[Notes] When Black Becomes White: On Some Footnotes of Greg L. Bahnsen

When Black Becomes White: On Some Footnotes of Greg L. Bahnsen


Original: May 14, 2009.

Revision: July 7, 2014.



Note:

(a) The following were originally reading notes on Greg L. Bahnsen's Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (1998).

I wrote the notes with some passions because I was angry with Bahnsen when I wrote them.

Not only did I find Bahnsen treating Gordon H. Clark unfairly, I also believe Bahnsen was not honest with his readers.

The notes were posted to a blog in 2009:

http://logosandreason.wordpress.com/

The grammar, paragraphing and formatting of the 2009 blog post were atrocious.

This is a relatively minor revision mainly with those concerns in mind.

(b) Also, when I wrote the notes in 2009, I had not read the primary documents The Text of a Complaint and The Answer.

They were not generally available.

Sean Gerety has subsequently made these two primary documents available in his blog God's Hammer.

(They are also available now in the Documents page of this Blog.)

Reading the primary documents only confirmed my suspicion about Bahnsen.

For the footnotes in question, their elaborateness gave a scholarly appearance to the presentation, but Bahnsen was not honest with his readers.

My opinion is that Bahnsen's elaborate footnotes serve more to hide and misdirect than to enlighten his readers.

I believe the two primary documents refute the elaborate footnotes of Bahnsen's.

And I would have quoted from the primary documents, instead of from Herman Hoeksema, had I read them in 2009.



Outline

1. Introduction
2. The Logic of Van Til's Analogical Knowledge
3. Van Til Picked a Fight
4. Why did Van Til Picked a Fight?
5. Clark had an Answer
6. Shifting the Ground of Debate – 3 Responses to Clark
7. Bahnsen Wrote a Book
8. Why did Clark left the OPC?
9. Is the Bible the Highest Authority in Clark's Philosophy?
10. Bahnsen the Revisionist
11. The Two Horns of a Dilemma
12. When Black Becomes White
13. Saddling Clark with an Error
14. Saddling Clark with Another Error
15. Conclusion: My Take of What Happened



1. Introduction

These notes are about the Clark-Van Til Controversy (1944-48).

In particular, they are about just one aspect of that Controversy -- the debate about the incomprehensibility of God.

The Controversy occurred in the 1940s in The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC).

The protagonists were Gordon H. Clark and Cornelius Van Til.

Since the theological and philosophical questions debated during the Controversy are important in their own rights, they have been commented upon by subsequent writers.

These notes were originally reading notes on Greg L. Bahnsen's Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (1998).

I have subsequently posted some of them to an internet discussion group.

I was very critical of Bahnsen's handling of the Clark-Van Til Controversy.

I still am.

But in rewriting the notes into this essay, I have already tone down the rhetoric against Bahnsen.


2. The Logic of Van Til's Analogical Knowledge

There are certain questions any epistemological theory must answer:

(a) What is the subject of knowledge? (That which knows.)

(b) What is the object of knowledge? (That which is known.)

(c) How does a subject acquire an object of knowledge? (The mechanism of knowledge acquisition.)

The logic of Van Til's analogical knowledge is rather simple.

The Creator-creation Distinction is an ontological distinction between God and his creation.

Van Til applies the Creator-creation Distinction to all three epistemological questions above.

Thus, for Van Til:

(a) The Creator-creation Distinction implies that the subjects of knowledge are ontologically different: God is uncreated Creator while human persons are created creatures.

(b) The Creator-creation Distinction implies that the objects of knowledge are ontologically different between Creator and creatures: The objects of God's knowledge are uncreated but the objects of human knowledge are created.

(c) The Creator-creation Distinction implies that the mechanisms of knowledge acquisition are ontologically different between Creator and creatures: The mechanism of knowledge acquisition for God is uncreated but the mechanism of knowledge acquisition for humans are created.

As a good Reformed believer, Van Til also believes that human persons are created in the image of God.

As an image-bearer of God, human persons as knower reflected God as knower.

How do human persons reflect God epistemologically?

Van Til calls this relation "analogical".

"Analogical" is meant to convey the idea that there are both similarities and differences between God as knower and human persons as knower.

There are similarities because human persons are created in the image of God and therefore reflect God as knower.

There are differences because human persons are created in the image of God and therefore there is an underlying ontological difference between Creator and creatures.


3. Van Til Picked a Fight

The Clark-Van Til Controversy was started by Van Til and his colleagues at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

In 1944, Gordon H. Clark was ordained as a minister of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Van Til and his colleagues filed a complaint against Clark's ordination.

Leaving the church politics aside, the main doctrinal issue was the incomprehensibility of God.

The doctrine of the Knowability of God is the claim that human persons can know some truths about God.

The doctrine of the Incomprehensibility of God is the claim that human persons cannot know all truths about God.

Combining knowability and incomprehensibility, the claim in discussion was that human persons can know some, but not all, truths about God.


4. Why did Van Til Picked a Fight?

(a) Recall that Van Til applies the Creator-creation Distinction to epistemology.

The Creator-creation Distinction is an ontological distinction.

One result of the application is that the objects of knowledge for God are ontologically different from the objects of knowledge for human persons.

Now Clark is an Augustinian.

For an Augustinian, the objects of knowledge are truths.

Since Clark believes all truths are propositional, the objects of knowledge are propositions.

For Clark, that the objects of knowledge are propositions is true for both God and man.

For Clark, both God and man know the identical propositions.

But for Van Til, who applies the ontological Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge, the propositions God knows must be ontologically different from the propositions man knows.

For Van Til, God and man knowing the identical propositions means violating the Creator-creation Distinction.

Clark and Van Til disagree with each other.

(b) The document Van Til and his colleagues filed against Clark was called The Text of a Complaint Against Actions of the Presbytery of Philadelphia in the Matter of the Licensure and Ordination of Dr. Gordon H. Clark (hereafter The Text of a Complaint).

The following is a summary of The Text of a Complaint on the issue of the incomprehensibility of God by Herman Hoeksema ([1940s] 1995, 7):

"What, then, is the exact point of difference?"

"According to the complainants, it is this, that, while they hold that the difference between the contents of the knowledge of God and the contents of our knowledge is both qualitative and quantitative, Dr. Clark insists that it is only quantitative. And here the complaints mention three specific points of difference between Dr. Clark's view and their own:"

"1. According to Dr. Clark all truth, in God and in man, is propositional, i.e., assumes the form of propositions (God is good, man is mortal, two times two are four, the whole is greater than any of its parts, etc. – H.H.). The complaints deny this, at least with regard to God's knowledge."

