Cornelius Van Til
Dutch-American theologianWikipedia
184
MENTIONS
16
EPISODES
14
PODCASTS
Search complete. 184 mentions across 16 episodes found for "Cornelius Van Til".
Sep 12, 2026
Kyle Van RuitenburgHOST
Okay, so you don't believe in the gifts anymore, and then what's next?
Jeremy RyanGUEST
So, yeah, John MacArthur Church, essentially, learn about cessationists.
Jeremy RyanGUEST
And then, so while I was tiling, I found this guy through – we had started listening to – Jeff Durbin from Apologia Studios, and they had Gregory Bonson, which was a pupil of Van Till.
Jeremy RyanGUEST
And so Van Till was a great guy, great man.
Jeremy RyanGUEST
He basically pioneered the presuppositional apologetics.
Jeremy RyanGUEST
And so
Zach DasherHOST
Um, I got this from, I, I mentioned one of the guys earlier, Francis Schaeffer.
Zach DasherHOST
There's another, another guy named, uh, Cornelius Van Til, who, uh, was a professor at Westminster Seminary that I started reading some of his books on apologetics.
Zach DasherHOST
And at first I hated it, 'cause I was like, "This is like, this guy's, like, cir- reasoning in a circle." And I was like, I hated that 'cause I was really into, like, the evidences, you know.
Zach DasherHOST
Give me all the evidences for, for the Christian faith, you know.
Jay DyerHOST
What are you talking about? Calvin doesn't have a presuppositional argument.
Jay DyerHOST
Are you talking about Van Til? Like, what are you talking about? So these are people that don't know any of these subjects.
Jay DyerHOST
They have no idea what they're talking about.
Jay DyerHOST
These are people that don't read books anymore because people... think that you can get your theology from TikTok videos and AI.
Jared LuttjeboerHOST
So next time, we're going to go back another generation to the Dutch immigrant apologist whose fingerprints, as we'll see, are all over biblical counseling's DNA.
Jared LuttjeboerHOST
Next time, we're going to look at Cornelius Van Til.
Jared LuttjeboerHOST
Next time on Marscast.
Jared LuttjeboerHOST
Thank you for joining us.
Lane TiptonGUEST
If God is personally communicable in himself in the divine processions, then God is personally communicable in creation and in incarnation, in the covenant of works, in the covenant of grace, and in the incarnation itself.
Lane TiptonGUEST
Now, I've developed this insight extensively in what Van Til called the representational principle, where the immutable and living character of triune persons shape from the outset the possibility and the nature of creation and redemption.
Lane TiptonGUEST
But in this course, we're trying to focus it Christologically.
Lane TiptonGUEST
So point number one is that eternal generation, the processions within the Godhead, ground the possibility of God relating personally to creatures in creation and the Son assuming a human nature and personalizing it in the incarnation.
Jared PoultonGUEST
I'm a two-time graduate of Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and I did my MDiv and PhD in biblical counseling there.
Jared PoultonGUEST
As we'll talk about in a second, I wrote my dissertation on Cornelius Van Til, J. Adams, and biblical counseling.
Jared PoultonGUEST
In that process, I read too many Dutch Reformed theologians and Presbyterians, which is always a dangerous thing to do, and my ecclesiology flipped from Baptist to Reformed.
Jared PoultonGUEST
So I currently live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, or the GR Jerusalem of the Dutch Reformed world, Uh, with my wife and four kids, I serve as a pastor, um, at a local URC and a church here.
Jared PoultonGUEST
With any ministry, we are small and we're very Dutch, but I think that there's a great need for pastoral care resources in this area.
Jared PoultonGUEST
So it's exciting to see what the Lord is doing.
Brandon McLean SmithHOST
Yeah, well, as Van Til used to say, if you ain't Dutch, you ain't much.
Brandon McLean SmithHOST
So it's good that you're in that camp.
PatrickHOST
But ultimately, the theological perspective is what we're trying to accomplish here.
PatrickHOST
And he's downstream from Van Til, and it's not that he has his druthers with Van Til, but he's continuing the conversation that I think even Van Til would
TonyHOST
be appreciative of.
PatrickHOST
So we're in chapter two and it's called set Christ apart as Lord.
20 MINS LATER
TonyHOST
And so if we can't know God, how do what do we what's our reaction with regard to God? Right.
TonyHOST
If we can't know him, how are we to respond and that sort of thing? Right.
PatrickHOST
right it's a problem yeah this this is the guy this is this is van till's guys so uh you know he's not doing us any favors here well since it's not possible for for to know god because he is a part of a non non-mental uh non-realm our positing of the existence of god can only be a matter of faith a matter of faith and it can have nothing to do with real knowledge and understanding So, well, what's the point of this? This seems to go against the position that Alphonse is definitely going to want to go down.
PatrickHOST
So he's going to critique this.
Kim RiddlebargerPANELIST
And, and that is the fundamental point, is, is our religion going to be God-centered or man-centered? It's as simple as that.
Kim RiddlebargerPANELIST
I think Van Til called that absolutely correctly.
Kim RiddlebargerPANELIST
He spoke of autonomy being the self-centeredness of this all.
Ken JonesPANELIST
Yeah, and the ultimate issue for, for modern, uh, believers or evangelicals is not how one becomes justified or right before God, but how one can patch up this little leak in my life so that I can be more-
Jordan StefaniakHOST
In today's episode, I'm thrilled to introduce you all to Dr. Jared Poulton.
Jordan StefaniakHOST
We're going to be talking about his new book on Van Til's counseling movement.
Jordan StefaniakHOST
And I'm sure if you guys listen, you're probably aware of some of the biblical counseling wars.
Jordan StefaniakHOST
I don't know what else to call them because that seems to be an appropriate term.
Jared PoultonGUEST
Yeah.
Jared PoultonGUEST
Hey, Jordan, thanks for having me on.
Jared PoultonGUEST
And thanks for picking up the project with Hanover Press for a Van Til's counseling movement.
Jared PoultonGUEST
So just a little bit about me.
John Warwick MontgomeryHOST
This is a direct analogy to the way in which our Lord conveyed the gospel to us.
John Warwick MontgomeryHOST
But let's go into Van Til's position in detail.
John Warwick MontgomeryHOST
Now Van Til admits that the non-Christian can discover facts.
John Warwick MontgomeryHOST
In this, he goes beyond Clark.
John Warwick MontgomeryHOST
He admits that the non-Christian can discover facts.
8 MINS LATER
John Warwick MontgomeryHOST
We want interpretations that nicely fit the facts.
John Warwick MontgomeryHOST
Now, if This is clear.
John Warwick MontgomeryHOST
Then, I think we can all see that Van Til makes an arbitrary and unwarranted divorce between facts and interpretation.
6 more episodes mention Cornelius Van Til.
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