Section Summary: 1) The traditional first step for establishing a theistic worldview, proving the existence of God, has been a failure. The various proofs offered by philosophers and theologians are invalid. 2) All systems of thought are built on first principles called axioms. These principles are unproven and by definition unprovable. 3) But while axioms themselves cannot be refuted or established, they can be tested. For example, skepticism is a view based on the axiom that truth is unknowable. But when skeptics assert that nothing can be demonstrated, they themselves are claiming to know that knowledge is impossible. Therefore, skepticism is absurd. It refutes itself. Man must know truth. 4) From this it follows that if a proposition – a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence – or philosophical system claims to show that knowledge is impossible, or if it can proven that a system is self-contradictory, we safely can reject that proposition or philosophical system as false. 5) The view that a philosophical system can be rejected if it is inconsistent with itself is an application of the coherence theory of truth, which states that a true philosophical system must be non-contradictory.
In this section, Clark mentions two important choices facing those who wish to establish a theistic worldview: 1) where to start and 2) what method to use. For many, the seeming best to start a defense of theism is to prove that God exists. “If we can just prove to the world that God exists,” they reason, “then people will be ready to hear the Gospel.” This isn’t a new idea. Anselm and Aquinas both labored under this idea and both developed intricate arguments to prove to unbelievers that God exists. What may come as a surprise many is that the first attempt to prove the existence of God was not made by a Christian theologian. Aquinas based his proof for the existence of God on a proof first articulated by the pagan Greek philosopher Aristotle. Clark refers to Anselm’s argument as the ontological argument for the existence of God and Aquinas’ as the cosmological argument. Although a detailed discussion is beyond the scope of Clark’s comments and this post, a few comments on these two methods are in order.
Anselm’s ontological argument is found in his work titled Proslogium. Here, Anselm attempted to write a proof for the existence of God that would stand on its own without any outside help. He wrote,
“I began to wonder if perhaps it might be possible to find one single argument that for its proof required no other save itself, and that by itself would suffice to prove that God really exists.” (Proslogium, in Anselm of Canterbury, The Major Works, Oxford University Press, 1998, Brian Davies and Gillian Evans editors, p.83.)
One thing worth noting about Anselm’s argument is that it is a textbook example of what philosophers call rationalism, the idea that reason alone furnishes us with knowledge. A rationalist starts his argument with a proposition or two – a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence, not the sentence itself, this is the case because the same idea, the same meaning, can be expressed in different words; for example the sentences “Am anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erde” (German) and “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” have the same meaning, that is, they are the same proposition, even though they make use of different words are in different languages – and goes on to deduce a body of ideas from those initial propositions. In Anselm’s case, he starts his argument with the proposition that “something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought” exists and goes on to identify God with this somewhat unwieldy locution.
Over the years, many have accused Gordon Clark of being a rationalist. This is simply not true, for Gordon Clark did not believe that reason alone furnishes us with knowledge. Clark, in fact, did not believe that reason alone furnishes us with any knowledge at all. Clark held that revelation alone – either in the form of the innate propositional knowledge about himself that God has revealed to all men, or in the special written revelation found in the 66 books of the Bible – furnishes us with knowledge. The idea that revelation alone furnishes us with knowledge is scripturalism, not rationalism.
Aquinas, on the other hand, eschewed rationalistic arguments and instead chose to ground his proof for the existence of God on sense experience. Aquinas famously wrote,
“It is certain and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion was put in motion by another…If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover…Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.” (Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part 1, Question 2, Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1947.)
The belief that sense experience furnishes men with knowledge is call empiricism. Empirical philosophers believe we learn by observing things. They operate on the premise, often unstated, that sense experience is reliable. Most people today, whether they have thought about it or not, are empiricists. “Seeing is believing,” is a good, quick way to summarize their basic philosophy.
Nearly all philosophers can be categorized as either rationalists or empiricists. The most famous rationalist is Plato and the best known empiricist is Aristotle. Understanding which school of thought a particular philosopher belongs to – empiricist or rationalist – can go a long way to helping you understand his argument.
Now back to Clark’s point about proving God exists. As he mentions, while both Anselm and Aquinas can sound convincing, closer examination reveals certain flaws in their reasoning. For one, both arguments commit the fallacy of begging the question. This means they assume the very thing they set out to prove. Clark spends some time pointing out another flaw in Aquinas’ reasoning by citing Scottish philosopher David Hume’s refutation of Aquinas. Aquinas, Hume tells us in so many words, makes the error of going beyond the evidence. You see, Aquinas would have us believe that by observing a finite world, we can conclude the existence of the omnipotent God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. But this would be a bit like making the following argument: Socrates is a man, all men are mortal, therefore Socrates was World Series MVP. Because the term “World Series MVP” does not appear in either of the arguments two premises “Socrates is a man” or “all men are mortal,” to introduce it in the conclusion “therefore Socrates was World Series MVP” makes this an invalid argument. If a term is not in the premises of an argument, it cannot logically appear in the conclusion of that argument. If we start with the existence of a finite world, at most we are able to conclude the existence of a finite God.
From the above, it would seem that the existence of God is not the best place to start the argument for a theistic worldview.
