Presup & Reformed Theology

Presuppositionalism and Calvinism in Van Til’s Thought

Are Presuppositionalism and Calvinism married to each other? That is to say, does Presuppositionalism require a Calvinistic framework? Well, first I'd like to answer this question by introducing you to Cornelius Van Til.

Cornelius Van Til is considered the father of the Presuppositional method of apologetics, a method of Christian defense which emphasizes the presuppositions and worldview contexts in which evidence and facts are interpreted.

However, his particular brand of apologetics cannot be disjointed from the theology out of which it arises, and that theology was Calvinism, a theology rooted in the meticulous sovereignty of God. What is central to Van Til's thought is that truth is whatever God determines it to be.

The ontological triune God who reveals is central to the acquiring of knowledge. For Van Til, one of the key features of human fallenness is a denial of God's authority over all things, including the thinking and reasoning process.

This includes the notion of God's authority to determine what is true. This fact entails that for Van Til, the fallenness of man is characterized by seeking to know truth apart from God rather than acknowledging him as the source and definer of what is true.

Hence, failure to submit to God's authority by submitting to his word, which for Van Til is to be understood within the interpretive context of Reformed theology, is more a matter of rebellion than it is of ignorance.

For Van Til, submitting to God's authority is more than simply obeying his commands, it involves also accepting what God says as true or defining truth as God defines it, or in Van Til's own words, thinking God's thoughts after him.

All this to say, a Calvinistic conception of God's meticulous sovereignty was central to Van Til's thought in general and to his apologetic method more specifically, and this is no accidental feature of his method.

Given Van Til's particular flavor of Calvinism, he believed, God does not know reality as something external to himself, he knows the world through his will. God does not know that the sun is shining today because it is shining, he knows it because from all eternity he willed it to shine today.

Thus, God knows himself, not external reality first and foremost. As Brian K. Morley observes in his book, Mapping Apologetics, that God is the creator and sole ultimate determiner of all there is forms the core of Van Til's apologetic and is the basis for its most innovative, controversial, and misunderstood concept.

Meticulous Divine Sovereignty and the Grounding of Reality

Put simply, reality is a unity and facts are related to each other only because the Christian God created and determines everything. So, it is clear that a fundamental aspect of Van Til's apologetic is wrapped up in his reformed theology and Calvinistic convictions, especially with respect to Calvinistic conceptions of meticulous divine sovereignty.

It is vitally important to understand that the apologetic of Van Til grows out of the soil of his Calvinistic convictions. For more information visit www .fema .org.