This is a list of Gordon Clark quotes about logic and the laws of logic.
The books from which these quotes came are published by the Trinity Foundation. You can purchase the books at these links:
Table of Contents
Wheaton Lectures
Does Logic Precede Scripture?
A second, related reason for discussing logic first is the suspicion that verbal inspiration cannot be assumed prior to the law of contradiction. The intelligibility of the Scriptures presupposes logic. Therefore, anyone who is in the business of selecting first principles would seem to do better by choosing the law of contradiction as the axiom rather than Scripture. Scripture without logic would have no meaning.
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The law of contradiction is not to be taken as an axiom prior to or independent of God. The law is God thinking.
For this reason also, the law of contradiction is not subsequent to God. If one should say that logic is dependent on God’s thinking, it is dependent only in the sense that it is the characteristic of God’s thinking. It is not subsequent temporally, for God is eternal and there was never a time when God existed without thinking logically. One must not suppose that God’s will existed as an inert substance before he willed to think.
As there is no temporal priority, so also there is no logical or analytical priority. Not only was Logic the beginning, but Logic was God. If this unusual translation of John’s Prologue still disturbs someone, he might yet allow that God is his thinking. God is not a passive or potential substratum; he is actuality or activity. This is the philosophical terminology to express the Biblical idea that God is a living God. Hence logic is to be considered as the activity of God’s willing.
Gordon H. Clark. “Clark and His Critics.” Apple Books. 129, 137-138.
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Excerpt From: Gordon H. Clark. “Clark and His Critics.” Apple Books.
Prerequisites of All Argumentation
Chaos is not a philosophy. Eternal principles, especially the law of contradiction, are the prerequisites of all argumentation. If Nietzsche, Dewey, and Sartre wish to make intelligible objections to any philosophy, they must use the law of contradiction. They must proceed on the basis of the fixity of that law even in order to object to the law itself. Without logic everything is chaos, and all conversation is the chattering of monkeys.
We need logic.
Gordon H. Clark. “Clark and His Critics.” Apple Books. 70.
