The Defense of the Faith

Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (1955)

Cornelius Van Til — Reformed philosopher and apologist, born in the Netherlands, who taught at Westminster Theological Seminary for forty-seven years

Presupposition

Stern, exact, and unwilling to give the other side the ground it asks for.

Catch rate: 64 / 255
Base research: 268
Stat total: 354

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina94

Contend104

Defend92

Popularity64

Total354

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 94

STAMINA — Solid. The method is repeated in every chapter and does not tire.

Contend 104

CONTEND — Very high. He claims that no argument against Christianity can stand without borrowing from it.

Defend 92

DEFEND — High. He refuses to argue on the unbeliever’s ground, so there is little to grab hold of.

Popularity 64

POPULARITY — Low. He is hard to read and easy to misquote, and the book is better known through others.

Cited for this book

Cornelius Van Til, born in the Netherlands, taught at Westminster Theological Seminary for forty-seven years and is called the fountainhead of presuppositionalism. He held that everyone reasons from a starting point they did not prove, and that only the Christian starting point can account for reasoning at all. He therefore refused to meet unbelievers on neutral ground, and argued from inside their own view instead.

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
1	The Only Proof	Presupposition	Argument	92	100%	10
20	A Transcendent God, a Transcendental Method	Presupposition	Argument	84	100%	15
30	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
38	Reduced to an Absurdity	Presupposition	Argument	90	100%	10
46	This or Nothing	Presupposition	Argument	94	100%	10
54	The Man Made of Water	Presupposition	Argument	98	100%	10

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“The only “proof” of the Christian position is that unless its truth is presupposed there is no possibility of “proving” anything at all. The actual state of affairs as preached by Christianity is the necessary foundation of “proof” itself.”
Cornelius Van Til, “My Credo,” in Jerusalem and Athens, ed. E. R. Geehan, p. 21, as quoted on Apologetics to the Glory of God, “Van Til’s Argument Part I” (2011). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

The Only Proof

PresuppositionArgument · power 92 · 100% accurate

In the gameVan Til’s claim that Christianity is not one hypothesis among others to be tested against the facts. It is what makes any proof possible. Nothing can be proved without the world he says God made, so the proof and the thing proved stand or fall together.

“a truly transcendent God and a transcendental method go hand in hand.”
Cornelius Van Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology, p. 11, as quoted on Apologetics to the Glory of God, “Van Til’s Argument Part I” (2011). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

A Transcendent God, a Transcendental Method

PresuppositionArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameVan Til says his method is not the old proofs from Aquinas or Anselm and does not try to be. It works from anything at all, and asks what it would take for that thing to make sense.

“What we shall have to do then is to try to reduce our opponent‘s position to an absurdity. … we must meet our enemy on their own ground. It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we reason from the impossibility of the contrary. The contrary is impossible only if it is self-contradictory when operating on the basis of its own assumptions.”
Cornelius Van Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology, p. 205, as quoted on Apologetics to the Glory of God, “Van Til’s Argument Part I” (2011). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

Reduced to an Absurdity

PresuppositionArgument · power 90 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe method in three sentences. Do not stand on the unbeliever’s ground and argue in his terms. Stand where he stands, and show that his own assumptions cannot hold up what he is saying. That is what Van Til means by reasoning from the impossibility of the contrary.

Strong against

×3The Complete Sceptican argument · why?

Van Til says to stand where the opponent stands and see whether his assumptions can hold up what he says. Stand with the complete sceptic and ask him why anyone should believe him. His reply undoes itself.

×2.5Nothing Outside the Textan argument · why?

Van Til says to stand where the opponent stands and ask whether his own assumptions can hold up what he is saying. A theory that nothing has a fixed meaning has to be stated in words that are read as meaning something.

“The question is one of “this or nothing.” The argument in favor of Christian theism must therefore seek to prove that if one is not a Christian theist he knows nothing at all as he ought to know anything.”
Cornelius Van Til, Survey of Christian Epistemology, as quoted on Apologetics to the Glory of God, “Van Til’s Argument Part I” (2011). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

This or Nothing

PresuppositionArgument · power 94 · 100% accurate

In the gameVan Til will not say that Christianity is a little better than the alternatives. He says it is the only view that does not turn human experience into nothing. The reader is being asked to take that claim seriously, and it is the one the whole raft sea was built to deny.

“Suppose we think of a man made of water in an infinitely extended and bottomless ocean of water. Desiring to get out of water, he makes a ladder of water. He sets this ladder upon the water and against the water and then attempts to climb out of the water. So hopeless and senseless a picture must be drawn of the natural man’s methodology based as it is upon the assumption that time or chance is ultimate.”
Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (1955; P&R ed.), p. 102, as quoted by Justin Taylor, The Gospel Coalition, “My Favorite Cornelius Van Til Illustration” (2011). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

The Man Made of Water

PresuppositionArgument · power 98 · 100% accurate

In the gameVan Til’s famous picture of what it is to argue with no ground under you. A man made of water sits in an ocean of water and builds a ladder of water to climb out. It is the whole method in a single picture.

Strong against

×4The Flotillaan argument · why?

Van Til drew it for arguments like this one. A man made of water sits in an ocean of water and builds a ladder of water to climb out. A thousand rafts lashed together are still on the same sea. The question is what any of it is standing on, and the Flotilla has nowhere to point.