Gordon Clark and Anthony Flood (Part 1)

I've made something of a habit of interacting with books that review the philosophy of Gordon Clark (e.g. link, link). Most recently, I came across one such book by Anthony Flood called Philosophy after Christ: Thinking God's Thoughts after Him. The author spends chapters 9 ("Gordon's Clark's Problematic Rationalism") and 10 ("What Are We Doing When We're Reading? Questions about Gordon Clark's Occasionalism") outlining and critiquing Clark's view on certain topics.

The author describes himself as having been a Clarkian in the 1980s and as having debated with John Robbins. It is hard to recall, but I think I came across a few articles of his involving Brand Blanshard and Joseph P. Farrell in the early 2010s. In any case, what follows will be a review of his ninth chapter, entitled, "Gordon's Clark's Problematic Rationalism."

The ostensible purpose of chapter 9 is to contrast Clark's apologetic to that of Van Til, Bahnsen, et al. Mr. Flood states that the "first [apologetic?] question" for Clark was, "how do you know?" Mr. Flood cites an article on John Robbins at this point, but a better background would be Clark's own thoughts on the subject. Take two examples: 

1975, In Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. Merrill C. Tenney, ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. Philosophy

PHILOSOPHY (φιλοσοφια, etymologically, love of wisdom). Traditionally the study of logic, the basic principles of science, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. In a wider sense, the general principles of any subject can be called its philosophy. Approaching a misuse of the word, the philosophy or education means merely the policy of school administration; and a “philosophy of life” designates any individual's preferences, no matter how poorly systematized. Inspired though it be, Ecclesiastes (q.v.) is an example of this popular meaning and has little to do with the subject matter of professional technical philosophy. 

The reason for these shades of meaning is that philosophizing is generalizing, and no authority can fix the degree of generalizing necessary to merit the name. 

The meaning of the word in Colossians 2:8 is hard to determine. It could possibly refer to Gnosticism or, perhaps, mean only ethics, for in the 1st cent., the Gr. Schools had sunk to their nadir and discussed little else. 

The common element in all generalizations is a claim to knowledge. Therefore the crucial question of philosophy is—How is knowledge possible? Attempts to justify knowledge are called epistemology. 

Metaphysics, the theory of being (not the beings of plants or botany, not the being of animals or zoology, no even the being of inanimate matter, but of being without qualification—being as such), is sometimes said to be the basic subject; but even Thomism, which makes such a claim, stands or falls with its theory of learning. The answer to the question—What do you know?—provokes the further question—How do you know? Beyond this, no question can be asked. Therefore, epistemology is the basis of philosophy.

1981. What is Apologetics? The Gordon-Conwell Lectures on Apologetics.

The foundation of a strategy to meet all objections against Christianity is definitely technical. It is not a matter of ordinary, everyday conversation. Let me illustrate. 

On a very superficial level, yet indeed a lively, contemporary controversy among professing Christians, is the question of speaking in tongues. One side says that those who have never had the experience cannot judge of the matter. The other side says that experience is not the criterion; we must rather judge experience by the Bible. Beyond the range of professing Christians, David Hume rejected miracles and, in particular, Christ’s resurrection on the basis of experience. Schleiermacher, early last century, initiated modernism by insisting that all doctrines must be tested by experience. 

This raises the fundamental problem of apologetics. When one says, “I believe in the resurrection” or “I believe in tongues” or even “I believe in God,” the non­-Christian will ask “how do you know?” This is true in physics and geology also. If someone asserts a law of physics or proposes a geological explanation of Yosemite, his colleagues will ask “how do you know?” They want to examine his methods. They want to see his criteria for knowledge. Theories concerning the criteria for knowledge are, in technical language, called epistemology. When a scientist or an historian asserts that he knows something, his statement is not acceptable unless he explains how he came to know it. “How do you know?” is the last question to be asked and epistemology is the first subject to be established.

With this background in mind, these examples preemptively answer a few later questions by Mr. Flood:

Clark scholar and biographer Douglas Douma writes that Clark's 'apologetic methodology flowed from his theory of knowledge.' But is that the right order? Does Scripture indicate it? One's apologetic methodology ought to comport with one's anthropology. In the Bible, I do not find and affirmation of the primacy or priority of epistemology. Insistence on the latter betrays a philosophy according to the rudiments of this world (Colossians 2:8).

Firstly, the above is a false dichotomy. One can hold that apologetics flows from one's epistemology and one's metaphysic (anthropology). Second, it is quite ironic that Mr. Flood's second question - "...is that the right order? Does Scripture indicate it?" - is precisely what Clark, a Scripturalist, would have wanted him to ask! By basically asking whether Clark can know his apologetic is "Scriptural," Mr. Flood's own apologetic against Clark unwittingly follows Clark's own procedure of grounding apologetics in epistemology. 

Mr. Flood also seems to suggest that Clark's belief that epistemology undergirds apologetics falls into the category of the sort of philosophy Paul alludes to in Colossians 2:8. But this appears to be no more than an assertion. Compare this to Clark's exegesis of Colossians 2:8 in his commentary on the book:

Note that the phrase “according to the elements of the cosmos” – better, the first principles of the cosmos – is about instruction, philosophy, traditions, and persuasive paralogisms. Later in the chapter, 2:20-23, he is more specific. These verses concern the “rudiments” – the same word “elements” – of the world. Verse 21 identifies one. It is a maxim or precept. Therefore it is better to understand these worldly elements as being the axioms, presuppositions, or even the main theorems of false religions. Paul doubtless had Judaism in mind, but the exhortation is completely general. (Colossians, 1979)

For my own part, I've explained why I believe apologetics is grounded in epistemology (link). With all of this in mind, Mr. Flood continues to describe how his views have changed over time:

I had naively assumed that it's always appropriate to ask, 'How do you know?' I now hold that 'How do you know?' presupposes answers to more basic questions, such as, 'What kind of world is it such that the quest for knowledge of the truth makes sense to an English-speaker above a certain age with the leisure and interest to ask it?'

Here, Mr. Flood is correct. Questions per se cannot be foundational to a worldview, and everyone has a worldview. That is, everyone has an actual view of the world, not just questions about the world. 

For example, people who identify as global skeptics may think they do nothing but question, but their very acts of questioning presuppose a view of the world; that is, they view the world in such a way as to be open to the legitimacy of questioning. This fact enables a Christian apologist to question, for example, how such persons know their view is legitimate. But the Christian apologist is only able to ask this question because his own worldview is able to legitimate the act of questioning the global skeptic. 

Clark too recognized that the question "How do you know?" can neither be asked nor answered ad infinitum. Implicit theorization logically precedes questioning. Hence, Clark was a foundationalist about epistemic justification (not, as some have held, a coherentist; link).

These points again show the fundamental priority epistemology has over apologetics. It also shows - in contrast to Clark - how epistemology and metaphysics are, for an apologist, mutually dependent (link). In order for one to know something, there must be some thing to know. On the other hand, an apologist will be unable to defend his metaphysic if he doesn't know anything.

Moving on, perhaps Mr. Flood's most blatant disagreement with Clark is found in the following lines:

The figures we meet in Scripture no more fret about epistemology than they do about eating or sleeping.

Knowing, like walking, eating, sleeping, and praying, is something we do spontaneously. We can reflect critically on our knowing, asking what exactly we're doing when we're doing that. To play the skeptic, however, about the deliverances of our senses risks evading responsibility for what we know.

I had to reread these lines a few times. I don't want to misrepresent Mr. Flood, but to the idea that "knowing... is something we do spontaneously" or that Scriptural figures don't "fret about epistemology," I would ask what Mr. Flood makes of the following passages:

Hosea 4:6, 6:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children... For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

2 Peter 3:18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Colossians 1:9-10 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

Do none of these statements by Hosea, John, Jesus, Peter, Paul, etc. indicate epistemic concerns? If "Human knowledge does not have to meet the standard of episteme (ἐπιστήμη) as Clark held," surely there must nevertheless be a standard higher than "Adam's knowing Eve"? Do the exhortations and warnings to the audiences of these letters or prayers and desires for them express a hope for spontaneous or conscious, deliberate growth in knowledge? Or take the following passages:

Colossians 2:2-3 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

2 Timothy 3:14-17 But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Hebrews 6:11 And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end:

Is full assurance possible if one does not know that of which one claims to be assured? Can one continue in, show diligence towards, or attain full assurance of understanding without knowing? Do these not suggest believers bear an epistemic responsibility? Indeed, I think a strong case can be made (link) that believers can do more than "inductively derive an epistemology from Scripture," as Mr. Flood puts it.

These texts also mitigate against Mr. Flood's claim that "the quest for certainty is not biblical" but rather "a thoroughly modern enterprise." This is like claiming that the quest for righteousness is not biblical but rather a Pelagian enterprise. Others may try false paths towards becoming certain or righteous. Such should not discourage believers from the true path towards good things.

Now, Clark himself was aware of a range of biblical meanings of the word "knowledge." I've quoted the following several times in other posts: 

The various Scriptural usages of the verb know raise a problem in apologetics to which a commentary can only allude in a footnote. The common meaning is exemplified in simple sentences, such, “I know that there is a tree on the lawn,” and “I know that David was King of Israel.” But sometimes, both in Hebrew and in Greek know means believe, obey, choose, have sexual intercourse. English too uses the verb in a variety of meanings. In their opposition to the intellectual emphasis on truth, experiential, emotional, mystical, and neo-orthodox apologetes have contrasted the intellectual Greek meaning with the (sometimes) sexual Hebrew meaning. This contrast is misguided because the Hebrew verb and the Greek verb are both so used. More serious than this linguistic incompetence is a flaw or a gap in the apologetics of these apologetes. It is well enough to point out the extended meanings of the verb. The verb is indeed so used. But such information is irrelevant as an argument against intellectualism and truth. The fallacy or defect is that these apologetes fail to explain knowledge in its basic sense. To insist on extended meanings of knowledge is no substitute for a basic epistemology. Of course, omniscience is a bit hard to come by, but the first and absolutely indispensable step is the definition of terms. (The Pastoral Epistles, 1983, pg. 166)

Was, then, Clark suspect to a "rationalist paradigm of knowledge," as Mr. Flood alleges? Well, I would agree that on some topics, Clark does indeed seem to succumb to rationalistic tendencies. I believe this happened more so in the case of metaphysical subjects than epistemological ones, but as I have said that the two disciplines are mutually dependent, it is unsurprising that a rationalistic tendency on one's views in one subject would impact one's views on the other. Clark's occasionalism is a case in point.

But I can't imagine that Clark would side with the rationalists about whom Mr. Flood writes, "One problem for rationalists (but not only them) is that self-contradiction is problematic only in a completely intelligible universe - which only the believer in the God of the Bible has a warrant for affirming." On the contrary, I think Clark would have pushed Mr. Flood to consider that the believer in the God of the Bible only knows God through the Bible. This shows Clark's anti-rationalism.

Now, one might rightly criticize Clark for having missed a meaning of "knowledge" that falls within the biblical, semantic domain of the word. For example, Mr. Flood, citing Matthew 16:2-3 and Luke 12:54-56, argues that Jesus affirms one's ability to make discernments or know on the basis of inductive inference (if derived by inference, can such knowledge be said to be "spontaneous," though?). Consider the following by Clark:

1983. A Debate between Gordon H. Clark and David Hoover on epistemology (1:51:06). April 9.

...it is a truism that a inductive argument cannot yield a conclusion whose truth is formally guaranteed. That is to say there is nothing in the form of the inductive argument whereby it is logically impossible for the conclusions be false if the premises are true. Rather if the inductive arguments can be confidenced at all, they are said to contain premises which support rather than entail their validities.

I can't find a fault in Clark's reasoning here. At the same time, I allow that there is room for discussion about whether beliefs based on induction might count as "knowledge," especially if Scriptural statements give space for such an interpretation. Certain beliefs might be able to be classified as knowledge without being grounded in argumentation which formally guarantees the truth of the conclusion. 

Clark's emphasis on a "basic epistemology" is not misplaced, however, for I would and have argued that fallibilist accounts of knowledge can only be defended (apologetically) if grounded in a more "basic epistemology" - like in Scripture itself, to which Mr. Flood himself has been appealing to make his case for other kinds of knowledge (e.g. link, link).

Less relevant to the discussion, I think, is the question of whether people who follow Clark lock-step might play the skeptic to excuse their own sin. Even when I lock-step adhered to most (if not all) of what Clark wrote, I recognized that an inability to infallibly justify every belief one holds could not serve as an excuse for sin (link).

A few more comments Mr. Flood makes are worthy of response:

In human knowing, the physical and the intellectual don't happen to 'come together': they're never apart. They're seamlessly connected. We can distinguish them notionally, but why decouple them? Human insight or intellectual grasp is always into what is given in sensation or the imagination, both of which are brain functions. 

This holds for logic and mathematics as for sensory perception. We symbolically express our syllogisms and equations after conjuring them in our imagination (i.e., in our brains). 

I wonder whether Mr. Flood believes that humans can learn anything in the intermediate state between death and the parousia. The above would indicate that this is impossible. This would make Abraham's conversation with the rich man in Luke 16 either unintelligible or parabolic, for example. 

Of course, I think that when writing the above, Mr. Flood is imagining a more relatable scenario, i.e. embodied human experience. Even so, for some time now, I haven't quite understood in what sense the above or the following are supposed to pose a problem to Clark's basic epistemology (if they are meant to do so): 

...when I read the Bible, I get the clear impression that God created us to communicate linguistically, which means interacting and grappling with the world using our bodies' central nervous system and sensory organs...

...the Bible is a body of divine thoughts communicated through symbols, themselves rendered and conveyed physically and therefore temporally... 

These sorts of comments anticipate the ever common objection to Scripturalism: don't you have to read your Bible? In accepting occasionalism, I think Clark felt the force of this objection more than he would have cared to admit, tailoring his metaphysical view of causation - occasionalism, at least by the time he wrote Lord God of Truth - to support his anti-empiricism. In my mind, this illustrates Clark behaved as if metaphysics and epistemology were interdependent, even if he insisted the latter was more philosophically basic. 

I have already detailed why I think Clark should not have felt pressured by the consideration that sensation might function as secondary causes of our beliefs, for I don't see how such would have affected his "basic epistemology" that knowledge of God's word is foundational for the defense of any other beliefs:

To say some belief can’t be internally justified for no other reason than that it is caused in a certain way is a genetic fallacy. Scripturalists are (or, in my opinion, ought to be) doxastic foundationalists: in short, a belief is philosophically known only if appropriately inferred from other [internally] justified beliefs or if the belief in question is self-justified or self-evident, in which case it is foundational, a first principle, axiom, presupposition, etc. But it doesn’t matter whether such a belief was the result of secondary causation or directly mediated to our minds via divine causation. Ultimately, everything is caused by God. On internalism, the causal origin of the belief doesn’t feature into whether the axiomatic belief itself is self-justified, especially if the resultant epistemic system can provide an account of the means by which we know. (link)

Epistemology has to do with what we think is true - specifically, which thoughts do we say we know are true, and how do we know them? Now, if thoughts are immaterial, mental, or spiritual, to argue against Clark that a material, physical, or sensory process undermines his epistemology begs the question. One must, in providing such an external critique, specify his grounds for regarding a physical process as integral to epistemic justification. That is not Clark's burden of proof to discharge here. In response to, "Don't you have to read your Bible?" Clark is well within his rights to reply, "Well, do you? If so, how, and to what end?" (link)

Note that these points are only meant to pertain to Clark's "basic epistemology," not to extra-biblical beliefs which may be fallibly (and/or externally) justified (even if Clark would not have accepted the possibility of this). 

Finally, a fitting close to the review of this chapter will return to the first paragraph, in which Mr. Flood states that "one of the most instructive contrasts [when it comes to defending the Christian faith] is between the apologetical method of Cornelius Van Til... and that of Gordon Clark..." While I have not read the entirety of Mr. Flood's book, we get a sense of his view of the contrast in the following statements:

Van Til suggested discerning "the impossibility of the contrary," that is, the inability of the non-Christian to make sense of sense-making. The issue is the ground of intelligible predication, one Clark never took up. The Van Tilian transcendental argument (TA) attempts to show the exclusive power of the Christian worldview to ground intelligible predication (including that of the TA itself). It requires showing that the God-Men-World relationship in Scripture is alone adequate to that task...

Christian as such are not required to 'explain the reductio' or show how secular axioms generate self-contradiction of demonstrate that the Christian system is internally consistent. Even if justified, such a task would be reserved for above-average apologetes confronting above-average unbelievers.

I gather the first paragraph outlines Van Til's apologetic, whereas the second alludes to Clark's. I found it interesting that Mr. Flood seems to consider the first paragraph to be an apologetic methodology for the common man, as if most people know what "intelligible predication" even means. Surely we are far afield of "spontaneous" knowledge mentioned earlier in the chapter! Not that I think is wrong. Apologetic depth is a strength.

Regardless, I have yet to encounter an expression of Van Til's TAG which does not itself presuppose Clark's Scripturalism (link, link). I have never seen a proof, for example, that "the God-Men-World relationship in Scripture is alone adequate" without an appeal to Scripture. All this is to say that while I myself am in favor of transcendental argumentation, I agree with Clark that apologetics is grounded in epistemology - a Scripturalist epistemology, albeit with some modifications to Clark's own views.

I'll plan to review chapter 10 in a separate post.

Prelapsarian Emotions and Gordon Clark's Change in Thought Over Time

It's rare when I get the opportunity to discuss the thought of Gordon Clark with other people. On Puritanboard, someone recently made use of Gordon Clark's definition of emotion to argue that emotions are a consequence of the fall of mankind. What follows is a conversation in which I think I was both able to take advantage of my recent research efforts to show how Clark's view of emotions changed over time and to explain why I thought there is good reason to think that prelapsarian Adam experienced emotions (even given Clark's definition). I'll indent the interlocutor's comments (his name is Jeffrey) as well as the Clark quotes near the bottom. I'll leave my own comments unindented:

--------------------------------------------------------------

Jeffrey

https://biblicalogic.blogspot.com/2023/04/thoughts-on-emotions-this-article-is.html?m=1I wrote an article on my blog about emotions. I believe that emotion is not a faculty of the soul and it is the consequence of the fall of man, though a controlled emotional reaction is not necessarily sinful in itself. Biblical virtues such as love, joy, peace, and so on are not emotions, but they are volition. What do you think?

