Exploring Ectypal vs. Archetypal Theology

[Semper Fidelis]

I was musing about this TA/TE distinction yesteday while listening to James White on the way to Church. He was answering a question about the infallible magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church and I began to wonder about the formulation of that concept up against the formulation of this concept.

It seems that the recognition that God's ideal communication in ectypal revelation accomodates to us all Truth that God has chosen to reveal necessarily precludes the idea of the infallible Magisterium of Rome. 2 Tim 3:16-17 would be a presentation of this concept that God has revealed a perfectly sufficient revelation to equip men for every good work.

It was very helpful when it dawned on me that Ectypal theology is not how we understand it but what God reveals. It seems it is the task of the Church to accurately bear witness to that Truth but that is different than saying that the witness is infallible like TE itself.

Thoughts?

 

[JohnV]

It was very helpful when it dawned on me that Ectypal theology is not how we understand it but what God reveals. It seems it is the task of the Church to accurately bear witness to that Truth but that is different than saying that the witness is infallible like TE itself.

Now that's a very good observation, Rich. That hits closer to the heart of it for me. I cannot agree with any kind of paradigm that suggests that God must accommodate Himself the the unchangeableness of Truth. That's my problem with some of the language, if nothing else, of the TA/TE discussion. I know it is not intended, but it seems to slip in all the same; and that makes it difficult to accept it as a philosophical approach to knowledge of truth. It seems like it wants to answer the hard questions, but as if it ignores or even negates first principles.

I see God as logically prior to truth, that truth finds its unchangeableness in God, and not the other way around. I know that the TA/TE approach believes the same thing, but still I can't help but feel a looming shadow of God's accommodation to truth being compared to man's acccommodation to truth, as if truth is unchangeable outside of God, or is above God in some way. It's as if God is in the third person here (I don't mean Third person of the Trinity, but as in prose.)

If truth is an expression of God's eternally unchangeable character, along with beauty and holiness and personhood, and this is maintained throughout, then it's easier to understand for me. This observation of yours, Rich, puts it back into perspective for me.

 

[MW]

The position -- that things decreed are archetypal -- fails to distinguish the decree from its objects; just as a philosophical error is sometimes made by confusing knowledge with things known. What do we say about the fact that we cannot know who are elect and who are reprobate? These are certainly the hidden things of God; but it would be absurd to say that we cannot know who are elect and who are reprobate after the judgment at the consummation of all things. This shows ectypal theology is too easily identified with revelation as a distinct mode of communication; whereas it is much broader than that.

It has been clearly shown that ectypal theology is God's conceptualisation, not man's; it is true theology, that is, it is what God Himself knows about Himself and His actions in relation to His creatures. It is accommodated for the creature, but it comes from the Creator. To borrow Calvin's image of a father lisping to his child -- what the father knows is conceptualised and communicated into a form that the child can understand. To then say that the child's knowledge is different from the father's is counterproductive -- the father knows what he has conceptualised according to the capacity of the child. The knowledge is the same.

 

[JohnV]

The position -- that things decreed are archetypal -- fails to distinguish the decree from its objects; just as a philosophical error is sometimes made by confusing knowledge with things known. What do we say about the fact that we cannot know who are elect and who are reprobate? These are certainly the hidden things of God; but it would be absurd to say that we cannot know who are elect and who are reprobate after the judgment at the consummation of all things. This shows ectypal theology is too easily identified with revelation as a distinct mode of communication; whereas it is much broader than that.

It has been clearly shown that ectypal theology is God's conceptualisation, not man's; it is true theology, that is, it is what God Himself knows about Himself and His actions in relation to His creatures. It is accommodated for the creature, but it comes from the Creator. To borrow Calvin's image of a father lisping to his child -- what the father knows is conceptualised and communicated into a form that the child can understand. To then say that the child's knowledge is different from the father's is counterproductive -- the father knows what he has conceptualised according to the capacity of the child. The knowledge is the same.

