Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Augustine the Clarkian, or is it vice versa?

I'm reading Warfield on Augustine. I ran across this paragraph and it reminded me of Gordon Clark's view on the Bible being the source of truth. (And his so-called arch-nemesis, Cornelius Van Til, I'm sure would agree).

"Say you are determined to have a religion which you can demonstrate. The very search for it presupposes a precedent faith that there is a God and that he cares for us; for surely no one will seek God, or inquire how we should serve Him, without so much to go on. And where and how will you seek? Who are the wise? How will you determine who are wise in such things? In the manifold disagreements of pretenders to wisdom, it will require a wise man to select the really wise. We are caught in a fatal circle here; we must needs be wise beforehand in order to discriminate wisdom. There is but one outlet; and that outlet is, shortly, revelation."

Vol. IV Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Baker Book House Reprint (2003), pp. 167-68 (addressing and paraphrasing Augustine "De utilitate credendi")(citations omitted)(emphasis added).

Not a new truth, but one we keep having to relearn: the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

3 comments:

Lauren said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Lauren said...

Yes, the author of the comment messed up and will try again....

It seems we've been tracking independently on this same theme...not unusual. I was just mentally inquiring about hope. Hope is evidence because it is of faith. (Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and faith is evidence, therefore hope is of faith and is evidence.) As presuppositionalists, we do rely on evidence; it is not as the empiricists know it to be, i.e., of the senses, but of spiritual revelation. So, I shall need to snag your Warfield paragraph. It's my book too....

Mike Pitzler said...

Yes. And Joseph Ratzinger is not a presuppositionalist. I was sitting with some learned dispensationalists, and, as they tried to bait me, the poor amillenialists with them, I invoked the 5 solas, and we all got along quite well as a result. There's an agreement in the body of Christ on essentials.