Van Til, Thomas Aquinas, and the Natural Knowledge of God

[@Amilton5solas]

Very good! You guys are awesome

[@dylan3456]

Do you have any material on the Lutheran differences you’ve briefly mentioned here? I was surprised by that.

[@jacobcarne8316]

Bavinck in vol. 1 and 2 of RD sounds a bit different. “We get to know things because they exist and after they come into existence, and in our perception and thought we advance from the visible to the invisible, from the world to God.” “For that reason there is no knowledge of the invisible world except by way of symbols of that which is visible.” 2:69-71 “For strictly speaking, no knowledge, either of God or if the world, is innate. All knowledge enters the human mind from without. Innate only is the CAPACITY for knowledge, but this innate capacity is only activated by action and impact of the world within and around us.” 2:73

[@LeoRegum]

Yes, his view is that since man is not separate from the world, the innate capacities will necessarily result in knowledge, and therefore may loosely be termed "innate knowledge" (he says this in the next section). The second quotation is worded very strangely, the addition of the second "that" makes it seem as though the symbols are of visible things as opposed to visible things being the symbols. "Daarom is er geen kennis van het onzienlijke, dan onder het symbool van het zienlijke." Google: "Therefore there is no knowledge of the invisible except under the symbol of the visible." (I also can't imagine Bavinck writing "get to know" in his magnum opus, but maybe he did.)

[@vanttil101]

Bavnick clearly denies the philosophically speculative notion of "innate ideas" that leads to mysticism. However, while Bavinck denies the speculative notion of innate ideas found among the philosophers, he endorses the notion of "implanted knowledge of God" found in Calvin's theology of the *sensus divinitatis*. Bavinck says, "At same time we must speak of the "implanted knowledge of God' in some sense. This means simply that, as in the case of language, human beings possess both the capacity and the inclination to arrive at some firm, certain, and unfailing knowledge of God. We gain this knowledge in the normal course of human development and in the environment in which God gives us the gift of life. From the entire realm of nature, both exterior and interior to us humans, we receive impressions and gain perceptions that foster in us the sense of God. It is God himself who does not leave us without witness" (RD 2, 54). It is this original capacity and inclination before the fall that received the "impressions" from God in his self-disclosure that was "interior" to Adam as the image of God. In that way, God did not leave created Adam without a witness. This Calvinistic notion of "implanted knowledge of God" differs from the philosophically speculative notion of "innate ideas." God did not create Adam with abstract "innate ideas" but with a personal "implanted knowledge of God" that underwrote his natural religious fellowship with God--a fellowship that according to Bavinck precludes the need for ontologically reproportioning grace as found in the donum superadditum (see RD 3, 576-77). This is Bavinck's way of stating what Vos termed "the deeper Protestant conception" of the image of God (see RD 2, 13-14).

[@evanzhuo297]

But doesn't "the entire realm of nature, both exterior and interior to us humans, we receive impressions and gain perceptions that foster in us the sense of God. It is God himself who does not leave us without witness" and the idea of a "capacity" sound more like Thomas? You have a capacity to look at nature and from there you understand God. He calls it "implanted," but it is worked out in the same way Thomas does. And I believe he gets this kind of argument from Voetius (or other Dutch Reformed Scholastics), who uses other Thomistic arguments (like the other Reformed Scholastics). I probably just don't fully understand the distinction yet, so clarification would be helpful. Thanks!

[@vanttil101]

@@evanzhuo297 Capacity and implanted knowledge--both concreated for the Reformed. Only capacity is concreated for Thomas. Paves the way Thomas's doctrine of deification. We probe it more in the course. Blessings!

[@michaelst-amour3969]

It's clear that for Bavinck, there is no inner knowledge. It's closer to stoicism, with inner ideas, which are potential and not actual, and develop naturally through experience and knowledge. It's a inner sense of God, and not a knowledge in itself, exactly like what we find in Van Mastricht. Basically a implanted knowledge of God, which is a seed of religion.

