Calvin on Ecumenical Unity

John Armstrong is arguing on his blog that modern day Presbyterian and Reformed believers are too schismatic and not looking to the whole body of Christ enough. In one respect he is right. We all have tendencies to make mistakes and to think too much of ourselves. To deny that this is a bent to sin among the Presbyterian and Reformed would be foolish. But that does not mean that Rev. Armstrong is right. In fact, he is provably wrong in his recent series of posts.

What has Rev. Armstrong so upset is that a Presbyterian or Reformed pastor wrote a letter to man who had left the Protestant church for an Eastern Orthodox church and in that letter stated that the man had left the Christian Faith. This would indicate that Rev. Armstrong believes the Eastern Orthodox Church part of the Body of Christ and the Christian Faith. Whatever Armstrong believes the essentials of the Christian Faith, the EO church has them. Armstrong then goes on in his next post to make the claim that John Calvin was on his side. The third post, after noting Calvin’s desire to be unified despite disagreement on non-essentials, goes on to note that Calvin tried to get meetings with a goal of unity with Lutherans and even have a meeting with Romanists in Poissy in 1561, after Trent. For some reason Armstrong believes these facts make his case. Let me show the obvious as to why the do not.

I agree that Calvin thinks only essentials should divide the Christian Church. In non-essentials liberty. Fair enough. Now, Calvin tried to hold talks with even Romanists to seek unity. A grant the point. But that should make it clear that Calvin clearly thought that Lutheranism and Romanism were not worthy to unify with now. Calvin left the Romanist church after all. And if he had thought he could unify with the Lutherans, he probably would have done it. Why need to have talks to work things out if nothing stands in the way. Which means Calvin clearly thought them deficient in some “essential” of the Christian faith. The same can be said of the Anabaptists. Calvin thought them truly deficient or he would have unified with them.

What is the real difference between the Romanist that Calvin so clearly thought were outside of the Christian pale and deficient in essentials? The Eastern Orthodox do not submit to the Pope and reject that the Holy Spirit comes from Christ. It is highly likely that Calvin would have also rejected union with them and viewed them as deficient in essentials. After all, Calvin must have known of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and yet he did not join them. He rejected union with them as well. So, Armstrong seems to have proven the letter stating that the Eastern Orthodox convert had "left the Christian Faith" is exactly what Calvin would have written.

I am sure that Armstrong is not quite done, but I am waiting for him to make an argument that helps his cause. It will be interesting to see what exactly the "essentials" of the Faith are.

The Van Til v. Clark Feud

Before I continue examining Van Til and Schaeffer I feel I just have to comment for a moment about Van Til and Clark. Or more specifically what Van Til and Clark has morphed into today.

You will have a hard time finding more acrimonious debate than anytime you run across a debate about Van Til versus Gordon Clark. Followers of Clark will angrily denounce Van Til, trace evils back to him, and say that his methodology puts all knowledge in danger. Van Tillians are usually calm until provoked, but they constantly use ‘Clarkian’ as a slur and relating anyone or anything to John Robbins is a code word for dismissing all that is said without further thought. Why these groups seem to be unable to restrain themselves has befuddled me until recently.

Green Baggins recently hosted an attempt to reconcile the two views. This is something that is done often. People claim that Clark and Van Til simply talked past each other. I am convinced that these two great intellectuals clearly understood one another and profoundly disagreed. Reconciliation is impossible. (Andrew Sandlin has a nice essay about this) But it is the comments that particularly show the root of this anger filled debate. Note in that discussion by post 29 people are told to give up talking to the lone supporter of Clark on the discussion. Of course the lone Clark supporter, a man named Sean Gerety, gets three strikes against him for being abusive. Why the dismissive tone? Why the anger?

In my opinion the reason is twofold. I believe the first and primary reason such anger exists is because of the historical record or the distortion of the historical record. Note several times the debate boils down to what actually happened with the Van Tillians arguing Van Til was not the main antagonist and Clarkians becoming irate at the idea Van Til is to be cleared (see especially comments 94, 126, and 128). I have no doubt in the authenticity of the account given in this post by Rev. Johnson about Clark saying Van Til treated him with respect. Clark apparently preferred to place the black hat on Ned Stonehouse. Meuther has a new biography of Van Til that places the blame on John Murray. However, it needs to be noted that whether or not Van Til is the impetus or not is not the point. Van Til participated. The OPC Presbytery of Philadelphia’s own minutes show that Van Til was indeed one of the signers of the Complaint against Clark’s ordination in 1944. Murray and Stonehouse signed it as well. Van Til then participated in the debate (again according the minutes) at the Presbytery Meeting giving at least one lengthy speech against Clark. Again Stonehouse and Murray participated. In fact, the entire Westminster Faculty participated. The minutes recorded in the Presbyterian Guardian actually directly state Van Til declared "that it was no mere matter of a difference in terminology". Van Til clearly voted against Clark. Does it really matter who led the charge? Van Til was clearly against Clark and worked against him in the church courts. This is a historical fact that simply needs to be admitted. Van Til worked to keep Clark out of the OPC as in fact did the entire Westminster Seminary Faculty. This is a sore spot for followers of Clark and the attempted removal of blame for this from Van Til aggravates the situation.

