Pick a circle. That’s one way to articulate the apologetic method of Cornelius Van Til. It also captures something critical from the Apostle Paul in Romans 1–2 and the Gospel of John (5:44; 7:18). But what circles are we talking about, and what are our options? Answering those questions uncovers the deeper biblical roots of Van Til’s apologetic method.
This is something that’s often under fire. For instance, Keith Mathison claims, “If one does not read Scripture already assuming Van Til’s theory of knowledge to be true, one searches in vain for any biblical support of Van Til’s apologetic system of thought” (Toward a Reformed Apologetics, 142). This is, to be frank, embarrassingly false to anyone who has read even an introductory work from Van Til. Contrary to those who think Van Til was more philosophical than biblical, what we find in Romans 1–2 and John 5 reveals just how biblical his method is. In fact, I would say his method isn’t just biblical; it’s penetratingly biblical. It gets all the way down through the rocky soil of the soul to where the heart sleeps. And that’s a good thing, because only an awakened heart can welcome Christ as Lord.
Two Circles
Let’s start with what circles Van Til had in mind. They come from Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” At the very start of Scripture, we have the Creator and his creation, the God-circle and the creature’s circle. So, Van Til would draw two circles on an old dusty chalkboard, connected by two lines. One circle represented the Creator, and the other the creature. The connecting lines depicted God’s voluntary, covenantal condescension through revelation.
In simple terms, God chose to stoop down and reveal himself to his creatures, through both his creation (general revelation) and his words (special revelation). Thus, everyone should be a “two-circle thinker.” Our world is unintelligible and meaningless apart from its relation to the creative, sustaining, redeeming God. So, when asked to “pick a circle,” the Christian response should be: I choose both, because God reveals both.
And yet, Van Til noticed that many thinkers throughout history—and many people today—pick only one circle. People who choose only the Creator’s circle end up being mystics. They want a direct connection with the divine, something that transcends mere human experience or even human language. This has no precedent in Scripture. It leads to subjective and obscure conclusions about the nature of God and our relationship to the world. God has revealed himself for a reason: we don’t need to feel around in the mystical dark for him (Acts 17:27).
But those who choose the circle of the creature are a far larger demographic. These are people for whom God is largely irrelevant or unknowable. They prefer to focus on the here-and-now, the tangible, the immanent.
Locked Inside the Immanent Frame
Charles Taylor called this “the immanent frame,” which constitutes “a ‘natural’ order, to be contrasted to a ‘supernatural’ one, an ‘immanent’ world, over against a possible ‘transcendent’ one” (A Secular Age, 542). Those staring at the immanent frame believe that we live in a purely physical world “governed by exceptionless laws” (542). The best we can hope for—what Taylor calls the human good—is “in its very essence sensual, earthly; whoever identifies a transcendent goal departs from it, betrays it” (547). In Van Til’s language, the immanent frame is simply the creature’s circle, barred and gated around the edges so as to allow no engagement with the transcendent Trinity.
The highest and best of what people long for are only ever gracious bestowals by the triune God, Lord of the Creator’s circle, and the provider of all meaning and purpose.
Yet, this immanent frame frustrates those trapped inside it because meaning—one of the deepest human values—is a phantom, an illusion drifting like smoke in an indifferent and impersonal physical world. This leaves people feeling as if life is absurd. Taylor notes,
We feel an imperious demand in us to make sense of the world, to find some unified meaning in it. We have, in other words, an intuition about the meaning of things, written into our inescapable life experience. But then the claims to fulfillment and meaning are brutally denied by an indifference universe. It owes us nothing, and its operations randomly favour and then crush our aspirations. The nascent sense of meaning meets an enigma which defies all over-all meaning. The attempts at sense-making are continually and utterly frustrated. This is the contradiction which Camus names “absurd.” (583)
Absurdity and ever-frustrated attempts to find meaning: that’s what you get when you choose only the creaturely circle.
But this immanent frame does something else. It restricts all desires and aspirations to the creaturely order. Whatever people chase after—meaning, praise, glory, love, satisfaction, power, beauty, purpose—can only be sought after in the immanent frame. The sad irony is that all such chases are bound to end in frustration, what Paul calls “futility.” The highest and best of what people long for are only ever gracious bestowals by the triune God, Lord of the Creator’s circle, and the provider of all meaning and purpose.
