Reflections on Contingentarianism and Necessitarianism

I had recently thought to finally make an effort to complete a post that has been in the draft phases for around 7 years now in which I revisited necessitarianism, a position I formerly held (example). There was already much to say on the subject even before Amy Karofsky published an interesting - if flawed - book providing a rare defense of necessitarianism (link). With that publication, I thought to use it as a foil for some reflections I've meant to publish for a while now. 

Was Augustine a Necessitarian?

One argument Karofsky makes is that Augustine was a necessitarianism: 

Augustine also believes that the future is necessitated. Combining Christianity with aspects of Plato's metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical theories, he maintains that there is an ultimate, necessary basis that is a fully good and all-knowing God. Because God is omniscient, God knows what will occur in the future, and because God's intellect and will are unchanging, so, too, is the way that the world will unfold. God even knows what a person will choose to do. However, Augustine explains, such divine foreknowledge does not cause or force the person to choose in the way that they do; the person still chooses of their own will. (pg. 10) 

...it is, of course, possible to live by the theory of necessitarianism - Parmenides, the Stoics, Augustine, Spinoza, and I are all cases in point. (A Case for Necessitarianism, pg. 158)

In reality, to suggest Augustine believed the future is "necessitated" or was a "necessitarian" is misleading, to say the least. The simplest refutation is that Augustine argued our will is not necessitated: "We sin not by necessity but by the will" (link). 

Now, the future is indeed foreknown by God. In fact, Karofsky is correct that Augustine believes God's knowledge to be eternal (The Confessions, Book XI, link). But this does not, to Augustine, imply necessitarianism. When Evodius asks, in On the Free Choice of the Will, "How is it that future events God foreknows do not happen necessarily?" Augustine's answer is, in part, that "God foreknows all the things of which He is the author and yet is not the author of all the things He foresees. He is not the evil author of these things..." 

It may be inconsistent for Augustine to hold that God's "eternal" knowledge is [seemingly] contingent on future events like human free will - events and free will that is not necessitated - but that is indeed what it appears that Augustine believed, and nothing in The Confessions indicates otherwise.

Perhaps one might argue that the above only reflects Augustine's earlier thought. On the Free Choice of the Will was written at least a decade before The City of God, the other work by Augustine which Karofsky cites. But it turns out that Karofsky's own citation (book 5, chapter 10) is precisely what rules Augustine out as a necessitarian. Augustine writes:

Wherefore, neither is that necessity to be feared, for dread of which the Stoics labored to make such distinctions among the causes of things as should enable them to rescue certain things from the dominion of necessity, and to subject others to it. Among those things which they wished not to be subject to necessity they placed our wills, knowing that they would not be free if subjected to necessity. For if that is to be called our necessity which is not in our power, but even though we be unwilling effects what it can effect — as, for instance, the necessity of death — it is manifest that our wills by which we live up-rightly or wickedly are not under such a necessity; for we do many things which, if we were not willing, we should certainly not do. This is primarily true of the act of willing itself — for if we will, it is; if we will not, it is not — for we should not will if we were unwilling. But if we define necessity to be that according to which we say that it is necessary that anything be of such or such a nature, or be done in such and such a manner, I know not why we should have any dread of that necessity taking away the freedom of our will. For we do not put the life of God or the foreknowledge of God under necessity if we should say that it is necessary that God should live forever, and foreknow all things; as neither is His power diminished when we say that He cannot die or fall into error — for this is in such a way impossible to Him, that if it were possible for Him, He would be of less power. But assuredly He is rightly called omnipotent, though He can neither die nor fall into error. For He is called omnipotent on account of His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering what He wills not; for if that should befall Him, He would by no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some things for the very reason that He is omnipotent. So also, when we say that it is necessary that, when we will, we will by free choice, in so saying we both affirm what is true beyond doubt, and do not still subject our wills thereby to a necessity which destroys liberty. (link)

Later in The City of God, a concrete example of prelapsarian Adam illustrates exactly what Augustine means by "liberty" and "free will," and his statements, such as the following, are unintelligible within the framework of Karofsky's necessitarianism: "the first freedom of will which man received when he was created upright consisted in an ability not to sin, but also in an ability to sin" (link). 

How Karofsky can be aware of such a work yet classify Augustine as a necessitarian is a mystery, for this is exactly what Karofsky denies is possible to a necessitarian: "a necessitarian will reject any account that takes free will to mean that a person can sometimes choose one of (sic) more than one possible alternative beliefs... Instead, a necessitarian believes... nothing could have been otherwise" (A Case for Necessitarianism, pg. 153).

To drive the point home, Augustine not only believed that man is - or, at least, was (prior to the first sin) free - he believed that God is free. In The Enchiridion, Augustine says, "both baptism and death, were submitted to by Him, not through a pitiable necessity, but of His own free pity for us" (link). And again, "The omnipotent God, then, whether in mercy He pities whom He will, or in judgment hardens whom He will, is never unjust in what He does, never does anything except of His own free-will, and never wills anything that He does not perform." While God's grace is necessary for our salvation, salvation itself not necessitated but is rather a "free gift."

What is "Theistic Contingentarianism"?

Karofsky defines contingentarianism as the contradictory of necessitarianism. The former (contingentarianism) is the view that "at least some thing about the universe could have been otherwise in some way or other" (A Case for Necessitarianism, pg. 1). The latter view (necessitarianism), as mentioned above, is that "nothing could have been otherwise." Insofar as many theists defend divine freedom in accepting that God could have refrained from creating, theistic contingentarianism is a species of contingentarianism. 

Christianity and Theistic Contingentarianism

What motivates theistic contingentarianism? There's probably more than one answer to this question, so I'll answer for myself one reason why I now disbelieve necessitarianism. If necessitarianism is true, creation is necessitated. What I eventually have come to conclude is that necessitarianism is incompatible with the biblical doctrine of creation and/or God. 

Christians believe in a Creator-creature distinction. Compare this to Karofsky's monism as expressed in pages 137-144. She admits that she believes, for example that "the essence of one thing contains the essence of every other." Any attempt to develop a theistic necessitarianism along such lines would be pantheistic, anti-biblical, and a non-starter for Christians.

In contrast, my own, former view argued that pantheism or monism were not entailments of theistic necessitarianism (link). However, even if my former view were true - even if a necessitated creation is not essentially divine - I now believe such would entail a denial of divine sufficiency. 

Consider what it would mean for God and creation to be ontologically distinct yet for the latter to be necessitated by the former. This would be analogous to a particular understanding of the doctrine of eternal generation - which, even if untrue, highlights the point. If the Father necessarily generates the Son, the Father and Son would be mutually dependent upon one another. Obviously, the Son would depend upon the Father, being necessitated by Him. In turn, however, the Father could be who He is ("Father") without a Son. 

So, too, a necessitated creation would mean that the Creator and creature are mutually dependent such that God cannot be who He is ("Creator") without a creation. If necessitarianism is true, then God not only needs to create to be Creator, He needs to be Creator. Creation is no longer contingent, so God as Creator isn't a contingent predicate either. Indeed, it's essential or necessary that He be Creator. There is, then, a real dependence on creation in order for one to be able to refer to God as what He essentially and necessarily must be - Creator.

The point needn't be that the Father-Son relationship is exactly the same as the Creator-creature relationship. One could maintain (as I did and do) that the Father and Son are of the same nature, whereas God and creation are not. In both cases, however, necessitation entails mutual dependency, and this is what changed my mind. 

[Side note: on a theistic-contingentarian position, God is still the Creator, but such is not essential to who He is. There is no mutual dependency, guarding divine sufficiency. On theistic-necessitarianism, on the other hand, there is no apparent reason why being "Creator" would be any less integral to the essence of God than any commonly regarded divine attribute. Indeed, perhaps this line of reasoning begins to show that Karofsky's reductive monism does follow from necessitarianism (and, hence, why Christians must disagree with Karofsky).]

In short, for a Christian, theistic-necessitarianism is caught on the horns of a dilemma: 1) a pantheistic concession (such as a theistic-Karofskyan necessitarian would make) would salvage the doctrine of divine sufficiency at the expense of the Creator-creature distinction; 2) on the other hand, a concession that there is a mutual dependency between an ontologically distinct Creator and creation would salvage the doctrine of the Creator-creature distinction at the expense of divine sufficiency. 

Thus, theistic necessitarianism is anti-biblical, and this is an obvious motivation for Christians such as myself to reject it. None of this would probably persuade Karofsky herself, but that is a separate matter.

Does Theistic Contingentarianism Fail?

While the above makes a case for why a Christian might be motivated to accept theistic contingentarianism, Karofsky argues that theistic contingentarianism in fact fails. As such, the book implicitly attacks Christianity. 

One such argument it fails is as follows:

In general, it seems that any theory that attempts to account for contingency by appeal to entities that are in some way necessary and in some way contingent will fail. Indeed, the other leading theory that posits a basis for modalities that is partly contingent and partly necessary also fails, and does so for pretty much the same reasons that dispositionalists account fail. That theory is what I will call contingentarian theism.

As I explained in the Introduction, a contingentarian-theist typically maintains that although God is a necessary being, God has free will, and, as such, God could have chosen to create a different world with different inhabitants. God's necessary nature provides for the necessity of laws, essences, and eternal truths, while God's free will provides for the contingency of the existence of the entitites in the world and some of their properties. However, there are many problems with the contingentarian theistic account of contingency, and many of those problems are similar to those that arise for dispositionalist accounts.

