Apologetics to the Glory of God

Bavinck!

It would be wrong for me to not tell you about this.


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8 responses to “Bavinck!”

  1. Christopher G Weaver Avatar
    Christopher G Weaver

    I just ordered these. Thanks for the tip.

  2. Midas Vuik Avatar
    Midas Vuik

    This is a bit off-topic, yet I think it’s worth asking anyways. Central to presuppositional apologetics is the Transcendental Argument for God (TAG). In the TAG, Van Til and Bahnsen use the terms “borrowing” and “accounting for” with regard to non-Christian worldviews. Out of curiosity, what exactly do Van Til and Bahnsen mean when they say that non-Christian worldviews and religions are unable to “account for” things such as logic, science, and morality and thus have to “borrow” them from the Christian worldview? In common parlance, “to account for” means to give an explanation and “borrow” means to take with permission, but Bahnsen clearly says that neither is the case in his debate with Smith. Moreover, if he meant that, it would make the TAG an argument from ignorance since it would assert that all non-Christian worldviews are false simply because they are unable to come up with an explanation for a certain phenomenon. So when presuppositionalists say that non-Christian religions cannot “account for” logic, etc., are they saying that some aspect of logic is incompatible with some feature of such worldviews? In other words, that non-Christian worldviews are incoherent with regard to certain facts about the world? If so, why use the unique phrases “account for” and “borrow”? I suspect that Van Til and Bahnsen were using a vastly different definition from the two I have suggested, and I would be interested to see if they have rigorously defined it.

  3. Christopher G Weaver Avatar
    Christopher G Weaver

    Midas Vuik, was this for me, or someone else bro?

    Chris

  4. Midas Vuik Avatar
    Midas Vuik

    Ha! There are two Chrises here! No, Mr. Weaver, my comment was directed at Mr. Chris Bolt, not you (although if you can shed some light on my question, I would be more than pleased!). I tried posting this on a more relevant blog, but it seems to have been outdated and was consequently ignored. Hopefully, this time, my comment will garner more responses.

  5. Christopher G Weaver Avatar
    Christopher G Weaver

    Well, I most certainly think your post raises some very good questions my friend.

    Someone here at Choosing hats just posted something which provides a link to the following blog: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-presupposition.html

    The description given by the individual here at Choosing hats says: “lso – if you have not seen it already – Triablogue has an interesting post concerning Van Til and the knowledge of unbelievers here and there is a post concerning Van Til’s view of “presupposition” here.” Where the second “here” is the link to the above cited blog.

    It appears as if that blog post is somehow informative re understanding what’s meant by “presupposition”.

    I respond to that blog post and the long cited excerpt over on Bill Craig’s website. FYI

    Midas, you sound pretty bright man, what’s your background?

  6. Midas Vuik Avatar
    Midas Vuik

    Chris, are you the same Christopher G. Weaver who wrote “Explanation, Entailment, and Leibnizian Cosmological Arguments”? If, as I suspect, you are, then it’s a pleasure to talk with you! Anyways, thank you for the link; I found it helpful. As for my philosophical background, I have none! I am just a self-taught high school student researching the TAG. However, I see that you have an account at Dr. Craig’s forum, so if you’d like, I’d be more than happy to discuss matters of my background and philosophy over there. You are clearly a very intelligent Christian, and I could certainly learn a lot from you!

  7. Christopher Weaver Avatar
    Christopher Weaver

    I am, though that paper has its fair share of problems (lol).

    Post a reply to any of my posts over on Bill’s website and we can chat more if you’d rather chat there.

  8. BK Avatar
    BK

    As a reminder, please keep the comments on track with the topic of the post they are in response to.

    I have allowed these past few through to accommodate the two of you, but there is no such guarantee in place for future comments.

    BK

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