Theological Virtues in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity

A Summary of C.S. Lewis’s perspective on the Theological Virtues (Faith, Hope, Love) in Mere Christianity (Book II, chapters 9-12)

Lewis begins his discussion of Charity with reference to his chapter on Forgiveness, which he calls “a part of Charity” (129). He notes that while man consider charity as “alms,” the giving of money to the poor constitutes only part of Charity. The central quality of Charity Lewis calls, “’Love, in the Christian sense,’” which characterizes a state of the will rather than of the emotions. What we like or do not like are not Charity (though they may aid or detract from Charity). Charity desires the good or happiness of others as much as one’s own, and it must be cultivated through habitual actions that put others first, whether or not one feels like doing so. Loving, like hating, increases itself—the more one does acts of love, the more one finds he does love the object of his loving action; and the more one does acts of hate, the more one finds he does hate object of his hating action.

Lewis defines hope as, “a continual looking forward to the eternal world,” remarking that, perhaps paradoxically, such thinking makes men far more useful in the present world (134). He cites history for examples that show that the most heavenly-minded Christians did the most worldly good. The principle runs this way: “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither” (134). Lewis then anticipates his famous “argument from desire,” by observing how often people have desires beyond what any earthy goods can satisfy. He says there are three possible responses to such desires: 1) The Fool’s Way, 2) The Way of the Disillusioned ‘Sensible Man,’ and 3) The Christian Way. The Fool’s way blames the earthly goods for his dissatisfaction and spends all of his energy moving from one pleasure to the next, always seeking after what nothing he seeks can provide. The Sensible Man’s way denies the longing as false and tries to find contentment in the lesser pleasures earth provides. Whereas the Fool runs up a lengthy account of disappointments, the Sensible Man avoids small disappointments, but still misses out on the true satisfaction Reality affords. The Christian way believes it is man’s nature to desire things beyond this world because he was made for another—the natural desire for otherworldly pleasure is evidence of the reality beyond this life. All of the Scriptural imagery for heaven constitute earthly expressions for the inexpressible treasures of Heaven: music indicates the ecstasy and infinity of Heaven; crows, our share of God’s splendor, power, and joy in Heaven; gold, the timelessness and preciousness of Heaven.

Lewis devotes two chapters to Faith, since there are two senses of the word. The first involves belief, or acceptance of the truth of the doctrines of Christianity. The nature of this acceptance constitutes virtue, because it clings to the truth against the sense, emotions, and moods that make unbelief easier or more comfortable. A man may “have faith” in a surgeon’s skill, yet feel afraid when he must go under the knife. His faith shows itself strong when he chooses to quiet his fear in response to his reason’s acceptance of the truth. Faith then, like Charity, requires habituation—a continual effort at overcoming emotions and moods to the contrary. The second kind of Faith pertains to this habituation, since the revelation of faith, or the strengthening of faith, requires that one battle against temptation. Giving in to temptation does show temptation’s strength, but only through resistance does one test the strength of temptation. Since Jesus alone resisted all temptation, he alone knows temptation’s full strength, and it is only in striving to overcome temptation that we discover that God alone possesses the power to resist, and that He freely provides that power to those who seek it. One cannot know how much one needs faith until one tries to be good and fails, and one only understands how much one’s good depends upon God when one’s failure leads one to confess one’s utter dependence upon God for faith and works. In short, one cannot possess great faith without exhibiting great moral effort, yet one cannot achieve great moral effort without the help of God received by faith.

Athanasius's On the Incarnation III

Welcome to the third post in the series on Athanasius's On the Incarnation. The first post discussed some of the historical context surrounding Athanasius's work. The second post discussed the context of On the Incarnation in Athanasius's three-fold portrait (or trilogy) of human salvation.

The third post will begin covering the text of On the Incarnation. The Christian Classics Ethereal Library version of the text is easily accessible, so I'll be using that text for this series of posts. I welcome those interested in an alternative translation and arrangement to seek out John Behr's translation, published by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.

I'll summarize each section followed by commentary in italics.

1.1 Athanasius refers to his first treatise, Contra Gentes, and summarizes his main points against idolatry and for the divinity of the "Word of the Father." He then articulates his plan for the present work, which is to treat the Incarnation of the Word. He states that the sole cause of the Son of God's taking on human flesh is twofold: the love of humankind and the goodness of the Father. Moreover, it is only fitting that the Word of the Father by which the world was made should be the same agent for the salvation of the world. Already in the introduction Athanasius places an antithesis between the wisdom of God and the religion of the Jews and of the Gentiles. That which the Jews reject and the Greeks mock God shows to be fitting and good. The paradoxical nature of God's revelation of Himself to man (what man considers impossible, God shows possible, etc.) arises from man's flight from knowledge and being rather than from the nature of things as God has made them.

1.2 Athanasius refutes three false views of Creation: Epicurean, Platonic, and Gnostic. The Epicureans deny any Mind to order the universe, but assert that all things are self-originated by chance. If no Mind exists to distinguish one thing from another, then the universe would bear no distinctions, but would be a mass of uniformity. The universe has distinction, therefore a Mind lies behind it, and that mind is God. The Platonists believe matter is pre-existent and that God makes the world from this uncreated material. If matter is uncreated, then God is limited in what He can do by the nature of the matter, thus making God subject to something other than Himself, and only a craftsman rather than Creator. God is not subject to any other than Himself, thus He created from nothing (rather than formed from what was already there) the matter from which things are made. Gnostics believe an Artificer other than God the Father created all things. Yet Scripture clearly declares (in places like Matt. 19:4-6 and John 1:3) that the Father creates and nothing is, but that which God created. Athanasisus's refutations are directed against two heathen views and one heretical view. The heathen views (Epicureans and Platonists) he refutes through reason: discerning the necessity of a rational first cause for rationally organized things (Epicurean view), and the aseity of God, that is, God independence of anything not Himself (Platonic view). The Gnostics represent heresy, since Athanasius reasons from Scripture rather than reason to refute their error.

