Tim Keller as a Successor to Van Til: A Heart-Breakingly, Inordinately High Estimate of Philosophy (5)

One of the most troubling aspects of what I see happening in conservative, Reformed circles of Christians today is the level of authority given to philosophy. As critical as he may have been toward philosophy, historically speaking, Van Til’s presuppositionalism tends to go hand in hand with an inordinately high estimate of philosophy.

One observes this, for instance, in Tim Keller’s otherwise excellent work, The Reason for God. In a section of that book entitled, “Intermission,” after he had set forth compelling reasons for the Christian faith, Keller reveals his understanding of the nature of truth, particularly, with respect to the weight one may reasonably place on reasoning itself in presenting a case for Christianity to unbelievers. Keller writes:

Despite all the books calling Christians to provide proofs for their beliefs, you won’t see philosophers doing so, not even the most atheistic. The great majority think that strong rationalism is nearly impossible to defend....Strong rationalism also assumes that it is possible to achieve “the view from nowhere,” a position of almost complete objectivity, but virtually all philosophers today agree that is impossible. We come to every individual evaluation with all sorts of experiences and background beliefs that strongly influence our thinking and the way our reason works. It is not fair, then, to demand an argument that all rational people would have to bow to (p. 118). 

What Keller is telling us (again, consistent with Van Til’s presuppositionalism) is that all the proofs or reasons for the fundamentals of the Christian faith he has presented so far in his book do not have some objective, rational, or absolute status as truth for everyone. That sort of thing is impossible. There is, in his view, no one rationality which all people share. We can only show the coherence (or systematic wholeness or reasonableness) of our worldview as Christians. 

This means, by implication, that this accounts for all Keller is actually doing in his Reasons for God. In other words, Keller believes that we cannot consider the conclusions we argue for as what should be, are, or could be rationally compelling for everyone regardless of their worldview. Instead, truth (as Keller implies) is relative to one’s perspective (a belief called “perspectivism”). This is because one’s perspective, according to that belief, is everything in determining what truth is. We can’t see outside our perspective.

So, to reiterate (and by his own admission), what Keller is doing in Reasons for God is not presenting conclusions supported by evidence and reason in a manner that cuts across different worldviews to appeal to a shared, knowable ground of reality (or truth) regardless of one’s worldview. In Keller's view, people can hear all that he is arguing for in this book and still be excused, in a sense, for their unbelief simply because they have a different worldview. Theirs is a different rationality or way of looking at life. The subjective conditions of knowing will not permit them to know objective reality.

As an aside: we may notice here in this case that as Keller basically agrees with what Van Til says about there being no common ground of truth between a believer and an unbeliever that Keller (like The Gospel Coalition in their foundational document on "truth") does not bother to qualify this by saying it is only true “in principle.” The “in principle” card seems to be played only when the denial of such a common ground for truth is challenged.

Continuing with the quotation from Keller,  one notices that the same problem I highlighted earlier about Van Til’s presuppositionalism applies to Keller here as well. I mean that Keller in the above excerpt fails to account for what the apostles were actually doing in the  Acts of the Apostles.  As stated before, it is impossible to read sermon after sermon by the apostles in that book and not see that they accept and employ what Keller rejects as a philosophically indefensible, “strong rationalism.” The apostles consistently presented evidence of fulfilled prophecy and their own eye witness testimony to the people concerning Jesus of Nazareth as God’s Messiah and then at times even rebuked people for their hardened hearts, if they did not accept the conclusion supported by their reasoning (Acts 7:51-53; 13:40-41).

Consequently, if one applies what Keller says about the indefensibility of “strong rationalism” to the evangelistic work of the apostles, there is the clear and unmistakable implication that the apostles simply didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t know the nature of truth. This is because apparently they had not learned from philosophers like Protagorus and Pyrhho (the ancient Greek precursors for modern philosophers like Descartes and Kant) who could have, presumably, "enlightened" the apostles about truth. The apostles, in that case, would have known that people have different perspectives and a strong rational case that Jesus is Lord is impossible. That the apostles cared not at all what Protagorus and Pyrhho thought about truth is obvious. They simply present evidence from prophecy and their own eyewitness testimony that Jesus is Lord. As far as they were concerned, on that basis alone belief in Jesus was warranted. If people didn't believe on that basis, they were without excuse before God. 

