Barth and Van Til: a comparison-contrast

[Philip]

On this thread, the following question was asked:

You know Philip on this point I have been curious with exactly what was Barth's problem with natural revealation, from the point of view of a national church and his dealings with Nazism (that no doubt affected his views). I think that he might have some intersting things to say, or not.

I responded with a slight comparison to Van Til which I would like to expand (I need to note that this analysis is fairly superficial and will need lots of refining):

Both Barth and Van Til are responding to 19th-century liberalism within a post-Kantian continental tradition. Thus, both are united in their distaste for the interference of natural theology (read: science) in theology. Thus, both will charge liberalism (rightly) with too much emphasis on general revelation and common grace to the point where it can no longer be called Christianity at all, instead becoming a kind of syncretism.

Barth saw this happening in the German Reichskirche in its compromise with Nazism and the rejection of elements of Christianity that conflicted with Nazi ideology. I think Barth really did want to return the German Church to a really Christian faith (not completely orthodox, by our standards, but still Christian). Like Van Til, then, Barth ended up aligning with a splinter of the mainline church.

The difference between the two, though, lies partly in their background. Barth, we must remember, was a product of the German academy of the liberal era. Thus, we shouldn't be surprised that he doesn't embrace inerrancy: instead, he embraces Kierkegaard's view that study of the original texts tells us nothing about Jesus. Instead, in Barth's view (Kierkegaard never deals with revelation), one treats the Scriptures as the occasion for revelation, which is why we base theology on it (BTW, occasionalism of a slightly different sort was the view of Gordon Clark). Again, we are right to reject this view, but we have to understand it as the defense of someone who wanted to take Scripture seriously and still be taken seriously himself.

Van Til, in contrast, was coming out of the Dutch neo-Calvinist movement that included Hermann Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper among its luminaries. One of the distinctive features was its high view of inerrancy, which Van Til pretty much took for granted. Unlike Barth, he's not coming out of liberalism and so isn't dealing with it in the same manner that Barth is. With regard to liberalism Barth is an insider breaking out, while Van Til is an outsider critiquing.

Again, though, there is a commonality in that both neo-Calvinism and Liberalism were post-Kantian theological movements that took things like a noumenal/phenomenal distinction (the source of the Clark-Van Til controversy) for granted. The difference between the two theologians is that, while both are working in a post-Kantian framework, Barth is working his way out of a liberal mindset (which is why the later Barth looks more orthodox than the earlier) whereas Van Til is critiquing a tradition to which he is an outsider (two traditions, actually, if you count the Old Princeton tradition, which was pre-Kantian).

Again, this is a more or less preliminary analysis, which is open to massive revision.

 

[jwright82]

Both Barth and Van Til are responding to 19th-century liberalism within a post-Kantian continental tradition. Thus, both are united in their distaste for the interference of natural theology (read: science) in theology. Thus, both will charge liberalism (rightly) with too much emphasis on general revelation and common grace to the point where it can no longer be called Christianity at all, instead becoming a kind of syncretism.

You are very insightful in your historical analysis by the way. Van Til actually held a high view of natural theology, he just thought that it was impossible to interpret corectly apart from special revealation. In his book Christian Apologetics he uses the some of the qualities ascribed to the bible to talk about natural revealation. Barth as far I can tell never beleived in any kind of natural revealation, his work Nien! and his commentary on the Barmen Declaration, I don't know his exact problem with natural revealation apart from his view of special revealation, but there are key fundenental differences between the two.

1. Van Til held that special revealation although cannot give us direct info about science but does furnish us with indirect theological principles that help us to completly understand science. So there is a connection between the two forms of revealation.
2. Barth held to a view of revealation that made all of it a german word that roughly translates into super-histrory or something like that. It is a history that is above and beyond normal history but it can never have any connection to it all. So there is no informing of special revealation to the natural world, that would rob revealation of its transcendental staus.

Barth saw this happening in the German Reichskirche in its compromise with Nazism and the rejection of elements of Christianity that conflicted with Nazi ideology. I think Barth really did want to return the German Church to a really Christian faith (not completely orthodox, by our standards, but still Christian). Like Van Til, then, Barth ended up aligning with a splinter of the mainline church.

Well you are never going to believe it but I mixed the times that I have to pick my daughter up and thought I didn't have to pick her up until 4 but I was wrong and it is in about an hour. So I promise I will finish maybe some time tonight. Thank you for being patient.

 

[Philip]

Van Til actually held a high view of natural theology

I think you mean general revelation here: one can believe in general revelation without doing natural theology. Natural theology is what Thomas Aquinas did with his "five ways" and his synthesis of Scripture and Aristotle.

but there are key fundenental differences between the two.

Not saying there aren't---I agree. It's just that there's more similarity than either of them would ever have admitted (as I've said before, their common treatment of Anselm is telling).

 

[jwright82]

I think you mean general revelation here: one can believe in general revelation without doing natural theology. Natural theology is what Thomas Aquinas did with his "five ways" and his synthesis of Scripture and Aristotle.

Thanks for the correction. You are correct.

Barth saw this happening in the German Reichskirche in its compromise with Nazism and the rejection of elements of Christianity that conflicted with Nazi ideology. I think Barth really did want to return the German Church to a really Christian faith (not completely orthodox, by our standards, but still Christian). Like Van Til, then, Barth ended up aligning with a splinter of the mainline church.

The difference between the two, though, lies partly in their background. Barth, we must remember, was a product of the German academy of the liberal era. Thus, we shouldn't be surprised that he doesn't embrace inerrancy: instead, he embraces Kierkegaard's view that study of the original texts tells us nothing about Jesus. Instead, in Barth's view (Kierkegaard never deals with revelation), one treats the Scriptures as the occasion for revelation, which is why we base theology on it (BTW, occasionalism of a slightly different sort was the view of Gordon Clark). Again, we are right to reject this view, but we have to understand it as the defense of someone who wanted to take Scripture seriously and still be taken seriously himself.

Well your historical analysis is excellant here.

Van Til, in contrast, was coming out of the Dutch neo-Calvinist movement that included Hermann Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper among its luminaries. One of the distinctive features was its high view of inerrancy, which Van Til pretty much took for granted. Unlike Barth, he's not coming out of liberalism and so isn't dealing with it in the same manner that Barth is. With regard to liberalism Barth is an insider breaking out, while Van Til is an outsider critiquing.

Can't disagree here either.

Again, though, there is a commonality in that both neo-Calvinism and Liberalism were post-Kantian theological movements that took things like a noumenal/phenomenal distinction (the source of the Clark-Van Til controversy) for granted.

I am not sure I completly understand you here. Van Til would admit that we can only gain knowledge of God as He reveals it, and that there is immadiate awareness of God in nature by people, but it is limited. I would recomend Micheal Horton here in nhis analysis of post-reformation theological method, it provides an interesting solution to the phenoumenal/noumenal distinction of Kantian/post-Kantian thought.

The difference between the two theologians is that, while both are working in a post-Kantian framework, Barth is working his way out of a liberal mindset (which is why the later Barth looks more orthodox than the earlier) whereas Van Til is critiquing a tradition to which he is an outsider (two traditions, actually, if you count the Old Princeton tradition, which was pre-Kantian).

