Cornelius’ deep insight

It’s maybe good to lay again the foundation of our authentic hope for answers: when I say that only God can furnish us with satisfying, true answers to our existential situation, I mean that there is literally no way of finding true answers any other way. Human thinking is inherently flawed and inadequate to the task.

Cornelius Van Til was a professor of both theology and philosophy, with deep insight into apologetics. His thought is as profound as it is radical, and I summarise in simple terms his demonstration of the absolute need of the God revealed in Christian Scripture for being able to know anything at all.

1. We all constantly live and act as if reason is valid. This is the universally experienced way we think. We are rightly considered rational creatures. We check things out by our reason, and require rational answers.
2. The question is: on what can we ground this experienced fact that reason is valid? No-one wants ridiculous illogical answers: why is that? 
3. Reason is the opposite of chance. We make our life-decisions reasonably, not on the basis of chance.
4. It is unreasonable to think that reason came from chance occurrences, i.e. from something less reasonable than itself.
5. Since reason is an aspect of our personal nature as human beings, the only possible ground for the validity and reality of reason is in a Person of supreme or ultimate Reason. “Unless God is back of everything, you cannot find meaning in anything” (Van Til). 
6. An infinitely wise Creator God is thus the indispensable necessary ground for any reasonable thinking at all. To refuse this is to opt for the illogical.
7. All who reason therefore tacitly (and unknowingly) assume God as the ultimate ground to validate their reasoning.
8. Even the atheist cannot argue against God without needing to hold (consciously or, more often unconsciously) to the existence of an all-reasonable God as the only ground for believing that their reasoning process is valid.
   

Cornelius Van Til writes therefore that the atheistic materialist has to face an irresolvable problem here, for “on his assumptions, his own rationality is a product of chance.” If our brains resulted from chance movement of atoms and molecules, there is neither real intelligence, nor personality: both are illusory.

We are rational beings and our reason requires true answers to our basic vital questions. There can be no satisfaction to this need except through the infinite wisdom of God’s mind; he alone can answer our dilemma. Without a rational Creator on whom we can ground the validity of our rationality, we are for ever lost in confusion, for the very value of our mental processes would be undermined. 

And the great news is that this Rational God is no mere philosophical supposition: the God who is there has revealed himself and communicated truth through his Son, Jesus, sent into the world to teach us. 

John’s Gospel starts by affirming: “In the beginning was the Word”. The Greek word translated “word” is logos, from which we get our word logic. John goes on to tell us that “the Word” was the Creator: “all things were made by him; without him nothing was made that has been made.” Then the Gospel says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”: the Creator God became incarnate, and “we have seen his glory” – the glory of the Son of God sent from the Father. “He has made God known” (John 1.1-18).

Authentic hope for answers can only come through Jesus who brought God’s wise answers to our existential questions. Jesus’ life and teaching is the evidence that God has spoken to the world.

Clive Every-Clayton