I really enjoyed how varied your blog is. You are a talented blogger. I hope to get less predictable with my own blogs. How do you have time to read such varied material?

Both quotes are great. Van Til always has solid quotes. Have you read, "Always Ready." by Greg Bahnsen (I think)? The book was based on Van Til. It was a little dry but the message has changed my foundation for witnessing Christ. Instead of debating from a secular platform which has as little validity as the next secularist's, speak from a belief in the written word of God - the Bible. I still heavily use Creation and my knowledge of Eastern religions but I always use those topics to springboard back into Christ and His word. God uses His spoken word to open understandings, not the keen arguments of my intellect!

Now, you don't have to read the book!

If you want to, you can come by my blog. I have 5 or 6, depending on one's station in life: Mom, Dad, Pastor, Single, Fired Up, Youth.

Thanks for the compliments, Tim, and thanks for introducing yourself - I'm always curious to know who's reading!

How do I have time to read such varied material? Well, it is my full time occupation as a PhD student. I have a reading course of 157 OT books this semester, I'm writing a paper on James Jordan, plus various other things. Much of my blogging is an attempt to pretend I'm really working! And some of it is for friends at home in the UK to hear about what I'm doing more generally.

I haven't read any Bahnsen, but being at WTS I'm pretty familiar with the Van Til school of thought.

Ros, who are these nasty systematicians of whom you speak?

Naming no names...

I think there is a tendency for the Van Tilian presuppositionalist to say that all we need is 'In the beginning, God...' and that everything else can be deduced from there. The problem, as Van Til himself observes, is that we only know God from our integration of the whole of biblical revelation. Better keep reading then. We can't do systematics without grappling with the biblical texts that are our primary source. Systematics is simply the accumulation and integration of the results of biblical studies. (And yes, I know, there's a sense in which it also serves as a limiting guide to our biblical interpretation too). And the bible is a big, complicated, complex book with inconsistencies and apparent contradictions and messiness.

And, as one of my friends likes to point out, the Hebrew actually says, 'In the beginning he created ...'

So, out of simple curiosity, was the paper as brilliant as you thought it would be, or full of holes? Its always difficult to "build" on Van Til; he seemed to do a pretty good job on his own...

Also: I have always like the title "The Golden Compass" better than "The Northern Lights." But, to prove I'm not prejudiced, the UK version of Harry Potter, particularly the illustrations, is far superior to its Americanized counterpart.

Except the alethiometer isn't a compass. And I'm not sure I'm convinced about the newest UK Harry Potter cover...

On your paper, I think Dr Poythress may have uncovered a few holes that I hadn't thought about. But I still think you may have something important to say. I wanted you to tie it down more specifically to hermeneutical methods. How do 'systematicians' interpret texts - what are their rules/methods/goals? And how do 'biblical theologians' do it? And how do these two hermeneutical methods form limiting concepts for each other? And what are the implications of this for those of us who are only one person?

I was less clear at the end of today's discussion about whether you thought this was an issue primarily in the academy (which is what I first thought) or primarily in the church/at the more popular level?