Cornelius Van Till's worldview is consistent with atheism

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jubalsqaud

Puritan Board Freshman
Here is the problem.

Atheism is the assertion that there are no gods.

Atheists use the word "god" to designate entities that have the same properties we have

A atheist understands the argument

P1 if God knows X and I know X then we both know X

P2 God and I know X

C therefore we both know X

to be using the word "know(s)" consistently with the same meaning, that is "justified true belief"

This means the word "know(s)" is univocally used throughout

However:

Van till's usage of anthropomorphic terms are not univocal.

So God "God knows X" should actually be taken as "God quasi-knows X"

But...

"God quasi-knows X" and "God knows X" do not express the same proposition



This leads to the problem of actually finding a difference in what Van Till believes and what atheists believe.


Atheists, if logically consistent with there own claim, are ok with the idea that a non-mind might be given anthropomorphic properties.

"The sea was angry, but the western winds soothed it"

Is fine for a atheist.

Likewise they are fine with "God knows X (analogical)" as long as "God knows X (univocal)" is false

This is because analogical knowledge is not knowledge


With atheism a omni God has the same property of knowledge we have, he just has more justified true beliefs.

For Van Till God doesn't have any justified true beliefs, he has some mystery property also called knowledge.

In fact there cannot be any way to make a univocal omni God to a non-univocal omni God both fit under theism.

This is because a non-univocal omni God is so utterly alien to creation that he can't have its properties.

Univocal omni Gods are entirely creaturely in property set but non-univocal are entirely non-creaturely.

They are not kinds of the same thing, as right triangles and equilateral triangles are.

Rather they are like Bat the mammal vs bat the stick you place baseball with.

If Theism includes univocal omni Gods then theism excludes non-univocal omni Gods.

Conversations between believers in non-univocal omni Gods and atheists play out like this

Person 1 "Im a abatist, I don't believe in mammals of the order chiroptera"

Person 2 "Well your wrong because I hit a homerun at a baseball game with a Louisville Slugger yesterday, which is a bat"

It doesn't matter if person 1 and 2 are using the same word "bat" , those words are don't mean the same thing.
 
Analogy of terms between God and man was not just the standard, but the only view of the reformed Orthodox on the matter, and of course of Aquinas. A critique of Van Til which implies there is something atheistic about Francis Turretin is not a very good critique.
 
Charles Johnson said:
Analogy of terms between God and man was not just the standard, but the only view of the reformed Orthodox on the matter, and of course of Aquinas. A critique of Van Til which implies there is something atheistic about Francis Turretin is not a very good critique.
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This objection is of no consequence

From the very moment that these radical analogy theologies developed they have been followed by my complaint

Charles Berkeley (christian) 1685-1753 , while writing a atheistic character to oppose his own mouth piece character in the book "Alciphron" wrote

"We will, therefore, acknowledge that all those natural effects which are vulgarly ascribed to knowledge and wisdom, proceed from a being in which there is, properly speaking, no knowledge or wisdom at all, but only something else, which in reality is the cause of those things which men, for want of knowing better, ascribe to what they call knowledge and wisdom and understanding... And, now we have granted to you that there is a God in this indefinite sense, I would fain see what use you can make of this concession. You cannot argue from unknown attributes, or, which is the same thing, from attributes in an unknown sense. You cannot prove that God is to be loved for His goodness, or feared for His justice, or respected for His knowledge: all which consequences, we own, would follow from those attributes admitted in an intelligible sense. But we deny that those or any other consequences can be drawn from attributes admitted in no particular sense, or in a sense which none of us understand. Since, therefore, nothing can be inferred from such an account of God, about conscience, or worship, or religion, you may even make the best of it. And, not to be singular, we will use the name too, and so at once there is an end of atheism."

David Hume(Deist) about the same time wrote

"I ask the theist if he does not allow that there is a great and immeasurable, because incomprehensible, difference between the human and the divine mind: The more pious he is, the more readily will he assent to the affirmative, and the more will he be disposed to magnify the difference: He will even assert that, that the difference is of a nature which cannot be too much magnified. I next turn to the Atheist... and ask him whether, from the coherence and apparent sympathy in all parts of the world, there cannot be a certain degree of analogy among all the operations of Nature, in every situation and in every age; whether the rotting of a turnip, the generation of an animal, and the structure of human thought, be not energies that probably bear some remote analogy to each other: It is impossible he can deny it: He will readily acknowledge it. Having obtained this concession, I push him still further in his retreat; and I ask him, if it be not probable, that the principle which first arranged, and still maintains order in this universe, bears not also some remote inconceivable analogy to the other operations of nature, and, among the rest, to the economy of human mind and thought. However reluctant, he must give his assent. Where then, cry I to both these antagonists, is the subject of your dispute?"

