Psychology of Religion
Overview
Van Til analyzes the perpetual warfare between the secular and Christian psychologies, one being focused on the Christ’s interaction with the human being and the other, which is worthless without this interaction of the Holy Spirit. He analyzes the ways human thought has attempted to escape facing God and on recognizing ways in which Satan uses human thought to pull us away from the relationship with God.
Product Details
- Title: Psychology of Religion
- Author: Cornelius Van Til
- Publisher: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company
- Publication Date: 2001
- Pages: 138
About Cornelius Van Til
Cornelius Van Til, Dr. Cornelius Van Til, served as a professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, for 43 years. He retired in 1972, but remained as an emeritus professor until his death in 1987. Van Til, an immigrant from The Netherlands, was one of the most respected apologetic theologians of his time.
Van Til earned degrees from Calvin College, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Princeton University on his way to becoming an Orthodox Presbyterian Minister. He served throughout the ministry and scholarly fields, including teaching as an instructor of apologetics at Princeton Theological Seminary and being heavily involved with the foundation of the Philadelphia-Montgomery Christian Academy.
His most noted writings include The New Modernism, The Defense of the Faith, and Christianity and Barthianism. Much of his work with apologetics focuses on the presuppositions of humans, the difference between believers and non-believers, and the opposition between Christian and non-Christian worldviews.
More information about Van Til as a teacher and Reformed theologian is available in an article Eric Sigward wrote for New Horizons entitled "Van Til Made Me Reformed." Read the article as HTML or PDF (copyright 2004 by New Horizons; used by permission)
Top Highlights
“In the first place we cannot as Christians allow the assumption of the metaphysical independence of the self-consciousness of man in general and of the religious consciousness in particular that underlies the whole of the modern psychology of religion. If we are Christians at all we believe the creation doctrine and this makes man dependent upon God metaphysically. In the second place, we cannot as Christians allow the assumption of the ethical independence of the self-consciousness of man in general and of his religious consciousness in particular. If we are Christians at all we believe in the doctrine of sin, and this makes man ethically alienated from God and yet dependent upon God.” (Page 3)
“According to Scripture, sin has not destroyed the psychological make-up of man.” (Page 3)
“It was then that men self-consciously began to separate the self-consciousness of man, and therewith the religious consciousness, from God entirely, and so cut themselves loose from the only way in which religion can be studied from the inside. We hold then that if we wish to trace the origin of the modern psychology of religion as far back as it can be traced, we have to trace it back to Paradise when Eve first listened to the temptation of Satan who said that she could study her religious consciousness more fairly and open-mindedly if she would cut herself loose from God.” (Page 6)
“We believe that the modern school of psychology of religion is a new form of attack upon Christian truth.” (Page 1)
“Christians pray and non-Christians pray; Christians sacrifice and non-Christians sacrifice. Christians respond with their intellects, their wills, and their feelings to the revelation of God to them; non-Christians also respond with their intellects, their wills and their emotions to what they have set up for themselves as divine. Hence there is a similarity between the forms and manifestations of all religious exercises, and in this sense we may speak of religion in general. But this similarity is only formal. It must always be seen against the background of the basic ethical distinction between Christianity as true and the other religions as false.” (Page 3)
- Title: Psychology of Religion
- Author: Cornelius Van Til
- Publisher: P&R
- Print Publication Date: 1971
- Logos Release Date: 2008
- Era: era:Contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Psychology › Religious; Religion (Theology)
- Resource ID: LLS:CVTPSYCHREL
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-02-02T19:25:43Z
Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987) was one of the most respected apologetic theologians of his time. Van Til earned degrees from Calvin College, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Princeton University on his way to becoming an Orthodox Presbyterian Minister.
He served throughout the ministry and scholarly fields, including serving as a professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary and Princeton Theological Seminary and being heavily involved with the foundation of the Philadelphia-Montgomery Christian Academy.
His most noted writings include The New Modernism, The Defense of the Faith, and Christianity and Barthianism which can all be found in The Works of Cornelius Van Til (40 vols.). Much of his work with apologetics focuses on presuppositions, the difference between believers and non-believers, and the opposition between Christian and non-Christian worldviews.