Mont Blanc (photo by Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh)
Dr. J. Glenn Friesen has translated a 1974 audio interview Herman Dooyeweerd had with Magnus Verbrugge. The full transcription can be read as PDF download (38 pages) here. The following highly significant short extract elucidates a key misunderstanding by Cornelius Van Til in his (formerly very enthusiastic) reading of Dooyeweerd which unhappily became a profound point of contention [see also exchange in "Jerusalem & Athens": Dooyeweerd to Van Til & Van Til to Dooyeweerd] -
DOOYEWEERD: The third question. [Dooyeweerd reads in English] “What developments have taken place in the Amsterdam school in the past two decades?"... “Is there a discernible pattern in its development?” Yes, that question comes from remarks that have recently been made in certain writings that have appeared in the U.S. I am thinking for example of Van Til’s recent writings.
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: Cornelius van Til. But they come from the seminary, the theological seminary in Philadelphia, eh?
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: The Presbyterian Church. And these [people at the seminary] believe that there has recently been a fundamental revision in the ideas of the Philosophy of the Law-Idea.
VERBRUGGE: Do you disagree? Or do you agree that such a revision has taken place?
DOOYEWEERD: Various changes have taken place [in my philosophy], but nothing that you could say is fundamental, not a change in the intention of this philosophy, as Van Til asserts.[21] Van Til believed that he could find this change by the fact that in the English edition of De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee [22], instead of one way of the transcendental critique, I speak of there being a second way. For I thought that in the first way, which I had developed in the Dutch edition, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, I had not set out the problem clearly enough. And that I had proceeded from ideas that were not shared by everyone in philosophy. And therefore I said at the time that we must critically investigate the theoretical attitude of thought and experience as such. For at that time, in the 1930’s, the great battle was against the idea that at that time was pretty much all-powerful, the idea of the autonomy of theoretical thought. That was supposed to be true both for philosophy and for science. They said that faith and science must remain sharply distinguished from each other, not only distinguished [onderscheiden] from each other but also separated [verscheiden] from each other. For if a link were made between them, and if for example it were said that presuppositions of faith should determine the direction of theoretical thought, then theoretical thought would no longer be autonomous.
VERBRUGGE: And therefore not scientific.
DOOYEWEERD: And therefore not scientific. And no basis was given for that argument except to say that this was the nature of science [to be autonomous]. For the nature of science was that the particular hypotheses from which one proceeded in science must always be tested by experience, huh? And if it did not correspond with that, then you would have to give up these hypotheses. And if one proceeded from Christian presuppositions, then it was said that these are not available for correction, except insofar as they were or were not in correspondence with Scriptures. But if they were really derived from Scripture, then they are not available to be corrected, and not available to be given up. Thus, for example, whenever there would be a conflict between Christian presuppositions of faith and the findings of science, then on a Christian standpoint one would be forced to give preference to Christian belief. That is to say, science would be wrong.
VERBRUGGE: And how did that then develop?
DOOYEWEERD: From the very beginning, I subjected these views to a radical critique, which I called ‘the radical transcendental critique.’ And now they [Dooyeweerd’s critics] suppose that there has been a fundamental revision in the Philosophy of the Law-Idea, which they date from the first publication of the English edition, in which I sharpened the way—or the method—of the transcendental critique. I did this by not proceeding from particular views of philosophy, namely that it must be a total view of reality (a view which I did not give up). But in order to have a discussion with an opponent, to maintain contact with him, to engage in a broader and sharper way of analysis, I therefore subjected the theoretical attitude of thought and experience, in itself [zonder meer], to a transcendental critical investigation. And that implied that I sought the conditions, the presuppositions, that first make thought possible. [23] And which [conditions] are required by the inner nature of theoretical thought and the theoretical attitude of experience. And I then contrasted this transcendental critique with all [merely] transcendent critique, for example a critique that is based on a theological standpoint and which therefore rejects certain philosophical views.
VERBRUGGE: Can you give an example of that?
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, certainly. The example that I always give at first is the objection made by the previous theological faculty at the Free University, and which they complained of to the Curators of the Free University with respect to the Philosophy of the Law-Idea. They said that [the Philosophy of the Law-Idea] rejected the current ideas of man’s body and soul. [24]
VERBRUGGE: Oh, yes.
DOOYEWEERD: That was the view [in the theological faculty at that time] was that man is composed of two substances, or two independent things [zelfstandigheden], a material body (material substance) that is mortal, and a spiritual substance, which was called the ‘immortal soul’ that is imperishable [onvergangelijk]. Now the Bible knows nothing at all of an immortal soul. Concerning mortality and immortality, it nowhere says that the human soul is immortal.
