In November 2024, my book Toward a Reformed Apologetics: A Critique of the Thought of Cornelius Van Til was published by Mentor/Christian Focus. One of my hopes in writing this book was to move the perennial debate over Van Til’s system of thought in a more constructive and edifying direction than has sometimes existed in the past. I think that goal has already been accomplished to some degree. The first Van Tillian responses to my book have begun to appear, and these public responses have largely maintained a constructive and edifying posture. For that I am thankful.
Introduction
The November 27, 2024 episode of Kevin DeYoung’s “Life, Books, and Everything” podcast was devoted to a discussion of my book. Dr. DeYoung invited me and Dr. James Anderson to participate. This podcast was not presented as a criticism of my book. Rather, it was simply a discussion among the three of us about several points in the book. Then, on February 7, 2025, Reformed Forum aired a 90-minute podcast that is apparently the first of four planned episodes devoted to an in-depth criticism of my book. The episode featured Lane Tipton, Carlton Wynne, and Camden Bucey. Reformed Forum followed this on February 8 with an hour-long live chat devoted to a discussion of the previous episode. These podcasts presented several significant criticisms of my book.
My goal in this blog post is simply to carry the discussion forward by responding to the various criticisms presented in these Reformed Forum podcasts. Assuming that Reformed Forum continues the planned four-part critique, I will respond to those future podcasts as time permits. If other serious criticisms appear that are written by Christians who are also attempting to move this discussion forward in a constructive and edifying manner, I hope to respond to them in a timely manner as well.
Reformed Forum – February 7, 2025
The first Reformed Forum podcast is an extended and very detailed critique of some of the philosophical claims I make in my book. Some of the comments and criticisms will require only a very brief response. Other, more significant criticisms, will require very detailed responses. Before I begin this response, however, I want to note my appreciation for these brothers in Christ at Reformed Forum. We share a love for Jesus Christ, a love for the lost, and a passion for Reformed theology. These men are all ordained pastors who serve the body of Christ faithfully day in and day out. We agree on much, much more than we disagree on, so the current discussion has to be kept in that perspective. I want to thank them for taking so much time to carefully read my book and to think about the questions I raised.
Anyone who has listened to their podcast (which I would argue is a prerequisite for reading this response) knows these brothers take issue with a number of things I say in my book. We strongly disagree on some points. But we are all attempting to take this discussion and move it in a more mutually respectful direction. One thing such an effort requires is charitable reading (of books and articles and blog posts) and, in this case, charitable listening as well (of podcasts). I have attempted below to interpret the comments made on the podcast in the best possible light because I know that these are men of strong Christian character. I will from time to time be pointing out comments or criticisms that may permit another less charitable reading, but I want the reader to know up front that in such cases, I am trying to show how their comments could be read or heard by those who do not know me and/or have not read my book. I am not suggesting any deliberate or malicious intentions on the part of the men at Reformed Forum.
Sadly, observers of discussions like this sometimes treat them like some spectacle in the Roman colosseum. Fans arrive with their team hats and uncritically cheer for one side or another. That is really not a helpful or God-honoring way to approach important theological discussions. Theology has to do with the knowledge of God, and as William Ames put it, the true knowledge of God involves living to God. True theology is inseparable from the pursuit of godliness. The goal of this discussion is not to win debating points. It is not to “own” the opponent. Ultimately, the goal is faithfulness to Jesus Christ and to His revealed Word. I believe that one thing the men at the Reformed Forum and I have in common is that all of us sincerely and deeply desire to be faithfully following Jesus. I believe we will all be worshipping our Triune God together for all eternity and will perhaps look back on this whole discussion (if anyone in the New Heavens and Earth ever looks back at anything) with some amusement. We may not achieve perfect agreement on these issue on this side of glory, but we can attempt here and now to serve each other as brothers in Christ by helping each other come to greater biblical faithfulness in our thinking.
Turning to the details of the discussion, ideally, anyone who is following it in an attempt to better understand Van Til will have read my book and will have listened to the entirety of the Reformed Forum critique and the Live Chat that was aired the following day. Ideally such readers and listeners would take what I argue in my book and what the Reformed Forum panel argues in their podcast and compare those things with the primary sources in Van Til. It’s frankly impossible to determine which of us, if either, is interpreting Van Til correctly without doing this difficult leg work. Unfortunately, the ideal in this discussion is rarely achieved. I may be wrong on this point, but based on my discussions over the last thirty years, it does not seem to me that most people who refer to themselves as “Van Tillian” or as “presuppositionalist” have read a lot of Van Til himself. It appears that most got their Van Tillianism indirectly. Some may have heard it from one or more of Van Til’s scholarly interpreters. Perhaps they picked it up from Bahnsen, or Frame, or Pratt, or Dennison. Some may have picked it up from a professor or from other well-known pastors and teachers who consider themselves to be presuppositionalist. They may have picked it up, for example, from Douglas Wilson, or Ken Ham, or Voddie Baucham.
In any case, it appears that many people tend to pick one interpreter or another (e.g. Bahnsen, Frame, Oliphint, etc.) and follow that interpretation without reading much of Van Til and without comparing that interpretation with competing interpretations. Many readers of my book may read this response to the Reformed Forum critique without listening to their podcast in its entirety and make up their mind based solely on a reading of my side. Many Reformed Forum listeners may listen to their podcasts without reading either my book or this response and make up their mind based solely on hearing their side. One side can appear very persuasive if it is the only side that is given a hearing (Prov. 18:17). I encourage those interested in this debate to read or listen to both sides and, if at all possible, to read Van Til himself in order to determine whether either of us is interpreting him rightly.
With this in mind, let us move to the content of the first podcast critique. I should note that in some places I merely paraphrase the remarks made, and in other places I attempt to quote them. Because I am not quoting a print source, I have provided approximate time stamps from the podcast to indicate the location of the comments I am citing. This will enable readers to verify the accuracy of my citation of the words of the panelists.
In the initial installment of their planned multi-part critique, Camden Bucey, Lane Tipton, and Carlton Wynne focus most of their attention on my philosophical concerns with Van Til. They mention at the 2:20 mark that they will devote three or four episodes to my book, and they indicate that those remaining episodes will focus on other questions.
Camden Bucey begins the discussion by noting that he has watched the Kevin DeYoung podcast (linked above). He says at the 5:30 mark that he was struck by the fact that there was no mention of sin or the noetic effects of sin or of the word “covenant” in the discussion on that podcast. All I can say here in response is that this was Kevin DeYoung’s podcast, and it was a little over one hour. He chose the questions to ask, and given the time constraints, he couldn’t possibly ask everything. That podcast was not intended as a chapter-by-chapter and point-by-point discussion of my book. Had we discussed everything I discuss in my book, certainly the noetic effects of sin and the covenants would have been covered. After these brief introductory remarks, the panelists begin (at 7:15) expressing points of appreciation for my book. I thank them for the kind words.
Mathison’s False Claim About Van Til’s Teaching
Carlton Wynne introduces the first major topic of significance. He says (at 13:45), “Mathison makes the claim that Van Til believed that man must know all about all things in order to know anything about anything.” We’ll come back to this presently, but because the panel discusses this point for well over thirty minutes, I want to note how they develop the criticism. First, (at 16:45) Dr. Wynne quotes page 62 of my book, acknowledging that I say that man is finite and cannot possibly know everything. He also (at 17:35) quotes page 48 of my book where I make the point that for Van Til, facts are truly known only when they are known in relation to God and in relation to every other fact in the plan of God. He seems to object to the second part of that statement.
Dr. Wynne then (at 19:55) reads a quotation from page 122 of my book where I cite a 1931 Banner article by Van Til. He says, “Mathison is claiming that Van Til is asserting that human beings must know all about all things if we are to know anything about anything, that man must be omniscient if he is to assert anything true about anything in God’s world.” Dr. Wynne then asks whether that is really what Van Til is saying. He then begins to argue (at 21:00) that “the context of the quote shows that Van Til is assuming the voice of an unbeliever.” In other words, Wynne says (at 22:30), Van Til is speaking like an unbeliever hypothetically engaging with Christians who are telling him that there is revelation from God that tells him he’s a sinner. He closes this section (at 23:20) by saying: “The broader context of this Banner article is clearly showing that Van Til is assuming the voice of an unbeliever and is most certainly not arguing that finite human beings need to be omniscient if they are to know anything about anything.”
After Dr. Wynne asks (at 24:20) whether he has read me correctly, Camden Bucey says, “I think you’ve got it exactly right.” Bucey then adds that in the earlier quotes, I seem to be understanding the mechanism of the basic principles of revelational epistemology but in this quote from the 1931 article, I am saying that Van Til is espousing the unbelieving view. Bucey says that I lift a portion of that dialogue where Van Til is speaking as an unbeliever and impute to Van Til the very things Van Til was denying. After a few comments, Dr. Tipton adds (at 25:35): “Therefore, there’s no plausible contextual reason why we should say that Mathison has understood Van Til properly on this point.” He says, “It’s not Van Til’s own positive view”
Dr. Wynne then notes (at 26:35) that the same quote from the 1931 article reappears on page 158-159 of my book. He also reads (at 29:00) a quote I cite from Van Til’s Introduction to Systematic Theology. He says (at 31:45) about this quote: “Here again Van Til is not asserting that man must be omniscient to know all things truly. What he is saying is that knowledge of anything whether it’s flowers of the field or the being of God, all of it must be and is related to God, that he is the center reference point for knowing anything truly. Van Til in no sense means that a finite human being must be omniscient in order to know anything. What Van Til means is that total depravity affects man’s knowledge of everything. He does not mean that man must be omniscient.”
Toward the end of the discussion of this point (at 46:20), Dr. Tipton adds, “When Van Til speaks about this knowing all things in order to know anything, what he’s ultimately talking about is the presupposition of fallen Adam in the Garden of Eden – the false ideal of knowledge that he had to assume in order to justify eating from the forbidden fruit.” Dr. Wynne then responds to Tipton (at 47:05), “What you’re saying is that what Dr. Mathison ascribes to Van Til namely human omniscience in order to say anything true about any created fact is actually the false ideal that Van Til recognizes Satan proposed to Adam in the Garden of Eden.” Tipton concludes (at 47:30), “In that sense, it’s the ultimate category confusion in his [Mathison’s] reading of Van Til on this point.” Dr. Wynne wraps up this part of the discussion, saying (50:25) that it becomes clear that Mathison charges Van Til with saying that man must be omniscient.
Response
If the Reformed Forum panel is correct about what I have done here, it is quite an egregious error. If they are correct, I have taken a view Van Til is refuting and then ascribed that view to Van Til. Although they themselves are gracious enough to not say it explicitly, such an error would rightly imply that I should find less intellectually demanding things to do with my time because if I have done what they claim, it implies that my reading comprehension skills are abysmal. I may be a nice guy, but not a particularly bright one. The panelists don’t seem to think that’s the case, however, because in this podcast and in the live chat, they compliment the first half of the book, saying it is a good summary of Van Til’s thought. So apparently they don’t think I’m an idiot. What then is going on?
I believe the most charitable way to understand this is to conclude that we are dealing with some level of miscommunication. I think we are speaking past each other for one reason or another. From my perspective, it does not appear that the Reformed Forum panelists are reading the quote on page 122 within the context of the first five chapters. Let me explain. I structured my book the way I did for a very specific purpose. The first five chapters are an exposition of Van Til’s thought with almost no criticism from me. All of the concerns expressed in the last five chapters are concerns based on the interpretation of Van Til’s thought found in the first five chapters. The last five chapters cannot be understood if the first five chapters have not been read or understood.
The first criticism of my book on this podcast immediately jumps into the first pages of chapter six without first going through the first five chapters, which provide my interpretation of Van Til. I think that may contribute to a miscommunication regarding what I am saying about Van Til. It is not exactly what the panelists seem to think I am saying. Because some listeners to the podcast and some readers of this response may not have read the first five chapters of my book, allow me to provide a brief summary of what I say in my summary of Van Til’s thought in those chapters. Allow me also to note that, with regard to these first five chapters, Dr. Tipton says in the live chat episode that we will look at next, “the first half of his [Mathison’s] book is a really solid exposition of the basics of Van Til.” That’s similar to what Dr. Anderson said about the first half of the book on the Kevin DeYoung podcast. I am not saying this to pat myself on the back. I’m bringing it the reader’s attention because it is relevant to the question we are discussing. Given that Dr. Tipton and Dr. Anderson are two of the most informed experts on the thought of Van Til, I take it from their comments that I did not completely misunderstand or misrepresent Van Til in my exposition of his thought in the first five chapters of my book. That said, here is a brief summary of those first five chapters.
Chapter 1 is titled The Triune God. In this chapter, I explain that for Van Til, the Triune God is independent, immutable, infinite, and personal and has independent, immutable, infinite, and personal knowledge of himself. God has also eternally and freely decreed whatsoever comes to pass and therefore has perfect knowledge of every fact that he has decreed. God knows every decreed fact in relation to himself and in relation to every other fact within his unified plan. This is important because knowledge is the key theme that runs through each major building block in Van Til’s system of thought. According to Van Til, in order for there to be true knowledge of any fact, there has to be knowledge of that fact in relation to every other fact and knowledge of the whole of which that fact is a part. Because God is omniscient, God has such infinite knowledge. God, therefore, grounds the very possibility of true human knowledge. Because God knows himself and every fact in relation to himself and to every other fact, God can also be said to have “pre-interpreted” every fact. Thus, there are no “brute facts.” The true meaning of any fact is ultimately determined by its place in the eternal plan of God. God’s knowledge of himself and of all things in relation to himself and in relation to his plan is, therefore, the ultimate true system of knowledge. God, therefore, is the ultimate principle of interpretation of all facts.
Chapter 2 is titled Creation and Revelation. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and all that is within them, thus introducing a metaphysical distinction between the Creator and the creature. Among God’s creatures were human beings whom he created in his image with rational and volitional faculties. Everything God created, including human beings, is exhaustively revelational of God and of the unified system of truth eternally known by God. Human beings were created in a covenant relationship with God and were, therefore, ethically required to interpret all facts in relation to God their Creator. Human beings were created to be derivative re-interpreters of that which God had eternally pre-interpreted, thus making God the final reference point of all interpretation. If God is not taken as the final reference point, human beings would have to be the final reference point and would, therefore, have to be omniscient, since true knowledge of any fact requires true knowledge of every fact. Human knowledge, however, does not have to be exhaustive because God’s knowledge is exhaustive. Human knowledge is required only to be analogical to God’s knowledge, meaning that it is to be a finite reflection of God’s exhaustive knowledge. Even though human knowledge is not exhaustive knowledge, it is true knowledge if it corresponds to God’s exhaustive knowledge of himself and all things.
Chapter 3 is titled Man’s Fall and God’s Grace. When Adam and Eve sinned, they chose autonomy, making themselves, rather than God, the final reference point of interpretation. As a result of the fall, every human faculty, including the reason and the will, has been corrupted. Human beings after the fall are covenant breakers who are hostile to God. Because knowledge is a unified whole and every fact is truly known only as it is understood in relation to God, man’s choice to make himself the final reference point of interpretation means that he no longer interprets any aspect of reality correctly. Fallen human beings do have a knowledge of God, in one sense, because they cannot escape God’s general revelation of himself, but because they hate God, they sinfully suppress that knowledge of God. Because they suppress the knowledge of God and reject the God-decreed and God-created nature of all things, not only do fallen human beings not know God truly, but they cannot truly know anything else either. The entire history of fallen man has been a history of human beings attempting to create a system of knowledge based on autonomous human thought, assuming man as the final reference point of interpretation. Because fallen human beings do not know created facts truly, they cannot reason from created facts to their Creator, and this means that all attempts at natural theology are futile. Because true knowledge of any fact requires knowledge of that fact in relation to God, fallen man cannot, in principle, know any fact truly. God, however, because of his common grace, restrains fallen human beings from carrying their principle of interpretation to its fullest extent. As a result of God’s common grace, fallen human beings can and do achieve some measure of knowledge about the natural world.
Chapter 4 is titled Redemption and the Antithesis. When God, as a result of his special grace, regenerates some human beings (his elect), he enables them once again to have true knowledge of God and of created facts. Regenerated human beings are now able to understand Scripture, and in the light of Scripture, they are now able to understand all facts as they truly are. Thus, as a result of God’s redemptive work, there is now an antithesis between two types of human beings – believers and unbelievers. Believers are able to reason analogically again, and because they make God the ultimate principle of interpretation, they are able to have true, although not exhaustive, knowledge. Unbelievers continue to reason univocally, and because they make themselves the ultimate principle of interpretation, they cannot know anything truly when they use that principle consistently. Because they use two antithetical principles of interpretation, believers and unbelievers have nothing in common epistemologically even though they have everything in common metaphysically. As a result of the absolute epistemological antithesis, there can be no compromise or neutrality between the believer and the unbeliever. Their worldviews are mutually exclusive, and the conflict between them is an all-out war.
Chapter 5 is titled The Apologetic Implications of the Antithesis. Apologetics is the defense of the Reformed faith rather than of Christian theism in general. Traditional apologetics attempted to blend Christian theology with Greek systems of thought characterized by human autonomy and a belief in “brute facts.” This scholasticism, or “synthesis” thinking, annihilated the Creator-creature distinction and compromised every Christian doctrine. Scholasticism’s understanding of natural theology, therefore, has to be rejected. The apologetic method of presupposition is the Reformed alternative to traditional apologetic methods. The method of presupposition deals explicitly with the final reference point for the interpretation of all facts. This method is necessitated by the fallen man’s lack of any true knowledge of any fact or law. Because the method of presupposition rests upon the absolute antithesis between the believer’s knowledge and the unbeliever’s knowledge, it is a whole system vs. whole system method of apologetics. It involves two stages. In the first stage the believer steps into the shoes of the unbeliever and offers an internal critique showing how the unbeliever’s worldview reduces to absurdity. In the second stage, the believer invites the unbeliever to step into the shoes of the Christian in order to show the unbeliever that only on the presupposition of Christianity can he account for human knowledge and human predication.
This is merely a summary of the content of the first five chapters, which provide an exposition of Van Til’s system of thought. The five chapters themselves are extensively documented, and again, two of the most informed Van Tillian theologians in the world today (Drs. Tipton and Anderson) have said publicly on two separate podcasts that these five chapters do a good job of presenting the basic ideas of Van Til.
