Hey all,

I've heard a lot about 'Van Tillians' and 'Clarkians' and have no idea what this means. Could someone please explain what makes a 'Van Tillian' or a 'Clarkian'?
(obviously following the teachings of Van Til or Clark, but I don't know what they taught)

In Christ,
Andrew

__________________
Andrew Clerebout
Joy Baptist Church, IFB (Westland, MI)

"Let us never forget that truth, distorted and exaggerated, can become the mother of the most dangerous heresies." - J.C. Ryle, Holiness

John Frame, in Machen's Warrior Children, says,
" From around 1944 to 1948, the OPC was troubled by a controversy between followers of Cornelius Van Til, Westminster’s Professor of Apologetics, and those of Gordon H. Clark, Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College, later at Butler University and Covenant College. The Presbytery of Philadelphia of the OPC ordained Clark to the ministry in 1944, but followers of Van Til complained against his ordination. Several issues entered this controversy, the main one described as the issue of the “incomprehensibility of God.” Both sides agreed, of course, that God was incomprehensible to human beings. But they disagreed on the relation of God’s thoughts to man’s thoughts. [10] To Van Til, when God thinks “this is a rose,” the “contents” of his thought are “qualitatively different” from the contents of any human mind thinking “this is a rose.” To Clark, the contents of God’s thought and a human being’s in this case are identical: both God and man are having the same thought. Van Til was trying to guard the creator-creature distinction by saying that just as God radically differs from man, so the contents of God’s mind radically differ from the contents of man’s mind. Clark was trying to avoid skepticism: for if God’s thought is true, and human thought necessarily differs from it in every respect, then human thought cannot be true."

__________________
Pittsburgh, PA
Covenant Church of Wilkinsburg (in the process of joining the PCA)
Director of Children's Ministry
Bible Teacher - Trinity Christian School
Blogger, Relentless Grace

Sorry, but this isn't exactly a "Reformed wading pool" question. Moving to "Apologetical Methods".

Andrew, you might try looking for some older threads on this topic. And if its a "simple" answer you're looking for, on this topic there isn't any. These were PhD.s, studied in the subject of Philosophy, arguing about epistemology.

If a Clarkian or a VanTillian tells you the subject really is just black and white simple, he is probably a passionate partisan for one or the other.

__________________
Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


When posting friends, kindly bear those words of earthly wisdom in mind:
Oh, that God the gift would give us
To see ourselves as others see us.
--Robert Burns, 1786 (modernized) ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions? --

Here's a relevant thread that I created some time ago when I was much more interested in this controversy:

Overlap between Van Til and Clark?

__________________
Davidius
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Currently in the process of transferring membership to an as-yet-undecided church in Chapel Hill
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

Robbie posted a good summary of the issue. Here are some more links that explain the differences:

http://www.trinityfoundation.org/PDF..._CVTContro.pdf

http://www.trinityfoundation.org/PDF...aVanTilian.pdf

http://www.trinityfoundation.org/PDF...liusVanTil.pdf

http://www.trinityfoundation.org/PDF...liusVanTil.pdf

http://www.trinityfoundation.org/PDF...gsAnalysis.pdf

__________________
_______
Brandon
Portico Church (LBC 1689)
Los Angeles, CA

Clark - Van Til

__________________
Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project

"Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity." -- Matthew Poole

Just realize that the TrinityFoundation is one of the passionate detractors of CVT. If you're going to read that stuff, at least balance that out.

Robbins' stuff is some of the most vitriolic rage on the internet, always looking to slay the dragon. He thinks the OPC is neck-deep in apostasy and sinking fast. We've been drowning for 50 years, according to him. "Why won't they DIE!!!!!!"

__________________
Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


When posting friends, kindly bear those words of earthly wisdom in mind:
Oh, that God the gift would give us
To see ourselves as others see us.
--Robert Burns, 1786 (modernized) ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions? --