Incarnation Part 10: The Necessity of the Deity of Christ

"The ecclesiastical situation is similar to the political, where many Americans have advocated this or that part of communistic propaganda without knowing its source and aims. 

But put the question thus:  If the Virgin Birth is not an historical event, and if the body of Christ did not come out of the tomb, and if the Scriptures are often in error, what hope is there of long maintaining the deity of Christ?  Indeed, can one be said truly to believe in Christ if he denies these things?"   --Dr. Gordon H. Clark

The following words of Dr. Gordon H. Clark are a telling indictment of the current state of the Presbyterian and Reformed churches even in so-called "orthodox" or "conservative" Presbyterian denominations.  In fact, his words are almost prophetic since Dr. Clark passed away in 1985.  The situation today is even worse that it was in the mid 1980s.

Although the present temper of the churches with their doctrinal laxity and ecumenical obsession does not issue in explicit attacks on the Trinity, it would be a mistake to conclude that this doctrine more than others enjoys uniform acceptance.  Whether the Virgin Birth is rejected as an impossible biological miracle, or whether the creeds are eviscerated by making them symbolic, pointers, or myths, the very nature of the Godhead is called into question.

An attack against the citadel is not always frontal.  Sometimes the outer defenses are first put out of commission, one by one;  sometimes the foundations are undermined; sometimes the supplies are cut off.  This is not to suggest that all those who attack some doctrine or other intend to weaken their testimony to the deity of Christ.  It does not even imply that all those who deny the Virgin Birth are conscious enemies of trinitarianism.  The ecclesiastical situation is similar to the political, where many Americans have advocated this or that part of communistic propaganda without knowing its source and aims.

But put the question thus:  If the Virgin Birth is not an historical event, and if the body of Christ did not come out of the tomb, and if the Scriptures are often in error, what hope is there of long maintaining the deity of Christ?  Indeed, can one be said truly to believe in Christ if he denies these things?  Suppose one should say, I believe Napoleon was a real historical character who actually lived; but I reject the legendary accretions which say he put an end to the French revolution, became Emperor, fought Spain, Italy, Australia, invaded Russia, lost the battle of Waterloo, and was exiled on St. Helena.  But of course I believe in Napoleon!

Is this any more silly than to say, I believe in Jesus Christ, but of course miracles are impossible and the story of the resurrection is a kerygmatic myth?

There is either one Christ or there is none.  If Jesus was not the eternal Son of God, equal in power and glory with the Father, then let's have done with all talk about Christianity.  Let us admit honestly that we are Unitarians, Jews, Buddhists, or humanists.  But not Christians.  For the historical Jesus said, Upon this rock, of the deity of Christ, I will build my Church.  Some other organization may call itself a church, but it is not his.

Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  What Do Presbyterians Believe?  (Unicoi:  Trinity Foundation:  2001).  Pp. 34-35.

The doctrine of the incarnation of the eternal Logos in the human person of Jesus Christ is under attack on many fronts today, not least of which is the oblique attack on the doctrine of the plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture, the infallibility of Scripture, and the inerrancy of Scripture.  Some Evangelical theologians who still wish to be known as Evangelicals claim to believe in the same doctrine of plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture as Warfield and Hodge but on further examination they have changed the meaning of the term to fit with their implicit acceptance of neo-orthodoxy.  Since everything we know about Jesus Christ and the trinity is logically deduced from the Scriptures, it is a serious departure to change the meaning of a theological term that has traditionally been understood as the fact that God literally inspired every jot and tittle of Scripture and every single word of Scripture such that even quotes from pagan poets and apocryphal books are a God breathed record and meant to convey a propositional truth.  In fact, Scripture is not analogical but propositional.  That is, God reveals His written word to us in logical, rational, and propositional form so that a system of dogmatic truths can be deduced from the Scriptures:

6.  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. (2 Tim. 3:15–17, Gal. 1:8–9, 2 Thess. 2:2) . . . 

