exploring approaches to apologetics ca513 o apologetics t … · 2019. 9. 13. · archaeology shows...

Exploring Approaches to Apologetics

Transcript - CA513 Exploring Approaches to Apologetics © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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LESSON 13 of 24CA513

The Rationalist Approach to Apologetics

Exploring Approaches to Apologetics

After the last lecture’s brief review of Gordon Clark’s controversial life, you may wonder about the wisdom of defending the faith at all. Not all suffer as much heartbreak as did Clark, but our Lord never gave us any reason to think that it would be easy. We often imagine Jesus as a meek and retiring person, but John Stott published an entire book on Christ the Controversialist in 1970. Our Lord died rather than to take back the truth He came to reveal. So did some of the prophets and apostles. J. Gresham Machen, a noted New Testament scholar and defender of the faith against Modernism, whose books by the way are well reading, said, “A Christianity that avoids controversy is not the Christianity of the New Testament.”

Like those who preserve the faith once for all delivered to the saints, we need to be willing to spend and be spent for truth. I trust that you will be willing to speak up for the Good News that delivered you from the guilt and power of the lying, cheating, and stealing, as well as the abuse, rape, and murder that is so prominent today. Fortunately, all who speak up for the truth do not need to go through as many battles as Clark did. We may need to distinguish suffering for Christ’s sake, but not for being unnecessarily obnoxious or arrogant. The Bible tells us not only courageously to be ready with an apologetic, but also humbly to speak the truth in love.

Listen to Peter’s words for the First Century sufferers in 1 Peter 4, “If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.” Since we may suffer immeasurably for our worldview and way of life, we need to know that it is indeed the truth. How can we know that? Clark’s answer is that the approaches of the pure empiricist like Buswell and the rational empiricist like Hackett are both building

Gordon Lewis, Ph.D. Experience: Senior Professor of

Christian and Historical Theology, Denver Seminary, Colorado.



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on sand. We are contrasting a very different way of reasoning now. In the case of the empiricists, they started with the observed data of nature and an arrow goes up to God as the conclusion of the argument. Now in the case of the rational reasoning of Gordon Clark, you start with God and the arrow goes down to the data of human experience and the argument is that only if you start with the belief in the God of the Bible, can you make sense of your life.

Consider, then, the reasons why Gordon Clark thinks the empirical approaches are a failure. The problems he finds are numerous. First, admittedly the laws of logic, math, and causality are not derived from sense data alone. Pure Empiricism simply does not account for all of our knowledge. Second, even granting an innate principle of causality, Rational Empiricism cannot discover the particular cause of anything in reality, and a mechanistic worldview is not a valid deduction from experience, but a leap of faith. The laws of physics are not a description of how nature works; the scientific method is incapable of arriving at any truth whatever about reality. I think that’s one of the most shocking statements Gordon Clark has made, that science tells us nothing about reality. He says, point three, “That scientific laws often regarded the result of empirical investigation are not discoveries after all, but constructions. Scientific concepts are nothing more than a set of operations, enabling manufacturers to improve annually on automobiles and washing machines.” Four, in the history of philosophy, Empiricism always has led to irrationalism of some form. He has documented this in his History of Philosophy text. “Irrationalism,” Clark says, “is a poor basis upon which to defend Christianity. How can you give a reason for your hope if in fact you think there are no valid reasons?” Science is, then, not a way to any knowledge of nature; it only helps us know what to do in the laboratory.

Not only is Clark down on an empirical way of knowing anything, but he sees a number of fallacies in the cosmological argument for the existence of God. And that, as you recall, is the one major argument of either pure or rational empiricists. What are the fallacies? First, the attempted defense against an infinite regress of causes is circular reasoning. It assumes the thing to be proved. Second, the conclusion about the cause of the whole world goes beyond the evidence examined. An instance of the four terms occurs when the term exist is used in one way in the premise, that is for contingent beings, and another way in the conclusion for a noncontingent being. The argument also fails to establish that God is Spirit, for from physical effects one can reason only



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to physical causes, and if it were valid the cosmological argument would establish only a finite cause of the good, not an infinite cause of everything, including even evil in some way. The cosmological argument at best could conclude from a limited amount of observed power to a source of great power, but not to an omnipotent one. Given these logical difficulties that are well known in the history of philosophy, a faith based on the cosmological argument is on shaky ground.

Clark also sees problems in the traditional approach of evidences for Christ and the Bible. Archaeology shows that the Bible is accurate in many cases, but not in every case. Particular objections to matters of history may be answered by examining physical remains, but the entire Christian theology of God, humans, sin, and redemption cannot be defended by historical data alone. Apart from the entire belief system, Jesus’ resurrection is an isolated event that proves only that a body resumed its activities. The empty tomb as such, Clark thinks, does not prove that Christ died for our sins. And fulfilled prophecy and miracles are of use in the popular expression of faith in certain events, but do not prove the truth of the entire Christian worldview.

What then is Clark’s logical starting point? At stake between Christians and non-Christians is not just a few facts or laws, but an entire worldview or philosophy. To defend a whole philosophy, a comprehensive world and life view, one cannot argue piecemeal from particulars. Clark thinks one must begin with all-encompassing presuppositions. If the universal presuppositions of the whole system are not explicit, they will nevertheless be implied. The basic pattern of reasoning is not by induction from particulars up to universals, but by deduction from universals down to particulars. Presuppositions in the nature of the case cannot be demonstrated by any more ultimate considerations. They constitute the ultimate court of appeal, so do not ask Clark for evidence for his logical starting point. “Geometry,” he says, “starts with indemonstrable axioms, so does philosophy. And a Christian philosophy starts with Christian axioms. A thinker who does not begin with God will never end with God or get the truth about the facts either. The Christian axiom is two-fold. It asserts the existence of the God of the verbally inspired Bible. Non-Christians start with presuppositions which exclude the triune God and the truth of Scripture. No demonstration of either Christian or non-Christian presuppositions is even possible, so one must choose ultimate axioms without strict logical proof. However, the choice is justified by the consistency of the system



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of thought that follows from the axiom.”

Common ground with non-Christians is the next topic. Clark maintains a total depravity means that no human function is free from the effects of sin, not that the intellect has been annihilated. The divine image has been defaced, but not obliterated. It remains a psychological, mental, and ontological reality, so unsaved people have a capacity for mental activity for reason and belief, not shared by a tree or a stone. No act of a depraved will can be moral, but arguments of a depraved mind can be valid. The use to which they put their valid syllogisms, however, may be sinful, full of pride, lust, or covetousness.

Unbelievers actually believe a few divine truths because they are inconsistent and have vestiges of the image of God remaining in them. If reason were annihilated, we could not even preach the facts of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, much less their significance. “The Scriptures devotional writers sometimes put on human reason,” Clark says, “flatly are pious stupidity.” The moral and theological beliefs of non-Christians may be held dimly and inconsistently. They may be submerged or surpassed, but they can be considered a point of contact for the Gospel.

What about the test of truth in Clark’s thought? He believes that Kant successfully showed that the basic laws of logic are inherent in the human mind. The law of noncontradiction is a sure sign of error, and so axioms leading to self-contradictory systems are untrue. A responsible person, then, accepts the axioms from which the most consistent system can be deduced with the fewest difficulties. The charge that Clark places Aristotelian logic above God, merits his reply. He says, “Logic is simply the way God thinks.” He translates John 1:1, “In the beginning was logic and logic was with God and logic was God.” So no contradiction can represent the mind of God on a subject. When we think consistently, we know a part of what God knows on the subject.

It has also been charged that Clark places logic above the authority of the Bible. He responds that “Although not much of the Bible is written in syllogistic form, the Bible itself exhibits logical order.” He finds logical reasoning from premises to a necessary conclusion in several passages. In Romans 4:2, for example, Paul argues against legalism if in fact Abraham was justified by works, then he had something to boast about, but not before God. And in Romans 5:13, Paul argued that before the Law of Moses was given, sin was in the world, but sin was not taken into account



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when there was no la., And in 1 Corinthians 15:15-18, Paul reasons from the fact of the resurrection of Christ to the future resurrection of all believers. Hence, the laws of logic are not only consistent with Christian presuppositions, but are indispensable to understanding the Bible and to meaningful communication of it. Without the laws of logic, discussion on every subject would cease and religious statements are no exception.

And what is the role of reason in deciding between worldviews? According to Clark in the battle of naturalistic, pantheistic, and theistic worldviews, we must choose which basic presuppositions to follow. We should choose the consistent rather than the contradictory systems. We should not choose assumptions that lead to skepticism and meaninglessness. In the choice of worldviews, however, more than an intellect is involved. The whole person must choose. The mind is not a separate faculty, but an activity of the individual. There can be no intellection without volition and no volition without intellection. While Thomas may hold that you need not believe what you know or know what you believe, Clark holds that all sensible beliefs are based on knowledge and all that we know, we truly believe. Clark’s rationalism holds only after faith has accepted his axioms, however. But he is opposed to faith without reason in such approaches of those of Mysticism, Existentialism, Pragmatism, and Neo-Orthodoxy.

