Vermeer:"Woman with Pearl Necklace"

"Stringing the Beads": Van Til, Scripture and Rationality

(An t-aiste seo sa Ghàidhlig)

      Some have accused Cornelius Van Til of teaching that there are contradictions in Scripture. He did not. He was at pains to defend the sufficiency of Scripture against all comers, including against any rationalistic approach to its reading which purports to have woven a seamless garment of Scripture's teachings. Van Til insists that (autographic) Scripture stands even if we find we are unable to smoothly relate one of its truths to another of its truths. For example: God is almighty and He is not the author of sin, yet sin exists. When it comes to such conundrums, Van Til for his part offers the very helpful metaphor of Biblical truths as islands of revelation (the sea-bottom being that which has not yet been revealed to us). The islands of rock-solid truth are mountain-tops whose connecting bases may well be unclear to us, submerged from view as they meanwhile are. We can see and explore the islands. We find anchorage there. But to try to build an entire worldview or philosophy founded on a single island will inevitably invite resistance from the others.

Another, even more apparent, example of an enigma is the reality of the Trinity. The Trinity is not rationalistically acceptable, but for Van Til all human rational activity ("ratiocination") consciously or subconsciously presupposes the Trinity. It must. Though it is patently evident that the atheist is capable of  exceptional rationality, he/she nevertheless can not provide an adequate account of the deepest foundations of his or her thinking. Thus, the reality of the Trinity is, paradoxically, both beyond logic and the only froundation of logic. Within the Trinity, neither singularity nor plurality is subsumed by the other. Both are equally ultimate. And vitally, this "apparent paradox" of the Triune God is the model and prerequisite for any human rationality whatsoever, since rationality consists in rehearsing the concordance between universals and particulars. A fact scarcely realized even by Christians, never mind hostile others. And though this concordance ultimately transcends logic, it must be insisted definitively that no ir-rationalism is being vaunted.

"The one and the many", "the universal and the particular", are the apparently contradictory ultimates which we take for granted whenever we think. We can see these polarities at work in the historic pendulum swings of Western thought, eg in the late 18th and 19th century European art movements known as "Neo-classicism" (Nature as fixed universal laws which mirror the intellect: rationalist supra-personal objectivity) and "Romanticism" (Nature as a maelstrom of capricious transient particulars which mirror personal emotion: irrationalist individualistic subjectivity). But we see these same polarities at work (though perhaps with greater stasis) in the paradox at the heart of Eastern thought concerning differentiation and non-differentiation. This is very prominent, for example, in Zen which in one breath can extol "Here, Now, This", (ie what is immediate, non-speculative, concrete, "out-there"), and in the very next breath can blend all the vegetables (along with the blender itself) into a blur of Oneness/ Illusion/ Nothingness. ("There is no spoon", is the memorable phrase from "The Matrix". The spoon, like everything else, is but a "cyber-dream". Yet the Zion enclave, the desperate redoubt of free humans, is "real", beyond illusion. Or is it? As the movie trilogy unfolds we discover there have been previous "Zions".) In the light of the Triune God of Scripture we can avoid the futile and destructive attempt to reduce one apparent ultimate to another in our own thought and in our societal structures. The Scripture has taught us these things. And so Van Til:

      To conclude that there are contradictions in Scripture is the antithesis of what Van Til taught. It is the antithesis of what he taught because to reach such a conclusion would require a higher criterion of rationality than Scripture against which Scripture could be found wanting. There is no such criterion for Van Til. Scripture is "self-attesting". It is its own authority. Scripture does not bow before human rationality. Human rationality must bow before Scripture. In fact Van Til goes far beyond that last sentence. For Van Til, rationality is absolutely not possible unless the Triune God revealed in Scripture is presupposed (however subconsciously) by the thinker. Otherwise one is left holding, in one hand, "beads without holes" (ie unrelated concrete particulars), and, in the other hand, "lengths of endless string" (ie, abstract universal laws). No necklace is possible. The humanist in his/her conceit imagines there is such a thing as autonomous thought (a supposedly neutral "scientific method", for instance) which can bring him/her into contact with so-called "objective" facts. This is a delusion. It is "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness". Whatever truth he/she has gained is not because of, but in spite of, God-denying premises, by which universals and particulars are forever ghettoed from each other. But humanists are inconsistent to their premises. As are Christians to theirs, of course. Is it not astounding to what extent Christians in education have internalized the humanist dogma of "neutral" scientific method? A "method" which says to God "Hands Off! If You touch it, it won't be Science anymore, but Religion! If we let You into the laboratory, research will no longer be Objective Fact, but Subjective Fantasy!" What utter blasphemy is this that we evangelicals and Reformed people in academic circles so readily find ourselves mouthing and defending? Who made the heavens and the earth and all that in them dwell? Shall not the earth be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea [Isaiah 11:9]? Let us remember the salutary counsel of J Gresham Machen in his address "Christianity and Culture" :

Machen asserts in effect that the question is not "What right do Christians have to be involved in science?" but rather "What right do non-Christians have to be involved in science?". Because this is God's earth. And science is God's commission to God's people (Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15). But God in His common grace gives such and such a degree of rationality and knowledge even to those who deny Him. And in that very denying, the arguments formulated must borrow whatever coherence they have from the only source possible, ie the Trinity. To use another image from Van Til: The child cannot slap the father's face unless the father lifts the child close enough.

