Cornelius Van Till's worldview is consistent with atheism
- Thread starter jubalsqaud
- Start date
- Status
83r17h
Puritan Board Freshman
So, the fact that you quote this and emphasis this bit by italics demonstrates your refusal to actually hear what both Van Til, and everyone here, has been saying about the concept of analogy. Note also that I'm not exactly a huge defender of Van Til or his apologetics. But you seem to think that he only says one thing, so here's a direct quote from Van Til himself which shows that you are understanding him incorrectly.
This is admittedly a difficult explanation, and I haven't included the full paragraph. But let me examine two things here.
First: coincidence. According to Van Til: "the knowledge of God and the knowledge of man coincide at every point." Also, "the knowledge of God and the knowledge of man coincide at no point." My point? That when you pay attention exclusively to one of these statements, neglecting the fact that the other exists, you misrepresent Van Til and make a pointless argument. Not only that, but it leads you to misconstrue what analogy means, because you only take a partial understanding of it. What you are claiming analogy is, is an incomplete concept. You can't legitimately attack analogy if you have understood it falsely. Analogy has both truths. Van Til, for the innovation of his expression, is not innovating the substance here. As others have pointed out, Turretin believes the same thing, as does Aquinas.
Second: contradiction. People want to say "well, VT just contradicted himself and this is what he really meant." Let's review the law of noncontradiction for a second. We'll take the quote from Wikipedia under the Aristotle section, just for fun, since Clark liked Aristotle: "It is impossible that the same thing belong and not belong to the same thing at the same time and in the same respect." Let me do that again, with emphasis added: "It is impossible that the same thing belong and not belong to the same thing at the same time and in the same respect." Now, this means that it is impossible that the knowledge of man possesses coincidence with the knowledge of God, as well as lacks coincidence with the knowledge of God - only if the possession and the lack are in the same respect. What does Van Til say? "coincide at every point in the sense..." and coincide at no point in the sense..." So Van Til sees two different senses in view, and thus does not actually fall into contradiction here.
Like Jacob said, there are good arguments against some things Van Til said, and there are bad arguments...and there are nonsense arguments. To say that Van Til and the concept of analogy makes him an atheist is in the nonsense category.
If you want a response to the hypothetical atheist who says that atheism defines "god" in a univocal sense, then point out that the "a" is a prefix to the "theism," and theism is not deism. Theism demands God who is not the same as creation, nor on the same level as creation. Theism demands a God who is uncreated, and thus by necessity of being uncreated, not of univocal being. Webster has some good thoughts on this in the first volume of God Without Measure if you're interested in trying to learn more. And Webster is definitely not a Van Tilliian. But the whole thing is a silly semantic "gotcha" argument which is just childish, and honestly doesn't even sound worth interacting with. "I defined my terms so that you can't be right, and I refuse to admit any other possible definitions and explanations for discussion." Okay, good for you.
Regi Addictissimus
Completely sold out to the King
Obviously. Okay, bias aside, yes, it is a great book.
TryingToLearn
Puritan Board Freshman
Exactly my first thought here. God's knowledge is qualitatively different from man's. Man's knowledge is only analogical to God's knowledge. It's the difference between archetypal and ectypal knowledge. This is far more than just a critique of Van Til. It's a critique of the entire Christian tradition other than Clarkianism.
jubalsqaud
Puritan Board Freshman
(Your post was long, I cut your quote down so this wouldn't be a great wall of text, but you still would know im addressing you)
With regards to point one and two.
I am aware of everything you just posted.
Van Til is just claiming man's knowing and God's knowing are different.
However you must remember in "the complaint" he challenged Clark's view that propositions have the same content and meaning for God as they do man. Thus propositional like "Cain killed Able" can not mean "Cain killed Able" to God or else God believes the same thing we believe.
You also tried to bolster your claim with Aquinas, good.
