What do you think?
Rate this book
A survey of Christian epistemology
228 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1967
7 people are currently reading
157 people want to read
About the author
Cornelius Van Til
152 books122 followersCornelius Van Til, was a Christian philosopher, Reformed theologian, and presuppositional apologist.
Biographical sketch
Born on May 3, 1895, in Grootegast, The Netherlands he was the sixth son of Ite and Klazina Van Til, who emigrated to the United States when "Kees," as he was known to friends, was 10. He grew up helping on the family farm in Highland, Indiana.
Van Til graduated from Calvin College in 1922, receiving a ThM from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1925 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1927. He began teaching at Princeton, but shortly went with the conservative group who founded Westminster Theological Seminary, where he taught for forty-three years of his life as a professor of apologetics.
He was also a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church from the 1930s until his death in 1987, and in that denomination, he was embroiled in a bitter dispute with Gordon Clark over God's incomprehensibility known as the Clark-Van Til Controversy in which, according to John Frame, neither man was at his best and neither quite understood the other's position.
Van Til's thought
Van Til is perhaps best known for the development of a fresh approach to the task of defending the Christian faith. Although trained in traditional methods he drew on the insights of fellow Calvinistic philosophers Vollenhoven and Herman Dooyeweerd to formulate what he viewed as a more consistently Christian methodology. His apologetic focused on the role of presuppositions, the point of contact between believers and unbelievers, and the antithesis between Christian and non-Christian worldviews.
Source: Theopedia
Biographical sketch
Born on May 3, 1895, in Grootegast, The Netherlands he was the sixth son of Ite and Klazina Van Til, who emigrated to the United States when "Kees," as he was known to friends, was 10. He grew up helping on the family farm in Highland, Indiana.
Van Til graduated from Calvin College in 1922, receiving a ThM from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1925 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1927. He began teaching at Princeton, but shortly went with the conservative group who founded Westminster Theological Seminary, where he taught for forty-three years of his life as a professor of apologetics.
He was also a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church from the 1930s until his death in 1987, and in that denomination, he was embroiled in a bitter dispute with Gordon Clark over God's incomprehensibility known as the Clark-Van Til Controversy in which, according to John Frame, neither man was at his best and neither quite understood the other's position.
Van Til's thought
Van Til is perhaps best known for the development of a fresh approach to the task of defending the Christian faith. Although trained in traditional methods he drew on the insights of fellow Calvinistic philosophers Vollenhoven and Herman Dooyeweerd to formulate what he viewed as a more consistently Christian methodology. His apologetic focused on the role of presuppositions, the point of contact between believers and unbelievers, and the antithesis between Christian and non-Christian worldviews.
Source: Theopedia
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 27, 2014
Typical van Til book. Numerous interesting insights on Greek philosophy. Sort of spirals out of control on Idealism as he (likely) tried to fit his dissertation into three chapters.
Abstractness and Greek Epistemology
For Plato “abstract” is the opposite of empirical (33). The sense-world is associated with ultimate plurality. It is the world of “Becoming.” Because all is in flux, there is no unity in the sense world. It can only find its unity in the world of ideals.
But the world of Ideas cannot solve the problem of knowledge, either. Further, Which Idea is most ultimate and why? It appears then that the world of Ideas has a diversity in it as well.
The world of the ideas, on the other hand, is Absolute and unchanging. To which world, then, does the soul belong?
If the soul belongs to the world of Ideals, and as such is eternal, then why did it leave it that world in the first place?
Who Can Think in Eternal categories?
We can’t use temporal categories to talk about the non-temporal world. Further, we can’t use eternal categories to talk about the temporal world, since the former are immutable and the later mutable. We need a God who can reveal this manner of speaking to us.
Medieval Epistemology
CvT is friendlier to Augustine in this volume than he was in A Christian Theory of Knowledge. Here he emphasizes the differences between Augustine and Plato and focuses the discussion on the problem of knowledge that Plato raised in the previous chapter: what is the principle of Unity (One) and Diversity (Many)?
For CvT this solution lies in the doctrine of the Trinity.
Without a doctrine of creation, the sense world is seen as an “ultimate” (48). And if we start with an ultimate plurality, how will we get to unity? Plato never found unity in the Ideal world, for the Idea of the Good never acquired supremacy over the other ideas, and there remained the problem of the Idea of mud, hair, and filth.
