My Credo

This, then, is the message of the letter(The Bible) written to me and to the whole Church by Christ himself. Ever since I can remember it was of this letter of Christ which my father read to me and to the family. It was also this letter which I heard in church, spoken by the minister of Christ. Every minister in those days had a V.D.M. degree: Verbum Dei Minister. When, therefore, I became a teacher of apologetics it was natural for me to think, not only of my Th.M. and my Ph.D., but above all of my V.D.M. The former degrees were but means whereby I might be true to the latter degree.

How else, I thought, can anyone be a follower of the Reformation? Calvin and Luther: they expounded the Scriptures for the edification of the church of Christ. They rescued the Bible as the Word of God for the people of God from the apostate church of Rome. When they insisted on the necessity, authority, sufficiency, and the perspicuity of the Scriptures, they rejected in principle the entire Roman theological structure as it was largely based upon the very Greek thought against which Paul so vigorously preached.

Wanting to follow the Reformers, it was natural that I read and appreciated the works of those who before me likewise attempted to do so. I first used the works of Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck. How basic and how broad was their view! The idea of Scripture, they said, must never be separated from its message.

The Roman Catholics, for example, in separating the two, distort the biblical views of sin and salvation. According to the position of Rome, the transition from sinner to saint is a metaphysical process of elevation on the "scale of being." This Greek-Christian metaphysics of salvation brings with it a false view of the nature of Scripture. Scripture, on this view, cannot be "sufficient." The Roman church adds itself as the continuing organ of revelation to written revelation, therewith achieving the sufficiency which Scripture, of itself, lacks. As Bavinck truly said, the nature of the message of salvation and the nature of Scripture are always involved in one another.

Just so, from the Reformed point of view, all so-called "evangelical" non-Reformed theologies (all those which, although non-Reformed, hold to what J. I. Packer calls the "evangelical equation" of Scripture with the Word of God, such as orthodox Lutheranism, traditional Arminian-Wesleyanism, and synergistic fundamentalism), which have an inadequate view of sovereign grace, have also an inadequate view of Scripture. A God who cannot control history because of countless men with wills not fully dependent on his own can only make salvation a bare "possibility." Christ might have died in vain. Being "free," all men might refuse to exercise their supposedly "God-given- freedom" to "draw their check for 'eternal life' put in the Bank of Heaven for all men." God's plan, to call out a people for himself, might never have been realized. Needless to say, every major teaching of Scripture excludes such a "scheme." God is God. Christ finished the work of salvation for his own. Only those "in Christ" from the foundation of the world died with Christ on the cross. Christ saved his sheep; he did not just make their salvation "possible." The emphasis, therefore, on human autonomy in non-Reformed evangelical theology not only plays havoc with the scriptural message of salvation by grace alone, but distorts the doctrine of Scripture itself by finding the ultimate exegetical tool in the subjective experience of human freedom and by denying to Scripture and the Holy Spirit the power, authority, and necessity of invading the souls of men. The Holy Spirit and the Word of God do not change men, men first agree to be changed! For this reason no non-Reformed theology can properly be called a "theology of the Holy Spirit." A theology which loses the right to be called a "theology of the Holy Spirit" loses also the right to be called "a theology of the Word of God." It is no wonder, therefore, that G. C. Berkouwer speaks of the "isolation of the Reformed view of Scripture."1

This point receives even stronger confirmation in the case of existential theology.

If non-Reformed evangelical theologies tend toward subjectivism, modern non-evangelical theology stands on it flat- footed! Take the theology of Karl Barth, for example. The free grace of God, Barth maintained, could not be communicated through a stabilized, objectivized revelation. Orthodox theology, he argues, has reduced the living, active revelation of God to that of a lifeless form. When Barth spoke agreeably, therefore, of verbal inspiration he "actualized" it and therewith fitted it "into his system."2 In bringing down the Bible to the dimension of "causal relations," orthodoxy brings down the entire religious relation between God and man to the level of impersonal concepts and ideas. Orthodoxy is the theology of the "blessed possessors," the theology of those who control the freedom of God. The God of orthodoxy, indeed the God of Calvinism, is not sovereign! The God of Calvin is not the God of sovereign, universal grace.

