I.           INTRODUCTION

          The relation between faith and reason, divine revelation and inspiration, the foundation of ethics, and the so-called problem of God and evil; these are some of the popular topics in the philosophy of religion.  Many pages have been written, and many conversations have taken place discussing these philosophical quandaries, and some of the most brilliant minds throughout history have wrestled long and hard with these issues.  In spite of this fact, these philosophical problems are still with us today, are still being discussed as much as ever before, and are still considered by many to be without a solution.

          But the solution to these so-called problems is not that even greater minds must grapple with these issues, or that even more pages must be written.  Rather, the solution must go deeper, for the problem is deeper.  The problem is not, as many might have it, that faith and reason are irreconcilable, or that the existence of evil necessarily precludes a good and omnipotent God.  The problem is a matter of one’s starting point, one’s presuppositions, one’s basic doctrinal positions. 

          Secular humanism would have us start from the presupposition that man is the measure of all things: either man’s emotional experiences are considered authoritative and determinative for arriving at truth and knowledge, or his intellectual faculties are exalted and become the means by which he arrives at truth.  Yet, whichever means he may choose, man continually finds himself unable to arrive at definite and consistent conclusions.  Time and time again, secular humanism has only demonstrated that man himself, rather than arriving at truth, only causes more confusion, more inconsistencies, and more problems for himself.

          The Christian faith, however, has us start from the presupposition not that man is the measure of all things, but that God is – that He, and His Word, is the only source of truth and knowledge.  Christianity – and to speak more exactly, Calvinism – has as its foundational starting point the doctrine that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, authoritative for doctrine and life, and the only guide to knowledge.  Only by studying the Scriptures, and mining from them teachings both explicit and implicit, with the guide and assistance of logic, is one able to arrive at truth, clarity, and definite and consistent conclusions.

          In Religion, Reason, and Revelation[i], Dr. Gordon H. Clark demonstrates the fact that only by presupposing a Christian worldview is one able to arrive at truth and at definite and consistent conclusions.  He puts to shame the spurious reasoning of humanistic philosophers, and demonstrates that the problems in the philosophy of religion can be consistently resolved when one adopts the presupposition that the Bible is the Word of God.  Engaging with Dr. Clark, and following His example, I will show the superiority of Biblical presuppositionalism with respect to four main topics within the philosophy of religion, namely, the relation between faith and reason, divine revelation and inspiration, the foundation of ethics, and the so-called problem of God and evil.  I will conclude, as does Dr. Clark, that the wisdom of this world is foolishness, and that only by taking an unambiguously Christian view of the world do the problems of philosophy resolve themselves and combine into a consistent and coherent system. 

II.          THE RELATION BETWEEN FAITH AND REASON

          As Dr. Clark observes, the relationship between faith and reason has been a stumbling-block to many throughout the history of theology and philosophy (126).  Are faith and reason antithetical to each other?  Does the presence of faith and belief rule out the possibility of implementing reason?  Does using reason as one’s guide necessitate the absence of faith? 

          Many have answered these questions in the affirmative.  “Yes,” they say, “faith and reason are incompatible: either you can rationally demonstrate a proposition to be true, in which case belief and faith are unnecessary; or you cannot prove a proposition to be true, and you hold to that position by faith.  Faith and reason are mutually exclusive – in fact, they are mutually antagonistic: where one is, the other must necessarily be absent.  One can either choose reason, to the exclusion of faith, or one can choose faith, to the exclusion of reason.”…

          Determined to establish the possibility of knowledge by means of reason exclusively, the Rationalists, Empiricists, and those who followed in their pursuit all came to the precarious conclusion that reason without faith results in, as Dr. Clark puts it, abysmal skepticism or absolute ignorance.  Reason, to the exclusion of revelation and faith, results in the impossibility of any knowledge at all!

