Augustine vs. Aristotle: Truth and Happiness

What is the aim of human endeavor? Is ignorance truly bliss? Gordon H. Clark provides a peek into the happiness-centric ethical philosophies of Aristotle and Augustine (emphasis in bold is my own):

“Happiness” (eudamonia, from which we derive eudaemonism) is the term Aristotle used to designate the goal of life. It is an end in itself, never a means to anything else. “Honor, pleasure, intelligence, and all forms of virtue, we choose both for their own sakes, … and we also choose them for the sake of happiness. … But no one chooses happiness for the sake of honor or pleasure, nor as a means to anything else at all” (Nicomachean Ethics, I, vii, 1097b1-6).

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Augustine’s ethics was also eudaemonism. The good life is one of happiness (beatitudo, beatitas; both terms coined by Cicero). All men desire happiness (De Trinitate, X, v, 7). “No one lives as he wishes unless he is happy” (De Civitas Dei, XIV, 25). Now Augustine would not disparage virtues such as courage and temperance; nor would he belittle rational thought. In fact, no one can be happy without knowledge of the truth. In this there is similarity to Aristotle. But Augustine replaces Aristotle’s secularism with Christian content. God is truth and to know God is wisdom. Therefore the happiness Augustine recommends becomes blessedness or beatitude.

More explicitly: wisdom is not the knowledge of some heathen god, nor even of, say, Spinoza’s first principle. To have wisdom is to have Christ. Christ is the truth; Christ is the wisdom of God.

One reason for making truth the aim of our endeavors is that if we love what can be lost, we cannot be happy. But God, Christ, and truth are immutable, and if we have this, our blessedness is permanent (“Happiness,” Essays on Ethics and Politics, pp. 109-110; originally published in Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics, Carl F.H. Henry, editor. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1973, pp. 281-282.).

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What are Good Works?

Here are some helpful comments from Gordon H. Clark which answer the question of how one can know good works from evil ones. Emphasis in bold is my own.

What then are good works? Are they those actions a benevolently intentioned gentleman may happen to enjoy? Is a substantial donation to an orphanage, hospital, or church a good work? Strange as it may seem to non-Christians, and even to uninstructed Christians, the answer is that these actions are not necessarily good. They may be good; but again they may not be. What then makes a work or action good?

Two requirements must be fulfilled before an act can properly be called good. The [Westminster] Confession says, “Good works are only such as God hath commanded in his holy word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men out of blind zeal, or upon any pretense of good intention.”

The first part of this section teaches that unless we had the Bible, it would be impossible to know what is good and what is evil. To be sure, the heathen know that there is a distinction between right and wrong; and they regularly violate their consciences; but they do not know in particular what acts are right because their consciences are unenlightened. The Biblical revelation is essential to a knowledge of what works are good (“Good Works,” Essays on Ethics and Politics, p. 104; originally published in The Southern Presbyterian Journal, February 9, 1955.).

Is Man’s Will Free from God?

What does it mean to have “free will”? Just what sort of freedom are we talking about? Assuming that man actually has a “free” will, what is it free from? Do we mean freedom from sin? Freedom from laws? Freedom from God’s control? Most people who believe in a so-called free will think that man is “free,” in any given situation, to choose to sin or not. They also usually think that God earnestly desires in His heart that man always choose good, but somehow limits Himself so that man’s choice is undetermined by God. Is this what it means to have a free will? If so, can we honestly say that man’s will is free from God providential control and determining decree? Gordon H. Clark, in an essay simply entitled “Free Will” (Essays on Ethics and Politics, pp. 96-99; originally published in The Southern Presbyterian Journal, December 22, 1954.), answers this question firmly in the negative. I hope you find the following quotes edifying:

Freedom from sin, complete freedom, is attained only in heaven; but even in heaven a completely free and undetermined will cannot be found. It is equally impossible for the glorified saint to choose to sin as it was for the unregenerate to choose not to sin. As Augustine said, the condition of man in heaven is non posse peccare: not able to sin. Heaven would be a precarious place if its citizens had this sort of free will.

