Time: Thursday morning, 9:30 am.

Setting: A small sidewalk coffee shop with several vacant tables under a rising late winter sun.

Occasion: I am sitting at a table outside quietly finishing a cup of coffee and reading a magazine article. Unexpectedly Dr. Cornelius Van Til comes around a corner and sits down in front of me. After greetings and a little small talk, Dr. Van Til quickly turns our nascent conversation into an opportunity to apologize for his faith to me.

* * * * * * *

Van Til: You have noticed, haven't you, that in recent times certain scientists like Dr. James Jeans and Sir Arthur Eddington, as well as some outstanding philosophers like Dr. C.E.M. Joad, have had a good deal to say about religion and God? Scientists Jeans and Eddington are ready to admit that there may be something to the claims of men who say they have had an experience of God, while Philosopher Joad says that the "obtrusiveness of evil" has virtually compelled him to look into the argument for God's existence afresh. Much like modernist theologian Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr who talks about original sin, Philosopher Joad speaks about evil as being ineradicable from the human mind.

Thorn: Well, to be quite frank, Dr. Van Til, if thinkers like Niebuhr and Joad believe in invisible magic beings, it should be no surprise to us that they think that evil is "ineradicable from the human mind." So long as they hold to the theistic worldview model, they deny themselves relief from their own dishonesty, and the generalization they foist onto humanity as such is nothing more than a projection of their own guilt.

Van Til: Then, too, you have on occasion asked yourself whether death ends all.

Thorn: Aside: It's interesting how Van Til seems to think that he can read the mental history of his readers. He does this throughout his paper. We will see that, if the imaginary person to whom he is writing is supposed to be representative of non-Christians, I don't think he's speaking to a majority. This may be his way of trying to validate the caricature of non-believers which he promulgated among his students.

Notice also that it did not take Van Til long to get to the central preoccupation of the religious view of man, which is death. In fact, if mystics had not invented the fantasy of an afterlife in the first place, it never would have come to my attention. Given the fear that evil is "ineradicable from the human mind," we should again not be surprised that theists want to escape into fantasy.

Van Til: You have recalled, perhaps, how Socrates the great Greek philosopher, struggled with that problem the day before he drank the hemlock cup. Is there anything at all, you ask yourself, to the idea of a judgement after death? Am I quite sure, you say, that there is not? How do I know that there is no God?

Thorn: With all due respects, Dr. Van Til, I must interject. We dare not leave for after death something so vastly important as judgment. Judgment serves us in life, not in death. Death is the cessation of life; when the organism dies, so do its parts. Dig up the grave of a dead person sometime: you'll find only a corpse. The life which coursed in its veins did not "leave," it stopped. Life is a kind of action; when death happens, life stops. Perhaps you were unclear on this point?

Van Til: In short, as a person of intelligence, having a sense of responsibility, you have from time to time asked yourself some questions about the foundation of your thought and action.

Thorn: Yes, I certainly have. It is called reason.

Van Til: You have looked into, or at least been concerned about, what the philosophers call your theory of reality.

Thorn: Actually I have done just this, Dr. Van Til. My view of reality is based on what is called the primacy of existence, the principle which recognizes that existence exists independent of consciousness. I understand rationality to be loyalty to this principle.

Van Til: So when I suggest that you spend a Sunday afternoon with me discussing my reasons for believing in God, I have the feeling that you are basically interested in what I am proposing for discussion.

Thorn: Watching you try to present a case for the existence of an imaginary magic being will be entertaining no doubt. But most of all, I want to know why you, Dr. Van Til, believe what you claim you believe. So please, carry on.

Van Til: To make our conversation more interesting, let's start by comparing notes on our past. That will fit in well with our plan, for the debate concerning heredity and environment is prominent in our day.

Thorn: Excuse me, Dr. Van Til? The "Debate concerning heredity and environment"? Why not the very issue itself: ideas? Nonetheless, Dr. Van Til, you apparently want to frame the points in the context of autobiographical anecdote. I welcome this, for it will enable us to see why you believe (or think you believe) what you claim to believe.

