The Rational- Irrational dialectic and the Problem of Evil- Part 1

Pardon me while I interrupt my regularly scheduled blog notes on Van Til's article "A Calvin University"(which, by the way, is contained on this site in its entirety in an earlier post), to address a recurring and rather irksome two part refrain I hear in one form or another all to often.

Now it wouldn't be so bad if some people raised the question, "If there is a God, why is there so much evil in the world?", while other people raised the question "Who are you to judge?" in response to a Christian who, say, condemned some moral evil in the world. But how can the one and the same person ask both questions minutes apart from each other in a conversation and miss the tremendous irony? It can only be attributed to the rational-irrational dialectic of fallen man as he argues his case against God while presupposing his own moral superiority (an attribute which he finds repugnant in others).

If you think about it a little, these two questions require doublethink to be maintained simultaneously.

More to come...

Garden variety "brute fact" and Psalm 19

Scripture does not have to address all the facts of the universe individually and exhaustively and "claim" them for God. A part of the reality of any fact of the universe is its implicit "God- giveness". To deny this, according to Scripture, is to suppress the truth in unrighteousness and mute the facts as they declare the glory of God. Actually, its more like putting ear plugs in your ears, and then accusing God of silence. That there is a moral transaction involved in the interpretation of any fact is evident from this. The word of God written, authoritatively declares the interpretation of the facts as God wants them to be known. Van Til makes the important point that man was never meant to operate apart from divine revelation:

"It is only in Reformed theology, then, that the doctrine of revelation is held in all the depth and breadth of its significance. This is done because the doctrine of God, as quoted from the Confession and Catechism is held uncompromisingly. Holding this doctrine without qualification implies taking the creation doctrine seriously. And taking the creation doctrine seriously involves thinking of man in his whole constitutional make-up as himself revelational of God. Being himself exhaustively revelational of God he is in all his activities dependent upon God. The constitution of his mind therefore interposes no obstruction to any form of revelation that might come to it. Being itself revelational, the mind of man is made for the reception of revelation. If human reason in all of its manipulations is itself in the first place wholly dependent upon a prior revelational activity of God and upon a constant maintaining revelational activity of God, then a supernatural revelational activity will not come to it as something strange. On the contrary it is only on the assumption that even from the outset of history the human mind never operated except in conjunction with a supernatural positive revelation of God that the original creative revelational character of the human mind be maintained. The Genesis narrative informs us that from the outset God walked and talked with man in the garden. The human reason therefore never functioned properly and could not function properly except in self-conscious relationship to this supernatural revelation. All things about man and within him were creationally revelational of God. Every fact was what it was by virtue of the place that it would occupy in the plan of God for the whole course of history. So then the mind of man could not presume with Parmenides to legislate by means of logic about the nature of reality. The human mind by its gift of logic was supposed merely to order the facts of reality, both with respect to God and with respect to the created universe, including himself, in self-conscious subordination to supernatural positive word-revelation." (emphasis mine)

Introduction to Systematic Theology, Chapter 13, The Incomprhensibility of God



For The Chief Musician, A Psalm of David.

Psa 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth the work of his hands.
Psa 19:2 Day to day uttereth speech, and night to night showeth knowledge.
Psa 19:3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
Psa 19:4 Their line hath gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
Psa 19:5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
Psa 19:6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit to the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from his heat.
Psa 19:7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
Psa 19:8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
Psa 19:9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
Psa 19:10 More to be desired are they than gold, yes, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honey-comb.
Psa 19:11 Moreover, by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.
Psa 19:12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
Psa 19:13 Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
Psa 19:14 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

More to follow...

More on brute facts

The people at Frontline Ministries have a nice outline of Van Til's philosophy of brute fact at:

http://www.frontlinemin.org/factsmute.asp

Check it out, why don't cha.

The First Step- Brute Fact

This first step, the assumption of brute fact, may need some clarification. The important Creature- creator distinction must be maintained, but not so as to isolate creation from its Creator. That is a false view of the Creator- creature distinction. Rather, the facts of creation maintain their proper place as they reveal the Creator.

A few quotes from Van Til here may be helpful:

“If there are no brute facts, if brute facts are mute facts, it must be maintained that all facts are revelational of the true God. If facts may not be separated from faith, neither may faith be separated from facts. Every created fact must therefore be held to express, to some degree, the attitude of God to man. Not to maintain this is to fall back once again into a natural theology of a Roman Catholic sort. For it is to hold to the idea of brute fact after all. And with the idea of brute fact goes that of neutral reason. A fact not revelational of God is revelational only of itself.¹”

From: Common Grace Chapter 3. The Latest Debate about Common Grace

“Orthodox Christianity has a definite answer to the problem of individuation. It claims that in the last analysis it is God’s counsel or plan that causes distinction between one fact and another. God makes one blade of grass to differ from another blade; He makes one penguin to differ from another. God calls the stars by their names. Indeed, He names them before He makes them. He deals not merely with the genus nor even with the lowest species. His rationality penetrates down to the last particular of every individual thing. Not a hair shall fall from our heads without the will of our heavenly Father. The doctrine of election and reprobation is but the climactic expression of this general principle.

