On the Incomprehensibility of Van Til

In my response to the second part of the Reformed Forum’s ongoing critique of my book on Cornelius Van Til, I touched briefly on their claim that not all Van Tillians agree in their interpretation of Van Til. I had already acknowledged this in the introduction to my book when I briefly surveyed six different schools of Van Tillianism, but there is a bit more to say on this point.

Consider for a moment the fact that some eighty years ago, Van Til dropped a bomb in the American Reformed world by claiming that anyone who wanted to be consistently Reformed must follow his new presuppositional method of apologetics. The apologetic methods that had been used by Reformed theologians since the sixteenth century were all said to be corrupted by Roman Catholic and Arminian principles. The theology of all those Reformed theologians of the previous four hundred years was said to be compromised by syncretism with unbiblical principles – all because they used traditional apologetic methods. If you wanted to be truly Reformed, Van Til claimed, you had to follow him. Considered just by itself, this was a breathtakingly audacious claim, but it was even more so considering the fact that it rested on precisely zero biblical exegesis.

It was a huge claim to say, without any exegetical support, that all of Reformed theology for the previous four hundred years (with the possible exception of John Calvin) was corrupt, but Van Til made the claim anyway. Many accepted his claim. Many did not. Unsurprisingly, this created a division in the American Reformed churches, a division that has not been healed to this day.

I believe that the claims Van Til made are important and worth investigating, because if it is true that the Reformed tradition was corrupted by syncretism for the first four hundred years of its existence, that raises a host of questions that have to be answered. In particular it raises questions about the potential theological corruption of our confessions of faith, all of which were written during that period characterized by Van Til as one of profound theological compromise. It is also important because Van Til’s claims require everyone to adopt his system of thought, and no one should do that unless they examine Van Til’s system in order to know what it is they are adopting.

Attempts to discuss and debate Van Til’s claims and these important questions, however, have been hamstrung for eighty years. For eighty years, the common response to those who raise concerns about Van Til’s teaching has been the claim that the critics do not understand Van Til.

Here’s my question.

Does anyone understand Van Til?

If Van Til is going to dogmatically affirm that no one is truly Reformed unless they adopt his system of thought and method of apologetics, and if his followers are going to insist on the same, shouldn’t some Van Tillian somewhere be able to tell us what exactly that system of thought is?

Reformed theology is set forth clearly in the Reformed Confessions. I can point anyone to those confessions of faith for a clear explanation of what Reformed theology is. People may disagree with Reformed theology, but the confessional exposition of it is clear. If Van Til’s system of thought is absolutely necessary to Reformed theology, as he says it is, then Van Tillians should be able to point people to a clear and unambiguous statement of what Van Til’s system of thought is. But after eighty years, no Van Tillian has done that.

Prominent Van Tillians can’t even agree on whether Van Til’s system replanted elements of idealist philosophy in Reformed soil. Scott Oliphint, a renowned Van Tillian scholar, who taught Van Tillian apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary for over thirty years, says Yes. The Reformed Forum panel, which includes Lane Tipton, another renowned Van Tillian scholar, says No. Which one is right about the nature of Van Til’s system of thought? What’s the answer you will get if you ask Oliphint? “I’m right. He’s wrong.” What’s the answer you will get if you ask Tipton? “I’m right. He’s wrong.” What’s the answer you will get if you ask Frame? “It depends on your perspective.”

It is a running inside joke among Van Tillians that nobody really knows what Van Til is talking about. For example, in his 1979 biography/hagiography of Van Til, William White, Jr. jokes about what an emcee said concerning Van Til at a Westminster Seminary banquet:

‘There is a controversy today as to who is the greatest intellect of this segment of the twentieth century,’ the m.c. said. ‘Probably most thinking people would vote for the learned Dr. Einstein. Not me. I wish to put forth my candidate for the honor, Dr. Cornelius Van Til.’ (Loud applause.) ‘My reason for doing so is this: Only eleven people in the world understand Albert Einstein . . . Nobody—but nobody in the world—understands Cornelius Van Til’ (Van Til: Defender of the Faith, 181–82). 

This was published in 1979, some forty years after Van Til and his followers started to claim that Van Tillianism is essentially a fundamental article of Reformed theology and that to reject it is a sure sign that your theology is compromised. It was also written after forty years of having Van Til alive and able to answer questions about what he believed. But apparently, even when he was alive, no one understood him. White jokes about Van Til’s incomprehensibility as if it’s funny. It’s not funny when decade after decade you’re dividing the church and dividing brothers by telling people they have to accept this man’s novel teaching, and at the same time, you yourself admit that no one, including you or his other supporters, really has the foggiest idea what Van Til is talking about.

A few years after White’s book was published, in what many consider to be the most thorough study of Van Til by a Van Tillian to date, John Frame observed that it is, “very difficult to pin down precisely what Van Til believes on a given specific topic” (Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, 34). John Frame has probably published more words on Van Til than all other Van Tillians combined, and as sympathetic to Van Til as he is, he says that it’s very hard to figure out exactly what Van Til means on any given specific topic. Every prominent Van Tillian I’ve asked has admitted that Van Til is difficult to understand. But if no one, including the most prominent Van Tillians, knows for sure what he means, why should anyone accept the demand that they adopt his system of thought?

As a result of the difficulty (impossibility?) of understanding Van Til, there are numerous different interpretations of Van Til’s thought among Van Tillians.  As the Reformed Forum panel explained in part two of their critique of my book:

We don’t need to get into the details of that, but I just want people to recognize that there isn’t uniformity among people who call themselves sympathizers or interpreters of Van Til, Frame included. There are many others. That there are differences of opinion, differences of thought, differences of interpretation.

Yes. There are at least a half a dozen different schools of Van Tillianism, and there are strong disagreements among them on important aspects of Van Til’s system of thought. But, ironically, when any proponent of any one school is going after a critic of Van Til, he’ll speak as if the meaning of Van Til’s system of thought is self-evident and as simple as a Kindergarten Sunday School lesson. The implication will be that anyone who rejects Van Til’s teaching must be either stupid or wicked (or both). This reassures those who’ve been taught their whole life that Reformed = Van Til and Van Til = Reformed. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” they’re told. No need to read that critic. He just doesn’t understand.

It’s been eighty years since Van Til dogmatically asserted that every self-respecting Reformed theologian needed to drop what he was doing and accept Van Til’s system of thought if he wanted Van Til to continue to consider him to be Reformed. It remains unclear why anyone thought Van Til should be considered the judge of what it means to be Reformed, but many acted at the time as if he was. And many today act as if Van Til is the infallible standard. But here we are are, after eighty years, and those who agree with his claim still can’t agree among themselves on precisely what his system of thought actually is, and they can’t explain it clearly to anyone. So, why should those of us who did not drop everything take any of this seriously?

Every critic of Van Til is accused of misunderstanding Van Til by proponents of Van Tillianism, and every proponent of Van Tillianism is accused of misunderstanding Van Til by other proponents of Van Tillianism. In other words, apparently no one understands what Van Til’s system of thought is, and if anyone says they do, one school of Van Tillianism or another will come along and say, "No, you don't." That’s the last eighty years of debate and discussion of Van Til in a nutshell. In that light, it is hard to argue with those who say that this entire debate about Van Til has been a colossal waste of time.

The point is this. If nobody—but nobody in the world—understands Cornelius Van Til, then patronizing hubris towards those who haven't swam the Delaware is unjustified.