Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. (2 Corinthians 12:19)
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
The Gordon Clark Project Revisited
Some time ago, I compiled what I believed to be a near comprehensive transcription of Gordon Clark's epistemological views, which can be found here. However, Douglas Douma, in the course of compiling his biography of Clark's life - which is shaping up quite nicely, I think (see his most recent update here) - has been making available unpublished writings by Clark at thegordonhclarkfoundation. There are around 100 such posts by Gordon Clark now, a few by his father as well. I suspect there is more to come, but I've finally gotten around to reading the ones that are available now, so I thought I'd compile a separate "Clark on epistemology" document to supplement my previous one here. I'll probably add to it as more becomes available.
Have any of the papers offered substantial new, alternative, or otherwise compelling material from Clark?
ReplyDeleteIn general? Unless I've forgotten things from his published works, yes.
ReplyDeleteThere were a few that had notes on Clark's political/economic/educational thought which I don't believe you will find in his published works (though these are not my primary area of interest).
Clark explicitly supports Natural Law in one long paper, and though he may have done so elsewhere, I don't think it was to such an extent. He also, to reference one of our previous conversations, speaks of reality as "complex" here, i.e. physical reality and spiritual/intellectual/mental reality are of a different "order."
A few of his papers on Aristotle and Plato and early Greek idealistic thought are superb expositions with points which I don't recall from his published works, with some evaluation sprinkled in. Especially Aristotle.
Several of the posts are transcriptions of radio dialogues Clark had, which show his early apologetic leanings - these are prior to even early developments of Scripturalism, I think.
There's a TULIP sermon in there worth reading.
There's an exegesis of Romans 1:18-21, which includes an excursus on whether Calvin believed knowledge of God preceded knowledge of self (on which point Clark believed the former preceded the latter).
There's several critical book reviews.
A few of the posts are clearly addressed to laymen, given their brevity and that they aren't very philosophical, but that is to be expected.
I haven't had a chance to digest everything yet, but I know that from this and what is coming, there will be plenty of new, significant angles on Clark's thought and doctrinal implications thereof.
That sounds great. I'll have to dive into them when I get a moment. Thanks for your continued work with Clark. I hope your efforts bear some good fruit.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I have high hopes that will be the case.
ReplyDelete