The central question for philosophy, says Cornelius Van Til, is the question of the one and the many or the universal and the particular.1 The question is central to the Greek philosophers especially as found in Plato. Plato, confronted with particularity in experience, advanced a universal realism, a realm of forms from which the soul is able to draw on ideas which connect particular things. For instance, a particular “chair” is connected (or participates) with a universal form, “chair.”2 The problem of the one and the many continues to plague philosophy in the modern period. David Hume contends that universals are nominal, found solely in discourse about particulars.3 The question…
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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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Transcendental Arguments for the Existence of God
Just what is a transcendental argument? Well let me attempt to explain. Transcendental arguments usually seek to demonstrate that human experience (or a particular part of human experience) has, as a necessary condition, the existence of or the belief in something. The form of the argument is simply that “there must be something Y if there is something X of which Y is a necessary condition”2 Robert Stern maintains that, strictly speaking, transcendental arguments are for a metaphysical precondition. He suggests that there are four common features in the metaphysical kind of transcendental argument. First, the claim is for a metaphysical condition usually arrived at a priori and obtains in every possible world.…
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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…
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Memory #4: Dutch Conviction
Cornelius Van Til Over the course of five years of study I have read a lot of books. Some I remember, some I don’t, but very few books have forced me to make a paradigmatic shift in my thinking. The writings of Dutch Calvinist, Cornelius Van Til, however, manage that trick amply. Van Til was professor of Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary and revolutionized his field. Van Til’s idea is remarkably simple, but commonly misunderstood. Van Til’s suggestion was that human experience, rationality, intelligibility and meaning is only possible if Christian Theism is true. In other words, the truth of Christian Theism is the necessary condition for the possibility of human experience. James Anderson, who teaches at Reformed Theological Seminary and…
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Why We Should Take Our Bibles to History Class
If something happens, is there a way to think about it that is truthful? Does every event have a particular meaning or is it open to interpretation? Does everything depend on how one looks at it, a myriad of perceptual angles? For Cornelius Van Til, all events in history are part of God’s plan. Consequently, the interpretation of an event has taken place prior to the event. The truth about the event is known, by God, long before the event occurs. For human beings this means that interpreting an event truthfully is to “think God’s thoughts after him.” However, not all that human beings can know about events can be known just by watching them. For…
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Answering the Impossible
Can God build a rock so big he can’t lift it? If I say yes, then God cannot be all-powerful because there would be something he couldn’t do. If I say no, then God cannot be all-powerful because there is a limit to how big a rock he could build. Perhaps God is not as powerful as we thought or perhaps asking for a rock that big is meaningless, like asking for a square circle. Sometimes the question appears impossible to answer. And that might just be the point – which ever way you turn there is a trap. I like this mind bending answer from Cornelius Van Til: “God…