Van Til Spotting

Van Til’s editorial Students and Controversies has been posted to the OPC’s website.

A student’s attitude toward a controversy may be said to be normal if it reveals an intelligent and diligent following of all points in dispute. A student wants to learn. He is filled with an insatiable desire for knowledge. To gain knowledge, in the broad sense of the term, is his exclusive aim. For the purpose of acquiring knowledge he goes to the class-room. For that purpose he reads, reads much. With that purpose in mind he views current events and tries to ascertain the principles that impel men to act. With that purpose in mind he is to view, chiefly, any and all controversies of whatever nature.

But now in actuality we find that ofttimes we are not normal, but abnormal students. We are either too cold or too hot. If the controversies that fill the very air about us with their din do not even reach our ears, if we seal ourselves hermetically within the circle prescribed by our text-books, we are too cold or too narrow. We either overemphasize the student virtue of concentration on our school work, so that it becomes a vice, or our pulsebeat is too slow, so that we need a tonic to restore our lost vitality.