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The Scripturalist will not be able to overcome these objections even though they will try. You will see that in some cases Scripturalists will go to such lengths to justify their position that they will embrace irrationalism. I will do my best to point this out as they respond in this thread. Here is the sad thing in all of this. If they would simply acknowledge that there necessarily is needed some a priori knowledge to go along with the one axiom, then I believe the answer they provide would provide a rational justification to the question of “How do we know?” Their stubborn refusal to do this ultimately leads them to arbitrariness and irrationality. Parenthetically, I do think Clark acknowledged the need of a prior knowledge apart from Scripture. He referred to it as man’s innate ability. Here is where Clark most clearly says this…
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But it (Theism) must assert that man's endowment with rationality, his innate ideas and a priori categories, his ability to think and speak were given to him by God for the essential purpose of receiving a verbal revelation...(page 135, Religion, Reason and Revelation).
| Clark tells us that theism must assert (not deduce) that man must already be endowed with rationality, innate ideas and a priori categories. Why must this assertion be made? For the essential purpose of receiving verbal revelation! If we do not already have some knowledge of innate ideas and a priori categories coupled with rationality, then man is unable to receive verbal revelation and draw appropriate conclusions that could rightly be called knowledge. This is Clark and not me. If one grants these things, then every objection I made above goes away. It is my hope that Anthony and Sean will have ears to hear Clark on this point.
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Brian, it is clear to me, and despite of your bravado, that you have failed to grasp so many critical and fundamental ideas in Clark that I’m frankly amazed. Missing the forest for the trees or visa versa is an understatement. I honestly didn’t think it was possible, particularly given your obvious intellectual gifts. Perhaps it is just a matter of seeing what you want to see and not taking care to what is being said.
The above is a great example. You cite a passage from 3R’s which is a discussion on inspiration and language and has nothing whatsoever to do with a second source of knowledge, or positing another axiom, or asserting an a_priori, or anything of the sort. In context Clark’s point is that theism must assert man’s endowment because that’s what Christian theism teaches! It doesn’t just assert an a_priori like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Immediately following your citation Clark writes; “As a hymn says, “Thou didst ears and hands and voices, For thy praise design.’ For this reason a theistic theory of language would not labor under the burden of giving a precarious derivation or development of spiritual meaning from primitive physical reference.”
That is not to say that innate ideas are not central to his epistemology, they are, but not for the reason you think. As Anthony and I have been trying to explain your so-called “refutation” is a straw man argument and you have distorted Clark for really no purpose. Consider this from
Intro to Christian Phil:
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If the Christian had to avoid the a priori because Kant put it to a non-Christian use, and for the same reason had to deny a blank mind because of Aristotle and Hume, he would have no alternative left. As a matter of fact, the doctrine of the image of God in man, a doctrine learned from Scripture, is an assertion of an a priori or innate equipment [notice, it is an assertion “learned from Scripture”]. As such it will receive emphasis. But only as such, for so precarious are arguments otherwise based that there would be little confidence in the existence of an a priori and no possibility of identifying its forms, were it not asserted in verbal revelation. |
Like I said, and evidently it wasn’t heeded which is why you started this new thread, your refutation is just so much blowing wind. You need to really slow down a bit and take more care with what is being said and particularly with what Clark has been saying since it is Clark who already provided the very solution you rightly identified as necessary for knowledge. He just arrived at the same solution as the one you proposed from a different direction. But that different direction is absolutely fundamental. I think the difference between us is minuscule, but you’ve (hopefully unintentionally) made it into a mountain.