crhoades
Puritan Board Graduate
Not to rabbit trail the thread even more, but from your perspective what did Van Til consider to be the point of contact? I thought he would argue for the same inconsistency.
David Chilton on Natural Law
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Not to rabbit trail the thread even more, but from your perspective what did Van Til consider to be the point of contact? I thought he would argue for the same inconsistency.
Mr. Wilder, I liked your statement at the end of the last post quite a bit, so I copied it onto my blog. http://vahskresenye.solideogloria.com/?p=76
Schaeffer complained about this. He would run into it when Van Til's students came to L'Abri. They would tell people "I can't talk to you unless you accept my presuppositions." because Van Til had taught them that there was no other point of contact. If there was no other point of contact all that is left is "witness and wait for the grace of God to strike" as with Barth. But Schaeffer believed that there was always a point of contact because the nature God had created in man and outside of man has an inescapable character.
to your wise posts Rev. Winzer!In discussions I have had with people regarding the civil magistrate's responsibility to regulate both tables of the law, I have often argued that a lack to enforce the first table implies a "right" to the contrary of the first 4 commandments given to the people. It is obvious that God does not give people any "rights" to worship another God, or to take his name in vain. However, to say that the civil magistrate can institute these rights to men seems to make the civil magistrate NOT an extension of God for good, but rather an autonomous institution (i.e. a law unto itself). This is not how I see the role of the civil magistrate in scripture. Even the civil magistrate has the duty to recognize Christ as King (the Proverbs!) and to submit to his law as the ultimate law for all time.
I also believe that there can be visible transgressions of the first table of the law. Blasphemy and the Sabbath are both examples.
The sense of deity is a different point of contact than man's humanity or outer nature. One can claim that it is there, but getting hold of it for apologetics purposes is another matter.
This distinction may never have occured to Van Til, who mostly dealt in the dialectics of abstractions.
It's a theoretical point of contact, one you can seldom put your finger on. Schaeffer used as points of contact the difference between what people professed and their actual conduct and commitments, that is, specific and concrete points of contact.
Van Til's point of contact is the sort of abstraction that is characteristic of his stuff in general. The sort of thing that you would have to "agree with his presuppositions" to even see as being there.
"Van Til knew that because man was a creature of God he could not avoid the image popping up in all he says and does."
"So, if the above claim of yours is enough for a reputable point of contact, then Van Til had it. "
You still don't get the distinction.
Schaeffer was talking about meeting people where that are at, because there there will be found a point of contact.
Bahnsen and Van Til are gasbagging about what the implications of peoples' point of view really are (as seen from Vantilian presuppositions) if they only knew it.
Read any attempt of Van Til's to take on another point of view. The other point of view is never what it says it is. It is always some dialectec between two abtractions. To accept the analysis one would have to agree with Van Til in the first place. It is the apologetics of pontifications from the podium. Both abstruse and useless.
"So, if the above claim of yours is enough for a reputable point of contact, then Van Til had it. "
You still don't get the distinction.
Schaeffer was talking about meeting people where that are at, because there there will be found a point of contact.
Bahnsen and Van Til are gasbagging about what the implications of peoples' point of view really are (as seen from Vantilian presuppositions) if they only knew it.
Read any attempt of Van Til's to take on another point of view. The other point of view is never what it says it is. It is always some dialectec between two abtractions. To accept the analysis one would have to agree with Van Til in the first place. It is the apologetics of pontifications from the podium. Both abstruse and useless.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Lol!^
Ignoring all the pseudo-depth psychology, let us take your new evidence that you don't get it.
Taking some supposed viewpoint and critiquing it is precisly not a dialogue with a concrete individual and dealing with that individual's changing life and views as they are.
The fact that you can't see the difference between that and debates and philosophical jabber shows that <<you don't get it>>. You still don't understand what it is that you are tried to claim Van Til did.
As for how good Shaeffer's philosophical critiques were, who cares? After all that is NOT what we are taking aboug here. You only think it is because <<you don't get it>>.
So what if Bahnsen was a good debater? That is not the point. It is not what we talking about, but you think it is because <<you don't get it>>.
Too bad he couldn't teach it to his students instead of producing a cult of personality full of fanatics.
From an article "The Two Tables of the Law" by Alan Reinach
http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/502/1/82/
"For centuries Protestants have found a convenient division between the first and second tables of the ten-commandment law. Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, was the first American to associate two concepts: the separation of church and state and the two tables of the law. It was Williams, not Thomas Jefferson, who coined the phrase about a hedge, or wall, separating the garden of the church from the wilderness of the state."
"Williams also conceived that the first four commandments, or the first table of the law, addressed one's obligations to worship God, while the last six commandments, the second table, addressed one's civil obligations. The American Protestant concept of separation of church and state was largely built on this distinction. Thus state law could properly address moral issues such as adultery, stealing, and murder because these were in the second table of the law."
...
"Under the American constitutional system, the state has no charge to order public morality according to the second table of the ten-commandment law, but neither is the state compelled to reject the second table. It is entirely legitimate for Americans to invoke the commandments in public policy debate, so long as the distinction between the first and second tables is observed."
So it seems that the New Confessionalism is Baptist.
http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/502/1/82/
"For centuries Protestants have found a convenient division between the first and second tables of the ten-commandment law. Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, was the first American to associate two concepts: the separation of church and state and the two tables of the law. It was Williams, not Thomas Jefferson, who coined the phrase about a hedge, or wall, separating the garden of the church from the wilderness of the state."
"Williams also conceived that the first four commandments, or the first table of the law, addressed one's obligations to worship God, while the last six commandments, the second table, addressed one's civil obligations. The American Protestant concept of separation of church and state was largely built on this distinction. Thus state law could properly address moral issues such as adultery, stealing, and murder because these were in the second table of the law."
...
"Under the American constitutional system, the state has no charge to order public morality according to the second table of the ten-commandment law, but neither is the state compelled to reject the second table. It is entirely legitimate for Americans to invoke the commandments in public policy debate, so long as the distinction between the first and second tables is observed."
So it seems that the New Confessionalism is Baptist.
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