The Heresy of Cornelius Van Til??? (pt 2a)

[vdaoine]

Possibly people voted for Obama because of truth, justice, faith - concepts anyone even remotely opposed to his ideals could never understand. I reiterate that you cover up truth with false words, you call them eloquence, I call them intentional deceit.

You are beyond evil, in that you think you are righteous. Heaven has barred itself against your kind, that much is certain. You know this to be true. You're false, through and through. Fake. Dishonest. Corrupt. god hates these things.

[NeoConvert]

And when you're asked what is the nature of these "ideals" of his that anyone for "truth", "justice" and "faith" would clearly respond to by voting for him, you will, no doubt, circularly appeal to those same values.

Thus you have not answered the question I posed to you in the original thread in which we met, nor have you been able to answer it here, now that you have (I assume inadvertently, as you have been dodging) no re-invited.

Who's deceitful then?

Distraction, distraction.

[NeoConvert]

** should read: "here re-invited it."

[vdaoine]

You're clearly too arrogant to admit when you're just a normal jerk - hiding behind eloquence and "intellectualism" is clearly a coping mechanism for your inability to find meaning in your own existence. Hence your pursuit of something intangible, so you can argue your point to your hearts content without having to take a stand for anything. Keep deleting my posts. They live on in your mind, gnawing at your weakness and mortality. You're pathetic, and if there is a god, they're aware of that

[NeoConvert]

Thank you for finding me eloquent. Such a complement seems out of place amid the standard fare of sophomoric & unmotivated name-calling you've thus far displayed a flair for.

Also, I've not deleted any of your posts. They live on, here, on my channel (and others) displaying your vitriolic incoherency.

[NeoConvert]

One might well be justified in replying that hiding behind accusations of another "hiding behind intellectualism" is, in all probability, a tacit admission of one's own inability to deal with the argument at hand in any meaningful way.

[vdaoine]

Hmm, since you can't take criticism I'm forced to create a new post. You're clearly balding, as evidenced by wearing a hat. Furthermore, I fail to see how anything you say means anything at all, as the entire debate is irrelevant. You're basically wasting your life, yet you don't seem to care/notice?

[NeoConvert]

I don't doubt one bit that you "fail to see how anything I say means anything at all."

Anyone who inferred a necessary correlation between hat-wearing and hair recession would likely encounter precisely the sorts of intellectual difficulties you admit to encountering.

[NeoConvert]

I do not find it a bit surprising that you fail to see how anything I say means anything at all.

Anyone who inferred a necessary correlation between hat-wearing and hair recession, it seems, would encounter precisely the sorts of remedial intellectual difficulties that you're here admitting to.

[vdaoine]

it's presentation, not presenation, btw.

idiot

[NeoConvert]

Let me make sure I understand correctly (before deleting your comment for flagrantly violating my terms).

First, you come to my channel angry that I've pointed out the idiocy of your 'racist' accusation on another thread.

So you come here to pick a fight. Then, once you've arrived, you quickly realize that there is no degree to which you can cogently participate in the present discussion.

So you correct someone's typographical error and call them an "idiot" for mistyping a word.

Brilliant.

[numberonesurvivor75]

God is outside of the boundaries of the laws. He's like a number that's not in a function's domain.

Now, I believe that all laws that man ever articulates, including "biblical" law, is always just symbolic and an attempt at finding God. God is what the law symbolizes.

[Jd311989]

whats the music in beginning and end? Song/Artist?

[NeoConvert]

You want my soundtrack secrets!!??

C'mon! That's the only thing my vids got goin' for them!

[NeoConvert]

I should say that if you do not have a little bit of acquaintance with the philosophical problems surrounding matters like causation, explanation, induction, conceptualization, etc., then this may be a bit foreign.

[NeoConvert]

If we answer "no" to that question (and thus affirm that man is cognitively dependent in the manner thus described) then it makes no sense to talk of "proving" that God exists, by way of an argument from priorly known premises... precisely because in this case nothing would be more priorly known than God. The "fact" of God would, in this case, be intimately bound up with every "fact" that man apprehended.

[NeoConvert]

Well, there are some related implications for free will. But here, we are more specifically concerned with the question whether man is "cognitively dependent" or "cognitively autonomous".

