abstract: in order to reason at all, assumptions must be made about reality, our ability to speak about it or interpret it, and the nature of our common ground, if any

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by John Fielding

Introduction

Van Til is an enigma to those of us who studied under him or who have struggled through his books. His books are always filled with brilliant insights, but it is very difficult to remember where any single insight appeared. They are scattered like loose diamonds throughout his writings, but they never seem to fit in any particular slot. Any given insight might just as well be in any of his books--or all of them. (In fact, it may be in all of them.) They are not systematically placed brilliant insights. They are just brilliant. He makes good use from them, too; he repeats the same ones in many of his books. "No use throwing this away after only one time; it's almost like new. I'll use it again!" The man is clearly Dutch....

Watch for his analogies. Rationalism and irrationalism will be taking in each other's washing for a living. There will be a chain of being lying around somewhere, probably right next to the infinitely long cord that the beads with no holes are supposed to decorate. Some child will be trying to slap her father's face while sitting on his lap, and someone out in the garage will be sharpening a buzz saw that is set at the wrong angle. Warning: if you don't watch your step, you could trip over the full-bucket problem. And so it goes, book after book....

Van Til is a classic puzzler.... Van Til takes any system you hand him, and he breaks it down into its component parts, turning the pieces over and over in his mind, finding out what it is and how it works. The problem is, he never puts the pieces back together. He just leaves them scattered around on the floor. "Next!"1

I was introduced to Cornelius Van Til's writings in 1975. I had been a Christian for two years and was looking for some works on apologetics. I went to a Christian bookstore in College Park, Maryland where I found two books: Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict and Van Til's The Defense of the Faith. I started reading Van Til's work immediately. It was hard and boring, and its style of apologetics didn't seem to have much to do with defending anything. So, I put it aside and didn't pick it up again until my senior year at Washington Bible College. By then, I was ready for an apologetic that wanted to go on the offensive rather than remain on the defensive. After attending a Van Tillian seminary by choice, I have discovered that Van Til's way of viewing the world, and the apologetic method growing out of it, has been useful no matter where I have been: out on the street, on an undergraduate campus, or in the highest levels of academia.

Van Til's theological and apologetical analysis has informed many, including the Reconstructionist movement, Francis Schaeffer, E. J. Carnell, and John Frame. It has sharpened my ability to get to the issue . It is the basis for the question Greg Bahnsen liked to ask an unbelieving world trying to get along without God: "How's it going?"

This essay will not be the end all and be all of Van Tillian analysis. Van Til is hard and convoluted. Many people have written more detailed analyses of his writings.2 This essay is an introduction to some major themes in his work and how they influence his apologetic method. I also hope to show how the method works, how it interacts with other approaches, and how it may be applied to some practical issues facing us today.

I. Van Til and Theology.

One of the important principles undergirding the Van Tillian approach to apologetics is that theology and apologetics deal with the same subject matter. Unlike approaches that assume that the facts are "neutral," are equally available to prove or disprove a theological position, and that, therefore, the historicity of the resurrection or the philosophical necessity of the existence of some god somewhere must be proved before we can get on to the "really important stuff," Van Til holds that such reasoning gives up the Christian faith and does not adequately expose the theological underpinnings of competing views. In other words, in order to reason at all, assumptions must be made about reality, our ability to speak about it or interpret it, and the nature of our "common ground," if any; in short, a lot of theological assumptions.3 Thus, any system must be defended by defending the entire system using assumptions gleaned from the entire system, i.e., a "blockhouse" methodology.4 Thus, to explain Van Til's methodology, we must expound his theological assumptions.

1. God and the Creation.

a. The Trinity. Seeing God as a Trinity in Scripture is a necessity for Van Til's system. The reason why is that it provides a basis for the essential equality of universality and diversity. It is the source for the notion of covenantal unity, in contrast to a unity and/or diversity founded on some other basis.5 For example, Ephesians 4 speaks of the church being a unity in the Spirit. It also speaks of the means of achieving a closer unity which is the growth of the diverse individuals and the increase of the development and use of their gifts. Thus, unity and diversity are found in perfect balance through the unity of the Spirit in covenantal allegiance.

The search for unity without sacrificing diversity has been a social phenomenon upon which I have commented elsewhere.6 We see the search as well in more mundane affairs: try arranging books according to subject matter; where does one subject end and another begin? All classification schemes run into this problem of "the one and the many." Van Til's system provides a corrective for both libertarians who tend toward a very tenuous unity, and various collectivist systems such as fascism and communism that wish to submerge the individual in the overall collective.

b. The Creator. As the Creator, God created the universe out of nothing and stamped His imprint on it. However, God is infinite, uncreated Being. The creation is finite, created being. Thus, as one of my seminary professors was fond of repeating, "He is not it and it is not He." This is known as the "Creator-creature distinction." Certain results follow from a proper understanding of the creation.

