The Trinity Review

THE TRINITY REVIEW For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare [are] not fleshly but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And they will be ready to punish all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled. July, August 1993 Copyright 2003 John W. Robbins Post Office Box 68, Unicoi, Tennessee 37692 Email: [email protected] Website: www.trinityfoundation.org Telephone: 423.743.0199 Fax: 423.743.2005 An Introduction to Gordon H. Clark John W. Robbins Who Is Gordon Clark? Clark was a Presbyterian minister, and his father was a Presbyterian minister before him. Born in Carl Henry thinks Clark is "one of the profoundest urban Philadelphia in the summer of 1902, he died evangelical Protestant philosophers of our time." in rural Colorado in the spring of 1985. Clark was Ronald Nash has praised him as "one of the greatest educated at the University of Pennsylvania and the Christian thinkers of our century." He is a prolific Sorbonne. His undergraduate degree was in French; author, having written more than 40 books during his graduate work was in ancient philosophy. He his long academic career. His philosophy is the wrote his doctoral dissertation on Aristotle. He most consistently Christian philosophy yet quickly earned the respect of fellow professional published, yet few seminary students hear his name philosophers by publishing a series of articles in even mentioned in their classes, much less are academic journals, translating and editing required to read his books. If I might draw a philosophical texts from the Greek, and editing two comparison, it is as though theological students in standard texts, Readings in Ethics and Selections the mid-sixteenth century never heard their teachers from Hellenistic Philosophy. He taught at the mention Martin Luther or John Calvin. There has University of Pennsylvania, Reformed Episcopal been a great educational and ecclesiastical blackout. Seminary, Wheaton College, Butler University, Both churches and educators have gone out of their Covenant College, and Sangre de Cristo Seminary. way to avoid Clark. They have cheated a generation Over the course of his 60-year teaching career, he of students and church-goers. As theological wrote more than 40 books, including a history of students at the end of the twentieth century, you philosophy, Thales to Dewey, which remains the ought not consider yourself well educated until you best one-volume history of philosophy in English. are familiar with the philosophy of Gordon Haddon He also lectured widely, pastored a church, raised a Clark. family, and played chess. For the past 15 years I have been the publisher of his books and essays. A Brief Biography More of his books are in print today than at any Clark’s life was one of controversy – theological time during his life on Earth, yet few seminary and philosophical. He was a brilliant mind, and his students know anything about him. philosophy continues to be a challenge to the Throughout his life Clark was enmeshed in prevailing notions of our day. It is his philosophy controversy: First, as a young man in the old that makes his biography both interesting and Presbyterian Church of Warfield and Machen, important, for his battles were intellectual battles. where as a ruling elder at age 27 he first fought the 2 The Trinity Review July, August 1993 modernists and then helped J. Gresham Machen Years later he told me that he would have liked to organize the Presbyterian Church of America, later have stayed in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, known as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Those but felt a sense of loyalty to those who had ecclesiastical activities cost him the chairmanship of defended him. After he left, the Van Tilians had no the Department of Philosophy at the University of serious intellectual opposition within the Orthodox Pennsylvania. Presbyterian Church. Clark’s second major controversy was at Wheaton Clark entered the United Presbyterian Church -- not College in Illinois, where he taught from 1936 to the large denomination, which was not called the 1943 after leaving the University of Pennsylvania. United Presbyterian Church at that time – but a There his Calvinism brought him into conflict with small, more conservative, denomination. There he the Arminianism of some faculty members and the fought another battle about both doctrine and administration, and he was forced to resign in 1943. church property. When the United Presbyterian Wheaton College has never been the same since, denomination joined the mainline church in the declining into a sort of vague, lukewarm, and trendy 1950s, Clark left that church and joined the neo-evangelicalism. Reformed Presbyterian Church, which later merged with the Evangelical Synod to form the Reformed From 1945 to 1973 Clark was Chairman of the Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod. He Department of Philosophy at Butler University in remained a part of that Church until it merged with Indianapolis, where he enjoyed relative academic the Presbyterian Church in America in 1983. Clark peace and freedom. But within his denomination, refused to join the Presbyterian Church in America the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a third major on doctrinal grounds, and for about a year he was controversy arose, and there was no peace. the RPCES. Some months before his death in April 1985 he affiliated with Covenant Presbytery. In 1944, at age 43, Clark was ordained a teaching elder by the Presbytery of Philadelphia. A faction During his lifetime Clark never settled on a name led by Cornelius Van Til and composed largely of for his philosophy. At times he called it the faculty of Westminster Seminary quickly presuppositionalism; at other times dogmatism; at challenged his ordination. The battle over Clark’s still other times Christian rationalism or Christian ordination, which became known as the Clark-Van intellectualism. None of these names, I fear, catches Til controversy, raged for years. In 1948 the the correct meaning. Let me explain why: Every General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian philosophy, as I will explain in a moment, has Church finally vindicated Clark. His ordination presuppositions; some philosophers just won’t stood; the effort to defrock him had failed. Yet this admit it. All philosophies, for the same reason, are failure of the Van Tilians to defrock Clark has been dogmatic, though some pretend to be open-minded. falsified by at least one biographer of Van Til, the And the phrase "Christian rationalism" is an late William White, and that falsification of history awkward and misleading way of describing Clark’s has become the stock in trade of some proponents views, since Clark spends a great deal of time of Van Til and Westminster Seminary. refuting rationalism in his books. Nevertheless, one can see why Clark used the terms: Unfortunately, the defeat of the Van Presuppositionalism was the term he used to Til/Westminster Seminary faction did not end the distinguish his views from evidentialism; matter. Those who had unsuccessfully targeted dogmatism was the term he used to distinguish his Clark for removal next leveled similar charges views from both evidentialism and rationalism; and against one of Clark’s defenders. At that point, rationalism and intellectualism were the terms he rather than spend another three years fighting a used to distinguish his views from religious faction which had already been defeated once, irrationalism and anti-intellectualism. Clark, of Clark’s defenders left the Orthodox Presbyterian course, maintained that his philosophy was Church, and Clark reluctantly went with them. Christianity, rightly understood. But since there are 3 The Trinity Review July, August 1993 so many views claiming to be Christianity, it is 3.Metaphysics: In him we live and move useful to name Clark’s philosophy and thus easily and have our being. distinguish it from the rest. 4.Ethics: We ought to obey God rather Therefore, I would like to begin my talk this than men. evening by naming his philosophy – and rather than calling it Dogmatic Presuppositional Rationalism, 5.Politics: Proclaim liberty throughout the or Rational Dogmatic Presuppositionalism, or land. Presuppositional Rational Dogmatism – rather than Clark developed this philosophy in more than 40 letting its title be determined by its theological books, many of which were published during his opposite – I shall give it a name that discloses what lifetime, most of which are now in print, and a few it stands for: Scripturalism. It avoids all the defects of which have not been published yet. Let us first of the other names, and it names what makes consider the foundational branch of philosophy, Clark’s philosophy unique: an uncompromising epistemology, the theory of knowledge. devotion to Scripture alone. Clark did not try to combine secular and Christian notions, but to derive Epistemology all of his ideas from the Bible alone. He was intransigent in his devotion to Scripture: All our Scripturalism holds that God reveals truth. thoughts -- there are no exceptions -- are to be Christianity is propositional truth revealed by God, brought into conformity to Scripture, for all the propositions that have been written in the 66 books treasures of wisdom and knowledge are contained that we call the Bible. Revelation is the starting in Scripture. Scripturalism is the logically consistent point of Christianity, its axiom. The axiom, the first application of Christian -- that is, Scriptural -- ideas principle, of Christianity is this: "The Bible alone is to all fields of thought. One day, God willing, it will the Word of God." not be necessary to call this philosophy Scripturalism, for it will prevail under its original I must interject a few words here about axioms, for and most appropriate name, Christianity.

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