Anthony Collins (deist) in 1670ish wrote concerning the defense of divine foreknowledge as being analogical

“But if that be all that is meant by the term ['God'], I see not why Atheists should not come into the Belief of such a Deity; for they, equally with Theists, allow some general Cause of all Effects to have eternally existed; but, as far as I take it, differ from them in the Attributes of that general Cause”.


Collins is most clear in stating what should be stated.

Theists need a way to distinguish there own position from Atheists who believe in a ultimate reality.

The problem is mystery attributes like "analogical beliefs, analogical personhood, analogical goodness" don't allow you to draw principled distinctions between those two positions.

Ultimate Atheists seem to have there position well defined:


P1 The ultimate gets to count as a God if its personal being in a univocal sense

P2 The ultimate is not personal in a univocal sense

C the ultimate is not a God
 
jubalsqaud said:
Here is the problem.

Atheism is the assertion that there are no gods.

Atheists use the word "god" to designate entities that have the same properties we have

A atheist understands the argument

P1 if God knows X and I know X then we both know X

P2 God and I know X

C therefore we both know X

to be using the word "know(s)" consistently with the same meaning, that is "justified true belief"

This means the word "know(s)" is univocally used throughout

However:

Van till's usage of anthropomorphic terms are not univocal.

So God "God knows X" should actually be taken as "God quasi-knows X"

But...

"God quasi-knows X" and "God knows X" do not express the same proposition



This leads to the problem of actually finding a difference in what Van Till believes and what atheists believe.


Atheists, if logically consistent with there own claim, are ok with the idea that a non-mind might be given anthropomorphic properties.

"The sea was angry, but the western winds soothed it"

Is fine for a atheist.

Likewise they are fine with "God knows X (analogical)" as long as "God knows X (univocal)" is false

This is because analogical knowledge is not knowledge


With atheism a omni God has the same property of knowledge we have, he just has more justified true beliefs.

For Van Till God doesn't have any justified true beliefs, he has some mystery property also called knowledge.

In fact there cannot be any way to make a univocal omni God to a non-univocal omni God both fit under theism.

This is because a non-univocal omni God is so utterly alien to creation that he can't have its properties.

Univocal omni Gods are entirely creaturely in property set but non-univocal are entirely non-creaturely.

They are not kinds of the same thing, as right triangles and equilateral triangles are.

Rather they are like Bat the mammal vs bat the stick you place baseball with.

If Theism includes univocal omni Gods then theism excludes non-univocal omni Gods.

Conversations between believers in non-univocal omni Gods and atheists play out like this

Person 1 "Im a abatist, I don't believe in mammals of the order chiroptera"

Person 2 "Well your wrong because I hit a homerun at a baseball game with a Louisville Slugger yesterday, which is a bat"

It doesn't matter if person 1 and 2 are using the same word "bat" , those words are don't mean the same thing.
Click to expand...
Ok, a couple of things here. Van Til always said if you make anything the "ultimate" other than God the whole knowledge, ethics, ontological scheme breaks down. In your two posts you assumed creation and/or mankind is ultimate and God is some "thing" relative to us (which is why given your assumptions you're right). But if your assumptions are wrong that only proves Van Til's point. So I don't see anything there that is problematic for Vantillians.
Two, all personal knowledge between personal beings is analogical. If you say "my right hand hurts" and I say "my right hand hurts too". There is no way for you to prove that we have a univocal knowledge (1 to 1 relationship, inderdcernability of indenticals) of what the other one means. The fact that your talking about your right hand and not mine proves univocal knowledge is impossible.Those are just the two biggest problems.
 
I’m sure you will understand why I ascribe little weight to a critic who cannot even correctly spell the name of the one he is criticizing.
 
@jubalsqaud looking through your relatively short post history here, all of your threads seem to be about critique of Van Til. It appears you have an axe to grind.
 
There are legitimate critiques of Van Til. I've offered many of them. But to take the doctrine of analogy and make Francis Turretin an atheist means we've missed the mark somewhere.
 
To reject analogy is to either claim equality with God or to reject faith altogether because God is entirely unknowable by man in any sense whatsoever.

God and I can both know the same thing. But He knows it intrinsically, I only know it by revelation.

Might I suggest you give it a rest? You have this very odd fascination with “Van Till”. I think your spiritual health would be better served by exploring other things, especially given the wealth of knowledge here on the PB.