My problem with that, Matthew, is just as you say; only I would put it this way: ...that echtypal theology is man's conception of God's conceptualisation, not actually God's own conceptualisation of His own knowledge. That's the sticky point for me, God's conceptualisation of His own knowledge of truth. That's running around in circles, as I understand it. It doesn't stay consistent with the Creator/creature distinction, but overlaps in the foundational concepts. God doesn't have a conceptualisation of His own knowledge of truth, because that would suggest that God accommodates Himself to the unchangeableness of Truth; whereas it is truth itself that is accommodated to God's unchangeable character, which makes it an unchangeable truth.

Everything has to figured around God's superior, unchangeable, eternal character and person. And truth for man has to be figured around his personal relationship to this unchangeable God. In other words, logically speaking, person precedes knowledge. I cannot think of it in any other way.

 

[MW]

JohnV, that's obviously the sticky point for Dr. Clark as well, as it was also for Van Til. Whether it is a sticky point is not really within the purview of what I have been trying to show. My concern is only to show that it was not the sticky point for the orthodox reformed, and therefore the terminology should not be adopted in the interests of introducing dialecticism into theological method, as if it has the countenance of the orthodox reformed. Blessings!

 

[MW]

PS. Were I to enter into the biblical merits of the orthodox reformed position, I would begin with Eph. 5:17, and show that the Scriptures everywhere assume that a renewed mind can understand the will of the Lord.

 

[JohnV]

JohnV, that's obviously the sticky point for Dr. Clark as well, as it was also for Van Til. Whether it is a sticky point is not really within the purview of what I have been trying to show. My concern is only to show that it was not the sticky point for the orthodox reformed, and therefore the terminology should not be adopted in the interests of introducing dialecticism into theological method, as if it has the countenance of the orthodox reformed. Blessings!

I think that was what I was saying too. I would point to Eph. 4:24 as my starting point, but it is within the same context as where you would start. I would agree with you about introducing dialecticism, or any temporal approach, into proper theology.

Where I see the difference in the later Van Til is that he can no longer avoid subjecting the echtypal to the archtypal, or having it show in some manner or form. He cannot avoid any longer the consequence of his philosophy of subjecting everything to a presuppositional beginning. And that's all wrong in my thinking; presuppositions are by nature subjected to truth. I know that this is what it all swings around, that man's presuppositions are subjected to truth; I understand that. But the reality is that this is now a philosophy that is accommodated to man's limited understanding, subjecting even God's conceptualisation of truth to it; hence the proposed archtypal proposition along with some definitions of what that entails which go beyond revelation.

The difference for me can perhaps better be described as philosophical necessity vs. philosophical proposition: how much of the archtypal paradigm is the one, and how much of it is the other. And at what point does it become a breaking of the second commandment? There's far too much of the second, of speculation, in it for me to allow it to get past my guard of keeping the faith whole and undefiled, rooted only in God's Word.

 

[JohnV]

But I too would add a PS:

Since I'm not really well versed in this, I should go back to just viewing. Adding my thoughts on this may not be helpful at all.

 

[R. Scott Clark]

I was musing about this TA/TE distinction yesteday while listening to James White on the way to Church. ...

...It was very helpful when it dawned on me that Ectypal theology is not how we understand it but what God reveals. It seems it is the task of the Church to accurately bear witness to that Truth but that is different than saying that the witness is infallible like TE itself.

Thoughts?

As I understand it TE includes both revelation and our understanding of revelation. They are not identical, of course.

Scripture is the principium cognoscendi (the beginning of understanding) and theology is usually described as sapientia in the classic theologians - but it is ectypal.

rsc

 

[R. Scott Clark]

...It has been clearly shown that ectypal theology is God's conceptualisation, not man's; it is true theology, that is, it is what God Himself knows about Himself and His actions in relation to His creatures. It is accommodated for the creature, but it comes from the Creator.

... The knowledge is the same.

The point of Calvin's image is not that the knowledge is the same, but the Creator/creature distinction. God has to lisp to us (he uses an onomatopoetic word, balbutire, "to speak baby-talk") because he is the Creator and we are creatures and he can't speak to us in any other way without destroying us.

It's not quite accurate (as I read Polanus and Junius) to say that ectypal theology is TA accommodated, but rather it's better to say that TE is accommodated theology reflecting TA.

rsc

 

[R. Scott Clark]

John,

I know you've had a bad time with some VanTillians, but the whole point of CVT's system, throughout his career, was to deny the very thing you're attributing to him.

Can you cite a place in CVT where he thinks that we can have TA?

Remember this is the fellow who said all his career that human knowledge and divine knowledge are also parallel, that they exist on two planes.

The assumptions with which we begin are always revealed ergo they are necessary TE not TA.

rsc

I think that was what I was saying too. I would point to Eph. 4:24 as my starting point, but it is within the same context as where you would start. I would agree with you about introducing dialecticism, or any temporal approach, into proper theology.

Where I see the difference in the later Van Til is that he can no longer avoid subjecting the echtypal to the archtypal, or having it show in some manner or form. He cannot avoid any longer the consequence of his philosophy of subjecting everything to a presuppositional beginning. And that's all wrong in my thinking; presuppositions are by nature subjected to truth. I know that this is what it all swings around, that man's presuppositions are subjected to truth; I understand that. But the reality is that this is now a philosophy that is accommodated to man's limited understanding, subjecting even God's conceptualisation of truth to it; hence the proposed archtypal proposition along with some definitions of what that entails which go beyond revelation.

The difference for me can perhaps better be described as philosophical necessity vs. philosophical proposition: how much of the archtypal paradigm is the one, and how much of it is the other. And at what point does it become a breaking of the second commandment? There's far too much of the second, of speculation, in it for me to allow it to get past my guard of keeping the faith whole and undefiled, rooted only in God's Word.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

As I understand it TE includes both revelation and our understanding of revelation. They are not identical, of course.

Scripture is the principium cognoscendi (the beginning of understanding) and theology is usually described as sapientia in the classic theologians - but it is ectypal.

rsc

But the sapientia aspect of ectypal theology can't be true theology if sin has caused us to inaccurately discern the actual meaning that God intended to communicate in a portion of Scripture.

It seems to me that if ectypal theology includes all manner of understanding by a creature then pentecostalism and reformed theology are both ectypal theology (two different sapentia). That seems to be an awfully broad definition so I think I'm missing something.

 

[MW]

It's not quite accurate (as I read Polanus and Junius) to say that ectypal theology is TA accommodated, but rather it's better to say that TE is accommodated theology reflecting TA.

Junius: "theology simply so called, is the entire Wisdom concerning divine things capable of being communicated to created things.

 

[JohnV]

Dr. Clark:

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying at all, by a long shot, that CVT says that we can have TA, as you put it.

I'm depending on my study of the differences between the '32 Van Til and the late '60's -70's Van Til, the framework I use to try to understand these concepts. I well know that the "some VanTillians" that I had a bad time with are hardly VanTillians. I'm more VanTillian than they are, and I knew it back then already. I'm not confusing the two at all.

What I am saying, although obviously not well, is that TA is philosophically part of TE, because the comparison is from a human point of view. We don't know that God's concept of knowledge is TA; that's our own speculative assumption. It isn't just pure Word of God, but man's deduction from the Word of God added to it. The only deduction that is allowed is that which is of necessity. Because there is man's own speculation involved in this approach to the differences, it is not of necessity. That means that, in actuality, we speculate that God's knowledge is TA, which means that this idea springs from TE.

Why can't I just say that this TA/TE paradigm is speculative, and everyone immediately know what I'm talking about? It's like Matthew says, we have to keep it in perspective, being careful to mark the difference between what we confess and what we speculate, not confusing the two.

John,

I know you've had a bad time with some VanTillians, but the whole point of CVT's system, throughout his career, was to deny the very thing you're attributing to him.

Can you cite a place in CVT where he thinks that we can have TA?

Remember this is the fellow who said all his career that human knowledge and divine knowledge are also parallel, that they exist on two planes.

The assumptions with which we begin are always revealed ergo they are necessary TE not TA.

rsc

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I don't know John. To say that TA is speculative ignores some Scripture that support not only that God knows Himself but also that He is incomprehensible in His essence. I see God's dialog in Job as an example of this idea.

 

[MW]

John, I don't think the archetype/ectype distinction is speculative. It is clearly revealed in 1 Cor. 2, only without the terms. I only insist that the ectype be considered the true knowledge of God, not some universe parallel to the true knowledge of God.

 

[JohnV]

OK, I don't want to go too far in this. But just to be clear about where I stand on this:

The model of AT/ET is not cut-and-dried, and has some problems with it. I'm only pointing out one of them. Granted that knowledge for the natural man is not comparable to knowledge in the Spirit. But spiritual discernment for man is not denied.

I don't agree that the AT/ET model follows necessarily from 1 Cor. 2, although I do not deny some of its merits. I believe that I can know spiritually, that spiritual knowledge transcends natural knowledge which depends on the elemental principles of the world, and that the concept of the Trinity is far from being a logical paradox, but is instead a key to opening the doors to spiritual knowledge. It is not for me to know necessarily as God knows, but rather that I strive to know as He would have me know. As such, I cannot believe that what He tells me is not truth, but is rather accommodated, or is a revelation in discontinuity with His truth.

The AT/ET model, therefore, has some merit insofar as it does not transgress revelation on this and other matters, and insofar as it does not transgress the holiness of God's character. It is helpful to a degree. But if it tells me that I cannot know truth because what I can know is not what God knows, then I must object. For the Bible clearly says that I can know the truth, and that the truth will set me free. That means that I can know spiritually, not captured by the elemental principles as is the case for natural man. Bearing God's image in true righteousness, holiness, and knowledge (Eph. 4:24, Col. 3:10, WLC, Q&A's 17, 67) is possible through Christ and the Spirit, via the Word.

If there is a distinction between AT and ET, it is not altogether as an either/or distinction. It has to be that ET is a subset of AT, not a parallel or different type of knowledge. The distinction of types should be secondary to the fact that it is indeed knowledge of truth. It cannot be that two sets of truths exist in the same field. Nor that there are two unrelated fields for truth to abound in. We are compelled to believe that only one system of truth exists, and that knowing it temporally, though sinlessly, is different than knowing it eternally, yet without demonstrating any discontinuity in truth itself, or in God.

So I agree that there is some merit to the AT/ET model. I don't have to accept it as Van Til did, nor as Clark did, in order to hold to that.

I'm sorry if I'm steering this off course. I didn't mean to. I should have stayed a reader, and not put my two cents in.

 

[Civbert]

...Because there is man's own speculation involved in this approach to the differences, it is not of necessity. That means that, in actuality, we speculate that God's knowledge is TA, which means that this idea springs from TE.

Why can't I just say that this TA/TE paradigm is speculative, and everyone immediately know what I'm talking about? It's like Matthew says, we have to keep it in perspective, being careful to mark the difference between what we confess and what we speculate, not confusing the two.

Amen.

 

[Civbert]

John, I don't think the archetype/ectype distinction is speculative. It is clearly revealed in 1 Cor. 2, only without the terms. I only insist that the ectype be considered the true knowledge of God, not some universe parallel to the true knowledge of God.

But John's point is 1 Cor 2 is TE. So we get TA from TE.


P.S. My view of 1 Cor 2 "spiritual knowledge" is the God's knowledge revealed in Scripture (the mind of Christ). The key in 1 Cor 2 is also the Spirit's role in making it possible for man to "know" the things revealed through scripture. And that "natural man" is simply man unregenerate who does not believe the truths of Scripture and so can not discerner spiritual things. (1 Cor 2:14). This doesn't mean ET/AT is invalid, but that 1 Cor 2 does not support the "analogical" model of knowledge per Van Til.

 

[Civbert]

I do think and have argued that Van Til's account of incomprehensibility is effectively the same doctrine as taught by Junius et al.

Accommodated knowledge is just that. By definition, humans cannot have archetypal knowledge/theology.

Ectypal theology is true, but parallel to divine knowledge. It is divinely given, but theology is not given and we cannot comprehend it as God knows it.

"True but parallel to divine knowledge" sounds like Ectypal theology is not known by God, since archetypal theology = the divine mind of God, which implies all that God knows. So how can something be true and God does not know it? If Ectypal theology is on a different "parallel" plane, then either God's mind is segregated into separate areas, or God does not know the Ectypal theology he has revealed to man.

Rather, I would think ET would be a subset of AT. ET is that divine knowledge God has condescended to reveal to man, knowledge which can be understood by man. ET is not some knowledge that is separated from the divine knowledge on a parallel plane.

