Sunday, January 12, 2014

[Notes] A Clarkian Epistemological Model

Note: 

These notes originated as notes for an email discussions between Benjamin Wong and Douglas Douma in January, 2014.

This version of the notes is revised on January 12, 2014.

I like to thank Douglas Douma for pointing out a glaring error in the original notes.
 

A pdf file of these notes is available: here.


Contents

1. The Purpose of these Notes
2. A Clarkian Epistemological Model
3. God is a Person
4. The Divine Decrees are God's Intentions
5. The Divine Decree Determines the Truth-Value of Every Proposition
6. God Created the World According to His Plan
7. The Nature of Propositions
8. True Propositions and Actual States of Affairs are Ontologically Different
9. Answering Your Questions
10. A Quotation from Gordon H. Clark
11. An Application: The Problem of Objective Reference
12. Two More Quotations from Gordon H. Clark
13. Another Application: The Search for Truth-Makers
14. Two Suggestions Regarding the Model
15. Conclusion



1. The Purpose of these Notes

The immediate purpose of these notes is to answer the following 3 questions you posed by using a model in which to discuss the questions.

(a) What is creation?

(b) Is not everything just in the mind of God?

(c) How do we avoid Pantheism and Panentheism if all things are in the mind of God?

But I will indicate some other questions that can be discuss or answer with the model.

The discussions will take place within the philosophy of Gordon H. Clark.

Since Clark's philosophy is an extension of his Reformed or Calvinistic theology, I will assume a basic familiarity with Calvinism.


2. A Clarkian Epistemological Model

I will call the model A Clarkian Epistemological Model.

A model for a set of propositions is an interpretation in which all the propositions in the set are true. (Adapted from: Allen and Hand 2001, 99)

A doctrine is a truth-claim that is a (purport) logical consequence of the Bible.

A Clarkian Epistemological Model is meant to model the following 4 doctrines as understood by the Reformed theological traditions:

(a) The doctrine of God.

(b) The doctrine of the Eternal Decree.

(c) The doctrine of Creation.

(d) The doctrine of the Creation of Man in the Image of God.

Please see the diagram of A Clarkian Epistemological Model on the previous page.

The diagram represents, in a coarse way, the structural relationships of the 4 doctrines in such a way that certain ontological and epistemological relations are exhibited.

What follows are some explanations and applications of A Clarkian Epistemological Model.


3. God is a Person

A person is a being that thinks, forms intentions, and acts to achieve those intentions.

A person forms intentions by thinking to will to achieve his desires.

Ideally, a person's intellect controls his volition (or will) which in turn controls his desires.

(This statement is a version of the Primacy of the Intellect.)

Affections are emotions, inclinations or desires that are under the control of a person's intellect and will.

Passions are emotions, inclinations or desires that are *not* under the control of a person's intellect and will.

God has affections but not passions.

Similarly for unfallen Adam and Eve.

Fallen human beings have both affections and passions.

Similarly for redeemed human beings in the present age.


4. The Divine Decrees are God's Intentions

An intention of a person is a proposition that the person desires to bring about as an actual state of affairs by his actions.

A decree of God is an intention of God that He will bring about as an actual state of affairs.

For God, His intentions and decrees are identical because God is omnipotent and has the power to bring about as actual states of affairs what He desires.

For a human person, his intentions and decrees do not coincide because he is not omnipotent and lacks the power to bring about some of what he desires.


5. The Divine Decree Determines the Truth-Value of Every Proposition

The Westminster Confession of Faith 3.1a characterizes the Divine Decrees this way: "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass."

What God ordained or decreed are His intentions.

God's intentions are the propositions that He desires to bring about as actual states of affairs by his actions.

Equivalently, the Divine Decrees are God's plan for creating the world.

(God's decrees are comprehensive and refer to actions that have both internal and external effects with respect to the Trinity. The effects of creation are external to the Trinity. When referring to the Divine Decrees and creation in the rest of these notes, I have in mind those portions of the Divine Decrees that are applicable to the creation only.)

In forming His intentions, God determines the truth-value of each proposition.

A proposition is true because God from all eternity has determined that proposition to be true.

A proposition is false because God from all eternity has determined that proposition to be false.

How does God ordains whatsoever comes to pass?

God ordains whatsoever comes to pass by determining the truth-value of each proposition.

Therefore, a proposition is true of the actual world because God determines it be so.

A proposition is false of the actual world also because God determines it be so.

God ordained "by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will" implies that God's desires and intentions are under the control of his intellect and will.

"Counsel" implies intellectual activity.

"Will" implies volitional activity.

"Wise and holy counsel of His own will" implies the intellectual activity controls the volitional activity; i.e. what is will is most wise and holy according to the intellect.

God ordains "whatsoever" comes to pass implies the truth-value of "every" proposition is determined by God.

The idea that:

(a) God "freely" and "unchangeably" ordain whatsoever comes to pass; and

(b) Gordon Clark's necessitarianism about the immutability of the mind of God

together implies some deep principles of modal metaphysics.

I am still struggling to understand these deep principles of modal metaphysics.


6. God Created the World According to His Plan

The Westminster Confession of Faith 4.1: "It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good."

The Divine Decrees together form the plan according to which God created the world.

In creating the world, God acted on His intentions to bring about as actual states of affairs what He desires.

Equivalently, in creating the world God brings to pass His Divine Decrees.

The doctrines of the Divine Decree and Creation together imply that:

(a) For every true proposition, there is a corresponding state of affairs that God brings about as actual and therefore obtained.

(b) For every false proposition, there is a corresponding state of affairs that God did not bring about as actual and therefore is non-actual or fails to obtain.

For every proposition there is a corresponding state of affairs which is its dual.

For every state of affairs there is also a corresponding proposition which is its dual.

Truths or true propositions have ontological priority over states of affairs because God brought about actual states of affairs from propositions He has determined to be true.

Switching to an information perspective: When God created the world, He decoded the information He has encoded as true propositions into the actual world.


7. The Nature of Propositions

One way to characterize "thinking" is by the type of the objects of thoughts.

There are broadly two types of objects of thoughts: concepts and percepts.

Concepts are what philosophers called abstracta and are such things as propositions, properties, sets, kinds, etc.

Percepts are objects associated with our sensing and are such things as images, sounds, touches, tastes, etc.

Thus, a person is thinking conceptually when his mind is thinking concepts.

A person is thinking perceptually when his mind is thinking percepts.
 

Propositions exist (timelessly) eternally and necessarily as objects of God's conceptual thoughts.

Propositions are essentially mental objects.


8. True Propositions and Actual States of Affairs are Ontologically Different

(Please remember that I have restricted myself to those truths or Divine Decrees that are concerned with creation.)

So, by virtue of the doctrines of the Divine Decree and Creation, true propositions and actual states of affairs are ontologically different:

(a) A true proposition is that *from* which God has brought about an actual state of affairs.

(b) An actual state of affairs is that *to* which God has brought about by a proposition He has determined to be true.

That true propositions and actual states of affairs are ontologically different can be seen by their having different ontological properties:

(a) True propositions exist *necessarily* as objects of God's conceptual thoughts.

(b) Actual states of affairs exist *contingently* and comes into existence when God brought them about by creation.

My speculation is that a false proposition and its corresponding non-actual state of affairs are identical.

False propositions also exist (timelessly) eternally and necessarily as objects of God's conceptual thoughts.

A non-actual state of affairs is non-actual because its corresponding proposition is false.

The corresponding proposition of a non-actual state of affairs is false because God has determined the truth-value of that proposition to be false.

The Sovereign God has decreed or decided the truth-value of all propositions.

In determining the truth-value of a proposition to be false, God has also decided not to bring about as actual its corresponding state of affairs.

So a non-actual state of affairs remains as a false proposition.


9. Answering Your Questions

(a) What is creation?

Creation is that action of God by which He brings about actual states of affairs according to the propositions He has determined to be true.

Or: Creation is God bringing to pass what He has decreed.

(b) Is not everything just in the mind of God?

It is false that everything is just in the mind of God.

According to the doctrine of the Divine Decree, the plan for creation exists in the mind of God as true propositions that He has determined to be true.

According to the doctrine of Creation, the creation exists external to the mind of God as actual states of affairs that God has brought about according to His plan.

(c) How do we avoid Pantheism and Panentheism if all things are in the mind of God?

All things are not in the mind of God.

Pantheism is the claim that God is the universe and the universe is God; or God and the universe are identical.

Pantheism is inconsistent with the doctrine of Creation and they are contrary claims.

Two propositions are contrary of one another if they cannot both be true but they can both be false.

(Two propositions are contradictory of one another if they cannot both be true and they cannot both be false.)

Since they are contrary claims, if the doctrine of Creation is true, then pantheism is false.

The Wikipedia entry on "Panentheism" has many different formulations of the idea, some of which are incompatible with one another.

I might be able to respond if you can supply me with a definition of panentheism.


