In this last part of my series on how to love God and your neighbor, I will present a broad outline of why it is we are exempt from mandatory vaccinations as Christians. The basic argument is simple –

Given that mandatory vaccination overrides the magisterial authority of Scripture, as well as the ministerial authority of Logic and the academic and practical disciplines subservient to it, mandatory vaccination violates our religious liberty to worship God with all of our mind and body.

Mandated/forced vaccination hinders us from worshiping God as he has prescribed in his Word. Indeed, it forces us to sin against God. This not only violates our freedom of conscience, and our freedom to exercise religion, but attacks the very substance of Christian living and, therefore, Christianity itself.

This will be a little lengthy, but I feel the need to get into more details on this matter. I pray that you will find this profitable, and be able to utilize it in any way that will edify the body of Christ.

I. The Scope of Sola Scriptura

As the Westminster Confession correctly explains,

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture…1

The scope of the Scriptures’ sufficiency, let us note, is broader than many would like to concede. This is evident from the authors’ use of the universal terms whole and all, as well as by their reference to (a)that which is expressly/explicitly set down in Scripture and (b)that which is necessarily implied by (a). Scripture covers all that is necessary as respects the glorification of God, man’s salvation, the doctrines man must believe, and the day to day actions that man must perform in order to glorify God.

There is nothing hidden from the Word of God, from his verbal/written judgment.2All actions are revealed to be either glorifying to God or not when they are examined in light of the Scriptures’ explicit and implicit teaching. Paul says the same in his second epistle to Timothy, writing –

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.3

All of Scripture is of divine origin and authority. All of Scripture is profitable for making one equipped every good work. No work of the regenerate man is, therefore, excluded from the explicit and implicit teaching of Scripture. All of our works are subordinate to the Word of God, receiving either approval or condemnation from God. Hence, the Westminster theologians go on to explain that –

The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.4

Again, note the universals here – all controversies of religion, all decrees of councils, all opinions of ancient writers, all doctrines of men, and all private spirits – indicating that the Word of God is the supreme judge of all thinking and action.

II. The Definition of “Good Works”

Whatever has been deemed to be a good work, then, must be examined in light of not merely the explicit declarations of God’s Word, but also the implicit teaching necessarily inferred therefrom. When this is done, we see that good works are

…only such as God hath commanded in his holy Word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men, out of blind zeal, or upon any pretense of good intention.5

That which God requires of men, as revealed in his Word, constitutes what we can legitimately call “good works.” If there are actions that are not commanded by God, or which contradict the explicit and implicit teaching of Scripture as to the nature of godly living, i.e. obedient living that brings glory to God, then those actions do not constitute what we can legitimately call good works.6

III. The Scope of “Good Works”

We have defined what constitutes a good work, and now we must turn to Scripture to understand the scope of that which is covered by the term “good works.” Is it a narrowly defined sphere of activity? Or is it the whole of a man’s life? Well, given that the Westminster Larger Catechism, following the Scriptures, states that “man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever,”7 it is the case that man’s very existence – the entirety of his life – ought to be lived in a manner that brings glory to God. This implies that every act of man is intended by God to be a good work.

Every action of man ought to be performed in good conscience before God, in faith that what is being performed is that which is in accordance with God’s Law, for “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”8 Every action, consequently, must be performed in order to bring God glory. As the apostle Paul tells the Corinthians –

…whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.9

Good works, then, are firstly those which are explicitly stated in the Law of God, the Ten Commandments. Good works, however, also include all the actions of men, covering every aspect of human existence, taken by faith in accordance with the Law of God explicitly stated in Scripture.

The apostle Paul also makes this clear when he tells the Romans the following –

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.10

We are called to firstly have our thinking conformed to God’s Word, and then our bodies (performing those actions which we have, by faith, determined to be in accordance with God’s Law). This conformation, via testing (i.e. reasoning about our thoughts and actions in the world), enables us to discern what thoughts and actions are good before God (i.e. what actions may be performed in accordance with God’s explicitly stated Law).

IV. Daily Individual Worship and Lord’s Day Corporate Worship

It is noteworthy that Paul defines the whole of our bodily existence as “spiritual worship.” While we are called to not forsake the assembling of the local body which meets together for corporate worship on the Lord’s Day,11 we are also called to individually worship God by having our minds and, therefore, thoughts and bodily actions conformed to the Word of God. Our daily activity is, in other words, worship to God, as is our weekly meeting on the Lord’s Day. These two forms of worship are distinct and complementary to one another, not contradictory. We worship God daily, and meet together as a body to worship him on the Lord’s Day.

V. The Individual Temple

The individual body, like the corporate body,12 is identified as the house of God, the physical place where God dwells and governs over man’s thoughts and actions by his Spirit and his Word. Writing to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul explains –

…we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.13

In this passage, Paul repeatedly identifies the believer’s body as the dwelling place of God’s Spirit. The Holy Spirit governs over the activities of this house, just as he governs over the activities of the corporate house of God.

The apostle Peter, likewise, identifies his body as a “tent,” or “tabernacle,” in his second epistle. He writes –

…I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.14

Peter H. Davids’ commentary here is very useful:

Rooted in their previous nomadic life (many of the peoples in the Mediterranean had once been nomadic) and the present use of tents as temporary shelters, the image of a tent for this mortal life is found in the OT (Isa 38:12…), but is more common in Hellenistic Judaism. For instance, in Wisd 9:15 we read, “For a perishable body weighs down the soul, and this earthly tent burdens the thoughtful mind,” a clear indication of both the tent = body imagery and body-soul dualism…15

The apostle Paul elsewhere identifies the believer’s body as “a temple of the Holy Spirit.”16 And these all, of course, are following the Lord Jesus Christ’s identification of his own body as The Temple of God.17 While Christ’s body as the Temple of God has a much greater and richer significance than our individual bodies being temples of God, the point of derivation and overlap cannot be ignored. The Son of God tabernacled among men,18 the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily,19 and was given the Spirit without measure.20 We are tent-dwelling sojourners in this world, redeemed sinners in whom the fullness of the God does not dwell bodily, and who do not possess the Holy Spirit without measure, whose flesh lusts against the Spirit as he works to conform us to Christ’s image.21

VII. What This Means for Us

The significance of our bodies being temples of the Holy Spirit lies in the fact that they are to be governed by the Holy Spirit as he teaches us from his Word, thereby making us wise and capable of discerning what is the good and perfect will of God. The good and perfect will of God is comprised of those good works which God has ordained for his people,22 and fall under two categories – 1. Good works explicitly commanded by God in his Law, and 2. Works that are judged to be in accordance with God’s Word after prayerful study and reflection on the explicit and implicit teaching of Scripture. And these two categories of good works constitute the whole of our Christian life, rendering all of our daily activities either fulfilled or failed attempts at worship.

Thinking for oneself in light of the Scriptures’ explicit and implicit teaching, in other words, is a daily act of worship in which all Christians must engage. Forcing Christians to act against our consciences, insofar as they are informed by the Word of God, not only violates our freedom of conscience and our God-given right to worship God freely, but also forces us to sin against God. This is an attack on our ability to live in accordance with Scripture and, therefore, an attack on the Christian faith (which addresses all areas of our life) in its entirety.

Consequently, forced vaccination – whether by physical coercion, intellectual and/or emotional manipulation, or government mandates – is something with which we cannot comply, lest we sin against our Lord and Savior by subordinating his Word and Spirit to the words, wishes, and powers of men and their institutions. The Christian system of doctrine teaches us that man’s body is his own possession, a creation meant to be ruled and governed by the Spirit and Word of God. Christians, in particular, are revealed to be temples, places of worship, which must be governed by the Spirit and the Word. The subordination of the Word of God and his Spirit to any authority constitutes a flagrant act of idolatry in which no Christian can, or would want to, participate.

Ultimately, the Christian is free, and must be free, to reflect on all of his actions in light of the revealed Word of God (explicit and implicit). He is free, and must be free, to judge whether or not taking an experimental medication is in accordance with the revealed Word of God (explicit and implicit).

1 Ch. 1, Art. 6.

2 cf. Heb 4:12-14.

3 2nd Tim 3:16-17.

4 WCF, Ch. 1, Art. 10.

5 ibid., Ch. 16, Art. 1.

6 See, Isa 5:20-21; Mark 7:9-13; 1st Tim 1:8-11.

7 WLC, A.1.

8 Rom 14:23b. (emphasis added)

9 1st Cor 10:31. (emphasis added)

10 Rom 12:1-2. (emphasis added)

11 cf. Heb 10:19-25.

12 See 1st Cor 11:17-22 (this is implicit to Paul’s rhetorical question in v.22a), Eph 2:18-20, 1st Tim 3:1-5 & 14-15, 2nd Tim 2:15-21, 1st Pet 2:4-6 & 4:17, Heb 3:1-6 & 10:19-25.

13 2nd Cor 5:1-10.

14 2nd Pet 1:13-14. (emphasis added) [N.B. I’ve used the NKJV rendering here because the ESV does not provide a translation of the original Greek here, but interprets the Greek word as an analogy/metaphor for the body. This interpretation is correct, but it subtly undermines the significance of the original wording. If the body is the Lord’s tabernacle, this ties directly into Peter’s identification of believers as “sojourners” in the present age (cf. 1st Pet 2:11).]

15 The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s, 2006), 194. (emphasis added)

16 1st Cor 6:19-20.

17 See John 2:13-21.

18 cf. John 1:14.

19 cf. Col 1:19-20 & 2:9.

20 cf. John 3:34-35.

21 cf. Gal 5:16-25.

22 cf. Eph 2:10.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

-          Genesis 1:1

“The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.”  Thus reads Chapter 1, Section 4 of The Westminster Confession of Faith. 

Last week it was mentioned that it would be both foolish and impious of me to attempt to prove that the 66 books of the Bible are the infallible and inerrant Word of God.  The foolishness of this project, as you may recall, was found in the axiomatic position the Bible plays in the Christian system of thought. 

An axiom is a first principle, an unproven and unprovable first principle.  The reason an axiom is unproven and unprovable lies in the very definition of the term “axiom” itself.  If one were to prove a first principle, then it would no longer be a first principle.  Whatever argument used to prove the axiom would take the original axiom’s place as the new first principle.  

Some Christians may be concerned by the assertion that we do not prove the axiom of Christianity – The Bible Alone is the Word of God – supposing that somehow this puts Christianity on a shaky footing.  But this concern can be assuaged by remembering that all systems of thought – and this includes all secular systems of thought of the sort the world delights to throw at Christians – have their axioms.  In this case, the Christian with his axiom is no worse off than the secular scientist or philosopher with his axioms.  The Christian begins his thinking in one place, the 66 books of the Bible.  On the other hand, the scientist begins his thinking in another place, perhaps on the axiom of the general reliability of the senses.

In addition to it being foolish to attempt to prove that the Bible is the infallible and inerrant Word of God, it was also mentioned that it would be impious to do so.  “Impious” is not a term we use often, so perhaps a definition is in order.  Merriam Webster defies it as irreverent or profane.  The notion that the fallible words of sinful man are better testimony of the truth than God’s Word itself is the very definition of impiety.  

The Westminster Confession citation above refers to several passages from Scripture to supports its claims.   

-          1 Peter 1:19, 21 And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

-          2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

-          1 John 5:9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.

It was Augustine who famously wrote, “For understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that you may understand” (Tractate 29 on John 7:14-18).  In this statement, Augustine shows himself a Scripturalist.  He attempts not to prove the Bible is the Word of God, but accepts it as true – that is, he accepts the Bible as his axiom - and his understanding of God and his works follows from this.

With all this said, let us turn to the subject at hand, which is Genesis as history.

Genesis as History  

Accepting that Genesis is history – all of Genesis is, of course, history; but in our study the special emphasis is on Genesis chapters 1-11 – is fundamental to a correct understanding of the whole of Scripture.    

The stance of this author on the doctrine of creation is that Genesis 1 teaches, and teaches clearly, that the Lord created all things of nothing by speaking them into existence in the space of six literal, 24-hour days, and that the creation was all very good.

Among Christians, this was doctrine was not seriously challenged, “until,” as Gary Crampton noted in his Trinity Review “The Days of Creation,” “the late 18th and early 19th centuries with the onslaught of evolutionary thinking.” 

In reading the works of the Reformers of the 16th century and the Puritans, one will find, as far as this author is aware, no hint of a question about the historicity of the events recorded in Genesis 1-11.

In his Annals of the World published in 1650, James Ussher began by writing, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. {Ge 1:1} The beginning of time, according to our chronology, happened at the start of the evening preceding the 23rd day of October (on the Julian calendar), 4004 BC or 710 JP [Julian Period]…On the first day {Ge 1:1-5} of the world (Sunday, October 23), God created the highest heaven and the angels.” 

