Cornelius Van Til: His Life and Thought

I submitted this paper for Contemporary Theology (TH 863) at Bob Jones University on December 12, 2003, and lightly revised it in 2008.

Introduction

The Scripture plainly asserts the impossibility of neutrality toward the Lord. Jesus taught, “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (Mat. 12:30; cf. 6:24). Paul emphasized that man, in his fallen condition, is “hostile toward God; for [he] does not subject [himself] to the law of God, for [he] is not even able to do so” (Rom. 8:7; cf. Jam. 4:4). The unbeliever is never neutral; he is always in opposition to God. This “myth of neutrality” was a major emphasis in the thought of Cornelius Van Til, especially in the realm of apologetics.¹ Ironically, history has proven that there is no neutrality toward Cornelius Van Til either. The majority of those who know of Van Til are either ardent followers or vicious opponents. White has summarized this polarity in the following statement: “He has been praised, condemned, quoted, misquoted, represented, misrepresented, understood, misunderstood, loved, hated, explored, ignored.”²

William White, who wrote Van Til’s authorized biography, has virtually nothing but praise for Van Til.³ John Frame, who (unlike White and others) is certainly not a blind follower of Van Til,⁴ has called Van Til “the most important Christian thinker of the twentieth century.”⁵ And, as if that commendation were not high enough, Frame later proposes that he was “the most important Christian thinker since Calvin.”⁶ Van Til’s profound thinking and “insights are life-transforming and world-transforming,”⁷ and his “contribution to theology is of virtually Copernican dimensions.”⁸ When reflecting on Van Til’s deep theological and philosophical thought, “one searches for superlatives to describe the significance of Van Til’s overall approach.”⁹ According to Richard Pratt, Van Til is “undoubtedly the greatest defender of the Christian faith in our century”—a man “whose work has become a milestone in the history of church.”¹⁰ Rousas Rushdoony testified to the importance of Van Til’s thinking, being confidence that “in every area of thought, the philosophy of Cornelius Van Til is of critical and central importance.”¹¹ C. Gregg Singer echoes these acclamations about Van Til, describing him as a man who “has given to the church a truly monumental apologetics.”¹²

However, not everyone shares these same opinions. John Robbins, for example, has written a booklet entitled, Cornelius Van Til: The Man and the Myth, in which he asserts that Van Til “fails to meet scriptural standards for Christian teachers, and… makes such serious errors that heresy is the only appropriate word to describe his lifelong teaching about God and the Bible.”¹³ Robbins makes some amazingly harsh statements about Van Til. At one point he compares his view of paradox to neo-orthodoxy, maintaining that it “not only asserts nonsense, which, if it were true, would destroy Christianity, but… defends it as the essence of piety.”¹⁴ In another article he says, “With defenders of the faith like Van Til,… Christianity needs no enemies.”¹⁵ Herman Hoeksema is also among Van Til’s opponents. Speaking of Van Til’s views, Hoeksema asserts that Dr. Van Til and his followers “not only contradict themselves, but they directly contradict Scripture.”¹⁶ The list could go on with statements from Gordon Clark, James Daane, James O. Buswell, John W. Montgomery, Clark Pinnock, Gary Crampton, John Gerstner, R. C. Sproul, Arthur Lindsley, G. C. Berkouwer, and many more.¹⁷ But these statements suffice to show that not all love Dr. Van Til and regard his teaching and writing as theological contributions.

How can such a polarity of statements be made about the same individual? Such a variety of attitudes toward the legendary theologian and apologists calls for an analysis of his life and thought. What was it that makes Van Til so loved by some and yet so hated by others? And who is right—his friends or his foes?

Part I: The Life of Van Til

The primary issue that people are concerned about is the impact Van Til made on modern Christian philosophy, apologetics, and theology through his teaching and writing. His theology, however, finds its roots in the providential history of God the “All-Conditioner,”¹⁸ to use an expression of Van Til. Seeing a history of his life and who the legendary man was will facilitate a better understanding of his theological thought.

A Biographical Sketch

The story of Van Til commences in the farmlands of Holland. From there, Van Til moved to Indiana, where he spent his teenage years. Desiring to be involved in pastoral ministry, he pursued religious training at Calvin and Princeton Seminary. After a short time pastoring in Michigan, Van Til began his long career of teaching at Westminster. Even after his retirement, he continued to do what he loved—preach and teach God’s people. The life of Van Til was one of productive service for the Lord—both in academia and in ministry.

The Early Years (1895–1914)

The Netherlands was the native land of Cornelius Van Til, who was born on May 3, 1895 in the small village of Grootegast.¹⁹ He was the sixth of seven sons born to Ite and Klazina Van Til. Ite was a very muscular man and a hard working farmer. Cornelius—or Kees as he was called—was reared in a strong Christian environment. Both his school life and his home life were saturated with biblical teaching. Family worship and the teaching of the Heidelberg Catechism were a routine part of Kees’ upbringing.

During the early days of Van Til’s life, there was a controversy in the Reformed Church over the issue of infant baptism. The majority believed that baptism was the “confirmation of the child’s salvation.”²⁰ The rest—Van Til’s family included—believed that the child must repent and believe for himself in order to be saved. As a result of their stand, these individuals were forced out of the churches and had to meet in barns.

As Ite’s sons began to get older, they were required to join the military. Hendrik, the eldest, had already been enlisted. The prospect of loosing all his sons and having no one to take over the farm did not excite Ite and his wife. To avoid the military, Reinder, the second oldest, married and decided to move to America. He and his wife made their home in Highland, Indiana. Shortly after that, in the spring of 1905, Ite and his family joined Reinder and settled in Highland. It was difficult for them to leave their family, friends, and heritage, but staying required more sacrifice than leaving.

The Van Til family resided in Highland for ten years. Then, in 1914, Ite decided to move the family to Munster, Indiana. It was there that nineteen-year-old Kees met his future wife, Rena Klooster. It was there, as well, that he decided to pursue the ministry.

The Formative Years (1914–1927)

Being a part of the Christian Reformed Church, Cornelius’ decision for schooling was an easy one. In the fall of 1914, he left for Calvin Preparatory School—the main educational institution of the Christian Reformed Church. During the first few months, Van Til became very discouraged and greatly missed his family and Rena. He nearly dropped out of school, but God, by His grace, did not allow that to happen. Through the letters of Rena, the fear of letting down his parents, and the encouragement of a cousin, Van Til was encouraged and decided to stay.

Even though he knew that he had made the right decision, that did not change the fact that his schooling days were immensely difficult. He did janitorial work to pay for his schooling, and he spent his free time reading the great philosophers of history—something which he really enjoyed. Consequently, he did not have the social life that most did. Having mastered English relatively quickly as a young child, Van Til also became quite proficient in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He quickly made his way to the top of his classes. It was at this time, because of his discipline and love for learning, that he headed down the road to becoming the renowned scholar that he was.

In 1921, Van Til began his seminary studies at Calvin Theological Seminary, where he studied under Louis Berkhof, Samuel Volbeda, William Heyns, and W. H. Jellema. After completing his first year, Van Til was faced with the decision to stay at Calvin Theological or transfer to Princeton. He knew that he wanted to pastor, but he was not sure where he should continue his training. The advantages of staying at Calvin Seminary were significant. He would be closer to Rena and his family, he would be among others from a Dutch background, and he would be able to learn under some excellent teachers. Nevertheless, the pull to move to Princeton was too strong. If he attended Princeton Seminary, he would have a greater chance of being accepted into Princeton University, where Van Til had hoped to study philosophy. In addition, the Princeton faculty was made up of a number of heavyweights such as Geerhardus Vos, Robert Dick Wilson, Casper Wister Hodge, William Park Armstrong, Osward T. Allis, and J. Gresham Machen. These factors were enough to push him over the edge.

During his seminary training at Princeton Seminary, Van Til also enrolled in Princeton University in the philosophy program. In 1925, at the age of thirty, he completed his Th.M. Just a few months later, on September 15, 1925, he finally married Rena, his sweetheart for the last ten years. Two years later, he finished the Ph.D. in Philosophy.

The Influential Years (1927–1972)

After Van Til finished his studies at Princeton, he moved up to Spring Lake, Michigan where he became the pastor of a Christian Reformed Church. After his first year of pastoring, he returned to Princeton on a one year leave of absence to teach apologetics. By the end of the year, Princeton had offered him the chair of apologetics. While this was appealing, Van Til’s heart was in pastoring. He returned to his small church in Michigan and continued his preaching and shepherding ministry. During that summer, Princeton was reorganized due to the growing liberal infiltration. As a result, J. Gresham Machen and other staunchly conservative professors decided to leave Princeton and start a new school. Machen greatly wanted Van Til to be the head of apologetics, and after much persuading, Van Til finally conceded. So Westminster Theological Seminary was established, where Van Til taught for 53 years, from 1929 until he retired in 1972.

Shortly after the establishment of Westminster, Machen and 130 other ministers from the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. formed a new denomination—the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.²¹ Out of loyalty to Machen and the cause of Westminster, Van Til transferred his membership over from the Christian Reformed Church.

The Final Years (1972–1987)

After his retirement, Van Til remained very active in teaching and preaching. White recounts a time when Van Til and a couple others took some young people to New York City to do some street preaching. He was nearly 85 at the time, but he was still faithfully proclaiming Christ and actively involved in ministry. “In his later years,” says Frame, Van Til “often agreed to preach at services in nursing homes, without reimbursement, and with an audience that was inattentive at best.”²² Although Van Til was a scholar of scholars, that in no way detracted from his heart for evangelism and ministry, which he continued until the day the Lord took him home.²³ He died at the age of 91 on April 17, 1987, after a fruitful life of teaching and ministry.

A Character Sketch

These were the major events in the life of Cornelius Van Til. But who was he? What was he like as a person, a writer, and a teacher? What Van Til was like as a person is an important part of the validation of his theological work. Both friends and foes alike will acknowledge that Van Til was far from perfect.²⁴ Yet in spite of his shortcomings, his life reflected the truth that he taught.

Van Til the Person

“Gracious and charming” are words that characterize the personality of Cornelius Van Til.²⁵ This comes as a surprise to many because he was so strong and unwavering in his teaching and writing. Though he was among the most intellectual people of his day, he was not too important to spend time with the simple and the needy. John Frame comments:

He could spend as much time with simple people as with brilliant intellectuals. He would regularly visit sick friends in hospitals and minister to others in the hospital rooms, engaging them in conversation and prayer. He was generous with his time and resources—often being willing to preach in small, struggling churches and nursing homes, often sending out syllabi at his own expense to correspondents.²⁶

Neither did his brilliance make him stiff and overly serious. Van Til was known for his “wild sense of humor.”²⁷ John Frame recounts many incidents that demonstrate the funny side of Van Til. For example, sometimes he would throw chalk at his students. But Van Til was not without his weaknesses. Oftentimes he would be quite insistent that others see things his way. If not, they were wrong. Frame, who is himself a Van Tillian, regarded Van Til as being something of a “Reformed chauvinist.”²⁸

Van Til the Communicator

When it came to Van Til’s preaching, most agreed that he was “very eloquent and challenging.”²⁹ Opinions about his teaching were somewhat different. He would assign his students a variety of reading in various authors and then “conduct class mostly by discussion.”³⁰ Throughout the discussion, he would stop to lecture on whatever topic came to his mind. Consequently, his lectures were not always well organized. He often taught using difficult language and terminology that most students did not understand,³¹ and he would rarely give definitions for his terms.³² He often gave long, complicated answers to specific questions.³³ His presence in the classroom was intimidating, and he had a way of dividing everything into two categories—Christian and non-Christian. If one were to differ with him, he was in danger of falling into the latter category. His teaching was quite unforgettable. He loved to illustrate his points with stories from his life on the farm, and he often used quite memorable phrases.

Part II: The Thought of Van Til

So these were the events and characteristics of Van Til’s life. However, Van Til as theologian, philosopher, and apologist is what everyone is concerned about. What follows is a discussion of 1) the men who played a role in shaping Van Til as a thinker, 2) the writings of Van Til, 3) his most significant theological emphases, 4) the controversies of which he was a part, and 5) the theological movements that have stemmed from his thought.

Influences

There were certain factors that played a significant role in the development of Van Til’s thought.³⁴ His Christian upbringing in his home and the Christian Reformed Church must not be minimized. But beyond that, it was through reading the works of Abraham Kuyper³⁵ and Herman Bavinck that he began to really develop a depth of theological thought. Van Til himself acknowledged that “when it [came] to the background for some of his formulations he [stood] on the shoulders of Abraham Kuyper.”³⁶ Van Til also became very familiar with the writings of the Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck, referring to him hundreds of times in his books. In his review of his own writings, Van Til recounts his early college and seminary days when “he read Kuyper and Bavinck assiduously and followed them through thick and thin.”³⁷

Though they were already dead, Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield, the legends of Princeton, had considerable influence on Van Til as well. While he studied at Princeton, Van Til became “a close friend of Professor Geerhardus Vos.”³⁸ Vos also had emigrated from Holland and gone to Calvin Seminary before moving to Princeton. Although Van Til was primarily a philosopher, the “biblical theology” of Vos definitely made an impact on Van Til’s thinking and writing.

In addition to the theological and biblical factors that shaped Van Til theology, certain men served as the foundation for the philosophical side of his thinking. The first of these men was W. Harry Jellema, under whom Van Til studied while at Calvin Seminary. Jellema has been labeled by some as “the best teacher of philosophy in the United States.”³⁹ At Princeton University, Van Til studied under Archiabld A. Bowman. Both of these men were idealists, and their teaching explains why “Van Til made liberal use of the idealist vocabulary,”⁴⁰ although “Van Til always insisted that he rejected the substantive content of idealism.”⁴¹

Although Van Til never had the opportunity to study under J. Gresham Machen, he certainly was influenced by his stand against liberalism. Anyone who reads Van Til can see that “everything Van Til wrote and taught reflects Machen’s theme that orthodoxy is indispensable to a Christian profession.” Van Til took this emphasis of Machen, reflected quite adeptly in his book Christianity and Liberalism,⁴² and went one step further, arguing that “in one sense, [orthodox Christian doctrine is] necessary for all human rational thought and conduct.”⁴³

Following the Abraham Kuyper’s thought, Herman Dooyeweerd, D. Th. Vollenhoven, and other Dutch thinkers developed the Philosophy of the Idea of Law. This school of thought bore some similarities to Van Til’s thinking, which one would expect due to Kuyper’s influence.⁴⁴ At first, Van Til was in favor of their writings, but he opposed some of their later work. To some degree then the “Dooyeweerdian school [was a] significant influence on Van Til’s thought, at least after the mid 1930s.”⁴⁵

Theological Writings

Van Til was influential, not only as a teacher, but also as a writer, having written “over five hundred books, syllabi, articles, editorials, book reviews, pamphlets, and manuscripts.”⁴⁶ He wrote books on theology, apologetics, epistemology, and philosophy.⁴⁷ His first significant book, published in 1946, was entitled, The New Modernism: An Appraisal of the Theology of Barth and Brunner.⁴⁸ His next book, Common Grace, came out the next year. In 1955, the first work that delineated his apologetic method, The Defense of the Faith, was released. Christianity and Barthianism, Van Til’s second evaluation of Barth’s theology, appeared in 1964. In 1969, Van Til published A Christian Theory of Knowledge. His other works include: The Confession of 1967, Is God Dead?, The Sovereignty of Grace, Christ and the Jews, The God of Hope, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought, The New Hermeneutic, and The New Synthesis Theology in the Netherlands.

Van Til also wrote a number of unpublished syllabi. Christian Apologetics, Introduction to Systematic Theology, Christian-Theistic Evidences, Christian Theistic Ethics, and A Survey of Christian Epistemology. Possibly the best known of Van Til’s shorter works are his essay “My Creedo,” and his booklet Why I Believe in God.⁴⁹

Distinctive Theological Emphases

Van Til is best known for his contribution to the field of Christian apologetics. His “presuppositionalism” made a profound impact in his day, and its influence continues to grow. Apologetics remains forever changed. Although this may have been his most significant influence on theological studies, a number of other issues were either foundational or influence to his apologetic. His view of common grace was a vital part of his theological thought. Even more significant and foundational was his view of the Trinity.

