Salomon van Til

Salomon-van-Til

Salomon van Til (28 December 1643, Weesp - 31 October 1713, Leiden) was a theologian of the Dutch Reformed Church and a leading theological thinker of the post-Cocceius era.

Background

Van Til was born in Weesp, the son of Johannes van Til and his wife Barbara le Grand. He was raised within the Dutch Reformed Church; his father was a pastor and wished for his son to follow in his foot-steps. To this end, he attended the Latin school in Alkmaar and then the University of Utrecht. A minor speech impediment forced him to focus on medicine, rather than theology, for fear that he would be unable to articulate theological concepts. But van Til remained drawn to theology and attended lectures from Cocceius, Johannes Hoornbeek, Abraham Heidanus and Jacobus Golius. His orthodox father originally forbade his purchasing reformist books and other material.

Theological career

Having completed his studies in 1666, van Til became a pastor in Huisduinen where he spent the following eleven years devoted to further biblical and theological study. The theological disputes of his time and did not go past him. While his studies continued, his formal employment was impacted by political disputes including in 1672 when van Til was forced from office. Publicly, he returned to medicine in an effort to secure employment but he continued to preach, first in Rijpje before finally being offered a pastorate in Medemblik in 1682. In 1683 he became pastor in Dordrecht and the following year he was appointed Professor of Church History and Philology at the Illustre school there.

References

• Karl, Barth (2004). Church Dogmatics: The doctrine of the word of God. A&C Black.
• Arie Jan Gelderblom, Jan L. De Jong, Marc Van Vaeck (2004). The Low Countries As a Crossroads of Religious Beliefs. BRILL.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Mangold, Matthias (2014). "Salomon van Til (1643–1713): His Appropriation of Cartesian Tenets in His Compendium of Natural Theology". Church History and Religious Culture. 94 (3): 337–357. doi:10.1163/18712428-09403003.
• Van Eijnatten, Joris (2003). Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces: Religious Toleration and the Public in the Eighteenth-Century Netherlands. BRILL.