Reagan Marsh (Pastor of Reformation Baptist Church of Dalton, GA, and a CBTSeminary ThM student studying under Dr. Tom Nettles) has recently compiled an analytical outline of many historic Baptist Confessions of Faith. Since this could be a helpful resource for many, we share it for your consideration.
Here, the major representative of Amsterdam to be considered is Abraham Kuyper. The reason is not only that Kuyper was the best known of these theologians, but also that there was not the unity among the Amsterdam theologians that there was at Old Princeton. Spencer explains:
There is not the nearly complete consensus or unanimity in content among the exponents of this position. That is, the position is not as monolithic as is Old Princeton’s. At least one explanation for this is that the exponents were not trained in the position. All of them came to it as a result of their individual reflection, though there was a pattern of influence. Groen Van Prinsterer, Kuyper, and Bavinck all studied at Leyden, but were not exposed to a monolithic apologetic position there (if indeed an apologetic position existed at all in the heyday of nineteenth century liberalism). Moreover, the Leyden education, in perspective and content, largely functioned only as a foil for these men’s positions, it being antithetical to orthodoxy.
Another reason for the diversity was the developing character of the position. The position did not exist in a final, complete form; it was being built and modified as they went along. Not until Van Til’s work beginning in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s was the position elaborated at length. Even in his work, it was necessary to correct or modify certain aspects of Kuyper’s and Bavinck’s position.
Nonetheless, there is a central, common thrust which allows the work of these men to be grouped together. This common tenet is the postulation of a division in humanity. For Kuyper, it is between regeneracy and unregeneracy while for Bavinck, it is between belief and unbelief, but the split is essentially the same.[1]
There was a fundamental difference between Princeton and Amsterdam on this issue. Princeton was influenced by a single philosophical viewpoint. The Amsterdam men were not. What they had in common was only their Calvinism. Spencer argues:
The situation of the Amsterdam apologists is significantly different [than that of the Princeton apologists‑-SW]. There is no one single dominant philosophical tradition influencing these men. The separateness of the men in their lives and experiences and in their development of the position accounts for this. The major common factor between Guillaume Groen Van Prinsterer, Abraham Kuyper, and Herman Bavinck is the University of Leyden, where they were educated. However, the major influences there were theological, not philosophical. The common factor in their development of their distinctive position, a development which occurred in each man independently, at least in the early stages, was fervent, devout, orthodox Calvinism. In each case, however, the source of that factor was different.[2]
Kuyper himself was influenced by a form of idealistic philosophy. Spencer notes:
Klapwijk begins by stating that Kuyper (and his predecessor Groen Van Prinsterer as well) were influenced by “nineteenth century romantic historical idealism”… particularly as “Christianized” by Frederic Julius Stahl …This school was committed to the gradual and essentially steady unfolding of the latent potentialities of history and civilization, giving a dominant air of ameliorism to the historical-cultural analysis. Kuyper, in his politics, theology, and ecclesiology was often inclined to conceive of a pattern of increasing discovery and influence of truth.[3]
There is evidence that Kuyper allowed the rationalistic tone of such idealistic philosophy improperly to influence him. One result of this may have been his tendency to minimize or depreciate apologetics. This minimizing of apologetics appears to have been a result of a rational deduction he drew from the noetic or mental depravity of the unregenerate. He allowed this deduction, however, to blind him to the clear teaching of Scripture on the legitimacy of apologetics. Spencer argues:
Consistency is certainly a high virtue for Kuyper. The problem is not with logic, deduction, system, organization, or consistency, but when they begin to militate against Biblical instruction and commands, which may not fit neatly into the organized, logically consistent system, they have overstepped their bounds. This pattern can be noted in Kuyper’s discussion of the nature and role of apologetics. Kuyper has little use for apologetics which squares poorly with the Scriptural pattern (1 Peter 3:15, Philippians 1:16, 1 Timothy 4:1-6; 6:20, 21, 2 Timothy 2:24-26, Titus 1:9-2:1). The low view results from his deduction from the radical antithesis between the regenerate and the unregenerate.[4]
Listen to Kuyper’s view of apologetics in his Lectures on Calvinism:
There is no doubt then that Christianity is imperilled by great and serious dangers. Two life systems are wrestling with one another, in mortal combat. Modernism is bound to build a world of its own from the data of the natural man, and to construct man himself from the data of nature; while, on the other hand, all those who reverently bend the knee to Christ and worship Him as the Son of the living God, and God himself, are bent upon saving the “Christian Heritage.” This is the struggle in Europe, this is the struggle in America, and this also, is the struggle for principles in which my own country is engaged, and in which I myself have been spending all my energy for nearly forty years. In this struggle Apologetics have advanced us not one single step. Apologists have invariably begun by abandoning the assailed breastwork, in order to entrench themselves cowardly in a ravelin [fortified trench‑-SW] behind it.
From the first, therefore, I have always said to myself,‑-“If the battle is to be fought with honor and with a hope of victory, then principle must be arrayed against principle; then it must be felt that in Modernism the vast energy of an all-embracing life-system assails us, then also it must be understood that we have to take our stand in a life-system of equally comprehensive and far-reaching power. And this powerful life-system is not to be invented nor formulated by ourselves, but is to be taken and applied as it presents itself in history. When thus taken, I found and confessed, and I still hold, that this manifestation of the Christian principle is given us in Calvinism. In Calvinism my heart has found rest. From Calvinism have I drawn the inspiration firmly and resolutely to take my stand in the thick of this great conflict of principles. And therefore, when I was invited most honorably by your Faculty to give the Stone-Lectures here this year, I could not hesitate a moment as to my choice of subject. Calvinism, as the only decisive, lawful, and consistent defence for Protestant nations against encroaching, and overwhelming Modernism,‑-this of itself was bound to my theme.[5]
Unlike Princeton, Kuyper and Amsterdam tend to the Rationalism of Descartes and those following him rather than to British Empiricism. Yet there are similarities between Warfield and Kuyper as the major representatives of Princeton and Amsterdam. Both appealed to common sense. Neither clearly built their apologetics on God. Neither were careful enough in their adoption of philosophies coming from a non-Christian source. Spencer concludes with these remarks:
Though there are significant differences between the philosophical influences upon the orientation of Old Princeton and Amsterdam, there are also some striking similarities. Kuyper and Bavinck as well as Old Princeton appeal to consciousness, “common sense,” and universal consent to justify their starting points in the perceiving and reasoning of man. Neither clearly builds from Scripture and God in so doing, but instead they both start from human experience itself considered apart from God, His Word, and regeneration. Both, thus, are less than explicitly Biblical and Christian in their philosophical orientation. They have been less than selective in their indebtedness to philosophical influences.[6]
Kuyper’s major emphasis was on how the fall had affected the ability of unregenerate men to respond intellectually in a proper way to Christian truth. Spencer writes:
Abraham Kuyper explicitly stressed the importance of the noetic effects of the fall: “In every theory of knowledge which is not to deceive itself, the fact of sin must henceforth claim a more serious consideration” (Principles of Sacred Theology, pp. 106-107).[7]
Kuyper endeavors to enumerate a great number of ways in which sin has influenced human reason.[8] One of the most graphic illustrations given by Kuyper of this adverse effect of sin upon human reason is this:
Greater or less acuteness of thought depends upon personal conditions which are entirely different. Paul is a more acute thinker than James, and in acuteness of thought Aristotle and Kant excel by far the majority of Christians. If I put a sharp knife in a mowing-machine, but place it too high, so that it cannot touch the grass, all action of the machine is vain; and with a duller knife, which touches the grass, I will produce ten times as much effect. And such is the case here. As long as the divine illumination remains wanting, the logical instrument is out of relation to divine things. It does not touch them, and therefore its action is in vain.[9]
Van Til, commenting on this remark of Kuyper’s, properly adds:
The result is, says Kuyper, even worse than this illustration would indicate. For the action of sinful human thought is not merely fruitless; it is destructive of the truth.[10]
One key result of this emphasis on the noetic effects of sin and the radical, intellectual difference between the regenerate and unregenerate parts of the human race is that Amsterdam depreciates and reduces the importance of the common sense and universal consent tests for truth, which were so important for common-sense realism and Old Princeton. Kuyper clearly rejects the idea that the “general consent” of the human race can sit in judgment on special revelation. He argues this in his Principles of Sacred Theology in a chapter entitled, “Is the Natural Principium able to summon the Special Principium before its Tribunal?” and also in chapters entitled “Two Kinds of People” and “Two Kinds of Science.”[11]
Natural theology refers to the theology constructed by reason on the basis of natural revelation. Special theology refers to the knowledge of the Christian faith we gain from the Word of God, the Bible.
