1945. [More Deliberations on the Clark Case]. The Presbyterian Guardian. Vol. 14 No. 8. Mar 29. pgs. 115-116, 128.
On March 29th the Presbytery of Philadelphia of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church met in an adjourned session at Mediator Church, Philadelphia, to continue consideration of matters growing out of the complaint filed last fall against actions of the presbytery relative to the licensure and ordination of the Rev. Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D.*
After prayer by Moderator Edward L. Kellogg, the Rev. Professor Paul Woolley moved that the proposed answer to the complaint, prepared by a committee of presbytery but not offered by that committee for adoption by the presbytery, be rejected and the committee be dismissed. A motion to lay this motion on the table failed to carry the presbytery.
The right of a ruling elder to represent a church of which he was a member but on whose session he did not serve was unsuccessfully challenged. The Rev. Floyd E. Hamilton offered, as a substitute for the motion of Professor Woolley, that presbytery deny the plea of the complainants that the meeting of July 7, 1944, be found to have been illegally convened and that its acts arid decisions are thus void.
Speaking against Mr. Hamilton's motion, Dr. Ned B. Stonehouse urged that the presbytery not consider the complaint in that fashion until it had first disposed of the prosposed answer. Dr. Robert Strong then added as an amendment the words, "and adopt the legal section of the answer in justification of this denial."
Professor Woolley objected to this amendment. The answer, he asserted, cites the meeting to ordain the Rev. Eugene Bradford as a parallel to the July 7th meeting complained against. But in Mr. Bradford's case, said Professor Woolley, something happened to him between the last meeting and the special meeting which required that he be ordained at that time. No such emergency had been proven in the case of Dr. Clark. He hailed as specious the argument of the answer that the chosen date was proven convenient by the fact that it had a large attendance. There is no evidence in the answer, said Professor Woolley, to show the existence of an emergency as that word is used in the dictionary or in The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. After further debate, the amendment was defeated.
The Rev. Edwin H. Rian then moved as a substitute "that the presbytery adopts the first conclusion of the answer which reads, 'the Presbytery denies that the meeting of July 7, 1944, was illegal and that its actions are thus void.'" This was an attempt to relate the motion to the answer rather than to the complaint, without changing the force or substance of it. Mr. Rian's substitute became the main motion, by a vote of 19 to 14.
Speaking to the motion, the Rev. Robert S. Marsden said that the complaint bases its attack upon its assertion that there was no emergency. But there were important elements, unknown at the time of the last regular meeting, which entered into Dr. Clark's life; there was an emergency at that time in Dr. Clark's own plans. Unless the matter of ordination were quickly settled, it would be impossible for him to arrange his next year's work. Moreover, said Mr. Marsden, even if illegal elements were found to have existed, that would not necessarily invalidate the actions of the meeting.
Professor Woolley replied that an emergency is something which emerges or is newly arisen. So far as Dr. Clark's contemplated teaching post at the Reformed Episcopal Seminary was concerned, he had taught there before ordination and presumably might just as easily do so again. The Rev. Leslie W. Sloat contended that the emergency for which a meeting is called is the business to be dealt with, not some related factor in the life or mind of an individual. He said that this was not a question of a few illegal elements, but whether or not the calling of the meeting was illegal and therefore the entire existence of the meeting illegal.
A roll call vote on the motion showed that it carried 23 to 14.
Dr. Strong then moved that presbytery acknowledge that "the various views of Dr. Clark as set forth in the meeting of July 7, 1944, and with which the complaint is concerned, are in error and in conflict with the constitutional requirements for licensure and ordination, and that, therefore, the decision to sustain his theological examination, the decision to waive two years of study in a theological seminary, the decision to proceed to license Dr. Clark and the action of licensing him, the decision to deem the examination for licensure sufficient for ordination, and the decision to ordain Dr. Clark, were in error and unconstitutional, and are, therefore, null and void." Dr. Strong, who. obviously would not have wanted his motion to be passed, explained that he had moved it for the purpose of showing that the complaint, in asking for this, was in reality pressing heresy charges "by indirection."
Mr. Rian said that such a motion would call for deposition, and that therefore the motion was out of order. The moderator ruled that the motion called for an unconstitutional method of making amends and was therefore out of order. On a roll call vote, the moderator was sustained in this ruling 22 to 16.
Dr. William E. Welmers moved "that sections 2 through 5 of the proposed answer be rejected and the committee be dismissed." Speaking to this motion, the Rev. Arthur W. Kuschke said that it has been urged that Dr. Clark has denied the charges of the complaint. He therefore had prepared a series of parallel columns which quoted first from the charges of the complaint and secondly from the proposed answer which Dr. Clark had signed. He read these quotations to prove that the answer supports and does not deny the charges of the complaint.
Dr. Clark, in rejoinder, said that if we have any truth at all it is God's truth and at that point we have the meaning that God has of that one proposition. Dr. Strong questioned Dr. Clark as to what occurs when a man is born again. He replied, in words similar to those of the answer, that regeneration did not necessarily involve a change in the understanding of the words, "Christ died for sinners," but that regeneration brings belief in the truth of those words where formerly there was denial of them. Asked by Dr. Strong about the paradox of divine sovereignty and human responsibility which Dr. Clark had claimed to have solved, Dr. Clark replied that it was legitimate to study Scripture "as much as you can" and to get as much out of it as possible. Asked again about his reluctance to use the word "sincere" in describing the universal offer of the gospel, Dr. Clark replied that he did not like the word, since it had been widely used by the enemies of Calvinism. He therefore avoided it, preferring the word "freely." He explained that the word "sincere" had not been defined at the July 7th meeting of presbytery, so he just avoided it in the interests of not being inadvertently misunderstood.
Elder H. Evan Runner delivered an address on the subject of analogy, in the course of which he declared that, since propositional knowledge was revelational knowledge, God's knowledge of man's knowledge would be the same as man's knowledge. But the uncreate knowledge possessed by God cannot be identified with man's knowledge and is not expressed propositionally. Mr. Runner quoted from theologians of the past to show that historic Calvinism has always held that even God's communicable attributes are incommunicable as they exist in God, since they are of His very essence and are therefore impossible of communication.
Dr. Clark quoted Charles Hodge and declared that he held Hodge's position on incomprehensibility. Professor Woolley declared that the proposed answer says that the essence of God's being is incomprehensible except as God reveals truths concerning His own nature, whereas the Reformed theology holds that the essence of God's being is incomprehensible, with no exceptions. Mr. Hamilton attempted some clarification, and Dr. Stonehouse said Dr. Clark is challenged not so much on his doctrine of knowledge as on the question whether he accepts the doctrine of God's incomprehensibility. The issue is not whether or not God can be known, but what limits are placed on man's knowledge.
Dr. Cornelius Van Til, in commenting on the fact that Dr. Clark and his supporters had maintained that the proposed answer was in accord with the position held by Charles Hodge, said that Hodge argues that all of revelation is an accommodation to the limitations of man and that when man restates revelation as propositions he cannot have in his mind exactly that which God has in His mind. Dr. Clark had expressed a need for the complainants to define the qualitative distinction they claimed between the contents of man's and God's knowledge. If they were to be required to give such a definition, declared Dr. Van Til, then Dr. Clark should also be able to define and tell all about the mode of God's knowledge, since Dr. Clark admits there is a difference between the mode of man's knowledge and the mode of God's knowledge.
In reply Dr. Clark attacked Dr. Van Til's logic in arriving at implications drawn by Dr. Van Til from written statements of Dr. Clark. A test of orthodoxy must be clear, he said, and this matter of the qualitative distinctions in the contents of knowledge is unclear. But we can, he affirmed, describe the mode of God's knowledge and say some things about it.
At long last the motion to reject the doctrinal sections of the proposed answer and to dismiss the committee was laid on the table.
