The Defense of the Faith

Dr Cornelius van Til is the pre-eminent Christian apologist, whose influence can be seen in most apologetic works from the last 80 years down to the present. \\r\\n\\r\\nVan Til argued that, only by beginning with the self-contained God of Scripture can anyone find truth in any field. Unless one presupposes the self-contained ontological trinity, no sense can be made of anything in principle. This book bares the truth of that out. \\r\\n\\r\\nMany of Van Til's books are difficult to follow - this one is easier, and a good introduction to Presuppositional Apologetics, which is the only way to show the natural man the absurdity of his own position, and sets up Christianity as the only thing that can help him make sense of his experience.

In this book, van Til explicates and defends the presuppositionalist approach to apologetics (which van Til calls the 'Reformed' view). The book is written in two parts. Part one is focused on spelling out van Til's own position--it argues that the presuppositionalist approach squares best with the biblical picture. Van Til then considers some objections in part two. This book shows van Til to be knowledgeable in philosophy and its applications to theology, and readers without some background in epistemology may find van Til articulation of his thought rather inaccessible. His defense of presuppositionalism are directed against his contemporaries, with which the reader today may not be familiar--Oliphint's explanatory footnotes are helpful for giving the reader some introduction into the debates. Readers who want to better understand the presuppositionalist position, whether to defend or argue against it, should read this classic articulation of the view. Those who want a more gentle introduction may benefit more from later interpretations of van Til, such as those written by Frame and Bahnsen.