{"id":468,"date":"2020-07-13T13:11:18","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T17:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/?p=468"},"modified":"2020-07-23T19:54:58","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T23:54:58","slug":"how-howe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/2020\/07\/13\/how-howe\/","title":{"rendered":"How Howe Misunderstands Presuppositionalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Richard Howe, professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary, was interviewed in a video posted on April 9, 2020, to YouTube under the title \u201cA Sound Refutation of Presuppositionalism with Dr. Richard Howe\u201d (here<\/a>).\u00a0 This is my response in defense of Presuppositionalism.\u00a0 (Quotes from Howe are in italics.)<\/p>\n

Summary:\u00a0 Howe claims that the Presuppositional approach is fideistic, rejecting the appropriateness of giving arguments for God\u2019s existence; but Presuppositionalists offer arguments anyway, in which case they are acting like Classical apologists.\u00a0 My response is that Presuppositionalists, particularly the two main ones that Howe discusses, Van Til and Bahnsen, very clearly do not reject giving arguments for God\u2019s existence.\u00a0 The propriety of giving an argument for God\u2019s existence is not the issue between the Presuppositional approach and Classical approach.\u00a0 Howe never shows an awareness of the real complaint of Van Til and Bahnsen against the Classical view, which is that the Aristotelian view of the Unmoved Mover, knowledge, and causality that are adopted by Aquinas is contrary to the Christian view of God, knowledge, and causality.\u00a0 The problem is not that Aquinas offered arguments for God\u2019s existence, or that he appealed to causality to prove God\u2019s existence, but that he offered faulty arguments.<\/p>\n

Howe claims that Van Til\u2019s view is this:\u00a0 \u201cAny argument for the existence of God that concludes, \u201cGod,\u201d cannot be the God of Christianity because the God of Christianity, in his [Van Til\u2019s] estimation, has to be the presupposition of all argument.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Where does Van Til say, \u201cAny argument for the existence of God that concludes, \u2018God,\u2019 cannot be the God of Christianity\u201d?\u00a0 Nowhere.\u00a0 We have to cut Howe a little slack because he is being interviewed without notes, so we can\u2019t expect him to produce exact quotes.\u00a0 But this also means that no one should use this interview as a definitive refutation of presuppositionalism.\u00a0 That would require the academic rigor of citations and exact quotes with contextual analysis of the author\u2019s meaning.<\/p>\n

Usually, Van Til\u2019s critics claim that Van Til requires that arguments for God\u2019s existence begin<\/em> with God\u2019s existence as a premise.\u00a0 Van Til nowhere says that, but his critics assume that that\u2019s what \u201cpresuppose\u201d means.\u00a0 But here, Howe says that Van Til claimed that arguments cannot conclude<\/em> with God\u2019s existence.\u00a0 He is claiming that Van Til taught fideism \u2013 that no one should argue for God\u2019s existence.\u00a0 A little later in the interview, he describes the dispute between Classical and Presuppositional approaches as \u201ca debate over the propriety of giving arguments and evidence primarily for God’s existence.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

There is no fair way to read Van Til\u2019s writings and conclude that he promotes fideism.\u00a0 Here is how Van Til himself characterizes the nature of a proper argument for the existence of God:<\/p>\n

If we begin the course of spiral reasoning at any point in the finite universe, as we must because that is the proximate starting point of all reasoning, we can call the method of implication into the truth of God a transcendental method<\/em>. That is, we must seek to determine what presuppositions are necessary to any object of knowledge in order that it may be intelligible to us.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Notice that the argument does not begin with \u201cGod exists\u201d but with any knowledge claim about our finite universe.\u00a0 From there the argument presents what must be true about the nature of reality in order to make that fact, and all facts in general, intelligible to us.\u00a0 This argument involves showing how non-Christian views of reality are inconsistent with an intelligible universe, and that the Christian view of reality, particularly the type of God described in the Bible, is necessary in order for the universe to be intelligible.\u00a0 This method of \u201cimplication into the truth of God\u201d amounts to concluding \u201cGod.\u201d \u00a0Van Til further elucidates how this argument works, having a negative aspect, a reductio ad absurdum<\/em> of unbelief, and then a positive aspect in which God is shown to provide the necessary conditions for an intelligible world:<\/p>\n

