Comments on: The Pulling Down of Strongholds: The Power of Presuppositional Apologetics

By: Keith

Keith — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 07:20:17 +0000

1. Intriguing. I’d like to hear more about your conversation.
2. I suppose you write this since Plantinga is a Molinist and therefore not a “true” Calvinist?
3. I agree.

By: Ron DiGiacomo

Ron DiGiacomo — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 18:21:17 +0000

“I heard that Plantinga studied Van Til very little. However, Plantinga is reformed so you will find a lot of similarities between the two men, although in my opinion Van Tilâ€™s system is far more robust and practical.”

1. It is true that Plantinga did not “study” VT. Had he, he would not have said to me in person that VT thought that unbelievers can’t know anything.

2. Plantinga is not Reformed.

3. Their similarities are in internal critiques of opposing worldvies. The presuppositional challenge, however, goes way beyond refutations.

Ron

By: Bill Council

Bill Council — Fri, 25 May 2007 18:36:12 +0000

If I may offer what appears to be a real world interchange between several atheists and a Christian presuppositional apologete. See “Conversations with Atheists,” by Dr. Alan Myatt at http://www.myatts.net/articles/atheists1. Or do a search under the title and author’s name. The text is over one hundred pages in a Word document. The exchange I found very helpful especially from the atheists who represent a fairly broad level of depth. I also thought Dr. Myatt did a good job in the exchange.

Hope this helps.

By: Keith

Keith — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 06:31:38 +0000

You have made several very good points. Plantinga’s quote on Van Til is disappointing.

You are also correct that Van Til’s writing consists of one too many grandiose intellectual flourishes that sound great on paper but have little applicability. Of course, Van Til’s system is applicable, but one must go to someone else like Greg Bahnsen or Michael Butler before really understanding how to apply it. Indeed, it took me almost a year before I really had a meaningful grasp of presuppositionalism, and even now I would say that I am unable to present TAG in an eloquent, understandable fashion.

No one has really done a lot of work in applying TAG in a debate setting. Sure, Bahnsen is known for using it in his debate against Gordon Stein, but people need to realize that Stein was caught totally off guard. (Not that the prepared atheists do much better—Dan Barker demonstrated this in his debate against Paul Manata.) Anyway, my point is that nothing is really available for the laymen at this point. Francis Schaeffer is about as close as you can get to learning how to apply internal critiques.

By the way, someone who does apologetics is called an ‘apologete.’ :)

By: mkm

mkm — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:26:54 +0000

OK, one more contribution today…
I am encouraged to hear someone else say that Van Til was more of a philosopher than an apolegetician (wrd?). IMO Van Til lays down some very persuasive ground work in his analysis of the believer’s position and the unbeliever’s position. This,IMO, is what has contributed most to his popularity. When he really does apologetics – sweeping idealist-inspired statements about Christianity (not just theism) being the only possible system of beliefs, and all other beliefs falling in a TAG way, he presents something the the average literate Christian does not understand and cannot use with his neighbor.
As a partial defense of what I have stated here, I ask you how many college-educated Christians say they STARTED a Van Til book and liked him, but didn’t finish the book and couldn’t really speak intelligibly about Van Til’s apologetic per se.

By: mkm

mkm — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:14:41 +0000

PS, here is the relevant quote from Plantinga:
“perhaps he [Calvin] means that those who don’t know God suffer much wider ranging cognitive deprivation and, in fact, don’t really have any knowledge at all. This view is attributed to some of his followers, for example, Cornelius Van Til. This seems a shade harsh, particularly because many who don’t believe in God seem to know a great deal more about some topics than most believers do.” Chapter 7, IV B in Warranted Christian Belief.

By: mkm

mkm — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 23:35:22 +0000

Thank you, Keith. I found that article and it is impressively clear.
In Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief he mentions Van Til once, and that mention reveals that he knows little about him. Plantinga says something like “If Van Til and Calvin believe unbelievers don’t know anything, then they are wrong.” For someone as learned as Plantinga – and someone who quotes Calvin as often as he does – I found that quote to be shockingly ignorant. Van Til freely admits that nonChristians make most of the great discoveries, etc.; “nonchristians can count, they just can’t account for their accounting.” Calvin even says that nonchristians have the Holy Spirit to enable their intellectual and cultural endeavors (not in His sanctifying work), and pronounces one of his characteristic denunciations on those who despise the intellectual contributions of nonchristians.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:55:46 +0000

I heard that Plantinga studied Van Til very little. However, Plantinga is reformed so you will find a lot of similarities between the two men, although in my opinion Van Til’s system is far more robust and practical. And calling Van Til “practical” compared to someone is quite a statement because Van Til was almost purely a philosopher. Even his exchanges with hypothetical unbelievers (such as in his book “Why I Believe In God”) leaves you with the impression that Van Til didn’t have a whole lot of actual one-on-one apologetics experience with the typical guy on the street.

That being said, Plantinga is even more purely philosophical. Whereas Van Til’s system is actually an apologetic methodology built on top of an epistemology (derived from the reformed view of scripture), Plantinga’s system is almost nothing more than an epistemology, and its sort of up to you to figure out how to apply it.

This is probably the best comparison of Van Til and Plantinga, as far as I know:
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/papers/IfKnowledgeThenGod.pdf

By: mkm

mkm — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 01:31:24 +0000

Thanks, razz.
I have just bought a book by Plantinga and am looking forward to plowing through it.
What is the standard view of Plantinga vis a vis Van Til? Complementary? Clashing? Did they ever interact directly?

By: razzendahcuben

razzendahcuben — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:40:42 +0000

I agree, mkm—that is definitely a weakness in Bahnsen’s argumentation. Van Til was even worse in this regard—TAG itself he would only state in its conclusory form.

In Always Ready he does present some arguments in slightly detailed fashion, although not nearly as detailed as I would like. The standard, in my opinion, is what Plantinga did with his internal critique of naturalism in ‘Naturalism Defeated?’ An excellent piece of work.