van Til, Cornelius

(1895-1987)

   Although in some ways more of a theologian than a philosopher, van Til has exercised a profound influence on many Christian philosophers, especially those committed to Calvinism. Although a graduate of the Dutch-Reformed Calvin College, van Til taught all of his life (apart from a brief sojourn at Princeton Theological Seminary) at Westminster Theological Seminary. He is best known for his views on apologetics: van Til thought that sin had had such a pervasive influence on the human mind that there was no common point of meeting for the regenerate mind and the unregenerate mind. He therefore rejected natural theology in favour of a concentration on the supreme authority of special revelation (that is, the Bible). Van Til did, however, allow that one could engage in a certain form of negative apologetics, by showing how the presuppositions of the non-Christian did not ultimately make sense of life. There is much similarity between van Til's thought and Reformed epistemology. Van Til was an ordained minister of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and was involved in a famous dispute within that denomination with Gordon Clark over whether God's knowledge and human knowledge had a point of contact (as Clark thought) or were totally incomparable (as van Til argued).

   See apologetics; Calvinism; Clark, Gordon Haddon; epistemology, Reformed

   Further reading: Bahnsen 1998; Frame 1995; Geehan 1971; North 1979; Sigward 1997; van Til 1969a and 1969b; www.vantil.info (web site); White, William 1979