1.3. Athanasius provides a true account of Creation. God, the infinite, created finite things out of nothing (non-existence) through the agency of the Word, as Genesis, The Shepherd of Hermas, and Hebrews declare. God created out of His own goodness; a goodness which did not begrudge the good of existence to non-existent things. Man, God made in His own image, reasonable as God is reasonable, yet in limited degree. Reason gave to man choice of will (to follow or forsake God), which God tested by placing man in paradise (place) with a prohibition (law). Forsaking obedience and immortality man chose disobedience and death--a remaining state of death and corruption. Here Athanasius succinctly serves the orthodox Christian doctrine of Creation and the Fall. Of special note is Athanasius's emphasis on God reason for creating--not His love (though that is true as well), but His goodness. Aristotle considered magnanimity (greatness of soul) to be the crowning virtue of man, and whether or not Athanasius is playing upon this Greek idea, the connection seems suitable. The greatness of God's goodness leads Him to create, that His goodness might be made manifest in and to the things which He makes. Also notable is man's likeness to God--man possesses a share in the being of God through his rational/volitional mind, though his creatureliness limits man's expression of this divine quality. Finally, Athanasius sets up the problem which will result in two divine dilemmas--man's sin has plunged him into death, not just the act of dying, but the state of death and corruption that characterizes even his life in the body.

1.4 Athanasius explains that Creation must be discussed since man's loss of his original state is the cause of the Incarnation of the Word--the love of God caused Him to take up human form for the salvation of man into His initial purpose--uninterrupted, incorruptible communion with God. Man did not remain in the state of Adam's corruption simply, but progressed into greater corruption, which is a return to his original state of non-existence. Not only did man give up the life of God, descending back toward nothingness, but also the knowledge of God by which he participates in communion with, in life with, God. This is what evil is--(the return to) non-being. Only through contemplation of God does man preserve his likeness to God--the turning away from God is both metaphysical (being to non-being) and epistemological (knowledge to ignorance). Athanasius infers this from The Wisdom of Solomon 6:18, "The keeping of His laws is the assurance of incorruption." Athanasius moves from establishing the context of the divine dilemma to providing some definition to the reality of death and its effects upon man. Note especially the intimate relation between being and knowledge. Athanasius appears to place emphasis on knowing as the means to being, indeed, as the foundation of being--to remain in God one must contemplate Him, and so the turning away from the knowledge of God is a divestiture of the life man possesses in God alone. Surely the notion of idolatry undergirds this expression, since in man's giving himself to material things, to idols, he loses his contact with divinity. Note as well the intimacy between knowledge and obedience--contemplation of God includes the meditation upon and keeping of His law.

1.5 Athanasius elaborates on man in his state of innocence--subject to corruption, but shielded by his union with the Word--from which he fell due to the work of Satan and his own choice. From this point of departure Athanasius narrates the decline of man into greater corruption. He finishes by quoting Paul's same litany of corruption in Romans 1. The most significant addition in this section comes from Athanasius's acknowledgment that man depended upon "the grace of their union with the Word" of God in order to remain incorrupt--even in paradise--since man's nature was subject to corruption. Also significant is man's insatiable lust for corruption after the Fall. Athanasius makes apparent man's incapacity to curtail his appetite for evil left to himself.

That wraps up Chapter 1: Creation and the Fall. The next post will examine Chapter 2: The Divine Dilemma and its Solution in the Incarnation.

Athanasius's On the Incarnation II

Welcome to the second post in the series on Athanasius's On the Incarnation. The first post discussed some of the historical context surrounding Athanasius's work. In this second post, I'll briefly set On the Incarnation in its place within Athanasisus's trilogy on human salvation. I'm drawing mainly from John Behr's introduction to the St. Vladimir's Seminary Press edition of On the Incarnation.

It is undisputed that On the Incarnation is the continuation of Athanasius's earlier treatise Contra Gentes (Against the Heathen). Athanasius refers to this work in the preface of On the Incarnation. In Contra Gentes Athanasius sets out to refute idolatry, the overwhelming religious competitor of his day, and demonstrate the reasonableness of the Christian faith. Having done this, On the Incarnation sets out to show how God solves the problem of death, on the one hand, and the problem of human ignorance of God, on the other. The incarnation of God dissolves two divine dilemmas:

The Divine Dilemma of Death: since through sin death has entered the world and laid claim to man,
1. Either God must abandon man to death, showing Himself weak or uncaring for His creation,
2. Or God must disregard His own law, which was that disobedience of the creature would result in death and ongoing corruption.

The Divine Dilemma of Knowledge: since through sin man has turned away from the divine to materials things and lost the knowledge of God,
1. Either God must abandon man to ignorance, showing Himself weak of uncaring for His creation,
2. Or God must reveal himself through the material things to which man has turned, thus breaking His law against idolatry.

The incarnation dissolves both dilemmas, since the God-man's entrance into death fulfills the demands of death such that all humanity may escape; and through his coming as God-man men come to know him as a true man, yet through his divine works that he draws men's mind back to what is truly Divine.

Thus, the two works represent Athanasius's defeat of the idolatry that stands opposed to the Gospel and his articulation of salvation proclaimed by the Gospel.

So what forms the third work, and what is its place in relation to the two? Behr makes the point that Athanasius's Life of Antony, the biographical sketch of the desert ascetic, demonstrates the effects of the work of the incarnation articulated in On the Incarnation in the life of the Church through the life of Antony as a model for imitation. Throughout Life of Antony Athanasius shows that all of Antony's efforts--his renunciation of material goods, his seeking battle with demonic powers in the isolated realms where they dwell, his struggles against the temptations of the flesh, the world, and Satan (or lusts of the eyes, lusts of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life)--are made successful through the work of Christ in Antony. In particular, it is through Christ's conquest of death and corruption in the flesh that has made it possible for men to overcome the corruption of the flesh until death brings them into new life. The general movement of Life of Antony goes from intense solitary preparation for Antony to an outpouring of the fruits of the Spirit's work in his life in the lives of those who come to visit him. Moreover, through the intense suffering of affliction at the hands of Satan and his demons, Antony comes through with greater health and mastery over his body--and all of this Antony attributes to the power of Christ.

Thus, Contra Gentes demonstrates the vanity of idolatry, On the Incarnation demonstrates the hope of humanity, and Life of Antony demonstrates the faith upon which the Church progresses toward the culmination of the eschaton.

In the next post we'll look at Chapter 1 of On the Incarnation.

Athanasius's On the Incarnation I

After a few months of inactivity, I'm ready to jump back in with a writing project. I'd like to attempt blogging through Athanasius's, On the Incarnation, while I am teaching it to my eighth grade class. I'll begin with a post discussing the historical situation in which the book was written, and then a second post will place On the Incarnation within the corpus of Athanasius's writings. Subsequent posts will deal with each chapter of the work.

