Secondly I am a fond admirer of Warfield as I am of Van Til and other theologians and apologists. But on the issue of apologetical method I side with Van Til. This does not mean that I take issue with everything Warfield ever wrote or even everything he ever wrote about apologetics.

I would love to respond to each and every contention in your comment, but frankly I don’t recognize myself in your remarks. And I honestly think you attribute views to me that I do not adhere to. And I happen to think you don’t understand Warfield well either.

You are left only with the argument that it is unbiblical to use induction or any argument that produces less than perfect certainty. Here are my questions:
1. Is certainty a property of an argument or a state of mind? Are you failing to distinguish between a)logical proof that is impervious to any objections, and b) convincing someone of the truth of a proposition? What I mean is, isn’t there a difference between logical proof and moral/psychological certainty? The reality is that people are persuaded by all kinds of different evidence and arguments, because they are individuals. People can come to a state of moral and psychological certainty by inductive evidence. We do it all the time. In addition, this kind of moral certainty could be what we call biblical faith, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and He is free to confer that any way He pleases. Are you trying to say the Holy Spirit is unable to confer faith upon someone unless they use a transcendental argument?
2. If inductive arguments are so unbiblical, why does the Bible itself use them so frequently? How do you support your claim that inductive arguments and evidence are unbiblical and wrong?

Regarding your argument that Warfield was wrong to give external reasons to support that the Bible is what it claims to be - a revelation from the God who truly exists - it is not sound. To say that the Bible is self-authenticating does not rule out the possibility that God also made it to correspond to and with His other revelation, His works. In other words, it could be both self-authenticating and also authenticated by God’s other revelation: His works. In fact, the Bible is unique in the fact that it is not *only* self-authenticating, but connects with general revelation in a multitude of ways that are open to all people to examine. It is the one religious book that gives plenty of information that is testable by external evidence, and also has not been disproved by the test of external evidence (as has, for instance, the book of Mormon). Why do you assume that general revelation ought never to be used as corroboration for the Bible?

I also have a problem with your claim that Warfield was failing to make a distinction between natural revelation and natural theology. It seems you are once again being selective in applying an objection to him but not to Van Til. This same problem applies to to Scriptural data. Van Til’s own interpretation of what is biblical, his own theories of what arguments are valid and biblical are not infallible just because he claims that he is getting them from the Bible rather than general revelation. He does not get an exemption from having to prove that what he claims is true just because he uses verbal revelation instead of general revelation. The reality is that it may be easy in theory to separate the source of truth from our understanding of that truth, but in practice it is very, very difficult to distinguish it. Even Christians have blind spots, are subject to arrogant bias, are limited creatures that do not take in all the biblical evidence with complete impartiality, and need the corrective of other Christians, and even of general revelation in order to interpret Scripture correctly.

You insert in this argument also the idea that it is unregenerate people reading the general revelation, but that is not so. It is the apologist (Warfield) that is reading the general revelation and directing the mind and discussion with the unbeliever, so that objection cannot apply.

Secondly, if you are going to insist upon the idea that general revelation **inevitably** is distorted by the unregenerate mind, it seems that you are implying that the God’s general revelation is actually *ineffective* with unbelievers, and only effective with believers, which is the same thing as saying that general revelation is not general (available to all), but special (limited). To say it *is* a revelation when it is not actually effective in giving true knowledge to unbelievers is to render it *not* revelation, but a hiding of truth.

So my question is, do you, or do you not believe that unregenerate man has true knowledge, as per Romans 1? Either he does or he doesn’t. Is the problem of the unregenerate an inability to see truth at all, or an unwillingness to bow to the truth he does know, because of a sinful nature enslaved to sin? Please give a clear answer on this and don’t keep changing the story as it suits you, as I notice many presuppositionalists do. Please be consistent, applying the same rules to presuppositionalists that you apply to other apologists. Either you are arguing that it is impossible for the unregenerate to ever believe anything but falsehoods, impossible for them to come to any true conclusions from general revelation, or you will admit that it is at times possible for them to do so (not infallibly, not in every case, not all the time, but at least some of the time - which is also true of believers, by the way, unless you are going to argue that believers are infallible!).

What it seems to me you are doing is using arguments against Warfield’s approach that do not prove what you are claiming, and if they did prove it, they would equally apply to Van Til’s apologetics. The fact that unbelievers are by definition unregenerate applies to all apologetics, the fact that unbelievers suppress the truth they know applies to arguments based upon both the Word and works of God, the fact that the apologist himself is fallible applies to both, the fact that the arguments can be rejected applies to both, and the fact that apart from the work of the Holy Spirit none of the arguments will be effective applies to both. Either you apply them to both (which would mean that you argue for fideism) or you must drop them.

I am more inclined with the latest work being done on the nature of “right reason” that it is, in fact, regenerate reason. This just means we need to make sure we have an accurate understanding of how certain words or expressions are being used before we criticize their use. This entails the slow, methodical research of the history of the use of an idea or expression because we can’t assume that we automatically understand how some word or expression is being used.

In the series I have cited the work of Paul Helseth. He has done and is doing the lion’s share of the research on this question from the perspective of interest in Old Princeton and the Reformed heritage as a whole. It will repay you hefty dividends should you hunt down his various articles and work through them. I would like to see Paul do a book-legnth treatment of the subject some day (hint, hint!).