Clark's Gradual, Metaphysical Synthesis

A recent question was asked about Clark's theology proper which allowed me to collect thoughts that I have been meaning to put into words for some time. The question was as follows:

Clark was known to have translated John 1:1 so that the Logos was rendered as "Logic". Along these lines, Clark would argue to the effect that logic is the manner or characteristic of God's thinking.

How or where does Clark deal with the objection where logic is the art which orders discursive thought (something of which God does not have)? In other words, how can logic (as that which applies to reasoning from premises to conclusions) be said to be the characteristic of God's thinking if God's thinking is non-discursive?

This is an excellent question in that it draws out some implications of Clark’s view that may not be immediately obvious to the ordinary reader. 

Several people who responded to this question pointed out that an answer to it might depend on what the questioners thinks characterizes “discursive” reasoning. Clark himself used the word "discursive" to mean different things in different contexts.

For example, does “discursive” reasoning in the context of the above question involve a temporal succession and/or dependent process? If so, Clark would reply that God’s knowledge is not "discursive" in this sense:

The Complaint admits that Dr. Clark distinguishes between what may be called the divine psychology and human psychology in the act of knowing. God’s mode of knowing is intuitive, while man’s is always temporal and discursive. This distinction, the Complaint claims, is insufficient; a further distinction is needed. It is obvious therefore that the complainants hold to a two-fold theory of something in addition to a two-fold theory of the act of knowing. (Winter 1946/1947. Studies in the Doctrines of the Complaint. PCA Archives and SDCS)

Or does "discursive" merely suggest (in the context of the above question) that one’s thinking is syllogistically ordered? If so, Clark would reject the questioner's premise that God’s thinking is not "discursive":

God's knowledge is sometimes called intuitive rather than discursive. These terms are unfortunate, because if discursive means “syllogistic,” then God thinks in syllogism (Rom 4:2-3), and because men also presumably have intuitions. (1972. In Encyclopedia of Christianity. Philip E. Hughes, ed. Marshallton, Delaware: National Foundation for Christian Education. Feuerbach, Ludwig A.)

For Clark, however, for God to think "in syllogism" does not mean that there is some so-called fundamental truth or truths from which God must deduce all others. That would mean there would be more fundamental parts of God than others since, for Clark, God just is truth itself. I'll return to this point below, but by way of anticipation, I think Clark does implicitly provide answer to the questioner's confusion (although in such a way that it still leaves problems with Clark's larger theology). 

I'll put it another way: for humans, Clark says the law of contradiction is a test that requires supplementation – God’s word – in order for knowledge to be possible. For God, this is not so:

The substantive point needing discussion is whether the law of contradiction is the one and only test of truth.

Ideally or for God this seems to be the case. Since there is nothing independent of God, he does not conform truth to an alleged reality beyond truth and beyond him. Since there is no possibility of “vertical” (to use Carnell’s terminology) coherence, the “horizontal” test, or, better the horizontal characteristic of logical consistency seems the only possible one.

Weaver correctly notes that I do not claim for human beings the ability to apply this test universally. In this sense it is a “negative” or, better, an incomplete test. For this reason it must be supplemented some way or other...

Undoubtedly I hold that truth is a consistent system of propositions. Most people would be willing to admit that two truths cannot be contradictories; and I would like to add that the complex of all truths cannot be a mere aggregate of unrelated assertions. Since God is rational, I do not see how any item of his knowledge can be unrelated to the rest. Weaver makes no comment on this fundamental characteristic of divine truth.

Rather, he questions whether this characteristic is of practical value, and whether it must be supplemented in some way. It is most strange that Weaver here says, “I must agree with Carnell,” as if he had convicted me of disagreeing with Carnell by providing no supplementation whatever. Now, I may disagree with the last named gentleman on many points, but since it is abundantly clear that I “supplement” consistency by an appeal to the Scripture for the determination of particular truths, it is most strange that Weaver ignores my supplementation.// (Clark and His Critics, 2009, pgs. 287, 290)

A shorter statement by Clark to the same effect is as follows:

One who believes in the unity of truth may still believe that the false system entails contradictions; but to prove this is the work of omniscience. (Historiography: Secular and Religious, 1971, pg. 370)

Now, the following is very important: Clark held to a coherence or consistency theory of truth.

