Winter 1946/1947. Studies in the Doctrines of the Complaint (PCA Archives and SDCS)
STUDIES IN THE DOCTRINES OF "THE COMPLAINT"
Serious doctrinal issues have been raised in The Orthodox Presbyterian Church during the years 1944-1946. The thirteenth General Assembly elected five ministers to study these doctrines so as to protect the Church from error. It is the conviction of many of the ministers that the Doctrines of The Complaint are not the doctrines of the Word of God or of our subordinate standards. We believe that in several respects The Complaint goes beyond the Confession and is contrary to the historic position of the Reformed Churches. This paper is one of several which, appearing during the winter of 1946-1947, aim to preserve the original position of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Gordon H. Clark
THE PHILOSOPHY OF “THE COMPLAINT.”
At the General Assembly of May 1946, following a speech by
Dr. Van Til, I began a defense of my position. As it took fifty minutes to
complete the introduction, wisdom dictated that the Assembly take a recess. The
remaining days of the Assembly seemed to me to offer no compelling moment for
the main part of my speech. And therefore I take this opportunity to present
some of the main material. As an introduction to this paper I should like to
indicate my own position on the incomprehensibility of God, and then by way of
contrast discuss the theory of the Complaint.
It may be remembered that at the General Assembly I
expressed my whole hearted approval of that early portion of Dr. Van Til’s
address, in which he summarized the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God.
With his explicit remarks in that part of the speech, I agree.
Furthermore, with some of the material in the Complaint
contains several columns of quotations from standard reformed writers. These
writers are important representatives of Calvinism, and yet they are not
infallible. Since, too, the quotations were selected to fit the tenor of the
Complaint, it may be that these quotations contain unguarded statements. At
least, the quotations may possibly be so made as to alter the intention of the
authors.
For example, in The Complaint, page 3, column 2, Charnock is quoted as saying, “it is utterly impossible either to behold him or comprehend him.” As quoted in the Complaint, this may give a wrong impression.
Charnock in the context is talking about literal vision with the physical eyes.
In this sense it is, as he says, impossible to “behold” a pure Spirit. But the
doctrine of the Complaint, as will be shown, implies that it is utterly
impossible to contemplate or behold God with the mind. This is not the force of
Charnock’s paragraph; and it is not true. The complainants, by omitting the
information that Charnock is speaking of physical sensation, attempt to make it
appear that Charnock supports their own, very different, position.
However, if these quotations be detached from the Complaint,
the following sentences in particular state nothing else than the truth, as I
see it. With these statements I fully agree.
“We cannot have an adequate or suitable conception of God”
(Charnock).
“It is utterly impossible to have a notion of God commensurate
to the immensity and spirituality of his being” (Charnock).
When it is said that God can be known, it is not meant that
he can be comprehended. To comprehend is to have a complete and exhaustive
knowledge of an object. It is to understand its nature and relations… God is
past finding out. We cannot understand the Almighty to perfection” (Charles Hodge).
In this excellent statement by Charles Hodge, attention
should particularly be drawn to his definition of comprehend. It seems
that neither side in the present controversy has always used the term in this
exact meaning. Clarity would be more perfectly attained if all of us could
limit ourselves to this one meaning. But the force of English usage had led us
to think of incomprehensibility as meaning unintelligibility. And it seems to
me that the Complaint teachers rather the unintelligibility or the
irrationality of God than the incomprehensibility of God in Hodge’s sense of
the term.
The Answer, which still deserves more thorough study
by all those interested in the present matter, was written with the Complaint
sharply in view. In opposition to the Complaint’s view that incomprehensibility
means irrationality or unknowability, the Answer defends the view of Charles
Hodge that “to comprehend is to have a complete and exhaustive
knowledge.” This meaning does not require the conclusion that God cannot be
known at all. It means rather that we cannot know all about God. Therefore, in
its account of the doctrine, the Answer put in the very first place an
assertion that incomprehensibility must not be so understood as to deny that
God can reveal truth. With this foremost assertion of the possibility of
revelation the Answer gives a fair, even if not as “adequate” account of the
doctrine. Since I am one of its authors, it obviously represents my views.
The Answer, page 9, says, “Dr. Clark contends that the doctrine of the incomprehensibility
of God as set forth in Scripture and in the Confession of Faith includes the
following points: 1. The essence of God’s being is incomprehensible to man
except as God reveals truths concerning his own nature; 2 The manner of
God’s knowing, an eternal intuition, is impossible for man; 3. Man can never
know exhaustively and completely God’s knowledge of any truth in all its
relationships and implications; because every truth has an infinite number
of relationships and implications, these must ever, even in heaven, remain inexhaustible for man. 4. But, Dr. Clark maintains,
the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God does not mean that
a proposition, e.g. two times two are four, has one meaning for man
and a qualitatively different meaning for God, or that some truth is
conceptual and other truth is non-conceptual in nature.”
But while these several quotations all reflect sound doctrine,
this sound doctrine may be, and in the case of the Complaint part of it
has been embedded in a document which by its philosophy and epistemology
deviates from the sound doctrine it quotes. Sometimes, as in the case
of Dr. Van Til’s address in General Assembly, the complainants summarize
the doctrine quite acceptably; but when they develop their
views, as they have in the Complaint, it is seen that their epistemology
so distorts the doctrine that the resultant whole cannot logically be regarded
as reformed. The source of the difficulty and the chief issue between the
two parties is epistemological. The men who wrote the Answer maintain the
position of Warfield, Hodge, Charnock, and Calvin. That the Complaint does
not consistently hold this position, but that it alters and vitiates the
doctrine by an untenable epistemology, it is the aim of this paper to
prove.
To this end the paper discusses first,
the Philosophic Background of the Complaint; second the The
Philosophy of the Complaint; third, A Subsequent Paper; and
fourth, The Biblical Doctrine.
THE PHILOSOPHIC BACKGROUND
The necessity of examining the philosophic background of the Complaint is seen in the fact that certain members of the Assembly openly admitted that they did not understand the issues and accordingly based their votes on their confidence in the ability and scholarship of the complainants. Now, it is not unreasonable for people to follow their trusted leaders when they cannot judge the merits of a case for themselves. But there comes a time to examine the basis of such confidence. A perpetual and blind following of any human leader is not the mark of an educated and conscientious person. The Rev. Robert H. Graham, in a letter dated July 8 1946, speaks of the authors of the Complaint as theological giants. That is his privilege. It is the privilege of all to examine the evidence to see if his estimate is supported by a study of their writings.
Dr. Van Til’s views are obviously the philosophic background
of the Complaint. Therefore to understand the Complaint, one must examine
the philosophy of Dr. Van Til. Now, his views were formed partly by his study
of the history of philosophy; and it is also true that his interpretations
of history of philosophy is colored by his views. Inasmuch as he has
written at length on this history, let us first examine his work in this
easily tested field.
To show how Dr. Van Til expounds the views of
other men, let us first turn to his Syllabus on Apologetics, page
84, where he is discussing medieval philosophy. He says, “In stating the
problem (whether universals are ante rem, in re, or post rem)
the scholastics fails to distinguish between God and man. They did not ask
first whether the ideas of universals were prior to a thing known in the
case of God, in order then in a separate question to ask whether the
universals were prior to a thing in the case of man.” Now contrast Dr. Van
Til’s understanding of medieval philosophy with that of Windelband, History
of Philosophy and, History of Philosophy, page 299: “Even Abelard,
however, explains this likeness of character in a multiplicity
of individuals upon the hypothesis that God created the world according
to archetypes which he carried in his mind. Thus according to his view,
the universals existed firstly, before the things, as conceptus
mentis in God; secondly, in the things, as likenesses of the
essential characteristics of individuals; thirdly, after the things, in
the human understanding as its concepts and predicates acquired
by comparative thought (italics, Windelband’s)... As regards the real
question at issue he had advanced so far that it was essentially
his theory that became the ruling doctrine in the formula accepted by the
Arabian philosophers – Avicenna – ‘universalia ante multiplicitatem, in
multiplicitate, et post mutiplicitatem;’ to universals belongs equally a
significance ante rem as regards the divine mind, in rea as regards
Nature, and post rem as regards human knowledge. And since Thomas
and Duns Scotus in the main agreed with this view, the problem of universals,
which, to be sure, has not yet been solved, came to a preliminary rest, to
come again into the foreground when Nominalism was revived.”