You definantly seem to be situating them historically speaking in simlier places, which I agree with your historical analysis a lot, very insightful. You correctly allow for fundemental differences between the two, my question is on theological/philosophical matters where do you see simeraties?

 

[Philip]

Van Til would admit that we can only gain knowledge of God as He reveals it, and that there is immadiate awareness of God in nature by people, but it is limited.

Ok, but he went further than that. He said that all of our knowledge of God is analogical, in contrast to Clark. That's the Clark-Van Til controversy.

my question is on theological/philosophical matters where do you see simeraties?

Mainly in the rejection of natural theology as such. Barth goes so far as to reject reason almost entirely (following Kierkegaard---though I think Kierkegaard had something else in mind) while Van Til merely rejects the discipline of natural theology. Then too, I think that in the Clark-Van Til controversy, there is something strikingly similar between Van Til's view of truth about God as analogical (ie: accommodated to our finite language) and Barth's view of God as "wholly other."

Again, I need to note that I don't think that Van Til embraced Barth's view on these matters: it's clear that CVT never went as far and denied vehemently that he was anywhere close. Nonetheless, is it possible that CVT was a bit too vehement in his rejection? That maybe the charges hit a bit closer to home than he wanted to admit?

Here's why I think there's something to this idea:

Last year I was doing research on Anselm of Canterbury, the great medieval philosopher, ecclesiastic, and theologian. As Anselm is particularly known for his formulation of the so-called "ontological argument" for the existence of God (considered by most to be possibly the most rationalistic of all theistic arguments), I was quite surprised to find a short work on Anselm by Karl Barth where Barth asserts that the OA is essentially presuppositional and thus theology, not philosophy. Naturally, I was interested, and went so far as to address it in my work. Fast forward a semester and I am reading up on Van Til on autonomy. While I was at it, I decided to look at his historical surveys of western thought to see how he treated Anselm, out of curiosity. Curiously, Van Til spends less than a sentence (in all the reading I did) on Anselm, simply saying that he was a good "theonomous" heir of Augustine.

So there is a question: why does Van Til consider Anselm to be on his side, apologetically? If anyone would ordinarily be candidate for autonomous arch-rationalist apologist of the millennium, it would be Anselm. Thomas Aquinas thought the ontological argument was over-the-top (I'm a lot more sympathetic with Thomas than Van Til, but that's another conversation), so shouldn't Van Til?

There are two possibilities: first, Van Til might have forgotten about (or ignored) the ontological argument and just remembered Cur Deus Homo, where Anselm develops the classic theory of substitutionary atonement. This is unlikely, given that Barth's analysis of Anselm's argument is generally considered to be the key to Barth's method. Van Til, as Barth's major conservative opponent, had to have been familiar with this work.

The second is that, while disagreeing with Barth's theology, Van Til actually agreed with his analysis of Anselm, which to me would suggest more similarity in their thinking than either would have been likely to admit.

I say this also because I notice a tendency: the people with whom I to have the most heated discussions tend to be those with whom I have the most in common. The conflict arises precisely because we are not talking past each other: because of our similarity, each knows almost precisely what the other means and therefore disagrees more strongly on that point. It's a strange fact.

Again, note that I am not criticizing Van Til here---there is certainly a great contrast with Barth. But they have more in common than is ordinarily thought, in my analysis, (and I could be very wrong here).

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Philip,

Have you studied the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in historical Reformed thought?

I've seen some treatments of Anselm that dispute he's an "arch-rationalist" as you claim he is. In his disputes he even makes some proto-presuppositional refutations of those who would approach his argument as if they were not Christian.

I'm not trying to rescue CVT, per se, but two men can appeal to Anselm for two completely different reasons.

For those who have not read The Infallible Word here is a summary of Van Til's treatment that I had to complete as part of an assignment about a year ago:

How is natural theology necessary?

Scripture does not claim to speak to man in any other way than in conjunction with nature. God's revelation of Himself in nature combined with His revelation of Himself in Scripture form God's one grand schem of covenant relationship of Himself with man. The two forms presuppose and complement one another.

It was necessary in the garden as the lower act of obedience learned from avoiding the tree of knowledge of good and evil man might learn the higher things of obedience to God. The natural appeared in the regularity of nature.

After the fall, the natural appears under to curse of God and not merely regular. God's curse on nature is revealed along with regularity. The natural reveals an unalleviated picture of folly and ruin and speaks to the need for a Redeemer.

To the believer the natural or regular with all its complexity always appears as the playground for the process of differentiation which leads ever onward to the fullness of the glory of God.

What is the authority of natural revelation?

The same God who reveals Himself in Scripture is the God who reveals Himself in nature. They are of the same authority even if the former is superior in clarity than the latter. We are analogues to God and our respect for revelation in both spheres must be maintained and it is only when we refuse to act as creatures that we contrast authority between natural and special revelation. What comes to man by his rational and moral nature (created in God's image) is no less objective than what comes to him through the created order as all is in Covenant relationship to God. All created activity is inherently revelational of the nature and will of God.

What is the sufficiency of natural revelation?

It is sufficient to leave men without excuse for their sin and denying the God they know they are created to worship but insufficient at revealing the grace of God in salvation. Natural revelation was never meant to function by itself (as above) but it was historically sufficient as it renders without excuse. God's revelation in nature is sufficient in history to differentiate between those who who would and who would not serve God.

What is meant by the perspicuity of natural revelation?

God's revelation in nature was always meant to serve alongside His special revelation. God is a revealing God and the perspicuity of nature is bound up in the fact that He voluntarily reveals. Both natural and special revelation would be impossible if God remained incomprehensible as He is in Himself (archetypal theology). Man cannot penetrate God as He is Himself - he cannot comprehend God. But created man may see clearly what is revealed clearly even if he does not see exhaustively. Man need not have exhaustive knowledge in order to know truly and certainly.

God's thoughts about Himself are self-contained but man is an analogue who thinks in covenant relation to the One who created him. Thus man's interpretation of nature follows what is fully interpreted by God. Man thinks God's thoughts after him - not comprehensively but analogically.

The Psalmist doesn't declare that the heavens possibly or probably declare the glory of God. Paul does not say that the wrath of God is probably revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Scripture takes the clarity of God's revelation for granted at every stage of human history. The God who speaks in Scripture cannot refer to anything that is not already authoratively revelational of Himself for the evidence of His own existence. Everything exists that is His creation.

It is no easier for sinners to accept God in nature than it is for them to accept Him in Scripture. The two are inseparable in their clarity. We need the Holy Spirit to understand both. Man must be a Christian to study nature in a proper frame of mind.

How does Greek natural theology and the natural theology of Kant result in denying any rationality higher than itself?

Neither allow analogical reasoning to understand the world. They start from nature and try to argue for a god who must be finite in nature. It starts with a "mute" universe that has no revelation and makes it revelational only with respect to the autonomous mind of man. No distinction is made between Creator and creature.

Kant's great contribution to philosophy consisted in stressing the activity of the experiencing subject. It is this point to which the idea of a Copernican revolution is usually applied. Kant argued that since it is the thinking subject that itself contributes the categories of universality and necessity, we must not think of these as covering any reality that exists or may exist wholly independent of the human mind. The validity of universals is to be taken as frankly due to a motion and a vote; it is conventional and nothing more.