Like Warfield, Kuyper fails to distinguish with clearly defined terminology between natural revelation and natural theology. Also, natural theology has a positive, apologetic significance in Warfield. For Kuyper, natural theology has a negative significance. Spencer writes:
Abraham Kuyper asserts that, prior to the presence and effects of sin, man was able to gain a “pure or sufficient knowledge of God” from the created order (Principles of Sacred Theology, p. 361). Kuyper describes the knowledge of God gained in this way by the term “natural theology.” He laments the fact that in post-Reformation theology, natural theology soon came to be treated “as a separate theology alongside of revealed theology” (p. 372). “The two were then placed mechanically side by side. To natural theology we owed the knowledge of God’s being, of the Divine attributes, of His work, providence, moral law, the last judgment, etc., and although special theology made us know a great deal of sin and grace, in fact it enriched the real knowledge of God only with the knowledge of God only with the knowledge of His `Grace’ and of His `Threefold Being’ … With this division it became apparent, that the real Theology as knowledge of God gave the lion’s share to natural theology, and that the theology of grace, while it occupied itself with many and exalted mysteries, in reality abandoned the foundation of all knowledge of God, and therefore the heart of the matter, to its twin sister (pp. 372-373).” Eventually, Kuyper notes, natural theology attempted to exclude special theology entirely (p. 373). In order to prevent this chain of events: “…it is, therefore, of the greatest importance, to see clearly, that special theology may not be considered a moment without natural theology, and that on the other hand natural theology of itself is unable to supply any pure knowledge of God (p. 373).” Special revelation, in Kuyper’s judgment, is “not conceivable” without the hypothesis of natural theology (p. 373). Special theology does not compete with natural theology; it presupposes it. “Without the basis of natural theology, there is no special theology” (p. 374). Referring to Calvin for support, Kuyper argues that God has given all men “some apprehension of his existence” in order that “the sense of the Divinity can never be lost. It is upon the canvas of this natural knowledge of God itself that the special revelation is embroidered” (p. 374). He quotes Calvin to the effect that “the Scripture, collecting in our minds the otherwise confused notions of Deity, dispels the darkness, and gives us a clear view of the true God (p. 374).”….The interdependence is reciprocal because “the representation is equally absurd that the natural knowledge of God, without enrichment by the special, could ever effect a satisfying result” (p. 377). The natural knowledge of God, without special revelation, led to “idolatry and brutalization” (p. 377). “Hence it is only by the special knowledge that the natural knowledge becomes serviceable” (p. 378). Without special revelation, “I advance no further than to the Unknown God” (p. 378).[12]
Kuyper’s use of the phrase, natural theology, is problematic. On the one hand, before the fall it provided man with a “pure or sufficient knowledge of God.” After the fall, it leads only to “idolatry and brutalization.” On the other hand, in spite of this it is on the canvas of natural theology that the special revelation is embroidered. What is the problem? Lacking in Kuyper is the clear and important distinction between natural revelation and natural theology. Kuyper at various time uses natural theology to refer to natural or general revelation. At other times, he uses natural theology in its proper sense. Properly used, natural theology includes more than natural revelation. It means fallen man’s response to natural revelation. It means the use that he makes of it with his fallen intellect. If, however, Kuyper uses natural theology at times as a synonym for natural revelation, he has another phrase that he uses consistently to include man’s interpretive response to natural revelation, the use he makes of it with his fallen intellect. It is the phrase, natural principium. Van Til is right when he asserts, “When he discusses the sinner and the fact that this sinner has usurped the authority of judging the work of redemption he speaks of the natural principle, principium naturale. He then contrasts with it the special principle, the principle by which God has in Christ and through the Spirit come to save sinners. These two principles, he argues, stand utterly opposed to one another.”[13]
Kuyper contrasts absolutely the operations of these two principles. Yet at the same time he points out that they are essentially and intimately related.
If we might choose another metaphor to explain the relation between the two, entirely in the spirit of Calvin but more fully, the figure of the grafted tree pleases us most. He who grafts, plants no new tree, but applies himself to one that exists. The tree is alive, it draws its sap from the roots, but this vital sap is wild, in consequence of which the tree can bear no fruit that is desired. And now the grafter comes, and inserts a nobler graft, and thereby brings it to pass that this vital sap of the wild tree is changed, so that the desired fruit now ripens on the branches. This new graft does not stand by the side of the wild tree, but is in it; and if the grafting is a success, it may equally well be said that the true graft lives by the old tree, as that the uncultivated tree is of use solely because of the new graft. And such, indeed, is the case here. The wild tree is the sinner, in whose nature works the natural principium of the knowledge of God as an inborn impelling power. If you leave this natural principium to itself, you will never have anything else than wild wood, and the fruit of knowledge does not come. But when the Lord our God introduces from without, and thus from another principium, a shoot of a true plant, even the principle of a pure knowledge into this wild tree, i. e. into this natural man, then there is not a man by the side of a man, no knowledge by the side of a knowledge, but the wild energy remains active in this human nature, i. e. incomplete knowledge; while the ingrafted new principium brings it to pass, that this impelling power is changed and produces the fruit of true knowledge. The special knowledge is, indeed, a new and proper principium, but this principium joins itself to the vital powers of our nature with its natural principium; compels this principium to let its life-sap flow through another channel and in this way cultivates ripe fruit of knowledge from what otherwise would have produced only wood fit for the fire.[14]
A number of consequences flow from Kuyper’s way of looking at this matter. First, he does not distinguish between general (natural) and special (positive) revelation before the fall. His dichotomy between the natural and special principium is simply a distinction between non-redemptive and redemptive revelation.
Before the fall God speaks with Adam, God causes a deep sleep to come upon Adam, and, by an encroaching act of God, Eve enters upon existence. God has an entrance to our heart by nature, and not first by grace; He is able to rule the human spirit by His Spirit; and able to communicate to man what He will. The communication of the test-commandment is an immediate communication of a conscious thought, which could not rise from Adam’s consciousness. Actually, therefore, in special revelation no single means is used which was not already present by nature in or about man.[15]
The making of special revelation an exclusively post-fall and redemptive phenomena is an inadequate view of revelation. As we will see, positive or special revelation stood side by side with general or natural revelation before the fall. Each form of revelation both before and after the fall complements and depends on the other.[16]
A second consequence of Kuyper’s viewpoint is that the distinction between natural revelation and natural theology or the natural principium is obscured. This leads Kuyper to conclude that the natural man has no knowledge of God available to him at all. In no even qualified sense does the natural man know God. This implication or consequence is confirmed first by Kuyper’s constant failure ever to qualify his statements that the natural man does not know God. It is also confirmed by Kuyper’s remark on Romans 1:19 where he says, “… there was first a condition in which the natural knowledge of God allowed ‘that which may be known of God’ (Rom. i. 19) to be manifest, but that this was followed by the period in which God gave the sinner up …”[17] This exegesis of Romans 1:19ff. leads to the conclusion that men now know God in no sense at all, when in fact Romans 1:19, 20 is teaching precisely the opposite. This consequence of Kuyper’s view is also confirmed by his statement “that the normal entrance, which in creation God had unlocked for Himself to our heart, had become inaccessible by sin, and that for this reason, by an act of heroic grace, God has temporarily opened for Himself another entrance to our heart, to reveal Himself as the same God to the same creature, only now with the aid of a different principium of revelation.”[18] This view may be likened to what a doctor does when the normal air passages in the throat to the lungs are blocked. The doctor will then cut a passageway in the neck so that air can flow to the lungs. This is called a tracheotomy. The special principium is a spiritual tracheotomy surgically opened by God.
A third consequence of Kuyper’s idea of the natural and special principium is that the natural man operating only with the natural principium may not be allowed to sit in judgment upon the special principium. Says Kuyper:
If special revelation assumes that in consequence of sin the normal activity of the natural principium is disturbed, this implies of itself that the natural principium has lost its competency to judge. He who considers it possessed of this competency declares thereby eo ipso [by that very statement‑-SW] that it is still normal, and thus removes all sufficient reason for a special revelation. You must either deny it the right of judgment, or, if you grant it this right, the object disappears upon which judgment shall be passed. The psychiater [psychiatrist‑-SW], who treats the maniac, cannot render his method of treatment dependent upon the judgment of his patient.[19]
To attempt to furnish proof to the natural man working as he is out of his natural principium is, therefore, impossible.
In a word, there would always be defence ready against the proof that this special principium is real, and this proof is not possible of any principium. Could this be furnished, it would eo ipso [for that very reason‑-SW] cease to be a principium.[20]
Following on from this as a fourth consequence of this structure of Kuyper’s thought is the uselessness of apologetics. Says Kuyper:
He who is not born of water and the Spirit, cannot see the kingdom of God, and the human mind is sufficiently inventive so to modify its tactics, whenever you imagine that you have gained your point, that your proof is bound to lose its force … The same is true in part of the apologetic attempt to refute objections raised against the content of our Christian confession, and more particularly against the Holy Scripture as the principium of theology. Polemics will never be able to attain satisfactory results on these points, simply because the spheres of conceptions and convictions, from which the argument proceeds on the two sides, are too widely apart …[21]
Speaking of the proofs derived from Scripture for its divine character, Kuyper proceeds to argue …
One needs, therefore, but examine the series of these proofs for a moment, and it is at once perceived how utterly devoid of force they are over against him who merely accepts the natural principium. The miracles and fulfillment of prophecy, indeed, have been pointed to, as if these had some power of proof for him who denies the very possibility of miracle and emasculates all concretely fulfilled prophecy as being “prophecy after the event”…[22]
Van Til confirms this last point:
There is one main conclusion that Kuyper has drawn from this his general position, and that is because of it there is virtually no use in Christian apologetics. Not that Kuyper has himself always been true to his virtual rejection of apologetics. But he frequently argues that since the natural man is not to be regarded as the proper judge of the special principle and since this is true because his understanding is darkened, there is no use and no justification for reasoning with the natural man at all. The question is whether this conclusion can be harmonized with the fact that Christianity is the true religion and has the criterion of truth within itself … Men have not done justice by the facts, by the evidence of God’s presence before their eyes, unless they burst out into praise of him who has made all things … Shall we then simply say that since the natural man is blind there is no purpose in displaying before him the rich color scheme of the revelation of God’s grace? Shall we say that we must witness to men only and not reason with them at all? How would witnessing to them be of any more use to them than would reasoning? If men cannot in the least understand what he who witnesses is speaking of, will the witnessing be any challenge to him at all?[23]
Kuyper’s position regarding the theistic proofs has already been suggested. His doctrine of the natural and special principium precludes his attaching any validity to the theistic proofs.
Bavinck, another theologian of the Amsterdam school, differs from Kuyper on this point. His point of view should be mentioned. He discusses favorably six proofs for the existence of God according to Spencer. Among those six proofs are the cosmological, the teleological, the moral, the anthropological, and the historical arguments.[24] Though he is favorable to these proofs, Bavinck draws back from ascribing to them a compelling character.[25]
Spencer’s summary of both Amsterdam and Old Princeton with regard to the theistic proofs is as follows:
All of these men‑-Alexander, Hodge, Bavinck, and Van Til‑-make use of “theistic proofs,” but their conception of the nature and value of them differs significantly. Van Til diverges by formulating them in a distinctively Christian form. The others formulated them on a basis common to both Christian and non-Christian. Bavinck also reduces their value from that of valid proof to that of non-binding testimonies.[26]
The differences between Kuyper and Warfield are glaring. For Kuyper the fundamental point is that the reasons of men are depraved. Classical apologetics is, therefore, pointless. For Warfield, on the other hand, the fundamental truth is that Christianity is rationally defensible. Therefore, classical apologetics is valid and important. Human depravity cannot affect the basic ability of men to appreciate the arguments for Christianity.
