The Trinity and the Vindication of Christian Paradox: An Interpretation and Refinement of the Theological Apologetic of Cornelius Van Til

by B.A. Bosserman, K. Scott Oliphint (Foreword)

The Trinity and the Vindication of Christian Paradox grapples with the question of how one may hold together the ideals of systematic theology, apologetic proof, and theological paradox by building on the insights of Cornelius Van Til. Van Til developed an apologetic where one presupposes that the triune God exists, and then proves this Christian presupposition by demonstrating that philosophies that deny it are self-defeating in the specific sense that they rely on principles that only the Trinity, as the ultimate harmony of unity and diversity, can furnish. A question raised by Van Til's trademark procedure is how he can evade the charge that the apparent contradictions of the Christian faith render it equally self-defeating as non-Christian alternatives. This text argues that for Van Til, Christian paradoxes can be differentiated from genuine contradictions by the way that their apparently opposing elements discernibly require one another, even as they present our minds with an irresolvable conflict. And yet, Van Til failed to sufficiently vindicate the central Christian paradox-the doctrine of the Trinity-along the lines required by his system. Hence, the present text offers a unique proof that God can only exist as the pinnacle of unity-in-diversity, and as the ground of a coherent Christian system, if He exists as three, and only three, divine Persons.

Genres: Theology

292 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2014

Reviews

[Eric Yap · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is perhaps the most mature interpretation and refinement of Van Til's theological and apologetic system there is. I've just recently finished Poythress latest book titled "The Mystery of the Trinity," and it was a project to construct the attributes of God upon Van Til's triune system, and boy I am pleasantly surprised with the inherent connection between these two books, although I did not read them with that intention. Also, I was glad I read Poythress first, even though it was only released a few months ago and Bosserman's in 2014, Poythress' book was much easier to read than Bosserman, and it made it easier for me to understand Bosserman's refining and application of Van Til's system. It was a fascinating read, but an absolute philosophical gymnastic as well.

Bosserman begins Part one of his book by interpreting Van Til's system and placing him in the theological traditions that influenced his systems: Old Princeton's (Hodge, Warfield) evidential apologetic that builds upon Scottish common-sense realism, old Amsterdam/neo-Calvinism antithesis of Kuyper and Bavinck, as well as the absolute idealism of Hegel, Kant and the British idealists. Honestly, the part where Van Til critiques and adapts the systems of Hegel, Kant and the British idealists was really hard to grasp (but Bosserman's summary of Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit was quite an exhilarating read), but it was really helpful locating how Van Til both critiques his forebears and married the neo-Calvinism antithesis of the Dutch Reformed and the evidential realism of the American Presbyterians: there is objective evidence for God in the world (old Princeton), yet antithesis exists between the worldview of the Christian and the sceptic, as they are constructed upon two antithetical epistemology, authority and interpretive lens, that the two are not able to interpret the world in the same fashion (Dutch Reformed). The former yields all his interpretive lens and epistemology to the authority of God's word, while the latter suppress the truth of God due to the noetic effects of sin, and therefore, the Van Tilian system is to prove the impossibility of the contrary by internal critique (the laws of logic, reasoning, causality) and transcendental argument. Van Til adopted the idea of the transcendental from Hegel's dialectical view of human consciousness, yet unlike Hegel which posits that human consciousness comes to its final, transcendental, absolute ideal at the end of history, God is transcendental over the entire process, which He has chosen to reveal through progressive revelation, hence redemptive history is also revelation history since the OT presented Christ in types and shadow, and the monotheistic God eventually revealed as Triune in the NT (here also Bosserman notes the influence of Geerhardus Vos' Reformed biblical theology/redemptive history in Van Til).

Part two then demonstrate how Van Til's transcendental argument begins from the Triune God, and how it accounts for all philosophical loci that have been historically problematic for any contrary view in the history of philosophy. Especially, the one and the many (for example, are categories real or are they prescribed? How is a human a human when all of us are so distinct? Yet if the "humanness" of a human is defined and taken independently, for example, say a human is human when he can reason, then the categories itself ceases to be a real thing because reason cannot be considered apart from distinct humans nor can it be touch or grasped or described independently. Or in another dilemma, who ascribes categories when we have no comprehensive knowledge about anything? Would it not render all categories brute fact or random, since we ascribe distinct categories for cats and dogs, rather than deciding they belong to the same categories of "having four legs and are domestic animals"?), the form and the matter, the empirical and rational, the laws of logic and causality all find their grounding as an analogy of the Trinity, for the Triune God is the absolute, simple, personal and self-contained God that holds together both unity and diversity and knows all things comprehensively, and that we can assume a logical and rational universe because there is a logical and rational, personal and knowable God. Therefore, to Van Til, all true knowledge is true not because man's knowledge is comprehensive, but because they are analogical knowledge based on what God has revealed to us, and we can have faith in God's revelation and in our senses because they are known comprehensively and absolutely by God ("This inability to comprehend fully what we ourselves mean by analogical action or by analogical thought, so far from giving us cause for worry, should be to us a sign that we have caught the truly theistic conception of action and thought. Mystery has lost its terror for us as soon as we know that there is no mystery for God."- Van Til). Bosserman also applies Van Til system to other common loci of philosophy and reinterprets them in light of Christian theology, as well as answering to common criticism posited by other theologians (Sproul, Gordon Clark) and atheist philosophers.

Finally, part three and four is where the refinement of Van Til's system finally take shape. Bosserman begins by surveying the premier students and refiners of Van Til's apologetic and theological system: Greg Bahnsen, John Frame, Vern Poythress, Scott Oliphint, and James Anderson, and notes how they all failed to address the most pertinent and salient question of Van Til's system: if the impossibility of all other contrary worldviews and beliefs are proven to be false and self-contradictory based on internal critique, then we must ask, how is the Christian faith coherent if at the heart of the biblical faith and revelation is a God that is both One and Three, simple and Triune? What exactly qualifies as a contradiction because it fails the test of logic, and to distinguish it from a Christian (apparent) paradox? And if diversity and unity in the Divine are necessary for God as an analogy to the various philosophical loci, can God be binarian, or quadarian, or even contained more personhood beyond the Trinity? Must God necessarily and only be Triune so that all other positions (a monistic, polytheistic, non-Trinitarian personhood God) are proven to be impossible and illogical? Here Bosserman qualifies that a Christian and apparent paradox is only a true paradox and not a contradiction because the two poles of the paradox necessarily depend on each other in the Christian system (hence, it is actually a triad: the system, and the two poles of paradox), and it is also a paradox because it exceeds our finite comprehension, yet again we can be sure of it because our knowledge is analogical of God's absolute knowledge and His faithful revelation to us.

Following this, the most brilliant movement of Bosserman's thesis: God must be necessarily Tri-personal because a third divine person is necessary to facilitate the relationship of the other two divine persons, rather than an abstract principle or impersonal attribute (for example, we say that the Father loves the Son, but "love" is not independent of God nor exist above God as an abstract category, therefore the Father loves the Son in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is that manifestation of love - God is love), and therefore proving that any less or more personhood in the Triune Godhead would render God non-absolute, non-self-contained or non-self-sufficient (aseity and simplicity). In the final part, Bosserman than applies his principles of Christian paradox (that two poles of a Christian system necessarily implies and enforce one another) into different theological loci to demonstrate that these Christian doctrines are only apparent paradox and not contradictions and therefore do not threaten the coherency of the Christian faith, such as how can God create ex nihilo yet creation is not God, how can God be absolutely sovereign yet men are responsible for their free actions, how can there be evil if God is good and in a true gospel-preaching fashion, how can the incarnate Christ be both God and man, and he also calls forth further work to apply Van Til's triune system of apologetics and theology, refined by his method of a three-pole Christan paradox to other loci of theology and philosophy.

In conclusion, this was a monumental leap forward for Van Til's triune apologetic and theology, and Bosserman has done the church, adherents and students of Van Til's system a great service. Though honestly speaking, this is quite a difficult read and requires a lot of philosophical and mental gymnastics, and honestly, I have not fully understood and grasped all of Bosserman's material posited but have only understood tacitly or affirmed intuitively. But even though the theological system of Van Til is perhaps only for a gifted group of apologists for the defence and confirmation of the gospel, every single faithful Christian knows by simple biblical revelation and faith that they must submit all their heart, soul, mind and strength, their worldview, epistemology and interpretive lens to the word of the Triune God.

