May 3, 1895

A biographical resource for the theologian Cornelius Van Til (May 3, 1895 to April 17, 1987) is at frame-poythress.org/ Here we learn that Van Til :

'....was born on May 3, 1895, in Grootegast, the Nether­lands, the sixth son of Ite Van Til, a dairy farmer, and his wife Klazina... At the age of ten Cornelius moved with his family to Highland, Indiana. He picked up English quickly and spoke thereafter with very little trace of an accent.

The first of his family to receive a formal higher education, Van Til in 1914 entered Calvin Preparatory School in Grand Rap­ids, where he remained to study at Calvin College and at Calvin Theological Sem­inary. These institutions were all schools of Van Til’s denomination, the Christian Re­formed Church, which was made up mostly of Dutch immigrants like himself. But after his first year of seminary, Van Til trans­ferred to Princeton Theological Seminary. In those days, Princeton was an orthodoxCalvinistic school, as was Calvin, and there was much mutual respect between the two; but Princeton’s roots were in American Presbyterianism rather than in the Dutch Reformed tradition represented by Calvin. While in seminary, Van Til was also ad­mitted to Princeton University as a gradu­ate student in philosophy, working on a doctorate as he completed his seminary course.2 In 1925 he completed a Th.M. at the seminary and married his childhood sweetheart, Rena Klooster; in 1927 he com­pleted a Ph.D. at the university.'

Van Til went on to make a name for himself as a theologian, who formulated his idea of, "presuppositional apologetics". We have this quote from Cornelius Van Til:

'They can’t account for counting… Einsteen couldn’t count. I mean he has no philosophy that accounts for the idea that one fact is different from another fact. And if one fact isn’t different from another fact, you can’t count. There has to be some difference between potato one and potato two. Suppose that you are in a coal bin on a dark December night, and you’re looking for a black cat that isn’t there and you are blind… As Hegel said, “this is the night in which all cows are black and all cats are grey.” There is no differentiation.

I’m trying to bring this point home to you, for your consideration. You should not be afraid of any non Christian philosophy. We should not be apologetically presenting our position as though it were just as good as, or better, or a whole lot better. That’s not the issue. The issue is quite the opposite. Ours is alone the basis on which anything can be said intelligently about anything. And if you grant it that the other fellow could even find one fact and distinguish it from another fact, you’re making a fatal concession because then you are admitting that he can predicate to some extent. And if he can predicate intelligently to some extent then there isn’t any reason why he shouldn’t predicate all the way down and account for reality in a way that is as good yours, or maybe even better than yours. ...'

A problem with ideas such as Van Til puts forward is due to the peculiar history of the modern world. Ever since Hume tossed out philosophical reasoning that mentioned theistic themes, with words to the effect, it's medieval, don't waste your time, rational argument was in effect banned. Van Til isn't the only one who has a rigorous path to the awareness of some power continuous with and extending beyond man. Most, like Van Til, used the energy pursuant to their successful logical rendering, to then conclude OTHER things, like, in his case, Calvinism. Which makes his initial arguments, apparently feeble. Not the Calvinism per se, but that he concluded anything, beyond, a basic pointing. The fact is, the energy freed up from theological debates allowed the creation of modern science, and a multitude of good things for everybody.

More information about Cornelius Van Til may be found here.