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| by Editor Erik Wait |
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In the following Bahnsen does a comparison between Abraham Kuyper, Benjamin Warfield and Cornelius Van Til in the history of methodology of apologetics. Why Abraham Kuyper & Benjamin Warfield? According to Bahnsen one can hardly find two bigger theologians in the field of dogmatics than Abraham Kuyper of the Netherlands and Benjamin Warfield of “old school” Princeton Seminary.
It has often been by critics of Van Til that he made the mistake of following Kuyper rather than Warfield. While Van Til and Kuyper were both Dutch Dutch theologians and Van Til had great regard for Kuyper he received his training however from Princeton Seminary. However, as Bahnsen shall argue Van Till did not go with Kuyper as more than he did with Warfield, but rather he endorsed and corrected both of them.
Why do some Christians oppose apologetics? Some are anti-intellectual, some have a false sense of piety saying, “God needs no defense.” Kuyper understood that people control their thinking in regard to an ultimate principle. He recognized that all people operate in respect to an ultimate presupposition or attitude. Thus for the unbeliever his thinking is a natural principle without any regard to God while the Christian is ultimately that of a supernatural principle. Thus these two opposing views are antithetical and always seek to cancel each other out. These two opposing principles create two different kinds of science, ways of knowing, where each perspective contradicts what the other says. In fact the two views point at each other and say, “You’re not even doing science!”
Unfortunately Kuyper then drew a wrong conclusion, which is more in line with anti-intellectualism and false piety, that there is no need for apologetics because of the two completely different viewpoints which operate of two different playing fields.
“It would be impossible to settle the difference of insight, no polemics between these two kinds of science can ever serve any purpose. This is the reason why apologetics has always failed to reach results.” (Principles of Sacred Theology)
However, Van Til says that conclusion does not follow the Bible insight on which it is based, and thus Kuyper’s conclusion is a non sequitor from Reformed Theology. Why? Because there are other equally Biblical insights that need to be taken into account. For example, the unbeliever’s intention may be to follow his position consistently and he may claim to be doing so. BUT to do so in practice is not actually possible because the unbeliever cannot escape the persuasive power of God around him and within him. By the common grace of the Holy Spirit he is restrained from obliterating the testimony of God around him. He conducts his life in terms of God’s revelation for there is no other way from man to learn and make sense about the truth of the world while all the while that all these things are not so. It is of course this situation that creates the apologetical situation for the presuppositionalist. Thus Van Til is not on the side of Kuyper in respect to apologetics. While Kuyper had a correct insight he not draw the right inference when he asserted that apologetics was useless.
One might then conclude that since Van Til believes in an objective truth with which one can argue that he was on the side of Warfield who disagreed with Kuyper. But Van Til, who wrote the introduction to Warfield’s Introduction to Scripture, had problems with what Warfield was trying to do when he asserted that apologetics laid the foundation upon which Systematic Theology works. Thus he denied that Scripture was the foundation, the starting point, the presupposition, of apologetics. Thus the acceptance of the Scriptures was the crown of man’s right reason rather than his starting point.
“Surely he must first have Scriptures authenticated to him as such before he can take his stand within them. Faith has grounds in right reason.”
Thus Warfield would encourage the apologist to take his stand outside to a commitment to Scripture and in regard to the right reason of the unbeliever, to think autonomously to authenticate the Scriptures and having done so then take his stand within the Scriptures and develop his theology. Thus it is in this kind of theology that Christ is not the final authority but only later finally comes in and takes final authority in developing Systematic Theology.
