Welcome

Thanks for checking out the site! Feel free to poke around and don't worry if you break things, (we're in early development).

Archive
Needs sources

Christian Theory of Knowledge by Cornelius Van Til

Added by Postmilstill archive ·

It is readily seen that in the formulation of this Logos theology, the Apologists were largely influenced by Greek modes of though. The question for them was how they could protect the deposit of faith against those who were real heretics while they were themselves so largely controlled in their thinking by false modes of thought. Here were the Gnostics; they thought of God as the featureless beyond. They brought this featureless beyond into contact with the world of space and time by means of a series of impersonal emanations...The apologists, on the other hand, according to the deposit of faith, thought of the creation or emanation of the Logos as a voluntary act on the part of God. But how would they be able to defend either their doctrine of God or their doctrine of the voluntary procession of the Logos from the personal God against the equivalent teachings of the Gnostics so long as they themselves admitted that God needed an intermediary to make contact with man? If they really held to the God of the Bible there was no room for such an intermediary and if they really held to the personality of God and to the exhaustively personal character of his work with respect either to himself or to the universe, then they would have to renounce their rationalistic efforts...The problem of harmonizing the teaching of the Rule of Faith with the speculations of Greek philosophy would therefore, in the nature of the case, tend to become the problem of defending the deposit of faith against the encroachments of this speculation.

Source Evidence

Christian Theory of Knowledge

Community verification

Help verify accuracy, sources, and attribution. Pick one action below — you don't need to fill out everything.

Needs sources

0 ratings

Rate this quote (sign in required)

Sign in to rate this quote and affect community trust scores.

Contribute

Choose what you want to add. Each option opens its own short form.

Discussion

Share context, ask questions, or discuss this quote. Comments are separate from source proposals and verification ratings.

All discussions →

    No comments yet.

Related Quotes

Related by source, book, author, or topic.

Added by Postmilstill archive ·

The criticism that is valid against Kant is valid against later idealism as well. All idealism is at a loss to interpret the phenomenon of error or evil. As was already noted earlier it will not do to limit the question…

Added by Postmilstill archive ·

If there are no brute facts, if brute facts are mute facts, it must be maintained that all facts are revelational of the true God. If facts may not be separated from faith, neither may faith be separated from facts. Ever…

Added by Postmilstill archive ·

he Christian apologist must place himself upon the position of his opponent, assuming the correctness of his method merely for argument's sake, in order to show him that on such a position the 'facts' are not facts and t…

Added by Postmilstill archive ·

Now the question is not whether the non-Christian can weigh, measure, or do a thousand other things. No one denies that he can. But the question is whether on his principle the non-Christian can account for his own or an…

Added by Postmilstill archive ·

It ought to be pretty plain now what sort of God I believe in. It is God, the All-Conditioner. It is the God who created all things, Who by His providence conditioned my youth, making me believe in Him, and who in my lat…

Cornelius Van Til · What I Believe and Why I Believe What I Believe
Open quote →
Added by Postmilstill archive ·

But if it be said to such opponents of Christianity that, unless there were an absolute God their own questions and doubts would have no meaning at all, there is no argument in return.