      When Machen left Princeton to set up Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929 he forthwith sought out the young Van Til to become professor of apologetics. In the above mentioned book, "Christian Apologetics", Van Til echos Machen, and then some -

       "What has been said about the relation of theology to philosophy also holds - though less obviously so - with respect to the relation of theology to science. The Christian religion, as outlined in the first chapter, has a definite bearing on the scientific enterprise. Christianity claims to furnish the presuppositions without which a true scientific procedure is unintelligible. Chief of these presuppositions is the idea of God expressed in the doctrine of the ontological Trinity. In addition there are the doctrines of creation, of providence, and of God's ultimate plan with the universe. Christianity claims that the very aim and method of science require these doctrines as their prerequisites.

      There are no discrete "brute" particulars of reality. Nor are there are "raw" autonomous laws out there of "rationality-in-itself" or "justice-in-itself" or "beauty-in-itself" or "love-in-itself" etc, against which God and His Word can be called to account and be required to measure up. "Rationality", "Justice", "Beauty", "Love" etc, are defined by who God is and by that alone. Rationality consists therefore of seeing things God's way. Which in effect means seeing things in the Scriptural way -
      
      "You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies;
         For they are ever with me.
         I have more understanding than all my teachers,
         For Your testimonies are my meditation.
         I understand more than the ancients,
         Because I keep Your precepts" (Psalm 119: 98-100)

      Now, Van Til also talks about principles of continuity and of discontinuity which are evident in thought. The humanist principle of continuity, VT says, is the rationalist notion that the whole of reality is potentially "lit up", ie exhaustively accessible, to autonomous logic to the extent that he/she can say with total conviction that God certainly does not exist and that there is "no need of such a hypothesis". The humanist principle of discontinuity is the simultaneous irrationalist premise which insists that the cosmos is born of blind chance, so that it can be said with total conviction that the Biblical God certainly cannot exist because such a being would introduce determinism into a universe which is so patently founded in contingency and mystery. As for Christians, VT says we also have our principles of continuity and discontinuity. Our principle of continuity is the fact that Almighty God knows exhaustively both Himself and the universe He has created - there is no mystery whatsoever for Him. No lacunae. The Christian's principle of discontinuity is the fact that God has not revealed truth to us in an exhaustive manner (indeed in our creaturely finitude we can never, even in "eternity", know reality exhaustively), and thus we are dependent on such revelation as God has deigned to give us. There will always remain a degree of mystery for us. Always lacunae.

      OK, where are we at? Firstly, VT would insist that since the "rational" is determined by the Bible it cannot without rebellion accuse the Bible of contradictions. Secondly, the Bible is not exhaustive, but limited, revelation.

      Now, to return to the matter of the Trinity. Does the Trinity accord with rationality? Absolutely, and again absolutely! All of reality and all of rationality derive from the fact of the Trinity. But can we rationally comprehend the Trinity? No we cannot. It is a mystery to us how it comports. It is an apparent paradox. Not a real paradox. Just an apparent paradox. Because its reality is beyond our limited rationality. As mentioned above, the concurrent existence of a holy and almighty God on one hand and of sin on the other is also an apparent paradox taught by Scripture. As is the fact of the sovereignty of God and the existence of human free will (hell can contain no arbitrary victims, only fully responsible rebels). These remain enigmas, while clearly not being actual contradictions in reality or in Scripture (which gives accurate account of reality).

      Further, the fact of the equal ultimacy of unity and diversity in the Godhead pervades all of created reality, as one would expect, since the "invisible attributes of God are clearly perceived in the things that have been made" (Rom 1). This Scriptural insight has bequeathed to us (at least in the Calvinist tradition) the massively important doctrine of "sphere-sovereignty", whereby no philosophical abstraction is allowed in its hubris to lay claim to all of reality. And whereby Family, State, Church, University, Industry, Art etc are not reducible to each other. To be clear here, the others are certainly not called to be subservient to the Church. They are called to be subservient directly to God via His Word in their own preserves. Otherwise the abyss of meaninglessness swallows the ground under them. Christ is not the head of a religion. He is the source of all meaning in the universe. Thus only in obedience to Him is rationality established and sustained. Thus only in obedience to Him also is democracy established and sustained ("Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed" John 8:36). Not by a view which imputes fundamental and fatal contradictions to Scripture (so imposing a spurious human rationality on Scripture), but by a view which derives human rationality from Scripture. And which in so doing appreciates that there remains a gulf of mystery between some facts which our derivative rationality is not capable of fathoming (and perhaps never will be capable of fathoming, since reality is grounded in the infinite Godhead). So Van Til did not teach that there are contradictions in Scripture. He rather championed God-honouring rationality against God-denying rationalism. The former strings the beads. The latter ends in frustration and tears.

Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh