So Scripture is not really God's Word nor can we know anything that God reveals to us. If God does not know any truth that we know--and God is omniscient!!--then it follows that we know nothing. Truth is unknowable from the creature's perspective. R. S. Clark's view is nothing more than skepticism--which is why the P.C.A. thinks there is nothing wrong with the Federal Vision error. After all, it's just a paradox and no creature can really know anything God knows. So stop with dogmatics, polemics and apologetics...... It's all relative.....
It is also a great mistake to confuse God’s accommodated baby talk for what God knows in himself. This is another mistake that many evangelical and some Reformed theologians are making today. They re-locate what God knows and when he knew it to Scripture. Then, they tell us what Scripture says and means and voilà! They think they know what God knows and they know it the way he knows it. R. S. Clark. What We Can Know and How?
Yes, do you not know that we cannot know that God knows Jesus was raised from the dead. Nor can we know that David was the king of Israel, because we cannot know anything God knows the way God knows it--not even simple facts that every plow boy can understand. There goes the perspicuity of Scripture. Jesus was not really the Son of God who died for our sins on the cross. We cannot possibly know anything God knows, including the atonement and the incarnation. At least that's Scott Clark's position. Ignorance and skepticism always results in heresy. Maybe that's why the "paradox" of justification by faith alone is really just quibbling over semantics. We cannot really know the gospel after all? It might be why all those California seminary students are converting to Rome. The only certainty they have is in man's opinions since we cannot know anything God knows--not even in the Bible or the Westminster Standards. Maybe it is also why ministers do not teach the Bible or the catechisms in Reformed congregations anymore? Who needs to know anything?
Addendum: See Gordon H. Clark on Infallibility.
Addendum: See Gordon H. Clark on Infallibility.
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Charlie, have you considered medication for your condition? You need to mellow out a bit my friend, i.e. dial it back a bit. Sadly, you're becoming a caricature. Take a deep breath...
RSC has a cute but self-gutting thing he calls "QIRC,"
the "Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty."
The problem is, as soon as one attempts to define "illegitimate," one can be said to be on a "QIRC" by his own definition.
It is primarily used as a means of defeating an argument without attempting to engage it. Quite annoying, really. I do not like where RSC takes things oftentimes.
Well put, Justin. At least Gordon H. Clark made the attempt to be logically consistent. The law of contradiction would put R. S. Clark in the irrational category.
Another thing that bothers me about these Van Tilians is their endorsement of C. S. Lewis' view that the Bible is "inspired" myth. Myth by definition does not represent reality but a fictional account of events.
I call the Van Tilian view a "Quest for Illegitimate Religious Uncertainty" or QIRU.
Jack, have you considered that the abusive ad hominem is a logical fallacy? "When did you stop beating your wife?"
Hey Jack-ass, so, when you disagree with someone's post, you show up writing stuff like that? You don't try and refute the arguments?
The only thing that looks patently cartoonish here is you.
Van Til is quoted by John Frame as saying that, "All truth claims of Scripture are apparently contradictory." That's the view of Karl Barth, not classical Calvinism. The quote occurs at the 17:59 minute mark of this lecture on John Frame and Cornelius Van Til.
So Van Til and Frame want to pretend to be orthodox Calvinists but in the end agree with Barth. That's also true of practically ALL Van Tilians today, including R. Scott Clark and Mike Horton of Westminster Seminary, California. Horton's agreement with C.S. Lewis' opinion that the Bible is factual and historical only in the sense that it is "inspired myth" betrays Horton's neo-orthodoxy.
It is time for Scripturalism and Clarkian apologetics to call these compromisers on their polemics against orthodoxy and the infallibility of Scripture. If Scripture is inherently contradictory or even "apparently" contradictory then it follows that biblical inerrancy is not true but only a facade.
The quote is actually, "All teaching of Scripture is apparently contradictory." John Frame, quoting Cornelius Van Til.
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