{"id":77,"date":"2015-09-20T19:55:17","date_gmt":"2015-09-20T23:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/?p=77"},"modified":"2018-05-23T22:47:12","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T02:47:12","slug":"review_of_frames_apologetics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/2015\/09\/20\/review_of_frames_apologetics\/","title":{"rendered":"A (Very) Critical Review of Frame the Fuzzy Van Tillian\u2019s Book Apologetics<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Apologetics:<\/p>\n

Download article\u00a0in pdf format here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

John Frame has reissued his popular book Apologetics to the Glory of God<\/em> (AGG) under a new name, Apologetics: A Justification of Christian Belief<\/em>.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 He has expanded some of the chapters and added essays in the appendix.<\/p>\n

Prior to AGG being published in 1994, I had read Frame\u2019s book The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God<\/em> (DKG); and I had found it interesting and helpful in the way that he restated some of Van Til\u2019s ideas in simple, normal language.\u00a0 But I also noticed that Frame\u2019s explanations of Van Til\u2019s thought in some areas were somewhat equivocal, such as saying that he didn\u2019t know if Van Til held that \u201clanguage about God can be literal,\u201d[2]<\/a> and his listing of several possible meanings of \u201cthought content\u201d without coming to a conclusion about what Van Til meant by the term.[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Much of this involved his evaluation of the Clark\/Van Til controversy, and while I agree that Van Til\u2019s language could have been clearer, I thought that Frame could have presented Van Til\u2019s views more definitively than he did.\u00a0 I was struck by the contrast with Greg Bahnsen\u2019s way of writing about apologetics.\u00a0 He had a precise position about nearly every issue under the sun.\u00a0 Frame sees his restrained conclusions as observant of the requirements of Christian humility,[4]<\/a> and maybe Bahnsen could have benefited from some of Frame\u2019s humility.\u00a0 On the other hand, claims of humility by being a moderate, movement-rejecting, middle-of-the-roader can be an excuse for obscuring the truth.\u00a0 Bahnsen reports that Frame wrote an essay in 1985 called \u201cLet\u2019s Keep the Picture Fuzzy,\u201d claiming that ambiguity on the issue of theonomy was a moral imperative, \u201cswitching from considerations of theological truth and error to considerations of attitude and persuasion between the parties.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 This should sound familiar to those who have read Frame\u2019s critique of Van Til. \u00a0The original AGG and the new Apologetics<\/em> show that Frame is not just a fuzzy theonomist.\u00a0 Frame is a fuzzy Van Tillian.[6]<\/a> \u00a0He argues that the difference between Van Til\u2019s presuppositional approach and the traditional arguments for the existence of God is not a matter of argumentative form or content, but merely \u201can attitude of the heart.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 However, my view is that his advocacy for a \u201cpresuppositionalism of the heart\u201d obscures the teaching of Van Til, which has undermined what could have been a more faithful witness of the church to the unbelieving world in the twenty years since AGG was published.<\/p>\n

When AGG first came out, I saw it in a Christian bookstore and thumbed through it.\u00a0 Nothing really caught my eye, and based on DKG I didn\u2019t have a \u201cmust have\u201d urge to buy it; plus I had other books to get through at the time.\u00a0 So I didn\u2019t buy it. Then I joined a Van Til email discussion group around 1998, and the most academically trained members of the discussion group were Framians.\u00a0 They often initiated discussions on Van Til\u2019s views that I had never encountered in Van Til\u2019s books, and I had read most of them.\u00a0 I also never heard of these issues from Bahnsen, whose Philosophy of Christianity course I had taken.\u00a0 So at this point I had to buy AGG and his subsequent, more detailed book, Cornelius Van Til:\u00a0 An Analysis of his Thought<\/em> (CVT).<\/p>\n

My reading of both books was that Frame had some major misunderstandings of Van Til.\u00a0 So when Apologetics<\/em> was recently published, I was curious to see whether Frame had adjusted any of his positions.\u00a0 I looked at the notes that I scribbled in the margins of AGG, like \u201cNo!,\u201d \u201cWhere?,\u201d and several sentences written around the margins; and I compared those pages to the new version of the book. \u00a0In the new book Frame adds some further explanation of his points to what he wrote in AGG, but unfortunately he doesn\u2019t correct any of the errors in his understanding of Van Til.\u00a0 Although he responds to some critics, Frame does not interact or even mention Greg Bahnsen\u2019s several criticisms of his positions in AGG, except for one that he takes as a compliment.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

There are some good additions to the book, like the essay in the appendix by Joseph E. Torres on circular argument, although Frame\u2019s original statements in the book should have been sufficient to refute the critics of Van Til on the issue.\u00a0 In my view, the critics on this issue either haven\u2019t tried to seriously understand Van Til\u2019s point and just assume that Van Til claims that the premise of the transcendental argument should be the same as its conclusion, or they simply lack the Wittgensteinian imagination to understand that the same term can be used in slightly different ways.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Positive and Negative Transcendental Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n

The guys in the discussion group debated whether Frame was right that a transcendental argument for God\u2019s existence can be positive, or if it must be negative as Van Til claimed.\u00a0 None of them asked whether Van Til actually made this claim, whether Frame had constructed a strawman.\u00a0 I searched Van Til\u2019s works on the Logos<\/em> CD for \u201cnegative\u201d and \u201cpositive argument.\u201d\u00a0 I could find only one instance where Van Til says that the Christian argument against rival worldviews must be a negative rather than positive argument. \u00a0That one mention was in a student paper he wrote in 1924 while in seminary at Princeton.\u00a0 It seems that Van Til would have mentioned this again a few times in his published writings if it had the importance that Frame gives it. \u00a0Here it is:<\/p>\n

Our apologetic has been negative, and as far as it has been negative, if not misrepresented, it must also be coercive for those that assume a different position form ours. We do not contend that the positive argument must therefore also be convincing. That would be a contradiction of our own position. If you have lost a child and I have found one, it does not therefore mean that the child I have found is your child. With this illustration Dr. A. Kuyper makes the position clear which we, following him, have presented. It is exactly our position that the absolute alone can furnish the positive apologetic. He must draw us out of darkness to his marvelous light. For even if we should agree that reason needs a corrective, what guarantee is there that Scripture furnishes the same and that it is not a mere result of imagination?[10]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kuyper\u2019s illustration of the lost child that Van Til appeals to comes from Kuyper\u2019s Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology<\/em>, where he argues that, while we can show, negatively, how non-Christian philosophies have logical and factual problems, we can\u2019t prove, i.e. make a positive argument, that Christianity is correct because it is held as a presupposition that is a gift of faith imparted by the Holy Spirit.[11]<\/a>\u00a0 But this is an issue about which Van Til changes his mind in his later, published works.\u00a0 He rejects Kuyper\u2019s idea that apologetics is limited to a negative defense:\u00a0 \u201c[O]ne cannot be exclusively defensive. . . .\u00a0 The diathetical, the thetical and the antithetical can at most be matters of emphasis.\u201d[12]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til explains that he found a middle path between Kuyper and Benjamin Warfield in apologetic methodology, allowing that Christianity can be proven as Warfield held; but with Kuyper, emphasizing the incommensurable presuppositions that divide Christianity from its opponents and rejecting the traditional arguments for the existence of God because they fail to do that.[13]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til realized that presuppositions can be proven to be true by showing that they are necessary for the possibility of intelligible experience. \u00a0Like the preaching of God\u2019s word, or more precisely as part of the preaching of God\u2019s word, the Holy Spirit can use apologetic arguments as one of the means to bring a person to faith.[14]<\/a> \u00a0In contrast to his illustration that he borrowed from Kuyper, that just because you lost a child does not prove that the one I found is yours, in his later, published works Van Til often emphasized that there are only two basic choices \u2013 either God is ultimate or man is ultimate.\u00a0 In terms of the issue of the one and the many, the choice is either a concrete universal God, one in whom unity and diversity have been related from eternity past, or an original abstraction of the one from the many.[15]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s student paper contains the basic argument of the one and the many that he used for the remainder of career, but he hadn\u2019t realized many of the implications of it at that time.<\/p>\n

So if Van Til doesn\u2019t demand that transcendental arguments be negative in form, where did Frame get the idea?\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t completely make it up.\u00a0 He just gets confused by Van Til\u2019s terms.\u00a0 Van Til uses the terms \u201cdirect\u201d and \u201cindirect\u201d to describe arguments.\u00a0 We can trace the etiology of Frame\u2019s error when see that he assumes that Van Til is using the definition of \u201cindirect argument\u201d that is found in mathematics textbooks.\u00a0 In this passage found in both AGG and Apologetics<\/em> and repeated in a slightly different form in CVT, he says:\u00a0 \u201cAn indirect proof or reductio<\/em> in mathematics is a proof in which one assumes a proposition (\u2018for the sake of the argument,\u2019 as Van Til puts it) in order to refute it.\u00a0 One tentatively adopts, say, proposition A and then deduces from it a logical contradiction or some proposition that is obviously false.\u201d[16]<\/a>\u00a0 From the negation that begins an indirect argument in mathematics, Van Til\u2019s appeal to \u201cindirect argument\u201d becomes a \u201cnegative argument\u201d for Frame; and a \u201cdirect argument\u201d in Van Til\u2019s writing becomes a \u201cpositive argument\u201d in Frame\u2019s terminology.<\/p>\n

But the question should be asked, is the meaning that \u201cindirect\u201d suggests to Frame the same meaning that Van Til is using as we look at the context in which he uses the term?\u00a0 Was Van Til using the mathematics textbook definition of \u201cindirect argument,\u201d or did he use the phrase in a different way?\u00a0 Here is Van Til\u2019s fullest explanation of what he means by these terms:<\/p>\n

The method of reasoning by presupposition may be said to be indirect rather than direct. The issue between believers and non-believers in Christian theism cannot be settled by a direct appeal to \u201cfacts\u201d or \u201claws\u201d whose nature and significance is already agreed upon by both parties to the debate. The question is rather as to what is the final reference-point required to make the \u201cfacts\u201d and \u201claws\u201d intelligible. The question is as to what the \u201cfacts\u201d and \u201claws\u201d really are. Are they what the non-Christian methodology assumes that they are? Are they what the Christian theistic methodology presupposes they are?<\/p>\n

The answer to this question cannot be finally settled by any direct discussion of \u201cfacts.\u201d It must, in the last analysis, be settled indirectly. 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.[17]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On my reading of this, Van Til is simply using \u201cindirect argument\u201d as a synonym for a transcendental or presuppositional argument.\u00a0 He describes a \u201cdirect argument\u201d as an argument over facts in which the disputants share the same basic worldview; the \u201cnature and significance\u201d of facts and laws are \u201calready agreed upon by both parties to the debate.\u201d \u00a0Since a transcendental argument is about arbitrating between conflicting worldviews, a direct argument cannot<\/em> equate to a positive transcendental argument.[18]<\/a><\/p>\n

In Apologetics<\/em> Frame adds to what he wrote in AGG by quoting the first of the above paragraphs from Van Til.\u00a0 But notice what Van Til says in the second paragraph.\u00a0 Whereas Frame defines an indirect argument as a negative argument, in this passage Van Til describes an indirect argument as having two parts, one negative and the other positive.\u00a0 Although Van Til first mentions the Christian placing himself on the position of the non-Christian, he does not require beginning an argument with a negation.\u00a0 In other places he explains that, because all facts require the existence of God for their intelligibility, an argument can begin with any fact in God\u2019s creation:\u00a0 \u201cA truly transcendental argument takes any fact of experience which it wishes to investigate, and tries to determine what the presuppositions of such a fact must be, in order to make it what it is.\u201d[19]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s recommended order of presentation in the quote above is for a persuasive purpose, not logical necessity.\u00a0 There is a principle in evangelism that people won\u2019t see their need for a Savior until they first see that they are sinners.\u00a0 People won\u2019t embrace the Christian worldview unless they first realize that their own worldview is bankrupt.\u00a0 Van Til recognizes this:<\/p>\n

In this connection we must also say a word about the contention often made by Christians that we must be positive rather than negative in our presentation of the truth to those who have not yet accepted it. We have no fault to find with this statement if it be correctly understood. We must certainly present the truth of the Christian theistic system constantly, at every point of the argument. But it is clear that if you offer a new wife to one who is perfectly satisfied with the one he has now, you are not likely to be relieved of your burden. In other words, it is the self-sufficiency of the \u201cnatural man\u201d that must first be brought under some pressure, before there is any likelihood of his even considering the truth in any serious fashion at all. The parable of the prodigal helps us here. As long as the son was at home there was nothing but a positive argument that was held before him. But he wanted to go out of the father\u2019s house in order to indulge in \u201criotous living.\u201d Not till he was at the swinetrough, not till he saw that he had made a hog of himself and that he could not be a hog because he was a man, did he at all begin to consider the servants of his father who had plenty of bread.[20]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Van Til describes a transcendental argument as \u201cindirect\u201d because it goes \u201cbehind\u201d the particular fact under consideration to see what the ultimate nature of the universe must be for that fact, or any fact, to be intelligible.\u00a0 This is how disputes between people holding different worldviews must be settled.\u00a0 The concern is not so much with an individual fact as with the common nature of all factuality and how different worldviews will approach that question differently.\u00a0 \u201cIn<\/em>direct\u201d equates to pre<\/em>suppositional, what is assumed as the ultimate source and standard of reality behind what we see directly in experience.\u00a0 Transcendental arguments are, by definition, indirect in this sense; but they can be either positive or negative, or both, without violating anything that Van Til says about them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Frame\u2019s Six Questions about Van Til\u2019s Rejection of Traditional Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n

In AGG Frame asked six questions about Van Til\u2019s approach to apologetics.\u00a0 They amount to questioning in the negative sense of rejecting Van Til\u2019s alleged positions in these six areas.\u00a0 Since it is a handy summary of Frame\u2019s criticisms of Van Til, they are often cited, especially by Van Til\u2019s critics.\u00a0 Although the questions are not detailed analyses of Van Til\u2019s writings and nothing from Van Til\u2019s writings are quoted or even cited in the original AGG version (or in Apologetics<\/em>), at least one Ph.D. candidate listed Frame\u2019s six questions, just the one-sentence questions without any of the explanation that follow, in his doctoral dissertation; and his dissertation committee accepted this as a sufficient refutation of Van Til\u2019s views.[21]<\/a>\u00a0 Christian academic standards are in a sorry state these days.<\/p>\n

In Apologetics<\/em>, Frame adds additional material to these six questions, but it doesn\u2019t remedy the errors that I see in his understanding of Van Til.<\/p>\n

In question 1, Frame says that he agrees with Van Til that \u201cwithout God there is no meaning.\u201d\u00a0 But then he asks, \u201cHow, then, is that premise to be proved?\u201d[22]<\/a>\u00a0 One major problem here is that Frame asks this question.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t think that Van Til has an answer to the question:\u00a0 \u201cAlthough Van Til calls it an argument, it really is a conclusion rather than an argument.\u201d[23]<\/a> \u00a0Actually Van Til does have a specific argument with this as the conclusion, not the premise.\u00a0 It is the argument concerning the one and the many.\u00a0 Positively, God is understood as a concrete universal, which means that all facts and the concepts that apply to them are determined by God from eternity past.\u00a0 How humans have knowledge is no problem on this view because all knowledge has eternally existed, and humans are made in God\u2019s image, with their finite knowledge reflecting God\u2019s comprehensive, eternal knowledge.\u00a0 Negatively, the denial of God as a concrete universal requires the one and the many to be originally abstract from each other.\u00a0 An abstract one is a pure blank, and an abstract many is pure chaos, neither of which allow for rationality.\u00a0 Beginning with an ultimately irrational universe, the God-denier cannot explain how knowledge and rationality could arise in humans. \u00a0\u00a0I have given a fuller statement of this argument in another paper.[24]<\/a><\/p>\n

Frame has a rudimentary understanding of Van Til\u2019s argument for the one and the many,[25]<\/a> but admits that, \u201cInstinctively, I feel that Van Til is right about this, but the point is terribly difficult to formulate coherently.\u201d[26]<\/a>\u00a0 Apparently he has too much difficulty with the argument to try to make much use of it when trying to understand what Van Til is talking about most of the time.\u00a0 \u00a0In fact, as quoted above, he prefers to dismiss it as a mere conclusion and not an argument.\u00a0 Since Frame doesn\u2019t understand what Van Til\u2019s argument is, he searches around for some arguments that could fill in to prove that without God there is no meaning.\u00a0 He says that we could appeal to design, cause, and morality.\u00a0 But, he says, to appeal to any of these amounts to an endorsement of the traditional arguments.\u00a0 For example, \u201cIs it that the meaning-structure of reality requires an efficient cause?\u00a0 That is the traditional cosmological argument.\u201d[27]<\/a>\u00a0 I have heard other critics of Van Til repeat this line.\u00a0 But this is a clueless statement.\u00a0 It reflects an ignorance of what Van Til found wrong with the traditional arguments.\u00a0 For some reason, it doesn\u2019t occur to Frame that Van Til could criticize something about the traditional arguments without rejecting the use of design, cause, and morality to prove God\u2019s existence.\u00a0 This is exactly what Van Til says about his position:\u00a0 \u201cMen ought to reason analogically from nature to nature\u2019s God.\u00a0 Men ought, therefore, to use the cosmological argument analogically in order to thus conclude that God is the Creator of the universe. . . [A]ll the theistic arguments should really be taken together and reduced to the one argument of the possibility of human predication.\u201d[28]<\/a> \u00a0And he says, \u201cThe true theistic proofs undertake to show that the ideas of existence (ontological proof), of cause (cosmological proof), and purpose (teleological proof) are meaningless unless they presuppose the existence of God.\u201d[29]<\/a>\u00a0 And then, \u201cI do not reject \u2018the theistic proofs\u2019 but merely insist on formulating them in such a way as not to compromise the doctrines of Scripture.\u201d [30]<\/a>\u00a0 Yet, Frame concludes his critique of Van Til by saying, \u201cWe should no longer be embarrassed, for example, to argue for the existence of God on the basis of cause, purpose, and values.\u201d[31]<\/a>\u00a0 Who is this \u201cwe\u201d who experienced this embarrassment?\u201d\u00a0 Not Van Til.\u00a0 Not Bahnsen either.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u201d are Frame, his imaginary Van Til, and maybe some others that Frame has met who share his misunderstanding of Van Til.<\/p>\n

When I first read AGG I wondered how Frame could claim that an appeal to causality is an appeal to the traditional cosmological argument given that Bahnsen appealed to causality to argue for God\u2019s existence in his debate with Gordon Stein.[32]<\/a>\u00a0 Frame would have to hold that Bahnsen\u2019s argument in the Stein debate was an abandonment of Van Til\u2019s apologetic.[33]<\/a>\u00a0 And yet in AGG Frame also points to Bahnsen\u2019s debate with Stein as a prime example of Van Til\u2019s negative transcendental method in action, which, Frame claims, is against the traditional arguments because they are positive arguments.[34]<\/a> \u00a0Frame actually addresses my question in Apologetics<\/em>, but he only compounds the confusion.\u00a0 He classifies Bahnsen\u2019s argument in the Stein debate as Thomistic \u2013 and adds that that isn\u2019t really contrary to the major thrust of Van Til\u2019s apologetic.[35]<\/a>\u00a0 For Frame, the mere claim that \u201cmotion implies a first mover,\u201d the mere use of those words or ones similar, makes an argument \u201cThomistic\u201d and \u201cthe traditional argument.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s amazingly superficial.\u00a0 At most, it\u2019s the traditional claim<\/em>, but not the traditional argument<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A prime example of Frame\u2019s confusion about why Van Til criticized the traditional arguments is Frame\u2019s critique of Van Til\u2019s criticism of Thomas Aquinas.\u00a0 As I discuss in another essay, Frame invents another strawman in regards to Van Til\u2019s criticism of Aquinas.[36]<\/a>\u00a0 Even though Frame goes into detail on this in his later book on Van Til, his treatment of this subject involves four out the remaining five of his misguided questions\/disagreements with Van Til in AGG\/Apologetics<\/em>.[37]<\/a><\/p>\n

In CVT Frame criticizes Van Til for criticizing Aquinas for not proving enough about God\u2019s nature.\u00a0 \u201cVan Til does not present enough argument to require a particular degree of definition in an apologetic proof.\u201d[38]<\/a>\u00a0 Actually, Van Til does not mention any<\/em> argument to prove this point because Van Til\u2019s position here is Frame\u2019s invention.\u00a0 Frame never cites a passage where Van Til makes this criticism of Aquinas, and I can\u2019t find it in Van Til\u2019s writings.\u00a0 But I can cite plenty of evidence for a different criticism that Van Til makes of Aquinas.[39]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s problem with Aquinas is that he incorporated the form\/matter scheme from Greek philosophy into Christian theology.\u00a0 Van Til says,<\/p>\n

The natural-supernatural theology of Roman Catholicism is the result of an attempt to fit the Christian framework of God-in-Christ and his relation to the world into the form-matter scheme of Aristotle. The transcendent God of the natural theology of Thomas Aquinas is attained by the method of remotion and is therefore relegated to the realm of the indeterminate.[40]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While Frame thinks that Aquinas might be combining merely \u201ca truncated Aristotelianism (no longer the Aristotelian system) with Christian thought\u201d[41]<\/a> \u2013 not adopting the bad, anti-theistic parts of the system, like the form\/matter scheme of reality \u2013 Van Til quotes Aquinas\u2019s endorsement of these very ideas of Aristotle that are destructive to the Christian theistic worldview.\u00a0 In Summa Theologica<\/em> Aquinas says, \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 \u2018whether it is.\u2019\u201d[42]<\/a> \u00a0And in Summa Contra Gentiles<\/em> Aquinas says, \u201cNow, in considering the divine substance, we should especially make use of the method of remotion. For, 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.\u201d[43]<\/a>\u00a0 By remotion \u201cwe approach nearer to a knowledge of God according as through our intellect we are able to remove more and more things from Him.\u201d[44]<\/a> \u00a0All particulars are removed from the concept of God, resulting in God as an empty concept.\u00a0 We can\u2019t know \u201cwhat it is\u201d because there is no content to God\u2019s nature to know by this method.[45]<\/a><\/p>\n

This irrational method of knowing God that excludes the possibility of knowing what God is has implications that undermine every major area of Christian theology.[46]<\/a>\u00a0 It completely undermines the cosmological argument.\u00a0 While Aquinas can try to be faithful to the Christian worldview by saying that God created prime matter, [47]<\/a> to define God as pure, empty form undermines the possibility of creation.\u00a0 A changeless, empty concept can\u2019t cause anything.\u00a0 As Van Til says, \u201cThus the argument for a first mover in the Thomistic form is to the effect that God\u2019s existence as the first mover is proved only if there be no motion, no time, no history at all.\u201d[48]<\/a><\/p>\n

Frame says that the traditional arguments for the existence of God should be acceptable as long as they have a transcendental \u201cgoal\u201d or \u201cthrust.\u201d\u00a0 But if the argument does not reach its goal, then it\u2019s not a success, it\u2019s not transcendental.\u00a0 Bahnsen critiques Frame\u2019s examples of arguments for God\u2019s existence in AGG as having \u201cpresupposionalized\u201d the traditional arguments, which is to be commended.[49]<\/a>\u00a0 But we need to recognize that the traditional arguments need to be presented with significant modifications from their original presentations to become sound transcendental arguments for God\u2019s existence, which means that they are not really the same arguments any more. \u00a0\u00a0Frame adds from what he wrote in AGG the following paragraph in Apologetics<\/em>:<\/p>\n

It seems to me that if Aquinas argued correctly in showing that God is the first cause of everything, then God is the transcendental condition of everything: of meaning, coherent thought and predication, as well as motion, causality, and contingency.\u00a0 On that understanding, Aquinas\u2019s argument, like Van Til\u2019s, is transcendental and presuppositional.\u00a0 If that is true, then Van Til\u2019s argument might not be as original as he thought it was.\u00a0 I certainly reject Aquinas\u2019s view of autonomous natural knowledge.\u00a0 But his cosmological argument is legitimate as a part of a legitimate TAG. [50]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, Van Til\u2019s TAG (Transcendental Argument for God) is about knowledge and causality at the same time.\u00a0 The two cannot be separated except as a matter of emphasis.\u00a0 If Aquinas\u2019s cosmological argument is interpreted according to its original context, it involves a view of knowledge and the nature of God that undermines it.\u00a0 If Aquinas\u2019s cosmological argument is to be sound, then the best we can do is salvage a few of the words or phrases of his argument and include them in an argument that is contrary to his \u201cview of autonomous natural knowledge\u201d and the idea of knowing God\u2019s nature by remotion, of which his cosmological argument was originally a part.\u00a0 In that context, we cannot say<\/em> that \u201cAquinas argued correctly in showing that God is the first cause of everything.\u201d\u00a0 God as pure form in Greek philosophy reduces to absurdity and cannot cause anything.\u00a0 Frame pleads that you can use some of Aquinas\u2019s traditional arguments as long as they are put in the context of a biblical epistemology, \u201cpart of a legitimate TAG.\u201d\u00a0 Van Til does not completely disagree, although he sees a biblical epistemology affecting the arguments themselves, whereas Frame does not.\u00a0 Van Til opposed \u201cthe traditional arguments\u201d while still advocating the use of cause, purpose, being, and morality to form a transcendental argument.<\/p>\n

While Frame says that there is nothing wrong with the five ways by themselves, even in the chapter on the Five Ways in the Summa<\/em> we find elements of Aristotle\u2019s form\/matter scheme.\u00a0 Aquinas sees the need to defend his arguments from an infinite regress.\u00a0 The problem of infinite regress only arises if your first cause is less than absolute.\u00a0 There\u2019s no getting in back of an absolute God.\u00a0 There is no cause that could be higher.\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s depiction of God as an absolute, concrete universal means that God is the source of all<\/em> unity and diversity that exists or could exist.\u00a0 Of course, that\u2019s not where Aquinas goes.\u00a0 His answer to the problem of infinite regress, that you have to begin somewhere or else nothing will get started, is exactly what you would expect if he is defending a finite type of god that gets things moving in the universe but is not sovereign over all the details (even though Aristotle\u2019s god actually does not even allow that).\u00a0 Either the first cause is an absolute God, in which the problem of infinite regress does not arise;[51]<\/a> or one posits a finite first cause, in which there is no escape from the objection of an infinite regress.\u00a0 Van Til says, \u201cIt is always possible to ask for the cause of the cause till one faints in an infinite regression. When we say in this naive fashion that God made the world, the little girl will ask us, and ask us justly, who made God.\u201d[52]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Yet, Frame says that Van Tillians should be \u201cshowing (with traditional apologists) that an infinite series of causes is unintelligible. . . .\u201d[53]<\/a>\u00a0 Frame fails to see that the problem of infinite regress is generated from Aquinas\u2019s defective view of God and that it does not arise as a problem, except by misunderstanding, with TAG.<\/p>\n

Considering the Five Ways, as Frame would like us to do, in isolation from the rest of Aquinas\u2019 book where he defends positions that undermine the Christian view of God, Aquinas has no answer to polytheism, explicitly or implicitly. \u00a0He says nothing to exclude the possibility of multiple first causes.\u00a0 Aristotle had speculated that there could be fifty-five unmoved movers,[54]<\/a> although he preferred to think of there being only one.[55]<\/a>\u00a0 Frame says that Aquinas\u2019s arguments are useful if they prove a first cause, even if they don\u2019t prove other things about God\u2019s nature.\u00a0 But if an argument allows multiple<\/em> first causes, should Christians regard it as worth mentioning as proof of the God of the Bible who demands exclusive devotion as the only true God, the sole and sovereign Creator of heaven and earth? \u00a0At the very least a Christian must modify the argument in some way to make it useful even if the argument is viewed in isolation from the rest of Aquinas\u2019s philosophy.<\/p>\n

But if we go outside of the chapter on the Five Ways to find that modification, we jump from the frying pan into the fire.\u00a0 Aquinas\u2019 view of God as an abstract unity is limited too, even if there is only one.\u00a0 Let\u2019s generously assume, again as Frame would have us to do, that Aquinas and Van Til agree that the world needs a unified first cause of all things in sense experience, like motion and order, to give these things intelligibility. \u00a0Nevertheless, the nature of the unity of the first cause that Aquinas posits makes a world of difference<\/em> between him and Van Til.\u00a0 Aquinas\u2019s Greek principle of unity is only able to support a finite god that excludes<\/em> the absolute God of Scripture. \u00a0His divine unity is an empty abstraction, and this kind of first cause can\u2019t get the job done of giving unity to sense experience.\u00a0 Aquinas cannot view God as a supremely simple form and claim to know of God\u2019s existence through remotion and then be able to add particularity to Aristotle\u2019s view of the unmoved mover to get a concrete universal God in order to bring unity to all the particulars of the universe. \u00a0As Van Til puts it, a person is \u201cquite mistaken\u201d to think that \u201cthe Christian idea of the trinity can be added to the Greek idea of the unity of God.\u00a0 The one God of Aristotle retains its oneness only if kept in abstraction from the world.\u201d[56]<\/a> \u00a0Since all particulars are removed from the nature of God, matter must have a separate source from God, in accordance with the Greek form\/matter scheme. \u00a0Such a god is finite rather than absolute, even if Aristotle\u2019s speculation about additional unmoved movers is dismissed.\u00a0 And a finite god is philosophically useless.\u00a0 Van Til writes, \u201c[H]e has no right to claim the rationality of the one absolute God as the principle of his interpretation of life. . . .\u00a0 [The] so-called theistic proofs . . . must either be stated in a truly Christian-theistic fashion, or they involve the doctrine of a finite god, and a finite god is no God.\u201d[57]<\/a>\u00a0 The possibility of rationality requires an absolute God, not an abstract unity.<\/p>\n

To have a finite god is philosophically equivalent to atheism.\u00a0 Whether the greatest minds in the universe are finite gods or finite humans, that still leaves the universe ultimately non-rational, which undermines the possibility of reason from ever arising in the universe.\u00a0 Reason requires appeal to universal, unchanging absolutes like logic and mathematical concepts; and these must relate to all the diversity of the world of experience.\u00a0 If god is a pure abstract unity, then it has no relation to the diverse world of experience.\u00a0 If god is just a part of the world of experience, like the gods of Greek mythology, it would not be a source of the universals.\u00a0 Without an absolute God, particulars can never have unity, and unity can never relate to particulars.\u00a0 Aquinas tries to put the two abstractions together, but that doesn\u2019t work either because they are defined in exclusion of each other.\u00a0\u00a0 As Van Til describes Aquinas\u2019s position:<\/p>\n

Besides having the non-rational principle of prime matter, one also needs the idea of a universal form in relation to which the individuality that springs from matter receives its unification. \u00a0Individuation by a non-rational principle would lead to pure indetermination\u2014to an infinite regress. If one had billions of beads without any string, how would one ever have a string of beads? On the other hand, it is equally true that if you had nothing but the string, you still would have no string of beads.[58]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Only<\/em> a concrete universal God allows for the possibility of intelligible experience, including knowledge of cause and effect relationships in nature.\u00a0 A finite, empty abstraction of a god undermines the possibility of rationality, thus an argument assuming that kind of god is self-refuting.\u00a0 An argument that undermines the possibility of rational argument is a bad argument.\u00a0 God as a concrete universal is the necessary cause of the world because without such a God there could be no argument.[59]<\/a><\/p>\n

Because Frame doesn\u2019t think that Van Til has an actual argument, he misunderstands what is unique, or at least most important, about Van Til\u2019s argument.\u00a0 Frame says that \u201cAquinas\u2019s argument, like Van Til\u2019s, is transcendental. . . .\u00a0 [Therefore], Van Til\u2019s argument might not be as original as he thought it was.\u201d[60]<\/a>\u00a0 But while making the argument for God\u2019s existence transcendental is important for Van Til and unique compared to many other apologists, Van Til did not make the transcendental nature of the argument the be all and end all of a good theistic argument.\u00a0 Arguments for paganism can be transcendental.\u00a0 Van Til knew of bad transcendental arguments.\u00a0 Immanuel Kant made transcendental arguments famous, and since Van Til was trained as an idealist philosopher, Van Til certainly learned some things about transcendental arguments from Kant, including the focus on the issue of the one and the many as the key to establishing the preconditions for rationality.[61]<\/a>\u00a0 Yet Kant argued for a view of the one and the many as the preconditions for rationality that, as Van Til often points out, are incommensurable with the Christian worldview and which fail in their goal of accounting for the possibility of human rationality.<\/p>\n

Even transcendental arguments that claim to be arguments for God\u2019s existence can be bad arguments if they mischaracterize the nature of God, like Aquinas\u2019s view of God as pure form in accordance with Greek philosophy.\u00a0 Van Til is accurate to characterize Aquinas\u2019 arguments for God\u2019s existence as \u201cdirect\u201d arguments rather than transcendental arguments because Aquinas ignores the differences between Christian presuppositions and the presuppositions of the natural man, meaning particularly Aristotle.[62]<\/a>\u00a0 Aquinas thinks that he is on neutral common ground with the pagan Aristotle when he should recognize that the common ground is pagan.\u00a0 But Aquinas\u2019 overall philosophy is transcendental because he argues for the preconditions of rationality.\u00a0 He argues for a view of how humans gain knowledge in terms of the ultimate nature of the universe. Unfortunately, he argues that these preconditions include Aristotle\u2019s presuppositions about form and matter that are incommensurable with Christian presuppositions.\u00a0 Aquinas\u2019 Five Ways are part of Aquinas\u2019 overall philosophy that is saturated in Aristotle\u2019s form\/matter conception of reality, which makes Aquinas\u2019 transcendental argument one that is against non-Aristotelian worldviews, including against the Christian worldview.<\/p>\n

The transcendental \u201cthrust\u201d of Aquinas\u2019s argument for the existence of God can be compared to a spaceship with two thrusters aimed to move the ship in two different directions at the same time, even though the pilot, Major Tom, thinks that they are aimed to take him to the same place.\u00a0 Since Aquinas\u2019s arguments for God\u2019s existence are supposed to be following \u201creason\u201d rather than \u201cfaith,\u201d the argumentative thruster toward paganism is on full throttle while the thruster toward the triune God of Scripture is barely above idle (and allegedly not on at all because the natural reason thruster allegedly has autonomous power to take him to the same place as the faith thruster). \u00a0Major Tom ends up spaced out, losing contact with Ground Control and floating away into the void in his tin can.\u00a0 Such is the unstable \u201cwisdom\u201d of the double-minded man (James 1:8).\u00a0 The upshot of all this for Van Til is that what\u2019s more unique about Van Til\u2019s argument than being transcendental is his description of God as a concrete universal<\/em> in his transcendental argument.\u00a0 That\u2019s what makes it work.\u00a0 That\u2019s what makes it unique with respect to both Kant and Aquinas.<\/p>\n

In Frame\u2019s second question\/rejection of Van Til\u2019s position, he says that \u201cI do not agree that the traditional arguments necessarily conclude with something less than the biblical God. . . .\u00a0 It would be wrong to think of God merely as a first cause, but the cosmological argument does not entail such a conclusion.\u201d[63]<\/a>\u00a0 This question is related to the fourth question, where he says, \u201cBut I do not think that the whole of Christian theism can be established by a single argument, unless that argument is highly complex!\u201d[64]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til never claims that a single argument should establish the whole of Christian theism or everything about the nature of God.[65]<\/a>\u00a0 These objections relate to Frame\u2019s mistaken claim that Van Til criticizes Aquinas for not proving enough about God\u2019s nature, as if the issue were a matter of degree.\u00a0 As argued above, Van Til\u2019s problem with Aquinas is that he reasons about God in a way that relies on Aristotle, whose view of form and matter excludes<\/em> the Christian God, whose nature as a concrete universal makes Him the only candidate who could be the first cause of the world.\u00a0 Van Til says, \u201cHow could \u2018the theistic proofs\u2019 then be sound, for if they \u2018prove\u2019 that the God of Aristotle exists, then they disprove that the God of Christianity exists.\u201d[66]<\/a>\u00a0 And he says, Aristotle\u2019s view of reality \u201cdoes not allow\u201d God to create the world out of nothing.[67]<\/a>\u00a0 In the Thomistic syncretism between Aristotelianism and Christianity, Van Til says that \u201c\u2018reason\u2019 and \u2018faith\u2019 make contradictory statements about reality.\u201d[68]<\/a>\u00a0 The reason that the various traditional arguments for the existence of God cannot be added together for a cumulative case is not because Van Til requires one argument to prove everything about God.\u00a0 Van Til says that it is because the traditional arguments involve assumptions that are logically inconsistent<\/em> with the nature of the biblical God, and therefore fail to prove such as God:\u00a0 \u201cMoreover, how shall these several autonomous entities be forged into a chain?\u00a0 How shall there be cumulative force in the series of arguments if each argument is itself without force?\u201d[69]<\/a><\/p>\n

Greg Bahnsen, borrowing from Anthony Flew, compared the situation to adding leaky buckets together, resulting in several buckets that still leak.[70]<\/a>\u00a0 I have heard the retort that if the buckets are tightly crammed into each other with the holes offset, the buckets together can hold water.\u00a0 The retort gets carried away with the analogy rather than addressing the point behind it, which is specifically addressed to failed arguments, not ones that carry some weight.[71]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s own analogy should be clearer:\u00a0 It\u2019s like adding zeros together and expecting the sum to be a positive number.[72]<\/a><\/p>\n

Even if Frame disagrees with Van Til that the traditional arguments entail human autonomy, he should have understood from Van Til\u2019s writings that his position is not that one argument must prove everything about God.\u00a0 Van Til often makes the point that the Christian worldview allows us to have true knowledge without having exhaustive knowledge. \u00a0That applies to the knowledge of God.\u00a0 Van Til says of Adam, \u201cHe needed not to know about God comprehensively to know him truly.\u201d[73]<\/a> \u00a0Van Til strongly affirms our need to rely on special revelation to increase our knowledge of God, both before the Fall and after:\u00a0 \u201cIf then even man in paradise could read nature aright only in connection with and in light of supernatural positive revelation, how much the more is this true of man after the fall. . . . Of God\u2019s intention to save a people for his own precious possession he could learn nothing from nature.\u201d[74]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, he criticizes Aquinas for needing to prove everything about God in order to prove anything about God.[75]<\/a><\/p>\n

The bulk of the additional material that Frame adds to his six questions is his interaction with Don Collett on the logical form of Van Til\u2019s transcendental argument.\u00a0 Unfortunately this is just a case of the blind leading the blind.\u00a0 Since neither one knows what Van Til\u2019s actual argument is, trying to determine its form is largely a matter of groping in the dark. Collett describes the form of Van Til\u2019s argument as follows:<\/p>\n

1. If A, then B. (Meaning that B is the presupposition of A.)
\n2.\u00a0 Not\u2013A.
\n3.\u00a0 Therefore B.[76]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Frame notes that this commits a formal fallacy, but is willing to give it a pass because presuppositional arguments are a special kind of argument.\u00a0 Then Frame substitutes normal language statements for the symbols and comes up with this:<\/p>\n

1. If anything is intelligible, God exists.
\n2.\u00a0 Nothing is intelligible.
\n3.\u00a0 Therefore, God exists.[77]<\/a><<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That, Frame rightly observes, is nonsense.\u00a0 It means that God \u201cis the transcendental ground of intelligibility and nonintelligibility, meaningfulness and meaninglessness.\u00a0 This dissolves, for me, the original meaning and attractiveness of TAG.\u201d[78]<\/a> \u00a0Van Til famously said that \u201catheism presupposes theism.\u201d[79]<\/a>\u00a0 But this does not mean that if God does not exist, then God does exist.\u00a0 As quoted above, Van Til characterizes his argument as the \u201cargument of the possibility of human predication.\u201d\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s point is that \u201cGod does not exist\u201d is an instance of intelligible predication, and intelligible predication requires the existence of God.\u00a0 The Van Tillian apologist is to abstract away from the particular claim made in the sentence and focus on the fact that the sentence is an instance of intelligible predication.\u00a0 \u00a0If there were no intelligible predication, then we could not prove the existence of the Christian God.\u00a0 (We wouldn\u2019t even be trying, since there would be no \u201cwe\u201d or anybody thinking.)\u00a0 The initial proposition of the argument can be false.\u00a0 The initial proposition could be, \u201cThe apple is red,\u201d and if the apple is really green, or if the apple is really a rock, the argument still works.\u00a0 Whether the statement is true or false, it can still be an instance of intelligible predication, so it can be used by the transcendental argument.\u00a0 On the other hand, if \u201cThe apple is red\u201d is denied to be an instance of intelligible predication, then there is nothing for a transcendental argument to work with.<\/p>\n

But having an instance of intelligible predication, the next step in the argument is to look at the choices for the ultimate nature of the universe in terms of the one and the many and examine them according to their ability to allow for intelligible predication.\u00a0 This method is how the transcendental argument is indirect, rather than directly being concerned with particular factual claims (although some specific factual claims will follow from it[80]<\/a>).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Certain and Probable Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s the subject of Frame\u2019s sixth question, in the next section after his six questions Frame examines in more detail Van Til\u2019s claim that there is an absolutely certain rather than probabilistic argument for God\u2019s existence.\u00a0 Frame\u2019s discussion of certainty mainly focuses on subjective certainty, a person\u2019s feeling of confidence that something is true, rather than the objective certainty of a sound, deductive argument.\u00a0 Frame relies on his triperspectivalism to describe a good argument as valid, sound, and persuasive.[81]<\/a>\u00a0 Persuasiveness is an important part of a good argument, but we should also recognize that the persuasiveness of an argument is logically distinct from its validity and soundness, especially given that, against their better knowledge, men have rebelled against God, who is the standard of truth (Rom. 1:18-25). \u00a0\u201cLet God be true though every one were a liar\u201d (Rom. 3:2).\u00a0 Our primary concern is truth, not persuasiveness.\u00a0 We should be \u201call things to all men\u201d (1 Cor. 9:22), but we should not be \u201coutside the law of God but under the law of Christ\u201d (1 Cor. 9:21).\u00a0 Before Frame ever raised the objection, Van Til responded to those who said that \u201cthere is no absolutely compelling proof that God exists, or that the Bible is the word of God\u201d by noting that \u201cthere is a confusion between what is objectively valid and what is subjectively acceptable to the natural man.\u00a0 It is true that no method of argument for Christianity will be acceptable to the natural man.\u201d[82]<\/a>\u00a0 While Frame talks of certainty having a subjective component, Bahnsen notes that certainty and subjective confidence can be defined in distinction from each other: \u00a0\u201cthere is a conceptual difference between \u2018certainty\u2019 (a property of propositions) and \u2018confidence\u2019 (a property of persons).\u201d[83]<\/a><\/p>\n

Ultimately, we have to leave the persuasiveness of our arguments to the Holy Spirit. Frame should know this, being a Calvinist; and he acknowledges earlier in the book that \u201cgood proofs do not always persuade, for unbelievers repress the truth.\u201d[84]<\/a>\u00a0 But then in the next chapter when he is questioning Van Til\u2019s argument, he writes as if the three members of his triperspectivalism triad are all necessary for an argument to be certain.\u00a0 Since each one is a perspective on the other two, one member of the triad cannot be rejected without degrading the other two, which means here that an argument\u2019s validity and soundness cannot be separated from its persuasiveness.\u00a0 Concepts that are logically distinguishable become inseparable by equivocating between the subjective and objective senses of the word \u201ccertain\u201d as a result of being viewed through the distorting lens of Frame\u2019s triperspectivalism.\u00a0 Because of this, Frame places the problem of the certainty of Van Til\u2019s argument on its persuasiveness rather than acknowledging that the problem could be with the God-hating hearer. \u00a0Frame rejects the certainty of Van Til\u2019s transcendental argument because \u201cno single argument is guaranteed to create certainty in all its hearers.\u201d[85]<\/a>\u00a0 True, but that shows no defect in the argument, particularly any reason to doubt its objective certainty.\u00a0 From the lack of any one argument\u2019s universal persuasiveness, Frame draws the conclusion that there cannot be one argument that proves the existence of God.[86]<\/a><\/p>\n

In the sixth question that Frame asks in the previous section, Bahnsen points out in his lecture given at Westminster Seminary that Frame makes the following two statements:\u00a0 \u201cAll this suggests a further reason why there is no single argument that will prove the entire biblical doctrine of God. . . .\u00a0 Since there is no single argument guaranteed to persuade every rational person. . . .\u201d[87]<\/a>\u00a0 Bahnsen responds, appropriately, \u201cAnd did you catch that \u2013 the move from \u2018prove\u2019 to \u2018persuade?\u2019\u00a0 And that confusion, I think, has to be cleared up.\u201d[88]<\/a><\/p>\n

Frame does say that \u201cthe evidence for Christian theism is absolutely compelling,\u201d[89]<\/a> but assumes that it is impossible to for humans to state such absolutely certain evidence without distortion.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Frame does not articulate a view of human depravity that would require that.\u00a0 We should remember that Scripture tells us that we have \u201cdivine power\u201d to engage in spiritual warfare by destroying \u201carguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God\u201d (2 Cor. 10:4-5).\u00a0 That does not sound like God calling us to make apologetic bricks without straw.\u00a0 Van Til acknowledges, of course, that we may<\/em> distort the evidence when formulating an argument.[90]<\/a><\/p>\n

If non-Christians reject an attempt to explain the transcendental argument, the Christian can try explaining the argument in different terms to accommodate different hearers; but that is not really creating a different argument, no more than a Bible written in Greek means something different than one written in English.\u00a0 If some people don\u2019t accept the one argument that you give for God\u2019s existence, even after you explain it different ways, that does not<\/em> mean that you are obligated to create new arguments.\u00a0 First, it\u2019s possible that there are no other sound arguments to give them.\u00a0 Second, they may not have ears to hear, and you need to dust off your feet and find someone who is ripe for the harvest. \u00a0Third, if persuasion is your concern, jumping to other arguments when the first one doesn\u2019t work is not a good strategy.\u00a0 It makes your abandoned argument look weak.\u00a0 If you have a good argument, you should have the fortitude to stick with it and corner the skeptic with the unreasonableness of his opposition to it so that it is evident to everyone listening.\u00a0 (A person who displays conviction and confidence can often persuade others even when he has a bad argument.)<\/p>\n

Since Frame is supposed to be interpreting Van Til here rather than promoting his pet triperspectivalism theory, we should ask whether Van Til is within his rights to say that he there is an argument that yields a certain rather than probabilistic conclusion if the premises are true and the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises by valid logical deduction, even if very few people are persuaded by it (which seems to be the case at this point in history because very few people even know what Van Til\u2019s argument is).\u00a0 I say, most certainly (objectively and subjectively), yes.\u00a0 Frame never gets around to asking the question this way, so he provides no reason against it.<\/p>\n

Transcendental arguments are usually seen as deductive arguments.[91]<\/a> \u00a0Van Til says that a transcendental argument (TA) is a combination between inductive and deductive.[92]<\/a>\u00a0 A TA is inductive because it can start with a statement about any fact whatsoever.\u00a0 A TA is deductive because it abstracts the instance of predication from the particular claim in the predication, and draws necessary conclusions from that.\u00a0 The essential part of the argument is deductive, so it possesses the deductive certainty of any other sound deductive argument, plus it concerns the necessary source of all possibility in the universe, so probability is eliminated from that angle as well.\u00a0 If the conclusion of a TA is proven like any other sound deductive argument, then the rejection of the conclusion is implicitly an acceptance of the world being purely meaningless and irrational, in which case all the skeptic\u2019s doubts would be meaningless.<\/p>\n

The transcendental argument can be person-variable because Van Til says that it can start with any fact in God\u2019s creation, or even a statement that is false; so the argument can start with any fact that the unbeliever accepts as true.\u00a0 The Van Tillian will then abstract from that statement of fact to the issue of the intelligibility of the fact, and at that point the argument is the same for everybody.\u00a0 Whether you are talking to a godless commie, who thinks that capitalism is oppressive, or to a godless capitalist who thinks that the empirical evidence shows that socialism is inefficient, the Christian can sidestep the specific merits of those claims and ask both of them how it makes sense for abstract universals like moral, logical, and mathematical laws to exist in a purely materialistic world.\u00a0 The Christian can concentrate on any of the areas of the traditional arguments \u2013 cause, design, necessary being, or morality \u2013 depending on the subject that the non-Christian raises, but the main issue in all those cases is the same \u2013 how abstract universals can apply to changing sense experience.\u00a0 Whether the non-Christian\u2019s claim is moral predication, like \u201ccapitalism is oppressive,\u201d or empirical predication like \u201cbirds evolved from reptiles,\u201d Van Til\u2019s transcendental argument focuses on the common issue for both:\u00a0 How is predication possible?[93]<\/a>\u00a0 \u201c[A]ll the theistic arguments should really be taken together and reduced to the one argument of the possibility of human predication.\u201d[94]<\/a>\u00a0 After showing that the non-Christian worldview is inconsistent with ethics or empirical knowledge, the Christian can positively argue that the existence of an absolutely rational God allows for their possibility.[95]<\/a><\/p>\n

Frame claims that \u201cit is illegitimate for him [Van Til] to demand that all actual (as opposed to ideal) apologetic arguments claim certainty for their conclusions.\u201d[96]<\/a>\u00a0 There he goes again with a strawman.\u00a0 Van Til does not<\/em> demand certainty for all<\/em> actual apologetic arguments.\u00a0 Frame fails to recognize areas in which Van Til endorses probabilistic arguments, such as judging the canonicity of a claim of revelation and the accurate transmission of the manuscripts of Scripture through time.[97]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til insists on objective certainty rather than probability regarding the existence of God because God is the source of all possibility.[98]<\/a>\u00a0 But, as I discuss in the previously-mentioned paper, this gives Van Til room to endorse probabilistic arguments in areas that don\u2019t determine the source of possibility for the universe.[99]<\/a><\/p>\n

And last, Frame brings his positive\/negative argument issue into the issue of certainty, claiming that because negative transcendental arguments can be restated as positive transcendental arguments, this is somehow a reason to doubt the certainty of Van Til\u2019s transcendental argument.\u00a0 But he does not even attempt to explain why the ability to formulate an argument in two equivalent ways undermines an argument\u2019s objective certainty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Point of Contact<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Til says that the Protestant apologist should see the issue with his point of contact to reason with unbelievers about God differently than the Roman Catholic apologist sees it.\u00a0 Frame does not disagree, but he sees the issue as one of attitude rather than objective argument.\u00a0 \u00a0Frame\u2019s confusion here is another consequence of and example of his misunderstanding Van Til\u2019s criticism of Aquinas.\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s difference with Aquinas is not a mere matter of the attitude of the heart but of how God\u2019s nature is described in their arguments \u2013 a concrete universal (Van Til) versus an abstract unity (Aquinas).\u00a0 The difference between the Calvinist and the Roman Catholic on the issue of apologetics in general and the point of contact, in particular, is no more a mere matter of the heart than their differences in theology are a mere matter of the heart.\u00a0 As Van Til says,\u00a0 \u201cThe difference between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic conception of the point of contact will naturally have to be formulated in a way similar to that in which we state the difference between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic theology.\u201d[100]<\/a>\u00a0 The issue of point of contact is a product of differing theological positions between Calvinists and other Christians on the nature of God, the necessity of Scripture, and the depravity of man.<\/p>\n

The issue of point of contact is the same as the issue of neutrality with the unbeliever\u2019s worldview.\u00a0 Whereas the Roman Catholic seeks neutral common ground with the unbeliever in order to argue for the existence of God, the Protestant should recognize that there is no neutral common ground with the unbeliever.\u00a0 There is, however, common ground everywhere, a.k.a. a \u201cpoint of contact,\u201d which is the fact that \u201cmen by virtue of their creation by God in his image have knowledge of God.\u201d[101]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Frame says that he agrees with Van Til on the denial of neutrality and even sees that it manifests itself in objective ways in arguments.[102]<\/a>\u00a0 Frame acknowledges, for example, that Aquinas\u2019 view of knowledge is compromised by his attempt at finding neutral common ground with unbelieving thought (although Frame does not see this error extending to Aquinas\u2019 proofs for the existence of God).[103]<\/a>\u00a0 But since the issue of point of contact is the same as the issue of neutrality, Frame should acknowledge an objective sense to the issue of point of contact.<\/p>\n

Since the issue of neutrality effects whether one accepts the necessity of Scripture in order for an unbeliever to acknowledge God, the apologist\u2019s view of the theological issue of the necessity of Scripture is an objective indication of whether the apologist understands his point of contact with the unbeliever correctly. \u00a0Rather than seeing that, \u201cto the extent that [the unbeliever] interprets nature according to his own adopted principles, he does not speak the truth on any subject,\u201d non-Calvinist apologists \u201cattribute to the natural man not only the ability to make formally correct statements about \u2018nature\u2019 or themselves, but also to mean by these statements what the Christian means by them.\u201d[104]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Non-Calvinist apologists do not see unbelievers as needing the corrective lens of Scripture to interpret God and His world because they deny the total depravity of man.\u00a0 Consequently, when non-Calvinists find agreement about the nature of God with unbelievers (like Aristotle), they can only have done so because they have distorted the nature of God in anti-biblical ways.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Extra-Biblical Knowledge Phobia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Frame says that using facts outside of Scripture to prove Scripture raises the fear that we are using the extra-biblical facts as a higher authority than Scripture to bring Scripture into judgment.\u00a0 Then he says, \u201cVan Til himself seemed to fear this, though not consistently.\u201d[105]<\/a>\u00a0 What proof does Frame offer for Van Til\u2019s occasional phobia of extra-biblical facts?\u00a0 He cites a passage in which Van Til criticizes starting with \u201ccause and purpose as intelligible to man without God.\u201d[106]<\/a>\u00a0 Frame acknowledges, \u201cTrue enough.\u201d[107]<\/a>\u00a0 So then, where is the proof that Van Til feared extra-biblical facts?\u00a0 Frame never produces.\u00a0 His proceeds to make the point that arguments that begin with cause and purpose need not assume that such facts are intelligible without God, as if Van Til would disagree.\u00a0 As shown above, Van Til affirms that a transcendental argument for the existence of God can begin with any fact in creation, including cause and purpose.<\/p>\n

I suspect that when writing this footnote, Frame had in mind his criticism that Van Til claims that unbelievers don\u2019t have any knowledge.\u00a0 But since this criticism is barely touched on in this book (it is briefly mentioned in the appendix in Frame\u2019s response to Ligonier\u2019s critique of Van Til) and covered in detail in his later book on Van Til that I am not reviewing here, and since this review is long enough already, I won\u2019t get into this issue further here.[108]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Van Til\u2019s Seamless Robe Versus Apologetics of the Heart<\/strong><\/p>\n

In CVT Frame claims that his criticisms of Van Til refute the view held by some that Van Til\u2019s apologetic is a seamless robe, that it must be accepted or rejected in toto<\/em>.[109]<\/a> \u00a0I have shown that Frame\u2019s case for this fails in AGG and Apologetics<\/em>.\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say that a person can\u2019t still criticize Van Til on some points while accepting his basic philosophy.\u00a0 And of course, that allows for the possibility that Van Til has mischaracterized the views of others at times (although at least in the case of Aquinas, it is Frame who has distorted Van Til\u2019s views).\u00a0 But because Frame does not understand Van Til\u2019s basic argument, he sees it as more divisible than it is.\u00a0 The robe of Van Til\u2019s apologetic is nearly seamless because in all Van Til\u2019s multiple volumes of writings critiquing a myriad of different authors, Van Til is really only applying his one transcendental argument concerning the one and the many.\u00a0 If you ever can\u2019t figure out what Van Til is talking about in a passage, he is almost always talking about the issue of the one and the many.\u00a0 It\u2019s always some variation of non-Christians being Parmenidian rationalists or Hericlitian empiricists or trying to combine the two errors as in Kantianism; and they all reject the one solution to their problems, the concrete universal God of Scripture.<\/p>\n

Disabused of Frame\u2019s claim that Van Til offers only an attitude of the heart and not an argument, one can find arguments all over the place in Van Til\u2019s writings, not merely encouragements to treasure God\u2019s sovereignty in your heart and avoid a cocky attitude. \u00a0It amazes me that Frame can claim that in all the multiple volumes that Van Til has written, Van Til merely offers an attitude of the heart and an apologetic goal for someone else to figure out how to achieve.\u00a0 Is Van Til merely recommending an attitude when he says something like this?: \u201cThe rationalizing effort that is inherent in phenomenalism would, if successful, destroy all individuality.\u201d[110]<\/a>\u00a0 Is he not advancing a real argument against a non-Christian worldview?\u00a0 Or how about when he evaluates Hume\u2019s philosophy and concludes: \u00a0\u201cIt is to this position of total indifference with respect to the future that anyone embracing a pure empiricism is driven.\u201d[111]<\/a>\u00a0 Isn\u2019t this a criticism with teeth against a non-Christian philosophy, one that could and should be taken into the halls of academia to show how their view of knowledge reduces to absurdity?\u00a0 With these pointed critiques, Van Til is doing more than recommending an attitude of the heart that life is meaningless without God.\u00a0 (He is addressing the issue of the one and the many in both examples.)\u00a0 But Frame\u2019s presentation of Van Til\u2019s philosophy discourages anyone from looking for something more in Van Til\u2019s writings.<\/p>\n

Frame\u2019s concern with an apologetic of the heart leads him to completely miss Van Til\u2019s point at times.\u00a0 Frame quotes this passage from Van Til:\u00a0 \u201cIf therefore, he [the Christian] appeals to the unbeliever on the ground that nature itself reveals God, he should do that in such a manner as to make it appear in the end that he is interpreting nature in the light of Scripture.\u201d[112]<\/a>\u00a0 What does Frame think Van Til means by appealing to Scripture?\u00a0 He thinks that Van Til is warning against cocky attitudes:\u00a0 \u201cAdopting an autonomous stance\u201d while witnessing to an unbeliever \u201cthrough body language, a cocksure tone of voice, or omissions of significant points.\u201d[113]<\/a>\u00a0 I am sure Van Til would oppose a cocky attitude, but that\u2019s not what his appeal to Scripture is about in this quote.\u00a0 What Van Til is really talking about is the necessity of special revelation given God\u2019s personal nature and the noetic effects of sin after the Fall.\u00a0 The unbeliever needs to understand that the Christian came to acknowledge God\u2019s existence only after hearing the message from Scripture, not by looking at nature apart from Scripture.\u00a0 As Van Til puts it, \u201cBelievers accept this view of God because they accept the Scriptures to be the Word of God. They have not first worked up a philosophy of theism in order to find this theism afterwards corroborated by scriptural teaching.\u201d[114]<\/a>\u00a0 Ironically, Frame talks about the reasons for the necessity of special revelation earlier in his book,[115]<\/a> but fails to apply that to his understanding of Van Til in the later chapter.<\/p>\n

One reason that understanding Van Til\u2019s arguments is often difficult is because Van Til usually presents his material as critiques of other authors, so Van Til\u2019s own philosophy has to be pieced together from his criticisms of a variety of other schools of thought.[116]<\/a>\u00a0 It\u2019s also universally acknowledged that Van Til could have written more clearly.\u00a0 A part of the problem here is that he wrote to philosophers, but has been read mostly by non-philosophers.\u00a0 Van Til thinks that he is providing a clever and succinct description of the problem with the materialist worldview as \u201ca metaphysics of the night in which all cows are black.\u201d[117]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Many professional philosophers might understand that he is referring to Hegel\u2019s response to Schelling\u2019s view of knowledge, and what Hegel meant by that.\u00a0 But how many budding Christian apologists know what Van Til is talking about?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Anderson gives a blurb to Frame\u2019s new book that credits Frame\u2019s AGG for causing a Copernican Revolution in his thinking on apologetics.[118]<\/a>\u00a0 I am glad that AGG potentially saved Dr. Anderson from a life of theological crimes.[119]<\/a>\u00a0 But I see the broader influence of Frame\u2019s critique of Van Til as largely negative.\u00a0 If presuppositionalism is a matter of the heart rather than a matter of argument methods, then it is largely irrelevant.\u00a0 Do we really need Van Til to write multiple volumes of books purely for the moral counsel that the Christian apologist should be humble?\u00a0 Although Framians like Anderson who have wrestled with Van Til\u2019s writings directly see more to Van Til\u2019s philosophy than that, those who just read Frame and don\u2019t attempt much of Van Til\u2019s writings are not going to see much value in the school of apologetics that he founded.<\/p>\n

Frame does not give us anything approaching a close-reading analysis of Van Til\u2019s writings, the type that you might have read in your English or philosophy classes where Shakespeare\u2019s or Plato\u2019s writings are examined line by line.\u00a0 That\u2019s what any serious literary analysis requires.\u00a0 Frame does not quote or even cite any passages from Van Til\u2019s writings that he disagrees with in his six questions\/rejections of Van Til\u2019s views in the original AGG and in its revision, Apologetics<\/em>.\u00a0 In the rest of the book, Frame often neglects to quote or cite the offending passages in Van Til that he is disputing.[120]<\/a>\u00a0 (That\u2019s also true in his lengthier exposition, CVT; but my full critique of that book will have to wait for another day.)\u00a0 With respect to Frame\u2019s critique of Van Til on such issues like Van Til\u2019s position on the use of causality to prove God\u2019s existence and the use of extra-biblical facts, Frame\u2019s indictment of the Ligonier critique of Van Til can be applied to Frame\u2019s own critique of Van Til:\u00a0 \u201cThe authors make statements about Van Til which can be contradicted from his writings; but instead of reconsidering the accuracy of their interpretation in these cases, they simply accuse Van Til of inconsistency.\u00a0 Thus their accounts of Van Til\u2019s positions are almost always oversimplified at best.\u201d[121]<\/a><\/p>\n

