Cornelius Van Til,
The Defense of the Faith, 1
st
ed. 1955, 4
th ed., K. Scott Oliphint editor. P&R Publishers, 2008.
I haven’t done a book review in a while. It’s not that I
haven’t been reading. It’s just that I haven’t read much that merited me to
share my thoughts. I’m still not sure that Van Til’s book
The Defense of theFaith meets that qualification, but alas here I am anyways.
Van Til is known as the father of
presuppositional apologetics.
He argues that his method is THE reformed apologetic that is most consistent
with Scripture and Calvin himself. A bit of backstory: Van Til left Calvin
College perhaps in large part due to controversy stirred up with his
apologetical method. He then took up a tenure at Westminster Theological
Seminary and flourished. His ardent students who have followed in his footsteps
are the late Greg Bahnsen and John Frame.
I would be lying if I told you that this book was great. I’m
not a philosopher and my theological chops are not all that sharp as a result. My area of expertise is NT studies, biblical theology, and the NT's use of the OT.
Apologetically, my area of “expertise” would be biblical studies related. I can
handle Ehrman. I don’t know what to do with Kant. Be that as it may, Van Til
laid out quite eloquently (read: philosophical jargon that flew high over my
head) his methodology for a consistently reformed apologetic. It goes something
like this.
First, there can be no neutral ground between believers and
non-believers. We all interpret nature, being, and knowledge based on our
presuppositions for good or for bad. However, since we are all created and bear the image of God because of God’s common grace, there is a sense of divinity [sensus
divinitatis because Latin makes it better!] wherein we all have some
knowledge of God. The difference between the believer and the unbeliever is
that the sinner suppresses that truth (Rom. 1:18ff.) and opts to believe in
autonomy rather than acknowledge subservience to the Creator. What this looks
like then is that a Christian can offer all the proof or evidence in the world to an
unbeliever. But the unbeliever will simply interpret it based on his presupposition of autonomy. The error, among others as Van Til points out, is
that the non-believer has no way to account for fact or logic so as to interpret nature
or reality or being and so on. That is not to say that the unbeliever cannot
know something. However, they can only know because they have access to the only way we can know
anything – the sensus divinitatis. But because they deny their knowledge
of God and suppress it, they cannot account for how they know anything. This makes the
non-believer function in the realm of both a rational and irrational epistemology.
They can rationally use logic to know something, but they believe everything is left to
chance which can only lead to irrationality (what they know can just as simply change). However, the believer can account
for knowledge because not only does he acknowledge the sensus divinitatis,
but God has determined everything in the counsel of his will and thus knows everything. Only that which he ordained can happen. Thus God has an absolute knowledge. There is no chance
with God. And God has revealed himself partly in the sensus divinitatis. Therefore knowledge is accessible and accountable for believers. When
non-Christians know something and declare they know something, they are
actually borrowing from the Christian worldview or tapping into the truth of
God that they so deeply try to suppress.Therefore, the only way to account for anything, much less knowledge or reality or facts, is through the Christian (and reformed) worldview. Or to put it another way, Bahnsen said, "[T]he proof of the Christian God is the impossibility of the contrary."
Even as I type this out, I feel like I do not
completely understand or have the ability to explain Van Til. I almost
certainly need to re-read it, and sooner the better.
However, I have encountered modern presuppositional apologists and have been
quite impressed with their argumentation. Perhaps the best example of this
method in action is Greg Bahnsen’s debate against Gordon Stein the atheist. He totally
destroys him. It is definitely worth the listen.
As for the book, Van Til is dealing with a
lot of issues. But more than anything, he is not just arguing for a methodology,
he is arguing, or better defending his methodology from his peers who have completely trashed him.
It got quite tiresome having to read how so-and-so got it wrong or misquoted or
misrepresented or misunderstood his views. Conversely, I found the
philosophical approach and the presuppositional method quite engaging. I have
taught a low level form of it in my 10th grade class the past 2
years. But I still teach a classical approach as well. But Van Til does an
extraordinary job explaining why his method is thoroughly reformed and thus
biblical. I want/need to read more by others who can speak to me on my level.
With that in mind, I can’t say at all why
this book was in my High School library! But I am delighted it was. But
I can only give it one thumb up since it is a read beyond me. Perhaps this just
means I need to improve my philosophy and metaphysical theology more.