VERBRUGGE: Does it refer at all to the human soul in contrast to the human body?
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, there is one text which says that. Jesus says to his disciples, “Fear not those who can kill the body, but fear rather Him who can kill both body and soul and cast them into Hell.” [25] So now comes the question, what did Jesus mean by ‘soul’?
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: For if you go to the Old Testament, where it says at the beginning that God blew the breath of life in the nostrils of man, and man thereby became a “living soul.” The whole man.
VERBRUGGE: The soul is what makes man human.
DOOYEWEERD: Well, yes, it is what makes him alive. Makes alive [levend maakt]. But only later was a distinction made between soul and spirit [geest]. So ‘soul’ according to the current opinion is the principle of life [het levensbeginsel]. The principle of organic life. As Poortman also sees in plants. [26]
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: Now this whole view of body and soul as two substances is not Biblical. Two substances, where the soul can also exist without the body. Namely, after death. And then as an immortal spiritual substance. That was an idea that was squarely derived from Greek philosophy. And its Ground-motive was irreconcilable with that of the Scriptures. [FMF: More by Dooyeweerd on this subject here]
VERBRUGGE: And how long have people supposed that you have made a change in your thought? [27]
DOOYEWEERD: Well with respect to this point of the second way of the transcendental critique, Van Til says that I am now engaging in dialogue with my opponents and that I stand on their own standpoint—that I do not have to give a critique from a Christian standpoint, but I can give a critique from out of their own Ground-motive. That is in fact true. It is required by the transcendental critique. I have said that if you do not do this, you do not contact your opponent. He doesn’t even understand what you mean. For you allow your own Ground-motive to play a role, the Ground-motive of creation, fall into sin and redemption. And that is just not accepted by your opponent. And if you begin by saying, “Well that is my point of departure,” well then he will respond, “We might as well stop the discussion now, for I don’t share that standpoint.” And especially if you say, “Now this point of departure controls the whole of my philosophic thought, the Philosophy of the Law-Idea.” But if you say that at the outset, then you have broken off the discussion.
VERBRUGGE: So how do you say that we should begin such a discussion?
DOOYEWEERD: Well as I said, I give a definition of what I understand by the transcendental critique of the theoretical attitude of thought and experience. That is an investigation that has no single philosophical prejudice—not that of the autonomy of theoretical thought, or the prejudice that theoretic thought must work without beliefs, since beliefs are supposed to be in a different area, and so on. Those are themselves theoretical prejudices that must be eliminated. At least for the time being. I do not say that they must give up these prejudices, for they cannot yet do that. They have not yet come that far.
VERBRUGGE: But gradually, after a common basis for discussion has been made possible by the choice of position, then at a certain time you can come to the point where you can allow your own Ground-motive of creation, fall and redemption to be displayed, and where he [your opponent] must choose a position?
DOOYEWEERD: And that point is not reached earlier than where I allow to be seen that each attempt to make logical thought to be something independent [een zelfstandigheid]—
VERBRUGGE: Separate from man?
DOOYEWEERD: Well, that, too—that this attempt ends in nothing. For logical thought is a faculty, an ability of man. It is always man who thinks.
VERBRUGGE: Is it the case that if logical thought as such is deemed to be autonomous, then that amounts to a deifying of something that was created in man?
DOOYEWEERD: Yes.
VERBRUGGE: In other words, idolatry.
DOOYEWEERD: Yes.
VERBRUGGE: A form of idolatry.
DOOYEWEERD: Yes. Certainly. But if I say that it is a form of idolatry, we are not yet there. My opponent doesn’t even understand what I mean.
VERBRUGGE: No, you can’t begin a discussion by saying, “You are a servant of idolatry.”
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, like Van Til says in his Syllabus, where he gave lectures for many years at [Westminster] seminary on the Philosophy of the Law-Idea, then with respect to the transcendental critique, the first question and so on, he suddenly asks the question, “Why doesn’t Dooyeweerd clearly state to his opponents that they are breakers of the covenant?” [laughs] But they wouldn’t even understand what you meant!
VERBRUGGE: No.
DOOYEWEERD: They would say, “What is he talking about?”
VERBRUGGE: They don’t even know what ‘covenant’ is.
DOOYEWEERD: Not at all! No. Many Christians would also not understand it.
VERBRUGGE: So it is not then really a change—
DOOYEWEERD: No, there was no fundamental change [in my philosophy]; one can only speak of a “sharpening” of the transcendental critique.
VERBRUGGE: And you probably arrived at it by your experience in discussions with other thinkers?