Both the dispositionalist and the contingentarian-theist attribute a contingent feature to an otherwise necessary basis. The dispositionalist attributes potency to the essential nature of dispositional properties and the contingentarian-theist attributes free will to the necessary nature of God. As I showed earlier, the contingent feature of dispositions not only fails to account for contingency but also prevents the dispositionalist from providing an adequate account of necessity. A similar problem arises in contingentarian theism and can be expressed as a Euthyphro-type dilemma that might go like this: When God chooses to create from among possible alternative, either God makes the choice for some reason, or God makes the choice for no reason. If God chooses to create this world for some reason (say that it is the best), that reason determines God's choice, in which case, the choice could not have been made differently, and the outcome is necessary and not contingent. However, if God chooses for no reason (God just happens to choose this world), then God's choice is arbitrary and any choice can follow, in which case anything is possible, and nothing is necessary. So, either nothing is contingent, or nothing is necessary. 

The problem is not that difficult to see. Both the dispositionalist and the contingentarian-theist recognize that a necessary basis is needed in order to have necessary natural laws and necessary eternal truths. Both also recognize that if the basis is entirely necessary, there can be no contingency. In a desire to avoid necessitarianism, they attribute some contingent feature to that basis. But then that basis is such that it could have been otherwise in at least some way, in which case it is not necessary and cannot provide an adequate basis for the necessity of certain laws and truths. In essence, one cannot have one's cake and eat it, too.

Finally, the further condition that was derived from Shalkowski's argument works to show that both dispositionalism and theistic contingentarianism fail because, according to that condition, only what is necessary can be a member of basis. (Karofsky, A Case For Necessitarianism, pgs. 76-77)

Paragraphs 1 and 2 set the context for the argument. Paragraphs 3 spells out an argument to which I intend to reply below, as it is similar to the following arguments I made when I was a necessitarian (with some differences, on which, again, see below):

Why did God decree to maximally manifest His glory? I don't see any other possible conclusion than something similar to this or what I said to my friend. In fact, to say there are multiple possible worlds is simply to say God's instantiation of this possible world was not necessary. On this supposition, can there be a reason God instantiated this possible world? Would not such a reason imply the necessity of the instantiation? If not, then is not the alleged reason an arbitrary one? (link)

I then elaborated on this argument here:

My current response would be that nothing which occurs is unnecessary, for that would imply, as Clarke wishes to avoid, that God’s will is arbitrary. Sure, on the assumption that there are multiple possible worlds, God may have a reason for instantiating some particular possible world, but as on Clarke’s view such a reason would not be necessary, it would still be arbitrary. I may as well ask what God’s reason was for choosing His reason for creating this possible world over against any other reason capable of being chosen which might have led to the instantiation of another possible world, and there could be no answer because the reason itself was chosen arbitrarily. (link)

And once more, I make the same essential argument here:

If I ask what the basis or reason is that, given that world A (in which God creates) and world B (in which God never creates) are both agreeable to His nature, God chose to instantiate world A rather than world B, the answer “it was agreeable to His nature” doesn’t suffice. For world B would also have been agreeable to His nature. The arbitrarity objection stands. (link)

To try to put the argument as forcefully as I can think to, one further way to state it is to suppose God was free to create or not create as He has. On this supposition, further suppose we say God has some reason[s] w to create this world. Reason[s] w would not necessitate the creation of this world, so conceivably, God could have refrained from creating this world for reasons x.

Now, any reason[s] y which we might posit as an explanation for why God chose reason[s] w (on which account He created this world) rather than reason[s] x (on which account He might have refrained from creating this world) would be reason[s] subject to the same point ad infinitum. 

That is, reason[s] y would not necessitate choice of reason[s] w (on which account He created this world), so conceivably, God could have had chosen reason[s] x (on which account He might have refrained from creating this world) for reason[s] z.

Reason[s] w do not explain why God did not refrain from creating this world. Reason[s] y do not explain why God did not choose reason[s] x, etc. In short, no appeal to "reasons" can serve as a full-stop explanation of why God chose to create this world rather than refrain from creating this world. On theistic contingentarianism, any attempt to work out why this world was created rather than not would generate an infinite regress. So what Karofsky argues is similar to what I too have entertained. 

So stated: should a theistic-contingentarian regard this objection as problematic?

I now argue that it is not problematic. 

Was this creation necessitated? Did God have to create at all? If divine sufficiency is true and pantheism is false, I think not. 

This does beg the question as to whether God's choice to create this world is "arbitrary." In a sense, the answer to this must be yes. In another sense, no. 

When I was a child, one of the first philosophically interesting things I read was in Animorphs: "...can you decide to do nothing? That's a decision too." (K. A. Applegate, The Message). My dad also listened to Rush quite frequently, and their following refrain in the song Freewill communicates the same point: "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

That is, God either could have chosen to create - as He did - or chosen not to create. But a choice simpliciter had to be made. A choice was necessary even though one specified choice was not. Accommodating our language to the timelessness of God's eternal choice is not easy, but however one wants to phrase it, the reality of having to make a timeless choice itself was not arbitrary. 

Neither was God's choice arbitrary in the following sense - God could have had [and indeed does have] reasons for creating this world "so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places." One may ask for what reason He wanted to make that known. I believe the answer to all such teleological questioning is that all things exist for the glory of God. Although such reasons for His choice are no more necessitated than the choice to create itself, they are still reasons.

This departs from Karofsky: in her third paragraph, when she says that if necessitarianism were false, then "any choice can follow," "that anything is possible," or that "nothing is necessary." If I understand her correctly, I don't follow her reasoning here and disagree with her. That God, being free, is not limited to one choice does not imply "any choice can follow" in the sense, for example, of "any choice [which we could imagine]." We have epistemic limitations, as Karofsky herself acknowledges. These limitations may prevent us from understanding why some choices which we might imagine God could have made might not, in fact, "follow" or be consistent with the nature of God.

Finally, then, in what way must we admit that God's choice is "arbitrary"? God's free choice is the final, metaphysical (causal) explanation of how this world came to be. If we attempt to ask why or for what reason this world was chosen rather than not so created in the sense of seeking a deeper, more fundamental metaphysical explanation for God's choice, I don't think we find one. While it could have "pleased" God to refrain from creating this world, He was "pleased" to freely choose to create this world. He did not have to choose to create this world, and the same can be said for any "reasons" God may have had in freely choosing to create this world. Again, however, this is not a problem, for God had to choose, and He [freely] has. 

Moving on, in reply to Karofsky's fourth and fifth paragraphs on pages 76-77 of her book (cited above), God is indeed the necessary basis for the contingentarian-theist. But I don't think this statement of hers follows: "if the basis is entirely necessary, there can be no contingency." A thorough reply would require a much longer post than I intend here to provide, as it would require a full-fledged exposition of one's metaphysical views to form a complete response to Karofsky. I will, however, offer a few reflections.

Initially, I didn't understand on what grounds she thinks a necessary being would have to [timelessly] act in a way that is necessitated rather than merely in a manner consistent with the nature of said being. In a different context, she makes a similar assertion: "the divine essence includes the divine will and thus includes everything that God chooses" (pg. 12). By initial appearances, she conflates God's will with the exercise thereof. 

Additionally, given her first argument against Aquinas on page 11, I am not sure to what extent Karofsky is familiar with distinctions between God's natural and free knowledge. Her second and third arguments against Aquinas also lead me to wonder how much exposure she has to theistic replies to Euthyphro's dilemma.

An alternative explanation for pages 11-12 might be that Karofsky is only attempting to internally critique the philosophers about whom she is writing (Aquinas, Leibniz). Even if that is the case, her case against theistic contingentarianism on page 76 seemed lacking, and given that I disagreed with her exposition of Augustine, if I knew more about Aristotle and/or Leibniz, I could imagine finding myself disagreeing with her historical analysis of them too.

In general, it was my impression, then, that Karofsky's arguments against theistic contingentarianism here were laden with hidden, unsubstantiated metaphysical assumptions. I thought she might regard certain, controversial views of God - e.g. absolute divine simplicity - as standard for all Christians. 

As it turns out, she lays out the metaphysical background for her criticisms a little later on (pgs. 81-82, 92ff., 137ff.). I'll plan to address these in a separate post, but I will touch on my disagreement with them below as a precursor of further thoughts. 

Is Non-Theistic Necessitarianism Epistemically Viable?

While I might at some other time discuss Karofsky's ethical and metaphysical views in more detail, for now, I will make one criticism - a crucial one, in my mind - of Karofsky's necessitarianism. Is it epistemically viable? 

Earlier, I mentioned Karofsky's monism to be of such a nature that "the essence of one thing contains the essence of every other." Correspondingly, and in the same context, Karofsky also concedes that on her view, "the meaning of one term includes the meaning of all terms" (pg. 143).

These and other such similar statements she makes means she believes herself and fellow necessitarians to be committed to the doctrine of internal relations. This would be epistemically problematic, as Gordon Clark pointed out (before, ironically, he too changed his mind to necessitarianism - without addressing any criticisms of it that I mention in this post - cf. his book The Trinity, pgs. 111-119):

Reenactment of a thought is possible, nonetheless, because it can be separate from this immediacy without alteration. Not only so, it can be separated from other thoughts without alteration. Thus history becomes possible. 

This self-identity of the act of thought has been denied by two extreme views. The first view is that of idealism, the theory of internal relations, the notion that everything is what it is because of its context. This makes history impossible. To know any one thing it would be necessary to know its context; i.e. to know the whole universe. Knowledge would thus be restricted to the explicit consciousness of the omniscient Absolutes; and Collingwood, though he may be Beckett, does not claim to be the Absolute... 

What follows if it is true that psychological analysis presupposes a “complete knowledge of the psychological possibilities of life”? It would follow, would it not, that historical analysis also presupposes a complete knowledge of historical possibilities. In short, it would be impossible to know anything without knowing everything. 

Such a Platonic or Hegelian requirement of omniscience is a serious philosophical problem. It is not to be dismissed thoughtlessly. The meticulous scholar, J. H. Hexter, in his Reappraisals of History, castigates historical relativism as a fad and insists on the “rudimentary distinction” between knowing something and knowing everything. But he omits all philosophic justification for this distinction. 

Undoubtedly this distinction must be maintained, if a human being is able to know anything at all. Make omniscience the prerequisite of partial knowledge, and partial knowledge vanishes. But Bultmann, like Hexter, offers no help: less help, in fact, for Bultmann lets the requirements of omniscience stand. (Historiography, Secular and Religious, pgs. 225-226, 334)

Given that Karofsky admits epistemic limitations throughout her book, these and similar arguments (more of which can be read here) pose serious difficulties to her. She does not and indeed cannot know the meaning of all terms; therefore, on her own grounds, she cannot know the meaning of even one term. Her brand of necessitarianism entails epistemic skepticism. 

Thus, I think the problem of partial knowledge illustrates why a theistic contingentarian metaphysic is more defensible than Karosky's: it is more cohesive with a sound epistemology (link, link).

Gordon Clark: Editorial (Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society)

1966. Editorial. Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society. Vol. 9 No. 1.

EDITORIAL

Scholars who state their position do reader a great service. This is particularly true in the area of Biblical scholarship. Basic presuppositions concerning the Scriptures are crucially important inasmuch as they determine theological method, interpretation, and numerous other aspects of Biblical studies.

In current studies on the Scriptures it is very helpful indeed when reading the volume Introduction to the Old Testament (Harper & Bros., 1941, p. 141) by the late Robert H. Pfeiffer of Harvard that in his interpretation he considers the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis as fundamentally sound. Dr. Geerhardus Vos, formerly professor at Princeton, in his book Biblical Theology (Eerdmans, 1948) with clarity asserts that he accepts and studies the Scriptures as they lie before him and rejects the modern critical theories. The historicity of the Biblical events are crucially important to him in his interpretation. G. A. F. Knight, formerly at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and now Principal of the Pacific Theological College in Fiji, likewise states his presuppositions in his volume, A Christian Theology of the Old Testament (1959, SMC Press, Great Britain). He accepts the documentary hypothesis as a working framework and thus adopts a radical rearrangement of the persons and events as they are presented in the Old Testament. The forthright statement in each case is commendable.

The men assembled in Cincinnati in 1949 to organize the Evangelical Theological Society were concerned that an opportunity would be provided for Biblical scholars to share their efforts in research on a common basis. This was expressed in its doctrinal statement asserting that the Bible is considered to be the inerrant Word of God. Even as individuals state their position so this society forthrightly declares its basis for Biblical scholarship.

Currently a number of orthodox circles reflect uncertainty concerning the trustworthiness of Scripture (cf. Guest Editorial in Vol. 8, No. 4). Others assert that inerrancy is not important or sponsor lectures in which the Biblical accounts in Genesis were advocated as myths. Appropriately this position was challenged by local faculty members. In view of such trends it seemed appropriate for the Evangelical Theological Society to focus special attention on a discussion of its doctrinal statement in its Bulletin as well as at the annual meeting. Part of the latter is shared with our readers in this issue.

In his presidential address Dr. Gordon Clark critically evaluates our basic doctrinal statement. The panel discussion with Dr. John F. Walvoord as moderator focused attention upon the topic "Biblical Inerrancy Today." Three of the panelists' papers are offered in this issue. Dr. Kenneth S. Kantzer's contribution on the "Significance of Inerrancy" will appear in our forthcoming number. As a society we are confident that through this extensive discussion the significance and necessity of our doctrinal statement will become more apparent to those who have a concern for advancing Biblical scholarship. 

Where no common basis is stated for Biblical scholarship it is possible that an enormous expenditure of research and effort may be devoted to changing theories that may represent the concensus of scholars today but be abandoned tomorrow. Such was the case with the Graf-Wellhausen theory. Dr. John Bright observes in "Modern Study of the Old Testament Literature" (The Bible and the Ancient Near East, ed. G. E. Wright, Garden City, New York, 1959, pp. 13-14) that modern Biblical criticism is in a state of flux and that "the critical orthodoxy of a generation ago, with its apparent certainties and assured results, has gone " Volumes devoted to that study are now in need of drastic revision. 

Archaeological research, linguistic studies, critical analysis and historical evaluation are the tools used by Biblical scholars. Without any frame of reference in studying the Bible the conclusions may be as varied and numerous as the scholars who study, if each comes with his own assumptions and bias. 

Likewise the lack of a common basis for studying the Scriptures offers a dim view of development and progressive thinking in Biblical theology. This is quite evident in what has been published in the last few decades. When the historicity of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is not accepted as given in the text a wide variety of opinions exist as to the historical order of events, the proper historical arrangements of Biblical facts and the reliability of various Biblical writers. Lacking agreement on these matters current Biblical scholars reflect a variety of opinions and often confusion in their studies. This makes it difficult for one scholar to build on another scholar's foundation. Those who accept the Bible as inerrant and reliable at least have a common basis on which to continue their studies. 

If the scholars who authored the volumes in currently published commentaries for laymen had a common basis in the Bible as reliable and trustworthy, the Biblical interpretations offered our Christian constituency would be more unified. The same is true of the current material offered in Sunday School curriculum (cf. Christianity Today, Vol. X, No. 10, Feb. 18, 1966, pp. 28ff). Here the teaching in our churches reflects the synthesis of a scholarship of the past generation when Biblical studies were based on a view of Scripture that rested basically on naturalistic, evolutionistic, and philosophical a priori. 

Our present task as a society continues to be the fostering of scholarship centered in the Word of God as a trustworthy and reliable basis. May our regional and national meetings as well as our publications mark a constructive advance in scholarship which coming generations can develop with confidence because it is based on God's Word.

Gordon Clark: Review of “Introduction to Philosophy,” by Norman L. Geisler and Paul D. Feinberg (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society)

1981. Review of “Introduction to Philosophy,” by Norman L. Geisler and Paul D. Feinberg. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. Vol. 24 No. 3. Dec.

Textbooks for college students in their first philosophy course, as this book seems to be, are of two varieties. Coppleston, Jones and this reviewer have written on the history of philosophy. In these books each philosopher's system is expounded as a whole. Plato's view of art, his view of perception, of space and of God are related systematically. Then Aristotle's or Kant's treatment of the same subjects are similarly integrated. But Castell and others take up, say, causality in one chapter and offer six different views of it. The next chapter may outline six different views on God and the next six on sensation. But the relation between sensation and causality remains slighted. The book under review is of the latter type and has chapters, with subheads, on knowledge, reality, the ultimate, and good and right. This latter method allows for greater freedom to include that author's own views, and such authors use this freedom to a lesser or greater degree.

In their purpose to provide their type of introduction these two authors have succeeded rather well. The language, at least in its superficial meaning, is clear and distinct. There is at most a minimum of technical jargon. To mistake the immediate meaning requires a particularly dull student.

The philosophic implications are of course another matter. This is the case where the authors dismiss some perplexity by a rather authoritarian statement. For example, the conclusion of the section on the methodology of philosophy (p. 52) states, "There is no just one method of doing philosophy; there are man. It is obvious that some methods are better adapted to certain kinds of truth-seeking, as other methods are to other kinds." If this were merely an historical statement that various philosophers have used various methods - and the first of these two sentences could be so taken - yet few philosophers would accept the second statement as obvious. Instead of making such an assertion so dogmatically, one who favors unsystematic eclecticism ought to produce reasons for using Platonic principles here and Aristotelianism there and pragmatism somewhere else. Perhaps the authors think that the immediately following sentences are such reasons. In the opinion of the reviewer these sentences fall short of showing that "it seems clearly wrong to insist that there is one and only one method by which one can discover all [sorts of?] truth." Authors who used the problem method for an introduction to philosophy sometimes fail in the matters of history that they have neglected.

On page 139, discussing the external world against subjective idealism, the authors say, "Descartes claimed that ideas must resemble their causes or objects because God is a most perfect being and thus not a liar." Early in Meditation III Descartes makes man the cause of his idea of a hippogriff, but he does not make man resemble a hippogriff. Perhaps the authors would consider this a trivial response to their assertion. But far from trivial is Meditation VI. Here Descartes not only gives examples of perceived qualities unlike the things to which uneducated people attribute them but further insists that the failure to perceive qualities does not prove that one is looking at empty space. Neither of these instances implies that God deceives us or is a liar, for God did not give me a sensory apparatus for the purpose of knowing the world: The purpose of sensation [as Augustine had previously held] is to warn me against harmful situations. The warning does not require a knowledge of the nature of the harmful thing. Besides all this, Descartes explicitly absolves God of deceitfulness in allowing us to be deceived by secondary qualities on the ground that the primary geometrical qualities are really in them. The other qualities are "fort douteuses et incertaines," yet "Dieu n'est point trompeur," and referring to Meditation IV Descartes repeats that God has given us the ability not to be deceived by dependence on sensation. 

    

Christians will no doubt be more interested in the relationship between faith and reason (pp. 255 ff.). Though the accounts of 'Reason Only" and "Revelation Over Reason" are not at all bad - they are little too brief - the section on "Revelation Only" is pitiful. It is confined to only one form of the theory, the worst form, and pays no attention to other forms that are entirely free from the deficiencies mentioned. 

    

Perhaps some readers of JETS will think that these criticisms are trivial, unfair or irrelevant. They do, however, give information on the contents of the volume, and such is what a review is supposed to do. Whether the criticisms are unfair the reader must judge for himself. But if they are tedious, only one more will be made. 

 

Thomas Aquinas had a theory of knowledge of God by analogy. It is a denial of univocal prediction. An objection to this theory is that an analogy must have a univocal basis. Unless there is a similarity between the two parts, unless somewhere a predicate can be attributed univocally to both, no analogy can be constructed. The authors try to demolish this criticism by distinguishing between the univocity of a predicate by itself and the univocity of the proposition as a whole. This distinction, I believe, comes from an interpretation of Aquinas sponsored at Loyola University and is different form the interpretation of Etienne Gilson in his intellectually heavy volume on The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. A review, while no place to discuss the details of this intricate matter, is nonetheless justified in pointing it out. In any case, it seems to me, neither interpretation avoids the force of this refutation. 

    

Anyone more in accord with the philosophy of Geisler and Feinberg than I am would have written a more enthusiastic review. 

Gordon H. Clark

Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, GA

Gordon Clark: Two Communications on the Clark Case (The Presbyterian Guardian)

1944. Two Communications on the Clark Case. The Presbyterian Guardian. Dec 9.

Two Communications on the Clark Case

A Statement by Dr. Clark

December 9, 1944

To the Owners and Editors of THE PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN:

As a matter of personal privilege, and because you have addressed a public appeal to me personally, I desire space in your columns to protest against your prejudicial' editorial, "Issues and Convictions." You say, "If his position has been misrepresented in any material fashion, we sincerely trust that he will be able to make this plain to the presbytery and to the church at large." I judge that this has already been made plain to the Presbytery, for after hearing in the examination essentially the same arguments that fill the Complaint, more than three fourths of the Presbytery voted to sustain the examination. The Presbytery has now elected a committee to answer the Complaint. I have every reason to believe that this committee will make plain to the church at large that the Complainants make use of false statements and serious misrepresentations, and that they fail in the Complaint as utterly as they failed in the Philadelphia Presbytery. 

GORDON H. CLARK

Gordon Clark: Review of “Maker of Heaven and Earth,” by Langdon Gilkey (Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society)

1965. Review of “Maker of Heaven and Earth,” by Langdon Gilkey. Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society. Vol. 8. No. 3. Spring.

Maker of Heaven and Earth: by Langdon Gilkey (Doubleday and Co., Inc., Garden City, N.Y. 1965), 378 pages, $1.45. Reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, Professor of Philosophy, Butler University, Indianapolis. 

The aim of this book is "to reinterpret the idea of creation so that it is not just an irrelevant dogma inherited from a prescientific and prehistorical past, but a symbol which points to the profoundest understanding . . . of human life" (pp. 13-14). In pursuing this aim the author shows the bearing of the doctrine of creation on other doctrines, so that in a sense the book becomes a reinterpretation of a large section of Christian thought. The reader must observe, however, to what extent the reinterpretation preserves or does not preserve thought that is Christian. 

In opposition to some theologians, Edgar Sheffield Brightman, for example, who say that "goodness is more fundamental than power" and "there is nothing worthy of worship in power as such," and who therefore posit a finite God, Dr. Gilkey writes, "Through God's redeeming works we know that he is supremely righteous and supremely loving. But when we ask who is supremely righteous and loving, the answer comes in terms of God's original activity, creation . . . The transcendent 'Godness' of God, what gives him deity and so ultimate significance to our lives, is most directly manifested to us through his creative activity as the transcendent source of all being and of all existence" (pp. 83-84). In particular the author objects to those who are so enamoured of personal categories that they deny any relevance at all to ontological concepts in speaking of God (p. 86, footnote). 

These lines in themselves sound Biblical; but when he refers to the idea of creation as a symbol of human life and assigns mutually exclusive spheres to science and religion, one begins to wonder if he has preserved any of the old idea of creation or has substituted something wholly other. 

The first chapters of Genesis, he asserts, are fables and nothing else: the story is Babylonian mythology. The point of the fable, i.e. the doctrine of creation, is not "about" science; and hence science cannot object to it. Science investigates origins and causes; it asks, what state of affairs preceded this one; but science does not ask about the origin of reality as a whole. Therefore science and the creation fable cannot conflict. There have been conflicts in the past only because religion and science were confused with each other. 

Science, and only science, can give information. Religion reveals no facts. Therefore the notion that the universe began at a moment, since it is a cosmological fact, cannot be a religious truth (p. 314). Creation therefore is a myth, something beyond all questions of fact: "the myth of creation does not refer to a particular event . . . any more than the myth of the Fall tells us about a first human being" (p. 317). 

If we want facts, let us rely on science. By all means let us have no facts in religion: particularly the fact of creation. This last sentence is not a verbatim quotation. 

Metaphysics as well as science should also be kept separate from religion. "Philosophy seeks to resolve the problems of thought, not necessarily of life (p. 36. italics his, as if thought and life were antithetical). Philosophy thus drives toward the goal which the mind demands, the goal of complete intelligibility ... . The theologian, however, is more apt to be wary of such demands for total coherence . . . the incoherent and paradoxical, the intellectually baffling . . . character of our experience reflect not merely our lack of systematic thinking but also the real nature of creaturehood" (p. 37). 

One must pause to take this in. The lack of coherence and intelligibility is not the result of our poor thinking, as if we were students who could not get our geometry correct. Unintelligibility is rooted in ontology: it is a characteristic of the real nature of things created. From which we may infer that God made a mess of things when he created them. 

Therefore "we will misunderstand the deeper facts of our life if we seek to understand everything too clearly." 

Apparently intellectual confusion is a spiritual asset. By it we are, are we not?, more conformed to the image of God who created the incoherent world. By all means, let us not understand anything too clearly! Let us keep clarity, as well as facts, out of religion. 

At the beginning of the following chapter the author blandly assumes that "In the preceding chapters we have tried to understand the meaning of the Christian doctrine of creation" (p. 319). It is good of him to tell us so, for we would not have guessed it otherwise. He asks, "Why does Christian theology hold to these clearly paradoxical anthropomorphisms?" To which he replies that all language about God is analogical. 

But, first Christian theology does not hold to these paradoxical anthropomorphisms. Christianity has always held that creation is a fact and that the Fall is a fact. Hence a theory of analogical language to do away with these facts is unnecessary. Furthermore, if coherence is bad, and if religion contains no facts, how could one select a proper analogy? The author admits that the problem of theology is to select the best analogies, the most appropriate symbols, the most illuminating descriptions (p. 324). But if we have no positive knowledge of God to begin with, we have no ground for judging what is most appropriate or illuminating. 

Not only is there no knowledge by which we could see that one analogy is appropriate and its contrary is not, another reason makes all analogies equally appropriate and unilluminating. The author tells us, "Whatever we say of him [God] must be affirmed and denied at the same time." For example, God is holy and God is not holy; he is creator and he is not. This explains why those excellent religions, Brahmanism and Zen Buddhism, abound in paradoxes. But instead of this being a recommendation for Christianity to follow, as the author apparently assumes, a Biblical position would deploret the conclusion and deny the premise. 

Finally, at the end of the book, the author asks, Do myth and paradox leave us in total ignorance? Must there not be some direct and unsymbolic knowledge? Yes, there is, he says. God is directly known in Christ as holy love. "Thus the personal recreative love of God in Christ, not the ontological power of God in general existence (cf. pp. 83-84, 86, quoted above), is the one unsymbolic and direct idea of God that Christians possess" (pp. 359- 360). 

Strange, is it not, that if metaphysical being and cause are symbolic, if Creator and Lord are only analogical, and if "we can never regard personal symbols about God as literally applicable," the term love, the very personal term love, is unsymbolic, direct, positive knowledge. This unsatisfactory and inconsistent defense of the new doctrine of creation leaves us with the conclusion that mythological theology is indeed mythology. 

Gordon Clark: Review of “A Christian Perspective of Knowing,” by Earl E. Barrett (Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society)

1965. Review of “A Christian Perspective of Knowing,” by Earl E. Barrett. Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society. Vol. 8. No. 2. Spring.

A Christian Perspective of Knowing, by Earl E. Barrett (Beacon Hill Press, New York, 1965), 224 pages, $4.95. Reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, Butler University, N.Y. 

The author surveys epistemology under (mainly) the headings Authoritarianism, Rationalism, Empiricism, Intuitionism, and Christian Mysticism. Analysis shows that each one of these is inadequate as a theory of knowledge. However, each has some contribution to make to an organic whole in which they all cooperate. 

This method of finding some good in all preceding theories can boast of the example of Aristotle. The danger is that in the process the definitions of Rationalism, Empiricism, and so on are forgotten; what is salvaged is not a part of any of these, strictly understood; and the final combination may not be so systematic as one might wish. 

The Preface states that this book is designed as a textbook for college students. That it gives an elementary survey of important phases of epistemology, there can be no doubt; but the author's wide reading may tend to baffle the student. References to twenty or thirty different authors are made in every chapter. Of necessity these are too brief to give a college student an accurate idea of the context and implications. More advanced students, graduate students, would get more out of the material. Even so, the references sometimes stand in need of qualification and explanation. For example, what does the author mean by stating (page 90) that even in Democritus there was a pronounced tendency to view ultimate reality as spiritual? 

The position on which the author judges all his problems is an explicit and clear-cut Arminianism. He rejects the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura, and insists in a four-fold criterion of truth: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Man is autonomous, and God's grace is not irresistible. Truth seems to be superior to God, for "Even God's knowing it does not constitute the truth of anything. That is, God knows it is true because it is true" (p. 39). Yet, in the realm of the undetermined, man is able to create truth, for "faith reinforced by the will is a maker of truth" (p. 75). 