Just for classroom context, I've spent the first half of the year walking my students through the New Testament and the Early Church, using the Bible; Eusebius's, Church History; and several other primary texts. The main topics included how the Gospels and Acts write history and presents the person of Jesus; how Eusebius writes history and presents the narrative of the Church from a relatively peaceful obscurity through persecution and into an ascendant peace with Constantine. That brings us to Athanasius, whose book, On the Incarnation, both presents the orthodox understanding of salvation as well as the orthodox view of the Son of God in contradistinction to Arius. In order to prepare the students for the doctrinal context of the book, we discussed the Arian controversy as it played out between the first two ecumenical councils. We did this relying upon David Bentley Hart's chapter from, The Story of Christianity, entitled, "One God in Three Persons: The Earliest Church Councils." What follows is a summary of Hart's discussion.

Although the Edict of Milan brought an end to official persecution of Christians, it opened the opportunity for Christians to discuss their own understanding of Jesus Christ, in particular, His relationship to God the Father and to the Holy Spirit. There are three groups of Christians, other than the orthodox, Hart mentions as vying for their understanding of the Son's identity:

1. "Modalists" held that there is only One God who manifests at different times as "Father," "Son," or "Holy Spirit;" these being "modes" of the One God's singularity.

2. "Adoptionists" held that Christ had been a man who had been "adopted" into divine Sonship by the Father.

3. "Subordinationists" held that the Father alone is God in the fullest sense, the Son being a lesser expression of God, and the Spirit being a lesser expression of the Son.

Subordinationists were particularly concentrated in Alexandria, in part, perhaps, due to the fact that Jews and Pagans also held subordinationist views of God. Philo argued that the Logos, "Son of God," through whom the world was created, served as an intermediary between God and the world. Platonists held that the ultimate divine principle (the One) was so utterly transcendent of the world that all other things exist only through an order of lesser, derivative divine principles. Origen of Alexandria was the most influential early Christian thinker of his day, and his thought, though distinct from these Jewish and Platonist views, nevertheless shared some assumptions about the idea of transcendence and mediation; and he was a subordinationist.

It was in this Alexandrian context that Arius's own views developed and exceeded subordinationists. While Origen denied that the Father and Son we coequal, he nevertheless considered them coeternal. Arius went further, denying both coequality and coeternality to the Son, arguing that "If the Father begat the Son, the one that was begotten has a beginning of existence and from this it is evident that there was a time when the Son was not" (Hart quotes this from Socrates Scholasticus's The Eccelsiastical History). Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria during the time of Arius's arguments, expelled him Alexandria and from his position as presbyter there in 321. Arius published his views and even put them into popular song in 323.

By 324 Constantine had conquered Licinius, the last of his rivals, and brought stability to the empire. Having taken up Christianity as a stabilizing religion for the empire, he could not allow the dissension within the Church to continue. When Arius and Alexander could not be reconciled, Constantine called for a universal council of bishops to convene and determine the position of the Church on the relation of the Son of God to the Father. The First Council of Nicaea convened in 325 and included Arius, Alexander, and the young Athanasius (deacon to Alexander) attended in addition to three hundred or so bishops, most of whom came from the Eastern churches. Arius's doctrines were condemned, and only six bishops (included Arius) refused to accept the orthodox formula set forth in the Nicene Creed. The formula included a term foreign to Scripture, homoousios (consubstantial), which means "of the same substance," to describe the relation of the Son and Father. Though the idea reflects Scriptural descriptions of the Father, Son, and Spirit, it would be the source of ongoing strife.

Despite the unifying purpose of the First Council of Nicaea, the Church continued in controversy over the identity of the Son of God; and even Constantine was persuaded to become Arian by several prominent women in his household. Until the First Council of Constantinople in 381, where the final version of the Nicene Creed was formulated, bishops like Athanasius contended for Nicene orthodoxy over and against the majority who were Arians; often being exiled when Arian emperors came to power, or restored when Nicene emperors came to power. During the aftermath two groups articulated alternatives to Nicene orthodoxy:

1. "Homoeans" held that the Son is "of similar substance" (homoiousios) with the Father.

2. "Anomoeans" held that the Son is altogether unlike the Father.

It turned out to be the anomeans, in the figure of Eunomius, who came to represent the most prominent opposition to Nicene orthodoxy in the generation after 325. Athanasius did not live to see the final stroke fall upon the Arian heresy and its correlates--a threefold stroke struck by the Cappadocian fathers: St. Basil of Caesarea, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa. Hart notes that their complex defense of Nicene orthodoxy could be faithfully reduced to a simple series of propositions that were central to salvation in the life of the Early Church (represented also in Athanasius's On the Incarnation): "if it is the Son who joins us to the Father, and only God can join us to God, then the Son is God; and if, in the sacraments of the Church and the life of faith, it is the Spirit who joins us to the Father, and only God can join us to God, then the Spirit too must be God."

The debates all turned on the nature of human salvation--what it took for man to be reconciled with God--and, in the end, only God-Man--fully God, fully Man--could reconcile all men to the Father and restore all Creation to incorruption.

In the next post we'll look at how On the Incarnation provides the cornerstone for Athanasius's three-fold portrait of human salvation.

The Problem of Identity

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same. ~Plutarch, Theseus

Finite creatures change, yet we are able to identify individuals in duration. What remains the same in the midst of growth or change? What constitutes the identity of any given object? More acutely, what makes any person himself, or herself, that person? This thorny philosophical question has attracted many attempts of solution.

For the Christian, the answer itself is simple, though unravelling the tightly woven knot of the truth is no less complicated than many of the answers offered by non-Christian philosophers. Despite the complications of philosophy, a simple apologetic can be briefly outlined:

1. God is the ground of all Being.
Paul, in his speech before the Athenian council, the Areopagus, claimed that the pagan poet Aratus' idea that "in Zeus we live and move and have our being" is rightly applied to the One True God who has expressed Himself in the man, Jesus Christ, who will judge the world in righteousness. To have one's being in God entails that one's identity is in some way derivative of God's productive activity, and insofar as God governs His productive activity, to that extent does He determine or maintain the identity of what He has made.