Westminster Confession of Faith.  Chapter 1:6

This is not to say that the Bible contains no analogies, no metaphors, no similes, no parables, no poetry, and no apocalyptic material.  Far from it.  But what it does mean is that behind every parable, every metaphor, every analogy there is a proposition that can be logically deduced from the text by a good exegesis of the text.  The Evangelical method of exegesis is the historical and grammatical method, not the neo-orthodox method where the Bible is simply a record or analogy of revelation and not revelation itself.  When the Westminster, California and Westminster, Philadelphia theologians say that only God knows the system of theology in His incomprehensible mind and we only have an analogical system of theology, they are in effect--whether they realize it or not--saying that the Bible is not really God's inspired Word in every single word at every single point but instead the Bible is merely a human record or a framework of God's unknowable revelation in God's mind.  Their position is that there is no single point at which God's written Word, the Holy Scriptures, and the system of theology in God's mind coincide.  Not one.  This is nothing more than neo-orthodoxy.

Dr. Gordon H. Clark came under attack when he was a professor at the fledgling Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania because he dared to stand for the classical view that the Bible is univocally the very inspired words of God in every single jot and tittle, every word.  It was Dr. Clark's position that if we know anything that is true, then God must know that same truth just as we know it and vice versa.  If we can know nothing God knows then obviously we can never know the truth whatsoever.  Does God know that David was the king of Israel, that Jesus Christ was literally and physically raised from the dead or that 2 + 2 = 4?  And it logically follows if we know those same truths, then we know what God knows on that single point of coinciding truth as a propositional statement.  This does not imply that we are omniscient nor that we are prying into the secret mind of God since revelation is not secret but revealed!  (Romans 16:25-27; Deuteronomy 29:29).  All truth originates in God's mind, not in empirical science, logical positivism, rationalism, or a blank tabula rasa or blank tablet.

The doctrine of the incarnation is intimately tied to the doctrine of the Trinity.  In fact, the early church had not fully developed their understanding of the biblical propositions and through a series of church synods and councils further deductions from Scripture were made so that it became apparent that in order to sustain the doctrine of Christ as both God and man there must in fact be three Persons within the one divine being, divine nature, or Godhead.  Three personal distinctions within one divine being or nature does not imply three separate gods, however, because this would violate the monotheism of the Hebrew shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) and other proof texts.  (Mark 12:29; Deuteronomy 4:35; 1 Corinthians 8:4).


As Dr. Clark said many times, the Westminster Confession of Faith orders the doctrines of the propositional system in a descending order of importance.  The first three doctrines are:  1. Holy Scripture.  2.  The Holy Trinity.  3. Predestination.  Yet all three of these primary Presbyterian doctrines today are under attack in Evangelical denominations and Evangelical seminaries.  Creation is chapter 4 and Providence is in chapter 5.  Some churches just completely ignore these foundational doctrines and refuse to preach them.  Others outright attack them.  These preliminary doctrines lead up to the doctrine of the incarnation in chapter 8, Of Christ the Mediator.


So how can God be one God in essence and nature and yet three distinct persons within the one Godhead?  There is so much material on the doctrine of the Trinity that it would take several lifetimes to read and study it all in detail.  Here I will try to summarize the key points of the doctrine from a Clarkian and Scripturalist perspective and utilizing the classical Calvinist and Reformed theologians.


Since it is Scripture that defines God and His attributes as given in propositional form in the inspired texts, no doctrine of the Trinity can afford to dismiss Scripture as merely a record of God's revelation rather than revelation itself.  Although it is true that justification by faith alone or Sola Fide is the doctrine that Martin Luther said determines whether a church stands or falls, all the other doctrines in the Bible are equally important.  Without the doctrine of Scripture as fully inspired of God one cannot deduce the doctrine of justification in the first place.  The same can be said for the doctrine of the trinity and the doctrine of the incarnation.  Both of these doctrines are deduced from Scripture.  This is why Scripture or Sola Scriptura is primary in the Calvinist or Presbyterian system of dogma.  Every other doctrine flows out of Sola Scriptura.  Once the doctrine of plenary verbal inspiration, infallibility and inerrancy are undermined or rejected, everything else collapses.  There is no Christianity left--none at all.

To introduce the subject this treatise will begin with a chronological or historical approach, though eventually it will perforce become more logical than historical. At any rate we start with the Old Testament. This historical approach is not only convenient; it is pedagogically necessary also. Seminary students today, unless they came from Christian grade schools and high schools, have had little Scriptural or catechetical instruction. Accordingly, since the material out of which the doctrine of the Trinity is constructed is the Scriptural data, such passages must of necessity be kept in mind or else the discussion loses significance. Like any other treatise on the Trinity this one does not profess to give all the relevant material; it does profess to give more than some other volumes on Systematic Theology give. But the student must do some spade work of his own and is urged to search the Scriptures, for in them ye think (and think correctly) ye have eternal life.  [John 5:39].

