The Final Reference Point of All Predication


Van Til frequently made use of the phrase “final reference point of predication”. What did he mean by this? This concept is a very central one in Van Til’s overall transcendental programme. Hence, understanding it would better help us grasp Van Til’s system and his arguments for that system. Van Til constantly maintained that the Christian worldview and its doctrine of the Trinity is the precondition of all human knowledge and predication. In this post, we would be examining why Van Til thought this.


Predication in Van Til’s System

Van Til believed that a truly biblical approach to apologetics required that apologist to challenge the unbeliever’s presumed autonomy. He held that all unbelieving and autonomous philosophies rendered human predication impossible:


In seeking to follow the example of Paul, Reformed Apologetics needs, above all else, to make clear from the beginning that it is challenging the wisdom of the natural man on the authority of the self-attesting Christ speaking in Scripture. Doing this the Reformed apologist must place himself on the position of his "opponent," the natural man, in order to show him that on the presupposition of human autonomy human predication  cannot even get under way. The fact that it has gotten under way is because the universe is what the Christian, on the authority of Christ, knows it to be. Even to negate Christ, those who hate Him must be borne up by Him. A three year old child may slap its father in his face only because the father holds it up on his knee.1


For Van Til, one of the most fundamental points of disagreement between the Christian and the unbeliever is that the unbeliever, assuming his own intellectual autonomy, attempts to make man the final reference point of predication:


There are many schools of philosophy with which the college student has to make his acquaintance. The textbooks speak of some of them as objective and of others as subjective. Some are spoken of as monistic and others as pluralistic. Some are said to be pantheistic and others deistic, some rationalist and others irrationalist. Recently we have existential, analytical and positivist systems of philosophy. But all these schools must be seen in the light of the analysis made of them in Scripture. The main question that can be asked about any system of thought is whether it is man-centered or God-centered. Does it make the Creator-Redeemer or the creature the final reference point in prediction? If an answer to this question is found, then the problematics presented by the various schools of philosophy become [intelligible] to us.2


The Christian and the unbeliever have two fundamentally opposing final reference points and this fact must be stressed by the apologist.


What is “Predication”?

For those who are not familiar with philosophical terminology, the term “predication” may seem strange. However, predication is not a really complex concept. In fact, as human thinkers, we engage in predication every single day. Britannica.com defines predication this way:


Predication, in logic, the attributing of characteristics to a subject to produce a meaningful statement combining verbal and nominal elements. Thus, a characteristic such as “warm” (conventionally symbolized by a capital letter W) may be predicated of some singular subject, for example, a dish—symbolized by a small letter d, often called the “argument.” The resulting statement is “This dish is warm”; i.e., Wd.3

Dr. Greg Bahnsen defines predication thusly:

“Predication” is the mental or verbal act of attributing or denying a property or characteristic (a “predicate”) to a subject—as when someone affirms, “The sky is blue,” or “George Washington fought at Valley Forge,” or “Driving seventy-five miles per hour is no longer permitted by law.4


From the above definitions, it is clear just how important predication is to our lives. We predicate everyday. Predication is very easy to do and is a fundamental part of human communication and knowledge. Predication is so widespread, so fundamental that it is taken for granted. However, for Van Til, the real problem arises when one is called upon to give an account of what he or she has been taking for granted throughout their epistemological lives.


What is the “Final Reference Point” of Predication?

The concept of predication may be easy enough to grasp. However, why does predication require a “final reference point” and what even is a final point of all predication? Van Til was notorious for using obscure terms, however this should not deter us from examining and understanding the undoubtedly profound ideas he was trying to convey. To understand what is meant by “final reference point” let us examine Bahnsen’s further explanation of the concept of predication. He writes:


Predication requires one intelligibly to differentiate and select individual things (particulars), to make sense out of general or abstract concepts (universal, classes, definable sets), and to distinguish them (so as not to make them identical) while in some sense identifying or relating them to each other.5


Predication seems to require a distinction between particular objects and universal concepts, and also a relationship between them. Anytime we engage in predication — for example, asserting that “the barn is red” — we are presupposing a particular object (the barn), a general or universal concept (“redness”), and a relationship between them. All three of these presuppositions (particular, universal, and relationship) are necessary for the possibility of predication. However, to understand Van Til’s statements about the final reference point, we have to focus on the third presupposition — the relationship between particular and universal. Van Til writes:


According to the Christian story, logic and reality meet first of all in the mind and being of God. God's being is exhaustively rational. Then God creates and rules the universe according to his plan. Even the evil of this world happens according to this plan. The only substitute for this Christian scheme of things is to assert or assume that logic and reality meet originally in the mind of man. The final point of reference in all predication must ultimately rest in some mind, divine or human. It is either the self-contained God of Christianity or the would-be autonomous man that must be and is presupposed as the final reference point in every sentence that any man utters.6


From the above quotation it is clear that, for Van Til, the final reference point of all predication simply refers to the meeting place between “logic and reality”. More clearly, the final reference point of all predication is taken to be whatever facilitates the relationship between “logic” (universals, classes, systems, categories, general concepts, etc.) and “reality” (objects, facts, events, states of affairs in the contingent realm). That is, whatever provides for the relationship between particulars and universals is the final reference point of all predication.


Without a final reference point, predication would be impossible. There must be a relationship between logic and fact or the one and the many. If the particulars and the universals were unrelated, then the particulars would be abstract (wholly individual; bearing no inherent relations to other particulars) and the universals would be “empty concepts” (abstract universals with no instances). In both of these scenarios, predication is impossible. The assertion that “the barn is red” becomes completely meaningless. The object being referred to as “the barn” bears no relation to any other object. Even applying a name (also a general concept) to it contradicts its abstract and wholly individual nature. Also, saying that this object is red is no more meaningful than saying it is “arfghs” or that it is “gobbledegook” because all universals and general concepts are empty and have no instances.


The Final Reference Point: God or man?

The next question, then, is what is the final reference point of all predication? What can adequately facilitate a meaningful relationship between logic and fact? For Van Til, the final reference point of all predication must ultimately rest in some mind. But why is this the case? 


Suppose that the relationship between particulars and universals is not provided by a mind. The only other option is that the final reference point of predication exists out there in reality somewhere as an abstraction. What we would have would be an abstract concept that relates all particulars to all universals. That is, there must not be any particulars which are abstract (not related to universals) and there must not be any universals which are empty (not related to particulars). However, this abstract concept that supposedly serves as the final reference point of all predication would itself need to be related to the universals and the particulars by means of another abstract unifying concept. This lands is in an infinite regress. What this implies is that the final reference point of predication must be concrete. It must not be an abstraction. If predication is to be possible, the final reference point of all predication must be a mind. The question is which mind? According to Van Til, it must be either the mind of God or the mind of man.


However, the mind of man clearly cannot serve as the final reference point of predication. Due to his finite nature, man cannot exhaustively relate all particulars to all universals. Man does not possess comprehensive knowledge and as such he never comprehensively grasps all particulars, all universals, or the relationships between them. If man is to serve as the final reference point of predication, he must, of necessity, land in subjectivism.  He provides the meeting point for logic and fact. He relates the particulars to the universals. But in doing so, the relationships lose their objectivity. Man cannot, using the powers of his own reasoning, legislate for reality. Whatever relationships obtain between logic and fact, they obtain in virtue of his own mental activity. Hence, whenever he predicates, he makes reference of his own mind and not to anything objective. 


It is only the mind of the Triune God of Scripture that can serve as the final reference point of all predication. God is exhaustively and inherently rational. His thinking is wholly rational and coherent. His thinking is also constructive. That is, it is His thinking—His eternal plan and purpose—that determines how the facts and the objects exist. God legislates for reality. In His comprehensive plan and purpose for reality, all facts (particulars) and all systems (universals) are exhaustively related. Therefore, whenever man engages in predication, he is ultimately making reference not to his own mind, but to the original system found in God’s mind. This is because it is in God’s mind that logic and fact originally come into fruitful relationship.  It is this realization that made Van Til claim, with all boldness, that:


It is the firm conviction of every epistemologically self-conscious Christian that no human being can utter a single syllable, whether in negation or in affirmation, unless it were for God's existence.7


Because God is the final reference point of all predication, it is impossible to make any statements of affirmation or denial without presupposing His existence, plan, and revelation. Even the unbeliever’s denial of God’s existence presupposes His existence for its intelligibility.


It has become something of a bad habit of mine to formalize everything. In any case, we can summarize our arguments as follows:


  1. If predication is possible, then it must have a final reference point.

  2. Predication is possible.

  3. Therefore, there is a final reference point of predication.

  4. The final reference point of predication must be a mind.

  5. If (4), then the final reference point is either (a) the mind of God, or (b) the mind of man.

  6. Not (b).

  7. Therefore, the mind of God is the final reference point of all predication.

  8. Therefore, God exists.


References

  1. (Emphasis added) Toward a Reformed Apologetics (Philadelphia: privately printed, 1972), 20.

  2. “Christian Theory of Knowledge, 49.”

  3. https://www.britannica.com/topic/predication

  4. Van Til’s Apologetic, Notes for Chapter 1, no. 67

  5. Ibid

  6. Defense of the Faith, 305.

  7. Survey of Christian Epistemology, pg 12

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