Archive July 2005

The Image and Likeness of God

By Gordon H. Clark
© The Trinity Foundation

In order to describe the nature of the image one can immediately assert the principle that any interpretation that identifies the image with some characteristics not found in God must be incorrect. For example, the image cannot be man’s body. If anyone says that the upright position of the human body, in contrast with four-footed beasts and creeping things, allows it to be the image, the reply is not merely that birds have two legs, but rather that Genesis makes no reference to a physical image. A more important reason for denying that man’s body is the image is the fact that God is not and has not a body.

One can at the same time see a more notable distinction between the creation of animals and the creation of man. In Genesis 1:11 we read, "Let the earth bring forth grass"; a few verses further on, "God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly." Verse 24 adds, "Let the earth bring forth cattle and every creeping thing and beasts." But Genesis 1:26, 27 quote God as saying, "Let us make man in our image"; and then continues, "So God created man in his own image." Because the earth brings forth cattle, while God says "let us," the wording suggests a more direct relationship with God and man than between God and the animals. Animals are indeed beautiful and interesting and useful, but man is superior. How? Some contemporary theologians, on the whole quite orthodox, insist that man is a unity, not a duality; hence they conclude that he is not his soul, but the combination of soul and body.

Soul and Body

Before discussing such a view, one should realize that the New Testament terminology, though a development from the Old, is not precisely the same. Genesis explicitly describes the soul as the combination of earthly clay and divine breath, and calls man a living soul. The language in the preceding paragraph takes soul to be something quite distinct from the body, and this in general is the New Testament usage. While the Old Testament often uses soul and spirit synonymously, the New Testament—especially when the adjectival forms of the words occur—imposes on them a moral distinction. Soulish carries an evil connotation (compare 1 Corinthians 2:14; 15:44; Jude 19). On the other hand, spiritual no longer denotes the human spirit, but the influence of the Holy Ghost (compare 1 Corinthians 2:11-16 and 15:42-47; Colossians 1:9; 1 Peter 2:5).

With this Scriptural background in mind, one may return to the question, not whether man is a unity, but what sort of unity man is. A parallel case should help. Salt is a sort of unity too, being the chemical combination of sodium and chlorine. So also the compound man is not the soul. Here, of course, the word soul does not reproduce the usage of nephesh in Genesis 2:7. It is a New Testament usage and is the common usage of our present century. Now, to show that man himself is not the combination—but is precisely the soul, mind, or spirit—one may appeal to 2 Corinthians 12:2, which says that on one occasion Paul did not know whether or not he was in the body or out of the body. Quite obviously the he cannot be the body, for he, Paul, could be either in the body or out of it. And if man is the soul, we have a more perfect unity than a chemical compound of sodium and chlorine. One may also quote 2 Corinthians 5:1, "For we know that if our earthly home of the tabernacle be destroyed, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Similarly Philippians1:21ff. says, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain… for I am faced with two choices, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for this is far better…." The body is not the person; it is a place in which the soul dwells. The home eternal in the heavens is not the soul, for our souls are not eternal. By God’s grace they are everlasting, but eternality would be a denial of their creation. What Paul is saying is that if the soul’s present residence is to be destroyed, we need not worry because in our Father’s house there are many mansions, and Christ has ascended to prepare them for the arrival of our souls. Or to change the figure, the present body, as Augustine said, is an instrument that the soul uses. It is the latter that is the image and the person.

Though the two verses just quoted come from Paul, Peter teaches the same doctrine when he says that he will shortly put off this earthly tabernacle. The body had been his house or tent. He himself would soon move to elaborate quarters.

This dispenses with the notion that the body is a part of the image. The image is the soul. Indeed the soul is more than image. Of all the passages quoted, 1 Corinthians 11:7—previously used to show that man is the image—remains the strongest of all, for it adds an astounding phrase. It is so amazing that no devout person would have dared to invent it, for it says that man is not only the image of God, but also that man is the glory of God. Only the authority of direct revelation permits this assertion. Hodge in his commentary on 1 Corinthians offers an explanation of this additional designation, but it is sufficient here simply to recognize how emphatic it is.

This view of man seems to maintain the unity of the person better than its rivals; it seems to be more consistent and logical; and with all the scriptural support indicated it seems impossible to find a view that is more Biblical. Since the doctrine is so important relative to soteriology, it maybe interesting, if not essential, to see how the earthly church began to study the subject.

Some Earlier Ideas

The idea that God created man in his own image is so clearly stated in Genesis that the early church fathers could not miss it. It is also such an amazing idea that they could not refrain from discussing it. Some of the first attempts were, naturally, less than intelligible. For example, Gregory of Nyssa expatiates in flowery metaphors conveying awe of the subject, but which lack any explanatory clarity. Well, perhaps there is one clear point: The image has something to do with human intelligence. This is at least better than Justin Martyr’s identification of it with the bodily form. Augustine took the image to be the knowledge of the truth, and he took the likeness to be the love of virtue. In his Summa Theologica (Q. 93, Art. 9) after stating some views to be rejected, Thomas Aquinas in his usual form writes, "On the contrary, Augustine says, ‘Some consider that these two were mentioned not without reason, namely image and likeness, since if they meant the same, one would have sufficed.’ " This attempt to distinguish rather than to identify image and likeness was not one of Augustine’s happiest tentatives. If the Bible were written in the technical language of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, one could well imagine that the two words bore different meanings. But in literary language such as the Bible uses, two such words can be synonymously used for the sake of emphasis. The Psalms are replete with this device: "I cried unto Thee, O Lord, and unto the Lord I made my supplication"; and "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is covered," where there are two pairs of synonyms; and "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." There are many such.

Even so, it is not fatal to the doctrines of grace if a distinction, without faulty additions, is made between image and likeness. Since the New Testament refers to knowledge and righteousness, we could call the one the image and the other the likeness. Such a speculation, however, is rather fanciful and futile. One must therefore consider what distinction the Roman church imposed on the terms and how it fitted into a distortion of Biblical truth.

In support of the distinction, Thomas had already (Q. 93,Art. 1) argued that where an image exists, there must be likeness; but a likeness does not necessarily mean an image. Now, the Roman church developed this, which so far is innocuous, into something that contradicts important parts of the Biblical message. Their present view is that the image itself is rationality, created because, when, and as man was created. But after man was created, God gave him an extra gift, a donum superadditum, the likeness, defined as original righteousness. Man therefore was not strictly created righteous. Adam was at first morally neutral. Perhaps he was not even neutral. Bellarmin speaks of the original Adam, composed of body and soul, as disordered and diseased, afflicted with a morbus or languor that needed a remedy. Yet Bellarmin does not quite say that this morbus is sin; it is rather something unfortunate and less than ideal. To remedy this defect God gave the additional gift of righteousness. Adam’s fall then resulted in the loss of original righteousness, but he fell only to the neutral moral level on which he was created. In this state, because of his free will, he is able—at least in some low degree—to please God.

Obviously this view has soteriological implications. Even though the neutral state was soon defaced by voluntary sins, man without saving grace could still obey God’s commands upon occasion. After regeneration, a man could do even more than God requires. This then becomes the foundation of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the treasury of the saints. If a particular man does not himself earn a sufficient number of merits, the Pope can transfer from the saints’ accounts as many more merits as are necessary for his entrance into Heaven. One horrendous implication of all this is that although Christ’s death remains necessary to salvation, it is not sufficient. Human merit is indispensable.

However logically implicated this soteriology is, the present study should not stray too far from the image itself. Above, it was said that an assertion of a distinction between image and likeness, by itself, is not fatal. But it is not Biblical either. Scripture makes no distinction between image and likeness. Not only does the New Testament make nothing of such a distinction, even in Genesis the two words are used interchangeably. Genesis 1:27 uses the word image alone, and Genesis 5:1 uses likeness alone, though in each case the whole is intended. The likeness therefore is not an extra gadget attached to man after his creation, not a donum superadditum, like a suit of clothes that he could take off. It is rather the unitary person.

The Definition

This short account of earlier views has somewhat trespassed on the territory of the nature of the image. That knowledge, and possibly righteousness, have commonly been associated with man’s original endowment is a point no reader above third grade can have missed. The majority of devout evangelical Christians would probably stress righteousness, and if the subject were soteriology that would be proper. But during the second half of the twentieth century a rather pointed debate has centered on the factor of knowledge. As an important development in apologetics, it has become a bit technical. Even so, the debaters try to base their views on Scripture. Let us begin with one important passage.

Since the verses in Genesis imply more than they state, and for the purpose of showing that Scripture defines the image as knowledge and righteousness, the first verse to be quoted is Colossians 3:10. The definition is derived by noting that the new man is such because God has renewed him after the image in which he was originally created. Ephesians 4:24 mentions righteousness, but Colossians has knowledge only. Its previous context speaks of "the old man with his deeds." Then comes a contrast with "the new man." In what consists the renewal that makes the old man the new man? The verse says, he is renewed "to knowledge." He is renewed to knowledge according to the image of the Creator. That is to say, the image of God is the knowledge to which he is renewed. Thus the image of God, in which image man was created, is knowledge. Of course this does not mean that Adam was omniscient; yet he had some knowledge, and this is not said of the animals. Since this knowledge comes by the act of breathing into Adam the spirit of life, the knowledge must be considered—not as the result of observation, since Adam had not yet observed anything at all—but as the a priori or innate equipment for learning.

If it be suggested that angels also have rational knowledge, they too must have been created in God’s image and therefore man is not the only image of God. This is plausible since the Psalms say that man was created a little lower than the angels. But it does not militate against man’s being the image of God. And further, while the Bible distinctly asserts the image in man, it does not make this assertion of angels. The creation of angels is left in obscurity, and so we too must leave it there.

