Van Til Quotes & Sayings

Without the interpretation of the universe by man to the glory of God the whole world would be meaningless — Cornelius Van Til

If one does not make human knowledge wholly dependent upon the original self-knowledge and consequent revelation of God to man, then man will have to seek knowledge within himself as the final reference point. Then he will have to seek an exhaustive understanding of reality. He will have to hold that if he cannot attain to such an exhaustive understanding of reality he has no true knowledge of anything at all. Either man must then know everything or he knows nothing. This is the dilemma that confronts every form of non-Christian epistemology — Cornelius Van Til

ARIADNE: Do you use a timer?
ARTHUR: No, I have to judge it myself. Once you're all asleep in room 528, I wait 'til Yusuf starts his kick...
ARIADNE: How will you know?
ARTHUR: His music warns me it's coming, then the van hitting the barrier of the bridge should be unmistakable-that's when I blow the floor out from underneath us and we get a nice synchronized kick. Too soon, and we won't get pulled out; too late and I won't be able to drop us.
ARIADNE: Why not?
ARTHUR: The van will be in free fall. I can't drop us without gravity. — Christopher J. Nolan

[The intellect of fallen man] may be compared to a buzz-saw that is sharp and shining, ready to cut the boards that come to it. Let us say that a carpenter wishes to cut fifty boards for the purpose of laying the floor of a house. He has marked his boards. He has set his saw. He begins at one end of the mark on the board. But he does not know that his seven-year-old son has tampered with the saw and changed its set. The result is that every board he saws is cut slantwise and thus unusable because too short except at the point where the saw made its first contact with the wood. As long as the set of the saw is not changed, the result will always be the same. So also whenever the teachings of Christianity are presented to the natural man, they will be cut according to the set of sinful human personality. — Cornelius Van Til

Through the Reformation, the mechanical relation of nature and grace was superceded by an ethical one, so that the restoration of the law of God in every sphere of life became the concern of the believer. — Henry R. Van Til

Due to their deep conviction of the sovereignty of God, the Word of God was taken very seriously by Calvinists. It became the unconditional norm for faith and life to the believer. The Divine injunction not to add or take away has been scrupulously observed by Calvinism. Thus, a Calvinistic ethic was developed with its high theism. Because God was held to be the absolute sovereign for man's life, it became simply a question of determining the will of God from His Word. Calvinistic ethics is not a system of opinion, but an attempt to make the will of God as revealed in the Bible the authoritative guide for social as well as personal direction. — Henry R. Van Til

The family is the simplest and smallest unit of society and the real fountain of culture. If this fountain remains pure, man's culture has promise. But if it becomes polluted, all the rest will turn to dust and ashes, since the home is the foundation of the entire social structure. — Henry R. Van Til

Culture derives its meaning from man's faith in God; it is never an end in itself, but always a means of expressing one's religious faith. — Henry R. Van Til

Or, to put it another way, presuppositional apologetics
such as that developed by Francis Schaeffer, but also by Cornelius Van Til and, to a degree, Herman Dooeyeweerd
rejects classical apologetics precisely because presuppositionalism recognizes the truth of Derrida's claim that everything is interpretation (though I am admittedly radicalizing their intuitions). — James K.A. Smith

To divide life into areas of sacred and secular, letting our devotions take care of the former while becoming secular reformers during the week, is to fail to understand the true end of man — Henry R. Van Til

Okay, let's cut the chatter. Open Mike Night's not 'til Tuesday.' Ruby's voice broke in. He must have had a van full of people to do that, as he normally let the comedians in the group rant away at will.
Sorry, Rube.' It was Danny, in the blue van.
Danny, you weren't even talking just now.'
I know.'
Then what are you apologizing for? — Vincent H. O'Neil

Since man is a moral being, his culture cannot be a-moral. Because man is a religious being, his culture, too, must be religiously oriented. — Henry R. Van Til

Sin has not destroyed the creaturely relationship of man to his maker, who made him a cultural creature with the mandate to replenish and subdue the earth. Sin has not destroyed the cultural urge in man to rule, since man is an image-bearer of the Ruler of heaven and earth. Neither has sin destroyed the cosmos, which is man's workshop.