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, but also by thinking through the issues. I came to the conclusion, I have been too premature [voorbarig]. I thought that one could clearly assert that it was necessary for philosophy to have a view of totality and of reality. But yes, these are directions, and this took place in the 1930’s, when the revival of Kant’s philosophy played a great role. But they said, “For us, philosophy must remain strictly limited to epistemology.” The only sciences that Kant knew, those were the natural sciences.
VERBRUGGE: Thus, the whole matter, and really the whole misunderstanding, arose in the world by the fact that it seemed to Van Til that your philosophy, if it was to be a Christian philosophy, must be unchangeable. Whereas you have said that in certain respects you did not set out the problems clearly enough and that it must be improved, and that you would be the first to recognize and even recommend that attempts must always be made to improve it, because each human work—
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, and there was something important regarding Van Til. He was wrong in his supposition regarding my first question, which does not yet refer to the religious Ground-motive. The first question is, “What then really is theoretical thought?” I began by giving a definition. And then I say that it is the attitude of thought, and the attitude of experience, which sets the logical function, or the analytical function, over against all the non-logical aspects of reality.
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: And you may agree with me or disagree with me. But this is something that I can discuss with my opponent. Eh?
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: Now Van Til thinks that in this first question, the Philosophy of the Law-Idea is really entering a neutral territory—[an area] where the Christian religion does not yet arise.
VERBRUGGE: (interrupting) A kind of naturalism.
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, and that is such a terrible misunderstanding. For he [Van Til] should have understood that that interpretation is impossible, for I would then contradict myself. I assert that there is no autonomous theoretical thought. And he thinks I should have begun with that and should have acknowledged it in this first question, “What is the nature of theoretical thought?” But if he had looked more closely at this question, then he would have immediately discovered the influence of my religious Biblical Ground-motive. For why else do I say that the other, non-logical aspects cannot be reduced to, deduced from the logical aspect? Because I start from the idea of sovereignty in its own sphere. And what is the basis for the sovereignty in each sphere of the aspects? In creation*.
__________________
*Note the key association inferred between "aspects" and Genesis "kinds" in the following earlier remark by Dooyeweerd (in pdf download of full interview):
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: Cornelius van Til. But they come from the seminary, the theological seminary in Philadelphia, eh?
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: The Presbyterian Church. And these [people at the seminary] believe that there has recently been a fundamental revision in the ideas of the Philosophy of the Law-Idea.
VERBRUGGE: Do you disagree? Or do you agree that such a revision has taken place?
DOOYEWEERD: Various changes have taken place [in my philosophy], but nothing that you could say is fundamental, not a change in the intention of this philosophy, as Van Til asserts.[21] Van Til believed that he could find this change by the fact that in the English edition of De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee [22], instead of one way of the transcendental critique, I speak of there being a second way. For I thought that in the first way, which I had developed in the Dutch edition, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, I had not set out the problem clearly enough. And that I had proceeded from ideas that were not shared by everyone in philosophy. And therefore I said at the time that we must critically investigate the theoretical attitude of thought and experience as such. For at that time, in the 1930’s, the great battle was against the idea that at that time was pretty much all-powerful, the idea of the autonomy of theoretical thought. That was supposed to be true both for philosophy and for science. They said that faith and science must remain sharply distinguished from each other, not only distinguished [onderscheiden] from each other but also separated [verscheiden] from each other. For if a link were made between them, and if for example it were said that presuppositions of faith should determine the direction of theoretical thought, then theoretical thought would no longer be autonomous.
VERBRUGGE: And therefore not scientific.
DOOYEWEERD: And therefore not scientific. And no basis was given for that argument except to say that this was the nature of science [to be autonomous]. For the nature of science was that the particular hypotheses from which one proceeded in science must always be tested by experience, huh? And if it did not correspond with that, then you would have to give up these hypotheses. And if one proceeded from Christian presuppositions, then it was said that these are not available for correction, except insofar as they were or were not in correspondence with Scriptures. But if they were really derived from Scripture, then they are not available to be corrected, and not available to be given up. Thus, for example, whenever there would be a conflict between Christian presuppositions of faith and the findings of science, then on a Christian standpoint one would be forced to give preference to Christian belief. That is to say, science would be wrong.
VERBRUGGE: And how did that then develop?
DOOYEWEERD: From the very beginning, I subjected these views to a radical critique, which I called ‘the radical transcendental critique.’ And now they [Dooyeweerd’s critics] suppose that there has been a fundamental revision in the Philosophy of the Law-Idea, which they date from the first publication of the English edition, in which I sharpened the way—or the method—of the transcendental critique. I did this by not proceeding from particular views of philosophy, namely that it must be a total view of reality (a view which I did not give up). But in order to have a discussion with an opponent, to maintain contact with him, to engage in a broader and sharper way of analysis, I therefore subjected the theoretical attitude of thought and experience, in itself [zonder meer], to a transcendental critical investigation. And that implied that I sought the conditions, the presuppositions, that first make thought possible. [23] And which [conditions] are required by the inner nature of theoretical thought and the theoretical attitude of experience. And I then contrasted this transcendental critique with all [merely] transcendent critique, for example a critique that is based on a theological standpoint and which therefore rejects certain philosophical views.
