More Thoughts on Necessitarianism

Many years ago, I noted in passing that I had rethought my position on necessitarianism (link), the view that everything that happens [or is] could not have happened [or be] otherwise: the way all things are is the only way all things could have been. The catalyst for my reconsideration was wondering whether what flaws I had discovered in certain aspects of Gordon Clark's metaphysics extended to this position as well, for while Clark rejected necessitarianism earlier in his life - as seen, for example, in the following quote - he accepted it later (link):

Christian theologians have commonly pointed out that creation as a voluntary act is incompatible with Hegelian philosophy. Hegel can very sincerely say that the world depends on God or the Absolute, and to this extent he sounds like a Christian, but Hegel continues as no Christian can and adds that the Absolute conversely depends on the world. This mutual dependence is essentially pantheism. No single thing by itself, the Sun, the Moon, or John Doe, is God but the whole, not in its plurality but in its unity, is God. God and the universe are one reality. Barth’s rejection of this mutual dependence, of this reciprocity between whole and part, is clear cut: “God would be none the less God if he had not created a world and man. The world’s existence and our existence is no wise essentially necessary to God, even as the object of his love” (I, 1, 158) (Karl Barth’s Theological Method, 1997, pg. 36 – original date of publication: 1963)

[As an aside, Clark's early acceptance of ethical and perhaps even alethic voluntarism (link) - on which God's justice and truth are defined by what God indeterminatively does - are totally irreconcilable with necessitarianism].

Formerly, I could not see how necessitarianism leads to pantheism. It seemed to me that a necessitarian could relatively consistently hold that "creation is not consubstantial with the Father because the Father did not [and, therefore, could not... have willed to] communicate His nature to creation" (link). That is, while a necessitated creation might share some attributes with God, it wouldn't share others (omniscience, for example) and, therefore, wouldn't be consubstantial. 

As I see it now, the question of whether theistic necessitarianism entails pantheism seems to turn on to what extent individuation is possible if all things are, as necessitarianism seemingly entails, internally related. Does necessitarianism entail monism, as Amy Karofsky argues? Gordon Clark agrees:

Now, first, the brief intellectual biography at the beginning noted that Russell early renounced Hegelianism and became an empiricist. This change started with an attack on Bradley’s, and Hegel’s, theory of internal relations and the substitution of an atomic theory of external relations. The former, holding that everything is implicated in everything, results in an absolute monism. The definition of cat, for example, is part of the definition of dog, and also of Betelgeuse. (Modern Philosophy, 2008, pg. 174)

As Karofsky puts it, "The essence of one thing contains the essence of every other" (The Case for Necessitarianism, pg. 143). If Karofsky is right, the arguments I make here would require her to be omniscient to know anything. 

Upon further reflection, though, even if she did claim to be omniscient, due to the sort of monism for which she argues, her position reduces to skepticism anyways for the simple fact that I do not claim to be omniscient. Further, if "her" mind "contains" "my" mind - if there is even a meaningful way, on such a reductionistic monism, to individuate between the two - that would suggest quite the solipsistic cognitive dissonance!

Further, if monism results from necessitarianism such that there is only one truth or essence, whence the appearance of change or plurality? Clark:

Now I don’t want to bore you by reading what you can read yourself but this is very important and it would be well to read it over several times because there have been, since Parmenides’ day, types of monism, where being is one, but I guess there has never been such an absolute monism as that of Parmenides. From this point on, those who had been monists had always tried to smuggle in a little plurality and we shall see that later on. (link)

On a Parmenidean monism, there is neither time nor change: not even a non-directional C theory. There is no distinction between contingentarians and necessitarians: they are one. There is no such thing as arguments: premises and conclusions are the same. 

Now let's compare Parmenides to Karofsky, who says that 

Although I do think that contingentarians should change their view and alter their contingentarian beliefs, I do not take that to mean that the future is open and not necessitated. The claim that one ought to change and alter their beliefs does not entail that there are two possible futures; instead, when a person changes a belief, that merely means that they held it at some earlier time and rejected it later. Change is consistent with necessitarianism; all change occurs necessarily (pg. 152)

Here is the smuggle. At least Wittgenstein acknowledged he threw away the ladder he climbed. Karofsky uses concepts of time, change, distinctions between contingentarians and necessitarians, etc. - this is not reconcilable with her claim at the end of the book, viz. "I will continue to follow Parmenides' route on which it is..." (pg. 159). And again, see here:

....given the monism that I defend, there are neither individual moments nor individual causes and events; instead, there is a singular, continuous flow of movement and change, and we merely posit “moments,” “causes,” and “events” as a way of articulating and communicating certain ways that we perceive the world to be working. (pg. 154)

Can Karofsky define define "time" without there being individual events? No. Can she define "change" or "flow of movement" consistent with Parmenides' route? No. How Karofsky seems to think of "change" is purely epistemic, a way "we" order the working of the world. But on monism, there is no "we." There is no distinction between us and the world. That is, our (i.e. Karofsky's) articulations and communications and posits are false:

I take it that necessitarianism probably does entail monism and all of the aforementioned monist theses. But it also seems to me that monism can be shown to be plausible, especially in comparison to the difficulties faced by pluralistic theories... The monist account that I have in mind seems to be similar to the ontological monism and blobjectivism that Horgan and Potrč defend. I take it that there is only one reality that is the whole universe, a universe that does not have any genuine parts. And, as I articulated in this section, I believe that there is just one true proposition that is the statement of the entire universe that is the combination of all of the statements that are true. But it also seems to me that there are simple expressions of the one statement, like: there is one reality that is the universe, X =X, and it is. Such expressions are complete and true, but they are not distinct statements; rather they are different ways of expressing the one true proposition, the truthmaker for which is the ultimate existence fact, namely the way that the one reality—the universe—is, where, the is in that claim indicates that the universe: exists, is in fact the case, is real, is such as it is, and that propositions that correspond to it are true (pgs. 139, 144) 

"One reality" "that does not have any genuine parts," "difficulties faced by pluralistic theories," and the like are the closest Karofsky comes to admitting the fully orbed nature of Parmenidean monism. But these are precisely what makes the Parmenidean "route" of "it is" entail no change. For what "flow of movement" can there be other than "from-to"? But there is not really a "genuine" distinction between "from" and "to" given the monism described above. Likewise with change: there can be no "genuine" distinction between and "earlier" or "later" time. The smuggle has been busted.

Now, even if a theistic necessitarian could avoid monism and pantheism, I've argued here that they would nevertheless be caught on the other horn of a dilemma, and a horn which still involves, as Clark mentions above, the problem of mutual dependency. If divine sufficiency is an essential distinction between the Creator and creature (Acts 17:24-25; John 5:26; 2 Corinthians 2:14-16, 3:4-6, 9:8, 12:8-10), then any position which involves mutual dependency between Creator and creation would be problematic.

This is a presuppositionalist reply to necessitarianism. Other arguments - such as those which might be found in contemporary literature - may be less well-founded. For example, I don't have much issue with Amy Karofsky's first chapter on bad arguments for contingentarianism. I agree with her "that there cannot be any empirical evidence in support of contingentarianism because there cannot be any experience of what is never-actual" (The Case For Necessitarianism, pg. 31). 

We only experience the world as it actually is, so it does not make sense to use our experience as grounds for a world that could be otherwise. That is, a posteriori knowledge cannot suffice to rule out necessitarianism, and philosophers who argue to this effect are wrong for doing so. 

Other arguments she mentions in the same chapter - those grounded in "probability," "intuition," "majority opinion," and "contingency-talk" or the way we use language - are also rather weak. I think philosophers who use these arguments tend to conflate metaphysics with epistemology, overly inflate the value of opinion, or trade on our epistemic limitations. To what extent these sorts of fallacious reasonings represent how contemporary philosophers defend contingentarianism, I don't know. Karofsky's work appears well-documented, at least. Nonetheless, I found none of the arguments presented in the entire chapter for contingentarianism to be persuasive.

I think this illustrates one way in which a presuppositionalist or foundationalist can argue a priori knowledge is foundational for a posteriori knowledge. I imagine that many empiricists or scientists would balk at the suggestion that the world could not have been otherwise. If so, however, could they provide reasonable pushback against Karofsky with purely empiricist reasoning? If they can't, might this not persuade them to re-examine their epistemic presuppositions?