Van Til: Perhaps you think that the only real reason I have for believing in God is the fact that I was taught to do so in my early days. Of course I don't think that is really so. I don't deny that I was taught to believe in God when I was a child,

Thorn: Aside: So, as more of Dr. Van Til's autobiographical details will show, he was very young when his god-belief was encouraged. He was taught that the Bible's claims are true, and, as a young child, had no philosophical defense at his disposal to question those claims or the claim that they are all true. Children are often very impressionable. Get them while they're young, for their minds are ripe for the brainwashing to come.

Van Til: …but I do affirm that since I have grown up I have heard a pretty full statement of the argument against belief in God.

Thorn: Dr. Van Til, can you recall for me, on what philosophical basis did you examine and assess this "pretty full statement of the argument against belief in God"? I would really like a straight answer to this question, but I will be patient.

Van Til: And it is after having heard that argument that I am more than ever ready to believe in God.

Thorn: "…that argument"? There was only one argument against belief in God which you examined, Dr. Van Til? Perhaps you were told that there is only one argument against god-belief? Already a profile of the nature of your god-belief is starting to emerge.

Van Til: Now, in fact, I feel that the whole of history and civilization would be unintelligible to me if it were not for my belief in God.

Thorn: Dr. Van Til, you feel this? Do you mean feeling as in input to your physical senses, such as the feeling of pain when one touches his finger to a flame? Or, do you mean feelings in the sense of emotions?

Van Til: So true is this, that I propose to argue that unless God is back of everything, you cannot find meaning in anything.

Thorn: Dr. Van Til, an immediate question comes up: what is back of God? One could say in response to your position here that, "unless Blarko is back of God, you cannot find meaning in God." Why not start with the basic fact that existence exists? Even if a god exists, it could not be creatively responsible for this basic fact, for to create something, it would first have to exist itself.

Van Til: I cannot even argue for belief in Him, without already having taken Him for granted.

Thorn: In other words, Dr. Van Til, you could not argue to establish the validity of this belief without begging the question? Since you want to start with something prior to existence, your dependence on fallacy in such an endeavor should not surprise us.

Van Til: And similarly I contend that you cannot argue against belief in Him unless you also first take Him for granted.

Thorn: Asserting this to be the case is one thing, Dr. Van Til. And to be sure, I've heard it many times from many of your students and followers. But showing reasons why you believe it is another, and indeed showing it to be true is yet another. And frankly, I'm not so interested in reasons why you think I should believe what you're saying here; rather, I am more interested in examining the reasons why you believe it, if indeed you do believe it.

Van Til: Arguing about God's existence, I hold, is like arguing about air.

Thorn: I agree. This is why I tend to think of apologists as hot air salesmen: what they want to sell me is clearly of no value to me, and none can prove that it could have value to me.

Van Til: You may affirm that air exists, and I that it does not. But as we debate the point, we are both breathing air all the time.

Thorn: So why would you debate it, Dr. Van Til? Who exactly is disputing the existence of air? I'm curious, will this prove to be a weak analogy, or even a deliberate diversion?

Van Til: Or to use another illustration, God is like the emplacement on which must stand the very guns that are supposed to shoot Him out of existence.

Thorn: One does not need to shoot the non-existent out of existence.

Van Til: However if, after hearing my story briefly, you still think it is all a matter of heredity and environment, I shall not disagree too violently.

Thorn: Let's be clear about this. That this is a matter of "heredity and environment" was something which you introduced, Dr. Van Til. When you say "I shall not disagree too violently," am I to take this as a signal of agreement on your part with the idea that this is a matter of "heredity and environment"?

Van Til: My whole point will be that there is perfect harmony between my belief as a child and my belief as a man, simply because God is Himself the environment by which my early life was directed and my later life made intelligible to myself.

Thorn: Similarly, the Blarkist tells me, "there is perfect harmony between my belief as a child and my belief as a man, simply because Blarko is Himself the environment by which my early life was directed and my later life made intelligible to myself." In either case, I'd have to say that the believer's maturation into adulthood is in question at this point.