Gordon H. Clark. The Trinity (Kindle Locations 77-83). The Trinity Foundation.



The biblical evidence for the doctrine of the trinity is extensive but the doctrine is only explicitly taught in the New Testament.  In Genesis 1:26 God says, Let us make man in our image.  Some have advocated the view that this verse teaches the trinity because the Hebrew word for God in that verse is Elohim, which is a plural word according to the Hebrew grammar.  But most scholars have interpreted this use of the word Elohim as a majestic plurality and not as a reference to the trinity:

Brown-Driver-Briggs

אֱלֹהִים₂₅₇₀ noun masculine plural (feminine 1 Kings 11:33; on number of occurrences of אֵל, אֱלוֺהַּ, אֱלֹהִים compare also Nes^{l. c},) 1 plural in number.
a. rulers, judges, either as divine representatives at sacred places or as reflecting divine majesty and power....

From Biblehub.com's Strong's numbering link.

I could go through all of the biblical data but I think any systematic theology from a Reformed perspective can do that adequately.  Also, you can read Dr. Clark's book, The Trinity, which is available in ebook and paperback at the Trinity Foundation site.

The needed emphasis on the unity of God precluded any understanding of the Godhead as a Trinity. There were hints, however. The plural Elohim might have suggested some sort of plurality in the divine being; but with the idea of three absent, and no explanation given, it was natural to understand the word as a plural of majesty. But may we not suppose that the use of the name Jehovah three times and three times only in Numbers 6:24-26 and Daniel 9:19 is something more than a rhetorical or liturgical flourish? The same phenomenon occurs also in Isaiah 33:22.

Some theologians see more Old Testament anticipations of the Trinity than others do. I. A. Dorner (System of Christian Doctrine, Volume I) surely overdoes it. He not only takes the frequent use of Davar as indicative of the Logos, he even sees this Word in Genesis 1:3, 6, 9 (God said). He also mentions Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made;” Psalm 107:20, “He sent his word.” Rather obviously the ancient Hebrews could not see the Trinity in Genesis one; but Psalm 107 indeed suggests some sort of plurality.

Gordon H. Clark. The Trinity (Kindle Locations 90-104). The Trinity Foundation.

As this discussion will be lengthy, I hope the reader will pardon me for postponing the discussion of the Athanasian Creed until later.  Also, in a future post, since I came from a Pentecostal background, I want to spend a little time discussing the oneness Pentecostal view of the trinity and the incarnation and show why their view is not only heretical but self contradictory.  The oneness Pentecostal will say that Jesus is God.  But does their view lend itself to the full and complete deity of Jesus Christ?


Index to posts on Clark's view of the Incarnation.
 

Incarnation Part 9

“Ectypal knowledge is true, but analogical. An analogy is parallel to, but does not intersect the original.”  R. Scott Clark.  Posted in the Puritan Board, “Analogically, Univocally, and Equivocally.”

“That there is a most important qualitative difference between the knowledge situation in the case of God and the knowledge situation for man cannot possibly be denied without repudiating all Christian theism. God is omniscient; his knowledge is not acquired, and his knowledge, according to common terminology, is intuitive while man’s is discursive.”  Gordon H. Clark

A Theological and Scripturalist Defense of Gordon H. Clark’s Two Person View of the Incarnation

Part  9

By Charlie J. Ray, M. Div.

I promised in my last post to delve into the doctrine of the Trinity.  Unfortunately the information in regards to the doctrine of the Trinity and how that relates to the Incarnation is a huge quantity of material the quality of which may or may not always be good.  That’s intended to be a pun, by the way.  While the following excursion may not seem at first glance to be related to the doctrine of the incarnation, I will follow the Clarkian Scripturalist view that all the propositions in a system of propositional truth are interrelated and all the parts fit together in harmony and consistency.  That’s why the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the Incarnation are good and necessary deductions that are not divorced from the rest of the system of theology deduced from the Bible.  (See: Westminster Confession of Faith 1:6).

This week I was listening to the first of four Heidelcast posts by Dr. R. Scott Clark of Westminster Theological Seminary, California.  During that lecture Scott Clark correctly distinguished between the sui generis of God and man as two different classes of beings.  Man is not God and God is not man.  However, during the lecture Scott Clark went off in what can only be called a neo-orthodox direction.  (See:  I Am That I Am, Part 1).  Scott Clark contends that we can know absolutely nothing that God knows just as God knows it.  Additionally, R. Scott Clark advocates that God’s theology and what is revealed in the Bible never intersect at any single point.  In short, the implication plainly stated is that the Bible is not God’s inspired Word nor is it the theology God knows.  Two parallel lines never intersect here or in eternity and thus the creature can know nothing God knows except by analogy.  R. S. Clark contends further that there is not a quantitative difference between God’s knowledge and our knowledge but rather there is a qualitative difference between man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge.  But I would like to know what this qualitative difference is?  Words need to be carefully defined.  

According to R. Scott Clark the qualitative difference is that we are creatures and God is the Creator.  We are also affected by the sinful nature and the noetic effects of that sinful nature.  R. S. Clark then contends that there is no quantitative difference between man and God because it is impossible for man to know anything that God knows.

But Gordon H. Clark contended that the difference between God and the creature is not only qualitative but quantitative.  However, even that is a bit of an oversimplification because Gordon Clark also said that man thinks discursively and is subject to the linear progression of time.  One thought passes to the next.  But in God’s eternal mind there is no passing of time and therefore God does not think in linear progression of time or one thought after another.  God knows all the propositions that can be known and all the relations between the propositions in that system of propositional truth in His mind and He knows them all at the same time.  So Gordon Clark did not confuse the creature with the Creator as his opponents continually assert.  It is fairly easy to demonstrate this from Clark’s own writings.  The fact of the matter is that Gordon Clark did not reject the qualitative difference between God and the creature because he distinguished between man’s knowledge as discursive and God’s knowledge as intuitive:

The professors above referred to assert, “there is a qualitative difference between the contents of the knowledge of God and the contents of the knowledge possible to man” (The Text, 5:1). That there is a most important qualitative difference between the knowledge situation in the case of God and the knowledge situation for man cannot possibly be denied without repudiating all Christian theism. God is omniscient; his knowledge is not acquired, and his knowledge, according to common terminology, is intuitive while man’s is discursive. These are some of the differences and doubtless the list could be extended. But if both God and man know, there must with the differences be at least one point of similarity; for if there were no point of similarity, it would be inappropriate to use the one term knowledge in both cases. Whether this point of similarity is to be found in the contents of knowledge, or whether the contents differ, depends on what is meant by the term contents. Therefore, more specifically worded statements are needed.

Gordon Clark. God's Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics (Gordon Clark) (Kindle Locations 651-659). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition.

G. H. Clark contended that Van Til’s views amount to an equivocation or waffling back and forth between Reformed orthodoxy and Barthian neo-orthodoxy:

To avoid doing an injustice to Van Til and his associates, it must be stated that sometimes they seem to make contradictory assertions. In the course of their papers, one can find a paragraph in which they seem to accept the position they are attacking, and then they proceed with the attack. What can the explanation be except that they are confused and are attempting to combine two incompatible positions? The objectionable one is in substantial harmony with Existentialism or Neo-orthodoxy. But the discussion of the noetic effects of sin in the unregenerate mind need not further be continued because a more serious matter usurps attention. The Neo-orthodox influence seems to produce the result that even the regenerate man cannot know the truth.

Gordon Clark. God's Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics. (Gordon Clark) (Kindle Locations 623-628). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition.

Moreover, R. Scott Clark and the Van Tilian theologians claim to derive their theology of analogy from Francis Turretin and begrudgingly acknowledge their debt to the theology of Thomas Aquinas’s view that theology is an analogical system rather than a system of propositional truth.  But it turns out that much of their theory is derived from Karl Barth and Soren Kierkegaard.  Kierkegaard was a huge influence on Barth and is usually identified as the father of modern existentialism and neo-orthodoxy.  It could be inferred that this theology came to certain of the Van Tilians through Martin Heinecken, a liberal Lutheran scholar from the mainline liberal Lutheran denomination called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  In my re-reading of one of my Arminian systematic theology books from college this morning I came across this account from Millard Erickson of Barth’s theology of total transcendence and the relationship between Kierkegaard and Barth:

Karl Barth’s Model

In the twentieth century, a new major emphasis on God’s transcendence appeared in the thought and writing of Karl Barth, particularly in his early work, and most notably in his Romerbrief.  In that work he emphasized the Unknown God.  God is altogether other; immensely above the rest of the deities of the world of Paul’s day and all the deities which modern thought creates.

