After reading “Logical and Conceptual Reasoning” in Section 4.5, “Thinking God’s Thoughts After Him,” of Van Til’s Apologetics: A Reading and an Analysis by Greg Bahnsen, I wanted to write down quickly some applications and implications from the passage I read (pages 235-236). I’ll include an excerpt here for those unfamiliar with Man’s Analogous Thinking applied to logic:
“Van Til pictured human knowing as “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.” He also maintained that God’s thinking represents perfect coherence. Therefore, in order for men to know things, taught Van Til, they too must think coherently or with logical consistency. “The law of contradiction, therefore, as we know it, is but the expression on a created level of the internal coherence of God’s nature.” So in all of our thinking about Scripture and the world, believers are obligated to think logically, thinking God’s thoughts after Him. “Christians should employ the law of contradiction, whether positive or negatively, as a means by which to systematize the facts of revelation, whether these facts are found in the universe at large or in the Scripture.” Van Til goes on to indicate that in contrast to unbelieving thought, the Christian views logic as a reflection of God’s own thinking, rather than as laws or principles that are “higher” than God or that exist “in independence of God and man.” To explain by application what this means (in part), Van Til held that God’s word must be interpreted logically—that is to say, using God’s thoughts (logical ordering) to interpret God’s thoughts (in Scripture)—but cannot (and may not) in the nature of the case be subject to criticism or rejection on the basis of some supposedly higher logic. Van Til said that there is “no impersonal law of logic” that dictates to God what He can or cannot say; the logical constraints of God’s thinking are the constraints of His own personal nature, which man is to emulate.
After reading, I realized that I too often fail to apply the implications of man thinking analogously after God’s thinking. In a previous post, I attempted to correct the misconception that testing the logic of an interpretation of Scripture is the same as testing the logical veracity of Scripture. However, my previous post stopped short of developing or even stating the basis for the Christian understanding of logic. By failing to do so, readers lose a huge insight to utilize in defense of objections against using Scripture as an ultimate authority or presupposition (see previous post for definition of a presupposition). Hopefully, the excerpt given above allows me to quickly discuss two applications of thinking God’s thoughts after God without a lengthy elaboration or development of my own.
In summary of the passage above I wrote the following implications to God being the originator of logic:
Logic is not:
- Neutral, being a standard outside of God and humankind
- The laws of logic was not originally created or developed by any person
On the contrary, any person who develops or thinks of the laws of logic are only aligning his or her thoughts to God’s thoughts. Because logic belongs to God and thinking logically aligns oneself to God, a person cannot put God to the test with logic; logic puts the person to the test, indicating whether his or her thoughts correspond to His. This has immediate applications for apologetic issues related to hermeneutics and the canon.
In regards to hermeneutics, using logic to gauge our correct interpretation of the bible is not extrabiblical but is thinking our thoughts after God’s thoughts. God’s mind is completely logical and coherent, therefore any interpretation must reflect analogously God’s mind and way of thinking.
Consequently, even attacks of any biblical doctrine or particular verse in Scripture becomes impotent. Any law of logic the unbeliever or inconsistent Christian appeals to belongs to God. Ultimately then, any objection of logical inconsistency shows that their interpretation, summary, or paraphrasing of Scripture is immediately false. Before the unbeliever or believer alike even begins to point out a logical inconsistency in Scripture the person already is defeated by attacking a straw man (or straw bible, in this case). Not only are logic-based attacks against the Christian a logic bomb inserted into the Bible, the attacks turns out to be a logic bomb already defused by the Christian’s biblical worldview! The attack is not a dangerous threat but a straw man to be blown apart with apologetic vigor.
Moving to the second application, in regards to the canon, when a Christian rejects any document that is not logical he or she is really applying our innate knowledge of God. Because all people know God —regardless if they deny knowing Him, and because Christians know God more fully by studying and believing Scripture, a Christian can quickly reject any idea or thought —moreover, any document— not abiding by the laws of logic (God being the originator of any law of logic). When a Christian believes Scripture, the Christian also is by his or her very faith, admitting, without a word spoken, that he or she recognizes God’s “voice” or “signature” wherever and however God reveals Himself (whether in Scripture or in nature). Moreover, the Christian’s faith reveals an innate knowledge that God’s voice is coherent in His revelation because God by nature is coherent, in His very being.
In conclusion, if you are struggling with defending the Bible as a presupposition when it comes to interpreting the Bible (hermeneutics) or assuming that the Bible is Scripture (the canon) then read up on Chapter 4 of Van Til’s Apologetic: A Reading and An Analysis by Greg L. Bahnsen. Doing so will give deep insights about the place of logic in the Christian worldview and help prepare a apologetic response to questions about the canon or hermeneutics.
Have you studied the differences between Gordon Clark and Van Til on this point?
Do you have a specific question?
A little bit, was there something you wanted to share in particular?
Sorry for the delayed reply, I got busy.
When Van Til says that we think God’s thoughts after Him, he means that the content of our thought is different from God’s, not that the mode of thinking is different.
“The law of contradiction, therefore, as we know it, is but the expression on a created level of the internal coherence of God’s nature.”
Van Til stressed that the content of man’s thoughts and God’s thoughts does not coincide at any point. Thus, the law of contradiction, as we understand it, is not how God understands it. Our understanding of logic is only analogous to God’s way of thinking. God does not think by the same logic we do. The law of contradiction does not apply to God’s thoughts (according to Van Til).
If you have Reymond’s systematic on hand, I would recommend reading his treatment of the subject in which he interacts with and explains the differences between Clark and Van Til’s view of logic.
Here’s a little more on Van Til
http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=191
[[In a chapter entitled “The Religious Revolt Against Logic,” Ronald Nash writes, “I once asked Van Til if, when some human being knows that 1 plus 1 equals 2, that human being’s knowledge is identical with God’s knowledge. The question, I thought, was innocent enough. Van Til’s only answer was to smile, shrug his shoulders, and declare that the question was improper in the sense that it had no answer. It had no answer because any proposed answer would presume what is impossible for Van Til, namely, that laws like those found in mathematics and logic apply beyond the [Dooyeweerdian] Boundary” (100). In other words, Van Til, like Herman Dooyeweerd, assumed that the laws of logic are created.]]
Basically, Van Til said that God created the laws of logic, and thus they don’t apply to Him, Clark said logic is the way that God thinks.
Brandon,
Thank you for your comments.
Have you read what Bahnsen has to say concerning Nash’s quote?
And I think Van Til’s discussion about analogous reasoning and the law of noncontradiction must be understood with things that seem theologically paradoxical, and the nature and limitation of systems of theology; I have enjoyed John Frame’s contributing chapter in “Foundations of Christian Philosophy” for a fuller discussion on this point.
I don’t know where others on Veritas Domain stand, but for me I think logic reflects the nature of God and His thinking.
I haven’t read what Bahnsen has to say about that quote. Where can I find it?
Reymond mentions Frame in the section I mentioned above, but I don’t have it on me to quote it at the moment.
After rereading Van Til’s Apologetic: A Reading and an Analysis by Greg Bahnsen, I believe Van Til was misunderstood because of the usage of the terms ‘knowledge’ and ‘though content.’
The quote you use continues further with clarification. Quoting Van Til, Bahnsen writes, “not only is there ‘a difference between God’s manner of knowing and man’s manner of knowing,’ but God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge ‘coincide at no point in the sense that in his awareness of [the] meaning of anything, in his mental grasp or understanding of anything, man is at each point dependent upon a prior act of unchangeable understanding and revelation on the part of God. (Bahnsen 226; quoting from Van Til’s Systematic Theology pg 172 & 165)’”
Further, Bahnsen writes, “The discontinuity between God’s knowing and man’s knowing is obvious as a metaphysical truth: “Man could not have the same thought content in his mind that God has in his mind unless he were himself divine. Man can never experience the experience of God…. It is only on the assumption that the human mind is not the mind of a creature but is itself the mind of the Creator that one can talk consistently of identity of content between the mind of man and the mind of God. (Bahnsen 227-288 quoting Introduction to Systematic Theology, 184, 165)”
Bahnsen then, believes that when you read Van Til carefully, Van Til uses the term “though content” to mean the “thinking activity in which the mind of God engages, which mental ‘experience’ (notice the very next sentence in Van Til’s text) is a metaphysically different from the operations of man’s mind (227n.152).” Bahnsen explains that Van Til was trying to distinguish a Christian view of knowledge from that of abstract knowledge or truth.
Further in the text, Bahnsen elaborates on the usage of the term “analogical thinking” by illustrating the differences between the creator and creature, writing, “Man cannot do what God does, except by the way of finite imitation or reflection. This applies to the act of knowing things. Because the word “analogy” refers to (and indeed stresses) the element of agreement or identity between two things that are different, it seemed an appropriate word to describe the relationship between God’s knowing and man’s knowing. Man knows what God knows, even though the two are metaphysically much different. The relationship of a ‘micrcosm’ to a ‘macrocosm’ might be helpful as a teaching device here. Van Til once put it this way: ‘God’s knowledge is archetypal and ours ectypal….God is the original and man is the derivative.’ God ‘must be taken as the prerequisite of the possibility and actuality of relationship between man’s various concepts and propositions of knowledge. Man’s system of knowledge must therefore be an analogical replica of the system of knowledge which belongs to God.’ Van Til spoke of man’s gaining knowledge as ‘using the gift of logical manipulation given … for the purpose of thinking God’s thoughts after him on a created scale … that in some measure reflects the plan of God.’ God and man are metaphysically different, which is evidence in their differing acts of knowing, but man is to think the same things that God does. What man knows is literally the truth (not an analogy of truth)- the same truth known by God, accepted or verified by the same standard or ‘point of reference’ for both man and God (namely, God’s own mind). Yet there is, to use Van Til’s way of putting it, an important “qualitative difference” between God’s knowing and man’s knowing. God’s imcomprehensibility is not simply a quantitative matter of His knowing more truths than man or coming to know them faster (intuitively) than man. Van Til wanted to guard the Creator-creature relationship even in the realm of knowing, and thus spoke in terms of ‘analogical’ knowing (228-229).”
