JH: [missing introductory audio portion] - - church history at Covenant Seminary. I'm interviewing this evening Dr. Cornelius Van Til, and we're going to talk about some of the Princetonian era, the break with Princeton, Dr. Van Til, Dr. Machen, some remembrances of Dr. Machen by Dr. Van Til, and further history with regard to the formation of the Presbyterian Church in America [sic]. Now Dr. Van Til, I'd like to ask you in the beginning something about your remembrance of Dr. Machen.

CV: Well, I came to Princeton Seminary after having been eight years at Calvary College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The chorus I heard was: "tightwads!" which meant J. Gresham Machen was having his Saturday evening checker club. The boys would come streaming in from every door, because they knew exactly what it meant. "Come on in, boys. Have an orange; have some nuts and play checkers." And the checker club became an institution, the law of Medes and Persians that cannot be broken. For years, he kept it up at Princeton, and then, after a while, in Chancellor Hall Apartments in Philadelphia. Well, I did not know much before that. I had had my Greek elsewhere, so that I did not have him for a teacher in Greek.

When I came there, the first man I met and saw was Geerhardus Vos. He was a remarkably erudite man. He had taught at Calvin Theological Seminary, and had written an entire dogmatics in Dutch...in question and answer form. Then under J.W. Green, he had written The Origin of the Pentateuchal Codes. Then he went to Europe, and I think that he edited some Sanskrit magazines, or edited some documents, and I couldn't make out what they meant, so I put them in the library. And then he was asked by the Free University of Amsterdam to become the first professor of Biblical theology. They had not had one, ever. He did not accept; he didn't tell me, ever, why he didn't accept, but he later on said: "Well, they asked me again, but I can't tell those people anything." Well, he could have told them, because he initiated the idea of development within the finished revelation of God through Christ in the Scriptures of the <inaudible>, and that's against the process type of thinking notably in biological evolution. While he was at Princeton, he developed these tremendously useful and erudite notes, and finally was published by his son, Johannes Vos, his oldest son, later on professor of Bible at Geneva College and now retired. And then also, another smaller book on the kingdom and the church, as well as the development of covenant idea.

He was an erudite, loveable man. He had two dogs: one large one, and one little one, and he said to me: "Van Til, I had to have that dog put to sleep last summer." He and Mrs. Vos had a summer home of a couple acres of ground and a home in Roaring Branch, Pennsylvania, about 150 miles northwest of Harrisburg. Well, he went up and down, and finally the seniors -- every year they would come together in one of the two clubs -- four club, and advise how the curricula might next year perhaps be improved, or at least somewhat mildly, more mild. Well, I was not exactly pleased with the idea, so I said this man did this and that, and this, and now, because he does not speak trippingly on the tongue, you want to make his courses elective -- which meant they wouldn't have taken any others, any of them again.

There was William Park Armstrong, with whom I personally took New Testament Gospels, and other courses -- and this man was really dry in his presentation. So these gentlemen, such as they were, suggested that all they could do with Armie was to put a pin on his chair. Now, we didn't do that, of course. Then there was also...William Park Armstrong; he was the head of the department when Machen was an assistant, and that was many years. Armie lived right next door to the main hall, and J. Gresham Machen, or Dossie, as they called him, was on the fourth floor. And Dossie was at the Armstrong's every Sunday noon or more for dinner. He was their favorite; there were several children and they all called him Dossie. That meant, of course, from "Das Machen." Now, Professor Ned B. Stonehouse, who was his first associate assistant, then became his successor, wrote a remarkably fine book on J. Gresham Machen, in which he surveyed his learned work and his college preparation in Greek, and then his book on the virgin birth of Christ, the origin of Paul's religion. And then later on, when he was in Philadelphia, he wrote several lectures which he gave over the radio. Now those are the main things.

