Van Til's Evidence

8/12/2019 Van Til's Evidence

1/31

323

WTJ 74(2012): 323-53

CHRISTIANITY AND EVIDENTIALISM:

VAN TIL AND LOCKE ON FACTS AND EVIDENCE

N D. S

If we seek to defend the Christian religion by an appeal to the facts of experience in

accord with the current scientific method, we shall have to adulterate Christianity

beyond recognition.(Cornelius Van Til, Christian-Theistic Evidences)

Cornelius Van Tils rejection of brute factuality and his claim that the pur-

ported neutrality of evidentialist rationality is in its essence decidedly anti-Christian set the presuppositional apologetic method apart from all others.1In

this article, I present a study of Van Tils philosophies of fact and evidence in

comparison with the evidentialism of John Locke, arguably the quintessential

modern evidentialist. Section 1 is a brief survey of Lockes epistemology, focus-

ing on the nature of facts and their role in his theories of knowledge and belief.

In section 2 we turn to Van Til. Van Tils argument from predication leads us to

the theological underpinnings of his views of fact and evidence. Then in section

3, having Lockes and Van Tils views before us, we turn to Van Tils critique of

evidentialism and, specifically, his claim that evidentialism is ultimately com-mitted to creaturely rational autonomy. In this way Lockes epistemology serves

Nathan D. Shannon is a Ph.D. candidate in theology at the Free University of Amsterdam and adjunct professor

of philosophy at St. Josephs University, Philadelphia.1 For Van Til on the role of facts and evidence in Christian apologetics, see his Christian-Theistic

Evidences(vol. 6 of In Defense of the Faith; Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1978). There

are also relevant passages in Van Tils core texts: A Survey of Christian Epistemology(vol. 2 of In Defense

of the Faith; n.p.: den Dulk Christian Foundation, 1969); Common Grace and the Gospel (Nutley, N.J.:

Presbyterian & Reformed, 1977); Christian Apologetics (ed. William Edgar; 2d ed.; Phillipsburg, N.J.:Presbyterian & Reformed, 2003), 127-28, 148-59, 163-66, 190-91; An Introduction to Systematic Theology:

Prolegomena and the Doctrines of Revelation, Scripture, and God(ed. William Edgar; 2d ed.; Phillipsburg,

N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2007), 86-89, 242; The Defense of the Faith(ed. K. Scott Oliphint; 4th

ed.; Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2008), 18-19 (esp. 18 n. 78), 140-41 (esp. 140 n. 38),

304-5, 323-26. A helpful study of Van Tils method is K. Scott Oliphint, The Consistency of Van Tils

Methodology (Scarsdale, N.Y.: Westminster Discount Book Service, 1990), also published in WTJ

52 (1990): 27-49. See also Clark H. Pinnock, The Philosophy of Christian Evidences, and Van

Tils response, inJerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius

Van Til(ed. E. R. Geehan; Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1971); and Thom Notaro,

Van Til and the Use of Evidence (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980). Notaros text is a

helpful introduction. He provides a survey of the theoretical history of Van Tils view of evidences,

relying as it does in many ways on Abraham Kuyper, and presents Van Tils thought in debate with

his critics. Gary Habermass interaction with John Frame (An Evidentialists Response, inFive Views

on Apologetics [ed. Steven B. Cowan and Stanley N. Gundry; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000], 236-48)

rehearses many of the standard objections to the presuppositional position on evidence.


2/31

WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL324

as a test case for the claims Van Til makes against brute factuality and eviden-

tialist rationality.

As Gary Habermas wrote, presuppositional apologetics is as much a theologi-

cal view of apologetics as it is an apologetic method.2His view is common, andshould be welcomed by Van Tillian presuppositionalists. But what Habermas

and others have failed to recognize, or what Van Tillians have largely failed to

clarify, is Van Tils claim that trinitarian theology itself endorses one and only

one apologetic method as necessary, the transcendental, and that, given the

Christian-theistic transcendental or presuppositional foundation, just about any

apologetic approach is in play, including the use of evidence.3

Van Tils views on facts and evidence are closely linked to his transcendental

apologetic method; if Van Til is misunderstood on evidence, he will be misun-

derstood on the transcendental method as well.4And Van Tils views on facts and

2 Actually Habermas believes presuppositionalism is largely a theological position and not much

of an apologetic at all: Presuppositionalism is only an incomplete apologetic system. . . . So this posi-

tion is better described, not as a distinct apologetic method, but as a theological outlook on apolo-

getics (An Evidentialists Response, 241). Van Til indeed affirmed a basic connection between

theology and apologetics: But if apologetics is to do its work properly, it is important that systematics

work out fully its own methodology (Introduction to Systematic Theology, 26).3 The use of evidence, yes; evidentialism, no. Regarding the traditional theistic proofs, for ex-

ample, Van Til wrote, Calvin argues throughout his first book that men oughtto believe in God,

because there is, and has been from the beginning of time, an abundance of evidence of His exist-ence and of His character. There is objective evidence in abundance and it is sufficiently clear. Men

ought, if only they reasoned rightly, to come to the conclusion that God exists. That is to say, if the

theistic proof is constructed as it ought to be constructed, it is objectively valid, whatever the attitude

of those to whom it comes may be. To be constructed rightly, theistic proof ought to presuppose the

ontological trinity and contend that, unless we may make this presupposition, all human predication

is meaningless. The words cause, purpose, and being, used as universals in the phenomenal

world, could not be so used with meaning unless we may presuppose the self-contained God (Com-

mon Grace, 49). See also Van Til,Defense of the Faith, 197-98, and Oliphints explanatory note, 197 n.

47. Later in the same work Van Til says, Accordingly I do not reject the theistic proofs but merely

insist on formulating them in such a way as not to compromise the doctrines of Scripture (255).

See also Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Tils Apologetic: Readings and Analysis(Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian& Reformed, 1998), 613-22. Bahnsen writes, Since presuppositional apologetics opposes the tradi-

tional method, does it repudiate theistic proofs and appeal to empirical evidence? An affirmative

answer is often given by the opponents of presuppositionalism, yet that is a serious misrepresenta-

tion. Would it not be extremely odd for a defender of the faith to be antagonistic to proof and evi-

dence? One should suppose from the outset that an apologists misgivings would not be about proofs

or evidenceper se, but rather about the kindof proof and evidence employed and the mannerin

which it is used (613).4 In recent years, James Anderson, David Reiter, and other scholars have shown interest specifi-

cally in TAG, the transcendental argument for the existence of God. This philosophically rigorous

discussion overlooks the fact that in the context of Van Tils apologetic, the transcendental argument

amounts to the claim that Christianity is true, and everything contrary to it false. There is no indica-

tion in Van Tils writing that he had any interest in formal transcendental argumentation apart from

positive Reformed, Christian presuppositions. I think Lane Tipton is correct when he says, Van Til

never viewed his transcendental method as operating outside of a trinitarian theology and a corre-

sponding revelational epistemology. To construe Van Tils approach as attempting to establish his

theology on the basis of philosophical argumentationis simply to misunderstand his approach at a very

basic level. This would be to grant a priority to philosophy that Van Tils system in principle


3/31

325CHRISTIANITY AND EVIDENTIALISM

evidence are often misunderstood by both sympathetic and more critical readers.

I hope to dispel some of that confusion here. We begin with John Locke.

I.John Lockes Ideas: On Facts and Evidence

John Locke claims to derive epistemological certainty precisely from the bare

and uninterpreted nature of facts and from the passive receptivity of an unpreju-

diced mind. And, for Locke, rationality of belief flows from a measured employ-

ment of received ideas in assessing the probability of propositions not observed

with certainty. The subject proportions belief to the strength of known evidence.

So an abstract, systemless notion of fact is at the root of Lockes approach to

knowledge and belief.5

I will begin with a brief exposition of Lockes theory of ideas and his theory ofknowledge, and then discuss his theory of belief, dependent as it is in several

ways upon his theory of knowledge. We will turn to Lockes view of evidence

next, specifically his view of the function of evidence in the assessment of the

truth-likelihood of those propositions that cannot be known with certainty and

so can at best be believed with a measured degree of confidence. At that point I

will indicate the metaphysical implications of the nature and function of evidence,

which are in many cases flatly contrary to what we might expect given claims

Locke makes elsewhere in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The

goal is that this brief study will allow us to point out the ways in which Van Tilsapologetic draws attention to the decidedly anti-Christian presuppositions

operative in Lockes epistemology.

