Cornelius Van Til is a theologian, apologist and philosopher that I appreciate since he tried to be biblically driven during his life time and academic career (Years ago I posted A SYLLABUS ON CORNELIUS VAN TIL’S HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND CONTRIBUTION TO PRESUPPOSITIONAL APOLOGETICS).
His writings are not always easy to read but it is always rewarding for me to work through them especially when he gives great insight with theological and apologetics methods.
I want to share something that I read recently that touches on how how we understand the characteristics of the Bible depend upon other teachings in the Bible on other major areas.
ON page 29 of Cornelius Van Til’s book The Doctrine of Scripture he writes
The doctrine of Scripture is intricately interwoven with all the main teachings of Scripture. This doctrine is interwoven with the idea of the world’s creation an its all comprehensive providential control by God the Father. We may say that the doctrine of creation and of providence form the foundation of the idea of Scripture. But on the other hand we should know nothing about the truth of creation and providence if it were not the Scripture as God’s Word that tells us of them.
I thought he highlighted something profound.
Van Til notes that two doctrines are important for us to understand the characteristics and nature of the Bible. We believe the Bible is God speaking to us which are written down by men whom God divinely guided. Of course for these human writers to write God’s Word these humans were created (doctrine of creation) and God can guide men and direct things in History (doctrine of providence).
Interestingly as well we know about God as Creator and God providentially guide from the teaching of the Bible of what God has done.
Note this is not a crude fallacious circularity (A is true because of A) but there is a rational coherence going on here where a view of reality (metaphysics) is the foundation for the character and nature of the Bible to be the case while the question of how we know this view of reality/metaphysics is the true state of affairs is revealed from the Bible that is functioning as an epistemic (method of knowing) source.
I want to even stretch this further with another major area of “main teachings of Scripture.” The attributes of God is also foundational for the Bible to have the quality and character that it possesses.
For instance the Bible is taught in the Bible as powerful; that’s because the Author of the Bible is God, who is powerful (actually All powerful).
The Bible among other things also contain promises. How? It is because the Triune God who gave promises is a God who is faithful.
The Bible predicts prophecies in the future before things happened. How is this possible? It is because God is all knowing, including things in the future. If you believe in a god that cannot know the future, then it is not the god of the Bible nor is it a god who can write the Bible, a powerful apologetics against open theism and theology of that sort.
If God is true, His Words to us are also true.
You get the idea.
This is where knowing theology has its place in Christian apologetics, including studying the attributes of God. It is useful for counter-cult apologetics, apologetics concerning other major religions and also even with nonbelievers who are not religious in discussing the coherence of the Biblical worldview with a biblical metaphysics and epistemology (specifically theology proper with bibliology).
I just realized I never made a post of my outline series on the attributes of God but a friend and fellow blogger name Bruce has done so here; its worth checking them out!
The Domain for Truth 
I enjoy listening to Ben Shapiro’s answers as he destroys the “woke” crowd, atheists, pro-abortionists, and others in reference to things in the realm of morals, righteousness, and many other issues. I side with him on most issues in these matters.
I like the statement he made when discussing these issues, and someone didn’t like what he was saying and felt differently. “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” A number of times those he spoke to didn’t like he used the Bible as the reason or basis for his answer (of course, being Jewish, he doesn’t accept the fact that Jesus is our savior). So, he attempted to answer without reference to God or the Scriptures. Although his reply was well articulated, and he got the point across and won the argument, I don’t believe Christians should, or can answer, or deal with morals, righteousness, and such issues without God and His word.
God is, and without Him, nothing would exist or could exist. Therefore, in all matters of right versus wrong, He is the standard. Thus, when talking with someone who does not believe the Bible is truth, or they tell you, that you cannot use the Scriptures as the basis for your argument because they don’t believe it, I would add a bit to Shapiro’s statement. Facts don’t care about your feelings, nor does truth care about what you believe.
