Van Til, Collection of Articles From 1940-1949

195 Pages·2011·2.67 MB·English

by  Cornelius Van Til

Articles from 1940–1949

By Cornelius Van Til
List of Articles

01. Facts – 1940 The Banner
02. Reply To Professor J. Vanden Bosch – 1940 The Banner
03. Princeton’s President And Pagan Philosophy – 1940 The
Presbyterian Guardian
04. John Goes To College Part One - 1940 The Presbyterian Guardian
05. John Goes To College Part Two - 1940 The Presbyterian Guardian
06. Kant or Christ? - 1942 The Calvin Forum
07. A Substitute For Christianity - 1943 The Presbyterian Guardian
08. Common Grace – 1945-1946 Westminster Theological Journal
09. Common Grace Part Two
10. Common Grace Part Three
11. John Calvin And John Dewey – 1946 Christian Opinion
12. Nature And Scripture – 1946
13. We Are Not Ashamed Of Calvinism! – 1947 Letter to Editor of
Time and Life magazines
14. Christianity And Crisis Theology - 1948 The Presbyterian
Guardian
15. Calvinism And Art - 1948 The Presbyterian Guardian
16. The Inspiration And Authority Of The Bible – 1948 Introduction
To B.B. Warfield’s Book “Inspiration And Authority Of The Bible”
17. More New Modernism At Old Princeton - 1949 The Presbyterian
Guardian
18. Presuppositionalism – 1949 The Bible Today
Facts

The Banner
1940
Volume 75, Page 150

In The Banner of December 21, 1939, Prof. J. G. Vanden Bosch reflects on an article
of mine on “A Calvin University” that appeared in The Banner of November 9, 1939.
As I seek to make reply to the criticism of Prof. Vanden Bosch I wish first to admit
that there is a certain lack of clarity in my article, particularly in the section which begins
with the following sentence: “The third step which the current scientific method is asking
you to take is to test the truth of any hypothesis by experience.” I should have placed the
word experience in quotation marks to make plain, even at the beginning of the section
which this sentence introduces, that I was speaking of the non-Christian notion of
experience.
Perhaps my lack of clarity explains the fact that my critic thinks it germane to the
subject to argue for the necessity of inductive study. It would surely be “te
Gereformeerd” and therefore not at all “Gereformeerd” to turn to the Bible instead of to
the telescope to study the stars. On that Dr. Woltjer, my critic, and I can heartily agree.
But that was not the point at issue.
The main issue may conveniently be stated in the form of a syllogism. The major
premise of my article was that all facts are God-interpreted. My minor premise was that
the current scientific method in its assumptions denies that all facts are God-interpreted.
My conclusion was that no Christian can accept the current scientific methodology as it is
without denying his Christianity.

The Major Premise

As to the major premise my critic, his authorities, and I are in the most absolute
agreement. My critic says of my first premise that it is “true enough.” No Reformed
person could say less. God has interpreted all facts. Is that less true of light than of the
“forbidden fruit” of which Eve ate. Not one bit. The further question as to how man must
seek to learn about God’s interpretation of such “facts” as light does not now concern us.
Empirical study will surely have a large place when we study light but even in empirical
study it is God’s interpretation of light that we are after from beginning to end.