Nicholas Wolterstorffs study,John Locke and the Ethics of Belief, provides a

detailed analysis of Lockes epistemology. Wolterstorffs research is motivated by

his interest in the peculiar normativity of modern evidentialism and evidentialist

prohibits (Lane G. Tipton, The Triune Personal God: Trinitarian Theology in the Thought of

Cornelius Van Til [Ph.D. diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 2004], 170). Don Collett strikes

a nice balance in Van Til and the Transcendental Argument, in Revelation and Reason: New Essaysin Reformed Apologetics(ed. K. Scott Oliphint and Lane G. Tipton; Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian &

Reformed, 2007), 258-78.5 And so Lockes epistemology serves as a perfect test case for Van Tils critique of evidentialism.

Another motivation for working with Locke is the fact that Lockean evidentialism has been very

influential for modern epistemology and rationality, particularly in terms of what has been called

the evidentialist challenge to theistic belief. Wolterstorff describes Lockean evidentialism as the

form of evidentialism concerning theistic beliefs that has been most commonly espoused and dis-

cussed in the modern Western world. . . . It was John Locke who first propounded the thesis with

clarity and force (Nicholas Wolterstorff, Once Again, EvidentialismThis Time Social, in Practices

of Belief [ed. Terence Cuneo; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010], 267). Wolterstorff also writes,

Locke was the first to develop with profundity and defend the thesis that we are all responsible for

our believings, and that to do ones duty with respect to ones believings one must, at appropriate

junctures and in appropriate ways, listen to the voice of Reason. Reason must be ones guide. . . .

Locke was the great genius behind our modern ways of thinking of rationality and responsibility in

beliefs. And Lockes vision became classic: for many, compelling; by some, contested; by no one,

ignored. Locke, on this issue, is the father of modernity (Nicholas Wolterstorff, John Locke and the

Ethics of Belief[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996], xiv).


4/31


rationality, specifically in terms of the evidentialist challenge to religious belief.6

Since Wolterstorffs interest in Locke is similar to our own, and because he is not

a Van Tillian presuppositionalist, I find it helpful to track closely with his argu-

ments in what follows.

1. The Self-Presentation of Ideas, and Their Agreement or Disagreement

Following an opening salvo against the doctrine of innate ideas, Locke de-

clares, Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all

characters, without any ideas.7The mind is a clean and uncorrupted void, a ta-

bula rasa. It presupposes nothing, and has no natural apperceptive faculty. The

mind is blank receptivity. Whence has it all the materials of Reason and Knowl-

edge? you ask. To this I answer, in one word, from experience: In that, all ourknowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself.8So all the con-

tent of the mind originates in perceptual experience.

Locke supposed that the receptive-informative experience exhaustive of the

minds ideas comes in only two forms: Our observation employed either about

external, sensible objects; or about the internal operations of our minds, per-

ceived and reflected on by our selves, is that which supplies our understandings

with all the materials of thinking. These are the two foundations of knowledge . . .

first, our senses, or sensation, and secondly . . . the perception of the opera-

tions of our own minds within us, which Locke calls reflection.9

Since the mind, Locke continues, in all its thoughts and reasonings, hath

no other immediate object but its own ideas, which it alone does or can contem-

plate, it is evident that our knowledge is only conversant about them. Knowl-

edge then, he writes,

seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connection and agreement, or

disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas. In this alone it consists. Where per-

ception is, there is knowledge, and where it is not, there, though we may fancy, guess,

or believe, yet we always come short of knowledge. For when we know that white is notblack, what do we else but perceive, that these two ideas do not agree?10

6 Wolterstorff describes this interest succinctly in the introduction toJohn Locke and the Ethics of

Belief.See also his essay, Can Belief in God Be Rational if It Has No Foundations?, inFaith and

Rationality: Reason and Belief in God(ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff; Notre Dame:

University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), reprinted in Practices of Belief, 217-64.7 John Locke,Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 2.1.2. When quoting from theEssayI have

modernized spelling and capitalization and omitted Lockes italicization where it is not germane to

the present purposes. I use the Oxford University edition, edited by Peter H. Nidditch. At this point

it is important to mention that the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, Lockes

rubric for knowledge, is perception of a de rerelationship; it is not propositional knowledge, al-

though Locke does at times neglect the distinction. Wolterstorff notes that, in Lockes system, we

must, says Locke, distinguish between two sorts of propositions, mental and verbal, or between de

reand de dictorelations between ideas (John Locke, 18).8 Locke,Essay, 2.1.2.9 Ibid., 2.1.2, 3, 4.10Ibid., 4.1.1-2.


5/31


In sum, the substance of Lockes theory of knowledge rests on this concept of

ideas, ideas as the immediate perception of qualities of things. And following

Wolterstorff, we observe that the mind can be awaredirectlyaware . . . only of

the mental, of the modifications of the mind.11Ideas are representations, mentalrepresentations, of entities distinct from themselves, and Our various ways of

thinking about non-mental entities all presuppose our having ideas which are

representations of non-mental entities.12

Notice that not all ideas are themselves representations, since the mind is

capable of building composite ideas or of deriving abstract ideas from immediate

and simple ones. Complex ideas and ideas of substances, for example, according

to Locke, are not representations, but are inferred from direct and simple ideas.

Wolterstorff writes that what Locke wishes to insist on is simply that someof our

ideas are representations, and that our various ways of thinking about non-mentalentities all presuppose our having ideas which are representations of non-mental

entities.13So all of the minds ideas depend upon perceptual representations.

How can we be sure that the impressions in the mind are anything like the

objects in the world? Locke believed that objects in the world exercise their own

natural powers to make impressions on the receptive mind and that those powers

are consistent with the natures of the things themselves and thus truly represent

the objects of experience. So the gap between material reality and ideas in the

mind is bridged by the powers which objects in the world exercise in affecting

the mind.14

11Wolterstorff,John Locke, 14. One has insight, Wolterstorff writes, only into the existence of

ones mind, into ones having of ideas and ones performing of mental acts, and into the interrelation-

ships of these (Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lockes Philosophy of Religion, in The Cambridge Companion

to Locke[ed. Vere Chapell; Cambridge Companions to Philosophy; Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1994], 176). Notice that there is a distinction here between sensations and the ideas of which

those sensations are productive (though one cannot help seeing, one may choose more deliberately

to survey), and between mental actions and the ideas produced by deliberate reflection on those

mental actions. Locke makes the distinction clearer when he says that ideas of reflection are the

products of the mature reflection of capable adults than he does when he says concerning sensationthat having ideas, and perception . . . [are] . . . the same thing (Essay, 2.1.7-8, 9). Michael Ayers

writes, Lockes ideas, when not occurring in actual sensation (or reflection), are sensory images or

quasi-sensations. They are mental images in that to have an (occurrent) idea is evidently for Locke

to be in a state of consciousness: an idea must be taken notice of in order to exist (Michael Ayers,

Locke: Epistemology and Ontology[Arguments of the Philosophers; New York: Routledge, 1991], 51).12Wolterstorff,John Locke, 15. It bears noting that when Wolterstorff uses the language of repre-

sentationalism, he means to refer to ideas or images of both sensation and reflection. He follows

Lockes close association of the products of these two experiential sources of ideas. Despite the ques-

tions which such a formulation invites, Locke describes reflection as perception of the operations of

our own minds within us, noting that though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external

objects; yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense (Essay, 2.1.4).13Wolterstorff,John Locke, 15.14Ayers writes, To ignore for the present the special case of reflection, they [i.e., ideas] are

caused in us by external things acting on our sensory mechanisms. For that very reason simple ideas

must be taken to correspond to their objects in regular and orderly ways, even if we are ignorant of

the nature of those objects and of how they act on us. A simple idea is therefore . . . a natural sign

of its cause. As such it is a sign in another sense too, since it is naturally fitted to represent or


6/31


Since mental ideas are not conceptualized or constructively apperceived

compilations of sensations but are instead limited to the content of bare sense

impressions, Locke restricts ideas to pure empirical data: the appearanceof the

greenness of the grass, the sensationof the aroma of perfume, and so on. Sowhile he depends on the consistency of objects, powers, and impressions, Locke

denies that substances themselves can be known. Nominal substances, he says,

are knowable, but only as inference from the effectsmodifications of the

mindto the cause. In other words, we can know the things in themselves only

hypothetically, as the best available explanation for experiential data. Further-

more, ideas are simple for Locke, which means that the experience of an apple

will include distinct impressions of color, weight, texture, taste, and so on. But

the substances themselves are complex. Inference to a hypothetical substance in

which inhere all the powers that are sensed depends on the premise that theremust be some object in which those qualities bearing those powers are held

together. Realism is the best available theory.15

Naturally, primary and certain knowledge is always and only of particulars.