Aquinas actually explicitly states what he means by analogy and shows the words "knowledge" has a different but related meaning for God
Summa Theologica Article 6
"I answer that, In names predicated of many in an analogical sense, all are predicated because they have reference to some one thing; and this one thing must be placed in the definition of them all. And since that expressed by the name is the definition, as the Philosopher says (Metaph. iv), such a name must be applied primarily to that which is put in the definition of such other things, and secondarily to these others according as they approach more or less to that first. Thus, for instance, "healthy" applied to animals comes into the definition of "healthy" applied to medicine, which is called healthy as being the cause of health in the animal; and also into the definition of "healthy" which is applied to urine, which is called healthy in so far as it is the sign of the animal's health."
Aquinas thinks terms that we have like "Good" reference God's Goodness
Just like how "Healthy(1) is the property of causing things to be healthy(2)"
Healthy(1) is not the same property as healthy(2) but they are not types of the same thing, THEY ARE DIFFERENT THINGS THAT ARE MERELY RELATED
P1 Anything that is healthy(2) shares that property with non-toxic plants
P2 Mineral vitamins are healthy(1)
C Mineral vitamins share the property of healthy(2) with plants
So for Aquinas out knowledge works the same way
Knowledge(1) is our knowledge and Knowledge(2) is Gods knowledge
"X has knowledge(1)" and "X has knowledge(2)" are not types of the same thing THEY ARE DIFFERENT THINGS THAT ARE MERELY RELATED.
No,
The subjects of "My right hand hurts " uttered by me and "My right hand hurts " are different and sentences with different subjects do not express the same proposition.
However the predicates can attribute the same fact to the two different subjects.
So "hurts" the predicate of 1 would mean the same thing as "hurts" in 2.
My proof is God revealed to me that other men share the same qualitative experiences as me.
Its the only reason I can understand why somebody wouldn't want to be crucified or why somebody might want to run from King Saul.
jubalsqaud
Puritan Board Freshman
Also I apologize if I have come off as needlessly belligerent
Scottish Presbyterian
Puritan Board Sophomore
Care to enlighten the rest of us?
jwright82
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
Okay, where did God reveal to you the proposition "your right hand pain is a one to one equivalent (univocal meaning) between you and others"?
If you're going to push it back to the Bible, than ok "how does a word that was culturally conditioned (hence social use) and picked up by God to reveal something prove univocal meaning"? Its seems no matter where you go you're still left with admitting analogical use.
Unless you're trying to make a transcendental argument about the nature of language that defies common sense and the use of ordinary language, good luck. I just don't see logically your point.
Eyedoc84
Puritan Board Sophomore
The Gordon Clark reference. For some reason, many of his followers act like the 11th commandment is “thou shalt trash Cornelius van Til.”
While there are folks who still attack the thinking of Clark, it seems to me that most van Tilians today are just as happy to let the old controversy die, but Clarkians have a near-psychotic obsession with assuring that it lives on.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
That's called the archetypal/ectypal distinction. It is historic Protestantism. What Van Til actually meant was that God's mode of knowing is different than ours. God knows all things in one single non-temporal act of knowing his essence. We do not. It's literally that simple (pun intended).
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
If you think this is funny, try to find some of the threads from last summer dealing with Gordon Clark's view of Nestorianism and how it infiltrated the PRC. Those are really funny.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
To be fair, I think there are tensions in Aquinas's concept of analogy. I think guys like Franciscus Junius and others realized that Scotus's view of theologia nostra and theologia in se do a better job of capturing what Aquinas was getting at. Of course, none of that is in play in this critique.
You say this is your "two cents," but it rings absolutely true with me. I rarely ever hear a Van Tilian bring up Clark, yet there is an entire publication, still being produced and maintained, in which it seems like your "eleventh commandment" is virtually a part of the style guide. Every article, even those that have little or nothing to do with Van Til, simply must find a way to squeeze in a stab at him.The Gordon Clark reference. For some reason, many of his followers act like the 11th commandment is “thou shalt trash Cornelius van Til.”