          Those who would take the opposite approach, and attempt to explain reality while rejecting logic and reason, must ultimately come to the same conclusion.  The position which presumes that knowledge comes through subjective experience rather than by way of logic necessarily implies that there is a plurality of realities with a plurality of truths.  Under this approach, truth becomes subjective and knowledge becomes transitory….

          The problems with rejecting logic, especially the law of non-contradiction, in the pursuit of knowledge are evident.  Besides making knowledge itself impossible, in the way of making knowledge completely subjective, the position that rejects logic is untenable for it is inconsistent with itself.  As Dr. Clark remarks, “the disparagement of the intellect always involves a certain amount of inconsistency.  It takes a little intellectual argument to justify the disparagement” (155).  In defending the position of irrationalism, reason cannot be completely abandoned.  Rather, it must be used.  Unless truth is distinct from error, meaningful conversation ceases and knowledge becomes impossible (165)….

          Understanding reason to be thinking logically and consistently, and faith to be intellectually assenting to theological propositions about God, His Word, and His promises, we can see how faith and reason are not mutually antagonistic. Rather, together they work harmoniously to aid us in our understanding of the reality around us.  And since we have already seen that both pure rationalism and irrational faith fail to supply us with a foundation upon which we can obtain knowledge, having a faith in divine revelation that is aided by reason is the only option remaining. Dr. Clark observes that “all attempts to obtain knowledge apart from revelation have failed” (181), and that “revelation is needed as the basis of a rational worldview” (182). Moreover, since all other philosophies are either incoherent or collapse into skepticism, we can confidently dismiss as trifling any objection to putting our faith in Scripture. In fact, it has become completely reasonable to put our faith in divine revelation, and see if it can withstand the test of logic. To put our faith in anything else would be entirely irrational: not only does Scripture clearly demonstrate itself to be the Word of God, but all other positions neither warrant our assent nor withstand the internal test of logic. By an intellectual faith guided by reason, and resting on the presupposition that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, we can be certain that what we believe and what we reason is true and right. By taking an unambiguously Christian view of human psychology, faith, and logic, the apparent problematic relationship between faith and reason resolves itself and becomes part of a consistent and coherent system.

III.          DIVINE REVELATION AND INSPIRATION

          If the conclusion to the last section is granted, that reason and faith, apart from revelation, fail to lead one to any sort of certain knowledge, the next objection that the Christian faces concerns the possibility of divine revelation. The one who presupposes that the Bible alone is the Word of God will have to give a reasonable solution to the problems of inspiration and the problems of the philosophy of language. If the Christian is unable to offer a reasonable explanation of divine inspiration, or his position is internally inconsistent, his position will be rejected as intellectually untenable. In fact, what is true, and what Dr. Clark clearly demonstrates, is that while all other theories of language and revelation are internally inconsistent and fail to correspond with common sense, the Calvinist understanding of divine revelation makes verbal inspiration not only completely reasonable, but makes language itself  meaningful and intelligible. 

          Pervasive throughout Scripture is the teaching that it is the divinely inspired Word of God; “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” Paul declares to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:16). Dr. Clark advises the reader to read Gaussen’s work Theopneustia to realize for himself how much Scripture refers to itself as the inspired Word of God. Then Dr. Clark makes this valid point:

If the prophets who spoke, if the authors who wrote, and if our Lord himself are mistaken about verbal inspiration – if they are mistaken these hundreds of times – what assurance may anyone have with respect to the other things they said and wrote? Is there any reason to suppose that men who were so uniformly deceived as to the source of their message could have had any superior insight and accurate knowledge of man’s relation to God? Still more pointedly: Can anyone profess a personal attachment to Jesus Christ and consistently contradict his assertion that the Scriptures cannot be broken? (185)

Clark’s words are words that need to be taken seriously, especially today when people are only too willing to pick and choose which parts of Scripture to take as the words of God, and which to pass over and ignore. They edit and filter the words of the Bible in such a way as to make their own scripture – a scripture which is inspired by their own imaginations, and a scripture which ultimately places themselves in the position of God…. 