The Minor Premise

My minor premise was that the current scientific method in its assumptions denies
that all facts are God-interpreted. Let us again turn to the question of light. Scripture says
something definite about light. It says that light was created by God. It says that light
functions by the Providence of God. The phenomenon of light has a definite place in the
counsel of God. The empirical study of light should start from these Scriptural principles
with respect to light. Says Dr. Grosheide: “Wetenschap is feiten bezien bij het licht van
beginselen.” 1 Creation and Providence are foundation principles. Says Dr. Grosheide:
“Daar zijn grondbeginselen, onveranderlijke, eeuwige waarheden, hoe men ze noemen
wil, die rechtstreeks door God zijn geopenbaard en die door geen feiten kunnen worden
aangetast. Hoeveel feiten de mutatie- of evolutie-theorie ook mogen schijnen te
bevestigen, de Christen houdt vast, dat God de wereld schiep. Hoereel stelsels ook
worden gegeven omtrent de ellende van het menschelijk geslacht, ze mogen op nog
zooveel ervaring gegrond zijn, wij blijven rekenen met de zonde. Het past dan te
bedenken, dat het beginsel meer is dan het feit.” 2 Speaking of God’s thoughts as
expressed in the world about us, Grosheide tells us: “Die gedachten zijn eerst. Hij heeft
ons van die gedachten jets in Zijn Woord geopenbaard, opdat we die vasthouden zouden
bij ons onderzoek van de schepping.” 3
But all this is the rankest heresy in the eyes of the current scientific methodology.
What would Millikan or Eddington or Curtis or Conklin or Einstein say about the
methodology proposed by Grosheide? Here is a man who has already prejudged the case,
they would say. Here is a man who does not want to begin the study of facts with the
facts themselves, they would say. Here is a man who limits us in the hypotheses which
we may make about facts, they would say. Here is a man who deliberately refuses to
allow us to test our hypotheses by the facts, they would say. Grosheide is not “neutral” in
the current scientific sense of the term. He is “prejudiced” from the point of view of the
average scientist. To say that nature must be studied in the light of the Bible and therefore
in the framework of such principles as creation and the fall is to brand oneself as a
hopeless obscurantist in the eyes of the average scientist. Yet Grosheide will do with
nothing less. And as for Woltjer he too asserts or assumes the absolute authority of
Scripture in what it says about physical facts and he too unequivocally asserts the
doctrine of creation. 4 Apparently he does not think that he is “te Bijbelsch en te
Gereformeerd” in doing so.
It is another matter whether what Grosheide says about the “neutral zone,” in the
passage quoted by my critic, can be harmonized with what I have quoted above. So much
is certain that what he says on this point must be taken together with what he has so
vigorously and constantly maintained about the primacy of such principles (or facts) as
creation and the fall. It must be taken together with the fact that he definitely rejects the
current scientific notion that principles are derived from experience. 5 He describes the
procedure of seeking for principles on the basis of brute facts as being like to that of
children who first place a number of beans in a box and afterwards aregreatly surprised to
find those beans in that box. It must be taken together with the fact that for him a fact
cannot even be observed except with the help of principles. 6 Grosheide asserts that a fact

1 Beginselen en Feiten, p. 26.
2 Idem., p. 28.
3 Idem., p. 25.
4 Her Wezen der Materie, p. 26.
5 p. 11.
6 p. 14.
apart from principles is a “logical abstraction.” 7 That for Grosheide a fact apart from a
principle is a logical abstraction and no more appears from the following: “Bij de feiten is
waarnemen van groote beteekenis. Maar toch, ik kan pas na denken vaststellen, dat iets,
dat ik waarnam, feit mag heeten. Het enkele zien of hooren brengt mij zoover niet.
Integendeel, ik moet het waargenomene door mijn denken tot een van de besproken
groepen kunnen brengen en dan kan den slotsom zijn: ik heb met een feit te doen.” 8
It is after he has said all this that Grosheide turns to the question of neutrality. He
speaks of the purely descriptive method of many scientists and asks whether we can join
hands with them. His answer is: “Een dergelijk standpunt is zeker te veroordeelen, want
her beginsel is inderdaad overal van invloed. Ziet men dat niet dan is het oog beneveld.
In dien zin is er dan ook geen neutrale z™ne.” 9 A little later he adds: “Houden we dit
alles in het oog, dan kunnen we zeggen, in de wetenschap is nooit en nergens een
neutrale z™ne. Want wetenschap vraagt altijd naar samenhang, verklaring en heeft
daarom beginselen noodig.” 10 These last words immediately precede the passage quoted
by my critic. And the first sentence after the passage quoted by my critic reads as
follows: “Maar dat maakt de wetenschap als zoodanig niet neutraal.” It appears then that
when Grosheide speaks of that of which I spoke, namely of the current scientific
methodology, he says about it to all intents and purposes the same thing that I said. When
he speaks of “facts” as logical abstractions he also speaks of a neutral zone but when he
speaks of facts he unites them at once with principles and allows for no neutrality.

The Conclusion

The conclusion of my article was that one who adopts the current scientific method as
it is therewith sacrifices his Christian faith. Both Grosheide and Woltjer say the same
thing in effect. What my critic quotes from these men proves nothing to the contrary. But
perhaps it is time that we should continue to discuss the question on the merits of the
case. I should be happy if Prof. Vanden Bosch would seek to show by argument (a) that
my major premise is incorrect or (b) that my minor premise is incorrect or (c) that my
conclusion does not follow from my premises.
There are other problems in connection with the whole question of scientific
methodology of which I have not spoken. No doubt there are many of them of which I am
not qualified to speak. I have spoken only of general principles and of these general
principles even a layman has a right to speak. There is one point, however, that I would
mention in conclusion. I have been told again and again that such a position as I have
maintained spells a lack of appreciation of the work of non-Christian scientists. But why
should that be the case? Must I accept the fundamental errors of these scientists with
respect to their anti-Christian assumptions in order to appreciate the good that they have
been able to do in spite of these errors? To ask the question is to answer it. The burden of
proof is on those who would force me to accept either all or nothing of what the non-
Christian scientist has to offer.

