On this page Clark speaks of Omniscience and presents a case of an observer from far off watching two cars about to collide. As far as the observer knows and sees these cars will in fact collide. However, his knowledge of such things does not actually cause the accident. From this view the Arminian-Romanist attempts to explain that God knows the future without causing it to happen.
Clark responds,
The similarity, however, is deceptive on several points. A human observer cannot really know that collision will occur. Though it is unlikely, it is possible for both cars to have blowouts before reaching the intersection and swerve apart. It is also possible that the observer has misjudged the speeds, in which case one car could slow down and the other accelerate, so that they would not collide. The human observer, therefore, does not have infallible foreknowledge.
No such mistakes can be assumed for God. The human observer may make a probable guess that the accident will occur, and this guess does not make the accident unavoidable; but if God knows, there is no possibility of avoiding the accident. A hundred years before the drivers were born, there was no possibility of avoiding the accident. There was no possibility that either one of them could have chosen to stay home that day, to have driven a different route, to have driven a different time, to have driven a different speed. They could not have chosen otherwise than as they did. This means either that they had no free will or that God did not know. [Pg. 160]
In other words God's knowledge of the event from eternity past makes it certain that the event will in fact occur. This is a deathblow to the Arminian and also to the Molinist who want to assert that God does not know for certain whether something would in fact take place. God's knowledge is certain because God's knowledge is perfect.
Clark, continues,
Suppose it be granted, just for the moment, that divine foreknowledge, like human guesses, does not cause the foreknown event. Even so, if there is foreknowledge, in contrast with fallible guesses, free will is impossible. If man has free will, and things can be different, God cannot be omniscient. Some Arminians have admitted this and have denied omniscience, but this puts them obviously at odds with Biblical Christianity. There is also another difficulty. If the Arminian or Romanist wishes to retain divine omniscience and at the same time assert that foreknowledge has no causal efficacy, he is put to it to explain how the collision was made certain a hundred years, an eternity, before the drivers were born. If God did not arrange the universe this way, who did?
If God did not arrange it this way, then there must be an independent factor in the universe. And if there is such, one consequence and perhaps two follows. First, the doctrine of creation must be abandoned. . . . Then, second, if the universe is not God's creation, his knowledge of it - past and future - cannot depend on what he intends to do, but on his observation of how it works. . . . And, finally, on this view God's knowledge would be empirical, rather than an integral part of his essence, and that he would be a dependent knower. [Pg. 160 - 161]
Sorry I don't want to quote too much of Clark. If one is interested in Clark's argument I would suggest that you go and buy the book preferably at the Trinity Foundation. But, Clark's argument thus far has been to show the irrationalism of those who say that God simply knows what will happen without actually causing it to happen. If God was like the observer he certainly could not know what would happen and if God was not the one causing all things to happen then someone else is and hence God could not know exactly what would happen. But, this is exactly what many Calvinist revert back to in their arguments about God's relation to evil.
Clark, says,
Plato in his Republic attempted to account for evil by the assumption that God is not the cause of everything, but only of a few things - few because our evils far outnumber our goods. In the Timaeus he was not quite so pessimistic, but he still held that there is an eternal and chaotic Space which the Demiurge cannot entirely control. To the end, therefore, it must be said, Plato retained an unreconciled dualism.
Aristotle, because his philosophy is so completely irreligious, is somewhat an exception in antiquity. He conceived God in such a way that his relation to evil, or to the moral endeavors of men, hardly mattered. The Unmoved Mover is in a sense the cause of all motion, but instead of being an active cause, he causes motion by being the object of the world's desire. He exercises no voluntary control over history. Though he is constantly thinking, he does not seem to think about the world, or, at most, he knows only a part of the past and nothing whatever of the future.
Naturally, the great Christian philosopher Augustine grappled with the difficulty. Under Neoplatonic influence he taught that all existing things are good; evil, therefore, does not exist - it is metaphysically unreal. Being non-existent, it can have no cause, and God therefore is not the cause of evil. When a man sins, it is a case of his choosing a lowest good instead of a higher good. This choice too has no efficient cause, although Augustine assigns to it a deficient cause. In this way God was supposed to be absolved. Augustine, admittedly, was a great Christian and a great philosopher. Later in the chapter more will be said about him. But here he was at his worst. Deficient causes, if there are such things, do not explain why a good God does not abolish sin and guarantee that men always choose the highest good. [Pg. 145]
Many Calvinist say the very same things that Augustine says with regards to God's relation to evil. R.C. Sproul for instance also speaks to Reprobation being a negative decree and not a positive one. The point that Augustine says is that God merely removes his grace from the situation. In which case the question is properly asked, 'why?' If God was concerned for the greater good then why in fact does evil exist? Could God not have created a world in which there was no evil? This is where the supposedly Christian philosopher tries to respond to the question of God and evil. This is where I will say as a Christian and as Calvinist that God wanted evil to occur and he does so for His own purpose. Yes evil glorifies God. God is equally ultimate what happens in this world.
John Calvin says,
Let us suppose, for example, that a merchant, having entered a wood in the company of honest men, imprudently wanders from his companions and, pursuing a wrong course, falls into the hands of robbers, and is murdered. His death was not only foreseen by God, but also decreed by him. For it is said, not that he has foreseen to what limits the life of every man would extend, but that he 'hath appointed bounds which he cannot pass.' Yet, as far as our minds are capable of comprehending, all these circumstances appear fortuitous. What opinion shall a Christian form on this case? He will consider all the circumstances of such a death as in their nature fortuitous, yet he will not doubt that the providence of God presided, and directed fortune to that end. Institutes. I. XVI. IX.
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