Observing Keller, therefore, as in some sense a successor to Van Til, one sees not only this hybrid of philosophy and Reformed theology (the denial of common ground for truth, etc.) but a bold appeal to (or reliance upon) the authority of the philosophers to renounce any Christian assumption that there can be a “strong rationalism” in presenting God’s case for Jesus as the Messiah.  Surely this should make us pause. One never finds, for instance, such an inordinate respect for philosophers in apologists like Francis Schaeffer or C.S. Lewis. They knew that many of the philosophers were relativists. They didn't hesitate to say that the philosophers were wrong. (Read , for example, Schaeffer's The God Who Is There or Lewis's The Abolition of Man.) Nor does one find this sort of inappropriate respect for the philosophers in Reformation leaders like Calvin and Luther.  Again, these reformers knew philosophy well enough. They weren't ignorant of what philosophy has to offer. It is just that when it comes to an understanding of truth they knew better than to make an appeal to the philosophers. 

And this leads me to my final thought which is more personal: I must confess that this is one of the most disturbing things I have ever experienced in my life among conservative, Christian, Reformed people. I live with an ongoing anguish in my heart about it. That a greatly admired pastor among us could make his case for the nature  of truth or knowledge based on what "the philosophers are doing," and that Reformed folks could receive such a claim with general silence, undisturbed equilibrium, and apparent agreement — this, I say, breaks my heart.

Is there no one able to read the writing on the wall? Do we not see what this means? Where it leads? Just when we need sola Scriptura the most, where is it? Are we really okay with Scripture plus philosophy? Where are the Reformed people who threw on the brakes — left tire marks for half a mile — and couldn't (for the love of truth) keep from dissenting:

"Say, what? Did you just appeal not (as we might have expected) to the standard of Scripture but to the majority report from philosophers today for what we should believe as Christians about the nature of truth and what can be expected of reasoning when it comes to making the biblical case for the gospel to unbelievers? And did you not stop to think about what you are implying about Scripture, namely, that it is insufficient for the faith and practice of believers, especially when it comes to evangelism? Or did you not stop to consider what the majority report of philosophers may be tomorrow on the nature of truth or what one can expect from reasoning and evidence in that regard? And have you forgotten that philosophy, for the most part, has never been on friendly terms with Christianity? That there just might be something in philosophy's proposals on the nature of truth and rationality that deeply undermines the church's integrity and quite significant role in the world as the pillar and foundation of the truth?"

No Danger of Taking Too Much From Ourselves? (4)

The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms rightly defines “presuppositionalism” as “a philosophical approach to theology.” On the face of it, how do we explain this historical development indebted to Cornelius Van Til in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries among the heirs of the Reformation movement associated with Calvin and Luther? I mean, more precisely, why did those in this time period who were born and bred on the principle of Sola Scriptura—Scripture alone as the basis for our faith and practice—a principle with a track record of rejecting human tradition left and right—become captives to that very thing through philosophy and in the name of Reformed theology? I would suggest that it was from a worthy but misguided intent to glorify the sovereignty of God in salvation through Jesus Christ. It was to show, that is, the comprehensiveness and greatness of that salvation. More specifically, how certain modern thinkers in the lineage from Descartes to Kant framed the problem of knowing seemed like a great opportunity through philosophy to honor Jesus Christ all the more as the only way to truly know anything. Whereas these philosophers were skeptical of knowing anything at all directly, for certain, or as it is in itself—and while they placed such emphasis on how the human mind alone conditions and accounts for knowledge in the most fundamental sense—those who are Reformed (like Van Til) saw an opportunity to insert as an answer to that problem the mind of Christ known by spiritual regeneration and Scripture as the only sure, central, and fundamental knowledge—that is, how we can know anything at all. What could be more worthy as a motive than that? And what danger could there possibly be in such a motive?

But, as I wrote in my last post, the problem of knowing (that we can’t know reality directly) as understood and treated by these modern philosophers is simply mistaken at its foundation—not a real problem at all. And this was no small mistake (as Searle points out). Much of modern (and what came to be known as postmodern) philosophy rests on this grand mistake. If we then apply Reformed theology as the right answer to this wrong problem, the result is a philosophical approach to theology which is itself wrong but now has for Christians what philosophy itself (or on its own terms) does not and could not have: a divine status as knowledge. How? Through its relationship to Scripture. It is like a Christian helping one who is struggling to get a heavy bag into a car. Surely, the motive is good. However, let’s suppose the person struggling with the bag is a thief. Then the good intent of that Christian lending a hand has actually served evil.

