Cornelius Van Til’s Doctrine of God and Its Relevance for Contemporary Hermeneutics. Jason B. Hunt

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What is ironic about Carson’s dismissal of the usefulness of Van Til’s approach is that he proceeds to articulate a number of reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of postmodernity which evoke certain Van Tillian emphases. For instance, he applauds postmodernity’s concern with modernism’s disregard for the finitude of man and the noetic effects of sin which distort data and make the data fit into our self-serving grids.70 Carson observes that both Christians and non-Christians are under the influence of their own interpretive communities.71 In addition, in the face of the new hermeneutic and deconstructionism, he insists that true knowledge of the meaning of the text and intent of the author is possible, even if exhaustive knowledge is not.72 Later, he highlights how often deconstructionists “insist on either absolute knowledge or complete relativism.”73 Van Til repeatedly made reference to this very point. He emphasized the limits of human knowledge in terms of the Creator-creature distinction.74 Without such limits, man either seeks to know everything or claims to know nothing. In the end, Carson wants to assume God’s existence from a Christian worldview and to “explore how God’s existence affects our understanding of understanding.”75 In doing so, he argues that from a Christian view of finitude there are valid insights to be appreciated from both modernity and postmodernity, yet is careful not to succumb to the worldview of either one.76 These points explicitly fall in line with Van Til’s primary concerns in apologetics.

There is another striking parallel between Carson’s emphases and that of Van Til regarding the doctrine of God. Even in his evaluation of Descartes’ epistemological influence in hermeneutics, Carson underscores that the Cartesian disjunction between subject and object stems from not taking God into account. A view which includes an omniscient God from the start would understand that from God’s view, “all human beings are ‘objects,’ and all their true knowing is but a subset of his knowing.”77 Elsewhere, he affirms the essential relationship between biblical theology and systematic theology and the fact that everyone assumes a systematic theology (a doctrine of God in particular) as they begin to employ any method of theology or use of critical tools in the process. All of this affects, among other things, what data is permitted and on what basis it is permitted, which is also tied to the issue of authority.78 In discussing the bible’s plot-line and the importance of interpreting Scripture according to a redemptive-historical framework, he highlights particular attributes of God—consciously following John Frame’s emphases:79 the Creator-creature distinction,80 God as absolute personality,81 and the Trinity, showing God to be inherently personal.82 The fundamental “I-thou” relationship is found in God himself.83 Citing Colin Gunton, he argues for pairing the ontological “otherness” of God to his “relationality.” God is both other than creation and in crucial relation to it at the same time.84 Granted, there is much overlap here between these emphases, but they are mentioned with a view to combating religious pluralism.

Three important observations can be made about Carson’s treatment. First, he brings the doctrine of God into an interpretive discussion, involving redemptive history and its contemporary hermeneutic relevance. Second, like Van Til, he argues that approaching Scripture depends on who God is.85 Third, his emphases happen to be very similar to those of Van Til,86 who also was interacting with and combating unbelieving philosophy and inconsistent methodology, albeit in the realm of apologetics. Perhaps, Carson may have some use for Van Til after all.

More recently, Kenton Sparks has brought Van Til’s name into his discussion concerning the relationship between hermeneutics and epistemology. He argues that there have been essentially two modern responses to postmodernism among evangelicals: presuppositionalism and the propositional approach.87 In each case, there is an epistemic optimism which outstrips both the pessimism of antirealism and the optimism of practical realism. “Practical realism,” which Sparks seems to endorse, is characterized by a postmodern awareness (e.g., value of tradition and limits of human knowledge) yet also by a guarded optimism.88 With regard to Presuppositionalism, especially of the Van Tillian variety, Sparks particularly objects to the notion that “the only healthy way to interpret anything is via a special hermeneutic that presupposes the truth of Christian belief.”89 He argues that epistemologically, presuppositionalists are “strong Cartesian foundationalists” in that they start with basic beliefs necessary to reach truth, which are supernatural gifts only available to Christians.90 In the end, he sees Van Til’s ideas as endorsing a view of interpretation in which God miraculously gives Christians success and that only they are able to provide the right interpretation.91

Though much could be said in response to Sparks’ accusations, I will restrict my comments to the following. Again, we have a mixture of misunderstanding and later endorsement of ideas which mirror Van Til’s own. As for misunderstanding his ideas, it will suffice to say that Sparks has completely ignored the basis for the epistemological ideas he cites—namely, Van Til’s two-level ontology (i.e., Creator-creature distinction). This is an integral aspect of his thought which cannot be missed. It is directly related to the idea of the need for comprehensive knowledge in order to have true partial knowledge. Without this grounding, Sparks understands Van Til as setting up an unstable rule by which man must decide between pure rationalism and pure irrationalism (i.e., either man knows all, or he knows nothing in reality). Ironically, this is Van Til’s persistent critique of all non-Christian epistemology, certainly not something he himself endorsed. In a footnote to the accusation of Cartesian foundationalism mentioned above, he faults Van Til for what he sees as an inconsistency in claiming that we must think God’s thoughts after himself, but that we must also think analogically.92 Sparks argues that these two are mutually exclusive ideas—either God tells us everything in order to think God’s thoughts after him or we think analogically, which means we approximate them but do not really think them.93 However, one need not look any further than the immediate context of the very passage that he cites (in favor of driving a wedge between true and analogical knowledge) for correction. Van Til states that:

The system that Christians seek to obtain may, by contrast, be said to be analogical. By this is meant that God is the original and that man is the derivative. God has absolute self-contained system within himself. What comes to pass in history happens in accord with that system or plan by which he orders the universe. But man, as God’s creature, cannot have a replica of that system of God. He cannot have a reproduction of that system. He must, to be sure, think God’s thoughts after him; but this means that he must, in seeking to form his own system, constantly be subject to the authority of God’s system to the СКАЧАТЬ