Case Study: Leo Tolstoy
I was reminded of what this futility can look like as I read Leo Tolstoy’s A Confession. At the height of his career, Tolstoy had everything a person would want: a loving family, professional success, a large estate. And yet he stood on the edge of an abyss, flirting with suicide. He saw no lasting meaning to his life. What was it all for? He knew he would pass away like a spring breeze, vanishing from the earth. He tried to reason his way to a solution. But in the end, his reasoning was the very thing that led him to consider suicide. If everything comes to nothingness, then the meaning of his life would come to nothingness. Trapped inside a fading world, he faced a menacing equation that drained his soul of hope. All things would fade and pass away, a zero-sum. The meaning of his life was equal to this zero-sum: 0 = 0. That’s an equation of despair.
But then he had a revelation. Here’s how he put it:
In my reasonings I constantly compared (nor could I do otherwise) the finite with the finite, and the infinite with the infinite; but for that reason I reached the inevitable result: force is force, matter is matter, will is will, the infinite is the infinite, nothing is nothing—and that was all that could result. . . . Having understood this, I understood that it was not possible to seek in rational knowledge for a reply to my question, and that the reply given by rational knowledge is a mere indication that a reply can only be obtained by a different statement of the question, and only when the relation of the finite to the infinite is included in the question. And I understood that, however irrational and distorted might be the replies given by faith, they have this advantage, that they introduce into every answer a relation between the finite and the infinite, without which there can be no solution. . . . Whatever the faith might be, and whatever answers it might give, and to whomsoever it gives them, every such answer gives to the finite existence of man an infinite meaning, a meaning not destroyed by sufferings, deprivations, or death. This means that only in faith can we find for life a meaning and a possibility. (A Confession, 44–46; emphasis added)
Tolstoy is saying that without the Creator’s circle, the question of life’s meaning is hopeless. He was trapped in the immanent frame, boxed in to the finite and fading world. But he discovered (by grace) that only when there is a relation of the finite (creation) to the infinite (the Creator) can life have any meaning. When we have questions about the meaning and purpose of life, we must make sure that “the relation of the finite to the infinite is included in the question.” In other words, we have to see two circles. Otherwise, we’re doomed to futility, frustration, and hopelessness.
Suppression, Self-Glory, and Self-Destruction
The relation to Van Til’s apologetic should be apparent. Van Til frequently referenced and alluded to Romans 1 in his explanation of unbelief. People both know God (Rom. 1:19, 21) and yet suppress that knowledge in rebellion (1:18). In this, they attempt to act autonomously, as self-governed lords who need no such thing as salvation. But this is pure self-deception, a willful blindness. Van Til writes,
The natural man, the sinner, the covenant-breaker in Adam, is spiritually blind. He is willfully blind. He cannot see the truth because he will not see it. He seeks to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18). Sinners hate the idea of a clearly identifiable authority over them. They do not want to meet God. They would gladly make themselves believe that there is no clearly discernible, identifiable revelation of their Creator and Judge anywhere to be found in the universe. God’s work of redemption through Christ, therefore, comes into enemy territory. It comes to save from themselves those who do not want to be saved, because they think that they do not need to be saved. (A Christian Theory of Knowledge, 19)
This leaves unbelievers locked inside the immanent frame, just as Tolstoy was. And since they still pursue things like meaning and purpose, they find disappointing counterfeits in creation: smoke trails that vanish with the whisper of the wind. That is the only option. As Paul said, those who know God but do not worship him can only exchange “the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (1:23). Don't miss the phrase “mortal man” in mind here. Paul is identifying worship of the self as a common idol.
Locked inside the immanent frame, people have four options as they suppress the knowledge of God: (1) worship themselves; (2) worship other people; (3) worship other created things; or (4) approve of anyone who does these things. The end of all those options is destruction, which Paul points out in Philippians 3:19 when discussing the enemies of “the cross of Christ.” But in Romans 1, Paul lays out a whole range of pre-destruction malaise: “They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Rom. 1:29–32). That’s a dark list.
Paul is speaking from experience here. The Greek word he uses in v. 32, translated as “consenting” or “giving approval,” is συνευδοκέω, which appears only a handful of times in the New Testament. One of those occurrences was during the darker days of Saul, when he was ravaging the nascent church. In Acts 8:1, the verb occurs when Luke says Saul "approved of" the execution of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. The great Apostle Paul was, at one time, trapped in the immanent frame of Romans 1, giving approval to those who sought their own glory, even by murderous means.