The decision to commit one’s self to the God of the Bible requires a complete change of mind for naturalists and pantheists. Clark intends no deception or halfway acceptance. He calls upon a sinner by the enablement of God’s Spirit to repent of his previous presuppositions and entire worldview and way of life. And he asks one to believe Christian presuppositions and live by a theistic worldview and a biblical lifestyle.

What then is his basis of faith? Well, before accepting Christian presuppositions, there is no basis for faith in a worldview. The presuppositions of any worldview or of a Christian worldview simply must be accepted by a volitional act. Having accepted them afterwards, the basis is logical consistency or the inconsistency of the system deduced from the axioms.

The apologists’ negative and affirmative tasks then are significantly differently in Gordon Clark’s apologetic. Consider first the apologists’ negative task. The job is not to amass a whole volume of evidence that demands a verdict. A Christian must help those with alternative philosophies and religions to see the



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contradictions in their systems. This task is called apagogic and it seeks to reduce their position to absurdity. The Latin phrase for that is reductio ad absurdum. For example, logical positivism asserts that any statement is meaningless that is not verifiable, but that most basic presupposition is itself not verifiable by the senses. So Clark feels he has reduced Logical Positivism to absurdity.

John Dewey’s Pragmatism denied the reality of consciousness or soul distinct from the body, but then Clark points out “Dewey smuggles all the advantages of consciousness back into the physical organism.” Dewey also denied the permanent validity of the laws of logic, so we may contradict his instrumentalism or find it meaningless.

Existentialists stress passionate commitment apart from considerations of objective historical truth. Hence, they had no basis upon which to distinguish God from an idol, or Christianity as more true than communism. Clark’s History of Philosophy: From Thales to Dewey reduces the major worldviews in Western history to absurdity. After over 500 pages of this, Clark concludes by suggesting to the frustrated that they re-read the book to stave off suicide a few more days. I quote his conclusion, “The history of philosophy began with Naturalism and so far as this volume is concerned it ends with Naturalism. The pre-Socratic naturalists dissolved into sophism from which a metaphysics arose and the metaphysics lost itself in a mystic trance. Then under the influence of an alien source, Western Europe appealed to a divine revelation. In the sixteenth century one group put their complete trust in revelation, while another development turned to unaided human reason. This latter movement has now abandoned its metaphysics, its Rationalism, and even the fixed truths of naturalistic science. It has also dissolved into Sophism. Does this mean that philosophers and cultural epics are nothing but children to pay their fare to take another ride on the merry-go-round? Is this Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence or could it be that a choice must be made between skeptical futility and a word from God. To answer this question for himself or herself, the student, since one cannot ride very fast into the future and discover what a new age will do, might begin by turning back to the first page and pondering the whole thing over again. This will at least stave off suicide for a few more days.”

Well, here is the negative task of driving people starting with non-Christian presuppositions to the point of realizing the



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utter meaninglessness of life and the possibility of even suicide itself. Francis Schaeffer has used that approach more lovingly than Gordon Clark and has been able to reach a number of non-Christians by that shocking tact.

If that is the negative task of an apologist, what is the positive task? It is affirmatively not to approach Christianity critically, but to expound its big ideas in order to display the consistency of the whole worldview. As in geometry, Clark says, “Axiomatization is the perfecting and the exhibiting of the logical consistency of a system of thought.” Christianity has a comprehensive view of all things, material and spiritual. Clark sought to expound a Christian philosophy of history in which events are controlled by God, acted upon by God, and brought to their culmination by God. His philosophy of politics held that government is a divine institution deriving its authority not from a social compact, but from God. Human rights are derived from the Creator, but humans are not now in their normal state, but an abnormal one as a result of sin. A state is then not a positive good, but a necessary evil to administer justice in a fallen world. Humanistic principles will in contrast lead to anarchy or Totalitarianism, but Christian presuppositions justify civil governments with limited rights.

Clark’s ethics sought to provide adequate scope for self-interest without endorsing selfishness—something non-Christian ethics have failed to do. And Clark consistently accounts for the existence of truth when relativistic epistemologies tacitly assume their own absoluteness. If no propositions were changeless, no significant speech would be possible. Truth is changeless. It exists only in a mind and he argues, “is eternally thought by God.” Clark shows how given the truth of Christian presuppositions, one can account for language. God created people both physically and intellectually with ability to communicate. Language is not an evolutionary development from meaningless noises and not limited in its references to time and space. The first use of language was not by food gatherers with different grunts and groans for carrots and cabbages. The first use of language was between God and Adam and Eve. There is no problem of how human categories can apply then to God, for God created the stewards of the earth to do more than take care of nature. He created them to communicate with Him. Chemistry and physics have significance from within Christian presuppositions, but the drop into a secondary position of stage scenery for the drama of persons with minds.



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How then shall we evaluate the apologetic approach of Gordon Clark? First, affirmatively. Clark courageously confronted people with a radical choice between God’s way of life and opposite ways. That choice was put forcibly by Moses to Pharaoh, Elijah to the prophets of Baal, and Isaiah to the idol worshippers. Peter at Pentecost called upon the Jews to repent, and Paul at Athens called upon the Gentiles and all everywhere to repent. We may be less confrontational and try to be more tactful, but sooner or later, we must all have the courage of Gordon Clark to deliver the divine summons to sophisticated sinners in philosophy and science as well as others.

Clark is a Christian philosopher, furthermore, who has influenced non-Christian thinkers. Several of his early works were published by standard publishers and used in secular universities. We can be thankful for the impact of such a disciplined person beyond the Christian ghettos. Clark sought to reverse the scholasticism that developed since Aquinas. Augustine had considered the spiritual realm directly accessible to reason, but contrary to Augustinianism, scholastic followers of Aquinas had made the area common to philosophy and theology less and less. Clark found that the Reformers completely reversed the divorce between reason and faith. Calvin differed with the idea that there was nothing in the reason that was not first in the senses. Rather he maintained in all human beings a sensus divinitatis, a natural and instinctive sense of deity inscribed on every heart, and innate persuasion of the divine existence. Similarly in ethics, Augustine, Calvin, and Clark insist that what ought to be is never implied in simply describing what is. For example, polls may show that that majority practice of taking illegal drugs is common, but that does not mean the practice is right. We know what ought to be from God. By that a priori or revealed knowledge independent of sense experience, we evaluate our conduct.

Clark writes, “I wish to suggest that we neither abandon reason nor use it unaided, but on pain of skepticism acknowledge a verbal propositional revelation of fixed truth from God. Only by accepting rationally comprehensive information on divine authority can we hope to have a sound and true philosophy or religion.” Clark’s history of philosophy provides concise criticisms of the major figures in the history of Western thought. He attempts to show that non-Christian philosophy is circular in its reasoning, “non-Christian arguments regularly assume the point in dispute before they start. The questions are so framed as to exclude the Christian answer from the beginning.” Furthermore



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non-Christian philosophy results in ignorance, contradiction, or skepticism. When students are enamored of certain philosophers, we can find cogent criticisms of them in Clark’s works.

And Clark’s staunch defense of logic is to be commended in times of irrationality. The law of noncontradiction is a part of common ground and the test for truth. It is good as far as it goes. As he challenged the illogical paradoxes in much mystical philosophy and existential theology, Clark came up with a very quotable phrase. He said, “A paradox is a charley horse between the ears.” He does not take the law of noncontradiction as independent of Scripture to which Scripture must be subjected. Rather, his emphasis on logic is strictly in accord with John’s prologue and is nothing other than a recognition of the nature of God.

Negatively, however, there are a number of considerations that are important in thinking about Clark’s approach. It is difficult to agree that the basis for accepting Scripture is neither inductive nor deductive. Clark wrote to me in a letter of December 11, 1965, “Scripture is an axiom deduced from nothing.” A number of books are alleged to be given by God and their claims must be tested as were the prophets and the apostles. Christians would not accept the Koran because a Muslim insisted it was an axiom deduced from nothing with which everyone must start.

It is also difficult to regard the Bible as the sole source of truth—that everything we can know about reality is deduced from biblical teaching. As Alvin Plantinga said, “I know my name and address, and I think that the same could be said for Professor Clark, yet clearly enough the Bible does not furnish us with these bits of information. But according to Clark, it follows that no one knows them. Furthermore, according to Clark, none of us knows who his wife is or for that matter whether he is married, a situation that could conceivably lead to trouble.” In a discussion, Clark admitted that he did not know whether or not he had his appendix removed. An axiomatic system deduced from Scripture is not all that humans can know. Clark himself uses empirical observation to criticize empirical observation. It is difficult to agree with Clark that no knowledge of reality is obtained by sense data or scientific methods.

