Tertullian
Puritan Board Freshman
I was hoping I could get some feed back- good or bad- about these three paragraphs I wrote in defense of the Christian view that it is possible for God to reveal himself. My refutation of the agnostic position is an attempt to apply Van Till's insights and show how practical it can be... in answering objections to Christianity... your comments would be appreciated:
To the glory of Christ-Tyler
The human imagination is apt to arrive at vain conclusions when it seeks to climb the heights of Olympus to discover the nature of God for what worldly philosopher has not contradicted the last worldly philosopher's statements upon the subject of God? Why one need only read one philosopher to find out why another philosopher is wrong and so by reading two you find out what is wrong with both! Destiny itself works against all attempts of natural reason to know God. Is it then any surprise that some among the ranks of the world's intellectual elite have arrogantly pontificated, from their imaginations about God that "God cannot reveal truth to us in words for God is too big to be contained in our small minds and so we can never understand anything about God." These objectors have been called "prepositional-revelation" agnostics and it has become popular for modern theologians to become agnostics of that flavor and dismiss Scripture's claim to be God's words on the basis that God is unknowable and that it is therefore worse then wrong to say that Scripture is God's word for it is just plain nonsense to say that Scripture is God's words. Two questions must now be wagered, (1) "Is this objection sound?" and (2) "Is it really irrational to think that God could reveal himself to creatures in language?"
In answering the first question one finds on close examination that these agnostics forget that one does not need to communicate exhaustively in order to communicate truly. Why not even communication between two creatures is exhaustive and therefore if we are obligated to throw out belief that God can communicate with creatures because He cannot exhaustively communicate himself one must if he is to be consistent throw away all communication between people. Hence if a person accepts the agnostic premise that you cannot communicate unless you communicate exhaustively that person must disregard the objections of the agnostic as meaningless and communicating nothing and therefore dismiss it. In other words if one were to accept the agnostics claims as true one would first have to presuppose them as false and say that some things can be truly communicated that are not exhaustively communicated. Worse still, these objectors to Christianity have only to be shown that they have not really raised an objection to Christianity at all but have in fact refused to even consider Christianity from the start for these agnostics fashion a god of their own making when they said about their god that, "he is of such heavenly separateness no earthy folk can no know him" and from that assumption they argued that God, since He must be what they say He is cannot be known at all but the observant student of logic notices that these philosophers have sawed off the very branch they sat on in another way as well because a person cannot consistently say that God is completely unknowable because to say that God's attributes are unknowable presupposes that at least one of God's attribute are known by humans, namely, humans known that God has the attribute of complete unknowablity! Therefore the agnostic has not proved his case at all but just assumed his position to be true and then on the basis of that assumption told the Christian that since the Christian is adding to what they know to be true the Christian cannot be right.
This agnostic objection is not satisfactory at all. Suppose the Christian argued that God can reveal himself and since the Agnostic thinks that God cannot reveal himself he must be wrong. The Agnostic would immediately accuse the Christian of just merely stating the Christian position rather then disproving the agnostic position but this is exactly what the agnostic has done he has just assumed his position to be true and then from that arbitrary assumption objected to Christianity and so just as the agnostic would not accept the Christian version of that argument neither ought the Christian to feel any burden to accept the argument when the agnostic utilizes it. It has now become apparent that the whole agnostic argument fails because it simply just does not understand his opponents position for it views Christianity as asserting a few truths when in fact Christians are standing upon a complete worldview equipped with its own presuppositions about God for the Christian worldview teaches that God is an infinite person and as a person God can communicate to persons and as an absolute, God can ensure and has ensured, that Scripture's statements about Him are true even if not exhaustive. A person who starts from this Christian presumption leaves the possibility of divine revelation open and to some extent necessary and so finds not a prior reason not to accept Scriptures claims. Therefore the Christian has no reason to stop believing in God revealing prepositional revelation thus we can safely say in answer to question (2) that is perfectly reasonable to believe that God can reveal prepositional revelation.
[Edited on 4-8-2004 by Tertullian]
To the glory of Christ-Tyler
The human imagination is apt to arrive at vain conclusions when it seeks to climb the heights of Olympus to discover the nature of God for what worldly philosopher has not contradicted the last worldly philosopher's statements upon the subject of God? Why one need only read one philosopher to find out why another philosopher is wrong and so by reading two you find out what is wrong with both! Destiny itself works against all attempts of natural reason to know God. Is it then any surprise that some among the ranks of the world's intellectual elite have arrogantly pontificated, from their imaginations about God that "God cannot reveal truth to us in words for God is too big to be contained in our small minds and so we can never understand anything about God." These objectors have been called "prepositional-revelation" agnostics and it has become popular for modern theologians to become agnostics of that flavor and dismiss Scripture's claim to be God's words on the basis that God is unknowable and that it is therefore worse then wrong to say that Scripture is God's word for it is just plain nonsense to say that Scripture is God's words. Two questions must now be wagered, (1) "Is this objection sound?" and (2) "Is it really irrational to think that God could reveal himself to creatures in language?"
In answering the first question one finds on close examination that these agnostics forget that one does not need to communicate exhaustively in order to communicate truly. Why not even communication between two creatures is exhaustive and therefore if we are obligated to throw out belief that God can communicate with creatures because He cannot exhaustively communicate himself one must if he is to be consistent throw away all communication between people. Hence if a person accepts the agnostic premise that you cannot communicate unless you communicate exhaustively that person must disregard the objections of the agnostic as meaningless and communicating nothing and therefore dismiss it. In other words if one were to accept the agnostics claims as true one would first have to presuppose them as false and say that some things can be truly communicated that are not exhaustively communicated. Worse still, these objectors to Christianity have only to be shown that they have not really raised an objection to Christianity at all but have in fact refused to even consider Christianity from the start for these agnostics fashion a god of their own making when they said about their god that, "he is of such heavenly separateness no earthy folk can no know him" and from that assumption they argued that God, since He must be what they say He is cannot be known at all but the observant student of logic notices that these philosophers have sawed off the very branch they sat on in another way as well because a person cannot consistently say that God is completely unknowable because to say that God's attributes are unknowable presupposes that at least one of God's attribute are known by humans, namely, humans known that God has the attribute of complete unknowablity! Therefore the agnostic has not proved his case at all but just assumed his position to be true and then on the basis of that assumption told the Christian that since the Christian is adding to what they know to be true the Christian cannot be right.
This agnostic objection is not satisfactory at all. Suppose the Christian argued that God can reveal himself and since the Agnostic thinks that God cannot reveal himself he must be wrong. The Agnostic would immediately accuse the Christian of just merely stating the Christian position rather then disproving the agnostic position but this is exactly what the agnostic has done he has just assumed his position to be true and then from that arbitrary assumption objected to Christianity and so just as the agnostic would not accept the Christian version of that argument neither ought the Christian to feel any burden to accept the argument when the agnostic utilizes it. It has now become apparent that the whole agnostic argument fails because it simply just does not understand his opponents position for it views Christianity as asserting a few truths when in fact Christians are standing upon a complete worldview equipped with its own presuppositions about God for the Christian worldview teaches that God is an infinite person and as a person God can communicate to persons and as an absolute, God can ensure and has ensured, that Scripture's statements about Him are true even if not exhaustive. A person who starts from this Christian presumption leaves the possibility of divine revelation open and to some extent necessary and so finds not a prior reason not to accept Scriptures claims. Therefore the Christian has no reason to stop believing in God revealing prepositional revelation thus we can safely say in answer to question (2) that is perfectly reasonable to believe that God can reveal prepositional revelation.
[Edited on 4-8-2004 by Tertullian]