In contrast to this position of Christianity, every non-Christian philosophy finds its principle of individuation wholly independent of God. The Christian historian of philosophy has abundant evidence with which to establish this claim. ²”

From: The New Modernism: An Appraisal of the Theology of Barth and Brunner, Chapter 2, A. The Question of Fact Law, and Man

More to follow...

Three Fatal Steps

In case you've just joined us, I'm going through C. Van Til's 1939 article "A Calvin University" (posted in its entirety a few days ago) in an effort to illicit an appreciation for Van Til's writings and offer some observations. The three fatal steps discussed today are mentioned about half way through the article.

What kind of trade off is the Christian expected to make if he wants intellectual respectability with the academic/scientific establishment? In a word, he is to reaffirm the autonomous antitheistic reasoning of the Fall by following three fatal steps:

1. "[A]ssume that the facts that you meet are brute, uninterrupted facts." (God doesn't exist.)

2. "[A]ccept the position that theoretically any hypothesis is as good as any other." (God exists on the same level as us.)

3. "[T]est the truth of any hypothesis by experience." (God's existence is irrelevant.)

I do not think most Christians realize the implications involved in taking the steps.

More on this later.

The "N" word.

I've been trying to think of a good way to illustrate the malignancy of this concept of “neutrality” as Van Til addresses it. Low and behold I stumbled upon Wikipedia's NPOV (Neutral Point Of View) policy:

http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?NeutralPointOfView

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_point_of_view

The general tenor of the Wikipedia entry asserts you can't know ultimate reality and therefore should avoid making “biased” assertions so as not to exclude or offend anyone. By the time the editor is done qualifying what it means to be NPOV, he himself recognizes the self contradictory nature of his policy --HIS theory of what constitutes a “neutral point of view” biases his NPOV!

In the end, either everything means nothing or nothing means everything because you can't really know anything for sure anyway.

Neutrality is the ethic of autonomy: “Since all points of view are equally valid, I'll just hold to my own thank you. And you just keep your “opinion” to yourself.”

A Calvin U Part II with text

Greetings.
I thought posting the article in its entirety would save some time, especially since I type slow.

Oh, by the way, in "God and the Absolute" Van Til says something interesting about "neutrality" that I think applies nicely to the Open Theists of our day:

"This insistence on “neutrality” is highly significant. “Neutrality” in method is not a mere matter of course, a hallmark of ordinary intelligence. It is imposed upon the metaphysical relativist. He cannot choose to be “prejudiced” or “biased”; he must be “neutral.” Therefore he too is “biased” and “prejudiced,” in favor of “neutrality.” “Neutrality” is implied in the supposition of the “open” universe. If the universe is open, the facts new to God and man constantly issue from the womb of possibility. These new facts will constantly reinterpret the meaning of the old. Our method then must be basically synthetic; God’s method is also synthetic. He too must wait to see what the new facts may bring. God can do no more than man. He cannot interpret the meaning of reality to man since he has not yet interpreted reality for himself. Therefore man must interpret for himself and must be neutral; his thought is creatively constructive.

The Theist, on the other hand, cannot be “neutral.” His conception of God makes him “biased.” He holds that for God the facts are in: God knows the end from the beginning. He admits that facts may emerge that are new to man; he knows they are not new to God. History is but the expression of the purpose of God. As far as the space time universe is concerned the category of interpretation precedes that of existence. Man’s interpretation must, therefore, to be correct, correspond to the interpretation of God. Man’s synthesis and analysis rest upon God’s analysis. Strictly speaking, man’s method of investigation is that of analysis of God’s analysis. We are to think God’s thoughts after him; our thought is receptively reconstructive.^1"

1Van Til, Cornelius, The Works of Cornelius Van Til, (New York: Labels Army Co.) 1997.

Open Theism says in effect God can do no more than man; the facts are new to Him as well as man.

That's just a nice aside for now. Here is the article. More to follow.