Plato and Aristotle, as well as Kant, assumed the autonomy of man. On such a basis man may reason univocally (have the same mind as God) and reach a God who is just an extension of the creature or he may reason equivocally and reach a God who has no contact with him at all. Man is left with either God being part of nature (pantheism) or being so transcendent that He cannot get into nature (deism).

We're now left with a world where the scientist supposedly interacts with the physical world and can learn about the world apart from any reference to God and "ministers" who speak about God's revelation that has no reference to history and interaction with the world. Man is fractured intellectually where reason deals with things of the world and faith deals with things that cannot affect reason or the world.

The very idea of Kant's Copernican revolution was that the autonomous mind itself must assume the responsibility for making all factual differentiation and logical validation. To such a mind the God of Christianity cannot speak. Such a mind will hear no voice but its own.

 

[Philip]

I've seen some treatments of Anselm that dispute he's an "arch-rationalist" as you claim he is.

Don't misunderstand me: I don't think he's a rationalist---I actually agree with the analysis of Barth and Van Til with regard to his thought. No, I consider Anselm to be one of the greatest theologians I've ever read.

Have you studied the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in historical Reformed thought?

Not really, no. Didn't Clark deny the distinction?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I don't know if Clark directly denied the distinction or even ever interacted with it. His method is certainly not consonant with the distinction.

I think (based on Van Til's quoting of it) that Van Til's view is consistent with the distinction. What he calls "analogical" can be seen as the distinction between Archetypal and Ectypal theology.

 

[Philip]

I think (based on Van Til's quoting of it) that Van Til's view is consistent with the distinction. What he calls "analogical" can be seen as the distinction between Archetypal and Ectypal theology.

Right---that's what the Clark-Van Til controversy was over, as I understand it.

 

[MW]

For those who have not read The Infallible Word here is a summary of Van Til's treatment that I had to complete as part of an assignment about a year ago:

That's an excellent summary, Rich.

 

[Porter]

I don't know if Clark directly denied the distinction or even ever interacted with it. His method is certainly not consonant with the distinction.

I think (based on Van Til's quoting of it) that Van Til's view is consistent with the distinction. What he calls "analogical" can be seen as the distinction between Archetypal and Ectypal theology.

Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction. His position on univocal knowledge does not reflect, nor entail, a denial or a sullying of that distinction - it is in harmony with it. Re: Van Til - the affirmation of knowing analogically is not identical to - or does not equal - the Creator/creature distinction. In his thought the latter may necessitate the former, but a "Clarkian" affirms the latter and would affirm - with the Van Til-ian - what the Creator/creature distinction demands: the derivative, dependent, and quantitative aspects of human knowledge in relation to God's knowledge (while maintaining, in contrast to the Van Tilian, that we know univocally).

 

[Philip]

Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction.

So for Clark, the difference is only one of degree? That is, God's knowledge of Himself differs from His revelation only in that not everything that could be known about God is revealed? Nothing in revelation is accommodated, right? Just trying to clarify this.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I don't know if Clark directly denied the distinction or even ever interacted with it. His method is certainly not consonant with the distinction.

I think (based on Van Til's quoting of it) that Van Til's view is consistent with the distinction. What he calls "analogical" can be seen as the distinction between Archetypal and Ectypal theology.

Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction. His position on univocal knowledge does not reflect, nor entail, a denial or a sullying of that distinction - it is in harmony with it. Re: Van Til - the affirmation of knowing analogically is not identical to - or does not equal - the Creator/creature distinction. In his thought the latter may necessitate the former, but a "Clarkian" affirms the latter and would affirm - with the Van Til-ian - what the Creator/creature distinction demands: the derivative, dependent, and quantitative aspects of human knowledge in relation to God's knowledge (while maintaining, in contrast to the Van Tilian, that we know univocally).

Did you read the distinction I was referring to? I didn't say that Clark denied the Creator/Creature distinction. I said that his thought implicitly denies the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in Theology.

I was also noting that, per Van Til's presentation, his view of revelation falls along the lines of that distinction.

 

[jwright82]

Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction. His position on univocal knowledge does not reflect, nor entail, a denial or a sullying of that distinction - it is in harmony with it. Re: Van Til - the affirmation of knowing analogically is not identical to - or does not equal - the Creator/creature distinction. In his thought the latter may necessitate the former, but a "Clarkian" affirms the latter and would affirm - with the Van Til-ian - what the Creator/creature distinction demands: the derivative, dependent, and quantitative aspects of human knowledge in relation to God's knowledge (while maintaining, in contrast to the Van Tilian, that we know univocally).

Analogical knowledge is essential to any kind of personal revealation at all. If we were sitting and talking face to face you would take a basic understanding of the words I was using combined with reading my body language as best as you possibly could. But do you know exactly what I am saying all the time, meaning that there is no difference in meaning whatsoever (univocal view of knowledge, Clark)? Or we mean absolutly different things all the time (equivocal view of knowledge, possibly Barth)? Or do we generaly mean the same thing with allowable differences do to the nature of language (Analogical view of knowledge, Van Til)? How you answer those questions determines what view you have in mind.
1. Option one does not tak into account the slippery nature of our very language. Words change meanings based on how they are used. But we come to all mean such simlier things that communication is possible and life goes on but if option 1 were correct than why is there such disagreements in life?
2. This option ends only in skepticism. No one would ever know what anyone else meant.
3. Option 3 it seems to me allows for disagreement between meanings but also acounts for a general unity of meaning with regards to language or knowledge.

So when a transcendent being reveals things about themselves to us in our finite limited language will there be absolute one to one meanining, basically draging God down to us (the error of open theism and a univocal view of knowledge)? Will there be no one to one relation of anykind whatsoever (Barth's radical view of the wholly other God and His wholly other revealation, equivocal view of knowledge)? Or is there a general but not completly exact relation between the words so that we understand as far as we can as creatures but there is a limit to what we can know, hence a qualitative difference between our knowledge and the Creator's (Van Til and traditional Reformed thought)?

This is the Clark/Van Til controversy in my opinion but I could be wrong about Clark. I don't see how he avoided the errors of option 1 but this is far from a detailed analysis of the philosophical elements underpinning the whole debate. I just hope it makes sense.

---------- Post added at 02:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:34 PM ----------

I think that in the Clark-Van Til controversy, there is something strikingly similar between Van Til's view of truth about God as analogical (ie: accommodated to our finite language) and Barth's view of God as "wholly other."

Barth's view is equivocal not univocal or analogical.

Last year I was doing research on Anselm of Canterbury, the great medieval philosopher, ecclesiastic, and theologian. As Anselm is particularly known for his formulation of the so-called "ontological argument" for the existence of God (considered by most to be possibly the most rationalistic of all theistic arguments), I was quite surprised to find a short work on Anselm by Karl Barth where Barth asserts that the OA is essentially presuppositional and thus theology, not philosophy. Naturally, I was interested, and went so far as to address it in my work. Fast forward a semester and I am reading up on Van Til on autonomy. While I was at it, I decided to look at his historical surveys of western thought to see how he treated Anselm, out of curiosity. Curiously, Van Til spends less than a sentence (in all the reading I did) on Anselm, simply saying that he was a good "theonomous" heir of Augustine.