"2. Dr. Clark holds that man's knowledge of any proposition is identical with God's knowledge of the same proposition. Any proposition has the same meaning for God as for man. The complainants deny this. As an item of interest we may mention here that during the examination of Dr. Clark by the Presbytery of Philadelphia the question was asked him: 'You would say then, that all that is revealed in the Scripture is capable of being comprehended by the mind of man?' And the answer was given by him: 'Oh yes, that is what it is given us for, to understand it'. "

"3. Dr. Clark teaches that God's knowledge consists of an infinite number of propositions, while only a finite number can ever be revealed to man. And this shows that, according to him, the difference between God's knowledge and man's knowledge is only quantitative: God simply knows infinitely more than man. The complainants insist that it is also qualitative: It also concerns the question as to the nature and mode of God's knowledge and ours."

(c) The doctrine at issue is the incomprehensibility of God.

(The actual claim under discussion is the claim that human persons can know some, but not all, truths about God.)

Both Clark and Van Til formally subscribe to this doctrine, but they understand it very differently.

Clark believes that "man's knowledge of any proposition is identical with God's knowledge of the same proposition. Any proposition has the same meaning for God as for man."

Van Til denies this.

Why did Van Til deny this?

It is because Van Til applies the Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge and concludes that the objects of God's knowledge must be ontologically different from the objects of human knowledge.

Since the objects of knowledge are propositions, the propositions human knows cannot be identical to the propositions God knows.

The Creator-creation Distinction forbids this.

The propositions man knows, according to Van Til, must be qualitatively different from the propositions God knows.

The logic of Van Til's position is simple and clear.


5. Clark had an Answer

What was Clark's answer to Van Til's complaints?

Clark's answer was that Van Til's position would lead to skepticism.

Clark and his supporters replied to The Text of a Complaint in a document called The Answer to a Complaint Against Several Actions and Decisions of the Presbytery of Philadelphia Taken in a Special Meeting Held on July 7, 1944 (hereafter The Answer).

In the following, Herman Hoeksema quoted at length from The Answer.

(Hoeksema [1940s] 1995, 9-10):

"Let us learn, then, from The Answer just what is Dr. Clark's view of the incomprehensibility of God. We quote:"

"The view of the Complaint is that 'God because of his very nature must remain incomprehensible to man'; it is 'not the doctrine that God can be known only if he makes himself known and in so far as he makes himself known.' Moreover, all knowledge which man can attain differs from the knowledge of God 'in a qualitative sense and not merely in degree.' Thus God's knowledge and man's knowledge do not 'coincide at a single point.' A proposition does not 'have the same meaning for man as for God.' Man's knowledge is 'analogical to the knowledge God possesses, but it can never be identified with the knowledge' which God 'possesses of the same proposition.' 'The divine knowledge as divine transcends human knowledge as human, even when that human knowledge is a knowledge communicated by God.' 'Because of his very nature as infinite and absolute the knowledge which God possesses of himself and of all things must remain a mystery which the finite mind cannot penetrate.' This latter statement does not mean merely that man cannot penetrate this mystery unaided by revelation: It means that even revelation by God could not make man understand the mystery, for the preceding sentences assert that it is the nature of God that renders him incomprehensible, not the lack of a revelation about it. As the analysis proceeds, these quotations with the argument from which they are taken will be seen to imply two chief points. First, there is some truth that God cannot put into propositional form; this portion of truth cannot be expressed conceptually. Second, the portion of truth that God can express in propositional form never has the same meaning for man as it has for God. Every proposition that man knows has a qualitatively different meaning for God. Man can grasp only an analogy of the truth, which, because it is an analogy, is not the truth itself."

"On the other hand, Dr. Clark contends that the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God as set forth in Scripture and in the Confession of Faith includes the following points: 1. The essence of God's being is incomprehensible to man except as God reveals truths concerning his own nature. 2. The manner of God's knowledge, an eternal intuition, is impossible for man. 3. Man can never know exhaustively and completely God's knowledge of any truth in all its relationships and implications; because every truth has an infinite number of relationships and implications and since each of these implications in turn has other infinite implications, these must ever, even in heaven, remain inexhaustible for man. 4. But, Dr. Clark maintains, the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God does not mean that a proposition, e.g. two times two are four, has one meaning for man and a tentatively different meaning for God, or that some truth is conceptual and other truth is non-conceptual in nature."

We will set aside the question whether there are non-propositional truths since this question did not figure prominently in the subsequent debates.

Ignoring non-propositional truths for the sake of argument, Clark's answer to Van Til was clear and unambiguous:

(a) If the portion of truth that God can express in propositional form never has the same meaning for man as it has for God, then every proposition that man knows has a qualitatively different meaning for God.

(b) Man can grasp only an analogy of the truth, which, because it is an analogy, is not the truth itself.

(c) Since man cannot know the truth itself, he is reduced to skepticism.

Applying the Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge leads to skepticism!

I like to impress upon the readers that many of the phrases found in The Text of a Complaint is a direct result of Van Til applying the Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge.

Van Til concluded from the application that the objects of knowledge for God must be ontologically different from the objects of knowledge for human persons.

(a) The view of the Complaint is that "God because of his very nature must remain incomprehensible to man"; it is "not the doctrine that God can be known only if he makes himself known and in so far as he makes himself known."

Why, for Van Til, God by his nature must remain incomprehensible to man?

Because of the Creator-creation Distinction!

God is ontologically different from human persons.

(b) Moreover, all knowledge which man can attain differs from the knowledge of God "in a qualitative sense and not merely in degree."

Why, for Van Til, that all knowledge of God differs qualitatively from the knowledge of human persons?

Because the Creator-creation Distinction implies an ontological difference between the objects of God's knowledge and the objects of human knowledge.

(c) Thus God's knowledge and man's knowledge do not "coincide at a single point."

Why, for Van Til, God's knowledge and man's knowledge do not coincide at a single point?

Because the Creator-creation Distinction implies an ontological difference between the objects of God's knowledge and the objects of human knowledge.

(d) A proposition does not "have the same meaning for man as for God."

Why, for Van Til, that a proposition does not have the same meaning for man as for God?

