“What my net can’t catch isn’t fish”

Greetings and happy new year!

I honestly don't know how people can keep daily blogs, especially substantive ones. One must either have alot of free time or be some kind of genius. My hat is of to those of you who can do it. Personally, if I can get something going 2-4 times a month I'll be happy (at least for now).

The selection from "CommonGrace and the Gospel" below ia a real gem. It goes a long way in debunking the pseudo scientific neutrality of the unbeliever. When the christian charitably accepts the "facts" as the unbeliever presents them, he implicitly or unconsciously at least, surrenders his whole world view in the process. This is because in order to accept thost "facts" as the unbeliever presents them, he must accept them in the context of an autonomous world view where the unbelievers mind replaces God's mind as the original "rationalizer" of those facts.

In the last line quoted, Dr. Van Til says plainly that we have everything in common with the unbeliever metaphysically and nothing in common with the unbeliever epistemologically. How much confusion and criticism could have been avoided if Dr. Van Til's critics and antagonists only read the the small selection below -only the Lord knows.


"It is sometimes suggested that though there is a basic difference between the Christian and the non-Christian explanation, there is no such difference in the mere description, of facts. With this we cannot agree. Modern scientific description is not the innocent thing that we as Christians all too easily think it is. Sir Arthur Eddington’s famed “ichthyologist” readily suggests this. This “ichthyologist” explores the life of the ocean. In surveying his catch he makes two statements: (1) “No sea-creature is less than two inches long; (2) All sea-creatures have gills.” If an observer questions the first statement the “ichthyologist” replies that in his work as a scientist he is not concerned with an “objective kingdom of fishes.” The only fish that exist for him are those he has caught in his net. He makes bold to say “What my net can’t catch isn’t fish.” That is to say, description is patternization. It is an act of definition. It is a statement of the what as well as of the that. It is a statement of connotation as well as of denotation. Description itself is explanation.
Current scientific description is not merely explanation, but it is definitely anti-Christian explanation. Current scientific methodology wants to be anti-metaphysical. It claims to make no pronouncements about the nature of reality as a whole. On the surface it seems to be very modest. In fact, however, current scientific methodology does make a pronouncement about the nature of Reality as a whole. When Eddington’s “ichthyologist” says he is not interested in an “objective kingdom of fishes” he is not quite honest with himself. He is very much interested that that “objective kingdom of fishes” shall serve as the source of supply for his scientifically recognized fishes. Some of those “objective” fishes must permit of being graduated into fishes that have scientific standing. Some of them at least must be catchable. So the “facts,” that is the “objective” facts, if they are to become facts that have scientific standing, must be patternable. But to be patternable for the modern scientist these “facts” must be absolutely formless. That is to say they must be utterly pliable. They must be like the water that is to be transformed into ice-cubes by the modern refrigerator.
The scientist, even when he claims to be merely describing facts, assumes that at least some aspects of Reality are non-structural in nature. His assumption is broader than that. He really assumes that all Reality is non-structural in nature. To make a batch of ice-cubes Mother needs only a small quantity of water. But to hold the ice-cubes intact till it is time to serve refreshments, Mother must control the whole situation. She must be certain that Johnny does not meanwhile handle them for purposes of his own. So the scientist, if his description of even a small area, or of an aspect or a dimension, of Reality is to stand, must assume that Reality as a whole is non-structural in nature until it is structured by the scientist. The idea of brute, that is utterly uninterpreted, “fact” is the presupposition to the finding of any fact of scientific standing. A “fact” does not become a fact, according to the modern scientist’s assumptions, till it has been made a fact by the ultimate definitory power of the mind of man. The modern scientist, pretending to be merely a describer of facts, is in reality a maker of facts. He makes facts as he describes. His description is itself the manufacturing of facts. He requires “material” to make facts, but the material he requires must be raw material. Anything else will break his machinery. The datum is not primarily given, but is primarily taken.
It appears then that a universal judgment about the nature of all existence is presupposed even in the “description” of the modern scientist. It appears further that this universal judgment negates the heart of the Christian-theistic point of view. According to any consistently Christian position, God, and God only, has ultimate definitory power. God’s description or plan of the fact makes the fact what it is. What the modern scientist ascribes to the mind of man Christianity ascribes to God. True, the Christian claims that God did not even need a formless stuff for the creation of facts. But this point does not nullify the contention that what the Christian ascribes to God the modern scientist, even when engaged in mere description, virtually ascribes to man. Two Creators, one real, the Other would-be, stand in mortal combat against one another; the self-contained triune God of Christianity and the homo noumenon, the autonomous man of Immanuel Kant, cannot both be ultimate.
We conclude then that when both parties, the believer and the non-believer, are epistemologically self-conscious and as such engaged in the interpretative enterprise, they cannot be said to have any fact in common. On the other hand, it must be asserted that they have every fact in common. Both deal with the same God and with the same universe created by God. Both are made in the image of God. In short, they have the metaphysical situation in common. Metaphysically, both parties have all things in common, while epistemologically they have nothing in common."