So there is a question: why does Van Til consider Anselm to be on his side, apologetically? If anyone would ordinarily be candidate for autonomous arch-rationalist apologist of the millennium, it would be Anselm. Thomas Aquinas thought the ontological argument was over-the-top (I'm a lot more sympathetic with Thomas than Van Til, but that's another conversation), so shouldn't Van Til?

There are two possibilities: first, Van Til might have forgotten about (or ignored) the ontological argument and just remembered Cur Deus Homo, where Anselm develops the classic theory of substitutionary atonement. This is unlikely, given that Barth's analysis of Anselm's argument is generally considered to be the key to Barth's method. Van Til, as Barth's major conservative opponent, had to have been familiar with this work.

The second is that, while disagreeing with Barth's theology, Van Til actually agreed with his analysis of Anselm, which to me would suggest more similarity in their thinking than either would have been likely to admit.

Barth's point in interpreting Anselm the way he did was to strip any last vestage of philosophy out of his theological method, his socalled existentialism. He would have no part in philosophy, or any other science, having any bearing on theology whatsoever (to do so would be paramount to a natural theology and hence the acceptance of Nazism). Van Til was against the idea of natural theology as an autonoums discipline, you could say that he rejected rome's whole nature/grace scheme. He seems to have not liked autonomous conceptions of it as a historical philosophical view. So although he can affirm very strongly the idea of general revealation he was against just about all historical developments on the place of natural theology, if that makes sense. Look at my critique of natural law in other threads it is about the same type of argument.

Van Til tended to talk a lot about the ideas underlying a particuler philosophy but always in the context of critiquing an historical example of his general critique of unbelieving thought. He was much like Dooyeweerd in this respect.

---------- Post added at 02:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:48 PM ----------

Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction.

So for Clark, the difference is only one of degree? That is, God's knowledge of Himself differs from His revelation only in that not everything that could be known about God is revealed? Nothing in revelation is accommodated, right? Just trying to clarify this.

I do believe that it is possible that Van Til was right in his criticism of Clark but I shy away from throwing Clark into a box like that. But if Van Til was correct than essentially two whole different philosophies were at work.

---------- Post added at 02:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:53 PM ----------

I don't know if Clark directly denied the distinction or even ever interacted with it. His method is certainly not consonant with the distinction.

I think (based on Van Til's quoting of it) that Van Til's view is consistent with the distinction. What he calls "analogical" can be seen as the distinction between Archetypal and Ectypal theology.

Clark affirmed the Creator/creature distinction. His position on univocal knowledge does not reflect, nor entail, a denial or a sullying of that distinction - it is in harmony with it. Re: Van Til - the affirmation of knowing analogically is not identical to - or does not equal - the Creator/creature distinction. In his thought the latter may necessitate the former, but a "Clarkian" affirms the latter and would affirm - with the Van Til-ian - what the Creator/creature distinction demands: the derivative, dependent, and quantitative aspects of human knowledge in relation to God's knowledge (while maintaining, in contrast to the Van Tilian, that we know univocally).

Did you read the distinction I was referring to? I didn't say that Clark denied the Creator/Creature distinction. I said that his thought implicitly denies the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in Theology.

I was also noting that, per Van Til's presentation, his view of revelation falls along the lines of that distinction.

Nice Rich! When I refered to Horton earlier it was this distinction that I had in mind, but I just couldn't remember it. Nice summery too!

 

[Philip]

Barth's point in interpreting Anselm the way he did was to strip any last vestage of philosophy out of his theological method, his socalled existentialism. He would have no part in philosophy, or any other science, having any bearing on theology whatsoever (to do so would be paramount to a natural theology and hence the acceptance of Nazism).

But why Anselm, of all people?

Van Til was against the idea of natural theology as an autonoums discipline

He was against Natural theology period. Again, he believed natural theology, as a bottom-up discipline (particularist), could never be "theonomous" in any meaningful sense.

As for the three views of language: I doubt that Barth viewed revelation as entirely equivocal---certainly no one outside the Van Til/Clark sphere thought he was. The rest of the theological world outside the US thought of him as a theological conservative. Now it may well be that his whole system is supposed to be poetry, not theology. Given the heavy influence of Kierkegaard on his early thought, I wouldn't be surprised if some of his statements are a bit hyperbolic. Nonetheless, I do agree that he opened a door to such equivocal thinking, such as we see in post-Heideggerian theology (Tillich in particular).

I don't see how he avoided the errors of option 1

I think his occasionalist view of Scriptural interpretation was meant to clear this up.

One thread that I see throughout mid-20th-century conservative reformed thought (Barth exhibits this in spades, though he's not in this group) is a tendency to produce grand beautifully-constructed philosophical-theological systems (including sweeping historical surveys) without a whole lot of thought for what Luther called, "plain reason" or what Reid called "common sense." These systems created whole new theological vocabularies that are often useful to us, but which often ignored the ways in which people actually think. For example, in the past fifty years, Clark's view of Scriptural language as univocal has predominated---how many of us have heard people say, "Oh, I take the Bible literally"? The result today is that people are turning away from Scriptural truth because they have discovered that this hermaneutic doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny, or else it leads us to open theism.

Barth's view is equivocal not univocal or analogical.

Not quite. Barth is a good post-Kantian, so God in Himself is unknowable. What we do have, though, is the phenomenon of God's revelation in Scripture. The reason that Barth rejects natural theology and general revelation is because He recognizes that a phenomenological account of religion will be really Christian if and only if it allows no religious experience other than that of Christians. Barth has it in for Schleiermacher and wants to shut that door utterly. Therefore, Barth argues that true religious experience comes only through the word read and preached in the Church. Barth also doesn't have a particularly good religious tradition to draw from, so it's no wonder that he's not orthodox.

Van Til's version of this is his rejection of the 19th century "Princeton Apologetic". He (mistakenly, I think) thought that the Princeton School's embrace of the Scottish School of Common Sense had led to liberalism and so rejected it entirely as another form of natural theology.

 

[jwright82]

To elaborate on what I mean by Barth being equivocal in his view of knowledge let me explain. When I interchangably used the terms knowledge and language I was pointing to the fact that in a way these are the same thing. I don't think I explained that at all so I will clear up that now. We use language to express and reveal knowledge to others, when we think about what we know in our brains we always do so withen our own langauge (whatever language that is). So langauge and knowledge although two seperatly logical things are none the less probably too similer to seperate.

So for Barth he viewed all theology as based on revealation directly from God. This is how he attempted to overcome the whole phenomounal/noumanal distinction in Kant. Remember that for Kant we have have an active formation of knowledge that is limited to the phenomounal realm. So science is something we can know about but God is beyond our thought proccess. The philosopher Feurbach insisted, based on this, that therefore all theology is anthropology. That is to say that since all our ideas and words must only have meaning when applied to phenoumanl things and God, if He exists, is noumanal we cannot talk about Him at all. So all of our church talk is just guarded language about ourselves in some way. Barth who accepted both Kant and Feurbach on these points attempted to overcome this problem with his theology of the Word of God.

Revealation, or the Word of God, must be able to do two things in a sort of paradox, or contradiction:
1. Not be part of the phenomounal world at all, since that violates Kant and plays into Feurbach's claims about theology.
2. Must be able to shater into this reality in some fashion, his thoughts on the freedom of God.