Van Til finds two fatal flaws in this outlook: The first is the most obvious is that it is schizophrenic in that it only makes the ultimate authority after the Scriptures have been authorized by your right reasoning (authority). Thus each and every teaching of Christ could be required to pass the scrutiny of one’s own standard of right reasoning less that particular item that we are considering should provide a reason to negate a trust in Christ. Second, there is the mistake of taking the autonomous non-Christian as being capable of having right reason when the Scriptures clearly show that he has an axe to grind against God! (Romans 1:21; 1 Corinthians 2:14; Proverbs 1:7)
Van Til’s basic point can be expressed in three basic words: “Antitheism presupposes theism.” The unbeliever is trying to develop a contrary world view and in that world view he will oppose everything the supernatural world view teaches, but Warfeild is right when he says we have an argument that objectively sound for right reason, that can explode the natural principle by pointing out that the development of the unbelieving world view in order to proceed must assume the believing world view. Thus Kuyper was right in that there two diametrically opposing world views, but Warfield was right when he argued that the Christian world view is objective and clear. Thus for the apologist, in his reasoning he must be faithful and in his faith he must be reasonable and the transcendental argument asserts that only the Christian world view provides the preconditions for the intelligible use of reasoning.
Natural Theology and Theistic Proofs
To recap on what we have thus far concluded: Van Til has taught us that Antitheism presupposes theism and that although there are two world views that are at war with each other, each of which develops its own circle of presuppositions, its own self-authorizing circle of thinking, nevertheless the Christian circle is objectively true and provable by the transcendental argument in that only the Christian world view provides justification for valid reasoning. The antitheist can only make sense in the world by presupposing the Christian world view (which he subconsciously suppresses) and thus he operates in science and philosophy from borrowed capital.
Natural Theology is the tradition of Thomas Aquinas, the Roman Catholic Church, and many protestant apologists who believe that a proof, or a series of proofs, that are acceptable to the natural man for the existence of a god. Van Til is known for his opposition for the theistic proofs but what many other apologists have failed to do (such as R.C. Sproul in his debate against Bahnsen) is distinguish between natural theology and natural revelation (i.e. general revelation in nature).
Natural Revelation is that God has so disclosed Himself clearly in nature, and in man, that man directly knows that God exists without having to deduce the truth of His existence from the individual facts of creation. Thus man immediately knows that God exists and that he is guilty before Him.
Natural Theology on the other hand is the gathering of bits and pieces of information from nature and then making conclusions about God by inference such as from the design of the universe. It is from this that the “theistic proofs” are derived. [71] The error of many apologists (such as R.C. Sproul) is to is to merge these two categories and then speak as if Romans 1 is discussing natural theology. Van Til’s critique of the “theistic proofs” has always and only been against them in the tradition in which they are formulated. [72]
The cosmological argument, or ‘cause and effect’ argument, states that no effect exists without a cause. However, one merely needs to reply, “If all things must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If one cannot have an infinite regression of causes then on what basis must ‘God’ be the first cause and not matter and the laws of physics? Thus your choosing ‘God’ as the first cause is merely arbitrary for you make causation a universal absolute which you neither assert absolutely or universally.” Of course the response of the person using theistic proofs is usually, “...but God by definition is without cause.” This is where the standard cosmological argument fails for the skeptic merely has to assert, “By what authority do you assert that God ‘by definition is without cause.?’” The Christian believes that all things must have a cause and that the God of the Bible is that necessary cause, “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:16-17) Thus the only way we can only define God as the “Uncaused Cause” is by the Bible which must first be presupposed for epistemological intelligibility. How else can we KNOW epistemologically that God is eternal unless He Himself authoritatively reveals that to us? Without the Bible “G-o-d” is left up to the definition of the autonomous mind and thus is not necessarily by definition an “Uncaused Cause” and whether one chooses matter and the laws of physics to be an eternal regression of cause and effect or God is merely arbitrary. In typical fashion Ed Young presents the teleological argument usually is stated something like this:
“The Teleological, or ‘design’ argument also points the agnostic skeptic to theism. Telos has to do with an end or goal, and the fact that our own existence points to a Designer. For example, suppose a person came upon some stones on the beach, arrayed in the form of a miniature hut with a door and a window. One might surmise that the stones were randomly washed up on a beach and haphazardly came together to form a miniature hut. Yet it would be more reasonable that the stones were assembled in such a fashion by someone - a designer. Some minuscule fraction of mathematical probability might allow for the freak occurrence of a mini-stone hut, but the idea of a designer is more plausible, to say the least.”
