Apolenctics

I must say one of the great experiences of seminary was learning more about the theological foundation upon which VanTil developed his apologetics. The more I read him the more I appreciate his attempt to seek consistency between theology and apologetics. In rereading Theology in America by E. Brooks Holifield, this appreciation is even more pronounced as I recall the constant drift from Calvinism to the New Divinity, to Unitarianism and beyond. VanTil took exception to letting the unbeliever frame the debate.

I'm still not pleased with the separation between apologetics and elenctics either. These disciplines are two sides of the same coin and should operate as such--actually I rather think they do in practice, but have become separated in theory and study. How about "apolenctics" as the new discipline of defending the faith as you take the offense to spread the Gospel?

Greek Philosophy is Intellectual Apostacy

In corrcting the error that the world was prepared for the Christian religion by Greek philosophy Van Til is straight and to the point:

The philosophy of the Greeks is a philosophy thought out by apostate or would-be autonomous man. It is therefore a philosophy in which apostate man makes himself believe that he is not a creature of God but is rather a being who participates in the being of God. It is a philosophy in which man does not think of himself as a sinner before God but as participating in the being of God and as with God confronted by some principle of evil for which neither has any responsibility. It is a philosophy in which man, together with any god he thinks he knows, is surrounded by an ultimately non-rational environment. It is a philosophy in which any God that he knows must know in essentially the same way that man knows. It is a philosophy in which a God who redeems man redeems himself toward an ever higher ideal of God that he, with man as participant in him, casts up for himself. It is, in short, a philosophy in which the natural man seeks to suppress the truth about himself in his relation to God as the Creator-Redeemer. Such is the Greek Logos.

"Christianity in Conflict" p.60

Van Tll goes on to say that a proper use of common grace must have as its correlative the doctrine of total depravity:

If the idea of common grace is to be used in connection with the Christian’s appreciation of Greek culture as something to be made subservient to and even taken up into Christianity, then this must be done in conjunction with the biblical teaching of total depravity. Greek monotheism was the product of apostate man. It was a system of thought by which apostate man sought to suppress the revelational pressure of the true God upon him. Common grace increases and intensifies this revelational pressure. In receiving the benefits of common grace the “noblest” minds of Greece were challenged to forsake their policy of making gods in their own image so that they might serve the true and living God. But Stob makes common grace an instrument by means of which the Greek, the natural man is not called to repentance. The result is an idea by which the Greeks are regarded as being at least on the way to truth in terms of their apostate culture.

"Christianity in Conflict" p.64

Common grace is often misconstrued so as to blur the doctrine of human depravity or deflect the directness of God's wrath upon sinners. We blunt the message of the Gospel if we put common grace in the service of the autonomous man Christ was sent to save.

"New ___________ Theology, Perspective, etc.." , Old News

Van Til deals with "The New Reformation Theology" in his work "A Case for Calvinism". I couldn't wait for the juicy parts so I read chapter four first. Sweet. Here's a bite:


"The New Reformation theology is new precisely because it agrees with the natural man in these his demands and yet claims to follow Luther and Calvin. But no theology that seeks to satisfy the false requirements of the natural man can fairly be said to be a reformation theology. So the New Reformation theology is, in effect, a new natural theology which is, if possible, more destructive of the gospel presented by the Reformers than was the older Liberalism. The entire objection against natural theology, so far as this objection springs, for example, from Calvin, is that such a theology starts with man as autonomous. The autonomy of man is far more clearly present in the New Reformation theology than it is in the theology of Rome. DeWolf is quite right from his point of view when he frankly appeals to natural theology as a foundation for a theology of grace even though he, as well as Hordern, is controlled in his thinking by the freedom-nature scheme of post-Kantian thought. But the more inexplicable thing is that Carnell, while claiming to construct his theology in line with the historic Reformed tradition, should yet use a method that presupposes the legitimacy of the new natural theology involved in this modern freedom-nature scheme.

What we are now concerned to establish is that this entire freedom-nature scheme must be challenged in the name of Christianity. It must be shown that unless the method of science, the method of philosophy and the method of theology are taken from the message of the actually present revelation of God’s grace in Jesus Christ they all lead from nowhere into nothing. And only a Calvinist is in a position, by virtue of his truly biblical methodology, to do this. All other forms of Protestant theology have, to some extent, catered to the natural man. They have allowed that this natural man is right, at least to some extent, in asserting his autonomy. If this is true, then the natural man would also be right, to an extent at least, in claiming that he can stand in judgment over the revelation, even the redemptive revelation, of God (my emphasis). Then he is right when he picks and chooses only such “truths” of Scripture as accord with his supposed “freedom.”

Not all Calvinists have been willing to follow the demands of their own principle. Some have clung to the idea of natural theology. Shall we criticize them for this? Let us rather stand on their shoulders because of their constructive work in theology, and see that today more than ever before and as never before Christianity must present itself as the truth in the light of which alone any truth can be found. Any form of synthesis theology is deadly, and this fact is clearly true in our day. To do anything short of presenting Christianity by means of a method that springs from itself is not to offer men a significant choice in the present confused theological situation. The very idea of significant choice already presupposes the truth of Christianity. How can we account for the idea of significant choice? How can we ask an intelligent question, let alone find an intelligent answer? Only if we have a God who through Christ controls whatsoever comes to pass do we have an alternative to placing man in a vacuum. Every form of Protestant theology that will not from the beginning place the very idea of significant choice within the framework of Christian truth has already capitulated its own position and after that must live by the grace of its enemy, the autonomous man (my emphasis). Why is it that Carnell is unable to lead men on to the hope that lies in the message of grace through Christ? It is because he agrees with the natural man to the effect that he needs no grace so far as his dealings with the things of nature are concerned. It is because he agrees with the natural man when the latter claims to know himself and his own predicament in terms of himself to a very large extent."

Did you catch that? To the extent that the natural man is given a right to assert his autonomy, he is also given the right to claim he can stand in judgement over God's revelation. This plays right into the idea of "neutrality". Conversely, when the natural man is given no right to assert his autonomy, he is given no right to claim he can stand in judgement over God's revelation. He may reject it but he has to deal with it.

Food for thought.

Conspicuous Absence of Van Til

Greetings.

I thought I'd post something here that I posted earlier at an internet discussion group regarding the conspicuous absence of Van Til in a book I read last month. See if you agree with me or not:



I probably should have waited till I finished the book but I felt I had to say something about the conspicuous absence of at least a passing reference to Dr. Van Til in chapter 4 of Dr. Carson's book "Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church". It is true that Dr. Carson mentions Mr. Frame, a former student of Van Til's (p. 116, p.124,) in relation to presupposionalism, but some wonder how faithfully he (Mr. Frame) interprets Van Til.

Fist of all, I realize I'm way out of my league here. Dr. Carson is without peer as a Christian scholar and I'm just the little boy on the curb watching the parade go by. Be that as it may, I just have to speak up (respectfully of course).

What bothers me is how little the Church at large makes good use of Van Til's rich legacy. If- and I say IF- he is read outside of Reformed circles at all, Van Til is usually brushed aside or misread somehow. Pity.

Personally, I'm not a "movement mentality" nut, or one of "Mechaen's Warrior Children"

http://www.frame-poythress.org/frame_articles/2003Machen.htm

I just think Van Til (and Dr. Bahnsen after him)have made significant contributions in philosophy, theology, and apologetics and we should make use of them.

For instance, in "Emerging Church", under the heading, "Weaknesses of Postmodern Epistemology", chapter 4, the discussion turns on the absurdities of postmodern epistemology and the manipulative false antithesis of necessary "omniscience" on the one hand, and hopeless subjectivity on the other(p.104ff). Van Til has some wonderful insights about this. He refers to this as the rational- irrational dilemma of autonomous man:

"The modern man is in the first place a rationalist. All non-Christians are rationalists. As descendants of Adam, their covenant-breaking representative, (Rom 5:12) every man refuses to submit his mind in the way of obedience to the mind of God. He undertakes to interpret the nature of reality in terms of himself as the final reference point. But to be a rationalist man must also be an irrationalist. Man obviously cannot legislate by logic for reality. Unwilling to admit that God has determined the laws of reality, man, by implication, attributes all power to chance. As a rationalist he says that only that is possible which he can logically grasp in exhaustive fashion. As an irrationalist he says that since he cannot logically grasp the whole of reality, and really cannot legislate for existence by logic at all, it is chance that rules supreme.
It is to this rationalist-irrationalist man that the gospel comes with its doctrine of creation and revelation, its doctrine of redemption through grace in Christ. It is quite impossible to challenge the modern man with the gospel of Christ unless this gospel of Christ be set in its widest possible setting. It is that which the Reformed faith tries to do."
Introduction to Systematic Theology, 174

