Gordon Haddon Clark (1902–1985) was an influential American philosopher and Calvinist theologian who made significant contributions to Christian apologetics and philosophy. Over a career spanning several decades, he became a leading figure associated with presuppositional apologetics, a school of Christian apologetics that emphasizes the prioritization of biblical revelation as the foundation of all knowledge.
Clark served as the chairman of the Philosophy Department at Butler University for twenty-eight years, where he established himself as an expert in pre-Socratic and ancient philosophy. Throughout his academic and theological career, he was noted for his rigorous defense of propositional revelation against the competing frameworks of empiricism and rationalism. He argued passionately that all truth is propositional in nature, asserting that God's revelation to humanity is expressed in logical, understandable propositions.
His distinctive epistemological theory, which came to be known as scripturalism, posits that the Bible is the sole starting point for all human knowledge. By asserting that scripture is the ultimate axiom from which all other truths must be deduced, Clark sought to construct a comprehensive Christian worldview that rejected secular epistemologies. His work remains highly influential within Reformed theological circles and conservative Protestant philosophy.