[@vanttil101]

@@michaelst-amour3969 Yes. Implanted knowledge of God is Calvin's semem religionis.

[@michaelst-amour3969]

@@vanttil101 Of course, I think when we talk about epistemology, Susanto got it right when he said : Between Aquinas and Kuyper. Bavinck worked hard to keep as much as possible an organic unity in every aspect of theology, bringing a great answer to the question of unity and diversity, taking place first and foremost in the triune God. I really do appreciate it's theology.

[@jacobcarne8316]

Define con-created natural knowledge: does this refer to innate ideas or the capacity/faculty of knowledge? Calvin may sound different in his articulations than some of the later reformed writers as well

[@robbarker9878]

Never having been in your space, I've always imagined with some envy those shelves extend 360 around the whole room, including the little space above door frames. I'd be very disappointed if they stopped just out of frame.

[@SilasJSantos]

Great discussion, Camden. However, I miss term definition, for example: what is "knowledge of God?" What is the definition of knowledge in this discussion? What is the definition of natural knowledge? What is it not? Thanks

[@vanttil101]

Calvin called it the "sensus divinitatis" that was concreated or implanted in Adam as the image of God. Knowledge of God consists in natural religious fellowship with God that expresses itself in worship. It is not mere acquired knowledge about God but a sovereignly implanted knowledge of God that requires covenantal condescension as the means to the end for its consummation. Concreated or implanted natural knowledge of God, like original righteousness and holiness, supplies the substance of the image of God in what Vos called the "deeper Protestant conception." Vos also talked about knowing God as life flowing into life in a fellowship bond. This is central to a Reformed doctrine of the image of God as Vos outlines in his Reformed Dogmatics and Van Til follows. There are many citations of Calvin and others in the lectures that will amplify. Natural knowledge of God is intimate personal acquaintance with God, implanted by God himself in the special work of creation, that consists in religious fellowship between the triune Creator and image bearing Adam. That is the heart of it. But this will at least get you started. Blessings.

[@adamyork2333]

I think we can speak of Adam's knowledge in at least the following senses. 1. The capacity to know as image bearer. 2. Inbuilt cognitive knowledge of/about God 3. Knowledge of God in terms of possessing personal religious fellowship with God. It's that third sense of knowledge which, while being fully present with Adam from the moment of his creation, truly sets forth the purpose and aim of knowledge in the first two senses. Taken in terms of a total package this knowledge is concrete, personal, and doxological, that is to say leading Adam in his natural state to both know and worship God. Moreover, for the Reformed, original knowledge of God, particularly with respect to religious fellowship, is intended to reach its fullest potential by way of covenant. Thomas would affirm the first sense of knowledge listed above, but he would deny everything which followed after that remark.

[@vanttil101]

@@adamyork2333 Excellent!

[@SilasJSantos]

@@vanttil101 thank you for the kind reply. What I meant is not that I do not know those definitions but that lectures with term definition are more helpful to the listener at large. Now, yes, Calvin and Vos work together beautifully because I don't think Calvin meant "worship as worship service as a religious rite", although it is included, rather worship as the essence of what we are, "conformed to the image of His Son," and that renders a Christlike lifestyle. thank you!

[@quantumethics5453]

Does the RC conception of knowledge, righteousness, and holiness being added to Adam post-creation deny the possibility of a covenant of works within the garden? Seems that if this was the case then Adam could only perform his duty of perfect obedience via grace.

[@nicklaushart9063]

Where might someone get their hands on an OPC hat, like Dr. Tipton’s?

[@vanttil101]

The home offices of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church should have some in stock!

[@danielnosuke]

Um, did I miss something? What is all this talking about Adam getting direct or indirect knowledge of God to his reason? Didn't Adam walk and talk with God?

[@chrisctlr]

So is there any sense at all in which Thomas believed in direct knowledge of God? What about Romans 2 law written on our hearts? Does anyone know what he believed about that?

