J
JayDyer
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www.nicenetruth.com
[Note: This was written in '04, but the main point still stands. It’s been tweaked a bit. -Jay]
By: Jay Dyer
Having been an ardent student of Drs. Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bahnsen, formerly attending BTS, and having subsequently converted to Roman Catholicism a few years ago, I want to highlight a major inconsistency I see in reformed anthropology/epistemology and the presuppositionalism of the Van Tillian sort.
My criticism is that in order to be consistent, one should be affirm either a Catholic nature/grace epistemology (in the Augustinian and Thomistic tradition) or accept the logical conclusion of your reformed hamartiology: that of fideism/skepticism. I understand the challenge at first sounds strange reformed presuppositionalists, but allow me to explain. First, let’s set forth the major contradiction, and then follow with the necessary conclusion. All asterisks are mine for emphasis.
“Van Til’s Apologetic,” pg. 78); indeed, He is the most necessary Being; His existence being more certain than all else. Van Til says this over and over. That being the case, man is universally responsible to acknowledge His existence, because He is naturally known by all men (Rom. 1), who are in perpetual rebellion, unless regenerated by God’s grace. After conversion, God is known in a special way as Father, and no longer purely as Judge (so the reformed argument goes), as Calvin states in the first few sections of the Institutes. Van Til, following in this train, argues that God’s existence must be apologetically defended uncompromisingly with absolute certainty, or else one is really selling God short: to say His existence is only known with “probability” would be sacrilegious. Thus, the “classical” apologetic, according to Van Til, erroneously makes direct appeals to abstract concepts like “causality” and “teleology,” as if they were more foundational and certain than God’s own existence. Van Til concludes that one must accept the reformed faith as the only truly consistent form of Christianity, since evangelicalism and “Romanism” both radically err in viewing the “natural man” from a supposedly Semi-Pelagian perspective (which is completely false since we condemn semi-Pelagianism as a heresy).
In response to this, let it be said that the Thomist agrees with much of the above mentioned. God’s existence is known with certainty, and His existence is absolutely necessary. The Catholic, following St. Thomas, and contrary to reformed prejudices, does not view natural man’s intellect as “un-fallen,” as it is often charged. To be in a fallen state, for us, is essentially a negative state: lacking in divine life. But man’s nature is not an cannot become evil, since nature is good, as God said in Genesis. To affirm otherwise is Manichaeanism. But fallen man is in rebellion, to be sure, and he does have the proclivity to sin (for more on this, see my two articles On Nature and Grace: Part 1, Part 2). Several citations from the Summa Theologica should suffice to show that the Angelic Doctor viewed scriptural revelation as absolutely necessary, due to fallen man’s mind being corrupt and left in a deficient state. See, for example, Ia. Q. 1, where he clearly teaches that Scripture is superior to all other sciences (namely philosophy), and human reason is subordinate to divine revelation. In Ia Q. 1, Art. 8 he says that the unbeliever’s position must be attacked in its foundation, and since the faith is infallibly true, no unbelieving position can disprove it. He also states that Scripture is not ultimately proven by human reason, since reason is a tool. In Ia Q.3 and 13 he argues that wisdom, virtue, and knowledge are not univocal in God and man, and in “Aquinas on Nature and Grace,” pgs. 76-77, he cogently argues that the analogy of being is the correct position for how we know God, midway between purely equivocal and univocal knowledge. Hopefully that will begin to clear away some of the misconceptions of St. Thomas by the reformed.
Continued here.
[Note: This was written in '04, but the main point still stands. It’s been tweaked a bit. -Jay]
By: Jay Dyer
Having been an ardent student of Drs. Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bahnsen, formerly attending BTS, and having subsequently converted to Roman Catholicism a few years ago, I want to highlight a major inconsistency I see in reformed anthropology/epistemology and the presuppositionalism of the Van Tillian sort.
My criticism is that in order to be consistent, one should be affirm either a Catholic nature/grace epistemology (in the Augustinian and Thomistic tradition) or accept the logical conclusion of your reformed hamartiology: that of fideism/skepticism. I understand the challenge at first sounds strange reformed presuppositionalists, but allow me to explain. First, let’s set forth the major contradiction, and then follow with the necessary conclusion. All asterisks are mine for emphasis.
Code:
The transcendental argument, formulated in the Bahnsen/Van Tillian scheme, argues as follows: the existence of the Trinity is absolutely necessary as a precondition for all human predication and knowledge. Without God’s existence, one could not prove anything with absolute certainty. Thus, the unbeliever, in his natural state, fluctuates between two contradictory worldviews: that reality is ultimately rational and yet simultaneously irrational. In arguing against the Christian position, the unbeliever presupposes the Christian God at every point, while trying to disprove His existence. He is shown to be, as Van Til says, destroying the very foundation he stands on. Therefore, God’s existence is not proven directly by any empirical argument, but a priori: by the impossibility of His non-existence, because His existence is the necessary foundation for a coherent worldview with definite views of ethics, metaphysics and epistemology. It should also be said that for Van Til, the transcendental argument explicitly proves the Triune God of Christianity, and not any vague conception of monotheism. Van Til held that the transcendental argument necessitates the Trinity, and this is particularly illustrated by philosophical problem of the one and the many (see “Van Til’s Apologetic,” pg. 238-240). Such is the Bahnsen/Van Tillian presuppositional argument.
The reformed Van Tillian, then, firmly states that God’s existence is *absolutely certain,* (seeIn response to this, let it be said that the Thomist agrees with much of the above mentioned. God’s existence is known with certainty, and His existence is absolutely necessary. The Catholic, following St. Thomas, and contrary to reformed prejudices, does not view natural man’s intellect as “un-fallen,” as it is often charged. To be in a fallen state, for us, is essentially a negative state: lacking in divine life. But man’s nature is not an cannot become evil, since nature is good, as God said in Genesis. To affirm otherwise is Manichaeanism. But fallen man is in rebellion, to be sure, and he does have the proclivity to sin (for more on this, see my two articles On Nature and Grace: Part 1, Part 2). Several citations from the Summa Theologica should suffice to show that the Angelic Doctor viewed scriptural revelation as absolutely necessary, due to fallen man’s mind being corrupt and left in a deficient state. See, for example, Ia. Q. 1, where he clearly teaches that Scripture is superior to all other sciences (namely philosophy), and human reason is subordinate to divine revelation. In Ia Q. 1, Art. 8 he says that the unbeliever’s position must be attacked in its foundation, and since the faith is infallibly true, no unbelieving position can disprove it. He also states that Scripture is not ultimately proven by human reason, since reason is a tool. In Ia Q.3 and 13 he argues that wisdom, virtue, and knowledge are not univocal in God and man, and in “Aquinas on Nature and Grace,” pgs. 76-77, he cogently argues that the analogy of being is the correct position for how we know God, midway between purely equivocal and univocal knowledge. Hopefully that will begin to clear away some of the misconceptions of St. Thomas by the reformed.
Continued here.