Barth and Van Til: a comparison-contrast

[Philip]

What do you mean by model of rationality and how does it differ from Van Til's notion of a theory of reason?

A model of rationality is simply a model of which kinds of beliefs can be rationally warranted.

Yes but authority can be logicaly analysed to reveal that it was not authoritative at all. Meaning that these beleifs are not independent logically they require other beleifs to be true in order to justify their credulity.

They usually require other authorities to establish their non-credibility. For example, what if you had said, when you were a child, "I am not going to believe anything my parents say until they can establish their credibility"? I have a good feeling that you do not want your daughter to have this kind of attitude (I wouldn't).

If I read in a history book that George Washington crossed the Delaware, that is a basic belief. I have no reason to mistrust the source nor the information, therefore I believe it.

Is there any other way to overcome this subjectivity in your view besides a strictly de facto basis? Which by BTW assumes their model of rationality which affects what is credibule evidence or not, thus it is a presupossitional antithesis.

I can't think of a way other than arguing from that set of beliefs that results from living in the same world with the unbeliever.

I am still confused here don't they have to be functioning fine in order to aprehend that I am telling you they are malfunctioning which is a contradiction. But if they are malfunctioning than I can never tell they are because I need them to be properly functioning to communicate with you?

At least a couple of them have to be, sure. Those whose faculties are not functioning properly are known as the insane or handicapped. Of course communication is contingent on proper function---so is revelation. Again, when doing a transcendental analysis, I find that I can trust my faculties given that God is their maker (again, other basic beliefs).

as I see it, with your model it provides no check on the autonomous sensus you describe that are the ultimate authority on all things, man is the measure of all things here.

For the unbeliever yes. Not so for the believer.

If knowledge of God is dependent upon creation than God is dependent on something

This is just absurd. Of course knowledge of God is dependent upon creation so far as I am concerned---there cannot be knowledge of God without a knower and faculties of knowing. Therefore, since God is the creator of both, naturally my knowledge of God is contingent upon creation---at the very least upon my own creation.

The only thing that would destroy God's aseity epistemically, would be if He depended upon creation to know Himself---which I did not say, and which is absurd.

Also by presupossition I don't mean that they are not developed or derived from immediate beleifs, what you would call basic beleifs or common sense beleifs, only that they are the most important beleifs in a persons web of beleifs and therefore the hardest to change, and our most important beleifs affect how we recieve other beleifs.

And I would say that those presuppositions would be better called attitudes or predispositions because they are less propositional than personal. I tend to agree with Michael Polanyi that all knowledge involves personal commitment.

Again, I don't see beliefs in terms of "webs" but of architecture. Here's where I come from: in terms of epistemology there are two approaches: faith and doubt. You either begin by doubting your God-given faculties (Descartes) or you begin with faith in them (Newbigin, Reid). If I start doubting my faculties, I end by doubting the God who made them.

So that their metaphysics contradicts their epistomology leaving a huge gap in their worldview.

And that's why hardcore materialists are so hard to find these days.

 

[jwright82]

A model of rationality is simply a model of which kinds of beliefs can be rationally warranted.

Than this is basically what Van Til meant would you agree that everyone is biased in their models?

They usually require other authorities to establish their non-credibility. For example, what if you had said, when you were a child, "I am not going to believe anything my parents say until they can establish their credibility"? I have a good feeling that you do not want your daughter to have this kind of attitude (I wouldn't).

If I read in a history book that George Washington crossed the Delaware, that is a basic belief. I have no reason to mistrust the source nor the information, therefore I believe it.

You got me there I would not want my daughter to have that attitude but the original question was a beleif that required no other beleifs for any support logically speaking. Because that is basicaly what Van Til is getting at. Sure you could rest assured with an unbeleiver both agreeing that there is a tree outside but when you get into deeper matters the affects of presupossitions become more pronounced and more pronounced. There are beleifs stacked upon beleifs and than there are our most prized beleifs our presupositions. They are not cronologicaly speaking the first beleifs we build upon to form a foundationalist epistomology. Van Til never struck me as a foundationalist. Logically speaking they are most important, I do believe you could agree with that?

I can't think of a way other than arguing from that set of beliefs that results from living in the same world with the unbeliever.

Well the argument goes like this:
1. The bible says that unbeleivers minds are fallen.
2. Fallenness in part is rebellion against the truth.
3. Unbeleivers form a model of rationality, what is rational or not.
4. Their minds are fallen therefore their model of rationality is fallen as well.

At least a couple of them have to be, sure. Those whose faculties are not functioning properly are known as the insane or handicapped. Of course communication is contingent on proper function---so is revelation. Again, when doing a transcendental analysis, I find that I can trust my faculties given that God is their maker (again, other basic beliefs).

I am uncomfortable with making God another basic beleif along side other basic beleifs because this implies a shared ontological status. Most of what what you call basic I call immediate beleifs this gives them less authority than you would but it avoids making them the foundation for all other knowledge, thus avoiding the pitfalls of foundationalism. Since I don't the problem as one between foundationalism or skepticism I am not hampered by that serious dilema by which Reid, it seems to me, argued that without these common-sense notions all would be lost epistomologically. This is just the story of autonomous unbeleiving thought it ends up in skepticism or unfounded faith in foundationalism because they are afraid of the alternantive. The whole discussion is can man be measure of all things or not? Either something in us is the ultimate decider of what is reasonable or not, autonomy, or all is lost because unbeleiving thought refuses to alknowledge a Divine authority by which all other authorities gain their authority, including reason.
Also You never really delved into how to differentiate between a sensus that is faulty and one that isn't. I transcend my car so I klnow if it is working or not but it could never know that. How it works is how it works. Also basic beleifs that you mention are either almost all empirically derived thus empricism or simply shared beleifs by a great many people. Which equals you right back in the epistomological problems of modernism and the whole of western philosophy, Van Til charted a path outside those problems.

This is just absurd. Of course knowledge of God is dependent upon creation so far as I am concerned---there cannot be knowledge of God without a knower and faculties of knowing. Therefore, since God is the creator of both, naturally my knowledge of God is contingent upon creation---at the very least upon my own creation.

The only thing that would destroy God's aseity epistemically, would be if He depended upon creation to know Himself---which I did not say, and which is absurd.

This is not absurd if you look at the critiques of natural theology. In them God as creator is less important than the foundation of creation. Creation is more important than God. An immediate awarness of God puts the whole thing in perspective up front. Thus we are without exscuse. If God can only come in at the end of a syllogism than the person has the right to doubt and exscuse to doubt because the God proven at the end of the syllogism is hardley the God of the bible, plus the traditional arguments all break down so in the end nothing is proven. In this sense yes God than becomes less important because creation takes on an ontological autonomy. It is selfexistant in a sense if it can be the foundation for the ifinite God. If it cannot be the foundation for God but must assume God as its own ontological foundation than that is different. You see for you it seems epistomology has no affect on any other area of philosophy. But for Van Til and me what I believe about epistomology affects what I believe about ethics and metaphysics, they are all interelated. This is why we can say that the materialist has no buissness talking about reason because his metaphysics destroys the very possibility of reason. So rather than the materialist's use of reason prove that he can do reason and thus it is off limits to criticize it only aggravates the problem of if he is right metaphysically than he cannot be right about the fact that he is reasoning. But he is reasoning so something is wrong either his theory or his practice?

And I would say that those presuppositions would be better called attitudes or predispositions because they are less propositional than personal. I tend to agree with Michael Polanyi that all knowledge involves personal commitment.

Again, I don't see beliefs in terms of "webs" but of architecture. Here's where I come from: in terms of epistemology there are two approaches: faith and doubt. You either begin by doubting your God-given faculties (Descartes) or you begin with faith in them (Newbigin, Reid). If I start doubting my faculties, I end by doubting the God who made them.

Dooyeweerd might be closer to your view about predispositions, in a sense, but you seem not like to believe, I could be wrong, that this affects their whole model of rationality and their sensuses, they don't want to know the truth so they try not to. But for Van Til they decide what is our greatest authority in life as well as affect every other area of our worldview. Your scheme below is just a false dichotomy you only have to decide between Descarte on the one hand, and thus Hume, or Reid on the other if you place yourself withen the unbeleiving philosophical history of western soceity. If you place yourself withen that development of the creational aspect of logical analysis than yes you are doomed to repeat the failures they made. But if you reject that like Van Til and Doyeweerd did than you stand a better chance of successful philosophical analysis of creation.

 

[Philip]

You got me there I would not want my daughter to have that attitude but the original question was a beleif that required no other beleifs for any support logically speaking.

Sure: "there is a tree outside." I did not come to hold this belief based on any other belief. Transcendental arguments are there to explain basic beliefs, not to be more basic. You are confusing the order of knowing with the order of being.

Sure you could rest assured with an unbeleiver both agreeing that there is a tree outside but when you get into deeper matters the affects of presupossitions become more pronounced and more pronounced.

Again, this has more to do with attitudes than it does with propositions.

Well the argument goes like this:
1. The bible says that unbeleivers minds are fallen.
2. Fallenness in part is rebellion against the truth.
3. Unbeleivers form a model of rationality, what is rational or not.
4. Their minds are fallen therefore their model of rationality is fallen as well.

Is the Bible's authority basic or not?

I am uncomfortable with making God another basic beleif along side other basic beleifs because this implies a shared ontological status.

Again, you are confusing the order of being with the order of knowing (I think Van Til, at least as interpreted by Bahnsen, does this too).

Most of what what you call basic I call immediate beleifs

Which would make all other beliefs mediate.

Also You never really delved into how to differentiate between a sensus that is faulty and one that isn't.

To know whether a faculty was functioning improperly, one would have to simply know (based on authority, most likely) what proper function looks like and realize that faculty A was not functioning properly. You could compare it to the way in which we realize that proposition X, which we had thought true, is actually false.

Also basic beleifs that you mention are either almost all empirically derived thus empricism or simply shared beleifs by a great many people.

So? I also happen to believe, in a basic way, that George Washington was the first president under the US constitution and that Jesus rose from the dead. Just because I believe certain things on an empirical basis does not make me an empiricist.

Which equals you right back in the epistomological problems of modernism and the whole of western philosophy

I don't see how it does.

An immediate awarness of God puts the whole thing in perspective up front.

I have not denied an immediate awareness of God---the faculties are intended to do just that: give me an immediate awareness of stuff.

All that natural theology is supposed to prove is that even if we take into account broken faculties on the part of the unbeliever, he still has no excuse for not believing in God.

This is why we can say that the materialist has no buissness talking about reason because his metaphysics destroys the very possibility of reason.

Again, you would be hard-pressed to find many materialists today in philosophy.

Dooyeweerd might be closer to your view about predispositions, in a sense, but you seem not like to believe, I could be wrong, that this affects their whole model of rationality and their sensuses, they don't want to know the truth so they try not to.

Yes, I agree with Dooyeweerd here. I do indeed think that it affects an unbeliever's model of rationality---he doesn't want God to exist, so he leaves God out of the equation and makes those of us who believe in Him out to be people with improperly-functioning faculties. Plantinga calls this the Freud-Marx complaint and counters it with a model of rationality that is contingent on God's existence.

The idea is that the Christian model is false if and only if Christianity itself is false.

Your scheme below is just a false dichotomy you only have to decide between Descarte on the one hand, and thus Hume, or Reid on the other if you place yourself withen the unbeleiving philosophical history of western soceity. If you place yourself withen that development of the creational aspect of logical analysis than yes you are doomed to repeat the failures they made. But if you reject that like Van Til and Doyeweerd did than you stand a better chance of successful philosophical analysis of creation.

James, you can't dismiss the dichotomy that easily: do you begin with doubt or faith? Remember here that Reid is a believer, and an orthodox one (WCF) whose metaphysical account of the fact of our knowledge is grounded in the fact of God as our maker. If we distrust our faculties, argues Reid, we are distrusting what God has given us and therefore distrusting God.

Again, do we repeat the Cartesian mistake, or do we begin with faith? The fact is, James, we can't transcend creation because we are created---only God can transcend creation. To try is to attempt to be God---and that is always idolatrous. We can't get outside creation because we are created.

 

[markkoller]

Originally Posted by Semper Fidelis
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.

Agreed. This is very helpful, thank you for posting it.

 

[jwright82]

Sure: "there is a tree outside." I did not come to hold this belief based on any other belief. Transcendental arguments are there to explain basic beliefs, not to be more basic. You are confusing the order of knowing with the order of being.

Well you trust the authority of your senses that is a seperate beleif. But they could be wrong or malfunctioning so you need some transcendental analysis to prove that they are authoritative, another beleif so this beleif that was supposed to be so obvious as to not need any other beleif for its reliability turns out to need other beleifs just to support itself. That is not to say that I do not hold such a beleif as obvious just that you cannot produce a foundation, if I understand you alright, of these beleifs to formulate a foundation to have an apologetical discussion over.

Again, this has more to do with attitudes than it does with propositions.

So these attitudes are are non conceptual? They cannot be proven to be false or unreasonable, hence propositional?

Is the Bible's authority basic or not?

It depends but my scheme doesn't rely on basic beleifs to hold all the other beleifs up, if I understand you. I must confess that most of my points are questioning in nature because I do not understand your scheme completly. You seem to hold to a view that our foundation epistomologically is based on what I would define as immediate beleifs, does that make sense? So please don't mistakre my tone for argumentitave merely inquisative.

Again, you are confusing the order of being with the order of knowing (I think Van Til, at least as interpreted by Bahnsen, does this too).

Not necessaraly only pointing out that a theory in one area of philosophy affects all other areas and vice versa.

Which would make all other beliefs mediate.

I would not like to say so. For Van Til he didn't really sort out how a person came by their beleifs only that they did. This isn't really a problem for him or me because we don't base all of our authority on how or why people have beleifs, only that they do and have a general scheme of beleifs.

To know whether a faculty was functioning improperly, one would have to simply know (based on authority, most likely) what proper function looks like and realize that faculty A was not functioning properly. You could compare it to the way in which we realize that proposition X, which we had thought true, is actually false.

Still on what authority could we possibly verify one person's falculties, or sensus, as being the standered for all others, without involving somesort of transcendental argument to rationally explain the possibility of knowledge at all?

So? I also happen to believe, in a basic way, that George Washington was the first president under the US constitution and that Jesus rose from the dead. Just because I believe certain things on an empirical basis does not make me an empiricist.

No not at all, but your authority for such a beleif may rest on your senses alone which could be an empirical basis which could be logically empiricism in logical form.

I don't see how it does.

As we both know modernism was very much an inflated version of modern phylosophy. The problems of modernism were fleshed out by postmodernism. These problems were not unique to modernism they were just the working out of the assumptions of western thought since the pre-socratic philosophiers. So to assume their basis is to accept their autonomous foundation which can only lead to their conclusions. It could be the case that you have reformed their assumptions along biblical lines but you seem to hold to their assumptions on one level or another.

I have not denied an immediate awareness of God---the faculties are intended to do just that: give me an immediate awareness of stuff.

All that natural theology is supposed to prove is that even if we take into account broken faculties on the part of the unbeliever, he still has no excuse for not believing in God.

Than we agree but I still don't feel that God can be reached at the end of a syllogism.

Yes, I agree with Dooyeweerd here. I do indeed think that it affects an unbeliever's model of rationality---he doesn't want God to exist, so he leaves God out of the equation and makes those of us who believe in Him out to be people with improperly-functioning faculties. Plantinga calls this the Freud-Marx complaint and counters it with a model of rationality that is contingent on God's existence.

The idea is that the Christian model is false if and only if Christianity itself is false.

In one sense you are Van Tillian, the first part, than you assume a classical apologetical position with the last part in that you feel that the only way to deal with the unbeleiver's biased model is on a de facto basis. But If their model is is biased than how they deal with facts are biased as well. You cannot assume nuetrality were there is none.

James, you can't dismiss the dichotomy that easily: do you begin with doubt or faith? Remember here that Reid is a believer, and an orthodox one (WCF) whose metaphysical account of the fact of our knowledge is grounded in the fact of God as our maker. If we distrust our faculties, argues Reid, we are distrusting what God has given us and therefore distrusting God.

Again, do we repeat the Cartesian mistake, or do we begin with faith? The fact is, James, we can't transcend creation because we are created---only God can transcend creation. To try is to attempt to be God---and that is always idolatrous. We can't get outside creation because we are created.

Well I would like to know how we define faith? As you know I define humans as primaraly religous, so I would say yes to starting with faith but only in a religious point of view, everyone is religous for something. But this is a third option, contra western thought, because it is a religous faith and not a general trust in something.

 

[Philip]

Well you trust the authority of your senses that is a seperate beleif.

True, but I come to the conclusion "I trust my senses" from the propositions "there is a tree" and "I see a tree." In other words, I come to the conclusion that I trust my senses based on the fact that there is a tree.

So these attitudes are are non conceptual? They cannot be proven to be false or unreasonable, hence propositional?

They may disguise themselves as such. But to call an attitude "propositional" is a category mistake.

You seem to hold to a view that our foundation epistomologically is based on what I would define as immediate beleifs, does that make sense?

I'll bear that in mind. What I would say is that I believe what the Bible says in a basic way and infer from that, that the Bible is authoritative and inerrant.

Not necessaraly only pointing out that a theory in one area of philosophy affects all other areas and vice versa.

And this (order of being vs order of knowing) where Van Til's rejection of scholasticism (to which Calvin was heavily indebted) proves problematic.

I would not like to say so. For Van Til he didn't really sort out how a person came by their beleifs only that they did.

But this proves problematic. If you hope to describe the structure of worldview, then you must have an idea of how beliefs are formed and how they are warranted ("justified" is a deontological term so I try to avoid it).

Still on what authority could we possibly verify one person's falculties, or sensus, as being the standered for all others, without involving somesort of transcendental argument to rationally explain the possibility of knowledge at all?

They are co-dependent. Transcendental arguments only serve to provide explanations: they provide no epistemic authority.

No not at all, but your authority for such a beleif may rest on your senses alone which could be an empirical basis which could be logically empiricism in logical form.

Again, that's just my story of how the belief got formed. If you would like to provide a good reason why that method of belief formation is illegitimate, you may attempt to do so.

Empiricism would claim that empirical knowledge is the only legitimate form of knowledge---a claim that I reject.

Of all the things I could be skeptical about, I am most skeptical of skepticism.

It could be the case that you have reformed their assumptions along biblical lines but you seem to hold to their assumptions on one level or another.

We all hold autonomous assumptions to some degree. Thank God that the blood of Christ is sufficient to cover even our attempts to be a law unto ourselves.

Than we agree but I still don't feel that God can be reached at the end of a syllogism.

I beg to differ: Anselm, I think, is right that the Christian God can be proven, it's just that the proof will never convince an unbeliever because he doesn't want to accept it.

than you assume a classical apologetical position with the last part in that you feel that the only way to deal with the unbeleiver's biased model is on a de facto basis. But If their model is is biased than how they deal with facts are biased as well. You cannot assume nuetrality were there is none.

But there is neutrality in some areas. The unbeliever and I both affirm that there are "rocks and trees and skies and seas." I can show him that God is there, but I can't make him believe---only God can do than that. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

Well I would like to know how we define faith?

I'll let Webster do it, since he's the dictionary man:

Faith (n): The assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition advanced by another; belief, or probable evidence of any kind.

Or Johnson

Faith: Belief, fidelity, confidence

That help?

because it is a religous faith and not a general trust in something

Religious faith is indeed in view, ultimately, for Reid, but he isn't dealing with it directly, since he's basically just countering Hume and showing him up as absurd. His argument basically boils down to: as soon as you try to make skeptical arguments to an ordinary hardworking (and faithful) human being, such as would have been found in his congregation (remember he's a pastor at the parish level in addition to being a librarian) you get laughed at for good reason. His idea is that the skeptic has too much time on his hands and needs to get back into God's world. On a theological level, we might say that the cure for skepticism is the cultural mandate.

