Sermon Tone Analysis

Gordon Clark

Bibliotheca Sacra Volume 114 (The Bible as Truth)

Philosophy and Christian EthicsTHE BIBLE AS TRUTHBy Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D.In a game of chess a player can become so engrossed in a complicated situation that, after examining several possibilities and projecting each one as far ahead as he is able, he finally sees a brilliant combination by which he may possibly win a pawn in five moves, only to discover that it would lose his queen.

So, too, when theological investigations have been pursued through considerable time and in great detail, it is possible to overlook the obvious.

In the present state of the discussions on revelation, it is my opinion that what needs most to be said is something obvious and elementary.

This paper, therefore, is a defense of the simple thesis that the Bible is true.This thesis, however, does not derive its main motivation from any attack on the historicity of the Biblical narratives.

The destructive criticism of the nineteenth century still has wide influence, but it has received a mortal wound at the hand of twentieth-century archeology.

A new form of unbelief, though it may be forced to accept the Bible as an exceptionally accurate account of ancient events, now denies on philosophical grounds that it is or could be a verbal revelation from God.

So persuasive are the new arguments, not only supported by impressive reasoning but even making appeals to Scriptural principles which every orthodox believer would admit, that professedly conservative theologians have accepted more or less and have thus betrayed or vitiated the thesis that the Bible is true.THE THESIS OF BIBLICAL EPISTEMOLOGYBecause the discussion is philosophical rather than archeological, and hence could be pursued to interminable lengths, some limits and some omissions must be accepted.

Theories of truth are notoriously intricate, and yet to avoid considering the nature of truth altogether is impossible if we wish to know our meaning when we say that the Bible is true.

For a start, let it be said that the truth of statements in the Bible is the same type of truth as is claimed for ordinary statements, such as: Columbus discovered America, two plus two are four, and a falling body accelerates at thirty two feet per second.

So far as the meaning of truth is concerned, the statement “Christ died for our sins” is on the same level as any ordinary, everyday assertion that happens to be true.

These are examples, of course, and do not constitute a definition of truth.

But embedded in the examples is the assumption that truth is a characteristic of propositions only.

Nothing can be called true in the literal sense of the term except the attribution of a predicate to a subject.

There are undoubtedly figurative uses, and one may legitimately speak of a man as a true gentleman or a true scholar.

There has also been discussion as to which is the true church.

But these uses, though legitimate, are derivative and figurative.

Now, the simple thesis of this paper is that the Bible is true in the literal sense of true.

After a thorough understanding of the literal meaning is acquired, the various figurative meanings may be investigated; but it would be foolish to begin with figures of speech before the literal meaning is known.This thesis that the Bible is literally true does not imply that the Bible is true literally.

Figures of speech occur in the Bible and they are not true literally.

They are true figuratively.

But they are literally true.

The statements may be in figurative language, but when they are called true the term true is to be understood literally.

This simple elementary thesis, however, would be practically meaningless without a companion thesis.

If the true statements of the Bible could not be known by human minds, the idea of a verbal revelation would be worthless.

If God should speak a truth, but speak so that no one could possibly hear, that truth would not be a revelation.

Hence the double thesis of this paper, double but still elementary, is that the Bible, aside from questions and commands, consists of true statements that men can know.

In fact, this is so elementary that it might appear incredible that any conservative theologian would deny it.

Yet there are some professed conservatives who deny it explicitly and others who, without denying it explicitly, undermine and vitiate it by other assertions.

The first thing to be considered, then, will be the reasons, supposedly derived from the Bible, for denying or vitiating human knowledge of its truths.THE EFFECT OF SIN ON MAN’S KNOWLEDGEThe doctrine of total depravity teaches that no part of human nature escapes the devastation of sin, and among the passages on which this doctrine is based are some which describe the effects of sin on human knowledge.

For example, when Paul in 1 Timothy 4:2 says that certain apostates have their consciences seared with a hot iron, he must mean not only that they commit wicked acts but also that they think wicked thoughts.

Their ability to distinguish right from wrong is impaired, and thus they give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.

Therefore, without in the least denying that sin has affected their volition, it must be asserted that sin has also affected their intellect.

And though Paul has in mind a particular class of people, no doubt more wicked than others, yet the similarity of human nature and the nature of sin force the conclusion that the minds of all men, though perhaps not to the same degree, are impaired.

Again, Romans 1:21, 28 speaks of Gentiles who became vain in their imaginations and whose foolish heart was darkened; when they no longer wanted to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.

In Ephesians 4:17 Paul again refers to the vanity of mind and the darkened understanding of the Gentiles, who are alienated from the life of God through ignorance and blindness.

That ignorance and blindness are not Gentile traits only but characterize the Jews also, and therefore the human race as a whole, can be seen in the summary condemnation of all men in Romans 3:10–18, where Paul says that there is none that understands.

And, of course, there are general statements in the Old Testament: the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jer.

17:9).These noetic effects of sin have been used to support the conclusion that an unregenerate man cannot understand the meaning of any sentence in the Bible.

From the assertion “there is none that understandeth,” it might seem to follow that when the Bible says “David took a stone … and smote the Philistine in his forehead,” an unbeliever could not know what the words mean.

The first representatives of this type of view, to be discussed here, are centered in the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Cornelius Van Til and some of his colleagues prepared and signed a document in which they repudiate a particular statement of the unregenerate man’s epistemological ability.

A certain professor, they complain, “makes no absolute qualitative distinction between the knowledge of the unregenerate man and the knowledge of the regenerate man” (The Text of a Complaint, p. 10, col.

2).

This statement not only implies that an unbeliever finds it less easy to understand that David smote the Philistine, but in asserting an absolute qualitative distinction between whatever knowledge he derives from that statement and the knowledge a regenerate man derives, the quotation also suggests that the unregenerate man simply cannot understand propositions revealed to man.In another paper two of Van Til’s associates declare that it is “erroneous” to hold that “regeneration … is not a change in the understanding of these words” (A.

R. Kuschke, Jr., and Bradford, A Reply to Mr. Hamilton, p. 4).

According to them, it is also erroneous to say “when he is regenerated, his understanding of the proposition may undergo no change at all (but) that an unregenerate man may put exactly the same meaning on the words … as the regenerate man” (ibid., p. 6).

Since these are the positions they repudiate, their view must be precisely the contradictory, namely, an unregenerate man can never put exactly the same meaning on the words as a regenerate man; that regeneration necessarily and always changes the meaning of the words a man knows, and that the unregenerate and regenerate cannot possibly understand a sentence in the same sense.

These gentlemen appeal to 2 Corinthians 4:3–6, where it is said that the gospel is hidden to them that are lost, and to Matthew 13:3–23, where the multitudes hear the parable but do not understand it.

These two passages from Scripture are supposed to prove that a Christian’s “understanding is never the same as that of the unregenerate man.”As a brief reply, it may be noted that though the gospel be hidden from the lost, the passage does not state that the lost are completely ignorant and know nothing at all.

Similarly, the multitudes understood the literal meaning of the parable, though neither they nor the disciples understood what Christ was illustrating.

Let us grant that the Holy Spirit by regeneration enlightens the mind and leads us gradually into more truth; but the Scripture surely does not teach that the Philistines could not understand that David had killed Goliath.

Such a view has not been common among Reformed writers; just one, however, will be cited as an example.

Abraham Kuyper, in his Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology (pp.

110–11), after specifying eight points at which we are subjected to error because of sin, adds that “the darkening of the understanding … does not mean that we have lost the capacity of thinking logically, for so far as the impulse of its law of life is concerned, the logica has [sic] not [italics his] been impaired by sin.

When this takes place, a condition of insanity ensues … sin has weakened the energy of thought … [but] the universal human consciousness is always able to overcome this sluggishness and to correct these mistakes in reasoning.”

In thus defending the epistemological ability of sinful man, Kuyper may have even underestimated the noetic effects of sin.

Perhaps the human consciousness is not always able to overcome sluggishness and correct mistakes in reasoning.

The point I wish to insist on is that this is sometimes possible.

An unregenerate man can know some true propositions and can sometimes reason correctly.To avoid doing an injustice to Van Til and his associates, it must be stated that sometimes they seem to make contradictory assertions.

In the course of their papers, one can find a paragraph in which they seem to accept the position they are attacking, and then they proceed with the attack.

What can the explanation be except that they are confused and are attempting to combine two incompatible positions?

The objectionable one is in substantial harmony with existentialism or neo-orthodoxy.

But the discussion of the noetic effects of sin in the unregenerate mind need not further be continued because a more serious matter usurps attention.

The neo-orthodox influence seems to produce the result that even the regenerate man cannot know the truth.MAN’S EPISTEMOLOGICAL LIMITATIONSThat the regenerate man as well as the unregenerate is subject to certain epistemological limitations, that these limitations are not altogether the result of sin but are inherent in the fact that man is a creature, and that even in glory these limitations will not be removed, is either stated or implied in a number of Scriptural passages.

What these limitations are bears directly on any theory of revelation, for they may be so insignificant that man is almost divine, or they may be so extensive that man can understand nothing about God.

First, a few but not all of the Scriptural passages used in this debate will be listed: “Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?” (Job 11:7); “Behold God is great and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out” (Job 36:26); “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it” (Ps.

139:6); “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isa.

55:8–9); “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out?

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?” (Rom.

11:33–34); “Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (1 Cor.

2:11).These verses are simply samples and many similar verses are easily remembered.

Several of them seem to say that it is impossible for man to know God.

We cannot search Him out; we know Him not; I cannot attain this knowledge; God’s thoughts are not ours; no one knows the mind of the Lord, and no one knows the things of God.

It could easily be concluded that man is totally ignorant and that no matter how diligently he searches the Scripture, he will never get the least glimmering of God’s thought.

Of course, in the very passage which says that no man knoweth the things of God, there is the strongest assertion that what the eye of man has not seen and what the heart of man has never grasped has been revealed to us by God’s Spirit “that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”

It will not be surprising therefore if some attempts to expound the Biblical position are as confused actually as the Biblical material seems to be.

With many statements of such theologians we all ought to agree; but other statements, misinterpreting the Scripture in the interest of some esoteric view of truth, ought to be rejected.MAN’S KNOWLEDGE IN RELATION TO GOD’SThe 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 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.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.This denial of univocal predication is not peculiar to the professors quoted, nor need it be considered particularly neo-orthodox.

Although the approach is different, the same result is found in Thomas Aquinas.