Digital Logos Edition
This volume describes the field of Christian education from the perspective of practical analysis as well as introducing ideas of educational philosophy and its relation to the Christian school. Van Til addresses issues facing the teacher in Christian education, along with their relationship to educational philosophy and non-Christian educators. This volume includes previously published works The Dilemma of Education and The Christian Scholar.
Dr. Cornelius Van Til, served as a professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, for 43 years. He retired in 1972, but remained as an emeritus professor until his death in 1987. Van Til, an immigrant from The Netherlands, was one of the most respected apologetic theologians of his time.
Van Til earned degrees from Calvin College, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Princeton University on his way to becoming an Orthodox Presbyterian Minister. He served throughout the ministry and scholarly fields, including teaching as an instructor of apologetics at Princeton Theological Seminary and being heavily involved with the foundation of the Philadelphia-Montgomery Christian Academy.
His most noted writings include The New Modernism, The Defense of the Faith, and Christianity and Barthianism. Much of his work with apologetics focuses on the presuppositions of humans, the difference between believers and non-believers, and the opposition between Christian and non-Christian worldviews.
More information about Van Til as a teacher and Reformed theologian is available in an article Eric Sigward wrote for New Horizons entitled "Van Til Made Me Reformed." Read the article as HTML or PDF (copyright 2004 by New Horizons; used by permission)
“The first duty of Christians, as they approach those who live and move and have their being in a culture that is Greek or similar to that of the Greeks, is to call them to repentance, i.e., to call them back to God their creator through Christ. This must be done in order that both they and their culture may be saved from the disintegrating forces unleashed in the world through sin, and that men’s efforts may have that aim without which they are worse than meaningless.” (Pages 4–5)
“What is a good work? asks the Catechism. The answer is that a good work, a work that is pleasing to God, is one (1) that is done to his glory, (2) that is done according to the standard of the work of God, and (3) whose motivation springs from faith.” (Page 3)
“Man has made himself instead of God the goal of all his cultural effort. It is this fact that colors all that every man does or leaves undone.” (Page 5)
“In other words Dewey’s teachers must first assert that man knows nothing of a transcendent realm. But they must also assert, in effect, that they know all about it. They must assert that nobody knows anything about it. This means that they who claim to know about it must be mistaken. And then they themselves, nonetheless, presume to know all about it. They must be omniscient in order to know that no one can rightfully claim to know anything about God.” (Page 53)
“However, only in the school, in which professional people engage in setting forth the whole history and meaning of human culture, can Christ and his work be portrayed in full detail as he works out his program of removing all that divides men from God, their creator-redeemer, and of directing all that accomplishes their reunion with him.” (Page 24)