Revisiting the Clark/Van Til Controversy, Part 3

"I hope to talk about Van Til before the semester is over, let me say this, my impression is, I could mention some differences between the two, but my impression is that in spite of the fact that Van Till denies he is an neo-orthodox apologete, I think he has been very deeply influenced by neo-orthodoxy, and unwittingly supports their position."  Dr. Gordon H. Clark

This is a continuing commentary on the Reformed Forum's attack on the theology, philosophy and apologetics of the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark.   Parts 1 and 2 can be found by clicking here:  Part 1, Part 2.

4. From the conformity of the moral law with the eternal law of God. VI. Fourth, the moral law (which is the pattern of God’s image in man) ought to correspond with the eternal and archetypal law in God, since it is its copy and shadow (aposkimation), in which he has manifested his justice and holiness. Hence we cannot conform ourselves to the image of God (to the imitation of which Scripture so often exhorts us) except by regulating our lives in accordance with the precepts of this law. So when its observation is enjoined, the voice is frequently heard, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” Now this law is immutable and perpetual. Therefore the moral law (its ectype) must necessarily also be immutable.

Turretin, Vol. 2, p. 19.  "Eleventh Topic:  The Law of God." 

Now the first thing I would like to point out that I forgot to mention in the last post is that Turretin does not say that there is a absolute divide between the archetypal law of God in God's mind and the ectypal law as revealed to man the creature in the Holy Scriptures.  Instead, Turretin compares the written Scriptures to the immutability of God as a simple and unchanging being.  He specifically  says that because the archetypal law of God is immutable that it logically follows that the special revelation in Scripture is also the immutable law of God.  By inference then we can conclude that all of the Bible is likewise the immutable and unchanging word of God.  (Psalm 119:89).  Scripture is the very words of God breathed out of His mouth.   (Matthew 4:4).  Not one jot or tittle will pass away from the Scriptures.  (Matthew 5:17).  

I would also like to point out that when Stephen Charnock says that God's understanding is incomprehensible he means without measure, not that we cannot understand anything that God knows at any single point.  (See: Part 2).  If so, then Turretin was wrong when he said that the archetypal law and the ectypal revelation of God's law are both equally immutable.  Charnock clearly meant that God is all knowing, not that we cannot know anything God knows at any single point whatsoever.  Does God know that the letter A stands for the first letter of the English alphabet and that the vowel can be either long or short?

Van Til and his students, on the other hand, say that there is no point of coincidence whatsoever between God's omniscient knowledge or archetypal knowledge and revealed or ectypal knowledge.  However much these men claim to be the "Reformed center" the fact of the matter is that neither Turretin nor Charnock said what these men are saying.  They would have agreed with Clark that special revelation is the word of God, not an analogy of the word of God.  In fact, both Charnock and Turretin predate the Barthian existentialist view that the Bible is experienced as a divine encounter and that the Bible is merely a human book because there is no point of coincidence between a totally transcendent God and a mere creature.

Another area where I take issue with Oliphint's misrepresentation of Clark is on the doctrine of the trinity.  (Minute mark 32:57 and following.

Camden Busey:  A related note, uh, this is germane to the discussion in the, uh, controversy between Clark and Van Til, we should say between the Clarkians and the Van Tilians in the church--it wasn't necessarily a one to one controversy.  It might be cast that way but it got more heated among the followers of the two men in the presbytery.  Um, but this issue is that of trinitarian theology.  Um, what are some of the differences here?  We oftentimes speak of person or hypostasis in our discussions of the trinity.  Uh, what were Clark's views of personality.  How did he go about defining a person and how might that differ, uh, from Cornelius Van Til?

Scott Oliphint:  Yeah, I think toward the end of his life you know he got more and more enamored with the kind of rational, uh, uh, process and, uh, wanted to fine, define persons as kind of a collection of propositions.  And because of that, as I say in my book, Reasons for Faith, uh, in his book on the incarnation he says that we need to just go ahead and admit that Christ is two persons.  Now I think you know you have to look at that and wince because in the history of 2,000 years there's a reason why neither Catholic nor Protestant would ever go there.  That that, that is the definition of heresy when you start to move into nestorianism or eutychianism or any of those kinds of christological -isms you're in trouble.  Clark moved there.  Uh, you know he should've been more careful than that.  Uh, I think the lack of ... I shouldn't .... I think the emphasis on philosophy, the lack of historical understanding of theology at that point did him in. 

Uh,Van Til used the phrase as we all know now, uh, one person three persons, he used it very, very seldom.  It was not a mantra for him.  He wouldn't have gone to the mat for it.  He was making the point that Hodge and Bavinck make, which is that the one essence of God is not an abstract impersonal essence.  And as you said on your program and I think your listeners already know, Tipton has done the job of showing how this is consistent and how you can make this sort of claim.  Van Til was not trying to be crassly contradictory.  . . .