Universals are knowable only by abstraction. Locke will say, for example, that the

number two cannot be thought of except as the aspect of twoness exemplified by

a particular idea stripped of its individuating factors. If I hold two distinct

objects in my hand, by focusing strictly on the numerical aspect of the perceptual

impression, I can think about the abstract notion of twoness, but there can be no

direct experience of it. In the chapter on maxims, Locke affirms the superiorefficacy of particulars against necessary truths, a grudge he long held against his

scholastic education.16As Wolterstorff explains, Mental acts and mental images

are self-presenting. . . . The remainder of reality can be thought about only by the

mediation of mental objects which . . . represent items of non-mental reality not

directly present.17Such is the tenacity of ideas according to Locke.

Notice, finally, that the key to Lockes thought is his identification of the

knownwith the certain.18Knowledge is certain; and what is certain, is knowledge.19

signify in thought that feature of real things, whatever it may be, which is in general responsiblefor our receiving ideas or sensations of that type (Locke, 38).

15Again, Ayers: The simple appearance is taken by the mind as the sign of its unknown cause,

but the mind has no choice in the matter since that is what a natural sign signifies. Speculations as

to the intrinsic nature of its cause, whether true or false, are irrelevant to the signification of the idea

or to its truth (ibid., 40). John Yolton finds even this cautious hypothesis untenable: Lockes idea

of substance as an addition to the sensible qualities, as the locus of the real essence, is not derivable

from simple ideas of sense but is an hypothesis of reason (John Yolton,John Locke and the Way of Ideas

[Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956], 134).16Though these particular instances, when well reflected on, are no less self-evident to the

understanding than the general maxims brought to confirm them; and it was in those particular

instances, that the first discoverer found the truth, without the help of the general maxims: and so

may any one else do, who with attention considers them (Locke,Essay, 4.7.11).17Wolterstorff,John Locke, 16.18Nicholas Wolterstorff, The Migration of Theistic Arguments: From Natural Theology to Evi-

dentialist Apologetics, in Practices of Belief, 180.19Locke made this most clear in his second letter to Edward Stillingfleet: With me to know, and

to be certain, is the same thing; what I know, that I am certain of; and what I am certain of, that I


7/31


And certainty is a direct deliverance of ideas. Locke achieves admirable simplic-

ity: . . . given that the immediate object of our awareness is our ideas, it seems

obvious that one thing we can do is notice the relationsamong those ideas, those

that are just there before the minds eye.20In such noticing, there is no roomfor mistake and error. We are certain.21

Wolterstorff dubs this an inspectionist view of knowledge, since to know is

to notice that. And, he explains, the difference between Lockes epistemology

and the classical twentieth-century view of knowledge is that our contempo-

raries hold a non-inspectionist, pure assent(belief) view of knowledge, whereas

Locke held an inspectionist(noticing) view of knowledge.22Direct awareness, in

the form of ideas, as the first fact of knowledge, is the prize, the hallmark of

Lockean empirical certainty.

2. Belief and the Evidential Role of Ideas

Wolterstorff observes that Lockes theory of belief works in conjunction with his

theory of knowledge: belief begins where the certainty of knowledge ends. Where

perfect certainty escapes us, assent or judgment must reflect the probability of a

propositions being true as that probability is understood based upon a satisfac-

tory body of evidence, that evidence being things known with certainty.

Wolterstorff analyzes Lockes theory of belief in terms of three principles: the

principles of evidence, appraisal, and proportionality. The first is as follows.

Principle of evidence: Acquire evidence for and against the proposition such that each item of evi-

dence is something that one knows and such that the totality of ones evidence is satisfactory. 23

One must acquire sufficient and sufficiently relevant evidence both for and

against the proposition in question, and that evidence must be known, or, in

other words, certain and self-evident. The evidence Locke envisions is certain,

indubitable, impersonal, even (we may assume) objective. Locke understands evi-

dence as self-presenting, such that its acquisition requires only a minimally inten-tional (or minimally volitional) act of inspection. It would be difficult to argue

that Lockes insistence on epistemological deference to the facts themselves,

without bias, without interference of the passions, and without tradition or official

opinion wielding undue authority, as he says, does not imply the objectivity of

evidencedespite his reluctance to grant it. In other words, what prevents

Lockes metaphysic of knowledge slipping toward subjectivism is an implicit

know. What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of cer-

tainty, I think cannot be called knowledge (The Works of John Locke[10 vols.; London: Printed for

Thomas Tegg and others, 1823], 4:145, quoted by Wolterstorff, The Migration of Theistic Argu-

ments, 180).20Wolterstorff, The Migration of Theistic Arguments, 180.21Ibid., 181.22Ibid.23Wolterstorff,John Locke, 67.


8/31


metaphysical confidence that, explicitly, he disavows. We will examine this incon-

sistency more closely below. In Lockes mind, evidence is certain, and the uncer-

tainty and probability of belief are grounded in self-presenting knowledge.

The second principle is built upon Lockes insistence that evidence be col-lected both for and against a proposition, so that a net probability can be as-

signed to the proposition, and so that the truth-likelihood of a proposition

might be objectively appraised. Wolterstorffs second principle is thus the prin-

ciple of appraisal.

Principle of appraisal: Examine the (satisfactory) evidence one has collected so as to determine its evi-

dential force, until one has perceived what is the probability of the proposition on that evidence. 24

While in theEssayLocke moves quickly from evidence to probability, Wolter-storffs principle of appraisal brings into the still frame of analysis something

important, which is not, as one might think, the action of the subject relative to

a (satisfactory) body of (satisfactory) evidence. The action of the thinking person,

remember, is only minimal; it is not more than inspection. Instead, the principle

of appraisal serves to isolate the voice of the evidence. It brings into focus the

influence which Lockes theory of ideas has, via his epistemology and through

his understanding of evidence as things known, on the believability of proposi-

tions. As a direct result of this arrangement, the most material, the most purely

empirical, propositions are those which present themselves most readily to highlikeliness to be true, so that the class of the most material propositions consti-

tutes the class of the most believable propositions and each degree removed a

proposition is from direct perceptual experience counts against its likelihood to

be true. This is a core empiricist principle.

We now have this much clear: the probability of the proposition in question

(from the second principle) on sufficient evidence (from the first). Let us now

add the concept of degrees or levels of confidence or of assent. Wolterstorff calls

this Lockes principle of proportionality.

Principle of proportionality: adopt a level of confidence in the proposition which is proportioned

to its probability on ones satisfactory evidence.25

Locke himself places these three principles side by side: But their being

degrees herein, from the very neighbourhood of certainty and demonstration,

quite down to improbability and unlikeliness, even to the confines of impossi-

bility; and also degrees of assent from full assurance and confidence, quite

down to conjecture, doubt, and distrust. These, the several degrees of and

grounds of probability, must determine in proportion the several degrees ofassent or faith.26

24Ibid., 73.25Ibid., 79.26Locke,Essay, 4.15.2.


9/31


The principle of proportionality completes Lockes doxastic proposal for

our purposes. Wolterstorff offers a helpful summary. Lockes theory of belief

says that

the first thing to do is to collect satisfactory evidence concerning the truth or falsehood

of the proposition. That done, one must reflect carefully on the probability of the

proposition on that evidence. And finally, one is to proportion ones level of confidence

in the proposition to its probability on ones (satisfactory) evidence. To accomplish all

this, it is important that one be concerned solely with determining whether P is true or

false, entirely indifferent to any other value that believing or disbelieving P might

have for one.27

With this survey of Lockean evidentialism securely in place, we should be in a

good position to examine Van Tils critique of evidentialism and his rejection ofbrute fact. Before doing so, we should ask what Van Tils own view of evidence is.

I propose an indirect approach, beginning with an ancient philosophical conun-

drum variously known as the problem of predication, the problem of universals,

or the problem of the one and the many. We will trace Van Tils analysis of the

problem, and then examine his response to it. His response is, in a word, the

triune creator God; happily for us, it is also there, at the very essence of God, that

we should begin to unravel Van Tils philosophies of fact and evidence.