We may say, therefore, that the Barthian soteriology of "sovereign, free grace" which comes to us only in our subjectivity entails a radically new view of Scripture itself. The Bible may now be called the Word of God only in so far as it brings this message of subjectivity to us. To say "the Bible is the Word of God," for Barth, does not imply a directly discernible revelation of God in history as we know it.

From these examples of Roman Catholic, Arminian-Wesleyan- Lutheran, and finally modern theology, it is clear (1) that the idea of Scripture can never be separated from the message of Scripture, and (2) that none of these non-Reformed evangelical and modern theologies have a view of Scripture such that the Lord Christ speaks to man with an absolute authority. The self- attesting Christ of Scripture is not absolutely central to these theologies. Just so, he will not be central in any apologetic form to defend them.

Deciding, therefore, to follow the Reformers in theology, it was natural that I attempt also to do so in apologetics. I turned to such Reformed apologists as Warfield, Greene, and others. What did I find? I found the theologians of the "self- attesting Christ," defending their faith with a method which denied precisely that point! That this was the case may be shown by a brief survey of what I call the "traditional" method of Christian apologetics.

The traditional method, offered first in detail by Thomas Aquinas in its Catholic form and by Joseph Butler in its Protestant form (but being in principle that offered by the very earliest of apologists), is based upon the assumption that man has some measure of autonomy, that the space-time world is in some measure "contingent" and that man must create for himself his own epistemology in an ultimate sense.

The traditional method was concessive on these basic points on which it should have demanded surrender! As such, it was always sell-frustrating. The traditional method had explicitly built into it the right and ability of the natural man, apart from the work of the Spirit of God, to be the judge of the claim of the authoritative Word of God. It is man who, by means of his self-established intellectual tools, puts his "stamp of approval" on the Word of God and then, only after that grand act, does he listen to it. God's Word must first pass man's tests of good and evil, truth and falsity. But once you tell a non-Christian this, why should he be worried by anything else that you say. You have already told him he is quite all right just the way he is! Then the Scripture is not correct when it talks of "darkened minds," "wilful ignorance," "dead men," and "blind people"! With this method the correctness of the natural man's problematics is endorsed. That is all he needs to reject the Christian faith.

Seeing, therefore, the failure of even Reformed theologians and apologists in their efforts to defend consistently the self- attesting Christ of Scripture, it became clear to me that new ground work needed to be done. I did not, however, undertake this task de novo. I learned much from other men, just as I did in theology from Kuyper and Bavinck. Since I conceived of Christian apologetics as focusing on the self-attesting Christ of Scripture, it was natural that I should learn most of the development and defense of the doctrine of the person of Christ in the historical, theological development of the church. There are three eras in history in which Christian apologetics was helped forward in the right direction.

The Council of Nicea.-Here, in A.D. 325, the church concluded that the only adequate expression of the teaching of Christ concerning himself and of the apostles concerning God, was in a formulation such that all three persons of the Trinity were equally ultimate. The church rejected the subordination of the Son to the Father in any "ontological" sense. Herman Bavinck points out that herewith was rejected any attempt to unite God with man in terms of some change wherein God ceased to be himself as God.

The Chalcedon Creed.-This formulation of the church deals particularly with the difficult question of the relation of the divine to the human "natures" of Christ. Adopted in A.D. 451, it says that the divine and human "nature" of Christ are related unconfusedly changeably, indivisibly, and inseparably. The first two adjective were undirected against the Eutychians, the second two against the Nestorians.

