The Presbytery of Philadelphia of
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church
held its regular spring meeting on
March 19th in Mediator Church,
Philadelphia. The principal item of
business was the consideration of the
proposed answer to the complaint
against the actions of the presbytery
relative to the licensure and ordination
of the Rev. Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D.
Discussion of the Clark case lasted for
ten hours without reaching any final
conclusion of the matter, and presbytery adjourned at midnight to reconvene ten days later.
The devotional hour was led by the
Rev. Glenn R. Coie, pastor of Knox
Church, Silver Spring, Md., and the
subject of his meditation was "Holy
Boldness."
The presbytery was called to order
at 11:30 and constituted with prayer
by the Rev. Edward L. Kellogg, moderator. Following the reading of communications, and after lengthy discussion of the docket, the presbytery
placed only two matters ahead of consideration of the Clark case. A pastoral
call from Faith Church, Lincoln,
Nebr., which had been referred from
the Presbytery of the Dakotas, was
placed in the hands of licentiate Delbert Schowalter, and an Auditing Committee was appointed. After disposal of
these two matters, the presbytery recessed for lunch.
Corresponding members who were seated by the presbytery included Mr.
Mark Fakkema, general secretary of the
National Union of Christian Schools
and an elder of the Christian Reformed
Church, and all ministers and elders of
other presbyteries of The Orthodox
Presbyterian Church, of whom there
were a great many in attendance.
Ruling Elder Alan Tichenor, chairman of the committee elected to answer the complaint, gave a brief report
of the committee's work. The answer
was not presented for action but was
filed with the clerk. It was merely
stated that the committee had prepared an answer, printed two hundred
copies, and distributed one hundred
twenty-five, leaving seventy-five still
available. Thus the report which takes
the form of a reply of the presbytery,
and is introduced as an answer proposed to the presbytery by the committee, was not actually proposed to
the presbytery as presbytery's answer
to the complaint. Immediately after
this brief report, Dr. Robert Strong
of Willow Grove moved that the complaint be dismissed.
Dr. Ned B. Stonehouse of Westminster Seminary then delivered a
lengthy address designed to show that
the evidence which the complainants
had presented to the presbytery in the
complaint established their claim that
various views of Dr. Clark were contrary to Scripture and the subordinate standards of the church and that there fore presbytery should make amends
by granting the pleas of the complaint.
He also attempted to prove that the
proposed answer to the complaint,
rather than setting aside the contentions of the complaint, actually went
far in confirming its substantial validity.
Dr. Stonehouse accused the proposed answer of failing to set forth
accurately the theology of the complaint and asserted that many of the
charges of misrepresentations of Dr.
Clark's views "would also fall to the
ground upon a more careful reading
of the complaint." The answer, moreover, "leaves no doubt that there is a
real difference between the theology of
the complaint and the theology of Dr.
Clark." He denied that the issue revolves about Dr. Clark's declaration
that he "'accepts the Westminster
Confession of Faith.' To say that is to
make subscription to our standards a
mere formality." He also denied that
the issue was one of apologetics or that
the complainants were insisting on subscription to a particular apologetic.
"Rather," he said, "we are insisting
that theology shall be truly Scriptural,
and that there shall be no compromise
with rationalism at any point."
Dr. Stonehouse then discussed in
considerable detail the doctrine of the
knowledge of God. As there are two
levels of being, the Creator level and
the creature level, so there are two
levels of knowledge, and man's knowledge must necessarily always be analogical to God's knowledge. "Truth is
one. And man may and does know the
same truth that is in the divine mind
because of his likeness to God and because of the fact of divine revelation."
But God is also incomprehensible even
when truly known, since His revelation
of Himself is always a revelation to a
finite creature and is therefore a condescension to man's finite capacities.
Dr. Stonehouse then discussed the
concept of analogy, and stated that,
since Dr. Clark "repudiates the doctrine that man's knowledge of a particular proposition necessarily is on a
lower level than God's knowledge of
the same proposition, and insists that
knowledge of propositions must be
identical for God and man, it is clear
that he holds a view of this doctrine
sharply at variance with the Reformed
doctrine." He cited quotations from
Dr. William Brenton Greene, to whom
the answer had made strong appeal in
support of its concept of divine incomprehensibility, to prove that Dr.
Greene actually held to the view of
the complainants.
The proposed answer strongly emphasizes that Dr. Clark holds that
"'the manner of God's knowing, an eternal intuition, is impossible for
man.'" Dr. Stonehouse acknowledged
this and agreed with it, but declared
that "a mere distinction as to how
knowledge is possessed does not demand the conclusion that the content
of knowledge differs:" He also held to be inadequate Dr. Clark's contention
that God's knowledge differs from
man's because God knows all the implications of any proposition, for it is
a fact that even the human mind "cannot know it as a bare proposition, apart
from an actual understanding of implications. The revelation of it to man
brings knowledge of it, but the divine
knowledge of it necessarily stands on a
different level... The distinction
drawn between propositions and their
implications does not as such establish
a qualitative difference between the
knowledge which God possesses and
that which is possible to man."
Dr. Stonehouse attacked as inadequate Dr. Clark's introduction of "infinity" into his formulation of this doctrine. For Dr. Clark, he said, it is only
the infinite number of propositions
which God knows which stands between man and the possibility of an
exhaustive knowledge of the content
of the divine mind.
Dr. Stonehouse concluded his address with a detailed consideration of
the answer's treatment of a large number of Scripture passages dealing with
the doctrine under scrutiny. He maintained that the interpretation and exegesis of the answer were faulty and inadequate, and attempted to prove that
these passages of Scripture, far from
supporting Dr. Clark's position, really
supported the position of the complaint. In numerous instances he. appealed to commentators in support of
his contentions.
Dr. Stonehouse was followed immediately by the Rev. Floyd E. Hamilton who, throughout the debate,
appeared to be the best informed protagonist of the theology of Dr. Clark.
"There is still misunderstanding," he
declared, "in the minds of the complainants regarding Dr. Clark's position." To try to clear up that misunderstanding, he read the following
statement, prepared by him and approved by Dr. Clark as being in agreement with his position:
The position of the complainants regarding the incomprehensibility of God seems to be that incomprehensibility is an incommunicable and unchangeable attribute of God that existed before the creation of men or angels, and is not in any way affected by revelation to man or by man's understanding that revelation. No matter how much man may come to know about God throughout eternity God will be just as incomprehensible and His knowledge will be just as incomprehensible to man after aeons in eternity as it is today. God's knowledge and His incomprehensibility are on a different plane from man's knowledge, and are not in any way affected by the knowledge which man may come to enjoy of God's revelation. They therefore hold that it is an error to speak of God's being "incomprehensible except as He reveals truths concerning His nature." In using the word "except," it is claimed that we are impinging on the majesty of God and bringing Him down to the level of the creature.It would seem that in using the term incomprehensible in this way the complainants are really confusing incomprehensible with God's omniscience and knowledge, and adding the content of these terms to the meaning of incomprehensibility. It is perfectly true that God's omniscience and knowledge do not change in any way through the process of revelation, and all the knowledge that man may come to enjoy about God throughout eternity would not change God's omniscience in any way. Man could not become omniscient without becoming God. God was omniscient before creation, and His attribute of omniscience is not affected by revelation or by the increase in man's knowledge. But that is an entirely different thing from saying that God is incomprehensible. The moment this word is used it has a double reference, namely, toward man as well as toward God. Its principal reference however is toward man and has to do with what man knows about God.Now there are two meanings of the word comprehend. It means first, to apprehend, or to understand, and to say that God is incomprehensible in this sense is to say that man cannot understand Him. He becomes comprehensible to man, in proportion as man understands the revelations which God gives to man about His nature or knowledge. It is in this sense that the answer declares that God's nature is incomprehensible to man except as God reveals truths to man concerning His own, nature.The other meaning of the word comprehend is to have complete and exhaustive knowledge of an object and to place a limit around that which is comprehended, so that everything about it is included in that limit. To say that God's knowledge is incomprehensible in this sense of course is to say that man can never place limits around the knowledge of God and can never have a complete and exhaustive knowledge of any phase of His knowledge, for, in order to have such knowledge man would have to know as God knows, with the same mode of knowing, as well as to know the knowledge God has in all its relationships and implications. It would be correct to say that God's knowledge of any truth is always incomprehensible to man in this sense, for if it were comprehensible in that sense, man would have to know it as God knows it, and to know all that God knows about it, that is, to know all its implications and relationships to other truth. It would also be true to say that God's knowledge of a truth is a unitary thing, so that the mode of His knowing, the implications and relationships to other truth all color His knowledge of the meaning of any individual truth. To say that, however, is really to confuse the implications, relationships and mode of knowing with the specific meaning of the truth itself.Now Dr. Clark's position is that if man comprehends, or understands the meaning of any truth, truly, that meaning is the same for, both God and man. That meaning is not incomprehensible for man in one sense for man understands the meaning God places on the truth revealed to man. That meaning is the same for God and man. In the other sense, however, God's knowledge of the truth is incomprehensible to man even when the meaning is the same for God and man, for God's knowledge of the truth is God's mode of knowing the truth in all its relationships and implications.It seems quite evident that there are two confusions in the minds of the complainants regarding these matters: (1) In the first place they assert of incomprehensibility what is true of omniscience when they say that God was incomprehensible before His works of creation. (2) At the same time they confuse the two meanings of comprehensible, so that when the answer uses the term in one sense they, i.e., the complainants, deny that position while they really have in mind the other meaning of the word incomprehensible. For example, God's knowledge of the Trinity is incomprehensible to man, in the sense that man can never know it as God knows it, cannot understand it in all its implications and relationships and cannot enter into the self-consciousness of God. That knowledge will always be incomprehensible to man in these senses. However, at the same time man can comprehend, i.e., understand, any revelations God may choose to give man about the Trinity, and those revelations have the same meaning for both God and man.Now there are two levels of knowledge, one for God and the other for man but there are not two levels of truth. The complaint teaches that there are two levels of truth, when they assert that the meaning of a proposition is different for man and for God and that these meanings do not coincide at any point. Dr. Clark's position is that while God's knowledge is always incomprehensible to man on God's level of knowing, man's knowledge of a truth, if it is correct, is true for both God and man. In other words, man's level of knowledge is always accessible to God for God is the creator and preserver and controller of man, but God's level of knowledge is inaccessible and therefore incomprehensible to man. God however has revealed facts about His knowledge to man, and when they arc revealed and understood by man, they are true for both God and man and have the same meaning for both God and man. God has brought the revelation of His truth down to man's level so that man can know it, without bringing His. i.e., God's, knowledge of the truth down to man's level.
Mr. Hamilton asserted that the complaint talks about "analogical truth,"
not about "knowing truth analogically." This statement was challenged
by the complainants, and proven contrary to the facts. Mr. Hamilton then
declared that he had isolated fifty-seven
separate misrepresentations of Dr.
Clark's position in the text of the complaint. Since some of these were called
to the complainants' attention by Dr.
Clark at the November meeting of
presbytery, Mr. Hamilton contended
that the complainants should not have
printed nor circulated the complaint
until after an attempt had been made
in conference with Dr. Clark to clear
up those points.
Mr. Hamilton then enumerated
some of the fifty-seven alleged errors.
He insisted that Dr. Clark does not
hold that all truth in the divine mind
is always propositional; that Dr. Clark
does not hold that the divine knowledge consists of an infinite number of
propositions, but rather that God can
adduce an infinite number of propositions from His knowledge. He said
that the complaint was "almost libelous" when it averred that "'his [Dr.
Clark's] approach... is to a large extent rationalistic.''' He also charged
the complaint with being "insulting"
when it declared that, at his July examination in theology, Dr. Clark
"studiously avoided answering" a question as to whether there was any faculty in God which is neither intellectual nor volitional and which underlies
or accompanies volitional activity. It
was later pointed out by the Rev.
Arthur W. Kuschke that the complainants did not feel that Dr. Clark
was deceptively trying to avoid answering the question, or that he was afraid
to answer it, but only that he preferred
not to answer it either because he believed it irrelevant or that it would
divert attention from what he considered the main matter. No insult was
intended or implied.
Dr. William E. Welmers clarified
the complainants' position on the matter of analogy and emphatically denied
that the complaint taught a doctrine
of two levels of truth.
Dr. Stonehouse pointed out that
the complaint did not ask for endorsement of the entire contents of the
document, but only for action on certain pleas, whereas the answer was
framed with a view to becoming in its
entirety the answer of the presbytery.
The presbytery, he said, has not yet
faced the question of what it will do
with that answer, nor had Mr. Hamilton really joined issue with the formulation of Dr. Clark's position as given
in Dr. Stonehouse's opening address of
the debate.
Mr. Hamilton made brief reply to
Dr. Stonehouse, after which Mr.
Kuschke discussed at considerable
length the twin problems of emotions
in God and the primacy of the intellect in man. The complaint, he said,
denied that God had emotions in the
sense of agitations, but again Mr.
Kuschke asked the question whether
there was any faculty in God, distinct
from the intellectual and the volitional,
which gives rise to volition. When
Scripture says that "God so loved the
world... ," does the word "loved"
mean only something volitional, a matter of mere unemotional choice? Or
does God really love men in the sense
of having real feelings of compassion
and pity for them? "When Dr. Clark
says God's love is a volition," declared
Mr. Kuschke, "and then speaks of
God's faculties as comprising intellect
and will, it is to be feared that he falls
far short of the meaning of God's love.
The complainants are extremely anxious that Dr. Clark should not detract
from the love of God. They don't care
what name he gives to God's love, but
they are concerned that the compassion and tender mercy of God be not
denied."
