The Clark-Van Til Controversy

Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965) was a Dutch Reformed theologian, who---over an issue about "common grace"---was put out (along with some other ministers and their congregations) of the Christian Reformed Church, and then formed the Protestant Reformed Churches. He served as a pastor for many years, and as professor of theology at the Protestant Reformed Theological School. He is a Reformed thinker, but not directly involved with the two protagonists in the controversy. Gordon Clark (1902-1985) and Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) were two of the most famous Christian apologists of the 20th century. In differing ways, they were both thought of as "presuppositionalists" in their approaches. This 1995 book summarizes (from a largely pro-Clark perspective) and prints documents showing how in 1944 Clark applied for ordination in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and---even though he was opposed by Van Til and the faculty at Westminster Theological Seminary---was ordained. But less than a year later, his opponents tried to get Clark's ordination removed on procedural grounds, and Clark eventually resigned from the denomination. Clark was accused of things such as maintaining "that the relationship of divine sovereignty and human responsibility to each other presents no difficulty ... and that the two are easily reconcilable before the bar of human reason." According to Westminster's theologian John Frame, neither man really understood the other's position; the whole affair is rather curious. This book will be of interest (or perhaps morbid curiosity) to students of Clark, Van Til, and Christian apologetics in general.