“Analogical Knowledge: A Systematic Interpretation of Cornelius Van Til’s Theological Epistemology” by James D. Baird

William D. Dennison in his 1995 article, “Analytic Philosophy and Van Til’s Epistemology,” argued that Cecil De Boer, Jesse De Boer, and John M. Frame misunderstood the epistemology of Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987). The De Boers endeavored to make sense of Van Til’s epistemology by examining his terminology and its historic philosophical usage. This led them to interpret Van Til according to a philosophical tradition he openly opposed: idealism. Frame followed, in Dennison’s view, a more commendable route amongst Van Til scholars as Frame recognized that Van Til’s epistemology is inherently biblical, even though Van Til employed idealist terminology. Frame attempted to advance Van Til’s thought, while cleaning up his complex idealistic language for philosophical clarity and the practical purposes of the church. Still, Dennison pointed out, what resulted in Frame’s case was a perspectival epistemology that neglected the “main rubric of Van Til’s own epistemology—the philosophy of history.” In Dennison’s estimation, the De Boers and Frame implemented analytic philosophical methods of interpretation that were inadequateto comprehend the holistic, redemptive-historical structure of Van Til’s epistemology. Dennison concluded, “Herein lies the crux of the problem: both the De Boers and Frame failed to perceive the importance and centrality of the ‘story’ of Scripture (redemptive history) in Van Til’s epistemology.” Furthermore, according to Dennison, to recognize the centrality of redemptive history in Van Til’s epistemology is to perceive nothing less than the influence of Van Til’s biblical theology professor at Princeton, Geerhardus Vos. …