Presuppositional Apologetics

Arguably, the greatest immediate impact that Cornelius Van Til had on Christian thought falls within the realm of Christian apologetics.⁵⁰ Van Til was the primary instrument in a radical shift in Christian apologetics in the 1900s. For years, the church had defended the faith by using the philosophical arguments for the existence of God⁵¹ or by using historical arguments to verify the veracity of the Scriptures.⁵² The new school of thought was called “presuppositionalism,” which argues that man must presuppose the existence of the Triune God of the Bible and the truthfulness of the Scriptures in order to be able to give a rational account of the universe. The earlier two schools of thought had as their starting point man’s rationality, while presuppositionalism has as its starting point the revelation of God. The former claims independence, the latter acknowledges dependence. Most apologists today regard “Van Til [as] the ‘father of presuppositionalism’ in the United States.”⁵³

Common Grace

Common grace was a major issue of controversy in the Christian Reformed Church in the early 1920s. A number of men had denied the existence of common grace.⁵⁴ Their view, according to Van Til, was that “it is inconceivable that God should be in any sense, and at any point, graciously inclined to those who are not his elect. The wicked do, to be sure, receive gifts from God. But rain and sunshine are not, as such, evidences of God’s favor.”⁵⁵ The Synod castigated these men for what they deemed to be an erroneous view. In response, they delineated three points about the nature of common grace. Frame has summarized them as follows:

1. There is a “certain favor or grace” of God which he shows to his creatures in general.

2. God restrains sin in individuals and in society.

3. God enables the unregenerate to perform “civic good,” that is, things that promote the welfare of others.⁵⁶

Van Til’s approach to common grace, as with other doctrines, is somewhat unique in its emphasis.⁵⁷ His understanding of the Trinity and its correlativity to the universe is the starting point.⁵⁸ God’s correlativity with the universe serves as the foundation for “genuine progress in history; because of it the Moment has significance.”⁵⁹ The element of time needs to play a more important role in this discussion of common grace. Central to Van Til’s argument is the “idea of the earlier and the later.”⁶⁰ The relationship of the earlier to the later is important. By the later, Van Til has in mind the foreordained eternal destiny of the individual. Supralapsarians, with their teleological emphasis, have stressed this aspect too much. Thus, they deny common grace to the reprobate.⁶¹ The idea of the earlier is the present existence of the individual. And Van Til saw that in order to maintain the biblical emphasis, this “must be stressed more than has been done” in supralapsarianism.⁶²

While Scripture teaches both the earlier and the later, one must not hold one to the detriment of the other. Supralapsarianism has overemphasized the later, thus denying common grace, leading “to a virtual denial of second or historical causes.” Infralapsarianism has overemphasized the earlier, sometimes not stressing “God’s plan as the first or last ultimate cause as controlling all finite causes.”⁶³ An overemphasis on the later seems to deny that God has real wrath toward the unconverted elect. Scripture is clear on this point—believers “were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest” (Eph. 2:3; cf. John 3:36).

The Trinity

One of the most foundational formulations in Van Til’s thought is his view of the Trinity.⁶⁴ The traditional, orthodox expression of God as Trinity has emphasized that God is one essence (οὐσία) and three persons (ὑπόστασις). And Van Til did not disagree with this formulation; rather, he takes issue with how it has been abused. Van Til sees two errors in which the biblical formulation is always in danger of falling—that 1) the doctrine of the Trinity can be shown to the unbeliever to be rational without presupposing the authority of God’s self-revelation and that 2) the doctrine is irrational. Van Tan explains:

It is sometimes asserted that we can prove to men that we are not asserting anything that they ought to consider irrational, inasmuch as we say that God is one in essence and three in person. We therefore claim that we have not asserted unity and trinity of exactly the same thing.

Yet this is not the whole truth of the matter. We do assert that God, that is, that the whole Godhead, is one person.⁶⁵

Van Til’s problem with the classic formulation is not its accuracy. Rather, the expression “one in essence and three in person” is often misunderstood, misapplied, and does not go far enough. For most people, the doctrine of the Trinity is not a mystery. To be sure, the doctrine is not a contradiction,⁶⁶ but neither is it fully explainable. Van Til wants to formulate it in terms that bring out the heart of the paradox. God is one person. Yet it is also true that God is three persons. “God” is not some kind of attribute that the three persons of the Trinity share in common. According to Van Til, God is not an abstraction, but an “absolute person.”⁶⁷

Certain people have taken issue with the language that Van Til has chosen to use. According to John Robbins, Van Til “has rejected the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, holding that God is both three persons who are ‘interchangeably exhaustive’ and one person.”⁶⁸ Were Van Til’s assertion true, that God is one person, then “there would be a major contradiction at the heart of Christianity, and it would be false.”⁶⁹ Robbins would be right, if Van Til was asserting that “God is one person and three persons in the same sense.”⁷⁰ But clearly, this is not Van Til’s view. “This is a mystery,” Van Til asserts, “beyond our comprehension.” A mystery is different from a contradiction.⁷¹

Robbins insists that Van Til’s “unorthodox” view is “a radical new heresy, for Van Til maintains that God is one person and rejects the carefully worked out doctrine of the Trinity embodied in the Westminster Confession and the Athanasian Creed as ‘not the whole truth of the matter.’”⁷² But Van Til never said that he rejected these orthodox statements. Rather, he asserted that they were not the whole truth. Asserting that they are not the whole truth is different than asserting that they are error. As far as they go, they are true. But Van Til’s point is that they do not go far enough.

Frame seeks to demonstrate this point by discussing the Greek words chosen to express God’s oneness and God’s threeness:

The Greek term ousia, which was used to designate God’s essence, was not, in the Greek language, precisely differentiated from hypostasis, the term used for three persons. The choice of these terms was to some extent arbitrary. The church fathers needed a term to designate God’s unity, and they chose ousia. They needed a term for God’s plurality, and they chose hypostasis. But there was nothing about either term that uniquely fitted it for its particular task, over against the other. Indeed, the church fathers might have reversed them (“one hypostasis, three ousiai”) without loss. The Latin church in the West spoke of one substantia, but substantia is by etymology and use more interchangeable with hypostasis than with ousia. In English, we can translate both hypostasis and substantia as “substance.” On that account, we can see that in effect the Greeks spoke of God as “three substances” and the Latins of “one substance.” Doubtless these choices of terms caused some misunderstanding. But, from our vantage point, we cannot regard either formulation as unorthodox.

If it is orthodox to say with the Greeks that God is three substances and with the Latins that he is one substance, then it is also orthodox to say that God is one substance and three substances—recognizing, of course, the disadvantages of such an apparently contradictory choice of terms. And if it is orthodox to say that God is one substance and three substances, it is also orthodox to say that God is one person and three persons.⁷³

For Van Til, this formulation of the Trinity “is of the utmost practical significance to us.”⁷⁴ He saw it to be the answer to the age long philosophical problem of the one and the many. Van Til expresses the problem this way:

The many must be brought into contact with one another. But how do we know that they can be brought into contact with one another? How do we know that the many do not simply exist as unrelated particulars? The answer given is that in such a case we should know nothing of them; they would be abstracted from the body of knowledge that we have; they would be abstract particulars. On the other hand, how is it possible that we should obtain a unity that does not destroy the particulars? We seem to get our unity by generalizing, by abstracting from the particulars in order to include them into larger unties. If we keep up this process of generalization till we exclude all particulars, granted they can all be excluded, have we not stripped these particulars of their particularity? Have we then obtained anything but an abstract universal?⁷⁵

According to Van Til, the only way to account for this dilemma is in the Triune God of the Bible who perfectly combines unity and plurality in an equally ultimate way. Van Til explains: “In the ontological trinity there is complete harmony between an equally ultimate one and many. The persons of the trinity are mutually exhaustive of one another and of God’s nature. It is the absolute equality in point of ultimacy that requires all the emphasis we can give it. Involved in this absolute equality is complete interdependence; God is our concrete universal.”⁷⁶

Theological Controversy

Many found Van Til’s novelty of expression to be very refreshing, but oftentimes it was met with great resistance. Some saw Van Til’s language as a departure from the historic orthodox and Reformed faith. As a result, Van Til had a number of interchanges with other theologians. These are very instructive, for they oftentimes provide greater clarity into the views of Dr. Van Til.

The Gordon Clark Controversy

Probably the best-known controversy that Van Til was involved in was with Dr. Gordon H. Clark. Both Van Til and Clark were philosophers and apologists, probably “the most important orthodox Reformed apologists of the twentieth century.”⁷⁷ What is interesting about this debate is that both were members of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and apparently, they were friends.⁷⁸ However, this friendship turned into a battle during the 1940s.

Clark, who formerly was a professor of philosophy at Wheaton College, now pursued ordination in the OPC. On July 7, 1944, Clark was approved and ordained to the pastoral ministry. But there were twelve presbyters who were in opposition to this decision and wrote a Complaint.⁷⁹

John Robbins expresses the four major issues of the controversy as 1) “the ‘incomprehensibility’ of God,” 2) “divine sovereignty and human responsibility,” 3) the sincere offer of the gospel, and 4) “the relationship of the intellect to the will and emotions.”⁸⁰ The first of these was the primary issue, and there were others of lesser importance. At the heart of each one of these differences was Dr. Clark’s denial of mystery and attempt to reconcile in a logical fashion all apparently contradictory statements and Dr. Van Til’s desire to “embrace with passion the idea of the apparently contradictory.”⁸¹

The “Incomprehensibility” of God

Van Til saw Gordon Clark’s views as extremely rationalistic, while Clark accused Van Til of denigrating logic and delighting in paradox. This main difference had a profound influence on their formulations of God’s knowability. Actually, the issue, more precisely expressed, was the differences and similarities between God’s knowledge and man’s.⁸² Van Til and the Complaint charged Clark with failing to make “any qualitative distinction between the contents of the knowledge of God and the contents of the knowledge possible to man.” Instead, Clark held that “the distinction is merely quantitative.”⁸³ Clark averred that truth is always factual or propositional. The result is that God and man know the same fact in the same way, the only difference being the mode of knowledge—God knows it intuitively and man knows it discursively.⁸⁴ So according to Clark, man’s knowledge differed with God’s only in quantity and mode, not in quality or content.

Van Til and the other eleven presbyters affirmed a distinction, not only in quantity and mode, but also in quality and content. The Complaint summarized the position as follows:

Man may possess true knowledge as he thinks God’s thoughts after him. But because God is God, the Creator, and man is man, the creature, the difference between the divine knowledge and the knowledge possible to man may never be conceived of merely in quantitative terms, as a difference in degree rather than a difference in kind. Otherwise the Creator-creature relationship is broken down at a most crucial point, and there is an assault upon the majesty of God.⁸⁵

But Clark retorted that such a view requires a theory of two different kinds of truth, so that man does not and cannot know anything that God knows; it is essentially a different truth. If, as Van Til asserted, human knowledge and divine knowledge do not “coincide at any single point,” then “revelation of truth from God to man is impossible.”⁸⁶

Both Clark and Van Til had valid concerns. Clark sought to “protect the integrity of divine revelation: to insure that it could provide a true communication from God to man.” Van Til was “concerned to maintain the Creator-creature distinction.”⁸⁷ Unfortunately, both men were guilty of arguing at each other in language that was poorly defined. The result was confusion rather than productive discussion.

Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility

A second element in the controversy was Dr. Clark’s attempt to reconcile God’s sovereignty with man’s responsibility. Clark’s desire to remove all mystery and have everything neatly expressed in clear reasonable language led him to propose a solution to the age-long problem. Reformed folk have always asserted without hesitation two propositions: 1) that God is absolutely sovereign over all beings, things, and events, to such a degree that He has both ordained and caused (though not immediately) all that happens, and 2) that man bears the full responsibility for his sin. The standard Reformed statement is found in the first section in the third chapter of the Westminster Confession:

God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.⁸⁸

Clark was not content to let these two statements stand in tension. If God is truly sovereign, and in some sense causes the sinful acts of men, how can he justly hold men accountable for such an action? That seems to call his fairness into question. Clark’s book God and Evil: The Problem Solved⁸⁹ is his attempt to reconcile these two truths.⁹⁰

Van Til and the complainants did not find this attempt to be within the bounds of historic Reformed orthodoxy. This is a mystery beyond human comprehension, and any attempt to solve it will do violence to either sovereignty or responsibility. Their comments are as follows:

The history of doctrine tells us that the view under discussion is far from innocent. The tenet that divine sovereignty and human responsibility are logically reconcilable has been held by two schools of thought, both of which claimed to be Reformed but neither of which was recognized as Reformed by Reformed churches. One of these schools is Arminianism. It meant to uphold both divine sovereignty and human responsibility, especially the latter, but in its rationalistic attempt to harmonize the two it did great violence to the former. The other school is Antinomianism. It also meant to uphold both divine sovereignty and human responsibility, especially the former, but in its rationalistic attempt to harmonize the two it did great violence to the latter…. In the light of history we cannot but hold that his rationalism exposes Dr. Clark to the peril of Antinomianism.⁹¹

They conclude on this issue that Dr. Clark’s “rationalism has resulted in his departing from the historic Reformed doctrine of human responsibility. In his attempt to reconcile by human reason divine sovereignty and human responsibility he has done decided violence to the latter.”⁹²

The Sincere Offer of the Gospel

Van Til was a strong defender of the universal, sincere offer of the gospel. His view was deeply rooted in his concept of common grace. Van Til spoke in terms of a conditional offer, by which he meant a “well-meant offer of salvation to a generality of man, including elect and non-elect.”⁹³ Clark was somewhat uncomfortable with the use of “sincere,” because of its association with Arminianism. This aspect of the controversy seemed to have been a matter of terminology. In the end, no significant difference really existed.⁹⁴

Relating Intellect, Will, and Emotions

Because of Clark’s elevated view of logic and rationality, he argued for the primacy of the intellect to the will and the emotions. For Clark, the Scripture is one coherent whole containing no contradictions and no paradoxes. Van Til held to a view that seemed to delight in the paradoxical. Thus, Clark accused him of irrationality. For Van Til, human rationality was not ultimate but was, just like everything else, subject to God’s revelation. He felt that Clark gave human rationality a place that sacrificed man’s absolute dependence upon God.

Van Til and the Complaint take issue with Clark’s view of the intellect, both in God and in man. As far as God is concerned, Clark denied that He was an emotional being. With reference to man, Clark believed that the intellectual part of man was primary. Van Til never really addressed the issue of emotions in God, but he did deal with the supposed primacy of man’s intellect.

For Van Til, the will, intellect, and emotions are equally ultimate. Intellect is not superior to will or emotions. This goes back to his view of the Trinity, which serves as the basis for much of his thought. Just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are ontologically equal, so the aspects of man’s being are ontologically equal.⁹⁵ But this ontological equality does not eliminate any kind of ultimacy. For though the three persons of the Trinity are ontologically equal, they are not economically equal. The Son and the Spirit function in an economic subordination. In the same way, the will and emotions are economically subordinate. Van Til puts it this way: “The will of man cannot function unless it knows in relation to what to function. Man must know the truth if he is to react with his will and feelings to it.”⁹⁶

The Dooyeweerdian Controversy

Van Til’s struggles were not limited to those with Gordon Clark. Conflict also arose with Herman Dooyeweerd and D. Th. Vollenhoven.⁹⁷ Dooyeweerd was a Dutch theologian who developed similar ideas to those that Van Til was developing in the United States. Initially, Van Til was very much in favor of the Dooyeweerdian school of thought. But eventually, Van Til grew less excited about the direction of Dooyeweerd in particular. Van Til acknowledged that Dooyeweerd was a great Christian thinker; nevertheless, there were some areas of disagreement. A decent amount of interchange took place between the two individuals.⁹⁸ But probably the most significant difference was their views of the relationship between Scripture and philosophy. For Dooyeweerd, his philosophy was “controlled by” rather than “derived from Scripture.”⁹⁹ But Van Til considered “control without derivation [to be] an empty mystical phrase.”¹⁰⁰ Van Til believed the essence of the Christian philosophy should be derived from the revelation of God in Scripture. The debate become very complicated, but in the end Van Til was convinced that Dooyeweerd’s view minimized the role the Word of God should play in governing every aspect of life.¹⁰¹

Theological Progeny

Certain aspects of Van Til’s thought have been very influential in the formulation of other contemporary theological movements. His novelty, coupled with his profundity, has made his theological thought very appealing to follow. The presuppositional school of apologetics finds its origins, to a large degree, in Van Til’s thought. Theonomy as well traces much in their movement to the points that Van Til articulated in his writings.