Since Frame has been recognized as the leading living scholar on Van Til\u2019s apologetic since the passing of Greg Bahnsen twenty years ago, presuppositional apologetics has been stuck in a ditch with Frame in the driver\u2019s seat.\u00a0 I do not see any of Frame\u2019s major criticisms of Van Til\u2019s apologetic approach as valid.\u00a0 I can commend Frame in the areas in which he agrees with Van Til because he usually explains Van Til very clearly in normal language.\u00a0 Yet, in nearly all those areas of disagreement, he has covered Van Til\u2019s philosophy with a veil of ignorance and misrepresentation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Phillipsburg, NJ:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 2015.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 John Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God <\/em>(Phillipsburg, NJ:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company), p. 36.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., pp. 37-38.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>\u00a0 John Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of his Thought<\/em> (Phillipsburg, NJ:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1995), pp. 8-15.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Greg Bahnsen, No Other Standard<\/em> (Tyler, TX:\u00a0 Institute for Christian Economics, 1991), p. 28 n. 18.\u00a0 In case someone thinks that I am simply a movement-minded partisan of Greg Bahnsen, I should note that Bahnsen has criticized Van Til for having a method but not an actual argument; and I disagree with Bahnsen on that.\u00a0 Bahnsen\u2019s argument, which focuses on reductios<\/em> of empiricism and rationalism, is very close to Van Til\u2019s.\u00a0 But Bahnsen would avoid the problem of claiming to prove the impossibility of the contrary while also taking a piecemeal approach to refuting opposing worldviews if he had framed his argument in terms of the one and the many rather than two particular schools of epistemology, empiricism and rationalism.\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s focus on the one and the many allows him to make an argument that covers all possibilities for the issue of the one and the many.\u00a0 Also see my criticism of some statements that Bahnsen has made about the use of empirical evidence in my essay \u201cThe Scope and Limits of Van Til\u2019s Transcendental Argument,\u201d pp. 54ff, at http:\/\/www.christianciv.com\/The_Scope_and_Limits_of_VTAG.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Calling Frame \u201cfuzzy\u201d is saying the same thing as Gary North when he calls Frame \u201cSic et Non John\u201d in Westminster\u2019s Confession:\u00a0 The Abandonment of Van Til\u2019s Legacy<\/em> (Tyler, TX:\u00a0 Institute for Christian Economics, 1991), pp. 202-3. Frame highlighted the need for sympathetic criticism of Van Til in his essay \u201cThe Problem of Theological Paradox,\u201d first published in a book edited by Gary North called Foundations of Christian Scholarship:\u00a0 Essays in the Van Til Perspective<\/em> (Vallecito, CA:\u00a0 Ross House Books, 1976), p. 297 n. 10; later published as \u201cVan Til the Theologian,\u201d (Chattanooga, TN: Pilgrim Publications, 1976), p.5 n.10. After having published Frame\u2019s essay calling for sympathetic criticism of Van Til, North dedicates a book to Frame that makes such criticisms of Van Til: Dominion & Common Grace: \u00a0The Biblical Basis for Progress<\/em> (Tyler, TX:\u00a0 Institute for Christian Economics, 1987).\u00a0 In the book\u2019s dedication North describes Frame\u2019s typical equivocal approach to issues:\u00a0 \u201cportions of the book are good, other portions are questionable, but the topic warrants further study.\u201d\u00a0 Amazingly, in CVT (pp. 8-9) Frame interprets North\u2019s dedication as meaning that movement leaders, like North and Van Til, shouldn\u2019t be criticized, even though North\u2019s book was devoted to criticizing Van Til, and it was dedicated to Frame for that very reason! A more reasonable interpretation of North\u2019s dedication is that Frame has a mindset to see things as fuzzy in cases where the truth is clear, approaching a postmodern, secular attitude that we can never discover Truth or be certain that we have found it if we do.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, p. 87; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 93.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 115 n. 34.\u00a0 For Greg Bahnsen\u2019s criticisms, see Van Til\u2019s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis<\/em> (hereinafter, \u201cVTA\u201d) (Phillipsburg, NJ:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1998), pp. 81,103n.39, 412-14, 500-02, 536-37, 547n.57, 674.\u00a0 And \u201cAnswer to Frame’s Critique of Van Til: Profound Differences Between the Traditional and Presuppositional Methods\u201d (audio lectures with a written transcript, including a dialogue with John Frame on their differences, held at Westminster Theological Seminary), at http:\/\/www.cmfnow.com\/answertoframescritiqueofvantil.aspx<\/a>. While AGG was still just a class syllabus, Bahnsen wrote An Answer to Frame’s Critique of Van Til<\/em> (Willow Grove, PA:\u00a0 Kirkland Printing, 1988).\u00a0 As I explain below, while I think that Bahnsen was largely on target, I have some differences with him too.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til rejects the logical fallacy of circular reasoning in which the conclusion is stated as a premise of the argument.\u00a0 He recognizes the inescapable circularity of presuppositional arguments, in which the arguer is using reason to reason about reason.\u00a0 But the premise can be any fact of experience as an example of something that is rationally meaningful.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Cornelius Van Til, \u201cThe Will in its Theological Relations,\u201d Notebook 1, \u201cBiblical Theism;\u201d in Cornelius Van Til & Eric H. Sigward, Unpublished Manuscripts of Cornelius Van Til<\/em> (Electronic ed.) ( New York:\u00a0 Labels Army Company, 1997).<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a>\u00a0 Abraham Kuyper, Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology:\u00a0 Its Principles<\/em> (trans. J. Hendrick DeVries, 1897), pp. 268.\u00a0 On Kuyper\u2019s approach to apologetics, also see William Edgar and K. Scott Oliphant, Christian Apologetics Past and Present (Volume 2, From 1500):\u00a0 A Primary Source Reader<\/em> (Wheaton, IL:\u00a0 Crossway, 2011), pp.331-35.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology<\/em> (Phillipsburg, NJ: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1969), p. 194.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>\u00a0 (Philadelphia:\u00a0 The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1955), pp. 358-64; and A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em> (Phillipsburg, NJ:\u00a0 The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1969), pp. 229-54.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, \u201cMy Credo,\u201d in Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Theology and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til<\/em>, ed. E.R. Geehan (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1980), pg. 21.\u00a0 Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology<\/em>, pp. 196-97.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, p. 42; Christian Theistic Ethics<\/em>\u00a0(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1980), p. 71; The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture<\/em>\u00a0(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 5-6; “Introduction” to B. B. Warfield,\u00a0The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible<\/em>\u00a0(Phillipsburg, NJ: \u00a0The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1948), pp. 18, 24-25.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 83; AGG, p. 75.\u00a0 Also see CVT, p. 314.<\/p>\n

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

[18]<\/a>\u00a0 Bahnsen responds to Frame\u2019s claim on this issue by assuming that a \u201cdirect argument\u201d means a non-transcendental argument rather than meaning a transcendental argument that begins with a positive assertion.\u00a0 He contrasts the approach of Kant, who asks about the necessary conditions of the intelligibility of any fact, with that of Descartes, who makes a deduction from particular clear and distinct ideas, and Locke, who begins with the particular simple ideas caused by sensation. VTA, p. 501.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology<\/em>, p. 10.\u00a0 Van Til makes a distinction between the proximate starting point of knowledge and the ultimate starting point: \u201c[A]ny point in the finite universe . . . is the proximate starting point of all our reasoning.\u201d Ibid, p. 201, cf. p. 204.\u00a0 But God is the ultimate starting point of all our reasoning because all knowledge and everything that exists originally comes from Him.<\/p>\n

[20]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Ibid., p. 207.<\/p>\n

[21]<\/a>\u00a0 Phil Fernandes, \u201cRejection of Traditional Apologetics,\u201dat http:\/\/instituteofbiblicaldefense.com\/1997\/05\/cornelius-van-til\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, p. 71; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 74.<\/p>\n

[23]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 74.<\/p>\n

[24]<\/a>\u00a0 \u201cChristian Civilization is the Only Civilization\u2013 In a Sense, of Course:\u00a0 A Restatement of Cornelius Van Til’s Argument for Christian Theism,\u201d at http:\/\/www.christianciv.com\/ChristCivEssay.htm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[25]<\/a> \u00a0AGG, pp. 49-50.\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, pp. 46-47.<\/p>\n

[26]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, p. 50 n. 24; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 47 n. 53.<\/p>\n

[27]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, p. 71; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 74.<\/p>\n

[28]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology <\/em>(Phillispburg, NJ:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1974), p. 102.\u00a0 Frame quotes this last line leading up to his six questions: AGG, pp. 70-71; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 69.<\/p>\n

[29]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel<\/em> (Phillispburg, NJ:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1972), p. 190.<\/p>\n

[30]<\/a> \u00a0Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, p. 256.<\/p>\n

[31]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, pp. 85-86; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 91.\u00a0 Likewise, in his 2012 article \u201cTranscendental Arguments\u201d for the IVP Dictionary of Apologetics<\/em>, Frame says, \u201cAnd there is no reason to assume, as Van Til does, that anyone who uses an argument from design or causality is presupposing a nontheistic epistemology.\u201d http:\/\/www.frame-poythress.org\/transcendental-arguments\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[32]<\/a>\u00a0 Also see Bahnsen\u2019s lecture, \u201cThe Toothpaste Argument for God\u2019s Existence,\u201d http:\/\/www.cmfnow.com\/thetoothpasteproofofgodsexistence-3of4.aspx<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[33]<\/a>\u00a0 Bahnsen clearly did not think so.\u00a0 He maintained that there are distinctives to Van Til\u2019s apologetic method.\u00a0 See VTA, pp. 530ff.<\/p>\n

[34]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG<\/em>, p. 76 n.19; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 83 n. 29..<\/p>\n

[35]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 74.<\/p>\n

[36]<\/a>\u00a0 Warren, \u201cThe Scope and Limits of Van Til\u2019s Transcendental Argument: A Response to John Frame,\u201d at http:\/\/www.christianciv.com\/The_Scope_and_Limits_of_VTAG.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[37]<\/a>\u00a0 Frame refers the reader to CVT for the details on this in AGG (p. 20 n.21) and Apologetics<\/em> (p. 19 n. 26).<\/p>\n

[38]<\/a>\u00a0 CVT, p. 183, cf. p. 264.<\/p>\n

[39]<\/a>\u00a0 See Cornelius Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em> (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1980 [1971]), pp. 73-105, 217-219; and A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em>, pp. 169-175.<\/p>\n

[40]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Cornelius Van Til, The Case for Calvinism<\/em>\u00a0 (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1979), p.57.<\/p>\n

[41]<\/a>\u00a0 CVT, p. 341.<\/p>\n

[42]<\/a>\u00a0 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica<\/em>, Part I, Question 12, Article 12.<\/p>\n

[43]<\/a>\u00a0 Thomas Aquinas, On the Truth of the Catholic Faith (Summa Contra Gentiles)<\/em> tr. by Anton C. Pegis, Vol. 2 (Garden City: Hanover House, 1955), p. 96 (1:14.2). Van Til quotes this passage in A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em>, \u00a0p. 169, and in his article \u201cNature and Scripture\u201d in The Infallible Word<\/em>, Ed. By N.B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Co., 2002), p. 288.<\/p>\n

[44]<\/a>\u00a0 Summa Contra Gentiles<\/em>, 1:14:2.<\/p>\n

[45]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s alternative to remotion is \u201cthe concrete way of negation,\u201d which can affirm the \u201cinternal fullness of the being of God\u201d: All limitations on the creature (and sin) are negated, so whatever the creature has, God has to an infinite degree.\u00a0 An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, pp. 203-219, esp. 212.<\/p>\n

[46]<\/a>\u00a0 See Warren, \u201cThe Scope and Limits of Van Til\u2019s Transcendental Argument,\u201d pp. 11-13.<\/p>\n

[47]<\/a>\u00a0 As Frame makes note of in defense of Aquinas:\u00a0 CVT, p. 341.<\/p>\n

[48]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, 95.<\/p>\n

[49]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 115n.34. See Bahnsen\u2019s audio lectures, \u201cAnswer to Frame’s Critique of Van Til: Profound Differences Between the Traditional and Presuppositional Methods.\u201d<\/p>\n

[50]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 75.<\/p>\n

[51]<\/a>\u00a0 Usually it\u2019s a knee-jerk reaction by an atheist who goes to his tried-and-true objection to Thomistic arguments.\u00a0 He either wasn\u2019t listening carefully or couldn\u2019t think of any objections to the transcendental argument presented.<\/p>\n

