“Presuppositional Counseling: An Introduction to Van Til’s Influence Upon Jay Adams” by Jared Poulton

Throughout its history, the biblical counseling movement has experienced various periods of “rebranding.” Jay Adams first called his counseling approach “nouthetic counseling,” derived from the Greek word “noutheteo,” meaning to “admonish, correct, or instruct.” In 2013, a leading biblical counseling association “rebranded” from the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (NANC) to the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC), identifying a significant transition within the movement of people identifying primarily as “biblical counselors.” Even more recently, another “rebranding” period has begun within the movement, as people continue to clarify their approach to counseling with labels such as “historic biblical counseling” and “redemptive counseling.” Each period of “rebranding” reveals a desire arising from the movement to clarify (1) the identity of the movement’s counselors and (2) the type of counseling they offer.

 

Within the movement’s history, there is another potential “label” that has not received significant attention: presuppositional counseling. The label “presuppositional counseling” reveals a significant feature of this counseling system that finds its origin in Adams—a desire to analyze counseling ideas and methods according to their presuppositions. In Competent to Counsel, Adams defined the “method” that supports the conclusions of his book as “presuppositional,” footnoting his key source for presuppositional thinking, the Dutch Apologist and his Westminster faculty member, Cornelius Van Til.

“Cornelius Van Til: The Godfather of Biblical Counseling” by Jared Poulton

There are many ways to analyze a Christian movement. One can look at its main leaders, its core ideas, its contributions, or its broader impact upon the church. Every movement also has a history, including the biblical counseling movement. There have only been a few books which have addressed the history of biblical counseling, and the historical roots of biblical counseling remain a rich area of potential research.

 

When biblical counselors have searched for the historical roots of biblical counseling, they often investigate the past for examples that look like biblical counseling: a Christian (usually a pastor) with a Bible offering counsel about a particular aspect of life to another person. Thus, it makes sense that many people have drawn connections between biblical counseling and groups such as the Puritans or the Reformers, people committed to the ministry of the Word. Nevertheless, similarities are not sufficient in themselves to establish historical connections.

 

While biblical counselors have much to learn from church history about the practices of counseling and soul care, the biblical counseling movement itself has a clear historical connection. It is the unconventional yet indisputable reality that the closest theological discipline to the biblical counseling movement is not pastoral ministry, nor psychology, nor counseling, but apologetics, due to the biblical counseling movement’s unlikely godfather, Cornelius Van Til.