Cornelius Van Til - "Why I Believe In God"

If you would like to know more about Dr. Cornelius Van Til, the father of presuppositional apologetics, you may find the following video useful. It contains the narration of a long letter written by Van Til to defend his belief in God, and more specifically the Christian faith. This is extremely thought provoking and insightful material, and even includes some interesting autobiographical information regarding Van Til's upbringing in Holland (you'll love his jokes about wooden shoes).

Here is a great example of Van Til's presuppositional method:
  

"... I propose to argue that unless God is back of everything you cannot find meaning in anything. I cannot even argue for belief in Him without already having taken Him for granted. And, similarly, I contend that you cannot argue against belief in Him unless you also first take Him for granted. Arguing about God's existence, I hold, is like arguing about air. You may affirm that air exists, and I that it does not, but as we debate the point we are both breathing air all the time." 
- 2:43 on the video


I especially liked his critique of the presupposition behind rationalistic atheism:

"You have made the reach of your intellect the standard of what is possible or not possible. You have thereby virtually determined that you intend never to meet a fact that points to God. Facts, to be facts at all - facts, that is, with decent scientific and philosophic standing - must have your stamp instead of that of God upon them as their virtual creator."
- 44:30 on the video

Cornelius Van Til - "Why I Believe in God"



There is much more on Van Til here: www.VanTil.info

Contradiction, Paradox and Mystery

I ran across this interesting video on YouTube. These guys do a good job of discussing issues close to the heart of THEOparadox. Don't you agree?

DISCLAIMER: with a little further research, I discovered the main speaker here is Alex Locay, and the questioner is Eric Purtic. Both are instructors at the Ravi Zacharias School of Apologetics, which is associated with Calvary Chapel in Ft. Lauderdale. The two have produced lots of apologetics videos, some of which are very good. However, given the prevailing anti-Calvinist stance of Calvary Chapel (not to mention Ravi Zacharias' commitment to the free will doctrine), some of the videos should be taken with large grains of salt. Use caution. No apologist is great on every topic, but Locay and Purtic provide well informed arguments on some of the important ones.

Where in the World is Paul Manata?

Paul Manata's "Aporetic Christianity" blog mysteriously disappeared awhile back, and I wasn't able to find him for a few months. But now, at last, I've tracked him down! He has been posting HERE since April.

I'm thankful for the work of Reformed philosophers like James Anderson and Paul Manata. Any Christian who is interested in logic and philosophy will find the work of these men to be an invaluable resource.


The video below is an old debate between Manata and atheist Dan Barker. It's both informative and fun to listen to.

Rationalism VS. Revelation

This is the latest installment in an ongoing conversation I'm having with a friend who turned from Christian faith to agnosticism. Rationalism seems to be a common factor in many "de-conversion" accounts, and it has become a dominant topic in our exchanges. My friend has embraced science and rationality as primary epistemic sources, excluding the possibility of divine revelation. A previous letter discussed the use and limits of science. Here I am addressing the use and limits of rationality - and our desperate need for divine revelation.

I think we agree on the empirical nature of the natural world, the real-ness and objectivity of "things." The question is, are there realities beyond this? Can we know them? How?

As a Christian theist, I say . . .

"Yes, there are realities beyond the empirical, even beyond the empirical things we don't know yet but can discover. There is a spiritual dimension that we all live in but rarely consider or define, which we cannot discover independent of divine revelation."

"Yes, we can know it, but not by scientific discovery or rationalistic pursuit. On the other hand, the realities of this spiritual dimension will not ultimately contradict scientific fact or rational logic. Indeed, the spiritual dimension undergirds them, determines them, defines them, and upholds them."

"We can (only!) know these realities through divine revelation."

Further, there was a time when our whole race knew these realities, but we have fallen into a state in which we can perceive only what is merely scientific and what is merely rational (and I would add that we can perceive spiritual realities of an evil or false nature, but not of the Truth).

The process you describe, that of courageously embracing reality and humbling oneself to accept what is revealed by rationality and the senses, is magnified when one walks in the light of divine revelation. Here realities are revealed which are a hundred times more humbling and a thousand times more challenging to one's native presuppositions.

