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Introduction
Minister, theologian, and prolific writer Dr. J. V. Fesko is the author of Reforming Apologetics: Retrieving the Classic Reformed Approach to Defending the Faith. Dr. Fesko says: “I do not claim to be an expert in apologetics…Nevertheless, I address theological and historical issues that pertain to the very foundations of the art and science of apologetics, and thus seek to reform aspects of the church’s present-day apologetic enterprise” (xii). Additionally, Dr. Fesko says that his book “is about retrieving the classical Reformed approach to defending the faith” (xii). Therefore, the two general goals of this volume are: reformation of apologetics in general and retrieval of the classical approach to apologetics in particular. One of the lengthiest parts of Dr. Fesko’s attempt is his case against presuppositional apologetics in general and against theologian and philosopher Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987) in particular. The result is this book. I believe this work has both merits and faults in that Dr. Fesko succeeds in retrieving but not in reforming apologetics (classical or otherwise).
Contents
Chapter one is about “The Light of Nature” (Belgic Confession 2; Canons of Dordt 3–4.4; Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.1, 6; 10.4; 21.1). Dr. Fesko makes a strong historical case to prove that, according to the majority view of the Westminster divines, “the light of nature denotes three things: “(1) natural law, (2) human reason, and (3) God’s natural revelation in creation” (13). For Dr. Fesko, this is important because “the light of nature denotes the book or order of nature written and designed by God—an important tool in defending the Christian faith…forgotten by many in contemporary Reformed theology but regularly used by early modern Reformed theologians.” (13). Classical Reformed apologists believe that there is a noetic effect on man due to the fall (15). However, the fall has not taken away the non-saving light or law of nature (Dr. Fesko seems to use them as synonyms), which includes the belief (either admitted or suppressed) in the existence of God and “a general knowledge of the difference between good and evil” (15). Reason, too, needs not to be limited but not discredited, because, though radically affected by the fall into sin, that is not the end of the story.
Fallen human beings are incapable of embracing Christ in a saving manner by the power of unaided reason. There is no governing role for reason in accepting the person and work of Christ. On the other hand, when someone presents the truth of the gospel, the recipient must have a rational comprehension of the facts and what those facts mean. In this sense, reason has a role in salvation.” (22-23)
One problem is Dr. Fesko’s unqualified claim about Van Til’s rejection of common notions (24): Van Til openly supports a qualified view of common notions (The Defense of the Faith, 190-191), as noted by James N. Anderson. Another problem with Dr. Fesko’s account (implicit in this chapter, but explicit later, see 120, 130, 181) is the lack of distinction between “common notions” and the idea of “common grace.” The fact is that notion is an epistemological concept, while grace, though it has epistemological effects, is a soteriological concept. Equating the two is a category equivocation in Dr. Fesko’s account (a mistake which Dr. Fesko, ironically, shares with Van Til), especially considering Dr. Fesko's own distinction between the “principia (foundations) for general knowledge and for saving knowledge” (205-206).
In chapter two, “Common Notions,” Dr. Fesko expounds and comments on the exegesis by Anthony Burgess (✝1664) of Romans 2:14-15 to present more evidence to support his previous claims about natural law, reason, common notions, and the book of nature. The chapter starts dispelling the myth according to which Thomas Aquinas did not believe in the noetic effect of sin on human reason (32-34, and later in chapter 4). Both in this chapter and in the previous one, it is difficult to see anything that should put a presuppositionalist and a classicist in radical opposition.
