Cornelius Van Til developed the system of apologetics known as presuppositionalism in conscious interaction with Warfield and Kuyper.  As the name suggests, presuppositionalism stresses the importance of understanding that both Christian and non-Christian thinking is controlled and begins with certain presuppositions or first principles.  We will treat the development of Van Til’s presuppositional apologetics by means of the same five categories under which we have looked at Old Princeton and Amsterdam.

Internal Unity

1. The preceding survey of the Old Princeton and Amsterdam apologetic approaches makes clear that from a biblical viewpoint, they had opposite or contrasting strengths and weaknesses. Spencer comments on the relation of the deficiencies of the Amsterdam and Old Princeton schools of apologetics.

Interestingly, these deficiencies are not in identical aspects.  Each school’s weaknesses are aligned [arranged‑-SW] opposite strengths in the other school.  For example, Old Princeton emphasizes the cognitive [rational or reasonable‑-SW] basis for faith, neglected by Amsterdam, while Kuyper and Bavinck emphasize the internal witness of the Spirit as the solely sufficient persuasive [convincing‑-SW] agent concerning the divine origin of Scripture.  Again, Old Princeton emphasizes the enduring rational character of man even in sin while Amsterdam emphasizes the radical and pervasive effects of the fall and their significance for apologetics.

This situation points to a resolution of the dispute: a wedding or fusion of the two schools of thought, gaining the strengths and insights of both and avoiding the weaknesses of each.  In so doing, a more consistently Biblical position in apologetics emerges.  This indeed is what has happened historically in the thought of a man deeply indebted to both traditions, Cornelius Van Til.^[1]

2. There is in Van Til’s teaching a conscious resolution and synthesis (or blending) of the antithesis (or contradictions) between Old Princeton and Amsterdam. When we speak of Van Til synthesizing or combining these two schools, however, it is not as though we are saying that Van Til owes an equal debt to both.  Rather it is clear that Van Til stands basically in the Amsterdam tradition.  This, in fact, is how Spencer repeatedly treats him.  Van Til, speaking of the debate between Warfield and Kuyper, straightforwardly asserts, “I have chosen the position of Abraham Kuyper.” ^[2]
3. Yet Van Til has a conscious difference of opinion with Kuyper. He makes clear his differences with Kuyper by saying,  “But I am unable to follow him when from the fact of the mutually destructive character of the two principles he concludes to the uselessness of reasoning with the natural man.” ^[3] In other words, Van Til believes it is incorrect to reason as follows: The natural man, because of his unsaved and depraved mind, has a completely different approach to knowledge than the believer.  Therefore, it is useless to reason with him or try to defend the faith to him.  We must simply wait for the Spirit to give him the eyes to see the truth.  Van Til expands in another place on this point and shows his appreciation of Warfield on this point.

Warfield stresses the objective rationality of the Christian religion.  This is not to suggest that Kuyper does not also believe in such an objective rationality.  But by pointing out again and again that the Christian faith is belief on evidence not blind belief, Warfield makes plain that Christianity is “rationally defensible.”  This has direct significance for apologetics.  Kuyper seems sometimes to argue from the fact that the natural man is blind to the truth, to the uselessness of apologetics.  But Warfield points out that this does not follow.  On this point he closely follows Calvin.  Men ought to conclude that God is their Creator, their Benefactor and their Judge.  They ought to see these things because the revelation of God to them is always clear.  The fact that men do not see this and cannot see this is due to the fact that their minds are darkened and their wills perverted through sin.  Such is the argument of Calvin.  And Warfield’s insistence that we believe Christianity because it is “rational,” not in spite of the fact that it is irrational, is fully in accord with it.  To the extent that Warfield differs on this point with Kuyper and has called us back to Calvin, he has done great service for Christian apologetics.^[4]

4. Van Til saw tension between Warfield and Kuyper. He gave a sharp and perceptive analysis of their approaches to apologetics.  He felt that both were emphasizing vital but balancing aspects of the truth.  He also felt that both were deducing ideas and views from their positive emphases, which were false.  His crucial interaction with Warfield and Kuyper comes in The Christian Theory of Knowledge where in a chapter entitled, “Natural Theology and Scripture,” he interacts with the thought of both these men.  His key statements and criticisms are brief but piercing:

Warfield has greatly stressed the point that God’s revelation is present to every man and sometimes draws from it the illegitimate conclusion that therefore the natural man, disregarding his ethical alienation from God, can give an essentially correct interpretation at least of natural revelation.  Kuyper has stressed the natural man’s ethical alienation from God and sometimes draws from it the illegitimate conclusion that the natural man is unable to understand the intellectual argument for Christianity in any sense.^[5]

This brief statement keenly summarizes the contrasting apologetic strengths of Warfield and Kuyper.  It also neatly summarizes and analyzes their contrasting weaknesses.  Warfield fails to distinguish natural revelation and natural theology and, therefore, deduces from or includes in natural revelation the idea of natural theology.  Kuyper similarly fails to properly distinguish natural revelation and natural theology clearly and, therefore, deduces from the noetic or intellectual effects of sin and the impossibility of a genuine natural theology the idea that man is inaccessible to natural revelation.  All of this points us to a distinction between natural revelation and natural theology, which is vital to Van Til’s apologetic and crucial to a proper assessment of and approach to the natural man.

5. Van Til clearly makes a distinction between natural theology and natural revelation by speaking of two different senses in which we may speak of men knowing God. This distinction is stated clearly by the paradox which says that man both knows and does not know the living God.  In the sense of being aware of the witness to the existence and attributes of God given by general or natural revelation all men without exception know God.  In the sense of being able to construct from the data of natural revelation a natural theology or system of knowledge which would be a practical and godly basis for their lives unregenerate men do not know God.  Their sinful intellects always confuse, distort, and pervert natural revelation when they construct their systems of philosophy or religion.  Listen to Van Til:

He knows God …Yet ethically he does not know God … So then in his preaching the Reformed theologian is anxious to do justice to both aspects of biblical truth on this matter.  He should stress on the one hand, the objective clarity of God’s revelation to man.  He should stress that this revelation is unavoidably present to the natural man since it always enters into the penetralia [the innermost or secret parts‑-SW] of his consciousness.  On the other hand he should stress the ethical darkness of the mind of man.  As a consequence of this darkness of mind, this spiritual blindness, the natural man does not know that which, in the sense above defined, he knows and cannot help but know.^[6]

Philosophical Influences

1. His General Approach to Secular Philosophy

Van Til manifests a greater, self-conscious awareness of the dangers of secular philosophy than either Old Princeton or Amsterdam.  In contrast to both schools, Van Til adopts an openly Christian approach to philosophy, which is in conscious contrast to non-Christian philosophy.  Spencer very ably summarizes Van Til’s approach to secular philosophy.  Van Til asserts that all non-Christian philosophy grows out of the evil hearts of unbelievers.  This heart condition of being alienated or separated from God gives an anti-Christian tendency and meaning to everything the unbeliever says in his philosophy.  The unbeliever may not be fully consistent with his ungodly heart and presuppositions, but everything he says will, to one degree or the other, be affected by them.  This means that the believer may never unthinkingly or naively adopt any non-Christian philosophy.  Van Til believes that the believer may use the same terminology as the unbeliever.  Both unbelievers and believers may agree in saying that man is `rational.’  Yet the believer must beware that this “formal similarity” of words does not deceive him into thinking that the believer and unbeliever mean the same thing by such terms.  To summarize Van Til’s general perspective about secular or worldly philosophy we may say that the Christian may learn from the unbeliever, but he may never borrow from him. Here are Spencer’s comments:

Van Til attempts to more faithfully elaborate an explicitly self-consciously Christian philosophical position (Christian Philosophy, pp. 4, 6, 7).

The explanation of how he desires to do this and how he will relate to non-Christian thought is in chapter one of A Survey of Christian Epistemology.  There Van Til rejects the position which advocates that a distinctively Christian philosophy will utilize distinctively Christian terms (personal conversation with the writer, June 22, 1978; Defense of the Faith, p. 23, n. 1; Jerusalem and Athens, pp. 125-126).  Van Til sees no need for that.  The problem, as he sees it, is not so much with terms and labels per se as with the meaning and content of the terms and labels (see, e. g., Survey, pp. v, 5-6).  For Van Til, the presuppositions of an unregenerate’s philosophical perspective, growing out of his heart condition of alienation from and enmity toward God, are anti-Christian.  This gives an anti-Christian cast to the entire system which is elaborated upon those presuppositions.  The unregenerate may not be fully consistent in the out-working of his anti-God stance, but the opposition will always, in greater or lesser degree, make itself felt in the positions taken on all questions (See Survey, pp. 183-185; Jim S. Halsey, For a Time Such as This, pp. 100-106).

This implies two things:  first, that the Christian may not borrow intact any aspect of an unregenerate’s philosophical position.  Every aspect of the latter’s world-view is related to his heart-commitment to rebellion against God.  Therefore, when a Christian borrows a portion of an unregenerate world-view, he obtains a contaminated portion.  He cannot use non-Christian elements without detracting from the fully Christian and godly quality which he desires that his world-view manifest (see Introduction to Systematic Theology, p. 47; see Van Til, Towards a Reformed Apologetics, p. 28).

Second, Van Til states that, though Christian and non-Christian philosophy will never, if each is consistent, share any common positions because each position is qualified and characterized by the basic heart commitment out of which it arises, there will nonetheless often be a formal similarity between the two positions (Survey, p. 2).  That is, the external form or structure (considered in abstraction apart from its content) may often be similar.  For instance, both may speak of man as a “rational” person.  However, by “rational” they will each mean something drastically different.  The Christians will speak of God, man and the world as creations of God, man in the image of God, and revelation.  On the other hand, the non-Christian will refer to the natural realm, man as the accidental product of natural forces, truth as defined purely in terms of the natural order, the independence of man in rising above and subduing his environment, and truth as transient.

According to Van Til, the Christian may learn from the non-Christian but he may not borrow from him.  Whatever is said by the non-Christian is distorted by his rebellion against God and his consequent refusal to define or understand anything by reference to God.  When a Christian learns from the non-Christian, he must take pains to ensure that the insight gained from the non-Christian is thoroughly and radically re-worked and modified in terms of a theistic foundation, context, and standard.  When this is done, there will be only a formal similarity between the insight as it is present in the non-Christian’s system and the insight as it is present in the Christian system.^[7]

2. His Specific Interaction with Secular Philosophy

Van Til was subjected to or learned from two major sources of secular philosophy during his education:  Personal Idealism and Kantianism. Spencer gives us the following biographical insight into the influences with which Van Til interacted.

Van Til did his doctoral studies under A. A. Bowman, a personal idealist at Princeton University …, and did his dissertation on the comparison of the Absolute of Idealist Philosophy and the God of the Bible … Idealism thus constitutes one major philosophical influence.  His Th.M. thesis and his first written syllabus both concerned the metaphysics of apologetics and both manifested Van Til’s conviction regarding the significance of the thought of Immanuel Kant … Kant is the second major influence upon Van Til.^[8]

Keeping in mind Van Til’s perspective that Christians may learn from non-Christians but not borrow from them, Spencer raises the question of what Van Til learned from these influences. Here are his answers:

From Kant and his successors, Van Til gained the insight into the nature and role of presuppositions …This concern regarding presuppositions is indebted to Kant’s discussion of the transcendental method, that is, a method which is concerned to examine an item of data, inquiring as to the necessary preconditions and foundation for its existence.  It asks not merely “how do men think?”, but “what is necessary to make it possible for men to think?” … Though the question is similar for Kant and Van Til, the answers they give are diametrically [completely‑-SW] opposed to each other.  Van Til states:  “… it is the firm conviction of every epistemologically self-conscious Christian [the Christian who understands the truth about how we know what is true‑-SW] that no human being can utter a single syllable, whether in negation or affirmation, unless it were for God’s existence” …

From Idealism, Van Til saw that a system of knowledge must be all-inclusive.  Everything must be known before anything is known.  That is, because each “fact” or aspect of reality is related to every other fact and thus must be interpreted in terms of that, for it is qualified by that, to know truly any aspect demands a knowledge of all other aspects lest the one which is ignored be determinative for the one being examined … Again, however, the indebtedness is formal; materially the idea of system and the relationship of the general to the particular differ greatly as understood by Christianity and Idealism.^[9]

Spencer’s conclusion properly contrasts Van Til with his predecessors in both Old Princeton and Amsterdam.

In Van Til, thus, there is found a greater self-consciousness regarding the relationship between Christian and non-Christian thought and a more explicit discussion of a method for working for the latter.

Though there are significant differences between the philosophical influences upon the orientation of Old Princeton and Amsterdam, there are also striking similarities.  Kuyper and Bavinck as well as Old Princeton appeal to consciousness, “common sense,” and universal consent to justify their starting points in the perceiving and reasoning of man.  Neither clearly builds from Scripture and God in so doing, but instead they both start from human experience itself considered apart from God, His Word, and regeneration.  Both, thus, are less than explicitly Biblical and Christian in their philosophical orientation.  They have been less than selective in their indebtedness to philosophical influences.^[10]

The Noetic Effects of the Fall

For Van Til it is important to recognize that sin is a matter of ethics and not a matter of being.  In other words, sin does not bring man closer to the abyss of non-being or diminish his dependence on God. Spencer states first that the effects of the fall are ethical, not ontological.

For Van Til, sin is man’s rejection of God as his standard.  “Sin is an attempt on the part of man to cut himself loose from God” … This “breaking loose,” Van Til hastens to add, is ethical, not metaphysical.  “Sin is the creature’s enmity and rebellion against God, but is not an escape from creaturehood” … Man cannot alter his ontological dependence upon God.  He still lives and moves and has his being” in God.  The rebellion is ethical.  Man has forsaken his obligation to serve and worship and love God.^[11]

Sin does, however, have a profound effect on the way men think.  The moral or ethical state of a man is basic to everything else about him.  It is basic to the way he thinks.  Because sin makes men hate God and brings them under His wrath, they do not want to think about God or honor Him.  For this reason they attempt to interpret everything without reference to God.  But without referring to God, men cannot think correctly about themselves or the world.  Furthermore, there can never be any unity in the non-Christian’s system.  Because only God can unify and explain the universe as it really is.^[12]

Revelation

1. General (Natural) and Special (Positive) Revelation

Here, there is a marked advance beyond Amsterdam and Old Princeton in the clarity of Van Til’s thinking.  Theologians of both schools had either tended to think of revelation as being exclusively redemptive and, thus, obscured general revelation or else had tended to make special revelation exclusively redemptive and post-lapsarian [after the fall] and, thus, obscured the proper distinction between general and special revelation.  With the help of another Dutch theologian, Geerhardus Vos, Van Til clearly rejects such obscurities.  Rather he makes a distinction between the pre-fall and pre-redemptive phase of special revelation and the post-fall and redemptive phase of special revelation.^[13]

Note the following diagrams, which show forth the differing positions on general and special revelation:

2. Natural Revelation and Natural Theology

Building on his clarified view of the noetic or intellectual effects of sin and general revelation, Van Til makes the crucial distinction between natural (general) revelation and natural theology which we mentioned above.  Spencer remarks:

From this universal, inescapable revelation of God to man, Van Til draws a conclusion.  “Men ought, therefore, to know Him”  … Despite the clarity and unavoidability of this revelation which causes man to be “always confronted with the face of God, man has not truly and properly known God.  The reason for this failure lies not in God’s revelation, but in man himself.  God’s revelation is still clear and unescapable but, “in sinning, man, as it were, took out his own eyes, so that he could no longer see God in his general revelation”  … God has revealed himself and men consequently respond and seek the revealer but in their perverseness, they distort the content of the revelation and seek after false gods.^[14]

Theistic Proofs

Under this heading both the theistic proofs proper and the argument for the authority of Scripture will be treated.  These issues are closely related since they deal respectively with how we prove the divine authority of general (natural) revelation on the one hand, and special (positive) revelation on the other.  A common approach or theme, therefore, permeates Van Til’s approach to these issues.

1. The Proofs for the Existence of God

Van Til rejects a number of diverse ideas regarding theistic proofs.  The idea of Bavinck that they are merely testimonies and not proofs, the idea of Kuyper that the natural man working with his natural principium is immune in every sense to theistic proofs, the idea of Old Princeton that they provide probable evidence for the existence of God:  all these Van Til rejects.  Spencer ably and insightfully summarizes Van Til’s position:

Theistic proofs must be demonstrations of the existence of God by one who knows the answer already.  They must be articulated in a theistic context if they are to be valid.  Unless the world and all that is in it and man and all his capacities are understood to exist and have meaning only because of God and His activity then the proofs will fail; they will prove a false god, one who is subject to man’s epistemic standards [rules for how something can be proven‑-SW] and who does not give existence and meaning to all that is.  The context must be theistic if the proof is to be truly and properly theistic.  One cannot argue for the existence of God in a conceptual context which is anti-theistic.

This is what Van Til asserts in his discussion of the traditionally formulated theistic proofs.  He is frequently misunderstood at this point, by both friend and foe.  He is not arguing against theistic proofs per se, but against a particular tradition of theistic proofs, i. e. proofs elaborated on a “neutral,” “common,” and thus in reality, antitheistic basis …

For Van Til, all the proofs (design, morality, and cause) can and should be combined into an argument or proof which says that all of life and reality (ontology, epistemology, and axiology) must presuppose God as its only explanation and foundation.  Without God there would be no life and reality.  That they exist means that God exists.  To live and function is possible only because of God and His activity.

The second problem is that of the expectations men have of the proofs.  Many apparently anticipate that the proofs will make Christians out of those to whom they are presented.  The proofs will persuade them to acknowledge God.  This of course does not happen …

In recognition of this, many have reduced the status of these traditionally-formulated arguments from proofs to witnesses or testimonies (e. g. Bavinck, Valentine Hepp, Masselink).  This category apparently is for non-binding, non-compelling evidence-backed assertions.  The one advocating the positions is assured of its truthfulness but on grounds which cannot be shared or formulated …

Those advocating this estimate of the arguments for the existence of God have failed, it would appear, to make a crucial distinction.  They have assumed that a valid proof, that is, an argument which incontrovertibly establishes a position, like mathematical proofs do, will necessarily, always and everywhere, persuade the hearer to assent … Proof and persuasion are synonymous for them.  Since people are not always persuaded by theistic arguments, they must not be proofs.  They fail to distinguish the objective validity of the arguments (their validity in terms of valid inference and structure and also the truth of the premises) from the subjective acceptability of the arguments.  Man’s approval is not essential to truth …

Van Til saw this and refused the lowering of the estimate of the demonstration of God’s existence.  “It is not true that these proofs may well establish the believer in his faith and be merely witness to unbelievers.  What is objectively valid ought to be proof and witness for both unbeliever, and believer, and what is not objectively valid ought to be neither for either … we cannot say that the Christian may use these arguments as witnesses, though not as proofs.  If they are constructed as all too often they have been constructed, they are neither proofs nor witnesses …^[15]

To summarize, with reference to the theistic proofs of proper and natural revelation, Van Til rejects probabilism in favor of asserting that the theistic proofs are absolutely valid and provide certainty to the human mind of the existence of God.  This certainty is only possible if they are not constructed on the basis of a supposed (epistemological) common ground with the natural man.  The proofs must presuppose the existence of God.  Arguments constructed on the basis of supposed neutral ground are of no help at all and provide not even probable evidence for the existence of God.  This approach governs Van Til’s approach to Warfield’s probabilism with regard to the authority of Scripture.

2. The Proofs for the Authority of Scripture

Van Til stresses that there is a relationship between the Old Princeton approach to the theistic proofs and Warfield’s approach to the proof of the authority of Scripture.

If “right reason,” or a man “in the natural use of reason” can discover that God, that is the true God, exists, he has therewith already found the possibility of supernatural revelation.  He needs only to engage in historical research in order to look for the reality of such a revelation.  In doing so he will then be asked first to look at the New Testament as a human document written by trustworthy men.  He must not be asked directly to regard these documents as being the Word of God.^[16]

Van Til, in the above sentence, has begun to summarize Warfield’s approach to the authority of Scripture.  He continues:

… for the sake of letting “right reason” judge for itself whether they are such [whether they are the Word of God], these records must first be presented as being ordinary historical records.  As historical records written by the apostles they tell us about the life and labors, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The picture given in these records leaves the impression of verisimilitude Jesus of Nazareth appears from them as being the very son of God.  He promised to the disciples the Spirit of truth so that they would be inspired to write the New Testament as the Word of God.  It is thus that we get to the idea of infallible inspiration by way of a process of reasoning.  We must not, argues Warfield, begin with it as immediately and directly a part of the Bible that as Christians we present unto men.^[17]

Warfield, therefore, plainly denies that we should make all the truths or teachings of Scripture depend upon the doctrine of inspiration as their logical foundation.

Let it not be said that thus we found the whole Christian system upon the doctrine of plenary inspiration.  We found the whole Christian system on the doctrine of plenary inspiration as little as we found it upon the doctrine of angelic existences.  Were there no such thing as inspiration, Christianity would be true, and all its essential doctrines would be credibly witnessed to us in the generally trustworthy reports of the teaching of our Lord and of his authoritative agents in founding the church, preserving in the writings of the apostles and their first followers, and in the historical witness of the living church.  Inspiration is not the most fundamental of Christian doctrines, nor even the first thing we prove about the Scriptures.  These we first prove authentic, historically credible, generally trustworthy, before we prove them to be inspired.^[18]

Warfield is open about the result of this methodology upon the certainty (epistemological status) of the authority of Scripture.  He frankly adopts the doctrine of probabilism.  “Of course, this evidence is not in the strict logical sense `demonstrative’; it is `probable evidence’.  It therefore leaves open the metaphysical possibility of its being mistaken.”^[19]

Van Til proceeds to argue that Warfield is inconsistent with his own apologetic.  Warfield, that is to say, really does not believe that there is any doubt about the status of Scripture.  Furthermore, Warfield is inconsistent with Warfield’s own Reformed theology.  “It was only an inconsistency on Warfield’s part to advocate a method of apologetics that is out of accord with the foundation concepts of his own Reformed theology.”^[20]

In the midst of his rebuttal of Warfield, Van Til states his own doctrine on this matter.

The identification of Scripture as the Word of God is, of necessity, also the work of the self-attesting God, in this case effected through the testimony of the Holy Spirit.  The identity of Scripture as the Word of God can, therefore, be effected no other way than by way of the self-testimony of Scripture.  And it can be accepted, in the last analysis, in no other way than through the testimony of the Holy Spirit to the Scripture as self-attesting.^[21]

Thus, Van Til rejects Warfield’s method of appealing to the historical verification of Scripture as, first of all, only trustworthy history.  He rejects the probabilism this implies.  Van Til regards special revelation as possessing the same divine and self-attesting certainty as natural revelation.  As the source of all meaning and certainty, the Word of God cannot be verified by foreign evidence from outside itself.  Such merely probable evidence is useless in establishing its identity as the Word of God.

^[1]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam, 7.

^[2]Van Til, Defense of the Faith, 265.

^[3]Van Til, Defense of the Faith, 265.

^[4]Van Til, The Christian Theory of Knowledge,  243.

^[5]Van Til, The Christian Theory of Knowledge, 245, 246.

^[6]Van Til, The Christian Theory of Knowledge,   245.

^[7]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam,  32-34.

^[8]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam,   34.

^[9]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam,   35.

^[10]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam,   36.

^[11]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam,   51.

^[12]ibid.  “What then are the noetic consequences of this rebellion?”  Spencer asks.  He then replies:  “The result was that man tried to interpret everything with which he came into contact without reference to God”…The unregenerate consciousness seriously mis-evaluates its situation in reality.  “It in effect denies its creaturehood.  It claims to be normal.  It will not be receptive of God’s interpretation;  it wants to create its own interpretation without reference to God”…When the unregenerate, fallen man rebels against God, and rejects Him as his standard, then his thought loses coherence, cohesiveness, and unity.  “There is no unity and never will be unity in non-theistic thought; it has cut itself loose from the only existing source of unity …”

^[13]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam,   55.  Spencer asserts:  “Van Til…explicitly rejects an exclusively post-lapsarian [after the fall‑-SW] concept of special revelation.  “…even in Paradise man had to interpret the general (natural) revelation of God in terms of the covenantal obligations placed upon him through special revelation (Jerusalem and Athens, ed., by E. R. Geehan,   18)….It should also be recognized that man was, from the outset, confronted with positive, as well as with natural revelation.  Dr. Vos speaks of this as pre-redemptive special revelation (Notes on Biblical Theology of the Old Testament).  God walked and talked with man.  Natural revelation must not be separated from this supernatural revelation (Common Grace and the Gospel,   69).”

^[14]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam,   61.

^[15]Spencer, Princeton and Amsterdam,  94-96.

^[16]Van Til, The Christian Theory of Knowledge,   246.

^[17]ibid.

^[18]Van Til, The Christian Theory of Knowledge,  247, 248.

^[19]Van Til, The Christian Theory of Knowledge,   248.

^[20]Van Til, The Christian Theory of Knowledge,   253.

^[21]Van Til, The Christian Theory of Knowledge, 250-251.

Sam Waldron

Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.