This post is a kind of follow-on from a previous post about “as-suchness.” In The New Synthesis Van Til writes:

Paul does not discuss questions of “fact” and views of “logic” as such. For Paul, there are no facts as such and there is no logic as such. Paul does not ask the Greeks to consider whether the facts might not be considered as probably or even possibly pointing toward the teleology of Scripture rather than to a teleology such as Plato and Aristotle offer. In effect, Paul asserts on the authority of Christ that no facts of the space-time world can exist and no logic can function except on the presupposition that whatever things the triune God of Scripture says are true.

Classical modes of defending the faith, in general, seek to prove the faith on the basis of some (as it is supposed) given standard of truth which is agreeable to both believer and unbeliever. Classical Apologists (hereafter, CA) say, “what does the unbeliever demand in order to believe? Whatever it is, I will give it to him.” So, some unbelievers demand “evidence” for the belief in God’s existence. They want “just facts” and no spin.

CA are happy to oblige. Now, before we are critical of the CA, we have to acknowledge the good in their thinking. They believe that Christianity should be able to be defended by logic, facts, evidence, or history because the Christian’s God is the God of logic, history, evidence, and history. Christianity is a historical faith. It is based on facts. So, what is wrong with making a logical, historical, or evidential argument for the faith?

Van Til is not opposed to logic, evidence or history. Nor is he opposed to using such in the service of defending the faith. What he opposes, however, is thinking that facts, logic, etc. are things which exist “out there,” brute facts that both believer and unbeliever can use together to evaluate truth claims about Christianity.

But, for Van Til, to do that is to surrender the debate to the unbeliever at the outset.

This mode of thinking makes facts, logic, etc. into abstractions. And Paul, says Van Til, does not argue from abstractions. The Bible knows nothing of “facts” which are independent of God and the meaning he gives them in his Word.

But for CA abstractions become something akin to Platonic ideals which rule all of reality – from God to rocks. Furthermore, abstractions presuppose that both believer and unbeliever interpret them the same way. But they don’t. The unbeliever presupposes the Lordship of logic, facts, etc. over even God himself. The Christian, however, presupposes that God is the Lord over all things.

And so the failure of the classical mode is at once apparent. CA adopt the presuppositions of the unbeliever – i.e., that logic, facts, etc. are interpreted the same way between believer and unbeliever. CA start with an unbelieving philosophy of fact, which allows the unbeliever to place God in the dock, imposing abstract notions of facts, logic, etc. upon God. But God is not the kind of person that can be placed in the dock. God is judge and jury. He is the arbiter. Therefore, we must begin with the triune God. Without the self-attesting Christ of Scripture there is no logic, fact, etc. The Christian must challenge the unbeliever’s philosophy of fact, not grant it to him. And it is precisely here – at this compromise – that CA find their failure.

Going hand-in-hand with what we said in a previous post about rendering God not God, Van Til points up how unbelieving thought assumes a neutral view of reality, and in so doing renders every aspect of reality as a final arbiter between God and man:

“Now Romanism does not go nearly so far as this. It does hold to the possibility of true propositional knowledge about God as an antecedent being. Even so, Romanism is so largely monistic in its philosophy of being that it cannot do justice to the Christian idea of revelation. Following Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas talks about being as such before making the distinction between the divine and created being. And this is fatal to Christian theology. It constitutes an attack on the basic distinction between God as self-contained and man as his creature. Being as such is a pure abstraction. Hegel was quite right in maintaining that it can be interchanged with non-being. To attempt to say one word about it is to attempt to make Reality as a whole, inclusive of God and man, the final subject of predication. It is, in effect, to deny that created reality is what it is, as exclusively revelational of what God is in himself to himself. It is, in effect, also to deny that all of man’s knowledge is true to the extent that it is a restatement by man of the revelation of God. Conversely, it is to maintain, in effect, that man is able to make true predication about reality without a priori self-consciously, revelational activity on the part of God. To talk about being as such is to talk about possibility as such. And to talk about possibility as such is to assume the idea of logic as such. And to assume the idea of logic such is to assume the idea of consciousness as such. And to assume the idea of consciousness as such is to deny the fundamental distinction between the self-contained consciousness of God and the dependent consciousness of man. In other words it is to assume that man can employ the laws of logic and by means of them legislate for reality” (An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 200, emphasis mine).

Believing in any “as-suchness” whatsoever renders the creature superior to the Creator. It makes that thing – as such – the final arbiter of reality, of even God himself. This is how we end up with so many bad theologies of God. We come to a question about God, and we try to answer that question in keeping with the rules of abstract concepts of being, act or becoming, justice, logic, goodness, etc.

Here is a quick example. God cannot possibly foreordain certain people unto eternal perdition. And certainly God cannot on the day of judgment sentence a whole mass of people unto eternal punishment. Why not?

Because, then God would not be good or just.

Did you see that? Did you see how what follows the “then God would” is a kind of third party, supposed neutral legislator that has its own independent existence apart from God. Goodness and justice – as understood by fallen rebellious man – become standards to which God Himself must be held accountable.

Contrary to this, for Van Til, we must begin with God as the “concrete absolute.” That is to say, only in God is goodness or justice concrete and not an abstraction. God IS good. God IS just. He defines what goodness and justice is, not us. And certainly not goodness or justice as such. There does not exist — at least outside of our own rebellious and fallen minds – any “as-suchness” whatsoever.