There aren't too many other arguments which need addressing. Foremost would be the two mentioned at the end of this post which deal with time and immutability. These topics being so complicated in themselves (and anyone can read my posts with the "Time" tag to see that I've wrestled with this), I can only be brief: 

The "succession" and time argument - "Making God's knowledge contingent on a 'free' choice... requires a succession of ideas in His mind" - depends on Clark's definition of time and can probably be dealt with just by defining time a different way, such as "the chain of secondary effects from secondary causes." This would protect eternal generation as well as timeless divine omniscience, for example. Most debates about time seem to turn on how one defines it, and this seems as satisfying a definition as I've seen. It might still requires some nuance for cases such as justification depending on saving faith but not being temporally subsequent to it, but I don't think such a point requires pause concerning the whether the definition is felicitous.

The immutability argument - "God's knowledge could be other than it actually is also contradicts His immutability" - conflates God's being and activity (see my discussion of divine knowledge as divine activity under the Horton subsection here). God's ability to do or know otherwise does not entail that He would be otherwise. There is also the question of divine immutability within a broader scope, especially given the incarnation (link).

Epistemic Contextualism, Internalism, and Externalism

A friend who recently read this post had a question about epistemic externalism. In that post, I ask the following question: "Can some beliefs we have be in some sense justified by virtue of having been caused a certain way...?" My friend, noting that causation is more immediately linked to metaphysics than to epistemology, expressed confusion about whether one who espouses epistemic externalism has conflated a metaphysical question with an epistemological one. For example, if we're asking about what justifies a belief, a common answer is that beliefs are justified in virtue of reasons. This is certainly different than the idea beliefs could be justified in virtue of being caused a certain way.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Now, when we specify a subject of study - like knowledge - we are specifying some thing that we think exists, is real, etc. Consider Gordon Clark’s book, A Christian View of Men and Things. Well, what is one of the “Things” in his book about which he attempts to give a Christian View? Epistemology! Metaphysics and epistemology are related. You can’t have a “study of knowledge” (epistemology) unless there is a thing such as “knowledge” to be studied (metaphysics).

A question Clark often asked was, “How do you know?” Clark dealt a lot with comparing and contrasting theories by which people argue we attain “knowledge.” Less often did Clark engage with the question of what knowledge itself is. What is knowledge? Note: this is a question of metaphysics. Of course, if we give an answer to the question “What is knowledge?” we might further ask “How do you “know” that “knowledge” is what you claim?” 

Similarly, ethics is the study of moral principles, i.e. obligations to act in certain ways. A specific ethical theory I accept is that men are obligated to obey God. In fact, I believe God created men with such an obligation. Note: creation is tied to causation and, therefore, metaphysics. If the [created] nature of man is such that he is obligated to obey God, I think this in turn shows that ethics is rooted in ontology (which is a branch of metaphysics). 

[Parenthetical: in fact, I think God’s own nature obliges Himself to act in certain ways. For example, God cannot lie. God cannot fail to love Himself. He cannot annihilate Himself. In fact, these statements are even more absurd than statements like “5 equals 6.” Being free from all external constraints and self-sufficient, God’s own actions are rooted in His nature. Ironically, only in this way, I think, is one able to defend against theistic necessitarianism (link).]

Nature, knowledge, and moral principles: these are, of course, distinct, and we should not conflate them. But if we elevate the importance of any one or two of these to the exclusion of the other[s], we will end up in serious error. If we slight the importance of metaphysics or have a skewed view of the nature of reality, we might be tempted to denied the correspondence theory of truth (like Clark), to understate the importance of using our God-given talents in this world, etc. If we slight the importance of epistemology or have a skewed view of knowledge, we might rationalize the ethical destruction of others (like Hitler), find ourselves zealous but destroyed by God for a lack of knowledge, etc. If we slight the importance of ethics or have a skewed view of our moral obligations, despite our cries on the day of judgment, the Lord Jesus will not recognize our fruitless selves. For more on the point that a Christian worldview is an integration of equally important considerations, see here.

Let’s return to a specific question: what is knowledge? Most philosophers seem to agree that knowledge involves certain kinds of beliefs in propositional truths:

Example: if I understand a truth (like “Jesus is Lord”) but do not believe it, then I don’t have knowledge of that truth.

Example: If I believe something that is not true (like “Jesus is not Lord”), then I also don’t have knowledge of that proposition.

Is “belief in truth” a sufficient condition for “knowledge”? This is where the discussion gets tricky. For example, who has the privilege or right to decide what “knowledge” can or does mean? Even the question itself is vague. Are we talking about the word “knowledge” (what we can physically write, speak, etc. - this would deal with the philosophy of language) or a particular concept of “knowledge” (the subject of an immaterial proposition - this would deal with epistemology)? And, of course, how do we know whether our answers to these questions are true? 

It would take me a long time to provide a thorough answer to these questions, let alone justification for them. In fact, I have even skipped mention of associated questions like the “problem of the criterion.” I have defended my position on many of these questions elsewhere (e.g. link, link, link), so I will simply summarize my views below to the extent I think they will help alleviate my friend's concern.

Physical words like “k-n-o-w-l-e-d-g-e” are symbols. These symbols encode meaning. Clark seems to agree:

…words are instruments or symbols for expressing thoughts. The letters t, w, o or the Arabic numeral 2, are not the number itself, they are the visual or audible symbols used to refer to the intellectual concept. (A Christian View of Men and Things, pg. 211)

In one context, the use of a physical word (like “knowledge”) might symbolize a particular thought. In another context, the use of a physical word (like “knowledge”) might symbolize another thought. 

[Parenthetical: an interesting point which could be raise is that no two physical words or verbal expressions are exactly alike; for example, there are different pixels and even atoms being used on your computer screen for every time I write the word “knowledge.” But for the sake of space, I'll set aside this curiosity.] 

The point is that what a physical word symbolizes will depend upon context. In fact, physical objects may even symbolize different meanings to different people within the same setting. A swastika will symbolize something quite different to Nazis than it will to Jews. Again, Clark seems to agree. More importantly, his agreement with this can be seen regarding the very question of what “knowledge” means:

The various Scriptural usages of the verb know raise a problem in apologetics to which a commentary can only allude in a footnote. The common meaning is exemplified in simple sentences, such, “I know that there is a tree on the lawn,” and “I know that David was King of Israel.” But sometimes, both in Hebrew and in Greek know means believe, obey, choose, have sexual intercourse. English too uses the verb in a variety of meanings. In their opposition to the intellectual emphasis on truth, experiential, emotional, mystical, and neo-orthodox apologetes have contrasted the intellectual Greek meaning with the (sometimes) sexual Hebrew meaning. This contrast is misguided because the Hebrew verb and the Greek verb are both so used. More serious than this linguistic incompetence is a flaw or a gap in the apologetics of these apologetes. It is well enough to point out the extended meanings of the verb. The verb is indeed so used. But such information is irrelevant as an argument against intellectualism and truth. The fallacy or defect is that these apologetes fail to explain knowledge in its basic sense. To insist on extended meanings of knowledge is no substitute for a basic epistemology.” (The Pastoral Epistles, pg. 166).

In my opinion, this is one of the most important yet overlooked Clark quotes of which I am aware. It suggests that Clark could be considered an epistemic contextualist:

…whether S knows something - that she has two hands, for instance - depends on the context of the person who is saying S knows it. If I, a philosopher, worried about brains in vats and Cartesian demons, say it, then S doesn’t know she has two hands… But if S, an ordinary person on the street, someone without the least tincture of philosophy, says she knows that she has two hands, what she says is true. She attributes knowledge to herself in an ordinary, practical, context, in which demons and handless-brains-in-vats are not relevant possibilities…

 
So who, according to contextualism, is right? Am I, a philosopher, right when I (given my context) say that nobody knows they have hands. Or is S right? We are, I’m afraid, both right. And that is where my low opinion of contextualism comes from. (Fred Dretske, pg. 45, Contemporary Debates in Epistemology)

While I agree with Dretske that as a standalone epistemic position, contextualism would not offer much in the way of clarity to important philosophical questions, the position does allow for nuanced, developed epistemic theories within the different contexts one has in mind. I'll return to this in a shortly.