        This literal understanding of language ought to be more appreciated in Reformed and Presbyterian circles today. Many in the world use religious language all the time, and claim to be spiritually enlightened, yet would not be able to give any sort of proper definition to half the words they use. To put it bluntly, many simply do not know what they are talking about. And what is more, they do not think they need to know what they are talking about. It is not what you are saying that matters to them, but what you are feeling: “Who needs to know what justification, imputation, and propitiation actually mean,” they will say, “as long as you feel the Spirit in you.” But if we believe that the Bible is verbally inspired, so that the individual words we read are the specific words God wanted us to read, are we not going to pay close and careful attention to the words the Bible uses and know their precise definitions so that we can better understand what God has to say to us? Clear and complete definitions are crucial for understanding the Bible….

IV.        THE FOUNDATION OF ETHICS

          Being able to give a good witness of our faith includes being able to give clear and logical answers when questions of morality are presented to us. Everyone has a morality. The Christian, as well as everyone else, ought to be able to give a good reason for why he believes certain actions are ethically upright and good while others are ethically wrong and sinful. He ought also to be able to evaluate his own ethical theory alongside competing philosophies, and see which stands the scrutiny of logic. In so doing, he will be able to give a reasonable answer for the morally upright life he strives to follow.

          The Christian’s foundation for morality is simple: What the perfect and all-wise Judge says is good is good and what He says is evil is evil. And it is precisely so because God said so.  Dr. Clark explains it this way:

Certainly in this world honesty is best. But it is best precisely because God made the world that way. Anything God does is right, because he does it; and had we no knowledge of God we could not guess what sort of moral standards he might set up for some hypothetical world not now in existence. The reason we object to stealing or to any other sin is that we have learned that it is contrary to God’s ordinance. We must learn God’s plan first and develop our morality afterward. (235)

God is not only the all-wise and perfect Judge – the one who upholds the law – but He is the Divine Legislator – the one who decides what the law will be. 

          Since God is the Divine Legislator, we must go to Him to find out what our morality ought to be. And because we are starting from the presupposition that the Bible is the Word of God, the moral standard we find in the Bible will be the moral standard we must adopt as our own. And what we find in the Bible will not only be our moral standard, but will be the moral standard that everyone must be held to….

V.         THE PROBLEM OF GOD AND EVIL

          The discussion on morality inevitably brings up the problem of evil. If there is a perfectly good God who determines what is good and what is evil – as the Christian moralist insists – Who is also omnipotent, how can evil exist? If God is both good and omnipotent, does not His goodness require him to exercise His omnipotence in order to prevent the very intimation of sin? Yet evil displays itself every day. Therefore, the argument goes, either God is good and wants to eliminate sin, but cannot, and is for that reason not omnipotent; or, God is omnipotent, can eliminate sin, but chooses not to, and is therefore not good. If evil exists – and it clearly does – God cannot be both good and omnipotent. In only a few simple propositions and their necessary conclusions, it seems as if the Christian God is a logical impossibility.

          In the previous sections we saw that while all other philosophies degenerate into skepticism, the Christian’s reliance upon the Bible as the Word of God has directed him to firm and coherent positions. Instead of discarding our basic presupposition now, let us cling all the more to it and give it its final test. If the Bible is the Word of God, our views on the existence of evil must be shaped by what the Bible has to say. Only by conforming our thoughts to the authority of the Bible will we actually be able to test the dependability of our basic presupposition. 

          The Bible clearly teaches the goodness and omnipotence of God. David declares, “Good and upright is the LORD” (Psalm 25:8), and Jesus proclaims to the rich young ruler, “there is none good but one, that is, God” (Matthew 19:17). Job confesses to God, “I know that thou canst do every thing” (Job 42:2), and the Psalmist exclaims, “Our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased” (Psalm 115:3). 

