EXCELLENT BIOGRAPHY OF GORDON CLARK PUBLISHED -- Review of Douglas Douma's "The Presbyterian Philosopher: Bio of Gordon Clark"
EXCELLENT BIOGRAPHY
OF GORDON CLARK
PUBLISHED
A review of
Douglas J. Douma The
Presbyterian Philosopher:
The Authorized
Biography of Gordon H. Clark (Wipf, 2017)
292 pp $37.00
ISBN: 978-1-4326-0724-0
Foreward By Clark’s
Daughters: Lois Zeller and Betsy Clark George
Reviewer: Forrest W. Schultz
This biography is so well written and
carefully documented that it has received three pages (i, ii, iii) of highly
laudatory plaudits from some of the most prominent leaders in the contemporary
Reformed community. Perhaps the most noteworthy
and impressive of these plaudits is the one by John Frame, who for the past
five decades has been regarded as the leading authority on the thought of
Cornelius Van Til, which has usually been deemed to be antithetical to the
philosophy of Gordon Clark. And, I am pleased
to say that Doug Douma has dealt with the Clark vs. Van Til controversy in a
professional and irenic fashion.
Douma has also refrained from expressions
of wrath in his portrayal of the very sad defections (from Clark’s high view of
Scripture) by his former students (at Wheaton College) Drs. Edward J. Carnell
and Paul K. Jewett into the false notion that errors are present in Scripture –
a belief for which they became notorious while they were professors at Fuller
Seminary.
On the lighter side, Douma had a lot of
fun reporting the reactions of two of Clark’s other students at Wheaton: Ruth Bell and Billy Graham. Ruth said she welcomed the hard facts; but
Billy rebuked Clark for being “cold”.
Douma’s portrayal of Billy’s rebuke of Clark is reminiscent to that of
Dr. McCoy’s reaction to the cold logic of Mr. Spock on Star Trek!
-1-
It is not surprising that a large portion
of Douma’s book is devoted to the well-known, but poorly understood, “Clark
case” in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which never conducted a Clark vs.
Van Til debate, but instead handled the matter in a very bureaucratic way,
which many sarcastically regard as typical of Presbyterianism! Douma discusses, at different places in his
book, the various elements in the Clark vs. Van Til dispute, which discussions
are too lengthy and complex to summarize here.
I encourage you to read and ponder them and also to consult the
extensive bibliography provided in the back of the book. One of these books which I highly recommend
(which is not discussed by Douma) is the late Robert L. Reymond’s The Justification of Knowledge, which
sets forth my own view – I am a Reymondite Van Tillian.
Douma concludes his story with a happy
ending, relating how in their old age Clark and Van Til not only were reconciled
but became friends. Such a reconciliation
is rare, BUT it is not to be unexpected because of a little known fact about Westminster
Theological Seminary: its campus is
located on a former estate populated by rare trees, thus serving as a fitting
environment for a rare reconciliation.
This is very meaningful to me because those rare trees also served as a
fitting environment for me many moons ago when I was a Th.M. student at WTS
writing my thesis on what then was a rare topic, the Biblical view of ecology.
Information on the author is available at www.discoversola.com
Posts by the reviewer are found at http://vantiltool.blogspot.com
February 21, 2017
-2-
posted by Forrest Schultz @ 1:15 PM
5 comments
