I've mostly dealt with contemporary authors. It would take much more investment of time than I have at present to comb through all of Van Til, Bahnsen, Frame, and others' work who may not be as well known now but were during, say, the 1940s OPC controversy (e.g. Klooster, Kuschke, Stonehouse). It would also be reinventing the wheel to go over ground that has been sufficiently covered by others.
Clark and his supporters wanted the OPC to join forces with other conservatives in the United States. The basis for this union was not the explicitly Reformed views of the Westminster faculty but rather the broad mission of opposing modernism and banding together for effective outreach. In 1943 Clark went so far as to invite all foes of liberalism to join the OPC. Ministers in the OPC who sided with Clark also hoped the church would become more evangelical than Reformed...Despite these criticisms of the OPC, the church, by remaining outside the new evangelical movement and by joining an international association of Reformed churches, rejected Clark’s vision for the denomination. The OPC was to be a distinctly Reformed denomination as defined by the Westminster Standards, not “evangelical” or “conservative” as defined by the new evangelical movement...
Those who left the OPC with Clark were saddened by the church’s vision. They believed that the church had been founded to oppose “soul-destroying Modernism” and was now moving away from its original vision. But as we have already seen, the forming of the OPC involved far more than fundamentalist opposition to modernism. Machen was dedicated to maintaining and preserving a Reformed testimony (link).
We do not believe that it is necessary to argue against religious cooperation with unbelievers, those who deny the fundamentals of the Christian faith, or against organic union with Christian bodies which we believe are less pure in doctrine. On these two points there is in our denomination general agreement. We believe also that there is general agreement to the proposition that there must be cooperation with other truly Christian bodies whom we believe are less pure insofar as such cooperation does not compromise and impair what we believe to be true...
It is possible to make a common testimony to the catholic doctrine common to the whole confessing Church embraced in the great ecumenical creeds and at the same time maintain our distinctive reformed witness. This is a council of Churches for common action against the enemies of God, to wit, Modernism, Romanism, Communism, and any other ism which denies or compromises the truthfulness of the above doctrines. It takes common action in behalf of historic Christianity. It is not a union of Churches. It is not saying or implying that we consider that our distinctive reformed witness is unimportant any more than others in the Council think that their arminianism, immersion or ritual is unimportant. It is a Council in which Bible-believing Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and Independents remain such with all their hearts and yet stand together as citizens of the Kingdom of God in conflict with the Kingdom of Satan. It is a Council which is pledged not to do work which is generally accepted as being in the ecclesiastical sphere. It is pledged to aid the constituent denominations in their distinctive witness...
Our world and life view demands that our isolationism be ended. Christian love demands that we aid our brethren who are undergoing so much for us. We need to remember that:
1. Affiliation with the American Council will not undermine our distinctive reformed witness, on the contrary it will obtain a greater hearing for that witness.
2. It is impossible to delegate ecclesiastical authority to any Council. Ministers are always subject to the discipline of their respective denominations or churches. Committees of the denominations must report to their denominations. Denominations can drop out of the Council or repudiate its decisions at any time.
Now, one can agree or disagree with Clark that cooperation is possible without compromising one's Reformed witness, but this does show that Hart and Muether - who really ought to know better - slandered Clark in suggesting that he himself "hoped the church would become more evangelical than Reformed." Would these men have said the same about Stonehouse, a complainant who - a mere two years after the above report - according to Charles Dennison, "defended OP involvement in the fundamentalist International Council of Christian Churches" (History for a Pilgrim People, pg. 172)? No, Hart and Muether reckon Stonehouse among other members of the "wise leadership" in the OPC, and no mention (let alone insinuation) is given to his evangelicalism. Robbins' vehemence is rather warranted in this case.
It appears Hart and Muether are more or less repeating Van Til (link, minute 13:30-23:30). For example, see his following comment (minute mark 23:02):
...you are not to continue doing what is being done by Dr. Carnell, by Dr. Clark, by Dr. Buswell, and good Christian people who are the "new evangelicals." They are not answering the neo-orthodox. They want to keep in touch with the neo-orthodox, because that's the movement going in theology, and with existentialism in philosophy.
Now, at the end of the lecture, Van Til says Clark is 65. Therefore, the lecture must have been given in 1967 or 1968. This makes sense, since Van Til references a book by Jurgen Moltmann written in 1967 at the very beginning of the lecture.
What that implies, though, is more slander. I really do try to be charitable - and I will continue to do so to the best of my ability - but for Van Til to include Clark among those "not answering the neo-orthodox" but rather wanting "to keep in touch with them" is unacceptable for a man in a position to know better.
Can we believe Van Til really not aware of Clark's book dedicated to refuting Barth published 5 years earlier? Can we believe he was not aware of any articles in which Clark attacked neo-orthodoxy repeatedly and publicly, some as early as 1954 (select examples: link, link, link)? By my count, there more than a dozen published articles - did Van Til read none of these? Then what did he read that evidences his claims about Clark and neo-orthodoxy? He doesn't say, and neither to Hart and Muether state the bases for their claims.
In agreement with Van Til, Clark even charges Carnell with neo-orthodoxy in a letter to Carl Henry on 1/30/1960 (link). But Clark also claims neo-orthodoxy infiltrated Van Til's own thought as early as a 1951 letter (link):
In addition to this group of changes you also mention the reference to Dr. Van Til. So far as the argument is concerned, this section could be deleted, for Dr. Van Til is by no means so important a figure as Brunner. However, he is an excellent example of how neo-orthodoxy has permeated contemporary thinking. Dr. Van Til “adores paradox,” he holds that man’s mind is incapable of knowing any truth, that the Bible from cover to cover is not the truth, and that theological formulations, creeds, and so on are only “pointers” to something unknowable. The dependence on Brunner, even the wording, makes Dr. Van Til an admirable example.
Compare this charge to Van Til's reference to paradox in the same 1967 lecture (minute mark 21:59):
God is God, and his all-comprehensive control and our sense of responsibility will always appear to us apparently contradictory - not really, it isn't. But we have to believe that it isn't.
Regarding this statement: we can acknowledge that Van Til believed Christianity to be consistent while simultaneously denying that we can understand said consistency. The real question is the apologetic double standard this seems to entail - that unbelievers could shrug as Van Til lodges refutations and respond that such as merely examples of paradoxes, not real contradictions. Van Til may even ironically respond that his reference to the necessity of apparent contradictions as compatible with his consistent worldview may itself appear contradictory (yet not be) when compared with an unbeliever who likewise cites the necessity of apparent contradictions as compatible with their consistent worldviews. But insofar as apologetics is a practical enterprise, there is a real challenge here.
If an unbeliever charges Van Til as believing a contradiction (God's sovereignty along with human responsibility), if all Van Til can do is say, "Well, it does seem contradictory but really isn't - I can't explain why, though, I just believe it," he is inhibiting the work of the Spirit. The Spirit works through ordinary people, but only insofar as we are communicating truth. Van Til's position on the necessity of apparent contradictions isn't truthful and can't be supported from Scripture.
Returning to the more important conclusion that should be drawn from the above: a concerning trend among OPC theologians (and even historians) who do not agree with Clark's position in the 1940s debate is a tendency to make historically inaccurate statements about what Clark's positions even are. I won't speculate on the reasons, but it is an unavoidable fact that there are false narratives about Clark's beliefs.
And it really is a shame. Van Til interacts with Clark in other ways in his lecture, some of which are not only deserving of a response but might also touch a sensitive spot in Clark's thought! Very few who know what Clark did think, though, will be inclined to give further hearing to Van Til after his listening to obvious misrepresentations.
I will give Van Til further hearing shortly, but as a side note to the above, there is a case to be made for the true sort of alliance for which Clark sought. Opponents of Clark should instead engage something like the following, which comes from Gary North's Crossed Fingers and virtually implies Clark's view was the same as Machen's (contrary again to the the narrative of Hart of Muether that it was the post-1939 WTS faculty who maintained and preserved the same Reformed testimony as Machen):
The Princetonians were not ecumenists. They did not view the near-term future as a period of legitimate unity among evangelical churches. There can be unity among Christians, they taught, especially in the battle against modernism, but they resisted any alteration of the Confession, which meant that they could not accept Church unity in their day. The other churches would have to adopt the Confession in order for the Princetonians to accept ecclesiastical ecumenism: Church union as distinguished from temporary alliances.