Similarly, the modern philosophers were theoretically taking something away from human knowing (a kind of thievery) which in reality was not the case. Van Til with a certain deference and respect for philosophy thought it was indeed the case. Consequently, he rushed in to help. To his credit, he rejected the man-centered solution of the philosophers. (That was the sense in which he rejected their brand of “idealism,” but we shouldn't be confused into thinking he did not accept "idealism" at all.) On the other hand, Van Til believed he could use Reformed theology to glorify God all the more. He proposed as an answer to the modern philosophers’ problem for knowing that having the mind of Christ was necessary to know anything at all. (A claim I suggest the Bible never makes, not even “in principle”). The result is that Reformed folk end up saying things like “there is no common ground for truth between a believer and unbeliever.” The implication is that truth is relative to one’s perspective. (A claim that in itself would have made these modern philosophers happy.) It means that we cannot know truth directly but only indirectly through our perspective. Van Til claims, therefore, that unbelievers have to accept the Christian’s presuppositions (or perspective) before they can accept the Christian’s Savior. To be sure, that sort of extreme claim about the nature of knowing was unknown to Calvin and Luther and all of Reformation history (all of church history, actually) prior to Van Til and the twentieth century. (Reformed folk who accept Van Til's presuppositionalism don't seem bothered by that.)

More importantly (as I’ve stated repeatedly elsewhere), it is as a doctrine completely unknown to Scripture or the apostles of Jesus Christ. For instance, it flies in the face of example after example of the apostles preaching to and reasoning with unbelievers in the book of Acts — directly (or: non-perspectivally, non-presuppositionally) presenting to them evidence from Scripture and their experience as apostolic witnesses that Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead and had fulfilled the Messianic prophecies. In other words, the apostles did not first convince people of Christian presuppositions or a Christian worldview as if (in keeping with what the modern philosophers thought) one’s subjective perspective governs what is possible for knowledge and we never can get at the thing-in-itself. They were not presuppositionalists. The apostles obviously believed that they could make a direct appeal to facts to convince people that Jesus is Lord. Indeed, this belief in common ground for truth between themselves and unbelievers underlies all their communication with such people.

Now Van Til, in his The Defense of the Faith (for example, on pages 144-145), equates this sort of direct appeal to facts with Arminianism. Although, one notices that he either avoids or seems oblivious to the fact that the apostles themselves in communicating with unbelievers appealed directly to facts all the time. Instead Van Til picks on Bishop Butler and Charles Hodge and others because they have a naive view of “neutral facts.” Imagine how far Van Til would have gotten if he had said, “Yes, the apostles Peter and Paul mistakenly appealed directly to facts in their preaching of the gospel. This is lamentable. It’s an Arminian mistake before Arminianism ever was. However, we who are truly Reformed in the twentieth century know better now. It’s a new chapter in the church’s history. Thankfully, with the help of Descartes and Kant and others in modern philosophy, we  have learned better. People must accept Christian presuppositions first. Then we can present them with the facts that are only understandable within those presuppositions.” Yes, if that had been said explicitly on the front end, Van Tilian presuppositionalism would have never gained a foothold in Bible-believing, Christ-centered, truly Reformed churches. In truth, however, that is precisely and clearly what Van Til all along was implying (and what is still implied) through his philosophical approach to Reformed theology. 

In addition, it seems that Van Til (wittingly or unwittingly) in getting people to accept his presuppositionalism relies on that partisan or sectarian feeling that may go with being a true, card-carrying Calvinist. Here is the line: If you are a Calvinist (or truly Reformed) you will accept Van Til’s upgrade through philosophy as to what it means to be a Calvinist, especially in the area of apologetics. Calvin himself, of course, would never have accepted presuppositionalism in the first place. It’s not like Calvin was unaware of skepticism in its various forms throughout the history of philosophy. He just didn’t buy it.

