At this point in our series we will turn to Abraham Kuyper. We should hasten to add that we must dismiss the suggestion that Van Til totally rejects Warfield and wholly accepts Kuyper.

Not so. We happen to believe that Kuyper is correct in recognizing that the antithesis between belief and unbelief is absolute in principle. However, he apparently failed to understand how this antithesis works itself out in history.

We have already noted that Kuyper works with what might best be labeled a territorial view of the belief/unbelief antithesis and common grace. I suspect this sets up a see-saw relationship between the two so that Kuyper must account for what looks to him like areas of neutrality or practices which are not affected by the fall. As in a war, there are zones of neutrality where enemies can meet on equal terms and come together to forge common notions of peace.

Needless to say, we believe that Van Til’s temporal or historical (could we not say “eschatological”?) understanding of both the belief/unbelief antithesis and common grace are an improvement.¹

What looks to Kuyper like practices not affected by the fall (e.g., weighing, measuring, the use of logic) or like areas of neutrality are actually a reflection of our eschatological condition. That is, we have not yet reached the final consummation - the point when the principle of antithesis will be fully realized.

Between the fall and the consummation common grace is at work. Man is still made in the image of God and there is natural, not to mention special, revelation. Sin in the life of the unregenerate is restrained and so he/she is able to ascertain some things about this world correctly. We should also mention that the sanctification of the believer is not yet complete as well. Interestingly enough, Warfield also points out this aspect of the pre-consummation Christian life.²

In a sense, then, Warfield is sensitive to the eschatological defect in Kuyper’s territorial notions of the belief/unbelief antithesis and common grace. It is not the case that there are neutral or unaffected areas in this fallen world. Rather, fallen sinners recognize and affirm some true things because they can’t possibly think or live consistently with their unbelieving worldview.

So, the unregenerate contribute to science and other aspects of life, we might say, quite accidentally. The unbeliever can get along in this world quite in spite of himself/herself, and because reality is as the Bible declares it to be. In other words, it is impossible, given the way the world actually is, for the unregenerate to be correct and Christianity to be false. And so we have the beginnings of the transcendental argument.

Kuyper’s discussion of a formal faith that is attributable to both the regenerate and the unregenerate is not completely mistaken. Van Til, however, is correct to note Kuyper’s failure to connect our trust in the existence of our ego and the deliverances of our senses and knowledge of God.

Warfield is correct to note that God’s revelation in nature and history is objective, intelligible, and clear (and that this revelation is given not only in creation in general but also in the very constitution of human beings). Any discussion of epistemology must include the connection between our knowledge of ourselves and our knowledge of God. It is not simply a matter of looking at the subject/object relation from a human perspective, but we must also ask what or who upholds the human epistemological situation? How do we account for our trust in our own existence and epistemological apparatus?

Finally, Kuyper is correct to connect apologetics with the other dogmatic sciences. Apologetics cannot be divorced from the Christianity it is intended to defend or vindicate. However, he is wrong to diminish its significance. Given Van Til’s correction of Kuyper’s territorial notion of the belief/unbelief antithesis and common grace with a temporal or eschatological view, we can now see that apologetics has an essential role to play in the proclamation of the gospel (and in this Warfield is correct).

Apologetics is no more fruitless than preaching or evangelism in this age before the final consummation. Preaching and witnessing have no innate powers to convert the sinner. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. However, the Holy Spirit uses preaching and witnessing in His work of conversion and so He can similarly use apologetics.

Conclusion

Cornelius Van Til critically appropriates the apologetic insights of both Benjamin B. Warfield and Abraham Kuyper. He accepts Warfield’s insight into the objective, intelligible, and clear revelation of God to man in nature and history. However, he rejects Warfield’s abstract notion of induction & probability together with his notion of “right reason.”

Van Til agrees with Kuyper’s notion of the antithesis between belief and unbelief but he rejects the idea that there are practices unaffected by the fall or that there are neutral zones in this fallen world. Van Til also rejects Kuyper’s diminution of apologetics which results from his territorial notion of the belief/unbelief antithesis and common grace.

Van Til’s improvement on Kuyper’s notion of the belief/unbelief antithesis and common grace allows us to recognize the central place of the transcendental argument in presuppositional apologetics: the argument for the impossibility to the contrary.

Van Til stands on the shoulders of giants and he was able to benefit from the insights of both Warfield and Kuyper as a result. He was able to see farther and more clearly than these two Reformed stalwarts, however, and we do them no dishonor when we recognize this.

Greg Bahnsen is correct when he notes that he who understands how Van Til critically appropriates Warfield and Kuyper will understand the genius of the presuppositional apologetic method.

End Notes
1. Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1972).

2. Warfield, “Introduction,” Writings, 2:101. Admittedly Kuyper also notes that palingenesis or sanctification is not perfect in this life, but he doesn’t connect it explicitly with eschatology, Principles, 162.