RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
This book is vintage Clark: remarkably clear, mostly solid, and occasionally “off.”
I do not have a problem with most of the book. Clark responds to and surveys the “inspiration” debates plaguing 20th century Evangelicalism. For those of us who are familiar with Carson/Woodbridge/Henry, we will recognize Clark’s arguments.
The problems:
1. Does Clark deny analogical knowledge? It’s hard to say. To be fair, he does affirm analogical knowledge of a sorts: “Ordinary analogies are legitimate and useful, but they are so only because there is a univocal point of coincident meaning in the two parts” (Clark 33). Something just doesn’t seem right. Earlier Clark affirms a “most important qualitative difference between the knowledge situation in the case of God and the knowledge situation for man” (30). I suppose the question is this: what is this “point of contact” between God and man? What is the “univocal” element? If he says “knowledge,” then he begs the question. Which aspect of knowledge is the univocal point?
It will help to remember Clark’s explanation of what makes something “true.” “Nothing can be called true in the literal sense of the term except the attribution of a predicate to a subject” (25). I don’t really have a problem with this. It’s basic logic and epistemology. Isolated terms are neither true or false. Nothing is being predicated of them. Fair enough. With this in mind I think we can answer the question. He concludes, “But if a predicate does not mean the same thing to man as it does to God, then, if God’s meaning is the correct one, it follows that man’s meaning is incorrect” (32).
2. This is unsettling but we will move on. I think there is a more important issue in the following pages. Clark appears to deny the correspondence theory of truth. He writes, “Suffice to say, if the mind has something that only corresponds to reality, it does not have reality. And if it knows reality, there is no need for an extra something that corresponds to it” (36). And so we have abandoned all classical epistemology from Augustine onward. Keeping in mind the signa/res dichotomy, Clark has collapsed the sign into the thing signified. If we apply this method to ontology, all is collapsed into the One. If we apply it to the sacraments, we have transubstantiation. The sign is the thing signified.
It appears, then, that Clark opts for a coherentist model of truth. He doesn’t say so, but I think this would be his position. Coherentism isn’t ipso facto wrong, but it is insufficient without a correspondence theory. Coherentism only tells us of the doxastic relationships between beliefs. It doesn’t tell us whether (or how) a belief is true. Further, a belief can be coherent and not really bear upon other beliefs in question. I believe the proposition “my door is brown.” How does that cohere with the proposition “The Bible is axiomatically true?”
I don’t want to leave on a negative note. Clark anticipates a few moves in modern epistemology, such as the problem of criterion. Let’s look at the liberal claim that the Bible is “symbolic” of myth or something. This was sex-fiend Paul Tillich’s position. Let’s say the crucifixion never occured, but it symbolic of God’s love. Is that a literal truth or a symbolic one? If the latter, then God’s love must be symbolic of something, too. But this new term must be symbolic of yet another term, and on to eternity (48).
He also deals with the inane argument “what good is an infallible bible without an infallible interpreter?” But as the history of post-Vatican II has shown, this is fraught with danger. If the Bible requires an infallible interpretation, then the supposed infallible encyclical or council would also need an infallible interpreter. Whoever this might be, his interpretation--also infallible--would require yet another infallible interpretation, and so on (124).
Conclusion
Can we recommend this work? We can recommend it provided the reader is already familiar with Bavinck. And while Clark anticipated modern epistemology in some areas, the discussion has come a long way.
I do not have a problem with most of the book. Clark responds to and surveys the “inspiration” debates plaguing 20th century Evangelicalism. For those of us who are familiar with Carson/Woodbridge/Henry, we will recognize Clark’s arguments.
The problems:
1. Does Clark deny analogical knowledge? It’s hard to say. To be fair, he does affirm analogical knowledge of a sorts: “Ordinary analogies are legitimate and useful, but they are so only because there is a univocal point of coincident meaning in the two parts” (Clark 33). Something just doesn’t seem right. Earlier Clark affirms a “most important qualitative difference between the knowledge situation in the case of God and the knowledge situation for man” (30). I suppose the question is this: what is this “point of contact” between God and man? What is the “univocal” element? If he says “knowledge,” then he begs the question. Which aspect of knowledge is the univocal point?
It will help to remember Clark’s explanation of what makes something “true.” “Nothing can be called true in the literal sense of the term except the attribution of a predicate to a subject” (25). I don’t really have a problem with this. It’s basic logic and epistemology. Isolated terms are neither true or false. Nothing is being predicated of them. Fair enough. With this in mind I think we can answer the question. He concludes, “But if a predicate does not mean the same thing to man as it does to God, then, if God’s meaning is the correct one, it follows that man’s meaning is incorrect” (32).
2. This is unsettling but we will move on. I think there is a more important issue in the following pages. Clark appears to deny the correspondence theory of truth. He writes, “Suffice to say, if the mind has something that only corresponds to reality, it does not have reality. And if it knows reality, there is no need for an extra something that corresponds to it” (36). And so we have abandoned all classical epistemology from Augustine onward. Keeping in mind the signa/res dichotomy, Clark has collapsed the sign into the thing signified. If we apply this method to ontology, all is collapsed into the One. If we apply it to the sacraments, we have transubstantiation. The sign is the thing signified.
It appears, then, that Clark opts for a coherentist model of truth. He doesn’t say so, but I think this would be his position. Coherentism isn’t ipso facto wrong, but it is insufficient without a correspondence theory. Coherentism only tells us of the doxastic relationships between beliefs. It doesn’t tell us whether (or how) a belief is true. Further, a belief can be coherent and not really bear upon other beliefs in question. I believe the proposition “my door is brown.” How does that cohere with the proposition “The Bible is axiomatically true?”
I don’t want to leave on a negative note. Clark anticipates a few moves in modern epistemology, such as the problem of criterion. Let’s look at the liberal claim that the Bible is “symbolic” of myth or something. This was sex-fiend Paul Tillich’s position. Let’s say the crucifixion never occured, but it symbolic of God’s love. Is that a literal truth or a symbolic one? If the latter, then God’s love must be symbolic of something, too. But this new term must be symbolic of yet another term, and on to eternity (48).
He also deals with the inane argument “what good is an infallible bible without an infallible interpreter?” But as the history of post-Vatican II has shown, this is fraught with danger. If the Bible requires an infallible interpretation, then the supposed infallible encyclical or council would also need an infallible interpreter. Whoever this might be, his interpretation--also infallible--would require yet another infallible interpretation, and so on (124).
Conclusion
Can we recommend this work? We can recommend it provided the reader is already familiar with Bavinck. And while Clark anticipated modern epistemology in some areas, the discussion has come a long way.