Me

Hello. Fellow Clark aficiando here. I have also written about Gordon Clark and emotions. While I don't necessarily have an issue with the definition you or Clark have for emotions, I would suggest that your argument does not follow.

You say, "Jesus, in His human nature, wept and yet He never once sinned, including in the realm of His emotions." If that is true, why could it not also have been true of Adam in the garden? Are emotions only possible in response to negative events? Are there no emotions associated with positive events? When Eve was formed from Adam's rib, could not his ordinarily "calm state of the mind" have involuntarily "fluctuated" in a good way?

Another scenario: Jesus was righteously angry (emotional?) with money-changers. Could not it have been possible (theoretically) for Adam to have been righteously angry with Satan?

Another question: Do you not think that it is possible that Satan's temptation disturbed Adam's or Eve's ordinarily calm state of mind?

I encourage you to keep blogging and critically thinking through these sorts of issues!

Edit: I will add that in my mind, a metaphysical explanation for how humans can experience emotions requires nothing more than that we are mutable creatures who are capable of being affected and changed by our surroundings.

Jeffrey

I wish Clark had written more on emotions. But your questions are legitimate, and I have no answers currently. But I have one question to ask: is emotion one of the faculties of the soul? Or do you agree with Clark that it’s only the intellect and the will? 

And what do you think of Clark’s view that emotions is the consequence of the fall?

Me

Reread the definition of emotion that you provide: "Emotion is defined as a sudden disruption, disturbance or fluctuation of the ordinary calm state of the mind." A fluctuation of the mind would imply that an emotion is intellectual, no?

I think that the argument is an overreach. I can easily imagine that Adam experienced all sorts of emotions prior to the fall. You said, "Adam and Eve could not be emotional because everything was good in Eden." I replied, "When Eve was formed from Adam's rib, could not his ordinarily "calm state of the mind" have involuntarily "fluctuated" in a good way?" Experiencing surprise, for example, would seemingly qualify as an emotion. Well, I can imagine that Adam was surprised to see Eve... but in a good way!

Jeffrey

Emotion can be considered a thought of course. To be more exact, it is an irrational thought that disturbs the rational thought.

I can understand where you are coming from. But I think there is a misconception that joy, love, happiness, etc must involve the emotions or a fluctuated state of the mind. It's hard to imagine, I understand, how these things can be without emotions. As a person filled with many emotions, it was hard to imagine for me as well. Even Gordon Clark shed a little bit of tears when his wife died. But what I know is the Bible tells us to be controlled in our mind be it in the midst of sadness (lest depression or thoughts of suicide comes) or joy (lest the evil of pride comes in).

Me

Where does Clark say that? Or are you making an original claim? Either way, the point is that if you consider emotion to be a thought, then it would pertain to the intellect.

I didn't say anything about joy, love, or happiness. I mentioned surprise. Isn't surprise indicative of a fluctuation of the mind? Can't surprise be a good thing, like a surprise party or a surprise wife (Eve)?

Jeffrey

It's my own original claim. Let's see if i can state it better. Emotion originates from the flesh which causes the mind to think irrationally, hence emotion can be considered an irrational thought. But it is not part of the original faculty of the soul.

I would also suggest that it is a misconception that a surprise must involve emotion or a fluctuation of the mind. Hard to imagine even for me. Furthermore, there wasn't any mention about Adam's surprise, though I think it's a good educated guess.

Another question is would it be valid to say that Adam was surprised despite God's clear direct revelation to him? I think it's more like Adam was expectant or anticipative of God fulfilling His revelation.

Me

An original claim should come with an original argument. Also, do you think that it is impossible for angels to experience emotion?

You don't think that surprise involves a fluctuation of the mind? Then please define surprise.

Yes, I am only giving a hypothetical. I said as much in my first post. But that's all I need to do. I only need to give an example of the possibility of Adam experiencing an emotion prior to the fall for your claim that emotions are a product of the fall to be undercut.

Divine revelation is often progressive, which leaves open the possibility for surprise in the manner in which an anticipation is fulfilled.

Jeffrey

1. If surprise is an emotion, Adam would not have it.
2. If surprise is not an emotion, Adam could have it. I would probably define it as a volition to assent to the proposition that all things will work together for good for the elect (Rom. 8:28), which is a kind of expectation.

I am undecided. Have to think about it more.

Yes i think it's impossible

Me

By all means, take your time. But as I said, you will, at some point, have to provide an original argument for your original claim. I see no Scriptural nor experiential reason to think that emotions are only possible in response to negative events and only cause the mind to think irrationally.To that end, I just would like to point out that your #1 is, at present, an assertion without argument. As it stands, it begs the question by presupposing your unargued claim that emotions are only a postlapsarian experience. It should be the other way around: you should be presenting an argument for your claim that emotions can only be a postlapsarian experience as well as explaining how my hypotheticals are either impossible or compatible with your claim.

With regard to #2, that definition does not strike me as fitting with the Scriptural usage of the term. For example, one can be surprised and respond in a negative way. The wicked are often "surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you" (1 Peter 4:4). Further, volitional assent to the proposition you mention does not seem to be a good example of surprise. We can expect God works all things together for our good is something. Surprise, I think, is caused by something unexpected.

I see no reason why angels cannot be surprised in this sense, by the way. I can imagine that the protoevangelium to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 may have come as an unexpected surprise, for the good news contains revelation of which angels are said to "long to look" (1 Peter 1:12). Again, if this is even possible, then the definition of emotions you provide would not be sufficient.

By the way, you don't cite it in your blog post, so I'm wondering if you have Today's Evangelism: Counterfeit or Genuine? You can find that book in What is the Christian Life? Clark writes a lot about the emotions in that book.

Not including the number of references in his books, my own research shows that he mentions the emotions 600+ times in various articles, personal notes, letters, etc.

Jeffrey

 
Great. I have the old individual books before TF combined some books, but I haven’t got chance to read it. Thanks for sharing.

Me

No problem. I will mention that Clark seems to have changed his opinion on the subject of emotion over the course of his life. For instance:

1944. Examination in Theology. Orthodox Presbyterian Church. July 7.

DR. WELMERS: I believe it is a good illustration, and I don't want to get into odious comparisons here. It is my feeling that the intellect and emotion and will are equally fundamental as aspects of the Human Soul, yet, there is in the calling and serving faith, there is an economic precedent of the intellect, that is that. And, the intellectual grasp of the way of salvation, first requires the saving of faith to both.

Clark: I am willing to admit the intellect and volition and emotion are equally essential to a human being. Now, if that is all you mean, that is that. But - they have different functions and I hold that the intellect is a supreme function. 

Another example:

1952. Review of Art and Society, by Catherine Rau. The Philosophical Review 61, No. 2 Apr.

Clark: The chief aim of this small but interesting treatise on Plato's theory of art is to defend him from the charge of committing the "moralistic fallacy" in aesthetics. To do this the author not only examines Plato's words, but tries to understand them in the light of the new developments in art that Plato had in mind; and further by an independent aesthetic experience she finds the Platonic position to be commendable in general, if not in every particular. The description of the art which Plato opposed is enough but barely enough to serve the author's purpose. References to other studies are given, and with these the reader must be satisfied. Her support of the Platonic position by independent aesthetic experience will seem particularly good to one who, like the reviewer, finds himself in substantial agreement. For example: squalid slums and hideous factories depress one's personality; harmonious and noble sights pass through the soul as health-giving breezes; art always influences our emotions; aesthetic experiences affect our morals and our morals affect our taste; the moral effects of art do not end with childhood; and, further, the moral personality of the artist is one of the determinants of the total aesthetic quality of a work of art.

I can hardly think of a more pleasant description of a positive emotion than a "health-giving breeze." Compare this to statements he makes 30 years later:

1983. Knowledge and Persons (44:26) (The Sangre de Cristo Lectures on the Holy Spirit, 2)

Audience: Do you feel that emotions are good or bad?

Clark: Bad. Doesn’t the Apostle Paul say “suppress your emotions”?

Audience: Then we should all be Stoic?

Clark: Huh? Well, not Stoics, no.

Audience: I don’t think emotions are bad.

Clark: You don’t? Well if you ever become the pastor of a church I think you may conclude that. Nearly all the church fights arise out of emotions.

Notice Clark essentially commits the fallacy of asserting the consequent:

[Nearly] all church fights are due to emotions.
Fights are bad.
Therefore, emotions are bad.

Further, the audience member's question about Stoicism is well-taken. Consider the following statement Clark makes:

1950. Hellenistic and Roman Schools of Philosophy. In A History of Philosophical Systems Vergilius Ferm, ed. New York: The Philosophical Library.

Clark: That the Stoic temper differs radically from the Epicurean, giving rise to the English connotations of those adjectives, may be seen first in some of the detailed advice for everyday living. For example, the Stoic wise man will take part in politics (in fact, Stoicism both directly and indirectly contributed to Roman law); he will marry and raise a family; he will not groan under torture, and in general he will suppress emotion as irrational, neither showing pity nor as a magistrate relaxing the penalties fixed by law; and, since one falsehood is just as false as any other, it follows that all sins are equally great, and all men who are not perfectly wise are arrant knaves. However, if life grows too burdensome, he may commit suicide.

Of course, Clark might reply that both Stoics and Christians can seek to suppress emotions without collapsing into one system. In any case, the comparison is noteworthy, and I don't find his subsequent exegesis of Colossians 3:5 to be convincing.

Jeffrey

Thanks for the resources.

Representationalist Misrepresentation of the Realist View on Original Sin

Continuing a train recent thoughts on a realist apologetic of original sin (link), what is often difficult is that opponents of the view don't seem to understand it. Over time, misrepresentations that stem from this seeming misunderstanding seem to have gotten worse. 

One example can be found in the works of J. V. Fesko. Fesko is an author whom I credit with opening my eyes to biblical theology, so much so that I wrote a 10 part review of his book, Last Things First (link). I quite enjoy many things he writes about. I think he may have even been involved with my local church, at some point. I visited a lecture by him at RTS Atlanta and spoke with him in passing about infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism (which I doubt he would remember, as I barely remember it). I say this because the below is not to be taken as a slight against him personally. What it does illustrate, given his pedigree, is the extent to which a breakdown has occurred in a proper, historically grounded perception of a realistic theory of original sin.

Ken Hamrick, a fellow realist with respect to original sin, has already reviewed some misrepresentations of the realist position contained in a separate book by Fesko (e.g. link). The following quote is from Fesko's book, Adam and the Covenant of Works:

...in some sense God views all of humanity as guilty because of Adam's one transgression. And while arguing that all humanity participated in Adam's sin is an accurate conclusion, we must drill down into text to determine the precise nature of this participation. In what way have all humanity sinned (ἥμαρτον)?

Answering this question brings us to the shores of some heavily trafficked territory in the history of exegesis. There are largely four different views on the manner of humanity's participation in Adam's sin... (J. V. Fesko, Adam and the Covenant of Works, pg. 293)

Fesko then outlines the four views he has in mind, critiquing the first three and defending the last one. The four views outlined are: Pelagianism, Realism, Mediate Imputation, Immediate Imputation.

To say nothing of my suspicion towards the idea that anyone besides a realist can truly believe that "all humanity participated in Adam's sin," as I initially read this, I was right away confused by Fesko's stated contrast between realism and immediate imputation in particular. He writes,

(4) Immediate Imputation

This view appears in, among others, Francis Turretin (1693-1687), the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), the Savoy Declaration (1658), Second London Baptist Confession (1689), and Charles Hodge (1797-1878). Advocates of this view maintain that God immediately (apart from any physical or real means) imputes both Adam's guilt and Christ's righteousness to those whom they represent. (J. V. Fesko, Adam and the Covenant of Works, pgs. 295-296)

This is an historic redefinition of immediate imputation. A realist with respect to original sin is completely free to hold to immediate imputation. For example:

So far is it from being the fact that the dependence of the federal upon the natural headship involves the mediate imputation of Adam's sin, directly the reverse is the case. If our relation to the covenant is founded on our natural relation to Adam, - if we are, at the bar of God, held to have sinned in him because the nature that is in us flowed to us from him, - it immediately follows that the responsibilities thence derived are the same in their order in us as they were in Adam. If his nature was first guilty of apostasy and then of consequence depravity and sin, it will be so as it flows to us. This doctrine is so entirely consistent with that of immediate imputation, that De Moor, after devoting twenty-one pages to the refutation of Placaeus, plants himself, in harmony with Marck, upon our very position as the ground of defence against the objects of those who denied immediate imputation. (Samuel Baird, The Elohim Revealed, pg. 505).

Even representationalists have understood this. For instance, John Murray, an author who was not shy in his critique of the realist view, acknowledges:

"It is not necessary to discuss the question whether Edwards was a realist in his view of the Adamic union. The realist as well as the federalist holds to immediate imputation and the point at issue is not affected by the question of Edwards' affinities on that other issue." (John Murray, The Imputation of Adam's Sin, pg. 56)

What Fesko has done - unwittingly, I imagine - is subtly redefine "immediate imputation" in terms only a representationalist would accept. 

Further, it is not clear that Fesko appreciates the divergence of views among the sources he cites as supporting his understanding of immediate imputation. In the first place, the idea that the Westminster Confession is anti-realist begs the question (cf. Baird, The Elohim Revealed, pg. 39ff.; W. G. T. Shedd, Discourses and Essays, pgs. 260-270; etc.). In fact, again, even representationalists would distance themselves from the views of, say, Charles Hodge, who denied that mankind were participants in the criminality of Adam's sin. John Murray writes:

There can be little doubt, therefore, that the most representative of Reformed theologians were jealous to maintain that reatus and poena and, if we will, reatus poenae, always presuppose culpa and that, therefore, our involvement in the reatus, the obligation to penalty, of Adam's sin means that we were also involved in the culpa of his sin...

Hence when Dr. Hodge says that the imputation of the guilt of Adam's sin to posterity does not mean the imputation of "criminality" or demerit" but only of "the judicial obligation to satisfy justice", we discover what we are compelled to regard as a divergence from the older Reformed theologians in respect of a principle which they esteemed basic in the construction of the doctrine of our relation to the first sin of Adam. It is just precisely the involvement of posterity in the culpa of Adam's sin that Hodge is jealous to deny, when these other theologians were insistent that poena and culpa are inseparable and that reatus arises from culpa and leads to poena. And it would appear that the difficulty which we found with Dr. Hodge's position from the standpoint of exegesis, specifically the exegesis of Romans 5:12, 19, lies close to this divergence on Hodge's part from the formulation of other Reformed theologians. (John Murray, The Imputation of Adam's Sin, pgs. 83-85)

Again, John Murray was a federalist or representationalist who, like Hodge, was of Princeton lineage. If anyone can render an objective critique of Hodge, it is Murray. And the above makes it quite clear that Hodge's contemporaries - e.g. Samuel Baird and Robert Landis, both of whom debated him - were correct about the Reformed tradition on this point. 

Now, Fesko does tepidly acknowledge this in his book, Death in Adam, Life in Christ. There, he admits that Hodge's "penalty-only imputation view may represent a minority within the tradition." Firstly, it is a minority position; there is no maybe. Secondly, Fesko should not anachronistically lump the Westminster Confession, Savoy Declaration, Francis Turretin, etc. as holding to Hodge's view of what immediate imputation entails. 

Perhaps Fesko does not intend to do that. But if not - if Fesko is not trying to suggest that all these sources have the same view of immediate imputation - then the question is begged as to why the realist position is contrasted with it.

Another way in which Fesko misrepresents the realist position is in the way he frames what said position entails. One remark Fesko made in an above quote - "apart from any physical or real means" - seems to suggest that Fesko equates realism with the idea of physical identity with Adam. This is confirmed in Fesko's outline of realism itself:

(2) Realism

This view was first made famous by Augustine who, based upon his mistranslation of Romans 5:12, believed that all humanity was seminally present in Adam. In some sense, then, humanity was really truly physically present. In addition to Augustine, similar views appear in John Calvin (1509-1564), W. G. T. Shedd (1820-1894), and James H. Thornwell (1812-1862). (J. V. Fesko, Adam and the Covenant of Works, pg. 294)

I'm not sure what Fesko has in mind. Augustine remained undogmatic on the point of traducianism. However, he considered it, and the terms in which he considered it were immaterial, not material:

...it is necessary still to investigate and to make known the reason why, if souls are created new for every individual at his birth, those who die in infancy without the sacrament of Christ are doomed to perdition; for that they are doomed to this if they so depart from the body is testified both by Holy Scripture and by the holy Church. Wherefore, as to that opinion of yours concerning the creation of new souls, if it does not contradict this firmly grounded article of faith, let it be mine also; but if it does, let it be no longer yours.

26. Let it not be said to me that we ought to receive as supporting this opinion the words of Scripture in Zechariah, He forms the spirit of man within him, and in the book of Psalms, He forms their hearts severally. We must seek for the strongest and most indisputable proof, that we may not be compelled to believe that God is a judge who condemns any soul which has no fault. For to create signifies either as much or, probably, more than to form [fingere]; nevertheless it is written, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and yet it cannot be supposed that a soul here expresses a desire to be made before it has begun to exist. Therefore, as it is a soul already existing which is created by being renewed in righteousness, so it is a soul already existing which is formed by the moulding power of doctrine. Nor is your opinion, which I would willingly make my own, supported by that sentence in Ecclesiastes, Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return to God who gave it. Nay, it rather favours those who think that all souls are derived from one; for they say that, as the dust returns to the earth as it was, and yet the body of which this is said returns not to the man from whom it was derived, but to the earth from which the first man was made, the spirit in like manner, though derived from the spirit of the first man, does not return to him but to the Lord, by whom it was given to our first parent. (From Augustine to Jerome, on the origin of the soul, link)

Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature (not physical creatures per se; cf. angels). For one to be interested in whether Adam's progeny were "physically present" in him would be a category error, a quasi-gnostic mistake no realist of whom I am aware (certainly none in Fesko's list of realists) has ever made. Such a [mis]representation gives the impression that realists consider physical presence relevant to participation in sin when it is rather spiritual presence which has always been at issue.

