Gordon Clark: Biased or Objective (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1956. Biased or Objective. The Southern Presbyterian Journal. Jan. 4. pg. 5.

Biased or Objective?

By Gordon H. Clark

The Chaplain, a bimonthly journal for Protestant chaplains, in its issue of October 1955 carries an article entitled, "Where Do We Go From Here in Theology," by Nels F. S. Ferre. The following section of it, since it is an expression of a widely held opinion, deserves our consideration and something of a reply.

Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism... builds on the Bible as inerrant and all-adequate truth... Actually its main position is, for the most part, a continuation of classical Christianity. Fundamentalism at its heart antedates and ignores modern scholarship... What is written is true and "there" for any reader whether he believes or not. The revelation as such is not dependent in any way upon the response of the reader, nor affected by it.

Unfortunately, fundamentalism also suffers from critical weaknesses. It is pre-critical! According to the best knowledge we have, which is generally agreed upon and responsibly taught, the Bible is not literally true.

Without a principle for discriminating use of the Bible, fundamentalism has tailed to present a God great enough or good enough to answer the need for worship which the Bible itself, at its highest, has awakened. No religion can serve its age unless its main truth and its highest aspirations are equal to, and go beyond, the moral sensitivities of its most thoughtful and dedicated people.

As a whole, too, fundamentalism has sponsored a dualism in which there has been neither hope lor, nor concern with, the world as such. Fundamentalism has therefore generally dampened man's desire for constructive social and political participation and, in fact, encouraged cultural sterility.

The strength of fundamentalism cannot be doubted, nor can the warmth and genuineness of its worship and fellowship; but it suffers from too many and serious weaknesses to become the kind of creative theology which is now a matter almost of "do or die." It cannot fully satisfy the enormous hunger for the power of redemptive religion which has already been awakened by the needs of our day.

(Copyright 1955 by The General Commission on Chaplains and Armed Forces Personnel. Quoted by permission.)

It is gratifying to note that Ferre acknowledges fundamentalism as a continuation of classical Christianity.  When one sets aside the sensationalism of some evangelists and their hill-billy music, it must be admitted that "for the most part" the doctrines of fundamentalism are Biblical. As Biblical, this classical Christianity obviously antedates modern scholarship. But does Dr. Ferre tell the truth when he says that fundamentalism ignores modern scholarship? Does it suffer critically by being "pre-critical"?

Of course, since the good news is accepted by many common people, it is to be expected that doctors degrees will be relatively scarce among (lunch members. It is impossible lor everybody to be a professor in a seminary. But is this to say that Biblical Christianity ignores modern scholarship? Is this to say that the leaders of orthodoxy are "pre-critical"? Undoubtedly there is one sense in which conservative scholars are pre-critical. The critics of the nineteenth century assured the world that the Hittite nation was a pious fraud invented by the writers of the Old Testament books. But in the twentieth century even the critics have returned to the conservative pre-critical position that the Hittites actually existed. The great critic Wellhausen asserted that the Pentateuch contained no historical information concerning the age of the patriarchs: it was written during the Babylonian captivity or later, and reflected only the age in which it was written. It also used to be said that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch because writing had not been invented at that time. The leaders of Biblical religion are not ignorant of these critical views, they know them quite well, and they know that they are false. In one sense our conservative scholars are pre-critical; in another sense they are pre-critical. The blunders of the critics are obvious.

In the next place one must ask on what basis, or by what bias, Ferre asserts that the Bible does not present a God who is great enough? Is not Jehovah presented as Almighty? Is he not said to be the Creator of the universe? Can the critics imagine a greater God? Or is Jehovah not good enough? Perhaps the Lord is not the uncomplaining valet always ready to indulge human whims. The idea of what is good, as it is explained in the Bible, may not coincide with what several modern thinkers believe to be good. But surely it is patently false to assert that the righteousness of God fails to equal or to go beyond the moral sensitivity of dedicated people. Well, possibly in one sense the righteousness of God is a failure. If the dedicated people are dedicated to false doctrines and illusory gods, their moral sensitivity may be allergic to God's righteousness. Naturally, one of the problems of evangelism is to persuade men to discard their limited and distorted human notions of ethics and to accept the divine standards revealed in the Scripture.

For the same reason it is not true that Biblical Christianity (and there is no Christianity except in so far as it is Biblical) dampens man's desire for constructive social and political action. The truth oi the matter is that evangelical people see more clearly than other people the great dangers to the freedom of religion inherent in socialism, collectivism, and totalitarianism. Proposals of a balanced budget, reduction of the national debt, sharp curtailment of the bureaucracy, and the like are conservative and constructive. The tendency toward an all powerful state, a managed currency, a dictatorial executive, and ever increasing regulations is as reactionary as Louis XIV and is destructive of mankind's inalienable rights. Theological conservatives are not lacking in concern for the world or the nation; but their proposals lead away from the socialism of the so-called liberals.

Let it be granted that Christians do not consider politics the most important of all subjects. More important is it to "fully satisfy the enormous hunger for the power of redemptive religion." And that is just what fundamentalism does. Christ by his death on the cross fully satisfied the righteousness and justice of his Father, and so reconciles the elect to God. And it is the literal truth of this that alone can satisfy the need of humanity, lor their need. as distinguished from some of their wants, is redemption from sin.