God is not an aspect of man or the best of human nature.  He is separated from man by an infinite qualitative distinction.  There is within man no spark of affinity with the divine, no ability to produce divine revelation, no remainder in him of a likeness to God.  Moreover, God is not involved in nature or conditioned by it.  He is free from all such limitations.  Nor is he really known by us.  He is the hidden one; he cannot be discovered by man’s effort, verified by man’s intellectual proofs, or understood in terms of man’s concepts.  Barth’s vigorous attack upon all forms of natural theology was an expression of his belief in divine transcendence.  Revelation comes only on God’s own initiative; and when it does come, it is not mediated through general culture.  It comes, in Barth’s language, vertically from above.  Man is never able in any way to make God his possession.

In the judgment of many theologians, including even the later Barth himself, Barth’s early view of transcendence was extreme.  Taken in its most literal form, it seemed to virtually cut off any real possibility of communication between God and man.  There was too severe a distinction between God and man . . .

Soren Kierkegaard’s Nonspatial Model

Soren Kierkegaard’s conception of divine transcendence was in many ways influential on Karl Barth.  While there are a few extreme elements in Kierkegaard’s thought, he offers some genuinely creative ways of expressing the idea of transcendence.  Two of them are what Martin Heinecken has expounded under the labels of qualitative distinction and dimensional beyondness.

By qualitative distinction is meant that the difference between God and man is not merely one of degree.  God is not merely like man but more so.  They are of fundamentally different kinds. Thus God cannot be known by taking the highest and best elements within man and amplifying them.  Being qualitatively distinct, God cannot be extrapolated from the ideas that man has nor from the qualities of man’s personality or character.  

Millard Erickson.  Systematic Theology.  (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985).  Pp. 314-315.

From the above it can be legitimately inferred that if the Bible is not a logical and propositional revelation and communication between God and man is virtually and actually impossible, then the Bible is not really God’s inspired Word.  Van Tilians contradict themselves when they say that revelation is possible but only analogically so.  In fact, even though they acknowledge that the Bible is a rational revelation, they contend that logic is not essential to revelation.  Gordon H. Clark, on the other hand, said that the Bible teaches that God is Logic (John 1:1) and that because man is made in God’s image and likeness, man is an intellectual and logical and rational being.  (Genesis 1:27).  G. H. Clark rejected the view that the Bible is analogical revelation because the Bible only uses analogies and metaphors in certain passages of Scripture.  Not everything in the Bible is an analogy and even where there are analogies and metaphors utilized behind those analogies and metaphors there is a univocal and propositional truth.  What is analogical about the statement that David was the king of Israel?  Is that a straightforward proposition of historical fact or is it a mythological and analogical truth that only man knows?  After all, man and God cannot know the same thing.  Does God know that 2 + 2 = 4?  Or does man alone know 2 + 2 = 4?

R. Scott Clark continually uses the mantra of ectypal and archetypal knowledge as it was expressed by Francis Turretin.  He accuses Gordon H. Clark of ignoring this qualitative distinction between God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge.  But as I have shown above, Dr. Gordon H. Clark did acknowledge a qualitative and quantitative difference between God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge.  I would contend, however, that R. Scott Clark and other Van Tilians are reading their existentialist views into Francis Turretin and their dialectical and Barthian views cannot be proved from Turretin.  That’s because Turretin did not reject propositional revelation.  I also discovered that Turretin only mentions the ectypal and archetypal distinction in the Institutes of Elenctic Theology in regards to his rejection of rationalism, not as an acceptance of a Hegelian dialectic philosophy or a Kantian noumenalism where God is so completely transcendent as to be unknowable:

VI. True theology is divided into: (1) infinite and uncreated, which is God’s essential knowledge of himself (Mt. 11:27) in which he alone is at the same time the object known (epistēton), the knowledge (epistēmōn), and the knower (epistēmē), and that which he decreed to reveal to us concerning himself which is commonly called archetypal; and (2) finite and created, which is the image and ectype (ektypon) of the infinite and archetypal (prōtotypou) (viz., the ideas which creatures possess concerning God and divine things, taking form from that supreme knowledge and communicated to intelligent creatures, either by hypostatical union with the soul of Christ [whence arises “the theology of union”]; or by beatific vision to the angels and saints who walk by sight, not by faith, which is called “the theology of vision”; or by revelation, which is made to travellers [viz., to those who have not yet reached the goal and is called “the theology of revelation”] or the stadium).

Francis Turretin.  Institutes of Elenctic Theology.  Vol. 1.  Ebook.  “First Topic:  Theology”.  Translated by George Musgrave Giger.  James Dennison, editor.  (Phillipsburg:  Presbyterian and Reformed, 1997).  P. 49 in the ebook edition.

Reason is not the principle of faith. 

V. The reasons are: (1) The reason of an unregenerate man is blinded with respect to the law (Eph. 4:17, 18; Rom. 1:27, 28; 8:7). With respect to the gospel, it is evidently blind and mere darkness (Eph. 5:8; 1 Cor. 2:14). Therefore, it must be taken captive that it may be subjected to faith, not exalted that it may rule it (2 Cor. 10:3–5*). (2) The mysteries of faith are beyond the sphere of reason to which the unregenerate man cannot rise; and, as the senses do not attempt to judge of those things which are out of their sphere, so neither does reason in those things which are above it and supernatural. (3) Faith is not referred ultimately to reason, so that I ought to believe because I so understand and comprehend; but to the word because God so speaks in the Scriptures. (4) The Holy Spirit directs us to the word alone (Dt. 4:1; Is. 8:20; Jn. 5:39; 2 Tim. 3:15, 16; 2 Pet. 1:19). (5) If reason is the principle of faith, then first it would follow that all religion is natural and demonstrable by natural reason and natural light. Thus nature and grace, natural and supernatural revelation would be confounded.

Turretin, p. 64.  Ebook edition.

It should first be pointed out that Turretin predates both Kierkegaard and Barth.  Secondly, rejecting rationalism as the basis for faith is not the same thing as rejecting the Bible as an axiom which asserts a logical and propositional revelation.  Every theology has a starting point.  To start with God and not the Bible is to start with an unknown and undefined God.  The Bible, even according to Turretin, is not an irrational book.  Instead reason is necessary to understand the propositional revelation:

III. Having established this point, I say that to reason belongs the judgment of discretion in matters of faith, both subjectively (because it belongs to the intellect alone to know and distinguish these matters of faith) and normally; and indeed with respect to the truth of conclusions in all propositions (whether known by nature or by revelation), but with respect to the truth of propositions only in those known by nature and even then with this threefold caution. (1) That the judgment of reason not be considered as necessary, as if theology could not do without it. (2) That the word of God (where also these truths are revealed) be considered always as the primary rule and reason as the secondary. (3) That when the word adds something unknown to nature to a thing known by nature, then we should not judge of it by nature or reason, but by the word (not that the word and reason are at variance, but because reason is perfected by the word). But in things known only by revelation (as the mystery of the Trinity, of the incarnation, etc.), the only rule is the word of God, beyond or above which we must not be wise. 

IV. The question is not whether the mysteries of faith are above reason or whether reason can reach them. For we readily grant that there are things which far surpass the comprehension not only of men, but even of angels the disclosure of which was a work of supernatural revelation. We also grant that reason is not only incapable of discovering them without a revelation; not only weak in comprehending them after being revealed; but also slippery and fallible (readily pursuing falsehood for truth and truth for falsehood), and never believing the word of God and its mysteries unless enlightened by the grace of the Spirit. Rather the question is—Is there no use at all for it, and should we entirely reject the testimony of reason, as often as the truth or falsity of any doctrine is to be judged? This our opponents hold and we deny.

Turretin, p. 69.  Ebook edition.

Modernists and Socinians use reason to deconstruct Christianity because they also reject supernatural revelation.  So that was Turretin’s concern.  The problem with the Van Tilians is that they falsely accuse Gordon H. Clark of rationalism, which could not be further from the truth.  In fact, Clark begins with the axiom of Scripture.  Since it is Scripture that affirms that man is a rational creature unlike any of the other creatures and that God is Logic, it follows that reason is not to be rejected in deducing a propositional system of theology from the Scriptures.  If, as the Van Tilians contend, there can be no communication between God and man, then it would follow that Jesus in His incarnation as a real human person could not know anything God knows either.  Man is the image of God and God’s image is logic.

As these are complicated matters I will comment more on the doctrine of God and the Trinity in the next post and develop Dr. Clark’s view of propositional thinking from the Athanasian Creed and from the Scriptures as that relates to both the Trinity and the Incarnation.

Index to Posts: A Scripturalist Defense of Clark's Two Person View of the Incarnation

 

Incarnation Part 1


Incarnation Part 2


Incarnation Part 3


Incarnation Part 4


Incarnation Part 5


Incarnation Part 6


Incarnation Part 7

Incarnation Part 8

Justin Taylor Vacillates: The Elephant Room: What Really Happened, and How Things Could Have Been Different – Justin Taylor

Heresy Kills.  Sounds sweet but it's deadly.

And in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1:6) we read: “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.”  Gary Crampton



It would appear that Justin Taylor has joined with those who support the false teaching of T.D. Jakes' modalism and "manifestations" language. The bottom line for Taylor is:

But here’s the problem, as I see it: at the end of the day, we just don’t know precisely what he believes. This should chasten both sides.

I hope you will forgive me for becoming a Lutheran for a moment but this is the worst line of bull I have ever heard in my life. As if dissimulation, dodging the questions, giving ambiguous answers, and playing both sides of the fence exonerates T.D. Jakes from his oneness Pentecostal theology? He openly says in the interview that he "moves" in both circles, i.e., trinitarian and oneness Pentecostal circles:

Jakes: You know, you know, let me just make one little comment: one of the things that you said, and [garbled] even as we talked about it before, and [garbled] said this too, that there is going to be one throne and there’s going to be one God that we can see. And I thought the more I hear everybody arguing about this… we’re all saying the same thing. And we like fight about it to the death, and I just think that in the world that we’re living in today, if if we could just connect, and I know that we’ll always be depraved, and there will always be people who define themselves by their differences rather than their connections, who are more comfortable if they’re known by what they are against than by what they are for. But when I hear you say that there’s gonna be one throne and one God on that throne, My soul leaps in celebration, and I hear both of us stumbling trying to explain how God does what He does like He does. I think That stumbling is worship. I think That stumbling is worship. I think that we would humble ourselves and say, “Your thoughts and ways are beyond human comprehension” is what makes worship fill the room. From: Apprising Ministries: The Elephant Room

So what Jakes is saying here is that the issue of the Trinity is really a matter of adiaphora or indifference and it is all a mystery anyway so, "Why cain't we all just get along???" Justin Taylor is essentially just another theological liberal pushing relativism, paradox, and mystery as an excuse for heresy. This is the same path that Socinians and theological liberals went down. It is also the same path that the existentialist and neo-orthodox theologians went down. Basically, we cannot know what God says because God is totally transcendent and it is all a mystery. Unless you're a Pentecostal and have a direct phone line to God's throne room that is. Are we all REALLY just saying the same thing? OR could it possibly be that God says there is a Triunity in the Godhead and there are three distinct persons or subsistences within the Godhead? If the latter, then T. D. Jakes is just as lost as any Mormon or any Unitarian.


How Justin Taylor can say that Jakes is not a false prophet and a false teacher I have no idea. Scripture EXPLICITLY says that we are NOT to fellowship with false teachers who deny the Trinity and the full and complete deity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God come in the flesh. That IS the bottom line, folks. (John 1:1, 2, 11, 18; 2 John 1:7-11).

For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. 8 Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. 9 Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; 11 for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. (2 John 1:7-11 NKJV)

So T.D. Jakes is a seeker sensitive false teacher who knows how to fool even professional ministers like the wishy washy Justin Taylor. I am impressed. All a false teacher needs to do is play both sides of the fence and appeal to mystery.

Maybe this is why I became a Scripturalist? Propositional truth leaves no room for ambiguity. The Bible clearly and unequivocally teaches that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, and that there is one God and three distinct persons within the one divine nature of God. (2 Corinthians 13:14; Matthew 28:19; 2 Peter 1:2; Titus 2:13; 2 John 1:7-11).

Click here to read Justin Taylor's original post: The Elephant Room: What Really Happened, and How Things Could Have Been Different – Justin Taylor



Addendum:

Scripturalism is a world and life view. A worldview is a set of beliefs about the various issues of life. All persons have worldviews; they are inescapable. One’s worldview will determine how he views the entirety of life, the decisions he makes, why he does what he does, and so forth. And all worldviews have presuppositions which govern their system of belief; these presuppositions function as axioms from which all decisions are deduced. Scripturalism is that system of belief in which the Word of God is foundational in the entirety of one’s philosophical and theological dealings2. This system of thought avers that Christians should never try to combine secular and Christian notions. Rather, all thoughts are to be brought into captivity to the Word of God (2 Corinthians 10:5), which is (a part of) the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). Our minds must be transformed “to prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God,” as found in Scripture (Romans 12:2), i.e., our thoughts must progressively become God’s thoughts (Isaiah 55:6-9), which divine thoughts are only known by the Word of God. Scripturalism, then, teaches that all of our knowledge is to be derived from the Bible, which has a systematic monopoly on truth. This approach to a Christian worldview is taught by the Apostle Paul and is confirmed by the teachings of the Westminster Standards3. In the words of the apostle: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). And in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1:6) we read: “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.”  Gary Crampton, "Scripturalism: A Christian Worldview."

Calvinistic Cartoons: Elephant in the Room

Calvinistic Cartoons: Elephant in the Room  Looks like Mark Driscoll and James McDonald have bigger problems than they realize.

Carl Trueman on the Elephants in the Room: Do You Beat Your Wife? - Reformation21 Blog

Carl Trueman is a professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. His remarks below are a telling indictment of Mark Driscoll and the Elephants in the Room:

This request that we ask hard questions in the right venue, and consider the ER to have signally failed in this regard, will no doubt evince cries of `Hey, hater!' from some quarters. That is apparently the standard reaction now when anyone questions the actions of a successful pastor of a large church. If, however, we take true doctrine seriously, then surely we will see false teaching for what it is: soul destroying. Reflect on a parallel situation for a moment: let us say that, week after week, I see a congregant's wife with a black eye and an arm covered in cuts and bruises; eventually I ask her husband, `Did you do that?' to which he says `No, I abhor violence and despise the sort of people who beat their wives'; in such circumstances, is it unloving, Pharisaical or hateful of me to press the question a little further? I think not. Indeed, failure so to do would be moral delinquency of the highest order. To press the matter is actually responsible pastoring. The same thing applies with those whose public teaching seems to be deviant. It is not hateful to press the hard questions, and to do so with appropriate competence and in a suitable context; rather, it is right and necessary.

Click here to read the full article: Do You Beat Your Wife? - Reformation21 Blog

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries did an entire show on The Dividing Line concerning the heresy of T. D. Jakes and Oneness Pentecostalism:

A Mega-Friday DL on TD Jakes and Elephants in the Room

01/27/2012 - James White

OK, we've never crashed our servers before by going past the maximum number of connections, but, we did today. I guess there is really a great deal of interest, which, on one level, is very encouraging. In any case, I addressed the TD Jakes: is he a Trinitarian? issue head on during the first hour, and then took calls on the topic for a full hour after that. The callers were wide ranging, and while none defended the ER or Jakes, they did provide some good insights. Lots of positive feedback on Twitter and FaceBook. Hope it will be helpful! Here's the program.

Click here to see Dr. White's blog page: A Mega-Friday DL on TD Jakes and Elephants in the Room

Dr. Calvin Beisner Comments: elephant room | discernment | association | TD Jakes | James MacDonald

The following is from Here I Blog:

I asked Facebook friend, author and scholar, Dr. E. Calvin Beisner7, who has published two books on the Trinity, his thoughts on Jakes’ comments in the above interview. Beisner replied:

Far, far, far too little evidence there to justify reclassifying Jakes as Trinitarian granted all he’s said before and his continuing to consider United Pentecostals his Christian brothers. Nothing quoted there falls outside what any reasonably sly and sophisticated United Pentecostal could say. Let Jakes clearly and explicitly affirm such clear Trinitarian statements as the Nicene Creed, the Symbol of Chalcedon, the Athanasian Creed, or even just Warfield’s summary–There is but one God; the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit each is God; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit each is a distinct Person–and then let him also repudiate the anti-Trinitarian statements of United Pentecostalism and other modalist sects, and it’ll be time to declare him converted to the true God. My impression is that Jakes is simply out to gain the trust of larger groups than the Oneness and Pentecostal crowd in which he’s been at home.

I beg to differ with Dr. Beisner on one point.  With the downplaying of "essential doctrine" in Pentecostal circles, it has now become generally accepted that the trinity and oneness issue is considered a matter of adiaphora.  The Society for Pentecostal Studies has removed all trinitarian doctrinal statements so that oneness pentecostals could participate since they could not in good conscience sign such a doctrinal statement in order to join the society.  See:  Wikipedia:  Society for Pentecostal Studies.

Click here to read the whole article: elephant room | discernment | association | TD Jakes | James MacDonald


Click here to read the transcript of the Elephant Room interview with T. D. Jakes: The Elephant Room II