Reading Through Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis

Reading Through Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis. #1

  1 peter 3:15 "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear"

1 peter 3:15 states an important prerequisite for anyone who is willing to offer a reasoned defence of the Christian faith  expressing that one must "set apart christ as lord in your heart". What does this mean you ask? Well, Van till explains it saying, " Christ must be the ultimate authority over our philosophy,  our reasoning, and our argumentation, not just at the end, but at the beginning, of the apologetical endeavor". Citing Matt 22:37, Van till provides an explanation on why one has to be set apart declaring that to reason in a manner that does not place christ as the ultimate commitment and controlling  foundation is to transgress the first commandment "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind."  This means that the apologist must presuppose the truth of Gods word from the beginning of the apologetical encounter to the end. Gods word being the ultimate commitment of the believer must be the conclusion of his argumentation since its his presuppostional standard and starting point that governs his reasoning to begin with. The inspired word of God and his revelation in any discussion is the Christians beginning and final reference point of knowledge and reasoning, any other starting point for knowledge that doesn't begin with commitment and reverence for God subordinates God's wisdom to the supposed wisdom of ones autonomous starting point. One must be rooted and grounded in Christ and ensure that our reasoning is guided by Christian presuppositions.  

 Presuppositions

Presuppositions are elementary assumptions in ones reasoning's which aid a person in forming opinions. They are personal commitments that a person holds at the very center of their web of beliefs. They provide a person with starting points from where everything else in life will be evaluated and interpreted. Everybody has what can be called a “worldview,” a perspective in terms of which they see everything and understand their perceptions and feelings. A worldview is a network of related presuppositions in terms of which every aspect of man’s knowledge and awareness is interpreted. This worldview, as explained above, is not completely derived from human experience, nor can it be verified or refuted by the procedures of natural science. Not everybody reflects explicitly upon the content of his worldview or is consistent in maintaining it, but everybody has one nonetheless. A person’s worldview clues him as to the nature, structure and origin of reality. It tells him what are the limits of possibility. It involves a view of the nature, sources and limits of human knowledge. It includes fundamental convictions about right and wrong. One’s worldview says something about who man is, his place in the universe, and the meaning of life, etc. Worldviews determine our acceptance and understanding of events in human experience, and thus they play the crucial role in our interpreting of evidence or in disputes over conflicting fundamental beliefs.

Epistemologically Self-Conscious

Epistomology is the study of the nature and limits of human knowledge and tackles various topics like justification,truth, and belief.  Our theory of knowing  or(epistomology)  should be consistent with christian presuppositions which is the biblical message as a whole. Having our theory of knowledge being consistent with our presuppositions directly influences our  convictions about reality, such as Gods existence and nature,mans nature, and relation to God, his purpose and place in then universe, evil,sin,...etc. The epistemologically self conscious Christian will then avoid saying one thing theologically and then practice something entirely different in their general reasoning and scholarship. In the realm of scholarship for example, the christian must not assume a neutral stance or submit to "neutrality" by taking on a non committed attitude to the truthfulness of scripture and christian commitments. In his book, "Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith" Greg Bahnsen elaborates more on this topic saying, "One must be presuppositionally committed to Christ in the world of thought (rather than neutral) and firmly tied down to the faith which he has been taught, or else the persuasive argumentation of secular thought will delude him. Hence the Christian is obligated to presuppose the word of Christ in every area of knowledge; the alternative is delusion." "Neutrality", to be more specific, is a position thats one takes which does not presuppose the truth of the word of God. Unbelieving reasoning and worldly philosophy thats not rooted in Christ are at its core and any conclusion will be interpreted through its lens rather than through they spectacles of scripture. Bahnsen goes on futher and states,

 "The Christian is completely different from the world when it comes to intellect and scholarship; he does not follow the neutral methods of unbelief, but by God’s grace he has new commitments, new presuppositions, in his thinking. Therefore, the Christian who strives after neutrality in his thought is found actually to be endeavoring to efface the fact that he is a Christian! By denying his distinctive religious commitment he is reduced to apostate thought patterns and absorbed into the world of unbelief. Attempting to find a compromise between the demands of worldly neutrality (agnosticism) and the doctrines of Christ’s word results in the rejection of Christ’s distinctive Lordship by obliterating the great gulf between the thinking of the old man and that of the new man." -Bahnsen, Greg (2011-03-03). Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith

The Impossibility of the Contrary

God, who is the essential foundation and source of all knowledge that man attains via Gods revelation, is the only philosophically sound starting point or precondition for any reasoning and reasoning in general. Only the truth of Christianity taken as a whole can explain and make sense out of human experience ex-the reliability of our cognitive and sensory faculties to serve as truth gatherers and as a source of justified beliefs in our intellectual environment, the knowability of the external world  outside of your mind, reliability of memory,logic, the existence of truth, the adequacy of language to describe the world; the existence of values used in science; the uniformity of nature, the existence of numbers and mathematical truths. Upon analysis of this fact, Bahnsen writes " all truth drives one to Christ. From  beginning to end mans' reasoning about anything whatsoever (even reasoning about reasoning itself) is unintelligible or incoherent unless the truth of the Christian Scriptures is presupposed. Any position contrary to the Christian one, therefore, must be seen as philosophically impossible. It cannot justify its beliefs or offer a worldview whos various elements comport with each other." In his book, "Always ready", Bahnsen further illustrates this point by saying, 

".. that the philosophic perspective of the unbeliever destroys meaning, intelligence, and the very possibility of knowledge, while the Christian faith provides the only framework and conditions for intelligible experience and rational certainty. The apologist must contend that the true starting point of thought cannot be other than God and His revealed word, for no reasoning is possible apart from that ultimate authority."

Antitheism presupposes theism, which means that to reason at all the unbeliever MUST operate on assumptions that actually contradict his or her espoused presuppositions, assumptions that comport only with the christian worldview. To put it in the simplest way possible, we know from scripture that God created the world and sustains it and up holds it by his power and governs it by his wisdom. Man was created with the faculties to interact with the world wholly dependent on Gods revelation to him. God knows everything. If there is another god, then God would know that there is another god. God does not know that there is another god, therefore there is not another god. In this sense then it is logically impossible that another god exists. There is only one true God, and He is the God of Christian Scripture. It follows that positions which posit some other god or claim that no god exist are false, or in this case, impossible. Any and all other unbelieving philosophies or systems of thought or religious doctrines, cults that sprung forth from mans depraved mind that are contrary to the Scriptures are false.