2. God is the fount of all knowledge.
The Psalmist, in comparing the wickedness of the wicked to the perfections of God, claims that God is the fountain of life and that in His Light we see light. While both "fountain" and "light" here are metaphors, the connotations are not so wide and various to obscure the likelihood that knowledge is in view. To see is to behold, to behold is to experience the truth of what appears, that is, to know it (at least to some extent). Combined with John's opening in his gospel, the metaphor is even clearer: Christ is the true light that gives light to every man entering the world. Darkness and blindness are opposing metaphors for ignorance, which also reinforce the meaning of "light" as knowledge. Thus, insofar as the identity of a thing, or of a person, depends upon knowledge, to that extent the identity of a thing is derivative of God's knowledge.

3. God is the end of all Being and Knowledge.
Not only is God the ground of being and the fount of knowledge, He is also the end of these things. Again John is our helper, for in Revelation he witnesses several times the declaration that Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. Nor is the phrase left indeterminate. In Revelation 21 Alpha and Omega is set in the context of Christ as the giver of life, which I think extends to the notion of Being quite directly, though I won't defend that assertion here. In 1 John 3:2, John tells us that the children of God are not yet fully known, but that they know that when they see Christ revealed they shall be like him. The Greek verb translated "see" is a metaphor for seeing with the mind, or knowing. Knowledge is transformative, but in a teleological fashion--we become what we are to be by beholding with the mind the completed revelation of Jesus Christ.

To put it narratively, we cannot know our full identity until the protagonist has completed the end of the story, for our identity as human beings are all bound up in his identity as the God-Man. This is certainly true, corporately, but also individually, just as every part of my body has a "story" of its own, the completion of which depends upon how my own volition directs it unto some final end.

To recap, the problem of identity within Christian thought finds resolution in the identity of God as the beginning and end of Being and Knowledge; by the decree of the Father made manifest to us (and all the cosmos) in the person of Jesus Christ, both Son of God and Son of Man, and declared true by the testimony of the Holy Spirit to all the members of His Body, the Church.

Pascal on belief

Pascal once coined a phrase that has become a rather popular maxim used in answer to those who would question why people choose to love as they love: "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing."

However, the original context of the phrase is notably different:

"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing: we know this in countless ways. I say that it is natural for the heart to love the universal being or itself, according to its allegiance, and it hardens itself against either as it chooses. You have rejected one and kept the other. Is it reason that makes you love yourself?"

In other words, it is not by some rational demonstration that one's will or affections are directed at one thing or another, though it is possible (in some cases) to provide a rational demonstration of what follows from that initial choice.

Man's first principle is always a choice between believing in himself, or in something infinitely greater than himself, and he cannot, out of the stores of his own rationality, demonstrate why he chooses himself rather than the Infinite.

Two theological theses worth defending

1. Ontology should be the starting point for Christian education, for it is only insofar as we know what is God and what is man that we can know who is Christ as Lord and Savior.

2. Epistemology should be the starting point for Christian apologetics, for it is only insofar as we can justify our claims to the truth as well as our refutations of error that the unbeliever can be shown foolish, and the wisdom of God be acknowledged as true.

As a student of rhetoric I have a suspicion that one of the chief causes for the differences between Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Clark was in the context and audience of the development of their thought. Van Til taught at a reformed seminary where appeals to the Word of God and the basic knowledge of God were as common and acceptable as tap water. Clark taught for almost three decades in the philosophy department at Butler University, an institution of Christian heritage, but not directly governed by any ecclesiastical authority.

There is a different emphasis when one addresses an audience who is in basic agreement, particularly on a presuppositional level, than when one addresses an audience is in basic opposition. While I don't think this observation minimizes the differences between the two apologists, I do think it helps to explain why they developed their thoughts differently, despite being very close in the actual way in which they refuted opponent arguments.

Van Til wanted to begin with the being of God; Clark with the knowledge of God. Van Til was following the Dutch tradition of the Heidelberg Catechism; Clark was following Calvin and the Westminster Confession of Faith.

I think there is value in both approaches, but I think that audience matters, and thus I would defend the two theses at the top as the preferred approach for a sympathetic and unsympathetic audience, respectively.

"It ain't sexy," or possible reasons Christians don't like Presuppositional Apologetics

I was first introduced to presuppositional apologetics through an online forum where several older, wiser, and honorable Reformed men handed me my hat in several arguments, many of them unrelated to apologetics. As my respect for these men grew, I sought them out for things to read to grow my feeble understanding of theology, and to sharpen my own thinking in general. Three names were mentioned most; Gordon Clark, Greg Bahnsen, and R. J. Rushdoony. The former two were trained philosophers and wrote positive contributions to Christian theology and apologetics as well as defended Christianity against opposing claims. The latter wrote more widely, and (to my knowledge) did not deal specifically with apologetic method in his writings as did Clark and Bahnsen. I've always found these authors to be lucid and compelling, disagreeing with them only on minor points for the most part.

However, I have often encountered folks who find Clark and Bahnsen to be rather unconvincing and underdeveloped in their claims, providing more assertions than arguments. In fact, a friend of mine whose opinion I take seriously commented that he found Bahnsen's "Great Debate" with Gordon Stein to be terrible, mostly because Bahnsen was short on argument and long on assertion. He cited Kelly James Clark, an apologist of the Reformed Epistemology stripe, who made a similar remark about the debate in his response to John Frame's presuppositional position in the Five Views on Apologetics book. Prior to this friend's comments, I had once shown my graduate professor (who was usually pretty even-handed in evaluating arguments) a criticism of Marx, written by Clark, and the professor thought it was an absurd representation of Marx's viewpoint. Finally, in the online forum where I had first encountered these authors, many folks found presuppositional arguments and their proponents to be not only unpersuasive, but something akin to purveyors of cheap parlor tricks--a sort of Christian sophistry, if you will.

While I respectfully disagree with all of these criticisms, I have tried to come up with some plausible reasons why a method I find to be so cogent and pristine in its argument is considered so banal and reprehensible to others. Here's what I've come up with so far:

1. "Presuppositionalism isn't very persuasive to unbelievers, in fact, it doesn't seem to even try to persuade." There is some merit to this criticism, in the sense that presuppositionalism acknowledges that persuading unbelievers to accept Christianity isn't the primary goal of its apologetic. Presuppositionalism is essentially destructive in nature; it seeks to tear down alternatives to Christianity in order to leave the unbeliever "without excuse," or as Bahnsen might say it, to leave the unbeliever in direct confrontation with his own self-deception. Given this negative approach, there is usually less argument devoted to proving positive claims about Christianity. Evidences are not rejected, but neither are they frequently appealed to for support. They are seen as secondary to the destruction of foundational assumptions the inhibit opponents from rightly interpreting evidences, yes, even from accepting evidence as valid. To some this approach seems disingenuous, even unsupportable--isn't one obligated to provide positive arguments for one's own position? However, one must recognize that, with regard to knowing the truth, knowing what is false is also useful. Indeed, knowing something as false entails knowing its contrary, the truth of which is logically entailed. Therefore the presuppositionalist usually only advances one positive claim, the transcendental proof of God's existence, which claims that Christianity is true by the impossibility of the contrary. The apologist then spends the entire debate showing how something that his opponent considers indispensable to his own position is only rationally supportable upon Christian presuppositions. It is a positive argument through negative means. It seems sneaky, but it is just indirect. You can catch a bear by coming at him head-on with a large net, or you can put some fish in a cage with a trap-door.

2. "Presuppositionalism doesn't respond directly to opponents' claims, but just accuses them of being irrational, inconsistent, arbitrary, or incompatible with human experience." Like the first objection, there is some superficial merit to this claim. Presuppositionalism is, by design, an indirect critique of opposing positions. It seeks to provisionally accept the claims of the position it seeks to refute, and then show that contradictions, arbitrary standards, or incompatibilities are logically entailed by its foundational assumptions. Thus, if an empiricist were to say, for example, "How can you, as a Bible-believing Christian, accept that the sun stood still as it is stated in the book of Joshua, when scientifically such an event would be catastrophic for the entire planet?" a presuppositionalist might respond by asking how the empiricist knows that the sun hasn't stopped right now, or how does he know that the sun's stopping now would result in catastrophe. Thus, instead of answering the question, the question is turned back on the opponent, forcing him to justify the grounds of his own objection. The presuppositionalist simply asks, "Can the empiricist's objection stand upon the foundation which the empirist has used to support it?" If it cannot, the force of the objection disappears. While this seems unfair or disingenuous, it is not underhanded at all. Suppose someone accused you of stealing and demanded that you prove your innocence. Would it be unfair for you to ask what grounds the accuser has for his claim that you have stolen? So while an indirect method may be quite unorthodox in terms of how most debates proceed, it is not thereby unfair, disingenuous, or otherwise evasive or unethical. Indeed, the naturalist could with good will and good reason ask the Christian for the grounds of his objections to naturalism. Moreover, as I mentioned in the first objection, the presuppositionalist does use positive claims, but they are usually few and depend upon an indirect method.

3. "Presuppositionalism is a petitio principii, a circular argument fallacy that assumes its conclusion in order to prove its conclusion." There is a sense in which presuppositionalism is circular, however, presuppositionalism makes the claim that all systems of thought are self-referential and therefore circular, but not in a fallacious way. For example, the Christian by his very fact of being so, assumes that God exists--otherwise he would not be Christian. Similarly, the naturalist, by his own convictions, assumes that the world contains no spiritual realities--otherwise he would not be a naturalist. The Christian and the naturalist cannot cease to accept these assumptions without also ceasing to be what they are by conviction. The best either can do is to assume, for the sake of argument, that the opposite of what he believes to be true is true, and see where that would lead--which is precisely what the internal critique of presuppositionalism attempts to do. But even in the assumption of this "unbelief", one is only doing so hypothetically, for otherwise one's convictions would be changed and one would no longer be arguing against the view on behalf of his original position--his own view would have changed. The supposed neutrality of debate is really not neutrality at all, but rather a willingness to follow the logic where it leads whenever one's assumptions are made manifest. Further, the rational approach to being persuaded could only proceed through the destruction of one's accepted assumptions that prevent the change of mind!

4. "Presuppositionalists are only interested in winning the debate, and aren't concerned about presenting the best arguments." I suppose this claim could be true in many cases where presuppositionalists have debated, but I've never been shown how such a tendency is "built into" presuppositionalism--it isn't logically entailed. I think this objection is also related to the method of internal critique used by presuppositionalism. When the presuppositionalist consistently demands that his opponent offer justification for his claims and objections instead of responding to them directly, it can appear that the presuppositionalist is simply trying to "score points" or avoid the difficult arguments of his opponent. Of course, the presuppositionalist maintains that he is very much engaged in proving his case while also answering his opponent's case, but his indirect method of doing so often trips up the opponent and/or the audience because it looks a bit too much like Socrates' gadfly tactics of elenctic argumentation.

5. "Presuppositionalists come across as arrogant, as if they were the only ones with access to truth; that certainty is the only valuable kind of knowledge, thereby disdaining probable arguments." Presuppositionalists believe that God's Word declares knowledge of God to be basic to man, and that God's revealed truth in the Word is irrefutable. If man both knows God, and God's truth is irrefutable, then there is a real sense in which the Christian has "cornered the market on the truth," although the truth about God is possessed by all men in differing degrees. The problem of the unbeliever is not, therefore, predominantly intellectual--a problem of ignorance--but moral; he has only rejected Christianity out of rebellion and consequent self-deception. When ignorance is the problem, instruction in probabilities can be of some use. But when truth is being suppressed, there is little value in relying upon probabilities, since they always afford the possibility of legitimate denial. There is room to persist in rebellion and self-deception. Consider Paul's Areopagus speech in Athens--he does not seek to advance the probability of God's existence or Christ's resurrection. Instead he uses it as the basis of his criticisms of the Greeks' system of belief. One may object to using Paul as a good example of apologetic method, I suppose, but I'm not sure many Christians would take that line. Consider another analogy. If the King of the land sent a proclamation through his many heralds that he had conquered all of his enemies, and that anyone wishing to bow to the King's authority should make public confession and abide in the King's commands, would the heralds use probable arguments to support the fact that the King really had conquered his enemies, or that he really had given the proclamation? Would he not rather insist upon the certainty of the King's reign and rule, and emphasize the peril of those who would be skeptical? When claims of "maximal warrant" are available, why resort to arguments that have less warrant?

There are probably many other criticisms of presuppositionalism, and there are certainly more philosophically challenging critiques, but my main objective has been to address common objections that an audience or newcomer to the method might raise.