It is clear that Dr. Van Til says that the scholastics
did not do what as a matter of well known fact they did do. It should
be specifically noted that this is not just a question of interpretation.
Someone might want to defend Dr. Van Til on the ground that every
philosopher proposes his own interpretations of the previous philosophers.
One man has one view of the scholastics and another man has a different
view, and Dr. Van Til is entitled to his. This is not the case at issue.
The point is that Dr. Van Til has not correctly represented the views in
question. He has said that the scholastics failed to do what as a matter
of plain historical fact they did do.
But in The Principles of Philosophy, Part Two, Descartes states
his second thesis as “How we likewise know that the human body is closely
connected with the mind.” In Part Four of the same work, section 189, Descartes says, “We
must know, therefore, that although the human soul is united to the whole
body, it has, nevertheless, its principal seat in the brain...” And a few lines
below: “the movements which are thus excited in the brain by the nerves
variously affect the soul or mind, which is intimately conjoined with the brain...”
Cf. passim. Again, as in the case of the scholastics, there
seems to be a discrepancy between Dr. Van Til’s account and the sources.
Dr. Van Til continues, in his Christian Theistic Evidences, to
say, “Descartes thought of the mind in exclusively intellectual terms. ‘L’ame
pense toujours’ was the principle of his psychology. The emotional and the
volitive were disregarded.” But it should not be forgotten that Descartes wrote
a volume On the Passions of the Soul. A brief indication that
Descartes did not disregard the volitional and the emotional aspects of
man’s nature is found in Article 18 of this work: “Our volitions are of
two kinds...” And then Descartes goes on to distinguish them. Article 41
of the same work says, “The will is so free in its nature that it can
never be constrained...” Article 45 says, “Our passions cannot be directly excited or removed by the action of the will; but they can be indirectly through the representation (or, imagination) of things which are customarily joined with the passions...”
Nor is it necessary to confine the evidence to Descartes work On the Passions of the Soul. The Meditations themselves show that Dr. Van Til is not altogether accurate. In Meditation IV Descartes explains error on the ground of a certain relation between the understanding and the will: “I observe that these (errors) depend on the concurrence of the two causes, viz. the faculty of cognition which I possess, and that of election or the power of free choice -- in other words, the understanding and the will.” Then Descartes continues for a few pages to discuss the will, in spite of the fact that Dr. Van Til asserts that Descartes disregarded the volitional aspect of man’s personality. Further evidence will be found in Descartes’ Reply to the Second Objection.
Then Dr. Van Til continues: “The mind of man
was thought of as being independent of God.” How could this assertion
be made when two thirds the way through Meditation III Descartes writes: “I
possess the perception (notion) of the infinite before that of the finite; that
is, the perception of God before that of myself, for how could I know that
I doubt, desire, or that something is wanting to me, and that I am not
wholly perfect, if I possessed no idea of a being more perfect than myself, by
comparison of which I knew the deficiencies of my nature?”
A little further on Descartes writes: “I am desirous
to inquire further whether I, who possess this idea of God, could
exist supposing there were no God...” And then he goes on to argue at
considerable length that first he could not be dependent on himself;
second, that he could not be dependent on his parents; third, that there
could not be several causes as the ultimate explanation of his being;
and then for some pages Descartes stresses his dependence on God. Finally
he says, “And in truth it is not to be wondered at that God at my creation
implanted this idea (of God) in me, that it might serve, as it were, for
the mark of the workman impressed on his work.” And then, “I not only
find that I am an incomplete (imperfect), and dependent being,... but at
the same time I am assured likewise that he upon whom I am dependent
possesses in himself all the goods after which I aspire... and that
he is thus God.” But Dr. Van Til asserts that Descartes thought of
the mind of man as independent of God!
