Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 87:1 (Spring 2025)
Article: “Out Van-Til-Ing” Van Til: Helmut Thielicke—The Unknown Pioneer Of Presuppositionalism
Author: Jeffery L. Hamm

WTJ 87:1 (Spring 2025) p. 61

“Out Van-Til-Ing” Van Til: Helmut Thielicke—The Unknown Pioneer Of Presuppositionalism

Jeffery L. Hamm

Jeffery L. Hamm is senior pastor of the historic First Presbyterian Church of Tuscumbia, Alabama.

Critics of Van Til continue to misunderstand him as exemplified recently by J. V. Fesko’s Reforming Apologetics: Retrieving the Classic Reformed Approach to Defending the Faith. Indeed, his call to return to classical apologetics is a clear challenge to “the dominant Van Tillian approach in Reformed apologetics.” Alas, however, Fesko’s Counter-Reformation to Van Til’s Protestant Reformation of apologetics is a constant assembly line of misinterpretations and straw-man arguments. The purpose of this article, nonetheless, is to take seriously Fesko’s claim regarding Van Til’s need of reformation, particularly in view of the source for his transcendental approach, that is, Kantian philosophy. Does this truly warrant “reforming” Van Til’s presuppositionalism?

Thankfully, Fesko’s challenge can be considered in view of an unknown apologetic ally of Van Til contemporary to him, Helmut Thielicke (1908–1986), also an early pioneer of presuppositionalism. To the astonishment of Van Tilians, Thielicke’s method is found to be virtually identical to that of presuppositionalism’s founding father, albeit in its own unique idiom which is relentless in its biblical and theological form and force. Consequently, it escapes Fesko’s criticism, for it is not rooted in Kantian philosophy but rather Christ’s own style of persuasion. Indeed, Thielicke’s pioneering presuppositional method even could be used “to translate much of what is meant in Van Til’s writings from their often philosophical and technical contexts to a more basic biblical and theological context” along the lines for which Scott Oliphint calls in order to “take a Reformed apologetic and move it forward” (Oliphint, Covenantal Apologetics [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013], 26).

J. V. Fesko has recently invited Van Tilians to a continuing conversation with classical apologists in his Reforming Apologetics: Retrieving the Classic Reformed Approach to Defending the Faith.1 Indeed, his call to return to

WTJ 87:1 (Spring 2025) p. 62

classical apologetics is a clear challenge to “the dominant Van Tillian approach in Reformed apologetics.”2 Alas, however, Fesko either has not earnestly read Cornelius Van Til or simply misunderstands him, for his Counter-Reformation to Van Til’s Protestant Reformation of apologetics is a constant assembly line of misinterpretations and straw-man argu...