Gordon Haddon Clark | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 31, 1902 |
| Died | April 9, 1985(1985-04-09) (aged 82) |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
| School | Calvinist Presuppositionalism Christian Philosophy |
| Main interests | Epistemology Philosophy of Religion |
| Notable ideas | Scripturalism |
Gordon Haddon Clark (August 31, 1902 – April 9, 1985) was an Americanphilosopher andCalvinisttheologian. He was a leading figure associated withpresuppositional apologetics and was chairman of the Philosophy Department atButler University for 28 years. He was an expert inpre-Socratic andancient philosophy and was noted for defending the idea of propositional revelation againstempiricism andrationalism, in arguing that all truth ispropositional. Histheory of knowledge is sometimes calledscripturalism.
Clark was raised in a Christian home and studied Calvinist thought from a young age. In 1924, he graduated from theUniversity of Pennsylvania with abachelor's degree in French and earned hisdoctorate in Philosophy from the same institution in 1929. The following year he studied at theSorbonne.
He began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania after receiving his bachelor's degree and also taught at the Reformed Episcopal Seminary inPhiladelphia. In 1936, he accepted a professorship in Philosophy atWheaton College, Illinois, where he remained until 1943 when he accepted the Chairmanship of the Philosophy Department atButler University in Indianapolis. After his retirement from Butler in 1973, he taught atCovenant College inLookout Mountain, Georgia, andSangre de Cristo Seminary inWestcliffe, Colorado.
Clark's denominational affiliations would change many times. He was born into and eventually became a ruling elder in thePresbyterian Church in the United States of America. However, he would eventually leave with a small group of conservatives, led byJohn Gresham Machen, to help form the Presbyterian Church of America (renamed theOrthodox Presbyterian Church in 1938) and would be ordained in the OPC in 1944. However, in 1948, following the Clark-Van Til Controversy, he joined theUnited Presbyterian Church of North America. Following the UPCNA's 1956 merger with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (the same denomination from which the OPC had separated from in 1936) to form theUnited Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Clark joined theReformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod in 1957. Clark was instrumental in arranging a merger between the RPCGS and theEvangelical Presbyterian Church to form theReformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod in 1965. When the RPCES became part of thePresbyterian Church in America in 1982, Clark refused to join the PCA and instead entered the unaffiliated Covenant Presbytery in 1984.
Clark was also elected president of theEvangelical Theological Society in 1965.
He died in 1985 and was buried nearWestcliffe, Colorado.
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Clark's philosophy and theology has been summarized as:[1]
Clark met his future wife Ruth Schmidt during his graduate studies at theUniversity of Pennsylvania; she had actually been baptized by Gordon's father as a baby. They married in 1929 and stayed together for 48 years until Ruth's death fromleukemia in 1977. They had two daughters, Lois Antoinette (later Lois Zeller, b. 1936) and Nancy Elizabeth (later Betsy Clark George, b. 1941). At the time of his death, Clark was survived by his two daughters and their husbands, 12 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.[3]
Clark was well known as a keenchessplayer. In 1966, he won the championship of the King's Men Chess Club inIndianapolis.[3]
Clark was a prolific author who wrote more than forty books, including texts on ancient and contemporary philosophy, volumes on Christian doctrines, commentaries on theNew Testament and a one-volume history of philosophy. Many of his works have been reprinted by the Trinity Foundation.[4]
Additionally,Ronald Nash edited aFestschriftThe Philosophy of Gordon H. Clark (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1968), which presented a summary of Clark's thought (viz., the Wheaton lectures mentioned above), critiques by several authors, and rejoinders by Clark.