Chapter three, “Calvin,” aims to prove that Calvin held onto a concept of natural law and was not opposed to using classical theistic arguments to prove the existence of God. Dr. Fesko claims that both Thomas and Calvin “employ scholastic methodology and terminology” and that Calvin “employed identical methodology and terminology [to scholasticism] in his own theology” (56). To say that Calvin used at times scholastic terminology and methodology is uncontroversial, but to unqualifiedly claim that Calvin used scholastic methodology and terminology is an unwarranted jump. In fact, Dr. Fesko only offers anecdotal evidence, that is, a few passages from Calvin where he sounds scholastic (54-56). Dr. Fesko’s characterization of Van Til is not blameless (for example, the myth that in Van Til’s epistemology the unregenerate can have no true knowledge of anything), and some of the claims about Calvin’s apologetical methodology are controversial, and Anderson has already signaled several problems. That said, Dr. Fesko is right in condemning the belief that “scholasticism” has a specific theological position: scholasticism is rather “a method of doing theology and does not predetermine specific doctrinal outcome and does not dictate pre-established roles for reason and revelation” (54, see 53-56 in general).
In the fourth chapter, “Thomas Aquinas,” Dr. Fesko disproves the myth that Thomas’ proofs for the existence of God “serve as the primary ground for Thomas’s system, a rational stepladder that begins with reason and then rises to revelation” (74, see also 73). Although “from a Reformed standpoint there are a number of problematic elements in Aquinas’s soteriology and ecclesiology,” in his general methodology “Aquinas argued from a foundation of Holy Scripture” (96). Thomas doesn’t argue from a view of autonomous reason unaided by grace and Scripture based on a too-optimistic anthropology (Dr. Fesko quotes Thomas extensively on these issues). Dr. Fesko shows that Thomas’ epistemology and apologetics (and consequently, a classicist approach to apologetics) are within the boundaries of orthodoxy, including a Reformed one. Despite some minor disagreements, this is a refreshing chapter about Thomas.
In chapter 5, “Worldview,” Dr. Fesko criticizes the worldview philosophy which he ascribes to Van Til and to presuppositionalism. Dr. Fesko is not criticizing any given use of the word and of the concept. He acknowledges “uses of the term and concept [that] are benign” since “all people have ways of looking at the world, and the same holds true of various philosophies and religions” (98) What Dr. Fesko is aiming at is historic worldview theory (HWT).
[HWT] is a very distinct idea that began with nineteenth-century German idealism and includes the following characteristics: (1) the rejection of a common doctrine of humanity, (2) a single principle from which one deduces a worldview, (3) an exhaustive systematic explanation of reality, and (4) the incommensurability of competing worldviews. (98)
Dr. Fesko says that “the Bible does not portray fallen humanity as existing in complete epistemological antithesis with believers at every point” (120). Rather, “Christian and non-Christians possess a shared knowledge of the world and even god’s existence; they share God-given common notions (99). Regenerate and unregenerate “have commonly shared knowledge, which makes communication and dialogue possible,” and the “non-Christian’s problem is not primarily epistemological but ethical” (122). True, “all ideas ontologically originate from God, but this does not mean they all first come through Israel. We should not conflate ontology and epistemology” (122), or, as he later says, the “ordo docendi (order of teaching) is not the same as the ordo essendi (order of being)” (179).
Christians undoubtedly stand in antithesis to non-Christians, but not at every point of their existence. There is a place for common notions, not because we capitulate to sinful human autonomy, but because we rightly recognize that God has created all human beings in his image. This means that we can engage unbelievers in dialogue and have genuine communication with them because we share a common divinely given image and because, even in spite of sin and its noetic effects on human reason, we share common notions about God, the world, and even God's law. These common notions do not sideline the absolute necessity of the Spirit’s sovereign work of grace in regeneration, the only means by which fallen human beings will ever accept the special revelation of the gospel of Christ. But these common notions mean that we do not stand in antithesis at every point of interaction with the unbeliever. (100)
Dr. Fesko makes many good points concerning the possible and actual dangers of HWT. That said, the chapter is problematic. The main problem of this chapter is that it seems at best a superficial exposition of Van Til’s position. Dr. Fesko argues that the four mistaken principles of HWT are the same errors we find in Van Til. However, as explained above, it is not true that Van Til rejects a common doctrine of humanity (the imago dei in the broader sense, which includes common notions, for Dr. Fesko).
