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| A picture of Gordon H. Clark (1902-1985) and his dog Zephi (?-?). 🐕 |
In his history of philosophy, Clark dedicates the largest paragraph (20 pages) to the African theologian.[1] As we will see, this is not surprising if we read Clark’s own words regarding the importance to study Augustine.
Only Thomas Aquinas can challenge Augustine’s status as the greatest and most brilliant of all Christian philosophers. The student should therefore learn how Augustine relates reason to faith, what the role of sensation is, whether it is possible to know bodies, how one person can communicate with another, and who can teach what.[2]
In this article, I will focus on Clark’s philosophical Augustinianism.[3] As the title suggests, this is only a not necessarily comprehensive overview. Augustine’s philosophical import on Clark’s philosophy is not a hidden element that needs to be revealed through complex interpretation of Clark’s texts. Rather, the Presbyterian philosopher clearly admits the substantial presence of Augustinian elements in his system (I will not discuss here the possible question of the extent of the accuracy of Clark's appropriation). This article is an overview aimed at encouraging the reader to read, compare, and contrast the works of these two intellectuals.
The three following paragraphs will discuss Clark’s Augustinian anti-skepticism, philosophy of history, and epistemology. This latter point is perhaps the most important of the three, considering the logical and chronological priority that Clark gives to epistemology in his philosophy.[4] Clark’s Augustinian epistemology may be a modified one, but, in my opinion, it is permissible to give it that name. Not without reason, there exists a combined edition of Clark’s epistemological essay Lord God of Truth and Augustine’s Concerning the Teacher.[5] Finally, I will conclude the article with a few considerations.
Clark’s Augustinian Anti-Skepticism
Clark believed that Augustine gave the definite deathblow to scepticism, already seriously wounded by Plato’s and Plotinus’ attacks.[6] Shortly after his conversion, Augustine composed his first work, Against the Skeptics, a devastating refutation of ancient scepticism. The writing of this work was the fulfilment of a personal need of Augustine, having gone through a short but despairing[7] phase where the dark cloud of scepticism gloomed over him.[8] Having started his quest for truth at a young age, the mere idea that nothing can be known with certainty could plunge Augustine into despair. Therefore, after God finally conquered Augustine’s heart, the African thinker almost immediately started his anti-sceptic endeavour by refuting scepticism and, in so doing, demonstrating the possibility of achieving certain knowledge. Furthermore, and more importantly for our purpose, Augustine felt both the intellectual and personal need to write such refutation. This is because before exploring the rationality of any doctrine of the Christian faith, it is necessary to establish that man can know the truth.
We are not interested in covering ourselves with glory but in the finding of truth. I am content if by any means I can cross over that barrier which confronts those who are beginning philosophy. It piles up darkness from some hidden source, and warns that the whole of philosophy is obscure, and does not allow one to hope that any light will be found in it. For my part, I desire nothing more if it is now probable that the wise man knows something. It seemed probable that he should withhold his assent for no other reason than that it was probable that nothing could be perceived: when that reason has disappeared the wise man perceives, as is conceded, at least wisdom herself no reason any longer will remain, why the wise man should not assent at least to wisdom. Obviously, it is without any doubt even more monstrous that the wise man should not assent to wisdom than that he should not know her.[9]
The Presbyterian philosopher, although perhaps not as inwardly troubled as Augustine was, comes to the same conclusion.
Historically and personally necessary or not, it is logically necessary to show that and how knowledge is possible before concluding that a particular religious doctrine (or, for that matter, a particular law of physics) can be known as true.[10]
Establishing that certain knowledge is possible is, therefore, necessary. On this issue, the American philosopher virtually adopts all the main arguments of Augustine’s anti-scepticism. Clark has a very high estimation of Augustine contribution to refuting scepticism, believing that it was the “peculiar merit of Augustine to defend the possibility of knowledge, not only on purely logical ground, but mainly on moral grounds.”[11] Nash helpfully summarizes the position of our two philosophers.
