Christians claim that the Bible is not just like any other book. It is a book that is said to be divinely inspired. God moved the human authors to write books that contain the content God intends to communicate without entirely bypassing the human author. What follows from this? Let’s say it’s true. What properties does a divinely inspired book have that other books may not have? The very least we can say is that if scripture is divinely inspired then what scripture asserts is true.[22] God cannot lie or be mistaken in any claim he makes. If the Bible is divinely inspired then everything it affirms as true is a…
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Creation and Evolution: Plantinga’s Solution
Just how do we relate science and faith, specifically, the Christian faith? Christians who take their Bible seriously will also take reason seriously. God is eminently reasonable; one could even say God is reason. But all too often there is a feeling that Christians are caught between irrational, reason and science denying positions and compromise with their faith. Plantinga outlines three approaches to the problem. First, the two-truth approach. According to this view one might affirm a proposition in science and deny it in theology. Second, the truth-from-a-standpoint approach suggests that we can hold to apparently contradictory propositions since we can be sure of both being true according to the discipline…
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Herodiasian Times
Herodias Jared Wilson likens our time to a transition from Herod to Herodias (see here). He quotes Mark: “For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.” John makes a public claim, rooted in his worldview, that is “heard gladly” by Herod even while not taken to heart. Herodias, on the other…
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Calvin’s Sensus Divinitatis
John Calvin On the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation it is a little odd that we are still talking about Calvin’s sensus divinitatis. For one thing, the sensus appears only at the beginning of the Institutes and is somewhat dismissed by Calvin as being inadequate for saving anyone. The sensus is also a species of innate idea. But ever since John Locke’s Essay forced a retreat by nativists, talk of innate knowledge of anything has remained largely a niche activity. More recently, however, some philosophers of religion have proposed interpretations of Calvin’s sensus that do not entail innate ideas and thus do not fall foul to Locke’s criticisms. Although…
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Anderson on Frame, Van Til and Plantinga
In the canal of thought between epistemology and apologetics there exists a triad of thinkers who contribute, in different ways, to both disciplines. Yet few have articulated positive relationships between the thought of Cornelius Van Til, John Frame and Alvin Plantinga. Scott Oliphint, a Van Tillian, denounced Plantinga as beginning from an anti-Christian premise. Bahnsen, another Van Tillian, dismisses Frame for not being Van Tillian enough. Plantinga, for his own part, entirely ignores Van Til even though even though he presents very similar lines of argument. And then there are those, like my old prof, John Feinberg, who, though convinced of the success of Plantinga’s work, are nonetheless opposed to Van Til’s and Frame’s apologetic method. One exception…
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If Human Beings Know Anything God Must Know Everything
I have become fascinated by a single thought lately. I began thinking about it last year and have been trying to understand it ever since. The thought is something like this: In order for anyone to know anything, someone must know everything. Expressed more visually: if there is knowledge, there must be KNOWLEDGE. I found the idea in the writings of Cornelius Van Til who writes, “there must be comprehensive knowledge somewhere if there is to be any true knowledge anywhere.”1 The following, gleaned from something I wrote for a class during my MA, traces some of my thoughts on the matter, in particular, relating the idea to divine foreknowledge…
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God is not an Expert
We are used to hearing from the expert in our information-overload society. There is just too much to grasp on our own and so we need someone who spends his or her life on one subject. The media draw on experts to comment on news stories they feel ill equipped to analyse. But what if there was a person who knew everything about everything? God, it appears, fits that bill. God knows everything there is to know. His knowledge is exhaustive and comprehensive. In knowing one fact he also knows how all facts relate to that one fact. It is also knowledge in that it is true belief. What God believes is, by…