Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Nothing Worse Than an Analytic Fairy 

Atheism and Apologetics - Apologetics in the Void
Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, 02 February 2013

Yesterday I was having a good discussion on apologetics with Pastor Will Little of Mars Hill, and the discussion dislodged in me a few thoughts on the subject that I thought would be good to note here.

We were talking about presuppositionalism. I think it is crucial for us to distinguish between presuppositionalism as a foundation for the apologist, and presuppositionalism as a subject that the apologist will broach with the unbeliever. There are times when it will be both, but those times are rarer than apologists who are trained Van Til ninjas might think.

If the point is to win men, and not arguments, then we have to understand where the actual hang-up is with that unbeliever.

Why is Van Til So Significant?

 

The Most Important Christian Thinker Since Calvin?

(We reproduce this excellent piece from Justin Taylor.)

John Frame says that Reformed theologian and philosopher Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) “is perhaps the most important Christian thinker since Calvin.”

Frame offers several qualifiers to his provocative claim:

To say that Van Til is the most important Christian thinker of our time is not to say that he is the most comprehensive thinker, or the clearest, or the most persuasive.
Certainly it is not to say (as some of his more fanatical followers assume) that he is beyond criticism.
Nor is it to say that he has had a greater impact on present-day Christian thought than anybody else; indeed, his isolation continues, and his influence remains relatively small.

So what does he mean?