Given this summary of the content of the first five chapters, it is also important to explicitly note some specific points that I make throughout those first five chapters that are directly relevant to the criticism of my book that we are presently discussing. Remember, the very first criticism of my book is that “Mathison makes the claim that Van Til believed that man must know all about all things in order to know anything about anything.” That, however, is not a claim that I make. As indicated in the following quotes, I repeatedly note that Van Til says that only God is omniscient. Man, on the other hand, is a finite creature and cannot possibly have exhaustive knowledge. I am providing quite a few quotes here to demonstrate that this is not an isolated point that can be easily overlooked. It is repeated throughout the first five chapters.
p. 56 – “However, although God’s rationality has been stamped upon man, man remains a finite creature, which means that his knowledge is finite.”
p. 56 – “Van Til explains, “The Adamic consciousness, or, the reason of man as it existed before the fall of man . . . . was derivative. Its knowledge was, in the nature of the case, true, though not exhaustive.”
p. 59 – “Human beings are not omniscient.”
p. 62 – “man is a finite creature and cannot possibly know everything”
p. 63 – “Man’s knowledge of the cow is necessarily finite, and as such, if that knowledge is to be true, it must be grounded in exhaustive knowledge somewhere.”
p. 64 – “According to Van Til, because human beings are created ‘knowers,’ they are analogical knowers. As such, their knowledge cannot be exhaustive. It can, however, be true.”
p. 64 – “God’s full comprehension, Van Til argues, ‘gives validity to our partial comprehension.’”
p. 66 – “Man’s system of knowledge, however, cannot ever fully replicate God’s system of knowledge. Full replication of God’s system of knowledge would require that man know every fact about God. Man would have to fully comprehend God. It would also require that man know every fact in the divine decree. Man would have to know everything about every physical thing God has created, down to the last sub-atomic particle. Man would have to know every event in God’s decree – past, present, and future. This would include visible events as well as invisible actions such as human thoughts and choices. In short, full replication of God’s system of knowledge is impossible for any finite mind. It is impossible because of the Creator-creature distinction. God’s mind is infinite. Man’s mind is finite. Human knowledge, therefore, can only be analogical. It can only be a finite reflection of the infinite original. This finite human knowledge will be true knowledge, however, if it corresponds to God’s perfect unified system of knowledge. It corresponds to God’s perfect system of knowledge only when it makes God the ultimate principle of interpretation.”
p. 67 – “God is also omniscient. His knowledge is infinite. Creaturely knowledge, where it exists, is finite.”
p. 67 – “Van Til explains that since human beings are creatures, man’s knowledge could only be analogical to God’s knowledge.”
p. 67 – “Human knowledge of facts is never exhaustive knowledge.”
p. 69 – “Adam and Eve were created as rational beings capable of knowledge, but as creatures their knowledge could not possibly be exhaustive.”
p. 69 – “Creaturely knowledge is necessarily finite. Only the Creator is omniscient.”
p. 70 – “Man’s knowledge cannot be a perfect replica of God’s knowledge because God’s knowledge includes God’s infinite knowledge of himself and every fact in his decree. Man is finite.”
p. 84 – “Because he was a finite creature, his knowledge could never be exhaustive, but it could be true if it corresponded to God’s exhaustive knowledge.”
p. 114 – “Human beings are finite creatures, so even before the fall, man’s knowledge could not possibly be an exact replica of God’s infinite knowledge. Man’s knowledge, instead, was to be analogical to God’s knowledge. As Van Til explains, man was to reinterpret all facts in light of God’s revelation. If he does so, his knowledge corresponds to God’s knowledge and is true as far as it goes.”
The Reformed Forum panelists claim in their very first significant criticism that “Mathison makes the claim that Van Til believed that man must know all about all things in order to know anything about anything.” However, that’s not what I’m claiming. I acknowledge over and over and over again in my book that Van Til says only God is omniscient and that man’s knowledge can only be finite. Man’s knowledge even in his unfallen state was not exhaustive. Given how often that point is repeated in the first five chapters of my book, which the panelists themselves acknowledge is a good summary of Van Til’s position, what possible reason might there be to interpret a paragraph near the beginning of chapter six in a way that directly contradicts what I have repeatedly affirmed throughout the previous five chapters?
The point I am summarizing on page 122 at the very beginning of chapter six is not that “Van Til believed that man must know all about all things in order to know anything about anything.” The point I am summarizing has to do with Van Til’s definition of “true knowledge.” It is related to what Van Til says about man’s knowledge, but it is not the same thing. Van Til defines true knowledge as exhaustive knowledge, as omniscience. No human being (believer or unbeliever) can have such knowledge, but the definition helps us understand the things he says about human knowledge. He will often make points about human knowledge that assume his definition of true knowledge as exhaustive knowledge. On that assumption, he will say, for example, that for true knowledge to exist, someone must have exhaustive knowledge. If there is no God, then man must have exhaustive knowledge. That is not actually possible, however. If there is one “big idea” that I am claiming throughout my five-chapter exposition of Van Til’s system of thought it is the idea that in order to understand anything Van Til is saying at any point in his system, one must grasp his definition of true knowledge. It took over 100 pages to document this and to connect these dots in the first five chapters of the book, so I direct interested readers to those chapters.
This now brings us to the quote on page 122 of my book that Dr. Wynne mentions at the beginning of this critique. Here is what I say in this paragraph:
According to Van Til, in order for there to be true knowledge of any fact, there has to be knowledge of that fact in relation to God, in relation to every other fact that God decreed, and in relation to the whole system of knowledge of which that fact is a part. As we have seen, Van Til explicitly repeats this view of knowledge dozens of times throughout his writings. As just one example out of many, he writes, ‘we may say that we must know all about all things if we are to know anything about anything.’”
At this point in my book, all I am doing is summarizing what I have been presenting in great detail throughout the first five chapters, and what I have been presenting is the centrality of Van Til’s definition of true knowledge to his system. I have not been claiming that “Van Til believed that man must know all about all things in order to know anything about anything.”
Mathison’s Misreading of Van Til’s 1931 Article
A second element of the first Reformed Forum criticism is that in the paragraph on page 122 of my book, I grossly misread Van Til’s 1931 Banner article in order to support my claim that “Van Til believed that man must know all about all things in order to know anything about anything.” The problem here is twofold. First, I did not cite Van Til’s article in order to prove that claim since I am not making that claim. I pointed to that article, which is one among many, to summarize his assumptions about the definition of true knowledge. Second, the Reformed Forum panelists agree that in the words of this article that I cite, Van Til is actually presenting the unbeliever’s view. Dr. Wynne reads a large section of it to support his interpretation, but I think a little more context will be even more helpful.
Response
The 1931 Banner article I cited is the first of two related articles published in that magazine. This first article is titled “A Christian Theistic Theory of Knowledge.” This is the article I cite. The second article is titled “A Christian Theistic Theory of Reality.” In other words, the first article deals with epistemology, and the second deals with metaphysics. Van Til's audience in both articles is a Christian audience. In his introductory comments to the first article, Van Til writes: “We must set over against the false philosophy of the world a true Christian philosophy. If we are to preserve a true theology there is scarcely anything more important than that we should cultivate a sound philosophy.” He indicates that he will be discussing two main philosophical concepts, namely “a true theory of knowledge and a true theory of reality.”
Significantly, he provides two major subheadings and two subsidiary subheadings before closing the discussion with comments on “Our Task.” The two major subheadings are: “The Believer’s Theory of Knowledge” and “The Unbeliever’s Theory of Knowledge.” The subsidiary subheading beneath “The Believer’s Theory of Knowledge” is “Faith.” The subsidiary subheading beneath “The Unbeliever’s Theory of Knowledge” is “Reason.” The words I cited in my book are taken from the section titled “The Believer’s Theory of Knowledge.” Since there is another section titled “The Unbeliever’s Theory of Knowledge” my assumption is that the words taken from “The Believer’s Theory of Knowledge” represented Van Til’s view and not the unbeliever’s view. However, the Reformed Forum panelists argue that in the context Van Til enters into a hypothetical dialogue with the unbelieving view and that the words I cite from Van Til are actually the views of the unbeliever.
I will be the last to argue that Van Til is always clear and easy to understand, so a misreading is not impossible. However, I believe that a reading of this entire article demonstrates that the charge against me on this point should be dropped. In order to understand why, let us examine what Van Til writes under the subheading “The Believer’s Theory of Knowledge” and then what he says about this section immediately afterward under the subheading “Faith.” The following is the complete content of the subsection “The Believer’s Theory of Knowledge” from Van Til’s 1931 Banner article.
I see a cow. I say it is an animal. But what is an animal? To answer that question fully I should be able to say what life is for a cow is living. I watch the cow eat grass. Does the grass live too? Yes it does. The grass grows out of the ground. Does the ground live also? No it does not. But some say that it does. At any rate I see that the lifeless is indispensable for the living. Hence I cannot say what life is unless I can also say what the ground is. I cannot really say what a cow is until I can tell what the whole of physical reality is.
But now comes a still greater difficulty. We are ourselves a part of this reality. That might seem at first sight to give us the advantage of inside view. But it would certainly have the disadvantage of only an inside view. We usually have only an inside view of ourselves. Others have an “outside” view of us. And how much more correct they usually are than we! Suppose then that there is a God. He will have the best “outside” view of us. Our idea of ourselves would be wholly wrong unless it corresponded to God’s outside knowledge of us. Thus we begin to see that if we are to have an answer to the question what the cow is we must first know all about God and man. In other words we may say that we must know all about all things if we are to know anything about anything.
We must answer then that we do not know what a cow is. But such an admission does not seem to be so serious. Even if I do not know what a cow is I can milk it anyway. But the question becomes more serious when I am asked whether I know myself. I must know a good deal about myself. There are those who claim to have an outside view of me and they say that I am a sinner and damnation-bound. Is that true? I ask them how they know? They tell me that the revelation of God tells them about it. Is there such a revelation? Perhaps there is not. But am I sure that there is not? I ought to know all about myself; that is, I must know all about what is going to happen to me in this life and in the future, if there is one, before I can be certain that those prophets of evil are mistaken. I grow desperate. I must know here and now whether I know.
In despair I look again at that revelation of which my accusers speak. The Scriptures tell me that God knows all about all things. Suppose that this claim is true, would that help me? Would that make me know all things? No, it would not make me know all things but it would help me just the same. A child does not need to know all about the road he is to travel if only his father does. So also we may say that if God knows all about all things we can know all we need to know about ourselves. If God knows all things He must have created all things. God could not know all if all were not dependent upon him. God could not know this world if his rationality were not stamped upon it. Then too all knowledge that any human being has and possibly could have must be from God. It must be true then that we are created in the image of God. God’s rationality is stamped upon me. Hence, if God exists, the knowledge that I seem to have, must be from God and therefore true.
But does God exist? We have till now been asking what would be true if God exists. Is it nothing but a fine vision that we have seen? Our answer is that God must exist or the very questions that we have asked about Him would be meaningless. We have seen that God must know all things if we are to know anything. Hence it is also true that my asking about His existence would have no meaning unless He does actually exist. In other words, I must presuppose God’s existence for my experience to have any significance. My belief in God is as necessary as breath to me; He is “nearer than hands and feet.”
Now, notice what Van Til says immediately after this in the subsection titled “Faith.” Here Van Til says:
The position outlined above may be called the position of faith; it is the believer’s position. When the believer is asked to give a reason for the faith that is in him he reasons as we have reasoned above. It then becomes clear that the believer’s position is a reasonable position. It is reasonable for a mere human being to be a believer.
In other words, Van Til himself explicitly says that the section from which I pull that quote, is the position of faith, the believer’s position. That section of the article shows the way the believer reasons. The believer is not having a hypothetical dialogue with the unbeliever here. He is having a dialogue within himself. It is simply not true to say that I have put the unbeliever’s position in the mouth of Van Til and made him teach a view that he rejects. Van Til himself tells us that this is the believer’s position. Van Til himself tells us this is the position of faith.
The unbeliever’s mode of thinking is described in the next subsection, titled “The Unbeliever’s Theory of Knowledge.” How does Van Til describe the unbeliever’s mode of thinking?
John sees a cow. He calls it an animal. But what is an animal? Webster fails him. He turns to the philosophers Plato tells him that this cow is all imitation of cowness in the eternal world of ideas. But is there such a world of ideas? What did Plato know about it? What can any human being know about anything that is eternal? But Plato was an ancient Greek. Perhaps a modern American knows more about it. So John asks William James. James tells him in effect that nobody knows anything about anything. James tells him to forget about all this mad chase for a knowledge of reality. “Milk your cow and have done with it” says James. “Be practical.”
John tried to be “practical.” So did the prodigal at the swinetrough. But how could John be sure that it was unpractical to speculate about a judgment day? Even Methusaleh died. Likely John would too. And then what? Who can tell him? He cannot help but ask such questions again and again. Yet he may not accept the answer of Scripture for Scripture is on this basis no more than a collection of human opinions. It were an insult to his intelligence to accept anything on authority. He wants to be his own authority. He grows desperate. He grows insane. He commits suicide. Or other wise he gives up thinking and denies his manhood.
Immediately following this is the next subsidiary subheading titled “Reason.” Van Til writes here:
The position outlined above may be called the position of human reason and one holding it may be called a rationalist. The rationalist pretends that man can without the aid of God solve all the problems that face the human mind. Fearlessly he meets the Sphinx. Boldly he spurns all God-proffered. “He paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength; he goeth on to meet the armed man”
When failure comes again and again he is not dismayed. He persists in his efforts and calls such a persistence true scientific patience. We would call it stubbornness and conceit. The rationalist would rather change the “we do not know’’ which he must readily confess into the “we shall not know” of his faith (therefore admitting final and utter failure) than allow that there may be a God who knows all things.
In short, Van Til does not present the unbeliever’s view in this article as the view that “man must know all about all things in order to know anything about anything.” The unbeliever’s view as he presents it in this article is unbridled skepticism. When Van Til mentions in the first section that “we must know all about all things if we are to know anything about anything” he’s assuming his definition of true knowledge in the middle of a believer’s thought-experiment that concludes in a reasonable faith.
I do not believe any fair reading of this article leads to the conclusion that I have put the views of the unbeliever in the mouth of Van Til, so it is difficult for me to understand why all three panelists were so quick to agree that Dr. Wynne’s interpretation of this article was a correct one.
Further evidence against any such interpretation of this article can be seen by comparing what Van Til says here to other places in which he teaches the same basic points even more explicitly. On page 6 of his Survey of Christian Epistemology, for example, Van Til writes:
For the Christian system, knowledge consists in understanding the relation of any fact to God as revealed in Scripture. I know a fact truly to the extent that I understand the exact relation such a fact sustains to the plan of God. It is the plan of God that gives any fact meaning in terms of the plan of God. The whole meaning of any fact is exhausted by its position in and relation to the plan of God. This implies that every fact is related to every other fact. God’s plan is a unit. And it is this unity of the plan of God, founded as it is in the very being of God, that gives the unity that we look for between all the finite facts. If one should maintain that one fact can be fully understood without reference to all other facts, he is as much antitheistic as when he should maintain that one fact can be understood without reference to God.
Note first that Van Til introduces this entire comment with the words: “For the Christian system . . .” That is the view he proceeds to explain here. It is according to the Christian system that “knowledge consists in understanding the relation of any fact to God as revealed in Scripture.” According to the Christian system, “I know a fact truly to the extent that I understand the exact relation such a fact sustains to the plan of God.” According to the Christian system, “It is the plan of God that gives any fact meaning in terms of the plan of God.” According to the Christian system, “The whole meaning of any fact is exhausted by its position in and relation to the plan of God.” It is the Christian system that “implies that every fact is related to every other fact” and that “God’s plan is a unit.” Furthermore, according to Van Til, anyone who claims “that one fact can be fully understood without reference to all other facts” is antitheistic. In other words, that is a non-Christian view. Such a person is just as antitheistic as anyone who claims that “one fact can be understood without reference to God.”
Even if we were to grant that the 1931 article is vague (which it isn’t given Van Til’s own explanation of it), there is nothing vague in this paragraph from his Survey of Christian Epistemology. Van Til explicitly defines this as "the Christian system." There is, therefore, no reason to criticize my claim that this is Van Til’s view since Van Til professes to teach the Christian view.
Borrowing Capital from Oliphint?
After the lengthy discussion that appears to be largely based on miscommunication and the inherent difficulty of interpreting Van Til’s language, the Reformed Forum panel moves to the second significant criticism of my book, namely my claim that there is evidence of a propositional influence of idealism on Van Til’s system of thought. The term “propositional influence” requires some explanation. For many years, people on both sides of the Van Til debate have made charges and counter-charges about the “influence” or lack thereof of idealism on Van Til. This discussion has gone precisely nowhere because “influence” is an incredibly vague term. There are a number of different ways it can be understood in this context.
In an attempt to bring a little bit more clarity and precision to the discussion, I suggested that there are at least four kinds of influence we could discern in discussions about the “influence” of philosophy on any given theologian. On page 151 of my book, I briefly describe these as follows:
1. Lexical Influence – In this case a theologian simply borrows philosophical terms and gives those terms Christian definitions.
2. Strategic influence – In this case, the major questions asked and the major problems raised by a particular philosophical school set the agenda in some way for a theologian’s methodology.
3. Propositional influence – In this case, a theologian borrows what he believes to be individual true teachings from a philosophical system and incorporates them into his theological system.
4. Systemic influence – In this case, a philosophical system as a whole is adopted and then functions as a foundation for a theological system. This involves a complete synthesis of Christian theology with that philosophical system.
I argue that we can rule out a systemic influence of idealism on Van Til but that we can find evidence of lexical, strategic, and propositional influence. I also argue that lexical and strategic influence in this case are not particularly controversial or problematic. The real question concerns propositional influence. I argue in the book that we see a propositional influence on Van Til precisely with regard to his definition of true knowledge, which again, is the most significant element in his system of thought. It is the element that ties the whole system together, and it is the element without which nothing Van Til says really makes any sense. The Reformed Forum panel is critical of this argument.
At the 58:30 mark, the question is raised: “Where did Mathison get this idea?” (the idea that idealism had a propositional influence on Van Til). The answer they give is that I quote K. Scott Oliphint’s 1990 article in which Oliphint says that Van Til took what was formally true in idealism and transplanted it into Reformed soil. They then observe that Oliphint goes on to say in his article that only in Christian soil could these formally true ideas have their proper growing place.
Response
Let me say, first, that I did not get the idea of propositional influence from Oliphint. I cited Oliphint when discussing propositional influence for the same reason I cited other Van Tillians when discussing the other types of influence. I was attempting to illustrate that even among Van Tillians there is an implicit recognition of different kinds of influence, and I was attempting to provide examples of Van Tillians who acknowledge these various kinds of influence on Van Til. In the case of propositional influence, I cited Oliphint and Gabe Fluhrer as examples of Van Tillians who acknowledged this kind of influence.
Second, even if I had borrowed the idea of propositional influence from Oliphint that tells us nothing about the truth of the idea itself. Whether it was taught by Oliphint has no bearing on its truth. The claim has to be evaluated on its own merits and not dismissed simply because this person or that person taught it.
Third, Oliphint’s article in which he made the claim about Van Til replanting formally true idealist teachings into Reformed soil was published in 1990 in the Westminster Theological Journal. That was 35 years ago. Did any Van Tillians publish criticisms of this view during the last 35 years? Perhaps they did, but I have not seen any. If his view on this issue went without serious criticism among Van Tillians for 35 years, why is it suddenly such a huge issue when I point it out in 2024? Why is an interpretation of Van Til that has been taught to Westminster Seminary students for 35 years suddenly deemed utterly absurd?
The Impossibility of Idealist Propositional Influence
Returning to the podcast, Dr. Tipton says (at 1:04:53) that I claim that “Van Til extracted without changing the specific element of internal relations, quote unquote, and epistemological holism from British absolute idealism and replanted it as such into the soil of Reformed theology.” Since I did not recall saying this, I re-read my entire book to see if I had forgotten saying this. I then did a search in my pdf copy of the book. I cannot locate the words “without change” in that context in my book. I do say on page 156 that if we can get the other kinds of influence off the table and focus on propositional influence, we can ask “What are the specific elements that Van Til took from idealism and replanted in Reformed soil?’ If we can answer that question, we can then examine those specific elements in order to determine which, if any, are consistent with Scripture.” Then, on pages 156–157, when I discuss what specific element I think has been replanted, I specify “epistemological holism.”
I also mention on page 157 that in idealist philosophy, holism is often associated with internal relations, but I do not dive into the debate over that topic. I mention, again on page 157, that in my reading of Van Til, I did not come across any substantive discussion of internal relations as such. What Van Til focuses on is epistemological holism. I understand that the two are intimately related within idealism, but in any case, I do not say anywhere that Van Til extracted “without change” these two specific elements.
Be that as it may, Dr. Tipton’s criticism (1:05:55) is that it is simply impossible to extract without change, internal relations and epistemological holism from British idealism and replant them. He says (1:07:00) that it’s not possible to replant these things in an atomistic fashion if you know what internal relations and epistemological holism are within British idealism. He then spends several minutes helpfully explaining what internal relations and epistemological holism mean within British absolute idealism. He ends the discussion (1:11:06) with this point, which I quote in full:
Once we define internal relations within the absolute this way, there’s no possible way that we can discern a propositional influence on Van Til. Why? Because the idealist notion of an internal relation and epistemological holism means that the whole of reality is an inter-dependent whole, where each entity related determines the nature of all other entities. What does that mean? Let me put it this way. There cannot be for Bradley, given internal relations, given epistemological holism, and given the Absolute, there cannot be an independent, immutable, omniscient Being. It can’t exist. So to extract internal relations, to extract epistemological holism, to extract the Absolute system is to extract that which by its very nature, on its own terms would destroy Christian theism’s foundation – an independent, immutable, omniscient God.
So, according to the Reformed Forum interpretation of Van Til’s relation to idealism, propositional influence is impossible.
Response
I think a few points are important to make here. First, the removal of an element of truth from a system of philosophy is only impossible on idealist assumptions. Unless the influence of idealism on Van Til is systemic, there is no reason to suppose that he could not see something he believed to be formally true in British idealism, take it, and re-purpose it for his own theology. In other words, the replanting of an idealist element of truth might be impossible for F. H. Bradley, but it is not necessarily impossible for one who does not share all of Bradley’s views.
Second, even if my taxonomy of types of influences needs improvement, we still have to do something with the statements Van Til makes about idealism that seem to point in the direction of something along the lines of what I call propositional influence. Why does Van Til suggest, for example, in his Introduction to Warfield’s Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, that it is only after Kant that a consistent apologetics is possible (pp. 23–24)? Why does he say it is possible to take formally true elements from philosophical systems? In his Survey of Christian Epistemology, for example, Van Til says, “It should be carefully noted that our criticism of this procedure does not imply that we hold it to be wrong for the Christian church to make formal use of the categories of thought discovered by Aristotle or any other thinker” (p. 57). Presumably “any other thinker” includes idealist thinkers. Elsewhere, Van Til seems to point out the specific elements of truth in idealism that he adopts. He writes in one place, for example:
The Idealists argued in the way that we have argued above about the cow. They said that true knowledge cannot be obtained by a mere correspondence of an idea of the mind to all object existing apart from the mind. The mind and the object of which it seeks knowledge are parts of one great system of reality and one must have knowledge of the whole of this reality before one has knowledge of any of its parts. Accordingly, the Idealists said that the thing that really counted in knowledge was the coherence of any fact with all other facts. To know the place of a fact in the universe as a whole is to have true knowledge. This position, as we shall see more fully later, approaches, in form, what we are after in our position. Yet it is only in form that it approaches our position. That this is true can be seen from the determining fact that the Absolute to which the Idealist seeks to relate all knowledge is not the completely self-conscious God of Christianity (A Survey of Christian Epistemology, p. 2).
He adds several paragraphs later:
But the exact difference between the Idealistic conception of objectivity and ours should be noted. The difference lies just here, that, for the Idealist, the system of reference is found in the Universe inclusive of God and man, while for us, the point of reference is found in God alone (p. 4).
If this is not “propositional influence” what is it? It’s not merely lexical or strategic influence, and unless we want to say that Van Til was a full-blown syncretist, it is not systemic influence. If my categories of influence are insufficient, someone needs to suggest a better alternative, and it needs to help us understand all that Van Til says about idealism – both good and bad.
Are the Idealists Borrowing Christian Capital?
Interestingly, immediately after Dr. Tipton has spent a good deal of time arguing for the impossibility of propositional influence, Camden Bucey makes the point (at 1:12:25) that this entire discussion is backwards because it is the unbeliever who borrows from Christianity. He then adds (at 1:12:54), “Is all knowledge connected? Yeah. That’s actually a Christian idea. And we see that in idealism.” He goes on to say (at 1:13:20) that “the ideas have not originated with the idealists properly speaking. They’re native and essential to what has been revealed in Scripture and in nature.”
Response
If this is true, and the other panelists did not object when the point was made, it appears to undermine to some degree the point Dr. Tipton makes about the impossibility of removing an element of truth from idealism and replanting it into Reformed soil. Bucey says the idea that all knowledge is connected is “a Christian idea” and that these ideas that Van Til allegedly took from idealism and replanted in Reformed soil did not come from the idealists. Instead, these ideas are “native and essential to what has been revealed in Scripture and in nature.” In short, the idealists stole or borrowed these truths from Christianity.