Although each method alone is inadequate, the author thinks that mysticism is the best. Christian Mysticism unites Rationalism and Empiricism. Examples of mystics, among others, are St. Francis, St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa, St. Catherine, Kagawa, E. Stanley Jones, and, "Of course, Christ is the mystic par excellence" (pp. 180-181). Of course, also, mysticism is understood rather broadly. It would seem that Neis Ferre and Paul Tillich are to be included with these others. And thus the insights of many different schools are united in one organic whole. 

Gordon Clark: Not Universalists (The Presbyterian Journal)

1967. Not Universalists. The Presbyterian Journal. XXV.

 

NOT UNIVERSALISTS 

Dr. Strong's articles on the person and work of Christ were a noteworthy contribution to the Journal and to us its readers. It is therefore with sorrow that I see in the final article a section that falls below the level of what preceded. 

In the issue of Nov. 30, Dr. Strong tries to connect belief in a millenium with theories of a "second chance" and universal salvation. Such an insinuation is contrary to the facts. 

Dr. William Young, an exclusive psalm singer, Rev. E. W. Johnson, a sovereign-grace Baptist, are, and my father was, post-millenarian. None of them had any sympathy with the so-called second chance or universal salvation. I could also name several pre-millenarians who equally repudiate these doctrines. Even the heretical dispensationalists do not accept universalism. Then there are St. Augustine and B. B. Warfield. 

 As for the millenium itself, it amazes me that a serious reader of the Bible can so categorically deny it! 

 —Gordon H. Clark 

Indianapolis, Ind.

Gordon Clark: Review of “Revolt Against Heaven,” by Kenneth Hamilton (The Presbyterian Journal)

1966. Review of “Revolt Against Heaven,” by Kenneth Hamilton. The Presbyterian Journal. XXV.

REVOLT AGAINST HEAVEN, by Kenneth Hamilton. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. 193 pp. $2.45. Reviewed by Dr. Gordon H. Clark, Indianapolis, Ind. 

Written in fine literary style, not devoid of humor, and characterized by penetrating analyses, this excellent study aims and succeeds in showing the basic influence of Schleiermacher on many modern theologians, some of whom do not recognize their inspiration. 

Along the line the author makes telling criticisms of the men he discusses. For example, demythologization is needed only if the "modern world view" is complete and correct. But "why should not the Christian faith contribute to our vision of what is meaningful? Such questions Bultmann never asks. . . . Heidegger has to speak first so that God may be heard subsequently." Others who oppose Bultmann's existentialism do not agree what view is "modern" and hence have no consensus on what is meaningful. "The two outlooks, equally, call upon faith to justify itself by standards set up by the Zeitgeist, although they differ radically in their views of what the Zeitgeist demands." 

The author also entertains the reader by bringing into focus the confusions in Honest to God along with Bishop Robinson's complete misunderstanding of Bonhoeffer. 

May now the reviewer permit himself some technical criticisms? There seems to be some oversimplification of "Greek Philosophy," and a distortion of Augustine may be taken to imply the total destruction by sin of the divine image of God in man. Also, without detracting from the author's clear exposition of Schleiermacher, the reviewer thinks his Kantian background has been slighted — no mention of Jacobi — and Greek influence overestimated. Furthermore the account of Kant, given in connection with Ritschl, is debatable because the author does not seem to realize that for Kant God is a heuristic principle, regulative but not constitutive.

 
Coming to contemporaries, Professor Hamilton exposes the naive superficiality of Henry P. Van Dusen, and speaking of neo-liberalism in general says, "At the center of its understanding of redemption is not forgiveness of sins, but the actualizing of human potential." 

The discussion of D. C. Mackintosh, Wieman, John Dewey, James, Matthew Arnold, and R. B. Braithwaite is good, but too short. The book as a whole is too short. Such excellent writing should also have been extended to cover the "God-is-dead" movement. 

The final chapter, "A Voice Affirming Heaven," is a sympathetic, perhaps over-sympathetic, account of Bonhoeffer. At any rate, it sets up the contrast between the revolt against heaven and supernatural revelation.

Gordon Clark: Review of “Perspectives on 19th and 20th Century Protestant Theology” by Paul Tillich (The Presbyterian Journal)

1967. Review of “Perspectives on 19th and 20th Century Protestant Theology” by Paul Tillich. The Presbyterian Journal. XXVI

PERSPECTIVES ON 19TH AND 20TH CENTURY PROTESTANT THEOLOGY, by Paul Tillich. Harper & Row, New York, N. Y. 252 pp. $5.95. Reviewed by Dr. Gordon H. Clark, professor of philosophy, Butler University, Indianapolis, Ind. 

This book is published from tape recordings of lectures Tillich gave in 1963 in Chicago. The contents are impressionistic pictures of a number of recent philosophers and their themes. 

This procedure, which is allowable to a thinker in his mature years, enables Tillich to reflect on his view of faith and the nature of religion. He notes that rationalism and mysticism are akin, not antithetical. The particular state of theology in America is, in one respect, the result of this nation's never going through a period of Romanticism — Goethe contributed so much to German theology. 

Some of the impressions are a little startling. One wonders whether secularism's reluctance to face death is due to the Jesuits' support of bourgeois capitalism. Orthodox Protestants will be surprised to hear, even though they are familiar with Tillich's bias, that they believe God dictated the Bible as a boss dictates a letter to a stenographer at a typewriter; and that they also believe that the King James version is the very Word of God. 

Naturally we must not expect liberal scholars to study very carefully the religion they attack.

Gordon Clark: A Review of “Christian Philosophy in the Twentieth Century,” by Arthur F. Holmes (The Presbyterian Journal)

1970. A Review of “Christian Philosophy in the Twentieth Century,” by Arthur F. Holmes. The Presbyterian Journal. XXIX.

CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, by Arthur F. Holmes. The Craig Press, Nutley, N. J. 245 pp. $4.95. Reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, Butler University, Indianapolis, Ind. 

Purporting to be a study in methodology, this book quickly sketches the views of Descartes, Jaspers, Russell and Wittgenstein, as well as some figures of lesser importance, In doing this the author seems to oscillate between the idea of philosophy as a system of truth and the psychology of philosophizing. For example, as a near definition, philosophy is "the distillation of a vision" and "philosophy ... is an ongoing enterprise with changing methods and attitudes." 

Again, "Philosophy is the elucidation of existence rather than the acquisition of understanding." If this third definition actually belongs to Jaspers, the author nevertheless seems to approve of it. These definitions are admirably calculated to serve the author's purpose of emphasizing the innumerable differences among philosophers; but they do not serve so well in the formation of a methodology. 

Then, too, this psychological interest leads to what I believe to be a mistaken account of Descartes, for the account detaches Descartes' thought from its stimulus in Montaigne and from its development in Spinoza. But chapter three, "Existentialism and Phenomenology," and chapter four, the longest in the book, "Analytic Philosophy" are very good. 

Presumably the final chapter aims to formulate the methodology by which the wide and violent disagreements among philosophers can be handled: "It will be evident by now that the writer has used historical dialogue in this book to elaborate an idea of Christian philosophy that is intended to do justice to the contemporary understanding of methodology while remaining true to its guiding perspectives." But this is not evident at all. 

First, no Christian philosophy is elaborated. Stated are no more than a few disjointed Christian assertions. Second, the methodology is far from clear. Although the author makes some faint repudiations of syncretism, it is hard to see what else he offers. He selects a bit from one philosopher and a bit from another in an effort to have a middle position that is balanced among them. But no method is elaborated. 

The problem, of course, is difficult in the extreme and it would ae advantageous if other scholars should attempt it.

Gordon Clark: 1984 – An Out-of-Control Year? (The Presbyterian Journal)

1983. 1984 – An Out-of-Control Year? The Presbyterian Journal. XLII.

With the exception of the Covenanters and perhaps one still smaller denomination, the steep decline into apostasy will continue. No denomination of any significant size enforces the teachings of the Westminster Confession. Ordination vows are broken with impunity. Recently a student was licensed by a presbytery even though he could not answer a single question in his examination. Well, those are the four sentences allowed by the invitation to contribute.

Gordon Clark: The Word (?) of God (The Presbyterian Journal)

1962. The Word (?) of God. The Presbyterian Journal, XXI.

The Word (?) Of God 

The great difference between Karl Barth's theology and the doctrine of the Reformation is that Barth refuses to equate the Bible with the Word of God. Behind the Church's proclamation and behind the Bible there is a third form — the Word of God. Barth calls this, revelation. . . . The Bible is the Word of God only momentarily, in some of its parts, and only for some people. For other people it is not the Word of God. . . . Under the circumstances it is difficult to see how the statement, "the Bible is God's Word," can be true in any independent or objective sense. To those who come in unbelief the Bible certainly does not become the Word of God (because it is not accorded faith) and therefore it is not the Word of God. ... It is clear that (for Barth) the identity of the Bible with the Word of God is only momentary rather than permanent. 

Gordon H. Clark

Gordon Clark: Review of "Faith and Reason," by James Deotis Roberts (The Presbyterian Journal)

1962. Review of "Faith and Reason," by James Deotis Roberts. The Presbyterian Journal. XXI.

FAITH AND REASON, by James Deotis Roberts. The Christopher Publ. House, Boston. 98 pp. $3.00. 

The thesis of this overpriced book is that Bergson to a small degree and William James to a greater degree made some progress toward the more satisfactory faith of Pascal. Although the two were not Christians, their intentions were good, and all three were in basic agreement (pp. 62, 73). 

