He was born Kornelis van Til (= of Bridge) in May 1895 in the village of Grootegast, located in the northwestern part of the Dutch northeastern province Groningen, the sixth of eight sons of Ite van Til (36 years old, dairy farmer) and Klasina van der Veen.
The Van Til family were members of what we know as the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland. These people had separated from the state church in 1834 under severe stress and at times persecution. Initially they were barred from worshiping in formal church buildings and had to meet in barns and public buildings. The Van Tils were godly people.
In 1905, at the age of ten, he emigrated with his parents and brothers to Highland, Lake County, located in the extreme northwestern part of Indiana.
In May 1910 Cornelius Van Till (15 years old, born in Holland, immigrated in 1905), his father Ite Van Till (51, Holland, immigrated in 1905, farmer), mother Klazina (51, Holland, immigrated in 1905), siblings Klaas (19, Holland, immigrated in 1905, farmer at home farm), Jacob (11, Holland, immigrated in 1905) and Siepko (5, Holland, immigrated in 1905) were living on their own farm at Ridge Road in the town of Munster, North Township, Lake County, located in the extreme northwestern part of Indiana.
In June 1917 Cornelius Van Til (22 years old, farmer, employed in the village of Munster, Lake County, Indiana) was living in the city of Hammond, located in the extreme northwestern part of Lake County, Indiana, when was administrated on a WW I Draft Registration Card. He was of medium build and height, had brown hair and grey eyes.
On September 15, 1925 Cornelius van Til married in Crown Point, Lake County, Indiana at the age of 30 years the two months younger Rena Klooster, born in July 1895 in Illinois.
On July 4, 1928 the couple had in Michigan one son and they named him Earl Calvin.
In April 1930 Cornelius Van Til (35, teacher at a seminary), his wife Rena (34, Illinois) and their son Earle K (1, Michigan) were living in a rented house at 623 Jefferson Street in Ward 34 of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In April 1940 Cornelius Van Til (44, teacher at a seminary), his wife Rena (44) and their son Earl C (11, born in Michigan) lived at a rented home in Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. In 1935 they resided at a rural place in Delaware County, in Pennsylvania too.
In August 1983 his son Earl Calvin Van Til passed away before his father died. Earl left his father a granddaughter, named Sharon Van Til Reed, who died in 2003. With her this Van Til family line has died out.
In January 1978, his wife Rena passed away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cornelius Van Til outlived her by nine years, passing away on April 17, 1987, Philadelphia at the advanced age of 91 years, about two weeks short of his 92nd birthday. He had lived a rich life, and had made many contributions to the religiously conservative Presbyterian and Reformed faith.
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 in suburban Philadelphia 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. During his 51 year tenure at Westminster Theological Seminary, van Til also served as an ordained minister in an Orthodox Presbyterian church in the Philadelphia area, 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 Van Til's pupil John Frame, neither man was at his best and neither quite understood the other's position.
OBITUARY: Dr. Cornelius Van Til
April 18, 1987
Dr. Cornelius Van Til, for 43 years professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and emeritus professor there since his retirement in 1972, died at the age of 91 on April 17, 1987. After an illness of several months, death came peacefully at his long-time residence near the campus. A memorial service will be held at Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Glenside, PA (where he worshipped for the last 40 years) on Wednesday, April 29, 8:00 pm.
Van Til was born on May 3, 1895, in Grootegast, The Netherlands. He was the sixth son of Ite and Klazina Van Til, who emigrated to the United States when "Kees," as he was known to friends, was 10. He grew up helping on the family farm in Highland, Indiana. He went on to receive an advanced education when he saw the need to meet unbelief on its own ground and in the most thorough terms. Years later he said, "Study was not easy for me. Having grown up on the farm I was used to weeding onions and carrots and cabbages. It was hard to adjust to classroom work; I had labored physically and my body was aching for that." He was married to Rena Klooster in 1925 and they had one son, Earl, who died in 1983. Van Til is survived by a grand-daughter, Sharon Reed of Valencia, PA.
