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.