This effort of the church to understand the Christ was theological and therefore apologetically crucial. The work of Christ remains cloudy until the biblical teaching with respect to his person is clearly understood. Yet the true significance of his person becomes clear only as we understand what he has accomplished for his people. For this latter insight we must turn to the Reformed confessions. They give more exact expression to the work of the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, as part of the continuing historical work of Christ as he is now with us.

The Reformed Confessions.-We take the Belgic Confession as illustrative: "We receive these books, and these only, as holy and canonical, for the regulation, foundation, and confirmation of our faith, believing, without any doubt, all things contained in them, not so much because the church receives and approves them as such, but more especially because the Holy Spirit witnesseth in our hearts that they are from God, whereof they carry the evidence in themselves. For the very blind are able to perceive that the things foretold in them are fulfilling" (Art. V).

It appears, then, that not until the time of the Reformers do we find the church, as the church, confessing before the world anything like an adequate view of the Holy Spirit as the one who ministers to us, as he did to the disciples and apostles, the very Word of Christ. Only in the Reformed creeds do we find the Spirit of Christ to be an essential part of the work of Christ in saving his sheep.

In these three areas we see the church's increasing understanding of the person and work of Christ. Individual theologians, too, helped the cause forward. One such was Tertullian. Another was Augustine. Both men had very "high" views of Christ and his work. Both saw the centrality of the Holy Spirit to the redemptive work of Christ. They attempted to be consistent with these views in their arguments with non- believers. Tertullian was, in this respect, more successful in this attempt than Augustine.

In the case of Tertullian, we have, says Warfield, a remarkable instance of the right man for the right place and time: "the real father of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity."3 With a very high view of Christ, Tertullian could say, "After Jesus Christ we have no need of speculation, after the gospel no need of research. When we come to believe, we have no desire to believe anything else; for we begin by believing there is nothing else which we have to believe."4 This statement is not for Tertullian a mere formal submission to Scripture. For Tertullian it is Christ who, in the Scriptures, gives us the "system" of truth which men must believe. "What you must seek is what Christ taught ...." For Tertullian all search for truth is meaningless unless it is in the light of the basic truth which is before men in the Scriptures, the word through which Christ speaks to us from heaven. But Tertullian was no obscurantist or literalist. "Provided the essence of Truth is not disturbed, you may seek and discuss as much as you like."5 Having set forth this "system" of truth which confronts men in the Christ of Scripture, Tertullian concludes: "From this point onwards I shall contest the ground of my opponents' appeal."6 Men are not to determine in advance of meeting Christ what his nature must be. for "our Lord himself declared, while he lived on earth, what he was, what he had been, how he was fulfilling the Father's will, what he was laying down as man's duty."7

It is clear that I learned from Tertullian. But Tertullian was nevertheless, like us all, a son of his times. He never succeeded of ridding himself of the stranglehold which the Logos- speculation of his predecessors had on him. "The Logos was in principle God conceived in relation to things of time and space: God, therefore, not as absolute, but as relative. In its very essence, therefore, the Logos conception likewise involved the strongest subordinationism.· The Logos was therefore necessarily conceived as reduced divinity- divinity, so to speak, at the periphery rather than at the center of its conception."8 So observes Warfield.

Here, then, we see a truly great Christian theologian who, while developing the idea of the sell-attesting Christ of Scripture, falls into the ditch of Greek speculation calculated to deny this Christ in toto. In his argument with the Gnostics he adopts not a mere "form" but the very content of their own emanation theories, hoping to convince them that he but wishes to add "Christ" to their already adequate ideas of the origin of man and the world. He does not even attempt to "contest the ground of his opponents" as he set out himself to do. He failed, therefore, to be consistent with a method which he himself proposed. It fell to Calvin to follow the method of Tertullian, cleansing it of its Logos theology.

I have said that the development of the church's doctrine of Christ took place in three basic steps and that these three steps were necessary prerequisites for a truly biblical apologetics. Further I observed that Tertullian was a man ahead of his time, both in Christology and in apologetic method. The third step, the Reformed creeds, was basically an expression of the theology of John Calvin. We shall understand the third step more fully, therefore, if we look in detail at the Christology of Calvin. In doing so we shall also see a development and application of the method of Tertullian and therewith the beginnings of a Christ-centered apologetics.