Again, my purpose right now is not to solve these problems. It is rather to raise the questions which we must take to our answer key the Bible. Is apologetics a valid thing? Is Christianity rationally defensible? If adapting Christianity to non-Christian thought undermines its content, then how can we talk to or defend the faith to the unconverted? Is there a kind of apologetics which does not do this? If there is, then what about the problem of human depravity? Does total depravity influence the ability of men to appreciate the arguments for Christianity? Are the differences between the regenerate and the unregenerate so glaring and drastic that there is no point of contact or common ground?
Usually I do not as a matter of principle raise questions which I do not immediately answer. My purpose right now, however, is to get you thinking about the questions which we will attempt to answer from the Bible in the rest of this study of apologetics.
[1]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 12-13.
[2]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 26.
[3]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 28.
[4]ibid.
[5]Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, (Grand Rapids: Associated Publishers and Authors Inc., n. d.) 8
[6]ibid.
[7]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 47.
[8]ibid.
[9]Abraham Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology, (Baker: Grand Rapids, reprinted 1980), 288.
[10]Cornelius Van Til, The Christian Theory of Knowledge (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), 232.
[11]Kuyper, Principles, 150-175, 380-389.
[12]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 57-58.
[13]Van Til, Christian Theory of Knowledge, 230.
[14]Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology, 375-376.
[15]Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology, 379.
[16]In the General Introduction to Part 3 of the Course, Theological Considerations, this point will be elucidated and supported.
[17]ibid., 377, 378.
[18]ibid., 380.
[19]Kuyper, Principles, 381.
[20]Kuyper, Principles, 384.
[21]Kuyper, Principles, 385-386.
[22]Kuyper, Principles, 387.
[23]Van Til, Christian Theory of Knowledge, 234-235.
[24]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 67, 68.
[25]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 68, 69. He argues: “… the moment we make contact with actual phenomena in nature, and even more in history, our argumentations and conclusions as a general rule are subject to all kinds of misgivings and objections … The fool can, all testimony to the contrary, still say in his heart, There is no God (Ps. 14:1), and the heathen although they knew God, did not glorify God and were not thankful (Rom. 1:21) (p. 41).”
[26]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 71.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
The classical tradition of natural theology and apologetics reasserted itself in that part of Protestantism, which embraced the unbiblical, semi-Pelagian[1] views of Roman Catholicism. Wherever the idea was accepted that salvation depends on free will and not God’s sovereignty, the classical apologetics of Rome were easily accepted. Thus, Evangelicalism,[2] whether of the Lutheran or Arminian variety, could have no basic quarrel with Thomism.
Perhaps the most representative member of the evangelical school of apologetics is Bishop Joseph Butler. Van Til remarks, “The Analogy of Religion Natural and Revealed to the Constitution and Course of Nature is a classic on the method of apologetics current in evangelical circles.”[3]
Van Til makes several criticisms of Butler in his analysis. He remarks, first, “According to Butler the course and constitution of nature is perfectly intelligible to man in terms of principles not taken from the Christian religion. Christianity is said to be in analogy with what man has already found in the course of his own independent investigation of nature and history.” This suggests to Van Til that Scripture no longer possesses the crucial necessity that it should in genuine Protestantism. Van Til also suggests, in the second place, that Butler is influenced by the same chain of being motif that dominated Medieval Catholicism. Says Van Til:
As with Romanism, so with Butler, original man hovered near the realm of non-being. As such man was naturally inclined to “external objects.” He had to exercise his will and thus establish a habit in order to overcome his natural propensity to those external objects. Not that this propensity in itself was an evil. But if not resisted it would keep him from turning to higher things.
Thus the principle of virtue , improved into a habit, of which improvement we are thus capable, will plainly be in proportion to the strength of it, a security against the danger which finite creatures are in, from the very nature of propension, or particular affections.[4]
A third criticism is related to the first two. Butler lapses into probabilism in his apologetic. In other words, he does not make the claim of Thomas Aquinas that his apologetic provides demonstrative certainty of the Christian religion. Rather, he merely asserts that his arguments provide probable evidence for the truth of Christianity.[5] It is no surprise to see semi-Pelagian Protestants adopting such an apologetic.[6] It is amazing to see Reformed theologians with the example of Calvin before them adopting Butler’s apologetic. Van Til comments: “To this point no notice has been taken of the fact that not all Reformed theologians follow the method briefly suggested so far. What has been called the Reformed method in the preceding discussion is implied in the basic contention of Reformed theology, namely, the self-sufficiency and self-explanatory character of the triune God. But that such is the case has not always been recognized. The Reformed theologians of the Reformation period did not work out a Reformed apologetical methodology. This is not to be marveled at. They laid the groundwork for it. Some later Reformed theologians continued to use the Romanist-evangelical method of defending Christianity. At least they did so up to the point where the specifically Reformed teachings on the sovereignty of God in soteriology came up for discussion. Thus the apologetics of the Reformed theologians at Princeton Theological Seminary … used a method of argument similar to that employed in Bishop Butler’s Analogy.” [7]
A division resulted in Reformed apologetics due to Princeton’s adoption of the classical apologetics of Thomas Aquinas and natural theology. We desire to focus on this in our overview of apologetics in the modern church. We will notice under this heading and the next the contrast between the two schools of Reformed apologetics. By way of conclusion, we will notice how the varying strengths of these two views were combined in the Presuppositionalism advocated by Cornelius Van Til. Credit is given at the outset to Stephen R. Spencer for his very helpful thesis on this subject entitled: A Comparison and Evaluation of the Old Princeton and Amsterdam Apologetics.
Here I am saying that the Princeton way of defending the faith was the same from the beginning of Princeton to its reorganization in 1929. Spencer remarks:
Old Princeton (the Seminary from its inception in 1812 until its reorganization in 1929) exhibited a remarkable unity in its apologetics. The reason for this is quite obvious. All of the Old Princeton apologists were trained in the position established by the founding professor. With one exception, all had done their college and seminary work at Princeton. The position articulated by Archibald Alexander upon his inauguration as first professor at “the Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America” was expanded and adapted by his successors to meet new challenges, but it remained substantially unchanged.[8]
Spencer’s assertion is clearly borne out by a simple comparison of Archibald Alexander’s Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration, and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures[9] with the work of the last great Princeton apologist, B. B. Warfield.[10]
The Princeton theologians rejected many philosophies, but accepted as valid only one. Spencer argues here that “Old Princeton was positively influenced principally by one philosophy but was negatively influenced by a number of others. That is, essentially, only one philosophy was appropriated sympathetically by Old Princeton while a number of philosophical options served as goads or foils for the school, forcing them to articulate a response to what they viewed as erroneous or harmful positions.”[11]
What was that philosophy? Spencer provides us with the answer:
It is by now well-known that the philosophical orientation of Old Princeton was formed largely from Scottish Common-Sense Realism, especially as articulated by Thomas Reid and John Witherspoon. Numerous theses, dissertations, and articles have documented and discussed this influence in recent years … Reid’s views are quite explicitly part of the British empirical tradition. This tradition is usually said to begin with Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and continue on with John Locke (1632-1714) and George Berkeley (1685-1753) and “end” with David Hume (1711-1776).[12]
Spencer clearly proves the debt Old Princeton owed to this philosophical perspective. He shows that Charles Hodge likens the theologian to the empirical scientist. He argues that the theologian should use the inductive method of the natural scientist.[13] He likens the work and method of the theologian to that of the mechanical philosopher, his description of the empirical scientist.[14]
Another significant link in Spencer’s proof is the historical connection between Common-Sense Realism and Old Princeton. Spencer argues:
Thomas Reid was the third in the succession of Common-Sense philosophers, and the one whose particular formations primarily affected Old Princeton. John Witherspoon (1725-1794) a Scottish pastor who had begun to oppose Locke’s epistemology before Reid had published his criticism … brought Reid’s thought to America when he moved to assume the presidency of the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton College … One of his students at the college was William Graham … who, in later years, in addition to pastoring, established Liberty Hall Academy, modeled after his alma mater, for the training of ministers. The first professor at Princeton Seminary, Archibald Alexander, did both his classical and theological studies under Graham … Thus the historical link between Common-Sense Realism and Old Princeton is obvious and substantial.[15]
Spencer’s conclusion is that Princeton’s theology and apologetics were deeply influenced by its link to Common-Sense Realism. He says:
Old Princeton’s debt to Common-Sense Realism is incontrovertible. Having imbibed the view regarding the conception of knowledge systems, the method of knowledge, the nature, object, source, and tests for knowledge, Old Princeton’s theology and apologetics could not, in consistency, help but be deeply affected. Apologetics is a distinctively epistemological discipline and one’s epistemology is very determinative for one’s apologetics. Old Princeton, being epistemologically oriented toward Common-Sense Realism, was also apologetically oriented to that tradition.[16]
The perspective from which Old Princeton approached this issue was profoundly influenced by Common-Sense Realism. Spencer writes:
Reid was fervently committed to the position that if the evidence for a truth-claim were brought out into the open and examined and if men would only be “candid and honest” then unanimity could be established … Old Princeton believed likewise. Hodge wrote that “the human mind is so constituted that it cannot refuse to assent to evidence, when clearly perceived … “Candid and honest” examination would lead all men to the orthodox Christian position.[17]
From Archibald Alexander to B. B. Warfield, there is, therefore, a constant tendency to appeal to the “normally functioning human mind” in vindication of the Christian religion. Alexander opens his Evidences of Christianity with a chapter entitled, “The Right Use of Reason in Religion.” He begins by remarking:
That it is the duty of all men to exercise their reason in inquiries concerning religion, is a truth so manifest, that it may be presumed there are none who will be disposed to call it in question. Without reason there can be no religion: for in every step which we take, in examining the evidence of revelation, in interpreting its meaning, or in assenting to its doctrines, the exercise of this faculty is indispensable. When the evidences of Christianity are exhibited, an appeal is made to the reason of men for its truth; but all evidence and all argument would be perfectly futile, if reason were not permitted to judge of their force. This noble faculty was certainly given to man to be a guide in religion, as well as in other things … [18]
It is true that Alexander later recognizes that certain classes of men do corrupt and abuse their rational faculties,[19] but Spencer is correct when he states that “Nowhere in this discussion does Alexander refer to unregeneracy or sin. In short, he never makes mention of any noetic effects of sins.”[20]
Warfield’s approach is very similar to that of Alexander. In his “Introduction to Beattie’s Apologetics” he asserts that “Christianity makes its appeal to right reason” and adds that Christianity is “valid for all normally working minds.”[21]
Princeton and Warfield were aware of the noetic effects of sin. They did not deny that total depravity affects mind, will, and emotions. Yet for the purposes of apologetics this reality does not appear to matter. Warfield asserts:
Sin clearly has not destroyed or altered in its essential nature any one of man’s faculties, although … it has affected the operation of them all. The depraved man neither reasons, nor feels, nor wills as he ought … Nevertheless, there is question here rather of perfection than of kind of performance: it is “science” that is produced by the sinful subject even though imperfect science.[22]
Elsewhere Warfield argues similarly:
Sin may harden the heart so that it will not admit, weigh or yield to evidence: but sin, which affects only the heart subjectively, and not the process of reasoning objectively, cannot alter the relations of evidence to conclusions. Sin does not in the least degree affect the cogency of any rightly constructed syllogism. No man, no doubt, was ever reasoned into the kingdom of heaven: it is the Holy Spirit alone who can translate us into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. But there are excellent reasons why every man should enter the kingdom of heaven; and these reasons are valid in the forum of every rational mind, and their validity can and should be made manifest to all.[23]
Clearly, in the Old Princeton position, there is no basic distinction between regenerate reason and unregenerate reason.