[@andrewmccullough559]

What do you mean by direct knowledge? The 'law written on the heart' is usually understood to mean aspects of the natural law, or first principles of morality, like "do good and avoid evil," or it can be more specific (Aquinas thinks man can know by his natural powers that it's wrong to steal). These knowledges of the natural law, while they may indicate a law-giver, are about features of the created world. They reflect God, who made the world according to his wisdom, but do not constitute a very direct knowledge of God. By direct do you mean natural, as in by man's innate powers?

[@chrisctlr]

@@andrewmccullough559 I'm using "direct" in the same way that was used in the video (i.e., a connatatural knowledge of God), something given to us at creation... as opposed to merely an "inner light" that we make use of to engage in an "inferential process of reasoning" to conclude attain knowledge of God. And are you explaining Romans 2 from a Thomist perspective? Because that's not how I understand it. I would understand it more in the following sense (see Gill below): "Though the Gentiles had not the law in form, written on tables, or in a book, yet they had "the work", the matter, the sum and substance of it in their minds... and in their hearts, there are some remains of the old law and light of nature, which as by their outward conduct appears, so by the inward motions of their minds" So by "direct" in the case of Romans 2, I mean God has revealed the sum of His law to everyone, he's written it on their hearts, such that it too doesn't require an inferential reasoning process.

[@chrisctlr]

Another way to put it, is I'm using "direct" in the sense of "immediate" knowledge given to us from the beginning of creation, if that helps.

[@andrewmccullough559]

​@@chrisctlr Here is a paragraph from Aquinas on the question of whether the law written on man’s heart can be abolished from the heart: “I answer that, As stated above (Article 4, Article 5), there belong to the natural law, first, certain most general precepts, that are known to all; and secondly, certain secondary and more detailed precepts, which are, as it were, conclusions following closely from first principles. As to those general principles, the natural law, in the abstract, can nowise be blotted out from men's hearts. But it is blotted out in the case of a particular action, in so far as reason is hindered from applying the general principle to a particular point of practice, on account of concupiscence or some other passion, as stated above (I-II:77:2). But as to the other, i.e. the secondary precepts, the natural law can be blotted out from the human heart, either by evil persuasions, just as in speculative matters errors occur in respect of necessary conclusions; or by vicious customs and corrupt habits, as among some men, theft, and even unnatural vices, as the Apostle states (Romans 1), were not esteemed sinful.” Aquinas identifies this “law written on the heart” as the natural law, so if you want to know more about how Aquinas might approach Romans 2 - I could not find any commentary of his on it - you could skim his views on the natural law: Summa, First Part of the Second Part, Question 94 (www.newadvent.org/summa/2094.htm#article1). I agree that the Thomist perspective starts from a different vantage point, but as I read Gill quoted here, I see the two as compatible. The point I was making before is that this natural law is relatively minimal and basic - it can help a person to be just, temperate, chaste, etc., and certainly this natural goodwill (or the conscience) can be a place through which grace is at work to bring a person eventually to conversion and justifying grace - that’s not to say it’s by our natural merits that we receive the grace, but that God makes use of diverse means in bestowing grace. But for Aquinas it may be too strong to say that this natural law is itself “knowledge of God.” It seems to me he does think inferences could be made from the natural law to the transcendent Lawgiver, but this (or at least the higher forms of knowledge) will be only by a few men, after a long process, and with the admixture of many errors - and it will be inferential, though based for its premises on something which was given as gift, not the product of reasoning. Also noteworthy, I think, for anyone who wants to understand Aquinas and Catholic theology, is that he does believe in various other forms of knowledge of God which are, to use your terms, direct and immediate (loosely) - that is, existing with man at the outset of man’s creation, at least for Adam. Rather than treat them individually, I will just name them here. Also, since these knowledges are ‘of God’ but in highly varying degree, I will let you work out how or in what sense each form of knowledge below can be said to be ‘of God’ rather than of the things of God, or of the world God has made. 1) The foundation of them all and the root onto which the other gifts of grace are grafted, sanctifying grace, which made Adam a friend of God, able to live in intimacy with God, or the precondition of what Reformed theology calls “natural religious fellowship,” though for Catholics this grace is absolutely supernatural, as in exceeding the powers of man’s intrinsic nature (yet compatible and complimentary to it), natural only in the sense that it’s being used here, to mean “original,” as in ‘existing from or at the beginning.’ Aquinas thinks Adam was created with sanctifying grace, rather than receiving it sometime after his creation, although the Council of Trent did not decide either way; and this question of timing is not very important for what sanctifying grace is or does. I just mention it because it will pass your test of being connatural or concreated with respect to timing, if not in other ways. 2) Adam was created with faith in God. Maybe we’re not accustomed to thinking this way, or we interpret Adam “walking with God” as meaning he saw God ‘face to face’ and did not need or have faith, that he was thereby in something like the Catholic idea of heaven as ‘beatific [blessed] vision.’ For Catholics, there is no faith in heaven, because we see “face to face,” no longer by the “dim reflection,” but in clarity of vision rather than the obscurity of faith. This is why Paul can say that caritas (love) is greater than faith, because there is no faith in heaven but there is love, as in the union of hearts. John says “we will be like Him, because we shall see Him as he sees himself.” God does not know himself by faith, or indirectly through the mediation of concepts in the mind, but by a direct apprehension - and that’s what the just will receive in heaven. The point of this digression on faith is first, that Adam had it, and second, that faith is intellective - it entails a kind of personal knowledge of God and the things of God. That is why, by faith, we can be pleasing to God, because we know what he is about and can live our lives in view of eternal life, making judgments according to the things of God. Faith definitely involves a knowledge of God - that’s not to say it is nothing more - and Adam had faith; Catholics are permitted to believe that Adam had it at the first moment of his creation, and in fact it is the favored view. I’m going through this in detail to show that it meets your definition of direct or concreated/connatural knowledge, albeit we arrive there from a different approach and points of departure. 3) Other forms of infused knowledge, less directly about God, such as would have helped Adam to serve God, and been fitting (and practically necessary) given that Adam didn’t have parents, teachers, schools, the Bible, the church, a naturally-developed language, etc. God could have and probably did supply Adam with what he needed, knowledge (only some of the above) that is in one way natural, as in possible for man to generate himself given enough time, like language, but impossible under the circumstances and therefore gifted directly or immediately from God - supernatural as to its mode of conferral. Those are three examples, a glorious cortege of graces that God heaped on Adam, all of which were 1) direct and from the first moment of Adam’s creation, 2) themselves a form of knowledge or at least entailing or enabling knowledge of God or (in the case of #3) the things of God. Natural law is a fourth example, although I don’t know if Aquinas’s interpretation meets your definition of being “of God” - it seems to be rather about conduct, or how to live well, but is not sufficiently “about God” in the sense that even the pagans, cut off from God, have access to the natural law. Fifthly, I don’t know whether Adam had gifts of the Holy Spirit - it seems this could be problematic, since it was Christ who sent the Holy Spirit, and through Him from the Father. But if Adam had gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as the baptized receive with sanctifying grace and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, here would be another form of such knowledge of God - as Isaiah prophetically articulates, of the Spirit being upon Him: Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, etc. Finally, I have a question for you, an area in need of clarification. You say of this direct knowledge that is is “Given to us at creation … as opposed to an ‘inner light … .” The juxtaposition here almost seems to imply that the two are somehow incompatible, as if because it was an inner (not outer?) light, it could not have been gifted, or not at creation, or would be too much a work of man off doing his own thing by his natural inferential powers; or because (later) a work of man in his darkened mind, therefore unable to give solid knowledge of God, even though this is exactly what we profess of the effects of original sin. What sinful man does or can do later with his darkened inferential powers is an interesting question, but it doesn’t apply to Adam at the moment of his creation and before sin. Was Adam able to reason inferentially? Is inference, which literally means “drawing out”, an insult to God? Does it imply there was a deficit in God’s initial endowment of knowledge, like Adam was discontent with what he had been given, or was adding to God’s creative work, or co-creating, even though God commands Adam to do exactly that in subduing the earth, naming the animals, or being fruitful and multiplying? My worry here is that you’re operating with a view of grace as rivaling or competing with human action, rather than grace as healing, elevating, and perfecting it from within. Isn’t God more interior to us than we are to ourselves? Doesn’t he redeem what he made, rather than violating or mutilating it? If God created and sustains our freedom, isn’t he able to give grace in such a way as respects and heals it?

