A Conversation with Keith Mathison: Toward a Reformed Apologetics—A Critique of the Thought of Cornelius Van Til

Anthony: Dr. Mathison, thank you for joining us today to discuss your new book, Toward A Reformed Apologetics: A Critique of the Thought of Cornelius Van Til. To start, can you share a little about your background and the church you attend?

Keith Mathison: I was born and raised near Houston, Texas and became a Christian about a year after graduating high school. I then began attending a small dispensationalist Southern Baptist church near my home. In 1990, I graduated from Houston Christian University (formerly Houston Baptist University). I got married the Summer after graduation, and my wife and I then moved to Dallas, Texas where I attended Dallas Theological Seminary.

During my time at Dallas Seminary, I realized that dispensationalism was biblically indefensible and came to embrace Reformed theology, so in 1992 I transferred to Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. I graduated from RTS in 1995, and in 1996, I began working for Ligonier Ministries. Not long after I began working at Ligonier, Dr. R.C. Sproul planted a church called St. Andrews Chapel, which recently joined the PCA. My wife and I began attending there when it was planted, and we attend there today.

During my first years at Ligonier, I worked in the phone room doing everything from taking book orders to answering theology and Bible questions. I then became an associate editor of Tabletalk magazine. In 2011, I began teaching at Reformation Bible College. For several years I worked for Tabletalk and also taught, but both were effectively full-time jobs, so I had to choose one or the other. In 2014, I stopped working for Tabletalk and focused all of my time on my teaching role at RBC. My official title there is Professor of Systematic Theology.

The Motivation Behind the Critique

Anthony: What inspired you to write your new book critically examining Cornelius Van Til’s apologetic methodology, and what do you hope readers will take away from your analysis?

Keith Mathison: I was first introduced to Van Til’s apologetic methodology when I came to RTS Orlando. There were both Van Tillians and non-Van Tillians on the faculty, and there were factions among the students. Because of all the student debates, I read a number of Van Til’s works and a number of works by other Van Tillian apologists. For a time, I was inclined toward his view, but ultimately, I moved in a different direction and rarely thought about Van Til after that.

In 1996, I began working at Ligonier Ministries, which was the teaching ministry of R.C. Sproul. Dr. Sproul was well-known in the Reformed world for being critical of Van Til’s apologetic methodology, so the debate was always hovering in the background. It wasn’t, however, at the forefront of my attention. I rarely thought about Van Til for the first fifteen years of my time working at Ligonier.

Van Til became a topic of discussion in my life again only after I began teaching at Reformation Bible College in 2011. Some of the students were Van Tillian. Others were interested in apologetics and had questions about Van Til. So, from time to time, students would ask my opinion.

It was not apologetics, however, that led me to begin re-reading and critically examining Van Til’s thought. I began critically examining Van Til because one of the classes I was asked to teach at RBC was the Doctrine of God. As I read and researched in preparation for that class, one of the things I discovered was that certain Reformed theologians were teaching things about God that appeared to diverge radically from the Reformed confessions to which they subscribed. Two of these men, John Frame and K. Scott Oliphint, are best known for being proponents of Van Til’s apologetics. I began wondering if this was a “coincidence.”

It seemed strange that two of the most prominent defenders of Van Til’s apologetics were also publishing similar novel teachings on the doctrine of God. I began to wonder if there was something in Van Til’s own teaching that influenced two of his most well-known students in that direction. So that is what initially drove me back to Van Til’s writings.

I didn’t find anything in Van Til that connected him directly to the doctrine of God taught by Frame or Oliphint. In fact, it became clear during later research that he would have strongly condemned the teaching of both. That initial examination did, however, led me to write an online article about Van Til in which I offered some criticism of some of his other teachings. The article was not a final word, however, and there were still a number of loose threads.

There were still pieces of the puzzle that I could not place. I was ready to move on to other things, however. I had no plans to keep reading Van Til or to write a book examining his thought. His work was only of peripheral interest to me. I ended up writing this book only because I received an email one day from John Fesko who, along with Matthew Barrett, edits the R.E.D.S. series for the Mentor imprint of Christian Focus Publications.

They had been talking and wanted to know if I would be interested in expanding on my article and writing a book on Van Til for the that series. Even though I had never had a strong personal interest in Van Til’s work and had mostly observed the debates from the sidelines, it was an opportunity to better understand an enormously influential figure in the American Reformed world.

I decided to accept the invitation in the hopes, first, that I could figure out exactly what Van Til was saying. There have been so many claims and counter-claims of misunderstanding that, in my opinion, even a clear presentation of what Van Til is actually saying would have been beneficial to everyone involved. That was the first goal. But if I could explain exactly what Van Til is saying then I could also attempt to explain why some confessionally Reformed believers take issue with his teaching.

At the popular level, the sales pitch for Van Til often goes something like this, “Van Til’s apologetic method teaches that God/Christ/Scripture is the final standard. All other apologetic methods make autonomous human reason the final standard.”

That’s how it was presented to me when I first arrived at RTS, and it’s why I was initially inclined toward Van Til’s view. What faithful Christian wants to reject a view in which God is the final standard for one in which sinful human reason is the final authority? No Christian wants that, but the problem is that the sales pitch is misleading. I wanted to clarify exactly how it is misleading.

My hope, then, is that readers will come away from the book with a clearer understanding of Van Til’s system of thought and a clearer understanding of why some confessionally Reformed believers who do not believe that autonomous human reason is the final standard reject Van Til’s system of thought. In one sense, all I am attempting to do with this book is clear away some of the confusion.

Balancing Reformed Theology and Apologetics

Anthony: In your view, how can Reformed theologians effectively integrate robust theological principles with practical apologetic approaches?

Keith Mathison: Apologetics involves applying what we know about God, man, sin, Christ, the gospel, salvation, etc. in specific conversations with specific unbelievers. What we know about God, man, sin, Christ, the gospel, salvation, etc. is our theology, so the first step for any of us is to know our theology well.

If our theology is Reformed, it will help us to avoid pitfalls when we are engaged in conversations with unbelievers. A believer with a robust Reformed theology, for example, will not fall into the trap people like Charles Finney fell into, thinking that we can argue someone into the kingdom if we are persuasive enough (or emotionally manipulative enough).

A Reformed believer will understand that he’s talking to a dead man and that only God can give that dead man life. A Reformed believer will understand the difference between the external call and the effectual call.

Because every specific unbeliever is a unique human being with a unique history, every conversation with an unbeliever will be unique. The apologetic application of our theology to unique conversations with unique individuals requires biblical wisdom.

I believe that when we are in a conversation with an unbeliever, at some point we have to present the Gospel to them. If they respond with questions or challenges, that’s where apologetics comes into play. At that point, we are to defend the hope that is within us with gentleness and respect (1 Pet. 3:15). Respect requires us to listen. It also requires us to respond to their actual questions. We shouldn’t disrespectfully ignore their actual questions in order to provide some pat answer to a question they didn’t ask.

In other words, one of the ways in which modern apologetics often differs from what we see Jesus and Paul doing is that Jesus and Paul don’t give such pat answers. They start wherever they find the unbeliever. Paul, for example, will start in one place with Jews and in another place with Gentiles. Jesus starts in one place with the woman at the well and at another place with Nicodemus. Knowing how to do this, how to apply universal truths to unique situations, requires wisdom, and growing in this kind of wisdom requires talking to real unbelievers – not just talking about talking to unbelievers.

Addressing Misunderstandings

Anthony: You mention the debate surrounding Van Til’s methods has been acrimonious. What are some common misunderstandings you’ve encountered in these discussions, and how does your book aim to clarify them?

