"The second main point of the Complaint against Dr. Clark concerns, in the words of the complainants, 'his view of the relation of the faculty of knowledge, the intellectual faculty, to other faculties of the soul.' I have re-read the material the complainants offer on this point, and also its refutation in The Answer. I think that the points of difference between Dr. Clark and his accusers may, in the main, be summarized as follows:
1. The complainants hold to the trichotomous diviation or distinction of the human soul into its faculties, and apply this also to God. In the human soul they distinguish between intellect, emotion, and will. Dr. Clark prefers the dichotomous distinction of intellect and will, refuses to speak of emotion as a separate faculty, and considers the emotions as aspects of the intellect and will. And he, too, applies this distinction to God. . . .
The Answer makes plain that Dr. Clark does not dney the reality of emotions in God, but gives them a different connotation from that of the complainants, and assigns to them a position different from that which the latter assign to them, in relation to God's intellect and will. The complainants make of the emotions in God a separate faculty, next to, and on a level with intellect and will. Dr. Clark gives them a subordinate position, and explains them as aspects or functions of God's intellect and will. From The Answer we quote:
Dr. Clark never made any 'forthright denial of anything that might be called emotion in God.' Love or wrath 'might be called an emotion.' Dr. Clark did not deny love and wrath to God. He holds that while some people might call God's love and wrath emotions, it is better to classify them as volitions. In this Dr. Clark is in accord with a large section of theology and of literary usage [27].
It would seem, then, that the chief point of difference between the complainants and Dr. Clark may be stated thus, that the former hold to the trichotomous, the latter to the dichotomous, distinction as applied to human and 'divine psychology.' (I must not be held responsible for the latter term.)" -Herman Hoeksema, The Clark-Van Til Controvery, Pg. 24 - 26
John Calvin in his Institutes also says that man has two faculties consisting of intellect and will. There might be some out there who may want to discredit what I teach and say along with what Dr. Clark also taught and said in his writings. So I will quote Calvin himself.
"We are constrained to depart a little from the mode of instruction, because the philosophers, being ignorant of the corruption of nature proceeding from the punishment of the fall, improperly confound two very different states of mankind. Let us, therefore, submit the following division - that the human soul has two faculties which relate to our present design, the understanding and the will. Now, let it be the office of the understanding to discriminate between objects, as they shall respectively appear deserving of approbation or disapprobation; but of the will, to choose and follow what the understanding shall have pronounced to be good; to abhor and avoid what it shall have condemned. Here let us not stay to discuss those subtleties of Aristotle, that the mind has no motion of itself, but that it is moved by the choice, which he also calls the appetitive intellect." - John Calvin, The Institutes, I. XV. VII.
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