A Christian Theory of Knowledge

“The republication of this volume is most welcome. Fully consistent with the apostolic demand to bring every thought captive in obedience to Christ as that is to be done under the final authority of the self-attesting Christ of Scripture, the robust and penetrating theological epistemology this book provides is needed as much today as when it first appeared. Oliphint’s copious annotations throughout enhance its usefulness.”

“Every time I revisit his writings—which is often—I find my conviction re-inforced that Cornelius Van Til is the most important and incisive Reformed thinker of the last hundred years. I’m therefore delighted that Westminster Seminary Press is reissuing A Christian Theory of Knowledge. The book makes for a challenging read, but it is replete with profound and illuminating insights, and Dr. Oliphint’s superb foreword and explanatory notes make it much more acces- sible to readers unfamiliar with Van Til’s thought and the theological principles that undergird his philosophical analyses.”

“Cornelius Van Til’s writings continue to prove themselves helpful and incisive as the decades move forward. If anything, they grow in importance as the antithesis between Christ and the world becomes more evident in the twenty-first century. I commend this new edition of his work.”

“I don’t agree with everything Van Til argued, but I never fail to be edified by his overall concern. The overwhelming emphasis has to be the attitude of Christian apologetics: We are not God. God has revealed himself, but we systematically ‘suppress the truth in unrighteousness.’ The way things are (ontology) precedes how we know them (epistemology). The humility of covenant servants before the covenant Lord must be preeminent in our thinking about how dependent creatures encounter an independent Creator. This emphasis, at the heart of Van Til’s Christian Theory of Knowledge, is a bracing challenge at a time when we think we are in the driver’s seat.”

“Cornelius Van Til has been called the most original apologist of the 20th century (Pierre Courthial). . .[yet] the premise of this book, as with everything he wrote, is simple but profound: God is self-defining and sovereign over all things, including ‘epistemology’ or knowledge. Yet this does not make him the author of sin. We have here a felicitous mystery. The fruit of this conviction enlivens all the pages of this book. Within this central principle, they are surprisingly diverse. By reading them, if not already the case, the reader will become convinced of the centrality of such knowledge for all of life. The pioneering foreword by K. Scott Oliphint is worth the price of the volume. We are grateful to Westminster Seminary Press for providing this updated edition.”

“This edition of A Christian Theory of Knowledge continues Scott Oliphint’s highly useful work of annotating Cornelius Van Til’s most influential volumes on Chris- tian apologetics and theology. In the form of 350 footnotes added to this work, Oliphint’s glosses make Van Til’s inferences more readily accessible to contemporary readers, repeatedly relate the point under discussion to other points Van Til makes in his larger body of work, translate every one of Van Til’s Latin and German quotations into English, and add substantive biographical synopses of the scores of thinkers discussed by Van Til (especially patristic sources and modern theologians). Along the way, Oliphint fully documents Van Til’s consilience with the Reformed systematic theologian Herman Bavinck, and his foreword explains how Van Til’s dialectic makes use of principles of plenitude, continuity, and discontinuity. This is an impressive re-presentation of Van Til for the next generation.”

“This splendid annotated edition will make key elements of Van Tilian thought accessible to a new generation of scholars. Readers already familiar with Van Til’s approach, and those new to the work of this most remarkable of theologians, will alike find much in these pages to help revivify, reinforce, and indeed rethink the apologetic enterprise in the twenty-first century.”

“Cornelius Van Til’s work represents an influential stream of reception of the Dutch neo-Calvinist tradition in North America, and is often misunderstood by both critics and enthusiasts alike. His Christian Theory of Knowledge clearly presents his vision for a Reformed apologetic, along with his contested critiques of other major thinkers that have come before him. Westminster Seminary Press is to be thanked for making this representative work newly available again for a fresh reading.”