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God's Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics
This collection of essays on the inspiration, authority, and infallibility of the Bible is one of the best volumes on the subject available today. In the sixteenth century, sola Scriptura was the rallying cry of the Reformers; but it is rarely heard today. In the twentieth century the Bible was subjected to relentless attack by those who wish to erect another authority -- the state, the clergy, tradition, or a professorial elite. It is at those Biblical subversives that Clark directs his devastating defense of the Bible.
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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About the author
Gordon H. Clark
93 books54 followersGordon Haddon Clark was an American philosopher and Calvinist theologian. He was a primary advocate for the idea of presuppositional apologetics and was chairman of the Philosophy Department at Butler University for 28 years. He was an expert in pre-Socratic and ancient philosophy and was noted for his rigor in defending propositional revelation against all forms of empiricism and rationalism, in arguing that all truth is propositional and in applying the laws of logic. His system of philosophy is sometimes called Scripturalism.
The Trinty Foundation continues to publish his writings.
The Trinty Foundation continues to publish his writings.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 12, 2011
"Christ's view of the Bible can very quickly be indicated. Christ said: It is written! If you do not believe Moses' writings, how will you believe my words? For the Scripture cannot be broken.
Do we need an infallible Bible? We need an infallible Bible, unless we are willing to contradict the teachings of Christ. We need verbal inspiration if we are to believe the call to repentance and the doctrine of justification. We need inerrancy if we are to have any confident knowledge of God. For if the Bible is mistaken in its doctrine of inspiration, why should we think it correct in its doctrine of God, repentance, or anything else? Our only alternative would be to believe nothing of what the Bible says, or as most liberals and neo-orthodox thinkers do, to adopt some principle by which we determine what in the Bible we choose to believe and what we prefer to reject. In either case, we must admit that the Bible is no authority for us.
Our Lord held to a very different view of the Bible. He commanded his disciples to believe all of it (Luke 24:25). And if Christ does not tell us the truth when he says that the Scripture cannot be broken and that the words of Moses are as true as his own, why should we believe him when he says, Come to me, all you who labor?
By all means we should take our view of the Scripture from our Lord Jesus Christ and from the authority of Scripture itself. And this is what the liberal critics refuse to do, even while saying that it should be done."
-pages 126-127
Do we need an infallible Bible? We need an infallible Bible, unless we are willing to contradict the teachings of Christ. We need verbal inspiration if we are to believe the call to repentance and the doctrine of justification. We need inerrancy if we are to have any confident knowledge of God. For if the Bible is mistaken in its doctrine of inspiration, why should we think it correct in its doctrine of God, repentance, or anything else? Our only alternative would be to believe nothing of what the Bible says, or as most liberals and neo-orthodox thinkers do, to adopt some principle by which we determine what in the Bible we choose to believe and what we prefer to reject. In either case, we must admit that the Bible is no authority for us.
Our Lord held to a very different view of the Bible. He commanded his disciples to believe all of it (Luke 24:25). And if Christ does not tell us the truth when he says that the Scripture cannot be broken and that the words of Moses are as true as his own, why should we believe him when he says, Come to me, all you who labor?
By all means we should take our view of the Scripture from our Lord Jesus Christ and from the authority of Scripture itself. And this is what the liberal critics refuse to do, even while saying that it should be done."
-pages 126-127
May 26, 2013
The very first book I read by Gordon Clark, which is actually a compilation of his essays. It taught me to do apologetics Biblically and solidified my understanding of Bibliology. Read it!
March 15, 2015
This book is vintage Clark: remarkably clear, mostly solid, and occasionally “off.”
I do not have a problem with most of the book. Clark responds to and surveys the “inspiration” debates plaguing 20th century Evangelicalism. For those of us who are familiar with Carson/Woodbridge/Henry, we will recognize Clark’s arguments.
The problems:
1. Does Clark deny analogical knowledge? It’s hard to say. To be fair, he does affirm analogical knowledge of a sorts: “Ordinary analogies are legitimate and useful, but they are so only because there is a univocal point of coincident meaning in the two parts” (Clark 33). Something just doesn’t seem right. Earlier Clark affirms a “most important qualitative difference between the knowledge situation in the case of God and the knowledge situation for man” (30). I suppose the question is this: what is this “point of contact” between God and man? What is the “univocal” element? If he says “knowledge,” then he begs the question. Which aspect of knowledge is the univocal point?
It will help to remember Clark’s explanation of what makes something “true.” “Nothing can be called true in the literal sense of the term except the attribution of a predicate to a subject” (25). I don’t really have a problem with this. It’s basic logic and epistemology. Isolated terms are neither true or false. Nothing is being predicated of them. Fair enough. With this in mind I think we can answer the question. He concludes, “But if a predicate does not mean the same thing to man as it does to God, then, if God’s meaning is the correct one, it follows that man’s meaning is incorrect” (32).
2. This is unsettling but we will move on. I think there is a more important issue in the following pages. Clark appears to deny the correspondence theory of truth. He writes, “Suffice to say, if the mind has something that only corresponds to reality, it does not have reality. And if it knows reality, there is no need for an extra something that corresponds to it” (36). And so we have abandoned all classical epistemology from Augustine onward. Keeping in mind the signa/res dichotomy, Clark has collapsed the sign into the thing signified. If we apply this method to ontology, all is collapsed into the One. If we apply it to the sacraments, we have transubstantiation. The sign is the thing signified.
It appears, then, that Clark opts for a coherentist model of truth. He doesn’t say so, but I think this would be his position. Coherentism isn’t ipso facto wrong, but it is insufficient without a correspondence theory. Coherentism only tells us of the doxastic relationships between beliefs. It doesn’t tell us whether (or how) a belief is true. Further, a belief can be coherent and not really bear upon other beliefs in question. I believe the proposition “my door is brown.” How does that cohere with the proposition “The Bible is axiomatically true?”
I don’t want to leave on a negative note. Clark anticipates a few moves in modern epistemology, such as the problem of criterion. Let’s look at the liberal claim that the Bible is “symbolic” of myth or something. This was sex-fiend Paul Tillich’s position. Let’s say the crucifixion never occured, but it symbolic of God’s love. Is that a literal truth or a symbolic one? If the latter, then God’s love must be symbolic of something, too. But this new term must be symbolic of yet another term, and on to eternity (48).
He also deals with the inane argument “what good is an infallible bible without an infallible interpreter?” But as the history of post-Vatican II has shown, this is fraught with danger. If the Bible requires an infallible interpretation, then the supposed infallible encyclical or council would also need an infallible interpreter. Whoever this might be, his interpretation--also infallible--would require yet another infallible interpretation, and so on (124).
Conclusion
Can we recommend this work? We can recommend it provided the reader is already familiar with Bavinck. And while Clark anticipated modern epistemology in some areas, the discussion has come a long way.
I do not have a problem with most of the book. Clark responds to and surveys the “inspiration” debates plaguing 20th century Evangelicalism. For those of us who are familiar with Carson/Woodbridge/Henry, we will recognize Clark’s arguments.
The problems:
1. Does Clark deny analogical knowledge? It’s hard to say. To be fair, he does affirm analogical knowledge of a sorts: “Ordinary analogies are legitimate and useful, but they are so only because there is a univocal point of coincident meaning in the two parts” (Clark 33). Something just doesn’t seem right. Earlier Clark affirms a “most important qualitative difference between the knowledge situation in the case of God and the knowledge situation for man” (30). I suppose the question is this: what is this “point of contact” between God and man? What is the “univocal” element? If he says “knowledge,” then he begs the question. Which aspect of knowledge is the univocal point?
It will help to remember Clark’s explanation of what makes something “true.” “Nothing can be called true in the literal sense of the term except the attribution of a predicate to a subject” (25). I don’t really have a problem with this. It’s basic logic and epistemology. Isolated terms are neither true or false. Nothing is being predicated of them. Fair enough. With this in mind I think we can answer the question. He concludes, “But if a predicate does not mean the same thing to man as it does to God, then, if God’s meaning is the correct one, it follows that man’s meaning is incorrect” (32).
2. This is unsettling but we will move on. I think there is a more important issue in the following pages. Clark appears to deny the correspondence theory of truth. He writes, “Suffice to say, if the mind has something that only corresponds to reality, it does not have reality. And if it knows reality, there is no need for an extra something that corresponds to it” (36). And so we have abandoned all classical epistemology from Augustine onward. Keeping in mind the signa/res dichotomy, Clark has collapsed the sign into the thing signified. If we apply this method to ontology, all is collapsed into the One. If we apply it to the sacraments, we have transubstantiation. The sign is the thing signified.
It appears, then, that Clark opts for a coherentist model of truth. He doesn’t say so, but I think this would be his position. Coherentism isn’t ipso facto wrong, but it is insufficient without a correspondence theory. Coherentism only tells us of the doxastic relationships between beliefs. It doesn’t tell us whether (or how) a belief is true. Further, a belief can be coherent and not really bear upon other beliefs in question. I believe the proposition “my door is brown.” How does that cohere with the proposition “The Bible is axiomatically true?”
I don’t want to leave on a negative note. Clark anticipates a few moves in modern epistemology, such as the problem of criterion. Let’s look at the liberal claim that the Bible is “symbolic” of myth or something. This was sex-fiend Paul Tillich’s position. Let’s say the crucifixion never occured, but it symbolic of God’s love. Is that a literal truth or a symbolic one? If the latter, then God’s love must be symbolic of something, too. But this new term must be symbolic of yet another term, and on to eternity (48).
He also deals with the inane argument “what good is an infallible bible without an infallible interpreter?” But as the history of post-Vatican II has shown, this is fraught with danger. If the Bible requires an infallible interpretation, then the supposed infallible encyclical or council would also need an infallible interpreter. Whoever this might be, his interpretation--also infallible--would require yet another infallible interpretation, and so on (124).
Conclusion
Can we recommend this work? We can recommend it provided the reader is already familiar with Bavinck. And while Clark anticipated modern epistemology in some areas, the discussion has come a long way.
Read
July 23, 2011This is a good work by Gordon Clark. A collection of essays put together in one volume, this work should be read by those who might be curious to see the way Clark goes about to apply his form of philosophical defense of the Word of God. The first chapter of "How may I know the Bible is Inspired?" is a must read for every Christian for every Christian that ever wonder about that question, and it does so within a presuppositional framework. Throughout the book are chapters in which Clark applies rigorous logical analysis to various critics against the Bible. For those who are use to an evidential bent in tackling critics of the Bible, one can learn something from reading Clark and seeing how to apply a presuppostional critique to the argument itself given by the critics and see how it breaks down philosophically. One sad note in reading this book is seeing the historical setting in which Clark wrote in, and the state of evangelical theological landscape today becoming worst than during his time. Clark throughout the book highly esteemed the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), but the current state of ETS would very much disappoint him.
March 16, 2013
Clark defends Sola Scriptura and leads a polemic against Existentialism, Neo-Orthodoxy, Logical Positivism, Relativistic Liberalism & Secular Humanism, revealing all their fallacious reasonings and logical inconsistencies.
July 17, 2024
A COLLECTION OF CLARK'S ESSAYS DEFENDING THE BIBLE
Gordon Haddon Clark (1902-1985) was an American philosopher and Calvinist theologian, who was chairman of the Philosophy Department at Butler University for 28 years. He wrote many books, such as 'A Christian View of Men and Things,' 'Thales to Dewey, An Introduction to Christian Philosophy,' 'Religion, Reason and Revelation,' 'God and Evil: The Problem Solved,' etc.
He states early on that "It is therefore impossible by argument or preaching alone to cause anyone to believe the Bible. Only God can cause such belief." (Pg. 20) He asserts, "If the Bible in a hundred different passages is mistaken in its account of itself, why should the rest of the message be accepted as true?... If those words are only David's or Jeremiah's, would it not be more profitable to study Aristotle or Plotinus?" (Pg. 58-59)
He argues against Cornelius Van Til, who suggested (in Clark's interpretation) that "the unregenerate man simply cannot understand propositions revealed to man" (pg. 27), while Clark holds that "An unregenerate man can know some true propositions and can sometimes reason correctly." (Pg. 29)
In an interesting historical sidelight, he justifies his lack of attendance at a conference on biblical inerrancy on the grounds that "little was to be gained by discussing inerrancy with those in attendance whose minds already had been made up against it." (Pg. 133)
This collection of papers is an excellent addition to the apologetic material of Clark otherwise available.
Gordon Haddon Clark (1902-1985) was an American philosopher and Calvinist theologian, who was chairman of the Philosophy Department at Butler University for 28 years. He wrote many books, such as 'A Christian View of Men and Things,' 'Thales to Dewey, An Introduction to Christian Philosophy,' 'Religion, Reason and Revelation,' 'God and Evil: The Problem Solved,' etc.
He states early on that "It is therefore impossible by argument or preaching alone to cause anyone to believe the Bible. Only God can cause such belief." (Pg. 20) He asserts, "If the Bible in a hundred different passages is mistaken in its account of itself, why should the rest of the message be accepted as true?... If those words are only David's or Jeremiah's, would it not be more profitable to study Aristotle or Plotinus?" (Pg. 58-59)
He argues against Cornelius Van Til, who suggested (in Clark's interpretation) that "the unregenerate man simply cannot understand propositions revealed to man" (pg. 27), while Clark holds that "An unregenerate man can know some true propositions and can sometimes reason correctly." (Pg. 29)
In an interesting historical sidelight, he justifies his lack of attendance at a conference on biblical inerrancy on the grounds that "little was to be gained by discussing inerrancy with those in attendance whose minds already had been made up against it." (Pg. 133)
This collection of papers is an excellent addition to the apologetic material of Clark otherwise available.
May 3, 2024
Excelente livro sobre a doutrina da inspiração.
March 7, 2010
Excelente!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews