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A Christian Theory of Knowledge
In this work, Dr. Van Til seeks to present a Christian and more especially a Reformed theory of knowledge. Although holding that the Reformed Faith is the most consistent expression of Christianity, the author contends that the cause of non-Reformed Protestantism as well as Roman Catholicism profits from a defense of the Reformed Faith.
390 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1961
8 people are currently reading
249 people want to read
About the author
Cornelius Van Til
139Ìýbooks117ÌýfollowersCornelius 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.
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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.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 16, 2024
This book is philosophically and theologically very rich.
But it is often denser than necessary. This helped me understand why John Frame, a former student of Van Til’s said that he wished Van Til would have written in his native Dutch allowing for his writing to flow more naturally and then for it to be translated by a native speaker.
But it is often denser than necessary. This helped me understand why John Frame, a former student of Van Til’s said that he wished Van Til would have written in his native Dutch allowing for his writing to flow more naturally and then for it to be translated by a native speaker.
August 27, 2018
I am greatly indebted to Cornelius Van Til and thank God for the insights he had into Scripture. However, for all his insight, his writing is far more opaque than the Scriptures he champions. In A Christian Theory of Knowledge, Van Til expands upon his work in The Defense of the Faith. He walks through the early Greek philosophers to the modern existentialists and their children, attempting to show how each of theem succumb to a dialectic of rationalism and irrationalism. Each view at some level incorporates pure rationalism, believing that autonomous man can interpret the world with reference to himself, and pure irrationalism, believing that the world outside of the self is completely contingent—pure chance.
This approach is profound, yet Van Til assumes a level of familiarity with the thinkers he addresses that most readers will not share. To make matters worse, he uses terms in ways that will be unfamiliar to most readers and often states his conclusions without walking the reader through the steps by which he arrived there.
Chapters 8-10 are probably the most clear and helpful, laying out Van Til's presuppositional approach in a (relatively) clear manner. I owe a great debt to Van Til and found much that was helpful in this book, but I would direct the reader to the much more cogent writing of John Frame. For the topic matter of this book, the Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology, and Apologetics: A Justification of Christian Belief.
This approach is profound, yet Van Til assumes a level of familiarity with the thinkers he addresses that most readers will not share. To make matters worse, he uses terms in ways that will be unfamiliar to most readers and often states his conclusions without walking the reader through the steps by which he arrived there.
Chapters 8-10 are probably the most clear and helpful, laying out Van Til's presuppositional approach in a (relatively) clear manner. I owe a great debt to Van Til and found much that was helpful in this book, but I would direct the reader to the much more cogent writing of John Frame. For the topic matter of this book, the Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology, and Apologetics: A Justification of Christian Belief.
February 5, 2025
In general, a very helpful book for grasping Van Til's theology by his examination of the theology of others. As most say, it is a dense book and not without its flaws. The recently added notes by K. Scott Oliphint are of abundant help.
I found Van Til's "Christianity in Conflict" a helpful companion. However, my lack of education in late 19th and 20th century liberal theology handicapped me in the final two chapters.
Again, be sure to read the copy with Oliphint's notes.
I found Van Til's "Christianity in Conflict" a helpful companion. However, my lack of education in late 19th and 20th century liberal theology handicapped me in the final two chapters.
Again, be sure to read the copy with Oliphint's notes.
September 21, 2023
Lots of valuable material, but much of the book went way over my head. I'd likely need to earn a doctorate in philosophy before I come back to the book so I can grasp the parts that were filled to the brim with jargon. Van Til is amazing, but he is still way beyond me. Still, happy with the book so five stars.
April 21, 2014
Some of this will be my own reflections on CvT's A Christian Theory of Knowledge and the rest will be towards a construction of anti-scale of being philosophy. I am not reviewing the whole book because it's unnecessary. Why do a review of any CvT work after Bahnsen's magnum opus? Further, the last 150 pages of CTK could have been left off and the book would have been better.
While CvT's critique of Romanism was good, he didn't integrate his earlier (and fine) critique of Plotinus, Augustine, and being/non-being into his larger critique of Romanism, which likely could have buried Romanism. Instead, he got sidetracked on showing how Karl Barth is secretly in line with the nouvelle theologie of post-Vatican II theology. That simply doesn't wash. For all of Barth's problems, he rejected the analogia entis and the substance metaphysics upon which Rome is built.
CvT gives a fairly good summary and critique of the early church fathers. There is some difficulty in this, since no one, even anchoretic traditions, are entirely clear on who constitutes (and when!) the ECFs. Even admitting Tertullian is a heretic, I don't think you will find many exceptions in the ancient world to the epistemology CvT is summarizing. The later Palamite epistemology is simply a refinement (and perhaps bungling) of some neo-Platonic themes, so to the degree that CvT accurately summarizes and critiques the being theologies of Augustine, Plotinus, and Eurigena, the criticism applies to Palamas (and Palamas and Augustine are closer than one might suspect).
CvT writes that the early church could not find a Christian view of freedom to coalesce with a Christian view of necessity, with the result the fathers opted for a nonbiblical view of free will.
Non-Christian Continuity and Discontinuity
A non-Christian view of continuity sees an identification of God and man, as seen below:
The higher on the scale, the more real and "true" the thing is. Van Til notes that Tertullian sees sin as "the opposite of good." This sounds correct until we realize that means sin is "lower" on the scale of good. Sin has "slenderness of being."
On the principle of continuity it is hard to see how Tertullian (and Justin)'s view of God is different from the Stoics'. But when he argues against Marcion, he says the Christian God is "Other" than man (107).
Later Platonisms
Moving to the fathers (Origen and Clement) we see the scale of being hardened in place. CvT quotes Plotinus to the effect, "thought is motion" and this is inferior to ecstasy. (Rowan Williams has a helpful summary on this point).
Here our chart is modified. God is now seen as hyper-ousia, above ousia. How does one then get from the highest point on the scale of being to "above being?" Mysticism, ecstasy. Van Til can then make the critique that many of these fathers employed both rationalism (scale of being, continuity principle) and irrationalism (ecstasy, mysticism). In fact, rationalism and irrationalism on this gloss are dialectically correlative.
If man is on the scale of being and participates in good, then consistently we must say he also participates in non-being.
Is Finitude Evil?
This is the key point: on metaphysical accounts (and yes, I used the word "metaphysical") man is defective because he is finite (he participates lower on the scale of being, even to participating in non-being. Biblical religion, by contrast, sees man's problem as ethical: he is in rebellion to God. CvT then gives a helpful discussion on "total depravity." We are not saying that man's noetic capacity is ruined. It is in rebellion.
A Metaphysical Fall from Oneness
Augustine is very clear (City of God section on the Platonists) that One = Truth = Being. The further away from the One we get, the more irrational we get. The problem is that historical facts are in the realm of the many (further, since history is contingent). This is similar to Plato's problem of learning by experience. Van Til writes,
When Plato took his line and divided it sharply between eternal being of which there was genuine knowledge or science, and non-being of which there was no knowledge, he was faced with the question of how learning by experience is possible (129).
Back to Augustine: Eternal Truth and History are dialectical opposites. If Christ is the Eternal Word (and true) then how could he be historical? If historical, then not eternal, and thus not true, and thus unknown. This is where one's onto-epistemology leads. As Van Til says, "The first option leads to truth without content."
Van Til has a nice phrase to summarize all of this: slenderness of being. (And that is where these traditions find man's free will).
Other notes:
Rejecting the Augstino-Platonic view of Time: sheer timeless (moving image of eternity) would swallow up all distinctions.
Problems:
I almost understand what CvT means when he says pure rationality and pure irrationality demand one another (144). I wish he would have clarified it.
I understand his criticisms of Barth and some of them are valid. I don't think he fully showed how Barth's actualist ontology is at odds with Rome's analogia entis.
While CvT's critique of Romanism was good, he didn't integrate his earlier (and fine) critique of Plotinus, Augustine, and being/non-being into his larger critique of Romanism, which likely could have buried Romanism. Instead, he got sidetracked on showing how Karl Barth is secretly in line with the nouvelle theologie of post-Vatican II theology. That simply doesn't wash. For all of Barth's problems, he rejected the analogia entis and the substance metaphysics upon which Rome is built.
CvT gives a fairly good summary and critique of the early church fathers. There is some difficulty in this, since no one, even anchoretic traditions, are entirely clear on who constitutes (and when!) the ECFs. Even admitting Tertullian is a heretic, I don't think you will find many exceptions in the ancient world to the epistemology CvT is summarizing. The later Palamite epistemology is simply a refinement (and perhaps bungling) of some neo-Platonic themes, so to the degree that CvT accurately summarizes and critiques the being theologies of Augustine, Plotinus, and Eurigena, the criticism applies to Palamas (and Palamas and Augustine are closer than one might suspect).
CvT writes that the early church could not find a Christian view of freedom to coalesce with a Christian view of necessity, with the result the fathers opted for a nonbiblical view of free will.
Non-Christian Continuity and Discontinuity
A non-Christian view of continuity sees an identification of God and man, as seen below:
The higher on the scale, the more real and "true" the thing is. Van Til notes that Tertullian sees sin as "the opposite of good." This sounds correct until we realize that means sin is "lower" on the scale of good. Sin has "slenderness of being."
On the principle of continuity it is hard to see how Tertullian (and Justin)'s view of God is different from the Stoics'. But when he argues against Marcion, he says the Christian God is "Other" than man (107).
Later Platonisms
Moving to the fathers (Origen and Clement) we see the scale of being hardened in place. CvT quotes Plotinus to the effect, "thought is motion" and this is inferior to ecstasy. (Rowan Williams has a helpful summary on this point).
Here our chart is modified. God is now seen as hyper-ousia, above ousia. How does one then get from the highest point on the scale of being to "above being?" Mysticism, ecstasy. Van Til can then make the critique that many of these fathers employed both rationalism (scale of being, continuity principle) and irrationalism (ecstasy, mysticism). In fact, rationalism and irrationalism on this gloss are dialectically correlative.
If man is on the scale of being and participates in good, then consistently we must say he also participates in non-being.
Is Finitude Evil?
This is the key point: on metaphysical accounts (and yes, I used the word "metaphysical") man is defective because he is finite (he participates lower on the scale of being, even to participating in non-being. Biblical religion, by contrast, sees man's problem as ethical: he is in rebellion to God. CvT then gives a helpful discussion on "total depravity." We are not saying that man's noetic capacity is ruined. It is in rebellion.
A Metaphysical Fall from Oneness
Augustine is very clear (City of God section on the Platonists) that One = Truth = Being. The further away from the One we get, the more irrational we get. The problem is that historical facts are in the realm of the many (further, since history is contingent). This is similar to Plato's problem of learning by experience. Van Til writes,
When Plato took his line and divided it sharply between eternal being of which there was genuine knowledge or science, and non-being of which there was no knowledge, he was faced with the question of how learning by experience is possible (129).
Back to Augustine: Eternal Truth and History are dialectical opposites. If Christ is the Eternal Word (and true) then how could he be historical? If historical, then not eternal, and thus not true, and thus unknown. This is where one's onto-epistemology leads. As Van Til says, "The first option leads to truth without content."
Van Til has a nice phrase to summarize all of this: slenderness of being. (And that is where these traditions find man's free will).
Other notes:
Rejecting the Augstino-Platonic view of Time: sheer timeless (moving image of eternity) would swallow up all distinctions.
Problems:
I almost understand what CvT means when he says pure rationality and pure irrationality demand one another (144). I wish he would have clarified it.
I understand his criticisms of Barth and some of them are valid. I don't think he fully showed how Barth's actualist ontology is at odds with Rome's analogia entis.
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