You are begging the question by making the presupposition of physical causal closure, and by precluding the possibility of a God who upholds both the physical and the mental realms, and the correlation between them. You should be careful of accusing my argument of being “still born” when your own so plainly relies on its own conclusion. Worse, it fails to actually interact with my own argument at all, and so my reasoning stands. This being the case, you have really done nothing more than make a “science of the gaps” appeal. Do you know that the first law of thermodynamics cannot be broken? Has science discovered everything which can be discovered?

Regards,
Bnonn

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I just began reading Clark’s book: God and Evil the problem solved.

I have read some of Malebranche and know that Jonathan Edwards embraced occasionalism. It makes sense to me, although I have found precisely what you have related; the whole concept seems to make many Christians uncomfortable. I think Edwards addressed this when he dealt with proximate and vulgar causes. (Perhaps the terminology is incorrect)

Anyway I am looking forward to reading your book.

PS: I am going to attempt to reach out to JC again, he lives near me and we have met personally many times. I am very perplexed as to his lack of response.

Blessings in Christ,

SA

In my experience, there is a tendency among Reformed Christians nowadays to try to protect God from himself. No one wants to say that God in some way causes sin, because that would make him “responsible” for sin—and the term “responsible” has become ambiguous in its meaning, so that many people think that to be metaphysically responsible means to be ethically responsible. So even Calvinists are denying God’s sovereignty in causing sin, and in this sense they adopt Arminianism, despite at the same time affirming God’s total sovereignty and man’s lack of free will.

At first glance this may seem unrelated to scripturalism, but I don’t think it is. Scripturalism requires an extremely stringent metaphysic which makes no compromises with God’s sovereignty, because it recognizes the importance of a closed and accounted-for string of causation in the universe. Biblical occasionalism is the metaphysic upon which scripturalism rests, and much of scripturalism’s apologetic methods rest on the epistemological ramifications of this—as you will see if you read my book. Furthermore, even if we ignore the metaphysical issues, the fact that Clark and Cheung and the like affirm God’s total sovereignty, saying that he causes sin, makes most Christians automatically label them as heretics or fools or extremists, who are to be ignored by all sensible and moderate Christians—and so what they have to say about apologetics is overlooked.

Now, it is my view, after several discussions with other Christians who are not familiar with biblical occasionalism, that the word cause is behind most of the problems people have with scripturalism. Cheung and myself are very firm on establishing the biblical metaphysic as one in which, ultimately, all causes are caused by God. This is misunderstood frequently, often, and all the time, to mean that God causes sin in the same sense that we cause sin. Ie, that God causes sin in a secondary metaphysical context. Of course, the whole point of the scriptural metaphysic is that God causes sin in the primary context; what one might call remote cause or ultimate cause. But the implications which come out of the word cause are just too strong, and once you have used it, it may take pages and pages of discussion and examples and analogies before you can properly correct all the misconceptions which result, and the understandable righteous indignation from those who think you are calling God a sinner; and not just a, but the sinner, ultimately responsible for all sin. This is simply because people are only familiar with cause in the secondary sense. To try to explain primary cause while using that very word is extremely difficult—even more difficult than explaining presuppositional thinking to someone who doesn’t know what presuppositions are, and isn’t aware he has any.

So I have started to use the term “bring about”. This seems less offensive, while still meaning precisely the same thing. I think it is more palatable because it seems to fit into the biblical model better; it’s the sort of language the Bible itself uses. Furthermore, it has the advantage of implying the kind of causation which is meant: ultimate, remote, primary causation, as opposed to the sort of causation with which we are familiar in an everyday sense.

The problem with the term “bring about” is that it suggests at least the possibility of a certain passivity. Ie, God may bring about the circumstances which result in sin, but he doesn’t bring about the sinful action itself. That is our doing. Of course, it is our doing, but we are not active in comparison to God. We are passive. So it is our doing in the immediate sense, but God’s doing in the remote sense. Explaining all this can be difficult, however—which is why I am devoting my next book to the task; and also to proving the logical necessity of this metaphysic in some detail.

In short: yes, I believe most Reformed people misunderstand Cheung and Clark. But I also think that this is partly because Cheung and Clark have not made a good effort to correct this misunderstanding. A lot of people do not grasp the subtleties of scripturalism easily, and we should try to help them with that, rather than simply dismissing them.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Bnonn

I noticed you wrote a book on apologetics. I read some of the introductory remarks and noted that you have read Vincent Cheung’s books.

I was introducted to Presuppositional apologetics while a student at an evidentialist school and was converted on the spot. Cheung’s book “Apologetics in Conversation” had a big influence on me. I admire Cheung for publishing his books for free on the web. I know that some of our reformed brothers disagree with Scripturalism but honestly wonder if they aren’t just misunderstanding Clark, Cheung et.al.

I would appreciate knowing your opinion.

Could he have repented of atheism and now embraces the Triune God of the Bible? I remain hopeful.

JC and I have agreed that a week is a reasonable time limit for responses; however, we are both quite busy, and I don’t think we’re holding to that extremely strictly.

Regards,
Bnonn