Archive for the ‘Cornelius Van Til’ Category
The Snake Eats Its Own Tail
Protagoras (490-420 bc): “Man is the measure of all things.”
Gordon Clark, Thales to Dewey, p. 69:
Such is the fate of all relativistic theories, ancient or modern. They are self-destructive because self-contradictory. When a pragmatist asserts the impossibility of attaining the absolute, when an instrumentalist with his emphasis on change deplores the dogmatism of unchanging truth, or when a Freudian dismisses conscious reasoning as hypocritical rationalization, he means to except his own view. It is absolutely true that we miss the absolute; it is fixed truth that nothing is fixed; it is validly reasoned that reasoning is hypocrisy. Objections to dogmatism are always dogmatic, and relativisms are always asserted absolutely. For this the Man-measure theory must be rejected, and knowledge is shown to be other than perception.
3 Month Introspective
Introspective
So, I’ve been blogging consistently for three months. This is the week of Christmas and I’ll be all over the place. I thought I would briefly summarize the 3 months of blog series on here:
Blaise Pascal: We took a look at Blaise Pascal’s thinking, its use of aphorism and its relationship to both tri-perspectivalism and presuppositionalism. We also looked at his use of aphorism and his warnings against deism and atheism.
Thoughts on Evangelicalism Past, Present, and Future, Parts 1-7: We defined the term evangelical. We looked at its historical roots in the First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, and its ties to celebrity culture, democritization of knowledge, and modernism. Then we looked at the roots of liberalism, the Protestant split and suburbanization, and defined and outlined evangelical populism and their game plan for reaching America. Finally we assessed the current status of American evangelicalism and then made some predictions of future trends.
Introduction to Apologetics, Parts 1-7: We looked in broad strokes at the various schools of apologetics. We then took a more in-depth look at: Classical Apologetics, Evidentialist Apologetics, Presuppositional Apologetics, and the specific apologetics of Blaise Pascal and Alvin Plantinga. Finally, we employed the three phases football as an analogy for the different apologetic schools and I likened Tim Tebow to the presuppositionalists.
Thoughts on Evangelicalism Moving Forward, Parts 1-10: We looked at some analysis of some shifts evangelicalism will need to make moving forward: Doctrine, Worldview, Urbanization, Globality/Mobility, “Post-Modernism,” American Culture(s), Contextualization, Balance, and Final Analysis.
Top ~10 Books by Topic:
Top 10 Systematic Theology Texts
Top 10 Books on Science and Christianity
Top 10 Books on Christian Biography
Top 15 Books on Status of American Evangelicalism
Top 10 Books on Church History
Top 40 Books to Read While in College
Top 10 Books on Missions, Discipleship, and Evangelism
The 25 Most Destructive Books Ever Written…
Top 10 Books on Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility
Best Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms of the Christian Church
A Comprehensive List of Top 10 Book Lists of 2009
Up Next: We will be looking at some thoughts on the economy and investment and then delve into the mind of Friedrich Nietzsche…
Seeds of Presuppositionalism
Seeds of presuppositionalism in Pascal? Consider #701 (using Penguin classics numbering):
701. When we want to correct someone usefully and show him he is wrong, we must see from what point of view he is approaching the matter, for it is usually right from that point of view, and we must admit this, but show him the point of view from which it is wrong.
Don’t tell me that isn’t Cornelius Van Til some 300 years prior.
Modern Pensées 