1. Every Thought Captive by Richard Pratt, Jr.
2. The Battle Belongs to the Lord by K. Scott Oliphint
3. Always Ready by Greg Bahnsen
4. Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin (especially Book I – you’ll have to listen to the discussion to hear why this is on the list)
5. Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended by Greg Bahnsen
6. Van Til’s Apologetic by Greg Bahnsen (contains large portions of Van Til’s writings)
7. Christian Apologetics by Cornelius Van Til annotated by William Edgar
8. The Defense of the Faith, 3rd edition by Cornelius Van Til annotated by K. Scott Oliphint
9. A Christian Theory of Knowledge by Cornelius Van Til
10. Survey of Christian Epistemology by Cornelius Van Til
11. Common Grace and the Gospel by Cornelius Van Til
12. Introduction to Systematic Theology by Cornelius Van Til annotated by William Edgar

Therefore, when we speak of God as an absolute personality, we mean that God is a person who is neither dependent upon nor derivative of any other person or thing.  He is a se and exists entirely self-sufficiently without need of any external reference or relationship.  As such, God is absolute.  As with God’s other essential attributes, this absoluteness extends to his personality since it is entirely self-sufficient, underived and without reference to any other personality.  God’s personality is the perfect embodiment of personality.  His self-consciousness and essence are coterminous.

This means that the world is intensely personal.  Van Til sought to explore the implications of this insight by applying it to epistemology.  Interestingly, various strands of philosophy have picked up on this same notion.  Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison saw absolute personality as a necessary precondition for a viable epistemology.  Working in the milieu of early 20th British absolute idealism, Pringle-Pattison moved the systems of F. H. Bradley and Bernard Bosanquet toward a personal solution.  Though it may be considered an improvement of sorts, Van Til pointed out the failures of Pringle-Pattison’s system.

For Van Til, nothing less than the absolute, personal and Trinitarian God of the Bible can provide the foundation for epistemology.  This is a driving factor behind Van Til’s discussion of God as a person in his unity – not simply in his diversity (i.e. the one person/three person discussion).  Working with the Trinitarian formulations of Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge and Herman Bavinck, Van Til sought to show how only an orthodox Trinitarian doctrine of perichoresis (mutual indwelling, interpenetration, coinherence of the Father, Son and Spirit) could provide the “solution” to philosophy’s epistemological questions.