Presuppositional Apologetics

Van Til’s influence is still being profoundly felt today in the area of apologetics.¹⁰² Van Til’s successors have continued in his legacy proclaiming the essential elements of his system. Robert D. Knudsen taught alongside Van Til and essentially agreed with his distinctives, though he did study under Dooyeweerd and agreed with him in a few places where he differed with Van Til. Harvie M. Conn was Van Til’s successor and taught in his place at Westminister for a few years, after which John Frame took his position. Frame taught there until 1980. David W. Clowney and William Edgar were the next two to teach in the Van Tillian tradition. Van Til’s influence has not been isolated to Westminster. Many of the Reformed tradition have adopted much of Van Til’s apologetic. One of the most significant disciples of Van Til was Greg Bahnsen, who published a massive volume on Van Til’s apologetic.¹⁰³

Theonomy

An interesting connection exists between Van Til and the rather recent movement, Christian Reconstructionism. Most, if not all, well-known theonomists “profess allegiance to Van Til’s apologetic method in its general outlines”—many embracing his “ideas in nearly ‘exhaustive detail.’”¹⁰⁴ Rousas Rushdooney, the father of theonomy, was the first to publish a summary of Van Til’s thought.¹⁰⁵ Greg Bahnsen, probably the best practical apologist of the Van Tillian tradition, was also a major leader in the theonomy movement.¹⁰⁶ Gary North as well was a defender of much of Van Til’s thought. He wrote a book, Westminster’s Confession: The Abandonment of Van Til’s Legacy, accusing Westminster Seminary of departing from Van Til’s distinctives. What is interesting is that Van Til himself was neither a postmillennialist nor a theonomist. But theonomists apparently saw theonomy as the logical conclusion of Van Til’s theological emphases.

The “New Perspective on Paul”

Some have tried to make a connection between Van Til and the “New Perspective on Paul.” Back when Norman Shepherd was under consideration for teaching an aberrant view of justification at Westminster Seminary, Dr. Van Til supported him, along with John Frame, asserting that his views were orthodox.¹⁰⁷ It is indisputable that the views of Norman Shepherd are very similar to those of E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn, and N. T. Wright, though there may be some differences. What is interesting is that many theonomists are in support of Shepherd’s view of justification. Norman Shepherd has spoken at the conferences of Doug Wilson, Steve Wilkins, Steve Schlissel, and John Barach.¹⁰⁸ At the upcoming conference, John Frame is planning to speak.¹⁰⁹ While none of this is conclusive, the similarity in the theology of these men (Van Tillian presuppositionalism, theonomy, postmillennialism, and a covenantal view of justification)—which they seem to derive to some degree from Van Til’s thought—along with the fact that Van Til was in support of Shepherd views of justification, is quite intriguing and warrants further study.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, Van Til is one of the most important Christian thinkers of the twentieth century. His influence in the field of apologetics is unparalleled. Although he was a scholar comparable to the greatest intellectuals of his day, yet he had the heart of a pastor and was actively involved in ministry until his death. Both by what he taught and by how he lived, Van Til made a profound impact upon the Christian world. Christians would do well to take to heart the key elements of his thought. The Triune God of the Bible and His revelation is the supreme standard and starting point for all rational thought. God is Creator and man is creature. Therefore, the Christian must not compromise God’s supremacy in His attempt to persuade men of the truth of Christianity.

Appendix A: My Credo¹¹⁰

by Cornelius Van Til

How can I express my appreciation adequately for the honor you have conferred on me by your contributions to this Festschrift? I shall try to do so first by setting forth in this, my “Credo,” a general statement of my main beliefs as I hold them today. Then I shall deal separately with the problems and objections some of you have raised in respect to my views in separate response to the essays themselves. I hope that by doing this we may be of help to one another as together we present the name of Jesus as the only name given under heaven by which men must be saved.

1. The Self-Attesting Christ of Scripture

The self-attesting Christ of Scripture has always been my starting point for everything I have said. What this implies for various problems will appear more clearly, I hope, as I go along. Allow me in this section to illustrate what I mean by recalling the incident of Jesus’ healing of the man who had the palsy. When Jesus said to this man, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee,” certain of the scribes reasoned in their hearts, “Why does this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?” (Mk 2:5–6). Over and over “the Jews” charged Jesus with blasphemy. For it they nailed him to the cross.

These “Jews,” call them “Pharisees,” were very “orthodox.” They swore by Moses and the prophets. Abraham was their father, and the God of Abraham was their God. “We thank thee, God, that we are not polytheists as other nations are.” There is and there can be only one God. “Hear; O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord” (Dt 6:4).

When Jesus, therefore, claimed to be one with the Father they were certain that he blasphemed. What an outrage for Jesus, a mere man, to claim that he was the Son of God. Away with him from the face of the earth!

What zeal this was for the one God, the only true God, the God of Moses! Of course, they did not like to put any man to the torture of crucifixion. But the God of Moses wills it; we must save the people from their sentimental love for this man. Soon it appeared that they had indeed “saved” the people. “Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber” (Jn 18:40).

The irony of it all—the leaders of the Jews did not love and serve the God of Abraham at all! Like the nations about them, and especially the Greeks, they had become worshipers of the creature rather than the Creator! They made their own apostate moral consciousness the standard of right and wrong. With their notion of a “living Torah” they were able, so they thought, to do justice to the changelessness of the law and, at the same time, to live according to the principles of the “new morality.”

It is in the face of this Pharisaic opposition that Jesus’ assertion of his identity as Son of God and Son of man stands out in its significance. Every fact in dispute between the Pharisees and Jesus involved the ultimate claim that Jesus was the Son of God, and, as such, the promised Messiah. Jesus told the Pharisees, in effect, that they had twisted beyond recognition the meaning of every word of the Old Testament.

It was natural, therefore, that they should think of Jesus as a blasphemer. Not that the idea of blasphemy could have any meaning on their view of things. If Jesus’ claim to be the promised Messiah, the Son of God, were true, then they, the Pharisees, were reactionaries, revolutionaries, apostates. They were intellectually, morally, and spiritually wrong in everything they said and did. Could they admit that Jesus was right when he said that they were of their father the devil? Could Jesus be right when he said that though they were lineal descendants of Abraham yet, spiritually, Abraham was not their father at all? Could Jesus be right when he said: “But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you?” (Jn 5:42).

As Christians we are not, of ourselves, better or wiser than were the Pharisees. Christ has, by his word and by his Spirit, identified himself with us and thereby, at the same time, told us who and what we are. As a Christian I believe first of all in the testimony that Jesus gives of himself and his work. He says he was sent into the world to save his people from their sins. Jesus asks me to do what he asked the Pharisees to do, namely, read the Scriptures in light of this testimony about himself. He has sent his Spirit to dwell in my heart so that I might believe and therefore understand all things to be what he says they are. I have by his Spirit learned to understand something of what Jesus meant when he said: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. I have learned something of what it means to make my every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, being converted anew every day to the realization that I understand no fact aright unless I see it in its proper relation to Christ as Creator-Redeemer of me and my world. I seek his kingdom and its righteousness above all things else. I now know by the testimony of his Spirit with my spirit that my labor is not in vain in the Lord. “I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day” (2 Tm 1:12, nasb). All of my life, my life in my family, my life in my church, my life in society, and my life in my vocation as a minister of the gospel and a teacher of Christian apologetics is unified under the banner Pro Rege! I am not a hero, but in Christ I am not afraid of what man may do to me. The gates of hell cannot prevail against the ongoing march of victory of the Christ to whom all power in heaven and on earth is given.

2. Christ Writes Me a Letter

I have never met Christ in the flesh. No matter, he has written me a letter. Not he, himself. He chose helpers. By his Spirit, the Spirit of truth, these helpers wrote what he wanted me to know. From heaven my Lord then sent his Holy Spirit on Pentecost to dwell in the hearts of all those whom he came into the world to redeem. I am, by his grace, one of them. Together we form the church, his people. In us and through us he establishes his kingdom. As a soldier of the cross, strengthened by his power in the inward man, I fight daily against Satan, who seeks at every point to establish his own kingdom in the hearts and to the hurt of men.

In his letter Jesus tells me that all men are made of one blood because all are created by God. As such all men are God’s children; they all bear his image. But the first pair, from whom all later generations of men came “by ordinary generation,” sinned against God. God set before them the ideal of joy which he would give them if they led their lives in the direction he indicated to them. That direction was to be marked by love and obedience to their Maker and benefactor. But our first parents had a person-to-person confrontation with Satan. Satan told them how free he had become since declaring his independence of God. To be self-determining man must surely be able to decide the “nature of the good”—regardless of what God says about it.

Adam saw Satan’s point. “You are right, Satan, I must first decide whether such a God as often speaks to us (1) knows what the ‘good’ for us is, (2) controls history so that he can determine what will happen if we disobey him, and (3) has the right to demand obedience from us. After I decide these issues, and if the answer is ‘yes,’ then I shall obey him. Certainly not before.”

But by taking to himself the right to decide these issues, Adam had already decided them—in the negative. If God is such a one as knows the “good” for us, controls whatsoever comes to pass, and has the right of unquestioned obedience, then man obeys his word because it is his word. Adam, in disobedience, became a “free” man.

But Satan miscalculated: Refusing to believe that God controls the course of history, Satan began his attempt to take over the whole of mankind to himself. Having succeeded with the first Adam, he tried his trick on the Second Adam. But the Second Adam replied to Satan’s scheme, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” and, “It is written”! The Second Adam both knew and received the Word of God, for he was God, the Word. He lived his life according to what he, in his program, had written down in advance. Even the words, “I thirst,” spoken on the cross, were spoken in accord with what was written.

Now what was written consisted chiefly in his promise to his people that he would, in the face of Satan and his hosts, redeem them from their sin. He would be their Great High Priest by giving himself as their substitute. “Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.” He would be their Prophet, like unto Moses, proclaiming the final word of deliverance to his people, establishing them in the truth in the face of Satan’s effort to make them believe the lie. He would be their King, establishing his elect nation of “holy ones” against the effort of Satan to establish a kingdom based upon the self-righteousness of the Pharisees.

He came, he saw, he conquered: there was a transition from wrath to grace in history. The new age had come, the age of grace and glory. In his letter Jesus tells us of this new age. Much of this letter comes to us through his servant Paul. Much of the early growth of Christ’s kingdom came through the work of his servant Paul. How did Paul tell the story of the Christ?

In Romans Paul tells us of the wayward path of mankind. Both Jews and Greeks, being from the beginning of the world confronted with the truth of God, have nevertheless exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. Since they chose not to have God in their knowledge, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against these men who hold back the revelation of God as if it were some awful, destructive flood. Such a flood it will be for men who refuse to turn back to God through his Son.

As children of Adam they have always made and continue to make the effort required to cover-up the truth about themselves and God. They see every fact as other than it really is. By means of their literature—drama, poetry, and philosophy—they try to prove to themselves that the world is not the estate of God and that they are not made in his image. Both Jew and Gentile have blinded themselves to the true state of affairs about themselves and their world—about their past, their present and their future. Not being creatures of God, they could not have sinned against such a one. They do not need, therefore, the atoning death of Christ for the remission of their sins. As Stephen said of the Jews, so also it must be said of the Gentiles, that they have always resisted the Holy Spirit—to their own damnation.

In his address on the Areopagus Paul proclaims the name of the resurrected Christ to the Gentile covenant-breakers, would-be fugitives from divine judgment. Paul does not place himself on their level in order with them to investigate the nature of being and knowledge in general, to discover whether the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob might possibly exist. He tells them straight out that what they claim not to know, he knows. He tells them that their so-called ignorance is culpable, for God is as near to them as their own selves. He tells them, therefore, to repent of their worship of idols, to turn to the living God, lest they stand without the robes of righteousness before the resurrected Lord Christ on the day of judgment.

Paul’s preaching to the Greeks was similar to Noah’s preaching to the men of his time. When at first Noah claimed that God had given him a word of warning which men reject only to their own peril, they were nevertheless sure that they could dispose of such claims in terms of their own wisdom. There were, they said, no “facts” or “valid reasons” to support Noah’s claim, unless one accept the “fact” that God spoke to Noah. But there was only Noah’s word for this and who was Noah? But when the last men were drowning they saw themselves and their wisdom for what they really were, namely, foolishness. It was then too late. Even so at the end of time, in the face of the wrath of the Lamb, men will again see themselves and their wisdom for what it is and will call upon the hills to cover them lest they fall into the hands of an angry God.

Paul knew that the Greeks could not identify themselves truly in terms of their philosophy. “Chaos” and “Old Night” were their only substitutes for what Paul told them of the origin and destiny of the world. They tried various combinations of ultimate rationality (unity) and ultimate chance (diversity) in terms such as “form” and “matter” to take the place of creation and providence, but to no satisfaction. Even so, Paul could not prove to the Greeks in their sense of the word “prove,” that what they believed was foolishness and what he believed was “good sense.” Paul could not adopt the principles of the “free” first Adam to “prove” the principles of the Second Adam. Paul recognized, as did his Greek audience, that his ideas were, all of them, foolishness to the non-Christian mind. The Greeks would not believe any single one of them, much less all of them in their proper relation to each other, unless by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit they were given eyes with which to see the whole truth of God in Christ. Paul knew that the natural man, like Xantippe who is said to have kept on clipping her fingers even though these fingers were all that was left of her above the water, will keep on saying that Christ is wrong and that Satan is right so long as he has breath except the Spirit in mercy give him light and life.

This, then, is the message of the letter written to me and to the whole Church by Christ himself. Ever since I can remember it was of this letter of Christ which my father read to me and to the family. It was also this letter which I heard in church, spoken by the minister of Christ. Every minister in those days had a V.D.M. degree: Verbum Dei Minister. When, therefore, I became a teacher of apologetics it was natural for me to think, not only of my Th.M. and my Ph.D., but above all of my V.D.M. The former degrees were but means whereby I might be true to the latter degree.

How else, I thought, can anyone be a follower of the Reformation? Calvin and Luther: they expounded the Scriptures for the edification of the church of Christ. They rescued the Bible as the Word of God for the people of God from the apostate church of Rome. When they insisted on the necessity, authority, sufficiency, and the perspicuity of the Scriptures, they rejected in principle the entire Roman theological structure as it was largely based upon the very Greek thought against which Paul so vigorously preached.

Wanting to follow the Reformers, it was natural that I read and appreciated the works of those who before me likewise attempted to do so. I first used the works of Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck. How basic and how broad was their view! The idea of Scripture, they said, must never be separated from its message.

The Roman Catholics, for example, in separating the two, distort the biblical views of sin and salvation. According to the position of Rome, the transition from sinner to saint is a metaphysical process of elevation on the “scale of being.” This Greek-Christian metaphysics of salvation brings with it a false view of the nature of Scripture. Scripture, on this view, cannot be “sufficient.” The Roman church adds itself as the continuing organ of revelation to written revelation, therewith achieving the sufficiency which Scripture, of itself, lacks. As Bavinck truly said, the nature of the message of salvation and the nature of Scripture are always involved in one another.