Be that as it may, however, it is important to be aware that there are at least three fallacies Van Til commits in his The Defense of the Faith to persuade people of the rightness of his position. With all these fallacies Van Til is seeking to persuade people that in getting people to accept a conclusion there can be no direct appeal to facts, that all knowing is presuppositional in nature. What makes the following fallacious is that none of these strategies actually present an actual argument for those propositions. Instead, Van Til is appealing to psychological triggers that might coerce someone in some manner into accepting his presuppositionalism without any real argument doing the work. All these fallacies essentially play on a Calvinist's desire to be considered a "true Calvinist" by others, especially in the area of apologetics. The first fallacy is ad hominem ( a verbal attack "at the man" or person). This occurs when Van Til labels anyone an "Arminian," if he doesn't accept Van Til's presuppositionalism. (What Calvinist wants to be called an Arminian?) The second fallacy is similar but broader. It is partisan in nature and involves an "appeal to the feelings of a people or populace" in their identity as a group. The latter occurs, when Van Til equates things like a direct appeal to facts with Arminianism in general ("one of those people") and his own philosophical appropriation of Calvinism (his presuppositionalism) with true Calvinism ("people who are truly Reformed"). (An aside: I suspect this fear of not belonging to "the group" — to those who are considered fully and truly Reformed — largely explains why presuppositionalism is so influential among Reformed people today. Coupled with that, my guess is that most of those who accept Van Til's presuppositionalism do not know the actual philosophical history, pedigree, or point of departure (or the path not taken) from which his theory arises. It is likely as well that to a large extent they don't understand Van Til, either, but rely on pastors who, in turn, rely on seminary professors who largely rely on John Frame and/or Greg Bahnsen for their understanding of Van Til.) The third fallacy in Van Til's The Defense of the Faith is "false dichotomy." This occurs when someone presents two alternatives, one in a negative light (in this case: "You don't want to be an Arminian, do you?") so as to nudge us toward the other position (again, in this case: Van Til's presuppositionalism as true Calvinism), while there is a third alternative that goes unmentioned (in this case: a true and biblical Calvinism minus Van Til's presuppositionalism).  That is, contrary to what Van Til implies, one doesn't have to be an Arminian or a Van Tilian version of a Calvinist. One can be truly and fully Calvinistic (that is, truly and fully faithful to the sovereign grace of God revealed in Scripture with all the five points of Calvinism fully supported) and disagree with Van Til's philosophical theology. With that said, these fallacies are spread like a net throughout Van Til's The Defense of the Faith. Wherever they are thus extended there is no real advance in what Van Til should be arguing, namely, that his presuppositionalism is consistent with and demonstrated in Scripture and thus truly worthy of the name: "Reformed." For his philosophical Reformed theology, Van Til actually and as a rule spends very little time engaged with Scripture itself.

To reiterate, then, the problem the modern philosophers proposed wasn’t real in the first place. That in turn makes the answer Van Til proposes unreal or mistaken, even when and as it intends to be Reformed and God-glorifying. If I may pause here for a moment, I trust that those of us who are Reformed will agree when I say that if we have to choose between what we find in Scripture and a doctrine which seems to glorify God but actually is inconsistent with Scripture (for example, the aforesaid, apostolic, direct appeal to facts in preaching the gospel), we will (and should) go with Scripture. Any idea that we are or can be truly Reformed in our embrace of a doctrine because it seems God-glorifying even when that doctrine is inconsistent with or even contrary to Scriptural assumptions or declarations may be (I trust we agree) a deceitful doctrinal scheme taking us captive and causing us to lose our grip on the Head, Jesus Christ, in whom all the fullness of God dwells.

Furthermore, I must say that presuppositionalism as a denial of the public or common aspect of the truth of the gospel, especially as it entails a direct appeal to the facts of the gospel as exemplified in the evangelistic work of the apostles in the book of Acts discourages the church from engaging in such a work and tends to justify a certain passivity in that regard. The attitude of "well they don't have the right presuppositions anyway" justifies in many cases silence when we as the church should be speaking. It also puts a burden on the church (at best, slows her down) that we don't see placed on the apostles in the book of Acts. I mean that the apostles evidently did not see it as their task to convince people of Christian presuppositions or a Christian worldview before they made their case for Jesus as the Messiah. They got directly to the point. They proclaimed what God had done. They spoke of fulfilled prophecy. They told of what they had seen and heard. They declared with great passion and urgency: "Jesus is Lord!" That was it. (Read the sermons in Acts.)