Culture then, is a must for God's image bearers, but it will be either a demonstration of faith or apostasy, either a God-glorifying or a God-defying culture. — Henry R. Van Til

Religion based on divine sovereignty is religion for God's sake. Religion is for God, for whom all things exist. Whereas all forms of Arminianistic Christianity make man the final arbiter of his own salvation, in Calvinism, God saves sovereignly, immediately, whom He wills. — Henry R. Van Til

The problem of living a Christian life in a non-Christian society is pressing, since most of our social institutions are non-Christian and in pagan hands. The family remains the only trustworthy transmitter of Christian culture. — Henry R. Van Til

A biblical metaphysics implies a biblical theory of knowledge and a biblical ethic. — Henry R. Van Til

The picture of fallen man as given in Scripture is that he knows God but does not want to recognize Him as God. — Cornelius Van Til

Religious faith always transcends culture, and is the integrating principle and power of man's cultural striving. — Henry R. Van Til

How shortsighted and how uncultured, then, are the efforts of believers in Christ when they seek for snatches of worldly culture for themselves by placing themselves, as they think, on common ground with those who are not believers in Christ. How dishonoring to their Christ if they allow that any culture endures unless it be because of the power of his resurrection in the world. If you have been taken out of the miry clay, do you jump back into it because of some glistening objects that you see in it? Do you run back into the house now almost burned to the ground in order to save your silverware? It is only those who are believers in Christ that will inherit the earth and all the fulness thereof. — Cornelius Van Til

Anti-theism presupposes Theism — Cornelius Van Til

Although the realization of values in a culture may seem on the surface to be concerned merely with the temporal and material, this is appearance only, for man is a spiritual being destined for eternity, exhaustively accountable to his Creator-Lord. — Henry R. Van Til

When I have a model who is quiet and steady and with whom I am acquainted, then I draw repeatedly 'til there is one drawing that is different from the rest, which does not look like an ordinary study, but more typical and with more feeling. — Vincent Van Gogh

One cannot keep on evangelizing the world without interfering with the world's culture. It devolves upon God's people, therefore, to contend for such a society which will give the maximum opportunity for us to live wholly Christian lives and the maximum opportunity for others to become Christians. — Henry R. Van Til

It is not kindness to tell patients that need strong medicine that nothing serious is wrong with them. — Cornelius Van Til

Scripture is not only the authoritative guide for the way of salvation, but it furnishes man with an authoritative interpretation of reality as a whole. — Henry R. Van Til

Calvinism furnishes us with the only theology of culture that is truly relevant for the world in which we live, because it is the true theology of the Word. — Henry R. Van Til

I'll be making music 'til the day I die. I've done all kinds of stuff, and more is coming. — Eddie Van Halen

You realize that if you are to change your belief about God, you will also have to change your belief about yourself. — Cornelius Van Til

To admit one's own presuppositions and to point out the presuppositions of others is therefore to maintain that all reasoning is, in the nature of the case, circular reasoning. The starting-point, the method, and the conclusion are always involved in one another. — Cornelius Van Til

When man thinks in self-conscious submission to the voluntary revelation of the self-sufficient God, he has therewith the only possible ground of certainty for his knowledge. — Cornelius Van Til

If the God of Christianity exists, the evidence for His existence is abundant and plain so that it is both unscientific and sinful not to believe in Him. — Cornelius Van Til

Culture is concerned with the world of values. All cultures are irreducibly value-oriented. — Henry R. Van Til

When on the created level of existence man thinks God's thoughts after him, that is, when man thinks in self-conscious submission to the voluntary revelation of the self-sufficient God, he has therewith the only possible ground of certainty for his knowledge. When man thinks thus he thinks as a covenant creature should wish to think. — Cornelius Van Til

Christians are called unto holiness and are to be engaged actively in self-purification. They are to walk in good works which have been prepared before, unto which they have been called. But how is it possible to visualize this activity of believers outside of their culture? Is holiness restricted to the life of the soul? — Henry R. Van Til

