Is mystery merely protection from refutation?

1. A mystery has definite content

“We do not know everything” is not synonymous with “we assert nothing definite.” Trinitarian doctrine excludes three gods, a created Son and mere roles of a single person. It thereby possesses examinable substantive boundaries. A real contradiction does not become true by being uttered reverently.

The mystery lies in the not exhaustively grasped manner of divine being. It does not lie in Father and Son supposedly being simultaneously the same and not the same person.

This criterion also applies to other worldviews: A real contradiction is impermissible there as here. At the same time, a merely alleged contradiction may be answered there as here through a justified distinction. Christian certainty does not authorize claiming different rules of inference for one's own presentation.

2. Thinking does not begin in a presuppositionless space

Every examination presupposes truth, justifiable inferences and a relationship between our knowing and reality. We Christians understand these conditions in the light of the God who creates the world, knows it and reveals himself truthfully. Colossians 2,3 locates the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ.

The presuppositional approach therefore also asks the objection about its own foundations: Why should its criteria be capable of truth and binding? Bosserman develops this question following Van Til.^[1] The subject is justification of examination itself, not a prohibition on thinking.

3. Unity and diversity are not enemies in God

Knowledge needs distinguishable things and reliable connections. In a completely undifferentiated reality there would be nothing to distinguish; in a wholly disconnected plurality nothing to connect with justification. In the triune God, unity and real personal diversity are originally given together. Poythress explains creaturely correspondences to this connection.^[2]

This is, however, no isolated calculation deriving exactly three persons from the word “plurality.” We know the number three and the identity of Father, Son and Spirit from God's revelation. Thomas likewise warns against seeking to prove the persons through inadequate natural demonstrations.^[3]

This also determines the scope of an argument about unity and plurality: It can show why our ordered knowledge has its ground in the triune God. But the words “unity” and “plurality” alone yield neither the number three nor the names Father, Son and Spirit. Nor have all alternatives thereby already been refuted individually. Their respective assumptions must be examined. Presuppositional thought means performing this work under God's revelation; it does not mean replacing a missing conclusion with a reference to presuppositions.

4. Certainty must not be confused with complete explanation

Our starting point is God's self-attestation, not a neutral tribunal above him. Precisely for this reason, we must not defend his truth through unsound inferences. We explain concepts, examine textual contexts and demonstrate specific additional assumptions of an objection.

The claim “That presupposes God” does not replace this work. It names its ultimate ground. An arbitrary dogma does not thereby become equally entitled: It would itself have to show that it accurately represents God's revelation and actually sustains the claimed conditions of knowledge.