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JDWiseman · #9 (**permalink**) 03-30-2007, 02:02 PM

This post is going to be slightly off-topic, but I still think its relevant to the issues:

The fact that there is very little "overlap" on certain issues really convinces me that there is more than a normal amount of "party spirit" going on here.

I'm certainly not an apologetics expert, so I'll give my impressions of Clark and Van Til based on my limited knowledge. I'm sure I'll get some quirks and nuances wrong, but I think the gist is correct.

Clark: All true knowledge must be rooted in or necessarily concluded from Scripture; occassionalist (if not true of Clark, then possibly of many Clarkians); no true paradoxes or contradictions in Scripture, and the apparent ones are really much ado about nothing; our knowledge and God's knowledge does intersect at some point.

Van Til: Sensation, though not foundational, does supply real knowledge in God's world; not an occassionalist; insoluble, though not ultimately contradictory, paradoxes are contained in Scripture; our knowledge and God's knowledge do not intersect at any point (maybe "intersect" is the wrong word, but you get the point).

Here's why I'm convinced that there is "party spirit" going on: Namely, because most of those distinctives aren't really logically connected, e.g., one doesn't necessarily flow from the other.

E.g.:

Someone could be a Scripturalist and think our only true knowledge is rooted in or deduced from Scripture, and yet think that the Scripture still contains some insoluble or very hard to grasp paradoxes.

Likewise, someone could say that sensation requires a trustworthy basis for knowledge as long as it is rooted in a Christian worldview, and hold that there were no logical contradictions in Scripture, and that any attempt to make it paradoxical was anti-Christian.

Likewise someone could affirm that our knowledge and God's knowledge are completely and utterly different, and yet believe that the accomodated written revelation is utterly free from any insoluble paradoxes.

Someone could think that there is a real "connecting point" (or whatever) between God's knowledge and our's, but still believe that Scripture has many apparent contradictions.

I guess I'm belaboring the point, but it seems like there's two or three issues that we are used to associating together (due to the people that held them) that don't really need to go together.

And it's ironic that so many "seekers of truth at all costs" end up buying the same "package deal" as their favorite theologians. You would expect more of a combination on the important issues (btw I'm not at all taking a shot at apologists, just questioning the lack of party spirit).

Does that make sense, or am I completely off-base?

And I think you see this "party spirit" reaching a head and having its most obvious fruit when people will defend the Christology of Clark, or the "one person" statements made by Van Til. Regardless of whether you think they were really orthodox and just expressing themselves very poorly, I think its safe and obvious to say that neither should have expressed themselves, on those issues, like they did.

And people will take up arms over those two issues instead of simply submitting their favorite apologist to some scrutiny and mental reservation.