The December 2009 issue of The Trinity Review featured a review of my book. The review, which is highly critical, was written by Gary Crampton. I’ve posted a response on my website. It’s lengthy and forthright; but given the serious deficiencies of the review, it had to be.
I have copied below the section on Gordon Clark’s treatments of the Trinity and the Incarnation, because it may be of wider interest.
Why I Am Not a Clarkian
Since Dr. Crampton cites Gordon Clark’s formulations of the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation as counterexamples to the claims in my book, I should give some explanation as to why I find them unsatisfactory. I chose not to interact with Clark’s formulations in my book because, in my judgment, they are not among the most sophisticated or influential in the field. His view of the Trinity is essentially a form of social trinitarianism, a model I discuss and reject as unsatisfactory in chapter 2 of the book (see pp. 36-47). I’ve explained elsewhere the specific shortcomings of Clark’s treatment of the doctrine of the Trinity.
As for the paradox of the Incarnation, Clark’s solution is to reject the positive statements of the Definition of Chalcedon as vacuous and to offer his own definition of ‘person’ as “a composite [or complex] of propositions”. On this view, Jesus Christ turns out to be two persons: “a divine person and a human person”. This proposal is designed to alleviate the logical difficulty of attributing both omniscience and partial ignorance to Christ. I concur with Clark that it wouldn’t be fair to charge him with the heresy of Nestorianism, since Nestorius clearly didn’t employ anything like Clark’s definition of ‘person’. (Who does?) However, the problem with Clark’s formulation isn’t that it is heretical. The problem is that it’s downright incoherent.
After offering his novel definition of ‘person’ Clark explains: “As a man thinketh in his (figurative) heart, so is he. A man is what he thinks.” Leaving no doubt as to what he means, he later adds: “a person is the propositions he thinks.” But this is obviously incoherent, since it presupposes a distinction between the thinker (“he”) and his thoughts (“the propositions”). It’s no more coherent than the claim that a person is the clothes he wears! In fact, Clark’s definition is circular, because the definiendum (“a person”) is referred to in the definiens (“the propositions he [i.e., the person] thinks”).
In any case, how can a composite of propositions think in the first place? Aren’t propositions objects of thought rather than subjects of thought, as Clark himself recognized? Even more problematically, how can a composite of propositions suffer or be crucified or thirst? The difficulties don’t end there: Clark’s apparent identification of propositions with human thoughts is undermined by the observation that two people can think one and the same proposition. Clark must either distinguish propositions and thoughts, or else conclude that persons share proper parts. Furthermore, Clark’s attempt to distinguish persons on the basis of first-person indexical propositions suffers from explanatory circularity. (What does the ‘I’ in the proposition “I was incarnated” refer to if not a person whose existence is logically prior to that proposition?)
So much for the philosophical problems of Clark’s analysis of the doctrine of the Incarnation. How does it fare theologically? Does it do justice to the biblical teaching about Christ? Clark recommends that we think of Christ in terms of “two persons” rather than the “two natures” of the Chalcedon formula. What then accounts for the unity between the two? Chalcedon’s answer is straightforward: it’s the unity of personhood. What is Clark’s alternative? As far as I can tell, he offers none.
But this inevitably invites a host of awkward questions. Who exactly is the “one mediator” of 1 Timothy 2:5? Who or what is the referent of the name “Jesus Christ” in the New Testament? Did Clark think that “Jesus Christ” referred collectively to two ‘persons’: God the Son and Jesus of Nazareth? Why then do the biblical writers use the pronoun ‘he’ rather than ‘they’? The answer should be obvious: the biblical writers weren’t working with anything like Clark’s quirky notion of personhood. Rather, they were working with the everyday notion of personhood reflected in personal pronouns: an individual with the capacity for thoughts, intentions, and actions.
There are further criticisms that could be raised against Clark’s position, but these should suffice to show why I and others find his formulations of the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation inadequate on both theological and philosophical grounds. Indeed, Clark’s failure to offer formulations that are both non-paradoxical and faithful to the biblical data serves as further confirmation of my thesis.
 See here: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2005/08/van-tils-serious-trinitarian-theology.html
 Gordon H. Clark, The Incarnation (The Trinity Foundation, 1988). For Clark’s criticisms of Chalcedon, see pp. 14-15, 75. For his definition of ‘person’, see pp. 54, 64.
 Ibid., p. 78. This statement of Clark’s view comes from the book’s editor, John Robbins.
 Ibid., p. 55.
 Ibid., p. 37.
 Ibid., pp. 67, 69, 73.
 Ibid., pp. 54-55.
 At least, he offers none in The Incarnation, which of all his works is where we would expect to find it. The book was written shortly before its author’s death in 1985.