Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 65:2 (Fall 2003)
Article: Apologetics Van Til And Transcendental Argument
Author: Don Collett

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WTJ 65:2 (Fall 2003) p. 289

Apologetics
Van Til And Transcendental Argument

Don Collett

[Don Collett is a Ph.D. student in Old Testament at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.]

Central to the apologetic of Cornelius Van Til is the claim that a Reformed apologetic and the transcendental method of argumentation go hand-in-hand. Back of this claim lies the conviction, oft-stated by Van Til, that the theology of Scripture entails a distinctive apologetic method. For example, in the opening pages of A Survey of Christian Epistemology Van Til writes that “every system of thought necessarily has a certain method of its own.”1 Thus Christian theism, considered as a system of thought, requires an apologetic defense that is methodologically distinctive. For Van Til, this in turn requires the Christian apologist to employ a transcendental method of argument, since “the only argument for an absolute God that holds water is a transcendental argument.”2

As one might expect, Van Til’s advocacy of the transcendental method soon met with criticism from Christian apologists who preferred to continue using the more traditional forms of inductive and deductive argument,3 or who simply preferred to adopt a more integrative and methodologically diverse approach to the practice of apologetics.4 In recent years, however, the latter approach to apologetic method has also found support among Van Tillian apologists, the most notable example being John Frame. Contra Van Til, Frame argues that transcendental arguments are not methodologically or formally distinct from traditional arguments.5 Indeed, Frame’s counter arguments on this matter have

WTJ 65:2 (Fall 2003) p. 290

led him to conclude that presuppositionalism “should be understood as an appeal to the heart rather than as a straightforward apologetic method.”6

As a result of the discussion and debate elicited by Frame’s argument, it is now possible to distinguish between Van Tillians who remain committed to the methodological distinctiveness of presuppositionalism and those who do not. In this article I intend to defend the claim that transcendental arguments are methodologically distinct from traditional argument forms.7 To that end I will begin with a survey of some important reasons why Van Til believed in the distinctiveness of transcendental argument, th...

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