I know not how God’s wondrous grace
To me He hath made known,
Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love
Redeemed me for His own.
But I know Whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that Day.

But —

Scotch is Scotch,
And Dutch is Dutch,
But Calvin was French, you see,
And died at the age of fifty-five,
Not older than “B” or “VanT.”

He wrote in the language of 1509—
He wrote not English nor Dutch,
He wrote in the words he understood
And has been translated much.
And the mind of the Scotch interprets Scotch,
And the mind of the Dutch sees Dutch;
But God’s great grace is working on
And souls respond to His touch.
And when in the glorious crowning day
The Scotch and the Dutch shall meet,
They both will say “It is all of grace;
We have reached the Mercy seat”
But Buswell still will drive his “Bus”
And Van Til his “Van” will drive,
But whether thru tunnel or over bridge,
By grace they will both arrive.

RC Sproul is not a presuppositionalist but still fully Reformed. It’s possible!
I thought VanTil a kindly and warm man. However, his approach was unnecessarily confrontational. He gave a talk at my church on evangelism and was asked by a parishioner what he would say to a man who objected that he did not accept the Bible as a source of authority. VanTil’s response made my blood run cold – tell him, he replied, that he is going to hell. That’s a ‘no point contact’ method, for sure. It won’t allow for much follow-up.
VanTil practiced evangelism as a lifestyle. He preached on street corners, handed out tracts, called people to Christ. He was not simply an armchair theologian. I have high regard for him.

1) Reformed theology is divided on this, and many take it to be just “office” not a per-incarnate person.

2) argumentum ad populum.

2) We keep hearing about how people have “misunderstood” Van Til. Why is it that we haven’t misunderstood Shepherd but any critic of Van Til has obviously misunderstood him. After three quarters of a century if Van Til’s theology can’t make itself understood maybe it’s time we just accept he’s unhelpful, at best.

Don,
I am sorry you feel that way. I know that Van Til always taught his students to seek to be persuasive, friendly, and able to listen well. But I believe your feelings are about the actual theology of Van Til…. yes? I imagine anyone coming from a non-reformed position that holds philosophy to be on an equal playing field as revelation, is not going to be the biggest fan of Van Til.

As to your comment about Van Til being an “impediment” toward dialogue. Are you saying that Westminster has had no dialogue with scholars outside of its reformed circles or are you saying that dialogue has been too critical? Does dialogue mean agreement, or interaction, or both? Do you think it would have been better for VanTil to forsake Westminster Confession 1.4 and 1.5 for a more “dialogued” approach to Apologetics that allows philosophical predication to call the shots just as much as scripture? Should WTS stopped being so heavily reformed in the 70’s and gone more of a wider evangelical dialectic route … like Fuller. Do you think Van Til’s method was confrontational withdrawn and arbitrary because it was sinful and not biblical? I am not asking these questions in jest, i am just trying to understand where you are coming from better. I mean, I am sure there are other WTS grads that agree with you, but most of the time they are against Van Til’s method and they don’t really hold to the same theological convictions as the school to begin with. Hence they believe it wold have been better for Westminster to shuck not only Van Til, but a large majority of the Confessional Standards as well.

While I am usually too impatient to listen to such long presentations, I did listen to the whole thing.

The discussion triggered a couple of thoughts. Let me first note that I was a Bible Presbyterian — I attended Faith Seminary (1965-68) and was ordained by the California Presbytery as pastor of the First BPC in Grand Junction, CO, in 1969. Early on Calvin, Hodge, Warfield, Shedd, Van Til, Buswell, Clark, and — a name that was entirely omitted from your discussion — Hamilton were the subjects of my reading focusing on theology and apologetics..

I do not have the dates before me; but as I recall, somewhere back there in the decade 1965-1975, there were attempts to bring Van Til, Clark, Buswell, and Hamilton together in face-to-face meetings in Philadelphia. These attempts were partially successful in that such a meeting was obtained with Van Til, McRae, Clark and Buswell.

I wonder at the absence of Hamilton from this discussion in view of the fact that Van Til and Hamilton, seemed to enjoy responding to one another in their published works. Were there no interchanges between Buswell and Hamilton? .

Somewhere after 1970 my interests turned more to ecclesiology.

I was also intrigued by the fact that the more current issues of the old-earth/young-earth debate were not mentioned.

While the Buswell-Van Til interplay took place before the rise of your-earth creationism, would they have been considered old-earthers. I was surprised to learn long after I have graduated from Faith Seminary, that my faculty members were old-earthers. Then, the date of creation was not a debated issue when I was in seminary. I cannot recall the matter ever being raised in class in any controversial manner. I do not think this debate issued until after the formation of Biblical Seminary. Would this aspect of Creation have affected the question of the historicity of Adam in the Buswell/Van Til exchanges?

Just a few rambling thoughts in response. Thanks.