As for Calvin, I have been laboring to show that he was not and would not be a presuppositionalist. Admittedly, however, there is a statement he makes in his Institutes that seems to open the door to the kind of thing Van Til has done. Calvin writes:

Man is in no danger of taking too much from himself, provided he learns that whatever he wants [or lacks] is to be recovered in God (Institutes of the Christian Religion, book two, chapter two, section 10).

Now Calvin, of course, did not incorporate philosophy into his Reformed theology the way Van Til has. But I have always been intrigued by this particular statement. Why didn’t he simply say: “Let us not add or take anything from ourselves without Scripture as our guide.”? Isn't that how he handles everything else doctrinal? Why would he encourage a boldness in us as Christians to subtract from ourselves certain capacities or abilities to whatever extent we want as long as we turn and recover what we’ve lost from God? Could there not be (as I’ve been indicating) an unscriptural subtraction which by its improper foundation or construal inevitably leads to an unscriptural recovery in and from God? Why open the door for glorifying God as we fallen humans see fit? It seems to me that in Calvin’s quest to encourage us to humble ourselves, he almost invites merely human (or philosophical) construals of loss and defectiveness about ourselves without an awareness of problems that can result from that — even if God is seen as the only source of recovery. The Holy Spirit, I never tire of saying, wasn’t given to rectify problems created by philosophy.

How the Problem Presuppositionalism Addresses Is Not Real or Legitimate (3)

In my first post, I asked whether the problem of the mind-body dualism which Van Til accepts and incorporates into Reformed theology as presuppositionalism is a real or legitimate problem. Whatever else may be biblical and truly Reformed about his presuppositionalism, if that philosophical part of his so called “Reformed epistemology” is neither real nor legitimate, then surely it must be reconsidered as a doctrine which has gained so much influence among Reformed Christians today (see, for example, The Gospel Coalition’s embrace of Van Tilian presuppositionalism in their foundational document on truth, Can We Know the Truth? by Richard Phillips). What I will argue here is that the philosophical part of Van Til’s presuppositionalism depends on a problem that indeed is not real or legitimate and at best is too highly suspect or speculative to be compounded with Reformed theology (or what the Bible teaches), even if the intent behind such is to glorify all the more the sovereignty of God in salvation.

I begin by noting that the theoretical lineage from Descartes to Kant which assumes that mind and matter are so different that we have no assurance that they match up to convey reliable knowledge of the real world was not representative of other modern philosophers like Thomas Reid with his An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. So such a proposal was not even in their time uncontested by other important thinkers. And prior to that there were philosophers like Aristotle and Aquinas who were aware of similar theories in the history of philosophy (such as with the ancient Greek skeptics) that in one way or other were skeptical of the mind and matter relationship and yet they did all their work with an assumption that there was no such problem. That is, if one were to ask them if they believed we should doubt that the mind can reliably convey what is actually out there in reality, they would have answered in the negative. They would have said that any theory that is skeptical of the mind and matter relationship as capable of reliably conveying truth is a theory that is false. In sum, they would have rejected any problem assumed to undergird such skepticism as neither real nor legitimate.

In Van Til’s time (the early to mid-twentieth century), there clearly was a trend among the philosophically minded to accept this dualism as a real problem as well as the epistemological idealism they saw as its answer. At the same time, however, there were British philosophers like G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell who made it their mission to counter such thinking to one degree or other. This project was taken even further by another British philosopher, J.L. Austin, who challenged the idealistic notion (from Descartes and his successors) that what we know directly are ideas or perceptions of things and not the things themselves. Now it wasn’t that Van Til didn’t know all this. He simply sized up the philosophical scene of his day and concluded (wrongly I believe) that the epistemological idealists were right.

