Gordon H. Clark Quotes Regarding Communism

 

If now one turns from nature and reads special revelation, ambiguity and confusion are replaced with clearly stated principles.  In such a contrast as to be unintelligible to Jezebel--Ahab could not legally expatriate Naboth's vineyard.  Here for one instance there is the divine sanction on private property, and therefore the rights of individuals, and a limitation of government.  In another instance Daniel defied the religious laws of Nebuchadnezzar.  And Peter said, "We must obey God rather than men."  --Dr. Gordon H. Clark

But if the Supreme Court can legalize the murder of infants, it can as easily legalize the murder of adults. Indeed some groups already propose the murder of the elderly. Abortion logically justifies the murder of anyone. Hence the Supreme Court could legalize the murder of all who support the right of life and so produce a unanimous social consensus.  --Dr. Gordon H. Clark

 

The following quotes from Dr. Gordon H. Clark on the issue of communism are taken from the book published by the Trinity Foundation, Essays on Ethics and Politics, John Robbins, ed. (Jefferson:  Trinity Foundation, 1992).  I am utilizing the topic index in the back of the book to reference the quotes. 

Some naturalists, perhaps most naturalists today, attempt to avoid this patent fallacy by speaking of obligation as a social demand. Instead of depending on Almighty God to impose sanctions, these naturalists depend on society. However, the attempt to base morality on society not only fails to [p.22] avoid the fallacy but it faces other difficulties as well. In the first place, if morality is a demand of society, one must indicate which society. Is it the demand of the family, the church, the nation, or all humanity? It can hardly be all humanity, for two reasons. There are no demands which are clearly demands of humanity. Humanity, if it speaks at all, speaks in such an indistinct and ambiguous language that no specific obligation can be proved. And second, if society is to take the place of God as the source of sanctions, then obviously humanity cannot be the basis of obligation, for humanity imposes no sanctions. Therefore an ethical theory based on social demand must appeal to family, church, or nation. Of these three the nation is most able to impose sanctions. Hence morality becomes loyalty to the State, and murder, adultery, and theft become moral obligations when Nazism, Fascism, and Communism demand them. 

(Clark, "Moral Education and Naturalism,"  p. 8.)  This article is also published in JETS:  
Gordon H. Clark, “Can Moral Education Be Grounded On Naturalism?” Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society 1.4 (Fall 1958): 21-23.

 

Bentham’s utilitarianism provides a good opportunity for showing the weaknesses of many secular systems. In the first place, the calculation of future pleasures, on which choice the knowledge of obligation depends, is impossible. Only in a few simple instances, and in these only roughly, can anyone estimate the amount of pleasure he as an individual will enjoy from a particular choice. To suppose that anyone can calculate the sum total of pleasure accruing to the whole human race is utterly and obviously impossible. Let anyone who wishes, try measuring along the seven parameters.

The principle of the greatest good for the greatest number is one by which dictators can justify their cruelty. When the communists starved to death millions of Ukrainians, massacred thousands of Polish officers, murdered possibly twenty million Chinese, and slaughtered the Tibetans, they could justify themselves on the ground that the pleasure of future generations of communists would outweigh the temporary pain. Certainly no scientific observation can prove the contrary.  (Clark, "Ethics," ibid., p. 77).  Also online at "Ethics,"  Gordon H. Clark Foundation.

 

Ironically, the Marxists and the postmodernists today make the false claim that Marxism, LGBTQ, climate change and a host of their other views are based on "science" while Evangelical Christians are just a bunch of ignorant rednecks with no education.  Unfortunately, political ideology is not empirical science and even if it were, empirical science cannot establish an ought from observations of what exists.  It is impossible to deduce morality from rocks and trees or even from societal norms. 

But if the Supreme Court can legalize the murder of infants, it can as easily legalize the murder of adults. Indeed some groups already propose the murder of the elderly. Abortion logically justifies the murder of anyone. Hence the Supreme Court could legalize the murder of all who support the right of life and so produce a unanimous social consensus.