II. Van Til On Facts and Evidence

What do we have in mind when we talk about facts? Do we mean statements of

fact? Or do we mean, rather than statements, propositions? Propositions are

subject-predicate pairs which may be true or false. The cat is on the mat, apples

are sweet, and Socrates is a man, are all propositions.28Those certainly sound

like facts. Are these the facts we have in mind, or the facts Van Til has in mind?

To say that a fact is a proposition risks neglecting an important distinction. A

proposition is composed of both a subject, the thing we are talking about, and a

predicate, what we are saying about that thing. The cat is the subject, and [be-ing] on the mat is the predicate. We predicate being on the matof the cat. The full

picture then is of propositions and then of two distinguishable but essential

components of propositions, subjects and predicates.

This distinction deserves attention because if we are to say that propositions

are facts, we should be aware that propositions are composite things, and we

should note the implication that subjects and predicates are incomplete as facts,

or insufficient for factuality. If propositions are facts and facts are propositions,

then subjects and predicates are necessary for facts but are not themselves

27Wolterstorff,John Locke, 84.28Actually these are all sentences which, to put it loosely, give voice to propositions. A single

proposition may be expressed using various sentences, say, roughly equivalent sentences in different

languages (it is raining, es regnet, plou, all express the same proposition). Generally speaking,

philosophers have not come to any agreement about what propositions actually are.


10/31


facts. They, subjects and predicates, are the essential components of proposi-

tions and so of facts. Both would be necessary, but neither is individually suffi-

cient. Is this true?

What is it about the cat that makes it not quite a fact? And why should beingon the mat also not be a fact? Both are discernible, intelligible features of the

world, and is that a fact, an intelligible feature of the world? On the other hand,

there is indeed something about the proposition the cat is on the mat, as dis-

tinguished from the cat alone and being on the mat alone, that just says

fact. And what it is, I think, is the satisfying achievement of pinpointing an

instantiation of a generic predicate in an immediately recognizable, particular

object. That familiar light of intelligibility and meaning is illuminated the moment

the subject meets the predicate, the moment the act of predication joins the

predicate to a particular thing. We have a fact the moment being on the mat ispredicated of a particular thing, the cat. Prior to that, having in one hand

being on the mat and in the other the cat, and not yet having brought the

two together, we remain factless.

To see what I mean, notice that both the subject alone and the predicate

alone become more fact-like the more we understand each one as a subject-

predicate pair. The cat is not much of a fact as it is; but if we draw it into the

open somewhat to reveal something more complete, such as, the cat, this one, is

the cat Im talking about, we find ourselves with something more substantial,

something more factual in character, asubjectandpredicatematch: (S) That par-ticular catis (P) the thing I am talking about, as distinguished from other things or

other cats and all the things I am nottalking about. The same could be done with

the predicate is on the mat. By is on the mat, I mean not not on the mat,

and notunder the mat nor identical with the mat. The predicate is on the

mat is a particular mode of being in distinction from all others. It is specific and

exclusive temporally and spatially: there, now, right on top of thatmat. It indicates

a single time and space, an isness or existence. All that is to say that factuality is

to a large extent the product of the matching of a subject and a predicate, of

individuating a non-specific predicate in terms of a specific object.As long as we are still to have a fact, therefore, the predicate is inseparable

from the particular object, just like every chocolate chip cookie is a single cookie

bringing singular delight to the person ready with a cool glass of milk, at the same

time that a single cookie is an individuation of a broad class of snacks we desig-

nate chocolate chip cookies. No individual cookie is itself identifiable with the

class chocolate chip cookies, nor, conversely, is the class, the idea, the concept,

chocolate chip cookies, anything you could get your hands on and enjoy with a

glass of milk or a cup of tea or however you like. So the two, the cookie and

chocolate-chip-cookieness, are distinct, but both are necessary for predication,for saying that thing, that little disc of deliciousness, is a chocolate chip cookie.

We are claiming that subjects and predicates are necessary for factuality. What

we really mean is something more intriguing, that subjects and predicates are

necessary for intelligibility, and that subjects and predicates are, on their own,

unintelligible. Neither the single particular nor the non-individuated universal


11/31


is intelligible apart from the meaning-creative magic of predication.29One thing

we cannot do is discuss in analytical detail something which is unintelligible; I

cannot prove that something is invisible by pointing to it. The best thing we can

do in this case is to try to demonstrate the inter-dependence of subjects andpredicates in facts and predication.

For example, were there only the class, or the concept, chocolate chip cook-

ies, and no actual, particular such baked goodies, the class would not name

anything. It would be an empty class without a single member, a label stuck to

nothing. Chocolate chip cookies, referring to no particular thing, would be no

more informative than bla bla bla. Now suppose a single such baked snack, S,

existed, just one. Scould not be a single chocolate chip cookie; it could not be

an individualized member of a class nor could it represent (individualize) a

predicable concept, because there would be no class or concept at all, since thereis only S. So if there were only S, no one would know what I meant if I set off

pontificating about the features of chocolate-chip-cookieness, or about the supe-

rior qualities of chocolate chip cookies when compared to other kinds of cookies,

other kinds of snacks, other foods, other worldly things. However, if we had at

least two cookies, by distinguishing the similarities between them from the differ-

ences, we might begin to articulate in terms of the similarities a general concept

that embodies all the essential characteristics of chocolate chip cookies. Thus

chocolate-chip-cookieness would be intelligible only if and when it represents

associations between at least two particular things. For intelligibility, meaning,knowledge, predication, and so on, we need particulars; we need association.

But of course we do indeed think in terms of the class chocolate chip cook-

ies, and we depend upon it when we name and identify individual cookies. If I

say that, right now, as I write, I have two chocolate chip cookies on my desk, you

will have a pretty good idea what I mean, without seeing them, though you would

be without any information on these particular cookies: their size, chocolate chip

to dough ratio, and so forth. If we had individual cookies but were without the

concept, there would be no way to indicate a general similarity between two or

more particular snacks. Notice that without any predicates at allmade of flour,egg, butter, sugar, and chocolate chips; round in shape and a couple of inches in

diameter; sweet and delicious; goes great with milk or teawe would have no way

to talk about them. We would have no way of making associations and hence no

way of referring to them, in concept or symbol, in thought or speech.

What I have just attempted to illustrate is the problem of predication, vari-

ously known as the problem of the one and the many or the problem of univer-

sals.30It is a problem as the existence of the world is a problem: we depend

29Notice that there may be linguistic propositions or purely cognitive (pre-linguistic) proposi-

tions. I can say the cat is on the mat, but I can also simply think about the cats being on the mat.

By including the latter, the claim that predication requires subjects and predicates becomes the

claim that intelligibility and knowledge require subjects and predicates.30Van Til explains the problem this way: The manymust be brought into contact with one an-

other. But how do we know that they can be brought into contact with one another? How do we

know that the many do not simply exist as unrelated particulars? The answer given is that in such a


12/31


constantly and in the most basic ways upon its being true and reliable, but it is

difficult to explain. Our need for it and dependence upon it are far greater than

our control over it and understanding of it. Thinking and speaking about things

in the world seems at one moment to favor the universal and at other momentsto favor the particular, and at one and the same time thought appears drawn

toward the nobility of drawing general conclusions, while an overemphasis on

generalizations tends to rob those generalizations of their content and applica-

bility to particular things. In other words, predication is the intentional or repre-

sentational association of concrete particulars (subjects) with abstract universals

(predicates), and it simply cannot be avoided; it is the very structure of thinking

and speaking to match universals and particulars, concrete things with abstract

things. Predication is the very fabric of intelligibility. But it is terribly difficult to

account for the fact that it can be done.31

Van Til was keyed into this problem with peculiar intensity. The whole prob-

lem of knowledge, he wrote, has been that of bringing the one and the many

together.32And he saw the problem of predication as the flashpoint for apolo-

getic methodology. In light of Christian truth, he wrote, we would reduce all the

historical theistic arguments to the one argument from human predication.33

Van Til argues, in sum, that unless we presuppose the triune God of Scripture,

our predication has no field of operation.34It seems clear then, that the prob-

lem of predication lies at the core of our interest in evidence, evidentialism, and

how these relate to the defense of the faith.Van Til has written a great deal on this question in terms both of his critique

of unbelieving thought and of a positive construction of a Christian philosophy

of fact and predication. A challenge facing Van Tils readers is synthesis, how-

ever, since his thoughts on the matter are scattered throughout his writings and

are not always spelled out for the reader. In what follows, I will piece together, as

succinctly as a fair representation of the material allows, Van Tils analysis of

non-Christian thought on the problem of predication. Then I will present Van

Tils own account of predication based on his triune-theistic philosophy of fact.