10. A Quotation from Gordon H. Clark

(Clark 1980a, 1-2):

"It will be best to begin by calling attention to some of the characteristics the Scriptures attribute to God. Nothing startling is involved in remarking that God is omniscient. This is a commonplace of Christian theology. But, further, God is eternally omniscient. He has not learned his knowledge. And since God exists of himself, independent of everything else, indeed the Creator of everything else, he must himself be the source of his own knowledge. This important point has had a history."

"At the beginning of the Christian era, Philo, the Jewish scholar of Alexandria, made an adjustment in Platonic philosophy to bring it into accord with the theology of the Old Testament. Plato had based his system on three original, independent principles: the World of Ideas, the Demiurge, and chaotic space. Although the three were equally eternal and independent of each other, the Demiurge fashioned chaotic space into this visible world by using the Ideas as his model. Hence in Plato the World of Ideas is not only independent of but also even in a sense superior to the maker of heaven and earth. He is morally obligated, and in fact willingly submits, to the Ideas of justice, man, equality, and number."

"Philo, however, says, 'God has been ranked according to the one and the unit; or rather even the unit has been ranked according to the one God, for all number, like time, is younger than the cosmos, while God is older than the cosmos and its creator.'"

"This means that God is the source and determiner of all truth. Christians generally, even uneducated Christians, understand that water, milk, alcohol, and gasoline freeze at different temperatures because God created them that way. God could have made an intoxicating fluid freeze at zero Fahrenheit and he could have made the cow’s product freeze at forty. But he decided otherwise. Therefore behind the act of creation there is an eternal decree. It was God’s eternal purpose to have such liquids, and therefore we can say that the particularities of nature were determined before there was any nature."

"Similarly in all other varieties of truth, God must be accounted sovereign. It is his decree that makes one proposition true and another false. Whether the proposition be physical, psychological, moral, or theological, it is God who made it that way. A proposition is true because God thinks it so."

"Perhaps for a certain formal completeness, a sample of Scriptural documentation might be appropriate. Psalm147: 5 says, 'God is our Lord, and of great power; his understanding is infinite.' If we cannot strictly conclude from this verse that God’s power is the origin of his understanding, at least there is no doubt that omniscience is asserted. 1 Samuel 2:3 says, 'the Lord is a God of knowledge.' Ephesians 1:8 speaks of God’s wisdom and prudence. In Romans16: 27 we have the phrase, 'God only wise,' and in 1 Timothy 1:17 the similar phrase, 'the only wise God.' "

"Further references and an excellent exposition of them may be found in Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, chapters VIII and IX. From this distinguished author a few lines must be included here."

" 'God knows himself because his knowledge with his will is the cause of all other things; ... he is the first truth, and therefore is the first object of his understanding.... As he is all knowledge, so he hath in himself the most excellent object of knowledge.... No object is so intelligible to God as God is to himself ... for his understanding is his essence, himself.' Then a few pages later: 'God knows his own decree and will, and therefore must know all things.... God must know what he hath decreed to come to pass.... God must know because h willed them ... he therefore knows them because he knows what he willed. The knowledge of God cannot arise from the things themselves, for then the knowledge of God would have a cause without him.... As God sees things possible in the glass of his own power, so he sees things future in the glass of his own will.' "

"A great deal of Charnock’s material has as its purpose the listing of the objects of God’s knowledge. Here, however, the quotations were made to point out that God’s knowledge depends on his will and on nothing external to him. Thus we may repeat with Philo that God is not to be ranked under the idea of unity, or of goodness, or of truth; but rather unity, goodness, and truth are to be ranked under the decree of God."


11. An Application: The Problem of Objective Reference

(a) Roderick M. Chisholm stated the problem thus (1986, 14):

"I will begin with the problem of objective reference."

"One traditional statement of the problem is this: 'How does the mind get outside the circle of its own ideas?' "

"There are two sides to the problem. One may be put by asking how do we manage to refer to other things? And the other is: how do we manage to have knowledge, or justified true belief, about other things? We may call the first problem 'the problem of objective reference' and the second 'the problem of indirect evidence'. "

"We may put the problem of objective reference by asking: 'How does one thing succeed in directing its thoughts upon another thing?' The question presupposes that there are things other than ourselves that we have thoughts about."

(b) A Clarkian Epistemological Model provides a very neat solution to this problem.

Propositions exist eternally and necessarily as objects of God's conceptual thoughts.

When a human person interprets the world by thinking propositions, he is thinking some propositions in the mind of God.

