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Religion, Reason & Revelation QUOTES

Religion, Reason & Revelation QUOTES

1 " Here I stand, so help me God, I can do no other. With the greater consciousness of the issues involved comes a lesser assurance that an alternative is possible. "

― Gordon H. Clark , Religion, Reason & Revelation

2 " If God did not arrange [the world] this way, then there must be an independent factor in the universe. And if there is such, one consequence and perhaps two follow. First, the doctrine of creation must be abandoned. A creation ex nihilo would be completely in God's control. Independent forces cannot be created forces, and created forces cannot be independent.

Then, second, if the universe is not God's creation, his knowledge of it--past and future--cannot depend on what he intends to do, but on his observation of how it works. In such a case, how could we be sure that God's observations are accurate? How could we be sure that these independent forces will not later show an unsuspected twist that will falsify God's predictions?

And, finally, on this view God's knowledge would be empirical, rather than an integral part of his essence, and thus he would be a dependent knower. These objections are insurmountable. We can consistently believe in creation, omnipotence, omniscience, and the divine decree. But we cannot retain sanity and combine any one of these with free will. "

― Gordon H. Clark , Religion, Reason & Revelation

3 " May there not be some subconscious jealousy that motivates our reactions to other people? Why do we eat chocolate sundaes when we know that we should reduce? Are we free from the influence of parental training? The Scriptures say, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Parental training and all education proceed on the assumption that the will is not free, but can be trained, motivated, and directed. Finally, beyond both physiology and psychology there is God. Can we be sure that he is not directing our choices? Do we know that we are free from his grace? The Psalm says, "Blessed is the man whom you choose and cause to approach you." Is it certain that God has not caused us to choose to approach him? Can we set a limit to God's power? Can we tell how far it extends and just where it ends? Are we outside his control? "

― Gordon H. Clark , Religion, Reason & Revelation

4 " The direction in which the culture of an age develops is, humanly speaking, chosen by a few exceptionally intelligent men. The popular authors then pick up some of the main ideas, usually distorting and diluting them considerably, and finally fifty years or a century later the general viewpoint has seeped down to the whole populace. "

― Gordon H. Clark , Religion, Reason & Revelation