In fact, the entire construct I have described is designed to humble us. But it goes beyond that. It is also designed to raise us to heights we could never reach by any other means. And it takes a special kind of courage called "faith" to receive these things.

This divine revelation comes through multiple streams:

GENERAL REVELATION

Scientifically: the created universe, even in its fallen state, shows a beauty, order and magnificence that points to God's power and grace.

SPECIAL REVELATION (Objective)

Historically: the unique Person of Jesus Christ revealed God's will in His words and works, and especially by His death and resurrection. (Christ's historic work can be classified as both general and special revelation, a bridge of sorts)

Textually: the amazing Bible with divine "fingerprints" all over it.

SPECIAL REVELATION (Subjective)

Dreams, visions, angelic visitations, etc. that have been given to some.

All of this is interpreted rationally by the mind of man.

It is interesting to see how these streams are woven together, the Bible itself containing visions and dreams and angelic visitations, and Christ experiencing angelic visits during His life. Genuine subjective revelations will point us back to Christ and the Bible. But Christ Himself and the Bible itself are the clearest and most objective revelatory sources.

Those who live and walk in these truths, and love them, won't trade them for anything. They are precious beyond every earthly treasure and they bring a joy that is beyond comprehension.

Such faith is not given to every person, and on the whole it is rejected by a self-reliant humanity. To those who possess it, it is incomprehensibly wonderful. It calls for the abandonment of rationalism, but not of rationality. For the Christian, seeing the rationalist's refusal to abandon his self-reliance gives evidence to the presupposition of Scripture, that man is in rebellion against his Creator. Seeing the rational framework of the rejection of God confirms the presupposition that man is created in God's image and retains the mark of it. But the "gift" of rationality is now turned against the One who gave it!

Apart from divine revelation, fallen man can never reason his way to the conclusion that

he is in rebellion against his Creator. Why? Because he is too fallen to be able to reason to this conclusion. He can't see what he is. So, according to divine revelation we are in quite a conundrum apart from divine revelation. Based on their respective presuppositions, Christians and rationalists cannot arrive at the same conclusions. It is impossible.

Can you feel the gigantic divide in our epistemic sources? We are each in a philosophically frustrating position. You believe there is no divine revelation because your rational faculties don't (won't/can't) ever lead you to it. You would like me to see what you see. I believe there is divine revelation because I have experienced it. But I cannot prove it to you in a rational way, I can only pray that you also may experience it and know as I know.

One final note: overall, I'd say the ball has moved forward. You are being honest and we are no longer playing games. You do not pretend to have experienced divine revelation, which leaves the possibility that you may yet experience it. If and when you do, your rationalistic presuppositions will be shed like a caterpillar's cocoon, and you will fly on the wings of a new and unshakable certainty. You will not (indeed, cannot) lose or deny your scientific and rational facts, only the presuppositions that lead you to interpret them in a rationalistic way. And you won't miss them.

I continue to pray for you, my friend.

The Philosophical Limits of Science

I wrote the following to a longtime friend who recently abandoned the Christian faith and turned to agnostic naturalism for answers (or should I say non-answers?).

When you say you "believe strongly" in the scientific method, are you acknowledging a certain kind of faith? A faith that only things which can be proven by the human senses matter? That the collective sense-knowledge of humanity serves as the final authority on what does and does not meaningfully exist, what is and is not significant?

Given all that I know of human beings - by my own observation and study, in addition to the findings of psychologists, anthropologists, historians, biologists, etc. - I would not trust that a race of beings who are so finite, limited and error-prone could hold the keys to everything. In order to do this, I would have to presuppose that the race (or at least its educated leadership) is correctly interpreting the cosmos, concerning both the things seen and the things unseen. Since the universe is so vast, and our window on it is so tiny, how can we place so much trust in our own perceptions?

The strength of this position is that things known are known with absolute certainty (e.g., that rock is a rock, made up of these elements, having these properties, and it always behaves in these ways, no matter what). The weakness is, larger questions are left unanswered - there are so very few things that can actually be known with "scientific" certainty. A true agnostic has to disbelieve so many things which would seem to be self-evident, simply because they are not scientifically warranted.

However, I do not believe anyone really lives by these principles. There is a presupposition that God either does not exist or has no interaction with the world. Hence, divine creation is not even entertained as a possibility, and evolution is assumed because it is the only possible way life could have arisen without divine action. And when the obvious question is asked, "Where did the original particles come from?" the answer is: "We don't address that question, it can't be known with any scientific certainty." And yet there is a certainty about the idea that there is (essentially) no God (at least no meaningful God), and He couldn't possibly have intervened in the universe in the distant past (let alone have created it). But I say, "What if there is such a Being, and He really did those things, and He is simply beyond the reach of human perception?" Although this cannot be known with scientific certainty, it is equally true that His non-existence and non-interaction cannot be known with scientific certainty. So, when it comes to the big questions (the ones not discernible by science), all of us are left to faith and presupposition.

Imagine, for a moment, that mankind had no sense of taste, touch, sight, smell, or hearing. Would everything that is now scientifically verifiable cease to exist or have meaning? Would everything be meaningless until observed? Even if we had no means of observing it? That would be absurd, like the old question about a tree falling in the woods! Yet this very assumption is made, that there is no meaningful God because we cannot observe Him scientifically.

I love science and agree with its observations as far as they go. But is it wise to conclude that there are no meaningful realities beyond the scientific facts? Are there scientifically valid reasons to assert this? I believe there are scientifically valid reasons not to assert it, and even to vehemently deny it. One observable, repeatable, and established fact proven by science is that there is much more in an unsearchable universe than science has ever discovered or ever can discover. As an epistemic source, I judge it to be highly reliable but far too limited. Like a very solid and well-built bridge that only goes a few inches across the chasm.

Questions That Don't Need Answers

Skeptics sometimes ask: "If God created everything, who created God?"

The question seems reasonable enough, but it overlooks the eternality, transcendence, and self-existence of God.

I like this turn of the tables: "If man created God, then who created man?"

Since human beings are clearly not eternal, transcendent, or self-existent, and the person asking the question is a human being, this seems to be the more important of the two questions. Skeptics say they cannot see or sense God, so how can they know He exists? Okay, fine. But all of us can perceive human beings, and must somehow account for their existence. As I see it, the choices ultimately boil down to spontaneous generation in an illogically eternal universe, or creation by God (which may sometimes appear illogical to some, but is ultimately the most logical of all possibilities).

Someone will say that skeptics don't know the eternality, transcendence, and self-existence of God, which is why they're asking the question in the first place. The Bible says they most certainly do know these things, and they are therefore without excuse in their stubborn refusal to glorify their Creator by trusting in Him.

Romans 1:18-21 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

It is not a lack of logical explanation, but a lack of trustful adoration, which prevents sinful man from believing in his Creator.

God exists as the uncaused Cause, the unsourced Source, the unmoved Mover, the uncreated Creator, the unmade Maker, the ungiven Giver - and all too often as the unloved Lover. Even those who deny this know it to be true.

Paradox Under Fire ... and Impressively Defended

Paradox is under fire here:
http://godshammer.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/showing-van-til-the-door/

And it's impressively defended here:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/04/showing-gerety-door.html

You'll find the same video of Mark Kielar making his case against theological paradox in both places. Many are lining up behind Kielar's illogic and affirming their disgust with divine mystery, even calling Van Til a heretic. Readers of this blog will instantly recognize the problems with the video. In the Triablogue post, you'll find Paul Manata capably dismantling the video's arguments and offering helpful correction.

Despite what some are implying, the debate over paradox is not equal to the Van Til vs. Clark controversy. Van Til vs. Clark was a Reformed Civil War, and in some ways it continues today. The real debate is between those who believe the human mind is capable of reconciling all that is presented in the Bible, and those who believe God has left some information unrevealed in order to humble our proud minds, test our faith and delight our hearts in accordance with His eternal purposes. Very few things are as engaging to the human mind as a difficult paradox. Van Til and Clark argued this in their own unique way, but theirs is not the definitive case. One may reject or greatly modify Van Til's thought and still embrace Biblical paradoxes. And one may strenuously oppose Clarkianism without becoming "irrational."



Ultimately, paradox is not to be our focus. Paradox is a means to an end. It serves as a tool to deepen our understanding of the Gospel. It is a philosophical instrument with practical uses: to make us more dependent on God, to make us less confident in ourselves, to make us more like Christ, to form His character in us, to aid us in explaining God's greatness to those who may wish to understand. It is strange that some who oppose our view rush quickly into accusations of irrationality, while ignoring the fact that we are only proposing a logical limitation of human understanding and a fitting exaltation of the sovereign transcendence of the Holy One. We are not in any way denying the rules of logic or the inherent rationality of God's mind as the origination of ALL TRUTH.

I left comments on both posts. Here is what I said on "God's Hammer" . . .

Sean,

Sadly, the alternative to embracing Biblical paradox is the proud exaltation of human reason above God’s infinite wisdom. All of us are better served by humbly bowing our hearts and logical explanations before the Almighty Father. If any person grasps the minutest grain of truth, it is of His pure mercy.

I do not know if Van Til was right or wrong, or to what extent. But I am certain that God’s ways transcend the finite logic of the best human minds.

Despite all the cheering going on here, Kielar’s video is fraught with problems. I commend James Anderson’s book, Paradox in Christian Theology, as an antidote. Also, you will find a wealth of quotations from men like Charles Spurgeon who loved the way God outwitted them and worshipped Him more as a result. They saw Him high and lifted up, and themselves mere worms.

When we come face to face with God, every one of us will realize that we have been outmaneuvered by a wisdom unlike anything we’ve imagined. Better to acknowledge it now and prepare for that day with a corresponding humility.

Grace & peace,
Derek Ashton

Was God Invented?

"We invented god out of our inability to understand the complexity of the universe."

~James Lynne, in a written debate over the question, "Is God an invention of man's mind or a true being?"

This is a contemporary restatement of the classic "God of the gaps" argument. I have two responses:

1. Doesn't a universe so complex as to warrant "invented" explanations point to an intelligent Creator? This argument against God would seem to lead us right back to God.

2. This argument may work well if God is containable, fully definable, and ultimately controllable. But that's not the Biblical vision of God - a God Who is beyond our understanding, shrouded in mystery and yet self-revealing. Far from solving the mysteries of the universe, belief in this God introduces us to an entirely new set of mysteries. Finite man in search of answers would never arrive at a belief in a transcendent, all-knowing, perfectly righteous, totally sovereign, absolutely just, terrifyingly good, relentlessly kind, inexplicably merciful, unfathomably wise and unknowably pure deity if he wasn't made to.

I use the term, "made to" in three senses:

"made to" - meaning God surrounds us with so much evidence that His existence is self-attesting.

"made to" - meaning God is the active cause of our belief in Him.

"made to" - meaning God created us for this very purpose.

Later in his article, Mr. Lynne makes this statement:

"Since the beginning of history most cultures have conceived gods for themselves. We are a creative lot, we humans. Our ability to scheme, devise, and create is apparently boundless."

Several questions come to mind. Where did we get such amazing creativity? Doesn't the existence of vastly creative beings living in a complex universe lead us back again to the conclusion that we have been created by an intelligent Being? If one posits that we use this creativity for the purpose of self-deception (and I would strongly affirm that we do), doesn't that imply a core moral problem within us (i.e. total depravity)? Does the possibility of self-deception exist because there is no divine source of truth, as the atheist would argue - or because there is a Source, and we are disconnected from Him?

We can agree with Mr. Lynne that man is in the habit of self-deception. However, our belief in the Biblical God is not a result of this habit. Rather, it is the effect of God's merciful decision to lead us back into truth and rescue us from the lies we have told ourselves about the world, about others, about ourselves, and about Him.

We didn't invent God - He invented us!

PARADOX FILES, VOL. 2 - A.S.A. Jones

The following is an excerpted portion of the testimony of A.S.A. Jones, a former hard-core skeptic who became convinced of the truth of the Gospel through an understanding of Biblical paradox (and, obviously, a sovereign work of grace). I have highlighted some portions in bold text for emphasis. I probably don't need to add this disclaimer, but lest anyone should think otherwise: this is NOT an endorsement of the philosophies represented by Friedrich Nietzche or Zen Buddhism. I believe Jones is using these as illustrations, not recommended reading. You can read his entire article here.

"A paradox is that which appears to contradict, but upon closer examination, really does not . . .

