A Critical Review of Gordon H. Clark's "God And Evil: The Problem Solved": Part XII

I recently read through a section of Clark's work entitled "Responsibility and Determinism", and decided to break my critical response to it into two blog posts. The first answered the initial claim Clark makes on the basis of Romans 1: that responsibility is not contingent on Free Will, but on knowledge. I found Clark's conclusions to be lacking warrant, and in fact found the language used and presuppositions latent in Romans 1 to imply something quite incongruent with Clark's position on responsibility.

Interestingly enough, "Responsibility and Determinism" goes on to admit that responsibility is not actually contingent on knowledge after-all. But Clark nevertheless maintains that responsibility is not contingent on Free Will either. To make this case, he offers a counter-example: the teaching of Romans 5:12-21. In my second blog post on "Responsibility and Determinism", I wrestled with the meaning of Romans 5 in light of Ezekiel 18 and other passages concerning judgement. I found Clark's assumption that Romans 5 teaches that every human shall be held morally responsible for Adam's sin to be without Biblical foundation. Whatever it was that we inherited from Adam, it wasn't moral guilt for his sin. Therefore, Romans 5 is no counter-example to the position that moral responsibility is contingent on human Free Will.

What I failed to review in my second post, was what Clark contends that responsibility is in fact grounded in. This is what I hope to do in this post. I apologize for taking 3 long posts to critically review roughly a page of text, but Clark references some big ideas and makes some bold assumptions in the span of very few words, and I don't want to be too hasty in reply. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Clark says that:
1. A person is responsible if he can be justly rewarded or punished for his deeds.
2. Responsibility presupposes a superior authority that rewards and punishes.
3. The highest authority is God.
4. Therefore responsibility is ultimately dependent on the power and authority of God.

(1) seems true. It might not be the only way to describe responsibility, and it might not capture its full scope, but it does seem that the set of all persons who are responsible is equal to the set of all persons who can be justly rewarded or punished for their deeds. And it seems as though this equality is not a coincidence, but that responsibility is predicated on praiseworthiness/blameworthiness or perhaps vice versa.

(2) is precarious. First of all, it is not clear whether Clark intends for (2) to be implied by (1). If he does, I think it is a mistake because the mere capacity to be justly rewarded or punished does not necessarily require that rewards or punishments actually be given, or given by a superior authority.

If Clark were to intend (2) to simply be self-evident, I think that would be a mistake as well. When we talk of "responsibility" we simply mean "fault" (even if "fault" grounds the justice of deserts).

Here is a counterexample: If there were no God, and the whole world were ruled by a dictator who extinguished all of the Jews without ever being opposed, we would still say "Hitler Prime" was 'responsible' for extinguishing the Jews. It is not necessary to presuppose a superior authority who justly punishes Hitler Prime in order to call Hitler Prime the one responsible for the "Holocaust Prime". He is responsible because he did it, and nobody made him do it. Such fact may mean that it would be just to justly punish him, but not the other way around.

This is how we're able to talk about people "getting away with murder". These are individuals who are responsible for committing crimes, who are never justly punished. But the fact that they are never justly punished doesn't mean that they aren't the ones responsible for their offenses. (If they aren't, who is?)

(3) is obviously true.

What are we to do with (4)? If the truth of (2) is in question (even before an analysis of the validity of this ill-formed syllogism), then the soundness of the argument is already suspicious. But even if the argument for (4) isn't sound, (4) might still happen to be true.

To investigate the truth of (4), we should first try to understand what Clark means by "responsibility is ultimately dependent on the power and authority of God.". Fortunately, he elaborates for us:

It is [God's] will that establishes the distinction between right and wrong... Most people find it easy to conceive of God as having created or established physical law by divine fiat... But for some peculiar reason, people hesitate in applying the same principle of sovereignty in the sphere of ordinary ethics. Instead of recognizing God as sovereign in morals, they want to subject him to some independent, superior, ethical law - a law that satisfies their sinful opinions of what is right and wrong.