This gentleman distinguishes between logical consistency and a coherence view of truth. Since he stresses the latter rather than the former, he might think that Nash rates me too highly by asserting that I hold to coherence. However, neither Professor Nash nor I acknowledge this distinction, and while I now prefer the word consistency for clarity’s sake, I have no objection to Nash’s statement at this point. (Clark and His Critics, 2009, pg. 142)

For that reason, I believe, Clark came to reject that there could be multiple propositional systems that are completely coherent or consistent. If truth is coherence or consistency, there must be only one completely consistent or coherent system. Clark considered this even as early as 1952. From the Introduction to his A Christian View of Men and Things, he writes:

Now, there is a theory that the ultimate test of truth is coherence, and on this theory it would be impossible to have two self‑consistent, mutually contradictory philosophies. A false statement, so it is said, will always, if pursued far enough, imply its own falsity. If this coherence theory of truth should be established, then we could rely with confidence on this application of the law of contradiction. Its sufficiency would be inherent in the nature of truth. The mere fact that the coherence theory of truth would eliminate a final impasse might even be reason enough for adopting it. One might hold that all other theories of truth lead to skepticism, and that therefore the coherence theory alone is coherent and true. Possibly all this is so, but surely it needs some more talking about. And in talking about it, there can be no logical objection to using the law of contradiction as far as it will go.

Over time, I think his acceptance of a coherence theory of truth pushed him to accept necessitarianism (see here). There is necessarily only one coherent or consistent system of propositions, and God necessarily just is this system.

For Clark, the idea of multiple propositional systems that are coherent or consistent would not only have posed an epistemic difficulty for God but also a metaphysical one since, for Clark, God just is truth. Clark himself says: "Truth is God... God is truth." (1984. In the Beginning. The Trinity Review Nov.-Dec.). This dovetails with his theory of personhood in which persons just are that which they think:

As there is no temporal priority, so also there is no logical or analytical priority. Not only was Logic the beginning, but Logic was God. If this unusual translation of John’s Prologue still disturbs someone, he might yet allow that God is his thinking. God is not a passive or potential substratum; he is actuality or activity. (1980. God and Logic. The Trinity Review Nov.-Dec.)

God thinks truth; therefore, God is truth. Returning to an earlier point, for Clark, the unity of truth (God) is such that any single, true proposition will mutually entail all others, whereas a false proposition will always lead to systematic inconsistency. God has no need for axiomatic truths (unlike us), for He is in no need of "supplementation" (unlike us) to apply the law of contradiction to Himself - or, what is equivalent, to His own knowledge - with complete sufficiency. God just is the singly coherent, consistent, necessary, logical system: truth itself. God is this truth actually and actively. There is no potential for God to have been another system of so-called truths. 

Roughly, then, one can argue that epistemological beliefs Clark became committed to in the 1940s-50s - e.g. man's knowledge is univocal with God's; coherence theory of truth; anti-empirical means of knowledge - shaped his later, metaphysical views. For example:

- Clark's theory of truth was such that in order for Clark to account for knowledge of persons (e.g. man's knowledge of God or God's knowledge of men), he believed he had to change his views (cf. his earlier anthropological views here) by collapsing personhood into 1) propositions or 2) thoughts. 

[As an aside, these two positions might be distinct (link). In particular, the second position - i.e. persons are what they think - might seem to require what Clark calls elsewhere a "subjective, psychological act" (link), implying something seemingly distinct from propositional objects yet corresponding to them: i.e. thinkers. 

An interesting question is whether Clark believed these positions were distinct. It does not appear so, for in his book The Trinity, he says in the same chapter ("Individuation") that persons are a "collection of thoughts" and that his wife is "merely a set of propositions." He appears to equate positions 1) and 2), at least in terms of his own, proposed definition of personhood.

So did Clark think propositions can think themselves? Is this intelligible? And contrary to contemporary philosophers, did Clark think propositions have causal powers? Combined with his quote from the "God and Logic" article above, it does indeed appear Clark thought such to be the case! Of course, an obvious, unfortunate product of this position as held by elder Clark is a two-person theory of the incarnation (two thinkers = two persons).

On the other hand, even if our "subjective, psychological act" of believing might itself be a proposition, Clark does nevertheless seem to introduce something distinct from propositions elsewhere in accepting Clark's acceptance of a "Platonic-Philonic" dualism (link). But this then begs the question as to whether one must know phenomena qua phenomena or if it suffices to know the noumenal, suprasensible world. Likewise, Clark's theory of language trades on nonpropositional "symbols" which, in Clark's own words, correspond to propositions (link). 