However, what Van Til couldn’t have known is that in the latter part of the twentieth century (beginning with the early 1970’s) this epistemological idealism he had embraced for his presuppositionalism (what came to be known as “internalism” or “indirect realism”) would begin to fall significantly out of favor in the kingdom of philosophy and the latter domain would move more in the direction of epistemological realism (what came to be known as “externalism” or “direct realism”). Philosophers like William Alston, Alvin Goldman, and Alvin Plantinga ( to mention a few) have been formidable proponents of various versions of epistemological realism. Even as recently as 2015, respected American philosopher John R. Searle published Seeing Things as They Are where he labels the kind of dualism and epistemological idealism Van Til accepted for his presuppositionalism as “The Bad Argument: One of the Biggest Mistakes in Philosophy in the Past Several Centuries.” Basically, Searle makes the case that there is a mind and matter (or mind and body/brain) relatedness to external reality that explains why our minds can convey reliable knowledge of external reality. Such a scenario for knowing means that there is a difference between, for instance, a hallucination and a real experience. Though thoughts or ideas one may take to be real are common to both a hallucination and a real experience, a real experience has a physical or material relatedness involved in what it perceives that a hallucination does not. It is this relatedness that occurs in real experience that gives us the capacity to make statements that reliably correspond to what we experience in our world and give those statements a status as truth that a myth or fiction of some sort does not have. (Remember the apostle Peter’s claim: “We did not follow cleverly devised myths...but we were eyewitnesses.” — 2 Peter 1:16). The point is that Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, didn’t have the science we have today to show how the mind and brain relate. If he had, he would never have devised his theory that what we know directly are our ideas and only indirectly external reality itself. I add here, anecdotally, that in the late twentieth century when I was studying philosophy in the graduate program at Vanderbilt University, I once asked one of my philosophy professors, Dr. John Lachs (a former president of the American Philosophical Association) what he would say is the percentage of philosophy professors in our nation who have rejected the mind-body dualism or epistemological idealism one finds in the succession of Descartes to Kant.  He answered: “Over ninety percent.” However, let’s suppose that number is high and that we claim no more than that the modern theoretical assumption of a mind-body dualism is no longer the majority report among philosophers. What would that mean in this case? That based on what many philosophers believe in our time Van Til for his “Reformed epistemology” assumed as real and legitimate a modern problem for knowing that has now been largely discredited. That presuppositionalism with its implied perspectivism as an account of knowing no longer holds for many philosophers. Now does this not create a rather awkward situation? We have pastors and leaders in Reformed churches today who seem frozen in time. They are repeating dated and disproven notions about knowing, such as, when they claim there are no neutral, mute, or brute facts. In addition, all this gets mixed in with their Reformed theology, such as, when they claim that there is no Christ-honoring, common or objective ground of knowing for truth between a believer and unbeliever. It is, I say, as if such questionable, philosophical notions had the standing and integrity of unchanging, divine revelation which Scripture alone has—what those who are Reformed should be the last ones to ever affirm.            

The "In Principle" Explanation (2)

Having read my first post, I can almost hear someone clear their throat and hasten to enlighten me with what must have escaped my notice in Van Til — namely, that all this talk about not knowing anything for lack of regeneration in Christ is true "in principle." (See, for example, Scott Oliphint’s “Concern #2” in his article, “Answering Objections to Presuppositionalism” at The Gospel Coalition website.) I suppose that if an unbeliever’s state of unknowing were unqualifiedly, only, and always true "in reality" then the problem as I stated it in my first post remains intact. The implication of the "in principle" explanation, therefore, is that "in reality" and depending on certain conditions, it is or may be otherwise for knowing when it comes to the unbeliever. (That is, all things considered, there is a sense in which an unbeliever can know things.) Admittedly, let us say, for instance, that an unbeliever is true to his natural inclination (because of sin) to reject God and his truth (that he, as Oliphint says, works “self-consciously” from this principle). Then the unbeliever (or so the explanation goes) has “absolutely” (Oliphint’s word) nothing in common as knowledge with the believer. (Given what I say below, “absolutely” as a term seems indefensible.) However, if we consider human beings as made in God’s image and confronted with the truth of God’s existence through creation and the problem of sin, etc. (what I referenced in my last post from Romans 1-3), then there is knowledge of this sort (or a common ground for knowing) that is shared between believers and unbelievers. In other words, from the latter standpoint, there is “in reality” a knowing that an unbeliever is capable of— even a certain shared (however limited) knowing between believers and unbelievers—based on being made in the image of God. Even the “natural man,” in that carefully qualified sense (again, Romans 1-3), knows things in common with those who are born again through faith in Jesus Christ.