A Calvin University




The Banner

1939

Volume 74, Pages 1040f

There has been a good deal of discussion recently about Calvin College. That is as it should be. Calvin College has great importance for the Christian Reformed Church and for other churches as well.
One point that has come to the foreground in the recent discussion about Calvin College is its possible development into a university. The idea of a Calvin University has often been mentioned. But the question now is whether we should at this time take practical steps toward the realization of that ideal by way of the expansion of Calvin College.
In asking that question I am not thinking of financial matters. Suppose Mr. Scattergold should come and offer enough money for the building and maintenance of a Calvin University, should we begin to build one without delay? “Of course not,” I hear some one say. “We should first make certain that we can find a faculty whose members have the necessary academic training and who are personally committed to the Reformed faith. Without such a faculty it would be a waste of money to build a university.”
But granted that we had the necessary money and a faculty whose members would be adequately equipped for university instruction, should we proceed at once like a pair of newlyweds to buy the furniture? I do not think so.

Method

There is one point, I believe, on which there should be agreement among us before we press forward to our goal much further. That point is the question of our attitude toward the current scientific method. If we had a Calvin University would we wish the faculty of that institution to engage in their research and teaching in accordance with current scientific methodology?
No doubt there are those among us who are quite surprised to find that any one can ask such a question. Is there not perfect agreement on this point, they will ask. We would wish the instruction in a Calvin University to be scientific would we not?
My answer is that we surely would wish the instruction at a Calvin University to be scientific but that this does not necessarily imply that we must adopt the current scientific method.
In fact I believe that if we should use the current scientific method we should have to come to the conclusion that the Reformed faith is not true. In my humble judgment the current scientific method is based upon the assumption of the truth of a non-Christian conception of reality and can in consequence never conclude that Christianity is true unless it is prepared to deny its own principles. I shall try to make this point clear.

Eve’s “Neutrality”

No one doubts, I trust, that the current scientific method insists that we must, in our study of the facts that we meet, begin with an“open mind.” That is, we are at the outset not to be prejudiced in favor of any one interpretation. Is it possible for a Christian to be thus “open-minded” without at the same time denying his Christian faith? I do not think so.
Perhaps I can best make clear what I mean by referring to the story of Adam and Eve. As Adam and Eve walked in the garden there were a number of facts that they were bound to interpret. Among these facts there was a certain fruit tree. About this fruit tree there were two interpretations afloat. God’s interpretation was that if Adam and Eve ate of that tree they would surely die; Satan’s interpretation was that if they ate of that tree they would be like God. Eve, to be truly scientific in the current sense of the term, had to be neutral with respect to these interpretations. And she was. Hence all the tears. Her “neutrality” was her sin. God brought death upon her and upon us all for her “neutrality.”
There can be no doubt as to how Eve should have reasoned. It should have been immediately apparent to her that God was right and that Satan was wrong. She should have been “prejudiced” in favor of God’s interpretation not only but she should have rejected any other interpretation immediately. She knew that God was the Creator of the particular tree in question. As the Creator of the tree God was in a position to know what would happen to her if she ate of it. Satan was not the creator of the tree; he was not in a position to know what God knew about the tree; his interpretation was bound to be wrong to the extent that it differed from God’s interpretation. Therefore Eve should have said at once: “Get thee behind me, Satan!”

Our “Neutrality”

We weep every day because Eve was “neutral” at that fateful hour. Eve’s “neutrality” implied the negation of God as God. We can readily see this, can we not? Yet the scientist today assumes essentially the same attitude toward God that Eve did. Perhaps you smile at this. Yet it is, if we think on it, the simple truth of the matter. Our situation is, in a fundamental sense, similar to that of Eve.
Here are facts that we are to interpret. It matters not in what field they may be. The Bible, which if we are Christians we take to be the Word of God, tells us that these facts are created and preserved by God and are meant to serve a certain purpose in the world. God has, in other words, interpreted the facts before and behind, within and without; God has interpreted them exhaustively. That is a most important bit of information for us about any fact we may choose to examine. Every fact belongs to God and we must deal with it as such. Whether we eat or drink or do anything else we are to do it all to the glory of God.
Now comes the evolutionist. He urges upon you his hypothesis about the origin of the universe. His hypothesis is that it has sprung into being of itself. According to his hypothesis man is not made in the image of God and the story of paradise is a myth. He asks you to be neutral as between what the Bible says and what he says. He asks you to look at the facts for yourself and then judge. You will lose your standing as a scientist if you are not neutral on the two interpretations.
What will you do? If you accept his proposition and therewith admit that the idea of evolu-tion, as the direct opposite of creation, is a perfectly legitimate hypothesis for you to consider, you have once for all and completely rejected your Christian faith. Here is a married man. His stenographer asks him simply to be neutral as between her and his wife. If he accepts her proposition he has been unfaithful to his wife.

