The Van Til CD-Rom

G. I. Williamson

Extracted from Ordained Servant vol. 6, no. 4 (October 1997)


When I was a student at Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary, the great John Gerstner warned us against the apologetic views of Cornelius Van Til. It was therefore quite natural for me to want to read what he had to say. So I secured a copy of The New Modernism and began reading.

My first reaction, quite frankly, was a prolonged headache. I just couldn’t understand what he was on about. At the time I credited this to the fact that he was a Dutchman, and that his English was therefore not very clear. Yet, somehow, I did persevere. And—after some time—I suddenly saw the light. I got what he was driving at, and it opened up a life-changing understanding to me. For the first time I could see that much of what I had been taught up to that point did not really do justice to the seriousness of the fall of man into sin, and the resultant depravity of man’s nature. I could also see, with the help of Van Til, that it is not right to leave out of sight the awful antithesis between the mind-set of the living and the mind-set of the dead. And the more of Van Til I read, the more convinced I became—and remain to this today.

But I never did have all of the things he wrote. Now I do. I have it because it was recently released on one CD-ROM entitled The Works of Cornelius Van Til, 1895-1987. The CD contains 41 books and pamphlets, 22 manuscripts, 111 articles in English, 25 in Dutch, 75 reviews, 32 sermons and addresses, and you can actually hear Van Til himself in 52 hours of audio recordings. And, as if that were not enough, there is also a searchable KJV Bible, the Westminster Standards and a number of fine photographs.

Unlike my recently acquired CD-ROM entitled The Sage Digital Library, the Van Til CD cannot be used with a MacIntosh computer such as mine—not without additional software (such as Insignia’s SoftWindows [3 or 95] or the recently released Virtual PC from Connectix). This does present a rather formidable problem for MacIntosh users, but even with that added expense I want to urge you to get this CD.

In the short time that I have had this CD I have particularly enjoyed two things. The first is a revisit to some of the earlier things I read (yes: I gladly admit that they are very clear indeed. The problem then was in me, not in Van Til’s writings). The second is the fascinating privilege of reading some things never before published—such as the very moving letter that he wrote to Francis Schaeffer soon after the publication of some of his earliest writings. Has anyone ever blended a firm adherence to principle with a genuine loving spirit better than Van Til did? And does not the excerpt that we include in this issue—from his discussion of the reorganization of Princeton—also demonstrate this abundantly?

This CD-ROM is available from the Westminster Seminary Book Store for a special price of $175 (the full retail price is $250) and while that is certainly not easy for some of us to come up with, I believe that this is one of those things that every Orthodox Presbyterian pastor—and, if possible, every ruling elder—ought to possess. I simply cannot recommend this too highly.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep appreciation to the editor, Mr. Eric Sigward of our Franklin Square Church, who put this all together.