{"id":336,"date":"2017-11-06T23:05:43","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T04:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/?p=336"},"modified":"2018-01-25T11:50:47","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T16:50:47","slug":"thomistic-transcendental-argument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/2017\/11\/06\/thomistic-transcendental-argument\/","title":{"rendered":"A Thomistic Transcendental Argument that Needs Van Til"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nA Review of Edward Feser\u2019s The Last Superstition: \u00a0A Refutation of the New Atheism<\/em> (St. Augustine\u2019s Press, 2008).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I recently read Edward Feser\u2019s book, The Last Superstition<\/em>, because someone who claimed to be a former Van Tilian said it was the book that converted him to Thomism.\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til often criticized Aristotle, and criticized Aquinas for relying on Aristotle, and criticized Classical apologetics in general.\u00a0 As the subtitle indicates, Feser\u2019s book is directed at refuting atheism, not Van Til.\u00a0 It should be no surprise, then, that Feser does not identify Van Til and respond to his criticisms of Aquinas.\u00a0 My conclusion after reading the book is that Feser does not even incidentally provide a refutation of Van Til\u2019s criticism of Aquinas.\u00a0 Nevertheless, because there is a great deal of debate over what exactly Van Til found wrong with Aquinas, Feser\u2019s book provides a convenient way to compare and contrast Thomistic apologetics with Van Til\u2019s presuppositional approach to Christian apologetics.<\/p>\n

Critics of Van Til\u2019s rejection of Thomistic philosophy will probably be surprised to find how much agreement I find between Feser\u2019s Thomism and Van Til.\u00a0 With so much agreement, how could Van Til excoriate Aquinas so often?\u00a0 I\u2019ll get to that, but first some points of agreement.<\/p>\n

Agreement between Feser\u2019s Thomism and Van Til<\/strong><\/p>\n

The philosophical issue known as \u201cthe one and the many\u201d plays a large part, I would say even the central part, in Van Til\u2019s defense of Christianity and criticism of other worldviews.\u00a0 Van Til says,\u00a0“The whole problem of knowledge has constantly been that of bringing the one and the many together.” [1]<\/a>\u00a0 This issue is about accounting for both change and continuity, justifying our descriptions of changing experience by using universal concepts.\u00a0 Van Til recognizes that Thomistic philosophy attempts to bring the one and the many together in order to account for our knowledge the world and God: “In its natural theology, traditional Romanist thought seeks to avoid univocism (i.e., Parmenidian identity philosophy), and equivocism (i.e., Heraclitean flux philosophy).\u00a0 The result is expressed in its notion of analogy<\/em>.”[2]<\/a> Feser also recognizes the importance of the issue of one and the many for epistemology.\u00a0 Like Van Til, Feser appeals to the examples of the pre-Socratic philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides to describe the two extreme conditions that must be avoided:<\/p>\n

If Parmenides was wrong to deny the existence of change, Heraclitus was also wrong to claim that change is all that exists.\u00a0 For Aristotle, the right view, here as elsewhere, is somewhere in between the extremes. . . .\u00a0\u00a0 With Heraclitus, he holds that these real things undergo change; with Parmenides he holds that what is real cannot be change alone; and with Plato holds that form is the key to understanding how something permanent underlies all change. (57)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Both Van Til and Feser see the Christian God as providing the answer to the problem of the one and the many, so that God\u2019s existence is necessary in order for knowledge, reason, science, ethics, and the like to be possible.\u00a0 The worldviews that deny God\u2019s existence reduce to absurdity because they undermine the very possibility of reason and science.\u00a0 In other words, Feser endorses a transcendental argument for God\u2019s existence, as does Van Til.\u00a0 \u00a0Van Til says that, \u201c. . . we can call the method of implication into the truth of God a transcendental method. That is, we must seek to determine what presuppositions are necessary to any object of knowledge in order that it may be intelligible to us.\u201d[3]<\/a> \u00a0Feser says, \u201cIndeed, nothing<\/em> makes sense \u2013 not the world as a whole, not morality or human action in general, not the thoughts you are thinking or the words you\u2019re using, not anything at all<\/em> \u2013 without final causes\u201d (70-71 \u2013 emphasis in original).\u00a0 By \u201cfinal causes\u201d Feser means purposes, and he holds that God must exist as the ultimate source of purpose in the universe.\u00a0 Feser says that he endorses the \u201cargument from reason\u201d that \u201cmaterialism and naturalism . . . undermine the very possibility of rational inquiry\u201d (244-45).\u00a0 He argues that for materialism to be true, \u201cthe very notion of truth<\/em> would have to be abandoned. . . .\u00a0 In the name of reason, truth, and science, [the materialist] destroys all reason, truth, and science\u201d (234).\u00a0 Feser is specifically talking about the necessity of humans having a mind here, but he also says that God must exist as a final cause behind the human mind: \u00a0\u201cIf universals, propositions, and mathematical objects are eternal and necessarily existing entities that cannot plausibly exist apart from a mind, and such a mind could not (for the reasons we have seen) be a finite or limited mind like ours, it follows that they must exist in an eternal and infinite mind\u201d (90).\u00a0 Although, Feser acknowledges that \u201cAquinas does not defend this argument himself, but he and many other medieval Scholastic philosophers did endorse the idea that universals and the like exist as \u2018thoughts\u2019 in the divine intellect. . .\u201d (90).<\/p>\n

Van Til\u2019s argument for God\u2019s existence is a version of the argument from reason.\u00a0 He argues for God being not only the source of universal, necessary concepts, but also the source of the individual facts of the world to which concepts are related:<\/p>\n

For us the facts are what they are, and the universals are what they are, because of their common dependence upon the ontological trinity.\u00a0 Thus, as earlier discussed, the facts are correlative to the universals. Because of this correlativity there is genuine progress in history; because of it the Moment has significance.[4]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God must be the First Cause of all things in the world in order for individual facts in the world to be able to relate to universals.<\/p>\n

As one would expect from a Thomist, Feser defends Aquinas\u2019 Five Ways, that God\u2019s existence as the First Cause is necessary to account for motion, causation, contingent being, degrees of perfection, and purpose in the world (91 ff.)\u00a0 Van Til has problems with some aspects of these arguments, as I will explain, but not the claim that God necessarily exists as the first cause and purpose behind everything in the world. \u00a0\u00a0Van Til says that<\/p>\n

. . . [M]en ought to reason analogically about themselves. They ought to reason analogically about their being (ontological argument), about the\u00a0cause of their being (cosmological arguments), and about the purpose of their being (teleological argument). Men ought to see themselves concretely for what they are. They cannot in any true sense define or describe themselves except in terms of their derivation from and responsibility to God. They ought to see that the words being, cause and purpose have no possible meaning when applied to themselves, except in relation to God as their creator and judge.[5]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Van Til insists here that we ought to reason analogically, and anyone familiar with Aquinas knows that he also places a great deal of emphasis on describing the similarity and differences between man and God in terms of the analogy of being.\u00a0 Yet, we will see that Van Til and Aquinas have stark differences in how the analogy between man and God should be understood.<\/p>\n

Feser criticizes \u201cthe Paley\/\u2019Intelligent Design\u2019\u201d approach because it \u201cmore or less gives away the store to the skeptics by adopting the modern \u2018mechanistic\u2019 conception of nature, and thus is reduced to a pathetic \u2018God of the gaps\u2019 strategy\u201d (113).\u00a0 Likewise, Van Til often criticizes this method of arguing for God\u2019s existence.\u00a0 He gives this critique of Joseph Butler, whose method of arguing for Christianity was later adopted by William Paley:<\/p>\n

It is not only on the question of special occurrences in nature that we differ with modern science; it is on the question of the basis of natural law itself that the rift appears. The\u00a0Butler type of apologetics has failed to observe this basic point. As it has not questioned the legitimacy of the assumption of brute facts, so it has not at every point challenged the legitimacy of the assumption of self-contained, ultimate laws. It has granted that science can make a true explanation of brute facts with the help of\u00a0impersonal laws.[6]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Disagreement between Feser\u2019s Thomism and Van Til<\/strong><\/p>\n

While Feser\u2019s arguments are good up to a point, issues about Greek views of form and matter that Feser does not address ultimately undermine his arguments.\u00a0 In this passage, he makes claims that Van Til would regard as clearly going beyond what Aristotelianism can provide to the defense of Christian theology:<\/p>\n

Now recall the Aristotelian principle that a cause cannot give\u00a0what it does not have, so that the cause of a feature must have that\u00a0feature either “formally” or “eminently” that is, if it does not have\u00a0the feature itself (as a cigarette lighter which causes fire, is not itself on fire), it must have a feature that is higher up in the hierarchy of\u00a0attributes (as the cigarette lighter has the power to generate fire).\u00a0\u00a0 But the Unmoved Mover as the source of all change, is the source\u00a0of things coming to have the attributes they have. \u00a0Hence He has\u00a0these attributes eminently if not formally. That includes every\u00a0power so that He is all-powerful. It also includes the intellect and\u00a0will that human beings possess (features far up in the hierarchy of\u00a0attributes of created things, as we will see in the next chapter), so\u00a0that He must be said to have intellect and will, and thus personality, in an analogical sense.\u00a0 Indeed, he must have them in the Highest\u00a0degree, lacking any of the limitations that go along with being a material creature or otherwise having potentiality (98-99).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That all sounds good, but Aristotle\u2019s Unmoved Move cannot possess all the variety of attributes of lower beings in the highest degree.\u00a0 Aristotle\u2019s Unmoved Mover does not know, love, or create the world.\u00a0 The world is moved because the world loves, has a desire for, the Unmoved Mover.[7]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 The Unmoved Mover is a completely passive mover; it is not a living and active god like the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob described in the Bible, where God\u2019s existence is reflected in the world because He created it.\u00a0 There is a shared attribute between Aristotle\u2019s Unmoved Mover and objects in the world, and that is a principle of form or unity.\u00a0 And according to Aristotle\u2019s philosophy, that principle of unity is possessed in the highest degree by the Unmoved Mover.\u00a0 But that still does not mean that God has a variety of attributes of lower beings in the highest degree.\u00a0\u00a0 The form-matter scheme adopted by Aristotle, Plato, and other Greeks is that matter is the source of change and individuality, while form is the source of unity.\u00a0 The Unmoved Mover is defined by removing all \u201cmatter,\u201d which leaves the Unmoved Mover a completely blank unity, an empty concept.\u00a0 The result is a dead, passive, immobile emptiness that Aquinas tries to equate with the Christian God.\u00a0 Van Til writes,<\/p>\n

The One is One so long\u00a0as it is wholly above all contact with space-time facts. It is this abstract principle of pure negation which Aristotle speaks of when he says that God is pure thought thinking itself (noysis noyseos<\/i>). This \u2018pure thought\u2019 does not think of itself any more than it thinks of the world, because it is not the thought of a self at all.[8]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a principle of unity abstracted from all diversity and change, there is no content to the Unmoved Mover\u2019s self to think about.<\/p>\n

Someone might claim that Aquinas rejects the bad parts of Aristotle while keeping the good. Unfortunately, Aquinas endorses the bad part of Aristotle that makes God into an empty concept.\u00a0 He says in Summa Theologica<\/em>,<\/p>\n

God 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 “whether it is.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A supremely simple form has all of its content removed.\u00a0 With no content to it, it is impossible to say \u201cwhat it is.\u201d\u00a0 Similarly, in Summa Contra Gentiles<\/em> Aquinas says,<\/p>\n

Now, in considering the divine substance, we should especially make use of the method of remotion. \u00a0For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. . . .\u00a0 [By remotion] we approach nearer to a knowledge of God according as through our intellect we are able to remove more and more things from Him.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rather than a divine being that cannot be described because He is so much more complex than our puny, finite human minds can comprehend, Aquinas\u2019 Aristotelian method of thinking about God results in a being that cannot be described because there is no content to his being to describe.\u00a0 All content to God has been removed.\u00a0 As Van Til puts it,<\/p>\n