and,

Strange as it may seem at first sight, the irrationalism of the idea of pure contingency requires for its correlative the rationalism of the most absolute determinism. The idea of pure contingency requires the rejection of the Christian doctrine of creation and providence as logically impossible. Thus the statement that anything may happen must be qualified by adding that anything but Christianity is possible. Theoretically speaking, any hypothesis is relevant, but practically speaking, the Christian ‘hypothesis’ is excluded at the outset of any investigation. Men will follow the facts wherever they may lead so long as they do not lead to the truth of Christianity.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that modern man is both utterly irrationalist and utterly rationalist at the same time. He has to be both in order to be either. And he has to be both in order to defend his basic assumption of his own freedom or ultimacy. About the idea of freedom or contingency pure and simple, nothing can be said. It is the idea of pure, bare, brute, or mute factuality. It is the idea of existence without essence; the idea of being without meaning. Yet modern man must say something about his freedom. Above all he must be defended against those who attack it. And who are they that attack it? Are they the determinists, and the rationalists? Not at all. The determinists and rationalists are what they are in the interest of defending the same autonomy or freedom of man that the indeterminists and irrationalists are defending. The determinist or rationalist differs from the indeterminist or irrationalist merely in the way that he defends the ultimacy or autonomy of man. They therefore have their internal family quarrels. These quarrels centre on the one question of how best to fend off the common enemy, which is Christianity.
But how then, it will be asked, does the determinist seek to defend the idea of man’s ultimacy or freedom and therewith the idea of contingency? He does this by seeking to show that Reality cannot allow for the Creator-creature distinction. Creation out of nothing is said to be impossible. It is said to be impossible because it is contradictory. It would require us to hold that God changed from the status of not being a Creator to the status of being the Creator of the universe and that without any change in His being. Reality must therefore be of one nature. And if man is contingent, as is assumed, then God must also be contingent. If God is ultimate, man is also ultimate. If God is free, man is free with the same freedom with which God is free.
It is thus that the irrationalist may employ the rationalist or determinist to do battle for him in a field where he says he does not feel at home. In fact the ‘free man’ of modern non-Christian thought is Janus-faced. He turns one way and would seem to be nothing but an irrationalist. He talks about the ‘fact’ of freedom. He even makes a pretence of being hotly opposed to the rationalist. With Kierkegaard he will boldly assert that what cannot happen according to logic has happened in fact. Then he turns the other way and would seem to be nothing but a rationalist. Surely, he says, the ‘rational man’ will accept nothing but what has intelligible meaning for him in accord with the law of contradiction. There must be coherence in experience. It is meaningless to talk about the ‘entirely single thing.’ But both in his irrationalist and in his rationalist features, the would-be autonomous man is seeking to defend his ultimacy against the claims of the Christian religion. If he is right as an irrationalist then he is not a creature of God. If he were a creature of God, he would be subject to the law of God. He would thus be ‘rationally related’ to God. He would know that he was a creature of God and that he should obey the law of God. If he is right as a rationalist, then too he is not a creature of God. The law that he then thinks of as above him, he also thinks of as above God; God and he are, for him, subject to a common law. If he were a creature of God, he would grant that what God has determined, and only that, is possible. He would then subject his logical manipulation of ‘reality’ to the revelation of God.
It is this Janus-faced covenant-breaker, then, who must be won for the gospel. It is he who walks the streets of New York and London. And no one but he does. All men are sinners; all are interested in suppressing the fact of their creaturehood. The irrationalist and rationalist have become friends in the face of their common foe. And this common foe is historic Christianity.
The implication of all this for Christian apologetics is plain. There can be no appeasement between those who presuppose in all their thought the sovereign God and those who presuppose in all their thought the would-be sovereign man. There can be no other point of contact between them than that of head-on collision. The root of both irrationalism and rationalism is the idea of the ultimacy of man. If this root is not taken out, it will do little good to trim off some of the wildest offshoots of irrationalism with the help of rationalism, or to trim off some of the wildest offshoots of rationalism with the help of irrationalism.

The Intellectual challenge of the Gospel, 16.

also, Dr. Bahnsen's article "The Crucial concept of Self Deception in Apologetics"

http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/PA207.htm


These three quotes hardly do justice to the tremendous contributions Dr. Van Til and Dr. Bahnsen have made in the cause of Christ.
It would have been nice if Dr. Carson pointed people in Van Til's direction, if only in a passing footnote, not to just "give him credit where credit is due" but for the benefit of those who might otherwise been introduced to his valuable insights.

[end]

I have since finished reading the book. It is a valuable, insightful critique of the Emerging Church movement but I (maybe I should use a lower case "i" when refering to myself in relation to Dr. Carson) do believe more use of Van Til (and Dr. Bahnsen) could have served Dr. Carson's purpose well.