Because the Creator-creation Distinction implies an ontological difference between the objects of God's knowledge and the objects of human knowledge.

(e) Man's knowledge is "analogical to the knowledge God possesses, but it can never be identified with the knowledge" which God "possesses of the same proposition."

Why, for Van Til, man's knowledge is analogical to God's knowledge, but can never be identified with God knowledge of the same proposition?

Because the Creator-creation Distinction implies an ontological difference between the objects of God's knowledge and the objects of human knowledge.

(f) "The divine knowledge as divine transcends human knowledge as human, even when that human knowledge is a knowledge communicated by God."

Why, for Van Til, the divine knowledge as divine transcends human knowledge as human, even when that human knowledge is a knowledge communicated by God?

Because the Creator-creation Distinction implies an ontological difference between the objects of God's knowledge and the objects of human knowledge.


6. Shifting the Ground of Debate – 3 Responses to Clark

I think Van Til and all who follow him felt the force of Clark's criticism.

And they responded differently.

I will now briefly survey three responses to Clark by the Van Tilians before coming to Greg L. Bahnsen.

(a) First, Van Til himself wrote a post-mortem to the Clark-Van Til Controversy in "Chapter 13 – The Incomprehensibility of God" of An Introduction to Systematic Theology ([1949] 1978).

I own a 1978 reprint of this book.

The specific pages dealing with Clark are from 167 to 173.

In them, Van Til made four points against Clark.

Of all people, John M. Frame has a point-by-point refutation of Van Til in pages 108 to 113 of his Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought (1995).

I must say that when I first read this portion of his book, I have the greatest of admiration for John Frame.

Frame was a student of Van Til's and then became one of his successors at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Frame is probably the premiere interpreter of Van Til living.

Yet, Frame is not afraid to call a spade a spade.

Criticizing Van Til in a book dedicated to promote his thought takes courage.

My hats off to John Frame.

(b) Second, Gilbert B. Weaver wrote an essay "Man: Analogue of God" ([1971] 1980).

Now, Weaver correctly noted that the Creator-creation Distinction "raises the fundamental question of how the two levels of being and knowledge are related. The answer to this Van Til calls analogy." ([1971] 1980, 324)

But Weaver's analysis danced around the issue whether God and man knows the identical propositions.

Does applying the Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge results in two different kinds of propositions?

Does Van Til's analogy relate two kinds of propositions: one uncreated (the objects of God's knowledge) while the other created (the objects of human knowledge)?

No answer.

Very disappointing.

(c) Third, John Frame made two proposals to resolve the Clark-Van Til Controversy (1995, 104-108).

Frame labeled the proposals as:

(i) "contents" as experience, and

(ii) "contents" as attributes.

Recall that Van Til applied the Creator-creation Distinction to epistemology and denied that a proposition has the same meaning for man as for God.

Since a proposition is itself the bearer of truth and meaning, denying that a proposition has the same meaning for God as for man amounts to denying that God and man can know the same proposition.

Clark answered that if God and man do not know the identical propositions but man only knows an analogy of what God knows, then man does not know any truths.

Applying the Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge leads to skepticism.

Van Til felt the force of Clark's criticism.

After The Answer, the position of Van Til and his colleagues became vague and ambiguous.

The reason is simple: Van Til has no case left against Clark.

Not willing to admit they had made a mistake and withdrew The Text of a Complainant, the Van Tilians surreptitiously shifted their ground.

That is how the term "content of thought" became the focus of the later debate.

"Content of thought" has a clear enough meaning, but the term is plastic enough that one can bend it and fill it with other meanings.

"Content of thought" is what a thinker of thought thinks.

It is an object of thought.

If the context is about knowledge, then the "content of thought" is a proposition.

This is because a person knows truths and all truths are propositional.

What a person thinks when he knows truths is a proposition.

Recall from the summary of The Text of a Complaint by Hoeksema (see section 4 above) -- at the beginning of the Controversy, "content" refers to propositions.

What is Frame doing with his two proposals?

Frame is trying to fill "content of thought" with a meaning that is different from an object of thought and unnatural in context.

Frame is trying to fill "content" with experiences or attributes rather than propositions.

Frame does so in order to resolve the Clark-Van Til Controversy.

I do not think the proposals work.

But rather than digress into a long explanation of why I do not think Frame proposals works, let me note the following two consequences of his proposal:

(i) Frame has shifted the ground of debate of the Clark-Van Til Controversy away from propositions (objects of thought) to experiences (of a subject of thought) and attributes (the divine attributes);

(ii) Frame left the original question of the debate unresolved: Does applying the Creator-creation Distinction to epistemology results in two kinds of propositions -- uncreated propositions as objects of God's knowledge and created propositions as objects of man's knowledge?

Frame himself note that "I am a bit amazed that with all the intellectual firepower expended on this issue during the 1940s, nobody made use of these or some similar formulations to bring the parties together." (1995, 107)

I am not amazed.

I am not amazed because the disagreements between Clark and Van Til were substantial and not verbal.

Shifting the ground of debate does only that -- the ground of the debate has been shifted.

Shifting the ground of debate does not resolve the original disagreements.

I appreciate Frame's irenic spirit.

But when there are real intellectual disagreements, it is better to argue them out than to cover them up in the name of peace and harmony.

(d) Van Til had a theory.

Van Til believed that applying the Creator-creation Distinction (an ontological distinction) to the objects of knowledge will result in two kinds of propositions: one uncreated and one created.

When he filed The Text of a Complaint, Van Til knew what he was complaining about.

But Clark's The Answer pointed out the skeptical implications of this move.

Van Til did not have the courage to admit he made a mistake and withdrew The Text of a Complaint.

Thereafter, Van Til's position became fuzzy.

Van Til's position became fuzzy because he had to hide the fact that he has no case left against Clark.


7. Bahnsen Wrote a Book

The late Greg L. Bahnsen wrote a book about Van Til called Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis and was posthumously published in 1998.

Bahnsen showed insights into Van Til's thinking.

Recognizing that Bahnsen's book is about Van Til and not Clark, I nevertheless find Bahnsen treatment of Clark and the Clark-Van Til Controversy heavy-handed and very misleading.