The Christian apologist must place himself upon the position of his opponent, assuming the correctness of his method merely for argument\u2019s sake, in order to show him that on such a position the \u201cfacts\u201d are not facts and the \u201claws\u201d are not laws. He must also ask the non-Christian to place himself upon the Christian position for argument\u2019s sake in order that he may be shown that only upon such a basis do \u201cfacts\u201d and \u201claws\u201d appear intelligible.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are two more quotes to prove that Van Til does not reject arguing for the existence of God:<\/p>\n

[A]ll the theistic arguments should really be taken together and reduced to the one argument of the possibility of human predication.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

[T]he Reformed apologist maintains that there is an absolutely valid argument for the existence of God and for the truth of Christian theism. He cannot do less without virtually admitting that God\u2019s revelation to man is not clear.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

In his book, Van Til\u2019s Apologetic<\/em>, Greg Bahnsen comments, \u201cVan Til\u2019s presuppositional apologetic is, as anyone can see from the above, the diametric opposite<\/em> of fideism.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Bahnsen then continues for several pages supporting this claim.<\/p>\n

Continuing with his claim that Presuppositionalists reject proving God\u2019s existence, Howe says,<\/p>\n

The assumption or the presupposition of God is the necessary condition for all knowledge. Whereas the Classical Approach is going to say that there are truths about reality that normal humans beings with the faculties that God has created us with cannot fail to know, and from those truths, we can construct a demonstrable argument for the existence of God.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the first sentence, Howe apparently means that Presuppositionalists teach that unless people consciously assume the existence of God, then they have no knowledge, and thus the Christian has no basis for presenting an argument for God\u2019s existence to the unbeliever.\u00a0 This is in contrast with the Classical position, which allows for non-Christians to have knowledge, which serves as a basis for arguing for God\u2019s existence.\u00a0 That Van Til claims that unbelievers can\u2019t know anything is a charge that I answered recently in a review of J.V. Fesko\u2019s book<\/a> and a review of Keith Mathison\u2019s article<\/a>.\u00a0 The only sense in which Van Til says that unbelievers have no knowledge is in the sense that, by not presupposing God, the unbeliever\u2019s knowledge is put in a false context which, if true, would destroy the possibility of knowledge.\u00a0 Unbelievers know, for example, that flowers are in the field; but understanding those flowers purely as products of random collisions of matter rather than creations of God gives a false aspect to the knowledge; and if the unbeliever\u2019s materialism were really true, knowledge of those flowers, which involves associating the abstract concept of a flower with a particular sense experience, would not be possible because abstract universals are excluded by materialism.<\/p>\n

Howe is correct that a distinction can be made between, as he puts it, \u201cthe presupposition of the truth of Christianity is the precondition of knowledge\u201d <\/em>and \u201cthe truth of Christianity is the precondition of knowledge.\u201d <\/em>\u00a0The presupposition of the Christian God is necessary as part of a philosophical explanation of how knowledge is possible.\u00a0 The unbeliever rejects the Christian view of God and therefore rejects this explanation of knowledge.\u00a0 On the other hand, \u201cthe necessary condition for all knowledge\u201d is the existence<\/em> of the Christian God. \u00a0\u00a0Independent of what anyone professes about God, God still exists, and that makes human knowledge possible.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there is a sense in which Van Til and Bahnsen affirm that the assumption of God is the precondition for knowledge.\u00a0 Since non-Christians do possess knowledge about many things and usually assume many things about the world that can only make sense if God exists, such as cause-and-effect relationships and absolute morality, this knowledge is evidence that deep in their consciousness, non-Christians do know the true God.\u00a0 In many ways, they act on the assumption of God\u2019s existence, even though they suppress that truth and refuse to openly acknowledge the true God, as Romans 1 teaches.\u00a0 Bahnsen explored this issue in his doctoral dissertation on self-deception.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Note that affirming this sense of the necessity of presupposing God is not a basis for saying that unbelievers don’t know anything – just the opposite.\u00a0 It means that they do have accurate ideas about the world to some extent, and that is based on the innate knowledge of God that they inescapably possess.\u00a0This inescapable knowledge serves as the basis for presenting arguments to the unbeliever that God exists.<\/p>\n

While mischaracterizing the presuppositional view, Howe also fails to explain Van Til\u2019s complaint against the Classical approach on the matter of common-ground knowledge with unbelievers.\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s complaint is that the Classical approach regards these truths of experience upon which an argument for God\u2019s existence can be built as an area of neutrality<\/em> between the non-Christian and Christian thought.\u00a0 Specifically with respect to Aquinas\u2019s Aristotelianism, Van Til complained that what Aristotle meant by the Unmoved Mover and how causality was explained by Aristotle in terms of the Unmoved Mover is different from the Christian view of God and causality, yet Aquinas tried to equate the two. As Van Til observes, \u201cSo then Thomas thinks that he has the right to argue from effect to cause without first inquiring into the differences in meaning between the idea of cause when used by Christians and the idea of cause when used by those who do not take the Christian position.\u201d[7]<\/a> The Unmoved Mover of Aristotle is an inert, lifeless, blank unity.\u00a0 The ultimate, efficient cause of change is actually matter, not the Unmoved Mover, which is the source of unity in the midst of change. \u00a0The Unmoved Mover could not choose to cause things in the material world, because it is an abstract principle, not a person.\u00a0 As Van Til puts it, Aquinas\u2019s argument for God\u2019s existence \u201cproves the existence of Aristotle\u2019s god, a god who did not create the world<\/em>, who does not know the world, who does not know \u2018himself\u2019 because \u2018he\u2019 is no self.\u00a0 \u2018He\u2019 is an \u2018it,\u2019 an abstract principle of all-absorbing rationality.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

In contrast to the Classical approach, the Presuppositional approach uses facts of common experience to prove that the God of the Bible must exist in order for those facts to be intelligible.\u00a0 This approach demonstrates that there is no neutral ground between Christian belief and unbelief; rather, all ground is God\u2019s ground.\u00a0 Furthermore, the common experience doesn\u2019t have to be one particular knowledge claim that all people are found to make, like that there is a cause-and-effect relationships in the world.\u00a0 After all, there have been a few people who have denied causality.\u00a0 Any knowledge claim will suffice as the beginning of a transcendental argument.\u00a0 The unbeliever can even make a false knowledge claim that the Christian can use as the beginning point for a proof for the existence of God.\u00a0 The Presuppositional claim is that predication requires the existence of God, so as long as the unbeliever predicates about something, even if the truth value of the predication is false, he is still predicating.\u00a0 And the possibility of predicating, even a false statement like \u201cGod does not exist,\u201d requires the existence of God.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

The interviewer then throws a giant wrench into Howe\u2019s fideism charge by observing that advocates of presuppositionalism point to Greg Bahnsen\u2019s debates where he destroyed his opponent\u2019s arguments, and they claim that that is why it is the best method.\u00a0 Howe responds by basically saying, yes, but they\u2019re being inconsistent:<\/p>\n

I would allege is that whenever the presupposionalist actually starts to construct an argument, I have never seen them fail to do exactly what the Classical method does.<\/em><\/p>\n

Since Howe doesn\u2019t know what Van Til\u2019s real criticism of Aquinas was, he has no basis for distinguishing between doing things the Presuppositional way from doing things the Classical way.\u00a0 Howe is making the same kind of mistake as John Frame and J.V. Fesko when they claim that any mention causation or order in the material world in an argument for God\u2019s existence amounts to \u201cClassical Apologetics.\u201d[10]<\/a>\u00a0 Arguing for God\u2019s existence, including using causality to argue for God\u2019s existence, is not what Van Til rejected in Classical apologetics.<\/p>\n

Howe then comments on the Sproul\/Bahnsen debate:<\/p>\n

Here is what I think is the perennial mistake of all of the presuppositionalists that I have read. . . .\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>This particular nuanced debate came out in RC Sproul\u2019s debate with Bahnsen.\u00a0 Bahnsen: ‘The assumption of God is the precondition of knowledge.’\u00a0 Van Til \u2013 within one paragraph he switches from ‘the presupposition of the truth of Christianity is the precondition of knowledge’ to ‘the truth of Christianity is the precondition of knowledge.’\u00a0 Well, the latter I wouldn\u2019t disagree with.\u00a0 It\u2019s exactly what the Classical model would affirm.\u00a0 God obviously is the precondition. . . .\u00a0 <\/em>Both the classical and presuppositional approach would agree that God is the precondition of knowledge because He’s the creator, that doesn’t distinguish the two models. . . . What distinguishes the two models is the epistemological point, that the assumption of God is the precondition of knowledge.<\/em><\/p>\n

While Aquinas wanted to prove and claimed as a Christian that God created the world, he also admitted that \u201creason\u201d (reasoning by Aristotle\u2019s principles) cannot prove that matter is not eternal: \u201cas arguments, they presuppose the eternity of motion, which Catholics consider to be false.\u201d[11]<\/a>\u00a0 A \u201ccreation\u201d in which matter is eternal is very different from a creation that comes from nothing by the will of God who alone is eternal, especially when the Unmoved Mover is merely an impersonal abstraction that could not<\/em> create anything.\u00a0 So there are problems even with the similarity of God creating our faculties of knowledge and the objects of knowledge between the Classical and Presuppositional positions.<\/p>\n

Here is the part in the Bahnsen\/Sproul debate that Howe is referring to in this transcript<\/a> at page 35 (at 17:44-51 in this audio<\/a>):\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s the transcendental argument, saying that the precondition of intelligibility and knowledge is already… the existence of God.\u201d\u00a0 Bahnsen says \u201cthe existence of God,\u201d yet Howe thinks he said \u201cthe assumption of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Bahnsen is talking about is not clear from the discussion without knowledge of more detailed criticisms in other places that Bahnsen and Van Til made concerning the epistemology of Aquinas and some other Christian apologists.\u00a0 The criticism is that Thomas Aquinas and some other apologists regard our knowledge of the material world as more certain than knowledge of God.\u00a0 While our knowledge that say, a tree is in the yard, is considered nearly certain, the existence of God, as a more remote cause of the material world, is a knowledge that is much less probably true and much less certain than our immediate sense experience of the material world.\u00a0 Because of Aquinas\u2019s Aristotelian empiricism that all knowledge begins with sensation, he says concerning proof for the existence of God that the \u201ceffect is better known to us than its cause.\u201d[12]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The facts of our immediate, earthly environment are known better to us than God is known as the remote cause of the universe.\u00a0 Aquinas explains that through nature, we know God \u201cin a general and confused way. . . .\u00a0 This, however, is not to know absolutely that God exists; just as to know that someone is approaching is not the same as to know that Peter is approaching, even though it is Peter who is approaching.\u201d[13]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0This approach is also seen in Aquinas\u2019s comments on \u201cremotion\u201d:<\/p>\n

Now, in considering the divine substance, we should especially make use of the method of remotion. \u00a0For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. . . .\u00a0 [By remotion] we approach nearer to a knowledge of God according as through our intellect we are able to remove more and more things from Him.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n

So we have positive knowledge of created things through sense experience, but we can only know God through \u201creason\u201d by stripping away all those positive aspects of our knowledge.\u00a0 This leaves us with a concept of God without any content:\u00a0 \u201cGod is a supremely simple form, as was shown above (Question [3], Article [7]). . . . Reason cannot reach up to simple form, so as to know \u2018what it is;\u2019 but it can know \u201cwhether it is.\u201d[15]<\/a>\u00a0 All our rich knowledge of the material world fades into an abstract blank when we seek to know God through nature, on the Thomistic view.<\/p>\n

Bahnsen\u2019s point in the discussion with Sproul is that on the presuppositional view, God\u2019s existence is certain because predication, whether it concerns mathematics or empirical science, requires the existence of God. \u00a0And more precisely, the God that is necessary for the possibility of predication is necessary as more than just some first cause that gets everything moving.\u00a0 God must be an absolute Person who created everything out of nothing according to His eternal plan for every detail of the world. \u00a0\u00a0The unity and diversity of our world must have its origin in a God who is the ultimate one and many, a Mind who has preinterpreted all facts from all eternity.<\/p>\n

I agree that both schools of apologetics relate God\u2019s existence to knowledge, so there is a sense in which both approaches are claiming that God is the precondition of knowledge. \u00a0But there are significant differences in the how the two approaches relate God and knowledge, and the difference is not captured by Howe\u2019s characterization of the Presuppositional view as \u201cthe assumption of God is the precondition of knowledge\u201d<\/em> in distinction from \u201cthe existence of God is the precondition of knowledge.\u201d<\/em> What Howe fails to state anywhere in this supposed refutation of presuppositionalism is Van Til\u2019s primary problem with the Thomistic approach.\u00a0 The problem is how Aquinas tries to equate Aristotle\u2019s Unmoved Mover with the Christian God, even though the two are irreconcilable in many ways.\u00a0 The god that Aristotle presupposes undermines the possibility of knowledge.\u00a0 His god is an impersonal principle, not a person.\u00a0 His god does not have knowledge of anything, especially knowledge of the world.\u00a0 His god did not create the world; rather, matter is eternal.\u00a0 Since there is no creation in this view, this type of god cannot be the basis of a Creator\/creature distinction as taught in the Bible.<\/p>\n

In the view of Aristotle, Plato, and many other Greeks, there are two, independent, eternal sources of reality:\u00a0 matter and form.\u00a0 Form is the source of unity for the world, and matter is the source of diversity.\u00a0 They intermingle in the earthly realm to produce the intelligible world with both diversity and unity.\u00a0 But pure Form is a completely empty principle of unity, and pure Matter is chaos, so an abstract blank and chaos, two things without rational content and which exclude each other in principle, supposedly produce the intelligible world.<\/p>\n

Aquinas wants to convince us to equate Aristotle\u2019s pure Form with the God of Christianity. \u00a0\u00a0Aquinas describes God as a \u201csupremely simple form.\u201d[16]<\/a> \u00a0But the God of Christianity is not Pure Form.\u00a0 He is Triune, so He is not a pure blank.\u00a0 He has knowledge with content.\u00a0 Indeed, He is the source of all the diversity in the world.\u00a0 He eternally planned every detail of it.\u00a0 Aristotle\u2019s god could do no such thing as a Pure Form.\u00a0 Aristotle\u2019s god could not act to do anything, because any change would destroy his status as Pure Form. \u00a0(Thomists call God \u201cpure act\u201d but they define that to mean that God has no potential to change, so \u201cpure act\u201d amounts to \u201cpure impotence.\u201d) \u00a0Aristotle\u2019s god must remain an eternally lifeless, changeless, impersonal blank.\u00a0 Sure, Aquinas talks about God creating matter because the God of the Bible obviously does, and Aquinas wants to defend the existence of the God of the Bible, but he fails to recognize that Aristotle\u2019s god could not have created matter.\u00a0 He is logically compelled to choose between the Aristotle\u2019s impersonal Pure Form and the God of the Bible, but Aquinas tries ride both horses going in opposite directions.\u00a0 It\u2019s painful to think about.<\/p>\n

Howe says:<\/p>\n

What I deny is that the God that is delivered by this Classical method of Aquinas, I deny the fact that the god that it gives us is some kind of minimal theism as it is often described in some of the presuppositionalist literature. It\u2019s simplicity, it\u2019s immutability, it\u2019s immateriality, it\u2019s all good, omnipotence.\u00a0 All of the classical attributes of God cascade inexorably from this simple demonstration of God\u2019s existence; and then the sort-of fountain head of the attributes would be simplicity.\u00a0 And then once simplicity is explained, all of the other attributes of God follow inevitably and unavoidably.<\/em><\/p>\n

While this list of attributes can be applied to the biblical God, the similarity with Aristotle\u2019s Unmoved Mover is superficial.\u00a0 It amounts to the fallacy of equivocation.\u00a0 When God\u2019s simplicity is defined in terms of Aristotle\u2019s Unmoved Mover, it means that God is a blank \u2013 an empty, lifeless, static concept, the pure Form of Greek philosophy rather than the personal, living and active Triune God of Christianity.\u00a0 Aristotle\u2019s god knows nothing and cannot be known except as negation of anything positive, which amounts to knowing nothing about Aristotle\u2019s god.\u00a0 As Van Til puts it, \u201cAristotle\u2019s man knows nothing of Aristotle\u2019s God as Aristotle\u2019s God knows nothing of Aristotle\u2019s man.\u201d[17]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Howe relates a conversation that he had with a presuppositionalist:<\/p>\n

I began to argue as a presuppositionalist Muslim.\u00a0 And everything this Christian said to me, I said, \u2018The problem is you\u2019re not presupposing the self-authenticating, infallible word of the Koran.\u2019 . . . I used all the language that I could think of of the presuppositionalist, except rather than saying \u2018Christian\u2019 or saying \u2018Bible,\u2019 I said \u2018Muslim\u2019 and I said \u2018Koran\u2019 in order to try to get him to see that as far as the template of what you are doing, it can\u2019t adjudicate different religions, each of which might make the same presuppositionalist claim.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a common misconception \u2013 that Presuppositionalism is a bald appeal to divine authority, without any content required of that authority.\u00a0 But there is more to Presuppositionalism than just presupposing any sort of being with the name \u201cGod\u201d as a person\u2019s ultimate authority. Van Til argues that a certain kind of god must be presupposed in order to account for the intelligibility of the world.\u00a0 He uses a few different terms to describe the nature that God must have:\u00a0 \u201cthe self-contained God,\u201d \u201cthe self-sufficient God,\u201d \u201cthe originality of God,\u201d \u201cthe absolute God,\u201d \u201cthe concrete universal,\u201d \u201cthe Eternal One and Many,\u201d and a few others.[18]<\/a>\u00a0 The basic requirement is that God be the source of all unity and diversity, which involves all concepts (universals) being related to all individual facts (diversity) in terms of God\u2019s eternal plan for the world.<\/p>\n

Regarding Islam specifically, on the presuppositionalist view, the Christian has the option of taking two approaches.\u00a0 One approach is to find something about the Islamic view of God that is contrary to a being who is a concrete universal.\u00a0 That would be a refutation in terms of a transcendental argument.\u00a0 The second is to assume, at least for the sake of the argument, that Islam meets the first test and treat Islam as a Christian heresy, pointing out where Islam contradicts the previous revelation of the Bible.\u00a0 See my essay, \u201cThe Scope and Limits of Van Til\u2019s Transcendental Argument,\u201d for more on this issue.[19]<\/a><\/p>\n

Howe mentions at the end of the interview:<\/p>\n

Knowledge isn\u2019t even an epistemological category anyway in the first place.\u00a0 Knowledge in Aristotle and Aquinas is metaphysical.\u00a0 It is the actual formal unity of intellect and reality, where the<\/em> knower actually becomes the thing known at a formal metaphysical level, whatever in the world that means.\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s only coherent given the Aristotelian metaphysics with the augmentation that Aquinas goes on to make.<\/em><\/p>\n

Howe\u2019s understanding of Aristotelian epistemology is correct, but its monist implications are incompatible with Christian theism.\u00a0 Van Til quotes Aristotle saying, \u201cActual knowledge is identical with its object of knowledge. . .\u00a0 When the mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more:\u00a0 this alone is immortal and eternal.\u201d[20]<\/a> Van Til points out that, putting this view in Christian language, this means that \u201cTo the extent that man knows God from knowing himself he must also be<\/em> God.\u201d[21]<\/a>\u00a0 This view of knowledge wipes out the Creator-creature distinction.\u00a0 Rather than man\u2019s consciousness receiving revelation from his Creator, man\u2019s consciousness is divine.<\/p>\n

Conclusion:\u00a0 By promoting strawman criticisms of Van Til, Dr. Howe is doing the Christian apologetic community a disservice.\u00a0 As a seasoned professor dedicated to understanding and defending Thomism, Dr. Howe certainly has a well-informed knowledge of the positions of Aquinas that Van Til actually criticizes.\u00a0 If he applied himself to responding to those criticisms rather than the strawman arguments that he promotes in this interview,\u00a0 the debate between the two schools would be more productive.<\/p>\n

Postscript:\u00a0 Dr. Howe was kind enough to further explain some of his positions in an email exchange that we had a few weeks ago.\u00a0 I take responsibilty for any misunderstandings of his views that I present here.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til,\u00a0A Survey of Christian Epistemology\u00a0<\/em>p.201.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, p. 117.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, \u00a0An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, p. 102.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em> (1955), p. 121<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til\u2019s Apologetic:\u00a0 Readings & Analysis<\/em> (Phillipsburg, NJ:\u00a0 P&R Publishing, 1998), p. 74 (emphasis in the original).<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Gregory Lyle Bahnsen, \u201cA conditional resolution of the apparent paradox of self-deception,\u201d http:\/\/digitallibrary.usc.edu\/cdm\/ref\/collection\/p15799coll3\/id\/388025<\/a>.\u00a0 For the application to Van Til, see his essay, \u201cVan Til and Self-Deception, http:\/\/www.cmfnow.com\/articles\/pa191.htm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em>, p. 173.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em>, p. 302.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology<\/em>, p. xii.\u00a0 Also, A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em>, p.13.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a>\u00a0 For my comments on Frame\u2019s view, see http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/2015\/09\/20\/review_of_frames_apologetics\/<\/a>.\u00a0 For my comments on Fesko\u2019s view, see http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/07\/14\/common-notion-confusion-part-3\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a>\u00a0 Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles<\/em>, 1:13.29-30<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a>\u00a0 Summa Theologica<\/em>, 1a.2.2.<\/a><\/p>\n

[13]<\/a>\u00a0 Summa Theologica<\/em>, 1a.2.1.<\/a><\/p>\n

[14]<\/a>\u00a0 Summa Contra Gentiles<\/em>, 1:14.2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a>\u00a0 Summa Theologica<\/em>, 1a.12.12<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/a>\u00a0 Summa Theologica<\/em>\u00a01a.3.4<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[17]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em> (1955), p. 138.<\/p>\n

[18]<\/a>\u00a0 See my essay, \u201cThe Scope and Limits of Van Til\u2019s Transcendental Argument,\u201d pp. 35-36, http:\/\/www.christianciv.com\/The_Scope_and_Limits_of_VTAG.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., pp. 57-58.<\/p>\n

[20]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, p. 87, quoting Aristotle\u2019s De Anima.<\/em><\/p>\n

[21]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., emphasis in original.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Richard Howe, professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary, was interviewed in a video posted on April 9, 2020, to YouTube under the title \u201cA Sound Refutation of Presuppositionalism with Dr. Richard Howe\u201d (here).\u00a0 This is my response in defense of … 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],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468"}],"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=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions\/477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}