“Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.”
Acts 17:17
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Subsection
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Order of Contents
Articles 7
Books 9+
Worldview 3
Quotes 4
History 2
Relation of Reason & Faith 1
Common Ground
Latin 2
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Articles
1800’s
Alexander, Archibald – ‘Preface’ to Isaac Watts, A Rational Defence of the Gospel (1831), pp. iii-xii
Cunningham, William – General Revelation & the Evidences of Christianity (1878) 145 pp. being chs. 10-20 of his Theological Lectures, p. 124 ff.
Cunningham was a professor in the Free Church of Scotland.
Girardeua, John – ‘What is a Miracle? A Reply to Dr. Martin’ in Christian Observer (c. 1888), pp. 57-65 being an appendix to Dr. Girardeau’s Anti-Evolution: the Logic of his Reply
Dr. Girardeau had originally written an article in the Presbyterian Quarterly on the supernatural character of miracles. Martin criticized this work in four successive articles in the Southern Presbyterian. Here is Girdeau’s reply to Martin’s criticisms. Dr. Girardeau’s Anti-Evolution: the Logic of His Reply is Martin’s response to this piece by Girardeau.
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2000’s
Fulford, Andrew – ‘The Problem of Natural Revelation in the Thought of Cornelius Van Til’ (2014) 28 paragraphs
Minich, Joseph – ‘A Review of: Covenantal Apologetics by K. Scott Oliphant’ 2014, 63 paragraphs
A helpful critique of Presuppositional VanTillianism in general, by a reformed writer.
Muller, Richard – ‘Aquinas Reconsidered’, pt. 1, 2, 3 on Reformation21 being a review of Scott Oliphint’s book, Thomas Aquinas
Mathison, Keith A. – ‘Christianity & Van Tillianism’ (2019) 113 paragraphs
“In light of all of these problems with Van Til’s thought, it is clear that when twentieth-century Reformed Christians followed Van Til and adopted his presuppositionalism in place of the traditional apologetics and theology of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed scholastic theologians, they let go of an invaluable and precious birthright. What replaced that birthright has been uniquely detrimental to the contemporary Reformed church…
If we would take the time to go back and carefully reread the Reformed scholastics, we would discover that it is they, and not Van Til, who provide us with an approach to theology and a foundation for apologetical work that is biblical, clear, precise, and internally self-consistent.”
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Books
1600’s
Du Mornay, Philip – A Work concerning the Trueness of the Christian Religion… against Atheists, Epicures, Paynims, Jews, Mahumetists and other Infidels (London: Cadman, 1587) 641 pp. ToC
Gisbert Voet: “his excellent treatise, On the Truth of the Christian Religion.”
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1800’s
Alexander, Archibald – Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration, Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures (1906) 326 pp. This is a later expanded edition that includes A Brief Outline of the Evidences of the Christian Religion (1825) and parts of The Canon of the Old & New Testaments Ascertained (1833).
Buchanan, James
Modern Atheism: compared to Faith in God in their essential Natures, Theoretic Grounds & Practical Influence (1855) 510 pp. This is vol. 1 of Buchanan’s two volume work on Atheism.
This book consists of three parts, (1) arguments for the existence of God from general revelation, (2) an examination of such proofs, and (3) a critique of the theories that underly Atheism. “Modern Atheism” refers to the specific stripe of atheism that was rising in Buchanan’s day, though it is hardly different than the atheism of our own day.
Modern Atheism: under its Forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development & Natural Laws (1857) 423 pp. Here is an HTML version, by James Buchanan. This is volume two of Buchanan’s two volume work on Atheism. The first two chapters (128 pp.) are the same as section three in the first volume.
Buchanan initially entered the Free Church college in 1845 as professor of Apologetics. These two volumes reflect his competency and work in that field. Here he takes on the prevailing secular worldviews of his day, most of which are the same as in our own day.
Cunningham, William – Theological Lectures: on Subjects Connected with Natural Theology, Evidences of Christianity, the Canon & Inspiration of Scripture Buy (1878) 625 pp.
Cunningham was a professor in the Free Church of Scotland.
This collection of lectures in its subject matter forms an extended exposition of the first chapter of the Westminster Confession. Cunningham “had bestowed much care and labor upon their composition and revision, and that he had attached a special value to them as the first-fruits of his professional labors.”
Dabney, Robert – The Sensualistic Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century Considered Buy (1875) 369 pp.
Here is Dabney’s major interaction with the popular philosophies (or “worldviews” in contemporary language) of his day. See here for a review.
Girardeau, John
Discussions of Philosophical Questions (1900) 532 pp.
A modern title to this book would be “Conflict of Worldviews”
Discussions of Theological Questions Buy 534 pp.
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2000’s
Montgomery, John Warwick – Tractatus Logico-Theologicus [A Logical-Theological Tract] (Bonn, 2005)
This is the magnum opus of the accomplished Christian scholar, lawyer and apologist, Montgomery (b. 1931). The work is a comprehensive apologetic for the truth of Christianity, specifically in contrast to the notion that the many various world religions are compatible with each other.
The book is laid out according to 1,800 propositions in logical sequence, modeled after Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Whereas Wittgenstein ended his work saying, “Of that which one cannot speak, one must remain silent,” Montgomery concludes, “Whereof one can speak, thereof one must not be silent.”
The first proposition of the book states: “The characteristic most fully shared by the religions of the world is their incompatibility with each other.”
Fesko, J.V. – Reforming Apologetics: Retrieving the Classical Reformed Approach to Defending the Faith Buy (Baker, 2019) 256 pp.
Haines, David – Without Excuse: Scripture, Reason & Presuppositional Apologetics Buy (Davenant Institute, 2020) 320 pp.
Mathison, Keith A. – Toward a Reformed Apologetics: A Critique of the Thought of Cornelius Van Til in Reformed Exegetical & Doctrinal Studies Buy (Mentor, 2024) 296 pp.
Here is a review by Steve Hayhow at London Seminary, and a review by Luke Gossett at the Heidelblog.
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On Worldview
Quote
Richard M. Gamble
New Horizons (March 2017), a magazine of the OPC
“Frame takes it for granted that “worldview” is a durable, if not permanent, concept. This assumption seems unwarranted. Worldview is itself a product of modern philosophy—of Hegel’s idealism, to be precise.
Frame doesn’t see an antithesis between worldview and Christianity. But that tension needs to be explored. Worldview as a concept may not even survive the passing of the modern age. If not, then Christians need to be equipped for life after worldview.”
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Articles
Haines, David – ‘A Potential Problem with Presuppositionalism’ Journal of the ISCA (2017)
Haines has been a professor of philosophy at Veritas Evangelical Seminary.
“The Achilles heel of Van Til is his commitment to the idea that all rational beings observe, necessarily, the phenomena of this world through an interpretative schema by which they interpret everything, and from which they cannot escape;and, that there is, therefore, no common ground.
We suggest that the greatest difficulty for Presuppositionalism is that if these claims constitute the foundation of Presuppositionalism, then it would seem that there is no way to know, with any measure of certainty, that Van Til (and, therefore, his particular school of reformed Christianity) is telling the truth, and that all other views say false… There are no reasons that can be given either to defend his system or to attack his system; and this would also be true of all those beliefs that fall within interpretative systems of fallen man…
(3) If a person interprets all of reality, always, through his interpretative schema, then he cannot have unmediated and uninterpreted access to reality in order to compare the proposed truth claims of his schema with the way in which things really are (in other words, there is no common ground or objective position from which a person could accomplish the unmediated and uninterpreted comparison that he must accomplish, according to the second premise, in order to know the truth or falsity of his schema.)…
Is there any way to avoid this embarrassing situation?… The third premise seems to be the most analytical affirmation that is to be found in the postmodern theory that is Presuppositionalism. It is quite simply a fact that, if a person always interprets reality through their interpretive schema, then one cannot have access, without mediation or interpretation, to reality in order to compare the truth claims of said schema to the way things really are. That is to say, if a person always interprets reality through their interpretive schema, then even if they wanted (or attempted) to compare the statements of their schema with “reality”, they would be doing this comparison through the interpretive schema that they are attempting to examine. It’s like having a pair of colored spectacles (let us say that they are pink) permanently cemented on your face…
It follows that if we reject either the third or fourth premise, or both, then we reject at the same time, Presuppositionalism; what we accept, however, would be the classical position of orthodox reformed theology, as seen in such great theologians as John Calvin and Francis Turretin.” – pp. 5-9
Littlejohn, Bradford – ‘What’s So Bad About ‘Worldview’?’ (2018) 14 paragraphs See also the followup post, ‘Three Cheers for Wisdom: Clarifications Contra Critics’.
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Quotes
1200’s
Thomas Aquinas
Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. 1, ch. 9, ‘Of the order and mode of procedure in this work’
“…the intention of the wise man must be directed to the twofold truth of divine things [one which can be known by reason and the other not] and to the refutation of contrary errors…
Therefore, in order to deduce the first kind of truth, we must proceed by demonstrative arguments by which we can convince our adversaries. But, since there are no such arguments in support of the second kind of truth, our intention must be not to convince our opponent by our arguments, but to solve the arguments which he brings against the truth, because, as shown above (ch. 7), natural reason cannot be opposed to the truth of faith.”
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1600’s
Gisbert Voet
Willem J. van Asselt, Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism (RHB, 2011), Appendix 2, ‘The Use of Reason in Matters of Faith’, pp. 229-30
“As a result, our faith and theology can be called completely rational, not in that it a priori demonstrates its truth necessarily with arguments in opposition to those who deny the basic assumptions of the Christian religion, but in that it demonstrates its conclusions from the authority of Scripture and with arguments derived from Scripture in opposition to those who accept something [aliquod] of the things that are revealed in a divine manner; and in that it at least refutes the arguments of those who accept nothing of it, namely those arguments by which they charge our faith with contradiction and absurdity, as Thomas [Aquinas] correctly distinguishes in his Summa theologiae, part I, quaestio 1, article 8 [‘Whether Sacred Doctrine is a Matter of Argument’].
Add to this that [reason], by directly attacking false theology, consequently and indirectly defends true theology, that is, by clearing away impediments and prejudices, and so paving the way to the truth.
A similar defense of the fatih can be seen in Athenagoras, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Augustine, Theodoret, Cyril of Alexandria, and so forth; in the medieval writers Thomas Against the Pagans and the other scholastics, if one with discretion and discernment takes the more solid excerpts; as well as Savonarola in The Triumph of the Cross; Raymond of Sabunde [d. 1436] in On Natural Theology; Cardinal Cusanus, Dionysius the Carthusian and others who wrote against the Muslims; and finally, more recent writers such as Louis Vives [d. 1540], Agostino Steuco [d. 1548], Charron [d. 1603], the scholastics who treat quaestiones and the commentators on Lombard and Thomas, but especially Du Plessis [Mornay] [1623] in his excellent treatise On the Truth of the Christian Religion. To this list we could add the adversaries of the Socinians whom we have already cited elsewhere [previously in the disputation].”
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1800’s
John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan
“Time was when I was so sunk in atheism that once on seeing a horse I said to myself, ‘There is no difference between that horse and me.'”
“It [Christianity] is a great historical fact; if we reject it we must explain it to vindicate the rejection; we must find its source in natural causes, and this you cannot do.”
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On the History of Apologetics
On the 1800’s-1900’s
Anderson, Owen
Reason & Worldviews: Warfield, Kuyper, Van Til & Plantinga on the Clarity of General Revelation & Function of Apologetics (University Press of America, 2008) 152 pp.
Anderson has been a professor of religion and philosophy at Arizona State University.
Benjamin B. Warfield & Right Reason: The Clarity of General Revelation & Function of Apologetics (University Press of America, 2005)
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On the Relationship of Reason & Faith in Coming to Know Christianity is True & in Apologetics
See also ‘Faith is Grounded in Evidence’ contra Fideism & Implicit Faith.
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Quote
2000’s
Edward Feser
The Last Superstition: a Refutation of the New Atheism (Southbend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2008), pp. 155-157
“The overall chain of argument, then, goes something like this:
Pure reason proves through philosophical arguments that there is a God and that we have immortal souls. This by itself entails that a miracle like a resurrection from the dead is possible. Now the historical evidence that Jesus Christ was in fact resurrected from the dead is overwhelming when in interpreted in light of that background knowledge.
Hence pure reason also shows that Jesus really was raised from the dead. But Jesus claimed to be divine, and claimed that the authority of his teachings would be confirmed by His being resurrected. So the fact that He was resurrected provides divine authentication of His claims. Hence reason shows that He really was divine…
Of course some of those teachings [of Christ] are taken on the basis of authority, but the point is that the trustworthiness of that authority is something that, it is claimed, can be established by reason.. We can know such-and-such a teaching was true because Christ taught it… and a divine being cannot be in error… Every link in the chain is supported by argument…
All I am interested in doing here is sketching out the general strategy that Christian theology has traditionally used in justifying its doctrinal claims, and the point of doing so is to understand where faith fits into the picture… So how does it come into play? This way…
suppose that the general strategy just sketched can be successfully fleshed out. Then it follows that if you are rational you will believe anything Christ taught; indeed, if you are rational you will believe it even if it is something that you could not possibly have come to know in any other way, and even if it is something highly counterintuitive and difficult to understand.
For reason will have told you that Christ is infallible, and therefore cannot be wrong in anything He teaches. In short, reason tells you to have faith in what Christ teaches, because He is divine.
And that is at bottom what faith is from the point of view of traditional Christian theology: belief in what God has revealed because if God has revealed it it cannot be in error; but where the claim that He revealed it is itself something that is known on the basis of reason. Faith doesn’t conflict with reason, then; it is founded on reason and completes reason.”
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On Common Ground with Non-Christians
Quote
1500’s
Philip Du Mornay
A Work concerning the Trueness of the Christian Religion… against Atheists, Epicures, Paynims, Jews, Mahumetists and other Infidels (London: Cadman, 1587), Preface, n.p.
[In answer to those that would say “that religion cannot be declared unto infidels or unbelievers by reason”:]
“The first sort [of objectors] say, ‘It is to no purpose to dispute against such as deny grounded principles.’ And by this means, because one grounded principle is denied them, they break off quite and clean, as though all mean of conference were taken away.
Surely this principle of theirs is very true, but yet (in my judgment) it is very ill understood. I grant it is to no purpose to dispute against such as deny grounded principles, by the same principles which they deny: That is very true.
But there may be some other principles common to both sides, by the which a man may profitably dispute with them, and by those common principles oftentimes prove and verify his own principles. And that is the thing which I intend to do in this work.
As for example: The Christian grounds himself upon the Gospel; the Jew denies it: and therefore it were to no purpose to allege it unto him. But both the Jew and the Christian have one common principle and ground, which is the Old Testament: By this may the Christian profitably dispute against the Jew, yea even to the verifying of the Gospel.
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Likewise the Jew is grounded upon the Old Testament, which the Gentile would mock at if he should allege it unto him. But both the Gentile and the Jew have one common nature, which furnishes them both with one common philosophy, and with one common sort of principles; as that there is one God which governs all things; that He is good, and no author of evil; that He is wise, and does not anything in vain. Also that man is born to be immortal; that to be happy he ought to serve God and continue in his favor. And therewithal, that he is subject to passions, inclined to evil, weak unto good and so forth. Of these common principles, the Jew may draw necessary conclusions, which the Gentile shall not perceive at the first, like as when a man understands a proposition, but conceives not yet the drift and consequence thereof…
Thus shall the Jew by common principles and conclusions, verify his own ground which is the Old Testament…
And what else is all this than that which is commonly done in geometry and logic, which by two lines or by two propositions that are commonly known and certain, do gather… a third proposition (that is to say, a conclusion) that was… either doubted of or hidden, and by means of the other two is evidently found out, and necessarily proved.
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To be short, the mark that our faith looks at, is the Author of Nature and principle of all principles. The rules therefore and the principles of nature which He has made cannot be contrary unto Himself. And He is also the very reason and truth itself. All other reason then, and all other truth depends upon Him, and relies upon Him, neither is there, or can there be any reason or truth but in Him: So far off is it, that the thing which is true and reasonable in nature, is or can be false in divinity, which (to speak properly) is not against nature, but against the corruption of nature, and in very deed about nature.”
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Latin Article
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – Select Theological Disputations (Amsterdam: Jansson, 1655 / 1667)
vol. 2
35. ‘On Prejudices of the True Religion’, pp. 539-52
vol. 4
p. 753 in 49. ‘A Disputation: Some Miscellaneous Positions’
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Related Pages