Like Augustine, Clark believes that any attempts to deny the existence of truth must be self-defeating. If skepticism is false, there must be knowledge; and if there is knowledge, there must exist the object of knowledge, viz., truth. If someone should maintain that there is no truth, his statement would have to be either true or false. If it is false that “there is no truth,” then truth exists; and if “there is no truth” is true, the truth still exists. It is impossible to even conceive the non-existence of truth.[12]
In his works, Clark does not dedicate very many pages to scepticism because, as I already said, he considers it a position that is both logically absurd and intellectually laughable, especially after Augustine's merciless treatment of it. Nonetheless, in Thales to Dewey, he offers a good summary of Augustine’s anti-sceptic argument. In Against the Academics, to refute scepticism Augustine offers examples of disjunctions, that is, assertions that can either be true or false, with no third option. These disjunctions pertain the realm of physics,[13] ethics,[14] and, more importantly for both Clark and Augustine, logic.[15] The Presbyterian philosopher offers a summary of Augustine’s arguments, and he seems to do it with approval.[16]
Nevertheless, for Clark, the best Augustinian argument against scepticism is the argument from consciousness. Augustine expounds this argument in scattered places among his works.[17] The Presbyterian philosopher summarizes them for us with his typical effectiveness.
The most crushing refutation of skepticism comes when Augustine asks his opponent, Do you know that you exist? If he so much as hears the question, there can be no doubt about the answer. No one can be in doubt as to his own existence … In the immediate certainty of self-consciousness a thinker has contact with being, life, mind, and truth.[18]
The reader will have to read Augustine’s and Clark’s words against scepticism by himself, not only because there is no room for me to expound them extensively here, but also because their arguments are exquisitely clear. What is important for our excursus here is that, with scepticism being refuted, it is then very plausible that “truth is not only possible to attain, it is impossible to miss.”[19] For both Augustine and Clark, Christianity only is able to explain why and how knowledge is possible by providing the ultimate ontological ground for that logic which is used to refute scepticism, as we will see in the third paragraph. Another element that renders Christianity unique is that its truth has revealed itself in history, more specifically, in God’s dealings with his people recorded in the Scriptures, culminating in the Incarnation of the Word of God in the man Jesus Christ. This means that revelation gives sense and meaning, not only to knowledge as such but to history in its entirety. We will now dedicate our exposition to Clark’s Augustinian philosophy of history.
Clark’s Augustinian Philosophy of History
As we have seen, for Clark and Augustine truth exists, and it can be known. Even more than that, the truth is “impossible to miss,”[20] to use Clark’s expression. One of the reasons for this statement is that this truth has revealed itself in history. Furthermore, it is this truth that guides history, and that, therefore, gives meaning to history. This truth is God, the God of the Bible, who has guided and guides the history in which he reveals himself especially in the incarnation of the Word. It is only approaching history with there Biblical ideas that, for Augustine and Clark, futility and despair can be avoided while we try to make sense of the numerous, complex, and tragic events of both personal and human history. But I am running ahead. Before exploring the conclusions to which I have just hinted, let us see Clark’s reliance of Augustine for his philosophy of history.
First of all, what is history? This is an important question considering that “the study of a subject should have its absolute start in a definition.”[21] However, there is a problem here because, for Clark, history needs an underlying philosophy in order to be defined (and so do all other disciplines). “But wait a minute,” the common person perhaps will ask, “is not history just the study of facts?” According to the Presbyterian philosopher, there is no such thing as a brute fact. Or, more precisely, there is no such a thing as fact intended as an objective witness of a certain happening. Clark sardonically but also seriously offers the example on a newspaper, and invites the reader to “take the morning newspaper, which … recounts several facts and tells us their significance from the viewpoint of a biased reporter.”[22] Clark usually interprets the term “facts” as “empirical evidence,” not so much because of his own choice, but because of the frequent lack of the fluidity of the word “fact.” In and of themselves, these empirical observations tell us nothing. Rather, man necessarily signifies, interpret, and evaluate these facts. But “significance, interpretation, evaluation is not given in any fact; it is an intellectual judgment based on some non-sensory criterion.”[23] Facts in themselves, therefore, do not convey any epistemological or ethical key that enables us to understand their true meaning, as Clark explains in this lengthy quotation from his answer to his friend (and adversary) John Warwick Montgomery.
Montgomery thinks he can discover significance in the observable facts themselves … Observation, that is, sensory experience, at best, might possibly result in concluding that such and such an event has happened. That is to say, the most Empiricism could possibly claim is that Brutus killed Caesar. But to judge whether this was right or wrong, good or bad, inevitable or not, important or trivial, requires a criterion that can never be discovered in sensation. From purely descriptive premises no normative conclusion can be drawn … No appeal to observable facts will ever justify either view. To do this requires the Sixth Commandment.[24]
Definitions of history have been given, to be sure. In the first chapter of Historiography: Secular and Religious, Clark expounds and discusses among the most common definitions adopted among scholars.[25] Nevertheless, the American philosopher only does that to conclude that those “definitions of history … all reflect the philosophy of their authors.”[26] Clark, however, does not necessarily intend this latest statement as a criticism. The criticism applies only when the need for a grounding philosophy of history is not recognized. Clark continues as follows.
History requires philosophy. Not only is the need oh philosophy seen in the earlier difficulties and puzzles, but it is also seen, where some people do not expect it, in the very definition of history … Those authors who have reflected but little on philosophical problems give looser definitions. Those who have puzzled through many difficulties become more … accurate. Implicit in their formulations are their views of man, of society, and therefore of knowledge … whatever his definition and extended views of history are, there must always be an underlying and controlling philosophy. It can be ignored, but it cannot be avoided. Such is the justification for going beyond or below history to historiography, to the philosophy of history, and to philosophy simpliciter.[27]
According to Clark, therefore, history needs to be read with the right interpretative glasses. In his view, the first man that has done that in a sufficiently systematic way has been Augustine in his City of God, a book “in which for the first time in all literature (except the Bible) a philosophy of history was formulated.”[28] According to Clark, this work is the right “Christian corrective”[29] for a sound philosophy of history. But before doing that, it is necessary to reject the positivist dream of an objective reading of history[30] in favour of a necessary underlying philosophy aimed at interpreting it. Kant with his ultimately subjective ethics,[31] Marx with his arbitrary and illogical epistemology,[32] Comte with his dream of history of an objective scientific science,[33] and Popper with his misinformed and ethically ungrounded criticism of Christianity[34] can moralize as much as they desire about the supposed evil or good happenings and patterns of history: the morality himself they use to make this judgment is without ground.[35] It will take a long time to go through all the secular views that Clark refutes, and, therefore, I refer the reader to the places mentioned here to read Clark himself.
However, deconstructing secular viewpoints is only the first stage. The Presbyterian philosopher does not believe that it is sufficient to assume just any philosophy of history we find more attractive, whatever it may be, as long as it offers some ethical norm. For him, it is necessary that this philosophy may justify not only the norms of morality but also morality itself. “Part One” of Historiography: Secular and Religious, together with the second chapter of A Christian View of Man and Things (the latter chapter can be considered as a good summary of the former book), are mostly dedicated to show how the main secular philosophies of history have no philosophical ground to assume the ethical norms that they assume in order to judge the events of history. The main philosophical reason why Clark endorses Augustinian philosophy of history is that such philosophy is coherent. With that, I mean that Clark believes that only a Christian philosophy of history can furnish us with justified moral concepts to interpret it. Put in his words, “the question whether historians should pronounce moral judgments on great men [of history] requires for an affirmative answer an epistemological method of justifying a moral norm.”[36] Generally speaking, the study of history can lead us to conclude wither that history of mankind ifs a futile cosmic incident, or to assume some sort of positive judgment of it. Whatever our decision is, “it is impossible … to decide in favour of optimism or futility without ethical and indeed theological norms.”[37]
For Clark, “Christianity in particular furnishes a better method than secularism”[38] to understand history, remembering that with understanding is not merely meant what happened or what did not happen, but the meaning and ultimate end of history. Augustine’s philosophy of history “recognized the use of Scripture as a methodological principle”[39] in order to have an ultimate foundation to be able also to produce ethical evaluations of events that, in and of themselves, communicate no moral criterion. Augustine’s acknowledgement of the necessity of justified and absolute ethical norms in order to understand history[40] is the reason why we see his “constantly relating of history to ethics, of ethics to theology, and of everything to everything so as to form a comprehensive system.”[41] The Scriptural divine revelation is the assumption behind everything Augustine says in his City of God, as this famous passage worth quoting exemplifies.
Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, “You are my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, “I will love You, O Lord, my strength.” And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God “glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,” that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride, “they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images, “and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever” (Rom 1:21-25). But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, “that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).[42]
It should be easily deducible from this Augustinian and Clarkian passages that one of the uniqueness of Christianity is that what, or better, who makes and guides history even entered it. I am of course referring to the Incarnation of the Word, the second person of the Trinity, in the man Jesus Christ. Already in his very first work, Augustine appealed to the entrance of God in history by the Incarnation as a feature that makes Christianity far superior to scepticism and to any other system.
[The] one system of really true philosophy … is not of this world, such a philosophy our sacred mysteries most justly detest, but of the other, intelligible, world. To which intelligible world the most subtle reasoning would never recall souls blinded by the manifold darkness of error and stained deeply by the slime of the body, had not the most high God, because of a certain compassion for the masses, bent and submitted the authority of the divine intellect even to the human body itself. By the precepts as well as deeds of that intellect souls have been awakened, and are able, without the strife of disputation, to return to themselves and see once again their fatherland … No one doubts but that we are helped in learning by a twofold force, that of authority and that of reason. I, therefore, am resolved in nothing whatever to depart from the authority of Christ for I do not find a stronger.[43]
This last indented passage is strictly related to what Augustine says regarding the city of God versus the city of man. In fact, it is the central element. As Clark himself says, “the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Christ are unique events, and on them the significance of history turns”[44] and it is because of “the special people who are citizens of the City of God derive their rights of citizens through their personal relationship to the person and work of Christ.”[45] The difference between Marx’s fantastic philosophy of history (or any other secular one) and the Scriptural philosophy of history that Clark and Augustine hold is that the German messenger is not part of his message, while the Jesus is not only the messenger, but also the message, and, even more, the author of that history where that message, that is himself, is revealed. Our two theologians believe that “if the secular [or pagan, in Augustine’s case] standpoint is chosen, history has no significance.”[46] On the other hand, the Christian view gives meaning and hopes even in front of the worst tragedies,[47] and, Clark concludes, even if what has been said is not in itself a complete proof for Christianity, there is no doubt that there is a choice that has to be made between meaning and meaninglessness, between despair and hope, between Christ Lord of history and nothing.[48]
Clark, as well as Augustine, is well aware that not everybody comes to see and know the great light that Scripture shed over the history of humanity. In this regard, the matter of knowing, that is, epistemology, is the last issue where the Presbyterian philosopher saw himself both as a faithful Augustinian and as a refiner of Augustine’s epistemological insights.
Clark’s Augustinian Epistemology
It would take a long time to go through both Augustine's and Clark's respective theories of knowledge. Moreover, it is also impossible here to discuss the relevant elements of Clark’s developed philosophy of science. Each one of these topics deserves a treatment in a separate article. What I can do here according to the space available is to briefly highlight the Augustinian elements in Clark’s epistemology. In this regard, Clark believed that Augustine’s epistemology was developed and refined by an early modern Augustinian thinker, Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715). In his lengthy The Search After Truth, the French thinker systematized Augustine’s insights while the African father, beside The Teacher, only offered relatively short and scattered treatments of this issue.[49] In addition to this, Malebranche’s Search is historically placed in the context of the great scientific and philosophical developments of the 16th and 17th centuries. In this sense, Malebranche treated more in depth and in the context of early modern science the Augustinian epistemology found in The Teacher. Therefore, it is no wonder that Malebranche’s work appealed to Clark.
