In comparing Van Til with Kant,

John Frame notes that both thinkers describe the necessary preconditions for, or presuppositions of, knowledge and rationality. This involves asking what conditions would have to be true in order for the process of knowledge to begin at all.

The crucial difference between the two is their anchor-points. Kant's anchor is the human mind: his chief theme (to quote Frame) is that: "the human mind can never and must never subject itself to any authority beyond itself". Thus, the mind alone is the source of all knowledge and all experience. In his view the mind is ultimate - the technical term is autonomous. Thus, Kant was the non-Christian's best friend: giving an explicit account of how knowledge was possible without depending on traditional Christian theism.

Van Til, on the other hand, places the source of all knowledge, meaning and rationality in the self-contained ontological Trinity - God. Nothing, including the posibility of knowledge, can exist without the prior existence of the Creator. So, to cut a long story short, Van Til did for the Christian theory of knowledge what Kant did for the non-Christian theory. Therefore, one can think of this debate as some nearly 2000 years of philosophical reflection drawing toward ultimate points of conflict: two irreconcilable traditions finally working out what they are respectively all about. They reach epistemological self-consciosness. They know what they know, and moreover, why they know it. Kant says man; Van Til, God.

There's a lot to be said here, but I am struck by one rather radical point, which I intend to keep in mind and test as I continue to study Van Til through John Frame. It's that the concept of 'knowledge' being discussed here is western, and specifically, philosophically western. The Hebrew (ancient middle-eastern and pre-philosophical) conception of 'knowledge' is something quite other than an investigation of justified factual statements about the world. As I understand it, Hebrew knowledge is something like a 'way of being' in the world. It sums up all that one does with respect to a thing. It is not so much an abstract reflection upon the true 'nature' or 'essence' of a thing, such that propositional facts would describe, but rather a relationship with it, expressed by two things in particular: names and actions. Both these can be seen in Adam and Eve's relationship: Adam first called Eve what she was to him ('woman' - later on 'Eve'), and then he acted in accordance with that - he had intercourse with his wife. The Hebrew phrase for that act used to be translated "And Adam knew his wife."

The point is that both Kant and Van Til may be arguing about a 'something' (they call it 'knowledge') which is quite beside the concerns of the biblical texts. It may well turn out, taking the longer-term view of history, that the development of 'epistemology' (theories of knowlege) in the Western tradition was really just an excursion in a philosophical conception of knowledge, and has precious little to do with the development of or application of Hebrew knowledge.

This has far-reaching implications, because much in the Christian tradition has been built on the philosophical conception of knowledge - not the least being ideas about 'saving knowledge'. This is held to be the reciept of and assent to certain facts about "the gospel" - a proclamation about what God has done to reconcile (individual) sinners to Himself, through the Lordship of Jesus. Involved in this is what is often called a "personal knowledge of Jesus Christ". Now, in Reformed circles at least (but also in all conservative traditions), this knowledge can be (and is) tested by expanding the number of facts about "the gospel" that one has straight. This quickly becomes, for some, a test that covers the entire gamut of settled Christian theory - the being and work of God. Thus, when people disagree about these 'facts', churches split, and heretics are labelled. The protestant tradition is riven by exactly this pattern.

But consider the alternative, Hebrew approach. If the proclamation that "Jesus is Lord" is responded to by someone who thereby ceases to oppress his neighbour, that someone has come to know the Lord. The state of his mind with respect to propositions about biblical text-interpretation, including the exact way that he is reconciled to God, is beside the point (although it may be relevant to an account of his biblical accuracy). In a Hebrew sense, God has made Himself known to that person, and he has responded appropriately.

There's at least some potential in this observation for addressing some contemporary church problems. 'Conservative' Christian fellowships tend to be highly intellectualised, whose unity is based in an agreement on 'the facts', and this they take to be a God-derived 'knowledge' that proves true faith. 'Liberal' fellowships, on the other hand, tend to eschew intellectualised faith and the 'facts' of the bible. But, being still in the Western tradition, they think that's all there is, and so fail to see unity as an agreement in Hebrew knowledge - the community response to Jesus as Lord. If we retained the intellect as a tool of life, but based our unity on the knowledge of God in a Hebrew sense, we could have the best of both worlds.