Creation and reality

Why should we think our ideas of what reality is are correct? Bavinck says it's only our faith in God that gives us confidence in this regard.

Quotes and comments;

A. 'Bavinck himself tells us that the only reason why we may hold out thought of reality about us to be correct in what it says is that back of our thought, and of the world about us is the Logos.' [1.]

- I believe that it's only because we believe we were created by God that we believe our idea about reality is accurate (or even approaches the accurate). The non-Christian has no real basis for believing the has an accurate knowledge of what reality is (or even that reality exists). Isn't it the case that reality in a universal sense) can Only exist if the God of the bible is real?

Take the example of an alien race that has a very different constitution and sense organs. It then would have a very different view of what constituted reality. The question then becomes 'what is reality?' i.e. is it the ideas of our alien friends (so different from us they don't even like Star Trek or popcorn?) or is it our ideas? Is there one 'reality' or is there two? Is there any such thing as reality at all?

- In other words, for reality to exist, the 'totalizing' (the all conditioning, as Van Til would say) God of the bible, the Triune God of scripture, necessarily has to exist. Only if a divine Person controls and determines all things is reality possible. Reality is an act of the will, a product of the divine will. It is an imposition' upon the 'matter' of the cosmos.

If there were two or more species of intelligent beings, how could there be a single reality? How could there be reality at all? Isn't this a reason to believe only one intelligent species exists in the universe?

Can't' we go even further and say that unless man and the universe were made as a unity (correlative to each other) no such thing as reality could exist? If reality is what God (in scripture) says, then don't man and the universe have to have been made correlative to the eternal counsel of God?

- Michael Johnson

Notes;
1. Common Grace - Cornelius Van Til p.45.
- reference is to Herman Bavinck
2. Reality is defined simply as what is real (not helpful) or what actually exists. If modern physicists are correct in saying that reality consists of sub-atomic particles or even 'strings' what does it mean to say reality is what actually exists? Exists for whom? Exists in what sense?