Jiang interviews Poythress

"Vern Poythress on the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, and Revelation with Chinese Subtitles"

Interpreting Eden: A Guide to Faithfully Reading and Understanding Genesis 1–3

https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/PoythressVernInterpretingEdenAGuideToFaithfullyReadingAndUnderstandingGenesis1-3.pdf

Sorting out presuppositionalism

The silly contest between Josh Rasmussen and SyeTenB demonstrates, once again, the need to do some sorting:

Regarding the YouTube interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkcs-31PqFg&feature=youtu.be

There are at least three different things flying under the banner of "presuppositionalism"

1. There's the position of SyeTenB. He's a hack with a rabid internet following among a clique of pop Calvinist groupies.

2. That's not to be confused with academic versions of presuppositionalism. For instance:

Greg Welty, “The Conceptualist Argument,” in Colin Ruloff (ed.), Contemporary Arguments in Natural Theology (Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming).

https://www.proginosko.com/docs/The_Lord_of_Non-Contradiction.pdf

https://blog.epsociety.org/2013/09/responses-to-argument-for-god-from-logic.html

3. From another angle is the presuppositionalism of Vern Poythress. For instance:

https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ChancePoythress.pdf

4. There are roughly two competing schools of thought that call themselves presuppositionalists:

i) One derives from Cornelius Van Til. Second-generation Van Tilians include John Frame, the late Greg Bahnsen, and Vern Poythress. We might classify James Anderson as a third-generation Van Tilian. 

However, he's been exposed to some other influences, like Plantinga and modal metaphysics.

Theistic conceptual realism belongs to a family of transcendental arguments. It's interesting how that's evolved. Kant's argument is more epistemological, in part because he doesn't have a robust theology to ground it. Kant might even be a closet atheist. And he's skeptical regarding our knowledge of the external world. So he can't say much of anything to back it up in terms of bedrock ontology. 

Although Van Til's version is partly epistemological, he tries to ground it in the metaphysics of Reformed theism.

Greg Welty and James Anderson have done a lot to embed the epistemological side of the argument in modal metaphysics. I think it's a transcendental argument with an epistemological side, but they've done more to model and detail the necessary metaphysical conditions that make it possible. 

ii) The other derives from the late Gordon Clark. Clark as an anti-empiricist. 

Clark's followers make second-order knowledge necessary for first-order knowledge. You don't know anything unless you know how you know it. They make the justification of knowledge a necessary ingredient in knowledge itself. Here are two examples:

http://unapologetica.blogspot.com/2019/11/gordon-clark-and-necessity-of.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/03/more-scripturalist-mumbo-jumbo.html

It's important to keep these two schools of thought separate, even though they both use the same designation. When you're accused of not understanding presuppositionalism, part of the problem is that there are competing schools of thought as well as different exponents with varying views.

I don't think Josh is under any obligation to understand SyeTenB's positionbecause  there's not much there there. 

Presuppositional apologetics in missions

https://missionspodcast.com/podcast/presuppositional-apologetics-in-missions-vern-poythress-explains/

From temple and Transfiguration to Pentecost

A. For secular readers, Ezk 40-48 is a classic example of a failed hope. This was Ezekiel's utopian ancipation for what awaited the post-exilic community. But it never happened. Before getting more specific, I have a few preliminary observations:

B. Strictly speaking, it's not a prophecy. It is descriptive rather than predictive. A verbalized record of what Ezekiel saw in a vision. It has no calendar for when that will happen. It doesn't locate the outcome in the post-exilic restoration. That said, it certainly fosters an expectation regarding the future. 

C. Revelatory dreams and visions may either be literal or allegorical. For instance, the dreams in the Joseph Cycle (Gen 37-50) are allegorical. Likewise, the visions of Zechariah are often allegorical. So even if the outcome doesn't literally correspond to the description, that doesn't falsify it. The comparison may operate at an analogical level–like the revelatory dreams in the Joseph Cycle. A critic might object that this is special pleading, but analogical fulfillment can be clearly recognizable. 

Underinterpretation and overinterpretation

https://frame-poythress.org/humility-required/

Poythress on Revelation

I'm sure many readers are already aware Vern Poythress has two introductory books on Revelation, both of which Poythress offers for free to read online or download as a pdf:

• The Returning King: A Guide to the Book of Revelation (2000)
• Study Guide to the Book of Revelation (2017)

At the same time, Poythress offers his course materials on Revelation for free (WTS NT311):

General

• The Book of Revelation: A Guide for Understanding v2.1 (i.e. the course syllabus)

Visual Presentations

• All visual presentation files zipped (pdf)
• Introduction (pdf)
• Counterfeiting (pdf)
• The Beast and the Prostitute (pdf)
• The Structure of Revelation (pdf)
• Schools of Interpretation (pdf)
• Situation of Revelation (pdf)
• Theophany (pdf)
• Millennium (pdf)
• The Consummation (pdf)
• Worship (pdf)
• Special presentation on amillennialism (pdf)

Text Files

• All text files zipped (rtf)
• Bibliography (rtf)
• Outline (rtf)
• Introduction (rtf)
• Requirements (rtf)
• Structure (rtf)
• Millennium (rtf)

By the way, Poythress offers his other WTS course materials for free too.

