It is God’s mere good
pleasure; it is just because he wanted it so; it is nothing other than his
sovereign decision, that we do what we do and will what we will.
Gordon H. Clark. Predestination (Kindle Locations
1713-1714). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition.
Dr. Gordon H. Clark, Free Will, God’s Will, and Good Works
There is much confusion in
regards to Dr. Gordon H. Clark’s views on several theological and philosophical
topics. In fact, the reason Dr. Clark is
still so controversial even decades after his death was that he insisted that
God is Logic and that theology cannot be divorced from rational thinking and
the law of contradiction. He, like John
Calvin, insisted on following reason as far as possible in resolving apparent
contradictions when we are thinking theologically and doing exegesis of the
Holy Scriptures. It is not pleasant to
involve oneself in controversial debates but such debates cannot be avoided if
we are to obey the injunction in Holy Scripture to study to show ourselves
approved unto God as workmen who need not be ashamed and who rightly divide the
word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV).
In this post I will briefly
refute two positions that came to my attention during the past week as I was
reading theology and listening to podcasts.
The first controversy I want to address was brought to my attention by
Thomas Juodaitus of the Trinity Foundation. In response to my previous blog post on the
issue of once saved always saved Mr. Juodaitus reminded me of Dr. John Robbins’s
footnote number 9 in the chapter on free will in Dr. Clark’s book, Predestination. I was not unaware of Robbins’s remarks here
but was never pressed to respond previously.
So in response to Mr. Juodaitus I will answer the objections raised by
John Robbins here.
The second controversy is related
to the Trinity Foundation’s positions taken on justification by faith alone but
the source is Dr. R. Scott Clark of Westminster Theological Seminary,
California and his blog and podcast entitled The Heidelblog. (See: R. Scott Clark: Law/Gospel) Many modern day theologians emphasize
justification by faith alone as the main emphasis of the Protestant Reformation
and propose that this is the single most important issue that caused the
division between the papists and the Protestant reformers. Of course, the true story is that the
Protestant Reformation is much more complicated than that.
Be that as it may, I will first
briefly refute John Robbins’s contention that Dr. Clark misspoke when he said, “Let
us be quite clear on the fact that the Bible does not teach salvation by faith
alone.” [Dr. Gordon H. Clark. Predestination.
1985.
2nd Edition. (Unicoi: Trinity Foundation, 2006). P. 85].
First of all, it is hard to understand how Robbins could be so
completely confused about what Clark was saying here. Only by ignoring the immediate context of the
remark could Robbins get this so wrong.
And further, if one has read Dr. Clark extensively, it is hard to
comprehend how anyone could misunderstand what Clark meant here. Clark was not saying that salvation or justification
is by meritorious good works or that the elect have libertarian free will that
somehow causes our salvation by the power of the human will to overcome total
inability or by the power of the will to overcome total depravity of the human nature and the total corruption of the image of God.
But before I go further let me
quote Robbins in his own words to show how he either deliberately or
unintentionally misrepresents what Dr. Clark said in the immediate context and
the context of the entire book on predestination:
From here to the
end of the paragraph Dr. Clark errs in two ways. First, the Bible emphatically
teaches salvation by faith alone: “Your faith has saved you; go in
peace” (Luke 7:50). “Those by the way side are they that hear; then comes the
devil, and takes away the Word out of their hearts, lest they should believe
and be saved” (Luke 8:12). “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life” (John 3:16). “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall
call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). “Who will tell you
words, by which you and all your house shall be saved” (Acts 11:14). “Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved” (Acts 16:31). “That if you
shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart
that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved” (Romans 10:9). “By
which also you are saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you,
unless you have believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:2). “For by grace are you
saved, through faith” (Ephesians 2:8). “…it pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). “…them that perish;
because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2
Thessalonians 2:10). “God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thessalonians
2:13). “But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that
believe to the saving of the soul” (Hebrews 10:39).
We see in these
verses that justification is not an aspect of salvation on a par with other
aspects, but is so identified with salvation that the terms are interchanged
repeatedly. To be justified – to be declared righteous because of the imputation of
Christ’s perfect righteousness – is to be saved. All else – sanctification, good works,
glorification – flow from that.
Second,
Dr. Clark errs when he says that sanctification “consists of works which we do”
and “of external actions initiated by internal volitions” and that “we do the
things that produce sanctification.” All these statements are in error.
Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit; it is not something we do, nor
is it the result of something we do. Question 75 of the Larger
Catechism asks, “What is sanctification?” and answers: “Sanctification is a
work of God’s grace….” In the Westminster Confession of Faith, the chapter on
Sanctification is separate from and precedes the chapter on Good Works. To show
that sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit, not of ourselves, it cites
such verses as 1 Corinthians 6:10: “…but you are washed, you are sanctified in
the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” John 17:17:
“Sanctify them through your truth: Your Word is truth.” Ephesians 5:26: “That
he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.” 1
Thessalonians 5:23: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly….” Good
works neither are sanctification nor do they produce sanctification. Good works
are an effect, a result of sanctification by the Spirit.
Dr. Clark knew
all this, for in his book Sanctification, he wrote, “Chapter 13 of the
Westminster Confession emphasizes the fact that we are sanctified by God, not by
our own efforts; an imperfect obedience to the moral law is a result of that
sanctification, not the cause of it.” He concludes his book with the
words of Christ from John 17: “Sanctify them by your truth. Your Word is
truth.” [John Robbins’s editorial
footnote number 9].
Gordon H. Clark.
Predestination (Kindle Locations 2068-2094). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle
Edition.
Robbins should have been more
careful in his definitions. First of
all, there is nothing in the Bible that
even remotely suggests that justification by faith alone is the doctrine from
which all other doctrines flow. In fact,
the Bible is the beginning axiom of Christianity, not the doctrine of
justification by faith alone.
Furthermore, the Bible does not teach that good works can be divorced
from the Christian faith. In fact, the
Bible over and over again affirms that good works are a necessary result or
fruit of a true and lively faith. A tree
is known by the fruit it produces. Good
trees produce good fruit and bad trees produce bad fruit.
As an illustration of this let me
share something I know from my experience of growing up in central
Florida. Many people do not know that
the cultivation of orange trees is a complicated matter for farmers. The orange trees in most commercial orange
groves are not naturally occurring trees.
To produce the best fruit and the most ardent trees the best producing
orange sprouts are grafted on to wild growing roots which are better able to
support the upper part of the tree. This
seems to be an ancient practice that dates even back to the apostolic era where
the apostle Paul uses the illustration of grafting olive trees. (Romans 11).
One of my neighbors actually had a tree in their yard that had several
different grafted fruit branches on the root stock. The tree produced oranges, navel oranges,
tangerines, and grapefruit and all from the same tree. One of the jobs necessary for orange grove
management is pruning. The reason being
that often the same tree that produces good fruit will also have sour branches
that produce sour oranges that are unacceptable for juicing or for eating. These sour branches, though few in number,
must be pruned out, otherwise if there are too many sour oranges mixed in with
the harvest the juice plant could reject the entire load of oranges being
delivered to the plant. A sour orange
tree must be cut down, though it the root stock could be useful for grafting
purposes. In the same way, a true
Christian is one who produces mostly good fruit, not sour oranges. There may be bad sprouts coming from the
trunk of the tree that need to be sawed off and pruned away. But a tree that produces nothing but sour
fruit is cut down and burned.
In contradistinction to Robbins’s
contention that justification by faith and salvation by faith are
interchangeable terms, I contend that the two are not exactly interchangeable
at all. That is because salvation is a
total order of graces given by God by divine sovereignty. Robbins should have known better. Saving faith initiates the Christian life but
saving faith is impossible without regeneration because the sinner is so
enslaved and blinded by sin that he or she is unable to extricate himself or
herself from spiritual death, unbelief, and habitual sin. Therefore, the main issue for the Protestant
Reformation was the doctrine of God’s sovereignty and out of that one doctrine the
other doctrines naturally flow. Robbins
errs in that he thinks that faith justifies us.
He says: “To be justified – to be
declared righteous because of the imputation of Christ’s perfect righteousness
– is to be saved.” He infers here that
we are justified because of our faith.