When man thinks about (understand/apprehends/interpr­ets) himself and the world around him, could he do what he is doing regardless of whether or not God is who and what He is?

That is the question.

[NeoConvert]

Even Aquinas would have been happy to make the connection between logic and divinity, but the basic Romanist assumption that man is "autonomous" in his use of his rationality and his interpretation of the world around him is what VT was out to uproot from protestant thought.

[StormTrek]

"but the basic Romanist assumption that man is 'autonomous' in his use of his rationality "

What does that mean?

Does it mean Aquinas thought logic was created for creation.

[NeoConvert]

No, not necessarily. But what it does mean is that man, in his thinking, is not at all times reliant on God.

Look for instance at Aquinas's opinion about the endeavor to "prove" the existence of God. Aquinas holds that we may begin with our knowledge of the world (scientia) and reason to God's existence.

But notice that what is assumed here is that man CAN know things 'before' or 'independent of' his knowledge of God's existence.

The proof could never get underway were this not so.

[NeoConvert]

So Aquinus, by way of his very methodology, takes it for granted that man has a measure of knowledge that does NOT involve God as it's final reference point.

Thus whatever the principles are by which man knows the world (logic, laws of science, etc.), the assumption is that man may know these without "knowing" God.

The whole question for VT was whether these abstract principles simply floated "out there" somewhere, or whether man knew them because he knows God.

[StormTrek]

"But what it does mean is that man, in his thinking, is not at all times reliant on God."

Is this a statement on freewill, or something more down to earth?

[StormTrek]

Was Van Til the first Christian philosopher to state that the laws of logic are attributes of God, or was he continuing the thinking of others?

[NeoConvert]

Van Til saw himself as picking up on a thread in Augustine that - if carried through - would have lead to the complete severance from secular philosophies that Van Til sought for his system.

He did not, however, think that Augustine completely divested himself of the vestiges of Platonism. He came close, but I did not get to the end zone.

Now a non-Christian will scoff at the suggestion that Augustine was anything BUT a Platonist, but they do not understand the criteria VT is using.

[NeoConvert]

It's thus difficult to answer your question as succinctly as you ask it. It's a bit more complicated than that.

Many NON-Christian philosophers have made the connection between the "divine" and the "rational." The difference is that they always saw themselves as only quantitatively different than the "divine" (thus they posess a "spark"), rather than qualitatively different, which is what the Creator/creature scheme of Christianity requires.

[brandonadams07]

You are right to respond the way you do to the idea that the laws of logic are created. It is a radical idea with frightening consequences. However, your assumption that Robbins does not know what he is talking about is incorrect. It is possible and likely that he understands Van Til better than you. You can leave your opinion of RedBeetle out of the discussion, because he really has nothing to do with it, and you should not let your opinion of him cloud your discernment...

[brandonadams07]

"let me paraphrase"

How about you don't. How about you let Van Til speak for himself. He said truth is an attribute of God. You assume he means the laws of logic. Yet this is the very thing being questioned. Surely you know that you can't assume something you are setting out to prove. Van Til does not say the laws of logic are attributes of God.

A rather curious statement comes a couple sentences later on page 12:

"As Christians, we say that we can be like God and must be like God in that...

[NeoConvert]

This is rather interesting. In response to my saying, at one point, "let me paraphrase,' you say...

"How about you let Van Til speak for himself. He said truth is an attribute of God."

Okay then Brandon, please cite the passage from Van Til where he says that.

Or...were you paraphrasing?

[brandonadams07]

"...we are persons but that we must ALWAYS be unlike God in that he is an absolute person while we are finite persons. Non-theists, on the other hand, maintain that though God may be a greater person than we can ever hope to be yet we must not maintain this distinction between absolute and finite personality to be a qualitative one."

That last sentence may be somewhat confusing. This is the trouble with reading Van Til. What does he mean? He means that there are some people who say that...

[brandonadams07]

God is infinite and we are finite, so we can never hope to be God. They say this difference is quantitative. Van Til calls such people "non-theists". He says Christians must understand that there is a quantitative and a qualitative difference between God and man.

