In the Image of Trinity: a Proposal for a Four-Dimensional, Covenantal Epistemology

Renton Rathbun
ST 901 The Trinitarian Theology of Cornelius Van Til
December 10, 2012
 The following is something new—not revolutionary, but perhaps unique. There have

been several attempts at constructing a Christian epistemology. My expectation for this paper is

not to detail a comprehensive Christian epistemology. My hope, however, is to present a new

epistemological model. In this model I will attempt to set Cornelius Van Til’s thoughts into a

coherent, unified relation to a kind of covenantal epistemology. Even in presenting this model,

one paper would not be sufficient to the work it would demand. Therefore, I am setting out the

framework for this new model as a kind of proposal in an attempt to test its viability.

This model will accomplish three things. First, it will demonstrate the mark of a Triune

God upon our four dimensional reality. Second, it will demonstrate that our epistemological

structure can be seen in this Trinitarian analogy of dimensions. Third, it will demonstrate that a

truly Van Tilian epistemology can fit most easily in a four-dimensional epistemology patterned

after the ontological Trinity.

In considering an epistemological model, my main concern is in answering the question,

how is theoretical thought possible? To answer this question within the confines of this paper, as

stated before, is perhaps unrealistic; however, what I wish to accomplish is to propose my theory

upon certain foundations, which will make possible the project of answering the question more

carefully. The following are the foundations I propose as evidence of an epistemology, which

exists in four dimensions: first, since God is Triune, He inevitably stamps His mark of tri-unity

upon His creation; second, a four-dimensional system is analogous to God’s Triune nature; third,

a four-dimensional view of epistemology realizes Van Til’s view of a covenantal reality in which

we think and move.

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God’s Triune Mark Upon Creation

Thomas Aquinas was quite straight forward in his assertion that “It is impossible to come

to the knowledge of the Trinity of divine persons through natural reason.”1 For Aquinas this

conclusion might have more to do with his commitments to Aristotle’s view of substance and

matter than with a clear theological principle. This is brought out in his next comment that “it has

been shown already that through natural reason man can know God only from creatures; and

they lead to the knowledge of him as effects do to their cause.”2 Although it is for another’s work

to demonstrate these remarks to be inaccurate concerning whether or not unaided reason is able

to recognize the mark of a Triune God in general revelation, it is mine to demonstrate a more

modest point. If it is true that man is able to reason to God from nature and this nature leads man

only to a monad, man has arrived at something other than God. In other words, if Aquinas is

correct that unaided reason is capable of leading someone only to the oneness of God, and the

three-ness is in abstention, they are not led to God at all, but to something else.

Aquinas’s premise presents an inevitable problem. It assumes natural, unaided reason

stands in autonomy to God and is then able to work backwards from experience to truth. For

Aquinas, effects are able to be traced back to the cause from a process of reason. “Now when

demonstrating from effects that God exists, we are able to start from what the word ‘God’ means,

for, as we shall see, the names of God are derived from these effects.”3 This confidence in the

work of reason is typical of medieval philosophy and particularly Aristotelian logic. Aquinas is

establishing the starting point for how man stands in relation to God. Man is free to begin his

1
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia, trans. Ceslaus Velecky, vol. 6 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode,
1965), 1a. 32, 1.
2
Ibid.
3
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia, trans. Timothy McDermott, vol. 2 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode,
1964), 1a. 2, 2.

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theoretical thought in severed relation to God and successfully, through first principles, reason to

Him. Upon Aquinas’s own admission, this God that man reasons his way to is known only in His

unity and not in his tri-unity.

For Van Til, God is properly identified when we recognize Him as one and as three

equally. God is triune in nature and this conception of Him is critical to Christianity, so much so

that “we are not interested to have anyone prove to us the existence of any other sort of God but

this God. Any other sort of God is no God at all.”4 This bold statement is a consequence of his

view of the three and the one being “equally ultimate.”5 He specifies what he means by this in

what he calls his representational principle.

In this view of the Trinity, Van Til holds to three basic principles. The trinity exists in a

mutually exhaustive representation of each person. This mutual exhaustion is vital, for from it

the point is brought forward of “the complete equality as far as ultimacy is concerned of the

principle of unity and the principle of diversity.”6 To think of the Son apart from the Father and

Spirit is impossible and vise versa with the Spirit and etc.

To attempt to picture this is impossible and relating God to an object is already self-

defeating. As we will see later, however, finding shadows of the trinity in the world is not self-

defeating but inevitable. To see this shadow, we would need the kind of analogy that involves an

object that has distinguishing sides, but if one side were to be removed, instead of becoming a

new shape, it would cease to exist. This is what makes created objects difficult to use as analogy,

for once an aspect or side of an object is removed, it remains an object, but of a different shape.

4
Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, ed. K. Scott Oliphint (Phillipsburg: P & R Pub., 2008), 34.
5
Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, ed. William Edgar, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg:
P&R Publishing, 1974), 365.
6
Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1939), 96.

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What is being proposed here is that each side is an exact representation of the other, yet distinct,

and yet still, if one distinguished side were to be removed, it would cease be. Therefore, we are

not able to use objects for this task. If we look at that which makes objects possible, we might

have more success.

Van Til wanted to stress that each Person in the Godhead perfectly and fully represents

the others. They are present with and distinct from the other, yet fully united. There is a mutual

interpenetration in the Godhead (perichoresis). This is spoken of in Scripture as Paul declares,

“these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even

the depths of God” (I Cor. 2:10). This inter Trinitarian activity of the Persons demonstrates

God’s absolute personality, for “In the Trinity there is completely personal relationship without

residue.”7 This means that even in their distinctive three-ness, the Persons of the Trinity equally,

within the other, and as such, may be called one Person. The three persons are not united in one

mute, impersonal essence. The three are one within a personal essence, who we may call God in

His oneness. He, in His unity, is a Person, for “we do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead,

is one person.”8

Thus far, Van Til has described absolute personality dwelling in equal unity and three-

ness one aspect not secondary in any way to the other. The three-ness is unified by a personal

essence, which is not an addition to the three-ness but is the unifying presence of the three.

Within the three-ness, distinction is possible, yet within each Person, the other two are fully and

completely represented. One cannot be understood without the other two fully in view, yet as this

is true, their representation is the only way to make sense of the distinction. Although this is

7
Ibid., 78.
8
Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 363.

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inconceivable in any creaturely terms, the question will be, is this strange picture shadowed in

general revelation?