There is much more to be said here but I will cut to the chase.  The next couple of remarks Oliphint makes are in reference to a pamphlet written by the late Dr. John Robbins of the Trinity Foundation, Cornelius Van Til:  The Man and the Myth.   It should be remembered that Dr. Robbins' degrees were in economics, not philosophy or theology.  While he has some very good lectures on apologetics and logic on the Trinity Foundation website, Robbins was not a trained philosopher or theologian.  Dr. Clark, on the other hand, was both.  While it is true that Dr. Clark did not have a formal degree in theology, he grew up as the grandson and the son of two trained theologians and presbyterian ministers and had access to both their personal theological libraries.  Also, despite the disparaging remarks against Clark by Scott Oliphint, Clark was not ignorant.  He earned his doctorate in philosophy from an ivey league school, the University of Pennsylvania.  I can assure you that Clark had an encyclopedic knowledge of theology and church history.  In comparison to Oliphint, Clark's earned degrees were in the category of excellence.

Now in regards to Busey's remarks about personality and hypostasis, Dr. Clark pointed out that these terms are never fully defined by the church creeds or the writings of the church fathers, the scholastics or the Protestant Reformers.   And as Clark liked to point out, if you have not defined your terms you have not said anything meaningful.

It is true that Robbins accused Dr. Van Til of being an heretic.  I do not know if I will go that far.  Dr. Clark did not go that far.  I think Dr. Clark was more charitable but what he did say specifically was that saying that God is both one person and three persons is a direct contradiction and that it is not the orthodox doctrine of the trinity.  I think it is also relevant to point out that in every day conversation we often refer to God by the singular pronoun "He".  But most Christians understand that God is three persons and one God.

Clark's criticism of Van Til is in his lecture on "Irrationalism":

Clark:  Kierkegaard does not mean that the incarnation, and whatever other Christian doctrines he may have in mind, are surprising or psychologically incredible to heathen peasants and German philosophers. It is not as if the common sense of the sinful human race never expected atonement and resurrection. This is not what Kierkegaard means by paradox and absurdity. He means precisely that the doctrines are self-contradictory, therefore meaningless, therefore absurd.

This is why a certain amount of intellectual ability and activity must accompany faith. He (a Christian), he may very well have understanding, indeed he must have it, in order to believe against understanding. [Student Question: how does Van Till’s concept of paradox differ from Kierkegaard here?] I hope to talk about Van Till before the semester is over, let me say this, my impression is, I could mention some differences between the two, but my impression is that in spite of the fact that Van Til denies he is an neo-orthodox apologete, I think he has been very deeply influenced by neo-orthodoxy, and unwittingly supports their position. But let that do for the present and I’ll try to explain it further when we get to sometime…. Later on, maybe after the break, if there some parts of this you want to ask questions about, as to what they mean and so on, further explanation, I’ll be glad to do it. But, uh, I say I want to get over a few pages to make sure that the important parts are not missed.

At any rate, he defends the necessity of having an intellectual understanding, because you can’t believe absurdities unless you know what absurdities are. And hence you must be able to show that the Christian doctrines contradict each other. Now when you understand that the doctrines of Christianity contradict each other, and can’t possibly be true, then you must believe them – and that’s faith. And unless you deliberately believe absurdities, you have no faith.

Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  "Irrationalism".  Audio Lecture Transcript.  The Gordon H. Clark Foundation.  Pp. 4-5. 

And in another lecture Clark says that Van Til's assertion that God is one person and three persons is an outright contradiction:

Since Van Til’s theology is basically that of the Reformed Tradition, Frame will mainly discuss his distinctives. Incidentally, Van Til’s theology, I suppose you could say mainly or basically, that it is Reformed, but not all is quite the same. He has a view of the Trinity that no theologian that I know, no orthodox theologian I know of, has ever come up with at all. He holds that God is not only three persons in one substance to use that horrible Latin word that doesn’t mean anything. He holds that God is both three persons and one person. And he explicitly denounces the usual apologetic defending the doctrine of the Trinity which is that God is three in one sense, and one in another sense, and hence there is no contradiction because there are lots of things that are three in one sense and one in another. You can get all sorts of examples. The easiest one to think of is a business corporation that has three officers. President, Vice­ President, and Secretary Treasurer. And here the corporation is one corporation but three officers. And you can have one godhead and three persons. Or all sorts of combinations where you have three in one, but in different senses. And that is the standard orthodox position all the way back from Athanasius. Van Til denounces this. And says that the Trinity is both one person and three persons. And he calls this a paradox. Which is putting it mildly. 

Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  "John Frame and Cornelius Van Til."  P. 2.   (See also:  Doug Douma.  "A List of Differences Between the Thought of Gordon H. Clark and Cornelius Van Til."  A Place for Thoughts blog.

It is odd that Oliphint goes out of his way to defend Van Til's denial of the orthodox view of the trinity and even points to Lane Tipton's defense of Van Til's apparent monarchian modalism or sabellian modalism.  I left the Assemblies of God after I became a Calvinist because of several reasons, including my rejection of Arminianism and the Word of Faith infiltration into classical Pentecostal circles.  But another major reason I left and became a Calvinist was that I discovered that the trinitarian scholars in the Society for Pentecostal Studies and their theological journal, Pneuma, advocate for a reconciliation between oneness Pentecostals and trinitarian Pentecostals.  The Church of God School of Theology, Cleveland, Tennessee also publishes a theological journal which also advocates for a reconciliation between trinitarian and unitarian Pentecostal denominations.  Their journal is called The Journal of Pentecostal Theology.

At any rate, Oliphint's accusation that Clark's view was that the essence of God is impersonal is patently false and ridiculous.  If Clark's view is that the essence of God is impersonal, why does Clark uphold the orthodox view that God is one God and three Persons?  The doctrine of perichoresis cited by Busey does not help his case since the doctrine of perichoresis nowhere says that God is one person.  The doctrine of perichoresis simply says that all three persons of the Godhead are fully divine and fully God.  It does not teach that each of the three persons is also the same person or even one person.  

Additionally, the idea that Clark was a nestorian is patently false because Clark pointed out that no one in church history or among the Reformers defined what a person is.  As Clark showed conclusively in The Incarnation, the Definition of Chalcedon said specifically that Jesus Christ the man had a genuine human soul and a human mind.  Even Thomas Aquinas said that Jesus must have had both a human mind and a divine mind.  The problem with the Definition of Chalcedon is that it was inconsistent.  If Jesus was a genuine human person and a genuine human soul, then he as a man could not have been omniscient.  Even the Van Tilians tacitly admit this when they say that Christ was ignorant in his human nature but omniscient in his divine nature.  But it is the Van Tilians who are saying that Christ is one Person who is ignorant in his human nature and omniscient his divine nature.  Is the human nature impersonal?

Another difficulty is that the Roman Catholics have gone way beyond denying the nestorian view.  They have made Mary the queen of heaven based on their doctrine that Mary literally gave birth to God.  Now if God was born 2,000 years ago, does that mean that God had a beginning?  Does it mean that one Person of the Trinity began to exist 2,000 years ago?   Obviously not.  Mary did not give birth to God.  She gave birth to a human baby who was also God by way of a spiritual union of God the eternal Logos.  So it is theologically more correct to say that Mary was the Christ bearer, not the God bearer or the "mother of God" as the papists teach.  Oliphint seems to make Catholic tradition and creeds equal to Scripture at this point.  Scripture nowhere teaches that Mary gave birth to God in any literal sense.  She gave birth to the Messiah, who was also God incarnate.  This is completely different from the papist doctrine that Mary is some exalted and immaculate human mother who is to be venerated and prayed to as the Mother of God.

I have written in other blog posts on the issue of the false teaching of kenosis and the subkenosis view of the incarnation so I will not go into that again here.  Basically, Clark's argument is that the Logos or second Person of the Godhead remains unchanged by the incarnation.  The Trinity does not divorce the eternal Son of God for 33.5 years during the incarnation on earth so that the Trinity is somehow temporarily dissolved.  Also, Apollinarianism is rejected because even the creeds say that the human soul of Christ is a reasonable soul that is not replaced by the Logos.  Nor is the human soul mixed with divinity so that it is now a monophysite Person that is mystically combined into a new hypostatic substance that is neither divine nor human but a mixture of the two.

It gets too tedious and lengthy to go into too much detail.  Suffice it to say that Clark's objection to much of the credal statement in the Definition of Chalcedon has to do with a lack of specific definitions.  I recommend that you carefully read Clark's book, The Trinity and his book, The Incarnation.  In the Trinity, Clark endorses both the Nicene and the Athanasian creeds.  In fact, the Athanasian creed is one of the most detailed definitions of the trinity ever produced.  The Athanasian creed makes distinctions between the three Persons but attributes all of the divine definitions to all three persons as one Lord and one God.  Clark does not deny that there is an apparent paradox here between the three Persons and one divine Being.  But he soundly denounces Van Til for saying that God is both one Person and at the same time three Persons.  That has never been the orthodox position and in that regard John Robbins was correct to call out Van Til for teaching heresy.

Another issue I would like to address is the reference that Scott and Jared Oliphint make to Greg Bahnsen's critique of Gordon H. Clark's apologetics where Bahnsen accuses Clark of making the Bible and Christianity merely a "theory" or a possibility.   I have answered this objection in a previous blog post as well:  Dr. Greg Bahnsen's Rejection of Logic.  Clark rejected empiricism because empiricism starts with human experience.  Clark rejects empiricism and Aquinas's assertion that humans are born with a blank slate and that knowledge comes from experience.  But why do babies learn so many languages while dogs and cats and apes know no languages?  (John 1:9).  Clark rejected common grace and empirical science because science is ever learning and never arrives at the truth.  Absolute truth can only come from God and by revelation.  Of course, we are born with the innate image of God and a rational intellect.  No other animal is the image of God.  Clark did not reject the operationalist view of science in that science can invent practical advances in technology.  But science can never provide an ought from what is.  Science can never lead to any absolute truth or any objective knowledge whatsoever.  For the Christian our worldview must be deduced from the special revelation of Holy Scripture, not from natural revelation or general revelation.  How does science prove that murdering babies in the womb or after their birth is morally wrong or that dropping the nuclear bomb is morally wrong?  How does science prove that you existed 5 years ago or even two minutes ago?