코넬리우스 반틸
미국 웨스트민트서 신학교의 변증학 교수였다. 화란에서 태어나 어릴 때 미국으로 이민한 화란계 미국인인 코넬리우스 반틸은 미국 칼빈 대학교 전신인 기독교 개혁파 대학에서 학부 교육을 마치고 (B.A.)칼빈신학교에서 신학사 과정을 하다가 그가 평생 매우 존경했던 보스의 가르침을 받고자 프리스톤 신학대원으로 편입하여 프린스톤에서 신학사 학위(B.D.)와 신학 석사 학위(TH.M.)를 하였고 프린스턴 대학교 철학과에서 관념론적 신 개념인 절대자 개념과 기독교의 하나님개념에 대한 비교 연구로 철학 박사 학위를 마친 후 기독교 개혁파 교회의 목사로 임직해 목회를 하다가 프린스톤에서 변증학을 강의하기 시작했다. 강의 처음부터 당시 프리스톤의 변증학 전통과는 다른 철저한 개혁주의 변증학을 시도하고 제시하였으며, 메이쳔을 중심으로 한 웨스트 민스터 신학교가 세워질 때 함께 교수로 사역해 달라는 요청을 여러번 고사하다가 결국 창립 교수진에 가담하여 웨스트 민스터 신학교를 세우는 일에 동참하였다. 변증학 교수로서 철저한 개혁주의 변증학인 '전제주의 변증학'을 제시한 그는 가장 철저한 개혁신학을 하기를 주문했던 20세기의 대표적인 개혁신하자였다고 할 수 있다.
출처: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Van_Til Cornelius Van TilFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cornelius Van Til (May 3, 1895 ? April 17, 1987), born in Grootegast, the Netherlands, was a Christian philosopher, Reformed theologian, and presuppositional apologist.
[edit] BiographyVan Til (born Kornelis van Til in Grootegast, Holland) was the sixth son of Ite van Til, a dairy farmer, and his wife Klasina van der Veen.[1] At the age of ten, he moved with his family to Highland, Indiana. He was the first of his family to receive a higher education. In 1914 he attended Calvin Preparatory School, graduated from Calvin College, and attended one year at Calvin Theological Seminary, where he studied under Louis Berkhof, but he transferred to Princeton Theological Seminary and later graduated with his PhD from Princeton University. He began teaching at Princeton Seminary, but shortly went with the conservative group that founded Westminster Theological Seminary, where he taught for forty-three years of his life. He taught apologetics and systematic theology there until his retirement in 1972 and continued to teach occasionally until 1979. He was also a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church from the 1930s until his death in 1987, and in that denomination, he was embroiled in a bitter dispute with Gordon Clark over God's incomprehensibility known as the Clark-Van Til Controversy in which, according to John Frame, neither man was at his best and neither quite understood the other's position. [edit] ThoughtVan Til drew upon the works of Dutch Calvinist philosophers such as D. H. Th. Vollenhoven, Herman Dooyeweerd, and Hendrik G. Stoker and theologians such as Herman Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper to bring together a fresh, decidedly Reformed approach to Christian apologetics, which opposed the traditional methodology of reasoning on the supposition that there is a neutral middle-ground, where the non-Christian and the Christian can agree.[2] His attempted contribution to the Neo-Calvinist approach of Dooyeweerd, Stoker and others, was to insist that the "ground motive" of a Christian philosophy must be derived from the historical terms of the Christian faith. In particular, the Trinity is of indispensable and insuperable value to a Christian philosophy. In Van Til: The Theologian, John Frame, a sympathetic critic of Van Til, describes Van Til's contributions to Christian thought as comparable in magnitude to those of Immanuel Kant in non-Christian philosophy. He indicates that Van Til identified the disciplines of systematic theology and apologetics, seeing the former as a positive statement of the Christian faith and the latter as a defense of that statement ? "a difference in emphasis rather than of subject matter." Frame summarizes Van Til's legacy as one of new applications of traditional doctrines:
Similarly, Van Til's innovative application of the doctrines of total depravity and the ultimate authority of God led to his reforming of the discipline of apologetics. Specifically, he denied neutrality on the basis of the total depravity of man and the invasive effects of sin on man's reasoning ability (as per the usual Calvinistic understanding of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans), and he insisted that the Bible, which he viewed as a divinely inspired book, be trusted preeminently because he believed the Christian's ultimate commitment must rest on the ultimate authority of God. As Frame says elsewhere, "the foundation of Van Til's system and its most persuasive principle" is a rejection of autonomy since "Christian thinking, like all of the Christian life, is subject to God's lordship".[4] However, it is this very feature that has caused some Christian apologists to reject Van Til's approach. For instance, D. R. Trethewie describes Van Til's system as nothing more than "a priori dogmatic transcendental irrationalism, which he has attempted to give a Christian name to."[5] [edit] Kuyper-Warfield synthesisFideism accurately describes the view of fellow Dutchman Abraham Kuyper, who inspired much of Van Til's thought. Van Til is seen as taking the side of Kuyper against his alma mater, Princeton Seminary, and particularly against Princeton professor B. B. Warfield. But Van Til described his approach to apologetics as a synthesis of these two approaches: "I have tried to use elements both of Kuyper's and of Warfield's thinking."[6] Greg Bahnsen, a student of Van Til and one his most prominent defenders and expositors, wrote that "A person who can explain the ways in which Van Til agreed and disagreed with both Warfield and Kuyper, is a person who understands presuppositional apologetics."[7] With Kuyper, Van Til believed that the Christian and the non-Christian have different ultimate standards, presuppositions that color the interpretation of every fact in every area of life. But with Warfield, he believed that a rational proof for Christianity is possible: "Positively Hodge and Warfield were quite right in stressing the fact that Christianity meets every legitimate demand of reason. Surely Christianity is not irrational. To be sure, it must be accepted on faith, but surely it must not be taken on blind faith. Christianity is capable of rational defense."[8] And like Warfield, Van Til believed that the Holy Spirit will use arguments against unbelief as a means to convert non-believers.[9] Van Til sought a third way from Kuyper and Warfield. His answer to the question "How do you argue with someone who has different presuppositions?" is the transcendental argument, an argument that seeks to prove that certain presuppositions are necessary for the possibility of rationality. The Christian and non-Christian have different presuppositions, but, according to Van Til, only the Christian's presuppositions allow for the possibility of human rationality or intelligible experience. By rejecting an absolutely rational God that determines whatsoever comes to pass and presupposing that some non-rational force ultimately determines the nature of the universe, the non-Christian cannot account for rationality. Van Til claims that non-Christian presuppositions reduce to absurdity and are self-defeating. Thus, non-Christians can reason, but they are being inconsistent with their presuppositions when they do so. The unbeliever's ability to reason is based on the fact that, despite what he believes, he is God's creature living in God's world.[10] Hence, Van Til arrives at his famous assertion that there is no neutral common ground between Christians and non-Christians because their presuppositions, their ultimate principles of interpretation, are different; but because non-Christians act and think inconsistently with regard to their presuppositions, common ground can be found. The task of the Christian apologist is to point out the difference in ultimate principles, and then show why the non-Christian's reduce to absurdity.[11][12] [edit] Transcendental argumentThe substance of Van Til's transcendental argument is that the doctrine of the ontological Trinity, which is concerned with the reciprocal relationships of the persons of the Godhead to each other without reference to God's relationship with creation, is the aspect of God's character that is necessary for the possibility of rationality. R. J. Rushdoony writes, "The whole body of Van Til's writings is given to the development of this concept of the ontological Trinity and its philosophical implications."[13] The ontological Trinity is important to Van Til because he can relate it to the philosophical concept of the "concrete universal" and the problem of the One and the many.[14] For Van Til, the ontological Trinity means that God's unity and diversity are equally basic. This is in contrast with non-Christian philosophy in which unity and diversity are seen as ultimately separate from each other:
Pure unity with no particularity is a blank, and pure particularity with no unity is chaos. Frame says that a blank and chaos are "meaningless in themselves and impossible to relate to one another. As such, unbelieving worldviews always reduce to unintelligible nonsense. This is, essentially, Van Til's critique of secular philosophy (and its influence on Christian philosophy)."[16] [edit] Karl BarthVan Til was also a strident opponent of the theology of Karl Barth, and his opposition led to the rejection of Barth's theology by many in the Reformed community. Despite Barth's assertions that he sought to base his theology solely on the 'Word of God', Van Til believed that Barth's thought was syncretic in nature and fundamentally flawed because, according to Van Til, it assumed a Kantian epistemology, which Van Til argued was necessarily irrational and anti-Biblical. [edit] InfluenceMany recent theologians have been influenced by Van Til's thought, including John Frame, Greg Bahnsen, Rousas John Rushdoony, as well as many of the current faculty members of Westminster Theological Seminary, Reformed Theological Seminary, and other Reformed seminaries. [edit] BibliographySome of Van Til's writings (ranked in order of importance by K. Scott Oliphint) include:
Additionally, Eric Sigward has edited The Works of Cornelius Van Til, 1895-1987, CD-ROM (ISBN 0-87552-461-3), a comprehensive collection of Van Til's writings in digital form that also includes images and extensive audio recordings of Van Til. [edit] Secondary sources
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[edit] External links
Categories: 1895 births | 1987 deaths | People from Grootegast | American people of Dutch descent | People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | American academics | American theologians | Dutch theologians | Christian apologists | Calvinist philosophers | Calvinist ministers and theologians | American Presbyterians | Orthodox Presbyterian Church | Calvin College alumni | Westminster Theological Seminary faculty | Princeton Theological Seminary alumni | Princeton Theological Seminary faculty | Christian philosophers
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