Dr. Fesko’s treatment of other theologians is also questionable. For example, Dr. Fesko makes way too much out of an isolated abstract by Emanuel Vogel Gerhart (1817–1904):
Christ glorified is the one primordial and unchangeable source of divine knowledge. This source He is to His people not by the exertion of external influences, nor merely by verbal teaching, but by mystical union with them; a union begotten by the Holy Spirit and made effectual through personal faith. The transcendent Christ becomes an immanent vital principle, from which is developed a Christian ethical life and a Christian consciousness. (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Volume 1, 48)
The context of Gerhart's paragraph is Christian consciousness, and not general knowledge. Moreover, even granting Gerhart's Christocentrism, Dr. Fesko's disapproval of Gerhart ignores what Gerhart has to say about the role of Scripture and of reason (Institutes, 1, 22–32).
Another example is Dr. Fesko’s mention of J. P. Moreland’s and William Lane Craig’s Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview as an example of a book influenced by the four principles of HWT (100), even though that volume is a famous textbook well-known for its constant and pervading appeals to natural theology and empirical evidence. Relatedly, Dr. Fesko quotes Herman Bavinck to support many of his claims (see index, 239). But Bavinck himself used the term and concept of worldview numerous times, see, for instance, his Philosophy of Revelation, Christian Worldview, and Biblical and Religious Psychology. I wonder how Dr. Fesko would explain his implicit claim that Bavinck supports his position with Bavinck's "Christocentrism" and discussions of the "principle of the incarnation":
This principle of the incarnation governs the whole of special revelation. This incarnation is always from above and yet is organically united with the world and humanity and makes itself an ineradicable part of cosmic life. It is from this standpoint that judgment can be made concerning what the Scriptures say of heaven and earth, the kingdoms of plants and animals, and the world of people, of parents and children, men and women, masters and servants, magistrates and subjects. It always brings a word of God to us, but always through the words of man, and therefore it always has a human, historical, local, temporal character. This holds true even for the highest truths in the religious and moral sphere, which we therefore do not learn to repeat word for word or literally in confession and doctrine; but after having received them in our consciousness and after having thoughtfully appropriated them, we reproduce them freely and independently in the language of our time. (Biblical and Religious Psychology, 15)
It would take too long to go through all the misinterpretations of Van Til’s and others’ positions, therefore I refer the reader to Anderson’s commentary on Dr. Fesko’s chapter.
In chapter five, “Transcendental Arguments” (TAG), Dr. Fesko sees the problem with presuppositionalism’s transcendental arguments: “(1) Van Til engages in synthetic thinking; (2) some overemphasize the coherence theory of truth at the expense of the correspondence theory, (3) the TAG is wedded to outdated philosophical trends” (137-138).
The first criticism is fair. Van Til makes too much out of Thomas’ use of Aristotelian categories. Words and concepts such as essence, person, nature, and many other concepts used by the church at large do not originate from Scripture, but they are good tools to explain its teachings. Similarly, Van Til uses concepts such as “concrete universal,” “limiting concept,” and God as “the Absolute” (144; these terms originate in German idealism). However, using this or the other sets of categories or methodology to explain the Bible does not necessarily constitute by itself an illicit mixture of God’s teachings with human opinions. In fact, “broadly considered, Van Til and Aquinas employed a similar apologetic methodology. Both spoke to the philosophical trends of their day from the platform of the authority of Scripture: Aquinas spoke in an Aristotelian dialect and Van Til in an idealist one” (148).
The second criticism is empty. Besides mischaracterizing Van Til’s epistemology, the fact is that TAGs can both work within and are compatible with both theories of truth, it does not require any necessary commitment to only one of them (see Anderson).
The third criticism also does not go anywhere. True, “the TAG is a useful tool within the apologist’s toolbox but is neither a silver-bullet argument nor the most biblically pure form of Reformed apologetics” (137); the “TAG can be a useful argument but not at the expenses of the book of nature” (137); and “Christians need to be flexible, able to meet a host of beliefs rather than inflexibly locked into one philosophical form of argumentation” and to “employ arguments that fit the occasion” (156). But Dr. Fesko claims that, considering the unprecedented level of skepticism and relativism in our postmodern society, “idealism [the philosophical framework of TAG] is no longer a dominant conversation partner” (155), and he asks: “What if the [unbelieving] person has not a coherent worldview but only an eclectic, postmodern assortment of beliefs? The TAG is likely not as useful in such a case” (156). But postmodernism not only dismiss coherence in truth (defended by the TAG) but they also dismiss correspondence of truth (defended by classical theistic proofs). Therefore, the same precise criticism that Dr. Fesko raises against TAG can be made against the classical apologetic approach Dr. Fesko defends. In fact, his criticism says nothing about either of them, and Dr. Fesko nowhere explains why his Aristotelian framework would be considered less “outdated” than an idealist one in the eyes of a contemporary. That said, Dr. Fesko is generally right in saying that Van Til “borrowed elements of idealistic philosophy (which he considered formally true) and made necessary corrections to align them with Scripture…His methodology bears a strong resemblance to Aquinas’ use of Aristotelian categories to build a bridge to Muslim philosophers,” and therefore Van Til “stand in a long line of theologians who have employed philosophy in this manner” (157).
Chapter seven, “Dualisms,” is a lengthy critique of the complex thought of reformational philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977). The purpose of this chapter is to address the criticism of one of the most formidable opponents of classical Reformed apologetics.
Chapter eight, “The Book of Nature and Apologetics,” is essentially a brief presentation of classical apologetics. Knowledge and epistemology are not an end for themselves, but they were and are aimed at holy covenant fellowship with God through love for God and neighbor (195-201). Dr. Fesko points out that some confuse axiology with epistemology: regenerate can and do know many true things about themselves and the world (epistemology) just like believers can, but “only the believer will rightly evaluate the ultimate significance of the existence of one of God’s creatures and the truth of a mathematical formulation” (213, emphasis added). The Christian’s appeal to theistic proofs, history, and nature in apologetics “is not in any way a capitulation to a so-called autonomous neutral zone; to appeal to these things is to appeal to God’s revelation” because “Christians have two books…the book of nature and the book of Scripture” (214).
Dr. Fesko concludes the book by offering a few general guidelines about the key role of humility in apologetics, and how to make sure to always submit knowledge of the book of nature to the knowledge of the book of Scripture. However, the chapter contains the same problems mentioned earlier regarding the previous chapters. Finally, again as in the previous chapters, nothing that Dr. Fesko says regarding the book of nature and its recovery and use in apologetics is necessarily in opposition to a presuppositionalist approach.
Conclusion
In some Reformed circles, apologetic methodology is heatedly debated. I will only offer two extreme examples related to this book. On the one end of the spectrum, we have Dr. Oliphint who claims that, with this book, Dr. Fesko is seeking to return Protestants “to the vomit of Rome” (xv). On the other end of the spectrum, we find Keith A. Mathison who, in his review of Dr. Fesko’s book, expresses no reservation towards it, not one single minor disagreement or even simply a hint of it, besides mentioning none of the positives that Dr. Fesko himself sees in presuppositionalism (to be fair to Dr. Mathison, see his recent book and interview). Both are extremes, and, as all extremes, they are unhelpful. Balance is, as usual, a better counselor.
Extremes create paradoxes. For example, see a paradox which befalls some of those who nowadays are in the trenches to defend classical apologetics and natural theology (I'm sure some paradoxes also befall those in the trenches to defend presuppositionalism). Those same individuals are also engaged in projects aimed at retrieving the catholicity of Protestantism, and rightly so. And yet, a discerning reading of the works by theologians such as Gerhart mentioned earlier, John Williamson Nevin (1803–1886), and Philip Schaff (1819–1893) could teach us something about Protestant catholicity; but they are either neglected or summarily opposed, and one reason for that it's because Nevin and Schaff were modified idealists and did not espouse the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy and the classical apologetics that some consider so indispensable (for collections of their works by topic, see here; see their works online here and here).
