Determinism and Van Til

[timfost]

Hi all,

I was speaking to someone recently who is a proponent of determinism. He even uses language such as God making us sin even though He is not to blame for our sin.

I gently challenged the terminology when I asked him about how he reconciles the idea of God making someone sin with the freedom of the will. He said that he agrees with Van Til on the matter while I would seem to agree with Gordon Clark. I mentioned that I rather saw myself in agreement with historic Reformed theology (Westminster in particular on this one) while he espoused Jonathan Edwards doctrine regarding God's decree.

Questions:

1. I haven't read enough CVT. Did he promote determinism?

2. Did Clark agree with historic Reformed doctrine on the decree?

3. What resources would you recommend someone with his views?

Thanks!

 

[jwithnell]

I'd try not to allow someone to throw around prominent names and instead would discuss the issues by how they appear in scripture. Names are helpful as a shortcut when discussing the fine points of an issue but are useless when determining what the scriptures actually teach.

 

[timfost]

I'd try not to allow someone to throw around prominent names and instead would discuss the issues by how they appear in scripture. Names are helpful as a shortcut when discussing the fine points of an issue but are useless when determining what the scriptures actually teach.

I think that's good advice. I'm certainly ready and willing to have that conversation. I'd like to be able to read CVT and GC on the matter if relevant since they have a post Enlightenment perspective (most of my reading has been from earlier authors), especially since he mentioned these names.

Thanks!

 

[TylerRay]

Hi all,

I was speaking to someone recently who is a proponent of determinism. He even uses language such as God making us sin even though He is not to blame for our sin.

I gently challenged the terminology when I asked him about how he reconciles the idea of God making someone sin with the freedom of the will. He said that he agrees with Van Til on the matter while I would seem to agree with Gordon Clark. I mentioned that I rather saw myself in agreement with historic Reformed theology (Westminster in particular on this one) while he espoused Jonathan Edwards doctrine regarding God's decree.

Questions:

1. I haven't read enough CVT. Did he promote determinism?

2. Did Clark agree with historic Reformed doctrine on the decree?

3. What resources would you recommend someone with his views?

Thanks!

Tim,
I don't know what he's on about; I've never heard of a difference between Clark and Van Til on Free Will and determinism. That being said, the burden of proof is on him to prove his assertion. If he's not willing to substantiate that claim, I wouldn't bother digging through books that he's probably never read, looking for something that's probably not in them, only to answer a fool according to his folly.

Generally speaking, people who deny free moral agency/free will haven't read much Reformed theology.

 

[Taylor]

Here are my brief responses to your questions:

1) What do we even mean by "determinism"? If by "determinism" we mean generally that all future events (from our perspective; there is no time for God) are as it were "set in stone" by a guiding principle, then I would think every Christian theist is in this sense a determinist. The only way to avoid this charge is to become an open theist. However, if we mean by "determinism" a blind, materialistic fate, then no, Van Til absolutely did not espouse determinism. Just perusing through my Logos collection of his works, I found multiple places where he compares unfavorably materialistic determinism with rationalism. In fact, for Van Til, materialistic determinism cuts at the root of all meaning: "Any form of determinism does away immediately with the biblical conception of God and his intelligent world plan" (Evil and Theodicy, Part 2, "Schleiermacher and Müller").

2) As far as I am aware, the primary disagreement between Clark and Van Til had to do with their respective understandings of the nature of human knowledge in relation to God's—whether it differs merely in quantity (Clark) or also in quality (Van Til) from God's. Others more astute in the historical and philosophical landscape of this controversy can correct or elaborate. Either way, I could not imagine Clark and Van Til disagreed on how God's sovereignty relates to the human will. They were both Westminsterians.

3) I'm not sure I know of any particular resources directly related to this matter outside the usual ones: confessional material, Reformed treatises (such as Calvin's Institutes), modern treatments of divine sovereignty, etc. Obviously, as has already been said above, this person needs actually to read Van Til before he makes claims such as he has.

 

[TheOldCourse]

Hi all,

I was speaking to someone recently who is a proponent of determinism. He even uses language such as God making us sin even though He is not to blame for our sin.

I gently challenged the terminology when I asked him about how he reconciles the idea of God making someone sin with the freedom of the will. He said that he agrees with Van Til on the matter while I would seem to agree with Gordon Clark. I mentioned that I rather saw myself in agreement with historic Reformed theology (Westminster in particular on this one) while he espoused Jonathan Edwards doctrine regarding God's decree.

Questions:

1. I haven't read enough CVT. Did he promote determinism?

2. Did Clark agree with historic Reformed doctrine on the decree?

3. What resources would you recommend someone with his views?

Thanks!