7 p. 14.
8 p. 20.
9 p. 22.
10 p. 23.
GUIDE NUMBER: 1940.D2
Reply To Professor J. Vanden
Bosch

The Banner
1940
Volume 75, Page 488ff

Before entering upon a discussion of some of the questions raised by Prof. Vanden
Bosch let me assure him that it was not from a desire to be “strategic” that I failed to
discuss some of the implications that might be involved in the main contention of my first
article. I verily thought he meant to challenge my main contention itself in his Calvinalia
remarks. When he quoted the high authority of Dr. Woltjer to prove that we must go to
nature to study nature I thought he meant to show that any proposition which directly
involves a false implication must itself be wrong. Accordingly I sought in my reply to
make my main contention clear and did nothing more.
I do not mind, however, discussing the implications of my main contention. In doing
so I can express some difficulties that I have with respect to what seems to be a rather
common attitude among us when we evaluate the accomplishments of men of science
who are not Christians. Perhaps some one will then be kind enough to indicate that my
difficulties are unfounded.
Let me then first repeat the main point on which Prof. Vanden Bosch expresses
agreement with me. For God there are no brute facts; all facts are God-interpreted. That
was our starting point. Secondly, we note that the current scientific method in its
assumptions denies that all facts are God-interpreted. The conclusion is that no Christian
can accept the current scientific method as it is without denying his faith.
The main thrust of the whole matter is that we shall act self-consciously as Christians
in our scientific methodology. To act self-consciously in our methodology implies
primarily, it seems to me, that we are not to forget even when we are in the laboratory
that we have a certain amount of fundamentally important information about all facts in
the universe. We cannot ignore that information and act as if we did not have it. We must,
on the contrary, in our study of nature build upon this fundamental information and seek
to make a consistent whole of what we already know and what we are about to learn. This
is not to be super-pious, nor is it to ask the impossible of human nature; it is to seek to do,
as best we may, what God requires of us when He says that we shall do all things to his
glory.
Starting then from the conviction that all facts are God-interpreted I am ready to face
any fact that can possibly exist. No matter how irrational or exceptional some facts may
appear to me to be, I know that they are rationally related to one another in the plan of
God. On the other hand I know there is a limitation as to what sort of facts I can meet.
There are no facts and therefore I can meet no facts that would prove the doctrines of
creation and providence untrue. There are no facts and therefore I can meet no facts that
would prove material directly revealed in Scripture untrue. It would be sinful of me to
look for such facts.
Starting again from the conviction that all facts are God-interpreted I have great
liberty in the making of hypotheses. God may have thousands of ways of relating facts of
which I have as yet no knowledge. I am not narrowly limited in the making of my
hypotheses to what seems possible to the mind of man. There is no limit to my scientific
imagination except one. That one limit is that I shall not try to think thoughts by which I
should un-think God.
In contrast with this the non-Christian scientist insists on having an absolutely clean
slate. He insists by assumption that facts, all facts, are brute facts no less for God than for
man. By assumption he denies at the outset of his work the doctrines of creation and
providence. Thus “the scientific method” is unscientific. It refuses to accept well
established and fundamentally important information about the facts which it is about to
investigate; the result is bound to lead to falsification.
In other words we may criticize “the scientific method” by saying that it is falsely
abstract. In insisting by implication that all facts must be brute facts for God as well as
for man, non-Christian scientists are as those who insist that a finger to be studied
scientifically must first be abstracted, that is severed, from the hand of which it is a part.
They are as those who insist that there may be millions of fingers that were never
attached to hands at all. They are as those who take these millions of abstracted fingers
and place them in neatly labeled boxes made for the purpose. The result is a fundamental
falsification of the whole picture of reality. Accordingly I do not see how we can escape
the requirements of reconstruction if we are to use “the scientific method” at any point.
We try to get around this difficulty by saying that as Christians we may and should
use “the scientific method” for certain aspects or spheres of reality only. And we seek to
safeguard our position further by saying that when we come to making up the final count,
when we frame a “life and world view” our Christian principles assert themselves in a