The scholastics accepted the Greek idea of the soul, which parallels the chain of being. At the lowest level is the vegetative part, then the appetitive, then the cognitive (this also parallels comments made by John of Damascus).
Universals and Paganism
The problem of universals is simply a restatement of the problem of the One and the Many.
Donum Superadditum
Something (image of God) received with man’s being. The origin of this thought lies in the pagan idea of a material universe with an evil inherent in it existing independently of God (62). It’s hard to see on this gloss how God could have created man “good” apart from endowing him with a little something extra.
Modern Epistemology: Lutheranism
Luther thought of the image of God in purely moral categories, neglecting such as the will and intellect.
Van Til analyzes the Lutheran view of the sacrament as it relates to the person of Christ, and as such to epistemology: the human can become divine. It is an intermingling of temporal and eternal (70). As such, Lutheranism also finds itself facing the same difficulties that Platonism faced.
Original Sin and Representation (78)
Van Til has an illuminating discussion on original sin. He addresses the common challenge to it: it is illogical because we can’t be tried for someone else’s actions. But he points out that this only works if we reject the category of representation.
He says that the principle of representation holds because the members of the Trinity are mutually representational. That is an interesting suggestion, but I am not sure what he really means by that. He goes on to say that God creates in representational categories (78-79). Again, very intriguing but not really that clear.
Modern Epistemology: Arminianism
For Watson finitude involves evil (82). “No creature can be entirely perfect because he is finite” (Watson, Theological Institutes vol 1, p. 33). This mutes the distinction between general and special revelation. But as Van Til points out, this is paganism. It posits a world independent of God. If God created the world there is no reason why it can’t be perfectly good (Van Til, 82). Van Til asks the question, “Why [on the Arminian gloss]could not God create a perfect though finite being?” The only real answer for the Arminian is that there must be laws and conditions above God to which he must answer (90).
Van Til then employs the standard (and in my opinion, devastating) objection to Arminianism: was it in God’s plan that man should fall into evil? If he says yes, then he is a Calvinist. If he says no, then he posits a Platonic man outside the plan and power of God (83). Like Plato, this posits a world independent (to some degree, anyway) of God.
Van Til then goes on to discuss the Arminian contention that for an ethical act to be truly free, it must occur in an impersonal vacuum (Miley, Systematic Theology, I: 409, quoted in Van Til, 87). The problem with this is given what we confess about God, and that all facts are in a God-vacuum, then on Miley’s gloss it’s hard to see how any action could occur. Van Til points out this is an anti-theistical position. He writes, “[this] act could not occur except in the Void” (88).
Modern Epistemology: Calvinism
Van Til links Calvin’s project under the “Covenant” (96). He notes that we see his “representation” in the Trinity as well. The persons of the Trinity are exhaustive of one another. This allows man to find the principles of unity and diversity within the Trinity (and hence, within eternal categories).
If the Trinity is representational, then man, too, thinks in representational categories (97). Representation = Covenant = Covenantal Categories
Abstractness and Greek Epistemology
For Plato “abstract” is the opposite of empirical (33). The sense-world is associated with ultimate plurality. It is the world of “Becoming.” Because all is in flux, there is no unity in the sense world. It can only find its unity in the world of ideals.
But the world of Ideas cannot solve the problem of knowledge, either. Further, Which Idea is most ultimate and why? It appears then that the world of Ideas has a diversity in it as well.
The world of the ideas, on the other hand, is Absolute and unchanging. To which world, then, does the soul belong?
If the soul belongs to the world of Ideals, and as such is eternal, then why did it leave it that world in the first place?
Who Can Think in Eternal categories?
We can’t use temporal categories to talk about the non-temporal world. Further, we can’t use eternal categories to talk about the temporal world, since the former are immutable and the later mutable. We need a God who can reveal this manner of speaking to us.
Medieval Epistemology
CvT is friendlier to Augustine in this volume than he was in A Christian Theory of Knowledge. Here he emphasizes the differences between Augustine and Plato and focuses the discussion on the problem of knowledge that Plato raised in the previous chapter: what is the principle of Unity (One) and Diversity (Many)?
For CvT this solution lies in the doctrine of the Trinity.
Without a doctrine of creation, the sense world is seen as an “ultimate” (48). And if we start with an ultimate plurality, how will we get to unity? Plato never found unity in the Ideal world, for the Idea of the Good never acquired supremacy over the other ideas, and there remained the problem of the Idea of mud, hair, and filth.
The scholastics accepted the Greek idea of the soul, which parallels the chain of being. At the lowest level is the vegetative part, then the appetitive, then the cognitive (this also parallels comments made by John of Damascus).
Universals and Paganism
The problem of universals is simply a restatement of the problem of the One and the Many.
Donum Superadditum
Something (image of God) received with man’s being. The origin of this thought lies in the pagan idea of a material universe with an evil inherent in it existing independently of God (62). It’s hard to see on this gloss how God could have created man “good” apart from endowing him with a little something extra.
Modern Epistemology: Lutheranism
Luther thought of the image of God in purely moral categories, neglecting such as the will and intellect.
Van Til analyzes the Lutheran view of the sacrament as it relates to the person of Christ, and as such to epistemology: the human can become divine. It is an intermingling of temporal and eternal (70). As such, Lutheranism also finds itself facing the same difficulties that Platonism faced.
Original Sin and Representation (78)
Van Til has an illuminating discussion on original sin. He addresses the common challenge to it: it is illogical because we can’t be tried for someone else’s actions. But he points out that this only works if we reject the category of representation.
He says that the principle of representation holds because the members of the Trinity are mutually representational. That is an interesting suggestion, but I am not sure what he really means by that. He goes on to say that God creates in representational categories (78-79). Again, very intriguing but not really that clear.
Modern Epistemology: Arminianism
For Watson finitude involves evil (82). “No creature can be entirely perfect because he is finite” (Watson, Theological Institutes vol 1, p. 33). This mutes the distinction between general and special revelation. But as Van Til points out, this is paganism. It posits a world independent of God. If God created the world there is no reason why it can’t be perfectly good (Van Til, 82). Van Til asks the question, “Why [on the Arminian gloss]could not God create a perfect though finite being?” The only real answer for the Arminian is that there must be laws and conditions above God to which he must answer (90).
Van Til then employs the standard (and in my opinion, devastating) objection to Arminianism: was it in God’s plan that man should fall into evil? If he says yes, then he is a Calvinist. If he says no, then he posits a Platonic man outside the plan and power of God (83). Like Plato, this posits a world independent (to some degree, anyway) of God.
Van Til then goes on to discuss the Arminian contention that for an ethical act to be truly free, it must occur in an impersonal vacuum (Miley, Systematic Theology, I: 409, quoted in Van Til, 87). The problem with this is given what we confess about God, and that all facts are in a God-vacuum, then on Miley’s gloss it’s hard to see how any action could occur. Van Til points out this is an anti-theistical position. He writes, “[this] act could not occur except in the Void” (88).
Modern Epistemology: Calvinism
Van Til links Calvin’s project under the “Covenant” (96). He notes that we see his “representation” in the Trinity as well. The persons of the Trinity are exhaustive of one another. This allows man to find the principles of unity and diversity within the Trinity (and hence, within eternal categories).
If the Trinity is representational, then man, too, thinks in representational categories (97). Representation = Covenant = Covenantal Categories
September 14, 2017
In this Van Til developps a distinctive christian epistemology and he interacts/critics main western philosophers (hegel, kant, the greeks : plato, aristotle, idealists and pragmatists) and catholicism, arminianism and lutherianism theology that leads to a defective epistemology, which contradicts some main christian doctrines and compromise with non-christian philosophy.
The last chapter maybe is the the best : it has a general critic of pragmatism (which for Van Til encompass materialism, empiricism for example) and of idealism (rationalism).
The discussion of Platon and Aristotle are hard to grasp, but the rest of the book is quite surprisely accessible. Van Til is globally understandable here.
The last chapter maybe is the the best : it has a general critic of pragmatism (which for Van Til encompass materialism, empiricism for example) and of idealism (rationalism).
The discussion of Platon and Aristotle are hard to grasp, but the rest of the book is quite surprisely accessible. Van Til is globally understandable here.
January 6, 2011
A great philosophical inquiry into what Van Til calls "dimensionalism". He shows in this book how every system of thought differs from Christianity at this one basic point. Then he shows how the Christian model is superior. It is brilliant, even if not all that accessible for non-technical readers.
April 23, 2007
Not to philosophically technical, though it does seem to be a dead-on biblical critique of philosophical issues. That is, it doesn't seem to be directed toward philosophical circles/journals, but toward ministers. This is not a criticism of it, but a categorization.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews