Muether on Van Til: A Review (Pt 1)

It is hard to overstate the influence of Cornelius Van Til on confessional and conservative Reformed theology since the early 20th century. I’ll use myself as an an example because I think that what I experienced is fairly representative of what others experienced who became Reformed in the 20th century. My entire experience of Reformed theology is completely intertwined with the work of Cornelius Van Til. When I first entered a Reformed congregation in 1980 his name was one of the first I remember hearing. My pastor, Vern Pollema, was his devoted student. I think I read his Case for Calvinism and The Defense of the Faith as an undergraduate. I’m sure I wouldn’t have survived my undergraduate education at a large state university without the influence of Van Til on our college group which was strongly oriented to Reformed apologetics. When, during that same period, a member of the philosophy dept was converted and when he became Reformed and began to attend our college group he gave a series of apologetic lectures that drew sizable crowds to our little group. He defended the faith from a Van Tillian approach. Hearing a professional philosopher set forth a militant defense of Christianity which began unapologetically with Christian theism as its starting point, was a seminal point in my education. I chose to attend Westminster Seminary California because my dear friend Chuck Hill, who was a couple years ahead of me, reported that I would learn Van Til there and do so in the sunshine! As a pastor in Kansas City, when I came into contact with a large fundamentalist creation science society there I was asked to give lectures on apologetics and I endeavored to wean them from their rationalist approach to apologetics and to introduce them to Van Til. In the years since 1980 I’ve read most of the major books on Van Til and I’ve read a good bit of Van Til himself. Those students who’ve had me as teacher in our Christian Mind course (which I’ve taught when Mike is on Sabbatical), and in even in historical courses where the connection to Van Til might not seem as direct, will tell you that Clark frequently exhorts the students to “read Van Til.”

To borrow a phrase from the apostle Paul, I’m speaking like a fool here, but I feel some burden to try to establish my Van Tillian bona fides since it has been alleged by some misguided and and misinformed people that “Scott Clark is not a Van Tillian.” Some Van Tillian credentials are perhaps also important as background for what I want to say next: John Muether has produced the best comprehensive introduction to Van Til yet written.

All the other introductions to Van Til have their virtues. White’s earlier, hagiographical biography of CVT is fun and edifying and initiates the newcomer into some famous CVT stories. Halsey, Pratt, and Rushdoony are clear and generally easy to understand. Bahnsen communicates the main ideas while mostly resisting the urge to make over CVT into a theonomist. Frame is helpful in some ways and is reasonably clear about where he parts company with Van Til.

Most volumes on Van Til are written by those with more or less purely philosophical and theological interests. The result usually is that Van Til is reduced to a talking head. In a way this is appropriate because, in his syllabi, CVT often did the same to his subjects. Muether, however, has drawn the reader into Van Til’s own world in order to help the reader understand Van Til on his own terms. This is no dewey-eyed portrait, two-dimensional, medieval stick figure. Here we have a portrait, painted by a sympathetic but skilled and critical historian, of Van Til as human being in his social-historical context and perhaps most importantly, in his ecclesiastical context.

Next time: A survey of the book. It is available at WSC Books for $17.36. Click on the image for more info.

Gary Johnson’s review is here.