Chapter 2: Christian Apologetics by Van Til

All right. Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and again, today we have another surprise live stream. I did not plan this, but I figured I had the time, so hey, why not?

And so, as the thumbnail indicates, I will be covering Chapter 2 of this book by Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics. If you like this series, and you kind of just like the way the format is where I kind of just broadly summarize the main points of each portion of the book, let me know in the comments, or you can reach out to me by emailing me at revealedapologetics at gmail .com.

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All right, with all of those things out of the way, again, I don't want to waste too much time with kind of introductory comments, but Christian Apologetics by Cornelius Mantill. This is the book that I recommend to everyone who is wanting to get into Presuppositional Apologetics via Mantill.

Mantill is a very difficult read, and so I don't always recommend Mantill to people. Oh, my camera's going away here. I'm sorry. I'm getting like a black blinking thing on my screen. So, hopefully, someone let me know in the comments if they can still see me and hear me.

That'd be greatly appreciated. But we're diving into Chapter 2 of this book. So, if you want to get into Presupp and you want to kind of dive into Mantill's writings, this is always the one I always suggest first.

Don't run over to Mantill's Defense of the Faith or Prolegamata, the Systematic Theology. Those are important reads, but this one is a great reference to Cornelius Mantill. All right, I also may do an analysis and comparison and contrasting of Cornelius Mantill, which is another important Christian thinker.

He's also considered within rationalism. Again, not in the same vein as Mantill, but definitely an important read and a useful read, especially with respect to his critiques of secular worldviews. So, there you go.

All right, so let's jump right in. First, let me highlight that in Chapter 1. Chapter 1 was entitled, I'm not sure you can see that, but Chapter 1 was entitled The System of Christian Truth, and then Chapter 2 is entitled The Christian Philosophy of Life.

Now, it's important to understand Mantill's train of thought here. In the previous video where I spoke about Chapter 1, it's so important to recognize that Mantill believed that our apologetic, the way in which we are to defend the faith, is a way that must flow from a biblical theology, and so that's why in Chapter 1 of this book, Mantill walks through basically the categories of Systematic Theology, and that's why the first chapter is called The System of Christian Truth.

So, if you want to defend the Christian worldview, it's so important that you understand the Christian system of thought. So, keeping that in mind, that is the reason why Mantill places that at the beginning of his work here, that we are functioning from a foundation of the authority of Scripture and the theology that flows out of that Scripture.

So, that's important. So, Chapter 2 is The Christian Philosophy of Life, and this is very reminiscent of his opening passage here, where he talks about in Chapter 1, if you open up to Chapter 1, if you have the book with you on digital format or something along those lines, but I quoted this in the previous video, but I'll quote it again just to give some context.

The opening sentence of Chapter 1 of Christian Apologetics, Mantill defines apologetics as, quote, the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life against the various forms of the non-Christian philosophy of life.

And the phrase philosophy of life is very important because it highlights the fact that apologetics involves defending a worldview. And so again, you cannot ignore this fact that for presuppositionalists, apologetics is defense of a system of truth.

It is a defense of an entire outlook, an entire philosophy of life. Now, within the traditional categories of philosophy, when we think in terms of a worldview, we think in terms of some basic fundamental categories that I think are present in any worldview, regardless of which worldview you hold.

And those three foundations, some people list more than three, but at least minimally three, every worldview has a metaphysic, a theory of reality, an epistemology, a theory of knowledge, and an ethic, a theory as to how one ought to live their lives.

And so that's kind of three fundamentals here. And it's very important if you're going to understand Mantill is to understand where he's coming from in terms of his metaphysical presuppositions, things he assumes about the nature of reality as a Christian.

So keep that in mind because we're going to be jumping into that in just a moment. Had to get my coffee there. I have a delicious creme brulee flavor coffee here in this relatively plain looking mug, but I'll take one more.

Oh boy. All right, there we go. All right. So in chapter two of Mantill's book here, he introduces the concept of the Christian philosophy of life or the Christian philosophy of reality. And he begins by affirming that the foundation of this philosophy is, ready?

This is kind of the language he uses, the self-contained triune God. So unlike non-Christian philosophies that start with human autonomy and various finite perspectives, the Christian philosophy of life is very much rooted in the infinite personal God who reveals himself through Scripture.

And this foundation ensures that the Christian philosophy is coherent, it's comprehensive, providing a unified existence. This cannot be understated. One of the foundations metaphysically for Mantill is the triune God in which everything exists.

God created all things, defined all things, right? These are important concepts for Mantill. Now Mantill emphasizes, again, at base, this is very important, the most fundamental presupposition in terms of metaphysics for Mantill has to be the creator-creature distinction.

And this is emphasized throughout Mantill's writings. It's important because it is the ultimate metaphysical foundation for the Christian. Look at the opening words of the book of Genesis where you have the opening sentence there, in the beginning, God, there's the creator, created the heavens and the earth, there's the creation.

So right at the beginning of the Scriptures there, you have a fundamental distinction metaphysically with respect to the nature of reality, how we view reality, there is a difference between the creator and the creature.

And when we blur those lines, we blur those differences, problems will arise within our worldview, within our philosophical outlook. For Mantill, God, as the creator, again, is distinct from his creation.

He's independent, he's self-sufficient, whereas creation is dependent and contingent upon God. And that's not the same for God, there's nothing that God relies on. We can refer to God's aseity, he does not exist in such a way that he depends on anything external to himself.

And this creator-creature distinction undergirds all of Christian thought. It ensures that God is seen as the ultimate authority and source of all knowledge. While humans are finite and reliant on divine revelation for true understanding, true knowledge.

And so this framework rejects any form of pantheism or dualism, basically instead affirming the sovereignty of God over his creation. And the particular way that one ought to understand sovereignty for Mantill is going to be, pardon, is going to be, I lost my train of thought there, I kind of had a cough there.

I'm actually experiencing slight technical difficulties. I see myself here up on the screen and it starts flashing. I don't know if you guys, maybe give me a thumbs up if everything is alright on the side of the audience.

If you can hear me okay, you can see me okay, that'd be very helpful because this flashing here, which has never happened before, is a little distracting. One second.

Alright.

Okay, so when we speak of the sovereignty of God for Mantill, that's going to be understood within a particularly reformed understanding, right? You have to understand that Mantill's theology is not something separate from his apologetic, right?

Mantill is a reformed Christian. He's a Presbyterian. He holds to the Westminster Confession of Faith. He has a particular understanding of what it means for God to be sovereign. So all Christians will affirm that God is sovereign, but it is the particular sovereignty as understood by Mantill within the reformed tradition that I think is really undergirding his concept of what it means for God to be the all-conditioner, the absolute, non-contingent, sovereign God.

So it's important to understand Mantill in his proper theological context. Now, along with the creator-creature distinction, Mantill in chapter 2 explores the doctrine of revelation. Not the book of revelation, but the idea that God reveals himself.

And he emphasizes that God has chosen to reveal himself both generally in nature and especially in Scripture. So we have this distinction within normal categories of systematic theology. We have the distinction between natural and special revelation.

God has revealed himself in what has been created, and he also reveals himself in more specific ways. General revelation provides universal knowledge of God's existence and attributes, and that's accessible to all people.

While on the other hand, special revelation in the Bible specifically offers the specific truths necessary for salvation and having a right relationship with God. And this doctrine highlights really the necessity of divine revelation for true knowledge, as human sin distorts our natural understanding.

See how the theology is infused in these categories? And so Scripture serves as the ultimate authority and interpretive key for understanding all of reality for the Christian. Of course, for Mantill, Scripture is going to be the special revelatory lens through which everything else is understood.

And that's why when you read Mantill, there is, apart from the fact that when he starts getting into the different philosophies, he starts surveying the history of philosophy, starting from the garden all the way up to Kant and Hegel and all of these other philosophers, everything that he says is infused with these theological categories, which he finds to be grounded in Scripture itself.

So that's very, very important. He does not talk about knowledge and epistemology and metaphysics independent of his theological commitments because they are related. For example, your view of man is going to be theological in nature.

As a Christian, I have a particular theological view of what man is. If I were to ask an atheist what man is, in a general sense, we could have kind of a surface level agreement, but ultimately we're going to have a fundamental disagreement.

For the Christian believes that man is the image of God, whereas the atheist, of course, is going to reject that. Now, Mantill also talks about the importance of the Fall right there in Genesis and its impact on knowledge itself.

Now, he explains that sin, and I think this is biblical, Mantill explains that sin has corrupted human understanding, which leads to a false and inconsistent worldview. We have faulty worldviews because of our sin.

And the Fall distorts the mind, making it resistant to God's truth and inclined towards autonomous reasoning. We see this in the story of Adam and Eve, especially with respect to Eve when she decides for herself, right and wrong, not listening to God and putting the serpent's hypothesis to the test.

If you eat, you will be like God. She says, I will decide for myself. So you have this aspect of autonomy there. However, through the redemptive work of Christ and the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, believers are restored to a true knowledge of God.

This restoration allows Christians to interpret reality correctly in accordance with God's revelation rather than relying on the flawed reasoning of a fallen mind. Now, Christians don't reason correctly all the time, but being released from the bonds of sin, and having our nature changed with the power of regeneration, and then relying on the authority of God's word, and then trying to submit yourself to seeing the world and interpreting the world through the lens of scripture, the Christian has the capacity to understand the world rightly, because we see it through the lens of revelation.

Now, I think Van Til in this chapter underscores the necessity of regeneration, again, from a reformed perspective, for having a proper understanding of reality. Regeneration, the work of the Spirit in bringing a person to spiritual life, renews the mind and enables individuals to perceive and embrace the truth of God's revelation.

For Van Til, without regeneration, human beings pretty much remain spiritually dead and incapable of fully understanding or comprehending divine truth. And this is, again, this is Romans, right? The natural man cannot understand the things of God, right?

Because they're spiritually discerned, okay? And so basically this doctrine emphasizes really the transformative power of the gospel, which not only reconciles us to God, but also intellectually restores our ability to know and interpret reality in accordance with his will.

I think that's a very important connection, because we don't often think of that element, that through regeneration, okay, not only are our souls saved, but we see the world as it is, as God has revealed it, and hence we can have a genuine, objective knowledge about the created order, okay?

And this is why it's so important that we do not rely on the foundation of man, the sinking sands of human intellect and things like this, but rather we see the world through God's revelation. And this is so important, guys, because I think a lot of succumbing to adopting man's philosophies, it's very intimidating oftentimes when we hear unbelievers who are very smart, we look at videos on YouTube that scientists are saying this and philosophers are saying that, and it's very easy to feel intimidated and challenged by those things.

But in reality, if those views are not grounded in the authority of Scripture, the Bible calls them foolishness, right? Those are the foolish wisdom of God. The Scripture says that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man, okay?

And so we need to be able to, even if the whole world was against the truth of God, we need to be willing to stand on what God has said. And I think that's the implication of Van Til's view of the authority of God's word and the role it plays within our worldview.

Now, again, Van Til also discusses the presuppositional nature of Christian apologetics, okay? Again, it's a book on apologetics, right? Pretty much arguing that all reasoning is based on presuppositions.

You've heard this many times on my channel. I often make this point, right? For Christians, the ultimate presupposition is the truth of God's revelation in Scripture, which entails metaphysical aspects, epistemological aspects, and ethical aspects, right?

The biblical worldview, if the biblical worldview is true, then there is a triune God who's the metaphysical foundation of all reality, and this metaphysical foundation of all reality reveals Himself.

And so you have epistemology there. We could know things because God reveals it, okay? These are all important categories, right? And thinking in terms of ultimate presuppositions, okay? We are committed to the Word of God because it comes with the very authority of God Himself, and in that sense, Van Til often placed a great emphasis on not putting God to the test.

We do not test God like He is some hypothesis. God is the standard by which all other things are tested. That's what faithfulness requires us to do, okay? Now, that doesn't mean we follow things blindly and without reason, and the things that we believe and assert are just arbitrary.

No, that's not what I'm saying. But again, not all things are justified in the same way as we've spoken about in the past as well. I can justify a proposition over here by appealing to something more authoritative and creates the context and a standard to judge, but God is the ultimate standard, and so He is my ultimate standard by which all things are judged.

I do not put anything in a position that is more authoritative than God, and Van Til warns us of that, okay? So Van Til asserts in chapter 2 that Christians must unapologetically begin with the Bible as their foundation, okay?

