Okay. Just one more thing on these audio recordings. Robert Godfrey was asked about the full-throated support that Cornelius Van Til gave to Norman Shepherd during the Westminster East controversy. In his response, Godfrey basically said that during this period Van Til was not as sharp as he used to be, that despite this, he was a thorough-going confessionalist, and that he was out of the loop anyway, getting his information from Richard Gaffin. Godfrey then went on to say that, all these things notwithstanding, even if Van Til knew his own mind fully in his support of Shepherd, nothing requires us all to accept everything Van Til held as though it came down from an oracle on the mount. A number of others reinforced this point, and there was a good deal of oracular joking around.
But this misses the point completely. The question is not whether Van Til must be an oracle, or whether current Reformed theologians must agree with him. The question is why I and my friends are assailed for being heretics because we might agree with Shepherd in some things, and Van Til, when he enthusiastically supported Shepherd, is simply “not an oracle.” Why not say what your position seems to entail, and condemn Van Til as a heretic? And John Murray while you are at it? If I agreed to be considered a non-oracle by the men at Westminster (which shouldn’t be too hard), can we drop all this “assault on the gospel” foolishness?
Related to this, why the attack on me and my friends instead of on Richard Gaffin, who was apparently feeding all the bum dope to Van Til? Not that I want anybody to attack Richard Gaffin, but this Esconditic zeal for the gospel looks like it is choosing political targets of opportunity instead of standing for principle. Why the attack on a church of another denomination in Idaho when The Contagion is obviously present in one’s very own Sister Seminary? It is as though Paul, deciding that withstanding Peter to his face at Antioch for hypocrisy would be too dicey politically, started an argument over sola fide with the church janitor in the parking lot.