A little Grok in the morning, as directed by Cactus Jack™ MAGA, Pro-Life, 2nd Amendment. Our rights come from God, and Jesus is King!
Allegorical thinking and propositional thinking
This allegory, sent from a friend, critiques systems (especially modern universities) that privilege abstract, propositional, credential-based knowledge over direct, embodied experience. It shows how theory can become fully detached from the reality it claims to describe, leaving those who actually “can” do the thing disqualified by those who only know “about” it.*
The core setup
In the desert, no one has ever seen a large body of water, let alone swum in one. Universities still teach “swimming.” Professors and students master biomechanics, hydrology, the psychology of swimming, the chemistry of water, etc., all from books, diagrams, and technical language. The curriculum is rigorous and complete “on paper.” They become highly literate in the vocabulary of swimming while remaining completely unable to swim.
A man who grew up by the ocean and has swum for years arrives. He moves through water with ease; he has real skill. But he lacks the degree and the specialized academic language. When he tries to describe what he knows from experience, it doesn’t map cleanly onto the professors’ terms. He fails exams, is ridiculed for not speaking the jargon, and is ultimately judged to lack the aptitude to learn or teach swimming.
The irony is total: the only person who can swim is the only one disqualified from teaching it. The professors have mastered everything about water *except water itself*.
What the allegory is really saying
It distinguishes two kinds of knowledge:
· Propositional/abstract knowledge: Knowing “that” (facts, theories, models, technical terms, citations). Universities excel at producing and certifying this.
· Contact / embodied knowledge: Knowing “how”, gained through direct immersion and practice. This is what the ocean swimmer has.
When the first completely displaces the second, you get a closed system that rewards fluency in representations while remaining indifferent (or hostile) to the thing represented. The map becomes more important than the territory. Academic success becomes a matter of mastering the internal language game rather than competence in the real activity.
The final paragraphs extend the point beyond universities. The same pattern appears wherever theory is produced by people insulated from consequences.
· Policy written by those who never live under it.
· Treatments prescribed by practitioners who have not themselves been healed or deeply transformed by the process.
· Religious or philosophical doctrines recited by people who have never had the experiential encounter the doctrines point toward.
In each case, the vocabulary and institutional machinery persist long after the original contact has disappeared.
Why this resonates (and where it can be overstated)
The allegory captures a real and widely observed phenomenon: credentialism, the prestige of theory over practice, and the tendency of academic fields to become self-referential. Many disciplines have periods or subfields in which sophisticated models proliferate while contact with the underlying reality thins. Outsiders with practical skills often struggle to translate their knowledge into the expected formal language and are therefore discounted.
At the same time, pure experience without conceptual tools has its own limits (you can be an excellent swimmer and still benefit from biomechanics, safety principles, or teaching methods refined through study). The allegory is deliberately extreme, using desert dwellers with “zero” water contact to make the gap vivid. In real life, the disconnect is usually partial rather than absolute, but the directional critique still holds: when contact is lost and only the language remains, institutions can certify expertise that has little relation to actual capacity.
In short, it starkly illustrates how abstract systems can crown those who describe an activity while excluding those who can perform it, and the broader risk that theory outlasts the reality it was meant to illuminate. * Theo, I edited your short essay to make it understood more widely
I appreciate the force of the analogy as far as it goes. Yet every analogy has a limit, and this one is crossed when it is applied to knowing God. You appear to set propositional instruction against the raw experience of swimming. At the level of ordinary skill, that contrast can be instructive. When the subject becomes God, however, the contrast collapses.
No neutral “contact” with God interprets itself. All experience is already interpreted, and the only non-autonomous interpreter is the God who has spoken. Human propositions are not the final standard; God’s propositional self-revelation in Scripture is. That revelation functions as the sole reliable “manual.” Without it, what one calls “experience of God” remains either unintelligible or self-referential, an autonomous construction that cannot be distinguished from illusion or projection.
I do not deny that believers have real experience of God. I deny that such experience is self-authenticating or self-interpreting. It is intelligible and authoritative only when brought under and judged by the propositional Word of God. Experience that claims independence from that Word has already made the creature’s consciousness the final reference point, the very autonomy Van Til identified as the heart of unbelief. The analogy therefore fails at the decisive point: swimming with God is not possible apart from the training manual God Himself has given.
A Brief Clarkian/Van Tillian rebuttal:
The allegory rests on a false antithesis. Knowledge is inherently propositional (Clark): true knowledge consists of true propositions, not raw “contact” or uninterpreted sensation. The ocean swimmer’s experience is not self-authenticating knowledge; without true propositions (about buoyancy, technique, safety, etc.), it remains mere sensation rather than understanding or teachable truth. Scripture itself is a system of propositions given by God; “embodied experience” is never a higher or independent authority.
Van Til adds that all experience and interpretation is governed by presuppositions. There is no neutral “contact” with reality that can judge propositional truth. Autonomous human experience (whether academic or practical) is either brought under God’s revealed Word or remains rebellious and self-deceptive. Elevating “having done it” over true propositions about it simply substitutes one form of human autonomy for another.
The real problem with universities (and the other domains listed) is not an excess of propositional thinking but the wrong propositions, those generated by autonomous reason rather than by submission to special revelation. Experience without true doctrine is blindness; doctrine without God is empty. The allegory inverts the biblical order.
Does Reformed apologist Jack Kettler understand and use Clark and Van Till’s apologetics correctly?
Yes. Jack Kettler understands the core distinctives of both and uses them accurately in his apologetic work.
On Van Til
Kettler correctly deploys Van Til’s method: the transcendental argument (TAG), the “impossibility of the contrary,” the critique of autonomous reasoning, and the claim that only the Christian God provides the preconditions of intelligibility (logic, morality, uniformity of nature, science). He regularly cites Van Til’s “borrowed capital” motif and the performative contradiction of unbelief. This is standard, correct usage of Van Tillian presuppositionalism.
On Clark
He accurately represents Clark’s scripturalism: Scripture as the axiomatic starting point, knowledge as propositional, the priority of logical coherence, and the defense of verbal inspiration and the intelligibility of revelation. His reviews of “God’s Hammer”, “Religion, Reason, and Revelation”, and Douma’s biography address these points correctly. He also handles the Clark–Van Til controversy without distortion, noting the issues of incomprehensibility, coincidence of knowledge, and the historical outcome in the OPC.
Combined use
In explicit comparisons, Kettler correctly distinguishes the two: Clark’s analytical, propositional, univocal emphasis versus Van Til’s analogical and transcendental breadth, while affirming their shared presuppositional commitment to the primacy of divine revelation. He does not collapse them into a single identical system or erase the 1940s controversy. His practical apologetics blends Clarkian propositional rigor with Van Tillian TAG-style critique in a way that respects both without misrepresentation.
In short, Kettler’s published reviews, comparisons, and applied arguments show accurate understanding and correct use of both Clark’s and Van Til’s apologetics
At root, every religion is based in a worldview, or a certain perspective concerning the nature of truth, ethics, and reality. Is there truly an absolute, or are there many gods? We take a look at Mormonism as an excellent example of a worldview gone badly awry.
An endorsement” The Religion that started in a hat.
I was searching on Amazon last night and realized that former Mormon—now presuppositional apologist Jack Kettler (one of my all-time favorite Christian apologists) has finally written a book on Mormonism! I remember reading his many articles on how to witness to Mormons and present a thoroughly biblical refutation of Mormonism years ago. I remember being blown away by his knowledge and discernment regarding LDS teachings, and his insight on how to refute them lovingly. They were by far the best refutations of LDS theology and philosophy I’ve ever seen. This is especially important for me since I have LDS family and friends that desperately need to see the errors of Joseph Smith and the LDS leadership through the ages, and who desperately need the true Jesus. – Anonymous C.L.
I believe in the Westminster Confession and am confessional. From a Reformed perspective, I, as a believer, refrain from promoting my own opinions because Scripture alone is the inspired, infallible, and sufficient Word of God, the sole rule of faith and practice (sola Scriptura). Human opinions, however well-intentioned, remain the products of fallen minds still affected by sin and limited understanding; they possess no intrinsic authority and can easily obscure or displace the pure testimony of Christ. The believer’s calling is therefore to make known the Word itself, proclaiming, explaining, and applying what God has revealed so that His voice, not mine, is heard. In this way, the glory remains God’s alone, the church is built on a sure foundation, and hearers are directed to the living Christ rather than to the fallible thoughts of any man.
Jack Kettler, Grace and Peace
P.S.
Because of medical issues and medication issues, Grammarly was used in writing this. My home church: https://www.westyrpc.org/
God Bless,
Jack Kettler
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