This was a long quote, but hopefully it clears up the confusion. Van Til believed the truthfulness of knowledge was the same but made the biblical distinction that God’s way of knowing is not the same as man’s way of knowing. The creature and creator distinction is extremely important to understand why Van Til uses the term analogical thinking, thought content, and knowing. I hope this is as edifying to you as it was for me.
Slimjim,
Interesting discussion.
Would you mind answering this question,
Did God create Logic? Please also give a reason on your answer. Thanks!
Johnson,
To answer your question:
I think the laws of logic is the way God thinks and according to his will and nature, so it is not created like an object.
He also made the world in reality operate according to the laws of logic.
Brandon, to answer your second question about where Bahnsen writes about Ronald Nash’s quote, it’s on page 226 , footnote 150.
Additionally, in response to both Johnson and Brandon’s related statement/question on Van Til’s belief that God created logic, based on what I’ve read thus far, Van Til does not believe God created logic, nor that logic is not applicable to God.
Van Til writes that the “law of contradiction… is but the expression on a created level of the internal coherence of God’s nature (Bahnsen 235).”
Additionally, Bahnsen says, “[Van Til] held … that the laws of logic are a reflection of His thinking. Quoting Van Til, “The law of contradiction cannot be thought of as operating anywhere except against the background of the nature of God (Bahnsen 236 quoting Defense of the Faith, 247).”
Bahnsen elaborates, “the logical constraints of God’s thinking are the constraints of His own personal nature, which man is to emulate.”
I tried to check on the quotes used by the article at trinityfoundation but unfortunately my old version of Van Til’s Life Works does not have page numbers to look at the quotes in context. Thus, my quotes are restricted to those used in Bahsen’s book.
Brandon,
I’m also curious as a side thing, can Scripturalism account for the proof that logic is the mind of God?
[[Because the word “analogy” refers to (and indeed stresses) the element of agreement or identity between two things that are different, it seemed an appropriate word to describe the relationship between God’s knowing and man’s knowing.]]
I agree, a point of contact is necessary for an analogy, yet Van Til denied this point of commonality.
In regards to this Clark has stated:
“If God knows all truth and knows the correct meaning of every proposition, and if no proposition means to man what it means to God, so that God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge do not coincide at any single point, it follows by rigorous necessity that man can have no truth at all.” (“Apologetics” in “Contemporary Evangelical Thought” ed. Carl F. H. Henry)
and
“If God and man know, there must with the differences be at least one point of similarity; for if there were no poitn of similarity it would be innappropriate to use the one term knowledge in both cases… If God has the truth and if man has only an analogy [this "analogy" containing no univocal element], it follos that he (man) does not have the truth.” (“The Bible as Truth” Bibliotheca Sacra (April 1957))
[[Van Til believed the truthfulness of knowledge was the same but made the biblical distinction that God’s way of knowing is not the same as man’s way of knowing.]]
This is not true. Gordon Clark affirmed that man’s way of knowing is different than God’s way of knowing. That is not what the controversy was about.
Van Til writes that the “law of contradiction… is but the expression on a created level of the internal coherence of God’s nature (Bahnsen 235).”
This does not show that Van Til did not believe the laws of logic were created. The reason “on a created level” is mentioned is because our laws of logic, according to Van Til, are not God’s laws of logic. The two are separate and ours are created.
[[“[Van Til] held … that the laws of logic are a reflection of His thinking. Quoting Van Til, “The law of contradiction cannot be thought of as operating anywhere except against the background of the nature of God (Bahnsen 236 quoting Defense of the Faith, 247).”]]
This is different from saying that the laws of logic are the way God thinks.
Here is what Reymond says on the matter:
“In his theology and in his apologetics Van Til always made it his goal to be true to a single and initial ontological vision – the distinction between the Creator and the creature. Throughout his writings Van Til insisted again and again that human knowledge is and can only be analogical to divine knowledge. What this means for Van Til is the express rejection of any and all qualitative coincidence between the content of God’s mind and the content of man’s mind. That is to say, according to Van Til, not only is God’s knowledge prior and necessary to man’s knowledge, which is always secondary and derivative (with this I am in total agreemtn), not only is God’s knowledge self-validating, whereas man’s knowledge is dependent upon God’s prior self-validating knowledge for its justification (with this I am also in agreement), but also for Van Til this means that man qualitatively knows nothing as God knows a thing.
“In his An Introduction to Systematic Theology, Van Til writes: “All human predication is analogical re-interpretation of God’s pre-interpretation. Thus the incomprehensibility of God must be taught with respect to any revelational proposition” (p 171, emphasis his) (SlimJim, this means that Van Til’s analogical thought applies to all biblical propositions, not just those that are difficult to understand) In his introduction to Warfield’s The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, Van Til declares:
When the Christian restates the content of Scriptural revelation in the form of a “system,” such a system is based upon and therefore analogous to the “existential system” that God himself possesses. Being based upon God’s revelation it is on the one hand, fully ture and, on the other hand, at no point identical with the content of the divine mind.” (emphasis original)
In a Complaint filed against the presbytery that voted to sustain Gordon H. Clark’s ordination examination, to which Van Til affixed his name as a signatory, it was delcared a “tragic fact” that Clark’s epistemology “has led him to obliterate the qualitative distinction between the contents of the divine mind and the knowledge which is possible to the creature.” The Complaint also affirmed: “We dare not maintain that [God's] knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point” (emphasis original). It is important to note here that it is not the way that God and human beings know a thing that the Complaint declares is different. Both the complainants and Clark agreed that God knows everything be eternal intuition whereas people learn what they know (excluding certain innate ideas) discursively. Rather, insists Van Til and certain of his students, it is the content of man’s knowledge that is qualitatively distinct from God’s knowledge.”
Reymond has much more to say and I recommend reading him on this topic in his systematic, or also in his book “Preach the Word!”
SlimJim, I would recommend reading Clark’s short article “God and Logic”
http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=16
As well as his book “Johannine Logos”
Oh, I forgot to mention: You can hear it from the horse’s mouth if you’d like. There is an mp3 recording of Gordon Clark lecturing about Frame and Van Til
http://www.trinitylectures.org/MP3/John_Frame_and_Cornelius_Van_Til.mp3
If I understand Clark correctly (and I may not, please correct me), Clark believed in univocal reasoning, which essentially means that if I know the statement “My name is Keith” then I know it in the exact same sense that God knows it. And that, I submit, it nonsense. Univocal reasoning requires one to know propositions exhaustively in the same sense that God does. As our postmodern “friends” point out, language is like a web, therefore to know one proposition exhaustively is know all propositions exhaustively, therefore Clark’s view requires that man be omniscience.
Or Clark could go the modernist route and say that words are more or less “atoms” that can be understood perfectly and distinctly apart from one another. Of course, such a “view from nowhere” (as Thomas Nagel famously put it) requires that one transcend his own context, which is impossible.
Yet while I deny Clark’s univocal reasoning (assuming I understand it), I can’t say that I agree with Van Til either. Maybe he hit the nail on the head, but its hard to tell because his description of analogical reasoning is so vague. If Van Til believed that we have a different *type* of knowledge then God then I would have to disagree—there is simply no scriptural support for that, nor is such a position even necessary.
If the analogy between our knowledge and God’s knowledge is simply one of reflection, then I can agree with that. For example, God’s existence becomes the archetype for our existence, which we model. We do not exist in and of ourselves, as God does, but we are dependent on God. Likewise, we are epistemologically dependent on God (“thinking God’s thoughts after Him”). This need not mean, however, that our knowledge is *different* from God’s.
DA Carson and others have said that man knows truly but not exhaustively. I agree with this. God’s knowledge and our knowledge does not differ in type but in depth of understanding, perhaps.
Feel free to correct me if I’ve messed up somewhere.
Brandon,
Thanks for all the insightful comments.
But there is a very important aspect for you to answer if you do subscribe to Clark’s view on logic (I am not opposed entirely but some) that you need to answer or make consistent with your worldview (including the area of logic) and that is the question that SLIMJIM asked.
The issue regarding Scripturalism. If you do affirm it, how do you account for the proof that logic is the mind of God?
Btw, regarding the Complaint with the Presbytery which happened 50 years ago – and I agree with Bahnsen that it was not necessary an issue of rational and Christian discourse. It was also made worst when the followers of each side fought foolishly.
A very important aspect when reading Van Til, also read Bahnsen. I think Bahnsen explains Van Til better than Van Til =)
Let me elaborate. Univocal reasoning, or univocity is defined as follows:
“A word is univocally when it means exactly the same thing in several different contexts.” (Revolutions in Worldview, p169)
Taking this to theology, a word is used univocally when it means exactly the same thing to God as it does to man. Now, let’s consider this with the word “sin.”
For God, sin means the violation of God’s law, but it also offends God on a level that we cannot understand because are not God. We, on the other hand, know that sin is breaking God’s law but we cannot relate to the experience of being “a perfect person being sinned against.” Here I draw upon Wittgenstein who believed that to know a language is to know a way of life.
