I suppose I'm of the camp that most arguments about philosophical methodology to be mostly fruitless when it comes to conversion.
I've gone back and forth on whether or not I appreciate what Van Til was trying to get at. More recently, Ive found it fruitful to listen to several Reromed Forum discussions on both Vos and Van Til and the "deeper Protestant conception" about God.
I had read Van Til's chapter in The Infallible Word years ago and found it useful to understand what he is really driving at with respect to Natrual Revelation.
I think the longer I've been an Elder and the more I've studied and peached on the NT concelption of salvation as not mreely freeing us from the guilt of sin, but from its dominion, the less I am attracted to philsophical wranglings about evidence or logic as a bridge to understanding God.
I tell my kids all the time that it's not because people are too dumb to understand the logic of the Gospel, but they are under the thrall of sin and death.
It's not that I reject logic or common grace. I work as an Exec in IT and have great respect for those wo employ their minds to accomplish great things. I trust their deliberations on many matters more than I trust the arm chair ideas of many Christians who believe that their status as a Christian gives them insight on things they have never really studied.
Yet, as smart as any are, smarter than many of you, I cannot create the logical or phlosophical bridge to bring them from death to life.
Furthermore, the longer I listen to those who are convinced that people are just not using reason properly or need to understand Christianity in a certain way, the more I see them retreating from the ofensive claims of the Gospel. Ether that or, in the desire to remain completely philsophical, they'll turn the argument for God into an issue of the "most probable" explanation for reality.
I know there are some today who employ a form of what they think is a Neo-Calvinistic approach to the culture to turn Christianity into the "subversive fulfillment" of all the systems that men create to recognize the image of God and intellect of those around them. Even TAG is a bit too much into the "show me how your system works and I'll show you how it falls to pieces". in my opinion, no matter what you do, there is no way to make a bridge to life. You might convince a person he/she has built their house on sand but, apart from the Spirit of God, they are no closer to life. Christ exposed many men and some came to faith by the Spirit but others walked away sad or just angry.
I guess, in the end, I've sort of come to the point where I read Van Til trying to come up with words to point out how far men can get with modern phlosophy or even pointing out (as Vos and others have) where forms of theological mutualism end up denying the Creator/creature distinction.
In the end, I find myself to be a creature who knows his Savior not primarily becausee I know more than my neighbor or members of my family but because Christ died to set me free and sent His Spirit to convert me in the preaching of the Word. Try putting that into a logical syllogism if you like, but I cannot convert those I love by simply telling htem the facts. That said, I cannot also just deny that God exists for the sake of arguing with them in the hopes that they'll understand some bit of logic that I want them to agree with.
I've gone back and forth on whether or not I appreciate what Van Til was trying to get at. More recently, Ive found it fruitful to listen to several Reromed Forum discussions on both Vos and Van Til and the "deeper Protestant conception" about God.
I had read Van Til's chapter in The Infallible Word years ago and found it useful to understand what he is really driving at with respect to Natrual Revelation.
I think the longer I've been an Elder and the more I've studied and peached on the NT concelption of salvation as not mreely freeing us from the guilt of sin, but from its dominion, the less I am attracted to philsophical wranglings about evidence or logic as a bridge to understanding God.
I tell my kids all the time that it's not because people are too dumb to understand the logic of the Gospel, but they are under the thrall of sin and death.
It's not that I reject logic or common grace. I work as an Exec in IT and have great respect for those wo employ their minds to accomplish great things. I trust their deliberations on many matters more than I trust the arm chair ideas of many Christians who believe that their status as a Christian gives them insight on things they have never really studied.
Yet, as smart as any are, smarter than many of you, I cannot create the logical or phlosophical bridge to bring them from death to life.
Furthermore, the longer I listen to those who are convinced that people are just not using reason properly or need to understand Christianity in a certain way, the more I see them retreating from the ofensive claims of the Gospel. Ether that or, in the desire to remain completely philsophical, they'll turn the argument for God into an issue of the "most probable" explanation for reality.
I know there are some today who employ a form of what they think is a Neo-Calvinistic approach to the culture to turn Christianity into the "subversive fulfillment" of all the systems that men create to recognize the image of God and intellect of those around them. Even TAG is a bit too much into the "show me how your system works and I'll show you how it falls to pieces". in my opinion, no matter what you do, there is no way to make a bridge to life. You might convince a person he/she has built their house on sand but, apart from the Spirit of God, they are no closer to life. Christ exposed many men and some came to faith by the Spirit but others walked away sad or just angry.
I guess, in the end, I've sort of come to the point where I read Van Til trying to come up with words to point out how far men can get with modern phlosophy or even pointing out (as Vos and others have) where forms of theological mutualism end up denying the Creator/creature distinction.
In the end, I find myself to be a creature who knows his Savior not primarily becausee I know more than my neighbor or members of my family but because Christ died to set me free and sent His Spirit to convert me in the preaching of the Word. Try putting that into a logical syllogism if you like, but I cannot convert those I love by simply telling htem the facts. That said, I cannot also just deny that God exists for the sake of arguing with them in the hopes that they'll understand some bit of logic that I want them to agree with.
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