[@anthonyj.castellitto9103]

@@andrewmccullough559 The point that Pastor Lane makes is that Adam's religious fellowship does not require anything resembling post-fall grace/faith. Aquinas shoe horns that in to fit with the RCC hierarchical, institutional, sacramental system, in all do respect. Which would be the crux of the conflict. Our restored religious fellowship requires grace (and faith since we lack a natural, immediate, personal relationship in which all our senses are active, although our religious/spiritual understanding has been renewed/ignited).... We are totally depraved as in spiritually dead. Once we are regenerated we are revived spiritually. It's very clear-cut from the reformed perspective. Within the Roman Cahtolic system it is way more convulted where we stand at any given point in relation to God - its not as black and white. This is why Calvin was so different than Roman Catholicism on the doctrines of Grace. He's very clear and simplified in his understanding and teachings on the nature of grace as a post-fall and definitive super-natural work of the spirit. A work that can only be merited and secured by Jesus. We owe much more to Vos/Van Til/Calvin (even Luther) than we ever would Aquinas theologically. We appreciate certain influential aspects of Thomism but overall our systems of belief are totally different. I see systematic Reformed Theology as much more defined.

[@aedwyn]

“Some say that man was not created in grace; but that it was bestowed on him subsequently before sin: and many authorities of the Saints declare that man possessed grace in the state of innocence. But the very rectitude of the primitive state, wherewith man was endowed by God, seems to require that, as others say, he was created in grace, according to Ecclesiastes 7:30, "God made man right." For this rectitude consisted in his reason being subject to God, the lower powers to reason, and the body to the soul: and the first subjection was the cause of both the second and the third; since while reason was subject to God, the lower powers remained subject to reason, as Augustine says [Cf. De Civ. Dei xiii, 13; De Pecc. Merit. et Remiss. i, 16].” -Thomas Aquinas, ST I, Q. 95, a. 1

[@christiankraft2447]

You know I am so interested in this topic that I listened to the entirety of this "podcast" waiting for you to do more that define the differences you never explain between these men's positions. I am I missing something. Are you pointing somewhere else for that conversation?

[@michaelmorrow7280]

Have you read a book by Dr. Robert Morey "Natural Theology, and Natural Law: Conflict or Compromise. Very good book on the subject. Dr Robert Morey was a student of Van Til, and Gordon Clark. He would disagree though.

[@christiankraft2447]

@@michaelmorrow7280 Thanks for the reference. There is lots of disagreement out there.

[@pageegap1]

"finally, inasmuch as the WFC and Reformed orthodoxy, in general, are largely in agreement with Aquinas on issues of epistemology, natural theology, the doctrine of God, and indeed apologetics, Oliphint's and Van Til's views at best stand at the margin of what can be called Reformed..." Richard Muller

[@vanttil101]

Oliphint departs from CVT on the Creator-creature relation. It is tragic that anyone would identify Oliphint’s published mutualism with CVT’s confessional Reformed orthodoxy.