A study of the nature of man can become complex, and cannot avoid becoming complex. But because sin is a disturbing factor, it is easier to study man in his original state of innocence. Modern psychology and secular philosophy face extreme difficulties. Six hundred years after Socrates said, "Know thyself," Plotinus wrote fifty-four tractates on the problem. Here we reject that well-known bad advice, "Seek not the face of God to scan, the proper study of mankind is man." Contrary to this advice we do indeed seek the face of God to scan, and for the very reason that one of the proper studies of mankind is man. Without a revelation from God who made man, it is doubtful that we could learn much about him at all. Even with the aid of a divine revelation, the subject is still difficult.

The Bible asks the question, "What is man?" Can we answer what a person is? Do you know yourself? The Bible also says, "The heart of man is desperately wicked: who can know it?" Can we know the heart or nature of man before he became desperately wicked? Is man what he thinks? Or is he Immanuel Kant’s "transcendental unity of apperception"? Hume described him as a group of sensations. This would make him not much superior to the animals, for many animals have sharper sensations than man has. But animals cannot think. At least they cannot do geometry, and geometry is just about the best example of thinking that one can think of. Man then is a rational being, like God, while animals, bless their little gizzards, are not.

But let us get back to the Scripture. There were two verses that connected knowledge and righteousness. Such a brief statement requires further explanation. We need additional information because a correct view of the original nature of man must underlie—not only an understanding of sin and the fall—but also the Biblical view of death, the intermediate state, the resurrection, and our final beatitude. To repeat: Theology is systematic: All its parts interpenetrate each other.

Genesis clearly distinguishes man from animals. Every book in the Bible describes sinful man as thinking, often thinking incorrectly, but sometimes thinking correctly. We must more closely examine Adam as he was before the Fall; but to provide a background, without which one’s view would be too restricted, some other parts of Scripture will be more or less haphazardly introduced.

The image must be reason because God is truth, and fellowship with him—a most important purpose in creation—requires thinking and understanding. Without reason man would doubtless glorify God as do the stars, stones, and animals; but he could not enjoy him forever. Even if in God’s providence animals survive death and adorn the heavenly realm, they cannot have what the Scripture calls eternal life because eternal life consists in knowing the only true God, and knowledge is an exercise of the mind or reason. Without reason there can be no morality or righteousness. These too require thought. Lacking these, animals are neither righteous nor sinful.

The Johannine Logos

The identification of the image with reason explains or is supported by a puzzling remark in John 1:9: "It was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." How can Christ, in whom is the life that is the light of men, be the light of every man, when Scripture teaches that some are lost in eternal darkness? The puzzle arises from interpreting light in exclusively redemptive terms.

The first chapter of John is not soteriological. Obviously there are references to salvation in verses 7, 8, 12, and 13. It is not surprising that some Christians understood verse nine also in a soteriological sense. But it is not true that all men are saved; hence if Christ lightens every man, this enlightening cannot be soteriological. This is not the only non-soteriological verse in the chapter. The opening verses treat of creation and the relation of the Logos to God. If the enlightening is not soteriological, it could be epistemological. Then since responsibility depends on knowledge, the responsibility of the unregenerate is adequately founded.

John 1:9 cannot be soteric because it refers to all men. But this is far from showing that the light hits them in a merely external way, as it might shine on a rock or tree. The conclusion therefore is that creative light gives every man an innate knowledge sufficient to make all men responsible for their evil actions. This interpretation ties in with the idea of creation in verse three. Thus the Logos or rationality of God, who created all things without a single exception, can be seen as having created man with the light of logic as his distinctive human characteristic.

The "Good" Works of the Wicked

(The following is an edited email correspondence.)

I just finished reading "Chosen in Christ."

For many years, I have been feeding on charismatic literature, and I have never learned about these things that you write about and that are so obvious in the Bible. I am now 50 years old and I regret how stupid I have been for so long.

I am still puzzled about some of those who would be sent to hell. What about those Catholic nuns who care for needy people — someone like Mother Teresa?

Thank you your books. It would be a good to make your literature available to the Hungarian Reformed Church.

Thanks for writing.

Since your context is predestination, we should first note that the question regarding the "good" works of the non-Christians — the wicked, the heretics, and the teachers and believers of false gospels — applies not only to the biblical doctrine of predestination, but also to the whole biblical faith in general, or justification by faith in particular. All Christians who are really Christians believe that man cannot be saved by works.

Indeed, it can be shown that justification by faith is inconsistent with any view other than Calvinism, or biblical predestination, so that the two cannot be properly considered independently from each other. However, even if we ignore this necessary connection for now (although we can do it only by force), your question implies a hesitation not only concerning Calvinism, as if it is a doctrine of man, but against the acknolwedged common foundation of all who affirm the gospel — justification by faith apart from works.

Just because Teresa appears to have done an abundance of good works does not make one bit of difference, that is, unless she indeed trusted Christ for salvation. Trying to assist, heal, unite, or even save humanity without God, and without the true and only gospel, is nothing other than another attempt at building Babel. It is a man-centered attempt at building up humanity. It is sin and rebellion disguised as righteousness and compassion. The good works of the wicked are done not out of a motive to help humanity in obedience to God and to glorify God, but to help humanity in defiance of God so that they will not need or worship God.

Thus if we set up ourselves and our works as the point of reference for good and evil, then we have already succumbed to the first temptation of Satan. A "good" work is truly a good work only because it is so in reference to God (only because it glorifies God, because we do it on his say so, and because he approves), and not because it is helpful to man and judged as good by man apart from God.

On this topic, the Westminster Confession declares:

Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands; and of good use both to themselves and others: yet, because they proceed not from an heart purified by faith; nor are done in a right manner, according to the Word; nor to a right end, the glory of God, they are therefore sinful and cannot please God, or make a man meet to receive grace from God: and yet, their neglect of them is more sinful and displeasing unto God.

As long as they remain non-Christians, their so-called "good" works are still sinful, and as such, they incur God’s wrath. The difference is that these "good" works, since they demonstrate a superficial agreement with God’s precepts, are often considered less sinful than the other works of the wicked. However, it is still not necessarily true that the "good" works of the wicked are always less sinful than their evil works, since God also takes one’s attitudes and motives into account.

So if a non-Christian performs an apparent "good" work, such as helping a beggar or feeding a child, but from an intensely wicked motive (great pride, great admiration for his own "compassion," etc.), it might just be counted as even more wicked (and certainly more hypocritical) than if he had, without hiding his true nature as a non-Christian, kicked the beggar in the face or deliberately starved the child.

Concerning the gospel, Paul writes: "As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!" (Galatians 1:9). Once a false gospel is taught and affirmed, then it is ultimately irrelevant whether one still appears to do good works, because "all our righteous acts are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). People think they are good works only because they think so, and not because God says so.

Of course, what I have been saying here is just basic Christianity, and to deny it is to reject the gospel and forfeit salvation. Thus I suppose that you already believe all of this, only that you need to apply it consistently.

Recommended:

What’s Wrong with "White" Magic

Vincent Cheung, Systematic Theology

Vincent Cheung, Commentary on Ephesians

Vincent Cheung, Commentary on Philippians

Jonathan Edwards, Justification by Faith Alone

Charles Hodge, Justification by Faith Alone

Horatius Bonar, The Everlasting Righteousness

William Pemble, The Justification of a Sinner

Revelation of Grace

(The following is an edited email correspondence.)

I am reading your Systematic Theology right now, and I must say that my entire thinking has been shaken.

In the past month, I have come to accept the Calvinistic doctrines, and your web site has taught me so much more from Scripture in the past few days.

It is incredibly refreshing to hear a pastor preach from JUST the Bible and make strong cases.

I am so grateful to God that He has chosen me, and your teachings on election and reprobation prove to me more and more just how blessed I am that God has had mercy on me, not because of anything in me, but so that He may glorify himself.

I still have much of your work to read, but I just wanted to say thank you and let you know how God has used you to change my thinking.

Thanks for your comments.

What we call Calvinism, of course, is the Bible’s own teaching concerning the nature of God, man, and salvation. It teaches that God is sovereign, just, and gracious, that man is depraved, helpless, and hopeless, and that the only way for sinful man to be saved is for the sovereign God to save him, actively and powerfully, and then also permanently.

If not for the numerous deviations from this biblical teaching, there would be no need to identify it with any person’s name, except that of Jesus Christ. But as it is, Calvinism is nothing more than a systematic expression of the biblical revelation of grace. It is the gospel, and it is what we must believe and preach. The elect will respond with gratitude and reverence; the reprobate will respond with disgust and scorn.

The Bible also teaches us about God’s power, wrath, and justice in reprobation. But even the reprobates can do nothing except by God’s active power, as Luther says, energizing and even compelling them to sin, in accordance with the evil nature that God has also placed in them after the pattern of Adam. Thus nothing is free in any sense from God’s active power and control.

Just as the potteries for noble purposes cannot make themselves out of a lump of clay, neither can the potteries for common purposes make themselves, but it is God who actively and sovereignly creates both to be what they are. This is the consistent teaching of Scripture.

Recommended:

The Author of Sin

The Author of Confusion

Why God Created Evil

Compatibilist Freedom

Augustine and Compatibilism

"Soft" Determinism

Determinism vs. Fatalism

Creatures Cannot Initiate Motion

Preservation and Providence

"Forced to Believe" (1)

"Forced to Believe" (2)

"Forced to Believe" (3)

"Forced to Believe" (4)

Vincent Cheung, "The Problem of Evil"

Vincent Cheung, Systematic Theology

Vincent Cheung, Commentary on Ephesians

Vincent Cheung, Ultimate Questions

Vincent Cheung, Presuppositional Confrontations

Gordon Clark, Christian Philosophy

Gordon Clark, Predestination

Gordon Clark, God and Evil

Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will

Watchman Nee and American Christians

(The following is an edited email correspondence.)

What do you think of Watchman Nee? Have you ever read The Spiritual Man?

Yes, I have read a number of books by him — such as, The Spiritual Man, The Release of the Spirit, The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, among others — some in English and some in Chinese.