He continued to insist that he must be near a railroad station. In the nature of the case, this was the truth in a little town like Princeton. But in Philadelphia metropolis, he sought out the 20th story of the Chancellor Hall Apartments. Now in those days, the railroad station, the main Pennsy Station, was right opposite City Hall. They raised that to the ground, but he was within easy walking distance. "Boys, I'd like to go on a train. And when I go to Pittsburgh or Boston or Washington, it matters not. And I get to bed at 11:00, and I sleep as well as or better than <inaudible> train, and then I have my breakfast, and I'm fit as a fiddle for my 8:00 class.! And fit as a fiddle he was. When he was in the city of Philadelphia, he went -- of course, he received a great deal of mail, many, many letters because he was now popular because no other liberal ---- Even out and out liberals and unbelievers said that the liberals still have to answer this book, in which he said Christianity and liberalism -- which meant Christianity or liberalism --they were two mutually exclusive religions. And that has not yet been answered. Well now, that was true. He always insisted, also, on giving the other opponent a fair deal. If you will look into his Virgin Birth and The Origin of Paul's Religion, there is the very, very careful, detailed analysis of the higher critical positions. He was in Germany at the time; he was not yet fully convinced of the true Christian position that he later on so brilliantly espoused and defended. Then he wrote his mother and said: "Mother, these people are honest, and as far as I can see now, they have the facts. And I want to be sure that what I'm doing is not to go against the truth as I can see it as they point it out to me."

So he for years didn't want to be ordained, because he thought it was not honest. Well, William Park Armstrong, or Armie, as he was always called, said: "Well Doss, you can be a teacher in a seminary without necessarily having to sign the Confession. You can be a teacher without having to swear that you will not insinuate anything against the truth of the Scriptures and the Confession. So he did. And for many years he taught Greek brilliantly. When he was about to leave, there was a sarcastic remark made by one of his colleagues: "No great loss, Assistant Professor in a dead language." Well, a dead language meant the only living language of the Greeks as New Testament. He had the Koiné; he didn't use the classical Greek, but that book has been used in many seminaries, including liberal, what have you. Now then, that being the case, he was much in demand everywhere in preaching.

And of course, it was soon in the '20's that at Auburn, New York, liberal ministers, approximately 1,200 of them in the USA Presbyterian Church signed a document which came to be known [as] the Auburn Affirmation. Murray Forst Thompson has a pamphlet on it: the Auburn Betrayal. Well, it was a betrayal, because made optional the beliefs such as the virgin birth of Christ or the substitutionary atonement. Five points of obvious unbelief were established as possibly, at least, good Christian beliefs so that a Reformed minister of the Gospel might accept them. Well now, J. Ross Stevenson had been appointed in 1914. He had received his training -- at least his undergraduate and likely most of it -- at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, then an out and out liberal seminary. And B.B. Warfield, I am reliably informed, was not happy with it. And I myself saw, in the one year that I was attending the faculty, [that] Robert Dick Wilson was very highly displeased and in fact, more or less lost his temper because J. Ross Stevenson was trying to modify the position. It was his publicly declared intention, if ambition, since this was an official seminary of this church, that then it must also represent factually every shade of opinion. And that's what he obtained.

It was then this fact, that J. Ross Stevenson, who was a brilliant man and a great preacher -- if anyone cares to see it, you can look up Professor Paul Woolley on the significance of J. Gresham Machen, who has in one page a typical, striking, simple straightforward description of him as a fine, genuinely fine Gospel preacher, but a denier of the Christian faith, because these things are unbelief and Mr. Woolley didn't hesitate to say so, no more than Ned B. Stonehouse did. With that in mind, he succeeded in having two Auburn Affirmationists added, or placed on the board of the seminary. And Robert E. Speer, who was president or chairman of the board of trustees of Princeton Theological Seminary, went about the country trumpeting this fact that obviously, no business people could run their business with two boards. Well now, Princeton Seminary had been run by two boards since its inception.

The board of directors was conservative and appointed the faculty members, new ones if needed. And the board of trustees was not as conservative, at least as far as I know they were not, and they, when they would be added together, and then two Auburn Affirmationists to complement them and to add, it would be as though you now added or put on for the first time two communists to the Supreme Court of these United States of America, and then said: "Well now, since we now are one, we shall all live in harmony together and be happy ever afterwards."

