One wise professor once told me that to use Ludwig Wittgenstein in a paper was to invite derision. He evidently felt that Wittgenstein is so variously interpreted that one will always be wrong about what he meant. Another professor once told me that it was possible to write a paper without mentioning Cornelius Van Til. Possible, but, for this Van Tillian blogger, quite unlikely. So I offer some interaction between Van Til and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein is most commonly taken to be opposing a foundationalist theory of knowledge. He writes “Really ‘The proposition is either true or false’ only means that it must be possible to decide for or against it. But this does not say…
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Too Focused on Atheism
Evangelicals are worried about atheism; Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, Dennett – new atheists But the number of people who count themselves as atheists is small. Just 4% according to some researchers. Perhaps more people would count themselves as “non-religious” (11%), but that figure may even include Christians who are fond of the saying, “Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship.” If one is focused on the spread of the gospel in America there are far larger demographics to be concerned with. Catholics number just over 20%; there are more Mormons in the US than atheists and, since being here, I have met many more protestants who do not believe the gospel than atheists who…
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The Antithesis of Christianity is not Atheism
Most Christian apologists set themselves up against atheism. Moreover, their suggested approach is to begin with defeating atheism by showing why theism is more likely to be true. Cornelius Van Til was a little different. Rather than opposing the belief that there is no God, he opposed the belief that there is an option. Van Til’s primary opponent was not one anti theistic belief, but the possibility of a plurality of religious beliefs being, in principle, rational. It was an apologetic contra religious pluralism. The root of unbelief, for Van Til, is not a rejection of God (although that is what follows), but the consideration of multiple options in basic commitments. Van…
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Islamic Reversion
Leading evangelical expert on Islam, Adam Francisco, made a very interesting point about Islam (see here). According to historic Muslim belief, we are all, by nature, Muslim. This is based on a rather obscure claim of the Qur’an: And [mention] when your Lord took from the children of Adam – from their loins – their descendants and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], “Am I not your Lord?” They said, “Yes, we have testified.” [This] – lest you should say on the day of Resurrection, “Indeed, we were of this unaware (7:172). To become a Muslim, therefore, is not to convert, but to revert to one’s real nature. All are…
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Van Til vs Hick
John Hick is most well known for his argument for religious pluralism. He argued that, given that so many people are religious and believe in some kind of divinity, there must be something that all religions refer to. That thing Hick called the “real,” a kind of incomprehensible reality that best explains the existence of all religions. Religion is the human appropriation of the “real” in the phenomenal realm. The fact that they are different only goes to show that the real is unknowable in itself and only empirically expressed in human culture. How would a presuppositionalist like Van Til respond? First of all, the Christian presuppositional approach to a philosophy of religion is…
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Thinking in Movie Clips
In our technology laden world the mind is taught to think in new ways. For example, there was a substantial period of time in which I thought in status updates. It was not that I actually posted many, but my mind became conditioned to track my progress through the day in witty 40 or so character quips. While this mental phase appears to have ceased, another has come to the fore. I now think in movie clips (see an example here). A subject is greatly illuminated, and made far less serious, by ascribing a scene from a movie. For me, the movies my subconscious brings me are all eighties classics. For…
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Postmodern Hangover
Apparently, a problem evangelical Christians have is that we just don’t get postmodern people. We plain miss their point. According to Morgan Guyton (here) we aren’t ironic enough, we crave a 1950’s plasticated lifestyle and use the Bible as a political weapon to force a social agenda on people. Apparently there is no other option – either be committed to postmodernism or find oneself in an “enclave” of “Pleasantville.” It is not that I disagree with all that postmodernism says. Postmoderns provide stinging critiques of modernism, all well and good, but not much is provided to takes modernity’s place. In fact, many claim that postmodernism is really hyper-modernism, the modern project taken…
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Free Will
Just what, if one is a Calvinist, can be meant by human free will? And how, given that everything that happens is decided in advance, makes a human beings responsible for their actions? These are the most common questions aimed at those who are committed to a strong doctrine of sovereignty, one that features the idea that God determines all that happens in advance. Determinism is the idea that for everything that happens there are antecedent conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could occur. For a Calvinist, the antecedent condition in question is ultimately God’s will. God’s will is such that every event in creation is determined by God in advance of the event. We…