5 thoughts on “A Clark comment on Van Til’s “solution” to the “Problem of the One and the Many.””
There’s good reason to find Van Til more persuasive here, given that Gregory Nazianzus also went almost as far to say that the Father is the essence. The thick bifurcation, as Clark gestures, easily can sound as if the essence is something more core to God than the persons. He’s in good company with Augustine, and the subsequent western tradition, but it’s not only non-biblical, but a faulty premise logically resulting in a kind of unitarianism along the lines of vedanta.
I think Van Til took it a step further. It’s common parlance in Patristic thought to say that Person x is the essence (in some sort of sense). What Van Til ended up saying was that the One Person is 3 Persons.
Word-House 
There’s good reason to find Van Til more persuasive here, given that Gregory Nazianzus also went almost as far to say that the Father is the essence. The thick bifurcation, as Clark gestures, easily can sound as if the essence is something more core to God than the persons. He’s in good company with Augustine, and the subsequent western tradition, but it’s not only non-biblical, but a faulty premise logically resulting in a kind of unitarianism along the lines of vedanta.
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I think Van Til took it a step further. It’s common parlance in Patristic thought to say that Person x is the essence (in some sort of sense). What Van Til ended up saying was that the One Person is 3 Persons.
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So Van Til is somewhere between the biblical-patristic doctrine and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beiSK3kxh4U
Good to know 🙂
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Wait, did you post on that video or is that someone else with Rutherford’s face? If you did, that’d be a funny coincidence.
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LOL. I don’t think I posted on the video.
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