to the minds of men. Whether we call it revelatory or illumination, it is the work of God, which the non-revelational epistemology denies is necessary. That's the point.

It may also be worth repeating what I said to Steve, "you assumed the law of contradiction in everything you wrote, but not having universal experience you wouldn't know that the law is valid unless God implanted you with that knowledge." Accordingly, even if you don't accept the implications of Clark, that all knowledge is in a sense revelatory in that man simply acquires by God's sovereign fiat what God already knows, I would hope you would agree that all knowledge presupposes the law of contradiction, which cannot be arrived at by a posteriori means; yet rather requires a general revelation, which you might be including in your view of sound mental faculties. Accordingly, if every bit of knowledge presupposes the law of contradiction that is only available through revelation, then by extension all knowledge presupposes at least that bit of revelation.

Yours,

Ron
 
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Hello Ron,

I appreciated your post. I do not have time to interact with it right now, but will try to post something by tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Brian
 
Here's a paper on Van Til's and Plantinga's Epistemology.

http://www.proginosko.com/docs/IfKnowledgeThenGod.pdf

I believe that Van Til believed that a man's innate knowledge of God was foundational to all his other knowledge because God is the objective all-conditioner, whose total knowledge of facts and laws defines what is.

Without God's total exhaustive knowledge e.g. of a particular object e.g. an orange, defining it objectively and being communicated to our minds via the creation, human beings could never know what it is, because our knowledge of the object is always partial and subjective.

Isn't it Kant who said we cannot know things in themselves? In a world without God this would be really true, because it is God Who not only creates and sustains things and gives moral value to human behaviour, but also defines what things really are, and thus man can have true and real knowledge of things, which is yet subjective and partial.

If the thing - e.g. an orange - was not defined in and by God's infinite mind, we could not define it in or by our finite minds.

From the above essay by James Anderson:-

A recurring theme in the epistemological arguments of both Plantinga and Van Til is
the observation that in order for us to have knowledge of the world certain conditions
must be fulfilled that cannot be fulfilled by the human mind alone (either singularly or
collectively). For example, if it turns out that human knowledge requires the
possession of cognitive faculties that are literally well designed, we cannot claim with
a straight face that we ourselves are the designers in question. Likewise, suppose it
really is the case that for anyone to have any knowledge of the world, at least one
person must have comprehensive knowledge of the world; the shortlist of human
candidates who might take the credit would be a short list indeed.


Only God can have total knowledge of the object/fact in front of you e.g. an orange, therefore only God can know the thing in itself, therefore without God's knowledge, our knowledge of all things would be subjective and partial, and would amount to no knowledge at all.
 
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Hello Ron,

I appreciated your post. I do not have time to interact with it right now, but will try to post something by tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Brian

No Hurry, Brian. And please don't feel you have to be exhaustive in your response. If you see a main point of contention, then by all means zero in on that without getting into every jot and tittle, if you prefer.

On a more personal note, I thought of you fondly at different times this year. For one thing, I was in Arizona for Christmas at my father-in-law's place, which brought you to mind. I was not close to your area otherwise I would have tried to make contact.

Warmly,

Ron
 
Richard,

Thanks for the thoughts. I trust Brian would agree that for finite men to know anything there must be a deposit of all knowledge, and that such a deposit is located in the Divine Mind. Without such a deposit, for man to know anything he would have to know everything, but since God knows everything, he can grant us knowledge without our having the ability to search an infinite number of alternatives that might otherwise undermine the knowledge we might possess. What is entailed by our knowledge, however, is a justification of the truth believed. That justification (or affirmation if you will), the faculty of reason cannot supply. The affirmation of the truth is neither part of the mind, nor part of the propostion, nor found within the belief. It is a revelational justification that has its source not in our being as image bearer but in God alone.

I've made reference to the law of contradiction. Our justification for our belief in that law-truth cannot be sourced to the human mind, lest we end up being the justification of an attribute of God, logic. Folly? The justification for the law of contradiction comes to us from outside ourselves. Indeed it must. It comes from God. It is not a part of the mind, yet rather an enabler of the mind.

Blessings,

Ron
 
Richard,

Thanks for the thoughts. I trust Brian would agree that for finite men to know anything there must be a deposit of all knowledge, and that such a deposit is located in the Divine Mind. Without such a deposit, for man to know anything he would have to know everything, but since God knows everything, he can grant us knowledge without our having the ability to search an infinite number of alternatives that might otherwise undermine the knowledge we might possess. What is entailed by our knowledge, however, is a justification of the truth believed. That justification (or affirmation if you will), the faculty of reason cannot supply. The affirmation of the truth is neither part of the mind, nor part of the propostion, nor found within the belief. It is a revelational justification that has its source not in our being as image bearer but in God alone.

I've made reference to the law of contradiction. Our justification for our belief in that law-truth cannot be sourced to the human mind, lest we end up being the justification of an attribute of God, logic. Folly? The justification for the law of contradiction comes to us from outside ourselves. Indeed it must. It comes from God. It is not a part of the mind, yet rather an enabler of the mind.

