Intellectuelle

Hey, Laura. What movies are those quotes from? :)

Thanks for the new word introduction. You rock.

Hi, Lexie. You may find James Anderson's site, vantil.info, helpful. Among the resources available is a list of Frequently Encountered Misconceptions. This one addresses the question of contradiction.

Thanks for the link, Keith. That does look helpful.

You're welcome, Laura. And I'm sorry for calling you Lexie. I must have been looking at her comment. :-)

I posted some thoughts on the issue between paradox and mystery that you may find helpful.

http://theologicalmeditations.blogspot.com/2005/06/paradox-and-mystery.html

I think Van Til's underlying concern was to avoid autonomous reasoning, or the veneration of a system instead of the God revealed in scripture. He was well aware of the power of philosophical systems to cause Christians to explain away important biblical truths.

Clarks concern was the knowability of the revealed God. He tended to emphasize the correspondence of the mind of man with the mind of God when the creature comes to have genuine knowledge. This is a valid concern at the time of the height of modernistic skepticism regarding the transcendent and metaphysical.

Followers of the Clark/Van Til controversy would really do well to listen to Bahnsen's lecture on Clark and Van Til at www.wordmp3.com I say that even as one who sympathizes with the univocal knowledge view of Clark. However, Clark was a living example of Van Til's concern, i.e. how an autonomous reasoning process due to unbiblical philosophical allegiances can undermine important biblical teaching. Gordon Clark was a Hyper-Calvinist, thus his systematics and exegetical efforts were frequently system driven. Furthermore, his deductivist epistemology undermine the entire apologetical enterprise as Bahnsen points out.

I should have put those links in HTML :-) So, here they are again:

Paradox and Mystery

Bahnsen lecture on Clark

Ynottony's post on Paradox and Mystery is worth reading.

I second that. Thanks very much, Tony.

You're welcome. Grace to the godly women pursuing theological coherence and understanding. May they flourish and increase ;-)

Laura,

You may find this book by Ron Nash interesting. Here is a reading from chapter 6 of his book The Word of God and The Mind of Man.

The Word of God and The Mind of Man, Chapter 6 (streaming version)

The Word of God and The Mind of Man, Chapter 6 (download version)

Just don't laugh when you hear my lame attempt to read a Latin expression in this chapter! :-) I don't know Latin.

Oh, wow, that is awesome. Thanks! Did you record the whole book? I have heard Ron Nash's name before - usually in disdainful association with Gordon Clark and other "rationalists." :( I think that association alone warrants further reading of his stuff, though. ;)

I love this blog. Thanks to all of you, and to Joe, for meeting this need.

Once I asked a church member why we, as baptized Christ-followers, are so absorbed with discussion of free will instead of with God's will, our obedience, being "slaves to righteousness," etc. He looked startled and said, "You're a Calvinist!!" I did not even know what a Calvinist was; I had to go read about it...and Arminianism, and hyper-Calvinism, and double this and that.

As a Bible-reading non-theologian, to me Gerety speaks the obvious. Fully embracing any one kind of "systematic theology" means disregarding or twisting non-cooperative parts of the Bible.

I love harmony but I also love a mystery. Mystery, tension and "apparent contradiction" keep us seeking God's will and his way (as well as engendering humility!).

All things are held together by Christ Jesus. Maybe we have to hold on to Him with both hands, not one.

Gray, I'm glad you've found the blog! But I think you misunderstand Gerety - what he actually means to say is that there is no such thing as non-cooperative parts of the Bible; he is criticizing the (very) common view that if something seems to be a paradox in Scripture, then we must accept it as such and move along, rather than continuing to struggle to reconcile the two parts. He is saying that VanTillians (proponents of that view) are assuming when they back away from two true but apparently paradoxical propositions in Scripture that since they can't solve it, no one can, and anyone who tries is arrogant and not being submissive to the Scriptures. May I recommend that you read the post "Paradox and Mystery" that YnottonY has linked to a few comments above - it is very clear and helped me sort through this.

I only read chapter 6 of The Word of God and The Mind of Man, but I did read the entire book The Concept of God on cassette for myself. Check HERE for a reading from that particular book in MP3.

I like Nash's material. One can hear several seminary level lectures by him at Biblical Training. He has been critical of some statements Van Til made. Nash, at least these days, has critical things to say about Gordan Clark as well. He is critical of Clark's "Biblical Deductivism" that says that all the can be known is deducible from the bible. This is related to Clark's fundamental axiom (he conceives of a presupposition as a kind of arbitrarily chosen axiom). I think that's absurd. Clearly we can know some truths that are not derived from the bible. The bible doesn't say that "Laura is a female," and yet you know that is true, right? lol At least I hope you know that! :-)

With respect to Van Til, I don't think Nash sufficiently understands him. Van Til made some mistakes in his statements as Bahnsen points out in his lecture HERE, but he had some valid concerns about rational-ISM and pretended neutrality, not to mention other things. Also, Van Tilians seem to be more balanced in their Calvinism. For example, John Murray has a good grasp on the free offer of the gospel, and Van Til understood common grace. Sometimes I think they confused the ideas of paradox and mystery (as I sought to clarify in my post concerning that), but they were right to be concerned about letting the text of scripture say what it says, even if it causes us some conceptual tension.

I am rather eclectic in my approach to epistemology and apologetical method. If you want a fair overview of the different methodologies (including critiques of Van Til and Clark), then get the book Faith Has It's Reasons by Boa and Bowman. It's good. I usually search for the best prices HERE.

I think you might enjoy Nash's book The Word of God and The Mind of Man, so consider that as well. Another sharp thinker who influenced Nash was Carl F. H. Henry. If you can afford it, get his God, Revelation, and Authority (several large volumes), or one of his other books like Toward a Recovery of Christian Belief. He's worth having as well.

Adios,
Tony

I am totally unfamiliar with these two schools of thought, but look forward to looking into them. But just a cursory glance at the Gerety quote tells me (unless I am reading this wrong) his logic is flawed. To make my point, suppose Gerety's statement was applied to another topic:

"If accepting with peace the the knowledge that not all our problems will be solved in this lifetime is the height of Christian humility, it follows that continuing to attempt to solve them must be the apex of sinful arrogance and pride."

Huh?

Please correct me if my reasoning on this is flawed or if I am misunderstanding Gerety's point.

Well, it's flawed precisely because you're changing what Gerety actually meant. :) Deuteronomy 29:29 tells us that what God has revealed is for us (that we might know and worship him in truth), while the "secret things," or what cannot be found in Scripture or deduced by good and necessary consequence thereof, are not ours to attempt to solve. It is the "deduction by good and necessary consequence" that gets people in a bind, because they suppose that if they cannot reconcile Fact A with Fact B, no one can possibly solve it. And so anyone who comes along and does so is dismissed right along with what could be a perfectly valid answer. That is Gerety's point - that on the contrary, the arrogance comes from the people who refuse to look at any possible argument that has been made to solve a problematic issue.

That is Gerety's point - that on the contrary, the arrogance comes from the people who refuse to look at any possible argument that has been made to solve a problematic issue.

Well, I agree wholeheartedly with him, there. Obviously, I needed to read his statement in context. Perhaps, in context, he was saying that this is the logic (or lack thereof ) of those that oppose systematic theology.

But as it is written, taken out of context, the quote still appears to be a non sequitur to me. I can embrace with passion the apparent contradictions and still benefit from my own attempts and the attempts of others to harmonize them. It just doesn't follow that if A (embracing the apparent contradictions) is good, then B (attempting to harmonize them or doing systematic theology) is bad.

Another possible explanation is that, not having read his article, I misunderstood what 'embracing with passion apparent contradictions' means. Does that mean that apparent contradictions in the Bible fall into the category of 'the secret things' and are not meant for man to even attempt to understand? Does embracing mean accepting that as the case? If so, then the statement becomes logical:

If A, "embracing with passion..." (i.e accepting apparent contradictions as something that it is none of our business to attempt to resolve) is good, then B, attempting to resolve them, is bad.

The quote would still have to be Gerety talking about the opinions of others, since you indicated he thought people who refuse to look at these things to be the arrogant ones.

I just didn't see "embracing apparent contradictions" as agreeing that they are something that we were not to attempt to understand or harmonize. But to understand the quote, it's Gerety's meaning that matters--not mine! :)

Just took a look at Gerety's article---very good! Turns out I was right on both guesses--he was referring to the opinion of the Van Til camp and 'embracing apparent contradictions' did assume meaning accepting them as things that man was not intended to understand and never could. So now the quote makes sense.

Not being familiar with him, I took Van Til's statement to mean that, while their are no real contradictions in the Bible, there are many things that, without understanding, appear to be contradictory. I agree with that meaning. I passionately embrace the fact that there are some things that appear contradictory because I do not yet understand them. And I can accept that some of those apparent contradictions may not be competely resolved in this life. But Van Til obviously means something very different than my initial interpretation.

I am really looking forward to reading more about this. I'm shaking my head over the type of thinking Van Til expresses but it doesn't really surprise me. Thanks for posting on this.

I just have one suggestion, though. You might want to add just a little bit of clarification or one or two lines of introduction at the top (in addition to the great links this post provides.) I found both of those quotes to be very misleading, out of context, as far as presenting the opinions of these two men to the uninitiated. Reading the two quotes and knowing nothing about the authors, one is lead to think that Van Tillians are the ones 'embracing' apparent contradictions and seeking to understand and resolve them--while Gerety is saying it is arrogant to do so.

Debra - glad you read the article. Thanks for the suggestion - I didn't put any sort of intro because I was wanting feedback from folks already familiar with the Clark-VanTil controversy and surrounding issues, so I didn't take into account the confusion it would cause the much larger group (those not aware of it). Sorry about that.

I mistook the two quotes because I was unfamiliar with this controversy, and unfamiliar with the authors, as pointed out. I will have to do better!

Does "harmonize" have an agreed-on meaning in theology?

I still think, on a gut level, that a precious, well-honed and well-loved systematic theology may edge out scripture where there is an apparent contradiction, a temptation lurks. It would help if theologians would sometimes say, "I'm not sure I fully understand how those truths work together" -- not glee but with simple humility.

I agree that theologians should say that - if it is the truth. But (and know that I've not read it myself, but other, clearer-thinking friends have) Gordon Clark thought himself to have solved quite categorically the problem of evil, and so published a book wherein he explained his argument. For him to have said that for the sake of appearing humble would have been nothing less than an outright lie. Again, I do agree that systematic theology comes with that temptation, and no doubt many, many have unfortunately succumbed to it. But let us not rush to declare everyone who claims to have solved something difficult to be presumptuous and proud. That, I think, is the gist of the complaint.

(As for a fixed theological definition of "harmonize," I would guess it merely to mean that a sound, uncontradictory relation between two "difficult" truths is rationally established. Anybody else have an idea?)