Van Til's Modalistic View of the Godhead

"You openly declare that the immutable will of God is to be known, but you forbid the knowledge of His immutable prescience. Do you believe that He foreknows against His will, or that He wills in ignorance? If then, He foreknows, willing, His will is eternal and immovable, because His nature is so: and, if He wills, foreknowing, His knowledge is eternal and immovable, because His nature is so."  --Martin Luther's logical response to Erasmus' semi-pelagianism.



Almost everything Scott Clark writes is in adherence to the now dead pope of Van Tilian "Reformed" theology:

As Remonstrant theology developed, however, its basic nature became clearer and that basic nature was rationalism. Arminius was a rationalist in at least one sense of the word inasmuch as he denied the fundamental Reformed distinction between the intellect of the Creator and the intellect of the creature. For Arminius (as for some rebellious and rationalist Reformed theologians in the 20th century) if we could not know what God knows, the way he knows it, we cannot ultimately know anything.

Why Did Arminianism Win?

Of course, Arminian theology is irrational, just like Van Til. After all, who needs to reconcile God's foreknowledge with God's absolute sovereignty, omnipotence, and omnipresence? How is it that God can be immutable in His Tri-personal nature and yet there could be an irrational ignorance of what He has decreed to come to pass in the future? The Van Tilian mantra is that everyone who disagrees with them is a "rationalist," be it the Arminians or classical Calvinists.  Of course, R. Scott Clark cannot decide if Calvinists are rationalists or hyper-Calvinists.  Anyone who disagrees with the Westminster Seminary California faculty just has to be either a rationalist or a hyper-Calvinist or both.  Even Martin Luther was a "rationalist" by Scott Clark's standards. That's because Luther solved the problem of God's immutability, sovereignty, and foreknowledge:

THIS, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know: That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, "Free-will" is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces. Those, therefore, who would assert "Free-will," must either deny this thunderbolt, or pretend not to see it, or push it from them. But, however, before I establish this point by any arguments of my own, and by the authority of Scripture, I will first set it forth in your words.

Are you not then the person, friend Erasmus, who just now asserted, that God is by nature just, and by nature most merciful? If this be true, does it not follow that He is immutably just and merciful? That, as His nature is not changed to all eternity, so neither His justice nor His mercy? And what is said concerning His justice and His mercy, must be said also concerning His knowledge, His wisdom, His goodness, His will, and His other Attributes. If therefore these things are asserted religiously, piously, and wholesomely concerning God, as you say yourself, what has come to you, that, contrary to your own self, you now assert, that it is irreligious, curious, and vain, to say, that God foreknows of necessity? You openly declare that the immutable will of God is to be known, but you forbid the knowledge of His immutable prescience. Do you believe that He foreknows against His will, or that He wills in ignorance? If then, He foreknows, willing, His will is eternal and immovable, because His nature is so: and, if He wills, foreknowing, His knowledge is eternal and immovable, because His nature is so.

The Sovereignty of God: The Bondage of the Will

I guess Luther was prying into the secret mind of God by using logic to deduce from the Scriptures that free will does not exist?  The fact of the matter is that Scott Clark's irrationalism has more in common with Arminianism and modern Lutheranism than with the classical Reformed view or with the logic employed by Luther. Without logic and the law of contradiction every epistemology ultimately leads to skepticism. R. Scott Clark's irrationalism is a tacit approval of Arminian irrationalism.   Moreover, Martin Luther's denunciation of semi-pelagianism by his use of the law of contradiction and logic is a prime example of why R. Scott Clark is an irrationalist.  Anyone who can logically refute Van Til's multiple contradictions and antinomies just has to be a "rationalist."  

A prime example of Van Til's irrationalism is when he confuses common language references to God by the singular pronoun "He" with the credal formulations based in Scripture that God is actually a tri-personal being who exists in one nature.  One Van Tilian accuses the traditional doctrine of the Trinity of making God's nature "impersonal."  Please note the comment made by Camden Bucey at the Reformed Forum:

Camden Bucey says:

March 6, 2011 at 11:59 pm

Charlie, let me reiterate that within the Trinity are distinctions without separation. The Father, Son, and Spirit each indwell the Godhead (and hence eachother) fully. They share one divine essence – or nature as you prefer.

The language of “contain” has spatial connotations, and therefore I think the biblical language of “indwelling” is more appropriate. If you don’t find that helpful, another way to phrase the perichoretic relation is to say that there are full and exhaustive yet distinct manners of subsistence. Yet this indwelling, though exhaustive, does not obliterate the personal distinctions. The Father is unbegotten, the Son begotten, and the Spirit proceeds. These are real distinctions that belong to the persons.

I am not confusing the persons and the nature as you claim. Furthermore, this perichoretic formulation avoids the twin heresies of Sabellianism (modalism) and tritheism, which have also been thrown out there.

Let me ask you a question. Are you comfortable with positing an impersonal essence within the Godhead? 

As you can see, Bucey perpetuates the error of Van Til by asserting that the three persons of the one divine nature/ being of God interpenetrate each other.  Nothing could be further from the truth since the three persons of the Godhead are absolutely distinct from the other two persons at each and every point.  That is what the Scriptures teach and it is what the Athanasian Creed teaches as well.  Each of the three persons are fully God/Divine and therefore share that same essence.  God is one is one sense (being) and three in another (persons).  The personal subsistences do not interprenetrate each other, yet all three are united as One in one divine nature.  God is not impersonal since God is tri-personal.  God is not separated into three gods, nor is God one Person and three Persons.  That would be tri-theism in the first instance and modalism in the second instance.  It is true that in common language we often refer to God as "He."  However, in general we are referring to God the Father in that instance.   (2 Corinthians 13:14).

Furthermore, Van Til's insistence that "all Scripture is apparently paradoxical" is a tacit admission that Van Til thinks that Scripture does not adhere to logic or the law of contradiction.  If God does not reveal Scripture through logic, then Scripture itself is illogical and irrational by the standards of Van Til's theology.  Who could say that good is evil and evil is good except by the law of contradiction?  (Isaiah 5:20).  For Van Tilians, anyone who disagrees with them on the basis of logic is a "rationalist."  Thus, they have openly rejected the very foundation of the confessional Reformed theology:

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: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.    WCF 1:6

Westminster Confession of Faith:  Chapter 1, Of the Holy Scriptures, Section 6.

Postscript:  I forgot to mention that Dr. Gordon H. Clark's definition of a person is the propositions that he thinks.  (Proverbs 23:7).  So if God is three persons, then it follows that each person of the Godhead thinks certain propositions in common with the other two persons since all three are fully divine and have all the attributes of deity.  But, as the Athanasian Creed points out, the three persons of the Godhead likewise think propositions unique to each person.  The Father cannot think that He is the Son or the Spirit, etc.

Gary Crampton: Analogy Leads to Skepticism

"Even though Frame denies it, Clark was correct when he maintained that Van Til’s concept of analogical knowledge is much closer to that of Thomas Aquinas than Van Tilians are willing to admit. Such a view, if taken to its logical conclusion, leads to skepticism. Simply stated, an analogy of the truth is not the truth." -- Gary Crampton

See more at: 

Cornelius Van Til:  An Analysis of His Thought

Theologia Crucis: Mike Horton's Ontological Mess

"I wish to affirm that a satisfactory theory of revelation must involve a realistic epistemology. By realism in this connection, I mean a theory that the human mind possesses some truth – not an analogy of the truth, not a representation of or correspondence to the truth, not a mere hint of the truth, not a meaningless verbalism about a new species of truth, but the truth itself."  -- Dr. Gordon H. Clark

It is truly ironic when an irrationalist Lutheran calls Mike Horton's view an ontological mess.  But at least this demonstrates my point that Horton is incredibly confused and contradicts himself many times over in his systematic theology,  The Christian Faith:  A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way.  Dr. Jack Kilcrease is no Lutheran lightweight.  Although he is a layman, he is an adjunct professor of theology at the Institute for Lutheran Theology and Aquinas College.  The lead in of his article is compelling:

Michael Horton (a Reformed theologian and frequent guest on Issues, etc.) has written a systematic theology a while back that received a lot of attention. I read it about a year ago and had some initial technical problems with it (for one thing, it was one of the worst edited books I've ever read. The first footnotes in one chapter read "Ibid."). Through my research into the history of Western and Eastern Christian theology, I've come to appreciate how Horton's basic way of construing human knowledge of God is a complete mess. What he attempts to do is combine Western scholastic approach to the knowledge of God with an Eastern distinction between "essence" and "energies." These are completely contradictory approaches to ontology and the knowledge of God. Below, I will flesh out some of my criticisms. 

-- Jack Kilcrease, theologia crucis: Michael Horton's Theological-Ontological Mess

I happen to concur completely with this thesis.  Eastern Orthodoxy is blatantly pelagian through and through, yet Horton tries to reconcile the contradiction by way of Van Til's theology of paradox.  Ironic, is it not?  It should not be surprising to those who follow the theology of Gordon H. Clark to find Van Tilians who are enamored with the mysticism of Eastern Orthodoxy.  Dr. Kilcrease makes an excellent point here in that regard:

Gregory of Nyssa emphasized that one couldn't treat the divine essence like this. It was mysterious and essentially unknowable. In his Life of Moses, Gregory described the Christian life metaphorically as being like the ascension of Moses up Mt. Sinai. One enters farther and farther into the darkness of the mountain of God, without ever reaching a knowledge of the divine being in itself. Of course, this certainly served the polemical situation, but the fact of the matter is that it simply created another problem: how do we know anything about God if he is incomprehensible? 

Kilcrease

Unfortunately, modern Lutherans have fallen into the same trap as the Van Tilians when they deny that Scripture is a logical and a rational revelation from God and that Scripture is univocally the very words of God.  Kilcrease has more in common with Horton than would at first appear:

This has epistemological implications: Since God is these things properly and creatures are these things in a derivative manner by similitude to God, God is conceptually knowable by analogy. 

Ibid.

Even more unfortunately, Kilcrease sides with Aquinas rather than Augustine's view that Scripture is a reasonable revelation of God and fully comprehensible.  Aquinas begins with reason and tries to prove God's existence, and Aquinas is the originator of the theology of Scripture as analogy rather than the very words of God.  So it would appear that the rationalism of Aquinas does lead to irrationalism and skepticism just as the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark contended.  Of course, Dr. Clark's own theology, often described as presuppositional Scripturalism, also included a healthy dose of Augustinian realism.

For the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark the idea that reason apart from revelation can lead to faith, or that analogy can explain what Scripture teaches, was anathema.  His thesis is that rationalism, represented by Thomas Aquinas, leads to skepticism and irrationalism.  And judging from the evolution of philosophy from Immanuel Kant to Kierkegaard and the existentialists, this is not a wrong assessment.  Even worse, the neo-orthodox theologians thrived on the theology of paradox which they further developed from Kierkegaard and others.  Surely those who side with irrationalism should reconsider the words of the late Gordon H. Clark:

In conclusion, I wish to affirm that a satisfactory theory of revelation must involve a realistic epistemology. By realism in this connection, I mean a theory that the human mind possesses some truth – not an analogy of the truth, not a representation of or correspondence to the truth, not a mere hint of the truth, not a meaningless verbalism about a new species of truth, but the truth itself. God has spoken his Word in words, and these words are adequate symbols of the conceptual content. The conceptual content is literally true, and it is the univocal, identical point of coincidence in the knowledge of God and man.

Gordon Clark (2011-07-02T18:48:21+00:00). God's Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics (Gordon Clark) (Kindle Locations 774-779). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition.