APOLOGETICS
Shortly after the inauguration of a certain college president, the faculty discussed dropping the course in theism which the previous president had required. The head of the history department (and the new president had been a member of the history department) argued in favor of dropping theism on the ground that a course in theism had never converted anybody. A course in history should be required in its stead.
Aside from college politics, this incident raises a question. What is theism or apologetics? What is its aim? What is it intended to do? Is the course supposed to convert the students? Or is it supposed to equip the students so that they may more effectively preach the Gospel after they have left the classroom? In the latter case, couldn't they put on a better evangelistic campaign if they had learned to play cow bells and a xylophone instead of having studied apologetics? What then is the purpose of apologetics?
I. The Purpose of Apologetics
Among the writers who are most thoroughly biblical there is considerable unanimity. Farthest removed from hill-billy evangelism both by academic temperament and professional background, Cornelius Van Til of Westminster Seminary is one of the most outspoken on the evangelistic aim of apologetics. In The Defense of the Faith (p. 303) he asks, "How shall Christians win unbelievers to an acceptance of Christian truth?" A long section which follows shortly after is an applied lesson in contrasting methods of personal evangelism. And at an indefinite number of points in the volume Dr. Van Til's concern for evangelism is clearly seen among the technical arguments on Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel. With one or at most two exceptions the other writers considered here are equally explicit.
Yet with this unanimity there is some diversity or at least hesitation as to how closely an apologetic argument should resemble an evangelistic service. Should the contents of a course on theism or of a book on apologetics be within the grasp of a high-school sophomore? Not in the case of Van Til, at any rate. But another book gives a mixed impression.
Kenneth S. Kantzer in his foreword to A Christian Approach to Philosophy by Warren C. Young, professor of philosophy of religion and Northern Baptist Seminary, hails the volume as an evidence of the revival of letters. He speaks of Young's vigor of thought and breadth of understanding. He sees in Young's book the Augustinian tradition in its purest disciplines which, though they may eventually aid evangelism, are in the first place above the level of secondary education. But then, in the same few pages, Kantzer strangely commends Dr. Young for refuting other Christian apologetes on the ground that their arguments did not convert Sophie the Scrubwoman.
Perhaps Professor Young himself would not want the value of his book to be judged by its appeal in an evangelistic campaign. He discusses epistemology, the origin of life, and the nature of consciousness. There are hardly evangelistic themes. Yet it is not clear precisely how Young views the nature of apologetics. On page 200 he says that if "philosophy" be understood to mean a world-view, then Christianity is a "philosophy." If philosophy is an attempt to see life steadily and to see it whole, if philosophy attempts to give a coherent account of all of one's experience, then Christianity has a philosophy. On the other hand, only a dozen lines below these sentiments, Young asserts that "our present task is not one of attempting to demonstrate to all comers that Christian realism is a more coherent world-view than those systems which other thinkers have to offer... Converts from one world-view to another are seldom made by demonstrating that one's own particular philosophy is more coherent than all others." These words (although a conscientious effort should be made to avoid misinterpreting any of these authors) have the appearance of disparaging whatever is too recondite or too profound.
Edward John Carnell and Carl F. H. Henry of Fuller Theological Seminary define apologetics much as Van Til does. President Carnell once put the matter very simply in an article in the Moody Monthly (January, 1950). "Every personal worker faces many stock objections to his faith. Who married Cain? How did Noah manage to put all the animals into the ark?" These are sophomoric questions. Then Carnell continues, "There are others far more basic, affecting the very foundations of the Christian faith." These others lead Carnell to consider atheism, agnosticism, and naturalism. And the intricacies will be lose on Sophie the Scrubwoman. Henry, whose many books have more of the content than the form, believes that apologetics includes internal criticism of competitive views to show that biblical theism avoids compromising elements and safeguards whatever truth other views may have, transforming these positive elements with the perspective of special revelation; and personal testimony because the believer alone has weighed both views as live options.
Such general remarks may be amplified and a clearer notion of the contents of apologetics may be had by observing the topics that apologetes discuss. In this respect also, recent evangelical apologists show considerable uniformity, although the diversity makes a stronger impression in some cases. Men who ask us a reason for our faith ask many questions; and because a list of them would be an unsystematic aggregate of topics, apologetics can be considered an illegitimate subject of study. Such is the view of Dr. Samuel M. Thompson, professor of philosophy in Monmouth College. In A Modern Philosophy of Religion (p. 30) he speaks of apologetics as having been born in confusion, as an illegitimate discipline caught in a dilemma that can be disguised only by a sleight of hand. Such a summary dismissal of apologetics is reminiscent of the contention made by the Roman Catholic writer, Etienne Gilson, to the effect that Calvinism cannot have a philosophy. Gilson's reason is that the Thomist conception of philosophy is incompatible with Calvinism; and since the Thomists are unwilling to call anything philosophy that is not built on their first principles, they naturally conclude that Calvinism provides no room for any (Thomist) philosophy. Transparent as such a device is, Thompson's view of apologetics is at least based on the undeniable fact that answering desultory questions cannot constitute a neat systematic science. Even when the trivial questions are set aside in favor of really important matters, the list still exceeds the scope of any single science. Bernard Ramm of Baylor University, for example, writes on The Christian View of Science and Scripture. He discusses evolution, cosmology, the antiquity of the human race, and certain miracles. Although Professor Ramm in these discussions is defending Christianity, none of these subjects is found in Van Til's book. In fact, Van Til might possibly assert that these subjects are rather to be called evidences than apologetics. For him apologetics is concerned with reality, unity and plurality, God's knowledge and man's knowledge, as well as with idealism and rationalism. Consider also the excellent volume, The Basis of Christian Faith (third edition) by Floyd E. Hamilton, onetime missionary and professor in Pyengyang, Korea. The book gives many reasons for the faith: it aims "to prove the truth of Christianity" (p. 15). In doing so, Hamilton discusses Old Testament criticism, the recent discoveries of archaeology, the fulfillments of prophecy, and the resurrection of Christ; besides which he examines Gibbons' theory of the early spread of Christianity, the evolutionary hypothesis, and something of the biblical texts and versions. The book is an admirable handbook of information useful to the college student: but although Hamilton shows himself quite ready to give an answer to those who ask a reason, only the first fifty-five pages are apologetics in the stricter academic sense of the word.
A stricter sense is a necessity. Without some more or less arbitrary limitation of subject matter, apologetics could not be distinguished from evidences or from an evangelistic sermon. Certainly there is a place for evidences in the propagation of the faith. Certainly the resurrection of Jesus Christ should be preached and the testimony of the eye witnesses recounted. But after we have declared out faith, the auditors may ask us a reason. Apologetics therefore has its place too, but in the temporal order it is a later place. And over the years the questions and reasons to which the term apologetics has been attached have been restricted to certain basic problems. However interesting archeology may be, and however important biblical criticism is, there are still more fundamental matters. The details of biblical criticism change, sometimes with great rapidity. But the foundations on which all the rest is supported remain the same, and questions concerning these foundations recur in every age. Does it matter where Cain got his wife or how many years ago man appeared on earth, if there is no God? And would it be possible to answer these or any other questions, if the human mind were incapable of grasping truth? Other issues are frequently included, but these are absolutely inescapable topics that form the core of apologetics.
