Christianity and Van Tillianism

Christianity
and Van Tillianism

Keith Mathison

Introduction
Throughout his ministry, Dr. R.C. Sproul was a friendly critic of the
presuppositionalism of Cornelius Van Til. When I say that Dr. Sproul was a “friendly” critic,
I mean he recognized that Van Til and those who consider themselves “Van Tillian” in their
approach to apologetics, or the defense of the faith, are brothers in Christ. As a young man,
Dr. Sproul spent time with Van Til, and afterward he always said that Van Til was a godly
Christian man. Many others have said the same about Van Til, and there is no reason to
doubt their evaluations. However, although he admired Van Til’s Christian character, Dr.
Sproul was critical of his teaching at certain points. He believed that Van Til’s doctrine
contained some serious misunderstandings and errors.1 Dr. Sproul was surely correct in his
assessment of Van Til’s character, and I believe he was also correct in his attempt to note
the flaws in Van Til’s thought. This paper is an attempt to carry on Dr. Sproul’s legacy of
“friendly criticism” of Van Til’s views.
But why is it necessary to continue such criticism? Many Christians find the ongoing
debate over Van Til and his presuppositionalism tiresome, if not pointless. This is
This paper was originally published at Tabletalk online on August 21, 2019. It has been slightly edited for this
format.

1 These are dealt with most thoroughly by him in R.C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur
Lindsley, Classical Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 183–338.

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understandable. The debate has continued for around seventy years, and it seems as if few
on either side have been persuaded. If neither side can be persuaded, and if those on both
sides of the debate consider those on the other side to be brothers in Christ, why not simply
agree to disagree and move on? Such an approach is tempting, but it fails to do justice to
the importance of the issues. In fact, it fails to do justice to Van Til himself. Van Til believed
that what he was teaching was of the utmost importance, and he dedicated his entire life to
it. We show respect to his theological labors by taking them seriously and considering them
carefully. Van Til himself said that the soundness of his view should be “judged on its
merits,” and that is what I have sought to do in this article.2 Another reason why the
discussion and debate must continue is the fact that Van Til’s thought has had a profound
influence on Reformed churches in the United States and around the world. If there are
significant errors in his thought, then the effects of those errors will be magnified due to his
influence.
Continued critical reflection on the teaching of Cornelius Van Til is, therefore, fully
justified, but there are several obstacles to such an endeavor that must be mentioned
briefly before proceeding. In the first place, the concepts Van Til discusses are inherently
complex. He is dealing with profound issues in metaphysics, epistemology, systematic
theology, and more. Compounding such problems, however, is Van Til’s unique writing
style. Mark Garcia, himself a proponent of Van Til’s thought, speaks of Van Til’s “often
impenetrable and painful prose.”3 In addition to the painful prose, Van Til often gives
2 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 23–24. I will be referencing Van Til’s works by title and
page number only. Almost all of his works are published by P&R Publishing Company.

3 Mark A. Garcia, preface to In Defense of the Eschaton: Essays in Reformed Apologetics, by William
Dennison, ed. James Douglas Baird (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2015), xv.

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theological and philosophical terms his own unique definitions. Garcia speaks of this
“sometimes maddening revisionist use of vocabulary.”4
Another factor that increases the difficulty of understanding Van Til’s writing is
related to the nature of his philosophical training. It occurred against the backdrop of
philosophical idealism. Van Til desired to address those who had been educated against the
same philosophical backdrop. He sought to speak their language, as it were, so he often
borrowed and adapted Kantian and idealist terminology (e.g., “limiting concept,” “concrete
universal”).5 The problem is that this terminology is not familiar to most late twentieth-
and early twenty-first-century Christians, making the interpretation of Van Til’s work more
difficult. We will come back to this issue presently.
The nature of Van Til’s writing style and his idiosyncratic use of obscure
philosophical terminology are not the only obstacles to a careful and critical evaluation of
his thought. Other obstacles have arisen as a result of the ongoing debate over Van Til’s
teaching. Some Van Tillians, for example, think that Van Til’s critics have never truly
understood Van Til. John Frame, for example, says that Van Til’s debunkers “always seem
to miss the obvious.”6 To the extent that this is true, it means that his defenders have had to
spend a large amount of time correcting misinterpretations.7
4 Garcia, preface to In Defense of the Eschaton, xv.

5 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 43. See also his footnote 2 on page 43.

6 John Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 1995), 5.

7 At Third Millennium ministries, for example, Richard Pratt has published a two-part article titled
“Common Misunderstandings of Van Til’s Apologetic” here and here.

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It is, of course, possible to misinterpret and misunderstand Van Til, and this is true
not only among critics. There are differences of opinion on how to interpret and apply his
thought even among Van Tillians.8 This should not be a surprise. There are disagreements
about how to interpret almost every significant theologian in the history of the church, and
Van Til is no exception. I realize that I, too, may misunderstand one or more aspects of Van
Til’s thought, but I have made every attempt to read him not only critically, but also
carefully and charitably. If I have misunderstood or misrepresented Van Til at any point in
the following critique, I welcome correction.
Another formidable obstacle to critical reflection on Van Til’s thought is the extreme
skeptical wariness some Reformed Christians have about considering any criticisms of Van
Til. Van Til believed and taught that his view is the only approach to philosophy and
apologetics that is consistently Christian and Reformed, and he argued that those who
disagree hold views that are compromises with pagan, Roman Catholic, or Arminian
thought.9 Such claims are not uncommon in the academic and popular writings of Van Til’s
defenders as well.10 These claims have sometimes had two closely related effects. First,
they can lead, and have led, some of Van Til’s followers to consider any criticism of his
8 There are nuanced differences and disagreements, for example, among contemporary Van Tillians
such as John Frame, K. Scott Oliphint, and the late Greg Bahnsen. Compare Frame’s Cornelius Van Til: An
Analysis of His Thought, Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetics: Readings & Analysis (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R,
1998), and K. Scott Oliphint, Covenantal Apologetics (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2013). John Muether notes that
Van Til’s followers have “created competing versions of the Reformed apologist.” See Muether, Cornelius Van
Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2008), 15.

9 Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 100, 143, 159; Survey of Christian Epistemology, 67; Introduction to
Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 100, 306–8.

10 See Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, 10–11; Bahnsen, Presuppositional
Apologetics: Stated and Defended(Powder Springs, Ga.: American Vision, 2008), 4. In one place Bahnsen
argues that views other than Van Tillian presuppositionalism are immoral attempts to remain neutral
(Bahnsen, Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith [Atlanta: American Vision, 1996], 7–90).

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teaching as arising from tainted, and therefore untrustworthy, sources. Second, they can
lead, and have led, some of Van Til’s followers to treat him almost as if he were beyond
criticism.11 When such an attitude is taken, serious and critical reflection is almost
guaranteed to be ruled out.
Although there are obstacles, the issues that Cornelius Van Til addressed are
enormously important in Christian theology. A prayerful and careful study of his approach
is an opportunity to think through them in an effort to come to a more consistently biblical
view. Such an effort is inherently valuable regardless of one’s evaluation of Van Til’s
teachings. I trust that both proponents and opponents of Van Til’s teachings share the goal
of conforming their thinking and teaching to Scripture. We are all seeking to be faithful
followers of Jesus Christ. My hope is that those readers who sympathize with Van Til’s
teaching can give the same benefit of the doubt to his critics.
A final introductory thought. Those readers who are already inclined to agree with
criticism of Van Til’s teachings may find themselves tempted to respond with an uncritical
knee-jerk “Amen!” to what I say here. Those readers who are already inclined to agree with
Van Til’s teachings may find themselves tempted to respond with an uncritical knee-jerk
“Anathema!” to what I say here. Uncritical, knee-jerk responses, however, are not helpful
when considering difficult and complex theological topics. Regardless of where any of us
already stands on this debate, we should hear and consider both sides if we have not
already done so (Prov. 18:17). Van Til was not infallible, but neither am I. Neither his
11 Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, 47. Frame helpfully explains that this is
because Van Til was not merely a thinker but also a “movement leader,” and criticism of “movement leaders is
not well-received by those in the movement” (pp. 8–14).

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defenders nor his critics are infallible. God alone is infallible. It is imperative that we
examine the merits of Van Til’s teaching as well as the merits of the arguments against it,
rather than being mindless cheerleaders for one side or the other.12
A Summary Overview of Van Til’s Thought
Cornelius Van Til was born in the Netherlands on May 3, 1895, and his family
emigrated to the United States when he was ten years old. He was raised in the Christian
Reformed Church and attended Calvin College and Calvin Seminary before transferring to
Princeton Seminary. When the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was founded by J. Gresham
Machen and others in 1936, Van Til became a member of the new denomination and served
as a minister there for the remainder of his life. He also taught full time at Westminster
Seminary from 1929 until 1972. He published his first book in 1946 and would go on to
write some thirty books, numerous pamphlets, and well over two hundred articles and
book reviews.13 He died in 1987, having established himself as one of the most influential
American Reformed theologians of the twentieth century.14
As this all-too-brief summary indicates, we cannot begin to understand Cornelius
Van Til unless we realize that he was first and foremost a Christian in the Reformed
tradition. He devoted his life to propagating and defending Reformed theology in the
12 I would encourage all who are involved in the debate over Van Til’s teaching to take the time to
read John Newton’s “Letter on Controversy” available online here.

13 Based on the contents listed in the CD-ROM version of The Works of Cornelius Van Til, 1895–1987,
ed. Eric Sigward.

14 For an exceptional biography, see John Muether, Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and
Churchman (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2008).

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service of the church of Jesus Christ.15 Van Til was not interested in the defense of any sort
of “mere Christianity.”16 With B.B. Warfield, he agreed that “Calvinism is just religion in its
purity,” and it was that religion he intended to defend.17 His goal was to develop an
apologetic methodology that would be consistent with Reformed theology.18 He believed
that all other apologetic methodologies lacked such consistency.19
As a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Van Til was required to
subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith. His commitment to confessional
Reformed theology is evident throughout his works, but particularly important for our
purposes is Van Til’s doctrine of God. When he discusses the nature of God, Van Til affirms
the attributes found in chapter 2 of the Westminster Confession.20 He teaches, for example,
the simplicity,21 pure actuality,22 aseity,23 immutability,24 and infinity25 of God. He also
upholds the doctrine of the Trinity found in the Reformed confessions and in the Nicene
15 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 23. As we will see, Van Til was particularly influenced by
the Dutch Reformed tradition. Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, and Herman Dooyeweerd were significant
influences on his theology, philosophy, and apologetics.

16 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 43.

17 See B.B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R), 1:389.

18 Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 86, 124; The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 28–29, 43.

19 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 92, 94, 100.

20 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 265–66; The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 30–
31.

21 Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 25; Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 323, 341.

22 Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 28; Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 272.

23 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 327–33.

24 Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 24; Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 333.

25 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 335.
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Creed,26 as well as the doctrine of Christ found in the Reformed confessions and the
Definition of Chalcedon.27 In short, Van Til affirms classic Christian Trinitarian theism.
Van Til’s doctrine of God is important because of his argument that the ontological
Trinity is “foundational to everything else as a principle of explanation.”28 This God is “the
only possible presupposition for the possibility of predication.”29 All human knowledge
“rests upon the ontological Trinity as its presupposition.”30 Van Til is talking not only about
religious knowledge. He explains, “True scientific certainty, no less than true religious
certainty, must be based upon the presupposition of the ontological trinity.”31 The
ontological Trinity is the final reference point required for interpreting all phenomena.32 In
short, classical Trinitarian theism “is the foundation of everything else that we hold dear.”33
Why is the ontological Trinity the foundation for the correct interpretation of all facts?
Because our triune God decreed all facts and created all facts and providentially controls all
facts.34

27 Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 47.

28 Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge, 12.


30 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 59. One can readily see that Van Til shares the
concern with epistemology that became the dominant philosophical issue following the work of Descartes.

31 Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, 50.



34 See Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 27.
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The distinction between this God and the creation is a crucial element in Van Til’s
thought. This idea is fundamental to any truly Christian metaphysics. All non-Christian
worldviews, according to Van Til, blur or deny the Creator-creature distinction.35 Even
professing Christian views often fail to maintain this distinction as they should. Van Til
argues, for example, that Roman Catholicism fails to teach the Creator-creature distinction,
holding instead to the idea of “being in general.”36 He repeatedly finds fault with Thomas
Aquinas on precisely this point, claiming that Aquinas borrowed the Aristotelian doctrine
of the analogy of being.37 According to Van Til, Aquinas “reduces the Creator-creature
distinction to something that is consistent with the idea of God and the cosmos as involved
in a chain of being, with varying degrees of intensity.”38
Among other things, understanding the Creator-creature distinction helps us
understand the relationship between God’s knowledge and ours. Van Til’s explanation of
God’s knowledge is fairly typical of classic Reformed theology.39 God is omniscient, and His
knowledge of Himself and of all things is comprehensive. Man, on the other hand, even in
his unfallen state, is a finite creature, so his knowledge is limited and partial. Man’s
knowledge does not have to be comprehensive, however, in order to be true.40 In order for
35 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 237; Christian Apologetics, 30.


37 Van Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology, 60.

38 Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought, 91; see also Christian Apologetics, 31; Survey of
Christian Epistemology, 60; Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 200.

39 Van Til even uses the Reformed scholastic distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology.
See Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 324.

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man’s knowledge of anything to be true, it must correspond to God’s knowledge.41 As Van
Til explains, “Our ideas must correspond to God’s ideas.”42 Human knowledge, therefore, is
“analogical.”43 Ultimately, man’s knowledge depends on divine knowledge.44 This means
that “no fact in the world can be interpreted truly except it be seen as created by
God.”45 This is what it means to say that all human knowledge “rests upon the ontological
Trinity as its presupposition.”46
What was the effect of the fall on man’s knowledge? According to Van Til, man’s
mind has been corrupted, but “man’s constitution as a rational and moral being
has not been destroyed.”47 The laws of logic, including the law of noncontradiction, being
an expression of the nature of God, were not themselves destroyed, but “man’s ability to
use them rightly was weakened.”48 In other words, “sin did not destroy any of the powers
that God gave man at the beginning when he endowed him with his image.”49 If man had

42 Van Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology, 3. This comment by Van Til raises an important question.
Does Van Til believe that our knowledge is knowledge of things themselves, or is it knowledge of ideas? The
question is significant, because if our knowledge is knowledge only of the ideas of things, how do we ever
know whether our ideas correspond to the things themselves (knowledge of which we do not have if our
knowledge is only of our ideas)?

43 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 31. It is important to observe that Van Til
does not use the word analogical in the same way it was used by medieval and Reformed scholastics.




47 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 133, 147. This element of Van Til’s thought
seems to be overlooked quite often, not only by critics, but also by some proponents.

48 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 32, 164.

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lost these natural powers, then he would no longer be responsible.50 Fallen human beings,
therefore, “have good powers of perception, good powers of reasoning, etc.,” but Van Til
insists that Christians must oppose those who say that fallen human reason “can and does
function normally or near to normally even after the fall.”51
This brings us to one of the most important elements of Van Til’s thought, which is
his doctrine of the antithesis between believers and unbelievers.52 Since the fall, there are
two classes of men: covenant keepers and covenant breakers.53 No one is
neutral.54 Covenant breakers do not presuppose the ontological Trinity in their thinking,
and thus they are blind with regard to the truth.55 The non-Christian sees all of reality
through the lens of his own false worldview. Van Til uses the analogy of colored glasses to
illustrate the point, saying, “The sinner has cemented colored glasses to his eyes, which he
cannot remove.”56 These colored glasses distort the non-Christian’s view of everything he
sees. This means he sees nothing correctly and therefore knows nothing correctly. This

51 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 287, 289.

52 Van Til built on the thought of Abraham Kuyper here. A concise presentation of Kuyper’s view of
the antithesis may be found in the first of his six lectures on Calvinism delivered at Princeton in 1898. See
Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931), 9–40. When reading this lecture, it
is easy to see the seeds of much that bore abundant fruit in the thought of Van Til. Kuyper argues that
Christianity as a worldview is at war with modernism as a worldview and that apologetics must be
reconceived such that “principle must be arrayed against principle” (p. 11). The Christian principle is found in
Calvinism, and Calvinism, therefore, is the only defense against modernism.




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antithesis is seen most clearly in fallen man’s suppression of the knowledge of God. The
wicked suppression of the knowledge of God affects man’s knowledge of everything.
Van Til emphasizes this point throughout his writings, saying that fallen man lacks
true knowledge of anything. He is “blind with respect to the truth wherever the truth
appears.”57 Also, no man “can have any true knowledge of anything except through the
wisdom of Christ,” and it is anti-Christian to say otherwise.58 Fallen man “cannot, unless the
scales be removed from his eyes, know anything truly about God or about anything
else.”59 Because everything is created by God, “Not one single fact in this universe can be
known truly by man without the existence of God.”60
Van Til argues that even Calvin did not go far enough on this point. Calvin did not
make it clear that “the natural man is as blind as a mole with respect to natural things as
well as with respect to spiritual things.”61 Van Til explains: “Unless we maintain that the
natural man does not know the flowers truly, we cannot logically maintain that he does not
know God truly. All knowledge is interrelated.”62 This is why, according to Van Til, the
Reformed Christian must reject all traditional forms of natural theology.63





62 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 64. Van Til, especially in his earlier writings,
often makes these kinds of absolute statements with little or no qualification. Taken by themselves, these
statements can give the reader the impression that Van Til thinks the non-Christian cannot look out his
window and know that the tree he sees is a tree. However, as we will see below, a closer reading of Van Til,
reveals that he does qualify these absolute statements.

63 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 90–91. Natural theology as traditionally
understood is “the knowledge of God that is available to reason through the revelation of God in the natural
12
In order to avoid misunderstanding, Van Til’s statements regarding the ethical
antithesis between the believer and the unbeliever must be read in conjunction with what
he says about common grace. Van Til explains: “The common grace problem deals with this
question: What do entities which will one day be wholly different from one another have in
common before that final stage of separation is reached?”64 In other words, the antithesis
reaches its full expression only after the final judgment. Until the final day, God’s common
grace restrains the full expression of the antithesis. This means that the sinner is not as bad
as he could be.65 Just as there is the remnant of the “old man” in the believer, there is
similarly an “old man” in the sinner in the sense that the image of God in the sinner is not
annihilated.66
Non-Christians, therefore, can and do have knowledge. As Van Til explains: “We are
well aware of the fact that non-Christians have a great deal of knowledge about this world
that is true as far as it goes. That is, there is a sense in which we can and must allow for the
value of the knowledge of non-Christians.”67 There are, in fact, “elements of truth” even in
non-Christian systems of thought.68 Christians can, therefore, “make formal use of the
order” (Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 2nd ed. [Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2017], 362). Van Til offers his own version of “natural theology” in his chapter “Nature and
Scripture” in Ned Stonehouse and Paul Woolley, eds., The Infallible Word, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R,
2002).



66 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 258; Common Grace and the Gospel, 92.


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categories of thought discovered by Aristotle or any other thinker.”69 Both believers and
nonbelievers can contribute to science.70 This is possible because sinners are not consistent
with their epistemological principles. They can “discover that, which for the matter of it, is
true and usable for the Christian.”71 This is important because the Bible is not “a textbook
on science.”72 It doesn’t tell us every detail about everything in God’s created world. This is
why believers are not, by virtue of being believers, transformed into expert scientists: “To
become an expert botanist or physicist one must study botany or physics.”73
It is clear, then, that Van Til does not think unbelievers have no knowledge at all. But
how can his statements to that effect be reconciled with the seemingly absolute statements
found elsewhere in his writings? Van Til rejects the idea that we can explain this by
speaking of different degrees of knowledge.74 Instead, he considers the problem by
speaking of different points of view.75 From an ultimate point of a view, one that is
epistemologically fully self-conscious and consistent with its false principles, the
unbeliever can know nothing truly.76 From another point of view, one that is not fully self-
conscious or consistent, the unbeliever can and does know many things. As Van Til







76 Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, 86, 92.
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explains, “It is of these systems of their own interpretation that we speak when we say that
men are as wrong in their interpretation of trees as in their interpretation of
God.”77 Although Van Til doesn’t say it in this way, it seems that the difference may be
rooted in the distinction between the unbeliever’s knowledge of things in the world (which
can be true “as far as it goes”) and the unbeliever’s accounting for his true knowledge on
his own false assumptions about reality (something that he cannot do).78
We have seen that for Van Til, the unbeliever’s attempted suppression of the
knowledge of God affects his knowledge of everything else. But is the unbeliever’s
attempted suppression of the knowledge of God successful? Understanding Van Til’s
answer to this question will help us better grasp his apologetic methodology. Van Til
argues, on the basis of Romans 1, that every human being has a knowledge of the true God
and that every sinner tries to suppress that knowledge.79 Here we witness the ethical
antithesis. However, common grace restrains the ethical antithesis, and the suppression of
all knowledge of God is unsuccessful.80 Every human being, therefore, retains a sense of his
Creator. According to Van Til, it is to this knowledge of God “that the Christian apologetic
must appeal.”81

78 If we use Van Til’s “colored glasses” analogy, we could perhaps say (Van Til himself does not
explain it in this way) that the unbeliever sees the tree and knows it is a tree, but because of the colored
lenses, he always thinks the tree is red. He never knows it as it truly is, namely, brown and green. In short, he
has knowledge of the tree, but not “true” knowledge of the tree. I cannot say with certainty that Van Til would
find my illustration accurate. The lack of clarity in his published thoughts on the subject make it almost
impossible to have any certainty about what he actually believed on this point.

79 Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 109; Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 45, 166; The
Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 177, 190.


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According to Van Til, apologetics is the defense of the system of theology found in
the Reformed confessions and elaborated in Reformed systematic theology.82 With
Abraham Kuyper and contrary to B.B. Warfield, Van Til sees apologetics as an element of
systematic theology rather than as something that precedes systematic theology.83 Just as
systematic theology presupposes the existence of God, so too must every part of that
systematic theology presuppose the existence of God.84 Because apologetics is part of
systematic theology, apologetics must presuppose the existence of God.
What does this mean? According to Van Til, a consistently Reformed apologetic
methodology is one that argues by presupposition. He explains, “To argue by
presupposition is to indicate what are the epistemological and metaphysical principles that
underlie and control one’s method.”85 Arguing by presupposition results in the use of a
transcendental argument. According to Van Til, “A truly transcendental argument takes any
fact of experience which it wishes to investigate, and tries to determine what the
presuppositions of such a fact must be, in order to make it what it is.”86 What does this look
like in practice? According to Van Til, the Christian should put himself in his opponent’s
place “for the sake of argument” in order to show him that on the assumption of his
worldview, there is no accounting for anything: facts, intelligibility, etc. The Christian


83 It should be noted that these are not the only two options, but they are the two that Van Til
mentions.

84 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 17, 19.


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should then invite his opponent to assume the Christian worldview “for the sake of
argument” in order to show that it alone accounts for facts and intelligibility.87
Van Til contrasts his presuppositional method of apologetics with “the traditional
method.”88 He says, “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.”89 In short, Van Til
believed that “the traditional method” of apologetics put “God in the dock” to be judged by
neutral man. The main problem, therefore, is that the traditional apologetic method
assumes the “autonomy of reason.”90 It assumes that the sinner stands as the judge over the
evidence for and against God and uses his reason to determine the truth. Van Til thinks that
this is the way the traditional proofs for the existence of God have been presented. Does
this mean that the traditional theistic proofs should never be used? No, but they are to be
used in a presuppositional way. They should be used to “appeal to what the natural man,
because he is a creature of God, actually does know to be true.”91

88 I am using the phrase “the traditional method” here and in what follows because it is the phrase
Van Til himself frequently uses (see, for example, Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 3rd ed., 3). It is not the
most helpful term because more than one method of apologetics existed prior to Van Til.

89 Van Til, “My Credo,” in E.R. Geehan, ed., Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy
and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 1993), 10–11.


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According to Van Til, the traditional method of apologetics was developed by Roman
Catholics and Arminians, and, even though it was used by many Reformed theologians such
as the Reformed scholastics and the Princetonians Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield, it
includes numerous compromises with unbelieving thought that the Reformed Christian
cannot tolerate. According to Van Til, the traditional method of apologetics compromises
Christianity; the doctrine of God; the doctrine of God’s decree; the perspicuity, necessity,
sufficiency, and authority of Scripture; the doctrine of the covenant; the doctrine of sin; and
much more.92 The traditional method of apologetics must, therefore, be rejected.
A Friendly Critique of Van Til’s Thought
Upon reading this summary of Van Til’s thought, many readers might be thinking:
“So what is all the fuss about? Why has Van Til’s thought been at the center of such intense
debate for more than seventy years? Isn’t he simply trying to bring philosophy and
apologetics in line with the Reformed theology we all believe to be true? Isn’t he merely
calling Reformed Christians to reject any and all compromise with pagan thought?” It’s not
difficult to see why people might think this way, because Van Til was, in fact, a
confessionally Reformed theologian and a faithful churchman, and he did sincerely attempt
to bring philosophy and apologetics in line with Reformed theology in a noncompromising
way. These are commendable motives and goals. Van Til’s motives and goals, however, are
not in question. The reason why there has been such intense debate over his ideas is
because many theologians believe that in spite of his good intentions, Van Til’s system of
92 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 340–41.
18
thought manifests a number of serious flaws. The remainder of this article will deal with
what I believe to be some of the most serious problems in Van Til’s thought. I will also
address briefly a serious problem found among some of Van Til’s defenders.
A Lack of Exegesis
The first point that must be briefly addressed has to do with the role of biblical
exegesis in Van Til’s system of thought. Van Til repeatedly affirms that all of his teaching
presupposes the authority of Scripture and depends on the teaching of Scripture, yet one of
the most striking features of Van Til’s writing is the almost complete lack of biblical
exegesis in support of his numerous claims. There is, on occasion, a passing reference to
Romans 1 and other texts, but for the most part, Van Til’s works are filled with assertions
grounded in no other authority than Van Til himself. This is not sufficient when one is
asserting that much of what Reformed theologians have been teaching for the previous five
centuries has been in error.
Is there a good reason for this lack of scriptural exegesis? There are places in Van
Til’s writings where he will say that particular books he has written are “merely student
syllabi” and “not to be regarded as published books.”93 It could be argued, therefore, that
Van Til, like other professors, depends on his colleagues in other classes to cover the
material that he will assume in his own classes. However, once Van Til approved these
syllabi for publication, they were removed from the context of a complete theological
curriculum. Most readers of these published books (and they are published books,
93 For example, Van Til, Christian Theistic Evidences, 2nd ed., xxxvii.
19
regardless of what Van Til claims) will not have the opportunity to study under
Westminster Theological Seminary’s faculty. Van Til, therefore, owed it to his readers to
provide the exegetical grounds for his claims before approving these syllabi for publication.
No one is required to accept the truth of Van Til’s numerous claims solely on the basis of his
authority.
A Lack of Clarity
It is hardly controversial to say that Cornelius Van Til’s writing is often unclear. It is
not that every sentence or paragraph is unclear, and it is not that his thinking on every
topic is unclear. Van Til does make numerous unequivocal statements that are clear enough
for readers to understand. There are, however, aspects of his writings that render the
whole body of his work vague on numerous points. This is a problem, and because
vagueness is an obstacle to good theology, it is a problem that must be addressed.
One factor that contributes to the lack of clarity in Van Til’s writing is what Mark
Garcia referred to as Van Til’s “sometimes maddening revisionist use of vocabulary.”94 This
problem is one that has been noted at least as far back as 1953 when The Calvin
Forum published a series of articles critiquing Van Til’s apologetics. In an initial editorial
introducing the articles, Cecil De Boer complained that Van Til “arbitrarily assigns new and
unheard of meanings to certain technical terms in philosophy.”95 Probably the most well-
94 Garcia, preface to In Defense of the Eschaton, xv.

95 Cecil De Boer, “The New Apologetic,” The Calvin Forum XIX, no. 1–2 (August–September 1953): 3.
The remaining series of articles in this journal on Van Til’s apologetics can be found here and here. These
articles are significant because they are among the first philosophical critiques of Van Til’s thought. Van Til
responds to the articles in his book The Defense of the Faith.

20
known example of this is Van Til’s redefinition of the word analogical, a word that had an
established history of usage in medieval and Reformed scholasticism. He also uses
philosophical terms such as limiting concept and concrete universal in a way that differ from
the way they were used by Kant, Hegel, and others. The problem with giving new
definitions to technical terms with established definitions is that it inevitably causes
confusion in the minds of readers who are familiar with those terms. It inevitably hinders
clear communication, and there is no compelling reason to do it.96
Another contributing factor to the lack of clarity in Van Til’s writing is his continual
use of idealist terms and concepts. This too has been observed by proponents and
opponents alike for decades.97 As noted above, Van Til was educated against the
background of philosophical idealism, and the language of this school of thought permeates
his writings.98 It is important to note that Van Til did not formally adopt idealism as a
system of thought and was instead highly critical of it in his writings, but he wanted to
speak the language of the educated class of his day. To do this, he borrowed idealist terms
and concepts and adapted them for his own purposes. One problem with this strategy is
that idealism (whether German or British) is no longer the dominant philosophical school
96 See Cecil De Boer, “The New Apologetic,” 5. De Boer helpfully points out that “To define ‘five’ as
‘eight,’ and ‘eight’ as ‘ten,’ and then to argue that five plus eight equals eighteen may to the layman smell of
deep thought and the higher mathematics, but it is not very fruitful philosophizing, to say nothing of effective
apologetics” (p. 5).

97 Jesse De Boer, “Professor Van Til’s Apologetics: Part 1: A Linguistic Bramble Patch,” The Calvin
Forum XIX, no. 1–2 (August–September 1953): 11; Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, 21,
165; William Edgar’s footnote on page 150 of Van Til, Christian Apologetics; J.V. Fesko, Reforming
Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), 156–57.

98 Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, 36. I use the phrase “school of thought” with
some hesitation given the different interpretations of Kant and of post-Kantian idealism that exist in the
relevant literature, but for the purposes of this brief article some generalization is necessary.

21
of thought in educated circles. As a result of the ever-changing tides in modern philosophy,
Van Til’s writings became dated and therefore highly obscure.99 I will address some further
issues involving idealist philosophy below.
The lack of clarity in Van Til’s thought is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in his
claims about what, if anything, unbelievers know. This is significant because this point is
one of the central elements of Van Til’s system of thought. As observed above, Van Til
repeatedly makes unqualified statements to the effect that unbelievers know nothing truly.
The unbeliever cannot even look at a tree and know that it is a tree. And yet, in other
places, Van Til will say that unbelievers do have true knowledge of many things, including
trees.100 As we observed above, Van Til does address the issue in terms of different points
of view, but he also admitted that he could not provide a fully satisfactory solution to this
theological problem.101 He simply made both kinds of assertions about the knowledge of
unbelievers and claimed that truly Reformed Christians have to accept both. Even
contemporary proponents of Van Tillian presuppositionalism have noted the problem. John
99 See Fesko, Reforming Apologetics, 155–56.

100 At the level of popular Van Tillianism, the extreme unqualified statements are often the only
statements that one will find referenced. Members of Van Tillian social media groups, for example, sometimes
seem completely unaware of Van Til’s other statements to the effect that unbelievers do know many things.

101 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 63. It should be observed that not every
theological problem has to be or can be “solved” to the extent that it is fully understandable to the Christian.
The Christian faith contains numerous doctrines that contain mystery. The doctrine of the Trinity and the
hypostatic union, for example, contain elements that are beyond human comprehension. The difference
between the “problems” involved in these doctrines and the problem involved in Van Til’s doctrine of the
unbeliever’s knowledge is that there is abundant biblical testimony for each element of the doctrine of the
Trinity and the doctrine of the hypostatic union. There is no such biblical support for the teaching that
unbelievers know nothing truly and yet know many things truly. These are only the implications of Van Til’s
system. In other words, the problem that exists here was caused by Van Til’s system and not by mystery in
the teaching of Scripture.

22
Frame, for example, says that Van Til never completely solved the problem of how to relate
the antithesis to common grace.102
Frame’s own proposed solution involves rejecting Van Til’s more extreme
statements regarding the antithesis.103 There are at least two problems, however, with this
suggestion. First, Van Til made those statements, and he did so frequently. Second, the
antithesis is probably the most distinctive feature of Van Til’s thought. It is very difficult to
excise the extreme antithetical statements about what unbelievers do not know without
destroying Van Til’s system as a whole.104 To the extent that the unbeliever has knowledge
of things in this world, Van Til’s justification for the rejection of traditional apologetics is
severely weakened.105
The lack of clarity on the question of what unbelievers know can best be illustrated
by asking what Van Til means when he uses the word true to modify the word knowledge
or truly to modify the word know. Van Til says that it is impossible “for man to have true
knowledge about anything apart from the Bible.”106 And again, “We hold it to be definitely
102 Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, 187–91. In Van Til’s thought, the relationship
between the antithesis and common grace underlies the question of the unbeliever’s knowledge. Because Van
Til could not solve the problem of how to relate the antithesis to common grace, his teaching on the
knowledge of unbelievers remained consistently vague.

103 Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, 192–97.

104 Frame is aware of this difficulty. See Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, 211.

105 This is because traditional apologetics often argues from created effects (i.e., things in the world)
to the uncreated cause of those effects. This approach assumes that the unbeliever can have some knowledge
of created effects—things in the world. If Van Til’s repeated denial that unbelievers have any true knowledge
of the world were accurate, it would weaken the case for traditional apologetic methods, and it is, in fact, part
of Van Til’s argument against the traditional methods. However, when Van Til qualifies the strong antithetical
statements and grants that unbelievers do have knowledge of the world, his critique of traditional apologetics
is undermined. This may be part of the reason that popular-level Van Tillianism focuses almost exclusively on
the antithetical statements.

106 Van Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology, 65, emphasis added.
23
anti-Christian to say that any man can have any true knowledge of anything except through
the wisdom of Christ.”107 Again, “man cannot, unless the scales be removed from his eyes,
know anything truly about God or anything else.”108 Again, “without the light of Scripture,
no fact can be known truly.”109 Finally, “Not one single fact in this universe can be known
truly by man without the existence of God.”110 There are many more statements to the
same effect, but these examples should suffice to make the point. It seems abundantly clear
that Van Til believes that the nonbeliever cannot have true knowledge. He says it
repeatedly. Yet, Van Til also says regarding the nonbeliever, “I have never denied that he
has true knowledge.”111 How can Van Til deny saying something that he says over and over
again? Either Van Til’s teaching on “knowledge” is inherently self-contradictory or he is
using the same terms to mean different things (i.e., equivocation). Neither option is
theologically or logically attractive.
Van Til seems to think his meaning is clear. He claims that although the nonbeliever
does not have true knowledge of anything, he actually does have true knowledge of all
kinds of things “as far as it goes.”112 It is only when the nonbeliever is considered as
working in a fully self-conscious way from his own principles that he knows nothing
truly.113 So, according to Van Til, the unbeliever cannot know anything truly “in principle,”
107 Van Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology, 63, emphasis added.




111 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 281, emphasis added.


24
although he does know many thing truly (“as far as it goes”) as an actual matter of
fact.114 Metaphysically and psychologically, then, the believer and the unbeliever have
everything in common, including their proximate starting points.115 Considered
epistemologically, from their ultimate starting points, however, they have nothing in
common.116 In other words, it is the epistemological systems that are false.117
If this is a correct reading of Van Til, and if his point is that non-Christian
epistemological systems are false, then it would be far clearer simply to say so, rather than
repeatedly to assert that unbelievers have no true knowledge and then turn around and say
that unbelievers do have true knowledge. This ambiguous use of the words true and
knowledge renders one of the central features of Van Til’s system at best uncertain and at
worst unintelligible.
A Problematic Doctrine of God
I noted above that Van Til, as a confessionally Reformed theologian, affirms the
doctrine of God found in the Nicene Creed and the Westminster Confession. He generally
affirms classical Trinitarian theism and makes it foundational to everything else he teaches.
He does, however, at times make statements that appear to contradict these general
affirmations of confessional Trinitarian theism. This is significant because as Van Til says,


115 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 191; see also, Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology,
2nd ed., 150.


25
one’s doctrine of God affects everything else: “Every doctrine is bound to be false if the first
and basic doctrine of God is false.”118 What, then, does Van Til say regarding God that is
problematic?
First, on more than one occasion, Van Til states that God is one person and three
persons.119 He says, “We do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one
person.”120 Within the being of this one person there are “three personal
subsistences.”121 God, therefore, is one person and three persons.122 Those familiar with the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity will be aware that the orthodox formula is “three persons,
of one substance” (Westminster Confession of Faith 2.3). In Greek, it is one ousia and
three hypostases. In Latin, it is one substantia and three personae (or subsistentia). This
language was worked out in the fourth-century Trinitarian debates.123
The departure from the language of the orthodox creeds and the Reformed
confessions and the introduction of this theological novelty is made worse when we
examine Van Til’s definition of person. In one place, Van Til appears to define person in
terms of consciousness, saying in connection with his discussion of God as one person and
three persons that “God is a one-conscious being, and yet, he is also a tri-conscious

119 Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 29; see also, Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed.,
348, 362–64. Van Til’s critics have heard this aspect of his teaching criticized for decades. Sadly, instead of
listening to the critics, many chose to excuse and defend his teaching, making the problem even worse.




123 For a helpful survey of these debates, see Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to
Fourth Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

26
being.”124 Why is this definition such a problem? Because Van Til also claims that in
God, being and consciousness are coterminous.125 Van Til says, “It should be noted that it is
only if we hold to the cotermineity of the being and the consciousness of God that we can
avoid pantheism.”126 But if God is “a one-conscious being, and yet, he is also a tri-conscious
being” and if consciousness is coterminous with being, then we potentially have a God who
is not only “one person and three persons” but also “one being and three beings.”
Given the fact that Van Til tends to use language ambiguously, let us not
automatically assume that he actually believes that God is one being and three beings.
Instead, let us simply consider the formula “one person/three persons.” In the best-case
scenario, the word person is being used here in two different senses. If that is the case, then
Van Til’s formula is inherently confusing because of the equivocation required to maintain
some semblance of orthodoxy. In the worst-case scenario, the word person is being used in
the same sense in both halves of the formula. If this is the case, then the formula is self-
contradictory, and one half or another of it (or both) will be heretical depending on the
definition of person that is used in each half. It is going to result in some form of
Unitarianism (e.g., modalism) or some form of tritheism (e.g., if person is defined as
“being”) or a “quadrinity” entailing four persons (e.g., if person is defined as “being” and if
God considered as one person is separated from God considered as three persons).

125 This is an example of the kind of language that leads some to detect a strong Hegelian influence in
Van Til.

126 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 1st ed., 36, cited in Timothy McConnel, “The Influence of Idealism
on the Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til,” JETS 48 no. 3 (September 2005): 583.

27
If we were to take seriously Van Til’s own definition of person in terms
of consciousness and consciousness as coterminous with being, it would be almost
impossible to maintain any best-case scenario. It is only because Van Til elsewhere affirms
the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity found in the creeds and confessions that we are able to
assume he doesn’t mean what he says here and is, in fact, orthodox. If we assume this about
Van Til and read him in the most charitable light possible, we can conclude that he is an
orthodox Trinitarian who was carried away here and foolishly introduced this formally
heretical theological novelty into conservative Reformed churches.
The Reformed confessions to which Van Til subscribed at various points in his
ministry maintain the Trinitarian language that was painstakingly formulated in the first
centuries of the church. Article 8 of the Belgic Confession, for example, speaks of one God,
“one single essence, in whom there are three persons.” Question and answer 25 of the
Heidelberg Catechism teaches that “these three distinct persons [Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit] are one, true, eternal God.” The Westminster Confession of Faith speaks of God in
terms of “three persons, of one substance” (2.3). The Reformed confessions maintain
consistently the orthodox formula. Nowhere do we find them speaking of God as one
person and three persons, and we should not find anyone who honestly subscribes to the
Reformed confessions speaking of God in such a way.127
127 Considering Van Til’s admiration of B.B. Warfield, one cannot help but wonder if the inspiration
for Van Til’s formula was a comment made by Warfield in the article “The Spirit of God in the Old Testament”
(The Works of B.B. Warfield, 2:101–29). Warfield says near the end of the article, “The great thing to be taught
the ancient people of God was that the God of all the earth is one person” (p. 127). Although this language was
ill-advised at best, the context in which Warfield makes the statement is very different from the context in
which Van Til creates his alternative Trinitarian formula. Warfield is talking about the way God is revealed in
the Old Testament before the full revelation of the distinctions among the three persons and is making the
point that God is revealed in the Old Testament to be personal (See p. 125). The context of Warfield’s
comment is progressive revelation. Van Til, on the other hand, is revising the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

28
Van Til is not unaware of how significant the doctrine of the Trinity is for the
Christian faith. He explicitly says that the triune God defined in the Nicene Creed and the
Reformed confessions is the foundation for everything and that the existence of this God
and this God alone is the presupposition for all predication.128 Yet by redefining the Trinity
as “one person and three persons,” Van Til is at least implying that the teaching of the
Reformed confessions is in error on a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith. His “one
person/three person” variation on the doctrine of the Trinity should not be casually
accepted as if it were an inconsequential doctrinal refinement.129

129 I am aware that a number of Van Til’s students and followers have written in defense of his “one
person/three person” formula. I beg them as brothers in Christ to prayerfully reconsider. Van Til was not a
very clear thinker. Those who are should know better. There is absolutely no reason to defend a formula that
is explicitly contrary to the orthodox creeds and Reformed confessions, inherently ambiguous, and inevitably
prone to cause Christians in the pews to stumble. The problem is made even worse in a day and age of
profound biblical and theological ignorance, rampant heresy, and latitudinarianism. Those who are defending
Van Til’s novel formula and teaching it in churches and seminaries are communicating to parishioners and
prospective pastors that formally heretical theological novelty is not something about which they should be
terribly concerned. Defenders of Van Til’s formula will often argue that he was an orthodox Trinitarian and
that the formula can be read in an orthodox sense (e.g., all Van Til meant was that God is not an impersonal
force). His language will sometimes be excused on the basis of “paradox.” On the grounds of what he writes
most of the time, I’m willing to grant that Van Til was an orthodox Trinitarian, but the only way his formula
can be read in an orthodox sense is to equivocate on the meaning of the word person. Furthermore, the
attempt to find an orthodox sense for Van Til’s formula is completely unnecessary when the traditional
formula already has an orthodox sense. Van Til is imagining a problem that doesn’t exist and then creating a
solution that is far worse than the problem he thinks he has found. Defending his formula by appealing to
“paradox” is also unwise because it opens the door to defending all manner of unorthodox formulas by means
of the same appeal. If we learned anything from Neoorthodoxy, it is that almost anything can be defended by
appealing to “paradox.” The continued defense of this formula reveals one of the many dangers of the cult of
personality that has grown up around Van Til. Too many of his followers are seemingly incapable of saying
anything critical of him, even when he errs on matters of the utmost theological importance and causes little
ones in the pews to stumble. There is no justification for Van Til’s use of this formula, and there is no
justification for the continued defense of it by ministers and theologians committed to orthodox Christianity
and the oversight of Christ’s sheep. It is important to realize that while Van Til’s use of this formula does not
necessarily mean that he was a Trinitarian heretic (given his stated commitment to Nicene Trinitarianism and
the WCF elsewhere in his writings), the continued defense of the formula does open the door for those with
less integrity than Van Til to slip heresy into the church under the cover of equally ambiguous and un-
confessional language. This is how Norman Shepherd’s false doctrine on justification gained a foothold in
otherwise orthodox and confessional Reformed churches, and sadly, Van Til himself and many of his
followers supported Shepherd’s teaching (see Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, 393;
Muether, Van Til, 221). It is going to be very difficult for those who have continually made excuses for Van Til
to deal with other ministers who use his methodology to import theological heresy into the church.
29
A second example of problematic statements concerning God has to do with the
divine attributes. As mentioned above, Van Til affirms the classical theism of the
Westminster Confession. He affirms the doctrine of divine simplicity, going so far as to say
that this doctrine answers the ancient philosophical problem of the one and the
many.130 He also affirms aseity, eternality, immutability, and the rest of the
incommunicable attributes. However, in some places, Van Til makes statements about
immutability that are unclear in their meaning. He says in one place, for example: “Whether
Adam was to obey or to disobey, the situation would be changed. And thus God’s attitude
would be changed.”131 Does this mean that God changes? In the same context, Van Til
indicates that God’s attitude changes but that “God in Himself is changeless.”132 But what
exactly are “attitudes” in God, and how are they distinguished from “God in Himself”? Van
Til’s answer to that question remains unclear.
Reading Van Til in the most charitable light possible, we can attempt to understand
such unclear statements in light of his repeated clear assertions of commitment to Nicene
Trinitarianism, Chalcedonian Christology, and the doctrinal formulations of the Reformed
confessions. If we do this, we could chalk up the “one person/three person” formulation to
Van Til’s penchant for equivocation and for giving words his own novel definitions, and we
could chalk up his comments about immutability to a lack of theological clarity or to an
unclear way of talking about the Bible’s anthropomorphic language.133 We could conclude




30
on these assumptions, then, that Van Til is a classical theist in spite of these problematic
statements.
Let us assume then that Van Til is in fact a classical theist. If this is the case, then
serious questions are raised about some contemporary Van Tillians. We have to remind
ourselves that for Van Til, the presupposition of the God described in the confessions—and
only this God—is necessary for all predication. In other words, if Van Til is a classical theist,
then according to him, the classical theist doctrine of God is at the heart of his
presuppositionalism. What, then, would we have to conclude about contemporary Van
Tillians who have rejected classical theism? If Van Til’s doctrine of God is the classical theist
doctrine of God and if Van Til’s doctrine of God plays the role in his system that he says it
plays, then we would have to conclude that those Van Tillians who have rejected classical
theism have not only rejected the teaching of the Reformed confessions, but they have also
betrayed the heart of Van Tillian presuppositionalism itself.134
A third and broader issue with Van Til’s doctrine of God has to do with the way that
he contrasts the Reformed doctrine of God so absolutely with all that came before it. As we
have seen, Van Til affirms the Nicene Creed and the Definition of Chalcedon, but he also
inadvertently undermines his professed commitment to them by drawing a hard line
between the doctrine of God found in the early and medieval church and the doctrine of
God found in the churches of the Reformation. Recall what Van Til says about the
significance of the doctrine of God: “Every doctrine is bound to be false if the first and basic

134 This last point is obviously not so much a criticism of Van Til as it is a criticism of some of his
followers, but their teaching on this point can very easily be seen as a result of Van Til’s own lack of clarity.
This should not be taken to imply that Van Tillians alone are in danger of rejecting orthodox theology proper.

31
doctrine of God is false.”135 Is the Reformed doctrine of God, then, the same as the pre-
Reformation doctrine of God?
According to Van Til, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism have nothing in
common on any point of doctrine.136 The Roman Catholic doctrine of God, which Van Til
identifies as the early and medieval doctrine, differs from the Reformed doctrine because,
according to Van Til, Rome sees God and creation on a scale of being. Rome, therefore, blurs
the distinction between the being of God and the being of His creation.137 In short, Van Til is
saying that the pre-Reformation doctrine of God is inherently pantheistic. Van Til connects
the classical pre-Reformation doctrine of God with the philosophical position that he refers
to as “classical realism.”138 According to Van Til, classical realism is incompatible with the
true biblical doctrine of God, creation, and providence.139
Classical realism, therefore, must be rejected. But if the metaphysical framework
that provided the context for the church’s development, formulation, and defense of the

136 Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 89–90.


138 Van Til’s use of the phrase “classical realism” to describe the philosophy of the early and medieval
church is oversimplified, to say the least. I am using it here because it is the phrase Van Til used.

139 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 275. A thorough discussion of “realism” in the early and
medieval church is beyond the scope of this article. Generally speaking, in discussions of the early and
medieval church, realism is usually used to describe the thought of Plato and Aristotle. Platonic realism
argues that universals exist in and of themselves. Aristotelian realism argues that universals exist in
individual things. Both forms of realism are opposed to nominalism, which arose in the early medieval church
(e.g., Roscelin). It argues that universals are merely names. If I may be allowed my own bit of
oversimplification, Plato would argue that the form (or universal) of “humanness” exists in the realm of the
forms. Aristotle would argue that the form of “humanness” exists only in individual human beings.
Nominalists would argue that “humanness” is merely a name but has no “real” existence. In the seventeenth,
eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, realism was often used in opposition to various forms of subjective
idealism, which tend to limit our knowledge (and sometimes reality itself) to the mind and its ideas.

32
doctrine of God is rejected, then that doctrine of God itself becomes problematic. Does Van
Til himself reject the doctrine of God as formulated by theologians in the classical realist
tradition? No. He affirms the doctrine of God found in the Nicene Creed even though he
repeatedly rejects classical realism.140 So, should truly Reformed Christians accept the
Nicene Creed or not? Van Til himself affirmed it, but his rejection of classical realism as he
understood it left the door open for those who followed him to make a different choice.
One issue that often causes Christians confusion when considering the premodern
philosophical tradition is that Greek philosophical terms and concepts were regularly
borrowed and used by Christians to explain certain elements of Christian theology.141 This
borrowing, however, was not, as the German liberal theologian Adolf von Harnack argued,
due to the Hellenization of Christian theology. It was due instead to the fact that the church
understood that the human ability to know some truth about the world God created was
not annihilated by the fall of mankind into sin. Van Til himself allows for such borrowing
from philosophers.142 He himself granted that there can be “elements of truth” in non-
Christian systems.143 He is, however, highly critical of borrowing when the philosophers in
question are in what he calls the classical realist tradition.144
140 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 226, 234, 240, 273, 275, 287, 290. It is not clear whether
Van Til is a nominalist. He does argue that Christians should think in a concrete manner, which means that we
can use “such universals as ‘creatureliness’ as limiting concepts only. Creatureliness as such can nowhere be
found among men. It is a pure abstraction” (Common Grace and the Gospel, 26–27).

141 Consider, for example, the debates over the word homoousios during the Arian controversy. In
using the word ousia, Christians were using a word that had a history in Greek philosophy. Likewise,
Christological discussions of the “natures” of Christ borrowed words and concepts from Greek philosophy.



144 Van Til often seems to grant the possibility of “elements of truth” in any non-Christian system of
thought except Aristotelians.
33
Did the early and medieval church accept everything that philosophers such as Plato
or Aristotle taught? No. The church critically appropriated what they believed to be true
and rejected what they believed to be false. They looked for the “elements of truth” in Plato
and Aristotle. The early and medieval church recognized that if a philosopher happened to
discover something true about the nature of being or knowledge, it remained true
regardless of who discovered it.
Why is all of this significant? Christian theologians, from Augustine and Thomas
Aquinas in the early and medieval church to John Calvin, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and Francis
Turretin in the Reformed church, carefully and critically used the philosophical concepts of
the premodern philosophical tradition. There were obviously some differences between
Augustine and Aquinas, for example, but such differences did not destroy the fundamental
areas of agreement and overlap that allowed for classical Trinitarian theism to be stated
coherently and defended consistently throughout the first 1,500 years of church history. It
is significant that the same general metaphysical and epistemological framework found in
the writings of theologians such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas continued to be used
and taught by the men who wrote the Reformed confessions and the textbooks of Reformed
scholastic theology. The Reformed theologians did not contrast their doctrine of God with
what had been taught in the early and medieval church.
The generally accepted premodern philosophical framework first began to come
under fire by a small minority of thinkers in the Middle Ages. With the broader spread of
nominalism beginning in the fourteenth century, the rise of skepticism during the
Renaissance, the rise of rationalism and empiricism during the Enlightenment, and then
Kantianism and idealism in the following centuries, the older philosophical framework was
34
eventually discarded.145 The rejection of this philosophical framework has had a dramatic
impact on the doctrine of God.
When we examine the history of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment theology,
particularly regarding the doctrine of God, it becomes abundantly evident that when the
older philosophical framework is abandoned, classical Trinitarian theism is not far behind.
The rise of Unitarianism, deism, pantheism, and panentheism during and after the
Enlightenment is not a coincidence. Theologians who adopted the metaphysics and
epistemology of the rationalists reformulated their doctrine of God to fit that new
philosophical framework. Theologians who adopted the philosophy of the empiricists
reformulated their doctrine of God to fit that framework. Theologians who adopted the
philosophy of Kant or Hegel or Whitehead reformulated their doctrines of God to fit those
philosophical frameworks.146
This brings us back to Van Til. As we have seen, Van Til, in agreement with most
post-Enlightenment philosophers, rejected the older philosophy. In short, he rejected the
metaphysics and epistemology that provided the conceptual framework within which
classical theism was developed, stated, and defended. Historically, what has happened
when this context is rejected and replaced with a different philosophical context is that an
internal tension is introduced, leading to different and novel doctrines of God. Van Til’s
145 It is impossible to provide a single definition that describes accurately all of the various post-
Enlightenment philosophies. One thing many of them have in common, however, is the denial of realist
philosophy in any of its forms. It is no longer assumed that humans have true knowledge of a real world
external to the mind. In some cases, it is no longer assumed that a real world external to the mind exists.
Obviously, if there is no knowledge of the external world, traditional ideas of natural theology that reason
from a knowledge of created effects in that external world to the Creator (the Cause) are impossible.

146 See James Collins, God in Modern Philosophy (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1959).
35
commitment to the Reformed confessions seems to have enabled him to live with the
tension for the most part. The tension, however, remains for those who follow Van Til in
the rejection of the older philosophy.
If history is any guide, Van Til’s rejection of the older philosophy will eventually
result in the denial of classical Trinitarian theism by some who follow his lead. In fact, this
seems to have already begun to occur. Some of his students have already begun to redefine
and reject essential elements of classical biblical and Christian theism in order to bring
their doctrine of God in line with Van Til’s metaphysical views.147 In other words, Van Til’s
adoption of post-Enlightenment metaphysical views and his attempt to synthesize them
with Christian theology created an unstable mixture of ideas that has already begun to
undermine the orthodox Reformed theology he wanted to defend.
A Poor Grasp of Historical Theology
Another serious problem in Van Til’s thinking that must be addressed is his poor
historical theology. The teaching of a number of historical figures is misrepresented
throughout his works. This problem, too, has been observed for decades.148 Presumably,
147 John Frame, for example, rejects immutability, saying: “But the historical process does change, and
as an agent in history, God himself changes. On Monday, he wants something to happen, and on Tuesday,
something else. He is grieved one day, pleased the next. In my view, anthropomorphic is too weak a
description of these narratives. In these accounts, God is not merely like an agent in time. He really is in time,
changing as others change. And we should not say that his atemporal, changeless existence is more real than
his changing existence in time, as the term anthropomorphic suggests. Both are real” (Systematic Theology,
377). Scott Oliphint’s reformulation of the doctrine of God is found in his book God with Us: Divine
Condescension and the Attributes of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2012). Westminster Theological Seminary
President Peter Lillback addressed this book in a chapel message on March 27, 2019. He said that after a close
examination of the content of Oliphint’s book, the seminary bought the rights to the book and pulped all the
remaining copies. The question is whether the doctrinal content has continued to be taught.

148 See, for example, Jesse De Boer, “Professor Van Til’s Apologetics: Part 3: God and Human
Knowledge,” The Calvin Forum XIX, no. 4 (November 1953): 56.

36
this misrepresentation was unintentional, but it remains a serious problem because so
much of Van Til’s case for his new apologetic methodology rests upon these mistaken
historical theological claims. It is also a problem because many of his misrepresentations
continue to be taught by his students to this day.149 Van Til seems to be particularly
responsible for continued misreadings of Thomas Aquinas and scholasticism (of both the
medieval and Reformed variety).
Regarding Thomas Aquinas, Van Til makes a number of fundamental errors.150 For
example, Van Til asserts throughout his writings that Aquinas denied the Creator-creature
distinction and taught that God and His creation exist on a scale of being.151 According to
Van Til, Aquinas taught that God and His creatures participate in the larger category of
“being in general.”152 Thomas “reduces the Creator-creature distinction to something that is
consistent with the idea of God and the cosmos as involved in a chain of being, with varying
degrees of intensity.”153 He claims that Aquinas based his views on Aristotle’s idea of the
“analogy of being.”154 All of this is a fundamental misreading of Aquinas. The irony of Van
Til’s claim is that Aquinas’ doctrine of analogy is actually necessitated by Aquinas’ radical
149 See Richard Muller, “Reading Aquinas from a Reformed Perspective: A Review Essay,” Calvin
Theological Journal 53, no. 2 (2018): 255–88. This review of Scott Oliphint’s book on Thomas Aquinas
examines the ways in which Aquinas has been consistently misinterpreted by Van Tillian theologians. Muller
wrote a three-part popular-level version of this article here, here, and here.

150 For a helpful recent examination of Van Til’s teaching on Aquinas, see Fesko, Reforming
Apologetics, 71–96.

151 For example, see Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 31; Survey of Christian Epistemology,
60; Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 97, 200.


153 Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought, 91.

37
distinction between the Creator and the creature, the very thing that Van Til says Aquinas
denies.155
Even a cursory reading of Aquinas reveals that there is probably nothing more
foundational to his theology than the distinction between God and His creation. The idea is
emphasized in his early work On Being and Essence, for example, where Aquinas explains
that God’s existence “is distinct from every other existence.”156 In the later work On the
Power of God, Aquinas again emphasizes this basic point, saying, “God’s being which is his
essence is not universal being, but being distinct from all other being: so that by his very
being God is distinct from every other being.”157 In the same work, he adds, “God’s relation
to being is different from that of any creature’s: for he is his own being, which cannot be
said of any creature.”158 In the Summa contra Gentiles, Aquinas repeats the same idea,
155 Aquinas’ doctrine of the analogy of being, the analogia entis, is a complex and debated topic, and a
full discussion is well beyond the scope of this already lengthy paper. Much of the current debate centers on
whether Aquinas’ doctrine of analogy is an analogy of proper proportionality. This was the dominant
interpretation among Thomists up until the twentieth century. Among those who have argued for some
version of this view are Tommaso de Vio Cajetan, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Jacques Maritain, James
Anderson, Edward Feser, and Steven A. Long. This traditional view has been rejected by most (but certainly
not all) contemporary Thomists who argue that Aquinas abandoned the analogy of proper proportionality in
favor of an analogy of attribution. Among those who argue for the contemporary view are George Klubertanz,
Bernard Montagnes, and Ralph McInerny. I believe the traditional interpretation of Aquinas is correct on this
point. In any case, the debate does not concern whether or not Aquinas blurred the lines between the Creator
and the creature. For helpful discussions of what Aquinas teaches on the subject of analogy and the debates
surrounding his teaching, see, Tommaso de Vio Cajetan, The Analogy of Names, and the Concept of Being, trans.
Edward A. Bushinski (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 1953); Ralph McInerny, Aquinas on Analogy (Washington,
D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996); John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas
Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 501–75; John R.
Mortensen, Understanding St. Thomas on Analogy (Rome: Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine,
2006); Steven A. Long, Analogia Entis (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011); Gyula Klima,
“Theory of Language,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, eds. Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012), 379–85.

156 Thomas Aquinas, Selected Writings (London: Penguin, 1998), 44.

157 Thomas Aquinas, On the Power of God, Q. 7, art. 2.

158 Thomas Aquinas, On the Power of God, Q. 7, art. 7.
38
saying that God’s “being is distinct from all others.”159 According to Aquinas, God is distinct
from all creatures in many ways. God alone is pure act, for example.160 He is the uncreated
source of all created being, which He created ex nihilo (not ex Deo).161 The distinction
between God and His creation is foundational to Aquinas’ discussion of the proofs for God’s
existence as well as to his discussion of God’s attributes. It’s at the heart of his theology.
Even some Van Tillians have noted that Van Til’s reading of Aquinas on this point is
inaccurate.162
Van Til’s comments on scholasticism are likewise incorrect. In the first place, he
speaks of scholasticism as if it were a monolithic school of thought or doctrine based on
Aristotelianism. It is, he says, the old doctrine that says man can come to a knowledge of
some things by the use of his reason but can come to the knowledge of other things only by
means of revelation.163 Scholasticism is, thus, the epistemology of the Roman Catholic
159 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, book I, ch. 26.

160 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, Q. 3, A. 2, Respondeo.

161 Thomas Aquinas, On the Power of God, Q. 3, art. 1. In Aquinas’ works, the Creator-creature
distinction is described in a number of ways. God is pure act while creatures are a combination of act and
potency. God is His Being while creatures receive being. God is necessary being while creatures are
contingent beings. God is the first and primary cause while creatures are effects.

162 See Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, 349; see also Robert LaRocca, “Cornelius
Van Til’s Rejection and Appropriation of Thomistic Metaphysics” (Th.M. thesis, Westminster Theological
Seminary, 2012), 16–34.

39
Church.164 It is a “monstrous synthesis of Aristotle and Christ.”165 True Christians,
therefore, cannot continue to cling to it.166
Van Til’s view of scholasticism may have been influenced by the secondary
literature available to him in the early and mid-twentieth century. The understanding of
scholasticism found in those sources, however, has been subjected to intensive scrutiny in
the last several decades and has been found wanting.167 Scholasticism is not a particular
doctrine. It was a method designed for schools—thus the name “scholastic.” The
term scholasticism “indicates primarily, therefore, a method and not a particular content:
the method could be (and was) applied to a wide variety of theological contents and it
could be (and was) applied to other academic disciplines as well.”168
Van Til’s misunderstanding of scholasticism in the Reformed tradition goes hand in
hand with the old Calvin vs. the Calvinists thesis, which has also been thoroughly
debunked.169 That Van Til holds something akin to the Calvin vs. the Calvinists thesis seems

165 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 286; cf. also Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed.,
94. Van Til seems also to have been influenced in his view of scholasticism by Herman Dooyeweerd. For a
helpful analysis of the relation between Dooyeweerd’s thought and Van Til’s thought on this point, see
Laurence R. O’Donnell III, “Kees Van Til als Nederlandse-Amerikaanse, Neo-Calvinistisch-Presbyteriaan
apologeticus: An Analysis of Cornelius Van Til’s Presupposition of Reformed Dogmatics with special reference
to Herman Bavinck’s Gereformeerde Dogmatiek” (Th.M. thesis, Calvin Theological Seminary, 2011), 196–202.


167 See Carl R. Trueman and R. Scott Clark, eds., Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in
Reassessment (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2005).

168 Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, Prolegomena to Theology (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 35. See also Willem Van Asselt, Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism (Grand
Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2011), 1; Richard Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000), 42.

169 Fesko, Reforming Apologetics, 178; see also, Richard Muller, “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists:’ Assessing
Continuities and Discontinuities Between the Reformation and Orthodoxy,” Calvin Theological Journal 30
(1995): 345–75.
40
evident in his almost exclusive reliance on Calvin as the representative of a pure early
Reformed theology as well as in his statements to the effect that theologians of the next
generation retained too much of the older medieval philosophy.170 His adherence to the
Calvin vs. the Calvinists thesis leads him to reject the Reformed scholastics on those
occasions when he does not completely ignore them.
Although Van Til considers Calvin to represent Reformed theology in its purity, he
also sometimes fails to present accurately the teachings of Calvin himself on doctrines that
are central to his argument. Most significantly, Van Til misrepresents Calvin on the
important point of what unbelievers know. Calvin discusses this issue at length in
his Institutes of the Christian Religion (2.2.12–21). In the Institutes, Calvin distinguishes
between knowledge of earthly things and knowledge of heavenly things. After discussing
the effects of the fall, Calvin explains that fallen man has true, albeit clouded, knowledge of
earthly things. Calvin then moves to a discussion of what fallen man can know about
heavenly things. Here the answer is different.
We must now explain what the power of human reason is, in regard to the kingdom
of God, and spiritual discernments which consists chiefly of three things—the
knowledge of God, the knowledge of his paternal favour towards us, which
constitutes our salvation, and the method of regulating of our conduct in accordance
with the Divine Law. With regard to the former two, but more properly the second,
men otherwise the most ingenious are blinder than moles.171

170 On Calvin as the representative of early Reformed theology, see, for example, chapter 8 of Van
Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology; The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 2. On the Calvinists and their betrayal of
the pure theology of Calvin, see, for example, Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 100.

171 Institutes, 2.2.18, from the 1845 Beveridge translation.
41
According to Calvin, then, fallen man can have true knowledge of earthly things, but in
regard to certain heavenly things, fallen men are “blinder than moles.” Van Til surely has
this passage in mind when he writes the following:
Even Calvin, though by his doctrine of common grace he was in a much better
position to do justice to the knowledge of non-Christian science without succumbing
to it than others were, did not bring out with sufficient clarity at all times that the
natural man is as blind as a mole with respect to natural things as well as with
respect to spiritual things.172

Calvin says fallen man can know earthly things but is as blind as a mole regarding certain
heavenly or spiritual things. Van Til, on the other hand, says that fallen man is as blind as a
mole regarding both earthly and spiritual things.
It is clear that Van Til is expressing an important difference between himself and
Calvin here by his use of the same unusual metaphor. What is less clear is whether Van Til
thinks his own view is the same as Calvin’s and that Calvin merely failed to present his view
adequately, or whether Van Til believes that Calvin’s view is actually incorrect. Van Til says
that what Calvin actually believes is that the natural man does not truly know the physical
world.173 In this case, Van Til’s view (at least in one of the ways it is expressed) would be in
line with Calvin. This, however, is precisely the opposite of what Calvin explicitly teaches in
this section of the Institutes.174 Calvin cannot be saying that non-Christians know nothing

173 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 149. Van Til will go on to make the
ambiguous qualifications we discussed above in his attempt to explain how a fallen man can have knowledge
that is not true knowledge, but these are not qualifications that Calvin makes, and to use them to describe
Calvin’s view is to misrepresent Calvin’s doctrine.

174 Calvin, Institutes 2.2.15–16.
42
when he explicitly says that non-Christians know something and that Christians can learn
much from non-Christians about earthly things.175
Van Til’s comments on Calvin’s view are extremely vague and confusing. Calvin says
that the natural man does truly know the world (earthly things). According to Van Til,
Calvin says that that the natural man does not truly know the world. In other words, Van Til
presents Calvin as teaching the opposite of what Calvin explicitly says. The reason why Van
Til misinterprets Calvin in this way is unknown. Perhaps Van Til’s reading of Calvin is
hampered by his own “colored glasses.” Making all of this even more confusing is the fact
that what Van Til says Calvin really means is also the opposite of what Van Til himself says
when he himself grants that natural men do have knowledge of earthly things.176 Van Til
says that nonbelievers can interpret the natural world “and bring to light much truth.”177
Unbelievers can “do this and discover that, which for the matter of it, is true and usable for
the Christian.”178 So, does Van Til actually agree with what Calvin says rather than what
Van Til says Calvin says? It depends entirely on how and to what extent we qualify the
ambiguous antithesis element in Van Til’s thought.
All of this is another example of how Van Til’s vague language muddies the waters
on important theological issues. Van Til’s discussion of Calvin reveals that his view
regarding the knowledge that unbelievers (do not) have, if understood in the strong sense
175 Calvin, Institutes 2.2.16.



178 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 258. One cannot help but ask: Could Aristotle do this?
Could he discover something that is true and usable for the Christian as far as it goes?

43
in which he presents it here, differs not only from the Calvinist theologians who allegedly
fell back into “scholasticism,” but also substantially from that of Calvin himself. Van Til’s
teaching on this point has no continuity with anything in the Reformed tradition.179
Van Til’s discussions of Aquinas, scholasticism, Calvin, and others manifests a
consistent inability to represent the views of others clearly or accurately. I cannot
speculate on the cause or causes of this inability. I presume that the misrepresentations
were unintentional. Considering the fact that many of Van Til’s students inadvertently
repeat the mistakes of their teacher on these subjects, perhaps Van Til is repeating the
mistakes of one or more of his teachers. Regardless of why Van Til consistently
misrepresents the views of others, the result is the same. It leaves the reader suspicious of
what Van Til says about anyone he mentions. It leaves the reader wondering whether Van
Til has understood or presented any theologian’s views accurately.
A Monstrous Synthesis of Idealism and Christ
We have already observed the noncontroversial fact that Van Til uses terms and
concepts borrowed from idealist philosophy. As we have seen, this is one of Van Til’s
practices that render his writing quite ambiguous at times. However, the more significant
179 See Richard Muller, “Reading Aquinas from a Reformed Perspective: A Review Essay,” Calvin
Theological Journal 53, no. 2 (2018). In his concluding paragraph, Muller writes, “Further, Oliphint’s
argumentation rests largely on the thought of Cornelius Van Til, who by no stretch of the imagination can be
viewed as a competent analyst of the thought of Aquinas. The end result of their readings is a mangled
interpretation of Aquinas that impedes genuine access to his thought and actually stands in the way of
legitimate interpretation. Finally, inasmuch as the Westminster Confession of Faith and Reformed orthodoxy
in general are largely in agreement with Aquinas on issues of epistemology, natural theology, doctrine of God,
and, indeed, apologetics, Oliphint’s and Van Til’s views at best stand at the margin of what can be called
Reformed and, at worst, create a kind of sectarian theology and philosophy that is out of accord with the older
Reformed tradition and its confessions” (p. 288).

44
question is whether Van Til allowed Kantian and idealist philosophy to influence his
thought at a deeper level. Did elements of Kantian and idealist thought seep into his
thinking? Some of the earliest critiques of Van Til, including those by J. Oliver Buswell, Cecil
De Boer, and Jesse De Boer, argued that Van Til’s epistemology borrows from
idealism.180 The criticism has been repeated up to the present day.181 Significantly, the
claim is found not only among critics of Van Til. At least one contemporary Van Tillian
explicitly argues for a strong idealist influence on Van Til’s thought.182
Van Til wrote critically of both Kantianism and idealism and published an entire
book dedicated to responding to those critics who had accused him of promoting idealist
philosophy.183 He consistently critiques idealism as a false system of thought. The only
charitable way of reading what Van Til has written in these explicit statements is to
conclude that Van Til had no intention of being either a systematic Kantian or idealist. On
the other hand, a charitable reading of his critics and the Van Tillians who agree with them
on this point would lead us to conclude that there is something in Van Til’s thought that has
at least the appearance of idealism. We are forced, therefore, to consider whether there are
180 J. Oliver Buswell, “The Fountainhead of Presuppositionalism,” The Bible Today 42, no. 2 (1948);
Cecil De Boer, “The New Apologetic,” The Calvin Forum XIX, no. 1–2 (August–September 1953): 3; Jesse De
Boer, “Professor Van Til’s Apologetics: Part 3: God and Human Knowledge,” The Calvin Forum XIX, no. 4
(November 1953): 57.

181 See, for example, David Haines, “Presuppositionalism and Natural Theology: A Critical Analysis of
the Presuppositional Challenge to Natural Theology,” 4n18; J. V. Fesko, Reforming Apologetics (Grand Rapids:
Baker Academic, 2019), 144–47, 156–57.

182 B.A. Bosserman, The Trinity and the Vindication of Christian Paradox: An Interpretation and
Refinement of the Theological Apologetic of Cornelius Van Til (Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2014), 1, 59–79. This
book by a Van Tillian, which on its very first page says that Hegel is “the underlying philosophical influence on
Van Til,” has glowing endorsements from several prominent Van Tillian scholars including John Frame, Scott
Oliphint, and James Anderson. I mention this because, for decades, critics who claimed to detect elements of
idealism in Van Til were summarily dismissed by proponents of Van Til’s thought.

183 See Van Til, Christianity and Idealism.
45
things in Van Til’s writing that would lead critics to conclude that Van Til had been
influenced by idealist or Kantian thought.
As we have already noted, Van Til regularly uses idealist terminology and concepts.
What are some of the terms and concepts that Van Til uses that can be traced back to
idealist sources? As Timothy McConnel observes, the most obvious Kantian influence is
found in Van Til’s adaptation of the transcendental argument.184 He explains, “Kant had
sought in the first critique to find what conditions must be presupposed in order for us to
have experience and knowledge of that experience.”185 To a certain extent, Van Til borrows
the transcendental type of argument from Kant and adapts it to Christian ends. According
to Van Til, “A truly transcendental argument takes any fact of experience which it wishes to
investigate, and tries to determine what the presuppositions of such a fact must be, in order
to make it what it is.”186 Is Van Til’s use of a Kantian transcendental argument sufficient by
itself to prove systematic Kantian influence on the content of Van Til’s thought? No, but
there are more things for us to consider beyond his use of the transcendental argument.
Van Til also borrowed the idea of the limiting concept (Grenzbegriff), a term used by
Kant. In Kant’s philosophy, this term is related to the limits of human knowledge. Human
beings can have knowledge of the phenomenal alone, not the noumenal.187 Van Til
confusingly refers to the limiting concept as a “Christian notion,” as if it has a long history of
184 Timothy McConnel, “The Influence of Idealism on the Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til,” JETS 48,
no. 3 (September 2005), 577.

185 McConnel, “The Influence of Idealism on the Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til,” 577.


187 See the discussion in Fesko, Reforming Apologetics, 144–45.
46
use in the church.188 He uses the term frequently, but since he doesn’t use the term in a
precisely Kantian sense, this seems to be more an example of his attempt to use the
language of his philosophical contemporaries than an example of Kantian thought. Of
course, because he is not using it in a Kantian sense, neither his Christian readers nor his
philosophical contemporaries are able to understand him easily.
Van Til’s identification of God as “our concrete universal” is another example of his
use of idealist concepts, and a more problematic one.189 In Hegel’s philosophy, the concrete
universal is “the universal that ‘contains’ or comprises its particular instances.”190 This
concept is a key element in Hegel’s thought used by him to explain universals and
particulars.191 Van Til borrows the concept, claiming that only God explains the relation of
universals to particulars. Although Van Til’s definition of God as “our concrete universal” by
itself does not prove that he is a Hegelian, it raises questions. If Van Til uses the concept in
the same sense as Hegel and applies it to God, it appears impossible to avoid some form of
pantheism or panentheism. On the other hand, if he is not using it in the same sense as
Hegel, why use it at all? Critics of Van Til have pointed out more idealist terms and concepts
borrowed by Van Til (e.g., God as the Absolute). It is not necessary to examine each in


190 Glenn Alexander Magee, The Hegel Dictionary (London: Continuum, 2010), 61.

191 Concrete universals are distinguished from abstract universals. The concepts are used by Hegel in
his attempt to relate universals and particulars. Whenever and wherever a concrete universal exists, it is a
particular individual. When “dogness” exists, it exists as an individual dog. Whenever and wherever an
abstract universal exists, it exists as a property of a particular individual. When “brownness” exists, it exists
as a property of an individual dog or an individual tree, etc. Furthermore, it exists as a property of more than
one dog or tree. For a more thorough explanation of the concept, see Robert Stern, “Hegel, British Idealism,
and the Curious Case of The Concrete Universal,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15, no. 1 (2007):
126–34.

47
detail. These examples should be sufficient to understand why readers of Van Til have often
wondered about idealist influences.
Although the mere use of terms does not prove that Van Til has adopted significant
elements of the systems of Kantianism or idealism, there is an important aspect of his
thought that, if interpreted in one way, does require more careful consideration. When Van
Til speaks in a more unqualified manner about the knowledge of unbelievers in terms of
the antithesis, significant similarities with Kantian and post-Kantian thought become more
evident. According to Van Til’s stronger unqualified statements, the unbeliever never has
true knowledge of the external world as it really is. His “colored glasses” shape the form
and content of his knowledge. In other words, Van Til’s doctrine of the antithesis at times
causes him to speak of the knowledge of unbelievers in a way that is very similar to Kantian
and post-Kantian thought.192 Because Van Til sometimes qualifies these statements and
grants that unbelievers have true knowledge of the external world, these similarities with
post-Kantian thought are not sufficient to demonstrate that Van Til has adopted the
systems of either Kantianism or idealism. They do indicate, however, that the stronger
unqualified version of the doctrine of the antithesis is philosophically problematic.
The similarities between Van Til’s doctrine of the antithesis and Kantian
epistemology forces us to look at one additional issue, and that is the question of indirect
Kantian and idealist influences. Van Til repeatedly notes the influence of Abraham Kuyper
and Herman Dooyeweerd on his thinking.193 The influence of Kuyper is most evident in Van
192 David Haines has helpfully addressed this issue at length in his article “Presuppositionalism and
Natural Theology: A Critical Analysis of the Presuppositional Challenge to Natural Theology.”

193 On Kuyper’s influence, see Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 17; The Defense of
the Faith, 4th ed., 23–24. On Dooyeweerd’s influence, see Van Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology, iii; The
Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 237; A Christian Theory of Knowledge, 5.
48
Til’s teaching on the antithesis, and the influence of Dooyeweerd is most evident in Van
Til’s structuring of the history of philosophy and in his use of a transcendental
argument. However, what is significant is that both Kuyper and Dooyeweerd are known to
be heavily influenced by Kant and by idealism. James Bratt, for example, notes that Kuyper
combined “Reformed Christian and German Idealist sources.”194 Bratt observes “how deep
and permanent was the impact of German Idealism on his thinking.”195 Dooyeweerd’s
thought as well was heavily influenced by Kantianism.196 If there are traces of Kantianism
and idealism in Van Til’s thought, and if they are related to the doctrine of the antithesis,
they may to some extent have been mediated through Kuyper and Dooyeweerd.
In conclusion, although Van Til himself did not adopt either Kantianism or idealism
as a full-fledged system of thought, it is difficult to deny some idealist influence on his
thought. In fact, some of what Van Til says could be interpreted as indicating a strong
idealist influence. If this is the case, it would not be surprising. Van Til was so immersed in
this philosophical context from his college years onward that, at the very least, he seems to
have allowed post-Enlightenment philosophy to dictate his apologetic agenda. The result of
allowing the idealism of his educated contemporaries to dictate his agenda (and much of
his philosophical language) has been extensive confusion and disagreement on the part of

194 James D. Bratt, Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2013), 31.

195 Bratt, Abraham Kuyper, 32.

196 See Fesko, Reforming Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), 182–83; Antoni Diller,
“Herman Dooyeweerd: A Profile of His Thought,” Spectrum 22, no. 2: 143–44.

49
his readers. The result of allowing any “cultured despisers” to dictate a theological agenda
has the potential, however, to be much worse.197
A Contradictory View of Reason
When we turn to Van Til’s thought on the nature and use of human reason, the lack
of clarity mentioned above with regard to what unbelievers can and do know comes home
with a vengeance. One of Van Til’s most fundamental criticisms of traditional apologetics is
that it unintentionally makes the mind of man ultimate.198 This could mean one of at least
two things. It could mean that the human mind is understood to be in the place of God over
all things, that man is “metaphysically ultimate,” that man is “the final court of
appeal.”199 Or, it could mean that the human mind is understood to be our necessary
“proximate” starting point as human beings.
When Van Til criticizes traditional apologetics, he seems to have the first meaning in
mind. He appears to be criticizing traditional apologetics for making the mind of man
ultimate in the sense of putting it in the place of God. The problem with this criticism is that
it conflates pre-Enlightenment concepts of human reason with post-Enlightenment
concepts of human reason and lumps them together under the banner of “traditional
apologetics.” No traditional Christian apologist, whether Aquinas or the Reformed
scholastics, affirms the blasphemous idea that the mind of man is ultimate in the sense of
197 Recall the way in which theological liberalism allowed post-Enlightenment philosophical thought
to establish its agenda. See, for example, Gary Dorrien, Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit: The Idealist Logic
of Modern Theology (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).


50
being metaphysically ultimate. All Christians understand that God is the Creator and that
neither they themselves, nor the world, nor their own mind and knowledge would exist
apart from God. No true Christian believes that man is the metaphysically ultimate, final
court of appeal. Van Til is essentially criticizing traditional apologists for holding a view
that they do not believe or teach.200 It appears that Van Til has noticed something that is an
actual problem in some post-Enlightenment forms of thought, but then he reads that
problem back into earlier forms of Christian apologetics where it did not exist.
What if Van Til isn’t criticizing traditional apologists for believing that the mind of
man is ultimate in this metaphysical sense? What if Van Til is talking about what he calls
the proximate starting point? This is highly unlikely, because Van Til himself grants that
such is the human condition as created by God. Van Til grants that we human beings are
necessarily the proximate starting point of all human knowledge.201 Psychologically, Van
Til argues, man must “think of himself first before he can think of God.”202 What is the
point? The point is that advocates of traditional apologetic methods agree.203 This is the
point that traditional apologists are making when they speak of starting with our reason.
They are not asserting that the mind of man is the ultimate final court of appeal, somehow
higher than God. Van Til is criticizing traditional apologetics for something he ends up, in a
200 Van Til’s defenders continually ask his critics to read him charitably. I would simply ask that they
return the favor and consider whether Van Til read those with whom he disagreed charitably (or even
accurately).



203 See, for example, Sproul, Gerstner, and Lindsley, Classical Apologetics, 215.
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roundabout way, granting. He has fabricated a problem that did not exist and has devised
an entire apologetic methodology to solve this nonexistent problem.
Consider Van Til’s statement that man must “think of himself first before he can
think of God.” Van Til is saying that this is the necessary proximate starting point for
humans. Consider what it means to “think” of anything. In order to “think” of oneself or God
or anything else, our rational faculties have to be assumed. To put it another way, they have
to be presupposed. We cannot “think” without our “thinking faculties.” We cannot do
anything that requires our rational faculties unless we have those rational faculties. They
are assumed (or presupposed) in every act of the mind that we are called to do. What is
presupposed in the call to presuppose God? What is presupposed in the call to go to
Scripture as our final court of appeal? Our rational faculties.
The call to presuppose God and the call to presuppose Scripture both presuppose a
“presupposer” with the ability and rational tools needed to presuppose something. In other
words, both of Van Til’s calls presuppose the human being and his rational faculties as well
as the laws of reason. That is what is presupposed in the very notion of “presupposing.”
Does this mean that man, his rational faculties, or the laws of reason are metaphysically
ultimate? No. None of them would even exist without God. God is metaphysically ultimate.
It simply means that the human act of presupposing cannot occur without them. In other
words, everything that Van Til says the believer or unbeliever must do presupposes human
reason. Van Til has not escaped this fact by creating presuppositional apologetics.
Consider that Van Til says that the presuppositional method involves the Christian
putting himself in the shoes of the unbeliever “for argument’s sake” and then asking the
unbeliever to put himself in the shoes of the Christian “for argument’s sake” in order to
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show that only one of those views make facts intelligible.204 Supposedly, this method of
apologetics presupposes God as opposed to presupposing human reason. This method,
however, does in fact presuppose the unbeliever’s human reason and its ability to discern
which of the two opposing views explains intelligibility.
Van Til, of course, does not deny that the unbeliever has the ability to understand
the apologist’s arguments, and his method assumes the unbeliever’s ability to judge
between two views (the Christian and the non-Christian) as well as his ability to determine
which view explains intelligibility itself. He says as much himself.205 But when these same
kinds of statements are made by traditional apologists, Van Til explains them as examples
of autonomous human reason. Van Til acknowledges that in terms of the human
intellectual faculty and its processes, reason has to be assumed in every appeal to the
unbeliever’s mind, but granting this obvious point, as Van Til does, undermines his strong
claims regarding the antithesis and thus undermines his entire presuppositional system
and his arguments against traditional apologetics.
A Rejection of the Reformed Doctrine of Natural Theology
Many of the points that we have addressed so far in this critique are relevant to Van
Til’s treatment of natural theology.206 According to Van Til, natural theology was a

205 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 256; A Christian Theory of Knowledge, 19. If explaining an
assumed intelligibility is the main criterion by which worldviews are to be judged, then it might be argued
that the presuppositionalist method necessarily presupposes intelligibility before it presupposes the
ontological Trinity.

206 J. V. Fesko’s Reforming Apologetics addresses at length the differences between the classical
Reformed understanding of natural theology and Van Til’s approach.

53
development that grew out of Rome’s synthesis of Christian thought with Greek thought
and must be rejected.207 Calvin, he argues, rejected it and so should all Reformed
Christians.208 Before we examine Van Til’s claims, we need to establish a basic definition of
natural theology. Natural theology, as traditionally understood by Reformed theologians, is
“the knowledge of God that is available to reason through the revelation of God in the
natural order.”209 In other words, it deals with what man can know about God from an
examination of God’s creation, through which God reveals Himself. In Reformed theology,
this doctrine has been based on an exegesis of Romans 1.
Van Til’s usual definition of natural theology is not entirely different from the
traditional definition (although he tends to conflate natural theology and natural revelation
as if the two were synonymous), but he often expresses his view in light of his doctrine of
antithesis, saying, for example, that if we interpret any element of life apart from God, we
have a natural theology.210 That is a rather vague (and inaccurate) definition, but it reveals
that Van Til’s major concern with natural theology, as he understands it, is that it “starts
with man as autonomous and with the world as ‘given.’ Natural theologians assume that
‘reason’ and ‘logic’ and ‘fact’ are ‘religiously neutral.’”211 Those traditional natural
207 Van Til, “Nature and Scripture,” in The Infallible Word, eds. N.B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley
(Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 1946), 287–88.

208 Van Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology, 99; “My Credo,” in Geehan, Jerusalem and Athens,
14; Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 108.

209 Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2017), 362. See also Muller’s discussion in his Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 1:270–84.

210 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 318. For the conflation of natural theology
with natural revelation, see Van Til, “Nature and Scripture,” in The Infallible Word.

211 Van Til, “My Credo,” in Geehan, Jerusalem and Athens, 14.
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theologians who attempt to prove the existence of God from nature, therefore, compromise
“God himself by maintaining that his existence is only ‘possible’ albeit ‘highly probable,’
rather than ontologically and ‘rationally necessary.”212
This is why, according to Van Til, the traditional theistic proofs are invalid. “If they
were valid, Christianity would not be true.”213 Calvin, therefore, had the good sense to
destroy the traditional theistic proofs.214 This does not mean that Christians cannot use the
theistic proofs. They simply have to be reformulated along presuppositionalist lines. They
should “appeal to what the natural man, because he is a creature of God, actually does
know to be true.”215 Putting it another way, “to be constructed rightly, theistic proof ought
to presuppose the ontological Trinity.”216
Van Til’s understanding of natural theology is closely tied to what he says about the
unbeliever’s knowledge or lack thereof. If man cannot know anything truly about the
created order, then a knowledge of God that begins with an examination of the created
order will obviously not be possible. Van Til explicitly ties these two ideas together, saying
that since fallen man cannot truly know anything, natural theology is
impossible.217 However, we have already seen that Van Til’s statements about what fallen
man can know are not clear. The result is that his critique of traditional natural theology is
212 Van Til, “My Credo,” in Geehan, Jerusalem and Athens, 18.





55
also unclear and shaky. If man can know many things about the created world, as Van Til
asserts in a number of places, then traditional natural theology and traditional methods of
apologetics are also possible.
A significant problem with Van Til’s case against traditional natural theology is his
conflating of all non–Van Tillian ideas of natural theology into a single whole defined by an
appeal to autonomous human reason. This is a gross oversimplification of the history and
development of various forms of natural theology. Natural theology is notoriously difficult
to define because of the various versions of it that are found throughout history.218 The
most significant developments occurred after the scientific revolution and the Cartesian
“revolution.” God was effectively removed from consideration of His creation, and nature
began to be conceived of in largely mechanistic terms. The result is that the “natural
theology” of the medieval era and early modern era has very little in common with post-
Enlightenment “natural theologies.”219 What Van Til criticizes about natural theology is
largely true in terms of post-Enlightenment thinkers. It does not, however, accurately
describe what we find in all medieval and early Reformed natural theology.220
218 Russell Re Manning, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013), 1.

219 It would have never occurred to a Thomas Aquinas, for example, to think of creation in the same
way that a modern materialist thinks of it. To lump them together does not do justice to either.

220 Whatever may be said about post-Enlightenment versions of natural theology, it is not accurate to
claim that the natural theology of someone like Thomas Aquinas maintained that the existence of God was
only possible, rather than metaphysically necessary (see Van Til, “My Credo,” in Geehan, Jerusalem and
Athens, 18). Aquinas’ argument from motion, for example, essentially argues that if change exists in the world
(and he says it does), and that if this change is potency being reduced to act (and he says it is), then there
necessarily (not possibly) must be a being who is pure act. In the fourteenth century, nominalists, such as
William of Ockham, did deny that the existence of God could be demonstrated and did say that any
philosophical arguments could show only the probability of God’s existence, but William of Ockham is not
Aquinas, and the different positions of different thinkers need to be distinguished (on Ockham’s view of
natural theology, see Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy [New York: Doubleday, 1953], 3:12, 80–
84).

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A final problem with Van Til’s rejection of traditional natural theology is that it
betrays his goal to develop an apologetic that is consistent with Reformed theology.
Traditional Reformed theology generally endorsed natural theology. If one’s goal is to
develop a Reformed apologetic consistent with Reformed theology, it defeats the purpose
to reject that which Reformed theology affirms. Van Til tends to equate “Reformed
Theology” with Calvin, but although Calvin does not speak directly to the problem of
“natural theology,” even he does not deny that it is possible, as Van Til would have his
readers believe.221 Calvin argues that all men have a knowledge of God, a sense of the
divine implanted in their minds by God.222 Furthermore, all of creation reveals God to
mankind.223 Of course, Calvin adds that this natural knowledge of God is not
salvific.224 Thus far, Van Til would likely agree.
The difference between Calvin’s doctrine and Van Til’s doctrine becomes evident
when we observe what Calvin says in his commentaries regarding the Apostles’ witness to
pagans. In his commentary on Acts 14:17, for example, Calvin says that Paul and Barnabas
demonstrated that “God was showed by natural arguments [evidences].”225 Commenting on
Acts 17:22, Calvin says that Paul “showeth by natural arguments who and what God is.”226
221 See Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 1:273.

222 Calvin, Institutes, 1.3.1.

223 Calvin, Institutes, 1.5.1.

224 Calvin, Institutes, 1.5.14, 15.

225 Calvin, Commentary on Acts 14:17, in Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), XIX/1,
19.

154.

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Calvin is claiming that the Apostles used a natural theology in their apologetics. A final
example may be seen in Calvin’s comments on Acts 17:24. Calvin says that “Paul’s drift is to
teach what God is. Furthermore, because he hath to deal with profane men, he draweth
proofs from nature itself; for in vain should he have cited testimonies of Scripture.”227 It
would be vain for Paul to cite testimonies of Scripture to men who did not accept the
authority of Scripture. Thus Paul, according to Calvin, draws proof from a common ground,
from the created world on which we both stand. He used natural theology.
The post-Reformation Reformed scholastic theologians also taught a natural
theology. It must be emphasized that they did not believe that pagans could come to an
orthodox knowledge of the triune God by the use of their fallen reason. The concept of God
that pagans come up with based on the use of their fallen reason is termed “false theology”
by Reformed scholastics such as Franciscus Junius.228 It is the source of all the pagan deities
that are found in the false religions of the world.
The Reformed scholastics, however, did not reject natural theology. Francis
Turretin, for example, addresses the issue of natural theology in his Institutes of Elenctic
Theology (1679–85). Natural theology, he argues, is both innate and acquired.229 It is
disordered in man because of the effects of the fall.230 It is not perfect, and it is not saving
157–58.

228 Franciscus Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, trans. David C. Noe (Grand Rapids: Reformation
Heritage, 2014), 95–97.

229 Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T.
Dennison Jr. (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 1992), 1:5.

230 Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 1:5.
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knowledge of God.231 Turretin explains that it is the Socinians who deny natural
theology.232 He says, “The orthodox, on the contrary, uniformly teach that there is a natural
theology, partly innate (derived from the book of conscience by means of common notions
[koinas ennoias]) and partly acquired (drawn from the book of creatures discursively).”233
On the knowledge of God, Turretin adds, “It is not repugnant that one and the same
thing in a different relation should both be known by the light of nature and believed by the
light of faith; as what is gathered from the one only obscurely, may be held more certainly
from the other. Thus we know that God is, both from nature and from faith (Heb. 11:6);
from the former obscurely, but from the latter more surely. The special knowledge of true
faith (by which believers please God and have access to him, of which Paul speaks) does not
exclude, but supposes the general knowledge from nature.”234 In other words, Turretin
believed that there were “mixed articles.”
Petrus van Mastricht addresses the question of natural theology in the prolegomena
to his Theoretical-Practical Theology (1698–99). He observes that for the “Christian,
revealed theology does not exclude natural theology.”235 Significantly, natural theology is
used not only to leave the unbeliever without excuse, it is also used apologetically to refute
pagans and atheists.236 Natural theology also confirms revealed theology when we discover




235 Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, vol. 1, Prolegomena, trans. Todd M. Rester,
ed. Joel Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2018), 77.

236 Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, 1:78.
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the agreement between the two.237 In agreement with Junius and Turretin, Mastricht is
clear that natural theology, which is true, has to be distinguished from pagan theology,
which is false.238 Mastricht puts this into practice in the section of his theology on faith in
the Triune God. He argues for the existence of God “first by reasons, because atheists
ridicule testimonies, and then by testimonies, because once atheists are convinced by
reasons, they can be remarkably confirmed by testimonies of every kind.”239 Mastricht then
proceeds to provide several such arguments from reason.240
Turretin and Mastricht are merely two representatives of the broader stream of
classical Reformed orthodoxy on the idea of natural theology. When the classical Reformed
doctrine is examined, it is evident that Van Til’s portrayal of it is inaccurate and his
rejection of it places him outside of the classic Reformed theological tradition.241
A Cult of Personality
A final point that must be addressed does not concern Van Til directly. It concerns
some (although certainly not all or even most) of his followers. In my experience with this
issue over the last quarter-century, I’ve often run into a certain strand of Van Tillians


239 Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, vol. 2, Faith in the Triune God, trans. Todd M.
Rester, ed. Joel Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2019), 45.

240 Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2:45–51.

241 Worth reading on the subject of the Reformed doctrine of natural theology are Michael
Sudduth, The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology (London: Routledge, 2009); Wallace W.
Marshall, Puritanism and Natural Theology (Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2016); David Haines, “Natural Theology
and Protestant Orthodoxy,” in God of Our Fathers: Classical Theism for the Contemporary Church, ed. Bradford
Littlejohn (Moscow, Idaho: Davenant Institute, 2018), 53–82.

