Is Scripture “Worthy To Be Believed?”: The Contribution of Cornelius Van To The Debate

by Douglas E. Chismar

The ancient dilemma of the relation of faith to reason has resurfaced in our time with the clash between the so-called “autopistic” and “axiopistic” views of Scripture. Involved is the question of Reason’s role in the process of coming to belief in the Scriptures as God’s written Word. Though the dispute has primarily ensued within the evangelical camp, its significance should be seen to extend far beyond such confines, particularly in the light of twentieth century philosophical interest in verification, falsification, theory assessment, the nature of pre-theoretical commitments and the like. To what extent do the Christian belief claims concerning the ultimate origin, contents and efficacy of the Bible embrace intellectually identifiable consequences?

Let us observe, first of all, the contemporary controversy between the autopistic and axiopistic views of Scripture. Having reviewed the positions, we shall survey Van Til’s contribution to the debate, and then consider his position as a possible via media between the seemingly irreconcilable camps.

The Positions

By “autopistic”, we mean that Scripture is seen as having the capability to generate, from within itself, its own reception and belief. As John Murray, a noted proponent of the position, has written: “This is just saying that Scripture evidences itself to be the Word of God; its divinity is self-authenticating.”[1]

Scripture manifests and overtly claims the “quality of divinity,” this often being termed the “external testimony” or “objective witness.”[2] This, however, is deemed insufficient in itself, due to the noetic effects of sin, blinding the eyes and minds of unbelievers.[3] Hence, in the sovereignty of God, with the external testimony comes the testimonium Spiritu sancti, the “internal testimony” of the Spirit in the hearts of those whose eyes are being opened. It is this internal testimony or “subjective witness” which guarantees the reception of Scripture as the Word of God, attesting to what is written and conditioning the spiritual ground into which the seed of truth is sown. There is thus an inner and outer side to the process of self-authentication; the proponents of the position point this out as the distinguishing mark between what they believe, and subjectivism or an “encounter” theology of revelation.[4]

The “axiopistic” position counters that the autopist’s emphasis on the testimonium is overwrought. If the Scriptures indeed evidence their divine origin in “objective” fashion, then this evidence is of considerable importance in itself, and must not be slipped under the carpet by a pneumatological sleight of hand. With contemporary analytical philosophers (and we note a very similar empiricist bent[5]) they ask what it means to say “I believe that Scripture manifests the quality of divinity.” Is this not an assertion about certain empirically-identifiable characteristics? Or is it, as theological positivists charged, and the early Barthians to some extent agreed, merely the assertion that Scripture is to me, the one grasped (emotively?) by the inner experience of faith, the Word of God? The axiopists respond that we believe in Scripture because it is worthy to be believed. The uniqueness, historicity, accuracy, and divine origin of the Bible are evident in its contents, and can be exhibited with telling rational cogency.[6] Writes Pinnock:

The Spirit creates faith through the indications or evidences. Assurance is an inner persuasion based upon extrasubjective truth, not a blind, ungrounded conviction. There is a perfect balance between subjective and objective factors…. Ours is a credible and spiritual conviction. The Spirit creates certitude in the heart on the basis of good and sufficient evidence.[7]

For Pinnock, Montgomery, Lewis, and others, such an exhibition is made to serve as a preparatory rational step (assensus) to the fullness of faith (fiducia). We do not ask the unbeliever to accept in his heart what is insupportable or manifestly foolish to his reason (cf. the skandalon or krisis of the early Barth). Thus Warfield, oft-quoted in favor of the axiopistic view, writes:

Faith is the gift of God; but it does not in the least follow that the faith God gives is an irrational faith, that is, a faith without grounds in right reason … The Holy Spirit does not work a blind, an ungrounded faith in the heart. What is supplied by his creative energy in working faith is not a ready-made faith, rooted in nothing, and clinging without reason to its object; nor yet new grounds of belief in the object presented; but just a new ability of the heart to respond to the grounds of faith, sufficient in themselves, already present to the understanding.[8]

It is charged that the autopistic position, though seemingly rendering the Christian faith invulnerable has actually offered no apologia at all, and Warfield points to Kuyper’s virtual rejection of apologetics as an indication of the intellectual impotency inevitably brought about by an over-emphasis upon the testimonium.[9]

Further arenas of controversy might be defined, such as the question of the cognitive nature (substantive content) of the testimonium, methodological considerations in apologetics, and the significance of history and historical investigation to the Christian faith. Let us proceed, however, to Van Til’s contribution, noting as we progress his attempts to resolve these questions.

Van Til’s Position

Cornelius Van Til, as the “dean” of Calvinist Scholars at Westminster Theological Seminary,[10] clearly locates himself with Calvin, Kuyper, Bavinck, Young and Murray in support of the autopistic position. However, as an apologist he has sought to redress some of the overstatements[11] and inadequacies of the autopistic position.

As is well known, Van Til very explicitly rejects the traditional empiricist apologetics employed by most axiopists. He brands all such methods as Scholastic, immanentistic, semi-Pelagian and naturalistic (at least in implication), as well as dangerously counter-productive. In critiquing Valentine Hepp’s use of the proofs, he writes:

Of these proofs, constructed on a neutral and therefore non-Christian basis, Hepp says that they cry day and night that God exists. … To this we reply that they cry day and night that God does not exist. For, as they have been constructed, they cry that a finite God exists. Nothing more could come from the procedure on which they have been constructed.[12]

Towards the historical arguments, he casts similar aspersions, as in his commentary on Warfield’s stance.

The flaw in this whole approach of Warfield’s to the defense of the Bible as the inspired Word of God is that its philosophy of history is the opposite of that which the Bible, according to Warfield himself, teaches. If history is not what it is because of its creation and redemption by the triune God, there could not be any foundation on which man could stand in order either to affirm or deny the truth about anything.[13]

Van Til strongly maintains that to ask the unbeliever, according to his own system, to judge the truth of Scripture, is to encourage his rationalism and invite defeat.

How could unbelievers, unbelievers just because they have already rejected God’s revelation in the universe about them and within them by a philosophy of chance and of human autonomy, ever concede that the claims of the New Testament writers with respect to their inspiration by God is true? The criterion they employ will compel them to deny it.[14]

It is self-contradictory to expect the unbeliever to submit to, and yet judge the Holy Scriptures.

If he is asked to use his reason as the judge of the credibility of the Christian revelation without at the same time being asked to renounce his view of himself as ultimate, then he is virtually asked to believe and to disbelieve in his own ultimacy at the same time and in the same sense.[15]

In every case, the conclusions and observations of the unbeliever are colored by his assumptions about himself and the existence and/or nature of God.

The natural man, who assumes that he himself and the facts about him are not created, therefore assumes what is basically false. Everything he says about himself and the universe will be colored by this assumption. It is therefore impossible to grant that he is right, basically right, in what he says about any fact. If he says what is right in detail about any fact, this is in spite of, not because of his basically false assumption.[16]

Van Til rejects the idea of common notions and neutral observations of fact; “the very idea of the existence of abstract truths is a falsification of the knowledge of the true God that every sinner involuntarily finds within himself.”[17]

If the natural man is given permission to draw the floorplan for a house and is allowed to build the first story of the house in accordance with his own blueprint, the Christian cannot escape being controlled in a large measure by the same blueprint when he wants to take over the building of the second story of the house.[18]

Does Van Til thus fall back totally upon the autopistic position? At times it appears so. “Christ does ask the natural man to judge with respect to the truth of his claims. But then he asks them to admit that their own wisdom has been made foolishness with God.”[19] “Believers accept his Word for what it is by the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word on their hearts.”[20]

However, when positively expressed, Van Til’s apologetic involves considerably more than a mute appeal to spiritual experience. It is primarily through man’s reasoning that God chooses to speak to human consciousness.

Man’s own interpretative activity, whether of the more or of the less extended type, whether in ratiocination or in intuition, is no doubt the most penetrating means by which the Holy Spirit presses the claims of God upon man.[21]

There is an objective demonstration of Christianity and Scripture. To maintain anything less than this is to compromise the truth of Christianity and the presence of God.

I stress the objective clarity of God’s revelation of himself wherever it appears. Both Thomas Aquinas and Butler contend that men have done justice by the evidence if they conclude that God probably exists … I consider this a compromise of simple and fundamental Biblical truth. It is an insult to the living God to say that his revelation of himself so lacks in clarity that man, himself through and through revelation of God, does justice by it when he says that God probably exists.[22] 

There is objective evidence in abundance, and it is sufficiently clear. Men ought, if only they reasoned rightly, to come to the conclusion that God exists.[23]

Contrary to popular opinion, Van Til finds a place for the proofs, which he holds can be formulated “on a Christian or on a non-Christian basis.”[24]

… if the theistic proof is constructed as it ought to be constructed, it is objectively valid, whatever the attitude of those to whom it comes may be…. We should not tone down the validity of this argument to the probability level. The argument may be poorly stated, and may never be adequately stated. But in itself the argument is absolutely sound. Christianity is the only reasonable position to hold. It is not merely as reasonable as other positions, or a bit more reasonable than other positions; it alone is the natural and reasonable position for men to take.[25]

But let us note what Van Til means when he says that ‘‘Christianity is the only reasonable position to hold.” This statement can be attributed to him only when seen in the light of his “block-house methodology” and “indirect” approach.

The Adequacy of Christianity

Van Til’s primary argument, indeed the main-stay of his apologetics, is that only Christianity provides an adequate basis for any reasoning whatsoever.

If reality were the sort of thing that non-Christian thinking assumes it to be, something not created and not controlled by God, then there would be no possibility of human knowledge of it at all… .It is just because the world and man are, as the Scriptures teach, created for one another and directed toward their goal through redemption by Christ, that human predication is possible.[26]

The unbeliever “cannot even raise an intelligible objection against the Christian view. For in objecting to the Christian view he has to presuppose its truth.”[27] Thus “the Christian-theistic position must be shown to be not as defensible as some other position; it must rather be shown to be the position which alone does not annihilate intelligent human experience.”[28]

Only the Christian position, beginning with the order of this world as proximate and derivative, and the plan of the self-conscious ontological Trinity as ultimate, provides an adequate basis and explanation for rationality and relationships in the cosmos. Hence, Van Til’s objections against any apologetic which allows at the start that the unbeliever can (consistently) possess any true knowledge:

But even if it be said that Christianity is more probably true than is the non-Christian position this is still to allow that objectively something can be said for the truth of the non-Christian position. Something objectively valid can be said for idol worship as well as for worship of the true God. In other words on his general approach [Ridderbos] cannot show negatively that if one interprets life on the assumption of human autonomy there is no meaning to human experience.[29]

Van Til challenges his critics “to show him the epistemological foundation on which they stand when they raise their objection.”[30] This he calls his “block-house methodology” or “indirect” approach.[31] Can they even construct a system at all, or provide an “Archemedian Point” for rationality? “Can they, on their foundation, even have any such thing as an intelligible philosophy of fact?”[32]

Only the Christian theory of knowledge, based as it is upon the absolute authority of the Word of God speaking in Scripture, makes communication of any sort possible anywhere between men. Without this presupposition men would have no integrated selves and the world would be a vacuum. Without this presupposition of the Christian theory of being there would be no defensible position with respect to the relation of men and things. Neither men nor things would have discernible identity. There would be no science and no philosophy or theology, for there would be no order. History would be utterly unintelligible. Finally without the presupposition of the Christian theory or morality there would be no intelligible view of the difference between good and evil.[33]

Van Til resists the traditional (or axiopistic) approach on four principle grounds.

(a) It is “constructed on the assumption that we as human beings may make our start from the finite world, as from something that is ultimate.”[34 ]Human experience is held to be self-explanatory and the laws of human reason legislative.

(b) It assumes “that man can first know much about himself and the universe and afterward ask whether God exists and Christianity is true. The Reformed apologist assumes that nothing can be known by man about himself or the universe unless God exists and Christianity is true.”[35]

(c) It “tones down the objective claims of God upon men by saying that there is no absolute probative force in the proofs for the existence of God.”[36] Both in its rational superiority, as well as in the impressing of the presence of God upon man’s consciousness in the form of the sensus deitatus, Christianity presents itself as convincing and sure. Here the autopistic method, as expressed by many, has been corrected.

(d) It by implication denies the necessity and importance of the Spirit’s attesting work. It fails to recognize that, beyond being merely inconsistent, the unbeliever has chosen presuppositions which are the result of a “‘negative ethical reaction’ to God’s inescapable presence.”[37] These presuppositions, and the mask of apparent rationality by which they are concealed, must be removed “by atomic power and flamethrowers.”[38] Yet, as expressions of a decision and an anti-theistic disposition, they cannot be removed by mere intellectual dialogue. In many cases the unbeliever must be convinced in his heart to prefer rationality to autonomy. He has little reason to do so apart from the motive of pleasing and conforming himself to the character of a rational, Creator-God. It is the Holy Spirit’s work to form this motive within the heart of such a man—thus the autopistic theme.[39]

A Via Media

In transcending these four shortcomings, we would suggest that Van Til has provided a reasonable via media between the axiopistic and autopistic positions. Scripture is held worthy to believe, but the demonstration of this takes place on a much broader range than that of individual historical questions or scientific fact. Systems, standards, criteria and their foundations constitute the substance of discussion, and from these more portentous questions, one steps easily to matters of the heart and the working of the Holy Spirit. Though the Holy Spirit is not said to communicate or establish new truth, His working nonetheless has impact presuppositionally upon the rational system-building of “concrete individual men.”[40] We cannot and should not divorce a man’s existential choices from his intellectual constructs; the heart of man is concretely involved in his reasoning. For Van Til, all reasoning is ad hominem, as well as coram Deo (in the presence of God). This well-rounded view of reasoning as an aspect of the whole man helps Van Til to avoid the barren rationalism of many of the “fact mongers”.

Recent analytical philosophy has helped to recall Christian theology to its historical and empirical base by demanding of the biblical “fact claims” a measure of verifiability, or at least falsifiability.[41] At the same time, it has also helped to identify the special nature of much biblical language (the Bible is a religious book, and combines many genres with that of historical narrative), and the unique kind of response demanded when one accepts the Bible’s claims.[42] Though matters of fact and reason are certainly not excluded (fact claims are made), a very great change and commitment is sought in the reader—far greater and deeper than the assensus to a small body of historical facts or scientific assertions. With his presuppositional analysis, Van Til seeks to bridge the gap between these assertions, and the fullness of faith.

Scripture, presenting itself as the only rational alternative, within which alone history and science gain meaning, must be pressed as alone worthy to be believed. Only its world-picture, or system, can provide a basis for the conventional concepts and disciplines of thinking man. But in that the broader issues of one’s philosophy and religious (absolute) commitments are thus brought into consideration, it is both foolish and merciless to expect fallen man to respond favorably of his own, apart from the guidance of the Holy Spirit’s witness. Thus Scripture is both axiopistic and autopistic. It is axiopistic in demonstrably offering the only adequate philosophical basis for holistic human functioning. And in thus challenging the individual to forsake his false philosophy and to assume an entirely new perspective on life and existence, it relies on the Holy Spirit’s witness and regenerating power … the autopistic theme.

Scripture is worthy to be believed, but the demonstration of this fact, as presuppositional, can be achieved only by the aid of the Holy Spirit. Van Til presents an exciting third way between the auto- and axio-pistic positions, and provides for a more adequate integration of mind and heart, faith and reason, the testimonium and the dialogus.

Notes

1. John Murray, “The Attestation of Scripture”, in The Infallible Word, ed. N. B. Stonehouse, P. Woolley (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1946), p. 46. “External evidence … may corroborate and confirm the witness it inherently contains, but such external evidence cannot be in the category of evidence sufficient to ground and constrain faith” (p. 46). Young, Kuyper, Bavinck, and probably Calvin himself would fall under this heading. For Calvin, see infra.
2. Ibid., pp. 42, 46-7.
3. cf. John Calvin: “There are other reasons, neither few nor feeble, by which the dignity and majesty of the Scriptures may be not only proved to the pious, but also completely vindicated against the cavils of slanderers. These, however, cannot of themselves produce a firm faith in Scripture until our heavenly Father manifest his presence in it, and thereby secure implicit reverence for it. Then only, therefore, does Scripture suffice to give a saving knowledge of God when its certainty is founded on the inward persuasion of the Holy Spirit … it is foolish to attempt to prove to infidels that the Scripture is the Word of God. This it cannot be known to be, except by faith” (Institutes, I.8.13, cf. I.7.5).
4. Murray, for example, sharply delineates the “classic Reformed conception” and the Barthian view of the Spirit’s witness as “God’s ever-recurring act” (op. cit., pp. 43-46).
5. Pinnock even refers to his position as “revelation empiricism”; Clark H. Pinnock, Biblical Revelation—The Foundation of Christian Theology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), p. 44. Others holding the axiopistic position would be Warfield, C. S. Lewis, Fuller, Gerstner, Montgomery and Frank Morrison. Pinnock also claims Wolhart Pannenberg as an adherant.
6. It is interesting that Calvin points to similar proofs, noting however that “in vain were the authority of Scripture fortified by argument … or confirmed by any other helps, if unaccompanied by an assurance higher and stronger than human judgement can give.” (Inst., I.8.1).
7. Pinnock, op. cit., p. 51.
8. B. B. Warfield, “Introductory Note,” in Francis R. Beattie, Apologetics, Vol. I (Richmond: The Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1903), p. 20. “It is the distinction of Christianity that it has come into the world clothed with the mission to reason its way to its dominion” (ibid., p. 20).
9. Warfield, op. cit., pp. 27-29; cf. Pinnock’s five reasons for the failure of “fideism” (op. cit., pp. 42-f.).
10. Cf. the recent tribute to Van Til, with a brief summary of his system in Christianity Today: David E. Kucharsky, “At the Beginning, God” Christianity Today, Vol. 22, No. 6 (Dec. 30, 1977), pp. 414-418.
11. He himself criticizes Kuyper, and praises Warfield for restoring some of the balance to the Christian view of revelation; Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1969), pp. 243-244.
12. Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1974), p. 61.
13. Cornelius Van Til, The Doctrine of Scripture, In Defense of the Faith, Vol. I (den Dulk Christian Foundation, 1967), p. 60.
14. Van Til, Doctrine of Scripture, p. 60.
15. Cornelius Van Til, Apologetics (unpublished class syllabus), p. 50, of. p. 48.
16. Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1955 edition), p. 224.
17. Van Til, Common Grace, p. 57.
18. Van Til, DOF (Defense of the Faith), p. 111.
19. Van Til, DOS (Doctrine of Scripture), p. 61.
20. Van Til, DOF, p. 179.
21. Van Til, Common Grace, p. 62.
22. Van Til, DOF, p. 197.
23. Van Til, Common Grace, p. 49.
24. Van Til, DOF, p. 176.
25. Van Til, Common Grace, pp. 49, 62.
26. Van Til, DOF, p. 180.
27. Ibid., p. 180.
28. Ibid., p. 177.
29. Ibid., p. 177.
30. Van Til, Common Grace, p. 62; cf. Apologetics, p. 64.
31. Van Til, Apologetics, pp. 72, 62.
32. Van Til, Common Grace, p. 62.
33. Van Til, Doctrine of Scripture, p. 61. Thus “faith alone is reasonable” (Common Grace, p. 67).
34. Van Til, Common Grace, p. 61.
35. Van Til, DOF, p. 223.
36. Van Til, DOF, p. 177.
37. Van Til, Christian Theory of Knowledge, p. 224.
38. Van Til, Apologetics, p. 58.
39. Ibid., p. 65.
40. Ibid., p. 50.
41. The classic representative of this position would be A. J. Ayer in the earlier editions of Language, Truth and Logic. The “falsification” test has been suggested by Popper, Hare, Braithwaite, et al.
42. The inability to fit biblical revelation and Christian experience into the empiricist criteria is the point of John Wirdom’s “invisible gardner” parable. Others (cf. Antony Flew, ed., New Essays in Philosophical Theology) have made similar observations about the “slipperiness” of biblical theistic claims. Note also Bernard Ramm’s wise critique of an “overly propositional” view of revelation, in Special Revelation and the Word of God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1961), pp. 154-f. Nicholas Wolterstoff attempts to resolve the dilemma by viewing Scripture as a set of “control beliefs” affecting theory assessment, in Reason Within the Bounds of Religion (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1976), pp. 67-f. All of these contributions have to some degree helped to broaden our understanding of the depths and extent of revelation in Scripture.