Edward John Carnell: An Apologist for Our Time
If you’re new to the enterprise of apologetics, you might not readily think that you could do apologetics in a variety of ways. But once you begin reading, you’ll quickly realize that Christians have employed a wide array of methods throughout history to defend the faith.
These methods include Classical apologetics, often associated with men like Thomas Aquinas, and hard-presuppositional apologetics, usually associated with Cornelius Van Til.[1] In between these categories, you find methods that advocate for evidentialism, rationalism, experientialism, or that step outside the spectrum to offer a cumulative case. While these methods are often placed on a spectrum, moving from classical apologetics on one side to a traditional presuppostionalism on the other, knowing the best approach is a daunting task.
Many express concern about moving too far to one side or the other on the methodological spectrum. To advocate for classical apologetics’ “two-step approach” seems to require too optimistic a view of human reason.[2] On the other side, a Van Tillian epistemology seems to render most apologetic proofs and arguments null and void. Thus, the young apologist may ask: What’s the best way forward?
Thankfully, we are not required to subscribe to one extreme idea or another. Instead, many have advocated a middle way. Though some call this middle way approach “combinationalist,” soft-presuppostionalism may be a better term. Men like Gordon Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and E. J. Carnell have laid wonderful groundwork in this area. For this reason, I’d like to examine one of these apologists in particular. E. J. Carnell, both the man and his method, offers us a helpful way forward in our own time.
The Man
Edward John Carnell, often referred to as E. J. Carnell, was born in Antigo, Washington, in 1919. He studied at both Wheaton College (1937-41) and Westminster Seminary (1941-44). He would then go on to work on his Th.D. at Harvard University (1944-48) and subsequently a second doctorate (Ph.D. in philosophy) from Boston University (1945-49). In many ways, his educational timeline is a picture into his apologetic and academic influences.
At Wheaton Gordon Clark profoundly influenced Carnell. Clark’s emphasis on the principle of non-contradiction was a staple of Carnell’s thinking through the rest of his life.[3] At Westminster Carnell would find himself under the tutelage of apologetic giant Cornelius Van Til, who has had a significant impact on apologists in our day (e.g., John Frame, Francis Schaeffer, and Scott Oliphant). Unlike some of his other students, Carnell felt no particular affinity for Van Til.[4] Even still, one can trace Carnell’s general emphasis on presuppositions back to Van Til. Both Carnell and Van Til advocated that the basis for apologetic reasoning is the God of the Scriptures.[5]
His time at both Harvard and Boston were not without influence either. At Harvard Carnell would study under Elton Trueblood, who impressed upon him “that a theory can be tested by how well it explains why things are the way they are.”[6] Further, at Boston University, Carnell would encounter Edgar Brightman, who convinced him to emphasize empirical data, “which affirmed his conviction that religious emotions do not determine truth.”[7] With this variety of influence, Carnell would offer an approach that was nuanced and balanced.
Carnell would eventually write a total of eight books. Five of these were explicitly apologetic: An Introduction to Christian Apologetics, A Philosophy of the Christian Religion, Christian Commitment, The Kingdom of Love and the Pride of Life, and The Case for Orthodox Theology. He would also pen three other books that were not apologetic texts per se but nonetheless contain many apologetic implications: The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, Television: Servant or Master? and The Burden of Søren Kierkegaard. One will note how Carnell would shift his focus later in life. This is seen specifically in his last two books. He would never repudiate his earlier texts, but he changed his emphasis before he died.[8]
The Method
As was stated before, Carnell studied under Van Til. While Carnell was certainly influenced in profound ways by Van Til’s teaching and methodology, he moved away from Van Til’s extreme presuppositionalism in his personal beliefs. Instead, Carnell subscribed to what some have labeled as “combinationalism.” As one author noted, “Carnell posited that a person can accept Christian theism as a working hypothesis and then verify it with three tests: (1) Does the hypothesis contradict itself? (2) Does it fit with the facts? and (3) Can it be lived without hypocrisy.”[9]
In his own words, Carnell stated,
This is the foundation thesis upon which this system of Christian apologetics is built: In the contest between the rational and the empirical schools of thought, a Christian must pitch his interest somewhere between the two extremes. If he surrenders the rationes aeternae (the norms by which we judge), he ends up in skepticism; if he withdraws from respect for the data of sense perception, he ends up with a high and dry philosophy.[10]
According to Carnell, we do not need to commit ourselves either to extreme rationalism or to extreme empiricism. In his apologetic approach, he argued that a philosophical framework must provide systemic consistency in order to work. One can see Clark’s influence on his thinking here. Carnell believed that a worldview must have broad consistency and lack contradictions to be true, thus corresponding to the true world. A true worldview must not contradict itself.
Another notable element of Carnell’s approach was his emphasis on common ground. As Brian Morley notes, “The hallmark of Carnell’s approach to apologetics is to find and use common ground between the Christian and the nonbeliever.”[11] Carnell, in the fashion of Augustine, sought to engage the culture with the gospel with a useful point of contact.[12] He thought that Christians should not only find common ground with unbelievers but also that they show them how the gospel itself meets the needs of the individual person.[13] In his Introduction to Christian Apologetics, he described his point of contact as a person’s “soul sorrow”—the existential tension that a finite, sinful human being senses because he is made by an infinite, holy God.[14] Carnell thought that offering a nonbeliever a consistent and comprehensive worldview to life’s existential and cultural struggles would show the viability of the gospel.
Conclusion
Early in his life, Carnell seemed to find balance in his approach to apologetics, not giving into extremes on either side. He avoided the pull within the methodological spectrum and, at the same time, brought the difficult philosophical questions of life down to the everyday man. In doing so, he balanced truth with evidence and mind with heart.
However, later in life, Carnell would struggle significantly from mental breakdowns and depression. He would find himself torn between issues on either side of the evangelical aisle, between fundamentalists and neo-evangelicals. While we’ll never fully know what led to such mental and psychological strain, Carnell often found himself torn between his love of fellow man and his love for the truth. George Marsden, summing up Carnell’s tension, noted, “He was too liberal for the fundamentalists and too fundamentalist for the liberals.”[15] Whether his early death was a suicide or not has been a topic of constant conjecture.
Alister McGrath notes that Carnell “produced a work that became a classic evangelical reasoned defense of the Christian faith.”[16] However, men like McGrath have stated that the apologetics of Carnell and his age are no longer helpful in our postmodern age. I respectfully disagree. I believe that our churches and culture need balanced approaches like Carnell’s more than ever. He offers us an approach that avoids the traps of modernism on one side and epistemological rigidness on the other. He offers us an approach that deals just as significantly with the philosophical struggles as it does the existential ones. For that reason, I believe we have much to learn from the works of Edward John Carnell.
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[1]These categories are not always clean, and, depending on the survey, an apologist may be included in different categories. For a helpful survey of apologetic methods, see Brian K. Morley, Mapping Apologetics: Comparing Contemporary Approaches (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015).
[2]For a helpful assessment of the major approaches, see Steven B. Cowan, ed. Five Views on Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000).
[3]Brian K. Morley, Mapping Apologetics: Comparing Contemporary Approaches (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015), 148.
[4]Morley, 148.
[5]Ibid., 149.
[6]Ibid.
[7]Ibid.
[8]Kenneth C. Harper, “Edward John Carnell: An Evaluation of His Apologetics,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 20 (1977): 137.
[9]Joshua D. Chatraw and Mark D. Allen, Apologetics at the Cross: An Introduction for Christian Witness (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018), 95.
[10]Edward John Carnell, An Introduction to Christian Apologetics: A Philosophic Defense of the Trinitarian-Theistic Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), 7.
[11]Morley, 160.
[12]Ibid.
[13]F. Leroy Forlines expresses similar sentiments in his writings.
[14]Carnell, An Introduction to Christian Apologetics, 20.
[15]George M. Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 193.
[16]Alister McGrath, Mere Apologetics: How to Help Seekers and Sceptics Find Faith (London: SPCK, 2016), 28.
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