8. Why did Clark left the OPC?

(Bahnsen 1998, 16-17):

"Many well-known Christian scholars and teachers in America studied under Van Til, including the popular apologists Edward J. Carnell and Francis Schaeffer. During his career, Van Til also dealt in a critical fashion with the apologists J. Oliver Buswell (an inductivist) and Gordon Clark (a deductivist), both of whom were at one time ministers in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In the mid-1930s, Buswell left that communion, subsequently taking issue with Van Til's consistent Calvinism and philosophical presuppositionalism. In the mid-1940s, Clark became embroiled in ecclesiastical controversy over his views of God's incomprehensibility, the primacy of the intellect, and other matters, eventually leaving the denomination and severely criticizing Van Til's theory of knowledge."

Bahnsen description is formally correct but very misleading:

(a) Bahnsen: "In the mid-1940s, Clark became embroiled in ecclesiastical controversy over his views of God's incomprehensibility, the primacy of the intellect, and other matters . . ."

But did Bahnsen tell his readers why Clark became embroiled in ecclesiastical controversy?

It was because Van Til and his colleagues filed a complaint against Clark's ordination in the OPC!

(b) Bahnsen: ". . . eventually leaving the denomination and severely criticizing Van Til's theory of knowledge."

Here, Bahnsen gave his readers the impression that after "leaving the denomination [OPC]", Clark began to "severely criticizing Van Til's theory of knowledge."

This is disingenuous and misleading.

(c) Why did Clark left the OPC?

Clark left the OPC because after failing to defrock him, Van Til and his colleagues then went after Floyd E. Hamilton, a Clark supporter during the Controversy.

We have to read John W. Robbins (1986, 32-32) to get a fairer picture of what happened:

"Despite, or perhaps because of, their failure to defrock Dr. Clark, the Van Til faction immediately brought similar charges against one of the men who had been defending Clark. Rather than face another three years of harassment, the defenders of Clark left the O.P.C. in disgust, and Dr. Clark went with them. Clark's defenders saw no point in waging another battle like the one they had just fought and won against a stubborn faction of men who were less than enthusiastic about the peace and purity of the church. The faction's complaint against Dr. Clark was described in 1948 by the Presbytery of Ohio as 'employing harshly unrestrained and rashly unqualified language . . . to the defaming of the reputation of Dr. Gordon H. Clark by unproven allegations of rationalism [and] humanistic intellectualism . . ."

As Herman Hoeksema had written, the Clark-Van Til Controversy should have had been an academic debate and not an ecclesiastical controversy.

Cornelius Van Til and his colleagues made it into an ecclesiastical controversy.

Fifty years later, Greg L. Bahnsen sugar-coated the facts and gave misleading impressions to his readers.

This to promote his mentor Cornelius Van Til.

This is not good.


9. Is the Bible the Highest Authority in Clark's Philosophy?

(Bahnsen 1998, 17 n.57):

"See chap. 8.5 below. Clark's own epistemology at first demanded that the Bible be treated as a hypothesis that must pass the test of logical coherence in order to be accepted. See 'Special Divine Revelation as Rational,' in Revelation and the Bible, ed. Carl F.H. Henry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959), 37; A Christian View of Men and Things (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), 24-25, 31, 92, 147, 273, 318, 324. He claimed: 'The attempt to show the Bible's logical consistency is, I believe, the best method of defending inspiration' ('How May I know the Bible Is Inspired?' in Can I trust My Bible? [Chicago: Moody Press, 1963], 23)."

"But Clark later went so far as to deny altogether that knowledge is derived through sense observation -- a position that has been easily reduced to skepticism, since one must use one's senses to gain knowledge even from the Bible. See 'The Wheaton Lectures,' in The Philosophy of Gordon H. Clark, ed. Ronald H. Nash (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1968), 23-122; cf. Ronald Nash, 'Gordon Clark's Theory of Knowledge,' 125-75. Though sometimes called a presuppositionalist, the later Clark actually treated Christianity as an unprovable, fideistic first axiom, which is merely chosen or posited (Three Types of Religious Philosophy [Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1973], 7-8, 104-7, 110). In both his rationalistic and his fideistic phases, Clark fell short of treating the Bible as the highest (self-attesting) authority and as the basis for a transcendental challenge to unbelief."

(a) Bahnsen: "Clark's own epistemology at first demanded that the Bible be treated as a hypothesis that must pass the test of logical coherence in order to be accepted."

I believe coherence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the truth of a set of propositions.

Any set of claims that is inconsistent must contain one or more errors somewhere.

If God reveals only truths and no falsehoods, and if the Bible is the Word of God, then the Biblical claims must be consistent.

Any set of claims that contains inconsistencies, therefore, cannot be wholly the Word of God.

This is only simple logic.

It is only for the Van Tilian's love for "apparent contradiction" that Bahnsen can make an issue out of this.

(b) Bahnsen: "He claimed: 'The attempt to show the Bible's logical consistency is, I believe, the best method of defending inspiration'."

What is wrong with this?

I think this shows insight on Clark's part.

(c) Bahnsen: "But Clark later went so far as to deny altogether that knowledge is derived through sense observation -- a position that has been easily reduced to skepticism, since one must use one's senses to gain knowledge even from the Bible."

Clark denied empiricism, the claim that knowledge acquisition begins with sensation and a blank mind.

If Bahnsen was careful in reading Clark, he should have noticed that Clark never denied that our senses can play a part in knowledge acquisition.

What Clark claimed is that the empiricists have failed to specify the part play by the senses in knowledge acquisition.

There is a big difference between the two claims.

Bahnsen, being the scholar he was, should know better.

(d) Bahnsen: "Though sometimes called a presuppositionalist, the later Clark actually treated Christianity as an unprovable, fideistic first axiom, which is merely chosen or posited."

Some have observed that some Van Tilians attempted to prove their first axiom or presuppositions.

One wonders what they are presupposing: their presuppositions or what they used to prove their presuppositions.

Does Clark allows that the Biblical claims be refutable if false?

My opinion is that Clark does allow refutation.

That is one reason why Clark engaged in apologetics -- to refute the claim that the Bible contains falsehoods.

Maybe we can use Karl Popper's terminology and called a claim that was tested but not yet falsified "corroborated".

I think Clark's philosophy allows for the "corroboration" of Biblical claims.

(e) Bahnsen: "In both his rationalistic and his fideistic phases, Clark fell short of treating the Bible as the highest (self-attesting) authority and as the basis for a transcendental challenge to unbelief."

This is not a fair statement of Clark's position.

Can Bahnsen see that there is no inconsistency between the following two claims:

(i) Epistemologically, the Bible is the highest (self-attesting) authority; and

(ii) Methodologically, the Bible may be treated as a posit or a hypothesis.

