Professor Handspicker holds that I missed the point in my reply to Mr. Yeaman and insists that I should either prove the historical existence of the Hittites or keep quiet about the fact that orthodoxy has always accepted them as historical.
First, I disclaim any such obligation in a short reply to Mr. Yeaman. It seems to me legitimate to assume that the historicity of the Hittites is commonly acknowledged today. The evidence, on display in the Oriental Institute, cannot be put in this column.
Second, Mr. Yeaman assumed that a certain discovery settled the unimportance of the Virgin Birth; and his argument presupposes that the acceptance of discoveries is an intellectual obligation. I put the word discoveries in quotation marks to suggest that the alleged discoveries of scholars (in the past hundred years) often have been false conclusions. Professor Handspicker takes my quotation marks as evidence of shut eyes and a closed mind. On the contrary I have with open eyes seen clearly these nineteenth century blunders.
Third, when Professor Handspicker asserts that both Mr. Yeaman and I, at a certain point, express our theological commitment and not our scholarship, he makes a disjunction which, though common, is in my opinion faulty. The conclusions of scholarship are invariably related to the scholar's theology. This is the reason, I believe, why the existence of the Hittites was denied.
Now, finally, if my faith were based on the changing opinions of scholars, then indeed it would have a shaky foundation. Since Professor Handspicker does not tell us what foundation he would identify as a rock, it would be inappropriate to embark on further speculation here, for I judge that he and I would not agree as to what the criterion of truth is. But can anyone doubt that the orthodox acceptance of the Hittites was correct and that the scholarly discoveries were false? Gordon H. Clark
Butler University
Indianapolis, Ind.
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