Who Was Cornelius Van Til?

Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) was a Christian apologist and theologian.  He was born in the Netherlands and moved to America as a child.  Van Til was influenced by Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, and John Calvin.  He taught at Princeton Theological Seminary for a short time but left along with J. Gresham Machen and others after it took a liberal turn.  Afterward Machen convinced Van Til to teach apologetics at the new Westminster Theological Seminary.  Van Til started there in 1929 and stayed there for several decades.  

Van Til became unsatisfied with the traditional methods of apologetics, the classical and evidentialist approach.  Van Til believed the traditional methods erroneously assumed that there was a neutral ground where the believer and the unbeliever could meet and reason from there.  He believed that if you assumed from the start that intelligibility and knowledge were possible apart form the triune God you had already lost the argument.  

Cornelius Van Til developed his own apologetic method which became known as presuppositional apologetics.   A presupposition is an assumption or basic belief that a person holds from the start through which he interprets everything else. Van Til believed that an unbeliever would interpret evidences and proofs through his basic presupposition of unbelief and deny the Christian God.  The unbeliever suppresses the truth about God because of his sin and rationalizes away the evidences and proofs. 

Van Til's apologetic used the transcendental argument or indirect reasoning.  He believed that intelligibility and meaning are only possible if we presuppose the Bible as true. The Christian worldview is the only worldview that makes sense of your world.  Van Til believed that the unbeliever had to borrow from the Christian worldview in order to live his life consistently.  The unbelievers worldview will break down because it cannot account for intelligibility, meaning, or the preconditions for life.  Van Til's apologetic used the transcendental argument in order to show the contradictions, inconsistencies, and arbitrariness of the unbelievers worldview.   He also showed that the Christian worldview was consistent and was necessary for intelligibility and purpose.

Cornelius Van Til's presuppositional apologetics flowed from his Reformed theology.  He sought to develop an apologetic that was truly Biblical and truly Reformed.  He sought to honor Christ as Lord throughout his entire apologetic method.  There is no neutral ground, you are either with Christ or you are against him.  Van Til sought to prove the existence of the Christian God not just provide evidence that made the existence of God probable.  Notable students of Van Til's 
who continued to use his apologetic method include Greg Bahnsen and John Frame.   

Jeremiah 29:11 (In Context)

(Jeremiah 29:11) "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."  (ESV)

Jeremiah 29:11 is a favorite verse for many evangelicals who often quote it.  Unfortunately it is usually quoted out of context.  We must always look at a verse as part of a passage, and the passage as part of a book.  We must take into consideration what comes before the verse and what comes after it.  We should also look at the background of the passage and to whom it was written.  

The historical background of this passage is the Babylonian exile of the Israelites (Judah).  They were sent into exile because of their disobedience and idolatry.  

In Jeremiah 29:5-7 God tells the Israelites to build houses, have families, seek the welfare of the city, and to pray to the LORD for the city.  They are going to be there in Babylon for a long time.  In Jeremiah 29:8-9 God tells them not to listen to the false prophets who are telling them they will return to the land shortly.  In Jeremiah 29:10 they are told that after seventy years they will return to their land.  

Then comes Jeremiah 29:11, the verse that is so often quoted.  
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." (ESV) 

In Jeremiah 29:11, God's plan for the exiles is for their welfare or peace (the Hebrew word shalom) and not for evil.  They will have a future and a hope in their homeland.  

In Jeremiah 29:12-14, God says he will hear their prayers and they will find God when they seek him with all their heart.  The LORD will restore them and bring them back to the land after 70 years.  

As we can see Jeremiah 29:11 applied to the Israelites (Judah) who were exiled to Babylon.  It applied to a certain people in a certain historical circumstance.  We must remember that this verse does not apply to everyone in every situation.  

The Disappearance Of Cultural Christianity

It is helpful to distinguish between cultural Christianity and convictional Christianity.  Cultural Christians are those who are nominal (in name only) Christians.  They identify with Christianity because of the social benefit, social status, or because it is the tradition.  On the other hand convictional Christians are those who are true Christians.  They follow Christ and hold orthodox beliefs.   

Most of American history has been marked by a Christian consensus.  Even those who where not true Christians still went along with basic Christian teaching and morality.  But the Christian consensus has disappeared in recent times as society has been overtaken by secularism.  Christian beliefs no longer dominate our culture after the rise of secularism.  

In the secular city things such as homosexuality and transgenderism have become normal.  The media, education, and entertainment industry no longer honor Christianity and are actually hostile to it. Since there is no longer a social benefit for identifying as a Christian, we are seeing the disappearance of cultural Christianity.  For some millennials there is now no tradition of Christianity.  

The disappearance of cultural Christianity means that fewer of those around us will hold the same values as us.  But the disappearance of cultural Christianity is not all bad.  We will begin to see who the real Christians are and who the nominal Christians are.  When the culture turns against or becomes hostile to Christianity, those who are not the real deal will not stick around.  We will see a purifying of the church and it will become stronger.  

In reality America never was as Christian as some of us would like to believe.  It never really was a Christian nation because there is no such thing.  God's people is the church which is comprised of people from all nations.