Common Misconceptions Regarding Gordon H. Clark's Apologetics and His View of History

"Clark seems consistent when arguing that “No event is subject to absolute verification.”, but he follows this by saying that 'Different amounts of evidence can be produced for different events. But there is no compelling logical reason to believe any particular piece of evidence. This is true of the Gospels, as the contemporary theologians persistently proclaim; but it is equally true of Thucydides.'"

Michael Douma

I came across the above quote in a critical review of Dr. Gordon H. Clark's book, Historiography: Secular and Religious, first edition, 1971, (Jefferson: Trinity Foundation, 1991). The article was written by Michael Douma, who is the brother of Dr. Clark's most recent biographer, Doug Douma. In fact, Michael Douma, who is a university professor in historiography and research at Georgetown University, helped to edit Douglas J. Douma's book, The Presbyterian Philosopher: The Authorized Biography of Gordon H. Clark. While there are a few minor points in Doug's book that I think are not necessarily fully clarified, including Clark's view of mental images, this is forgivable due to the fact that philosophy is extremely technical and hard to understand, particularly when it comes to the issue of the philosophy of knowledge or epistemology. In fact, Dr. Clark, in my opinion at least, did not completely reject empiricism as it is commonly understood. Instead his critique was more on a technical and philosophical level. For example, Clark once gave an illustration that the senses could not be trusted because there was a rancher in Texas who drove his car in the lake because he thought the lake was a mirage. On the other hand, if the senses could not be trusted whatsoever no one would dare to drive a car at all.  A further indication of this is that Clark himself owned and operated automobiles during his lifetime.

It is in this regard that I offer a response to the above quote where Michael Douma says that Dr. Clark rejects all history and all historical accounts. In fact, the quote is out of context and proves exactly the opposite. I do not have time to answer all of the objections raised in the article posted on Michael Douma's blog, namely Gordon H. Clark on History, but I will try to hit at least a few of the most glaring mistakes in his assessment.

First of all I will quote Mr. Douma and then the full quote from Dr. Clark in his book. I do not know which edition Douma is quoting from but he gives the citation as page 368. The edition I am using has the quote on page 335 so the other page numbers may not be the same either. However, I will quote a longer portion of the Clark book to show what Clark intended. As Dr. Clark himself once said, it is better to give a long quote than to quote a small portion out of context and give a misleading impression of what the original writer intended to say.

Again, a rationalist like Mises would not argue that we cannot make empirical observations. Mises only argues that empirical observation cannot provide us with the knowledge of laws of cause and effect. Clark, however, mistrusts all empirical knowledge. And this is where Clark’s views on the nature of history become unclear. Whether, in Clark’s view, historians can arrive at any kind of truth or knowledge [if not ultimate truth] through observation, is not clear. He appears inconsistent on this point, when he claims that history has shaped his views. How is it possible to learn political lessons from history, as Clark claims he has (on page 339), if he is a hard skeptic concerning the ability to ascertain any knowledge from empirical methods?

Clark seems consistent when arguing that “No event is subject to absolute verification.”, but he follows this by saying that “Different amounts of evidence can be produced for different events. But there is no compelling logical reason to believe any particular piece of evidence. This is true of the Gospels, as the contemporary theologians persistently proclaim; but it is equally true of Thucydides. “ [368]

If, however, the empirical method is incapable of producing knowledge at all, as Clark seems to claim, how can Clark even speak of “evidence.”? What is historical evidence if not knowledge of some attribute of the past? If we recognize something as evidence, or even admit the existence of evidence, do we not also confirm the existence of some form of empirical knowledge?

Clark seems to say that one can indeed learn from observation, but the act of accepting the truth of testimony (or any historical source) is a matter of faith. [231] He explains that for secular and religious history, interpretations and frameworks are indispensable. [346] By this, he means that we cannot admit, organize, or explain empirical knowledge without pre-suppositions about this knowledge.

Yet, if empirical observations are incapable of providing knowledge, how can Clark make any claims about particular historical events, or takes sides in a historiographical debate as he does on pages 73-74? Is it only a matter of faith that he sides against the historical views of Charles Beard?

Michael Douma,  Ibid.

My first criticism of the review is that Clark is responding to two different issues in this book, primarily problems with secular historiography and secondarily problems with the postmodernist irrationalism of the neo-orthodox theologians in general and Karl Barth in particular. That is very evident in the title of the book.  In other words, Douma is conflating Clark's critique of secular historiography with Clark's critique of postmodernist irrationalism in the form of Karl Barth's neo-orthodoxy.  And in fact, I will demostrate that Douma completely misses Dr. Clark's point in the quote because Clark does not completely dismiss historiography at all.  But more on that after I quote from Clark's book.

