Cornelius Van Til was a Dutch-American Reformed theologian and defender of the faith. He spent most of his life as a professor of Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Born in 1895 in the north of Holland, he had emigrated to America in 1905 with his family. He studied at Calvin College and Seminary and Princeton University.
Van Til was instrumental in helping to found Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929 alongside J. Gresham Machen. He was to teach Apologetics at Westminster until his retirement. He became famous as the advocate of presuppositional apologetics.
I went to Philadelphia in September 1968 to study Reformed theology in preparation for the ministry of the Word of God as a pastor and preacher. By this time, Van Til was 73 and his teaching was largely restricted to the first year students. He was also entrusted with the first and last word to us. He preached to the new students at the commencement of the academic year and then on our graduation day. I regret that I can recall nothing of what he said on those occasions!
The class teacher
Every session began with prayer. I would have been happy to be in those lectures just to be led in prayer by my professor. I did not always understand the content of the lectures because I was not schooled in philosophy. I took very few notes, but listened intently and followed up his classes by reading from some of his copious printed lecture notes.