… Man is not a machine; his motions cannot be described by mathematical equations as the motions of the planets can. His hopes, plans, and activities are not controlled by physical conditions. He is not determined by any absolute necessity of nature.

But this does not mean that man is free from God. The [Westminster] Confession does not deny, but on the contrary explicitly affirms that God controls the will of man. To say that physics and chemistry do not explain conduct is not to rule out God’s grace. …

Unless God “governs all creatures, actions, and things ([Westminster Confession of Faith] V i), or “all his creatures and all their actions” ([Westminster] Shorter Catechism 11), he would not be actually omnipotent, nor could we be sure his prophecies would infallibly come true. An interesting though obscure case of God’s control over the will of men is found in Exodus 34:24. The men of Israel are commanded to appear before the Lord three times a year. As such an occasion would offer an excellent opportunity for an enemy attack, the Lord assures his people that their enemies will not desire to attack at those times. In II Samuel 17:14 Absalom chose the worse advice because the Lord had planned to defeat the better counsel in order to bring evil on Absalom. God also caused Rehoboam to adopt evil counsel (II Chronicles 10:15) in order to fulfil his promise to Jeroboam. Better known than these cases are the words of Paul in Philippians 2:12,13, “Work out your own salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do.”

Man has a natural liberty not acknowledged by materialistic philosophy, but Christians should never construe that liberty to the detriment of God’s omnipotence and grace (pp. 98-99).

“The Ethics of Abortion” by Gordon H. Clark

Parts of this paper were given in connection with a demonstration before Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Today many hospitals, institutions which are supposed to save life, permit and even encourage their doctors to kill innocent babies. They tear the babies limb from limb or sometimes the nurses have thrown the living babies into garbage cans. Abortion is legal because the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. said so. A majority of nine men, without any amending of the Constitution or any referendum of the population, but all by themselves, negated the legal right of innocent persons to live. Having rejected God, they wish to assume His prerogatives.

One argument abortionists frequently use to defend themselves against the charge of murder is the claim that the baby is not a human being. But if the baby in the womb is not human, what is it? Is it canine? Is it feline? I think that some babies born thirty or forty years ago have turned out to be asinine.

Another argument which abortionists use to defend their murder of innocent infants is that the government must not base its legislation on religious principles. Legislation should always be based on irreligious principles. No doubt you have all heard that the government should never enforce morality. This may be one reason why many abortionists oppose the death penalty for murder. This is consistent, for if murder be a capital offense, the abortionists, both doctors and mothers, are in great danger. But if a government cannot enforce morality, rape would be as legal as murder. Nor could the government prohibit theft. Note carefully that the same Ten Commandments which condemn murder condemn theft also. When irreligious bureaucrats and secular judges prohibit the display of the Ten Commandments on the walls of a public school, they erase theft as well as murder from the list of crimes. Opposition to theft is just as religious as opposition to murder. Christianity condemns both murder and theft because both are condemned by God.

If atheism is to be the law of the land, there can be no laws at all to support morality, for there is no morality apart from the laws of God. I would like to make it clear that sociology, statistics, psychology, or any empirical science can never determine moral norms. Secular science at best can discover what people do; but it cannot discover what people ought to do. From observational premises no normative conclusion follows. Any attempt to define morality by observational science is a logical fallacy. Science can invent new ways of killing people, but science can never determine who should be killed. It cannot determine who should not be killed. It can only invent more effective ways of doing what somebody for some other reason wants to do.

The controversy between those who consider life sacred and those who kill babies is not a controversy between two systems of ethics, as if we had one system and the abortionists, secularists, and atheists had a different system. The point is that they cannot have any system of ethics at all. Scientific observation – what they sometimes call reason as opposed to what they misunderstand by faith – cannot establish any values whatever. Science often produces wonders but one thing it cannot do: It cannot establish the value of anything, even the value of itself.

Repudiation of divine laws is destructive of all morality. Abortion is immoral. Rejecting God, the abortionists try to justify their cruelty to babies, while at the same time condemning burglary, by an appeal to a social consensus. To this attempt to condemn theft while justifying murder, there is a single answer with two parts.

First, no social consensus has been established. The Supreme Court alone, nine men out of two hundred million, legalized the killing of babies on its own arbitrary authority. This is the autocracy of evil dictators.

Then, second, social consensus cannot determine what is right or wrong. The social consensus of the Spartans in antiquity and of at least some Indian tribes in North America condoned theft and even praised it. Before the Belgians took over the Congo a century or so ago, social consensus approved of cannibalism. The fact that various societies have considered theft and cannibalism to be right, does not prove that theft and cannibalism are right – nor the murder of babies, either. One can perhaps with relative ease discover what groups of people think is right; but social consensus does not make anything right or wrong.

So far as I can see, the only pertinent difference between the abortionists here and the cannibals in the Congo is that the abortionists do not eat the babies. They throw them in the garbage can. What a waste of good meat in these times of famine. Of course the meat would have to be inspected by the USDA, but I can see no reason why, on abortionist principles – or lack of principles – I see no reason for prohibiting the eating of human flesh. A nice tender baby might taste better than a Cornish hen. Or if the mothers, for no good reason, do not want to eat their babies, they could at least send them to alleviate starvation in the Third World. Of course babies are a little small, like Cornish hens. But if the Supreme Court can legalize the murder of infants, it can as easily legalize the murder of adults. Indeed some groups already propose the murder of the elderly. Abortion logically justifies the murder of anyone. Hence the Supreme Court could legalize the murder of all who support the right of life and so produce a unanimous social consensus.

If anyone thinks that this proposal is extreme, be it noted that Hitler’s National Socialism and Stalin’s International Socialism attempted just that. Hitler massacred the Jews and Stalin massacred the Ukrainians and hordes of others. And aside from historical examples, rampant murder is well within the logical range of atheistic abortionism. There is a determined effort in this nation to reduce orthodox Christians to the status of second class citizens. Their recent interest in politics and law has been severely condemned. Even Barry Goldwater, supposedly a conservative of the conservatives, showed his anti-religious bigotry in denouncing the pro-life movement. In many public schools the secularist view is sustained by government imposition and the pro-life view is denied a hearing. Smut is legal, and even required reading, but the Ten Commandments are prohibited. The end of this, unless stopped, is the same persecution now practiced under Communism.

We must try to stop this atheistic program. And one place, a good place to start, is abortions.

May/June 1982

 

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Gordon H. Clark on Knowledge as the Basis of Responsibility

The Bible does not work out a theory of voluntary action and deliberate choice. It does, however, base responsibility on knowledge, and allows for greater responsibility, greater sin, and greater punishment in proportion to the amount of knowledge. The idea is clearly expressed in Romans 1:18,19, 32; 2:12, 13, 15. Also, Christ said, “that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready… shall receive a severe beating. But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required” (Luke 12:47, 48) (Gordon H. Clark, Essays on Ethics and Politics, “Ethics,” pp. 59.).

… Those who deny that men are dead in sin hold also that sin is not merely voluntary, but is particularly an act of free will. Volition and free will are not the same… Free will, that is, a choice that is not caused either by God, by character, by motives, or anything else, is substituted for knowledge as the basis for responsibility. Moreover, the problem is complicated by the fact that God is omnipotent. He could have made men sinless, had he so desired. … Christianity teaches that God is omnipotent so that He could even now eradicate evil. Superficial thinking attempts to say that God limited himself. The infinite made itself finite. God undeified himself, and hence there is sin. This reply is inadequate because limited omnipotence is a contradiction in terms… (63).

Clark’s essay, “Ethics,” was originally published in the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Merrill C. Tenney, editor. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975, pp. 385-404.

Luther, Calvin, Zanchius, and Gill on Free Will

In Gordon H. Clark’s essay, “Concerning Free Will” (Essays on Ethics and Politics; Jefferson: Trinity Foundation, 1992. pp. 25-35; originally published in The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate, August-September, 1961.), Clark provides several quotes from historic Protestantism on the subject of “Free Will.” I found the following quotes especially helpful, particularly because they speak to subjects and arguments that I have encountered in my own theological discussions. Emphasis in bold is my own.

First, Martin Luther, in response to Erasmus’ quote of Deuteronomy 30:19, “I have set before thy face life and death, choose what is good.”

