Over at the Heidelblog Mr. Scott has come to his logical senses, if only briefly. It looks like the woman's right to choose is not a paradox after all. In fact, killing an unborn "fetus" is a matter of deontological and apodeictic moral law. Without logical propositions there is no possibility for knowledge in general, and there is no possibility for morality in general or in particular. R. Scott Clark nails down the logical reasons that we ought to reject the infanticide we call abortion. Of course, religious, political and philosophical liberals are not bound by the laws of logic or by the moral law of God as it is revealed in Holy Scripture. (Exodus 20:1-17; Romans 3:20; 7:7). Van Tilians love to exploit the idea that logic is a creation of God rather than the very architecture of the ontological being of God. John 1:1 makes the logical propositional truth claim that "God is Logic." If only R. Scott Clark were consistently logical! His comments below are apropriate:
What of those humans who are killed, in utero, before viability? I’ve had this discussion with some ardent pro-abortion types in recent months. They seek to deny that humanity is inherent to pre-natal humans and they seek to make the humanity of the pre-natal infant contingent upon the will of the mother. This is the Nietzschean “will to power.” As a matter of fact and logic, humans conceive, gestate, and give birth to humans. We don’t magically become human at 23 or 24 weeks of gestation. We were human before viability and we are human afterward. Remember that viability is a shifting standard that depends on technological developments. So, logically, viability is an arbitrary standard. Human life develops organically. (See: Heidelblog: Killing Infants Is A Crime).
If there are two or more kinds of logic, then logic would itself be contradictory. The problem with R. Scott Clark and other Van Tilians is that they contend that logic means something different for God and for men. That is, truth and logic are two-fold. Nothing we know as creatures is the same thing God knows. But here Van Tilians beg the question. As Arthur Holmes once said, "All truth is God's truth." So if we as creatures know anything that is true, it logically follows that God as an omniscient and personal Being knows that same truth as we know it. Of course, God knows much more than we know as creatures. But if we know anything at all that is true, then on that single proposition God knows that same truth. My point being that if we know that killing unborn human babies is murder, God knows that exact same logical proposition and thus God and man know the exact same proposition univocally. (Exodus 20:13 KJV). Truth is not up for negotiation via the doctrine of theological or moral paradox. That view is the view of neo-orthodoxy and liberalism, not biblical Christianity. Scott Clark ought to come clean and admit that Van Til's theology is ambiguous and contradictory.
The real question here is whether or not humans are merely "carbon units" and fetuses while in the womb or are they human beings who are created in the image and likeness of God? Since God is sovereign and gives life at His sovereign will, it logically follows that humans should not usurp the place of God by claiming to have the power of life and death over the most vulnerable human beings of all: unborn infants. (Exodus 20:3 KJV; Psalm 82:6-8 KJV).
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2 comments:
Here is the problem. It is with this statement:
It looks like the woman's right to choose is not a paradox after all.
There is no "woman's right to choose" infanticide, any more than there is a "woman's right to choose" to kill her three-year old.
By accepting that sick and perverse phraseology and its implications, one has already surrendered the battle.
Without turning this into a CVT/GHC debate, I submit that the problem in this case has nothing at all to do with either CVT or GHC's epistemology, but with the mistaken idea that a woman ever has a "right to choose" murder.
Of course there is paradox when one considers sin as a possible course of action.
Killing babies is wrong, period. There is not "right to choose."
You said, "The problem with R. Scott Clark and other Van Tilians is that they contend that logic means something different for God and for men. That is, truth and logic are two-fold. Nothing we know as creatures is the same thing God knows."
Can you provide me a reference for this statement from Van Til's writing? I see this stated often, but I can't seem to find it substantiated in any of Van Til's works.
Obviously my statement about paradox and a woman's right to choose was meant to be sarcasm. However, it is fairly easy to demonstrate that the theology of "paradox" permeates Van Tilian theology and the theology of those who follow him. An example from Mike Horton, another professor at Westminister Seminary, CA said:
One problem of simplistic views of sin is that they always generate simplistic views of redemption. Scripture speaks of salvation in terms of a tension between the "already" of salvation and the "not-yet" that still awaits us. Unwilling to embrace the paradox of being "simultaneously justified and sinful," we reject either justification or sanctification. However, a simplistic view of sin as acts requires as its solution nothing more than red-faced threats or smiling therapies for getting our act together. (Michael Horton, "Let's Not Cut Christ to Pieces," Christianity Today, July 12, 2012, page 3). Horton's Paradox of Justification and Sanctification
I refer you to an article by Sean Gerety in the Trinity Review as well: R. Scott Clark
See also: The Complaint and The Answer These two documents outline the dispute between Clark and Van Til when Clark was falsely accuses of rationalism in 1940.
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