Cornelius Van Til

[DKleinecke]

I finally got around to actually learning something about Van Til and
I discover he is formulator of a somewhat popular proof of the
existence of God (the TAG argument). In Wikipedia I find (without any
reference) that Van Til summarized his argument as "The only proof for
the existence of God is that without God you couldn't prove anything".

This hardly does justice to Van Til. It looks like
http://www.reformed.org/apologetics/index.html?mainframe=/apologetics/why_I_believe_cvt.html
is a good introduction to his approach.

I'd rather have someone who thinks his approach makes sense explain
it. It looks to me like extreme post-modernism. Like the
post-modernists, he thinks that what we believe is determined entirely
by our starting point. Apparently he thinks some of the traditional
proofs are valid, but only if we already believe in God. Otherwise our
judgement is clouded and we can't make sense of truth. Thus his
primary emphasis is to critique the starting point of the
non-believer. Because God is the one who does conversion, he doesn't
feel the need to tailor his presentation to make contact with the
non-believer where he is, an effort that he believes would involve
compromising his position to the extent that it would be
self-defeating.

[DKleinecke]

Post by DKleinecke

I finally got around to actually learning something about Van Til and
I discover he is formulator of a somewhat popular proof of the
existence of God (the TAG argument). In Wikipedia I find (without any
reference) that Van Til summarized his argument as "The only proof for
the existence of God is that without God you couldn't prove anything".

This hardly does justice to Van Til.

I wasn't attempting to address all of Van Til's thought. I was
addressing the TAG proof for the existence of God which is bandied
about by some of the theologically-concerned fundamentalist websites.
They don't credit Van Til for it and they rephrase it. It cost me some
effort to discover that it went back to Van Til who I was surprised to
meet again so soon and from an entirely different direction.

I used the Wikipedia quote because I thought that made the TAG
argument clearer than the following statement, also from Wikipedia
"The Transcendental Argument for the existence of God (TAG) is an
argument for the existence of God that attempts to show that logic,
science, ethics (and generally every fact of human experience and
knowledge) are not meaningful apart from a preconditioning belief in
the existence of God." Wikipedia says a version of this was advanced
by Kant - but a little snooping convinced me that the current
popularity of TAG is due to Van Til.

My first reaction to TAG was wholly negative. It sounded like nonsense
to me. But I observe that some intelligent-seeming people seem to
think it is the best proof of God's existence. I still am unable to
make any sense of it - hence my questions.

Van Til was sort of caught in the crossfire. I really want to know
about the thinking of present -day supporters of TAG.

[l***@hotmail.com]

Post by DKleinecke
I'd rather have someone who thinks his approach makes sense explain
it. It looks to me like extreme post-modernism. Like the
post-modernists, he thinks that what we believe is determined entirely
by our starting point. Apparently he thinks some of the traditional
proofs are valid, but only if we already believe in God. Otherwise our
judgement is clouded and we can't make sense of truth. Thus his
primary emphasis is to critique the starting point of the
non-believer. Because God is the one who does conversion, he doesn't
feel the need to tailor his presentation to make contact with the
non-believer where he is, an effort that he believes would involve
compromising his position to the extent that it would be
self-defeating.

Van Til "postmodern?" Wow! I think I've heard everything now.

If you go to the Westminster website (wtsbooks.com) you
can purchase a series of CD in which Cornelius lectures on
"Christ & Human Thought." Excellent intro to presuppositional
philosophy. Though he wrote several books, two books from
which he taught in the class room, "Christian Theistic Evidences"
and "Christian Theistic Ethics" are some of the best apologetic
works I've ever read in the philosophical arena. You both
do this man an injustice. Wonderful, soft spoken, funny
man who's love for the Lord permeated everything he said
or did.

READ him or spend a few bucks and listen to him lecture.