Positively, Dr. Fesko has retrieved Reformed classical apologetics. He has clearly expounded and defended the apologetics and methodology of Thomas, Calvin, and the Westminster divines (chapters one to three). He has also defended Thomas from many false charges moved against him by many in the Reformed camp (chapter four). He has successfully retrieved classical Reformed apologetics in that he has shown that it is helpful and within the boundaries of Reformed theology. It is true that some have in fact treated the book of nature in an unnecessarily derogatory way, and much of what Dr. Fesko says is a welcome call to appreciate God’s creation both for apologetics and piety. Indirectly, Dr. Fesko’s book is also helpful to further realize how wrong is the unbiblical and anabaptist understandings of sola Scriptura and of the sufficiency of Scripture that make the Scripture sufficient for anything. The proverbial example (113) is counseling and mental illness: since the Scripture is “sufficient,” then doctors and professionals should not be consulted in such cases, never mind that the Scripture is sufficient specifically “unto salvation” (Belgic Confession 7).
Negatively, it’s unclear how this book has reformed apologetics. Dr. Fesko is unsuccessful in showing the superiority of the classical over the presuppositional approach. Dr. Fesko’s claims that presuppositionalism is at odds with Calvin and with Westminster are just as unconvincing as the claims of presuppositionalists who ascribe all sorts of errors to classical apologists and Thomas. Dr. Fesko’s intention to be both straightforward and fair cannot be doubted, and he has written an impressively scholarly book into which he has poured a lot of time and love. But, as a scholar who emphasizes the importance of studying and understanding the sources, he should be as concerned when Van Til or similar are misrepresented as he is when Thomas or similar are misrepresented. Though Dr. Fesko might be right in lamenting that “the present climate has become one of outright hostility to classical Reformed theology” (191), his mischaracterizations of some of his opponents do not help.
Dr. Fesko’s cause is also damaged by his generalized claims about presuppositionalism’s alleged insufficiency to use the book of nature for apologetics. It seems obvious that associations such as Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries International, and The Institute for Creation Research as well as some of their authors and collaborators, though not necessarily espousing classical apologetics, offer better and clearer ways and methods to “recover the book of nature” for apologetics than Dr. Fesko’s approach (for instance, see some of the books by astrophysicist Jason Lisle, and by the chemist Jonathan Sarfati; both men, though presuppositional in their approach to apologetics, in their writings continually make use of evidence from creation and science to support and defend the Christian faith and the Scriptures). Relatedly, as Dr. Fesko himself acknowledges, there is nothing intrinsic to classical apologetics that prevents anyone from using TGA, and as Douglas Groothuis, a classic apologist, says regarding TGA: “the structure of this argument is sound and it does not beg any question” (Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith, 58–59).
Finally, the intended reformation of apologetics towards a classical approach remains a question mark because Dr. Fesko’s book presents a method to move in that direction that is neither clear nor defined.
I disagree with both Van Til and Thomas on several different but essential theological points. However, their apologetic approaches formally considered are within the boundaries of Reformed orthodoxy and do not bind anyone to subscribe to a specific set of distinctives, either Thomas’ or Van Til’s. Since orthodoxy is not necessarily at stake here, the numerous mischaracterizations contained in Dr. Fesko’s book are instances of unnecessary “I am of Paul/Apollos/Cephas” controversies, just like the misunderstandings of classical apologetics that Dr. Fesko rightly opposes in this very book. Therefore, I think a less partisan and more comprehensive and integrative approach is to be preferred (for instance, see Kenneth Boa and Robert M. Bowman Jr., Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith; for a balanced overview of current apologetic methodologies, see Brian K. Morley, Mapping Apologetics: Comparing Contemporary Approaches).
To conclude: for those who are interested in reading an academic but limited overview of the state of the debate about apologetics within Reformed circles from a classicalist point of view, Reforming Apologetics is a helpful source. To others who don’t share such interest, and to believers in the pews who want an accessible presentation of classic apologetics, I suggest looking elsewhere.
©
Expanded and adapted from
a review originally published in the
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