I like his serious attitude. Unlike many American writers, he never tried to be "hip" and he was never flippant about Christian teaching and experience. The Christian life is serious but never boring, and if one can avoid boredom only by being less serious, then he might not have the life in the first place. The things of God are inherently interesting to the children of God, who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Watchman Nee was also courageous about his beliefs, and he suffered much because of this. Oh, how he suffered! Probably none of us will ever suffer like he did. Just as his seriousness makes American Christians look like clowns, his courage makes American Christians look like the most disgraceful cowards.

That said, the well-developed theology of this prolific Chinese "apostle" (as he has been called) is absolutely horrific. His ultra-mystical views regarding the constituent elements of man, his sanctification, and the innate power of the soul, are enough to cause alarm. And because he sounds deep and serious, many Christians will fail to perceive his errors and thus will be misled. Not every statement that he wrote is wrong, of course, and he states several points quite well. However, there is nothing good in his writings that you cannot get from somewhere else, in better form, and with less mixture.

Therefore, my judgment is that his writings pose a danger to the general Christian public, and offer no real or unique value. I cannot recommend any of his books.

Then, Witness Lee, I suppose, is even worse.

But if American Christians will be even one fifth as serious as Watchman Nee was about the faith, and one fifth as courageous, then the reformation that we have been longing for will have already arrived. Right now, we are but still clowns and cowards compared to him. We are the spoiled brats of the kingdom — bored, lazy, and stingy, but proud and demanding.

God gives us the best, but we give him the worst. This is not right. Some of us already have a basic understanding of the truth, so let us strengthen the feeble knees and lay aside the weights, so that we may hold forth the word of life in this crooked and perverse generation, seriously, courageously, rigidly, and offensively, and the Rock of Ages shall grind all oppositions to powder, for he has promised that the gates of the enemy shall not prevail against his Church.

Recommended:

Bob Laurent, Watchman Nee: Man of Suffering

Dan McCartney, Why Does It Have to Hurt?

Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot

John MacArthur, The Power of Suffering

R. C. Sproul, Surprised by Suffering

John J. Murray, Behind a Frowning Providence

Vincent Cheung, "The Problem of Evil"

Vincent Cheung, Prayer and Revelation

Gordon Clark, Sanctification

Gordon Clark, God and Evil

Spank a Child, Save a Life

Proverbs 13:24
He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.

Proverbs 22:15
Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.

Proverbs 23:13-14
Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.

Proverbs 29:15
The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.

Recommended:

Vincent Cheung, Preach the Word

Bruce Ray, Withhold Not Correction

Louis Paul Priolo, Teach Them Diligently

Tedd Tripp, Shepherding a Child's Heart

John MacArthur, What The Bible Says About Parenting

Cornelius Van Til

By John W. Robbins
© The Trinity Foundation

Over the past forty-five years a myth has evolved about a theologian in Philadelphia who has single handedly defeated the forces of intellectual darkness, a thinker so profound and so orthodox that he is nothing less than a new Copernicus. In this essay I intend to examine this myth and the man behind it, Professor Cornelius Van Til of Westminster Theological Seminary.

Professor Van Til is the object of fierce loyalty and reverence by many of his students. This attitude has both causes and consequences. One of its consequences is an almost total lack of critical discussion of Van Til’s distinctive ideas. Some of Van Til’s followers do not even seem to understand his ideas. They have been enthralled by the myth that surrounds the tall and handsome professor of theology. One of Professor Van Til’s biographers is so misled by the myth that he falsifies a bit of history concerning Van Til. Hero worship is a prominent characteristic of many of Van Til’s followers, and the ordinary Christian is both baffled and embarrassed by the sounds and the spectacle of bowing and scraping that occur in certain circles. We cannot, and do not, blame Dr. Van Til for the behavior of his followers. He is undoubtedly more intelligent than most, if not all, of them.

If Professor Van Til were all his disciples believe him to be, there would be good reason for the reverence, awe, loyalty, and devotion. If Van Til had done all the things he is reputed to have done, to be all the things he is reputed to be, this writer would be among the first to join his entourage of admirers. But there is a discontinuity (to use one of Van Til’s favorite words) between the man and the myth. Such a gulf between the man and the legendary theologian makes all that loyalty and admiration misplaced. After one has penetrated the myth, and that can be done only by reading Van Til’s own words—a task which few people seem to have done or care to do—the contrast between the man and the myth is startling. The theologian of mythic proportions bears little resemblance to Professor Van Til, who taught at Westminster Theological Seminary for forty-five years. In the next few pages I shall examine and explain several aspects of his work, ranging from the style of his writing to his doctrines of God and the Bible. In all these areas, it will be seen that he fails to meet scriptural standards for Christian teachers, and in at least two cases, he makes such serious errors that heresy is the only appropriate word to describe his lifelong teaching about God and the Bible.

The Mythological Van Til

"Van Til’s insights," writes John Frame of Westminster Theological Seminary, "are life-transforming and world-transforming" (Richard Pratt, Every Thought Captive, [Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1979], viii). "Dr. Van Til," says Richard C. Pratt, Jr., is "undoubtedly the greatest defender of the Christian faith in our century" (ibid., xi). The prolific author, Rousas Rushdoony, believes that "in every area of thought, the philosophy of Cornelius Van Til is of critical and central importance" (E. R. Geehan, ed. Jerusalem and Athens, [Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1971], 348). Frame believes that Van Til’s "contribution to theology is of virtually Copernican dimensions…when one considers the uniqueness of his apologetic position and then further considers the implications of that apologetic for theology, one searches for superlatives to describe the significance of Van Til’s overall approach"(Gary North, ed. Foundations of Christian Scholarship, [Ross House Books, 1976], 295). In another article, Frame describes Van Til as "a thinker of enormous power, combining unquestioned orthodoxy with dazzling originality…. Van Til…is perhaps the most important Christian thinker of the twentieth century" (New Horizons, [Magazine of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church], October 1985, 1).

Perhaps sensing that he is dangerously close to going off the deep end, Frame concedes that "Van Til is not perfect or infallible" (4). And Frame adds "another important admission of Van Til": "He [Van Til] told me that he does not believe his distinctive views should be made a test of orthodoxy in the church. He does not consider them to have that sort of final, definitive character" (ibid.). The historian C. Gregg Singer believes, that "Cornelius Van Til has given to the church a truly monumental apologetics" (Jerusalem and Athens, 328). Forty years ago, Van Til had already been described as a "theological giant" by one of his admirers. This is the legendary Van Til, the theologian about whom it is necessary to say, lest the reader get the wrong impression, that he is neither perfect nor infallible. How does this legendary character square with the actual theologian? Let us examine his writings and see.

Van Til the Communicator

God is concerned with the clarity of his revelation and demands that Christian teachers be clear in their thinking and teaching. For example, in Deuteronomy 27:2-8 Moses and the elders gave a command to the people: "When you have crossed the Jordan into the land the Lord your God is giving you, set up some large stones and coat them with plaster … and you shall write very clearly all the words of this law on these stones you have set up." The Lord commanded Habakkuk (2:2): "Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it." Luke wrote his gospel because "it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you … so that you may know…."

Christ spoke to the people in parables because he wished to confuse them, but to his disciples he spoke plainly. "The disciples came to him and asked, ‘Why do you speak to the people in parables?’ He replied, ‘The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them…. This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand." In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: "You will be ever hearing but never understanding…." ’ " (Matthew 13:10-14; see also Mark 4). Paul preached the Gospel clearly, and he urged that it be taught clearly in the churches: "Now, brothers, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction? Even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds, such as the flute or harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the notes? Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle? So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? … If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me" (1 Corinthians 14:6-11).

The Cult of Unintelligibility

In contrast to this Biblical ideal of clarity, which was also Calvin’s ideal and even a twentieth-century Hegelian philosopher’s ideal, Van Til’s prose is frequently unintelligible. This very unintelligibility is transformed by Van Til’s perfervid disciples into a sign of great intelligence and profundity. Thus one of Van Til’s biographers, William White, Jr., recounts the proceedings of a banquet at Westminster Seminary: "…the master of ceremonies was presenting the good-natured Dutchman. ‘There is a controversy today as to who is the greatest intellect of this segment of the twentieth century,’ the m. c. said. ‘Probably most thinking people would vote for the learned Dr. Einstein. Not me. I wish to put forth as my candidate for the honor, Dr. Cornelius Van Til.’ (Loud applause.) ‘My reason for doing so is this: Only eleven people in the world understand Albert Einstein …Nobody—but nobody in the world—understands Cornelius Van Til’ " (Van Til-Defender of the Faith, [Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1979], 181-182). Of course, the emcee was being humorous, but it was humor with a point. Had Van Til not been unintelligible, there could have been no such joke.

This tendency to assume that unintelligibility implies superior intelligence, learning, or profundity may explain Van Til’s popularity to a great extent. It may also explain why he is so often quoted and misquoted and his name so frequently invoked by people who do not understand what he has written. John Frame, Van Til’s heir apparent at Westminster Seminary, wishes he "had a nickel for every speech I’ve heard in presbytery or elsewhere, when someone thought he was expounding Van Til and was actually dead wrong" (New Horizons, 1-2).

The Practice of Unintelligibility

Now, of course, Van Til cannot be held responsible for either the impetuosity or the ignorance of some of his disciples. But he can be and ought to be faulted for a writing style that lends itself so easily to misunderstanding. In his little pamphlet, Toward A Reformed Apologetics, Van Til confesses, under the heading "Retractions and Clarifications": "I have not always made perfectly clear that in presenting Christ to lost men, we must present Him for what He is. He has told us what He is in the Scriptures. Apparently, I have given occasion for people to think that I am speculative or philosophical first and biblical afterwards"(no publisher, no date, page 24, emphasis is Van Til’s).

