Van Til: We are frequently told that much in our life depends on "the accident of birth".

Thorn: There may be some truth to this, Dr. Van Til.

Van Til: In ancient time some men were said to spring full-grown from the foreheads of the gods.

Thorn: Indeed, some primitives thought that a virgin could give birth to a god-man. Go figure.

Van Til: That, at any rate, is not true today.

Thorn: Dr. Van Til, are you implying that at one time it was the case that "some men [sprang] full-grown from the foreheads of the gods"? At least the tale of the virgin-born theanthrope involves a woman.

Van Til: Yet I understand the next best thing happened to you. You were born, I am told, in Washington, D.C., under the shadow of the White House.

Thorn: I was? It's true, I was born, but nowhere near Washington D.C. (thank Blarko!).

Van Til: Well, I was born in a little thatched roof house with a cow barn attached, in Holland. You wore "silver slippers" and I wore wooden shoes.

Thorn: I don't recall any "silver slippers." I vaguely remember wearing Keds at one point.

Van Til: Is this really important for our purpose? Not particularly, but it is important that neither of us was born in Guadalcanal or Timbuktu. Both of us, I mean, were born in the midst and under the influence of "Christian civilization."

Thorn: Were it not for Aquinas' rediscovery of Aristotelian thought and the Renaissance this made possible, it would have probably been much worse in the west. Incidentally, Dr. Van Til, the idea of "Christian civilization" is perverse and oxymoronic. "Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy." [1] But such progress is not compatible with the authoritarian nature of Christianity. To the extent that the west is civilized, this progress was made possible in spite of Christianity, not because of it.

Van Til: We shall limit our discussion, then, to the "God of Christianity." I believe, while you do not believe or are not sure that you do believe, in this particular kind of God.

Thorn: It is true: I have no god-belief.

Van Til: That will give point to our discussion. For surely there is no sense in talking about the existence of God, without knowing what kind of God it is who may or may not exist.

Thorn: Aside: Here we see the proclivity for logical reversals poking its head through the surface of Van Til's chit-chat. He wants to stipulate attributes which must belong to "God" before he sets out on tracing the course to discovering whether or not something which we could come to call "God" exists in the first place. For, it only after we have come to the knowledge that something exists that we can begin to identify its distinguishing attributes. Van Til clearly wants to turn this procedure on its head.

Van Til: So much then we have gained. We at least know in general what sort of God we are going to make the subject for our conversation.

Thorn: Well of course, Dr. Van Til. That's the beauty of stipulating the attributes of an imaginary being: you can give him open-ended qualities that are completely malleable so that it meets all encountered circumstances and rebuffs any criticism those nasty non-believers might dare point out against this construct. The problem is, however, that there is nothing in reality to point to which we can both verify perceptually to support your claims, Dr. Van Til; clearly your imagination has assumed this point of reference.

Van Til: If now we can come to a similar preliminary agreement as to the standard or test by which to prove or disprove God's existence, we can proceed.

Thorn: But Dr. Van Til, would you honor this preliminary agreement when your god-belief is shown to break like a wave against the rock foundation of reason? Something tells me I shan't hold my breath.

Van Til: You, of course, do not expect me to bring God into the room here so that you may see Him.

Thorn: That's just the thing about the non-existent: you can't see it.

Van Til: If I were able to do that, He would not be the God of Christianity.

Thorn: Indeed, if you brought something into the room for me to see, obviously this something would have to exist. You're right: that does not characterize the God of Christianity.

Van Til: All that you expect me to do is to make it reasonable for you to believe in God.

Thorn: No, not at all. I do not expect this in the least, Dr. Van Til. In fact, what I'd prefer you do is forget about me for the time being, and simply explain why you believe. Don't worry about whether I will find the reasons for your belief to be reasonable or not. If you believe it's all so true, you should not hesitate in explaining why you believe.

Van Til: And I should like to respond quickly by saying that that is just what I am trying to do.

Thorn: That's so disappointing, Dr. Van Til. This is what most presuppositional apologists whom I've encountered try to do. But I urge them every time: Don't worry about trying to make your god-belief seem reasonable to me. I want to know what you take to be reasonable in this matter. After all, you have believed since you were a child. It's not likely that the elements which you would include in your case for the reasonableness of your god-belief were in mind when you as a child first assured yourself that you believed these things. It may be such a long stretch of time since then that you really don't recall what made you believe in the first place. Perhaps you will tell us? After all, this is the key piece to the puzzle of understanding why you think you believe these things.

Van Til: But a moment's thought makes me hesitate. If you really do not believe in God, then you naturally do not believe that you are his creature.

Thorn: Wow, Dr. Van Til! Where do you get these brilliant insights?

Van Til: I, on the other hand, who do believe in God also believe, naturally, that it is reasonable for God's creature to believe in God. So I can only undertake to show that, even if it does not appear reasonable to you, it is reasonable for you, to believe in God.

Thorn: Well now I'm wondering whom you're trying to convince. Do you want me to say that something is reasonable when in fact it does not appear reasonable to me? What else could your comments lead me to suspect you're thinking here?

Van Til: I see you are getting excited.

Thorn: No, just getting a little hungry. Is there a diner nearby? I'll spring for some burgers if you'll have one?

Van Til: You feel a little like a man who is about to undergo a major operation.

Thorn: No, actually, I don't. I've had a surgery before, and I sure don't feel like I did going into that experience. Just got a hankering for a burger or something. Anyway, let's not worry about what I'm feeling. There is a much more important matter at stake. Please, continue, but also try to get around to explaining why you believe and not worry so much about making it seem reasonable to me. You will not be able to do that, but you're welcome to try if you like.

Van Til: You realize that if you are to change your belief about God, you will also have to change your belief about yourself. And you are not quite ready for that.

Thorn: This is like saying "if you change your belief about a zero, you will also have to change your belief about yourself." What is it about my belief about a zero that needs amending?

Van Til: Well, you may leave if you desire.

Thorn: Are you kidding? You make a great study case! Please, Dr., go on. I have the afternoon free.

Van Til: I certainly do not wish to be impolite.

Thorn: Oh please, Dr. Van Til! I find your superstitions to be very quaint! I want to hear more.

Van Til: I only thought that as an intelligent person you would be willing to hear the "other side" of the question.

Thorn: Now, far from being impolite per se, Dr. Van Til, it's occasions like this when you phrase things rather mysteriously. The "other side" of what question exactly? My question is: why do you believe what you claim to be the case about your god-belief? What "other side" could there be to this question?

Van Til: And after all I am not asking you to agree with what I say.

Thorn: That's good. I wouldn't want you to think I was slighting our friendship.

Van Til: We have not really agreed on what we mean by God more than in a general and formal way.

Thorn: I don't know that we've even agreed on what this term could mean in a general or formal way. We haven't really discussed that yet. But it is your belief, so please, proceed.

Van Til: So also we need not at this point agree on the standard or test in more than a general or formal way. You might follow my argument, just for argument's sake.

Thorn: Well, I'll try to watch out for any argument which might emerge from what you say. But to be honest, Dr. Van Til, that's not been easy in the past. Not to be too critical, but sometimes when you talk about your god-belief, you tend to ramble on, from tangent to tangent. I don't doubt that in some way it makes sense to you. But from a listener's perspective, if you're presenting an argument, it could easily be missed against the backdrop of your analogies and ambiguous approximations.

[1] Ayn Rand, "The Soul of an Individualist," For the New Intellectual, (New York: Signet, 1961), p. 84.

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