jwright82
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
I believe that this is one of the hardest elements of Van Til's ideas to understand. So I thought I would open up a discussion on it and offer my own explinination as to what I think he was saying.
First off I think that all he was refering to was basically a paradox and not a contradiction. Because we are creatures our ability to comprehend certian things is limited. Autonomous reason beleives that it can understand anything but that is not so. There are many things about God that we will never be able to understand because they are a mystery to us but that is o.k. because we must start with humility and go from there. Now it is the case that simply throwing the label of mystery on something is a little unfair, so I will deal with that next.
When someone tells me that they like my sweater I can in no way tell if they are being honest through the use of reason. For all practical purposes it doesn't matter but hypothetically if they are lying than I would never know. How could I use reason to peel back their mind and see if they are lying? I couldn't, hence a limitation on reason. In the same way I could never know things like why God allows certian kinds of evil to take place unless he reveals that to me. So in that sense it is a mystery that reason cannot coprehend. Is he under any obligation to tell any of us why he does what he does? No he is not.
We need to embrace mystery as essential to our apologetic. It is a mystery that we affirm both divine soverighnty and human responsibility at the same time. The only time we get a contradiction is when we start abstractly looking at these ideas. That is, how we define the terms can lead to contradictory ideas. If man is completly free in choosing things and God is completly soverighn in his dealings than that is a contradiction. If we affirm God's soverighnty and limit man's freedom than we no longer have a contradiction but a mystery.
I hope this makes sense, as much as we can make sense out of it. I look forward to any questions, comments, or criticisms.
First off I think that all he was refering to was basically a paradox and not a contradiction. Because we are creatures our ability to comprehend certian things is limited. Autonomous reason beleives that it can understand anything but that is not so. There are many things about God that we will never be able to understand because they are a mystery to us but that is o.k. because we must start with humility and go from there. Now it is the case that simply throwing the label of mystery on something is a little unfair, so I will deal with that next.
When someone tells me that they like my sweater I can in no way tell if they are being honest through the use of reason. For all practical purposes it doesn't matter but hypothetically if they are lying than I would never know. How could I use reason to peel back their mind and see if they are lying? I couldn't, hence a limitation on reason. In the same way I could never know things like why God allows certian kinds of evil to take place unless he reveals that to me. So in that sense it is a mystery that reason cannot coprehend. Is he under any obligation to tell any of us why he does what he does? No he is not.
We need to embrace mystery as essential to our apologetic. It is a mystery that we affirm both divine soverighnty and human responsibility at the same time. The only time we get a contradiction is when we start abstractly looking at these ideas. That is, how we define the terms can lead to contradictory ideas. If man is completly free in choosing things and God is completly soverighn in his dealings than that is a contradiction. If we affirm God's soverighnty and limit man's freedom than we no longer have a contradiction but a mystery.
I hope this makes sense, as much as we can make sense out of it. I look forward to any questions, comments, or criticisms.