If all theories are merely operational, why is it that some work better than others? May it not be that the reason some hypotheses are more operational is that they conform better to reality? An epistemology is needed that includes a place for sense data in



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verifying existences in the physical world. Clark wants to judge all observation statements by his scriptural axiom, but the Bible is a sensory object that can be read only by the senses, and the Bible is historical literature and can only be received if one takes history seriously. We know what constitutes the Bible by examining historical evidence for the canonicity of the sixty-six books. If we cannot trust historical investigation, we lose the evidence of any special revelation. George Mavrodes argues that Clark, by cutting himself off from empirical avenues to truth, has brought about the collapse of meaningful talk about the axiom of revelation. Then only solipsism is left.

Clark’s theory of knowing by deduction from universals is not a useful approach for getting acquainted with unique persons. What we can know about all persons by deduction is quite boring. Some relational experience is necessary to knowing others. If Christianity involves knowing, loving, and serving other persons, a more complete epistemology that includes existential experience as a source of knowledge is also needed. Clark’s metaphysics seem to end up as pure idealism. Arthur Holmes wrote in evaluating Clark’s Wheaton lectures, “Clark can know no soul substance or body substance, only propositional truths are known. God ends up being a set of true propositions. Revelation is only of propositions, not of His person or existence. There is no knowledge by acquaintance of any equivalent in areas of awareness, not even in personal relations. All but propositional knowledge according to Clark is sheer emotion.” As Dr. Holmes said, “I’m glad I don’t live in that kind of world.”

It is also hard to agree that reason has only an expository role and not a critical one. Can we not test religious truth claims prior to commitment to the axioms of other philosophies and religions? From the standpoint of scriptural precedent, the unbelieving Pharaoh, the Baal prophets, and idol worshipers of Isaiah’s day were regarded accountable for deciding on the basis of observed evidence. But unfortunately, Clark, who seemed so logical and rationalistic turns out to be a fideist, one who accepts his position on a sheer act of faith without evidence.

Clark, furthermore, seems to claim a greater certainty for his conclusions than is fitting. In order to claim that every other worldview is inconsistent, he would have to have investigated more than he did in his history of Western philosophy. At best, he can only maintain that all the systems he has researched are self-contradictory at some point. And if consistency alone is



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the test of truth, how can he know that there could not be other consistent systems out there? If ideas are not tested also by facts, then others may be able to relate their concepts to each other without contradiction. So Clark ought to temper his claims with degrees of probability rather than a kind of absolute dogmatism.

Clark’s theological misconceptions also hinder his apologetic approach. Clark makes the mistake of identifying general revelation with natural theology. Revelation is an act of God. Theology is a discipline of humans. God has revealed Himself to all and that is one thing. The extent to which humans can receive that revelation and build a theology apart from special revelation is another. According to Gilbert Weaver, Clark seriously underestimates the value of general revelation, and he converts knowledge of God into knowledge of propositions about God. Surely, according to the Scriptures, our knowledge of God is both experiential and propositional. We have true information about God to lead us to an experience of fellowship with the Father and the Son, attested by the Holy Spirit according to Scripture.

One could, then, see strengths and weaknesses in the different areas of philosophy covered. John Montgomery criticizes Clark’s philosophy of history from the standpoint of a pure empiricist. Montgomery says, “Most assuredly these philosophers and historians did not discover the meaning of the past, but Clark, notwithstanding, the reason for their failure does not have to be located and must not be located in the inability of historical facts to speak clearly apart from philosophical commitments. The difficulty is rather that such a welter of historical data exists that we don’t know how to relate all the facts to each other. Our lifetime is too short and our perspective is too limited. Putting it otherwise, the trouble with secular philosophy is not that it looked into history instead of to aprioristic first principles in endeavoring to understand the past. It is that the secularists have been deflected by their extra-historical commitments from looking at history objectively, and particularly from looking at the Christ of history objectively. When the historical facts of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection are allowed to speak for themselves, they lead to belief in His deity and to acceptance of His account of the total historical process.”

In that position, Montgomery reflects the approach of Pure Empiricism—the facts speak for themselves and lead to belief. Clark is speaking from the rational position that only a general overall presupposition can give meaning to the facts. Are these


Christ-Centered Learning — Anytime, Anywhere

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the only two options or do we have the possibility of a third? In our study in future lectures, we shall find a third possibility, and that will combine the elements of strength in the empirical approaches and in Clark’s appeal to universals. Surely in our knowledge we know both particulars and universals. We know what humanness is as distinct from animalness, and we know some particular human friends. There need be no conflict ultimately between knowing particulars and knowing the essence of their characteristics held in common. We need the commonness; we need the uniqueness of each individual within that perspective.

exploring approaches to apologetics ca513 o apologetics t … · 2019. 9. 13. · archaeology shows...

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