As far as knowledge of God is concerned the primary relation according to Thomas is that of negation.\u00a0 When he says that reason (by an Aristotelian method) can prove that God exists, this is pointless inasmuch as he adds that it cannot say what God is.[11]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Aquinas\u2019 proof of the existence of God proves a God who does not exist<\/em>, since there is nothing left to His nature once all content has been removed.<\/p>\n

Here Van Til describes the biblical way of describing God as He is seen through His creation \u2013 by removing the limitations<\/em> of created things, not removing content:<\/p>\n

Accordingly, we need the indescribable fulness of the being of God as the presupposition of our notions of time and space. Then we subtract from these notions the limitations that pertain to them by virtue of the fact that they are created by God. If we do this, we walk theistically on the way of negation. The way of negation is then, at the same time, the way of affirmation. God then appears so full and rich in his being that we cannot even make negations with respect to him without the presupposition of the fulness of his being.\u201d[12]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this way, we are able to describe God as Feser wants to describe Him, as having \u201cintellect and will, and thus personality, in an analogical sense, . . . [and having] them in the Highest\u00a0degree, lacking any of the limitations that go along with being a material creature. . . .\u201d\u00a0 Analogical thinking that is consistent with the biblical worldview compares the Creator and creation by removing limitations from the creation in order to understand the Creator, not by removing content from the creation\u2019s diversity so that the Creator is left as an empty concept.\u00a0 The creature is analogous to the Creator by being a finite one-and-many that reflects the Absolute One-and-Many.\u00a0 The creature is not analogous to God by having a principle of unity from God while being disanalogous to God by having manyness from the separate source of non-being\/matter.<\/p>\n

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

Rather than being an abstract universal, Van Til describes God as a \u201cconcrete universal.\u201d\u00a0 This is a term that Van Til borrowed from Hegel and other idealist philosophers, but Hegel\u2019s concrete universal was an ideal to be achieved in the future (if ever), whereas Van Til uses the term to describe God as He has been for all eternity.\u00a0 It means that all individual facts and the concepts that apply to them have their origin in God, in His eternal plan for the universe.\u00a0 Van Til also emphasizes that the doctrine of the ontological Trinity \u2013 three equally divine persons in the Godhead for all eternity \u2013 means that God\u2019s nature cannot be reduced to an abstract unity.\u00a0 God\u2019s nature irreducibly has both particular and universal aspects to it.<\/p>\n

The Greek form-matter scheme is not merely a deficient view that needs to be supplemented with Christian views.\u00a0 The Greek view must be rejected if Christianity is true.\u00a0 The two views are incommensurable.\u00a0 Aristotle excludes all particulars and change from the Unmoved Mover, consistent with Plato and other Greek philosophers.\u00a0 But particulars and change cannot be excluded from the Christian God.\u00a0 God is triune.\u00a0 He is a living, active God.\u00a0 God\u2019s character and eternal decrees do not change, but there are changes in God described in the Bible.\u00a0 He is slow to anger, but given rebellion against Him for long enough, He gets angry and sends judgment against the rebels.\u00a0 On the other hand, if God threatens judgment on a rebellious people, God\u2019s anger will subside and the threat removed if they repent (Jeremiah 18:7-10).\u00a0 These changes in God happen according to God’s eternal, unchanging decree concerning of all things, but they are\u00a0real changes in God nonetheless.\u00a0 The pure form of Greek philosophy is eternally static in every way. \u00a0Van Til rightly concludes that the Unmoved Mover could not be a person but only an impersonal \u201cit.\u201d[13]<\/a>\u00a0 It is an empty concept.\u00a0 It could not decide to create the world of diverse change since all diversity and change are excluded from its nature.\u00a0 The Unmoved Mover could not be<\/em> the First Cause of the world.\u00a0 The Greek view really has two independent, ultimate causes of the world:\u00a0 non-being and being.\u00a0 Matter, arising from non-being, is as ultimate as being in Aristotle\u2019s view.\u00a0 This pure being called the Unmoved Mover that does not know the world or create the world and who is separate from the other ultimate cause of the world, non-being or matter, is a finite god, a false god, an idol \u2013 not the absolute God of the Bible who is the source of form and matter, unity and change, for the world.<\/p>\n

Thomists describe God as \u201cpure act,\u201d which would seem to mean that they are saying that God is completely active. But just the opposite is the case.\u00a0 By \u201cpure act\u201d they mean that God has no “potency,” or one could say “potential,” for change or movement.\u00a0 This is in contrast with all created things, which are said to be a mixture of potency and act \u2013 they actively express some attributes at a particular time, but they have the potential of expressing or doing other things at other times.\u00a0 For instance, a match has the potential to burn even though it is presently not on fire.\u00a0 Since God is \u201cpure act,\u201d He has no potency, no potential for change.\u00a0 There has never been, never will be, and never can be any change in God.\u00a0 Remember that form is the principle of unity, and matter is the source of change in the Thomistic\/Hellenistic scheme of reality, and God is equated with pure form.\u00a0 Thomists would be more true to what they really mean and what is really entailed by their system if they described God as \u201cpure impotence.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s not the Christian God.\u00a0 Thomists seem to be confused by their own terminology in their failure to recognize that their Unmoved \u2013 and Unmoving \u2013 Mover of \u201cpure act\u201d is nothing like the living, active, infinitely full God of the Bible.<\/p>\n

Aristotle held that the universe is eternal.\u00a0 In this passage from Summa Contra Gentiles<\/em>, Aquinas acknowledges that his Aristotelean method of proving God\u2019s existence does not yield the biblical God because it does not prove a God who creates the world out of nothing:<\/p>\n

[29] Two considerations seem to invalidate these arguments. The first consideration is that, as arguments, they presuppose the eternity of motion, which Catholics consider to be false.<\/p>\n

[30] To this consideration the reply is as follows. The most efficacious way to prove that God exists is on the supposition that the world is eternal. Granted this supposition, that God exists is less manifest. For, if the world and motion have a first beginning, some cause must clearly be posited to account for this origin of the world and of motion. That which comes to be anew must take its origin from some innovating cause; since nothing brings itself from potency to act, or from non-being to being.[14]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, his best argument for the existence of God presupposes an eternal universe, but God\u2019s existence based on this proof is \u201cless manifest\u201d than if he could prove a God that creates the universe out of nothing (ex nihilo<\/em>), like the Bible teaches.\u00a0 Since Aristotle\u2019s method does not give him a God that creates the universe ex nihilo<\/em>, Aquinas says that a beginning to creation cannot be proven by reason but must be an article of faith.[15]<\/a>\u00a0 He views faith in God as a creator like the second story of a house added to the first story established by \u201cnatural reason,\u201d which amounts to Aristotelean philosophy.\u00a0 However, a god who is just as old as the universe and not the creator of the universe hardly deserves the name of God in the biblical sense. \u00a0In fact, Aristotle\u2019s view excludes<\/em> a creation of the world with a beginning.\u00a0 Matter exists eternally, and the eternally static, empty form of Aristotle\u2019s Unmoved Mover, who does not know anything about the world, could not choose to cause anything in the realm of matter.\u00a0 In the Thomistic syncretism between Aristotelianism and Christianity, Van Til concludes that \u201c\u2018reason\u2019 and \u2018faith\u2019 make contradictory statements about reality.\u201d[16]<\/a>\u00a0 The Janus-faced \u201cThomas the theologian\u201d wants to affirm beliefs about God and the universe that cannot be reconciled with the views of \u201cThomas the philosopher.\u201d[17]<\/a><\/p>\n

Note that with Aristotelianism\/Thomism, we are not talking about a material universe that is eternal because a concrete universal God eternally sustains it by His sovereign will.\u00a0 That might be a logical possibility, although a universe with a beginning certainly puts greater emphasis on God\u2019s sovereignty.\u00a0 The pure form of Aristotle and Aquinas cannot<\/em> create the universe, nor can it explain the one-and-many rationality of the universe even if the universe were eternal.<\/p>\n