Van Til does, in fact, want to say that this triune nature of God is, in turn, reflected in the

world. Of course this is not a perfect reflection but is adequate to be related back to a Triune

God. In a lecture he stated, “We certainly cannot penetrate the mystery of the Trinity. Neither

can we penetrate anything else intellectually because all other things depend on the mystery of

the Trinity, and therefore, all other things have exactly as much mystery in them as does the

Trinity.”9 What is in the world, for Van Til, must reflect the One who is the Creator, and not just

that, but reflect His Triune nature. “God has unavoidably and clearly revealed himself in general

and in special revelation. The whole Triune God is involved in this revelation. The whole Triune

God testifies to man in this revelation.”10 God’s indelible mark is upon all His creation and that

includes His essential nature. “Thus we may say that this world, in some of its aspects at least,

shows analogy to the Trinity. This world is made by God and, therefore, to the extent that it is

capable of doing so, it may be thought of as revealing God as he exists. And God exists as a

triune being.”11

For our purposes the most crucial aspect of the representational principle is that it is the

grounds for why reality as covenantal. Van Til maintains, “The covenant idea is nothing but the

expression of the representational principle consistently applied to all reality.”12 Reality then,

whether we are able to uncover it or not, must necessarily reflect the Creator. This reflection will

be in the form of, or in the likeness of, God’s essential Trinity. In this manner, Van Til

9
Cornelius Van Til, "Christ and Human Thought: Modern Theology Part 1" (lecture).
10
Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 342.
11
Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 364 – 365.
12
Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, 96.

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understands the trinity as ontological, and it is in this way that he expects a covenantal relation

permeating creation. Not only does this affect man’s image, but also by relation it is profound

upon his way of knowing God and the world. When Van Til relates, “All of man’s acts must be

representational of the acts of God,”13 he wishes to say that man does not stand in autonomy to

his Creator but is conditioned by Him and must derive all from Him. In this case, man’s

epistemological state is not diverse or unique but follows necessarily from this principle.

Therefore, I propose that how the world is perceived holds within it God’s Triune nature,

and this way of perceiving has correlative patterns within man’s epistemology. This will be made

evident, first, in demonstrating the relationship between Van Til’s view of God’s tri-unity and

my understanding of how we perceive our world in four dimensions. Next, I will detail my

proposal of how a four dimensional epistemology, marked by God’s triune nature, is possible.

A Four-Dimensional Universe

As we consider the affect of a Triune Creator upon the universe, we will see that this

effect will be in the form of what we perceive to be dimensions. This term is not a fact of the

universe but is the best language we have at this point for trying to describe the unity and the

diversity that is inherent in our world. This state is so fundamental to the structure of our

universe, it will also have ramifications upon how it is we perceive the universe

epistemologically. These dimensions will be the key to our discovery of a four-dimensional view

of epistemology.

The three dimensional view of the world has been a standard in physics for a long time. It

wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the development of a fourth dimension began to take

13
Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1969), 208.

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shape. For the most part, dimensions have been spoken of in terms of space and shape. Time,

was not taken into the same consideration in terms of space as we do today. Charles Howard

Hinton developed a concept of the fourth dimension. He spoke, however, of the second and third

dimensions as already having motion.14 Movement indicates duration and hence, time. This

made his view of the fourth dimension more of an imitation of the other three. His structure,

however, was based on Euclidean geometry.

It was Hermann Minkowski who constructed the idea of the fourth dimension as we think

of it today. To Minkowski, the fourth dimension was thought strictly as time-space (Raum-

Zeit).15 It was upon his view of time-space that Einstein grounded his view of general and special

relativity. Einstein said that without Minkowski’s theory, general relativity “would perhaps have

got no farther than its long clothes.”16 The importance of the fourth dimension was not that an

additional dimension was located, but that this dimension seemed to be the regulating principle,

making the other three possible. It is within these four dimensions I would like to limit our

scope. Although today, eleven dimensions are theorized about, five through eleven are so highly

reliant on theoretical conditions, and many of those conditions immaterial to our purpose, I wish

to hold our attention to only these four. With in these four dimensions we will see quite

conspicuously upon them, the fingerprint from a Triune God.

The first dimension is difficult to imagine, mostly because in order to imagine it you must

do so wrongly. What I mean by this is, to see the first dimension, one must imagine concepts,

which require the representation of the other dimensions in order to imagine the first intelligibly.

14
C. Howard Hinton, The Fourth Dimension (London: Swan Sonnenschein &, 1906), 6.
15
Hermann Minkowski, Zwei Abhandlungen über Die Grundgleichungen Der Elektrodynamik. (Leipzig:
B.G. Teubner, 1910), 15.
16
Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory, trans. Robert W. Lawson (New York:
Henry Holt and Company, 1920), 68.

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The first begins with two points, which are both intersected by a single line. This line has length

only but no depth or width. As it is imagined in the mind, we add width and depth to that where

it does not exist.

The points’ location and size are indeterminate. This is also problematic. We cannot

understand points that have no location nor size. A line must intersect the point, yet we cannot

think of line that has no width or depth. Within all of this, we see another problem. That the line

exists indicates duration. The existence of any fragment, point or line, indicates duration, not

only in its use of space, but also, in our ability to observe it.

The second dimension is found by seeking a point at a right angle from the first. This is

called finding a point “orthogonal” to another. As a new point is made, a plane is created. This

plane has no thickness whatsoever, only length. Here our mind cheats once again and imagines

an extremely thin sheet (perhaps of paper), but not without at lease some height. We must do this

because to imagine both the first and second dimensions in isolation demands of our mind

something impossible. We cannot think in terms of length and width and not think in terms of

height or thickness. Not only this but depending upon the angle by which we observe the sheet it

could, upon its side, disappear. In this case it no longer exists, and we are back to no dimension

at all.

The third dimension is deceiving. If we are not careful, we might be fooled into thinking

the third dimension is what brings everything together, for we place a point orthogonal (at a right

angle) to the sheet and create something we might recognize, a series of planes which now have

thickness called a cube. This, however, is not as easy as it seems. We cheat, again, when we

imagine this dimension. To see it we have add movement (time) and change (variation) to make

the viewing of the cube possible. With out movement or change, the cube would merely be a

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shadow or cross section of the second dimension. In other words, it would be like a flat drawing

of cube, looking more like a series of lines. For the cube to truly be observed (or observed in the

third dimension), duration must be present. In the third dimension, time is not yet a component

and therefore duration and change is not possible yet either. The three-dimensional cube still

looks like flat lines until it is able to move and show change. Not only this, but we have forgotten

that for light to bounce off of an object and into our eyes, time is necessitated. The time it takes

for light to reach our eyes is determined by how far away that object is from our eye. This basic

fact means we were never able to see the line from the first dimension let alone the cube in the

third. If we are unable to experience the third dimension, how is it we are able to say we live in

it?

We must still go further. The three dimensions of a cube must not be thought of as mere

“properties” of the cube itself. This would be a misunderstanding of such concepts as width and

depth. Richard Feynman states, “if we step aside and look at the same thing from a different

angle, we get a different width and a different depth . . . One might say that a given depth is a

kind of ‘mixture’ of all depth and all width.”17 These three dimensions continually resist

categories of separation, but they seem to coalesce with categories of distinction.

Thus far we have established that these three dimensions are distinct, but if one is

separated from the others the whole of that which is considered a “thing” simply ceases to exist.

A cube cannot exist absent of line or plane. Any dimension that is thought of apart from the other

is, as we have demonstrated, impossible. To conceive of the first dimension is to think of a line,

but we cheat by including a full representation of the other dimensions to hold our place in that

dimension. Therefore, one dimension cannot be thought of without a full representation of the

17
Richard P. Feynman, Six Not-so-easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-time (Reading:
Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1997), 94.

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other two. To conceive of the second dimension, for example, is to conceive of all three, yet each

dimension is indeed distinct from the others. They are distinct in their relation, one being

relationally orthogonal to the other. We have also established that without time, we see

nothing—not any of the three dimensions, for to see them in their diversity alone is impossible.

Time is essential to all three. In fact, we will find, that the fourth dimension, in a way, is the

essence of the other three. The fourth dimension when viewed in isolation bears the same

problems we had in the other three. Einstein states,

We have far less success in picturing to ourselves relations in the four-dimensional

continuum than in the three-dimensional Euclidean continuum; but it must be emphasized
that even in the Euclidean three-dimensional geometry its concepts and relations are only
of an abstract nature in our minds, and are not at all identical with the images we form
visually and through our sense of touch.”18

What is important to note about the fourth dimension is that it stands orthogonal to the

third. This is inconceivable. A right angle from a three-dimensional world is complete alienation

to any experience. We must not give up, however, for this means only that we cannot conceive of

the fourth dimension in isolation. Instead, we must see it as Einstein did, space-time.19 The

combination of both space and time are important, in that, space in isolation cannot be located,

and time in isolation cannot be accounted for; they need each other to act as intersecting lines in

order to assert particulars. Einstein explains, “There is no absolute (independent of space or

reference) relation in space, and no absolute relation in time between two events, but there is an

absolute (independent of the space of reference) relation in space and time.”20

18
Albert Einstein, The Meaning of Relativity, trans. Edwin Plimpton Adams, 5th ed. (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1955), 31.
19
It is unhelpful in this particular study to explain objects in the fourth dimension (e.g. the tesseract). The
important point made here is the fourth dimension’s effect upon a three-dimensional object.
20
Einstein, The Meaning of Relativity, 30 – 31.

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 In a way, we can think of the fourth dimension as the substance of the other three. The

first three are identifiable with the object they instantiate; however, the fourth dimension is not

instantiating the object, but rather is unifying it. In other words, the first three dimensions are

identifiable in the object, but the fourth is not so much identifiable in the object as it presents the

object as one particular. Another way of thinking about it is that we are able to distinguish the

first three, and at the same time, the fourth is what makes the cube one “thing.”

To be clear, dimensions one through three are not parts, which then compose the cube.

This was how we thought of the dimensions artificially, but as demonstrated above, viewing the

three dimensions as parts, is impossible and not reality. The first dimension, although distinct in

relation to the second, is still fully the cube as it is one thing. The oneness of the cube is made

possible by the fourth dimension. In these terms, the fourth dimension does not necessarily create

a fourth distinction in the cube itself as the other three do. Rather, the fourth dimension creates

the possibility of the cube’s presence as a single object, yet still allowing the other three

distinctions to be clearly present.

We can think of these dimensions, then, as being united through the fourth dimension, yet

being three with respect to the relations of the first three. The object, then, is just as much three

as it is one. To see a line is also to see the plane and the vertical perfectly represented. To see the

cube is to literally see one object with three distinctions of relation. We cannot say we can see

the relation to the fourth, for it is impossible. The fourth dimension, we could say, is the essence

by which the other three subsist.

This view of our four-dimensional universe is not meant to be a perfect replica of the

Triune God, but serves as an analogy, demonstrating the representational principle found in the

Triune God who stamped His nature upon our perception of the universe. This perception is part

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of an entire epistemology, which follows correlatively to these four dimensions. In order to

understand this four-dimensional view of epistemology we must make some clarifications as to

it’s barrowed capital. This is best seen both in Herman Dooyeweerd’s philosophical framework,

and particularly in Van Til’s critique of Dooyeweerd.

Van Til’s Requirement of Transcendence

Dooyeweerd wished to answer the question, how is theoretical thought possible? In

doing so, he envisioned correcting secular philosophers systems of their blind spot: philosophy’s

starting point. In De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee (WdW), he lays out his transcendental method.

In his New Critique of Theoretical Thought (NC), he wanted to sharpen his argument, by making

clearer his own starting point. For Dooyeweerd, it was self-defeating to begin the discussion with

a philosopher already maintaining a distinctly Christian dogmatic framework. He believed it was

disingenuous to engage a philosopher, who stood on autonomous grounds, with a dogma critique

when the philosopher was not speaking from that framework. He did not deny the relation

between religion and philosophical thought, but he thought it a tangling of subjects to critique in

that manner.

It was here he made a distinction between the transcendent method and the transcendental

method. He explained that a transcendent method began with all the fullness of the Christian

dogma within the starting point. He believed that to be an illegitimate starting point when dealing

with secular philosophers. His position was to begin with the individual as the starting point and

moving toward the Origin from the totality of meaning (zin-totaliteit) called the Archimedean (or

fixed) point.21 This idea was enhanced in the NC but as Van Til noted, even within the WdW he

21
Herman Dooyeweerd, De Wijsbegeerte Der Wetsidee (Amsterdam: H.J. Paris, 1935), 10.

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“again and again [spoke] of the very structure of theoretical thought itself as requiring a religious

staring-point in the human self and then beyond the human self in an absolute Origin.”22 This

same sentiment is spelled out in his WdW, as he states, “The heart is the fullness of our selfhood,

the truly transcendent concentration point of our existence, wherein all temporary sense-

functions are taken together, as such also the necessary starting point of philosophical thought,

that in truth cannot be disconnected, because in all theoretical abstraction our selfhood is

employed in thinking.”23

For Dooyeweerd the “innate impulse of the human heart”24 was a sufficient starting point

and therefore with the correct method can transcend the finite, but for Van Til, man must start

from a full acceptation of God’s revelation, and it was upon that doctrinal point one could

properly have engagement. Dooyeweerd’s method was most evident in his three phases, for only

in the third phase did Christian presuppositions come into play. He contends with Van Til,

In this first phase of the critical investigation such a confession would be out of place.
Not because the first question raised by our transcendental critique might be answered
apart from the central religious starting-point of those who take part in the philosophical
dialogue, but because the necessity of such a starting-point has not yet come up for
discussion.25

Van Til, on the other hand, demands that “the Christian accepts the Christian story on the

authority of the self-attesting Christ, on the authority of the triune God of Scripture. His

22
Cornelius Van Til, "Response by C. Van Til," in Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the
Theology and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til, ed. E. R. Geehan (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Pub.,
1980), 95.
23
Herman Dooyeweerd, De Wijsbegeerte Der Wetsidee (Amsterdam: H.J. Paris, 1935), 30 – 31. “Het hart
is de volheid onzer zelfheid, het waarlijk transcendente concentratiepunt onzer eistentie, waarin alle tijdelijke zin-
functies tezamen treffen, als zoodanig ook het noodwendig uitgangspunt van het wijsgeerig denken, dat in waarheid
niet kan worden uitgeschakeld, omdat in alle theoretische abstractie onze zelfheid denkende werkzaam is.”
24
Herman Dooyeweerd, "Cornelius Van Til and the Transcendental Critique of Theoretical Thought," in
Jerusalem and Athens, 77.
25
Ibid., 76.

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philosophy of ‘logic’ and of ‘fact’ is what it is in terms of his Christian story.”26 Here he is

demonstrating that meaning cannot be taken out of its context. One, therefore, cannot freely

withdraw anything, including numbers, away from that which grounds all meaning in a genuine

fashion even if one’s goal is to eventually ground all meaning in God. The starting point holds

sway in all epistemological frameworks.

Having said this, there are qualities to Dooyeweerd that should be redeemable. His

thorough work bears some low hanging fruit that if applied correctly could prove useful. First, he

asks the greatest question for entering into an organized Christian epistemology, namely, How is

theoretical thought possible? Although this was posited by Kant first, Dooyeweerd at lest set

down some useful work in attempting to answer it over against Kant.

Second, he uses dimensional (dimensies) terminology when dealing with human

thought.27 He does not think of dimensions in the terms that I am using the term. He does not

attempt to construct a model from dimensions in relation to epistemology. He does, however,

incorporates a concept of dimensions in his work. This idea of dimensions is most clearly

articulated in his view of the horizon of experience (ervaringshorizon). He expands on the use of

this word as he maintains in his WdW,

And by “horizon of experience,” a term which you shall repeatedly come across in the
Philosophy of Law Idea, I understand a limiting a priori (in the way of beforehand)
framework, within which all possible human experience moves, but whose endless
complex structure, which in philosophical inquiry can only piecemeal and is always
fallible in its approach, is grounded in the divine creation order, which first makes all
creaturely existence possible, so that the horizon of experience is at the same time the
horizon of existence for men and for the world, wherein he finds himself placed. 28

26
Van Til, "Response by C. Van Til," in Jerusalem and Athens, 123.
27
Dooyeweerd, De Wijsbegeerte Der Wetsidee, 1: 33, 58; 2: 492, 496. And Herman Dooyeweerd, A New
Critique of Theoretical Thought, trans. David H. Freeman and H. De Jongste, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and
Reformed Pub., 1955), 554, 560 - 61.
28
Herman Dooyeweerd, "Het Oecumenisch-Reformatorish Grondmotief Van De Wijsbegeerte Der
Wetsidee En De Grondslag Der Vrije Universiteit,"Philosophia Reformata 31 (October 16, 1966): 6 - 7. En onder

15
 Note the criterion that constitutes the horizon of experience is that it is the limiting

framework of our experience. This frame (kader) or framework orders all possible human

experience, and it also is grounded in God’s creation order. This framework is the ordering

feature, which makes our perceptions possible. A dimensional framework which accounts not

only for the possibility of perception but also an account for how thought itself is possible, would

be invaluable to the development of a Christian epistemology.

Third, Dooyeweerd organizes his dimensions, which even though they have terminal

problems, they demonstrate the ease in which dimensions are organically functional in

epistemology. The four dimensions for his “horizon of human experience” are: 1) the religious

(supratemporal) horizon; 2) the temporal horizon of cosmic time; 3) the modal horizon; and, 4)

the (plastic) horizon of individuality structures.29

The major problems in Dooyeweerd’s dimensional framework begin with Van Til’s

complaint, which is, he attempts to make his starting point outside of the Christian story which

grounds all meaning. The other major difficulty he faces with this scheme is his complex and

ultimately bizarre view of cosmic time and man’s ability to transcend it in the self. Also, his

constant return to self-reflection was not related clearly enough through Scripture. Lastly,

Dooyeweerd has virtually no covenantal relation in his epistemology, making it unclear how it is

possible for it to reflect the Triune Origin. Relation becomes relation to law and not relation to

absolute personality.

‘ervaringshorizon’, een term die ge in de Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee herhaaldelijk zult tegenkomen, verstond ik het
begrenzende apriorisch (in de zin van voorafbepaald) kader, waarbinnen zich alle mogelijke menselijke ervaring
beweegt, maar welks onuitputtelijk gecompliceerde structuur, die in het wijsgerig onderzoek slechts stuksgewijs en
op altijd feilbare wijze te benaderen valt, in de goddelijke scheppingsorde gegrond is, die all creatuurlijk bestaan en
eerst mogelijk maakt, zodat de ervaringshorizon tegelijk de bestaanshorizon is van de mens en van de wereld,
waarin hij zich geplaatst vindt.
29
Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, 2: 560 – 561.

16
 Therefore, in order to demonstrate a successful four-dimensional epistemology, we must

take heed of Van Til’s warnings to Dooyeweerd and follow a Van Tilian criteria. In his Survey of

Christian Epistemology, he formulates what I see as these criteria. First, a successful

epistemology will place man at an appropriate starting point. Man will be placed, then, in his

proper state as one who stands in immediate relation to God and His revelation. There must be

no path to autonomy for man, and his reliance on God must be a radical one. “Christian theism’s

fundamental contention is just this, that nothing whatsoever can be known unless God can be and

is known. And as stated before, by God we mean the triune, self-sufficient God and his

revelation of himself to man and his world.”30

Second, a successful Christian epistemology must be appropriately analogical to God’s

coherence. “There is in God’s thought complete coherence . . . if we are to have coherence in our

thinking it will have to be a coherence that corresponds to God’s coherence.” Since our

coherence will never be identical to God, “our coherence will be no more than an analogy of the

coherence of God. Yet because it is based upon God’s coherence it will be true knowledge.”31

With this basic principle, man is able to think God’s thoughts after Him.32

Third, a successful Christian epistemology must appropriately reflect the representational

truth of the ontological Trinity. As spoken of above, the representational principle must pervade

man’s epistemological state as it does every aspect of his life.

Hence also every personal relationship among men must be representational of God.
Every act of the finite person must in the nature of the case be representational . . . We
may even say that every act of the infinite personality of God must be representational
because the only alternative to it would be that it should be impersonal. The Trinity exists

30
Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, 116.
31
Ibid., 200.
32
Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 130.

17
 necessarily in the manner that it does. We have seen this to be so because the principles
of unity and diversity must be equally original.33

Fourth, and as a result of the third, a successful Christian epistemology must

appropriately reflect a covenantal reality in which covenantal beings participate. This covenantal

creation is not incidental but stems from the representational nature of the ontological Trinity.

