Herman Bavinck
Born on December 13, 1854, in Hoogeveen, Drenthe, Holland, Herman Bavinck was the son of the Reverend Jan Bavinck, a leading figure in the secession from the State Church of the Netherlands in 1834. He was a contemporary of Abraham Kuyper and B.B. Warfield, both of whom he knew well. Bavinck is best known for his magnum opus, Reformed Dogmatics (Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, 4 volumes), which was recently translated into English (2008). Other publications include the highly-accessible, one-volume digest of the Reformed Dogmatics, Our Reasonable Faith (1909), and The Philosophy of Revelation (Stone Lectures, 1908-1909).
Bavinck studied theology in Kampen and at the University of Leiden. In 1880, he graduated magna cum laude with a double major in Systematic Theology & OT. His doctoral dissertation was on the concept of the State in Zwingli’s theology. After graduating, he served as the minister of the congregation at Franeker, Friesland, for a year. According to his biographers, large crowds gathered to hear his outstanding exposition of the Scriptures.
In 1882, he was appointed a Professor of Theology at Kampen, and taught there from 1883 until his appointment, in 1902, to the chair of Systematic Theology in the Free University of Amsterdam, where he succeeded the great Abraham Kuyper, then recently appointed Prime Minister of the Netherlands. In this capacity — an appointment he had twice before declined — Bavinck served until his death in 1921.
Visit the Herman Bavinck website, read his works online, and check out his biography.
Cornelius Van Til
Dr. Cornelius Van Til was born on May 3, 1895, and died at the age of 91 on April 17, 1987. He graduated from Calvin College (A.B., 1922), Princeton Theological Seminary (Th.B., 1924; Th.M., 1925) and Princeton University (Ph.D., Philosophy, 1927). He served as the pastor of the Christian Reformed Church in Spring Lake, MI, 1927-28 and was instructor of apologetics at Princeton Theological Seminary for a year. When Princeton went liberal in 1929, Machen and Van Til left to start Westminster Seminary, where he was Professor of Apologetics until 1972. Van Til held an honorary professorship at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, in 1938; the Th.D. (honoris causa) from the University of Potchefstroom, South Africa; and the D.D. from Reformed Episcopal Seminary, Philadelphia.
Van Til was a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church from 1936 until his death. Van Til was also instrumental in the founding of Philadelphia-Montgomery Christian Academy, serving as the president of the board. Van Til’s published writings include The New Modernism (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1946), The Defense of the Faith (P&R, 1955) and Christianity and Barthianism (P&R, 1962), plus several syallabi and numerous reviews and articles. Other than his doctoral dissertation, his writings in philosophy include A Christian Theory of Knowledge and a Survey of Christian Epistemology. He was joint editor of Philosophia Reformata, a quarterly devoted to Calvinistic philosophy. A festschrift, Jerusalem and Athens, edited by E. R. Geehan with contributions by Hendrik G. Stoker, Herman Dooyeweerd, J. I. Packer, Paul K. Jewett, Arthur Holmes and others, was published on his 75th birthday (P&R, 1971).
Van Til’s biggest influences include Herman Bavinck, Geerhardus Vos, John Calvin, and Abraham Kuyper. He was most famous for spear-heading the Copernican Revolution in Christian apologetics known as “Presuppositional Apologetics.”
Visit the Van Til website, read his works online, check out his biography and festschrift.
Greg Bahnsen
Greg Bahnsen was born in 1948 in Auburn, Washington. He was a scholar at the Southern California Center for Christian Studies and an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He graduated magna cum laude with a philosophy degree from Westmont College, where he first started reading Van Til. Bahnsen went on to simultaneously earn M.Div and Th.M degrees under Professor Van Til at Westminster Theological Seminary, winning the William Benton Greene prize in apologetics and a Richard Weaver Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. In 1975 he became an adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Reformed Theological Seminary.