To conclude this short introduction, the relationship between the evangelistic motive and academic content can perhaps be exemplified by the relationship between engineering and mathematics. The former is immediately concerned with an individual practical situation; its procedure is rough rather than rigorous; and everyone is satisfied if the bridge or building is serviceable despite some minor inconveniences. But the mathematics which the engineer used, the theory which he applied, was developed with the utmost exactitude; and if Leibniz and Newton had been preoccupied with bridges and building, they would never have invented calculus.
II. History and Morals
After the preceding introduction it might seem that a discussion of history and morals would be out of place. On the contrary, a brief consideration of ethics will serve as well or even better than anything else to emphasize and to amplify what has already been said.
Traditional apologetics has never neglected questions of morality. Bishop Butler, Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, and lesser authors as well have all given their arguments. In too many cases, however, without giving reasons, it has been assumed that Christian morality is superior to other ideals of life, and that therefore this superiority in morals is itself a reason for recommending the Christian system as a whole. In addition, it has also been frequently maintained that a non-too-prejudiced pagan, by his own reflection, would arrive at something pretty close to the Christian standards. Does not everyone condemn theft and murder? Even Carnell in An Introduction to Christian Apologetics (p. 329) says, "All ethicists agree that murder is wrong." But this does not happen to be the case. The ancient Greeks condoned the murder of defective infants. Communists today openly espouse violence, torture, and murder. It is irrelevant to reply that the Marxist does not approve of someone's murdering him. A personal disinclination to being killed is not the equivalent of the moral principle that every case of murder is wrong. Naturalism and Humanism have attacked the superiority of the Christian ideal on other points also. Edwin A. Burtt criticizes what he believes are moral deficiencies in the character of Jesus; and he notes that many humanists approve of promiscuity. Before him, Hastings Rashdall and others repudiated orthodox Christianity as a nauseous, selfish, soul-saving religion. Therefore an evangelical apologist of today misses the mark if he argues from the supposed superiority of Christian morality to the truth of the system as a whole; he is required to give reasons in favor of his position on morals.
Professor Young's discussion of ethics is mainly a description of the naturalistic, the idealistic, and the Christian viewpoints without detailed arguments in favor of the latter or in opposition to the former. His motive in this omission is problematical, but a point of agreement among several of these authors suggests a reason. Young asserts that "Value... is simply the will of God for the Christian life" (p. 136), and he further implies that we ought to value certain objects "because it is commanded by God." Carnell (pp. 322-329) also argues for the primacy of the Lawgiver, as opposed to Plato's and Leibniz's primacy of law. Van Til writes, "the good is good for man because it has been set as good for many by God. This is usually expressed by saying that the good is good because God says it is good... We do not artificially separate the will of God from the nature of God" (p. 69). If not this point of agreement is the truth, it follows that a reply to the naturalistic objections to Christian morality cannot be framed on a narrowly ethical basis. Rather it must await the establishment of strictly theological propositions. That is to say, if morality is the command of God, the Christian apologete must first discuss the existence and nature of God before he can support Christian standards of ethics.
Now, if God comes first, and ethical standards are established by His command, there is another factor to be considered in the discussion of morality. Professor Van Til, more than the others, stresses the defilement of man's conscience caused by sin. Since man is at enmity with God, he tries to suppress his knowledge of God. Therefore the dictates of his conscience are sure to be mistaken. Hamilton, who also insists on the effects of sin, believes that on some occasions, perhaps rare occasions, and by accident, a man's conscience might coincide with the command of God; but Van Til seems to imply that the unregenerate mind never makes a moral judgment that conforms to divine standards. "He cannot even know what the good is" (p. 71). Therefore he concludes, "It is Scripture and Scripture alone [italics his], in the light of which all moral questions must be answered" (p. 71). Insistence on the necessity of Scripture, however, does not depend on the unusual claim that an unregenerate mind can have no moral knowledge. Even if mankind occasionally agrees with divine standards, the prevalence of error and the methods of arriving at a decision prevent a sure judgment between what is true and what is false. Once more therefore Christian morality cannot be defended without the prior principle of revelation. The most that can be done within the sphere of ethics alone, i.e., apart from and prior to the establishment of propositions on theism and revelation, is to show that naturalism and other non-revelational theories fail to justify any moral principles whatever. Carnell, in discussing scientific law as well as moral law, argues that non-theistic principles removed all confidence for the future. Without God there is no reason to believe that the laws of science or the standards of morality will be the same tomorrow as they are today (cf. pp. 94. 153, 326). Gravitation and honesty in the past; relativity and theft in the future. This is a point that deserves to be made, but it is not a devastating point unless in the past there have been instances of radical and sudden changes. The naturalists can easily reply: true, we have no absolute confidence that tomorrow will be like today; in fact, the world is constantly changing; we have adapted ourselves to these changes in the past, and we shall have to take our chances with the future; therefore we admit your contention but deny that it damages our position. In A Christian View of Men and Things the present writer by-passes this reply in a detailed examination of the chief types of ethical systems. His conclusion is that, without worrying about tomorrow, non-revelational ethics cannot justify rational choices for today. Neither utilitarianism nor Kantianism can conclude in favor of any one action as against some other. Naturalistic philosophies fail to establish any normative propositions whatever. The only basis for moral distinctions must therefore be the preceptive will of God, and these precepts are found only in the Scripture.
In fairness and for a greater degree of completeness it should be noted that one contemporary evangelical apologete, Dr. J. Oliver Buswell Jr., in The Bible Today (November, 1948, p. 53), takes issue with the position that moral distinctions are based on the will of God. As the passage is short, perhaps nothing more should be said, for fear of reading extraneous ideas into the text.
If the problem of morality has taken on a new form in contemporary apologetics, the idea of history is almost completely an innovation of this century. Naturally, the older writers, such as James Orr in The Christian View of God and the World, were interested in the Incarnation as an historical event and in a certain amount of eschatology. But during the nineteenth century, growing out of the work of Hegel and of Darwin, philosophies of history were attempted by Karl Marx, Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, and recently in more elaborate form by Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee, R. G. Collingwood, and others. Now the idea of a philosophy of history is originally a peculiarly biblical concept, and St. Augustine exploited the material pin his great City of God. But it has taken the studies of recent secular scholars to stimulate a renewed interest in history among the evangelicals.