When we talk about Scripture and sentences, we are talking about “script,” i.e. physical writing. Yes, of course, Clark and I acknowledge that “meaning is exemplified” or symbolized in such things, but the point is that the subject under discussion in the above quote is about the physical symbols themselves and that in God’s own inscripturated revelation to us, Clark admits that the physical word “know” can encode different meanings (“believe, obey, choose, have sexual intercourse”).

Clark refers to one of these meanings as “basic” for intellectualism and epistemology. One can only glean so much from a footnote, but taken together with his other writings, I believe Clark is saying that we must accept a particular meaning of “knowledge” as a necessary precondition for any other meaning of “knowledge” to be intelligible or defensible to us. I outline what I think Clark particularly believed is the “basic” meaning of “knowledge” below, and if I am correct, I agree with Clark:

To summarize, to "knowledge" is about truth. Truth is the set of coherent or consistent propositions. When one reflects upon a true proposition, believes it, has either deduced it from an axiom or believes it axiomatically, and the axiom [and/or deduction] is infallibly justified, he can be certain (in an epistemic, not merely a psychological, sense) that what he believes is truth. (link)

Here is where I finally get around to answering my friend's question. His question is on the right track if we were to say that externalism is sufficient as a “basic” definition for knowledge. I have argued in many places that epistemic externalism fails to provide us with a full assurance of our beliefs. For a Christian, this should be seen as problematic. See here, here, and here. At the same time, remember that Clark admitted and Scripture indicates that the physical word “knowledge” may symbolize different meanings in different contexts. 

This brings me to meta-epistemology, a discipline which questions the assumptions and commitments of epistemology (link). When we think about what “knowledge” means, we might also consider what questions or concerns a particular meaning of “knowledge” would satisfy. For example, Paul encourages believers to reach for full assurance of understanding and knowledge (Colossians 2:2-3; see the links in the previous paragraph for a fuller discussion). Thus, if we accept what Paul says as true, we ought to have a definition and theory of “knowledge” that aims for that end. An externalist epistemology cannot accomplish that “basic” end. Full assurance can only be had if we are infallibly aware of our epistemic justification, and this is a variety of epistemic internalism.

[Important tangent: most internalists would acknowledge that we don’t always “show” our justification in the sense of an infinite chain of reasons or proofs. For example, a consistent Scripturalist wouldn't attempt to “show” the epistemic justification for his belief in God’s word. For him, God’s word is a axiomatic, not founded on a prior reason. It isn’t provable - so he can’t “show” his justification to anyone else in that sense. Yet unlike an externalist, he can still reflect on or be aware of the justification he has for his belief in it. He can be conscious of God’s word as self-authenticating: God’s word is true, and its own truth suffices for the justification of one's belief in it.]

On the other hand, I think Mark 6:38, 13:28, 15:44-45, etc. (again, see the two links a few paragraphs ago) encode a different meaning of “knowledge” due to their differing contexts - ones that don't require full assurance. In these contexts, an externalist epistemology has potential to provide us with a definition and theory of “knowledge” that aims for a different end than full assurance. Of course, the aim of an externalist epistemology has some overlap with the aim of an internalist epistemology: both would involve “justified” true beliefs, i.e. something more than a lucky, true opinion. Guessing the lottery numbers does not count as knowledge.

Epistemic “justification” is a way of talking about how we non-arbitrarily or non-luckily “track” truth. Epistemic contextualism allows space for there to be different ways in which this is explained. One context - epistemic internalism - affords a definition and theory of “knowledge” which allows for the conscious tracking of truth. That is why an epistemic internalism (like Clark’s, at least broadly considered) is capable of aiming for full assurance. 

By contrast, another context - epistemic externalism - affords a definition and theory of “knowledge” which allows for the unconscious tracking of truth. As such, we cannot be fully assured regarding a given [dispositional] belief we have which was either unconsciously formed or relies on the presence of factors about which we cannot be conscious. On the other hand, that doesn't mean the aims of epistemic externalism are useless:

Externalism is the theory that we can, to varying degrees and depending on the justificatory factors involved, know or be epistemically justified in our beliefs due to something to which we don't have cognitive or reflective access - say, a causal process. We can think about or reflect on a causal process, but we can't re-experience it, whereas we can periodically access or experience the same beliefs. A causal process might be considered able to epistemically justify us because that process in general produces true beliefs in the mind of the person who undergoes it. The causal process tracks truth, whether we are aware of it or not.

That kind of "epistemic justification" allows for the possibility of our knowing what are generally considered "common sense" beliefs. I'm typing on my computer, you're reading a blog post, etc. The causal process by which we know these propositions is usually physical media. But the chain of causes which produce a belief need not be evidentiary reasons for my belief. For example, while God is the ultimate cause of all things, not all people's beliefs will be reasoned from or evidenced by a belief they may have - or, more pertinent to this example, may lack - about God. Similarly, while I may have a sense experience which causes a belief in divine revelation, I needn't infer my belief in divine revelation from a belief about my senses. So if, after a causal process consisting of the examination of textual variants, you believe something to have been divinely revealed, that doesn't require you to epistemically ground your belief regarding the content of divine revelation on a belief about that causal process. Again, I would argue a belief about that or any causal process is itself infallibly defensible only by ultimately appealing to special divine revelation.

That doesn't mean the causal process is irrelevant to your belief. If we have a belief that certain causal processes track truth better than others, it makes sense to position ourselves and those around us to more often experience the better kinds of causal process. If I want you to know about the Grand Canyon, I may talk to you about it or show you a picture of it, but I wouldn't shut your eyes or close your ears while I did those things. I think sense experiences often cause true beliefs. If I want you to know a truth, and if I believe there is a kind of experience which may be useful in producing a true belief, I'll do what I can to help you experience that.

I believe the above illustration provides a fair analogy of how I think we can regard at least one goal of textual criticism. There are textual variants among what copies of Scripture we have. Some do not affect the meaning of a passage. Some are evidently the result of mistranslation. Some are more significant in implication - the variants may affect the meaning of a passage, or they may exhibit disagreement with other texts about whether a passage is even canonical. Thus, while I think the goal of the textual critic shouldn't be to collect texts, compare and contrast them, and use that as an evidentiary basis to infer or reason to what has been specially divinely revealed, there certainly would be use in disposing ourselves and others to a causal process which tracks truth about what has been specially divinely revealed and codified in physical media - in this case, texts. So one function of textual criticism could lie in its capability to cause externalist knowledge of special divine revelation. In any case, there is certainly some apologetic role textual criticism may play within one's worldview, so long as it is remembered that apologetics is subservient to and in fact derives from one's epistemology... (link)

In short, the aim of an internalist theory of knowledge is to explain how we may have “justification” in terms of full assurance. An externalist theory of knowledge cannot explain how one may have “justification” in terms of full assurance - but as long as we don’t need “justification” in terms of full assurance for everyday, unconsciously formed beliefs such as “I'm reading a blog post,” that’s okay. 

The aim of an externalist theory of knowledge is to explain how it is possible that everyday, unconsciously formed beliefs such as “I'm reading a blog post” can be the result of a truth-tracking process and, in that context, count as legitimately “justified.” An internalist theory of knowledge (at least of the infallibilist variety) cannot explain how it is possible that everyday, unconsciously formed beliefs such as “I'm reading a blog post” can be the result of a truth-tracking process and, in that context, count as legitimately “justified” - but as long as we don't need “justification” in such terms for beliefs about which we can have full assurance, that's okay.

Now, the only way we could unconsciously track truth is by nature; if something happens unconsciously, it happens involuntarily (e.g. breathing). As you’ve read this post, you've perhaps been caused to form a [dispositional] belief that “I'm reading a blog post,” a belief that is formed apart from a syllogistic process of reasoning. This happens many times throughout the day. We don't always reason from premises to conclusions, because we don't always form beliefs by tracing them back to axioms or foundations. We often form [dispositional] beliefs without even being aware of it. 

Analogous to the way in which God created us with an obligation to obey him, God may also have created Adam - as morally upright and very good - with a tendency to track truth (even unconsciously). Just as a correct theory of ethical obligation is rooted in a correct ontology, a correct theory of how our beliefs may be causally formed is rooted in a correct ontology. 

Thus, in this context, metaphysics may inform an externalist theory of knowledge without conflating the two. After all, by definition, knowledge involves beliefs (a metaphysical truth). So if we allow that what enables us to track truth is something external to us, then as I mention above in the context of textual criticism, it might be helpful to learn what kinds of actions seem to cause belief in truth. 

Of course, while Adam remained ethically obligated to God after the fall, Adam's (and our) capacity to track truth has been hindered by our sinfulness. Ultimately, this inhibition can only be overcome by the (external!) movement of the Spirit to indwell us. 

Nevertheless, even unbelievers have the ability to track true beliefs (e.g. Mark 15:44-45), even if they cannot have conscious, internalist, infallible justification for them. Since the Spirit works in the hearts of unbelievers by means of Christians He has already indwelt, it is still incumbent upon us to think about what we can do to work in the lives of unbelievers to lead them to the truth. Romans 10:14-17 is a prime example of this.

Gordon Clark and Anthony Flood (Part 2)

In a recent post, I reviewed chapter 9 of Anthony Flood's book, Philosophy after Christ: Thinking God's Thoughts after Him (link). The following post will cover chapter 10 - "What Are We Doing When We're Reading? Questions about Gordon Clark's Occasionalism" - and conclude my review. As a precursor to this post, I wrote another one in which I argued that late in his life, it appears Clark did, in fact, espouse occasionalism (link). I want to say at the outset that I always appreciate reading other people's thoughts on Gordon Clark. In a way, it helps me understand how I myself have been impacted by Clark's influence and how I can hope to impact the thoughts of others in a helpful way.

In this chapter, Mr. Flood takes aim at late Clark's occasionalism. With Mr. Flood, I would agree that accepting occasionalism is problematic (link and link). His most insistent criticism of late Clark's occasionalism seems to concern the philosophy of language. For instance, consider the following statements:

One wonders how Clark's epistemology accounts for how one learns a language...

Now, how did Gordon Clark access the propositions of Scripture? He was adamant that ink marks on a Bible's white paper pages (or pixels on a computer monitor) convey nothing to the mind. The Holy Spirit, however, uses those marks to 'stimulate' or occasion the divinely intended proposition in the believer's mind...

It was Clark's distinctive position that only the propositions of the Bible conveyed by the Holy Spirit to a human mind counts as knowledge; all other beliefs, however justified and true they may be, are not more than opinions. Clark did not register an opinion as to whether English letters of Chinese characters played any role in that conveyance...

Clark's occasionalism implicitly denies that our sensory organs receive data into which verifiable and falsifiable insights are possible, insights that accumulate into viewpoints. But did not such insights occur whenever Clark read a sentence in a language in which he enjoyed competency? The road to competency, however, was paved with his progressive attainment of rudimentary, intermediate, and advanced insights into that language...

Mr. Flood overstates the case when he intimates that Clark might have counted some beliefs as both "justified" and, at the same time, "not more than opinions." For instance, there is no suggestion in any of Clark's works that he would have accepted Gettier cases as involving justified beliefs.

Otherwise, we can agree that late Clark's occasionalism begs the question as to how Clark would be able to know that he had learned a language. Should Clark have attempted to disconnect his philosophy of language from his philosophy of knowledge - e.g. by suggesting that physical words or ink marks (i.e. the objects of language) are not immaterial propositions (i.e. the objects of knowledge) and, therefore, that one does not need to learn a language in order to know - one might question why Clark phrased his own axiom in the following way (written within one year of his death):

The first principle cannot be demonstrated because there is nothing prior from which to deduce it. Call it presuppositionalism, call it fideism, names do not matter. But I know no better presupposition than “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the autographs.” (link) 

To speak of writings and autographs is to allude to inscripturation, the idea that God's revealed, propositional word is, as Steve Hays once put it, encoded in physical media (link). To suggest, as Clark here did (whether he realized it or not), that his axiomatic propositions are encoded in physical media implies such propositions should be decodable. To be be clear, when I talk about propositions that are "decoded" by or from physical media, I don't mean to suggest that an internalist, empirical epistemology is in view. Rather, our knowledge of propositions is mediately caused. The is a point of metaphysics, and in this sense, we even learn (but not justify) our epistemic axioms. For example, nobody is conceived with knowledge of the gospel.

For emphasis, when I talk about "learning" in this post, I am referring to a metaphysical process, not the process of epistemic justification. I am not suggesting we can somehow use our sense experience as a kind of premise by which we can infer or consciously attempt to justify (in an internalist sense) our propositional knowledge claims. What I am suggesting is that sense experience can function as a secondary, proximate cause of our propositional knowledge claims.

As I said, Clark's statement about inscripturation suggests that God's word is encoded. In turn, this suggests that we can learn, can decode, or can be caused to know the propositions God intends to reveal to us by or from the physical media in which God's word is encoded. We may not even be aware that this metaphysical process has happened.

If Clark could not learn or decode his own axioms from the physical media in which he asserts they were encoded, this would either mean that 1) his own epistemology is self-defeating - if the metaphysical process of learning about his epistemic axioms depends on the ability to decode them from physical media - or 2) that the process of inscripturation to which his axiom alludes was superfluous for our knowledge of God's word - if the metaphysical process of learning about his epistemic axioms does not and cannot have any relevance to the encoding of propositions in physical media.

Clark seemed to opt for the latter option - cf. his rejection of the correspondence theory of knowledge (discussed here and here) - which is why I have elsewhere rhetorically asked what was the purpose of inscripturation if occasionalism is true. There seems to be none, nor does there seem to be a relevant reason why Clark should have mentioned that God's word was "written" and "inerrant in the autographs" in his own epistemic axiom. 

For that matter, how is an autograph "inerrant" if not by metonymy? As early as 1944 and as late as 1982, Clark insisted that "only propositions are true," "only propositions can be true" (cf. Clark's marginal notes on his Examination in Theology, 1944, July 7; Art and the Gospel, 1982, March - April). How, then, can ink marks be inerrant unless we admit that propositions are encoded in the physical writ?

I've made plenty of other criticisms in the aforementioned links, so I suppose there is no need to belabor the point - mainly, I wanted to point out that the face value of Clark's own axiom contains an allusion to the idea that physical media can encode propositions. Despite what critics have objected, however, the remedy to late Clark's faulty metaphysics does not entail a problem for Clark's epistemology. Actually, I agree with the spirit of Clark's first principle; it could be stated more precisely, but I don't think his reference to "written... autographs" is inherently problematic for his epistemology.

To summarize: there is a difference between the way in which we became or were caused to be aware of that which we take to be our epistemic axioms (a point of metaphysics) as compared to the function of the epistemic axioms themselves (the ground our knowledge, including our knowledge of the metaphysics process by which we learned our epistemic axioms). There is a difference between the order of being and the order of knowing. I've written more about how I think a Scripturalist can synthesize  his epistemology with a metaphysic which in turn allows for a subordinate, extra-biblical knowledge of the external world under the subsection on textual criticism here (and its included links). 

Thus, the common objection to Scripturalism - "Don't you have to read your Bible?" - is either irrelevant (if it is a question about metaphysics; a Scripturalist can agree that one can be caused to think about propositions by reading) or begs the question (if it is a question about epistemology, in which case first principles need to be discussed). To use chess terminology Clark himself might find amusing, it seems to me that late Clark's occasionalism was an unnecessary, prophylactic overprotection. He answered an objection he considered to fraught with epistemological intent by changing his view of metaphysics... a misguided enterprise. 

Mr. Flood has a point, then, that late Clark's occasionalism is wrong. But whether Mr. Flood's own views are right also requires evaluation. Take the following quote as a point of departure:

Sometimes it's incontrovertible that efficient causality is not inferred (fallaciously or validly), but felt, directly and infallibly intuited. Not the cause, mind you, but causality itself... Causation can therefore be given in experience, but acknowledging this datum doesn't make one an empiricist. When David affirmed that knowledge of divine causality is given with the creature's experience of creation (Psalm 119:1), he wasn't promoting a fallacious inference.

I think Mr. Flood meant to cite Psalm 19. Incidentally, this passage further supports my contention that [propositional] truth[s] are embedded in physical creation. 

However, what does it mean to say that something "felt" is "infallibly intuited"? Like inerrancy, infallibility pertains to truth. But feelings are not beliefs. It does not appear that Mr. Flood is suggesting that the object of the feeling is a proposition, so is he indirectly suggesting that something other than propositions can be literally true? At first sight, none of these alternatives appear attractive. There needed to be more said on this point. The same can be said for Mr. Flood's following remark:

"Clark's occasionalism implicitly denies that our sensory organs receive data into which verifiable and falsifiable insights are possible, insights that accumulate into viewpoints."

Passing over late Clark's occasionalism, which I already have talked about, it is not clear whether Mr. Flood is an epistemic internalist or externalist. To my knowledge, this matter is not touched on in the book. By default, I tend to assume that people who support an empirical theory of knowledge are internalists. Perhaps my intuition is, in this case, incorrect. If so, this demonstrates all the more that Mr. Flood could have elaborated on his epistemology. If my intuition is correct, however, it would have been helpful if Mr. Flood addressed Clark's criticisms of [internalist] empirical epistemology, for as it stands, I am left without reason to think he is able to do so.

Mr. Flood seems to affirm Aristotle's claim that "forms are grasped by mind in images." Aside from the fact that no defense is given as to why one ought to accept this, to repeat a thought from the first part of the review of this book:

I wonder whether Mr. Flood believes that humans can learn anything in the intermediate state between death and the parousia. The above would indicate that this is impossible. This would make Abraham's conversation with the rich man in Luke 16 either unintelligible or parabolic, for example.

I might also ask whether Mr. Flood thinks angels need to grasp forms in images. If Aristotle is meant to be set as a foil against Clark's occasionalism, the presentation was relatively weak. 

Unfortunately, in terms of Mr. Flood's own, original thought, I didn't find much else of note in this chapter. He mentions two philosophers I had not heard much of before reading this chapter: Alfred Whitehead and Bernard Lonergan. Mr. Flood cites the latter as writing:

If the real is the “out there” and knowing it is taking a look, then the ideal of interpretation has to be as close an approximation as possible to a reconstruction of the cinema of what was done, of the sound-track of what was said . . . . [T]he ideal of the cinema and the sound-track is the ideal not of historical science but of historical fiction. There is no verifiable cinema of the past nor any verifiable sound-track of its speech. The available evidence lies in spatially ordered marks in documents and on monuments, and the interpreter’s business is not to create nonexistent evidence but to understand that evidence that exists . . . .

If objectivity is a matter of elementary extroversion, then the objective interpreter has to have more to look at than spatially ordered marks on paper; not only the marks but also the meanings have to be “out there,” while the merely subjective interpreter “reads” his own ideas “into” statements that obviously possess quite a different meaning. But the plain fact is that there is nothing “out there” except spatially ordered marks; to appeal to dictionaries and to grammars, to linguistic and stylistic studies, is to appeal to more marks . . . . If the criterion of objectivity is the “obviously out there,” then there is no objective interpretation whatever; there is only gaping at ordered marks, and the only order is spatial. But if the criterion of objectivity lies in intelligent inquiry, critical reflection, and grasp of the virtually unconditioned, then the humbug about the “out there” and the simulated indignation about “reading into” are rather convincing evidence that one has very little notion of what objectivity is. (Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, London: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd, and New York: Philosophical Library, 582-83.)

I may well be misunderstanding Mr. Flood's intention in citing Lonergan, but I think he is attempting to establish a comparison between Lonergan and Clark in that the epistemologies of both men are empirically pessimistic. If "the ideal of interpretation has to be as close an approximation as possible to a reconstruction of the cinema of what was done, of the sound-track of what was said" yet "[T]he ideal of the cinema and the sound-track is the ideal not of historical science but of historical fiction," it sounds as though Lonergan has no qualms arguing that to attempt to gain knowledge by empirical means [of the internalist variety] is to chase alethic ghosts. If I am interpreting Mr. Flood's intentions correctly, I am again left wondering why he does not attempt to show how and why he thinks Lonergan's views are false.

As for Alfred Whitehead, I tried to read some summaries of his thought (link). Honestly, I found the going tough. One thing that stuck out was his acceptance of some sort of theory of internal relations, so I tried to look into that a little more. I found a helpful article (link), and I would be interested in Mr. Flood's thoughts on it. In particular:

Whitehead puts forth the notion of internal relations, which he introduces when discussing Einstein's relativity. Space-time relationships have been generally understood as external relationships. Whitehead denies that. He resembles Leibniz when he states that the relations that an event has are all internal relations: “This internal relatedness is the reason why an event can be found only just where it is and how it is, that is to say, in just one definite set of relationships. For each relationship enters into the essence of the event; so that, apart from that relationship, the event would not be itself. This is what is meant by the very notion of internal relations. It has been usual, indeed, universal, to hold that spatio-temporal relationships are external. This doctrine is what is here denied” (Whitehead, 1925, pp. 122–123). Put plainly, an internal relation is a relation between entities such that it is not possible for them to exist without each other. Thus, from the stance of the doctrine of internal-relations, inter-actions are “add-ons” to substances; a glue between “things” which, in turn, do not need the glue for their being.

The above caught my eye, for it initially looked to me as though Whitehead ought to have accepted necessitarianism (link). Yet when I followed up on this intuition, it seems Whitehead opposed necessitarianism (link). Is this because Whitehead thinks that the theory of internal relations only applies to creation?

Continuing, the article further outlines what internal relations are and then critiques Whitehead's metaphysic:

Internal relations determine the identity of the related entities. For the purpose of gaining some intuition about this notion, let us provide some examples within a somewhat heterogeneous list of cases. A mother and her baby (specially a fetus) can be said to be internally related because their mode of relation implies that one could not properly speak about the latter if one would leave the former out. In other words, they owe to each other what they are...

Going back to the notion of internal relations, once more the question is not settled by emphasizing the processual nature of whirlpools (or, to that matter, the processual nature of the toilet in which whirlpools form when we flush it). In any dynamical system there is always a final level of internal relationship below which basal elements (entities or variables) are defined independently of their relations. Such mathematical theories of dynamical behavior, operating under the implicit assumption that basal elements have a fixed essence, presuppose the externality of the relations of the basal elements. Even if one claims that interactions are more important than their constituents, this claim holds only for the behavior of the system, not for the constituents themselves. “It is arguably this inseparable connection between processuality and internal relationship that also creates the biggest difficulty in Whitehead ontology: The process which gives rise to relations of experience exists prior to them neither logically nor temporally. The processual subject only comes into being through its relations with other subjects.” (Koutroufinis, 2014a, p. 16). In a word, no internal relations, no process. 

In other words, I think the problem for Whitehead is how, given his processual metaphysic, individuation is possible in the first place. For example, how would Whitehead individuate the mother and baby such that he could relate them? Obviously, one could reframe the question for whatever Whitehead takes as ontologically basic and argues are internally related. 

Book Review: Scripturalism and the Senses (Part 13)

Links to all parts may be found here. This part will contain a review and evaluation of Mr. Lazar's twelfth chapter in his book, Scripturalism and the Senses.

Clark, Occasionalism, and Internalism: One More Time

In this chapter, Mr. Lazar surveys a few objections leveled against Clark's Scripturalism to compare how his own epistemologically distinct views enable him to fare "better" against the same objections. 

One common objection to Clark's views is the question, "Don't you have to read your Bible?" In an earlier review, I mentioned that Clark responds to this question by defending occasionalism: "God and God alone is the cause" (Lord God of Truth, 1994, pg. 27, cf. link). Clark cites Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, and Malebranche to make his case. While I would have liked to see more substance to Mr. Lazar's criticisms of Clark's occasionalism, I've elsewhere argued why I think occasionalism is flawed (link). 

On the other hand, I don't think any of the passages Mr. Lazar mentions are to the point. Clark didn't deny that men experienced sensation (see below quotes). He does deny that sensations were causes [of knowledge]... just as he denied anything besides God counted as a cause. But even if Clark had believed senses could function as causes, none of the referenced verses say anything about sensations causing knowledge. 

