Cornelius Van Til's In Defense of the Faith volume 1: The Doctrine of Scripture (Philipsburg, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967) just hotted up with this paragraph:
Unfortunately, however, even Warfield himself, after having perhaps done more than anyone else in modern times to set forth the true view of Scripture, reverts to what is virtually an Arminian view of its defense.
(p57)
Fighting words!
It looks like Van Til is going to take Warfield to task for being too evidentialist and not sufficiently presuppositionalist because Warfield thinks that “… we first prove” the Scriptures “authentic, historically credible, [and] generally trustworthy, before we prove them inspired.” (CVTp59 citing BBW, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, (Philadelphia, 1948,), p210).
John Wenham advocates a similar approach to that attributed to Warfield in his very helpful book, Christ and the Bible where he shows that it is historically plausible that Jesus believed in plenary verbal inspiration and that lots of the alleged inconsistencies in the Bible can be cleared up quite happily.
How exciting!
I'm feeling my lack of Apologetics 1.1 here, were I'm sure Rev'd Dr Mike Ovey sorts all this evidentialist / presuppositionalist stuff out? Do the presuppositionalist basically win with the evidentialists still allowed to play ball?
Indeed, Van Till concedes that:“To be sure, if Warfield’s appeal to the natural man were an ad hominem nature, then it would all be well.” (p61)
Companion reading might also be John Frame, 'Machen's Warrior Children' in Chung, Sung Wook (ed), Alistair E. McGrath & Evangelical Theology: A Dynamic Engagement (Carlisle / Grand Rapids, Paternoster / Baker Academic, 2003).
Right, back to it!
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