And we can't know if the "form" of ET is different than AT. We do know that the ET is not complete (in that it is not all of God's knowledge). But we don't know if it is anything but propositional - since all we know is propositional. Anything other than propositional knowledge would be pure speculation because all we know of God is his revelation. (Of course, that's my Clarkian view that knowledge is propositional since to know something includes understand true/false status which requires it to be in propositional form. "Non-propositional knowledge" is a self-contradicting. We can't know a non-proposition since it is neither true or false.)

The point of the Creator/creature distinction as articulated in this discussion is that we are not the Creator and our intellect never intersects his intellect, it intersects with his revelation of himself and his mind, but that revelation is always accommodated and it would be equivocating to call that the divine intellect.

Which seems to be based on a theoretical model of divine vs human knowledge. This non-intersecting zones is why Van Til's model of knowledge leads to skepticism. His revelation will always be less than truth if it is always analogical and completely separate from AT.

We don't know God in se (in himself). No revelation is gives us access to God in se. We know God truly, but only as he stooped to accommodate himself to us.

Are you saying that God is what God knows? If not, then the in se clause does not make sense to me. And I thought one purpose of AT/ET was "that God is distinct from his revelation". If so, knowing what God knows (his revelation) would not violate the creature/creator distinction.

Archetypal knowledge is described by the Reformed orthodox as analogous. Thus I agree with Rev Winzer's use of the word "corresponding." That's just right. Please remember too that the medieval realists had it that we can know the divine substance/essence by abstracting universals from particulars and those come into contact with the divine intellect; we could know what God knows the way he does, at least for a moment.

The assumption was (and remains for those who deny the TA/TE distinction, such as Hoeksema, Clark, and Gerstner) that unless we know something the way God knows it, at some point, we can't know anything.

Simply untrue. Clark never said we know the same way God knows. What Clark said was man knows univocally what God knows when man believes and understands the truth revealed to him by Word and Spirit. How we know is by revelation (Scripture which we know through God's condescending to reveal certain truths to us by the written Word and power of the Spirit to understand and believe). Clearly the "how" is entirely different! Also, we can not know comprehensibly as God knows. Again, this does not mean we can not know what God knows because God has revealed the what to us.

Obviously, all revelation comes from God. It is something that God knows and it is something that we know, but even revelation cannot be said to be something we know the way God knows it.

Obviously.

Thus, to describe ectypal theology as a "bridge" is ambiguous. If by bridge one means to communicate some sort of continuum between divine and human knowledge, then we're back to medieval realism and the associated rationalism (in this case rationalism = knowing what God knows, the way he knows it). If "bridge" means, accommodated revelation that gives and uses divinely authorized analogies to reveal to us the truth that God want us to have, fine.

"Bridge" is much more helpful than "divide". Since God knows ET, it must be a subset of AT. And the "bridge" is how the ET is made known to man.

We need to avoid the skepticism that says that we can't know anything truly and the rationalism that says that we can know what God knows the way he knows it.

How about we just leave it "we can know what God knows". We can avoid skepticism by realizing that the "parallel knowledge" model of AT/ET is inherently flawed. Analogy is a terrible description of God's revelation as an analogy is never the univocal truth, it is merely a pointer to the truth. But the mysteries have been made known to us by Christ (in the Word and by the power of the Spirit). We have the mind of Christ. We do know what God has reveled to us.

Aside: Rich, I noticed that quotes are italicized. Is there some way to change that? It destroys the italicization of the original post.

 

[JohnV]

There is a particular problem that Armourbearer and I face. He reads my posts from his yesterday, while I read his posts from my tomorrow. When he answers my posts, he answers out of my future, and when I answer his posts, I answer out of his past. He's sixteen hours ahead of my time.

You've got to admit, that's enough to put a dent in our ET.

 

[py3ak]

The position -- that things decreed are archetypal -- fails to distinguish the decree from its objects; just as a philosophical error is sometimes made by confusing knowledge with things known. What do we say about the fact that we cannot know who are elect and who are reprobate? These are certainly the hidden things of God; but it would be absurd to say that we cannot know who are elect and who are reprobate after the judgment at the consummation of all things. This shows ectypal theology is too easily identified with revelation as a distinct mode of communication; whereas it is much broader than that.