[@dubbelkastrull]

32:15 bookmark

[@andrewmccullough559]

Is there not scriptural warrant for interpreting the image of God as the essential or inhering capacity to know God, rather than as the package of this inhering capacity together with the concreated, native, built-in knowledge? How much work is this definition of the image doing in Reformed theology? Genesis 9, post-flood and about the shedding of blood: “for in the image of God has God made mankind.” There are at least two reasons for taking this image to be something essential in man and therefore ineffaceable (though deeply disfigured): 1) it is said that mankind is made in this image - it seems to be said of the race as such, as something common to all in the race and as specifying the race by way of definition or essence, e.g. ‘spiritual animal’; 2) whatever this image consists in, it seems to be the basis of the dignity, not only of Adam and Eve, but also of Noah and his family - the image is the justification given for the penalty for bloodshed. But do Noah and his family have the concreated knowledge? Are they righteous? Are they in the Adamic endowment of friendship with God? No, they are in the state of original sin. Their dignity here, and what they and every man retains in the state of original sin, is the ineffaceable image of God.

[@andrewmccullough559]

They say that Calvin says the image of God consists in original righteousness concreated and ‘natural’ to Adam, not supernaturally added to him as after his creation. For Calvin, the righteousness of Adam consists not only in holiness but in knowledge of God - and here they emphasize that this endowment is concreated, gifted, as at the outset. This endowment gives rise to natural religious fellowship - they’ll go on to say that “naturally, by nature, Adam knows God.” The Roman Catholic Church, to my understanding, makes several distinctions before clarifying how this endowment can be said to be natural or supernatural. First - and this all comes from Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma - they make their usual distinction between so-called sanctifying grace, and the other gifts of grace that Adam received together with it, which they call praeter-natural gifts, meaning “relatively natural.” These gifts are highly fitting for Adam and Eve to receive, and Scripture states or implies that they indeed received them: certain forms of infused knowledge, freedom from suffering, etc. Infused knowledge would have been very useful to them, since they didn’t have human parents to learn from in the usual way, and natural human language, which takes generations to build up, would have been completely unformed. But more importantly than these somewhat speculative matters, the RCC insists on one thing: whatever form exactly the original righteousness assumed, whether knowledge, benevolence, both, etc., it is supernatural in at least one sense: it exceeds the natural powers or capacities of the human being, and by ‘nature’ we mean what man is essentially, such that he cannot but be that thing. The argument here is philosophical as well as scriptural, and strong in my opinion: because the endowment of grace to Adam and Eve enables friendship and life with God, or you might say “proportions” them to God, the means of that relationship must be commensurate with the end. Since the end is God himself, the means must come from God, i.e. be an effect of God in creatures and not of the creature itself according to his own natural powers; and this we call grace. Finally, I think there is an unhelpful confusion here about the timing of things. These gentlemen seem to be using “natural” in a similar way as Augustine but without the same self-awareness, or awareness of how Aquinas reasonably uses the terms differently. They use “natural” as in “original,” or at the origin and beginning (in time) of things. This is different from how Aquinas uses the term, as that which is in the unaided powers of a thing. Were Adam and Eve created in a state of pure nature, left to their own devices, and then subsequently elevated by the endowment, the original justice, the sanctifying grace, or whatever we call it? Thomas Aquinas doesn’t think so, neither do the scholastics, and neither do most of the Fathers. The Council of Trent left it open. To clarify: Aquinas thinks Adam and Eve were probably created in that state of original justice, making the gifts of grace “concreated” or co-simultaneous with the creation of their human nature. But does that make those gifts of grace ‘natural’? Not as Catholics use the term, for the purpose of theological precision. This doesn’t create intractable problems, either, although you do have to say things like man has a supernatural (for God) vocation from the beginning, i.e. it is not added later. That means Christ restores or reinstates man’s original vocation for life with God, rather than giving man a new final end (maybe you could say Christ reinstates it in a higher mode). Peace to you, brothers! I commend you for your excellent theology, which is very difficult to find. Maybe we can continue the conversations in other forums. I have always been greatly interested in Reformed theology.

[@andrewmccullough559]

Do any of you live near Seattle?

[@Bewareofthewolves]

@@andrewmccullough559 Just out of interest, are you a Roman Catholic?

[@Veynatulip]

It’s all good but if they would just get to the point please sort

[@isidoreaerys8745]

What a load of gibberish