Cornelius Van Til is correct, “The doctrine of Scripture is intricately interwoven with all the main teachings of Scripture.” Therefore, so should all of our beliefs be, interwoven with Scripture throughout all of our thoughts, all our answers, and all our rebuttals, on every single thing or issue we discuss. As it states in II Corinthians 10:5 “Casting down imaginations (reasonings) and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”
Amen to this: ” Therefore, so should all of our beliefs be, interwoven with Scripture throughout all of our thoughts, all our answers, and all our rebuttals, on every single thing or issue we discuss.” A big amen! This is my personal desire: To think after God’s Thought.
It was 6:45 AM when I suddenly saw the photo of Van Til. My hand holding my coffee cup began trembling and the contents nearly spilled out! Was I up to this? God “created” the Bible and the Bible informs us of God’s creation and thus we see that “Scripture is intricately interwoven with all the main teachings of Scripture.” I’m happy to have been able to grasp that point and now I’m headed back to my T-101 classroom!
Haha. Far too kind. Do you drink one cup of coffee or more during the day?
I had a near-fatal heart arrhythmia in 2001 as I’ve mentioned so I’m supposed to limit caffeine. I do one cup of half-caffeine coffee in the AM and that’s it. How about you?
I understand your point about Open Theism is tangential, but I wanted to comment briefly on it.
I never understood how this doctrine became a thing at all. I see it as easily refutable. Fundamentally, it imposes temporality upon eternality, thereby (wrongly) assuming eternality is such that events are sequential, as in temporality. In my reading I’ve found no better explanation of the relationship between eternality and temporality than that of Lewis Sperry Chafer:
God’s attribute of eternality provides Him ‘foreknowledge’ about future events in our temporal realm, but this in no way impacts our (temporal) free will.
Good quote. I think you hit it on the nail with the confusion of eternity being almost defined as a long succession of many temporal sequences rather than that is not. Thanks for quoting Lewis Sperry Chafer who I have not read yet. I imagine this quote is from his systematic?
Yes, it’s from his systematic.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. Great theology focuses on God’s attributes. “This is where knowing theology has its place in Christian apologetics, including studying the attributes of God.”
Shalom!
Amen thanks for the encouragement
That was quite a bit of work you put into the Van Til syllabus. Thank you.
Thanks for clicking the link to that! Yeah I need to modify it to look better on the blog sometime but it was a lot of work!
We have to be able to make real choices somehow or sin is all on God, so I see open theism as a viable way to affirm that.
However, I also agree with you when you write, “The Bible among other things also contain promises. How? It is because the Triune God who gave promises is a God who is faithful.”
There are many of us who will choose and have chosen to serve His purposes. May we be those who choose to serve Him.
Amen: “ May we be those who choose to serve Him.” Hope things are well down at SC!!
I am so glad you included a link to your attributes of God lessons. They were so good!
Aww thanks! I was blessed and the people in the study was blessed with you in it and your observations and insights that you shared! How are classes?
So I finally decided that I can only take 1 class at a time so I withdrew from the doctrine of God class, I will be able to retake the class. Between both classes I was reading like hundreds of pages a week and I read really slowly when it’s textbook material. Like you, I really want to understand what I’m reading even if it takes 20 times! How are y’all doing?!
Thanks for dropping by. There was a noticeable spike in my stats. 😊 Blessings!
Yay! I’m glad you got more views!!!
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This is great!
Thanks for reading this brother! Look forward to the guest post!!
I have observed that a majority of Christians do not understand the difference between disputing and refuting. Countless articles are titled refuting Calvinism. A closer exaimination proves that they were merely disputing without actually refuting anything. To keep it simple I ask myself if they have, for example, refuted Johnathon Edwards ” freedom of the will” paper. I know that they havent. If they had then they would be world famous. Until someone takes it on directly point by point, they are but fools thinking themselves to be wise.
A further observation is that the more highly people think of themselves inparticular and the human race in general the more they hate the 5 points.
They remind me of the pharisee gloating over the publican on the Temple steps.
You got a point there. Simply disputing or disagreeing is not the same thing as refuting. Likewise the skeptics need to learn the difference between asserting and demonstrating something. (I might be saying the same thing as you are). This seems to continuously come up. Thank you brother for reading this and commenting! May you have a blessed day!