Stillwaters
Puritan Board Freshman
I'm literally praying for someone to please make sense of all of this seeming insanity. I am so sad.
Please know that I did read the PB thread entitled "Dr. Gordon Clark - NeoNestorian?"
But, a sermon by a Pastor recently pointed me to Gordon H. Clark's Book The Incarnation, and I am still IN SHOCK.
And now I'm aware of many on Facebook currently discussing the following issues, and have learned much.
These are two of the most difficult quotes:
“Who suffered and died in the suffering and death of Jesus?” “On the cross Jesus said, ‘I thirst.’ No trinitarian Person could have said this because the Three Persons are pure incorporeal spirits . . . Who then, or what, thirsted on the cross?” (p. 73).
“Let us then take it for granted that God cannot die.
Now, if Christ be one divine person, no person was crucified and died. What then died on the cross?” (p. 69)
I can't come to terms with the things Gordon H. Clark said in his book The Incarnation.
And I've heard him say similar things elsewhere. I can't find him ever defending the "human nature" that Christ assumed as "impersonal" in accordance with Chalcedon.
And have heard him say elsewhere that it violated God's Impassibility & Immutability if the Divine Person wept, wearied, thirsted, hungered, suffered, and died and therefore insisting that He didn't.
And then he says many time in many places "a man is what he thinks" referencing Proverbs 23: 7 "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee."
And then he infers that Christ's human mind is person because for Jesus to be a "real human being" it is in his human mind what he is by way of what he thinks (and I am referring to Christ with the lower case "he" because Gordon H. Clark is not referring to the Divine Person being con-substantial with the humanity! And he even complains here, and many places elsewhere, that the theologians who wrote the Creed of Chalcedon didn't have proper definition for what "con-substantial" means.
How could Clark's Christ be the "Person of the Mediator"?
How could Clark's Christ Atone?
Additionally, in his Book on the Trinity he has rather odd definition of what each divine person (subsistence) is, that influences his definitions of other things elsewhere, calling the Trinitarian Persons "bundles of thoughts".
Doesn't the being of God have 1 mind and 1 will?
I recall reading complaints of his about Christ having 2 Wills and 2 minds.
And if you read on the Trinity Foundation's website the description of his book The Incarnation you will discover that it mentions controversies and misunderstandings through the Millennia about Christ having 2 wills, and also calls into questions the competency of the theologians who wrote the Creed of Chalcedon claiming they lacked proper definitions of every term they use.
Doesn't every human being know intuitively with the good common sense the Lord gave us that a person says "I" and is Self-Conscious and is the "who"?
Doesn't John 3:13 prove that Christ is 1 Divine Person who was on Earth and in Heaven simultaneously?
Isn't this a simultaneity of consciousness of the one Divine Person?
John 3:13 “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.”
But things get even worse, causing me further SHOCK, when I learned his protege John R. Robbins describes Jesus Christ as being an "individual" (a composite being) who is "a human person indwelt by the Logos".
John R. Robbins denies that Christ is the 2nd Person of the Trinity Incarnate who is a human being and the being of God (an "impersonal" human nature and a personal divine nature), therby denying the Hypostatic Union.
How can this painful collection of such strange sayings not be considered Unorthodox, Anti-Chalcedon Creed, Anti-Athanasian Creed, Un-Confessional, and rooted in the ancient "2 person" Heresy (known as nestorianism)?
Please know that I did read the PB thread entitled "Dr. Gordon Clark - NeoNestorian?"
But, a sermon by a Pastor recently pointed me to Gordon H. Clark's Book The Incarnation, and I am still IN SHOCK.
And now I'm aware of many on Facebook currently discussing the following issues, and have learned much.
These are two of the most difficult quotes:
“Who suffered and died in the suffering and death of Jesus?” “On the cross Jesus said, ‘I thirst.’ No trinitarian Person could have said this because the Three Persons are pure incorporeal spirits . . . Who then, or what, thirsted on the cross?” (p. 73).
“Let us then take it for granted that God cannot die.
Now, if Christ be one divine person, no person was crucified and died. What then died on the cross?” (p. 69)
I can't come to terms with the things Gordon H. Clark said in his book The Incarnation.
And I've heard him say similar things elsewhere. I can't find him ever defending the "human nature" that Christ assumed as "impersonal" in accordance with Chalcedon.
And have heard him say elsewhere that it violated God's Impassibility & Immutability if the Divine Person wept, wearied, thirsted, hungered, suffered, and died and therefore insisting that He didn't.
And then he says many time in many places "a man is what he thinks" referencing Proverbs 23: 7 "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee."
And then he infers that Christ's human mind is person because for Jesus to be a "real human being" it is in his human mind what he is by way of what he thinks (and I am referring to Christ with the lower case "he" because Gordon H. Clark is not referring to the Divine Person being con-substantial with the humanity! And he even complains here, and many places elsewhere, that the theologians who wrote the Creed of Chalcedon didn't have proper definition for what "con-substantial" means.
How could Clark's Christ be the "Person of the Mediator"?
How could Clark's Christ Atone?
Additionally, in his Book on the Trinity he has rather odd definition of what each divine person (subsistence) is, that influences his definitions of other things elsewhere, calling the Trinitarian Persons "bundles of thoughts".
Doesn't the being of God have 1 mind and 1 will?
I recall reading complaints of his about Christ having 2 Wills and 2 minds.
And if you read on the Trinity Foundation's website the description of his book The Incarnation you will discover that it mentions controversies and misunderstandings through the Millennia about Christ having 2 wills, and also calls into questions the competency of the theologians who wrote the Creed of Chalcedon claiming they lacked proper definitions of every term they use.
Doesn't every human being know intuitively with the good common sense the Lord gave us that a person says "I" and is Self-Conscious and is the "who"?
Doesn't John 3:13 prove that Christ is 1 Divine Person who was on Earth and in Heaven simultaneously?
Isn't this a simultaneity of consciousness of the one Divine Person?
John 3:13 “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.”
But things get even worse, causing me further SHOCK, when I learned his protege John R. Robbins describes Jesus Christ as being an "individual" (a composite being) who is "a human person indwelt by the Logos".
John R. Robbins denies that Christ is the 2nd Person of the Trinity Incarnate who is a human being and the being of God (an "impersonal" human nature and a personal divine nature), therby denying the Hypostatic Union.
How can this painful collection of such strange sayings not be considered Unorthodox, Anti-Chalcedon Creed, Anti-Athanasian Creed, Un-Confessional, and rooted in the ancient "2 person" Heresy (known as nestorianism)?
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