Just so, from the Reformed point of view, all so-called “evangelical” non-Reformed theologies (all those which, although non-Reformed, hold to what J. I. Packer calls the “evangelical equation” of Scripture with the Word of God, such as orthodox Lutheranism, traditional Arminian-Wesleyanism, and synergistic fundamentalism), which have an inadequate view of sovereign grace, have also an inadequate view of Scripture. A God who cannot control history because of countless men with wills not fully dependent on his own can only make salvation a bare “possibility.” Christ might have died in vain. Being “free,” all men might refuse to exercise their supposedly “God-given-freedom” to “draw their check for ‘eternal life’ put in the Bank of Heaven for all men.” God’s plan, to call out a people for himself, might never have been realized. Needless to say, every major teaching of Scripture excludes such a “scheme.” God is God. Christ finished the work of salvation for his own. Only those “in Christ” from the foundation of the world died with Christ on the cross. Christ saved his sheep; he did not just make their salvation “possible.” The emphasis, therefore, on human autonomy in non-Reformed evangelical theology not only plays havoc with the scriptural message of salvation by grace alone, but distorts the doctrine of Scripture itself by finding the ultimate exegetical tool in the subjective experience of human freedom and by denying to Scripture and the Holy Spirit the power, authority, and necessity of invading the souls of men. The Holy Spirit and the Word of God do not change men, men first agree to be changed! For this reason no non-Reformed theology can properly be called a “theology of the Holy Spirit.” A theology which loses the right to be called a “theology of the Holy Spirit” loses also the right to be called “a theology of the Word of God.” It is no wonder, therefore, that G. C. Berkouwer speaks of the “isolation of the Reformed view of Scripture.”^{111 1}

This point receives even stronger confirmation in the case of existential theology.

If non-Reformed evangelical theologies tend toward subjectivism, modern non-evangelical theology stands on it flat-footed! Take the theology of Karl Barth, for example. The free grace of God, Barth maintained, could not be communicated through a stabilized, objectivized revelation. Orthodox theology, he argues, has reduced the living, active revelation of God to that of a lifeless form. When Barth spoke agreeably, therefore, of verbal inspiration he “actualized” it and therewith fitted it “into his system.”^{112 2} In bringing down the Bible to the dimension of “causal relations,” orthodoxy brings down the entire religious relation between God and man to the level of impersonal concepts and ideas. Orthodoxy is the theology of the “blessed possessors,” the theology of those who control the freedom of God. The God of orthodoxy, indeed the God of Calvinism, is not sovereign! The God of Calvin is not the God of sovereign, universal grace.

We may say, therefore, that the Barthian soteriology of “sovereign, free grace” which comes to us only in our subjectivity entails a radically new view of Scripture itself. The Bible may now be called the Word of God only in so far as it brings this message of subjectivity to us. To say “the Bible is the Word of God,” for Barth, does not imply a directly discernible revelation of God in history as we know it.

From these examples of Roman Catholic, Arminian-Wesleyan-Lutheran, and finally modern theology, it is clear (1) that the idea of Scripture can never be separated from the message of Scripture, and (2) that none of these non-Reformed evangelical and modern theologies have a view of Scripture such that the Lord Christ speaks to man with an absolute authority. The self-attesting Christ of Scripture is not absolutely central to these theologies. Just so, he will not be central in any apologetic form to defend them.

3. Toward a Christ-Centered Apologetic

Deciding, therefore, to follow the Reformers in theology, it was natural that I attempt also to do so in apologetics. I turned to such Reformed apologists as Warfield, Greene, and others. What did I find? I found the theologians of the “self-attesting Christ,” defending their faith with a method which denied precisely that point! That this was the case may be shown by a brief survey of what I call the “traditional” method of Christian apologetics.

The traditional method, offered first in detail by Thomas Aquinas in its Catholic form and by Joseph Butler in its Protestant form (but being in principle that offered by the very earliest of apologists), is based upon the assumption that man has some measure of autonomy, that the space-time world is in some measure “contingent” and that man must create for himself his own epistemology in an ultimate sense.

The traditional method was concessive on these basic points on which it should have demanded surrender! As such, it was always self-frustrating. The traditional method had explicitly built into it the right and ability of the natural man, apart from the work of the Spirit of God, to be the judge of the claim of the authoritative Word of God. It is man who, by means of his self-established intellectual tools, puts his “stamp of approval” on the Word of God and then, only after that grand act, does he listen to it. God’s Word must first pass man’s tests of good and evil, truth and falsity. But once you tell a non-Christian this, why should he be worried by anything else that you say. You have already told him he is quite all right just the way he is! Then the Scripture is not correct when it talks of “darkened minds,” “wilful ignorance,” “dead men,” and “blind people!” With this method the correctness of the natural man’s problematics is endorsed. That is all he needs to reject the Christian faith.

Seeing, therefore, the failure of even Reformed theologians and apologists in their efforts to defend consistently the self-attesting Christ of Scripture, it became clear to me that new ground work needed to be done. I did not, however, undertake this task de novo. I learned much from other men, just as I did in theology from Kuyper and Bavinck. Since I conceived of Christian apologetics as focusing on the self-attesting Christ of Scripture, it was natural that I should learn most of the development and defense of the doctrine of the person of Christ in the historical, theological development of the church. There are three eras in history in which Christian apologetics was helped forward in the right direction.

The Council of Nicea.—Here, in A.D. 325, the church concluded that the only adequate expression of the teaching of Christ concerning himself and of the apostles concerning God, was in a formulation such that all three persons of the Trinity were equally ultimate. The church rejected the subordination of the Son to the Father in any “ontological” sense. Herman Bavinck points out that herewith was rejected any attempt to unite God with man in terms of some change wherein God ceased to be himself as God.

The Chalcedon Creed.—This formulation of the church deals particularly with the difficult question of the relation of the divine to the human “natures” of Christ. Adopted in A.D. 451, it says that the divine and human “nature” of Christ are related unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably. The first two adjective were directed against the Eutychians, the second two against the Nestorians.

This effort of the church to understand the Christ was theological and therefore apologetically crucial. The work of Christ remains cloudy until the biblical teaching with respect to his person is clearly understood. Yet the true significance of his person becomes clear only as we understand what he has accomplished for his people. For this latter insight we must turn to the Reformed confessions. They give more exact expression to the work of the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, as part of the continuing historical work of Christ as he is now with us.

The Reformed Confessions.—We take the Belgic Confession as illustrative: “We receive these books, and these only, as holy and canonical, for the regulation, foundation, and confirmation of our faith, believing, without any doubt, all things contained in them, not so much because the church receives and approves them as such, but more especially because the Holy Spirit witnesseth in our hearts that they are from God, whereof they carry the evidence in themselves. For the very blind are able to perceive that the things foretold in them are fulfilling.” (Art. 5)

It appears, then, that not until the time of the Reformers do we find the church, as the church, confessing before the world anything like an adequate view of the Holy Spirit as the one who ministers to us, as he did to the disciples and apostles, the very Word of Christ. Only in the Reformed creeds do we find the Spirit of Christ to be an essential part of the work of Christ in saving his sheep.

In these three areas we see the church’s increasing understanding of the person and work of Christ. Individual theologians, too, helped the cause forward. One such was Tertullian. Another was Augustine. Both men had very “high” views of Christ and his work. Both saw the centrality of the Holy Spirit to the redemptive work of Christ. They attempted to be consistent with these views in their arguments with non-believers. Tertullian was, in this respect, more successful in this attempt than Augustine.

In the case of Tertullian, we have, says Warfield, a remarkable instance of the right man for the right place and time: “the real father of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.”^{113 3} With a very high view of Christ, Tertullian could say, “After Jesus Christ we have no need of speculation, after the gospel no need of research. When we come to believe, we have no desire to believe anything else; for we begin by believing there is nothing else which we have to believe.^{114 4} This statement is not for Tertullian a mere formal submission to Scripture. For Tertullian it is Christ who, in the Scriptures, gives us the “system” of truth which men must believe. “What you must seek is what Christ taught.… ” For Tertullian all search for truth is meaningless unless it is in the light of the basic truth which is before men in the Scriptures, the word through which Christ speaks to us from heaven. But Tertullian was no obscurantist or literalist. “Provided the essence of Truth is not disturbed, you may seek and discuss as much as you like.”^{115 5} Having set forth this “system” of truth which confronts men in the Christ of Scripture, Tertullian concludes: “From this point onwards I shall contest the ground of my opponents’ appeal.”^{116 6} Men are not to determine in advance of meeting Christ what his nature must be, for “our Lord himself declared, while he lived on earth, what he was, what he had been, how he was fulfilling the Father’s will, what he was laying down as man’s duty.”^{117 7}

It is clear that I learned from Tertullian. But Tertullian was nevertheless, like us all, a son of his times. He never succeeded of ridding himself of the stranglehold which the Logos-speculation of his predecessors had on him. “The Logos was in principle God conceived in relation to things of time and space: God, therefore, not as absolute, but as relative. In its very essence, therefore, the Logos conception likewise involved the strongest subordinationism.… The Logos was therefore necessarily conceived as reduced divinity—divinity, so to speak, at the periphery rather than at the center of its conception.”^{118 8} So observes Warfield.

Here, then, we see a truly great Christian theologian who, while developing the idea of the self-attesting Christ of Scripture, falls into the ditch of Greek speculation calculated to deny this Christian in toto. In his argument with the Gnostics he adopts not a mere “form” but the very content of their own emanation theories, hoping to convince them that he but wishes to add “Christ” to their already adequate ideas of the origin of man and the world. He does not even attempt to “contest the ground of his opponents” as he set out himself to do. He failed, therefore, to be consistent with a method which he himself proposed. It fell to Calvin to follow the method of Tertullian, cleansing it of its Logos theology.

I have said that the development of the church’s doctrine of Christ took place in three basic steps and that these three steps were necessary prerequisites for a truly biblical apologetics. Further I observed that Tertullian was a man ahead of his time, both in Christology and in apologetic method. The third step, the Reformed creeds, was basically an expression of the theology of John Calvin. We shall understand the third step more fully, therefore, if we look in detail at the Christology of Calvin. In doing so we shall also see a development and application of the method of Tertullian and therewith the beginnings of a Christ-centered apologetics.

For Calvin speculation about God, independently of Scripture, is excluded. Natural theology, therefore, is also excluded. Natural theology starts with man as autonomous and with the world as “given.” Natural theologians assume that “reason” and “logic” and “fact” are “religiously neutral.” They are but “tools” by which man may and must determine what is and what is not possible.

Now if there is anything which is basic to the ideas of the Reformation it is that which Calvin expresses at the very outset of his Institutes: man is what God in Christ through Scripture says he is. This God is triune. “The tripersonality of God is conceived by Calvin, … not as something added to the complete idea of God, or as something into which God develops in the process of his existing, but as something which enters into the very idea of God, without which he cannot be conceived in the truth of his being.”^{119 9} For Calvin the doctrine of the Trinity was involved in his experience of salvation “in the Christian’s certainty that the Redeeming Christ and Sanctifying Spirit are each Divine Persons.”^{120 10} “The main thing was, he insisted, that men should heartily believe that there is but one God, whom only they should serve; but also that Jesus Christ our Redeemer and the Holy Spirit the Sanctifier is each no less this one God than God the Father to whom we owe our being; while yet these three are distinct personal objects of our love and adoration.”^{121 11} It was because of his deep religious interest in making the triune God of Scripture the starting point of all his theology that Calvin found it necessary to exclude every last vestige of subordinationism which might even be said to be sanctioned by the language of Nicea. He therefore used the word αὐτόθεος with respect to the Son of God.

The significance of this for Christian apologetics should be clear at once. “All those who were for any reason or in any degree unable or unwilling to allow Christ a deity in every respect equal to that of the Father were necessarily offended by the vindication to him of the ultimate divine quality of self-existence.”^{122 12} Calvin explicated the person of Christ solely in scriptural terms, i.e., his method is exegetical rather than speculative. As such his method is simple: who Christ is depends on Christ’s self-identification. If Christ is who he says he is, then all speculation is excluded, for God can swear only by himself. To find out what man is and who God is, one can only go to Scripture. Faith in the self-attesting Christ of the Scriptures is the beginning, not the conclusion, of wisdom! It was, therefore, not until the fully developed trinitarian theology of Calvin, which says that Christ is authoritative because αὐτόθεος, that there was therewith developed a truly Christian methodology of theology and of apologetics. The method by which a Christian develops the content of his faith must not be denied by the method he uses to defend that content. Calvin, seeing this, denied all speculation and natural theology as “avenues” to faith. Rather, faith and understanding are pure gifts of free grace.

The apologetic method thus far outlined will be made clearer if we consider an objection, indeed the “stock” objection, to such an approach as Calvin’s. It comes from Stuart Cornelius Hackett in his The Resurrection of Theism. We must says Hackett, have “a rational justification for the metaphysical ultimate” which we believe in. Calvinism denies this. The Calvinists say that God has “created rational men as mere puppets of his sovereignty. But if it seems to be the case that man is under obligation to believe the gospel and that he must accept Christ as Savior before the Spirit of God regenerates the heart—if, I say, man is a moral and rational agent confronted with a revelation for the acceptance of which he is morally and rationally responsible—then let the presuppositionalist framework be consigned to the irrationalism that is written so plainly through its structure.… With her opponents thus languishing in defeat, reason pushes on to consider experience itself to determine whether God is real.”^{123 13}

With these words Hackett sums up the issue between himself as an Arminian and myself as a Calvinist very well. It goes without saying that we two have radically different beliefs as to what the Bible says about man and his sinfulness and about the Holy Spirit and his sovereignty. Indeed, the issues between us are total. There are no “fundamentals” in common between us: we will necessarily understand creation-providence, the fall of man, the atonement of Christ, his sinlessness and his resurrection, his second coming and his ultimate triumph, the doctrine of Scripture, the nature of saving faith—we will necessarily understand, I say, these doctrines in different ways. Hackett’s Christian faith and my Christian faith, which we both desire non-Christians to accept, are radically different. They are different not only in their content but also in the very method of their construction.

I make two broad points in reference to this. First, any non-Christian epistemology, i.e., any theory of knowledge based upon principles acceptable per se to the “mind of the flesh,” (and therefore those of Hackett’s own method) is doomed to utter failure; not only failure as an avenue to Christian faith, but as an avenue to any form of knowledge whatsoever. This I think can be, and has been repeatedly, shown by myself and many others. Second, Hackett’s basic charge that Calvinism is determinist and irrational is simply not true. First, as to the charge that it is determinist and that men are but “puppets,” one need only read Calvin himself to be persuaded that such an understanding of Calvinism is false. The Calvinist notion of divine sovereignty has nothing to do with the philosopher’s notion of physical, causal determinism. I have developed at length in other places the covenantal, exhaustively personalist view of providence which is clearly part of Calvin’s thought.

As to the charge that the Calvinist position is “irrational,” I assume that Hackett cannot mean that it is inconsistent. After all, one of the so-called “sins” of Calvin was that he was too deductive, too logical, in drawing implications from this and that in Scripture, that in “logicizing” theology he destroyed its heart. I assume that what Hackett means is that on the Calvinist position man is called upon to repent of his sins and accept Christ without having reasons for doing so. The Calvinist cannot give reasons because he has no point of contact with the non-Christian. There are, for the Calvinist, no reasons to which he might appeal in an effort to get his friend to accept Christ.

In response to this I observe that this also is not the case. Hackett assumes that unless one finds a point of contact with the natural man by way of agreeing with him on his false views of man and the world then one has no point of contact with him at all. Against this position, I maintain, with Calvin following Paul, that my point of contact lies in the actual state of affairs between men as the Bible tells us of it. It is Hackett who has no real point of contact, for his lies in what men imagine (and, to be sure, “agree”) to be the case. The Calvinist’s point of contact is rooted in the actual state of affairs. All things are what they are because of their relation to the work of the triune God as reported in Scripture. Hackett’s “point of contact” as an evangelical Arminian is an essentially Kantian epistemology, an epistemology in terms of which men stand utterly unrelated to one another and are, at the same time, reduced to relations of one another.

