Cornelius Van Til, the American Reformed apologist and long-time professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, held that there was no neutral ground on which the believer and the unbeliever could engage each other. There was a sharp epistemological antithesis between the two because, Van Til maintained, true knowledge could only be rooted in a proper understanding of God and of the nature of man. His critics raised the question of how one was then to present the gospel to the unbeliever, because without any common ground, it appeared that there could be no way of doing so.

Unwilling to compromise in his conviction that the thought of Christians and non-Christians was entirely irreconcilable, Van Til believed that the point of contact between the two could only ever be a head-on collision. However, he believed in the need to share the gospel, and found that the best way to do so was by means of the metaphysical point of contact within the natural man. Van Til writes in his book, The Defense of the Faith,

With Calvin I find the point of contact for the presentation of the gospel to non-Christians in the fact that they are made in the image of God and as such have the ineradicable sense of deity within them. Their own consciousness is inherently and exclusively revelational of God to themselves. No one can help knowing God for in knowing himself he knows God. His self-consciousness is totally devoid of content, unless as Calvin puts it in the Institutes, man knows himself as a creature before God. There are no atheistic men because no man can deny the revelational activity of the true God within him...Every human being is by virtue of his being made in the image of God accessible to God. And as such he is accessible to one who without compromise presses upon him the claims of God.

Thoughts?

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Cornelius Van Til argued that Reformed theology demanded a Reformed apologetic, one based on its doctrine of God and doctrines of grace. John Muether, in his excellent biography of Van Til, quotes him at length on this issue:

A generally evangelical apologetic to a large extent defeats its own purposes. True enough much good may be accomplished, both by an Arminian theology and by a generally evangelical method of apologetic. In this fact all who love the Lord will rejoice. But how much more good may be accomplished by the grace of God through a more consistently Biblical theology and a more consistenly Biblical apologetic. A generally evangelical apologetic does not drive the natural man down into a corner with no hope of escape. It does not track him down till he is at bay. It does not destroy his last shelter. His fire is not altogether extinguished...A plea for a vigorous apologetic ought therefore to be a plea for a genuinely Reformed apologetic. We may not be clear, indeed as to the full implications of a truly Reformed apologetic. But this fact does not justify us in refusing to point out those who, with us, love the Christian faith that a generally evanglical apologetic...is inadequate for any time and especially inadequate for our time.

Van Til's presuppositionalism reflected his debt to the theology of Herman Bavinck, who had written in the first volume of his Reformed Dogmatics years earlier:

Apologetics cannot precede faith and does not attempt a priori to argue the truth of revelation. It assumes the truth and belief in the truth. It does not, as the introductory part or as the foundational science, precede theology and dogmatics. It is itself a theological science through and through, which presupposes the faith and dogmatics and now maintains and defends the dogma against the opposition to which it is exposed.

...If Christian revelation, which presupposes the darkness and error of unspiritual humanity, submitted in advance to the judgments of reason, it would by that token contradict itself. It would thereby place itself before a tribunal whose jurisdiction it had first denied. And having once recognized the authority of reason on the level of first principles, it could no longer oppose that authority in the articles of faith.

Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Van Til knows that the first thing he would do when entering a classroom is to draw the diagram you see at the left on the chalkboard. The two circle diagram was representative of the Creator-creature distinction, one which Van Til unapologetically (no pun intended) maintained was absolutely crucial to Christian thought. The two lines connecting the circles represented the covenantal relationship between God and man. Man, the creature, was always dependent on God, the Creator, and His revelation. The one circle on the left represented non-Christian thought, where any idea of "God" was rooted in the creature.

It was for this reason that apologetics could never have its foundation in any thought that rejected the Creator-creature distinction. No vague notions of reason would suffice, neither would the idea that Christians and non-Christians could find some sort of neutral ground from which to engage in apologetics. And so he devoted himself to working out an apologetic that honoured the relationship between God and man and rooted itself fully in the revelation of God. For Van Til, there simply was no other way.

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One of the courses I just finished for the semester was apologetics. When I was younger, I remember thinking that apologetics was all about arguments—they had to be sound, they had to be able to concretely prove that God existed, that He had created the world, and various other essentials. I realize now that apologetics is not so much a technique to be mastered, but an engaging of worldviews, the fundamental convictions of the heart. Consider what J. Mark Bertrand has to say in his book, (Re)thinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World:

The mature apologist comes to realize that the real problem isn't a lack of bulletproof arguments; it is the lack of ears to hear. There is no 'abstract' apologetic. The faith is always being defended against a specific attack. It is always being presented to a specific people. Apologetics is an incarnational event, an encounter with a decidedly spiritual overtone.

This is where worldview comes into play. Applied to apologetics, worldview awareness emphasizes the interconnectedness of ideas. It probes beneath the questions to the network of assumptions that motivates them. It helps us see the mental and spiritual state of the person before us.

An apologist with worldview awareness, for example, instinctively knows that the opposition of faith and reason is a false dilemma. When unbelievers talk this way, he probes their epistemological assumptions and starts asking questions of his own. The goal is not to win the argument, but to plant a seed of self-doubt (or, to be more precise, self-knowledge) in the unbeliever's mind. He wants to help the unbeliever test his own faith commitments (198-199).

In studying the various methods of apologetics, this is what I found to be the overwhelming strength of the method set forth by people like John Frame and Tim Keller,¹ who do not approach apologetics neutrally (since nothing is neutral, anyway), but operate out of a foundational biblical worldview that seeks to challenge and expose the problems inherent in the worldviews of unbelievers. It is insufficient (and impossible) to merely argue about certain issues from some sort of neutral epistemological perspective. Apologetics operates at the level of worldview challenging non-biblical epistemologies.

Bertrand here makes two points which I think are especially important: first, that apologetics is an incarnational event. I really love that language because it tells us that when unbelievers encounter us, they must encounter Christ. All our thoughts, words, and actions are to represent Him, and our witness depends on it. Although to some degree hypocrisy is inevitable, we have to make every effort to bear faithful witness to Jesus. An encounter with His love is what unbelievers need most.

Second, Bertrand makes the point that we are not so much drawing attention to an unbeliever's self-doubt as to his self-knowledge. While he does not reference it here, this is clearly an allusion to Romans 1:19-21, the passage which states that unregenerate man is not innocently ignorant of God, but represses his knowledge of God. Our apologetic task is to expose that repressed knowledge by showing the inconsistency of their worldview and bringing to light the truth of the biblical worldview. The acknowledgment of God is the core issue, and any worldview that is not biblical and centered on Him ultimately lacks cohesiveness and meaning.

If apologetics is reduced to giving pat answers to what can be some of the most unsettling questions in an unbeliever's heart, it is not helpful. I think Bertrand's point is key. Worldview and apologetics go hand in hand. A proof of God's existence means nothing if the fundamental convictions of the heart are predisposed to reject it. It begins with digging deep to draw out the contradictions and inconsistencies of those non-biblical worldviews and providing the only framework that will make sense of reality.

¹See their books, Apologetics to the Glory of God and The Reason for God, respectively. Generally, this method is referred to as presuppositional, although admittedly that term carries its fair share of ambiguity.

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John Frame says the following in the introduction to his book, Apologetics to the Glory of God:

...the apologist must 'set apart Jesus as Lord'...[and] his argument must presuppose that lordship. Our argument must be an exhibit of that knowledge, that wisdom, which is based on the 'fear of the Lord,' not an exhibition of unbelieving foolishness. Therefore, apologetic argument is no more neutral than any other human activity. In apologetic argument, as in anything else we do, we must presuppose the truth of God's Word. We either accept God's authority or we do not, and not to do so is sin. It doesn't matter that we sometimes find ourselves conversing with non-Christians. Then too—perhaps especially then (for then we are bearing witness)—we must be faithful to our Lord's revelation.

To tell the unbeliever that we can reason with him on a neutral basis, however that claim might help attract his attention, is a lie. Indeed, it is a lie of the most serious kind, for it falsifies the very heart of the gospel—that Jesus Christ is Lord. For one thing, there is no neutrality. Our witness is either God's wisdom or the world's foolishness. There is nothing in between. For another thing, even if neutrality were possible, that route would be forbidden to us.

Frame's conviction in this matter is apparent in his writings, and I have been privileged to witness that conviction in his teaching as well. This understanding functions as the basis from which our apologetic must begin. There simply is no other way.

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You can click here and visit the Going to Seminary website, where I posted today. I talk about apologetics and the confidence with which we can engage in conversation about our faith. Although it can be difficult to do so, we can rest in the promise of Christ that His Spirit will be present with us, and it is in His power that we can proclaim His love and grace. Be sure to check it out.

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