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.

Misunderstanding on the Part of Greg Bahnsen

Wherever five “advanced thinkers” assemble, at least six theories as to inspiration are likely to be ventilated. They differ in every conceivable point, or in every conceivable point save one. They agree that inspiration is less pervasive and less determinative than has heretofore been thought, or than is still thought in less enlightened circles. They agree that there is less of the truth of God and more of the error of man in the Bible than Christians have been wont to believe. They agree accordingly that the teaching of the Bible may be, in this, that, or the other,—here, there, or elsewhere,—safely neglected or openly repudiated. So soon as we turn to the constructive side, however, and ask wherein the inspiration of the Bible consists; how far it guarantees the trustworthiness of the Bible’s teaching; in what of its elements is the Bible a divinely safe-guarded guide to truth: the concurrence ends and hopeless dissension sets in. They agree only in their common destructive attitude towards some higher view of the inspiration of the Bible, of the presence of which each one seems supremely conscious.

Benjamin B. Warfield, The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield: Revelation and Inspiration (vol. 1; Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008), 51.

"Many good things could be said about Dr. Clark, but his philosophical work was not always a strength. And occasionally his philosophical shortcomings were detrimental for his theological constructions. Take one illustration. Clark insisted that we cannot know anything on the basis of sensation and that our knowledge is restricted to the content of the Bible.[1] Philosophically, this is outrageous. On this view, Clark could not even "know" what the Bible taught since he relied upon sensation - reading, hearing - to learn it."   --  Greg Bahnsen   [See: Letter:  (Response to John Robbins) in Journey 3:1 (Jan.-Feb., 1988)].

It is indeed odd that many good things can be said about Dr. Gordon H. Clark when the entire Reformed world, for all practical purposes at least, thinks that Dr. Cornelius Van Til is the patron saint of neo-Calvinism.  Dr. Clark consistently defended propositional truth, biblical inerrancy, and the plenary verbal view of inspiration.  Van Til, on the other hand, advocated a view of limited inerrancy that is summarized in Van Til's statement that "all Scripture is apparently contradictory."  In response to Bahnsen's contention that knowledge is based on sensation, I would like to know what 2 + 2 smells, tastes, sounds, feels, and looks like?  Or perhaps mathematics are not based on sensation at all?  It might be that mathematics and logic are thought processes that do not depend on the senses at all?


Furthermore, one has to wonder if the Bible is a mass of paper and ink to seen and felt?  Or just perhaps the Bible is composed in written language and it is the words, concepts, propositions and passages of Scripture that convey revelatory information to the human mind?  Does God speak in words or does revelation occur through the senses?   Do dogs do mathematics or write Shakespeare?  I think not.

As for Bahnsen's contention that Dr. Gordon H. Clark's view is outrageous in regards to knowledge, his remarks are completely out of context.  Dr. Clark's view is that all other epistemological systems end up in skepticism.  He did not say that they know nothing at all.  He said that knowledge or epistemology must begin with Scripture as the beginning point or axiom.  The scientific model that knowledge can be derived from the senses is based on the fallacy of induction.  Universal laws cannot be deduced from inductive evidences or "facts."  Furthermore, Clark never said that all knowledge is restricted to the Bible.  He said that all knowledge begins with Scripture as the axiom or starting point.  All other epistemological systems begin with some extra-biblical starting point such as empiricism, which axioms always end in skepticism.

The idea that sensation is a necessary medium for conveying information ignores the fact that it is the mind that processes information, logical propositions, and the special revelation recorded in the Scriptures.  It is the language of the Bible that counts, not paper and ink.  Although written words are mediated to the mind through sight and reading, dogs cannot read.  Cats cannot even know what a book is.  Since God is a spiritual being (John 4:24), the image of God in man cannot be the physical body.  The soul is created in the image and likeness of God and is spiritual.  Since God is Logic (John 1:1) then it follows that the architecture of God's mind is logical in nature.  Man likewise is innately endowed with the ability to think, reason, and conceive because man is the image of God.  Only men can sin.  Animals cannot think or sin or even do good or evil.  Inherent in logic is the law of contradiction.  Without the law of contradiction irrationalism is the result.

The problem with Van Til is that he said that logic is not inherently an attribute of God.  Logic, according to Van Til, is something God created for man.  Although G. H. Clark does say that God is not subject to any law, Clark also contended that logic is the very architecture of God's mind.  For Van Til to say that God is rational and logical is to confuse the creature with the Creator.  God, for Van Til, transcends logic.  If so, then for all practical purposes revelation is impossible.  If God cannot communicate truth to man at any single point then the Bible is not revelation.  It is merely an analogy with no particular point of reference in common with God.  The Bible, on the other hand, affirms that God actually speaks univocally.  If God speaks univocally in Scripture, then it logically follows that Van Til's view has more in common with neo-orthodoxy and irrationalism than with biblical Christianity.  Van Til in short was an heretic.

The Bible clearly says that God speaks finally in the Scriptures and in Jesus Christ:

 Then God spoke to Noah, saying, (Genesis 8:15 NKJ)

 And God spoke all these words, saying: (Exodus 20:1 NKJ)

 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; (Hebrews 1:1-2 NKJ)

Even more to the point, the apostle Paul says that all Scripture is inspired or breathed out by God:

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, (2 Timothy 3:16 NKJ)

Those who want to hedge on the doctrine of verbal plenary inspiration will say that Scripture is not univocally the very words of God but only an analogy of revelation.  To do so, they say, is to confuse the creature with the Creator.  This is nothing more than the neo-orthodox view couched in the language of Thomas Aquinas.  Dr. R. Scott Clark, for example, wishes to put doubt in the minds of believers by insisting with Van Til that at no single point does Scripture coincide with God's words and thoughts:

. . . even those in the Reformed confessional tradition who rejected the modernist translation project have also wrestled with the proper way to do theology after modernity. Some confessionalists carried on the classic approach to theology, but we have often seemed to forget gradually our own grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Confessional Reformed theology, however, works with some basic beliefs about the nature of relations between God and his creation, beliefs that are derived from Scripture and shape theological method. Chief among these is the notion that God is the “beginning of being” (principium essendi) and, as such, the “beginning of knowing” (principium cognoscendi). A corollary to this doctrine is the notion that human knowledge of God is analogical. (P. 123).    (Religious Uncertainty: R. Scott Clark's Recovering the Reformed Confession

As the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark contended, this would make God completely unknowable.  Furthermore, logically speaking if we can know nothing God knows then it follows that we cannot know anything that is true.  God is truth.  His Word is truth.  (John 17:17).  Conversely, if we know anything that is true, then God must know that same truth just as we know it.  This is not to say that we are omniscient or that we know all that God knows.  Certainly only God knows intuitively and directly all there is to know.  But if God knows 2 + 2 = 4 and we know that same truth, it logically follows that at that point our knowledge coincides with God's knowledge.  The only other possibility is that we cannot know anything for sure and that we have no knowledge that God also knows.  Surely if God is omniscient it logically follows that God knows all of our thoughts just as we know them?  (Psalm 139:2, 4).

The theology of analogy, in short, is a smoke screen for relativism, skepticism, and the absolute transcendence of the Creator such that He is unknowable.  Van Tilian theology reduces to subjectivism, existentialism, and neo-orthodoxy.  All their cries of foul when this is pointed out to them are a tacit admission of their lack of grounding in the Scriptures.  Scott  Clark's quest for religious uncertainty is duly noted.  For R. Scott Clark anyone who actually believes what B. B. Warfield and other classical Reformed scholars say about Scripture as the univocal revelation of God in written words and propositions is in fact a "rationalist," the dirty word for Bible believing Christians.

By the Van Tilian standards, as I pointed out in another post, Martin Luther would be a rationalist since he attempted to refute the semi-pelagians (and by implication the Arminians and Federal Visionists of today) by saying that God's immutability means that God's foreknowledge of the future proves that there is no such thing as libertarian free will in Adam before the fall, in the angels, or in God:

I SHALL here draw this book to a conclusion: prepared if it were necessary to pursue this Discussion still farther. Though I consider that I have now abundantly satisfied the godly man, who wishes to believe the truth without making resistance. For if we believe it to be true, that God fore-knows and fore-ordains all things; that He can be neither deceived nor hindered in His Prescience and Predestination; and that nothing can take place but according to His Will, (which reason herself is compelled to confess;) then, even according to the testimony of reason herself, there can be no "Free-will"—in man,—in angel,—or in any creature!  -- Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will:  Conclusion.

Of course, after the fall, Adam did forfeit freedom from the curse of original sin such that his human nature became totally corrupt.  The image of God in man was completely corrupted, though not lost.  (Genesis 6:5; Psalm 51:4-5; Psalm 58:3; Job 14:4; Job 15:14).  I should also point out that Luther did not reject logic or reason or appeal to paradox.  He attempted to solve the apparent contradiction by showing that God's foreknowledge logically entails predestination--otherwise God nor anyone else could know the future!  (Acts 2:23; Acts 4:27-28).  Even as human beings we can know that if we rob a bank the odds are that we are going to be convicted of a crime and go to prison.  That foreknowledge hinders the citizen from committing crimes.  (Romans 13:3-4).   It logically follows that God's immutability means that whatever happens was predetermined by God and that God's immutability means that nothing other than what has happened could have happened at all.  (Proverbs 16:33; Malachi  3:6; James 1:17).

In fact, Dr. Gordon H. Clark argued that God predetermines the elect through the means of Scripture and revelation.  Those who have not heard the Gospel or the law of God are unable to believe it or to obey the moral law.  (2 Thessalonians 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17).  Conversion of the elect depends on their hearing the Gospel first.  (Romans 10:14-17; Acts 4:10, 12; Matthew 22:14).  The distinction between the general call of the Gospel and the effectual calling of the elect is one that escapes Arminians and Van Tilians.  And this distinction implies that those who have not heard have no opportunity whatsoever.  (Romans 9:11-16).


R. Scott Clark derisively refers to Bible believing Christians and classical Calvinists as "rationalists" on the one hand because they believe that the Bible is literally and univocally the very words of God in propositional form, and, on the other hand, for being hyper-Calvinists because they disagree with the semi-Arminian paradox of common grace and the free offer of the Gospel. Scripture teaches that ultimately God is the cause of all that comes to pass, including election and reprobation, faith and unbelief. That does not remove human responsibility because ignorance and the lack of ability to obey the Gospel or the law of God is no excuse (Romans 1:18-28). 

The Westminster Confession of Faith says:

 God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. (WCF 3:1 WCS)

 Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions. (WCF 3:2 WCS)

 By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death. (WCF 3:3 WCS)

As much as it grieves me to say this, it seems to me that the majority of so-called Reformed denominations and seminaries today are indeed hostile to Calvinism in its biblical form and in its purest expression.  The followers of Van Til and their derisive attitude toward Gordon H. Clark, the Protestant Reformed Churches, and others who advocate a more biblical Calvinism is evidence enough that they are in fact apostates from the confessional faith.  The recent trend in the Presbyterian Church in America to endorse the Federal Vision error is just a natural and logical conclusion to their acceptance of Arminian heretics into communicant membership in their Reformed congregations.  The doctrinal standards for communicant membership are the same standards for both ministers and lay members.  No Arminian should be accepted into church membership unless and until he or she repents of their heretical doctrines.


To God alone be the glory!

Charlie

What Does Geometry Have to Do with Theology or Law?

"The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God."  --Euclid

In reading Dr. Gordon H. Clark's theological and philosophical works, I came to see that logic was the most important source for understanding anything at all. Without logic nothing makes sense. Yet the liberals will say that learning is intuitive, experiential, emotional and a whole host of other things.

Awhile back I did a teacher preparation course at Polk State College, Lakeland, Florida. I learned about differentiated learning styles, multiple intelligences, diversified teaching strategies, and moral relativism. "What's right for you is right for you, and what's right for me is what is right for me." Being an avid reader of the books by the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark, I immediately piped up and said, "Well, two plus two is four for me. Maybe two plus two is five or seven or ten for you?" If there is no absolute truth then nothing is meaningful. Relativism in morality means that there is no morality. Morality does not exist.

The same is true when it comes to epistemology or the study of knowledge. If there is no such thing as truth, then we can know nothing. Furthermore, focusing on teaching strategies rather than the common core essentials shortchanges students and deprives them of any possibility of reaching their fullest potential.  It is the material to be learned, stupid!  That is not to say that teaching strategies are not important.  But to focus only on mindless exercises and the student to the neglect of the purpose of education in the first place is self defeating.  Without knowledge being propagated and higher order thinking skills, namely logical thinking skills, then education is itself meaningless irrationalism with no purpose.

Dr. Gordon H. Clark was fond of pointing out that geometry starts out with unproven axioms to prove theorems or propositions. In fact, without logic geometry would be nonsense. For the Christian the beginning axiom is, "The Bible alone is the Word of God." This axiom or "basic postulate," as the video above calls it, is the beginning point from which all knowledge flows. Deductive thinking makes knowledge possible. That's because induction cannot prove deductions. Every branch of knowledge--whether it be history, science, physics, astronomy, etc.--begins with unproven axioms. Logical positivism, for example, started with the axiom that everything we know must be verified or falsified by the five senses. Of course, Dr. Clark devastated that argument by showing that empiricism can know nothing precisely because the mind interprets what the fives senses present to it. Thus, empiricism can lead to no knowledge whatsoever.  Furthermore, logical positivism refuted its own argument by starting with an axiom that is itself empirically beyond proof.

In geometry the axioms are not proved beforehand.  Theorems or propositions are proved from the axioms.  Although my opinion of Abraham Lincoln has evolved over time, as a young man I was particularly impressed by the fact that Lincoln essentially educated himself and passed the bar by self-study.  From an early age my father taught me to read and study on my own.  He even bought a full set of the Encyclopedia Brittannica for our home because he wanted his children to have an education.  I am not saying that this was the way to do it; however, it must be said that the encyclopedia had articles on theology, philosophy, mathematics, geometry, etc.  I read these articles with enthusiasm.  In fact, I first read about Calvinism and the issue of supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism from the Encyclopedia Brittannica.  I might point out that the Arminians started out with infralapsarianism and degenerated into their illogical system of theology from there.  The same is true of the 19th century neo-Calvinists who tried to mediate between Calvinism and Arminianism with their innovative three points of common grace, God's unrequited desire to save the reprobate, and other such irrational theological propositions.

Moreover, the interesting thing about Lincoln, as the video above points out, is that Lincoln based his study of law on the logic he learned from geometry.  Rebutting arguments is essential in the legal system.  Legal proofs are based on deductions made from prior law and case law.  Court cases in court room are won by logical arguments, not by emotional appeal.  Of course, juries are often swayed by a bit of both in closing arguments.  The bottom line, however, is logic.  Johnny Cochran was brilliant when he argued that, "If the glove does not fit, you must acquit."  The problem is that the prosecution blundered in its response to this challenge because the prosecutors did not know much logic.  The challenge, of course, is a logical fallacy because it does not follow that if the glove did not fit you must acquit.  Why not?  Well, there are several other explanations of why the glove did not fit when O. J. Simpson tried the gloves on in the courtroom.  One obvious one is that when Simpson put on the rubber gloves the dynamic changed the fit of the glove.  Another possibility is that the friction between the rubber glove and the dried blood soaked leather did not allow his hand to fit.  Another possibility is that dried blood can cause leather to shrink slightly.

Logic is essential to everything we do, including our reading of the Bible.  If the Bible is not revealed through logical propositions, then the Bible is meaningless metaphors and fairy tales that have no point of contact with any kind of knowledge whatsoever.  According to Dr. Clark, John 1:9 is not speaking about salvation but about logic (John 1:1) being the very image of God in every man who is born into the world.  That being the case then it follows that God reveals the truth in logical and rational propositions in Scripture.  The starting point for all knowledge for the Christian worldview is the beginning axiom that Scripture is the Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16).

How did Euclid know that mathematics were the thoughts of God?  He did not know this from empirical observation or from empiricial proofs.  But Euclid did assume that axiom as his beginning point.  From there Euclid used logic to build his entire system of geometry.  His axioms made possible the theorems from which he deduced the science of geometry.

If other branches of knowledge begin with unproven axioms, why would the Christian be forbidden to start with his or her own axiom?  That axiom is Scripture.

The difference between naturalism and theism--between the latest scientific opinions on evolution and creation; between the Freudian animal and the image of God; between belief in God and atheism--is based on their two different epistemologies.  Naturalism professes to learn by observation and analysis of experience; the theistic view depends on Biblical revelation.  No amount of observation and analysis can prove the theistic position.  Of course, no amount of observation and analysis can prove evolution or any other theory.  The secular philosophies all result in total skepticism.  In contrast, theism bases its knowledge on divinely revealed propositions.  They may not give us all truth; they may even give us very little truth; but there is no truth at all otherwise.  So much for the secular alternative.

Therefore the Christian evaluation of subjects in the curriculum and of pupils or students in school is rational and intellectualistic, in opposition to the emotionalism and anti-intellectualism of the present age.  

Dr. Gordon H. Clark.   A Christian Philosophy of Education.   (Trinity Foundation:  Unicoi, 2000).  P. 95.

Dr. Clark convincingly argues in the book that the result of socialistic philosophy in the public school system is a dumbing down of the educational system in general.  Christian schools outperform the godless public system for good reason.  Truth matters.

Gordon H. Clark Lectures

I found a website where the lectures of Gordon H. Clark are more easily accessed than the listing over at the Trinity Foundation.  The link is here:  Sermon Network:  Gordon H. Clark:  Religious Experientialism and Irrationalism.

What_is_Apologetics.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

What_is_Apologetics.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

Gordon H. Clark's discussion of and definition of apologetics is given in this lecture. The question and answer session at the end of the lecture is extremely interesting, particularly when Clark refutes empiricism and the idea that the five senses can be trusted as a reliable source of propositional truth. His example of the judicial/legal system as being frequently wrong stands out here. If the judicial system can be so often wrong, the implications for empirical science and the philosophy of science are astounding. Thomas Kuhn's book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, comes to mind here. Science, according to true believers, is self-correcting. However, as paradigms are continually shifting based on changing empirical evidences, it seems that science along with the legal system is frequently wrong. So what is a reliable source of propositional truth and revelation? Good question! Dr. Clark's lecture will force you to rethink your doctrine of general or natural revelation. Click on the title of this article or click here to listen to this lecture: What is Apologetics?