So while I know a *part* of what it means to sin in the same way that God knows it, I do not know all of it. Hence it cannot be said that I know univocally.
Others have defined univocity as to mean lacking any ambiguity or doubt between uses of a word. Well, I can certainly doubt that I know what it would be like to be sinned against if I was a perfect person, so I think that definition applies too—at least partially. It cannot be said that my entire understanding of sin is ambiguous in relation to sin, otherwise I could not say that I actually know what sin is! (This universal ambiguity is known as equivocal reasoning.) It is on this point that I think Clark was attacking Van Til.
Analogical versus univocal and equivocal reasoning, by the way, is not new. Thomas Aquinas formulated the “analogy” approach centuries ago.
Brandon,
This is a quick one, going off to class.
Going back to comment 5,
” Our understanding of logic is only analogous to God’s way of thinking. God does not think by the same logic we do.”
I think we need to go back to something more basic to this conversation. I wonder how you understand Van Tillian’s definition of “Analogous” reasoning? We might have a difference of definition.
‘Thus, the law of contradiction, as we understand it, is not how God understands it.”
Would you see any difference between the way God understands logic and how we understand logic? Can nonbelievers know logic? But do they understand the nature of the laws of logic different than Christians or God?
“The law of contradiction does not apply to God’s thoughts (according to Van Til).”
Maybe its been given already, but is there a real quote of him say that God’s laws of non-contradiction (instead of autonomously man centered logic) is not applicable to God’s thought???
I’ll try to get around sometime this week to look for Reymond’s book
Brandon,
Assuming Scripturalism,
Can you present a logically deductive argument or know where syllogisms have already been presented elsewhere, from the verses Clark presented in that essay to the conclusion: logic is the mind of God?
Thanks for the comments. I’ll try to answer one at a time:
Keith,
Univocal reasoning requires one to know propositions exhaustively in the same sense that God does.
I do not believe so. If this is your first time reading about it, I would recommend reading all that Reymond says about, as this is just a small excerpt. He explains univocal much more fully.
The argument is that for an analogy to work, there must be at least one univocal point. There must be one thing that both God and man understand in the same way in order for the analogy to work, otherwise it’s not an analogy. That is the point Clark is making. He definitely does not believe we know every proposition to the same degree as God, but there is at least a point of contact.
Van Til says specifically in his Defense of the Faith that DA Carson is wrong. In fact, he refers to such a position as non-theist and insists that beyond a quantitative difference, there must be a qualitative difference.
“As Christians, we say that we can be like God and must be like God in that we are persons but that we must always be unlike God in that he is an absolute person while we are finite persons. Non-theists, on the other hand, maintain that though God may be a greater person than we can ever hope to be yet we must not maintain this distinction between absolute and finite personality to be a qualitative one.” p.12
Andy,
I do not think I need to explain Scripturalism’s support for Clark’s view of logic if I agree with Clark’s view of logic. Robert Reymond rejects Scripturalism but agrees with Clark on this issue. I am still learning a lot about Scripturalism, so I don’t have all the answers at this point, but the resources I mentioned are a good place to start if you’re interested.
Btw, regarding the Complaint with the Presbytery which happened 50 years ago – and I agree with Bahnsen that it was not necessary an issue of rational and Christian discourse. It was also made worst when the followers of each side fought foolishly.
That Complaint has had very long lasting effects. Van Til has had an enormous impact on Reformed theology, Clark has been ignored. This would have been drastically different if Clark had not been attacked the way he was. It is very important that we understand why it happened and how the thinking that allowed it to happen continues to influence theology today. It’s not a personal issue, it’s a theological one.
A very important aspect when reading Van Til, also read Bahnsen. I think Bahnsen explains Van Til better than Van Til =)
That is part of the problem. Bahnsen is not an inspired or official interpreter of Van Til. Everyone is allowed to read Van Til and draw their own conclusions. Not everyone agrees with the conclusions Bahnsen draws from Van Til, including other students of Van Til.
Thomas Aquinas formulated the “analogy” approach centuries ago.
Clark addressed Aquinas before he addressed Van Til. Reymond discusses this issue.
SlimJim,
Would you see any difference between the way God understands logic and how we understand logic?
Yes. Logic is the way God thinks. We understand logic only because God has revealed it to men (all men). As with all of general revelation, our proper use of logic is corrupted by sin.
Can nonbelievers know logic?
Yes.
But do they understand the nature of the laws of logic different than Christians or God?
Yes. In fact, a materialist atheist cannot account for them.
Maybe its been given already, but is there a real quote of him say that God’s laws of non-contradiction (instead of autonomously man centered logic) is not applicable to God’s thought???
As has been mentioned, part of the problem with Van Til is that he is not clear. I would recommend listening to Clark’s lecture about Van Til where he quotes from Van Til’s class syllabus. He did not state this simply in one sentence. I’m not sure if he stated anything simply in one sentence. I believe it is a correct inference from what he did say.
What do you believe is autonomous man-centered logic? Is 1 + 1 autonomous man centered logic or is it just logic? Please don’t misunderstand my tone, I’m not trying to be rude, just seeking clarification.
SlimJim,
Clark offers a fuller treatment of the subject in his Johannine Logos. I only got a few pages into and haven’t had time to finish it yet, so I can’t adequately summarize what it says. He discusses John’s use of logos, especially in his prologue. He argues that the term includes logic, thus it was in the beginning with God and it lights every man. But again, don’t take my muddled summary, read Clark if you get a chance.
I’m not sure if that answers your question or not. Let me know if it doesn’t.
Brandon,
There is alot going on here and time is short between classes.
Concerning comment 22,
“That is part of the problem. Bahnsen is not an inspired or official interpreter of Van Til. Everyone is allowed to read Van Til and draw their own conclusions. Not everyone agrees with the conclusions Bahnsen draws from Van Til, including other students of Van Til.”
Here at Veritas Domain, we are more bent towards a Bahnsen understanding of Van Til than the others. No one believe that Bahnsen is the inspired interpreter of Van Til!
Of course there are various students who draw things from Van Til differently than others. That’s normal, and even those influenced by Clark such as myself also don’t buy everything he expoused.
But one thing I do appreciate about Clark is his emphasis sometimes in the vein of his writing of beginning at the definitional level of things. Perhaps this is one area that we need to cover.
What is your definition of Van Til’s use of the term “analogous reasoning”?
I believe the following is a good summary of what I understand Van Til to mean by analogous.
“[Antinmonies] are involved in the fact that human knowledge can never be completely comprehensive knowledge. Every knowledge transaction has in it somewhere a reference point to God. Now since God is not fully comprehensible to us we are bound to come into what seems to be contradictions in all our knowledge. Our knowledge is analogical and therefore must be paradoxical.” Van Til from “Common Grace and the Gospel”
By saying God is not fully comprehensible, Van Til was not referring to his infiniteness and our finiteness. John Frame writes the following in his “Van Til Glossary”:
“Incomprehensibility of God: (1) Our inability to know God exhaustively, (2) The lack of identity between any human thought and any divine thought.
(1) is the more common meaning in theology; (2) was the subject of the Van Til/Clark controversy.”
http://www.frame-poythress.org/frame_articles/2000VanTilGlossary.html
Therefore I believe that by analogous reasoning, Van Til means that the content of what we know and the content of what God knows are never the same. At no point do our thoughts coincide with God’s. Our truth is always different than God’s truth (which we cannot understand).
Your last quote is accurate, however I believe your inferences from those quotes are incorrect.
If your saying that Van Til is not clear, that is different from saying Van Til didn’t believe man and God can know the same truth.
Dizzy,
(I assume you’re referring to comment 27) My argument that Van Til doesn’t believe man and God know the same truth has nothing to do with the fact that he is unclear.
I’m not sure I understand what your quote from Bahnsen means or how it corrects anything I stated. Are you saying that Frame is incorrect and that the disagreement was over our inability to know God exhaustively?
Sorry, I’m just not following.
Brandon, I think the “single point” issue is key. Some of the quotes you presented by Clark brought that to light. Thanks for posting those.
However, if my definition of “univocal” is correct—and I do believe it is—then my reductio of Clark stands. For God and man to know the same meaning of a word requires them to have identical minds, which is an impossibility.
So if Clark’s view of knowledge does not fall prey to this reductio it cannot be said that he holds to univocal reasoning.
Still, I’m hesitant to try to define Clark’s position because “quality” and “quantity” can be defined multiple ways. Perhaps a better word to describe that point of contact is “type.” We have the same type of knowledge as God, but it is reduced in quality and quantity. Indeed, quality and quantity might even mean the same thing. Thoughts?
Also, I agree with you now that Van Til would reject DA Carson’s view of knowledge. Makes sense, thanks for pointing that out.
Keith,
Reymond quotes Clark’s essay “The Bible as Truth.” I was able to dig it up online and briefly skimmed it
http://thereignofchrist.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=450:the-bible-as-truth&catid=83:gordon-clark&Itemid=352
In conclusion, I wish to affirm that a satisfactory theory of revelation must involve a realistic epistemology. By realism in this connection I mean a theory that the human mind possesses some truth—not an analogy of the truth, not a representation of or correspondence to the truth, not a mere hint of the truth, not a meaningless verbalism about a new species of truth, but the truth itself. God has spoken His Word in words, and these words are adequate symbols of the conceptual content. The conceptual content is literally true, and it is the univocal, identical pointof coincidence in the knowledge of God and man.
