by Rev. William M. Brennan, TH.D.

Introduction

The history of Christian theology has continually wrestled with the relationship between divine knowledge and human knowledge. On one side stands rationalistic univocity, which threatens to collapse the Creator-creature distinction by treating human cognition as fundamentally identical to divine cognition. On the other side stands excessive analogical discontinuity, which risks rendering revelation practically equivocal and undermining the perspicuity of Scripture. Contemporary Reformed theology has witnessed these tensions particularly in the epistemological systems of Gordon H. Clark and Cornelius Van Til.

Clark’s insistence upon propositional truth and the rational structure of reality provided a powerful critique of secular empiricism and materialism. Yet his tendency toward epistemological univocity endangered the Creator-creature distinction by collapsing divine thought too closely into divine essence and by reducing created existence to ideational content within the divine intellect. Van Til, by contrast, vigorously defended the Creator-creature distinction through his doctrine of analogical knowledge, yet his formulations at times approached a practical equivocity that threatened the meaningful intelligibility and perspicuity of revelation.

This paper proposes an alternative synthesis termed Revelational Analogical Realism. This model seeks to preserve the strengths of both Clark and Van Til while avoiding their excesses. It affirms:

the absolute primacy of divine revelation,
the objective intelligibility of reality,
the analogical character of human knowledge,
the perspicuity of Scripture,
and the absolute Creator-creature distinction.

At the metaphysical level, Revelational Analogical Realism argues that reality is grounded not in autonomous matter but in the living triune God whose rationality and revelatory activity provide the ontological and epistemological basis for all created existence and knowledge.

I. Revelation as the Foundation of Knowledge

Christian theology must begin not with autonomous human reason but with divine revelation. Theology is possible only because God has freely chosen to reveal Himself. Revelation is therefore not merely an aid to human knowledge but its indispensable precondition.

The Scriptures present revelation as the very source of theological knowledge. God speaks, and by His speech the world exists:

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Gen. 1:3).

Likewise:

“By the word of the LORD were the heavens made” (Ps. 33:6).

The biblical doctrine of revelation rejects all forms of epistemological autonomy. Man does not ascend to God through independent speculation; rather, God condescends to man through covenantal self-disclosure.

This revelational priority distinguishes Christian epistemology from:

rationalism,
empiricism,
skepticism,
and postmodern relativism.

Knowledge begins with God because all truth is grounded in the self-knowledge of God.

II. God as Absolute Reality

Revelational Analogical Realism begins with the affirmation that God is Absolute Reality. God is not merely one being among others but the self-existent and underived ground of all existence.

This conception resonates partially with ancient philosophical insights. Parmenides distinguished the “way of being” from the “way of seeming,” arguing that ultimate reality transcends the flux of appearances. Plato similarly viewed the visible world as derivative and shadow-like in comparison to the higher reality of the Forms.

Biblical theology fulfills and corrects these philosophical intuitions. Ultimate reality is not an impersonal abstraction, immutable form, or abstract rational principle. Ultimate reality is the living triune God.

God alone possesses aseity:

He is underived,
self-existent,
and metaphysically independent.

All created reality exists contingently and dependently.

Thus:

matter is not ultimate,
finite spirit is not ultimate,
and creation possesses only derivative existence.

The biblical affirmation:

“In Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28)

is not merely devotional rhetoric but a profound ontological statement. All existence depends continuously upon divine sustaining power.

III. Jonathan Edwards and Continuous Creation

The theology of Jonathan Edwards provides a particularly powerful expression of creaturely dependence. Edwards argued that creation persists only through God’s continual willing and sustaining activity. Preservation is therefore functionally equivalent to continuous creation.

This doctrine represents one of the most radical rejections of Deism in Christian theology.

Deism conceives the universe as a self-sustaining machine established by an absentee creator. Edwards destroys this conception metaphysically. Creation possesses no autonomous ontological stability. The universe exists moment by moment only because God continually wills its existence.

Thus:

reality is never independent,
nature never becomes autonomous,
and creation never possesses self-subsistence.

Edwards thereby intensifies the biblical doctrine of providence and grounds ontology itself in perpetual divine action.

IV. Gordon Clark and Epistemological Ontology

The philosophy of Gordon H. Clark rightly rejected materialistic conceptions of reality. In works such as Religion, Reason and Revelation and A Christian View of Men and Things, Clark criticized what he mockingly termed the “tiny pellet theory” of materialism. Brute matter cannot account for:

universals,
logic,
propositions,
consciousness,
or truth itself.

Clark correctly recognized that reality is fundamentally rational rather than merely material. The universe is intelligible because it reflects divine rationality.

This insight is profoundly important. Creation ex nihilo means that God created reality not from preexistent matter but through divine command:

“And God said…”

Yet speech itself is symbolic and revelatory. Human speech expresses propositions because it communicates thought. Divine speech therefore metaphorically reveals divine cognition and intentionality.

In this sense, reality is indeed grounded in divine rationality. The universe reflects the Logos through whom all things were made (John 1:1–3).

Nevertheless, Clark’s epistemological ontology contains a serious weakness.

V. The Distinction Between Mind and Thought

Clark’s system tends to collapse:

divine thought,
divine propositions,
divine intellect,
and divine being

into near identity.

This constitutes a significant ontological confusion.

Thought is not identical with mind. Thought is the activity, content, or expression of mind. Mind is the personal subject who thinks. Rational activity presupposes a rational agent.

Scripture consistently presents:

speaking,
knowing,
willing,
decreeing,
and creating

as actions of God rather than exhaustive definitions of divine essence itself.

When Genesis states:

“And God said…”

speech is presented as an act of deity. Divine speech reveals God without being ontologically identical to the fullness of divine being.

This distinction is crucial because if divine thoughts are identified too closely with divine essence:

creation risks becoming merely ideational content within God,
creaturely distinction collapses,
and theology drifts toward idealism or acosmism.

Revelational Analogical Realism therefore affirms:

divine thought proceeds from divine mind,
yet thought is not identical with mind itself,
and divine actions do not exhaust divine essence.

This preserves genuine divine personhood and protects the Creator-creature distinction.

VI. Analogical Knowledge and the Creator-Creature Distinction

The central epistemological challenge concerns the relationship between divine and human knowledge.

Clark tended toward excessive univocity. Van Til, by contrast, tended toward excessive analogical discontinuity.

Both extremes are problematic.

If knowledge is purely univocal:

the Creator-creature distinction collapses.

If knowledge is purely equivocal:

revelation becomes unintelligible.

A true analogy requires:

similarity,
difference,
and genuine correspondence.

Without similarity there is no communication. Without difference there is no transcendence.

Human knowledge is therefore genuinely analogical.

God possesses archetypal knowledge:

exhaustive,
original,
self-contained,
and infinite.

Man possesses ectypal knowledge:

derivative,
finite,
dependent,
and revelational.

Yet human knowledge truly corresponds to divine truth.

This correspondence is grounded in:

the image of God,
divine accommodation,
and God’s covenantal revelation.

Thus:

Scripture is genuinely understandable,
revelation communicates actual truth,
and perspicuity is preserved.

VII. Perspicuity and the Problem of Van Til

Van Til rightly sought to preserve divine transcendence. However, his strong analogical formulations sometimes risk undermining the perspicuity of Scripture.

If analogical language is pressed too far, revelation approaches practical equivocation. Meaningful communication becomes difficult to explain because the continuity between divine and human cognition becomes excessively attenuated.

Revelational Analogical Realism rejects this tendency.

Scripture itself assumes intelligibility:

God commands understanding,
revelation is addressed to covenantal creatures,
and divine speech genuinely communicates truth.

The doctrine of perspicuity therefore requires a real point of cognitive correspondence between God and man.

This does not imply exhaustive identity of knowledge. Human knowledge remains finite and analogical. Yet revelation communicates truth meaningfully because God accommodates Himself covenantally to creaturely understanding.

VIII. Realism and the Rational Structure of Reality

Revelational Analogical Realism is fundamentally realist.

Reality exists objectively because it is grounded in God rather than autonomous human consciousness. Creation is genuinely real though derivative and dependent.

Against materialism, the system affirms:

rationality cannot arise from brute matter,
universals cannot emerge from atomic motion,
and consciousness presupposes mind.

Against skepticism, it affirms:

truth is objective,
logic reflects divine consistency,
and revelation provides genuine knowledge.

Against pantheism, it maintains:

creation is distinct from God,
dependence does not imply identity,
and God transcends creation absolutely.

Reality is therefore:

revelational,
rational,
covenantal,
and analogically grounded in divine wisdom.

IX. Conclusion

Revelational Analogical Realism proposes a mediating path between rationalistic univocity and skeptical equivocity. It seeks to preserve simultaneously:

divine transcendence,
meaningful revelation,
creaturely dependence,
rational intelligibility,
and biblical perspicuity.

God is Absolute Reality:

the self-existent triune source of all being,
the ontological foundation of logic, truth, and meaning,
and the continual sustainer of creation.

Human knowledge is neither identical to divine knowledge nor wholly disconnected from it. It is analogical: genuinely correspondent yet finite and dependent.

Reality itself is grounded not in autonomous matter but in the revelatory and rational activity of the living God. Creation exists through divine willing and reflects the intelligible order of the Logos.

Thus, Revelational Analogical Realism affirms that:

God truly reveals Himself,
man truly knows,
yet man never knows as God knows.

In this balance, the system preserves both the perspicuity of Scripture and the incomprehensibility of God while maintaining the absolute distinction between Creator and creature.