Still further (and more importantly), even if one's reading of Scripture itself causes knowledge, such does not necessarily imply that one's reading is a factor in one's epistemic justification. Clark himself puts the point quite sarcastically:

The professor insists that sensation must play a role in knowledge acquisition. Of course it does! Breakfast plays a role too. If some people miss their morning coffee, they get so irritated and irritable that they cannot pay attention to their studies. Hence Sanka is the salvation of scholarship. (Lord God of Truth, 1994, pg. 23)

Even if eating "causes" (and Clark is fair to ask, in context, what "causation" means) one to learn the Bible - in the sense of it being a precondition for being able to learn (since one must eat to live, focus, and learn) - eating is not epistemically relevant to whether our study yields knowledge. 

Along these lines, a similar response I can imagine Clark making to Mr. Lazar is that language ought not be conflated with thought:

Obviously, Henry and Clark do not “reduce” truth to language, especially not to sounds in the air and ink marks on paper. (See Clark’s quotation from Abraham Kuyper in Language and Theology.) Before truths or thoughts can be “written,” that is, symbolized on paper, the thoughts must be thought. Different literal words can express the same thought. For example, “Das Mädchen ist schön,” “La jeune fille est belle,” and “The girl is beautiful,” are three different sentences with all different words, but they are the same, single, identical proposition. Daane’s argument seems to be based on inattention to the distinction between thoughts and their symbolic surrogates. (God's Hammer, 1995, pg. 182)

…if one may think the same thought twice, truth must be mental or spiritual. Not only does it defy time; it defies space as well, for if communication is to be possible, the identical truth must be in two minds at once. If, in opposition, anyone wishes to deny that an immaterial idea can exist in two minds at once, his denial must be conceived to exist his mind only; and since it has not registered in any other mind, it does not occur to us to refute it. (A Christian View of Men and Things, pg. 224)

Epistemology has to do with what we think is true - specifically, which thoughts do we say we know are true, and how do we know them? Now, if thoughts are immaterial, mental, or spiritual, to argue against Clark that a material, physical, or sensory process undermines his epistemology begs the question. One must, in providing such an external critique, specify his grounds for regarding a physical process as integral to epistemic justification. That is not Clark's burden of proof to discharge here. In response to, "Don't you have to read your Bible?" Clark is well within his rights to reply, "Well, do you? If so, how, and to what end?" 

There are plenty of indications, contrary to many Scripturalists today who think otherwise (Mr. Lazar not among them), that Clark was not an externalist. Consider the following quotes in which Clark demands that one show what he defends, theorizes, or claims to know in order to be justified or even have an epistemology:

I think you are begging the question. You would first have to show how black marks on a page can produce anything intelligible. You ought to define sensation, you ought to show how sensation produces perception, you ought to defend your theory of images, and try to construct abstract ideas out of images, and I think it cannot be done... (Clark-Hoover Debate)

If you are an empiricist there is no use of your beginning with saying, “well I have a Bible in my hand and I can see it.” You will have to begin and give a consistent philosophy of empiricism. You don’t start with midway through the system, that is begging the question. You must decide on your first principles. Now I think I said last night that observation can never demonstrate the validity or truth of observation. It cannot show that observation is the way of knowledge. In order to have a thoroughgoing empirical position, you, presumably, you must begin with sensation. Now if you disagree with that statement I’d be willing to listen to you for two hours or more but at least most of them say that. You must begin with sensation. Then, to make your system tick, you will have to show how sensation develops into perception. And this is something hardly anybody ever does. And beyond that you will have to show how perception develops into or involves images, from which concepts are abstracted...

I do not deny, of course, that the apostles had certain visual sensations, but they cannot deduce from those visual sensations any Christian doctrine. And I would repeat again that if you think that is possible you are under obligation to show how sensation becomes perception, how perception develops images, and to give a theory of abstraction so that you can get such doctrines as the Trinity and justification and the other doctrines. (Believer’s Chapel Tape Ministry, 1977, link)

The gentleman asserted that sensation plays “a role in knowledge acquisition.” How can one come to such a conclusion? Clearly by discovering what the role is. Unless one knows what the role is, one cannot know that there is any role at all. For example, in the case of the large debt of the United States government some economist hold that deficits play no role in producing unemployment, while other economists assert the contrary. To sustain their position, these latter must show what the role is. If they cannot, then neither can justify their position… Therefore one cannot logically maintain that sensation plays a role in the acquisition of knowledge without showing precisely what that role is.

All the apologists with whom I have debated refuse to face this question… When I ask them to show how images can be transformed into abstract concepts, not one of them has even tried to explain. They even refuse to define sensation. Likewise perception. They really have no epistemology at all, and their words, to omit an inapplicable part of a popular quotation, are full of sound, signifying nothing. (Lord God of Truth, 1994, pg. 22-23)

"Have to," "ought to," "under obligation to, "must" - quite strong language to use for persons to qualify as being able to "justify their position" or "really have" an epistemology. For Clark, we are intentionally active in acquiring epistemic justification (link). What Clark essentially argues is that a defense of externalist knowledge is, in the words of Mr. Lazar, a performative contradiction. In making knowledge claims with the intention of defending them (as one "ought" to do), one presupposes internalism.

The above implies Clark held to an internalist understanding of knowledge (cf. link), as I have ever thought - all the more so after my recent, brief glance through Lord God of Truth. I was also right to think my project of collating Clark quotes on epistemology (link) will, before I can be satisfied, require me to reread his books to catch material I may have missed. 

For my part, I think that while a defense of the possibility of externalist knowledge presupposes [a defense of] internalist knowledge (link), I also think having externalist knowledge is possible before one has internalist knowledge. It is possible for one to believe the truth due to the proper functioning of divinely designed second causes, and such a process can occur without one first having infallibilist, internalist knowledge. However, for one to defend that such an external, justificatory process has occurred or even can occur - that is, for one to make a knowledge claim or claim about knowledge - does, in turn, require [a defense of] internalist knowledge.

Now, I would qualify that what I mean by a "defense" of internalist knowledge is somewhat context-dependent. Since I defend a foundationalist structure of epistemically and internally justified beliefs, any "defense" of one's knowledge of axioms is not to be taken as a circular ground for believing said axioms. I don't think that knowledge of axioms in an internalist sense requires a "defense" in order to know them - as Mr. Lazar might say, "knowing" doesn't require "showing" - although an apologetic defense can be provided for purposes of persuasion.

As this is just a blog post reviewing a book, I won't expand too much on what I mean by the above, taking for granted that what I've written elsewhere is sufficient to get the point across should I myself ever revisit my own writing in the future. 

For the sake of any other readers, though, when critiquing or defending Clark, care is needed in these kinds of discussions. An example of this pertains to the very topic of axioms. On page 144, for example, Mr. Lazar says we accept that "sense perception produces propositional knowledge... axiomatically." But one page later, he says, "Based on the Biblical evidence, Neo-Scripturalism affirms that you have sense knowledge..." These statements are contradictory. Inferential knowledge - knowledge based on evidence - is not foundational or axiomatic. 

Additionally, the ideal way in which beliefs are known is not in an externalist sense. Mr. Lazar writes that our axiomatic beliefs are properly basic and warranted. To say that, though, would be to seemingly reject any internalist understanding of how Scripture is "known." Such a position means that our epistemic justification is always [partially] external, that there are elements to our epistemic justification to which we have no reflective access such that we cannot be aware or assured that we know at all, and, worse, that our knowledge of Scripture is seemingly, in principle, defeatable (link). Clark's occasionalism is not a good answer to his critics... but is Mr. Lazar's answer "better"?

At any rate, as already mentioned, the verses Mr. Lazar mentions would require deeper exegesis or engagement with Clark's position for it to be poignant. Yes, for example, the Bereans examined Scriptures. Clark would argue that Scripture is not just ink marks on paper, so a rejection of Clark's occasionalism in favor of a different interpretation, like epistemic externalism, will require more elaboration on why Acts 17 should trouble Clark than simply saying, "Many thought that Clark's Augustinian answer wasn't very satisfying" (pg. 141). Ironically, it is Mr. Lazar's critique that is not very satisfying, especially since there are good reasons for rejecting Clark's occasionalism.

Bahnsen: Clark and "Suppositionalism"

Mr. Lazar mentions Greg Bahnsen as a notable critic of Clark's presuppositionalism - or as Bahnsen sees it, Clark's "suppositionalism," for Bahnsen thought "Clark treats Christianity as a possibility" rather than "demand" that God's Word be regarded as "the precondition for all intellectual endeavor." 

That is, Bahnsen, like Van Til (cf. this post), takes issue with Clark's method of argumentation for Christianity. But as I questioned in the linked post, would Van Til or Bahnsen have taken issue with the apostle Paul's method of argumentation in 1 Corinthians 15:16-19? Does Paul really "suppose" it is possible the resurrection did not happen? Or is Paul not rather using apologetic rhetoric to highlight the implied existential despair that follows from the position of his anti-resurrection opponents? One can defend the faith in more ways than one. 

Further, several of Bahnsen’s objections rest on false assumptions, for Clark did not view Christianity as only hypothetically true or as only one of a number of potentially legitimate choices. Most citations of Clark that Bahnsen brings up in his book, Presuppositional Apologetics (which I read a long time ago), are either entirely true or seem to be misunderstood by Bahnsen. 

One example from Bahnsen's book that Mr. Lazar references is the following statement by Clark: “That religion or Christianity in particular furnishes a better method than secularism is a possibility not to be dismissed without discussion” (Presuppositional Apologetics, pg. 142).

Bahnsen’s response is that “The truth of the Christian world-view provides, not a 'better' or 'possible' method, but the necessary method, of all academic tasks.” But is not a necessary method a better method? And would Bahnsen prefer to dismiss Christianity without discussion? On the contrary, Clark's statement is entirely true. 

Perhaps Bahnsen wishes Clark phrased things differently. but apologetics is a practical business. There isn’t just one solitary moral or programmatic response to any given situation. Clark is entirely within his apologetic rights to defend the faith as he does, so long as he is truthful and faithful to his own epistemic axiom of revelation (as he is here). 

Now compare Bahnsen's accusation that Clark is a mere "suppositionalist" to the following:

Carnell also says: “Since their systems [the systems of thought of finite minds] are never complete, however, propositional truth can never pass beyond probability.” But if this is true, it itself is not true but only probable. And if this is true, the propositions in the Bible, such as David killed Goliath and Christ died for our sins, are only probable – they may be false. And to hold that the Bible may be false is obviously inconsistent with verbal revelation. Conversely, therefore, it must be maintained that whatever great ignorance may characterize the systems of human thought, such ignorance of many truths does not alter the few truths the mind possesses. There are many truths of mathematics, astronomy, Greek grammar, and Biblical theology that I do not know; but if I know anything at all, and especially if God has given me just one item of information, my extensive ignorance will have no effect on that one truth. Otherwise, we are all engulfed in a skepticism that makes argumentation a waste of time. (God's Hammer, 1995, pgs. 34-37)

While Mr. Lazar doesn’t refute Bahnsen's charge against Clark in this way - perhaps because Mr. Lazar rejects the possibility of internalist knowledge (on which see below) - he does, however, push back against Bahnsen on his own grounds: Scripture itself has something to say about this subject. For example, Scripture not only allows that new divine revelation can be examined for consistency with established divine revelation (Acts 17:11) but also, at times, demands it (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21, 1 John 4:1). And I agree with Mr. Lazar insofar as, when properly understood, God's word does invite one to "test" it. 

Now, [any advantages of] "testing" must indeed be balanced against what Bahnsen is likely worried about: if we say that "testing" God's word is a means to providing epistemic evidence for believing divine revelation, we have implicitly subjected God's word to a more sure, foundational standard. This is not what Clark or I am proposing. In the epistemic context of internally and infallibly justified beliefs, the success of a prediction, for example, can only provide confirmatory support that one is a prophet as opposed to epistemic grounding for his claim. 

Aside from concerns about subordinating knowledge of God's word to some kind of empirical epistemology, one reason I don't think mere predictive success can be "epistemic" (in the aforementioned sense of internalism and infallibilism) support for claims regarding prophethood or divine revelation is the following: suppose two people predict contradictories about whether or not it rains tomorrow. Suppose each person also claims to be a divine prophet. It either will rain or won't. Necessarily, one prediction will be false and the other will be true. While one claim will turn out to be false - falsifying that said claimant is a prophet - would such ipso facto mean the other claimant is a prophet, merely because his claim will be true? One would think not. But then, is there a non-arbitrary amount of predictive claims that would establish one as a prophet?

Consider: if everyone in the world were placed into a bracket in which, for each daily round, half of participants predicted rain the next day and half did not, several people would make it a full month in making correct predications before they might make an incorrect predication thereafter. But I would think that says little about whether those people actually are prophets. There must be more that goes into one's being able to recognize the authenticity of a prophet than the sheer amount of correct predictions one may make.

Now, there are some passages of Scripture that indicate that predictive success can, in some cases, lead to "knowledge" that the one who made the prediction[s] is a prophet. Some of these might also outline beginnings of what such a criteria for prophetic authenticity might look like, such as anomalous predictions (Jeremiah 28:8-9, Ezekiel 2:5, 33:33). However, given that Ezekiel 2:5 in particular makes mention that even the rebellious can possess knowledge that the man who speaks the word of the Lord is a prophet, it seems apparent that the sort of "knowledge" alluded to here is of another kind than an internalist, infallibilist sense of "knowledge," the latter being that alone by which one can have full assurance (link). I tend to read the above passages as supporting the possibility of an externalist view of knowledge, especially as they are third-person accounts in which God is saying something about what people know, not the people themselves who are necessarily accounting for their or aware of their own knowledge (cf. link).

One final point about prophecies and epistemology: Christians in particular should consider that at least one prophecy has not yet been fulfilled: the return of Christ. If we could only know that Christ, Paul, etc. are prophets after this prophecy about Christ's return has been the fulfilled, then we wouldn't yet be able to know Christ, Paul. etc. are prophets, which Christians must surely regard as false. We can now know that Christ, Paul, etc. were and are prophets. 

All this is to say - once again, and to assuage the concerns of Bahnsen - that divine revelation is epistemically self-justifying. Testing does, however, give believers in divine revelation apologetic recourse in that performing said tests tend to silence unbelievers and help instill psychological confidence in believers.

So, too, Bahnsen is mistaken regarding Clark's view about the relationship between Scripture and logical consistency, the latter of which indeed can be viewed, when properly understood, as a "test" of the former (cf. the Bereans). I've written about this elsewhere (link). Clark did not view logical consistency as an epistemically foundational method for knowing divine revelation:

To the same effect, it may be pointed out that if God is supreme, as we claim, there can be no higher source than self-disclosure. God cannot be deduced from any superior principle. Therefore, the same conclusion follows: Either revelation must be accepted as an axiom or there is no knowledge of God at all. (Clark and His Critics, 2009, pg. 54)

How then could God show to a man that it was God speaking? Suppose God should say, “I will make of you a great nation...and I will bless them that bless you and curse him that curses you.” Would God call the devil and ask Abraham to believe the devil’s corroborative statements? Is the devil’s word good evidence of God’s veracity? It would not seem so. Nor is the solution to be found in God’s appealing to another man in order to convince the doubter. Aside from the fact that this other man is no more of an authority than the devil, the main question reappears unanswered in this case also. What reasons can this man have to conclude that God is making a revelation to him? It is inherent in the very nature of the case that the best witness to God’s existence and revelation is God himself. There can be no higher source of truth. God may, to be sure, furnish “evidence” to man. He may send an earthquake, a fire, or still small voice; he may work spectacular miracles, or, as in the cases of Isaiah and Peter, he may produce inwardly an awful consciousness of sin, so that the recipient of the revelation is compelled to cry out, “Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips.” But whether it be an external spectacle or an inward “horror or great darkness,” all of this is God’s witnessing to himself. (A Christian View of Men and Things, 2005, pgs. 182-183

But if there is a revelation, there can be no criterion for it. God cannot swear by a greater; therefore he has sworn by himself. One cannot ask one’s own experience to judge God and determine whether God tells the truth or not. Consider Abraham. How could Abraham be sure that God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac? Maybe this suggestion was of the devil; maybe it was a queer auto-suggestion. There is no higher answer to this question than God himself. The final criterion is merely God’s statement. It cannot be tested by any superior truth. (Today's Evangelism: Counterfeit or Genuine? 1990, pg. 113) 

Note the italics. Reading Clark charitably, I take this to mean that divine revelation cannot be subject to any epistemic test. Logical consistency is not superior to divine revelation:

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.

Now, Bahnsen would be right to criticize Clark's mere coherence or consistency theory about the nature of truth. This theory of truth may be what pushed him to eventually accept necessitarianism (link), since if truth just is a consistent system of propositions, that implies there is and necessarily can be only one such system. If one argues there can be more than one system of consistent propositions, either the systems in question would be consistent (and, hence, would seemingly collapse into one larger system a la necessitarianism) or the systems would be inconsistent (which would constitute a reductio ad absurdem against the theory itself).

So the nature of truth is not merely "consistency." Some truths are necessary, yes; but Christians should also regard some truths as contingent, grounded in God's freedom - hence the Reformed distinction between God's natural and free knowledge. Better, then, is to argue that the nature of truth is both consistency and correspondence (link). There are multiple possible systems of consistent propositions, but truth corresponds to only one.

In any case, the larger point here is that in regards to epistemology, Clark was not a coherentist but a foundationalist. He did not believe that examining worldviews for logical consistency was a means by which we can come to know which one is true over against another. People can falsify worldviews that are inconsistent, but no worldview can be established as true just because it appears to be consistent.

Thus, while he makes some good points in this chapter, I wouldn't put certain things as Mr. Lazar does, such as in apologetically presenting Christianity as a "conjecture" or as "probabilistic" based on what it is that he can show about it to an unbeliever. Christianity is true, full stop. It doesn't matter that we can't "prove" our axiom to others (for no one can do that). Nor is it relevant that we can't believe the truth - that the divine revelation of Christianity is self-justifying - for the unbeliever with whom we are discussing (for no one can believe something for someone else).

Mr. Lazar is right that there is a distinction between knowing and showing. But his analogy to his knowing that he owned a certain car tends to undermine rather than support his case against Bahnsen. Our knowledge of Scripture is (or, at least, can be) more sure than anything we know in an externalist sense, such as knowledge that we owned a car in the past. We can reflect on and be fully assured that Scripture is true, whereas our belief that we owned a car in the past may, upon reflection, be [regarded as] false. The "certitude" Mr. Lazar has about owning a car is - and by his own admission - "psychological" (pg. 148), whereas the assurance we can have regarding the truth of Scripture is absolute and unfalsifiable (although "testable"). An externalist can't be aware that he knows he owned a car; an internalist can be aware that he knows Scripture is true. Or, as I've said in a previous review:

To argue we indeed can be aware that we have sense knowledge seems to assume we can be aware of when we have had sense knowledge. But for us to be aware of when we have sense knowledge would be to suggest that the are no external justificatory factors on which us having sense knowledge would depend. In turn, that would be to affirm an internalist understanding of sense knowledge, a proposal of a sort of empirical epistemology that Mr. Lazar has assured us is not on offer and would invite all the objections to empiricism that Clark wrote in his numerous publications (objections with which Mr. Lazar says he accepts). Thus, I have argued that when it comes to a basic epistemology, sense knowledge (or other kinds of "knowledge" that are justified in an externalist sense) may be important - and it may be that we have it without being aware of the fact - but ought to be regarded as subordinate in fundamentality to knowledge that is justified in an internalist and infallibilist sense, knowledge of which we can be aware. (link)

On this account, then, I think Clark's own writings provide better resources in responding to Bahnsen than Mr. Lazar's do.

Bahnsen, Scripture, and an "Absolute" Presupposition

One other criticism of Clark that Bahnsen makes in this chapter is that Clark does not really accept Scripture as his "absolute presupposition." I'll quote from Bahnsen's Presuppositional Apologetics and make a few points:

...one could easily be led to believe that logic per se is his transcendental rather than Scripture. Instead of the attempt to be independent of God’s Word, “the denial of the law of contradiction, or even the failure to establish it as a universal truth, was the downfall of secular philosophy. For the absolute presuppositionalist, God and His revelation guarantee the possibility of epistemological fruitfulness, for He who is the truth has deigned to give us a revelation of knowledge. Clark, on the other hand, concludes his chapter on epistemology in A Christian View of Men and Things by saying that it “has tried to show by an application of the law of contradiction—a law that is not merely formal but is itself an integral part of the system of truth—that truth exists and that knowledge is possible.” (Presuppositional Apologetics, pg. 144)

Firstly, as mentioned earlier, Bahnsen criticizes Clark for treating "Christianity as a possibility." While that charge is misleading, for Clark did not merely treat Christianity as one among many possibilities, note that an uncharitable reading of Bahnsen's above quote would lead one to criticize Bahnsen for the same language! Does Bahnsen mean that God's revelation only guarantees "the possibility of epistemic fruitfulness"? Surely not any more than Clark means that Christianity is only possibly better than secularism when Clark wrote, "That religion or Christianity in particular furnishes a better method than secularism is a possibility not to be dismissed without discussion." 

Secondly, I think Bahnsen’s unintentionally drives a wedge between Scripture and the law of contradiction. When Clark applies the law of contradiction, he does so because it is itself an integral part of God’s truth as revealed to us: there is a connection between the sufficient condition for knowledge (God’s word) and subsidiary, necessary conditions (law of contradiction, language, etc.). Indeed, the sufficient condition can be "tested" by whether it contains necessary, subsidiary conditions. As mentioned, this testing is not as though Scripture may fail the test; rather, it confirms what we already know about God's self-justifying revelation.

Turning to Mr. Lazar's response to Bahnsen, the following remark he makes is well-put: "God's Word does not teach that you must assume the Bible is true in order to think" (pg. 147). I'm not quite sure that Bahnsen actually means that, but the cited statement by Bahnsen to which this serves as a response is vague enough to warrant the point.

On the other hand, Mr. Lazar responds seems to fall into Bahnsen’s trap in driving a wedge between logic and Scripture, because Mr. Lazar says that Bahnsen must assume a list of hardcore common sense items and, therefore, "he cannot make the word of God his absolute epistemic presupposition, even in principle." But this would mean a rejection of Scripturalism - and neo-Scripturalism, for that matter – because then the Bible is no longer our epistemic axiom. 

Mr. Lazar's axiom[s] would instead be the list he created and says he and we all must “already [epistemically?] presuppose." Maybe that wasn’t his intention, but if not, it is hard to make sense of his paragraph. This goes to show the importance of distinguishing between sufficient and necessary conditions of knowledge. Just like the persons of the Trinity are distinct yet inseparable, one must keep distinct - yet inseparable - the sufficient condition for knowledge, God's word, and any subsidiary, necessary (or ontological) [pre]conditions without which knowledge would also be impossible (link, link).

I'll add a thought or two that might help. Perhaps the concern is that Scripture is contingent whereas logic et al. are transcendental. If that is the concern, then while it may be contingently true that Scripture is the sole, extant extent of divine revelation - that is, perhaps God could have revealed Himself in another way had He so chose - the fact is that since it is transcendentally true that divine revelation is needed in order to for us to "know" anything (in the sense by which we may have full assurance of the truth of our beliefs), then we must regard a concrete revelation as divine. Since the concrete revelation which is divine (and self-justifying) is Scripture, it is in that sense we can and should regard it as our transcendental, axiomatic, sufficient epistemic condition for knowledge.

Analogously, this created world is contingent. God did not have to create it. God is free to have refrained from creating. But [by His own nature,] God could not both create and not create, so a concrete world (which happens to be this one) is transcendentally necessary (link). 

Scripturalism is a concrete epistemology - as it should be, for we cannot start with abstract, general truths (not even necessary ones!) and arrive at a concrete, sufficient condition for knowledge. Thus, Scripturalism's concrete axiom is not just a matter of apologetic conjecture or epistemological preference – first among equals – but necessary if one is to have a certain kind of knowledge. And so would and should the Scripturalist argue, at least if he is to have a "better answer": 

…one cannot validly infer from the collection of a few necessary preconditions for knowledge that one possesses a sufficient condition for knowledge. Hence, Scripturalists appeal to a top-down epistemic approach, beginning with a presupposition which is the sufficient condition for knowledge and accounts for all subsidiary, necessary preconditions for knowledge: divine revelation. Men do not need to be omniscient to know truth, but men are only able to know that because Scripture is the sole, extant extent of God's self-authenticating, self-attesting, and rational revelation which communicates this. (link)

In the next part of my review, I will turn to Mr. Lazar's Conclusion.