BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 55
November, 1993
Copyright 1993, Biblical Horizons
Mr. John Robbins and his associates of The Trinity Review have frequently attacked my work and the work of other Vantillian theologians. Mr. Robbins, a wannabe theologian, is not a member of any church, and thus is disobedient to the clear commands of scripture to submit to elders. One friend of mine who has been attacked by Robbins has said that he is not in the habit of replying to theological criticisms from those outside the church, and thus he has no interest in replying to Mr. Robbins. That is, roughly, my feeling as well. Moreover, I have never been impressed that Gordon Clark, whose philosophy these men follow, was a very profound or Biblical thinker, and some of what he wrote was definitely quackodox.
Since, however, several readers of Biblical Horizons have written to ask about The Trinity Review, let me say the following. First, the Clarkians say that both God and man know the same thing: for instance, that David was king of Israel. Vantillians agree, contrary to the silly assertions of Robbins and his associates. The objects of God’s knowledge and our knowledge are the same, though God knows such things exhaustively and we do not. But Clarkians also say that God and man both know things in the same manner, by the same kinds of mental processes ("logic"), and this assertion is fundamentally heretical, for it makes the human mind divine. Vantillians say that God’s knowledge is direct, and ours is analogical: we think God’s thoughts after Him. God knows things as God, and we know things as creatures.
Second, implicitly the Clarkians believe that human reason is divine, participating in the Divine Logic of God. I don’t see how this squares with the Creator/creature distinction, and it seems to me it is implicitly monophysite (i.e., a variant of monotheletism, perhaps "mononoeticism"). To form it into a question: Do these men believe Jesus the God-man has two minds?
Third, these men routinely misread and put the most amazing interpretations on those they disagree with. Robbins’s review of my Sociology of the Church was simply idiotic. I hardly recognized any of my actual views anywhere in his review. He is evidently incapable of reading. W. Gary Crampton completely misunderstands my comment on p. 2 of Biblical Horizons 46, where I wrote that God is, in His essence, three and one. Crampton thinks I am saying that God is one essence and also three essences (Trinity Review, September 1993).
I cannot take this kind of nonsense seriously, and the reason virtually no Vantillian ever answers the silliness of these men is that virtually nobody takes them seriously.
