{"id":410,"date":"2019-05-25T18:17:04","date_gmt":"2019-05-25T22:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/?p=410"},"modified":"2019-06-18T09:34:27","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T13:34:27","slug":"common-notion-confusion-part-1-of-a-review-of-j-v-feskos-reforming-apologetics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/05\/25\/common-notion-confusion-part-1-of-a-review-of-j-v-feskos-reforming-apologetics\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Notion Confusion: Part 1 of a Review of J.V. Fesko\u2019s Reforming Apologetics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A group of crows is called a murder, a group of owls a parliament, and a group of geese a gaggle.\u00a0 But what do you call a group of strawmen?\u00a0 Reforming Apologetics<\/em> by J.V. Fesko.\u00a0 I commend the author for a large number of citations to the works of Cornelius Van Til, his main opponent in his defense of Thomistic apologetics; nevertheless, the author\u2019s interactions with Van Til\u2019s writings indicate that he searched for quotes in Van Til\u2019s writings that seemed to support his case against Van Til, but he did not closely read the immediate context of the quotes, much less have a substantial grasp Van Til\u2019s apologetic method as a whole.\u00a0 One of Fesko\u2019s main claims is that Van Til rejected \u201ccommon notions\u201d between Christians and non-Christians and other ideas related to God\u2019s natural revelation, when in fact Van Til did not reject those ideas.\u00a0 Fesko fails to grasp that Van Til only criticized a particular kind of appeal to common notions made by Aquinas.\u00a0 The strawman argument that Van Til rejected common notions becomes the author\u2019s basis for a factory production of other strawman arguments against Van Til, such as claiming that Van Til claimed that all knowledge comes from the Bible, claimed that all knowledge could be deduced from a single principle, denied a nature\/grace distinction, and that Van Til\u2019s argument for God\u2019s existence does not address the correspondence of our ideas to the order of the natural world.\u00a0 In this supposed refutation of Van Til in defense of Aquinas, Fesko never states Van Til\u2019s actual argument against Aquinas.\u00a0 Fesko also never states Van Til\u2019s transcendental argument for the existence of God (TAG), not even in a rough outline form, so the book also fails as a general refutation of Van Til\u2019s apologetic program.<\/p>\n

Fesko says in some places, without qualification, that Van Til rejects common notions:\u00a0 \u201cWhere things become problematic, however, is when Van Til rejects common notions. . . .\u00a0 With his rejection of common notions, Van Til departs from the catholic and Reformed faith\u201d (110).\u00a0 At other times, on the very next page in fact, Fesko acknowledges that Van Til allowed for some sort of common notions between Christians and non-Christians, but Fesko can\u2019t figure out what Van Til\u2019s criticism of Aquinas could be if he allows for common notions in some way, saying, \u201cit is difficult to tell the difference between the historic catholic and Reformed appeal to common notions and Van Til\u2019s common ground\u201d (111).\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it is that difficult to see that Van Til did not reject common notions, only a certain type of appeal to common notions \u2013 a type of appeal where anti-Christian ideas are endorsed by Christians because they are superficially similar to Christian ideas.\u00a0 Fesko more briefly examines a few other Christian apologists who criticize Aquinas, but the main point of his book is to refute Van Til, and I will limit this review to his comments about Van Til.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Til Strongly Affirms Common Notions and Natural Revelation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Til equates \u201ccommon notions\u201d with natural revelation, and he strongly affirms them both:\u00a0 \u201c\u2019Common notions\u2019 may be thought of as nothing more than revelation that comes to man through man. . . .\u00a0 As made in the image of God no man can escape becoming the interpretive medium of God\u2019s general revelation both in his intellectual (Romans 1:20) and in his moral consciousness (Romans 2:14, 15).\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til often argues for \u201cthe necessity, the authority, the sufficiency and the perspicuity of natural revelation.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til affirms that \u201cCalvin, following Paul, insists on the clarity<\/em> of\u00a0natural (or general) revelation.\u201d[3]<\/a> \u00a0He says that \u201cGod has continued to reveal himself in nature even after the entrance of sin. Men ought, therefore, to know him. Men ought to reason analogically from nature to nature\u2019s God.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 And he says, “God\u2019s general revelation within man persists in cropping up in spite of all that the sinner can do to keep it under. It is in spite of himself that man must recognize something of the revelation of God within him.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til finds at least six basic doctrines that can be deduced from nature after the Fall which conform to the structure of Biblical revelation: \u00a01) The existence of God as a Creator, 2) the providence of God, 3) common grace, 4) man\u2019s fall from original perfection, 5) special grace somewhere in the world, and 6) a final judgment.[6]<\/a> \u00a0Fesko fails to mention any of these affirmations of natural revelation by Van Til.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fesko Confuses the Suppression of Natural Revelation with Denials of Natural Revelation<\/strong><\/p>\n

In order to accurately characterize human depravity and its reaction to natural revelation from God, at times Van Til makes a distinction between natural theology and natural revelation:\u00a0 \u201cnatural theology is confused with natural revelation.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 The difference is that \u201cnatural theology\u201d is defined here by Van Til to describe sinful man\u2019s interpretive reaction<\/em> to natural revelation, which will be denials of God\u2019s revelation or distortions of it.[8]<\/a>\u00a0 The suppression of God\u2019s revelation through nature will characterize an unregenerate person\u2019s natural theology (Rom. 1:18).\u00a0 Although natural theology will contain glimmers of the truth about the true God, the truth will be distorted to support idolatry, \u201cbecause they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator\u201d (Rom. 1:25).\u00a0 Van Til uses \u201cnatural theology\u201d in the sense of the theology of the \u201cnatural man,\u201d the man unregenerated by God\u2019s Spirit, in his letter to Francs Schaeffer:<\/p>\n

I think you will agree, then, no form of natural theology has ever spoken properly of the God who is there. \u00a0None of the great Greek philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, and none the great modern philosophers, like Descartes, Kant, Hegel or Kierkegaard and others, have ever spoken of the God who is there.\u00a0 The systems of thought of these men represent a repression of the revelation of the God who is there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other places, such as the following passage, Van Til distinguishes between good natural theology, as taught by the authors of the Reformed Confessions, and bad natural theology, which misinterprets reality in anti-Christian categories, with the Greek view of diversity and unity being his example here:<\/p>\n

There is the position of the Confession. This position consists of a natural theology that serves as the proper foundation for the full theology of grace\u00a0that is found in the Reformed Confessions alone. . . .\u00a0 For all its vaunted defense of reason, the natural theology of Aristotle and his modern followers destroys reason. The autonomous man cannot forever flee back and forth between the arid mountains of timeless logic and the shoreless ocean of pure potentiality.[9]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Van Til says negative things about common notions, he is condemning a misuse of that concept that allows anti-Christian philosophy to be confused with Christian ideas:\u00a0 \u201cThe Reformed apologetic, therefore, does not take for granted, as does the Romanist and the Evangelical, that because men have \u2018common notions\u2019 about God by virtue of their creation in God\u2019s image, that sinners and saints also have common notions when they are epistemologically self-conscious.\u201d[10]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (It would have been relevant to Fesko\u2019s thesis to examine this statement from Van Til in which he affirms a belief in common notions, would it have not?) \u00a0To be \u201cepistemologically self-conscious\u201d is to be aware, in a well-thought-out way, of your philosophy of knowledge.\u00a0 In particular for Van Til, it means to be aware of your first principles of knowledge, the ultimate source of knowledge in your worldview.\u00a0 Van Til argues that Christians and non-Christians share the same knowledge concerning many things, but not the same philosophy of knowledge in terms of what the ultimate source of knowledge is (God, for the Christian; and something impersonal for the non-Christian).\u00a0 As he explains in Common Grace and the Gospel <\/em>(again, a relevant quote that Fesko never acknowledges):<\/p>\n

We conclude then that when both parties, the believer and the non-believer, are epistemologically self-conscious and as such engaged in the interpretative enterprise, they cannot be said to have any fact in common. On the other hand, it must be asserted that they have every fact in common. Both deal with the same God and with the same universe created by God. Both are made in the image of God. In short, they have the metaphysical situation in common.\u00a0Metaphysically, both parties have all things in common, while epistemologically they have nothing in common.[11]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As an added benefit to this discussion, Van Til updated his original book from which this quote comes, Common Grace<\/em>, and commented in the material added to the subsequent edition on an objection that a reviewer raised to it:<\/p>\n

