Christian Apologetics and Van Til, pt1

Christian Apologetics and Van Til

Classical arguments are not Christian

Reformed Theology and Apologetics

Van Til’s Theology and Apologetics

Classical arguments are not Christian

Classical apologetics presupposes too much:

Have to remember that classical apologetics is built on certain theological presuppositions that are hostile to the Reformed world in life view.

Semi-Pelagian foundations

A distinct and unbiblical view of man.

A distinct and unbiblical view of sin. A rejection of total depravity.

Human autonomy, where man is the measure in some respect and concerning certain aspects of his existence, not God.

A distinct view of salvation, where God comes to be a divine helper to man not a Savior.

Rationalism

Human reason becomes the final arbiter to truth not divine revelation.

Classical apologist like R.C. Sproul has argued that man has to begin somewhere, and if not with his own reason with which he can know that he is the creature of God and that he is living in God’s creation, than man does not have a proper starting point for knowledge.

However, the Reformed, Vos, Bavinck in part, but in Van Til, man’s nature, constitution and environment are wholly covenantal because he is created with “con-created” knowledge of self and God at the innate level of knowing which is what Calvin’s sensus divinitatisis arguing.

Natural theology

The idea that general revelation operates independently of special revelation and that general revelation is sufficient to convey the notion of bare theism.

General revelation before the Fall.

Sufficient, authoritative and infallible.

Received.

Married to special revelation.

Interpreted covenantally.

General revelation after the Fall.

Sufficient but suppressed.

Present but rejected.

Detached from special revelation.

Interpreted by covenant breakers.

Bare theism

Bare theism is what classical apologists ever since Thomas seek to prove through classical proofs.

Bare theism is not the Christian God.

Many people, even prominent thinkers have been convinced of the existence of “a god” through classical lines. Intelligent design has convinced many of the presence of a higher intelligence but not the personal Triune God of Scripture.

Scripture is clear that the Spirit at the moment of conversion convinces man of what he already knew to be true (Rom. 1.19). They know God innately, but they do not know God redemptively. Conversion settles not the matter of God’s existence, but the matter of God’s justice.

Bare theism does not “move” a person closer to the true and living God because it is just as pagan as false religion.

Intellectual assent of the existence of an unknown higher power, principle or intelligence is not only not Christian, it is a false view of man.

Man is not allowed to define his own existence and therefore cannot define his constitution and knowledge in a godless way.

Reformed apologetics simply does not grant the natural man’s definition of the world which includes what man is and what he knows.

Brute facts

Classical apologetics does not acknowledge the nature of the self-contained God who is self-known and self-interpreted. God knows all things because he knows himself. All facts are thus, God created and interpreted facts owing to God’s eternal decree and omniscience.

Creation, history and thus, facts are not random; they are owing to the plan of God.

If man is allowed to establish a godless principle of predication he can establish any fact in a godless way, making the existence of God superfluous for epistemology, metaphysics and ethics.

Facts are a simple matter of reference and if God is not the infinite reference point for all human predication, man is left with an infinite regress of predication making knowledge impossible.

Neutral ground

Classical apologetics, by offering man the ability to think “autonomously” has established a principle of “neutrality” upon which to approach the natural man who is hostile to God and thinks in a way that is antithetical to a philosophy “according to Christ” (Col. 2.8).

There is no neutral ground, because man is not neutral as the created image of God.

Man is either truth teller or a truth suppressor.

Man is either a covenant breaker or a covenant keeper.

Man is either epistemically self-conscious or he is willfully deceived.

Man is either going to think God’s thoughts after him, or his thinking will be futile.

From the Reformed perspective, all supposed “neutral ground” is in reality, hostile ground. The natural man is at enmity with God.