A Clarkian-Barthian Argument for your Evaluation

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12 responses to “A Clarkian-Barthian Argument for your Evaluation”

1. 

   Anthony Flood

   January 18, 2024

   Of course, Bill, if the triunity of God is demonstrable from Scripture (whose words He breathed), then His existence is rationally demonstrable, especially if in Him unity and plurality are equally ultimate (neither derivative of the other) and if that equal ultimacy is a condition of intelligible predication and therefore of the possibility of rational demonstration itself. But it seems Clark never “got” that Van Tillian argument.

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2. 

   Malcolm Pollack

   January 18, 2024

   Hi Bill,
   Does this argument go too far? It would be presumptuous to imagine that we can know everything about God by any approach. Wouldn’t it be more parsimonious to say this argument shows that there are some things about God (for example, that God is triune) that we can only know by revelation, without having to exclude all knowledge of God through reason?
   In other words, couldn’t we say that God is the God of the philosophers (in that nothing about God contradicts what the philosophers have to say), but that philosophy simply can’t reveal all of God’s properties?
   (That said, I’ll admit that I don’t know what claim the “Vatican viewpoint” is making; perhaps it really is claiming that the triune nature of God is indeed demonstrable by reason.)

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3. 

   James Soriano

   January 18, 2024

   I hit potholes on 5) and 6).
   Of course the Christian God is not the god of the philosophers.
   The Christian God (and here we can say the “Judeo-Christian God”) is identified with Being as such.
   The “philosophers,” and here we’ll say Plato and Aristotle, did not identify the deity with Being as such.
   Plato’s idea comes from the “Timaeus” and I know that because Michelangelo painted a great big picture of him holding that book. In that book, Plato identifies something called the Demiurge with the Good or with Perfection, but not with Being as such.
   As for Aristotle, he says a lot of stuff about how being can be in pure act, but I don’t think he ever identified that with God. He got the general idea, and Aquinas saw what he was digging at, but he never got there.
   The Christian idea of God comes to us in two ways. God told Moses. That passage in Exodus is the foundation of the Christian concept of God as Being as such. There is but one God and his name is Being.
   The second way is through natural reason, and here I hit the two potholes. Aquinas straightened out Aristotle’s thinking about “being as being,” but that begs the question as to why the Greeks couldn’t do that themselves. What exactly prevented Plato and Aristotle from saying that God is Being *par excellence.* I don’t know. My guess is that if you’re an Ancient Greek philosopher walking around the Lyceum and you got enough money to set up a statue to Demeter, it’s a good bet you’re not going to identify God with Being as such.
   Concerning 5), it seems to me there’s no reason why a finite intellect acting all by itself cannot seize upon the Christian concept of God. True, God told Moses his name, but God need not have done that for us to figure it out. The Greeks did not do it, and could not do it, because they were polytheists.
   Concerning 6), it seems to me Aquinas refuted the idea that “We can know God only through God.” Somewhere in the front of the Summa he asks if it is fitting for God to reveal truths that can also be obtained by the exercise of natural reason. He answered yes, it is fitting, for example, for God to tell Moses what his proper name is, even though humans can come up with that answer. One of the reasons he gave was that simple people, unlike Karl Barth, don’t have the time in their lives to noodle out what’s knowable about God and what’s not.

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4. 

   Vito B. Caiati

   January 18, 2024

   “In other words, couldn’t we say that God is the God of the philosophers (in that nothing about God contradicts what the philosophers have to say), but that philosophy simply can’t reveal all of God’s properties?”
   Although I am no philosopher, this observation of Malcolm’s makes perfect sense to me, as it did to Aquinas, who wisely observes (ST, I, q. 32):
   “I answer that, It is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason. For, as above explained (I:12:4 and I:12:12), man cannot obtain the knowledge of God by natural reason except from creatures. Now creatures lead us to the knowledge of God, as effects do to their cause. Accordingly, by natural reason we can know of God that only which of necessity belongs to Him as the principle of things, and we have cited this fundamental principle in treating of God as above (I:12:12). Now, the creative power of God is common to the whole Trinity; and hence it belongs to the unity of the essence, and not to the distinction of the persons. Therefore, by natural reason we can know what belongs to the unity of the essence, but not what belongs to the distinction of the persons.”
   Whether one accepts Aquinas’ method to the question of God’s existence, which depends on effects pointing to a cause, or whether one adopts a diverse philosophical approach, his essential point seems irrefutable: we lack the cognitive means by which to penetrate the mystery of the relations of Persons that make up the Triune God. What philosopher, Christian or not, has ever denied this truth? To assume to discredit the inestimable support that natural philosophy has provided to faith from earliest times by setting up this standard is absurd. It demands of human reason what it cannot provide, confusing what might be believed through faith from what might be rationally known.

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5. 

   BV

   January 18, 2024

   Tony,
   You changed the subject. Do you accept the ‘anti-Romanist’ argument or not? You ought to accept it since it supports the presuppositionalist point of view. You have the book, right? You didn’t sell me the only copy you had, did you? That would have been epistemic folly of a very high order.
   The dude is on your team, and your difference with him are merely intramural.

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6. 

   BV

   January 18, 2024

   Very good comment, Malcolm.
   >>In other words, couldn’t we say that God is the God of the philosophers (in that nothing about God contradicts what the philosophers have to say), but that philosophy simply can’t reveal all of God’s properties?<< That's right. That's essentially the view of Aquinas. By the natural use of reason, i.e., reason unaided by divine revelation, we can know that God exists and we can know some of his attributes. That is, we can know them by natural theology which is a branch of philosophy. This knowledge belongs within the preambula fidei, the preambles of faith. But other of God's attributes, Trinity for example, cannot be known by philosophy. Theology proper is not a branch of philosophy (despite its use of distinctions that the philosophers arrived at) because it rests on the data of revelation which cannot be rationally demonstrated but must simply be accepted on faith. So for Aquinas, theology proper supplements philosophy and goes beyond it without contradicting it. Philosophia ancilla theologiae: philosophy is the the handmaiden of theology, which implies that it is not in a position to contradict theology proper. So the God of the philosophers and the God of Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob, are the same God accessible in two ways by natural reason and by faith. >>(That said, I’ll admit that I don’t know what claim the “Vatican viewpoint” is making; perhaps it really is claiming that the triune nature of God is indeed demonstrable by reason.)<< No, it is not claiming that. The claim is that it is true and in a certain sense 'knowable' but only via revelation. The tri-unity of God is not rationally demonstrable. The most you could say, using a phrase I don't approve of, the phrase used by Tony above, is that it is 'demonstrable from Scripture.' That phrase sires confusion. Strictly speaking the demonstrable is all and only that which is provable using natural reason.

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7. 

   BV

   January 18, 2024

   James writes, >>Of course the Christian God is not the god of the philosophers.<< Aquinas would disagree with you. There is only one God, but he is approachable in two main ways, via natural reason, and via divine revelation. You know about the quinque viae, the Five Ways of Aquinas. They are arguments in natural theology that are purely philosophical in that they make no use of the data of revelation. Aquinas thinks he can prove (rationally demonstrate) the existence of God and some of his attributes. The other main way is via God's free revelation of himself to us via the prophets/Scripture and the Incarnation, and we can add to those two God's revelation via the natural world of creatures. So, for Aquinas, the God of the philosophers is one and the same as the God of Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob. To avoid confusion you must distinguish the conception of X from X. You can have two very different conceptions of one and the same thing. The philosophers' conception of God is very different from the conception of God one gleans from Scripture. But for Aquinas -- and I take it Soriano follows Aquinas -- there is only one God in reality, not two gods, and not one true biblical God and a fake philosophical God. Clark, by contrast with Aquinas, holds that there is no philosophical way to God. Philosophy is a snare and a delusion, an expression of sinful human pride. The only to know God is by God, i.e. by his self-revelation in Scripture and in Christ Jesus.

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8. 

   BV

   January 18, 2024

   Vito,
   Thanks for the quotation from Aquinas which is the basis of my response to Malcolm.
   >> To assume to discredit the inestimable support that natural philosophy has provided to faith from earliest times by setting up this standard is absurd. It demands of human reason what it cannot provide, confusing what might be believed through faith from what might be rationally known.<< Bravissimo! That discreditation of nat'l phil is what Clark and at least the early Barth are up to.

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9. 

   Joe Odegaard

   January 18, 2024

   Since we are fallible humans, and God is God, Gordon Clark’s approach makes a lot of sense to me:
   “6) We can know God only through God.”

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10. 

    Anthony Flood

    January 18, 2024

    I didn’t change the subject, Bill, but commented on it as I saw fit; your response illustrates the “impasse” I referred to in today’s email. I accept the argument’s conclusion, but reject some of its premises. (Surely you’re not suggesting that one ought to accept an argument just because one accepts its conclusion?) Van Til’s “presuppositionalist point of view” was not Clark’s. Both “dudes” were Reformed, but the difference between their apologetic methods is more than “intramural.” Your preference for Clark over Van Til does not surprise me. Tony

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11. 

    James Soriano

    January 19, 2024

    Bill,
    I got cross-wired on the expression “The Christian God is not the God of the philosophers.”
    I see now that it refers to the God of, say, the Medieval thinkers, and that God is the Christian God.
    I interpreted the expression as referring to the ancient Greeks only.

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12. 

    BV

    January 20, 2024

    Tony,
    You did change the subject by substituting ‘demonstrable from Scripture” for “rationally demonstrable” and by failing to engage the question I posed: Is Clark’s argument any good? It is not as Malcolm Pollack, a non-philosopher, saw.

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