The second reason is the constant refusal to interact with Clark’s or his followers critique of Van Til. Consider for a moment the high importance placed on logic in the Clark-System, and then imagine participating in a debate where logical attacks are not answered, brushed off (comment #27), or answered with personal attacks (#143). This happens more often than one might think. That being said, the militant attitude of Sean in this case brought on militant attitudes in others. John Robbins often has the same problem. His highly vitriolic rhetoric tends to bring out a defense reaction rather than a reaction of open mindedness. It is hard to blame people for walking away from a discussion where they are constantly abused. However, it should be noted that the tone or the rhetoric does not affect the argument itself. The idea that Meuther is wrong or biased in his biography is one that needs to be answered. The point that Van Til supported Norman Shepherd needs to be answered. These are points that cannot go unanswered (Just for the record I am not saying that I agree with these objections just that they deserve an answer).
One might notice that I place more blame on the tone of the discussion on the followers of Van Til, than I do the followers of Clark. That would be correct. The Van Til Party is the Majority Party and thus bears a great deal of responsibility. That being said there is one thing that the followers of Clark need to do to aid in the discussion. They should stop claiming the Federal Vision is a product of Van Til’s teaching and epistemology. This does nothing but provoke a gutteral response from the followers of Van Til. I understand the need of Clark’s followers to test the ‘root by the fruit’ so to speak, and it is true that not one known Federal Vision man is a follower of Clark. But that proves nothing. That is not even out of the realm of statistics yet. Robbins and Gerety have yet to show that Van Til’s thinking are the root cause. Could it be that Banshen’s interpretation of Van Til is more the problem that Van Til. This would provide the stronger connection with Theonomy, which appears to be more than a passing influence on the FV. Could it be that there is something deeper at work that would make people want to adhere to Van Til and then Theonomy and the FV? Could it be that the idea of Doctrinal Development is the axiom at the root rather than Van Til? If one wanted to really study the idea of what promotes the FV, then do so, but it is a needless provocation during a discussion about Van Til and Clark.

So in conclusion, the venom in this debate will not be turned down until it is acknowledged that Van Til and all of Westminster viewed Clark outside the bounds of orthodoxy for the OPC. And it will not be turned down until Clark’s critique is taken seriously and the differences admitted to be real and substantial. Then hopefully both sides will be able to keep the discussion on a fruitful plain.

And for full disclosure’s sake, I consider myself a Presuppositionalists much closer to Van Til than to Clark.

Schaeffer on Van Til

Thanks to a link in the comments section of my previous post, we can see what Schaeffer thought about Van Til’s thought even if it be ever so brief.

Remember Van Til’s main complaint against Schaeffer is that Schaeffer ended up not challenging the presupposition of modern man, namely his own autonomy. That by asking the unbeliever to see his own manishness and his system’s incompatibility with the world that Schaeffer had by default accepted the autonomy of man. Van Til then believes that with the starting presupposition of man’s autonomy one could never get to the God of the Bible.

The review written by Francis Schaeffer attempts to reconcile the view of Dr. Van Til with that of Dr. Bushnell, who apparently held to a Classical Apologetic method. Basically that method of Thomas Aquinas of logical arguments, but with a few improvements as is admitted in the review.

One note should be made about the summary of agreements between the two provided by Schaeffer. Point number four, I believe to be wrong.

4. As I remember Dr. Van Til's practical approach, it was to show the non-Christian that his world view, en toto, and in all its parts, must logically lead back to full irrationalism and then to show him that the Christian system provides the universal which gives avowed explanation of the universe. It is Christianity or nothing.

This maybe a misunderstanding of Van Til’s apologetic approach because this is exactly what Van Til critiques Schaeffer for doing. Van Til is against the idea of giving man the ability to chose with his own presuppostions. He is against the idea that the unsaved man can look at Christian system and see that it explains the universe and that his own system does not. Now it may be that Schaeffer is emphasizing the ‘practical’ part of the sentence as if to say that this is the only way Van Til’s system can be implemented. Which would make the practical line up with Schaeffer and fall out of line with the theoretical approach argued by Van Til. Using logic or an understanding of the world around him for Van Til gives credence to the ultimacy of man, and is to be rejected. His theoretical starting point is given in Christian Apologetics :

The point of contact for the gospel, then, must be sought within the natural man. Deep down in his mind every man knows that he is the creature of God and a covenant breaker. But every man acts if he were not so. (Christian Apologetics pg. 57)

Thus, I think that Schaeffer in this review assumes an agreement that does not exist. In fact it is an agreement that Van Til would say gives away the farm. Perhaps it is this misunderstanding that allows Schaeffer to think he can reconcile the two methods of apologetics.

For fairness sake, I think Van Til is a little too hard on Schaeffer’s theory as well. It bares remembering that Schaeffer thought of himself primarily as an evangelist, not an apologist. Schaeffer often taught that modern man cannot give a right diagnosis of himself. In fact, "Christianity has a diagnosis and then a solid foundation for an answer. (The God Who is There pg. 46)" Van Til did admit this, but stresses the methodology of Schaeffer as contradictory to this. Van Til even perhaps ignores these foundational statements of the book before launching into critiquing it. Rather than seeing this statement about Christianity in back of the methodology he assumes the methodology contradicts this early statement.

Both men seem to have some misunderstandings of each other, but real differences exist. And they are important. The next post will examine the differences I see and we shall work our way into examining the concluding statement of Schaeffer in the review linked above.

The answer rests in the fact that the unsaved man is not logical and therefore I can agree to both the statements that (1) the un-Christian system* and the Christian system "have absolutely no common ground whatever on any level, for, when the world view is seen as a whole, it necessarily evinces metaphysics, a metaphysics which governs every level of meaning." (Page 247, The Bible Today, May, 1948, quoting Dr. Carnell); and also (2) that there is a point of contact with the unsaved man.

This intriguing point deserves a closer look.

Cornelius Van Til versus Francis Schaeffer

There is always a lot of discussion about the feud between Rev. Van Til and Rev. Gordon Clark. This is probably because of all the actions taken by each man to fight with the other including causing Clark to move to a different denomination. There is a great deal of bitterness between the two groups still today, although some want to sweep their dispute under the rug by saying that the two men just talked past each other, but really agreed, something I highly doubt. This conversation is always raging somewhere. Right now one can find it at Greenbaggins, and it will also always be in play over at the Trinity Foundation.

However, lesser known is the dispute between Van Til and Francis Schaeffer. Much like the previous dispute both these men used the term ‘presupposition’ to describe their own apologetic approach. While I cannot find a place where Schaeffer deals directly with Van Til, I have found Van Til’s view on Schaeffer. In summary, Van Til believed Schaeffer to be following the Classical Approach of Thomas Aquinas. Van Til vehemently argues that Schaeffer is not a Presuppositional Apologist. Van Til critiques The God Who Is There:

Schaeffer allows that the modern man, though not a Christian, has the right problematics but that he needs the Christian answer. But no man has the right probelmatics unless he formulates it in terms of the Christian answer. No man emerging from a bottomless ocean of chance can even ask who he is and what the world is. He simply cannot identify himself. (page ii of The Apologetic Methodology of Francis Schaeffer)

Van Til dislikes Schaeffer’s starting with man in himself. Schaeffer advocated a method that started with man in his own idea of himself and then would ‘blow the roof’ off of that system by showing him how it does not fit in the world, and it cannot be held to coherently. This for Van Til is not starting with what the Bible says about man, how he is a sinner standing in need of Christ. Van Til argues that this position cedes too much by thinking that a non-Christian man can see his problem at all. And that it implicitly sets up a test for the truth or validity of the Christian faith, namely the test of coherence (which is similar to the problem he had with Clark). Van Til calls Schaeffer’s method a “some sort of synthesis between Descartes and Calvin” (ibid. pg. 9).

Thus, Van Til claims Schaeffer’s use of presupposition really has the same meaning as hypothesis (pg. 11). Thus, according to Van Til, Schaeffer has committed the error of Thomism and has given too much place to logic and not enough place for God’s Word. Schaeffer assumes a common ground that does not exist for Van Til.

Apologetics is something that has occupied a bit of my time lately. Specifically, how do we put feet to the theories that are so often debates, especially in this post-modern world. I would like to take a closer look at this disagreement and examine some biblical evidence. I very much hope to have feedback on this as it is much more a work in progress and thinking out loud than a real argument or solid position.