Clark believes that God can do whatever and judge however He wants, and that His actions and judgements will be, by very definition, just. Therefore, if God causes people to commit evil and judges them for doing so, so be it, it is just. In fact, if God were to do evil, it would be just. Good and evil might have just as well been inverted from what they are, and we could have been calling what is good in this world, "evil", and what is evil in this world "good". It was God's call either way.

The alternative to God's "sovereignty" over what constitutes Goodness, according to Euthyphro Clark, is that in order for God to be good, He must adhere to some concept of Goodness outside Himself.

Clark's position is tricky. As Christians we want to affirm that God can do anything He wants, and we want to deny that there exists anything outside of God. So it is easy to nod our heads along with Clark's leading propositions, that God can do anything and that whatever God does is just and that however God judges is just. But by the time we come around to Clark's conclusion, we are repulsed. Why?

There are two issues here that Clark's view muddies. The first issue pertains to God, and the second to God's created self-Images.

While it's true that God can do anything He wants, it also happens to be true that God only wants to do things that are logical. This is why the Evangelist is comfortable saying that God is logic. Not that Logic is God, but that God is logic. That is, logic is a description of God's character; God is orderly and not chaotic. He wouldn't, and in fact couldn't create a round square, or cause 2 + 2 to equal 5.

Would Clark say that God is similarly "sovereign" over His existence? Could God make it such that He never existed?

No, He couldn't. These are logical impossibilities, and since God is logic, they are Godly impossibilities.

And the same goes for love. John is also comfortable saying that God is love. Not that Love is God, but that God is love. Love is a description of His character. It is not as if love or logic exist outside of God's ontology in such a way that God must adhere to them. Rather, they emanate from God's ontology. And since God is immutable, that is, He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, then things that describe His unchanging character, such as logic and love, are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. And if that's the case, then God cannot be loving and logical one day, and hateful and irrational the next. He is bound to be Himself. Furthermore, God is united and not divided. His attributes inform one another, and his love cannot behave irrationally, and similarly his logic can never be hateful.

There are things that God's character binds Him, or to use a word Clark has a felicity for, "determines" Him to be or do. In this way, we can coherently talk about God's need to behave justly, logically, or lovingly, without presupposing standards external to God.

This splits Euthyphro's Clark's "dilemma" through the horns.

In this way, if it is the case that causing someone else to sin, is itself a sin, then it cannot be the case that God does it and thereby makes it just.

So, is it evil for God to cause others to commit evil (ignoring, for a second, the verse in Mark that suggests such)? Doesn't it just seem true? But what of Clark's point about our sinful opinions about right and wrong? Such questions lead us into the second issue that Clark's rhetoric muddies: whether humans can know the difference between right and wrong.

Clark co-opts his readers' desire to be, or at least to appear to be, humble. He claims that saying God has to be one way and not another is arrogant, and presupposes our ability to know what is right and what is wrong. Manipulative rhetoric like that isn't helpful to the discourse, because it prevents us from using the "sound mind" that Paul says God gives us to think about the issue. It manipulates us into adopting Clark's position outright, because even so much as a peep of criticism is labeled arrogance and heresy and indicates reprobation.

In rebuttal, I offer two points. The first is that if our faculties have been so damaged by the Fall that we are unable to discern between good and evil, than certainly such damage prevents us from rightly dividing the Word of God as well. There is no way that we are capable of correctly and certainly interpreting the Bible, but yet incapable of knowing the difference between right and wrong. And if that's the case, then how can I trust Clark's interpretation of the Bible? I can't. And therefore this whole debate is pointless, because I can't know whether it would be evil for God to cause evil, and Clark can't know whether the Bible says that God causes evil or not. So why did Clark write a book about it and why am I arguing with him?

The second point is that the scriptures teach that even the reprobate man has God's very law written on his heart, and that even the reprobate man's conscience bears witness to it (Romans 2:14-15). So how much more does the regenerate man understand the division between right and wrong! How much more does the man with God's very Spirit indwelling him have access to the meaning of justice!

So although Clark thinks that God could do anything, even cause evil, and it would be just, I think that God can only do those things which are in fact just. And that would exclude causing evil or causing others to do evil, per both the Mark verse and my hopefully God-implanted and Spirit-led intuitions concerning justice.

