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.)