Dr. Van Til’s book, The New Modernism, is also faulty in
its understanding of philosophy. On page 11 he says, “Leibniz thought it
was possible for man, by means of a refined logical apparatus, to learn to
distinguish one penguin from another.”
Now, Leibniz, in his Discourse on Metaphysics,
VIII, (where he is talking about Alexander the Great instead of penguins)
says “God, however, seeing the individual concept, or haecceity, of
Alexander, sees there at the same time the basis and reason of all the
predicates which can be truly uttered regarding him; for instance that he
will conquer Darius... - facts which we can learn only
through history.” Ibidem XIII:: “If anyone were capable of carrying
out a complete demonstration by virtue of which he could prove this
connection of the subject... with the predicate,… he would bring us to
see” etc. Apparently therefore Leibniz teaches that man is not capable of
distinguishing one person or one penguin from another by pure logic.
Bearing on the same subject, even if not so directly, is ibidem V: “To
know in particular, however, the reasons which have moved
him (God) to choose this order of the universe... - this passes the
capacity of a finite mind, above all when such a mind has not come into
the joy of the vision of God.” This passage places limitations
on human knowledge which Dr. Van Til apparently misses
in Leibniz.
Dr. Van Til continues on page 11 to say, “All
knowledge, he contended, that is all true knowledge, is speculative
or analytical at bottom. By working up the contents of your mind you
may eventually learn all the fields of truth and all they contain.”
Now, if the word analytical be omitted, the phrase all true knowledge (what would false knowledge be?) and the word, speculative, in Dr. Van Til’s sentence are sufficiently vague
to make the sentence true in some sense or other. But Leibniz never taught
that all knowledge was analytical. In the Discourse XIII, Leibniz teaches that
some truths are not analytical, but contingent. Some predicates cannot
be obtained from their subjects by the law of contradiction; and even
in God’s perfect knowledge, the “demonstration” of the predicate is not as
absolute as are those of numbers or geometry. The contrary does not imply
a contradiction, and hence not all truth is analytic. Cf. further, On the
Ultimate Constitution of Things, of Nov. 23, 1697.
In view of these items that have now been analyzed,
it is necessary to conclude that there are historical inaccuracies in Dr.
Van Til’s treatment of philosophy. Since the items analyzed are not
matters of delicate interpretation where one man’s opinion is almost as
good as another’s, but are matters of historical fact, the reader is
cautioned not to accept Dr. Van Til’s every statement without examination.
And if caution is required in the purely historical portion of his work,
it would seem reasonable to use even more caution in the study of his
constructive argumentation. What it is important to see is that the
philosophic background of the Complaint is not to be accepted uncritically.
In view of this philosophic background one has prima facie reason to suspect
the epistemology and apologetics of the Complaint. It must be clear to anyone
who has studied that document that its ideas and accusations are
largely based on Dr. Van Til’s views, and hence the truth and the accuracy
of the philosophic work behind the Complaint are of tremendous importance
in estimating its value. Not that the Complaint should be condemned on mere
suspicion: the suspicion will be verified by an examination of the document
itself.
THE COMPLAINT AND ITS PHILOSOPHY
Of all the documents in the present controversy
the Complaint is the most important. It is not the impromptu answers
of a single person to a barrage of questions, but it is the result of
extended collaboration. Any mistake that one person might have made on the
spur of the moment had to pass the inspection of, and would be corrected
by, all the other authors. Hence its wording must be considered the most
accurate possible; and its presentation must be the most authoritative
presentation of the views of those men. It was written, signed, and
published by Professor R.B. Kuiper, Professor Paul Woolley,
Professor Cornelius Van Til, Professor Edward J. Young—five members of the
faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary, and also by Mr. Arthur W.
Kuschke and Mr. Leslie W. Sloat, who were at that time connected with the
Seminary. (Six other men, not so directly connected with the Seminary,
also collaborated.) Hence the Complaint must be considered as the actual
position of the large majority of the Westminster faculty. Note in
particular that a Complaint against a Presbytery is always a serious matter.
And this Complaint speaks of an unblushing humanistic rationalism and
vicious independence of God. The awfulness of this charge, and the
widespread publicity given to the document, all show that this must have
been the most carefully prepared statement that these professors
could make. It must accurately express their deepest convictions. Let us
then examine this most important document.
The Complaint admits that Dr. Clark distinguishes between
what may be called the divine psychology and human psychology in the act
of knowing. God’s mode of knowing is intuitive, while man’s is always
temporal and discursive. This distinction, the Complaint claims,
is insufficient; a further distinction is needed. It is
obvious therefore that the complainants hold to a two-fold theory of
something in addition to a two-fold theory of the act of knowing.
Note too that the difference they wish to establish between
God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge is not that God knows and man does not
know all the implications of a given truth. This, of course, is true, but
it is not the distinction the Complaint insists upon. The Complaint
insists on a two-fold theory of something connected with a single truth itself, quite apart from its implications (cf. The Complaint, p.6, col. 2).
A little examination will show that this other something, of which the complainants say they are two kinds - one for God and one for man, is the truth itself. The Complaint teaches a two-layer theory of truth. On page 5, col. 1, it says, “Dr. Clark denies that there is any qualitative difference between the contents of the knowledge of God and the contents of the knowledge possible to man.” Since they make this as an objection, it must be that they assert a qualitative difference between the contents of the knowledge of God and the contents of the knowledge possible to man.
At this point the important question arises, what are the contents
of one’s knowledge Obviously the contents of one’s knowledge are the truths
one knows. The only answer to the question, what does one know?
is a list of the truths known. Truth is the object and content of knowledge.
The contents of God’s knowledge are the truth he knows, and the contents
of a man’s knowledge are the truth the man knows. The Complaint maintains
that these two sets of truths are qualitatively different.
This qualitative difference between the truths God knows and the truths that man knows is further emphasized in The Complaint, page 5, col. 2, bottom. Again as an unacceptable conclusion from Dr. Clark’s views they state, “a proposition would have to have the same meaning for man as for God.” Since this is unacceptable to them, the Complaint must teach that a proposition does not have the same meaning for man as for God. Propositions therefore have two meanings. ‘David was king of Israel’ means one thing for us; it means something different for God. What is means for God, we cannot know because the meaning God has is qualitatively different from ours, and man can never have God’s meanings.
The culmination of this argument in the Complaint The culmination of this argument in the Complaint is reached in the next column: p.5, col. 3. To make sure that everyone would understand that this is the crux of the matter, to make everyone see that this is the distinction between God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge that the doctrine of incomprehensibility requires, the complainants have put it in italics. Here is found the main point of the whole discussion. The Complaint says, “we dare not maintain that his knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point” (italics theirs).
Note well that the complainants are not content to
say that God’s knowledge differs from man’s in certain ways, such as
in its extent and in its mode. They insist that there is no point of
contact whatever. Not a single point. Far from denying that there is a single
point of coincidence, I maintain that there is an area of coincidence.
That area includes, “David was king of Israel,’ and ‘Jesus was born at
Bethlehem,’ and several other items. These are the points where God’s
knowledge and man’s knowledge coincide. The propositions mean to
the man who knows them, to the man who grasps their meaning, exactly what
they mean to God, although God, as was said knows implications of these
propositions that man does not know; but the truth itself is the same for
man as it is for God. If a man does not grasp God’s truth, he grasps
no truth at all, for there is no other truth than God’s truth. God knows
all truth. And if a man grasps any truth at all, since it is God’s truth,
that truth is a point or even an area of coincidence.
The Complaint, on the other hand, makes the truth God has
qualitatively different from the ‘truth’ man has. There is not a single
point in common. Whatever meaning God has, man cannot have. And since the
Bible teaches that God has all truth, it must follow on the theory of
the Complaint that man has no truth. The theory of the Complaint is
therefore skepticism.
Another passage in the Complaint serves to make the matter still more clear. A paragraph above has discussed the meaning of content. The Complaint itself specifies the sense
in which it uses this term. On page 7 col. 3, it states another unacceptable conclusion in propositions these words: “This knowing of propositions cannot, in the nature of the case,
reflect or inspire recognition by man of his relation to God, for the
simple reason that the propositions have the same content, mean the same,
to God and man.” Note that these last few words equate same content with
mean the same, Thus it is clear that according to the Complaint the content
is the meaning. And it follows that the Complaint holds that
propositions do not mean the same thing for God as they do for men. There
is no point of coincidence between the meaning a man has and the
meaning God has.
No one therefore can logically avoid the
conclusion that the Complaint teaches a skeptical two-layer theory
of truth. A proposition is its meaning. A proposition is not the
sound waves in the air; a proposition is not the ink marks on paper; a
proposition is not the words used. Mens semper cogitat; l’âme pense
toujours; the mind always thinks: these are not three propositions—they
are one and the same proposition, one and the same truth
(or, falsehood), because they are identical in meaning. The Complaint
holds that God has one set of meanings, and man has another set (if he
have any at all). There is not a single point of coincidence.
The application of this skeptical theory to the practical
matter of the preaching of the Gospel is also seen in the last quotation. The
Complaint said, “This knowing of propositions cannot, in the nature of the
case, reflect or inspire any recognition by man of his relation to God, for the
simple reason that the propositions have the same content, mean the same, to
God and man.”
The Complaint here teaches that if a man had the same meaning
God had of a proposition, (such as, Christ died for sin), he could not for that
very reason recognize his relation to God. Before a man can be inspired to
recognize his relation to God, he must put on propositions a meaning different
from God’s. Why is this? What use would the Bible be to us, if its words could
not mean the same thing to us as they do to God? And what sort of a God is it
that could not express, could not reveal, his meaning to man? Or, conversely,
how could sentences that mean one thing to God and something else to man
reflect or inspire any proper recognition by man of his relation to God? The
import of the Complaint in this passage seems to render the preaching of the
Gospel futile.
And therefore the Complaint, collaborated upon, signed, and
published by a majority of the Westminster faculty, teaches a two-layer
theory of truth. And its theory is not in accord with Reformed theology.
It is a theory of skepticism that should be attacked and refuted,
rather than defended and inculcated, by a faculty subscribing to the
Westminster Confession.
A SUBSEQUENT PAPER
Since the publication of the Complaint, some verbal claims
have been made that the Complaint is not an accurate presentation of the views
of its signers. It has been said that the complainants have changed their views
and have moved closer to the Reformed faith. And a paper sent To the
Commissioners to the Thirteenth General Assembly, by a Committee for the
Complainants, is appealed to as evidence. This subsequent paper we must
examine, although, in the absence of a retraction by the complainants
themselves, such a mimeographed paper can be only of secondary importance. If
the complaint no longer represents the position of the complainants, they
should, I think, publicly repudiate it and apologize for its skeptical
philosophy and baseless accusations. But since this subsequent paper, in its
very first paragraph, condemns The Answer, one would imagine that
it is consistent with The Complaint.
An examination of the first part of this paper, the section
on The Incomprehensibility of God, will show this to be the case: the
complainants have not changed their views. The paper expounds the same
objectionable doctrine that is found in the Complaint.
It is true that at one point the papers seems to withdraw
from the position of the Complaint. On page 3 it says, “Truth is one. And
man may and does know the same truth that is in the divine mind…” This
statement is entirely acceptable because it flatly contradicts the Complaint.
And if the paper as a whole consistently maintained this view, it too
would be acceptable. But it is soon seen that this, which seems to be a
retraction is but a temporary and superficial lapse from their fixed
doctrines. The very same paragraph continues to say that man “cannot possibly
have in mind a conception to eternity that is identical or that coincides
with God’s own thought of his eternity.” This is nothing else than the
doctrine of the Complaint over again. In the first lines of the paragraph
they say that man can have the same truth that is in the divine
mind, and immediately below they say that man cannot have the concept
of eternity. The conception of eternity that the complainants have—not
God’s conception of eternity—is the conception of endless years. If this
is not God’s conception of eternity, it must follow that th
The committee that wrote this paper attempts to support its
contention by pointing out that the Bible frequently speaks of eternity in
terms of endless years. The paragraph in question stresses God’s condescension
or accommodation in revelation. This Scriptural language is well known; God is
called the Ancient of Days; he is from everlasting to everlasting; and his
years shall not fail. But to argue from these facts to the conclusion that man
can have no other concept of eternity except that of endless duration is to
argue badly. From the fact that revelation sometimes accommodates itself to man
in figures of speech, it does not follow, as this papers says it does, that
"therefore he cannot possibly have in mind a conception of
eternity that is identical or that coincides with God’s own thought of his
eternity.”