While there are folks who still attack the thinking of Clark, it seems to me that most van Tilians today are just as happy to let the old controversy die, but Clarkians have a near-psychotic obsession with assuring that it lives on.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
And what's even sadder is that Gordon Clark had some good things to offer the church. He was a superb writer and great lecturer. His epistemology is bizarre, I grant.
jubalsqaud
Puritan Board Freshman
No he definitely didn't JUST MEAN that the mode of knowing is different
If that's all he meant he wouldn't have signed a document that literally said mode of knowing being different is not good enough the contents are also different
"Man is dependent upon God for his knowledge. We gladly concede this point, and have reckoned with it in what has been said above. However, this admission does not affect the whole point at issue here since the doctrine of the mode of the divine knowledge is not a part of the doctrine of the imcomprehensibility of his knowledge. The latter is concerned only with the contents of the divine knowledge. Dr. Clark distinguishes between the knowledge of God and of man so far as mode of knowledge is concerned, but it is a tragic fact that his dialectic has led him to obliterate the qualitative distinction between the contents of the divine mind and the knowledge which is possible to the creature, and thus to impinge in a most serious fashion upon the transcendence of the divine knowledge which is expressed by the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God."
and also
"This knowing of propositions cannot, in the nature of the case, reflect or inspire any recognition by man of his relation to God, for the simple reason that the propositions have the same content, mean the same, to God and man."
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
If you are talking about the Gordon Clark controversy, all of CVT's students admit he overstated his case and pulled back later in life. While I'm no fan of John Frame, Frame's bio is good on this point.
jubalsqaud
Puritan Board Freshman
In the event you are right I apologize.
The works of/approved by Van Til that I am familiar with imply the what I described before.
However as seen with my earlier Aquinas post, the problem is persistent throughout analogical philosophy, not just Van Til
Are you disputing the correctness of Jacob's comment? Jacob plainly stated, "If you are talking about the Gordon Clark controversy, all of CVT's students admit he overstated his case and pulled back later in life." Your apology is empty at this point.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Some references by Frame.
See Frame, Knowledge of God, 21-40. "Neither Van Til nor Clark was at his best in the debate, and the controversy (on rather technical philosophical matters which few actually understood) detracted much from the work of the gospel in the little denomination and at Westminster Seminary."
See Frame, Knowledge of God, 21-40. "Neither Van Til nor Clark was at his best in the debate, and the controversy (on rather technical philosophical matters which few actually understood) detracted much from the work of the gospel in the little denomination and at Westminster Seminary."
greenbaggins
Puritan Board Doctor
So, let me get this straight: the title of your OP is a scorched earth assault on Van Til, and you apologize if (which is not a real apology, since you are implying that what you said was not belligerent, only the interpretation of it on my part, or others, made it that way) you have come off as needlessly belligerent, all the while not changing or asking to have changed the title of your OP. I have answered the substance of your OP, showing where the fatal flaw is, to which you have not responded. Forgive me for thinking that the "apology" is not coming across as ingenuous.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
I think what the OP might have meant (or I might literally have no clue) is that in the Clark controversy, Van Til co-authored a paper where he said "God's knowledge and man's knowledge never overlap." Clark drew the immediate inference: since God knows everything, then man can know nothing.
Van Til more or less backed off of that claim, and I think Frame shows that CVT didn't intend for it to be read that way. Yes, it is a bad take by Van Til but it's not his final word.
Eyedoc84
Puritan Board Sophomore
Much like his God is one person/three persons statement. Poor choice of words given not only established language but high propensity for being misconstrued. However, when reading him in wider context, it is clear(er) what he meant, and in line with historic orthodoxy and reformed thought.
jwright82
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
Yes and from what I read Murray authored the complaint.
ZackF
Puritan Board Professor
Dovetailing off of Lane, the OP never mentions Clark, nor any context really.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
True. It's the standard Clarkian criticism of CVT, so I assumed as much. And Clarkians don't like analogical reasoning, which the OP has attacked in other threads.
And I'll point out that I really don't like defending CVT as I fundamentally disagree with him on epistemology and apologetics, but I feel like I have to here.
- Status
Similar threads
