Clark's Thought

After some criticism from a friend, on my previous post of Clark and Van Til, I repost this article on Dr. Gordon Clark to be more balanced (i.e. less VanTillian). This is a repost from my Clark blog (here).

I would like to just highlight a few of the important features of Dr. Gordon Haddon Clark's system of thought. For a more complete introduction to Dr. Clark's thought see Gary W. Crampton's, Trinity Review, entitled, Scripturalism: A Christian Worldview (here)

Epistemology

Dr. Gordon Clark first would start with epistemology. Since before there can be talk of objects there must be established a system that can bring together subjects and objects. There must be an epistemic axiom, a starting point, that makes knowledge possible. Dr. Clark would argue that knowledge is possible, not by sensation or reason but, by divine propositional revelation. 

 Significantly, contrary to what Empiricism maintains, sensations can never convey or organize information that has truth-value. Nor can knowledge come from the senses in virtue of the ontology, ambiguity, unreliability, and relativity of sensations. Yet God created all mankind with innate propositional knowledge. However, this knowledge can only come to man's mind by Jesus Christ, the Divine Logos, revealing the propositional Word of God. 

As the Lord Jesus Christ, the Divine Logos, reveals the propositional Word of God to our minds we come to know the only axiom that can furnish us knowledge is the Bible alone, God's very thoughts and words for man. By the same token, we know the biblical axiom's deduced propositions entail consistency, coherence and richness to provide a system of thought that can account for Religion, Knowledge, Science, History, Politics, and Ethics.     

Metaphysics

It is disputed among Clarkian scholars if Clark was an Absolute Idealist. Dr. Robert Reymond and Dr. Ronald Nash both thought this. Dr. Reymond writes,

"Quoting Acts 17:28, “In him we live, and move, and have our being,” Clark affirms that “the New Testament is clear: we live and move and have our being in God’s mind,” and he then draws the conclusion that “our existence in the mind of God puts us in contact with the ideas in the mind of God.” Quoting 1 Corinthians 2:16 and Philippians 2:5, Clark asserts that these verses mean that “our mind and Christ’s mind overlap or have a common area or coincide in certain propositions” (ibid., p. 406–407). This obviously means for Clark that our thoughts, indeed, our very existence, are real only in the sense that God is thinking us and our thoughts. But this is a form of absolute idealism."(1)

I tend to be more charitable of Clark and view his thought in the tradition of St. Augustine who gleaned from the insights of Plato. So in my interpretation of Clark's metaphysics he is a realist.  There is an objective world independent of human minds. However, God is the creator, sustainer, and goal of all things. And thus God's mind is the standard and power that sustains and relates human minds and the world together. Therefore, there is a distinction between the Creator and creation. 

In Clark's view, God determines all things. By God's decree man was created in the very image of God. Whereby God communicated to man the same quality of rationality. Such that God and man think the same thoughts. Moreover, God's knowledge is exhaustive while man's knowledge is limited and dependent upon divine revelation. 

Some have suggested Clark brings God down to man's level since there is no significant creator/creature distinction. But quite the opposite, the distinction between the Creator and creature lies in the very designation of the 'Creator' and 'creature.' The former is the originator, the latter is not. More can be cited but I find it unnecessary here.  

Ethics

Dr. Clark held to a divine command theory of ethics. So he emphasized God's sovereignty over any moral intuitions man may have; and he grounded objective moral values in God's will and decree. Since divine simplicity tells us that God wills His own existence, and character. We conclude then, God also wills what commandments man ought to obey. But not being himself bound by the commandments He establishes for man. 

For Dr. Clark there is no such thing as free-will, man is accountable simply by the fact that God is the highest authority, who has established obligations to man, that will hold man responsible for disobedience. As Dr. Clark writes 

“God is neither responsible nor sinful, even though He is the only ultimate cause of everything. He is not sinful because in the first place whatever God does is just and right. It is just and right simply in virtue of the fact that He does it. Justice or righteousness is not a standard external to God to which God is obligated to submit. Righteousness is what God does…God’s causing a man to sin is not sin. There is no law, superior to God, which forbids Him to decree sinful acts. Sin presupposes a law, for sin is lawlessness. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. But God is “Ex-lex.” (2)

---------------------

(1) Robert Reymond. The Justification of Knowledge. p.72.

(2) Gordon H. Clark. Christian Philosophy, vol 4. Unicoi: Trinity Foundation, 2004. p. 269.
See also Sean Gerety's recent post, God is Not Responsible For Sin. 

How to Answer the Fool: A Presuppositional Defense Of The Faith

Sye wanted a review that made criticisms of the DVD so here is my feeble attempt to do just that.

Everyone can use a reminder of something important. And everyone can be taught more than he/she knows. Sye Ten Bruggencate has done a synthesis of both reminding Christians Christ is the ultimate source and treasure of knowledge plus wisdom; and it is this teaching that must be central in apologetics.

I do not want to rehearse the material in the DVD here, but I strongly recommend every church and Christian get a copy. It effectively answers both the "why" and "how" presuppositional apologetics should be done in a down to earth level. Buy it HERE  

Constructive Criticism 

1. Sye's questions that he asks unbelievers could be developed to interact with contemporary religious epistemology (RE). Sye portrays justification of beliefs as though they always lead to an infinite regress. This may not be the case if we acknowledge one can aquire a properly basic belief by a reliable belief forming process or mechanism which may be unknown to the person that acquired the belief. Sye seems to make justification of beliefs internal to the believer in such a way he/she must be able to identify the reasons that justify his belief, whereas one could argue the believer gains a properly basic belief by a reliable belief forming process or mechanism which may be unknown in some way to the believer. For example, percisely how does God regenerate a person? He changes him, right? But by what process? Honestly we have to say its a mystery. What's the point? The unbeliever can take up a form of RE that may not be so easy to defeat.

2. Rene Decartes pointed out that if a person deceives us once it leaves us in doubt of if the person can be trusted. The same goes with our 5 senses. If they have deceived us once, how can we trust them to give us truth? Sye argues Christians possess certain knowledge from God. This entails Christians have infallible knowledge. But how can Christians have infallible knowledge from God by fallible means via the 5 senses? Sye overcomes this problem, though I don't think successfully, by arguing God can use fallible means to bring about infallible results. But logically how can this be? In my judgment, the concept of infallible cannot be mixed with the fallible. Why? What do these concepts state? Infallible means "always without error" or consistently 'error-free.' Fallible means always with error or consistently 'error-prone.'  So what follows logically then is one cannot get infallible knowledge from a fallible means. Unless of course God makes one's 5 senses infallible. But this seems logically incredible. That would be like saying God created a person with a beginning but then chose to create the person with no beginning. God created humans with the capacity to error but then overcame that capacity and made them from beginning to end without the capacity to error. This would have to be the case because infallibility requires from beginning to end no room for error. Thus mere reliablism will not do the job.

I think a more consistent position would be like Vincent Cheungs' as advocated in his essay entitled, "The Fatal Maneuver."[1] However, I disagree with this position for reasons as AquaScum articulates. 

3. Presuppositionalism is inductive and not deductive, therefore it cannot provide a transcendental proof that yields a certain and necessary conclusion. [2] It goes from the concrete to the conceptual  on the basis of the concrete without establishing either as logically certain or necessary. This is why I am more inclined to argue for presuppositionalism from the heart as John Frame, and James Anderson. 

I think these criticisms can be answered. Sye has said some things that help answer criticism (2) and (3) HERE




[1] Vincent Cheung. Captive to Reason. http://www.vincentcheung.com/books/captivereason2009.pdf p.38
[2] Brian Bosse. http://www.christianlogic.com/images/uploads/Critique-VanTil.pdf
Steve Hays. http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/more-on-tag-and-certainity_05.html

Presuppositions, Epistemology, and Atheism

Whenever I had questions I would email James Anderson for help. I figured many readers would benefit from my questions and Dr. Anderson's responses.

