runner - reformational publishing project · 2008. 8. 20. · in conversation with vollenhoven;...

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT MARCH 10, 200332 SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT

CHRISTIANRENEWAL

remembered

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WHAT’S INSIDE:02 H.Evan Runner: Man of God – J. Hultink08 What I Owe to Dr. Runner – A. Wolters09 Man of Passion; Man of Conviction – T. Plantinga11 The Man and His Message – K. Hollingsworth16 Man to Remember . . . – H. Antonides19 A Note of Personal Gratefulness – C. Seerveld20 What H.E. Runner Meant to Me – H. Vander Goot22 Remembering Dad – Cathy Collins25 A Teacher, Mentor, Friend – H. Van Dyke27 Former student endows Redeemer’s Runner Chair28 Runner’s global outreach29 Letters of Condolence from J. Witte and C. Colson30 Significant dates in the life of H.E. Runner32 Runner Album

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(TOP, clockwise)—Baby Evan with his parents; at 18 months; with his grandfather and father; Evan and Ellen with first born; H.E. in conversation with Vollenhoven; Evan and good friend Glenn Andreas clowning around on the evening before Runner’s wedding; Evan and Ellen newly-wed; Ellen and Evan engaged; at the age of 11 with parents; (middle picture) as a young man.

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by JOHN HULTINK

H. EVAN RUNNER WAS A char-acter. His personal traits and demeanor made quite an impression on a classroom full of fresh-man college students about to participate in their first course in philosophy. In my mind’s eye, I can still see him standing there behind the lectern, twirling his glasses and gesticulat-ing. By the time I arrived at Calvin College in the Fall of ‘64, Runner had been teaching there for 13 years and had perfected his technique. He was a natural teacher. And what a teacher he was. A gifted communicator. Runner had no difficulty making our first day in his philosophy class a memorable one. After some introductory remarks about what he hoped to achieve during the course of the semester, he informed the class that what he expected each student to achieve by the end of the term was to submit a paper answering the enquiry, “WHAT IS A THING?” Can you believe it?! How do you answer a question like that? What thing? There are a million things. At first I thought that perhaps it was a trick question. Or perhaps one of those really deep questions a psychology professor once posed to his gradu-ate students on their final exam when he wrote on the blackboard, “WHY?”, and left the room, leaving the students to figure it out. After the better part of an hour’s reflection, the bright-est student in the class wrote, “WHY NOT?”, handed in his exam paper and later received an A for his effort. It became apparent, during the course of the semester, that there would be no two-word answers to Runner’s enquiry, “WHAT IS A THING?”, when our professor began lec-turing about the “structure of creation,” “cosmic modalities,” “subject and object relationships,” and “anticipatory and retrocipatory moments.” Well, at least I had an answer to the question what the difference is between high school and college. And 40 years later, as I write these words and am rapidly moving toward a “higher reality,” Evan Runner has achieved – I now also realize that no one other than God will ever have the definitive answer to what a “thing” really is. I like to think God and Evan Runner have by now had that discussion. Runner’s classes were never boring. He con-stantly had our heads spinning, our hearts pumping and our spirits soaring. Runner was a man with a mission. That was another thing that was apparent that first day in his philosophy class. This wasn’t just another course in yet one more class. This was a man with a mission and this man was looking for converts. It would not be an overstatement to say that what H. Evan Runner hoped to achieve in his lifetime was the de-secularization or better, the christianization

of higher education. Toward that goal Runner dedicated his life. And toward that goal Runner inspired his students to become participants in the vari-ous sciences to reclaim them in the name of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is why many of Runner’s students became professors at Christian colleges, teachers at Christian grade and high schools, ministers and leaders in vari-ous Christian cultural organizations. In some respects, Runner’s influence extended to stu-dents around the globe, directly or indirect-ly. Even Chuck Colson, president of Prison Fellowship, came under Evan’s influence. And learned to love Kuyper. I became one of Runner’s converts. I may not have been one of his brightest students; I cer-tainly became one of his most ardent disciples. That was one of Evan’s many gifts – helping students come to grips with their calling in life. There was nothing that Evan Runner would not do for “his students” to further that end. To some he gave a roof and shelter; to exceptional students private tutorials; with others he would sit for hours in the campus coffee shop assist-ing them in their studies and careers; to all he was an inspiration and willing friend. Never will I forget the day when my turn came to prepare a paper for the Groen Club. The combination of joy and anxiety could not have been greater if I had been asked to escort the

queen to the student prom. Runner genuinely loved his students; Runner was also a hard taskmaster. Runner did not suffer fools or fool-ish insights gladly. And there was no higher calling during four years of college life for a “Runner student” than to succeed admirably in the writing and presentation of his Groen van Prinsterer Club paper. Dr. Tunis Prins, another of my Calvin phi-losophy professors, who was of the opinion that Plato was a “christian” 400 years before Christ’s incarnation, would have to spend most of the semester looking at my empty seat. So I went to see Dr. Runner at his home to review the assignment (“The Nature of Revelation”), and to ask him for copies of old Groen Club papers written by some of his bet-ter students to help me come to grips with my assignment. As usual, Runner dropped what-ever he was doing and went to collect an armful of student papers. This meeting with Dr. Runner was helpful, but it did nothing to arrest my anxi-ety. He extracted a student paper from the pile and said, “Here is an example, John, of what you do not want to do.” The title of this particu-lar student paper was something like, “Calling, Task and Culture.” Dr. Runner then went on to explain that this otherwise capable student had made the fatal error of confusing vice-gerent with vice-regent – spoiling the entire paper. For Dr. Runner, teaching was not solely a class-room affair. Wherever two or three are gathered together, there he would teach. So he proceed-ed to teach. “A vice-regent, John, is someone who acts in the place of a ruler, like the vice-president of the United States who acts in the place of the president when he is unconscious or dead. We do not act in God’s place. God is sovereign; always present, always sovereign. Christians are always and everywhere God’s vice-gerents. All our authority, all our power, is delegated to us by God, who is the ruler and supreme head. So we do not act in God’s place, for God has not relinquished His sovereignty, nor, contrary to public academic opinion, is God dead; our human acts are always and every-where acts in response to the mandate God has delegated us to perform. CORAM DEO! So

you see, John, that we are God’s vice-gerents; not His vice-regents.” I saw. And I went home, in fear and trembling, to write a Groen Club paper on “THE NATURE OF REVELATION.” As I walked back to my residence, I whispered, “And God help me, if I get it wrong.” Besides Dr. Prins’ class, I would have to find a few more non-essential classes to skip. What was it that inspired such dedication in Runner’s students? What drove his students to the outer-limits of their abilities? Runner was very fatherly in recognizing a student’s abilities. He never asked a student to perform beyond the talents God had given that student. And those talents varied widely. But the admiration and dedication on the part of the students did not. Why was that? The breadth and depth of the Christian insight formulated by Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven and their academic associates, which became known by the name, THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE LAW-IDEA, does not readily lend itself to popularization. And unlike Camus’ and Sartre’s existentialism, does not readily absorb itself into the public psyche. What does lend itself to popularization and broad public comprehension is the religious dynamic of the PHILOSOPHY OF THE LAW-IDEA. No one understood this better than H. Evan Runner, who as a young man had a driving passion to go to Korea or China as God’s missionary. With the northern march of the communists and the demise of the Kuomintang in the late ‘40’s this was not advis-able. (Think of Steve McQueen in “The Sand Pebbles.”) That missionary zeal which failed to find its outlet in the fields of Korea and China, Evan Runner brought with him into the classroom. When he had completed his doctoral studies and years of preparation teaching high school students Greek and Latin, the fertile fields of Calvin College with its thousands of students and scores of professors became his mission field. Like most missionaries, Evan Runner was not always warmly received. Especially not after he gave a public address entitled, “Rudder, Hard Over,” the intent of which was clear, even to the unsuspecting.

H. Evan Runner: Man of God

Runner, back row, fourth from the left, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia.

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The students loved it. Here was a man who shared their youthful idealism, unfettered by bit-ter experience; here was a man who breathed a warmth and a power into his presentation of the Word of God few had witnessed from the pulpit. Evan Runner took his students by the hand and led them to a field where lay hidden a trea-sure of such magnitude, it defied human com-prehension. Evan Runner, a man who did bare-ly a stitch of physical labor during his entire 86 years on earth, took hold of a shovel and exca-vated that field until that exquisite treasure lay exposed for all his students to behold. “Here,” he said, like a proud father at the birth of his child, “THIS IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Sell everything you own and everything you desire to own in the life that beckons you. Abandon your dreams of personal glory and greatness, riches and wealth; relinquish your self-centered ambitions and aspirations and join me for the rest of your lives to labor in the vineyard of the Lord.” Missionary zeal in and of itself would not have been enough for Runner to inspire his students and extract a commitment from them which few professors (Calvin Seerveld was another) anywhere in North America could match. What Runner accomplished in his life time through his students is unusual in the extreme. The reason for Runner’s success with his students was this: Runner was a commit-ted Christian teaching Christian students at a Christian liberal arts college. When Runner, the professor, stood in front of the class look-ing at all those students, he saw himself, so to speak, sitting among his students. Runner was one of us. He knew our needs before we did; he understood our deepest conflicts before we gave voice to them; he already knew how we struggled in the depths of our being to attempt to relate our Christian faith to learning. He knew that the college’s claim of offering students unity in diversity (say uni-versity) was false. Stones for bread. He knew because he had walked in our shoes, struggled with our questions, lived with our frustrations. He understood us; knew exactly where to take us. About his own education, which included three years at Harvard and exposure to some of the finest humanist minds of his day, Runner stated in an interview in 1979: “I was becom-ing a bit skeptical about the meaning of my research projects. I was just accumulating facts, facts, facts, but my ability to unify them and see sense in them was not keeping pace .... My life was just a lot of bits and pieces; it wasn’t pulled together.” Sentiments every college and univer-sity student can relate to. And this Evan Runner understood and appreciated. About his experiences at the University of Pennsylvania, Runner stated the following:

“I had a year course in modern philosophy from

Henry Bradford Smith, one of America’s best logicians. He was the one who at the end of the first lecture dared us to leave the faith of our homes behind us and follow the course with an open mind. He said, ‘This class is made up of all kinds of people – orthodox Protestants, orthodox Jews, liberal Jews, Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox Christians, and unbeliev-ers like myself. How can we possibly discuss together unless we have some common basis? And since it can’t be any of those things, what else is there except that we can build a fund of rational ideas together? And that’s what modern philosophy is all about.’ Well, I was impressed with that. That’s the day I walked home through the park and stood in front of a tree and took out my pocket knife and scratched my initials in the tree and thought: ‘Do I dare or don’t I dare?’ I finally decided I didn’t dare let go of my faith. I learned from that later how important it is to grasp a student in the first week – when those fundamental decisions are being made that determine the whole direction of his life.”

That day in ‘35, at the Universi ty of Pennsylvania, in Henry Bradford Smith’s class, was the turning point in young Evan’s life; it was the day God decreed to take control of the young student’s life and save him from himself. It was the day God decreed that Howard Evan Runner would become His missionary to stu-dents at Calvin College and elsewhere. Which serious student, at one point or another

in his life, has not stood alongside Evan in that park, carving his initials into that tree, to weigh his allegiances to God’s great adversary? “Give up your faith in God, empty your mind of every-thing your mother taught you about God as you sat on her knee, abandon the faith of your home, and come!, follow me, on this exciting, humanist experiment.” Which of us has not faced that temptation – even in the sanctity of the Christian classroom? On that day, God said: “No, Evan. You will not eat the poisonous fruit from Henry Bradford Smith’s tree. Go. Carve your initials into that tree; carve them deep into your mind as well, so that this act may become a lasting memo-rial to you of My covenant faithfulness. The cry of your young heart, that I reveal to you the relationship of My Word to learning, has been answered. I will send you to Westminster Theological Seminary; there you will meet My servant, Cornelius Van Til. At Westminster, I will introduce you to My ‘blustering’ servant, Klaas Schilder. Then I will send you to the Free University founded by My servant, Abraham Kuyper. There you will find My faithful servants, Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd. They will provide you with the tools required to perform the task I have decreed for you.” Evan Runner’s academic experiences, his youthful exposure, during the formative years of his life, to Henry Bradford Smith; his probing search to forge unity into the segmentation of his academic endeavours; the unifying power of the Word of God as he came to understand the coherence of God’s creation under Van Til, Schilder, Vollenhoven, Dooyeweerd – these all served to make Evan Runner man of God, mis-sionary to countless students. Yes, Howard Evan Runner understood his stu-dents; better than they understood themselves. Runner, the professor, saw himself in every student he ever taught. He understood the per-ils those students faced when they set foot on campus. He knew: The tree with his initials loomed ever larger in his mind’s memory. God would never let Evan forget. “Do I dare or don’t I dare to let go of my faith?” Evan understood the terrifying struggle that engages every student in the battle of the spir-its. Is it really imperative, dear God, that I must choose between academic respectability in the eyes of my worldly colleagues and faithfulness to You?” He understood and it became his mis-sion in life to take as many of those students, as God would grant him, by the hand and lead them to that field where lay hidden that great treasure. Students sensed Runner’s uncompromis-ing commitment; they realized that this man believed what he said. Teaching wasn’t merely a means to earn a livelihood for Evan Runner. It was his life. He lived and breathed his convic-tions. At times the Spirit who propelled Evan