VERBRUGGE: Can you give an example of that?
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, certainly. The example that I always give at first is the objection made by the previous theological faculty at the Free University, and which they complained of to the Curators of the Free University with respect to the Philosophy of the Law-Idea. They said that [the Philosophy of the Law-Idea] rejected the current ideas of man’s body and soul. [24]
VERBRUGGE: Oh, yes.
DOOYEWEERD: That was the view [in the theological faculty at that time] was that man is composed of two substances, or two independent things [zelfstandigheden], a material body (material substance) that is mortal, and a spiritual substance, which was called the ‘immortal soul’ that is imperishable [onvergangelijk]. Now the Bible knows nothing at all of an immortal soul. Concerning mortality and immortality, it nowhere says that the human soul is immortal.
VERBRUGGE: Does it refer at all to the human soul in contrast to the human body?
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, there is one text which says that. Jesus says to his disciples, “Fear not those who can kill the body, but fear rather Him who can kill both body and soul and cast them into Hell.” [25] So now comes the question, what did Jesus mean by ‘soul’?
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: For if you go to the Old Testament, where it says at the beginning that God blew the breath of life in the nostrils of man, and man thereby became a “living soul.” The whole man.
VERBRUGGE: The soul is what makes man human.
DOOYEWEERD: Well, yes, it is what makes him alive. Makes alive [levend maakt]. But only later was a distinction made between soul and spirit [geest]. So ‘soul’ according to the current opinion is the principle of life [het levensbeginsel]. The principle of organic life. As Poortman also sees in plants. [26]
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: Now this whole view of body and soul as two substances is not Biblical. Two substances, where the soul can also exist without the body. Namely, after death. And then as an immortal spiritual substance. That was an idea that was squarely derived from Greek philosophy. And its Ground-motive was irreconcilable with that of the Scriptures. [FMF: More by Dooyeweerd on this subject here]
VERBRUGGE: And how long have people supposed that you have made a change in your thought? [27]
DOOYEWEERD: Well with respect to this point of the second way of the transcendental critique, Van Til says that I am now engaging in dialogue with my opponents and that I stand on their own standpoint—that I do not have to give a critique from a Christian standpoint, but I can give a critique from out of their own Ground-motive. That is in fact true. It is required by the transcendental critique. I have said that if you do not do this, you do not contact your opponent. He doesn’t even understand what you mean. For you allow your own Ground-motive to play a role, the Ground-motive of creation, fall into sin and redemption. And that is just not accepted by your opponent. And if you begin by saying, “Well that is my point of departure,” well then he will respond, “We might as well stop the discussion now, for I don’t share that standpoint.” And especially if you say, “Now this point of departure controls the whole of my philosophic thought, the Philosophy of the Law-Idea.” But if you say that at the outset, then you have broken off the discussion.
VERBRUGGE: So how do you say that we should begin such a discussion?
DOOYEWEERD: Well as I said, I give a definition of what I understand by the transcendental critique of the theoretical attitude of thought and experience. That is an investigation that has no single philosophical prejudice—not that of the autonomy of theoretical thought, or the prejudice that theoretic thought must work without beliefs, since beliefs are supposed to be in a different area, and so on. Those are themselves theoretical prejudices that must be eliminated. At least for the time being. I do not say that they must give up these prejudices, for they cannot yet do that. They have not yet come that far.
VERBRUGGE: But gradually, after a common basis for discussion has been made possible by the choice of position, then at a certain time you can come to the point where you can allow your own Ground-motive of creation, fall and redemption to be displayed, and where he [your opponent] must choose a position?
DOOYEWEERD: And that point is not reached earlier than where I allow to be seen that each attempt to make logical thought to be something independent [een zelfstandigheid]—
VERBRUGGE: Separate from man?
DOOYEWEERD: Well, that, too—that this attempt ends in nothing. For logical thought is a faculty, an ability of man. It is always man who thinks.
VERBRUGGE: Is it the case that if logical thought as such is deemed to be autonomous, then that amounts to a deifying of something that was created in man?
DOOYEWEERD: Yes.
VERBRUGGE: In other words, idolatry.
DOOYEWEERD: Yes.
VERBRUGGE: A form of idolatry.