It may be that Ussher is right about the day on which the world was created.  But whether he is right about this or not, this is not the main reason I quote this passage from his book.  The reason I cite it is to illustrate the point that Ussher, as was typical of those in his day, accepted without question that Genesis teaches not only that God created the world in six, literal 24-hour days, but also the closely connected point that the earth itself is about 6,000 years old.  Note that Ussher gives 4004 BC as the year of creation. 

Above it was mentioned that the doctrine of creation out of nothing, in the space of six, literal 24-hour days, and all very good, was, as far as this author is aware, the universal, or near universal testimony of the church until the about 200 years ago.  With that said, it’s worth noting that there were some in the days of John Calvin who did not accept this teaching.  This may come as a surprise to some, but the challenge to the doctrine of creation in six 24-hour days made the opposite error of today’s scientists or theistic evolutionists.  In the 21st century, we’re used to hearing theologians attempt to square the Bible with modern science by coming up with various schemes to reinterpret the creation account in Genesis to accommodate long periods of time.   For example, the day-age theory posits that the days of Genesis 1 are long periods of time, perhaps millions or billions of years. 

But those who went astray in John Calvin’s time did not do so with the day-age theory.  No.  They made the opposite error.  Instead of making the days of Genesis into millions/billions of years, they erred by claiming that God created the whole world in an instant! Writes Calvin,

Here the error of those is manifestly refuted, who maintain that the world was made in a moment.  For it is too violent a cavil to contend that Moses distributes the work which God perfected at once into six days, for the mere purpose of conveying instruction (Commentaries, Genesis).

In reading Calvin’s remarks, I am reminded of a colorful quote, often attributed to Martin Luther, which reads, “History is like a drunk man on a horse.  No sooner does he fall off on the left side, does he mount again and fall off on the right.”  Modern scholars fall on the horse on one side by positing millions or billions of years in the place of the days of Genesis, while 500 years ago scholars fell off the horse on the other by claiming that God created the world in a moment. 

Both groups are wrong.  For both have failed in their duty of taking God at his word. 

The Westminster divines, on the other hand, got it right.  In their words, “The work of creation is, God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.” 

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

-          Genesis 1:1

“The work of creation is, God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.” That’s the answer the Westminster Shorter Catechism gives to the question, “What is the work of creation?’ 

It’s one of my favorite question and answer sets from the Shorter Catechism, for the same reason as the passage in Genesis on which it is based is one of my favorite passages of Scripture: it captures elegantly, and in a few words, the astonishing work of the creation of all things.

In the introduction to his commentary on Genesis, John Gill wrote,  “In the Syriac and Arabic versions, the title of this book is "The Book of the Creation", because it begins with an account of the creation of all things; and is such an account, and so good an one, as is not to be met with anywhere else.”

Genesis is, as Gill implies in the quote above, not the only account of creation from the ancient world. The Greeks had a creation mythology, as did the Babylonians and numerous other cultures. 

But creation mythology is not limited to the ancient world.  In modern times, we have our own mythological creation account known as the Big Bang.  This account, just like the ones from the ancient world, is a garbled version of the true account of the creation of the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them as set forth in Genesis chapter 1.     

At this point, some may ask how it is I can prove that the Biblical account of creation is true and that the others are mythological and false.  The short answer to this question is that the creation account given in Genesis is part of the inerrant, infallible, 66 books that comprise the revealed Word of God.

If you ask me to prove that the 66 books of the Bible are the revealed Word of God, my answer is that not only can I not prove to you that the 66 books of the Bible are the inerrant and revealed Word of God, but also that it would be impious for me to even attempt to do so.    

Now before you think I’ve thrown in the intellectual towel and am simply trying to dodge a serious question about why I believe what I believe, let me explain this a bit further. 

The reason that I cannot and will not attempt to prove that “the Bible alone is the Word of God” is that this is the axiom of Christianity.  It would be both foolish and impious of me to attempt to prove the axiom of Christianity. 

Why would this be foolish?

Because trying to prove an axiom is absurd.  The reason it’s absurd lies in the definition of the term “axiom.” 

In his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster defined “axiom” as, “a principle received without new proof.”  Therefore, if one proves an axiom is true, it is no longer an axiom.

Another way of thinking about the axioms is to understand them as a first principle in a system of thought.  Christianity is a system of thought.  Platonism and Aristotelianism are systems of thought.  Darwinism is a system of thought.  All systems of thought, whether Christian or pagan, have one thing in common.  They all have a beginning point, a first principle.  As John Robbins once put it in an email to this author, all thinking must begin somewhere.  The proposition that stands first in a system of thought is called an axiom.  It is a first principle.     

This may seem like an obvious point, but one of the most important things to remember about first principles is that they are, by definition, first.  If a first principle could be proven, it would no longer be a first principle.  The proof of the original axiom would then become the new first principle.

Gordon Clark well understood the necessity of unproven and unprovable first principles, writing about them in God’s Hammer,

Christianity is often repudiated on the ground that it is circular: The Bible is authoritative because the Bible authoritatively says so.  But this objection applies no more to Christianity than to any philosophic system or even to geometry.  Every system of organized propositions depends of necessity on some indemonstrable premises, and every system must make an attempt to explain how these primary premises come to be accepted.

The axiom of Christianity is, “the Bible alone is the Word of God.”  As Christians, we begin all our thinking with this proposition.    

As Clark indicated in the quote above, this leads us to another important question for Christians, why do we accept the premise that the Bible alone is the Word of God?  There are, after all, other texts that many people believe hold divine authority.  The Koran is one such example.  There are others.  The pronouncements of modern-day scientists hold much the same authority in the minds of many people in our time.  Think about the how the climate change advocates present their case.  “The science is settled,” they frequently tell us.  If you don’t agree, you’re a “science denier,” a 21st century version of a heretic.  

If you were to ask me why I believe the account of creation as set forth in Genesis – and just to be clear, when I say that I believe the account in Genesis, I do not mean this in some qualified way, such as those who advocate theistic evolution or some other scheme that denies what the Word of God plainly teaches; I believe it in the common sense that it was understood by Christians before the age of Darwinism; that is to say, I believe that God spoke the universe into existence out of nothing, in the space of six literal twenty-four hour days, and all very good -  I could provide several subordinate reasons.

One I’ve already given above.  The account of creation found in Genesis is astonishingly well written.  It is at once simple enough for a child to grasp, yet profound in its implications such that Job was reduced to silence when the Lord questioned him, asking, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”    

A second argument I could give for believing what the Bible teaches about creation is that it fits remarkably well with the rest of the Scriptures.  Above it was mentioned that Christianity is a system of thought.  This is an important point in the thought of both Gordon Clark and John Robbins.  Christianity is not, as some seem to think in our own time, a grab bag of ideas all thrown together in a heap.  Christianity is a logical system of thought.

Because Christianity is a system of thought, denying the account of creation as set forth in Genesis necessarily calls into question other Biblical doctrines which depend on a proper understanding of Genesis. For example, if we disbelieve Genesis, we call into question God’s character.  In essence, we’re calling him a liar and saying to him that he really didn’t do the things he said he did.  And if God lied to us about his work of creation, why would we trust him in other matters?     

When we say that the various parts of the Bible fit together into a nicely consistent whole, and that this is proof that it is the Word of God, we’re using what is called the coherence theory of truth.  That is to say, a system of thought is true because its various parts fit together much as a jigsaw puzzle does.  The Westminster Confession calls this the “consent of all the parts” in Chapter 1.VI. 

The two reasons I’ve laid out here for why I believe the 66 books of the Bible, including Genesis chapter 1, are true are, I think, good reasons.  But they are not in themselves conclusive. 

Indeed, the Roman Catholic Church-State did not find such arguments conclusive at the time of the Reformation, nor does it now.  According to Gordon Clark,

At the time of the Reformation when Luther and Calvin appealed to the Scriptures, the Roman Church argued that it and it alone accredited the Scriptures, and that therefore the Protestants could not legitimately use the Scriptures without first submitting to Rome.  People were supposed to accept God’s Word only on the authority of the church (God’s Hammer, 16). 

But if the majesty of the style of Scripture – for example the remarkable literary skill already mentioned that one finds in Genesis – or the way the doctrines of the Bible fit together so well despite the many authors, circumstances and even languages in which it was written are not conclusive reason for believing the Bible is the Word of God.  What is? 

Clark answers,

Against this claim [that the Church-State’s authority was needed to authenticate the Scriptures] the reformers developed the doctrine of the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The belief that the Bible is the Word of God, so they taught, is neither the result of a papal pronouncement nor a conclusion inferred from prior premises; it is a belief which the holy Spirit himself produces in our minds (16).

Or as the Westminster Confession puts it,

Our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth [of Scripture] and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

That is to say, saving faith, which consists of both understanding and consenting to the doctrines of Scripture, is a gift of God, is produced by of the God the Holy Spirit regenerating our hearts. 

Why do Christians accept what the Bible teaches about creation in Genesis 1 and reject the accounts of the ancient creation myths, the secular philosophers, and the modern Darwinists?  Because God the Holy Spirit has caused them to believe the Bible and to reject other truth claims. 

All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean:  he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.

-          Leviticus 13:46

"We haven't faced an enemy like we are facing today in 102 years - we are at war. In the time of war, we must make sacrifices, and I thank all of our Ohio citizens for what they are doing and what they aren't doing. You are making a huge difference, and this difference will save lives," said Governor DeWine. "Right now, we are in a crucial time in this battle. What we do now will slow this invader so that our healthcare system will have time to treat those who have contracted COVID-19 and also have time to treat those who have other medical problems. Time is of the essence." Thus reads the announcement on the Ohio.gov website where the state’s Stay At Home Order is also listed. 

Clearly, Governor DeWine takes the coronavirus [the Ohio.gov website calls it COVID-19] outbreak very seriously.  Note the repeated use of military terminology in the quote above.  We are told that “We haven’t faced an enemy like we are facing today in 102 years” [apparently, this is a reference to the 1918 outbreak of the Spanish Flu]…“we are at war”…“In time of war”…”we are in a crucial time in this battle”…”What we do now will slow this invader.”

With all this military terminology, one wonders when the Governor plans to institute a draft.  Then on second thought, in a way, he already has.  As the website notes, beginning March 23, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. Ohioans are under a Stay At Home Order.  This order is effective until 11:59 p.m. on April 6, 2020 “unless the order is rescinded or modified.”  This order applies to everyone, and as of this writing on March 29, no recension or modification of this order has been announced.  So in a way, all Ohioans already have been drafted into the Governor’s war. 

One question that seems not to have been asked in the wake of Governor DeWine’s announcement is, on what authority does he give this order?  Reading through the order, one finds that it contains provisions that shutter a not insignificant portion of the businesses within the state.  What is the legal basis for the Governor’s order?

One possible answer is that Ohio has adopted some form of “Medical Martial Law” legislation that was propagated in the wake of the Swine Flu pandemic in 2009.  Researcher James Corbett produced a video back in 2009 related to the Swine Flu pandemic which he titled Medical Martial Law and which dealt with the legislative response that followed the outbreak of that pandemic.  In his video, Corbett states that something called “The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act” was drafted by the Center for Law and the Public’s Health at Georgetown University (Jesuits) and Johns Hopkins University.  According to the website of The Centers for Law & the Public’s Health, the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA) “grants public health powers to state and local public health authorities to ensure a strong, effective, and timely planning, prevention, and response mechanisms to public health emergencies (including bioterrorism) while also respecting individual rights.” 

The website boasts that forty-four states have adopted MSEHPA in whole or in part, but, curiously, Ohio is not listed among them.  Neither was I able to find anything on other websites linking MSEHPA to Ohio.  That being the case, this model legislation, as dangerous as it is, apparently is not the basis for the Governor’s actions.

According to the language in the Order itself, the basis for the Order is R.C. [Revised Code] 3701.13 which allows the Director of the Ohio Department of Health to “make special orders…for preventing the spread of contagious or infectious diseases.”  

That said, although he doesn’t come out and say it directly, Governor DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton (Ohio’s Director of Health) seem eager for the public to see the Stay At Home Order as some form of Medical Martial Law.  This can be seen from the Governor’s own words, laden as they are with military terminology.        

Are Quarantines Biblical?

As Christians, we must always ask ourselves “What do the Scriptures say?” when thinking through the circumstances we come across in our lives.  This includes the words and actions of civil magistrates.  In this case, let us start by asking this question, are quarantines biblical? 

The short answer to this question is, yes, they are.  We know this from the Law of Moses which details procedures for placing in quarantine those diagnosed with certain illnesses or those who have become ceremonially unclean for some reason.  There are many such passages in the Old Testament Law.  Here is one example:

And the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, “When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling, a scab, or a bright spot, and it becomes on the skin of his body like a leprous sore, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests. The priest shall examine the sore on the skin of the body; and if the hair on the sore has turned white, and the sore appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a leprous sore. Then the priest shall examine him, and pronounce him unclean. But if the bright spot is white on the skin of his body, and does not appear to be deeper than the skin, and its hair has not turned white, then the priest shall isolate the one who has the sore seven days. And the priest shall examine him on the seventh day; and indeed if the sore appears to be as it was, and the sore has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall isolate him another seven days. Then the priest shall examine him again on the seventh day; and indeed if the sore has faded, and the sore has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only a scab, and he shall wash his clothes and be clean. But if the scab should at all spread over the skin, after he has been seen by the priest for his cleansing, he shall be seen by the priest again. And if the priest sees that the scab has indeed spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is leprosy” (Leviticus 13:1-8).

Individuals who were unclean were pronounced unclean by the priest and were required to dwell outside the camp.

“Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall be unclean.  All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean.  He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp” (Leviticus 13:45-46).

It’s worth noting that Jesus himself gave implied support to the Levitical quarantine laws in the account of his healing the ten lepers in Samaria.  Luke tells us in 17:11-19 that, upon being implored by ten lepers to heal them, Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests, which was in accordance with the laws concerning leprosy set forth in Leviticus chapter 13. 

There are other examples of quarantines in Scripture, but the citations above are enough to show that quarantines themselves are not in conflict with the Bible’s teachings.

Is Ohio’s Stay At Home Order Biblical?

Although we have shown that quarantines have Biblical support, this does not necessarily mean that all quarantines meet the standards of Scripture.  So let’s ask another question, is Ohio’s stay at home order biblical? 

In the opinion of this author, the answer is no.  Not because quarantines themselves are wrong, but because Ohio’s Stay At Home Order, which is a type of quarantine, applies too broadly.  In an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus, the Governor and Health Director have drafted an order that applies to all individuals regardless of whether they exhibit symptoms of coronavirus or have even been tested for the disease. 

One way of illustrating my point is to look at the Bible’s view of criminal justice.  Ask yourself this question, is the Bible’s stance on criminal justice one of crime punishment or crime prevention?  The correct answer is crime punishment. Although I do not have the reference handy, this point was brought up in a lecture by John Robbins, and my remarks on the Bible’s view of criminal justice are drawn from his comments. 

According to Robbins, the Bible focuses on crime punishment.  In the Law of Moses there are many clear statements concerning the civil law.  There were commandments on what people were to do and not to do as well as civil punishments for those who violated the law.  Worth noting, although all violations of the Law of God were sinful, not all were crimes. Put another way, some sins were also crimes.  The way you can tell the difference is whether there are civil penalties – e.g. restitution in the case of theft, death in cases of murder - attached to them.  Those violations of the law that did not have civil penalties, while sinful, were not crimes. 

But while there were laws set forth for the punishment of crimes in ancient Israel, there was no bureaucratic regulatory body set up to punish the innocent by burdening them with regulations designed to prevent crime.  For example, murder was prohibited in the Ten Commandments but there was no government Sword Control Administration that, in the name of preventing murder, required people to register their swords with the government or prevented people from owning them.

If a man was accused or murder, the Law provided for due process for the accused.  If found guilty, the law also provided for the punishment of the guilty individual.  That was all. 

Israel’s quarantine laws were similar.  To be quarantined, one first had to show himself to a priest for examination.  The Law laid out in great detail the process the priest was to go through, and it was only after all the steps in the process had been followed that a man could be declared unclean and quarantined outside the camp.  There were no general quarantines announced in the name of preventing disease.  Only those who were determined to be infected after the priest had followed due process were quarantined.       

The Dangers of Ignoring Due Process

Due process is a bulwark against arbitrary government.  Going back to the Biblical laws concerning leprosy.  Suppose for a moment that the priestly examination process did not exist or was circumvented.  One can easily see how the leprosy statue could become a political weapon.  All one would have to do to have his enemy put outside the camp would be to accuse him of having leprosy, present him to a priest that was a little shady or on the take, and have him declared unclean.

In like fashion, there are those who today are greatly concerned, this author among them, that giving governments the power to shut down private businesses and essentially put people under house arrest who have never received due process to show that they are ill or are carriers of a communicable disease represents a step toward tyranny.  

Now some may argue that the Governor has no intention of being a tyrant and has only the best motives.  Even so, there is a problem.  Going back to the Biblical example of identifying lepers, even if someone accused his neighbor of having leprosy, not having hated him in times past, and even if the priests were honest and not greedy for a bribe, lack of due process in examining possible lepers would almost certainly result in people being put outside the camp who did not deserve to be so treated.  This would represent a gross injustice to them and possible financial and social ruin for the rest of the family as well. 

Although I do not have estimates of how many people have been put out of work or owners who have had their businesses restricted or closed by the Governor’s Order, the number must be significant.  According to the order,

All places of public amusement, whether   indoors or outdoors, including, but not limited to, locations with amusement rides, carnivals, amusement parks, water parks, aquariums, zoos, museums, arcades, fairs, children's play centers, playgrounds, funplexes, theme parks, bowling alleys, movie and other theaters, concert and music halls, and country clubs or social clubs shall be closed.

Even businesses that are allowed to remain open have had restrictions placed on them.  For example, I had to pay a visit to my local computer store.  Upon arrival, I found on the door of the establishment that the store was prohibited from allowing more than thirty customers in the store at once.  This meant that the store had to pay associates to organize incoming customers in a way that would comply with this order rather than going about their normal duties.  Most likely, the store’s sales are being negatively impacted.  Further, customers were forced to bear the cost of waiting in line and of delays in completing their purchases. 

Now you may argue that this is a minor inconvenience, but multiply this statewide and the cost of complying with this new regulation is probably not small.     

Not Just an Ohio Problem

I have written in some detail about Medical Martial Law as it has been applied in the State of Ohio, because it’s where I live.  Many other states have similar or even more restrictive laws concerning the coronavirus outbreak. 

Just this weekend, President Donald Trump let it be known that he was thinking about imposing a quarantine on the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.  Politico reports that the measure would have been “an enforceable quarantine.” While it’s not clear what is meant by “enforceable quarantine,” it appears to mean severely restricting movement in and out of these states.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo seemed to take it that way, asserting that the idea amounted to a “declaration of war on states.”

Outside the U.S. things aren’t any better.  Several countries in Europe have been locked down as has been Australia.

Closing Thoughts

The focus of this post has been to discuss one aspect of the governmental response to coronavirus that has received little attention from pundits, namely, it is an attempt to answer the question, what do the Scriptures say about quarantines? 

In the opinion of this author, there is a strong case to be made from the Bible that quarantines are permitted.  But this is not to say that all quarantines meet with biblical guidelines.  As the biblical approach to criminal justice is one of crime punishment, not crime prevention, so too the biblical standard for quarantine is disease “punishment” not disease prevention.   As one does not regulate society to prevent crime, thus punishing the innocent, so too one does not quarantine everyone, including the healthy, to prevent the spread of disease.  Just as in biblical criminal justice, punishment is meted out only after due process is given to the accused, so too the biblical approach to quarantine is to isolate only those individuals who have been found to carry the disease.  If it is unjust to punish the innocent along with the guilty, so too is it unjust to quarantine the healthy along with the sick.  Yet governments to a large degree have opted to do just this, quarantine the healthy along with the sick.  This is unjust.

Once again, I find myself looking back at the year past and peering forward at the one to come.   As is no doubt the case with many, this is for me a bittersweet annual experience.  By God’s grace, I can say that I have been partially successful in redeeming the time.  But a little honest reflection convicts me that I could have, and should have, done better. 

Sin, it would seem, is ever present with me, tainting even my best works. 

But thanks be to God, for it is not my own works that justify me.  Rather, I am acceptable to God “only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to [me], and received by faith [belief] alone.” 

Truly, the grace of God is amazing toward sinners! It’s as if God were to say to us wretched rebels, “All your guilt, all your hopelessness, all your fear of death and of righteous judgment and of eternal punishment, these things I have taken away in my Son.  Only believe in him and be saved from the wrath to come.”

Now that in itself is the best offer any of us will ever hear. Maybe you’ve had the opportunity to avail yourself of some year end bargain hunting.  Certainly, there are some good deals to be had out there.  And it’s a good feeling to find something you’re shopping for at a discount.  But the best deal you and I could ever find at a store pales in comparison to the extraordinary offer the eternal God of the universe has made in his Son Jesus Christ. 

But it gets better. 

You see, when a sinner believes the Gospel of Jesus Christ – the Gospel is the good news of what Christ has done to save his people – there’s more to it than just forgiveness of sins, as if that weren’t enough. 

No, it gets better.  You see, the Lord not only justifies and fully saves his people through belief in his Son alone, but he says to them, “That whole business about wrath and death and damnation, I’ve already taken care of that for you in my Son, in whom you have believed.  Don’t worry about it anymore.  As the army of Egypt was drowned in the Red Sea no more to threaten my people Israel forever, because you have trusted in my Son, so too has the handwriting of the law which was against you been blotted out.

But for all that, you’re still a man of unclean lips, and you dwell among a people of unclean lips.  I have much to teach you.  I bid you, come and study my Word and be sanctified.  What is more, I want you to go and stand and speak to a dying world.  Proclaim to it my Word and be Christ to your neighbor.  And you know what?  Because I am a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in goodness and truth, a God who loves his children, I’ll even reward you for your efforts, feeble and sinful though they be.”        

“Seriously?,” I’m tempted to respond in my flesh. 

“Yes, seriously,” says the Lord. 

How great is that!  Not only are Christians saved from eternal punishment and promised heaven itself just by believing God, they have before them the opportunity, not only to continue to learn from Christ himself, but the honor of working for the King, who will even reward them just for doing his bidding. 

Thinking about all that makes it easy to understand why John Newton wrote “Amazing Grace.” 

So, why is it I write this blog?  Look no further than what I said above.  The Lord God has been gracious to me in Christ Jesus far above and beyond anything that I have any right to claim.  He has called me forth and saved me through belief in the truth.  Further, he has continued to teach me and given me work to do. 

Not that my work saves me.  My salvation is in Christ alone.  It was a done deal the day I put my faith in Jesus Christ. 

But just because good works don’t save, doesn’t mean that good works have no place in the life of a Christian.  In fact, as Paul tells us in Ephesians, Christians are created in Christ for the very purpose of doing good works: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

“So,” you may be saying to yourself, “that’s all very well and good, but what has all this to do with a 2019 Year in Review post?”

The answer is everything.

You see, were it not for the Lord’s grace to this sinner, I never would have known about salvation in Christ alone.  I never would have had the opportunity to read and learn from extraordinary Christian teachers such as Gordon Clark and John Robbins, and I never would have been moved to write this blog.

In 2008, the Trinity Foundation had just published my book Imagining a Vain Thing, a book dealing with the controversy that effectively destroyed Knox Seminary. 

It was for me both an exciting time and a sad time.  It was exciting to see the book in print, my first published writing and a project that had been a year-and-a-half in the making.  It was a sad time, as John Robbins, who had helped me a great deal with the writing of Imagining a Vain Thing, had gone to be with the Lord just a few weeks before the book came out.   

I had enjoyed writing the book and didn’t want that to be the end of road for me as a writer.  More importantly, I felt a real responsibility to continue to take all I had learned from Clark and Robbins and, as I was able, to continue to keep ideas before the public.  But more than just repeating what they had taught, I wanted to develop and apply their ideas as circumstances called for it.  The Scripturalist enterprise – Scripturalism is the name John Robbins gave to Clark’s philosophy, which held that the Bible, and the Bible alone, has a systematic monopoly on truth – had only just begun under the leadership of Clark and Robbins.  But John Robbins’ passing had left big shoes to fill.

In late 2008, there were very few writers who even knew what Scripturalism was, let alone who were favorable to it, let alone who were actively writing.  At the time, the only Scripturalist blog that I was aware of was Sean Gerety’s excellent God’s Hammer, so starting a Scripturalist blog of my own seemed like a good way to do my part to further the work.

On March 22, 2009 I published my first post on my new blog Lux Lucet.  The title of that post was Diverse weight and measures.  That post was a critique of the Federal Reserve’s then revolutionary program of Quantitative Easing (QE), which was just a fancy sounding term for money printing.  QE was simply a new twist on the age-old practice of monetary debasement, a technique governments the world over have used to cover their profligate spending by stealthily stealing purchasing power from their peoples’ money.  

This means that in March 2019, Lux Lucet turned 10 years old.  Unbelievable!   

When I got into blogging back in 2009, blogs were still a fairly new thing, I had very little idea what I was doing, and hoped that somewhere, somehow, someone might actually read what I had written. 

As it turns out, they did.

Mind you, not very many.  But a few people did read that post and the few other posts I wrote that year.  The total number of hits on my blog for 2009?  A whopping 547. 

But there was another blogging milestone I celebrated in November 2019:  The fifth anniversary of writing at least once a week.

For the first five years I wrote Lux Lucet, I was an occasional poster.  Sometimes I’d post a few articles a month, sometimes I’d go months without posting.  It was in November 2014 that I prayed to God to grant me the strength to blog at least once a week. 

