Combining the Strengths of Both Warfield and Kuyper

There is no better way to conclude this course than to present an overview of Bahnsen’s interpretation of Van Til’s material concerning the latter’s agreement and disagreement both with Benjamin Warfield and Abraham Kuyper. The material of this article is taken from Greg Bahnsen’s Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis pages 596 to 612.

For Van Til, the reason why the classical method of apologetics is ineffective is due to its connection to the theologies of Roman Catholicism and Arminianism. Van Til argues that in Reformed theology, Christian apologists can find an apologetic method that is faithful to its theological principles. This is where the influence of two exceptional Reformed theologians in the early 20th century played a significant role in shaping the mind of Cornelius Van Til. As a result of their influence, Van Til was able to lay down the foundation to an apologetic that is true to its theology. These two Reformed theologians were Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) of the Free University of Amsterdam and Benjamin B. Warfield (1851-1921) of Princeton Theological Seminary.

However, despite the fidelity of these two influential theologians to the Reformed faith, they differ in their understanding of apologetics. The areas of differences lie in their varied “conceptions of the nature of science and different convictions about the relationship of Christianity to the work of science” (p. 596). For Bahnsen, studying the disagreement between the two is beneficial in two ways:

• The common misconception that Van Til completely took Kuyper’s side against Warfield will be clarified.

• This we hope will lead to an appreciation of Van Til’s genius in combining the strengths of the two theologians and at the same time, dismissing elements which are perceived as strange or inconsistent to Reformed thinking.

This is why Bahnsen wrote that “a person who can explain the ways in which Van Til agreed and disagreed with both Warfield and Kuyper, is a person who understands presuppositional apologetics” (p. 597).

And so let’s start with Bahnsen’s presentation of Van Til’s summary analysis of the ideas of both Warfield and Kuyper. According to him, these are the three things that you can find in the writings of both Warfield and Kuyper that are relevant to apologetics (ibid):

• A brilliant conviction of central importance which is relevant to our theory of knowledge and apologetics,

• Another notion, which is inconsistent with the first conviction, and then

• A view of apologetics that is mistakenly inferred from that first conviction.

Then Bahnsen presents first Van Til’s interpretation of Warfield’s thoughts based on the above categories:

• Warfield’s primary contribution to presuppositional apologetics is the idea of the objectivity, intelligibility, and clarity of God’s revelation to all men both in nature and history. Based on this principle, it is therefore irrational and unscientific for men to reject Christianity. This character of God’s revelation is applicable to all men regardless of their spiritual standing before God. From this perspective, it is understood that ideally speaking, there is only one science and that Christianity is the only reasonable system of truth.

• However, this first principle was compromised when Warfield maintained that the evidence for Christianity does not give us certainty but “warrants only the probability of its truth” (ibid.). For Warfield, though God’s revelation is objective, intelligible, and clear, but unregenerated men and women who engage in scientific work are subjectively and spiritually at war against Christian principles.

• The view of apologetics that is mistakenly inferred by Warfield from his “first principle is that the natural man is able to give a correct interpretation of God’s natural revelation” (p. 598). Warfield accepts that a natural man using his reason properly can come up with a natural theology. And that to him is given the priority “before we take our standpoint in the Scriptures and develop our theology” (ibid.).

For Bahnsen as well as for Van Til, by doing this, Warfield committed two mistakes:

• Warfield confused the objectivity, intelligibility and clarity of natural revelation with natural theology resulting from autonomous human reason.

• Warfield though he accepts the doctrine of total depravity, but he virtually denies it when it comes to apologetics by accepting that the natural man can come to the right conclusion by rightly using his reason.

Again, for both Bahnsen and Van Til, access to that right reasoning is closed to men and women who are under the power of sin. Natural man must accept the special revelation of God to correct his misinterpretation of nature and history.

Turning to Kuyper:

• His major contribution to presuppositional apologetics is the concept of antithesis operating in the consciousness of two kinds of men, those under the state of sin and those under the state of grace that results to “two opposing theories of knowledge” (ibid.) or two kinds of science.

• However, this brilliant insight is undermined by Kuyper’s ideas that total depravity does not affect man’s ordinary activities such as the use of logic and his notion of common grace that both the man under the state of sin and the man under the state of grace can share a limited but neutral common ground and can arrive at a common understanding of facts.

• As to the mistaken inference from the first principle, Kuyper thinks that apologetics is virtually useless. For Kuyper, given the condition of the natural man, “meaningful communication between belief and unbelief is not naturally going to occur” (p. 599).

For Van Til, arriving at this conclusion, Kuyper is mistaken in two ways:

• The failure of the natural man to submit to God is not because something is wrong with the objectivity and clarity of God’s revelation in nature and history, but that man in his rebellion refuses to see these clear and objective facts.

• The natural man remains God’s image by virtue of creation and only by “thinking God’s thoughts after Him,” can he find a reasonable basis for knowledge and experience. The natural man says Bahnsen, “needs to be challenged to see that by suppressing the truth of God, his pursuit of science is futile, being an epistemological failure at the presuppositional level” (ibid.).

And so contrasting the ideas of Kuyper and Warfield, we find that the former’s notion of antithesis is contrary to the latter’s view that the natural man can arrive at a correct understanding of nature and history using his reason properly. At the same time, Warfield’s emphasis on the objectivity, intelligibility, and clarity of God’s revelation to all men contradicts Kuyper’s conclusion that apologetics is virtually useless.

In laying down the foundation of presuppositional apologetics, what Van Til did is that he combined the first principles of both Warfield and Kuyper and at the same dismissed the mistaken inferences. With Kuyper, Van Til agrees that “there are indeed two conflicting worldviews and conceptions of science” (ibid.). And then with Warfield, Van Til agrees about “the objective rationality of the Christian worldview” (p. 600) However, the truthfulness of this worldview is not just a matter of probability, but can be proven “by the transcendental argument that non-Christian presuppositions render reasoning unintelligible” (ibid.). And so Van Til believes that “apologetics is indeed powerful and useful,” a position that is contrary to Kuyper. And so Van Til’s apologetic project aims at nothing but to develop a defense of the Christian faith that was consistently based upon the principles of Reformed theology” (ibid.).

Kuyper and Warfield differ in their evaluation of natural theology. The critical issue here is about the knowledge of the natural man. Can he determine by himself that the Bible is indeed the Word of God? Can he arrive at the correct interpretation of general revelation on the basis of his own theory of knowledge? Responding to these type of questions, Kuyper and Warfield gave different answers. The old Princeton apologetics which Warfield represents answered these questions positively. As for Kuyper and his followers at the Free University of Amsterdam, they responded to these questions negatively.

However, it does not mean that Kuyper denies that the natural man can possess any true knowledge at all. With Calvin, he affirms that every man knows God by virtue of his creation in God’s image. This kind of knowledge that every man possesses is understood metaphysically or ontologically. Nevertheless, epistemologically speaking, the Bible is necessary for man to come up with a right interpretation of general revelation. Without the light from Scripture, man cannot arrive at the right interpretation of God’s revelation in nature. Hence, this distinction in Kuyper’s mind resulted to two kinds of knowledge, that of the natural man without recognizing the light provided by special revelation and that of the regenerated man who relies on the Bible for his interpretation of nature. These two kinds of knowledge logically ended with two kinds of science.

For Warfield, he reduced such antithesis between two kinds of knowledge and science to one of degree. Warfield accepts that the natural man is able to interpret general revelation using his “right reason” (p. 602). Unfortunately, in the mind of Warfield, this “right reason” is not the reason enlightened by the Scriptures and it can stand on its own apart from Christianity. Moreover, this does not mean that Warfield denies either the clarity of general revelation or the metaphysical knowledge that all men possesses. For Warfield, it is only in the field of apologetics that he “wanted to operate in neutral territory with the non-believer” (ibid.). Bahnsen adds that Warfield thought that “this was the only way to show to the unbeliever that theism and Christianity are objectively true” (p. 603).The goal was to seek “for an objectivity that bridged the gulf between Kuyper's "natural" and special principles” (ibid.). In this debate, Van Til followed Kuyper in his strong opposition about “the idea of a neutral area of interpretation between believers and unbelievers” (ibid.).

And so Warfield does not believe in the notion of two kinds of science. For him, though “the difference between the scientific effort of the regenerated and the non-regenerated consciousness is” great, it is just “a gradational difference” (p. 607). Though Warfield recognizes a tension in principle between the Christian man and the natural man, but still he wants to avoid “the separation of the Christian from the non-Christian in the field of knowledge. . .” (ibid.).

Warfield’s emphasis on the objective rationality of Christianity leads him to see the usefulness of apologetics. For him, the Christian faith is a reasonable faith. “We believe in Christ because it is rational to believe in him. . .” (ibid.).

And so the great contribution of Warfield to apologetics is the firm conviction that Christian theism is a reasonable worldview. As for Kuyper, his great contribution to apologetics is the notion of antithesis between human autonomy and submission to the will of God as revealed in the Bible.

“Combining these two great principles, held by both men, . . . we shall claim that the Christian system is undoubtedly true, that it is distinguishable intellectually by men because it has been distinguished for them by God through his Word, and that unless one therefore presupposes its truth there is no theology, no philosophy, and no science that can find intelligible meaning in human experience” (p. 612).

