Gordon Haddon Clark (1902-1985) was a philosopher and Calvinist theologian and taught philosophy at the college level for most of his life. He was an expert in pre-Socratic and ancient philosophy and was noted for his rigor in defending Platonic realism against all forms of empiricism, in arguing that all truth is propositional, and in applying the laws of logic. The Trinity Foundation continues to publish his writings and other books as well.
"Gordon Clark was not primarily an apologist for the Christian faith, but rather a professional philosopher critiquing what secular philosophers have said concerning ultimate reality. Through rigorous logic, he continually sought to evaluate and expose the weaknesses of secular philosophy, and to espouse Christian theism as dominantly superior. Although he touches on all areas of philosophy in his works, he is predominately taken up with understanding and evaluating thoughts about epistemology – how it is that men know, and how they know what they know." (Dr. C. Matthew McMahon [1])
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Clark graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1924 with a bachelor's degree and earned his PhD from the same institution in 1929. The following year, he did postgraduate work at the Sorbonne in Paris.
He began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania and also taught at Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia. In 1936, he accepted a professorship in philosophy at Wheaton College, where he remained until 1944, at which time he accepted a position at Butler University. In 1974, he left Butler and taught at several institutions, including Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia and Sangre de Cristo Seminary in Westcliffe, Colorado.
In 1944, Clark was ordained as a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Clark left the OPC in 1948 following what has become known as the Clark-Van Til Controversy. He first changed to the United Presbyterian Church of North America and later to the Reformed Presbyterian Church. He died in 1985 and was buried in Westcliffe, Colorado.
In 1943 Dr. Gordon H. Clark, who was to become one of the foremost Christian philosopher of the twentieth century, sought ordination in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a small denomination barely seven years old at that time.
Dr. Clark was immediately opposed by the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary, led by Professor Cornelius Van Til. Despite their zealous opposition, Dr. Clark was ordained by the OPC. In 1944 the Westminster Seminary faculty tried to remove Dr. Clark from office, not by filing charges against him, but by arguing that the procedure the OPC used to ordain him was irregular. They were struggling, not merely to prevent Dr. Clark from gaining influence in the denomination, but to retain their control of the Seminary as well.
The related theological issues, revolving around the relation of knowledge to the incomprehensibility of God, continue to resonate in Christian philosophical discussions today.