Three Fatal Steps

Thus the first step that the current scientific method is asking you to take is to assume that the facts that you meet are brute, that is, uninterpreted facts. I say you are asked to assume the existence of brute facts. If you did not assume this you could not be neutral with respect to various interpretations given of the facts. If God exists there are no brute facts; if God exists our study of facts must be the effort to know them as God wants them to be known by us. We must then seek to think God’s thoughts after him. To assume that there are brute facts is therefore to assume that God does not exist.
The second step that the current scientific method is asking you to take is to accept the position that theoretically any hypothesis is as good as any other. Satan first assumed and asked Eve to assume that facts are brute facts. On the basis of this assumption he then asked Eve to accept his hypothesis as being no less relevant than God’s hypothesis. He said in effect that he did not ask Eve to be unfair to God; he wanted her to consider God’s hypothesis no less than his own, and his own no less than God’s. In a similar way the current scientific method wants us to grant the theoretical relevancy of any hypothesis.
The third step which the current scientific method is asking you to take is to test the truth of any hypothesis by experience. Here, too, the temptation is the same in principle as that which came to Eve. Let us again begin Satan’s argument from the start. First, he asks Eve in effect to assume that the fruit of the tree in question is a brute fact. He insinuates that to hold anything different would be to degrade the originality of the human mind. To take for granted that all is interpreted in advance is to make science live by authority and that is to kill science. Secondly, he asks her to place the two mutually exclusive interpretations on a par with one another. Satan argues in effect that the question of being has no significance for the question of interpretation. That God claims to be the “Creator-being” and that He also claims Satan to be a mere “creature-being” should not influence Eve in the least. Therefore, in the third place, Satan argues that Eve ought to test the truth of the two hypotheses by experience. Surely that is fair. We must test all our theories by the facts of experience, must we not? What other way have you, Eve, of testing between two hypotheses that are at variance with one another? You cannot go back to the authority of God’s Word. That would be to go back on your first step. It would be to set one hypothesis above another at the outset. To be consistent you must take all three steps if you take one.

A Finite God

In all this, the human mind is thought of as acting in complete independence of God. There is thought to be no incomprehensible God who in his being is impenetrable to the mind of man. Man is quite sufficient to himself. Even if he is not able to find out all he would like toknow about the facts about him, God cannot be of basic service to him. God faces brute fact no less than he.
If one begins (a) with the assumption of brute fact, (b) with the relevancy of any hypothesis and (c) with the test of truth by brute fact, as the current scientific method does, one may discover that there is a god; but such a god will always be at best a finite god. It will be a god who together with man is surrounded by facts that are not fully known to him.
It will now be clear why I cannot believe that at a truly Calvinistic University we should wish to accept the current scientific method without basic criticism. I do not say that there is nothing in a secondary way that can be learned from the current scientific method. I merely say that if we are to have a method of research that is to be consistent with our position as Christians and particularly as Reformed Christians, we cannot without basic reconstruction accept the current scientific method. Its basic assumptions are false. If it is applied with rigor it will, I believe, at best lead to a belief in a finite God and therewith to the rejection of Christianity.
Naturally, Mr. Editor, what would apply to a Calvinistic University applies, mutatis mutandis, to a Calvinistic College. The teachers at a Calvinistic college, should, I believe, be self-consciously committed to a definitely Christian methodology. Unless some one show me where I am mistaken I cannot help but feel that he who accepts the current scientific methodology without basic criticism of its assumptions should not accept a teaching position at Calvin College.
In saying this I am neither openly nor covertly criticizing any one. I take for granted that all of us together are seriously seeking to set forth and propagate the Reformed faith. But perhaps not all of us have had time to look into this question of methodology carefully. Or perhaps some of us have looked into it but do not agree with what I have said. My only point is that I believe that now, in connection with the investigation that is to be made of Calvin College by order of the last synod, and in connection with the discussion about a Calvinistic university, is a good time to look into this matter. Perhaps some one better fitted than I can give us light on the whole subject.
Van Til, Cornelius, The Works of Cornelius Van Til, (New York: Labels Army Co.) 1997.

Food for Thought: "A Calvin University" by C. Van Til

Greetings.

For those interested in CorneliusVan Til's writings, I'm going to be making some observations on his 1939 article "A Calvin University".

The question arises:

"If we had a Calvin University would we wish the faculty of that institution to engage in their research and teaching in accordance with current scientific methodology?"


Hint:

"In my humble judgement the current scientific method is based upon the assumption of the truth of a non- Christian conception of reality and can in consequence never conclude that Christianity is true unless it is prepared to deny its own principles." (emphisis mine).

Strong words. Let's see if Dr. Van Til can back them up.

Food for Thought.