Runner became palpable in his words. One such time was on the occasion of the opening of the Institute for Christian Studies, where Evan Runner gave the keynote address. Runner’s grasp of history is comprehensive. And in the opening of the Institute he saw the efforts and blessings of a life-time come together. As he spoke, his words vibrated with a holy passion:

“What a day this is to be alive! How full of con-sequences for the life of future generations! How crucial for all the English-speaking nations, and even, as we hope, for far beyond! We come today introducing into the life of this nation and of this continent a new institution. More weighty is the fact that for the English-speaking world it is even a new, an unheard of kind of institution. The emergence of this new thing means that a new concentration of forces is taking shape. It signifies a re-organization of our human and material resources to accomplish a task not yet undertaken. There is a realignment with the avowed purpose of carrying out the Christian Mission in higher education in a manner and to a degree never hitherto attempted on our con-tinent. This is a radical Christian proposal for radical times. Karl Marx is justly celebrated for his remark: ‘To be radical is to go to the root of the question. Now the root of mankind is man.’ Since Marx, all of us are being driven more and more to the root of the question. Our attention is now going to have to be centered upon things which previously, if they have been given any consideration at all, have been considered only very incidentally and peripherally. This charting of a new course is what clearly marks the event we are witnessing here today as an historic event. Events of this kind are to be experienced only very infrequently .... Today, on this high day of our own corporate life, what high privi-lege it is to be alive and present in this cham-ber! Such a rush of feelings and sentiments surges through us, now that we are come to this moment! Above all else, we are grateful to God on high, that He still, at a late hour in our history, graciously grants us the historical free-dom to take this significant and decisive step that we are taking here this day.”

After two-thousand years of Christianity, what is this “new thing” that Evan Runner was talk-ing about? What is this “Christian Mission in higher education in a manner and to a degree never hitherto attempted on our continent”? The answer to that question is the answer to Runner’s success with his students. The institution that became the exclusive, dom-inant voice of Christianity in the Western world for more than a millennium, the Roman Catholic church, and in a real sense, our Mother, got it fundamentally wrong. Under the influence of Greek philosophy, the Roman Catholic church developed a view of reality (life) which effec-


tively divided the life of the Christian into two compartments: the compartments of a) nature and b) grace. Among evangelical Christians this compartmentalization is better known as the a) secular and b) religious. Opponents of Christianity never tire of pointing out that “reli-gion” is for the church and, perhaps, for the home. But religion has no place in the public affairs of mankind. Runner radically broke with this dualistic view of life; this idea that there is a domain of nature, the secular domain, where Christians and non-christians have everything in common. Runner coined the phrase: LIFE IS RELIGION. (The insight underlying this phrase did not origi-nate with Runner; the phrase did.) The asser-tion that “Life is Religion” is based on the insight that faith is a human function. It is common fare for unbelievers to contend that Christians have faith; unbelievers, atheists, agnostics, pagans do not. Such is not the case. Faith is as much a human function as is reasoning. To live out of one’s faith is man’s inescapable condition. No one acquainted with the writings of Bertrand Russell would accuse Russell of being a Christian. But Russell wore his faith on his sleeve. Russell believed passionately in human freedom, human autonomy. Freedom and autonomy were the shrines at which Russell worshiped. In his book, Why I am not a Christian, Russell wrote an article entitled, “A Free Man’s Worship.” Is not this Russell’s creed when he proclaims: “Brief and powerless is man’s life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gates of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow fall, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to wor-ship at the shrine that his own hands have built ....” Russell is not a Christian; Russell does have faith. Only instead of worshipping the true God, Russell “worships at the shrine his own hands have built.” As do all who do not worship the true God who revealed Himself in Scripture. Evan Runner never tired of pointing out to his students that all men are religious. It is man’s inescapable condition as Russell has so elo-quently demonstrated. When Henry Bradford Smith dared the young Evan Runner and his fellow classmates to abandon their respective faiths and approach the study of modern phi-losophy “with an open mind” he was, in fact, selling all his students a bill of goods. It was deception of the worst kind by an individual in a position of power and trust. What Henry Bradford Smith actually asked his students to do was to place their trust in so-called autono-mous human reason; the faith to which Smith himself subscribed.

Runner helped his students to see that our lives are made of whole cloth. There are no seams, no dualisms. Either man stands in service of the true God or he worships an idol. But worship someone or something, he will. Therefore it is imperative for the Christians to discard the false dualism of nature and grace as articulated by the Catholic church. The whole man is religious and life in its entirety is a walk before the face of God, in obedience or disobedience. Nature and grace do not stand in opposition to each other. Faith (grace) is not a super-added gift. It is man’s creaturely condition. At issue is whether that faith is directed at God or at an idol. The insight that life in its entirety is religion (CORAM DEO), throws a “new” light on our understanding of the entire human enterprise. Once Runner convinced the Christian student that “Life is Religion” and that all men are at heart religious beings serving the true God or an idol, the question follows: “What implica-tions does this have for a Christian worldview, a Christian philosophy? The answer is indeed radical; does indeed go to the root of the ques-tion. For fallen man it means that God’s revela-tion of Himself must of necessity form the foun-dation of all human scholarship. Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd acknowledged this radical belief in their formulation of the “Philosophy of the Law-Idea.” The foundation of their philoso-

phy is anchored in three profoundly confession-al statements. The first is that God is Creator; the second, that the human race, through its representative head, Adam, fell into sin; and the third, that all those who confess the name of Christ, the new Adam and representative head, are granted new life in this life and the next. This “new thing” that Evan Runner refers to in his keynote address at the opening of the Institute for Christian Studies is an academic enterprise that is based on a biblically informed understanding of man and the creation. At the heart of this “new thing” lies our understanding of the LAW. I have always considered the most important insight Dr. Runner taught to be his explanation of LAW. In his book The Relation of the Bible to Learning, he writes: “Law is every Word of God by which He has subjected the creation to His will or rule. Law is thus nothing other than the will of the Sovereign God for creation.” It is on this understanding of Law that the Philosophy of the Law-Idea is based. In an attempt to share his insight into God’s law with his audience on the occasion of the opening of the ICS, Dr. Runner stated, “God’s Law is God’s Word. Because God is God, His every Word is Law. For the very first words of the Bible we hear, “And God said, ‘Let there be’ this and that. All such creative words are the Law. The Law is what causes creatures and the whole creation to hang together; it determines the condition of all creaturely existence. It itself is concentrated in the religious Law of life; Walk before Me according to My commandments and live. Here we have the heart of the creation. The Law determines what it means to live before God, or to die before God. The Jews were the people of God’s choice. He made Himself known to them; to them He gave Himself. They were His people and He was their God. He was with them and for them. The Law sim-ply gives expression to this covenantal fellowship. It is the Word of the living God by which the people of His choice live before His face, by which they are enabled to bring all the potentialities and capacities which God Himself has laid in human existence, both individual and collective to the fullest and richest possible real-ization in a service of God. This is the true Kingdom of God, and here is the true joie de vivre (joy of life) which makes one to dance before Jehovah.” In an attempt to illustrate the life-giving power of God’s Law, Runner quotes

the example used by R.B. Kuiper who tells the story of the – slightly peculiar old lady who went to visit a friend. “When her hostess disappeared into the kitchen for a few minutes, the peculiar old lady got out of her chair, and walking about the salon, found a bowl of tropical fish behind the grand piano. In a sudden inspiration she reached her hand into the bowl, lifted out one of the fish and dropped him tenderly onto the rich carpeting that covered the floor. As she did so she muttered to herself, ‘Wicked old woman, keeping you shut up in that little old bowl! I’m going to give you the freedom of this whole salon.” Runner, who quotes this illustration in his book, The Relation of the Bible to Learning, goes on to note: “Of course, the fish promptly proceeded to expire. Why? Because it had been removed from that law area for which it had been creat-ed. And so it is also with man: he can be free to live as man only when he is in the Law-environ-ment for which he was created. That ‘environ-ment’ is the full range of the divine Law for the creation, is every Law-word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. In this sense, the Law is the condition of man’s freedom.”

Do you understand, dear readers? Do you comprehend what a priceless gift Evan Runner bequeathed to his students? By

comparison, Bill Gates’ wealth is but a piece of refuse. The day young Evan stood in the park, con-sidered his professor’s proposal to abandon his Christian faith, and carved his initials into that tree is now 68 years ago – years that bear witness to God’s profound love and covenant faithfulness. In God’s merciful providence, Evan Runner himself became like a tree – a tree planted by streams of living water, which yielded its fruit in season. Great and blessed was the company of those who ate freely from that tree.

Thankful are they to have carved their initials therein. Thank you, dear professor, for taking us by the hand and leading us to that field where you opened our eyes to that exquisite treasure of the rela-tionship of God’s Word to learning and to life. May you and Ellen, dear friends, rest in God. May we meet again, at Jesus’ feet.

John Hultink, Calvin College student, ’64-’68.

adopted son of the family. Although in retrospect this was a decidedly mixed blessing (among other things it forced me to confront the fact that my revered professor had his failings as a husband and father), it highlighted the strong personal bond which was forged between us, a bond which lasted for decades thereafter. And even the negative sides of this close personal bonding taught me an important lesson: God's

strength is perfected in weakness. I remember Dr. Runner as a man of God who had an extraordinary impact on my life. I thank God for leading my life in such a way that I met this apostle of reformational philosophy at a decisive moment in my life. He changed me forever.

Al Wolters, professor, Redeemer College


by AL WOLTERS

IT IS FAIR TO SAY THAT MY meet-ing with H. Evan Runner in 1961 represented a turning point in my life. I had just come as a sophomore to Calvin College, and I was at that time a declared agnostic in religion. I had decided to enroll in the preseminary program, in the mistaken belief that studying theology would somehow help me decide whether the claims of Christianity were true. I thought I had figured out for myself that there must be some Divine Being or God who had made the world, but I wasn't sure whether this was the God of the Bible or not. At the age of 19 I was something of a rationalist, committed to the autonomy of theoretical thought. What broke through my arrogance were two dramatic events. One was the sudden death of professor Henry Van Til, a man whom I knew only by reputation, but whose book The Calvinistic Concept of Culture had been highly recommended to me by my father. Van Til died after suffering a massive heart attack while lecturing in class. I was not in the class, but the sudden death of this respected man made a great impression on me. I guess it reminded me that the claims of Christianity could not be treat-ed as mere intellectual puzzles, to be decided on by sovereign Reason, but concerned basic issues of life and death which required personal commitment. The second event was my first attendance at the meetings of the notorious Groen Club, the student club mentored by Dr. Runner. Here I was exposed to the charismatic, indeed elec-trifying, teaching of this extraordinary professor of philosophy. I have since studied the his-tory of philosophy, and I do not think that I can think of any other philosopher who can be compared to Runner in the religious inten-sity of his teaching. As a committed adherent of the reformational philoso-phy of D. H. T. Vollenhoven and Herman Dooyeweerd, he constantly hammered away at the basic point that human rationality is not autonomous, but is itself rooted in religious commitment. This was exactly the message that I needed to hear. I have a distinct memory of this point being explained at one of the Groen Club meet-ings by the president of the Groen Club at that time, the seminary student Jim Olthuis. He outlined on the blackboard the basic reformational point that human rationality or ana-

lytical functioning is one of a number of coordi-nate functions, all rooted in the religious heart, and that this analytical functioning, though important, was neither the beginning nor the end of the spectrum of kinds of human function-ing. Somehow this fundamental point “clicked” in my mind and heart, and in the coming days or weeks I yielded to the claims of the gospel. Thereafter I was a committed Christian and an ardent “Groen Clubber.” Thus, in the providence of God, Runner's teaching was a significant fac-tor in my coming to faith. But it was not only my spiritual life's direc-tion which was affected by Runner and his teaching. I also owe him the basic intellectual framework which has guided my thinking and scholarship since that time. This is a framework which is decisively shaped by the reformational philosophy of Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd, a philosophy which in its turn was an elabora-tion of the biblical worldview as understood by Dutch Neocalvinism. Runner thus provided me with intellectual tools by which I was enabled to enter the world of philosophy and scholar-ship in a way consonant with the fundamental life's perspective of my upbringing in a Dutch Reformed home of Kuyperian persuasion. Themes like creation-fall-redemption, antithesis and common grace, life as religion, the good-ness and irreducible variety of creation, the imperative of Christian cultural engagement, the distinction of structure and direction, and much more, became the guiding principles of my life as a scholar. I owe Runner the basic intel-lectual direction for the whole of my scholarly life. When I published my little book Creation Regained in 1985, it was little more than a compendium of what he had taught me, and a worldview introduction to the philosophy which he so passionately espoused. There is a sense, as I said at his funeral earlier this year, that he was my only teacher.

But I am also personally indebted to Dr. Runner. He took a deep personal interest in me, as he did in so many of his students. He became a mentor and father figure to me. When I heard the news of President Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, my first reaction was to go to his house and to discuss this tragedy with him. In fact, I was at his house so frequently during my last year at Calvin that he and his wife Ellen invited me to move in altogether during the second semester. I became almost an

What I owe to Dr. Runner

by THEO PLANTINGA

H. EVAN RUNNER deeply influenced my thinking: many of his former students, who gathered at Redeemer College for a confer-ence held on October 4-5, 2002 said the same. We had assembled to explore Runner's life and legacy. It was an enriching experience. Runner also influenced my choice of an occu-pation: I adopted his line of work. My choice of philosophy as a teaching field left me with many opportunities to ponder not just what he taught but also the way he taught it. The two words that come most readily to mind as embodying his teaching method are passion and conviction. In both his manner and the content of his teaching, Runner swam against the stream. During my student days, it was widely believed that professors ought to remain cool and detached about their work – or at least to act cool and distant. They were supposed to be “objective” about everything. Professors were not so much in the business of asserting this or that or stating their convictions as seeing what was clearly the case, and perhaps pointing it out to others who were capable of “seeing” it as well. All of this was done in the name of a cool rationality that left no room for passion. Runner was the very antithesis of such a detached, neutral, objective approach to scholarship. In this regard he was reminis-cent of Augustine (354-430), that passionate and deeply committed church father whose thinking has so deeply influenced the Calvinist tradition. Runner used to teach a course on Augustine, which I was lucky enough to take. In that course he became passionate about Augustine's passion. Other comparisons come to mind as well. Runner himself might have been uncomfortable with the analogy, but I cannot help but think of Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) and his insis-tence on passionate intensity as a characteris-tic of genuine Christian religiosity. I would also point to Kierkegaard's famous determination to “make things difficult” in an age when leading lights all around him were making things easier (see his Concluding Unscientific Postscript, pp. 164-6). Runner, too, made things difficult for

people, especially his students; often he wound up challenging them in a way that eventually led them to change their lives. Old goals would be abandoned, and new ones taken up. I was quite young when I sat in his classes: I was only 17 when I started, and not yet 21 when I finished my studies at Calvin College. Young though I was, I remember being pro-foundly impressed by the passion and energy of the man, especially the way his rhetorical power grew as he got further and further into a lecture. He would start out modestly, and then it was as though he was set on fire by his own speechifying. This process of self-energization is not something one can easily duplicate. I find that in my own teaching I need to build up motivation, fire, conviction and passion for my topic beforehand. If I walk into the class-room with a low-key attitude, perhaps because I am preoccupied by other issues that were discussed in a committee meeting that ended just before my class, I will not be jolted out of it by my own words. But Runner seemed to carry within himself certain reserves of fuel that he could tap as the evening wore on and the lec-ture grew longer, with the intended dismissal time already behind us. A few folks might look impatiently at the clock, but Runner, on such

Man of Passion, Man of Conviction

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working on a doctorate at the Free University of Amsterdam. Runner whispered to me excit-edly and pointed out what I should focus on as I read the letter – a typical Runner inci-dent. Have we, his former students, picked up the torch from him? Some would say that his ideas have won wide acceptance at many Christian institutions, and that he should declare his life victorious. He himself was not inclined to put such an interpretation on his career. If he had ever written that auto-biography which I urged upon him, he would have had to face this issue; I suspect he did not know what to make of it during those last retirement years in Grand Rapids. Had he succeeded? Had he failed? The fact that his former stu-

dents sometimes clashed with one another on a rather basic level was also a sad difficulty that made it hard for him to draw up the balance sheet of his life. Should he side with one group against another? Or was old age the time to be magnanimous? These are not easy questions. Could it be that his passion and conviction were also, to some degree, his undoing? Could they have led him to suspect a kind of personal betrayal when some of his for-mer students followed theoreti-cal paths of which he did not approve? I remember that when mem-bers of my family would sit up late at night in my parents' living room and thrash out issues, my dad (born the same year as Runner, and of the

Kuyperian stock that Runner so much admired) used to get up at a certain point and announce that we would not be able to solve all the world's problems that night, and there-fore he was heading off to bed. We all need rest. Perhaps Runner also came to such a point in the end, knowing that tomorrow would be another day. But one day there would come a tomorrow when he would have to leave it all in the hands of a new genera-tion. Wondrous, indeed, are the ways of the Lord.

Theo Plantinga, professor, Redeemer College

occasions, seemed oblivious to the passage of time as he forged ahead with his lecture. In referring to such occa-sions, I am thinking of his eve-ning lectures, rather than his daytime classes. The evening lectures, which did not come often enough for my liking, were probably his best per-formances, for they were usu-ally enhanced by the presence of a few skeptics and scoffers who had come specifically to hear this well-known and con-troversial fellow who seemed to stir up so much dust. I believe Runner drew strength and inspiration from the chal-lenge of dealing with them. The sheer energy of the man impresses me all the more because of what I was going through when word of his death reached me during the winter term of 2001-02. By that point I was no longer a teen-ager; I was older than Runner had been when he served as my instructor back at Calvin

College. And although I had enjoyed good health and ener-gy levels throughout my adult life, I was finally laid low by prostate cancer, for which I was taking a two-month course of radiation treatments. At the same time, I was trying to keep up my full teaching schedule. It worked, to a degree, most of the time. When I started out, friends in my cancer sup-port group asked me whether I planned to drive myself to my treatments, hinting that I would be too exhausted, as they had been when taking radiation. I told them that I not only planned to drive, but that I would be heading down to Redeemer each day as well,

to teach my classes. A major side-effect of radia-tion is exhaustion or fatigue. I suffered other side-effects too, but I will not take time to comment on them here. I man-aged my car without undue difficulty, partly by sticking to familiar routes. But I had not realized just how hard it is to think clearly when you are utterly exhausted. Even so, I soldiered on. The students were remarkably patient and forgiving. I particularly recall one after-noon in my philosophy of his-tory class, when I was lec-turing on R.G. Collingwood, whose ideas I normally under-stand quite well. In the course of this lecture I lost my place, as it were, stumbled, retreat-ed, found a spot in my notes that seemed about right, and

went on again for some time, only to realize later in the day that I had been lecturing in cir-cles, as it were, too exhausted to remember what I had just been saying. On that difficult day I gave a performance that is completely out of place in a college class-room. And I thought of Evan Runner and his seemingly boundless energy. He always seemed to know where he was going in his lectures; indeed, he seemed in a breathless hurry to get there. But then, he never really arrived; there was

always some other intellectu-al destination on the horizon, and he would set out eagerly in quest of it, almost as though he were an eager puppy. Is this a romanticized, ideal-ized picture that I am painting? The truth is that even Evan Runner grew weary in his later years. I talked with him often at the very end of his teach-ing career, by which point I was also teaching in Calvin College's philosophy depart-ment. Our conversations con-tinued into his earlier retire-ment years, when many of us were still hoping that some books would flow forth from his pen. I also urged upon him the great task of writing an auto-biography, and I volunteered to help him with the job. But it was not to be. Runner, too,

had l imits on his energy. I never got the impression that his former convictions had fundamentally changed, but his life's energies were clearly in decline in his later years. His passion was well nigh spent. Over the years Runner delighted in his former students and their accomplish-ments. Al l a long, I suspect, he was eager to pass on the torch, so to speak. And those former stu-dents were close to his heart. I recall a

Sunday evening back in about 1965 when I entered Fuller Avenue Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, where Runner was then a member, and sat next to him. There were theatre-style seats in the church, and so I did not have the option of leaving a respectful distance between the esteemed professor and his humble student. I greeted him quietly and tried to pre-pare for worship. At once his hand went into his jacket pock-et. Out came a letter from one of his former students, then

Have we, his former students, picked up the torch from him?

by KERRY HOLLINGSWORTH

ONE NEEDED ONLY to have spent five minutes in dialogue with Prof. Runner to be gripped by the singular passion that animated all that he said and did. There are few men of whom it can be said that their words and actions exhibited a more single-mind-ed dedication to their task. And, for thirty years H. Evan Runner was gripped by the task of extending our under-standing of the Kingdom of God, communicated through a compellingly charismatic classroom presence, and also through his writings and lec-tures on three continents. But to adequately assess the life and work of Runner – to get to the “heart” of who he really was – it is necessary to determine the driving force that grounded and animated his vision. This is no small task as the range of respons-es that Runner evoked dur-ing his career ran from the sublime to the ridiculous. In

the following I will not pursue what others have said, but rather what I came to know of him personally over a period of nearly forty years. I will pursue three specific themes that uniquely char-acterize the life and work of this faithful servant of God. First, I will pursue what I take to be the basic operating idea in Runner's overall vision, that is, the idea of the heart as the central focus point of human existence. Second, I will brief-ly look at Runner's convictions about what he took to be the transparent nature of the cre-ation order. And finally, I will comment on the theme of the antithesis, an idea that was often misunderstood not only by the majority of Runner's critics, but, on occasion, also by some of his followers as well. FROM THE FIRST day of a long and close relation with Runner I was struck by his encyclopedic grasp of the issues on an extensive range

of subjects. It took a mind of enormous agility to be able to hold before it the breadth of theoretical complexity that he typically presented for consid-eration. Further, he not only presented a prodigious range of material, but he often man-aged to convey that material through the medium of six dif-ferent languages. He always showed his audience how to think about those issues by first tying them to the con-crete realities from which they emerged, and secondly, by pedagogically moving from the most important to the least important point. In summary, he provided an incredibly broad-based, real education to his listeners and readers alike. Indeed, contrary to the nar-rowly abstract and highly technical pursuits that pass for “education” these days, the way Runner presented things was seen to be so “out of joint” he was considered rather “odd” by many of the faculty and students alike. And

Runner: The man and his message

tualism that insists on declaring Religion out of bounds, and Runner's insistence that in fact All of Life IS Religion, including the way of analysis, that often drew reactions from his crit-ics. However, what was clear to Runner was to many others often opaque. I believe that Runner was so gripped by what he saw as the transparently compel-ling quality of this bib-lical theme, he tended to assume that it ought also to be clear to those he debated. This of course was not always the case. In fact, if one reads in print the public debates that Runner pursued, for example, there was seldom a real meeting of the minds. While Runner's supporters assumed that he had won the day, his detractors assumed the contrary. The upshot was that neither side really learned much. I believe that the casu-alty to both sides was the fail-ure to grasp what Runner con-sidered to be one of the most important and far-reaching declarations of the scriptures. At the same time, I witnessed on numerous occasions his bewildered frustration at the apparent inability of a num-ber of prominent “Christian” thinkers to move beyond their highly technical intellectualis-tic mode of discourse to the admission of any sort of reli-giously grounded position. It sometimes appeared that the message between the lines, so to speak, was that any time Runner began to stress the idea of depth level analysis, he was immediately dismissed as doing little more than “spiritual-izing,” while his critics claimed to be practicing “real philos-ophy.” While cultural back-grounds and problems of tradi-tion often obscured attention to the real issue, there was, always something intuitively powerful in the call to focus one's thought and actions onto their ultimate ground. For

those unsure of the nature of that ultimate ground, the expe-rience of confrontation could be profoundly unsettling. As most of Runner's colleagues had received their graduate training in secular universi-ties where the very idea of a religious grounding to their respective disciplines was not considered, it was little wonder that many reacted so strongly. In a more perfect world one might argue that such reaction says more about their failure to confront themselves, than their success in confronting Runner. Whatever the case, I believe that no Runnerian theme needs more attention, research, and application than the idea of the heart as the concentration point of the life of man in the creation order of God.

2. PROF. RUNNER'S second conviction had to do with what he saw as the transparency of the creation order. With tireless repetition he affirmed that analysis must begin with the recognition of the world as given in everyday experience, or there would sim-ply be no limit to the fabrica-tions that a natural heart would conceive. To see the proof of this pudding one needs only to examine any particular chunk of the contemporary world. In every case one is always pre-sented with a multitude of con-flicting answers. These con-flicting answers to the nature of the phenomena in question

emerge from a multi-tude of “faith commu-nities,” each attempt-ing to give expression to their respective v iews of the cre-ation order. Again, for Runner, it was obvious that if man refused to accept the scriptural view of cre-ation, that man would create the world in his own image. In such an affirmation then, you could observe not only Runner’s pro-foundly simple faith,

but also its simply profound consequences. Following from the above was the connected insight about the creation order as that con-text in which man, the creature of God, was to live, move, and have his being. Prof. Runner insisted that as this was God's creation, there was necessar-ily a definite order to things, which meant there were limits to the structure and process of things. Such limits circum-scribed the boundaries of a man's, a society's, or a nation's actions. They similarly circum-scribed the boundaries of the-ory construction. Regardless of what all the forces of the modern world told him about the outmoded nature of “tra-ditional” theory construction, he remained immovable in the conviction that the Word of the Lord would abide forever, and that long after the latest cul-tural trend or theoretical fad had inevitably run its course, there would be the structure of creation “revenging itself,” as Dooyeweerd had said, upon all those who would seek to transgress its limits. Again, the clarity with which Runner himself saw the cre-ation order, as well as the clarity which he thought was evident in the creation to those who had eyes to see, was rooted in this simple faith in the Word of God. Did not the Word make it clear in the opening remarks of the let-ter to the Romans that even

of course, he was odd, but sel-dom for the reasons offered. It was highly unusual for a teach-er to grip the hearts and lives of students the way Runner did. It was highly unusual to remain influential through life-long relationships with many of his students. It was high-ly unusual for one man to be able to unite a widely diver-gent group of students into a “Groen Club,” and then into an Association For Reformed Scientific Studies, and then into an Institute For Christian Studies. But then, Runner was a highly unusual individual, but for all the right reasons. Above all, however, it was evident to me that this was a man gripped by a simply profound vision, the origin of which lay in a profoundly sim-ple conviction. Runner's pen-etrating insight into the order of things, and the charismatic authority with which he articu-lated this vision, was rooted in the unwavering conviction that the Word of God was the absolute rule for all of life, the unquestionable standard against which all things must be measured. For Runner, this conviction never wavered, not in the most complicated and difficult questions of analy-sis, and not in the most trying times of his life. It was from this unshakable foundation, then, that a core set of convic-tions followed, that all coher-ently meshed with each other, and that in each case called for a coherent response.

1. NO CONVICTION was more fundamental to Runner's life and work than the affirmation of the scriptur-al revelation of the heart as the root unity of human exis-tence. It’s a theme repeatedly stated throughout all of the scriptures (cf. Prov. 4:23 “Out of the heart are the issues of life;” Psalms 33:15 “God has formed the hearts of all men”). This central idea that all things created find their concentra-tion point in man's heart, was of such certainty for Runner

that he never failed to under-score its importance. Search any of his writings, listen to any of his speeches, recollect any one of his class lectures, and you will be confronted with this theme in a dozen differ-ent ways. Having spent some time recently working through his research materials, lecture notes, and personal papers, I was struck by how this theme flows throughout all his work. For Runner, this scripturally informed insight into the way that the process of mankind's responses to the order of cre-ation was worked out in the life of the nations provided access to the real meaning of human experience that was simply not possible by any other means. And, having been gripped by this insight, it utterly reconsti-tuted his vision of the order of things. For Runner it was no longer possible to look upon the cre-ation order and simply call it “nature,” or other expressions which reduce the richness of creation to some naturalistic idea. It was no longer possi-ble to see man simply as a “rational animal,” some form of “organism,” the chance combi-nation of elementary particles, or even the interaction of body, soul, and spirit. It was no lon-ger possible to see the actions of men as simply “the will to power,” the psychological drives of a “collective uncon-scious,” the convergence of economic interests, sociologi-cal interests, ethnic or nation-al interests. It was no longer possible to share in the many divergent forms of analysis about the actions of mankind, Platonism, Scholastic-ism, Marxism, Subjectivism, Prag-matism, and a myriad other isms. And it was certainly not pos-sible to simply and uncriti-cally embrace the historically formed cultural conditions of the present moment be they educational, social, political, economic, legal, aesthetic, or even ecclesiastical. Why? Because it followed that if you

once understood that the life of man in the creation order of God was always either obe-dient response to the law of God, or a rebellious disobedi-ence, then even the simplest analysis of the human condi-tion would immediately reveal all of those attempts cited above to reduce creaturely life in God's chosen place for man to nothing more than his so-called “natural” or “physical” side. For Runner, there was no question that man outside of the grace of God's redemp-tion in Christ would “naturally” persist in multiplying endless schemes whose real origin was always to be found in the “natural” structure of the “natu-ral” world, and whose declared purpose and goal was his own self aggrandizement. The fact that any real engagement in the world always reveals this latter sort of behaviour, was for Runner proof that the natural man will indeed pursue any path, no matter how unproduc-tive, no matter how irrational, or destructive, provided that it is not that path lit by God’s Word. Similarly, despite the best intentions of men, despite the fact that the “natural” man was capable of achieving all man-ner of good, and despite the fact that even after the fall man was still the image bearer of God, the historical record in any given area declares that the “issues of life” that pro-ceed from a darkened heart will invariably be a way of life opposed to the followers of The Way, The Truth, and The Life. Runner was particularly sen-sitive to this never-ending bat-tle between the Two “WAYS”. What became obvious to him was that the real goal in all this “natural” activity was, at bottom, a sophisticated way of avoiding confrontation with the Creator. It was his sensitivity to the spirits of the age, and his r igorous insistence upon always maintaining a clear line between a sterile intellec-


though there are many things about God that we cannot comprehend, there are nev-ertheless certain essential elements such as His divine nature and His eternal power that God made manifest in the creation order in such a way that it could be “clearly seen”? Indeed, what God has made manifest about Himself is so “clearly seen,” the scrip-tures declare, that all men will be held accountable to God on the basis of that manifest clarity. And if the clarity of the creation order is not manifest either to our ordinary compre-hension, or to the strictures of philosophical analysis, the problem does not lie in the murkiness or obscurity of what God has made, but rather, according to the scriptures, in the fact that men “will not have this God to rule over them,” and hence will find any con-ceivable way to “hold down the truth of God in unrighteous-ness.” In these things Runner pas-sionately believed, was pas-sionately committed, and pas-sionately declared. In fact he simply could not understand why the clarity of these mat-ters was not obvious to every committed believer. I remem-ber him many times shak-ing his head with a quizzical look and ask, “why don't they get it?” The “they” was usu-ally some individual or insti-tutional spokesman who had taken him to task for allegedly not sticking to some purely technical philosophical point. Such sterile intellectualism always frustrated and grieved him profoundly. It was in these moments that one witnessed the childlike faith of this phi-losopher.

3. IF THE HEART is the concentration point of human experience, and if that experience is to be given form “coram Deo” in God's creation, then there followed the con-viction that the practice of life for God's people in the cre-ation order placed them at

radical odds with all the forc-es of unbelief. This condition Runner called the “antithesis.” As Runner's revered teacher and mentor Dooyeweerd put it, [We have shown that] “there is no natural reason that is inde-pendent of the religious driving force which controls the heart of human existence. For us there are only two ways open: that of scholastic accommo-dation which by reason of its dialectic unfolding results in secularization, or that of the spirit of the Reformation, which requires the inner, radical ref-ormation of scientific thought by the driving power of the biblical motive. Let us remem-ber the words of our Savior, ‘No man can serve two mas-ters’” [International Reformed Bulletin, July 1966, p 17]. Such remarks never failed to evoke opposition from a num-ber of directions. Certainly for the institution in which Runner taught, and for the Church in whose context that institution functioned, there was great opposition. In 1951 a signifi-cant number of Calvin's fac-ulty, and particularly its philos-ophy faculty, many of whom had just returned from the second World War, were con-vinced that their institution's future lay in moving away from their isolated Dutch heritage to become, as they saw it, part of the “American mainstream.” That some young upstart Easterner had the gall to sug-gest that rather than accom-modate to the mainstream of American culture they instead fol low the advice of the Dutch statesman Groen Van Prinsterer who insisted that “In ons insolement ligt onze kracht” [Our strength lies in our separateness] was sufficient in itself to bring down the wrath of the institution on Runner's head. To suggest that this insti-tution “isolate” itself into sep-arate Christian endeavors at precisely that moment when it felt that it ought to break away from its “isolation” did not bode well for clarity of communica-tion.

To start with, Runner's crit-ics were not talking about the same sort of “isolation” that he was. Many of those returning from the war rightly observed that they could no longer continue to remain “isolated” within the confines of a nar-row Dutch ethnicity. I am of the opinion that, in the early fifties at least, the historical and cul-tural origins of the opposition that Runner experienced was not at all clear to him. Runner's critics were so caught up in their own convictions about the necessity of broadening their cultural horizons, and Runner was so caught up in his convic-tions that they should be cor-rectly confining their religious horizons that the debates over the antithesis may have gener-ated lots of heat, but little light. So, while the idea of separate Christian endeavors suffered a great deal of bad press, that press resulted not so much from any confusion of ideas, but rather from the fact that it was sometimes portrayed without the benefit of address-ing the real cultural question that was so important to the Calvin faculty. By addressing the question of how one broad-ens a narrow ethnic identity rather than confronting them on the religious foundations of their general cultural position, it could have been pointed out that broadening their horizons, and the adoption of a radical biblical approach to cultural development were not incom-patible. It was only after many years of struggle and maturing insight that a more strategic approach was adopted. Unfortunately, both in broad-er Christian Reformed circles, as well as among many of Runner's followers, the idea of the antithesis was some-times seen (often as a result of the above problems) as a sort of abstract principle that any-one who held to “reformational principles” ought to proclaim as a matter of conviction. The result, then, was more a battle of wills over an abstract prin-ciple rather than an attempt


to deal with a con-crete h is tor ica l reality. Nevertheless, for Runner, there was an important reason for pro-claiming that “we ought to be devel-oping a distinctive Christian philoso-phy, d is t inct ive Christian political parties, Christian l a b o r p a r t i e s , Christian hospitals, Christian schools, Christian newspa-pers,” and the like. And that reason was, that such endeav-ors naturally follow from the insights outlined in the first two sections above. Strictly speak-ing, then, the idea of separate Christian endeavors ought more properly to be seen as an end result rather than an up front principle. The concept of the antithesis was not some abstract principle that could be applied as the “doctrine of separation” to whatever cul-tural formation one happened to run into. A given community does not become separate by virtue of some arbitrary princi-ple imposed on it at the begin-ning of its formation. Rather, if we are living as true citizens of God's creation, or, to use that wonderful Runnerism, if we truly follow the affirmation that Life Is Religion, then, as the result of that activity, a sepa-rate community will naturally emerge. Furthermore, if it appears to the secular community that the reason for that isolation is because of its commitment to a set of coherent biblical prin-ciples, then the reply to such a charge is that it is only isolated in exactly the same way that the extreme right is isolated from the extreme left, or the way the capitalist community was isolated from the former communist community, or the way that secular labor par-ties isolate themselves from the Christian Labor Party of Canada. That is, such com-

munities isolate themselves precisely by the way that they declare the animating spirit that gives rise to their exis-tence, and by the way they articulate that driving spirit into their particular view of the world. What Runner was argu-ing for when he called for dis-tinctively Christian endeavors, was nothing less than to be found on the world stage with a view of that world that would be truly healing to the nations. By calling for such a position he was offering a view that truly penetrated to the heart of the matter, in whatever area that matter may be found. IN CONCLUSION, H. Evan Runner was truly a unique man for the reasons above and a great many more besides. If what I have sug-gested above about these basic biblical themes is cor-rect, then the fact that Runner is unique in the clarity with which he both held, and articu-lated these themes ought to raise a large red flag. If it is true that Runner struggled all his life to convey not only an utterly radical vision of the order of things, but also the radically systematic Christian philosophy of his teachers D. Th. Vollenhoven and Herman Dooyeweerd, then we need to ask why such commitment, energy, and insight has not had a greater impact on either his immediate Reformed com-munity, or the Christian com-munity at large.

Similarly, if we ask, whether the present state of those colleges who call themselves Christian exhibit the sort vision, and the sort of coherent systematic analysis that Runner spent his life call-ing for, then one can only conclude that here too the impact of this comprehen-sive Christian philosophy appears to be minimal. Runner remained until his latter days grieved that there was so little evi-dence of a true “Reforma-t ion of the Sciences”

among those colleges that call themselves Christian, and so much evidence of the perva-sive influence of contemporary naturalistic thinking. Like his teachers before him, Runner was convinced that capitula-tion to the status quo meant that only one conclusion was possible, the inevitable and continuous inability to develop a coherent Christian alterna-tive. Ne i the r Runner, no r Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd were the only thinkers in the twentieth century to come to that conclusion. Indeed, Runner's teachers had not only come to such a conclu-sion some time before him, but again, more importantly, they had demonstrated in a most comprehensive fashion how a truly distinctive alternative to all those positions cited above might be articulated. That this latter legacy remains to a large extent still either unknown, or deliberately ignored, is per-haps the real “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Kerry Hollingsworth moved to the US from Australia to study with Dr. Runner and subsequently taught the History and Philosophy of Science, and the History of Political Philosophy in Canada and the US.

Runner in 1960 with Van Riessen, Rookmaaker and D. de Wit.


occasions he would explain how worldviews, as shaped by one faith or another, determine peo-ple’s deepest convictions about the purpose of life, morality, and everything else that matters. In his address to CLAC’s15th anniversary con-vention in 1967, Dr. Runner expressed his grati-tude and admiration for what had been accom-plished and urged his audience to persevere despite setbacks and opposition. This speech ranks as a classic Christian analysis of mod-ern times and of the beliefs that lie at the root of Canadian and Western culture. It is safe to say that nothing similar had ever been said at a labour union convention in North America. Here were a few hundred working men and women listening with rapt attention to a learned philoso-phy professor who told them that their attempt to raise a Christian voice in the workplace and in society had historic significance. How could this academic connect so effective-ly with such an audience? The answer is that Dr. Runner’s point of departure was the simple (not simple-minded) reality as confessed in the Apostles’ Creed: that God is the sov-ereign Creator of this world; that Christ has come into this world to carry the guilt and bur-den of sin, and to make all things new. But what does all this have to do with the way we work as a carpenter, truck driver, electrician, nurse, labourer, or for that matter, a doctor, lawyer, teacher, politi-cian? In his speech, “Can Canada Tolerate the CLAC?,” Dr. Runner spoke of the bibl i-cal view of life as an enduring battle of the spirits. He highlighted the difference between living in obedient service to God or in defiance of His will as revealed in the Bible. The implica-tion is not that we should start religious wars all over again. Rather, we should strive for insight into the biblical teachings about justice, truth, and goodness. The summary of God’s law, to love God above all and the neighbour as our-selves, is a command that also applies to the way we work and relate to one another in the workplace. Striving to live according to the Christian rule for life does not mean that we Christians have the right to set ourselves up as superior to everyone else. As Dr. Runner warned us, even Christians are unable to lay claim to full and perfect allegiance in God’s service. “We are

divided, we are not whole. Our confidence therefore cannot be in anything in ourselves, but only in the assurance that He Who has begun a good work in us will perfect it at the day of Christ’s appearing.” Dr. Runner saw CLAC’s struggle for full recog-nition as a bona fide labour union as an encour-aging sign that Christians were taking their call-ing seriously. They knew that Christianity is a faith for the marketplace of life. In doing so, they were breaking with a world-shunning, privatized Christianity that fails to address the burning issues of our time. They were also challenging the totalitarian claims of closed shop unions, which demanded that every worker must join them as a condition of employment. What you are doing, Dr. Runner told his audi-ence, is engaging in the battle of the spirits at the core of everyday life, exactly where this should be done. A Christian labour union has the liberating task to free work from drudg-ery because we are called to serve God and

n e i g h b o u r i n o u r work. Further, such a union’s task is not to fight a class war with employers. Instead, it should strive for a new basis of mutual respect between employers and employees so that justice is established in the workplace. That requires a society where real differences are acknowledged and true freedom of religion and of association are safeguarded. This is how Dr Runner summarized his mes-sage: “You have a task of world histori-cal importance to carry out.” In his 1963 conven-

tion speech Dr. Runner had reminded us that in our striving for freedom of association we should remember that God is the one who gives us a place in the economic arena to accomplish the purpose of His Kingdom. He continued; “That is not appealing for our self-maintenance. That’s an attempt to right a disjointed society in the Name of Christ Whose Kingdom is justice and righteousness. It’s an attempt at reformation of a society which has been derailed because of a false belief in the hearts of Western men.” This was a heady message presented to a motley group of Christian workers struggling against tremendous odds to carve out a place in a country where monopolistic and adversarial trade unionism was accepted as normal. Some of these workers had put their job on the line

By HARRY ANTONIDES

H. EVAN RUNNER LEFT AN indel-ible mark on generations of students who took his philosophy courses at Calvin College, where he taught from 1951 until 1981. But less well known is his influence on the Christian Labour Association of Canada, a struggling organiza-tion founded at about the same time as Dr. Runner began his career at Calvin College. What brought the fledgling Canadian labour union and the American college professor together tells a lot about the vision that moti-vated this inspiring and gifted teacher. Dr. Runner was hardly your average American college professor. Instead, his world-view had been shaped by the Bible and a school of Christian philosophy developed in the Netherlands. He was convinced that the Christian faith is not merely one dimension of life (among others) reserved for religion, like a special magazine section devoted to matters of “religion.” For Dr. Runner, God’s Word, revealed in the Scriptures and incarnated in Christ, is the power of God by which everything exists and derives its meaning. This starting point implies that all of life is to be seen as service of God. There is no neutrality, or division between the so-called worldly and spiritual things. As he would say in his characteristically suc-cinct way: “Life is Religion.” Accordingly, every aspect of our existence in the world is to be guided by that singular vision. Of course, such a concept runs counter to the modern mindset with its celebration of human autonomy. It is a vision that is also at odds with the idea (popular within North American evangelicalism) that the Christian faith governs the private sphere of our personal lives, church and family. Outside of that is the broad arena of public life, a kind of neutral territory, where a different set of (world-ly) principles applies. It was difficult to persuade those who had

grown up with a dualistic notion of the Christian faith that a radical, all-inclusive understanding of biblical religion is true. Yet many students were captivated by the spirited teachings of this professor of philosophy. In the meantime, the CLAC had been founded, mostly by immigrants from the Netherlands who had been nurtured in the belief that our daily work and the affairs of a trade union also come within the purview of Christian service. There was an immediate rap-port between the Christian trade unionists and Dr. Runner who saw that this newly founded organization was a real-life application of the worldview he was teaching in his philosophy courses. The first years of the CLAC were difficult, but the work was begun in faith and hope – also in fear and trembling. There was a lot to learn about trade unionism in Canada, and large obstacles to overcome. One of the dif-ficulties was that trade unions in Canada, apart from the Roman Catholic-inspired unions in Quebec, were deemed to be non-religious, neu-tral organizations. Unions, so it was thought, were merely bread and butter organizations to advance the material interests of workers, which had nothing to do with religion and faith. Consequently, the first applications of CLAC locals to the Ontario Labour Relations Board for official recognition were dismissed. The stum-bling block was that references to biblical social principles in the CLAC’s constitution were con-sidered to be discriminatory. This resulted in several years of delay, internal debates and divisions within CLAC. My purpose here is not to get into the details of that controversy, but to explain why the encour-agement and advice we received from Dr. Runner was badly needed and deeply appreci-ated at that time. Most of us were not college educated and did not know much about philoso-phy. Nonetheless, we were immensely helped by Dr. Runner’s consistent encouragement, given at private gatherings and at public meet-ings. He was the keynote speaker at CLAC’s annual conventions in 1963 and 1967. On these

A Man to Remember; a Vision to Cherish

Runner between Vollenhoven and Glenn Andreas.

For Dr. Runner, God’s Word, revealed in the Scriptures and incarnated in Christ, is the power of God by which everything exists and derives its meaning.

by CALVIN SEERVELD

H. EVAN RUNNER stopped breath-ing on March 14, 2002 A.D. Like a patri-arch of our age he was full of years (86) and went to be with his Lord. Many of us remember him with deep gratefulness. Evan Runner was used by God’s Spirit to change our lives. As a graduate of Wheaton College (1932-36) Runner went to Westminster Seminary to study under Cornelius Van Til, who pointed the young Runner to the Netherlands. Runner’s study at Kampen with Klaas Schilder was interrupted by the war years (1939-45); during that time he came to study ancient languages under the famed cultural humanist Werner Jaeger. But the Harvard experience gradually paled, and after receiving a Th.M. from Westminster Seminary Runner went to study under D.H. Th. Vollenhoven in Amsterdam at the Free University. Prof. Vollenhoven, along with his brother-in-law Herman Dooyeweerd, were deep-ening Abraham Kuyper’s legacy of Reformation culture at work in postwar Netherlands into a sturdy christian philosophical systematics and historiography of philosophy. Runner received his Ph.D. for a dissertation under Vollenhoven in the Physics of Aristotle, but was imbued with the excited awareness that the Reformation christian faith was blessed with the grit to per-meate many cultural spheres of life. During my last year as a student of litera-ture and philosophy at Calvin College (1951-52) Runner first joined the philosophy depart-ment there with William Harry Jellema, Henry Stob, and Cecil de Boer. The vibrant teaching and unpredictable asides which happened in Runner’s classes that year were captivating. Runner gave colourful sweep to the history of philosophy and related it to the fact that cre-ation is revelation of God which can be faithfully interpreted or undermined by reflective human response. Runner also took me and my roommate Dewey Hoitenga (who had Runner as Latin high school teacher at Eastern Academy in New Jersey) aside to read Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft in German one night a week in his home, for one semester. The next semester Runner got us to read a Dutch text. He gave students mentoring time. So I followed in Runner’s tracks and went to the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam to study with Vollenhoven and eventually to marry a Dutch-born woman too. Evan Runner went on to a tur-bulent teaching presence at Calvin College and

affected many, many students with the power of a dedicated child of God who wanted to bring christian philosophical wisdom unswervingly into all areas of life. I remember Dr. Runner as a distracted man when he was trying to mow a lawn with a push mower, as a brilliant weaver of cultural historical background when giving an answer to a simple question, as a single minded person when it came to pursuit of the truth, as a bulwark of visionary support in forming the mind of the Christian Labour Association of Canada. Runner’s failings were evident to his oppo-nents, but his vision had a saintly perseverance which the LORD has used many times a hun-dredfold in disseminating the gospel that Jesus Christ alone is the fullness of wisdom and sha-lom. Runner’s students, Bernard Zylstra, Henk Hart, and James Olthuis (whose photos had places of honour in his Grand Rapids study) were the first itinerant professors of the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. Evan Runner belonged to an age when edu-cation happened with students’ handwriting notes and typewriting papers for courses, in a day when professors did not have to publish or perish if they were inspiring teachers. Runner helped me to know what truly counts in aca-demic work: thorough, wide research using vari-ous language sources; looking for an overview that unites specific insights; trusting that the Lord would patiently overlook our weaknesses as we struggled to be faithful servants in schol-arship rather than provocateurs or just minding the store. We who benefited from his life do not need to weep that he is gone to be whole with Jesus. Let us thank God for his life. And may the Holy Spirit refine the work of this gifted man to be a blessing by our carrying on the mission which dominated his life, and do it in winsome, healing ways with a generation which did not know him in person.

Calvin Seerveld, Senior Member in Philosophical Asthetics, emeritus

Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto

A Note of Personal Gratefulness

CR Supplement MARCH 10, 2003 1918 MARCH 10, 2003 CR Supplement

for refusing to pledge allegiance to a union whose constitution and practices they could not endorse. They may not have understood all the details of Dr. Runner’s lengthy speech. But they grasped its central theme not to rely on their own power but on the Lord’s faithfulness and on His blessing of work done in obedience to His Word. Much has changed in the intervening years. It is good for us to look back and honour the memory of Dr. Runner. His prophetic teaching and writings have greatly benefited generations of students and scholars. But as we gratefully reflect on the life’s work of this Christian schol-ar we should recall that he also inspired and encouraged a community of struggling Christian workers and trade unionists in Canada. Dr. Runner taught us in his inimitable and passionate way that our lives in the workaday trenches, too, have meaning beyond wages

and benefits – as important as these are. In speaking a language that non-academic work-ers could understand, he demonstrated how Christian scholars can serve those who know that whatever humble task they perform, they may do it as unto the Lord. It is with deep gratitude to God that we remem-ber and honour this dedicated and gifted teach-er who laboured among us. He helped us see more clearly what it means to be a Christ fol-lower in these tumultuous times of great spiri-tual confusion. May his message given at these gatherings of Christian trade unionists more than three decades ago continue to guide and inspire this and future generations.

Harry Antonides, retired from the Work Reserch Foundation, lives in Toronto

A web page of Dr. Runner’s downloadable writings is in the making. The address is:

www.h.evanrunner.com and www.h.evanrunner.orgLook for it in upcoming months.

B. Zylstra, C. Seerveld, G. Andreas, D.H. Vollenhoven, and H.E. Runner.

Leaders whose ideas shaped Runner’s thinking

Groen Van Prinsterer1801 - 1876

Abraham Kuyper1837 - 1920

Cornelius Van Til1895 - 1987

Klaas Schilder1890 - 1952

Herman Dooyeweerd1894 - 1977

D.H. Th. Vollenhoven1892 - 1978

by HENRY VANDER GOOT

OVER THE LAST several days I’ve reflected on what H.E. Runner meant to me. Three overlapping areas of influence on my life stand out clearly. They are Evan Runner as (1) spiritual model and mentor, Evan Runner as (2) teacher and professor, and Evan Runner as (3) friend. Evan Runner came to us in Grand Rapids, in the Christian Reformed Church, from the conservative Presbyterian wing of American evangelical-ism. He had “tickled the ivo-ries” as a young boy at Billy Sunday rallies. He was edu-cated at Wheaton College. He was ecclesiastically nurtured at Harold Ockenga’s church in Boston. He was educated theologically by J. Gresham Machen and Cornelius Van Til at Westminster Theological Seminary. This was the world from which Evan Runner hailed. It was a world charac-terized by evangelical commit-ment to Jesus Christ. As I think back on what Evan Runner meant to me, I would say this life-long , life-enduring witness of Christ tops the list and actu-ally sums it all up. Evan Runner came to Grand Rapids, to Calvin College, in 1951 as a Christian mission-ary. The Christian Reformed

had never worn Christ on their sleeves. In fact many in the denomination made a big busi-ness out of fighting the funda-mentalists. On the most basic religious level, Evan Runner was a stranger in a foreign land. He came to his own but his own received him not. As a student of his at Calvin College in the mid 60s, I confess to feeling quite cool about Evan Runner’s passionate witness to Christ. It was so obvious in how he prayed (so heart-ily and so spontaneously); in how he played hymns on the piano with such gusto; in how he pursued his vocation as a philosopher/teacher with evan-gelical zeal and fervor. This is the way it was at the beginning in the early years at Calvin College; this is the way it was in the 60s when I met him first between my senior year at Grand Rapids Christian High and my freshman year at Calvin College; this is the way it was at the time of his retire-ment from Calvin in 1981, by which time I had become his colleague; and this is increas-ingly the way it was during his final years on earth as an elder spokesman of the so-called “Reformational” way of thinking. For those of us who lived nearby in Grand Rapids, I believe we witnessed an Evan Runner who gradually spoke

and said less and less, grow-ing increasingly docile and emotional; increasingly thrown back on the everlasting prom-ises of his personal faith in and commitment to Jesus Christ. Peace like a river attended his way. It was no surprise to me that at his wife’s funeral two years ago, we sang a song which I am sure Evan Runner sang frequently in his youth, “Jesus loves me; this I know; for the Bible tells me so.” I sin-cerely believe that this passion for Christ undergirded all of the elaborate philosophical and theological ideas Evan Runner taught us. And this too was the reason why he espoused those ideas as passionately as he did. H. Evan Runner could not separate his philosophy from his personal faith. He was a professor of Christ in his life and in his work. This is also why Evan Runner opted for J. Gresham Machen, John Murray, and Cornelius Van Til, over liberal, UC Presbyterianism. This is, moreover, why he represent-ed throughout his life a quite conservative Christian ortho-doxy theologically, though he had become an accomplished philosopher in his own right. Moreover, though a militant advocate of Christian political action, a separate Christian political party, and a separate

Christian labor movement, Evan Runner voted for Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush; he always looked to Jesus Christ and kept his eye on those who cast their lot with Him without shame. Thus, too, passion for Christ is why Evan Runner became the major North American spokesperson of the Christian philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd and D.H. Th. Vollenhoven. (And this is also why, intra the Amsterdam school, Evan Runner pre-ferred the spiritually pious Vollenhoven to the culturally sophisticated Dooyeweerd.) Evan Runner truly preached Christian philosophy as he taught it. He believed fervently that Christ was not against phi-losophy and that Christ could even be advanced by philoso-phy in the context of the cul-tural complexities of modernity. He had a keen sense of what was required of scholarship in our place and time in history. I believe that the famous Runnerian dictum LIFE IS RELIGION captures best Evan Runner’s own unique contribu-tions to the Amsterdam school of thought. This theme ref lects the evan-gelical foundations of Runner’s worldview. For Evan Runner phi-losophy is not about the true, the good, and the beautiful. It is not about the margin of Christian excellence, or the Christian ver-sion of competence. For Evan Runner it is not about those mag-nificent “moments of truth” embedded in secular and human-ist learning that indi-cate a common cre-ation shared by all, a point of contact, so to speak. To put it in the old-fashioned lingo of the Christian Reformed Church, Runner was not a common grace thinker. Rather, for Runner,

everything in the final analy-sis is about the dynamic spiri-tual push in things towards, or away from, Christ, the center. The spiritual direction in things ultimately determines their meaning. The fact of Christ commitment takes precedence for Runner even on the philo-sophical level. His seminary colleague and friend, Francis Schaeffer, came eventually to “popularize” the Amsterdam school of thought for American evangelicalism. But I believe the unique contribution of Evan Runner to the Amsterdam school of thought is represent-ed best by Runner’s “evan-gelicalization” of it, by the dis-tinctively Runnerian insistence that we and our works are to be spiritually judged by the motive/motivational direction in which they tend rather than by the great structures they unfold. He taught me this and I stand with him on this insis-tence more strongly than ever in my life. It is the enduring legacy of H.Evan Runner for me. Finally, Evan Runner was not only a teacher and spiritual mentor. He was also my friend.

He already was that when I was his student in the mid 60s. He advised and comforted me when my mother died very prematurely, shortly after my college years. But friendship came to characterize our rela-tionship increasingly when I became his colleague at Calvin College in the mid 70s, and even more so after his retire-ment in 1981. For years I vis-ited him weekly at his home on Radcliff. In more recent years after he and his wife entered the Raybrook Manor, and after I left Calvin College for a busi-ness career, I saw him much less. But my regard and love for him increased as he mod-eled spiritual maturity and serenity. When I once asked him how he felt about getting older and approaching death, he said to me, almost in the form of a reprimand, “I am fine with God and there’s nothing to fear.” Though he doubted the enduring significance of his accomplishments as a teacher and Christian philosopher, he never wavered about the fact that his life was hid with God in Christ. That indeed is the truly enduring element in what H.E.

Runner meant to me.

By the sea of crystal, saints in glory stand.Myriads in number, drawn from every land.Robed in white apparel, washed in Jesus’ blood,They now reign in heav-en with the lamb of God.

Henry Vander Goot, Grand Rapids,

Michigan

20 MARCH 10, 2003 CR Supplement CR Supplement February 2003 21

The Runners with Henry Vander Goot at Dr. Runner’s retirement from Calvin College in 1981.

What H.E. Runner meant to me

Unionville conference in 1960.


by CATHY COLLINS

H. EVAN RUNNER had many important roles to fulfill in his lifetime. We have many tributes and articles written about him as teacher, scholar, mentor, philosopher, and modern day reformer. I am very proud of the work my father did. As I read all of the tributes that have been written about him I am more and more impressed by his important role in the lives of so many and in the advancement of God’s Kingdom. I am very humbled and honored by what he has accomplished. However, I have a different agenda today. I want to share about and give tribute to H. Evan Runner, “my dad”. Dad met mom in the Netherlands in April 1947 and they were married on Dec. 16, 1947. Evan W. was born in 1950 and I came along in 1954. My sister Jocelyn was born in 1956. My first memory of my father (in fact, my first memory ever), is sitting at the breakfast table eating Rice Krispies (he liked his with fresh peaches). I said a proper “R” for the first time in my life. I don’t remember how old I was but I was still sitting in the high chair. My next memory is when I was 3 years old. We were mov-ing from Ethel Street to Thomas Street. Mom took all of us kids to the new house to work on getting it ready to move into. There wasn’t a phone yet, and there were work-men building a fence in back. I went next door to play with some neigh-borhood kids and mom

said to come h o m e f o r lunch. I went “ h o m e ” t o Ethel Street, a b o u t 8 blocks. Dad was home. I told him that m o m h a d said to come h o m e f o r lunch so he fixed sandwiches and milk and we ate together. Soon after lunch mom came in upset because I hadn’t come to her at lunchtime and she was terribly frightened. Since she wasn’t able to call she didn’t know I was with dad. One of the workmen figured out where I probably was. As I dwell on memories of dad, I remember that a lot of our family time centered around mealtime. Dad always seemed to be there for breakfast and sup-per and many times even for lunch. He liked to fix break-fast (he made THE BEST soft-boiled eggs on toast on

the planet!) and lunch and he always helped “get the cof-fee or tea”, and we shared our lives over meals. I find it quite appropriate that my first two memories in life include dad and a meal. Dad always helped do the dishes too. My happiest memories of dad with me as a young girl are of going for walks in the park. We would walk hand in hand and he would stop and point out the flowers and the bugs. He would remark about how beautifully blue the sky was or how lovely the green grass was. Birds, squirrels, and chip-munks were all pointed out and appreciated too. Then he would push me on the swings.

I felt like I could touch the sky! I LOVED to go to the park with my dad. Dad loved nature. He found a great inner peace in a bright blue sky, the deep green grass, a gorgeous flower, a sunset or sun-rise, the waters of Lake Michigan lapping on the sand, or the vast midnight sky full of twinkling lights; the wonder of God’s cre-ation. He made me “see” it, feel it, understand it, and love it too. Since my dad’s death I sit on the porch glider we used to sit on together and the beauty of my flowers makes me miss my father so much. When he lived with me

Remembering Dadthe last six months of his life we sat on that glider together as much as we could, hold-ing hands and soaking up God’s creation. Being “Dr. Runner’s kids” wasn’t easy. We had to present ourselves in a cer-tain way. It wasn’t fun but people expected something specific from a professor’s family. That was the role we played to make his life and work easier. We were also expected to perform well in school. If I got a “B” on my report card, dad wanted to know why it wasn’t an “A”. Many times dad’s students shoved us aside and looked down on us as insignificant and “in the way” since they wanted his attention for the “important work” that they were doing for the kingdom. Well, dad didn’t have a lot of time to spend with us because his work was appointed by God and, yes, it was very important. I missed having that time and attention that I wanted from him. Dad, however, did NOT shove us aside as insignificant or in the way. We were VERY important to him, much more than I realized then. We carry his blood in our veins and he cared for us deeply. He didn’t always know how to show it or express it but he loved us and we were his very impor-tant work. When I was 15 years old I went to my mom and told her that I didn’t think dad loved me. She said,” Oh yes, he loves you very much but he doesn’t know how to tell you. If you go to him and tell him that you love him you will see.” I went to dad and said,” Daddy, I love you”. He started to cry and reached for me and hugged me very tight and said, “Oh Cathy, I love you so much too!” It was what we both needed and since then we have both been able to communicate our

love for each other without a problem. Many of the lessons I learned from my father were taught by example. In the early days at Calvin College, (I was very young and impressionable), dad struggled through oppo-sition and suffered from ten-sion headaches. I watched as he kept on going. He did what he felt God called him to do and he did it with great zeal, despite the struggle. I learned that you do what God asks you to do and He gives you the strength and fire to keep going. I learned that books were invaluable and reading opened

up many new avenues of learning and adventure. Part of dad’s life ended when he had to give up most of his books after retirement. Music was an important part of life. Dad always had clas-sical music on in the house. When dad lived with me I played his classical records for him and we sat together to enjoy them. I learned that people were important. My father could sit next to any-one and make conversation. He was interested in drawing them out. He always asked about their names, of what national origin they were, and about themselves. He was truly interested in peo-ple from all walks of life. He

did not look down on people but was gracious and polite. He was very much a gentle-man. He could disagree with you and you would never know it. Dad was sensitive in nature. If someone were hurt he would be upset. He wanted peace. When he heard a testimony of a non-Christian whose life was turned around and had accept-ed the Lord, dad was moved to tears. He was deeply troubled by ungodliness. When the grandchildren were born, dad took on another role. He became Grandpa! My daughter, Kristi, was the first grandchild. Mom and dad

