Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

A Van Til Response to my Anti-Presuppositionalism

This is the third in a new series on presuppositionalism. The first installment is here, and the second here. 

I've been re-reading large chunks of Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, P & R Publishing, 2008. This fourth edition, edited by K. Scott Oliphint, includes the complete text of the original 1955 edition and useful footnote commentary by Oliphint.

You will recall my claim that with respect to the existence of God there are rationally acceptable arguments for and rationally acceptable arguments against, but no rationally compelling arguments on either side. So I was pleased to find an attempt by Van Til to respond to this sort of objection. (DF 126) He formulates the objection as follows:

"While a Christian can prove that his Christian position is fully as reasonable as the opponent's view, there is no such thing as an absolutely compelling proof that God exists, or that the Bible is the Word of God, just as little as anyone can prove its opposite."

Van Til then responds:

In this way of putting the matter there is a confusion between what is objectively valid and what is subjectively acceptable to the natural man.

[. . .]

It is precisely the Reformed Faith which, among other things, teaches the total depravity of the natural man, which is most loathsome to that natural man.

Turning to p. 352, we learn that the natural man is "spiritually dead." "The natural man does not know God." Or rather, he knows God in an implicit way, but suppresses "the knowledge of God given man by virtue of creation in God's image." On p. 255 we learn that having been made in the image of God we have an "ineradicable sense of deity" within us. This of course is Calvin's sensus divinitatis. Van Til makes bold to say, further, that men's "own consciousness is inherently and exclusively  revelational of God to themselves," and that "No man can help knowing God, for in knowing himself, he knows God."  

I'll conclude the quoting with a Van Tilian slam against the 'Romanists' as he often refers to them:

It  is the weakness of the Roman Catholic and Arminian methods that they virtually identify objective validity with subjective acceptability to the natural man. Distinguishing carefully between these two, the Reformed apologist maintains that there is an absolutely valid argument for the existence of God and the truth of Christian theism. (126)

Respondeo

'Virtually' is one of those weasel words that good writers either avoid or define.  But let that pass. Speaking for myself and not for the 'Romanists,' I will say that what Van Til is doing above is simply adding a layer of psychologizing to his question-begging.  He is engaging in the opposite kind of pure metaphysical bluster as I accused Galen Strawson of engaging in. Strawson:

We can, for example, know with certainty that the Christian God does not exist as standardly defined: a being who is omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly benevolent. The proof lies in the world, which is full of extraordinary suffering. If someone claims to have a sensus divinitatis that picks up a Christian God, they are deluded. It may be added that genuine belief in such a God, however rare, is profoundly immoral: it shows contempt for the reality of human suffering, or indeed any intense suffering.

What we have here are two opposite forms of pure bluster.  Neither Van Til nor Strawson can prove what they claim to be certain of, and both psychologize their opponents,  the one by appeal to a supposed "total depravity," the other by appeal  to insanity.   

There is nothing to choose between these two opposite forms of bluster. And so, dear reader, does not my position strike you as the only sane and reasonable one?

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Bill Vallicella

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5 responses to “A Van Til Response to my Anti-Presuppositionalism”

  1. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    And so, dear reader, does not my position strike you as the only sane and reasonable one?
    Speaking as someone not trained in philosophy but who has taken an interest in the subject, particularly as it pertains to religious belief, for half a century, I absolutely find your position, which is rigorously argued, “as the only sane and reasonable one.” Frankly, after reading this series of yours, I am struggling to grasp how anyone who has seriously approached the issue of the existence and nature of God could take presuppositionalism seriously, but then again people believe all sorts of bizarre things. The craving for certainty in matters beyond our cognitive powers leads many, theist and atheist alike, to mistake belief for knowledge.

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  2. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Thanks for your post, Vito. You wrote: “The craving for certainty in matters beyond our cognitive powers leads many, theist and atheist alike, to mistake belief for knowledge.”
    I suspect that you are correct. In my experience of talking with students, friends, family members, and colleagues (both inside and outside academia) about religious and non-religious matters, I have come to suspect that some people are inclined to claim certainty when they lack it and knowledge when they have mere belief.
    What explains such confusions? Like you, I suspect that in some cases the explanation is wishful thinking or an unchecked desire for objective certainty. But I also find that there is widespread confusion about basic issues of epistemology. Folks just don’t think much about the differences between belief, knowledge, evidence, truth, etc. If one doesn’t understand the difference between, say, a mere belief and an item of knowledge, one might be inclined to hold that one’s strongly held beliefs are items of knowledge, known with objective certainty.
    I would be inclined to support a class in basic epistemology as a requirement for graduation from high school – as long as the classes are taught properly by people who understand the subject and don’t confuse it with psychology or sociology.

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  3. BV Avatar
    BV

    Vito,
    Thanks for the comment. >>I am struggling to grasp how anyone who has seriously approached the issue of the existence and nature of God could take presuppositionalism seriously, but then again people believe all sorts of bizarre things.<< It is indeed puzzling how anyone could accept an apologetic approach so rife with preposterous assertions -- and I have only begun to scratch the surface. And yet, in all fairness, I must point out that some very intelligent people buy into this stuff. The brightest I am aware of is James N. Anderson whose weblog is here: https://www.proginosko.com/
    >>The craving for certainty in matters beyond our cognitive powers leads many, theist and atheist alike, to mistake belief for knowledge.<< We all naturally desire security: physical, emotional, fiscal . . . We also naturally desire to be secure in our beliefs. As I like to say, we all have doxastic security needs and so we don't like to have our beliefs questioned. When they are questioned, we react by trying to shore them up. This sometimes leads to 'doxastic overreach': we claim to be objectively certain about matters which are not objectively certain. Since the 'presuppers' psychologize their opponents, it seems to me that I am justified in psychologizing them. Here is one idea: 'Presuppers' lack the intellectual maturity to live with uncertainty. And so they make certainties of what is objectively uncertain. That being said, what the 'true philosopher' wants is objective certainty! What he wants is the certainty that we hope to enjoy in the Beatific Vision. In the visio beata the subjective and objective will so coalesce as make impossible any doubt. A mundane analog would be my inability to doubt the existence of a felt pain. Living through a felt (phenomenal) pain one experiences the coaescence of the subjective and the objective. Esse = percipi.

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  4. BV Avatar
    BV

    Elliot,
    Thank for responding to Vito. I see from your comment that we three are pretty much in agreement.
    By the way, one of the many things I hated abut teaching is that students, even in seminars, didn’t take seriously other students. That is the analog of commenters who don’t read other comments.

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  5. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    I agree, Eliot, that, along with the “craving for certainty,” the “widespread confusion about basic issues of epistemology” explains much of the intellectual muddle in distinguishing belief and knowledge, and when you have a mixture of the two, which is often the case, fruitful dialogue is rendered impossible. Perhaps age has rendered me too impatient, but once I sense someone bogged down in this sort of emotional and epistemological jumble, I take my leave.
    Bill, I agree that “we all have doxastic security needs and so we don’t like to have our beliefs questioned. When they are questioned, we react by trying to shore them up.” And just as “the true philosopher” will not settle for anything less than the certainty in which “the subjective and objective will so coalesce as make impossible any doubt,” so the true religious believer will acknowledge that this state is not possible on this plain of existence, and he will live with the tension, the gap that exists between what he believes and what he knows. Trust and doubt cannot but exist side by side.

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