A human person interprets a state of affairs correctly or truly when he interprets that state of affairs with the proposition God uses to bring that state of affairs about.

How does the mind get outside the circle of its own ideas?

A human mind gets outside the circle of its own ideas by thinking thoughts in God's mind.

How do we manage to refer to other things?

Human languages can refer to things in the world because human languages are consisting of symbols that are signs that tag propositions in God's mind.

And the world is brought about by God from the propositions He has determined to be true.

In processing the symbols and signs of languages, the human mind is simultaneously thinking propositions in God's mind.

On an occasion of a use of a language, the language successfully refers to the world when the human mind that uses the language is able to tag a true proposition in God's mind with the language.

As far as I am able to tell, the idea that words are arbitrary signs the human mind uses to tag thoughts in God's mind is unique to Gordon H. Clark.


A natural extension is that sentences are also signs the human mind uses to tag propositions in God's mind.

However, the formation of sentences in a language is not arbitrary in that it is subject to many syntactical and semantical constraints.


12. Two More Quotations from Gordon H. Clark

(a) (Clark 1980a, 6):

"To avoid this irrationalism, which of course is a denial of the divine image, we must insist that truth is the same for God and man. Naturally, we may not know the truth about some matters. But if we know anything at all, what we must know must be identical with what God knows. God knows all truth, and unless we know something God knows, our ideas are untrue. It is absolutely essential therefore to insist that there is an area of coincidence between God’s mind and our mind."

"This point brings us to the central issue of language. Language did not develop from, nor was its purpose restricted to, the physical needs of earthly life. God gave Adam a mind to understand the divine law, and he gave him language to enable him to speak to God. From the beginning, language was intended for worship. In the Te Deum, by means of language, and in spite of the fact that it is sung to music, we pay 'metaphysical compliments' to God. The debate about the adequacy of language to express the truth of God is a false issue. Words are mere symbols or signs. Any sign would be adequate. The real issue is: Does a man have the idea to symbolize? If he can think of God, then he can use the sound God, Deus, Theos, or Elohim. The word makes no difference, and the sign is ipso facto literal and adequate."

(b) (Clark 1980b, 151-2):

"Now, for a very brief summary or conclusion, we might return to the four questions in which Urban set forth the task of language philosophy: (1) How is language a bearer of meaning? (2) How is communication possible? (3) What is the relation of logic to language? And (4), which seems to be essentially the first question over again, How can language refer to things?"

"First, language is a bearer of meaning because words are arbitrary signs the mind uses to tag thoughts. Second, communication is possible because all minds have at least some thoughts in common. This is so because God created man a rational spirit, a mind capable of thinking, worshipping, and talking to God. God operates through the Logos, the wisdom that enlightens every man in the world. Third, language is logical because it expresses logical thoughts. Not to deny the noetic effects of sin, examples of which are incorrect additions and various fallacies in reasoning, man is still a rational or logical creature and hence he cannot think three is four or that two contradictories can both be true. Language therefore is built upon the laws of logic. The fourth question has the same answer as the first."


13. Another Application: The Search for Truth-Makers

(a) (MacBride 2013):

"This much is agreed: 'x makes it true that p' is a construction that signifies, if it signifies anything at all, a relation borne to a truth-bearer by something else, a truth-maker. But it isn't generally agreed what that something else might be, or what truth-bearers are, or what the character might be of the relationship that holds, if it does, between them, or even whether such a relationship ever does hold. Indeed sometimes there's barely enough agreement amongst the parties to the truth-maker dispute for them to be disagreeing about a common subject matter. This makes navigating the literature about truth-makers a treacherous undertaking but a necessary one because of the significance the debate about truth-makers bears for contemporary metaphysics."

(b) A Clarkian Epistemological Model assumes the doctrine of the Divine Decree and is committed to the position that it is God's decision or decree that makes a proposition true.

The Model assumes proposition as truth-bearer and the Divine Decree as truth-maker.

(Clark 1980a, 2): "This means that God is the source and determiner of all truth."

(Clark 1980a, 2): "Therefore behind the act of creation there is an eternal decree."

(Clark 1980a, 2): "Similarly in all other varieties of truth, God must be accounted sovereign. It is his decree that makes one proposition true and another false. Whether the proposition be physical, psychological, moral, or theological, it is God who made it that way. A proposition is true because God thinks it so."

(Clark 1980a, 2): "A great deal of Charnock’s material has as its purpose the listing of the objects of God’s knowledge. Here, however, the quotations were made to point out that God’s knowledge depends on his will and on nothing external to him. Thus we may repeat with Philo that God is not to be ranked under the idea of unity, or of goodness, or of truth; but rather unity, goodness, and truth are to be ranked under the decree of God."

In particular, A Clarkian Epistemological Model rejects the claim that it is "facts" in the world that make propositions true.

This claim got the cause-and-effect direction wrong.

God created the facts in the world (or bring about actual states of affairs) with the information encoded in true propositions.

Truths have ontological priority or precedence over facts.

MacBride's entry in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy detailed many questions, difficulties, and puzzles with the concept of truth-maker.

It would be an interesting project to try to meet the many difficulties detailed by MacBride using A Clarkian Epistemological Model.


14. Two Suggestions Regarding the Model

(a) The most solid and worked out portion of A Clarkian Epistemological Model are:

  • Propositions exist as objects of God's conceptual thoughts.
  • Actual states of affairs are brought about by God from true propositions.
  • When human persons engage in conceptual thinking, they think into the mind of God and think the identical propositions God thinks.
I think Gordon H. Clark has all these worked out in the latest by the time of The Clark-Van Til Controversy in the 1940s.

How much earlier would be an interesting biographical question.

I think it is because he has these theses worked out that Gordon H. Clark has never been an empiricist, as John W. Robbins observed.

(b) It is also generally agreed that Clark's philosophy is weakest in the area of perception.

I would like to make two proposals regarding perception that is non-empirical in nature.

I like to think these proposals are in the spirit of Clark's philosophy.

Proposal 1: The nature of human perception is one of encoding/decoding/transcoding.

Proposal 2: Human persons know about the world through interpreting his perceptions of the world with propositions.

An encoder is a device that converts information from one format or code to another. (Adapted from: "Encoder", Wikipedia.)

A decoder is a device which does the reverse operation of an encoder, undoing the encoding so that the original information can be retrieved. (Adapted from: "Decoder", Wikipedia.)

Transcoding is the conversion of one encoding to another. (Adapted from: "Transcoding", Wikipedia.)

In the information age, using different types of encoder, decoder or transcoder are commonplaces.

For example, many would have used an iPad (or a similar device) to record sounds in mp3 files.

In this case, the iPad (encoder) converts information from one format (sound) into another (mp3 code).

Also, many would have use a personal computer to transcode an mp3 file to, say, an ogg file (Ogg Vorbis audio file).

Similarly, the human mind functions as a decoder/transcoder that decodes or transcodes the information God has encoded into creation.

Divine Decrees ---> God encodes His intentions as true propositions.

Creation ---> God acts to decode the information in the true propositions into created reality.

Human perception of created reality ---> the human mind decode/transcode the information God has encoded in creation into visual images, sound, touches, tastes, etc.

Human knowledge of created reality ---> the human mind decodes the perceptions back into the true propositions from which God brought about that created reality.

Many more things can be said of these two proposals, such as the decoding and transcoding of human perceptions occur in the subconscious level but the interpretation of perceptions occurs consciously in human.

But the above is the gist of the idea.


15. Conclusion

These notes outline A Clarkian Epistemological Model and give some explanations and applications of it.

These notes are only an outline and have by no means exhausted the Model.

Some questions that are obvious from just looking at the diagram are:

(a) Does human have perceptions of God?

If so, what kinds?

The Bible says no one has ever seen God but the Bible records many conversations between God and man.

For example, God talking with Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc.

Why human persons can hear God but not see God?

(b) Does God have perceptions of created reality?

If so, what kinds?

(c) What are the metaphysical implications of human persons capable of thinking eternal propositions?

(d) What are the relations between the different kinds of human consciousness and epistemology?

The Bible records many instances of God appearing to human persons in dreams, trances, visions, etc.

These are just some of the obvious questions.


References:

Allen, Colin and Michael Hand. 2001. Logic Primer, Second Edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Chisholm, Roderick M. 1986. Self-Profile. In Roderick M. Chisholm, ed. Radu J. Bogdan, 3-77. Dordrecht, Netherlands: D. Reidel Publishing Company.

Clark, Gordon H. 1980a. God and Logic. The Trinity Review (November-December):1-7.

----------. 1980b. Language and Theology. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.

MacBride, Fraser. 2013. Truthmakers. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truthmakers/
(Spring 2013 Edition).

"Decoder", Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoder
(accessed 2014-01-12).

"Encoder", Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encoder
(accessed 2014-01-12).

"Transcoding", Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcoding
(accessed 2014-01-12).

End.