24 MARCH 10, 2003 CR Supplement

came over often and helped with Kristi who had colic the first three months of her life. Dad was the only one who could get her to burp and hold her in a way that made her comfortable and keep her from crying. This brought about dad telling me that one of his most treasured memories was holding me and walking back and forth in the night with me on his shoulder when I was a baby and I had colic. He did the same with Kristi. He taught Kristi her first word “kijk” which is Dutch for “look”. He point-ed things out for her to look at; then he would say, “kijk, Kristi, kijk”. Dad and mom had nine grandchildren in all; Kristi Michelle, Angela Renee, Kellie Nicole, Steven James, Phillip Evan, Jeremy Daniel, Michael Jay, Anthony Robert, and Jacob Scott. They had three great-grandchildren, Elisabeth Jocelyn, Skylar Brei, and Legacy Elisabeth. Dad loved all of the babies and he felt a real sense of needing to bring each of them to a realization of who God is and that they need Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Two incidents towards the end of dad’s life affected me like no other has. First, when my mom was near death she had several times of severe confusion. I had vaca-tion so I spent several nights

at their condo to help. One night at 3:00 a.m. dad woke me up to say he couldn’t find mom. We realized that she wasn’t in the condo and as I walked out into the hall to look for her my dad immediate-

ly clasped his hands together and bent his head and said, “ Dear God, please help me find my wife.” I was SO impressed by that! The prayer was his first thought; not the last one after he had done everything else he could do and all that was left to do was pray. It was the FIRST! I will never forget that, and we should all learn a lesson from him. A nurse soon brought my mom back home. The sec-ond was also when my mom

was dying. During the last few days of mom’s life, she was bed ridden and she did NOT want dad to leave her. Dad spent two days straight in bed holding his wife. He only got up to eat and use the bath-room. In fact at one point I fed him bites of a sandwich so he didn’t have to get up because he refused to leave her. I love and respect my dad for that. What a witness he was to me. On September 16, 2001 dad came to my house to live. My husband, Ralph, and I decided that I would stay home and take care of dad. He had just been diagnosed with termi-nal lymphoma and the doc-tors guessed that he had two weeks to two months to live. My dad had dementia and was slowly losing his ability to remember and think. His world was closing in around him and unless he was with someone he had known for years, he was (in his mind) with strang-ers. He didn’t remember any-one being there to visit after just a few minutes, so he

always felt alone. We wanted to make him totally comfortable in his last days. Jocelyn and her husband, Scott, and Evan and his wife, Mary helped a great deal by taking dad for the day or just a meal, and visiting with him at home. Grandchil-dren came to help out or just visit often. Together we took care of dad as a family. Kerry Hollings-worth stayed with dad many Tuesday evenings so Ralph and I could go out for a bite to eat together. Dad could no longer be left alone. As dif-ficult as those last days were in some ways, I will always treasure the time I had with my father. It was a gift from God for me, because I finally got to spend the time with him that I had always longed for when I was young. We spent hours sitting side by side, holding

hands and saying, “I love you”. If we weren’t sitting outdoors on the glider we were sitting on the couch in the living room where he could look out of the big picture window and see the trees, the flowers, and the sky. On March 10, 2002 we had to get him a hospital bed and give him pain medication. We put the hospital bed in the liv-ing room in front of the picture window. Dad was conscious until just a few hours before he died on March 14, 2002. My daughter Kristi and her two girls were there and dad kissed them all goodbye. Kerry and Marcia Hollings-worth had stopped to say goodbye and Marcia led us all in singing many of dad’s favorite hymns as he faded. The presence of God was wonderfully close! Evan and Mary, Jocelyn, and

Ralph and I were all with him, holding his hands and three of the grandchildren, Angela, Michael, and Phillip, were also there when he passed into glory. A great man of faith had just received his reward. My father was a real person. He was not perfect. My pur-pose is not to glorify him but to share the stories and give tribute to him and the things that he taught me. He was a very humble man and would shy away from any glory given to him. He never understood the tremendous impact that he left on the world, his students, or his family. He is greatly missed.

by HARRY VAN DYKE

AS I MEDITATE ON what Dr. Runner has meant in my life and career, my thoughts are drawn to a num-ber of Bible texts that capture the gist and quintessence of what he taught us.

(1) “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof.” These words from Psalm 24 mark a central theme in Dr. Runner’s ministry among us. Over and over again, in many keys and melodies and with many examples, he empha-sized the all-encompassing scope of God’s dealings with humankind —first of all in cre-ation, and no less in the work of redemption. Jesus saves souls, halleluiah; yes, and He saves human relationships, human society, the world, the cosmos! Christ is lord over

every aspect of created reality and lays claim to all of it. No one who heard Runner could mistake the breadth of his message.

(2) A favourite scripture of our teacher was the verse in Psalm 86: “Unite my heart to fear Thy Name.” This was per-haps the keynote of all of Dr. Runner’s classroom instruc-tion, his guidance of the Groen Club, and his public address-es in Grand Rapids, soon in Edmonton, Sarnia, Toronto, and finally at Unionville and Bolton. His mind, heart and soul was attuned to the antith-esis in human life, to the ceaseless struggle between obedience to God and rebel-lion against Him. The civic good performed by unbeliev-ers was for him a gracious providence of God, a token that He had not abandoned

His word to sinful destruction. Runner never tired of explain-ing that common grace, the prolongation of an orderly world, made antithetical liv-ing possible and manda-tory. He was trained under Machen, Van Til, Schilder and Vollenhoven, and as a grad-uate student he studied the early Church Fathers, the New England Puritans, Scottish Realism and, as an antidote, Dutch neo-Calvinism. This preparation for his life’s work inoculated him, as it were, against “halfness” and com-promise. It made him utterly averse to any talk of accom-modation and adjustment. When he was hired to teach philosophy at Calvin College and sat down with a senior member of the Department, he held forth with great enthu-siasm and conviction how philosophy ought NOT to be

Remembering a Teacher, Mentor and Friend

CR Supplement MARCH 10, 2003 25

taught at a Christian college. This amounted to indirect criticism of the whole approach then current at the college, and the older man took it very ill of the novice. Long before it became common currency, Runner preached the duty to work at integral Christian scholarship. That is not a question, he explained, of bringing together, somehow, the learned scholar and the Christian gentleman. Rather, it is the single-minded and whole-hearted endeavour of the person to think like a Christian from the word go. It is the holy task of grappling from the out-set with the fundamental issues and concepts and methodologies of an academic discipline. It is the calling of men and women who have been turned around in the pivot of their being and who are ready to drop vain imaginations, to surrender every thought captive to the obedi-ence of Christ.

(3) Evan Runner studied at Wheaton, Westminster and Harvard. But he also spent close to four years in Kampen and Amsterdam. And from his observation of Reformed life in the Netherlands, as it had been shaped by Groen van Prinsterer and Abraham Kuyper, young Runner came to the conclusion that the fol-lowing biblical injunction was acutely relevant in the modern world: “Come out from among them, and be ye separate” (2 Cor. 6:17). It grieved him deeply that so many are indifferent to Revelation or oppose its voice in the public arena of North American society. For Christians to engage culture and participate in the life of their nation, he became convinced, they need to act as the Body of Christ and consort together in their own separate organizations. Only here can the Bible, and not the wisdom of man, be the first and foremost source of inspira-tion and the authoritative compass. Only here can involved Christians sharpen each other’s insights and build each other up. Only here can man-made ideologies be unmasked as unsafe guides and false prophecy. Of course everybody agrees that organizing separately holds for the church, and maybe also for the school. But Runner hammered it into us that this vital strategy holds also for the univer-sity, the world of labour relations, the media and similar socio-cultural zones. Only in this way, he insisted, can Christ’s Body share its undiluted testimony with a lost and needy world, on an equal footing, in a directly relevant way, appro-priate to the life zone in question.

(4) The POWER of the Word of God! Those of us who were privileged to study under him can still hear him say it. The powerful, living

word of God —the one word that comes to us in Creation, more clearly in Scripture, and supremely in Christ—takes hold of our heart, our whole being, with a single, powerful thrust, and sets us in the right direction. “The Word of God is full of living power.” “He upholds all things by the word of His power.” These texts from Hebrews found a strong echo in Runner’s speech. And he did not for-get to apply this dynamic principle to intel-lectual pursuits. The young hearts of budding scholars leaped with joyful anticipation as they heard their professor say over and over again: “The Bible orders our thinking!” And then he would demonstrate, using Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd, how this made all the difference in the history and the questions of philosophy, and many other disciplines besides. Except for number 4, these clusters of ideas were not new to me. I had been thoroughly catechized in these truths long before I went off to college. But Dr. Runner gave me the words. He helped me to articulate this vision, to realize its wider application, to apply it to the world of academic study, and to keep my bearings as a follower of Christ. I shall ever be grateful for the blessing he was in my life.

Harry Van DykeRedeemer University College

30 September 2002


by JUSTIN COOPER

Redeemer University College and its stu-dents have been given a very wonder-ful gift. The Runner Chair in philosophy

has been given $1,500,000 by an anonymous donor whose intention is to enable Redeemer to honour the memory of the late Christian phi-losopher, H. Evan Runner, by establishing a faculty position whose holder will work in and carry forward the tradition of Christian philoso-phizing in the line of Augustine, Calvin, Kuyper, Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven that Runner taught to several generations of students in a faithful and fruitful career at Calvin College. The holder of the Chair will be expected to have a strong record of research and publica-tions that give evidence of a thorough under-standing of and ability to represent well this Reformed tradition of philosophy which Runner so eloquently and passionately presented. The Chair holder will also be someone who has the facility to communicate well to students, to fellow academics and to the wider Christian community. Redeemer hopes to be in a position to announce the first appointment to this Chair sometime later this spring. The occupant will join a faculty, many of whom are familiar with the name, Evan Runner. At least four current faculty members–Hugh Cook, Theo Plantinga, Harry Van Dyke and Al Wolters– were students of Runner at Calvin and were shaped and inspired by his teaching. Several others– Justin Cooper, Jacob Ellens and Thea VanTil Rusthoven–were taught by Calvin Seerveld, another student of Runner. David Koyzis, as well as Cooper, was a student of Bernard Zylstra, yet another of Runner’s stu-dents. These faculty members at Redeemer are among a whole coterie of pastors, teachers and Christian leaders in Ontario and Canada who passed through his classes and were captured by the Biblical vision of Christ’s all-encompass-ing Kingdom which he preached in academic terms. A number of other faculty members at Redeemer who have worked directly in the tradition of Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven are familiar with his writings and the vision he worked to promote and further. It is this vision which is Runner’s legacy, a vision that he discovered in his studies in the Netherlands, that Dutch Reformed immigrants brought to Canada, and on which Redeemer University College has been founded and given

a mission to further and develop. When Runner spoke of the relation of the Bible to learning, it was the power of this message of the all-encompassing scope of Christ’s redemptive work to reclaim God’s fallen creation to Himself which permeated his account, inspiring stu-dents to move out and explore various realms of created reality, eschewing false dualisms and seeking an integrally Biblical understanding. Since it is dedicated to teaching and scholar-ship in this tradition, Redeemer will make a congenial home for the Runner Chair, with its focus on opening up to undergraduate students the vision Runner sought to promote. Students at Redeemer can expect the Chair holder to teach up to four courses a year, including intro-ductory philosophy courses, as well as upper level courses among which will be a course in Reformed philosophy. As Runner sought to translate and make clear the big picture while dealing with technical issues in philosophy, so this professor will also be expected to be a gift-ed communicator who can pass on the vision to a new generation of Christian leaders. At the same time, this person will also be a scholar who will be given time for research, writing, speaking and publishing, so that the importance of a Reformed Christian world view can also be shared in fora outside of the class-room and outside of Redeemer. Part of the task of the Chair holder will be to demonstrate the academic cogency of this position through arti-cles and conference presentations, as well as popular speeches to the Christian community. This too is part of Runner’s legacy and must be carried on. In a number of respects, the work of the Runner Chair holder will dovetail with that of the Dooyeweerd Centre for Christian Philosophy at Redeemer. The Centre is cur-rently concentrating on translating the complete works of Herman Dooyeweerd into English. Dooyeweerd’s work is a principal source of the inspiration for Dr. Runner, although he also owed much to Vollenhoven. At the same time, the Centre is also interested in promot-ing undergraduate courses which apply and develop Dooyeweerd’s philosophy, as well as fostering ongoing Christian scholarship which benefits from and interacts with his insights. Hence there are fruitful points of convergence that could develop between the Centre and the professor who holds the Runner Chair. All in all, this is a tremendous prospect for the faculty and students, as well as the supporters, of Redeemer University College. The idea of Christ’s lordship over all of life and culture is not new for most of us. What will be new is some-one with a fresh passion and vision who can lend this vision new energy and currency in our day, carrying on the legacy of H. Evan Runner into a new era.

Dr. Cooper is president of Redeemer.

Former student endows Redeemer’sH. Evan Runner Chair

CR Supplement MARCH 10, 2003 29

Dr. Runner was a great blessing for many people and for many institutions.

He was an enduring model of Christian piety and prophecy. He was a bril-

liant teacher and scholar. He was a remarkable mentor and counselor. He

electrified audiences with his erudition, wit, and charm. He galvanized individuals

with his passion, power, and patience. He shaped institutions with his charisma,

ken, and contagious enthusiasm. He has left an indelible mark on many bodies of

scholarship, and has shaped two generations of students who are now continuing in

his tradition – and struggling to keep up with the high standards that he set.

Your father shaped me as a Christian scholar more than anyone else in my life. I

sat at his feet for four years as a student at Calvin College from 1977-1981 and

served as his research and teaching assistant. Thereafter, he tutored me voluntarily

for a year in the history of Western legal philosophy – and we read together all the

legal classics from Homer to Hegel, which he insisted we critique with the best tools

available from the Reformed tradition. He sent me off to Harvard Law School, and

remained in close contact with me for the three years I was there. He was simply

delighted that I entered the teaching profession upon graduation from law school,

and remained for the next fifteen years an avid correspondent and generous

reader of my writings. I have a large box full of warm and encouraging letters from

him that I shall savor deeply for the rest of my life.

With your father’s passing, the world has lost a great and noble man, and heaven

has gained a lovely and learned saint. I, for one, shall cherish his memory and leg-

acy. I hope that you will take comfort that he is now reunited happily with your moth-

er, and will take pride in the extraordinary care that you furnished him in his twilight.

John Witte, Jr., Emory University

I am writing to express my condolences and the condolences of the whole

Prison Fellowship family over the death of my dear friend and your beloved

father, Dr. H. Evan Runner. I got to know your dad during one of my very first trips to West Michigan. He was

kind enough to give me the foreword he had written to a book on the life of Abraham

Kuyper. It was at a time in my own personal spiritual journey when I was just form-

ing my own theological convictions – and as it happened, it was exactly the book I

needed to read. I became a disciple of Kuyper. You probably already know this from

my writings and particularly from the book I co-authored with Nancy Pearcy, How

Now Shall We Live? Introducing me to Kuyper, which has significantly shaped my ministry, was only one

of the many things your dad did in my life. Whenever I would be in West Michigan,

Dr. Runner would be in the audience and frequently greet me personally afterwards.

In fact, I always looked forward to seeing him because of his wonderful, boundless

spirit and warm smile. Somehow I knew that he was always there praying and cheer-

ing me on. On my last trip to Grand Rapids, I did not see him, missed him in fact; it’s

now clear to me why he wasn’t in the crowd. Evan Runner was a scholar and teacher of the first rank. He was a much respected

member of the Calvin and West Michigan community. But to me, he was more than

that; he was a very dear friend whose graciousness to me had a great impact on my

life. I shall always be indebted to him for introducing me to Kuyper. I know how tough it is to lose one’s dad; I lost mine while I was in prison and this

remains one of the most difficult experiences of my life. In your case however, I’m

sure you can rejoice that he lived such a full and rich life, that he has left such a great

legacy through his family and his writings, and that he has now found peace, and is

happily rejoined with your dear mother, Ellen. We will miss him, but we can be grateful that he kept the faith, fought the good fight,

and finished the course with honor.Charles W. Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries

Letters of condolenceIN THE MID-SEVENTIES H. Evan Runner and his wife, Ellen, undertook the momentous task of translating from Dutch into English the 2000 page classic by S.G. De Graaf which became known as Promise and Deliverance. Why would a man of Runner’s stature stoop to do the somewhat lowly and technical work of a translation? Runner’s heart reached out to fellow Christians around the globe. In the introduction to De Graaf’s book he writes: “Much has been written and said about the renewed interest in Christianity evi-dent everywhere today, especially among young people. In many areas of the world, the issue comes down to choosing between Marx and Christ. Especially in Latin America, evangelicals who are frustrated by the failure of Christians to act out of faith toy with the idea of a compro-mise between Marx and Christ.” Runner, who corresponded with students around the globe, realized that few books in the Dutch language would ever be translated into Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and so forth. “I am grateful to God,” Evan wrote, “that De Graaf’s Promise and Deliverance is now being presented to a worldwide reading public.” Runner lived to see P & D translated into Spanish, and during his lifetime, transla-tions were begun into Japanese and Korean. It warmed his heart that Christianity presented as a “robust and earthy religion” would now make its way to the countries he once longed to serve as a missionary. “Wherever men long for righteousness and peace,” Evan wrote in the introduction, “wherever they hunger and thirst after Christ, it is absolutely imperative that they be directed to both the heart and full range of the Good News of God’s covenant with man on earth. That covenant embraces all possible earthly relationships – family, marriage, educa-tion, economic life (work), politics, arts, commu-nications, worship. “De Graaf’s theocentric preaching, which wit-nessed to God’s sovereignty over the entire life of His people, gripped the heart of his hearers in his day. The same emphasis, as it comes through in Promise and Deliverance, should be a matter of paramount interest and concern today to evangelicals who are manifesting a growing social awareness and seeking more and more points of contact between Christian beliefs and daily life.” Evan Runner never lost sight of his roots. After he came into possession of that great treasure buried in that field, that treasure which Van Til, Schilder, Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd helped him to embrace and make his own, his heart never ceased to reach out to the evangelical community where he first came in contact with

the wonder of God’s revelation. Listen how his heart reaches out to them: “Much of the lit-erature that circulates in evangelical circles is concerned with limited topics, such as angels, demonology, the return of the Jews to Palestine as a fulfillment of prophecy, or with the gifts of the Spirit, or with particular Bible books. Useful as such study may be, in the final analysis they make little sense to minds that have not yet grasped the divinely established order of things and the basic covenant relationship to God in terms of which this order is to be under-stood. Moreover, all evangelical literature limits itself to a concern for salvation of lost sinners – which concern is proper and necessary in its place – while failing to penetrate behind the drama of fall and redemption to the order of cre-ation and the covenantal character of religion, which alone makes evangelicalism meaning-ful. It almost seems that we have forgotten the significance of the revelation of God that God is the Creator. “It gradually became clear to the Christian community that Biblical revelation is not just revelation about specific theological topics. The Word of God illumines and enlightens us; it sets our lives in the light of the truth. Scripture discloses the ultimate horizon of our personal and communal lives; it makes us aware that life is religion, that religion is not just one aspect or dimension of our lives.” —John Hultink

Runner’s global outreach

28 MARCH 10, 2003 CR Supplement

CR Supplement MARCH 10, 2003 31 30 MARCH 10, 2003 CR Supplement

1961, Delivers the Unionville lectures, Scriptural Religion and Political Task, which are also pub-lished through the assistance of Glen Andreas.

1962, Writes the article, The ARSS and its Reorganization, for the Calvinist Contact Magazine.

1965, Writes the significant essay, Place and Task of an Institute of Reformed Scientific Studies.

1967, Writes and delivers the stirring address, Can Canada Tolerate the CLAC?, April 29, on the occa-sion of the Fifteenth Anniversary Convention of the Christian Labor Association of Canada.

1967, October 7. Delivers the keynote address, Point Counter Point, on the occasion of the opening of the Institute For Christian Studies.

1968, Writes and delivers, Christianity and Humanism, for the annual meeting of the Christian Freedom Foundation.

1969, Writes a never to be completed manuscript for theTrinity Invitational Meetings, Introduction to the Encyclopedia of the Sciences.

1972, Delivers the lecture, The Radical Christian Facing Today's Political Malaise, for the student group, Students for Political Education through Christian Thought and Renewing Action, on Oct. 26.

1973, Sensing the less than whole-hearted sup-port from some faculty members at the Institute for Christian Studies, Runner declines an appointment and remains at Calvin College until his retirement. He does, however, for some years travel to Toronto to teach on a bi-weekly basis during the academic year.

1976, Writes the invited article for Calvin College's Chimes Magazine, Some Observations on the Condition of Calvin College at the Celebration of its Centenial.

1977-1996, Runner became a very proud and devot-ed grandfather, beginning with his oldest daughter Cathy who produced two grandchildren, then Joselyn with five, and Evan Jr. with twins.

1977, Runner, along with his wife Ellen, embarks upon a major translation project, the 4 volume work

of S.G. De Graaf, Promise and Deliverance, in an attempt to provide the sort of material that can radi-cally change the religious heart direction of the body of Christ and hence truly ground the development of a fundamental Christian philosophical insight into the order of Creation.

1977, Writes an article for The Banner, April 22, entitled, Dooyeweerd's Passing: An Appreciation. Christianity Today declined to publish the article inti-mating that it had little interest to its readers.

1979, On the occasion of his 60th birthday Runner is presented with a collection of essays entitled, Hearing and Doing, in which he contributes a reflective commentary on his own development.

1979, Delivers a major speech in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, entitled, On Being Anti-Revolutionary and Christian-Historical at the Cutting Edge of History, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of The Anti-Revolutionary Party, April 3.

1981, In May, Runner officially retires from Calvin College as Professor of Philosophy. He is presented with a book of essays from former students entitled, Life Is Religion.

1982, Delivers a major speech for the Second International Symposium sponsored by the Association for Calvinistic Philosophy in the Netherlands on August 23 entitled, The Christian Philosophical Enterprise in the Light of Biblical Prophecy.

1983, Writes Christendom In Crisis, for Christian Renewal.

1984, Writes three articles for Christian Renewal on contemporary Church Life.

1984, Writes an introduction to McKendree Langley's book, The Practice of Political Spirituality.

2000, Ellen, Runners' wife of 52 years dies on October 13.

2002, After a two year bout with cancer H.Evan Runner goes to be with his Lord on March 14.

Compiled by KERRY HOLLINGSWORTH

1916, Born 28th January, the only child of Howard and Sarah Watterson- Runner in Oxford, Pennsylvania.

1932, Graduates with Honors from West Philadelphia High School. He writes a section of the Commence-ment program.

1935, Studied Classical Greek and Philosophy for a year at the University of Pennsylvania. He took copious notes in Philosophy and began to dabble in Syriac.

1936, Graduates with Honors in Philosophy from Wheaton College. He earns an A for a paper on, Plato's Concept of Ideas.

1936 - 1941, Attends Westminster Theological Seminary where he earns a Bachelor's degree in Theology. It is here that he sits under the teaching of Cornelius Van Til, Ned Stonehouse, and Edward Young. Van Til begins to direct Runner's interest in the influence of Greek thought on a number of the second and third century Theological controversies.

1939, Runner travels to Kampen to study Theology for a year with Klaas Schilder. The outbreak of the War forces him to return after only six months.

1941 - 1943, On the 12th of March he receives an invitation to become a Junior Fellow of Harvard University, a very prestigious position. It is during this period that he becomes an assistant to Prof. Werner Jaeger, at the time, one of the world's lead-ing Classical Scholars. He maintains a lively and cordial relation with Jaeger right up until his depar-ture to the Netherlands in the Fall of 1946. It is under Jaeger's guidance that Runner's longtime interest in Greek Thought is brought to focus on the influence of Classical Greek Philosophy on the writings of the Early Church Fathers.

1941 - 1949, Publishes seven review articles includ-ing books by Dooyeweerd, Etienne Gilson, and Mels Ferre. The latter review precipitates a meeting and a numbers of cordial letters from Ferre.

1945, Runner is awarded a Masters degree in Theology from Westminster Theological Seminary.

1946, In the Fall Runner leaves for the Free University of Amsterdam to work in the Philosophy Department as a candidate for the Ph.D. degree. His intention is, “to make the history of Greek and Roman philosophy my primary subject.” He subse-quently goes on to write a dissertation on Aristotle.

1947, In early February Runner meets Elisabeth Wichers and they are married later in December.

1948, Runner is invited to become a board mem-ber of The Christian University Association of America.

1950, The Runners' first child Evan Jr. is born on May 17.

1951, Defends his Ph.D. thesis on the topic, The Development of Aristotle Illustrated from the Earliest Books of the Physics.

1951, Begins in the Fall semester teaching Philosophy at Calvin College.

1953, With the public address, Rudder Hard Over, on the 3rd of February there were inaugurated a number of very significant beginnings; first, the Calvinistic Culture Association, second, a fire-storm of controversy over his remarks, and, later in the Fall, The Groen Van Prinsterer Society.

1953, Delivers the controversial paper, The Christian and the World: An Historical Introduction to a Christian Theory of Culture, to the Faculty Board Conference of Calvin College at the beginning of the Fall semester.

1953, Also in the beginning of the Fall semester he delivers another Public lecture entitled, Cui Bono, To What End Men's Societies?

1954, The Runners' first daughter Cathy is born on October 3.

1954, Writes a substantial polemical article in Torch and Trumpet entitled, Christian Witness Requires Christian Organization.

1956, The Runners' second daughter Joselyn is born September 6.

1956, As the Centennial celebration of the Christian Reformed Church approaches Runner delivers a public address entitled, Year of Decision: One Faith or Two?

1957, Delivers a major essay entitled, The Development of Calvinism in North America on the Background of Its Development in Europe, to the Calvinistic Action Association in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

1958, Writes a review of Dooyeweerd's, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, for the Westminster Theological Journal.

1959 - 1960, Delivers the Unionville Lectures, The Relation of the Bible to Learning, which are sub-sequently published through the financial help of his close Wheaton College friend Glenn Andreas.

Significant dates in the life of H. Evan Runner

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