Notes on the thought of Gordon H. Clark

In a letter from Gordon Clark to Cornelius Van Til, August 28, 1937, he writes: ; “Perhaps you will admit this criticism so far as it goes, and reply that you rest your proposition on the necessity of solving the one and many problem. To this I would suggest that Christianity does not face the

For part of the biography I’m writing on Gordon Clark I’m researching into the relationship of Clark to his later philosophic adversary, Cornelius Van Til. In 1936 (and perhaps in later years) Clark actually taught from Van Til’s material at Wheaton College. In prior years it seems they knew each other in Philadelphia and often

The complaint against the ordination of Gordon Clark to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1944 consisted of four theological issues (The incomprehensibility of God, divine sovereignty and human responsibility, the faculties of knowledge, and the Free Offer of the Gospel ) but underlying these issues was a single concern; one of hermeneutical method. The method

I’ve been continuing to make significant progress on the biography of Gordon Clark I am researching and writing.  Here are a number of items I’ve recently discovered. 1. I’ve found that in the 1940’s there was a movement started in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church to form a Christian University.  They had already had a seminary

On the assumption that Cretans tell nothing but lies, it is impossible that any Cretan should say, ‘I am a liar.’ The so-called paradox arises because the paradoxer asserts two contradictory propositions. It impossible for both to be true. Therefore the person who wishes to puzzle us, if he is to say anything meaningful, must

One of the most common arguments against orthodox Christianity is the so-called “Problem of Evil” (POE).  This argument is that there is supposed to be a logical contradiction in that these three particular doctrines are held in combination: 1. God is loving, 2. God is omnipotent (all powerful), and 3. There is evil in the

Two varying philosophies or worldviews will by nature discount or reject the alternative views. Thus, for example, Christianity denies naturalism and naturalism denies Christianity. From either perspective, either that of the Christian or that of the Naturalist, the alternative view is rejected. Thus it is not possible based on one view’s denial of another, to

The philosophical attempts to prove the existence of God are all failures. The cosmological, teleological, moral, ontological, and transcendental arguments for the existence of God all rely on logical fallacies, are thus false, and are nowhere to be found in the Bible. Rather, God’s existence is NOWHERE PROVEN, but EVERYWHERE ASSUMED in the scriptures. Although

Here is an interesting letter from Gordon H. Clark to a Humanist in 1967 from his library. A common poor critique of Calvinism is that it prevents evangelism. Here, on the end of Clark’s letter he writes: “What you so deeply desire can be had only through the Lord Jesus Christ who rose from the

“Empiricism cannot establish any norm of morality. I am not saying that secular morality and Christian morality are different. A recent defense of abortion, a TV interview, was that the government should enforce only rational morality and not revelational morality. My point is that so-called “rational morality” does not exist. The reason should be easily understandable.

“You know, one of the truest sayings in the Bible (not that one statement can strictly be truer than another) is: There is nothing new under the sun. Protogoras had a complete system of pragmatism long before James, Pierce, or Dewey was ever heard of.” – Letter to J. Oliver Buswell, President of Wheaton College