are the basic evangelical presuppositions that Goldsworthy suggests are integral to a biblical hermeneutic? They are essentially theological. They are best summarized by four of the Reformation solas: grace alone, Christ alone, Scripture alone, and faith alone.190 What is even more significant, however, is that these four “really take their essential characteristics from God as Trinity.” None can exist without the others. They are what they are “only because God is the kind of God he is.” Goldsworthy particularly highlights the nature of God in terms of the ontological Trinity.191 He summarizes that the basic presupposition which affects the way we think of every fact available to us “is thus an ontological one concerning the being of God that establishes the ontology of the universe and every creature in it.”192 This resonates with Van Til’s own emphasis on the doctrine of God as the basic presupposition in developing and evaluating apologetic method.193 In sum, “basic Christian doctrine, then, becomes the presupposed basis for the evangelical interpretation of Scripture.”194 Granted, there is a hermeneutical spiral involved in which presupposed doctrine influences interpretation and interpretation refines doctrine. Scripture, however, as God’s word, is the ultimate authority in this dialogue. Presupposing doctrine, argues Goldsworthy, necessarily involves the redemptive-historical character of that doctrine in interpretation. Indeed, this is the main thrust of his book—biblical theology is particularly suited, as a hermeneutical model, to fit the worldview of Christian theism.195 At the same time, there are what he calls “ground rules” for communication established by God, consisting of a biblical ontology and epistemology. There is an ontological priority of God properly expressed in the Creator-creature distinction and as Trinity. This means that we cannot simply set this priority aside and ignore it while engaging in interpretation. Epistemologically, who God is and who we are in relation to him brings both objectivity and subjectivity together in harmony—as opposed to one trumping the other as seen in forms of modern and postmodern hermeneutics. In sum, Goldsworthy has brought in Van Til’s ideas in service of formulating a distinctively Christian hermeneutical model.
Vern Poythress has probably brought Van Til’s thought to its widest and most creative application in the field of hermeneutics. He does this in at least four main ways. First, he acknowledges the value of Van Til’s general presuppositional approach for hermeneutics. In particular, Poythress has highlighted the insights of Thomas Kuhn in the history and philosophy of science196 which has helpfully drawn attention to the role of presuppositions and lack of neutrality, paralleling Van Til’s own insights in apologetics.197 Kuhn claimed that progress and change in knowledge comes not through mere piecemeal addition, but primarily through the use of frameworks, composed of basic assumptions, standards, and values.198 These insights, if biblically defined, are of particular relevance in evaluating hermeneutical methodologies, such as the historical-critical method,199 forms of literary criticism,200 and Speech Act theory.201 However, he also points out that the primary subject matter is different between science (creation) and biblical interpretation (Creator). In the case of biblical interpretation, due to God’s infinity and the nature of his relation to creation, no one analogy, theory, or model could ever define or capture him.202 This idea of capturing God in a theoretical framework involves reducing God to the limits of creation, thereby confusing the Creator-creature distinction.
In discussing different types of biblical theology and its relationship to exegesis and systematic theology, he argues that, rather than hindering, all three disciplines enrich one another. He mentions that Van Til and recent philosophical hermeneutics have recognized that “‘circularities’ are inevitable for finite human beings.” For example, exegesis necessarily involves making assumptions about the nature of reality and the presence or absence of God in the Bible. If presuppositions are inevitable, the question becomes, where are they taken from, from systematic theology or secular philosophy? Here, Poythress expresses a distinctly Van Tillian concept of antithesis. The only alternative to systematic theology influencing exegesis is the “corrupting influence of hermeneutical assumptions rooted in human rebellion against God and desire for human autonomy.”203
Besides presuppositions, other related Van Tillian ideas appear in various interpretive contexts. Poythress brings up his idea of brute facts to argue that no event or reality as a whole exists prior to and independent from any perspective, knowledge, or interpretation of it. All reality and events are ultimately meaningful to God prior to creation and hence, our knowledge is dependent on this backdrop of divine knowledge.204 Interestingly, this comes up in the context of a hermeneutical discussion of the fourfold Gospel account of the person and work of Christ. In another related context, the idea that there could be such a thing as mere events of history “without God’s word commanding them and interpreting them” is a counterfeit illusion, imposing our meaning upon that which is assumed to have no previous meaning.205 Historical investigation cannot avoid prior commitments about the nature of reality and meaning.206 The question becomes, which god or metanarrative is assumed?
Discussing God’s relationship to language, he mentions that unbelievers actually depend on God in order to rebel against him.207 He sees Van Til’s ideas of antithesis and common grace as helpful in making sense of the effects of sin on language and communication. The former refers to allegiances between believers and unbelievers, which manifests itself in ultimately different worldviews. The latter refers primarily to the fact that unbelievers are not as bad as they could be—holding onto fragments of truth, though inconsistently so (at least according to their unbelieving assumptions).208 Both ideas are used by Satan to endorse counterfeits of truth, having formal similarity yet meaning something very different. These counterfeits are rooted in and aided by a faulty view of the Creator-creature distinction, expressed in terms of a false transcendence (God is unknowable), false immanence (God identified with creation), or an unstable combination of the two. Modernism tends toward a false immanence, whereas postmodernism tends toward a false transcendence, though both feed off one another and display an unstable mixture of both.209
In addressing key tenets of postmodern deconstructionism, he cites Van Til in opposition to Derrida, who infamously asserted that, concerning meaning, “There is nothing outside the text.”210 Though not absolutely denying the existence of things outside a text in principle, deconstructionists emphasize that all we have are processed and assimilated human constructions. All we have access to with regard to God are such constructions. However, from a biblical worldview, meaning is not ultimately generated by man, but by God. God, as Creator, defines reality and there is no meaning that doesn’t come from God—“no existence that does not depend on his signifying word . . . we never get outside God’s meanings.”211 Here, Poythress explicitly employs Van Til’s emphasis on all facts and meanings of those facts being derived