Treating the Biblical claims methodologically as posits does not imply that epistemologically, one has to doubt the truth of what the Bible claimed.

As W.V. Quine has written: "to call a posit a posit is not to patronize it."

The fact that Clark treats the Bible as the axioms of his philosophy speaks for itself.

One wonders why there are continuous acrimony between the Clarkians and the Van Tilians?

Bahnsen, with his scholarly reputation, could have done something to end the acrimony.

I do not expect Bahnsen to agree with Clark.

But Bahnsen could have helped end the acrimony by treating Clark's position fairly.

I am disappointed he did not.


10. Bahnsen the Revisionist

(a) (Bahnsen 1998, 227 n.152):

"The vague expression 'thought content' has played havoc in many a theological and philosophical dispute, and its ability to generate confusion was conspicuous in the Clark-Van Til controversy as well. I believe that by 'thought content' Van Til meant the thinking activity in which the mind of God engages, which mental 'experience' (notice the very next sentence in Van Til's text) is metaphysically different from the operations of man's mind."

"To understand Van Til, the reader must remember his resistance to the notion of 'abstract knowledge' or 'abstract truth' -- the notion that there are ideas that exist in themselves, apart from God's mind and man's mind, and to which both minds must look (or conform) in order to possess the truth (knowledge). This is not really idiosyncratic. The problems of 'knowledge' are construed in the idealistic tradition (within which Van Til matured philosophically) with a concern for relating the subject of knowing to that which is known; discussions of 'the nature of thought' take a special place, all of them focusing on knowledge as an act of mind. Knowing is an activity relating a mind to the truths known by it. Anyway, in Van Til's perspective, all cases of knowledge are concrete acts of knowing, either by God or by man. For man to know the proposition that '2 is the square root of 4' or that 'Mecca fell to the forces of Mohammed in 630' is to know something of God's thinking. If these are called 'ideas,' they are ideas 'in God's mind' (about things that are, nonetheless, not identical with God). God's 'thought content' actively makes these things so (i.e., actively makes the truth), while man's 'thought content' does not (being passive with regard to the truth)."

"Gordon Clark unnecessarily cast Van Til's terminology in a highly negative light. Likewise, Ronald Nash deems 'the most serious objection' to Van Til's position to be Clark's criticism, namely: 'According to Van Til, God's knowledge and man's knowledge do not (and cannot) coincide at a single point, from which it follows that no proposition can mean the same thing to God and man' ('Attack on Human Autonomy,' 349). Similarly, after expressing extensive appreciation for the apologetical work of Van Til, Robert L. Reymond says that, nevertheless, his major concerns is with Van Til's doctrine of 'analogical' knowledge because by it God's knowledge and man's knowledge do not 'coincide' at a single point 'as to content' (The Justification of Knowledge [Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976], 98-105). But Reymond has not taken the reference to 'content' in the way Van Til intended (namely, referring to the active experience of the mind's knowing something). This misreading is evident when Reymond, indicating how he had interpreted Van Til, writes: 'The solution to all of Van Til's difficulties is to affirm, as Scriptures teaches, that both God and man share the same concept of truth and the same theory of language' (p.105). But it is clear from Van Til's own words that 'no coincidence' in 'content' never meant a difference in the knowledge, truth, theory of truth, meaning, or theory of meaning regarding that which God and man both know."

(b) In the beginning of the Clark-Van Til Controversy, the term "thought content" has a clear enough meaning.

Recall from the summary of The Text of a Complaint by Hoeksema (see section 4 above) -- at the beginning of the Controversy, "content" refers to propositions.

In the context of the objects of knowledge, "thought content" refers to propositions.

This is because a person knows truths and all truths are propositional.

Thus the objects of knowledge are propositions.

What a person thinks about when he knows truths is a proposition.

Thus, in the context of the objects of knowledge, "thought content" refers to propositions.

(c) As I have repeatedly indicated, in the beginning of the Controversy, Van Til applied the Creator-creature Distinction to the objects of knowledge.

And Clark has pointed out the skeptical implications of this move.

Van Til, unwilling to admit that he has made a mistake in filing The Text of a Complaint against Clark, became fuzzy about the term "thought content".

Bahnsen picked up on that: "The vague expression 'thought content' has played havoc in many a theological and philosophical dispute, and its ability to generate confusion was conspicuous in the Clark-Van Til controversy as well."

But in the beginning of the Controversy, "thought content" was not vague.

"Thought content" refers to propositions.

It was only after Clark pointed out the skeptical implications of Van Til's position that Van Til began to fudge on this term.

Van Til became vague and ambiguous in order to hide the fact that he has no case left against Clark.

In order to save the face of his teacher Van Til, Bahnsen made a heroic effort by redefining the term "thought content".

How did Bahnsen do so?

Bahnsen: "I believe that by 'thought content' Van Til meant the thinking activity in which the mind of God engages, which mental 'experience' (notice the very next sentence in Van Til's text) is metaphysically different from the operations of man's mind."

The natural meaning of "thought content" is an object of thought.

Now Bahnsen has to torturously redefine "thought content" as "thinking activity" or "mental experience" in order to rescue Van Til from skepticism.

Like John Frame, Bahnsen tried to shift the ground of debate.

Frame does so to resolve the Clark-Van Til Controversy.

Bahnsen does so to cover-up for Van Til.

Bahnsen tried to shift the ground of debate from "propositions" (objects of thought) to "thinking activity" (the mechanism of knowledge acquisition) or "mental experience" (of the subject of knowledge).

(d) I do not find Bahnsen's redefinition convincing for three reasons:

(i) Bahnsen based his redefinition on Van Til's An Introduction to Systematic Theology.

(The relevant section of Bahnsen's book is "section 4.5 Thinking God's Thoughts after Him" (Bahnsen 1998, 220-260).)

(Throughout this section, the main and earliest writing of Van Til's Bahnsen appealed to is An Introduction to Systematic Theology.)

According to Bahnsen's own "Bibliography of Van Til's Works Cited" (1998, 737), An Introduction to Systematic Theology was first printed in 1949.

But the Clark-Van Til Controversy was ended before 1949!

How can Clark and his supporters studied a work printed after the Controversy in order to determine what Van Til meant by the term "thought content" during the controversy?

This is patently unreasonable.

To be convincing, Bahnsen needed to quote from The Text of a Complaint itself.