While teaching at RTS, Bahnsen earned a Ph.D in philosophy specializing in epistemology from the University of Southern California, finishing his doctoral exams with the highest scores possible. Bahnsen also planted an OPC church (January 1980), accepted a faculty position with the prestigious Newport Christian High School in Newport Beach (September 1980), and has served as a Youth Pastor (First Presbyterian), Associate Pastor (Calvary United Presbyterian), and Pastor (Trinity Chapel) during his career.
Bahnsen is known for his publications on apologetic method, lectures in philosophy, and debates with atheists. He has written numerous books such as Always Ready, Van Til’s Apologetic, Presuppositional Apologetics, and Pushing the Antithesis. He has published numerous scholarly articles such as “The Inerrancy of the Autographa” (Inerrancy, 1980), “The Crucial Concept of Self-deception in Presuppositional Apologetics” (Westminster Theological Journal, 1995), and “Inductivism, Inerrancy, and Presuppositionalism” (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 1977). He debated Gordon Stein (1985), Edward Tabash and George Smith on atheism, as well as R.C. Sproul on apologetic method (1977) on the campus of Reformed Theological Seminary. Bahnsen also served on the advisory board for the International Council of Biblical Inerrancy and was a member of Evangelical Philosophical Society. Shortly after his third open-heart surgery, Bahnsen died in December of 1995 at the age of 47.
Visit the Greg Bahnsen website, read his works online, and check out his festschrift.
John Frame
John frame was born in 1939 and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. He studied at Princeton University (A.B.), Westminster Theological Seminary (B.D.), where he studied under Cornelius Van Til, Yale University (A.M. and M.Phil.) and Belhaven College (D.D.). He served as the Professor of Apologetics for Westminster Theological Seminary for 31 years before joining Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, FL to teach philosophy and apologetics.
He is the author of numerous books including his Theology of Lordship series, which includes The Doctrine of God, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, and the Doctrine of the Christian Life. He also authored Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought and Apologetics to the Glory of God, in addition to numerous scholarly articles such as “Christianity and Contemporary Epistemology” (Westminster Theological Journal, 1980) and several entries for the IVP Dictionary of Apologetics.
Visit his website, read his works online, and check out his festschrift.
K. Scott Oliphint
K. Scott Oliphint earned his B.S. at West Texas State University (1978), M.A.R., Th.M., and Ph.D. at Westminster Theological Seminary (1983, 1984, 1994), where he is currently the Professor of Apologetics. He is the author of The Battle Belongs to the Lord, Reasons (for Faith): Philosophy in the Service to Theology, and the co-editor of Revelation and Reason: New Essays in Reformed Apologetics. Oliphint is also the author of numerous scholarly articles including “Epistemology and Christian Belief,” (Westminster Theological Journal, Fall 2001) and “Something Much Too Plain to Say” (Westminster Theological Journal, Fall 2006).
James R. White
Born in 1962, James R. White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization based out of Phoenix, AZ. He holds a BA from Grand Canyon University majoring in Biology, an MA in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and Th.M, Th.D and D.Min degrees from Columbia Evangelical Seminary. He has taught theology, apologetics, and the original languages at Golden Gate Baptist Seminary and Grand Canyon University.
White has written over twenty books, including The King James Only Controversy, The Potter’s Freedom, Is the Mormon My Brother?, and The Roman Catholic Controversy, and has also co-authored and contributed to several books such as The Same-Sex Controversy, Five Views of Church Polity, and Debating Calvinism. He has been in over 95 public moderated debates with figures such as Bart Ehrman, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Shabir Ally, and other leading proponents of Roman Catholicism, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormonism. He has published numerous scholarly articles such as “Sola Scriptura and the Early Church” (Sola Scriptura, 2009), “What Really Happened at Nicea?” (Christian Research Journal, 1997), and “The Fool’s Folly Uncovered” (Tabletalk, 2006). He is an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
Visit his website, and read his works online.
