Using a Candle to Search for the Sun

“You do not use a candle in order to search for the sun.” Dr. Cornelius Van Til

Introduction

If you had to name the most important theologian of the 20th Century, who would you pick? Some might say Karl Barth, the father of neo-orthodoxy. Others might suggest a theologian of the people such as C.S. Lewis. Who would you nominate?

Up until last March 2020, I would have put forth many names. However, I am now convinced that the most important theologian of the 20th Century is a man I doubt you ever heard of. His name is Dr. Cornelius Van Til.

I just finished what I believe to be one of the most important books of the 20th Century. It is called Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis by Dr. Greg Bahnsen. While both authors have written many books individually, Dr. Bahnsen, an accomplished student of Dr. Cornelius Van Til, compiled, summarized, and expounded on Dr. Van Til’s Apologetic. Bahnsen has brought Van Til out of the ivory tower and helped us mere mortals understand the importance and significance of Dr. Van Til.

What Is Christian Apologetics?

For those who are not familiar with the terminology, a Christian “apologetic” is a defense of Christianity. The premier passage on defending Christianity is found in 1 Peter 3:15:

But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

My experience with Van Til is that either you get him or you don’t. I hope you do.

The quote I gave above I think best summarizes Van Til’s apologetic:

“You do not use a candle in order to search for the sun.”

In other words, Van Til stressed the point that you cannot start with human reason to prove or disprove the existence of God. In fact, you can’t start with man’s reason to prove anything.

The Foundation of Proof Itself

The Biblical genius of Van Til is his demonstration that the very essence of “proof” is found in Biblical Christianity. For example, in My Credo he wrote:

The only “proof” of the Christian position is that unless its truth is presupposed there is no possibility of “proving” anything at all. The actual state of affairs as preached by Christianity is the necessary foundation of “proof” itself.

To think that human beings, by their own reason and intellect, can prove or disprove the existence of God is like a man using “a candle in order to search for the sun.” To deny the self-authenticating revelation of the one and only Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, means that you cannot prove anything whatsoever. God is the only source of Truth, Light, Proof, Reason, Morality, and so on.

No God, No Reason

The very concept of “reason” itself existing apart from the one and only Reasonable God of the Bible is impossible. Faith does not start where reason leaves off. Faith (presupposing the God of the Bible) is what makes reason possible. As Augustine said, “I believe that I may understand.”

The candle represents man’s reason. The fire of a candle is converted energy that could not possibly exist without the pre-existence of the sun. Human reason is limited, finite, and fallible. To start with reason that is limited, finite, and fallible to draw conclusions about a Being that is unlimited, infinite, and infallible is like using “a candle in order to search for the sun.”

This is what the Bible says about itself.

The Psalmist said:

In Your Light do we see light. Psalm 36:9

He also said:

Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Psalm 119:105

The Essential Bible

The Bible is the written self-revelation of the self-existing Trinitarian God. In the pages of the Bible, He has communicated everything that we need to understand Him, how His universe works, how and why we can scientifically discover and uncover knowledge, the foundation of logic, and the only basis for morality, which God articulated in His Law. We learn the way of salvation, regeneration, sanctification, and glorification through the Bible.

In other words, the Bible is the written Light that God has given us in this world. And it is only in this Book that we learn about the self-attesting words of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There is no other way of salvation than through Jesus Christ. There is no other way to learn about God’s salvation in Christ but through the Light of Jesus Christ.

And this is the judgment: the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. John 3:19

To start with any other light is like using “a candle in order to search for the sun.”

Van Til’s Apologetic

Bahnsen shows how Van Til’s Apologetic accomplishes so much more. In Van Til’s Apologetic by Dr. Bahnsen we learn about the Biblical foundation of metaphysics (what is real?), and epistemology (how do we know what is real?), and ethics (how to we know what is right and what is wrong in reality?). With 764 pages, the book isn’t an easy read, but it is well worth the time, energy, and effort anyone would put into it.

What is noteworthy is Van Til’s insight that no human being is neutral. Everyone has their own set of assumptions and presuppositions in which they base their understanding of reality. Van Til showed that it is important to help unbelievers be honest about what they already believe, what they take for granted. His revolution in Christian Apologetics was helping the Christian world to understand and acknowledge the importance of presuppositions. This is why his method is often called “presuppositional apologetics.”

The Transcendental Argument

The most important contribution of Dr. Cornelius Van Til is his insistence that Christian Apologetics must not begin with man’s reason. Perhaps his greatest addition to Christian Apologetics is what is called the “transcendental argument for the existence of God.” This argument is Biblically based and irrefutable. As alluded to above, the argument is that apart from the revelation of the one and only Trinitarian God in His self-authenticating Bible, nothing can be proven whatsoever.

Other Christian apologists set about to prove the probable existence of a “god.” Eventually, they seek to bring the skeptic along through a series of piecemeal arguments to get him to believe in the God of Christianity. The best every other Christian Apologist can do is demonstrate that the God of the Bible probably exists. They use their candles and ask people to use their own candles to search for the sun.

Van Til, so to speak, starts with the sun. He does not begin with a candle. He begins with the revelation the Christian Trinitarian God gave in His self-authenticating Bible. In this self-attesting Bible, we learn, not only about the self-attesting Christ, but we learn about the self-existing Trinity who created the heavens and earth out of nothing. We learn how the universe works, how the human mind works, the moral requirements of a holy God, and so on. In other words, all human beings must presuppose the veracity of God’s truth in the Bible or you cannot prove anything.

The Fool Said In His Heart, “There Is No God.”

Van Til demonstrates that the only way an atheist can prove that God does not exist, he must borrow meaning from the Christian worldview. An atheist can prove nothing on his own worldview because his worldview is founded upon the meaninglessness of a chance-random material universe. Any claim to logic, science, evidence, and proof comes from Christianity, not from atheism. Van Til’s famous aphorism that summarizes this is “antitheism presupposes theism.”

One of the reasons that Van Til has never become popular is because he can seem esoteric at times. However, his abtrusiveness is necessary to answer the hard-hitting critics of Christianity, some of which seek to extinguish the sun by spitting at it.

Conclusion

There is so much more I can say about the importance of Dr. Cornelius Van Til. I have barely scratched the surface in this blog post explaining all the treasure that is in Van Til’s Apologetic.

In the end, the most significant value of this book and Van Til’s Apologetic is the justification of why we must start with the self-authenticating Bible and the self-existing Trinity as the foundation of proof itself. To begin with anything other than God’s self-revelation in His self-authenticating Bible is like using “a candle in order to search for the sun.”