Whenever Babylon Conquers Assyria

Frederick Nietzsche, no friend of Christianity, once performed an immaculate reductio ad absurdum of scientific materialism in his essay, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense. The essay purports to uncover man's "will to truth," by analyzing the origins of language in man's quest to understand the world. The underlying premise upon which Nietzsche builds his argument is that of scientific materialism, that the world is no more than a collection of brute particulars subject to the irrational (i.e. purposeless) forces of nature, which are observable in their effects, but are otherwise inscrutable.

He asserts that any vocalization of a proposition, say, "This is a leaf," depends upon three levels of metaphorical translation: 1st, the nerve impulse that is the sensation of seeing the object, which in turn becomes and image in the mind (seeing and perceiving the object to be called "leaf"); 2nd the formulation of a sound to express the sensation and its image (saying the word "leaf"); 3rd, the categorizing of other similar sensations and images into a form that purports to express a definite class of objects (formulating a concept of "leaf" by which similar sensations are classified).

Nietzsche's criticism of this natural human process is that there is no rational basis for these metaphorical translations--it is simply human beings acting according to their purposeless nature, the same as any animal might react to nerve stimuli. There is no reason to think that man's thinking about objects in the world expresses anything generally true about the world anymore than a gnat's experience  of objects in the world expresses anything generally true about the world. All that human thinking expresses is human experience, which possesses no verisimilitude with the world of nature as it is in itself. Rather, human beings poetize their own experience and regulate one another upon the basis of collective, stipulated designations (which are designed to be productive of pleasure and reductive of pain). Thus, to "tell a lie" is to inflict undesirable or painful consequences according to the herd's stipulated designations, and to "tell the truth" is to produce desirable and pleasurable consequences by the same standard.

Nietzsche goes on to explain where the will to truth originates, that is, what led humans to enforce their designations upon one another in the first place. Nietzsche then concludes by separating two kinds of human expressions for the will to truth, one rational and the other intuitive (he does not say so, but one is the philosopher and the other is the poet, it seems to me).

Nietzsche's aim, one may suspect, is to open up to his age realization of the unfettered possibilities of poetizing the world according to one's own fancy and in one's own image. There are, of course, limitations upon what one can do--one is only human after all--but one need not follow the conventions of the herd, or should one follow the conventions of the herd, one can do so knowing that they are simply conveniences, without rational force. In either case, one may choose to be an overman, the individual who forges his own way apart from or among the herd, though it bring about his own ostracizing from the herd, and even great pain according to his all-too-human frailties. Whatever his hopes, the Christian can recognize in Nietzsche's remarks the intellectual conquest of an "Assyrian captor" by an equivalently dangerous "Babylonian force." That is, the replacement of trust in scientific observation as a guaranty of Truth by anarchical freedom to express one's power in whatever way one is able and willing. In one breath we may be thankful for the removal of an intellectual oppressor, but in the next we may pray for deliverance from the tyrannous idea that has been its demise.

The Church, grounded neither in the brute particulars of nature, nor the anarchical fancies of man, may justly laugh with her Bridegroom at both of these evils, yet only for a moment, since laughter is but the respite to take courage in one's own epistemological self-consciousness under the Sovereign Christ before marching once more to the front, where such vain ideas produce their devastating consequences upon men and things. The Church should not necessarily be opposed to settle down and grow strong in the midst of Babylon, but she should ever be wary of becoming Babylon herself. The quest for wisdom that liberates one from evil and the despair of present pain still begins, continues, and ends where it ever has begun, continued, and will end: with the fear of the Lord. Looking out for oneself and one's neighbor never involves looking to oneself or one's neighbor, but rather to the King, whose Word heralds in peace for all who will abide in its eternal Truth.

Sciences are humanities, too.

But the popular image of science is often different from the way it really works. Consciously or unconsciously, scientists are propagandists. To the outside world, they present science as a series of great discoveries, as smooth upwards progress towards truth. But inside science, fierce debates and controversies rage constantly. The public is shielded from these in several ways. First, scientific language is often technical and difficult for the non-scientists to penetrate. Secondly, science textbooks used everywhere from elementary school to university tend to conceal disagreement. This helps students by simplifying material, but it also serves to reinforce the image of science as "objective truth" above all questioning, and thereby reinforces the enormous social and political authority of science.

Disagreement about the interpretation of scientific theories is normal. No major theory of science is free of debate about its truth, meaning and implications.

J.B. Kennedy, Space, Time and Einstein, p. 20.

John Frame on Cornelius Van Til

I recently finished reading John Frame's book, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought. While I have read almost all of Gordon Clark's books, I have never sat down to read an entire volume of Van Til. The most exposure to Van Til that I've had is reading about half of Bahnsen's Van Til's Apologetic, which casts its focus more narrowly than Frame's book, but has the benefit of extensive quotations and readings from Van Til's works. Given my limited exposure to Van Til's thought, my comments here will be of a general character.

Frame's book is organized as follows: Part I, which includes three chapters (a general introduction, a biographical chapter, and a brief statement on his legacy); Part II, which examines Van Til's "Metaphysics of Knowledge" in eleven chapters (three on God's nature, two on knowledge [one of which is about the Clark-Van Til controversy]; and one each on Scripture, Presuppositions, Primacy of the Intellect, Logic, Analogical System, and Evidence); Part III, which looks at Antithesis, Common Grace, and Rationalism/Irrationalism dialectic in three chapters, respectively; Part IV, which analyzes Van Til's criticisms of traditional and contemporary apologetic methods as well as expositing Van Til's own method, with an example of it in practice (a total of seven chapters); Part V, three chapters on Van Til's criticisms of philosophical and theological positions past and present; Part VI, two concluding chapters; and two Appendixes, which include a criticism of "Ligonier Apologetic" by Frame and an essay on Van Til's preaching by Edmund Clowney.

Despite the wealth of information included in the volume, it is a fairly easy read for a philosophically oriented book. Frame has a congenial tone to his writing and his criticisms are predominantly focused upon providing the best possible reading of the individuals and seeking the clearest possible terms for engagement. If there is a general weakness, it is probably that Frame's desire to incorporate the best reading leads him to overlook the seriousness of some of the logical implications that will be commonly drawn from the confusing language that he finds in various authors.