That theme, self-glory, doesn’t just appear in Romans. It appears in John’s Gospel when Jesus is describing the soul-swill of unbelievers. He says,
I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? (John 5:41–44)
Jesus points out the futility of self-glorification, which is one of the primary options for unbelievers locked inside the immanent frame (self-worship). Because unbelievers don’t seek the glory that comes from God (Lord of the transcendent circle), they seek the only thing they have left: glory from one another. And Jesus says something critical: seeking glory from others keeps people from believing in the Son of God. It is, in the words of Romans, an exercise in futility. “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Rom. 1:21). Self-deception (suppressing the truth) leads to futility. Self-worship leads to futility. Worship of creation leads to futility. Giving approval to those who do these things leads to futility. And, Jesus adds, self-glorification leads to futility.
Jesus points out the futility of self-glorification, which is one of the primary options for unbelievers locked inside the immanent frame (self-worship).
Jesus adds a bit more in John 7. There he says, “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood” (John 7:17–18). Speaking on your own authority is a phrase synonymous with “autonomy,” self-governance. If you do that, Jesus says, you’re only seeking your own glory. And self-glorification, again, ends in futility.
But remember that futility is only the dimly lit path to destruction. The ultimate end for anyone who rejects the cross of Christ in these various manifestations of unbelief is annihilation. “For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things” (Phil. 3:18–19). “Minds set on earthly things” are minds locked inside the immanent frame. In Tolstoy’s context, these are people who only know how to relate the finite to the finite. And that leads to the dismal equation that brought him to the edge of suicide: 0 = 0. Only when the Creator God comes into the picture do we have gloriously mysterious equations. God’s creation out of nothing is, in this sense, 0 = 1. How can such an equation be true? Because the transcendent God transcends human reason; the infinite transcends the finite.
The Deeper Biblical Roots of Van Til’s Words
Let's bring all this back to Van Til's method. Van Til said some startling things apologetically, but they were all patently biblical, and many of them were clearly tied to Romans 1–2 and passages such as John 5:44. For instance, he said, “There is nothing in this universe on which human beings can have full and true information unless they take the Bible into account”(Christian Apologetics, 20). Why would he say that? Because unbelief leads to futility: an addled mind and a dark heart (Rom. 1:21). And apart from the redeeming work of Christ that we learn about through Scripture (working in tandem with the rejuvenating Spirit), we can’t see or understand (cf. Isa. 6:9–10). As Richard Gaffin put it in Word & Spirit, "To be truly 'wise and learned' in the creation, one must become a 'little child' and receive the revelation of God in Christ. Involved here is the epistemological ultimacy of the Creator-creature distinction, the unconditional dependence of creatures made in God's image, a dependence upon him for knowing as well as being" (314). Scripture lies behind Van til's saying.
Again, he said, “There are two and only two classes of men. There are those who worship and serve the creature, and there are those who worship and serve the Creator” (Christian Apologetics, 62). Why can he say this? Because Paul says there are only two circles (Rom. 1:25), and many people choose the creature’s circle and ignore the circle of the transcendent God who grounds all meaning and truth. Scripture lies behind the saying.
Elsewhere, Van Til says, “Not one single fact in this universe can be known truly by man without the existence of God. Even if man will not recognize God’s existence, the fact of God’s existence nonetheless accounts for whatever measure of knowledge man has about God” (An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 36). Why would Van Til say something so extreme? Because God is the only one who “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom. 4:17). If our hearts and minds aren’t illuminated by him, we can’t know his world aright. Once more, Scripture lies behind the saying.
At root, Van Til’s apologetic method was an extrapolation of one of the most central biblical truths: “Man can never in any sense outgrow his creaturehood” (Christian Apologetics, 40). This truth is knit into the biblical narrative, from Genesis to Revelation. As creatures, we are destined to be what Van Til called “two-circle thinkers,” fully dependent on a God who reveals himself. When we live as if we’re locked inside the immanent frame, everything falls apart. At our best, those trapped inside the immanent frame can only play with broken toys and psychological enigmas: self-deception, self-worship, self-glory, creation-worship, and the approval of godlessness. We are made to seek the glory of another: the self-attesting Lord of all things.