For Calvin speculation about God, independently of Scripture, is excluded. Natural theology, therefore, is also excluded. Natural theology starts with man as autonomous and with the world as "given." Natural theologians assume that "reason" and "logic" and "fact" are "religiously neutral." They are but "tools" by which man may and must determine what is and what is not possible.

Now if there is anything which is basic to the ideas of the Reformation it is that which Calvin expresses at the very outset of his Institutes: man is what God in Christ through Scripture says he is. This God is triune. "The tripersonality of God is conceived by Calvin, . . . not as something added to the complete idea of God, or as something into which God develops in the process of his existing, but as something which enters into the very idea of God, with out which he cannot be conceived in the truth of his being."9 For Calvin the doctrine of the Trinity was involved in his experience of salvation "in the Christian's certainty that the Redeeming Christ and Sanctifying Spirit are each Divine Persons."10 "The main thing was, he insisted, that men should heartily believe that there is but one God, whom only they should serve; but also that Jesus Christ our Redeemer and the Holy Spirit the Sanctifier is each no less this one God than God the Father to whom we owe our being; while yet these three are distinct personal objects of our love and adoration.11 It was because of his deep religious interest in making the triune God of Scripture the starting point of all his theology that Calvin found it necessary to exclude every last vestige of subordinationism which might even be said to be sanctioned by the language of Nicea. He therefore used the word aùtóqeoß with respect to the Son of God.

The significance of this for Christian apologetics should be clear at once. "All those who were for any reason or in any degree unable or unwilling to allow Christ a deity in every respect equal to that of the Father were necessarily offended by the vindication to him of the ultimate divine quality of self- existence."12 Calvin explicated the person of Christ solely in scriptural terms, i.e., his method is exegetical rather than speculative. As such his method is simple: who Christ is depends on Christ's sell-identification. If Christ is who he says he is, then all speculation is excluded, for God can swear only by himself. To find out what man is and who God is, one can only go to Scripture. Faith in the sell-attesting Christ of the Scriptures is the beginning, not the conclusion, of wisdom! It was, therefore, not until the fully developed Trinitarian theology of Calvin, which says that Christ is authoritative because aùtóqeoß, that there was therewith developed a truly Christian methodology of theology and of apologetics. The method by which a Christian develops the content of his faith must not be denied by the method he uses to defend that content. Calvin, seeing this, denied all speculation and natural theology as "avenues" to faith. Rather, faith and understanding are pure gifts of free grace.

The apologetic method thus far outlined will be made clearer if we consider an objection, indeed the "stock" objection, to such an approach as Calvin's. It comes from Stuart Cornelius Hackett in his The Resurrection of Theism. We must, says Hackett, have "a rational justification for the metaphysical ultimate" which we believe in. Calvinism denies this. The Calvinists say that God has "created rational men as mere puppets of his sovereignty. But if it seems to be the case that man is under obligation to believe the gospel and that he must accept Christ as Savior before the Spirit of God regenerates the heart-if, I say, man is a moral and rational agent con fronted with a revelation for the acceptance of which he is morally and rationally responsible-then let the presuppositionalist framework be consigned to the irrationalism that is written so plainly through its structure .... With her opponents thus languishing in defeat, reason pushes on to consider experience itself to determine whether God is real."13

With these words Hackett sums up the issue between himself as an Arminian and myself as a Calvinist very well. It goes without saying that we two have radically different beliefs as to what the Bible says about man and his sinfulness and about the Holy Spirit and his sovereignty. Indeed, the issues between us are total. There are no "fundamentals" in common between us: we will necessarily under stand creation-providence, the fall of man, the atonement of Christ, his sinlessness and his resurrection, his second coming and his ultimate triumph, the doctrine of Scripture, the nature of saving faith-we will necessarily understand, I say, these doctrines in different ways. Hacker's Christian faith and my Christian faith, which we both desire non-Christians to accept, are radically different. They are different not only in their content but also in the very method of their construction.

I make two broad points in reference to this. First, any non- Christian epistemology, i.e., any theory of knowledge based upon principles acceptable per se to the "mind of the flesh," (and therefore those of Hackett's own method) is doomed to utter failure; not only failure as an avenue to Christian faith, but as an avenue to any form of knowledge whatsoever. This I think can be, and has been repeatedly, shown by myself and many others. Second, Hackett's basic charge that Calvinism is determinist and irrational is simply not true. First, as to the charge that it is determinist and that men are but "puppets," one need only read Calvin himself to be persuaded that such an understanding of Calvinism is false. The Calvinist notion of divine sovereignty has nothing to do with the philosopher's notion of physical, causal determinism. I have developed at length in other places the covenantal, exhaustively personalist view of providence which is clearly part of Calvin's thought.

As to the charge that the Calvinist position is "irrational," I assume that Hackett cannot mean that it is inconsistent. After all, one of the so-called "sins" of Calvin was that he was too deductive, too logical, in drawing implications from this and that in Scripture, that in "logicizing" theology he destroyed its heart. I assume that what Hackett means is that on the Calvinist position man is called upon to repent of his sins and accept Christ without having, reasons for doing so. The Calvinist cannot give reasons because he has no point of contact with the non-Christian. There are, for the Calvinist, no reasons to which he might appeal in an effort to get his friend to accept Christ.

In response to this I observe that this also is not the case. Hackett assumes that unless one finds a point of contact with the natural man by way of agreeing with him on his false views of man and the world then one has no point of contact with him at all. Against this position, I maintain, with Calvin following Paul, that my point of contact lies in the actual state of affairs between men as the Bible tells us of it. It is Hackett who has no real point of contact, for his lies in what men imagine (and, to be sure, "agree") to be the case. The Calvinist's point of contact is rooted in the actual state of affairs. All things are what they are because of their relation to the work of the triune God as reported in Scripture. Hackett's "point of contact" as an evangelical Arminian is an essentially Kantian epistemology, an epistemology in terms of which men stand utterly unrelated to one another and are, at the same time, reduced to relations of one another.

To look for a point of contact with the unbeliever in the unbeliever's notions of himself and his world is to encourage him in his wicked rebellion and to establish him in his sell- frustration. We have already seen that the natural man is under the self-imposed delusion that he is "free," i.e., independent of the control and counsel of God, and that the "facts" about him are also "free" in this way. He may pretend to be "open- minded" and ready to consider whether God exists. But in being so "neutral" he commits the same sin as Adam and Eve.

Why seek truth where only a lie is to be found? Can the non- Christian tell us and therefore the Christ himself what the facts are and how they are related to each other, in what way they cohere, while yet excluding creation and providence? If he can, and if he can tell us truly, then the Christian story simply is not true! Because the natural man cannot do this, because the Christian message is true, I have sought and still seek to reap the benefit of a theology in which the triune God of Scripture has the initiative in salvation.

The Calvinist's idea of an actual as opposed to an imagined point of contact is not just some useless notion. It is the only intelligible point of contact possible. The non-Christian holds that pure chance and absolute fate are equally ultimate and mutually correlative limiting concepts or heuristic principles which man uses to explain the fact that we have learned much about the world, that there is order in the world, a uniformity, while there is also continual change and development. But the non-Christian's "explanation" is no explanation at all. To say "it just happens" as an explanation of an event is really to say, "There is no explanation that I know of."