He was graduated from Calvin College (A.B., 1922), Princeton Theological Seminary (Th.B., 1924; Th.M., 1925) and Princeton University (Ph.D. 1927). He served as the pastor of the Christian Reformed Church in Spring Lake, MI, 1927-28 and was instructor of apologetics at Princeton Theological Seminary, 1928-29. He was professor of apologetics at Westminster, 1929-72. He held an honorary professorship at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, in 1938; the Th.D. (honoris causa) from the University of Potchefstroom, South Africa; and the D.D. from Reformed Episcopal Seminary, Philadelphia.
He was a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church from 1936 until his death. Van Til was also instrumental in the founding of Philadelphia-Montgomery Christian Academy, serving as the president of the board. Begun in September 1942, the school now has over 700 students, K-12, on campuses in three Philadelphia communities: Roxborough, Dresher and Erdenheim.
Van Til's published writings include The New Modernism (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1946), The Defense of the Faith (P&R, 1955) and Christianity and Barthianism (P&R, 1962), plus several syallabi and numerous reviews and articles. He was joint editor of Philosophia Reformata, a quarterly devoted to Calvinistic philosophy. A festschrift, Jerusalem and Athens, edited by E. R. Geehan with contributions by Hendrik G. Stoker, Herman Dooyeweerd, J. I. Packer, Paul K. Jewett, Arthur Holmes and others, was published on his 75th birthday (P&R, 1971).
He is perhaps best known for the development of a fresh approach to the task of defending the Christian faith. Although trained in traditional methods he drew on the insights of fellow Calvinistic philosophers Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd to formulate a more consistently Christian methodology. His apologetic focused on the role of presuppositions, the point of contact between believers and unbelievers, and the antithesis between Christian and non-Christian worldviews.
In an interview with Christianity Today (December 30, 1977) he said, "There are two ways of defending the faith. One of these begins from man as self-sufficient and works up to God, while the other begins from the triune God of the Scriptures and relates all things to him. . . . The traditional ideas of trying to find some neutral, common ground on which the believer and unbeliever can stand are based on the notion that man is autonomous . . . [yet] Paul says, all men, knowing God, hold down this knowledge in unrighteousness. . . . [This knowledge] is the only basis man has on which he can stand, to know himself, to find the facts of his world and learn how to relate them to one another. Without the Creator-God-Redeemer of Scripture the universe would resemble an infinite number of beads with no holes in any of them, yet which must all be strung by an infinitely long string."
One of Van Til's students, T. Grady Spires, now professor of philosophy at Gordon College, Wenham MA, says of him, "Every student of Van Til can instantly recall the characteristic Van Tillian blackboard graffiti: the foremost symbols being two circles, a big one for the creator, the other for creation with no ontological bridge between. The entire history of philosophy or Christian thought, including most heresy, would be strewn in names and phrases across the board. . . . The consumption of chalk and the whir of ideas were symptomatic of an excitement generated not from brilliant eruditions, though some of his skyrocketing digressions could be called that, but from the strong and systematic emphasis on the antithesis between a biblical world and life view and the several intellectual scientific versions of the carnal mind. Students began to see how far-reaching were the differences between believer and non-believer."
So, Cornelius Van Til became in the USA a wellknown Christian philosopher, Reformed theologian and presuppositional apologist. See for detailed info on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Van_Til and
http://presupp101.wordpress.com/tag/van-til/
The Van Til family were members of what we know as the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland. These people had separated from the state church in 1834 under severe stress and at times persecution. Initially they were barred from worshiping in formal church buildings and had to meet in barns and public buildings. The Van Tils were godly people.
In 1905, at the age of ten, he emigrated with his parents and brothers to Highland, Lake County, located in the extreme northwestern part of Indiana.
In May 1910 Cornelius Van Till (15 years old, born in Holland, immigrated in 1905), his father Ite Van Till (51, Holland, immigrated in 1905, farmer), mother Klazina (51, Holland, immigrated in 1905), siblings Klaas (19, Holland, immigrated in 1905, farmer at home farm), Jacob (11, Holland, immigrated in 1905) and Siepko (5, Holland, immigrated in 1905) were living on their own farm at Ridge Road in the town of Munster, North Township, Lake County, located in the extreme northwestern part of Indiana.
In June 1917 Cornelius Van Til (22 years old, farmer, employed in the village of Munster, Lake County, Indiana) was living in the city of Hammond, located in the extreme northwestern part of Lake County, Indiana, when was administrated on a WW I Draft Registration Card. He was of medium build and height, had brown hair and grey eyes.
On September 15, 1925 Cornelius van Til married in Crown Point, Lake County, Indiana at the age of 30 years the two months younger Rena Klooster, born in July 1895 in Illinois.
On July 4, 1928 the couple had in Michigan one son and they named him Earl Calvin.
In April 1930 Cornelius Van Til (35, teacher at a seminary), his wife Rena (34, Illinois) and their son Earle K (1, Michigan) were living in a rented house at 623 Jefferson Street in Ward 34 of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In April 1940 Cornelius Van Til (44, teacher at a seminary), his wife Rena (44) and their son Earl C (11, born in Michigan) lived at a rented home in Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. In 1935 they resided at a rural place in Delaware County, in Pennsylvania too.
In August 1983 his son Earl Calvin Van Til passed away before his father died. Earl left his father a granddaughter, named Sharon Van Til Reed, who died in 2003. With her this Van Til family line has died out.
In January 1978, his wife Rena passed away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cornelius Van Til outlived her by nine years, passing away on April 17, 1987, Philadelphia at the advanced age of 91 years, about two weeks short of his 92nd birthday. He had lived a rich life, and had made many contributions to the religiously conservative Presbyterian and Reformed faith.
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 in suburban Philadelphia 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. During his 51 year tenure at Westminster Theological Seminary, van Til also served as an ordained minister in an Orthodox Presbyterian church in the Philadelphia area, 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 Van Til's pupil John Frame, neither man was at his best and neither quite understood the other's position.
OBITUARY: Dr. Cornelius Van Til
April 18, 1987
Dr. Cornelius Van Til, for 43 years professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and emeritus professor there since his retirement in 1972, died at the age of 91 on April 17, 1987. After an illness of several months, death came peacefully at his long-time residence near the campus. A memorial service will be held at Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Glenside, PA (where he worshipped for the last 40 years) on Wednesday, April 29, 8:00 pm.
Van Til was born on May 3, 1895, in Grootegast, The Netherlands. He was the sixth son of Ite and Klazina Van Til, who emigrated to the United States when "Kees," as he was known to friends, was 10. He grew up helping on the family farm in Highland, Indiana. He went on to receive an advanced education when he saw the need to meet unbelief on its own ground and in the most thorough terms. Years later he said, "Study was not easy for me. Having grown up on the farm I was used to weeding onions and carrots and cabbages. It was hard to adjust to classroom work; I had labored physically and my body was aching for that." He was married to Rena Klooster in 1925 and they had one son, Earl, who died in 1983. Van Til is survived by a grand-daughter, Sharon Reed of Valencia, PA.
He was graduated from Calvin College (A.B., 1922), Princeton Theological Seminary (Th.B., 1924; Th.M., 1925) and Princeton University (Ph.D. 1927). He served as the pastor of the Christian Reformed Church in Spring Lake, MI, 1927-28 and was instructor of apologetics at Princeton Theological Seminary, 1928-29. He was professor of apologetics at Westminster, 1929-72. He held an honorary professorship at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, in 1938; the Th.D. (honoris causa) from the University of Potchefstroom, South Africa; and the D.D. from Reformed Episcopal Seminary, Philadelphia.
He was a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church from 1936 until his death. Van Til was also instrumental in the founding of Philadelphia-Montgomery Christian Academy, serving as the president of the board. Begun in September 1942, the school now has over 700 students, K-12, on campuses in three Philadelphia communities: Roxborough, Dresher and Erdenheim.
Van Til's published writings include The New Modernism (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1946), The Defense of the Faith (P&R, 1955) and Christianity and Barthianism (P&R, 1962), plus several syallabi and numerous reviews and articles. He was joint editor of Philosophia Reformata, a quarterly devoted to Calvinistic philosophy. A festschrift, Jerusalem and Athens, edited by E. R. Geehan with contributions by Hendrik G. Stoker, Herman Dooyeweerd, J. I. Packer, Paul K. Jewett, Arthur Holmes and others, was published on his 75th birthday (P&R, 1971).
He is perhaps best known for the development of a fresh approach to the task of defending the Christian faith. Although trained in traditional methods he drew on the insights of fellow Calvinistic philosophers Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd to formulate a more consistently Christian methodology. His apologetic focused on the role of presuppositions, the point of contact between believers and unbelievers, and the antithesis between Christian and non-Christian worldviews.
In an interview with Christianity Today (December 30, 1977) he said, "There are two ways of defending the faith. One of these begins from man as self-sufficient and works up to God, while the other begins from the triune God of the Scriptures and relates all things to him. . . . The traditional ideas of trying to find some neutral, common ground on which the believer and unbeliever can stand are based on the notion that man is autonomous . . . [yet] Paul says, all men, knowing God, hold down this knowledge in unrighteousness. . . . [This knowledge] is the only basis man has on which he can stand, to know himself, to find the facts of his world and learn how to relate them to one another. Without the Creator-God-Redeemer of Scripture the universe would resemble an infinite number of beads with no holes in any of them, yet which must all be strung by an infinitely long string."
One of Van Til's students, T. Grady Spires, now professor of philosophy at Gordon College, Wenham MA, says of him, "Every student of Van Til can instantly recall the characteristic Van Tillian blackboard graffiti: the foremost symbols being two circles, a big one for the creator, the other for creation with no ontological bridge between. The entire history of philosophy or Christian thought, including most heresy, would be strewn in names and phrases across the board. . . . The consumption of chalk and the whir of ideas were symptomatic of an excitement generated not from brilliant eruditions, though some of his skyrocketing digressions could be called that, but from the strong and systematic emphasis on the antithesis between a biblical world and life view and the several intellectual scientific versions of the carnal mind. Students began to see how far-reaching were the differences between believer and non-believer."
So, Cornelius Van Til became in the USA a wellknown Christian philosopher, Reformed theologian and presuppositional apologist. See for detailed info on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Van_Til and
http://presupp101.wordpress.com/tag/van-til/
He was born Kornelis van Til (= of Bridge) in May 1895 in the village of Grootegast, located in the northwestern part of the Dutch northeastern province Groningen, the sixth of eight sons of Ite van Til (36 years old, dairy farmer) and Klasina van der Veen.
The Van Til family were members of what we know as the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland. These people had separated from the state church in 1834 under severe stress and at times persecution. Initially they were barred from worshiping in formal church buildings and had to meet in barns and public buildings. The Van Tils were godly people.
In 1905, at the age of ten, he emigrated with his parents and brothers to Highland, Lake County, located in the extreme northwestern part of Indiana.
In May 1910 Cornelius Van Till (15 years old, born in Holland, immigrated in 1905), his father Ite Van Till (51, Holland, immigrated in 1905, farmer), mother Klazina (51, Holland, immigrated in 1905), siblings Klaas (19, Holland, immigrated in 1905, farmer at home farm), Jacob (11, Holland, immigrated in 1905) and Siepko (5, Holland, immigrated in 1905) were living on their own farm at Ridge Road in the town of Munster, North Township, Lake County, located in the extreme northwestern part of Indiana.
In June 1917 Cornelius Van Til (22 years old, farmer, employed in the village of Munster, Lake County, Indiana) was living in the city of Hammond, located in the extreme northwestern part of Lake County, Indiana, when was administrated on a WW I Draft Registration Card. He was of medium build and height, had brown hair and grey eyes.
On September 15, 1925 Cornelius van Til married in Crown Point, Lake County, Indiana at the age of 30 years the two months younger Rena Klooster, born in July 1895 in Illinois.
On July 4, 1928 the couple had in Michigan one son and they named him Earl Calvin.
In April 1930 Cornelius Van Til (35, teacher at a seminary), his wife Rena (34, Illinois) and their son Earle K (1, Michigan) were living in a rented house at 623 Jefferson Street in Ward 34 of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In April 1940 Cornelius Van Til (44, teacher at a seminary), his wife Rena (44) and their son Earl C (11, born in Michigan) lived at a rented home in Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. In 1935 they resided at a rural place in Delaware County, in Pennsylvania too.
In August 1983 his son Earl Calvin Van Til passed away before his father died. Earl left his father a granddaughter, named Sharon Van Til Reed, who died in 2003. With her this Van Til family line has died out.
In January 1978, his wife Rena passed away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cornelius Van Til outlived her by nine years, passing away on April 17, 1987, Philadelphia at the advanced age of 91 years, about two weeks short of his 92nd birthday. He had lived a rich life, and had made many contributions to the religiously conservative Presbyterian and Reformed faith.
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 in suburban Philadelphia 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. During his 51 year tenure at Westminster Theological Seminary, van Til also served as an ordained minister in an Orthodox Presbyterian church in the Philadelphia area, 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 Van Til's pupil John Frame, neither man was at his best and neither quite understood the other's position.
OBITUARY: Dr. Cornelius Van Til
April 18, 1987
Dr. Cornelius Van Til, for 43 years professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and emeritus professor there since his retirement in 1972, died at the age of 91 on April 17, 1987. After an illness of several months, death came peacefully at his long-time residence near the campus. A memorial service will be held at Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Glenside, PA (where he worshipped for the last 40 years) on Wednesday, April 29, 8:00 pm.
Van Til was born on May 3, 1895, in Grootegast, The Netherlands. He was the sixth son of Ite and Klazina Van Til, who emigrated to the United States when "Kees," as he was known to friends, was 10. He grew up helping on the family farm in Highland, Indiana. He went on to receive an advanced education when he saw the need to meet unbelief on its own ground and in the most thorough terms. Years later he said, "Study was not easy for me. Having grown up on the farm I was used to weeding onions and carrots and cabbages. It was hard to adjust to classroom work; I had labored physically and my body was aching for that." He was married to Rena Klooster in 1925 and they had one son, Earl, who died in 1983. Van Til is survived by a grand-daughter, Sharon Reed of Valencia, PA.
He was graduated from Calvin College (A.B., 1922), Princeton Theological Seminary (Th.B., 1924; Th.M., 1925) and Princeton University (Ph.D. 1927). He served as the pastor of the Christian Reformed Church in Spring Lake, MI, 1927-28 and was instructor of apologetics at Princeton Theological Seminary, 1928-29. He was professor of apologetics at Westminster, 1929-72. He held an honorary professorship at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, in 1938; the Th.D. (honoris causa) from the University of Potchefstroom, South Africa; and the D.D. from Reformed Episcopal Seminary, Philadelphia.
He was a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church from 1936 until his death. Van Til was also instrumental in the founding of Philadelphia-Montgomery Christian Academy, serving as the president of the board. Begun in September 1942, the school now has over 700 students, K-12, on campuses in three Philadelphia communities: Roxborough, Dresher and Erdenheim.
Van Til's published writings include The New Modernism (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1946), The Defense of the Faith (P&R, 1955) and Christianity and Barthianism (P&R, 1962), plus several syallabi and numerous reviews and articles. He was joint editor of Philosophia Reformata, a quarterly devoted to Calvinistic philosophy. A festschrift, Jerusalem and Athens, edited by E. R. Geehan with contributions by Hendrik G. Stoker, Herman Dooyeweerd, J. I. Packer, Paul K. Jewett, Arthur Holmes and others, was published on his 75th birthday (P&R, 1971).
He is perhaps best known for the development of a fresh approach to the task of defending the Christian faith. Although trained in traditional methods he drew on the insights of fellow Calvinistic philosophers Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd to formulate a more consistently Christian methodology. His apologetic focused on the role of presuppositions, the point of contact between believers and unbelievers, and the antithesis between Christian and non-Christian worldviews.
In an interview with Christianity Today (December 30, 1977) he said, "There are two ways of defending the faith. One of these begins from man as self-sufficient and works up to God, while the other begins from the triune God of the Scriptures and relates all things to him. . . . The traditional ideas of trying to find some neutral, common ground on which the believer and unbeliever can stand are based on the notion that man is autonomous . . . [yet] Paul says, all men, knowing God, hold down this knowledge in unrighteousness. . . . [This knowledge] is the only basis man has on which he can stand, to know himself, to find the facts of his world and learn how to relate them to one another. Without the Creator-God-Redeemer of Scripture the universe would resemble an infinite number of beads with no holes in any of them, yet which must all be strung by an infinitely long string."
One of Van Til's students, T. Grady Spires, now professor of philosophy at Gordon College, Wenham MA, says of him, "Every student of Van Til can instantly recall the characteristic Van Tillian blackboard graffiti: the foremost symbols being two circles, a big one for the creator, the other for creation with no ontological bridge between. The entire history of philosophy or Christian thought, including most heresy, would be strewn in names and phrases across the board. . . . The consumption of chalk and the whir of ideas were symptomatic of an excitement generated not from brilliant eruditions, though some of his skyrocketing digressions could be called that, but from the strong and systematic emphasis on the antithesis between a biblical world and life view and the several intellectual scientific versions of the carnal mind. Students began to see how far-reaching were the differences between believer and non-believer."
So, Cornelius Van Til became in the USA a wellknown Christian philosopher, Reformed theologian and presuppositional apologist. See for detailed info on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Van_Til and
http://presupp101.wordpress.com/tag/van-til/
The Van Til family were members of what we know as the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland. These people had separated from the state church in 1834 under severe stress and at times persecution. Initially they were barred from worshiping in formal church buildings and had to meet in barns and public buildings. The Van Tils were godly people.
In 1905, at the age of ten, he emigrated with his parents and brothers to Highland, Lake County, located in the extreme northwestern part of Indiana.
In May 1910 Cornelius Van Till (15 years old, born in Holland, immigrated in 1905), his father Ite Van Till (51, Holland, immigrated in 1905, farmer), mother Klazina (51, Holland, immigrated in 1905), siblings Klaas (19, Holland, immigrated in 1905, farmer at home farm), Jacob (11, Holland, immigrated in 1905) and Siepko (5, Holland, immigrated in 1905) were living on their own farm at Ridge Road in the town of Munster, North Township, Lake County, located in the extreme northwestern part of Indiana.
In June 1917 Cornelius Van Til (22 years old, farmer, employed in the village of Munster, Lake County, Indiana) was living in the city of Hammond, located in the extreme northwestern part of Lake County, Indiana, when was administrated on a WW I Draft Registration Card. He was of medium build and height, had brown hair and grey eyes.
On September 15, 1925 Cornelius van Til married in Crown Point, Lake County, Indiana at the age of 30 years the two months younger Rena Klooster, born in July 1895 in Illinois.
On July 4, 1928 the couple had in Michigan one son and they named him Earl Calvin.
In April 1930 Cornelius Van Til (35, teacher at a seminary), his wife Rena (34, Illinois) and their son Earle K (1, Michigan) were living in a rented house at 623 Jefferson Street in Ward 34 of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In April 1940 Cornelius Van Til (44, teacher at a seminary), his wife Rena (44) and their son Earl C (11, born in Michigan) lived at a rented home in Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. In 1935 they resided at a rural place in Delaware County, in Pennsylvania too.
In August 1983 his son Earl Calvin Van Til passed away before his father died. Earl left his father a granddaughter, named Sharon Van Til Reed, who died in 2003. With her this Van Til family line has died out.
In January 1978, his wife Rena passed away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cornelius Van Til outlived her by nine years, passing away on April 17, 1987, Philadelphia at the advanced age of 91 years, about two weeks short of his 92nd birthday. He had lived a rich life, and had made many contributions to the religiously conservative Presbyterian and Reformed faith.
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 in suburban Philadelphia 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. During his 51 year tenure at Westminster Theological Seminary, van Til also served as an ordained minister in an Orthodox Presbyterian church in the Philadelphia area, 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 Van Til's pupil John Frame, neither man was at his best and neither quite understood the other's position.
OBITUARY: Dr. Cornelius Van Til
April 18, 1987
Dr. Cornelius Van Til, for 43 years professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and emeritus professor there since his retirement in 1972, died at the age of 91 on April 17, 1987. After an illness of several months, death came peacefully at his long-time residence near the campus. A memorial service will be held at Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Glenside, PA (where he worshipped for the last 40 years) on Wednesday, April 29, 8:00 pm.
Van Til was born on May 3, 1895, in Grootegast, The Netherlands. He was the sixth son of Ite and Klazina Van Til, who emigrated to the United States when "Kees," as he was known to friends, was 10. He grew up helping on the family farm in Highland, Indiana. He went on to receive an advanced education when he saw the need to meet unbelief on its own ground and in the most thorough terms. Years later he said, "Study was not easy for me. Having grown up on the farm I was used to weeding onions and carrots and cabbages. It was hard to adjust to classroom work; I had labored physically and my body was aching for that." He was married to Rena Klooster in 1925 and they had one son, Earl, who died in 1983. Van Til is survived by a grand-daughter, Sharon Reed of Valencia, PA.
He was graduated from Calvin College (A.B., 1922), Princeton Theological Seminary (Th.B., 1924; Th.M., 1925) and Princeton University (Ph.D. 1927). He served as the pastor of the Christian Reformed Church in Spring Lake, MI, 1927-28 and was instructor of apologetics at Princeton Theological Seminary, 1928-29. He was professor of apologetics at Westminster, 1929-72. He held an honorary professorship at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, in 1938; the Th.D. (honoris causa) from the University of Potchefstroom, South Africa; and the D.D. from Reformed Episcopal Seminary, Philadelphia.
He was a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church from 1936 until his death. Van Til was also instrumental in the founding of Philadelphia-Montgomery Christian Academy, serving as the president of the board. Begun in September 1942, the school now has over 700 students, K-12, on campuses in three Philadelphia communities: Roxborough, Dresher and Erdenheim.
Van Til's published writings include The New Modernism (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1946), The Defense of the Faith (P&R, 1955) and Christianity and Barthianism (P&R, 1962), plus several syallabi and numerous reviews and articles. He was joint editor of Philosophia Reformata, a quarterly devoted to Calvinistic philosophy. A festschrift, Jerusalem and Athens, edited by E. R. Geehan with contributions by Hendrik G. Stoker, Herman Dooyeweerd, J. I. Packer, Paul K. Jewett, Arthur Holmes and others, was published on his 75th birthday (P&R, 1971).
He is perhaps best known for the development of a fresh approach to the task of defending the Christian faith. Although trained in traditional methods he drew on the insights of fellow Calvinistic philosophers Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd to formulate a more consistently Christian methodology. His apologetic focused on the role of presuppositions, the point of contact between believers and unbelievers, and the antithesis between Christian and non-Christian worldviews.
In an interview with Christianity Today (December 30, 1977) he said, "There are two ways of defending the faith. One of these begins from man as self-sufficient and works up to God, while the other begins from the triune God of the Scriptures and relates all things to him. . . . The traditional ideas of trying to find some neutral, common ground on which the believer and unbeliever can stand are based on the notion that man is autonomous . . . [yet] Paul says, all men, knowing God, hold down this knowledge in unrighteousness. . . . [This knowledge] is the only basis man has on which he can stand, to know himself, to find the facts of his world and learn how to relate them to one another. Without the Creator-God-Redeemer of Scripture the universe would resemble an infinite number of beads with no holes in any of them, yet which must all be strung by an infinitely long string."
One of Van Til's students, T. Grady Spires, now professor of philosophy at Gordon College, Wenham MA, says of him, "Every student of Van Til can instantly recall the characteristic Van Tillian blackboard graffiti: the foremost symbols being two circles, a big one for the creator, the other for creation with no ontological bridge between. The entire history of philosophy or Christian thought, including most heresy, would be strewn in names and phrases across the board. . . . The consumption of chalk and the whir of ideas were symptomatic of an excitement generated not from brilliant eruditions, though some of his skyrocketing digressions could be called that, but from the strong and systematic emphasis on the antithesis between a biblical world and life view and the several intellectual scientific versions of the carnal mind. Students began to see how far-reaching were the differences between believer and non-believer."
So, Cornelius Van Til became in the USA a wellknown Christian philosopher, Reformed theologian and presuppositional apologist. See for detailed info on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Van_Til and
http://presupp101.wordpress.com/tag/van-til/