Spencer shows that there is a tendency in both Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge to equate Scripture with revelation. This creates the distinct impression that they did not clearly recognize the reality of general revelation. It is only with B. B. Warfield that a clear doctrine of general revelation is found. He regards general revelation as the same as or at least laying the foundation for what he is willing to call “natural theology” or “natural religion.”[24] Spencer’s arguments are clear. He argues:
If, regarding Scriptural revelation, there is great similarity among these men, the case regarding what is variously called “natural” or “general” or “ordinary” revelation is quite different. Archibald Alexander, for example, never refers to this in A Brief Compend of Bible Truth. “Revelation” refers exclusively to Scripture (or at least to special revelation). Neither in the chapter on Scripture nor in the chapter on creation is the created order described as a revelation of God. He discusses the evidence for the existence of God which comes from His work, but Alexander does not term that “revelation” (p. 8, 9). The situation is similar with Charles Hodge. “Revelation” for him is special revelation (p. 155). For those living in post-apostolic times, revelation consequently is found only in Scripture. Hodge, too, discusses the argument for the existence of God based upon the order and purposefulness of the world, but he likewise never terms this revelation (Systematic Theology, 1:207-233). It is not until Benjamin Warfield that a two-fold revelation is articulated. Warfield states that there are “two species or stages of revelation” (Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 73). Warfield is careful to avoid setting these two types of revelation over against each other. Special revelation is needed because sin, having entered the world, destroyed man’s communion with God and obscured the knowledge of Him derived from nature. Even so general revelation is not rendered superfluous because it still provides a basis in the fundamental knowledge of God “as mighty and wise, righteous and good, maker and ruler of all things” (p. 75). Apart from this, the further revelation of God’s interventions in the world on behalf of sinners “could not be either intelligible, credible or operative (p. 75).[25]
Warfield does not plainly mention the theistic proofs, but we may assume that he agrees with those who went before him at Princeton. Both Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge make use of the theistic proofs for the existence of God. Alexander, says Spencer:
speaks of the “witness of his being and perfections” which has been left by God (Brief Compend of Bible Truth, p. 8). He formulates this witness in terms of two of the traditional arguments for the existence of God. The first is the argument for the existence of an intelligent cause from the multiplying instances of design in the world … His second argument is based upon “our moral feelings” … Alexander asks, “Does it not clearly intimate that there is a lawgiver, who has provided a witness of his right in every bosom?” As he points out, “Where there is a moral law there must be a moral governor (p. 10) … Alexander thus puts much weight upon these theistic proofs, describing them as “irresistible,” and evident to all who are not “destitute of reason” or “abandoned of God to believe a lie.” The moral argument allows one to infer the existence of God “with strong probability” (p. 9).
Charles Hodge addresses four arguments for the existence of God in his Systematic Theology.[26] He rejects the ontological argument, but accepts the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments for the divine existence.
Spencer concludes that …
Hodge contends that the evidence for the existence of God sought and found in the world outside of man has “neither been as general nor as operative as those derived from what we ourselves are, and from what we know that we deserve” (p. 238). He obviously regards the moral argument as the strongest and most effective of the three valid proofs for the existence of God.
In all these arguments, Hodge works from the common environment and experience of all men and, apparently, with a common interpretive standard or criteria. Beginning with common data and using a common epistemic methodology, Hodge hopes to lead the unbeliever and himself to a common conclusion, i. e., the acknowledgement of the existence of God.[27]
[1]The semi-Pelagians compromised with the Pelagian heresy. It taught that in order for men to be saved men must exercise their free wills. When they take this first step, God will then and only then save them by His grace.
[2]This is Cornelius Van Til’s description in his Christian Theory of Knowledge, (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969) 194.
[3]Van Til, Conflict, 2:215.
[4]Van Til, Thales, 216.
[5]This may be observed at large in The Analogy of Religion.
[6]For examples of this relinquishment of certainty by evangelical apologists consider the following. Mike Licona asks: “How do you know you aren’t a brain in a vat somewhere being stimulated with electricity so that you can have the external perceptions that you are experiencing? You can’t know that! Or, how do you know that everything in our universe wasn’t just created five minutes ago so that we have memories in our heads that never occurred, and food in our stomachs that we never ate? We simply cannot know. I don’t know that absolute, 100% certainty about anything can be justified.” https://blog.logos.com/2015/06/an-apologist-confronts-his-doubt/. William Lane Craig says that the preponderance of evidence argues the existence of God (but preponderance, in its legal definition, means just over 50%. It is a much lower standard of proof than beyond a reasonable doubt). https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates/what-is-the-evidence-for-against-the-existence-of-god/
[7]Van Til, Conflict, 19.
[8]This is from Stephen R. Spencer’s very helpful thesis on this subject entitled: A Comparison and Evaluation of the Old Princeton and Amsterdam Apologetics, 10.
[9]Archibald Alexander, Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration, and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures, (Philadelphia, Presbyterian Board of Publication, n. d.)
[10] B. B. Warfield, Revelation and Inspiration, “The Real Problem of Inspiration,” 169-228.
[11]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 17.
[12]ibid. Common-Sense Realism is so-called because Thomas Reid argued that “the object of man’s knowledge is the extra-mental reality itself. Man does not know merely an idea concerning reality or an image of reality, but reality itself. Hence the name “realism.” … The self-evidency of this principle, that is, of epistemological realism, is universal. All men grant it. Only those who have learned to doubt the indubitable (philosophers) call it into question. In the ordinary daily functioning of mankind, epistemological realism is believed and practiced. That is, the ordinary judgment, the “common sense” of mankind supports epistemological realism” (24-25).
[13]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 18. He remarks: “In the first volume of the classic formulation of Old Princeton theology, Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology, the discussion begins with a chapter “On Method” (pp. 1-17). After rejecting the “Speculative Method” and the “Mystical Method,” Hodge argues that the “Inductive Method” is the appropriate process for obtaining theological knowledge. This is explicitly a borrowing from science and the Common-sense philosophy. This inductive method is so-called because “it agrees in everything essential with the inductive method as applied to the natural sciences” (Systematic Theology, 1:9).
[14]Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, reprinted 1970) 1:1. The general truthfulness of Spencer’s assertion and something of its consequent effects upon apologetics is brought out by this quotation from the first page of Hodge’s systematics: “The Bible is no more a system of theology, than nature is a system of chemistry or of mechanics. We find in nature the facts which the chemist or the mechanical philosopher has to examine, and form them to ascertain the laws by which they are determined. So the Bible contains the truths which the theologian has to collect,
authenticate, arrange, and exhibit in their internal relation to each other.”
[15]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 23.
[16]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 26.
[17]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 25-26.
[18]A. Alexander, Evidences, 9.
[19]A. Alexander, Evidences, 11ff.
[20]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 44.
[21]B.B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield, (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1973) “Introduction to Beattie’s Apologetics,” 99-100, 105.
[22]Ibid., 117.
[23]Warfield, “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” 258.
[24]Warfield, Studies in Theology, 7, 63, 69, 74.
[25]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 56, 57.
[26]Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:204-240.
[27]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 66, 67.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
In the Modern Church period, Apologetic developments will again be summarized by means of a contrast between two great defenders of the faith, B. B. Warfield and Abraham Kuyper. If we are to understand their work, however, the philosophical context in which they labored must be understood. Three major forms of philosophy are relevant for our purposes. They are Rationalism, Empiricism, and Kantianism. These schools had a significant impact on orthodox apologetics. G. H. Clark argues that the Reformation had very little influence on the development of philosophy.
But though the Reformation had very widespread effects on civilization, it did not have as much influence on the history of modern philosophy as might be expected. The genius of the Reformation was to avoid the skepticism that results from dependence on unaided reason and to accept truth as a revelation from God; whereas the philosophical development is an attempt to show that knowledge is possible without recourse to any special or supernatural revelation. Perhaps the chief influence of the Reformation on the philosophers was to lead them into inconsistencies … as the Middle Ages had diluted its Christianity with pagan ideas, so the modern philosophers … put varying thicknesses of Christian veneer over their basic secularism.[1]
If Clark is right, Christianity had little influence on philosophy. This would mean, however, that the influence was mainly that philosophy influenced Christianity. If that is true, a knowledge of these philosophies is crucial so that we might understand how they had a bad impact on Christian and Reformed thinking.
Despite the amazing advances taking place in the physical sciences during the seventeenth century, “the philosophic hope for truth was not based on empirical discovery.”[2] Rather, philosophy looked inward to the human mind for the source of truth. Since this school of philosophers looked mainly to the human mind itself and its logical abilities to construct true philosophy rather than to scientific experimentation with the natural world, they were known as rationalists. Some of the most important of these rationalists were Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Since they looked to the innate ideas contained in the human mind as the basis of their philosophy, the ontological argument for the existence of God was an important foundation stone for these philosophers. For the same reason, Descartes started his philosophical reasoning with cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am).
The attempt to ground true philosophy through demonstrative logic on the examination of man’s mental ideas and structure of his mind itself was replaced by the attempt to ground philosophy on sensation, on the empirical (or experimental) examination of reality through the observation of the senses. The major empiricists were British. They provide interesting information about the nature and problems of Empiricism. We will briefly survey them.
John Locke, as Clark has just noted, began the attack on rationalism. It is important to understand the front on which this attack was begun. Locke attacked the concept that the human mind has innate ideas. The human mind was, for Locke, a tabula rasa, a blank slate. Clark informs us:
When Locke decided to attack rationalism, he did not begin, as the previous account might seem to suggest, with an attempt to show the invalidity of the ontological argument; neither did he emphasize the failure to deduce the minor laws of physics and the particular events of history from the being of God. Instead of centering his attention on these obvious and basic factors, he chose a point that has so little needed mention in the foregoing exposition that one may at first wonder whether it is really essential to rationalism at all. Yet it proves to have been presupposed throughout. The point concerns innate ideas. Descartes indeed used the term innate very little, and Spinoza less. But if knowledge is not received through sensation, the mind at birth must possess something in the way of intellectual equipment‑-the concepts of logic at least … whatever the extent of the ideal world, a theory in which knowledge is not altogether based on experience requires some innate ideas, just as a theory which finds knowledge in experience alone cannot admit even one. Therefore Locke’s introduction to empiricism, Book I of his Essay, attempts the refutation.[3]
He argued, therefore, that all knowledge is derived from our common experience. Clark says:
But the value of empiricism is not to be tied too closely to Locke’s introduction. It is the constructive theory that counts. If Locke can show in detail how all ideas, including the most abstract and speculative, are derived from common experience; if he can avoid skepticism and make knowledge possible for a mind unfurnished with prior ideas; if, in other words, he can justify empiricism, then the minor points about innate ideas are automatically disposed of … Empiricism is the theory that all knowledge is based on experience alone.[4]
We will have occasion to notice that it is British Empiricism arising as it did on the eve of the eighteenth century and dominating Britain during that century, which most profoundly influenced the tradition of Christian apologetics with which our religious tradition is most familiar. The importance of British Empiricism for the development of Protestant Christian Apologetics in the Modern Church is difficult to overstate. It is most significant, therefore, that the next major advocates of empiricism were Bishop George Berkeley, an apologete for Christianity, and David Hume, its enemy.
Berkeley taught a form of empirical idealism in which the reality of the external world of matter was denied. His philosophy may be summarized in the words esse is percipi (existence is perception). Berkeley argued that all we can be certain of is what we perceive or sense. There is no reason that behind our perceptions, there must be any material reality. Says Clark:
Berkeley was aware that nearly all men, and not Locke only, believed in the real external existence of material substances. But he thought that only a little reflection was needed to convince anyone of the absurdity of the common view. Matter is an abstract idea, and abstract ideas do not exist. Even if they did, they would exist in the mind, the only place in which an idea can exist. And because colors and tastes are perceptions, like pain, it is only in the mind that apples, mountains, and rivers exist, because these are ideas too, complex ideas, but nonetheless ideas … perceptions exist only in the perceiving mind.
If it be objected that although the perceptions exist only in the mind, there are real things outside the mind of which the perceptions are effects and copies, Berkeley replies that an idea can only be like or be a copy of an idea: a color can only be a color. And further, are these alleged external things, of which the ideas are supposed to be copies, perceptible or not? If they are perceptible, they are ideas in the mind. If they are not perceptible, then a color would have to be a copy of something invisible, and solidity a copy of something intangible. Can anything be greater nonsense?
A philosopher who wishes to defend the existence of matter ought to have reasons for believing it to exist, and he ought to be able to show its usefulness … [5]
Berkeley’s philosophy appeared to him to have an important religious significance. Says Clark, “For him this empiricism, which made the existence of God more evident than the existence of other men, and which deprived atheistic materialism of its material substance, was the bulwark of Christianity.”[6] Empiricism also had religious significance for David Hume, but in exactly the opposite direction.
Hume, as mentioned above, was the enemy of Christianity. On the basis of his empirical philosophy, he denied the arguments for the existence of the soul, miracles, and God. Without going into detail, Hume’s arguments were to the effect that causality, the soul, miracles, and God had never been a matter of empirical experience to him and, therefore, could not be regarded as proven. Clark’s evaluation of Hume’s skepticism is helpful:
Hume had no intention of giving aid and comfort to Christianity; and many orthodox believers, knowing him to be an enemy, are tempted to attack his refutation and to put the argument for God’s existence in valid form. But contrary to both Hume’s intentions and the fears of these particular believers, it could be that Hume injured himself more than Christianity. If arguments from experience do not prove the existence of God, the trouble might lie in experience rather than in the existence of God. The important point is not whether Hume can come to a knowledge of God, but rather whether Hume can come to a knowledge of anything. It is empiricism that is on trial. Can any knowledge be based on experience alone?[7]
Clark’s point is a good one. Perhaps empirical experience provides no basis to believe in the existence of God. But it also provides no basis to believe in the idea of cause. Human beings have a hard time functioning without the idea of cause. This raises the question whether on the basis of Empiricism we can know anything for certain at all.[8]
Immanuel Kant lived from 1724-1804. He self-consciously attempted to synthesize (combine) rationalism and empiricism in his system of philosophy. He hoped by this means to correct the errors of these two views and provide a workable basis for human knowledge. Clark makes this point in his opening words about Kant:
Rationalism was the theory that all knowledge is based on logic alone. Its ideal was the deductive method of mathematics, and physics was tortured to fit the scheme. The empirical school went on the principle that all knowledge is based on experience alone, and mathematics was made an experimental science. Although these two systems are otherwise so different, Kant found in them a profound similarity which he believed to be the cause of their failure. His efforts to replace them he characterizes as a Copernican revolution … preceding philosophy had always assumed that human cognition revolves around or must conform to the objects of knowledge; but now Kant proposes to try the assumption that objects must conform to the conditions of cognition. Since the first assumption has resulted in constant failure, the second is worth the attempt.[9]
Kant, therefore, argues that space, time, causality, and other fundamental ideas simply reflect the structure of the human mind. That is to say, our minds shape what we see, rather than what we see shaping our minds. Thus, the human mind imposes on reality‑-experience‑-of necessity these structures. Clark happily illustrates Kant’s viewpoint by way of the intelligent jelly jar.
Once upon a time a housewife made a batch of jelly and stored it on the pantry shelves for the winter. One jelly glass, brighter than the others, sat through the months reflecting on its experience. It noted that one winter its contents had been bright red in color, soupy in consistence, and had the taste of cherry. Another winter its experience was dark blue, rubbery, and tasted like grape. Its object on another occasion had been orange and bitter. Then a most remarkable discovery jolted this Kantian jelly glass out of its dogmatic slumbers and empirical dreams. Although the red, blue, yellow, sweet, and bitter came and went, the objects were always the same shape. How could this be? The change in experience could be accounted for by foreign material being poured into it; but the only permanent factor to account for the identity of shape must be the jelly glass itself.[10]
Brilliant as this insight may seem to be, the final result was only more skepticism and the clearest manifestation yet of the futility of non-Christian thought. Kantian epistemology could not account for vital aspects of human experience.
Here is why. According to Kantian epistemology all sensation or experience is structured necessarily by the categories of the human mind. Without these categories, no knowledge is possible. All is merely the constant flux of sensation. Among these categories of the mind is, of course, the category or idea of cause. All sensation is, therefore, structured by the category of natural causality. This being the case, there can, in the realm of pure reason, be no such thing as human freedom. All our actions in the realm of sensation have a natural cause. Furthermore, all knowledge consists in the structuring of experience or sensation by the rational categories of the human mind. Thus, by definition, or we should say, by Kantian epistemology, the knowledge of God is impossible.[11]
All of this, however, not only has ruled out any knowledge of God but has also ruled out of the realm of possible knowledge, human freedom, and, therefore, the whole realm of morality. Yet Kant is convinced that moral imperatives or obligations do exist. At the same time, he is convinced that they cannot be derived from experience or sensation. Further, morality depends on the idea of human freedom for its reality and on the idea of the existence of God for its enforcement or sanction. Also, the mental categories to which Kant has subjected all reality do not allow for, in fact, absolutely prohibit the knowledge or existence of God and free will. Therefore, it would seem that Kant has no basis for moral law, what he calls the categorical imperative.
It is at this point that Kant introduces an important distinction in his philosophy. It is true that in the `phenomenal’ world of sensation (subject as it is to the mental categories), there can be no morality. Nonetheless, we must not forget that these categories and our experiences do not bring us into contact with the noumenal or ideal world. We only know sensation and experience. We do not know things in themselves. Hence, Kant argues that in the `noumenal’ realm of the things in themselves, free will and moral law are a reality. Furthermore, it is well that we act as if God Himself exists since this will give firmness and backbone to our commitment to the moral imperative. Thus, in order to have a real moral existence, there is a kind of `transcendental’ necessity that we should presuppose that men are free and that God exists in the noumenal or ideal world. Believe it or not, Kant would have us assume these things, even though the existence of such things and such a world is absolutely precluded by his rational epistemology. Clark brings out the agonizing difficulties in Kant’s assumption of a noumenal world not ruled by the principles of the phenomenal world:[12]
Kant on the other hand wants what he believes to be a real freedom without in the least minimizing the determinism of events in time. All physical motions, and all series of psychological states likewise, are necessitated. Therefore the motions and thoughts of a man committing theft are necessitated. But the man, though he is partly in time, is partly beyond time. It is in this latter respect that he is free. Hence, concludes Kant‑-and the conclusion must certainly give us pause‑-hence the theft in itself could have been avoided, although the appearance of the theft could not have been avoided.[13]
We may bring this overview of modern philosophy as it impacts Christian apologetics to a conclusion by remarking upon how Kant’s philosophy establishes the futility of non-Christian thought. In the interests of reason and knowledge, Kant has been forced to banish human freedom from the world. On the other hand, in the interests of his moral nature and personality, Kant has been forced to assume a world which is not subject to those categories which form the essence of rationality. Thus, Kant combines a world of utter rationalism with a world of utter irrationalism in order to justify human experience as he knows it.[14]
[1]G. H. Clark, Thales, 302.
[2]G. H. Clark, Thales, 308.
[3]G. H. Clark, Thales, 358, 359.
[4]G. H. Clark, Thales, 360.
[5]G. H. Clark, Thales, 375-376.
[6]G. H. Clark, op. cit., 378.
[7]G. H. Clark, Thales, 391.
[8]G. H. Clark, Thales, 394. Clark concludes his treatment of empiricism with these words: “Empiricism therefore fails at the beginning: it surreptitiously furnishes its unfurnished mind with the use of time and space, while it professes to manufacture these ideas at a later stage of the learning process. Insist on a blank mind and learning never begins. No wonder Hume called his philosophy Skepticism: it is even more skeptical than he thought. Thus the second modern attempt to establish knowledge leaves the subject in worse confusion than either rationalism or late scholasticism left it.”
[9]G. H. Clark, Thales, 395-396.
[10]G. H. Clark, Thales, 400-401.
[11]G. H. Clark, Thales, 418. Clark comments: ” … it will be possible to consider Kant’s views on the proofs of God’s existence. By this time Kant claims to have shown that mathematics and physics are possible; but since the categories cannot validly be applied beyond the range of sense perception it is clear that metaphysics and theology are impossible. To support this conclusion, which is inherent in his exposition of the categories, he analyzes the traditional arguments and uncovers the fallacies they contain.”
[12]The noumenal world for Kant was the physical world in itself. The phenomenal world was the world as we see and experience it. As the following sentences indicate, the two worlds were very different.
[13]G. H. Clark, Thales, 428.
[14]Thus is fulfilled Van Til’s repeated prophecy that it is only by the absurd procedure of combining rationalism with irrationalism that the unbeliever can hope to preserve himself and human experience as he knows it.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
Two children were struggling (as Warfield reminded us) in the womb of Augustine’s mind. These two children had radically different conceptions of the Christian faith and of the apologetics by which that faith should be proven to be true. The birth, career, and full maturation of the first child in Medieval Catholicism have been traced. It attained its full growth in Roman Catholic Natural Theology as it was classically stated in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. The second child struggled much longer to emerge into the light of history. But when it emerged in the Reformation, it sprang almost full-grown from the pen of John Calvin.
We are not to view Calvin as occupying a unique position in this matter among the Reformers. There was an immense amount of agreement among the original Protestant Reformers. Luther would have been in basic agreement with Calvin about the doctrines of grace and the defense of the faith. Yet nowhere is the Reformation conception of Christianity so ably, clearly, and persuasively expounded than in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. In the first chapters of the final edition of the Institutes, Calvin gives us his doctrine of the knowledge of God. This is fundamentally his defense of the faith. It states the essence of his epistemology and apologetics. These chapters on the knowledge of God were absent in the first edition of the Institutes published in 1536. But by the time of the 1539 edition—which was now double the size of the original—Calvin’s doctrine of the knowledge of God is placed at the front of his growing masterpiece. In the final edition of 1559, the first nine chapters are consumed with this doctrine which is Calvin’s apologetic for the Christian faith. Warfield has eloquently paid tribute to the immense importance of these chapters in the theological development of Christian apologetics.
But we can attribute to nothing but his theological genius the feat by which he set a compressed apologetical treatise in the forefront of his little book—for the Institutes were still in 1539 a little book, although already expanded to more than double the size of their original form (edition of 1536). Thus he not only for the first time supplied the constructive basis for the Reformation movement, but even for the first time in the history of Christian theology drew in outline the plan of a complete structure of Christian Apologetics. For this is the significance in the history of thought of Calvin’s exposition of the sources and guarantee of the knowledge of God, which forms the opening topic of his Institutes. …. In point of fact, in Augustine alone among his predecessors, do we find anything like the same grasp of the elements of the problem Calvin here exhibits; and nowhere among his predecessors do we find these elements brought together in a constructive statement of anything like the completeness and systematic balance which he gave to it.
At once on its publication, however, Calvin’s apologetical construction became the property of universal Christian thought, and it has entered so vitally into Protestant, and especially Reformed, thinking as to appear now-a-days very much a matter of course. It is difficult for us to appreciate its novelty in him or to realize that it is not as native to every Christian mind as it now seems to us the inevitable adjustment of the elements of the problem raised by the Christian revelation.[1]
The great importance of Calvin’s exposition warrants a thorough presentation of his doctrine. What follows, then, is a summary of Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. The method that will be used in giving the student a summary of Calvin’s doctrine will be to follow the development of Calvin’s doctrine chapter by chapter, including quotations that summarize Calvin’s thought.
Calvin’s main point in this chapter is to show that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are inseparable. The opening words of the Institutes are:
True and substantial wisdom principally consists of two parts, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves. But, while these two branches of knowledge are so intimately connected, which of them precedes and produces the other, is not easy to discover. For, in the first place, no man can take a survey of himself but he must immediately turn to the contemplation of God, in whom he “lives and moves;” since it is evident that the talents which we possess are not from ourselves, and that our very existence is nothing but a subsistence in God alone. These bounties distilling to us by drops from heaven, form, as it were, so many streams conducting us to the fountain-head. Our poverty conduces [contributes‑-SW] to a clearer display of the infinite fulness of God. Especially, the miserable ruin, into which we have been plunged by the defection of the first man, compels us to raise our eyes toward heaven … (1:1:1)
Warfield has very fittingly summarized the argument of Calvin at this point.
The knowledge of God is given in the very same act by which we know self. For when we know self, we must know it as it is: and that means we must know it as dependent, derived, imperfect and responsible being. To know self implies, therefore, the co-knowledge with self of that on which it is dependent, from which it derives, by the standard of which its imperfection is revealed, to which it is responsible. Of course, such a knowledge of self postulates a knowledge of God, in contrast with whom alone do we ever truly know self: but this only the more emphasises the fact that we know God in knowing self … [2]
The point of Chapter Two is to show that Calvin is not (and we ought not to be) interested in a mere abstract, theoretical, and impractical knowledge of the existence of God. Says Calvin, “What benefit arises from the knowledge of God with whom we have no concern?” (1:2:2) Calvin begins this chapter by saying:
By the knowledge of God, I intend not merely a notion that there is such a Being, but also an acquaintance with whatever we ought to know concerning Him, conducing to his glory and our benefit. For we cannot with propriety say, there is any knowledge of God where there is no religion or piety. I have no reference here to that species of knowledge by which men, lost and condemned in themselves, apprehended God the Redeemer in Christ the Mediator; but only to that first and simple knowledge, to which the genuine order of nature would lead us, if Adam had retained his innocence. (1:2:1)
Because Calvin is not interested in the mere abstract notion of the existence of God, he distances himself from “cold and frivolous” philosophy. He says:
Cold and frivolous, then, are the speculations of those who employ themselves in disquisitions on the essence of God, when it would be more interesting to us to become acquainted with his character, and to know what is agreeable to His nature. (1:2:2)
Calvin’s language here is absolutely incapable of misunderstanding.
We lay it down as a position not to be controverted that the human mind, even by natural instinct, possesses some sense of a Deity. For that no man might shelter himself under the pretext of ignorance, God hath given to all some apprehension of his existence, the memory of which he frequently and insensibly renews; so that, as men universally know that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, they must be condemned by their own testimony, for not having worshipped him and consecrated their lives to his service. If we seek for ignorance of a Deity, it is nowhere more likely to be found, than among the tribes the most stupid and furthest from civilization. But, as the celebrated Cicero observes, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so savage; as not to be firmly persuaded of the being of a God. (1:3:1)
We read of none guilty of more audacious or unbridled contempt of the Deity than Caligula; yet no man ever trembled with greater distress at any instance of Divine wrath, so that he was constrained to dread the Divinity whom he professed to despise. This you may always see exemplified in persons of a similar character …. The impious themselves, therefore, exemplify the observation, that the idea of a God is never lost in the human mind. (1:3:2)
It will always be evident to persons of correct judgment, that the idea of a Deity impressed on the mind of man is indelible. That all have by nature an innate persuasion of the Divine existence, a persuasion inseparable from their very constitution, we have abundant evidence in the contumacy of the wicked, whose furious struggles to extricate themselves from the fear of God are unavailing (1:3:3)
Because of this sensus deitatis (as this indelible awareness of God is called from the Latin original), Calvin depreciates the philosophical proofs for the existence of God.
… the sense of a Deity, which they ardently desire to extinguish is still strong, and frequently discovers itself. Whence we infer that this is a doctrine, not first to be learned in the schools, but which every man from birth is self-taught, and which, though many strain every nerve to banish it from them, yet nature itself permits none to forget.
In this chapter Calvin very strongly emphasizes that human depravity prevents the sense of deity (sensus deitatis) and the accompanying seeds of religion (semen religionis) in the human heart from producing true knowledge of God.
While experience testifies that the seeds of religion are sown by God in every heart, we scarcely find one man in a hundred who cherishes what he has received, and not one in whom they grow to maturity, much less bear fruit in due season. Some perhaps grow vain in their own superstitions, while others revolt from God with intentional wickedness; but all degenerate from the true knowledge of him. The fact is, that no genuine piety remains in the world. But, in saying that some fall into superstition through error, I would not insinuate that their ignorance excuses them from guilt; because their blindness is always connected with pride, vanity, and contumacy. (1:4:1)
David’s assertion, that “the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God,” is primarily, as we shall soon see in another place, to be restricted to those who extinguish the light of nature and wilfully stupefy themselves. (1:4:2)
All this is stated so strongly that one wonders if one has misunderstood the previous statements of Calvin that the sense of deity is indelible. But Calvin is not denying, to use the words of R. C. Sproul, that the sense of deity “gets through to the unbeliever.”[3] Calvin, in this chapter, is simply building on what he said in Chapter Two. All knowledge of God worthy of the name is “an acquaintance with whatever we ought to know concerning Him, conducing to his glory and our benefit. For we cannot with propriety say, there is any knowledge of God where there is no religion or piety.” (1:2:1) The fact that no true knowledge of God springs from the sensus deitatis and the semen religionis does not mean that they are eradicated by human depravity or cease to be the ground upon which that depravity is found guilty. Men have a sense of deity, even though they have no knowledge of God worthy of the name. Calvin clearly makes this qualification or distinction in Chapter Four.
It must also be remarked, that, though they strive against their own natural understanding, and desire not only to banish him thence, but even to annihilate him in heaven, their insensibility can never prevail so as to prevent God from sometimes recalling them to his tribunal. But as no dread restrains them from violent opposition to the divine will, it is evident, as long as they are carried away with such a blind impetuosity, that they are governed by a brutish forgetfulness of God. (1:4:2)
At length they involve themselves in such a vast accumulation of errors, that those sparks which enable them to discover the glory of God are smothered, and at last extinguished by the criminal darkness of iniquity. That seed, which it is impossible to eradicate, a sense of the existence of a Deity, yet remains; but so corrupted as to produce only the worst of fruits. Yet this is a further proof of what I now contend for, that the idea of God is naturally engraved on the hearts of men, since necessity extorts a confession of it, even from reprobates themselves. In a moment of tranquillity they facetiously mock the Divine Being, and with loquacious impertinence in many derogate from his power. But if any despair oppress them, it stimulates them to seek him, and dictates concise prayers, which prove that they are not altogether ignorant of God, but that what ought to have appeared before had been suppressed by obstinacy (1:4:4)
The subject of Chapter Five is what is commonly called general revelation. The structure of Chapter Five parallels the structure of Chapters Three and Four taken together. Paragraphs 1-10 parallel Chapter Three’s emphasis on the sense of deity and teach that God’s revelation of Himself in creation (both in the external world and in man himself) and in providence is clear and obvious. Paragraphs 11-15 parallel Chapter Four’s emphasis on the fact that because of the depravity of men, such revelation is inadequate to impart a true knowledge of God.
We begin with Calvin’s emphasis on the clarity and conspicuousness of general revelation.
As the perfection of a happy life consists in the knowledge of God, that no man might be precluded from attaining felicity, God hath not only sown in the minds of men the seed of religion, already mentioned, but hath manifested himself in the formation of every part of the world, and daily presents himself to public view, in such a manner, that they cannot open their eyes without being constrained to behold him. His essence indeed is incomprehensible so that his Majesty is not to be perceived by the human senses; but on all his works he hath inscribed his glory in characters so clear, unequivocal, and striking, that the most illiterate and stupid cannot exculpate themselves by the plea of ignorance. (1:5:1)
And, in the first place, whithersoever you turn your eyes, there is not an atom of the world in which you cannot behold some brilliant sparks at least of his glory. But you cannot at one view take a survey of this most ample and beautiful machine in all its vast extent, without being completely overwhelmed with its infinite splendour. (1:5:1)
Berkhof stated that the Reformers taught that “through the entrance of sin into the world God’s natural revelation was corrupted and obscured”[4]. This statement is clearly incorrect if he is referring to Calvin. Calvin’s emphasis‑-as can be seen by the above quotations‑-was that God’s revelation in nature remains clear and conspicuous or obvious.
The last statement quoted above makes clear that everything is evidence for the existence of God. It should be clear from such statements that Calvin is not thinking here of technical and philosophical proofs for the existence of God. But if any doubt remains, he makes clear and explicit in the next paragraph that he is not thinking of the complexities or complications of the cosmological or teleological arguments[5] as elaborated by the scholastics, especially Thomas Aquinas.
Of his wonderful wisdom, both heaven and earth contain innumerable proofs; not only those more abstruse things, which are the subjects of astronomy, medicine, and the whole science of physics, but those things which force themselves on the view of the most illiterate of mankind, so that they cannot open their eyes without being constrained to witness them. Adepts indeed, in those liberal arts, or persons just initiated into them, are thereby enabled to proceed much further in investigating the secrets of Divine Wisdom. Yet ignorance of those sciences prevents no man from such a survey of the workmanship of God, as is more than sufficient to excite his admirations of the Divine Architect … since the meanest and most illiterate of mankind, who are furnished with no other assistance than their own eyes, cannot be ignorant of the excellence of the Divine skill, … it is evident, that the Lord abundantly manifests his wisdom to every individual on earth. (1:5:2)
This same emphasis is sounded a few paragraphs later.
We see that there is no need of any long or laborious argumentation to obtain and produce testimonies for illustrating and asserting the Divine Majesty since, from the few which we have selected and cursorily mentioned, it appears that they are every where so evident and obvious, as easily to be distinguished by the eyes, and pointed out with the fingers. (1:5:9)
In paragraphs 11-15, Calvin balances his emphasis on the clarity and fullness of general revelation with an emphasis on the depravity of man in suppressing this revelation.
But, notwithstanding the clear representation given by God in the mirror of his works, both of himself and of his everlasting dominion, such is our stupidity, that, always inattentive to these obvious testimonies, we derive no advantage from them.
Note carefully Calvin’s language. He does not say that general revelation is not clear, nor does he say that it does not get through to men; neither does he say that it is not the ground upon which we are without excuse; he clearly says that “we derive no advantage from” it. It is never productive of true religion. Calvin proceeds:
This disease affects, not only the vulgar and ignorant, but the most eminent, and those who, in other things, discover peculiar sagacity. How abundantly have all the philosophers, in this respect, betrayed their stupidity and folly! For, to spare others, chargeable with greater absurdities, Plato himself, the most religious and judicious of them all, loses himself in his round globe …. I speak exclusively of the excellent of mankind, not of the vulgar, whose madness in the profanation of divine truth has known no bounds. (1:5:11)
Calvin, therefore, rejects the idea that any true knowledge of God or natural theology can be constructed by fallen men on the basis of general revelation.
Vain, therefore, is the light afforded us in the formation of the world to illustrate the glory of its Author, which, though its rays be diffused all around us, is insufficient to conduct us into the right way. Some sparks, indeed, are kindled, but smothered before they have emitted any great degree of light….Though the Lord, then, is not destitute of a testimony concerning himself, while with various and most abundant benignity he sweetly allures mankind to a knowledge of him, yet they persist in following their own ways, their pernicious and fatal errors. (1:5:14)
Calvin concludes:
But whatever deficiency of natural ability prevents us from attaining the pure and clear knowledge of God, yet, since that deficiency arises from our own fault, we are left without any excuse …. But, however men are chargeable with sinfully corrupting the seeds of divine knowledge, which, by the wonderful operation of nature, are sown in their hearts, so that they produce no good and fair crop, yet it is beyond doubt, that the simple testimony magnificently borne by the creatures to the glory of God, is very insufficient for our instruction. (1:5:15)
Warfield ably states the close connection between Chapter Six and the preceding chapters.
The soul, being corrupted by sin, is dulled in its instinctive apprehension of God; and God’s manifestation in nature and history is deflected in it. Accordingly, the testimony of nature to God is insufficient that sinful man should know Him aright, and God has therefore supernaturally revealed Himself to His people and deposited this revelation of Himself in written Scriptures.[6]
Calvin’s main point is, then, that Scripture is necessary for obtaining a true knowledge not only of salvation but of God the Creator.
Though the light which presents itself to all eyes, both in heaven and in earth, is more than sufficient to deprive the ingratitude of men of every excuse, since God, in order to involve all mankind in the same guilt, sets before them all, without exception an exhibition of his majesty, delineated in the creatures,‑-yet we need another and better assistance, properly to direct us to the Creator of the world. Therefore he hath not unnecessarily added the light of his word, to make himself known unto salvation, and hath honoured with this privilege those whom he intended to unite in a more close and familiar connection with himself …. For, as persons who are old, or whose eyes are by any means become dim, if you show them the most beautiful book, though they perceive something written, but can scarcely read two words together, yet, by the assistance of spectacles, will begin to read distinctly,‑-so the Scripture, collecting in our minds the otherwise confused notions of Deity, dispels the darkness, and gives us a clear view of the true God. (1:6:1)
Calvin goes on to emphasize the heightened intimacy, clarity, and directness of the revelation given in Scripture.
This, then, is a singular favour, that, in the instruction of the Church, God not only uses mute teachers, but even opens his own sacred mouth; not only proclaims that some god ought to be worshipped, but at the same time pronounces himself to be the Being to whom this worship is due; and not only teaches the elect to raise their view to a Deity, but also exhibits himself as the object of their contemplation (1:6:1)
Nonetheless, Calvin never wants us to receive the impression that he is criticizing the clarity of general revelation. It is only the sinful foolishness of man of which he is critical. He concludes Chapter Six on this note:
For, since the human mind is unable, through its imbecility to attain any knowledge of God without the assistance of his sacred word, all mankind, except the Jews, as they sought God without the word, must necessarily have been wandering in vanity and error. (1:6:4)
Calvin himself says in the opening sentence of this chapter that his intent in this chapter is “to introduce some remarks on the authority of the Scripture.” It must be understood, however, that Calvin’s focus is specifically on the epistemological question regarding the authority of Scripture. In other words, he is not asking here what the Scripture teaches about its divine authority, but how we come to know that the Scriptures are the Word of God.
But since we are not favoured with daily oracles from heaven, and since it is only in the Scriptures that the Lord hath been pleased to preserve his truth in perpetual remembrance, it obtains the same complete credit and authority with believers, when they are satisfied of its divine origin, as if they heard the very words pronounced by God himself. (1:7:1)
It must also be understood that Calvin raises this question in the context of and in response to the Roman Catholic answer to it. For Roman Catholicism it was the Church which certified or guaranteed to the believer that God was the author of Scripture.
But there has very generally prevailed a most pernicious error, that the Scriptures have only so much weight as is conceded to them by the suffrages of the Church; as though the eternal and inviolable truth of God depended on the arbitrary will of men. For thus, with great contempt of the Holy Spirit, they inquire, Who can assure us that God is the author of them? Who can with certainty affirm, that they have been preserved safe and uncorrupted to the present age? Who can persuade us that this book ought to be received with reverence, and that expunged from the sacred number, unless all things were regulated by the decisions of the Church? It depends, therefore, (say they,) on the determination of the Church, to decide both what reverence is due to the Scripture, and what books are comprised in its canon. (1:7:1)
Calvin offers three rebuttals or answers to the Roman Catholic view in the immediate context of the above statement. First, he remarks that this makes the “wretched consciences” of men “which are seeking a solid assurance of eternal life” depend on the mere “judgment of men.” (1:7:1). Second, he cites Ephesian 2:20’s testimony that the church “is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” Calvin argues on the basis of this text that the Roman Catholic doctrine reverses or turns around the redemptive-historical order by making the Word of God built on the testimony of the church. (1:7:2) Third, Calvin argues that Scripture does not need the authentication of or proving by the church because it is self-authenticating. It proves itself.
But, with regard to the question, How shall we be persuaded of its divine original, unless we have recourse to the decree of the Church? This is just as if any one should inquire, How shall we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter? For the Scripture exhibits as clear evidence of its truth, as white and black things do of their colour, or sweet and bitter things of their taste. (1:7:2)
It is clear from this statement of Calvin that the doctrine of the testimony of the Spirit to the Scriptures must be viewed against the backdrop of the self-authenticating or self-attesting character of the Scriptures. If Calvin’s key statements about the testimony of the Spirit in the heart of the believer are carefully observed, this observation will be borne out again and again.
But I reply, that the testimony of the Spirit is superior to all reason. For as God alone is a sufficient witness of himself in his own word, so also the word will never gain credit in the hearts of men, till it be confirmed by the internal testimony of the Spirit. (1:7:4)
Let it be considered, then, as an undeniable truth, that they who have been inwardly taught by the Spirit, feel an entire acquiescence in the Scripture, and that it is self-authenticated, carrying with it its own evidence, and ought not to be made the subject of demonstration and arguments from reason; but it obtains the credit which it deserves with us by the testimony of the Spirit. For though it conciliate our reverence by its internal majesty, it never seriously affects us till it is confirmed by the Spirit in our hearts. Therefore, being illuminated by him, we now believe the divine original of the Scripture, not from our own judgment or that of others, but we esteem the certainty, that we have received it from God’s own mouth by the ministry of men, to be superior to that of any human judgment, and equal to that of an intuitive perception of God himself in it. (1:7:5)
This, then, is Calvin’s answer to the question posed by the Romanists. Scripture is self-authenticated by its own divine majesty and men are enabled to acknowledge this by the testimony of the Spirit in their hearts. The statement of this doctrine is sprinkled with Calvin’s criticism of those who make the divine origin of Scripture a matter to be established by human arguments.
The principal proof, therefore, of the Scriptures is every where derived from the character of the Divine Speaker. The prophets and apostles boast not of their own genius, or any of those talents which conciliate the faith of the hearers; nor do they insist on arguments from reason; but bring forward the sacred name of God, to compel the submission of the whole world. We must now see how it appears, not from probable supposition, but from clear demonstration that this use of the divine name is neither rash nor fallacious. Now, if we wish to consult the true interest of our consciences; that they may not be unstable and wavering, the subjects of perpetual doubt; that they may not hesitate at the smallest scruples persuasion must be sought from a higher source than human reasons, or judgments, or conjectures–even from the secret testimony of the Spirit. It is true that, if we were inclined to argue the point, many things might be adduced which certainly evince, if there be a God in heaven, that he is the Author of the Law, and the Prophecies, and the Gospel …. Yet it is acting a preposterous part, to endeavour to produce sound faith in the Scripture by disputations. (1:7:4)
We seek not arguments or probabilities to support our judgment, but submit our judgments and understandings as to a thing concerning which it is impossible for us to judge …. It is such a persuasion, therefore, as requires no reasons; such a knowledge as is supported by the highest reason, in which, indeed, the mind rests with greater security and constancy than in any reasons; it is, finally, such a sentiment as cannot be produced but by a revelation from heaven. (1:7:5)
Calvin, despite his hostility to rational proofs as the main foundation for faith in the Scriptures, provides a lengthy description (13 paragraphs) of some of the major arguments for the divine origin of the Scriptures. The spirit in which he engages in this recital is clarified by the opening and closing statements of this chapter.
Without this certainty, better and stronger than any human judgment, in vain will the authority of the Scripture be either defended by arguments, or established by the consent of the Church, or confirmed by any other supports; since, unless the foundation be laid, it remains in perpetual suspense. Whilst, on the contrary, when, regarding it in a different point of view from common things, we have once religiously received it in a manner worthy of its excellence, we shall then derive great assistance from things which before were not sufficient to establish the certainty of it in our minds. (1:8:1)
Calvin, then, proceeds to deal with a number of such arguments: the fact that no other composition or book makes an equal impression on our minds, the majesty of the Spirit in the Scriptures, the antiquity (ancient-ness) of Scripture,, the miracles of Scripture, its fulfilled prophecies, the historical credibility of the traditional authorship of the Scriptures as compared to other antiquities, the ability of unlearned men (the apostles) “to discourse in such a magnificent manner on the mysteries of heaven”, and finally the consent of the Church and its martyrs to the doctrine of the Bible. He concludes the chapter with these significant words:
There are other reasons, and those neither few nor weak, by which the native dignity and authority of the Scripture are not only maintained in the minds of the pious, but also completely vindicated against the subtleties of calumniators but such as alone are not sufficient to produce firm faith in it, till the heavenly Father, discovering his own power therein, places its authority beyond all controversy. Wherefore the Scripture will then only be effectual to produce the saving knowledge of God, when the certainty of it shall be founded on the internal persuasion of the Holy Spirit. Thus those human testimonies, which contribute to its confirmation, will not be useless, if they follow that first and principal proof, as secondary aids to our imbecility. But those persons betray great folly, who wish it to be demonstrated to infidels that the Scripture is the word of God, which cannot be known without faith. Augustine therefore justly observes, that piety and peace of mind ought to precede, in order that a man may understand somewhat of such great subjects. (1:8:13)
Calvin here teaches that we must believe before the evidence for the Bible will be helpful to us. Calvin’s words seem similar to the ideas now identified with modern presuppositionalism. Like Calvin, presuppositionalism teaches that evidences are fine and helpful, but only if they are built on the right presuppositions.
In this final chapter of his apologetic treatise, Calvin carefully guards himself against an error, which is the opposite of Roman Catholicism. Rome appealed to the ancient tradition of the church. The Anabaptists fell into the equal and opposite error of mystically appealing to new revelations of the Spirit. Calvin’s response to this error is to remind us that the Word and Spirit cannot be separated. We cannot claim we hear the Spirit speaking where the Word is silent or, even worse, contradicts our claims.
But I would ask them, what spirit that is, by whose inspiration they are elevated to such a sublimity as to dare to despise the doctrine of the Scripture, as puerile and mean …. Whence we infer, that these persons are guilty of detestable sacrilege in disjoining these two things, which the prophet has connected in an inviolable union. (1:9:1)
Calvin concludes this chapter with these words:
… the word is the instrument, by which the Lord dispenses to believers the illumination of his Spirit. For they know no other Spirit than that who dwelt in and spake by the apostles; by whose oracles they are continually called to the hearing of the word. (1:9:3)
There is surely an enormous contrast between the approaches of Aquinas and Calvin to apologetics. Our study of them raises again the question with which we were confronted in the apologetics of Justin and Tertullian. How should Christians relate to and use the noble, good, and helpful appearing philosophies found in the world? But now, a second major question emerges. We must bring this question also to our answer key, the Bible. What should we think about proofs for the existence of God? Do we need them? Are they valid? Should we attempt to defend the existence of God at all? Do men know God already without these proofs? This issue raises a third major area of discussion. How should we approach the defense of the Scriptures and the unique doctrines they teach? Should we reason to build a bridge from philosophy to the Bible? If not, How can we be sure ourselves and prove to others the truth of the Word of God?
[1]Calvin and the Reformation, ed. by William Park Armstrong (Baker, Grand Rapids, 1980), B. B. Warfield, “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” 132-133.
[2]Warfield, “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” 133-134.
[3]R. C. Sproul., Classical Apologetics (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1984) 199.
[4]Berkhof, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 127.
[5]The cosmological and teleological arguments are the two most well-known of the classical arguments for the existence of God. The cosmological argument reasons that the world must have a cause, and God must be that cause. The teleological argument argues that the design evident in the world requires a designer, and this designer must be God.
[6]Warfield, “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” 134.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.