Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ST 501
Dr. Michael Horton
12/03/2010
Gospel we must proclaim Christ as Lord from the very beginning of our
defense. An alternative method, which is typically termed Classical
Apologetics, begins the discussion of God and the world on a neutral
common ground and through a rationalist formula eventually leading the
sinner to the Truth of Christs Lordship. Van Til strongly opposed any kind of
neutrality of belief concerning God and man, and emphasized that ones
ultimate truth or authority must also determine and be openly expressed in
their foundation or premises for that ultimate authority. Van Til stressed that
there was a great ethical and epistemological antithesis between the
believer and the unbeliever, which was grounded in a common metaphysical
relationship. The point of difference is a question of authority, which stems
from ones ethics. Christians believe that they are sinful creatures
disobedient to God in Adam, and made obedient through faith in Christ,
thereby dependent upon the sovereign Triune God of the Bible who is their
ultimate authority. Unbelievers hold that they are not sinful, are
autonomous and not dependent on God, thereby setting themselves up in
place of God as the ultimate authority and therefore capable of rightly
interpreting truth for themselves. The current paper will be in support of Van
Tils argument for the common ground or point of reference with the
unbeliever, which is metaphysical, by also showing the great ethical
antithesis.
Ethics and Epistemology
3 Scott Oliphint and Lane G. Tipton, eds., Revelation and Reason: New Essays in Reformed
Apologetics (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Publishing, 2007), 158.
between the hostility of sinners before a holy God and their ability to think:
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit
to God's law; indeed, it cannot (Rom. 8:7 ), and in Col. 1:21, [a]nd you, who
once were alienated and hostile in mind [epistemology], doing evil [ethics]
deeds (Col 1:21).4
It may be useful to have a ready definition of Epistemology for a better
understanding of Van Tils thought. The word epistemology, which derives
from the Greek words episteme and logos, means a discourse on (or study
of) knowledge.5 Even if you asked a group of people what they mean when
they say, I know something, you might get a collection of different
answers. Knowledge in the intellectual sense is a subcategory of belief: to
know something is, at least, to believe it.6 What good is knowing something
if someone else also knows something contrary to what you know, because
you both cannot be right, therefore someone must not have truly known
what they proclaimed to know. So then, instances of knowing are instances
of believing, but one can know a proposition only if it is true.7 Christians
4 Emphasis added with brackets. This scripture is used to emphasize the corruption of our
thinking, which is evidenced through our visible evil deeds.
5 Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis(Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Publishing, 1998), 158.
6 Ibid., 159.
7 Ibid., 162.
proclaim to know through justified belief the truth of God as portrayed in the
Bible.
Van Til never questions if the unbeliever has the ability to use reason, or
evaluate the facts of this universe. He rather boldly states that the
unbeliever can never use reason reasonably, and his intelligence is always
unintelligible. So the unbeliever cannot use any of his faculties rightly in
interpreting Gods natural revelation in Creation because he is
simultaneously hostile to the one who created them. At this point it must be
contended that sin effects the whole man including his ability to reason,
which is called the noetic effect of sin. Sin produces a conceptual warfare,
and as John Frame puts it, the unbelievers problem is first ethical, and only
secondarily intellectual. His intellectual problems stem from his ethical
unwillingness to acknowledge the evidence. Unbelief distorts human
thought.8 The unbeliever is a walking epistemic failure, because he fails to
begin with the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of all wisdom and
knowledge (Psalm 110:10; Prov. 1:7; 9:10; 15:33). We must remember what
the starting point for interpreting revelation between a believer and
unbeliever, even if through a common set of tools (reason), is completely
antithetical. For the believer the ultimate authority is God, therefore
Christians think Gods thoughts after him. Yet the unbeliever through sin,
has set himself up as the ultimate authority, and therefore has made himself
8 William Lane Craig et al., Five Views On Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2000),
211.
Judge and the starting point for interpretation. Someone who thinks
autonomously cannot interpret revelation accurately, which is dependent on
an autonomous God. In order for one to rightly interpret the facts, they must
rightly interpret themselves, and it is not likely that anyone will intellectually
assume to be a sinner and non-sinner at the same time. Calvin began his
Institutes with this double aspect of knowledge that must be actualized in
order for knowledge to be true consistent knowledge when he said, Without
knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God. Nearly all the wisdom we
possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the
knowledge of God and of ourselves.9 Therefore as the Bible says, there is
only Godly wisdom and worldly wisdom, for sin has corrupted the natural
man, making him futile in his thinking(Rom. 1:21).