My statement that epistemologically Christians and non-Christians \u201chave nothing in common\u201d is meant to hold only to the extent that men are self-consciously engaged in the interpretation enterprise<\/em>.\u00a0 Why did Dr. Masselink, in presenting my views, omit this obviously all-important qualification?\u00a0 It is this qualification which, later in my argument, allows for commonness \u201cup to a point\u201d between believer and non-believer.[12]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Van Til\u2019s position allows for both antithesis and common ground between Christians and non-Christians.\u00a0 There is antithesis in terms of ultimate philosophical commitments, and this antithesis is most manifest when non-Christians are self-consciously trying to be consistent with their anti-Christian ultimate commitments.\u00a0 But when non-Christians are not self-consciously trying to be consistent with their anti-Christian presuppositions, there will tend to be a great deal of common ground between them and Christians.\u00a0 Because non-Christians are made in God\u2019s image and live in God\u2019s world, they cannot be completely consistent with their anti-Christian presuppositions; thus there will be \u201ccommonness \u2018up to a point\u2019 between believer and non-believer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, I should note that there are two reasons that Christians and non-Christians \u201ccannot be said to have any fact in common\u201d when they are consistent with their respective presuppositions:\u00a0 1) Their respective presuppositions are logically incompatible, and 2) the non-Christian presuppositions do not allow for the possibility of rationality; as Van Til says in the quote above, the non-Christian view \u201cdestroys reason.\u201d\u00a0 If the first reason were the only one, then the believer and unbeliever would live in two different universes.[13]<\/a> \u00a0But since the two sides can communicate to some extent, they live in the same universe; but the non-Christian thinks that he lives in a different universe than he does.\u00a0 That universe without the absolute God of Scripture cannot be the real one where Christians and non-Christians can communicate because rationality would not be possible in that universe.\u00a0 Thus, in terms of the second reason, Christians and non-Christians have no fact in common because there would be no intelligible facts if the non-Christian view were true.\u00a0 All true facts are God-created facts, and logically, there could be no others.\u00a0 If human autonomy were true, Van Til says, \u201cThere would be no possibility of finding a single fact in a universe of Chance.\u00a0 Individual men would have no common notions with other men, they would not even be able to distinguish themselves from other men.\u00a0 Observation of facts would be impossible because the idea of a fact is, on this basis, unintelligible.\u201d[14]<\/a> \u00a0The non-Christian view of knowledge in a world without the biblical God reduces to absurdity:\u00a0 \u201c. . . they became futile in their thinking. . . . Claiming to be wise, they became fools\u201d (Rom. 1:21, 22). \u00a0I\u2019ll explain more about Van Til\u2019s argument for that later.<\/p>\n

Another instance where Van Til provides the clarification for this issue in his writings is from John Frame\u2019s account of Van Til\u2019s comments on his student papers:<\/p>\n

When I was a student, I wrote a paper quoting and criticizing what seemed to me to be rather extreme expressions of antithesis in his writings.\u00a0 Alongside my quotations, Van Til wrote several times in the margin \u201caccording to their principle,\u201d \u201cin their systems,\u201d etc.\u00a0 Note: \u201cAnd it is of these systems of their own interpretation that we speak when we say that men are as wrong in their interpretation of trees as in their interpretation of God.\u201d[15]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After having received this clarification from the author himself, the only criticism that Frame should have made against Van Til on this issue is to say that Van Til meant for these qualifications to be understood but he did not make the qualification as clear as he could have.<\/p>\n

In the following passage, Fesko claims that Van Til is inconsistent, both denying and affirming common notions between believers and unbelievers:<\/p>\n

For example, taken at face value, the following statement allows for no point of contact between believer and unbeliever:\u00a0 \u201cThat all men have all things in common metaphysically and psychologically, was definitely asserted, and further, that the natural man has epistemologically nothing in common with the Christian.\u201d \u00a0But as Frame notes, Van Til admits that [un]believers[16]<\/a> know something of God and the truth, \u201cafter a fashion\u201d (110).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At face value, the reader should at least see that metaphysical and psychological common ground between believer and unbeliever that Van Til acknowledges should allow for some point of contact between them.\u00a0 The problem with Fesko\u2019s understanding of Van Til is that Fesko seems to interpret \u201cepistemologically\u201d as \u201cepistemically,\u201d that is, Fesko thinks that Van Til is denying that non-Christians have knowledge in any sense.\u00a0 Van Til is using \u201cepistemologically\u201d to refer to a theory of knowledge, not knowledge itself.\u00a0 This point is evident in the sentence that Fesko fails to reproduce that is immediately after Van Til saying that \u201cthe natural man has epistemologically nothing in common with the Christian\u201d:\u00a0 \u201cAnd this is qualified by saying that this is so only in principle<\/em>.\u201d[17]<\/a>\u00a0 The Christian, believing that God created all things, is compelled to affirm that God is the ultimate source of all knowledge; but the natural man, being in rebellion against God, must affirm some other ultimate source of knowledge.\u00a0 The natural man still has knowledge because God has given it to him through being made in God\u2019s image and living in God\u2019s world.\u00a0 But his ultimate principle of knowledge, his ultimate explanation of knowledge, is opposed to the Christian\u2019s ultimate principle of knowledge:\u00a0 God.<\/p>\n

In Romans 1 and 2, the Apostle Paul provides some of the most important teaching in the Bible concerning natural revelation.\u00a0 There are two sides to his teaching here:\u00a0 A) God\u2019s revelation of His existence is clearly given to all people through creation, and B) all people rebel against this revelation by suppressing this knowledge and worshipping created things rather than the Creator, leading to other degenerate ethical behavior.\u00a0 This gives us a mixed situation where people have a knowledge of God that they cannot escape, yet they will not acknowledge and worship the true God.\u00a0 The knowledge of God that they have results in obedience to God\u2019s law in some limited sense and degree (Rom. 2:14), but they are not going to openly acknowledge the true God as the source of the ethical laws that they follow.<\/p>\n

Thomists, including Protestant Thomists like Fesko, emphasize the natural revelation received by all people, while failing to grasp the implications of the second part of the teaching of Paul in Romans 1-3, that non-Christians suppress this knowledge and refuse to acknowledge the true God.\u00a0\u00a0 Given the unbeliever\u2019s suppression of the knowledge of God, we should not expect a pagan, such as Aristotle, to develop and promote a rigorous proof of the existence of God.\u00a0 For someone like Fesko, who is a Calvinist seminary professor and holds to the doctrine of total depravity, to fail to grasp this is rather surprising.\u00a0 The Reformed doctrine of total depravity makes \u201cReformed Thomism\u201d an oxymoron.\u00a0 Granted, Fesko acknowledges that with regard to natural revelation, \u201cunbelievers have this knowledge, know it aright, but suppress or ignore it [which] renders them inexcusable\u201d (65).\u00a0 But Fesko doesn\u2019t apply this thought to understand what Van Til is talking about. Fesko says this in a chapter focused on making the case that John Calvin affirmed natural revelation, thinking that he is making a case against Van Til because he thinks that Van Til denies natural revelation.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t consider that suppression of the knowledge of God through nature comes into play in Van Til\u2019s apologetic because he doesn\u2019t think that Van Til affirms the condition precedent of pagans receiving knowledge of God through nature.\u00a0\u00a0 When Fesko then criticizes Van Til\u2019s negative statements about how the unregenerate handle knowledge, Fesko mistakenly claims that these are statements denying natural revelation, while they are actually statements in which Van Til is saying that the unregenerate suppress<\/em> natural revelation.\u00a0 Van Til strongly affirms that the unregenerate receive inescapable knowledge of God through creation, but he also strongly affirms the suppression of that knowledge in varying degrees because they are enemies of God (e.g., Rom. 5:10, 8:7; Col. 1:21; Phil. 3:18; Jam. 4:4).\u00a0 In particular, Fesko fails to see that Van Til\u2019s criticism of Aquinas is that Aquinas is blind to Aristotle\u2019s suppression of the knowledge of God in certain teachings that Aquinas wrongly claims are supportive of the Christian view of God. \u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ll specifically address Van Til\u2019s criticism of Aquinas in the next post.\u00a0 Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel<\/em> (Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972), p. 53.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, \u201cNature and Scripture\u201d in The Infallible Word<\/em>, Ed. By N.B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley, 2nd<\/sup> ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Co., 2002), p. 269.\u00a0 Also see Apologetics<\/em>, Ch. 2; and The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture<\/em> (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1967), Ch. 1.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em> (Phillipsburg, N.J.:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1980), p. 4, emphasis in original.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em> (Phillipsburg, NJ:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1974), p. 102.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p. 194.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p. 80.\u00a0 Also see Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em> (<\/em>Philadelphia:\u00a0 The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1955),<\/em> pp. 69-70; Christian Theistic Ethics<\/em> (Phillipsburg, N.J.:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1980), p. 21; and Psychology of Religion<\/em> (Phillipsburg, NJ:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1972), pp. 106, 107.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, Common Grace and The Gospel<\/em>, p. 143.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, \u201cNature and Scripture,\u201d pp. 300-01.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, 3rd<\/sup> edition (Phillipsburg, NJ:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1967), p. 210.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel<\/em>, p.5.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p. 151.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a>\u00a0 John Warwick Montgomery argued that this is what Van Til\u2019s approach amounts to in his essay \u201cOnce Upon an Apriori . . .,\u201d in Jerusalem and Athens<\/em> (Phillipsburg, NJ:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1980).<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel<\/em>, 168-69.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a>\u00a0 Frame, Cornelius Van Til:\u00a0 An Analysis of His Thought<\/em>, p. 198.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/a>\u00a0 Fesko must have meant to type \u201cunbelievers\u201d rather than \u201cbelievers.\u201d<\/p>\n

[17]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, 3rd<\/sup> edition, 169 (emphasis in original).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A group of crows is called a murder, a group of owls a parliament, and a group of geese a gaggle.\u00a0 But what do you call a group of strawmen?\u00a0 Reforming Apologetics by J.V. Fesko.\u00a0 I commend the author for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}