Sixty-one months later, I can tell you that God has answered that prayer in the affirmative.  In all that time, not a week has gone by that I have not posted at least one article. 

To put these two accomplishments in some perspective, consider that, at least according to this article, “the average blog is dead after a mere 100 days.”

With that in mind, to have sustained a blog for over 10 years now, and to have regularly posted for over 5 years, is very satisfying on a personal level.

I don’t say this to boast in my own abilities as a writer, or to say, “look at all the great stuff I’ve accomplished with hard work and determination.”

God forbid that I should boast in anything but the cross of Christ!

The reason I mention this at all is to encourage you.  As a writer, as a Christian, I’m nothing special.  The truth be known, I’m some guy with a single semester of Seminary training to my credit.  If the Lord can take this sinner and grant him the grace and strength to write a Christian blog for over 10 years, he can and will give you the strength to do the work to which he has called you, whatever that may be. 

Perhaps the Lord is calling you to write a blog, start a podcast or a YouTube channel in 2020.  God knows, we need Christians of sound mind to speak the truth on the internet.  If you’ve never done anything of this sort and would like a help getting started, just let me know.  I’ll be happy to share what I can with you.

Perhaps the Lord has something else in mind for you in the coming year.  Maybe you even know what that is, but for some reason, instead of being an Isaiah and saying “here I am, send me,” you’ve played the Jonah and fled from the face of the Lord. 

How did that work out for Jonah?

If that’s you, then you need to repent and get to work.

On the other hand, maybe you’re a Christian at a loss as to what the Lord is calling you to do.  For what it’s worth, I’ve been there too.  In fact, I still have questions about what God wants me to do concerning this or that situation. 

If that describes you, then you need to be in the Word and in prayer.  Earnestly seek God’s face, asking him to grant you knowledge of his Word and wisdom to apply it to your life.  Ask him direction about how he wants you to serve him now and in the coming year. 

He is faithful and he will answer.

In closing, I would like to thank the Father, Son and Holy Ghost for the grace and strength to complete another year of blogging.  It has been both a calling and a joy to serve as a writer.

Secondly, I’d like to thank you, the reader, for your support and encouragement over the past 12 months.  It has been my prayer that my writing has served to edify and encourage you, and I look forward to serving you in 2020.

Thirdly, I would be remiss if I did not thank Mr. John Bradshaw for the great help he has been to me throughout the year.  If my posts are a little more polished with fewer typos than in years past, this has been the result of his efforts.    

Now may the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God grant to you and to your family grace and peace, both now and in the year to come. 

Amen.

On 11/10/2019, the sermon preached by Pastor Joe Rosales continued from Romans 9:14-29.

The doctrine of predestination has always been controversial, especially in our democratic and increasingly socialist nation, which demands equality of outcome for all, so God is obligated to save everyone. Romans 9 disposes of such unbiblical views. And if you have a problem with what Paul wrote, you have a problem with God Himself: “If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord” (‭‭I Corinthians‬ ‭14:37‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). We should expect objections when explaining the doctrine of election:

What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. (Romans‬ ‭9:14-16‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

So what does it mean that “the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go”? (Exodus‬ ‭10:20‬ ‭NKJV‬‬) Does it mean that God abandoned pharaoh to his already hardened heart? That God removed his hand of restraint from pharaoh and left him to his destruction? Is it the mere wrath of abandonment? If God actively hardened pharaoh’s heart, would that make him the author of sin? Does not God say that “the king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, Like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes”? (Proverbs‬ ‭21:1‬ ‭NKJV).‬‬ Does the Potter form jars of dishonor in an indirect manner? Who is the One who forms/makes (Romans 9:21 (Byz): ποιῆσαι) and prepares (Romans 9:22 (Byz): κατηρτισμένα) the vessels of wrath? The clay or the Potter?

But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? (Romans‬ ‭9:20-24‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

According to God, “I form light and I create darkness; I make peace and I create evil; I am Yahweh; I do all these things” (Isaiah‬ ‭45:7‬ ‭LEB‬‬). Gordon Clark explains:

This is a verse that many people do not know is in the Bible. Its sentiment shocks them. They think that God could not have created evil. But this is precisely what the Bible says, and it has a direct bearing on the doctrine of predestination.

Some people who do not wish to extend God’s power over evil things, and particularly over moral evils, try to say that the word evil here means such natural evils as earthquakes and storms. The Scofield Bible notes that the Hebrew word here, ra, is never translated sin. This is true. The editors of that Bible must have looked at every instance of ra in the Old Testament and must have seen that it is never translated sin in the King James Version. But what the note does not say is that it is often translated wickedness, as in Genesis 6:5, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the Earth.” In fact, ra is translated wickedness at least fifty times in the Old Testament; and it refers to a variety of ugly sins. The Bible therefore explicitly teaches that God creates sin. This may be an unpalatable thought to a good many people. But there it is, and everyone may read it for himself. As this becomes a major point in predestination, and forms one of the main objections to the doctrine, we shall discuss it later. But let no one limit God in his creation. There is nothing independent of him. (Predestination, http://www.trinitylectures.org/predestination-p-128.html)

And Gary Crampton:

Standing on the “rock foundation” of the Word of God as our axiomatic starting point (Matthew 7:24-25), we have an answer to the problem of evil. God, who is altogether holy and can do no wrong, sovereignly decrees evil things to take place for his own good purposes (Isaiah 45:7). Just because He has decreed it, his action is right. As Jerome Zanchius wrote: “The will of God is so the cause of all things, as to be, itself without cause, for nothing can be the cause of that which is the cause of everything. Hence we find every matter resolved ultimately into the mere sovereign pleasure of God. God has no other motive for what He does than ipsa voluntas, His mere will, which will itself is so far from being unrighteous that it is justice itself.”

Sin and evil therefore exist for good reasons: God has decreed them as part of His eternal plan, and they work not only for His own glory, but also for the good of his people. With this Biblical premise in mind, it is easy to answer anti-theists, such as David Hume, who argue that the pervasiveness of evil in the world militates against the existence of the Christian God. (“A Biblical Theodicy,” http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=141)

And Clark again:

…God [is] the cause of sin. God is the sole ultimate cause of everything. There is absolutely nothing independent of him. He alone is the eternal being. He alone is omnipotent. He alone is sovereign. Not only is Satan his creature, but every detail of history was eternally in his plan before the world began; and he willed that it should all come to pass. The men and angels predestined to eternal life and those foreordained to everlasting death are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished. Election and reprobation are equally ultimate….

The secondary causes in history are not eliminated by divine causality, but rather they are made certain. And the acts of these secondary causes, whether they be righteous acts or sinful acts, are to be immediately referred to the agents; and it is these agents who are responsible.

God is neither responsible nor sinful, even though he is the only ultimate cause of everything. He is not sinful because in the first place whatever God does is just and right. It is just and right simply in virtue of the fact that he does it. Justice or righteousness is not a standard external to God to which God is obligated to submit. Righteousness is what God does. Since God caused Judas to betray Christ, this causal act is righteous and not sinful. By definition God cannot sin. At this point it must me particularly pointed out that God’s causing a man to sin is not sin. There is no law, superior to God, which forbids him to decree sinful acts. Sin presupposes a law, for sin is lawlessness. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. But God is “Ex-lex.” (Religion, Reason, and Revelation, in The Works of Gordon Haddon Clark: Christian Philosophy, Vol. 4, pp. 267, 268-69, http://www.trinitylectures.org/christian-philosophy-the-works-of-gordon-haddon-clark-volume-paperback-p-145.html).

“The LORD has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom” (Proverbs‬ ‭16:4‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

What was once the Semper Reformanda Radio Podcast and Blog on the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network is now ThornCrown Ministries, which includes a new lineup of podcasts known as the ThornCrown Network.

The ThornCrown Network consists of Semper Reformanda Radio (SRR) with Tim Shaughnessy, Carlos Montijo, and Tim Kauffman; Radio Lux Lucet (RLL) with Steve Matthews; and The Protestant Witness (TPW) with Patrick Hines. We're privileged and blessed to have Mr. Matthews and Pastor Hines join our network with their outstanding content.

We're also very excited to have Mr. Tom Juodaitis, President of The Trinity Foundation, and Ryan Denton of Christ in the Wild Ministries as guests on Semper Reformanda Radio. For more information about our contributors, visit the Authors & Contributors page.

Our new blog is The Scripturalist, the name of which was inspired by the philosophy and theology of Gordon Clark and John Robbins. Here you can find articles from all our contributors and more.

ThornCrown Ministries is a reality thanks in large part to the generosity of brother Ryan Denton, and to brother Tim Hurd for graciously offering us a platform on the BTWN back in June 2016. We had a great experience and look forward to collaborating with them in the future. For more information about our transition from the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network, view or listen to our interview with Tim Hurd.

Your prayers and support will be greatly appreciated as we continue providing sound Biblical content with this new platform the Lord has blessed us with.

Semper Reformanda

Uploaded by The Biblethumpingwingnut Network on 2018-04-14.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.

- Romans 1:20

If you've ever read a book or heard a lecture on Christian apologetics, there's a good chance Romans 1:19-20 were brought up.  Perhaps these verses were cited as proof that all men know God, so that no one could claim ignorance of God on judgment day.  That, of course, is true.  Responsibility is based on knowledge, and since God has revealed himself to all men, all men are accountable to him. 

Bible commentators, as well as the authors of the Westminster Confession, have identified two ways in which God reveals himself to men:  general revelation and special revelation.

Special revelation is identical with the 66 books of the Bible.  The Scriptures are God's written, propositional revelation, which principally teach us, "What man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man," in the words of the Shorter Catechism.    

But what about general revelation?  Just what is it that is meant by this term?  The most common answer is that general revelation is identical with nature.  We are told that when men look to the heavens and see the stars, or cast their eyes upon the majestic mountains they behold God's attributes and, to that extent, know him and are therefore rightfully held responsible by him, even if they have never so much as heard the name of Jesus Christ.

Here's one example of this line of reasoning.

Paul stresses the reality and universality of divine revelation, which is perpetual ("since the creation," v.20) and perspicuous ("clearly seen," v.20).  Divine invisibility, eternity, and power are all expressed in and through the created order...The invisible God is revealed through the visible medium of creation.  This revelation is manifest; it is not obscured but clearly seen (New Geneva Study Bible).    

The commentators manifestly argue that one can reason from visible creation to an invisible God, but does this really make sense?   On one hand, such an argument is appealing to Christians.  We believe in God and rightfully want others to share that belief.  But simply because we like the conclusion of an argument does not mean that it is a good argument.  This is the case even if the conclusion of argument - that there is an immortal, invisible all wise God who created and sustains the world - is true.

So what is the problem of reasoning to an invisible God from the visible world?  One of the most basic concepts in logic is that the conclusion of an argument cannot contain an idea that was not present in its premises.  In logic textbooks students often run across a model argument that runs like this:

Major Premise:  All men are mortal. 

Minor Premise: Socrates is a man. 

Conclusion:  Therefore, Socrates is mortal.    

Notice that the conclusion "Therefore, Socrates is mortal" contains the same terms - here we're talking about "Socrates" and "mortal" - that are found in the premises.  Logicians call this a valid argument.

But let's suppose someone made this argument,

Major Premise:  All men are mortal.

Minor Premise:  Socrates is a man. 

Conclusion:  Therefore, Socrates won a gold medal in Curling during the Winter Olympics.

The problem with this second argument is clearly seen, such that you probably don't need me to point it out to you.  Although neither of the argument's premises says anything about an Olympic gold medal in Curling, it shows up in the conclusion anyway.  This is an example of an invalid argument.  And it is an invalid argument, because the conclusion contains a term - won a gold medal in Curling during the Winter Olympics - that is nowhere found in the premises.  

This is the same problem with the argument that an invisible God can be deduced from visible creation.  We cannot reason from rocks, trees and oceans - all things which are visible to the eyes - to an invisible God.  To do so would be to violate the logical principle established above that an argument cannot contain terms not found in the premises. 

The same could be said for the claim that God's eternity can be clearly seen in creation.  Lakes dry up, living creatures die, and, at least is you listen to Al Gore, polar ice caps melt away to nothing.  Scientists even claim that stars have a life cycle, some ending up as supernovas, and others becoming white dwarfs.  If anything, the observation of nature could lead one to conclude that the god who created it, if indeed there is a god at all, is of limited power and may him/her/itself be mortal.   

But even though there are significant, manifest problems with the standard explanation of Romans 1:19-20,  it largely goes unchallenged by theologians.

John Robbins was one scholar who did challenge the standard explanation of Romans 1.  For him, the key was arriving at a correct definition of the term "the things that are made."  In the quotation from the New Geneva Study Bible cited above, the commentators take the line that the term "the things that are made" refers to the creation. 

But Robbins does not accept this.  He argues, persuasively I would add, that "the things that are made" does not refer to the heavens or to mountains or trees or whales, but to men themselves.  Men are "the things that are made," not general creation.  This is another way of saying that all men have innate knowledge of God. 

For your consideration, please see the transcript below, which I made this myself from the Trinity Foundation lecture "How Not to Do Apologetics:  Evidentialism" by John Robbins.   The excerpted portion begins at the 34:04 mark.

John Robbins on Romans 1:19-20

Please turn to the first chapter of Romans.  Romans 1, and I will begin reading, I believe it's verse 16, I don't have the citation down here.  Paul writes, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.  For in it t he righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, 'The just shall live by faith.'

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness; because what may be know of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.   For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man - and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things...who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, Amen "

It is common to be told that this passage endorses the proofs for the existence of God, but if one reads it closely, one will see that that is not the case at all.  First, Paul wrote of the special revelation of the Gospel in verses 16-18.  Then in verse 19, he wrote that what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them.  Again he wrote of revelation, no longer special, but a general revelation to all men.  Furthermore, this revelation is manifest in us, that is, it is innate knowledge.  It is not something we learn.  It is not something we discover by observation or reading Aristotle's philosophy.   

Paul agreed with John, who wrote in the first chapter of his Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...In Him was life, and that life was the light of men..That was the true Light, which gives light to every man who comes into the world."

Paul continued in verse 20, "For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen."  Now think about that for a moment.  Was Paul talking about sense experience?  Can invisible attributes be seen with the eyes, let alone clearly seen?  Of course not.  Paul immediately explained what he meant in the next phrase, "and are clearly seen being understood."  Seeing here, as it frequently does in Scripture, means intellectual understanding, not sense experience.  God's invisible attributes are understood, they are not red or green or blue.  Moreover, they are understood by the things that are made. 

And here we come to a word, a phrase in English, of things that are made, that the standard understanding of these verses requires us to interpret as the physical things around us, what Thomas called the sensibles, the sensibles.  But this is the same word in Greek, translated here as the things that are made, that Paul used in Romans 9:20, "But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?  Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, 'Why have you made me like this?' " And in Ephesians 2:10, "For we are his workmanship." The Greek word is of general extension and can refer to anything made.  It need not refer only to sensible objects.  And Paul actually uses it to refer specifically to human beings in this case.  We are the things that are made.  We understand for God has shown it to us, it is manifest in us, we are without excuse because we know the eternal power and Godhead, not by observing, inferring, arguing, and inducing, but simply because we're made in the image of God.

If the standard interpretation of this passage were true, it would overturn Paul's argument in Romans 1-3, that all men are without excuse.  If our knowledge of God and moral responsibility for sin depends and sense experience, then blind and deaf people would have neither knowledge of God nor actual guilt. If we gain our knowledge of God by looking at the heavens, then those who cannot see the heavens have no knowledge of God.  But Paul wrote that all men know God, and all men are sinners, because they deny and suppress that inescapable, innate knowledge.

Furthermore, if our knowledge of God, and hence our responsibility, depended on our ability to follow Thomas's and Aristotle's arguments for the existence of God, then few there be who know God, and few there be who are sinners.  Notice that in this passage Paul does not say anything about an argument for the existence of God.  He declares that all men know God innately and immediately.  It is knowledge that they are born with.  No, even before that.  If David was conceived in sin, and if sin presupposes knowledge of right and wrong, then David had knowledge in his mother's womb, even before he had eyes and ears.  Contrary to the standard Thomistic understanding of these verses, it does not matter that some people cannot see or hear.  It does not matter than they cannot follow an intricate metaphysical argument.  They all know God.  Therefore, that knowledge of God does not come as a result of sense experience or as the conclusion of an argument.

Closing Thoughts

This is a brilliant argument by Robbins, one that convincingly shows the term "things that are made" refers to men, not inanimate objects of creation.  Men have innate knowledge of God, not as a result of looking at the physical universe, but because Christ has enlightened the minds of all men with this knowledge. 

Some may think this is a small point.  But if Robbins is right, then the empirical apologetics of Thomas Aquinas, which is also the apologetics method of many folks in the Reformed camp, is without foundation in Scripture.

And at the same time the door is closed on empirical apologetics, Robbins' argument provides strong support for Scripturalist apologetics, namely the idea that we defend Christianity, not by proving the existence of God from an appeal to the physical creation, but with the Scriptures themselves. 

The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the starting point for the Christian system of thought.  As Robbins taught elsewhere, the 66 books of the Bible are the starting point of all knowledge and the axiom of Christianity. 

The Bible alone in the Word of God. 

Many times, when we think of apologetics we think of defending the faith against unbelieving atheists. The reality is however, there are many religious unbelievers who are just as relentless in their attacks against biblical Christianity. We must remember that the disciples had to defend the faith against the religious unbelieving Jews. Therefore, it is important to understand that though our opponents might change, our method of defense stays the same. In a previous article we offered an explanation of the Scripturalist Ad Hominem reply as our presuppositional method and we gave some examples that pertained to atheism. Here we want to explore another example and deal with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Just as atheists attack the Christian worldview by claiming there is no God so too Jehovah’s Witnesses attack the Christian worldview by claiming that Jesus is not God, the second person of the Trinity. Their attacks on the deity of Christ are unrelenting and so we shall provide an internal critique of their theological position by using an ad hominem reply.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus was created by Jehovah and then Jehovah used him to create everything else. For the sake of argument, let’s accept their theological position that Jesus is a created being and compare it to their own Bible translation so that we may reduce it to absurdity by deducing from it contradictory propositions. In order to do this let’s review their primary source material and from that we shall construct a categorical syllogism.

According to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract society Jesus is not eternal but had a beginning.  According to them, “The Bible says that Jesus was created, which means that Jesus had a beginning.”[i] In other words, Jesus is not eternal and did not always exist. Although the Jehovah’s Witnesses will attempt to cite passages of scripture in support of this claim, it stands merely as an unsupported assertion which leads directly to a self-contradiction. From this theological position however, we shall construct our minor premise “Jesus is a being that came into existence.”

This should be easy to establish because the Jehovah’s Witnesses readily admit that they believe Jesus came into existence.  However, according to the New World Translation, the official Bible translation of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, speaking of Jesus it reads, “All things came into existence through him and apart from him not even one thing came into existence” (John 1:3). Notice that the first proposition in the verse “all things came into existence through him” is converted to its logical equivalent “apart from him not even one thing came into existence” by changing the quality from “all things” to “one thing” and negating the predicate. In formal logic this is referred to as an obversion and it not only affirms Jesus as Creator in the strongest way possible but it also demonstrates once again that the scriptures exhibit logical form. The translators of the NWT Bible did not fundamentally alter this verse and so we can agree with its plain teaching. We should also notice that the passage says, “all things” and not “all other things.” This will become important later when we look at Colossians 1:15-17 for comparison. For now, though, we can simply infer that if Jesus was a created being who came into existence then he must have come into existence through himself since all things came into existence through him. This verse will serve to construct our major premise “all things that came into existence are created through Jesus.” Now let’s construct our categorical syllogism.

Major Premise: All things that came into existence are created through Jesus

Minor Premise: Jesus is a being that came into existence  

Conclusion: Therefore, Jesus is created through Jesus.

In this categorical syllogism we have a valid deduction, but the conclusion is necessarily false because it is self-contradictory. In order for Jesus to be created through himself he would have to exist and not exist at the same time and in the same respect. This however, is a clear violation of the law of contradiction because “the same attribute [in this case existence] cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject [Jesus] and in the same respect.”[ii] This is a prime example of making a valid deduction from a false premise. We know that one of the premises is false because the conclusion is self-contradictory, and contradictions are false. It is very important to point out that in spite of the conclusion being false it is the inevitable consequence of their theological position.  

Despite this being a valid deduction that Jesus was created through himself the Jehovah's Witnesses flatly denied this conclusion, as they should. Unfortunately, they don’t deny the conclusion for the right reason; that is Jesus was not created because his is the Creator of all things.  Instead, they propose that Jesus was created by Jehovah as the first of his works and then Jehovah created every else through him. They write,

“Jesus is Jehovah’s most precious Son—and for good reason. He is called “the firstborn of all creation,” for he was God’s first creation. (Colossians 1:15) ... This means that Jesus is the only one directly created by God. Jesus is also the only one whom God used when He created all other things. (Colossians 1:16).”[iii]

The Jehovah’s Witnesses often cite Colossians 1:15-17 in support of this view so let’s consider what their Bible says. The New World Translation reads,

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 because by means of him all [other] things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All [other] things have been created through him and for him. 17 Also, he is before all [other] things, and by means of him all [other] things were made to exist,

First, let’s address Colossians 1:15 and the notion that Jesus was God’s first creation because he is called “the firstborn of all creation.” This is one of the most egregious instances of twisting scripture since the Devil quoted Psalms 91:11,12 to Christ in the wilderness (Matthew 4:6). In that narrative we notice that Jesus’ response was to quote scripture in order to correct his opponent the Devil and so we are apt to do the same. We ought to ask the Jehovah’s Witnesses, “have you not read that it is said of David, the youngest or last born of Jesse, ‘Also, I myself shall place him as firstborn.’ (Psalm 89:27 NWT)? Or have you not read that the Lord God said, ‘as for Ephraim, he is my firstborn,’(Jeremiah 31:9 NWT), although he was the younger brother to Manasseh (Genesis 41:50,51)?” Clearly then, this is a title that does not literally mean first to be born.

When the term firstborn is used in Colossians it does not mean first to be born and it certainly does not mean first created. This is a title given to signify a position of prominence or preeminence. The passage is saying he is the “firstborn” of all creation in the sense that he is preeminent over all of creation because all things were created for him and through him and all things are held together by him. He is before all thing because he existed before all created things. To cite this passage in order to support the Watchtowers teaching that Jesus was created directly by Jehovah and then used to create all other things is nothing short of eisegesis.

However, the Jehovah’s Witness might object and appeal to the fact that the New World Translation actually says, “all other things.” Therefore, we need to point out that the translators of the New World Translation have added the word “other” four times to verses 16 and 17 in order to support the teaching that Jesus was created. The readers need to be informed that the word “other” does not appear in the John 1:3 passage nor should it appear in this passage. That is because the word does not appear in the original Greek text and its addition to the New World Translation Bible changes the original meaning of the passage.

Ron Rhodes, former Jehovah’s Witnesses and author of the book Reasoning from The Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses points out that, “when speaking with a Jehovah’s Witness about Colossians 1:16-17, you might want to point out that the Watchtower’s own Greek interlinear version of the Bible shows that the Greek word panta means ‘all’ things and not ‘all other’ things.”[iv]

Readers should also be informed about the Watchtower’s efforts to further mislead its members by taking the word “other” out of brackets in their latest editions of the New World Translation. In the original copies of the 1984 edition of the New World Translation the word “other” is in brackets, indicating to its readers that it has been added by the translators.

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Since its original publication however they have taken the word “other” out of brackets in the latest copies thereby giving the impression that the word is part of the original Greek text of scripture.

Rhodes writes,

It is highly revealing of the Watchtower Society’s dishonesty that the 1950 version of the New World Translation did not put brackets around the four insertions of “other” in the text of Colossians 1:16-17. This made it appear that the word was actually translated from the original Greek text. The Watchtower Society was pressured into putting the brackets around these words in all editions of the New World Translation since 1961 as a result of evangelical scholars openly exposing this perversion of the text of scripture.[v]

It would appear then that the Watchtower Society is using the same old tricks in order to deceive its members. This is certainly not the first and only time that the translators of the New World Translation have altered the Bible in order to support their heretical teachings. Changes within the New World Translation could be listed at great length and the reader should familiarize themselves with as many of the changes as possible. What Christians need to understand is that the NWT is not to be trusted.

The benefit with this particular case of scripture twisting is that by putting the word “other” in brackets in some of the 1984 and earlier editions of the New World Translation, they essentially acknowledged to their members and the rest of the world that it was not part of the original Greek text. This needs to be pointed out to the individual members of the Watchtower Society.

The motive for adding the word “other” should be obvious. It is to support the doctrine that Jesus was created directly by Jehovah and then used to create all other things, which is why this particular passage is cited in their literature. This is why the Jehovah’s Witness will claim that Jesus did not come into existence through himself but was instead created directly by Jehovah.

However, their Bible clearly states in John 1:3, that all things came into existence through Jesus and the passage in Colossians would concur if the word “other” was not added by their translators. We should therefore insist that they read the passage in Colossians without inserting the word “other.” We can ask, “what does the passage actually say, not what do you want it to say?” The passage would read, “16 by means of him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. 17 Also, he is before all things, and by means of him all things were made to exist.”

Now that we have harmonized these two passages we can make the categorical proposition “all created things are created through Jesus” (All S are P). This is based off the plain teaching of the New World Translation Bible. The problem however is that the Watchtower teaches that it is all “other” things that came into existence through Jesus and that he was created directly by Jehovah. In other words, Jesus is something that came into existence but not through himself. Therefore, we can make the categorical proposition that “some created thing is not created through Jesus” (Some S are not P).