Since God has chosen to condescend to man by covenant, it is only through covenant man is able

to function. This function includes, but is not limited to, how he thinks, within what context he

exists, and his very make up. As creatures of a covenant making God, we are made in such a

way, as is the universe, to exist in relation to the Creator, who mediates His revelation of Himself

covenantally. This is where we revisit Van Til’s reflection on Calvin’s understanding of

covenant as he concludes, “The covenant idea is nothing but the expression of the

representational principle consistently applied to all reality.”34

As we move through these four dimensions, there are some cautions that need to be

raised, lest a massive misunderstanding of the system incurs. Like the dimensions of reality, we

must not be tempted to see them as encapsulated, self-contained categories. One dimension is not

added to the other. Rather, we will be seeing these dimensions as we did above in their

analogical structure of the Trinity. So, we will distinguish them, understanding that to

comprehend one single dimension in “isolation” is to see the other ones represented fully in it.

Our task then in using the dimensional model is a synthetic one, but it will be useful in

understanding a Christian epistemological framework.

Also, just because a dimension is called “first” does not mean it is primary. The

dimensions are broken up as they are for better understanding, not to demonstrate a hierarchical

33
Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology, 97.
34
Ibid., 96.

18
order. In actuality, the primacy is reversed. Like the dimensions of reality, the structure is to

move from basic to complex. For now, think of the order like a movie camera showing just a

little bit of the picture at a time. For instance, as the camera moves, a baseball bat comes into

focus. It is suspended in the air. As the camera continues to pan, a hand is seen gipping the end

of the bat. Continuing on, the hand is attached to a body, which we then can see is firmly planted

upon the earth and so forth.

Lastly, this is not an apologetical method with the purpose of “proving” the existence of a

Triune God. Nor is it a method by which one is able to “find” God. This is an epistemological

model. The only task of this model is to answer the question, “How is this theoretical thought

possible?” This means, not all theological-relevant doctrine is revealed from an investigation of

the first dimension. This does not mean those doctrines are not present and active in the first

dimension. Instead, from the learning perspective of a human, we will investigate each

dimension in our progressive fashion of discovery.

Therefore, the four dimensions we will be exploring are as follows: 1) the dimension of

relation, 2) the dimension of organization, 3) the dimension of consciousness, 4) the dimension

of covenant. Each dimension will demonstrate man’s radical and immediate reliance on God and

God’s Triune mark upon man’s epistemological framework.

The First Dimension

The first dimension of our epistemological model works almost exactly the way we

discussed earlier. It consists of two points with a line intersecting the points. In the same way, a

19
person is a point and an object is a point.35 In order for these points to have context and stand in

relation to each other, a line must be drawn to relate them. Right away, we can see that within

this basic dimension, the two points are caused. Not only this, but the line that connects them is

also caused. What is also clear, is that the points are incapable of causing themselves, nor

capable of drawing the line of relation between them. In the first dimension, knowledge of the

points must be intimately known in order to make a line and know what manner of line it must

be. Point one cannot relate to point two without knowledge of what relation is, who the point is,

what context the point is standing in, and why a relation must exist. The subject object relation

then must be established in order for point one to be able to be aware of point two. Therefore, for

point one to have conscious recognition that he is not alone (or even what alone is in relation to

the object) a relation must be established for him. Van Til explains,

God has adapted the objects to the subjects of knowledge; that the laws of our minds and
the laws of the facts come into fruitful contact with one another is due to God’s creative
work and to his providence, by which all things are maintained in their existence and in
their operation in relation to one another. Hence, the knowledge that we have of the
simplest objects of the physical universe is still based upon the revelational activity of
God.36

Two distinctions are essential here. First, the meaning of an object is not possessed by the

object in and of itself but is determined by the One creating the relation. Second, both the subject

and the object of knowledge are radically dependent, not autonomous. The very structure of what

relation is, has been built independently of the points, and the points (adapted to each other) have

no other recourse of relation and no other movement apart from that which has been drawn from

one to the other.

35
We are speaking here of objects in the philosophical sense, in which an “object” can be animate or
inanimate—in other words, something created. Its main use is to distinguish between a person and that which is in
the universe with him.
36
Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 279.

20
 The first dimension is then, the experience, framed by God, which a person has with an

object outside himself. Dooyeweerd called this first dimension, “naïve experience.”37 His

particular view, however, was problematic. It seemed, in a sense, to slouch toward realism. He

maintained, “We experience this relation of subject and object as a structural relation of reality

itself. That is to say, sensual colour belongs to the rose only with reference to a possible sensual

perception, not to my individual perception or yours.”38 With this kind of thinking, even as early

as naïve experience, reality seems to be rooted in the world. A coherence theory of truth begins

to emerge, in which, truth is determined by its coherence with the world. In such a case, the

world becomes the verifier of the truth of the experiences.

Van Til creates no avenue or misunderstanding. The subject object relation finds its

meaning immediately in the Creator of the subject and object. Although Dooyeweerd would

indeed trace meaning back again in the third step to the Origin, Van Til is able to trace meaning

immediately to the Creator. It is my contention that this applies to the first dimension, making

man’s relation to the object possible. We are not the ones who adapt to the facts; God is the One

who has adapted us to the universe and it to us. We must avoid moving in the direction of

Bertrand Russell who viewed “the whole of our cognitive life” as “part of the process of

adaptation to facts.”39 If correspondence to the outside world is the “verifier” of reality, we must

37
Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought: The Structures of Individuality of
Temporal Reality, trans. David H. Freeman and H. De Jongste, vol. 3 (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed
Pub., 1957), 65.
38
Hermann Dooyeweerd, "Introduction to a Transcendental Criticism of Philosophic Thought," The
Evangelical Quarterly 19, no. 1 (January 1947): 45.
39
Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948), 143.

21
then hold that truth is merely a “property of beliefs, and derivative of sentences which express

beliefs.”40 As a property, truth is located within the mind, verified by brute fact.

For Van Til, once the God-established-relation (first dimension) is denied, no real

knowledge can be had. This includes the physical world—for instance of redness and roses. Van

Til claims, “Now it might seem as though it is straining at a gnat to insist on the point that the

natural man does not even know the flowers truly, as long as it is maintained that he does not

know God truly. The point is, however, that unless we maintain that the natural man does not

know the flowers truly, we cannot logically maintain that he does not know God truly.”41 When

man denies the relation between the subject and the object of knowledge as God-given and as a

result of His nature, true knowledge is impossible. Although the event of the denial does not

occur in the first dimension, it is in reference to the first that this denial is made. What Van Til is

showing us is that the relation established by a Triune God, finds its truth in God. This means all

objects in the universe must be understood within that relation if they are to be truly known.

Outside of this relation, the questions they seek to answer with their observations will be

completely distorted.

The adaptation of man to the universe and the universe to man is expressed in the

fashion in which God created man in His own image. Man was not arbitrarily made an alien of

God, but man is an image bearer of God. This is significant in man’s relation to the universe.