There are those, of course, who deny that they need any form of authority. They are the popular atheists and agnostics. Such men say that they must be shown by 'reason' whatever they are to accept as true. But the great thinkers among non-Christian men have taken no such position. They know that they cannot cover the whole area of reality with their knowledge. — Cornelius Van Til

The Christian is in the world, but not to be of it. This constitutes the basis of the perennial problem involved in the discussion of Christian culture. Because believers are not of the world, there have been many Christians who have taken a negative attitude toward culture. — Henry R. Van Til

So, as we have our tea, I propose not only to operate on your heart so as to change your will, but also on your eyes so as to change your outlook. But wait a minute. No, I do not propose to operate at all. I myself cannot do anything of the sort. I am just mildly suggesting that you are perhaps dead, and perhaps blind, leaving you to think the matter over for yourself. If an operation is to be performed it must be performed by God Himself. — Cornelius Van Til

Christ has redeemed the cultural agents, thus transforming culture also. — Henry R. Van Til

The Bible is authoritative on everything of which it speaks.
Moreover, it speaks of everything. — Cornelius Van Til

Culture is "lived religion". It is the form that religion takes in the lives of men. — Henry R. Van Til

The expectation of future glory and the joy of future redemption has its counterpart here and now in the implications for the present life of the believer. — Henry R. Van Til

Rome changed the New Testament catholicity (which purifies and sanctifies as it's proper domain the whole of life) and has substituted in its place a dualism which separates the supernatural from the natural. — Henry R. Van Til

The only proof for the existence of God is that without God you couldn't prove anything. — Cornelius Van Til

I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief, or even a little or infinitely more probably true than other belief; I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else — Cornelius Van Til

Agnosticism is epistemologically self-contradictory on its own assumptions because its claim to make no assertion about ultimate reality rests upon a most comprehensive assertion about ultimate reality. — Cornelius Van Til

The Protestant Reformation did not merely seek to cleanse the church and deliver it from doctrinal errors, but it also sought the restoration of the whole of life. — Henry R. Van Til

I was trying to look at the positive in a very dreary situation. After all, the woman you have to marry nearly killed you thrice!"

"Ah, yes. Thank you for the reminder. I shall be sure to shout "'til death do us part" quite proudly, knowing it will be quite soon in seeking me out. — Rachel Van Dyken

Clearly, we view Jesus from a considerable historical distance, but, even though Jesus is a historical figure, he is at the same time a timeless figure. He was excruciatingly realistic about human weaknesses, forthright in moral judgment about sin, and active in solving the needs of the poor and hurting. His teachings show how we might be kingdom citizens, and his self-sacrifice shows the extent to which love can go. Indeed, what makes Christian ethics Christian might be summed up in this way: being like the Master and doing as the Master does. — Kent A. Van Til

It should not be forgotten in this connection that the minister's duty is increasingly that of an apologist for Christianity. The general level of education is much higher than it has ever been. Many young people hear of evolution in the high schools and in the college where their fathers never heard of it except as far as a distant something. If the minister would be able to help his young people, he must be a good apologete, and he cannot be a good apologete unless he is a good systematic theologian (pg. 24). — Cornelius Van Til

Culture is any and all human effort and labor expended upon the cosmos, to unearth its treasures and its riches and bring them into the service of man for the enrichment of human existence unto the glory of God. — Henry R. Van Til

Every fact in this world, the God of the Bible claims, has His stamp indelibly engraved upon it. — Cornelius Van Til

The primary principle of the Calvinistic system of thought is the direct and absolute sovereignty of God over all things. Such sovereignty is not one among the many attributes of God, but it comes to expression in all of His attributes. — Henry R. Van Til

Does the twentieth-century disciple have a right to discard the cultural mandate, twice given to the human race by Jehovah himself? Are we justified in turning the world and culture over to the enemies of God How far does the kingship of Christ extend? — Henry R. Van Til

He [Christ] came to bring peace, to be sure, but the peace that He came to bring must be built upon the complete destruction of the power of darkness. — Cornelius Van Til