“Cornelius Van Til and Presuppositional Apologetics at P&R” by John J. Hughes

As a young Christian and philosophy major at Vanderbilt University in the 1960s, I longed to lay my hands on biblically faithful, academically solid apologetics books, but all I knew at the time were C. S. Lewis’s books, for which I was and am grateful. During my senior year, at a weekly Campus Crusade for Christ meeting, two recent graduates of Westminster Theological Seminary passed out free copies of Francis Schaeffer’s Escape from Reason, in which they had stamped the name, address, and phone number of their new church. I devoured Schaeffer’s little book, and then called these men. If there was one book like this, maybe they knew of others!

 

The men told me about Cornelius Van Til and said that if I were to write to him and include $5 for postage, he would send me some of his books. I followed their advice, and Dr. Van Til sent me a whole library in four or five of the largest padded mailing envelopes I had ever seen! I dove in headfirst, and by the time I surfaced, I was dead set on going to WTS, which I did.