This locates the relation upon man to God not as indirect as Dooyeweerd envisioned, but as

immediate. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes explains it plainly,

The stamp of the divine image upon man’s constitution means that there is a vital and
immediate, “built-in” relationship between man and his Creator. And this, inevitably, is a

40
Ibid., 148.
41
Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 64.

22
 personal relationship by which man’s being as person is established and fulfilled. The I-
Thou relationship within the unity of the Trinitarian Godhead is the ground and the
source of human personality, through which man has knowledge of himself in an I-Thou
relationship with his Creator.42

We can see already that a Van Tilian/dimensional view of epistemology is going to cheat,

so-to-speak, when viewing the first dimension in order to make it comprehensible. What we find

is that the first dimension must assume the fourth in order for us to discuss it intelligibly. Hence,

this is the great usefulness of speaking of a Christian epistemology in terms of dimensions, for

this representational movement is in their nature. They abhor true isolation and one must reflect

the others to be cogent, and yet, they each can be understood within their distinctions. In other

words, we can recognize true distinctions between them, yet we must cheat by seeing the others

perfectly reflected in them to grasp them.

This is no less true of the first dimension where all we have done is established that two

points (subject and object) must be intersected with a line (relation). Although we want to see its

distinctiveness, we cannot do so unless we see reflected in it, a Triune God working covenantally

with His creation. If this relation is misunderstood, interpretation of the world is distorted. From

this disjunction in the first dimension, Van Til is able to say, “the sinner has been mistaken in his

interpretation of the physical universe no less than in his interpretation of God.”43

The Second Dimension

From the first dimension the relation between the subject and object was established. This

relation presents to the person a great deal of data. Orthogonal to the subject/object relation is the

organization of the data produced by such a relation. The second dimension, then, is the

42
Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ (Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans, 1989), 52.
43
Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 280.

23
organization of that data. This organization has taken many names—some general in scope,

logic, reason, technometry, and some specific, physics, psychology, philology. Whatever shape it

takes, the second dimension’s work is organizing data in an attempt to make meaning cogent to

the agent organizing it.

I keep this dimension broad purposefully. Dooyeweerd decided to make this dimension

or “modal horizon” broken up into aspects of temporal meaning that was refracted by cosmic

time from the totality of meaning. These parts were described as the logical, the psychic, the

biotic, and so forth. According to J. Glenn Friesen, however, the modal horizon “is one of the

‘least understood’ parts of his philosophy. Aspects are not entities or ‘whats’ but they are ‘hows’

of our temporal experience, or ‘modes of consciousness.’”44 Dooyeweerd’s attempt to name all

possible modes of organization seemed an overly complicated way of saying: once man stands in

relation to data, the data must be organized to have coherence (temporal or otherwise).

Of the dimensions, the second is the lest controversial in terms of its necessity. Even

Stephen Hawking admits, “Our perception . . . is not direct, but rather shaped by a kind of lens,

the interpretive structure of our human brains.”45 This sharpens our point. We must distinguish

between organizing and evaluating, yet like the nature of dimensions, both seem to be occurring

when one takes place. Here we speak of interpretation as that which allows us to shape the data

we stand in relation to for the purpose of recognizing the meaning of the data through this

organization.

In this construal of organization, I am not speaking of principles that stand over against

the individual as Gottlob Frege envisioned. For him, the principles of logic were the monarchy of

44
J. Glenn Friesen, "Theses on Herman Dooyeweerd," Philosophia Reformata 74 (2009): 83.
45
Stephen W. Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design (New York: Bantam Books, 2010), 46.

24
the universe. He affirms, “In order to avoid any misunderstanding and prevent the blurring of the

boundary between psychology and logic, I assign to logic the task of discovering the laws of

truth, not the laws of taking things to be true or of thinking. The meaning of the word ‘true’ is

spelled out in the laws of truth.”46

For Frege, these principles of logic are difficult to describe or define because to do so is

to use an art that requires or supposes those principles within the description or definition.

Thomas Ricketts quotes Frege’s Begriffsschrift, “I hold it for a sure sign of a mistake, if logic has

need of metaphysics and psychology, sciences that themselves require fundamental logical

principles (logischen Grundsätze). Where here is then the bedrock (Urboden) on which

everything rests?”47 Consequently, Ricketts surmises Frege to be unequivocally claiming, “Every

science draws on logic, no science can provide a foundation for logic.”48

Van Til saw this allegiance to the ruling principles of logic as a way for expose man’s

intensions—that “his real interpretative principle,” was to see “himself as ultimate and of

impersonal laws as ultimate.”49 Man, then, cannot see any recourse but to use this principle as a

means to attack Christianity, denying every dimension of it.50 When means of organization

become the fulcrum by which the world is assessed, or even worse, by which God is assessed,

the second dimension becomes completely isolated. When a dimension becomes isolated, in our

46
Gottlob Frege, Logical Investigations, ed. P.T. Geach, trans. P.T. Geach and R.H. Stoothoff (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1977), 2.
47
Thomas Ricketts, "Logic and Truth in Frege," in Gottlob Frege: Frege's Philosophy of Logic, ed.
Michael Beaney and Erich H. Reck, vol. 2 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), 234.
48
Ibid.
49
Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 83.
50
Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 191.

25
use of it or in physics, it can no longer reflect the fullness of the other dimensions. It immediately

descends into chaos and creates a radically vicious circle.

Even those who isolate this second dimension are able to recognize its futility. Susanne

Langer, a twentieth century logician, concluded concerning logic and its relationship to

propositions, that the truth of something is not self-evident, for even if the propositions that are

given to us are absolutely true, we must have a guarantee that we are interpreting them in a

perfectly true manner. Langer therefore attests, “If self-evidence is no guarantee, what criterion

have we for the truth of any logical system? None whatsoever . . . For in logic we require only

that our assertions shall be valid, not that they convey truths about the world.”51

The same holds for science and its inductive method. As Langer asserts lack of certainty

in deductive methods, the inductive demonstrates even less certainty. Karl Popper asserts,

The mistake usually made in this field can be explained historically: science was
considered to be a system of knowledge—of knowledge as certain as it could be made.
‘Induction’ was supposed to guarantee the truth of this knowledge. Later it became clear
that absolutely certain truth was not attainable. Thus one tried to get in its stead at least
some kind of watered-down certainty or truth; that is to say, ‘probability’. But speaking
of ‘probability’ instead of ‘truth’ does not help us to escape either from the infinite
regress or from a priorism.52

Popper recognized the main problem of modern science. It requires the observer to avoid

the absurd circularity by either regressing back into probabilistic theory or to place himself as the

infinite objective observer and bearer of the absolute. As one who confronts this difficulty in

some honesty, Popper remains doubtful. Even with his view of falsification, he cannot reconcile

this problem.

51 Susanne K. Langer, An Introduction to Symbolic Logic, 3rd ed. (New York: Dover Publications, 1967),
188-189.
52
Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2002), 317.

26
 The second dimension must be just that, a dimension. It cannot stand in some kind of

isolation, but it must reflect the full representation of the other dimensions to escape a horrific

circularity. Van Til concludes, “For the only conclusive argument for Christianity is precisely the

fact that only upon the presupposition of the truth of its teaching does logic or predication in

general touch reality at all.”53

For Van Til, the danger is not in the use of reason, per se, but rather the abstraction of

reason to serve as the weight bearer of the truth. Reason cannot be an abstracted principle that

through it, truth finds its grounding.54 It is not Van Til’s practice, in apologetical argumentation,

to “artificially separate induction from deduction, or reasoning about the facts of nature from

reasoning in a priori analytical fashion about the nature of human consciousness.”55 Instead, Van

Til views these as “one process of interpretation.”56 He was not setting out to detail the process

by which he found truth. This would be self-contradicting. He did, however, want to demonstrate

that inductive reasoning as a method and deductive reasoning as a method were not in

contention, nor was one to be elevated as the way to truth.57 The truth was revealed, not deduced.

Only God was given credit for its presence and only God is able to soften our hearts to it.

The reason Van Til is not concerned with a formalized logical system, which places a

premium and hierarchy upon induction, deduction, etc., is set out in a letter he wrote to Francis

Schaeffer in 1969. He writes, “Herein, basically, lies the Christian’s answer to the question of the

53
Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 83.

54
Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 206.

55
Ibid., 256.
56
Ibid., 257.
57
Peter Ramus, 16th century philosopher and famed influence upon Puritan thought, believed that deduction
was the only pattern of thought which would lead to truth. See Petrus Ramus, The Logike of the Moste Excellent
Philosopher P. Ramus, Martyr., trans. Ronland MacIlmaine, ed. Catherine M. Dunn (Northridge, CA: San Fernando
Valley State College, 1969), 54.

27
nature of truth and to the question of the method of attaining truth. The God who is there has pre-

interpreted every fact man meets and ordained the laws of thought by which man must relate the

facts that he meets to one another.”58

The second dimension is a plane with no thickness. This is impossible to imagine,

because it is an impossible proposal. In other words, these organizational laws ordained by God

are present, but if they are absent from the pre-interpreted, revealed truth of God, they become

impossible. The second dimension is able to exist only upon the condition of the others. Like a

plane with no thickness, upon the support of the first dimension and in the use of it in the third,

the second is secure. If, however, the second dimension is imagined as autonomous from the

others or primary to the others, it turns on its side and vanishes. When taken out of the context of

the pre-interpreted knowledge of God, it can do nothing else but cease to exist.

The Third Dimension

The first two dimensions are difficult to imagine in three-dimensional terms. Physically,

we are aware of the third dimension and we live there. This third dimension will seem most

familiar to us as we see it in our epistemological model. Within this dimension we find our

consciousness. This, however, must be qualified. Our consciousness is not arbitrarily in the third

dimension, but it is here where it finds its moral engagement with the revelation of God. To

make this as cogent as possible, we will consider Van Til’s view of God’s revelation first, and

then discuss how it demands a response from the consciousness.

When speaking of God’s revelation, although Van Til understood the differences between

natural and special revelation, he did not consider them as exclusive. He made a distinction

58
Cornelius Van Til to Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer, March 11, 1969, Westminster Theological Seminary,
Philadelphia, PA. 9.

28
between them, in that it is “the same God who reveals himself both in nature and in Scripture.”

Although “saving grace is not manifest in nature; yet it is the God of saving grace who manifests

himself by means of nature.”59 Saving grace is exclusive to Scripture, yet both natural and special

revelation are one in their purpose, which is God’s condescension to man of who God is. Van Til

located the unity of revelation in God’s freedom. He relates, “Any revelation that God gives of

himself is therefore absolutely voluntary. Precisely here lies the union of the various forms of

God’s revelation with one another. God’s revelation in nature, together with God’s revelation in

Scripture, form God’s one grand scheme of covenant-revelation of himself to man.”60

This covenantal revelation is the key mark of Van Til’s view. As creation itself is

covenantally related, so also “Scripture may be said to be the written expression of God’s

covenantal relationship with man.”61 In covenantal relation, neither creation nor Scripture is mute

or passive. Instead, they are as one, binding upon man the obligation he has to the God who they

reveal. For Van Til, special and natural revelation are entangled with one another, bringing to

bear the required response of man. “Here then is the picture of a well-integrated and unified

philosophy of history in which revelation in nature and revelation in Scripture are mutually

meaningless without one another and mutually fruitful when taken together.”62

This covenantal relation is not alien to man. He does not stand in separate dimensions

from covenant obligations, making them mute. Man cannot say he is free of covenantal

59
Cornelius Van Til, The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture (Philadelphia: Dulk Christian Foundation,
1967), 3.
60
Ibid., 4.
61
Cornelius Van Til, "Nature and Scripture," in The Infallible Word: A Symposium by the Members of the
Faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary., ed. N. B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley (Grand Rapids: W. B.
Eerdmans Pub., 1953), 256.
62
Ibid., 261.

29
obligation because he was not taught about such a relation. On the contrary, to Van Til, teaching

a human being about their covenant relations is like teaching a human being about how to be

human. “God made man a rational-moral creature. He will always be that. As such he is

confronted with God. He is addressed by God. He exists in the relationship of covenant

interaction. He is a covenant being.”63 Man was conceived in covenant and dwells in that relation

down to his very personality.64

Therefore, revelation is covenantal, and man is able to engage it because he is a covenant

being. His consciousness is demanded upon in the very presence of revelation, for this

engagement entails not only knowledge but also the act of knowing. I hold, then, that

consciousness includes thinking and knowing, not as an isolated activity but as a covenantal one.

Data, which is in the second dimension merely organized, in the third, is meaningful to the

covenant personality of man.

In light of secular philosophical distinctions, it is somewhat surprising that man is not

made in such a way that he can be autonomous or indifferent to God’s revelation. Rather, it is

God’s revelation, which “calls” man to respond to it. His being, as covenantal, places upon his

consciousness an obligation to answer. Hendrik G. Stoker, in a letter to Van Til, explains it as

follows:

But revelation to man is not in vain; man is not endowed with acts and functions of
knowing in vain; God has not created the universe knowable in vain. Whatever is
revealed to man sets to man his tasks, his calling, namely, to know and to act upon it . . .
Primarily and principally man is in everything he knows and does an answerer, a
responder, one who is called—duty bound to fulfill his calling.65

63
Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 176.

64
Van Til, "Nature and Scripture," 261.
65
Hendrik G. Stoker, "Reconnoitering the Theory of knowledge of Prof. Dr. Cornelius Van Til," in
Jerusalem and Athens, 29 - 30.

30
 This third dimension is arranged this way purposefully. Again, we see if we attempt to

make the dimensions building blocks, we are not grasping the advantage that a dimensional

model provides. These dimensions are inseparable, and they reflect each other within each

dimension in order for a single dimension to be intelligible. So how are we able to “separate”

organization from consciousness? We cannot. We can, however, in Van Til’s approach,

distinguish them, for if we do not, logic then could become man’s chief characteristic of

personhood instead of covenant. In such a case, logic could be pointed to as the neutral force

within man, saving his autonomy. God’s revelation, then, would not oblige man to answer, but

instead, logic would hold revelation at a evaluative distance in logic’s demonstration of

ultimacy.66

Thus far we have seen that each dimension is framed in such a way in that human

autonomy is absolutely impossible. Within the first dimension not only is the subject and object

created, the relation that intersects them, making interaction possible, is generated by the

Creator. The second dimension is the plane of organization, within which all patterns of

organization are bestowed and ordained by the Creator. The most important part of the third

dimension’s construct is that not only is man created as a covenantal being, obliged to God’s

revelation, but also, not even his consciousness exists in a neutral state of being, for thinking

itself is a covenantal act.

As demonstrated in this model of epistemology man’s mind is radically derivative. As a

covenant being, man is confronted with God’s revelation both from within himself and from that

which stands beyond himself. Van Til holds that man’s mind “cannot naturally be conscious of

itself without being conscious of its creatureliness. For man self-consciousness presupposes God-
66
Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 200 – 201.

31
consciousness.”67 Man is incapable of escape from his radical dependence on God in whatever

dimension he seeks independence. His very thought of and relation to the universe is bone up in

his analogous existence. No formal, logical scheme can take credit for any fact or even any

discovery of fact. Even for Adam “God-consciousness could not come in at the end of a

syllogistic process of reasoning. God-consciousness was for him the presupposition of the

significance of his reasoning on anything.”68

Here in the third dimension, the weight of obligation is upon the covenant being who is

held morally responsible for his knowledge of God’s revelation. In this dimension the sinner

desires to escape back to the first and second dimensions, fantasizing that he is able to create his

own relation and place his feet firmly upon the plane of organization. As he attempts to dwell

only in the first and second dimension, he attempts to reenter the third as the supreme being.

Like a child slapping his father, his feet remain firmly planted upon his father’s lap.

In light of the dimensions’ reflection of each other we can see now that the first three can

be understood only when they reflect the fullness of the others, and yet, we find use in seeing the

distinctions between them. We cannot think of the dimensions as an unfolding event, for they

seem to occur in a strange simultaneous instant in man. Our understanding of our own

dimensions remains incomplete.

It is clear, now, how man relates to and relates between objects. We also know his

endowments for organizing data. We have just spoken about how man’s consciousness is

oriented to God, since his mind is derivative. What we have not discussed yet, is how these

dimensions are possible. For God to generate our relations, bestow our endowments and hold us

in obligation to His revelation, there must be some mediation between us and God to make this

67
Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 113.

68
Ibid.

32
possible. Our final dimension is not an additional dimension but rather is the essence of the other

three. We are able to see our existence as cohesive only in this dimension. As we have been

making allusion to the Trinity throughout this paper, we now see the shadow completed here.

The final dimension in a four-dimensional epistemology is covenant.

The Fourth Dimension

Throughout the centuries, man has tried to understand how the finite can be reconciled to

the infinite. Plato thought it lay just outside the cave. Spinoza thought it could be achieved in

modes. Kierkegaard envisioned a hybrid soul. All the philosophers who wrestled with this

problem understood that the gap between the infinite and the finite must be mediated. They

understood the breakdown if these two poles met in their raw being.

Van Til maintains that this gap between the infinite Creator and the finite creature was

mediated by God’s condescension through covenant. He states, “Natural revelation, we are

virtually told, was from the outset incorporated into the idea of a covenant relationship of God

with man. Thus every dimension of created existence, even the lowest, was enveloped in a form

of exhaustively personal relationship between God and man.”69 Although Van Til is not speaking

of “dimension” as I am, the point is still the same. God’s ontological Trinitarian being created

creatures, like His representational Triune nature, as personal, covenant beings. Even the

covenantal nature of the creation itself was imbued in this fully personal, covenantal relation.

Within this covenantal framework man is able to commune with the Creator and have

access to truth by means of this covenantal relation. It is so much the fabric of reality, man is

unable to think or act in any other manner. Van Til clarifies, “All of man’s acts must be

69
Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge, 290.

33
representational of the acts of God . . . Because man is a creature he must in his thinking, his

feeling and his willing be analogically representative of God. There is no other way open for

him.”70

This covenantal relation is not merely an artifice God conjured for the sake of mediation.

As spoken of at the beginning of this discussion, this covenantal bond between God and man is a

direct result of His Triune Nature. It was within the tri-unity of the Godhead a pact was made

concerning man, before the foundations of the world (Eph. 1: 3 – 6). In describing the benefit of

the pactum salutis, Bavinck relates, “The benefit to the believer is in knowing that the covenant

of grace executed and revealed in time and history nevertheless rests on an eternal, unchanging

foundation, the counsel of the triune God.”71

Covenant, then, sets the parameters for all human reality. It is the essence of life as it is

the essence of all relation. This covenant environment creates sharp distinctions. Man stands in

constant relation. He cannot stand in any other way. Van Til proclaimed, “There are two and

only two classes of men . . . covenant keepers and covenant breakers.”72 Those who are covenant

breakers still dwell in these dimensions with covenant as the essence. They do, however,

suppress their covenant obligations, insisting we live in a two dimensional world, denying even a

God-consciousness. As Van Til notes the rational/irrational nature of man, we can see that this is

like trying to jump off the earth by taking a running start.

If we are covenant keepers, our covenantal relation is the essence of our reflection of God

in us. We are able to see the cohesiveness of his Triune nature in our world and in our very

70
Ibid., 208.
71
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend,
vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 194.
72
Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics, ed. William Edgar, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing,
2003), 62.

34
thinking. Through the power of His revealed word, we are able to “think God’s thoughts after

him.”73 Geerhardus Vos, one of Van Til’s greatest influences, insists that this condescension has

so united God and man that man’s covenantal work demonstrates God’s very image. Covenantal

condescension, then, is developed in man’s very consciousness. He explains,

In all this covenantal work man displays God’s image. Just as the blessedness of God
exists in the free relationship of the three Persons of the adorable Being, so man shall also
find his blessedness in the covenantal relationship with his God . . . Therefore, he must
not immediately and prematurely possess the highest enjoyment, but be led up to it along
a rational way. The image of God within him must be brought out in the full clarity of his
consciousness.74

The fourth dimension is the most exhaustive and penetrating of the dimensions,

simultaneously touching God and man. As it is condescension, it is no less real, for reflected in it

are seen not only the promises of God, but also, His very nature. In speaking of the other three

dimensions, covenant had to be referred to repeatedly, even though it is technically the fourth.

We see as way of illustration that our physical dimensions here on earth work that same way.

Time-space must penetrate the first three in order to make them intelligible. Without the essence

of time-space, the distinctions of the dimensions cannot be seen. At the same time, without time-

space, we cannot see reality as a united whole. So it is with covenant. As we see the distinct

dimensions of our epistemology, we see them in terms of covenantal relations. As we see the

whole of our thinking, we cannot but unite our thinking in that which binds us to the Triune,

Creator God of the universe.

73
Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 130.

74
Geerhardus Vos, Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus
Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Pub., 1980), 245.

35
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