Well, Robert Dick Wilson and Oswald T. Allis and J. Gresham Machen, were, of course, asked to remain. And I was an instructor, had been, and I was asked also to remain. But of course, there was no place for anyone who believed in historic Christian faith. And anyway, I was following Machen, you might say, not blindly because I'd been through the mill myself. Well, I was even asked to come. And then George Johnson, who had taught at Lincoln University for years, was my instructor in junior apologetics, had told Dr. J. Ross Stevenson that he was not planning to return again in the fall of 1922. But hoping against hope that he would, he waited till he arrived on the wharf at New York and had Johnson's son telephone him. And then he said: "Well, my father's not coming."

So then, I was then in Spring Lake, Michigan, a Christian Reformed Church; we had been there just one year, and he sent me a wire: "Would I teach apologetics and evidences and one or two more courses?" So I wired back at once -- there was less than one week time in which the classes had to begin -- that I would be happy to do so. So he wired once more that he would certainly hope that I would put as much enthusiasm into the teaching as I had in the acceptance. Well, I don't know whether a man can wait a month if he has a week to tell his poor congregation that you had in the morning you received an appointment; you had accepted, and in the evening you would say farewell, never to see them again, likely, at least not as their minister. Well, that's what I had to do. So next morning, Monday morning, I was on my way. By Tuesday evening or thereabouts, I was arriving. By Thursday I had to teach a class of approximately sixty members, sixty students of which I had been one only two or three years before.

So with fear and trembling, and much ado, and yet as I now think back of it with very little fear. Well, then Caspar Wistar Hodge, who was professor of systematic theology, and under whom I had odne a work for a Th.M. on Reformed epistemology, said to me that I should go up to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where [there] was a friend of his or a member of the board of directors, and I should ask him for advice. Well, this man said: "Van Til, we know you're young. We're just beginning. We're glad you've come; we need somebody. We don't expect the impossible. You teach the juniors and the middlers the same course; they didn't have much to speak of last year. You've preached on the Ten Commandments; you have your dissertation on metaphysics. For the rest, be courteous to the president, and beyond that, just ignore him." Well, I did so. There was no occasion. He had asked me before that whether I would care to teach a course.

Well then, there was the question of the League of Evangelical Students. There was a league of all students of all kinds of institutions, and Vos said: "Van Til, do not hesitate to speak up, evn though you are an outsider. Well, this man [said]: "We must love the Hindus; we must love the Mohammedans." I said: "Sir, is not this love's labor lost?" Well, J. Ross did not ask me again to teach a course; he was not in love with that sort of thing. By that time, he knew that I was somewhat prejudiced for J. Gresham Machen, as was obviously the case.

Well, then, to make a longer story short, the separation came about. And in the hot period of 1929, Paul Woolley was there at once to be the secretary and treasurer. And he was always Machen's right-hand man. He once told me, "Van," he says, "the Lord has saved us from many things. This gentleman wanted to be professor of church history. Suppose we'd got him instead of Paul." Well, that emphasis, that expression meant Paul was just indispensable to him. Well, Paul was an efficient man. He would have at his finger every letter [that] would come, and he would give it an answer right now, and perfectly, and he would have it dictated to then Miss Margaret Robinson, and the two of them were both equally efficient. And then, Machen didn't want a president because we'd had enough hard times with the president. So he was always and only chairman of the faculty. That came about afterwards. Oswald T. Allis never was, never cared to be.

Well then, when he got -- All of a sudden, he went...he went mountain-climbing a great deal. As long as his mother was living he had an open car, top open or no top, because she must see the mountains in Maine or New England. After that, he had a regular car. But he loved mountains. In Switzerland, he would climb the Matterhorn. But he always had two mountain-climbing experts with him to protect him from falling. But he brought many a picture home; he gave me one large one from the Matterhorn, which is now in the library of Westminster Seminary. Well, he always asked us out for lunch: "Boys, do you think you could have a bite of lunch with me?" Which was in the Drake Hotel, which was a very beautiful [place] and always he would run out and get us the best for lunch. And then, when he was writing those lectures which he would give on Sunday morning: "Boys, I haven't put pen to paper yet." Well, when he did put pen to paper, that pen kept moving. And then he would have beautifully worded, impeccably expressed, version. And of course, he knew -- He might walk around -- I haven't seen it, but Laird Harris demonstrated it to me -- he would walk around and he would go bump his head; he would do all kinds of stunts while he [was] lecturing. They paid no attention because they must write.

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