In point of publication Carl Henry seems to have been the first to pick up this theme. The second chapter of his Remaking the Modern Mind discusses the inevitability of progress; and the third chapter discusses the inherent goodness of man, so closely connected with it. Far from limiting himself to the nineteenth century theories, Henry says relatively little about Marx and Spencer, while he surveys the twentieth century of Russell, Flewelling, Berdyaev, and particularly Niebuhr. In part, his argument shows that even the non-evangelicals of today are not so optimistic about history as were the modernists and secularists of fifty years or more ago. In A Christian View of Men and Things the chapter on history analyzes the concept of progress and attempts to show the ineffectiveness of its alleged causes; then after a review of Spengler and Toynbee there is a statement of the Christian principles of history, with emphasis on the need of revelation if the laws of history are to be understood. This again shows that the study of these subjects cannot be carried on without a prior appeal to the more fundamental problems of the nature of God and the reality of revelation. Thus the argument has brought us to the central theme of apologetics - the existence of God.
III. The Cosmological Argument
When we come to examine the arguments for the existence of God, there arises at once the question of distinguishing between evangelical and non-evangelical apologetics. St. Thomas Aquinas and contemporary Roman Catholic philosophers believe that a formally valid argument can start with sensory perception of the physical world and conclude with God's existence. This argument, as it is worked out in detail, is extremely complex and involves a great mass of scholastic philosophy which the Reformers considered inimical to evangelical Christianity. When, now, Dr. Thompson, although he is a professor in a United Presbyterian college, so wholeheartedly adopts the Thomistic position, one wonders whether the argument should be discussed under the title of evangelical apologetics. At the same time, there are other writers, conspicuously Reformed in their theology, such as Floyd E. Hamilton, who hold, not precisely to Thomism, but to some form of the cosmological argument for God's existence. In any case there may not be a necessary connection between the Thomistic proof of God's existence and the unacceptable parts of Romish theology. Hence Thompson's argument will not only be included here, but, because of his extended and proficient exposition, he will be taken as the chief representative of the empirical and cosmological viewpoint.
Of great importance, as will be heavily underscored in the final section of this chapter, is the starting point. From what does the argument for God's existence begin? Thompson very clearly states in his preface (p. vii), that God's existence "is not the unacknowledged premise of the argument," for this, he believes, would make the argument circular and valueless, but rather it is "the conclusion required by the facts." Facts therefore are the starting point. Or, better, sense perception, which gives us the facts, is the starting point. "The first foundation of knowledge," he says (p. 50), "is sense perception." However plausible this may seem as a starting point, it takes but a smattering of philosophy to recognize that many difficulties are hidden in such a statement. Sense perception alone does not provide knowledge. In looking at a rose I may have the sensation of red, but my perception takes in far more than the quality red. Perception grasps the rose. "In perception there is recognition and interpretation as well as sensation" (p. 51). This, he says, (p. 59), is our one means of contact with external existence.
At this point an interruption may be permitted. Dr. Carnell, although his general viewpoint is far removed from Thompson's, also stresses facts and perception. Sense perception, he says (p. 49), is a source of truth; a judgment is true when it sticks together with all the facts of experience (p. 56); formal validity without real facts is empty (p. 59); in science, sense perception is a check; and knowledge is inference drawn from facts (p. 92). Hamilton too, though notably rejecting the Aristotelian theory of abstraction and denying that all our ideas are originally contained in sense perception or memory (p. 19), nonetheless has sensation as at least one starting point, in the sense that "sensations are the raw materials of knowledge" (p. 27).
Something ought to be said (but in this chapter not very much can be said) about the difficulties inherent in appeals to sense perception and facts. First, as to facts. The English word fact has too many connotations to be useful in a carefully formulated theory. An historical event like the crucifixion of Christ or the San Francisco earthquake is called a fact. In science the exact length of an individual pendulum is called a fact to distinguish it from an equation called a law; but sometimes the law itself is called a fact. Another person may say that it is a fact that God exists. These several usages of the word are so different that confusion results when fact is made the basis of knowledge. For example, in determining the length of a pendulum the scientist will make a large number of measurements, compute their average, and call the average the true length. Is this length a "fact" or is it an inference drawn from many facts? Thus, when the law of the pendulum, an historical event, and the existence of God are also called facts, it is clear that the word has no fixed meaning. Now, second, to avoid such confusion more careful thinkers have selected sensation as the basis for knowledge. What is immediately given in sensation is supposed to have undergone no intellectual elaboration and therefore to be free from error. In modern times Kant and the post-Kantians sought, unsuccessfully, to isolate the immediately given from the combination of subjective form and external content. Many years previously, St. Augustine had taught that there is no perception apart from intellectual interpretation; that is to say, pure sensation never occurs. But if there is always interpretation, one cannot find in perception the freedom from error that would be so desirable as a foundation for knowledge. Of course, both Carnell and Thompson recognize that perception may be mistaken. The color red may be interpreted as a rose when in the particular case it should have been interpreted as a tulip or even as a bottle of perfume. Carnell (Chapter III) well enough points out the possibilities of error and the imperfections of several criteria of truth; but then he seems to proceed as if none the less we had the "facts." Thompson apparently uses two devices to surmount this hurdle. First, taking the admitted proposition that an error in perception does not imply that perception is always erroneous, he seems to transform it into the very different proposition that perception is trustworthy. To this he adds the explanation that errors in perception occur when conditions are not right. But what these conditions of the correct interpretation of sensations are, and how we may recognize their presence, are questions which Thompson is not alone in dodging.
After this short account of the difficulties in Thompson's starting point, it is best to jump nearer to the end of his argument. Let us assume that he has satisfactorily demonstrated the existence of an external world. He then wishes to prove that this perceived external world neither exists by itself nor contains any self-existent part. When further it is shown that such a world depends on something that does exist in and of itself, the final conclusion that God exists is but a step further on.
To prove that neither the world as a whole nor any of its parts is self existent, Thompson asserts that to endure for a time means to change and to be contingent. To be a natural thing is to be a process. What a thing was five minutes ago cannot be what it is now, for if the two whats were identical, the two times would be identical, and now would be five minutes ago (pp. 307-309). These assertions, which may surprise the unwary, depend on the Aristotelian analysis of time as the measure of motion. If there is no motion or change, there is no time. Nor can one thing remain unchanged through the time or change of another thing, for "there is no single all inclusive time which exists somehow in independence of all individual durations, against which they can be measured" (p. 311). And to suppose that there are unchanging atoms, as contrasted with things, is to suppose that sensory object are not real. But this is to reject sensation as the test of existence, which in turn would make all knowledge impossible.
Further, if one denies the principle of potentiality (a concept Aristotle himself could not define), and still asserts motion and duration, one would have to say that motion is from point to point. Such a denial of continuity, Thompson asserts, opens the way to Zeno's paradoxes, or at best reduces the world to the separate flashes on a cinema screen.
To those who are not skilled in scholastic philosophy, this argument may seem heavy and uninteresting. But if it proves, really proves, the existence of God, it cannot be unimportant. Nor could we expect so profound a matter to be as easy as tick-tack-toe. One cannot on principle object to a difficult argument. Euclid has taken us step by step through great complexities until the regular solids are inscribed in the sphere. Perhaps the argument for God's existence is as intricate as Euclid: the intricacy is not per se an evidence of invalidity. But, if we must avoid an interminable examination of potentiality, time, and motion, it may be noted that Euclid has proceeded step by step with clear cogency that no one but a high school student questions the formal validity of his arguments; whereas great numbers of highly trained philosophers have not been convinced of the necessity of many steps in Aristotle's reasoning. However, since theological treatises and even ordinary sermons often mention the cosmological argument, it is worth the effort, at least once in a life time, to read through a summary of it. And the summary must be taken from the scholastic, for they are the only writers who make a serious effort to state the proof in full. Therefore let us follow Thompson for a few more paragraphs.
Thompson defends Aristotle against the common charge that he committed the "school-boy fallacy" of composition in arguing from the contingency of the parts of the world to the contingency of the world as a whole. Aristotle was aware of this fallacy; he well knew that the properties of a part are not necessarily the properties of the whole. Aristotle did not argue that the property of contingency in a part implies the property of contingency in the whole. For, says Thompson, to be contingent is not to have contingency as a property. Further, and more convincing than this bit of scholastic brittleness, nature does not exist as a whole; the existence of the parts is the only existence nature has: nature exists bit by bit in time.
Then comes the crux of the argument - a point that apparently seems so obvious to modern Aristotelians and so unnecessary to all others. The series of existing things and events cannot be infinite. History goes back from A. D. 1956 to A. D. 56 to 56 B. C. to 1956 B. C., but the series of historical events, biological events, geological and cosmological events cannot be an infinite series. "To designate a series... as infinite is to deny that it is a series... of real existence" (p. 320). Infinite series can be constructed in mathematics, Thompson argues, because there is a real continuum from which we abstract parts. The continuum is not something put together out of the items of the series; on the contrary the items of the series are cut off out of the continuum. But when the parts of a whole are themselves really existing things, and the whole is constructed from them, as is the case with nature, then the sum of the parts is finite.
Concerning these remarks one may ask whether they form an argument or whether they are sheer assertions begging the question. Has the author given reasons for suggesting in the last sentence of the exposition that nature is a whole and a sum of parts? Earlier he had repudiated the idea that nature as a whole exists. And if nature is not a whole of sum, but a series, why may not the series of events by infinite? It would seem that at this crucial point in the argument for God's existence, there is no argument, and that the gap is bridged by an unsupported assertion.
Thompson carries on. To cross from contingency to self-existence, he needs the principal of causality. Not only must there be causes of things in nature, but above all there must be a cause of nature. Either there is real causality or we cannot maintain the distinction between actuality and potentiality. These themes Thompson works out with his usual attention to detail; but perhaps enough has been given here to serve as a fair sample of the argument for God's existence.
Thompson is not the only one who holds to the validity of the theistic proofs. As was indicated above, Hamilton takes a somewhat similar position. Though he does not follow all the Aristotelian apparatus found in Thompson, and though he holds that God may be the immediate cause of sensations without the intermediary of an external world (pp. 40-42), he still argues from sensory experience, through the innate principle of causality (pp. 21, 44), to the existence of God; and of the conclusion that man has a moral creator he says, "The preceding arguments are so plain that the conclusion is inescapable" (p. 54). Hamilton therefore apparently holds to the formal validity of the theistic proofs. But herein lies a difficulty. Hamilton's argument is a couple of hundred pages shorter than Thompson's. If now he does not accept all the Aristotelian details, what precisely are the steps by which he would advance from the self and its ideas to God? Hamilton's statement is no longer than the summary references often found in other evangelical writers. Of them all the more must it be asked by what steps do they proceed from premises to conclusion? An argument cannot be appraised unless it is stated. How could anyone judge the inscription of the regular solids in the sphere, if a third or two-thirds of the previous theorems were omitted?
Strange as it may seem, and it will seem still stranger as we proceed, Van Til also asserts "the Reformed apologist maintains that there is an absolutely valid argument for the existence of God" (p. 121). Van Til, of course, is less Aristotelian than Hamilton. If then Van Til does not start from sensory experience, he ought to state his basic premises and give the argument step by step. He seems to suggest that the premises have something to do with the doctrines of creation and providence, and "when the proofs are thus formulated they have absolute probative force" (p. 196). Here one must ask whether it is valid to argue from creation to the existence of God, or whether the notion of creation does not already presuppose the existence of God? Has not Van Til interchanged premises and conclusion? However, though the phrase "probative force" suggests valid demonstration, Van Til immediately disclaims the pure deduction of one conclusion after another from an original premise. Instead of syllogisms he prefers a method of analogy, to which reference will be made later. Finally he repeats "The argument for the existence of God... is objectively valid. We should not tone down the validity of this argument to the probability level. The argument may be poorly stated, and may never be absolutely stated. But in itself the argument is absolutely sound" (p. 256).
One pauses to ask only how an argument can be known to be objectively valid and absolutely sound, when the argument has never been formulated. Could we judge the Pythagorean theorem, if it were defectively stated? The Roman Catholics appeal to Romans 1:20 as guaranteeing the validity of the cosmological argument. Similarly, Dr. Buswell in The Bible Today (Oct., 1947, p. 6) writes, "The so-called cosmological argument is precisely the teaching of Paul in Romans 1:20." But surely Paul did not mean precisely to confer infallibility on Thomas Aquinas. Still less did he confer formal validity on the sketchy summaries of other writers. And to avoid all confusion, it should be noted that any assertion to the effect that Romans 1:20 is the cosmological argument is false. The verse has neither premises nor conclusion; it contains no hint of an implication; it is a simple statement, and simple statements are not arguments and can be neither valid nor invalid. Beyond this, there is no point in talking about a perfect argument that no one has ever correctly formulated. The actual implications that have been printed in books are simply not valid, and evangelicals do themselves a disfavor if they imitate the scholastic legerdemain of Aristotle and Aquinas.
IV. The Problem of Knowledge
The formal defense of the cosmological argument is hardly ever undertaken by contemporary evangelical theologians, and the reasons therefore bring us to the last and most profound problem of apologetics. This problem of knowledge divides into three sub-sections: (1) demonstration and consistency; (2) the starting point; and (3) analogy.
Demonstration and Consistency
Presumably the cosmological argument begins at some starting point, progresses through a series of steps, and allegedly reaches a conclusion. In the previous section it has been argued that this series of steps does not constitute a formally valid demonstration. An example of a formally valid argument is: All the heroes of the Iliad died young; Alexander was a hero of the Iliad; therefore Alexander died young. An example of an invalid syllogism is: Some Greeks are Athenians; some Athenians are traitors; therefore some Greeks are traitors. This latter syllogism may sound good to a careless thinker, but it would flunk a student in a logic class. Somewhat similarly in the cosmological argument the conclusion is acceptable, while it remains unnoticed that the premises do not necessitate it. Rather than change the premises (which is a matter of the starting point) some earlier writers hesitantly admit that the cosmological argument is not "mathematically" conclusive, though they avoid calling it fallacious. Floyd Hamilton, for example, in spite of the wording quoted above grants that it does not follow strictly the rules of the syllogism; but he wishes to call it a proof in some looser sense of the word proof. Whether or not Dr. Buswell denies the formal validity of the argument is hard to discern. In The Bible Today (May, 1948, pp. 239-242), where he is attacking Carnell, he tries to maintain that Aquinas did not present his arguments as a necessary deduction. This is an historical blunder, and one might guess that it was motivated unintentionally by a desire to retain as evidence convincing for practical purposes an argument that is a formal fallacy. Then too, in stating one part of the argument, Buswell labels it "most probably." But the matter is not clear, for in rephrasing other parts, he gives implications that seem to be intended as necessary.
If one wishes to use the cosmological argument without asserting its formal validity, there is a difficulty that requires explanation. The expression that the natural evidence for God's existence is convincing for all practical purposes must be understood as simply a form of enthusiastic speech, for obviously it cannot be taken literally. There are many people, both Christians and unbelievers, to whom this argument is by no means convincing; nevertheless the conversion of the unbelievers and even the enlightenment of the Christian would have to fall within the class of all practical purposes. If then it is not satisfactory for all practical purposes, can it be defended as satisfactory for some practical purposes? After all, it is convincing to those who use it. But this explanation is no better. People are frequently convinced by the flimsiest of evidence and the most glaring of fallacies. If it is justifiable to use an argument merely because it serves some practical purpose, would not evangelism be reduced to utter sophistry? Any evidence or any fallacy could be used, if only it were convincing to the person addressed. And this would remain the case even when the evangelist himself knew that his arguments were inherently unsound. The confusion arises from the unwillingness to see that an argument is either valid or fallacious. There is no third possibility. And in choosing arguments there is no substitute for valid logic.
The importance of necessary inference or valid argumentation goes beyond the cosmological argument. The wider question involved is whether or not reasons, rational argument, or necessary inference can be used to support the Christian system as a whole. Or, one might even ask, Is Christianity a rational system of though? Before other writers are quoted, another reference to Buswell is in order. In The Bible Today (Oct. 1947) Dr. Buswell incorrectly attributed to the present writer one of Van Til's views (p. 4); he also asserted (p. 6) that I ignored the Cartesian form of the ontological argument, although the very page from which Dr. Buswell quotes contains a summary of it. Because of these misunderstandings there was an exchange of views in the December, 1947, the January, 1948, and the March, 1948, issues of the periodical. At first Dr. Buswell shied away from the notion of a system, a perfectly self-consistent, rational system, and tried to define system as "a more or less consistent or inconsistent complex of thought" (December, p. 72, and January, p. 115). Finally, however, in spite of this initial hesitation, he accepted the proposition that "the truth is a perfectly consistent system." For an author who uses the cosmological argument, this acceptance of consistency should, one would think, imply that the cosmological argument is formally valid.
But not all writers accept the notion of perfect consistency. In the past mystics and anti-intellectuals have been a definitely small minority; but inasmuch as neo-orthodoxy today proposes to do great things with illogical paradoxes, the relation of Christian truth to logic is pertinent and timely. Although many popular preachers use the unscriptural antithesis of head verses heart, anti-intellectualism is still a minority view among evangelicals. Carl Henry writes on "The Reasonableness of Christianity" in Remaking the Modern Mind: "Revelational theism has never offered itself as an escape from rationality... it offered a rationally consistent view of existence" (pp. 213, 215), and he clearly expresses his displeasure with anti-intellectualism. Carnell commences his "Preface" by accepting the task of constructing a rational explanation for the whole course of reality; he emphasizes systematic consistency (though he believes that consistency is insufficient and must be supported by coherence - a different concept, though many other writers use the two terms as synonymous), and he even dares to accept the term rationalism (pp. 7, 56, 152, 153). My own writings also emphasize logic.
But Warren Young disagrees. He does not accept the task of attempting to demonstrate that Christian philosophy is more coherent (consistent?) than other systems (p. 200); coherence itself is always relative, depending on assumption of faith rather than on rational demonstration (p. 201). And in particular, "We object to the coherence approach advocated by... E. J. Carnell... his apparent basic assumption that Christianity can be shown to be the most rational or coherent world view must be questioned... The same general view is to be found in... G. H. Clark... he too seems to become a victim of the coherence [consistency] fallacy when he says,... 'if one world-view is consistent while others are self-contradictory, who can deny us... the right to choose the most promising first principle?' But who is to determine which view is consistent and which is self-contradictory? Sidney Hook? Edgar Sheffield Brightman? Or Gordon H. Clark?" (p. 221).
The literal answer to these last questions is of course that each man must decide for himself, even Sophie the Scrubwoman, and not surrender his responsibility to some philosophic Pope. But Young has asked the wrong question. Instead of asking, Who decides? he should have asked, On what grounds can a decision legitimately be made? One must seriously consider whether even the totality of Christian evidences - which, since it is evidence, falls short of logical necessity - can furnish a reason, if the law of contradiction be abandoned. Unless self-contradiction is a perfect reason for rejecting a complex of propositions, conversation becomes meaningless. Suppose some unbeliever who wishes to attack Christianity should assert that one passage of Scripture contradicts another: how shall we answer him? Shall we say, "We do not claim that the Bible is rational or self-consistent; on the contrary, it is you who are a victim of the coherence fallacy; though the passages contradict each other, they are both infallibly inspired"? Such an answer would qualify as paradoxical.
The Starting Point
On several occasions in the preceding discussion the question of the starting point has come to the surface. Once it was asked whether Van Til began with the doctrine of creation and argued to God's existence from this doctrine. Carnell seems to have based some of his argument on an appeal to common facts and accepted principles of morality. Thompson began with sensory experience. Now, if in some cases these starting points beg the question and in others the inferences are invalid, a search for a suitable starting point seems called for. With what can the apologetic endeavor begin?
In opposition to the Aristotelian procedure of learning about God from the world, there is the Calvinistic position that the knowledge of God comes first. Two volumes, both published in 1946, take this position. In A Christian Philosophy of Education (p. 38) I said, "instead of beginning with the facts and later discovering God, unless a thinker begins with God, he can never end with God, or get the facts either." Carl Henry's Remaking the Modern Mind (p. 225) argues that the Thomistic proofs contain within themselves the seeds of their own destruction; their presuppositions rule out a Christian philosophy; one "must begin with God, not only to get to God, but to get to anything" (p. 232). At the same time Floyd Hamilton, cognizant of the trend of thought, had been revising his Basis of Christian Faith (1927), and the same year (1946) issued a third edition, in which, though modifying his earlier expressions, he attempts to defend the theistic proofs. Later (1947-1948) Dr. Buswell not only disagreed with me, but criticized Carnell also, who by this time had published similar views; and most recently (1955) Van Til, who also insists on putting God first, had criticized Hamilton, though unfortunately in using the 1927 edition he quotes sections which Hamilton had retracted and replaced nine years previously. The very fact that Hamilton thought it wise to make these alterations is itself evidence that the old Augustinian position rather than the natural theology of Thomism is a prominent and perhaps the growing opinion of contemporary evangelical apologetes. This necessitates a consideration of the starting point in apologetics.
Note well, the question does not refer to the starting point of an evangelistic campaign, nor to the start of a conversation designed to lead a particular person to Christ. Such a conversation might begin with references to football, fishing, or burdensome taxation. Evangelism was compared with practical engineering that must adapt itself to the local conditions; while apologetics is similar to the mathematical theory which engineering applies. Therefore the starting point here discussed is not a temporal but the logical starting point. This is elementary, but in studying the thought of the several apologetes, one must consider whether they keep this distinction constantly in mind of whether they unconsciously confuse the two.
First, let us consider Carnell. Notwithstanding his occasional appeal to facts and perception, including the puzzling statement, (All?) "Knowledge is inference drawn from fact," - a statement implying that neither ultimate premises nor the facts themselves can be known - there is another and apparently more pervasive strand in his thought. Rather than proving the authority of God's word by an inference from facts, he says (p. 66), "The word of God is thus self-authenticating... If the word required something more certain than itself to give it validity, it would no longer be God's word... It would be a derogation to the efficacy of revelation to suppose that any more than God's Spirit is needed to seal the word to the hearts of believers," and he quotes a remarkable sentence from Charles Hodge. Later (p. 89) Carnell refers to the existence of God as the "ultimate postulate" of the Christian world-view. Again (p. 124) he says the Trinity is the starting point; he rejects the theistic proofs (pp. 126-139); instead of the existence of God being demonstrable "his existence is the sine qua non for all demonstration" (p. 159). In addition to these sometimes scattered remarks, Chapter VII explicitly discusses the starting point of apologetics. Opposing Brightman, Carnell says, "The Christian believes that the starting point controls both method and conclusion" (p. 120). Certainly it is obvious, we may remark, that the axioms of geometry control the theorems. Then Carnell continues, "philosophy is like a railway without switches - once a man is committed to a given direction, he is determined in his outcome. Should he change his mind about the wisdom of the course, his only recourse is to go back and start on another track. A change from idealism to pragmatism involve a change in starting point, method, and conclusion" (p. 123).
Buswell, in The Bible Today (May 1948), vigorously criticizes this railroad illustration. He pictures a bewildered traveler in New York who is about to get on a train for Boston, thinking it will take him to Philadelphia. Buswell would correct the man by pointing to the sign over the gate and asking the gateman. Carnell, on the other hand, as Buswell understands him, is accusing Buswell of letting the man get on the wrong train, of even getting on with him, on the assumption that the train is going to Philadelphia. This reproduction of Carnell's illustration, however, is an instance of the dangers of illustrations. Even Christ's parables were and are occasionally misunderstood. To be sure, there are signs and gatemen in the railroad station; but in philosophy there are no gatemen; there is the starting point only at the start. When we are writing down the axioms, we do not yet have any of the theorems; and the only way to see where the axioms go is to board the train of thought and deduce the theorems. Deduction is "going to Boston." Now, Carnell is saying, if you do not care for the theorems you are getting, you must discard all your deductions, go back to the start, and take another train, i.e. another set of axioms: you cannot switch from theorem fifteen of Euclid to theorem sixteen of Riemann. Buswell nevertheless asserts that the metaphor is meaningless. "What could the words 'go back and start on another track' mean in this time-world of intellectual experience" (p. 245). Saul met Christ on the road to Damascus; before this meeting Saul had been on the wrong track; now, says Dr. Buswell, Saul did not go back at all; his past was still past; he simply switched over onto an entirely different track. Unfortunately, this is a total misunderstanding of Carnell's meaning. Carnell is not requiring Saul to go back to Jerusalem; he is surely not requiring Saul to reverse the direction of time, but he is insisting that Saul drop his starting point, the axiom that Jesus is an imposter, a blasphemer, an enemy of the true religion, and start anew on the different axiom that Christ is the Lord. Carnell is perfectly clear - he even puts it in an italicized subhead - that the temporal starting point is of no importance, and that he is writing of the logical starting point. "The logical starting point is the coordinating ultimate which gives being and meaning to the many of the time-space universe. For Thales it was water; for Anaximines is was air; For Plato is was the Good; and for the Christian it is the Trinity. The logical starting point is the highest principle which one introduces to give unity and order to his interpretation of reality. This is why it is the logical starting point - it unites the particulars." It would seem therefore that preoccupation with evangelistic engineering has blunted Dr. Buswell's appreciation of pure mathematics.
Carnell, however, has several passages - his appeal to facts, his remark about murder cited in the section above on morality, as well as others not yet referred to - which might cause the careful reader to wonder whether or not he has consistently followed out his understanding of the starting point. Another (and on might say a more vigorous) attempt to make God the starting point is that of Professor Van Til. Let us summarize his construction for purposes of comparison.
Van Til emphatically asserts that no "area or aspect of reality, any fact or any law of nature or of history can be correctly interpreted except it be seen in the light of the main doctrines of Christianity" (p. 113). Therefore an apologist cannot "agree with the non-Christian in his principles of methodology to see whether or not Christian theism be true." Romish and Arminian apologists, e.g. Thoman, Butler, A. E. Taylor, to the extent that they believe in human autonomy, try to use the unbeliever's methodology; but a truly Reformed Christian must disagree "with the natural man on the nature of the object of knowledge [and]... on the method to be employed in acquiring knowledge" (p. 116). In total opposition to Thompson's point of view, the Reformed apologist frankly admits that his methodology presupposes the truth of Christianity. Therefore "the issue between believers an unbelievers in Christian theism cannot be settled by a direct appeal to 'facts' or 'laws' whose nature is already agreed upon by both parties to the debate" (p. 117). Since "there is one system of reality of which all that exists forms a part," and since "any individual fact of this system is what it is in this system," it follows that apart from Christian presuppositions "no facts mean anything at all" (p. 164). "All reasoning is, in the nature of the case, circular reasoning. The starting point, the method, and the conclusions are always involved in one another" (p. 118). These quotations, of course, seriously abbreviate Van Til's exposition, but if one keeps in mind the acknowledged control of axioms over theorems, and the theorem's presupposing the axioms, in which case geometry itself may loosely be called circular reasoning, it will not be too difficult to grasp Van Til's thought.
But apologetics is more complicated than plane geometry, and the matter of the starting point becomes involved with the notion of a common ground, the noetic effects of sin, and a theory of analogy.
In this discussion of the starting point with the example of the axioms and theorems of geometry, it is immediately obvious that there can be no theorem common to two systems of geometry. Euclid and Lobachevsky may both use the phrase "parallel lines," but they mean different things; and when a perpendicular crosses them, Lobachevsky's results differ from those of Euclid. Similarly, in Christianity and in a naturalistic philosophy the words fact, reason, and God may occur, but the meanings, determined by the axioms, are not the same. Hence even if two sentences are composed of identical words, if one is in a naturalistic system and the other in a Christian system, it does not indicate that the two systems have a proposition in common.