The Scriptures also speak of the arm of the
Lord, the hand of God, and the eyes of God.
Does it follow that we can have no other concept of the being of God expect the
concept of a corporeal being? Hand and eyes are figures of speech, and we know
that they are figures of speech because the Bible teaches that God is a pure
Spirit. Similarly we know that ‘endless years’ is a figure of speech because in
literal language the Bible teaches that God is immutable and eternal.
The conclusion this paper insists upon here is denied in the
paragraph itself, for the authors betray the fact that they themselves have a
concept of eternity different from that of endless duration. If they had no
concept of eternity other than that of an everlasting lapse of time, how
would they be able to say, “he is not subject to the passing of time.
God’s being is without succession.” If they did not have the concept of
“without succession,” they could not have discussed it in this
paper.
However, in spite of this testimony from their
own material, the committee for the complainants denies that man’s
concept and God’s coincide or are identical. It is true that this
paragraph asserts a “correspondence” between God’s thought and man’s thought.
But if man’s concept of “correspondence” is no more like God’s
than man’s concept of eternity is said to be, how can one be sure
that man means the same thing as God would mean if he says man thought
corresponds to God’s? To be sure of a correspondence between two things,
it is necessary that both of them be present to consciousness. No one can
compare two things if he is acquainted with only one of them. Correspondences
and analogies cannot be founded except on some point or area of coincidence.
Obviously therefore the complainants have not been converted to the view that
truth is one and that man may have it. They still
hold that man has only an analogy of the truth and not the truth
itself.
On page 6 of the same paper their theory of truth
is further elaborated. About the middle of the page we read, “The
distinction between knowledge of a truth and knowledge of its implications is
artificial and atomistic.” But if a premise is not distinguishable in
meaning from a conclusion, then all truths have been merged into one homogeneous mass and reasoning has become impossible. Consider the distinction between the axioms and theorems of geometry. One of the axioms is that “all right angles
are equal.” One of the implications or theorems is that “the interior
angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles.” Is there only an
artificial distinction between these two statements? Is it not rather a
perfectly natural distinction? The two propositions are essentially, not
artificially, different in meaning. And if we extend our view and
say that all truths are parts of one system, then the proposition ‘Moses
spoke to Pharaoh,’ could in a sense be called a premise for the
proposition ‘David was king of Israel.’ Why should the distinction between two
such propositions be called artificial? What sort of epistemology is it
that makes the meaning of one sentence - even though related to every other
in the system - only artificially different from the meaning of another?
The authors of this Subsequent paper proceed consistently.
At the bottom of this paragraph on page 6 they say, “the human mind
likewise cannot know it as a bare proposition, apart from an actual
understanding of implications.”
While the context refers to one specific
proposition, the theory requires this pronouncement to be applied
to every proposition. The authors must hold that no proposition can be
understood apart from an actual understanding of implications.
The first question that occurs is, why not? Their assertion
that it is so, does not make it so. For example, take the proposition
‘some books are not interesting.’ This is a particular negative, and in
the traditional Aristotelian logic a particular negative, while it may be
expressed in several forms, does not by itself imply another proposition
of different meaning. But if it has no implications, then according to the
theory we cannot know what it means. But that is absurd. Have the
complainants given sufficient thought to logic to justify their assertion?
And quite aside from the technicalities of Aristotelian or
non-aristotelian logic, one must ask this second question: when a child is for the first time taught that one plus one are two, does the child have an “actual understanding of implications?” According to this theory,
before a child can understand the first propositions, he must understand a
second proposition—its implications; and of course before he can
understand this second proposition, he must understand a
third—its implication; and before and so on. The child must
know everything before he knows anything. This fits in exactly with
the skeptical theory which the Complaint and this Subsequent paper
defend.
The authors of the paper may wish to reply that
they did not mean to say that the child had to understand all the
implications; they meant merely that he has to understand some of the
implications.
But look at the sentence again. The world “likewise” seems
to indicate that they mean all the implications, for the word “likewise” refers
to a comparison between God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge. Note that
they say, “The divine mind cannot know that truth without knowing its
implications and the human mind likewise cannot know it” etc. The force
of the comparison seems to require man to have an actual understanding of all
the implications. In other words, a man must be omniscient, if he is to know anything
at all, for he cannot know any single truth without an actual understanding of
(its) implications.
Although this interpretation is required by their argument,
they may have omitted the word ‘its’ purposely, not noticing that such a
purposeful omission ruins their comparison of the divine mind with the human.
Now, if they withdraw from their position and try to claim that a man must
understand only a few implications before he can understand his first
proposition, there is another question that the complainants must answer.
They must explain how many implications are needed before a man
knows the first proposition. Is it necessary to understand
ten theorems of geometry before it is possible to understand an
axiom? Or five theorems? Or just one? Then the complainants will have to
explain what principle they use to limit the number of five rather than
ten, or to one rather than two. When they attempt to make these
explanations, it will be clear that they are in utter confusion. If anyone
of us will look into his own mind and consider the truths he knows,
he will find many propositions there without an actual understanding of their
implications.
Before ending this part of the discussion, I wish
to draw attention to the following assertions of the paper in question. On
page 7, paragraph 1, are these words: “Dr. Clark’s fundamental insistence upon identity
(italics theirs) of divine and human knowledge...” On page 8 near the bottom we
find, “Dr. Clark insists upon identity of divine and human knowledge of a
particular truth…”
THE BIBLICAL DOCTRINE
Now let us turn to Reformed doctrine; but instead
of examining the Westminster Confession, we may better go directly to
the source of authority and examine the Scriptures. It will be highly
instructive to contrast the Scriptures with the skeptical theory of the
Complaint.
The Gospel of John, which so emphasizes the Godhood of Jesus
Christ, has a great deal to say about truth.
John 1:17 Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
5:53 Ye have sent unto John, and he hath borne witness unto
the truth.
8:32 And ye shall know the truth
Does anyone now dare to say that there is not even
a single point of coincidence between God’s knowledge and ours? Is
there in this, or in what follows, any hint of a two-layer theory of
truth? Are there two qualitatively different truths? Do we possess only an
analogy of the truth?
John 8:45 I say the truth.
15:7 I tell you the truth.
16:13 He shall guide you into all truth.
17:17 Sanctify them in thy truth; thy word is truth.
The Word is not something qualitatively different
from the truth. The sentences in the Word do not properly bear a
meaning different from the meaning God has. The Word is the truth, the
truth of God, and we have that truth.
Cf. Also: I Kings 17:24, Psalms 25:5, 43:3, 86:11, 119:43, 142, 151; Rom. 1:18, 3:7; II Cor. 6:7, 7:14, 11:10; Gal. 2:5, 14; Eph. 1:13, Etc.
These verses do not indicate that we cannot grasp God’s
meaning or that the truth cannot be known, or that God cannot be
known.
Since God is truth, this whole matter involves the question of our knowledge of God. Can we know God? It will do us no good, if we can know only something qualitatively different from God; it will not help if there is no point of contact between us and God. The question is, can we know God? If answer be made in terms of negation and analogy alone; if all possibility of God’s knowledge and man’s coinciding at any point be denied; if no sentence in the bible can possibly have the same meaning for man that it has for God; the logical result is a skepticism that makes revelation impossible and Christianity a vain dream. But if man can know some things that God knows; if man can grasp some of God’s meaning; if God’s knowledge and man’s have some points in common; then true religion will be no delusion, but a glorious reality.
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