Gordon Clark: Review of The Task of Philosophical Theology, by C.J. Curtis (The Presbyterian Journal)

1968. Review of The Task of Philosophical Theology, by C.J. Curtis. The Presbyterian Journal. Sep. 11. 20.

THE TASK OF PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY, by C. J. Curtis. Philosophical Library, New York, N. Y. 165 pp. $4.50. Reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, professor of philosophy, Butler University, Indianapolis, Ind.

The aim of the author is to define classic Christian notions in Whiteheadian language so as to avoid the archaic forms of thought that confuse modern man. Whether or not the author is successful, every reader may judge for himself by the following quotations:

"Baptism is a process of concrescence in which each phase is pushed forward by the lure, i.e. by the basic conceptual aim of baptism which is derived from God."

"The humanity of Christ... does not mean an abstract, fixed, static substance. The fixity of the species is an obsolete, pre-scientific idea of substance philosophy which undercut the contemporary understanding of the person of Christ. Reality, whether human or divine, is process, change, and evolution."

"God is not omniscient, nor can He know the future because "the nature of reality is such that in each concrescence… there is always a reminder (remainder?) for the decision of the subject-superject of that concrescence."

God "is the way in which we understand this incredible fact, that what can be, yet is." (Cf. Shorter Catechism, Q. 4.) E0