And basically demonstrating the coherence and consistency of the Christian worldview while exposing the inconsistencies of non-Christian philosophies. Not the topic of this particular chapter, but the way in which we do that is going to be very important, the details of which include not simply showing that the Christian worldview is consistent and stopping there, okay?

A lot of people have misunderstandings with respect to presuppositional apologetics and transcendental argumentation. We're often accused of simply asserting that, well, the Christian worldview makes sense out of stuff and it's consistent.

Well, I'll tell you right now, a worldview being logically coherent doesn't entail its truth, okay? At minimum, I mean, if your worldview is true, it's got to be consistent, right?

Okay?

But mere consistency doesn't prove that a position is true. So that's not what the presuppositionalist is doing. We're not simply showing that the Christian worldview is consistent. However, demonstrating its coherence and consistency is part of the task, okay?

And of course, we engage in internal critiques of the non-Christian philosophy in turn showing that the non-Christian perspective is without foundation, it is without coherence, and so on and so forth, okay?

Now, let me take a quick coffee sip here before I dive into another important aspect of Chapter 2 of Cornelius Mantill's Christian Apologetics. If you're just tuning in, this is the book that we're covering, Chapter 2, entitled The Christian Philosophy of Life.

All right. All right.

Pardon.

Another important feature of Mantill's book, and of course Mantill's philosophy, is the idea of a vitally important aspect of Mantill's perspective, and I think it is indeed biblical. And so we introduce this concept of antithesis, which pretty much refers to the fundamental opposition between Christian and non-Christian worldviews, okay?

And so this antithesis, if you think of these kind of complete and utter opposition, this antithesis is rooted in the difference between those who are regenerate, those who are born again, those who are of God, and those who are unregenerate, okay?

Regenerate minds submit to the authority of God's revelation, while on the other hand, unregenerate minds reject it in favor of autonomous reasoning in some way, shape, or form. And so this fundamental opposition, I think, affects every area of thought and life, basically creating a clear distinction between the truth of Christianity and the errors of non-Christian perspective.

I think one of the key things that all non-Christian worldviews have in common is this idea of autonomy, or as Mantill, or as Greg Bonson pointed out, pretended autonomy. I mean, we can claim to be autonomous, but we're not really, right?

Mantill would often make the distinction that in order for the unbeliever to slap God in the face, he has to already be sitting on God's lap to do so in order to reach up to God's face and smack him. So we can point out the pretended autonomy within views, showing that they're not really autonomous, they actually have to borrow from the Christian categories, okay?

Again, not simply asserting that, that needs to be demonstrated throughout the course of your interaction with the unbeliever. But I'm just painting in broad strokes here. I hope this makes sense, all right?

Just to throw this out, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments. I know that I did not do this video today anticipating that many people would be watching live because I didn't plan it.

I just appeared here on YouTube. But if you are listening live and you have a question, I already see a question there. I will take a look at it in just a little bit. Feel free to ask away. If I'm able to answer the question, I will try my best.

If I'm not able to answer the question, I will respectfully say, hey, that's a great question. I have no idea. So there you go.

All right.

So we also have in Chapter 2 where Van Til elaborates on the Christian view of reality and knowledge. So you have this kind of metaphysical and epistemological connection, basically emphasizing that all truth is unified and rooted in God.

Remember, this is the Christian philosophy of life. There's a Christian system of truth. And so we have a unified worldview perspective. What I believe about something over here is connected to what I believe about over here.

They're connected and find their unification within the mind of God. And so this basically contrasts with the fragmentation and relativism found in a lot of non-Christian philosophies. In Christianity, reality is seen as a coherent whole, governed by the sovereign will of God.

And knowledge is possible within the Christian world because it's based on the revelation of an all-knowing God. So if you think about it, this understanding provides a solid foundation for all areas of human inquiry, basically ensuring that all aspects of life and thought are integrated and meaningful within a Christian perspective.

How can I have objective knowledge about a particular fact in human experience? Well, because God has revealed himself. God has revealed the nature of his world. And God is in a position to know what the nature of reality is.

It kind of makes me think when I talk about the fact, when the Bible talks about the fact that the unbeliever has a knowledge of God. I remember someone telling me back in the day, well, wait a minute, who are you to tell me that I have a knowledge of God that I'm suppressing?

How could you possibly know that? Well, if you think about it, if the Christian worldview is true, then there is an all-knowing God that is in a position to tell me in his word the nature of the unbeliever's heart.

But the unbeliever is not in a position to tell me the nature of my heart because he has no revelation within his worldview. He denies revelation. He denies an all-knowing God and so forth. And so you don't have to agree with the Christian perspective, but if it were true, it makes perfect sense that I could in principle know the nature of the unbelieving heart and the nature of sinful suppression, all these sorts of things, Romans 1, so on and so forth.

All right?

Okay, again, continuing on, Van Til in chapter 2 highlights the role of faith in knowledge, basically asserting that faith and knowledge are complementary with each other. Faith in God's revelation is the basis for knowledge, basically providing the necessary framework for understanding reality.

And so this faith is not a blind leap for Van Til, but rather it is a reasoned trust in the trustworthy God who has revealed himself. Van Til argues that all knowledge ultimately rests on faith commitments, and the Christian commitment to God's revelation provides a sure foundation for understanding and interpreting the world.

Okay?

Again, when we say that faith is the foundation, I'm not saying that faith like belief that God exists. You have to understand within the biblical concept of faith, faith is... How can I put this? The Bible doesn't argue for the existence of God.

You've heard me say this before. There's no syllogism that offers an argument, so on and so forth. The Bible says that all men know that God exists, and it's foolish to deny it. The fool says in his heart there is no God, so on and so forth.

So the idea of faith assumes the existence of God because it's a relational faith. It assumes that there is some sort of relation, whether you're in covenantal relationship or not, you've broken the covenant or whatever.

The idea of faith in the Bible is this idea of trust. It is a relational trust. And so our faith, everything that we know and assert about reality that's based on Revelation, we trust what God has said about those things.

Trusting in God is the basis for why we can know what we know. I can't prove every single item of my knowledge, but I can be confident in the things that I claim to know if God has spoken clearly to that specific area.

For example, I know that God created the universe.

Well, why?

Well, because God's revealed himself as creator. Deny that. You want to deny that, then you lose a foundation. You deny a worldview in which the creator God created all things and revealed himself. That has implications for your metaphysics, your epistemology, and so forth.

And the fact that a non-Christian worldview rejects those things will show that it actually does not have a foundation to stand. Again, not the topic of this video to go into more details on that, but just to give you an idea, we trust that what God says is true.

If you deny what God says, there are implications and ramifications in your philosophy of life. So in concluding and wrapping this chapter up, Van Til pretty much reaffirms the coherence and comprehensiveness of the Christian worldview.

He emphasizes that the Christian philosophy of life offers a unified and consistent understanding of all aspects of existence, rooted in the self-revelation of the triune God. And so pretty much this worldview provides a solid foundation for knowledge, ethics, and meaning, which pretty much stands in stark contrast to the fragmented and inconsistent perspectives of the non-Christian philosophy of life.

And so Van Til calls believers to confidently uphold and defend this coherent system of truth, demonstrating its superiority and truthfulness in the face of competing worldviews, okay? And so that is what chapter two is about.

Again, this is not a book proving to the unbeliever necessarily like, you know, God exists, although, I mean, there's a lot there for an unbeliever to think about. But it's informing Christians and calling Christians to a consistent apologetic, unwrapping the foundations of where our apologetic should come from, okay?

The authority of scripture, systematic theology, the theologies derived from the scripture, understanding Christianity as a system of truth, right? All of these things Van Til is laying out in his book, which again, by extension, will impact how we defend the faith, all right?

Okay, well, that's my brief chapter on chapter two. So in light of this, I want you to think about this, okay? If it's true that the Christian has a philosophy of life and the non-Christian has a philosophy of life and I have my presuppositions and you have your presuppositions, I have my worldview, you have your worldview, I'm gonna interpret evidence through the lens of my worldview, you're gonna interpret counter evidence in light of your worldview, you're gonna understand the world in different ways because we're wearing different worldview sunglasses as the saying goes, then how can we communicate with each other?

As a matter of fact, this has been one of the major criticisms of Van Til. Van Til's apologetic. Well, if what you're saying is true, then how is it possible for the believer to communicate and find a point of contact with the unbeliever, right?