With no motion of any sort before the house, Dr. Strong began to direct a series of questions to certain of the complainants. He asked Dr. Welmers whether he wrote the charge in the complaint that Dr. Clark had "studiously avoided answering" a certain question. Dr. Welmers replied that he honestly didn't know. "Do the complainants accept the repudiation of that invidious statement?" asked Dr. Strong. Mr. Kuschke made vigorous objection to the question and Dr. Strong was instructed by the chair to "watch his language." The right of Dr. Strong to conduct this form of examination with no motion of any sort on the floor was challenged. The moderator - pro - tem, Mr. Marsden, ruled that the questioning was in order on the ground that it was germane to the report of the committee elected to prepare the answer and that the report was before the house even though no motion about it was on the floor. The ruling was challenged and the moderator sustained.
Dr. Strong resumed by directing a question to Dr. Stonehouse who said that, while he would be glad to answer the question in private conversation, he objected so strenuously to the moderator's ruling and to the procedure being followed by Dr. Strong that he felt compelled to refuse to answer. Another question to Dr. Welmers elicited the same response. Dr. Strong then directed his inquiries to Dr. Clark, asking him how he felt about certain accusations of the complaint. Dr. Clark replied in detail, pointing out that he considered the complaint a personal affront.
After more of this type of unfortunate procedure, which many presbyters considered the low point of the day, Professor Woolley moved that the presbytery declare the decision of the July 7th, 1944, meeting to sustain the theological examination of Dr. Clark to have been in error. This motion was rather promptly tabled by a vote of 19 to 17.
Dr. Stonehouse then moved that the presbytery acknowledge that the various views of Dr. Clark as set forth in the July 7th meeting and the decisions relating to his licensure and ordination are in error and unconstitutional. When the motion was challenged as being the same in essence as a previous one that had been ruled out of order, Dr. Stonehouse replied that he had omitted the words to which objection had previously been made and had left open the question of what amends should be made. The moderator ruled the motion in order, his ruling was challenged, and he was not sustained by the presbytery. The Rev. John P. Clelland then moved the same motion with the deletion of the last two words "and unconstitutional." Again, the motion was challenged and again the moderator ruled it in order. Several of the complainants protested that not to sustain this ruling would be to deny elemental justice to a minority; the right to appeal from an act or decision of the presbytery, they said, was a fundamental right that the judicatory dare not deny. Mr. Hamilton cited as precedent the famous Van Dusen case in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., and Professor Woolley said he was sorry to see the day in The Orthodox Presbyterian Church when appeal was made to a case in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. in which two men who denied the virgin birth were allowed to remain in the church and their presbytery went scot-free. The moderator was sustained.
Much other debate filled the late hours of the evening, all of it no doubt profitable but much of it contributing little new light to the problems facing the presbytery. The high point of the meeting was an unexpected speech by Mr. Kellogg. He said that he had previously been one of those who had championed Dr. Clark but that he no longer felt able to do so. "If knowledge of a proposition is the same for God and man," said Mr. Kellogg, "then you must have a perfect and exhaustive knowledge of each word of the proposition." He felt that this was a serious and central flaw in Dr. Clark's position, and was therefore forced to retreat from his earlier support of Dr. Clark.
Mr. Clelland's motion was defeated by a roll call vote of 16 to 20. The full text of this final defeated motion is as follows:
That the presbytery acknowledge that various views of Dr. Clark as set forth in the meeting of July 7, 1944, are in error and that therefore the decision to sustain his theological examination, the decision to waive two years of study in a theological seminary, the decision to proceed to license Dr. Clark and the action of licensing him, the decision to deem the examination for licensure sufficient for ordination and the decision to ordain Dr. Clark were in error.
The presbytery thus clearly demonstrated to the complainants that even their mildest request would be refused and that there was, in effect, no use in making further attempts to gain recognition for their position.
The presbytery adjourned at approximately 12.55 A.M.
In the course of the day, Mr. Rian gave notice that he expected to propose an overture to be sent up to the general assembly, requesting that body to elect a committee to study the various doctrinal questions which had been involved in the Clark case.
* For a report of the preceding deliberations on this matter, see THE PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN, April 10, 1945, pp. 108ff.
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