Classical Apologetics in Evangelicalism and at Old Princeton
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.
The Internal Unity of the Princeton Apologetic
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 Philosophic Influences upon the Princeton Apologetic
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 Noetic (Mental or Intellectual) Effects of the Fall in the Princeton Apologetic
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.
Revelation in Old Princeton
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]
Theistic Proofs in Old Princeton
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.