In an interview in Christianity Today in 1977, Van Til made the following statements, all in the same paragraph. Compare his third sentence with his sixth, and you will get some idea why understanding him is very difficult: "My concern is that the demand for non-contradiction when carried to its logical conclusion reduces God’s truth to man’s truth. It is unscriptural to think of man as autonomous. The common ground we have with the unbeliever is our knowledge of God, and I refer repeatedly to Romans 1:19. All people unavoidably know God by hating God. After that they need to have true knowledge restored to them in the second Adam. I deny common ground with the natural man, dead in trespasses and sins, who follows the god of this world"(Christianity Today, December 30, 1977, 22). In the third sentence he says, "The common ground we have with the unbeliever is our knowledge of God…." In the sixth sentence he says, "I deny common ground with the natural man…." Which is it? Or is the unbeliever not a natural man, and the natural man not an unbeliever? Do we have common ground with the natural man, the unbeliever, or don’t we? Or am I asking a foolish question based on mere human logic?

This contradiction is glaring, yet one finds similar contradictions throughout Van Til’s works. What is equally confusing, however, is his use of meaningless phrases. In the first sentence, what does "reduces God’s truth to man’s truth" mean? It certainly sounds bad, but does it mean anything? Is Van Til advocating a theory of two kinds of truth? Further, how does insisting that statements be non-contradictory "reduce God’s truth to man’s truth"? Is man the inventor of logical consistency, or does God claim to be? Is there any shadow of turning with God? Is he not the same yesterday, today, and forever? Can the Scriptures be broken? Is God the author of confusion?

Equally important, what connections, if any, are there between the first three sentences of this paragraph I have quoted? It is these sorts of problems—the emphatic assertion of contradictions, the use of meaningless phrases, and the disjointedness of his sentences—that make Van Til the communicator fall far short of the Biblical ideal of clarity. As we shall see in a few moments, Van Til dogmatically defends this confusion as a sign of piety and condemns plain speaking as impious.

Van Til the Presuppositionalist

On the subject of how Christianity should be defended—the subject called apologetics—there are basically only two schools in this century, the evidentialist and the presuppositionalist. Men like Thomas Aquinas, Charles Hodge, William Paley, and in this century John Warwick Montgomery, Norman Geisler, and John Gerstner are usually considered evidentialists. Others, like Cornelius Van Til and Gordon H. Clark, are considered presuppositionalists. The basic difference between the two schools, and the explanation for their names, is that the evidentialists affirm the validity of the arguments for the existence of God and the truth of the Bible, and the presuppositionalists deny the arguments’ validity. The presuppositionalists argue that God’s existence and the truth of the Bible must be assumed or presupposed.

Professor Van Til is regarded by admirers and critics alike as Mr. Presuppositionalist himself. A recent book by three evidentialists (John Gerstner, R. C. Sproul, and Arthur Lindsley), Classical Apologetics, calls Van Til "without doubt, the leading exponent of presuppositionalism." "Van Tillianism is almost a synonym for presuppositionalism…"(183).

Endorsing the Proofs for God’s Existence

Surprising as it may be to these critics and to some admirers of Van Til, Van Til does not reject the proofs for the existence of God, and he says so repeatedly in his books. This fact removes him from the presuppositionalist camp. Van Til writes: "Men ought to reason analogically from nature to nature’s God. Men ought, therefore, to use the cosmological argument analogically in order thus to conclude that God is the creator of this universe…. Men ought also to use the ontological argument analogically" (An Introduction to Systematic Theology [1971], 102).

He goes on, quoting himself: "The argument for the existence of God and for the truth of Christianity is objectively valid. We should not tone down the validity of this argument to the probability level. The argument may be poorly stated, and may never be adequately stated. But in itself the argument is absolutely sound" (The Defense of the Faith, [Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1967, third edition], 197).

On the same page Van Til writes: "Accordingly I do not reject ‘the theistic proofs’ but merely insist on formulating them in such a way as not to compromise the doctrines of Scripture. That is to say, if the theistic proof is constructed as it ought to be constructed, it is objectively valid, whatever the attitude of those to whom it comes may be." Van Til makes the same point in another of his syllabi, Apologetics [1971], (64): "Thus there is absolutely certain proof for the existence of God and the truth of Christian theism." And on page 65, "the Reformed apologist maintains that there is an absolutely valid argument for the existence of God and for the truth of Christian theism."

One of Van Til’s students and now professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, John Frame, has made the same point: "Van Til is not simply opposed to the theistic proofs as students often imagine. On the contrary, he gives them strong endorsement. But he insists that they be formulated in a distinctively Christian way, rejecting any ‘proof’ based on a non-Christian epistemology" (Foundations of Christian Scholarship, 301n.). Thom Notaro in his book, Van Til and the Use of Evidence, (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1980), makes the same point, even finding that "the frequency with which Van Til defends the notion of proof is alarming…" (65). I have cited perhaps only a third of Van Til’s endorsements of the theistic proofs that have appeared in his published writings.

Rejecting the Proofs of God’s Existence

On the other hand, Van Til also makes statements such as this: "Of course Reformed believers do not seek to prove the existence of their God. To seek to prove or to disprove the existence of this God would be to seek to deny him. To seek to prove or disprove this God presupposes that man can identify himself and discover facts in relation to laws in the universe without reference to God. A God whose existence is ‘proved’ is not the God of Scripture." He simultaneously maintains that "Reformed believers do not seek to prove the existence of their God" and that "the Reformed apologist maintains that there is an absolutely valid argument for the existence of God."

There are three things that must be said at this point: First, Van Til never formulated the theistic proofs "in a distinctively Christian way," despite his "insistence" that this be done and Dr. Gordon Clark’s repeated requests to see Dr. Van Til’s new version of the theistic proofs. Therefore, Professor Van Til believes in the validity of a proof he never wrote out.

Second, these views remove Van Til from the camp of the presuppositionalists. Professor John Frame, for example, believes that "Cornelius Van Til, in my view, should not be grouped with Gordon Clark as a ‘presuppositionalist’ as is often done. Van Til, rather, presents us with a complete epistemology involving motifs from all three tendencies [rationalism, empiricism, and subjectivism] and more"("Epistemological Perspectives and Evangelical Apologetics," in the Bulletin of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, Volume 7, 3-4).

Third, the dogmatic assertion that the existence of God both can and cannot be proved places Van Til in his own school of apologetics, which might be called the non-composmentist school of apologetics. Van Til the apologete does not live up to Van Til the legendary presuppositionalist either.

Science and Truth

By Gordon H. Clark
© The Trinity Foundation

Centuries ago it may have been possible to ignore science—in fact centuries ago there was little science to ignore—but today its successes are so phenomenal that it is usually accorded the last word in all disputes. The younger generation can hardly realize that so simple a thing as the incandescent electric bulb came only yesterday. Today science receives its praise and respect by reason of the atomic bomb, bacteriological warfare, and the possibility of interplanetary travel. None of this may be desirable, but truth is not a matter of desire; and the methods that have produced these wonderful products of civilization are capable of answering every question.

T. H. Huxley asserted that the foundation of morality is to renounce lying and give up pretending to believe unintelligible propositions for which there is no evidence and which go beyond the possibilities of knowledge. In a similar vein W. K. Clifford said, "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." The import and context of these statements is a general repudiation of theism in favor of a scientific method that obtains indisputable truth.

Science and Christianity

To show the bearing of science on theism, some quotations from distinguished contemporary scientists should be made. Without doubt Professor A. J. Carlson is a distinguished scientist, as is attested by his writings and by his presidence over the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Religious ideas and their relation to science have attracted his attention, and his conclusions are found in the twice-published article, "Science and the Supernatural." One must note what he says on the nature of science as well as what he says on its relation to religion. He writes, "Probably the most common meaning of science is a body of established, verifiable, and organized data secured by controlled observation, experience, or experiment…. The element in science of even greater importance than the verifying of facts, the approximation of laws, the prediction of processes is the method by means of which these data and laws are obtained and the attitude of the people whose labor has secured them…. What is the method of science? In essence it is this—the rejection in toto of all non-observational and non-experimental authority in the field of experience…. When no evidence is produced [in favor of a pronouncement] other than personal dicta, past or present ‘revelations’ in dreams, or the ‘voice of God’, the scientist can pay no attention whatsoever, except to ask: How do they get that way?"

Karl Pearson presumably speaks for all science when he says, "The goal of science is clear—it is nothing short of the complete interpretation of the universe." And, "Science does much more than demand that it shall be left in undisturbed possession of what the theologian and metaphysician please to term its ‘legitimate field’. It claims that the whole range of phenomena, mental as well as physical—the entire universe—is its field. It asserts that the scientific method is the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge."

What Is Science?

Reflection on these quotations raises a series of puzzling questions, some of which ought to be answered by the serious theologian and scientist alike. Clifford and Huxley, and anyone who opposes them, ought to make clear what is sufficient evidence. Is evidence sufficient only when it is logically demonstrative? Would Clifford and Huxley be satisfied with something less than demonstration, and if so, how much less? More fundamental is the plain question, What is evidence? Comte and Pearson assume that facts and classifications can be empirically discovered. But can they? Comte was certain that the positive character of knowledge, now that it has passed beyond the theological and metaphysical stages, will never again change. But if Comte is the father of sociology, it is one of his own sons, Sorokin, who is sure that it will change again and again. Further, must we hold with Karl Pearson that the judgments of science are absolute? Will a judgment or fact, once for all discovered, never be abandoned in favor of a more up-to-date fact or judgment? Do scientists never revise their conclusions? And very much more to the point, is the scientific method the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge? What experiment or what evidence is sufficient to prove that science is the sole gateway to all knowledge that is yet to be obtained? If there is a God, is it absolutely necessary that his existence be discovered by some infinitely sensitive Geiger counters? If moral distinctions and normative principles exist—in particular, Carlson’s principle that a scientist has no right to believe anything—must such principles be discovered through a microscope? And finally, and very generally, what is scientific method? One must seriously question not merely the desirability but the possibility of rejecting in toto all non-observational and non-experimental authority in science. In other words, What is science?

What Is a Fact?

The practical mind that loves facts and distrusts theory should acquire some patience and pause a while over the theory of facts. There may at first be reluctance to face the question, What is fact? Yet, if facts are unyielding absolutes, it ought not to prove too difficult to show what a fact is. Let us try.

Is it a fact that the Earth is round? In the Middle Ages the common people thought it was flat. Since then, evidence has accumulated (considerable evidence was known to astronomers during the Middle Ages) and has been disseminated, until today everyone takes it as a fact that the Earth is round. But strictly, is it the Earth’s roundness that is a fact, or is it the items of evidence that are facts on which the conclusion of the Earth’s roundness rests? For example, the shadow of the Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse has a round edge: Perhaps this is a fact, and the roundness of the Earth is a theory. Of course, it is not a fact that the Earth is a sphere: it is flattened at the poles. But if it is not a fact that the Earth is perfectly round (spherical), what is the fact? Is it a fact that the Earth is an oblate spheroid? But this term embraces a variety of forms and proportions. Which form exactly is the absolute unchangeable fact? —though science does not pride itself on sticking to facts such as this.

Above, it was said that the shadow of the Earth in a lunar eclipse is a fact—on which the roundness of the Earth is erected as a theory. But is even the shadow a fact? Is it not rather the fact that a certain darkness on the Moon has around edge, and is it not a theory that this darkness is the shadow of the Earth?

This type of analysis seems to lead to the conclusion that all, or at least many, alleged facts are theories developed out of simpler items of perception. The problem naturally a rises whether there is any fact that is not a theory. Is there anything seen directly as what it is? No doubt many people in Atlantic City on a fine summer’s day have seen an airplane high in the air pursuing an even course; and as they have watched the plane so high and so small, it has flapped its wings and dived to get a fish. Was it a fact that it was an airplane, or was this a theory about a small object in the sky? What is a fact?

How Long Is a Line?

There is one type of fact that seems to be pre-eminently scientific: it is the length of a line. When a scientist measures the boiling point of water, he measures a line—the length of mercury in a tube. When he measures the density of gold, he measures a line—the distance on a piece of steel between a scratch called zero and another scratch called, perhaps, nineteen. Similarly he measures another length to determine the amperes of an electric circuit. It may be that scientists never measure anything else than the lengths of lines; at least it is quite safe to say that no significant experiment can be completed without measuring a line. Therefore if science is to be understood, careful thought must be given to this exceedingly important step in experimentation. It has been shown that science is not a body of fixed truths, and if the length of a line turns out not to be a fact, the essential nature of science will have to be sought—not in its results—but in its methods. The experimental method, rather than the particular laws or facts discovered, is the important thing. And to understand the experimental method, an analysis of the process of measuring a length is as instructive as it is for determining whether or not science deals with facts.

Fact or not, the length of a line, be it mercury in a tube or the distance between scratches on a dial, is most difficult to ascertain. To put a ruler against the line and say, "nineteen," would be altogether unscientific. The scientist does of course put a ruler of some sort to the line and does read off nineteen spaces, or whatever it may happen to be; but he never supposes that this is the fact he wants. After he measures the distance between the two scratches on his bar of steel, he measures it again. And strange as it may seem the length has changed. The lump of gold that a moment before weighed about nineteen units of the same volume of water now weighs less. When the scientist tries it a third time, the gold seems to have gained weight; that is, the line has become longer. The experiment is continued until the rigorous demands of science are satisfied, or the patience of the scientist is exhausted, and he finds himself with a list of numbers. Now it may be a fact (the empirical evidence seems to favor it) that the lump of gold, weighed the same way many times, is constantly changing; or the fact may be (not an impossibility) that the scientist’s eyes blink so much that he cannot see the same length twice; or both of these may be facts. But instead of sticking to these facts, the scientist chooses to stick to the fact that he has a list of numbers.

These numbers he adds; the sum he divides by the number of readings; and this gives him an arithmetical average, 19.3 for example. This new value, 19.3, does not occur, we may well suppose, in the original list. That list contained 19.29, 19.28, 19.31, 19.32, but never a 19.30. But if this is he case, could the arithmetic mean be the "real" length of he line, the fact itself? By what experimental procedure does one determine that the average is the sought-for fact and that none of the observed readings is? Or, further, would it not be justifiable for the scientist to choose the mode, or the median, instead of the arithmetic mean? Is it not a fact that the mode is the length—as much a fact at least as that the average is? Really, is it not more the fact, because the mode occurred several times in the list, while the mean has not occurred at all? Or, should we say that in this essential item of scientific procedure, science throws all the facts (observations) out the window and sticks to what is not a fact (the unobserved average)! Perhaps there is an aesthetic delight in averages that is not found in modes. Unless, therefore, some balance, some vernier, some scale shows our senses that averages are facts and that modes are not, can the scientist do anything but trust his aesthetic taste?

Further Complications

However, in any experiment that goes beyond a student’s exercise, there is more to be considered. The scientist not only calculates the average, but he also takes the difference between each reading and the average, and calculates the average of these differences to construct a figure denoting variable error. The result of the previous example could be 19.3 +/- 01. Suppose now that these repetitions of one measurement are a part of a much more complicated problem designed to determine a law of nature. The problem might be the determination of the law of gravity. As is known, the attraction of gravity, in the Newtonian theory, is directly proportional to the product of two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. How could this law have been obtained by experimental procedures? It was not and could not have been obtained by measuring a series of lengths and (assuming unit masses) discovering that the value of the force equaled a fraction whose denominator was always the square of the distance. A length cannot be measured. If it could, the experimenter might have discovered that the force between the two masses, when they are a unit distance apart, was 100 units; he might then have measured the force when the two masses were 2 units apart and have discovered that it was 25 units; and a similar measurement at 4 units distance would have given the value of 6.25. The experimenter presumably would then have made a graph and indicated the values so obtained as points on the graph. Measuring 4 units on the x axis, he would have put a dot 6.25 units above it; and at 2 units on the x axis he would have put a dot 25 units above it; and so on. By plotting a curve through these points, the experimenter would have discovered the law of gravity. But as has been seen, the length of a line cannot be measured. The values for the forces therefore will not be numbers like 6.25, but something like 6.25.0043. And since the same difficulty inheres in measuring the distances, the scientist will not have unit distances but other values with variable errors. When these values are transferred to a graph, they cannot be represented by points. On the x axis the scientist will have to measure off 2 units more or less, and on the y axis, 6.25 more or less. It will be necessary to indicate these measurements, not by points, but by rectangular areas. But, as an elementary account of curves would show, through a series of areas, an infinite number of curves may be passed. To be sure, there is also an infinite number of curves that cannot be drawn through these particular areas, and therefore the experimental material definitely rules out an infinite number of equations; but this truth is irrelevant to the present argument. The important thing is that areas allow the possibility of an infinite number of curves; that is, measurements with variable errors allow an infinite number of natural laws. The particular law that the scientist announces to the world is not a discovery forced on him by so-called facts; it is rather a choice from among an infinity of laws all of which enjoy the same experimental basis.

Thus it is seen that the falsity of science derives directly from its ideal of accuracy. It may be a fact that gold is heavier than water, but it is not a scientific fact; it may be a fact that the longer and the farther a body falls, the faster it goes, but Galileo was not interested in this type of fact. The scientist wants mathematical accuracy; and when he cannot discover it, he makes it. Since he chooses his law from among an infinite number of equally possible laws, the probability that he has chosen the "true" law is one over infinity, i.e. zero; or, in plain English, the scientist has no chance of hitting upon the "real" laws of nature. No one doubts that scientific laws are useful: By them the atomic bomb was invented. The point of all this argument is that scientific laws are not discovered but are chosen.

Science Is Always False

Perhaps both points should be maintained. Not only are scientific laws non-empirical, they must indeed be false. Take for example the law of the pendulum. It states that the period of the swing is proportional to the square root of the pendulum’s length. But when the scientific presuppositions of this law are examined, it will be found that the pendulum so described must have its weight concentrated at a point, its string must be tensionless, and there must be no friction on its axis. Since obviously no such physical pendulum ever existed, it follows that the law of the pendulum describes imaginary pendulums, and that physical pendulums do not obey the laws of physics. Note especially that the analysis does not separate pendulums under laboratory conditions from pendulums in living-room clocks, and does not conclude that in the laboratory, but not in the living room, the laws of physics hold. The analysis shows that no physical pendulum, no matter how excellent the laboratory, satisfies the scientist’s requirements. The scientist’s world is (on pre-Heisenberg theory) perfectly mathematical, but the sense world is not.

Naturally a great many people, steeped in nineteenth-century scientific traditions, react violently to the idea that science is all false. Did we not make the atom bomb, they say? Does not vaccination prevent smallpox? Cannot we predict the position of Jupiter and an eclipse of the sun? Verified prediction makes it forever ridiculous to attack science. This reaction is, of course, understandable, however irrational it may be. The argument has not "attacked" science at all; it has insisted that science is extremely useful—though by its own requirements it must be false. The aim nowhere has been to attack science; the aim is to show what science is.

How science can be useful though false is illustrated in a delightful textbook on inductive logic. Milk fever, the illustration goes, until late in the nineteenth century, was a disease frequently fatal to cows. A veterinarian proposed the theory that it was caused by bacteria in the cows’ udders. The cure therefore was to disinfect the cow, which the veterinarian proceeded to do by injecting Lugol solution into each teat. The mortality under this treatment fell from a previous ninety percent to thirty. Does not this success full treatment prove that the bacteria were killed and that Lugol cured the disease? Unfortunately another veterinarian was caught without the Lugol solution one day, and he injected plain boiled water. The cow recovered. Had water killed the bacteria? What is worse, it was found later that air could be pumped into the cows’ udders with equally beneficial results. The original science was wrong, but it cured the cows nonetheless.

A closer examination of the logic of verification should be made. In the example above, the first veterinarian probably argued: If bacteria cause milk fever, Lugol solution will cure; the disinfectant does cure it; therefore I have verified the hypothesis that bacteria cause milk fever. This argument, as would be explained in a course of deductive logic, is a fallacy. Its invalidity may perhaps be more clearly seen in an artificial example: If a student doggedly works through Plato’s Republic in Greek, he will know the Greek language; this student knows Greek; therefore he has read Plato’s Republic. This is the fallacy of asserting the consequent, and it is invalid whenever used. But it is precisely this fallacy that is used in every case of scientific verification. If the law of gravitation is true, a freely falling body will have a constant acceleration, and the eclipse will begin at 2:58:03p.m.; but freely falling bodies do have a constant acceleration and the eclipse did begin at 2:58:03 p.m.; therefore the law of gravitation is true. Or, if the periodic table of atomic weights is true, a new element of such and such a weight must exist; this new element has now been discovered; therefore the period table is verified. And, if I eat roast turkey and plum pudding, I lose my appetite; I have lost my appetite; therefore, we had roast turkey for dinner. All these arguments are equally invalid. But sometimes there is an adverse reaction if it is claimed that verification never proves the truth of a scientific law. Is it worse to "attack" science, or to "murder" logic?

An Introduction to Gordon H. Clark

By John W. Robbins
© The Trinity Foundation

Who Is Gordon Clark?

Carl Henry thinks Clark is "one of the profoundest evangelical Protestant philosophers of our time." Ronald Nash has praised him as "one of the greatest Christian thinkers of our century." He is a prolific author, having written more than 40 books during his long academic career. His philosophy is the most consistently Christian philosophy yet published, yet few seminary students hear his name even mentioned in their classes, much less are required to read his books. If I might draw a comparison, it is as though theological students in the mid-sixteenth century never heard their teachers mention Martin Luther or John Calvin. There has been a great educational and ecclesiastical blackout. Both churches and educators have gone out of their way to avoid Clark. They have cheated a generation of students and church-goers. As theological students at the end of the twentieth century, you ought not consider yourself well educated until you are familiar with the philosophy of Gordon Haddon Clark.

A Brief Biography

Clark’s life was one of controversy – theological and philosophical. He was a brilliant mind, and his philosophy continues to be a challenge to the prevailing notions of our day. It is his philosophy that makes his biography both interesting and important, for his battles were intellectual battles.

Clark was a Presbyterian minister, and his father was a Presbyterian minister before him. Born in urban Philadelphia in the summer of 1902, he died in rural Colorado in the spring of 1985. Clark was educated at the University of Pennsylvania and the Sorbonne. His undergraduate degree was in French; his graduate work was in ancient philosophy. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Aristotle. He quickly earned the respect of fellow professional philosophers by publishing a series of articles in academic journals, translating and editing philosophical texts from the Greek, and editing two standard texts, Readings in Ethics and Selections from Hellenistic Philosophy. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Reformed Episcopal Seminary, Wheaton College, Butler University, Covenant College, and Sangre de Cristo Seminary. Over the course of his 60-year teaching career, he wrote more than 40 books, including a history of philosophy, Thales to Dewey, which remains the best one-volume history of philosophy in English. He also lectured widely, pastored a church, raised a family, and played chess. For the past 15 years I have been the publisher of his books and essays. More of his books are in print today than at any time during his life on Earth, yet few seminary students know anything about him.

Throughout his life Clark was enmeshed in controversy: First, as a young man in the old Presbyterian Church of Warfield and Machen, where as a ruling elder at age 27 he first fought the modernists and then helped J. Gresham Machen organize the Presbyterian Church of America, later known as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Those ecclesiastical activities cost him the chairmanship of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Clark’s second major controversy was at Wheaton College in Illinois, where he taught from 1936 to 1943 after leaving the University of Pennsylvania. There his Calvinism brought him into conflict with the Arminianism of some faculty members and the administration, and he was forced to resign in 1943. Wheaton College has never been the same since, declining into a sort of vague, lukewarm, and trendy neo-evangelicalism.

From 1945 to 1973 Clark was Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Butler University in Indianapolis, where he enjoyed relative academic peace and freedom. But within his denomination, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a third major controversy arose, and there was no peace.

In 1944, at age 43, Clark was ordained a teaching elder by the Presbytery of Philadelphia. A faction led by Cornelius Van Til and composed largely of the faculty of Westminster Seminary quickly challenged his ordination. The battle over Clark’s ordination, which became known as the Clark-Van Til controversy, raged for years. In 1948 the General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church finally vindicated Clark. His ordination stood; the effort to defrock him had failed. Yet this failure of the Van Tilians to defrock Clark has been falsified by at least one biographer of Van Til, the late William White, and that falsification of history has become the stock in trade of some proponents of Van Til and Westminster Seminary.

Unfortunately, the defeat of the Van Til/Westminster Seminary faction did not end the matter. Those who had unsuccessfully targeted Clark for removal next leveled similar charges against one of Clark’s defenders. At that point, rather than spend another three years fighting a faction which had already been defeated once, Clark’s defenders left the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and Clark reluctantly went with them. Years later he told me that he would have liked to have stayed in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, but felt a sense of loyalty to those who had defended him. After he left, the Van Tilians had no serious intellectual opposition within the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Clark entered the United Presbyterian Church — not the large denomination, which was not called the United Presbyterian Church at that time – but a small, more conservative, denomination. There he fought another battle about both doctrine and church property. When the United Presbyterian denomination joined the mainline church in the 1950s, Clark left that church and joined the Reformed Presbyterian Church, which later merged with the Evangelical Synod to form the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod. He remained a part of that Church until it merged with the Presbyterian Church in America in 1983. Clark refused to join the Presbyterian Church in America on doctrinal grounds, and for about a year he was the RPCES. Some months before his death in April 1985 he affiliated with Covenant Presbytery.

During his lifetime Clark never settled on a name for his philosophy. At times he called it presuppositionalism; at other times dogmatism; at still other times Christian rationalism or Christian intellectualism. None of these names, I fear, catches the correct meaning. Let me explain why: Every philosophy, as I will explain in a moment, has presuppositions; some philosophers just won’t admit it. All philosophies, for the same reason, are dogmatic, though some pretend to be open-minded. And the phrase "Christian rationalism" is an awkward and misleading way of describing Clark’s views, since Clark spends a great deal of time refuting rationalism in his books. Nevertheless, one can see why Clark used the terms: Presuppositionalism was the term he used to distinguish his views from evidentialism; dogmatism was the term he used to distinguish his views from both evidentialism and rationalism; and rationalism and intellectualism were the terms he used to distinguish his views from religious irrationalism and anti-intellectualism. Clark, of course, maintained that his philosophy was Christianity, rightly understood. But since there are so many views claiming to be Christianity, it is useful to name Clark’s philosophy and thus easily distinguish it from the rest.

Therefore, I would like to begin my talk this evening by naming his philosophy – and rather than calling it Dogmatic Presuppositional Rationalism, or Rational Dogmatic Presuppositionalism, or Presuppositional Rational Dogmatism – rather than letting its title be determined by its theological opposite – I shall give it a name that discloses what it stands for: Scripturalism. It avoids all the defects of the other names, and it names what makes Clark’s philosophy unique: an uncompromising devotion to Scripture alone. Clark did not try to combine secular and Christian notions, but to derive all of his ideas from the Bible alone. He was intransigent in his devotion to Scripture: All our thoughts — there are no exceptions — are to be brought into conformity to Scripture, for all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are contained in Scripture. Scripturalism is the logically consistent application of Christian – that is, Scriptural – ideas to all fields of thought. One day, God willing, it will not be necessary to call this philosophy Scripturalism, for it will prevail under its original and most appropriate name, Christianity.

The Philosophy of Scripturalism

If I was to summarize Clark’s philosophy of Scripturalism, I would say something like this:

1. Epistemology: Propositional Revelation
2. Soteriology: Faith Alone
3. Metaphysics: Theism
4. Ethics: Divine Law
5. Politics: Constitutional Republic

Translating those ideas into more familiar language, we might say:

1. Epistemology: The Bible tells me so.
2. Soteriology: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.
3. Metaphysics: In him we live and move and have our being.
4. Ethics: We ought to obey God rather than men.
5. Politics: Proclaim liberty throughout the land.

Clark developed this philosophy in more than 40 books, many of which were published during his lifetime, most of which are now in print, and a few of which have not been published yet. Let us first consider the foundational branch of philosophy, epistemology, the theory of knowledge.

Epistemology

Scripturalism holds that God reveals truth. Christianity is propositional truth revealed by God, propositions that have been written in the 66 books that we call the Bible. Revelation is the starting point of Christianity, its axiom. The axiom, the first principle, of Christianity is this: "The Bible alone is the Word of God."

I must interject a few words here about axioms, for some persons, as I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, insist that they do not have any. That is like saying one does not speak prose. Any system of thought, whether it be called philosophy or theology or geometry must begin somewhere. Even empiricism or evidentialism begins with axioms. That beginning, by definition, is just that, a beginning. Nothing comes before it. It is an axiom, a first principle. That means that those who start with sensation rather than revelation, in a misguided effort to avoid axioms, have not avoided axioms at all: They have merely traded the Christian axiom for a secular axiom. They have exchanged infallible propositional revelation, their birthright as Christians, for fallible sense experience. All empiricists, let me emphasize, since it sounds paradoxical to those accustomed to thinking otherwise, are presuppositionalists: They presuppose the reliability of sensation. They do not presuppose the reliability of revelation. That is something they attempt to prove. Such an attempt is doomed.

Thomas Aquinas, the great thirteenth-century Roman Catholic theologian, tried to combine two axioms in his system: the secular axiom of sense experience, which he obtained from Aristotle, and the Christian axiom of revelation, which he obtained from the Bible. His synthesis was unsuccessful. The subsequent career of western philosophy is the story of the collapse of Thomas’ unstable Aristotelian-Christian condominium. Today the dominant form of epistemology in putatively Christian circles, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, is empiricism. Apparently today’s theologians have learned little from Thomas’ failure. If Thomas Aquinas failed, one doubts that Norman Geisler can succeed.

The lesson of the failure of Thomism was not lost on Clark. Clark did not accept sensation as his axiom. He denied that sense experience furnishes us with knowledge at all. Clark understood the necessity of refuting all competing axioms, including the axiom of sensation. His method was to eliminate all intellectual opposition to Christianity at its root. In his books – such as A Christian View of Men and Things, Thales to Dewey, Religion, Reason, and Revelation, and Three Types of Religious Philosophy – he pointed out the problems, failures, deceptions, and logical fallacies involved in believing that sense experience provides us with knowledge.

Clark’s consistently Christian rejection of sense experience as the way to knowledge has many consequences, one of which is that the traditional proofs for the existence of God are all logical fallacies. David Hume and Immanuel Kant were right: Sensation cannot prove God, not merely because God cannot be sensed or validly inferred from sensation, but because no knowledge at all can be validly inferred from sensation. The arguments for the existence of God fail because both the axiom and method are wrong – the axiom of sensation and the method of induction – not because God is a fairy tale. The correct Christian axiom is not sensation, but revelation. The correct Christian method is deduction, not induction.

Another implication of the axiom of revelation is that those historians of thought who divide epistemologies into two types of philosophy, empiricist and rationalist, as though there were only two possible choices — sensation and logic – are ignoring the Christian philosophy, Scripturalism. There are not only two general views in epistemology; there are at least three, and we must be careful not to omit Christianity from consideration simply by the scheme we choose for studying philosophy.

Another implication of the axiom of revelation is this: Rather than accepting the secular view that man discovers truth and knowledge on his own power using his own resources, Clark asserted that truth is a gift of God, who graciously reveals it to men. Clark’s epistemology is consistent with his soteriology: Just as men do not attain salvation themselves, on their own power, but are saved by divine grace, so men do not gain knowledge on their own power, but receive knowledge as a gift from God. Knowledge of the truth is a gift from God. Man can do nothing apart from the will of God, and man can know nothing part from the revelation of God. We do not obtain salvation by exercising our free wills; we do not obtain knowledge by exercising our free intellects. Clark’s epistemology is a Reformed epistemology. All other epistemologies are inconsistent and ultimately derived from non-Christian premises. No starting point, no proposition, no experience, no observation, can be more truthful than a word from God: "Because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself," the author of Hebrews says. If we are to be saved, we must be saved by the words that come out of the mouth of God, words whose truth and authority are derived from God alone.

Scripturalism does not mean, as some have objected, that we can know only the propositions of the Bible. We can know their logical implications as well. The Westminster Confession of Faith, which is a Scripturalist document, says that "The authority of the holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is Truth itself), the author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the word of God" (emphasis added). By these words, and by the fact that the Confession begins with the doctrine of Scripture, not with the doctrine of God, and certainly not with proofs for the existence of God, the Confession shows itself to be a Scripturalist document.

Continuing with the idea of logical deduction, the Confession says: "The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men."

Notice the claim of the Confession: "The whole counsel of God" is either expressly set down in Scripture or may be deduced from it. Everything we need for faith and life is found in the propositions of the Bible, either explicitly or implicitly. Nothing is to be added to the revelation at any time. Only logical deduction from the propositions of Scripture is permitted. No synthesis, no combination with unscriptural ideas is either necessary or permissible.

Logic — reasoning by good and necessary consequence — is not a secular principle not found in Scripture and added to the Scriptural axiom; it is contained in the axiom itself. The first verse of John’s Gospel may be translated, "In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God and the Logic was God." Every word of the Bible, from Bereshith in Genesis 1 to Amen in Revelation 22, exemplifies the law of contradiction. "In the beginning" means in the beginning, not a hundred years or even one second after the beginning. "Amen" expresses agreement, not dissent. The laws of logic are embedded in every word of Scripture. Only deductive inference is valid, and deductive inference – using the laws of logic — is the principal tool of hermeneutics. Sound exegesis of Scripture is making valid deductions from the statements of Scripture. If your pastor is not making valid deductions from Scripture in his sermons, then he is not preaching God’s Word. It is in the conclusions of such arguments, as well as in the Biblical statements themselves, that our knowledge consists.

Some will object, "But don’t we know that we are in this room, or that 2 plus 2 equals four, or that grass is green?" To answer that objection, we must define the words "know" and "knowledge."

There are three sorts of cognitive states: knowledge, opinion, and ignorance. Ignorance is simply the lack of ideas. Complete ignorance is the state of mind that empiricists say we are born with: We are all born with blank minds, tabula rasa, to use John Locke’s phrase. (Incidentally, a tabula rasa mind – a blank mind – is an impossibility. A consciousness conscious of nothing is a contradiction in terms. Empiricism rests on a contradiction.) At the other extreme from ignorance is knowledge. Knowledge is not simply possessing thoughts or ideas, as some think. Knowledge is possessing true ideas and knowing them to be true. Knowledge is, by definition, knowledge of the truth. We do not say that a person "knows" that 2 plus 2 is 5. We may say he thinks it, but he does not know it. It would be better to say that he opines it.

Now, most of what we colloquially call knowledge is actually opinion: We "know" that we are in Pennsylvania; we "know" that Clinton – either Bill or Hillary – is President of the United States, and so forth. Opinions can be true or false; we just don’t know which. History, except for revealed history, is opinion. Science is opinion. Archaeology is opinion. John Calvin said, "I call that knowledge, not what is innate in man, nor what is by diligence acquired, but what is revealed to us in the Law and the Prophets." Knowledge is true opinion with an account of its truth.

It may very well be that William Clinton is President of the United States, but I do not know how to prove it, nor, I suspect, do you. In truth, I do not know that he is President, I opine it. I can, however, prove that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. That information is revealed to me, not by the dubious daily newspaper or the evening news, but by the infallible Word of God. The resurrection of Christ is deduced by good and necessary consequence from the axiom of revelation.

Any view of knowledge that makes no distinction between the cognitive standing of Biblical propositions and statements found in the daily paper does three things: First, it equivocates by applying one word, "knowledge," to two quite different sorts of statements: statements infallibly revealed by the God who can neither lie nor make a mistake, and statements made by men who both lie and make mistakes; second, by its empiricism, it actually makes the Biblical statements less reliable than those in the daily paper, for at least some statements in the paper are subject to empirical investigation and Biblical statements are not; and third, it thereby undermines Christianity.

Revelation is our only source of truth and knowledge. Neither science, nor history, nor archaeology, nor philosophy can furnish us with truth and knowledge. Scripturalism takes seriously Paul’s warning to the Colossians: "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in him…."

One naive objection to the axiom of revelation crops up repeatedly: Don’t I have to read the Bible? Don’t I have to know that I have a book in my hands and that that book is the Bible? Don’t I have to rely on the senses to obtain revelation?

First, this objection begs the epistemological question, How does one know, by assuming that one knows by means of the senses. But that is the conclusion that ought to be proved. The proper response to these questions is another series of questions: How do you know you have a book in your hands? How do you know that you are reading it? What is sensation? What are perceptions? What is abstraction? Tell us how some things called sensations become the idea of God. The naive question – Don’t you have to read the Bible? – assumes that empiricism is true. It ignores all the arguments demonstrating the cognitive failure of empiricism. An acceptable account of epistemology, however, must begin at the beginning, not in the middle. Few theologians, and even fewer philosophers, however, want to start at the beginning.

But there is another confusion in this question: It assumes that revelation is not a distinct means of gaining knowledge, but that even revealed information has to be funneled through or derived from the senses. A conversation between Peter and Christ will indicate how far this assumption is from the Scriptural view of epistemology:

"He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’

"And Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’

"Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in Heaven.’ "

Presumably Peter had "heard" with his ears and "seen" with his eyes, but Christ says that his knowledge did not come by flesh and blood – it did not come by the senses; it came by revelation from the Father. That is why Christ forbids Christians to be called teacher, "for one is your Teacher, the Christ" (Matthew 23). It is in God, not matter, that we live and move, and have our being.

Soteriology

Soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, is a branch of epistemology, the theory of knowledge. Soteriology is not a branch of metaphysics, for men did not cease to be men when they fell, nor are they deified when they are saved; saved men, even in Heaven, remain temporal and limited creatures. Only God is eternal; only God is omniscient; only God is omnipresent.

Nor is soteriology a branch of ethics, for men are not saved by works. We are saved in spite of our works, not because of them.

Nor is soteriology a branch of politics, for the notion that salvation, either temporal or eternal, can be achieved by political means is an illusion. Attempts to immanentize the eschaton have brought nothing but blood and death to Earth.

Salvation is by faith alone. Faith is belief of the truth. God reveals truth. Faith, the act of believing, is a gift of God. "By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many."

Clark’s view of salvation, reflected in the Westminster Confession’s chapter on justification, is at odds with most of what passes for Christianity today. Popular Christianity decries knowledge. Clark points out that Peter says that we have received everything we need for life and godliness through knowledge. James says the Word of Truth regenerates us. Paul says we are justified through belief of the truth. Christ says we are sanctified by truth.

There are three popular theories of sanctification today: sanctification by works, sanctification by emotions, sanctification by sacraments. The first, sanctification by works, is sometimes expressed by those who claim to be Reformed or Calvinist: They teach that we are justified by faith, but we are sanctified by works. Calvin had no such view, and the Westminster Confession refutes it. The second view, sanctification by emotions, is the view of the Pentecostal, charismatic, and holiness groups. Roman Catholic and other churches that believe in the magical power of sacraments to regenerate or sanctify hold the third view, sanctification by sacraments. But just as we are regenerated by truth alone, and justified through belief of the truth alone, we are sanctified by truth alone as well.

Metaphysics

Let us turn briefly to metaphysics. Clark wrote relatively little on the subject of metaphysics in the narrow philosophical sense. Clark was, obviously, a theist. God, revealed in the Bible, is spirit and truth. Since truth always comes in propositions, the mind of God, that is, God himself, is propositional. Clark wrote a book called The Johannine Logos, in which he explained how Christ could identify himself with his words: "I am the Truth." "I am the Life." "The words that I speak to you are truth and life." Clark, like Augustine, was accused of "reducing" God to a proposition. Rather than fleeing from such an accusation, Clark astonished some of his readers by insisting that persons are indeed propositions. Some have been so confused by his statement that they think he said that propositions are persons, and so they wonder whether a declarative sentence, The cat is black, is really a person.

Knowledge is knowledge of the truth, and truth is unchanging. Truth is eternal. We know David was King of Israel and that Jesus rose from the dead, not because we saw them, but because God has revealed those truths to us. They are knowledge because they are revealed as truth. Because we all live and move and have our being in God, both thought and communication are possible. Communication is not based on having the same sensations, as empiricists think, but on having the same ideas. We can never have the same sensations as another person – you cannot have my toothache, and I cannot see your color blue – but we can both think that justification is by faith alone. Empiricism, which promises us an objective reality – the reality it calls matter — delivers only solipsism. In the material world the empiricists describe, each of us – if indeed I am more than one of your headaches or nightmares – is shut inside our own sensations, and there is no escape. Science, however, is an attempt to escape the solipsism of sensation.

Those Christians who put their trust in science as the key to understanding the material universe should be embarrassed by the fact that science never discovers truth. One of the insuperable problems of science is the fallacy of induction; indeed, induction is an insuperable problem for all forms of empiricism. The problem is simply this: Induction, arguing from the particular to the general, is always a fallacy. No matter how many white swans one observes, one never has sufficient reason to say all swans are white. There is another fatal fallacy in the scientific method as well: asserting the consequent. Bertrand Russell put the matter this way:

All inductive arguments in the last resort reduce themselves to the following form: "If this is true, that is true: now that is true, therefore this is true." This argument is, of course, formally fallacious. [It is the fallacy of asserting the consequent.] Suppose I were to say: "If bread is a stone and stones are nourishing, then this bread will nourish me; now this bread does nourish me; therefore it is a stone and stones are nourishing." If I were to advance such an argument, I should certainly be thought foolish, yet it would not be fundamentally different from the argument upon which all scientific laws are based (emphasis added).

Recognizing that the problem of induction is insoluble, and that asserting the consequent is a logical fallacy, philosophers of science in the twentieth century, in an effort to justify science, developed the notion that science does not rely on induction at all. Instead, it consists of conjectures and refutations. That is the title of a book by Karl Popper, one of the leading philosophers of science in this century. But in their attempt to save science from epistemological disgrace, the philosophers of science had to abandon any claim to knowledge: Science is nothing but conjectures and refutations of conjectures. Popper wrote:

First, although in science we do our best to find the truth, we are conscious of the fact that we can never be sure whether we have got it…. [W]e know that our scientific theories always remain hypotheses…. [I]n science there is no "knowledge" in the sense in which Plato and Aristotle understood the word, in the sense which implies finality; in science, we never have sufficient reason for the belief that we have attained the truth…. Einstein declared that his theory was false: he said that it would be a better approximation to the truth than Newton’s, but he gave reasons why he would not, even if all predictions came out right, regard it as a true theory…. Our attempts to see and to find the truth are not final, but open to improvement;… our knowledge, our doctrine is conjectural;… it consist of guesses, of hypotheses, rather than of final and certain truths.

Those theologians who accept observation and science as the basis for arguing for the truth of Christianity are attempting the impossible. Science cannot furnish us with truth about the material universe that it purports to describe, let alone truth about God. The empirical worldview, which begins with a metaphysics of matter, knowledge of which we obtain from sensation, cannot furnish us with knowledge at all. In him – not in matter – we live and move and have our being.

Ethics

Clark’s ethical philosophy is also derived from the axiom of revelation. The distinction between right and wrong depends entirely upon the commands of God. There is no natural law that makes some actions right and others wrong. In the words of the Shorter Catechism, sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. Were there no law of God, there would be no right or wrong.

This may be seen very clearly in God’s command to Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Only the command of God made eating the fruit sin. It may also be seen in God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. God’s command alone made the sacrifice right, and Abraham hastened to obey. Strange as it may sound to modern ears used to hearing so much about the right to life, or the right to decent housing, or the right to choose, the Bible says that natural rights and wrongs do not exist: Only God’s commands make some things right and other things wrong.

In the Old Testament, it was a sin for the Jews to eat pork. Today, we can all enjoy bacon and eggs for breakfast, although Theonomists, Reconstructionists, Seventh Day Adventists, and Judaizers might choke. And it may bother some who are not Theonomists to learn that God might have made the killing of a human being or the taking of property a virtue, not a sin. That is one of the lessons of the story of Abraham. But in fact God made killing an innocent man a sin. In this world God commands, "You shall not murder." What makes murder wrong is not some presumed or pre-existing right to life, but the divine command itself.

If we possessed rights because we are men – if our rights were natural and inalienable – then God himself would have to respect them. But God is sovereign. He is free to do with his creatures as he sees fit. One need read only Isaiah 40. So we do not have natural rights. That is good, for natural and inalienable rights are logically incompatible with punishment of any sort. Fines, for example, violate the inalienable right to property. Imprisonment violates the inalienable right to liberty. Execution violates the inalienable right to life. Natural right theory is logically incoherent at its foundation. Natural rights are logically incompatible with justice. The Biblical idea is not natural rights, but imputed rights. Only imputed rights, not intrinsic rights – natural and inalienable rights — are compatible with liberty and justice. And those rights are imputed by God.

Furthermore, Clark demonstrates, all attempts to base ethics on some foundation other than revelation fail. Natural law is a failure, as David Hume so obligingly pointed out, because "oughts" cannot be derived from "ises." In more formal language, the conclusion of an argument can contain no terms that are not found in its premises. Natural lawyers, who begin their arguments with statements about man and the universe, statements in the indicative mood, cannot end their arguments with statements in the imperative mood.

The major ethical theory competing with natural law theory today is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism tells us that a moral action is one that results in the greatest good for the greatest number. It furnishes an elaborate method for calculating the effects of choices. Unfortunately, utilitarianism is also a failure, for it not only commits the naturalistic fallacy of the natural lawyers, it requires a calculus that cannot be executed as well. We cannot know what is the greatest good for the greatest number.

The only logical basis for ethics is the revealed commands of God. They furnish us not only with the basic distinction between right and wrong, but with detailed instructions and practical examples of right and wrong. They actually assist us in living our daily lives. Secular attempts to provide an ethical system fail on both counts.

Politics

Clark did not write a great deal about politics either, but it is clear from what he did write that he grounded his political theory on revelation, not on natural law, nor on the consent of the governed, nor on the exercise of mere force.

In a long chapter in A Christian View of Men and Things, he argues that attempts to base a theory of politics on secular axioms result in either anarchy or totalitarianism. He argues that only Christianity, which grounds the legitimate powers of government not in the consent of the governed but in the delegation of power by God, avoids the twin evils of anarchy and totalitarianism.

Government has a legitimate role in society: the punishment of evildoers and the praise of the good, as Paul put it in Romans 13. Education, welfare, housing, parks, retirement income, health care, the exploration of space, and most of the thousands of other programs in which government is involved today are illegitimate. The fact that government is involved in all these activities is a primary reason why government is not doing its legitimate job well: Crime is rising, and the criminal justice system is a growing threat to freedom. People are tried twice for the same crime, their property is taken without due process of law or just compensation, innocent persons are punished and guilty persons released.

Clark believed that the Bible teaches a distinctly limited role for government. The current activities of many Christians in politics would have been foreign to his thinking. The Biblical goal is not a large bureaucracy staffed by Christians, but virtually no bureaucracy. There should be no Christian Department of Education, no Christian Housing Department, no Christian Agriculture Department, simply because there should be no Departments of Education, Housing, and Agriculture, period. We do not need and should oppose a Christian Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms or a Christian Internal Revenue Service. So-called evangelical Christians are engaged in a pursuit of political power that makes their activities almost indistinguishable from the activities of the social gospelers in the early and mid-twentieth century. This sort of political action has nothing to do with Scripture.

The System

Each of the parts of this philosophical system — epistemology, soteriology, metaphysics, ethics, and politics — is important, and the ideas gain strength from being arranged in a logical system. In such a system, where propositions are logically dependent on or logically imply other propositions, each part mutually reinforces the others. Historically – though not in this decadent century – Calvinists have been criticized for being too logical. But if we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, if we are to bring all our thoughts into conformity with Christ, we must learn to think as Christ does, logically and systematically.

Gordon Clark elaborated a complete philosophical system that proceeds by rigorous deduction from one axiom to thousands of theorems. Each of the theorems fits into the whole system. If you accept one of the theorems, you must, on pain of contradiction, accept the whole. But many leaders in the professing church feel no pain, and some even glory in contradiction. They are utterly confused and are thwarting the advance of the kingdom of God.

Scripturalism – Christianity – is a whole view of things thought out together. It engages non-Christian philosophies on every field of intellectual endeavor. It furnishes a coherent theory of knowledge, an infallible salvation, a refutation of science, a theory of the world, a coherent and practical system of ethics, and the principles required for political liberty and justice. No other philosophy does. All parts of the system can be further developed; some parts have been barely touched at all. It is my hope and prayer that the philosophy of Scripturalism will conquer the Christian world in the next century. If it does not, if the church continues to decline in confusion and unbelief, at least a few Christians can take refuge in the impregnable intellectual fortress that God has given us in his Word. May you be among those few.