Does it follow, however, that two persons, a Christian and a naturalist, can have no knowledge in common? A person is not a system, and hence we cannot say of a person what we say of a system, unless some further reasons be adduced.
Van Til's answer to this question is somewhat confused. His first answer is as follows: "It will be quite impossible then to find a common area of knowledge between believers and unbelievers unless there is agreement between them as to the nature of man himself. But there is no such agreement" (p. 84). Particular examples are found here and there through the book; for example, the natural man, blinded by sin, does not have the right (the power?) to judge by means of his reason between what is possible and what is impossible, nor to judge by his moral nature what is good or evil (p. 99). "The 'reason' of sinful men will invariably act wrongly" (p. 100). And on the bottom half of page 110 he says, in a complicated form of expression, that we cannot admit the unbeliever's ability to interpret any area of experience whatever. Later (p. 262) he writes:
Aquinas and Butler hold that the natural man... has some correct notions about God. I mean correct notions as to content, not merely as to form. Anyone who says, 'I believe in God,' is formally correct in his statement, but the question is, What does he mean by the word God? The traditional view assumes that the natural man has a certain measure of correct thought content when he uses the word God. In reality the natural man's 'God' is always a finite God... The natural man's god is always [Italics his] enveloped within a Reality that is greater than his god... he makes Reality to be inclusive of God and himself. And there is not much that the traditional apologist can do about this. He has bound himself to confusion in apologetics as he has bound himself to error in theology. He must tie on to some small area of thought content that the believer and the unbeliever have in common without qualification when both are self-conscious with respect to their principle. This is tantamount to saying that those who interpret a fact as dependent upon God and those who interpret that same fact as not dependent upon God have yet said something identical about that fact. All this is bound to lead to self-frustration on the part of the traditional apologist.
Do not these assertions imply that the natural or unregenerate man is totally devoid of knowledge? The first quotation in the preceding paragraph denied that there was a common area of knowledge; a later one says that reason of sinful man invariably acts wrongly; then, the unbeliever cannot interpret any area of experience; and finally, the traditional view that the natural man has a certain measure of correct thought content leads to self-frustration. Certainly these passages imply that an unregenerate man is totally ignorant.
Carnell, however, gives a different answer. Quoting from A Christian Philosophy of Education (p. 164), Carnell distinguishes between a philosophic system as such and a person who understands and accepts more or less of the system. It should be obvious that there cannot be any common ground, any common proposition, shared by two systems. But since living persons are not so ideally consistent, they may, as limited in intelligence and subjected to diverse educational influences, sincerely think and believe actually contradictory propositions. Buswell's vigorous statements in The Bible Today seem to have been caused by this failure to distinguish between a confused person and a logical system. Apparently even Carnell himself does not follow through to the end. Instead of remaining with the distinction between person and system, Chapter XII of his Introduction to Christian Apologetics diverges into a distinction between science and metaphysics. At first he seems to say that the problem of a common ground has no relevance in science: "Scientific conclusions as such do not depend for their meaning upon one's logical starting point. Water is H2O for the Christian no less than for the non-Christian" (p. 214). In these two sentences there appears to be a shifting and confusion. The first refers to scientific conclusions as such; the second speaks of persons. Did Carnell mean to say, Water is H2O both on naturalistic principles and on theistic principles as well? And if so would he also add that the words bear the same meanings in both systems? At any rate, so far as the first sentence is concerned, in the chapter on Science in A Christian View of Men and Things, I have taken pains to show how definitely scientific conclusions depend, though sometimes unrecognized by the scientist, on one's logical starting point. But perhaps Carnell and I are closely in our views than this much indicates, for he goes on to say that (although there is a common ground in science[?]) there is no common ground in metaphysics; but then, this line is almost invisible, and down the page (215) he admits that the reach of metaphysics is absolute and overshadows every level of meaning. The metaphysical level is so penetrating that it succeeds in reflecting back upon the scientific level also. This would imply that science also furnishes no common ground. But then Carnell introduces another modification to the effect that while metaphysics is implicit in every formula, common ground concerns only explicit metaphysical meaning (p. 216). This distinction between explicit and implicit meaning seems to be ambiguous. Logically the theorems are implicit in the axioms; and if this is the sense of Carnell's distinction, he would in effect be saying that naturalistic axioms cannot be found in Christianity, but that a given theorem may occur in both systems. This conclusion both conflicts with other things Carnell has said and also seems to be untenable in itself. On the other hand, Carnell's distinction between implicit and explicit may be taken in a personal sense; that is to say, an unregenerate and unphilosophic business man may believe that water is H2O without the least reflection on naturalistic presuppositions. Or, he might believe a given historical statement in the Bible, though he disbelieves all of the doctrine. If thus Carnell's meaning refers to the confusion and inconsistency of superficial minds, it must be judged to be inadequately expressed, with the result that the material on the pages now under discussion is not an improvement upon his introductory statement.
Then again, two years before Carnell's book appeared, Hamilton was putting out the third edition of his Basis of Christian Faith. Perhaps he has not expressed the distinction between person and system with the clarity one might like. Yet how otherwise can pages 16, 25, 28, 55, and 323 be understood? This last page in particular has Van Til directly in view. Since at that time these points were subjects of controversy between Van Til on the one side and Hamilton and myself on the other, it is all the more regrettable that Van Til ignored this material in his recent criticism of Hamilton.
One important reason for maintaining the distinction between consistent systems and inconsistent persons is that unregenerate persons are thereby permitted to have at least some knowledge. Since the Scriptures base responsibility on knowledge, and since Romans 1:32 assigns to the wicked an amount of moral knowledge sufficient to make them guilty of sin, the evangelical must frame a theory by which this knowledge is shown to be possible. Were a man totally ignorant, he could not be guilty of sin.
Now, strange as it may seem, although Van Til's statements, quoted above, inexorably imply that the unregenerate are totally ignorant, Van Til makes some contradictory remarks. Contrary to all he has said, Van Til quotes Warfield, apparently with approval, to the effect that "the conviction of the existence of God bears the marks of an intuitive truth..." (p. 102). Then later, "The apostle Paul speaks of the natural man as actually possessing the knowledge of God" (p. 110). And above all, "The point of contact [common ground?] for the gospel, then, must be sought within the natural man" (p. 111). Again, "All men have not only the ability to know but actually know the truth (p. 194). In answer to his critics Van Til asserts "I have never denied that he [the natural man] has true knowledge" (p. 285).
These quotations when compared with those cited previously impose a burden upon anyone who wishes to understand Van Til. How is it possible to reconcile the assertion that "all men... actually know the truth" with the earlier assertion "It will be quite impossible then to find a common area of knowledge between believers and unbelievers..."? Or again, "It is natural and consistent for Roman Catholic apologetics to seek its point contact with the unbeliever in a 'common area' of knowledge... But herein precisely lies the fundamental point of difference between Romanism and Protestantism" (pp. 93, 94). Does this sound like "The point of contact... must be sought within the natural man"? How can Van Til quote Hodge with approval to the effect that the natural man has "no true knowledge of God" (p. 91) and then assert "I have never denied that he has true knowledge"?
Indubitably Van Til has said that the natural man actually has true knowledge. It is also indubitable that Van Til has denied a common area of knowledge. Is not one forced to conclude that Van Til has, first, contradicted himself, and then, second, has forgotten his previous remarks to say, "I have never denied that he has true knowledge"? The Defense of the Faith is not the only product of Dr. Van Til's pen. In another document also he denied true knowledge to the unregenerate. As a matter of fact he goes still further and implies that no human being can have knowledge.
The Text of a Complaint (p. 5, col. 1), a product of a collaboration by Van Til and some of his colleagues, asserts that "there is a qualitative difference between the contents of the knowledge of God and the contents of the knowledge possible to man." This qualitative difference does not lie in the psychological procedure of knowing; it is not that God knows intuitively and man knows discursively; the assertion is that the contents of knowledge are different. To make it clearer, the document continues (p. 5, col. 3), "We dare not maintain that his knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point," and the authors, including Van Til, proceed to repudiate the idea "a proposition would have to have the same meaning for God as form man." They also deny (p. 7, col. 3) that "propositions have the same content, mean the same, to God and man." Now, if God knows all truths and knows the correct meaning of every proposition, and if no proposition means to man what it means to God, so that God's knowledge and man's knowledge do not coincide at any single point, it follows by rigorous necessity that man can have no truth at all. This conclusion is quite the opposite to the views of Calvin (Institutes II, ii, 12-15), and undermines all Christianity.
Analogy
There is an expedient which extends hope that Christianity may yet survive these fatal implications. After stressing the fact that God's knowledge of the universe, unlike man's, depend on God's knowledge of Himself, Van Til asserts that "human knowledge is analogical of divine knowledge: (Defense, p. 56). Roman Catholic apologists also hold that human knowledge is analogical.
Professor Thomason, though not a Romanist, is rather thoroughly Thomistic. In his Modern Philosophy of Religion, Chapter XXIII discusses "Knowledge by Analogy." It is impossible to trace the argument through its many scholastic subtleties; it is still less possible to evaluate what appears to be Thompson's slight modification of Thomism in the interest of making analogical knowledge more positive, for the result does not seem to differ greatly from the original theory. Thompson says:
We, as contingent beings, do not know self-existence in ourselves. So we do not and cannot know self-existence as it is... To know the goodness of God by analogy is not to know goodness as it is in God... We can know nothing, except what is negative, of what it is like to be goodness, as God is goodness... The goodness of God is beyond anything we can conceive or imagine... Analogy does not enable us to conceive God's goodness as identical with his essence but to affirm it as identical with his existence... Our idea of good is not the concept of God's essence, but of our own nature; yet we can use it to refer to God... Analogy does not capture for our minds the goodness of God in terms of what that goodness is; so far as its actual content is concerned, it finds the goodness of God only in terms of what it is not. But it really finds the goodness of God in these terms... Once we forget that our assertions about the nature of God are true only by analogy, once we taken them to be true univocally (i.e. literally), they collapse into mere negations (pp. 389-391)
Is not this an elaborate and somewhat misleading way of saying that we have no knowledge of God? Apparently Carnell (pp. 143-151) thinks so, and I also (op. cit., pp. 309-312) argue against the analogical method of knowledge.
Now Van Til's comment on Thomism is not that analogy is a fruitless expedient, but, quite the reverse, that Romanism does not take analogy seriously enough (p. 56). Romanism still retains too much, shall we say, univocity. Not Christian thought, but, says Van Til, "Non-Christian philosophies hold that human thought is univocal instead of analogical" (p. 65). In view of the fact that Romanism allows univocal predication in the sphere of science and of ordinary experience, Van Til's assertion is most easily understood to mean that univocal predication is impossible for man in any subject. In this Van Til shows a close affinity to neo-orthodoxy. The adherents of the dialectical theology teach that all language, or all religious language, is analogical, metaphorical, or symbolic. Not language only, but conceptual knowledge also. Intellectual knowledge, Es-Wahrheit, is only a pointer, a pointer to something that cannot be thought. Therefore creeds are not to be taken univocally or literally, but in some analogical and therefore undefined meaning.
To be sure, this is paradoxical. Van Til says, "Our knowledge is analogical and therefore must be paradoxical" (p. 61). On this point, we are glad to say, Van Til diverges from neo-orthodoxy. The dialectical theologians weave actual, irresolvable contradictions into the warp and woof of reality. They picture God as irrational. But Van Til uses the term paradox in the earlier and usual sense of seeming contradiction. Hence he is saying that for men "there must seem to be contradiction" (p. 62). But one wonders whether this is worth saying. Of course the disability of the human mind darkened by sin leads us all into confusions; and perhaps Adam before the fall was not immune to the enigmatic. But the philosophic or systematic value of paradoxes is diminished by the fact that what is a paradox for one person is not paradoxical for another. Theorem fifteen may be a paradox to the high school student, but not to the teacher. As an example of a seeming contradiction, in fact, as "one of the outstanding paradoxes of the Christian interpretation of things" (p. 61), Van Til gives these two propositions: "Prayer changes things and... everything happens in accordance with God's plan and God's plan is immutable." Undeniably this is a paradox, for the two statements seem contradictory to Van Til. Undeniably also this is not a paradox because they do not seem contradictory to some other people. A paradox is not a quality inherent in pairs of propositions, as the relationship of contradiction is. Since a paradox is only a seeming contradiction, it exists only in so far as these statements seem so to some individual. But such irregular, personal reactions cannot be lifted to the level of principal importance. Let us then have done with paradoxes; let us restrict analogy to a literary embellishment; let us eschew fallacy, pursue valid reasoning, and acknowledge God as the source of all truth.
V. Conclusion
The Protestant Reformation swept away the superstitious idolatry of Romanism and the scholastic philosophy as well. But whereas it replaced the false worship with the pure Gospel, it failed to replace scholasticism with anything. Protestantism has never had an official philosophy - a fact of which we may be glad; but it is not so fortunate that we have not had a semi-official philosophy or at least a wife area of agreement. Not that there has been too much disagreement: rather the difficulties of philosophy have been neglected, even by those who are most doctrinally conscious and who therefore ought to assign a proper value to truth. In pragmatic America especially where the educational standards are so far below those of Europe, the evangelical movement has been nothing less than deplorable in this regard. Attention has been paid to evidences; archaeology evokes a degree of interest; but a thorough and patient study of the more profound issues is often avoided. Even the preaching of the Gospel itself is frequently reduced to half a dozen fundamental doctrines. Such impoverishment betrays the cause of Christ. If Christianity instead of its modern imitations is to make an impact on our society, preaching must become richer, fuller, and more profound. And in addition, the faith that is preached should be defended against the attacks of its enemies by the formulation and exposition of a thoroughly biblical world-view. This requires more scholars, more discussion, more publication, and a wider appreciation of the importance of the task.
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