So he used two different german words about history to attempt to acheive this, geishicte and historie.
Historie represents the phenomounal realm of experience in which history takes place. Geishicte on the other hand is above or beyond historie. It travels parallel to historie but never touches it, in a sense. Geshicte is God's self revealation. It cannot be associated with historie but must be parralel to it. This means that the concepts and ideas of the phenoumanal, or historie, must not be used to explain or discribe Geishicte, he would have considered this a violation of the first commandment. So we don't use philosophy, which is phenomounal, to explain or describe any sort of revealtion at all. We only use the categories and ideas revealed in God's free-self-revealation to talk about that revealation, which is essentially dogmatics in his view.

Now the charge of equivocationalism in regards to knowledge itself. So when one reads his church dogmatics, which he changed the title too from christian dogmatics to reflect his view that dogmatics was essentially church talk about God, do they read purely new concepts and ideas fresh from the nomounal realm or ideas stated in the phenoumanal realm of discourse? Well either way he ends up in equivocation, I'll try to explain.

1. Option 1 we are facing totally new ideas that even he can't conceptualize, hence a complete difference in knowledge, because we all are limited, via Kant, in our concept formation to the phenomounal realm only. This ends in equivocation because we can't use our phenomounal brains to understand noumanal revealation.

2. Option 2 betrays his insistance on geshicte being transcendental to historie. We cannot therefore in principle rip geishicte down into our own historie and violate his seperation of the two. This again is equivocation because we can't translate revealation into the only language we know phenomounal/historie language, hence equivocation of knowledge.

So we see that in principle he was an equicalist in his view but in practice he couldn't possibly be. This only betrays his own self-contradiction and sets him off against Van Til and Gordon Clark.

---------- Post added at 05:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:02 PM ----------

But why Anselm, of all people?

I suppose that it was Anselm who changed his mind on things, that may be why.

He was against Natural theology period. Again, he believed natural theology, as a bottom-up discipline (particularist), could never be "theonomous" in any meaningful sense.

I don't know if any natural theology would be beyond him but you are right most is, but in the sense I gave before as historical examples of what he found wrong with autonoumas natural theology.

As for the three views of language: I doubt that Barth viewed revelation as entirely equivocal---certainly no one outside the Van Til/Clark sphere thought he was. The rest of the theological world outside the US thought of him as a theological conservative. Now it may well be that his whole system is supposed to be poetry, not theology. Given the heavy influence of Kierkegaard on his early thought, I wouldn't be surprised if some of his statements are a bit hyperbolic. Nonetheless, I do agree that he opened a door to such equivocal thinking, such as we see in post-Heideggerian theology (Tillich in particular).


I don't see how he avoided the errors of option 1
I think his occasionalist view of Scriptural interpretation was meant to clear this up.

One thread that I see throughout mid-20th-century conservative reformed thought (Barth exhibits this in spades, though he's not in this group) is a tendency to produce grand beautifully-constructed philosophical-theological systems (including sweeping historical surveys) without a whole lot of thought for what Luther called, "plain reason" or what Reid called "common sense." These systems created whole new theological vocabularies that are often useful to us, but which often ignored the ways in which people actually think. For example, in the past fifty years, Clark's view of Scriptural language as univocal has predominated---how many of us have heard people say, "Oh, I take the Bible literally"? The result today is that people are turning away from Scriptural truth because they have discovered that this hermaneutic doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny, or else it leads us to open theism.


Barth's view is equivocal not univocal or analogical.
Not quite. Barth is a good post-Kantian, so God in Himself is unknowable. What we do have, though, is the phenomenon of God's revelation in Scripture. The reason that Barth rejects natural theology and general revelation is because He recognizes that a phenomenological account of religion will be really Christian if and only if it allows no religious experience other than that of Christians. Barth has it in for Schleiermacher and wants to shut that door utterly. Therefore, Barth argues that true religious experience comes only through the word read and preached in the Church. Barth also doesn't have a particularly good religious tradition to draw from, so it's no wonder that he's not orthodox.

I guess see my next post which you are probably reading as I write this.

Van Til's version of this is his rejection of the 19th century "Princeton Apologetic". He (mistakenly, I think) thought that the Princeton School's embrace of the Scottish School of Common Sense had led to liberalism and so rejected it entirely as another form of natural theology.

His critique of it would be the same as mine, although you know I am favorable to your version as it relates to everyday common-sense experience but it would brakedown at the presupossitional level. This issue may be too large to involve in this discussion.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Philip,

I need to back you up because this discussion seems to be focused on proving your thesis in the OP. There you state:

Again, though, there is a commonality in that both neo-Calvinism and Liberalism were post-Kantian theological movements that took things like a noumenal/phenomenal distinction (the source of the Clark-Van Til controversy) for granted. The difference between the two theologians is that, while both are working in a post-Kantian framework, Barth is working his way out of a liberal mindset (which is why the later Barth looks more orthodox than the earlier) whereas Van Til is critiquing a tradition to which he is an outsider (two traditions, actually, if you count the Old Princeton tradition, which was pre-Kantian).

If by post-Kantian you are only referring to time (that is that they came after Kant arrived on the scene), I would agree. If by post-Kantian you believe Van Til was (like Barth) operating under an Enlightenment mindset then that is not the case at all.

I'm not certain what kind of parallel you're trying to draw between Barth and Van Til. Sure they both were critiquing Liberalism but a critically dialectical realist like Barth can't be said to be anything like Van Til on a fundamental level simply because they both critiqued Liberalism.

Even pointing this out is problematic:

hus, both will charge liberalism (rightly) with too much emphasis on general revelation and common grace to the point where it can no longer be called Christianity at all, instead becoming a kind of syncretism.

As I quoted above, Van Til's critique had to do with a criticism that man is fallen. He doesn't reject natural revelation (real history) but points out:

After the fall, the natural appears under to curse of God and not merely regular. God's curse on nature is revealed along with regularity. The natural reveals an unalleviated picture of folly and ruin and speaks to the need for a Redeemer.

In other words, by natural revelation, the Curse is revealed in natural revelation and points all men to their need for a Redeemer.

Barth, in contrast, doesn't see God acting at all in the phenomenal realm. History cannot tell us anything about God. His problem with natural revelation is that he rejects all history as revealing anything at all about God.

I just don't understand what you're trying to get at here because their views are so diametrically opposed to each other that your thesis seems to amount to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

 

[Philip]

If by post-Kantian you are only referring to time (that is that they came after Kant arrived on the scene), I would agree. If by post-Kantian you believe Van Til was (like Barth) operating under an Enlightenment mindset then that is not the case at all.

I see Van Til as operating under the Kantian system in a different form. If, for the grid between noumenal and phenomenal we were to substitute "presupposition", we would have Van Tillian epistemology. Van Tillian is not straight Kantian, but he's not a direct realist either (like, say, Hodge, Reid, or pretty much any pre-Cartesian). It is, if you will, a post-enlightenment view.

I'm not certain what kind of parallel you're trying to draw between Barth and Van Til. Sure they both were critiquing Liberalism but a critically dialectical realist like Barth can't be said to be anything like Van Til on a fundamental level simply because they both critiqued Liberalism.

Again, I think that both are operating under the Post-Kantian assumption that things in themselves are unknowable or at least unintelligible (which is the same thing). Both see revelation as somehow breaking through the divide between noumenal and phenomenal.

In other words, by natural revelation, the Curse is revealed in natural revelation and points all men to their need for a Redeemer.

But according to Van Til, it does so only if one is approaching it in faith already. This is post-Kantian, the difference being that Kant would argue that we all perceive things the same way.

His problem with natural revelation is that he rejects all history as revealing anything at all about God.

Actually, I would reverse this, but in any case . . .

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I see Van Til as operating under the Kantian system in a different form. If, for the grid between noumenal and phenomenal we were to substitute "presupposition", we would have Van Tillian epistemology. Van Tillian is not straight Kantian, but he's not a direct realist either (like, say, Hodge, Reid, or pretty much any pre-Cartesian). It is, if you will, a post-enlightenment view.

Huh? I'm sorry Phillip but Van Til hardly describes the phenomenal as unknowable apart from Special Revelation. I quoted his very words above and it is quite clear that he views natural revelation as operating historically and in such a way as man knows he needs a Redeemer. He clearly articulates God as revealing Himself in nature. He sees the Curse as revealed in general revelation and not in some noumenal realm. I don't know how much more clearly Van Til could have rejected the Kantian view than he does in my summary above. I'm only left with the impression that you do not really understand the phenomenal/noumenal division of Kantian thought or what Van Til's concern was.

Van Til, like Calvin, understood that man could not have fruition in natural revelation but that is an ethical problem due to his rebellion and not due to the lack of clarity of general revelation.

You seem to imply that common sense realism posited a way for man to overcome this rebellion and approach an understanding of "things in themselves" simply by general revelation. The Reformed have always taught that man has no comprehensive knowledge but that all knowledge is apprehended insofar as God reveals it either through nature or special revelation.

I really think you need to study the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in theology.

 

[jwright82]

Huh? I'm sorry Phillip but Van Til hardly describes the phenomenal as unknowable apart from Special Revelation. I quoted his very words above and it is quite clear that he views natural revelation as operating historically and in such a way as man knows he needs a Redeemer. He clearly articulates God as revealing Himself in nature. He sees the Curse as revealed in general revelation and not in some noumenal realm. I don't know how much more clearly Van Til could have rejected the Kantian view than he does in my summary above. I'm only left with the impression that you do not really understand the phenomenal/noumenal division of Kantian thought or what Van Til's concern was.

Well Rich, Philip has demonstrated beyond certianty to me that he does understand the philosophical ideas he is laying out. That does not make him correct always but at least possibly so, contra what you just said regarding him. I don't think calling into question his credibuility as a philosopher is any way to engage in a fruitful apologetical debate. He has demonstrated over and over again that he understands the currents of philosophical thought, even though he and I disagree on some things.

You seem to imply that common sense realism posited a way for man to overcome this rebellion and approach an understanding of "things in themselves" simply by general revelation. The Reformed have always taught that man has no comprehensive knowledge but that all knowledge is apprehended insofar as God reveals it either through nature or special revelation.

As I understand common-sense realism it can be aduquitly adopted to deal with normal everyday experiences. It actually locates itself outside of natural theology in a sense because its basic beleifs are basic not derivied other beleifs in the normal analytical understanding of beleifs. I do think this model breaks down at the presupossiotional level but it is very nice when dealing with everyday beleifs.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

James,

It's not a matter of denying Phillip's credibility by calling into question his training. One only has to read Van Til's presentation of Natural Revelation, however, to see that he's not operating under a post-Kantian view in some sort of modified noumenal/phenomenal distinction.

In fact, I think the basic problem here is trying to deal with Van Til's thinking primarily along philosophical lines.

Presuppositionalism is not a "bridge" for Van Til's thought as noted. It seems that it's wrong to primarily view this as a philosophical question, strictly speaking, to try and pin down Van Til's concern here. There are always going to be men who try to put things into categories that will fit within a philosophical system of thought and, consequently, what Van Til is noting is forced into some sort of model where his concern is not to provide a "replacement philosophy" so much as to note how man comes to a true knowledge of God.

Mind you, I'm not one to be bothered greatly about whether or not we disagree with Van Til but I am disturbed by a tendency in some to try to push all theology into the realm of philosophy and its categories as men have sought to gain knowledge by beginning with themselves and putting together building blocks as they attempt to construct a view of the world around them and how God fits into it.

The issue of the knowledge of God is not that men reason to God but that God reveals to man. Apart from God regenerating and the Holy Spirit illumining the mind, there is no knowledge of God and man is left in a state of futile thinking. In other words, there is no starting with man and his reason to get to God but God must condescend to reveal Himself. Van Til never would have argued that a dead sinner simply needs to autonomously adopt a Christian presupposition to come to the right answers about the Universe.

For me the verdict is still out on whether or not I agree with Van Til on what his issue was with some of the common sense realists. It wasn't that he didn't respect them but I think he saw the common scholastic methode of "proving God" first before you talk about His attributes as giving too much away to autonomous reason. His concern was that we don't prove God but proclaim Him. God is and it is only by His revealing of Himself that we'll come to a knowledge of Him.

It's interesting to me to see so many readers of Van Til to come to differing ways to form his thoughts into systems of philosophy. Bahnsen's organization of his thought differs from Frame's for instance. Personally, I think the reason Van Til can be pushed into either view, if forced, is that he was not concerned to be put into philosophical system that would be fully comprehended by the mind of man. I'm not saying he was trying to be obscure but was noting that man is never going to approach a knowledge of God through human philosophical systems and I think attempts to categorize Van Til strictly according to them are always going to be wanting.

 

[Philip]

Huh? I'm sorry Phillip but Van Til hardly describes the phenomenal as unknowable apart from Special Revelation.

Of course not: that's the noumenal.

He sees the Curse as revealed in general revelation and not in some noumenal realm. I don't know how much more clearly Van Til could have rejected the Kantian view than he does in my summary above. I'm only left with the impression that you do not really understand the phenomenal/noumenal division of Kantian thought or what Van Til's concern was.

Noumenal: "things in themselves" Phenomenal: "things as they appear." According to Van Til, we do not see anything properly until we are regenerated and have the lens of special revelation. For Van Til, the fall is the reason for such a distinction because the natural man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness.

Understand that I think there is something incredibly right about this: in our natural state, we cannot know God. It has to be God breaking through the barrier, not us at all.

You seem to imply that common sense realism posited a way for man to overcome this rebellion and approach an understanding of "things in themselves" simply by general revelation.

Not quite. Direct realism (in its Christian forms) takes our cognitive faculties, though affected by the fall, as reliable at some level, even for nonbelievers. The difference lies in what Calvin calls the Sensus Divinitatus, which for the unregenerate is either dead or effectively non-functional. The result, for unbelievers, is that though God's revelation is all around them, they do not see it for what it is.

Sometime I need to post some of my work on autonomy and realism and let yall take shots at it (I think Frame's definition of autonomy holds up better than that used by Bahnsen or Van Til in his critiques of realism).

I really think you need to study the Archetypal/Ectypal distinction in theology.

I probably will, after I get done the massive amounts of reading for Christology and Continental Philosophy this semester.