Roundup on presuppositionalism

One thing I notice when it comes assessing the merits of presuppositionalism is that lots of folks aren't picking the best examples that presuppositionalism has to offer. 

1. Van Til

One thing critics frequently fail to make allowance for is that Van Til delegated the defense of Scripture to his colleagues in the NT dept. (Ned Stonehouse) and OT dept. (E. Y. Young). He was a philosophical thinker who played to his own strength and specialty. 

2. Vern Poythress

He's the prolific polymath at WTS. Most of his books are available for free:

https://frame-poythress.org/ebooks/

Many of his books have a presuppositional underpinning, but that's more explicit and pervasive on particular topics, viz.

https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ChancePoythress.pdf

https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/PoythressVernInerrancyAndWorldview.pdf

https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/PoythressVernTheMiraclesOfJesus.pdf

https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/PoythressVernRedeemingMathematics.pdf

https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/BPhilFinal2014.pdf

https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/PoythressVernRedeemingSociology.pdf

There are a couple of limitations to his apologetic:

i) His books are generally written for a popular audience (his monograph on logic is an exception), so he holds a lot in reserve.

ii) I'd say he has a certain antipathy to philosophical theology and modal metaphysics. From his perspective, it's too rationalistic, failing to honor divine transcendence and incomprehensibility. He's a critic of univocal God-talk. Those scruples inhibit his opportunities to justify or provide detailed models of how Christian theism grounds reality. 

3. James Anderson

It's sometimes difficult to separate the work of James Anderson from Greg Welty, because they collaborate (esp. on modal metaphysics). One of his early writings combined insights from Plantinga and Van Til on Christian epistemology:

https://www.proginosko.com/docs/If_Knowledge_Then_God.pdf

Anderson has explicated and defended theistic conceptual realism in his own writings: 

https://www.proginosko.com/tag/theistic-conceptual-realism/

In addition to technical writing, he writes at a popular level:

https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Your-Worldview-Interactive-Questions/dp/143353892X/

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Should-Believe-Christianity-Big/dp/1781918694/

4. Greg Welty

Finally, there's his sometime collaborator Greg Welty. Welty is too eclectic to be a presuppositionalist. However, his work on theistic conceptual realism is a way to cash out the transcendental argument for God. In that regard, the work of Welty and Anderson represents a shift in emphasis from epistemology to modal metaphysics in presuppositional apologetics. I may have had something to do with that. When Welty was a post-grad student at Oxford, I encouraged him to pick a thesis/dissertation topic on modal metaphysics rather than epistemology because I thought (and still think) that's more fundamental and interesting than epistemology. Representative examples include:

“Theistic Conceptual Realism,” ch. 3 of Paul Gould (ed.), Beyond the Control of God? Six Views on the Problem of God and Abstract Objects (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014).

https://www.proginosko.com/docs/The_Lord_of_Non-Contradiction.pdf

https://blog.epsociety.org/2013/09/responses-to-argument-for-god-from-logic.html

Welty's position continues to evolve. He recently participated at this event:

Read paper: “A Response to William Lane Craig’s God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism,” at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division 2019 Annual Meeting (January 9 th). This ‘Author Meets Critics’ session also included a response to Craig from Peter van Inwagen, and a reply to both papers by William Lane Craig.

And he has another contribution in the pipeline which I expect will continue to develop and refine theistic conceptual realism:

“The Conceptualist Argument,” in Colin Ruloff (ed.), Contemporary Arguments in Natural Theology (Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming).

In taking stock of the fortunes of presuppositionalism, the contributions of Anderson, Welty, and Poythress represent the go-to material. I'd add that Paul Manata is a behind-the-scenes consultant on these projects as well. 