"In contrast to the above, the doctrine of the Trinity sets all of reality and every relationship, including God’s self-relationship and creature-relationship within the context of divine persons. God and man are alike in that both are defined in relationship to divine persons, within the context of divine persons. But, unlike man whose character and consciousness must develop over time, God is exhaustively defined by the three co-eternal persons and their communion. The Father and the Son are related to one another within the personal context of God the Holy Spirit; the Father and the Spirit are related to one another within the personal context of God the Son; and the Son and the Spirit are related to one another within the personal context of God the Father. As facilitators of the intra-divine relationships, each Triune person must not be construed as indifferent to the others whom they relate. Instead, each person in himself is identical with his activity of relating the other two—the Father is that self in whom the Son and the Spirit relate; and the Son is that self in whom the Father and the Spirit relate; and the Spirit is that self in whom the Father and the Son relate. For the same reason, each person is inseparable from his relationships to the other two. By containing the Son, the Father comprehends his own relationship to the Spirit, and in containing the Spirit, the Father contains his own relationship to the Son. The same can be said for the other two divine persons. In this way, each person of the Trinity facilitates the whole dynamic of the Trinity. And for this reason, a Triune person must be defined as an individual who resides above, and is active within, a dynamic between three persons of whom he happens to be one."
- B. A. Bosserman

[Laurent Dv · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best vantilian apologetic book I've read ever. Deals and deppens Van Til's view on the centrality of the ontological Trinity for a christian (especially reformed) apologetic. Bosserman sums up very well the different influences on Van Til's thought (Old Princeton, Amsterdam philosophy, absolute idealism) and their respective pro and cons, so that we have an evaluation of the different kind of apologetics (evidentialism, presuppositionalism, fideism...). His summary of Van Til's system is wonderfull, the best and the more succint that i have ever read. The author is easy to read. Besides, he points to the weaknesses of Van Til, his reluctance to affirm that we can proove the necessity of only three persons in the Trinity (not two and not more than three but that we can only be sure that unity and plurality (wheter it is three or an other number superior to one) are necessary presuppositions to not fall into skepticism and to predicate anything. And the best contribution of Bosserman is the last part of his book, an argument why a God of only two persons or more than three is irelevant to solve the problem of the one-and-the-many and that any God which is not a Tri-unity fall into an impersonal environment and so is not really God. A must read for anyone interested in presupp apologetics and besides in the Trinity. I only wished that the book have included an extensive and developped argument why pure monotheism or unitarianism (a God in only one person like Allah in Islam, or the God of the deists such as the Enlighment movement) is not adequate to escape the problem of the-one-and-the-many. Not so expensive on googlebooks in epub or pdf.

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bosserman, Brant. The Trinity and the Vindication of Christian Paradox. Pickwick Publications, 2014.

Brant Bosserman has written something on Van Til’s theology that does not simply cover new ground. For that, even if for nothing else, we are impressed. Even if one does not agree with all of his conclusions, and I do not, one can only look with admiration on his evaluation of complicated figures like Hegel and Kant. His project culminates with a discussion of the relation between the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG) and the Trinity. In other words, on Van Til’s reading, the Trinity solves the problem of the One and the Many. But, and here is the problem that has plagued Van Tillians, there is no reason why it has to be the Trinity. Any “multiple person God-set” (e.g., Quadrinity, Quintinity, etc) could solve this problem. Why only the Trinity? We will see if he is successful.

Princeton and Amsterdam

It is common for Van Tillians to attack Princeton and Thomas Reid on epistemology. And they get them wrong. Sadly, Bosserman, despite his excellent remarks elsewhere, is no different. Part of the blame might lie with Reid himself. Calling something “common sense,” while perhaps intuitively obvious, also begs the question of whose common sense. Of course, that is not how Reid used the term, but the damage is done.

On Bosserman’s reading, Scottish common sense realism “viewed ultimate reality as consisting as a series of chance related particulars” (Bosserman loc. 661). This sounds bad. Does he offer any evidence for this claim? He does not. I really do not know what to make of it. Attacking their (presumably) empirical apologetic, he notes that one cannot establish probability, for example, against the backdrop of a potentially infinite universe” (104). That might be true, but there are several problems: men do in fact successfully engage in probabilistic reasoning, and the universe is not potentially infinite.

Absolute Idealism

If he fundamentally misunderstands Scottish realism, Bosserman does an exceptional job of Idealism. It is nothing short of remarkable. Moreover, if one fails to grasp the basics of Hegelian Idealism, then Van Til’s exposition of the One and the Many will not make sense.