Van Til is notorious for leaving his key terms vague and undefined.

If it can be done, let those who come after Bahnsen built their case for Van Til against Clark from The Text of a Complaint!

(ii) Bahnsen's redefinition left the rationale for the Clark-Van Til Controversy hanging in the air.

If Van Til meant by "thought content" thinking activities or mental experiences, then why did Van Til complained against Clark?

Clark never denied that God and man have different thinking activities or mental experiences.

Bahnsen's redefinition has left Van Til with no reason to complain against Clark.

(iii) As we have already noted, John Frame in 1995 claimed to make two original proposals to resolve the Clark-Van Til Controversy: "Contents as experience" and "Contents as attributes".

If Frame's proposal in 1995 was original, then Bahnsen claimed that in 1949 Van Til already meant "thought content" as mental experiences cannot be true.

(e) The ambiguity associated with the term "thought content" was of Van Til's own making.

Van Til has to keep the term ambiguous in order to hide the fact that he has no case left against Clark.

Bahnsen, anxious to save the face of his mentor, compounded the ambiguity by redefining "thought content" as either thinking activities or mental experiences.

Bahnsen even complained: "Gordon Clark unnecessarily cast Van Til's terminology in a highly negative light. Likewise, Ronald Nash deems 'the most serious objection' to Van Til's position to be Clark's criticism, namely: 'According to Van Til, God's knowledge and man's knowledge do not (and cannot) coincide at a single point, from which it follows that no proposition can mean the same thing to God and man' ('Attack on Human Autonomy,' 349). Similarly, after expressing extensive appreciation for the apologetical work of Van Til, Robert L. Reymond says that, nevertheless, his major concerns is with Van Til's doctrine of 'analogical' knowledge because by it God's knowledge and man's knowledge do not 'coincide' at a single point 'as to content' . . ."

Bahnsen complained that Gordon Clark, Ronald Nash and Robert Reymond did not understand Van Til correctly.

But Bahnsen should have nothing to complaint about.

The muddle was of Van Til's own making.

Van Til muddled the water in order to hide the fact that he had no case left against Clark.


11. The Two Horns of a Dilemma

Bahnsen: "But it is clear from Van Til's own words that 'no coincidence' in 'content' never meant a difference in the knowledge, truth, theory of truth, meaning, or theory of meaning regarding that which God and man both know."

This concluding sentence of Bahnsen's is most telling.

If Bahnsen is right, then one wonders what the Clark-Van Til Controversy is all about.

If Bahnsen last sentence is right, then Van Til owed the whole OPC an apology for starting the Clark-Van Til Controversy!

We have to understand that Bahnsen was caught up in a dilemma.

The two horns of the dilemma are:

(a) If Van Til believes that "the knowledge, truth, theory of truth, meaning, or theory of meaning regarding that which God and man both know" is the same, then Van Til agrees with Clark.

This means Van Til has no cause to complaint against Clark.

(b) If Van Til believes that "the knowledge, truth, theory of truth, meaning, or theory of meaning regarding that which God and man both know" is different, then Van Til is reduced to skepticism.

Again, this means Van Til has no cause to complaint against Clark.

So what can Bahnsen do?

What Bahnsen did was to cover-up that Van Til had no cause left to complaint against Clark.

Bahnsen did this by re-defining the term "thought content".

Instead of referring to an object of thought, "thought content" now refers to either thinking activities or mental experiences.

Bahnsen cover-up for Van Til by shifting the ground of debate.

With this switching of meaning in hand, Bahnsen even chided Clark: "Gordon Clark unnecessarily cast Van Til’s terminology in a highly negative light".

Bahnsen chided Van Til's critics for not understanding correctly what Van Til meant by "thought content".

But by any reasonable standard, the onus is on a writer to define his terms.

A writer should define his terms clearly and unambiguously so that he can be understood.

Van Til failed to do so.

Van Til and his associates picked a fight and filed a complaint against Clark.

Clark was forced to response to Van Til's vagueness and ambiguities.

Instead of chiding Van Til for his vagueness and ambiguities, Bahnsen chided the critics.

How fair is this?


12. When Black Becomes White

I do not object to revising our opinions.

In fact, learning from mistakes implies that one has to revise one's opinions.

But the important thing is that one must be up-front about one's mistakes and changes of mind.

But for one:

(a) to made a mistake,

(b) being pointed out by a critic that one has made a mistake,

(c) changed one's own position to accommodate the criticism,

but

(d) turn-around and claimed the revised position as one's original position, and then

(e) accuse the critic of being unfair in characterizing one's "original" (really the revised) position

is most distasteful.

This, I am afraid, is what I think Bahnsen has done for Van Til's analogical knowledge.

What happened was that:

(a) Van Til claimed that God's knowledge and man's knowledge do not coincide at any single point,

(By now, the reader should know that this is a consequence of Van Til applying the Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge.)

(b) Clark pointed out that Van Til's position would lead to skepticism,

(c) Bahnsen the revisionist came along and re-define "thought content" as thinking activities or mental experiences rather than an object of thought,

and

(d) Bahnsen turn-around and claimed his re-definition as Van Til's original position, and then

(e) Bahnsen accused Gordon Clark and John Robbins of seriously misconstrued what Van Til has taught.

This is most distasteful.

I would have to say this is also dishonest.

(Bahnsen 1998, 228-229 n.159):

"In the 1940s dispute, the Clarkian opponents of Van Til seriously misconstrued what he taught. The 'Answer' to the 'Complaint' (against Clark's views and ordination) charged the Van Tillians with holding that 'man can grasp only an analogy of the truth itself.' Van Til did not teach that what we know is only an analogy of God (or truth about Him), much less that univocal predication regarding God must be rejected, but rather that we know God (as well as His creation) analogously to His knowing Himself (and His creation). A few years following the dispute, Gordon Clark again portrayed Van Til as holding that propositions have a different meaning (equivocation) for God and man, and that man is ignorant of the truth that is in God's mind, possessing only analogy of the truth rather than the truth itself. Thus he charged Van Til with unrelieved skepticism and neoorthodox existentialism ('The Bible as Truth,' Bibliotheca Sacra 114 [April-June 1957]: 157-70; see also Ronald H. Nash, 'Gordon Clark's Theory of Knowledge,' in The Philosophy of Gordon H. Clark, ed. Ronald H. Nash [Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1968], 162). Clark acknowledged that his negative characterizations of Van Til's position were contrary to what Van Til himself said, but he reasoned that the way Van Til expressed certain things implied those characterizations -- in which case Van Til must have been 'retracting' his affirmations of man's knowledge of the very truth in God's mind. In other words, Clark thought that Van Til was confused. A handful of contemporary disciples of Clark have perpetuated this dubious line of argument. For example, John W. Robbins has declared that Van Til was an irrationalist who asserted 'that we do not know the same truth as God knows, but only an analogy of the truth' (letter to the editor, Journey Magazine 3, no. 3 [May-June 1988]: 15)."


13. Saddling Clark with An Error

In (Bahnsen 1998, 228-229 n.159), Bahnsen claimed that Clark seriously misconstrued what Van Til has taught.

I have already quoted Footnote 159 in full in section 12 above.

I will now evaluate whether Bahnsen's claim is correct.

If one just read Bahnsen and nothing else on the Clark-Van Til Controversy, then one can be mislead into forming the opinion that Clark misconstrued Van Til.

But if one read the other documents relating to the Controversy, one cannot but felt how misleading Bahnsen is.

I will ask two questions regarding Bahnsen's criticism:

(a) Did Clark misconstrue Van Til's term "thought content"?

(b) Regarding human's knowledge in relation to God's knowledge, did "Clark acknowledged that his negative characterizations of Van Til's position was contrary to what Van Til himself said"?

Did Clark misconstrue Van Til's term "thought content"?

If one accepts Bahnsen's re-definition of "thought content", then Clark certainly did misconstrued Van Til.

But remember, Bahnsen based his re-definition on Van Til's An Introduction to Systematic Theology ([1949] 1978), a book printed after the Clark-Van Til Controversy.

Let me re-phrase the question then: Did Clark misconstrues Van Til's "thought content" of The Text of a Complaint?

The following long quotation is from Clark's "The Bible As Truth" ([1957] 1982, 30-31):

"The professors above referred to assert that 'there is a qualitative difference between the contents of the knowledge of God and the contents of the knowledge possible to man' (The Text, p. 5, col. 1). That there is a most important qualitative difference between the knowledge situation in the case of God and the knowledge situation for man cannot possibly be denied without repudiating all Christian theism. God is omniscient, His knowledge is not acquired, and His knowledge according to common terminology is intuitive while man's is discursive. These are some of the differences and doubtless the list could be extended. But if both God and man know, there must be with the differences be at least one point of similarity; for if there were no point of similarity, it would be inappropriate to use the one term knowledge in both cases. Whether this point of similarity is to be found in the contents of knowledge or whether the contents differ, depends on what is meant by the term contents. Therefore, more specifically worded statements are needed. The theory under discussion goes on to say: 'We dare not maintain that his knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any single point' (ibid., p. 5, col. 3); and the authors repudiate another view on the grounds that 'a proposition would have to have the same meaning for God as for man' (ibid., p. 7, col. 3). These statements are by no means vague. The last one identifies content and meaning so that the content of God's knowledge is not its intuitive character, for example, but the meaning of the propositions, such as David killed Goliath. Twice it is denied that a proposition can mean the same thing for God and man; and to make it unmistakable they say that God's knowledge and man's knowledge do not coincide at any single point. Here it will stand repetition to say that if there is not a single point of coincidence it is meaningless to use the single term knowledge for both God and man. Spinoza in attacking Christianity argued that the term intellect as applied to God and as applied to man was completely equivocal, just as the term dog is applied to a four-legged animal that barks and to the star in the sky. In such a case, therefore, if knowledge be defined, either God knows and man cannot or man knows and God cannot. If there is not a single point of coincidence, God and man cannot have the same thing, viz., knowledge."

Bahnsen alluded to Clark's "The Bible As Truth" ([1957] 1982) and claimed that Clark has misconstrued Van Til.

That is, Bahnsen claimed that Clark has misconstrued Van Til according to his (Bahnsen's) re-definition of Van Til's "thought content".

Remember, Bahnsen's re-definition used Van Til's An Introduction to Systematic Theology ([1949] 1978) as his authority.

Now Clark did claim, as Bahnsen puts it: "Gordon Clark again portrayed Van Til as holding that propositions have a different meaning (equivocation) for God and man . . . ".

But notice from the quotation above that three times Clark quoted from The Text of a Complaint to establish what he understands The Text of a Complaint meant by "content".

Clark was very careful in being fair and accurate in stating his opponent's position.

Bahnsen relied on Van Til's An Introduction to Systematic Theology ([1949] 1978), a book written after the Clark-Van Til Controversy.

Clark relied on the original source document The Text of a Complaint.

Who has the better authority?

Of course Clark did!

(By the way, this should already suggest to the reader that there is something very wrong with Bahnsen's re-definition. Either Bahnsen did not understand Van Til's An Introduction to Systematic Theology ([1949] 1978) correctly, or Van Til has shifted his ground in that book, or both.)

Not only did Clark have the better authority, but in his allusion to "The Bible As Truth" ([1957] 1982), Bahnsen never challenge Clark on the ground that Clark has misread The Text of a Complaint.

Why?

Because in re-defining "thought content", Bahnsen was covering-up for Van Til.


14. Saddling Clark with Another Error

My second question is: Regarding human's knowledge in relation to God's knowledge, did "Clark acknowledged that his negative characterizations of Van Til's position were contrary to what Van Til himself said"?

In answering this question, please keep in mind that we are considering 5 different documents.

In chronological order they are:

(a) The Text of a Complaint by Van Til and his colleagues;

(b) The Answer by Clark and his supporters;

(c) The Incomprehensibility of God by A Committee for the Complainants.

(d) "Chapter 13 – The Incomprehensibility of God" of An Introduction to Systematic Theology ([1949] 1978) by Van Til; and

(e) "The Bible As Truth" ([1957] 1982) by Clark.

The Text of a Complaint is the document by Van Til and his supporters that started the Clark-Van Til Controversy.

The Answer is the original response by Clark and his supporters to The Text of a Complaint. 

The Incomprehensibility of God by A Committee for the Complainants is a response by the Van Tilians to The Answer.

"Chapter 13 – The Incomprehensibility of God" of An Introduction to Systematic Theology ([1949] 1978) by Van Til was his post-mortem of the Controversy.

"The Bible As Truth" ([1957] 1982) was Clark's post-mortem of the Controversy.