If anyone thinks that this proposal is extreme, be it noted that Hitler’s National Socialism and Stalin’s International Socialism attempted just that. Hitler massacred the Jews and Stalin massacred the Ukrainians and hordes of others. And aside from historical examples, rampant murder is well within the logical range of atheistic abortionism. There is a determined effort in this nation to reduce orthodox Christians to the status of second class citizens. Their recent interest in politics and law has been severely condemned. Even Barry Goldwater, supposedly a conservative of the conservatives, showed his anti-religious bigotry in denouncing the pro-life movement. In many public schools the secularist view is sustained by government imposition and the pro-life view is denied a hearing. Smut is legal, and even required reading, but the Ten Commandments are prohibited. The end of this, unless stopped, is the same persecution now practiced under Communism.

We must try to stop this atheistic program. And one place, a good place to start, is abortions. 

(Clark, "The Ethics of Abortion," ibid., p. 96).   Also online at:  The Trinity Foundation:  "The Ethics of Abortion."  Trinity Review, May/June 1982.

 

Marx was and Communists are unsparing in their denunciations of the immorality of capitalism.  At the same time they accept a relativistic theory of morals that provides no basis for condemnation of anything.  More characteristically they reduce moral norms, so-called, to class demands; and these are to be settled by violent action rather than by rational argument.

Rationality itself has a precarious position in Marxism.  The laws of nature or real being are not the laws of thought.  Logic is merely an adaptation that material man makes to the world.  The function of the mind is to act, not to understand.  Like Friedrich Nietzsche and his disciple Sigmund Freud, Marx makes man basically irrational.  But if so, "logical" argument, the result of irrational urges, counts for nothing in establishing the truth or value of Communism.  Only violence counts.

The present years have been years of violence throughout the world.  In fact this century is the most violent in all history.  Large scale disturbances occur in the United States.  Do these activists have any precise view of human nature?  Do they have a consistent theory of politics?  It hardly seems so.  If one may judge from appearances--in the absence of scholarly publications--the hippies most closely resembled the ancient, irresponsible Cyrenaics who after some decades faded away into more sober Epicureanism.  Neither school was interested in politics.  The present day militants seem bent on destruction and offer no blueprint of a better society.  Presumably they are more opposed to logical system than even Marx was.  If any theory can be imposed on them, it is probably anarchy.  Anarchy made emperors of Napoleon and Caesar.

That all these theories but one favor totalitarianism is a fact that deserves to be pondered.  The United States was founded on the principle that individuals transfer some but not all of their rights to the government. . . . 

(Clark,  "Essays on Ethics and Politics:  Marx," ibid., p. 127).   Previously unpublished essay.  No original date is given.

 

A person is a consciousness that knows itself, as animals do not, and therefore has rights.  Things have no rights.  Therefore property is justified.  The exercise of property rights may be possible only in a State, but the right itself is inherent in the individual.  This means that not merely property is justified, but private property.

How far Hegel would have approved of later developments may be hard to decide.  Even communism can argue that the State does not abolish private property but merely distributes it--the food one actually eats must be private.  

(Clark, "Idealistic Ethics," ibid., p. 132).  Also published in Baker's Dictionary of Christian Ethics.  Carl F. H. Henry, ed.  Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Baker Book House, 1973, pp. 310-312.

 

If now one turns from nature and reads special revelation, ambiguity and confusion are replaced with clearly stated principles.  In such a contrast as to be unintelligible to Jezebel--Ahab could not legally expatriate Naboth's vineyard.  Here for one instance there is the divine sanction on private property, and therefore the rights of individuals, and a limitation of government.  In another instance Daniel defied the religious laws of Nebuchadnezzar.  And Peter said, "We must obey God rather than men."

These brief considerations indicate that the theory of natural law is not a satisfactory theoretical defense of minority and individual rights.  Human reason, that is, ordinary observation of nature, leads more easily to totalitarianism than to anything else other than anarchy.  But an acceptance of God's word justifies a limited government.

Unfortunately this is a theoretical justification only; it is not a civil guarantee.  It does not, it actually has not prevented tyrannies in history.  What is needed to protect our unalienable rights is a popular acceptance of biblical principle.  Only in so far as a determined and vocal segment of the populace forces power hungry politicians to curtail their ambitions, only in so far as the will of the people can reduce budgets, relax controls, and eliminate pork barrels, only so can the twentieth century trend to Communism be slowed down.  

(Clark, "Natural Law and Revelation," ibid., p. 160).  Also published in Christianity Today, July 24, 1957.

In light of the above quotes--and I could have given many more--is it any wonder that the secular humanists, Marxists, and socialists in America feel so threatened by Evangelical Christianity?