Tuesday, July 8, 2014

[Notes] A Note on Cornelius Van Til's Theory of Analogical Knowledge

A Note on Cornelius Van Til's Theory of Analogical Knowledge 


1. There are many problems associated with Cornelius Van Til's Theory of Analogical Knowledge.

The purpose of this note is to state a non-solution to one of the problems.

The motivation for Van Til's theory is the Creator-creation Distinction.

The Creator-creation Distinction is an ontological distinction.

Van Til applies the Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge and concluded that the objects of God's knowledge are ontologically different from the objects of human knowledge.

The objects of knowledge are truths and all truths are propositional.

Van Til's theory implies that there are two kinds of propositions: Uncreated propositions as the objects of God's knowledge and created propositions as the objects of human knowledge.

(There are other names for the objects of knowledge: original truths vs. derived truths, archetype vs. ectype, etc.)

Van Til called the relationship between the two kinds of propositions analogy: Uncreated propositions are analogically related to created propositions.

Although the two kinds of propositions are analogically related, they are supposedly qualitatively different from one another and do not coincide at any single point.

The main criticism of this theory by Gordon H. Clark is that Van Til's Theory of Analogical Knowledge implies a two-fold truth that will result in skepticism for human beings.

(Clark 1944, 10):

"Here is the crux of the issue. By insisting that God's knowledge is qualitatively different from that of man and that 'his knowledge and our knowledge' do not 'coincide at any single point,' the Complaint is advancing a theory of a two-fold truth; while Dr. Clark holds that the nature of truth is one, that if a man knows any item of truth, both God and man know that same identical item, and that on this item God's knowledge and man's knowledge coincide. According to the Complaint man can never know even one item of truth God knows; man can know only an 'analogical' truth, and this analogical truth is not the same truth that God knows, for the truth that God knows is 'qualitatively' different, and God cannot reveal it to man because man is a creature. To repeat: the truth that God knows and the truth that man knows are never the same truth, for they do not 'coincide at any single point.' God's knowledge therefore would be incomprehensible to man for the specific reason that God could not reveal any particular fact about it without destroying the 'Creator-creature relationship.' Dr. Clark holds that God can reveal any item of knowledge in propositional form without destroying the Creator-creature relationship, and that such a revealed proposition has the same meaning for God and for man when, as is sometimes the case, man understands it."



2. The following Diagram depicts how I understand Van Til's Theory of Analogical Knowledge:



3. I think I have understood Van Til correctly, but there are difficulties in interpreting him.

The three main ones are:

(a) More often than not, Van Til does not define his key terms and leave them vague and ambiguous.


(b) Van Til openly revels in "apparent contradiction" so that he may be on both sides of an issue.

(c) If and when Van Til changes his theories, the changes may be done surreptitiously instead of openly.

Gordon H. Clark has documented one case of surreptitious change by Van Til and some Van Tilians.

I have commented on this case in this Blog:

http://notes-on-gordon-h-clark.blogspot.ca/2014/07/notes-when-black-becomes-white-on-some.html

The way Van Til and some Van Tilians surreptitiously changing their theories may be describe in the colorful language of Imre Lakatos as a degenerative problem-shift or a degenerative research programme.

I suspect the reason for the surreptitious changes has to do with the social context: Van Til teaches in a seminary instead of in academia.

In seminary, a change in one's views or teachings may be construed as errors or, worst yet, heresies and are not welcome.



4. A proposal to meet Clark's criticisms that does not work, i.e. a non-solution, is the following: there are two kinds of objects of knowledge for God, the uncreated propositions and the created propositions.

This non-solution maybe diagram like this:



The advantage of this theory is that there are certain putative truths that both God and man know, i.e. the created propositions.

The fatal flaw of this theory is that it is contradicted by the doctrine of God's omniscience.

According to this theory, since the created propositions are created,
before they were created God did not know the created propositions as objects of knowledge in eternity.

God may have known "about" the created propositions by way of his uncreated propositions, but God does not know the created propositions as objects of knowledge as such in eternity.

(As the theory goes, the uncreated propositions may refer to the created propositions by way of the created propositions being its (i.e. the uncreated proposition) constituent parts.)

So if God knows the created propositions as objects of knowledge, he has to learn them when the created propositions are created.

And this is contradicted by the doctrine of God's omniscience, which implies that God does not learn any new knowledge whatsoever.

 

Reference:

Clark, Gordon H. et el. 1944. The Answer to a Complaint Against Several Actions and Decisions of the Presbytery of Philadelphia Taken in a Special Meeting Held on July 7, 1944.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzphbqalyGr1WFl1V1M5S0FTc0E&usp=sharing
(accessed 2014-07-08).

End.