“What words” says the Diatribe, “can be more plain? It leaves a man the liberty of choosing.” I answer, what is more plain than that you are blind? How, I pray, does it leave the liberty of choosing? Is it by the expression “choose”? Therefore as Moses saith “choose,” does it immediately come to pass that they do choose? Then there is no need of the Spirit. … [Erasmus says] “It would be ridiculous to say to a man standing in a place where two ways meet, Thou seest two roads, go by which thou wilt; when only one was open.” This, as I [Luther] have observed before, is from the arguments of human reason, which thinks that a man is mocked by a command impossible: whereas I say that the man by this means is admonished and roused to see his own impotency. True it is that we are in a place where two ways meet, and that one of them only is open, yea rather neither of them is open. But by the law it is shown how impossible the one [way] is, that is, to good, unless God freely give us His Spirit, and how wide and easy the other [way] is, if God leave us to ourselves. … Wherefore the words of the law are spoken, not that they might assert the power of the will, but that they might illuminate the blindness of reason, that it might see that its own light is nothing and that the power of the will is nothing. … Man by the words of the law is admonished and taught what he ought to do, not what he can do; that is, that he is brought to know his sin, but not to believe that he has any strength in himself” (pp. 153-154).

Look then first at that of Jeremiah and Malachi, “If thou wilt turn, then will I turn thee;” and “turn ye unto me and I will turn unto you.” Does it then follow from “turn ye” therefore, ye are able to turn? Does it follow also from “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart” therefore, thou art able to love with all the heart? If these arguments stand good, what do they conclude but that free will needs not the grace of God, but can do all things of its own power? (p. 162) [Clark 27-28]. [Clark takes these quotes from Luther’s Bondage of the Will, Henry Cole trans., Sovereign Grace Union ed., United States, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1931.]

Here Luther has shown that one can only derive propositions (such as “Man possesses the liberty of choosing”) from other propositions. An imperative statement, or command, is not a proposition; it is neither true nor false, and thus truth cannot be derived from it.

Next, John Calvin.

Gordon H. Clark on Tyranny vs. Christian Liberty

The following quotes are from Gordon H. Clark’s essay, “Christian Liberty,” as published in Essays on Ethics and Politics (Jefferson: Trinity Foundation, 1992. pp. 20-22). The essay was originally published in The Southern Presbyterian Journal (February 16, 1955). Although written 56 years ago, Clark’s words are completely relevant to discussion of current events in some PCA circles. Clark writes,

“Freedom and liberty are grand words, but if we are to talk intelligibly, our words must be unambiguously defined. … Chapter XX of the [Westminster] Confession enumerates the factors which compose and define Christian liberty.

‘The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, … the curse of the moral law, … [and] bondage to Satan. … All of which were common also to believers under the law …’ (sec. 1).

In addition to these elements of liberty, which particularly concern us in our individual lives, Christian liberty includes the liberty of conscience in the face of tyrannical ecclesiastical organizations. Some years ago a young man presented himself to a Presbytery for ordination. As he was known to believe that the boards and agencies of that church were infiltrated with modernism, he was asked whether he would support the boards and agencies. He replied that he would support them insofar as they were true to the Bible. This answer did not please the Presbytery, and he was asked if he would support the boards regardless of what they did. When the young man declined to make any such blind promise, the Presbytery refused to ordain him.

… As the twentieth century has seen a great increase in the control that national governments exercise over their citizens, so too with ecclesiastical organizations there is a trend toward centralization, bureaucracy, and an indifference toward inalienable rights. Well publicized gatherings of Protestant prelates parade in robes, and the press reports the colorful pageantry. Impressive imitation of popery! And the same eventual results are to be expected” (pp. 20-21).

 Clark’s story of the tyrannical presbytery has striking similarities to that of a PCA Ruling Elder that I know. When given the ultimatum that he must sign a document stating that he would not cross the Pastor of his church in any way, he flatly refused and resigned. The government of Christ’s church is designed to incorporate accountability among its leaders. To attempt to force loyalty as in the two examples above is indeed tyrannical, ungodly, and destructive to the church.