The complainants believe, said Mr.
Kuschke, that God does have feelings
which are analogous to ours. He quoted
I John 4:7-10. "Each instance of the
word 'love' in this quotation, with
respect to God's love and man's, is of
the same Greek words. Surely at this place in His Word God means to
ascribe to Himself true feelings and
true love which are analogous to feelings and love in us. This we fear Dr.
Clark denies."
Dr. Clark defines the apex of religious activity, declared Mr. Kuschke,
in terms of intellectual contemplation
of God. In contrast, the complainants
hold that glorifying God is the total
response of man's whole being to
God's manifestation of His perfections.
"Obedience and love to God," said
Mr. Kuschke, "are not less important
than intellectual contemplation; they
are not on a lower plane." Moreover,
according to Mr. Kuschke, "Dr. Clark
regards man's intellect as occupying
such high rank that the understanding
of the natural man can grasp the
meaning of the words 'Christ died for
sinners' 'with the same ease' as the
born-again man. If that is the case,
the understanding does not need to
undergo renewal like the rest of the
human personality." Mr. Kuschke
quoted and discussed at length the
statement of the proposed answer that
"regeneration, in spite of the theory of
the Complaint, is not a change in the
understanding of these words [Christ
died for sinners]." He pointed out that
the Bible teaches that all of man's
faculties are corrupted by sin, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of
man's heart is only evil continually.
"If regeneration did not change our
understanding of the words 'Christ
died for sinners,' " he declared, "then
we would never be saved!" He concluded his address in these words:
"Thus Dr. Clark's doctrine of man,
both as to the faculties of the soul and
as to the pervasive corruption of original sin, is wrong, because contrary to
the Bible and our standards. For the
fallen human intellect is corrupt and
blind; without the new birth the intellect is unable to understand the
things of God. And the Christian
ideal, even for the hereafter, is not intellectual contemplation, but rather
the total response of man's entire being to God's revelation of His glory."
Dr. Clark then spoke for the first
time and denied that he held to "identity of man's and God's knowledge."
As for the quotation from Dr. Greene,
adduced by Dr. Stonehouse to show
that Dr. Greene did not support the
answer's view of incomprehensibility,
Dr. Clark said that he agreed with the
quotation. On the subject of emotions,
he said, "If you take the trouble to find out what I mean by emotions,
God certainly has none."
Dr. Cornelius Van Til of Westminster Seminary then made a plea for
a serious consideration of the complaint, despite Mr. Hamilton's alleged
fifty-seven varieties of error. He made
a masterful exposition of the meaning
of analogy and its inherent proof of
incomprehensibility. He added further
light on the issue of the primacy of the
intellect, declaring that it was no mere
matter of a difference in terminology.
After Dr. Van Til's speech, Dr.
Clark moved the previous question,
which, if it had passed, would have
forced an immediate vote on the motion to dismiss the complaint. Dr.
Clark's motion was lost: He followed
with a declaration that Dr. Van Til
had tried to equate his position on the
matter under discussion with that of
Plato. Dr. Clark repudiated vigorously
the position Dr. Van Til had outlined,
said that he had time and again denied
it, and that not one shred of evidence
had been adduced to prove that Dr.
Van Til was right in his allegations.
Professor Woolley then briefly discussed the question of the legality of
the July 7th meeting, and followed
this with a discussion of the effect
upon the witness of the church that
would result from any attempt to carry
through the Clarkian emphasis on the
primacy of the intellect to its logical
conclusion. He cited the history of the
development of the New England theology as proof of the devastation that
would follow an insistence upon making logical consistency the final test of
doctrine, and said that now was the
time for this tendency to be nipped
in the bud.
Professor R. B. Kuiper discussed Dr.
Clark's attempt to solve the paradoxes
of divine sovereignty and human responsibility and of the decree of reprobation and the universal sincere offer
of the gospel. He said that Dr. Clark
does not recognize that there are paradoxes which are intrinsically paradoxical to man because of his very finiteness. A doctrine, said Professor Kuiper,
may be revealed in Scripture and yet
the human mind be incapable of fully
comprehending it. This is a far cry
from the notion that God is incomprehensible except as He reveals truths
concerning His own nature, and that
when the Scriptures teach that God
is unsearchable, they mean merely that
God is unsearchable in so far as man
by his own unaided efforts cannot search out His understanding.
Dr. Clark made brief and violent
reply in which he designated the attack on his position as "a matter of
persistent misrepresentation. The answer is printed, he said, "and I have
nothing further to say."