Brandon,
I’m glad we can agree that clarity is a separate issue. But when asked by Slimjim if you could produce a quote showing Van Til didn’t believe the law of non-contradiction applied to God, your answer was, “As has been mentioned, part of the problem with Van Til is that he is not clear.” Instead of presenting a quote, you say it is Van Til’s clarity, that prevents you from doing so, making Slimjim’s request into requiring one sentence. I say again, being clear is a separate issue. If you insist this is an accurate inference, use multiple quotes if your unable to produce one sentence affirming your belief Van Til taught this.
Reusing my original quotes, Bahnsen clearly shows Van Til did not believe the laws of logic, like the law of non-contradiction, did not apply to God:
Van Til said himself,
And also,
You pointed out earlier that by the use of the term “created level,” that Van Til believed man’s knowledge of logic and God’s knowledge of logic were two separate levels. That would be correct. What is incorrect is to infer that this necessarily shows Van Til believed there was no correspondence in truthfulness of the knowledge (even though God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge were not the same).
Van Til was not talking about the same truth propositions of man and God as being different as Gordon Clark claimed in the earlier quote from “Apologetics”. Van Til was saying that even though both man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge were both equally truthful, that God’s knowledge was more comprehensive, and thus, has no point of commonality between man and God. God’s knowledge will always be incomprehensible even when man knows the same propositional truth.
The quotes above still shows that Van Til believed the laws of logic expressed God’s nature despite his use of the term “created level”. Van Til used the term “created level” to guard against the idea that the law of contradiction expressed God’s nature exclusively and expressed God’s knowledge of the laws of logic comprehensively.
Therefore I would agree with your statement that “This is different from saying that the laws of logic are the way God thinks.” What human knows as the laws of logic is on the “created scale.” The laws of logic as we know it, is analogical to God’s knowledge (i.e. depth of understanding and manner of knowing). This is more than knowing the laws of logic intuitively. This is more than knowing the laws of logic quantitatively (knowing the laws of identity in addition to the laws of contradiction). Even though man may know the same amount of truths (quantitatively), or knowing it intuitively (faster), man’s manner of knowing will always be less comprehensive, with less depth of meaning, than God’s manner of knowing.
Bahnsen also elaborates more on why Van Til uses the term created scale,
Van Til was trying to guard against the idea of man’s manner of knowing with God’s manner of knowing. The following quote brings additional insight to the Clark-Van Til debate:
From this footnote, I’m led to believe that Clark at some point did not even argue that Van Til did not ever say there was a corresponding truthfulness between God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge. Clark argued that Van Til’s stress on the differences outweighed (or in his words “retracted” Van Til’s claim of similarity (truthfulness and certainty of man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge).
Although I have not read much of Clark (just a little of Christian View of Men and Things), and I may be incorrect but it seems that the footnote above along with the the quote you presented from Dr. Clark shows your claim differs from Dr. Clark’s quote in comment 13 from “Apologetics.” You do not even grant that Van Til explicitly stated that man’s knowledge has a truthful correspondence to God’s knowledge.
Despite the quotes I give showing that Van Til did believe in the truthful correspondence, you reject the quotes saying, “This is not true. Gordon Clark affirmed that man’s way of knowing is different than God’s way of knowing. That is not what the controversy was about.” However, simply saying that Dr. Clark affirmed the exhaustive aspect of God’s knowledge only proves that Dr. Van Til and Dr. Clark were in agreement on this point! However, as long as Dr. Clark continues to equivocate that two different level’s of knowledge are different in content is the same as saying there is no point of coincidence regarding truth, there will always be controversy because there will always be a misunderstanding.
Although you said that Van Til does not teach there is a point of agreement at all saying, “… Van Til denied this point of commonality.” There’s a difference between saying Van Til denied commonality in “thought-content” and “knowledge”, and saying Van Til denied corresponding truthfulness.
In fact, the quote you provide in the last part of comment 13 from Van Til illustrates this:
In addition to your quote, there are plenty of other quotes showing that Van Til believed both in truthful correspondence and, at the same time, no point of identity in thought-content:
Lastly to answer comment 29, I realize my last comment did not completely develop my point from the quote cited, so I will do so here. The quote was to illustrate that the definitions by John Frame are related issues (namely, exhaustive knowledge and identical knowledge). Van Til believed there was no “identity” in “thought-content” because we cannot know the truth exhaustively as God does. This is the reason why I agree with your statement, quoting from comment 27, “At no point do our thoughts coincide with God’s.” Because although we have truthful knowledge, we do not have exhaustive or comprehensive knowledge.
The inference that Van Til believed “Our truth is always different than God’s truth (which we cannot understand),” is incorrect. That is why I used the quote,
because the quote showed that Van Til held that man can know truthfully the meaning of a proposition, yet without the same depth of meaning or manner of knowing with which God knows that same proposition, or in his exact words, “exhaustively”.
In conclusion, Brandon, I believe most of your quotes, including those from Cornelius Van Til, Ronald Nash, and Gordon Clark are accurate on most points. However, Van Til does teach there is no point of contact in the manner of knowing or the correspondence of truth. When you used the quote in comment 13,
we must also remember that is not all Van Til said. That is why in comment 8, I included the clarification,
Thus, your quote in comment 13 from Reymond is for the most part an accurate analysis of what Van Til believed:
What Reymond doesn’t seem to realize, is that because God’s knowledge does not require interpretation of the facts, because God’s knowledge is prior to man’s knowledge, and because God’s knowledge provides the truthfulness and certainty of man’s knowledge, this is what Van Til meant by qualitatively exhaustive.
Again, it is not enough to say that God’s knowledge is only quantitative or intuitive. If the only requirement was God’s knowledge was quantitative, a teacher knowing more than the student would qualify as God’s knowledge because he knows more. If the only requirement was God’s knowledge was intuitive, a computer program could be programmed with truths it knows inherently without having to think or discover it. What makes God’s knowledge qualitative, is the prior, original knowledge that all of man’s knowledge is dependent on. Therefore, if Reymond has no problem with God knowing it prior, and God providing the truthfulness and certainty of man’s knowledge, than Reymond affirms the qualitative superiority of God’s knowledge but simply doesn’t use the word qualitative!!!
Thanks for that quote. I think he’s defining univocal simply in terms of type.
The conceptual content is literally true, and it is the univocal, identical pointof coincidence in the knowledge of God and man.
Clark seems to refer to the intellectual content as a “form” and then say that the form is the point of commonality, which I would agree with.
Brandon,
Clark has not been ignored, he has taught students like Carl Henry, Ron Nash, etc. But he chose to teach in secular universities for the most part of his life and not in the seminaries. The impact of teaching in the seminaries plays a big role in the denomination. That is a choice he chose.
I agree that Bahnsen is not the only sole interpreter of Van Til but neither is Clark!
I really think that all true Clarkians have no true objections against Van Til because of Scripturalism. Where does it say in the Bible that Clark believes in logic? Clark was asked a simple question whether he was regenerated and he said that he does not know. Why? Because the Bible doesn’t state that Gordon Clark is a Christian in the Bible. I think Clark undermines his own position by embracing Scripturalism. So, no true Clarkians can truly defend any of Clark’s position.
Here is some more information on this debate, in case anyone is interested.
Dear razzendahcuben,
Thank you for adding more insights into Gordon Clark’s view on analogical knowledge.
You mentioned in your post that Gordon Clark, in God’s Hammer, also acknowledges there are qualitative differences between God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge:
If this is the case, then Gordon Clark and Van Til have a more to be in agreement on then I understood from what Brandon implied thus far in our discussion. If both believe there was a qualitative and quantitative difference between God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge, then the only point of disagreement is what Van Til meant when he used the term analogical and said the phrase, that man and God’s knowledge do not coincide at any point.
On the first point, I disagree with the interpretation that “analogical knowledge” meant “analogical truth.” Though I don’t have time to develop that Van Til didn’t believe in analogical truth with more quotes then previously mentioned in the discussion, I can point to Brandon’s earlier quote of Van Til from Warfield’s The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible:
On the second point, I believe critics of Van Til always cut off the last half of the quote. “[God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge] coincide at no point in the sense that in his awareness of [the] meaning of anything, in his mental grasp or understanding of anything, man is at each point dependent upon a prior act of unchangeable understanding and revelation on the part of God. (Bahnsen Van Til’s Apologetic: A Reading and an Analysis 226; quoting from Van Til’s Systematic Theology pg 172 & 165)’”
When Van Til says “coincide at no point,” Van Til specifies that “man is at each point” dependent upon God. In other words, at each point of comparison between man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge, man will always, in all circumstances, no matter what subject, no matter what time, no matter how smart, no matter how knowledgable, always be dependent “upon a prior act of unchangeable understanding and revelation on the part of God.”
Van Til said man and God’s knowledge “coincide at no point” to stress the absolute dependency of man’s knowledge upon God’s knowledge at every single point. “At no point” will man’s knowledge ever be indepedent or autonomous from God’s knowledge.
No where in the quote does the context suggest Van Til refers corresponding truth. It is only by taking the words out of context, and ignoring the rest of sentence, that one misinterprets what Van Til meant. Additionally, as mentioned in point one, there are other quotes that show Van Til not only affirmed a corresponding truth but expressed that absolute dependency at every point gives the Christian certainty in man’s knowledge whereas the non-Christian man is left with only skepticism.
That being said, it reveals that in reality, Dr. Clark and Dr. Van Til really agreed on the similarities and differences of man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge. I must thank all the people I’ve been arguing with for not only strengthening my own understanding of Van Til but also educating me on things in common between Gordon Clark and Cornelius Van Til’s positions.
Thank you Dizzy,
I have been grasping at what Clark and Clarkian have been trying to say about Van Til’s and felt something was missing all along.
Your last comment nail the point home and hit something:
“I disagree with the interpretation that “analogical knowledge” meant “analogical truth.””
Well said and thank you for the quote of Van Til in its context!
To quote Reymond again:
“Some of Van Til’s students have attempted to extricate their revered mentor from the serious difficulty in which he has ensnared himself. John M. Frame, in his monograph “Van Til: The Theologian” argues that Van Til means nothing more by his denial of identity of content between the divine and human minds than that God’s knowledge, unlike human knowledge, is original and self-validating (21). It is true that Van Til does teach this, and with such teaching I have no quarrel. But I have to agree with Jim Halsey who argues in his review article, “A Preliminary Critique of Van Til: The Theologian” (Westminster Theological Journal xxxix [Fall 1976]: 120-136), that Van Til indeed intends, because of “ontological considerations,” to deny qualitative identity of knowledge content in the divine and human minds, and that Frame has missed Van Til’s point (128-131) and accordingly has not accurately represented his theory of knowledge (133). I suggest that the quotations from Van Til which I have already offered support Halsey rather than Frame. Gilbert Weaver, both in Jerusalem and Athens, 323-27, and in The Philosophy of Gordon H. Clark, also contends that by “human analogical thought” Van Til only intends to refer to the “process of reasoning” in man and not to hi knolwedge content as such. If this is all that Van Til intends, one wonders what all the fuss was about back in 1945 between Van Til and Clark over the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God, since both agreed that the divine and human “reasoning processes” were different, God’s being eternally “intuitive,” and man’s being in the main discursive.…
Brandon, do you believe Gordon Clark affirmed a qualitative difference between man’s and God’s knowledge?
Why do you have a problem with the phrase “qualitative difference”? What does this phrase mean to you?
In regards to the part of Reymond’s quote you highlighted in bold, I believe it is erroneous. Reymond might quote Van Til, and Reymond might quote Halsley (I’m not familiar with his writing or the context of Reymond’s article) but Reymond can’t suggest that if Van Til’s intention was uncontroversial there would be no controversy! Such a statement is fallacious and assumes that “all the fuss” didn’t involve unclear polemics, politics, and even sin.
Brandon,
If there is qualitative differences between God’s thought and man’s thought as Dizzy quoted above in comment 40, wouldn’t all the Clarkian objections against Van Til apply to Clark also????
Dizzy,
I haven’t read “God’s Hammer” and I don’t own the book, so I can read what Clark is talking about there or in what way he is using the term “qualitative.”
What does this phrase mean to you?
I think Reymond summarizes it well, and this is what I am referring to:
What this means for Van Til is the express rejection of any and all qualitative coincidence between the content of God’s mind and the content of man’s mind. That is to say, according to Van Til, not only is God’s knowledge prior and necessary to man’s knowledge, which is always secondary and derivative (with this I am in total agreemtn), not only is God’s knowledge self-validating, whereas man’s knowledge is dependent upon God’s prior self-validating knowledge for its justification (with this I am also in agreement), but also for Van Til this means that man qualitatively knows nothing as God knows a thing.
but Reymond can’t suggest that if Van Til’s intention was uncontroversial there would be no controversy!
There was a strong disagreement between Gordon Clark and Cornelius Van Til in regards to logic and God’s knowledge. Reymond is simply saying that if you try to remove all of the differences between Clark’s view and Van Til’s view, then you’re left wondering why the two of them disagreed. Refer to Clark’s lecture on Van Til if you think they didn’t disagree. He’s not talking about Van Til’s views being “controversial” he’s referring to the official theological debate that took place between the two.
Such a statement is fallacious and assumes that “all the fuss” didn’t involve unclear polemics, politics, and even sin.
I think if you wish to study the minutes of the meetings it is clear there was distinct theological differences about this. It may have been politically motivated, and obviously sin affects all we do, but it manifested itself in theological differences. There is nothing fallacious about Reymond’s statement.
*correction, “so I can’t read…”
Again,
Brandon,
If there is qualitative differences between God’s thought and man’s thought as Dizzy quoted above in comment 40, wouldn’t all the Clarkian objections against Van Til apply to Clark also????
Again,
SlimJim,
Please refer to what I just wrote. I have not read God’s Hammer and I don’t own the book so I cannot read the context to find out what Clark meant by qualitative. Yes, if Clark believed the same thing as Van Til, then Clark’s criticism would apply to himself. But he doesn’t, so they don’t.
If you just admitted you don’t have Gordon Clark’s book, God’s Hammer, and don’t know the context, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to assume without reading it what Gordon Clark did and did not mean.
Dear Brandon,
I wasn’t calling Reymond fallicious because I viewed the debate between Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Clark as uncontroversial. I was calling Reymond fallicious for begging the question!
By asking rhetorically “If this is all that Van Til intends, one wonders what all the fuss was about back in 1945″ Reymond implies the controversy itself necessarily supports his view of Van Til’s intended use of the term “analogical knowledge” all other arguments aside.
Moving on to the next issue, the reason why I asked you what you believed “qualitative knowledge” meant was because, in comment 33, I already dealt with Reymond’s view of the phrase when you quoted it the first time in comment 13:
In light of Gordon Clark’s quote and Reymond’s quote, I was interested in how you, in your words defined the qualitative difference because doing so reveals whether you’re using Van Til’s definition or Reymond’s definition. A Clarkian earlier, disagrees with your view that Clark didn’t believe in a qualitative difference, saying,
Based on the blog author’s depiction and context surrounding the quote from God’s Hammer, I believe Gordon Clark and Van Til had a point of agreement about qualitative differences of man and God.
As I said earlier, if Reymond agrees “not only is God’s knowledge prior and necessary to man’s knowledge, which is always secondary and derivative … not only is God’s knowledge self-validating, whereas man’s knowledge is dependent upon God’s prior self-validating knowledge for its justification (with this I am also in agreement)” then Reymond affirms the qualitative difference but misinterprets the next sentence.
By refusing to agree with the necessary conclusion “that man qualitatively knows nothing as God knows a thing.” Reymond denies the very thing he agrees with Van Til! Rejecting the statement affirms the reverse. If man CAN know qualitatively as God knows, man denies the dependency on God’s self-validating knowledge.
Why then does Reymond agrees with Van Til but at the same disagrees? Because he continues to presuppose that whenever Van Til says “no coincidence in qualitative knowledge” Van Til really means “no corresponding truth in proposition.”
But as I quoted several times already, Van Til simultaneously denied any qualitative coincidence in knowledge while affirming corresponding truth:
Another Clarkian trying to talk about “things” not in the Bible. How do you prove that those “things” exist? Did Reymond really write it? Another prove that Scripturalism is totally foolish.
This time, there is a Clarkian who has not read Clark but someone else.
Dizzy,
Just to clarify, are you arguing that Clark and Van Til did not disagree in regards to God’s truth and man’s truth?
If so, what is your understanding of the debate regarding the incomprehensibility of God that took place during the controversy?
Brandon,
I am waiting for this Sunday to get my book “God’s Hammer” back from a deacon that I loaned it to.
1.) “I have not read God’s Hammer and I don’t own the book so I cannot read the context to find out what Clark meant by qualitative. Yes, if Clark believed the same thing as Van Til, then Clark’s criticism would apply to himself. But he doesn’t, so they don’t.”
P1: Clark believed the same thing about God’s qualitative knowledge as Van Til,
P2: Criticism of Van Til’s Qualitative knowledge of God by Clarkians would apply to Clark. (Source: You affirm my question)
~P1: Clark does not mean the same thing as Van Til’s qualitative knowledge. (Source: Last sentence)
~P2: Criticism of Van Til’s Qualitative knowledge of God by Clarkians does not apply to Clark. (Source: Last Sentence)
P3: Brandon don’t know what Clark meant by qualitative knowledge. (Source: first sentence in quote)
Conclusion: Clarkians criticism does not apply (~P2)
Thus your reasoning as follows:
If P1, then P2.
~P1
——————–
~P2
This form of reasoning is invalid. It is committing the fallacy of denying the antecedent.
Brandon you also have an undercutting defeater in P3 for ~P1 which is a necessary component of your reasoning. In other words, you don’t know ~P1, and can not use it nor would your conclusion of ~P2 follows.
In summary, the reasoning you articulated here is logically invalid and also have an undercutting defeater.
Think about your claim of P3. All this time you have been quoting from Reymond again and again, and I think you might have a unhealthy dependence of only one guy’s work who’s book length treatment is on systematic theology instead of the particular of Clark and Van Til’s controversy.
2.) “Just to clarify, are you arguing that Clark and Van Til did not disagree in regards to God’s truth and man’s truth?”
I think Dizzy was showing the question begging fallacy in Reymond’s line of reasoning which you put in bold as a quote, and arguing that Reymond was rather inconsistent and misinterpreted Van Til in the quotes you provided.
Thanks SlimJim, my question still stands. If they agreed, then what was the debate about God’s incomprehensibility about?
Brandon,
Were you at Bellflower for the James White debate? If yes, let us meet up sometime to talk about the Clark and Van Til and more importantly evangelism.
Brandon,
As I said earlier and Dizzy also observed, Reymond’s question which you are re-asserting is question begging if he wants to prove that there is something more than what Van Tillians understood Van Til’s meaning is.
The ball is in your court and Reymond’s court to admit this question begging as fallacious and do a better job by telling us what Van Til ‘truly meant’ beyond what Van Tillians understood and with proofs from Van Til in his context, and how that disagree with Clark, which somehow you believe in, but come to the belief invalidly (denying the antecedent), fallaciously (begging the question), and an undercutting defeater (see Comment 50).
Dizzy has interacted and argued that Reymond has been faulty with some of his other quotes as well.
Try again.
SlimJim, thanks again for your comments. For the time being, I’m certainly willing to admit I am wrong and have misunderstood Van Til. However, my very legitimate question is, what was the disagreement over God’s incomprehensibility about? If I have misunderstood it, I would like to hear the correct understanding. Thanks.
Andy,
I was at the debate. What gave me away?
I’d love to meet up and talk about evangelism, and Clark/Van Til. The reason I’m interested in this debate is because it works itself out in practical ways, such as how to present the Gospel. One of the charges against Clark was that his “rationalism” made him deny the “free offer of the gospel” as defined by Murray.
Hey Brandon,
Are you from the LA area? How about next Saturday we meet up? I’m thinking about bringing the moderator from that James White to moderate things, lol.
If yes you do want to fellowship, just leave a comment so, and I will email you
that sounds great
Dear Brandon,
I just wanted to point out that you seem to be using the same rhetorical question as Reymond.
In comment 49, “Just to clarify, are you arguing that Clark and Van Til did not disagree in regards to God’s truth and man’s truth?
If so, what is your understanding of the debate regarding the incomprehensibility of God that took place during the controversy?”
And in comment 50, “Thanks SlimJim, [but] my question still stands. If they agreed, then what was the debate about God’s incomprehensibility about?”
In response, your questions don’t stand. Because the second question, “what was the controversy about” assumes the first, “Are you saying they agreed?”
And because your assuming the first, you have commited the same fallacy that SLIMJIM refutes in comment 50. The fact that there was a controversey neither proves or disproves that they agreed or disagreed on anything in detail. It only proves their was controversy.
The above needs to be addressed, Reymond can’t assert that Van Tillians say Van Til meant one thing, when Van Til really meant another because their was controversy. Likewise, you cannot assert that I said Van Til and Clark agreed on everything because their was controversy.
This needed to be addressed before responding directly to your question (twofold apologetic procedure) because you did not respond to SLIMJIM’s challenge in comment 50 or 54.
Now, in response to your questions in comment 49 and 52:
As SLIMJIM said in comment 51, I’m not arguing that Van Til and Clark agreed in all areas regarding knowledge, I was pointing out (among other things) that Reymond was begging the question. Although Reymond also outlines what Van Til believes, Reymond should not add a fallacious argument as support, asking rhetorically, from comment 39,
But that is only a small part of my comment in 47. The second part was pointing out that Reymond, when he actually does outline Van Til’s explanation of qualitative differences in knowledge is being inconsistent by rejecting Van Til’s statements.
This was why I asked whose definition were you using. Based on the quote I was presented from God’s Hammer, both Van Til and Clark agreed that man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge were qualitatively different. Even your quote from Reymond in comment 39 points out this agreement between Clark and Van Til,
Whenever Reymond and Clark say that God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge are only partially different I think they’re simply disagreeing due to an misinterpretation. If they truly affirmed the qualitative differences between God’s and man’s knowledge, then they would also should have no disagreement with Van Til’s absolute phrasing of “no coincidence at any point.”
At no point is man’s knowledge ever self-dependent, not relying on God. Man’s knowledge can never be partially dependent on God. At no point, will man’s knowledge be partially independent.
By saying, I agree that man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge are qualititatively different but there must be some point of agreement critics have switched topics in the same sentence! There is nothing inherently wrong with this. They’ve ceased talking about qualitative differences and switched to talking about corresponding truth. So then why can’t Van Til do the same? When Van Til says there’s no coincidence at any point, he’s talking about qualitative differences. When Van Til says there’s certainty of man’s knowledge because man’s knowledge is dependent on God’s knowledge he’s switched to talking about certainty in propositional truths.
The reason why Van Til used such absolute terms was to prevent any confusion about the absolute differences qualitatively between man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge. There will never be a time, place, subject, or instance where man’s knowledge is ever qualitatively the same as God’s knowledge (i.e. Man’s knowledge will always be qualitatively different from God’s knowledge). Reymond would agree with this.
Of course, the question is asked, then what was the confusion about? The confusion was (and still is) in the definition of the terms.
When Van Til talked about this lack of identity in qualitative knowledge (aka “process of knowing”) at every point between God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge, critics took this to mean “propositional truths.”
But why did they take Van Til to mean “propositional truth” when he talked about qualitative differents, using terms such as “no coincidence”, “at any point”, ‘identity’, and ‘thought-content’? Although I can’t answer to specifically any one critic (since I haven’t read any), Bahnsen points out that when Van Til used the term “thought-content” was often misunderstood. Bahnsen points out that Van Til used the term “thought-content” to make the distinction that man’s knowledge of God is not simply a capability to know God but actually a thought present in man’s thinking (in the contents of man’s knowledge). An illustration of Van Til’s use of “thought-content” would be the difference between being capable of knowing 1+1=2 versus having the “thought-content” of 1+1=2.
In contrast, when Clarkians avoided the term “thought-content” when referring to qualitative differences. Clark used the term (from the earlier quote from God’s Hammer in comment 37 and 40) “knowledge situation.”
Finally, comment 52:
In regards to you question about the controversy, I based my understanding of the debate from Dr. Bahnsen’s footnote regarding it. I don’t have the book in front of me so this is a rough paraphrase. My understanding of the incomprehensibility of God debate is that the denomination Van Til and Clark were in was divided over an agreed positional statement on the imcomprehensibility of God. Both were leading spokesman for the two sides of the debate. Van Til considered God’s knowledge to be incomprehensible even when we know the same propositional truths as God. In contrast, Clark held that God is imcomprehensible except when revealed in Scripture.
I believe these statements portray a lack of familiarity with the controversy on your part. It was not a misunderstanding over words. This is confirmed when you say:
This is not quite accurate. The controversy began when the Presbytery of Philadelphia ordained Clark in 1944. A complaint was filed by several people, including Van Til against his ordination. OPC historian Muether notes one of the reasons (of three he gives) Secondly, there were concerns whether Clark’s views on divine and human knowledge gave adequate account for the “incomprehensibility of God.”
I haven’t been able to obtain the full text of the complaint, but part of it states:
Now we can be certain that this was not just a misunderstanding between Clark and the complainants because their complaint includes specific doctrinal issues that are in conflict because of this issue.
quoting from Hoeksema’s “The Clark Van Til Controversey”:
The disagreement also manifested itself in another point of disagreement in the complaint:
http://www.lgmarshall.org/Apologetics/hoeksema_clarkvantil.html
The following includes more quotes from the complaint: http://sovgrace.wetpaint.com/page/Incomprehensibility+of+God?t=anon
a couple more quotes from the complaint here:
http://sovgrace.wetpaint.com/page/Incomprehensibility+of+God?t=anon
oh and my email is maestro {at} cableone {dot} net
Brandon,
Thank you for the resources on how the controversy began. However, this discussion has switched from talking about what Van Til didn’t mean (truths are analogical and do not correspond at any pont) to how the controversy began.
As you’ve pointed out, my understanding of the controversy was restricted to Bahnsen. Additionally, although vaguely familiar with how the controversy began, I did not want to give an historical account of something I did not read from a secondary or primary source. However, just because I omitted how the controversy began does not make my understanding incorrect.
I could erroneously refute you using the same logic you used against me when you said,
Attempting to respond (with your own words), “This is not quite accurate. The controversy began when the Presbytery of Philadelphia ordained Clark in 1944,” shows your argument makes a categorical mistake! How the controversy began is not the same question as what the controversy was about!
The fact that the quote does not include how the controversy began does not make the account inaccurate. As Van Til and Frame said, the lack of exhaustive knowledge does not make the knowledge any less true!
Additionally, you quoted parts in which I was not even answering your question! When you quoted,
The context in the quote and the paragraphs above and below, shows that I was talking about Reymond and Clark’s intepretation of Van Til NOT how the debate between the imcomprehensibility of God began and NOT what the debate was about. Thus, when I was talking about definitions in terms, I was talking about the critiques against Van Til’s words.
Instead of critiquing the part where I actually was talking about the controversy, you quote out oc context, a part where I was talking about Reymond and Clark’s misinterpretation of Van Til. This this not a fair representation of my comment. 90% of my comment was dedicated to talking about Reymond’s critique of Van Til, not answering your question about what the controversy was about (a different question than how the controversy began).
Finally, you’ve yet to show how proving there was a controversy proves what Van Til meant. As I said before, and as SLIMJIM said before, Reymond cannot say a controversy necessarily proves what Van Til meant. In addition, you still have not responded to how you know what Clark meant by qualitative differences even when you admit you have not read the book.
Please, for the sake of the discussion, take my quotes in context. But moreover, take Van Til’s quotes according to his context. I don’t pretend to not make the same mistake, but this discussion will not be fruitful when we cease listening to what the other person means.
Brandon,
You mentioned what OPC historian Muether. I’m surpised, where did you get the quote from?
Are you also aware of Muether’s writing concerning the Clark-Van Til controversy? Here below I am referencing his latest work.
You said,
“This is not quite accurate. The controversy began when the Presbytery of Philadelphia ordained Clark in 1944. A complaint was filed by several people, including Van Til against his ordination.”
If by controversy, you mean Van Til’s and Clark’s disagreement concerning God’s incomprehensibility, then your claim that “the controversy began when the Presbytery of Philadelphia ordained Clark in 1944″ is incorrect. The disagreement between the two happened earlier than that.
But if you meant “Clark-Van Til controversy” as what happened with Clark’s ordination with the OPC, to call that ordination rejection a “Clark Van Til controversy” is probably not the best name for it.