My first email:

James Anderson,

You are perhaps busy, but could you help answer a question concerning Presuppositional Epistemology. I have been debating some local Atheists in my area. I presented a formulation of the transcendental argument in regards to induction. This led to a discussion on epistemic justification. One of the atheists claimed that knowledge is circular and thus it is perfectly justified to make inductive inferences from experience. He continued to argue that in the case of the reliability of the five senses, they are established as such based on experience. Eventually the discussion centered on the five senses and Christian epistemology. I think this atheist must of read Vincent Cheung's article "The Fatal Maneuver" because his argumentation made me feel like I had to choose between Revelation or sensation. The atheist argued that Christians must presuppose the reliability of their five senses in order to read the Bible, and then they are able to argue from the scriptures that God is the precondition for the reliability of the senses, induction, knowledge or human experience in general. The atheist claimed  that this leaves Christians in two circles of justification. The Christian presupposes the reliability of the 5 senses and justifies this fact by Scripture, but the reading of Scripture is justified by the reliability of the 5 senses. The atheist claimed that Christians are guilty of circular reasoning  just as much as atheists are, the difference is that atheists just stick with one circle for justification, i.e. atheists just assume that the reliability of the senses or induction is justified by experience. The atheist concluded by saying that both atheists and Christians are no better off for accounting for the reliability of the senses or induction.  So my question is as a Presuppositionalist how should I respond to this claim that Christian's must establish the reliability of the senses before one can appeal to the scriptures, which is only accessible by the senses?

Dr. Anderson's reply:

What exactly does he [the atheist] mean by "knowledge is circular"?  If he means

something like the following...

1. We can justify P on the basis of Q .

2. We can justify Q on the basis of P.

...then I honestly don't know of any contemporary epistemologist who would support that idea.  For that's almost a textbook case of a vicious epistemic circularity.  Hume famously observed that justifying induction on the basis of experience is question-begging and I'm not aware of any epistemologist today who would try to justify induction empirically.  Does your atheist friend know of one? And he can't see that this is viciously circular?  One can establish X empirically only if one's senses are reliable; hence it begs the very point in question to try to establish empirically the reliability of one's senses. There's no vicious circularity here, for two reasons: (1) Christian theology holds that the existence of God can be known *a priori* via natural revelation (Calvin's "sensus divinitatis"); (2) the Christian isn't claiming that we can justify belief in the reliability of the senses by appealing to belief in God or to belief in the Bible.

The atheist completely misses the point here.  Everyone in the debate takes for granted that our senses are reliable and that we're justified in believing them to be reliable.  The real question is: Which worldview, theism or naturalism, can *account* for the reliability of our sense (and also our *a priori* knowledge that they are reliable)?

The same goes for induction.  Everyone (or nearly everyone!) in the debate takes for granted that inductive reasoning is generally reliable.  The real question is: Which worldview, theism or naturalism, can *account* for the general reliability of inductive reasoning?  In particular, which worldview can account for the inductive principle, i.e., the uniformity of nature in time and space? Theism can readily account for (a) the uniformity of nature and (b) our justified *a priori* belief in the uniformity of nature. Naturalism, not so much! No, this is confused.  The Christian doesn't justify the reliability of the senses by appealing to Scripture.  Rather, the Christian argues that the *biblical worldview* (i.e., the worldview reflected in Scripture) can account for the reliability of the sense whereas the *naturalist worldview* cannot.  That is to say, the Christian can offer a ready explanation for the reliability of his senses in terms of his worldview, whereas the atheist cannot do so.  To put the point another way: if the biblical worldview is true then the assumption that our senses are reliable is most likely justified, whereas if the naturalist worldview is true then that assumption is most likely not justified.

Again, the relevant question isn't "How do we prove that our sense are reliable?" but rather "Given that our senses are reliable, which worldview can best account for that fact?"You respond by pointing out that this is a red herring: neither the Christian nor the atheist needs to establish the reliability of the senses. That is a given in the debate.  What's at issue is which worldview (i.e., which view about the basic nature of reality, the origin of the universe, the origin and nature of human beings, the origin and nature of the human mind, etc.) can best *account* for the reliability of the senses?

Biblical Apologetics

Here is an excellent sketch on Presuppositional apologetics by Sye Ten Burggencate.

Some helpful material I compiled from Van Til, Bahnsen, Anderson, Lisle, and Cheung.

5 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to


make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you;


yet do it with gentleness and respect" 1 Peter 3:15






As this verse says "make a defense" that comes from the Geek ἀπολογία which


means to give an argument or reasoned response. Thus as Christians we are to be


ready to give an argument for our faith with Christ at the center of it. Our


argument is to honor Christ's lordship and our actions are to exemplify


likeness of Christ. We are to be gentle and respectful to all who ask of us a


justification of our faith.






"2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach


all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's


mystery, which is Christ,


3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Col 2:2-3






"7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and


instruction." Proverbs 1:7






"1 The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they do


abominable deeds, there is none who does good. " Psalm 14:1






Biblical Guidelines

"1. That we use the same principle in apologetics that we use in theology: the


self-attesting, self-explanatory Christ of Scripture.


2. That we no longer make an appeal to "common notions" which Chris- tian and


non-Christian agree on, but to the "common ground" which they actually have


because man and his world are what Scripture


says they are.


3. That we appeal to man as man, God's image. We do so only if we set the


non-Christian principle of the rational autonomy of man against the Christian


principle of the dependence of man's knowledge on God's knowledge as revealed


in the person and by the Spirit of Christ.


4. That we claim, therefore, that Christianity alone is reasonable for men to


hold. It is wholly irrational to hold any other position than that of


Christianity. Christianity alone does not slay reason on the altar of "chance."


5. That we argue, therefore, by "presupposition." The Christian, as did


Tertullian, must contest the very principles of his opponent's position. The


only "proof" of the Christian position is that unless its truth is presupposed there is no possibility of "proving" anything at all. The actual state of affairs as preached by Christianity is the necessary foundation of "proof" itself.


6. That we preach with the understanding that the acceptance of the Christ of


Scripture by sinners who, being alienated from God, seek to flee his face, comes


about when the Holy Spirit, in the presence of inescapably clear evidence, opens


their eyes so that they see things as they truly are.


7. That we present the message and evidence for the Christian position as


clearly as possible, knowing that because man is what the Christian says he is,


the non-Christian will be able to under- stand in an intellectual sense the


issues involved. In so doing, we shall, to a large extent, be telling him what


he "already knows" but seeks to suppress. This "reminding" process provides


a fertile ground for the Holy Spirit, who in sovereign grace may grant the


non-Christian repentance so that he may know him who is life eternal. "[1]





An easy apologetics outline: AIM

A- Arbitrariness=Expose the unbelievers assertions that have no justification.

I- Inconsistencies= Expose any inconsistencies in what the unbeliever says.

M- Mistaken foundations for knowledge. One must demonstrate only the Christian
worldview can provide the necessary foundations or presuppositions for knowledge. Only from the Christian worldview can one claim to have knowledge (i.e. justified true beliefs) for two reasons:(1) The absolute triune God has
revealed truth to us in His Word and continues to illuminate our minds by His Spirit (2) Scripture tells us all mankind are the image bearers of God and hence possess intellects and wills that can reliably acquire knowledge.[2] The goal is to show the unbeliever must assume the Christian viewpoint to know
anything with certainty. If any unbeliever claims to have knowledge of anything, he can never be certain since one must either be God or know God to have knowledge of anything. That is because one must be everywhere at once, be outside of time and control everything in order to know something. Since all facts are related to each other. And in order for one to know a fact in its proper context one must know them all.









   Unbelievers either reason in a circle putting human reason or experience on the


throne as ruler and ultimate standard of their knowledge. We must show only God


and His Word can rightly be the ultimate standard and authority. Only God can


give us knowledge. Christians, too, argue in a circle. But our circle from God’s


Word provides the necessary foundations/assumptions for knowledge. Moreover, the


circle is rational since the authority appealed to as ultimate is in fact


Ultimate, namely God. Unbelievers are forced into skepticism and/or fideism.[3]





  If a Christian gets stumped he can always resort to these questions that can


be phrased in different forms.



“1. Why? A question that demands reasons for whatever is asserted by the


unbeliever so the mistaken foundation can be exposed.


2. So? This question seeks to counter irrelevant things the unbeliever asserts.


3. Really? The question exposes the fact Christianity is the truth and the


unbeliever ought to reexamine his view. But most of all it gives Christians


opportunity to show the unbeliever the necessity of presupposing the Christian


worldview in order to have knowledge.”[4]








   [1] Cornelius Van Til. The Defense of the Faith, 3rd ed. rev. (Nutley, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1967), pp.298-99.




[2] I made my own acronym from Jason Lisle. The Ultimate Proof Of Creation. (Green Forest: Master Books, 2009),pp.84-95.




[3] James Anderson via email




[4] Vincent Cheung. Students in the Real World. http://www.vincentcheung.com/books/invinfaith.pdf p.76.