Debating cessationism

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-continuation-of-the-charismata

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/a-response-to-andrew-wilson

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/it-all-depends-upon-prophecy-a-brief-case-for-nuanced-cessationism

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/a-response-to-tom-schreiner

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/towards-a-definition-of-new-testament-prophecy

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-boundaries-of-the-gift-of-tongues-with-implications-for-cessationism

Interpreting Eden: A Guide to Faithfully Reading and Understanding Genesis 1-3

A ways off, but something to keep in mind:

https://www.amazon.com/Interpreting-Eden-Faithfully-Reading-Understanding/dp/1433558734/

Time in Genesis 1

From Vern Poythress:

How we measure time affects our assessment of the six days of creation in Gen 1. Within the order that God has providentially established, ordinary people usually do not worry about how to measure time, because many rhythms in time, such as the swings of a pendulum or the beat of the human heart or the movement of the sun in the sky are more or less "in time with" each other. But the six days of creation described in Gen 1 are unusual, because some of the rhythms did not exist until a later point in the sequence of days. The cycle of the greater light (the sun) did not exist until the fourth day. The human heart did not exist until the sixth day. The unusual character of the six days poses problems for how we describe the length of the days, and whether we are sure that the rhythms we now experience operated in exactly the same ways before the completion of the created order. This problem of describing length leads to cautions with respect to assessing more than one of the major theories, such as the 24-hour day theory, the mature creation theory, and the analogical theory. It also introduces caution with respect to the presumption in much of mainstream science that the same rhythms investigated today extend indefinitely into the far past. A simple affirmation of six days of creation is simpler and less definite than any of the theories.

Wet devils and dry devils

As we know, the grace of baptism turns a dry devil into a wet devil. With that in mind, here's a case for paedobaptism:

http://faculty.wts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/For-You-And-Your-Children.pdf

Redeeming the Life of the Mind: Essays in Honor of Vern Poythress

Crossway books has a forthcoming festschrift in honor of Vern Poythress, the polymath at WTS: John Frame, Wayne Grudem, & John Hughes, eds. Redeeming the Life of the Mind: Essays in Honor of Vern Poythress (Crossway 2017). 

Contents
Foreword by J. I. Packer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
PART 1 SONS OF YESHUA
1 Redeeming Science: A Father-Son Tale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Ransom Poythress
2 The Grace and Gift of Differentness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Justin Poythress
PART 2 EXEGESIS
3 The New Testament Background of ἐκκλησία Revisited
Yet Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
G. K. Beale
4 The Divine Choice between the Offerings of Cain and Abel . . . . . . 61
In Whan Kim
5 Reading the Lord’s Prayer Christologically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Brandon D. Crowe
6 Psalms Applied to Both Christ and Christians: Psalms 8, 22,
34, 118 and Romans 15:3 // Psalm 69:9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Robert J. Cara
7 What Kind of Prophecy Continues? Defining the Differences
between the Continuationism and Cessationism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113
Iain M. Duguid
8 Christocentrism and Christotelism: The Spirit, Redemptive
History, and the Gospel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131
Lane G. Tipton
9 What “Symphony of Sighs”? Reflections on the Eschatological
Future of the Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149
Richard B. Gaffin Jr.
PART 3 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY
10 The Trinity and Monotheism: Christianity and Islam in the
Theology of Cornelius Van Til . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171
Camden M. Bucey
11 Language and the Trinity: A Meeting Place for the Global
Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185
Pierce Taylor Hibbs
12 Jonathan Edwards and God’s Involvement in Creation:
An Examination of “Miscellanies,” no. 1263 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203
Jeffrey C. Waddington
PART 4 WORLDVIEW
13 Redeeming the Seminary by Redeeming Its Worldview . . . . . . . . . . .221
Peter A. Lillback
14 Presuppositionalism and Perspectivalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239
John M. Frame
15 The Death of Tragedy: Reflections upon a Tragic Aspect of
This Present Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .257
Carl R. Trueman
16 Beholding the Glory of Jesus: How a Christ-Centered
Perspective Restores in Us the Splendor of God’s Image . . . . . . . . . .275
Brian Courtney Wood
PART 5 HISTORY
17 Christian Missions in China: A Reformed Perspective . . . . . . . . . . .295
Luke P. Y. Lu
18 Historiography: Redeeming History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .317
Diane Poythress
PART 6 ETHICS
19 Christians Never Have to Choose the “Lesser Sin” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .337
Wayne Grudem
20 Perspectives on the Kingdom of God in Romans 14:17 . . . . . . . . . .367
John J. Hughes
Appendix: Scripture Versions Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .395
Writings of Vern Poythress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .399
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .415
General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .418
Scripture Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .419

Redeeming Mathematics

https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/PoythressVernRedeemingMathematics.pdf

Study guide to Revelation

https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Poythress_Revelation-study-guide_color.pdf

Theophanies

http://campus.wts.edu/~vpoythress/nt311/presentn/3C6Theop.pdf

Genesis 1:1 is the first event, not a summary

"Genesis 1:1 is the first event, not a summary" by Vern Poythress.

Dealing with the Genre of Genesis and its Opening Chapters

"Dealing with the Genre of Genesis and its Opening Chapters" by Vern Poythress.

Paul’s Preaching and Postmodern Skepticism

http://frame-poythress.org/pauls-preaching-and-postmodern-skepticism/

Paul’s Preaching and Postmodern Skepticism

Paul’s Preaching and Postmodern Skepticism by Vern Poythress