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Product Review Summary: Classic with Slight Modifications and Edgar's Comments Throughout church history the defense of the faith has been pivotal in the expansion of Christian Theism (CT). Cornelius Van Til was convinced that "Christian apologetics is rooted in a unified system of scriptural truth, a worldview that encompasses all spheres of knowledge." In this new edition Van Til's insights will not only enrich your apologetic goals and evangelism work, but will increase your devotion to the Triune God.
This volume includes William Edgar's outstanding introduction (15 pages long) and he provides the reader with numerous explanatory notes in this first typeset edition. Edgar assists the reader with a light annotation of the text and Gaffin says that Edgar's comments are "invariably helpful, never intrusive."
This new version is an important resource and is endorsed by:
- Luder Whitlock
- Scott Oliphint
- Richard Gaffin.
Edgar in the introduction writes that Van Til "was without a doubt one of the most original apologists of the twentieth century" (p. 3). He further notes that Van Til's "originality consists in this: he sought to develop a God-centered apologetics without compromise and yet without cutting off communication with unbelievers or retreating into a Christian tribalism. ... Van Til's goal as a presuppositionalist was to show that the Christian worldview is the only rational and objectively valid one. Without it nothing makes sense." Edgar adds that "everything in the world speaks of God the Creator, the Christian apologist can begin an argument virtually form any point in human experience and show how it voices the truth" (p. 4).
Edgar further explains that "Presuppositional apologetics asks that we but recognize that all ideas and arguments come within a basic arrangement, a framework within which they make sense. That framework, when it does not conform to biblical truth, is open to challenge" (p. 5).
The apologetic approach: "The apologist must get over onto the ground of the unbeliever for argument's sake and show him that this claims cannot succeed" (p. 7). In Van Til's approach everything becomes evidence for the Christian worldview, since everything in creation proclaims God's handiwork. Even our self-knowledge is rooted in the knowledge of God" (p. 8).
The astute editor suggests that this book is Van Til's "most complete, succinct introduction to his apologetics in all of his writings" (p. 11).
In the text itself, Van Til asserts that "Christianity can never be separated from some theory about the existence and the nature of God. The result is that Christian theism must be thought of as a unit" (p. 18).
Van Til proceeds from theology in his apologetic and rightly claims that knowledge and truth must be grounded on God who has sovereignty, aseity, immutability, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, and unity. Deny this God, and one cannot account for anything within human experience. Van Til befittingly asserts that the God of the Bible has "independence or aseity" (p. 24). For intelligibility, there has to be something that has aseity, considering that the cosmos and everything within it lack the aforementioned, God alone can be the ground and fount for making human experience intelligible. Since the laws of logic are immutables and the material cosmos is in constant flux, God alone can account for these unchanging laws. God is a tri-personal unity, hence He alone can be the solution to the problem of "the one and the many" (both equally ultimate within the nature of God and expressed in the universe as such - p. 28).
Van Til presses that unless "we can believe in this sort of God (triune), it does us no good to be told that we may believe in any other sort of god or in anything else" (p. 39). Deny the triune God of scripture and one cannot make sense of anything within human experience. The author states that to "argue by presupposition is to indicate what are the epistemological and metaphysical principles that underlie and control one's method ... and only upon the Christian position ... do facts and laws appear intelligible" (p. 129).
Van Til furnished the Christian community with the system of apologetics that proves that (CT) is certain. Even anti-theism requires and presupposes CT forasmuch as CT alone provides the rational and moral pre-necessities to ground nonmaterial changeless universals. The Law of Non-contradiction (a ~~a) and the Law of Identity (a=a) are among these immaterial immutable universals. Only the immaterial immutables triune God with universal power and presence can be the ground and the wellspring for these unchanging universals. One must employ these universals in all one asserts and in all one performs. God must exist, the contrary is not possible.
God Does Exist!: Defending the faith using presuppositional apologetics, evidence, and the impossibility of the contrary
Product Review Summary: "Christian Apologetics" Isn't The back cover of this book informs us that Cornelius Van Til is "the most important apologist of the twentieth century". Personally I'd never heard of him before seeing the book, but that's okay. I've never heard of a lot of the world's most important people. Two things should be noted by the prospective reader, however. First, "Christian Apologetics" is not a work of Christian apologetics. It is an introduction to Van Til's method of arguing for the faith. Second, Van Til says that Calvinism is the only biblical form of Christianity. This leads, not surprisingly, to a book very different what most would expect. It's difficult to take Calvinists seriously when there are barely any of them left.
Others have praised the book for being straightforward and accessible. This only goes to show, I suppose, that simplicity is relative. From my layman's perspective it's incredibly dense with complex theological concepts and philosophical terms. A true beginner would likely be totally lost by the end of the first chapter.
Said first chapter presents Van Til's version of the Christian worldview, such as it is. Much of the text is actually devoted to distinguishing his Calvinist theology from Catholic and Evangelical Protestant teachings. Hence the book is more likely to repel than stimulate many readers. Van Til's favorite practice is to hammer the sinfulness of man into the ground over and over. His main beef with the Catholic Church concerns the worth of human reason. He sees no possibility of successful human reason--or human anything--without the action of the divine. Needless to say, this involves a lot of careful navigation around biblical passages which do say that a certain amount of divine truth is implanted even in the hearts of the pagans. Van Til asserts that successful apologetics actually demand a complete denial of any common ground between believers and unbelievers. Instead, he insists that the only possible "point of contact" lies in recognition of the total depravity of human nature.
This, of course, is only the crudest outline of Van Til's book. I lack the knowledge to plunge into it more deeply. The important point, as I see it, is that Van Til's method is unlikely to win many converts outside of academic philosophy departments. His arguments are too opaque and too foreign to any modern reader to have much impact. Books like Miracles, Orthodoxy, or The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition (Plus) would work much better in that regard. "Christian Apologetics" is likely to explain much more about the failure of Calvinism than the success of Christianity.
Product Review Summary: Not quite what one would expect Cornelius Van Til is a vastly important apologist for any Christian interested in the field to explore.
That said, a book that is entitled "Christian Apologetics" may lead one to think that it will present some kind of arguments for the Christian God or lay out some kind of methodology.
This is not the case, despite this book having a chapter on "The Problem of Method." Essentially, the overall thought of this work can be summed up by saying "Belief is by faith alone, and one can try to defend this belief using reason only under a presupposed Christian worldview."
The main problems I had with this book were:
1) Van Til never offers any arguments for the existence of the Christian God in relation to his interesting presuppositionalist defense.
2) It seems as though he is trying to encourage apologetics, while discouraging it. He constantly attacks the use of reason in defense of the faith, while providing no real replacement for it... all under the pretext of apologetics. This seems rather nonsensical.
3) Further, he spends a rather large amount of time attacking Roman Catholics and Arminians (a term he seems to use to include all Protestants who are not Reformed... which is in itself a problem). This is rather annoying for those who just want to learn about apologetics, not read about how wrong everyone is. Also, he has some simply false ideas about the doctrine of those outside of the Reformed Church, particularly in regards to free will.
I really wanted to like this book. It does present a few very good points, but they are embedded within a largely useless book for those who want to know about apologetics. If one wants to know Van Til's apologetic method in depth (and some of the fantastic ideas that come with it), one should read "The Defense of the Faith" (a very good work--though suffering from some of the same issues as this one), or Greg L. Bahnsen's fantastic "Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis."
Product Review Summary: Dutch Calvinist Christian Apologetics At Its Finest Cornelius Van Til is a legend in the Dutch Calvinist circles. Descended from a country that was at one point 100 per cent Calvinist, Van Til takes the tradition of Dutch Calvinism seriously. But this book is not only for Calvinists. Roman Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans can use the strategic defense of the Christian Gospel in fighting enemies of Christianity.
Product Review Summary: Impressive This is a great presentation of Van Til's style of Christian apologetic.
OK, I'l be honest, I was very eager to finish this book when I got near the end. But I did finish it, and I don't regret having read it! Van Till does an impressive job of packing very deep subject material into such a small soft-cover book. The subject matter is very interesting, but in the final analysis it is not easy reading. If you want an easy read, go elsewhere. If you want to gain a deep insight on the apologetical method of Van Til, who is quite popular in Reformed circles, by all means do read this!
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