Furthermore, I don’t think you understand these things as well as you think you do. IF you want to continue in philosophical critiques of various positions (again I think you should put the philosophy to bed for a while), I suggest you remove yourself from your podium of instructing and take a seat of learning.
 
Start with Van Asselt's Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism (Reformation Heritage Books).

Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism (Van Asselt)

Van Asselt. Willem. Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism. Reformation Heritage Books. This book changed my life. It should be required reading in at least one seminary course, preferably the first systematic theology class. Imagine someone taking Richard Muller's four volume...
www.puritanboard.com www.puritanboard.com
 
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I don't recognize Van Til or any of his students (and I count myself among them) in the OP. In Van Til's thought, it is God who has direct, intuitive knowledge of all things, and it is creatures who have analogous knowledge. The OP has this precisely reversed. This is a fatal flaw. To say that Van Til's thought is consistent with atheism is absolutely, positively, analogously, directly, and in all other conceivable ways, ludicrous.
 
RamistThomist said:
Start with Van Asselt's Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism (Reformation Heritage Books).

Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism (Van Asselt)

Van Asselt. Willem. Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism. Reformation Heritage Books. This book changed my life. It should be required reading in at least one seminary course, preferably the first systematic theology class. Imagine someone taking Richard Muller's four volume...
www.puritanboard.com www.puritanboard.com
Click to expand...
Is this a good book?
 
greenbaggins said:
I don't recognize Van Til or any of his students (and I count myself among them) in the OP. In Van Til's thought, it is God who has direct, intuitive knowledge of all things, and it is creatures who have analogous knowledge. The OP has this precisely reversed. This is a fatal flaw. To say that Van Til's thought is consistent with atheism is absolutely, positively, analogously, directly, and in all other conceivable ways, ludicrous.
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Yeah thats what I noticed too. You said it better than I did.
 
RamistThomist said:
How do you even know anything?

I remember the last time this identical thread came up. Indeed, you can see it on the "similar threads" at the bottom. I never got an a reply to my last post.
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Per your JP Moreland recommendation I now answer as a particularist and appeal to knowledge by acquaintance.
 
Ethan said:
Per your JP Moreland recommendation I now answer as a particularist and appeal to knowledge by acquaintance.
Click to expand...
Good point. I believe "knowledge by acquaintance" comes from the work of Bertrand Russell. And if I remember correctly he was very close to his pragmatic "friends" he hated so much. Read "The Meaning of Truth" to see the misunderstanding.
 
Eyedoc84 said:
God and I can both know the same thing. But He knows it intrinsically, I only know it by revelation.
Click to expand...
Not if you Van Til

Now, take a look at the selection from "the complaint " from Van Til and his friends and try with a straight face to tell me the authors of this document believe you and God "know" the same thing.

The far-reaching significance of Dr. Clark's starting point, as observed under 1. above, is evident when we note that Dr. Clark holds that man's knowledge of any proposition, if it is really knowledge, is identical with God's knowledge of the same proposition. If knowledge is a matter of propositions divorced from the knowing subject, that is, of self-contained, independent statements, a proposition would have to have the same meaning for man as for God."

and later

"While we appreciate the effort to arrive at certainty with reference to man's knowledge of God, in our judgment this is done at too great a cost. It is done at the sacrifice of the transcendence of God's knowledge. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are past finding out. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God. If we are not to bring the divine knowledge of his thoughts and ways down to human knowledge, or our human knowledge up to his divine knowledge, we dare not maintain that his knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point. Our knowledge of any proposition must always remain the knowledge of the creature. As true knowledge, that knowledge must be analogical to the knowledge which God possesses, but it can never be identified with the knowledge which the infinite and absolute Creator possesses of the same proposition."


Knowledge entails assent to a proposition so if the meaning of "Cain killed able" isn't the same for God as me. God doesn't believe what I believe and therefore know what i know
 
jubalsqaud said:
Not if you Van Til

Now, take a look at the selection from "the complaint " from Van Til and his friends and try with a straight face to tell me the authors of this document believe you and God "know" the same thing.

The far-reaching significance of Dr. Clark's starting point, as observed under 1. above, is evident when we note that Dr. Clark holds that man's knowledge of any proposition, if it is really knowledge, is identical with God's knowledge of the same proposition. If knowledge is a matter of propositions divorced from the knowing subject, that is, of self-contained, independent statements, a proposition would have to have the same meaning for man as for God."

and later

"While we appreciate the effort to arrive at certainty with reference to man's knowledge of God, in our judgment this is done at too great a cost. It is done at the sacrifice of the transcendence of God's knowledge. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are past finding out. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God. If we are not to bring the divine knowledge of his thoughts and ways down to human knowledge, or our human knowledge up to his divine knowledge, we dare not maintain that his knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point. Our knowledge of any proposition must always remain the knowledge of the creature. As true knowledge, that knowledge must be analogical to the knowledge which God possesses, but it can never be identified with the knowledge which the infinite and absolute Creator possesses of the same proposition."


Knowledge entails assent to a proposition so if the meaning of "Cain killed able" isn't the same for God as me. God doesn't believe what I believe and therefore know what i know
Click to expand...
You still haven't answered my right arm problem, how can you show/prove you mean exactly the same thing by "my right hand hurts" as I do in a propersitional format? Univocal or non analogical?
 
jubalsqaud said:
Not if you Van Til

Now, take a look at the selection from "the complaint " from Van Til and his friends and try with a straight face to tell me the authors of this document believe you and God "know" the same thing.

The far-reaching significance of Dr. Clark's starting point, as observed under 1. above, is evident when we note that Dr. Clark holds that man's knowledge of any proposition, if it is really knowledge, is identical with God's knowledge of the same proposition. If knowledge is a matter of propositions divorced from the knowing subject, that is, of self-contained, independent statements, a proposition would have to have the same meaning for man as for God."

and later

"While we appreciate the effort to arrive at certainty with reference to man's knowledge of God, in our judgment this is done at too great a cost. It is done at the sacrifice of the transcendence of God's knowledge. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are past finding out. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God. If we are not to bring the divine knowledge of his thoughts and ways down to human knowledge, or our human knowledge up to his divine knowledge, we dare not maintain that his knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point. Our knowledge of any proposition must always remain the knowledge of the creature. As true knowledge, that knowledge must be analogical to the knowledge which God possesses, but it can never be identified with the knowledge which the infinite and absolute Creator possesses of the same proposition."


Knowledge entails assent to a proposition so if the meaning of "Cain killed able" isn't the same for God as me. God doesn't believe what I believe and therefore know what i know
Click to expand...
Wow again so much. "Unless knowledge is propositional, it isn't knowledge" how do you account for tacit knowledge (women's intuition, and/or a carpenter knowing roughly how long to cut a board)? I was once a carpenter and know that situation.
Also If a proposition must mean the same thing to God, as creator, as it does to man, as creature, than that implies that the univocal standard for "knowledge" (which is untenable) is a standard God must submit to? But we both don't believe that. So the only way around is analogical knowledge in all our personal knowledge of other persons and practical things.
 
jubalsqaud said:
Not if you Van Til

Now, take a look at the selection from "the complaint " from Van Til and his friends and try with a straight face to tell me the authors of this document believe you and God "know" the same thing.

The far-reaching significance of Dr. Clark's starting point, as observed under 1. above, is evident when we note that Dr. Clark holds that man's knowledge of any proposition, if it is really knowledge, is identical with God's knowledge of the same proposition. If knowledge is a matter of propositions divorced from the knowing subject, that is, of self-contained, independent statements, a proposition would have to have the same meaning for man as for God."

and later

"While we appreciate the effort to arrive at certainty with reference to man's knowledge of God, in our judgment this is done at too great a cost. It is done at the sacrifice of the transcendence of God's knowledge. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are past finding out. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God. If we are not to bring the divine knowledge of his thoughts and ways down to human knowledge, or our human knowledge up to his divine knowledge, we dare not maintain that his knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point. Our knowledge of any proposition must always remain the knowledge of the creature. As true knowledge, that knowledge must be analogical to the knowledge which God possesses, but it can never be identified with the knowledge which the infinite and absolute Creator possesses of the same proposition."


Knowledge entails assent to a proposition so if the meaning of "Cain killed able" isn't the same for God as me. God doesn't believe what I believe and therefore know what i know
Click to expand...
Are you familiar with the concepts of "accommodation" or the "Creator-creature" distinction? Or the difference between archetype and ectype? I would encourage you to do a thorough study of a Reformed understanding of revelation. There are places to critique Van Til, but on this point about the difference between divine and human knowledge, Van Til is simply repeating the concepts confessed by the whole Reformed tradition. Jacob's recommendation of Van Asselt is a great place to start. If you want a deeper dive in this specific issue, check out Muller's Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1 ch. 5.
 
This answered my question...... "The far-reaching significance of Dr. Clark's starting point, as observed under"... Now I know what this is about. LOL
 
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