To look for a point of contact with the unbeliever in the unbeliever’s notions of himself and his world is to encourage him in his wicked rebellion and to establish him in his self-frustration. We have already seen that the natural man is under the self-imposed delusion that he is “free,” i.e., independent of the control and counsel of God, and that the “facts” about him are also “free” in this way. He may pretend to be “open-minded” and ready to consider whether God exists. But in being so “neutral” he commits the same sin as Adam and Eve.

Why seek truth where only a lie is to be found? Can the non-Christian tell us and therefore the Christ himself what the facts are and how they are related to each other, in what way they cohere, while yet excluding creation and providence? If he can, and if he can tell us truly, then the Christian story simply is not true! Because the natural man cannot do this, because the Christian message is true, I have sought and still seek to reap the benefit of a theology in which the triune God of Scripture has the initiative in salvation.

The Calvinist’s idea of an actual as opposed to an imagined point of contact is not just some useless notion. It is the only intelligible point of contact possible. The non-Christian holds that pure chance and absolute fate are equally ultimate and mutually correlative limiting concepts or heuristic principles which man uses to explain the fact that we have learned much about the world, that there is order in the world, a uniformity, while there is also continual change and development. But the non-Christian’s “explanation” is no explanation at all. To say “it just happens” as an explanation of an event is really to say, “There is no explanation that I know of.”

The Calvinist, therefore, using his point of contact, observes to the non-Christian that if the world were not what Scripture says it is, if the natural man’s knowledge were not actually rooted in the creation and providence of God, then there could be no knowledge whatsoever. The Christian claims that non-Christians have made and now make many discoveries about the true state of affairs of the universe simply because the universe is what Christ says it is. The unbelieving scientist borrows or steals the Christian principles of creation and providence every time he says that an “explanation” is possible, for he knows he cannot account for “explanation” on his own. As the image-bearer of God, operating in a universe controlled by God, the unbeliever contributes indirectly and adventitiously to the development of human knowledge and culture.

When Hackett maintains that the Calvinist position is irrational because it cannot give “reasons” for believing, he must mean that on a position such as mine the Christian does not accept the non-Christian scheme wherein the non-Christian determines what are “good reasons” and “valid proofs.” This is perfectly true, but this is not irrational. Rather the Christian offers the self-attesting Christ to the world as the only foundation upon which a man must stand in order to give any “reasons” for anything at all. The whole notion of “giving reasons” is completely destroyed by any ontology other than the Christian one. The Christian claims that only after accepting the biblical scheme of things will any man be able to understand and account for his own rationality.

But I have said enough so that readers should have a clear picture of the drift of my thought. Nevertheless, I think it might be helpful if in a final section I put, in only outline form, the total picture. This will make it easier for the contributors and the general reader, as they go on to the rest of this Festschrift, to refer back and see at a glance what my position is.

4. The Total Picture

A. My problems with the “traditional method.”

1. This method compromises God himself by maintaining that his existence is only “possible” albeit “highly probable,” rather than ontologically and “rationally” necessary.

2. It compromises the counsel of God by not understanding it as the only all-inclusive, ultimate “cause” of whatsoever comes to pass.

3. It compromises the revelation of God by:

a. Compromising its necessity. It does so by not recognizing that even in Paradise man had to interpret the general (natural) revelation of God in terms of the covenantal obligations placed upon him by God through special revelation. Natural revelation, on the traditional view, can be understood “on its own.”

b. Compromising its clarity. Both the general and special revelation of God are said to be unclear to the point that man may say only that God’s existence is “probable.”

c. Compromising its sufficiency. It does this by allowing for an ultimate realm of “chance” out of which might come “facts” such as are wholly new for God and for man. Such “facts” would be uninterpreted and unexplainable in terms of the general or special revelation of God.

d. Compromising its authority. On the traditional position the Word of God’s self-attesting characteristic, and therewith its authority, is secondary to the authority of reason and experience. The Scriptures do not identify themselves, man identifies them and recognizes their “authority” only in terms of his own authority.

4. It compromises man’s creation as the image of God by thinking of man’s creation and knowledge as independent of the Being and knowledge of God. On the traditional approach man need not “think God’s thoughts after him.”

5. It compromises man’s covenantal relationship with God by not understanding Adam’s representative action as absolutely determinative of the future.

6. It compromises the sinfulness of mankind resulting from the sin of Adam by not understanding man’s ethical depravity as extending to the whole of his life, even to his thoughts and attitudes.

7. It compromises the grace of God by not understanding it as the necessary prerequisite for “renewal unto knowledge.” On the traditional view man can and must renew himself unto knowledge by the “right use of reason.”

B. My understanding of the relationship between Christian and non-Christian, philosophically speaking.

1. Both have presuppositions about the nature of reality:

a. The Christian presupposes the triune God and his redemptive plan for the universe as set forth once for all in Scripture.

b. The non-Christian presupposes a dialectic between “chance” and “regularity,” the former accounting for the origin of matter and life, the latter accounting for the current success of the scientific enterprise.

2. Neither can, as finite beings, by means of logic as such, say what reality must be or cannot be.

a. The Christian, therefore, attempts to understand his world through the observation and logical ordering of facts in self-conscious subjection to the plan of the self-attesting Christ of Scripture. b. The non-Christian, while attempting an enterprise similar to the Christian’s, attempts nevertheless to use “logic” to destroy the Christian position. On the one hand, appealing to the non-rationality of “matter,” he says that the chance-character of “facts” is conclusive evidence against the Christian position. Then, on the other hand, he maintains like Parmenides that the Christian story cannot possibly be true. Man must be autonomous, “logic” must be legislative as to the field of “possibility” and possibility must be above God.

3. Both claim that their position is “in accordance with the facts.”

a. The Christian claims this because he interprets the facts and his experience in the light of the revelation of the self-attesting Christ in Scripture. Both the uniformity and the diversity of facts have at their foundation the all-embracing plan of God.

b. The non-Christian claims this because he interprets the facts and his experience in the light of the autonomy of human personality, the ultimate “givenness” of the world and the amenability of matter to mind. There can be no fact that denies man’s autonomy or attests to the world’s and man’s divine origin.

4. Both claim that their position is “rational.”

a. The Christian does so by claiming not only that his position is self-consistent but that he can explain both the seemingly “inexplicable” amenability of fact to logic and the necessity and usefulness of rationality itself in terms of Scripture.

b. The non-Christian may or may not make this same claim. If he does, the Christian maintains that he cannot make it good. If the non-Christian attempts to account for the amenability of fact to logic in terms of the ultimate rationality of the cosmos, then he will be crippled when it comes to explaining the “evolution” of men and things. If he attempts to do so in terms of pure “chance” and ultimate “irrationality” as being the well out of which both rational man and a rationally amenable world sprang, then we shall point out that such an explanation is in fact no explanation at all and that it destroys predication.

C. My proposal, therefore, for a consistently Christian methodology of apologetics is this: 1. That we use the same principle in apologetics that we use in theology: the self-attesting, self-explanatory Christ of Scripture.

2. That we no longer make an appeal to “common notions” which Christian and non-Christian agree on, but to the “common ground” which they actually have because man and his world are what Scripture says they are.

3. That we appeal to man as man, God’s image. We do so only if we set the non-Christian principle of the rational autonomy of man against the Christian principle of the dependence of man’s knowledge on God’s knowledge as revealed in the person and by the Spirit of Christ.

4. That we claim, therefore, that Christianity alone is reasonable for men to hold. It is wholly irrational to hold any other position than that of Christianity. Christianity alone does not slay reason on the altar of “chance.”

5. That we argue, therefore, by “presupposition.” The Christian, as did Tertullian, must contest the very principles of his opponent’s position. The only “proof” of the Christian position is that unless its truth is presupposed there is no possibility of “proving” anything at all. The actual state of affairs as preached by Christianity is the necessary foundation of “proof” itself.

6. That we preach with the understanding that the acceptance of the Christ of Scripture by sinners who, being alienated from God, seek to flee his face, comes about when the Holy Spirit, in the presence of inescapably clear evidence, opens their eyes so that they see things as they truly are.

7. That we present the message and evidence for the Christian position as clearly as possible, knowing that because man is what the Christian says he is, the non-Christian will be able to understand in an intellectual sense the issues involved. In so doing, we shall, to a large extent, be telling him what he “already knows” but seeks to suppress. This “reminding” process provides a fertile ground for the Holy Spirit, who in sovereign grace may grant the non-Christian repentance so that he may know him who is life eternal.

I hope that by this, “My Credo,” I have been able in a small way sincerely to thank all those who took the time to write for this birthday-book.

Appendix B: Why I Believe In God

by Cornelius Van Til

You have noticed, I am sure, that both scientists and philosophers in recent days have had a good deal to say about religion and God. Scientists like Dr. James Jeans and Sir Arthur Eddington are ready to admit that there may be something to the claims of men who say that they have had an experience of God. Dr. C. E. M. Joad, a philosopher, writes that the “obtrusiveness of evil” has compelled him to look into the argument for God’s existence afresh.

Have you, too, on occasion asked yourself whether death ends all? Have you recalled, perhaps, how Socrates, the great Greek philosopher, struggled with that problem the day before he drank the hemlock cup? Is there anything at all, you ask yourself, to the idea of a judgment after death? Am I quite sure, you say, that there is not? How do I know that there is no God?

In short, as a person of intelligence, having a sense of responsibility, you have from time to time asked yourself some questions about the formation of your thought and action. You have looked into, or at least been concerned about, what the philosophers call your theory of reality. You are therefore willing enough to hear my reasons for believing in God.

Let’s start by comparing notes on our past. The debate concerning heredity and environment is prominent in our day. Perhaps you think that the only real reason I have for believing in God is the fact that I was taught to do so in my early days. Of course I don’t think that is really so. I don’t deny that I was taught to believe in God when I was a child, but I do affirm that since I have grown up I have heard a pretty full statement of the argument against belief in God. And it is after having heard that argument that I am more than ever ready to believe in God. Now, in fact, I feel that the whole of history and civilization would be unintelligible to me if it were not for my belief in God. So true is this, that I propose to argue that unless God is back of everything, you cannot find meaning in anything. I cannot even argue for belief in Him, without already having taken Him for granted. And similarly I contend that you cannot argue against belief in Him unless you also first take Him for granted. Arguing about God’s existence, I hold, is like arguing about air. You may affirm that air exists, and I that it does not. But as we debate the point, we are both breathing air all the time. Or to use another illustration, God is like the emplacement on which must stand the very guns that are supposed to shoot Him out of existence. However, if after hearing my story briefly you still think it is all a matter of heredity and environment, I shall not disagree too violently. My whole point will be that there is perfect harmony between my belief as a child and my belief as a man, simply because God is Himself the environment by which my early life was directed and my later life made intelligible to myself.

We are frequently told that much in our life depends on “the accident of birth.” I was born in Holland—in a little thatched-roof house with a cow barn attached. You may have been born in a log cabin or a governor’s mansion. Let me assume that you were born in the delivery room of a modern hospital in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Is this really important for our purpose? Yes, in that both of us were born in the midst of “Christian civilization.” We may therefore limit our discussion to the “God of Christianity.” I believe in this God. You do not, or at least you are not sure that you do. This limit will give point to our discussion. Surely there is no sense in talking about the existence of God, without knowing what kind of God it is who may or may not exist.

So much then we have gained. We at least know in general what sort of God we are going to make the subject for our conversation. If now we can come to a similar preliminary agreement as to the standard or test by which to prove or disprove God’s existence, we can proceed. You, of course, do not expect me to bring God into the room here so that you may see Him. If I were able to do that, He would not be the God of Christianity. All that you expect me to do is to make it reasonable for you to believe in God. And I should like to respond quickly by saying that that is just what I am trying to do. But a moment’s thought makes me hesitate. If you really do not believe in God, then you naturally do not believe that you are His creature. I, on the other hand, who do believe in God also believe, naturally, that whatever you may think, you really are His creature. And surely it is reasonable for God’s creature to believe in God. So I can only undertake to show that, even if it does not appear reasonable to you, it is reasonable for you, to believe in God.

But let us return to this matter of upbringing. I can recall playing as a child in a sandbox built into a corner of the hay barn. From the hay barn I would go through the cow barn to the house. Built into the hay barn too, but with doors opening into the cow barn, was a bed for the workingman. How badly I wanted permission to sleep in that bed for a night! Permission was finally given. Freud was still utterly unknown to me, but I had heard about ghosts and “forerunners of death.” That night I heard the cows jingle their chains. I knew there were cows and that they did a lot of jingling with their chains, but after a while I was not quite certain that it was only the cows that made all the noises I heard. Wasn’t there someone walking down the aisle back of the cows, and wasn’t he approaching my bed? Already I had been taught to say my evening prayers. Some of the words were to this effect: “Lord, convert me, that I may be converted.” Unmindful of the paradox, I prayed that prayer that night as I had never prayed before.

I do not recall speaking to either my father or mother about my distress. They would have been unable to provide the modern remedy. Psychology did not come to their library table—not even The Ladies Home Journal. Yet I know what they would have said. Of course there were no ghosts, and certainly I should not be afraid anyway, since with body and soul I belonged to my Savior who died for me on the cross and rose again that His people might be saved from hell and go to heaven! I should pray earnestly and often that the Holy Spirit might give me a new heart so that I might truly love God instead of sin and myself.

How do I know that this is the sort of thing they would have told me? Well, that was the sort of thing they spoke about from time to time. Or rather, that was the sort of thing that constituted the atmosphere of our daily life. Ours was not in any sense a pietistic family. There were not any great emotional outbursts on any occasion that I recall. There was much ado about making hay in the summer and about caring for the cows and sheep in the winter, but round about it all there was a deep conditioning atmosphere. Though there were no tropical showers of revivals, the relative humidity was always very high. At every meal the whole family was present. There was a closing as well as an opening prayer, and a chapter of the Bible was read each time. The Bible was read through from Genesis to Revelation. At breakfast or at dinner, as the case might be, we would hear of the New Testament, or of “the children of God after their families, of Zephon and Haggai and Shuni and Ozni, of Eri and Areli.” I do not claim that I always finally understood the meaning of it all. Yet of the total effect there can be no doubt. The Bible became for me, in all its parts, in every syllable, the very Word of God. I learned that I must believe the Scripture story, and that “faith” was a gift of God. What had happened in the past, and particularly what had happened in the past in Palestine, was of the greatest moment to me. In short, I was brought up in what Dr. Joad would call “topographical and temporal parochialism.” I was “conditioned” in the most thorough fashion. I could not help believing in God—in the God of Christianity—in the God of the whole Bible!

Your childhood may not have been so restricted. Your parents, I assume, were most enlightened in their religious views. They read to you from some Bible of the World instead of from the Bible of Palestine. No, you say, they did no such thing. They did not want to trouble you about religion in your early days. They sought to cultivate an open mind in their children.

Shall we say then that in my early life I was conditioned to believe in God, while you were left free to develop your own judgment as you pleased? But that will hardly do. You know as well as I that every child is conditioned by his environment. It appears that you were as thoroughly conditioned not to believe in God as I was to believe in God. So let us not call each other names. If you want to say that belief was poured down my throat, I can always retort that unbelief was poured down your throat.

I was not quite five when somebody—fortunately I cannot recall who—took me to school. On the first day I was vaccinated and it hurt. I can still feel it. But long before going to school, I had already been to church. I recall that definitely because I would sometimes wear my nicely polished leather shoes. Indeed, I went to church before I went anywhere else, for as an infant I was taken to church to be baptized. A formula was read over me at my baptism which solemnly asserted that I had been conceived and born in sin, the idea being that my parents, like all men, had inherited sin from Adam, the first man and the representative of the human race. The formula further asserted that though thus conditioned by inescapable sin I was, as a child of the covenant, redeemed in Christ. And at the ceremony my parents solemnly promised that as soon as I should be able to understand they would instruct me in all these matters by all the means at their disposal.