Now as we consider this argument, it may have been apparent that in the case of what an unbeliever “self-consciously” elects to do in his natural enmity towards God (as a sinner) he stands on different ground altogether from a believer when it comes to knowing. However, nothing is said by the Van Tilian side about “self-conscious” deliberation with respect to an unbeliever’s knowing God by nature or through creation or things like knowing that one is a sinner (Romans 1-3 knowing). Absent this requirement of “self-conscious” deliberation, the knowledge of the natural man assumed in this latter sense seems to indicate that it is indeed the default or universal mode for human knowing. So what is true “in principle” may only be true “in reality” (at least the unbeliever’s lost and misguided sense of “reality”) when and as an unbeliever is deliberately and “self-consciously” consistent with his godless position. But, in general, what unbeliever is so? (Notice: I am not saying no one does this.) And when Oliphint and other presuppositionalists concede that there is for unbelievers a “natural” knowing based on being made in God’s image they introduce (though they don’t identify it as such) another principle for knowing at work in an unbeliever, one (as just stated) that does not require “self-conscious” deliberation. In sum, on the Van Tilian account of presuppositionalism it is as true “in principle” that the unbeliever is a knower as it is that the unbeliever is an unknower. Because this is true, moreover, it is just as legitimate to claim that there is common ground for knowing between a believer and unbeliever as to claim there isn’t.  

Now I realize that at this point a presuppositionalist will remind me that Romans 1:18 tells us that this knowledge that an unbeliever has is one that the unbeliever “suppresses.” The sticking point, it seems, is what it means to “suppress” knowledge or what the result of such actually is for knowledge. If I know that my tires need air and because I have a lot to do I “suppress” this knowledge, it doesn’t mean that my knowledge that my tires need air somehow ceases to exist. It may for the moment lie dormant as knowledge but that doesn’t mean that it vanishes completely. It almost seems that presuppositionalists are compelled to acknowledge what Romans 1-3 says about the unbeliever’s ability to know truth about God and his world but then point to Romans 1:18 as a strategy to remove with one hand what the other had already offered. It is one thing to have (because of unrighteousness) a psychological disinclination to acknowledge God or any truth pertaining to his world (including one’s sinfulness or the empty tomb of Jesus). However, it is another thing altogether to be incapacitated for such knowledge due to a lack of mental conditions or presuppositions necessary for that knowledge. If the latter is true and regeneration is the only way someone can have the mental presuppositions requisite to know God and truth in any sense, then there cannot be any sense in which the truth of God is being “suppressed” through unrighteousness. There would be, in that case, absolutely no truth to be “suppressed.”

A Reformed Solution but Was the Problem Real? (1)

The presuppositional nature of truth that Cornelius Van Til incorporates into Reformed theology for its enhancement comes (as he would be the first to admit) not from Scripture but by courtesy of modern epistemology from the lineage of Descartes to Kant. These philosophers believed that between mind and matter there is an unbridgeable chasm. Whatever matter may be, the mind is and must be primary for knowing things as we know them. This means for us as humans that truth is subjective. The true nature of what is objectively there outside of us, therefore, is not directly or reliably knowable.

Whereas the tendency of these modern thinkers was to interpret this scenario for knowing to justify human existence as a law unto itself—even when it comes to the idea of God—Van Til in opposition to such declared that the sovereign God through the Christ of Scripture comes to the rescue of this mind-body dualism. That is, Van Til considered the problem to be real. However else he may have opposed the idealism (mind-centered knowing) of the modern philosophers, he clearly embraced the modern philosophical theory to that extent. His answer was that through faith in Jesus Christ and by spiritual regeneration (as Van Til never tired of saying with a smile) we are “born again unto knowledge.” Consequently, the saved have “the mind of Christ.” And since Christ knows all things and makes them known to the regenerate through Scripture in an analogical manner (that is similar to God’s knowledge but not the same), all is well. Problem solved. Hence, the modern thinkers raised a problem, and a Reformed theologian jumped in and solved it and apologetics has never been the same ever since (at least for most Christian folk -- especially pastors -- who are Reformed).

            But what if the problem was neither real nor biblical? That is, what if Van Til prematurely (or ill-advisedly) accepted the legitimacy of a problem that was not so and then applied a Reformed solution to it in a somewhat strained or irregular manner? Indeed, what if both the problem and the result as Van Til construed them amounted to a hybrid of biblical doctrine and philosophy unknown to Scripture? I mean this: Was the problem of Man that he is an unknower—or a sinner (one who misses or comes short of what he in some sense knows)? In the apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (chapters one through three), is there not an emphasis on what all of us know (things like: the existence of God as evident through creation or that our sin is apparent in that we do the very things we condemn in others, etc.)? “Born again unto knowledge”? Is that the biblical problem? And is that what regeneration is about? (I thought we were born again unto God.)