aztexan: Christianity: The Intelligible Axiom

Contrary to the unity commended by Scripture, the World Council, the National Council of Churches, and the Blake-Pike proposals envisage denominational mergers without any significant doctrinal agreement. This is consistent with their anti-intellectualism which leaves them no Gospel.  --Gordon H. Clark



The following excerpt from Gordon H. Clark's Christian Philosophy was posted on AZTexan's blog. I hope he will forgive me for borrowing this without asking. But Evangelical ecumenicalism is as bad as any of the liberal ecumenical movements. In other words, the National Association of Evangelicals has led to all sorts of theological errors.  The National Association of Evangelicals is as full of errors as any "liberal" ecumenical organization.

 Here is the quote from Dr. Clark:

 ... The whole attempt to disparage knowledge and logic, whether the attempt be that of the contemporary liberals or that of the anti-intellectual pietists, is clearly contradictory to Scripture.

The Scripture places a noticeable emphasis on knowledge. In Ephesians 1:17-18 the Apostle prays that "God may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in divine knowledge, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened." 1 John 5:20 says, "We know that the Son of God is come and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true." The same apostle records the words of our Lord, "This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." 1 Corinthians 15:34 gives a warning against ignorance: "Awake to righteousness and sin not, for some have no knowledge of God."

The Old Testament too commends knowledge. The stated purpose of the Proverbs of Solomon was to give subtlety to the simple and knowledge to young men. The fear of the Lord is the beginning or chief part of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. And there are many other exhortations to knowledge.

To refer to a matter of contemporary interest and to illustrate how intellectualism or a respect for knowledge entails practical conclusions that contrast sharply with other types of religion, we may note that the ecumenical unity approved by the New Testament is unity of doctrine and knowledge. There is no great command to establish organizational unions, but we read with some frequence, "I beseech you that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (1 Corinthians 1:10). Or, again, "Fulfill my joy, that you be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind" (Phillipians 2:2). Contrary to the unity commended by Scripture, the World Council, the National Council of Churches, and the Blake-Pike proposals envisage denominational mergers without any significant doctrinal agreement. This is consistent with their anti-intellectualism which leaves them no Gospel.

In addition to these Neo-orthodox groups, the pietists with their claims to individual guidance and additional revelations, and the saccharine devotional writers who malign dead orthodoxy and cold intellectualism, also exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding of Christianity when they draw their sharp distinction between the head and the heart. The head, for them, represents knowledge and dry theology; the heart is all the exciting emotionalism of hillbilly evangelism. But in Scripture there is no contrast whatever between head and heart. The view is a strictly modern innovation that conflicts with Biblical psychology and reflects a wrong notion of true religion. Depreciation of understanding, knowledge, reason, and logic not only stimulates an evil ecumenism but also leads to serious errors in theology, errors concerning human nature, sin, and therefore errors concerning the way of salvation.

Religion, or to speak clearly, the Christian religion is not an affair of the emotions, at least no more so than politics and economics are, but fundamentally an acceptance of an intelligible message.

The acceptance of this message is offered as a first principle, an axiom or postulate on which a superstructure of knowledge can be erected.... -

Gordon H. Clark From the lecture entitled "The Axiom of Revelation" Christian Philosophy (Works vol. 4). 318f.

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