First, God's covenantal unity and diversity are part and parcel of the creation. One may not be reduced to the other without contorting the creation.7

Second, all facts in the creation exist in covenantal unity. Covenantal facts are tied together by covenantal law.8 Van Til writes:

There can therefore be no fact which is ultimately out of accord with the system of truth set forth in Scripture. Every fact in the universe is what it is just because of the place that it has in this system.9

Third, all of creation reveals God. There is no place a person may go and escape the revelation of God.10 Wherever man faces a fact, he is "face-to-face with God."11 Therefore, man is always responsible for rejecting God's revelation.12

Fourth, the relationship of men to God's covenantal facts are, thus, either that of covenant-keepers, those that acknowledge God, or covenant-breakers, those that do not acknowledge God.13 Scott Oliphint comments that "[m]an always and everywhere either breaks or keeps covenant with God by the way he sees and lives life in God's world."14

Fifth, even though man was created "very good," he was only as good as a man could be. Thus, man, even in created perfection, had a limited perspective on creation.15 While he did not need grace, being as yet unfallen, to properly carry out his dominion task, he would need to interpret the creation in light of God's revealed will.16 Thus, "he had real though not comprehensive unity in his experience."17

2. Man.

a. Pre-fallen man. As he was created by God, man was to carry out God's creation mandate by building the kingdom of God.18 He was to use the revelation surrounding him, including supernatural revelation,19 to "receptively reconstruct" God's kingdom.20

b. Fallen man. In the Fall, man decided to accept someone else's interpretation of the creation: his own. We often make the mistake of thinking that Eve accepted Satan's view. This is not necessarily true. Eve looked at the tree and decided for her own independent reasons to eat the fruit.21 Thus, the rival to God is not Satan, but man. Richard Pratt writes:

Eve did not immediately reject the Word of God nor did she immediately accept the word of the serpent. Instead, she looked at the tree herself and determined its character by committing herself to independence from God. She said to herself, "Why listen to everyone else? I will make laws for myself; I will decide on my own!" In doing this, Eve rejected the Creator-creature distinction. She took the revelation of the independent God and put it on the same level as the serpent's words and set herself up as the ultimate judge between them....22

Thus, Van Til states:

In every discussion about every fact, therefore, it is the two principles, that of the believer in Scripture and that of the non-Christian, that stand over against one another. Both principles are totalitarian. Both claim all the facts.23

In place, therefore, of God's interpretation of the facts, man places his own, or that of an idol man has selected.24 God's revelation must be suppressed (Rom. 1:18ff). Since man will not be receptively reconstructive, he must strive to be, as God, "creatively constructive." Even though man is created and made to work in conformity with God's will, he denies his creaturehood and seeks to unify the facts by establishing his own interpretation. He assumes that the facts are not what they are by virtue of their place in the plan and purpose of God and derive their meaning from Him, and, instead, man sees them as brute facts, carrying with them their own interpretation. As Van Til states: "It thus tries to do the impossible with the result that self-frustration is written all over its efforts. There is not unity and never will be unity in non-theistic thought; it has cut itself loose from the only existing source of unity."25

Fallen man retains, however, knowledge of God and His creation since he is surrounded by it.26 In Van Til's system, however, having the knowledge of God on some subconscious level is only helpful in presenting fallen men with the demands of the gospel.27 One cannot expect to reason, assuming the brute facticity of the world, with men and "appeal to the intellectual and moral nature of men, as men themselves interpret this nature, and say that it must judge of the credibility and evidence of revelation."28 Thus, "[i]t will be quite impossible then to find a common area of knowledge between believers and unbelievers unless there is agreement between them as to the nature of man himself."29 While natural revelation has an effect on man, the effect is distorted and ultimately self-defeating because unity, consistency, and coherence cannot be attained.30 He only knows "after a fashion."31 Fallen man's ability to reason is compared to a saw. The facts of experience (the wood) are the same. The sharpness of the saw (the reason) is the same. However, the Fall has reset the set of the saw for the fallen man. Thus, he will always use the sharpness of the saw to cut the wood to the wrong angle. The problem lies in the ethical aim of the intellect. It is always aimed in a way that enhances man's position at the expense of God. Thom Notaro points out:

Since he is the image of God, he is constantly reminded of his need of the One who created him. To deny God and His truth would be literal suicide. Man needs the truth, if only for his own survival. Yet at the same time the sinner will do anything to avoid the implications of the facts all around him. He is set against God's truth as a matter of principle. Thus he can neither avoid the truth nor accept it for what it is. Desperately he tries to accept the truth for what it is not. The result is that his whole life is an oscillation between the clearly revealed facts and his self-deluding fiction.32

c. Regenerate man. Regenerate man has been in principle restored to the position of the pre-fallen man.33 Because of sin, however, he cannot live up to the principle entirely.34 Therefore, despite the fact that he wants to be receptively reconstructive, he sometimes wants to construct methods of confronting fallen man that do not reflect the truth concerning the facts. Some believers want to assume that the facts are brute as well, independent of any interpretation and meaning, and exist to objectively mediate disputes between conflicting interpretations of them. These believers assume that there is any place in the world they may take the fallen man that God has not created, where the facts are brute, chance facts, and where the unbelievers will not be relying upon "borrowed capital": the facts and tools created by God and left for their use.35

These believers also assume that fallen man's reason is not misdirected and that the fallen man really wants to find God instead of hiding from Him. They assume that the island of "reality" or "alternate world" that man creates for himself can afford to include God in His proper place. Their efforts are doomed to failure because fallen man is at war with God, and the proper answer is not to assume that there is a "neutral" place where a truce is in effect and where we may all come to the table in an equal fashion. God owns the table and if it were not for His regard for His elect, God would allow no one else a place there.36

3. Special revelation.

Before the Fall, man's knowledge of God and His will, though limited by his finitude, was nonetheless true. Because he was limited man was unable to "tie up the loose ends" of his existence into a complete package. Despite this inability, the limited knowledge that man did possess was certain because it was guaranteed by the One who did possess complete or comprehensive knowledge.37 Before the Fall, God and man enjoyed fellowship, and man was receiving his "marching orders" from God. After the Fall, this "special revelation" took on a new significance since man was ethically "disabled" from truly interpreting the general revelation. Whereas theophany and prophecy were also methods of special revelation, the most important form of special revelation is, of course, the Bible. Van Til states:

The Bible is thought of as authoritative on everything of which it speaks. Moreover, it speaks of everything. We do not mean that it speaks of football games, of atoms, etc., directly, but we do mean that it speaks of everything either directly or by implication. It tells us not only of the Christ and his work, but it also tells us who God is and where the universe about us has come from. It tells us about theism as well as about Christianity. It gives us a philosophy of history as well as history. Moreover, the information on these subjects is woven into an inextricable whole. It is only if you reject the Bible as the word of God that you can separate the so-called religious and moral instruction of the Bible from what it says, e.g., about the physical universe.

This view of Scripture, therefore, involves the idea that there is nothing in this universe on which human beings can have full and true information unless they take the Bible into account. We do not mean, of course, that one must go to the Bible rather than to the laboratory if one wishes to study the anatomy of the snake. But if one goes only to the laboratory and not also to the Bible one will not have a full or even true interpretation of the snake.38

Scripture, therefore, is the means by which we properly interpret the world around us. It authoritatively tells us how we are to function in the creation. Without it, man cannot interpret the world correctly. Thus, Van Til says relative to the tree in the Garden of Eden that "[m]an could not know from nature itself nor from himself in relation to nature that the result of eating from the tree of good and evil would spell his death."39 In the Bible God has given us His directions, His road map, His set of blueprints.

This is especially important after the Fall. Even though God co-created the facts and their clear interpretation, because of the Fall, man needs to access that interpretation through the Scriptures. Thus, Van Til speaks of the necessity of Scripture. The Scripture also comes to man as authoritative, demanding that man surrender his own authority and bring his autonomous interpretation into submission to God's. Scripture is perspicuous, meaning that it clearly reveals the coherence of the facts of the natural revelation as those facts cohere in God.40 "The relation of one fact to another fact can be known only upon the basis of all facts being exhaustively known by God."41 Therefore, "[n]ature can be read aright only by those who allow the light of Scripture to fall upon it."42 Finally, Scripture is sufficient to reveal what we need to know about the facts to engage in the various aspects of exercising dominion over the creation.43

II. Van Til and Apologetics

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.44

In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.45

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.46

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.47

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?48

Van Til sees no essential difference between theology and apologetics. Apologetics is pictured as a messenger boy or servant to the various theological disciplines, running around offering its services.49 Thus, defense of a system is always done in terms of and assuming the truth of the system. Van Til's system operates with certain assumptions.50

1. Van Til's system of apologetics.

a. Van Til's transcendent starting point: ultimate commitment (Prov. 26:4). Ultimate commitments are a lot like noses; everybody has one. The ultimate commitment is also called a presupposition. A presupposition is the elementary assumption in reasoning in the way our opinions are formed. Bahnsen describes it as being at the center of our network of beliefs. Thus, if our belief system is pictured as a spider web with more basic beliefs at the center and peripheral beliefs radiating out from the center like spokes, we shall have a notion of how the idea of ultimate commitment, or presupposition, or starting point operates. They "form a wide-ranging foundational perspective or starting point in terms of which everything else we believe is interpreted... evaluated... interrelated."51

Of course, the range of genuine ultimate commitments is rather limited. There are, in fact, only two: God or Man. Everyone has a starting point or ultimate authority in their lives that holds the same place as Scripture should in the life of a Christian. This is clear from Romans 1. God created all facts, and all facts reveal Him. Man suppresses this revelation through sin, and either places himself upon God's throne or some other aspect of the creation of his choosing. Man arrogates to himself the position of the creator of meaning. Thus, all facts exist as "brute" facts: without connection to each other and without meaning until man connects them and assigns meaning to them.52

Therefore, there are only two sources of authority contending in the world: God and Man. Jesus said that "he that is not with me is against me" (Matt. 12:30). Because there is a war between only two contending parties, those "with" Jesus and those "against" Jesus, a neutral stance is not one of the choices.53 By this, we can see Van Til's covenantal perspective. There are only covenant-keepers or covenant-breakers. Paul, in Colossians, says that "[in Christ] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Not some of them. Not just devotions. Not just "church stuff." Not just "religious stuff." All treasures of wisdom and knowledge. All the facts have their meaning and interpretation in Christ because God has given them that interpretation. In order for us to know facts, we must follow God in His interpretation. In 2 Corinthians, He says that we are to bring "into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Not just the convenient thoughts. Not just the non-political thoughts. God created it all. He has the right to demand it all. Thus, the Van Tillian system is a transcendent system: it takes as its starting point the truth of Christian theism as revealed in the Bible.

Christians cannot claim to be sanctifying the Lord God in their hearts in preparing for the apologetic job (1 Pet. 3:15) if they are becoming like the fool in order to answer him (Prov. 26:4). Those who rely on evidences assume the truth of the unbeliever's interpretation of reality which is that somehow order resulted from chance. Because the unbeliever cannot account for the order in the universe, they simply say "What a curious thing! What a wonderful thing Chance is!" The resurrection? "Well, of course, that is unusual, but then the sea of Chance is shoreless and bottomless, and I'm sure the explanation is out there somewhere. We simply must be patient and wait for it. Send your story into Ripley's Believe It or Not. Meanwhile, we'll content ourselves with the meaning that we have created for ourselves out of all of this."54 Instead of assuming that all wisdom and knowledge are in Christ, those who use evidences while adopting the assumption of Chance don't win the argument and betray the faith as well because they are guilty of using facts as "brute" and uninterpreted rather than having been created with meaning by God.

The Van Tillian apologist attempts to discern and lay bare the ultimate commitment. The reason why we begin there is that many people think that to assume one's ultimate commitment is circular argumentation: one assumes the authority of the conclusion of the argument in order to arrive at that conclusion. And so it is. But in order to perform any function of life, one must perform it in accordance with a certain construction of reality. All arguments start from some ultimate commitment to a view of things. The easiest way to expose this commitment is also the most offensive: asking a lot of "why" questions. But the Van Tillian system is very offensive. It concedes none of the creation to the unbeliever. The unbeliever is the interloper on God's territory. Everything he uses to construct his system has been stolen from God's "construction site." The unbeliever is like the little girl who must climb up upon her father's lap to slap his face. Even so, the unbeliever must use the world as it has been created by God in order to try to throw God off the throne. Van Til, in essence, pulls the rug out from under him.

So you ask the person why they believe what they believe. You gradually peel away the layers of subsidiary commitments until you finally lay bare the basic, ultimate commitment. The way you recognize it is that they can give no reason for holding it. If they could, it would obviously not be ultimate since it would rely on another commitment. Then you are ready for step two.

b. Van Til's transcendental critique: epistemological self-consciousness and "the impossibility of the contrary" (Prov. 26:5). Van Til's system is known in the philosophy biz as a "transcendental critique of the conditions of knowledge." Van Til begins with a transcendent commitment to the authoritative revelation of God in the Bible, and then demonstrates that it is only on the basis of that commitment that one can make sense of reality at all. The way this is done is to place oneself upon the presuppositions (or the ultimate commitment) of the opponent and show how a commitment to their presuppositions actually results in the destruction of knowledge, logic, science, morality, the dignity of man, and personal freedom. Only the Christian worldview provides an adequate basis for the discussion of these areas.

Bahnsen speaks of an occasion on which he debated an atheist, Gordon Stein.55 He pointed out that he was surprised to see Stein show up for the debate since Stein could not believe in or use logic. Stein was puzzled. Bahnsen explained that atheists believe that the universe is nothing more than matter in motion. The laws of logic, however, are neither material nor in motion. They are static, abstract, non-material, and universal. Therefore, upon Stein's ultimate commitment, the laws of logic were impossible and non-existent and, therefore, by showing up, Stein had lost the debate! Bahnsen reiterates:

God's revelation is more than the best foundation for Christian reasoning; it is the only philosophically sound foundation for any reasoning whatsoever. Our point here is not that you've got to have the revelation of God if you'd come to theological truth. Van Til says you've got to have the revelation of God if you would come to any kind of truth [emphasis Bahnsen].56

Thus, we are enabled to cast down the unbeliever's reasoning (2 Cor. 10:5). As Richard Pratt states:

The disenchantment of the unbeliever with his way of thinking comes about as the Christian effectively shows him that his rejection of Christ is based on a self-contradicting and self-frustrating perspective which can therefore never lead to true knowledge of himself, the world, or God.... This inherent futility is shown to the non-Christian by the believer as he points to the internal inconsistencies within the unbelieving system of thought. In this capacity the apologist becomes a messenger of judgment revealing to his opponent the hopelessness and futility of his rejection of Christ.57

Our job is not merely to show the unbeliever that he has no hope of salvation outside of Christ, but that he has no intellectual hope outside of Christ, either. "It's foolish for him to build his house on the ruinous sands of human opinion instead of upon the rock words of Christ."58 Thus, the transcendental critique involves discovering the general conditions that must be fulfilled for any instance of knowledge to be possible.59 Therefore, a coherent philosophical position outside of the revelation of God is impossible. Bahnsen calls this method also "the impossibility of the contrary."60

Richard Pratt calls this aspect "the argument by folly."61 One first clarifies the commitment of the unbeliever to independence by revealing his ultimate commitment by asking him a series of "why" questions, and then asks him to justify the commitment upon which all his other beliefs rest. If he says it needs no justification, that is hardly a reasonable position for such a "reasonable" person to take. If he admits it cannot be justified, one needs to question why it is so important to him.62 The usual reaction is an expression of some sense of personal satisfaction i.e., it provides a satisfactory explanation of the facts in the world.

The second step involves inquiring into the basis for such satisfaction as the person experiences. If he, for example, claims that his system provides certainty about the truth of the world, well, he cannot claim to have been everywhere and seen everything. How can he claim to have certainty about the evidence when new evidence is continually coming to light? For example, every scientific advance brings with it unintended consequences. We see it in the lawsuits over products previously thought to be safe but now are revealed to produce birth defects or other health problems.63 On the other hand, if one claims to be uncertain and that the consequences of actions are unknown, the person is making a claim of certainty about uncertainty, one, and, two, how does one advance, holding consistently to such a view? If, for example, one is uncertain about the outcome of a policy, one either does nothing, or one leaps blindly out into the Void. Such uncertainty, at its bottom, does not rely upon moral standards; therefore, one can as easily make a choice for evil as well as good, since at this level of corrosive uncertainty, labels such as good and evil lose their meaning. Thus, man becomes like God, creating and defining good and evil.64

The unbeliever's worldview, thus, oscillates between crushing all freedom under a load of certainty, or makes it impossible to build a coherent system that does not fly apart due to total uncertainty. Van Til's Christian philosophy explains this tendency and provides a framework, not only for apologetics narrowly conceived, but for an all-encompassing view of the world. The Christian worldview, controlled by biblical thinking, provides the only coherent system that, in turn, corresponds to reality.65

2. Van Til and traditional apologetics.

Many apologists such as Francis Schaeffer, John Warwick Montgomery, Clark Pinnock and B. B. Warfield assume that they may begin with an assumption of the facts as the unbeliever sees them, as uncreated, and trust the unbeliever's "right reason" to interpret the facts as allowing for the probability of God. Apologetics is thus seen as a "vestibule" to the main house. Faith is called upon to finish what reason has started. This method is borrowed from Thomas Aquinas, who believed that men could be led, through reason, to accept the existence of a god as preparation for faith in the God. Van Til is an Augustinian who insists that all men must "believe in order to reason." Therefore, apologetics is of a piece with all of the theological disciplines and is simply a facet of theology concerned with the presentation of Christian theology to the world.

a. Van Til and the traditional theistic proofs. Bahnsen places his finger on five objections that anyone thinking from a Van Tillian perspective should have with the traditional theistic proofs:

One, that the evidence for God's existence is ambiguous so that there is some excuse for denying it or holding that it's only probably true;

Two, erroneously assume that there are matters which are epistemically more certain than God from which one then moves on to prove with less certainty the existence of God;

Three, the traditional proofs assume that the unbeliever's espoused presuppositions about reality and knowledge are sufficient in themselves to account for the intelligibility of his experience and his reasoning in which case he has every philosophical right to question God's existence on his own terms;

Four, they assume that the unregenerate man can be intellectually neutral and openminded, can be fair about this subject rather than unrighteously and self-deceptively suppressing the truth about God; and,

Five, the traditional proofs have assumed that the god which is rationally proven may or may not be the God of the Christian scriptures because when we prove the existence of God, we are only dealing with isolated truth claims one by one, not an all-embracing worldview.66

However, Romans 1 teaches us that number five cannot be correct because the facts do not prove "a god," but they clearly reveal the God of the Christian Scriptures that is fully revealed in his Godhead, has "eternal power," is "incorruptible," and worthy of glory. Number two cannot be right because God is revealed in man's experience wherever man may turn. Romans 1 teaches us that number four cannot be correct because man is everywhere and in every way confronted by this revelation and actively suppresses it in unrighteousness. Number one cannot be right because rather than being "ambiguous," the revelation of God through the facts is "clearly seen." Finally, number three cannot be correct because unbelievers are vain and foolish, and that having rejected God, their presuppositions are limited to taking a portion of the created order and elevating it to God's position and authority.

On a more philosophical note, has not the user of theistic proofs really sold out Christian theism? He has proposed something more ultimate than God, namely, the facts. God is called upon, in essence, to justify His own existence by using facts that are somehow independent of Him. In other words, He is asked to not be God for the purpose of proving that He is! He is asked to accept the possibility that He might not exist for the purpose of proving that He probably does exist! Thus, God is placed at the disposal of Chance and at the mercy of man's hostile and idolatrous manipulation of the facts. God, perhaps, may be forgiven if He politely declines.67

All of this should not suggest that Van Til accepts no theistic proofs. They must, however, be constructed in the correct way. Van Til's proof, as I perceive it, would be as follows:

Either God exists, or nothing exists.

­-_________(fill in the blank) exists.

Therefore, God exists.

This is no more than the logical form of Van Til's transcendental argument. Either God exists, or logic, science, morals, etc. become incoherent and inexplicable. To construct an argument upon brute fact is ultimately futile and God-dishonoring.

b. Van Til and the use of evidences. As with the use of theistic proofs, Van Til does not avoid the use of evidences. He simply insists that their use be placed in their proper context.68 Once again, with feeling: the use of evidences must be used in conjunction with exposing the unbeliever's ultimate commitment as one which eliminates Christian theism as a viable explanation from the start and points out that the unbeliever's understanding of the facts leaves him with no satisfactory alternative explanation.

The beauty of Van Til's philosophy is that, since God created everything and everything reveals God, one may begin with literally anything when speaking to an unbeliever. The only limitation is a believer's familiarity with the subject matter.69 Therefore, the method works on the street or in the academy. I remember sitting in a graduate class in the religion department at Temple University, studying "The Hermeneutics of Gadamer and Ricoeur." To do this, the class had to be brought up to speed on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger.70

Since Heidegger does not believe in any universal or transcendent norms of existence, every person is a product of his particular place "in time." Everybody in the class seemed to be nodding agreeably with this until I pointed out that if that were the case, communication would not be possible since the meanings that any particular person would place upon his words would likewise be products of his place in time. The meanings would be individual to him without transcendent or universal or, at least, community language meaning norms. In that case, we obviously could not be carrying on the discussion that we were having, and that, therefore, we all might just as well go home. Needless to say, my statement performed the service of a good, swift kick. When they later tried to expand meanings to the community, I told them that they had just "passed the buck" to the community and, without universal norms, had disallowed any basis for having the Nuremburg Trials.71

Thus, Van Til believes in using evidences provided that a Christian using them does not concede the game right at the beginning. The unbeliever must be shown that upon his presuppositions, he cannot make sense of the evidence available to him.

III. Applications of Van Til's Philosophy.

There are applications of Van Til's philosophy that I have found useful outside of what are usually classified as apologetics contexts.

1.Van Til and politics.

Man, in keeping with his view of certainty in such matters without God, passes laws to correct social ills. The reason they assume that the ills are correctable social ills is that they have presupposed a world in which all evil is attributed to environmental surroundings. Thus, evils are corrected by manipulating the environment with state action. Since, however, politicians have no true understanding of the nature of the evils they are combatting, their laws not only do not solve the evils, they create new ones.72 All of this, of course, assumes that what they are trying to solve are, in fact, evils, and that such evils are of such a nature as can be or should be addressed by government. Since unbelieving politicians have no biblical standards for deciding these issues, they must resort to whatever standards are available.

In our present day, the more conservative legislators resort to "natural law." I believe, however, that natural law is not usefully available to unbelieving legislators and that it is of very limited help to Christian legislators. Such natural law as there is consists of the shreds of Western tradition, inherited by the politicians from national mythology and the "good old days," superimposed on nature. They, thus, delude themselves that they are deriving traditional values from nature. Such politicians are building upon a steadily shrinking ice floe of certainty, created by man and floating upon a sea of uncertainty and Chance. Increasingly, since we may not discriminate against lifestyles or moral positions, politics becomes chaotic. The old arguments will be found to not work anymore.

Second, the above analysis obviously has some relevance with respect to the question of who Christians should support for public office. Leaving aside the practical question of determining who the Christians are, what does it mean to vote for the lesser of two evils when both have ultimate commitments antithetical to the biblical position? We vote for politicians for terms of two, four, or six years. We base our choice on the likelihood that they will support policies congruent with the Bible's position on those policies. If, however, they have an ultimate commitment to themselves rather than the Bible, how can such a prediction be made? Since they are the ultimate creators of meaning in their universe, they can do anything they wish.

Furthermore, as we have mentioned above, since their vision is limited as to the effects of their policies, how do we know when we truly have the lesser of two evils? The politician that has the wrong ultimate commitment will not only be personally pragmatic and expedient, but will not have a sufficient understanding to pass good laws or even define "good."

2. Van Til and law.

If we take seriously Van Til's assertion that there is no neutrality in the battle between covenant-keepers and covenant-breakers, then we must view the Constitution in the same light. Some see the Constitution as guaranteeing a "place at the table" for all viewpoints. This assumes, however, that all viewpoints are equally deserving of consideration and that, by guaranteeing all an equal place at the table, there is something inherent in the competition of ideas that will reveal the ones that are worthy of survival and therefore "good."

In my judgment, by doing this, we are importing another standard of judgment of "good." To the contrary, the Bible supplies Christians with God's standard for good. To think that the Constitution can be interpreted apart from a context supplying the proper meaning for its terms is to concede the battle to the enemy before it fairly gets underway. Stanley Fish, in an article entitled, There's No Such Thing as Free Speech and It's a Good Thing, Too, states as follows:

People cling to First Amendment pieties because they do not wish to face what they take to be the alternative. That alternative is politics, the realization... that decisions about what is and is not protected in the realm of expression will rest not on principle or firm doctrine but on the ability of persons and groups to so operate (some would say manipulate) the political process that the speech they support is labelled "protected" while the speech inimical to their interests is declared to be fair game.73

The importance of what Fish means cannot be overstated. Christians can no longer afford to dwell in a fairy-tale land where the Marquis of Queensbury rules apply and where civilized give-and-take is the order of the day. There is a war going on. The covenant-breakers are not about to let the covenant-keepers have their "place at the table." The minute we are allowed to have our place, the covenant-breakers know the battle is over. That is why the plea of groups like the Christian Coalition to be allowed equal time goes unheeded. Our enemies' position is like that enunciated in the political cartoon that appeared in the early 1980's in which Brezhnev said to one of his lackeys: "I liked the arms race much better when we were the only ones in it."

Christians must realize that the battle to control the interpretation of the Constitution in terms of biblical law is not a situation that allows for pluralism. One cannot have polyvalent definitions of legal rights and terms, and survive. God does not settle for a "place at the table." God owns the table. He paid for the microphone. Our enemies understand this. One of these days, maybe Christians will, too.

Conclusion

This essay is a sketchy attempt to introduce the reader to some major themes in Cornelius Van Til's work and how they influence his apologetic method. I have also attempted to show how the method works, how it interacts with other approaches and how it may be applied to some practical issues facing us today.

The most useful facet of Van Til's theological formulation, in my judgment, is its ability to sharpen one's analytical ability. I still remember that religion class at Temple on the receiving end of Van Tillian analysis. After the incident, a classmate sitting next to me, a lawyer from Sri Lanka, leaned over and said to me, "I like your questions. They get right down to the issue." In a day when the world is getting more and more muddled and seems to need the clear thinking that biblical analysis would bring to bear on its problems, the Church is crying out for a way of thinking that will enable it to "get right down to the issue." Cornelius Van Til provides that way of thinking.

John A. Fielding III (M.A., M.Div., J.D.) is the new president of the National Reform Association. He is active in politics and practices law in Berks County, Pennsylvania. He can be reached at fielding@talon.net.

Endnotes

1. Gary North, Dominion and Common Grace (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987),10-13. (at North's freebooks website page 10, page 11, page 12)

2 . See generally, Rousas John Rushdoony, By What Standard? (Fairfax, VA: Thoburn, 1958); Jim S. Halsey, For A Time Such As This: An Introduction to the Reformed Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1978); Thom Notaro, Van Til & The Use of Evidence (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980); K. Scott Oliphint, Cornelius Van Til and the Reformation of Christian Apologetics (The Ordinary Pulpit; Amarillo, TX: K. Scott Oliphint, 1989). An excellent festschrift in which Van Til responds to his critics is E. R. Geehan, ed., Jerusalem and Athens (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980). A book containing specific applications of his thought to different fields is Gary North, ed., Foundations of Christian Scholarship: Essays in the Van Til Perspective (Vallecito, CA: Ross House, 1976). Others whose writings are self-consciously based upon a Van Tillian perspective are the writings of those in the Reconstructionist movement in general, John Frame, Vern Poythress, Jay Adams, Royce Gordon Gruenler, and Stephen Perks.

3. A basic assumption of Van Til is that all systems have their genesis in a basic assumption that is religiously held; that is, every system has its god and its law. This view has been part of Dutch reformed philosophical reasoning since the days of Groen Van Prinsterer. A recent contribution that develops this notion is Roy A. Clouser, The Myth of Religious Neutrality: An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1991).

4. Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1975), 114-22 (hereinafter "DF") (available from Westminster Bookstore; Cornelius Van Til, Apologetics (Class syllabus; Chestnut Hill, PA: Westminster Theological Seminary, n. d.), 1-2 (hereinafter "A").

5. Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology (Vol. II, In Defense of the Faith; n. p.: den Dulk Christian Foundation, 1969), 96 (hereinafter "SCE ") (buy it from Westminster Bookstore.

6. John A. Fielding III, Biblical Law and the Search for Social Unity: Towards a More Permanent Social Glue (Unpublished paper; Elverson, PA: Symposium on Biblical Law and Socio-Political Reform, January 29, 1994).

7. SCE, 97.

8. Ibid., 98; see also John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987), 62-69.

9. Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (n. p.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), 35 (hereinafter "CTK").

10. A, 4-8.

11. SCE, 97.

12. Cornelius Van Til, "Nature and Scripture" (Faculty, Westminster Theological Seminary, The Infallible Word: A Symposium; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980), 279-83. (hereinafter "NS").

13. Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1977), 69-70. (hereinafter "CG")

14. Oliphint, Cornelius Van Til, 24.

15. NS, 277-78.

16. DF, 13-14, 48-49.

17. Ibid., 49.

18. DF, 64-65. Van Til, being an amillennialist, makes, in my judgment, too radical a separation between "external" and "internal" manifestations of the kingdom.

19. DF, 90-91; Cornelius Van Til, The Doctrine of Scripture (Vol. I, In Defense of the Faith; n. p.: den Dulk Christian Foundation, 1967), 6 (hereinafter "DS"): "Christ tells us in his world that nature was never meant to function by itself apart from the direct word-revelation of God. From the beginning, it was insufficient without its supernatural concomitant."

20. DF, 48-49; Cornelius Van Til, Christian Theistic Ethics (Vol. III, In Defense of the Faith; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980), 41-58 (hereinafter "CTE").

21. DF, 33-34.

22. Richard L. Pratt, Jr., Every Thought Captive: A Study Manual for the Defense of Christian Truth (Phillipsburg, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979), 29.

23. CTK, 37.

24. CTK, 59-60: "In such views of authority, it is clear, the final point of reference is still the would-be autonomous man. The experts may differ; it is up to every man finally to decide for himself. This is proper; the sanctity of the human person must not be violated. Ask any man to accept anything on pure authority, the sort of authority that the Bible claims for itself, and you are virtually asking him to deny his manhood. You are then asking him to be irrational and therewith to deny him the use of the powers that constitute his personality. With Plato I may look for some great expert, and listen to mythology, as a second best but rational inquiry for better or worse, must be my final guide. For better or for worse I must hold that I have the final criterion of truth or falsehood within myself."

