Gordon Clark: Personal Notes on Buswell’s review of A Christian View of Men and Things

The following are notes Clark wrote in the margins of Buswell's critical review of Clark's book, A Christian View of Men and Things. I've written Clark's notes below (leaving out spelling and other editorial corrections he made of Buswell's review. In [brackets], I outline what Buswell wrote that I think the note by Clark is meant to correspond. Notes are separated by --------------------, and any underlining (used for emphasis) are Clark's own. One can read the original notes here to check whether my interpretation in brackets make sense.

These notes appear to be a precursor to a published review Buswell wrote on Clark's book here. To this publication, Clark published his own reply here, which generally follow the notes below. They also contain slightly additional content to Clark's published reply. 

c.1952. Personal Notes on Buswell’s review of A Christian View of Men and Things

Not the point [Clark’s reply to Buswell that “Christian doctrine that God has ordained that governments shall rule and that they shall be instituted through human instrumentality” (emphasis Clark)]

Granted kings may be a human creation, but do [these]? human creators give their creations just powers [Clark has an arrow pointing to this note from his other note that Buswell’s above statement is “Not the point”]

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Do the angels use coercion? [Clark’s reply to Buswell’s statement that “Now certainly coercion is analytically a part of the idea of fatherhood as the word is used in the Scriptures. Moreover, among the angels who know no sin we have indications of authority, government, and relationships involving superiority, subordination, and presumably coercion. The words “angels and archangels” are not meaningless.”]

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Kindly cite your evidence [Clark’s reply to Buswell’s statement that “Clark is quite wrong in saying the context that the idea these proofs are not logically or mathematically demonstrative is “contrary to the Catholic” position.” I think that Buswell is saying that “Thomas Aquinas and the Roman Catholics” believe, like the Protestants Clark alludes to in A Christian View of Men and Things, “that traditional arguments from nature to the existence of God are not logically or mathematically demonstrative.” Clark wants evidence for Buswell's assessment about Aquinas and/or Catholics.]

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? Hodge said precisely what I said.

Calvin has no demonstrative proofs. [Both of these statements by Clark are in reply to pushback Buswell offers against Clark’s original statement in A Christian View of Men and Things that “Protestant theologians… usually repudiate natural theology”]

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This is not the cosmological argument [Clark’s reply to Buswell’s suggestion that a citation he makes of Calvin contains a cosmological argument]

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How know the Law comes from God [Clark’s response to Buswell’s evidentialist argument that “Isaiah clearly required that circumstantial evidence, namely, conformity to the Law and Testimony, should be used by the people to discriminate between the voice of God and the voice of a false prophet.”]

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Irrelevant [Clark's response next to a paragraph in which Buswell affirms first principles and basic presuppositions but “repudiates the assumption that these foundations may not be questioned or re-examined or substantiated and reinforced.”]

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? [Written next to a statement by Buswell that Clark has not provided constructive support or any great system of Christian doctrine.]

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What truth is this! [Clark's reply to Buswell's introduction of the idea of a “truth not yet so embodied [in propositions].”

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This is not nonprop. [Clark's reply to an attempt by Buswell to give an example of a non-propositional truth. Buswell actually gives an example of a proposition and seemingly conflates "propositions" with what might be called "discoveries" (e.g. propositions which men do not yet known because their truth-value has not yet been discovered).]

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Quite so. And God is eternal mind. [Clark writes this in reference to a paragraph by Buswell summarizing Clark’s argument that "Without a mind, truth would not exist."]

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? [Clark writes this note next to Buswell's statement that "truth, in ordinary usage, may not be formulated in proposition."]

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Why not? [Asked in response to Buswell’s claim that the fact “God has always known all truth does not in the least imply that being known to a mind is of the essential character of the truth as such.”]

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i.e. as a premise

quite so [both replies to Clark’s own argument that "if God is known through nature this would make God dependent upon nature." Clark equates "through" with "as a premise" and further accepts Buswell’s analogy that Clark must think that if we know God through truth, then God is dependent upon truth.]

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2 thoughts may but need not be the same. [Clark's reply to a misunderstanding by Buswell, who suggests a thought about Mr. Shasta today is not evidently the same as his thought about it yesterday.]

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Isn’t God a Spirit? [Clark’s reply to Buswell taking exception to Clark’s saying “God’s mind is God” simpliciter.]

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Quite so [Clark's reply to Buswell's question, “Does [a wicked man or Satan himself] have "a vision of God" or have "contact with God's mind"?" just because these wicked individuals may know any truth.]

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Not so

No [Buswell thinks Clark attempts to prove God exists by the existence of truth and compares this to the cosmological argument. Clark denies that he attempts to do this.]

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Where is the observational proof? [Clark’s reply to Buswell's attempt to point out an inconsistency between a statement by Clark that “science… is incapable of arriving at any truth” by comparison to another statement "by Clark" in a following paragraph about “a philosopher [who]... stated the exact truth...”]

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? [Written by Clark next to a statement by Buswell about what Clark would have done if he really were - according to Buswell - using the word “truth” in a consistent manner across various pages in A Christian View of Men and Things.]

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No [Clark refuses Buswell’s identification of Clark’s position with A. J. Carlson, the latter of whom Clark quotes as divorcing faith or belief from knowledge.]