case we should know nothing of them; they would be abstracted from the body of knowledge that

we have; they would be abstract particulars. On the other hand, how is it possible that we should

obtain a unity that does not destroy the particulars? We seem to get our unity by generalizing, by

abstracting from the particulars in order to include them into larger unities. If we keep up this

process of generalization till we exclude all particulars, granted they can all be excluded, have we

then not stripped these particulars of their particularity? Have we then obtained anything but an

abstractuniversal? (Defense of the Faith, 48-49).31The philosophers have sought for a unified outlook on human experience. Philosophers have

sought for as comprehensive a picture of the nature of reality as a whole as man is able to attain. But

the universe is composed of many things. Mans problem is to find unity in the midst of the plurality

of things. He sometimes calls this the one-and-many problem (Van Til,Defense of the Faith, 47; see

also Oliphints explanatory note, ibid., n. 7).32Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 30.33Van Til, Psychology of Religion(n.p.: den Dulk Christian Foundation, 1971), 58.34Ibid., 59.


13/31


1. The One and the Many: Synchronic and Diachronic

We can approach the problem of predication from two points of view: syn-

chronic and diachronic.35A synchronic approach puts things in terms of a snap-shot of reality. It is interested in objects. We pause time in order to think critically

about objects, their relations, and our knowledge of the world. A diachronic

approach, by contrast, is interested in events and in change and difference over

time. We try to step outside of time and observe the flow of things. Let us start

with the former, the synchronic approach.

For Van Til, Plato and Aristotle represent two complementary approaches to

the problem of the one and the many. Van Til believes both Plato and Aristotle

failed to solve the problem because they both proposed theories of predication

favoring either unity or plurality at the expense of the other. Van Til refers some-times to one emphasis and sometimes to the other, but he understands these

approaches to be of a kind. They both took the one-and-many to be a dichotomy

or a dualism that they then set out to harmonize or rationalize.

Believing that predication depended upon the intelligibility of the predicates

themselves, Plato posited the forms, eternal, heavenly exemplars of predicates

like good, just, and beautiful.36When we predicate is beautiful of one thing,

and then of another, and perhaps of a third, we imply that the predicate is con-

sistent, that it does not change from one moment to the next.37But it is a question

of meaning, not only of continuity. If no account can be given for the determi-nacy of the referent, if we do not know what a term or a predicate refers to, then

we do not know what it means at all, let alone whether its meaning is a constant.

If there is no such thing as beauty, the predicate is beautiful does not really say

anything. So Plato thought of the forms as the eternal constants anchoring

predication and meaning in the high, incorruptible heavens. He posited the

forms as a way to account for predication. The forms are the universals predica-

ble of particulars.38

35More often a distinction is made between metaphysical and epistemological approaches to theproblem of the one and the many or the problem of universals. See Oliphints explanatory note in

Van Til,Defense of the Faith, 47 n. 7. That distinction is, however, more pragmatic than actual. The

metaphysical approach can never escape the fact that what it discusses is how things are referred to,

which is an epistemological question; the epistemological approach cannot be much concerned for

our cognitive access to things without some metaphysical confidence in the things about which we

know and have beliefs. I opt for a synchronic and diachronic distinction because I believe it better

represents the ways in which Van Til most often discusses the problem.36Naturally what I say here is vastly simplified. On Platos doctrine of forms see Frederick J.

Copleston, Greece and Rome: From the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus(vol. 1 of A History of Philosophy; 9 vols.;

New York: Image Books, 19931994), 163-206.37As you know, we customarily hypothesize a single form in connection with each of the many

things to which we apply the same name (Plato, Resp. 596a, in Plato: Complete Works [ed. John M.

Cooper; Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997], 1200).38As Socrates explains to Cebes, I think that, if there is anything beautiful besides the Beautiful

itself, it is beautiful for no other reason than that it shares in the Beautiful, and I say so with every-

thing. . . . If someone tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a bright color or shape or any

such thing, I ignore these other reasonsfor all these confuse mebut I simply, naively and perhaps


14/31


Platos forms are sort of like gods and sort of not like gods. They certainly en-

croach on the claims of theism: they are eternal and self-defined, and they are

the necessary reference points for intelligibility in the world. And yet, the forms

are impersonal and in that sense unlike god(s).39

Impersonality is a problem in the following way. Plato said that the highest

form was the Good. His optimism is commendable. Actually Plato used the

Greek word to\a)gaqo/n,orh9tou=a)gaqou=i0de/a.40The problem is that Plato wouldnot be able to tell us two things: why h9tou=a)gaqou=i0de/ais good, or preferable(even normative), and how, as he hoped, to\a)gaqo/nmanages to come out ontop, such that we should reject its complement, evil, and such that we could,

with confidence and sincerity, defend the value of pursuing to\a)gaqo/ninsteadof its complement.41Unless moral properties are indexed to a person, to a divine

person, in fact, they are only intelligible as complements or counterparts. Assuch, neither is better, preferable, normative, or good versus evil; one is one and

one is the other. Impersonal complementarity provides as much moral clarity as

a chess board.

But the more intractable difficulty for Platos doctrine of the forms is that it is

false. Or, more charitably, if it were true, Plato would have no way of knowing.

Suppose a most sincerely inquisitive student were to have asked Plato, Master, is

h9tou=a)gaqou=i0de/agood because you say so, or do you say it is good because it isgood?42Plato would have had two equally unappealing options. The former, in

which Plato could confess to have invented moral goodness and designed it ac-cording to his own will and preference, has an epistemological advantage going

for it: if Plato himself unilaterally decrees moral goodness according to the plea-

sure of his own will, we knowthe provenance of moral value, Plato himself, and

Plato could never err morally; he could never be immoral, so long as he re-

mained self-consistent. The latter option avoids self-deification and subjectivism

but kicks the epistemological can down the road: if it isgood, if Plato just found

foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharingin, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned, for I will not insist

on the precise nature of the relationship, but that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful

(Phaedo, 100c-d, in Works, 86). See also Oliphint, Reasons for Faith(Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian &

Reformed, 2006), 39-41.39Van Til writes, He [Plato] looks upon this ideal world as one consisting of impersonal princi-

ples (Introduction to Systematic Theology, 172).40See, for example, Resp. 508c-509a (Works, 1129).41Plato saw that somehow the Good had to be supreme if there was to be intelligible predica-

tion. He recognized, Van Til writes, that otherwise absolute negation and absolute affirmation

would cancel one another . . . but he could not get rid of the mud and hair and filth in the ideal

world (Cornelius Van Til, Christian Theistic Ethics[vol. 3 of In Defense of the Faith; n.p.: den Dulk

Christian Foundation, 1971], 21).42When Socrates asked Euthyphro whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it

is holy, or holy because it is beloved by the gods, he sought to make plain that all law must, in the

nature of the case, be above all personality (Van Til, Common Grace, 6). On the same page Van Til

says, The Good, the Trueand the Beautifulas abstract principles, hovering above all gods and men

these are the universals of non-Christian thought.


15/31


it that way and recognized its goodness, how did he recognize goodness? What

did he recognize, exactly?

Here Plato has no answer. To borrow a phrase from Locke, however Plato

sometimes lights on truth, he is in the right but by chance; and I know notwhether the luckiness of the accident will excuse the irregularity of his

proceeding.43While he may be able to distinguish moral good from moral evil

most of the time, and for the most part to most peoples liking, he cannot

account for that distinction (unless it is all his own), nor can he substantiate his

very hopeful declaration that the Good is ultimate. Good, just, and beautiful

simply refer to the greatest conceivable predicates for Plato himself, or for Plato

and his friends, or for Plato and whoever agrees with him. As Rorty said, truth is

what our friends let us get away with saying. And it all works splendidly until

someone challenges Plato. He would have to either convince us to follow him asour moral authority or provide an account for goodness and tell us how he

knows what it looks like, given that the forms of the Good, the Beautiful, and the

Just are so heavenly pristine as to have no particular features to them at all. Plato

has, in effect, written the contents of his own mind on the ceiling and declared,

pointing upward, There in the heavens lie our abiding universals!44

Aristotle, likely Platos most prolific student, began with particular essences

and the distinguishability of individual things.45He rejected his teachers heavenly

forms, or so it might seem, and thought instead that there was a single universal,

beingjust being. On Aristotles model, predication reduces to naming subdivi-sions of being, of distinguishing finer and finer individuations of being accord-

ing to essences. So meaning resides in essences, in individual, particular things.

