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Gordon Haddon Clark (August 31, 1902-April 9, 1985) was an American philosopher and Calvinist theologian. He was a primary advocate for the idea of presuppositional apologetics and was chairman of the Philosophy Department at Butler University for 28 years. He was an expert in pre-Socratic and ancient philosophy and was noted for his rigor in defending Platonic realism against all forms of empiricism, in arguing that all truth is propositional, and in applying the laws of logic.
Biography
Clark was raised as a Christian, and studied Calvinist thought from a young age. In 1924, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree and earned his doctoral degree from the same institution in 1929. The following year, he studied at the Sorbonne.
He began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania after receiving his bachelor's degree and also taught at Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia. In 1936, he accepted a professorship in philosophy at Wheaton College, where he remained until 1944, when he accepted a position at position at Butler University. In 1974, he left Butler and taught at several institutions, including Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia and Sangre de Cristo Seminary in Westcliffe, Colorado.
In 1944, Clark was ordained as a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In the years that followed, Clark would change denominations several times: first to the United Presbyterian Church of North America in 1948 following the Clark-Van Til Controversy and then to the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, General Synod in 1957. Clark was there instrumental in arranging a merger with another Presybterian denomination to form the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod in 1965. When this last denomination merged with the Presbyterian Church in America in 1983, Clark refused to join, and instead entered the Covenant Presbytery in 1984.
After his death in 1985, his funeral services were held in Westcliffe, Colorado, where his body is interred.
Publications
Clark was a prolific author who wrote around forty books ranging from texts on ancient and contemporary philosophy to volumes on individual Christian doctrines to essays on education and politics to commentaries for laymen on the epistles of the New Testament:
Philosophy
Theology
Commentaries
Additionally, Ronald Nash edited a Festschrift The 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 then a response by Clark.
External links
- The Trinity Foundation (http://www.trinityfoundation.org/) reprints Clark's works and publishes those of his followers. They have books, articles, and audio available for free and for a fee.
- The Gordon Clark Papers (http://www.pcanet.org/history/findingaids/clark/), archived by the Presbyterian Church of America.
Miscellaneous Articles
- "Natural Law and Revelation" (http://www.natreformassn.org/statesman/00/natlawrv.html), a paper by Gordon Clark, published by The Christian Statesman.
- The Trinity Review (http://www.trinityfoundation.org/archive.php), a publication of the Trinity Foundation that has articles by Clark and his followers.
Audio
- The Trinity Lectures (http://www.trinitylectures.org/MP3_downloads.php) in MP3 format free for download (but not streaming), including Clark's Lectures in Apologetics, Lectures on Theology, and Lectures on the Holy Spirit.
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