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| I've been reading Cornelius Van Til's book The Defense of the Faith. In doing so I ran across this passage this week end and just couldn't resist passing on an excerpt. Enjoy: It is claimed that, "While a Christian can prove that his Christian position is fully as reasonable as the opponent's view, there is no such thing as an absolutely compelling proof that God exists, or that the Bible is the word of God, just as little as anyone can prove its opposite."
His reply, "It is true that no method of argument for Christianity will be acceptable to the natural man. Moreover, it is true that the more consistently Christian our methodology, the less acceptable it well be to the natural man. . . . It is precisely the Reformed faith which, among other things, teaches the total depravity of the natural man, which is most loathsome to that natural man. But this does not prove that the Reformed faith is not true. . . . the Reformed apologist maintains that there is an absolutely valid argument for the existence of God and for the truth of Christian theism. He cannot do less without virtually admitting that God's revelation to man is not clear. . . . As for the question whether the natural man will accept the truth of such an argument, we answer that he will if God pleases by his Spirit to take the scales from his eyes and the mask from his face. It is upon the power of the Holy Spirit that the Reformed preacher relies when he tells men that they are lost in sin and in need of a Savior. The Reformed preacher does not tone down his message in order that it may find acceptance with the natural man. He does not say that his message is less certainly true because of its non-acceptance by he natural man. . . . Apologetics, like systematics, is valuable to the precise extent that it presses the truth upon the attention of the natural man. The natural man must be blasted out of his hideouts, his caves, his last lurking places. . . . it is only the atomic energy of a truly Reformed methodology that will explode the last Festung to which the Roman Catholic and the Arminian always permit him to retreat and to dwell in safety." (Cornelius Van Til. The Defense of the Faith. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967. 104-105. emphasis and ellipsis mine)
Amen. | | |
| I read this post this morning. I've been an advocate for what he proposes for a long time. I'd be curious to hear what you think. Check it out at: http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/a-lectionary-faq | | |
| For my loyal 4 or 5 who check my page daily I feel an overwhelming urgency to post something - anything. So here comes the typical year end summary. I finished the fall semester in early December and am in that state of down time known as crashing and burning - only I'm not burning - just resting. I'm catching up on some long overdue reading, and writing some equally needed emails and posts. Beyond that, the wife and I have survived yet another Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I love thinking and meditating on our Savior's birth and the profound implications it has for sinners like myself; however, I was particularly dismayed by the nearly total absence of choirs and such on Christmas day television. The Price is Right was on and all the sports channels were still running live broadcasts. It really seems that all the Christmas season is about now is spending money to rescue the retailers from an abysmal year. Maybe if we really needed what they were selling, they wouldn't need a hyped-up Christmas "shopping" season to bail them out of impending financial doom. On the school front, I survived Virgil by the skin of my teeth. I passed and don't have to take any more Latin for my major. Greek went very well, as did Philosophy. While I disagreed with the very premise of the existentialists, the skills learned in reading their very technical writings I think will have great carry over potential for reading Theology and other difficult genres. I'm testing this hypothesis on the above book. Cornelius Van Til is one of the most difficult theologians I've ever encountered (I'd read 1/2 of this book 15+ years ago and finally had to give up). However, with the bit of Philosophical background now under my belt, he's going much better. I agree with him a lot. I'm purposefully using him to "wash out" my brain after a semester of humanistic atheism. I guess that's about all for now. You LifeWay guys, drop me an email sometime. Those who have gone away to seminary (and you know who you are) I especially want to hear from you so I can get your email address and send more personal notes via that medium. Until next time, blessings to all | | |
| Just an update of my boring life. School is going as well as expected. Virgil is finally yielding to my efforts to tame him. Existentialism is going very well. I have a paper due a week from Monday and will spend a greater part of today hammering out a rough draft. In Philosophy, a group of 3 of us, lead by a graduate student who assists our prof, are reading Martin Heidigger's Being and Time. It is extremely dense and takes several readings to get at his meaning. However, the effort required and skills developed are paying off well in the other Phil readings. The readings in this class constantly bring to mind a statement by a prominent pastor in our area who said of Philosophy, "We all know what Philososphy is; it's where one talks about things everyone understands in terms which no one understands." Well, maybe HE doesn't understand. Philosophy is a very technical discipline which takes a lot of thought to comprehend the subtle nuances of the problems and proposed solutions. Often a topic requires a very precise explanation, which in turn requires very deep thought to comprehend. Every time I think of his condescendingly cleaver, but naively ignorant statement, a quote from "A Fish Called Wanda" also comes to mind. It's the scene in which one of the men in the movie, while defending himself, tells her that, ". . . monkeys don't read Philosophy!" To which Wanda replies, "yes they do, they just don't understand it." Enough said. My Greek New Testament studies are going extremely well. My prof and I are going thru Colossians. Wonderful book and subjects! Oh that every preacher or Bible teacher could read Greek! They shouldn't be allowed to handle God's Word without it. To be continued. . . . | | |
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