This would be problematic unless the following assertion Clark made to Buswell in 1948 is false: "The correspondence theory would require us to compare an idea we have in consciousness with some utterly unknown object." But if it is false (as I've argued, link), it demotivates Clark's reason for accepting the coherence theory of truth and, in turn, the many metaphysical views Clark was led to as a result.]

- Likewise, Clark's theory of time as a "succession of ideas" suggests yet another collapse of a metaphysical category into an epistemic one. 

[Another aside: I wonder if this may function to explain why Clark waffled on the age of the earth prior to the creation of man. Clark did believe angels had successions of ideas; I suppose only the hypothesis that angels were the first creations would prevent one from asking Clark "how much time elapsed between the creation of the heavens and the creation of angels?" This question might be problematic if no angels existed to have a succession of ideas according to which the elapse between the creation of heaven and the creation of angels might be measured.]

- Returning to Clark's metaphysic of persons, one might suggest that whereas Thomistic divine simplicity is subject to comparison to Plotinus' One, Clark's version of divine simplicity is more subject to comparison to Plotinus' Divine Mind (link). To the chagrin of adherents to these versions of divine simplicity, I think the comparisons are warranted.

To expand on Clark's view, it is fairly apparent that Clark's affirmation of univocal knowledge plays a part in his unique understanding of divine simplicity. If Clark can be categorized as a classical theist - for he did accept divine simplicity, immutability, timelessness, and impassibility - he is certainly an odd one! On the other hand, that a comparison to Plotinus might nevertheless be made to Clark's views might lead one to theorize that Clark had a tendency to overly depend on ancient philosophers (with whom Clark was so familiar).

- In support of this thesis, 1) Clark's view of time depended on Augustine; 2) elder Clark seemed to deny the possibility of an infinitude of knowledge in The Incarnation, a denial which Steve Hays once point out presupposes a pre-Cantorian definition of "infinity" and simultaneously demonstrated Clark's ignorance of mathematics (cf. Personal Recollections, pg. 117); 3) elder Clark's acceptance of necessitarianism is somewhat similar to Plotinian necessitarianism. In this last case, however, I would say his view is rather more similar to that of Leibniz, which is nevertheless striking in that so far as I am aware, elder Clark never responded to his own, proleptic criticism (written in 1957) of his later acceptance of necessitarianism: 

If all truths are to be deduced by logic alone from the being of God, this world cannot be the best of all possible worlds because there are no other possible worlds. Are the theorems of geometry the best of all possible theorems? The question is meaningless, for there are no other theorems. God, therefore, exercised no choice in causing the world; he is its cause in precisely the same sense in which the axioms of geometry are the cause of the theorems. (Thales to Dewey, pg. 327, 1957)

Clark wrote other criticisms of necessitarianism he also neglected to address when he later came to accept the position (cf. Karl Barth’s Theological Method, 1997, pg. 36).

- One final metaphysical category that seems driven by Clark's epistemic beliefs pertains to causation. I've suggested that elder Clark's acceptance of occasionalism (link) was due to his anti-empirical epistemology. Clark might have feared that an alternative account of causation would support his critics, who perpetually asked if Clark had to read his Bible in order to know its contents. 

Now, I've also argued there was no reason for Clark to have had this fear (if he did; link). It is possible for propositional truths to correspond to nonpropositions - and even for the truth-values of contingent propositions to be determined by nonproposition[s] (for God Himself is not a [set of] proposition[s], link) - without devastating a revelational epistemology. Additionally, in the context of the specific critique regarding the reading of one's Bible, it is possible Clark conflated the basing relation in epistemology (or something like it) with causation simpliciter.

These are the beginnings of an interesting story one might tell about how Clark's unique thought developed and converged over time, a story I eventually hope to narrate in a more ordered form. 

As a perhaps unnecessary outro, I don't agree with Clark on several of these points. Nor were his views on several points I've outlined above always the same. For example, as I point out in one of the above links and quotes, one will find statements earlier in his life in which he (correctly) rejects necessitarianism. 

However, I think there is a gradual, metaphysical synthesis in Clark's thought that implies his awareness of such problems as the one posed at the beginning of this post. Even though I think Clark gets quite a few things wrong, his attempted synthesis is nonetheless impressive. Clark's following speech "from the grave" was a little too humble: "Clark never had much to do with ta meta-ta-phusica."