Unfortunately, as indicated, Warfield is inconsistent in advocating “a method of apologetics that is out of accord with the foundation concepts of his own Reformed theology” (p. 611). Kuyper too was inconsistent in this regard that “after rejecting such a method of apologetics, he yet sometimes employed it” (ibid.). In another direction, Warfield is also inconsistent for he rejects the idea of human autonomy by repeatedly arguing in many of his writings that such principle leads “to the destruction of human experience” (ibid.). And so by doing this, he agrees with Kuyper, appealing “to the sense of deity in men, rather than to the principles that follow from the idea of autonomy” (ibid.).

And so I want to end this discussion on Van Til’s affirmation of the strengths and negation of the weaknesses of both Warfield and Kuyper with an excerpt taken from Bahnsen’s book. This excerpt enumerates the significant insights for apologetics by combining the strengths of Kuyper and Warfield’s ideas:

• That in apologetics we must use the same principle that we use in theology, namely the principle of the self-attesting Scripture and of the analogical system of truth which it contains.

• That therefore we must not make our appeal to the "common notions" of unbelievers and believers but to the "common notions" that, by virtue of creation in God's image, men as men all have in common.

• That when appeal is thus to be made to man as man, this can be done only as we set the principle of Christianity squarely in opposition to the principle of the unbeliever. Only when the principle of autonomy, with its irrationalist-rationalist principles of identity and contradiction, is rejected in the name of the principle of analogy, is appeal really made to those common notions which men have as men.

• That therefore the claims must be made that Christianity alone is reasonable for men to hold. And it is utterly reasonable. It is wholly irrational to hold to any other position than that of Christianity. Christianity alone does not crucify reason itself. Without it reason would operate in a total vacuum.

• That the argument for Christianity must therefore be that of presupposition. With Augustine it must be maintained that God's revelation is the sun from which all other light derives. The best, the only, the absolutely certain proof of the truth of Christianity is that unless its truth be presupposed there is no proof of anything. Christianity is proved as being the very foundation of the idea of proof itself.

• That acceptance of the Christian position on the part of sinners who are in principle alienated from God, who seek to flee his face, comes when, challenged by the inescapably clear evidence, the Holy Spirit opens their eyes so that they truly see things for what they are. Intellectually sinners can readily follow the presentation of the evidence that is placed before them. If the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian position is only made plain to them, as alone it can be on a Reformed basis, the natural man can, for argument's sake, place himself upon the position of the Christian.

• That therefore the remnants of the traditional method of apologetics that have been taken over from Romanism and Evangelicalism, in greater measure by old Princeton, in lesser measure by Amsterdam, must no longer be retained.

Standing on the shoulders of Warfield and Kuyper we honor them best if we build on the main thrust of their thought rather than if we insist a carrying on what is inconsistent with their basic position. Then are we most faithful to Calvin and to St. Paul. (pp. 610-611).

Reference: Bahnsen, Greg L. 1998. Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing.

Guide Questions for Discussion:

1. Why is classical method of apologetics ineffective according to Van Til?

2. What is Van Til’s goal in his apologetic method?

3. What are the benefits of studying the disagreement between Benjamin Warfield and Abraham Kuyper?

4. What are three things relevant to apologetics that you can find in the writings of both Warfield and Kuyper?

5. What is Warfield’s primary contribution to presuppositional apologetics?

6. What was his mistaken inference from his primary principle?

7. What two mistakes did Warfield commit in his mistaken inference?

8. How about Kuyper? What is his primary contribution to presuppositonal apologetics?

9. What is his mistaken inference from his primary principle?

10. What two mistakes did Kuyper commit in his mistaken inference?

11. Summarize the major differences between Kuyper and Warfield.

And so contrasting the ideas of Kuyper and Warfield, we find that the former’s notion of antithesis is contrary to the latter’s view that the natural man can arrive at a correct understanding of nature and history using his reason properly. At the same time, Warfield’s emphasis on the objectivity, intelligibility, and clarity of God’s revelation to all men contradicts Kuyper’s conclusion that apologetics is virtually useless.

12. What did Van Til do in his apologetic project in relation to the differences in ideas between Kuyper and Warfield?

In laying down the foundation of presuppositional apologetics, what Van Til did is that he combined the first principles of both Warfield and Kuyper and at the same dismissed the mistaken inferences. With Kuyper, Van Til agrees that “there are indeed two conflicting worldviews and conceptions of science” (ibid.). And then with Warfield, Van Til agrees about “the objective rationality of the Christian worldview” (p. 600). . . . And so Van Til believes that “apologetics is indeed powerful and useful,” a position that is contrary to Kuyper.

13. What is the critical issue that made Kuyper and Warfield arrive at a different evaluation of natural theology?

14. How would you qualify the knowledge of God that every man has?

15. If all men have a knowledge of God, why is the Bible then still necessary?

16. How does Warfield define his notion of “right reason” of natural man? Why did Warfield adhere to this notion?

17. Describe the inconsistency of both Warfield and Kuyper.

18. Enumerate the seven significant insights for apologetics resulting from the combination of the strengths of both Warfield and Kuyper.