The Calvinist, therefore, using his point of contact, observes to the non-Christian that if the world were not what Scripture says it is, if the natural man's knowledge were not actually rooted in the creation and providence of God, then there could be no knowledge whatsoever. The Christian claims that non-Christians have made and now make many discoveries about the true state of affairs of the universe simply because the universe is what Christ says it is. The unbelieving scientist borrows or steals the Christian principles of creation and providence every time he says that an "explanation" is possible, for he knows he cannot account for "explanation" on his own. As the image-bearer of God, operating in a universe controlled by God, the unbeliever contributes indirectly and adventitiously to the development of human knowledge and culture.

When Hackett maintains that the Calvinist position is irrational because it cannot give "reasons" for believing, he must mean that on a position such as mine the Christian does not accept the non-Christian scheme wherein the non-Christian determines what are "good reasons" and "valid proofs." This is perfectly true, but this is not irrational. Rather the Christian offers the self-attesting Christ to the world as the only foundation upon which a man must stand in order to give any "reasons" for anything at all. The whole notion of "giving reasons" is completely destroyed by any ontology other than the Christian one. The Christian claims that only after accepting the biblical scheme of things will any man be able to understand and account for his own rationality.

But I have said enough so that readers should have a clear picture of the drift of my thought. Nevertheless, I think it might be helpful if in a final section I put, in only outline form, the total picture. This will make it easier for the contributors and the general reader, as they go on to the rest of this Festschrift, to refer back and see at a glance what my position is.

1. This method compromises God himself by maintaining that his existence is only "possible" albeit "highly probable," rather than ontologically and "rationally" necessary.

2. It compromises the counsel of God by not understanding it as the only all-inclusive, ultimate "cause" of whatsoever comes to pass.

a. Compromising its necessity. It does so by not recognizing that even in Paradise man had to interpret the general (natural) revelation of God in terms of the covenantal obligations placed upon him by God through special revelation. Natural revelation, on the traditional view, can be understood "on its own."

b. Compromising its clarity. Both the general and special revelation of God are said to be unclear to the point that man may say only that God's existence is "probable."

c. Compromising its sufficiency. It does this by allowing for an ultimate realm of "chance" out of which might come "facts" such as are wholly new for God and for man. Such "facts" would be uninterpreted and unexplainable in terms of the general or special revelation of God.

d. Compromising its authority. On the traditional position the Word of God's sell-attesting characteristic, and there with its authority, is secondary to the authority of reason and experience. The Scriptures do not identify them selves, man identifies them and recognizes their "authority" only in terms of his own authority.

4. It compromises man's creation as the image of God by thinking of man's creation and knowledge as independent of the Being and knowledge of God. On the traditional approach man need not "think God's thoughts after him."

5. It compromises man's covenantal relationship with God by not understanding Adam's representative action as absolutely determinative of the future.

6. It compromises the sinfulness of mankind resulting from the sin of Adam by not understanding man's ethical depravity as extending to the whole of his life, even to his thoughts and attitudes.

7. It compromises the grace of God by not understanding it as the necessary prerequisite for "renewal unto knowledge." On the traditional view man can anti must renew himself unto knowledge by the "right use of reason."

B. My understanding of the relationship between Christian and non-Christian, philosophically speaking.

a. The Christian presupposes the triune God and his redemptive plan for the universe as set forth once for all in Scripture.

b. The non-Christian presupposes a dialectic between "chance" and "regularity," the former accounting for the origin of matter and life, the latter accounting for the current success of the scientific enterprise.

2. Neither can, as finite beings, by means of logic as such, say what reality must be or cannot be.

a. The Christian, therefore, attempts to understand his world through the observation and logical ordering of facts in self-conscious subjection to the plan of the self attesting Christ of Scripture.

b. The non-Christian, while attempting an enterprise similar to the Christian's, attempts nevertheless to use "logic" to destroy the Christian position. On the one hand, appealing to the non- rationality of "matter," he says that the chance- character of "facts" is conclusive evidence against the Christian position. Then, on the other hand, he maintains like Parmenides that the Christian story cannot possibly be true. Man must be autonomous, "logic" must be legislative as to the field of "possibility" and possibility must be above God.

a. The Christian claims this because he interprets the facts and his experience in the light of the revelation of the self-attesting Christ in Scripture. Both the uniformity and the diversity of facts have at their foundation the all-embracing plan of God.

b. The non-Christian claims this because he interprets the facts and his experience in the light of the autonomy of human personality, the ultimate "givenness" of the world and the amenability of matter to mind. There can be no fact that denies man's autonomy or attests to the world's and man's divine origin.

a. The Christian does so by claiming not only that his position is self-consistent but that he can explain both the seemingly "inexplicable" amenability of fact to logic and the necessity and usefulness of rationality itself in terms of Scripture.

b. The non-Christian may or may not make this same claim. If he does, the Christian maintains that he cannot make it good. If the non-Christian attempts to account for the amenability of fact to logic in terms of the ultimate rationality of the cosmos, then he will be crippled when it comes to explaining the "evolution" of men and things. If he attempts to do so in terms of pure "chance" and ultimate "irrationality" as being the well out of which both rational man and a rationally amenable world sprang, then we shall point out that such an explanation is in fact no explanation at all and that it destroys predication.

C. My proposal, therefore, for a consistently Christian methodology of apologetics is this:

1. That we use the same principle in apologetics that we use in theology: the self-attesting, self-explanatory Christ of Scripture.

2. That we no longer make an appeal to "common notions" which Christian and non-Christian agree on, but to the "common ground" which they actually have because man and his world are what Scripture says they are.

3. That we appeal to man as man, God's image. We do so only if we set the non-Christian principle of the rational autonomy of man against the Christian principle of the dependence of man's knowledge on God's knowledge as revealed in the person and by the Spirit of Christ.

4. That we claim, therefore, that Christianity alone is reason able for men to hold. It is wholly irrational to hold any other position than that of Christianity. Christianity alone does not slay reason on the altar of "chance."

5. That we argue, therefore, by "presupposition." The Christian, as did Tertullian, must contest the very principles of his opponent's position. The only "proof" of the Christian position is that unless its truth is presupposed there is no possibility of "proving" anything at all. The actual state of affairs as preached by Christianity is the necessary foundation of "proof" itself.

6. That we preach with the understanding that the acceptance of the Christ of Scripture by sinners who, being alienated from God, sock to flee his face, comes about when the Holy Spirit, in the presence of inescapably clear evidence, opens their eyes so that they see things as they truly are.

7. That we present the message and evidence for the Christian position as clearly as possible, knowing that because man is what the Christian says he is, the non- Christian will be able to understand in an intellectual sense the issues involved. In so doing, we shall, to a large extent, be telling him what he "already knows" but seeks to suppress. This "reminding" process provides a fertile ground for the Holy Spirit, who in sovereign grace may grant the non-Christian repentance so that he may know him who is life eternal.

I hope that by this, "My Credo," I have been able in a small way sincerely to thank all those who took the time to write for this birthday-book.

Endnotes
1 A chapter by this title is found in G. C. Berkhouwer's Het Probleem der Schriftkritiek (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1938).

3 B. B. Warfield, Studies in Tertullian and Augustine (New York: Oxford, 1930), p. 107.

4 Early Latin Theology, trans. and ed. by S. L.Greenslade, "The Library of Christian Classics," Vol. V, gen. eds., J. Baillie, J. T. McNeill, H. P. Van Dusen (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1956), p. 36. Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics, VII.

9 B. B. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1956), pp. 190-191.

13 Stuart Cornelius Hackett, The Resurrection of Theism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1957), pp. 174-175.

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NOTE: This is copyrighted material. Each reader is authorized to print out one copy for his own use. Anyone wishing to reprint this essay must contact the publisher for written permission. Contact Bryce Craig P&R Books, at (908) 454-0505 * fax (908) 859-2390 [E. R. Greehan editor, Jerusalem and Athens (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing Co., (1980), pp. 3-21.]