In other words: yes, something is good simply because God is or does it, but God's character and behavior are not arbitrary. Therefore, since deterministic Calvinism teaches that God is and does things that can be shown to be against His character, it is therefore in error and so must have gone hermeneutically or presuppositionally awry somewhere.

Clark concludes this section with a far-fetched ad hominem about Platonic dualism. Kind of ironic, since Calvinism has been historically accused of committing the same error as Manichean dualism (perhaps due in part to their forefather Augustine's Manichean roots). What are you gonna do.

On Fathering Thus Far

Baby: *cries*
Dada: Buddy, you know I always give you your pacifier back after you lose it! There's no need to panic.
Baby: That's called the inductive fallacy, Dad. There is no guarantee the future will resemble the past. There is ample reason to panic!
Dada: Just because we have reason to believe inductive reasoning isn't conclusive, doesn't mean you are warranted in believing conclusions contrary to those suggested by an inductive process. It's called learning to trust your Dad.
Baby: I love you Dad. Can we get back to reading Plato's Republic, now?
Dada: I love you too, Son. *tears up*

When I saw my son for the first time, it was love. But now I look back and realize I hadn't even gotten to know him yet. He was so slimy and sort of grey. Now he is dry. And more pink colored. And he snores. And other fun things. I like him.

He is learning to smile. Which is adorable.

I can't speak lowly enough of Baby-Wise and other "cry-it-out" methods. More on this perhaps in an anathematizing future post.

I can't speak highly enough of our providers - the pediatrician, the midwife, and the nurses. My mother-in-law is a saint. She comes and has fun - fun, mind you - cleaning our house and holding our baby.

Also my family. Close friends and family. Their love and support and generosity and eager arms have been hugely helpful. Way to be helpful, guys.

But the real star is my wife. She stands head and shoulders above us all for the hard work she's put into pregnancy, labor, delivery, breastfeeding, Soren's infancy in general so far... I could easily go on. I married the right woman. Hands down.

I was a little concerned about spoiling my son, since his needs have been so well met so far, and he already has an abundance of toys and textures. But I think I am actually okay with that. I just want to be intentional about teaching him humility and generosity.

He is very obedient so far, in fact. I tell him to be cute and to smell good and he does it. Good boy.

My wife has taken to calling him "Pumpkin", but it sounds more like "Punkin".

My nicknames for him so far include Dino-Soren, Sweet Baby Boy, Sweet Baby Son, My Son My Only Son, Snoren, and the like.

I am convicted to look to live a more righteous and generous life as a model for him. Lord, help me to take my responsibility seriously and to be a good model for my son, and help him to excel far beyond whatever goodness You have granted me. Amen.

Great Bible Giveaway

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A Critical Review of Gordon H. Clark's "God And Evil: The Problem Solved": Part XI

I recently read through a section of Clark's work entitled "Responsibility and Determinism", and decided to break my critical response to it into two blog posts. The first answered the initial claim Clark makes on the basis of Romans 1: that responsibility is not contingent on Free Will, but on knowledge. I found Clark's conclusions to be lacking warrant, and in fact found the language used and presuppositions latent in Romans 1 to imply the opposite.

Interestingly enough, "Responsibility and Determinism" goes on to admit that responsibility is not actually contingent on knowledge after-all. But Clark does maintain that responsibility is not contingent on Free Will either. To make this case, he offers a counter-example: the teaching of Romans 5:12-21:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

If all of humanity is morally responsible for Adam's sin, then moral responsibility is not contingent on Free Will (for surely not every human freely willed Adam to sin!).

But is that what Romans 5 teaches? Are we all really guilty for our great+ grandfather's sin? A face-value reading of Romans 5 with Calvinistic categories in our minds would seem to imply so, but it poses five problems.

The first problem is that there are other passages of scripture whose face-value readings seem to directly contradict a face-value reading of Romans 5. One of the clearest is Ezekiel 18, whose summary is found in verses 20b and 30a:

The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself...

Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD.

[This chapter also contains a statement (verse 23) whose face-value reading seems to directly contradict the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election and reprobation: "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?".]

Ezekiel 18 seems to teach that God judges each individual according to his own ways, and that each individual's righteousness or wickedness is upon himself or herself, not that God judges each individual according to Adam's ways, and that Adam's wickedness is upon each individual. So between the Calvinist reading of Romans 5 and the face-value reading of Ezekiel 18, something has to budge. Should it be the Calvinist understanding of original sin?

The second problem that the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 5 poses is that Romans 5 uses identical language in describing both the scope of the consequences of Adam's sin, and the scope of the consequences of Christ's free gift. It says that one trespass led to condemnation for 'all' men, and that one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for 'all' men. And when it uses the term "many", it uses it the same way: through one man's disobedience, the 'many' were made sinners, and through one man's obedience the 'many' were made righteous.

Yet since we know from the rest of scripture, and even from Paul's own writings, that not literally all men are justified and given life, we have reason to doubt the Calvinist reading of "one trespass led to condemnation for all men".

The third problem that the Calvinist reading of Romans 5 has is that it is not conclusively entailed by the language used. Paul says that sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin. The phrase "sin came into the world" doesn't necessarily commit us to anything more than believing that Adam was the first sinner in the world. That death entered into the world "through sin" doesn't spell much else out for us other than that Adam died because of his sin. I am personally unsure about whether Paul means physical or spiritual death in this and subsequent verses, or both, or each in different contexts. Perhaps his offspring were born mortal because of his sin (but I don't see how this verse conclusively teaches that our inherited mortality implies our inherited moral responsibility for Adam's sin). "And so death spread to all men because all sinned... even [to] those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam" could possibly mean that subsequent humans sinned in various ways and thereby incurred death (and not, necessarily, that Adam was the federal head of humanity, unless there are aspects of the Greek grammar that entail such an interpretation that I am not aware of).

The fourth problem with the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 5 is that the penal math doesn't add up. Or rather, it adds up to too much. If charges were levied against Adam, then there wouldn't be any to levy against subsequent plaintiffs. This is the same argument the Calvinists themselves use to defeat unlimited atonement: if Christ truly paid for the sins of an individual in full, the Judge has no further charges to levy against them, and there are therefore no grounds for their punishment. For God to require payment for sins that have already been paid for would be unjust. If this logic holds for the mechanics of the atonement, it holds for the mechanics of original sin too. Therefore if Adam was held responsible for his sin, then his offspring cannot be.

The fifth problem with the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 5 is different. This one is not a problem inherent in the doctrine, but an objection to the possibility that Clark or another Calvinist might use one variant of the doctrine as a counter-example to the principle that moral responsibility is contingent on Free Will.

Some Calvinists might object to the other four problems I've outlined with something like "But Adam's sin wasn't just his own. When he sinned, all of humanity was bound up in him and sinned too.". I think this is close to Jonathan Edwards' position. There may be internal problems with such a view, but today I would just like to point out that if that's the case, then it might be that humans are morally responsible for Adam's sin, but not on the basis of inherited guilt. If every subsequent human participated in Adam's sin and is thereby guilty, then it would be an example of moral responsibility being grounded in human Free Will, not a counter-example.

As of tonight, it is not clear to me what Romans 5 means. I can trace some of the boundaries of the meaning, but cannot fill in all of the soteriological details about original sin.

Now don't blow this out of proportion; I am not trying to make room for what is commonly called "Pelagianism"; I maintain that Adam and every human being with a biological father need a Savior, salvation cannot come by works, and we inherited a lot more than a bad example from Adam.

But I am not convinced we inherited guilt. I am not convinced we are held morally responsible for Adam's sin.

I think in the end my view turns out to be something like Copan's.

Therefore I am not convinced that the teaching of Romans 5 stands as a counter-example to the principle that moral responsibility is grounded in Free Will.

Well, since I only got through the second paragraph of this section, and there remain four or five more, I will save the rest for subsequent posts. In the next post I really hope to get around to explaining what Clark believes moral responsibility is grounded in and why I find such view wanting.