Quoting PRCA Rev/Prof D.J. Englesma about NESTORIAN ATONEMENT (misunderstandings about God's Immutability of which Impassibility is a subset).

[Rainee]

Quote about Nestorian Atonement statements of G.H. Clark. But alarmingly in recent years similar statements have been made by R.C. Sproul, and many others, but most especially in sermons and teachings by reformed theologians about the true doctrine of Divine Immutability of which Impassibility is a subset.

It seem abundantly clear that misunderstandings about the Immutably of God, including Impassibility which is a subset of it, is driving reformed theologians into a Nestorian Atonement heresy.

Quote ==>

" Clark’s doctrine is the boldest, most advanced Nestorianism, suffering fatally, from the weaknesses because of which the church rejected Nestorianism — its failure to unite the two natures of the Savior and its inability to unify the work of redemption.

As though it clinches his argument that Christ is also a human person,

Clark repeatedly raises the question, “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)

Clark supposes that Chalcedonian orthodoxy has
no answer to this question.

Clark is mistaken. "

Kindly please reference our beloved Puritan Board member Contra_Mundum 's faithful, biblical, historically faithful teaching about this ==>

See Response # 29 of Contra_Mundum

Jesus' Limited Human Nature and Infinite Divine Wrath and Suffering

Jesus' Limited Human Nature and Infinite Divine Wrath and Suffering

I have a question that I’m not sure if there’s an answer to. Since Jesus’ passive obedience was performed in his human nature, how could he have endured infinite wrath if his human nature is finite? I understand Jesus had infinite value as a person, but my question is how he could have suffered...

www.puritanboard.com

D.V.

 

[Rainee]

`
Kindly please reference our beloved Puritan Board member Contra_Mundum 's faithful, biblical, historically faithful teaching about this ==>

See Response # 29 of Contra_Mundum

Jesus' Limited Human Nature and Infinite Divine Wrath and Suffering

Jesus' Limited Human Nature and Infinite Divine Wrath and Suffering

I have a question that I’m not sure if there’s an answer to. Since Jesus’ passive obedience was performed in his human nature, how could he have endured infinite wrath if his human nature is finite? I understand Jesus had infinite value as a person, but my question is how he could have suffered...

www.puritanboard.com

D.V.

`
Quoting Contra_Mundum's response to the question "Who was crucified on the cross?" in the thread reference above ==>

" What is proper to say is that the Person suffered by virtue of his human nature. Persons act, natures are. The divine second Person, who has an eternal divine nature, took on a human nature; so now he is whole in Person through the union of those natures (how so is explained in the Chalcedonian symbol explicating the hypostatic union). He wasn't less-than-whole prior to the Incarnation, but afterward to not be the theanthropos would render him less-than-whole. So the assumption of humanity is permanent.

No, what is divine of Christ knew no suffering, being in accord with the divine nature impassible. However, the Person did suffer; and the manner was through his possession of a human nature. It is proper to say it was "God's blood" that was shed on the cross, Act.20:28. It is fitting to sing in the hymn, And Can It Be, "...that thou, my God, didst die for me," provided one says so with the understanding we confess (WCF 8.7) "...yet, by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature."

WHO was crucified on the cross was the Second Person, Jesus Christ; those who crucified him did not crucify a NATURE, but a Person; however they did this injury to him in his humanity. "

.

 

[Taylor]

Can you give more context to this quote from Clark? It seems rather piecemeal and therefore difficult to discern exactly what he means by what he says. Given just the quote you present, I’m not sure I would conclude that he was a Nestorian. At worst, he was perhaps sloppy here, but I need to see more. Also, can we get a proper citation for the quote from Clark?

 

[yeutter]

" Clark’s doctrine is the boldest, most advanced Nestorianism, suffering fatally, from the weaknesses because of which the church rejected Nestorianism — its failure to unite the two natures of the Savior and its inability to unify the work of redemption.

As though it clinches his argument that Christ is also a human person,

Clark repeatedly raises the question, “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)

Clark supposes that Chalcedonian orthodoxy has
no answer to this question.

Clark is mistaken. "

Here are Professor David Engelsma's observations on Clark in context.

THE INCARNATION, by Gordon H. Clark; The Trinity Foundation, 1988; 91 pp. plus appendixes: $8.95 (Reviewed by the Prof. David Engelsma)

This is a disturbing, and even distressing, book. Gordon H. Clark, renowned champion of Presbyterian orthodoxy, challenges the church’s traditional and creedal doctrine of the incarnation, that Jesus is one person and that this person is the divine person of the eternal Son of God. Clark argues that Jesus cannot be a real man like us unless He is a human person. Jesus, therefore, is both a divine person and a human person. John W. Robbins accurately expresses Clark’s teaching in the concluding paragraph (written by Robbins because Clark died before completing the book), when he states: Jesus Christ was and is both God and man, a divine person and a human person. To deny either is to fall into error, (p. 78) Clark is quite willing to criticize both the ecumenical and the Presbyterian creeds, which teach that Jesus has two natures in the unity of the one divine person. The manner of his criticism is cavalier. Having charged a "fatal flaw in the Chalcedonian Symbol," Clark tells us that "its bishop-authors did not explain, and probably did not themselves know the meanings of rational soul,* ‘consubstantial.’ nature,’ ’subsistence,’ and above all ’person”’ (p. 15).

He treats the Westminster divines in similar fashion. Writing about the Westminster Confession s doctrine of God’s infinity (Clark denies that God is infinite: ’’the Bible definitely says he is not," p. 60). Clark remarks that these "theologians . . . were not mathematicians and did not know what they were talking about" (p. 58). I am not so sure that the fathers at Chalcedon were such dummies regarding the person and natures of Christ, or that the divines of Westminster. mathematicians or not. were such ignoramuses concerning the infinity of the being of God. I am even less sure that the Spirit of Christ failed to lead the church into all the truth of the person and natures of Christ at Chalcedon, or into the truth of the infinity of the being of God at Dordt and Westminster.

A formidable logician. Clark nevertheless permits himself the logical fallacy of poisoning the well" at the crucial point in his argument. As he is about to state his conclusion, that Jesus is a human person. Clark not only wards off the charge of Nestorianism (the heresy that Christ is two persons, condemned by the church at the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 and rejected in the orthodox statement of the incarnation by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451), but also ascribes any such criticism of his. Clark’s, doctrine to "unfriendly critics": "Some unfriendly critics will instantly brand the following defense of Christ’s humanity as the heresy of Nestorianism" (p. 75). I am a friendly critic. But Clark’s doctrine is the boldest, most advanced Nestorianism, suffering. fatally, from the weaknesses because of which the church rejected Nestorianism — its failure to unite the two natures of the Savior and its inability to unify the work of redemption. As though it clinches his argument that Christ is also a human person.

Clark repeatedly raises the question, “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) Clark supposes that Chalcedonian orthodoxy has no answer to this question. Clark is mistaken. The answer is. ‘ The person of the eternal Son of God suffered and died in the human nature.” This is the wonder of the passion of Jesus Christ. This is also the reason why that suffering is of infinite worth and value, as the Canons of Dordt teach in 11/3, 4. On the answer of Clark and Nestorius, that it was the human person of Jesus that suffered. the divine person was not involved, in which case the humanity of Jesus could never have endured the suffering of the infinite wrath of God.. Also, even if the human person of Jesus did manage the suffering, that suffering does not have the worth that is necessary to satisfy the justice of God.

Clark also proposes his own. novel, and very peculiar definition of the term that is fundamental to trinitarian and incarnational doctrine, the term "person": we shall define person as a composite of truths. A bit more exactly . . . the definition must be u composite of propositions (p. 54). As three persons, God then is three composites of propositions. On this definition, it is not obvious to me that a compound English sentence is not a person. Besides, since the word "composite" has as its basic meaning made up of parts,’ Clark’s definition seems to carry with it a challenge to the doctrine of the simplicity of God (the teaching that God’s Being is not made up of parts).

Preachers and teachers in Reformed circles may well be reminded that the doctrine of the incarnation, like the related doctrine of the trinity, is being reexamined today, not only by the liberal left, but also by the conservative right. The point at which the traditional doctrine is being challenged is that of the full, real humanity of Jesus. This challenge calls for vigorous defense of the creedal doctrine of the church, as well as renewed study of the Scripture’s teaching concerning the wonder of the Word’s becoming flesh.

 

[Rainee]

Can you give more context to this quote from Clark? It seems rather piecemeal and therefore difficult to discern exactly what he means by what he says. Given just the quote you present, I’m not sure I would conclude that he was a Nestorian. At worst, he was perhaps sloppy here, but I need to see more. Also, can we get a proper citation for the quote from Clark?

Dear @Taylor ,

The following is all related, and intertwined ==>

Have you read Clark's book about the Trinity?

Are you aware he defined the 3 Divine Persons as "Bundles of Thought"?

Did you know he claimed the "Divine Essence (nature)" is "mute"?

Have you read his writings about the Johannine Logos?

Have you read his utterly awful teachings about the Imago Dei?

Are you aware that his protoge J.R. Robbins was even far more Nestorian than he himself?

Are you aware of the J.R. Robbins "famous Nestorian interview" with Lucet?

Are you aware of the J.R. Robbins "famous quote" made summarizing Clark's book on the Incarnation?

Are you aware that now many "Clarkians", and many followers of J.R. Robbins. even teach and believe that God has 3 Minds?

They believe and teach that God has 3 Minds because Gordon H. Clark & J.R. Robbins taught that the Divine Persons are "incorporeal spirits" (PLURAL for 3 spirits), as is mentioned in the OP quote, and are each self-conscious, and are each "Bundles of Thought" teaching this PRESUPPOSES A MIND BEHIND each "Bundle of Thoughts" that are each a DIVINE PERSON?

Are you familiar with Clark's other definition of "person" as being a "Collection of Propositions"?

Do you know that Clark said the "Person" who is Christ Jesus did not weep, weary, thirst, hunger, suffer, or die?

Do you see how similar all of this is to R.C. Sproul teaching that only the "human nature atoned" (but not the divine person because of immutably and impassibility)?

Please see the post made last year by Stillwaters about Gordon H. Clark for more information related to the quote in this OP, and his book on the Incarnation.

Please contact the author of the quote Rev/Prof David J. Engelsma (retired professor, scholar, retired pastor, and theologian) who can best explain to you (and explain to @RamistThomist who liked your question, and who has a long history with this topic) why he wrote that Clark was the most advanced Nestorianism to date in the year 1989 when he wrote that review (though J.R. Robbins later far surpassed his mentor in years to come).

): Most sadly, in recent weeks some articles & writings are emerging in various reformed denominations containing similar Nestorian Atonement content, and this is of great concern but do not want to mention names here and now ... not yet.

Thank you for your question and contribution to this thread.

 

[Joshua]

What’s your dill, pickle?

 

[RamistThomist]

Please contact the author of the quote Rev/Prof David J. Engelsma (retired professor, scholar, retired pastor, and theologian) who can best explain to you (and explain to @RamistThomist who liked your question, and who has a long history with this topic) why he wrote that Clark was the most advanced Nestorianism to date in the year 1989 when he wrote that review (though J.R. Robbins later far surpassed his mentor in years to come).

As always the case, I have no idea what you are talking about. I've never denied Clark had Nestorian tendencies. I simply denied (and still do) that a random comment I made about Clark ten years ago made many Reformed people become Nestorian. Among confessional Reformed, I probably know more about Cyril of Alexandria (see profile pic) than anyone else.

