Question re: Van Tillian presuppostionalism and contradictions - Page 3

ChristianTrader · #81 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by armourbearer

That is a question to which one receives different answers from Van Tillians;

Since various people interpret a number of historical figures differently, (for example Calvinists have a number of interpretations of Calvin on different issues), I think we should skip that.

Quote:

but basically if the illustrations of Van Til are anything to go by, it means to think in terms of irreconcilable differences like God's sovereignty and human responsibility in recognition of human limitation. Something like Edwards' doctrine of philosophical necessity would then be ruled out as a means of explaining how the two function co-ordinately.

You need to show why I would have to reject any view of Edwards in order to accept Van Til's view. The problem is that any explanation or solution basically just pushes the problem back a step, until one eventually just says, "God says so or God willed to do so".

Quote:

That is, the idea of categorising the differences, or limiting their scope, so that they are not seen to be in conflict with each other in reality, would be regarded as out of the question.

I dont see how you can ultimately limit the scope and maintain the validity of systematic theology. If one has a system with mystery then one cannot just say, "The mystery/apparent contradiction etc. only lives over there". It has to flow through throughout the system.

Because I maintain that an apparent contradiction exists someplace does not mean that I cannot live consistently with both sides of the apparent contradiction. For example with Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility.
I can advocate executing murderers for their crime, and still pray that God will sanctify me to rest in divine providence, both shining and frowning. I cannot reconcile both sides but I can live with them both.

Quote:

We must be content to say God ordains sin on the one hand, but yet is not the author of sin on the other hand, without alleviating the tension of those two statements, but use the tension as a means of insisting on the creature's dependence on the Creator.

If you disagree that any solution ends at "Because God said so, or Because God wills to do so", then I would be happy to see it.

Quote:

Yes, but my question is, How do you *know* the Bible teaches both propositions? You have used reason to derive each proposition from the Bible. How then can reason be violated in maintaining two things which it considers contradictory.

I still do not see where reason is being violated, therefore I do not see how the rest follows.

Quote:

First, to answer the question -- there is nothing contradictory in the Trinity because we do not say there are three in the same sense as there are one.

I agree and so would Van Til.

Quote:

There are three persons, but one infinite, eternal, and unchangeable essence.

Alright which would work out the same as saying, The trinity is one person in one way and three persons in another. This is considered an apparent contradiction because one cannot fill out how the one is different from the three. Do you have any problem with what I have just written besides, your not liking the terminology?

Quote:

Yes, there is something beyond reason in the Godhead's mode of existence, but there is nothing in the mind which recoils at the idea.

Alright.

Quote:

Second, to apply the doctrine of the Trinity to my initial query -- From where does the idea of the Trinity come? It is undoubtedly the case that the interpreter uses hermeneutical rules in order to arrive at the conclusion that there is one God. He uses the same rules in order to conclude that there are three persons who are called God in the Scriptures. But one of the hermeneutical rules he ought to be using is the principle that Scripture interprets Scripture, that is, it cannot contradict itself.

One should and hopefully one does use such a rule. But using that rule would not change anything written to this point.

Quote:

If so, he could not possibly arrive at conclusions which require him to embrace a contradiction, apparent or otherwise.

At this point, it really seems that the entire argument is the terminology.

Quote:

So the apostle Paul, in Gal. 3, shows clearly that the law could not serve to make a person righteous by appeal to the fact that Scripture hath concluded all under sin. It must be therefore that the law serves another purpose subordinate to the promise which God gave Abraham, that is, it is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. At no point did the apostle consider that the two could exist in tension, but presupposes that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation, whereby the two ideas can be made to co-ordinate with one another.

I might not say that the explanation is reasonable, I would however say that the explanation is not against reason.

CT

Civbert · #82 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 09:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by armourbearer

... But one of the hermeneutical rules he ought to be using is the principle that Scripture interprets Scripture, that is, it cannot contradict itself. If so, he could not possibly arrive at conclusions which require him to embrace a contradiction, apparent or otherwise. .....

and

Civbert · #83 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChristianTrader

Quote:

First, to answer the question -- there is nothing contradictory in the Trinity because we do not say there are three in the same sense as there are one.

I agree and so would Van Til.

Nope. That's where Van Til would strongly disagree. Van Til said very clearly that God was both one person and three persons and not in two sense but in the same sense. This was one of the points Van Til stressed to justify his on position that we must embracing "apparent contradictions". And notice there is nothing apparent in the contradiction - it is quite explicit and real.

ChristianTrader · #84 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Civbert

Nope. That's where Van Til would strongly disagree. Van Til said very clearly that God was both one person and three persons and not in two sense but in the same sense. This was one of the points Van Til stressed to justify his on position that we must embracing "apparent contradictions". And notice there is nothing apparent in the contradiction - it is quite explicit and real.

Where did he say it was in the same sense? You should be able to easily quote it.

CT

Ivanhoe · #85 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 09:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChristianTrader

Where did he say it was in the same sense? You should be able to easily quote it.

CT

Agreed. Frame devotes a whole chapter in his book on this very topic.