The following quotation is from Clark's "The Bible As Truth" ([1957] 1982).

(This paragraph follows immediately the paragraph I quoted above in section 13.)

(Clark [1957] 1982, 31-32):

"After these five professors had signed this co-operative pronouncement some of them published an explanation of it in which they said: 'Man may and does know the same truth that is in the divine mind . . . [yet] when man says that God is eternal he cannot possibly have in mind a conception of eternity that is identical or that coincides with God's own thought of eternity' (A Committee for the Complainants, The Incomprehensibility of God, p.3). In this explanatory statement it is asserted that the same truth may and does occur in man's mind and in God's. This of course means that there is at least one point of coincidence between God's knowledge and ours. But while they seem to retract their former position in one line, they reassert it in what follows. It seems that when man says God is eternal he cannot possibly have in mind what God means when God asserts His own eternity. Presumably the concept eternity is an example standing for all concepts, so that the general position would be that no concept can be predicated of a subject by man in the same sense in which it is predicated by God. 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 and he is therefore ignorant of the truth that is in God's mind."

Regarding human's knowledge in relation to God's knowledge, Bahnsen claimed that "Clark acknowledged that his negative characterizations of Van Til's position were contrary to what Van Til himself said . . . ".

Did Clark make such an acknowledgement?

Did Clark misread The Text of a Complaint?

Bahnsen gave his readers the impression that Clark knew that his characterizations of Van Til's position were contrary to what Van Til himself said, but Clark did it anyway.

Is that what Clark did?

Now that the relevant paragraphs from "The Bible As Truth" ([1957] 1982) have been quoted in full, the reader can see that Clark was commenting on two different documents.

Three times Clark quoted from The Text of a Complaint to establish his understanding of Van Til's "thought content".

Then Clark quoted from The Incomprehensibility of God by A Committee for the Complainants to show that there was a shift in Van Til's position.

Did Clark knowingly characterize Van Til's position contrary to what Van Til himself said?

The answer is an emphatic no.

To make his mentor Van Til looks good, Bahnsen has to conflate Clark's comments on two different documents in order to come up with that suggestion.

How fair is Bahnsen to Clark? 


15. Conclusion: My Take of What Happened

When Van Til first filed The Text of a Complaint against Clark, Van Til meant by "thought content" an object of thought.

When the object of thought is also an object of knowledge, "thought content" refers to a truth or proposition.

If by "thought content" Van Til meant a proposition, then there is a genuine difference between the position of Van Til and Clark.

If by "thought content" Van Til meant a proposition, one can understand why Van Til would file a complaint against Clark.

In The Answer, Clark pointed out that if the objects of God's thought and the objects of human thought do not coincide at any single point, then human persons are reduce to skepticism.

Van Til felt the force of Clark's criticism.

But Van Til did not have the courage to admit that he made a mistake and retract The Text of a Complaint.

What Van Til did was he surreptitiously shifted his ground by being vague and ambiguous about what he meant by "thought content".

This can be seen in The Incomprehensibility of God by A Committee for the Complainants.

Van Til's main post-mortem of the Controversy was "Chapter 13 – The Incomprehensibility of God" of An Introduction to Systematic Theology ([1949] 1978).

Clark's main post-mortem of the Controversy was "The Bible As Truth" ([1957] 1982).

Bahnsen defended Van Til against Clark.

But Bahnsen was not able to build a case against Clark from the source document The Text of a Complaint.

And Bahnsen also felt the force of Clark's criticism.

What Bahnsen did was he used An Introduction to Systematic Theology ([1949] 1978) to help built a case against Clark.

But Van Til, whom also felt the force of Clark's criticism, has already surreptitiously shifted his ground in An Introduction to Systematic Theology ([1949] 1978).

Instead of frankly admitting that Van Til has made a mistake, Bahnsen perpetuated Van Til's mistake by re-defining "thought content" as thinking activities or mental experiences.

Since Clark never denied that either the thinking activities or the mental experiences of God and man are different, the up-shot of this cover-up is that Bahnsen has left Van Til with no cause to complain against Clark.

Bahnsen has left the rationale for the Clark-Van Til Controversy hanging in the air.

And given Bahnsen's popularity as a writer, he perpetuated the cover-up to the next generation of readers.

Now contrast how Frame and Bahnsen understand Van Til's application of the Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge:

(Frame 1995, 89): "Van Til sums up these emphases in the term analogy. Human knowledge is 'analogous' to God's, which means that it is (1) created and therefore different from God's own knowledge, and (2) subject to God's control and authority:".

(Bahnsen 1998, 227 n.152): "But it is clear from Van Til's own words that 'no coincidence' in 'content' never meant a difference in the knowledge, truth, theory of truth, meaning, or theory of meaning regarding that which God and man both know."

We can see that Frame is faithful to Van Til's application of the Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge.

According to Frame, for Van Til, human knowledge is created and therefore different from God's own knowledge.

Bahnsen takes the contrary position.

Bahnsen denies the application of the Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge.

Recall that a proposition is itself the bearer of truth and meaning.

In denying that there is a difference in the truth and meaning that God and man both know, Bahnsen denies the application of the Creator-creation Distinction to the objects of knowledge.

Bahnsen saved Van Til from the criticisms of Clark, but at the expense of surreptitiously surrendering to Clark's position.

For those of us who are sympathetic to Clark, we can take comfort in Bahnsen's statement: "But it is clear from Van Til's own words that 'no coincidence' in 'content' never meant a difference in the knowledge, truth, theory of truth, meaning, or theory of meaning regarding that which God and man both know."

For in making this statement, Bahnsen has conceded the Clark-Van Til Controversy to Gordon H. Clark!


References:

Bahnsen, Greg L. 1998. Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.

Clark, Gordon H. [1957] 1982. The Bible As Truth. Reprinted in God's Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics, 24-38. Jefferson, Maryland: The Trinity Foundation.

Frame, John M. 1995. Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.

Hoeksema, Herman. [1940s] 1995. The Clark-Van Til Controversy. Hobbs, New Mexico: The Trinity Foundation.

Robbins, John W. 1986. Cornelius Van Til: The Man and the Myth. Jefferson, Maryland: The Trinity Foundation.

Van Til, Cornelius. [1949] 1978. An Introduction to Systematic Theology. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.

Weaver, Gilbert B. [1971] 1980. Man: Analogue of God. In Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til, ed. E.R. Geehan, 321-327. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.

End.