 

[jwright82]

True, but I come to the conclusion "I trust my senses" from the propositions "there is a tree" and "I see a tree." In other words, I come to the conclusion that I trust my senses based on the fact that there is a tree.

True no one is doubting whether or not you can trust your senses because you see a tree. It is whether or not a whole edifice of a foundation with its own authority can be erected from them. A foundation is axiomatic like Clark but your axioms must be self-sustaining logically, or to put it another way they must have their own authority and need no beleifs to be true to in order for them to be true.

They may disguise themselves as such. But to call an attitude "propositional" is a category mistake.

Fair enough but you may conceptualize these attitudes into propositions about the attitude, contra Dooyeweerd here who held that our inner spiritual attitude was supra-temporal and therefore beyond any human conception.

And this (order of being vs order of knowing) where Van Til's rejection of scholasticism (to which Calvin was heavily indebted) proves problematic.

There is no versus here it is that one area affects another area. Can you really argue that if someone either logically assumes or consciencsly assumes a theory of reason that is proven reductio ad asbsurdeum to be false than that is a problem for them, and if this theory is a logical conclusion of their general theory of metaphysics than that would be a problem for them as well?

But this proves problematic. If you hope to describe the structure of worldview, then you must have an idea of how beliefs are formed and how they are warranted ("justified" is a deontological term so I try to avoid it).

No one is arguing for that only that you jump from immediate beleifs to those same beleifs becoming the ultimate beleifs epistomologically as basic beleifs or foundational beleifs so that even our presupossitions are based on their authority. Since they have no inherent authority in and of themselves they fail to be stable enough to base all other beleifs on.

They are co-dependent. Transcendental arguments only serve to provide explanations: they provide no epistemic authority.

I still don't see how you can justify the sensus of anyone? Can we see these sensus? No we have no way of knowing if they are there or not, but if you argue for them as the necessary precondition for knowledge at all than that is as classic a transcendental argument as you can get.

Again, that's just my story of how the belief got formed. If you would like to provide a good reason why that method of belief formation is illegitimate, you may attempt to do so.

Empiricism would claim that empirical knowledge is the only legitimate form of knowledge---a claim that I reject.

Of all the things I could be skeptical about, I am most skeptical of skepticism.

All my point is that describing how a beleif is formed does not provide the authority necessary to make these immediate beleifs the most important foundational beleifs in a whole worldview. If you do believe that they are the most important beleifs than how they are formed must provide the addequite authority upon which they become authoritative and normative which is a hallmark of empiricism if we are mostly talking about empirical beleifs.

I beg to differ: Anselm, I think, is right that the Christian God can be proven, it's just that the proof will never convince an unbeliever because he doesn't want to accept it.

Well my major argument against Anselm would be his notion of perfection. Where did he derive his notion of perfection from? Also he must accept a scale of being scheme that I do not like, nor did Van Til, that has being as a seperate concept from a thing, which is very problamatic.

But there is neutrality in some areas. The unbeliever and I both affirm that there are "rocks and trees and skies and seas." I can show him that God is there, but I can't make him believe---only God can do than that. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

Some neutrality in some areas doesn't equal enough neutrality to base an entire apologetical philosophy off of.

That help?


because it is a religous faith and not a general trust in something
Religious faith is indeed in view, ultimately, for Reid, but he isn't dealing with it directly, since he's basically just countering Hume and showing him up as absurd. His argument basically boils down to: as soon as you try to make skeptical arguments to an ordinary hardworking (and faithful) human being, such as would have been found in his congregation (remember he's a pastor at the parish level in addition to being a librarian) you get laughed at for good reason. His idea is that the skeptic has too much time on his hands and needs to get back into God's world. On a theological level, we might say that the cure for skepticism is the cultural mandate.

I mean religous faith in a broad sense that we all have something that we love and desire to worship and form our whole lives around, either it is our love of God or love of some idol.

 

[Philip]

True no one is doubting whether or not you can trust your senses because you see a tree. It is whether or not a whole edifice of a foundation with its own authority can be erected from them. A foundation is axiomatic like Clark but your axioms must be self-sustaining logically, or to put it another way they must have their own authority and need no beleifs to be true to in order for them to be true.

That's a Cartesian picture, though (Clark is basically a Cartesian with special revelation in place of the cogito). What Descartes is doing is asking his epistemology to function in the way that an ontology (or a geometry) does, with blasted obvious axioms leading through deduction to conclusions. The trouble is that our beliefs are not designed to function this way.

My beliefs don't have to be logically self-sustaining. For one thing, if they did, I'd be back at skepticism, because how would I know I hadn't committed a fallacy? That my reason was functioning properly?

I would say that these basic beliefs end up supporting one another, but they are individually basic, ie: I did not come to the conclusion "there is a tree" based on another belief. I looked and found myself believing "there is a tree." Similarly, I read Scripture and find myself believing "God created the world." Now, do these require other things to be true? Sure, but beliefs arrived at in such a manner are transcendental and therefore second-order. However, I have no problem with belief A being believed both at a basic level and on a transcendental level.

For example: I believe in God on a basic level based on Calvin's Sensus Divinitatus. So when I look out my window at the beautiful view (Covenant College is on a mountain), I find myself in an attitude of worship directed at God and I form the belief, "God is awesome" or (in Russellian form) "There is an x such that x is God and x is awesome."

Fair enough but you may conceptualize these attitudes into propositions about the attitude

Sure, but such propositions are a mask for the attitude. These attitudes may be helpful or detrimental. Again, I agree with Polanyi that there is no knowledge without personal commitment.

Can you really argue that if someone either logically assumes or consciencsly assumes a theory of reason that is proven reductio ad asbsurdeum to be false than that is a problem for them, and if this theory is a logical conclusion of their general theory of metaphysics than that would be a problem for them as well?

Yes, but all that it requires is a modification of the metaphysic.

No one is arguing for that only that you jump from immediate beleifs to those same beleifs becoming the ultimate beleifs epistomologically as basic beleifs

Again, what I mean by "basic" here is simply "arrived at in a basic manner." Again, presuppositions are just attitudes that shape conceptions of what sorts of beliefs can be basic.

I still don't see how you can justify the sensus of anyone?

Justify it to whom? In what duty have I failed if I provide no such justification?

Again, transcendental arguments are descriptive in nature.

Well my major argument against Anselm would be his notion of perfection. Where did he derive his notion of perfection from? Also he must accept a scale of being scheme that I do not like, nor did Van Til, that has being as a seperate concept from a thing, which is very problamatic.

I happen to think you differ from Van Til here.

I mean religous faith in a broad sense that we all have something that we love and desire to worship and form our whole lives around, either it is our love of God or love of some idol.

Absolutely---personal commitments are central to how our beliefs form.

 

[jwright82]

That's a Cartesian picture, though (Clark is basically a Cartesian with special revelation in place of the cogito). What Descartes is doing is asking his epistemology to function in the way that an ontology (or a geometry) does, with blasted obvious axioms leading through deduction to conclusions. The trouble is that our beliefs are not designed to function this way.

My beliefs don't have to be logically self-sustaining. For one thing, if they did, I'd be back at skepticism, because how would I know I hadn't committed a fallacy? That my reason was functioning properly?

I would say that these basic beliefs end up supporting one another, but they are individually basic, ie: I did not come to the conclusion "there is a tree" based on another belief. I looked and found myself believing "there is a tree." Similarly, I read Scripture and find myself believing "God created the world." Now, do these require other things to be true? Sure, but beliefs arrived at in such a manner are transcendental and therefore second-order. However, I have no problem with belief A being believed both at a basic level and on a transcendental level.

For example: I believe in God on a basic level based on Calvin's Sensus Divinitatus. So when I look out my window at the beautiful view (Covenant College is on a mountain), I find myself in an attitude of worship directed at God and I form the belief, "God is awesome" or (in Russellian form) "There is an x such that x is God and x is awesome."

Well than I do not understand the argument you are making. I do not see how your view of basic beleifs differs from mine. If you do not make these beleifs the foundation for any apologetical debate than what purpose do they serve? We can agree on this but how is it that you now differ from Van Til? The rest of your responses indiquate that I probably misunderstand so how do these basic beleifs function apologetically?

 

[Philip]

Well than I do not understand the argument you are making. I do not see how your view of basic beleifs differs from mine. If you do not make these beleifs the foundation for any apologetical debate than what purpose do they serve?

Well first off, many of these basic beliefs are shared between the unbeliever and I. If it is possible for me to "prove" that belief in X requires belief in Y, then that's a good argument.

More importantly, though, this model of rationality is meant to bring the debate precisely to that de facto level where the unbeliever's personal commitments must be laid bare. He can't hide behind the claim that my belief in God is somehow violating some standard of what is rational. A model of rationality, in order for him to attack it, must be attacked on that de facto level such that the only way for him to claim that Christian belief could not be warranted would be to prove that Christianity is false.

We can agree on this but how is it that you now differ from Van Til?

I differ in that I am a direct realist about the way in which we know most stuff.

 

[jwright82]

Well first off, many of these basic beliefs are shared between the unbeliever and I. If it is possible for me to "prove" that belief in X requires belief in Y, then that's a good argument.

More importantly, though, this model of rationality is meant to bring the debate precisely to that de facto level where the unbeliever's personal commitments must be laid bare. He can't hide behind the claim that my belief in God is somehow violating some standard of what is rational. A model of rationality, in order for him to attack it, must be attacked on that de facto level such that the only way for him to claim that Christian belief could not be warranted would be to prove that Christianity is false.

Well than I apologize for the misunderstanding on my part. We differ but not in any significant way. I prefer the transcendental argument but that does not preclude the use of evidences, just evidences in perspective.

I differ in that I am a direct realist about the way in which we know most stuff.

Well Van Til did maintain that we have real knowledge about things he just qualified how nuetral said knowledge is.

To get back to your OP, and off this misunderstanding on my part, how do you feel that Barth's insistance of there being no possibility for christian apologetics/philosophy and Van Til's insistance on both a christian apologetics/philosophy reflect perhaps a fundemental disagreement between the two?

 

[Philip]

how do you feel that Barth's insistance of there being no possibility for christian apologetics/philosophy and Van Til's insistance on both a christian apologetics/philosophy reflect perhaps a fundemental disagreement between the two?

To me, Van Til always feels very guilty and defensive about apologetics. That is to say, his whole project seems to be to develop a system of apologetics apart from natural theology. The difference would be that Barth didn't think apologetics apart from natural theology was possible.

 

[jwright82]

how do you feel that Barth's insistance of there being no possibility for christian apologetics/philosophy and Van Til's insistance on both a christian apologetics/philosophy reflect perhaps a fundemental disagreement between the two?

To me, Van Til always feels very guilty and defensive about apologetics. That is to say, his whole project seems to be to develop a system of apologetics apart from natural theology. The difference would be that Barth didn't think apologetics apart from natural theology was possible.

I don't think Van Til was defensive at all. He had a place for general revealation and evidences in his apologetic. What most people don't understand about him was that he was trying to put them in there place so to speak. He worked out very complex philosophical arguments against various philosophers. He seems to be inline with Dooyeweerd on a number of topics, so I like to view them together where I can. I believe Van Til to have have worked out the philosophical implications, not in exaustive detail, of the more or less dutch reformed tradition. I think that he worked out more of a method for doing apologetics than a detailed argument. If you read him and you think of what he is saying as developing a method than it makes more sense.

As far as Barth goes his unique views of revealational history seem to me to drive his views on natural theology and general revealation. Barth just ruled it out altogether because revealation has no point of contact in actual history at all.
What Van Til disliked about natural theology was that it was disatached from biblical theology and given its own autonomy, in the form of natural law. He pointed out that even in the garden of eden Adam needed special revealation from God to know what to do with nature. So for Van Til nature is authoritative but only when interpreted rightly. His disagreements with Dooyeweerd over christian philosophy have nothing to do with a christian philosophy per se but with the order of influence of philosophy on theology.