controlling manner. But it does not appear that we have thus escaped the difficulty. The
falsification involved in the mistakenly abstract procedure of “the scientific method”
permeates literally to every aspect and sphere of reality.
Nor does it afford us any relief if we say that “the scientific method” deals merely
with description and not with explanation. The least that scientific description seeks to do
is to offer us a picture of rational relations between certain facts and this is itself
explanation. By a method of false abstraction we are bound to obtain a false description.
Accordingly we cannot allow that the scientific method offers us a description of truth
content at any point that does not need to be reconstructed.
My chief difficulty then is this. On the one hand we are deeply convinced of the truth
of Scripture. On the other hand we want to use “the scientific method” up to a point
without reconstruction. We then do our best to patch the two together. The result is a
compromise. Suppose I take a small cup and put some water and some poison in it. Then
I take a large cup and put only water in it. Now I empty the contents of the small cup into
the large cup adding it to the water already in the large cup. And then I hope that it will
do no one harm to drink from the large cup because the quantity of poison is now so
small in comparison with the total quantity of water that I can afford to neglect it.
It seems to me that as a layman I have a right to voice this difficulty even if I can
offerno solution to the problem that we face. The problem is, I take it, what we are to
think of the work of non-Christian scientists. If the way in which we often seek to bring
together our Christian faith and our scientific procedure, involves a compromise, are we
then to conclude that we must reject the work of non-Christian scientists altogether?
To answer this question, it seems to me, we can profitably begin from the point that
the facts and the laws of created existence are indeed in a fundamental sense the same for
Christians and non-Christians alike. They are objectively or revelationally the same
whatever one’s attitude to them may be. The Logos of creation testifies everywhere of
Himself. Calvin says over and over that men ought to see the revelation of God’s
presence everywhere and most of all in themselves. Suppose then that for argument’s
sake we think away all interpretative activity on the part of man. It is quite legitimate to
do this. Grosheide does this with respect to the battle of which he speaks. He attempts to
think of the mind as a camera, as a pure transmitter of revelational content. But
Grosheide knows very well that no purely revelational activity ever takes place in
practice. Interpretation is as a matter of fact involved in every mental activity. And
certainly scientific manipulation is inherently interpretative. For this reason Grosheide
says that as soon as the revelational material is “scientifically dealt with, immediately a
great difference will arise because at once evaluation enters in.” What is set forth by the
effort of scientific description is never a mere camera product; it is always an
interpretation. Even so, the distinction between the purely revelational and the
interpretative is extremely useful.
The point is this. The natural man in all his interpretative efforts seeks to suppress the
revelational content that comes to expression round about and within him. But in spite of
and by means of his efforts at suppression the revelational display of truth proceeds to
develop. Accordingly a great deal of truth about the facts and laws of the universe has
been brought to light by those who love not God. And as Christians we may and should
make grateful use of truth from whatever source it springs because ultimately all truth
springs from God.
The April rains are on as I write this. I have a sort of animal delight in green grass.
My animal delight is due to the fact that I daily make necessary and legitimate
abstractions. My neighbor’s animal delight is due to the fact that he has not yet, in his
common sense statement that the grass is green, self-consciously made his illegitimate
abstraction. My neighbor’s remark about the green grass is therefore formally the same as
mine, and may for practical purposes, because the interpretative function of both of us is
and needs often to be, largely dormant, be thought of as though it were the same, but is,
even so, when interpretatively considered, not the same. It is thus that we may be in the
world while not of the world.
I wonder if it is not along such lines as these that we may find a solution for the
problem that faces us. Are there implications here which I do not see? It is my impression
that I am walking along the line of thought suggested by Calvin’s Institutes in the rough
sketch I have tried to make. Am I mistaken in this? The whole question seems to merit
full discussion; we can only welcome the efforts of The Calvin Forum to forward the
cause; may its call for participants in the discussion not go unheeded.
GUIDE NUMBER: 1940.E1