But in order to say or know anything about a particular thing, one must take a

step or two back, broaden the scope, loose the finer details, and make associa-

tions with other particular things.46

Aristotle specialized in recognizing, with inimitable conceptual dexterity,

how things are related and how they are distinguished. But he was not unaware

of the need to account for predication, of the need to justify somehow the

applicability of increasingly extensive and proportionally vague predicates. Heknew that to say this object is X and that object is X, he must have a referent

for X that comprehends both objects but is limited to, or exclusive to, neither

one. And beyond that, another, broader association wants for yet another more

43Locke,Essay, 4.17.24.44There is no true transcendence in Platonism (Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 202).45Aristotle discusses predication most directly in the logical works, especially in the Categories,

the Topics, and the Posterior Analytics. See Copleston, Greece and Rome, 277-86. My brief synopsis alludes

also to Aristotles metaphysics. Copleston is helpful there as well (ibid., 287-319).46For example, here is Merriam Websters definition of apple: the fleshy, usually rounded red,

yellow, or green edible pome fruit of a usually cultivated tree (genus Malus) of the rose family

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apple [accessed March 30, 2012]). Fleshly,

rounded, red, yellow, or green are broad descriptors which apply to any number of things aside

from apples, and which depend for their meaning on those broader applications, but they are not

unidentifiable, heavenly forms.


16/31


comprehensive predicate. A single prediction sets the whole thing in motion,

and sooner or later a magnificent tapestry of predication requires universal

grounding. We need a predicate which applies to everything, a universal predi-

cate. Not much could be said about this universal without compromising itsuniversality, without weighing it down with some measure of particularity. To

get at it, Aristotle had to balance two concerns: the ultimate thing could not be

material (since materiality implies limitation), and the ultimate thing could not

depend essentially on anything else (which is a kind of limitation). The result

was thought thinking itself.

Whatever irked Aristotle about Platos forms, it was the abstractness and mys-

teriousness that he most directly rejected by turning instead to the immediacy of

the facts of experience and the essences of material things. But Aristotles notion

of individuating essences, as helpful as it is, faces a few problems. One is that, forall that effort, essences are notindividual things, but abstractions. What I mean is

this. Aristotle said that man is essentially a rational animal. He is an animal like

so many others but distinguished by the natural endowment of rationality. His

essence is rational animal. But show me rational animal. Where is rational animal?

What does it look like? How tall is it? Does it have a name, or any special abilities?

What does it eat and what does it like to do? These questions can be answered of

individual men, but not of the essence of man, because that essence is not a man

but an abstraction. Rational animalis, clearly, not a particular thing, but an

abstract predicate, different, at the end of the day, only by a slight measure ofdetail, from a Platonic form.47

Another problem is that Aristotles essentialism is, like Platos doctrine of

forms, imaginary. Aristotle has, in effect, proposed a concept that he hopes

will provide for the predicatory intercourse between universal and particular,

between abstract predicates and the hard factuality of experience. So Aristotle

speaks of essences, and such talk has proved tremendously influential, but it is

neither more reliable as a theory of predication nor more verifiable than

Platos theory of forms. Aristotles principle departure from his teachers work

was that he decided to bet on the immediacy of experience where Plato hadbeen less confident in it and had favored the constructs of abstract reason.

Aristotle dragged Platos forms down from heaven, and imagined them tethered

to the factuality of experience. In fact, Aristotles essences are no less abstract

than Platos.48

47While Aristotle may be said to be more empiricist than was Plato, it remains true that he held

to essentially the same ideal of knowledge that Plato had. He says specifically and repeatedly that

knowledge is of universals and of universals only. That is to say, only such knowledge can be said to

be scientific knowledge as enables man to reduce facts to logical relations. Therefore knowledge,

properly speaking, is only of species (Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 264). See also the

explanatory note by Edgar on the same page (n. 11).48In a non-Christian scheme of thought abstract universals and particulars stand over against

one another in an unreconcilable fashion. Such was the case in Platos philosophy. Aristotle sought

to remedy the situation by teaching that the universals are present in the particulars. But he failed

to get genuine contact between them, inasmuch as for him the lowest universal (infima species) was,


17/31


Van Tils claim that Plato and Aristotle taken together demonstrate the one

and many dualism at the presuppositional level in non-Christian thought ex-

plains his references to a Platonic-Aristotelian methodology, phraseology no

doubt unnerving to readers of philosophy who understand the differences be-tween these two pillars of Western thought to be so basic as to make any associa-

tion too superficial to be of much use.49That frustration takes Van Tils point to

be the problem, but it is not; the dualism itself is the problem, which is actually

Van Tils point. Both thinkers, in their respective attempts to account for predi-

cation, chose to prioritize either the universal (the one, or oneness, Plato) or the

particular (the many, Aristotle), and both accomplished a great dealthey

composed formidable and influential philosophical systemsbut neither solved

the basic problem of predication. And who could think of two people more

qualified to grapple with an ageless philosophical conundrum? Seeing these twogiants lying vanquished at the feet of the problem of the one and the many

makes the problem itself appear that much more daunting.

In Van Tils writings we also find frequent mentions of the one and many

problem from a diachronic point of view. The difficulty of relating distinct par-

ticulars by means of stable and universal predicates may be construed diachron-

ically by thinking instead of the difficulty of the stability of meaning through

time and change. Van Til refers to a polarity similar to the Platonic-Aristotelian

one embodied in the thought of Heraclitus and Parmenides.50Imagine Plato

and Aristotle looking together at a forest. Plato argues that the constitutive real-ity is the forest, in the sense that the forest best approximates unparticularized and

pristine treeness, in reference to which each tree is recognizable as a tree. Aristo-

tle argues that the forest is the thing to focus on only as far as it represents the

relatively few features shared by all individual trees contained within it. The for-

est is not anything but the association of innumerable trees. Notice that the pic-

ture they are debating is static.

Re-orienting their discussion in terms of temporal and eternal or in terms of

being (isness, a static notion) and becoming (change from one thing to an-

other over time), is what Van Tils reference to Heraclitus and Parmenidescaptures.51These two Greeks argue over how it is that the seed, the bud, the

after all, a supposed abstraction from particulars. Hence the particulars that were presupposed were

bare particulars, having no manner of contact with universality. And if they should,per impossibile,

have contact with universality, they would lose their individuality (Van Til, Common Grace, 81).49He says, for example, that Thomas notion of mans participation of mans knowledge in

Gods knowledge has not cut itself free from its monistic origin in Platonic Aristotelian thought

(Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 97).50The interpretations of the natural reason, made by the aid of abstract principles and brute

facts can, in the nature of the case, lead with rationalism (Parmenides) into a universal validity that

is empty of content, or with empiricism (Heraclitis) to a particularism that has no universality, or to

a phenomenalism that is a compromise between these two positions and shares the weaknesses of

both (Van Til, Common Grace, 64). See also Oliphint, Reasons for Faith, 42-45.51An explanatory note by Oliphint reads, These notions are aspects of Van Tils overall critique

of unbelieving thought as inherently dialectical. The dialectic, generally, is one of rationalism/ir-

rationalism. For Van Til, the non-Christian principle of continuity is best exemplified in Parmenides


18/31


young tree fresh with bright green leaves, and the tall, foreboding oak, are all a

single thing. Parmenides refuses to recognize a difference: there appears to be

change, but in the end, change dissolves into a singularity of unified being, a

great, still isness. Heraclitus will not be outdone. He says that there really is notree, since nothing ever is at all, certainly not in the way Parmenides means it;

there is only constant becoming.

