Good Preaching Needs Good Systematics

It is sometimes contended that ministers need not be trained in systematic theology if only they know their Bibles. But “Bible-trained” instead of systematically trained preachers frequently preach error. They may mean ever so well and be ever so true to the gospel on certain points; nevertheless, they often preach error. There are many “orthodox” preachers today whose study of Scripture has been so limited to what it says about soteriology that they could not protect the fold of God against heresies on the person of Christ. Ofttimes they themselves even entertain definitely heretical notions on the person of Christ, though perfectly unaware of the fact.

If we carry this idea one step further, we note that a study of systematic theology will help men to preach theologically. It will help to make men proclaim the whole counsel of God. Many ministers never touch the greater part of the wealth of the revelation of God to man contained in Scripture. But systematics helps ministers to preach the whole counsel of God, and thus to make God central in their work.

The history of the church bears out the claim that God-centered preaching is most valuable to the church of Christ. When the ministry has most truly proclaimed the whole counsel of God, the church has flourished spiritually. Then, too, it is well-rounded preaching of this sort that has kept the church from worldliness. On the other hand, it has kept the church from an unhealthy other-worldliness. Well-rounded preaching teaches us to use the things of this world because they are the gifts of God, and it teaches us to possess them as not possessing them, inasmuch as they must be used in subordination to the one supreme purpose of man’s existence, namely the glory of God.

– Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology: Prolegomena and the Doctrines of Revelation, Scripture, and God, ed. William Edgar, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2007), 22–23.

Books by Van Til

Warfield and Van Til: Appropriaters of Bavinck’s Theology

There are some interesting correlations between Van Til’s and Warfield’s estimations of Herman Bavinck’s theology. Van Til, for example, describes Bavinck’s Gereformeerde Dogmatiek as “the greatest and most comprehensive statement of Reformed systematic theology in modern times” (An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 89.) This sounds a lot like Warfield’s earlier commendation:

“He [i.e., Bavinck] has given us the most valuable treatise on Dogmatics written during the last quarter of a century—a thoroughly wrought out treatise which we never consult without the keenest satisfaction and abundant profit” (Benjamin B. Warfield, “Review of Herman Bavinck, De Zekerheid des Geloofs (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1901),” The Princeton Theological Review 1, no. 1 (January 1903): 148).

Van Til read a good bit of Bavinck in Dutch and appropriated much of Bavinck’s theology into his own writings. (Well, this is what I’m trying to prove in my forthcoming thesis, anyway; for the most obvious examples, see Van Til’s An Intro to ST.) Likewise, Warfield read a good bit of Bavinck in Dutch, and he frequently cites passages from Bavinck’s writings with approval. See, for example, the following list of Warfield’s references to Bavinck:

Benjamin B. Warfield, Are They Few That Be Saved? (Our Hope Publications, 1918), 45n7; idem, Counterfeit Miracles (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1918), 27-28; idem, The Plan of Salvation: Five Lectures Delivered at The Princeton Summer School of Theology, June, 1914 (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1915), 37, 65n48; idem, The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield (1932; repr., Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2000), 1:34, 112; 2:141, 171, 463; 3:39, 280n36, 367; 4:224n180; 5:125, 161n61, 182n115, 263n103, 306n45, 366; 7:297-98, 326n45; 8:385n78, 388n86, 558n214, 569n20; 9:252n20, 256n29, 279; idem, “Review of Herman Bavinck, De Zekerheid des Geloofs (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1901)”; cf. Henk Van den Belt, “Herman Bavinck and Benjamin B. Warfield on Apologetics and the Autopistia of Scripture,” Calvin Theological Journal 45, no. 1 (2010): 32-43.

Passing Or Bumbling the Baton?

It is a concern, not that the teachers and pastors produced by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church have completely forgotten this rich apologetical tradition of Machen and Van Til, but rather that they have failed to understand and live up to it. What is taken for granted is often lost.

[...] One cannot help but observe, with disappointment, the way so few candidates for the OPC ministry actually grasp and can intelligently put into practice the presuppositional method in philosophical apologetics (as expounded for so many years by Van Til), as well as the sparse number of masterful publications of empirical scholarship produced by our ministers in answer to modern challenges (on the order of Machen’s contributions).

– Greg L. Bahnsen, “Machen, Van Til, and the Apologetical Tradition of the OPC,” In Pressing Toward the Mark: Essays Commemorating Fifty Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, edited by Charles G. Dennison and Richard C. Gamble, 259-294 (Philadelphia, PA: The Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1986) 286 and 294n129, respectively.

Books by Bahnsen

Humility’s Apologetic

In the first place we shall, of course, remember that all that we have received has been by grace. And if those who hold the Reformed faith do greater justice to the idea of God’s grace in the salvation of sinners, then they ought to be the humblest of all men. They ought to enter most sympathetically into the mind and heart of him who makes this objection. Did they not themselves kick against the pricks and rebel against the overtures of God’s grace?

And this attitude of humility holds over against those who with him name the name of Christ, as well as over against the unbeliever. With Bavinck let us say that all true Christians are at heart Augustinian and with Warfield let us say that every Christian who calls out unto God in anguish of heart is really a Calvinist.

– Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972), 129-130.

Books by Van Til

Van Til the Neo-Calvinist

And have I, following such a method, departed radically from the tradition of Kuyper and Bavinck? On the contrary I have learned all this primarily from them. It is Kuyper’s Encyclopedie that has, more than any other work in modern times, brought out the fact of the difference between the approach of the believer and of the unbeliever. It is Bavinck’s monumental work which set a “natural theology” frankly oriented to Scripture squarely over against that of Romanism which is based on neutral reason. It is Bavinck who taught me that the proofs for God as usually formulated on the traditional method prove a finite god. I have indeed had the temerity to maintain that these great Reformed theologians have in some points not been quite true to their own principles. But when I have done so I have tried to point out that when they did so they had departed from Calvin.

– Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), 301.

Books by Van Til

Van Til vis-à-vis Warfield & Kuyper

With grateful acknowledgment of indebtedness to both Kuyper and Warfield, to Herman Bavinck and other associates and followers of Kuyper, to the various associates and followers of Warfield, to J. Gresham Machen in particular, we would take their common basic contribution to the idea of the full Christian faith and the self-attesting Scripture and build as best as we can upon it. The great contribution of Kuyper discussed in this chapter is that of his analysis of the idea of autonomy. Never again can we forget that the natural man, working from his adopted principle, will seek to weave the special principle into the natural principle, and that he will seek to do this in philosophy and science no less than in theology. The great contribution of Warfield discussed in this chapter is his insistence that Christian theism is the only internally intelligible system of truth.

Combining these two great principles, held by both men, but not equally emphasized by both, we shall claim that the Christian system is undoubtedly true, that it is distinguishable intellectually by men because it has been distinguished for them by God through his Word, and that unless one therefore presupposes its truth there is no theology, no philosophy, and no science that can find intelligible meaning in human experience.

– Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), 254.

Books by Van Til

Van Til on Prelapsarian Grace

The Protestants therefore argued for the necessity of Scripture because man, the creature, has sinned against God. He has broken the covenant. Salvation is an ethical matter. Man was created perfect. He needed no grace as a creature. To be sure, he needed and received God’s favor. Sometimes Reformed theologians have called this grace. But then the word is used in a broader sense. So Bavinck speaks of it. Then too, man as a creature, though perfect, needed supernatural revelation. God’s revelation to him in nature was supplemented by God with his supernatural word communication. This was to tell man of his destiny and to make him self-conscious as a covenant being. But all this betokens no defect in the creature as such. The ideas of creation and covenant are supplemental one to another.

– Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), 163.

Books by Van Til

The Importance of Reformed Apologetics

It is of critical importance in the current scene that a consistently Reformed apologetic be set forth. The non-Christian point of view is much more self-consciously hostile to Christianity than it has ever been. The fact that the assumption of human autonomy is the root and fountain of all forms of non-Christian thought is more apparent than it has ever been in the past. Any argument for the truth of Christianity that is inconsistent with itself should not expect to have a hearing. Only a position which boldly and humbly challenges the wisdom of the world and, with the Apostle Paul, brings out that it has been made foolishness with God will serve the purpose. Only such a method which asks man to serve and worship the Creator rather than the creature honors God and assigns to him the place that he truly occupies. Only such a method is consistent with the idea that the Holy Spirit must convict and convince the sinner. The Holy Spirit cannot be asked to honor a method that does not honor God as God.

– Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), 20-21.

Books by Van Til

Clowney: Van Til’s Thought in a Nutshell

He [i.e., Van Til] argued that you cannot begin with rationalism and proceed to establish Christian theism. Van Til showed the need of a pou sto, a place to stand. We cannot begin without assuming God’s existence, and reason our way to the self-existent God of the Scriptures. The living, triune God reveals himself in his works and words.

– Edmund P. Clowney, “Professor John Murray at Westminster Theological Seminary” in The Pattern of Sound Doctrine: Systematic Theology at the Westminster Seminaries; Essays in Honor of Robert B. Strimple ed. David VanDrunen (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2004), 28.

Books by Van Til

Interview with John Muether about his Van Til Biography

On a recent episode of The Heidelcast Scott Clark interviews Prof. John Muether about his book, Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman. Listen in as these two historians reflect upon the life and thought of an intriguing twentieth-century apologist and founding father of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Also, in case you missed it last October, Muether was interviewed about his Van Til biography on The Reformed Forum.

Books by Professor Muether