Is Neo-Calvinism Different from the Old, Classic Calvinism?

The following link is posted in the Aquila Report:

Is Neo-Calvinism different from the old, classic Calvinism?

Here is another reason for the clash between Cornelius Van Til and Gordon H. Clark.  Van Til, having come from the Christian Reformed Church, followed the theology of neo-Calvinism via Vos, Bavinck, and Kuyper.  Clark followed the trajectory of classical Calvinism.  Is Neo-Calvinism different from old-line classical Calvinism?  You bet.  And the worst part of it is that so-called  "Calvinists" today are attacking the classical Calvinists as "rationalists" and "hyper-Calvinists."  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Oh, did I forget to mention we are called "fundamentalists"?

Reasonable Christian: A Critical Review of The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way, Part One

I wrote this review some time ago.  Although I have been accused of not being fair to Horton, I think I've been more than generous.   I will concede, however, that his sections of the book dealing with justification by faith alone are good and worthy of your attention.  The problem with Van Tilians, however, is that their view of revelation as two-fold truth presents problems in that the view of analogy they espouse has more in common with neo-orthodoxy than with the traditional Protestant and Reformed understanding of Scripture as the very words of God.  If at no single point anything in Scripture coincides with what God knows then there is no revelation of what God has said. 

However, if anything we know is true and God knows that same truth, it logically follows that on those single points of truth our knowledge and God's knowledge coincide.  Our knowledge of the propositions God knows is limited to what has been revealed in special revelation in Scripture.  Even here we do not always properly understand the systematic whole and how individual propositions fit within the confessional system of theology we call the Reformed standards.  The fault does not lie with the Scriptures but with our failure to think clearly and logically.

Reasonable Christian: A Critical Review of The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way, Part One

Mike Horton on the "Myth" of the Inspired Bible

The following is a quote that shows how far the Van Tilian theology of the neo-Calvinists is willing to go in compromising with postmodernism and rejecting the special revelation of the plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture.  Mike Horton states plainly that he does not believe the Bible is literally true but is instead "inspired myth", which is nothing more than neo-orthodoxy restated:

We do not have to say that Christianity is a metanarrative to affirm that it is true.  C. S. Lewis pointed out that Christianity is the true myth--the myth that actually became fact.  "It happens--at a particular, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences.  We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate.  By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth." 7  In other words, it is still a story, even though it is true.  Not even the resurrection is a metanarrative; its meaning cannot be read off of the surface of historical events but is defined by its intratextual context as part of an unfolding plot.  Mike Horton.  The Christian Faith:  A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way.  (Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 2011).  Page 18.

In other words, for Horton the Bible is not necessarily narrative history.  It is an inspired myth that happens to be "true", whatever that means.  Since for Horton the Scriptures are at no single point the same knowledge God and man knows on man's level, then it follows that Scripture is not really God's revelation since God cannot possibly reveal anything to man on his level "at any single point."  The Bible is not really God's words after all, according to Horton.  This is the legacy of Cornelius Van Til:  skepticism pretending to believe.  And inspired "myth" is still a "myth" or a "story" and not the literal truth in the very inspired words of God Himself--words spoken through the prophets and the apostles.

Addendum:  It looks like Mike Horton is now promoting evolution as a viable option for Christians on The White Horse Inn.  Why am I not surprised?  See: Out of the Horse's Mouth: Myths about Christianity:  Anglicans Ablaze