Heraclitus did believe that we could speak of a unifying principle of all things,

thelogos. But this unifying logos, he argued, was itself constant change. Panta Rei,

he declared: everything flows, changes, and becomes, without end. One can

never step into the same river twice, he reportedly said. In other words, the par-

ticulars are the only real things; since there is no unity behind or above the par-

ticulars of experience, we cannot hope to unify them through broader and

broader associations, or by reference to static universals. Heraclituss positionforces us to take experience with utter seriousness but the intelligibility of experi-

ence with a large grain of salt: whatever we think we know we cannot really know,

since neither we, the knowers, nor the things we know, are ultimately anything at

all but crests and troughs in the flux of unending change. Before you can say,

that is a chocolate chip coo . . . it has become something else, and so have you.

When Heraclitus predicates an irreducible flux to all things, he demonstrates

Van Tils illustration of the man made of water trying to climb out of water on a

ladder made of water.52There is a patent absurdity to a categorical declaration

such as Heraclitusspanta reiwhich entails the impossibility of categorical predi-cation. In other words, Heraclitus made a claim, that all is change, that under-

mines the intelligibility of predication itself. To say that xisyis only to point to a

glimmer of light, a fleeting reflection, on the troubled and turbid waters of be-

coming. Before you have finished uttering the words, xis no longer what it was,

yhas disappeared, and the association you had hoped to make is unintelligible

noise.53But if this is truly the picture Heraclitus had in mind, what of his declara-

tion all things that exist (x) are things that change (y)? It too must be meaningless.54

monism. For Parmenides, all that is, is being. Anything else would be nonbeing and thus would notbe. The non-Christian principle of discontinuity is best exemplified by Heraclitus. Heraclitus

taught that everything is in flux, and thus one never steps into the same river twice. So, the principle

of continuity is focused on unity, and the principle of discontinuity is focused on diversity (Defense

of the Faith, 133 n. 25).52Suppose we think of a man made of water in an infinitely extended ocean of water. Desiring

to get out of water, he makes a ladder of water. He sets this ladder upon the water and against the

water and then climbs out of the water only to fall into the water. So hopeless and senseless a picture

must be drawn of the natural mans methodology based as it is upon the assumption that time or

chance is ultimate (Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 131-32). See also Van Til,Defense of the Faith(4th

ed.), 124-25.53All things change into their opposites as Parmenides said with regard to Heraclitus position.

There is no subject to which a predicate can be attached and there is no predicate to attach to a

subject (Van Til, Psychology of Religion, 59).54This is a simplification of Heraclituss views, from what we can tell. It would appear that Hera-

clitus made much more of an attempt to balance the one and the many than Van Til gives him credit

for. See Copleston, Greece and Rome, 38-46. However, in the Cratylus(402a), Plato has Socrates say,

Heraclitus says somewhere that everything gives way and nothing stands fast, and, likening the


19/31


Parmenides is said to have declared that all is one, and to have argued that

we may say of all things only that they are. By predicating this stable unity of all

things, Parmenides hoped to anchor the intelligibility of predication and

thought in the bedrock universality of being, beyond our own cognitive-experi-ential naivet and the confusing array of particularity.

Parmenides taught that the defender of the reality of change faced a dilemma.

Suppose something comes to be, he said: something changes from Ato B, or B

appears when and where it previously was not. Bmust have come (1) from being

(from Aor something else) or (2) from non-being. Since from nothing nothing

comes, it cannot be the latter. But if it is the former (from Aor something else),

if it came to be from being, it already was, and so did not genuinely come to be.

In other words, it is impossible for anything to come to be, simpliciter, so every-

thing that has been or ever will be simply is.55Parmenides dilemma has the feelof Cartesian reductionism. It is, in effect, a line of questioning roughly like this:

what is the one thing that always is, that cannot be doubted, and which must, in

all other things, be assumed? The answer is being, just being.

His effort too ends in confusion: despite the unity of being providing that

anchor for thought and predication, no predicate more specific or more particu-

lar than beingis really true.56For Parmenides, reality is stable enough to know

something about it, but the only thing knowable is that it is stable. As Oliphint

says, Though we seem to have lost Heraclituss flowing river in Parmenides static

ocean, we seem also to have lost Heraclitus, and Parmenides, and the differencesthat forced the theories in the first place.57

The failure of non-Christian thought to account for the universality and par-

ticularity essential to predication and knowledge is an important part of Van Tils

apologetic outlook. To all this we must humbly but confidently reply, he says, by

saying that we have the best of philosophical justification for our position. . . . We

as Christians alone have a position that is philosophically defensible.58

Another important part of Van Tils apologetic outlook, the constructive

counterpart to this dismal take on the inability of philosophy to make sense of

the world, is Van Tils explanation of Christian, triune-theistic, philosophies of

things that are to the flowing of a river, he says that you cannot step into the same river twice

(Works, 120). So Van Tils representation of Heraclitus stands as well as Platos does.55Here is how Copleston puts it: His doctrine in brief is to the effect that Being, the One, is, and

that Becoming, change, is illusion. For if anything comes to be, then it comes either out of being or

out of not-being. If the former, then it already isin which case it does not come to be; if the latter,

then it is nothing, since out of nothing comes nothing. Becoming is, then, illusion. Being simply is

and Being is One, since plurality is also illusion (Greece and Rome, 48).56This remark of Van Tils, regarding any Platonic methodology, is applicable to Parmenides:

The burden of the whole matter lies in the fact that on any Platonic, or semi-Platonic, basis, the

conditional can have no meaning (Common Grace, 82).57Oliphint, Reasons for Faith, 42. Van Til says, Parmenides concluded that to understand any-

thing historical, it would have to be reduced to an element in a timeless system of categories. Note

that this is a diachronic application of Platos doctrine of the forms. He therefore denied the reality

and significance of all historical plurality (Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 32).58Van Til, Common Grace, 8.


20/31


fact and predication. His view goes something like this: Predication, and even

knowledge, is basically one and many because the object of knowledge is basi-

cally one and many. Facts are essentially one and many because creation itself is

intrinsically, essentially, diachronically and synchronically one and many. Andthis is so because God the creator is essentially and from all eternity personal,

a se, and triuneone and many. Let us see how he gets there.

2. Van Tils Philosophy of Fact

Van Tils philosophy of fact depends basically on two theological doctrines:

the doctrine of God, specifically trinitarian theology, and the doctrine of cre-

ation. In order to understand Van Tils philosophy of fact and his theory of

predication, and his basic apologetic outlook, we must begin with theology. Thatfact is worth noting in its own right. Many of Van Tils appreciative readers no

less than many of his critics miss the fact that for Van Til it is both true that ones

theology or philosophy of the ultimate nature of things implies necessarily cer-

tain things about ones view of factuality and of human thought and predication,

and likewise that ones views of factuality and of human thought and predication

imply certain things about ultimate reality. It was not for nothing that Van Til was

a presuppositionalist: he believed that truth claims stood or fell in terms of the

consistency between ultimate commitments and immediate claims.59There can

be no more ultimate commitment than ones theology proper; so we begin withthe doctrine of God.

3. The Doctrine of God

Van Til wrote continuously, it seems, of divine aseity, personality, and triunity,

and a distinctive feature of Van Tils writing on theology proper is that he under-

stood these three central doctrines as interdependent. He believed that aseity

should be understood as triune-personal, divine personality as triune and a se,

and triunity as personal and absolute, completely self-defined, and self-existent.The aseity of God may be defined, and it may be illustrated. Affirming divine

aseity is to say that God is a se, of or toward himself; his existence is self-reflexive.

In terms of howGod exists, we may say that God is self-defined: there are no predi-

cates outside of God that he must refer to in order to be who he is or to know

himself. God is intelligible to himself without association to anything but himself.

He is of, to, for, and from himself. So also in terms of whatGod is, Gods being is

59The investigation of any fact whatsoever will involve a discussion of the meaning of Christian-

ity as well as of theism, and a sound position taken on the one involves a sound position on the other

(Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, 207). He also says, To argue by presupposition is to indi-

cate what are the epistemological and metaphysical principles that underlie and control ones

method, and, To admit ones own presuppositions and to point out the presuppositions of others

is therefore to maintain that all reasoning is, in the nature of the case, circular reasoning. The starting

point, the method, and the conclusion are always involved in one another (Defense of the Faith,

121-22, 123).


21/31


necessary.60To affirm the necessity of Gods being is simply to affirm his absolute

independence, and thus to affirm that the nonexistence of God is impossible.