25. DF, 49.

26. DF, 90-95.

27. Ibid ., 94-95: "The truly Biblical view, on the other hand, applies atomic power and flame-throwers to the very presupposition of the natural man's ideas with respect to himself. It does not fear to lose a point of contact by uprooting the weeds rather than be cutting them off at the very surface. It is assured of a point of contact in the fact that every man is made in the image of God and has impressed upon him the law of God. In that fact alone he may rest secure with respect to the point of contact problem. For that fact makes man always accessible to God. That fact assures us that every man, to be a man at all, must already be in contact with the truth. He is so much in contact with the truth that much of his energy is spent in the vain effort to hide this fact from himself. His efforts to hide this fact from himself are bound to be self-frustrative.

Only by thus finding the point of contact in man's sense of deity that lies underneath his own conception of self-consciousness as ultimate can we be both true to Scripture and effective in reasoning with the natural man. Man, knowing God, refuses to keep God in remembrance (Rom. 1:28). "

28. DF, 81.

29. A, 38.

30. CTK, 49: It was thus that man, in rejecting the covenantal requirement of God became at one and the same time both irrationalist and rationalist. These two are not, except formally, contradictory of one another. They rather imply one another. Man had to be both to be either. To be able to identify himself apart from God, man had to distinguish himself as an individual from all the relationships of the system of which he actually is a part. If he were not part of the God-ordained system of relationships, he would be an entity in a vacuum; he would not be distinguishable to himself or anything else. In fact he would not be self-conscious at all. He or it would be part of "the great buzzing blooming confusion" that would constitute Chaos. On the other hand, being part of a system of relations "created" by himself man would have to know this system exhaustively in order to know it at all. Reality then must be "wholly lit up" to himself without any appeal to authority. Only then can he rightly say that he does not need to be identified and set in a system of relationships by God his Creator.

31. DF, 49.

32. Thom Notaro, Van Til and the Use of Evidences (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980), 37.

33. DF, 49.

34. Idem.

35. Oliphint, Cornelius Van Til, 26.

36. Ibid ., 139-50; A, 91-96; Oliphint, Cornelius Van Til, 25-27.

37. NS, 277-79; DS, 7-9; DF, 40-41; Pratt, Every Thought Captive, 20-23.

38. A, 2.

39. Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Vol. V, In Defense of the Faith; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1978), 67 (hereinafter "ST").

40. Scott Oliphint, The Consistency of Van Til's Methodology, WTJ 52 (1990), 35.

41. Idem.

42. SCE, 96.

43. ST, 136.

44. 2 Corinthians 10:5

45. Colossians 2:3

46. 1 Peter 3:15

47. Proverbs 26:4-5

48. 1 Corinthians 1:20

49. A, 3-4.

50. These points are gleaned from the first tape in Gregory L. Bahnsen's tape series Van Tillian Apologetics, which is sold through Westminster Media (Box 27009, Philadelphia, PA) at Westminster Theological Seminary.

51. Bahnsen, "Van Tillian Apologetics," Tape 1.

52. ST, 38.

53. SCE, 19.

54. John Warwick Montgomery, Once Upon an A Priori (Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til, E. R. Geehan, ed.; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980), 399 (response by C. Van Til) (hereinafter "JA").

55. Bahnsen, "Van Tillian Apologetics," Tape 1.

56. Ibid.

57. Pratt, Every Thought Captive, 93.

58. Bahnsen, "Van Tillian Apologetics," Tape 1.

59. Idem.

60. Idem.

61. Pratt, Every Thought Captive, 92-97.

62. Ibid., 93-94.

63. CTK, 49.

64. Idem.; see also Gene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (Turning Point Christian Worldview Series; Wheaton, IL: Crossway/Cornerstone, 1994), 37-38.

65. SCE, 2-3. See also Oliphint, Van Til's Methodology, 35.

66. Bahnsen, Van Tillian Apologetics, Tape 4.

67. See Van Til's amusing three-way debate between Mr. Black, Mr. Grey, and Mr. White in DF, 248-57.

68. For an extended discussion of Van Til's position on evidences, see, of course, Cornelius Van Til, Christian-Theistic Evidences (Vol. VI, In Defense of the Faith; n. p.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976) (hereinafter "CThE") and Notaro, Evidences. For the use of evidences in a Van Tillian context, see Pratt, Every Thought Captive, 99-132.

69. By the way, I view the fundamentalist refrain, "You don't need to study the counterfeits to recognize counterfeits; you only need to study the genuine article," as so much dreck. They usually follow it up with some nonsense about bank tellers learning the characteristics of good money rather than studying counterfeit bills. However, even if this were true, and I am not certain it is, apologetics is not about recognizing counterfeits; it's about refuting counterfeits by laying bare why they are false. To do this properly, the counterfeits must be studied.

70. I heartily recommend his Being and Time and Gadamer's Truth and Method for anyone interested in a little light reading.

71. I was widely viewed as a "wet blanket" in this particular class.

72. If they were to change their beliefs to man being evil, since there is no fall, man would be evil constitutionally which, in turn, would cause him to be viewed as not responsible for his actions. Thus, the solution to all problems would be therapeutic i.e., trying to cure man of evil.

73. Stanley Fish, There's No Such Thing as Free Speech and It's a Good Thing, Too, in Debating P.C.: The Controversy over Political Correctness on College Campuses, Paul Berman, ed. (Laurel Trade Paperback; New York: Dell, 1992), 242.

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