It was in pursuance of this vow that they sent me to a Christian grade school. In it I learned that my being saved from sin and my belonging to God made a difference for all that I knew or did. I saw the power of God in nature and His providence in the course of history. That gave the proper setting for my salvation, which I had in Christ. In short, the whole wide world that gradually opened up for me through my schooling was regarded as operating in its every aspect under the direction of the all-powerful and all-wise God whose child I was through Christ. I was to learn to think God’s thoughts after Him in every field of endeavor.

Naturally there were fights in the school yard, and I was engaged in some—though not in all—of them. Wooden shoes were wonderful weapons of war. Yet we were strictly forbidden to use them, even for defensive purposes. There were always lectures both by teachers and by parents on sin and evil in connection with our martial exploits. This was especially the case when a regiment of us went out to do battle with the pupils of the public school. The children of the public school did not like us. They had an extensive vocabulary of vituperation. Who did we think we were anyway? We were goody-goodies—too good to go to the public school! “There! Take that and like it!” We replied in kind. Meanwhile our sense of distinction grew by leaps and bounds. We were told in the evening that we must learn to bear with patience the ridicule of the “world.” Had not the world hated the church, since Cain’s time?

I suppose your early schooling was quite different. You went to a “neutral” school. As your parents had done at home, so your teachers now did at school. They taught you to be “open-minded.” God was not brought into connection with your study of nature or of history. You were trained without bias all along the line.

Of course you know better now. You realize that all that was purely imaginary. To be “without bias” is only to have a particular kind of bias. The idea of “neutrality” is simply a colorless suit that covers a negative attitude toward God. At least it ought to be plain that he who is not for the God of Christianity is against Him. You see, the God of Christianity makes such prodigious claims. He says the whole world belongs to Him, and that you are His creature and as such are to own up to that fact by honoring Him whether you eat or drink or do anything else. God says that you live, as it were, on His estate. And His estate has huge ownership signs placed everywhere, so that he who goes by even at seventy miles an hour cannot but read them. Every fact in this world, the God of the Bible claims, has His stamp indelibly engraved upon it. How then could you be neutral with respect to such a God? Could you as a citizen of the United States stroll through the crowds in Washington on the Fourth of July and wonder whether the Lincoln Memorial belongs to anyone? Do you look at “Old Glory” waving from a high flagpole and wonder whether the country’s flag stands for anything? You would deserve to suffer the fate of the “man without a country” if as an American you were neutral to America. Well, in a much deeper sense you deserve to live forever without God if you do not own and glorify Him as your Creator. You dare not manipulate God’s world, and least of all yourself as His image-bearer, for your own final purposes. When Eve in the garden of Eden became neutral as between God and the Devil, weighing the contentions of each as though they were of equal value, she was already on the side of the Devil!

I see you don’t care for this turn of our conversation. Still, you are open-minded and neutral, are you not? You have learned to think that any hypothesis has, as a theory of life, an equal right to be heard with any other, have you not? After all, I am only asking you to see what is involved in the Christian conception of God. If the God of Christianity exists, the evidence for His existence is abundant and plain so that it is both unscientific and sinful not to believe in Him. When Dr. Joad, for example, says: “The evidence for God is far from plain,” on the ground that if it were plain everybody would believe in Him, he is begging the question. If the God of Christianity does exist, the evidence for Him must be plain. And the reason, therefore, why “everybody” does not believe in Him must be that “everybody” is blinded by sin. Everybody wears colored glasses. You have heard the story of the valley of the blind. A young man who was out hunting fell over a precipice into the valley of the blind. There was no escape. The blind men did not understand him when he spoke of seeing the sun and the colors of the rainbow, but a fine young lady did understand him when he spoke the language of love. The father of the girl would not consent to the marriage of his daughter to a lunatic who spoke so often of things that did not exist. But the great psychologists of the blind men’s university offered to cure him of his lunacy by sewing up his eyelids. Then, they assured him, he would be normal like “everybody” else. But the simple seer went on protesting that he did see the sun.

I propose to operate not only on your heart so as to change your will, but also on your eyes so as to change your outlook. But wait a minute. No, I do not propose to operate at all. I cannot do anything of the sort. I can only suggest that you are perhaps dead, and perhaps blind, leaving you to think the matter over for yourself. If an operation is to be performed it must be performed by God Himself.

Meanwhile let us finish our story. At ten I came to this country and after some years decided to study for the ministry. This involved preliminary training at a Christian preparatory school and college. All my teachers were pledged to teach their subjects from the Christian point of view. Imagine teaching not only religion but algebra from the Christian point of view! But it was done. We were told that all facts in all their relations, numerical as well as others, are what they are because of God’s all-comprehensive plan with respect to them. Thus the very definitions of things would not merely be incomplete but basically wrong if God were left out of the picture. Were we not informed about the views of others? Did we not hear about evolution and about Immanuel Kant, the great modern philosopher who had conclusively shown that all the arguments for the existence of God were invalid? Oh, yes, we heard about all these things, but there were refutations given and these refutations seemed adequate to meet the case.

In the seminaries I attended, namely Calvin, and Princeton before its reorganization along semi-modernist lines in 1929, the situation was much the same. So, for instance, Dr. Robert Dick Wilson used to tell us, and, as far as we could understand the languages, show us from the documents, that the “higher critics” had accomplished nothing that should rightfully damage our childlike faith in the Old Testament as the Word of God. Similarly Dr. J. Gresham Machen and others made good their claim that New Testament Christianity is intellectually defensible and that the Bible is right in its claims. You may judge of their arguments by reading them for yourself. In short, I heard the story of historic Christianity and the doctrine of God on which it is built over and over from every angle by those who believed it and were best able to interpret its meaning.

The telling of this story has helped, I trust, to make the basic question simple and plain. You know pretty clearly now what sort of God it is of which I am speaking to you. If my God exists it was He who was back of my parents and teachers. It was He who conditioned all that conditioned me in my early life. But then it was He also who conditioned everything that conditioned you in your early life. God, the God of Christianity, is the All-Conditioner!

As the All-Conditioner, God is the All-Conscious One. A God who is to control all things must control them “by the counsel of His will.” If He did not do this, He would himself be conditioned. So then, I hold that my belief in Him and your disbelief in Him are alike meaningless except for Him.

By this time you are probably wondering whether I have really ever heard the objections that are raised against belief in such a God. Well, I think I have. I heard them from my teachers who sought to answer them. I also heard them from teachers who believed they could not be answered. While a student at Princeton Seminary I attended summer courses in the Chicago Divinity School. Naturally I heard the modern or liberal view of Scripture set forth fully there. And after graduation from the Seminary I spent two years at Princeton University for graduate work in philosophy. There the theories of modern philosophy were both expounded and defended by very able men. In short, I was presented with as full a statement of the reasons for disbelief as I had been with the reasons for belief. I heard both sides fully from those who believed what they taught.

Perhaps you cannot understand how anyone acquainted with the facts and arguments presented by modern science and philosophy can believe in a God who really created the world, who really directs all things in the world by a plan to the ends He has in view for them. Well, I am only one of many who hold to the old faith in full view of what is said by modern science, modern philosophy, and modern biblical criticism.

Obviously I cannot enter into a discussion of all the facts and all the reasons urged against belief in God. There are those who have made the Old Testament, as there are those who have made the New Testament, their life-long study. It is their works you must read for a detailed refutation of points of biblical criticism. Others have specialized in physics and biology. To them I must refer you for a discussion of the many points connected with such matters as evolution. But there is something that underlies all these discussions. And it is with that something that I now wish to deal.

You may think I have exposed myself terribly. Instead of talking about God as something vague and indefinite, after the fashion of the modernist, the Barthian, and the mystic, a god so empty of content and remote from experience as to make no demands upon men, I have loaded down the idea of God with “antiquated” science and “contradictory” logic. It seems as though I have heaped insult upon injury by presenting the most objectionable sort of God I could find. It ought to be very easy for you to prick my bubble. You may be ready to pile over my head bushels of facts taken from the standard college texts on physics, biology, anthropology, and psychology, or crush me with sixty-ton tanks taken from Kant’s famous book The Critique of Pure Reason. But I have been under these hot showers now a good many times. Before you take the trouble to open the faucet again there is a preliminary point I want to bring up. I have already referred to it when we were discussing the matter of test or standard. The point is this. Not believing in God, you do not think yourself to be God’s creature. And not believing in God you do not think the universe has been created by God. That is to say, you think of yourself and the world as just being there. Now if you actually are God’s creature, then your present attitude is very unfair to Him. In that case it is even an insult to Him. And since you have insulted God, His displeasure rests upon you. God and you are not on “speaking terms.” And you have very good reasons for trying to prove that He does not exist. If He does exist, He will punish you for your disregard of Him. You are therefore wearing colored glasses. And this determines everything you say about the facts and reasons for not believing in Him. You have, as it were, entered upon God’s estate and have had your picnics and hunting parties there without asking His permission. You have taken the grapes of God’s vineyard without paying Him any rent, and you have insulted His representatives who asked you for it.

I must make an apology to you at this point. We who believe in God have not always made this position plain. Often enough we have talked with you about facts and sound reasons as though we agreed with you on what these really are. In our arguments for the existence of God we have frequently assumed that you and we together have an area of knowledge on which we agree. But we really do not grant that you see any fact in any dimension of life truly. We really think you have colored glasses on your nose when you talk about chickens and cows, as well as when you talk about the life hereafter. We should have told you this more plainly than we did. But we were really a little ashamed of what would appear to you as a very odd or extreme position. We were so anxious not to offend you that we offended our own God. But we dare no longer present our God to you as smaller or less exacting than He really is. He wants to be presented as the All-Conditioner, as the emplacement on which even those who deny Him must stand.

Now in presenting all your reasons to me, you have assumed that such a God does not exist. You have taken for granted that you need no emplacement of any sort outside of yourself. You have assumed the autonomy of your own experience. Consequently you are unable—that is, unwilling—to accept as a fact any fact that would challenge your self-sufficiency. And you are bound to call that contradictory which does not fit into the reach of your intellectual powers. You remember what old Procrustus did, using his bed as a measure. If his visitors were too long, he cut off a few slices at each end; if they were too short, he used the curtain stretcher on them. It is that sort of thing that I feel you have done with every fact of human experience. And I am asking you to be critical of this your own most basic assumption. Will you not go into the basement of your own experience to see what has been gathering there while you were busy here and there with the surface inspection of life? You may be greatly surprised at what you find.

To make my meaning clearer, I shall illustrate what I have said by pointing out how modern philosophers and scientists handle the facts and doctrines of Christianity.

Basic to all the facts and doctrines of Christianity and therefore involved in the belief in God, is the creation doctrine. Now modern philosophers and scientists as a whole claim that to hold such a doctrine or to believe in such a fact is to deny our own experience. They mean this not merely in the sense that no one was there at creation to see it done, but in the more basic sense that it is logically impossible. They assert that it would break the fundamental laws of logic.

The current argument against the creation doctrine derives from Kant. It may fitly be expressed in the words of a more recent philosopher, James Ward: “If we attempt to conceive of God apart from the world, there is nothing to lead us on to creation.”¹²⁴¹²⁵ That is to say, if God is to be connected to the universe at all, He must be subject to its conditions. The old creation doctrine says that God caused the world to come into existence. But what do we mean by the word cause? In our experience it is that which is logically correlative to the word effect. If you have an effect you must have a cause and if you have a cause you must have an effect. If God caused the world, it must therefore have been because God couldn’t help producing an effect. And so the effect may really be said to be the cause of the cause. Our experience can therefore allow for no God other than one that is as dependent upon the world as the world is dependent upon Him.

The God of Christianity cannot meet these requirements of the autonomous man. God claims to be all-sufficient. He claims to have created the world, not from necessity but from His free will. He claims not to have changed in Himself when He created the world. His existence must therefore be said to be impossible and the creation doctrine must be said to be an absurdity.

The doctrine of providence is also said to be at variance with experience. This is but natural. One who rejects creation must logically also reject providence. If all things are controlled by God’s providence, we are told, there can be nothing new and history is but a puppet dance.

You see then that I might present to you great numbers of facts to prove the existence of God. I might say that every effect needs a cause. I might point to the wonderful structure of the eye as evidence of God’s purpose in nature. I might call in the story of mankind through the past to show that it has been directed and controlled by God. All these evidences would leave you unaffected. You would simply say that however else we may explain reality, we cannot bring in God. Cause and purpose, you say, are words that we human beings use with respect to things around us because they seem to act as we ourselves act, but that is as far as we can go.

And when the evidence for Christianity proper is presented to you the procedure is the same. If I point out to you that the prophecies of Scripture have been fulfilled, you reply that it quite naturally appears that way to me and to others, but that in reality it is not possible for any mind to predict the future from the past. If it were, all would again be fixed and history would be without newness and freedom.

Then if I point to the many miracles, the story is once more the same. To illustrate this point I quote from the late Dr. William Adams Brown, an outstanding modernist theologian. “Take any of the miracles of the past,” says Brown, “the virgin birth, the raising of Lazarus, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Suppose that you can prove that these events happened just as they are claimed to have happened. What have you accomplished? You have shown that our previous view of the limits of the possible needs to be enlarged; that our former generalizations were too narrow and need revision; that problems cluster about the origin of life and its renewal of which we had hitherto been unaware. But the one thing which you have not shown, which indeed you cannot show, is that a miracle has happened; for that is to confess that these problems are inherently insoluble, which cannot be determined until all possible tests have been made.”¹²⁶¹²⁷You see with what confidence Brown uses this weapon of logical impossibility against the idea of miracle. Many of the older critics of Scripture challenged the evidence for miracle at this point or at that. They made, as it were, a slow, piecemeal land invasion of the island of Christianity. Brown, on the other hand, settles the matter at once by a host of Stukas from the sky. Any pillboxes that he cannot destroy immediately, he will mop up later. He wants to get rapid control of the whole field first. And this he does by directly applying the law of non-contradiction. Only that is possible says Brown, in effect, which I can show to be logically related according to my laws of logic. So then if miracles want to have scientific standing, that is, be recognized as genuine facts, they must sue for admittance at the port of entry to the mainland of scientific endeavor. And admission will be given as soon as they submit to the little process of generalization which deprives them of their uniqueness. Miracles must take out naturalization papers if they wish to vote in the republic of science.

Take now the four points I have mentioned—creation, providence, prophecy and miracle. Together they represent the whole of Christian theism. Together they include what is involved in the idea of God and what He has done round about and for us. Many times over and in many ways, the evidence for all these has been presented. But you have an always available and effective answer at hand. It is impossible! It is impossible! Basic to all the objections the average philosopher and scientist raises against the evidence for the existence of God is the assertion or the assumption that to accept such evidence would be to break the rules of logic.

Now before I drill into the nerve of the matter, I must again make apologies. The fact that so many people are placed before a full exposition of the evidence for God’s existence and yet do not believe in Him has greatly discouraged us who do believe. We have therefore adopted measures of despair. Anxious to win good will, we have again compromised our God. Noting the fact that men do not see, we have conceded that what they ought to see is hard to see. In our great concern to win men we have allowed that the evidence for God’s existence is only probably compelling. And from that fatal confession we have gone one step further down to the point where we have admitted or virtually admitted that it is not really compelling at all. And so we fall back upon testimony instead of argument. After all, we say, God is not found at the end of an argument; He is found in our hearts. So we simply testify to men that once we were dead, and now we are alive, that once we were blind and now we see, and give up all intellectual argument.

Do you suppose that our God approves of this attitude of His followers? I do not think so. The God who claims to have made all facts and to have placed His stamp upon them will not grant that there is really some excuse for those who refuse to see. Besides, such a procedure is self-defeating.

Let us see what the modern psychologist of religion, who stands on the same foundation with the philosopher, will do to our testimony. He makes a distinction between the raw datum and its cause, giving me the raw datum and keeping for himself the explanation of the cause. Professor James H. Leuba, a great psychologist of Bryn Mawr, has a procedure that is typical. He says, “The reality of any given datum—of an immediate experience in the sense in which the term is used here, may not be impugned: when I feel cold or warm, sad or gay, discouraged or confident, I am cold, sad, discouraged, etc., and every argument which might be advanced to prove to me that I am not cold is, in the nature of the case, preposterous; an immediate experience may not be controverted; it cannot be wrong.” All this seems on the surface to be very encouraging. The immigrant is hopeful of a ready and speedy admittance. However, Ellis Island must still be passed. “But if the raw data of experience are not subject to criticism, the causes ascribed to them are. If I say that my feeling of cold is due to an open window, or my state of exultation to a drug, or my renewed courage to God, my affirmation goes beyond my immediate experience; I have ascribed a cause to it, and that cause may be the right or the wrong one.”¹²⁸ And thus the immigrant must wait at Ellis Island a million years. That is to say, I as a Believer in God through Christ assert that I am born again through the Holy Spirit. The psychologist says that is a raw datum of experience and as such incontrovertible. We do not, he says, deny it. But it means nothing to us. If you want it to mean something to us you must ascribe a cause to your experience. We shall then examine the cause. Was your experience caused by opium or God? You say by God. Well, say these psychologists, that is impossible since philosophy has shown that it logically contradictory to believe in God. You may come back at any time when you have changed your mind about the cause of your regeneration. We shall be glad to have you and welcome you as a citizen of our realm, if only you take out your naturalization papers!

If I have offended you it has been because I dare not, even in the interest of winning you, offend my God. And if I have not offended you I have not spoken of my God. For what you have really done in your handling of the evidence for belief in God is to set yourself up as God. You have made the reach of your intellect the standard of what is possible or not possible. You have thereby virtually determined that you intend never to meet a fact that points to God. Facts, to be facts at all—facts, that is, with decent scientific and philosophic standing—must have your stamp instead of that of God upon them as their virtual creator.

Of course I realize full well that you do not pretend to create redwood trees and elephants. But you do virtually assert that redwood trees and elephants cannot be created by God. You have heard of the man who never wanted to see or be a purple cow. Well, you have virtually determined that you never will see or be a created fact. With Sir Arthur Eddington you say, as it were, “What my net can’t catch isn’t fish.” Nor do I pretend, of course, that once you have been brought face to face with this condition, you can change your attitude. No more than the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his spots can you change your attitude. You have cemented your colored glasses to your face so firmly that you cannot take them off even when you sleep. Freud has not had even a glimpse of the sinfulness of sin as it controls the human heart. Only the great Physician through His blood atonement on the cross and by the gift of His Spirit can take those colored glasses off and make you see facts as they are, facts as evidence, as inherently compelling evidence, for the existence of God.

It ought to be pretty plain now what sort of God I believe in. It is God, the All-Conditioner. It is the God who created all things, who by His providence conditioned my youth, making me believe in Him, and who in my later life by His grace still makes me want to believe in Him. It is the God who also controlled your youth and so far has apparently not given you His grace that you might believe in Him.

You may reply to this: “Then what’s the use of arguing and reasoning with me?” Well, there is a great deal of use in it. You see, if you are really a creature of God, you are always accessible to Him. When Lazarus was in the tomb he was still accessible to Christ who called him back to life. It is this on which true preachers depend. The prodigal thought he had clean escaped from the father’s influence. In reality the father controlled the “far country” to which the prodigal had gone. So it is in reasoning. True reasoning about God is such as stands upon God as upon the emplacement that alone gives meaning to any sort of human argument. And such reasoning, we have a right to expect, will be used of God to break down the one-horse chaise of human autonomy.

Deep down in your heart you know very well that what I have said is true. You know there is no unity in your life. You want no God who by His counsel provides for the unity you need. Such a God, you say, would allow for nothing new. So you provide your own unity. But this unity must, by your own definition, not kill that which is wholly new. That really means that it must stand over against the wholly new and never touch it at all. By your logic you talk about possibles and impossibles, but all this talk is in the air. It can never have anything to do with reality. Your logic claims to deal with eternal and changeless matters; and your facts are wholly changing things; and “never the twain shall meet.” So you have made nonsense of your own experience.

On the other hand by my belief in God I do have unity in my experience. Not of course the sort of unity that you want. Not a unity that is the result of my own autonomous determination of what is possible. But a unity that is higher than mine and prior to mine. On the basis of God’s counsel I can look for facts and find them without destroying them in advance. On the basis of God’s counsel I can be a good physicist, a good biologist, a good psychologist, or a good philosopher. In all these fields I use my powers of logical arrangement in order to see as much order in God’s universe as it may be given a creature to see. The unities, or systems, that I make are true because they are genuine pointers toward the basic or original unity that is found in the counsel of God.

Looking about me I see both order and disorder in every dimension of life. But I look at both of them in the light of the Great Orderer who is back of them. I need not deny either of them in the interest of optimism or in the interest of pessimism. I see the strong men of biology searching diligently through hill and dale to prove that the creation doctrine is not true with respect to the human body, only to return and admit that the missing link is missing still. I see the strong men of psychology search deep and far into the subconsciousness, child and animal consciousness, in order to prove that the creation and providence doctrines are not true with respect to the human soul, only to return and admit that the gulf between human and animal intelligence is as great as ever. I see the strong men of logic and scientific methodology search deep into the transcendental for a validity that will not be swept away by the ever-changing tide of the wholly new, only to return and say that they can find no bridge from logic to reality, or from reality to logic. And yet I find all these, though standing on their heads, reporting much that is true. I need only to turn their reports right side up, making God instead of man the center of it all, and I have a marvellous display of the facts as God has intended me to see them.

And if my unity is comprehensive enough to include the efforts of those who reject it, it is large enough even to include that which those who have been set upright by regeneration cannot see. My unity is that of a child who walks with its father through the woods. The child is not afraid because its father knows it all and is capable of handling every situation, So I readily grant that there are some “difficulties” with respect to belief in God and His revelation in nature and Scripture that I cannot solve. In fact there is mystery in every relationship with respect to every fact that faces me, for the reason that all facts have their final explanation in God whose thoughts are higher than my thoughts, and whose ways are higher than my ways. And it is exactly that sort of God that I need. Without such a God, without the God of the Bible, the God of authority, the God who is self-contained and therefore incomprehensible to men, there would be no reason in anything. No human being can explain in the sense of seeing through all things, but only he who believes in God has the right to hold that there is an explanation at all.

So you see when I was young I was conditioned on every side; I could not help believing in God. Now that I am older I still cannot help believing in God. I believe in God now because unless I have Him as the All-Conditioner, life is chaos.

I know that it is not in my power to convert you at the end of my argument. I think the argument is sound. I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief; it is not a little more probable, or infinitely more probable, than unbelief. I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else. I know that you can to your own satisfaction, by the help of the biologists, the psychologists, the logicians, and the Bible critics, reduce everything I have said to the circular meanderings of a hopeless authoritarian. Well, my meanderings have, to be sure, been circular; they have made everything turn on God. So now I shall leave you with Him, and with His mercy.

Works about Van Til

Bahnsen, Greg L. Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1998. †

Crampton, W. Gary. “Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought,” The Trinity Review (July 1996). ‡

________. “Why I Am Not a Van Tillian,” The Trinity Review (September 1993). ‡

Danne, James. A Theology of Grace. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954. ‡

Frame, John M. “Cornelius Van Til.” Handbook of Evangelical Theologians, edited by Walter Elwell, 156–67. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993. †

________. Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1995. †

________. Van Til: The Theologian. Phillipsburg, NJ: Harmony Press, 1976. Pamphlet. †

Geehan, E. R., ed. Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Theology of Cornelius Van Til. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971. Book, 498 pp.

Hoeksema, Herman. The Clark-Van Til Controversy. Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1995. ‡

Marston, George. The Voice of Authority. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Reformed, 1960; reprint, Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1978. †

North, Gary. Dominion and Common Grace. Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987. †

________., ed. Foundations of Christian Scholarship. Vallecito, CA: Ross House, 1976. †

Robbins, John W. “Cornelius Van Til,” The Trinity Review (May, June 1986). ‡

________. Cornelius Van Til: The Man and the Myth. Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1986. ‡

Rushdooney, Rousas J. By What Standard? Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1959. †

Smith, Ralph A. Paradox and Truth: Rethinking Van Til on the Trinity by Comparing Van Til, Plantinga, and Kuyper. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2002.

White, William Jr. Van Til, Defender of the Faith: An Authorized Biography. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1979.

Works by Van Til

A Christian Theory of Knowledge. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1969. Book, 390 pp.

A Survey of Christian Epistemology. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969. Book, 228 pp.

An Introduction to Systematic Theology. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974. Book, 262 pp.

Apologetics. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976. Book, 99 pp.

Bavinck the Theologian. Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Journal, 1961. Pamphlet, 17 pp.

Christ and the Jews, edited by Robert L. Reymond. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1968. Book, 99 pp.

Christian Theistic Ethics. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971. Book, 251 pp.

Christianity and Barthianism. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1962. Book, 450 pp.

Christianity and Idealism. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1955. Book, 139 pp.

Christianity in Conflict. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary, 1962–64. Syllabi, 169 pp.; 52 pp.

Christianity in Modern Theology. Phillipsburg, NJ: Lewis J. Grotenhuis, 1955. Book, 89 pp.

Christian-Theistic Evidences. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1975–76. Book, 148 pp.

Common Grace and the Gospel. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972. Book, 233 pp.

Essays on Christian Education. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971. Book, 207 pp.

Herman Dooyeweerd and Reformed Apologetics. Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary mimeo, 1974. Syllabus, 140 pp.

Is God Dead? Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1966. Pamphlet, 43 pp.

Notes on Roman Catholicism. Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary, 1965. Syllabus, n.p.

Paul at Athens. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1954. Pamphlet, 19 pp.

Psychology of Religion. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971. Book, 166 pp.

The Case for Calvinism. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1963. Book, 154 pp.

The Confession of 1967: Its Theological Background and Ecumenical Significance. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967. Book, 128 pp.

The Defense of Christianity and My Credo. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971. Book, 93 pp.

The Defense of the Faith. 3^rd rev. ed. Nutley, NJ and Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967. Book, 299 pp.

The God of Hope: Sermons and Addresses. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1978. Book, 334 pp.

The Great Debate Today. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1970. Book, 239 pp.

The Intellectual Challenge of the Gospel. Phillipsburg, NJ: Lewis J. Grotenhuis, 1953. Pamphlet, 40 pp.

The New Evangelicalism. Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary, 1960. Syllabus, 76 pp.

The New Hermeneutic. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974. Book, 230 pp.

The New Modernism. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972. Book, 496 pp.

The New Synthesis Theology of the Netherlands. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1975. Book, 100 pp.

The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967. Book, 156 pp.

The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971. Book, 242 pp.

The Sovereignty of Grace: An Appraisal of G. C. Berkouwer’s View of Dordt. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969. Book, 110 pp.

The Theology of James Daane. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1959. Book, 126 pp.

The Triumph of Grace: The Heidelberg Catechism. Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary, 1958. Syllabus, 159 pp.

The Works of Cornelius Van Til, 1895–1987, electronic ed. E. H. Sigward. New York: Labels Army Co., 1997.

Who Do You Say That I Am? Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1975. Book, 106 pp.

Why I Believe in God. Philadelphia: Committee on Christian Education, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1948. Pamphlet, 20 pp.

Works on Apologetics

Bahnsen, Greg L. Always Ready: Direction for Defending the Faith, edited by Robert R. Booth. Nacogdoches, TX: Covenant Media Foundation, 2000. †

Cairns, Alan. “Presuppositionalism.” Dictionary of Theological Terms, 275–77. Belfast; Greenville, SC: Ambassador-Emerald International, 1998. †

Frame, John M. Apologetics to the Glory of God: An Introduction. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1994. †

Gerstner, John, R. C. Sproul, and Arthur Lindsey. Classical Apologetics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984. ‡

Notaro, Thom. Van Til and the Use of Evidence. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980. †

Pratt, Richard L., Jr. Every Thought Captive: A Study Manual for the Defense of Christian Truth. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979. †

Miscellaneous Works

Clark, Gordon H. God and Evil: The Problem Solved. Hobbs, NM: The Trinity Foundation, 1961.

Reymond, Robert L., A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998.

Westminster Confession of Faith. Glasgow: Free Presbyterian Publications, 1995.

Notes

1. Van Til avers, “If the theistic position be defensible it is an impossibility for any human being to be neutral. This is quite readily admitted when a centrally religious question is discussed. We need only recall the words of Jesus, ‘He that is not against me is for me,’ to remind ourselves of this fact” (Cornelius Van Til, “Chapter 2: Historical Survey: A: Greek Epistemology: Its Starting Point 1: Neutrality,” A Survey of Christian Epistemology [Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969], n.p.). Most quotations from Van Til’s writings are from The Works of Cornelius Van Til, 1895–1987, electronic edited by E. H. Sigward (New York: Labels Army Co., 1997). Consequently, there are no page numbers. Where others have sited the passage, page numbers will be included. Otherwise, the chapter and section will be given. In addition, unless otherwise stated, the publication of Van Til’s books has been done by the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. ↩

2. William White, Jr., Van Til: Defender of the Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1979), 14. ↩

3. Van Til: Defender of the Faith. John Frame has written a review of White’s book in Westminster Theological Journal (Fall 1979): 198–203. Frame is quite critical of White’s “spirit of adulation… which detracts from the credibility of [his] book” (203). ↩

4. Frame has thoroughly examined Van Til’s writings in his book, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1995). He agrees with the heart of Van Til’s teaching, but he is not afraid to point out the areas where he disagrees. Greg Bahnsen, another disciple of Van Til, has written a more recent work, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1998). ↩

5. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 3. ↩

6. Ibid., 44. ↩

7. These comments come from John Frame’s foreword in Richard L. Pratt, Jr., Every Thought Captive: A Study Manual for the Defense of Christian Truth (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979), vii-viii. ↩

8. John W. Robbins, Cornelius Van Til: The Man and the Myth (Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1986), viii. See John Frame’s article in Foundations of Christian Scholarship, ed. Gary North (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1976), 295. ↩

9. Frame’s statement is quoted in Robbins, Cornelius Van Til, viii. ↩

10. Every Thought Captive, x-xi. Pratt has attempted to take the complex and often less than clear writings of this profound thinker and bring them down to the level of the average Christian. It is something of an apologetics training manual for high school students. ↩

11. “The One and Many Problem—The Contribution of Van Til,” Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Theology of Cornelius Van Til, ed. E. R. Geehan (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971), 348. ↩

12. “A Philosophy of History,” Jerusalem and Athens, 328. ↩

13. Robbins, Cornelius Van Til, viii. Robbins is the preeminent disciple of the late Gordon Clark. Clark and Van Til, who were both ministers in the OPC, clashed on a number of issues. Robbins has continued the battle against Van Til and his followers. The Trinity Foundation has also published some other articles against Van Til. See also John W. Robbins, “Cornelius Van Til,” The Trinity Review (May, June 1986); W. Gary Crampton, “Why I Am Not a Van Tillian,” The Trinity Review (September 1993); W. Gary Crampton, review of Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, by John M. Frame in The Trinity Review (July 1996). ↩

14. Robbins, Cornelius Van Til, 27. Many more stated like these could be sited. ↩

15. This statement comes from Robbins’ editor’s note in Gordon Clark, “Gordon Clark Speaks from the Grave,” The Trinity Review (November, December 1985): 1. ↩

16. Herman Hoeksema, The Clark-Van Til Controversy (Hobbs, NM: The Trinity Foundation, 1995), 37. ↩

17. For a list of these men, see Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 4–5. Some of these men were more opposed to Van Til than others were. Some just critiqued certain aspects of his thought while regarding other aspect of his work as being positive contributions; others rejected him entirely. ↩

18. Van Til uses this terminology in his booklet Why I Believe in God (Philadelphia: Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1948). It is a good summary of Van Til’s thought and apologetic method as one would practically express it to an unbeliever. ↩

19. Unless otherwise noted, this biographical material is taken from White, Van Til: Defender of the Faith. Other sources for biographical material include John Frame’s helpful summary, “Cornelius Van Til,” Handbook of Evangelical Theologians (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), 156–167; and Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1995), 3–47. ↩

20. White, 19. ↩

21. Frame, “Cornelius Van Til,” 158–59. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) was originally called the Presbyterian Church of America. It was forced to change its new due to the fact that the PCUSA was threatening to sue. This denomination is different from the Presbyterian Church in America, commonly know today as the PCA. ↩

22. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 28. ↩

23. The comments of John Frame nicely express this unique ability to balance theological acumen with spiritual fervor: “He was simply the most profound scholar I had ever known, and his very presence refuted the claims that secularism was the only intelligent option. And he was not only the most profound scholar I had known, but also one of the most distinctively Christian—refuting the dictum that the more scholarly a Christian is, the more he compromises his faith” (Ibid., 16). ↩

24. John Frame, for all his commendations, readily acknowledges that “Van Til is not perfect or infallible” (Robbins, Cornelius Van Til, 2). ↩

25. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 27. ↩

26. Ibid., 27. Van Til was “not ungenerous with his time. He preached often in the churches, spent hours talking to students—often on long walks around and around Machen Hall on the Westminster campus—and was regularly available to speak on college campuses” (28). White records the following about Van Til’s live of ministry for others: “Quietly and unobtrusively, he used to engage in hospital visitation for the purpose of reading Scripture to and praying for patients. He has been seen in public parks telling Bible stories to children. He particularly enjoys distributing the Scriptures and has supported the Gideons for many years” (White, 184). White also tells of Van Til’s often visits behind his house to the retirement home for Roman Catholic priests and nuns, where he would proclaim the gospel of Christ to them (193). ↩

27. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 27. ↩

28. Ibid., 16. ↩

29. Ibid., 29. Most of this section is from Frame’s discussion in Cornelius Van Til, 29–34. ↩

30. Ibid. ↩

31. White recounts a humorous story at a banquet at Westminster Seminary that reinforces this point: “‘There is a controversy today as to who is the greatest intellect of this segment of the twentieth century,’ the m.c. said. ‘Probably most thinking people would vote for the learned Dr. Einstein. Not me. I wish to put forth as my candidate for the honor, Dr. Cornelius Van Til.’ (Loud applause.) ‘My reason for doing so is this: Only eleven people in the world understand Albert Einstein… [sic] Nobody—but nobody in the world—understands Cornelius Van Til’” (181–82). ↩

32. Some of these same critiques also apply to Van Til’s writings. ↩

33. Frame sites Colin Brown’s comment that Van Til “spends a good deal of time reiterating points without really explaining them” (Philosophy and the Christian Faith [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1968], 249). He then comments: “In my mind, this does not detract from the depth or quality of his thought…. The profundity is there, but the reader must exercise some effort and some patience to understand it” (Cornelius Van Til, 32). ↩

34. Most of this material comes from John M. Frame, “Cornelius Van Til,” Handbook of Evangelical Theologians, ed. Walter Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 156–67. ↩

35. Kuyper “urged that all human thought be governed by a Christian worldview derived from Scripture” (Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 22). This might be the single most important point in Van Til’s thinking. ↩

36. Ibid., 35. ↩

37. Van Til’s review of his writings was in a letter which he wrote to John Vander Stelt in 1968. It is available on The Works of Cornelius Van Til, 1895–1987, electronic edited by E. H. Sigward (New York: Labels Army Co., 1997). ↩

38. Frame, “Cornelius Van Til,” 157. ↩

39. Ibid. ↩

40. Ibid. One example of this is the term “presupposition”—a term which Van Til uses well over 1000 times in his writings. This term, used in the philosophical sense, first began to be used by the idealists. ↩

41. Ibid. Idealism “identified the Creator with the creature and made both of them subject to one another within an impersonal universal structure”—something which Van Til unequivocally opposed. For Van Til, the “Creator-creature distinction” was of utmost importance. It is used over a hundred and seventy times in his writings. ↩

42. New York: Macmilliam, 1923; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1946. ↩

43. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 23. ↩

44. In Van Til’s A Survey of Christian Epistemology (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), he maintained, “It was not till later years that I received much help in my understanding of philosophy from D. H. Th. Vollenhoven and Herman Dooyeweerd” (iii). ↩

45. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 22. ↩

46. This statement comes from Eric D. Bristley, who wrote A Guide to the Writings of Cornelius Van Til forThe Works of Cornelius Van Til, 1895–1987, electronic edited by E. H. Sigward (New York: Labels Army Co., 1997). ↩

47. The basic content of this section comes from Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 25–27. ↩

48. Nearly all of Van Til’s books were published by Presbyterian and Reformed publishing company. For a fuller list of his writings, see the bibliography. For a complete list including his unpublished material, see The Works of Cornelius Van Til, 1895–1987, electronic edited by E. H. Sigward (New York: Labels Army Co., 1997). ↩

49. Because of their value in summarizing Van Til’s thought, they appear as Appendix A and Appendix B. ↩

50. Apologetics comes from the Greek word ἀπολογία, which means “defense.” Apologetics, then, in the Christian sense, is to give a defense for biblical Christianity, demonstrating that it is the only true explanation of reality. ↩

51. The primary arguments for the existence of God that classical apologists have used are: 1) the ontological argument, 2) the cosmological argument, 3) the teleological argument, and 4) the moral or anthropological argument. Each of these arguments, as it has normally been formulated, presupposes man’s autonomy rather than requiring man to denounce autonomy as a radically corrupt creature and acknowledge his dependence on the sovereign Creator. Van Til did not reject these arguments altogether. He did see value in them, when properly formulated. Here are Van Til’s own words: “Men ought to reason analogically from nature to nature’s God. Men ought, therefore, to use the cosmological argument analogically in order thus to conclude that God is the creator of this universe. Men ought to realize that nature could not exist as something independent. They ought to sense that if anything intelligible is to be said about nature, it must be in relation to the absolute system of truth, which is God. Hence, they ought at once to see nature as the creation of God. Men ought also to use the ontological argument analogically…. The better theologians of the church have constantly sensed the fact that the theistic argument must not be used univocally. They have sensed something of the fact that all the theistic arguments should really be taken together and reduced to the one argument of the possibility of human predication. Intelligent predication about anything with respect to nature or with respect to man were impossible unless God existed as the ultimate reference point of it all. God, as self-sufficient, as the One in whom the One and the Many are equally ultimate, is the One in whom the persons of the Trinity are interchangeably exhaustive, is the presupposition for the intelligent use of words with respect to anything in this universe, whether it be the trees of the garden or the angels in heaven.” An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed), 102. Van Til’s whole concerns is the difference between reasoning univocally and analogically. ↩

52. Evidential apologetics normally begins by trying to prove the truthfulness of the Scripture through history. They focus on the resurrection and miracles, such as the flood. If people can be persuaded that these things are true, then they will likely have to accept the rest of the Bible and be saved. ↩

53. E. R. Geehan, “Introduction,” Jerusalem and Athens, n.p. Alan Cairns in his article “Presuppositionalism,” in Dictionary of Theological Terms (Belfast; Greenville, SC: Ambassador-Emerald International, 1998) defines presuppositionalism as “the system of Christian apologetics pioneered by Cornelius Van Til of Westminster Seminary, based on the theological writings of Abraham Kuyper”(275). This is certainly not the opinion of some. For example, John Robbins not only denies that Van Til was the father of presuppositionalism, but he denies that he should even be considered in the camp. He comments: “Van Til does not reject the proofs for the existence of God, and he says so repeatedly in his books. This fact removes him from the presuppositionalist camp” (Robbins, Cornelius Van Til, 13). John Frame has dealt with this issue in Cornelius Van Til, 131–36. After discussing Van Til’s use of the term and its various meaning, he concludes, “If presuppositionalism denotes apriorism, Van Til is not a presuppositionalist…. Van Til may be called a presuppositionalist in another sense. Certainly he believed that God’s revelation has absolute authority (and thus a certain priority) over all human thought. We have seen that his concept of analogical knowledge requires us to ‘think God’s thoughts after him.’ We have seen that, in Van Til’s view, revelation must serve as our ultimate criterion of truth in all areas of life…. So we may or may not choose to call Van Til a presuppositionalist. But it is more important in either case to understand in what ways Van Til affirms, and in what ways he rejects, traditional apriorism” (135–36). ↩

54. Hoeksema, 55–59. ↩

55. Common Grace and the Gospel, 18. ↩

56. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 216. ↩

57. See Common Grace and the Gospel and Common Grace. ↩

58. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 217. ↩

59. Common Grace and the Gospel, 64. ↩

60. Ibid., 72 (emphasis his). ↩

61. Frame explains: “To be ‘controlled by our notion of the later’ is to say that God’s favor to someone is determined exclusively by that person’s foreordained final destiny. On this view, if a person is finally saved, then everything God does for him in history is favor, for in every event God is preparing the way for that person’s final salvation. But if the individual is finally lost, then everything God does for him during his life is wrath: in history God does nothing but prepare that person for his final condemnation” (Cornelius Van Til, 217). ↩

62. Common Grace and the Gospel, 72. ↩

63. Ibid., 146. Frame comments: “Van Til recommends that we follow Bavinck and resist choosing between supra- and infralapsarianism. Instead, he believes, we should keep the earlier and the later perspectives in balance” (Cornelius Van Til, 220). This tendency not to choose a position is characteristic of Van Til’s delight in theological tension. ↩

64. See the recent publication of Ralph Smith, Paradox and Truth: Rethinking Van Til on the Trinity by Van Til, Plantinga, and Kuyper (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2002), 41–59. ↩

65. An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 229 (emphasis added). ↩

66. Van Til makes this clear: “While we shun a poison the idea of the really contradictory, we embrace with passion the idea of the apparently contradictory” (Common Grace and the Gospel, 9). ↩

67. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 68. ↩

68. Robbins, Cornelius Van Til, 36. ↩

69. Ibid., 20–21. ↩

70. Ibid., 20. ↩

71. Frame explains: “[Van Til] does not say that the two assertions are contradictory. Are they in fact contradictory? That may seem obvious, but in fact it is not necessarily the case. Anybody who has studied logic knows that something can be both A and not-A if the two A’s have different senses. In this case, God can clearly be both one person and not-one person, if the meaning of “person” changes somewhat between the two uses. The traditional language, ‘one in essence, three in person’ (which, again, Van Til does not reject), brings out more clearly, of course, that the oneness and the threeness are in different respects. But the formulation ‘one person and three persons’ does not deny that difference of respect. It is simply an alternative formulation that makes a point somewhat different from the point of the traditional language” (Van Til, 68–69). ↩

72. Robbins, Cornelius Van Til, 20. ↩

73. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 69–70. ↩

74. An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 223?. ↩

75. The Defense of the Faith, 24. ↩

76. Common Grace, 7. ↩

77. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 97. ↩

78. Frame gives the following evidence that points in this direction: “For some time during the 1930s, Clark taught philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. I have heard from one source that he and Van Til sometimes took long walks together in Philadelphia discussing various issues. Edmund Clowney, for many years a professor and the first president of Westminster Seminary, told me he first came to Westminster as a student on Clark’s recommendation. Clark, then a professor of philosophy at Wheaton College, specifically wanted Clowney to get the benefit of studying with Cornelius Van Til. Other students of Clark at Wheaton also studied with Van Til at Westminster, notably Edward J. Carnell” (Ibid., 97). ↩

79. Ibid., 98. In response to the Complaint, Clark and four others wrote the Answer. The controversy was eventually turned over to the Generally Assembly, who selected a group of men to bring resolution to the issue. Their Report was critical of both the Complaint and the Answer. However, they seem to essentially side with the concerns of Van Til and the others (98–102). ↩

80. Hoeksema, viii. ↩

81. Common Grace and the Gospel, 9. ↩

82. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 98. ↩

83. Ibid. ↩

84. Ibid., 99. ↩

85. Ibid., 99. ↩

86. Ibid., 101. ↩

87. Ibid., 103. ↩

88. Westminster Confession of Faith (Glasgow: Free Presbyterian Publications, 1995), 28. ↩

89. Gordon H. Clark, God and Evil: The Problem Solved (Hobbs, NM: The Trinity Foundation, 1996). ↩

90. Ibid. Clark essentially “solves” the problem by asserting that responsibility must be understood, not so much in terms of what he can and cannot do, but in terms of the One to whom he must give an account. This is so because “responsibility is ultimately dependent on the power and authority of God” (45). Clark concludes his book with these comments: “Man is responsible because God calls him into account; man is responsible because the supreme power can punish him for disobedience. God, on the contrary, cannot be responsible for the plain reason that there is no power superior to him; no greater being can hold him accountable; no one can punish him; there is no one to whom God is responsible; there are no laws which he could disobey. The sinner, therefore, and not God, is responsible; the sinner alone is the author of sin. Man has no free will, for salvation is purely of grace; and God is sovereign” (54–55). For a similar attempt to show that divine sovereignty and human responsibility are in harmony, see Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 346–378, where he says, “Far from God’s sovereignty making human responsibility impossible, it is just because God is their absolute Sovereign that men are accountable to him” (375). ↩

91. Complaint, 12. ↩

92. Ibid., 13. ↩

93. Common Grace and the Gospel, 75. ↩

94. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 221. Frame comments: “The complainants feared that he [Clark] was hyper-Calvinistic, denying the legitimacy of a general gospel offer. In my estimation, the reply of the Answer was sufficient.” ↩

95. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 144. ↩

96. Introduction to Systematic Theology, 32. ↩

97. See Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 371–86. ↩

98. See Jerusalem and Athens for an example. ↩

99. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 381. ↩

100. Jerusalem and Athens, 81. ↩

101. Frame concludes his discussion with these insightful thoughts: “Overall, I see in Dooyeweerd what Van Til also sees: a tendency to put his presuppositions somewhat in the background in order to achieve better communication with non-Christians. In my opinion, he does this awkwardly at best; at worst, he endangers the fundamental Reformed conviction that all of life is to be governed by the Word of God. Nevertheless, like Van Til, I honor his intention, which is to bring the scriptural vision to bear upon all human beings in every aspect of life” (Cornelius Van Til, 386). ↩

102. This material comes from Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 389–91. ↩

103. Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1998). The work is a 764-page systematic presentation of all Van Til contributed to the field of apologetics. ↩

104. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 392. ↩

105. By What Standard? (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1958). ↩

106. Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1998). ↩

107. Frame, Cornelius Van Til, 393. ↩

108. He spoke recently (October 25, 2003) at a conference on ministerial training at Steve Wilkins’s church. ↩

109. See http://www.auburnavenue.org/mission.html for information on the upcoming conference at Steve Wilkins’s church. The conference title is “Reformed Catholicity,” and the speakers listed are John Armstrong, Dr. John Frame, Steve Wilkins, and Doug Wilson.   ↩

110. “My Credo” is the first essay in Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Theology of Cornelius Van Til, ed. E. R. Geehan (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971). ↩

111. 1 A chapter by this title is found in G. C. Berkouwer’s Het Probleem der Schriftkritiek (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1938). ↩

112. 2 G. C. Berkouwer, op. cit., p. 33. ↩

113. B. B. Warfield, Studies in Tertullian and Augustine (New York: Oxford, 1930), p. 107. ↩

114. Early Latin Theology, trans. and ed. by S. L. Greenslade, “The Library of Christian Classics,” Vol. 5, gen. eds., J. Baillie, J. T. McNeill, H. P. Van Dusen (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1956), p. 36. Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics, 7. ↩

115. Ibid., p. 40. ↩

116. Ibid., p. 41. ↩

117. Ibid., p. 43. ↩

118. B. B. Warfield, op. cit., pp. 19–20. ↩

119. B. B. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1956), pp. 190–191. ↩

120. Ibid., p. 195. ↩

121. Ibid., p. 198. ↩

122. Ibid., p. 251. ↩

123. Stuart Cornelius Hackett, The Resurrection of Theism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1957), pp. 174–175. ↩

124. Realm of Ends, p. 397. ↩

125.   ↩

126. God at Work, New York, 1933, p. 169. ↩

127. ↩

128. God or Man, New York, 1933, p. 243. ↩