be “evangelical,” though they do not actually fit into this definition. Incidentally, Van Til had a much narrower working definition of “evangelical.” He used this term to refer to non-Calvinistic (sometimes referred to as “inconsistent Calvinism”) protestants, often pairing them together with Romanist apologetics in contrast to Reformed apologetics (Van Til, Defense of Faith, 54, 93, 277, 309–10, 322, 340).
Cornelius Van Til’s Doctrine of God and Its Relevance for Contemporary Hermeneutics
Copyright © 2019 Jason B. Hunt. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
Introduction
It was the early apologist Tertullian who uttered the famous words, “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”1 He penned those words in the context of opposing all attempts which he saw as muddying the waters of Christianity through an unstable hybrid of Greek philosophy and the gospel. Van Til certainly acknowledged an appreciation for his emphasis on the distinction between believing and unbelieving thought.2 Not surprisingly, the sole formal festschrift for Van Til bears the very title, Jerusalem and Athens.3 The title of the present chapter points us in a different direction, though the underlying issues associated with it remain.
What does Van Til have to do with hermeneutics? Taking a cursory glance at his body of work, one will find only one book directly devoted to the issue of hermeneutics—The New Hermeneutic.4 Yet, this work, while dealing with the new hermeneutic of Ernst Fuchs and Gerhard Ebeling in particular (among others), will perhaps disappoint those looking for a more direct and extensive treatment of the hermeneutical issues raised—at least according to the standards of more contemporary work in the field.5 For example, Gadamer, who many consider a giant in philosophical hermeneutics, is given a mere seven page treatment, largely taken up with his philosophical influences (R. G. Collingwood in particular).6 Gadamer is seen not as an innovator, but as merely being symptomatic of deeper philosophical undercurrents—hence, his brief treatment. Van Til’s treatment takes on much of the same form and tenor of his forays into the field of apologetics. These forays demonstrate his characteristic presuppositional/transcendental method. In short, Van Til argued for the truth of Christianity from the impossibility of the contrary.7 The only “proof” for the Christian position is that unless its truth is presupposed, there is no possibility of proving anything at all.8 God himself is the source of possibility, intelligibility, and applicability.9 Van Til remarks elsewhere that “unless one offers at the outset the totality interpretation of all reality as given in Scripture as the presupposition of the possibility of asking any intelligent question, one has not really offered the Christian position for what it is.”10 In spite of appearances, Van Til appeals to an inner-logic in his evaluation of the philosophical currents active in and around the new hermeneutic. His assessment reveals a different emphasis, if not an expected one. Writing about his general presuppositional approach, he says: “to argue by presupposition is to indicate what are the epistemological and metaphysical principles that underlie and control one’s own method.”11 Clearly, he is engaging in this type of argumentation in the New Hermeneutic. Rather than arguing according to the emphases as dictated by hermeneutical philosophy, it is primarily the doctrine of God which drives his critique of such figures as Heidegger, Bultmann, Gadamer, and the new hermeneutic.
Macro-Hermeneutics
Van Til, while directing his attention elsewhere in terms of apologetic method, often makes macro-hermeneutical12 assertions throughout his works which have potentially vast implications for biblical interpretation. However, many of these implications are left unnoticed and undeveloped.
Consider the following cross-section of statements scattered throughout Van Til’s works. First, in introducing the doctrine of God for his theology and apologetic method, he emphasizes that who God is precedes that God is.13 In other words, we must know something of the nature of God in order to discuss and reason concerning his existence in the proper manner.14 Hence, who God has revealed himself to be must necessarily affect how we think about him (i.e., ontology informs epistemology).15 Van Til argues that:
Christianity offers the triune God, the absolute personality,16 containing all the attributes enumerated . . . the conception of God is the foundation of everything else we hold dear . . . For us everything depends for its meaning upon this sort of God.17
All our interpretive efforts are ultimately rooted in our notion of the nature of God.18
Second, he often emphasizes God’s pre-interpretation of all created things as they exist in the plan of God. Consider the following statement in his discussion of God’s omniscience:
God’s knowledge of the facts19 comes first. God knows or interprets the facts before they are facts. It is God’s plan or his comprehensive interpretation of the facts that makes the facts what they are.20
The category of interpretation precedes existence. In other words, for God, interpretation precedes creation. The reality of God’s pre-interpretation of all things necessarily makes man’s interpretation, “correspond to the interpretation of God . . . our thought is receptively reconstructive” of God’s thoughts (to be correct).21 “God is the ultimate category of interpretation.”22 Man’s interpretation is a response to God’s pre-interpretation. Indeed, the Bible needs to be interpreted by man, yet only with divine enablement (Holy Spirit) and according to divine pre-interpretation.