The best part of Frame's book is his familiarity with Van Til and his comprehensive treatment of the various topics of Van Til's thought. Frame is not as acute as Bahnsen in his analysis, but Bahnsen's book is less comprehensive, and I think more biased in its analysis of Van Til's opponents; and especially of Gordon Clark. Frame actually gives a lot of ground to Clark in the controversy, but not enough to really bring out anything insightful into the ongoing issues between Clarkians and Van Tillians. Another strength of the book is Frame's appreciation for the effects of a "movement mentality" that arises around strong personalities such as Van Til. Even if Frame were exaggerating the effects of the movement mentality upon Van Til or his followers (and I have no reasons to suspect such exaggeration) it would still prove a sound warning for anyone investing their energy in so-called intellectual giants of a given time. I have sensed my own desire to defend my intellectual heroes beyond reasonable limits, in part because being found in error has less to do with the "glory" of the individual hero and more to do with the sense of loss on one's own investment in their program of thought. Of course, there is no real loss in discovering errors in any thought, since a discovery of error is a step toward truth--but psychologically, for those like me anyway, the first response to such errors isn't joy.

To speak more specifically about Van Til, the most intriguing aspect of his thought seems to be his ability to penetrate to the fundamental problems of a given philosophy or theological system. This certainly made Van Til unpopular with his contemporaries, since (think of the movement mentality again) few people respond well to having their poster-boy's philosophy deflated upon one or two points of critique, as opposed to the sort of nuance and caution that academics tend to employ in evaluating major players. Van Til's rejection of Barth is notable on this score, but also his ability to see that all forms of pagan philosophy necessarily presuppose truths derivable only from the God of Christianity. Admittedly, the sort of criticism lends itself to overstatement, since discerning logical presuppositions and/or implications are distinct from discerning the stated beliefs or entailments of a position. That is to say, all of us possess inconsistencies in our thought, which lead us to believe things about our position that contradict other aspects of which we are unaware. The incompatibilities of our own position are by definition "off the radar" until they are pointed out to us, and the most natural response is to defend our position until such inconsistencies have been fully demonstrated as valid and sound. Then, of course, there is the additional problem of unbelief, which is that unbelievers by nature have a true sense of God's existence and divine authority (Romans 1), but flee from it with all of their might unless God arrests their rebellion through His regenerative work.

Although it would be natural to go from here into the implications of Van Til's strongest contribution, I will leave it to my readers to investigate for themselves Frame's helpful book and Van Til's own writings. I would recommend Bahnsen's volume rather than a smattering of Van Til's own works. Bahnsen is far clearer than Van Til in his exposition of Van Til's own philosophy, if only for his more careful attention to the meanings of terms and his attention to translate technical terms into explicit statements or propositions.

A Must Read

Philosopher and Christian apologist James Anderson has just posted a link to a very interesting paper that proves the existence of God by proving the necessary existence of the laws of logic. It is highly stimulating, thoroughly argued, and a must read for anyone interested in apologetics or logic, or both!

Refuting Bahnsen's Refutation of Clark: Excursus 1

I've been having a back-and-forth debate with a visitor regarding the first post I made concerning Bahsen's criticism of Clark. I'm going to take a post to handle the main contention and also provide an example of where Bahnsen engages in a contradiction (or at least a very poor reading) of his criticisms of Clark. My visitor's words will be italicized.

The issue is the context of the statements Bahnsen quotes.

You state, "I deal expressly with the immediate surrounding context of Clark's quotes. Read a bit further into the critique before passing final judgment on this point." "This point" is the quote from Clark that Bahnsen claims is a departure from Van Tillian-presuppositional apologetics. I read your second post and you do not continue discussing it. I will read through the rest of the posts to see if you deal with it in detail.

I will grant my visitor's point that in the quoted text Clark's approach is a departure from Van Til's presuppositionalism. But in granting that, I mean to emphasize that the departure is, I believe, superficial. More on that below.

Now you did provide more context in you last comment to me. You say, "Of course they aren't presuppositional in the sense of presenting a positive argument. But that is irrelevant because the entire point is that Clark is performing an internal critique of opposing views, which requires the arguer to adopt the principle of the opponent to demonstrate the contradiction: Modus tollens. As your second question alludes, Clark is, in every one of the quotes that Bahnsen criticizes, performing internal critiques."

I see this as a departure from Bahnsen. In doing an internal critique, Bahnsen would not say something like "Chistianity in particular furnishes a BETTER method than secularism is a POSSIBILITY not to be dismissed." The presupposition that Bahnsen targets in internal critiques is not the unbeliever's adherence to Modus tollens but to his rejection of Scripture as revelation. The non-christian rejection of Scripture undermines logic and reason in totality, not in possibility. Bahnsen is not after contradictions here and there. He is out to show that apart from God there are no contradictions period. There is no modus tollens.

Performing an internal critique of opposing views does not require the arguer to adopt the CONFESSED principle of the opponent. It requires the arguer to confront him with the consequenses of his UNCONFESSED principle: God and His Word.

I think my visitor has created a false disjunction between modus tollens and the confrontation of revelation. Modus tollens, a logical argument that adopts a premise on the basis of demonstrating the absurdity of its implications, does not actually entail the assent to that adopted premise. Indeed, if one assented to the premise while knowingly attempting a modus tollens, one would be setting oneself up for contradiction!

The real difference between Bahnsen and Clark, or even Van Til and Clark, is simply a matter of method, and not of presuppositions. Clark, Van Til, and Bahnsen all presuppose that Scripture is the Word of God and is the only justification for knowledge. Bahsnen presses Clark because of his choice of "possible" or "probable" or other uncertain language, but really the difference is rhetorical rather than substantive. Clark wishes to engage the unbeliever in a discovery, whereas Bahnsen and Van Til wish to provoke their spirit by proclamation.

Clark does not hide his presuppositions from his readers, but he does not assert them with the force of Bahnsen or Van Til. For example, after stating Augustine's position he concludes:

"With the Bible and its theology Augustine's view of history can stand; without that theology Popper's strenuous moral pleading, with which he closes his book, has no foundation." (p. 231 Historiography: Secular and Religious)

Clark here affirms the basic presuppositional argument: apart from Revelation, no foundation for history can be had. While Clark takes 230 pages to reach this statement, it is not inconsistent with his professions of "probability," for in those places he is still canvassing views to indirectly lead his reader through the failures of unbelieving positions (modus tollens, or disjunctive syllogism, which we'll come back to).

Now one may certainly argue that Bahnsen's straightfoward approach is more keen to his liking, and one may even argue that Bahnsen's approach provides more confidence to the believer in his defense of the faith, for it places the critical issue at the forefront. However, to accuse Clark of contradiction is simply fallacious. The language of possibility in a modus tollens does not imply that the arguer is denying what he really wishes to prove. It merely shows that the unbeliever cannot establish what he would like to establish: the impossibility or improbability of Christianity.

Here is the full quote that Bahnsen pulls from Clark's chapter on Augustine (I've emboldened Bahnsen's excised portion):

In Part One the discussion on a few occasions approached, if it did not trespass on, matters of religion. For example, the question whether historians should pronounce moral judgments on great men requires for an affirmative answer an epistemological method of justifying a moral norm. That religion or Christianity in particular furnishes a better method than secularism is a possibility not to be dismissed without discussion.

While Clark is now introducing Christianity into his treatise on historiography, he is still engaging in a disjunctive syllogism, which aims to remove alternatives prior to asserting Christianity as the valid choice. While this is not Van Tillian in nature, it is still presuppositional, for one cannot eliminate on the basis of neutrality, but must have a foundation upon which to argue, which Clark freely admits is Christian Revelation.

On page 264-66 of his book, Bahnsen claims that Clark falls prey to the logical fallacy of asserting the consequent in trying to prove the validity of Christianity, and then, in order to salvage the argument, would have to use a disjunctive syllogism that can only be proven by omniscience, since the disjunction requires EVERY possibility to be dismantled in order to prove only one.

However, in his reply to Arthur Holmes in the edited volume, The Philosophy of Gordon Clark (a chapter Bahnsen cites), Clark expressly details his use of the disjunctive syllogism, and how it comports with his presupposition. First, he explains the usefulness of the disjunctive syllogism (notice the denial of neutrality):

It is the emphasis on system that justifies my use of the "disjunctive syllogism." Since in a logical system all the theorems come from the axioms, and from nowhere else, since indeed the meaning of the theorems depends on the axioms, a particular theorem cannot be found in two different systems. When such a theorem seems to occur, either there is an inconsistency in one or both systems, or the systems overlap--in which case at least one of them is not a universal system. Therefore, the so-called "disjunctive syllogism," the denial of a middle ground, and the principle that "he who is not for us is against us" are logical necessities. (p. 431)

He then goes on to assent to the fact that his disjunctions do not undertake to refute every alternative, but then he argues that many particular alternatives fall under his criticisms of empiricism, because of their basic (and unproven) assertion that physical sensation is a requirement for the possession and/or justification of human knowledge. He follows with more defenses of his disjunctions, then comes to another important presuppositional point:

In my debates with some who deny it, I have maintained that Christians and non-christians have certain "common ground." That is to say, a regenerate and unregenerate person may believe the same proposition [e.g. the sky is blue today]. But this by no means implies that a given proposition can be deduced indifferently from Christian and from secular presuppositions. Hence, the statement [by Holmes] that "We can learn about the form of logical reasoning, therefore, from non-christians philosophers," misses the point. In the case of logic the unacceptability of secular logic becomes clearer than in the case of Aristotle when Dewey brings logic into a more consistent connection with his secularism by denying logic's finality and arguing that the principles of logic, like the principles of grammar, change with use from age to age. Therefore, I should disagree with the idea that we can learn logic from Dewey. The principle involved in my argument is that incompatible axioms [presuppositions] do not imply identical conclusions. If the words sometimes sound similar, the intellectual content is not. (pp. 435-36)

In this quote Clark is denying neutrality, asserting the incoherence of secularist epistemology, and establishing that the Christian system is incompatible with all others. He obviously holds to the Christian system in arguing against all others, and is therefore consistent in accepting it as his presupposition.

There is a great deal more to be gleaned from Clark's reply to Holmes, much of which addresses other objections that Bahnsen makes to Clark. I remain puzzled as to how Bahnsen could have missed the cogency of Clark's replies. A summary may perhaps whet my readers's appetites to investigate further:

1. Bahnsen objects to Clark's use of "autonomous" logic as a means of "validating" Scripture. But Clark replies that Paul uses logic "at least on par with that of Aristotle," and since logic is evinced by Scripture, it is part of God's revelation, and not some autonomous system. In his logic textbook, he gives an example of Paul using an enthymeme (pg. 3), and on pg. 119 he identifies several logical forms found in Scripture:

For example, Romans 4:2 is an enthymematic hypothetical destructive syllogism. Romans 5:13 is a hypothetical constructive syllogism. 1 Corinthians 15:15-18 is a sorites.

If Paul uses logical forms, and Paul is inspired by the Holy Spirit, then we know for certain that God exhibits a logical mind. How then can logic be atheistic or autonomous when used to evidence the consistency of God's Word? Note well that I used the word "evidence" and not "prove." I've discussed in another post already where Clark openly asserts that Christianity is only "proven" by a change of mind in the individual brought about by the Holy Spirit.

So Bahnsen falsely accuses Clark of asserting the consequent, for Bahnsen's alleged reproduction of Clark (1. If the hypothesis of Christianity is true, then X. 2. X is the case. 3. Therefore, Christianity is true) is not Clark position at all. The second readjusted disjunctive syllogism that Bahnsen attempts to undermine also falls flat because Clark's use of the disjunction is not a denial of Christian presuppositionalism, but is rather built upon it. So far, argues Clark, in the history of philosophy there have only been four basic epistemologies offered: 1. Rationalism, 2. Empiricism, 3. Irrationalism and 4. Revelation. His disjunction does not treat all individual manifestations of these views, but rather he does complete a disjunction of the broad categories of rationalism, empiricism, and irrationalism. The burden of proof is upon individual views to establish epistemologies that do not fall under the three broad categories Clark destroys. Merely asserting alternatives is not enough (as Clark's rejoinder to Holmes also labors to show).

To conclude, Clark was every bit as much a presuppositionalist as Van Til or Bahnsen ever were in their commitment to the Revelation of Christ, God's Word inscripturated. The major distinction comes in the direct vs. indirect method of exposing the folly of unbelief. Bahnsen and Van Til are direct, whereas Clark is indirect. And actually, in his doctrinal writings, Clark is much more explicit and direct.