Lessons from Reading Van Til

So bear with me. Be a bear with me. I haven’t actually read any book by Van Til to completion, but am currently working through Greg Bahnsen’s analysis of Van Til, in which much of the book is direct excerpts from Van Til. 

A warning. Reading Van Til as someone interested in pressup is quite a challenge. There is philosophical prep work needed to be done before you engage with Van Til. One may ask then why engage with him. Greg Bahnsen seems to do a fine job with his various books. James White and Jason lisle write more simply. Van Til is considered to be the father of pressupositional apologetics or as he states it better “reformed apologetics”. The ideas of John Calvin may be presented more understandably in a work of MacArthur’s or Joel Beeke, but why wouldn’t you want to go back to the original. It is quite the same with Cornelius Van Til. But it takes some preparation to start understanding his ideas. I read Always Ready by Bahnsen (observe my review) and found it to be a good introduction. I mainly focused on reading articles and watching videos. The more you are exposed to the presuppositional methodology the more you will become familiar with the respective terminology. Terminology is important, especially for philosophically worded works. 

I won’t expand on the thought of Van Til here, but will point to some observations of texts I’ve read and am reading. 

Van Til has the unique ability to be incredibly lucid and clear and a paragraph later state something without much explanation, expecting you to be familiar with the terminology and the such. Reading Meuther’s great biography of Van Til, you learn that he was somewhat “jealous” of some of his students who wrote books on apologetics that were simpler and more well received. He expressed disappointment of himself of not being a young writer. Most of his students who were publishing works were in their late 20s and early 30s and 40s. He was around 60 when he started publishing extensively. You hear of puritans writing massive works at 23 and other preachers pushing out commentaries at 27. I can imagine Van Til being encouraged reading the puritans but also maybe a bit discouraged, wishing he could be clearer in his thought. I feel the same way often. I love writing and teaching and have some book and podcast ideas. Everyone is in a different place. God just hasn’t called me to be Jonathan Edwards. He hasn’t called me to be the next Owen or Bavinck, from the best of my knowledge. I may do similar things in the future to all those people, but I’m Yuri Cameron. God has called me to be a Christian, so I’ll be the best Christian I can be. I try not to be jealous of a foot or a thumb, but try to be content being an eye. So before you decide to read his works or Bahnsen’s Analysis of him, make sure you watch a couple debates, especially Bahnsen’s. Listen to lectures on presuppositional apologetics. Get familiar with the terminology, and then start digging into Van Til and you will start understanding a lot more of him.

Van Til’s writing style is good. I enjoy reading Bavinck, Kuyper, and Dooyeweerd more. They address complicated issues in surprisingly simple language. I am continually surprised and pleased with these Dutch dudes. They just write so clearly. 

Van Til expects you to be philosophically grounded at some level. Meuther addresses how Van Til often struggled in presenting his information in a clear way and how as his students asked questions, Van Til would more often than not go into a whole discussion of the entire revelation of God, tie it all together and so on and not reply answer the question at hand. That’s just something students got used to I guess. Van Til was a sweet man, a gentle gracious spirit, even though his books are pretty intense. Students in his classes remember him as endearing and ever so hospitable. He’d have students over at his house for dinner often and would house students who were visiting or needed a place to stay for some time. He would walk on campus a lot, similar to Vos.

I would have loved to meet him. I think, given my personality, my interest in theoretical theology and philosophy but also my interest in communicating to youth, I think I would gently but consistently push him to explain his ideas easily to me. I’ve done that with a pastor. Sometimes you have to gently pry what you need out of teachers, etc. But Van Til is so gracious and kind he would take his time to explain things. 

Again this post is not about what Van Til said, but rather how to read Van Til and some lessons learned. 

We consider Van Til an apologist. But he’s is a rigorous theologian and a well versed philosopher. He has a phenomenal knowledge of western philosophy and it’s history but also a deeply religious and philosophically rigorous grasp of biblical, and systematic theology. 

So theology truly does guide his apologetic, this being a reformed apologetic. I do appreciate this terminology rather than presuppositional. When one says that they’re a reformed apologist, they’re saying “I’m reformed, and my apologetics is also reformed”. If we have a wrong theology we will have a wrong apologetic. 

The biggest thing I’ve learned from reading limited excerpts of Van Til is how broad he is. He writes on systematic theology, apologetics, Karl Barth, hermeneutical, Christian education, and lots more. 

The biggest advice I would give before reading Van Til is to get more familiar with philosophical terminology and particularly Van Til’s apologetic (watch debates, read articles)

My biggest personal lesson from Van Til is that God blesses the church in unique ways. Van Til was an academic and a scholar from the tribe of Benjamin. But he was also a sweet churchman, a man after God’s own heart.