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Originally Posted by ChristianTrader  Where did anyone say or imply, "in the same way and the same sense"?
Break it down for me.
CT |
For more context (so you know I'm not taking things out of context):
Quote:
Even more perplexing is Van Til's attitude toward the logical consistency of Christian doctrines. We have seen earlier that Van Til affirms the "internal coherence" of the Christian system and attacks positions which introduce contradictions into that system. The natural assumption is that this coherence is a logical coherence. Doesn't he say that "The rules of formal logic must be followed in all our attempts at systematic exposition of God's revelation, whether general or special"?51 And yet at the same time Van Til teaches that the Christian system is full of "apparent contradictions":
Now since God is not fully comprehensible to us we are bound to come into what seems to be contradiction in all our knowledge. Our knowledge is analogical and therefore must be paradoxical.52
... while we shun as poison the idea of the really contradictory we embrace with passion the idea of the apparently contradictory. 53
All teaching of Scripture is apparently contradictory.54 Let us look at some specific examples. With regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, Van Til denies that the paradox of the three and one can be resolved by the formula "one in essence and three in person." Rather, "We do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one person."55 Van Til's doctrine, then, can be expressed "One person, three persons" -- an apparent contradiction. This is a very bold theological move. Theologians are generally most reluctant to express the paradoxicality of this doctrine so blatantly. Why does Van Til insist on making things so difficult? In the context, he says he adopts this formula to "avoid the specter of brute fact." (Brute fact, in Van Til's terminology, is uninterpreted being. )
http://www.reformed.org/apologetics/...frame_vtt.html |
Here's the break down:
"We do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one person." (VT) and the "one in essence and three in person" leads to what Van Til calls an "apparent contradiction"
if and only if "three in person" and "God is one person" is in the same sense. If they are in any sense different then there is no contradiction, apparent of otherwise.