Hello, and welcome to the Giants of the Faith podcast. My name is Robert Daniels and I'm the host of this show. This is episode 78 and today we'll be focused on the Dutch and American theologian Cornelius Van Til.
Cornelius Van Til was born on May 3, 1895, in Grootegast, a small town in the Netherlands. Cornelius was the sixth child in his family, which eventually grew to 9 children - eight boys and one girl. Van Til's parents were Ite and Klasina. They were devout Christians who instilled in him a strong Christian faith and worldview from a young age. Cornelius was raised in the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland tradition aka the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands.
The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands had broken away from the state church - The Dutch Reformed Church - and was the second largest Protestant denomination in the country at the time. As Dutch non-conformists, the Van Til family was subject to persecution and discrimination. For a time, members of their church were not allowed to even meet in actual church buildings and were forced to meet in barns and the like. One of the leading lights of their church was Abraham Kuyper, who for a time was Prime Minister in the Netherlands and might be featured in a future episode. Eventually, a long process of reunification between the Reformed Churches and the Dutch Reformed Church began in 1962 and was formally concluded in 2004.
As a child, Van Til and his brothers learned the Heidelberg Catechism and attended Christian school. The Netherlands, as well as the United States and the rest of Europe, was in the throes of the Long Depression when Cornelius was a young boy. Times were tough for his family. The family sacrificed for the brothers' education. Van Til later remembered how the family ate beans instead of meat in order to pay the tuition. After trying their luck as peat farmers, and when Cornelius was about 10 years old in 1905, it was decided that they should make the move to America in search of economic opportunity. The family ended up in Highland, Indiana, and became dairy farmers.
After a few years the family moved to Munster, Indiana. It was in Munster that Cornelius met Rena Klooster, whom he would later marry. In 1917 or 18 Van Til enrolled in Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. At Calvin Van Til was introduced to Abraham Kuyper's writings and became convinced that he should enter the ministry. So he enrolled in the Calvin Seminary. After a year or so he was given the opportunity to attend the Princeton Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. He wrestled with what direction to take, but eventually the opportunity to study under men like Gerhardus Vos, Casper Wister Hodge and J. Gresham Machen was too tempting. So he enrolled at Princeton and obtained his doctorate in 1927.
But he still felt that pull to ministry so he took a position as pastor at a church in Spring Lake, Michigan. He only lasted a year in Spring Lake before Princeton offered him the chance to teach Apologetics in 1928. So he took a one-year sabbatical and returned to Princeton to teach. When the year was up Princeton offered him a full-time position but Van Til returned to his congregation.
Now is a good time to talk about Princeton Theological Seminary. First, the seminary is not a part of the famous Princeton University. It is nearby, and it was started with the blessing of the school's leaders, but it is a separate entity and has always been a Presbyterian institution. Today it is affiliated with the PCUSA denomination - a shockingly liberal church. In the 1920's and 30's the Presbyterian churches in America were in the midst of what is known as the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. Basically, there was a schism between liberal churches and institutions and conservative ones. Princeton became increasingly liberal and hostile to conservative traditional Christianity. And when I say liberal, of course I'm referring to the church's positions on the authority and accuracy of scripture, the possibility of miracles, the virgin birth, and much more.
Van Til's return to Spring Lake coincided with a major reorganization at Princeton. Several prominent academics resigned from the school to form a new, more conservative seminary. During Van Til's time at the school he had mostly stayed out of the controversy, despite urgings from his mentor Gerhardus Vos to take a stand.
When Vos, Oswald Allis, J. Gresham Machen, and others broke away from Princeton they wanted to bring Van Til with them. The newly formed Westminster Theological Seminary needed an apologetics instructor and Van Til would have been just the man. Oswald Allis traveled to Van Til's home in Spring Lake to offer the position - but Van Til turned him down. So then Machen and Ned Stonehouse made the trek, but Van Til turned them down, too. By the end of 1929, though, Van Til's resistance was worn away and he agreed to join the new seminary. He taught at Westminster for the next 51 years of his life.
His specialty was apologetics and he developed a strand of apologetic known as presuppositional. Presuppositional apologetics is a Biblical approach - meaning the Bible is at the center of it. It is used to prove that the Christian faith is true, and logical, and that materialists and others must borrow from Christian theism in order to function at all. There are other apologetic approaches like Thomistic (logic based) and Evidential (archaeological and scientific) but presuppositional stands on the scripture. Van Til argued that all reasoning ultimately relies on presuppositions, and that the Christian worldview, grounded in the authority of Scripture, provides the only coherent basis for knowledge and rationality.
To provide a more thorough description of presuppositional apologetics I'm going to turn to gotquestions.org. This is elevenlabs.io reading off got questions' answer to "what is presuppositional apologetics."
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Back to Van Til. He also authored numerous books and articles, including "The Defense of the Faith," "Introduction to Systematic Theology," and "Christian Apologetics." These works remain influential in Christian theology and apologetics, continuing to shape the thinking of scholars and apologists today.
He also engaged with modern philosophical thought, including the ideas of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and others, from a Reformed perspective. He sought to demonstrate the superiority of the Christian worldview over competing philosophical systems, arguing that only Christianity provides a coherent basis for understanding reality.
One of those moderns Van Til engaged was Karl Barth, who you might have heard featured on a recent bonus episode. Van Til and Barth had different perspectives on the nature of divine revelation. Van Til, influenced by the Reformed tradition, emphasized the necessity of Scripture as the authoritative revelation of God. He argued for the self-attesting authority of Scripture, viewing it as the foundation for all knowledge and rationality. In contrast, Barth emphasized the primacy of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, which he saw as the true Word of God. Barth's emphasis on Christ as the revelation of God led him to adopt a more dynamic view of Scripture as a witness to revelation rather than as revelation itself.
Van Til held to a high view of Scripture as the infallible and inerrant Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit and without error in all that it affirms. He defended the authority and reliability of Scripture against challenges from secular philosophy and modernism. Barth, while affirming the authority of Scripture, approached it with a more critical stance, acknowledging the human limitations and historical context of biblical writings. Barth's approach to Scripture allowed for a more nuanced understanding of its inspiration and authority.
Van Til and Barth also differed in their understanding of the doctrine of election. Van Til, in line with the Reformed tradition, emphasized the sovereignty of God in salvation and the unconditional nature of divine election. He viewed election as rooted in God's eternal decree and grounded in his own glory. Barth, while affirming the sovereignty of God, presented a more dialectical view of election, emphasizing God's freedom and grace in choosing humanity in Jesus Christ. Barth's theology of election focused on God's reconciling work in Christ rather than on predestination as traditionally understood in Reformed theology.
Van Til published three books to lay out his differences with Barth; The New Modernism: An Appraisal of the Theology of Barth and Brunner in 1946, Christianity and Barthianism in 1962, and Karl Barth and Evangelicalism in 1964.
Cornelius' faith was not merely academic and he was not ashamed of the gospel. He witnessed far and wide - whether while walking in his neighborhood or when talking to strangers at the gas station. He maintained a list of people that he prayed for daily - begging God to bring them to the light. He was even known to preach on the streets of Philadelphia.
Cornelius Van Til is one of the most influential Reformed Americans of the 20th century. He was mentor and friend to many men - the likes of Francis Schaeffer and Greg Bahnsen and others. Agree with him or not, no one had a harsh word to say of him. He died at home in Philadelphia on April 17, 1987 at age 91 after a months-long battle with illness.
Thanks very much for listening. Until next time, God bless.
RESOURCES
New Netherlands Institute: https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/history-and-heritage/dutch_americans/cornelius-van-til
Banner of Truth: https://banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2001/cornelius-van-til/
Got Questions? https://www.gotquestions.org/presuppositional-apologetics.html
Table Talk Magazine: https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/christianity-and-van-tillianism-2019-08/