There are, however, differences between Augustine and Malebranche on this issue.[50] Clark himself says not to be fully supportive of Augustine’s and Malebranche’s proposals. According to the Presbyterian philosopher, Augustine is not a full anti-empiricist in that he sees the senses as a trustworthy source of some knowledge.[51] While Clark believes that the argument of the ancient sceptics are good evidence against the trustworthiness of the senses but not against the impossibility of obtaining certain knowledge, Augustine believes that said arguments obtain neither of these two goals.[52] Similarly with Malebranche, [53] although it is true that he “developed non-empirical Augustinianism,”[54] it is also true that he like Augustine did not feel at ease to assign to the senses no role whatsoever in obtaining of knowledge.[55] Clark does not seem to fully recognize that Malebranche did not entirely agree with his uncompromising anti-empiricism, although he admits that “the details of Malebranche’s philosophy cannot be accepted”[56] and that it is “in some places sadly unacceptable,”[57] without specifying what these unacceptable elements are.
In spite of these differences, the main concept that Clark takes from Augustine and Malebranche is that teachers, professors, the means of grace, signs, words, and any other means are, in and of themselves, unable to create, produce, or even efficaciously impart any true knowledge. The American theologian highly praises Augustine because he has been the first to clearly expound the principle according to which all truth is known through the causative mediation of the Logos.
As for all those things which we “understand,” it is not the outward sound of the speaker’s words that we consult, but the truth which presides over the mind itself from within, though we may have been led to consult it because of the words. Now He who is consulted and who is said to “dwell in the inner man,” He it is who teaches us, namely, Christ, that is to say, “the unchangeable Power of God and everlasting wisdom.” This is the Wisdom which every rational soul does indeed consult, but it reveals itself to each according to his capacity to grasp it by reason of the good or evil dispositions of his will. And if the soul is sometimes mistaken, this does not come about because of any defect on the part of the truth it consulted, just as it is not through any defect in the light outside us that our bodily eyes are often deceived.[58]
For Clark, Malebranche made these principles even clearer. We could mention many passages from the French philosopher’s works that discuss that “the mind [of man] can be united immediately and directly to God alone, that we can have no intercourse with created beings except by the power of the Creator, which is communicated to us only in consequence of His laws, and that we can enter into no social union amongst ourselves and with Him except through the Reason with which He is consubstantial [that is, the Word],”[59] with all that this implies for both applied science and epistemology. Regarding the latter, one central point for Clark is that earthly pedagogical means are only secondary causes or occasional causes that God decreed to use in order to impart immediate knowledge. In this sense, every truth that we see, we see it in God. Clark builds on Augustine’s and Malebranche’s insights in order to develop his epistemological occasionalism according to which God is the ultimate cause of knowledge. Neither Malebranche[60] nor Clark[61] had any particular objection to the expression “secondary causes,” as long as it is made clear that these causes do not have any efficient power in themselves and that the ultimate and only effective cause of knowledge is God which immediately works through them. With “immediately,” our thinkers do not mean “right now,” but they mean without the mediation of a supposed efficient cause. Jonathan Edwards, whom Clark himself quotes with approval,[62] helpfully summarizes this Augustinian spirit in a lengthy but worthy to be quoted passage.
There is such a thing as that spiritual light … immediately let into the mind by God. … this light and knowledge is always spoken of as immediately given of God … this effect is ascribed alone to the arbitrary operation, and gift of God, bestowing this knowledge on whom he will … The imparting the knowledge of God is here appropriated to the Son of God, as his sole prerogative … ‘Tis as immediately from God, as light from the sun: and that 'tis the immediate effect of his power and will … ‘Tis rational to suppose that this knowledge should be given immediately by God, and not be obtained by natural means. Upon what account should it seem unreasonable, that there should be any immediate communication between God and the creature? ‘Tis strange that men should make any matter of difficulty of it. Why should not he that made all things, still have something immediately to do with the things that he has made? Where lies the great difficulty, if we own the being of a God, and that he created all things out of nothing, of allowing some immediate influence of God on the creation still? And if it be reasonable to suppose it with respect to any part of the creation, ‘tis especially so with respect to reasonable intelligent creatures; who are next to God in the gradation of the different orders of beings, and whose business is most immediately with God; who were made on purpose for those exercises that do respect God, and wherein they have nextly to do with God: for reason teaches that man was made to serve and glorify his Creator. And if it be rational to suppose that God immediately communicates himself to man in any affair, it is in this. ‘Tis rational to suppose that God would reserve that knowledge and wisdom, that is of such a divine and excellent nature, to be bestowed immediately by himself, and that it should not be left in the power of second causes. Spiritual wisdom and grace is the highest and most excellent gift that ever God bestows on any creature: in this the highest excellency and perfection of a rational creature consists.[63]
Conclusions
Considering the great influence and essential role that Augustine played in the history of theology and philosophy, to call Clark “the American Augustine” (as some have done) is an exaggeration. I tend to believe that Clark himself would have rejected such a demanding title. Nevertheless, even though Clark might not be Augustine, he is certainly Augustinian. The reader is encouraged to read and compare Clark’s anti-scepticism with Augustine’s anti-scepticism, Clark’s Historiography Secular and Religious and Augustine’s City of God, and Clark’s epistemological works with Augustine’s theory of knowledge (as well as with Malebranche's Dialogues and Search) in order to test the accuracy of my claim. After the Bible and the Westminster standards, Clark stands on the shoulder of the giant Augustine. But a person standing on giant’s shoulders requires the ability to critically rely on the basis that person is standing on in order to produce original contributions. In this sense, I believe that Clark has achieved his goal in very interesting ways.
[1] Clark, Thales to Dewey, 177-197.
[2] Clark, Christian Philosophy, 34.
[3] For Augustine’s doctrine of grace, see N. R. Needham, The Triumph of Grace. Augustine’s Writings on Salvation (London: Grace Publication Trust, 2000); W. Gary Crampton, Grant What Thou Commandest. The Life and Legacy of Augustine (Draper, VI: NiceneCouncil.com, 2011), 69-87; Carol Harrison, Rethinking Augustine’s Early Theology. An Argument for Continuity (Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 167-287; Marco Barone, Luther’s Augustinian Theology of the Cross (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2017).
[4] “The subject of Gordon Clark’s epistemology brings us to the heart of his philosophy … The central role of epistemology is Clark’s thought is seen clearly in his study of the history of philosophy, Thales to Dewey, in which he concerns himself primarily with epistemological problems.” Ronald H. Nash, “Gordon Clark’s Theory of Knowledge,” in Clark, Clark and Its Critics, 105.
[5] Clark and Augustine, Lord God of Truth and Concerning the Teacher.
[6] Clark, Christian Philosophy, 32.
[7] Clark talks about scepticism and despair with his typical wit: “There is a great deal of comfort in scepticism. If truth is impossible of attainment, then one need not suffer the pains of searching for it. No more will come the disappointment of discovering a flaw in a hard-wrought and hitherto trusted argument. No more will it be necessary to lay another heavy foundation among the ruins of a magnificent edifice. Scepticism dispenses with all effort. It may be despair, but it is a comfortable despair.” Clark, A Christian View of Man and Things, 26.
[8] “When, therefore, I had given up the vanities of this world, those I had acquired or those I wished to acquire, and had turned to the tranquillity of Christian life, before my baptism I wrote, first of all, against the Academics or about the Academics, so that, with the most forceful reasons possible, I might remove from my mind, because they were disturbing me, their arguments which in many men instill a despair of finding truth and prevent a wise man from giving assent to anything or approving anything at all as clear and certain, since to them everything seems obscure and uncertain. With the help and mercy of the Lord, this has been accomplished.” Augustine, The Retractions, Sister M. Inez Bogan, ed., (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1999), 1.1.1.
[9] Augustine, Against the Academics, John J O’Meara, ed., (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1950), 3.14.30. Earlier in the work, Augustine says something similar: “I think that we should approve of something, namely, truth. I ask them if they deny this, that is to say, if they declare that one must not assent to truth. They will never say this; but they will maintain that truth cannot be found. Consequently, in this I am to a great extent at one with them in so far as both of us do not object, and, therefore, necessarily agree, to the proposition that one must assent to truth. ‘But who will indicate truth for us?’ they ask. On that point I shall not trouble to dispute with them. I am satisfied since they consider it no longer probable that the wise man knows nothing. Otherwise, they would be forced to maintain a most absurd proposition, that either wisdom is nothing, or the wise man does not know wisdom.” Ibid., 4.5.12.
[10] Clark, Christian Philosophy, 32.
[11] Clark, Thales to Dewey, 178.
[12] R. H. Nash, “Gordon Clark’s Theory of Knowledge,” in Clark, Clark and Its Critics, 129.
[13] Augustine, Against the Academics, 3.10.23-11.27.
[14] Augustine, Against the Academics, 3.7.27-28.
[15] “There remain Dialectics. The wise man certainly knows this well, and no one can know what is not true ... I know more about it than about any other part of philosophy. In the first place, it was dialectics that taught me that all the propositions which I have indicated already were true. Again, through dialectics I have come to know many other true things. ‘Enumerate them for us, if you can, If there are four elements in the world, there are not five. If there is one sun, there are not two. The same soul cannot both die and be immortal A man cannot at the same time be happy and not happy. Here and now there is not day and night at the same time. We are now either awake or asleep. What I seem to see is either body or not body. These and many other things which would take too long to mention, I have learned through dialectics to be true. They are true in themselves no matter what state our senses are in. Dialectics taught me that if, of any one of the conditional statements which I have just mentioned, the first part be assumed as true, it necessarily involves the truth of the dependent part. But the propositions involving contrariety or disjunction which I enunciated, are of this nature that when a part is taken away, whether that be composed of one or more things, something is left which by the removal is made certain.” Ibid., 3.8.29.
[16] Clark, Thales to Dewey, 178-179.
[17] The City of God, 11.26; On the Trinity, 15.21.21; On True Religion, 73; The Soliloquies, 2.1.
[18] Clark, Thales to Dewey, 179.
[19] Ibid., 178.
[20] Ivi.
[21] Clark, Historiography: Secular and Religious, 21.
[22] Clark, “Clark Speaks From the Grave,” in Clark, Clark and His Critics, 405.
[23] Ivi.
[24] Ibid., 406. For Montgomery’s criticism of Clark philosophy of history, see Montgomery, “Gordon Clark’s Philosophy of History, in Clark, Clark and His Critics, 332-360.
[25] I will not offer here an account of Clark’s discussion for reasons of space. For that, see Ibid., 332-344.
[26] Clark, Historiography. Secular and Religious, 21.
[27] Ibid., 21-22.
[28] Clark, Thales to Dewey, 188.
[29] Montgomery, “Gordon Clark’s Philosophy of History, in Clark, Clark and His Critics, 336.
[30] “Presuppositionless experience is an impossible philosophy.” Ibid., 337.
[31] Clark, A Christian View of Man and Things, 128-132; Clark, Historiography. Secular and Religious, 35-38.
[32] Clark, Historiography: Secular and Religious, 67-97.
[33] Ibid., 99-113.
[34] Ibid., 225-231.
[35] “If the secular standpoint is chosen, history has no significance; human hopes and fears are to be swallowed up in oblivion; and all men, good, evil, and indifferent, come to the same end. Anyone who chooses this view must base his life on unyielding despair.” Clark, A Christian View of Man and Things, 69.
[36] Clark, Historiography: Secular and Religious, 213.