We have glanced at a few passages of the Scriptures in which our doctrine is formally asserted, or involved by direct and inevitable implication. But it would be an utter mistake to imagine that the Scripture argument in its favor is limited to a series of minute criticisms upon isolated passages in the Bible. On the contrary, the idea of the derivation of our entire being from our parents runs through every part of the book, and reappears continually in every variety of form. From the nature of the case, we are cut off from this aspect of the argument. To its elucidation volumes would be requisite, instead of a few pages. The doctrine in question constantly occurs in the historical scriptures, either in the way of formal statement, or of allusion, as to an unquestioned and unquestionable fact. In the poetic books, whether narrative, prophetic, or devotional, whether prayer or praise, it everywhere presents itself; at one time, the theme of admiring contemplation in reference to the wonderful nature of the phenomena, and at another the subject of penitential confession in view of the corruption so derived. In the doctrinal scriptures, it is made the basis of the whole doctrine of our ruin and the whole system of grace. They everywhere predicate it, as fundamental to all the representations and arguments which they exhibit on these subjects. This doctrine is thus inwrought into the very texture of the Bible; recurring continually, without any caution whatever, by which the begetting asserted should be limited to the body; but, on the contrary, contemplating the moral nature much more than the physical. On the other hand, but a single passages - Heb. xii. 9 - is adduced from the whole Bible, which it can be pretended even seems to look the other way. And in that case the seeming is consequent upon a forced interpretation, at variance with the accustomed meaning of the language employed, as well as with the analogy of Scripture, thus so complete. We make this statement, because it must be evident to any candid interpreter, that the scriptures which merely declare God to be the maker of the soul, are no more conclusive to the purpose for which they are usually cited on this subject, than would be the addition of those which speak with at least equal emphasis of the body, to prove that both body and soul are the immediate workmanship of God, and that the human species is not propagated by generation at all! (Samuel Baird, The Elohim Revealed, pgs. 383-384)

Any beginning to unravel the mischaracterizations seen above or in the conversation in the first link of this post will require a return to the primary sources. Ad fontes. Possibly, it will also require someone who actually believes the view to publish an exposition and defense of it. Although useful in its own way, I wouldn't expect a blog post to gain traction. Well, beginnings are beginnings.

Gordon Clark: Education for Evil. (The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate)

1968. Education for Evil. The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate. February. pgs. 9, 12.

Not long ago the Supreme Court's decision on prayer and Bible reading in the public schools stirred up considerable comment. Various counteracting measures have been proposed, including an ammendment to the Constitution. In this furor is struck me that many people were exercised who for years had done little or nothing to propagate Christianity. They showed alarm when the forms of religion were attacked, though the seemed to have little concern with its reality.

Some parts of the decision of the Supreme Court cannot be regarded as unfortunate. Indeed one part, I believe, is very good. Christians, it seems to me, should be happy that the Court has prohibited the use of state-composed and state-imposed prayers. Not only were these the official prayers non-Christian and an offense to all who believe that prayer may be offered to God only in the name of Jesus Christ: but there is the further danger that if officials could legally dictate the wording of prayers to be used in the schools we should soon see "Hail Mary" required in Boston, Chicago and some other places. Therefore the Court's decision protects us against Romanism on the one hand and against a state-imposed unitarianism on the other.

American Public Education Is Religiously Anti-Christian

The effects of this decision have been much worse than the decision itself. Wherever school authorities are antagonistic to Christianity (and many educators are very antagonistic) they have rushed not only to apply but to extend the Court's decision in an effort to harass Christians and to eliminate all reference to Christianity. Not only are pupils prevented from receiving Gideon Bibles, but some officials went to the extent of prohibiting Christmas trees, as if placing a Christmas tree in a school building were equivalent to establishing religion. This is just silly.

What is not silly, indeed what is most serious, is the rule laid down by some boards of education that teachers must patrol the lunch rooms and see that no pupil asks blessing over his lunch.

Then too, and more in keeping with another decision of the Court, state colleges have denied their recreational facilities to Christian students. For example, Purdue University does not permit the IVF to meet in university rooms. So far as I know Purdue does not deny its rooms to humanistic, secularistic, or atheistic student groups. The case is similar in the University of Washington at Seattle. In the summer of 1962 I addressed linguistic students of the Wycliffe Translators who were studying there. But we could not meet on the campus. It was necessary to use a house across the street. While in Seattle I was told also that the Constitution of the State of Washington does not guarantee freedom of religion. It guarantees freedom from religion.

These facts are sufficient to show that there is widespread organized effort by educational and governmental units to harass and to eliminate Christianity from American life.

This anti-Christian activity by tax-supported schools is the result of principle adopted and forwarded by influential professors of education.

Just a while back I wrote a monograph on John Dewey in which the educational policies of his colleague, Willian Heard Kilpatrick, were outlined. Kilpatrick was a professor of education at the Teachers College of Columbia University. In a career of thirty years he is said to have trained 35,000 teachers. His principle are clearly stated in his Philosophy of Education (p. 354), where he argues against religious liberty. He calls it "undemocratic" to allow parents to teach doctrine of their own religion to their children. Apparently Kilpatrick wants the government to invade the home and enforce secular education. John Dewey of course is not any more favorable to Christianity than Kilpatrick.

American Public Education Is Politically Totalitarian or Statist

The reference to Kilpatrick already demonstrates this fact. What could be more totalitarian than prohibiting religious liberty in the home! It is especially to be noted that this imposition of religious or rather anti-religious controls on the parents is proposed in the name of democracy. In the earlier American tradition democracy meant that everybody could vote, everybody is equal before the law, and everybody has inalienable rights protected against the encroachment of the State. But now those who wish to confuse our language and destroy our civilization use the term democracy to mean a denial of inalienable rights and the promotion of an all-powerful State.

For example, Protestants and Other Americans United presumably includes some professing Christians. Their resistance to Roman Catholic raids on public funds is to be applauded and supported. But in addition to the Protestantism implied in their title, they add something not implied, namely a defense of public schools. They explicitly attack private schools. In the January, 1964 issue of Church and State, page 9, col. 1, the magazine deplores the destruction of the public school system in Holland because of the parents' preference for religious schools. In the February, 1964 issue, page 7, they deplore religious freedom in Holland where parents can send their children to religious schools. Apparently these Protestants and Other Americans want secularism.

Consider a second instance of professing Christian who have voice to secular ideals. Mr. Rushdoony in the book previously mentioned (p. 328) reports that the famed evangelist, Billy Graham, in Peace with God (p viii) asserts that "man is a social animal." This unthinking denial of the doctrine of creation serves only to further the claims of the public educators and the extension of bureaucratic collectivism.

Third, in public discussion I took issue with a professor of education in a Christian college who, while he inveighed against the paganism of Platonic philosophy, had swallowed John Dewey whole and was energetically advocating progressive education.

The first thing necessary, therefore, is that professing Christians should learn the principles of Christianity.

The second thing we should do is to practice our liberties before they are completely atrophied.

Now I am well aware that many Christian are concerned and are practicing their principles to the best of their ability. However, I would like to say that one way to practice our liberties is to write books defending the Christian position. Recently I sent a letter to twenty Christian professors, urging them to write and send me competent books and monographs applying Christian principles to any subject of academic interest. An evangelical publisher is most anxious to secure such manuscripts. 

Finally, by way of practicing our liberties, let us do all we can to support Christian schools - grace schools, high schools, and colleges. It is not the prohibition of prayer and Bible reading in the public schools that is so dangerous. It is the constant inculcation of secular humanism. What is needed, therefore, is a system of schools to teach Christian principles - Christian principles in literature, history, politics, sociology, psychology, and philosophy. God's revelation covers all the problems of life. Let us apply these divine principles to every phase of our earthly existence.

Reprinted from the Christian Teacher, by permission of the publisher.

1. Psychologic Foundations of Education, pp. 260, 261; Appleton & Co.., 1898.

2. The Trend in American Education, p. 215; American Book Co., 1922.

3. Modern Educational Theories, pp. 13, 257, Macmillan, 1927, cf. Fundamentals of Education, p. 7. Macmillan, 1922.

4. Democracy as a Way of Life, p. VIII, Macmillan, 1943.

Gordon Clark: Jesus Christ - Fact or Fantasy? Part I (The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate)

1964. Jesus Christ - Fact or Fantasy? Part I. The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate. November. pgs. 5-6.

[In October Rev. Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D delivered three lectures at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota. This is the first of the three thought-provoking messages.]

The subject of these three lectures this week is Historiography, i.e. the exposition and evaluation of the methods historians use in their work.

I am interested in this subject, and perhaps you are too, mainly because Christianity is an historical religion. By this I do not mean that Christianity has had a history of some two thousand years. Buddhism has had a history too. By calling Christianity an historical religion I mean it is a religion that has historical events embedded in it. Buddhism does not. Even so short a summary of Christianity as the Apostles' Creed contains a mid-section that is altogether historical fact. Longer accounts might mention Abraham, the Exodus, and King David. These events are integral parts of the Christian message. The New Testament itself insists that if the Resurrection never occurred, Christianity is a false faith and vain delusion. There are also reasons of a more technical theological cast why attention must be given to the significance of history and to the methods of historians. These will appear as we continue.

Now, at first, this religious motivation in historiography causes confusion. The issues concerning of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are so important from the religious perspective the one tends to be diverted from the strictly historical problem. Or, to put the warning another way: as this lecture proceeds it will be necessary to pass by many matters you may think more interesting and more important than historiography; but these strictly theological matters must be dropped in order to make any progress at all on the present subject, which is the relation of Christian faith to the determination of historical fact.

The origin of the contemporary interest in historiography is best located in the so-called Life of Jesus movement, or to use the title of a later book, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. This quest began in 1835 with the publication of D. F. Strauss's Leben Jesu.

Strauss's motivation is clear. He assumed that science had shown the impossibility of miracles. Since the Gospels contain accounts of miracles and are therefore unhistorical and legendary, historians are obliged to go behind the Gospels in order to uncover the non-miraculous historical Jesus.

Parenthetically may I note that this is not the only connection between science, historiography, and religion. The various subjects in a college curriculum are related in many ways and they all have their bearings on the Christian message. Therefore, the educated Christian needs to formulate a theory of knowledge in which the apparent conflicts can be resolved. A view of the nature of science as well as a view of historiography is necessary to a well balanced presentation of Christianity.

Now, to repeat, D. F. Strauss entertained a view of science that implied the impossibility of miracles. As a New Testament scholar therefore he envisioned the necessity of discovering the historical Jesus hidden behind the Gospels. The Gospels, he held, were a compilation of myths and legends which the enthusiasm of the early Christians had attached to the name of Jesus. Remove the legendary accretions by the proper historiographical criteria, and we find the historical Jesus.

If anyone should suppose that a non-miraculous Jesus would be insufficient for Christianity, F. C. Baur of Tubingen explained that w rejection of the Gospels as we have them cannot damage the Christian faith. The essence of Christianity, he asserted, is found in the strictly ethical teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. These ethical principles are the eternal and absolute content of the Christian message. The historical situation in which these eternal principles may have been first enunciated is of no great importance. From this it follows that regardless of how much or how little we can know about the life of Jesus, Christianity remains unaffected.

Indeed, we may add, if Christianity consists in a set of eternal ethical principles, and does not depend on unique historical events, one may conclude that Christianity remains unaffected even if it be proved that Jesus never existed.

The several scholars who followed Strauss and Baur for nearly a century disagreed considerably as to which items in the Gospels were historical and genuine. Although they all denied miracles, one would select one saying as genuine and another would select another, until their mutual repudiations produced a ludicrous confusion.

One most important and interesting point has to do with Jesus' own opinion of himself. Did he believe himself to be the Messiah? The earlier critics, who inherited from their Christian ancestors a desire to maintain Jesus' goodness and sanity, decided that he could not have an Messianic claims are found in the Gospels, other critics took an agnostic position. Then, when it became more difficult to explain why one verse was genuine and another was spurious, later critics maintained that Jesus made the claim, but only as a formality consonant with the religious terminology of his day. After several other twists of opinion showed it to be impossible to disentangle a naturalistic Jesus from the pervasive Messianic theme, Albert Schweitzer finally admitted that Jesus claimed to be Messiah and that therefore he was insane.

The demonstrated impossibility of distinguishing between the genuine and the allegedly spurious verses, by any reasonable criterion, put an end to the quest for the historical Jesus, and for this Albert Schweitzer is usually given credit. But so far as historiography is concerned. rather than New Testament criticism only, it was Martin Kahler, as early as 1892, who made the Life of Jesus movement untenable. In his argument there occurs for the first time the distinction between Historie and Geschichte, in which terms the mains controversy continues today.

Now let us summarize Kahler's position. First of all, Kahler does not accept the Gospels as reliable sources for historical science. Historical investigation, he says, required several corroborating sources and there are no sources for Jesus' life outside the New Testament. Then too the evangelists were not eye witnesses; their accounts give a disproportionate space to the last week of Jesus' life; and the great difference between the Synoptics and John is a basis for suspicion. Therefore, concludes Kahler, the search for the historical Jesus is impossible.

To support this conclusion Kahler examines the attempts made by Strauss, Renan, et al, to write the life of Jesus. Here he discovers - and we must remark that it was a very easy discovery to make - that these lives of Jesus are mainly the result of the authors' untrammelled imaginations. They had invented whatever criteria pleased them, and on the basis of these criteria decided what was and was not historical. Yet they claimed to be objective and unprejudiced.

This claim was the common claim of the nineteenth century. Not only the religious authors, but the secular historians also, like von Ranke and Mommsen, held that the ideal of historiography was first of all the discovery of the empirical truth, the objective facts, the events as they actually occurred. The prerequisite for such an investigation was said to be an objective attitude on the part of the historian. He was to approach his work with a mind entirely free from any presupposition.

Since Strauss and Baur were not objective, Kahler concludes not only that they failed, but that they had to fail in the attempt to write the Life of Jesus.

These adverse criticisms of Strauss soon turn into a positive reconstruction. Kahler urges that the Gospels record, not the life of Jesus, but the preaching of the early church. This preaching took no interest in history as such. Of all writers, the apostles and evangelists were not objective, disinterested historians. What they preached and wrote contained their recollections of Jesus to be sure, but these recollections had been transformed by their experience of the risen Christ.

This consideration introduces us to be a theological reason why a biography of Jesus must be a failure. The ontological structure of what has come to be called "the Christ-event" defies historical categories. Scientific biography must presuppose that Jesus was a mere man because historical investigation can proceed only on the principle of analogy. That is to say, the events under investigation and the psychology of the actors must be construed as essentially similar to other events and to the mental processes of other actors. For example, Alexander the Great and Napoleon must have had the same basic motivation. Therefore the mind of Jesus must be similar to the mind of Socrates. This principle of historical analogy rules out everything supernatural. But if Jesus was a mere man, then the Christian church has been engaged in idolatrous worship since the beginning.

Kahler, however, was not willing to plead guilty to the charge of idolatry. Therefore, historical investigation must be discarded (at least insofar as history is supposed to be of use to theology) and one must rely on faith.

(Due to the length of this article, we shall have to break it here and conclude it next month.)

Gordon Clark: Fact or Fantasy? Part II (The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate)

1964. Jesus Christ - Fact or Fantasy? Part II. The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate. December. pgs. 5-6.

Faith is a matter of divine revelation, and revelation cannot be discovered by historical methods. The supernatural is superhistorical. Faith has no need of the historical Jesus - and here Kahler introduces the distinction so frequently made in contemporary discussions - faith does not need the historischen Jesus, it needs the geschichtlichen Christus.

To be sure, the real Jesus of Nazareth and the risen Christ must be the same person, if Christianity is true. But this identity is not open to historical verification. Faith is the only approach to the geschichtlichen Christ. Preaching, the Kergyma, creates faith and gives assurance apart from even a minimum of solid historical fact.

Although Kahler published this argument in 1892, it has hardly been improved upon since. However, let us add a few details from Han Werner Bartsch, who recently wrote on The Historical Problem of the Life of Jesus. (The Historical Problem of the Life of Jesus., in the Historical Jesus and the Kergymatic Christ, pp. 106-141; 1960.)

Bartsch teaches that historical research cannot begin with the life of Jesus but can only begin with the preaching of the early Christian community. This witness had at its center the message of the resurrection. Yet the aim of the preachers was not to inform people about an historical event; they were witnessing to their own spiritual experience and calling for a similar experience on the part of their hearers.

Therefore, concludes Bartsch - and in general the whole contemporary movement agrees with him - therefore, only this witness to faith, and not the event reported in the witness, is amenable to historical research.

Now, Kahler, although he divorces everything supernatural from history, seems to believe that supernatural occurences actually took place. Bartsch apparently, and Bultmann most certainly disbelieve. They would have us interpret the witness to the resurrection existentially.

By existential interpretation they mean that what the early Christians told as a report of history must be taken by us as only their subjective experience. That is to say, the report that Jesus rose from the dead means, not that he rose from the dead, but means that the early Christians experienced a subjective change from unbelief to faith. Bartsch says explicitly, "This witness... does not offer an objective fact for the hearer's appropriation, but rather calls him to" accept the lordship of Christ.

"The historian can merely note" that some people have experience spiritual changes. "More he cannot do. An historical interest which would enable us to enquire into the underlying historical fact cannot be sustained... Therefore, in respect to the resurrection, the center of the primitive Christian witness, we are not in a position to make historical judgments beyond noting the Easter faith."

