Van Til Group #1 — The Defense of the Faith

[Music] welcome to christ the center your weekly conversation of reformed theology this is episode number 662 i think my name is camden busey and uh i'm the executive director here at reformed forum i'm in gray's lake illinois at the reform forum studio delighted to be back with a special episode today we've got some really good friends and uh we're going to be starting up something new you probably already saw in the podcast title but let me introduce to you first we have our good buddy carlton nguyen who is a pastor at westminster pca in atlanta georgia you may know him his most recently was a teaching systematic theology at westminster theological seminary but he's on now to pca church there in atlanta and calling in from the church is carlton welcome back carlton it's good to see you thank you camden it is a true delight to be here yeah the last time we spoke on the program at least was to talk about bobbing's the wonderful works of god and we've obviously talked offline here and there but it's great to have you with us to talk about uh something in the same vein kind of yeah thanks so much when we did that i was not aware that you had switched to video and so i was uh you know rolling out of bed and i got a couple comments from from friends so i i dressed up and i got my church office for this one i'm prepared well you're not wearing a planet fitness t-shirt uh you're not you're not wearing a hat a hat that covers your face uh you know so you're really setting a high bar here among the rest of our contributors here at reform forum so i'm thankful for that i'm trying to represent the pca as best i can and now we see the true difference uh i'm reminded of that meme of the different uh genes for each denomination and they had like the rpc and a guys have like a a belt uh with a gun holster on it there was one that had jorts and uh there's one that has like pleated jeans i forget what it is the presbycast guys can post it they'll show it up there's a they tried to represent all the denominational differences uh with different styles of denim which is pretty good way to do it uh you already saw in the video if you were watching or heard and heard him laughing we have with us also lane tipton who's fellow of biblio biblical and systematic theology here at reform forum as well as a pastor of trinity opc in eastern pennsylvania welcome back lanes good to see you too oh i'm extremely excited wonderful to be here great to have carlton on oh of course we can't uh i can't say enough about it today we're going to be starting kind of a new venture uh on christ the center in much the same way that we work through gerhardis voss's book biblical theology and then we have our little excursies once in a while uh like last time we talked about grace and glory because that was certainly a fitting thing with the new edition of uh of that collection of voss's sermons being published by banner of truth trust thankful for them and uh that's still for sale you know and then out there and doing well you know many of you have bought copies but if you don't have one yet go out there and get one uh but today we're going to be looking at one of vos's students one of our favorite theologians and apologists of course cornelius van till and we don't know how frequently we'll do this but um you know it'll be with regularity and with commitment we're not just starting something we don't intend to finish but we will be opening up uh to vantille's key book the defense of the faith i'm holding here a first edition copy well you see lane has one as well with the dust jacket carlton has one as well i can't get the video of carlton unless he starts talking can you make a noise carlton this is my uh first edition and open open it up just so we can inside there so we can fawn after it yep with regard cornelius van till so i can't show that without saying how i got this book uh right before i left um pennsylvania for atlanta i went to see lane and i brought lane a jar of tuscosa hot sauce and a partially used gift card to rocky's deli and i left lane's house with this first edition of van tilt's defense of the faith and i think the trade was fair but i'm very grateful you don't know how much lane loves hot sauce and we've got we have from amarillo to boot so and we have a very hot sauce very special episode of of crisis center just wanting to to to happen uh sometime in the future lane knows what i'm talking about but we had a could happen we had we had quite an encounter at least i had quite an encounter with the bomb that elaine got to watch but uh oh wow if anyone's into hot ones the youtube show you can watch that and you'll know what we're talking about i'm still recovering uh it's great to have this book and to have excellent you know first edition copies of it most people probably familiar at least nowadays with uh this edition which is edited by scott oliphant the fourth edition which includes uh the complete text of the original 1955 edition it's published by presbyterian well gotta say that got to back up it's published by p r publishing uh i was uh instructed a while ago it's not presbyterian in reform publishing it is p r publishing even though it used to be presbyterian or reform publishing but they've got copies of this you can head on over to their site or to westminster bookstore amazon and get copies of that and we're going to be keying even though we have first edition copies and you know are partial towards the old and and love that sort of thing this edition has annotations uh by dr elephant as well as the full 1955 text so you're not going to have any problem getting around and we're going to do our best to key our discussion off of headings in the text not necessarily page numbers although i'm sure the page numbers will come up here and there but we'll try to make it as convenient as possible for you all who may be interested in following along to discuss reformed apologetics and uh to do so as we slowly walk through the pages of this key and important book in the field the defense of the faith i do want to mention of course lane's recent course in introduction to the theology and apologetics of cornelius van tilt available at reformedforum.org for free you can uh just register for the course and take it on demand there are uh eight lecture uh lectures that have been chopped up into about 38 videos and uh it's about five hours a little over five hours of instruction with uh recommended readings to go along with it and quizzes uh for each of the eight sections of the course so if you want a key kind of survey introduction overview to the theology and the apologetics of cornelius van till that's a superb place to start even as we're going to be working through this book which will lead us into further detail and then we have uh seven additional courses uh scheduled and lined up um it's going to take time to do two or three a year but