I am disturbed by a tendency in some to try to push all theology into the realm of philosophy and its categories as men have sought to gain knowledge by beginning with themselves and putting together building blocks as they attempt to construct a view of the world around them and how God fits into it.

I recall Calvin saying something about it being fine to start with the self (I.1, I believe). I agree that most instances of this do end in autonomy and a God made in our image (a la Descartes, Locke, and Leibniz), but one can also start with the God of the Bible and end in a God made in our image. It's less about starting points and more about attitudes: are you reasoning in autonomy, trusting in yourself, or are you reasoning in faithful dependence? Can God use someone's reason to bring him to faith? Sure. Church history has many examples, from Augustine to C. S. Lewis, of people who searched everywhere and finally found that when pursued faithfully, reason led them to God.

The attitude of the Christian doing philosophy was summed up nicely by the phrase that (cough) Barth identified as central to Anselm's theological/philosophical method: Fides quaerens intellectum---faith seeking understanding.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

According to Van Til, we do not see anything properly until we are regenerated and have the lens of special revelation.

That's not what Van Til writes. Special revelation is not a lens through which man understands natural revelation. Men have fruition in neither special nor natural revelation due to their rebellion. Special revelation serves to convert and regenerate and removes the scales from men's eyes and the rebellion in his heart that keeps him from understanding things as revealed by God.

He notes above that God's revelation is perspicuous (both natural and general revelation) but his rejection of comprehensive knowledge or understanding "things in themselves" is not an issue of agreeing with the phenomenal/noumenal distinction but noting that man, as creature, can never know anything as the Creator does. There is no such thing as "knowledge" or "facts" that exist outside of the Creator that both men and God can access and come to some sort of understanding of.

This really sums up Van Til's thought and is classic archetype/ectype theology:

Both natural and special revelation would be impossible if God remained incomprehensible as He is in Himself (archetypal theology). Man cannot penetrate God as He is Himself - he cannot comprehend God. But created man may see clearly what is revealed clearly even if he does not see exhaustively. Man need not have exhaustive knowledge in order to know truly and certainly.

God's thoughts about Himself are self-contained but man is an analogue who thinks in covenant relation to the One who created him. Thus man's interpretation of nature follows what is fully interpreted by God. Man thinks God's thoughts after him - not comprehensively but analogically.

The archetype is God in Himself. The ectype is theology as God has revealed to creatures. This is classic Reformed theology and is not post-Enlightenment by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Philip]

Special revelation serves to convert and regenerate and removes the scales from men's eyes and the rebellion in his heart that keeps him from understanding things as revealed by God.

Again, I don't see how this differs: all that he's done is to change the names of the categories.

It still looks incredibly similar, even with your background. It might have helped if Van Til could have acknowledged that man is his natural state still does know stuff---his knowledge is much more limited, due to the fall and suppression of the truth in unrighteousness, but nonetheless, the natural man does know that there are rocks and trees and skies and seas. Does he comprehend their meaning? No, but if that precludes knowledge, then no human could possibly know anything.

 

[jwright82]

It's not a matter of denying Phillip's credibility by calling into question his training. One only has to read Van Til's presentation of Natural Revelation, however, to see that he's not operating under a post-Kantian view in some sort of modified noumenal/phenomenal distinction.

In fact, I think the basic problem here is trying to deal with Van Til's thinking primarily along philosophical lines.

Presuppositionalism is not a "bridge" for Van Til's thought as noted. It seems that it's wrong to primarily view this as a philosophical question, strictly speaking, to try and pin down Van Til's concern here. There are always going to be men who try to put things into categories that will fit within a philosophical system of thought and, consequently, what Van Til is noting is forced into some sort of model where his concern is not to provide a "replacement philosophy" so much as to note how man comes to a true knowledge of God.

Well he is dealing with epistomology, a philosophical concern. Also many critics of Van Til fail to recognize that he was developing his thought withen a clear theological and philosophical landscape (in Christian Apologetics he says that apologetics deals primaraly with philosophy). His transcendental argument was essentially developed in different forms by idealist philosophers, which he wrote his doctoral thesis on. Your concern is well noted but if your talking theology and he is talking philosophy (particuleriy epistomology), than that is a miscommunication. You can't isolate theology completly from philosophy or historical perspective. I'm all for bringing theological understanding into philosophy. In fact I was just thinking about the archtypical/ectypical distinction provides a nice solution to Kant's thought last week.
I agree that Van Til is not operating under those categories per se, I think that argument is more of logical conclusions and not outright that Van Til is consciously doing so. I am a commited Van Tillian but I used to not be. In fact my ex reminded me the other day that back around 2003-4 I was a member of this site under a different name and I debated a Van Tillian who thought I was outright accusing Van Til of certian things but I was pointing to the logical conclusions I thought he was drawn into, obviously I have come to see the errors in my understanding of Van Til. As far as Van Til goes it took me 12 years of intensive personal study in philosophy to finaly get him. He understood philosophy so threw and threw that he made all these connections that no one else got because they were still looking at all small pieces of the puzzle.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Special revelation serves to convert and regenerate and removes the scales from men's eyes and the rebellion in his heart that keeps him from understanding things as revealed by God.

Again, I don't see how this differs: all that he's done is to change the names of the categories.

It still looks incredibly similar, even with your background. It might have helped if Van Til could have acknowledged that man is his natural state still does know stuff---his knowledge is much more limited, due to the fall and suppression of the truth in unrighteousness, but nonetheless, the natural man does know that there are rocks and trees and skies and seas. Does he comprehend their meaning? No, but if that precludes knowledge, then no human could possibly know anything.

Where does Van Till deny this? When I note that regeneration is necessary for man to have fruition in that knowledge that is not saying that man knows nothing but Van Til never says a man has to know something comprehensively in order to know anything.

I'm sorry Phillip but you're being awfully "broad brush" here. You start a thread essentially accusing Van Til of holding to a modified post-Kantian philosophy by his use of Anselm and provide not a single quote that says: "See, right here Van Til is clearly seen as saying...."

Calvin:

Section 14. Though irradiated by the wondrous glories of creation, we cease not to follow our own ways.

In vain for us, therefore, does Creation exhibit so many bright lamps lighted up to show forth the glory of its Author. Though they beam upon us from every quarter, they are altogether insufficient of themselves to lead us into the right path. Some sparks, undoubtedly, they do throw out; but these are quenched before they can give forth a brighter effulgence. Wherefore, the apostle, in the very place where he says that the worlds are images of invisible things, adds that it is by faith we understand that they were framed by the word of God, (Heb 11: 3) thereby intimating that the invisible Godhead is indeed represented by such displays, but that we have no eyes to perceive it until they are enlightened through faith by internal revelation from God. When Paul says that that which may be known of God is manifested by the creation of the world, he does not mean such a manifestation as may be comprehended by the wit of man, (Rom 1: 19) on the contrary, he shows that it has no further effect than to render us inexcusable, (Acts 17: 27) And though he says, elsewhere, that we have not far to seek for God, inasmuch as he dwells within us, he shows, in another passage, to what extent this nearness to God is availing. God, says he, "in times past, suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness," (Acts 14: 16, 17) But though God is not left without a witness, while, with numberless varied acts of kindness, he woos men to the knowledge of himself, yet they cease not to follow their own ways, in other words, deadly errors.

Section 11. The second part of the chapter, which describes the stupidity both of learned and unlearned, in ascribing the whole order of things, and the admirable arrangements of divine Providence, to fortune.

Bright, however, as is the manifestation which God gives

both of himself and his immortal kingdom in the mirror of his works, so great is our stupidity, so dull are we in regard to these bright manifestations, that we derive no benefit from them. For in regard to the fabric and admirable arrangement of the universe, how few of us are there who, in lifting our eyes to the heavens, or looking abroad on the various regions of the earth, ever think of the Creator? Do we not rather overlook Him, and sluggishly content ourselves with a view of his works? And then in regard to supernatural events, though these are occurring every day, how few are there who ascribe them to the ruling providence of God - how many who imagine that they are casual results produced by the blind evolutions of the wheel of chance? Even when under the guidance and direction of these events, we are in a manner forced to the contemplation of God, (a circumstance which all must occasionally experience,) and are thus led to form some impressions of Deity, we immediately fly off to carnal dreams and depraved fictions, and so by our vanity corrupt heavenly truth. This far, indeed, we differ from each other, in that every one appropriates to himself some peculiar error; but we are all alike in this, that we substitute monstrous fictions for the one living and true God - a disease not confined to obtuse and vulgar minds, but affecting the noblest, and those who, in other respects, are singularly acute. How lavishly in this respect have the whole body of philosophers betrayed their stupidity and want of sense? To say nothing of the others whose absurdities are of a still grosser description, how completely does Plato, the soberest and most religious of them all, lose himself in his round globe?[8] What must be the case with the rest, when the leaders, who ought to have set them an example, commit such blunders, and labour under such hallucinations? In like manner, while the government of the world places the doctrine of providence beyond dispute, the practical result is the same as if it were believed that all things were carried hither and thither at the caprice of chance; so prone are we to vanity and error. I am still referring to the most distinguished of the philosophers, and not to the common herd, whose madness in profaning the truth of God exceeds all bounds.

I don't see any substantive difference between Calvin and Van Til on this point. Neither deny that men have some knowledge but that knowledge is ultimately twisted. Van Til and Calvin both recognized the glory that is man (as created in the image of God). Men even have marvelous gifts but they use these, in a sense, as weapons of war against God or take credit for them as belonging to themselves.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Well he is dealing with epistomology, a philosophical concern.

Depending upon how one defines "philsophy". I think it is first a theological concern. Epistemology is not a subject that stands as a set of facts for men to organize using the function of their minds to make sense of but knowledge is God's self-revelation.

I think the reason people see Van Til as primarily being concerned with epistemology as a proper philsophical science is that he had such pointed critiques about how philsophy operating according to the kingdom of this world can never provide the answers it seeks to discover because it begins and ends with man.

Consider this Scripture about how knowledge is said to come to disciples:

Luke 10:21-22 21 In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

John 16:7-15 - 7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

1 Corinthians 2:6–16 - 6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. 14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

This is the kind of knowledge that I believe Van Til was concerned with.

 

[Philip]

accusing Van Til of holding to a modified post-Kantian philosophy by his use of Anselm

Back up here: I am not accusing Van Til of anything. Calling him "post-Kantian" is not intended to indicate where he is morally, but where his thought is coming from. No thinker writes in a vacuum: we all know this. To say "He is essentially Calvinist" is simply to state the obvious: we all knew that. Obviously, he's drawing on Calvin and obviously he dislikes Barth and his ilk. My question is whether there is more in common than either would have been likely to admit. I'm not assigning blame here, just trying to figure out how it fits together (unlike most of you, I don't view the statement "he's similar to Barth" as necessarily a put-down).

My point in bringing up Anselm was to wonder why exactly Van Til devotes a total of one sentence in Defense of the Faith to such an important figure. His only comment is a complimentary, "yeah he's good: he's on our side." I found it peculiar because a) this statement shows that Van Til really knows Anselm b) despite this fact, Van Til says nothing more. Is it simply that Van Til is in a rush? The size of the book makes that unlikely. Or is it that Van Til agrees with Barth and doesn't want to admit it? Again, I'm not blaming him, merely trying to figure out what the deal is---I was pleasantly surprised to find that Van Til likes Anselm.

Van Til never says a man has to know something comprehensively in order to know anything.

So what about the idea that there is no epistemic common ground between believer and unbeliever? Van Til's whole transcendental project is something that could only have been conceived post-Kant.

Something I probably should have brought up earlier, too, is the radical divide in Western Philosophy that took place in the late 18th century. David Hume was famous for destroying the empiricist project utterly. The result looked like skepticism, so two philosophers made it their business to refute him. The first, of course, was Immanuel Kant. This is the mainstream view up until the 20th Century, when the real break between analytic and continental philosophy takes place. Neo-Calvinism, and therefore Van Til, is coming out of the post-Kant scene, which means that they are dealing with Hegelianism and Kantian thought, and are thinking in those categories.

The second answer, though, came from Thomas Reid, an ordained Church of Scotland minister who served as librarian at the University of Aberdeen. Reid advocated the "Philosophy of Common Sense" or "Direct Realism." His solution is to take inventory of our beliefs, to identify their origins, and then to ground them. The grounding faculty that he identifies is that of "credulity" or belief-willingness. He argues that the reason why we should believe our senses and other cognitive faculties, is because they are given to us by God. Granted, Reid is not doing theology, so he's not going to discuss noetic effects of the fall or even Christian belief persay: however, Reid's work would become the mainstream answer to Hume in America and Scotland. This is the basis of Dabney's apologetic, as well as the assumed approach of Old Princeton. So far as I know, Van Til was unaware of Reid, which is why he is somewhat unfair to Old Princeton (in the 20th century, analytic philosophy would come up with a non-theistic version of "common-sense realism" that is laughable in its attempts to dismiss Christian belief).

Because Van Til's background is in the former tradition, with a later exposure to the latter, he ends up looking more like Kuyper and Dooyeweerd than Hodge and Warfield, and therefore more like a post-Kantian than like the Scottish School of Common Sense.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

My point in bringing up Anselm was to wonder why exactly Van Til devotes a total of one sentence in Defense of the Faith to such an important figure. His only comment is a complimentary, "yeah he's good: he's on our side." I found it peculiar because a) this statement shows that Van Til really knows Anselm b) despite this fact, Van Til says nothing more. Is it simply that Van Til is in a rush?

I don't know, provide the quote in context so it can be discussed. What's he driving at where he mentions Anselm in passing?

So far as I know, Van Til was unaware of Reid, which is why he is somewhat unfair to Old Princeton

How do you know he wasn't aware of Common-sense realism? In what way is he "unfair" to Old Princeton? Again, provide some specific quotes to interact with.

You're assuming an awful lot here by "association" and what stream he came out of. He might have been Dutch but spent his entire career at Princeton and then Westminster.

 

[MW]

I'm sorry Phillip but you're being awfully "broad brush" here. You start a thread essentially accusing Van Til of holding to a modified post-Kantian philosophy by his use of Anselm and provide not a single quote that says: "See, right here Van Til is clearly seen as saying...."

I remember Nash compared Van Til's disconnect between man's knowledge and God's knowledge with Hume and Kant's disconnect between the real and perceived world. It is a strained comparison, to say the least.