Van Til was simply being consistent with his reformed theology, by objecting
to any neutrality with the believer and maintaining that sin effects the whole
man. This is consistent with Westminsters Larger Catechism, as question 28
reads, What are the punishments of sin in this world? A. The punishments
of sin in this world are either inward, as blindness of mind, a reprobate
sense, strong delusions, hardness of heart, horror of conscience, and vile
affections We should therefore stand strong with Van Til in our defense of
the faith, by never validating the unbeliever in his ability to rightly determine
the ultimate truth of all things.
9 John Calvin, Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 Volume Set), 1559 translation ed., ed. John T. McNeill
(London: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), 35.
according to Gods revealed word, all people are born into a broken covenant
in Adam (Rom. 5:15-19) with the inability to keep the covenant, yet still
remain under its obligations.
The primary point of commonality is that all people are both in Adam, and
created in Gods image. All people are covenant breakers, but the believer
through the grace of God has become a covenant keeper through Christ,
while the unbeliever in his hostility, rejects Christ, and remains a covenant
breaker before God. Scott Oliphant points out that he is unsatisfied with the
term presuppositional apologetics, because of its confusing terminology, and
prefers instead the term covenantal apologetics based upon this primary
point of contact within the covenant of works.13
Van Til contends that through their being created in Gods image, still being
under a covenantal relationship with God of which they cannot avoid, and by
seeing God revealed everywhere within general revelation, unbelievers
ultimately know the reality and truth of the triune God of scripture.14
Herman Bavinck states this truth so eloquently,
All knowledge of God rests on revelation. Though we can never
know God in the full richness of his being, he is known to all
people through his revelation in creation, the theater of his glory.
The world is never godless. In the end there are no atheists;
there is only argument about the nature of God. The recognition
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16 David Turner, Cornelius van Til and Romans 1:18-21, Grace Theological Journal 2, no. 1 (1981): 45-58.
17 Romans 1:18-21
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man as the ultimate reference point nothing can make sense or correctly be
judged.
Metaphysically man has a foundation to stand on, and reason to work with,
however, because of their sinful rebellion, they epistemologically wipe out
their own foundation leaving them running away from God, using a body God
created, on a road God built, within the world God made. As Greg Bahsen
put it,
It now appears that the complexity and confusion that
characterize the unbelievers knowledge of God are the result of
an internal contradiction or tension in the unbeliever himself
one which he is unwilling to recognize or confess, lest his guilt
before God become evident. He lives out of two conflicting
frameworks of thought or two mind-setsThe unbeliever is a
living contradiction.18
So our common ground or point of reference when speaking to the
unbeliever is directly to the reason for this tension. This reason, which has
been demonstrated, is the image of God or the old man that is at war with
the rebel sinner. Our common ground in other words is the unbelievers old
man.
Objections from Classical Apologists
The primary disagreement of common ground is formulated upon a natural
theology, which necessarily finds its common ground on epistemology or
reason. Among a few of the proponents of this position are: Stuart Hacket,
Norman Geisler, R.C. Sproul, J.P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, C.S. Lewis,
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The Christian who hopes to persuade the covenant breaker that there is
salvation in believing in the covenant keeper, should never have
epistemological fellowship with the unbeliever for this will give him validity in
his ability to think rationally as the autonomous ultimate reference point of
interpretation. RC Sproul seems to leave his theology at the doorstep of
apologetics when he limits sins effects on the mind in saying, Something is
wrong with the heart not the mind.27 The mind itself is not reprobate.28
Sproul is found with a Tulip in his hands that is losing its petals, when
forgetting the total depravity of the sinner and question 28 of his own
confession. Finding a rational neutral ground for the sake of eventually
leading someone to the gospel, will outright deny the persons genuine need
for the gospel. If we appeal to the natural mans ability to reason proofs for
Gods existence, we are thus not even appealing to him as an unbeliever.
Holding this kind of neutral ground forces the Christian to do one of two
things, he either denies his own presuppositions to find commonality, or he
denies the unbelievers presuppositions to find commonality; in either case,
the believer will be denying Gods truth. The solution is for the Christian to
treat the unbeliever like he really is an unbeliever. To call someone an
unbeliever is to literally say that they are not-believing. However the
question needs to be asked, what are we saying they are not believing in? It
27 John H. Gerstner, Arthur W. Lindsley and R.C. Sproul, Classical Apologetics (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan,
1984), 242.
28 Ibid., 244.
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