Civbert · #86 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChristianTrader

Where did he say it was in the same sense? You should be able to easily quote it.

CT

" Rather, "We do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one person."

Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 229.

Quote:

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

http://www.reformed.org/apologetics/...frame_vtt.html

ChristianTrader · #87 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Civbert

" Rather, "We do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one person."

Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 229.

No problem here, and no problem in the Frame quote. So again a quote should be very easy. I am not asking for that much. Why are you making it so hard?

Something along the lines that God is one person and three persons in the same way and the same sense.

CT

Civbert · #88 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChristianTrader

No problem here, and no problem in the Frame quote. So again a quote should be very easy. I am not asking for that much. Why are you making it so hard?

Something along the lines that God is one person and three persons in the same way and the same sense.

CT

Just gave it CT. It wasn't hard, it was very easy.

ChristianTrader · #89 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Civbert

Just gave it CT. It wasn't hard, it was very easy.

Where did anyone say or imply, "in the same way and the same sense"?

Break it down for me.

CT

Civbert · #90 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 10:12 PM

Quote:

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.

ChristianTrader · #91 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Civbert

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" in the same sense. If they are in any sense different then there is no contradiction, apparent of otherwise.

Van Til denied that the paradox (aka apparent contradiction is avoided by 3 in person, 1 in essense). I agree (it just pushes the paradox back a step, nothing is resolved). One can maintain that God is one person and three persons and say that the sense of person is different and maintain that it is all an apparent contradiction.

The point of the term "apparent contradiction" is to say that two propositions are not contradictory, but I do not know how to spell them out so that they cease to look contradictory.

It really just seems that you do not know what the term "apparent contradiction" means or when it is supposed to be used.

CT

Civbert · #92 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChristianTrader

Van Til denied that the paradox (aka apparent contradiction is avoided by 3 in person, 1 in essense). I agree (it just pushes the paradox back a step, nothing is resolved). One can maintain that God is one person and three persons and say that the sense of person is different and maintain that it is all an apparent contradiction.

The point of the term "apparent contradiction" is to say that two propositions are not contradictory, but I do not know how to spell them out so that they cease to look contradictory.

It really just seems that you do not know what the term "apparent contradiction" means or when it is supposed to be used.

CT

I think you missed the point. If it were as simply as "person" being used in different senses, then Van Til could not say there was an apparent contradiction. You have resolved any appearance of contradiction by saying (as Van Til clearly does not) that is simply a matter of different senses of the term "person". There has to be a sense in which "person" is used in the same sense for both God and the three persons of the Trinity at the same time. Otherwise there is no appearance of contradiction.

And you need to also account that the Doctrine of the Trinity is the product of Scriptural interpretation. If Scripture can not contradict itself, then, as Rev. Winzer pointed out, no correct Scriptural doctrine contradict itself. Van Til insisted in formulating the Doctrine of the Trinity in a explicitly contradictory manner.

Also keep in mind the VT had another issue he was trying to resolve - the Greek problem of "the one and the many". This issue was central to VT's theology and was one of the reasons he insisted on the explicit contradiction of God being both three and one.

VT's apparent contradictions are there because he believed that they could not be resolved. "Person" in different senses resolves the contradiction so it's not what VT was thinking.

ChristianTrader · #93 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 11:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Civbert

I think you missed the point. If it were as simply as "person" being used in different senses, then Van Til could not say there was an apparent contradiction. You have resolved any appearance of contradiction by saying (as Van Til clearly does not) that is simply a matter of different senses of the term "person". There has to be a sense in which "person" is used in the same sense for both God and the three persons of the Trinity at the same time. Otherwise there is no appearance of contradiction.

Let me quote myself from above.

"One can maintain that God is one person and three persons and say that the sense of person is different and maintain that it is all an apparent contradiction." So the ball is in your court to show that such is a wrong application of the term apparent contradiction.

Go ahead and google the term, and show us what you come up with.

Quote:

And you need to also account that the Doctrine of the Trinity is the product of Scriptural interpretation.

Easily done.

Quote:

If Scripture can not contradict itself, then, as Rev. Winzer pointed out, no correct Scriptural doctrine contradict itself.

Agreed.

Quote:

Van Til insisted in formulating the Doctrine of the Trinity in a explicitly contradictory manner.

Nothing you have shown thus far has justified such a position.

Quote:

Also keep in mind the VT had another issue he was trying to resolve - the Greek problem of "the one and the many". This issue was central to VT's theology and was one of the reasons he insisted on the explicit contradiction of God being both three and one.

There is no explicit contradiction. This is really getting tiring. What is the difference between an apparent contradiction and a regular real contradiction.

Quote:

VT's apparent contradictions are there because he believed that they could not be resolved. "Person" in different senses resolves the contradiction so it's not what VT was thinking.

It does not resolve anything. It just pushes it back a step.

CT

Civbert · #94 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 11:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChristianTrader

Let me quote myself from above.

"One can maintain that God is one person and three persons and say that the sense of person is different and maintain that it is all an apparent contradiction." So the ball is in your court to show that such is a wrong application of the term apparent contradiction.

What is wrong with it....
...