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whose attitude toward Van Til is, in my opinion, on the verge of the kind of unquestioning
adulation reserved for the leaders of cults. I’m dealing here with anecdotal evidence based
on my own individual experience, but I do not believe my experience is unusual. As I
mentioned in the introduction, even some Van Tillians have acknowledged this
phenomenon. John Frame, for example, has acknowledged it and should be commended for
his criticism of it.242
Let me be clear that I am not referring to scholars who believe Van Til offered
helpful insights into theology and/or apologetics and who wish to build on and develop his
work. Neither am I referring to those who wish to correct what they believe to be
misinterpretations of Van Til. I’m referring to those who treat Van Til as if he is practically
infallible and beyond all criticism. There is a cult of personality around Van Til that is
unlike anything I’ve seen with any other figure in the history of Reformed theology. Charles
Hodge is not treated this way. J. Gresham Machen is not treated this way. Not even John
Calvin is treated this way. No one else I know of is treated this way. For some, Van Til is
practically untouchable, but they are willing to criticize anyone else’s teaching. Van Til is
treated by some almost as if his works are inspired and as if any criticism of him is
equivalent to criticizing Scripture.
I have no reason to believe that Van Til is responsible for this phenomenon, but
regardless of its source, it is something that should be warned against. It’s theologically
dangerous when people feel obliged to get indignant about any criticism of anything Van Til
said no matter how contrary to the Bible and our Reformed confessions it is (e.g., God is
242 Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, 47.
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one person and three persons). Frankly, it is idolatrous to treat any human being in this
way. For the vast majority of Van Tillians who do not treat Van Til in this way, this criticism
obviously does not apply. All I would hope is that if and when they witness it in fellow Van
Tillians they would discourage it.
Conclusion
Cornelius Van Til was, by all accounts, a godly Christian churchman, and all of us can
be thankful for this and seek to follow him in that respect. To the best of our knowledge, he
was and is a brother in Christ with whom all of us who are true believers will spend
eternity worshiping our Lord, and his call to an uncompromising faith in Christ is
something we should all proclaim. The vast majority of those who consider themselves
followers of Van Til are also godly and humble Christians, brothers and sisters in Christ.
That said, what should our response be to Van Til if the criticisms I have outlined are
accurate?
This is a question each Christian must answer for himself. Many Van Tillians
strongly believe that there is uniquely helpful insight in the works of Van Til. They may
argue that even if some or all of the criticisms I have outlined are accurate, Van Til’s
thought is worth carrying forward. If there are problems with his thought, they can be
corrected or clarified without destroying the heart of his system of thought. I respect those
Christian brothers who come to this conclusion, but I cannot agree with them. Because of
the issues I outlined above, it is impossible to commend Van Tillian presuppositionalism as
a consistently Reformed and biblical system of apologetics, philosophy, or theology.
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In the first place, Van Til’s thought, from beginning to end, is simply too ambiguous,
vague, and muddled. Van Tillians have spent decades trying to explain what he “really”
meant and to build on his thought, but the vagueness of his intended meaning renders
doubtful any edifice built on his foundation. Vagueness, unclarity, and ambiguity do not
provide a solid foundation for any theological endeavor. It is questionable, therefore,
whether continued attempts to build on the unclear thought of Van Til will ever be of any
real lasting benefit to the church. It is more likely that the inherent ambiguity of his system
of thought will continue to bear the kind of fruit we have already witnessed over the last
seventy years.243
Consider again that the issue of the unbeliever’s knowledge is one of the key tenets
of Van Til’s system of thought. Yet, despite its foundational nature, it is one of the most
unclear elements in his entire corpus. It can be and has been interpreted in more than one
way, and depending on how it is interpreted, it is either absurd, unbiblical, and self-
defeating (if it is said without qualification that the unbeliever can know absolutely nothing
truly), or else it is completely trivial (if it is claimed that the unbeliever does know some
things truly). Many Van Tillians, especially those to whom the antithesis appeals, opt for the
first interpretation, resulting in a view that makes any apologetic endeavor,
presuppositional or otherwise, impossible. Van Til himself apparently opts for the latter,
243 I have sometimes seen Van Til’s lack of clarity blamed on the fact that he was Dutch and that
English was his second language. This seems a rather weak excuse. Van Til moved to the United States when
he was ten years old and learned English well. As an adult he preached, taught, and wrote in English. His
recorded lectures and sermons are available online, and it is difficult even to detect an accent. If his command
of the English language was as poor as some of his defenders claim, then he should not have been allowed to
teach and preach to English speakers. He should have limited his teaching and speaking to Dutch audiences.

63
but if this is his actual view, it undermines his own emphasis on the antithesis and
effectively renders his case against traditional Reformed apologetics null and void.
Van Til’s attempts at theological reformulation are likewise reasons his work cannot
continue to be commended. His reformulation of the Trinity, for example, as “one person
and three persons” is frankly irresponsible and has led many of his students and defenders
to write and speak as if it is perfectly acceptable to play fast and loose with theological
language. This, too, is something that seriously harms the church. As central as Van Til
himself affirmed a correct doctrine of the Trinity to be, there is no excuse for his ambiguous
formula. There is even less excuse for the fact that some of his followers continue to defend
it and allow it to fester and spread among the sheep who have been entrusted to them.
Regarding the divine attributes, Van Til’s teaching regarding immutability is unclear, and
this lack of clarity is bearing bitter fruit to this day among students of his who are
redefining and rejecting classical theism and moving ever closer to a synthesis of Reformed
theology and some version of process theology.
Van Til’s consistent inability to represent accurately the teaching of others
throughout church history is another significant reason why his work cannot be
commended to the church. Much of what he says regarding the teaching of others is flatly
incorrect, and almost all of what he says is based on mere assertion. There are usually no
footnotes citing where an idea that Van Til attributes to a particular theologian or
philosopher is found. When the writings of these theologians and philosophers are
examined, however, it is often discovered that what they actually teach is quite different
from what Van Til says they teach. This makes it impossible to trust his statements about
any theologians or philosophers.
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Van Til’s narrative of the history of theology has also been proven to be inaccurate.
For the last several decades, Reformed theologians have been at the forefront of efforts to
understand the history of the Reformation in its context. Their study of the medieval
theologians, Reformation theologians, and early post-Reformation theologians has revealed
that the narrative that Van Til taught, and that some of his students inexplicably continue
to teach, does not correspond to the historical evidence. His account of late-medieval
theology, scholasticism, the theology of Aquinas, the theology of Calvin, and the theology of
the Reformed scholastics, among others, have all turned out to be inaccurate and
misleading to one degree or another. What is becoming more and more clear every day is
that Van Til’s teaching, rather than being a return to the theology of the Reformation, is
actually an aberration that bears little to no resemblance to classical Reformed thought.
This is largely due to Van Til’s modernist philosophical assumptions. Van Til’s
philosophical thought is a strange combination of internally inconsistent principles that
undermines classical Reformed theology and Christian orthodoxy. His own followers do not
seem to be able to determine whether and to what degree his thought reflects
philosophical idealism. Whatever his actual philosophical positions were, his choice to fall
in line with the majority of post-Enlightenment philosophy by rejecting the older “realist”
philosophical tradition was a mistake that will continue to negatively affect the way those
who follow him formulate the doctrine of God.
When we find a theologian who is characterized by consistently ambiguous
language, a lack of any real exegetical support for any of his most important claims, a
consistent inability to represent accurately anyone else’s teaching, a lax approach to the
language of the confessions to which he professes to subscribe, and a philosophy that
65
attempts to synthesize mutually contradictory principles, we have found someone who is a
perfect example of how not to do theology. When such a theologian is considered by many
to be the most profound and important theologian in modern Reformed history (if not all of
Reformed history), it reveals the existence of a significant problem in the church.
In light of all of these problems with Van Til’s thought, it is clear that when
twentieth-century Reformed Christians followed Van Til and adopted his
presuppositionalism in place of the traditional apologetics and theology of the sixteenth-
and seventeenth-century Reformed scholastic theologians, they let go of an invaluable and
precious birthright. What replaced that birthright has been uniquely detrimental to the
contemporary Reformed church. A careful examination of Van Til’s writing and a
comparison of it with the classical Reformed theologians reveals that everything Van Til
said that was true has been said much more clearly and carefully by other theologians.
Enough of what he said was false, however, that continued unqualified recommendation of
his writings to young and impressionable Christians is certainly not advisable.
In spite of apparently sincere motives and his attempts to respond to real problems
in nineteenth-century philosophy and theology, Van Til also imagined problems where
none existed—particularly when he read nineteenth-century ideas back into the thirteenth
century or into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The traditional Reformed theology
and apologetics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when read with even a bit of
charity, did not do what Van Til claimed they did. If we would take the time to go back and
carefully reread the Reformed scholastics, we would discover that it is they, and not Van
66
Til, who provide us with an approach to theology and a foundation for apologetical work
that is biblical, clear, precise, and internally self-consistent.244
244 When this paper was published at Tabletalk online, a few people raised their eyebrows about the
title (a title which I chose, and for which I am responsible). On one online forum, for example, someone said
that with the history of book titles like Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism and Van Til’s Christianity and
Barthianism, titles which were intended to be provocative, the title of my article did not lead him to believe
that it would be a charitable critique of Van Til. In short, I think he and some others think that the title is
meant to imply that Van Tillianism is not Christian. I think that anyone who reads the first few paragraphs of
my article will realize very quickly that I am not suggesting any such thing. If I had wanted to suggest that I
would have titled it “Christianity OR Van Tillianism.” So why choose the title that I chose?
I chose it first of all because my article is a critique of a few aspects of Van Til’s thought. Machen used
the title Christianity and Liberalism to critique liberalism. Van Til borrowed the idea from Machen and used
the title Christianity and Barthianism to critique Barthianism and used the title Christianity and Idealism to
respond to those who were claiming that he was an idealist. I’m borrowing the idea from Machen and Van Til
to criticize a few elements of Van Til’s thought. In that sense, it is a little bit tongue-in-cheek.
I chose the title in the second place because, although I understand that the vast majority of Van
Tillians are solid orthodox Christians, I am convinced that there are elements in Van Til’s thought that, when
left unchecked (by one’s confessional commitments, for example), can lead one away from orthodoxy. As I try
to argue in the article, I believe that Van Til’s thought has been influenced to a degree by various strains of
philosophical idealism. If these philosophical elements become foundational, they can and will inevitably
force a change in one’s concept of God. There is, therefore, a sense in which the title is intended to be
provocative. I want it to provoke discussion of these questions.
Many people who call themselves Van Tillian do so because they believe a particular apologetic
methodology developed by Van Til is superior to traditional methods. That’s an important question, but it is
not what concerns me most in this article. What concerns me most are these modernist philosophical
elements that are present in the writings of Van Til. Most lay-level Van Tillians that I have met haven’t read
much by Van Til himself and may not even be aware of these things. But I do have concerns about those who
dig into his writings and absorb these philosophical elements with or without knowing it because I believe
that they lead to a tension with classical trinitarian theism. As I said in the article, I think Van Til himself, for
the most part, held this in check when it comes to the doctrine of God, but some of his students seem to be
having much more difficulty doing this, and they are the ones who are the reason why I wrote anything at all
on the subject.
I have rarely found any reason to speak or write about Van Til for over twenty years. I dug into his
work again for one main reason – the contemporary problems in the Reformed church regarding the doctrine
of God. Over the last several years, it has become increasingly evident that two of the most prominent
scholarly Van Tillians in the United States are writing things that radically depart from the classical trinitarian
theism found in our Reformed confessions. I began to wonder whether or not it was a coincidence that they
were both very committed Van Tillians. I began to wonder whether there was something in the thought of
Van Til himself that was a common denominator that might explain this. That was what led me to go back and
start re-reading Van Til’s works. My focus was the doctrine of God, and the first version of this paper was
much shorter and focused only on that subject.
As I continued to read his works, however, I took note of several other aspects of his thought that I
found problematic. I put them all together in this final version of the paper. In one sense, there is nothing new
in this paper. Every problem I have noted has been observed and mentioned by many others over the
decades. Unfortunately, criticisms of Van Til are often dismissed without, in my opinion, any effort at truly
addressing the key issues. Many Van Tillians, for example, refused to take Dr. Sproul’s concerns seriously. He
and other critics have been repeatedly written off because “they just don’t understand Van Til.” They were
often uncharitably accused of being closet Roman Catholics or Arminians or worse and then chided for not
reading Van Til “charitably.” This is why I asked several knowledgeable Van Tillian friends to read my paper
before publishing it because I wanted to avoid as much as possible misrepresenting Van Til.
67

I wrote the paper, not because I thought I had anything really new to say about the problems I see in
Van Til’s thought. My primary motive for writing it was because I am concerned with the effects certain of his
philosophical ideas are having on the doctrine of God in the teaching of some of his students. Van Til himself
said that if we get the doctrine of God wrong, everything else falls apart. If we ever reject the classical theistic
doctrine of God found in our Reformed confessions, Machen’s original title will apply to us because we won’t
have Christianity any longer. My hope is simply for continued intelligent discussion of this important
question.
68

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Christianity

and Van Tillianism

“friendly criticism” of Van Til’s views.

Lindsley, Classical Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 183–338.

complex. He is dealing with profound issues in metaphysics, epistemology, systematic

“sometimes maddening revisionist use of vocabulary.”4

same philosophical backdrop. He sought to speak their language, as it were, so he often

difficult. We will come back to this issue presently.

spend a large amount of time correcting misinterpretations.7

4 Garcia, preface to In Defense of the Eschaton, xv.

“Common Misunderstandings of Van Til’s Apologetic” here and here.

the following critique, I welcome correction.

Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 100, 306–8.

guaranteed to be ruled out.

is an opportunity to think through them in an effort to come to a more consistently biblical

A Summary Overview of Van Til’s Thought

American Reformed theologians of the twentieth century.14

As this all-too-brief summary indicates, we cannot begin to understand Cornelius

read John Newton’s “Letter on Controversy” available online here.

ed. Eric Sigward.

Churchman (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2008).

apologetic methodology that would be consistent with Reformed theology.18 He believed

that all other apologetic methodologies lacked such consistency.19

As a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Van Til was required to

subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith. His commitment to confessional

Trinity is “foundational to everything else as a principle of explanation.”28 This God is “the

26 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 357.

in a chain of being, with varying degrees of intensity.”38

Among other things, understanding the Creator-creature distinction helps us

Christian Epistemology, 60; Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 200.

See Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 324.

“analogical.”43 Ultimately, man’s knowledge depends on divine knowledge.44 This means

Trinity as its presupposition.”46

41 Van Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology, 1.

function normally or near to normally even after the fall.”51

two classes of men: covenant keepers and covenant breakers.53 No one is

50 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 193.

wicked suppression of the knowledge of God affects man’s knowledge of everything.

known truly by man without the existence of God.”60

Reformed Christian must reject all traditional forms of natural theology.63

57 Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 92.

become an expert botanist or physicist one must study botany or physics.”73

speaking of different degrees of knowledge.74 Instead, he considers the problem by

69 Van Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology, 57.

men are as wrong in their interpretation of trees as in their interpretation of

attempted suppression of the knowledge of God successful? Understanding Van Til’s

77 Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., 151.

Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 177, 190.

the Reformed confessions and elaborated in Reformed systematic theology.82 With

systematic theology presuppose the existence of God.84 Because apologetics is part of

systematic theology, apologetics must presuppose the existence of God.

methodology is one that argues by presupposition. He explains, “To argue by

because he is a creature of God, actually does know to be true.”91

87 Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 129.

much more.92 The traditional method of apologetics must, therefore, be rejected.

A Friendly Critique of Van Til’s Thought

to bring philosophy and apologetics in line with Reformed theology in a noncompromising

92 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 340–41.

centuries has been in error.

vagueness is an obstacle to good theology, it is a problem that must be addressed.

94 Garcia, preface to In Defense of the Eschaton, xv.

established history of usage in medieval and Reformed scholasticism. He also uses

definitions to technical terms with established definitions is that it inevitably causes