Category Archives: Michael H. Warren
The Scope and Limits of Van Til’s Transcendental Argument (Michael H. Warren)
“The Scope and Limits of Van Til’s Transcendental Argument: A Response to John Frame” by Michael H. Warren
The questions that I address in this essay have been asked by a number of people, but the main source is John Frame, who was a student under Cornelius Van Til before succeeding him as professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary. Frame is sympathetic to Van Til’s approach to apologetics, but he has published a number of criticisms of Van Til which have been found persuasive by many other Christians interested in apologetics – Christians both anti-Van Til and sympathetic to Van Til’s approach to apologetics. Frame says that he rejects Van Til’s claim of a single transcendental argument to prove the Biblical God. Instead, he calls for a “presuppositionalism of the heart” that involves using a number of different arguments, including the traditional ones that Van Til rejects, all with the transcendental goal of honoring the sovereignty of God. In this essay I address one of his main arguments for his position: Proving every element of Christian theism with one argument is unrealistic, so multiple arguments should be allowed. …
Christian Civilization is the Only Civilization – In a Sense, Of Course (Michael H. Warren)
“Christian Civilization is the Only Civilization – In a Sense, Of Course” by Michael H. Warren
Intellectuals throughout history have given their views as to what the source, goal and nature of civilization is. The ancient philosopher Plato described a well-ordered civilization as a three-tiered hierarchy of philosopher-kings, the soldier class, and the merchant class. The philosophers are the kings because they are allegedly the most knowledgeable about the ideas of justice and the good. Hegel offered a comprehensive philosophy of life in which he said that the state is God, and the ideal of civilization is for all people to become unified under the State. Freud expressed the predominate view of 20th Century intellectuals when he said that civilization is defined by the degree that a culture rejects the psychological projection of a loving, divine Father as the explanation for the mysteries of the world and embraces rational, scientific, materialistic explanations of the world. In this essay I do not examine all of the competing explanations for civilization in detail. However, despite all their differences, all non-Christian views of civilization have a common point of view that allows for a single refutation that applies to them all and allows for a single proof (see the introductory quote from Van Til above) that Christian Civilization is the only rationally possible civilization. …