Now, Dr. Tipton has just strongly denied that this particular teaching (epistemological holism) can be part of Christianity without destroying Christianity. And yet Bucey appears to suggest that somehow it is actually a Christian idea. He doesn’t use the term “epistemological holism,” which is why I’m not certain, but he does make the comment “Is all knowledge connected? Yeah. That’s actually a Christian idea” in the immediate context of Dr. Tipton’s discussion of epistemological holism. It appears that his objection is not to the idea that both Christianity and idealism share this doctrine that all knowledge is connected (epistemological holism). The real issue is that Christians had it first. But if Christians had it first, it exists within the Christian system and within the idealist system.
Regardless of who had it first, if it’s the same basic doctrine and it's found in both the Christian system and in the idealist system, then it’s not ridiculous to say that this doctrine is found both in idealism and in Van Til. To argue that the doctrine must necessarily be understood as capital borrowed by the pagans rules out the possibility Van Til himself mentions on page 57 of his Survey of Christian Epistemology. Perhaps I am misunderstanding Rev. Bucey’s point. A podcast discussion is often off the cuff, and our words aren’t as precise as we would have liked.
But if the point is that both Christianity and idealism share this doctrine and the only question concerns which side took it from the other, then there is a shared element of truth and the question of propositional influence is not a ridiculous one to consider. Given that Van Til himself said it is not “wrong for the Christian church to make formal use of the categories of thought discovered by Aristotle or any other thinker,” it seems premature to rule out the possibility that he did this with British idealism.
Concluding Thoughts
The remaining time in the Reformed Forum podcast is devoted to whether Van Til held the coherence theory of truth. The panel spent something like five minutes on this topic and most of the questions surrounding the topic are directly related to the previous question concerning propositional influence. There is little need to respond on this point because such responses would be repitition of the same points made above.
Lane Tipton concludes this part of the critique (at 1:29:40), saying quite clearly, “Van Til did not teach that in order for man to know something he has to know everything. That is the false ideal of Adam in his original sin which Van Til rejected entirely. Van Til did not take isolated and atomistic truths from idealism, whether internal relations or epistemological holism or an idealist conception of coherence and replant them into the soil of Reformed orthodoxy. There was no propositional influence on Van Til in these specific areas as Mathison claims.” He then adds: “What this means is that Mathison’s work here, while there’s much value in it and while we’ve cited things that we appreciate, when it comes to this issue of the influence of idealism, Mathison has either misunderstood Van Til, British absolute idealism, or most unfortunately, both.”
The bulk of this post has been devoted to responding to these two major criticisms. Those who have read only this response or listened only to the Reformed Forum podcast will need to read the book in order to determine whether my responses are adequate. I will simply say again that if these two criticisms are accurate then Anderson and Tipton should not have commended the first five chapters of my book in the way they did. Those chapters cannot possibly be “a really solid exposition of the basics of Van Til” if I have grossly misrepresented him throughout those chapters on what I claim to be the central element in his system of thought. If those criticisms are accurate then my book is essentially worthless as a contribution to this discussion.
Reformed Forum – January 8, 2025
A day after the original 90-minute critique was posted, Reformed Forum posted an hour-long live chat devoted to a discussion of the previous podcast. Camden Bucey and Lane Tipton returned without Carlton Wynne. Instead, they were joined by Ryan Noha and Scott Cook. No new significant criticisms were raised in this discussion, so this response will be very brief compared to the lengthy remarks above. I will simply respond to some select comments made by the panelists.
At 14:45, Dr. Tipton quotes Van Til speaking of his view as a correspondence theory as long as we reject what has been traditionally called the correspondence theory. Now, perhaps it is being nit-picky, but this is one of those things Van Til does that causes frustration among non Van Tillians. He creates unnecessary confusion by taking terms that have a commonly accepted and well-known definition and then insisting on giving them his own idiosyncratic definitions. If it’s neither the coherence theory nor the correspondence theory, call it something else.
At 22:55, Camden Bucey says, “Van Til is not that complicated. We believe that the Triune God is the only God. Everything depends on Him. No Christian disagrees with that. Let’s take that as our first point and everything follows after that.” He then adds (at 24:45), “When you boil it down with CVT it comes down to these basic Sunday School lessons.” If this is really so, then why is there no agreed upon interpretation of Van Til’s thought, including his most basic points, among Van Tillians themselves? Why do Van Tillians themselves say that Van Til is difficult to understand? Later in this same live chat (at 38:30), Scott Cook talks about those things that make Van Til difficult to understand. The interpretation of Van Til cannot be both obvious to any halfway intelligent Sunday School student and at the same time very difficult for people to comprehend.
At 25:45, the panel answers a question from a listener: “Who among the public critics comes closest to really understanding Van Til’s thought?” After naming some of the previously published critiques, Tipton argues that I’m the critic who has come closest. I genuinely appreciate this comment, especially since my main goal in the first five chapters of my book was to represent Van Til’s system of thought fairly and accurately. However, I do find this assessment of those chapters puzzling for the reasons I have already mentioned above.
At 31:25, Camden asks, “Why is it that there are these perennial critiques? Especially regarding idealism?” I believe the answer to that is fairly straightforward. The questions continue to arise because there’s something there in Van Til, and no one has provided a completely satisfactory answer yet. Van Tillians themselves have not, even after 80 years, come to a consensus among themselves regarding the relation between Van Til and idealism. If we don’t want to call it propositional influence, fine. But too many people, both Van Tillian and non Van Tillian, have noticed these elements in Van Til for it to be nothing.
Finally, at 58:30, Scott Cook briefly criticizes the deficient understanding of idealism displayed on page 144 of my book. I’m not entirely sure how to respond since there was no intent on this page of the book to provide a thorough exposition of idealism. All I am doing at this point in the book is talking about some labels various authors use to describe a couple of overly generalized philosophical positions. It’s one paragraph, so of course it’s “flat and lacking in nuance.” Even my slightly longer discussion of idealism on pages 149–151 is far from a thoroughly nuanced exposition, because it’s merely introductory in nature.
I want to close this lengthy post by thanking all of my brothers who have taken the time to read and interact with my book. I do think that we are still speaking past each other on some issues and failing to fully communicate, but I don’t want to give up on the discussion and assume such conversations are completely futile just yet.