Now, Paul in I Corinthians 15, seems to contradict Bartsch's remarks. Appealing to five hundred eye witnesses, Paul seems eager to give historical proof. Bultmann dismisses this as one of Paul's fatal blunders. Bartsch on the other hand denies that Paul intended to give historical proof of the resurrection of Jesus. According to Bartsch Paul was interested only in convincing the Corinthians that their dead should rise. He argues that if they believe Christ rose, they would be inconsistent if they denied that the saints shall rise.

This is undoubtedly true. But to remove the impression that Paul was interested in giving historical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, Bartsch resorts to the expedient of denying that Paul mentioned five hundred eye witnesses. This verse, he says, is the insertion of a copyist - a copyist who was infected by the modern interest in the historicity of Jesus' resurrection.

Aside from the fact that Bartsch's irresponsible conjecture flies in the face of all textual criticism, he also fails to notice that Paul's interest in the historicity of Jesus' resurrection is also indicated by his reference to the third day. The resurrection for Paul is not an existential experience: it is something that took place on the third day after Jesus' burial.

Bartsch, however, concludes, "The historical Jesus is not the content of the proclamation." And the follows one of those irritating statements that occur with too great frequency in the writings of this school of critics. "The proclamation that the earthly Jesus is the risen Lord," says Bartsch, "...is not grounded in history, but is rather witnessed to as grounded in the deed of God." This statement is irritating, not because it is false. The first part of it is false, viz. the proclamation is not grounded in history. But the second part does not convey enough meaning even to rise to the dignity of being false. Consider again: what can it possibly mean to say that the proclamation is witnessed to as grounded in the deed of God? In my opinion Bartsch has not only denied what is most obviously true, but has substituted for it something that makes no sense at all.

Now, in conclusion this sketchy survey of contemporary New Testament criticism confronts us with a host of problems. First, one may examine the whole philosophy of existentialism, and its implication that the resurrection is a subjective spiritual change rather than an historical event. Far be it from me, a professor of philosophy, to suggest that the philosophy underlying New Testament criticism should not be studied. On the contrary, to the degree that a student is unaware of philosophical motifs, he is certain to misunderstand theological controversy.

But, second, someone might prefer to deal with a topic that appeals to him closer to the religious heart of the situation. Philosophy may appear remote and abstract. To such a person the nature of religious faith seems more important. The questions then are:

Does faith need an objective fact for the hearer's appropriation? Is the desire for objective evidence sinful and irreligious? Can faith survive regardless of what critical positions are to be accepted?

These questions concerning the relation of faith to history are extremely important. But to answer them one must know the nature of history as well as the nature of faith. Whether a hostile critic wishes to say that the supernatural is superhistorical, or that the events recounted in the Gospels are not amenable to historical research, or whether a Christian believer wishes to maintain the opposite, he must have a view of history.

It is my belief that many of these New Testament critics, coming to the study of history by way of theology, have not too carefully considered the problems of historiography as such. In particular, Bultmann seems to have entangled himself in errors and inconsistencies by a strange mixture of scientific historiography, historical relativism, and a misappropriation of the brilliant views of R. G. Collingwood.

At the same time the few orthodox scholars are so exercised about theological consequences that they too neglect the technical problems of historiography.

Now, since the Gospels and indeed all church history is but a part of universal history, a tenable historiography must be applicable to secular history as well as to the New Testament. Therefore we must ask such questions as: Can historical investigation be objective, disinterested, and devoid of presuppositions? What are the proper and necessary historiographical categories? Do they or do they not exclude the supernatural? In any case, what is the relation between history and theology? 

Therefore, while admitting my strong theological motivation, I propose that Christian scholars make a professional study of secular and general historiography as a prerequisite for the development of a tenable theory and its subsequent application to the life, the death, and the resurrection of the historical Jesus.

The Bible is also the fountain of the most wonderful literature of the world ever written. Shakespeare used 550 Bible quotations from 54 books of the Bible in his 37 plays. "No person can be educated who has not had a thorough knowledge of the Word of God, the Bible," said President Woodrow Wilson. William Lyon Phelps of Yale, Professor of Literature, said, "As to having a college education without the Bible, or Bible knowledge without a college education, I would choose the latter." So we must have the Bible in every grade of our public school system. There is no true culture or morality without Bible teaching.

Gordon Clark: Review of The Responsible Self, by H. Richard Niebuhr (The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate)

1964. Review of The Responsible Self, by H. Richard Niebuhr. The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate. May. pg. 8

The Responsible Self by H. Richard Niebuhr, 183 pages; Harper & Row, 1963, $3.50.

The author claims (1) to be a Christian, (2) writing on Christian morality. As for the first claim he admits following Christ at a great distance. "To be a Christian is simply a part of my fate, as it is the fate of another to be a Muslim or a Jew (p. 43).

As for the second claim, we also express doubts because in chapter five he rejects the definition of sin as transgression of the Law, and discards the ideas of punishment, repentance, justification, and obedience as leading to paradoxes. The statements of his substitute position are either so broad and vague or so trivially true, that one has difficulty maintaining interest.

The argument in general, beginning in chapter one, is that teleological and deontological ethics have both failed. Neither good nor right are the correct categories for ethics. They should be replaced by the category of the fitting.

But Niebuhr hardly distinguished the fitting from the good or the right, and nowhere indicates how to identify a fitting action.

Niebuhr asserts that his theory fits the Bible better than the other views because Isaiah and the prophets did not preach obedience to the Law but called attention to what was happening. Not believing in proof texts, Niebuhr does not quote Isa. 1:12, 19, 20, "Who hath required this at your hand? ... If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

The ethics of the good and the ethics of the right are too individualistic. A self cannot arise outside social experience (therefore God could not have created Adam before Eve?). In the Church we are responsible to our fellow-members, but also to a common cause represented by the prophets and apostles. Even Christ points beyond himself to the cause in which he is faithful to his companions; and God is faithful to the world.

Hence, if it is doubtful that his theory is theistic, it is clear that it is not Christian.

Gordon H. Clark

Gordon Clark: Review of Man in Community, by Russell Phillip Shedd (The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate)

1963. Review of Man in Community, by Russell Phillip Shedd. The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate. December.

Man in Community by Russell Phillip Shedd. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. 209 pp., $1.95

In politics, in sociology, and in philosophy, the relation between part and whole, individual and group, is an important question. In the Old Testament the question concerns the relation between the Israelite and Israel, the covenant, the sins of the parents visited upon the children; in the New Testament it concerns the relation between the believer and the Church, the sinner and Adam, and the Body of Christ. Dr. Shedd's study canvasses the Biblical material in great detail.

Although this material indicates a "solidarity" of some sort, one must be careful to make precise what sort it is. Does a blood cell have existence and individuality apart from the blood stream? Is man just a cell in society? Is he its product? Or is he an individual in his own right? 

Dr. Shedd dislikes individualism. He accepts a weak argument from C. H. Dodd to prove that man is not an individual, that the ego does not remain throughout all changes, and that insofar as man can be called an individual, he is so simply because he is part of the group from which he emerges.

Yet one must question whether the sociological collectivism of the Bible (if that is what one wishes to call it) can best be understood in terms of (Platonic?) Realism. If we are realistically in Adam, and if "the one is the many and the many one" (p. 110), would it not follow that every sin of Adam, and not just his first sin, is also our sin? And if there is a realistic solidarity of priest and victim, is the goat a realistic member of the group? Can there be a vicarious sacrifice in a realistic philosophy? Apparently not; for although in some places the author speaks of substitution, he finally says, "We have found fault with those views which describe the relationship of Christ to the Church as forensic and unrealistic" (p. 157).

There is, I believe, a fundamental fallacy in the construction of the author's argument. While he admits that "Ye are God's temple" and the "olive tree" are metaphorical (pp. 174-176), yet he insists that solidarity, as in "the Body of Christ", must not be considered figurative. Because of this, metaphors are transmuted into metaphysics and the exegesis becomes twisted.

Gordon H. Clark

Gordon Clark: Assassination of President Kennedy (The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate)

1963. Assassination of President Kennedy. The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate. December. pg. 2.

The assassination of President Kennedy has produced expressions of shock from the ordinary people who lined the streets of Dallas and from the high officials of government.

There have been expressions of sympathy for Mrs. Kennedy and her children. Sudden bereavement is hard to bear. But let us also remember the bereaved Mrs. Tippit, whose husband was also slain as he tried to arrest the assassin. The one bereavement was as much a sudden shock as the other.

But the President's death receives the greater publicity, not because he was a husband, but because he was a president. His was a death that affects the whole nation. The stock market lost ten billion dollars, not because a husband died, but because a president died. Because of the president's death the policies of the government, both foreign policy and domestic policy, may be realigned. Reporters rushed to politicians and asked how the assassination would alter their plans and ambitions. No one can exclude from his mind the realization that politics will be different. But while the deceased president's body lies in state, it is inappropriate to issue public pronouncements on politics. Equally inappropriate is it to discuss the plans of politicians in church.

Most appropriate, however, and especially in church, is a recognition of the criminality of assassination. God has commanded, Though shalt not murder. The Church, as God's mouthpiece on earth, must proclaim the righteousness of God and call the people to obey his laws.