Now for something completely different...

Last time I was going to blog, I was going to comment on my reading of "The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought". Suddenly, its a month and a half later and low and behold... I'm turning 40 this weekend! Since I'm a Star Trek TOS guy, I thought I would mention that the original series turns 40 this summer too!

Let me take this occasion to mention a decent book which though by no means Reformed or Van Tillian in orientation, provids an evangelically christian analysis of the show. The title is:

"The Double Vision of Star Trek: Half-Humans, Evil Twins, and Science Fiction"
by Mike Hertenstein

You can get a used copy at Amazon for $2.75 last time I checked.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0940895420/103-5409058-4839035?v=glance&n=283155


While I love the show, I don't care much for Gene Roddenberry who had nothing good to say about true Christianity and seemed to be ... well you can read it for yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786860049/qid=1150991461/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/103-5409058-4839035?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

http://www.philosophysphere.com/humanist.html

There are some neat fan films that have taken up the mantle of reproducing the original series. The sets and special effects are mint, but some of the acting is... well... o.k. :

http://www.newvoyages.com/

http://www.starshipexeter.com/

and of course a few links:

http://treksf.com/joomla/index.php

http://www.startrekanimated.com/

Van Til for the Politically Incorrect

Robust theology for the hungry spirit:

"Natural revelation is perfectly clear. Men ought from it to know God and ought through it to see all other things as dependent on God. But only he who looks at nature through the mirror of Scripture does understand natural revelation for what it is. Furthermore, no one can see Scripture for what it is unless he is given the ability to do so by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. Only those who are taught of God see the Scriptures for what they are and therefore see the revelation of God in nature for what it is. To be taught of God is a “singular privilege” which God bestows only on his “elect whom he distinguishes from the human race as a whole.” As taught of God, the elect both understand the Bible as the Word of God, and interpret natural revelation through the Bible. The rest of mankind, not taking Scripture as the Word of God, in consequence also misinterpret the natural revelation of God."

The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought, 3. Reformed Apologetics- Calvins Institutes, c. The Necessity of the Testemony of the Holy Spirit

You can't make a monkey out of Van Til

Greetings.

I went back and reviewed some of Philip Johnson's works and the works of his colleagues in their battle against philosophical naturalism (www.apollos.ws, Access Research Network, The Wedge of Truth, etc). I was encouraged to see a pressupositional approach often included in their apologetic. They rightly stress that Darwinism is nothing but a Trojan horse for importing philosophical naturalism into the mainstream.

What is impressive is how consistently right-on Van Til was from the start in his apologetic against Darwinism. Because of his transcendental approach in apologetics, he was able to " destroy speculations and every lofty thing that would raise itself up against the knowledge of God" without getting bogged down in trendy or compromised methods of refutation. He didn't get rattled by "new discoveries" or "conclusive proofs" from Darwinists because he knew that though there might be new things for us to discover, there is nothing new for God; he knew that unbelievers claim brute fact, then strain it through an interpretive framework of unbelief. Here is a small sample:


The Test Of Relevancy

It is important to see the exact point at issue here. The Christian position is certainly not opposed to experimentation and observation. As Christians we may make various hypotheses in explanation of certain phenomena. But these various hypotheses will always be in accord with the presupposition of God as the ultimate explanation of all things. Our hypotheses will always be subordinate to the notion of God as the complete interpreter of all facts, and if we make our hypotheses about facts subordinate to this God, it follows that there are no brute facts to which we can appeal in corroboration of our hypotheses. We appeal to facts, but never to brute facts. We appeal to God-interpreted facts. This is simply another way of saying that we try to discover whether our hypothesis is really in accord with God’s interpretation of facts. The ultimate test for the relevancy of our hypotheses is therefore their correspondence with God’s interpretation of facts. True human interpretation is implication into God’s interpretation.
In contrast to this, the ordinary scientific method seeks to determine the relevancy of hypotheses by an appeal to brute facts. An ultimate chance is assumed as the matrix of facts. Then the chance collocation of facts is taken as the rational tendency among these brute facts. And the relevancy of an hypothesis is determined by its correspondence to this “rational tendency” in things. Thus the circle is complete. We start with brute fact and we end with brute fact. We presuppose chance as God, and therefore conclude that the God of Christianity cannot exist.

Christian-Theistic Evidences Chapter 4: Christianity and its Factual Defense, The Test of Relevancy