Well, I'm no expert in natural theology or Kantian philosophy but I think you got it backwards. I believe drstevej knows this stuff so maybe he can explain it. My understanding is that Kant believed God could not relate to man because he was too emminent. Van Til obviously did not state that. Natural theology, as an offshoot of Kantian philosophy, states that man reaches God through our reason, no divine revelation needed, in fact, divine revelation is impossible. General revelation, which is what I believe you were speaking about, does lead us to God but we still need divine intervention in our lives in order to reach God.

First, regarding Kantian Epistemology. That epistemology stated that man cannot know anything as it is because his senses distorted the data he was receiving. As for Van til he is saying that man cannot understand anything about God because man is unregenerate, hence the appeal to Christian presuppositions.

Regarding natural theology it was never believed to substitute for Divine Revelation via Scripture. Aquinas (natural theology) was defending knowledge that proved the existence of God, nothing more. In other words, the theology of nature (Ps.19), which proves that God exists. Aquinas never believed that natural theology could substitute for God's revelation via the Scripture (and being a Catholic, the Church)

Now, Til may be substituting his own definitions in place of the common usage of those terms.

Finally, Aquinas, not Kant is the defender of natural theology. Kant unhinged philosophy from any connection with objective reality and made it totally subjective.

Gee Locke, whatever happened to the Gospel? I posted a Gospel message on another thread and the only reaction I got to it was from the Calvinists who insisted that it wasn't the Gospel! (After all, it included Rev 3:20)

Me too Marlowe..Repent and Believe..sums it up well

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.(Romans 5;15)

Salvation

- Is of God
#PS 3:8; Salvation [belongeth] unto the LORD: thy blessing [is] upon thy people. Selah.

- Is of the purpose of God
#2TI 1:9 Who hath saved us, and called [us] with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

- Is of the appointment of God
#1TH 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

- Is by Christ
EPH 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

- Is by Christ alone
AC 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

- Revealed in the gospel
#EPH 1:11-13; 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
1:12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
1:13 In whom ye also [trusted], after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
2TI 1:10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:

- CHRIST, . The Captain of our salvation
#HEB 2:9-10 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
10 For it became him, for whom [are] all things, and by whom [are] all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

Christ the Author of our Salvation
#HEB 5:9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

Christ Appointed for our salvation
#ISA 49:6 And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

. . . Mighty to effect
HEB 7:25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

. Came to effect
#MT 18:11For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.

. Died to effect #JOH 3:14,15; 14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
:15That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
GA 1:4Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:

- Is not by works #RO 11:6And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
EPH 2:9;Not of works, lest any man should boast.
2TI 1:9;Who hath saved us, and called [us] with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
TIT 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

- Is of grace #EPH 2:5,8;
2:5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
2:8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God
2TI 1:9;Who hath saved us, and called [us] with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
TIT 2:11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

- Is through faith in Christ
#MR 16:16;He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
AC 16:31;And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
RO 10:9;That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. EPH 2:8;For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:
1PE 1:5Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

- Reconciliation to God,
#RO 5:10For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

YES

Well, Praise the Lord!!!

You know I see some of you Calvinists claim that in order to be a true Gospel message it must be offensive. So some of you guys deliver it with the deliberate intention of offending the listener. Yet God tells US not to be offensive to men. It is the gospel message that is offensive and it is not necessary to present it in an offensive way. Indeed, if you present it in a attractive way, it will still be offensive to those who ultimately are going to perish, so why try to scare people away?

Jesus told us he would make us all "Fishers of Men." We will not catch any fish if we deliberately bait our hooks with fish repellant. We must use bait. The best bait we can use is showing others the fruits of the spirit that God puts in our lives.

When people see the light in our lives, they will be attracted and hopefully God can use our lives as bait to reel in his "chosen." ones.

I violently disagree with those on these threads that think that the more offensive they are the more they are doing the work of God.

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