Clark next introduces us to the term “axiom.” An axiom is a first principle, an unproven assumption that serves as the basis for all other proof. As Clark points out, many people find this disturbing. He writes,
“And what is worse, as the student makes his way through the mazes of speculation, he begins to see that even though some sequences of thought are logically valid, they all depend on original assumptions…But what about these assumption or axioms? Can they be proved? It would seem that they cannot, for with them, there is no preceding argumentation. Accordingly, after the humanist or theist has worked out a consistent system by arranging all his propositions as theorems in a series of valid demonstrations, how is either of them to persuade the other to accept his unproved axioms?” (CVMT, 26)
I know I was bothered by the idea of unproven first principles when I first started reading Clark and Robbins. In fact, the first email I ever sent to John Robbins was over this very issue. “How,” I asked him, “can you claim to base your whole philosophical system on the unproven assumption that the Bible alone is the Word of God?” On one hand this seems right,” I continued, “but if someone pressed me for an answer, I couldn’t defend the position.” I don’t have Robbins’ original email response – how I wish I’d saved it! – but in essence his response to me was this: many people make the mistake of supposing that everything can and must be proven. This is false. For thinking to begin, it must begin somewhere. The starting point in any philosophical system, whether Christian or non-Christian, is the axiom. By definition, an axiom is unproven. If it were to be proven, it would no longer be an axiom, whatever argument was used to prove it would then be the axiom.
But even though axioms are unprovable, we are not doomed to a life of talking past one another, you reasoning from one axiom and I from another. For while axioms cannot be proven, they can be tested. Clark performs one such test for us by examining skepticism. Clark writes,
“Skepticism is the position that nothing can be demonstrated. And how, we ask, can you demonstrate that nothing can be demonstrated? The skeptic asserts that nothing can be known. In his haste he said that truth was impossible. And is it true that truth is impossible? For, if no proposition is true, then at least one proposition is true – the proposition, namely, that no proposition is true. If truth is impossible, therefore, it follows that we have already attained it.” (CVMT, 26, 27)
Skepticism is absurd, that is, it is self-contradictory. Think about it, the skeptic claims that no knowledge is possible by claiming to know that knowledge is impossible. Not only is the skeptic wrong, he also manages to look a bit ridiculous in the process. Man must know truth. From this, Clark draws an important conclusion about how to analyze the claims of humanists and theists alike. He writes,
“If it can be shown that a proposed system of philosophy – Aristotelianism or Spinozism, for example – or if it can be shown that a particular proposition, whether it be a first principle or a subsidiary side issue, implies that knowledge is impossible, then that proposition or system may be eliminated from further consideration.” (CVMT, 26,27)
Clark draws a second conclusion from the wreckage of skepticism when he notes,
“Skepticism refutes itself because it is internally self-contradictory. if skepticism is true, it is false. And when a more elaborate complex of ideas is internally inconsistent, the complex must be rejected.” (CVMT, 27)
Clark tells us that if we can logically demonstrate that a system of thought has at least one contradiction in it, that system must be false. This is an application of what is called the coherence theory of truth, which holds that truth must be non-contradictory. Writing in his essay Presuppositional Apologetics:
Stated and Defended, Gary Crampton says the following about the coherence theory of truth,
“Logic in the Clarkian view functions a a negative test for truth. It is an apologetic tool to show how a contradiction in any system (which all non-believing systems contain) disproves it as a valid system. Logical coherence is a very valid way to proof-text a system for its validity or non-validity. The fact that the Bible is logically consistent does not prove it to be true, but it certainly shows the non-believer that the Christian worldview is based on a system of truth that is logically coherent.”
In other words, we do not prove the Bible is true by testing it for logical coherence – we know it is logically coherent because God tells us in Scripture that this is the case, God is not the author of confusion (1Cor.14:33) – but we can disprove other systems of thought by exposing their internal contradictions. The Bible tells us the wisdom of this world is foolishness (1Cor.3:19). It is the job of the Christian apologist to make this foolishness evident.
Steve,
Thank you once again for your clear insight and sharing your summeries with us.
May the Lord keep you.
Louis
Thanks, Louis. Did you get the PDFs I sent to you last week?
Steve
Steve,
Yes indeed. My field of research is Semitic Languages and Cultures. In the Hebrew class I teach at present, we have just achieved enough competence to start reading prose passages, as for instance from the Genesis creation acount. Hence also my thought to bring in Clark’s CVMT. Your analysis takes a great burden off my shoulders. The study of the grammar and syntax of course aims at a correct understanding of the revealed Text. Yet that Text is Revelation at the same time. That is, infallable knwledge about the visible objects God created. And that is what I want my students to think about. The sudy of objects do not render truth. Only the Word of God, the Bible.
I am sorry if I can’t be more clear on this. English is only my third spoken language.
Kind regards,
Louis
Reblogged this on The Sovereign Logos and commented:
The fifth installment of Steve Matthews’ walkthrough of Gordon Clark’s book, “A Christian View of Men and Things.”
This was very helpful, thank you. Glad to see your presence resumed on line.
Thanks. It’s good to be back.