I've not heard that of either CVT or Clark, but I'm not extensively read in either. I read Clark's book on Predestination and his Reason, Religion, and Revelation many years ago and I recall them to be historically orthodox on that point at least, but it's been a long time and they're packed away in a box somewhere. Edwards, however, could justly be accused of deviating from historic Reformed orthodoxy on the matter and espousing a form of determinism. While Edwards is a bit more nuanced, virtually every time I run into a Christian determinist they are heavily influenced by him.

 

[timfost]

What do we even mean by "determinism"?

Our context was determinism (philosophical necessity) contra Westminster formulations. Edwards, in his understanding of God's decree, seems to make God the author of sin. With language like "God makes people sin," we seem to lose freedom of the will as God's decree "falls out" freely.

 

[Grant]

Our context was determinism (philosophical necessity) contra Westminster formulations. Edwards, in his understanding of God's decree, seems to make God the author of sin. With language like "God makes people sin," we seem to lose freedom of the will as God's decree "falls out" freely.

His view of Edwards may as well likely stem from him not reading him much. One should always approach defending a position from a dead theologian's supposed "stance" in a "tread lightly" manner. Especially considering those not alive to defend/verify claims. There is a place for it, but it should be approached very carefully and thoroughly studied.

This article may/may not help one see a clearer stance of Edwards, and further may help the brother have better understanding of his own definition of "determinsism"

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/...od-the-author-of-sin-jonathan-edwards-answer/

 

[Taylor]

One should always approach defending a position from a dead theologian's supposed "stance" in a "tread lightly" manner.

This is great advice, especially regarding those theologians who wrote as much as Edwards (Yale is up to 73 volumes). Furthermore, even more so ought we to "tread lightly" when several reputable scholars who have devoted themselves to a certain theologian cannot themselves agree on how to properly interpret him. In the case of Edwards, we have major disagreements on his view of the atonement (e.g., Oliver Crisp, I believe), whether or not he was pantheistic (e.g., Charles Hodge), or whether or not he held to a Reformed view of justification—just to name a few issues.

 

[Grant]

This is great advice, especially regarding those theologians who wrote as much as Edwards (Yale is up to 73 volumes). Furthermore, even more so ought we to "tread lightly" when several reputable scholars who have devoted themselves to a certain theologian cannot themselves agree on how to properly interpret him. In the case of Edwards, we have major disagreements on his view of the atonement (e.g., Oliver Crisp, I believe), whether or not he was pantheistic (e.g., Charles Hodge), or whether or not he held to a Reformed view of justification—just to name a few issues.

Edwards deserves our foremost Charity in my opinion.

 

[RamistThomist]

I think we are all compatibilists here: that means we believe divine determination is compatible with humans making real moral choices.

In one sense, believing in predestination, we are determinists.

 

[timfost]

I think we are all compatibilists here: that means we believe divine determination is compatible with humans making real moral choices.

In one sense, believing in predestination, we are determinists.

Technically, isn't compatibilism simply an offshoot of determinism ("soft determinism") that developed post Enlightenment?

See https://reformedbooksonline.com/the...the-will-vs-philosophical-necessity/#articles

 

[TylerRay]

Technically, isn't compatibilism simply an offshoot of determinism ("soft determinism") that developed post Enlightenment?

See https://reformedbooksonline.com/the...the-will-vs-philosophical-necessity/#articles

That may have been when that specific terminology developed, but there are many types of determinism and many different types of necessity. I think Travis is probably using his terms too narrowly in his article; not all philosophers use the same lexicon.

 

[timfost]

Fesko touches on this issue relating to Edwards:

"One has to wonder whether this perception of the nature of the decree has been caused by reading the Confession in the light of later developments in Reformed theology rather than in its own historical-theological context. A factor contributing to the misreading of the Confession is the theology of Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), who denied the idea of contingency, something the Confession affirms. Edwards instead taught the idea of philosophical necessity, which he defined as “nothing else than the full and fix’d Connection between the Things signified by the Subject & Predicate of a Proposition, which affirms Something to be true. When there is such a Connection, then the Thing affirmed in the Proposition is necessary, in a Philosophical Sense.”5 Nothing, according to Edwards, can occur without a cause, and there is a “fixed connection ”between cause and effect. For Edwards, if everything has a cause, there can be no contingency in the world. For him, contingency means that something has no cause. Therefore, Edwards writes: "If Things may be without Causes, all this necessary Connection and Dependence is dissolved, and so all Means of our Knowledge is gone. If there be no Absurdity or Difficulty in supposing one Thing to start out of Non-Existence, into Being, of itself without a Cause; then there is no Absurdity or Difficulty in supposing the same of Millions and Millions.""

 

[Joshua]

In Soviet Russia, determinism is a proponent of you!

 

[timfost]

That may have been when that specific terminology developed, but there are many types of determinism and many different types of necessity. I think Travis is probably using his terms too narrowly in his article; not all philosophers use the same lexicon.