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChristianTrader

What is the difference between an apparent contradiction and a regular real contradiction.

The answer is in the fact that you had the ask what is the difference. And the answer is not that one is real and the other is not real.

Tell me this, what makes the doctrine of the Trinity appear to be a contradiction? It only appears to be a contradiction if you formulate it as VT did, "God is one person and three persons." That's what Frame called Van Til's "apparent contradiction". Why? Why is that an apparent contradiction.

You said earlier

Quote:

One can maintain that God is one person and three persons and say that the sense of person is different and maintain that it is all an apparent contradiction.

But how is this an apparent contradiction? Think about it.

If I said that this apple is both red and green - this would be an apparent contradiction. Right? But the resolution of the contradiction is easily resolved. The apple has both colors but at different places on it's skin. It is not both red and green in the same places (i.e. in the same sense).

Now take Van Til's "God is one person and three persons". Same thing? God is one person and three persons, but not in the same sense. Right? ... Wrong. Because for Van Til, the apparent contradictions could not be resolved by the mind of man. Why, because God is three persons and one person in the same sense. Had Van Til simply said "but this is person in different senses", then he would not have conflicted with Gordon Clark. The "different senses" is the Clarkian solution. Van Til rejected your definition of "apparent contradiction" because you have given a rational and easily comprehended resolution -- you have given the Clarkian solution. Van Til did not allow for your solution.

Civbert · #95 (**permalink**) 06-29-2007, 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Bosse

Hello Anthony,

Apparent Contradiction: P and Q are apparent contradictions to person A if and only if person A cannot see that it is not the case that P entails ~Q or that Q entails ~P.

Brian,

It doesn't make sense for person A to not be able to see the P does not entail ~Q unless he first sees how it does. You definition would make more sense if it were:

Apparent Contradiction: P and Q are apparent contradictions to person A if and only if person A sees that it is the case that P entails ~Q or that Q entails ~P.

The term "sees" in in the definition is too vague. What does "sees" mean? And how is it that person A does not see how something does not lead to a contradiction. It only makes sense if he believes that it does lead to a contradiction.

And for Van Til, an apparent contradiction was not a matter of person A not being able to see how P might not entails ~Q, but that person a CAN NOT see how P might not entails ~Q. For VT, there is no humanly achievable answer to the "apparent contradiction" of the Trinity. It was not resolvable to the mind of man - so we have to embrace both P and Q with passion.

Ivanhoe · #96 (**permalink**) 06-30-2007, 12:11 AM

(HT: Paul)

Clark was only able to "resolve" any paradox in the trinity by putting forth a form of modalism. He did the same with the hypostatic union - he put forth a neo-nestorainism (Crist was two persons). So, anyone can "resolve" logical tensions by denying orthodoxy. Case in point: Open theists and their denial of sovereignty.

The problem isn't resolving contradictions, the problem is resolving them *while mainaining orthodoxy.*

"Therefore, since God is Truth, we shall define person…as a composite of truths…theologians will complain that this reduces the Trinity to one person…This objection is based on a blindness toward certain definite Scriptural information…I am referring to the complex of truths that form the Three Persons. Though they are equally omniscient, they do not all know the same truths. Neither the complex of truths we call the Father nor those we call the Spirit, has the proposition, “I was incarnated.” …The Father cannot say, “I walked from Jerusalem to Jericho."

G. Clark, The Incarnation (The Trinity Foundation 1988), 54-55."

Steve Hays points out about that quote:

"Notice how, according to this framework, the individuating principle which differentiates one person of the Godhead from another consists in existential propositions concerning the economic Trinity. And that conduces straight to modalism. On such a view, the Trinitarian relations are contingent rather than necessary."

And, let's note that *Scripture* is paradoxical since it frequently refers to "God" as a "person," while not designating *which* person is being referred to. The only way to get past that is to go *beyond* the Scriptural data and import *extra-biblical* information just so you can "resolve" logical tensions. Therefore the Clarkian's victory is merely the victory of a child who constantly rigs the rules of four-square so he can finally "win" the game. And, according to his rules, extra-biblical information doesn't count. Besides, you may want to inquire how Clark knew all that. I mean, where does Scripture define a "person" as a "composite of truths?" And, that's a bunch of propositions. So, our great God is a bunch of propositions.

Civbert · #97 (**permalink**) 06-30-2007, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Draught Horse

The problem isn't resolving contradictions, the problem is resolving them *while mainaining orthodoxy.*

Very interesting. Why would that be the case?

And what is this contradiction that needs to be resolved. There is not contradiction in "one in essence and three in person". Nor is there a contradiction in "Jesus was both fully man and fully God". So where is the contradiction in the first place?

Ivanhoe · #98 (**permalink**) 06-30-2007, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Civbert

Very interesting. Why would that be the case?

And what is this contradiction that needs to be resolved. There is not contradiction in "one in essence and three in person". Nor is there a contradiction in "Jesus was both fully man and fully God". So where is the contradiction in the first place?

Probably not one. I don't see CVT's system as contradictory. But there are places in the Bible where the Bible refers to God (Father, Son or Holy Spirit?) as "Person."