Keith Mathison: The fact that a debate about apologetic methodology should create such animosity within such a small segment of the Christian world seems a bit strange. There have been debates and discussions about theological method for centuries, but rarely have they resulted in the levels of animosity one encounters in debates over apologetic method in the Reformed world. I believe the acrimonious nature of the debate was initially caused by the nature of Van Til’s claims. It was then exacerbated by the nature of some of the responses made by Van Til’s critics. Over the decades, each side has dug in its heels, and the result is continuing animosity.

Van Til’s initial claim was, in a nutshell, that the only consistently Reformed method of apologetics is the method of presupposition. All other apologetic methods, including those used by the Reformed theologians of the preceding four hundred years, were based on an unbiblical theory of knowledge that compromised every major doctrine of the Reformed faith.

Only those who adopted his method of presupposition, Van Til argued, were consistently Reformed. As you can imagine, this did not sit well with those among his contemporaries who disagreed with him.

Many of Van Til’s original critics then accused him of twisting Reformed theology to make it fit into some type of absolute idealism. Some went so far as to accuse Van Til of being a pantheist. As you can imagine, this did not sit well with Van Til or those Reformed theologians who agreed with him.

As mentioned above, one of my main goals with this book is to clear away as much misunderstanding and confusion as possible. This is why the entire first half of the book is devoted to explaining step by step exactly what Van Til is and is not saying with little or no critical comment on my part. I think the majority of the misunderstandings in this debate are a result of no one ever really clearly explaining what Van Til is saying. Most of the discussions start with his apologetic methodology or, at best, they take one step back and start with his doctrine of the antithesis. But his doctrine of the antithesis cannot be understood without understanding several other things he teaches. Therefore, I went back to the beginning, starting with his doctrine of God and the divine decree, without which you cannot understand a single word he says.

I then work forward through his doctrine of creation, and the fall, and common grace, and redemption, and so on, because all of that is necessary to understand exactly what he is saying about the antithesis, and understanding what he says about the antithesis is absolutely necessary to understanding why he says what he says about apologetic methodology.

In the second half of the book, I turn to various concerns I have with Van Til’s system of thought, but I am also attempting to clear away misunderstanding in these chapters as well. In my chapter on philosophical concerns, for example, I attempt to provide some clarity to the whole debate about the influence of philosophical idealism on Van Til’s thought. I believe a lot of the confusion on this issue has been the result of a lack of clear definitions. What is meant, for instance, by “influence”? That’s a vague word than can mean several things. Whether or not Van Til was “influenced” by idealism depends on how “influence” is defined.

Practical Implications for Apologists

Anthony: How do you envision your critique Van Til influencing the practice of contemporary Reformed apologists in engaging with skeptics and seekers?

Keith Mathison: My hope is to encourage Reformed Christians to spend less time debating how to talk to unbelievers and more time actually talking to unbelievers. What good does it do to endlessly debate proper apologetic methodology if one never actually engages in real apologetic conversations with skeptics and seekers?

I think the debate over Van Til’s methodology, while important and necessary, has become too much of a distraction from actual apologetics. I also hope that my book can contribute in some way to moving the debate in a more constructive way in the sense of treating it as a debate among brothers in Christ. I think both sides have too often resorted to sarcasm and condescension, and it’s not helpful. We can each hold firmly to what we believe, but there is no reason to belittle those who disagree on something like apologetic methodology.

Also, I would add that I do not reject wholesale the use of internal critiques of the unbeliever’s system of thought. There are many times in specific conversations when it is necessary to discuss the self-contradictory nature of the unbeliever’s system, but that type of argument was not invented by Van Til. You can find it going back at least to the ancient Greek philosophers.

What I reject is the claim, that only those who follow Van Til’s specific apologetic methodology are consistently Reformed. Given the fact that no Reformed theologian for the first four hundred years of the Reformed churches followed such a method, we would be forced to conclude that no Reformed theologian for the first four hundred years of the Reformed churches was consistently Reformed. If their adoption of other apologetic methods also corrupted every major doctrine of the Reformed faith, we’re in even more trouble.

Given the fact that these were the men who wrote all of the public Reformed confessions of faith, that’s a serious problem because it implies that all of our Reformed confessions are corrupted to one degree or another. It basically makes one early twentieth century theologian, Cornelius Van Til, the ultimate standard of what it means to be truly Reformed.

Alternative Methodologies

Anthony: Given your critiques of Van Til’s system, which apologetic methodologies do you find most consistent with Reformed theology, and why? If you could recommend one apologetics book to our readers, what would it be?

Keith Mathison: If Reformed theology is defined by the public Reformed confessions, and it is, then the apologetic methodologies used by the theologians and ministers who wrote those confessions are the methods consistent with Reformed theology. All of them encouraged the use of traditional theistic proofs (I provide a number of examples of this in the book). All of them taught a non-rationalistic doctrine of natural theology. All of them engaged with various forms of unbelief.

Regarding a book suggestion, it may sound odd, but I would recommend Francis Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Depending on one’s definition of “apologetics,” Turretin might not count, but I think he is an outstanding example of defending Reformed theology (which is simply another way of saying Christian doctrine) at every point.

He responds to the challenges of atheists, agnostics, Socinians, Roman Catholics, etc. Of course, his work would need to be supplemented today because new challenges and new forms of unbelief have arisen in the centuries since he wrote, and we need to know how to respond to those, but his book does provide a good foundation. This is the kind of classical apologetics I find consistent with Scripture and Reformed theology. It starts where the unbeliever is and responds to the actual questions and challenges the unbeliever raises.

The Future of Reformed Apologetics

Anthony: What developments or shifts do you anticipate in the field of Reformed apologetics, especially in light of ongoing debates about methodology?

Keith Mathison: If my students and the students of colleagues in other Reformed colleges and seminaries are any clue, I think there is already a strong move back to the kind of apologetics used by the Reformed theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This is encouraging to me because for most of my adult life, it seemed like Dr. Sproul was almost a lone voice in the wilderness. In the Reformed world, Van Tillianism had won the day. It was clearly the majority view. But I think we are witnessing a gradual shift. We see that in the publication of books like Fesko’s Reforming Apologetics, for example. I think part of this is due to all the work (including numerous translations) that is being done in the field of sixteenth and seventeenth century Reformed theology.

I don’t believe Van Tillianism will ever disappear, but I think it is going to be more and more difficult to convince people that the theologians of the era of Reformed orthodoxy were all syncretizing rationalists who betrayed the purity of Calvin’s reformation. It’s just too easy today for anybody to pick up a copy of Turretin or Mastricht or Ursinus or Zanchius or Junius and see that this isn’t the case.

I also hope that Reformed apologetics will move past these internal debates regarding methodology and begin to focus more on responding to all of the new questions and challenges that have arisen in the years since Turretin wrote his great work. We don’t live in the 1550s. But we also don’t live in the 1950s. We need to think about how to answer the new questions and the new challenges. Turretin doesn’t answer the challenges raised by Darwinism, or communism, or critical theory, or transgenderism, and so on.

I think Reformed theologians can too often find themselves trapped in a time warp wanting to answer the questions that were being raised in their generation and forgetting to think about the new questions. Right now, for the most part, if you want help answering those questions, you often have to step outside the Reformed world. I think we can do better. Reformed theologians need to think through these questions and bring the insights of confessional Reformed theology to bear on them.

Moving Forward in Reformed Apologetics

Dr. Mathison’s journey through Reformed theology and apologetics is a reminder that the pursuit of truth requires both humility and diligence. As Reformed theologians and believers continue to have these conversations, may we always strive to defend the faith with wisdom, grace, and love for the truth of the gospel. You can purchase his new book here, and follow him on social media on X and his blog.

For more great interviews with Reformed theologians click here and here!