Now by way of conclusion to this lengthy volume, and especially as a conclusion to Part Two, I would like to first point out the inferiority of the contemporary theologians in comparison with the secular historiographers.  Many of the latter may be wrong.  Criticism of their positions have been free.  But with the exception of the Marxists the secular historiographers give arguments worth considering and do not pontificate with arbitrary and consistent abandon as the dialectical theologians do.  Not only with arbitrary and inconsistent abandon, but also with an evident ignorance of historiography.  Clark, Ibid., p. 335.

I will give more of the quote but first let me remark here that this quote alone demonstrates that Douma has misunderstood Clark's critique of historiography.  Notice that Clark says that the postmodernist critics of the Bible are completely arbitrary and irrational, while the secular historiographers are often subjective and begin with unproven axioms that they claim to be completely empirical yet historiographers are not irrationalists nor are they capricious and arbitrary in doing their historiographical work.  This shows that contrary to Douma, Clark does not completely dismiss historiography but rather critiques their claim to be completely empirical and objective for the simple reason that everyone, including historiographers, begins with unproven axioms.  That would apply to empiricism as well since human beings must start somewhere and the initial starting point itself is axiomatic, not empirically demonstrable.  Further, following Kant, Clark believes that there are innate categories of the mind that are given by God.  Kant would not have attributed such categories to God since God cannot be known phenomenologically because God is a spirit.  Since God exists only in a noumenal dimension above the phenomenal world nothing can be known about God from below.  While Clark opposes the empiricism of Kant he does not hesitate to borrow from the philosophers and to use their thought for his own purposes.  Kant's use of innate and a priori structures of the mind indicate for Clark that God has created man in His own image and has endowed man with these innate categories of intellectual ability.

Another example of Douma's mistaken view of Clark is that he attributes to Clark the scientific principle of cause and effect.  But Clark agrees with Hume that cause and effect cannot be demonstrated empirically as an endless chain of cause and effect back to a first cause.  Although some limited cause and effect can be observed and utilized in an operationalist view of science, it cannot logically prove that a god or even the God of the Bible is the first cause of everything.  That is because such an endless chain of cause and effect cannot be empirically observed but must instead be logically inferred.  But according to Clark and Hume that inference would be logically fallacious.  Auto mechanics can diagnose and repair automobiles based on a limited understanding of cause and effect but this only works because of a limited observation of specific conditions, not as a general and universal principle that rises to the level of absolute truth.

Additionally, Clark borrows from Hume's definition of a person as a complex of sensations and instead says that a person is defined by the complex of propositions which he thinks.  For Clark the idea that humans are born with a blank slate or tabula rasa is anathema for the simple reason that other animals are not the image of God and no other animal on earth can communicate in rational language, do mathematics, or think logically and rationally.  Clark's redefinition of Hume's empirical views in line with Clark's own Augustinian realist philosophy is nothing short of brilliant.  For Clark man is a spiritual soul created in God's image and inhabiting a body.  The soul lives on after the physical body dies and we know this is true because the Bible says so.  Now if the secularist wishes to criticize Clark for using a circular argument, Clark responds that everyone begins with an unproven starting axiom or a point where his epistemology begins.  Everyone is a fideist of one kind or another.  So why will the secularist criticize the Christian for beginning with the Bible as his or her axiom?

But to further drive home how Douma's remark misses the point I will here quote Clark's full context:

In the second place, these theologians who constantly insist that events recounted in myths, or, better, in sagas, and sometimes called Geschichten,  are unverifiable by the scientific methods of historiography fail to realize that no event is subject to absolute verification.  Different amounts of evidence can be produced for different events.  But there is no compelling logical reason to believe any particular piece of evidence.  This is true of the Gospels, as contemporary theologians persistently proclaim; but it is equally true of Thucydides.  Historiographical theory should apply impartially to both; but the dialectical theologians are unwilling to treat the Bible as they treat other historical books.  They may claim to do so.  They may say that scientific verification assures us of such and such event in the Peloponnesian War, while it leaves us with no information about Jesus.  But this is to apply impossible norms to Genesis and to the Gospels, which no one, including themselves applies to Herodotus and Thucydides.

With respect to the above matters and before the final paragraph of this volume, one other matter should no doubt be disposed of for the sake of historians who may be unfamiliar with philosophical methods and even for the sake of some philosophers who believe that a debate between two positions can be carried on only on the basis of a common area of agreement.  The objection to a presuppositionalist view of history or theology, or anything else, is that "communication," to use a contemporary cliché, requires the contestants to occupy a common ground.  When one historian says, "my framework for history implies that such and such is the significance of this event and that therefore or also this evidence is true," and when another historian says, "my presuppositions imply the reverse of all that," then the objectivist or empiricist is quick to claim that the debate cannot be resolved, for there is nothing to which one man can appeal in his effort to convince the other.  Each has his own presuppositions, and each follows their logical implications.

The situation is even worse and more thoroughgoing in theology than in history.  . . .

Dr. Gordon H. Clark, Ibid. Pp. 335-336. 

The point of this longer quote is to show that the context of Clark's repudiation of the absolute truth of historiography is to show that Douma misappropriates Clark out of context to prove what Clark does not say.  Clark does not out of hand reject historiography completely.  What he does do is show the logical limitations of historiography and expose the fact that there is no such thing as absolutely objective historiography.  When I was in college a professor at the Pentecostal college was working on his Ph.D. in history.  I was offended when he told me that history was subjective and that there were no such thing as objective facts since facts are always interpreted by the biases and presuppositions of the historiographer in question.  He was most likely defending a postmodernist approach to historiography, which Dr. Clark would have found reprehensible I suspect.  On the other hand, Clark was not naive about the subjectivist implications of the philosophy of historiography.

Additionally, I could fact check Michael Douma's other references but I would have to search to compare page numbers since he is apparently using an older edition of the same book, possibly the 1971 edition?  Be that as it may, Clark unashamedly says that only by regeneration will secularists accept the historical accounts of the book of Genesis as literal history.

The only personal solution to this logical impasse is a change of heart on the part of one of the contestants.  Agreement can be obtained only by one party's repudiating his premises and accepting the other's presuppositions.  One of them must be converted.  One must be regenerated.  One must be born again.  And the change is something logic cannot do.  God alone is able.

However, this ultimate confrontation of two antagonistic systems does not always come this clearly to the surface.  No doubt it is always below the surface.

Clark, ibid. P. 337. 

Clark's main complaint in the book is that historiographers cannot even agree among themselves, which in fact demonstrates that historiography is not absolutely objective nor is it absolute knowledge.  For Dr. Clark history can never be absolutely true from an epistemological and philosophical point of view.  But this does not mean that Clark absolutely rejects everyday knowledge which is acquired outside of propositional truth or innate logic.  As stated above, Clark is not a rationalist in the sense of Aristotle, Augustine or Anselm.  Instead, Clark takes the view of the Bible that God is a rational being (John 1:1) and that man is rational because God bestows in man as the image of God the rationality of logic (John 1:9).  The Logos enlightens every man.  Clark accepted other branches of knowledge such as historiography, operational science, mathematics, archaeology and medical science but said that such forms of knowledge never lead to absolute truth because they never arrive at any final conclusions.  Such knowledge is always tentative.

Be that as it may, Clark says that all rational knowledge begins with the knowledge of God revealed in the Bible and that further logical deductions can be made from these revealed propositions about God and the created universe.  For that reason, Clark does not need the confirmation of archaeology or history to believe what the Bible says about geology, geography, or the history recorded in Scripture.  On the other hand, when archaeology or history does confirm that events in the Bible are true, Clark readily accepted such confirmation.  An example that is often cited is when archaeology confirmed the existence of the Hittites, which the higher critics of the Bible had denied even existed.  This one hits home with me because when I was in middle school in the mid-1970s a social studies textbook we used mentioned this very thing, namely that the Bible said the Hittites were a real people and that this was not accepted until archaeology confirmed it.

The Christian worldview therefore has some common ground with secularism but not on the basic presuppositions or the axioms of the secularist and humanist materialist worldview presupposed by empirical science and secular historiography.  Clark's book points out the double standard that these secularists have in regards to the historical documents of the Bible and the historical documents of the ancient Greek philosophers.  How does the secularist know there is no God and that the Bible is not historically accurate?  He cannot know absolutely. 

Relativism can provide no absolute truth.  If there is no logical or rational common ground between different secular philosophers and no common ground between different historiographical methodologies, there surely is no common ground between the Calvinist worldview and a materialistic atheism whether it be Marxism or secular postmodernist approaches to history or the Bible.  The postmodernist theologians disagreements with conservative theologians are even worse than the disagreements between historiographers because their presupposition is that the historical narratives of the Bible are simply inspired myths, stories, fables, legends and sagas.  Be that as it may, neither historiography nor neo-orthodoxy can prove that the Bible is not true.

This is another reason why I also reject the semi-Calvinist doctrine of common grace.  Common grace opens the door to natural theology and the exaltation of natural theology and empiricism above the special revelation of the Bible.  For the Christian the Bible is not to be read as any other ancient document but as the very words of God which are inspired by the Holy Spirit.  While some critical methods can be utilized, these methods are not to be exercised as some external authority over the Bible.  Critical methods of hermeneutics, higher and lower biblical criticism are all in the end fallible and prone to error.  The Bible alone is an inerrant book which is self-authenticating and self-interpreting through the illumination of the Holy Spirit.  The system of propositional truth deduced from the Bible leads to further deductions and propositions that can be part of an even larger system of propositional truth encapsulated within the Christian worldview.  While it is true that even an atheist can understand the logical propositions of the Bible, the difference is that only a regenerate believer can accept as true what the Bible states in rational propositions.  If the Bible says that Solomon was the son of David, even an atheist understands the proposition.  But only a born again Christian believes the historical account of David and Bathsheba and the birth of their son, Solomon, is true.

Charlie J. Ray, M. Div.