A substitute motion, that the answer of the committee be made the
answer of the presbytery, was defeated
as a substitute. The previous question was again moved and again failed to
carry by the needed two-thirds vote, so
that debate was continued.
The Rev. George T. Marston reread the statement which Mr. Hamilton had prepared and with which Dr.
Clark had expressed himself in agreement, and asked the complainants to
comment upon it. The Rev. Leslie W.
Sloat objected that an answer had been
prepared by the committee but that
the committee had made no attempt
to have its printed answer considered
for adoption; instead, a wholly new
document which no one had had an
opportunity to study had been introduced by one individual, and the complainants were now being asked to discuss it as representing Dr. Clark's
position.
The Rev. Franklin S. Dyrness said,
"We should be sane and sensible in
facing this matter." He declared that
the presbytery was not in session to
consider the answer but to examine
the complaint. The presbytery had
really been indulging in a reexamination of Dr. Clark. He referred to Mr.
Hamilton's allegation of fifty-seven
errors in the complaint and to a previous speaker's statement that they
were not in reality of central importance. "If those items were not important," he asked, "why did the complainants put them in the complaint?"
He cited Dr. Clark's denial that the
complaint gives a fair representation of
his position, and pled for fairness and
honesty.
Mr. Marston felt that. while the
complaint and the answer had been
widely circulated, the presbyters had
never had what they really needed
most-an opportunity for each one to
have his own copy of the transcript of
the record of Dr. Clark's theological
examination, on which both the complaint and the answer had been based.
"Without it," he asked, "how can we
judge?"
After recessing for dinner, the presbytery voted down a motion to postpone further consideration until after mimeographing and circulating the
written speeches which had been delivered by several of the complainants
and by Mr. Hamilton.
Mr. Hamilton then again rose to deliver another paper on the relation between regeneration and human understanding, which again he said had
received Dr. Clark's approval. Confusion was injected, however, by the
interpolation of some of Mr. Hamilton's own observations which had not
been approved by Dr. Clark. In the
course of the speech, Mr. Hamilton
declared that notitia (knowledge) and
assensus (assent) could be possessed
by the unregenerate man but that
fiducia (trust) could not. These are
three theological terms to designate
the three elements of saving faith. Mr.
Hamilton was promptly challenged for
holding that the unregenerate man
possesses two-thirds of the elements of
saving faith. On this position, said the
complainants, the only thing wrong
with the unregenerate man is that his
saving faith is one-third incomplete.
Moreover, since the answer terms assent the central element in faith, the
unregenerate man might then, on Mr.
Hamilton's position, be said to possess
the central element of saving faith.
Mr. Hamilton then said that he had
just been told that Dr. Clark would
not agree that the unregenerate man
was in possession of the first two of
the three elements, but only of the
first. It then became clear that this portion of Mr. Hamilton's speech was
his own interpolation and had not received Dr. Clark's agreement. It
seemed also that Mr. Tichenor, chairman of the committee, held to a different conception of the subject from
that which had been defended by Mr.
Hamilton.
The supporters of Dr. Clark's theology made valiant effort to defend the
statement of the answer that "regeneration... is not a change in the
understanding of these words [Christ
died for sinners]." Mr. Kuschke, on
the other hand, defended the position
of the complaint and pointed out that,
when content is injected into the sentence, the unregenerate man must invariably inject the wrong content and
the regenerate man the true content.
The complainants' contention that
Dr. Clark apparently was reluctant to
characterize the free offer of the gospel
as "sincere" was discussed after Dr.
Clark had left the meeting. In the
course of debate Mr. Tichenor said that in his own opinion Dr. Clark
would probably interpret as referring
only to the elect the following two
passages: "God our Saviour, who will
have all men to be saved, and to come
unto the knowledge of the truth" (I
Tim. 2:3, 4) and "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the
death of the wicked; but that the
wicked turn from his way and live:
turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways;
for why will ye die; a house of Israel?"
(Ezek. 33:11).
Dr. Edward J. Young of Westminster Seminary gave a detailed and carefully worked out exegesis of many of
the Old Testament passages dealing
with the doctrine of incomprehensibility, but lack of space forbids an inclusion of them in this report.
The question was again called for.
Professor Woolley had already reminded the presbyters that they should
vote for the motion to dismiss the
complaint only if they were completely
satisfied that Dr. Clark's theology was
a proper presentation of the-Reformed
Faith.
A roll call vote was taken, showing a
tie vote of twenty to twenty, which
meant that the motion to dismiss the
complaint was lost.
Since there was obviously little
chance of completing the business of
the presbytery at this session, the meeting was adjourned until 11 A.M. on
Thursday, March 29th.
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