Gordon H. Clark on the Adequacy of Language for Divine Revelation: A Critical Comparison with Cornelius Van Til

 

Introduction

A central question in twentieth-century Reformed epistemology is whether human language is adequate to convey divine revelation. Gordon H. Clark and Cornelius Van Til, though sharing a commitment to Calvinism and biblical inerrancy, sharply disagreed on this issue. Clark defended the univocal adequacy of human language for revelation, while Van Til insisted that all human knowledge of God is analogical and paradoxical. This essay argues that Clark’s defense of univocal truth preserves the intelligibility of revelation, while Van Til’s analogical theory collapses into equivocation by denying any univocal point of contact between divine and human knowledge.

Clark’s View: Univocal Language and Propositional Revelation

For Clark, divine revelation must be propositional if it is to communicate truth. Since only propositions can be true or false, the words of Scripture must carry the same meaning for man as for God. This does not mean man knows exhaustively, but it does mean that what he knows is identical in content, if not in scope, with what God knows. Clark writes: “If God has spoken in Scripture, then there are truths in the Bible; and if there are truths in the Bible, they are truths for God as well as for man.”^1

Thus, Clark’s view is univocal: revelation communicates truths that are the same in meaning for both God and man, though known by God exhaustively and by man finitely. Without such univocity, revelation would fail to reveal anything.

Van Til’s View: Analogy and Apparent Contradiction

Van Til rejected univocality, insisting that all human knowledge of God is analogical. In his formulation, God’s knowledge is "qualitatively different" from man’s; no proposition can be identical in content for both. “Our knowledge is analogical,” Van Til argued, “because God’s knowledge is original and ours derivative.”^2

This led Van Til to embrace "apparent contradictions" as a hallmark of Scripture. Doctrines such as divine sovereignty and human responsibility, or the Trinity, are for him irreducibly paradoxical: “All teaching of Scripture is apparently contradictory.”^3 Human reason cannot reconcile these tensions, and to attempt to do so is to subordinate revelation to logic.

Yet Van Til’s denial of any univocal element makes his “analogy” functionally equivocal. If every divine proposition differs qualitatively from its human correlate, then words such as “love” or “justice” mean one thing to God and another to man, leaving revelation unintelligible.

The Problem of Analogy Without Univocity: An Illustration

The crucial flaw in Van Til’s position becomes clear when one considers the nature of analogy itself. An analogy, properly understood, requires some point of univocal overlap between the image and the original. For example, a model of an automobile, an airplane, or a ship is not the same as the full-sized object it represents. The model differs in scale, material, and use. Yet the model remains a true model precisely because there is something univocal—such as shape, proportion, or structure—that corresponds to the real thing. Without this univocal element, the model would not be a representation at all but merely an unrelated object.

By contrast, Van Til’s definition of analogy explicitly denies any univocal content between divine and human knowledge. If God’s truth and man’s apprehension of it never coincide at even a single point, then man’s concepts of God are not genuinely analogous but wholly equivocal. The words of Scripture would then function like a model of a ship that bears no resemblance to an actual ship—at which point the term “model” becomes meaningless. In denying univocality, Van Til’s “analogy” ceases to be analogy and reduces itself to equivocation.

Clark repeatedly pressed this objection, warning that unless one affirms at least one shared proposition between God’s knowledge and man’s, theology collapses into skepticism. “If God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge do not coincide in at least one proposition,” Clark argued, “then man knows nothing at all.”^4

The Medieval Categories: Univocal, Equivocal, and Analogical Language

The debate between Clark and Van Til can be clarified by recalling the medieval distinctions between univocal, equivocal, and analogical predication, especially as formulated by Thomas Aquinas.

• Univocal terms are those that carry the same meaning across different applications. For example, “man” applied to Socrates and to Plato means identically “a rational animal.”

• Equivocal terms are those that share only a sound but not a meaning, such as the word “bat” (the animal) and “bat” (the object used in baseball). Here there is no overlap of meaning at all.

• Analogical terms are those that do not carry an identical meaning, yet share a univocal element. For Aquinas, words like “healthy” are applied to a body and to food: the meanings differ, but the univocal element of “causing or possessing health” makes the predication intelligible. Likewise, when we say “God is good” and “man is good,” there is not identical goodness, but there is a shared univocal core of “perfection according to nature.”^5

Clark’s account of revelation is more closely aligned with univocal predication: biblical propositions mean for us what they mean for God, though not exhaustively. Van Til, however, by denying any univocal content, strips analogy of its very essence. His “analogy” functions as pure equivocation, since it denies a shared meaning between God’s thoughts and human words. By contrast, both Aquinas and Clark insist that analogy without a univocal core collapses into unintelligibility.

Thus, Clark can be seen not as a rationalist, but as standing closer to the classical Christian tradition of affirming that divine revelation is meaningful precisely because it is at least partially univocal.

Clark’s Critique of Apparent Contradiction

Clark further criticized Van Til’s appeal to “apparent contradictions.” For Clark, the law of non-contradiction is not a mere human convention but a reflection of God’s own rational nature. To posit contradictions in revelation is to impugn the coherence of God’s mind. Clark warned that if Scripture teaches contradictions, even if only “apparent,” theology collapses into irrationalism. “The Bible,” he insisted, “is the mind of God communicated to man in logical, intelligible form.”^6 To speak otherwise is to deny the very possibility of theology.

Evaluation

The Clark–Van Til debate reveals two divergent strategies for reconciling divine transcendence with human knowledge. Van Til’s analogical view, while intending to protect God’s incomprehensibility, erodes the intelligibility of revelation by stripping analogy of any univocal content. His position thus amounts to equivocation: biblical propositions say one thing to God and another to man. Clark, by contrast, secured the possibility of revelation by affirming that some truths are univocally shared, even though finite creatures never comprehend God exhaustively.

Conclusion

The adequacy of language for revelation hinges upon the presence of univocity within divine-human communication. True analogy presupposes a univocal element; without it, analogy devolves into equivocation. By denying any univocal overlap, Van Til undermined the clarity of revelation and left theology in paradox and contradiction. Clark, however, preserved the rationality and intelligibility of revelation by affirming that when God speaks in Scripture, His words mean for us precisely what they mean for Him. In this respect, Clark’s position stands not in isolation but in continuity with the classical Christian conviction that God has made Himself known in words that truly reveal His mind.

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Notes

1. Gordon H. Clark, Religion, Reason, and Revelation (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1961), 47.

2. Cornelius Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974), 229.

3. Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1963), 44.

4. Gordon H. Clark, “The Bible as Truth,” in The Philosophy of Gordon H. Clark, ed. Ronald Nash (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1968), 45.

5. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I.13.5–6.

6. Clark, Religion, Reason, and Revelation, 28–29.