Cornelius Van Til’s, Christian Apologetics

A review of Cornelius Van Til’s, Christian Apologetics, edited by William Edgar (Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing, 2003, 2^nd edition).

I was reading this little volume while Susie and I were camping along the Little River in the Smoky Mountains, and she looked up from her reading and asked, “How many times are you going to read that book?” I responded that this is just the first time I’ve read this edition, although, as she well noted, I have read previous editions of this little syllabus many, many times in the past.

Bill Edgar and P & R are to be heartily congratulated for bringing Van Til’s introduction to presuppositional apologetics back into print in this more serviceable volume. Edgar’s introduction and notes help to make Van Til’s sometimes tedious writing clearer and more compelling. For those unfamiliar with presuppositionalism, or whose only understanding of this apologetic method is by way of its detractors, this little volume is a must.

Cornelius Van Til died in 1987. He was one of the foremost Christian thinkers of the twentieth century, and his apologetic method has won many followers and just as many opponents. His writing is controversial because he calls into question the validity of most popular apologetic programs, especially those that posit a common neutral ground with unbelievers and rely heavily on reason and evidences as the way into the Gospel. Often charged with promoting fideism in the place of good-faith reasonableness, Van Til instead taught an apologetics of uncompromised faith, rigorous argument, and utter dependence on the convicting Spirit of God.

Van Til did not reject reason and evidences; in their place, as part of an overall program of proclaiming and defending the Biblical worldview, they are certainly proper and effective. But Van Til taught that the Biblical approach to apologetics requires arguing from presuppositions. The believer endeavors to show the unbeliever that he cannot hold his professed views consistently without utterly destroying all hope of truth and knowledge, and calls him at the same time to consider the truth of God and Scripture as the only viable life and world view.

Christian Apologetics is the best place to start in understanding Van Til’s method, and this second edition of his syllabus is a vast improvement over previous ones. Bill Edgar’s introduction and notes are very helpful in guiding us through the presuppositional method. Edgar, himself an effective apologist, is as reliable an interpreter of Van Til as we have today, and his many comments and interpretive notes should help the reader unfamiliar with Van Til to begin to grasp his approach to defending the faith of Christ.

This little book has some of my favorite Van Til quotes and images:

“Apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life against the various forms of the non-Christian philosophy of life.”

“If we can successfully defend the fortress of Christian theism, we have the whole world to ourselves.  There is, then, no standing room left for the enemy.  We wage offensive as well as defensive warfare.”

“It is therefore the business of Christian apologetics to challenge the non-Christian view of morality and to show that unless the will of God be taken as ultimate, there is no meaning to moral distinctions.”

“It is part of the task of Christian apologetics to make men self-consciously either covenant keepers or covenant breakers.”

The method of presuppositional apologetics is really little more than an extension of the proclamation of the Gospel. It begins with the Gospel, stands squarely on the Gospel at every point, demands obedience to the Gospel, exposes everything that is not the Gospel for the deception that it is, and relies on the Holy Spirit to impress the truth of the Gospel on those with whom we reason. Christian Apologetics ought to be required reading for every preacher and evangelist – which is to say, for everyone who takes up the challenge to follow Christ as fishers of men.

T. M. Moore is a Fellow of the Wilberforce Forum. He serves as Pastor of Teaching Ministries and Director of the Center for Christian Studies at Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tenn. He is the editor of the series, Jonathan Edwards for Today’s Reader (P & R), the latest volume of which is Praying Together for True Revival.  His book, Consider the Lilies: A Plea for Creational Theology, will be released in May, 2005, by P & R. Audio messages and lectures by T. M. can be secured from WordMp.3.com. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in Concord, Tenn. He can be reached at nacurragh@aol.com. All Scripture quotations from the English Standard Version (Crossway).