We begin with Hegel. Hegel wanted to overcome the basic dualities of man’s experience: time/eternity, freedom/necessity, and subject/object (1920). Before we write off Hegel as a pantheist, we must appreciate this point. For Hegel, if reality is to be intelligible, “universals and particulars must be united by a concrete system which connects them both” (1930). Several moves follow as a result:
The One cannot be a general notion of being, since it contains many particulars.
Thus, it is a concrete universal.

How then does Hegel overcome these basic dualities? For him, apparent dichotomies rest on deeper unities. Hegel only becomes a pantheist when he insists the Absolute is both subject and object and is equal to the world of dichotomies.

If we cannot go with Hegel’s pantheism, we can appreciate his “concrete universal.” Particulars depend on universals, but these universals cannot be taken in isolation, for then they would be empty concepts. This will make sense (maybe?) when Van Tillians speak of the “self-contained” God. Van Til is not an Idealist. Nonetheless, he employs several idealist concepts: Transcendental argumentation and the Trinity as the True Absolute.

TAG and Trinity

For Van Til, the Trinity solves the problem of the One and the Many. Two comments are in order: few people actually think this is a problem, nor is it clear that the Trinity functions in the same way. For example, the persons of the Trinity are not bare particulars.

Paradox

A paradox is based on two opposing pieces of information derived from man’s experience, yet these two poles discernibly imply one another (3784). I will grant for the sake of argument that paradoxes are legitimate. Unfortunately, what Bosserman labels “paradox” are easily intelligible within the parameters of historic Reformed scholasticism. Maybe I am a rationalist, but I rest comfortably in the expositions our fathers gave on freedom, the Incarnation, and the Trinity. There is a reason our fathers did not actively employ “paradox.” They were committed instead to the archetypal/ectypal distinction.

Towards a Constructive Analysis

Unlike many Van Tillians, Bosserman is willing to say where Van Til failed to prove his point. In particular, Van Til fails to explain or show why God must be a Trinity within the framework of the Transcendental Argument (4302). To remedy this defect, Bosserman proceeds with a constructive analysis.

Man must first presuppose a covenantal personalism, presupposing that our concepts are finite.
The Trinity is both uni-personal and tri-personal.
Every two persons of the Trinity require another person to facilitate, lest it reduce to impersonalism.
3* Each relationship between two distinct persons must be mediated by a third.
Here Bosserman gets in trouble: the “individual will of each person is motivated by the corporate will” (4996). This is social Trinitarianism.
Bosserman speaks of “qualitatively different attributes” which complete and define the inter-Trinitarian life (5053). And here we lose divine simplicity.

Does he prove his point? I do not know. I think he probably does, but I would be lying if I said I fully understood him.

Evaluation

We commend Bosserman for a rigorous exploration into some of Van Til’s underdeveloped points. Unlike popular-level presuppositionalists, Bosserman avoids cliches and asks new questions. He directly interacts with current philosophers. Moreover, he is one of the few (maybe only) Van Tillians to attempt to explain why the TAG needs the Trinity.

On the other hand, this book suffers from the limitations and weaknesses inherent within its subject matter. This is not necessarily Bosserman’s fault, but it does highlight the problems within much of modern Van Tillianism. Even if he is correct, and I think he probably is, I cannot imagine this type of thinking making much headway “on the streets.” There are simply too many parts. We saw that in his treatment of the Trinity.

That raises another problem, one made more acute by the retrieval of Reformed Scholasticism: there are easier and safer ways to speak about the Trinity.

Finally, one can grant that Van Til had some devastating critiques of British Idealism, and I have always liked the idea of a concrete universal, I do not see the current project making much headway today. Nobody is talking about these concepts anymore. Nobody is worried about FH Bradley and Bernard Bosanqet. It is largely understood that Bertrand Russell and GE Moore killed British Hegelianism.

[Reid Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for any Van Tilians. Bosserman gives really profound insights in distilling Van Til down to his Trinitarian foundations and developing his thought in a thorough defense of paradoxical truths of Scripture. One of the best illustrations I have seen of the use of limiting concepts in theological formation.

Disclaimer: This book will be most useful if you already have some familiarity with the thought and writing of Cornelius Van Til.

[Jason Garwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding. A mind-blowing refinement of Van Til that is certainly most welcome in advancing biblical presuppositionalism.