DOOYEWEERD: Yes. Certainly. But if I say that it is a form of idolatry, we are not yet there. My opponent doesn’t even understand what I mean.
VERBRUGGE: No, you can’t begin a discussion by saying, “You are a servant of idolatry.”
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, like Van Til says in his Syllabus, where he gave lectures for many years at [Westminster] seminary on the Philosophy of the Law-Idea, then with respect to the transcendental critique, the first question and so on, he suddenly asks the question, “Why doesn’t Dooyeweerd clearly state to his opponents that they are breakers of the covenant?” [laughs] But they wouldn’t even understand what you meant!
VERBRUGGE: No.
DOOYEWEERD: They would say, “What is he talking about?”
VERBRUGGE: They don’t even know what ‘covenant’ is.
DOOYEWEERD: Not at all! No. Many Christians would also not understand it.
VERBRUGGE: So it is not then really a change—
DOOYEWEERD: No, there was no fundamental change [in my philosophy]; one can only speak of a “sharpening” of the transcendental critique.
VERBRUGGE: And you probably arrived at it by your experience in discussions with other thinkers?
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, but also by thinking through the issues. I came to the conclusion, I have been too premature [voorbarig]. I thought that one could clearly assert that it was necessary for philosophy to have a view of totality and of reality. But yes, these are directions, and this took place in the 1930’s, when the revival of Kant’s philosophy played a great role. But they said, “For us, philosophy must remain strictly limited to epistemology.” The only sciences that Kant knew, those were the natural sciences.
VERBRUGGE: Thus, the whole matter, and really the whole misunderstanding, arose in the world by the fact that it seemed to Van Til that your philosophy, if it was to be a Christian philosophy, must be unchangeable. Whereas you have said that in certain respects you did not set out the problems clearly enough and that it must be improved, and that you would be the first to recognize and even recommend that attempts must always be made to improve it, because each human work—
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, and there was something important regarding Van Til. He was wrong in his supposition regarding my first question, which does not yet refer to the religious Ground-motive. The first question is, “What then really is theoretical thought?” I began by giving a definition. And then I say that it is the attitude of thought, and the attitude of experience, which sets the logical function, or the analytical function, over against all the non-logical aspects of reality.
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: And you may agree with me or disagree with me. But this is something that I can discuss with my opponent. Eh?
VERBRUGGE: Yes.
DOOYEWEERD: Now Van Til thinks that in this first question, the Philosophy of the Law-Idea is really entering a neutral territory—[an area] where the Christian religion does not yet arise.
VERBRUGGE: (interrupting) A kind of naturalism.
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, and that is such a terrible misunderstanding. For he [Van Til] should have understood that that interpretation is impossible, for I would then contradict myself. I assert that there is no autonomous theoretical thought. And he thinks I should have begun with that and should have acknowledged it in this first question, “What is the nature of theoretical thought?” But if he had looked more closely at this question, then he would have immediately discovered the influence of my religious Biblical Ground-motive. For why else do I say that the other, non-logical aspects cannot be reduced to, deduced from the logical aspect? Because I start from the idea of sovereignty in its own sphere. And what is the basis for the sovereignty in each sphere of the aspects? In creation*.
VERBRUGGE: In creation. Naturally.
DOOYEWEERD: And that is my Christian, religious point of departure. And it is purely Biblical*. Thus, this is a terrible misunderstanding [by Van Til].__________________
*Note the key association inferred between "aspects" and Genesis "kinds" in the following earlier remark by Dooyeweerd (in pdf download of full interview):
DOOYEWEERD: I have still just shown that this was Kuyper’s basic idea [grondgedachte], which was of fundamental importance for the whole direction of philosophic thought in the Philosophy of the Law-Idea. But Kuyper said more. He developed an idea that had fundamental importance for this philosophy. That was the idea of what was called “sovereignty in its own sphere.” It referred to [sloeg op] the temporal existence of man, with a great diversity of spheres of life, not only within the social sphere of society, in society, but also the great diversity of what the Philosophy of the Law-Idea calls ‘aspects,’ which are ways, fundamental ways in which man experiences reality [13]....But the idea of sovereignty in its own sphere has had such a great influence on the Philosophy of the Law-Idea because Kuyper immediately based it on the revelation concerning creation—that God created all things according to their kind [aard], that is something that is expressly said there. Which makes it clear that kind is not dependent on human thinking, and not set up [ingelegd] by man by means of logical distinctions, but that the various kinds of created things [schepsels]—everything that bears a created character—has been expressed [opgedrukt] by God, or one could say, has been impressed [ingedrukt] by God. Eh— [15]
__________________
Extracted from "Interview of Herman Dooyeweerd by Magnus Verbrugge 1974" (PDF, 38 pages). (Translated by Dr. J. Glenn Friesen.)