Blessings,

Ron

Why are you assuming Platonic idealism here? Why does there have to be a divine repository of knowledge for me to be able to know that, for example, I am sitting on a chair?

Why do I believe in the law of non-contradiction? Because it's necessarily true since the alternative is obviously false. My saying this in no way justifies it any more than Elijah calling fire from heaven justified God's omnipotence.

What you are searching for is metaphysical justification, not epistemological justification, which is, in my opinion, backwards.
 
Hello Ron,

I was not close to your area otherwise I would have tried to make contact.

Thank you for your kind words. If you are ever in the area, I would love for us to hook up.

Please feel free to zero in on anything I said below. As such, do not feel as if you have to interact with everything below.

I guess one may choose to define “presuppositionalist” any way one likes, but I would suggest that Clark, following Augustine on this matter, as well as Van Til were not as all-encompassing as you might have us to believe.

I agree with you that we are dealing with semantics here. I was using the term 'presuppositionalist' as one who affirms K. I agree with you that Clark affirmed R. In fact, he defined 'knowledge' only as that which can be rightly deduced from the Scriptures. Nothing else for him was properly called 'knowledge'. I have argued against Clark's Scripturalism in other threads. Concerning Van Til, he too might have affirmed R, but I would like to comment on some of the quotes you provided.

VanTil as quoted by Ron said:
We may characterize this whole situation by saying that the creation of God is a revelation of God. God revealed himself in nature and also revealed himself in the mind of man. Thus it is impossible for the mind of man to function except in the atmosphere of revelation. And every thought of man when it functioned normally in this atmosphere of revelation would express the truth as laid in the creation by God. We may therefore call a Christian epistemology a revelational epistemology.

When I read this, I do not see this as necessarily affirming R. When Van Til says, "It is impossible for the mind of man to function except in the atmosphere of revelation," he is simply stating that we are surrounded by the revelation of God - it is the atmosphere we breath, so to speak. As such, our mind, existing in such an atmosphere, functions within this atmosphere. This is not the same thing as saying that apart from such an atmosphere of revelation we could know nothing. It is just a picture of our created situation.

Is all this any more than the assertion that there is an eternal, immutable Mind, a Supreme Reason, a personal, living God? The truths of propositions that may be known are the thoughts of God, the eternal thoughts of God. And insofar as man knows anything he is in contact with God’s mind. Since, further, God’s mind is God, we may legitimately borrow the figurative language, if not precise meaning, of the mystics and say, we have a vision of God.

Some of this sounds more like an affirmation of K rather than R. Also, it sounds as if you are defining knowledge in a rather precise, but limited way...

Knowledge: 'X' is knowledge if and only if the knower is in touch with the mind of God.

I am not exactly sure what being "in touch with the mind of God" means. I suspect you are saying that when someone understands God's revelation, then they are in touch with the mind of God. If this is the case, then you are simply defining 'knowledge' in terms of God's revelation, i.e., it is being defind in such a way as to make R necessary. Again, I am not sure why my mental states, which do not seem to be part of what is properly called General Revelation, is not considered knowledge.

Moreover, if appropriate faculties are sufficient, then why don't men with appropriate faculties have all the knowledge they'll ever have upon having such faculties? Obvously, there must be at least another variable in the equation, like God's determination to enlighten, which is peculiar to a revelational epistemology.

To say X is sufficient to have knowledge is not the same thing as saying X is sufficient to have all knowledge. For instance, if God does not reveal Himself to me in a saving way (enlighten me), then I cannot know those things that accompany salvation, but I still could know the truth or falsity of propositions like "I am feeling pain".

I would hope you would agree that all knowledge presupposes the law of contradiction, which cannot be arrived at by a posteriori means; yet rather requires a general revelation, which you might be including in your view of sound mental faculties.

My using LNC is a function of my mental hardware - how God created me. It is not a function of general or special revelation. Now, I grant that my using LNC screams that a creator exists (in other words K is true), but this is not the same as saying that I must first have revelation to use it. If you want to define 'revelation' in broader terms to include my mental hardware, then you may do so, but we have gone beyond the normal use of what is commonly understood as revelation. For example, Clark would claim that revelation is propositional in nature. My mental hardware is not propositional. My mental hardware is the equipment that allows me to understand and judge propositions. God gave me such equipment so I could understand revelation. I cannot understand revelation without the appropriate mental hardware. Mental hardware comes before revelation. As such, for us to be able to know anything (espitemology) we have to have the appropriate equipment given to us by God (ontology).

God has given us the appropriate mental harware when He created us. We then use that hardware to gain knowledge like those truths found in general and special revelation. If our equipment could not in and of itself provide knowledge, then we could not even know general or special revelation. Here is another way to think of it: revelation presupposes one being able to know that revelation. If this is not the case, then what do we mean by the term 'revelation'? Our being able to know comes before our knowing. This is why I think R is false.

Sincerely,

Brian
 
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