The author seems to depend too heavily on secondary material, especially the work of G. M. Patrick and Dorothy Eastwood. One is also left to wonder whether Pascal's wager works with the Koran as well as with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Detailed argument on several such subjects would have been a great help to the reader. 

- Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D. 

Indianapolis, Ind.

Gordon Clark: The Rule of Faith (The Presbyterian Journal)

1962. The Rule of Faith. The Presbyterian Journal, XX.

The Rule Of Faith 

A canon is a footrule, a regulation, or a pattern. In the Church the canon is Holy Scripture, the books of the Bible recognized by the Church as authoritative. By recognizing the existence of a canon the Church declares that . . . her proclamation is connected with something concrete and that this connection of her proclamation with the Bible constitutes for her an order received, an. obligation imposed. This bit of the past, composed of definite texts, is her directions for work, her marching orders, with which not only her preaching but she herself stands or falls. It therefore cannot under any circustances, even hypothetically, be thought away, unless we mean to think away proclamation and the Church itself. 

— Gordon H. Clark

Gordon Clark: Unnamed Editorial 3 (The Presbyterian Journal)

1961. Unnamed Editorial 3. The Presbyterian Journal, XX.

Modernism is man-centered. Man's knowledge of God, which upon examination turns out to be knowledge of himself, arises out of the ordinary sources of human nature. — Gordon H. Clark.

Gordon Clark: Unnamed Editorial 2 (The Presbyterian Journal)

1961. Unnamed Editorial 2. The Presbyterian Journal, XX.

If the words of the Bible are true when one person believes them, are they not just as true when another person refuses to believe them? And if the words are true, whether or not they are believed, why cannot we speak of verbal inspiration? — GORDON H. Clark.

Gordon Clark: Barth on Revelation (The Presbyterian Journal)

1961. Barth on Revelation. The Presbyterian Journal, XX.

Barth On Revelation 

(Where "witness and instrument comes from) 

Karl Barth writes to the effect that the Bible is not itself to be considered God's past revelation. But the Bible speaking to us and heard by us attests to past revelation. Barth constantly uses the phrase, "the revelation attested in Scripture." To "attest," he says, is to point beyond to something else. In this idea of attestation Barth seems to confuse personal witnesses (such as Paul) — who of course do point away from themselves to Something else — with the witness of the Bible. Now, while Paul may point to Something beyond himself, it is not necessary to conclude that the Scriptural doctrine of justification or of sanctification points "beyond." If God gave Paul certain doctrinal information and if Paul wrote down this information accurately, then the words of God and the words of Paul would be identical. (Then the words of Paul would not "witness" to revelation, they would be revelation. — Ed.) 

 

— Gordon H. Clark

Gordon Clark: Review of “The Theology of Paul Tillich,” by Charles W. Kegley and Robert W. Bretall (The Presbyterian Journal)

1961. Review of “The Theology of Paul Tillich,” by Charles W. Kegley and Robert W. Bretall. The Presbyterian Journal, XX.

THE THEOLOGY OF PAUL TILLICH, ed. by Charles W. Kegley and Robert W. Bretall. The Macmillan Co., New York. 370 pp. $1.95. 

This is a paperback reprint of a 1952 publication. It begins with an autobiographical chapter, continues with fourteen interpretative essays, and concludes with a reply by Tillich. We may agree with the editors that Tillich is a great thinker, to be classed with Dewey, Whitehead, Russell and Santayana, but a wry smile appears when the eulogy boasts that Tillich's "feet are solidly planted upon Christian soil, rooted in the Word of God." 

—Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D. Indianapolis, Ind.

Gordon Clark: Unnamed Editorial (The Presbyterian Journal)

1961. Unnamed Editorial. The Presbyterian Journal, XX.

Every system of philosophy that views all men as brothers must either be blind to sin or ignorant of God's grace. . . . Far from teaching that God is the Father of all men, the Bible poses as a most important problem how men may become children of God.

— THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF MAN AND THINGS, Clark.

Gordon Clark: The Body Without The Spirit Is Dead (The Presbyterian Journal)

1960. The Body Without The Spirit Is Dead. The Presbyterian Journal. XIX.

The Body Without The Spirit Is Dead 

One popular statement is that Christianity is a life, not a doctrine. But if Christianity has no doctrine, that is, if it has nothing definite to teach, can it even teach that one sort of life is better than another? A life without doctrine verges on insanity; at best it would be a desultory life without conviction or purpose. 

— Gordon H. Clark

The Christian View of Men and Things

Gordon Clark: Lest We Forget (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

Note: The author signature at the bottom of this iteration is A. H. C., which is probably why this has been missed as a work by Gordon Clark. But I am confident that this was a typo for at least three reasons: 

1) By the very fact the next iteration - this one by "G. H. C." - is called a continuation: "Lest We Forget (Con't.)." One would expect a different author unless the reader was otherwise made aware of the fact. On the contrary, the first line of this continuation in this series picks up right where this one leaves off in discussing the Waldenses: "Pope Innocent VIII, in 1488, determined to persecute the Waldenses." Clark also wrote two further iterations in this series for a grand total of four (including this first one with the typo).

2) No contributing editors for this issue had the initials A. H. C.

3) The style of signature by initials (G. H. C.) fits with what Clark's was in many of his writings for The Southern Presbyterian Journal.

1959. Lest We Forget. The Southern Presbyterian Journal, XVIII.

One Lord's Day morning an American worshipper was sitting in the Reformed church in Tours, France. On the wall he saw a plaque which read, "In memory of Catherine Marechal, first martyr of this parish, burned alive 1532." 

The American wondered whether the details of those days of the Protestant Reformation are fading out of the minds of the twentieth century public. There is still some knowledge of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's eve, when in 1572 the Catholics massacred some sixty to seventy thousand Protestants. But is this the faint and only memory of a long history of persecution? Near Tours, at the castle of Amboise, the American saw the balcony from which the Catholics hanged about 100 Protestant men in 1560 and where they threw the women and children into the Loire to drown. But what had happened before 1560 and before 1532? Let us go back several centuries before the Reformation. 

The Middle Ages were saturated with superstition and Popery. But there were always a few who had some appreciation of the Gospel and who tried to dispel the errors which the priests and monks had invented to deceive the people. In the year 1000, five centuries before Martin Luther and Calvin, Berengarius preached evangelical truth in its primitive simplicity. He had a good number of converts. Berengarius was followed by Peter Bruis, who preached at Toulouse, under the protection of the Earl. By the year 1140 the number of the Reformed was so great that the Pope was alarmed. He wrote to several princes and ordered them to banish the evangelical believers from their domains. Before describing the events which the Pope's policy put into effect, some idea should be given of the ideas of these early reformers. Fairly full information is available about one of the most famous of these men: Peter Waldo, a wealthy gentleman of Lyons, who became the founder of the Waldensians. 

Waldo and his followers held that holy oil is not to be mingled with the water in baptism; prayers said over inanimate things is superstition; flesh may be eaten in Lent, the clergy may marry, and auricular confession is unnecessary; confirmation and extreme unction are not sacraments; masses and indulgences are of no value to the dead; image worship is idolatry; purgatory is a fiction; and prayer should not be offered to the saints. There are other details too, but ; the most important thing to notice is that Waldo took the Scriptures as the sole authority in matters of faith and practice. He definitely rejected the claims of the Pope and the infallibility of the Roman church. When Alexander III heard of all this, he excommunicated Waldo and ordered the Bishop of Lyons to exterminate the sect. 

For three years Waldo hid in Lyons and managed to escape the diligence of the police. Then he escaped to the mountains of Dauphiny, where he was able to make many more converts. This enraged Philip, King of France, who sent out a military expedition that destroyed some 300 properties of the well-to-do, razed some walled towns, and burned many of the reformed people. Others fled to Normandy and to Germany. 

Notwithstanding these persecutions the reformed religion flourished, and the Waldensians became more numerous than ever. The Catholics slandered them, anathematized them, legislated them out of positions of trust, honor, and profit, denied them burial in cemeteries, seized their lands, and confiscated their goods. As Peter Waldo continued to preach that the Pope was the Anti-Christ, that mass was an abomination, that the reserved host was an idol, and that purgatory was a fable, Pope Innocent III organized the Inquisition to proceed against the Waldensians. In the courts of the Inquisition surmise and slander were accepted as evidence, and the accused were soon handed over to the executioner. 

It was at this time that the Dominican order was founded, and its members have often been the principal agents of the Inquisition in many different countries. The powers of the Inquisition against heretics was unlimited. No matter how infamous an accuser was, the accusation could be accepted; even anonymous accusations were deemed valid. Some people were condemned more for being rich than for being evangelical heretics, for the confiscation of property was a profitable occupation. The friends of the defendants could not supply them with straw for bedding without the danger of being arrested as friends of the heretics. It was worth their life to give the defendant a cup of water. No lawyer dared to speak in their behalf. If a man on his death bed was accused of being a Waldensian, his estate was seized, his heirs defrauded, while the Dominicans took possession of the properties. 

In the year 1380 a monk inquisitor, Francis Boralli, was granted a commission by Pope Clement, III to punish the Waldensians in Aix, Ambrone, Geneva, and Savoy. At Ambrone he summoned all the inhabitants before him; those suspected of being evangelical were burnt to death, and their property along with the property of those who refused to appear was confiscated. The seized property was divided so that the secular executioners received one third and the clergy two thirds. 

In the year 1400 the Waldensians who resided in the valley of Pragela were, at the instigation of the priests, attacked by troops who plundered their houses, murdered many of the people, and drove others into the Alps. These latter froze to death, for it was winter time. In 1460 a persecution was conducted in Dauphiny by the Archbishop of Ambrone. The agent was a monk by the name of John Vayleti. This Vayleti was so indiscriminately cruel that even many Papists were murdered too. His excuse was that some of these Papists had expressed sympathy for the Waldensian sufferers. At length Vayleti's cruelties became so intolerable that the Papists themselves sent a petition to the King of France, Louis XI, who granted the petition and ordered an end to the persecution. Vayleti, however, by order of the Archbishop, continued the persecution and did not cease until 1487 when the Archbishop died. 

— A. H. C.

Gordon Clark: Letters (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1960. Letters. The Southern Presbyterian Journal, XVIII.

The idea of comparing commentaries and handbooks in four columns was a clever arrangement. And the details of column one are excellent. Nothing like quoting chapter and verse . . . Similarily, Dr. Williamson's article was tops. Get him to write more. 

 — Dr. Gordon H. Clark 

 Butler University.

Gordon Clark: A Review of “Evolution and Christian Thought Today,” ed. By Russell L. Mixter (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1960. A Review of “Evolution and Christian Thought Today,” ed. By Russell L. Mixter. The Southern Presbyterian Journal, XVIII.

EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIAN THOUGHT TODAY, ed. by Russell L. Mixter. Wm. Eerdmans, Co., Grand Rapids. 240 pp. $4.50. 

Here thirteen authors offer us eleven chapters on evolution from a Christian point of view. This is not a popular book; much less a rabble rousing book, as some non-Christians might unknowingly suppose. On the contrary, it is rather technical. The authors are practicing scientists (with one exception). They are chairmen of departments, professors of zoology, chemistry, genetics, a research radio-chemist at Oak Ridge, and an assistant director of a genetics Institute. 

Some of the chapter headings are: The Origin of the Universe, The Origin of Life, Genetics, The Role of Hybridization in Evolution, and a very fine chapter on Fossils and their Occurence. 

Because of the immense amount of detail crowded into these essays, it is impossible to summarize them. To those who have done some studying on the problems, it will not be a surprise to find the authors disagreeing among themselves on several points. For example, one writer thinks that science must be mechanistic; another, does not. This disagreement occurs of course among non-Christian scientists too. The final, well-documented article is by theologian Carl Henry, who has a facility for tying loose ends together. 

The editor, Dr. Mixter, and the American Scientific Affiliation are to be congratulated for preparing this volume, which can serve to inform the public, both Christian and otherwise, of how technical science and Christianity mix. 

— Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D. 

Butler University

Gordon Clark: Karl Jaspers (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1959. Karl Jaspers. The Southern Presbyterian Journal, XVII.

Karl Jaspers 

By Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D.

During the nineteenth century it was widely held that the universe was neat and tidy. Everything could be clearly understood because everything was properly tucked away in its proper pigeon hole. This view was dominant both in philosophy and in religion, not to speak of science and popular literature. Although Jaspers himself entered philosophy through his scientific studies, science and Positivism did not contribute so directly to the background of Jaspers' thought as did Hegelianism. Hegel had shown how Absolute Reason could arrange the categories from which nothing (well, almost nothing) could escape. Modernism, descending from Schleiermacher, may not have been so streng wissenschaftlich, but it viewed man as rational and fundamentally good. God's in His heaven; all's right with the world. 

Hegel had not long been dead when Karl Marx and Soren Kierkegaard attacked this scheme of rational perfection. At first it seemed that the work of these two men would have no effect. Marx's influence went into underground plotting and came to light in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. Kierkegaard lay quite forgotten and was discovered only after World War I. There was a reason why these two thinkers burst into prominence at the same time. If people at large could not grasp the technical criticism directed against the Hegelian Absolute, the brutal wars of this century convinced them that not all is right with the world and that man is neither good nor rational. 

These trends, and in particular the repudiation of reason, produced national socialism (Hitler) and international socialism (Stalin) in politics, existentialism in philosophy, and neoorthodoxy in religion. Although religiously minded people might be inclined to restrict their attention to neo-orthodoxy, on the ground that it is more directly their concern, nonetheless some knowledge of the wider existential philosophy is useful for understanding the basic philosophic ideas which these theologians apply to religious problems. For such a purpose this article will discuss Karl Jaspers. 

Jaspers became interested in philosophy through his studies in psychopathology. He was confronted with that dogmatic materialism which held that all mental illness was a physical disturbance of the brain. This theory, Jaspers saw, went far beyond the evidence. Undoubtedly an abnormal condition of the brain is sometimes the cause of mental illness, and in such cases physical treatment may cure the brain and restore sanity; but other cases are purely

mental or spiritual. At this time also Freud was attempting to explain man in terms of sexual impulses. Sexual desires may of course cause mental aberrations, but the absolutization of sex is as mistaken as the absolutization of materialism. Similarly the Marxian attempt to explain by absolutizing economics is grossly one-sided. 

From studies as these Jaspers concluded that there is no single viewpoint, no one principle, no single method by which to explain man. Each has some value, as a partial explanation, in a few cases. All should be used from time to time as the instance dictates. But the being of man cannot be exhausted by even the best theory. Now, this conclusion Jaspers did not restrict to psychopathology. He generalized it, and in doing so he obtained the guiding theme of all his later philosophy. In this: There is no absolute whatever. No explanation of anything is ever complete and final. 

There are many philosophies and many worldviews; they are all legitimate psychologically; all fill some human need; but there is no super-standpoint from which to judge among them. Conceptualization, best exemplified in Hegel, is superficial. Linear implication, as he terms traditional logic, and the belief that one possesses the truth are hypocrisy and inauthenticity. Concepts are at best indefinite subjective approximations. We make schemes and we remake them. We never attain a true world-view. There is no fixed and final standpoint. 

This theme Jaspers is never tired of repeating and defending. Kant's antinomies are evidence for it. They show the limits of knowledge. When one asks whether the world is finite or infinite, either in space or time, no answer is forthcoming. Or, worse, both answers are equally arguable. Now, in the case of an ordinary contradiction, if the terms are unambiguous, we always believe that one part is wrong and that the argument to support it is invalid. Kant's antinomies, however, are supported by equally valid arguments on both sides. The reason for this impasse is that the question concerns the world as a whole. 

Yet the world as a whole is never an object of human experience. No one has ever seen the world as a whole. Maybe there is no world as a whole. The appearance of the antinomies is therefore a warning that we have passed beyond the limits of knowledge. All our knowledge concerns parts of the world, particulars, individual things. These always stand in relation to other parts. We know such a particular only in its relation to its surroundings. We know it only from the viewpoint which at that moment we take. We cannot know it as it is in itself, for this would require us to know the world as a whole. 

Hegel, when he tried to subsume everything under general rational categories, lost the individual things in their particularity. Only the general remained. (His grudging admission of certain exceptions only betrays his failure.) Positivism seems at first to insist on the individual things: but here too the individual is lost in the generality of mechanical law. In spite of its early protests against Hegelian absolutism. Positivism is equally absolutistic. And the one absolutism is as mistaken as the other. 

What then must be done? In answer it will be impossible to follow jaspers through his thousands of pages: but, I believe, it will not really misrepresent him to attend to one basic consideration. 

Jaspers says (not too intelligibly in my opinion) that we must be our authentic selves by transcending the relativism of knowledge. This is not to say that there is a knowable object beyond the world on the basis of which we can solve the problem of philosophy. There is no super-absolute beyond the absolutes of Hegel and the Positivists. Rut there is some dimly dreamed background which makes our known world meaningful even while remaining meaningless. 

But, you say, this cannot be. Reality must be either meaningful or meaningless; it cannot be both. How are we better off transcending the antinomies to a position that is not a position? What reason can be given in favor of making an existential choice that is not based on reason? 

To such objections Jaspers gives a disconcerting reply. This choice, this transcending, this authentic self cannot be explained or understood. To demand reasons, as this objection does, betrays a failure to "understand" what Jaspers has been saying. The objection assumes some sort of absolute, some definite standpoint, by which such questions should be answered. Rut this is what Jaspers claims to have proved impossible. 

Endless dialectic, all embracing relativism, insoluble antinomies do not allow any fixity. When applied to religion this means that there is no one religion good and valid for all men. All religions are partial and relative; all satisfy some need; all are good so far as they go . . with perhaps the exception of the Christian religion. Jaspers has no place for a history of redemption, for this presupposes a beginning, a middle, and an end of the world. To conclude all men under sin is to treat all men by one method. No such generality is permissible. In particular, the Incarnation is an absurdity because it establishes a fixed center of meaning. Worse perhaps than other absurdities the Incarnation is a threat to human dignity. It prevents man from being a free personality, for it implies that man exists for the glory of God and not for and in himself alone. 

The objections a Christian makes against Jaspers must assume what Jaspers denies. If Jaspers cannot persuade the Christian to relativize his position and to view Christianity as merely one limited viewpoint among many, what further can jaspers sav? All he can do is to pronounce anathemas, as he did upon Calvin: "In uncharitable intolerance he is the horrible antithesis of philosophy both in theory and practice . . . He is the apex of that incarnation of Christian intolerance against which one can oppose nothing but intolerance." 

The Calvinist. however. can do something more than anathemize. When Jaspers said that reality was both meaningful and meaningless, he repudiated the law of excluded middle. As mentioned before, he looks with disfavor on straight line implication. But if logic is untrustworthy and if x is both x and not x, words lose their definite meaning, all statements become ambiguous, and intelligible discussion ceases. This, rather than Calvin is the horrible antithesis of all philosophy; and this is what Jaspers has treated us to. But no man has ever broken logic without logic breaking him. 

