Free Cornelius Van Til Kindle Book

You can find a whole host of free e-books over at Monergism, but perhaps the most exciting so far is Defending the Faith, by Cornelius Van Til. You can get it in .mobi (Kindle-ready) format or in .epub format, whichever suits you. Note, this is not exactly the same thing as his book The Defense of the Faith, as this is a compilation of six articles which evidently ran in Torch and Trumpet 1951-1952. If you have any interest in presuppositional apologetics, these articles which are written in a popular, non-technical style should be just what you need to dip your toes into the waters.

Get this Atheist a Proofreader (And Perhaps a Mirror)!

A friend of mine pointed me to this website which addresses how an atheist ought to go about debating a Christian. The introductory paragraphs are full of naive statements about the universe and knowledge. Allow me to share only a couple.

Atheism is not a belief, nor a religion. There are no rules, regulations, or commandments to atheism...

And still to this day Theists attempt to expand Athesim into something it’s not. Whether by association, injecting some extenuating circumsatances, or just plain stretching the truth, the purpose becomes very clear. First, generally as an argument from ignorence by lacking the proper knowledge of atheism – or as an argument from authority they’re clearly lacking, they will assert some kind of claim about atheism based on their vast knowledge (claimed authority) such as; Atheism is just another religion that worships nature, humanism, materialism, the universe, etc...

They’d truly like if atheism was a religion, because beleifs are far easier to attack then true knowledge. As atheists we know this from fighting their beliefs, they know this as well. By asserting a hypothetical argument somehow equals a litteral beliefs in a god, they again get to assert Atheism is a belief structure. And by asserting a stereotypical belief that ALL atheists are materialists, naturalists, humanists, etc. this again allows them to attack these other “isms” rather then atheism. Not a single one of these attack tactics holds a drop of logical reasoning or proper debate capabilities...

From reading these quotes, we've only scratched the surface of the information on this particular web site. But we have learned at least a couple of things:

1. Somebody at Atheism Resources needs to get a proof reader. Good grief! ("equals a litteral beliefs"? circumsatances? beleifs? ignorence?) I know it's the internet, and so we can have lower standards, but it doesn't take a genius to use a spell-checker! For having such a high opinion of his handling on the laws of logic, maybe he should go to square one and learn the laws of proper grammar and spelling, first.

Sorry; that's as ad hominem as I plan on getting. It's like I have an itch I'm not supposed to scratch. And yes, I know that the previous statement is a sentence fragment; however, in the internet age, sentence fragments are allowed, but poor spelling is still uncool unless you're spelling "kool" with a "k," which is always awesome, every time.

2. This particular author really is blissfully unaware of his own philosophical commitments being brought to the table. And he is also unaware of where he got those beliefs from - otherwise he would not insist that what he has is knowledge and what everyone else has is religious faith.

3. The author concedes that we Christians will have a much easier job of debating them if we can somehow demonstrate that their worldview is belief rather than knowledge. I would compare this to a boss at the end of the video game showing you where his weak spot is. Also, it is the biggest and easiest weak spot on the planet to hit. See point #2 above.

There are more problems, but I'm trying to mock, and not be comprehensive. So there you are. I hope you enjoyed your helping of naive atheism.

Van Tillian Syllogisms

Dr. Reiter, our Philosophy professor, summarized several of Cornelius Van Til's epistemological arguments. Here I present them in syllogistic form, for those who think logically:

The One-and-Many Argument:

1. If knowledge is possible, then unity and plurality must be co-ultimate.
2. Knowledge is possible.
So 3. Unity and plurality are co-ultimate.
4. If unity and plurality are co-ultimate, then Christian theism is true.
So 5. Christian theism is true.

Argument from the Unity of Knowledge:

1. If no one has comprehensive knowledge of the universe, then no one has any knowledge.
2. Someone does have some knowledge.
So 3. Someone has comprehensive knowledge (and thus, God exists).

Argument from the Uniformity of Nature:

1. If one cannot account for the uniformity of nature, then beliefs based on inductive reasoning are not warranted (ala Hume's critique of induction).
2. Beliefs based on inductive reasoning are warranted.
So 3. One can account for the uniformity of nature
4. If one can account for the uniformity of nature, then theism is true.
So 5. Theism is true.

Argument from Conceptual Schemes:

1. If theism is not true, then there are no grounds for believing that human knowledge and communication are possible.
2. There are grounds for believing that human knowledge and communication are possible.
So 3. Theism is true.