[37] Ibid., 218.
[38] Ibid., 213.
[39] Ibid., 224.
[40] Ibid., 163-181.
[41] Ibid., 215.
[42] Augustine, The City of God, 14.28, Marcus Dods, trans, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887). http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120114.htm.
[43] Augustine, Against the Academics, 3.19.42-43.
[44] Clark, A Christian View of Man and Things, 66.
[45] Ivi.
[46] Ibid., 69.
[47] Augustine, City of God, 1.10.1, 18.51.1-2.
[48] Ivi.
[49] Soliloquies, 1.8.15; The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 12.31.59; Confessions 12.25; On the Trinity, 9.7.12. This is just a small sample of numerous passages that could be mentioned.
[50] R. Nash, The Light of the Mind (Lima, OH: Academic Renewal, 2003), 103-124.
[51] Clark, Christian Philosophy, 20.
[52] “Whereas there are two kinds of knowable things—one, of those things which the mind perceives by the bodily senses; the other, of those which it perceives by itself — these philosophers have babbled much against the bodily senses, but have never been able to throw doubt upon those most certain perceptions of things true, which the mind knows by itself, such as is that which I have mentioned, I know that I am alive. But far be it from us to doubt the truth of what we have learned by the bodily senses; since by them we have learned to know the heaven and the earth, and those things in them which are known to us, so far as He who created both us and them has willed them to be within our knowledge. Far be it from us too to deny, that we know what we have learned by the testimony of others: otherwise we know not that there is an ocean; we know not that the lands and cities exist which most copious report commends to us; we know not that those men were, and their works, which we have learned by reading history; we know not the news that is daily brought us from this quarter or that, and confirmed by consistent and conspiring evidence; lastly, we know not at what place or from whom we have been born: since in all these things we have believed the testimony of others. And if it is most absurd to say this, then we must confess, that not only our own senses, but those of other persons also, have added very much indeed to our knowledge.”Augustine, On the Trinity, 15.12.
[53] “It is not the senses, but reason combined with the senses, which enlightens us and reveals the truth to us. Do you not think that in the sensuous view which we have of the figure there is involved at the same time the conjunction of the clear idea of extension with the confused feeling of the colour by which we are affected? Now, it is from the clear idea of extension, and not from the black and white which make it perceptible by the senses, that we discover the relations in which this truth consists, from the clear idea of extension, I say, which reason possesses, and not from the black and white, which are only sensations, or confused modifications of our senses, the relations of which it is impossible to discover. There is always present, on the one hand, a clear idea and, on the other hand, a confused feeling in the view which we have of sensible objects an idea which represents their essence and the feeling which admonishes us of their existence an idea which acquaints us with their nature, their properties, the relations which they have or may have to one another, in a word, a truth and a sensation, which latter makes us feel their difference and the bearing which they have upon the conveniences and preservation of life.” Nicolas Malebranche, Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion (London: George Allen and Unwin LTD, 1923), 143. See also Ibid., 147-149, 102-103.
[54] Clark, Lord God of Truth, 13.
[55] “Knowledge implies that we have a clear idea of the nature of the object and can discover definite relations in it by means of reason and evidence.” Malebranche, Dialogues on Metaphysics, 102.
[56] Clark, A Christian View, 225.
[57] Clark, Lord God of Truth,
[58] Augustine, The Teacher, 11.38, in R.P. Russell, ed., The Fathers of the Church Vol. 59 (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 2004), 51.
[59] Malebranche, Dialogues, 198.
[60] Ibid., 279, 297, 336.
[61]See Doug Douma, “Gordon Clark and the Philosophy of Occasionalism,” from douglasdouma.wordpress.com/2018/02/23/gordon-clark-and-the-philosophy-of-occasionalism/, accessed March 23, 2018.
[62] Clark, Lord God of Truth, 17-18.
[63] Jonathan Edwards, "A Divine and Supernatural Light," in Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733 (WJE Online, Vol. 17), Ed. Mark Valeri, 417, 421-422.