Van Til himself, joining Romans 1 and John 5, writes,
The natural man at bottom knows that he is the creature of God [Rom. 1:19, 21]. He knows also that he is responsible to God [Rom. 1:20]. He knows that he should live to the glory of God [John 5:44]. He knows that in all that he does he should stress that the field of reality that he investigates has the stamp of God’s ownership upon it [Romans 1:20]. But he suppresses his knowledge of himself as he truly is [Rom. 1:18]. He is the man with the iron mask. (Christian Apologetics, 131)
The man with the iron mask lives a fantasy. Or, as Eric Schumacher put it recently, "Self-sufficiency is a deadly delusion” (The Good Gift of Weakness, 35). The nonChristian truly believes he is autonomous, the self-governing center of the universe. But David Powlison was right: “There is some sun around which the planet of our lives turns.” And that sun is not us; it is the triune Creator who voluntarily condescends to reveal himself.
Targeting the Heart
In all of this, Van Til was seeking to target the heart with his apologetic method—the heart in rebellion against its Creator. The focus on the heart is also a focus on the covenantal status of every human being: a covenant-keeper in grace through Christ, or a covenant-breaker in autonomy through Adam.
This focus echoes God’s constant appeal to the hearts of his people. God always wants to turn his people’s hearts back to himself (1 Kgs. 8:37, 39, 58; 1 Chr. 29:18). He tests our hearts (Ps. 7:9; Prov. 17:3) because he sees with clarion vision all the evil that takes place there (Ps. 58:2; 73:7; 81:12). The Lord says through the prophet Isaiah, “this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men” (Isa. 29:13). Hearts far from God are hearts self-absorbed. And so Jeremiah critiques God’s people for stubbornly following their own hearts (Jer. 9:14).
The promise of hope and redemption is that God’s holiness will be written on our hearts (Jer. 31:33). Even more, that we’ll be given new hearts (Ezek. 36:26). Indeed, Christ himself came “so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35). And the peace of Christ is meant to rule in our hearts (Col. 3:15).
Van Til saw the centrality of the heart and its covenantal status before the God who searches and knows every one of them. He saw the split path before each one of us: either for the Creator or against him. And for those whose hearts are set against God, Van Til saw the labyrinth of unbelief and its doom of futility. That was why he could say,
The Christian knows the truth about the non-Christian. He knows this because he is himself what he is by grace alone. He has been saved from the blindness of mind and the hardness of heart that marks the “natural man.” (A Christian Theory of Knowledge, 10)
The “heart of the matter,” Van Til wrote, is really only an extrapolation from Genesis 3, Romans 1, and passages such as John 5:44.
Through the fall of Adam man has set aside the law of his Creator and therewith has become a law to himself. He will be subject to none but himself. He seeks to be autonomous. He knows that he is a creature and ought to be subject to the law of his Creator. He knows that his Creator has made him to be his image; he knows that he ought therefore to love his Maker and bountiful Benefactor. He knows that the light of knowledge depends for him upon his walking self-consciously in the revelation of God. Yet he now tries to be the source of his own light. (A Christian Theory of Knowledge, 34)
Seek but Do Not Find
Humans make horrible lamps for themselves. They are meant to be mirrors for the light of God’s own revelation—the very thing that connects the creature’s circle to that of the Creator. Apart from God’s gracious, revelatory light, people are trapped in a self-defeating immanent frame, a place where meaning, purpose, and hope are doused wicks. In that setting, the judgment in a Romans 1:21 or Isaiah 6:9 sense is: seek but do not find. Unbelievers will always be searching for something inside the immanent frame that isn’t there. They will be searching in creation for what only the Creator can give.
Humans make horrible lamps for themselves. They are meant to be mirrors for the light of God’s own revelation.
Let it never be said that Van Til’s apologetic method was more philosophical than biblical. Instead, we should say that his method was so deeply biblical that it would not let the philosophical world have its own way. In seeing the heart first, in its covenantal status before God, Van Til was able to witness all the shoots of futility that emerge from it—the botany of unbelief. Only the Vinedresser (John 15), whose Son’s hands are marked with sacrifice, can work through the Spirit to make a new heart of flesh where stone had reigned. Until he does so, our task as apologists is to help people see that they are always picking a circle. And if the Spirit of God does not open their eyes to see the truth, they’re heading down the darkened path of futile self-destruction.