Princeton’s President And
Pagan Philosophy

The Presbyterian Guardian
1940
Volume 7, Page 19ff

Has the chief source of theological error departed from Princeton Seminary now that
Professor Emil Brunner has gone back to his own country? We do not think so. The chief
source of error remains in the person of its president, Dr. John A. Mackay. He is either
unable or unwilling to distinguish Christian from non-Christian literature. How then can
he do anything but lead Princeton ever farther from the path of the historic Christian
faith?
In The Presbyterian of November 23, 1939, Dr. Mackay writes an article in which he
discusses a book by the late Professor A. A. Bowman. Now Professor Bowman was a
truly great teacher and a first-rate philosopher. With all that Dr. Mackay says in praise of
his greatness we can, having been in his classes for some years, most heartily concur. But
there is one thing that Professor Bowman never pretended to be, either in his classes or in
his writings, and that is a believer in historic Christianity. And yet Dr. Mackay virtually
recommends Bowman’s philosophy as being essentially sound. At least, he has not a
word of criticism to offer for a philosophy that is basically un-Christian.
Bowman’s notion of God is quite the opposite of that set forth in the famous Shorter
Catechism definition. He is amazingly frank to admit that for him the eternity of God is
nothing but unending time. He says, “In the concept of God, the definitory notion must be
that of eternity. He is the eternal spirit—this, not in the timeless sense, but in the sense of
everlasting endurance. The being of God defines itself in relation to its time conditions,
as an absolutely perfect adjustment of every past to every future in a present that is
infinite in each direction.” 1 Bowman places great stress upon his contention that time is
the condition of every form of spiritual existence. This may even be said to be the main
thrust of this book as of his other writings. Bowman holds that, unless we think of both
God and man as cumulativetemporal experiences, the world about us cannot be made
intelligible. We mention this fact to indicate that Bowman is perfectly explicit in his
denial of what, for the Westminster standards, is the basis of all sound theology.
In the second place, Bowman in effect denies what the Shorter Catechism affirms
when it says, “The work of creation is, God’s making all things of nothing, by the word
of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.” Bowman insists repeatedly that
he holds to a “self-contained” and self-existent physical world as he holds to a self-
contained and self-existent spiritual world. 2 This point is not incidental but fundamental

1 A Sacramental Universe, p. 369.
2 A Sacramental Universe, p. 9. See also Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 1, p.
52; Vol. 2, p. 390.
to his position. It is the exact counterpart of his notion of God as a temporally cumulative
experience. Or, we may say that for Bowman God must exist as a temporally cumulative
experience just because the physical universe exists as non-created reality. Bowman
seeks to bring two independent variables into one heterogeneous system. That is his
avowed purpose. Accordingly he can say: “For the definition of creation is the functional
dependence of the physical world in its entirety on the energies of the spirit.” 3 Two forms
of irreducible existence, the physical and the spiritual, are to throw mutual light on one
another. 4 Bowman therefore holds that “man, with all his limitations, is necessary to
God.” 5 Whatever Bowman may mean by “creation of a spatial universe,” in the passage
quoted by Dr. Mackay, he assuredly cannot mean the historic doctrine of creation out of
nothing without betraying the fundamental principle of his philosophy. Even from the
quotations given by Dr. Mackay it is clear that Bowman’s philosophy is basically
pantheistic. What sense is there to the idea of space as “the unconsciousness
ofomniscience, the unconsciousness of God,” or to the idea of the “vibrations of the
physical world” as “the overtones of the divine orchestration,” except upon a position that
has once for all cut itself loose from the notion of God as the self-contained free Creator
of the world?
It is in the light of such notions of God and of the creation of the world by God that
we must understand the quotation Dr. Mackay gives from Professor Bowman on the
doctrine of the incarnation. After this quotation, Dr. Mackay remarks: “Here is a
philosopher who did his thinking in living contact with human wayfarers, one who knew
with them the agony of self-defeat, who discerned the perversion of a true human instinct
in the modern cult of the deified tyrant, who recognized man’s need of an historical
incarnation of the divine if he was to know the road he should take and be able to achieve
goodness upon it, who saw and adored that incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth. Such a
philosophy has something real to say to the world of our time.”
Bowman, however, means by the incarnation of the divine in Jesus no more than a
particularly high instance of the general principle of incarnation that manifests itself
everywhere that spirit comes into functional contact with the physical. Every man’s
“embodied life” is at its best “an activity of incarnation.” 6 Bowman’s philosophy cannot
and does not make room for the notion of the incarnation by which “the only Redeemer
of God’s elect became man, and so was, and continueth to be God, and man, in two
distinct natures, and one person, for ever.” For Bowman there is no essential difference
between the “nature” of God and the “nature” of man. Surely it is to fail fundamentally of
one’s duty as a minister of the gospel—not to speak of one’s duty as the president of a
seminary solemnly committed to the propagation of the Reformed Faith—not to warn
Christ’s little ones against such a destructive philosophy as is presented in the writings of
Professor Bowman. His philosophy is perhaps as fine a philosophy as one could find on
non-Christian bases, but it is subversive of the fundamentals of the Christian Faith.
In conclusion, we would contrast the sad failure of Dr. Mackay to warn against patent
error with the open avowal of error on the part of the Rev. A. A. Griffing, a minister of

3 Idem., p. 369.
4 See Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 1, p. 42f. and Vol. 2, p. 413.
5 Idem., Vol. 2, p. 333.
6 A Sacramental Universe, p. 370.