Guide Number: 1955.G

The Defense Of The Faith

First Edition

Cornelius Van Til

The Presbyterian And Reformed Publishing Company

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1955

Copyright 1955

By The Presbyterian And Reformed Publishing Company

Philadelphia, Pa.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 55-7140

To My Wife

Preface

The present writer has from time to time prepared syllabi for his classes in Christian Apologetics. A number of “outsiders” have taken an interest in these syllabi. Some have used them for classroom teaching; others have subjected them to critical analysis.

The present volume seeks to be of service to both types of readers. In the first place it seeks to set forth in positive fashion what seems to the writer to be the Biblical method of defending the Christian Faith. This necessitates making a comparison between the Romanist-Evangelical and the Reformed points of view concerning apologetics. In the second place this work deals with contemporary objections which have been made against the writer’s views of apologetics.

While therefore this book is, in a sense, an answer to critics, that is not its primary purpose. Its primary purpose is to set forth, in broad outline, a method of defending Christianity which is consistent with the nature of Christianity.

Acknowledgment is hereby made to publishers who kindly gave permission to quote from various books: To the Macmillan Company for permission to quote from Religious Realism, copyright, 1931, and from A. E. Taylor’s Does God Exist? copyright-reprint 1947; to the Cambridge University Press for permission to quote from James Jeans’ The Mysterious Universe; to William B. Eerdman’s Co. for permission to quote from James Daane’s A Theology of Grace and from Edward Carnell’s An Introduction to Christian Apologetics and from William Masselink’s General Revelation and Common Grace; to F. S. Crofts and Company for permission to quote from Martin, Clarke, Clark, Ruddick: A History of Philosophy; to Yale University Press for permission to quote from Cassirer’s Essay on Man, and Gilson’s God and Philosophy; to Charles Scribner’s Sons for permission to quote from Millikan’s Science and the New Civilization; and to the estate of Felix Cohen for permission to quote from Morris R. Cohen’s Reason and Nature, copyrighted, revised 1953.

Special thanks are due to the Rev. Rousas John Rushdoony for carefully reading the entire manuscript; and to my former student, Robert G. DeMoss, Th.M., for painstaking help in the technical details of the manuscript, and for the Indexes.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. Standards Used

2. Objections Raised

A. Masselink

B. The Calvin Forum Articles

C. Daane

3. Meeting Of Extremes

4. Concessions Made

A. Masselink

B. Cecil De Boer

C. Jesse De Boer

D. Orlebeke

E. Van Halsema

F. Daane

Part One: The Structure Of My Thought

1. Christian Theology

1. The Doctrine Of God

A. The Personality Of God

B. The Trinity

2. The Doctrine Of Man

A. The Image Of God In Man

B. Man’s ...