we hope to get those out over the course of time to have an entire curriculum of eight courses covering van till top to bottom uh in a program of study that we call the reform forum fellowship in in uh reformed apologetics last thing i'll mention on this front uh we are also engaged in a new cohort study group i think there'll still be time to apply uh by the time oh no there might not be we might be past the date to apply but many of you if not all of you probably received emails notifying you of uh this potential study group and there will be more in the future and uh we had so many applicants that i think as it stands now we're debating and and having a second cohort so uh for eight straight weeks for one hour a week we'll get together with a small group of people who will have watched an assigned lecture and also read some assigned readings in advance to get together with lane and lane will lead a seminar style discussion uh in which we get to interact you get to ask questions you get to hash things out in the in a group a collaborative learning environment which i always found quite useful i learned the most in those environments and um at the end of which we hope uh that the students who participate in these cohorts will produce a piece of original research in the field that'll be scaled to their ability and their theological and education and experience so it could be anything from you know a brief essay that would be useful for a study group or people in your church you know a bible study all the way up to a scholarly article or perhaps if we did eight cohorts for all eight courses by the end of it you could produce eight scholarly works on a theme that might be integrated into an entire dissertation thesis or a book and so we we're really desiring to to to advance van tillian scholarship because we believe it's a helpful way and the most consistent and faithful way to defend the truth of scripture uh we believe it's biblically faithful we're so thankful to van till and obviously devos and to others in that tradition so we want to do everything we can here at reform forum to pro to assist the church in presenting every person mature in christ and we believe one way to do that is to advance education on vos and vantil and redemptive historical hermeneutics and reformed apologetics as well as to promote and incubate reformed scholarships so if this is something that gets you excited send us a note talk to us sign up for a cohort get in touch with us so that we can encourage you and you could encourage us and we can all start pulling in the same direction and uh talking more about these issues on that front i i should mention some autobiographical issues because i met carlton one summer when he had moved to westminster to start the phd program and i was in the phd program i think the first class the first in-class experience we had with each other carlton was in perhaps in van til's trinitarian theology which was a phd seminar that that lane taught uh and so in a way we're just continuing on a conversation that we started about who knows what 11 12 years ago yeah brother i i i probably have never told you this camden but before i even came to westminster i was listening to the reform forum podcast when i was a pastor in dallas i remember uh getting a really long extension cord to to to hook up to my headphones i had a little old elliptical and i would run it from my laptop on my desk to those headphones and get some duct tape before bluetooth i would listen to your voice so it was a joy to come to westminster to meet you and to and to be in classes together i do remember with uh one of our conversations and you found out that i uh i put the music in after because you were asking me how i was you were amazed at how good i was [Laughter] how do you time it with the little ditty you're so good you never get it wrong i was like thank you very much brother but uh i never get it wrong because the music comes afterward anyway the wonders of editing oh the beauty of uh and the bliss of naivete right yeah yeah it wasn't the only thing i didn't know i used to do the same thing you know i was like how does it happen well let's uh let's fire up and get into the text here um but before maybe we even start walking through page by page i think it would be wise for us for those who are new initiates and those who may be skeptical as to why we would spend so much time talking about one person and one book um the last thing i want is to engage in a work of geography and so there is naturally questions well why why focus so much time on one person lane how would you answer that question well there are several things we could say i'll just try to get the ball rolling this is a parallel in many ways to our voss group and the reason why we select vos and have worked through his biblical theology is that it is unparalleled in terms of its insight and exposition of the history of special revelation viewed from a distinctively reformed perspective in distinction from the critical german methodologies vos was just uh unparalleled in terms of his insight vos was van tilt's favorite student and so what you get in ventile among the other influences of bhavanth kuiper hodge warfield those under whom ventile studied what you're getting here is an application of some of the seminal insights that vos had not only as a biblical theologian but some of the programmatic structures that he had taught ventil as a dogmatic theologian and those are enshrined in a very constructive and helpful application of reformed theology to not exclusively but predominantly to issues that you face in theology and philosophy after the enlightenment and so this this is a summary of seminal work that is done in applying constructively many of the insights that our listeners are already well familiar with now given their familiarity with vos and so while van till is not the only reformed apologist or only reformed theologian worthy of a book study there are others there are many other volumes we could study this stands out as unique in the sense that it is the most serious sustained programmatic effort to apply the deep structural insights of reformed systematic and by extension biblical theology to the wide spectrum of issues that faced ventil in his day and so it's very much worth the time to wrestle with it because what you'll find is he has something analogous to voss's gift for penetrating down to the very core of theological and philosophical issues with unusual depth of insight and is of great help to the church in that way carlton how were you introduced to van till i've rehearsed my my story many times so i'd be happy to share it again but i don't know if it's necessary i'm curious how you came to learn about cornelius van till my story is probably pretty typical i was introduced to van till through the writings of greg bonson and the online debates that i was hearing mainly during seminary and then in my first call in texas and i was reading the van till reader through seminary and but but before coming to westminster i must say i had not engaged in the primary source reading of van till that i needed to and it was in taking classes with with lane and uh with scott oliphant that it really and some independent studies on the survey of christian epistemology and common grace in the gospel that i really decided you know you really needed to soak in van till in the primary sources and one of the reasons i love defense of the faith which i was telling you before we started it was this book that i had to give a presentation on in one of my first classes and really enjoyed the obligation to dive deeply into the book um but one of the things that i realized reading this book uh just for me personally was how spiritually edifying it was for me uh to to be fortified in my assurance that there is no challenge to the christian faith that takes uh the lord by surprise and to have the confidence uh not that not that human reason or our own ingenuity can answer challenges to the christian faith but the lord in his self-attesting word is sufficient to address the challenges that come along i just found van till's writings to be so encouraging almost not to put it too strongly but but but on the order of reading calvin and other great theological works wanting me to worship the lord more having read this book so i'm so glad to be joining you and lane in working through this text together well we're glad to have you of course people might not know this but not only did you teach many systematic theology courses at westminster as a member of the faculty there but also taught ap 101. i imagine you you maybe did you teach any other sections of apologetics in your tenure i did not but one of the things i tried to do and of course i was dialoguing with layne a lot about this through the years uh i tried to unfold the redemptive historical contours that stand behind van till's thought in that particular class and to do that for first-year students was just one of the great delights of of serving in the seminary just seeing the lights come on in terms of the biblical foundations for van till's thought and then i would leave it in the laps of the students say look you have to wrestle with the text of scripture and decide for yourself is until giving us a truly biblical approach to apologetics and i did my best to try to convince them of that but um but yeah ap 101 was one of my favorite classes to teach that's wonderful well let's look at the purpose of the book here there's been four editions of this the fourth and newest has annotations by dr oliphant but the text is the same as the 1955 edition we've got a real special treat lined up for you if you stay with us throughout this series uh the editions two and three have been abridged in in places there's been edited i would love to work on and be part of a critical edition if that was possible uh figuring out the the legalities and whatnot of um van til's estate is a bit complicated uh because he didn't leave a clear error so to speak so who knows if something like that could ever exist but having a critical edition would be quite useful but we are in the possession at least a very close friend is in the possession of a copy of the first edition that was used owned presumably and used by vantill himself it has copious annotations and comments in the marginalia that are of a strange nature and as i read them in vancil's own hand he's clearly preparing for uh perhaps the second edition and maybe the third but he's commenting on things places where he thinks he might have been clearer things he could take out things he could adjust or expand upon so as we walk through this first edition of defense of the faith uh i'll also seek to you know comment on the places where van till marked up his own copy uh so that's useful and having a conversation like this is also useful because van till can be rather difficult for people to understand if they don't they haven't kind of caught the the uh the feel or the groove of what he's doing and he's a a unique thinker and he was i believe very instructive in in uh and in in some ways revolutionary in in the field of reformed apologetics but if you don't spend an enormous amount of time with him and hear him out uh there are very many ways that you might misunderstand what he's saying and not just a little bit but you might come to drastic conclusions and conclude that he's saying the opposite of what he said i don't believe that's necessarily van till's fault he probably could have done better in some areas in terms of being clear and precise but i think he was precise but um that comes forth in this first part uh where we see a whole host of criticisms of van till and it is a strange place to a strange way to start the book we have the preface you can comment on that if you would like but when we when we open up right to the first pages of the book in the introduction van till speaks of the standards that are used that he uses and then objections that are raised he even before he's talking about his own program he jumps right into a whole host of criticisms against him which is a strange way again to start a book that is in many ways considered your masterpiece to deal with the criticisms before you even talk about what you're what you're presenting but that just goes to show i think how important it is for us to take vantil on his own terms to try to understand him to be fair to him and then deal with his ideas his presentation in a in a legitimate and uh in an honest and constructive way we hope though being critical camden it is a strange way to open the book and i remember reading this work for the first time and being absolutely bewildered by the opening account of the criticisms of van till's thought at the time of the writing in 1955 i think the purpose of the book was largely to answer those critics though it's not the primary purpose of the book as we're going to see vantil wanted to address a number of criticisms that had come his way and he determined to set forth those criticisms before articulating the basic structure of his thought now as we've tried to figure out how best to go about our discussion here what we'd like to do is talk about the primary purpose of the book and then move into a general analysis of the criticisms that van till lays forward trying to give the listener a sense of the basic categories of criticisms such that all of the particular critiques that van till identifies uh can be properly understood and then we'll move into the general structure of his thought in in in a way that will set forth positively van till's thinking and hopefully along the way address the critiques uh that van till's uh laid out for us lane do you want to give any additional thoughts on on the way we want to go about our discussion of the book no i i just want to say this i think you have a really good idea carlton to situate the structure of the criticisms of van till because uh before you get into the details of those criticisms it's really nice to understand the fundamental um character uh or or have a taxonomic classification of those criticisms so that you can get it get a better handle on them without getting lost in the details and for our listeners who have not yet grasped van till's entire system i think it's best pedagogically for us to just give the fundamental nature of the criticisms without getting lost in the details which would in turn require almost a mastery of what we've not yet covered yeah absolutely well i'd love for us if it's okay with you camden to move to that taxonomy but but before we do that i just want to give a brief word about what van till says is the primary purpose of the book and this is coming from page seven of the preface when he writes in the first place this work seeks to set forth in positive fashion what seems to the writer to be the biblical method of defending the faith so what vantilla is after is an approach to apologetics that flows from and is organically related to the content and theology of the scriptures and of course van till understands the theology of the scriptures to be uh extended and articulated in the reformed creeds and confessions of the church built as they are upon the ancient creeds of the church so the primary purpose of the book is quite positive it is to give us an approach to apologetics that is thoroughly and rigorously biblical but then van tyl says something interesting he says this necessitates making a comparison between romanist evangelical and the reformed points of view concerning apologetics vantil sees his positive task as correlated to a negative task of comparing the distinctive reformed theological approach to apologetics with what he would call sub-christian systems of thought which he identifies in terms of roman catholic theology and armenian or as he puts it evangelical theology that's bound up with the primary purpose of the work as well so this is this is also a book of comparison in the great tradition of say machines comparison between christianity and liberalism but it's a comparison designed to exalt the distinctive character of the reformed approach to apologetics and we should add lead reformed theologians and and christians into an act of intellectual repentance for the ways in which we have been less biblical and by implication less reformed in our thinking about apologetics and then only then secondly van till says that his work deals with contemporary objections made against him so it's important to see that vanto wants to serve the reader whether he be a student of reformed theology a student of van tilt or a critic of van till he wants to serve the reader by presenting a biblical approach to apologetics comparing that approach to romanist and armenian forms of thought and then in a secondary way addressing contemporary criticisms of his own writings right and i think i think that's the value proposition to use a business term for the listener the reader today but also the listener even of this program and future programs on the subject why bother well the bible commands us to provide and give a reason for the hope that we have within us first peter 3 15 but there are many places that speak about the apologetic task to provide a defense or to take captive every thought to the obedience of christ all of these activities are incumbent upon the christian to engage in now certainly ordained officers and church leaders of various kinds may have different ways that they work that out and may have taken vows to engage in certain activities that that are not incumbent upon the general office of believer but it's not an option to engage in apologetics or not but an apologetic a faithful apologetic maybe as simple of providing a reason for the hope that you have within you could be because jesus died for me and was raised from the dead that's the hope i have that's an apologetic so but it goes all the way from that to very technical you know long-term engagements with you know unbelieving philosophies but it doesn't mean you have to know all that stuff in order to be a faithful apologist so the the value proposition here for vantil what he's trying to equip people to do and encourage people to do is listen to what the bible says about itself what god says about himself in the word and what he says about the activity of defending the faith of speaking the truth in the face of attacks and pointing out areas in which people are are attacking the christian faith either in thought word or deed and then seeking to be most faithful uh to the lord in all of those activities and in every area of life that's what vanto is really concerned about to try to be faithful to god's word and to be obedient in this activity specifically the apologetic activity but he would want the same thing for all of life but when he's writing apologetics that's what he's talking about so when he's when he's criticizing other sub-christian approaches it's almost always on the on the terms that they are not living up to what the bible says about itself or what the bible says about this activity they are mixing unbelieving forms or unbelieving thought unbelieving convictions with the christian conviction thus diluting it thus making it sub-christian and ultimately in in a way anti-christian now saying that is not an arrogant thing because we always need to turn that critical gaze inward as well and find the the areas of our life by god's grace he can enlighten these where we are not seeking and following after the lord faithfully so i'll i'll end on this bill dennison once said to me in an mti class because we always need to be careful to and striving to out van till van till on van till all he meant by that was we even need to be willing to look into the areas in which van till is inconsistent or falling short he might be sub-christian on some aspects and always be self-critical but in a loving way in order to seek after the lord most faithfully in all aspects and areas of life that's the value that's the goal in studying this how can we be better more faithful christians by god's grace in this activity amen just a thought that piggybacks on both of these wonderful points you brothers have made um it's it's fascinating that van till is going to lead with a constructive presentation of the reformed faith uh in a topical way but for though for our listeners who are asking the question how does van t how does this defense of the faith relate to the methodology that you will find in the protestant scholastics for instance think of this for a second francis turreton structures his institutes as an institute uh institutes of electic theology and what he does typically is he presents the reformed view and then he sets the reformed view over against roman catholicism over against remonstrant arminianism over against various species of lutheranism over against saucinianism and and so not only is there a positive exposition of the reformed faith according to the scriptures but there's also this contrast that seeks to clarify the reformed faith over against other views and that what carlton brought up about van till wanting to set his view in contrast the reformed view in contrast over against roman catholic and evangelical views i think is really helpful for us to remember because van till is not innovating here he's not doing something that is fundamentally discontinuous with the reformed tradition in terms of which he works rather he's seeking to continue that electic approach that you would find in those like turretin and um and to to piggyback with what you're saying cameron in doing that trying to be faithful and um robustly biblical as a reformed theologian and apologist and so that purpose of the book uh roman numeral seven that we talked about there is um i think it if if you understand ventil properly we should see him as trying to inherit seeking to inherit and extend the defense of the reformed faith in this electic and polemical way that's in perfect accord with the best of what the reformed tradition has done historically he's now advancing and updating it into the 20th and now into the 21st century that's really good lane i appreciate you're making that point um it it should probably be recognized though as we as we continue to dive through the book that he holds that primary purpose in abeyance for a little bit that at least the political dimension of that primary purpose in order to set forth uh contemporary criticisms that are coming from about six or seven uh dutch contemporaries um who are leveling critiques of van till's thought from within the reformed camp uh uh camden i see you holding up a copy of uh the journal ar uh the journal the calvin forum and and i'm sure you'll give some background on that but um these are but my hand hurts these are on these are burning they're a little on fire they're hot but uh so so so in this opening section vantill's not necessarily talking about romanism and evangelicalism but critics uh coming from within the camp of reformed theology who allegedly hold to the theology of calvin kuiper bovink warfield but who see van till as as departing from the reformed tradition and or adopting non-christian thought into his own system um camden do you want to talk a little bit more about these critics and and and where they're coming from you held up that journal i don't want to rush we don't need to to get into all the all the mix but i will say this you know we we'll get to this when it when it comes time to talk more constructively about what vantill's saying and this is one of the oddities of the way this book is structured which i'm coming to realize now why there was a second and third edition even though i love the first edition it it isn't organized in a way where this could be the book somebody just picks up and expects to just be introduced to van tilt you kind of got to know what's going on and part of it is also that van till has written so much and there's syllabuses i know syllabi jeff waddington says syllabuses but they're they're they're all over the place so bantel is doing an important work at the time there's a reason why this structure exists as you alluded to carlton but i all i'd like to say about the critics is that this this is still going on uh what vantill was dealing with um all these criticisms that he's an idealist because he engages in in using idealistic terminology or that he isn't so much here in this chapter but we've seen it for many many years criticisms of van till's views on natural theology even though he's very clear i think in what he meant in nature in scripture uh this is a timely thing to address because these criticisms are still being presented in current books written within i mean the david institute just published one i mean like a month ago and uh our uh our opc colleague john fesco has written a book reforming apologetics uh where he criticizes van till at length on many of these points and it's good to read that book and to hear him out and engage with the issues but they're they're of a stripe they're of a vein so from one perspective we might ask well why why do these criticisms keep arising there has to be a reason for that people aren't just making stuff up are they but from another perspective we also need to read vantil and read him on his own terms and be fair to him even if we're still critical and say there might have been a better way for you to put this point i have no qualms in saying that about van tilt even though he's my favorite there are ways in which he could have worded things better um their way i read books i i wrote three years ago there are ways i could have written things better where there's always room for improvement but this is a timely thing to address it's important that we that we focus on it and we do so with with uh with humility and with grace but um this isn't just something from 60 years ago that has no no import upon us today it's certainly still in the mix yeah one thing that i think would help our our listeners uh and we've talked about this uh because our listeners have not yet uh presumably read through the whole book and mastered its fundamental constructive content uh there's it raises the question what's the best pedagogical approach to dive into the overview of the criticisms and there's one wonderful way to do this um paige uh well i'll go with headings under meeting of extremes page seven in this first edition we're using ventil i think gives us a very helpful insight into the structure of the criticisms that he faced he says on the one hand the essential structure of my thought is said to be that of total unbelief on the other hand i'm said to classify aristotle with the devil now that's page seven now what does that mean the former i think we can call the identity thesis namely that van till makes the christian religion structurally and functionally identical to absolute idealism in other words it's ventil is fundamentally compromised with idealism it's a bankrupt approach uh the battle is conceded before it begins but on the other hand some of the critics stress what we can call the absolute antithesis thesis namely that van till has no point of contact with the unbeliever and therefore no possibility of meaningful discussion with the natural man who has rejected the truth of the scriptures and so the two basic classes of criticism are that he is fundamentally conceded to unbelief on the one side and he is so antithetical to unbelief that he can't meaningfully interact with it on the other side and so if our li if our readers and listeners those who are reading and listening if you're kind of overwhelmed with all of the diverse criticisms that have been raised against ventile recognize this two-fold taxonomy encompasses all of the objections that van till is addressing the one side he's compromised with unbelief and conceded to absolute idealism on the other side he will not compromise with unbelief and is so antithetical that he can't even have a discussion with an unbeliever yeah he's getting it from both sides lane i i cannot emphasize to the listener the importance of what you just said that these two categories embrace virtually the totality of objections that have come to van till and still come to van till now we haven't yet said are they are they valid we're just seeking to describe the nature of the criticisms that he addresses in this book and by implication uh a lot of criticisms that come even today so lane what you've just said and and i'm just going to translate it for my pca brethren okay is that uh what i would call a non-christian infection thesis okay that he has been infected with non-christian thought in the way that he speaks and principally the source of that non-christian infection has been the philosophy of idealism and you and camden have talked a lot about idealism uh at root it seeks to uh to to to affirm some kind of correlative uh metaphysical framework or logical framework between a so-called absolute master concept or being and the particulars of human experience and the created world and there's a lot of complex vocabulary that's invested in that basic thesis but um but but on the one side van till is accused of having infections in his uh christian faith uh from idealism and then instead of non-christian infection thesis i would call the other one the non-christian rejection thesis to the extreme or quarantine thesis he's not even in the same room anymore he is in a hermetically sealed quarantine uh compartment where he denies every even commonality of thought laws of thought and facts of the world with the non-christian such that the apologetic enterprise is undermined from the outset we have no point of contact between the christian and the non-christian it's like the utterly consistent fake news thesis there we go so van till recognizes the mutually exclusive character of these criticisms on the one side he's infected with non-christian thought on the other side he has no point of contact with non-christians at all and yet van till says he can take no refuge in the mutually exclusive contradictory character of these charges because his critics allege that he himself is contradictory and so this sets up in turn van till trying to unpack the structure of his thought to show that in his mind it arises from the text of the scriptures and is faithful to the creeds and confessions of the reformed faith but if i were to try to translate both of these criticisms into a single question the question might be this how is it that vant hill can appreciate the insights of non-christians at any level and at the same time that no sinner can properly interpret reality rightly how how is it that on the one side he appreciates the insights of unbelievers and says that no sinner has any interpretation of any fact correct uh well the quick answer is that he has qualifications on both sides of that uh we're going to get into this much more but the quick answer is he appreciates the insights of non-christians with a qualification that they know the truth as far as it goes they know the truth and espouse what is true only formally given the operations of god's common grace and then on the other side when he says no sinner can interpret reality a right we need to underline and bold the word sinner because what vantill has in mind is no sinner who is consistent with his or her own principles no sinner who is epistemologically self-conscious as a worshiper of the creature no sinner according to his unbelieving system can make sense of the world that god has made now we're going to have a lot of time to work out those two sides but lane how would you articulate um the nature of these two groups of criticisms and the how would you articulate maybe uh an initial uh response by van till to these two critiques well the the that first critique about the infection thesis that's principally not exclusively the deborah thesis that the articulation of using your language which i love the rejection thesis is the masculine interaction with him on common grace and i think what we we have to see here is that that these are kind of the dialectical uh polar extremes of misunderstanding ventil and i think they have a a a two-fold root on the one side i don't think the divorce penetrated to the true difference with absolute idealism that van till articulated in his dissertation and in his reviews vantil was so clear on the fundamental difference between a self-contained triune god who remained self-contained at the alpha and omega point of history and at every point in between and the absolute idealist cannot maintain a self-contained uh triune god at any point in uh relating to creation so i think there is a failure to penetrate to the philosophical and theological differences between reformed theology and idealism uh on the rejection thesis on the um or on the infection thesis on the rejection thesis uh with masolink and others i'll tell you and i don't want to oversimplify this but i think there is a baseline failure to appreciate that when van tilt's talking about the creator creature relation after the fall he has in view not roman catholic not arminian not lutheran certainly not socinian views of the image of god and the effects of the fall on image bearers he has in view something very distinctive that he has inherited from the west from augustine from calvin from the westminster standards and so when he's when he's addressing the question uh from the standpoint of interaction with reformed theologians i think there's a failure to appreciate how programmatically clear ventila's being about a distinctive view of image of god and sin that he is trying to develop in his anthropology that is not shared by less consistent calvinists by arminians by the the lutheran tradition or by the sociean tradition or the roman catholics and so just in so how if i put it positively i think there has been in all of these criticisms a fundamental failure to understand van till the reformed biblical and systematic theologian there's just been a baseline lack of of um interaction with where he is as a theologian whose primary influences are the likes of vos and bovinc and old princeton and in back of that calvin and so i think before we run into the philosophical milieu and this is what i love about defense of the faith van till is going to remind us look before you talk any kind of philosophical pre-commitments just realize i am a biblical and systematic reformed theologian indebted to the teaching of the scriptures and self-consciously doing my best to expound the theology in the ecumenical creeds and the reformed confessions and apply that the best of that to these issues of that range from idealism to the problem of common grace yeah that's that's very helpful so what what i hear you saying is that we're going to have to have a reformed theological discussion with van till in order to address this two-fold critique that comes at him from fellow dutch reformed theologians we're going to have to have a conversation about the nature of the self-sufficient self-existent god the all-determining decree the creation of man is the image of god god's voluntary condescension and covenant and the nature of the fall by by adam who remains the image of god but loses the ethical dimension of that image entirely and then in the wake of that god's restraining hand of common grace until the final judgment um these are the categories that van till is working with to address both the infection thesis and the rejection thesis yes very very well said brothers that sometimes people approach van till and are seeking apologetics but they they get frustrated that it's so theological they want to they want to turn to the page and see what van tilt says about this cult or that cult or this you know uh false religion or something where where's van till's you know treatment of of islam for example but van till isn't not concerned about those things but he's getting down to a deeper root level and doing something different from what you might expect from other apologists he he really is camden and and when we when we pivot then to just a the briefest discussion of of the structure of my thought which which begins in earnest the introduction to the defense of the faith i don't want to say everything he says in that brief section but just to observe this that if you ask the question pertaining to the structure ventil's thought what kind of an apologist is he or to turn the question a little bit differently precisely what is van till seeking to defend at every point he's seeking to defend this the system of doctrine if you want to put it systematically the history of special revelation if you want to put it biblically and theologically the system of doctrine and the history of special revelation contained in the scriptures of the old and new testaments and he wants to defend it as a unit so he's not going to be engaged and nor is he going to be interested in a piecemeal defense of either facts bear evidences or philosophy natural reason and and contemplative uh reflection he's not going to want to defend either in isolation from from the other either the facts or the philosophy facts but he's uh he's seeking to defend the the system of christian theism taken as a unit um and it involves defending and uh accepting and defending the whole of the history of special revelation of which after the fall jesus christ is the center yeah i i love it that he gets that out there right in the open we must defend christian theism as a unit and if we were to try to tease out the strands of what that what that means uh building on what you've just said lane i i would say not only does it mean that vantale is going to treat any fact of the christian system of thought in relation to every other fact of the christian system of thought as it arises from special revelation but he is also not going to divorce any fact of history from its god-given meaning as illumined by special revelation in the scriptures and and this means that he's not going to speak about morality or moral principles without presupposing uh the god who provides the foundation and presupposition for morality as a whole he's not going to be talking about facts apart from an entire historical framework for history that is given in the scriptures he wants to deal with any topic of conversation in terms of the christian what he calls philosophy of life and he is seeking to vindicate that entire philosophy of life addressing metaphysics ethics epistemology anything under the sun over against many different species of non-christian philosophies of life or as he even puts it more strongly various forms of the non-christian philosophy of life that would seek to serve the creature rather than the creator at the beginning of this 400 page book now the basic structure of my thought is very simple i just appreciate it's kind of like calvin saying in the middle of book three by nature i love brevity yeah uh on the institute he's saying by the way my structure my thoughts very simple and if we were to articulate the very simple structure of vantal's thought this is how i would do it for what it's worth i want to hear what you guys think he is seeking to do justice to the self-sufficient self-contained character of god who created all things amen and i mean he's seeking to do justice to genesis 1 1 in the way that he engages on belief and uh and and advances a distinctively reformed methodology for apologetics lane would you put it differently if someone were to say you how is it very simple what would you say oh i would say everything begins and ends in the worship of the self-contained triune god who has revealed himself in nature and scripture and after the fall climactically in jesus christ crucified and raised so i i'm with you 100 i i think it's if you if you boil it down like you just did carlton i think i would just give it a hearty amen yeah and and you know what's so fascinating is um when van till just if you ask the question okay well what does it mean then to honor the self-contained triune god and to take his revelation as a unit systematically to presuppose the whole history of special revelation at it at every single point and in all apologetical encounters ventil gives us a great example when he's fleshing out the structure of his thought and this just might be one great focusing uh theme but he talks there um in and and i think we could go to page that's on page 24 right under chapter one christian theology before you get to the first heading doctrine of god he talks about the historical uh the presentation of the historical fact of jesus resurrection and i'll just give a quick summary of this because it can also be we can also talk in terms of acts 17 31 and the epicurean philosophers but it's theoretically quite conceivable that a pragmatist could affirm that jesus christ rose from the dead they could affirm the fact that jesus rose from the dead sure and you asked the pragmatist okay if you concede the historical claim that jesus rose from the dead that proves the truth of christian theism and a good pragmatic philosopher would say it doesn't prove anything approximating that and the apologist would say why say all that the resurrection of jesus christ proves is that it is exhibit a in ripley's believe it or not because strange things happen in a random universe and then you say well wait wait a second why would you say that and the pragmatist would say well it's because my fundamental commitments about the nature of what is real and knowable and virtuous is is is not tethered in any way to the philosophy of fact contained in the scriptures of the old and new testament and those that philosophy effect is in no way dependent upon the revelation of the self-contained triune god and so van til's point is to say this that when we're presenting the fact of the resurrection the the what we would call the denotation of the resurrection we must as the apostle paul did at every point present the philosophy of that fact namely that the resurrection of christ proves that he is the judge of the world 1731 and that the resurrection is proof not of the randomness of the universe but proof that jesus christ is lord and judge so a theology of the self-contained ontological trinity is going to lead you inexorably to what this is ventil's point to the lordship of jesus christ as he's revealed in the pages of the scriptures of the old and new testaments that's wonderful and and and to those who would say well if you do not separate denotation from connotation if you if you seek to advance the meaning of the resurrection together with the fact of the resurrection you've just lost every apologetic opportunity with the pragmatist van till is actually going to together with that claim advance a deeper commonality between the reformed christian and the pragmatist than is advanced by many of his critics what do i mean by that well vantill is going to articulate a doctrine of the image of god in which man qua man is religiously related and dependent upon the god whom he knows at the base of every self-reflective thought he has and the god to whom he owes covenantal obedience but has failed in that obligation in adam and compounds his guilt every day and and who in his pragmatic philosophy to the extent that he's able to articulate anything um understandable and intelligible at all is actually drawing breath and depending upon the god that he rejects so i just want to i want the listener to understand that that there you should have no fear being a christian apologist advancing the truth of god's word because god's word is sufficient to give you a deeper insight into the thought forms of the pragmatist than than sub-christian forms of apologetics can do and uh and hopefully as we work through this text we're going to see how affirming christian theism as a unit is the very starting point for a powerful and effective apologetic yeah certainly needs to be there amen evantille is is all about that that's that's why we have to deal with the theology in addition to developing the apologetics apologetics is not separate from from our theological disciplines and that's another thing van till spoke about often in his writings integrating the theological encyclopedia so all truth is god's truth but it's also integrated and so we can't develop an apologetic without developing the theological categories about god man the world the relation among those things the effects of sin etc and um i remember recently reading a critic who said van till needed to focus more and do more work on the point of contact he really should have developed more of of the image of god because that's really how we're related to the unbeliever and i'm i'm just left like uh have you read any of van till because that that is maybe one of the most important things and uh he focuses on the image of god and covenant and the trinity but um it's important to hammer these get these things down and uh i trust our series together is going to flush those out lane yeah and and just to make sure we're tethering this to the primary text which we're doing we're doing our best here page 25 and by the way think of all the pages we've covered this is astonishing um but on page 25 you know van tilt it's it's vanilla on one level because he says um i am taking the headings of systematic theology as i find them worked out for instance in such manuals as professor louis berkoff has written so his manual of christian doctrine smaller version his systematic theology or go to bovine go to voss in their reform dogmatics and he says i'm going to find discussions of the doctrine of god the doctrine the man the doctrine of christ the doctrine of the church the doctrine salvation the doctrine the last things and in such case the reform position shows to be that which scripture teaches in contrast as he's going to do now electrically to the romans romanist arminian and other views that are shown not to be fully biblical so it's so simple that you can lose sight of it he's taking standard reformed biblical and systematic theology primarily a topical approach and then electrically following berkoff and behind that following uh the the likes of turton doing a comparison and contrast with other systems on each locus in order to do what not prove absolute idealism not not reject the faith but to expound and defend that reformed doctrine and and so if you understand that there's a there's a staggering simplicity to what van till's after after all mm-hmm well i think we can probably at least wrap up our first installment there after a a really exciting conversation i learned a bunch i'm thankful for you brothers for your time and preparing and for talking about these things and i i'm looking forward to hashing these out with with uh all of our listeners and others who are gonna pay attention and listen we'll see the frequency we're going to try to shoot maybe for four to six weeks we'll see how often we can get through them in and we're not going to stop the voss group either but we're also not going to take over the entire christ the center feed only with the book discussion so we're trying to strike a balance a happy medium and uh there's no antithesis here on uh van till versus vos versus uh our guests who have written other books etc but pick up a copy of this the defense of the faith first edition where you can also get a copy of the edition from p r the fourth edition which has the for the full 1955 text in it along with the annotations by dr olivan or if you use logos you can get a copy there you can get the whole works of antelope very affordably in an electronic copy and if you do that you can even set up some really interesting kind of customized uh reading plans that's the way i'm working through a christian theory of knowledge at the moment should be done in a couple days so thanks lane thanks carlton uh thanks to everybody who's listening you can find us online at reformedforum.org sign up for lane's class it's free it's phenomenal and you'll you'll learn a bunch and if you're in the cohort we look forward to working through these issues with you if you're not in a cohort yet stay tuned and try to find one the next time they're available you can register and sign up and begin your your journey in reformed apologetics i do want to thank everybody for listening and we hope you join us again next time on christ the center

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Length: 65min 32sec (3932 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 03 2020