But he is leaving out the step that matters most. Faith is impossible without
regeneration. (John 3:3-8; Ephesians 2:1-5 KJV). Salvation by faith as implied by John Robbins
would mean that faith is not really an instrument by which justification is
imputed to the believer but rather that faith itself causes God to declare the
sinner righteous. This is far from the
truth. Justification was first of all an
eternal decree by God in the timeless mind of God apart from created time and
the created universe. (See: Abraham Kuyper. The Work of the Holy Spirit: Eternal
Justification. [Vol. 2, Ch. 6.
Section XXXII] Dr. Clark recommends
Kuyper’s 3 volume work in the chapter on justification in his book, What Do Presbyterians Believe?). Regeneration is the cause of faith, not the
other way around. In the same way, faith
does not cause justification.
Justification causes faith! That’s
because it is God by His sovereignty who decreed it all and causes it all. Justification is also eternally decreed,
although justification was accomplished on the cross and it is by the means or
instrumentality of faith that the efficacious work of the cross to propitiate
the wrath of God against sinners is imputed to sinners.
Moreover, salvation is not a one
time event that occurs at the moment of conversion and the effectual call. No, salvation as a process begins at the
moment of the monergistic work of God in effectually calling the elect sinner
out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
The Christian life and living the life of faith is synergistic in that
God causes the newly regenerated Christian to cooperate willingly with God in
working out his or her salvation. This
is different from the Arminian insistence that not only does the Christian have
the power to overcome sin by a libertarian free will made possible by a
generic, common, and prevenient grace given to all individuals without
exception, but that the Christian also has the power to persevere in faith by
the same libertarian free will. The
biblical and Calvinist view, however, is that God causes it all, both the
monergistic regeneration and the subsequent monergistic perseverance in faith
and the synergistic process of progressive sanctification whereby the Christian
struggles against sin and seeks to live a life of habitual obedience, though
not perfect obedience.
Robbins secondly takes Clark out
of context when he insists that Clark says that we save ourselves by our own
efforts. Nothing could be further from
the truth since Clark over and over again insists that God has only one will
and that that will is God’s eternal predestination. What Clark is saying is that God causes the
sinner to work out his or her own salvation.
In fact, Robbins neglected to quote what Clark says in the immediately
following paragraph:
. . .God works
in us – that is clear enough. But the verse is more definite and tells us two
things God does in us. First, he so works in us that we do the things that
produce sanctification. God works in us so that we sing a psalm, or comfort the
sick, or apprehend a criminal, or preach the Gospel. These are things we do
because God works in us to do them. But there is something preceding this doing
on which the doing depends. We would do none of these things if we did
not first will to do them. Now, the verse clearly states that God not
only works the doing in us, but he first works the willing in us. God
works in us both to will and to do.
Other verses,
such as Ephesians 1:11, previously quoted, said that God works all things
universally. This verse states in particular that God works our own willing. It is
clear, therefore, that man’s will is not free, but is directed by the working
of God. And to conclude with a reminder, both this verse and those that
say God works all things add, “of his good pleasure.” It is God’s mere good pleasure;
it is just because he wanted it so; it is nothing other than his sovereign
decision, that we do what we do and will what we will. In many
discussions on free will, after quoting and explaining a dozen or more verses,
and after having met stubborn opposition to the Reformation doctrine, I have
often said, “Well, then, you give me the verses on which you base your idea of
free will.” This challenge usually produces a blank stare. No verses are
needed, they say. Everybody knows he is free. In other words, these people who
have studied no philosophy are unaware that they are repeating Descartes to the
effect that it is impossible even to conceive of a more ample freedom than that
of the will of man, and almost quoting his very words, “We have such a
consciousness of the liberty and indifference which exists in ourselves that
there is nothing we more clearly or perfectly comprehend.” Thus they
unwittingly try to impose a secular philosophy on the Bible.
Gordon H. Clark.
Predestination (Kindle Locations
1706-1720). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition.
I previously noted that Clark
insisted that the purpose of justification is to make us good. That quote comes from pages 135-136 of the
book, What Do Presbyterians Believe? (See: The
Reformed Doctrine of Assurance of Salvation as Expounded by the Westminster
Standards: A Clarkian Scripturalist Response to Once Saved Always Saved). Sadly, I do not have time to read as widely
as I would wish. However, I finally
discovered where Clark got that idea and it comes straight from Augustine and
John Calvin. The answer is that John Calvin
highlights Augustine’s Retractions in his debate with the papist Pighius over
libertarian free will versus the bondage of the will and the sovereignty of God
in his book, The
Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A
Defense of the Orthdox Doctrine of Human Choice Against Pighius). Robbins’s apparent error is that he
implicitly agrees with libertarian free will since he insists that saving faith
causes salvation, not that God causes saving faith and that God causes us to
work out our salvation by causing us to willingly cooperate with God’s will and
to do what God commands us to do. Even
Augustine prayed that God commands what he will command and Augustine then petitions
God to grant us the ability to obey those commands. This prayer is what sparked the debate
between Augustine and Pelagius and his followers. Calvin insists that it is God who causes it
all and Clark agreed fully with this:
And what about
the fact,* which Pighius himself later acknowledges when he has been snatched
away by his own dizziness to another place, that Augustine teaches the following?
Not only that the conversion of the ungodly, his progress in the good, and his
perseverance right to the end depend upon the gift and grace of God, but that
this grace has not been §401 offered to all. Also that we cannot attain it
either by our own desire or by our own endeavour, but it is bestowed by the
good pleasure of God alone on those whom he himself wills.226 Having
let slip these admissions, he is first compelled to make an open break with
Augustine, and he then shows how, without denying the grace of God, the
arguments which kept Augustine in perplexity should be answered. Namely by
saying that conversion is the gift of God, but only those are converted who
merit it by their free choice. Perseverance [he says] is likewise the gift of
God, but depends no less on man; and each is in fact paid as a reward for
earlier merits.227 In this way, with a couple of words, he extricates himself
from all difficulty. But if he hopes that his readers’ eyes can be blinded by
such obvious, stupid nonsense, then he is fooling himself overmuch. I at any
rate have decided to refute it by doing no more than bring it out into public
view, since no one will be so obtuse and stupid as not immediately, at first
glance, to recoil from such great absurdity.
Calvin, John. The Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A
Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice against Pighius. Ed. A. N.
S. Lane and Richard A. Muller. Trans. G. I. Davies. II. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Books, 1996. Print. Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation
Thought. P. 240.
When Dr. Clark says that
sanctification consists of works that we do he qualified that statement by
pointing to the fact that God causes the sanctification that consists of the
works that we do and that it is God Himself who causes us to will to do those
things. So either Robbins was being
disingenuous or he had an agenda because he did not really believe that
struggling against sin in the Christian life was necessary for assurance of
salvation. If so, then for all practical
purposes Robbins agreed with the once saved always saved position. The evidence for this is how Robbins singles
out the portions of the Westminster Confession of Faith that emphasize the
imputed sanctification of the cross rather than the progressive sanctification
also emphasized in the Confession.
Robbins cites the Larger Catechism question 75 as if Clark did not agree
with it! But this is an argument from
silence since I know of nowhere that Clark disagrees with it. In fact, Clark wrote an entire chapter on
sanctification in What Do Presbyterians
Believe? and nowhere does Clark even remotely suggest that salvation
originates with libertarian free will or man’s own power to cause himself or
herself to obey or even to persevere.
But to refute Robbins I will give the appropriate sections of the WCF
chapter on sanctification which unequivocably assert that sanctification is
more than just an imputed righteousness:
CHAPTER XIII. Of
Sanctification
THEY who are
effectually called and regenerated, having a new heart and a new spirit created
in them, are farther sanctified really and personally, through the virtue of
Christ’s death and resurrection,(a) by his word and Spirit dwelling in them;(b)
the
dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed,(c) and the several lusts thereof are
more and more weakened and mortified,(d) and they more and more quickened
and strengthened in all saving graces,(e) to the practice of true holiness,
without which no man shall see the Lord.(f)
II. This
sanctification is throughout in the whole man,(g) yet imperfect in this life;
there abideth still some remnants of corruption in every part;(h) whence
ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war; the flesh lusting against the
Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.(i)
III. In
which war, although the remaining corruption for a time may much prevail,(k)
yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of
Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome:(l) and so the saints grow in
grace,(m) perfecting holiness in the fear of God.(n)
Westminster
Assembly. The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition. Philadelphia:
William S. Young, 1851. Print.
In short, Robbins completely
ignores what chapter 13 of the WCF plainly says and instead just quotes the
proof texts from footnote (a). The other
sections of the WCF chapter 13 clearly show that sanctification is a progressive
process with many starts and stops along the way. I leave it to the reader to check the other
proof texts as these are easily accessible to anyone with a copy of the
Edinburgh edition of the Confession. It
would be very strange indeed if Dr. Clark were as ignorant of the Bible and the
Confession as Robbins implies. In fact
when Clark says that sanctification consists of works that we do it cannot mean
what Robbins says it means and Robbins is either confused, disingenuous,
engaging in sophistry, or he is very ignorant and unable to read what Clark
affirmed in the direct context of that remark.
This leads me to believe that the other graces are a mere afterthought
for Robbins and that his real position is probably once saved always saved.
My second point of this blog post
is that justification by faith is not necessarily the hinge on which everything
turns. In fact, Calvin and Luther both
insisted that the hinge on which everything turned was the doctrine of the
bondage of the will. Not only
is the will in bondage to sin, as Calvin emphasized, but the will is also
subject to God’s sovereign will in providence.
Dr. Clark insisted that the fall of Adam was not due to mere permission
but that Adam himself had no free will prior to the fall. It was God’s will that Adam would fall
because the fall was predetermined by God’s sovereign will. As Dr. Clark said in the question and answer
section following his audio lecture on Predestination in the Old Testament,
before the fall Adam was determined to think only good thoughts. After the fall Adam was determined to think both good and evil thoughts.
(See: Predestination
in the Old Testament. Sermon Audio. The question and answer session begins at the
end of the one hour lecture. I cannot
find the exact point where the remarks are made on permission at the
moment. I will look for it later.) For Dr. Clark the doctrine of predestination
is only less important than two other doctrines, namely the doctrine of
Scripture and the doctrine of the Trinity.
That’s because chapter one of the Westminster Confession is on the
doctrine of Scripture or Sola Scriptura and the doctrine of God as Trinity is
chapter 2 of the Confession. In short,
Clark agreed with both Calvin and Luther that predestination was the most
important doctrine, even above the doctrine of justification by faith
alone.
But R. Scott Clark insists that
the law and gospel distinction and the doctrine of justification by faith alone is more important than the doctrine of predestination. He said so in a recent Heidelblog
podcast. In fact, his dialectical
theology in regards to the law and gospel is allegedly drawn from his knowledge
of reformation theological history and Bullinger's and Beza’s theology. I regret that I have not read these two
theologians but I highly suspect that since both of them predate Hegelian
philosophy and neo-orthodoxy that there is no dialectic between the law and
gospel, though there are definitely disjunctive aspects of the two. Unquestionably the purpose of the moral law is to reveal us
as sinners. (Romans 3:20; 7:7;
Galatians 2:16; Acts 13:39). But without
the law there is no need for the promises of gospel. Before a person can understand his need to be
saved by the gospel he needs to understand that he is a miserable sinner. This is impossible without the law. Furthermore, the law tells the Christian how
he is to live by faith and by thankfulness for his salvation.
But to the point, there is ample
evidence that both Calvin and Luther placed the emphasis on God’s sovereignty
in salvation precisely because of predestination and the bondage of the will to
both sin and to God’s sovereign mercy.
Man’s will is subject to God’s unconditional election precisely because
man’s will is enslaved by sin and unable to free itself from sin. Furthermore, as Gordon H. Clark pointed out,
man’s will is not free from God’s predestination. Although man makes volitional choices as a
free moral agent, if a man shoots his wife, it was God’s will. Calvin insists that God is the ultimate cause
of the fall and of mankind’s bondage to sin because God is the remote cause of
everything. (See Calvin’s
Institutes 3:23:3). The hinge upon
which everything turns then is God’s sovereignty. God is not the proximate cause of man’s sins
as individuals but God is definitely the remote cause of everything.
Luther likewise emphasizes the
sovereignty of God over man’s will:
Sect. IX. —
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.
Martin Luther. The Bondage of
the Will. “The Sovereignty of God.” Section 9.
Notice here that Luther nowhere
mentions the doctrine of total depravity.
His emphasis is on God’s absolute predestination. Luther by this one statement demolishes every
form of semi-pelagianism, including the semi-pelagianism of modern
Lutherans. Furthermore, Luther insists
that Erasmus alone has hit the target:
In this,
moreover, I give you great praise, and proclaim it — you alone in pre-eminent
distinction from all others, have entered upon the thing itself; that is, the
grand turning point of the cause; and, have not wearied me with those irrelevant
points about popery, purgatory, indulgences, and other like baubles, rather
than causes, with which all have hitherto tried to hunt me down, — though in
vain! You, and you alone saw, what was the grand hinge upon which the whole
turned, and therefore you attacked the vital part at once; for which, from my
heart, I thank you.
Luther, Section CLXVIII.
While it is true that Luther said
that the church stands or falls with the doctrine of justification by faith
alone, it is inseparable from Luther’s views on the sovereignty of God and the
bondage of the will to God and the bondage of the will to sin. Modern Lutherans reject both, apparently.
Calvin likewise insists that the
entire debate with Pighius, like the debate between Augustine and Pelagius,
hinges on the sovereignty of God in salvation:
However,*
[Pighius] thinks that he has in the first book [addressed] to Valentinus an
excellent text to establish this combination of free choice and grace which he
advocates. There commands from Scripture are quoted which, while they limit
free §359 choice, do indicate that it is present in man; and then others are
contrasted with them, which show that whatever things are required of us are
gifts from God.83 I have already84 described, as honestly as I could, what that
whole contrast signifies, that is, its purpose and its components. It consists
of two parts: that people sin of their own accord when they sin, and by their
own movement of the will, and therefore it is fruitless to divert the blame
elsewhere. And that, when they are guided by the Spirit of God to the good, their
will is not thereby excluded, since grace consists precisely in the turning of
their will to love and seek the good. Then, having shown that man acts
voluntarily both in good works and in bad, [Augustine] begins to debate the
nature of the will itself, what power it has of itself, and also the
effectiveness of grace. [He says] that the will is certainly by nature always
evil, so that it can do nothing but obstinately resist the righteousness of
God. Only by grace does it become good, and that in such a way that it then
necessarily loves and follows the righteousness to which it was previously
averse (ch. 15).85 What of us? Do we exclude the will by preaching of
grace? Pighius must therefore put on some other disguise if he wants to
deceive even those of ordinary intelligence. For it cannot escape anyone’s
attention how closely Augustine’s thoughts and words are in agreement with ours
when he writes like this.
But it is now
high time to yield a place to Pighius’s hallowed definition,86 so that it may
appear the more clearly with what justification he engages the universal church
in conflict with us,* so as also to claim its support for himself. Before he
reveals his own views on the subject itself, seeing that in this discussion the
treatment of the grace of God is of the utmost importance,* he does list the
different meanings of the expression. But he introduces nothing which had not
been carefully noticed and taught by our people long ago, although he
subsequently shows his gratitude in the worst possible way. And yet, so that
you may see what an expert theologian he is, whenever he inserts some idea of
his own, he corrupts and spoils by his own padding things which elsewhere had
been finely spoken.
Then he
[Pighius] turns to an explanation of the corruption of our nature which flowed
from the fall of the first man,* as beyond any doubt the whole dispute hinges
on knowledge of this.
Calvin, John. The Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A
Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice against Pighius. Ed. A. N.
S. Lane and Richard A. Muller. Trans. G. I. Davies. II. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Books, 1996. Print. Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation
Thought. Pp. 182-183.
I cannot do a careful and
academic study because of time constraints.
However, I hope this will put to rest the dialectical assertions of R.
Scott Clark and the improbable assertions by Robbins that Dr. Gordon H. Clark
had contradicted himself. It is easily
demonstrable that it is not so by the great body of Clark’s work and also by
the writings of Augustine and Calvin’s use of Augustine in his dispute with
Pighius. For Calvin and Luther the doctrines of predestination and the bondage of the will were central to their theology, not the doctrine of justification by faith alone, as important as that doctrine is. But for Gordon H. Clark the order of importance of these doctrines is the descending order of the chapters in the Westminster Confession of Faith. The doctrine of the trinitarian God and the doctrine of God's eternal predestination therefore were more important than the doctrine of justification because to emphasize that doctrine above the rest is to give place to semi-pelagian thinking which was anathema to Luther, Calvin and subsequently to Dr. Gordon H. Clark in the twentieth century.
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