God’s Self-Contained Knowledge.
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In contrast to this [the idea
that the law of contradiction operates the same in both God and man],
Christianity holds that God existed alone before any time existence was brought
forth. He existed as the self-conscious and self-consistent being. The law of contradiction, therefore, as we
know it, is but the expression on a created level of the internal coherence of
God’s nature. Christians should therefore never appeal to the law of
contradiction as something that, as such, determines what can or cannot be
true. Parmenides serves as a warning of what happens to history if the law of
contradiction is in this fashion made the ultimate standard of appeal in human
thought. Parmenides concluded that to
understand anything historical, it would have to be reduced to an element in a
timeless system of categories. He therefore denied the reality and significance
of all historical plurality. In modern times it is customary to use the law of
contradiction negatively rather than positively as Parmenides did. On the
surface this appears to leave room for historical factuality. But it does so
only if this historical factuality be thought of as being unknowable or
irrational.
Christians should employ the law
of contradiction, whether positively or negatively, as a means by which to
systematize the facts of revelation, whether these facts are found in the
universe at large or in the Scripture. The law of contradiction cannot be
thought of as operating anywhere except against the background of the nature of
God. Since, therefore, God created this
world, it would be impossible that this created world should ever furnish an
element of reality on a par with him. The concept of creation as entertained by
Christians makes the idealist notion of logic once for all impossible. The
creation doctrine is implied in the God-concept of Christianity; deny the
creation doctrine and you have denied the Christian concept of God. A created
being or a created reality in general cannot furnish a novelty element that is
to stand on a par with the element of permanency furnished by the Creator. If one believes in the creation doctrine at
all, one has to say that the novelty element of the universe is subordinate to
the eternal plan of God. Christians
believe in two levels of existence, the level of God's existence as
self-contained and the level of man's existence as derived from the level of
God's existence. For this reason, Christians must also believe in two levels of
knowledge, the level of God's knowledge which is absolutely comprehensive and
self-contained, and the level of man's knowledge which is not comprehensive but
is derivative and re-interpretative. Hence we say that as Christians we believe
that man's knowledge is analogical of God's knowledge.
Cornelius
Van Til, from An Introduction to Systematic Theology, p. 11. Class Syllabus, 1966. WTS
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