Gordon Clark: Unnamed Letter to Editor (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1950. Unnamed Letter to Editor. The Southern Presbyterian Journal Vol. IX, No. 20. Nov. 15.

Sir:

For several years I have subscribed to and have read The Southern Presbyterian Journal.  I think you are doing a great work and doing it very well. If I should make a criticism, it would be with constructive intent, for I am anxious that you may be able to save the Southern Presbyterian Church for the gospel, or at least bring into being a vigorous continuing Presbyterian church.

The opposed forces are alert to take advantage of any mistake the faithful may make and in order to reduce these, may I speak of your article in the issue of October 18, entitled "Poison In The Stream." I assure you that my criticism is made in all kindness and with a genuine desire toward the same ends you desire. But there is one specific point and one more general point, I would like to bring to your attention.

On page 8, column 2, you refer to a professor of logic who taught you that a false premise will inevitably lead to a false conclusion. If the professor indeed taught this, I am bold to say that he was incompetent in logic. A false premise may validly lead to a true conclusion. For example; All the heroes of Homer's Illiad died young (false); Alexander was a hero of the Illiad (false); therefore, (validly) it follows that Alexander died young. The accepted logical doctrine, accepted for two thousand years is that a false premise validly implies anything. Therefore, it can imply true as well as false conclusions. In modern symbolic logic this is expressed as "zero implies one."

There is a more general comment I would like to make — not with the same dispatch and emphasis, yet with a hope that it may be of help. I not only teach logic, but I teach the philosophy of religion. And I use books as poisonous as Enslin's. But the effect on students does not come so much from books as from the instructor in using them. I can use these books and show their prejudice, their lack of evidence and their fallacies. Someone else might produce a totally different effect. It seems to me therefore that you will never make much progress attacking colleges or seminaries on the ground that they use such books. The standard answer in such cases is too obviously true, viz., that the students need to know what is being said in the professorial world. I am distressed that I cannot indicate a better approach. My little wisdom is limited to the opinion that an attack on text books is the wrong approach. The basic factor is to insure the orthodoxy of the faculty and when this weakens I do not know how to go about correcting it. A new president is probably needed, or a new board of directors. And on such matters I am sure you are wiser than I.

Let me assure you again that I write in the spirit of co-operation; and if any phrases here appear harsh or summary, or in any way displease you, I must humbly apologize.

Gordon H. Clark,

Indianapolis, Ind.