For one thing, Van Til’s role in the debate is often hyped.
Van Til was not in the same presbytery as Clark and could not have filed for Clark not to be ordained.
Second, John Murray in serving the “prominent role in the debate has led some participants to suggest that it was better described as the Clark-Murray debate” (Cornelius Van Til, 105).
Third, besides signing the complaint after the controversy began, Van Til is unusually absent in this controversy for “not once did he take the floor of the Presbytery to speak, and he did not write anything during the controversy. Nor did he serve on any of the General Assembly study committees.” (Ibid, 104) He was busy at those moment working on refuting Barth for his forthcoming book.
This is not as much as Clark vs. Van Til as it is Clark vs. OPC
The controversy with Clark’s ordination has often been seen as a “Clark-Van Til controversy” by Clarkians but I think it is more complicated than that. While I’m not saying this is true in your case, the Clarkians I have interacted with often make it out to be as if it was a witch hunt by Van Til and Clark was a martyr because of it.
Since the issue of the Clark ordination controversy has been addressed to the best of my ability in comment 66 from an Official OPC historian, I do think getting back on track, it boils down to what Dizzy stated. In other words,
You’ve yet to show how proving there was a controversy proves what Reymond understood Van Til meant. Reymond cannot say a controversy necessarily proves what he understood Van Til meant.
Dizzy,
This is getting a little old. I greatly appreciate your desire to be as logical as possible and to correct any logical fallacies I may make, and I greatly appreciate the iron sharpening. However, I truly think it is keeping you from seeing the forest through the trees.
I was not trying to answer what the controversy was about with that statement. You said that it was a disagreement over an agreed positional statement in the denomination. Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant, but I was simply showing that it was not a gathering of the denomination to discuss a doctrinal statement, it was a complaint against Clark’s ordination signed by Van Til and others. That is very relevant.
Now, if I grant, for the sake of argument, that Reymond and others have completely misunderstood Van Til’s statements, can you point me to anything else that Van Til wrote that can explain his disagreement with Clark on the incomprehensibility of God? If we do not get it from those statements, where do we get it? (I’m not trying to prove anything at this point, I’m just honestly asking where we can get any explanation of the disagreement if not from those statements)
Furthermore, the quote from Van Til being discussed was included in the complaint itself.
So that makes it clear to me that the quote in question was the foundation of the controversy. It seems to me that if Reymond misunderstood this statement, and that it does not actually show a difference between him and Clark on this point, then Van Til, Clark, and everyone else at the trial didn’t know what they were arguing about.
John Murray stated the following in his minority report after Clark was acquitted:
Again, if Reymond misunderstood Van Til, then so did everyone else it seems. (Unless I am misunderstanding what you are saying… please correct me if I am, and accept my apology in advance)
you still have not responded to how you know what Clark meant by qualitative differences even when you admit you have not read the book.
I told you after the first time you offered the quote that I do NOT know what Clark meant by qualitative in that quote because I have not read the book or the context in which it was written, so I’m not sure what you’re referring to.
Brandon,
I do appreciate your challenges to Van Til. It has caused me to reread very carefully what Bahnsen said about Van Til and what I read from Van Til himself, especially in the Introduction to Systematic Theology. I also felt convicted after reading James 1:19 to being slower to speak. I will try to respond more slowly than before.
Though I’m glad for your honesty, I think we’re more likely tired of debating, rather than tired of hearing the same arguments again. I must point out that I wasn’t attacking you for not saying how the controversy began, I was attacking your attack on me.
In response to my understanding of the controversy where I said, “My understanding of the incomprehensibility of God debate is that the denomination Van Til and Clark were in was divided over an agreed positional statement on the imcomprehensibility of God,” you said,
I was simply pointing out that you didn’t ask me about how the controversy began, you asked what the disagreement was about. At least, that’s what I thought you meant when you asked, in comment 49, “If so, what is your understanding of the debate regarding the incomprehensibility of God that took place during the controversy?”
I must admit my sentence was very unclear and misleading when I wrote it. Based on what you read, you interpreted correctly that it sounded like I was talking about a denomination split. What I was trying to say was that different members of the denomination disagreed, not just Gordon Clark and Van Til, on doctrinal position of the imcomprehensibility of God. When I mentioned statement, I didn’t mean doctrinal statement (of the denomination), I meant positional statement of the two different sides.
However, despite my poor writing, you have only successfully established that the controversy began about ordination, and then developed into a disagreement on an agreed statement or position on the imcomprehsibility of God.
Just because you say this is relevant, doesn’t mean it is. How is this relevant to showing what Van Til’s writings intended? The controversy didn’t focus on what Van Til meant in his writings, it focused on Gordon Clark’s ordination.
To your credit however, you’ve steered it back to the original challenge to us about what Van Til meant.
If I point you back to earlier comments, I didn’t say Reymond and others have completely misunderstood Van Til’s statements. I was saying several things.
First, I was saying that Gordon Clark and Reymond did understand and agree with parts of what Van Til said:
In comment 33, “In conclusion, Brandon, I believe most of your quotes, including those from Cornelius Van Til, Ronald Nash, and Gordon Clark are accurate on most points… Thus, your quote in comment 13 from Reymond is for the most part an accurate analysis of what Van Til believed…”
In comment 37, I wrote that Gordon Clark also acknowledged qualitative differences (Based on razzendahcuben’s post in comment 36 of Clark’s quote):
“There is a most important qualitative difference between the knowledge situation in the case of God and the knowledge situation for man.” ( Gordon H. Clark, God’s Hammer, (Jefferson, Maryland: Trinity Foundation, 1982), p. 30. )
Consequently, I was never aruging that Reymond and Clark and “everyone else” completely misunderstood Van Til. On the contrary, the most frustrating part is that they agree with Van Til but then disagree at the same time when Van Til is talking about the same differences they are.
The second thing I was saying, assumes the first (that they agreed there were qualitative differences), because the second thrust of my argumentation was that Reymond was being inconsistent.
To demonstrate his inconsistency I first must show what Reymond agreed upon and also what he disagreed. Going back to your original quote of Reymond in comment 13:
Taken from the quote above, what Reymond agrees on:
1) “God’s knowledge prior and necessary to man’s knowledge”
2) “[Man's knowledge] is always secondary and derivative”
3) “God’s knowledge is self-validating”
4) “Man’s knowledge is dependent upon God’s prior self-validating knowledge for its justification”
And then what Reymond disagreed upon:
1) “but also for Van Til this means that man qualitatively knows nothing as God knows a thing”
2) “express rejection of any and all qualitative coincidence between the content of God’s mind and the content of man’s mind”
Here’s the critical argument on why Reymond is inconsistent, if Reymond agrees that God’s knowledge is prior and necessary whereas man’s knowledge is always secondary and derivative isn’t he saying they are not the same, and will never be the same?
When Reymond says that God’s knowledge is self-validating whereas man’s knowledge is dependent upon God’s justification of his knowledge, isn’t he saying God’s knowledge is self-validating and man’s knowledge is not (i.e. they are different)
So although Reymond rejects the use of the term qualitative he affirms the differences. But when Van Til used the word qualitative, he meant exactly what Reymond agreed the differences were between man and God’s knowledge. If this premise is true, then Reymond agrees with the definition of qualitative difference while rejecting the name of these differences.
Thus Reymond is inconsistent when he rejects Van Til when Van Til, “expresses rejection of any and all qualitative coincidence between the content of God’s mind and the content of man’s mind. Van Til was still talking about the same differences that Reymond just agreed were different.
Moreover, this is why Van Til used the term analogical knowledge (stressing the differences qualitatively but agreement in truthfulness). Let’s take a look at the quote of Reymond you used from comment 13 regarding analogical knowledge:
Reymond’s statement is an accurate description of what Van Til believes. But it also is an accurate description of what he affirms. Therefore, when he rejects What Van Til believes, he rejects what he himself believes.
Lastly, I was attempting to explain why Reymond was misquoting/misunderstanding Van Til. In comment 47, “Why then does Reymond [agree] with Van Til but at the same disagrees? Because he continues to presuppose that whenever Van Til says “no coincidence in qualitative knowledge” Van Til really means “no corresponding truth in proposition.””
In comment 60: By [critics] saying, I agree that man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge are qualititatively different –but there must be some point of agreement– critics have switched topics in the same sentence! [One one hand they affirm differences between man and God's knowledge, and on the other hand they affirm a point of agreement between God and man's knowledge] There is nothing inherently wrong with this. They’ve ceased talking about qualitative differences and switched to talking about corresponding truth. So then why can’t Van Til do the same? When Van Til says there’s no coincidence at any point, he’s talking about qualitative differences. When Van Til says there’s certainty of man’s knowledge because man’s knowledge is dependent on God’s knowledge he’s switched to talking about certainty in propositional truths.
I apologize for the large amount of quotes but it illustrates what I was trying to say versus what you thought I was saying.
Plus, I admit it’s must easier than typing it all again.
As a sidenote, in response to
I was referring to comment 45, where you implied you did know what Clark meant, saying, “Yes, if Clark believed the same thing as Van Til, then Clark’s criticism would apply to himself. But he doesn’t, so they don’t” while at the same time saying, “that I do NOT know what Clark meant by qualitative.” Either you do know what he said, or you didn’t. If you didn’t, you can’t say what Clark did or did not mean.
