An upcoming review of Scripturalism and the Senses (link) will involve responding to Greg Bahnsen's critiques of Gordon Clark. Coincidentally, a friend today asked me about a Van Til quote from his An Introduction to Systematic Theology - a quote also found, I believe, in Greg Bahnsen's Van Til's Apologetic (pg. 299) - and in which Van Til took issue with an anti-atheistic argument provided by Clark. The quote was as follows:
That even Reformed philosophers and theologians do not always make full use of the riches found in Calvin's Institutes may be briefly pointed out by a reference to the work of Gordon H. Clark, A Christian Philosophy of Education. He says that the position of the atheist and pantheist in actually or virtually denying that there is a creator is untenable. If a discoverer of an uninhabited island were to search its confines for a particular form of animal life he might fail to find it. "He could not be sure, however, that the particular animal had never lived on the island, because, even though the search had been diligent, still tomorrow the remains might be discovered. Similarly, it is clear that no finite amount of searching could rationally lead one to deny the existence of God. During the time of the atheist's investigation of this earth, it just might be that God was hiding on the other side of the moon, and if some rocket should take the atheist to the moon, there is no reason to hold that God might not go over to Jupiter - for the express purpose of inconveniencing the atheist" (p. 44). But a God who can thus escape to the moon or to Jupiter is not inconveniencing the atheist at all. On the contrary, he shows himself to be so finite, so insignificant, that the atheist can cover the whole earth without being confronted by him. This is the exact reverse of the teaching of Calvin, based on Paul, that God is divinity and power, being always and everywhere so obviously present that he who says there is no God is a fool. The foolishness of the denial of the Creator lies precisely in the fact that this Creator confronts man in every fact so that no fact has any meaning for man except it be seen as God's creation.
Emphasis mine. The above gives me opportunity to not only make some preliminary remarks but also tie in a few things I mentioned in this review, which included interaction with Plantinga's thought. A few points.
I see nothing wrong with Clark's point in the citation. In fact, what Clark is doing is something which Plantinga often does... only reverse: Plantinga often responds to de jure objections against Christianity, whereas Clark is here offering a de jure objection against atheism (not a de facto objection). That is, he is questioning the rationality of the atheist, not the truth of his belief.
Now, Clark is not admitting that it is possible God does not exist, God is actively hiding, etc. Van Til doesn't seem to understand that Clark is not arguing that God does not confront the atheist in fact (link); rather, Clark is arguing that even if God didn't confront the atheist, atheism is irrational. Clark does think God confronts the atheists, but even so, Clark gives context to this confrontation:
The Scripture speaks of the law of God as written on the hearts of men; it teaches that man was made in God’s image and has an innate knowledge that right is different from wrong and that God punishes wrong. But the Scripture also teaches that man suppresses this knowledge by his wickedness, that he does not wish to retain God in his knowledge, and that God has given him over to a reprobate mind. (A Christian Philosophy of Education, 1988, pg. 96)
Speaking of Paul, whom Van Til mentions in the aforementioned quote, is Clark's de jure method of argumentation so different that the hypothetical argument Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 15:16-19? Did Paul actually think Christ was not raised from the dead? In context, obviously not. Likewise (and, again, in context), Clark is not admitting the possibility that God does not exist:
When now the theist speaks of theism as a practical postulate, he is not indulging in any “as-if” philosophy. He means that God exists and that one should conduct his daily life by that belief. It is called a postulate because it is an indemonstrable first principle and not a theorem derived from more ultimate premises. (A Christian Philosophy of Education, 1988, pgs. 42-43)
So much for Van Til's criticism. Regarding atheism, Clark made other points in the same book of which Van Til and Bahnsen should have taken notice before suggesting Clark was not in step with Calvin or Paul. But I will leave that aside for now.
The main point I wish to make in this post is that Clark originally wrote A Christian Philosophy of Education in 1946. Scripturalists who are now recommending Plantinga or other Reformed Epistemologists as supplements to Clark (and Mr. Lazar is not the only one) would do well to recognize, if they don't already, that much of what they are recommending are arguments that Clark himself already made over 75 years ago. For example, while the label of "de jure" argumentation in the context of apologetics may have been recently popularized, the application of the concept is not new.
Or consider "Plantinga's" EAAN ("Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism"), an apologetic argument Mr. Lazar mentions in his book and of which he credits Arthur Balfour and C. S. Lewis as being forerunners. He may has well have credited Clark himself as a forerunner, for even before C. S. Lewis published his book on miracles or argued with Elizabeth Anscombe, Clark wrote (again, in the very same book from which we have been reading thus far!):
This nontheistic, naturalistic view is difficult to accept because it implies that the mind, too (as well as the body) is an evolutionary product rather than a divine image. Instead of using eternal principles of logic, the mind operates with the practical results of biological adaptation. Concepts and propositions neither reach the truth nor even aim at it. Our equipment has evolved through a struggle to survive. Reason is simply the human method of handling things. It is a simplifying and therefore falsifying device. There is no evidence that our categories correspond to reality. Even if they did, a most unlikely accident, no one could know it; for to know that the laws of logic are adequate to the existent real, it is requisite to observe the real prior to using the laws. But if this ever happened with subhuman organisms, it never happens with the present species man. If now the intellect is naturally produced, different types of intellect could equally well be produced by slightly different evolutionary processes. Maybe such minds have been produced, but are now extinct like the dinosaurs and dodos. This means, however, that the concepts or intuitions of space and time-the law of contradiction, the rules of inference-are not fixed and universal criteria of truth, but that other races thought in other terms. Perhaps future races will also think in different terms. John Dewey insisted that logic has already changed and will continue to change. If now this be the case, our traditional logic is but a passing evolutionary moment; our theories-dependent on this logic-are temporary reactions, parochial social habits, and Freudian rationalizations; and therefore the evolutionary theory, produced by these biological urges, cannot be true.
The difference between naturalism and theism-between the latest scientific opinions on evolution and creation; between the Freudian animal and the image of God; between belief in God and atheism-is based on their two different epistemologies. Naturalism professes to learn by observation and analysis of experience; the theistic view depends on Biblical revelation. No amount of observation and analysis can prove the theistic position. Of course, no amount of observation and analysis can prove evolution or any other theory. The secular philosophies all result in total skepticism. In contrast, theism bases its knowledge on divinely revealed propositions. They may not give us all truth; they may even give us very little truth; but there is no truth at all otherwise. So much for the secular alternative. (A Christian Philosophy of Education, 1988, pgs. 137-139)
Clark clearly anticipated any EAAN. To conclude: I don't think Clark's epistemology is as much in need of Plantinga's apologetics as Plantinga's apologetics is in need of Clark's epistemology.
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