That doesn't clear things up, you might say. I agree, and Van Til does not elaborate or explain what he means (though he did elsewhere).

Some help is offered by John Frame's "A Van Til Glossary". In the book quoted, Van Til mentions..

[brandonadams07]

the incomprehensibility of God several times. Yet he does not mean what most people mean by this. Frame defines it as:

Incomprehensibility of God: (1) Our inability to know God exhaustively, (2) The lack of identity between any human thought and any divine thought. (1) is the more common meaning in theology; (2) was the subject of the Van Til/Clark controversy.

Robert Reymond notes: Van Til insisted...that human knowledge is and can only be analogical to divine knowledge...

[brandonadams07]

"...What this means for Van Til is the express rejection of any and all qualitative coincidence between the content of God's mind and the content of man's mind."

For Reymond's critique of Van Til on this point, see his Systematic Theology, p96-110

Also, I can't seem to post links here, so search google for "clark van til controversy hoeksema".

[NeoConvert]

Here you make 3 incompatible claims.

1) Neo is wrong for thinking Robbins doesn't understand Van Til.

2) It is possible Robbins understands Van Til...

3) It is probable that Robbins understands Van Til...

(1) implies that (3) is more than probable, it's certain. Likewise, (2) is a trivial truth insofar as all non-contradictory propositions are generally regarded as "possible."

Explain to me your grounds for (3).

[NeoConvert]

Brandon, due to YouTube's sometimes screwy arrangement of comments, I should clarify that my above comment that begins with -

"Here you make 3 incompatible claims"

Is in response to your comment that begins by saying -

"You are right to respond the way you do..."

As per your string of subsequent comments, I would request that you specify which you would like me to address, you move way too quickly through them for me to trust that you actually care to engage any one of them in particular.

[brandonadams07]

You are hopeless.

[NeoConvert]

If this is all you have to say, I don't apologize for considering a concession.

It's incredible to me that you think such a statement says more about me than it does about you.

Further, it's telling that such a statement comes in response to a request that you give grounds for a previous statement: "It's probably that Robbins understand Van Til better than you (neoconvert)."

So my request is met by you with more arbitrariness and bald insult.

Well done sir.

[bellyoffire]

He lies about what everyone says. He is a liar.

[jbrack95]

thank you neo convert. This Redbeetle guy is ridiculous. Keep it up.

[NeoConvert]

Not a problem. I don't suspect he'll be swayed by them though. When a person has already justified - in his own mind - such dishonest research and presentation, he's way beyond being engaged/moved by evidence.

I just did it because I think it's necessary to show people how willingly and blatantly people will post misinformation if they think there is a chance they can get away with it.

[NapoleonReece]

This kind of discussion about the person you are trying to persuade generally doesn't help to maintain unity.

[NeoConvert]

You're coming late to the show Napolean.

This kid is beyond reproof. He's dishonest, rude and lacks the faculties for the matters he's trying to deal with, yet charges forward nonetheless.

You're mistaken in thinking I'm concerned with "unity" with him. If in fact that's what you mean. Perhaps it's not.

[NapoleonReece]

That was what I was saying. Sorry for the grammatical ambiguity.

[NeoConvert]

He is leveling awful, unstudied, heinous accusations at men who have poured their whole lives into PROTECTING orthodoxy.

He has no humility or teachability.

I am quite serious when I say that I'm not making my videos "for him," but for those who might see his and be misinformed.

[NapoleonReece]

My dealings with him have been informative and pleasant. I feel rather indebted to him for his assistance. I will ask him about all this.

[NeoConvert]

No doubt he has been amiable with you. So long as you approach him like a teacher (which is what he "seeks to be called") he is quite happy.

It's when you point out his mistakes that he calls you a heretic. =)

[NapoleonReece]

I will refrain from argumentative comment at this time.

[a5dr3]

Anyone who calls Van Til a heretic because they side with Clark in this rather, well, abstruse debate should be avoided. It is one thing to disagree as Christian brothers but public slandering and charges of heresy are a big deal. This fact alone should be sufficient for you to avoid beetle. Van Til loved the Lord with all his heart and some of us don't like to see his name drug through the mud, especially when the accusations are over such moot points, and demonstrably false.