Reforming Counseling: The Adaptation of Van Tilian Concepts by Jay Adams

Abstract

In his groundbreaking work, Competent to Counsel, Jay Adams references the influence of Dutch philosopher Cornelius Van Til upon his new approach to counseling. This dissertation will analyze Adams’s adaptation of three Van Tilian concepts into the foundations of biblical counseling: the covenantal nature of knowledge, presuppositional analysis, and the antithesis. In chapter 1, I introduce Van Til’s influence upon Adams and my thesis and conclude by noting areas where the conceptual connections between Adams and Van Til have been recognized but not expounded. In chapter 2, I provide the historical and biographical context for this study, introducing major movements—Old Princeton and Old Amsterdam—and key thinkers—B. B. Warfield, Abraham Kuyper, and Herman Bavinck—for later chapters. Chapter 3 establishes the interdisciplinary discussions between apologetics and counseling, surveys debates between Warfield and Kuyper over the nature of apologetics, and exposes the influence of Warfield and Kuyper upon the debates within the discipline of counseling. Chapter 4 overviews the first concept adapted by Adams from Van Til, the covenantal nature of knowledge, including an exposition of this concept in Van Til’s writings, an analysis of Adams’s covenantal reading of Genesis, and a critique of Adams’s approach to general revelation. Chapter 5 considers presuppositional analysis, discussing Van Til’s theological understanding of presuppositions and the transcendental argument for the existence of God, and critiquing Adams’s adaptation of presuppositional analysis into a discernment tool for pastors. Chapter 6 overviews Van Til’s understanding of the antithesis and critiques Adams’s employment of antithetical thinking, emphasizing the importance of the ethical nature of the antithesis and the ways Adams neglects Van Til’s important qualifications of this doctrine. Chapter 7 provides a summary of this argument, a final evaluation of Adams’s adaptation of Van Tilian concepts, and recommendations for the continuing work of reforming counseling.