Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
To quote Gary North, "Everything Van Til taught, he taught in every book. Each book has 34 main points."
he beats the same drum everywhere he marches.
I am not a Van Tillian,
Would you say you are in the Reformed Epistomology camp?
Mostly, yes. I don't line up with everything they say, but Plantinga has had a huge impact on me. I think the Van Tillians are onto something with "covenantal knowledge," but most lay Van Tillians dont' do more than simply repeat, "Yeah, well how do you know that?"
Would you say you are in the Reformed Epistomology camp?
Thanks for answering twice.I don't hold to CVT's methodology. However, Van Til drew heavily from Vos, and I think Vos's two-age paradigm has some interesting suggestions on epistemology. I haven't worked it out in detail, but the ages in 1 Cor. 2 have a noetic function.
Regarding Van Til as an apologist, J. V. Fesko has just published a new book, Reforming Apologetics: Retrieving the Classic Reformed Approach to Defending the Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019). I've just barely started reading it, so I can't comment on any specifics. But here's part of Richard A. Muller's back cover comments: "Fesko carefully examines the nineteenth-century idealist backgrounds of the Van Tilian and Dooyeweerdian approaches and demonstrates their flawed epistemology. He outlines the enduring strength of the genuine tradition of the Reformation. . .".
Speaking of Muller, he has an article in the latest issue of Calvin Theological Journal: "Reading Aquinas from a Reformed Perspective: A Review Essay" (CTJ 53.2 (2018), pp. 255-288. He spends 34 pages reviewing and heavily criticizing a recent book by K. Scott Oliphant - Thomas Aquinas (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2017). Briefly, Muller takes Oliphant to task for misunderstanding Aquinas, and he says that Oliphant does so because his mentor, CVT, also misunderstood Aquinas. In fact, Muller states that CVT is one "who, by no stretch of the imagination, can be viewed as a competent analyst of the thought of Aquinas" (p. 288).
As Bruce said above, it is fair to criticize CVT and it's looking like there are parts of the scholarly world that have decided that the time has come.
Like all scholars, praise CVT where he deserves it, and criticize him where he deserves it. That's what scholarship is all about.
I suppose you could say one can't have univocal knowledge of Van Til.I don't think CVT is truly understandable