It has been clearly shown that ectypal theology is God's conceptualisation, not man's; it is true theology, that is, it is what God Himself knows about Himself and His actions in relation to His creatures. It is accommodated for the creature, but it comes from the Creator. To borrow Calvin's image of a father lisping to his child -- what the father knows is conceptualised and communicated into a form that the child can understand. To then say that the child's knowledge is different from the father's is counterproductive -- the father knows what he has conceptualised according to the capacity of the child. The knowledge is the same.

Rev. Winzer,

Thank you for the light you've been shedding on this difficult subject. I believe I am largely understanding you, but there are still two questions I am not quite clear on.
1. When God knows ectypically does that exclude archetypal knowledge?
2. What is the relation of ectypal knowledge to revelation (whether general or special, natural or supernatural)?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I need to tighten up the thread here. This thread is primarily to understand what archetypal and ectypal theology are as they have been historically defined. Asking questions about the historical definition is fine but I don't want to get into a Van Til detractor/supporter thing here. I introduced him to allow his thought to be contrasted against TA/TE to help understand how the historic formulation might be like and unlike Van Til's thought since his thought is fairly well known.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Aside: Rich, I noticed that quotes are italicized. Is there some way to change that? It destroys the italicization of the original post.

I'll see what I can do.

 

[Civbert]

FYRP: http://www.wscal.edu/clark/thesestheologicae.php

 

[MW]

There is a particular problem that Armourbearer and I face. He reads my posts from his yesterday, while I read his posts from my tomorrow. When he answers my posts, he answers out of my future, and when I answer his posts, I answer out of his past. He's sixteen hours ahead of my time.

You've got to admit, that's enough to put a dent in our ET.

 

[Civbert]

FYI:

Adjective: ectypal ektupul
Copied, reproduced as a moulding or cast, in contradistinction from the original model

http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/ECTYPAL

Thoughts. Is there such a thing as a "copy" of a proposition? That is, if you know P and I know P, do we know two different propositions? I guess that depends on your idea of what knowledge is.
....
Is Humes the first to use the concept of ectypal? It seems for Humes, the idea depends on his concept ontology which was empirical, no? His view was all knowledge was ectypal - you know not an object "in itself" (archetypal) but a reflection or image of the object (ectypal). This is a little different than what I've read about ET and AT, but it seems to be related.

Very interesting discussion so far.

 

[MW]

Ruben (and for JohnV and Civbert if listening in),

1. When God knows ectypically does that exclude archetypal knowledge?

ET can't exclude AT for God. The knowledge is the same so far as the Subject knowing is concerned. AT is God's infinite essence, whereby He knows Himself infinitely. ET is God's knowledge of Himself in relation and action to His creatures accommodated for the benefit of the creature. It is God's knowledge in both instances. Just as when I accommodate something as simply as possible so one of my little ones can understand it, I know the thing in both its models.

To ask if ET excludes AT for the creature is counter-intuitive. We can't know AT. 1 Cor. 2:11, "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." It is because we can't know AT that God gives us ET. Ver. 12, "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." ET is AT accommodated and communicated to us. However, we always have to keep in mind that we do not know God archetypically, just as God does not know us archetypically. He knows us by means of His decree and covenant, as before noted, both of which are to be distinguished from His essence.

2. What is the relation of ectypal knowledge to revelation (whether general or special, natural or supernatural)?

Revelation is one mode of communicating ectypal theology. For Christ, the mode of communication is the hypostatical union. For elect angels and glorified saints the mode is vision. For the redeemed on earth who are still "on the way," the mode is revelation.

Hope that helps rather than hinders. Blessings!

 

[MW]

Thoughts. Is there such a thing as a "copy" of a proposition? That is, if you know P and I know P, do we know two different propositions? I guess that depends on your idea of what knowledge is.

The proposition is the "copy" in this context. God does not know propositionally so far as His essential knowledge is concerned. The ectype is the knowledge of God conceptualised.

 

[JohnV]

So just a quick question: does that mean that man can only know propositionally, since ET is the "copy" (I assume) and the copy is propositional? If so, what exactly does that mean? If not, what other ways does man know besides propositionally? For example, can he know immediately?