...numerous critics of Machen, in his day and ever since, have argued that his opposition to this union was inconsistent with his later cooperation with fundamentalists and other conservative evangelical organizations. This criticism is misleading. The issue in 1920 was not the legitimacy of alliances, which are permitted by the Bible (Gen. 14:13); the issue was the theological basis of Church covenants. Alliances are not covenants. Alliances are not created by means of a self-maledictory (negative sanctions-invoking) oath before God.(238) Machen never spelled out this distinction by means of covenantal language, for he rarely used covenantal language, but his hostility to Church union was based on his understanding that the fundamental issue was covenant law, not cooperation as such.
More could be said, of course. One could discuss whether it is wrong-headed to protest abortion or feminism with Reformed Baptists or Lutherans, the relevance of the WTS faculty and OPC members who did not want to submit to denominational oversight (Doug Douma touches on this here), whether it's possible that some's acceptance of a Radical Two Kingdoms view has encouraged OPC isolationism, etc. But I think enough has been said on the "new evangelicalism" for this post.
In the spirit of a fair hearing, I now want to interact with the rest of Van Til's lecture. A fair hearing is not only often missing in contemporary engagements in which the thought of one man is typically evaluated through the lens of the other, it's something that was sometimes missed by Clark and Van Til themselves in each's expositions of the other's views. I'm not suggesting I'm unbiased. But I will aim to actually show where both Clark and Van Til were right or wrong. At this stage in history, it really is not enough to merely say that both Van Til and Clark made mistakes. We should be acknowledging what those mistakes were as well as whether these were pointed out to each other.
At any rate, the first meaningful statement involving Clark comes at minute mark 14:36:
Well, there is no other unless they are willing to make use of their own position which is, in Clark's case, the Reformed faith. Now if you are willing, actually, to start with the Christian position in its full expression, in the Reformed confessions, then the only thing you must do and can do is to say, "Well, look, there is no common ground between you and us - to wit, on which we agree as to interpretation. There is a common ground in that you are a creature of God as I am a creature of God. We're both made in the image of God. You don't believe that though, so that's not how you interpret man."
There has been much recent debate about what Van Til meant by "common ground." It doesn't seem that Van Til could be much clearer: the common ground is solely ontological. Not epistemic, not psychological.
As an example, Dr. Keith Mathison recently published Toward a Reformed Apologetics: A Critique of the Thought of Cornelius Van Til. After a youtube discussion between he and James Anderson, I engaged with many admirers of Van Til that Mathison has it all wrong - Van Til taught that unbelievers could believe truth, just not justifiably so.
But is this not completely ruled out by what Van Til says? There is nothing on which we agree as to interpretation. This actually goes back to the 1940s debate. I've spoken on this before, but permit me to cite a fellow complainant of Van Til (against Clark) who, in the presence of Van Til himself and without any correction, said the following (link):
...according to Mr. Kuschke, "Dr. Clark regards man's intellect as occupying such high rank that the understanding of the natural man can grasp the meaning of the words 'Christ died for sinners' 'with the same ease' as the born-again man. If that is the case, the understanding does not need to undergo renewal like the rest of the human personality." Mr. Kuschke quoted and discussed at length the statement of the proposed answer that "regeneration, in spite of the theory of the Complaint, is not a change in the understanding of these words [Christ died for sinners]." He pointed out that the Bible teaches that all of man's faculties are corrupted by sin, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil continually. "If regeneration did not change our understanding of the words 'Christ died for sinners,' " he declared, "then we would never be saved!"
...The supporters of Dr. Clark's theology made valiant effort to defend the statement of the answer that "regeneration... is not a change in the understanding of these words [Christ died for sinners]." Mr. Kuschke, on the other hand, defended the position of the complaint and pointed out that, when content is injected into the sentence, the unregenerate man must invariably inject the wrong content and the regenerate man the true content.
Forget the idea that unbelievers can have true beliefs - what is being affirmed (against Clark protestations) is that unbelievers can't even understand truth. Unbelievers never interpret statements as believers do - i.e. correctly - due to their anti-Christian positions. Do you say you accept the authority of the Bible but believe that we are justified by faith and works? Then you don't really believe we are made in the image of God. You might say you believe it, but your anti-Christian position means your interpretation must be different. If I can attempt an illustration on Van Til's behalf, it would be like if a Nestorian claimed to accept the council of Ephesus. They could only claim such by implicitly or explicitly twisting the meaning of the words of said council.
When I mentioned some of this to Dr. Mathison himself - whose book has recently been delivered as a present and which I plan to read soon - he agreed with my understanding (post 21 here). Dr. Mathison also posted fantastic summaries of and evidences for his position: see posts 17 (the last 4 big paragraphs in particular) and 31-32. There isn't much I need to say by way of refutation of Van Til's position on "common ground." Clark dealt with it long ago, also pointing out, like Dr. Mathison, that Van Til seemed to contradict himself (link):
One important reason for maintaining the distinction between consistent systems and inconsistent persons is that unregenerate persons are thereby permitted to have at least some knowledge. Since the Scriptures base responsibility on knowledge, and since Romans 1:32 assigns to the wicked an amount of moral knowledge sufficient to make them guilty of sin, the evangelical must frame a theory by which this knowledge is shown to be possible. Were a man totally ignorant, he could not be guilty of sin.Clark used "knowledge" in a range of ways. I suspect the definition of "knowledge" he means here is "true belief" (cf. Karl Barth's Theological Method). In other contexts, Clark refutes related theses to Van Til's position on "common ground" (see the subsection "A Subsequent Paper" here). I connect some dots here.
Now, strange as it may seem, although Van Til's statements, quoted above, inexorably imply that the unregenerate are totally ignorant, Van Til makes some contradictory remarks.
You must not do what Dr. Clark does. He believes this position theologically. And then when he goes to defend it, he joins with all other historical Protestant defenders - that is so far as the Butler type of analogy is concerned. "And look," he says, "our position is more logical. And I'll show you that it's more logical, or that it's absolutely logical." But at the at the end of this little article to which I return in the Moody Press publication, "Can I Trust My Bible?" there he says, "but not absolutely because it may all depend." Well, don't you see, that is making possibility - abstract possibility - back of God. Here, God is the source of possibility. Nothing can be or happen except that that which is within and in accordance with the plan of God. Here, he is willing to take all this and to say, "the more logical and more acceptable hypothesis." Now, that's just exactly what Satan wanted man in paradise to do: not to accept this on authority...
Then, at minute mark 19:17 (after praising Clark's determinism and belief in the infallibility of the Bible, Van Til says:
But then why does he turn right around and join all of the historic Arminians, defenders of the Christian faith, in appealing to autonomous man and say, "Look, you've got a hypothesis and we've got a hypothesis. Ours is better than you." Now, why is ours better? Because it's more according to the law of logic. I mean to put law of contradiction. Well, the point is that what we should do - and what Clark as a Calvinist theologian virtually does - is to say that the law of contradiction cannot work in a chance universe. The difference between our position and that of others is not ours it is more logical or less logical. Faith is not a leap in the dark. But neither is faith, don't you see, something that is in accordance with the law of contradiction. The issue is not whether it is more or less in accordance with the law of contradiction. The point is that the law of contradiction cannot operate in a vacuum.
This is quite a lot to cover here. I'll skip the reference to "the Butler type of analogy." Van Til doesn't explain his meaning in this lecture.
Let's start by agreeing with Van Til that we can't start with abstract possibility or hypotheses. If we did, there would be no epistemically helpful criterion for evaluation of said hypotheses (link), so the result would be skepticism. Somewhere in the lecture, Van Til mentions that hypotheses can only function within the system of truth. This is very good, and it indirectly supports Van Til's contention that a transcendental argument for Christianity can be made, involving logic no less (cf. the end of this link; full disclosure, I seem to have misunderstood Van Til here). We can further refine this by noting said argument will not increase our epistemic justification in what we already know apart from inference, but the argument itself can still be useful (link).
With that in mind, Van Til is talking about Clark's article, "How May I Know the Bible is Inspired?" (link). But nowhere in that article does Clark use the word "hypothesis." A charitable interpretation of Van Til would be that he is speaking conceptually based on other evidence. His only evidence, to my understanding, that Clark affirms that whether or not Christianity is true "may all depend" is his reference to what Clark says here:
The more consistent unbelief is, the less can agreement be obtained. So long as the unbeliever is inconsistent, we can force him to make a choice. If he inconsistently admires Jesus Christ or values the Bible, while at the same time he denies plenary and verbal inspiration, we can by logic insist that he accept both – or neither. But we cannot by logic prevent him from choosing neither and denying a common premise. It follows that in logical theory there is no proposition on which a consistent believer and a consistent unbeliever can agree. Therefore the doctrine of inspiration, like every other Christian doctrine, cannot be demonstrated to the satisfaction of a clear-thinking unbeliever.
If, nonetheless, it can be shown that the Bible – in spite of having been written by more than thirty-five authors over a period of fifteen hundred years – is logically consistent, then the unbeliever would have to regard it as a most remarkable accident. It seems more likely that a single superintending mind could produce this result than that it just happened accidentally. Logical consistency, therefore, is evidence of inspiration; but it is not demonstration. Strange accidents do indeed occur, and no proof is forthcoming that the Bible is not such an accident. Unlikely perhaps, but still possible.
Again, this too contains a lot to unpack. There is a fundamental question here: when Clark is speaking of logic, is he speaking of it as the criterion for knowledge to which we must subject Scripture itself? This cannot be (see the following quotes). If Van Til is presupposing that Clark thinks the proof of the Christian position comes by making it answer to the law of contradiction (cf. minute mark 16:13-16:24), this is contrary to Clark's thought:
One who believes in the unity of truth may still believe that the false system entails contradictions; but to prove this is the work of omniscience. (Historiography: Secular and Religious, 1971, pg. 370)
Undoubtedly I hold that truth is a consistent system of propositions. Most people would be willing to admit that two truths cannot be contradictories; and I would like to add that the complex of all truths cannot be a mere aggregate of unrelated assertions. Since God is rational, I do not see how any item of his knowledge can be unrelated to the rest. Weaver makes no comment on this fundamental characteristic of divine truth.
Rather, he questions whether this characteristic is of practical value, and whether it must be supplemented in some way. It is most strange that Weaver here says, “I must agree with Carnell,” as if he had convicted me of disagreeing with Carnell by providing no supplementation whatever. Now, I may disagree with the last named gentleman on many points, but since it is abundantly clear that I “supplement” consistency by an appeal to the Scripture for the determination of particular truths, it is most strange that Weaver ignores my supplementation. (Clark and His Critics, 2009, pg. 290)
In view of this pragmatic dealing with history, its positivistic denial of universal law, of metaphysics, of supernatural interpretation, it may be permitted by way of anticipation to suggest the conclusion that, instead of beginning with facts and later discovering God, unless a thinker begins with God, he can never end with God, or get the facts either. (A Christian Philosophy of Education, 1988, pg. 31)
I am in the process of editing the tapes of your lectures at Gordon-Conwell and am enjoying them immensely. I notice that you read a few unpublished papers; if you would like to publish them or any of them, we’d be glad to put them in the Trinity Review.
I have, of course, several questions that I would like to ask you, but I will bring up only one here. You seem to go out of your way to stress that you are not infallible “at any point.” I believe that is a direction quotation. The statement is repeated several times.
Yet I recall reading in one of your books that you can be infallible any time you wish, simply by reading the infallible word.
So let me pose the question directly: Are you fallible what [when] you say: A is A? Either A or non-A? Not both A and non-A? In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth? In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God? Is it possible that you err when you make these statements? Are you not infallible when you – to use Van Til’s phrase – think God’s thoughts after him?
If your reply is that you remain fallible even when speaking Truth, what implications does your statement have? Are you not implying a neoorthodox theory that says that God’s Truth can be communicated through fallible means?
Is it not one thing to say that all synods and councils may err – and all individuals as well – and another thing to say that they may err at every point?
But perhaps you are attaching a different meaning to infallible than simply “incapable of erring.”
In Heaven, won’t we be infallible at every point?
Here is Clark's disappointing reply:
As for skepticism, you seem to admit that at any time we might make a mistake in geometry. Yet geometry, or math in general, is a subject matter that has less occasions for mistakes than in the more complicated sciences. After you so acknowledge, you turn to axioms. But axioms are not dependent on logical reasons. They are assumed starting points. I do not see how you can be free from the possibility of making a mistake in choosing or in understanding an axiom. Then you write, “Was Peter fallible when he said, ‘You are…the Son of the Living God.’” Then you add, “If he was not, neither are we.” This is an invalid inference. Note that Arius was willing to accept Peter’s words, and he probably was sincere in thinking he understood Peter’s meaning. But Athanasius thought not, John Milton and Isaac Watts agreed more closely with Arius than with Athanasius. Hence when someone quotes Peter’s words, he may not have the same meaning.
And as for logic, I challenge you to give me the meaning of All a is b. And since you seem to say that you could not possibly be mistaken in choosing an axiom, I would like you to explain how.
This is anti-foundationalism. Clark falls suspect to exactly the sort of "suppositionalism" of which Van Til and Bahnsen accuse him. Clark completely fails to answer Robbins' question about heaven and tries to do the impossible: make abstract possibility epistemically prior to truth.
Do we here too we find a late development in Clark's views? It is fascinating that Clark seems to have changed his mind to so many bad positions so late in his life (necessitarianism, occasionalism, Nestorianism, etc). I would need to check my notes, but I wonder if there is some correlation between Clark's retirement from eldership and his increased willingness to [badly] speculate. Age could also be a factor.
On the other hand, this piece of evidence occurs much later than Van Til's lecture. In terms of Clark's thought at the time of 1967 or so, I think Van Til's accusation against Clark holds little water. For instance, Van Til says that Clark's quote from "How May I Know the Bible is Inspired?" comes at the end of the article, but there are actually two full subheadings after the quote. In fact, a mere two paragraphs after the above citation, Clark's cites and agrees Calvin on our ability to know the Bible in a manner completely contradictory to his above letter to Robbins:
Against this claim the Reformers developed the doctrine of the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The belief that the Bible is the Word of God, so they taught, is neither the result of a papal pronouncement nor a conclusion inferred from prior premises; it is a belief which the Holy Spirit himself produces in our minds. Calvin wrote: “It is therefore such a persuasion as requires no reason; such a knowledge as is supported by the highest reason and in which the mind rests with greater security and constancy than in any reasons; in fine, such a sense as cannot be produced but by a revelation from heaven” (Institutes, I.vii.5)...
The second phrase in the quotation from Calvin says that, the mind can rest in this knowledge with greater security than in any reasons. This is obvious because the security of a conclusion can be no greater than that of the premise on which it is based. That the sum of the squares on the other two sides is equal to the square of the hypotenuse cannot be any more certain than the axioms from which it is deduced.
Notice that Clark affirms Calvin's statement as "obvious" and elaborates that our "knowledge" "that the Bible is the Word of God" is either certain or we cannot be certain of whatever we deduce from the Bible qua axiom. Likewise, Clark also consistently taught the self-authenticating nature of divine revelation:
Nothing in Paul suggests that the word of “cooperative investigation” (1:20) is more certain or reliable than the wisdom of God. Is it not strange that for any evangelical, for whom sola Scriptura is the formal principle of theology, should try to base the truth of Scripture on the conclusions of Dr. Albright and Miss Kenyon? For Paul revelation is self-authenticating. Athens, Oxford, and American universities have nothing in common with Jerusalem. (First Corinthians, 1991, pg. 58)
How then could God show to a man that it was God speaking? Suppose God should say, “I will make of you a great nation...and I will bless them that bless you and curse him that curses you.” Would God call the devil and ask Abraham to believe the devil’s corroborative statements? Is the devil’s word good evidence of God’s veracity? It would not seem so. Nor is the solution to be found in God’s appealing to another man in order to convince the doubter. Aside from the fact that this other man is no more of an authority than the devil, the main question reappears unanswered in this case also. What reasons can this man have to conclude that God is making a revelation to him? It is inherent in the very nature of the case that the best witness to God’s existence and revelation is God himself. There can be no higher source of truth. God may, to be sure, furnish “evidence” to man. He may send an earthquake, a fire, or still small voice; he may work spectacular miracles, or, as in the cases of Isaiah and Peter, he may produce inwardly an awful consciousness of sin, so that the recipient of the revelation is compelled to cry out, “Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips.” But whether it be an external spectacle or an inward “horror or great darkness,” all of this is God’s witnessing to himself. (A Christian View of Men and Things, 2005, pgs. 182-183)
What is a claim that God's revealed word is self-authenticating other than the one can be non-inferentially, epistemically justified and know that God's revealed word is authentic, genuine, and true? I think the evidence suggests Clark changed his mind than that he held "suppositionalism" throughout his life.
No one's theology nor historical accuracy in this post has been entirely without fault. I myself am capable of misrepresenting all of these men, but I have tried to document my position with specific examples. This is the sort of topic that probably requires a book-length treatment for anything resembling a resolution of views which have been argued for 80 years. It will probably require someone who has read both men and others deeply. This is challenging, because there are important documents (at least by or involving Clark) that remain publicly unavailable or unread. In time, I hope that changes.
For more on the idea Clark accepted "suppositionalism" or had a worldview in which he fundamentalized hypotheticals, see here.
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