To say that “all created things are created through Jesus” and “some created thing is not created through Jesus” is to say that (All S are P) and (Some S are not P). These are contradictory propositions. This should be obvious but for the sake of clarity we shall explain why.

In formal or traditional logic there are 4 basic types of categorical propositions.

A: All S are P

I: Some S are P

E: No S are P

O: Some S are not P[vi]

In each of these categorical propositions we must identify both the quality and quantity in order to determine their relationships to one another. The quality of the proposition has to do with whether it is affirmative or negative and the quantity of a proposition has to do with whether it is universal or particular. We notice that the quality of the A and I propositions are affirmative while the quality of the E and O propositions are negative. Likewise, we notice that the quantity of the A and E propositions are universal while the quantity of the I and O propositions are particular. Now the rule of contradiction holds that “contradictory statements are statements that differ in both quality and quantity.”[vii] Here we can illustrate this with the square of opposition.

It is clear then, that A: All S are P or “all created things are created through Jesus” is a universal, and affirmative proposition and O: Some S are not P or “some created thing is not created through Jesus” is a particular, and negative proposition. Therefore, A and O are contradictory propositions because they differ in both quality and quantity.

The first law of Opposition holds that “Contradictories cannot at the same time be true nor at the same time be false.”[viii] This means that one of these propositions must be true and the other must be false. If “All S are P” is true, then “Some S are not P” is necessarily false. In other words, if John 1:3 in the New World Translation is true then the Watchtower’s teaching that Jesus was created by Jehovah is wrong. We should ask the Jehovah’s Witness “Is it true that all things came into existence through him and that apart from him not even one thing came into existence?” If they profess to believe this is true, then they have no rational justification for believing what the Watchtower teaches.

To drive the point home, if Jesus was created then either he was created through himself or he was not created through himself. These are only the only two options. If they say that Jesus was created through himself then they violate the law of contradiction because he would have to exist and not exist at the same time and in the same respect. However, if they say he was not created through himself then they still violate the law of contradiction because their Bible states that “all created things are created through Jesus” (A: All S are P) and the Watchtower organization claims “some created thing is not created through Jesus” (O: Some S are not P).

The only remedy for this charley horse between the ears is to acknowledge that Jesus was not created at all. If the Jehovah’s Witness wish to disregard the law of contradiction in order to maintain their heretical view of Christ, then they are most likely ignorant of the fact that they must first assume the law of contradiction in order to make a counter argument intelligible. We would remind our reader that “the opponents of logic must use the law of contradiction in order to denounce it. They must assume its legitimacy, in order to declare it illegitimate. They must assume its truth, in order to declare it false. They must present arguments if they wish to persuade us that argumentation is invalid. Wherever they turn, they are boxed in.”[ix]

[i] "Who Is Jesus Christ? Is Jesus God or God's Son?" JW.ORG. Accessed April 11, 2018. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-study/who-is-jesus-christ/.

[ii] John W. Robbins, “Why Study Logic?”, The Trinity Review (July/August, 1985)

[iii] "Who Is Jesus Christ? Is Jesus God or God's Son? | Bible Teach." JW.ORG. Accessed April 11, 2018. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-teach/who-is-jesus-christ/.

[iv] Rhodes, R. (2009). Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Eugene, Or.: Harvest House Publishers, p.74 (Kindle version).

[v] Rhodes, R. (2009). Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Eugene, Or.: Harvest House Publishers, p.72 (Kindle version).

[vi] “Chapter 5 The Four Statements of Logic.” Traditional Logic, by Martin Cothran, 2nd ed., Memoria Press, 2017, p. 31.

[vii] “Chapter 6 Contradictory and Contrary Statements.” Traditional Logic, by Martin Cothran, 2nd ed., Memoria Press, 2017, p. 40.

[viii] “Chapter 6 Contradictory and Contrary Statements.” Traditional Logic, by Martin Cothran, 2nd ed., Memoria Press, 2017, p. 42.

[ix] John W. Robbins, “Why Study Logic?”, The Trinity Review (July/August, 1985)

Updated 11/30/2020

What makes a true Clarkian? How much and what do you have to agree with Clark on? Which of Clark’s protégés carries the truest banner of his legacy? These questions have stirred much controversy and division amongst those who follow the teachings of Reformed philosopher-theologian Gordon Haddon Clark.

But such questions are distractions. What’s far more important than identifying “true” Clarkians is to understand what Clark himself taught, know how to evaluate secondary sources, and develop the maturity to disagree biblically, whether it’s with Clark, Clarkians, or other Christians, without unnecessary denouncements. It's foolish to judge who is or isn't a "true" Clarkian; it only damages Clark's legacy and breeds unnecessary infighting, and the history of some of Clark's followers sadly attests to this even now. All of us who value Clark—especially the coming generation of pastors, preachers, teachers—would do well to get along. There's already too much internal strife as it is, and while Clark’s influence is slowly growing, we’re still a small piece of the Reformed pie.

This isn’t the worst-case scenario we’ve witnessed, but Jason Petersen, a student at Whitefield Theological Seminary, recently denounced Luke Miner, a Scripturalism.com contributor (Jason is also a contributor), as a self-deceived Clarkian. Jason recounts in his blog:

While I have no doubt that Luke believes he is a Clarkian, he is not a Clarkian. Clark never defined knowledge as justified-true belief, yet Luke attempted to articulate (in a different thread) that notion in the Clarkian Apologetics [Facebook] Group (or at the very least, that “true belief” is not enough and that a qualifier is needed. Clark would never agree with this).  Clark instead defined knowledge as true belief, or more specifically, possession of the truth by a mind. This, and my conversation with Luke, is exactly why I proclaimed that he is not a Clarkian. Perhaps he respects Clark and agrees with him on many aspects (such as Clark’s rejection of metaphysics), but he should not call himself a Clarkian.[1]

According to Jason, a "true" Clarkian must at least agree with Clark's epistemology and maintain key terms as Clark defined them, that is, according to Jason's interpretation. Jason is making amends with Luke and others involved, though Luke "and Cjay will remain out of the [Clarkian Apologetics Facebook] group."[2]

We don’t care for petty conflicts, but this illustrates a growing tendency in some. If these little foxes are left unchecked, they will ruin their vineyard. The biblical and productive approach is to simply correct misunderstandings or misrepresentations of Clark, without pronouncements as to who the "real" Clarkian is. Especially because the accuser could be wrong. Those who denounce fellow Clarkians this way resemble Diotrephes,

who likes to put himself first, [and] does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.  (3 John 9-10)

Does Jason "like to put himself first"? Judge for yourselves:

Imagine being a professor and then having a student try to take over the class. Anyone who knows me is aware that I have little tolerance for such antics. It is also worthy to note that the Clarkian Apologetics Group is a direct product of the Gordon Clark Foundation, which, by the way, endorses this [Jason's] website.[3]

Isn’t this the carnal sectarianism that Paul warned against in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, 3:1-4? For when one says, "I am of Clark and you are not," are you not carnal? Is Christ divided? It is a sad but common practice in our day for immature believers to seek online platforms and tout spiritual influence and authority when they’re neither ready nor qualified nor called by God to do so. “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).

A Justified True Clarkian

In any case, is Jason's claim true, that Clark rejected justified true belief (JTB) and "instead defined knowledge as true belief, or more specifically, possession of the truth by a mind"? Not according to Clark himself:

A systematic philosophy must take care of epistemology. Knowledge must be accounted for. It may be that the a priori forms cannot be listed; it may be that botany or some other subject remains obscure; but knowledge of some sort must be provided.[4] ..................................................

What account shall be given of everyday “knowledge” that common sense thinks it silly to doubt? Don’t I know when I am hungry? Can’t I use road maps to drive to Boston to Los Angeles? Indeed, how can I know what the Bible says without reading its pages with my own eyes? It was one secular philosopher criticizing another, who said that knowledge is a fact and that any theory that did not account for it should be abandoned. But all such criticisms miss the point. The status of common opinion is not fixed until a theory has been accepted. One may admit that a number of propositions commonly believed are true; but no one can deny that many such are false. The problem is to elaborate a method by which the two classes can be distinguished. Plato, too, granted a place to opinion as distinct from knowledge; he even admitted that in some circumstances opinion was as useful as knowledge with a capital K. But to dispose of the whole matter by an appeal to road maps that we can see with our own eyes is to ignore everything said above about Aristotle.[5]

Clark then proceeds by arguing that there is no account of this common sense “knowledge,” and is thus not knowledge but opinion. For an opinion to be knowledge it must be both true and accounted for. Clark's unpublished paper on Plato’s theory of knowledge from the Gordon H. Clark Foundation runs along the same lines:

The term “knowledge” is very ambiguous, and, until all its meanings have been revealed, false judgment cannot really be explained. Socrates’ discussion has pointed out some of its meaning. Plato’s analysis of false judgment is included in the Sophist when the Forms have been introduced.

The “pieces of knowledge” stored in the mind are no more than true beliefs. Our attitude toward a false belief is the same as it is toward a true one. Our confidence in belief is not based on reason. Socrates contrasts a jury’s second-hand belief when convinced of the facts to the direct knowledge of the eye-witness who has seen the fact. Even if the jury finds the right verdict, they are still judging without knowledge, only belief. If true belief and knowledge were the same, a juryman could never have a correct belief without knowledge. Therefore, knowledge cannot be defined as true belief.

True belief lacked something which was necessary in order to call it knowledge. So Theaetetus suggests that knowledge is true belief accompanied by an account or explanation. Plato considers the various possible meanings of “account” and finally rejects the suggestion. The account is not enough to raise correct opinion to the level of knowledge.[6]

In Lord God of Truth Clark again concurs with Plato:

Accordingly the knowledge possible for human beings consists of the axioms of and the deductions from Scripture. We can indeed entertain opinions about Columbus, and by accident or good luck they may be true; but we could not know it. Our dear pagan Plato, at the end of his Meno (98b) declared, "That there is a difference between right opinion and knowledge (ōrtheme) is not at all a conjecture with me, but something I would particularly assert that I knew."[7]

While Clark doesn't necessarily use the term justified true belief—likely because it didn’t gain traction til the late 1970’s,[8] and he died in 1985—he clearly affirms the concept. He agrees with Plato on the distinction between belief/opinion and knowledge, as do many of his pupils. So according to his standard of "true" Clarkianism, Jason would also have to denounce Clark himself, as well as Clarkians who are more knowledgeable such as Sean Gerety, Robert Reymond, John Robbins, Gary Crampton, and even his mentor Kenneth Talbot. While Jason claims that "Clark never defined knowledge as justified-true belief,” Sean Gerety

find[s] it strange how many who claim to hold to the biblical epistemology of Gordon Clark fail to understand even the first principles of his theory. For Clark knowledge requires an account. That is, for a proposition to rise to the level of knowledge it has to be justified.[9]

Gerety explains that "knowledge, which is true belief with an account of its truth, or, simply, justified true belief (belief being the operative word), is the gift of God."[10]  In The Justification of Knowledge—the title itself is a dead giveaway—Robert Reymond argues that

Clark is a brilliant Reformed philosopher–theologian. I deeply appreciate the reflection of the Reformed view of Scripture in his assumption, on dogmatic grounds, of the self–authenticating Word of God as his axiom for knowing God or anything else as it ought to be known. I concur with him that unless one begins with God he will not arrive at a knowledge of God, nor will he be able to justify any knowledge claim.[11]

Reymond moreover "would agree that, without innate self–evident truths and without a revelational pou sto as a given, the justification of knowledge is impossible,"[12] and thus concludes:

The Church cannot expect to know the fullest blessing of God upon its evangelistic endeavors until it sets aside all accommodations to the autonomy of unbelieving man and insists, in conjunction with the proclamation of the Reformed gospel, that the authority of the word of the self–attesting Christ of Scripture is the only ground sufficiently ultimate to justify human truth claims, and that until His word is acknowledged as authoritative and placed at the basis of a given human knowledge system, that system remains unjustified and no truth assertion within it can be shown to have any meaning at all.[13]

John Robbins also makes important distinctions regarding knowledge:

There are three sorts of cognitive states: knowledge, opinion, and ignorance. Ignorance is simply the lack of ideas. Complete ignorance is the state of mind that empiricists say we are born with: We are all born with blank minds, tabula rasa, to use John Locke's phrase. (Incidentally, a tabula rasa mind - a blank mind - is an impossibility. A consciousness conscious of nothing is a contradiction in terms. Empiricism rests on a contradiction.) At the other extreme from ignorance is knowledge. Knowledge is not simply possessing thoughts or ideas, as some think. Knowledge is possessing true ideas and knowing them to be true. Knowledge is, by definition, knowledge of the truth. We do not say that a person "knows" that 2 plus 2 is 5. We may say he thinks it, but he does not know it. It would be better to say that he opines it.

Now, most of what we colloquially call knowledge is actually opinion: We "know" that we are in Pennsylvania; we "know" that Clinton - either Bill or Hillary - is President of the United States, and so forth. Opinions can be true or false; we just don't know which. History, except for revealed history, is opinion. Science is opinion. Archaeology is opinion. John Calvin said, "I call that knowledge, not what is innate in man, nor what is by diligence acquired, but what is revealed to us in the Law and the Prophets." Knowledge is true opinion with an account of its truth.[14]

In order to possess the truth, you have to know that your belief is true. That is Justified True Belief, and that is why Gary Crampton, a professor at Whitefield Theological Seminary, argues that

An important part of the Scripturalist worldview is the epistemological distinction between knowledge and opinion. Throughout the history of Western thought, philosophers such as Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle, have correctly differentiated between these two. Augustine and Gordon Clark are just two examples of Christian philosophers who have done the same. There is a difference between that which we “know” and that about which we may have opinions.

In the Scripturalist worldview, knowledge is not only possessing ideas or thoughts; it is possessing true ideas or thoughts. Knowledge is knowledge of the truth. It is justified true belief. Only the Word of God (that which, as the Westminster Confession [1:6] says, “is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture”) gives us such knowledge.

Opinions, on the other hand, may be true or false. Natural science is opinion; archaeology is opinion; history (with the exception of Biblical history) is opinion. In these disciplines we are not dealing with “facts.” In them there is no justified true belief. To “opine” something is not to “know” it. Justified truth is found only in the Word of God.[15]

Crampton also highlights what Jason misconstrues: that Clark's definition of knowledge as a mind's possession of truth is JTB, because possessing the truth requires not just a true belief/opinion, as Jason claims, but also an account of its truth from Scripture. Otherwise it's just an opinion that happens to be true.

Jason claims that Clark defined knowledge as only true belief because he equates “true belief” with “possession of truth by a mind”—which Clark never did. Jason fails to cite where Clark rejected JTB or defined knowledge as true belief; the only source he gives is one of Clark’s obscure encyclopedic articles on knowledge[16] whom hardly anyone knows about, much less read, and the article itself makes no such claim. And from this foundation built on sand he denounces those who disagree, but not without sinking himself. Clark and many of his most prominent followers clearly affirm JTB, so is he ready to denounce Sean Gerety, Robert Reymond, John Robbins, Gary Crampton, and Clark himself as self-deceived Clarkians?

Notitia, Assensus, and…Faith?

There's yet another issue, more theological than philosophical. Throughout many of his writings, Clark emphasizes faith as an important doctrine, biblically clarifies what it means, and refutes deficient views. That’s why he wrote two treatises on it, Fa­­ith and Saving Faith and The Johannine Logos. In Faith and Saving Faith, Clark writes: "Faith and belief have been emphasized. Even apart from these introductory inducements the nature of saving faith is an important division of theology."[17] Clark’s treatment of faith is one of his major theological contributions. To disagree with his view of faith is significant, so much so that, if we follow Jason’s logic, it surely would not make you a “true” Clarkian.

Clark’s definition of faith is simple and biblical. In What Is Saving Faith? he explains that “Faith, by definition, is assent to understood propositions. Not all cases of assent, even assent to Biblical propositions, are saving faith, but all saving faith is assent to one or more Biblical propositions.”[18]

Clark consistently defines faith as understanding (notitia) with assent (assensus) throughout his writings, both published and unpublished. Note the complete absence of “trust” (fiducia). Some groundlessly accuse John Robbins of dishonestly altering Clark’s books—including Jason himself, who unfortunately parrots the views of his mentors from Whitefield Seminary, the president of which is Dr. Kenneth G. Talbot, and they have poisoned the well in Facebook groups to dissuade people from trusting Robbins and The Trinity Foundation,[19] which is by far the best and most reliable source of Gordon Clark’s thought and work. But in one of his unpublished papers on faith from the Gordon H. Clark Foundation—“a ministry of Whitefield College & Theological Seminary”—Clark cites Augustine’s definition of faith:

Augustine was probably the first to define faith. In his treatise Concerning the Predestination of the Saints he said, “Thinking is prior to believing… To believe is nothing other than to think with assent. For not all who think believe… but all who believe think; and they think believing and believe thinking.”[20]

And then agrees with him: “A person may know or understand a proposition and yet not believe it. To believe is to think with assent. Assent is an act of will: it is the voluntary acceptance of the proposition as true.”[21]

Even so, both Drs. Kenneth G. Talbot and W. Gary Crampton diverge from Clark's view of faith. Not only that, but in their book Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism they claim that the “historical” view of faith which Clark believed and taught cannot justify:

First, not all faith is justifying faith. The Bible speaks of several kinds of faith, only one of which is genuine, justifying faith. Historical faith is one kind of non-justifying faith. All that is involved here is an historical assent to the truth claims of the gospel. As taught in James 2:19, even the demons have this kind of faith: “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe — and tremble!”[22]

But how is it that demons “assenting to the truth claims of the gospel” invalidates saving faith as believing—understanding and agreeing with—the gospel? Whether demons believe the gospel or not (they don’t) is irrelevant, because Christ died only for fallen man, not demons. Or is it because Talbot and Crampton debase it as a “non-justifying,” “historical” faith? The verse only says that the demons believe in one God, not that they believe the gospel. Clark repeatedly refuted this misapplication of James 2:19:

[The] argument here is that since the devils assent and true believers also assent, something other than assent is needed for saving faith [e.g. trust or fiducia]. This is a logical blunder. The text says the devils believe in monotheism. Why cannot the difference between the devils and Christians be the different propositions believed, rather than a psychological element in belief? [This] assumes a different psychology is needed. It is better to say a different object of belief is needed….[23]

It is illogical to conclude that belief is not assent just because belief in monotheism does not save. The clearer inference is that if belief in monotheism does not save, then one ought to believe something else in addition. Not assent, but monotheism is inadequate.[24]

And if Talbot’s and Crampton’s “historical” faith and “gospel-assenting” demons weren’t bad enough, they stray further still:

In justifying faith the believer appropriates and rests on Christ alone as Mediator in all his offices, based upon the divine testimony of God’s Word. Therefore, orthodox Christianity teaches that justifying faith involves three elements: knowledge (notitia), assent (assensus), and trust (fiducia). It is not enough to know the truth about Jesus Christ; nor is it sufficient merely to assent to the truth claims of the gospel (as in historical faith), as essential as these are. Saving faith is that which also whole-heartedly acquiesces to the Christ revealed in Scripture. Biblical conversion entails a whole-souled commitment. Justifying faith is a faith that makes a fiducial (i.e., a trusting) response to the gospel promises.[25]

But does not “whole-heartedly acquiesce” mean to “whole-heartedly” accept as true? How is this any different from assent? Merriam-Webster defines acquiesce as “to accept, comply, or submit tacitly or passively.” This is why Clark stressed that adding fiducia to faith is a tautology: “The crux of the difficulty with the popular analysis of faith into notitia (understanding), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust), is that fiducia comes from the same root as fides (faith). Hence this popular analysis reduces to the obviously absurd definition that faith consists of understanding, assent, and faith. Something better than this tautology must be found.”[26]

Clark is one of very few theologians who tirelessly refuted the “necessity” of fiducia, the extra psychological element that many Protestants add to faith, as confused, meaningless, and redundant. Yet Crampton wrote an article called “Justification by Faith Alone” where he makes the same arguments listed above and heartily approves Jonathan Edwards’ discussion of trust (fiducia):

And clearly for Edwards, saving faith is one that involves trust (fiducia). Saving faith, he wrote, “is the whole soul’s active agreeing, according, and symphonizing with this truth [of the gospel].” It is an “adhering to the truth, and acquiescing in it.” It is an “embracing the promises of God, and fiducial relying on them, through Christ for salvation.” “There is a difference,” preached Edwards, in a sermon on Matthew 16:17, “between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense [taste] of its sweetness.” The same is true regarding saving faith: There is “a true sense of the divine and superlative excellency of God and Jesus Christ, and of the work of redemption, and the ways and works of God.” There is “a true sense of the divine excellency of the things of God’s Word [which] does more directly and immediately convince us of their truth.” When one has this “sense,” he acquiesces to the “light of the glorious gospel of Christ.”[27]

Clark also chided theologians who use analogies involving physical actions to represent “trust,” because faith is a purely internal, mental act of understanding and assenting to propositions. If it were a physical or external act, it would be a work. Here are more examples from Clark’s articles on faith, reason, and knowledge posted on the Gordon H. Clark Foundation:

The element of trust [fiducia], which Protestants emphasize, defies all explanation and remains in utter confusion. Illustrations, such as actually depositing money in a bank rather than merely believing that the bank is sound, depend on a physical action, in addition to the mental act of believing. Such additional external action is inappropriate to represent the thoroughly inner mental act of faith. Knowledge is an integral part of faith, and not its antithesis.[28]

………………………………………………………..

In describing the nature of faith, fundamentalists, evangelicals and even modernists in a certain way stress the element of trust. A preacher may draw a parallel between trusting in Christ and trusting in a chair. Belief that the chair is solid and comfortable, mere intellectual assent to such a proposition, will not rest your weary bones. You must, the preacher insists, actually sit in the chair. Similarly, so goes the argument, you can believe all that the Bible says about Christ and it will do you no good. Such illustrations as these are constantly used, in spite of the fact that the Bible says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”[29]

………………………………………………………..

Is there such a thing as “mere belief,” or “mere intellectual assent?” Indeed, is there such a distinguishable phenomenon as a “mere” act of will? Intellectual assent is itself an act of will; and conversely, no volitional action could possibly take place without belief. If you will to eat ice cream, you must believe at least that there is some ice cream to be eaten. Intellect and will are not two separate “faculties”; rather they so interpenetrate in a single mental state that it is difficult and perhaps impossible not only to separate them in time but even in definition.[30]

Keep in mind that Clark’s published writings are weightier than his unpublished papers; there could be many reasons as to why he didn’t publish them. Nevertheless, Clark’s published material from The Trinity Foundation and unpublished papers from The Gordon H. Clark Foundation reveal the same mind at work—the exact same view of faith as understanding with assent and rejection of tautological trust. Talbot and Crampton have almost completely disregarded their mentor here. So if Jason will denounce Clarkians who affirm JTB and who attribute it to Clark, what’s to stop him from denouncing Drs. Talbot and Crampton who disregard Clark on such a vital issue as faith, and go as far as degrading Clark’s view to a “historical” faith that cannot justify?

Can the Blind Lead the Blind?

Our point is not to denounce Talbot, Crampton, and Jason as pseudo-Clarkians; our point is that Jason’s Diotrephesian demeaner betrays him. Not only did he denounce someone who didn’t accord with his own misrepresentations of Clark—exposing his own ignorance in the process—he has shown himself to be an unreliable source who’s not nearly as familiar with Clark as he claims to be. Jason evidently hasn't read much of Clark because he seems unfamiliar with a basic catalog of his publications. In his response to Luke Miner, for example, he claims that “there is a nature of man, and Clark wrote about this at length in many books, but perhaps most in depth, in his book, “What do Presbyterians Believe?” If one makes ontological statements, one cannot dismiss the term, ‘ontology.’ ”[31]

Jason refers to a 13-page chapter as "perhaps [Clark's] most in depth" discussion on man, even though Clark also wrote a 130-page treatise called The Biblical Doctrine of Man.[32] He rarely quotes Clark directly and misleadingly presents his own views as Clark’s. It’s hard to find primary source treatment of Clark’s works on his website or Facebook posts other than excuses as to why he can’t furnish citations. Jason has much to learn from men like John Robbins, whom he would do well to read rather than malign: “One of the characteristics of a competent historian [and teacher, scholar, etc.] is his practice of citing primary sources for his statements. If he makes an assertion about a person's views, for example, he quotes the words of that person. He does not merely quote or cite someone else, especially an opponent or critic of that person.”[33]

Instead of self-aggrandizing our platforms to lord it over others, and making false, unjustified (pun intended) assertions without substantiating references to push self-promoting agendas and those of schismatic seminary faculties—we need humility to sharpen and be sharpened by our peers.

There’s more to this than a petty Facebook scuffle. It’s about the damage being done to Clark and his followers by self-proclaimed experts who misrepresent and promote factious agendas that slander, defame, and undermine the valuable, edifying work of other Clarkians and their ministries. We can and should seek to be of one mind as Christians, especially if we share similar Reformed convictions and appreciation for one of the greatest Christian philosophers and theologians of all time. But it will not happen until Jason and those like him take heed and repent.

Imperious Presbyterians [and Christians from any denomination] seriously err in their emphasis by behaving as if authority is the essence of ecclesiastical office, rather than service.

Sadly, there is a Scriptural example pertaining to the distorted outlook of the Imperious Presbyterians. It is Diotrephes, who loved “to have the preeminence” (3 John 9) and abused his position to thwart the Apostle John. It is a tragic case when men in our day, professing to be Presbyterian pastors, exhibit more of the spirit of Diotrephes than of the Spirit of Christ and Paul.[34]

Semper Reformanda,

Carlos Montijo and Tim Shaughnessy

Postscript

1/10/2016 - Last night, Jason posted the following on the Clarkian Apologetics Facebook group:

Jason L. Petersen 10 hrs · Pensacola, FL

Thank you all for your support in this group. We are very, very, appreciative of your participation and understanding concerning the rules that we have laid out. At some parts of this post, I will be repeating what has been told to me by the Foundation, and at other parts, I will be speaking for myself.

Unfortunately, the Gordon Clark Foundation has concluded that the format we have chosen for this group will not work either. At first, we allowed for a discussion group that also would allow the admins to post content that we think is informative and edifying for the group. Unfortunately, there were some who just wanted to pick a fight.

After having issues with people who wanted to pick a fight on social media, we decided to change the format so that some discussion would be had. We laid out a very specific and strict set of rules. Unfortunately, some did not wish to adhere to the rules, and instead of respecting the intentions and rules of the group, they sought to teach everyone that the information we provided was not trustworthy. This was set to be a sort of classroom-like setting, but the tools given to us on Facebook is not enough to support such a format.

Now, I personally have made some mistakes in this group. First, I blocked two people that I still maintain respect for when it was not necessary. Second, I publicly stated that John Robbins edited Dr. Clark's work on faith without having the resources immediately at the ready. I personally apologize and repent for both of these things.

I'd also like to say that I am not one that is officially a part of the Gordon Clark foundation. I am endorsed by the foundation, but I simply help out. With all of the feuds that has started with some individuals from the Gordon Clark Discussion Group, it has been determined that a format such as this is not appropriate for the foundation.

At this time, we plan to start a new group. There will be no members (except for admins) allowed in this group. The group will be open to the public. The public may choose to read the content that we post or ignore it. The goal of the Gordon Clark Foundation is to get Clark's writings, published and unpublished out into the open. One issue that surfaces when one is trying to achieve this goal is that there may be some who may add a thought (be it in an apparent agreement or disagreement) that is not exactly what Dr. Clark believed. The main goal of the foundation in starting a group like this was to get the content from the Foundation out there. Ricky W. Roldan and I were the main participants, but the actual members of the Foundation did not participate very much because they did not like the way the format was working out. There are a few very qualified individuals that have expressed a willingness to help out in producing content for the Foundation, but some have held back because they do not want to risk getting involved in a time-wasting social media debate.

Therefore, we will start a new group where people can either choose to read Dr. Clark's articles and our own musings, or ignore us entirely.

As for this group, I will either take it over myself from the Foundation, or I will remove it from Facebook. I am not entirely sure of what I wish to do with it yet (I would appreciate some feedback on it).

Although there have been a lot of people who have speculated that our intention is to censor the ideas of others, and that we are "not teachable," and other bad things, many of you have been very supportive and expressed a desire for the type of format that we have now. I am very sorry that it did not work out. The choice we faced was either to let the group spin out of control and undermine the intentions that we had when we started the group, or to remove people (as we did) for violating the rules, and then allow them to speculate about and misconstrue our intent for removing them. For us, this is truly a no-win situation. The only thing to do is to create a new group and go from there.

I thank you all again. You have been a great encouragement. I will post more information in this group when I have it. Blessings.

Jason’s prompt response appears to be a step in the right direction; we look forward to working things out with him.

4/1/2017 - Jason has reached out to us and made amends, and we're discussing these matters with him in a spirit of brotherly love and hope to interview him on Semper Reformanda Radio soon. He no longer believes that John Robbins altered Gordon Clark’s books and appears to lean towards knowledge as Justified True Belief as well (see http://answersforhope.org/39-distinguish-knowledge-opinion/).

Notes

[1] Jason Petersen, "A Conversation with Luke Miner," Answers for Hope, 30 Dec 2015, accessed 1 Jan 2016, http://answersforhope.org/a-conversation-with-luke-miner/

[2] Petersen, http://answersforhope.org/a-conversation-with-luke-miner/. Jason eventually kicked out Tim Shaughnessy from the Facebook group for questioning his unfounded claim that Robbins allegedly altered Clark’s books.

[3] Petersen, http://answersforhope.org/a-conversation-with-luke-miner/.

[4] Gordon H. Clark, An Introduction to Christian Philosophy, in The Works of Gordon Haddon Clark, Volume 4 (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 300-301. Bold emphasis ours. Quoted in Sean Gerety's comment on 26 April 2007, "Must Clarkians use some Emperical Analysis & Inductive Reasoning?", Puritan Board, http://www.puritanboard.com/showthread.php/20726-Must-Clarkians-use-some-Emperical-Analysis-amp-Inductive-Reasoning/page2

[5] Clark, An Introduction to Christian Philosophy, p. 322. Bold emphasis ours. Quoted in Sean Gerety, "Biblical Epistemology 101," God's Hammer, 27 Jan 2013, https://godshammer.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/ink-marks-on-a-page/

[6] Gordon H. Clark, "Plato's Theory of Knowledge," The Gordon H. Clark Foundation, accessed 1 Jan 2016, http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/platos-theory-of-knowledge-by-gordon-h-clark/

[7] Gordon H. Clark, Lord God of Truth (Hobbs, NM: The Trinity Foundation, 1994), p. 40. Bold emphasis ours. Thanks to CJay Engel for finding this quote. For "a reasonably complete proof that Gordon Clark did, indeed, consistently use the term “knowledge” distinctly from true belief (or true opinion)," see his and Luke Miner’s article, "Gordon Clark and Knowledge: On Justification," http://scripturalism.com/gordon-clark-and-knowledge-on-justification/

[8] See a Google Books Ngram Viewer analysis of "justified true belief" from 1500 to 1985 at https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=justified+true+belief&case_insensitive=on&year_start=0&year_end=1985&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cjustified%20true%20belief%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bjustified%20true%20belief%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BJustified%20True%20Belief%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BJustified%20true%20belief%3B%2Cc0

[9] Sean Gerety, "Biblical Epistemology 101," God's Hammer, 27 Jan 2013, accessed 3 Jan 2016, https://godshammer.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/biblical-epistemology-101/

[10] Sean Gerety, "Ink Marks on a Page," God's Hammer, 24 Jan 2009, accessed 3 Jan 2016, https://godshammer.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/ink-marks-on-a-page/

[11] Robert L. Reymond, The Justification of Knowledge: An Introductory Study in Christian Apologetic Methodology (San Jose, CA: Pacific Institute of Religious Studies, 1998), p. 68, http://www.sgbcsv.org/literature/JustificationOfKnowledge.pdf.

[12] Reymond, Justification of Knowledge, p. 70.

[13] Reymond, Justification of Knowledge, p. 100.

[14] John W. Robbins, "An Introduction to Gordon H. Clark," The Trinity Review (July/Aug 1993), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=192. Emphasis ours.

[15] W. Gary Crampton, "Scripturalism: A Christian Worldview," The Trinity Review 299 (March/May 2011), http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=276. Bold emphasis ours. See also Crampton’s The Scripturalism of Gordon H. Clark (Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1999), p. 46:

An important part of Gordon Clark’s epistemology is his distinction between knowledge and opinion. There is a difference between that which we know and that which we opine. Knowledge is not only possessing ideas or thoughts; it is possessing true ideas or thoughts. Knowledge is knowledge of the truth; it is justified true belief. Only the Word of God (that which “is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture”) gives such knowledge.

[16] Gordon H. Clark, "Know, Knowledge," The Gordon H. Clark Foundation, accessed 6 Jan 2016, http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/know-knowledge-by-gordon-h-clark/

[17] Gordon H. Clark, "What Is Saving Faith?", The Trinity Review 206 (Jan/Feb 2004), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=102

[18] Gordon H. Clark, What Is Saving Faith? (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 88, http://www.trinitylectures.org/what-is-saving-faith-p-60.html. Emphasis ours. This book combines Faith and Saving Faith and The Johannine Logos into one volume.

[19] On 26 September 2015, we messaged Dr. Kenneth Talbot privately to inquire about his attacks on John Robbins. He thanked us for expressing our concern but declined to comment. Here’s what Tim asked:

My friend Carlos and I have strongly considered attending your school in the future and I am grateful for your presence in the ministry of Christ. I count you as a brother in the Lord and have benefitted from you personally. That’s why I find this difficult now.

I want to approach this carefully and respectfully, but I feel that I need to say something. I have recently found myself discouraged and even troubled to some extent by the way you speak about John Robbins and the Trinity Foundation. I have heard you speak negatively of Robbins and the TF in the past and have ignored it. Recently on Jason Petersen’s wall you said the following:

View fullsize

This is not the first time I have heard you say something like this and I am disturbed by it. I don’t know anything really about Cheung but I find it surprising that you would say such things about Robbins.

I have benefited greatly from Dr. Robbins’ writings and the Trinity Foundation which has been committed to keeping and defending the legacy of Dr. Clark. I have used Dr. Robbins’ work in my own writings and have a high regard for the man. I don’t share in your assessment of Robbins or the TF and I wanted to know if this is the impression you give your students. I should also tell you that when I first heard of your school I asked Tom Juodaitis about it and he affirmed that it was the only school that was favorable to Clark and he had nothing negative to say about you or your school. I will not have time to reply back to you right now but I look forward to hearing from you.

You can also check out my writing and see if it reflects the type of attitude you have a problem with.

God Bless, Tim

Here’s what I (Carlos) asked:

Dr. Talbot you criticized Robbins publicly so we didn't think you'd have a problem giving details. Isn't the attitude you express against him the same attitude you're accusing Robbins of? Why would you defame a man who loved Clark and dedicated his life to promoting and preserving his legacy? Clark obviously held Robbins in high regard if he asked him to finish his book [The Incarnation] on his deathbed. It sounds like you're slandering him. I don't understand why you defame Robbins and the Trinity Foundation—who defend and promote Clark—while you also affiliate with people who criticize Clark and have no regard for him like Joel McDurmon [listen to “An interview of Joel McDurmon: Researcher and Writer for American Vision”] and Jeff Durban, who had Oliphint recklessly misrepresent Clark and falsely accuse him of heresy on his show (https://www.facebook.com/ApologiaRadio/posts/324063354406639).

These are some of the reasons Tim and I are no longer considering Whitefield Seminary, and no longer recommend it even though they're one of the few seminaries that incorporate Gordon Clark into their curriculum. For more information see Sean Gerety’s “Faith Is Understanding With Assent” and “Whitefield Follies,” as well as Luke Miner’s “Clark on Saving Faith in 1961.” There are still very strong misrepresentations–even slanders–of Clark today, particularly from Van Tilians. Here are a few examples from Scott Oliphint, Apologia Radio, and Reformed Forum:

• https://www.facebook.com/groups/CFDD1/permalink/791646060853020/

• https://www.facebook.com/ApologiaRadio/posts/324063354406639

• http://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc163/

• http://www.apologiaradio.com/?p=482

[20] Gordon H. Clark, "Faith," The Gordon H. Clark Foundation, accessed 3 Jan 2016, http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/faith-by-gordon-h-clark/

[21] Clark, "Faith," http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/faith-by-gordon-h-clark/

[22] Kenneth G. Talbot and W. Gary Crampton, Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism: A Theological Primer, 3rd ed. (1990), p. 112. To request the free ebook version, see http://whitefieldmedia.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=2209ac66c06c8383a9ce36dfd&id=f5a1e983ce

[23] Clark, What Is Saving Faith?, p. 152.

[24] Clark, What Is Saving Faith?, p. 153.

[25] Talbot and Crampton, Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism, p. 114. See also John Robbins’ “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith,” http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238. Talbot and Crampton’s view of faith is like Sproul’s.

[26] Gordon H. Clark, "Saving Faith", The Trinity Review (Dec 1979), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=10

[27] W. Gary Crampton, “Justification by Faith Alone,” A Puritan’s Mind, accessed 31 Dec 2015, http://www.apuritansmind.com/justification/justification-by-faith-alone-by-w-gary-crampton-th-d/

[28] Clark, "Know, Knowledge," http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/know-knowledge-by-gordon-h-clark/

[29] Clark, "Faith and Reason," http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/faith-and-reason-by-gordon-h-clark/. Emphasis ours.

[30] Gordon H. Clark, "Faith and Reason," The Gordon H. Clark Foundation, accessed 6 Jan 2016, http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/faith-and-reason-by-gordon-h-clark/. Emphasis ours.

[31] Petersen, http://answersforhope.org/a-conversation-with-luke-miner/

[32] Gordon H. Clark, The Biblical Doctrine of Man, 2nd ed. (Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1992), http://www.trinitylectures.org/biblical-doctrine-of-man-the-p-50.html

[33] John W. Robbins, Can the Orthodox Presbyterian Church Be Saved? (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 13, http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=232

[34] Kevin Reed, “Imperious Presbyterianism,” The Trinity Review (June/Aug 2008), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=254v