19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe-and shudder!

This is one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible and the confusion which surrounds it is so pervasive that it is difficult to fully express the magnitude of its impact on the church. It is frequently cited to argue that belief, defined as knowledge with assent or understanding with assent, in the gospel is not enough to save, but that one must also have trust or commitment. This is inferred from the simple fact that the demons believe and perish. 

To illustrate this view let’s consider the writings of William Webster in his book The Church Of Rome at the Bar of History. 

For faith to be truly biblical, it must involve more than just the assent of the mind to objective truth about God, Christ, and salvation… Faith is foundational to true Christianity and it involves knowledge, assent, trust, and commitment. 

...the Epistle of James warns us against a faith which is empty and vain; that is one that acknowledges the objective facts of God, Christ, and salvation to be true but negates or neglects the other essential element of trust and commitment. The demons believe in that sense, but they perish (James 2:19). Intellectual assent alone is empty, James argues.[i]

Webster argues that according to James, intellectual assent is empty and vain. It is not enough to acknowledge the objective facts of God, Christ, and Salvation to be true because we must also have the additional and “essential elements of trust and commitment.” He then refers to James 2:19 and concludes that the demons believe in that sense but they perish. Likewise R.C. Sproul stated 

“According to James, even if I am aware of the work of Jesus, convinced intellectually that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died on the cross for my sins, and that he rose from the dead, I would at that point qualify to be a demon.”[ii]

Webster’s and Spoul’s understanding of this verse is partly influenced by the Latin threefold definition of faith, which is noticia (knowledge), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust). The vast majority of English speaking Reformed theologians use the threefold definition of faith. The third element fiducia is most commonly translated as trust, but it has also variously been translated as commitment, obedience, repentance, resting, transformation, etc. This understanding of faith is deeply rooted in the Reformed tradition, but it has also been vigorously put forth by the proponents of Lordship Salvation in an effort to combat the antinomianism of the free grace movement. The view that one can be saved by belief alone, defined as knowledge and assent or understanding with assent, is often denigrated as easy-believism, and we are told that mere intellectual assent is insufficient to save. Doug Barnes argues that “salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone, but ‘faith alone’ is not ‘belief alone,’” and therefore he concludes that “belief alone is not enough.”[iii] 

None of these men have understood James’ point, and their use of the Latin definition of faith has led them to eisegete a wrong view into this text. Unfortunately this has resulted in multiple problems which can be challenging to sift through. Therefore we will deal with this in three parts. First we will address the improper use of the Latin definition. Then we will show the invalid conclusions of the views already expressed and we will walk out their logical implication. Finally, we will explain what James actually meant. 

The Latin Definition

This Latin definition of faith as noticia (knowledge or understanding), assensus (assent) and fiducia (trust) may seem appropriate for several reasons. First, from a cursory reading, it would appear that James says that belief alone is not enough to save. Obviously the demons know and assent to the truth but they perish. Secondly, it is right to advocate for a personal trust in Christ. One cannot be saved unless they trust in Jesus. So what’s the problem then? Why would we disagree with what Sproul, Webster, and Barnes said?

Their arguments rest on the notion that belief is different from faith because it lacks trust. They therefore define belief as noticia (knowledge or understanding) with assensus (assent) and they define faith as noticia (knowledge or understanding), assensus (assent) and fiducia (trust or commitment). The problem is that the Bible was not written in Latin. The New Testament was written in Greek and both of the words faith and belief are translated from the same Greek word pistis. This is why Luke Miner has pointed out that “these are not two different concepts in Greek but one (“faith” and “belief” are just alternate translations of the Greek word πιστiς). That these are interchangeable concepts is suggested by the fact that Bible translations will commonly use ‘faith’ in place of ‘belief’ or ‘have faith’ in place of ‘believe.’”[iv]

If the words faith and belief are translated from the same Greek word throughout the New Testament then there is no Biblical precedent for defining them differently when we arrive at James 2:19. This means that faith and belief are both defined as understanding with assent. This is what Gordon Clark argued for in his definition of faith. In What Is Saving Faith? he explained that “Faith, by definition, is assent to understood propositions. Not all cases of assent, even assent to Biblical propositions, are saving faith, but all saving faith is assent to one or more Biblical propositions.”[v] 

This of course leaves a lingering question: What about the third essential element of fiducia (trust)? How can we say that we are saved by faith alone if it is defined only as noticia (knowledge or understanding) and assensus (assent)? Didn’t we already admit that fiducia (trust) was necessary for salvation? It appears contradictory to say that one must have trust to be saved and that we are saved by faith or belief alone which are defined only as understanding with assent. John Robbins however explained that “Belief, that is to say, faith (there is only one word in the New Testament for belief, pistis) and trust are the same; they are synonyms. If you believe what a person says, you trust him. If you trust a person, you believe what he says. If you have faith in him, you believe what he says and trust his words.”[vi] In other words, trust is synonymous with belief and this is why it is wrong to suggest that one can believe and not trust. To argue that we need trust in addition to belief is simply redundant. This is why Clark argued that adding fiducia to faith is a tautology:

The crux of the difficulty with the popular analysis of faith into noticia (understanding), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust), is that fiducia comes from the same root as fides (faith). Hence this popular analysis reduces to the obviously absurd definition that faith consists of understanding, assent, and faith. Something better than this tautology must be found.[vii]

Fiducia (trust) is frequently put forth as an extra “psychological” element that many Protestants add to faith which Clark and Robbins tirelessly refuted as confused, meaningless, and redundant. To conclude from this verse that belief is more than understanding with assent and therefore trust is necessary in addition to belief is logically invalid. This will lead us into the next section as we expose the invalid conclusion and their logical implications. 

The Invalid Inference 

Notice that neither Sproul nor Webster actually quote James; but rather simply refer to this verse and then make an inference. They have inferred that belief in the gospel is insufficient to save because James says, “Even the demons believe and tremble!” Therefore something else is required. One must not only understand and assent, but also trust in the gospel in order to be saved. As we have already shown, this is confused, meaningless, redundant and unbiblical, but now we will show that it is logically invalid as well. 

The reason their inferences are invalid and wrong is because James says nothing about demons acknowledging the “objective facts of God, Christ, and salvation to be true” as Webster stated. Nor does he say anything about the demons believing that Jesus "died on the cross for [their] sins, and that he rose from the dead” as Sproul stated. One could argue that they are putting their own words into James' mouth. Here again is what James actually says: "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe-and shudder!" 

As Dr. John Robbins pointed out, “James mentions only belief in one God - monotheism. Since belief in one God is belief in one true proposition, James says, ‘You do well.’ But monotheism is not saving belief because it is not about Jesus Christ and his work.”[viii] Dr. Gordon Clark also corrected this wrong inference: “[The] argument here is that since the devils assent and true believers also assent, something other than assent is needed for saving faith. This is a logical blunder. The text says the devils believe in monotheism.”[ix]

This of course is invalid because James says nothing about demons believing the gospel. But James does say however that they do believe. If then, one hopes to establish on the basis of this verse that the difference between those who are saved and those who are not saved rests in the necessary element of trust in addition to belief, then we are faced with three logically invalid conclusions. To show this, let’s accept, for the sake of argument that the demons are lost because they believe but do not trust, and therefore in order to be saved we must not only believe, but we must also trust.  This logical blunder, which results from inferring something that isn’t there in the text, leads to three invalid conclusions. 1) Intellectual assent is different from trust. 2) Belief alone in the gospel is insufficient to save. 3) The demonic faith, or belief, lacks trust. 

Assent and Trust

Immediately after citing James 2:19 in which lost demons are said to believe, Webster concludes “Intellectual assent alone is empty.” Clark however, pointed out that, “It is illogical to conclude that belief is not assent just because belief in monotheism does not save.”[x] James nowhere distinguishes the type of faith or belief between Christians and lost demons but rather the difference is the propositions which are believed. The proposition that the demons are said to believe is that there is one God, and it is clear from the fact that they tremble that they trust in the truthfulness of this proposition. When the demons encountered Jesus they “cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?’" (Matthew 8:29) The demons cried out and asked if he was there to torment them because they believed or trusted that he could torment them. They do not trust him for salvation because it is not offered to them but they do trust that he can torment them. Therefore one cannot logically infer that the demons mentioned by James lack trust in the truthfulness of the proposition they are said to believe. This is why John Robbins pointed out that “to use the words believe and trust interchangeably is good English and sound theology because they are synonyms.”[xi]

Belief Alone is Insufficient

Let’s first remember the words of Doug Barnes when he asserted “faith alone is not belief alone” and then concluded that “Belief alone is not enough.” After giving Mr. Barnes a much needed rebuke for poor scholarship John Robbins offered a very simple and sound refutation of his conclusion:

It follows, does it not, that when Christ said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life,” that he was misleading Nicodemus? And when the Apostle Paul said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved” he was misleading the jailer? One might quote scores of similar verses, but these two will do to show how far Barnes is from Christian soteriology. According to the Scriptures, belief of the Gospel, and only belief of the Gospel, saves.[xii]

The Scriptural refutations of Barnes’ position are enough to settle the matter but let’s provide the logical refutation for good measure. This view that belief is not enough would logically imply that some who believe the gospel are not saved, to which Robbins responded: “If faith consists of three elements – knowledge, assent (or belief), and trust – and if a person does not have faith unless all three elements are present, then unregenerate persons may understand and believe-assent to–the truth. In fact, those who advocate the three-element view insist that unregenerate persons may understand and believe the truth – their prime example of such persons is demons. But if unregenerate persons may believe the truth, then the natural man can indeed receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are not foolishness unto him, contrary to 1 Corinthians 2 and dozens of other verses. Belief – and the whole of salvation – is not a gift of God. Natural men can do their own believing, thank you very much. The three-element view of faith leads straight to a contradiction – faithless believers – and therefore must be false.”[xiii]

Demonic Belief Lacks Trust 

The views espoused by Webster, Sproul, and Barnes would logically imply that if demons had trust then they too would be saved. To conclude that belief, understanding and assenting to the propositions of the gospel, is not enough to save, from the fact that this does not save the demons, and that a third element of trust is required, logically implies that if the demons had this third element of trust, then they too would be saved. But that simply is not the case and therefore the whole argument falls apart. The reason the demons are not saved is because they have no savior. It is not because they don’t have the right kind of faith. It is invalid to deduce from this verse that belief (assenting to understood propositions) in the gospel is insufficient to save because James says nothing about demons believing the gospel. We have to remember that it is a basic rule of logical deduction that the content in the conclusion must be derived from one or more of the premises. Since verse 19 makes no mention of the demons assenting to understood propositions of the gospel we cannot logically deduce that understanding with assent to the propositions of the gospel is insufficient to save. 

All of these conclusions are logically absurd. Therefore, the difference cannot be in a belief that is distinct from faith or trust. There are multiple reasons to reject this understanding of James 2:19, which is influenced by the imposition of a Latin definition and suggests that belief alone is insufficient to save. 

1. The Bible was not written in Latin and the words faith and belief are both translated from the same Greek word pistis. There is therefore no Biblical precedent for defining them differently when we arrive at James 2:19.

2. Belief and faith are synonymous with trust and it is therefore wrong to suggest that one can believe and not trust.

3. Fiducia comes from the same root as fides (faith). Hence this popular analysis reduces to the obviously absurd definition that faith consists of understanding, assent, and faith. This is a tautology. 

4. It is an invalid inference to conclude that belief in the gospel is not sufficient to save because James says the demons believe in monotheism. 

5. This leads to an absurd contradiction that some who believe the Gospel will perish.

6. To argue that understanding and assent are not enough to save because it doesn’t save the demons, and that one needs the extra element of trust, logically implies that if the demons had this then they too would be saved.

What James Actually Meant 

Why then does James bring up their belief that God is one and reference the demons? We have to remember the context of the passage and the broader context of the letter of James. This letter was written by James, the brother of Jesus (Matt. 13:55) and leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15). It was written around A.D. 40–45 to Jewish Christians living outside Palestine. James is speaking to Jewish converts and the immediate context of this passage shows that he is addressing a specific type of hypocrisy - religious hypocrisy. 

Both Paul and James confront different issues with members from the same congregation of Jewish converts in Jerusalem. In the book of Galatians Paul confronts the Judaizes over the issue of legalism and he identifies them as the circumcision party that came from James in Gal 2:12. This was the same group that he and Barnabas contended with over the gospel in Acts 15, and it is the same group he anathematized in Galatians 1:6-9. James, however, is confronting the issue of antinomianism with members from the same congregation in Jerusalem. At first this may seem odd because we tend to think of legalism and antinomianism as antithetical to one another. But they are not so much antithetical to each other as they are antithetical to the gospel. Apart from the light of the gospel, legalism will produce antinomianism and vice versa. 

This is because the natural man who rejects the gospel must attempt to establish his own righteousness by the law, and therefore become a legalist. But because he is unable to keep the law, and yet is self-righteous, he is an antinomian. This is why Jesus refers to the legalists who profess their good works to him at the last judgement as “workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:21-23). 

The antinomianism James now confronts is made manifest by a form of religious hypocrisy amongst the members of this Jewish congregation. Therefore he references The Shema when he acknowledges, “You believe that God is one.” 

The Shema was the most important prayer in Israel and it served as the centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services. “The first verse encapsulates the monotheistic essence of Judaism: ‘Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one’ (Hebrew: שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד׃), found in Deuteronomy 6:4. Observant Jews consider The Shema to be the most important part of the prayer service in Judaism.”[xiv] These Jewish converts would have immediately recognized James’ reference and they would have understood his point. 

He was not saying that belief alone, understanding with assent, in the gospel is not enough to save, as some modern English speaking Christians tend to think. Instead, he was confronting their religious hypocrisy, and the sting of comparing their piety to that of the demons would have been understood as a clear indictment against them. It could even be said that the demons had a more proper response than these hypocrites because at least they trembled. 

This is the key to understanding James’ point in this verse. Religious hypocrites that are in the visible church will tend to believe some measure of truth revealed in scripture. They therefore have a form of religious piety but not a transformed life, because in spite of the fact that they believe certain propositions to be true they do not believe the gospel. There is a type of religious faith which does not produce works because it is not a faith gifted by God and regeneration has not taken place. The difference however is not in the type of faith or belief, but in the propositions believed. 

Sean Gerety draws out further valuable insight from the demons' trembling that helps us to understand the nature of religious hypocrisy in the visible church. Not only can false converts or religious hypocrites believe true propositions revealed in scripture, but they can also experience heartfelt passion or emotion from these beliefs. Gerety writes, 

Another overlooked aspect of James is not only what the demons believe (God is one), but their reaction in response to this belief (trembling). James is teaching us that not only is belief in God and monotheism not enough to make someone a Christian, but the sincerity and “heartfelt” nature of that belief also isn’t something which saves a person — nor should we be fooled by such displays. Of course, this would put most Televangelists out of business. You might say James is providing an interesting refutation of the Kierkegaardian idea of “infinite passion” and the idea that it is the “passion” or conviction one brings to the objects of their beliefs that saves and not the propositions believed.[xv]

Gerety’s insight is extremely valuable in helping us to understand the nature and deception of false converts. Many people are deceived into thinking they are genuine believers precisely because they believe some measure of truth and they often display heartfelt emotions. Unfortunately this insight is lost on most theologians today because they have not taken the time to understand James. What’s worse is that they have insisted on perpetuating false notions of faith, and eisegete their wrong views into the text. This, no doubt, has plagued the church with much confusion. 

[i] Webster, William, The Church of Rome at the Bar of History, by William Webster, Banner of Truth Trust, 1996, pp. 133–134.

[ii] Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[iii] Barnes, Doug. “Gordon Clark and Sandemanianism.” Banner of Truth USA, 10 Jan. 2005, banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2005/gordon-clark-and-sandemanianism/ 

[iv] Miner, Luke. “What Is It to Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?” Trinity Foundation. Accessed February 14, 2020. http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=330.

[v] Gordon H. Clark, What Is Saving Faith? (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 88, http://www.trinitylectures.org/what-is-saving-faith-p-60.html. Emphasis ours. This book combines Faith and Saving Faith and The Johannine Logos into one volume.

[vi] Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[vii] Gordon H. Clark, "Saving Faith", The Trinity Review (Dec 1979), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=10

[viii] Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[ix]  Gordon H. Clark, What Is Saving Faith? (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 152

[x]  Clark, What Is Saving Faith?, p. 153.

[xi]  Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[xii] Barnes, Doug. “Gordon Clark and Sandemanianism.” Banner of Truth USA, 10 Jan. 2005, banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2005/gordon-clark-and-sandemanianism/.

[xiii] Robbins, John. “The Church.” Trinity Foundation. Accessed February 14, 2020. http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=83

[xiv]  “Shema Yisrael.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, January 20, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shema_Yisrael.

[xv] Gerety, Sean. “Demonic Theology.” God's Hammer, May 1, 2009. https://godshammer.wordpress.com/2007/09/17/demonic-theology/?fbclid=IwAR1otzI0WaDJqDqv9Ue_uuSIQaB_NvL8h57NSLOC73ymG5zcy7YbeuGBlX8.

Many times, when we think of apologetics we think of defending the faith against unbelieving atheists. The reality is however, there are many religious unbelievers who are just as relentless in their attacks against biblical Christianity. We must remember that the disciples had to defend the faith against the religious unbelieving Jews. Therefore, it is important to understand that though our opponents might change, our method of defense stays the same. In a previous article we offered an explanation of the Scripturalist Ad Hominem reply as our presuppositional method and we gave some examples that pertained to atheism. Here we want to explore another example and deal with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Just as atheists attack the Christian worldview by claiming there is no God so too Jehovah’s Witnesses attack the Christian worldview by claiming that Jesus is not God, the second person of the Trinity. Their attacks on the deity of Christ are unrelenting and so we shall provide an internal critique of their theological position by using an ad hominem reply.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus was created by Jehovah and then Jehovah used him to create everything else. For the sake of argument, let’s accept their theological position that Jesus is a created being and compare it to their own Bible translation so that we may reduce it to absurdity by deducing from it contradictory propositions. In order to do this let’s review their primary source material and from that we shall construct a categorical syllogism.

According to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract society Jesus is not eternal but had a beginning.  According to them, “The Bible says that Jesus was created, which means that Jesus had a beginning.”[i] In other words, Jesus is not eternal and did not always exist. Although the Jehovah’s Witnesses will attempt to cite passages of scripture in support of this claim, it stands merely as an unsupported assertion which leads directly to a self-contradiction. From this theological position however, we shall construct our minor premise “Jesus is a being that came into existence.”

This should be easy to establish because the Jehovah’s Witnesses readily admit that they believe Jesus came into existence.  However, according to the New World Translation, the official Bible translation of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, speaking of Jesus it reads, “All things came into existence through him and apart from him not even one thing came into existence” (John 1:3). Notice that the first proposition in the verse “all things came into existence through him” is converted to its logical equivalent “apart from him not even one thing came into existence” by changing the quality from “all things” to “one thing” and negating the predicate. In formal logic this is referred to as an obversion and it not only affirms Jesus as Creator in the strongest way possible but it also demonstrates once again that the scriptures exhibit logical form. The translators of the NWT Bible did not fundamentally alter this verse and so we can agree with its plain teaching. We should also notice that the passage says, “all things” and not “all other things.” This will become important later when we look at Colossians 1:15-17 for comparison. For now, though, we can simply infer that if Jesus was a created being who came into existence then he must have come into existence through himself since all things came into existence through him. This verse will serve to construct our major premise “all things that came into existence are created through Jesus.” Now let’s construct our categorical syllogism.

Major Premise: All things that came into existence are created through Jesus

Minor Premise: Jesus is a being that came into existence  

Conclusion: Therefore, Jesus is created through Jesus.

In this categorical syllogism we have a valid deduction, but the conclusion is necessarily false because it is self-contradictory. In order for Jesus to be created through himself he would have to exist and not exist at the same time and in the same respect. This however, is a clear violation of the law of contradiction because “the same attribute [in this case existence] cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject [Jesus] and in the same respect.”[ii] This is a prime example of making a valid deduction from a false premise. We know that one of the premises is false because the conclusion is self-contradictory, and contradictions are false. It is very important to point out that in spite of the conclusion being false it is the inevitable consequence of their theological position.  

Despite this being a valid deduction that Jesus was created through himself the Jehovah's Witnesses flatly denied this conclusion, as they should. Unfortunately, they don’t deny the conclusion for the right reason; that is Jesus was not created because his is the Creator of all things.  Instead, they propose that Jesus was created by Jehovah as the first of his works and then Jehovah created every else through him. They write,

“Jesus is Jehovah’s most precious Son—and for good reason. He is called “the firstborn of all creation,” for he was God’s first creation. (Colossians 1:15) ... This means that Jesus is the only one directly created by God. Jesus is also the only one whom God used when He created all other things. (Colossians 1:16).”[iii]

The Jehovah’s Witnesses often cite Colossians 1:15-17 in support of this view so let’s consider what their Bible says. The New World Translation reads,

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 because by means of him all [other] things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All [other] things have been created through him and for him. 17 Also, he is before all [other] things, and by means of him all [other] things were made to exist,

First, let’s address Colossians 1:15 and the notion that Jesus was God’s first creation because he is called “the firstborn of all creation.” This is one of the most egregious instances of twisting scripture since the Devil quoted Psalms 91:11,12 to Christ in the wilderness (Matthew 4:6). In that narrative we notice that Jesus’ response was to quote scripture in order to correct his opponent the Devil and so we are apt to do the same. We ought to ask the Jehovah’s Witnesses, “have you not read that it is said of David, the youngest or last born of Jesse, ‘Also, I myself shall place him as firstborn.’ (Psalm 89:27 NWT)? Or have you not read that the Lord God said, ‘as for Ephraim, he is my firstborn,’(Jeremiah 31:9 NWT), although he was the younger brother to Manasseh (Genesis 41:50,51)?” Clearly then, this is a title that does not literally mean first to be born.

When the term firstborn is used in Colossians it does not mean first to be born and it certainly does not mean first created. This is a title given to signify a position of prominence or preeminence. The passage is saying he is the “firstborn” of all creation in the sense that he is preeminent over all of creation because all things were created for him and through him and all things are held together by him. He is before all thing because he existed before all created things. To cite this passage in order to support the Watchtowers teaching that Jesus was created directly by Jehovah and then used to create all other things is nothing short of eisegesis.

However, the Jehovah’s Witness might object and appeal to the fact that the New World Translation actually says, “all other things.” Therefore, we need to point out that the translators of the New World Translation have added the word “other” four times to verses 16 and 17 in order to support the teaching that Jesus was created. The readers need to be informed that the word “other” does not appear in the John 1:3 passage nor should it appear in this passage. That is because the word does not appear in the original Greek text and its addition to the New World Translation Bible changes the original meaning of the passage.

Ron Rhodes, former Jehovah’s Witnesses and author of the book Reasoning from The Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses points out that, “when speaking with a Jehovah’s Witness about Colossians 1:16-17, you might want to point out that the Watchtower’s own Greek interlinear version of the Bible shows that the Greek word panta means ‘all’ things and not ‘all other’ things.”[iv]

Readers should also be informed about the Watchtower’s efforts to further mislead its members by taking the word “other” out of brackets in their latest editions of the New World Translation. In the original copies of the 1984 edition of the New World Translation the word “other” is in brackets, indicating to its readers that it has been added by the translators.

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Since its original publication however they have taken the word “other” out of brackets in the latest copies thereby giving the impression that the word is part of the original Greek text of scripture.

Rhodes writes,

It is highly revealing of the Watchtower Society’s dishonesty that the 1950 version of the New World Translation did not put brackets around the four insertions of “other” in the text of Colossians 1:16-17. This made it appear that the word was actually translated from the original Greek text. The Watchtower Society was pressured into putting the brackets around these words in all editions of the New World Translation since 1961 as a result of evangelical scholars openly exposing this perversion of the text of scripture.[v]

It would appear then that the Watchtower Society is using the same old tricks in order to deceive its members. This is certainly not the first and only time that the translators of the New World Translation have altered the Bible in order to support their heretical teachings. Changes within the New World Translation could be listed at great length and the reader should familiarize themselves with as many of the changes as possible. What Christians need to understand is that the NWT is not to be trusted.

The benefit with this particular case of scripture twisting is that by putting the word “other” in brackets in some of the 1984 and earlier editions of the New World Translation, they essentially acknowledged to their members and the rest of the world that it was not part of the original Greek text. This needs to be pointed out to the individual members of the Watchtower Society.

The motive for adding the word “other” should be obvious. It is to support the doctrine that Jesus was created directly by Jehovah and then used to create all other things, which is why this particular passage is cited in their literature. This is why the Jehovah’s Witness will claim that Jesus did not come into existence through himself but was instead created directly by Jehovah.

However, their Bible clearly states in John 1:3, that all things came into existence through Jesus and the passage in Colossians would concur if the word “other” was not added by their translators. We should therefore insist that they read the passage in Colossians without inserting the word “other.” We can ask, “what does the passage actually say, not what do you want it to say?” The passage would read, “16 by means of him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. 17 Also, he is before all things, and by means of him all things were made to exist.”

Now that we have harmonized these two passages we can make the categorical proposition “all created things are created through Jesus” (All S are P). This is based off the plain teaching of the New World Translation Bible. The problem however is that the Watchtower teaches that it is all “other” things that came into existence through Jesus and that he was created directly by Jehovah. In other words, Jesus is something that came into existence but not through himself. Therefore, we can make the categorical proposition that “some created thing is not created through Jesus” (Some S are not P).

To say that “all created things are created through Jesus” and “some created thing is not created through Jesus” is to say that (All S are P) and (Some S are not P). These are contradictory propositions. This should be obvious but for the sake of clarity we shall explain why.

In formal or traditional logic there are 4 basic types of categorical propositions.

A: All S are P

I: Some S are P

E: No S are P

O: Some S are not P[vi]

In each of these categorical propositions we must identify both the quality and quantity in order to determine their relationships to one another. The quality of the proposition has to do with whether it is affirmative or negative and the quantity of a proposition has to do with whether it is universal or particular. We notice that the quality of the A and I propositions are affirmative while the quality of the E and O propositions are negative. Likewise, we notice that the quantity of the A and E propositions are universal while the quantity of the I and O propositions are particular. Now the rule of contradiction holds that “contradictory statements are statements that differ in both quality and quantity.”[vii] Here we can illustrate this with the square of opposition.

It is clear then, that A: All S are P or “all created things are created through Jesus” is a universal, and affirmative proposition and O: Some S are not P or “some created thing is not created through Jesus” is a particular, and negative proposition. Therefore, A and O are contradictory propositions because they differ in both quality and quantity.

The first law of Opposition holds that “Contradictories cannot at the same time be true nor at the same time be false.”[viii] This means that one of these propositions must be true and the other must be false. If “All S are P” is true, then “Some S are not P” is necessarily false. In other words, if John 1:3 in the New World Translation is true then the Watchtower’s teaching that Jesus was created by Jehovah is wrong. We should ask the Jehovah’s Witness “Is it true that all things came into existence through him and that apart from him not even one thing came into existence?” If they profess to believe this is true, then they have no rational justification for believing what the Watchtower teaches.

To drive the point home, if Jesus was created then either he was created through himself or he was not created through himself. These are only the only two options. If they say that Jesus was created through himself then they violate the law of contradiction because he would have to exist and not exist at the same time and in the same respect. However, if they say he was not created through himself then they still violate the law of contradiction because their Bible states that “all created things are created through Jesus” (A: All S are P) and the Watchtower organization claims “some created thing is not created through Jesus” (O: Some S are not P).

The only remedy for this charley horse between the ears is to acknowledge that Jesus was not created at all. If the Jehovah’s Witness wish to disregard the law of contradiction in order to maintain their heretical view of Christ, then they are most likely ignorant of the fact that they must first assume the law of contradiction in order to make a counter argument intelligible. We would remind our reader that “the opponents of logic must use the law of contradiction in order to denounce it. They must assume its legitimacy, in order to declare it illegitimate. They must assume its truth, in order to declare it false. They must present arguments if they wish to persuade us that argumentation is invalid. Wherever they turn, they are boxed in.”[ix]

[i] "Who Is Jesus Christ? Is Jesus God or God's Son?" JW.ORG. Accessed April 11, 2018. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-study/who-is-jesus-christ/.

[ii] John W. Robbins, “Why Study Logic?”, The Trinity Review (July/August, 1985)

[iii] "Who Is Jesus Christ? Is Jesus God or God's Son? | Bible Teach." JW.ORG. Accessed April 11, 2018. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-teach/who-is-jesus-christ/.

[iv] Rhodes, R. (2009). Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Eugene, Or.: Harvest House Publishers, p.74 (Kindle version).

[v] Rhodes, R. (2009). Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Eugene, Or.: Harvest House Publishers, p.72 (Kindle version).

[vi] “Chapter 5 The Four Statements of Logic.” Traditional Logic, by Martin Cothran, 2nd ed., Memoria Press, 2017, p. 31.

[vii] “Chapter 6 Contradictory and Contrary Statements.” Traditional Logic, by Martin Cothran, 2nd ed., Memoria Press, 2017, p. 40.

[viii] “Chapter 6 Contradictory and Contrary Statements.” Traditional Logic, by Martin Cothran, 2nd ed., Memoria Press, 2017, p. 42.

[ix] John W. Robbins, “Why Study Logic?”, The Trinity Review (July/August, 1985)

Written By Tim Shaughnessy and Timothy F. Kauffman

Introduction

In every generation there arise men from within the church who stumble into the Roman Catholic view of justification, and having stumbled, then attempt to import that Roman Catholic error into the Church of God so that the children of God might stumble with them. John Piper is just the latest in a long line of such men, and he will not be the last. Remarkably, on the eve of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Piper attempts to show that neither the Scriptures nor the Reformers held to final justification by faith alone apart from works. On September 25^th, 2017, Piper published an article entitled Does God Really Save Us by Faith Alone? In the article, he maintains that initial justification is by faith alone, but introduces a concept that is completely foreign to the Bible: the concept of “final salvation” on the basis of our works and obedience. He writes,

In justification, faith receives a finished work of Christ performed outside of us and counted as ours — imputed to us. … In final salvation at the last judgment, faith is confirmed by the sanctifying fruit it has borne, and we are saved through that fruit and that faith.[i]

In Piper’s new view of final salvation, he makes a distinction between justification and salvation in which we are justified by faith alone apart from works at the beginning, but we are saved by faith plus works at the end. He writes,

These works of faith, and this obedience of faith, these fruits of the Spirit that come by faith, are necessary for our final salvation. No holiness, no heaven (Hebrews 12:14). So, we should not speak of getting to heaven by faith alone in the same way we are justified by faith alone.

Essential to the Christian life and necessary for final salvation is the killing of sin (Romans 8:13) and the pursuit of holiness (Hebrews 12:14).[ii]

Before we address Piper’s statements in detail, it is important to establish that when Piper says, “final salvation,” he means “final justification” or “future justification,” as evidenced by his summary of his position in the “Justification Debate” with N. T. Wright in 2009. Piper said,

"Present justification is based on the substitutionary work of Christ alone, enjoyed in union with him through faith alone. Future justification is the open confirmation and declaration that in Christ Jesus we are perfectly blameless before God. This final judgment accords with our works. That is, the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives will be brought forward as the evidence and confirmation of true faith and union with Christ. Without that validating transformation, there will be no future salvation." (Piper, John, and N.T. Wright. “The Justification Debate: A Primer.” Christianity Today June 2009: 35-37 (emphasis added))

We must, therefore, caution those who would otherwise be prone to vagueness and ambiguity when responding to such serious doctrinal error. It is never helpful to duck and dodge or hem and haw over issues concerning the gospel. Paul asks the question, “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” (1 Corinthians 14:8).[iii] When the gospel is at stake we must take to the battlefield to defend it, but who will get ready for battle if we give an indistinct sound. Therefore, it is necessary that we be emphatically clear in our response lest we give an indistinct sound with respect to this gospel issue.

Final Judgment, Justification & Salvation

Let’s first consider what Piper says about final judgment, final justification and final salvation. Piper has put forth the notion of a “final justification” or a “final salvation at the last judgment [in which] faith is confirmed by the sanctifying fruit it has borne, and we are saved through that fruit and that faith.” He has further stated that “works of faith,” and “obedience of faith… are necessary for our final salvation.” Piper is correct about there being a final judgment which is a judgment of works. Dr. Robert Reymond writes,

Now it cannot be denied that the Scriptures uniformly represent the final judgement as a judgement of works. (Ps. 62:12; Eccles. 12:14; Matt. 16:27; 25:31-46; John 5:29; Rom. 2:5-10; 1 Cor. 3:13, 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:10; Gal. 6:7-9; 1 Pet. 1:17; see also Westminster Confession of Faith, XXXIII/i) and that they hold forth the promise of rewards for faithful living (Exod. 20:5-6; Prov. 13:13; 25:21-22; Matt. 5:12; 6:1, 2, 4, 16, 18, 20; 10:41; 19:29; Luke 6:37-38; Col. 3:23-24; 2 Tim. 4:7-8: Heb. 11:26).[iv]

But while Piper is correct about there being a final judgment of works he is wrong to suggest that it has anything to do with our “future justification” or our “final salvation.” Rather, the works by which the believer is to be judged are merely the basis for rewards. John Murray writes,

We must maintain… justification complete and irrevocable by grace through faith and apart from works, and at the same time, future reward according to works. In reference to these two doctrines it is important to observe the following: (i) This future reward is not justification and contributes nothing to that which constitutes justification. (ii) This future reward is not salvation. Salvation is by grace and it is not as a reward for works that we are saved.[v]

In the Biblical view, this final judgement of works has absolutely nothing to do with our justification or our salvation. The concept of a future justification or a final salvation that is dependent upon our works or obedience is completely foreign to the Bible and the Protestant tradition, but it is not foreign to Roman Catholicism. In Reasoning from the Scriptures with Catholics Ron Rhodes writes,

Certainly, Catholics deny that their Church teaches a works salvation. They will talk about how salvation is impossible apart from the grace of God. But though things start out by grace in the Roman Catholic system of salvation…works do indeed get mixed into the picture. By virtue of the fact that a life of meritorious works is necessary to gain final salvation, it is clear that in reality, the Roman Catholic view of salvation is works-oriented. Salvation may involve grace and faith, but it is not by grace alone (sola gratia) or by faith alone (sola fide).[vi]

As we will see upon further examination of Piper, Rhodes’ assessment of Roman Catholicism— “that a life of meritorious works is necessary to gain final salvation”—is an adequate rebuttal of Piper, as well. What Piper writes is strikingly and eerily similar to what Ron Rhodes rightly identified as the Roman Catholic works-oriented system of salvation. He would talk about how salvation is impossible apart from the grace of God. But though things start out by grace in Pipers system of salvation… works do indeed get mixed into the picture. In Piper’s view, works are necessary to gain "final salvation" and works will be necessary for our “future justification.” In his view, future justification or final salvation may involve grace and faith, but they are not by grace alone (sola gratia) or by faith alone (sola fide). For Piper to say that “these works of faith, and this obedience of faith… are necessary for final salvation” is to say that works and obedience are necessary for justification and salvation. This is pure Romanism at its heart and it directly contradicts Ephesians 2:8-9 which reads, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Again, Dr. Reymond writes, “’[Salvation] is of faith, [apart from works], in order that it may be according to grace’ (Rom. 4:16). If God were to permit the intrusion of human works into the acquisition of salvation to any degree, salvation could not be by grace alone.”[vii]

Alien vs. Native Righteousness

When Piper speaks of “final salvation,” he is referring to a “future justification” that is based on faith plus works, a righteousness that is our own, not Christ’s. It is a justification based on our own personal moral improvement. It is important to point that out because in the foreword to Thomas Schreiner’s book Faith Alone—The Doctrine of Justification: What the Reformers Taught…and Why It Still Matters (The Five Solas Series), published on September 15, 2015, Piper appears to deny that our personal righteousness is the required for “justification.”:

Such faith always “works by love” and produces the “obedience of faith.” And that obedience— imperfect as it is till the day we die—is not the “basis of justification, but… a necessary evidence and fruit of justification.” In this sense, love and obedience—inherent righteousness—is “required of believers, but not for justification”—that is, required for heaven, not for entering a right-standing with God.[viii]

In reality, Piper is only denying that personal righteousness is required for initial justification. Regarding our future justification, Piper explicitly says that “obedience—inherent righteousness,” is required of believers for heaven, and is, in fact, a righteousness that is considered in our final justification. But Jesus taught that we are justified and saved, wholly and completely at the end by the same righteousness we possessed at the beginning. He did not teach an initial justification that is comprised of an alien righteousness plus a final justification based on a native righteousness developed over time through personal sanctification.

When we examine Christ’s admonition that “in the day of judgment,” the individual will be either justified or condemned “by thy words” (Matthew 12:36-37), we find that He gave two very remarkable illustrations about what He meant: the Ninevites (Matthew 12:41) and the Queen of Sheba (Matthew 12:42). Both would face “judgment with this generation” but would be justified based on their words, whereas the men of “this generation” would be condemned based on theirs. The key to understanding the passage is to examine which words Jesus contemplates in the acquittal of the Queen and the Ninevites, and He actually tells us which words they are: the words they spoke from the heart upon their first hearing and believing of the Word of God, for the Ninevites “repented at the preaching of Jonas” and the Queen of Sheba believed “the wisdom of Solomon.” “[T]he people of Nineveh believed God” upon the preaching of Jonah (Jonah 3:5) and the Queen of Sheba exclaimed, “It was a true report that I heard” (1 Kings 10:6).

When Jesus says that the believer will be justified “by thy words” on the day of judgment, the two examples He gives are the words spoken by the Queen of Sheba and by the Ninevites at the moment they first believed, and their final justification is based on the very same righteousness they possessed at the moment they first believed. Notably, Christ explained this truth at the same time He taught that a man speaks “out of the abundance of the heart” (Matthew 12:34) and also admonished the Pharisees that the only sign they would receive is the sign of Jonas, for “so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). Here Jesus has taught to us the very concept Paul would one day restate in his Epistle to the Romans:

“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. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.” (Romans 10:9-11)

The Queen of the Sheba and the Ninevites will be justified by their words on the last day, and those words were the overflow of the faith of their hearts—a faith that was lacking in the Pharisees.

Such men as Piper often appeal to the famous passage in which the sheep are separated from the goats in Matthew 25, desiring by the recitation of the believer’s works to prove final justification (see, for example, Piper, What Jesus Demands from the World, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006) 276). The problem with such an appeal to Matthew 25 for final justification based on works is that the sheep and goats are separated into two groups before anyone’s works are evaluated. In other words, they are separated into two groups based on whether they are sheep or goats. Since sheep are defined as those who believe (John 10:16,26), the scene of judgment in Matthew 25:31-33 actually has the sheep separated based on faith, not works, which is to say that the sheep were separated based on a righteousness apart from works. Neither the sheep nor the Shepherd has entertained works in the separation of “His sheep” from “the goats.” Even when the works of the sheep are recited, the sheep are unaware of them and clearly had not anticipated a discussion about their works, i.e., “when saw we thee …? … when saw we thee …? … when saw we thee?” (Matthew 25:37-39). The sheep had arrived at the throne of judgment without their own personal holiness or moral improvement in mind.

The precise language of Matthew 12 and 25 is worth examining for these reasons. Whereas in Matthew 12, we have the concept of final justification on the Last Day, Jesus curiously omits works in His discussion of the verdict. Faith is what He has in mind. In Matthew 25, we have the concept of works being contemplated on the Last Day, but we do not find those works contemplated in the separation of the sheep from the goats, for sheep are separated based on faith before works are contemplated, and further, the sheep did not have their works in mind. It is a curious reality to discover that when Jesus does mention justification on the last day (Matthew 12), He leaves out works. When He mentions works (Matthew 25), He mentions them only after the sheep have already been separated based on righteousness apart from works, and the sheep had not arrived expecting to offer their works in exchange for eternal life. In both chapters of Matthew, it is clear that on the Last Day, the sheep will be set apart based on faith alone apart from works, which is exactly what the sheep are expecting.

Our point in highlighting these facts is to show what is missing in the Gospel of Jesus and Paul. What is missing is Piper’s Roman Catholic construct that with the heart man believeth unto initial righteousness and then by the accumulated holiness of works the man arriveth at the judgment seat to determine whether his personal holiness is sufficient to merit eternal life, and then entereth into final salvation that he has earned by his works. In other words, Piper has now adopted a different gospel than the one Jesus taught to Paul.

Not only is Piper’s position heresy; it is damnable heresy. It is, in fact, the Roman Catholic system of salvation by works through the gradual accumulation of the merit of personal holiness. But according to Jesus, there is no distinction to be made between one being justified and being saved, and there is no difference between the righteousness contemplated when we first believed and righteousness by which we will be acquitted on the last day. It is all, and only, Jesus’ righteousness.

Works That Follow Justification by Faith

To be sure, the works that Piper is referring to are post-justification works which every Christian ought to exhibit to some extent. The problem, however, is that Piper says these post-justification works are necessary for salvation or necessary in order to attain heaven. Again, it is highly revealing to note the consistency of Piper’s theology in what he wrote two years prior in the foreword to Thomas Schreiner’s book,

"The stunning Christian answer is: sola fide—faith alone. But be sure you hear this carefully and precisely: He says right with God by faith alone, not attain heaven by faith alone. There are other conditions for attaining heaven, but no others for entering a right relationship to God. In fact, one must already be in a right relationship with God by faith alone in order to meet the other conditions."[ix]

We should take notice of the consistency of Piper's statements over the years. What he recently wrote was not simply a slip of the pen. Here he makes the distinction between being right with God and entering into heaven. He states there are “other conditions,” besides faith, that one must meet in order to attain heaven. In making his distinction he presents faith as a “condition” we meet. In Reformed orthodoxy however, faith is not a condition we must meet to receive the righteousness of Christ. We are not declared righteous because we believe. Instead, faith is the instrumental cause of justification that God uses as the means to apply or impute Christ's righteousness to us. Through faith alone we appropriate Christ and his righteousness which is why the Larger Catechism provides the following answer to question 73. “How doth faith justify a sinner in the sight of God?”

"Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it (Gal. 3:11; Rom. 3:28), nor as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to him for his justification (Rom. 4:5; Rom 10:10); but only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness (John 1:12; Phil 3:9; Gal 2:16)."

Not only does Piper error in making faith a condition but he suggests that there are other conditions that one must meet after being justified in order to attain heaven. What “conditions” must the believer meet in order to attain heaven? Piper is suggesting that post-justification works are necessary for us to attain salvation and heaven. John Robbins responded emphatically to this notion when he wrote,

Paul damned the Judaizers for teaching that post-[justification] works of righteousness are necessary for entrance into Heaven. The contention of both the Roman Church and the Judaizers [and now Piper] is that one cannot be saved without post-[justification], that is post-regeneration, works of righteousness. The Judaizers taught that one must be circumcised and obey other parts of the Mosaic law; the Roman Church teaches both the necessity and meritoriousness of good works of Christians for salvation;” [and now Piper teaches both the necessity of works and obedience of faith for salvation].[x]

James on Justification and Works

Piper appeals to James chapter 2 for support of his view of a final salvation that is in some way dependent on our works and obedience. He writes,

Especially as it pertains to final salvation, so many of us live in a fog of confusion. James saw in his day those who were treating “faith alone” as a doctrine that claimed you could be justified by faith which produced no good works. And he vehemently said No to such faith… The faith which alone justifies is never alone, but always bearing transforming fruit. So, when James says these controversial words, “A person is justified by works and not by faith alone (James 2:24), I take him to mean not by faith which is alone, but which shows itself by works.[xi]

Piper is correct to point out that the faith which justifies is a faith which shows itself by works. However, he is wrong to think that these works have anything to do with our final salvation. Piper fundamentally misunderstands the point that James is making with respect to justification and works. James is speaking about bearing fruit before men, not about being declared righteous or justified before God at the final judgment. The faith that justifies is not a faith that is alone, but rather it is made manifest in works which in turn justify our profession of faith before men; not before God. Therefore verse 18 of James chapter 2 says, “I will shew thee my faith by my works.” This demonstration of faith is before men, not before God at the final judgment. To suggest or even imply that the works James is referring to have anything to do with our final salvation is to venture headlong into the citadel of Rome. This is why John Calvin wrote,

That we may not then fall into that false reasoning which has deceived the Sophists [the Romanist], we must take notice of the two-fold meaning of the word justified. Paul means by it the gratuitous imputation of righteousness before the tribunal of God; and James, the manifestation of righteousness by the conduct, and that before men, as we may gather from the preceding words, “Show my thy faith,” etc.[xii]

Unfortunately, there is much confusion surrounding what James meant about justification and how it relates to what Paul meant by justification. When we compare James 2:24 with Romans 3:28 we see that both Paul and James are speaking of being justified, but we must ask, “justified in what sense?” James is referring to justification with respect to one’s profession of faith being justified or (validated) before man while Paul is referring to justification with respect to one being justified or (declared righteous) before God. James is answering the question how does one justify their profession of faith before others while Paul is answering the question how does one stand justified before God.

The reformers correctly recognized, based on Scripture alone, that a person is wholly and completely justified and saved by faith alone in Christ alone. Romans 4:5 states, “to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness..” Here we notice that righteousness unto salvation comes by faith, not by works. In the preceding verse, it reads, “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.” (Romans 4:4 ESV). If one were to work in order that they might receive salvation then they would be receiving their due wage not a gift. But the Bible makes it clear that salvation is a gift and it is not of works. In Ephesians 2:8,9 it reads, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Some theologians however, have stated that we are saved by faith alone but that works are part of faith. As O. Palmer Robertson notes, “According to [Norman Shepherd’s] view, faith is united with works as a single response to the Gospel call for justification. As a consequence, justification is by faith and by works, or by faith/works, or by the works of faith.”[xiii] This is an egregious error for if we “hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Roman 3:28 ESV) then works cannot be part of faith. Works are not part of faith nor are they united with faith but rather they are a consequence of faith. Dr. Reymond writes,

Whereas Paul is concerned with the question of how a man may achieve right standing before God, and turns to Genesis 15:6 to find his answer, James is concerned with the question of how a man is to demonstrate [before others] that he is actually justified before God and has true faith, and turns to Genesis 22: 9-10 as the probative fulfillment of Genesis 15:6 to find his answer.[xiv]

Paul condemns works added to faith while James commends works which are produced by faith. We have to be discerning here because our salvation does not rest on what we do but rather it rests entirely in what Christ has done for us. James asks the question in verse 14, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?” This is the issue James is confronting. If someone says he has faith but does not have works, then he is a liar and the truth is not in him. He is a false convert, a hypocrite who is self-deceived. James is asking what good is that profession of faith. Can that profession of faith save him? The answer is no because that is merely a false profession of faith rather than a true and living faith. James says in verse 17 “so also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” A true and living faith will inevitably manifest itself in works but it does not add anything to our salvation. Not now or ever! Unfortunately, Piper is wrong and this teaching of his is not only heretical but dangerous.

Listen to our podcast discussing this topic – HERE

[i] Piper, John. “Does God Really Save Us by Faith Alone?” Desiring God. September 25, 2017. Accessed September 27, 2017. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/does-god-really-save-us-by-faith-alone.

[ii] Piper, John. “Does God Really Save Us by Faith Alone?” Desiring God. September 25, 2017. Accessed September 27, 2017. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/does-god-really-save-us-by-faith-alone.

[iii] All scripture passages are quoted from KJV unless otherwise noted.

[iv] Reymond, Robert L. A new systematic theology of the Christian faith. 2nd ed. Nashville: T. Nelson, 2001. p. 750

[v] Murray, “Justification,” Collected Writings, 2:221 quoted in Reymond, Robert L. A New Systematic Theology of The Christian Faith. 2nd ed. Nashville: T. Nelson, 2001; p. 750 emphasis mine

[vi] Rhodes, Ron. Reasoning from the Scriptures with Catholics. Harvest House Publishers, 2000. pp. 121-122

[vii] Reymond, Robert L. A new systematic theology of the Christian faith. 2nd ed. Nashville: T. Nelson, 2001. p. 735

[viii] Schreiner, Thomas R. Faith alone– the doctrine of justification: what the reformers taught … and why it matters. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015 (emphasis added).

[ix] Schreiner, Thomas R. Faith alone– the doctrine of justification: what the reformers taught … and why it matters. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015 (emphasis added).

[x] Robbins, John. “The Gospel According to John MacArthur.” Trinity Foundation. May & june 1993. Accessed September 20, 2017. http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=193.

[xi] Piper, John. “Does God Really Save Us by Faith Alone?” Desiring God. September 25, 2017. Accessed September 27, 2017. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/does-god-really-save-us-by-faith-alone.

[xii] John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, Eerdmans, 1948, 314 f. quoted in Robertson, O. Palmer. The current justification controversy. Unicoi, TN: Trinity Foundation, 2003. p. 18

[xiii] Robertson, O. Palmer. The current justification controversy. Unicoi, TN: Trinity Foundation, 2003. p. 24

[xiv] Reymond, Robert L. A new systematic theology of the Christian faith. 2nd ed. Nashville: T. Nelson, 2001. p. 749

Recently, actor James Franco and Dr. Eliot Michaelson, Lecturer of Philosophy at King’s College London, both of whom are hosts of the YouTube channel Philosophy Time, interviewed Professor Liz Harman of Princeton University on abortion. Professor Harman defends the liberal position that “there is nothing morally bad about early abortion.” One might suspect that with such a high pedigree of intellectuals engaging in the conversation there would have been a robust argument put forward for the pro-choice position on abortion. However, if one is able to ignore and move past the vocal fry of Professor Harman they will soon realize that this conversation and the position put forward by the Princeton Professor amounts to nothing more than an irrational, absurd pile of nonsense.[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5SQnQjryzI[/embedyt]

At approximately 3 minutes and 4 seconds into the video Professor Harman attempts to explain away the confusion of her position by stating the following:

Right, so it might look like on my view abortion is permissible because you had the abortion but that abortion wouldn’t have been permissible if you didn’t have the abortion. That’s not quite the view, for I think two different reasons. So one reason is that, um, even you have moral status—and in my view back when you were an early fetus you had moral status—but it’s not that aborting you would have been wrong because if your mother had chosen to abort her pregnancy, then it wouldn’t have been the case that you would have had moral status because you would have died as an early fetus [which she already said had moral status], so she would have been aborting something that didn’t have moral status.”

There are two main problems when adopting this view. The first is the Fallacy of Begging the Question and the second is the Law of Contradiction.

Begging the Question

Professor Harman is suggesting that the moral compass points in whichever direction a person acts. There is no true north or absolute moral standard. Her view leads her to commit the fallacy of begging the question. Whether or not the abortion of an early fetus is wrong is contingent upon whether or not the early fetus has moral status, and whether or not the early fetus has moral status is contingent upon whether or not the early fetus is aborted.

Rejecting the Law of Contradiction

Professor Harman first grants that the early fetus has moral status when she states, “in my view back when you were an early fetus you had moral status.”  Then, she grants the mother permission to murder (abortion is murder) the early fetus on the grounds that “she would have been aborting [murdering] something [an early fetus] that didn’t have moral status.”

She states, “in my view back when you were an early fetus you had moral status—but it’s not that aborting you would have been wrong… because you would have died as an early fetus, so she [your mother] would have been aborting something that didn’t have moral status.”

Here we have a clear violation of the Law of Contradiction because “the same attribute [in this case moral status] cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject [an early fetus] and in the same respect” (John W. Robbins, “Why Study Logic?” The Trinity Review, July/August 1985, http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=39). One should keep in mind that the state of having moral status has already been determined prior to the act of aborting. In order to advance such a position, Professor Harman must reject the Law of Contradiction, but it is impossible for her to make her argument intelligible without first presupposing Law of Contradiction. As Dr. John Robbins notes, “The opponents of logic must use the Law of Contradiction in order to denounce it. They must assume its legitimacy, in order to declare it illegitimate. They must assume its truth, in order to declare it false. They must present arguments if they wish to persuade us that argumentation is invalid. Wherever they turn, they are boxed in” (“Why Study Logic?”).

Make no mistake, this Professor and the two hosts of Philosophy Time know God and are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18-19). Consequently they have become “futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts [have become] darkened. Claiming to be wise, they [have become] fools” (Romans 1:21-22).

Had it not been primarily for the work of John Robbins and The Trinity Foundation, the legacy and theology of Gordon H. Clark might have largely fallen into obscurity and Clark himself would have remained an unknown figure to many in this new generation of believers. At the present time, there is a small, but ever-growing, movement of believers that is dedicated to rediscovering and promoting the views of Gordon Clark. What these writers, bloggers, podcasters, and pastors have discovered however in their attempt to promote the ideas of Clark is that he has largely been ignored and misrepresented as much as he has been attacked and marginalized. Unfortunately, this has led many people to believe things about Clark that are wrong and it has caused many others to dismiss him without properly understanding his views. Clark is not difficult to understand for those who may wish to read his work for themselves. Moreover, his contributions to the faith are significant and should be given serious consideration. The problem today is that many persist in rejecting Clark and continue to speak out against him while remaining ignorant of what he said and wrote. While many who disagree with Clark profess to have read him, often their bias against him is outweighed only by their ignorance of him. We have encountered many followers of Cornelius Van Til who adamantly disagree with Clark and yet do not understand or represent him accurately. The purpose of this article is to showcase one such example and to present an argument in favor of Clark’s criticism against Van Til’s notion of analogy, as it was presented in “The Complaint.”

Recently Tyler Vela of The Freed Thinker Podcast attempted to argue against Clark’s criticism of Van Til’s notion of analogy and in the process demonstrated his ignorance of Clark and the issue. The discussion ensued shortly after I posted the following comment to the Bible Thumping Wingnut Facebook group.

Original Post

We do not just have an analogy of the truth we have the truth itself, and this in no way harms the Creator/ creature distinction.

This post was meant to express a favorable disposition of Clark’s view with regards to the most disputed theological topic in the Clark-Van Til Controversy. It is possible, however, that some readers may not be familiar with the controversy.

Following in the tradition of his father and grandfather, Clark sought to become an ordained minister in the faith and to that end he was ordained as a teaching elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church by the Philadelphia Presbytery on August 9, 1944. But shortly after he was ordained to the ministry, a protest ensued as 12 elders, including Cornelius Van Til, issued a formal complaint against his ordination. These elders produced a document, which came to be known as “The Complaint.” This document, which was read during a meeting of the Presbytery of Philadelphia on November 20, 1944, would lay the groundwork for what later became known as the “Clark-Van Til Controversy.” The document identified four theological topics of the dispute but the main theological point of dispute was over the incomprehensibility of God. This dispute over the incomprehensibility of God was chiefly concerned with the way in which man’s knowledge relates to God’s knowledge.

Doug Douma, author of The Presbyterian Philosopher points out the following:

Van Til used the term "analogy" to describe the relationship between God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge… Van Til used "analogy" to mean that man’s knowledge itself is an analogy of God’s knowledge... Echoing Van Til, “The Complaint” declared, "Because of his very nature as infinite and absolute the knowledge which God possesses of himself and of all things must remain a mystery which the finite mind of man cannot penetrate." And in the strongest form possible, the phrase for which “The Complaint” became most well-known, "We dare not maintain that [God's] knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point."

In critiquing Van Til’s theory of analogy, Clark argued that if God’s knowledge has no point in common with ours, then we know nothing that is true, for God knows all truths. In “The Answer,” [a response to “The Complaint”] his arguments for this conclusion is presented; ‘The Presbytery wishes to suggest that if man does not know at least one truth that God knows, if man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge do not coincide in at least one detail, then man knows nothing at all. God knows all truth, and if man’s mind cannot grasp one truth, then man’s mind grasps no truth. Far from being a test of orthodoxy, this test imposed by “The Complaint” is nothing else than skepticism and irrationalism."[i]

Clark argued that skepticism and irrationalism were the results of Van Til’s position. Dr. Gary Crampton has also argued this point against Van Til's notion of analogy. Crampton writes,

...there is the Van Tilian notion of analogy; that is, that all human knowledge is, and can only be, analogical to God’s knowledge. There is no point at which God’s knowledge meets man’s knowledge. Dr. Van Til is not just teaching that there is a difference in the quantity of God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge (a belief with which all Christians should agree), but that there is also a difference in the content of knowledge. Astonishingly, Dr. Van Til writes: Man could not have the same thought content in his mind that God has in His mind unless he were himself divine. Elsewhere he states that man’s knowledge of God and His Word is at no point identical with the content of God’s mind. And it is because of the fact that all human knowledge is only analogical to God’s knowledge that all teaching of Scripture is apparently contradictory.

Such a view, if carried to its logical conclusion, would lead to complete skepticism.[ii]

This quote from Crampton’s article was the one that was posted on the original thread in the comments section in the hope that it would explain, in more detail, the position taken with respect to the original post. Crampton points out the same thing Clark himself pointed out, namely that this view of Van Til's leads to skepticism. However, Tyler replied that “the claim that it would lead to skepticism is just absurd because it ignores the fact of revelatory knowledge based on Scriptures.”

In response to Tyler's comments, I stated, “That is the logically necessary result of such a position.” Tyler then challenged me to produce a syllogism to show this to be the case. Tyler wrote, “Without citing ideological articles, can you present the syllogism that shows it is logically NECESSARY?” He then provided his own syllogism which, unfortunately for him, only served to highlight his failure to grasp the substance of the Clarkian criticism. Tyler wrote:

1 What God has revealed, we can know.

2 God has revealed reliable anthropomorphic truths about himself.

Therefore,

We can have reliable anthropomorphic knowledge of God.

I don’t see how that “logically necessitates” skepticism.

The reason Tyler can’t “see how that [syllogism] ‘logically necessitates’ skepticism” is that it doesn’t, and that is not what Clark said would lead to skepticism. Clark never denied the use of analogies or anthropomorphisms in relation to our knowledge of God or anything thing else for that matter. With such confusion, it is no wonder then that Tyler can’t “see how that ‘logically necessitates’ skepticism.” In the original conversation thread, I quoted and agreed with Crampton who wrote, “Such a view, if carried to its logical conclusion, would lead to complete skepticism.” What view was Crampton referring too? Was it that “God has revealed anthropomorphic truths about himself and therefore, we can have reliable anthropomorphic knowledge of God” as Tyler argued in his syllogism? No, it was the view that “all human knowledge is, and can only be, analogical to God’s knowledge.” The contention, which Tyler apparently failed to grasp, was not over analogical knowledge of God but rather over the idea that all of man’s knowledge is analogical and that there is no point at which God’s knowledge meets man’s knowledge. Simply put, Van Til did not do what Tyler has done in that syllogism; that is to limit the use of analogy to our knowledge of God. Van Til wrote, “The fact that man’s knowledge must always remain analogical is applicable to his knowledge of God as well as to his knowledge of the universe.”[iii] Van Til held that all our knowledge was analogical and that is partly what Clarkians argue will lead to skepticism if drawn to its logical conclusion. Unfortunately, this reveals a significant lack of understanding on Tyler’s part. He would later go on to ask, “Does God have a mighty arm or is it [an] analogy? If it is an analogy, does it not teach us anything that we can then know about God? Does that fact that it is analogy mean that we are stuck with abject skepticism of what it means.” Again, this is highly revealing on Tyler’s part.

In order to properly address Tyler’s confusion, we will answer his questions more directly as we consider what Clark wrote about analogy. Then we will address the overlying issue at hand and examine Van Til’s notion of analogy from two different points of consideration. First, we will examine the notion “that all human knowledge is, and can only be, analogical to God’s knowledge.” Then we will examine Van Til’s notion. “that [God’s] knowledge and our knowledge [do not] coincide at any single point.”

Does Analogy automatically lead to “abject skepticism?"

First, let’s look at what Clark wrote and then we can answer Tyler’s questions more directly. Clark wrote,

Of course, there are figures of speech, metaphors, anthropomorphisms, [analogies] and the like. But these would be meaningless if there were no literal statements to give them meaning. For example, 2 Chronicles 16:9 - “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth” - is ludicrously ridiculous if taken literally: little eyeballs rolling over the dusty ground. But unless the statement, God is omniscient, is literal, the figure has nothing to refer to.[iv]

Now let’s answer Tyler's questions, “Does God have a mighty arm or is it analogy. If it is analogy, does it not teach us anything that we can then know about God?” Of course, it is an analogy, but unless there is a literal truth, such as God is powerful and mighty, to give it meaning then it tells us nothing about God. Tyler then asked, “Does the fact that it is analogy mean that we are stuck with abject skepticism of what it means.” Again, this is not what Clark or his followers argue will lead to skepticism so the answer is no, not if there is a literal statement to give it meaning. Tyler apparently thinks that Clarkians believe analogy automatically leads to skepticism. If he had read Clark for himself then he may have read when Clark wrote the following.

Those who defend the Bible as a true revelation must insist that it conveys literal truth. This does not mean the God cannot sometimes use symbolism and metaphor [or analogy]. Of course, there is symbolism in Ezekiel, there are parables in the gospels, and there are metaphors scattered throughout. God might have used even mythology and fable. But unless there are literal statements along with these figures of speech - or at the very least, unless figures of speech can be translated into literal truth - a book conveys no definite meaning.

Let a person say that the cross symbolizes the love of God. However, if all language or all religious language is symbolical, the statement that the cross symbolizes the love of God is itself a symbol. A symbol of what? When this last question is answered, we shall find that this answer is again a symbol. Then another symbol will be needed, and another. And the whole process will be meaningless.

This contemporary theory of language is open to the same objections that were raised against the Thomistic [and the Van Tilian] notion of analogical knowledge. In order to have meaning, an analogy, a metaphor, or a symbol must be supported by some literal truth. If Samson was as strong as an ox, then an ox must literally be strong. If Christ is the lion of the tribe of Judah, then something must be literally true about lions and about Christ also. No matter with what literary embellishment the comparison be made there must be a strictly true statement that has given rise to it. And a theory that says all language is symbolic is a theory that cannot be taken as literally true.[v]

Clearly then, Clark did not reject the use of analogy, symbolism, or anthropomorphism. Nor did he claim that analogical or anthropomorphic descriptions of God would automatically lead to skepticism. This level of confusion and ignorance raises suspicion for one who claims to have read both sides. Tyler is without excuse because he was encouraged to, “read some Gordon Clark,” to which he replied, “I have read Clark.” After I quoted Crampton I stated that Clark had already refuted Van Til’s notion of analogy to which Tyler responded by saying, “‘Refuted’ is FAR too strong a term btw. Almost laughably so to anyone who had read both sides.” Is it not “the fool [who] rages and laughs.” (Proverbs 29:9) Tyler ought to be careful if he finds himself tempted to laugh at Clark or his followers. But perhaps he was merely posturing in the discussion when he claimed to have read both sides. After this encounter with Tyler, I seriously doubt he has read both sides.

All of this is to merely to highlight Tyler's confusion and what many Van Tilians tend to do in discussions about Clark. Their obstinacy toward Clark is outweighed only by their ignorance of Clark. But Tyler did request a Syllogism to demonstrate that Van Til’s view of analogy logically necessitated skepticism.

All Human Knowledge Is Analogical

It would appear by and large that when Van Tilians make the claim that all of man’s knowledge is analogical to God’s knowledge they intend for this proposition to be regarded as something that is literally true. However, we can provide a syllogism to show that this is only can only be an analogy.

Premise 1: All man's knowledge is analogical to God’s Knowledge

Premise 2: "All man's knowledge is analogical to God's knowledge" is a knowledge claim made by a man

Conclusion: Therefore "all man's knowledge is analogical to God's knowledge" is an analogy.

Clark had already pointed this out when he wrote:

On the complainants’ theory, the proposition “the truth man has is analogical” is itself only an analogy. It is not the truth that God has. Nor could man know that it was God who was revealing such a proposition, for again the proposition “God is revealing that truth is analogical” is only an analogy of the truth. ("The Answer" Pg 22)

If this proposition, all man’s knowledge is analogical, is not to be regarded as literally true then it must be analogous to something that is literally true. To understand the analogy, we must also know and understand the literal truth which gives it meaning. It is important to recognize that the truth of Jesus’ parables was obscured from those who were not given the literal meaning of the parable. In Luke 8:4-8 we read the parable of the sower.

⁴ And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, ⁵ "A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. ⁶ And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. ⁷ And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. ⁸ And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold." As he said these things, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Jesus gives the parable and it is clear from the text that nobody understood what it meant until he provided the literal meaning of the parable. In verses 9-10 we read, "⁹ And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, ¹⁰ he said, 'To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that 'seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.'" All that the “others” were given was a parable or an analogy, and although they heard they did not understand. If all we have is an analogy with no support or connection to a literal truth then we are no better off than these people. Therefore, Jesus had to take his disciples aside and give them the literal meaning of the parable so that they might understand.

¹¹ Now the parable is this: The seed is [analogous to] the word of God. ¹² The ones along the path are [analogous to] those who have heard; then the devil [the birds are an analogy of the devil] comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. ¹³ And the ones on the rock are [analogous to] those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. ¹⁴ And as for what fell among the thorns, they are [analogous to] those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. ¹⁵ As for that in the good soil, they are [analogous to] those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. (Luke 8:9-15)

It’s also important to remember that we can draw a valid deduction from a false premise. As a Clarkian, I'm not interested in defending Van Til’s irrational notion of analogy and I would argue that the first premise is false. I do not believe that all of man’s knowledge is analogical. Here I'm going to give Tyler an ad hominem reply and accept the first premise as true for the sake of argument. Unfortunately, however, before we can proceed any further, we must correct a very common misunderstanding, one which Tyler has previously made, that all ad hominem replies are fallacious. Here we must caution the would-be philosopher to avoid making this mistake. Gordon Clark wrote:

ad hominem – Latin meaning “to the man.” A form of argument that accepts a proposition espoused by another for the purpose of deducing from it contradictory propositions or propositions that would be rejected by the other person. AD HOMINEM SHOULD BE DISTINGUISHED FROM THE INFORMAL FALLACY OF ABUSIVE AD HOMINEM. (Emphasis Clark’s)[vi]

Clark rightly distinguished between an ad hominem reply and an abusive ad hominem fallacy. This view, though largely misunderstood, is not particular to Clark. I am going to accept the proposition “all man’s knowledge is analogical to God’s knowledge,” which accurately reflects Van Til’s notion of analogy, for the purpose of deducing from it contradictory propositions or propositions that would be rejected by Tyler. First, we will use the Modus Ponens syllogism to show it to be self-contradictory if it is to be taken as literally true. Then we will use the Modus Tollens syllogism to reduce it to absurdity if it is not to be taken as literally true. Since we have shown that the claim, “all man’s knowledge is analogical to God’s knowledge” is itself an analogy we can proceed to show that it is self-contradictory if the Van Tilian intends for it to be taken as literally true. To do this we will use of a Modus Ponens syllogism.

Premise 1: (If P) If the claim "all human knowledge is analogical to God's knowledge" is an analogy (then Q) then it cannot be literally true.

Premise: 2 (P) The claim is an analogy

Conclusion: (Therefore Q) Therefore it cannot be literally true.

It would appear that the Van Tilian claim, that all knowledge is analogical, is to be regarded as literally true. If that is the case then it is clearly self-contradictory and therefore self-refuting. We should also point out that the mind is compelled to reject contradictions because we are made in the image of God and it is only by suppressing the truth that they are maintained and professed. However, if the knowledge claim itself is not literal but analogical then it must be supported by some literal truth if it is to convey any truth or meaning. We can show by using the Modus Tollens syllogism how this is reduced to absurdity and leads to a position that Tyler and every other Van Tilian would reject.

Premise 1: (If P) If this analogy "all human knowledge is analogical to God's knowledge" is to convey any truth or meaning (then Q) then it must be supported by some literal truth which is knowable to man.

Premise 2: (Not Q) No literal truth is accessible to man for all of man’s knowledge is analogical

Conclusion: (Therefore Not P) therefore this analogy conveys no truth or meaning.

First, we showed that Van Til’s notion of analogy is itself an analogy. Then we gave an ad hominem reply and accepted the position as true so for the sake of argument in order to show it to be either self-contradictory or absurd. We used the Modus Ponens syllogism to show that if this analogy is to be regarded as literally true then it is self-contradictory and therefore must be false. We then used the Modus Tollens syllogism to show that if it is not to be regarded as literal but rather it is analogical then it is reduced to absurdity on the account that it conveys not truth or meaning. Certainly, Tyler would reject these propositions, which have been properly deduced from Van Til’s theory of analogy.

No Point of Coincidence

By this point, the problem with Van Til's notion of analogy should clear but let’s take it a little further and address some of Tyler’s other points. Tyler argued,

Again, do the analogies contained within scripture not teach us real truth? As a Clarkian, IF your argument were valid, [Clark’s arguments are valid] you would have just undermined all truths of scripture learned via analogy, anthropomorphism, metaphor, symbolism, etc. You see the irony of a Clarkian doing that? If a Clarkian wants to say that analogous knowledge has no truth value then they have undermined ALL non-didactic/straight historic sections of the scripture as having any truth value.

First, we need to point out again that the Clarkian criticism is not leveled against the use of analogy itself, but rather it is leveled against Van Til's theory of analogy. If Tyler understood this then he wouldn’t be asking such questions. Tyler stated, “IF your argument were valid [they are valid], you would have just undermined all truths of scripture learned via analogy, anthropomorphism, metaphor, symbolism, etc. You see the irony of a Clarkian doing that right?” The true irony in all this is that it was Van Til's notion of analogy that undermined “all truths of scripture learned via analogy, anthropomorphism, metaphor, symbolism, etc.” Again, no Clarkian is saying that “analogous knowledge has no truth value” and we have not undermined “ALL non-didactic/straight historic sections of the scripture” because neither Clark nor his followers have rejected the use of analogy or made the claim that it has “no truth value.”

Tyler doesn’t understand the substance of the debate especially when he makes comments like the following:

Just because I don't believe we have knowledge in the same way that God has knowledge doesn't entail skepticism, let alone make it "logically necessary.”

This shows once again that Tyler does not grasp the actual issue. Clarkians also “don't believe we have knowledge in the same way that God has knowledge,” and neither do we believe that this is what will, “entail skepticism, let alone make it ‘logically necessary.’” Dr. Reymond wrote, “It is important to note here that it is not the way that God and human beings know a thing that "The Complaint" declares is different. Both the complaints and Clark agreed that God knows everything by eternal intuition whereas people learn what they know (excluding certain innate ideas) discursively. Rather, insists Van Til and certain of his students, it is the content of man’s knowledge that is qualitatively distinct from God’s knowledge.”[vii]

"The Complaint" which declared, “We dare not maintain that [God’s] knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point,” also stated that it was a “tragic fact” that Clark’s position, “has lead him to obliterate the qualitative distinction between the contents of the divine mind and the knowledge which is possible to the creature.” In other words, Van Til and his cohorts accused Clark of harming the Creator/ creature distinction and insisted that in order to maintain that distinction we must maintain that our knowledge does not coincide with God’s knowledge at any single point. This is what the actual issue was over. So let’s take a closer look at these positions.

The problem that Van Til faced was similar to, if not the same, to that of Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) with respect to his theory of analogy. Aquinas was the first theologian to propose the use of analogy as a way of explaining the relation of being between God and man. This point of criticism against Van Til by way of comparison to Aquinas is nothing new and most well informed Van Tilians are aware of it. Dr. Scott Oliphint has stated the following.

Van Til’s notion of “analogy” or “analogical,” as it applies to knowledge and to predication, is central to his theology and apologetic.  Though the term itself is confusing in that it carries with it a host of assumptions in Thomism, it should not be confused or in any way identified with Thomas’s understanding of analogy.  Though for Thomas there was an analogy of being, for Van Til, the notion of analogy was meant to communicate the ontological and epistemological difference between God and man.  This difference has been expressed historically in terms of an archetypal/ ectypal relationship.[viii]

Despite all attempts by Van Til’s disciples to rescue his theory of analogy from criticism by distinguishing it from that of Thomas Aquinas’ the problem of skepticism still persisted. Let’s take a moment to ask why as we examine the issue. Dr. Oliphint pointed out that for Thomas there was an analogy of being which is to say that he held that nothing can be predicated of God and man in a univocal sense. Dr. Reymond points out, “A given predicate applied to separate subjects [such as God and man] univocally would intend that the subjects possess the predicate in a precisely identical sense.”[ix] This is why we cannot say for example, that both God and man are “intelligent, good or upright” in a univocal sense. This would imply that both God and man possess the predicates “intelligent, good or upright” in a precisely identical sense and Aquinas recognized that this would destroy the Creator-creature distinction.

However, the opposite of univocality is equivocality and it has its own problem. A given predicate applied to separate subjects equivocally would intend that the subjects possess the predicate in a completely unrelated and altogether different sense. Aquinas also understood that to suggest that God and man are “intelligent, good or upright” in a completely equivocal sense would result in utter skepticism for it would be completely ambiguous. In sum, a complete univocality destroys the Creator-creature distinction while a complete equivocality results in skepticism. Therefore, Aquinas proposed the use of “proportionality or analogy” as a third option for univocality and equivocality. This means that when we say, for example, that “God and man are intelligent,” it is analogical in the sense that God’s intelligence is proportional to God’s intelligence as man’s intelligence is proportional to man’s intelligence and it also means that the “intelligence” intended cannot be the same for both God and man. This sounds all well and good until we remember that Aquinas held that nothing could be predicated in the univocal sense between God and man. But why is this a problem? It is because the only thing that can keep an analogy from becoming a complete equivocality is the univocal element that is implicit within it. Dr. Reymond points out,

If I assert that an analogy may be drawn between an apple and an orange, do I not intend to suggest that the apple and the orange, obviously different in some respects, are the same in at least one respect? Why otherwise would I draw attention to the relationship between them? While it is true that the one respect in which I perceive that they are similar will not be immediately apparent to anyone else without further explanation on my part, it should be clear nonetheless to everyone, if I asserted that they are analogous one to the other, that I believe that in some sense a univocal feature exists between them--in this case, it may be that I have in mind that they are both fruit, or that they are both spherical, or that they both have extension in space and have mass. I intend to suggest that, for all their differences, they have something in common.[x]

The same is true for the univocal elements which are implicit in the parable of the sower. Christ was asserting that an analogy can be drawn between a seed and the word of God. To borrow the language of Dr. Reymond, Christ is clearly suggesting to his disciples that the seed and the word of God, although different in many ways, are the same in at least one respect. Why else would he be drawing their attention to them? It is true that the one respect in which Jesus perceive that the seed and the word of God are similar was not immediately apparent to anyone else without further explanation on his part but “it should be clear nonetheless to everyone, if [Christ] asserted that they are analogous one to the other, that [he did] believe that in some sense a univocal feature exist between them.” In this case, it is that both the word of God and the seed must take root and grow in good soil in order to have the proper effects of life, growth and bearing fruit. The univocal features for the rest of the parable are further explained by Christ. For example, the univocal feature between the birds and the devil is that they both come to take away the seed. The univocal feature between those whom the path represents and the path itself is that they both have left the seed open to attack. That is to say that they have heard the word, which has fallen on deaf ears, just as if the seed has fallen on the ground by the wayside. The word of God has not sunk into their hearts and minds just as the seed has not sunk into the ground. These people hear the word of God, do not care, do not meditate on it or think deeply about it, and are altogether intellectually shallow. So then, the word of God, which the seed, represents is left open to attack and the word is easily plucked out by the devil who snatches it away like a bird snatches the seed from the ground.

Is it not obvious then, that for all the differences between these subjects if an analogy is drawn between them then there must be something that is equally true of both of them. It is the predicate that indicates that they have something in common. The problem with Aquinas was that he denied any univocal coincidence in prediction between God and man. Therefore, he could not avoid equivocality because he could not account for the univocal elements within his theory of analogy. Van Til’s view faced the same problem, for he held that all of man’s knowledge was analogical to God’s knowledge and God’s knowledge and our knowledge did not coincide at any single point. This did not allow for any univocal element within his view of analogy and therefore he could avoid total equivocality. Dr. Reymond writes, “It is difficult to see how, with his explicit rejection of the univocal element (see his “corresponds at no single point”) in man’s so-called “analogical” knowledge of God, Van Til can rescue such knowledge from being in actuality a total equivocality and no true knowledge at all. Doug Douma points out that Paul Moser is quoted as saying, “Admittedly, Van Til’s theory of analogy is not identical with that of Thomas; but the distinction between the two is not one that commends Van Til’s theory; for his view if held consistently, implies pure equivocism.”[xi]

To be sure, and to satisfy Tyler’s demands for a syllogism, for otherwise, he may not see the points being made, let’s give another ad hominem reply. Let’s accept the position that Van Til and the other faculty members who signed "The Complaint" put forth for the sake of argument and deduce from it propositions that Tyler would be forced to reject. We can show this by virtue of two Modus Tollens syllogism.

Premise 1: (If P) If man is to knows any truth at all (Then Q) then man’s knowledge must coincide with God’s knowledge at some point for God knows all truth.

Premise 2: (Not Q) Man’s knowledge does not coincide with God’s knowledge at any single point.

Conclusion: (Therefore Not P) Therefore man does not know any truth at all.

Premise 1: (If P) If Van Til’s notion of analogy is to keep from becoming a complete equivocality (Then Q) then his notion of analogy must allow for a univocal feature to be contained within an analogy

Premise 2: (Not Q) Van Til’s notion of analogy does not allow for a univocal feature to be contained within an analogy

Conclusion: (Therefore Not P) Therefore Van Til’s notion of analogy cannot keep from becoming a complete equivocality.

Conclusion

Certainly, much more could be said on this but for now this will suffice. It is worth noting that perhaps Aquinas’ theory of analogy could have been salvaged if he instead held that nothing can be predicated of God and man in a completely univocal sense. Perhaps too, Van Til’s theory of analogy could have been salvaged during the controversy if he would have allowed for a point of coincidence between God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge. Unfortunately, however, that was not the case and it is why Clark said, “Unless the analogy is based on a literal and univocal similarity, there could be no analogy at all. And I would use this argument to pay my respects to Thomas Aquinas and Cornelius Van Til.” (Clark - Language, Truth, and Revelation, Part 1, minute 27)[xii] It is likely that Van Til and the other complainants felt the full weight of Clark’s criticism because they later conceded to his arguments and accepted a “point of contact” between God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge. They also attempted to change the definition of “content.” Clark’s criticism was utterly devastating![xiii]

It is worth noting that it was here on this hill of analogy that Van Til so fervently fought against the ordination of Gordon Clark. This was the hill the complainants erected and it was the hill they defended during the controversy. Let the reader of this article note that I, a Clarkian, have just used "hill" as an analogy for "theological position." When we draw out the Van Til position, as established by "The Complaint," to its logical conclusion we are left with skepticism. This is the Clarkian position and more importantly, it is the Biblical position.

[i] DOUMA, DOUG J. "The Arguments of The Ordination Controversy." PRESBYTERIAN PHILOSOPHER. S.l.: WIPF & STOCK PUB, 2017. 112-14. Print.

[ii] Crampton, W. Gary. "Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis." Trinity Foundation. Trinity Foundation, June-July 2000. Web. 02 June 2017. <http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=128>.

[iii] Til, Cornelius Van. A Survey of Christian Epistemology. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980.Presuppositionalism 101. Web. Apr.-May 2017. <https://presupp101.wordpress.com/downloads/>.

[iv] Clark, Gordon Haddon. God's Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics. Unicoi, TN: Trinity Foundation, 2011. Print

[v]. Clark, Gordon Haddon. God's Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics. Unicoi, TN: Trinity Foundation, 2011. Print.

[vi] Clark, Gordon Haddon. Logic. Unicoi, TN: Trinity Foundation, 2004. Print.

[vii] Reymond, Robert L. A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. Second ed. Nashville: T. Nelson, 2001. Print.

[viii] Til, Cornelius Van, and K. Scott Oliphint. The Defense of the Faith. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Pub., 2008. 62. Print.

[ix] Reymond, Robert L. A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. Second ed. Nashville: T. Nelson, 2001. Print.

[x] Reymond, Robert L. A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. Second ed. Nashville: T. Nelson, 2001. Print.

[xi] DOUMA, DOUG J. "The Arguments of The Ordination Controversy." PRESBYTERIAN PHILOSOPHER. S.l.: WIPF & STOCK PUB, 2017. 112-14. Print.

[xii] This quote was found by Doug Douma and provide in the footnotes of his book.

[xiii] For more information on the change in Van Til’s position the reader of this article is encouraged to read: DOUMA, DOUG J. "Chapter 8, The Continued Controversy and Its Results."PRESBYTERIAN PHILOSOPHER. S.l.: WIPF & STOCK PUB, 2017. 157-62. Print.

The task of Christian Apologetics is to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 3). This requires you to “always [be] prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15), and to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5). It is to provide a rational justification for the faith and refute arguments made against the Christian worldview, which is defined entirely and exclusively by the Bible. Apologetics then is nothing more than the intellectual defense of the of the truth of propositional revelation. Unfortunately, there is much confusion in today's churches regarding the topic of Christian apologetics. Some Christians disparage and refrain from the task of apologetics because they view it as argumentative and confrontational. Often they cite their own personal experience or shortcomings as the basis for their position. We hear statements like, “we should be trying to win people not trying to win arguments.” Rather than encouraging apologetics, they attack it out of false piety.

Yet many others who actually do engage in apologetics seem to misunderstand its purpose. The purpose of apologetics is not to try to prove to the unbeliever what he already knows; that is, God exists. Romans chapter one tells us that the unbeliever knows God. “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them,” (Romans 1:19) but that “by their unrighteousness [they] suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18). It should be clear from the plain reading of the text that the unbeliever already knows that God is real. We, therefore, should not spend any of our time trying to prove to the unbelievers what they already know.

It would seem, however, that many Christian apologists are predominantly concerned with trying to prove to the unbeliever that God exists. What is even more surprising is that many Van Tilian Presuppositionalists are under the mistaken impression that they can prove the existence of God by using the transcendental argument. We often hear these presuppositionalist repeat Greg Bahnsen and claim, “we can prove God by the impossibility of the contrary.” The Scripturalist has long since corrected this misunderstanding among the proponents of the Van Tilian presuppositional method. In order to be a presuppositionalist who is bent on trying to prove that God exists one would have to be thoroughly confused. Dr. Gary Crampton rightly points out, “is it not obvious that, by definition, a presupposition is not provable? And if one is a presuppositionalist, he cannot logically believe in the legitimate use of theistic proofs for the existence of God.”[i] Presuppositions are assumptions and one cannot prove what they must first assume. Crampton goes on to write, “The absolutely certain proof of the transcendental argument is imaginary. The Van Tilian position is a confused form of evidentialism; it is certainly not presuppositionalism.”[ii]

But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The transcendental argument can still be very useful in apologetics. Crampton continues, “This is not to say that a form of the transcendental argument cannot be used in an ad hominem fashion, that is, a reductio ad absurdum. Reducing an opponent's arguments to the level of absurdity, thereby showing him the vacuous nature of his own worldview, is an excellent apologetical tool. All of Gordon Clark’s books are examples of such argumentation.”[iii]

The Scripturalist argues that the transcendental argument cannot be used to prove the existence of God but that it can be used in an ad hominem response. However, before we proceed any further, we must correct a very common misunderstanding that all ad hominem replies are fallacious. Here we must caution the would-be philosopher to avoid making this mistake. Gordon Clark wrote:

ad hominem - Latin meaning "to the man." A form of argument that accepts a proposition espoused by another for the purpose of deducing from it contradictory propositions or propositions that would be rejected by the other person. AD HOMINEM SHOULD BE DISTINGUISHED FROM THE INFORMAL FALLACY OF ABUSIVE AD HOMINEM. (Emphasis Clark’s)[iv]

Clark emphatically points out that an ad hominem should be distinguished from an abusive ad hominem fallacy. An abusive ad hominem fallacy is made when one attacks the other person’s character or some other personal trait that is irrelevant to the argument. However, a valid ad hominem reply can be made, if instead of attacking the person’s character, we attack their presuppositions. This is what we have in mind when we use the transcendental argument in an ad hominem fashion. An ad hominem reply of this nature is valid because the unbeliever's presuppositions are relevant to the discussion, whereas their character may not be relevant to the discussion. Presuppositions are the basis on which arguments are made. If the basic presuppositions are false then the arguments from which they are derived and from which they proceed are altogether worthless. This type of ad hominem reply is not irrelevant and therefore it is not fallacious.

The Clarkian use of the transcendental argument in an ad hominem fashion also allows the Christian to fulfill the apologetic method prescribed in Proverbs 26:4-5.

Answer not a fool according to his folly,

lest you be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly,

lest he be wise in his own eyes.

"Answer not a fool according to his folly." That is, do not accept his false presuppositions as your own, "lest you be like him yourself."

"Answer a fool according to his folly." That is, do accept his false presuppositions for the sake of argument, so that you may deduce from them contradictory proposition or reduce them to absurdity, "lest he be wise in his own eyes."

Many Christian apologists have failed to regard this passage in their apologetic method and consequently, they have become like the fool. Instead of accepting the folly of the fool as our own we should accept it only for the sake of argument. For example, we can make an argument “toward the man” (the empiricist) and accept his false assumption of empiricism as true for the sake of argument. That is you answer him according to his folly of empiricism, so that you may reduce it to absurdity.

While working at the firehouse a number of years ago, I found myself engaging fellow firefighters about my faith. To my surprise, most of the firefighters were very open about discussing what they believed, and at times I found an ally or two. Still, there were a handful of outspoken atheists, but it was a great experience, however, because God granted me favor with these individuals and I had the opportunity to share the gospel with them. I came to appreciate these late night firehouse chats as we engaged in some productive discussion.

One evening at the fire station I asked my friend why he didn’t believe in God, to which he confidently replied, “there is no empirical evidence for the existence of God.” Fortunately, by this time I had already been introduced to Scripturalist apologetics and I was able to offer an ad hominem reply.  I didn’t accept my friends standard of empiricism as my own standard; rather, I accepted it for the sake of argument in order to reduced it to absurdity.  I replied that if empiricism is true then he could not know that it is true. Empiricism holds that all knowledge is gained via the senses yet he had just made a knowledge claim that could not be known by the sense. It is, therefore, contradictory and self-refuting. I challenged him to establish the standard of empiricism on its own terms before he make any demands that I establish God’s existence by the false standard of empiricism. I further pointed out that the empiricist puts forth a universal claim that all knowledge is gained via the senses yet the empiricist cannot establish any universal claim through sense perception. This is because his sense perceptions are limited in the past and non-existent in the future with the result that his claim rests on an impossible induction, which cannot be completed. Therefore, the empiricist commits the fallacy of induction in his attempt to establish a universal claim from a limited set of particular instances. Furthermore, the empiricist cannot account for the laws of Logic via sense perception yet their arguments require the use of the laws of logic. One reason for this is that the laws of logic are universal and as we just pointed out the empiricist cannot establish universals on empiricism. My friend had advanced an unargued philosophical presupposition of empiricism and I accepted it for the sake of argument in order to reduce it to absurdity and show it to be self-contradictory. By casting down his lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God I was then able to share the gospel.

As I told him about his need for Christ I switched from apologetics to evangelism, however, the task of apologetics wasn’t over. I warned him of the judgment to come and that he would have to stand before a Holy and Righteous God when he died. He responded by telling me that when we die nothing happens and that we don’t have a soul. He then asked me if I had ever seen the TV series Cosmos. He stated something to the effect that there was no heaven or hell and all that ever existed was the Cosmos. At that point, I realized that he had presupposed a materialistic worldview.

Materialism is the philosophical view that nothing exists apart from the physical or material universe. This view is quite popular among unbelievers because it excludes the supernatural and the spiritual. All that exists is matter and energy in motion. My friend had clearly been influenced by Carl Sagan’s opening line in the 1980 hit television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage in which Sagan famously stated, “The Cosmos [matter and energy] is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” This statement and the original video clip of Sagan standing on the beach was repeated in the 2014 sequel series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey which featured astrophysicist and cosmologist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Both Sagan and Tyson, along with many others, appear to share this view of materialism. The underlying presupposition of materialism was the basis on which my friend put forth the claim that there was no heaven or hell, he had no soul, there was no afterlife, and there was no God. During a Q&A session featuring Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson, published on Youtube on Nov. 13, 2011, Tyson stated the following, “I would request, that my body in death be buried not cremated so that the energy content contained within it gets returned to the earth so the flora and fauna can dine upon it just as I have dined upon flora and fauna throughout my life.”[v] This once again presupposes a materialistic worldview.

I asked my friend if he believed there was anything beyond the material to which he replied that he did not. Rather than accepting his position of materialism as my own presupposition, I accepted it for the sake of argument in order to reduce it to absurdity. I replied that if materialism is true the materialist cannot make his arguments in favor of his materialism intelligible. The problem is that the materialist cannot account for immaterial laws in a materialistic worldview. Some may wish to disregard the existence of immaterial moral laws, but the case against materialism becomes indisputable when one considers the laws of logic. This is because it is impossible to argue for a materialistic worldview without first presupposing the immaterial laws of logic. The arguments for materialism would not be intelligible without these immaterial laws and this is not difficult to demonstrate. I pointed out that when Carl Sagan said, “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be” he did not intend for his audience to understand that to mean “The Cosmos is not all that is or ever was or ever will be,” for that would contradict his claim. He is therefore already committed to the immaterial law of contradiction. Furthermore, I pointed out that every word in his claim has a specific meaning. The word “Cosmos” does not mean baseball and the phrase “all that is” does not mean none there was. One may notice that there are thirteen words in Sagan’s claim, and if the law of contradiction is rejected then we can say that his words carry the meaning of these thirteen words, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork” (Psalm 19:1 KJV). Of course, Sagan and Tyson would both reject this understanding of what Sagan said because that is not what he was trying to communicate and it contradicts their views.

The problem facing the Materialist should, therefore, be obvious. These men are inescapably committed to the immaterial law of contradiction. However, in their worldview, the laws of logic are nowhere to be found. Not only are the immaterial laws not accounted for in the materialistic worldview, but they are necessarily excluded. The fact that such arguments are intelligible and can be understood demonstrates that they are false and irrational.

The Van Tilian presuppositionalist is already engaged in this tactic to some extent. What the Clarkian refers to as an ad hominem reply the Van Tilian refers to as an “internal critique.” It would appear then that both the Van Tilian Presuppositionalist and the Clarkian Scripturalist are using the transcendental argument in the same way but we disagree on what it accomplishes. To give an example of a Van Tilian Presuppositionalist giving an ad hominem reply we should look no further than Greg Bahnsen. Dr. Bahnsen gave a brilliant ad hominem reply against naturalism. He stated the following:

… if naturalism is true then the naturalist has no reason to believe his naturalism… If naturalism is true the naturalist has no reason to believe it... Because you see, naturalism says all of our thinking is just electrical chemical responses. All of our thinking is subject to the laws of chemistry and physics, which is to say all of our thinking is determined by the factors in the physical world or in the physical brain in the environment around us. All of our thinking is in principle predictable then because it's just following the laws of nature. Usually more sophisticatedly put, the laws of physics and biology and chemistry and so forth. But the point is that human thinking is just a species of the physical world and its operation. Human thinking is just, it’s on the same order but not on the same level of sophistication as weeds growing. And so if naturalism is true then the person who's propounding it is propounding it why, because his or her brain is required them by the laws of physics, and chemistry and biology to say this sort of thing. It’s not as though they have the freedom and self-awareness to think about different theories evaluate evidence and make a choice as to which is right or wrong. They just have to say whatever they have to say and that's why the irony is that a naturalist would promote naturalism and try to tell people it’s true, you should believe that and not supernaturalism. The answer is that if naturalism is true so that your brain is just working on the laws of physics then you have no reason to believe naturalism is true, it’s just the laws of physics requiring you to say that, which is just to say that if naturalism is true then there is no reason to say that naturalism is true; you’re just forced to say that just like I’m forced by the laws of physics to say the opposite. Unbelievers cannot even account for why we argue with each other then, can they? On their assumption there is no argument because there is no freedom to choose the truth over against error, there are just the laws of physics governing my brain so say and do whatever it does.[vi]

Bahnsen does not accept the position of naturalism as his own presupposition but rather he accepted it for the purpose of reducing it to absurdity. He aptly answers the fool according to his folly. This cannot prove Christian theism simply on the grounds that he showed the impossibility of the contrary, which in this case is naturalism. However that is not our task in apologetics. It is simply to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 3), to “always [be] prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15), and to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Bahnsen gave an outstanding argument that one can use in an ad hominem fashion.

[i] Crampton, Gary W. "Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis." Trinity Foundation. June & july 2000. Accessed March 27, 2017. http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=128.

[ii] Crampton, Gary W. "Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis." Trinity Foundation. June & july 2000. Accessed March 27, 2017. http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=128.

[iii] Crampton, Gary W. "Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis." Trinity Foundation. June & july 2000. Accessed March 27, 2017. http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=128.

[iv] Clark, Gordon H. Logic. Unicoi, TN: Trinity Foundation, 2004.

[v] Thiscantbeitagain. "Neil deGrasse Tyson stops a religious troll (w/captions)." YouTube. September 28, 2010. Accessed March 27, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afGkv0IT4dU.

[vi] "Greg Bahnsen debunks atheist Dogma (Presuppositional Apologetics)." YouTube. August 08, 2013. Accessed March 27, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRq6qKp78W8&t=13s.

I believe he [God] is “really there” because, without him as the universe’s final Reality, there would be no intelligibility anywhere. (Robert Reymond, etc.)[1] Dr. Reymond’s statement is both profound and insightful. Without God, there is no intelligibility. While the unbeliever cannot account for and at times disregards logic, he must still rely on logic in his own thinking and argumentation. The unbeliever must use the laws of logic in order to make his case against Christianity intelligible, yet it is only the Christian worldview that can account for these laws. He is therefore required to “steal” from the Christian worldview to argue for his worldview. By this, the unbeliever shows that he is inconsistent and demonstrates that his own worldview is wrong. One cannot make a counter argument to this without first presupposing the laws of logic, and it is impossible to account for the laws of logic apart from the God of Scripture.

Only if the God of the Bible exists do we have the laws of Logic and only if the laws of logic exist do we have intelligibility. This necessarily includes the intelligibility of moral judgments. While the laws of logic are necessary for the intelligibility of moral judgments, they cannot tell us what is morally right or wrong. For that, we need an objective moral standard. The charge against atheism, secular humanism or any worldview which rejects the Bible is that it cannot establish an objective moral standard and therefore it cannot rationally justify any moral judgments. Only if the God of the Bible is our lawgiver do we have an objective moral standard, and only if we have an objective moral standard do we have a basis for moral judgments. In the Christian worldview it is God's character, his commandments, and his authority that establish an objective moral standard as the basis for making moral judgments indissoluble (perpetually binding or obligatory), and it is Jesus --the Logos of God--who endows the mind of man with the logic necessary to make those moral judgments intelligible (capable of being understood or comprehended). The unbeliever cannot account for either of these two necessary conditions in his own worldview. He cannot account for the laws of logic necessary to make moral judgments intelligible, nor can he account for an objective moral standard by which to make moral judgments indissoluble.

Objective Vs Subjective

That which is objective is true, independent of personal belief or opinion. We may simply say that truth is objective. Although this may seem obvious to most people, it is possible that in some postmodern academic circles someone will argue that there is no such thing as objective truth. When such irrational objections are raised we might ask their proponents if it is objectively true that there is no objective truth. If they say no then we can simply agree that their statement was wrong. However, if they say yes, then they have refuted themselves by claiming it is objectively true that there is no objective truth.

By contrast, that which is subjective is merely regarded as personal belief or opinion which may or may not reflect the truth. It’s not difficult to see that many people hold opinions that are not true. Whatever is subjective is not universally true or binding for all people; it is a matter of personal opinion. Many times people equate or confuse subjective opinion with objective reality. Some people will argue something similar to this: Mike sees a green maple leaf but Terry sees a yellow maple leaf and both perspectives are equally valid and true. But as Dr. John Robbins rightly points out, “The law [of non-contradiction] is expressed symbolically as: ‘Not both A and not-A.’ [This means that] a maple leaf may be both green and not-green (yellow) but it cannot be both green and yellow at the same time and in the same respect—it is green in the summer, yellow in the fall. If it is green and yellow at the same time then it cannot be green and yellow in the same respect; one part, however small, will be green, another yellow.”[2] Mike and Terry may have observed the maple leaf at different times or they may have observed different parts of the maple leaf in order to reach their conclusions, but if they are observing the same areas of the same leaf at the same time then they cannot both be right about the color. The Christian should understand that subjective opinion can only be validated by objective truth. It is objectively true that each of them is of a different opinion about the color of the leaf, but it is not true in any sense that both opinions are correct if, in fact, they are contrary. The terms objective and absolute are many times used synonymously as well as the terms subjective and relative. That which is objectively true is regarded as absolutely true in all instances and that which is subjectively true is only regarded as relatively true in particular instances.

Moral Relativism

Moral Relativism holds two main tenets. The first is that there are no moral absolutes which apply universally to all people. Instead of moral judgments being absolute they are only relative to individual preference or perspective. The second tenet is that there is no objective moral standard which is universally binding and unchanging. Instead of an objective moral standard, which is true, independent of personal opinion, relativism stipulates that all moral judgments are subject to individual preference or perspective. True moral judgments can, therefore, differ from person to person, and can even change over time. Every person can choose for themselves what is morally right or wrong. According to the relativist’s view, that which is morally wicked for one person may be morally righteous for another.

Those who subscribe to this view of morality often seek the moral freedom it offers. We can decide for ourselves what is morally right and wrong. This view often resonates with those who support the homosexual agenda and those of the pro-abortion movement. While the moral relativists seek to empower every person by giving moral authority to each individual, they inevitably make it impossible for moral judgments to be intelligible. This is because the inevitable result of moral relativism is that contradictory judgments of morality must be true at the same time, but it is impossible for contradictions to be true. The result is a worldview in which murder, rape, and child abuse are both morally right and wrong at the same time.

Let’s consider an example in which a father physically abuses his children. From the father’s perspective, his actions are morally right. He believes he is conditioning his children for the real world and that he is teaching them to be tough. Now let’s suppose that his youngest daughter dies as a result of the injuries inflicted from the physical abuse. We might expect at this point that there would be an admission of wrongdoing from the father but to the contrary, he stands firm and professes that his actions are nothing less than merciful. Perhaps this response from the father is too extreme to even be considered possible, but before we dismiss it altogether, let us remember that it was abortion icon Margaret Sanger who said, “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."[3] While the father feels that what he has done is morally right and even merciful, the mother and his other children view his actions as morally wrong. Because the moral relativists say that what is morally right or wrong is determined by individual perspective, the inescapable conclusion is that the very same actions of child abuse and murder are both morally right and not morally right (morally wrong) at the same time.

Here we have a clear violation of the law of non-contradiction because "the same attribute [in this case moral rightness] cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject [child abuse and murder] and in the same respect.”[4] The Relativist intends to argue that moral judgments held by different individuals, which are contradictory, are equally valid and true. This view, however, requires the rejection of logic which in turn provides a sanction for evil because it refuses to properly distinguish right moral judgments from wrong moral judgments. This rejection of logic makes morality unintelligible. If such contradictory moral judgments were made in reference to the same moral action then those moral judgments would be unintelligible. The inevitable result would be a state of confusion in which we could not know whether or not child abuse was morally right or wrong. If all moral judgments are shown to be contradictory then all moral judgments are reduced to absurdity. While the relativist may wish to disregard logic at this point he is still required to use logic in his own argument and he cannot advocate his own views without first presupposing the law of non-contradiction.

Not only does moral relativism fail to make moral judgments intelligible, it also fails to make moral judgments indissoluble; that is perpetually binding or obligatory for all people. This is due to the fact that all moral judgments in this view are grounded entirely in subjective arbitrary opinions which have no universal significance at all. It is important to understand that whatever the moral relativist may propose as morally right or wrong is not to be regarded as universally true or obligatory for all people. On moral relativism, there are no universal moral obligations that one should live by. This concept, however, seems to stand in direct opposition to our thinking when it comes to certain moral judgments.

When we make the moral judgment, for instance, that murder (the unjustifiable killing of an innocent person) is morally wrong, we intend to imply that murder is morally wrong for everyone. It does not matter if the person committing the murder is someone of wealth, influence, status or power; wrong is wrong and murder is morally wrong. This, of course, is not a new concept and one should only keep in mind the history of tyrannical dictatorships when considering the indissoluble nature of certain moral judgments. History is full of dictators like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and many others who murdered millions of people. These tyrants are a sobering reminder that everyone, including the person in power, has a moral obligation to act justly and refrain from murder. Murder, however, cannot be considered morally wrong for all people unless all people have the same moral obligation to not murder. This creates a problem for the moral relativist because in their view there aren’t any indissoluble moral obligations. This means that the moral relativist has no foundation upon which to stand and criticize the actions of people like Adolf Hitler or anybody else for that matter. According to the moral relativist, Hitler could decide for himself what was morally right or wrong even if that meant the systematic genocide of an entire group of people.

In other words, if there are no indissoluble moral judgments then there are no moral absolutes. It stands to reason, though, that if every person has the same moral obligation to refrain from murder then the wrongness of murder stands as a moral absolute. We could simply say that murder is absolutely wrong. The moral relativist, however, denies moral absolutes and does not ultimately believe that murder is absolutely wrong. Similarly, they do not believe that child abuse or rape are absolutely wrong either. We should press the issue here and ask the relativist, “Since you believe that murder, rape, and child abuse are not absolutely wrong then can you give some examples of when these things are not morally wrong and are morally right?”

When asking questions like this to someone who holds this view of morality the reply is often nothing more than an assertion of the obvious. They will reply that “to them” things like rape, child abuse, and murder are morally wrong, but “to someone else” these things might be viewed as morally right. This reply is nothing new or insightful and it offers no hope of establishing a system of morality. This is a very popular view of morality known as descriptive moral relativism, and although it is widely held, it too fails to make moral judgments indissoluble or intelligible because it merely states the obvious; that different people have different views about what is morally right and wrong. Descriptive relativism can tell us nothing about what actually is morally right or wrong; nor can it tell us what we should do. Because moral relativism cannot substantiate any intelligible or indissoluble moral judgments the moral relativist cannot establish any ethical normative conclusions or moral imperatives. They simply cannot provide us a coherent, rational view of morality.

Morality is either subjectively based or it is objectively based. These are two mutually exclusive positions and there is no third option. If morality cannot be grounded or rationally justified from a subjective standpoint then that leaves us with the only other alternative. Morality must be grounded in an objective standard. For the Christian worldview, God’s divine law provides us an objective standard by which we can say what is right and wrong as well as advocate what we should or should not do. This view is most often recognized as the divine command theory. This view stipulates that morality depends on God and his commandments.

Euthyphro’s Dilemma

Plato’s dialogue the Euthyphro Dilemma has become an enduring inspiration for argumentation against the Christian position that morality depends on God. In this dialogue between Euthyphro and Socrates, which takes place outside of a courthouse in Athens, Plato examines the essence of piety. This short dialogue has inspired many unbelievers to ask the question: Is something right or good because God decreed that it is, or is it decreed by God as right or good because it is right or good? The question is presented as a dilemma, a choice between two options, which ultimately lead to unsatisfactory conclusions for the Christian. If the Christian chooses the first option, that something is right or good because God decreed it to be so, then the implication is that God’s decree is completely arbitrary. This means that God could have decreed that murder and lying were good. If the Christian chooses the second option, that God decrees something is right or good because it is right or good, then the implication is that God must abide by a higher standard or authority than himself. This means that there is something greater than God and that he is not the ultimate source of goodness.

It is very likely that the Christian will hear some variation of this argument in a debate over morality. While some people may think this argument is sophisticated and persuasive, we should point out that it is fallacious because it presents a false dilemma. The argument only offers two options when in fact there is a third option. The third option is this: God’s decrees that something is right or good because it is in accordance with His own good character and righteous will. The standard for what is morally right and good is what God commands but it is vitally important to note that his commands are based on his own character and will. "Not only is God the governor and judge; prior to this, he is the legislator. It is his will that establishes the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong; it is his will that sets the norms of righteous conduct."[5] Only God has the power and authority to legislate right and wrong, to judge between good and evil and to execute punishment to those who break his law. God has established the virtue of his own character as the basis for universal moral commands, while particular commands are based on his will. The universal moral commands are often referred to as moral law while the particular commands are often referred to as positive law. However, these distinctions are not mutually exclusive and there is overlap. Therefore, it is both his character and his will that are the basis for his commands. This means that God is neither arbitrary in his commands nor is he forced to appeal to a higher moral authority than himself. Scripture tells us, “For when God made a promise to Abraham since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself” (Hebrews 6:13). Clearly, there is no greater authority than God.

Some Christian apologists have argued that God’s commands are the basis for that which is morally right and good, while others have argued that it is His character. Although, it would seem that most Christian apologists who attempt to answer the Euthyphro Dilemma will argue that it is only God’s character and not his commands that are the basis for morality. Clearly, they are attempting to avoid the charge of God’s commands being arbitrary, but this misses the full picture.

Therefore, we must ask: is it God’s commands or it is His character that is the basis for morality? To answer this, we need to make a distinction between an ontological basis and epistemological basis for morality. Ontology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the question concerning what is real or what exist. The ontological basis for that which is morally right and good is God’s character, and in some instances, it is his sovereign will. Without God’s character and will as the transcendent ontological basis for morality, then right and wrong are reduced to subjective opinion and preference. In other words, there would be no actual right and wrong but only a difference of opinion and preference.

On the other hand, Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the question concerning how we can know something, and without God’s revelation, we could not know his righteous decrees or his moral standard. Therefore, the epistemological basis for that which is morally right and good is God’s revelation which is given authoritatively and most clearly in the form of Divine commands. It is, therefore, appropriate to say that God’s commands are the basis for that which is morally right and wrong, and his character and will are the basis for that which He commands. The question often arises, though; “how can we account for the fact that actions such as lying and murder were wrong prior to the issuance of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai?” Certainly, it was morally wrong for Cain to murder Abel even though it happened prior to God giving the command to Moses “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). Because God’s character and will are the ontological basis for what is morally good this means that objective right and wrong existed prior to Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. The Scriptures say that God is good (Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19), and that he is eternal (Revelation 1:8), which means that that which is good has existed in the eternal, unchanging character of God.

Now, this raises the question; “how can God find fault with Cain for murdering his brother Abel if he had not read the Ten Commandments?” There must be a revealed law in order for this act to be a sin. It cannot merely be based on God’s character. Clark notes, “The Scripture says precisely what sin is. ‘Sin is the transgression of the law’ (1 John 3:4). ‘Where no law is, there is no transgression’ (Romans 4:15). ‘Through the law cometh the knowledge of sin’ (Romans 3:20). It should be clear then that sin is always defined by the law. Unless one knows the law of God, he cannot know what is wrong, evil or sinful.”[6] How can God punish those who have not received expressed commands and how is it possible to know right and wrong prior to God giving the commands if that knowledge depends on God’s revelation? Here we must point out that no one is ignorant of God’s moral law (ie the Ten Commandments). The answer to this question of supposed ignorance to the moral law is God’s revelation, but not in the form of divine commands. Remember, revelation is the epistemological foundation for the knowledge of right and wrong, but there are two categories of revelation that must be considered in order to properly address this question. The first category is a general revelation which is given through innate knowledge in the form of a moral conscience and the second category is a special revelation which is given in the form of divine commands.

General Revelation and Morality

General revelation is the category of Christian epistemology that allows us to address how we can know what is morally right and wrong apart from the expressed commands of God given in Scripture. Matt Slick writes, “General revelation is the knowledge of God, as well as the knowledge of right and wrong, that can be obtained through nature. This general revelation of God’s existence and basic morality is known by everyone.”[7] The Christian can account for the fact that all people inherently know that actions such as lying and murder are morally wrong even if some people have not read the Scriptures. This is because we are made in the image of God. God is a moral agent and because we are imaged in his likeness we too are moral agents. We are not only endowed by God with the gift of rationality but we are also endowed with the gift of morality. We have been given the knowledge of right and wrong in the form of a conscience. Jesus Christ is “the true light, which gives light [knowledge] to everyone” (John 1:9), and part of that light is a moral conscience. The word conscience contains the prefix con, from the Latin com, meaning “with or together,” and the suffix science from the Latin scire, meaning “to know.” The mind of man is illuminated by Christ with a moral conscience that provides us with (con) the knowledge (science) of right and wrong.

While this answers the question of moral knowledge prior to the issuance of the Ten Commandments to Moses it may appear contradictory to what Paul says in Romans chapter 7. How can we suggest that people had the knowledge of right and wrong prior to the Ten Commandments (the moral law) when Paul says, “Yet if it had not been for the law [Ten Commandments], I would not have known sin? For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet” (Romans 7:7). It is important to note that Paul is quoting Exodus 20:17 and Deuteronomy 5:21 in this verse. Paul is saying that he would not have known that coveting or even that lying and murder were wrong apart from the Ten Commandments. This may appear to contradict the view that man had a knowledge of right and wrong prior to the Ten Commandments being given to Moses?

Paul does affirm that our knowledge of right and wrong depends on the knowledge of God’s moral law but he does not say that the moral law was first given to Moses. This is nothing more than an apparent contradiction and any perceived tension can easily be resolved. The answer is given earlier when Paul says concerning the Gentiles who do not have the law that; “...the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” This is why the 1689 London Baptist Confession states, “God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart, (19.1) and that “the same [moral] law that was first written in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall, and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables, the four first containing our duty towards God, and the other six, our duty to man” (19.2).

It is also important to note that the first chapter of Romans points to an innate knowledge of God and his laws. In verse 20 we read, “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature [character], have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” God’s invisible attributes include His rationality and His morality which are part of his divine nature, and these attributes are clearly perceived in the creation of man who is the very image of God. God’s moral law is a direct reflection of His character. Lying is wrong because God is a God of truth and murder is wrong because God is a God of justice. Adultery is wrong because God is always faithful. God’s moral law is a reflection of who God is and it is because God has made himself known to us innately that we are without excuse. Knowledge of the moral law is given innately to all people. The knowledge of his decree is innate knowledge which is why Paul says, “they know God’s righteous decree” (Romans 1:32).

Special Revelation and Morality

While general revelation makes God’s commands known innately, it is special revelation that provides us with expressed commands given in Scripture. However, there are two different categories of divine commands that we find in Scripture. There are universal commands which are morally binding for all people (referred to as moral law), and then there are particular commands given to certain individuals (referred to as positive law). The universal commands are primarily an outworking of God’s character while particular commands are primarily an outworking of his will. The moral law (i.e. the Ten Commandments) comprise a set of universal commands that are morally obligatory for all people, but God has also issued commands to individuals that are not morally obligatory for all people. Particular commands are replete throughout scripture. God commands Noah, “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood” (Genesis 6:14). Surely, we don’t have to obey this command and build an ark out of gopher wood, but Noah had obligation to obey this command. It would have been wrong for him to disobey it. This particular command given to Noah was based on God’s will which was to show mercy and preserve mankind through Noah and his family while bringing judgment upon the rest of mankind for their wickedness.

In a similar manner, God commands Jonah, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me” (Jonah 1:2). For Jonah, this particular command from God was a moral duty and he had an obligation to obey, but we are not all called to go to Nineveh and preach against it. When Jonah did not obey God’s command to go to Nineveh we see that God punished him; “And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17). These types of commands reveal God’s will and they are morally obligatory for their recipients, yet they are not morally obligatory for all people. We will not be judged for our lack of obedience to any particular command of God unless we are the direct recipients of such commands.

It is important to point out that commands that are primarily based on God’s will and those that are primarily based on his character both reflect God’s goodness and never contradict. Some people have suggested that God’s particular commands have conflicted with his universal commands, but this would result in a contradiction. In other words, God would be self-contradictory and double minded. As an example, we can consider God’s universal command not to murder (Exodus 20:13), and contrast that with God’s particular command to the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanite clans (Deuteronomy 7.1-2; 20.16-18).

The KJV renders Exodus 20:13 as “Thou shalt not kill,” and this is perhaps the reason for some of the confusion. This passage is better translated “Thou shalt not murder,” and most, if not all, other Bible translations correctly translate the passage with the verb “murder.” God commands us not to murder and some have misunderstood this to mean that God commanded us not to kill. We need to understand the difference between killing and murdering. Most people tend to recognize that there is a distinction to be made, and may even try to think of scenarios in which killing is not considered murder. Often these scenarios involve situations of war or self-defense in which there is no other option but to kill another person in order to preserve one’s own life or protect someone else. In such cases, killing is not always morally wrong, however, murder is always morally wrong and should never be condoned. Simply put, murder is the wrongful killing of another person.

Just as the state may be justified in the execution of a guilty criminal so too God is justified in the death of the wicked. This certainly was true of the Canaanites. By the time God had commanded the destruction of the Canaanites, their wickedness was no longer restrained and their evil was exceedingly great. In fact, their iniquity was complete. As a society, they were completely given over to practices such as homosexuality, bestiality, ritual prostitution, and even child sacrifice. Infants and children up to age four were often sacrificed to the pagan god Moloch by being burned alive. It is important to point out just how patient and longsuffering God was with these people. In Genesis 15:16 God says, “the iniquity of the Amorites [a clan of the Canaanites] is not yet complete” and we see that God withheld his judgment against the Canaanites for 400 years. God waited until their entire society became exceedingly wicked and they were completely given over to their sin. We should also remember that God was willing to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of only 10 righteous people. Although no petition of mercy was ever made on the behalf of the Canaanites, and there was no obligation for God to be merciful, we can certainly suppose that God would have shown mercy for the sake of 10 righteous Canaanites. What we do see is that God waits until their iniquity is complete. This means there were no righteous Canaanites to be found among them. This should give us some perspective as to just how wicked the Canaanite societies were and just how patient and longsuffering God is in his judgments.

When God finally dealt with the Canaanites he used the Israelites to execute his judgment. The Israelites, in effect, became the instrument of judgment by which God punished them for their wickedness. There is, therefore, no contradiction between God’s universal moral command and his particular command. God commanded the Israelites to kill, but not in the same sense in which he had previously commanded them not to kill; that is not to murder.

While these particular commands are morally obligatory only for their recipients a system of morality, a theory of ethics requires universal commands that are morally obligatory for all people. These commands or laws must be universal and fixed. The Christian worldview provides such universal and fixed moral commands, yet the unbeliever’s worldview cannot establish any universal and fixed moral command or law. This is an important point to make with the unbeliever.

Universal and Fixed Laws

Earlier it was argued that only if God exists do we have an objective moral standard and only if we have an objective moral standard do we have a basis for moral judgments. An objective moral standard can also be referred to as an objective moral law. The argument is still the same though because only if there is a moral lawgiver do we have an objective moral law and only if we have an objective moral law do we have a basis for moral judgments. The Christian worldview is able to establish an objective moral law because “the LORD is our Lawgiver” (Isa. 33:22). Unless a moral standard is objectively binding and unchanging it cannot be regarded as a universal and fixed moral law. God’s revealed moral law is an objectively binding moral standard because He has the authority and power to punish those who break his law. This makes His law a universally binding moral standard. His moral law is also fixed because it will not arbitrarily change from one day to the next. Laws which reside in the eternal and immutable character of God, whether the laws of logic or the laws of morality are universal and fixed. However, it is important to note that the laws of physics are only universal and fixed as long as God chooses to uphold the universe in a law-like fashion, but the laws of logic reflect the eternal character of God’s thinking. While God may break the laws of physics he can never break the laws of logic. These two types of laws should not be equated. The moral laws are similar to the laws of logic in that they reflect the eternal character of God’s goodness and righteousness. The laws of logic are God's standard for rational thought and the moral laws are God's standard for moral conduct. The problem for the unbeliever is that he cannot account for nor can he establish any universal and fixed laws in his worldview.

Moral laws are universal because they apply everywhere and to everyone, but the unbeliever cannot rationally justify any universal law from his worldview. Without divine revelation from an all-knowing God, he is limited to his own observation and experience and no universal law can be deduced from observation or experience. Of course, we can expect that an observant unbeliever will point out that universal laws are not arrived at by a deductive method of reasoning but are rather based on an inductive method of reasoning. But here the unbeliever is committing the fallacy of induction if he intends to establish any universal law, moral or otherwise, on the basis of his own limited observation or experience. “Induction is the attempt to derive a general [universal] law from particular instances”[8] and unless the induction is completed it is always fallacious. “As Hume amply showed, our experience is limited in the past and non-existent in the future, with the result that we cannot know that all bread is nourishing, or that all arsenic is poisonous, or that all motions require a cause.”[9] In the unbeliever’s worldview, there is no epistemological foundation which would allow him to establish that murder is universally wrong. The unbeliever cannot establish any universal moral judgments in his worldview. This is once again because universal judgments are contingent upon universal laws and universal laws cannot be established on the basis of limited observation or experience.

Not only are the moral laws universal but they are also fixed because they will not arbitrarily change from one day to the next. This is true of moral laws just as it is true of the laws of logic. Moral judgments concerning the future will reflect past moral judgments if they are based upon unchanging moral laws. In the same way, that we can ask the unbeliever how he knows that contradictions are always false, we can also ask how he knows that murder is always morally wrong. The unbeliever may wish to say that the Nazi genocide of the Jews during WWII was morally wrong, but how can he say that a future genocide will be just as morally wrong. To say that we should not murder because it would be morally wrong is to make a judgment on a future action. The unbeliever cannot provide an epistemological foundation by which he can say that the future act of murder will be just as morally wrong as past acts of murder without fallaciously begging the question that the future will be like the past because of past experience. To suggest that the future will be like the past on the basis of past observation or experience is circular. Because his worldview is unable to provide a non-circular justification for saying that the future will be like the past he cannot affirm any timeless moral laws without being fallacious. He cannot say we should not murder because it will be morally wrong on the basis that it was wrong in the past. He has nothing outside of his own limited past experience to provide a basis for his judgments. Again, Hume pointed out that “our experience is limited in the past and non-existent in the future” with the result that we cannot know that the future will be like the past on the basis of observation and experiences. The reason is simple; no one has ever observed or experienced the future. In the unbeliever’s worldview there no justification for arguing that we should not murder tomorrow because it would be morally wrong, for that bears judgment on future actions which he has not yet observed or experienced. He, therefore, cannot advocate any moral imperatives in his worldview.

Contrary to the unbeliever’s inability to account for universal and fixed moral laws the Christian is able to account for such laws from the Bible. Scripture is the epistemological foundation for the Christian’s worldview which means that we have an epistemological foundation for universal and fixed laws. The Christian does not rely on observation or experience but rests wholly on the word of God. God, who is the lawgiver, has established his law as the universal and fixed rule of life. We know that His law is universal because everyone is held accountable to that standard. Paul writes, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God” (Romans 3:19). John further tells us, “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:14) and we know from Paul that, “all have sinned [broken the law] and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This is why God “commands all people everywhere to repent,” (Acts 17:31). We should note the universal terms in these passages: “every mouth; whole world; all;” and “all people.” These laws are the universal standard of morality. But the laws are also fixed and will not arbitrarily change from one day to the next. Jesus said, “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void” (Luke 16:17).

Far from the Euthyphro dilemma being a problem for the Christian worldview, we find instead that it is the Atheist who is lacking. We should point out for the Atheist that using the Euthyphro argument is an exercise in futility. It is clear that those who advance the argument are aware that being arbitrary is unacceptable and recognize the need for an objective standard. At this point, the Christian may want to turn the tables on the Atheist and ask: Is something right or good because you said that it is, or did you say it is right or good because it is right or good? We can refer to this as the Atheist’s dilemma and to help the Atheist see the problem they are facing we can also ask: Is murder wrong because you say so, or did you say murder is wrong because it is wrong.

While this is a false dilemma when used against the God of the Bible it is a true dilemma when applied to the unbeliever. Every moral judgment the unbeliever makes must be established on the basis of one of these two options and neither option is satisfactory. If he says that murder is morally wrong because he said so, then we may just as well ask who made him the boss. In this reply, he is not claiming to be a moral relativist but is rather claiming to have moral authority over everyone else. Not only is this extremely egocentric and narcissistic but it is equally delusional. Hopefully, the unbeliever will recognize that they personally don’t have the moral authority to determine what is right or good for everyone else. We should point out again that their subjective opinion is not morally binding for others. What makes them the moral authority for all humanity? We should ask them; “does everyone have to abide by your subjective, arbitrary moral opinion?” I have yet to hear someone argue in the affirmative to that question.

This leaves the unbeliever the other option; which is to say that murder is wrong because it is wrong. If he says that murder is wrong, not because he said so, but because it is wrong, then he is appealing to an objective moral standard that does not depend on his own personal belief or opinion. The problem is that in his worldview there no objective moral standard by which to make such judgments. As we have already seen, any moral standard established on the basis of individual opinion is purely subjective and every individual lacks the moral authority to establish universal indissoluble moral judgments. The unbeliever cannot establish an objective moral standard from the subjective opinion of the individual. This is why the unbeliever must now appeal to a standard outside of himself, an objective moral standard, to say that murder is wrong because it is wrong. When such a reply is given we can simply ask: “based on what objective standard?”

[1] Reymond, Robert L. A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. Nashville: T. Nelson, 1998. [2] Robbins, John W. "Why Study Logic?" Trinity Foundation RSS. July/August 1985. Accessed June 28, 2016. http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=39. [3] Sanger, Margaret. Woman and the New Race. New York: Brentano's, 1920. [4] Robbins, “Why Study Logic?”, 2. [5] Clark, Gordon H. Religion, Reason and Revelation. Vol. 4. Signature. TN: Trinity Foundation, 2012. Pg. 137 [6] Clark, Gordon H. What Is The Christian Life. TN: Trinity Foundation, 2016. [7] Slick, Matt. "What is general revelation and special revelation?" CARM.org. Accessed December 12, 2016. https://carm.org/questions/about-bible/what-general-and-special-revelation [8] Crampton, Gary. "The Biblical View of Science." Trinity Foundation. http://trinithttp://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=163yfoundation.org/journal.php?id=163. [9] Clark, Gordon H. Christian Philosophy, The Works of Gordon Haddon Clark. Vol. 4. Signature. TN: Trinity Foundation.

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Keller, Timothy. The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith. New York: Dutton, 2008. Kindle edition. Although Keller is a Reformed pastor in good standing with the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA), he strays considerably from sound biblical doctrine and compromises the gospel in one of his better-known publications, The Prodigal God. More unfortunate is that few seem to realize this. This review will apply Scripture to correct the doctrinal errors in Keller’s The Prodigal God, for “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tm 3:16).[1]

It is not enough to simply recognize doctrinal errors; they must be corrected publicly. Any pastor who recognizes such errors, especially ones that pertain to the essentials of the faith, yet remains silent is derelict in his duty to uphold sound doctrine. This is why Paul tells Titus that an elder is to “give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Ti 1:9). It is important to examine popular and influential works like The Prodigal God in light of what the Bible mandates in places such as 1 Thessalonians 5:21 and Acts 17:9-11.

The purpose and target audience of The Prodigal God are clearly stated by Keller in the introduction:

THIS short book is meant to lay out the essentials of the Christian message, the gospel. It can, therefore, serve as an introduction to the Christian faith for those who are unfamiliar with its teachings or who may have been away from them for some time.

This volume is not just for seekers, however. Many lifelong Christian believers feel they understand the basics of the Christian faith quite well and don’t think they need a primer. Nevertheless, one of the signs that you many not grasp the unique radical nature of the gospel is that you are certain that you do.

This book, then, is written to both curious outsiders and established insiders of the faith both to those Jesus calls “younger brothers” and those he calls “elder brothers” in the famous Parable of the Prodigal Son.[2]

Keller states that his book “lays out the essentials of the Christian message,” which he correctly identifies as the gospel, and it is for this reason that we will examine what Keller teaches about the gospel. The reader should keep in mind that Keller wrote this book for “seekers” and “curious outsiders” as well as “established insiders of the faith.” That Keller is writing to non-Christians as well as mature Christians is troublesome, considering the book’s doctrinal errors. We can also wonder why there aren’t more Christians calling Keller to give an account of his many false teachings in this book.

Throughout The Prodigal God Keller identifies the “curious outsiders” as the younger brother and the “established insiders of the faith” as the elder brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. While Keller rightly identifies the elder brother in the parable as the Pharisees, he also calls them “established insiders of the faith,” which is confusing and misleading because the Pharisees adamantly rejected Christ. And while Scripture states that we are to “examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith” (2 Cor 13:5), Keller nevertheless calls them “established insiders of the faith.” One has to ask: What is the criterion Keller uses to identify the Pharisees as “established insiders of the faith?” And what “faith” is he referring too? We will take a closer look at this too and show from Scripture that in order to make this portrayal, Keller has to ignore—and often blatantly contradict—what the Bible teaches concerning the Pharisees.

One of the most troubling statements made by Keller in the introduction is that “one of the signs that you may not grasp the unique radical nature of the gospel is that you are certain that you do.” Not only is this absurd, it is troubling in light of what Keller says regarding the believer’s assurance of salvation in later chapters of the book. This statement is for the “established insiders of the faith” who “think they don’t need a primer” on the Christian faith. If it is true, though, that one of the signs you may not grasp the gospel is that you are certain that you do, then you can never be certain of your salvation. If you are certain that you have grasped the gospel message, then that is one of the signs that you may not have grasped it at all! This is a serious problem because understanding the gospel is necessary for salvation. Why else did Paul write, “Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ”? (Gal 2:16). Is Paul’s confidence in having grasped the gospel to be taken as a sign that he has not grasped it at all? Why did John “write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God”? Answer: “That you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 Jn 5:13). The truth is that believers can be certain of their salvation because of what Christ has done on the cross. We will compare this statement further with what Keller describes as assurance later in this review.

The Elder Brother and the Pharisees

Keller’s portrayal of the elder brother is sure to leave his readers with an unbiblical understanding of the Pharisees. We will first look at what Keller says about the elder brother and then what he says concerning the Pharisees. We also need to consider why he portrays the Pharisees the way he does.

Keller and the elder brother

Keller correctly identifies who the elder brother in Jesus’ parable represents and to whom the parable is directed. He knows Jesus is using the elder brother as an illustration of the Pharisees and that he is directing his parable at them:

The second group of listeners was the “Pharisees and the teachers of the Law,” who were represented by the elder brother. (7)

So to whom is Jesus’s teaching in this parable directed? It is to the second group, the scribes, and Pharisees. (7)

It is because the real audience for this story is the Pharisees, the elder brothers. Jesus is pleading with his enemies to respond to his message. (27)

The elder brother gets no harsh condemnation but a loving plea to turn from his anger and self-righteousness. Jesus is pleading in love with his deadliest enemies. (74)

So while Keller correctly identifies the elder brother as representative of the Pharisees and even correctly calls them the “enemies” and the “deadliest enemies” of Christ, he also calls them “insiders of the faith”:

This book, then, is written to both curious outsiders and established insiders of the faith both to those Jesus calls “younger brothers” and those he calls “elder brothers” in the famous Parable of the Prodigal Son.” (Introduction)

The targets of this story are not “wayward sinners” but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders.” (8)

Keller identifies the Pharisees as both the “moral insiders” and “established insiders of the faith,” the same Pharisees who were the “deadliest enemies” of Jesus. While it may be true that many churches today have legalistic “elder brother Pharisees,” no legalistic Pharisee is “in the faith.” Keller applies the illustration of the elder brother to modern-day Christians, even though it’s impossible for a true Christian to be a legalistic Pharisee. Jesus is not directing his teaching to “insiders of the faith.” It appears that from Keller’s perspective it is possible to be an “established insider of the faith” and yet at the same time be an “enemy” of Jesus. Of course, a person can “profess” to be a Christian, attend a church every Sunday, and yet be a legalistic Pharisee, but Keller never makes this distinction.

Keller and Pharisees

So what does a Pharisee look like from Keller’s perspective? Keller identifies the Pharisees as the moral conformists who believe and obey the Bible and put the will of God and the community first. He blurs the line between a Christian believer and a Pharisee, which seems hard to do since they are polar opposites. In other words, Keller portrays the Pharisee as a picture of what Christians should be! He argues that the second group of listeners was the

Pharisees and the teachers of the law, who were represented by the elder brother… They studied and obeyed the Scriptures. They worshiped faithfully and prayed constantly. (7)

So to whom is Jesus’s teaching in this parable directed? It is the second group, the scribes, and Pharisees… The targets of this story are not “wayward sinners” but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. (8)

Jesus’s teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing religious people of his day. (15)

So from the quotes above, we have the Pharisees depicted as the Bible-believing religious people of Jesus day who studied and obeyed the Scriptures and did everything the Bible requires. Let’s compare this with how the Bible describes the Pharisees and ask some basic questions.

First, even though the Pharisees read and studied the scriptures, did they believe and obey them? Note that the “Scriptures” the Pharisees had at the time was the Old Testament.

Jesus said to the Pharisees, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (Jn 5:46)

Jesus also said, “But you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (Jn 10:26-27).

The Pharisees did not believe Jesus and therefore did not believe what Moses wrote. They did not believe the Scriptures and they were not the “Bible-believing religious people of [Jesus’] day.” John Robbins writes, “It is a complete fiction to say that Orthodox Jews believe the Old Testament. Those who assert that unrepentant Jews believe the Old Testament call Christ a liar.”[3] In passages like John 10:26-27 Jesus plainly says that they did not believe because “You are not part of my flock.”

Second, did the Pharisees obey Scripture as Keller asserts? It is clear from Jesus’ own words that they did not obey. Jesus said they were lawless hypocrites: "Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness" (Mt 23:26). Just as the reprobate cannot be the elect, a person cannot be both lawless and obedient at the same time. The Pharisees had an outward expression of obedience but they did not actually obey the Scriptures: “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men… You have a fine way of rejecting the commandments of God in order to establish your own tradition” (Mk 7:8-9). Unfortunately, Keller does not point any of this out and contradicts what the Bible says by stating that they were “religious people who do everything the Bible requires.”

And while Keller says that “they worshiped faithfully,” the Bible says, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me” (Mk 7:6-7). The Pharisees may have been devoted false worshipers but Keller makes it appear as if they were faithfully worshiping the one true God.

Keller also knows that he can’t press every single detail literally from the metaphor:

Let me be careful to avoid a misunderstanding here. This story is a great metaphor of sin and salvation, but we can’t press every single detail literally. Neither Jesus nor any author of the Bible ever implies that any human being is flawless, without sin or fault, except Jesus himself.” (74)

While Keller gives this disclaimer he nevertheless continually draws out details from the parable that contradict the Bible. He is correct in saying that no “human being is flawless, without sin or fault, except Jesus himself,” yet he neglects what the Bible actually teaches concerning the true condition of man’s depravity. This is only part of the truth; which he continually betrays in what he writes about the Pharisees. This “Reformed” pastor undermines the Biblical doctrine of total depravity, especially when he attempts to make a distinction between the Pharisee and the true believer by claiming that the Pharisees are “being good”:

They key difference between a Pharisee and a believer in Jesus is inner-heart motivation. Pharisees are being good but out of a fear-fueled need to control God. They don’t really trust him or love him. To them, God is an exacting boss, not a loving father. (85)

So while Keller virtually erases the line between a Christian and Pharisee and actually applies the elder brother image to true Christians, he does make a distinction between Pharisee and true believer. Normally this would be helpful but unfortunately, he once again ignores what the Bible says and creates false distinctions and contradictions.

It would appear by and large that many young, restless, and reformed readers are not even batting an eye when they read this book. Let’s compare again Keller’s teachings with the Bible. He says that the Pharisees are “being good” but Jesus said, “no one is good except God alone” (Lk 18:19).

One might argue that Keller doesn’t exactly call them good in the quote, but rather he just says they are “being good.” This is still baffling! When were they ever “being good?” Was it when they “were persecuting Jesus” (Jn 5:16)? Or how about when they “were seeking all the more to kill him” (Jn 5:18)? Were they being good when Christ called them lawless hypocrites (Mt 23:26)? Or when he told them they were doing the desires of their father the Devil (Jn 8:48)? Were they being good when they were going to stone him (Jn 10:33)? Or was it when they cried, “Crucify him!” (Lk 23:21)?

Keller argues that the “key difference” is “inner-heart motivation.” It’s not repentance, it’s not faith in Christ, it’s not that one has Satan as their father and the other is the child of God, it’s not that one is in the kingdom of darkness and one in the kingdom of light, and it’s not even their unconverted human depravity. No, it’s just their “heart motivation.” Keller says that the “inner-heart motivation” is the problem but then identifies this inner-heart motivation as a “fear-fueled need to control God.” Yet the Bible clearly says that “there is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom 3:18). Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks,” and the inner heart-motivation of the Pharisees was revealed when “they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” (Lk 23:21). The true difference between a Christian and a Pharisee is repentance and faith in the redemptive work of Jesus that bears fruit in keeping with repentance (Lk 3:8).

Keller also says “they don’t really trust him or love him,” and he is correct but he fails to mention the true disposition of the unconverted sinner, which is that they’re all “haters of God” (Rom 1:30). Perhaps this would be too offensive to his curious outsiders. He writes, “to them God is an exacting boss, not a loving father,” suggesting that the problem rests in their perception of God rather than identifying man’s actual relationship with God as the real problem. To them, God is not a loving father because they have a different father, as previously mentioned.

Such a trivial distinction doesn’t matter though because the Bible makes it clear that “no one does good, not even one,” (Rom 3:12) as long as we remain unconverted. Only after we are made alive in Christ can we do any good works “which God prepared beforehand, that we should just walk in them” (Eph 2:10). The Bible thunderously denounces all merit placed in man outside of faith in Christ: “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin" (Rom 14:23), for “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Is 64:6).

So from the Bible we can see that the Pharisees were not the Bible-believing religious people of Jesus day. They did not obey the Scriptures, they did not do everything the Bible required, and they did not put the will of God first. Keller abuses the text and wrongly portrays the Pharisees as what Christians should look like, while at the same time misapplying the illustration of the elder brother to this same group of “Christians,” or, as he puts it, “insiders of the faith.” Why does Keller distort the Biblical view of the Pharisees so much and equate them with conservative Christians? Keller claims that “if our churches aren’t appealing to the younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we’d like to think” (14). He seems to think that because our churches have “conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people” (14) in them, that is why “the licentious and liberated or broken and marginal avoid church” (14). Dr. E.S. Williams writes:

Keller uses the image of the elder brother to caricature conservative Christians as judgmental, hostile bigots. In Keller’s mind, the reason that conservative churches are so unpleasant is because they are filled with elder brothers (conservative Christians), who speak out against liberal, immoral values on sex and politics. Keller is profoundly hostile towards conservative Christians, whom he regards as the major cause of most problems in the world. So we have the remarkable paradox of a leading Presbyterian theologian who is vehemently opposed to the Reformed Christian faith. Even more amazing is the fact that he is the leader of The Gospel Coalition.[4]

Keller’s motive for writing such things is irrelevant if he is unfaithful to Scripture. It is egregious that Keller makes the Pharisees look like Christians, applies the elder brother image to Christians, and then makes a false distinction between the Christian and Pharisee. In so doing he contradicts the Bible repeatedly. This, however, is not the only problem with the book.

Redefining Sin

The title of Chapter 3 is “Redefining Sin.” Keller here distorts the biblical view of sin and attaches his own view to the parable of the prodigal son while at the same time appealing to the authority of Jesus. It is not uncommon for liberals, heretics, and false teachers to use orthodox language only to redefine the language in their teachings. Both Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses use the name of Jesus only to redefine the biblical doctrine of Christ. It is also very common for false teachers to make appeals of authority to Jesus in an attempt to pass off their unbiblical teachings. Many false prosperity preachers likewise appeal to Jesus’ own words in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly,” to preach their false health, wealth, prosperity gospel. In this chapter Keller once again injects his own views into the biblical text, contradicts the Bible, and makes a false appeal to Jesus as the one who is teaching what Keller is teaching:

Why doesn’t the elder brother go in? He himself gives the reason: “Because I’ve never disobeyed you.” The elder brother is not losing the father’s love in spite of his goodness, but because of it. It is not his sins that create the barrier between him and his father, it’s the pride he has in his moral record: it’s not his wrongdoing but his righteousness that is keeping him from sharing in the feast of the fathers.” (33)

Keller says that it is because of the elder son’s “goodness” that he is losing the father’s love and that creates a barrier between them, rather than his sins. Keep in mind that the elder brother represents the Pharisaical moral insiders of the faith and the father is a representation of Jesus. Can we lose God’s love because of our goodness? What else but sin could create a barrier between us and God? Can goodness and righteousness separate us from God?

Keller contradicts what Jesus said to the rich young ruler in Luke 18:19. While Keller affirms that the elder brother is good and righteous, Jesus, on the other hand, tells the rich young ruler, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Once again Scripture says, “None is righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10). What definition of righteous and good is Keller using if not a Biblical one? Apart from Christ, we have no righteousness or goodness. Keller identifies pride as the real problem but this pride is nothing less than sinful and is, therefore, wrong. Therefore, it would be the elder son’s wrongdoing, not his “goodness” that keeps him from sharing in the feast.

But Keller claims the opposite. He says that “the elder brother is not losing the father’s love in spite of his goodness, but because of it.” Yet when the rich young ruler boasted of his own goodness by saying, “All these [commandments] I have kept from my youth” (Lk 18:21), Jesus did not tell him that he was losing the father’s love because of his goodness. Instead, Jesus pointed him back to the first commandment by showing him that he loved his money more than God when he told him to “sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven” (Lk 18:22). Jesus’ response to the young man was consistent with what he said in response to the question about the greatest commandment to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment” (Mt 22:36). By loving his money more than God he was violating the first and greatest commandment. The young man left very sad because he was very rich (Lk 18:23). Notice that Jesus didn’t affirm the rich young ruler’s goodness in Luke 18, nor did he affirm the Pharisees’ goodness through the parable of the prodigal son. Jesus tells the Pharisees in Luke 16:15, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” So Jesus in no way intended to affirm the “goodness” of the Pharisees in the parable because they are “an abomination in the sight of God.”

And Jesus certainly did not intend to teach that it was “not his sins that create the barrier between him and his father.” Keller is a terrible expositor. Of course, it is our sin that creates a barrier between us and God! This is why Jesus pointed the rich young ruler back to the law to show him his sin. This is why Galatians 3:24 says the law was our schoolmaster, and why Paul says in Romans 7:7, “Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.” Jesus showed the rich young ruler it was his sin that was the problem, not his goodness. So while Keller says it was not his sin that created a barrier, Isaiah 59:2 reads, “It's your sins that have cut you off [created a barrier] from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore.” Clearly then, the real problem is the elder brother’s sin, not his “goodness” and “righteousness.”

Keller unravels his false teaching further:

Each one [of the sons], in other words, rebelled—but one did so by being very bad and the other by being extremely good.

Do you realize, then, what Jesus is teaching? Neither son loved the father for himself. They both were using the father for their own self-centered ends rather than loving, enjoying, and serving him for his own sake. This means that you can rebel against God and be alienated from him either by breaking his rules or by keeping all of them diligently.” (36)

How can a person rebel against God by being extremely good? If a person is rebelling against God at all then they clearly are not being good in any sense. It is impossible to rebel against God by being extremely good because the qualities of rebellion and goodness are contradictory. That is, unless you equivocate on the terms good and evil, in which case you should consider Isaiah 5:20: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”

In the second part of the quote, Keller attributes his false teaching onto Jesus. He says that Jesus is teaching that “you can rebel against God and be alienated from him either by breaking his rules or by keeping all of them diligently”; yet this is not what Jesus told the rich young ruler, and it’s not at all what Jesus is teaching in the parable. He did not tell the young ruler that he was “alienated” from God for keeping all of the laws since his youth, but instead showed the man that he was in trouble for not keeping the law. Perhaps it’s true that both sons in the parable were using the father but the conclusion Keller draws is false. While Keller says that we can be alienated and can rebel against God by “keeping all of the rules diligently,” the Psalmist writes, “You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently” (Ps119:4)! Keller contradicts the Bible yet again, for God commands us to keep his moral laws diligently! The real problem is that we fail to keep them, and this is sin.

Here is another of Keller’s false appeals to Jesus:

With this parable, Jesus gives us a much deeper concept of “sin” than any of us would have if he didn’t supply it. Most people think of sin as failing to keep God’s rules of conduct, but, while not less than that, Jesus’s definition of sin goes beyond it.” (34)

Here, then, is Jesus’s radical redefinition of what is wrong with us. Nearly everyone defines sin as breaking a list of rules. Jesus, though, shows us that a man who has violated virtually nothing on the list of moral misbehaviors can be every bit as spiritually lost as the most profligate, immoral person. Why? Because sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the placed of God as Savior, Lord, and Judge just as each son sought to displace the authority of the father in his own life.” (42)

It’s hard to imagine that one of the founders of the Gospel Coalition could be such a terrible expositor. Keller wants us to believe that Jesus told the parable to provide us with a much deeper concept of sin, even though Jesus himself said, “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand” (Mt 13:13). Jesus spoke in parables to confuse his hearers and to keep them from understanding, and the prodigal son parable was meant to mock the Pharisees’ self-righteousness and total ignorance of God (Lk 15:1-3). How is it that Keller thinks that only in this parable do we have access to this deeper understanding of sin when Jesus magnified the law and gave a deeper understanding of sin in Matthew 5 when he discussed anger and lust?

Keller wants his readers to believe that Jesus is redefining sin, but Jesus was always consistent and in perfect harmony with Scripture. Jesus is not redefining anything at all in this parable. Keller wants us to believe that “sin is not just breaking the rules [commandments], it is putting yourself in the place of God.” But putting yourself in the place of God is breaking the very first rule! “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:3). This is exactly what Satan did when he said, “I will make myself like the Most High” (Is 14:14). Sin, whether in thought or deed, is a violation of God’s holy standard. This is why the Westminster Confession (which Keller is also fond of contradicting) reads in Chapter VI.6, “Every sin—both original and actual—is a transgression of the righteous lawof God and contrary to it.” What Keller writes is nothing short of confusion, yet he intends this book to be an introduction to the Christian faith for outsiders and a primer for “established insiders.” No, thank you. Paul tells Titus to “teach what accords with sound doctrine” (Ti 2:1), but Keller’s teaching does not accord with sound doctrine.

Keller’s Gospel

While Keller intends The Prodigal God to be a sort of primer which “is meant to lay out the essentials of the Christian message, the gospel,” it is Keller himself who distorts the biblical doctrine of atonement and compromises the gospel.

Keller writes that “one of the signs that you many not grasp the unique radical nature of the gospel is that you are certain that you do,” but he later writes, “The inevitable sign that you know you are a sinner saved by sheer, costly grace is a sensitive social conscience and a life poured out in deeds of service to the poor.” (112)

Keller suggests that you really can’t know if you're saved by believing in what Jesus has done, but that you can have assurance of your salvation based on what you have done. This is Romanism at its heart: “The Romanists held that a man is to believe in the mercy of God and the merits of Christ, but that this belief brought with it no assurance of justification; though possibly, if the man lived a very holy life, God might before he died reveal his grace to him, and give him assurance.”[5] The Protestant view of assurance is rooted in the knowledge of the historical redemptive work of Jesus on the cross.

It is also wrong to say that the “inevitable sign” that you are saved is a “sensitive social conscience and a life poured out in deeds of service to the poor” simply because many who are not saved do this. What about repentance and faith in Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins?

Keller contradicts himself still further and betrays the gospel of justification by faith alone when he writes, “As long as you are trying to earn your salvation by controlling God through goodness, you will never be sure you have been good enough for him. You simply aren’t sure God loves and delights in you” (61). This is a lie. By making the problem of a works-based salvation one of assurance, Keller compromises the gospel and allows his readers to keep the idea that the only thing lacking is assurance of salvation, not salvation itself when they attempt to earn salvation. The problem for those who are trying to earn their salvation is not a lack of assurance but a forfeiture of the gospel. If a person is trying to earn their salvation, then they are not saved because they are not trusting in the finished work of Christ. Keller blurs the true distinction between the true gospel of justification by faith alone and a false gospel which includes works. Paul writes, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20). In fact, it is the one who does not work but believes that is justified. “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom 4:5).

Keller also seems to think that if we are not attracting people to our churches then it must mean that we are not preaching the same message as Jesus.

The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to the contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones.

If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on the people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. (14)

Paul warns Timothy to “follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me,” (2 Tm 1:13), and he commands Titus to “teach what accords with sound doctrine” (Ti 2:1), but never does he attribute the lack of success in ministry to a compromising of the message of Jesus. In fact, we see just the opposite. Those who compromise sound biblical doctrine often have the biggest ministries, which is why Paul warns, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions” (2 Tm 4:3). Paul does not say that if you are not filling your churches then you must not be preaching the same message as Jesus. This kind of thinking leads to tampering with the message of Jesus, which is exactly what Keller has done in this book. Keller reduces the gospel to a message of feigned humility:

Jesus says: “The humble are in and the proud are out” (see Luke 18:14). The people who confess they aren’t particularly good or open-minded are moving toward God because the prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know that you need it. The people, who think they are just fine, thank you, are moving away from God. “The Lord… cares for the humble, but he keeps his distance from the proud” (Psalm 138:6 – New Living Translation).

When a newspaper posed the question, “What’s Wrong with the World?” the Catholic thinker G.K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response: “Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton.” That is the attitude of someone who grasped the message of Jesus. (45)

Keller once again attributes his false teaching to Jesus by misquoting him from the text in Luke 18:14. The verse actually reads, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” The reader should note that Jesus never says, “The humble are in and the proud are out.” Keller misleads his readers on two accounts here. First by misquoting Jesus and second by the conclusion he makes from the text he misquotes. The verse says that “this man [the tax collector] went down to his house justified,” but why was he justified? It was not simply because he was humble, as Keller claims. It is true that the man showed humility but that was only part of the whole message, and Keller substitutes the part for the whole in order reduce the gospel to an issue of humility. Jesus was speaking the parable to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous” (Lk 18:9), but it was the tax collector who said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Lk 18:13). Furthermore, the Greek word for “be merciful” is hilasthēti, which literally means “be propitious.” The tax collector cried out and asked God to be propitious—to turn away His wrath from him. This is not just a depiction of humility but rather a depiction of saving faith. We see that the Pharisees trusted in their works and good deeds but it was the tax collector who was justified by rightly understanding his depravity and expressing saving faith.

Keller’s false gospel manifests itself by giving as an example someone who did not believe in the gospel of justification by faith alone. Keller, a Reformed pastor, affirms G. K. Chesterton, a Roman Catholic, as “someone who grasped the message of Jesus” on the basis of nothing more than a feigned expression of humility. The message of Jesus was, “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15), but as a Roman Catholic Chesterton did not believe the true gospel of justification by faith alone. He was hostile to the Protestant faith, became an apostate, and affirmed the false gospel of justification by faith and works. He was nothing less than an Antichrist who opposed the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me” (Mt 12:30), and those who oppose the true gospel set themselves against Christ himself. It is remarkable that Keller affirms a Roman Catholic who affirmed a false gospel as someone who grasped the message of Jesus. This is the necessary consequence of Keller's false gospel that the “humble are in.”

Keller also has a history of ecumenism and fondness for Roman Catholicism. Timothy Kauffman has made mention of this on his blog:

Tim Keller (PCA Minister): “The best things that have been written [on meditation] almost are by Catholics during the counter-reformation—Ignatius Loyola, Francis de Sales, John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila—great stuff!”[6]

These people whom Keller endorsed to his own church led the Counter-Reformation and wanted nothing more than to rid the world of justification by faith alone. They vehemently opposed Luther and Calvin and despised the true gospel. Keller has been known to frequently use and even endorse those who preach a false gospel. He quotes N.T. Wright liberally in The Reason for God, yet Wright teaches a works-based salvation. Paul wrote, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Rom 16:17 KJV). Yet we have the leader and co-founder of the Gospel Coalition endorsing and affirming those who preach a false gospel. Shame on Keller.

Unfortunately, that isn’t all. Keller distorts the gospel further by substituting the biblical doctrine of atonement for heresy.

He came and experienced the exile that we deserved. He was expelled from the presence of the father, He was thrust into darkness, the uttermost despair of spiritual alienation – in our place. He took upon himself the full curse of human rebellion, cosmic homelessness, so that we could be welcomed into our true home. (101)

This is heresy. “The full curse of human rebellion” is not “cosmic homelessness”; it is God’s wrath. Keller only talks about exile, alienation, and homelessness in his book as the sole punishment that befalls wicked sinners. He never mentions the wrath of God that abides on sinners and instead eliminates it by claiming that the full curse is “cosmic homelessness.”

This distorts the gospel by denying the doctrine of propitiation. The word propitiation refers to the satisfying of God’s wrath against the sinner through the substitutionary atonement of Jesus on the cross. If we exclude propitiation by excluding God’s wrath, then we forfeit the gospel, and that is exactly what Keller has done in this book. Jesus did not redeem us from the curse of the law and become a curse for us (Gal 3:13) by merely being forsaken or becoming spiritually “homeless”; He suffered and bore the full wrath of God.

Paul tells us that we were by nature “children of wrath” (Eph 2:3). If propitiation is removed from the gospel, then the wrath of God still abides on the sinner’s head and we have no gospel at all. If Jesus only saved us from exile, then He did not ultimately satisfy or propitiate the wrath of God on behalf of his people. Paul tells us that it was Jesus “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith…. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:25, 26). Without propitiation, there can be no justification. Jesus, therefore, did not just experience exile or homelessness as Keller teaches, for “it was the will of the Lord to crush him” (Is 53:10) as well.

Keller distorts the gospel in The Prodigal God along with various other doctrines and must be held accountable for what he teaches. I, therefore, do not recommend this book or its author.

________________________________________

[1] Scripture references are ESV unless otherwise noted. All emphases in Scripture quotations are mine.

[2] Brackets and emphases are mine.

[3] John W. Robbins, “The White Horse Inn: Nonsense on Tap,” The Trinity Review 271 (September/October, 2007), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=245.

[4] E.S. Williams, “The Prodigal God,” review of The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller, The New Calvinists, accessed March 10, 2014, Keller’s books, http://www.newcalvinist.com/tim-kellers-false-gospel/the-prodigal-god/.

[5] Horatius Bonar, “Assurance of Salvation,” The Trinity Review (April, 1994), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=185.

[6] Timothy Kauffman, "And the Diviners Have Seen a Lie," accessed June 1, 2014, http://www.whitehorseblog.com/2014/05/18/and-the-diviners-have-seen-a-lie/.

[7] See E.S. Williams, “Keller redefines the gospel,” The New Calvinists, http://www.newcalvinist.com/tim-kellers-false-gospel/keller-redefines-gospel/.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Introduction 

There are many Christians today who think that logic is unnecessary, useless, or unimportant. According to them, we should spend our time on bigger and better things, like reaching people for Jesus. Some would argue that we should not waste our time studying logic, but instead, we should study the Word of God. Some even piously claim that “logic is not the gospel, so what’s the point?” The truth is that many modern churchgoers engulf themselves in irrational thought and dismiss logic altogether.

This kind of thinking is certainly present, if not predominant, in churches today, and it expresses a deep lack of understanding of what logic is and why it is necessary. Perhaps this negative view of logic stems from the deeply rooted anti-intellectualism of many evangelical Christians who seek an emotional high in their religious experience rather than a deeper understanding of the Word of God. They simply do not understand the relationship between logic and the Bible.

This anti-intellectualism can often be seen in churches that downplay the importance of sound doctrine and do not concern themselves with harmonizing or systematizing God’s word. When confronted about the state of irrationalism that has crept into modern Christianity we find that many professing Christians disparage and even dismiss logic. However, any attempt to disparage or dismiss logic is self-refuting for the very reason that one must use logic in order to make their own argument against logic intelligible. As Dr. John Robbins notes, “The opponents of logic must use the law of contradiction in order to denounce it. They must assume its legitimacy, in order to declare it illegitimate. They must assume its truth, in order to declare it false. They must present arguments if they wish to persuade us that argumentation is invalid. Wherever they turn, they are boxed in.”[i] Thus, any attack on logic is undermined by the antagonist’s own use of it. This is simply unavoidable.

Many who desire to throw logic out the window in pursuit of other “nobler” endeavors do not realize that logic is fundamental to all disciplines, all thought, and all language. Those who would argue that we should study our Bibles instead of wasting our time with logic miss the fact that the correct method of Biblical interpretation, that is to interpret Scripture in the light of Scripture, requires the most fundamental law of logic, the law of non-contradiction. Those who would argue that logic is not the gospel do not understand that affirming and proclaiming the gospel requires the laws of logic, such as the law of the excluded middle. If logic therefore, is required for the affirmation and proclamation of the most basic–indeed all–Christian truths, then every Christian should understand logic and know how to use it.

What is Logic?

A study in logic may be difficult at first but even the most basic understanding will prove beneficial. In order for a person to reason correctly and think rationally, they must think logically. Dr. Gordon Clark defined logic as the “science of necessary inference.”[ii] Logic is the science of correct thinking and therefore, it may be explained as the correct process of reasoning.

In formal logic, there are three fundamental laws which are the law of contradiction, the law of identity, and the law of the excluded middle. These laws are deduced from Scripture, which allows us to account for them as universal and unchanging principles. The law of contradiction, which states, A cannot be A and not A at the same time and in the same respect is revealed in scripture as part of God’s eternal character and nature, “for he cannot deny [contradict] himself” (2 Timothy 2:13)[iii]. In this verse the law is expressed in the form of a proposition. In the symbolic notation however, “A” can represent either a proposition or a word. Therefore, the law of contradiction is embedded into every word of scripture. When Genesis 1:1 declares, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” it does not mean “In the beginning, God dismantled the heavens and the earth” for that would contradict the proposition of divine revelation. The word “created” does not mean “dismantled” and vice versa. Each word has a specific meaning and although a word may have more than one meanings in general, it cannot have more than one meaning in any proposition. Clark writes, “A word that means everything means nothing. In order for a word to mean something, it must also not mean something.”[iv]

The law of identity (A is A), which holds that everything has a specific nature, is expressed in God’s name, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14). Everything exists as something in particular to itself, and everything has specific characteristics that make it what it is. For example, God is holy, righteous, sovereign, loving, and good. God’s identity however includes all his specific traits and not just the ones mentioned. This law is crucial because it means that God has a definite nature and is therefore knowable.

The law of the excluded middle, also known as the principle of the excluded third (principium tertii exclusi), holds that a proposition is either true or its negation is true; there is no third option. This law is deduced from Jesus’ own words to the Father, “your word is truth” (John 17:17). In this verse Jesus affirmed for us that all propositional revelation is true thereby upholding the law of the excluded middle.

It is precisely because these laws of logic are embedded in Scripture that the Christian can establish from an epistemological standpoint that they are fixed and universal “laws.” Epistemology seeks to answer the question “how do we know?” Scripture is the answer. Without the epistemology of scripture, we cannot account for the laws of logic and it is for that reason that Scripture rather than logic itself is chosen as the Christian axiom. We agree with Dr. Clark that “Scripture, the written words of the Bible, is the mind of God. What is said in Scripture is God’s thought.”[v] This is how we know that the laws of logic are fixed and do not change, because “the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8). Likewise, we also know that they are universal because “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). In other words, we know these laws of logic are “laws.”

Although it is true that all rational thinking requires logic, it is impossible to establish an epistemological foundation for logic strictly from the mind of man, for the laws are universal principles, and the mind of man has no universal significance at all. The Christian must also understand that logic is not descriptive of human thinking–it is not psychology–but is rather prescriptive for all human thought. This means that logic does not describe how a person does think, but rather how a person should think if they are to think correctly. The laws of logic could never be derived from a description of how people think because many people tend to think irrationally, illogically, often contradicting each other and even themselves.

The laws of logic can, however, be derived from a description of how God thinks because He is always consistent, rational, logical and never errs in his reasoning. Logic then is, as Dr. Clark wrote, “the characteristic of God’s thinking. It is not subsequent temporally, for God is eternal and there never was a time when God existed without thinking logically.”[vi] God cannot lie because it is inconsistent with His eternal character and He will not and cannot contradict Himself. “The Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change his mind” (1 Sameul 15:29). This is just one verse of many that provide us a description of the nature and character of God. This is the way in which God thinks and it is the way in which we ought to think. It would be fallacious, however, for one to derive a prescriptive ought statement from the descriptive is statement of God’s nature and character. Fortunately, the Christian is not merely left with a description of the way in which God thinks but we are also given a prescription for the way in which we ought to think. Scripture tells us, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Paul also exhorts us to “be imitators of God, as beloved children,” (Ephesians 5:1).

It should be clear then that the Christian is able to account for the laws of logic from an epistemological foundation that is consistent and rationally justifiable within the Christian worldview.

Our Moral Obligation

It may come as a surprise to many Christians to learn that we have a moral obligation to think logically. Perhaps this is because they have not considered carefully that it is impossible to obey God if our thinking is illogical. We often associate sinful thoughts with the vices of lust or hatred, but the truth is that all sin originates in our thinking. “Although adultery and theft are commonly regarded as overt actions, their origin is in our thinking. Sin is the result of intellectual error.”[vii] Clark was correct then, to point to such verses as Proverbs 23:7– “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”–in order to point out that “sin is first of all mental and only afterward overt.”[viii]

Some might find this disturbing and may wish to separate logic from morality, but logic is necessary for morality as well because without logic there can be no distinction between deception and truth, good and evil, right and wrong. It is no wonder then that the Scriptures are logically consistent. If this were not the case, then we would not be able to discern truth from error. If God’s thinking is logically consistent and the Scriptures are part of the mind of God, then it is impossible to obey scriptural commands if we contradict the Bible in the way we think.

The reality is that we often do not stop to consider just how intellectually disobedient we can be in our thinking. It is important to realize that it is impossible to love God with all our mind if we are illogical. How can we surrender every thought captive to the Lordship of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5) if our thinking does not reflect the logical consistency of Scripture? The inescapable result of failing in this area is compromise, error, and sin. We inevitably begin to adopt worldly and secular thinking which is firmly opposed to the Word of God. We should recognize that every attack from the enemy is an attack on the Word of God. A clear example of this can be seen in the current debates over same-sex marriage and abortion.

Christ asserts that marriage is between a man and a woman (Matthew. 19:4-5), so we stand in direct defiance if we insist that same-sex marriage is morally good. When we likewise insist that a woman has the right to abort their unborn children then we defy God and advocate the murder of children on the altar of convenience and shame. Those who advocate such positions stand in direct opposition to Christ and His Word. Professing Christians who hold such positions display and an incredible amount of logical inconsistency and as a result, have no basis for believing that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. If they do not believe the Bible when it speaks on the issue of marriage, the sin of homosexuality, and the life of an unborn child, then what basis do they have for believing the truth of the cross? How convenient it must be to arbitrarily pick and choose what suits us. Such advocates of logical inconsistency would be hard-pressed to provide a rational reason for believing that the gospel is true while rejecting its source as unreliable when it doesn’t suit them.

Accounting for Logic

The unbeliever cannot account for logic in his own worldview and therefore cannot account for his ability to think rationally. The challenge has been made many times to unbelievers to account for logic in their own worldview and it has always fallen short or gone unanswered. Never has an adequate response been given. In formal debates, the challenge is often ignored by the unbeliever, yet the challenge demands an answer because debates presuppose logic.

The unbeliever is required to use logic in order to make his argument against Christianity consistent and intelligible, but only the Christian worldview can account for logic. He is therefore required to rob the Christian worldview in order to make his argument against Christianity intelligible

Some argue that logic is merely a description of nature. Logic, however, cannot be accounted for in nature because logic concerns thinking and governs how we ought to think. The 18th century Scottish Philosopher David Hume identified the impossibility of deriving an “ought” statement from an “is” statement. Nature can only provide a description of what is but cannot provide a prescription of what ought to be, so it cannot tell us how we ought to think. Logic is also immaterial and conceptual while nature is just the opposite. This proves to be an impossible hurdle for the atheistic materialist to rise above.

Due to the materialist’s inability to account for an immaterial law, many try to adopt a form of rationalism. Rationalism is the theory that all knowledge comes from logic alone, apart from the senses and revelation. The rationalist assumes the laws of logic but ultimately fails to account for them. This is problematic because in order for a worldview to be complete it must be able to account for the laws of logic which are a precondition of intelligibility. Because the Rationalist cuts himself off from divine revelation, he isolates himself in his thinking. He attempts to arrive at knowledge from logic alone but has no epistemological foundation for the universal laws logic because they are not descriptive of his own thinking but rather prescriptive of how he ought to think. If he supposes that all knowledge comes from logic but is unable to provide a foundation of knowledge by which he can know the laws of logic as prescriptive, independent, and invariant laws of thought, then he is hopelessly lost. One cannot navigate from logic alone to any propositional knowledge or truth.

We will further demonstrate the failure of rationalism by attacking its first premise. Rationalism says that all knowledge comes from logic alone, but this knowledge claim itself cannot be inferred from logic alone. Although the laws of logic are communicated as propositions which require the laws of logic in order to be intelligible, the laws themselves provide no additional content about reality or truth. The laws of logic can only be applied to how we think. They only tell us how we should think but provide no content of thought. The rationalist must show that the laws of logic provide all the necessary content of thought and that this content can only be derived from the laws themselves and nothing else. The law of contradiction is a universal rule of thought but the law itself cannot tell us what is universal.

If rationalism cannot know its first premise by its own method, then it is shown to be self-refuting and fails as a theory of knowledge. No self-contradictory epistemological foundation can account for the law of contradiction. If rationalism fails as a theory of knowledge, then there is nothing that can be known on rationalism. If one cannot know anything on rationalism, then it cannot account for the universal laws of logic which exist outside the mind of the rationalist. We need more than what rationalism can offer. We need divine revelation from God.

Many reject the epistemology of Christianity which accounts for logic in the Word of God and instead turn to Empiricism. This comes as no surprise since the rebellious mind is hostile towards God and rejects that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7).

When 17th-century rationalists saw the shortcomings of assuming logic alone, the world shifted towards empiricism. Today empiricism may be regarded as the most widely held epistemology and it is the underlying presupposition for many arguments against Christianity. When unbelievers argue that there is no empirical evidence for God they are presupposing the epistemology of empiricism. But it is impossible to even make such an argument intelligible without presupposing the laws of logic. Using logic is necessary for such argumentation but presupposing the truth of empiricism is problematic because logic cannot be accounted for empirically. Empiricism holds that all knowledge comes through the senses, but the laws of logic have never been observed by any of the senses since they are conceptual. Even if one were to make an appeal that every perceived contradiction they have ever encountered has been false, they still have no hope whatsoever of asserting the laws of non-contradiction on empiricism. This is, in part, due to the fact that the law is universal, but their experience is limited. There simply is no way to establish a universal law by one’s limited experience. Any attempt to do so would be committing the fallacy of induction because the induction could never be completed.

Another aspect of the laws of logic that must be established is the fact that the laws are timeless and fixed. There is simply no way to establish the timeless nature of a law on the basis of one’s own limited past experience and there is no way to empirically verify that the future will reflect the past because the future has not been observed. There is no basis for saying that the law of contradiction will stand tomorrow on an empirical foundation. No universal timeless law can ever be empirically verified because no one has experienced all the past or any of the future.

When the empiricist states, “all knowledge comes through the senses” he does not mean that “no knowledge comes through the senses” for that would contradict his claim. He is, therefore, using the law of non-contradiction in order to make his claim intelligible. It is ironic then that logic is necessary to define empiricism and give it meaning yet at the same time it requires that empiricism be regarded as false. The claim that all knowledge comes through the senses requires the application of the law of non-contradiction in order that it might be intelligible and understood yet the claim is self-contradictory. The claim that all knowledge comes through the senses is a knowledge claim that has not been observed by the senses. Empiricism has never been observed and cannot be empirically verified. Not only does empiricism fail to account for logic but the same logic that is necessary for its own definition requires that empiricism itself be rejected by the rational mind.

Many people attempt to combine rationalism with empiricism to overcome the shortcomings of both. Yet rationalism cannot deduce anything from logic alone, ultimately failing to account for logic itself, and empiricism cannot yield any knowledge or propositions from the senses, including the laws of logic. Just as the unbelievers require air to breathe with which to curse God, so also, they require the laws of logic in order to make their case against God intelligible. By way of analogy we can look to a group of angry protestors in Wisconsin who recently found themselves in an embarrassing situation. The headline reads, “Awkward: Protesters Fail to Inflate Coal Plant Balloon with Renewable Energy.”[ix] The group of unhappy activists was protesting Madison Gas and Electric’s new rates, complaining that it diminished consumer interest in renewable energy. To make their case loud and clear, they inflated a blow-up coal plant balloon using nothing but “renewable energy” while chanting “Coal has to go!” Unfortunately, the blow-up coal plant collapsed because their batteries ran out of power and their solar panel did not produce enough energy to keep it inflated. The group later admitted that they would normally inflate the prop with electrical wall outlets or gas-powered generators. The irony and foolishness of the situation aren't difficult to see. The energy company they were protesting against provides them the energy required to inflate the prop in their protest. Without that energy source, they can’t even inflate their prop. Atheists find themselves in a similar predicament. Without logic, they cannot make their case against Christianity, yet only the Christian worldview can account for logic. The Christian God must first provide man the ability to reason, and only then can he suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).

Logic and knowledge

Many Christians don’t recognize man’s dependence on God for knowledge and how this relates to logic. Without logic, knowledge would be impossible because we could never know what is true; no distinction between truth and error could ever be made. The connection between man’s dependence on logic for knowledge and man’s dependence on God for knowledge is easily established in the person of Jesus Christ.

“In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, John wrote, ‘In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.’ The Greek word Logos is usually translated Word, but it is better-translated Wisdom or Logic. Our English word logic comes from this Greek word logos. John was calling Christ the Wisdom or Logic of God. In verse nine, referring again to Christ, he says that Christ is ‘The true light’ who lights every man.”[x]

Jesus is the Logos--the Logic of God--that lights every man with knowledge. This is why the Scriptures tell us that in Christ Jesus "are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3). Here is the heart of Christian epistemology: All wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ. The fact that all knowledge is hidden in Christ means that man cannot search it out anywhere else. If Christ does not illuminate the mind of man, then man can know nothing at all. And because our ability to think rationally requires logic, man cannot even reason or think rationally apart from Christ, the Logic of God.

Rejecting Logic

The desire of the unbeliever to reject God may also cause him to reject logic as well. This should not come as a surprise to us since God has made "foolish the wisdom of the world" (1 Corinthians. 1:20). If the unbeliever forfeits logic then he has already lost the debate because all debates, all rational discourse, and all communication, presupposes logic. Without logic, the unbeliever cannot even make his case against Christianity intelligible.

Let us return to our unhappy protesters and consider for a moment that the coal plant balloon represents an argument against the company they were protesting. The protesters were protesting the energy company because of its non-renewable energy, yet they required that same non-renewable energy to inflate their balloon. Likewise, some atheists reject logic in order to make their arguments against Christianity, yet they require logic to make their arguments intelligible. Theoretical physicist and atheistic propagandist Stephen Hawking is one such example. Hawking writes: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.”[xi] In order to argue for a self-created universe, one must reject the law of non-contradiction. For something to be its own creator and its own creation, it must exist and not exist at the same time and in the same sense. According to Aristotle, “The same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect.”[xii] R. C. Sproul also notes that “for something to create itself, or to be its own effect as well as its own cause, it would have to exist before it existed. The universe, to be self-created, would have to be before it was. Stated in terms of the law of non-contradiction, the universe would have to be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship.”[xiii]

Hawking must reject the law of non-contradiction in order to argue for a self-created universe, but it is impossible for him to make his argument intelligible apart from the law of non-contradiction. That is because every word in his argument has definite and specific meaning.  As Dr. John Robbins wrote, “Each word has a definite meaning. In order to have a definite meaning, a word must not only mean something, it must also not mean something.”[xiv] When Hawking argues that “the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” he does not intend for us to understand that “the universe cannot and will not create itself from nothing,” for that would contradict his claim. The word “can” does not mean “cannot” and the word “will” does not mean “will not.” He is, therefore, rejecting the law of non-contradiction to make his argument while at the same time using the law of non-contradiction to make his argument intelligible. His argument is self-refuting. No rational person could ever accept such a position. Unfortunately, atheists make arguments like this all the time. However, if they insist on making logical blunders or advancing self-refuting arguments or dismissing logic altogether in order to maintain the position of atheism then so be it. Christians have nothing to fear, for “let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: 'That you may be justified in your words, and may overcome when you are judged' " (Romans 3:4). Since the Bible alone can properly account for logic the unbeliever is forced steal from the Christian worldview in order to argue against it. This is the inevitable tragedy of every argument raised against the knowledge of Christ. “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalms 14:1).

[i] John W. Robbins, “Why Study Logic?”, The Trinity Review (July/August, 1985)

[ii] Gordon H. Clark, Logic, Fourth ed. (Unicoi, Tennessee: Trinity Foundation, 2004), 162.

[iii] Scripture references are ESV unless otherwise noted. All emphases in Scripture quotations are mine.

[iv] “Chapter 5 Logic.” In Defense of Theology, by Gordon H. Clark and John W. Robbins, Trinity Foundation, 2007, p. 48.

[v] Gordon H. Clark, “God and Logic,” The Trinity Review (November/December, 1980), edited by John W. Robbins, 4.

[vi] Clark, “God and Logic,” 3.

[vii] Gordon H. Clark, “The Theologian’s Besetting Sin,” The Trinity Review (March/April, 1992), edited by John W. Robbins.

[viii] Clark, “The Theologian’s Besetting Sin,”

[ix] Gutfield, Greg. "Awkward: Protesters Fail to Inflate Coal Plant Balloon With Renewable Energy." Fox News. FOX News Network, 16 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 June 2017. <http://insider.foxnews.com/2014/10/16/awkward-protesters-fail-inflate-coal-plant-balloon-renewable-energy>.

[x] Robbins, “Why Study Logic?”, 2.

[xi] Roberts, Laura. "Stephen Hawking: God Was Not Needed to Create the Universe." The Telegraph. September 2, 2010. Accessed November 10, 2014. Emphasis mine

[xii] Robbins, “Why Study Logic?”, 3.

[xiii] Sproul, R.C. "Self-Creation." In Defending Your Faith, 205. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 200

[xiv] Robbins, “Why Study Logic?”, 4.