The neo-orthodox theologians come out of the same general movement that produced Jaspers. They all more or less clearly despise reason, clear cut concepts, and definite positions. They do not agree with Jaspers on every point. On the contrary they usually show an attachment to the idea of incarnation. A study of I heir existentialist background. however, leads one to wonder whether they can possibly combine a truly Christian view of the Incarnation with their irrational, relativistic philosophy. Do they perchance use the term Incarnation in some vague and ambiguous sense? If they repudiate all conceptual framework, as some of them explicitly admit, can they retain an intelligible concept of the Incarnation, or of anything else? At any rate, a better understanding of Neoorthodoxy is to be had through a study of the pit from which it, like Karl Jaspers, was digged. 

(footnote) The expository part of this article is based on R. D. Knudsen's monograph, The Idea of Transcendence in the Philosophy of Karl Jaspers.

Gordon Clark: Review of Darwin: Before and After, by Robert E. D. Clark (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1958. Review of “Darwin: Before and After,” by Robert E. D. Clark. The Southern Presbyterian Journal, XVII.

DARWIN: BEFORE AND AFTER. 192 pages. Robert E. D. Clark. Kregel's. $2.95. 

After some interesting observations on the history of biology and a bit of Darwin's biography, Dr. Clark discusses certain ethical and sociological applications of evolution, compares the methods and laws of biology with those of physics, and sets forth a substantial array of pertinent biological details. 

The ethical section is interesting; but the reviewer doubts that it supports the conclusions which the author seems to have in mind. The author's treatment of the concept of design also seems to underestimate the difficulties inherent in theology. The comparison of biology with physics is very good. 

It is impossible to write a review of concrete biological facts. How soluble calcium bicarbonate affects shellfish and the theoretical significance of the results must be read in full. Likewise one must read why natural selection cannot account for kidneys and eyes. The reviewer only wishes to assure prospective readers that such material is far from dull. The book is well written and extremely interesting. 

G.H.C.

Gordon Clark: Dead Orthodoxy (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1958. Dead Orthodoxy. The Southern Presbyterian Journal, XVI.

Dead Orthodoxy 

Sometimes a minister or a congregation is criticized as a victim of dead orthodoxy. Their doctrine, it is said, is completely satisfactory, they believe the whole Bible, but they have no spiritual life. Then the critic intimates that belief is not enough, perhaps it is not too important, for people with less belief enjoy a greater blessing from the Lord; and that therefore something different is needed. 

The mental quirks of men are numerous and sometimes amazing. The deceptions of sin are also unpredictable. Hypocrisy takes on subtle faces. And yet the diagnosis of dead orthodoxy may be wrong. If indeed there is danger of such a disease, it would seem that the danger is overestimated. 

Eighteenth century England was noted for its gross immorality and its great religious awakening. Hogarth's pictures well show the depravity of that age. Historical investigation of the state of the Church itself bears out the indictment. Most fortunately there appeared at this time, not only great evangelists like Whitefield and Wesley, but also a number of lesser men, regular ministers who in the power of God's Spirit called multitudes to salvation. 

If today the minister and the elders and a few of the congregation should read the biographies of these saints, what church could hardly fail to be stimulated to new heights of Christian endeavor? From many points of view a knowledge of the work of these men would prove profitable. 

But there is one point that has especial interest with respect to the idea of dead orthodoxy. William Grimshaw, Daniel Rowlands, Samuel Walker, and James Hervey were great men of God, and in their churches the conversions ' were numerous. Grimshaw preached to thousands; Hervey in a short time had eight hundred inquirers. 

Yet each of these men entered the ministry I with unworthy motives and without a knowledge of the gospel. In each case they were fine, respectable young men. They had escaped the profligacy of the times. And when they were ordained and placed as curates, they gave some serious attention to their parishioners. Other ministers would spend their time gambling, hunting, and having a good time. These men attended to their professional duties, even catechizing the children. 

If any persons could be accused of dead orthodoxy, these would be the men. Outwardly they commanded respect and esteem. They preached moral lessons from the Bible, and earnestly desired the improvement of their people. Yet, it seems to me that dead orthodoxy is the wrong diagnosis. 

Of Grimshaw, J. C. Ryle says, "He seems to have taken on him this solemn office without any spiritual feeling, and in utter ignorance of the duties of a minister of Christ's gospel. Like too many young clergymen, he appears to have been ordained without knowing anything aright either about his own soul, or about the way to do good to the souls of others." 

Hervey's Biographer, John Brown of Whitburn, says of him, "It is evident that he was seeking salvation; but he sought it, as it were, by the works of the law. . . . From this unavoidably followed a disesteem of imputed righteousness, a conceit of personal qualifications, a spirit of legal bondage, and a tincture of Pharisaical pride. He conceived faith to be no more than a mere believing of promises if he did well, and of threatenings if he did ill . . ." 

Eventually all of these men came to a knowledge of evangelical religion, though some needed more time and went through greater mental struggles than others. They all became great men of God and their ministries were singularly blessed. 

It does not seem correct, however, to describe their earlier ministerial life as one of dead orthodoxy. They were not orthodox at all. Some of them did not even know what the doctrines of grace were; others knew the doctrine as given in the creeds, but did not believe them. They did not start out with orthodox doctrine and then discover that something was missing; on the contrary, their spiritual ministrations began as they came to an orthodox faith. 

In this twentieth century there are great temptations to minimize the importance of orthodox doctrine. But faith, true faith, comes by hearing the word of God; it is a gift of God that God bestows by means of the word. And the faith is an evidence of a newly implanted life. Is it possible to have a dead orthodoxy? Or rather, is not that which is called dead orthodoxy, no orthodoxy at all? 

— G.H.C

Gordon Clark: Napoleon (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1957. Napoleon. The Southern Presbyterian Journal, XVI.

Napoleon

I have just been reading about Napoleon. This is not the man who was born in Corsica, invaded Russia, and spent his remaining days in St. Helena. This Napoleon lived in France, it is true, and had a large following; but he never saw Russia or St. Helena. This is a different Napoleon. 

I have just been reading about Jesus as pictured by the Modernists. This Jesus was not born of a Virgin; he did not satisfy the justice of his father by his death; and he did not rise from the tomb. He did, of course, live in Palestine and gained quite a few disciples. This is a different Jesus; and, I must say, he does not seem very important to me.

- G.H.C.

Gordon Clark: Arizona Highways (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1957. Arizona Highways. The Southern Presbyterian Journal, XVI.

Arizona Highways 

Arizona Highways is the name of a well edited and beautifully illustrated periodical. Its colored photography is superb as it paints the glories of Arizona. But it does not tell the whole story. 

This summer our family traveled some Arizona highways that the Chamber of Commerce would not have advertised. The visible roads were rough with rocks and soft with sand. In Conument Valley our car sank in to its axles. The invisible roads were dry washes and desert sage brush. None of it was air-conditioned. But it was well worth the trip. 

Arizona Highways also prints pictures of the colorful Navajo Indians; but again it does not tell the whole story. Some of the poverty, some of the tuberculosis, some of the filth, some of the ignorance may find its way into secular publications; but the devastations of wine, whiskey, and peyote are not emphasized. The Indian is achieving the rights of the white man now — he can buy liquor and get drunk. He does. 

The peyote plant, mainly grown in Mexico, produces a button, which when chewed produces weird effects. Peyote buttons are mailed to the Indians of Arizona from Mexico, and the U. S. mail delivers them: there is no law against sending peyote through the mails. 

When several buttons are eaten, the subject loses his ordinary consciousness and has strange dreams. Apparently these Peyote eaters have come in contact with Christianity and hold, or at least say, that their intoxication is the work of the Holy Spirit. Recently two cases have occurred in which the man murdered his wife while under the influence of peyote. When the effect of the drug wore off, neither man had any recollection of his crime. 

Increasing doses are needed to produce the effect. Health does not seem to be affected at first — except that it takes a day or two to recover from a binge; but in time the drug seems to induce permanent insanity. 

Most of the Navajos cannot speak English, and it is extremely difficult for a missionary to learn to speak Navajo. Good foundational work, however, has already been done. The New Testament and some of the Psalms have been translated, and a collection of hymns. Navajo Christians have made tape recordings of Bible readings and sermons. 

But the work of evangelization and of teaching the Navajo to read their own language is slow. On the reservation there are many white uranium miners and oil prospectors; but the laborers of the Gospel are few. Then too the hearts of the Navajos are harder than their rocky terrain. The old tribal religion dies hard. Temptations to the new believer are strong. The patience of Job — no, the patience of God is required. 

Then also there is a great deal of inefficiency, though this is not the fault of the missionaries. It is the fault of those who support the missionaries. Each mission station must dig its own well, must keep an amount of machinery in order, must manage to exist in a hard country. This necessary daily labor takes time, and the time is taken from the work of translation and evangelization. Is it the best use of money to support a missionary several years while he learns the language and becomes able to reach the Navajo, and then make this man run his private utility system? Would it not be a more effective use of the Lord's money to furnish him with a mechanic and handy man so as to release him for the work he alone can do? 

And there is plenty of this work for him. Before any services can be organized or any Bible classes instituted, the Navajos must be visited in their family hogans. Patient, even tedious, personal work is the necessary prerequisite to progress. The Gospel story must be spelled out in clear detail. It must be distinguished from Indian legends. Its significance must be made evident to the pagan mind. This takes time; this takes a knowledge of Navajo; this indeed takes grace. And it takes money too.

- G.H.C.