Dizzy,
Thanks for the lengthy reply. I don’t think I will be making any more comments here (other than one immediately after this). I’m glad that I was able to urge you to read Van Til and Bahnsen more carefully. I would encourage you to read more than just Bahnsen on Van Til. I would encourage you to read all of Reymond’s thoughts on the topic in his Systematic, not just what I have quoted here. In addition to his discussion on Van Til’s analogical thought, he also discusses Van Til’s paradox hermeneutic.
The fact still remains that Van Til’s phrase that God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge do not coincide at any single point was used as the foundation to attack Clark’s view of the incomprehensibility of God (see the quote from the complaint above). John Murray also identified the difference as a qualitative difference, as did John Frame. When it comes down to it, there was a disagreement between them, and that phrase summarized the difference. That difference worked its way out into differing conclusions on several topics including theodicy, the free offer of the gospel, and Van Til’s unorthodox formulation of the Trinity.
Thanks for the back and forth.
I keep trying to post a reply to SlimJim but every time it just says “discarded” and doesn’t post. Anyone know why?
Brandon,
I don’t know what happen but I didn’t see your posted response to me, it must be something with wordpress then.
“That difference worked its way out into differing conclusions on several topics including theodicy, the free offer of the gospel, and Van Til’s unorthodox formulation of the Trinity.”
Brandon,
I want you to know that I have a lot of respect for the Clarkians you quoted, and some of them have bless me in their writing, and at this point in my life I have read more of Clark than Van Til, and more Clarkians materials than Van Tillians.
But sometimes I think that there’s alot of dangerous material that is slanderous by Clarkians assertions against other believers, especially on the internet. A case in point is John Robbins: I love his work against Objectivism, and he’s bless me in so many ways including the WOrldview essay contest hosted by the Trinity foundation (money for school and books!). However, I would have to say that while I esteem him highly I think that one of the more low points in his ministry was his assertion that Van Til was unorthodox and denies the trinity. It use to bother me and as I read Van Til, I noticed that Robbins sometimes misquote those he does not like. I shared this with a Clarkian bent apologist writer once over a dinner we had, and he agreed with my observation. It’s not only Van Til, but he also misquotes Bahnsen (supposedly, “every atheist is a Christian”) and he reasons that they are also not Christians (to include those he call heretical such as John Piper and John MacArthur). I hope you see where I am coming from when you start quoting sources from the Trinity Foundation that’s written by someone other than Clark.
Likewise, your exhortion to Dizzy is commendable: One should not be single source only and always read others and test them in light of Scripture. And think that also should be applied in my life and yours as well.
Brandon,
Should we meet next saturday? Nov. 1st? Somewhere in LA county?
I think if you post successive comments right after another, it’ll assume it’s spam.
However, I didn’t think it was possible to automatically discarded comments. In the past, your comments have gone to the moderator folder so I don’t know how to explain why it would discard rather than sending your comment to the moderated comments section.
In regards to your ending exhortations to read more, I agree reading more could be nothing but benficial. This is why I am thankful for this discourse as well. I do plan on reading more of Clark when I get the chance. Every once in awhile at my school library I skim through A Christian View of Men and Things. I found the section on ethics and selfishness enlightening and his section critiquing science hilarious.
The issue of Van Til’s view of the Trinity didn’t originate with Robbins’ critique. Clark affirmed the same thing, that Van Til’s view of the Trinity is unique, never before formulated in the history of Reformed theology. John Frame calls it “a bold theological move.”
Regardless, my point was not to debate his view of the Trinity, but to simply show that this disagreement had very practical outworkings.
I’m honestly not sure what you are referring to. The quote that you are responding to from me makes no mention of Robbins or the Trinity Foundation.
I won’t be able to get together on the 1st. My church has a retreat up in Big Bear that weekend. It might also be difficult for me to do any other Saturday, but I might be able to make it work.
I’m actually formerly of LA (Echo Park), but as of a week ago I live in Orange. However, I still work up in West LA, so my fiance might not like me taking another day of the week to drive up. If there’s any chance of meeting up during the week that would be great, but I know schedules are tough.
SlimJim,
My reference to Muether was from here http://opc.org/today.html?history_id=32 where he states:
And yes I am aware of Muether’s writing about the controversy. If you would like to read about why people think his account of history is quite inaccurate, I refer you to the following:
http://www.trinitylectures.org/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=148&osCsid=ea56f16f460a69da897eb9c734ececac (Robbins examines Muether’s writings in this booklet)
continuing from above…
http://godshammer.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/thin-skinned/
http://godshammer.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/rusted-memories/
And to say that Van Til wasn’t interested because he couldn’t have filed the complaint is fallacious. If he was interested and opposed to Clark, he still could not have filed the complaint, so it’s completely irrelevant. He signed his name to the complaint, that is relevant. Furthermore, from my understanding, Clark did not say much during the trial either. Other OPC members, who wrote The Answer to the Complaint did much of the talking. There were a number of members who supported Clark, so to say it is Clark v OPC is quite misleading.
Brandon,
answering some questions,
what gave away? James White told me…. =)
according to comment #70, I thought you are not going to make any more comments?=)
it would be good for us to meet up sometime to discuss some of the issues.
did you noticed that you asked SlimJim to refer to Trinity Foundation?
many of the facts over there are inaccurate. there are serious spiritual problems. John Piper has come out with his book on Justification and still Robbins ignored the arguments made in that book. MacArthur’s book, “The Gospel according to Jesus” has gone through a few revisions, correcting some problems with the first edition and yet Robbins would not read or consider the arguments. in my conversation with Robbins before his passing was to consider the arguments made by these 2 gentlemen but he would not even read them again. this is a serious spiritual problem. even with that said, I think Robbins has contributed to some degree a good critique of the unbelieving worldview.
btw, one of our writer on this blog even won the essay contest from Trinity Foundation!
what im trying to say to you is this, don’t consume all of your facts and interpretation from there.
Brandon,
1.) “I’m honestly not sure what you are referring to. The quote that you are responding to from me makes no mention of Robbins or the Trinity Foundation.”
In my last comment, I should have deleted the quote from you and I was originally going to write a response to it, then I started to write a general postscript of our entire dialogue. My apologies for my mistake, read comment #73 without the top quote of yours, it would make better sense.
2.) “Clark affirmed the same thing, that Van Til’s view of the Trinity is unique, never before formulated in the history of Reformed theology.”
It would be news to me if he believed that Clark believed it was unorthodox, but I’m open to see the evidence that Clark believed Van Til’s trinity was “unorthodox” as you stated.
3.) “If you would like to read about why people think his account of history is quite inaccurate, I refer you to the following:”
Which you then referenced Robbins’ book on whether the OPC can be saved, and I pre-empted a response to this by my discussion that Robbin’s reliability is in question with they way he interact with other Christian’s positions . See also Andy’s discussion above.
Furthermore if you or Robbins do not think the OPC historian is inaccurate with what I stated from him, then prove the propositions contrary to them as I shall list for you. Prove that:
(a) Van Til was in the same presbytery as Clark and could have filed for Clark not to be ordained.
(b)That John Murray was not serving the “prominent role in the debate has led some participants to suggest that it was better described as the Clark-Murray debate” (Cornelius Van Til, 105).
(c) “Van Til was present in this controversy,
(c i)that he took the floor of the Presbytery to speak,
(c ii) that he did write about the controversy during the controversy
(c iii) That he serve on any of the General Assembly study committees.” (Ibid, 104)
Doing the above would demonstrate that the OPC historian is inaccurate.
4.) “And to say that Van Til wasn’t interested because he couldn’t have filed the complaint is fallacious.”
No where did I asserted that Van Til was not interested with the complaint.
5.) “If he was interested and opposed to Clark, he still could not have filed the complaint, so it’s completely irrelevant.”
This is relevant because if my position that the fiasco with the ordination was largely a “Murray vs. Clark controversy” instead of a Van Til-Clark controversy, then this fact fulfills my position’s expectation that Van Til was at minimum not involved with the orignal complaint. Please consider the other evidence mentioned to make my case in total.
6.) “He signed his name to the complaint, that is relevant.”
But everything else I said is relevant in showing that the ordination problem was a “Murray vs. Clark” controversy instead of a Van Til vs. Clark controversy.
7.) “Furthermore, from my understanding, Clark did not say much during the trial either.”
Which proves that somehow this was the birth of the Clark Van Til controversy?
8.) “Other OPC members, who wrote The Answer to the Complaint did much of the talking. There were a number of members who supported Clark, so to say it is Clark v OPC is quite misleading.”
To be more precise, it was Clark’s sympathizers within a certain presbytery going against those in the OPC (including officals) who did not believe that Clark should be ordained.
Sorry Andy, had to tie up a few loose ends. I won’t post anymore, promise. I’d love to meet up, more to talk evangelism than this, but either would be great.
SlimJim, I find the arguments from Robbins and Gerety to be convincing that Muether is not being entirely accurate. If you don’t, oh well.
Brandon,
Im not asking you not to post. The discussion is important, let us continue to honor our Lord in getting down to the details of the discussion and it has been.
There is a problem with having Robbins and gang to be the only support for your position.
I think that Robbins and his co-author “borrowed their capital” from Van Til in order to make sense of their case. If you know my slang, that in of itself refutes the very foundation of their argument. Im referring to their Scripturalism. Can both of them prove that Clark even exist using Scripturalism?
“In conclusion, if you are struggling with defending the Bible as a presupposition when it comes to interpreting the Bible (hermeneutics) or assuming that the Bible is Scripture (the canon) then read up on Chapter 4 of Van Til’s Apologetic: A Reading and An Analysis by Greg L. Bahnsen. ”
That seems to be a good advise and I will try it. Fortunately I have the book in my library.
If you have any questions, feel free to post them up.