Category Archives: Cornelius Van Til

Why I Believe in God (with Introduction and Revisions)

Apologetics, Articles, Cornelius Van Til, Steve Scrivener

“Why I Believe in God” (with introduction and revisions) by Cornelius Van Til and Steve Scrivener

Later below you will find Van Til’s pamphlet called Why I Believe in God. He says he wrote this pamphlet “to point out in simple terminology why I believe in the God of the Bible, the God of historic Reformed theology.” And then he summarizes its message:

 

“The God I believe in is the triune God of the Bible. I believe in this God because He Himself has told me in the Bible Who He is, what I am, and what He, in Christ and by the Holy Spirit, has done for me. Or I might say “has done for men.” I was brought up on the Bible as the Word of God. Can I, now that I have been to school, still believe in the God of the Bible? Well, can I still believe in the sun that shown on me when I walked as a boy in wooden shoes in Groningen? I could believe in nothing else if I did not, as back of everything, believe in this God. Can I see the beams underneath the floor on which I walk? I must assume or presuppose that the beams are underneath. Unless the beams were underneath, I could not walk on the floor.”

Why I Believe in God (Cornelius Van Til)

Apologetics, Articles, Cornelius Van Til

“Why I Believe in God” by Cornelius Van Til

You have noticed, haven’t you, that in recent times certain scientists like Dr. James Jeans and Sir Arthur Eddington, as well as some outstanding philosophers like Dr. C.E.M. Joad, have had a good deal to say about religion and God? Scientists Jeans and Eddington are ready to admit that there may be something to the claims of men who say they have had an experience of God, while Philosopher Joad says that the “obtrusiveness of evil” has virtually compelled him to look into the argument for God’s existence afresh. Much like modernist theologian Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr who talks about original sin, Philosopher Joad speaks about evil as being ineradicable from the human mind. …

Van Til on the Shepherd Controversy

Cornelius Van Til, Miscellaneous, Theology

“Van Til on the Shepherd Controversy” by Cornelius Van Til

I think that when we begin with the idea of faith, we have to think first of all that the devils also believe and tremble. Now we have faith by which we need not to tremble because Christ on the cross said, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” so that His people might not be forsaken. It is finished! It was finished, once for all. Now that is, I think, beautifully expressed in this word of our Lord: …

Van Til on the Reorganization of Princeton

Articles, Cornelius Van Til, General

“Van Til on the Reorganization of Princeton” from Ordained Servant

In the spring of 1929, Dr. Stevenson and his party succeeded in having the Seminary reorganized in accordance with the new inclusive policy. At the 1929 General Assembly the church did away with the old two board system of control and established one new board to run the affairs of the seminary both academic and educational. Two of the members of this new board were signers of the Auburn Affirmation. It was as if two communist sympathizers had been elected to the supreme court of the United States. The new board soon made a public pronouncement to the effect that under the new board the seminary would now be better able than it had ever been to carry out the provisions of its charter. The new board revealed the way in which it would perform its new task. It asked all the members of the old faculty, even those who had opposed the reorganization of the Seminary, to remain on the new faculty. They were not seeking to exclude the old point of view; they were simply going to give both points of views a place on the faculty. This was clever strategy. If men like Robert Dick Wilson, Oswald T. Allis, Geerhardus Vos, Wm. Park Armstrong and J. Gresham Machen could be persuaded to remain on the faculty, or rather join the new faculty, it would appear to all the world that they did not consider the change very basic or very evil. But as you all know Dr. Wilson, Dr. Machen, and Dr. Allis refused to serve under the new board. Dr. Vos, Dr. Armstrong, and Dr. Hodge did agree to teach under the new board but this was due to circumstances. All three of them had vigorously opposed the reorganization. …