God depends on nothing outside of himself for his existence. Along these lines,

Reformed theology has traditionally affirmed that God eternally wills himself andeternally knows himself, such that God himself is the only eternal, necessary

object of his will and the only eternal, necessary object of his knowledge.61

We may illustrate divine aseity by remembering that before God created the

world, there was only God. We need to step lightly here in terms of what we

predicate of eternity prior to and apart from creation. The best thing to say is

that there was only God. To say that there was nothing in the place of creation

is not as precise as it should be, since, as Van Til affirmed, there were neither

things nor non-things against which God existed, defined himself, or knew him-

self: The eternal one and many form a self-complete unity. God is absolutepersonality and therefore absolute individuality. He exists necessarily. He has no

nonbeing over against himself in comparison with which he defines himself; he is internally

self-defined.62

So, for example, when we say that God is eternal, we do not mean that God is

outside of time nor that he is within time but immune to it (that he does not

change). That would be to define God relative to time and in terms of some-

thing external to himself, even if by contrast. Precisely the contrary is meant by

affirming eternity: God is notdefined by nor relative to time. We would say the

same thing about moral goodness. Gods goodness is essential to his own being;his being is his goodness and his goodness his being. Gods goodness is not

defined or understood or confirmed with reference to either an abstract or a

created moral property or any notion of justice outside of himself. And so on for

all the essential attributes of God. For Van Til, this is simply a consistent affir-

mation of aseity. Apart from and prior to creation all that is is the positive self-

existence of God. Before the creation, there was only God.63

Closely connected with divine aseity is the doctrine of simplicity, which denies

any composition in God: God is not composed of parts.64God is his knowledge,

and God is his will, and so on. So while Gods will and his knowledge are

60He identified himself without the need of other facts from which he needed to be distin-

guished. There was no universal being of which he was a particular instance (Van Til, Introduction

to Systematic Theology, 367).61See Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed

Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, vol. 3: The Divine Essence and Attributes(2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker

Academic, 2003), 406-10; and K. Scott Oliphint, God With Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes

of God(Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 93-99, esp. n. 12.62Van Til,Defense of the Faith, 47 (emphasis added).63Before the world was, God existed from all eternity as a self-contained and self-sufficient being.

From the Christian point of view, it is impossible to think of the nonexistence of God. It is very well

possible to think of the nonexistence of the world. In fact, we believe that the world once upon a time

did not exist; it was created by God out of nothing (Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 29).64Van Til understood simplicity and aseity as interdependent: The self-existence of God can be

maintained only if we start concretely with the notion of God as the fulness of self-contained being

(ibid., 333).


22/31


distinguishable, they are not essentially distinct nor in any sense separate from

the nature of God. Simplicity precludes our thinking that God comes to know

himself over the course of time or learns discursively about his own thoughts or

will. God knows in the same mode that he wills and that he exists: in eternalself-completeness.65

Since the Council of Nicaea in .. 325, the church has affirmed that God is

one substance and three persons. Divine personality has largely been articulated

in terms of the incommunicable attributes of the three persons (the unbegotte-

ness of the Father, the eternal begottenness of the Son, and the procession of the

Spirit from the Father and the Son), emphasizing the threeness of divine per-

sonality. Needless to say, Van Til affirms orthodox trinitarianism, but in addition

to affirming tri-personality, he affirms that God is one person: We do assert that

God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one person.66This is simply to say that Godis absolute personality,67and that there is no sense in which God is impersonal.

The triune personality is a se and simple: If God is being considered apart from

his relation to the world, being and consciousness are coterminous.68

Van Til put triunity in the following way: Gods being presents an absolute

numerical identity.69Which is to say, God is equally one and three. The equal

65Van Til understood simplicity as trinitarian. More precisely, Van Til understood triune person-

ality to be necessary for the doctrine of simplicity: Absolute numerical identity [tri-unity] should

be opposedto specific or generic unity. God is complete self-consciousness [triune personality]. If hewere not, [he would not be self-defined, and] he would not be one Lord, and the words of Deuter-

onomy Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord would not be strictly true (Deut 6:4). There

would then be some vague undefined subject or substance [theological predicates, such as Deut 6:4]

not exhaustively predicated [because not self-defined in Gods own being]. It is therefore because

of the [a se] fulness of the concrete self-existence of God that he is simple (Introduction to Systematic

Theology, 341 [emphasis added]). By complete self-consciousness Van Til means complete self-

knowledge. The reference to Deut 6:4 is meant to indicate that if God were generically one, his being

would not be self-defined but it would have to be defined with reference to something other than

himself. In that case God would not be a se, and his being and attributes, including sovereign lord-

ship, would be derivative. Rather, the triune, personal God is completely self-conscious and self-

defined (a se, in other words), and it is because of the triune and personal fullness of the being ofGod that God can be truly simple and still be God. By contrast, Aristotles thought thinking itselfhas

the attribute of (divine) simplicity; but as generically one and impersonal, it has nothing else. By

saying that Gods essence is simple and that the three persons are equal to one another as to their

divinity, by affirming simplicity and triune personality inseparably of the same God, the Church

has set itself in opposition to all forms of non-Christian thought (ibid., 352).66Ibid., 363.67When we say that we believe in a personal God, we do not merely mean that we believe in a

God to whom the adjective personal may be attached. God is not an essence that has personality;

he is absolute personality (ibid., 364).68Ibid. Van Til also says, Unity and plurality are equally ultimate in the Godhead. The persons

of the Godhead are mutually exhaustive of one another and therefore of the essence of the God-

head. God is a one-conscious being, and yet he is also a tri-conscious being (ibid., 348). Notice also

that the self-defined nature of Gods self knowledge entails the fact that God is ultimately mysterious

to man: At the same time, this mysterious God is mysterious because he is, within himself, wholly

rational (ibid., 364).69Ibid. He also says, Using the language of the one-and-many question we contend that in God

the one and the many are equally ultimate. Unity in God is no more fundamental than diversity, and


23/31


ultimacy of one and three in God affords a rich triune and personal doctrine of

divine simplicity, an uncompromised simplicity in which there are difference,

subject-object relations, intelligibility, and the free will of God.70And, in fact, it is

the equal ultimacy of the three and the one that grounds self-definition (aseity):We have in the case of God absolute numerical identity and, therefore, internal

qualitative sufficiency.71

4. The Doctrine of Creation

When Van Til says, The idea of creation is implied in the idea of the self-suf-

ficient God,72he demonstrates two things noted above: he understands ultimate

commitments and immediate claims as organically and necessarily related, and

he labors to draw out the close mutual relations between basic theologicaldoctrines. There are at least four significant implications of this connection that

Van Til affirms between the nature of God and the doctrine of creation.

First, if God is a seand simple, the creation must in every sense have come

from nothing. For God nonbeing is nothing in itself. . . . Since nonbeing is

nothing in itself for God, God had to create, if he wished to create at all, out of

nothing.73Van Til would deny that God created the actual world from pre-

existent possibility.

Second, God stands in a unique epistemic position relative to creation. Van

Til says, When God existed alone, there was no time universe, and there wereno new facts arising. The only knowledge activity that existed was completed in

the circuit of the mutually exhaustive personalities of the triune God. 74More

succinctly, Christianity says that there once was noa posteriori aspect to knowledge

at all, and There never were any facts existing independent of God that he

had to investigate.75If God knows himself exhaustively, and God is a se, there

is nothing that God does not know exhaustively. All facts that are not facts

about God are therefore created factsessentially contingent facts, but sover-

eignly willed and designed.

diversity in God is no more fundamental than unity. The persons of the Trinity are mutually exhaus-

tive of one another (Defense of the Faith, 48).70Oliphint puts it this way, It is notthe case that Gods simplicity obviates any difference or dis-

tinction; the Father is simple, the Son is simple, and the Holy Spirit is simple. Each of the three

persons is distinct in his own right, all the while being identical and equal to the one God. There is

distinction, there is difference, andthere is identity (God With Us, 253). Oliphint also says, An

understanding of simplicity necessarily has Gods triunity in its immediate purview. To affirm

simplicity by reason alone, only later to bring in a notion of the Trinity by way of revelation, is to

rend asunder what God has joined together (ibid., 253 n. 61).71Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 341. And triunity is a se: The diversity and the identity

are equally underived (Van Til,Defense of the Faith, 34).72Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 36.73Van Til,Defense of the Faith, 49.74Van

Van Til's Evidence

Documents

Transcript of Van Til's Evidence