          The Bible also affirms the sovereignty of God in all things. Especially significant with respect to the discussion that will follow is Proverbs 21:1: “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”… God’s will is the cause of all things, even the evil in this world. Although this might be difficult for some to assert, the Bible is clear with respect to the guidance of God’s hands in all matters. Dr. Clark himself has no qualms in stating that God is the cause of evil: “I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert,” he states, “that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do so” (256).

          God’s sovereignty implies several things. First, it implies that God’s will has the preeminence in everything: whatever God wills will come to pass. Second, it teaches that whatever God wills, because He is God, is perfect and good. John Calvin, as quoted by Dr. Clark, agrees: “[T]he will of God is the highest rule of justice, so that what he wills must be considered just, for this very reason, because he wills it” (264). Third, it follows from the sovereignty of God that any sort of free will on the part of man that would be contrary to the will of God is a fiction. God directs all things, even the hearts of kings. Fourth, free will according to the common understanding of the term is a fantasy, an invention concocted by totally depraved minds. 

            Man certainly has a will, but our understanding of this will must be clear. “Free will means that there is no determining factor operating on the will, not even God. Free will means that either of two incompatible actions are equally possible” (260). Free will, therefore, by definition of the sovereignty of God, has already been ruled out. But it is clear enough that I am willing or choosing to sit at my desk right now and write this paper. I am willing to be here. No one will deny that. Instead of using the term free will, we ought to use the term free agency. By free agency what we mean is a liberty from compulsion, coercion, or force. As the Reformed divines would say, “there is a necessity of compulsion and a necessity of infallible certainty” (260) and a clear distinction between these two must be maintained. Free will denies the necessity of infallible certainty, while free agency denies the necessity of compulsion. Free agency agrees with the view that all choices are done voluntarily, yet that all choices are inevitable (260). “Choice and necessity,” Dr. Clark goes on to say, “are therefore not incompatible….  A choice is still a deliberate volition even if it could not have been different” (261). And hence, since man still chooses voluntarily what he will do and what he will not do, man remains responsible for his actions. Not being coerced to sin, not sinning by compulsion, but by his own choice, man is held accountable for his actions….

          There really is no problem of evil then. Evil is not outside God’s sovereign control as some untamed power or force wreaking havoc on the universe. Evil is not a problem God needs to deal with; evil was part of God’s good plan for history. The only problem is with our totally depraved minds. 

          But one last question – and a serious question too – must be asked: is God not then the author of sin? We have maintained so far that God is sovereign and therefore the ultimate reason and cause of all things. Inasmuch as He is the cause of all things, we must also maintain that God is the ultimate cause of sin also. But does this imply that God is the author of sin, and accountable for sin? 

          Dr. Clark nicely illustrates how God can be the cause of something and yet not be its author. He writes,

God is not the author of this book, as the Arminians would be the first to admit; but he is its ultimate cause as the Bible teaches. Yet I am the author.  Authorship, therefore, is one kind of cause, but there are other kinds. The author of a book is its immediate cause; God is its ultimate cause….  Now, it should be evident that God no more commits sin than he is writing these words.  (268) 

VI.        CONCLUSION

          We have seen through the discussion that only by taking an unambiguously Christian, i.e., Calvinistic view of the world can we arrive at truth and knowledge. Only by taking the robust stance that the Bible is the very Word of God, inerrant, and the only guide to knowledge, can we give logically satisfying answers to some of the most difficult problems in the philosophy of religion. While other world views stumble with these issues, fail to give adequate answers, fall into abysmal skepticism or absolute ignorance, and are reduced to utter foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18-20), the Christian’s presupposition causes him to arrive at certain knowledge. The Christian, with the light of Scripture, is able to resolve difficult questions and build up a consistent and coherent philosophical system based on the sure foundation of the word of God. It must be acknowledged, therefore, that Biblical presuppositionalism is superior to all other worldviews and philosophical systems. Indeed, it is the only valid worldview one can adopt. Thanks be to God for His Holy Spirit, Who illuminates our minds so that we might be able to come to the knowledge of His wondrous truth.