* * *
The above interview took place in 1974. The background context is summarized to some extent by the written exchanges between Dooyeweerd and Van Til in the 1971 publication Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til, Edited by E. R. Geehan, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. Dooyeweerd's case to Van Til can be read here, or here, and Van Til's response here.For those interested, I add below some further examples from Van Til's writings touching on his approach to "starting-points" and "points of contact":
The first objection that suggests itself may be expressed in the rhetorical question "Do you mean to assert that non-Christians do not discover truth by the methods they employ?" The reply is that we mean nothing so absurd as that. The implication of the method here indicated is simply that non-Christians are never able and therefore never do employ their own methods consistently.
(Cornelius Van Til, "Christian Apologetics", P&R Publishing, Edited by Wm Edgar, 2nd Edition, 2003, p 132):
_____
It is not to be wondered at that neither Romanism nor Evangelicalism has much interest in challenging the "philosophers" when these, as Calvin says, interpret man's consciousness without being aware of the tremendous difference in man's attitude toward the truth before and after the fall. Accordingly they do not distinguish carefully between the natural man's own conception of himself and the Biblical conception of him. Yet for the question of the point of contact this is all-important. lf we make our appeal to the natural man without being aware of this distinction we virtually admit that the natural man's estimate of himself is correct. We may, to be sure, even then, maintain that he is in need of information. We may even admit that he is morally corrupt. But the one thing which, on this basis, we cannot admit, is that his claim to be able to interpret at least some area of experience in a way that is essentially correct, is mistaken. We cannot then challenge his most basic epistemological assumption to the effect that his self-consciousness and time-consciousness are self-explanatory. We cannot challenge his right to interpret all his experience in exclusively immanentistic categories. And on this everything hinges. For if we first allow the legitimacy of the natural man's assumption of himself as the ultimate reference point in interpretation in any dimension we cannot deny his right to interpret Christianity itself in naturalistic terms.
The point of contact for the gospel, then, must be sought within the natural man. Deep down in his mind every man knows that he is the creature of God and responsible to God. Every man, at bottom, knows that he is a Covenant-breaker. But every man acts and talks as though this were not so. It is the one point that cannot bear mentioning in his presence....
Romanism and Evangelicalism, by failing to appeal exclusively to that which is within man but is also suppressed by every man, virtually allow the legitimacy of the natural man's view of himself. They do not seek to explode the last stronghold to which the natural man always flees and where he always makes his final stand. They cut off the weeds at the surface but do not dig up the roots of these weeds, for fear that crops will not grow.
The truly Biblical view, on the other hand, applies atomic power and flame-throwers to the very presupposition of the natural man's ideas with respect to himself. lt does not fear to lose a point of contact by uprooting the weeds rather than by cutting them off at the very surface. It is issured of'a point of contact in the fact that every man is made in the image of God and has impressed upon him the law of God. In that fact alone he may rest secure with respect to the point of contact problem. For that fact makes men always accessible to God. That fact assures us that every man, to be a man at all, must already be in contact with the truth. He is so much in contact with the truth that much of his energy is spent in the vain effort to hide this fact from himself. His efforts to hide this fact from himself are bound to be self-frustrative.
Only by thus finding the point of contact in man's sense of deity that lies underneath his own conception of self-consciousness as ultimate can we be both true to Scripture and effective in reasoning with the natural man. . . .
(Cornelius Van Til, "Christian Apologetics", P&R Publishing, Edited by Wm Edgar, 2nd Edition, 2003, pp 119-121)
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With Calvin I find the point of contact for the presentation of the gospel to non-Christians in the fact that they are made in the image of God and as such have the ineradicable sense of deity within them. Their own consciousness is inherently and exclusively revelational of God to themselves. No man can help knowing God for in knowing himself he knows God. His self-consciousness is totally devoid of content unless, as Calvin puts it at the beginning of his Institutes, man knows himself as a creature before God...
One then makes the claims of God upon men without apologies though always suaviter in modo. One knows that there is hidden underneath the surface display of every man a sense of deity. One therefore gives that sense of deity an opportunity to rise in rebellion against the oppression under which it suffers by the new man of the covenant breaker. One makes no deal with this new man. One shows that on his assumptions all things are meaningless.
(Cornelius Van Til, Defense of the Faith, quoted in Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis, Greg L. Bahnsen 441)
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The first and most basic point on which my approach differs from the traditional one is therefore that: (a) I start more frankly from the Bible as the source from which as an absolutely authoritative revelation I take my whole interpretation of life. Roman Catholicism also appeals to Scripture but in practice makes its authority void. Its final appeal is to the church and that is, in effect, to human experience. Even Arminianism rejects certain Scripture doctrines (e.g., election) because it cannot logically harmonize them with the general offer of salvation. (b) I stress the objective clarity of God's revelation of himself wherever it appears. Both Thomas Aquinas and Butler contend that men have done justice by the evidence if they conclude that God probably exists. . . . (c) with Calvin I find the point of contact for the presentation of the gospel to non-Christians in the fact that they are made in the image of God and as such have the ineradicable sense of deity within them. . . . But I could not thus speak with assurance that the natural man could have any such apprehension of the truth of the gospel if I held with the traditional view of Apologetics that man's self-consciousness is something that is intelligible without reference to God-consciousness. If man's self-consciousness did not actually depend upon his God-consciousness there would be no meaning to Romans 1:20 . . . .
Yet it is the very essence of the positions of Aquinas and Butler that human self-consciousness is intelligible without God-consciousness. Both make it their point of departure in reasoning with the non-believers that we must, at least in the area of things natural, stand on the ground of neutrality with them. And it is of the essence of all non-believing philosophy that self-consciousness is taken as intelligible by itself without reference to God. . . .
When the non-Christian, not working on the foundation of creation and providence, talks about musts in relation to facts he is beating the air. His logic is merely the exercise of a revolving door in a void, moving nothing from nowhere into the void, But instead of pointing out this fact to the unbeliever the traditional apologist appeals to this non-believer as though by his immanentistic method he could very well interpret many things correctly. . . .
(Cornelius Van Til, Defense of the Faith, quoted in Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis, Greg L. Bahnsen, pp 558-559)
From the Roman Catholic and the Arminian point of view the question of methodology, like that of starting-point is a neutral matter. According to these positions the Christian apologist can legitimately join the non-Christian scientist or philosopher as he, by his recognized methods, investigates certain dimensions of reality. Neither the follower of Thomas Aquinas nor the follower of the "judicious Butler" would need, on his principles, to object when, for instance, A. E. Taylor says: "Natural science, let me say again, is exclusively concerned with the detection of 'laws of nature', uniformities of sequence in the course of events. The typical form of such a law is the statement that whenever certain definitely measurable events occur some other measurable event will also be found to occur. Any enquiry thus delimited obviously can throw no light on the question . . . whether God exists or not, the question whether the whole course of events among which the man of science discovers these uniformities of sequence is or is not guided by a supreme intelligence to the production of an intrinsically good result."' The Reformed apologist, on the other hand, would compromise what he holds to be of the essence of Christianity if he agreed with Taylor. For him the whole of created reality, including therefore the fields of research with which the various sciences deal, reveals the same God of which Scripture speaks. The very essence of created reality is its revelational character. Scientists deal with that which has the imprint of God's face upon it. Created reality may be compared to a great estate. The owner has his name plainly and indelibly written at unavoidable places. How then would it be possible for some stranger to enter this estate, make researches in it, and then fairly say that in these researches he need not and cannot be confronted with the question of ownership? To change the figure, compare the facts of nature and history, the facts with which the sciences are concerned, to a linoleum that has its figure indelibly imprinted in it. The pattern of such a linoleum cannot be effaced till the linoleum itself is worn away. Thus inescapably does the scientist meet the pattern of Christian theism in each fact with which he deals. The apostle Paul lays great stress upon the fact that man is without excuse if he does not discover God in nature. Following Paul's example Calvin argues that men ought to see God, not a god, not some supernatural power, but the only God, in nature. They have not done justice by the facts they see displayed before and within them if they say that a god exists or that God probably exists. The Calvinist holds to the essential perspicuity of natural as well as Biblical revelation. This does not imply that a non-Christian and non-theistic interpretation of reality cannot be made to appear plausible. But it does mean that no non-Christian position can be made to appear more than merely plausible.
(Cornelius Van Til, Defense of the Faith, pp 97,98)
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From the Roman Catholic and the Arminian point of view the question of methodology, like that of starting-point is a neutral matter. According to these positions the Christian apologist can legitimately join the non-Christian scientist or philosopher as he, by his recognized methods, investigates certain dimensions of reality. Neither the follower of Thomas Aquinas nor the follower of the "judicious Butler" would need, on his principles, to object when, for instance, A. E. Taylor says: "Natural science, let me say again, is exclusively concerned with the detection of 'laws of nature', uniformities of sequence in the course of events. The typical form of such a law is the statement that whenever certain definitely measurable events occur some other measurable event will also be found to occur. Any enquiry thus delimited obviously can throw no light on the question . . . whether God exists or not, the question whether the whole course of events among which the man of science discovers these uniformities of sequence is or is not guided by a supreme intelligence to the production of an intrinsically good result."' The Reformed apologist, on the other hand, would compromise what he holds to be of the essence of Christianity if he agreed with Taylor. For him the whole of created reality, including therefore the fields of research with which the various sciences deal, reveals the same God of which Scripture speaks. The very essence of created reality is its revelational character. Scientists deal with that which has the imprint of God's face upon it. Created reality may be compared to a great estate. The owner has his name plainly and indelibly written at unavoidable places. How then would it be possible for some stranger to enter this estate, make researches in it, and then fairly say that in these researches he need not and cannot be confronted with the question of ownership? To change the figure, compare the facts of nature and history, the facts with which the sciences are concerned, to a linoleum that has its figure indelibly imprinted in it. The pattern of such a linoleum cannot be effaced till the linoleum itself is worn away. Thus inescapably does the scientist meet the pattern of Christian theism in each fact with which he deals. The apostle Paul lays great stress upon the fact that man is without excuse if he does not discover God in nature. Following Paul's example Calvin argues that men ought to see God, not a god, not some supernatural power, but the only God, in nature. They have not done justice by the facts they see displayed before and within them if they say that a god exists or that God probably exists. The Calvinist holds to the essential perspicuity of natural as well as Biblical revelation. This does not imply that a non-Christian and non-theistic interpretation of reality cannot be made to appear plausible. But it does mean that no non-Christian position can be made to appear more than merely plausible.
(Cornelius Van Til, Defense of the Faith, pp 97,98)
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[Stuart Cornelius] Hackett (The Resurrection of Theism, Chicago Moody Press, 1957) assumes that unless one finds a point of contact with the natural man by way of agreeing with him on his false views of man and the world then one has no point of contact with him at all. Against this position, I maintain, with Calvin following Paul, that my point of contact lies in the actual state of affairs between men as the Bible tells us of it. It is Hackett who has no real point of contact, for his lies in what men imagine (and, to be sure, "agree") to be the case. The Calvinist's point of contact is rooted in the actual state of affairs. All things are what they are because of their relation to the work of the triune God as reported in Scripture. Hackett's "point of contact" as an evangelical Arminian is an essentially Kantian epistemology, an epistemology in terms of which men stand utterly unrelated to one another and are, at the same time, reduced to relations of one another....
The Calvinist's idea of an actual as opposed to an imagined point of contact is not just some useless notion. lt is the only intelligible point of contact possible. The non-Christian holds that pure chance and absolute fate are equally ultimate and mutually correlative limiting concepts or heuristic principles which man uses to explain the fact that we have learned much about the world, that there is order in the world, a uniformity, while there is also continual change and development. But the non-Christian's "explanation" is no explanation at all. To say "it just happens" as an explanation of an event is really to say, "There is no explanation that I know of."
The Calvinist, therefore, using his point of contact, observes to the non-Christian that if the world were not what Scripture says it is, if the natural man's knowledge were not actually rooted in the creation and providence of God, then there could be no knowledge whatsoever. The Christian claims that non-Christians have made and now make many discoveries about the true state of affairs of the universe simply because the universe is what Christ says it is. The unbelieving scientist borrows or steals the Christian principles of creation and providence every time he says that an "explanation" is possible, for he knows he cannot account for "explanation" on his own. As the image-bearer of God, operating in a universe controlled by God, the unbeliever contributes indirectly and adventitiously to the development of human knowledge and culture.
When Hackett maintains that the Calvinist position is irrational because it cannot give "reasons" for believing, he must mean that on a position such as mine the Christian does not accept the non-Christian scheme wherein the non-Christian determines what are "good reasons" and "valid proofs." This is perfectly true, but this is not irrational. Rather the Christian offers the self-attesting Christ to the world as the only foundation upon which a man must stand in order to give any "reasons" for anything at all. The whole notion of "giving reasons" is completely destroyed by any ontology other than the Christian one. The Christian claims that only after accepting the biblical scheme of things will any man be able to understand and account for his own rationality.
Cornelius Van Til, "My Credo", Jerusalem and Athens, quoted in Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis, Greg L. Bahnsen, pp 695-696)
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For our present purposes the doctrine of God need not be set forth more fully. It has appeared that in the Christian doctrine of the self-contained ontological Trinity we have the foundational concept of a Christian theory of being, of knowledge, and of action. Christians are interested in showing to those who believe in no god or in a god, a beyond, some ultimate or absolute, that it is this God in whom they must believe lest all meaning should disappear from human words.
(Cornelius Van Til, "Christian Apologetics", P&R Publishing, Edited by Wm Edgar, 2nd Edition, 2003, p 39)
