Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Quotes On Defending Distinctively Christian Theism Over Against Some Kind of General Theism

"But God also designates himself by another special mark to distinguish himself more precisely from idols. For he so proclaims himself the sole God as to offer himself to be contemplated clearly in three persons. Unless we grasp these, only the bare and empty name of God flits about in our brains, to the exclusion of the true God." (John Calvin, Institutes, 1.1.8.2)

"The apostle Paul lays great stress upon the fact that man is without excuse if he does not discover God in nature. Following Paul's example Calvin argues that men ought to see the true God, not a God, not some supernatural power, but the only God in nature. They have not done justice by the facts they see displayed before and within them if they say that a God exists or that God probably, exists." (Van Til, Apologetics)

"Christianity offers the triune God, the absolute personality containing all the attributes enumerated as the God in whom we believe. This conception of God is the foundation of everything else that we hold dear. Unless we can believe in this sort of God it does us no good to be told that we may believe in any other sort of God or in anything else. For us everything else depends for its meaning upon this sort of God. Acordingly we are not interested in having any one prove to us the existence of any other sort of God than this God. Any other sort of God is no God at all and to prove that some other sort of God exists is to prove that no God exists." (Van Til, Apologetics)

"They walk in the midst of this world which is an exhibition house of the glories and splendors of God, full as it is of the works of his hands, and they ask, mind you, whether God exists. They profess to be open minded on the question. They say that they will follow the facts wherever these may lead them. But invariably they refuse to follow these facts. They constantly conclude that God does not exist. Even when they conclude a god exists and that with great probability, they are virtually saying that God does not exist. For the true God is not surrounded by, but is the source of possibility. He could not possibly not exist. We cannot inteligently think away God's existence." (Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, ch. 5)

"We do not do justice to this passage [Rom. 1] by merely saying that all men or most men believe in a god or believe that God probably exists. Paul says that the revelation of the only existing God is so clearly imprinted upon man himself and upon his environment that no matter how hard he tries he cannot suppress this fact." (Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, p. 93))

"This means that God, not some sort of God or some higher principle, but God, the true God, is displayed before men." (Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, p. 100)

"...the Christian apologist does not argue for just any kind of abstract, general theism ("a god of some sort or other"), but rather for the specific conception of God revealed within the Christian Scriptures." (Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis, p. 31)

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