 

[Taylor]

Dear @Taylor ,

The following is all related, and intertwined ==>

Have you read Clark's book about the Trinity?

Are you aware he defined the 3 Divine Persons as "Bundles of Thought"?

Did you know he claimed the "Divine Essence (nature)" is "mute"?

Have you read his writings about the Johannine Logos?

Have you read his utterly awful teachings about the Imago Dei?

Are you aware that his protoge J.R. Robbins was even far more Nestorian than he himself?

Are you aware of the J.R. Robbins "famous Nestorian interview" with Lucet?

Are you aware of the J.R. Robbins "famous quote" made summarizing Clark's book on the Incarnation?

Are you aware that now many "Clarkians", and many followers of J.R. Robbins. even teach and believe that God has 3 Minds?

They believe and teach that God has 3 Minds because Gordon H. Clark & J.R. Robbins taught that the Divine Persons are "incorporeal spirits" (PLURAL for 3 spirits), as is mentioned in the OP quote, and are each self-conscious, and are each "Bundles of Thought" teaching this PRESUPPOSES A MIND BEHIND each "Bundle of Thoughts" that are each a DIVINE PERSON?

Are you familiar with Clark's other definition of "person" as being a "Collection of Propositions"?

Do you know that Clark said the "Person" who is Christ Jesus did not weep, weary, thirst, hunger, suffer, or die?

Do you see how similar all of this is to R.C. Sproul teaching that only the "human nature atoned" (but not the divine person because of immutably and impassibility)?

Wow. I asked a simple question for clarification, and, in response, I receive thirteen questions. To be blunt, you had a perfect opportunity here to draw me into your concerns, but this response completely turned me off. This seems to be more of a personal obsession than anything else. So, I guess never mind, then.

...Cyril of Alexandria (see profile pic)...

Is that an actual photograph?

 

[RamistThomist]

Wow. I asked a simple question for clarification, and in response, I receive thirteen questions. To be blunt, you had a perfect opportunity here to draw me into your concerns, but this response completely turned me off. This seems to be more of a personal obsession than anything else. So, I guess never mind, then.


Is that an actual photograph?

LOL. I think it is from a movie.

 

[yeutter]

Another review from the same theological tradition.

The Trinity, by Gordon H. Clark published by the Trinity Foundation, 1990 was reviewed by Professor Herman Hanko in the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, vol. 25, no. 1, (November, 1991)

"This the second edition of The Trinity, the first edition having been published in 1985. We are informed that this edition is "augmented by the addition of both topical and scriptural indexes."

This book is not easily read. Not only is the treatment ofthe doctrine in the course of this history of the church difficult to read, but Clark's own view of the trinity is difficult going. One had better be prepared to don his thinking cap before swimming in these waters. A major section of the book (nearly 100 pages) is devoted to an historical survey of the truth of the Trinity. In this section various heresies and orthodox thinkers are treated. There are sections on Sabellianism, Athanasius, Augustine, the Athanasian Creed, Hodge, Berkhof, Bavinck, and VanTil. In connection with the latter, Clark accuses VanTil of denying the Trinity of persons within the Godhead. Although Clark quotes two short passages from VanTil's Junior Systematics which appear to support his allegation, this reviewer is not persuaded that his accusation is correct. Not only have I not found in VanTil's writings any denial of the truth of the Trinity, but VanTil is at great pains to associate himself with the teachings of the church of the past.

However that may be, Clark himself is less than orthodox in his views of the Trinity. This becomes abundantly clear when he develops his own conceptions. Perhaps most fundamental to Clark's errors is his definition of "Person." He defines "Person" as a collection of thoughts.

Clark writes: "Accordingly the proposal is that a man is a congeries, a system, sometimes an agglomeration of miscellany, but at any rate a collection of thoughts. A man is what he thinks: and no two men are precisely the same combinations.

This is true of the Trinity also, for although each of the three Persons is omniscient, one thinks "l or my collection of thoughts is the Father," and the second thinks, "l or my collection of thoughts will assume or have assumed a human nature." The Father does not think this second thought, nor does the Son think the first. This is the qualitative theory of individualization as opposed to the space-time theory....

Naturally human beings are mutable: Their thoughts or minds change. The three persons of the God-head are immutable, because their thoughts never change. They never forget what they now know, they never learn something new, in fact they have never learned anything. Their thought is eternal. Since also the three Persons do not have precisely the same set of thoughts, they are not one Person, but three... (pp. 106, 107).

While it certainly is true that "Person" is a difficult concept to define (H. Hoeksema defined it as "An individual subsistence in a rational, moral nature"), Clark's definition of Person as a collection of thoughts will not do. A person is the subject of thinking and of thoughts, not..the thoughts themselves. This basic idea of Clark is in agreement with what he wrote in his book on the incarnation of Christ when he discussed the Person and natures of our Lord.

In keeping with this strange and abstract definition of person, , Clark also errs in his conception of the Personal attributes of the three Persons in God. "Thus the begetting of the Son occurs, and the Son as a Person exists, by a necessity of the divine nature - the nature of the divine will" (p. 112).

This heresy was taught very early in the history of the Church by the Alexandrian heretic Origen. He too made the generation of the Son an act of Divine will, but Origen was clear enough in his thinking to recognize that this implied a certain subordination of the Son to the Father. This subordination of the Son to the Father paved the way for the heresy of Arius who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. It is, however, difficult to see how, in Clark's thinking, a "collection of thoughts" can generate, by an act of the will (How can a "collection of thoughts" do any willing?), another "collection of thoughts." This teaching of Clark that the generation of the Son is an act of the divine will is closely connected with another error. Clark makes all the works of God ad extra (i.e., works which God performs outside His own divine being) necessary works.

First of all, this is applied to God's counsel (pp. 111ff.). Clark argues that either we introduce time into God's Trinitarian life to make God's counsel free (and so fall into the error of Arminianism), or we maintain that God is eternal, that His counsel is eternal, and that, therefore, His counsel is necessary. Here again Clark's intellectualism wins the day over the biblical givens. Scripture teaches both that God and His counsel are eternal, and that His counsel is the sovereignly free determination of His will. This may be difficult to understand; but God is the infinite One whose ways are past finding out." But there is no inherently logical contradiction between the two propositions, 1. God's council is eternal. 2. God's council is sovereignly free.

But because God's counsel is necessary, so also is creation and all of history necessary. This is not "the best of all possible worlds," as Leibniz claimed: It is the only possible world, as Spinoza claimed...Since God's mind is immutable, since his decree is eternal, it follows that no other world than this is possible or imaginable (pp. 118, 119).

But the inevitable consequence of this position is Pantheism. Apart now from the question of how a "collection of thoughts" can have a counselor can create, if creation is necessary, it flows from the being of God Himself. This is Pantheism, and it is not strange that in the quote above, Clark speaks with approval of the Pantheist Spinoza.

There are many things in Gordon Clark which are soundly biblical; but the more I read of him, the more I become convinced that his thinking is dangerous and inimical to the Reformed faith.

It takes a certain amount of intellectual arrogance to set oneself up as an authority against the whole tradition of the Christian church and brush this tradition aside with a wave of the hand, then to promote ideas which are more philosophical than biblical. The latter is not an exaggeration. One looks in vain in Clark's book for references to Scripture when he is developing his own views.

Clark is not, however, only overly intellectual in his writings; he also writes in a very. cavalier way Which rubs me wrongly. He easily and cuttingly dismisses those who disagree with him as being intellectual pygmies, but he writes about the dearest and most precious truths of the Christian faith with an off-handedness and an all-but-joking fashion that is out of keeping with the great glory of God and the insignificance of puny man.

 

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