[52]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology<\/em>, p. 109.<\/p>\n

[53]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 77.<\/p>\n

[54]<\/a>\u00a0 Aristotle, Metaphysics<\/em>, XII, 8.<\/p>\n

[55]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., XII, 10.<\/p>\n

[56]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, p. 238.<\/p>\n

[57]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, p. 198.<\/p>\n

[58]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, p. 94.\u00a0 Another way he presents the analogy is that the beads have no holes, and the string does not have ends that can be found, thus having both together cannot produce a string of beads (particulars related to universals).\u00a0 The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture<\/em>, pp. 2, 17.<\/p>\n

[59]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, \u201cMy Credo,\u201d pg. 21.<\/p>\n

[60]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 75.<\/p>\n

[61]<\/a>\u00a0 Kant said \u201cThoughts without intuitions [sense impressions] are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”\u00a0 Critique of Pure Reason<\/em>, B 75.\u00a0 Van Til agrees with this, but disagrees with Kant about how to bring the two together to allow for intelligible experience.<\/p>\n

[62]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, p. 122.<\/p>\n

[63]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 78.<\/p>\n

[64]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p. 79.<\/p>\n

[65]<\/a>\u00a0 My answer is slightly different than Greg Bahnsen\u2019s.\u00a0 He responds to Frame by saying that \u201cat stake in the transcendental argument is nothing less than the whole<\/em> of the Christian worldview as revealed in Scripture.\u201d VTA, p. 502n.64.\u00a0 That\u2019s true, in a sense.\u00a0 But the transcendental argument entails only a subset of the propositions that make up the Christian worldview.\u00a0 It proves the necessity of an absolutely authoritative special revelation, but not all the content of that revelation.\u00a0 I do agree with Bahnsen when he says that \u201cThe Christian worldview, as Van Til never tired of emphasizing, must be defended as a unit (comprising metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics in an unbreakable system) over against the sinful worldview of the natural man.\u201d\u00a0 VTA, p. 549n.64.\u00a0 This system covering the three basic areas of philosophy sets the rules for and has various other implications for every area of life, but it does not dictate every detail.\u00a0 It does not even dictate everything about the Trinity that we find taught in Scripture.\u00a0 See my essay, \u201cThe Scope and Limits of Van Til\u2019s Transcendental Argument.\u201d<\/p>\n

[66]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel<\/em>, p. 182; cf. A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em>, pp. 102, 302.<\/p>\n

[67]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, p. 96.<\/p>\n

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

[69]<\/a> \u00a0Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, p. 377.<\/p>\n

[70]<\/a>\u00a0 \u201cThe Bahnsen\/Sproul Debate Over Apologetic Method\u201d (audio), at http:\/\/www.cmfnow.com\/thebahnsensprouldebateoverapologeticmethod.aspx<\/a>.\u00a0 Also see Greg Bahnsen, \u201cCritique of Natural Theology\u201d (audio), Philosophy of Christianity course, at http:\/\/www.cmfnow.com\/philosophyofchristianity-critiqueofnaturaltheology-8of23.aspx<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[71]<\/a>\u00a0 Flew states his analogy as follows:\u00a0 \u201cA failed proof cannot serve as a pointer to anything, save perhaps to the weaknesses of those of us who have accepted it.\u00a0 Nor, for the same reason, can it be put to work along with other throwouts as part of an accumulation of evidences.\u00a0 If one leaky bucket will not hold water, there is no reason to think that ten can.\u201d Antony G. N. Flew, God and Philosophy<\/em> (Prometheus Books, 2005), p. 73.\u00a0\u00a0 I think that Van Til can endorse the distinction that Flew makes, \u201cbetween, on the one hand, the valid principle of accumulation of evidence, where every item has at least some weight in its own right; and, on the other hand, the Ten-leaky-buckets-Tactic, applied to arguments none of which hold water at all\u201d Ibid., p. 146.<\/p>\n

[72]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, p. 20.<\/p>\n

[73]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p. 100.<\/p>\n

[74]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, p. 123.<\/p>\n

[75]<\/a> \u00a0Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, p. 95<\/p>\n

[76]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 76.<\/p>\n

[77]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p. 78.<\/p>\n

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

[79]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology<\/em>, p. xii.<\/p>\n

[80]<\/a>\u00a0 See for example, Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, pp. 79-80.<\/p>\n

[81]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p. 76.<\/p>\n

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

[83]<\/a>\u00a0 Bahnsen, VTA, p. 79n.100.\u00a0 Also see Bahnsen\u2019s Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith<\/em> (Atlanta, GA:\u00a0 American Vision; and Texarkana, AR:\u00a0 Covenant Media Foundation, 1996), p. 127.<\/p>\n

[84]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p. 57.<\/p>\n

[85]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p.87.<\/p>\n

[86]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p. 80.<\/p>\n

[87]<\/a>\u00a0 Bahnsen, \u201cAnswer to Frame’s Critique of Van Til\u201d (transcript), p. 36, quoting AGG, p. 73 (Apologetics<\/em>, p. 80).<\/p>\n

[88]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Bahnsen, \u201cAnswer to Frame’s Critique of Van Til,\u201d p. 36.<\/p>\n

[89]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, p. 81, Apologetics<\/em>, pp. 88-89; cf. CVT, 278-79.<\/p>\n

[90]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, p. 256; Common Grace and the Gospel<\/em>, pp.179-80.<\/p>\n

[91]<\/a> Robert A. Stern, Transcendental Arguments and Skepticism:\u00a0 <\/strong>Answering the Question of Justification<\/em> (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 93-94.<\/p>\n

[92]<\/a> Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology<\/em>, p. 10.<\/p>\n

[93]<\/a>\u00a0 On the moral argument reducing to the argument concerning predication, see Christian Theistic Ethics<\/em>, p. 25.<\/p>\n

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

[95]<\/a>\u00a0 To get to the specific ethical and epistemic claims of the non-Christian, the full philosophical procedure from that point is as follows:\u00a0 The apologist points out that an absolute God can only speak with absolute authority, then argues that special revelation is necessary given such a God and man\u2019s sin, and then, within that theistic worldview (not from a position of religious neutrality), offers evidence for the canonicity of the specific contents of the Bible (e.g., fulfilled prophecy, accuracy of manuscript transmission).\u00a0 Then God\u2019s word is used to judge the specific claims of the godless commie or godless capitalist.\u00a0 Of course, not every non-Christian will be so resistant as to need the Christian apologist to go through the full argumentative procedure. Given time constraints or other limitations of the situation, the Christian may just want to teach them what God\u2019s word says on a specific subject and leave them to wrestle with that in their own mind and hope that the Holy Spirit will lead them to believe it.<\/p>\n

[96]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 90.<\/p>\n

[97]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, pp. 27-28, 128-29;\u00a0 \u201cIntroduction\u201d to The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture<\/em> by Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1948), pp. 3-4.<\/p>\n

[98]<\/a>\u00a0 An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, pp. 114-15.<\/p>\n

[99]<\/a>\u00a0 See section IV, \u201cThe Legitimate Role of Empirical Evidence in Van Til\u2019s Approach\u201d in my essay, \u201cThe Scope and Limits of Van Til\u2019s Transcendental Argument,\u201d pp. 43-56.<\/p>\n

[100]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, p. 86.<\/p>\n

[101]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Van Til, A Christian theory of Knowledge<\/em>, p. 45.<\/p>\n

[102]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 AGG, p. 6. Apologetics<\/em>, p. 6.<\/p>\n

[103]<\/a>\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 75.<\/p>\n

[104]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> \u00a0Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, p. 113.<\/p>\n

[105]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, p.19; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 19.<\/p>\n

[106]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, p.19 n.21; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 19 n. 26.<\/p>\n

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

[108]<\/a>\u00a0 See Bahnsen\u2019s response on this issue here:\u00a0 VTA, p. 547 n. 57.\u00a0 Also see James Anderson\u2019s \u201cVan Til FEM,\u201d http:\/\/www.vantil.info\/articles\/vtfem.html#AI2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[109]<\/a>\u00a0 CVT, p. 7.<\/p>\n

[110]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, p. 136.<\/p>\n

[111]<\/a> Van Til, Christian Theistic Evidences<\/em>, p. 25.<\/p>\n

[112]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, p. 86; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 92.<\/p>\n

[113]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, p. 87; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 92.<\/p>\n

[114]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture<\/em>, p. 122.\u00a0 For more on this, see my essay, \u201cThe Scope and Limits of Van Til\u2019s Transcendental Argument,\u201d pp. 27ff.<\/p>\n

[115]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, p. 22; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 21.<\/p>\n

[116]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s lengthiest and most straightforward explanation of his basic argument that I have found is his section on \u201cBlock-House Methodology\u201d in The Defense of the Faith<\/em>, pp. 131-39.\u00a0 He begins the section as a critique of Roman Catholic and Arminian approaches to Christian apologetics.\u00a0 But he says that these approaches compromise with God-denying worldviews, so then he launches his general argument against God-denying worldviews.<\/p>\n

[117]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Van Til, The Case for Calvinism<\/em>, p. 115.<\/p>\n

[118]<\/a>\u00a0 Dr. Anderson also reviewed the new book prior to publication:\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. xl.<\/p>\n

[119]<\/a>\u00a0 This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek of course.\u00a0 He was an intelligent and fair-minded moderator of the Van Til discussion board mentioned above.\u00a0 I recommend his website, http:\/\/www.vantil.info\/<\/a>, particularly the \u201cVan Til FEM (Frequently Encountered Misconceptions)\u201d at http:\/\/www.vantil.info\/articles\/vtfem.html<\/a>.\u00a0 I also recommend his book What’s Your Worldview?: An Interactive Approach to Life’s Big Questions<\/em>.\u00a0 His published article on proving God from logic, written with another member of the aforementioned Van Til discussion group, Greg Welty, is commendable as a Van Tillian argument: James N. Anderson and Greg Welty, \u201cThe Lord of Non-Contradiction:\u00a0 An Argument for God from Logic,\u201d Philosophia Christi<\/em> 13:2 (2011).<\/p>\n

[120]<\/a>\u00a0 For example, AGG: p.19 n.21, p. 85, p. 87 n. 36;\u00a0 Apologetics<\/em>, p. 19 n. 26, p. 66, p. 93 n. 47.<\/p>\n

[121]<\/a>\u00a0 AGG, p. 224 n.\u00a0 19; Apologetics<\/em>, p. 223 n. 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download article\u00a0in pdf format here. John Frame has reissued his popular book Apologetics to the Glory of God (AGG) under a new name, Apologetics: A Justification of Christian Belief.[1]\u00a0 He has expanded some of the chapters and added essays in … 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\/77"}],"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=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}