Van Til’s Thought: Assumptions behind the assertion that “nobody knows”

You ever hear people, when they are uncomfortable with the claims of Christianity, asserts that nobody knows the truth?

I am reading slowly a book by Cornelius Van Til a theologian, apologist and philosopher and I thought he made some good observations of the assumptions behind this assertion.

ON page 82-83 of Cornelius Van Til’s book The Doctrine of Scripture he writes

As a matter of fact, of course, the one who asserts that nobody knows truth is thereby virtually asserting that he who claims to know the truth is wrong in thinking so. To say that statements by biblical writers are simply to be taken as data along with other data is to assume that he who makes such a statement knows that such biblical statements cannot be statements made by a God who controls and knows all things. The inductive method used by Beegle implies not only an open universe in which all minds, divine and human, are surrounded by impenetrable mystery but also at the same time, a universe in which the human mind knows that the divine mind must work under the same limitations as does the human mind. And in order to make such a statement the human mind must be beforehand with the divine mind in the claim as to what can and what cannot be known by any mind.

Before I reflect on Van Til’s observation I must point out there’s the obvious problem that the one assert that nobody knows the truth assume that assertion is true; so truth itself is accessible; so it is self-refuting.  The person also thinks he himself as a knower knows the truth of that claim too, again it is self-refuting espistemologically.

Van Til notes there’s the observation that some who make this assertion assumes everyone who claim to know the truth is automatically wrong.

But more deeply it assumes too that God cannot know all things.

From this there’s the collorary assumption that “the human mind knows that the divine mind must work under the same limitations as does the human mind.”  Talk about putting God in a box!  And if one were to think they *know the limitation of God and yet also assert no one knows the truth, the assertion that we cannot know truth is a self-defeater to any claims about the limitation of God (be it His knowledge, Power, etc).

But the part of what Van Til said that really stood out to me is his observation of the assumption that “in order to make such a statement the human mind must be beforehand with the divine mind in the claim as to what can and what cannot be known by any mind.”  Now we see the role of the human mind being elevated beyond what is proper.  It is not our place to adjudicate what God can and cannot know.  This kind of thinking assume man’s mind can legislate the world with other minds, even the mind of the Creator.  It is the same lie in the Garden of Eden from Satan that you shall be as God.  Why I appreciate Van Til here is that he doesn’t just want us to note the philosophical absurdity of those claiming that nobody knows the truth, but also the spiritual problems behind such an assertion.

How we need to preach the Gospel so minds can truly be regenerate and be able to think biblically and after God’s thoughts.

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