I should really be studying right now, but I couldn’t resist posting this quote. I have sometimes wondered, after hearing Van Tillian critiques of Barth, whether Van Til really understood Barth. Obviously, I don’t think Van Til completely misunderstood Barth (he probably understood him better than I do), but I do think that there are places, perhaps at the most fundamental level, where Van Til overlooked a few things. Here’s Vanhoozer:
Given Van Til’s well-known presuppositional apologetics, it is highly ironic that a faulty presupposition underlies, and hence undermines, his reading of Barth. Van Til reads Barth as being committed to a critical (i.e. Kantian) philosophy. Van Til seems not to have grasped the possibility that Barth may have had other, more properly theological, reasons for his dialectical approach. It has also been suggested that one reason behind Van Til’s “Barthian animus” is the apparent similarity between Barth’s theology and Reformed orthodoxy. Might it not also be because of a strong point of similarity between Barth and Van Til himsef? Many would place both thinkers together on the spectrum of contemporary theology: both were biblical fideists; both were uncompromising about their respective starting-points; both made the doctrine of the Trinity their key presupposition.
- Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “A Person of the Book? Barth on Biblical Authority and Interpretation,” in Sung Wook Chung ed. Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology: Convergences and Divergences (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 30.
