Articles

Essays & Articles

Daniel Ragusa/August 24, 2017

Geerhardus Vos on the Personal and Active Faith of the Old Testament

The Westminster Larger Catechism defines justifying faith as a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he, being convinced of …

Daniel Ragusa/August 23, 2017

The Reformation Restoration of Faith and True Religion

Saving faith is the instrument by which the whole person is united to the whole Christ in the unbreakable bond of the Holy Spirit. I am not my own, confesses the believer, …

James J. Cassidy/August 21, 2017

The Essential Van Til — Transcendental Method

Now we begin to make a definite turn toward Barth in Van Til’s writing. Thus far this blog series has been a smattering of topics arising from my rereading …

James J. Cassidy/August 14, 2017

The Essential Van Til — His Relation to Scholasticism

Van Til used the word “scholasticism” (or its other variations) as shorthand for Thomistic dualism (and with it the medieval synthesis of Christian and pagan thought). In short Thomistic …

Daniel Ragusa/August 11, 2017

[Book Review] Christ and Covenant Theology by Cornelis Venema

The doctrine of the covenant, in the words of Anthony Hoekema, is “the vertebrate structure which holds all the doctrines of Reformed theology together.”[1] The structural importance of the covenant for …

James J. Cassidy/August 7, 2017

The Essential Van Til – The Failure of Classical Apologetics

This post is a kind of follow-on from a previous post about “as-suchness.” In The New Synthesis Van Til writes: Paul does not discuss …

James J. Cassidy/July 30, 2017

The Essential Van Til — The Crux of the Difference

There is still a great deal of confusion out there concerning the difference between orthodox Reformed theology and the theology of Karl Barth. Are they not the same? Is …

Pierce Taylor Hibbs/July 26, 2017

Scripture: The Speech of God

The more I read orthodox theology, the more apparent it becomes that a fundamental tenet of Christian belief is either embraced or ignored (to various degrees) by any given author. …

James J. Cassidy/July 24, 2017

The Essential Van Til — Common Grace and Common Wrath

The triumph of the eternal decree of God over history is just as much a problem as the triumph of history over the eternal decree. In an attempt …

James J. Cassidy/July 17, 2017

The Essential Van Til — Karl Barth: A Consistent Scholastic?

It is often assumed that Karl Barth’s thought is the antithesis of medieval scholasticism. It is true that Barth is exceedingly critical of Aquinas. But does Barth offer us …

James J. Cassidy/July 10, 2017

The Essential Van Til — No Critic of Old Princeton Epistemology?

I am always edified when I read Van Til. I am also always challenged to conform my thinking to the Holy Scriptures and the Reformed faith. But I am …

James J. Cassidy/July 3, 2017

The Essential Van Til — The Pastor and Systematic Theology

Who says Van Til is impractical? I would argue that Van Til in all his writing always has an eye towards the church. All of his theologizing, all of …

James J. Cassidy/June 26, 2017

The Essential Van Til — The Neo-Orthodox View of the Knowledge of God

In his writings, Van Til used what has now become a defunct moniker to describe an early 20 th century theological movement surrounding Karl Barth and …

Ruben Zartman/June 22, 2017

The Dogmatic Impulse within Scripture

Geerhardus Vos wisely observed that “on the line of historical progress there is at several points already a beginning of correlation among elements of truth in which the beginnings of …

James J. Cassidy/June 18, 2017

The Essential Van Til — As Suchness

Going hand-in-hand with what we said in a previous post about rendering God not God, Van Til points up how unbelieving thought assumes a neutral view of reality, and …