The Apostle Paul speaks of “gnosis falsely so called” (1 Timothy 6:20). Why not also “philosophy falsely so called”? How would that differ from philosophy according to the elements of this world? (Colossians 2:8)
And what should stop a Christian who accepts Paul’s line of reasoning from suggesting “misosophy” as le mot juste for the false gnosis, the foolishness, the vain babblings?
Taking Christ’s words seriously, we conclude that neutrality toward Him and his claims is not possible. It is a self-deceptive feint. “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters” (Matthew 12:30). One is either in Christ or at enmity with Him (Ephesians 2:16), a hostility only He can overcome.
Therefore, a discourse rooted in the fatal conceit, namely, that the term “unaided reason” has real reference, is not open to the claims of Christ. Its proponent hates Christ and does so “without reason” (John 15:25, alluding to Psalm 35:19).
The fatal conceit of “unaided reason” is incapable of taking Christ’s self-identification seriously. It not only bakes no bread, but it is a vine that bears no edible or press-worthy grapes.
What is relevant for those who care about “philosophy” (whatever they may think of my distinction) is that the presumption of autonomy, the assumption that “unaided reason” has real reference, is fatal to the pursuit of truth.
Such a pursuit has promise only if it issues from the vital conceit, namely, that the human quester, given the grace to halt his suppression of the truth (Romans 1:19-20), acknowledges himself to be a sinner and resolves to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).
Philosophy cannot settle for philosophography (the chronicling of philosophical opinion). One can erect a edifice of scholarship, characterized by rhetorical elegance, fine distinctions, a glossary of symbols or of special terms, and one can study the lives and works of those who employ them. One can do all those things and yet evade the question of ultimate truth which (paradoxically) one must have in some way at the start of his quest if he’s to make sense of the intermediate results.
And that’s where revelation is indispensable. It’s the GPS, so to speak, the global (or God’s?) positioning system that shows you where you are, the prerequisite for choosing the right map. (I owe this metaphor to K. Scott Oliphint.) Failing to acknowledge their true GPS, misosophers shop around for maps. To switch to another Van Tillian metaphor, they choose one style of “philosophical” discourse among those on offer as one chooses hats.
No map can help you chart a path to your destination if you don’t know where you are. If Christ is the Wisdom as well as the Word of God, then He’s the cosmic GPS that makes possible the intelligible relating of what is immanent within experience to what transcends it, the prerequisite to any sensible development of map-making and map-using.
The truth-suppressor’s conceit is that he claims he knows where stands—metaphysically, epistemologically, and ethically—and therefore knows how to choose the right map. The claim of Christ contradicts that conceit.
The truth-suppressor assumes, even insists, that his mind is the absolute frame of reference. He insists furthermore only it can be such, even should he later award that status to God, in effect declaring, “I will decide what God is and whether he exists.” Apart from revelation, however, he cannot justify his alleged grasp of transcendental propositions that could conceivably ground such a declaration, for they depend on Christian theism.
Either the conceit of autonomy operates at the inception of thinking and governs the ensuing thinking ensues or that conceit’s antithesis, theonomy, functions that way.
These antithetical stances or postures are metaethical: they are ultimate choices that inform every less-than-ultimate ethical choice. They also regulate how one approaches other ultimate subjects, for example, the nature of reality and how we know what we know.
The conceit of autonomy is then not neutral with respect to a certain outcome of philosophical inquiry. It is prejudiced against Christian theism even as it boasts of its openness to the possibility of its truth, for Christian theism posits God as the matrix of possibility. If it is not neutral, however, then by its own standards of intellectual integrity the autonomous approach to philosophy fails.
Philosophy. The love or pursuit of wisdom, is the pursuit of a practical end, a happy life, by discursive means, that is, by reflection. Its end is not mere contemplation. Philosophy identifies, formulates, vindicates, and offers counsel in terms of the worldview that grounds all intelligible predication, and therefore the intelligible predication on which philosophy itself depends.
Philosophy from the beginning is the love of and search for wisdom, but the good of wisdom is ordered toward the achievement and enjoyment of the good life. According to the only worldview which makes intelligible predication is possible, a good life is impossible outside the terms that God set for man.
The root problem of “philosophy,” critical discourse about existence, knowledge, and goodness, is the problem of the one and the many, i.e., the one worldview in which cohere not only a multitude of predications, but a multitude of kinds of predications. This problem insinuates itself into our every predication, and therefore predications that make metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical (or moral) claims.
The capacity to think in terms of a worldview is a birthright, a God-given faculty, if you will, not an autonomous achievement. Like our language-forming faculty, a correlative worldview-forming faculty is given to each of us when each of us comes to be. We come to exercise this capacity as we develop cognitively from childhood through adolescence to adulthood.
Wisdom. One’s decision to seek wisdom either (1) proceeds or (2) does not proceed from an understanding of oneself as a created image-bearer in an ethical relationship to one’s creator, who is Primary Wisdom. Alternative (2) has been the default position of most thinkers we call “philosophers.” Since, they maintain, one does not or cannot know that one is such a creature, it is a violation of one’s rational duty to presuppose that one is.
Foolishness. There is no greater difference than that between wisdom and foolishness, and for business of life, none is more significant. A Christian is justified in reserving the term “philosophers” for those who, appreciative of the work of Christ, the Wisdom of God, engage in discourse about existence, knowledge, and goodness toward the end of pursuing the good life by conforming their lives to Christ and living consciously in the Kingdom of God.
Since foolishness is the antithesis of wisdom, any predication issuing from the fatal conceit disqualifies itself as something that can contribute to philosophy, if the latter has anything to do with the love of wisdom.
The pursuit of wisdom must begin with a vital conceit, namely, the fear of the Lord, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the one Who saves not only our souls, but also our intellects.
The transcendental argument for the existence of God (TAG) is simple in structure in that its premise expresses the self-appropriation, or lack thereof, of the concrete human subject who entertains TAG’s premises and attempts to ascertain their truth-value.
Not only does the unbeliever’s professed worldview fail, but also the worldview generated by the worldview-forming faculty has the only hope of success is already operating subconsciously, suppressed yet distorted and perverted. The unbeliever already avails himself of logic, memory, induction, causal inference, which cohere only on a Biblical anthropology.
The unbeliever takes logic, memory, induction, causal inference, etc., for granted while ignoring the framework on which they depend and within which they cooperate.
Antitheism presupposes theism.*
. . . to say how one fact differs from another fact in terms of the space-time continuum requires one to have some intelligible conception of this space-time continuum as a whole. Kant was quite right in demanding this. But Kant himself was unable to say anything intelligible about [it] . . . . [Kant] sought to do so in terms of man as the final reference point in predication. Cornelius Van Til, The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture (emphasis added).
If nothing changes (Parmenides), predication is impossible; but also, if everything changes (Heraclitus), predication is impossible.
It is therefore futile when men seek to attack this view and it is equally futile when men seek to defend this view by means of argumentation which assumes its negation—human independence or autonomy. Cornelius Van Til, The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture.
The discourse traditionally called “philosophy” cannot be integrally conducted in opposition to the pursuit of the wisdom that is Christ. One cannot pursue “philosophy” fruitfully except in a conscious effort to be faithful to Christ and his claims.
It is not that non-Christians do not “philosophize.” They do, often with great insight, analytical skill, systematic range, and literary elegance. The point is, rather, that they do so only by surreptitiously borrowing from the “birthright worldview” or proto-worldview that outlines the Christian worldview.
Discourse not grounded in the Wisdom of God, just because it necessarily ends up in foolishness, cannot have anything to do with philosophy as the love of wisdom. One therefore refers to such discourse as “philosophy” only out of respect for tradition or merely to demonstrate one’s linguistic competency. Tradition, however, is not a philosophical criterion, not even in the history of what has been called “philosophy.” Its classic texts made their mark by scrutinizing tradition and discarding what cannot pass the bar of reason.
* “Antitheism presupposes theism.” Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology.