Because we're separated by these kind of worldview bubbles that are impossible to escape from. That leads us to chapter three, the point of contact, okay? So whenever someone tells you, you know, if presuppositionalism is true, there's no point of contact with the unbeliever or Van Til taught that there is, because of sin and because of worldview bias and there's no neutrality, all these sorts of stuff, Van Til taught that there is no point of contact with the unbeliever, just preach the gospel.

If someone were to ever tell you that, that is 110 incorrect, okay? Van Til does believe there's a point of contact between the believer and unbeliever. And in the next summary, chapter three, we will talk a little bit about that, all right?

All right, well, that concludes my summary of chapter two of Van Til's Christian Apologetics. If there are any questions, please feel free to ask them, okay? Let's see here, Chris Cutler says, have you read Van Til's Common Grace?

Do you think he'd argue that there's a sense in which Christ purchased common grace or just that there is a connection of some sort? I've only read bits and pieces of Van Til's Common Grace, so I don't know how to answer that specifically.

I do know that there is obviously a connection. He thought that, for example, even though the unbeliever does not have a foundation for knowledge and so forth, right? Through God's common grace, the unbelievers throughout history have been able to accomplish many things, accomplish things in terms of technology, scientific development, and in terms of promoting culture and so forth.

Through God's common grace, unbelievers, even though they don't have a foundation, a strong foundation for their worldview, have been able to have varying degrees of success, at least on the human level.

So I do think that he would say that that is an aspect of common grace. And this is important because one of the things that people criticize Van Til for, right? If the unbeliever does not have a sufficient worldview or a foundation for knowledge and truth and so forth, how is it that many unbelievers have been very successful in various fields of human experience in the realm of philosophy, history, and science like we mentioned before?

And I think a robust understanding of common grace is applicable here. So yeah, I haven't read the whole thing. I've read bits and pieces. And so there you go. Thank you for that question. That might be the only question.

We'll see if there's any other questions. I'll kind of shoot the breeze and see if anyone inserts a question there. Please feel free. If you have any questions, it doesn't have to be about the book. If you have a question, I'm here.

I got some time. I have my coffee in me.

All right.

Richie Torres says, we do have common ground. Yeah, that's right. So sneak peek to chapter three. We do have common ground. Our common ground is that the unbeliever is made in the image of God. And so when we communicate with the unbeliever, we must appeal to the image of God that is there, yet he is suppressing.

Right?

There is a big important distinction between common ground and neutral ground. We'll talk about this when we cover chapter three, but just real between common ground and neutral ground. Van Til denied, he rejected the notion that there was neutral ground.

Between believer and unbeliever,.

But he affirmed that there was common ground.

All right. All right.

Richie Torres says, Eli, how does one respond to the argument that presuppose some form of slight of hand? Yeah, I would challenge the person to back up that claim.

Okay.

So for example, Richie, okay, presuppositional apologetics, when it's in the form of like argument, we're arguing, right? One of the centerpieces of the presuppositional approach is the transcendental argument.

Okay.

So when we argue, for example, that if Christianity were not true, you couldn't prove anything at all. What we're saying is that the Christian worldview is the necessary precondition for knowledge, for logic, science, and all these sorts of things.

Okay.

That's not a slight of hand. We are offering an argument and the argument is, you know, you can say X is the necessary precondition for Y. Y, therefore X. That's the argument form. And so I would ask the person, take that argument, that's the argument form of the argument I'm offering.

Show me how that argument is logically fallacious. How is offering an argument from the presuppositional perspective, how is offering an argument a slight of hand? Is it because we ask you, Mr. Unbeliever, well, how do you account for this, that, or the other thing?

They're saying, well, you're just shifting the burden. No, Christians are eager to show you that given the Christian presuppositions, okay, we have a worldview that accounts for the very foundations for the very things we need to have this conversation.

Things like logic, things like, you know, induction, uniformity of nature, and so forth.

Okay.

Now we're asking the unbeliever, well, give an account for those things because not only is demonstrating our position require us as Christians to show, given the Christian worldview, these things can be accounted for.

Okay.

Also, part of the apologetic is also to show that on your worldview, Mr. Unbeliever, you can't account for these things. And that's why we ask you to show you, in order to show you that it's true that your worldview can't account for these basic worldview categories, we have the internal critique.