resuppositionalism is the system of Christian apologetics attributed to Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987). Van Til was Professor of Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from its founding in 1929 until his retirement in 1975. Van Til, J. Gresham Machen and others, resigned from Princeton Seminary and founded Westminster after the former seminary took a decidedly liberal turn.
"... Van Til's distinctive approach is 'presuppositionalism', which may be defined as insistence on an ultimate category of thought or a conceptual framework which one must assume in order to make a sensible interpretation of reality: 'The issue between believers and non-believers in Christian theism cannot be settled by a direct appeal to "facts" or "laws" whose nature and significance is already agreed upon by both parties to the debate. The question is rather as to what is the final reference-point required to make the "facts" and the "laws" intelligible. The question is as to what the "facts" and "laws" really are. Are they what the non-Christian methodology assumes they are? Are they what the Christian theistic methodology presupposes they are?' (Defense of the Faith, Philadelphia, 1967).
"Not only to 'prove' biblical Christianity but to make sense of any fact in the world Van Til holds that one must presuppose the reality of the 'self-contained' triune God and the self-attesting revelation of the Scriptures. From this basis, the redeemed person then reasons 'analogically',' attempting 'to think God's thoughts after him'. This means humans may know reality truly (for God, in whose image they are created, knows it truly), but not exhaustively (for God is infinite and they are finite).
"The presuppositionalist endeavors to convince the unregenerate first by demonstrating that, on unregenerate presuppositions of chance occurrence in an impersonal universe, one cannot account for any sort of order and rationality. Next, he tries to show that life and reality make sense only on the basis of Christian presuppositions.
"Van Til vigorously criticized the traditional apologetic approach of both Catholics and Protestants as failing to challenge the non-Christian view of knowledge, as allowing sinners to be judges of ultimate reality, and of arguing merely for the probability of Christianity. He considered himself in the line of Kuyper and Bavinck in his presuppositionalism and opposed the 'evidentialism, of Thomas Aquinas, Joseph Butler and Warfield."
[The above excerpt was taken from pages 704-705 of THE NEW DICTIONARY OF THEOLOGY edited by Sinclair B. Ferguson, et al. Copyright 1988 by Universities and Christian Colleges Fellowship. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from InterVarsity Press.]
For more information, see
- The Van Til Lists: E-mail discussion lists.
- Dr. Bahnsen's article on Van Til.
-A Primer on Presuppositionalism by S. Joel Garver.
-A Short Explanation and Defense of
Presuppositional Apologetics by Grover Gunn.
-An Apology for my Theology: The inseparable link between Reformed Theology and Presuppositional Apologetics By Bryan Neal Baird.
For information on Christian reconstruction, see article at New Religious Movements page.