Unfortunately the visible churched have failed in their duty, and great sections of the American people ignore God. Well organized groups have been at work to eradicate the idea of God from our national life. Even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court objects to having the motto In God We Trust in the courtroom. 

These attitudes have caused an increase in crime. Criminals go unpunished. Instead of being treated as wicked, they are treated as if they were sick. And the result is ever increasing crime.

This is the climate that breeds assassination. The communist assassin is a man who has denied God and has rejected Christian morality. He is a supporter of Fidel Castro. He is an exponent of violence. He is an example of the end product of godlessness. 

Will now the shock of assassination be sufficiently strong to create a demand for righteousness in America? Will the people require action against communism, a curb on crime, and high morality on the part of government officials? Will the people correct their own conduct? Or will America like ancient Israel ignore God, His warnings, and His preliminary judgments? Will the United States, like ancient Judah, be enslaved by a godless power?

Today we must think of the future, but we cannot see it. We do not know what victories or what defeats are in story for our nation. But for ourselves as individual Christians we know the God of Heaven, who removeth kings and setteth up kings, causes all things to work together for good to them he has called to love Him.

Gordon Clark: First Things First (The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate)

1960. First Things First. The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate. June-July.

Because it was the dedication of a church building, ministers of several denominations were present. Thus it was that a friend of mine heard the sermon of a denominational secretary. Afterward my friend complimented the secretary on his forthright gospel message and remarked that he wished that Dr. So and So of the secretary's denomination preached the same gospel. To which the speaker of the evening replied, "Dr. So and So believes the same things that I do." "How do you know?" asked my friend. "Why, I have talked with him and he told me so," came the answer. "Well," my friend said, "I could never have guessed it; I have only heard him preach."

Now, Dr. So and So's sermons, which are heard over the radio by thousands, do not attack the gospel. His message does not contradict the Scripture. He simply avoids the vicarious atonement and similar doctrines and gives messages of psychological comfort. He does not put first things first.

There are other preachers who preach sociology, politics, and even communism. There are preachers who directly attack the trustworthiness of the Scripture and deny its main doctrines. It is plausible to think that these men are worse than Dr. So and So. They do and he does not belittle the Bible. Well, maybe they are really worse than he; but the message of salvation is just as little heard in the one place as in the others. And if faith cometh by hearing, the auditors in Dr. So and So's congregation will no more have faith than those in the other churches. Refraining from criticizing the Bible, refraining from attacking its doctrines, gives as little publicity to the message of salvation, in fact it gives less publicity to the message than an explicit attack.

There are other ways of putting first things last, even while appearing to honor the Word of God. One such way is to ride a hobby. That is, a minister may have one beloved topic of minor importance and spend virtually all his time on it. And he may do this, not because of any conscious desire to minimize the rest of the Bible, but just because he thinks the subject requires constant emphasis. The subject might be archaeology. Now, archaeological discoveries throw a great deal of light on portions of the Old Testament, and they have frequently corroborated the truth of the Bible. It is well and wise to preach on archeology occasionally. But not every week.

Then there are men who have somewhat peculiar interpretations of difficult passages and who think these doubtful details need vigorous inculcation. The other day I was reading an article of some devotional fervor. Its ostensible thrust was very good. The writer stressed prayer, worship, service to God, in short he called upon his readers to live a Godly life. But the Biblical support of these excellent conclusions was mainly the repeated insistence that there would be a secret Rapture when Christ would come in the clouds and snatch away the saints on earth for a period of seven years.

The very best that can be said for this theory is that it is highly imaginative. Great ingenuity is required to find any Scriptural mention of a period of seven years during which the saints are in the clouds with Christ. And far from the Rapture's being secret, the passage in I Thess. 4:16 tells us that the Lord will descend with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God. It seems to be a noisy affair. Yet I have read stories and tracts which picture those who are left on earth after the saints are taken up as wondering where their acquaintances have gone. They seem to have just disappeared and no one knows how or where. But if this rapture of the saints includes the resurrection of the dead, as I Thess. explicitly says, it is hardly light that the unbelievers will be so bewildered.

Now, if this unlikely interpretation were correct, a brilliant deduction from other obscure hints, it would be proper to preach it occasionally, perhaps in obscure hints. But there is no justification for obscuring the main message of the Bible by such imaginative details.

Over a period of 150 years the theologians of the Reformation worked out the main message, the most important doctrines, the themes of the Bible requiring the greatest emphasis. These were set down in the Reformed creeds, the greatest of which is the Westminster Confession. Its first chapter outlines the doctrine of revelation - the special revelation of God's will written in the Bible. The second chapter deals with the Trinity. The third chapter concerns God's eternal decree, by which He had foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. And the other chapters follow in logical order. Predestination, Total Depravity, Irresistible Grace, the Vicarious Sacrifice of Christ, Justification by Faith - these are the important things; these are the first things that should be put first. To spend too much time on lesser matters, even when they properly demand some time, to to impugn the weightier matters of the law.

When Calvin in Geneva and John Knox in Edinburgh preached these doctrines, the Church reached the highest point it has ever attained in all its history. The reign of the Stuarts in the following century was a disaster. The Deism of the eighteenth century was deadly. The modernism of the nineteenth century was no less so. To be sure, the gospel has never been silenced, and the level of Biblical intelligence has all this while remained higher than it was during the Romish days of the Middle Ages. But Biblical knowledge and the life of the Church as a whole has rather steadily declined over the last 300 years.

There is no evidence that we today are on the verge of a new reformation. There is no evidence that we can reestablish the level of life in Knox's Edinburgh. Our influence and position seem to be more like that of Jeremiah, who was called of God to preach to a people that refused to listen. But though he have no reasonable hope of duplicating the work of the Reformers, there is one thing we can do and one thing we ought to do. The is, to keep the memory and the knowledge of those days alive. We can keep the doctrines of the Confession from being entirely forgotten. We can do it by insisting on first things first - the infallibility of Scripture, the Trinity, the eternal decree of the Sovereign God, Creation Providence, the Fall of Man, and the glorious salvation of Jesus Christ. Put first things first.

Gordon Clark: On Social Security, A Rejoinder (The Witness)

1953. On Social Security: A Rejoinder. The Witness. Aug-Sep. Pg. 20.

In the Feb. 1952 issue of The Witness I argued that the Social Security scheme in our country was financially dishonest, would contribute to national bankruptcy, and was an indication of the low moral standards of eighty percent of the people. In the April 1953 issue Mr. Edward F. Hankin published a reply.

Basing my rough estimate on Congressional voting, I had said that eighty percent of the people approve of Social Security. Mr. Hankin thinks he refutes me with "a little simple arithmetic (that) changes the eighty to two." On Aug. 1, 1952, he says, only two percent of the population received Social Security payments. How this shows that the other 78% do not approve of the scheme is hard to understand. Mr. Hankin's simple arithmetic may be unimpeachable, but the same cannot be said for his logic.

Aside from this irrelevant arithmetic Mr. Hankin attempts to reply to my charge of injustice. Social security is dishonest because it penalizes the honest and thrifty and subsidizes the irresponsible. Even in the case of those who pay for part of their benefits, the system is so set up that under certain circumstances they receive less than they paid in, or even may receive nothing. Private insurance and annuity companies, operating on actuarial data, do not cheat their policy holders in any such way. But Mr. Hankin says "necessarily when any new system is put into operation, there are some who receive benefits they have not paid for." This is of course a false statement, and can only be based on ignorance of the insurance business.

Further, this argument seems to me to assume that theft and injustice are legitimate when used to get a system started. The labor unions used this principle to justify their violence, murders, riots, and insurrections in the thirties: they were just putting their new system into operation. This is also the Communists' principle. Massacres are justified because they produce Utopia. What was Paul's remark about those who say, Let us do evil that good may come?

But Mr. Hankin seems embarrassed at Scriptural references, and argues that Paul in II Cor. 12:14 did not mean what he said but inadvertently used a colloquial expression of that day. Paul, we remember, also quoted a Stoic poet, but he did so because the Stoic had told the truth. Nor does Paul's command that parents should lay up riches for their children rather than lay up debts for their children conflict with the duty of children to take care of their parents when through disaster they are left penniless. Maybe New Dealers have recently become conscious of moral obligations toward the aged (though I interpret it more as a grab for power and an attempt to establish socialism), yet Christian have recognized these obligations in all ages. It is not something new as Mr. Hankin says. Mr. Hankin's fallacy consists in inferring from the fact that something should be done, the erroneous conclusion that the government should do it. Apparently he would crush all private enterprise and philanthropy.

Mr. Hankin new the beginning of his article complains that if what I said is correct, the United States is in a bad way - as if the certainty that the United States could not possibly be in a bad way refutes my contention. But we surely are in a bad way. For interest readers I recommend, To Comminism Via Majority Vote, by Admiral Ben Moreell; The T. V. A. Idea, by Dean Russell; Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt; Planned Chaos, by Ludwig von Mises. And beyond these one can try Spengler, Toynbee, Hayek, Sorokin, and the Bible.