Even apart from these problems, Aquinas should have suspected that he was on the wrong track by integrating Aristotle\u2019s paganism into Christianity when he reads the Apostle Paul stating that all men are in rebellion against God and suppress the knowledge of God (Romans 1, 3).\u00a0 Aristotle\u2019s form-matter scheme is a reflection of his rebellion against his Creator and the futile thinking that results from it, not natural revelation from God.<\/p>\n

We can say that Aristotle got something right when he recognized that there needs to be a source of unity for the world (in contrast to modern atheists who subscribe to materialism), but that does not make his argument a building block for Christian views because his view of unity is irrational.\u00a0 Abstract being, with no content, is a complete blank, which amounts to non-being.\u00a0 With no content, it cannot be an object of rational thought.\u00a0 Then this empty unity is added to the principle of diversity with no unity, which is equivalent to chaos, another irrational principle.\u00a0 These two irrational principles are supposedly mixed together to form the intelligible world.\u00a0 Van Til describes this futile approach as adding zeros together and expecting to arrive at a positive number.[18]<\/a> \u00a0He also gives us this vivid description the relation between Greek form and matter:\u00a0 \u201cThe result is that Aristotle\u2019s body of knowledge resembles greatly that of Kant: it is, namely, an island of ice, floating on a boiling cauldron of chance.\u201d[19]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Even though Aristotle tried to tone down the separation between form and matter in Plato by patching together little pieces of form to little pieces of matter, he still relied on the same basic view of reality, as Van Til explains:<\/p>\n

Moderate realism does not want a world of pure essence or form such as Plato had. It wants to deal with Socrates as a man of flesh and blood. But even Plato said that the Good, the pure essential form, tends to be inherently diffuse. Essence, he said, tends to reveal itself in the world of existence. But when it does so, it can do so only by itself intermingling with pure non-existence, the purely essential with the purely non-essential, the purely determinate with the purely indeterminate. But when the world of essence becomes incarnate in the world of existence, then this world of existence must return<\/em> to the world of essence. And what is true of the world as a whole is true of each man in the world. Each man is separated from the world of essence by his participation in the world of non-being. But unless we begin with the Creator-creature distinction, participation in non-being is the only principle of individuation there is.[20]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because abstract form and abstract matter can\u2019t \u201cstick\u201d together, each being irrational concepts that exclude each other, Aristotle cannot account for our intelligible experience of a world with causation and purpose:<\/p>\n

More particularly, do I escape subjectivism if I am told that the being which I meet in my first breath of self-awareness is the analogical being of St. Thomas? I know what the analogical being of Aristotle is. I know that it is based on a supposed interaction of pure form and pure matter on a continuum of levels, a chain of being. I know that, with his idea of being as analogical, Aristotle tried to mediate between the abstract eternal essences of Plato\u2019s thought and the utterly unrelated particularism of Sophistic thought. I know that the effort of Aristotle, was a failure. His lowest species was still of the same nature as was the highest essence of Plato. For Aristotle, as well as for Plato, knowledge is of universals only. \u00a0Aristotle\u2019s concept could do nothing but drift on a bottomless and shoreless ocean of chance that\u00a0was pure matter. \u00a0Holding firmly with Plato and with Parmenides to the adequation of thought and being, Aristotle was unable, for all his supposed empiricism, to attribute any significance to history and its individuality. \u00a0The moderate realism of Aristotle, like the more extreme realism of Plato, could explain nothing in the world of change except by explaining it away.[21]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God as a concrete universal is the necessary precondition for rationality in the universe. The intelligible world is not the product of two irrational principles coming together but the product of an absolutely rational God.\u00a0 Human beings can use their reason to rationally investigate the world because they and the world are wholly created by a rational God.\u00a0 Knowledge is not produced from two irrational principles.\u00a0 Knowledge comes from knowledge \u2013 human knowledge is derived from God\u2019s eternal knowledge of all things.\u00a0 All the individual facts in the world in all their changing variety and all the concepts that apply to them have eternally existed in the mind of God, in His eternal plan for the world.<\/p>\n

Since the form-matter scheme undermines the very possibility of rationality and is inconsistent with God being the creator of a universe with a beginning, it should be no surprise that it undermines many other basic doctrines of Christianity, such as the Creator\/creature distinction, a fall from a state of perfection, salvation at some point in history, the incarnation of Christ, a finished revelation from God, and absolute ethical obligations, as I explain more fully in another essay.[22]<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Historian Charles Norris Cochran explains the uniqueness of Christianity compared to the philosophy of Classical civilization, which Christianity defeated:<\/p>\n

\u00a0The revelation of Christ was the revelation of the Divine Nature as the Trinity.\u00a0 Accordingly, in the Trinity, Christian wisdom discovers that for which Classicism had so long vainly sought, vis. the logos or explanation of being and motion, in other words, a metaphysic of ordered process.\u00a0 In so doing it does justice to the element of truth contained alike in the claims of classical materialism and classical idealism; while, at the same time, it avoids the errors and absurdities of both.[23]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That God could become a man in the flesh in history was a dramatic testimony to the eternal nature of God.\u00a0 The incarnation of Christ was only possible because God was eternally such a God whose nature did not exclude the particular and changing.\u00a0 Because God is a concrete universal, God can create time and space ex nihilo<\/em> and be active in that realm.\u00a0 This genius of the Christian worldview was squandered by Aquinas.\u00a0 The treasures of the Christian birthright were sold out to a large extent for a mess of pottage from paganism.\u00a0 Thomism is double-minded Christianity.\u00a0 Single-minded Christianity declares soli Deo Gloria<\/em> – \u201cfrom Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever.\u00a0 Amen.\u201d (Rom. 11:36).<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> \u00a0Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em> (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1974), p. 10.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>\u00a0 (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and<\/p>\n

Reformed Publishing Co., 1980 [1971]), p. 111.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius \u00a0Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology<\/em> (Phillipsburg, NJ: The Presbyterian and Reformed<\/p>\n

Publishing Company, 1969), p. 201.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel<\/em>\u00a0 (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1972), p. 64.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, <\/em>p. 104.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, Christian Theistic Evidences<\/em> (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1978), p. 89.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Aristotle, Metaphysics<\/em> XII, 7.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, The Great Debate Today<\/em> (Nutley, N.J.: \u00a0Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1971), p. 184.<\/p>\n

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

[10]<\/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).<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, p. 161.\u00a0 Also see Cornelius Van Til, The Case for Calvinism<\/em>\u00a0 (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1979), p. 57.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, pp. 211-12.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em> (Phillipsburg, NJ: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1969), p. 302.\u00a0 See also, The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture<\/em> (Phillipsburg, N.J.:<\/p>\n

Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1967), p. 19; The Intellectual Challenge of the Gospel (Phillipsburg, N.J.:<\/p>\n

Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1980), p. 8; The Defense of the Faith<\/em> (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1955), p. 238.<\/p>\n

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

[15]<\/a>\u00a0 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica<\/em>, Part I, Question 46, Article 2.<\/p>\n

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

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

[18]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til,\u00a0An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, p. 20.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, Who Do You Say That I Am?<\/em> (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1975), p. 21.<\/p>\n

[20]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought, <\/em>pp. 220-21.<\/p>\n

[21]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p. 217.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Michael H. Warren, Jr., \u201cThe Scope And Limits of Van Til\u2019s Transcendental Argument:\u00a0 A Response to John Frame,\u201d pp. 9-13, http:\/\/www.christianciv.com\/The_Scope_and_Limits_of_VTAG.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[23]<\/a> Charles Norris Cochrane,\u00a0Christianity and Classical Culture:\u00a0\u00a0A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine\u00a0<\/em>(London: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 436-37.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Review of Edward Feser\u2019s The Last Superstition: \u00a0A Refutation of the New Atheism (St. Augustine\u2019s Press, 2008).   I recently read Edward Feser\u2019s book, The Last Superstition, because someone who claimed to be a former Van Tilian said it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":365,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}