Divine Simplicity: Part 2

 

“STILL TO BE DISCUSSED is God’s nature in relation to the panoply of divine attributes and to the persons of the Trinity. All God’s attributes known through his self-revelation are to be identified with what theologians properly designate as God’s being, essence, nature or substance, and identified with what the Scriptures call the deity or divinity of God who makes himself known. The divine essence is not to be differentiated from the divine attributes, but is constituted by them; the attributes define the essence more precisely. But are all attributes ultimately the same? Or do they differ, and if so, how? Are divine nature and divine personality identical conceptions? Only the self-revealed God of the Bible, to be sure, can authorize us to speak definitively of his existence, nature and personal life. But how are the three persons of the Godhead related to divine essence and attributes?”

 

Carl F. H. Henry.  God, Revelation and Authority (Set of 6) (Kindle Locations 59280-59286). Crossway. Kindle Edition.  1982.  2^nd edition.  (Wheaton:  Crossway, 1999).  P. 127.

 

Book Review:  Divine Simplicity:  Part 2

 

James E. Dolezal.  God Without Parts:  Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness.  (Eugene:  Pickwick, 2011).

 

This book is an excellent discussion of the issues of divine simplicity.  However, as a supporter of Gordon H. Clark's apologetics, I have to point out that the greatest weakness of the book is Dolezal's Thomistic two-fold view of truth as both God's archetypal truth and man's ectypal truth.  According to Cornelius Van Til, ultimately God is unknowable because man's truth and God's truth do not coincide at any single point, even in Scripture.  Dolezal also rejects propositional truth on this same basis and ends up advocating for analogical revelation instead of propositional revelation.  This opens the door wide for neo-orthodoxy and dialectical theology.  Most of the followers of Van Til over-emphasize the transcendence of God to the point that God is unknowable.  The obvious implication of that position is that all knowledge is relative, humanistic, and creaturely.  But even apologists like Arthur Holmes said that all truth is God's truth.  If man knows any truth at all, doesn't God know that same truth?  Does God know that 2 + 2 = 4?  Or is 2 + 2 = 5 for God?

Dolezal is a Reformed Baptist, not a Presbyterian.  That has little to do with his view of the doctrine of God, however.  It is ironic that Dolezal did his Ph.D. on the doctrine of divine simplicity under the guidance and supervision of Dr. Scott Oliphint, professor of apologetics and philosophy at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Oliphint retired in December of 2024.  The irony is that shortly after Dolezal’s book came out, Oliphint released his own book in which he contended against divine simplicity by asserting that God’s being has “covenantal properties” which allows God to be immanent and to condescend to the creaturely level.  Oliphint did not anticipate the backlash over the controversy and was forced to withdraw his book from publication.

[You can read my review of Oliphint’s book, which I had obtained from Barnes and Noble in ebook format before it was withdrawn from the paperback publication and from the ebook publication.  Barnes and Noble no longer offers the book for purchase.  My brief review is posted here:  Covenantal Properties.  My extended review of the book is posted here:  A Critical Review of God With Us:  Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God.  You can also read a response by Dolezal to his doctoral supervisor here:  Objections to Scott Oliphint’s Covenantal Properties Thesis.  See also:  K. Scott Oliphint.  God With Us:  Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God.  (Wheaton:  Crossway, 2011).]

The Reformed Forum also strongly objected to Oliphint’s view, because in their view it violated Van Til’s Creator/creature distinction.  Oddly, enough, prior to this controversy, Oliphint appeared numerous times on the Reformed Forum podcast to critique Gordon H. Clark’s so-called “rationalism.”  Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington, and Lane Tipton were all mutual friends with Oliphint.  Behind the scenes I wonder if there were some strong disagreements between Dolezal and his supervisor for his Ph.D. dissertation?  It would seem so, because both books came out in 2011 at around the same time.  It seems that Dolezal has prevailed, because his book is still available while Oliphint had to withdraw his book under the strong disagreements between supporters of Van Til’s apologetics and the supporters of Oliphint’s book.  (Jeff Waddington of the Reformed Forum also wrote a rebuttal of Oliphint’s book here:  “Something So Simple I Shouldn’t Have to Say It,” June 5, 2019). 

Camden Bucey’s critique focuses more on God’s knowledge, which Oliphint ironically says is subject to change and growth due to this third category of “covenantal properties.”  (See:  Bucey, “Addressing the Essential-Covenantal Model of Theology Proper”).  My own view is that Oliphint seems to have bought into Open Theism to some extent because Oliphint has attributed to God the ability to change, which is a contradiction of the Westminster Confession of Faith 2:1.  WCF 2:1 affirms that God is immutable.  I wonder if Oliphint is using ectypal knowledge or archetypal knowledge of God to come to these conclusions?

So far, I have digressed from the review of Dolezal because of the covenantal properties controversy.  However, it seems to me that the two cannot be divorced because of the implications of both books coming out at the same time.  Because I have run out of time today, I will take up the review in Part 3 soon to be posted.

 

 

Book Review: God Without Parts: Part 1

"In summary, knowledge of the divine attributes, no less than of the divine proper names, involves a knowledge of God's inmost essence.  Our knowledge is not exhaustive, to be sure, since God's incomprehensibility, which evangelicals affirm, means that we know no more concerning the divine nature than what God intends and enables us to know by revelation.  Although Luther and Calvin speak of the incomprehensibility of God's essence--it is unknowable by a priori speculation concerning divinity--they do not deny authentic knowledge of God's essential nature on the basis of scriptural revelation."  

Carl F. H. Henry.  God, Revelation, and Authority.  Vol. 5.  1982.  2nd edition.  (Wheaton:  Crossway, 1999).  P. 140.

Book Review:  God Without Parts:  Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness

By James E. Dolezal

 

[James E. Dolezal.  God Without Parts:  Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness.  (Eugene:  Pickwick, 2011).

 

I read this book some time ago.  I had intended to review it earlier but never seemed to find the time.  Honestly, I had never considered this doctrine before since it is only briefly mentioned in chapter 2 of the Westminster Confession of Faith.  I had assumed that it was simply a rejection of the patripassionism view that was made popular by Jürgen Moltmann.  That being said, I will be reviewing this book from the point of view of the apologetics and theology of the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark.

The first indication of trouble is a remark by Paul Helm in the foreward to the book: 

God the Creator is one God, and not creaturely. Because God is timeless he is changeless, immutable. Not simply in the sense that he has chosen to be so, or covenanted this, proposals which offer a rather unstable account of God’s changelessness and are probably incoherent. He is metaphysically changeless. Such changelessness in turn entails divine impassibility, an idea frequently misunderstood and derided. But impassibility is not to be confused, as it often is, with impassivity or with dispassion. Although it may seem paradoxical, the stress on impassibility is meant to safeguard the fullness of God’s character. He is eternally impassioned, unwaveringly good, not moody or fitful as he is buffeted by the changes of his life, some of them, perhaps, unexpected changes.

Dolezal, James E. God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness. Pickwick Publications, An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.

The late Dr. Gordon H. Clark held that the body has emotions and sensations, but the mind itself thinks in terms of propositions.  Since God has no body, God cannot literally have any emotions.  Emotions as defined by Dr. Clark were outbursts of bodily sensations.  Since God is a spirit, He has no bodily sensations or emotions or passions.  (John 4:24 KJV).  Dr. Clark referred to the emotions attributed to God in the Bible as anthropopathisms.  Just as God has no physical body parts such as a nose or mouth or hands or feet, God cannot and does not have emotions or passions of any kind whatsoever.  The idea that God has body parts attributed to Him metaphorically in Scripture is called anthropomorphism.  The problem with the comment of Helm above is that he contradicts the doctrine of God’s impassibility by using another word that is practically synonymous to affirm that God does indeed have passivity or emotions.  Oddly, Helm only holds that God has good feelings of love, not feelings of wrath or anger as Scripture clearly says.  The most obvious passage of Scripture that affirms that God has anthropopathic wrath or anger is Romans 1:18-21 KJV.  Evangelicals are too caught up in the idea of God’s benevolence and beneficence to face the reality that God cannot be manipulated by our tears, sufferings, or situational case studies. 

There is no partiality with God.  (Romans 2:11-14 KJV).  He does what He pleases in the heavens.  (Psalm 115:3).  The Lord God Almighty has no problem whatsoever with condemning the wicked to hell.  (Matthew 7:21-23; Psalm 6:8; 2 Timothy 2:19 KJV).  Apparently, Dolezal holds to this view, although it is not unusual.  Even the late Dr. Robert L. Reymond held to the idea that even though God is dispassionate, He must also have some kind of feelings for the elect.  However, Dr. Gordon H. Clark defined love, as seen from the human perspective, as obedience to God.  If you love me, obey my commandments.  (John 14:15 KJV).  On the other hand, God’s love for humanity is seen in His unconditional election to save some humans in His supralapsarian and logical order of the dual or double decree to election and reprobation.  This double decree is the first decree in the logical order according to the supralapsarian view.

A further problem with asserting that God has feelings or emotions of any kind, including feelings of love or beneficence, is that such emotions would violate God’s absolute immutability.  Although certain portions of Scripture seem to indicate this, the anthropopathism actually points toward God’s eternal volition to save His elect: 

The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. (Jeremiah 31:3 KJV).

Even the term lovingkindness is a Hebrew word that indicates mercy or grace or favor rather than an emotion.  God never breaks His covenantal promises to save His elect people and elect persons within the congregation of Israel.

In the preface to the book, Dolezal presupposes an analogical view of Scripture rather than a propositional view of Scripture.  In a recent podcast, I prematurely advocated that my listeners read Dolezal’s book.  (See:  Reasonable Christian: Divine Simplicity, Logic, and the Foreknowledge of God).  It has been some time since I had read the book or listened to Dolezal’s YouTube videos on the topic.  Unfortunately, this goes directly back to the Clark/Van Til controversy of the 1940’s.  It seems to me that history is repeating itself.  Dolezal reveals his beginning axioms for his book in the preface:

The classical doctrine of simplicity, as espoused by both traditional Thomists and the Reformed scholastics, famously holds forth the maxim that there is nothing in God that is not God. If there were, that is, if God were not ontologically identical with all that is in him, then something other than God himself would be needed to account for his existence, essence, and attributes. But nothing that is not God can sufficiently account for God. He exists in all his perfection entirely in and through himself. At the heart of the classical DDS is the concern to uphold God’s absolute self-sufficiency as well as his ultimate sufficiency for the existence of the created universe.

The pages that follow set forth both metaphysical and theological arguments in favor of divine simplicity. Along the way I seek to answer some of the leading recent critics of the doctrine—most notably those objecting from within the modern school of analytic philosophy. The assumption that God and creatures are correlatives within a univocal order of being dominates this school of philosophy and is arguably the chief reason why their criticisms of the DDS fail to hit the mark. By appealing to God’s simplicity, I aim to show that God and the world are related analogically and that the world in no sense explains or accounts for God’s existence and essence. If God were yet another being in the world, even if the highest and most excellent, then the world itself would be the framework within which he must be ontologically explained.

Ibid., Dolezal. Kindle Edition.

The problem here is that Dolezal presupposes that reformed epistemology is essentially Thomistic and that God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge do not coincide at any single point.  This results in the parallel lines analogy where truth is seen to be twofold, and the creature’s knowledge and God’s knowledge do not meet anywhere.  The two parallel lines continue into infinity with no meeting anywhere at any single point whatsoever.  Logic must be curbed, and the Bible must never be explained, nor should any apparent contradiction or paradox be resolved.  A further problem with Dolezal’s remark is that he does not define what the “world” is.  Does he mean creation?  Or does he mean epistemology or truth?  Even the philosopher Arthur Holmes once remarked that all truth is God’s truth.  In other words, if humans know anything that is true, then surely God knows that same truth.  I have argued elsewhere that Gordon H. Clark did not confuse the creature with the Creator when he insisted that the Bible is the univocal word of God; that is because Clark distinguished between God’s omniscience as intutive and man’s knowledge as discursive or limited to thinking one thought after another. 

Van Til insisted that logic is created and that man’s knowledge of logic is merely human logic.  The implication of this is that God’s logic and man’s logic must be different and that logical contradictions do not require any resolutions; instead, the paradoxes should just be left standing and at any points of cognitive dissonance in preaching to congregations the minister should just appeal to mystery.  Van Til went so far as to say that all Scripture is apparently contradictory, or at least that is what John Frame said in one of his lectures on Van Til.  (See:  Gordon H. Clark lecture:  John Frame and Cornelius Van Til, page 4).  Clark says that Van Til took vows to uphold the system of doctrine in the Westminster Confession of Faith.  Unfortunately, the Van Tilians get around this by saying that the Westminster Confession is an analogical system of doctrine, not a propositional system of doctrine.  But this would seem to contradict the WCF in paragraph 1:6, which says: 

The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: . . .  (WCF 1:6 WCS)

Another way of saying this is that logic is the science of necessary inference.  Plainly, the Westminster divines were not appealing to Thomist philosophy when they wrote section 1:6.  This is an appeal to propositional logic, not analogical philosophy.  In other words, Gordon H. Clark was correct to say that the WCF is a system of propositions which is logically deduced from the propositions in the Bible and that that system is deduced by necessary inference.

Dolezal’s argument that this is an issue of being or essence misses the mark because no one on the Clarkian side of the issue is saying that the human nature or essence is participating in the divine essence whatsoever.  This is an argument about Reformed epistemology, not an argument about divine simplicity per se.  Dolezal confuses categories by saying that this is an ontological issue or an issue of the divine being versus the limitation of the human being or nature.  The issue here is one that focuses on not only divine simplicity but also the issue of special revelation and the epistemological issue of how do we know God at all?  If God is totally transcendent, and there is no point at which we can know God, then the obvious conclusion is that even the Bible is merely human information, not special revelation from God.  A shadow of God’s truth is not the truth itself.  In other words, God’s truth and man’s truth as revealed “analogically” in the Bible are totally separated and do not coincide at any single point whatsoever.

As this will be an extended review of Dolezal’s book, I will end here and continue the review in subsequent posts.  I would like to close with a quote from one of Dr. Gordon H. Clark’s students, Dr. Carl F. H. Henry.  Both Clark and Henry did uphold the doctrine of divine simplicity and this is evidenced by the following:

Evangelical theology insists on the simplicity of God. By this it means that God is not compounded of parts; he is not a collection of perfections, but rather a living center of activity pervasively characterized by all his distinctive perfections. The divine attributes are neither additions to the divine essence nor qualities pieced together to make a compound. Peter Bertocci has well said that God “never was, nor will ever be, ontologically divisible” (The Person God Is, p. 219). God’s variety of attributes does not conflict with God’s simplicity because his simplicity is what comprises the fullness of divine life. Augustine wrote of God’s “simple multiplicity” or “multifold simplicity.” 

For this very reason the statement “God is”— if we know what we are saying— exhausts all that a course in theology can teach concerning him. If we give the subject “God” and the predicate “is” their true and full sense, we must speak of God’s essence, names, attributes, and triunity, and do so expressly on the basis of his revelatory self-disclosure addressed to his created and fallen creatures. If we say “God is” on any other basis than God’s self-revelation our predications have no sound epistemic ground. Augustine declares that “in God to be is the same as to be strong or to be just or to be wise.”

 

Henry, Carl F. H. God, Revelation and Authority (Set of 6) (Kindle Locations 59369-59380). Crossway. Kindle Edition. 

This is a quote from Vol. V.  I could not locate the exact page number, but it is from chapter 6, “God’s Divine Simplicity and Attributes.”  Pp. 127-140.  [The exact quote comes from page 131].

Part 2 will be posted in the next installment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Divine Simplicity and Gordon H. Clark

 

In a recent podcast I did on the doctrine of divine simplicity, someone complained that I was confusing James Dolezal's doctrine of divine simplicity with that of the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  I have read both of Dolezal's books, and I did recommend the one based on his doctoral dissertation.  I have hesitated to review Dolezal's book because of the time it would take to critique his work.  I did have a few problems with Dolezal's remarks because at times it sounds as if he is making contradictory remarks such as love is the same thing as God's justice or wrath.  But I will save my critique for a later time.  (See:  Reasonable Christian: Divine Simplicity, Logic, and the Foreknowledge of God,  YouTube, April 23, 2025.)

However, someone commented on my podcast that Clark apparently did not believe in divine simplicity:

In outlining Dolezal's position, you said: "God is not composed of parts or composite parts."

Clark believed: "...we shall define person as a composite of truths. A bit more exactly, since all men make mistakes and believe some falsehoods, the definition must be a composite of propositions. As a man thinketh in his (figurative) heart, so is he. A man is what he thinks.

Since technical terms are used to avoid ambiguity, and since the Trinity consists of Three Persons, the definition will fail if it does not apply to God. That it does apply appears more or less clearly in verses that call God the Truth." (Gordon Clark, The Incarnation).

Clearly, Dolezal's position is different from that of [elder] Clark.

Although this is a complicated subject, my brief response shares a quote from pages 54 to 55 in the paperback edition of Clark's book, The Incarnation.  To be fair, Clark never finished his book because he died shortly after nearly completing it.  I'm not happy with John Robbins's adding the final chapter because he seems to have missed the whole argument.  That being said, here is my response to the comment on the Reasonable Christian podcast on YouTube:

I do not think the difference is as clear as you say.  First of all, Clark was referring to the three Persons, who are all equally God.  You took the quote out of context.  Since all three of the Persons of the Godhead are equally omniscient, and all three Persons are the same God, it logically follows that all three Persons know exactly the same propositions, and they know those propositions intuitively.  That is, they do not think one thought or one proposition after another.  They know the entire system of propositions as one complete and intuitive system, not in partial or discursive thoughts.  The only difference between the three Persons is when those three Persons think propositions that pertain only to their own identity within the Godhead.  The Father cannot think, "I am the Son," or "I am the Holy Spirit."  The Athanasian Creed makes this plain enough.  The Athanasian Creed is included in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, by the way.

Dolezal did his doctoral work under the supervision of his advisor, Scott Oliphint.  Oliphint has had his own theological contradictions in recent years, including a book where he said that God changes according to "covenantal properties" in order to relate to humans.

The Bible says that God is Truth.  Since all three Persons are equally God, does it mean that the Father is Truth, but the Son and the Holy Spirit is not Truth?  Gordon H. Clark stated clearly that God thinks in propositions.  If not, how could God communicate special revelation to humanity in the written propositions in the Bible?  God is Logic.  John 1:1.  That is divine simplicity.

You quoted Clark's book out of context.  The entire quote says:

"Therefore, since God is Truth, we shall define person, not as a composite of sensory impressions, as Hume did, but, rejecting with him the meaningless term substance, we shall define person as a composite of truths. A bit more exactly, since all men make mistakes and believe some falsehoods, the definition must be a composite of propositions. As a man thinketh in his (figurative) heart, so is he. A man is what he thinks."

"Since technical terms are used to avoid ambiguity, and since the Trinity consists of Three Persons, the definition will fail if it does not apply to God. That it does apply appears more or less clearly in verses that call God the Truth." 

"Deuteronomy 32:4, 'a God of truth.' Psalm 25:5, 10, 'Lead me in Thy truth…. All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth.' Psalm 31:5, 'O LORD God of truth.' Psalm 108:4, 'Thy truth reacheth unto the clouds.' Isaiah 25:1, 'Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.' Isaiah 65:16, 'the God of truth…the God of truth.' John 1:14, 'the Word…full of grace and truth.' John 4:23-24, '…worship the Father in spirit and in truth…must worship him in spirit and in truth.' John 14:6, 'I am…the truth.' John 15:26, 'The Spirit of truth.' John 16:13, 'The Spirit of truth.' First John 5:6, 'The Spirit is truth.'''

"Aside from whatever objections will be immediately raised against this uncommon conclusion, theologians will complain that this reduces the Trinity to one Person because, being omniscient, they all have, or are, the same complex. This objection is based on a blindness toward certain definite Scriptural information. I am not at the moment referring only to the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Spirit. I am referring to the complex of truths that form the Three Persons. Though they are equally omniscient, they do no[t] know all of the same truths. Neither the complex of truths we call the Father nor those we call the Spirit, has the proposition, “I was incarnated.” This proposition occurs only in the Son’s complex. Other examples are implied. The Father cannot say, “I walked from Jerusalem to Jericho.” Nor can the Spirit say, “I begot the Son.” Hence the Godhead consists of three Persons, each omniscient without having precisely the same content. If this be so, no difficulty can arise as to the distinctiveness of human persons. Each one is an individual complex. Each one is his mind or soul. Whether the propositions be true or false, a person is the propositions he thinks. I hope that some think substance to be a subterfuge."

Gordon H. Clark. The Incarnation (Kindle Locations 802-822). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition.

Gordon H. Clark.  The Incarnation.  (Jefferson:  Trinity Foundation, 1988).  Pp. 54-55.

It seems clear enough that in the first sentence of the quotation Clark affirms the doctrine of divine simplicity by stating that God is truth.  Then Clark quotes several portions of Scripture to affirm that God is truth.  And, if you will recall, Clark affirms the creedal affirmation that God is one God, yet three Persons.  God is therefore one in one sense and three in another sense.  This is not a contradiction and even R. C. Sproul said so.  

Cornelius Van Til, on the other hand, said that God is both one Person and Three Persons.  His defenders try to second guess Van Til and excuse his error by saying that Van Til was only referring to the doctrine of perichoresis.  But I will save that discussion for another blog post and another podcast. 

 

Divine Simplicity, Incomprehensibility, Thomistic Dualism and Biblical Inerrancy

". . . 'The supreme Judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined . . . can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.'  

"Unfortunately the visible churches that have descended from the Protestant Reformation, especially the larger and wealthier denominations, have to a considerable degree repudiated the Bible."

Gordon H. Clark.  What Do Presbyterians Believe?  pp. 24-25.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: (2 Tim. 3:16 KJV)

Recently, I was listening to several YouTube videos on the issue of divine simplicity.  It became apparent to me that the Thomistic doctrine has a problem that Dr. Gordon H. Clark called a dual view of truth.  Most of the advocates of the modernized doctrine of divine simplicity have over-emphasized the transcendance of God to the point that nothing can be known of God's archetypal knowledge whatsoever.  Divine simplicity's most basic assertion is that all that is in God's archetypal being is God himself.  The attributes of God are therefore only identifiable from below or from an ectypal understanding of God. 

The Westminster Confession of Faith does indeed insist that God is not a collection of parts or a composite of parts.  The problem, however, is when these same theologians say that God's mercy and God's wrath are the same thing.  God is love.  (1 John 4:7-8).  Is God's love really the same thing as God's justice and God's wrath?  I don't think so.  But does the doctrine of divine simplicity entail that distinctions cannot be made in God's being without His being a composite of parts?  Dr. Gordon H. Clark defined God as the system of propositions that God thinks.  Within the Godhead or divine essence there are three distinct Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  All three Persons are the same God.  If we take the divine simplicity model too far, that would imply that Cornelius Van Til's view of God as both one Person and Three Persons would not matter.  All that is God is God.  This would entail direct contradictions in the Godhead.

Although God is a simple Being, who cannot be divided into composite parts, does this mean that God cannot be defined?  If so, then we have a problem with Scripture, because it is from the propositions in the Bible that we know anything about God at all.  This raises another question.  Is God incomprehensible?  Before we can answer the question, the word "incomprehensible" must be defined.  Dr. Clark defined the word as immeasurable, not unknowable.  Typically, the neo-orthodox view has it that God is so totally transcendent that He cannot be known except through an existential encounter, not through a rational understanding of information in the Bible:

". . . Schleiermacher, Ritschl, and modernism substituted religious experience for the Word of God.  The neo-orthodox also deny the truth of the Bible and substitute something called an existential encounter.  They fail to tell us how this experience determines the number of the sacraments, the mode of baptism, the principles of church government, or even the doctrine of the Atonement. Without such information controversies of religion can be settled only by majority vote, that is, by the whims or ambitions of ecclesiatical politicians.  No wonder there is talk of church union with Rome.  Without information from God, men are left to their own devices."  

Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  What Do Presbyterians Believe?  The Westminster Confession Yesterday and Today.  1965.  (Trinity Foundation:  Unicoi, 2001).  P. 25. 

Frances Turretin did articulate a distinction between the archetypal and ectypal knowledge of God.  I cannot remember exactly what Gordon Clark said about this distinction, so that will have to wait for another blog post.  However, Clark and Cornelius Van Til had a serious disagreement over whether or not God's knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point.  Van Til said no, and Clark said yes.  In fact, Clark went further than that and insisted that the Bible is univocally the very words of God in a logical and propositional form.  Van Til, on the other hand, following Turretin and Aquinas, insisted that God's archetypal knowledge and our ectypal knowledge do not coincide at any single point.  Clark, utilizing the illustration of geometry, insisted that parallel lines continue into infinity and into eternity in both directions without ever intersecting at any single point.  Following this logic then, there could be no coincidence at any single point between God's knowledge and our knowledge whatsoever.  The implications of a Thomistic dualism, then, would be that the Bible is not really God-breathed or even the Word of God.  It could only be a human book based on human logic and a human existential encounter with God.  In other words, it would mean that only God knows any divine information, and this information is known only to God in His archetypal knowledge.

I have even heard Dr. James White say that only God knows what the original autographs say, and God knows this in His archetypal knowledge.  The problem here involves the doctrines of both divine inspiration and biblical inerrancy/infallibility.  If the Bible is merely a human book on the ectypal level, then it logically follows that it could contain errors.  The problem is even worse when we consider the issue of reasoned eclecticism in regards to the textual criticism of both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Even Dr. Richard Mueller has not taken such a strong stance against any interaction between God's archetypal and God's ectypal knowledge:

The issue, here, is a direct reflection of the language of the Reformed prolegomena: the ultimate and therefore perfect archetypal theology is identical with the divine mind—all other theology is, at best, a reflection of this archetype, a form of ectypal theology. Ectypal theology in the human subject (in all systems of theology!) is not only finite and reflective but also limited by human sinfulness and by the mental capacities of the theologian.165 The human author of theology, thus, has little intrinsic authority. If theology is to be authoritative, its source (other than the mind of the theologian) must carry authority with it. That source cannot be the divine archetype, but it must stand in a more direct relation to that archetype than any utterly human effort: the doctrine of inspiration leads, therefore, in many of the orthodox systems, directly to the doctrine of the authority of Scripture.

Muller, Richard A. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy;  Volume 2: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003. Print.  Page 261.  [Emphasis is mine.]

The point here is that if the archetypal knowledge of God is known only to Him, how could ectypal knowledge be a reflection of what is totally unknowable?  Gordon H. Clark distinguished between God's intuitive knowledge and human discursive knowledge.  He also agreed with the proposition that the noetic effects of sin causes errors in logic and, most likely, in theology as well.  But is it really true that 2 + 2 = 4 is the same thing as God's love in God's archetypal knowledge?  How do you know? 

Now, as this relates to the issue of biblical inspiration and biblical inerrancy/infallibility, I would like to raise the problem of textual criticism, reasoned eclecticism, and presuppositional apologetics.  I will delve more into this issue in future posts.  However, for now I would like to ask a few questions.  If the original autographs are only a reflection of the archetypal knowledge of God and can only be known through ectypal reflection and condescension to the human level, and if we do not have the original autographs, does it not follow that there are at least two problems with the doctrine of biblical inspiration and biblical inerrancy?  First of  all, if we do not have the original autographs, we are left with either a reasoned eclectical reconstruction of the autographs by way of a fallible "science" of textual criticism, or we are left with an equally reasoned reconstruction of the autographs from the extant Byzantine majority texts.  Thus, both the critical eclecticism and the reasoned Byzantine text reconstruction are based on some form of textual criticism.  Both positions argue that the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament and the Textus Receptus of the New Testament are flawed.  

So, that logically means that no manuscripts extant today are without error.  How then can a theoretical biblical inerrancy exist at all?  Logically, it must be as unknowable as God's archetypal knowledge.  In that case, Bart Ehrman's argument that the autographs cannot be reconstructed must be true.  James White has argued that the autographs are available in the critical apparatus of the eclectic editions of the Greek New Testament.  But does this not lead to a form of relativism where the informed reader of the critical editions of the Greek New Testament picks and chooses which variant is the original?  Absolute truth is unchanging, yet we have a constantly changing series of translations based on an ever-changing eclectic Greek New Testament.   And, as Maurice Robinson has noted, the reasoned eclectic approach often stitches together disparate fragments to produce a text that does not exist in any extant manuscript of any kind.  The options keep changing from one variant to the next in a constant flux of possibilities, which leads to relativism, not certainty.

But is there another option?  Gordon H. Clark proposed that Scripture is the axiom of Christianity.  Without the Bible there is no basis for Christianity at all.  But more about this in a future post.

Scott Oliphint's Covenantal Properties: Divine Simplicity Under Attack?

Oddly enough, Dr. Scott Oliphint was the doctoral advisor for James Dolezal who did his doctoral work at Westminster Theological Seminary.  I have read the laity version of Dolezal's book on divine simplicity, and I am now reading his doctoral thesis as well.  Recently, Dr. Scott Oliphint has been charged with violating his ordination vows and taking an unconfessional view of the doctrine of God, so I went out and bought a copy of Oliphint's 2011 edition of God with Us.  This book is where Oliphint makes his controversial remarks that seem to lead in the direction of Open Theism and God's mutability.

I have been critical of the Van Tilian view that God has emotions and feelings because to reject the  proposition that the Bible contains anthropopathisms would imply that God is not immutable after all.  God cannot be subject to emotions because He has no body.  And if one rejects the doctrine of divine immutability--the doctrine that God is not a composite being composed of parts--a doctrine of complexity and finitude in regards to the doctrine of God soon follows.  The doctrine of divine simplicity means that God is all that He is.  Honestly, I had not studied this doctrine in detail prior to reading Dolezal's work.  Personally, although Dolezal is not a Clarkian in his theology or philosophy, I find Dolezal's book to be a refreshing recovery of a classical doctrine that all believers in God's sovereign grace should uphold.  I highly recommend both of Dolezal's books, and I also recommend that fellow Clarkians read them along with Oliphint's book, which has gotten him into trouble.  Unfortunately, Oliphint's book has been purchased back from Crossway by Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia because, apparently, most of the faculty there is in support of Oliphint and wishes that he was not on trial with his presbytery.

I cannot comment in-depth on the books I have mentioned, but I will be reviewing Dolezal's two books and Oliphint's book as well.  Fortunately, Oliphint's book is still available for around $10 at the Barnes and Noble website in Nook format.  I would advise you to purchase your copy before the book is taken down.  You can purchase Oliphint's book here:  God with Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God.  I have only read the first three chapters, but I have some significant criticisms of the book that go beyond just what Dolezal and others are saying because I am also a student of the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  It seems to me that Oliphint wants to downplay the differences between Open Theism and the traditional Reformed view that God is simple and immutable.  He speaks in almost glowing terms of Open Theists like the Greg Boyd and the late Clark Pinnock, who made the change from Calvinism to Arminianism and then to Open Theism.  Part of the problem is that Westminster Seminary agrees with the theology of paradox and with John Murray's rejection of the doctrine of anthropopathisms in the Bible.  Murray said that God has feelings.  But this would imply that God in not immutable after all and that God has emotions that can be manipulated by human interaction.  (Malachi 3:6; James 1:13-17).  In fact, in a chapel sermon delivered on March 27th, 2019 at WTS, Dr. Peter Lillback defended Oliphint and even cited John Murray's defense of God's emotions:  

Westminster Shorter Catechism Question #4 asks, “What is God?” The Answer is “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” Here we see the connection and distinction between what have been well termed the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God. God in His aseity is infinite, eternal and unchangeable. Yet these properties of absolute deity inform his communicable properties, as we see in the phrase, “in his”. This phrase modifies the entire list of the seven identified communicable attributes. Clearly there are not two Gods—an absolute God and a God who relates. There is one God who has attributes uniquely His own attributes which in turn fully inform these attributes that He has given to his creation. Thus we love because God loves. But God’s love is far different from our finite, temporal and changeable love. His love is an infinite love, an eternal love, an immutable love.

This complex of attributes are more fully identified in Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter II, paragraph one that tells us that

There is but one only, living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, the rewarder of those that diligently seek Him; and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.

This passage is clear that this “one only, living and true God” who is “immutable” and “most absolute” is simultaneously the same God who is “working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will”. Thus in His working with His creation and His creatures, He is “most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering abundant in goodness and truth.” He is “forgiving”, and a “rewarder” yet also “terrible in His judgments.” This “most absolute” and “immutable” divine being who is “without body, parts or passions” is nevertheless revealed as the One God who can be characterized by both emotions and actions. Thus He is characterized as “hating all sin” and One “who will by no means clear the guilty”.

We might stumble over the Confession’s statement that affirms hatred in God. Yet, Westminster’s great founding theologian insisted that this was thoroughly biblical. John Murray wrote,

p. 22 “We must, therefore, recognize that there is in God a holy hate that cannot be defined in terms of not loving or loving less. Furthermore, we may not tone down the reality or intensity of this hate by speaking of it as “anthropopathic” or by saying that it “refers not so much to the emotion as to the effect”. The case is rather, as in all virtue, that this holy hate in us is patterned after holy hate in God.”

p. 35 “. . . It is unnecessary, and it weakens the biblical concept of the wrath of God, to deprive it of its emotional and affective character . . . Wrath is the holy revulsion of God’s being against that which is the contradiction of his holiness . . . To question the reality of wrath as an “attitude of God towards us” and construe it merely as “some process or effect in the realm of objective facts” is to miss the meaning of God’s holiness as he reacts against that which is the contradiction of himself.”

John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, vol. 2, The New International Commentary on the Old and New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1968), 22, 35.

And of course, God’s love is a real act of the “most absolute” and “immutable” God who has chosen to act in history. The stalwart defender of the Westminster Standards, Charles Hodge put it this way as he spoke about the absolute God of the universe and His engagement with His creatures through prayer:

The God of the Bible, who has revealed Himself as the hearer of prayer, is not mere intelligence and power. He is love. He feels as well as thinks. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. He is full of tenderness, compassion, long-suffering, and benevolence. This is not anthropomorphism. These declarations of Scripture are not mere “regulative truths.” They reveal what God really is.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 699.

From:  Statement from Dr. Peter Lillback on The Doctrine of God and Westminster Theological Seminary.

The rejection of God's divine simplicity and divine immutability by Charles Hodge and John Murray does not remove the fact that these serious errors lead eventually to the Arminian and even the Open Theism error.  This is why Scott Oliphint is genuinely troubled by the arguments of the Arminians and Open Theists.  He wants to reconcile the contradictions by appealing to covenantal properties as a way to sidestep divine simplicity and God's timeless immutability.  In addition, I think that WTS has had Arminian tendencies for many decades because of the emphasis on the three points of common grace, a Thomistic emphasis on the twofold view of truth as analogical, ectypal, and archetypal.  What we are seeing now is the chickens coming home to roost.  It began with Van Til's rejection of Gordon H. Clark's view of truth as propositional, and that the Bible can be summarized in a propositional system of truth deduced from Scripture. 

The best summary of the system of doctrinal truth in the Bible is the Westminster Confession of Faith.  Because of Van Til's theology of paradox and the complete inscrutableness of God there can be no coincidence between the theology in God's mind and the theology in the Bible other than by analogy.  But if two parallel lines have no contact into infinity, it logically follows that ectypal theology knows nothing of archetypal theology and vice versa.  It is by means of Van Til's rejection of logic and propositional revelation that Oliphint has begun to turn WTS in the direction of Open Theism.  While Oliphint himself rejects Open Theism, his theology is opening the door for future generations of ministers at WTS to embrace that heretical path.  Common grace inevitably leads to accepting empiricism and general revelation as corrections on special revelation in Scripture.  You can see how Oliphint himself places general revelation on equal par with special revelation in this video:  AP213 Principles of Christian Apologetics. 

Gordon H. Clark, on the other hand, consistently held that Scripture alone is the word of God.  (2 Timothy 3:16).  Furthermore, Clark said that truth is univocal in that the Bible is directly, not indirectly, truly and verily the words of God.  If God cannot know anything we know, and we cannot know anything God knows at any single point, then it logically follows that the Bible is not God's written word but only a weak reflection of it.

Ironically, the Van Tilians accused Clark of violating the Creator/creature distinction and of prying into God's secret being.  Now we see Oliphint prying into the secret being of God and contending that God has added covenantal properties to His being, so that He can now interact with creation mutably.  Additionally, I would add that I wonder how Hodge, Murray, Van Til, and Oliphint know that God has emotions?  If the Bible is not archetypal revelation, then how do they know that God has emotions?  Are they prying into God's secret being?

I will, as time permits, try to review the three books in question in the near future.  You can purchase Dolezal's books at Amazon in either paperback or ebook format for Kindle.  The links are:  James E. Dolezal, All That Is in God:  Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Theism.  The second book is:  God without Parts:  Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness.

For a posted critique of Oliphint's book by James Dolezal see:  Objections to K. Scott Oliphint's Covenantal Properties Thesis.

Anyone who would like to see a PDF copy of the charges against K. Scott Oliphant can contact me by email and I will gladly email that to you.  My email address is cranmer1959@gmail.com.

Keith Mathison's Response to John Frame's Mutualism

"First lessons in theology, no matter how elementary, do not dare to omit the Scriptural material on omniscience, immutability, and creation. But it would be unfair to the student to leave the impression that all is elementary and easy. While it is conceit to assert that the problem [immutability and divine simplicity] here is insoluble, for no one knows enough to set limits to the implications of Scripture, it is not conceit, it is not even modesty, it is but frustrating fact to acknowledge that even the better attempts to solve this problem leave much to be desired."   -- Dr. Gordon H. Clark


I am always learning but hopefully I am arriving somewhere closer to the truth.  Pun intended.  However, in studying the doctrine of the incarnation and the trinity, it has become all the more apparent to me that the problem of God's immutability, and how that can be understood in relation to the doctrine of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, is one that has not been completely solved even by the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  For example, in regards to the doctrine of creation Dr. Clark rightly asked the question of how an immutable God can "begin" to create?  If God is eternally timeless, then how does that work in regards to providential time?  After all, God is eternally omniscient and never learns anything new.  If God looks into the future to learn what will happen and then adjusts His providence to accommodate for contingencies and possibilities, is the future always in flux and is God ignorant of the future?

10. Immutability and Creation.

It would not do, however, to omit from this chapter a discussion of an extremely difficult point that besets the doctrine of creation. The difficulty lies in the apparent antithesis between divine immutability and the single, once­ for­ all act of creation, from which God rested on the seventh day. The history of theology has not overlooked this difficulty, but the solutions proposed are sometimes painfully superficial. 

Augustine did his best with the problem: How can the eternal and immutable produce the temporal and changing? The famous Passage in the Confessions (XI, 10, or 12) begins with the question of the Manichaeans: "What was God doing before he created the heaven and the earth?  If he were lazy and inactive, why, they ask, why did he not remain so for the rest of time, the same as before, doing nothing? If a change occurred in God, a new volition, to create what he had not yet created, how could there be a true eternity, when a volition occurred that had not occurred previously? Indeed, the will of God is not a creature; it precedes every creature; nothing is created without the preexisting will of the creator. The will of God belongs to the very substance of God. If in the divine substance, something comes forth that did not previously exist, that substance cannot be truly called eternal. And if God has always willed the existence of the creature, why is not the creature also eternal?" (cf. City of God, XI, 4­5).

The way the Manichaeans and Augustine understood the problem results in a solution that depends on a theory of time. The first word of Genesis, "in the beginning,” indicates a moment at which creatures first began to exist. Since, now, change defines time, time itself is a creature and began in the finite past. Hence it is wrong to picture God as doing nothing for a long time and then after this time creating the world. There was no time before creation. God is eternal, not temporal. A time preceding creation would pose the question, Why did God choose one moment, rather than an earlier or later moment, in which to create? In an infinite void time, every moment would be indistinguishable from every other. No one more than any other would contain a reason for choosing that one to be the moment of creation. This irrationality therefore precludes an infinite past of empty time. Similarly there could be no infinite empty space, for the same question reappears: Why did God create the world here rather than there? 

Quoted from:  Introduction to Theology, Chapter 4, Creation, by Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  (Pp. 29-30, pdf file). This is an unpublished chapter from an unpublished systematic theology written by Clark.  Thanks to Doug Douma for posting this on his blog, A Place for Thoughts.

Clark openly said that he had not solved this apparent contradiction between God's immutability and His providence in creation:

J. Oliver Buswell, Jr., in his A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion (pp. 40, 42, 47­-48, 52­-53) solves the present problem by denying what previous theologians have called immutability. Buswell of course asserts that God is eternal, but he denies that eternity is timelessness. He objects to the idea of an eternal now, and disapproves of Augustine and Aquinas. Although he asserts that God is “unchangeable in his being,” he repudiates "a timeless mental and spiritual immobility.” He denies that God is "fully actualized," and asserts that God is (partly at least) potential; from which we must conclude that Buswell is conceiving of God as in a state of development. He says, "The implications of the doctrine that God is 'pure act,' 'fully realized', that in him there is 'no potentiality (dunamis)' are devastating."

Naturally there is no antithesis between a temporal, potential, developing God and an act of creation preceded by time.

First lessons in theology, no matter how elementary, do not dare to omit the Scriptural material on omniscience, immutability, and creation. But it would be unfair to the student to leave the impression that all is elementary and easy. While it is conceit to assert that the problem here is insoluble, for no one knows enough to set limits to the implications of Scripture, it is not conceit, it is not even modesty, it is but frustrating fact to acknowledge that even the better attempts to solve this problem leave much to be desired.  (Ibid., pp. 33-34, pdf file).

Moreover, I find it refreshing that there are at least a few defenders of old school Calvinism and classical Reformed theology out there.  Dr. Keith Mathison of Table Talk Magazine wrote the following critique of John Frame's review of James Dolezal's polemical work on divine simplicity. His observations in regards to Frame's theology of mutualism and divine immanence is a refreshing and encouraging theological tsunami that raises many valid points against assuming that all Scripture is apparently paradoxical:

Unlatched Theism: An Examination of John Frame’s Response to All That Is in God

Theologians even of the stature of the late Dr. Robert L. Reymond unwittingly introduced a form of mutualism into the doctrine of immutability when he objected to Dr. Gordon H. Clark's doctrine of divine impassibility and immutability.  The implications of Dr. James Dolezal's work for students of Dr. Gordon H. Clark are tremendously important.

I recently purchased both of James Dolezal's book on divine simplicity in Kindle format from the Amazon website and will be utilizing those books in my continuing defense of Gordon H. Clark's view of the incarnation as two persons.  Dolezal's books are available here:

God Without Parts:  Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness.

All That Is in God:  Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism.

Of course, the theological debate between the Van Tilian school of apologetics and Clarkian apologetics continues to this day.  The trouble is that when the axiom of plenary verbal inspiration and biblical inerrancy is replaced with a thomist theology of analogy the tendencies toward neo-orthodoxy and Barthianism is notable.  Even worse, when Scripture is devalued as univocal and propositional revelation, the result is the undermining of every other doctrine as well.  The classical view that Scripture is an objective revelation from God is replaced by a theory that posits a twofold view of knowledge such that man can know nothing God knows whatsoever.  But is a theory of Scripture as analogy more neo-orthodox than Reformed?  I think the answer is yes. 

If there is a twofold theology of knowledge or epistemology the implication is that man's theological systems are all anthropocentric and not essentially based in direct divine and special revelation--that would be because Scripture is not univocally identical to what God knows.  If definitions mean anything at all, it would imply that knowledge has two different meanings and Van Tilians are using both definitions in equivocating and contradictory ways.

Another problem with Frame's approach is that he equivocates on the doctrine of plenary inspiration by advocating an axiom that from the outset makes Scripture irrational revelation.  The problem stated is that, when Cornelius Van Til said that all Scripture is apparently contradictory, he was presupposing an axiom of irrationality as his starting point for his theology.  The result of such contradictory thinking leaves the door wide open to outright contradictions in Frame's analogical system of doing theology and apologetics.  It is just fine to affirm both Arminianism and Calvinism since the contradictions can be resolved above the anvil in heaven and there is no need to try to resolve apparent contradictions and paradoxes here on earth.

For those who have unwittingly bought into a theology of paradox and contradictions, it does not matter that the distinction between the doctrine of predestination, or the divine decree, and the doctrine of providence has not been fully solved.  According to Van Til's thinking, it is fine to embrace contradictions.  Dr. Gordon H. Clark never said that he had solved every apparent paradox in regards to the Trinity and the Incarnation.  But he at least tried to solve those problems and give some logical considerations to possible solutions.  In regards to the Trinity, for example, Clark said only that God is three in one sense and one in another sense.  But he was quick to point out that Van Til's contention that God was both one Person and three Persons is an outright contradiction and a direct rejection of classical Reformed and confessional theology.  Van Til's view in fact would require that God is four persons, not three.

In regards to the Incarnation, Clark rightly pointed out that the Definition of Chalcedon 451 A.D. said that the divine Logos did not replace the human soul of Jesus Christ, but the Definition then went on to say in so many words that Christ was not a human person.  Unfortunately, Clark died before he could finish his final book.  Though many of the Van Tilians are quick to call Clark a Nestorian for positing that Christ was both a genuine human person and the incarnation of the divine Logos, a distinct Person of the Trinity, I do not think the charge stands justified on the basis of Clark's own work.  And it is ironic that it is the Van Tilians who are advocating another departure from classical Christian theism by adopting the contradiction of immanence and transcendence as another part of their analogical system based on the axiom of irrationalism and apparent contradiction here on earth.

For another review of Dolezal's book, All That Is in God, see:  Reformation 21:  All That Is in God, by Malcom Yarnell.

Keith Mathison's review of All That Is in God is here:  Table Talk:  Book Review.