I understand that different people have used this terminology differently. My concern for this gentleman is that by saying that God makes people sin, he effectively denies second causes and makes God the author of sin, at least according to his logic.

 

[TheOldCourse]

Edwards deserves our foremost Charity in my opinion.

It's not charity, it's just what he teaches. Virtually all Edwards experts agree that he deviated from historic Reformed views of contingency and will. Modern scholars admit it, his contemporaries charged him with it. Richard Muller has demonstrated it rather extensively. Where people differ is how severe his deviation was. Many see it as a mild recasting of Reformed doctrines in response to Enlightenment challenges. Some, including some of his Scottish contemporaries, saw it as a serious departure and rendered Edwards outside the bounds of Reformed confessionalism. William Hamilton accused him of heresy (while Cunningham defended him from so severe a charge). He certainly doesn't admit God as the author of sin, however his beliefs on determinism, occasionalism, providence, etc. make it a much more difficult charge for him to escape than previous Reformed divines. Some of his modern followers (and I was tempted to do the same in my early Edwardsian days many years past) don't see the value in fighting the charge and just acknowledge it.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

See Chapters 12 through 14 of Boa's book for a reasonable introduction to both men's views and approaches:

https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Has-Its-Reasons-Integrative-ebook/dp/B0087HTC02/

A snippet from the book:

Whereas Van Til’s apologetic system may be described as a transcendental
presuppositionalism, Clark’s is best characterized as deductive presuppositionalism. The difference is subtle but important.

According to Van Til, the apologist should argue that logic, truth, meaning, and value can be what they are only on the presupposition that the God of Scripture is real. Truth is found everywhere in God’s world, but this truth can be known only because we are created in God’s image and have been given the capacity to know God’s truth. The transcendent God of Scripture provides a transcendental point of reference; it is from God that all truth comes and it is in the light of God that all truth is known.

By contrast, Clark maintained that all that could truly be known was to be found in Scripture itself. In his view, knowledge of truth requires deductive proof, and nothing can be deduced from the uncertain facts of the natural world or of the human mind. Furthermore, inductive reasoning is unreliable, because “all inductive arguments are formal fallacies” when judged by the canons of deductive reasoning, and so cannot be used to arrive at truth. The only source of indisputable premises with which logic can work is the Bible. So, Clark argued, the infallible statements of Scripture provide the only source of certain knowledge, and only what the Bible actually says, or what can be logically deduced from those biblical statements, constitutes real knowledge.​

Also from the book (op. cit.):


Mod Note: No debates in this thread on the veracity of the above for either Clark or Van Til. Please feel free to start another thread or review the many that have come before.

 

[Grant]

make it a much more difficult charge for him to escape than previous Reformed divines.

Actually it makes it quite impossible for him to escape the charges, because he’s dead. That was my main point. I don’t necessarily disagree with your charge, I was just providing a gentle reminder that I do think we owe the man something before we lump him in with people that claim “God is the Author of Sin”.

The man preached the gospel and led (by the Spirit) many to repentance. He was not perfect but no heretic.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

I think we are all compatibilists here: that means we believe divine determination is compatible with humans making real moral choices.

I would replace "compatible" with "concurrent" to avoid any charge that God is somehow tempting another to sin. "There is a concurrence to the action, though not to the sinfulness of it" (HT: Charnock).

 

[TheOldCourse]

Actually it makes it quite impossible for him to escape the charges, because he’s dead. That was my main point. I don’t necessarily disagree with your charge, I was just providing a gentle reminder that I do think we owe the man something before we lump him in with people that claim “God is the Author of Sin”.

The man preached the gospel and led (by the Spirit) many to repentance. He was not perfect but no heretic.

While I'm not drawing an equivalency in terms of severity of error, but Arminius and Pelagius are dead and that doesn't mean we should go easy on them. Or Richard Baxter if you would prefer someone a little closer to home. There are many who preached the gospel and led others, by God's grace, to repentance but that doesn't mean we should excuse them for their errors.

I believe that it is very important that we're clear about Edwards' idiosyncracies as he's been lately championed in popular circles as an, and perhaps the, exemplar of Reformed theology and piety and he is not that, though he may be a great theologian and thinker. Much of the resurgence of Calvinistic determinism comes from the Piperian "Edwards is my homeboy" crowd. We ought to be calling people back to biblical and confessional orthodoxy--ad fontes!--rather than Lockean philosophical meanderings.

 

[Grant]

While I'm not drawing an equivalency in terms of severity of error, but Arminius and Pelagius are dead and that doesn't mean we should go easy on them. Or Richard Baxter if you would prefer someone a little closer to home. There are many who preached the gospel and led others, by God's grace, to repentance but that doesn't mean we should excuse them for their errors.