I prided myself on pure intellect and logical thinking and 'spiritual' things didn't make any sense to me. I discounted spiritual matters as emotional matters and I had made myself as unemotional as I could in order to avoid having emotions interfere with my rationality of thought. When I began reading the bible differently, I no longer saw contradictions of logic, but paradox after paradox. Being confronted with paradox forces one's mind to think ABOVE logic but not against it. For example, examine the statement, "Never less alone than when alone". If you break this sentence down into its components, logically it cannot make sense. Yet this phrase describes a very real type of individual; it is describing a person who considers himself to be his own best company. It tells of an individual who is content to spend hours lost in his own thoughts. You have to examine the paradox in the context of what you know to be true about human nature in order to understand it. It is assumed by the author that the reader will not be ignorant of this information.

All the way from beginning to end, the bible contains paradoxes that push one's mind to look beyond what is written to that which is being implied. Skeptics view these paradoxes as errors but if they are indeed errors, they are consistent in the writings of the more than 40 men who authored the books of the bible. I find it strange that men who were intelligent and literate enough to write in that early time could be so ignorant of their own culture and religion to have made mistake after mistake after mistake in issues regarding it. Instead, I think it is more probable that the skeptics are ignorant of the matters about which these men wrote and unable to grasp their culture and way of thinking. Many of these alleged errors are due to poor reading comprehension and the inability to grasp what is being said within the context of the whole.

Some of these paradoxes are presented as a unit, making them unlikely errors. For example, Proverbs 26:4-5 states, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." A contradiction in logic would render these two statements as meaningless but there is a truth to be found in them (See "The Games Skeptics Play"). Other paradoxes are not so obvious and do not occur in close proximity to each other.

A second type of paradox deals with morality. Paradoxes of this nature deal with the law and push the reader into the spirit of the law (See 'Why I Believe God is Real') in order to understand them. Examples of moral paradox include issues of divorce, adultery (Deut 24:1-4 vs Mark 10:2-12), and God setting Himself above His own commandments. What appears to be ambiguity or contradiction or nonsense in the 'absolute declaration of law' can be reconciled or deemed as irrelevant when the reader understands the spirit of the law.

Not all of the paradoxes contain meaning, but serve as arrows to direct the reader toward higher meaning. The accounts of the death of Judas and many other alleged discrepancies are irrelevant to the truth of God, yet they serve as stumbling blocks to those who are shallow or legalistic in their thought. In this way, the Word of God becomes a sieve, separating its readers through a series of screens. Paul describes this sieve in 1 Cor: 1. Those who have made themselves too big, get trapped in the holes, while those who have allowed themselves to be made small, pass through to see the hidden truth. Jesus Christ makes reference to his own device of conveying God's truth in parables (Luke 8:10) so that "...though hearing, they may not understand."

If you are a skeptic, you are probably scoffing at the above. I would like to take this opportunity to point out to you that Friedrich Nietzsche, poster boy for existentialism, was very fond of intentionally using words that would be misinterpreted by careless, superficial readers. Walter Kaufmann, who edited Nietzsche's 'Ecce Homo', included this in his introduction:

"Nietzsche had an almost pathological weakness for one particular kind of ambiguity, which, to be sure, is not irremediable: he loved words and phrases that mean one thing out of context and almost the opposite in the context he gives them... The former is bound to lead astray hasty readers, browsers and...nonreaders."

When a man does this type of thing, it is considered a matter of genius. When similar devices are employed in the bible, there is no reason to discount them as foolishness. Of course, it is not the 'hasty' reader that is being sifted out in the Bible, but the spiritual Pharisee who is being left in the dark.

The reason for doing this can be found in the Zen philosophy. The Masters of Zen don't seek to enlighten their students with the truth; they seek to confound them in order that they discover the truth for themselves. Herein lies the difference between knowing how to do multiplication and merely memorizing and regurgitating multiplication tables. If the truth about God could be told, we could know ABOUT Him, but in seeking and finding Him for ourselves, we can KNOW Him. For me to have been so profoundly changed through a minute faith in Jesus Christ is a miracle. Psychology tells us that the hardest thing to change in a person is their personality; we can modify our behavior, but our nature remains. The words of Christ didn't TELL me how to change. Like a Zen Master, He gently led my mind to experience truth. That's why the changes were so powerful."