However, in typical non-presuppositional fashion, Young not only goes into more detail concerning the teleological argument but in the process of doing so he presents a more abhorrent defense of Christianity with holes in the argument large enough for a camel to walk through. How so?
First, Young makes the existence of a Designer only “highly probable” or statistically probable and thus leaves the unbeliever open for justifiable doubt for if Christianity is only 99.99% probably true there is still the possibility that it could be false. Winning the state lottery is extremely highly improbable (the odds usually being worse than a million to one), and yet people do on occasion win. In addition, if anything can happen randomly then all one needs is a matter of time for the highly improbable to occur. Statistically speaking, given enough time and money, anyone will win the lottery if the money and time are limitless.
Second, the unbeliever will also reply to the teleological argument that “design” is something which our mind imposes on nature in order to create categories for ease of the assimilation of data. Thus we create categories of reptiles, mammals, birds, etc. in order to define creatures and yet, as the platypus demonstrates, such clear cut definable categories are not always possible or universally applicable. Thus while things may appear to have design, or definable boundaries of definition, these are merely an imposition of our mind. To make an argument for a Designer because something phenomenologically appears to have design is like those who argue for inhabitants on Mars because there appears to be a giant face on its surface. If all things which appear to have design must have a designer, then the Christian must argue that there have indeed been extra-terrestials on Mars creating the “face” and similar formations such as apparent pyramids. But even without such phenomenon as the “face” on Mars, consider the intricacies of snow flakes and other crystalline structures. Yet, the beautiful highly geometric shapes of such structures phenomenologically “just happen.”
Third, like the fallacy of the of the cosmological argument, to make the necessity of all things with apparent design require an ultimate Designer a universal absolute and yet argue that “God,” who must be all the more intricate and complex, does not have a Designer is a failure to consistently apply the category of a universal absolute. Again, the Christian may respond that “God” by definition is without a Designer but by what authority does one assert such a definition apart from Bible? We know that we must have a designer because the Bible says “I will praise You, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.” (Psalm 139:14-15) Thus the Bible is a necessary starting point for we are to argue for the God of the Bible and NOT a generic “god,” or god of any other religion, and then incrementally work our way up to the God of the Bible.
In addition to my above critique, Van Til argues that there are five things wrong with the traditional theistic proofs: First, these “proofs” have erroneously argued that the evidence for God’s existence is ambiguous so that there may be some excuse for denying it or holding that it is only probably true. Second, the traditional theistic proofs have erroneously argued that there are matters which are epistemically more certain than God Himself for it is from more certain facts that it is argued that God probably exists. Third, the traditional theistic proofs have erroneously assume that the unbeliever’s espoused presuppositions about reality and knowledge are in themselves sufficient to account for the intelligibility of experience and reasoning. Thus the traditional theistic proofs erroneously appeal to the autonomous mind of unbelief. Fourth, the traditional theistic proofs have erroneously assume that unregenerate men can be intellectually neutral and open mindedly fair. [73] Finally, the traditional theistic proofs have erroneously argued that the “god” which can be proven may or may not be the God of the Christian Scriptures. I call this the error of arguing for a “generic god.”
In addition Van Til argued that there are internal philosophical problems with the traditional theistic proofs: If we argue that God must exists as the first cause of all events because we see individual events having causes we have erroneously argued from the particular to the universal. One cannot argue from the category of particular affirmative (Some P are Q) to a universal affirmative (All P are Q). We have never seen “all events” so the “Prime Mover” argument argues from the particular to the universal. This is called a super-implication fallacy and is like arguing because we have seen that some crows are black that all crows must be black. In addition, the argument is imposing to the whole what we only know of the particular parts. As Kant pointed out, when looking at the particular events which have causes they are all natural events which have natural causes. How then is one to argue for a supernatural cause from the totality of natural causes?
Thus Van Til concluded that there is no natural theology in that creation does not provide merely uninterpreted raw data from which one can abstract conclusions concerning “a god” as the eventual product of reasoning. |
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