I believe that it is very important that we're clear about Edwards' idiosyncracies as he's been lately championed in popular circles as an, and perhaps the, exemplar of Reformed theology and piety and he is not that, though he may be a great theologian and thinker. Much of the resurgence of Calvinistic determinism comes from the Piperian "Edwards is my homeboy" crowd. We ought to be calling people back to biblical and confessional orthodoxy--ad fontes!--rather than Lockean philosophical meanderings.

While all that is true that may be getting into topics worthy of another thread.
Edwards did have errors... but we can’t multiply his errors because others abuse him. I agree his popularity is increasing as of late.

Again I am not advocating excusing theological error, nor do I believe we should overlook calling out error. I just see more blame on people misunderstanding theologians they have not spent the time to actually read (that is not pointed at you).

 

[RamistThomist]

I would replace "compatible" with "concurrent" to avoid any charge that God is somehow tempting another to sin. "There is a concurrence to the action, though not to the sinfulness of it" (HT: Charnock).

I agree with that. I was just using the current (bad pun) philosophical lingo.

 

[timfost]

Actually it makes it quite impossible for him to escape the charges, because he’s dead. That was my main point. I don’t necessarily disagree with your charge, I was just providing a gentle reminder that I do think we owe the man something before we lump him in with people that claim “God is the Author of Sin”.

The man preached the gospel and led (by the Spirit) many to repentance. He was not perfect but no heretic.

My qualms with Edwards are against this particular doctrine. He was a great man and theologian. His theology now is far better than mine.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

It's interesting that I just discovered this topic. I wrote a paper several years ago that studies the distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology. The issue of "mystery" or "paradox" is key here because many Christians fail to recognize the Creator/creature distinction in knowledge and this would pertain to how they approach the subject of determinism. I believe Clark's approach to knowledge where man's knowledge is univocal to God's violates the prologomena of Reformed theology that has historically insisted upon the fact that all our knowledge is analogical. We can never penetrate the Divine essence and we are supposed to end in speaking where Scripture stops speaking. It doesn't mean that we try to hold two autonomously rational ideas in conflict or contradiction but that we are not able to reason to things that God alone can comprehend.

You'll find Van Til's thinking on this issue of the distinction between archetypal/ectypal theology reflected throughout the paper. He was following the Reformed consensus on this truth and this is at the heart of the criticism leveled at Clark.

 

[timfost]

It's interesting that I just discovered this topic. I wrote a paper several years ago that studies the distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology. The issue of "mystery" or "paradox" is key here because many Christians fail to recognize the Creator/creature distinction in knowledge and this would pertain to how they approach the subject of determinism. I believe Clark's approach to knowledge where man's knowledge is univocal to God's violates the prologomena of Reformed theology that has historically insisted upon the fact that all our knowledge is analogical. We can never penetrate the Divine essence and we are supposed to end in speaking where Scripture stops speaking. It doesn't mean that we try to hold two autonomously rational ideas in conflict or contradiction but that we are not able to reason to things that God alone can comprehend.

You'll find Van Til's thinking on this issue of the distinction between archetypal/ectypal theology reflected throughout the paper. He was following the Reformed consensus on this truth and this is at the heart of the criticism leveled at Clark.

Thanks, Rich, I look forward to reading it!

The distinction between ectypal and archetypal has been incredibly helpful to me. On a very practical level, it helps me see my place as a creature and God's incredible condescension in communicating His Word to someone like me. It is miraculous (and mysterious) that truth can even be communicated to us finite creatures.

 

[RamistThomist]

Thanks, Rich, I look forward to reading it!

The distinction between ectypal and archetypal has been incredibly helpful to me. On a very practical level, it helps me see my place as a creature and God's incredible condescension in communicating His Word to someone like me. It is miraculous (and mysterious) that truth can even be communicated to us finite creatures.

Take it a step further: God exists outside of time, and hence, as the Eastern Fathers would say, motion. In archetypal reflections, he is outside time. What that practically means is we can't project what it is like for us to will inside of time onto God.

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

He said that he agrees with Van Til on the matter while I would seem to agree with Gordon Clark. I mentioned that I rather saw myself in agreement with historic Reformed theology (Westminster in particular on this one)

I think that you are adopting the right approach, Tim. I have noticed that certain proponents of error like to hide behind Van Til and Clark as a cloak for promoting whatever bizarre philosophical notions that they are espousing. In order not to fall into the trap that they are setting for you, it is best to tell them that you have no interest in Van Til or Clark (and given that the writings of both of them were a literary nightmare who could blame you?) and that you are only interested in addressing the matter in light of scripture and confessional Reformed theology.

 

[RamistThomist]

Ironically, both men complement each other.

Clark said a person was a bundle of propositions (meditate on that for a while). He denied the ectypal distinction.

Van Til said some really funny things about the trinity.