What is the core unchangeable content of the faith? How do we know it? What does the nature of this faith mean for our understanding of tradition past and present? How does it relate to the question of authority and theological freedom in the Church? These are the questions whose answers inform every aspect of how we view our religion, and in the contemporary American Orthodox world, a new “paradigm” through which to approach and answer these questions has risen in recent years, which is especially influential and attractive online. That is, Presuppositionalism.
In this article, I will provide a thorough critique of Presuppositionalism in relation to Orthodoxy as an historical tradition, and contrast it with the patristic paradigm of the Canon of Truth, which I will contend is being bastardized by this online trend in a confusion of hermeneutics with a radical skepticism, as well as provide and discuss questions that arise regarding Orthodoxy as an intellectual tradition.
1. Presuppositionalism
Presuppositionalism, or Presuppositional Apologetics, deriving from Reformed Theologian Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987), was propagated by other Reformed theologians such as Greg Bahnsen (1948-1995), and has come into Orthodoxy through the online apologetics community. This apologetic, created as it was by Reformed Protestants, has the doctrines of Sola Scriptura and Total Depravity at its foundation, and in elucidating its Orthodox appropriation it will become clear why it is wedded to these concepts and is alien to Orthodox tradition.
As adopted by the Orthodox online community, Presuppositionalism is a “worldview” which informs a style of apologetics. The totality of Orthodox theological metaphysics, understood as divinely revealed, is taken to be this worldview, seen as a completely consistent and necessarily entailing whole of epistemology, ontology, and ethics. It is claimed that the God of this worldview, argued as the concepts of hypostasis, nature, and energies, is the necessary presupposition to be able to give justification[1] for anything, but especially epistemology and ethics. In dialogue common ground between Orthodox and non-Orthodox interlocuters is denied as it is claimed that one must assume the “revealed” God of Orthodox theology before one can make any claims about truth or morals, and non-Orthodox are demanded to show their worldview can stand up to presuppositional scrutiny on Orthodox grounds. This is the necessary result of any debate because, for the presuppositionalist, epistemology is prior to all else, and one cannot make any “justifiable” claims before they have constructed an airtight epistemological system.
If the above sounds like extreme skepticism, that’s because it is. To construct a proper epistemological system, one must first be a creature whose nature is directed towards and drawn to the true, good and beautiful. In other words, I must first have an innate orientation towards truth, goodness, beauty, and thus a capacity for knowing these transcendentals, to be a rational creature that exists in a rational world at all. If this is not the case, that is, if human existence is not one conditioned by and oriented towards transcendental truth, known intrinsically by our very nature, then we not only can never arrive at truth, we cannot even begin the search as we would not be naturally oriented towards it or have the capacity to know it by natural affinity. Thus, the creature must intuitively know an existence in which, for example, truth is distinguishable from falsehood, goodness is the motivation of his willing, and unity is superior to separateness (ala, simplicity is superior to multiplicity).[2] If these things were not common ground for human nature no one could construct an epistemological system at all, and so such systems cannot come prior to our experience of being, nor can they be made into a criterion by which we deny humanity’s innate ability to make claims of truth and falsity. Rather, they are built up from a common ground, and judged as better or worse from this ground in which all humans have an equal share.
The presuppositionalist, however, would contend that the system is “revealed” and therefore does come prior to our experience of being. For a Reformed Protestant this may be a natural conclusion, as total depravity dictates our experience of being is completely polluted by sin (to the point where, one might argue, we do not have the same nature after having fallen), and the Scriptures are perspicacious and understood by the elect through grace. However, Orthodox historically have affirmed humanity’s natural ability to know God, indeed that grace is natural to nature, and reject the perspicacity of Scripture, instead affirming its many senses, even that it contains pitfalls to encourage the exercise of human minds in allegorical reading.[3]
The relationship between Orthodoxy and presuppositionalism becomes even more perplexing when the presuppositionalist claims that those who do not adhere to Orthodox theological metaphysics, e.g., Thomist Catholics, do not worship the Christian God. For example, it is claimed that, because Thomists do not affirm the essence-energies distinction, their God falls under certain philosophical critiques which mean their God cannot be the God of Scripture who incarnates. The metaphysical system, then, would seem to precede faith in the Crucified, or rather, the system itself becomes the content of the faith. But if the system itself is the content of the faith how can it be a thing constructed over centuries of debate, borrowing and modifying pagan thought, etc? It couldn’t be constructed because then it would be constructed from a common ground and would not itself be the self-revealing, necessarily presupposed, ground and content even prior to experience, but then how is it self-revealing and by what mechanism? Does it beam itself into the nous as what it is, a logical system, and so Abraham was a Van Tilian Neo-Palamite?
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Presuppositionalism relates to and makes a hash of Orthodoxy as a historical and living tradition, and the rational problems with this “worldview” become apparent on the historical journey.
Let us peer back across history to forty days after the Resurrection. Christ has just ascended from the Mount of Olives to Heaven. The Apostles finally cease looking into the sky and head back to Jerusalem. It is a bittersweet moment; their master has ascended to be exalted at the right hand of God and so is no longer with them. Forty days later at Pentecost the Holy Spirit descends upon the Apostles and fills them with boldness to preach the Gospel in all the world. All truth is given to them, that is, Christ dwells with them and in them.[4]
What do the Apostles not have? A systematic worldview capable of grounding all knowledge in a package of mutually necessarily entailing concepts. What they do have in this regard, especially St. Paul, is the worldview of eclectic Judaeo-Hellenes, Second Temple apocalyptic and Messianic universalism interacting with the poetic and philosophic currents of Greek culture in a creative matrix centred on the crucified and risen Christ. In the subsequent centuries Christianity assimilated more of this Greek culture, especially the style of philosophical schools, and did so eclectically. They “plundered the gold of the Egyptians” and, centering it upon Christ, engaged in the same arena and dialogue of philosophy as their pagan and Jewish counterparts. Christian fulfillment of philosophy was the revelation of how to be united to God and orient oneself towards this proper eschatological end, and the philosophies of every culture, even and especially those based in other religious and spiritual practices, were dialogued with and borrowed from.
At the Council of Nicaea, specifically, in the thought of St. Athanasius and other theologians that eventually became the accepted interpretation, Christianity made a revolution in philosophy by affirming the Homoousia of the Father with the Son, repudiating the long-accepted wisdom that an effect was in all cases lesser than its cause, as well as hereticating a theology which made the Son an ontologically inferior demiurge or emanation. However, there was no necessarily presupposing system as a result of the Nicene definition. The metaphysical revolution of Nicaea was arrived at by contemplating and answering a specific issue of philosophy and exegesis, and in doing so opened new avenues for thought and new problematics. Nicaea gave way to Constantinople I in the development of a distinction between hypostasis and essence in the Trinity, and then Constantinople I gave way to Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Constantinople II and III in which the Neo-Chalcedonians (chief of course being St. Maximus) were radically creative in synthesizing tradition and revolutionizing philosophy.
The formulas resulting from the first millennium controversies, conveying essential truths, are themselves contingent. The same truths could and can be explicated in different philosophical languages and from different perspectives, and there was no necessity in the particular development of Eastern Orthodox theological metaphysics, as if the formulations of St. Gregory Palamas were the “necessary” unfolding of St. Maximus’ thought. Because these theologians thought and articulation differed, obviously their further interpretation and development could differ as well, and it did between figures like Eriugena, Palamas, etc. Nor was Orthodox theology intended to be a closed system, and it never became such with St. Gregory Palamas or any other Orthodox theologian.
In contemplating new questions, new answers are found in creativity, and tradition continues on as a continual re-positing of itself in each age. Indeed, to know Church history is to know that for many centuries Christians were the ones who looked to other religio-philosophical systems for metaphysics and epistemology,[5] not the other way around. They recognized that philosophy was the property of the whole world, and St. Gregory the Theologian’s defense of Christian’s right to Greek learning is especially illustrative:
… what is our part is this----that a language is not the property of those that invented it, but of those who share in the same; neither is there any art or occupation, of whatsoever sort thou mayest think of, which is not subject to this rule; but just as in a skilfully-composed and musical harmony there is a different sound of each different string, either high or low, yet all belong to one tuner and performer, contributing together to the single beauty of the tune, in the same way, also, the artist and creator, Speech, has appointed a different word for the inventor of each different art or occupation, and has exposed them all alike for public use, coupling together human society by the ties of mutual communication and kindness, and rendering it more gentle.[6]
Like language, the exercise of the rational mind and noetic faculties, and the development of these in theory and practice, is the task of humanity. Christianity, and the individual Christian thinker, is to engage with all the best of human thought in whatever way that is good and possible, and in doing so orient it to and around Christ. The theologian in particular is to explicate the truths of revelation, that is, revelation not only in historical events but in the encounter with Christ through Scripture, using any and all tools at his disposal.
Thus, we come to one of the key issues with Presuppositionalism for Orthodoxy; its ahistoricism. You will not find Neo-Chalcedonian theology of Hypostasis in the ante-Nicene Church, let alone its Personalist development in modern Orthodox thought. While one may argue that St. Paul in his use of the term “energia” is part of a chain of development culminating in Palamism, St. Paul was not a Palamite; he was by most accounts influenced mostly by Stoicism which was not in vouge in the 14th Century. While an Orthodox would believe that Nicaea dogmatizes truly about the equal divinity of the Son with the Father, it must be acknowledged that there were no “Nicenes” prior to Nicaea because the Nicene revolution was just that, revolutionary. In short, the neatly packaged “worldview” of Presuppositionalism existed at no point in Church history, the opposite reality - looking to and assimilating other philosophies - was the case. Thus, the argument that Orthodoxy is the true faith because it “provides an irrefutable worldview that grounds all knowledge,” cannot be used for any time in Orthodox history. Unless, that is, one argues Orthodoxy is true now but once was not.
The presuppositionalists must admit that their theological package is their own work, an attempted synthesis of concepts and axioms from tradition which they use to construct a worldview or paradigm. This is not only harmless but good, as a theologian should try to be systematic and creative in his thought. However, this becomes an issue when the concepts are abstracted from history, and thus from their reality as contingent and admitting of further development, and identified with the content of the faith. Their abstraction from history and ossification are, perhaps unacknowledged, presuppositions of Presuppositionalism, because if these concepts developed over time from a position of philosophical deficiency, then they damn any tradition prior for its inadequacy, and thus it must be asserted they were always believed, ala the claim that Abraham and Moses were Trinitarians. And, if these concepts admit of further development, including in dialogue with other traditions, then the claim to “the worldview” that accounts for all things is undermined, as development includes rectification of previous inadequacy or vagueness in learning from the other.
Ahistoricism and the problems of contingency and development are insurmountable for Presuppositionalism in trying to become Orthodoxy, as is its inherent irrationalism. Since the conceptual package appealed to by presuppositionalists as “necessary” is divorced not only from its historical context but also from relation to rationality, as one must presuppose it based on no common ground including rationality, it must simply be accepted blindly, even though none of the metaphysical concepts (hypostasis, essence, energies, etc.) were arrived at in this manner. The system or collection of concepts, now effectively identified with God, is what one has faith in, and therefore one can accuse other Christians or Monotheists of worshipping a completely different God based on differences in metaphysics. To skirt the issue of applying this same standard to Orthodox of earlier centuries one will usually appeal to a Rigorist ecclesiology and/or personal incredulity.
It is clear then that Presuppositionalism leads to a particularly incoherent and rabid kind of absolutism, indeed that is essential to its claims to represent the true all-justifying system, but this absolutism requires an authority to appeal to and enforce the authoritative nature of this system. There is, however, no such authority in Orthodoxy. What the bishops are meant to uphold are the specific creeds and statements the Church confesses. The bishops do not enforce a specific philosophical system. Likewise, the fathers of the Church are not a magisterium; they are spoken of as a “consensus” because they are taken as witnesses to the same revelation of Christ, not because they are exponents of some monolithic system or package of concepts. Indeed, to do theology with the fathers is to engage in a dialogue in which one chooses to follow this or that father on a topic, to develop this or that insight, and in doing so one judges based on rationality. Thus, one cannot appeal to “the fathers” as a magisterial authority enforcing one system; one could only appeal to a single father or group of patristic authorities, but such an appeal would not constitute a system binding upon the intellect.
To be clear, the dogmas of the Church do have metaphysical implications, but this does not entail a closed system. Nicaea did not distinguish hypostasis and essence whereas Constantinople I did, and Constantinople I did not apply this distinction to Christology or anthropology, etc., and there is no reason theology cannot make leaps now as it did in the past. Theology can never be reduced to received formula or the conceptual limitations of a previous generation, as new formula open new avenues for thought, and it certainly cannot be reduced to authority. Like an Elderism which, lacking a singular point of immediate infallibility such as the Papacy, invests a select group of monastic elders with infallible authority, Presuppositionalism as adopted by online Orthodox asserts itself as a closed and sufficient system in lieu of a Thomism and a Pope Leo XIII.
To summarize the above, Presuppositionalism is inimical to Orthodoxy as a historical tradition, is rooted in and proliferates irrationality, and serves only to stunt and ossify theological thought. It is a pseudomorphosis of tradition and should be opposed by a proper understanding of the actual core of tradition, that is, the Canon of Truth.
3. The Open Canon
In the online sphere Presuppositionalism is especially conflated with the Canon of Truth expounded and defended as the core of the faith by fathers of the Church such as Irenaeus. Indeed, it is necessary to make this conflation for the presuppositionalist’s claims to have the weight they intend. However, this conflation is false, as the Canon explicated by the ante-Nicene fathers was not an all justifying philosophical system, it was a literary and hermeneutical system for how to read Scripture as revealing Christ. The “hypothesis” or first principle of this Canon was that Christ, Crucified and Resurrected according to the Gospels, was the key around which the whole of Scripture (the Old Testament) was read to reveal one God as creator and savior. In the event of reading the Christian exegetes the Scriptures by Christ and, in doing so, comes to see Christ revealed more fully in the Scriptures, resulting in the Creedal or Catechetical elaborations of the content of the Canon.
It is according to this Canon that St. Irenaeus sought to refute the Gnostics of his day. The key texts to understand his critique, provided with the translation of Fr. John Behr, illustrate the actual meaning and significance of the Canon:
By way of illustration, suppose someone would take the beautiful image of a king, carefully made out of precious stones by a skilful artist, and would destroy the features of the man on it and change it around and rearrange the jewels, and make the form of a dog or of a fox out of them, and that rather a bad piece of work. Suppose he would then say with determination that this is the beautiful image of the king that the skilful artist had made, and at the same time pointing to the jewels which had been beautifully fitted together by the first artist into the image of the king… In the same way these people patch together old women’s fables, and then pluck words and sayings and parables from here and there and wish to adapt these oracles of God to their myths…
Anyone who keeps unswervingly in himself the canon of truth received through baptism will recognize the names and sayings and parables from the Scriptures, but this blasphemous hypothesis of theirs he will not recognize. For if he recognizes the jewels, he will not accept the fox for the image of the king. He will restore each one of the passages to its proper order and, having fit it into the body of the truth, he will lay bare their fabrication and show that it is without support.[7]
The Canon is the rule for exegesis of Scripture. It is not a system of philosophical concepts, and it should be noted that it is this canon which was understood to be delivered by the Apostles and constitute the core of the Christian faith. Do all those Christian Churches claiming historical succession from the Apostles (Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy and Assyrian Church of the East) hold to this Canon? Yes, despite different ways of explicating it, they do, just as for most of Church history widely differing philosophical explications of this same Canon existed under the undivided Church’s umbrella.
Again, while the Canon of Truth and the Scriptural worldview it generates in tradition do elicit philosophical explication, they do not support the same kind of absolutism and anti-ecumenism that Presuppositionalism does. Furthermore, it does not support irrationalism. Patristic thinkers operated on a foundationalism common to all their philosophical contemporaries who rejected skepticism, accepting the indemonstrability of first principles because the ultimate ground of being, the Good, the One, was known by creatures’ participation in Him. The Christian believed that this Good had revealed Himself fully in Christ, that is, in Christ the whole cosmos was able to enter the inner life of God who would be “all in all” at the resurrection, a likely reference by St. Paul to the stoic Aratus’ saying that “everything is full of Zeus.”[8] Not a rejection of non-Christian’s ability to know truth or morality, but an affirmation, and the claim that such knowledge is fulfilled in Christ, is characteristic of traditional Orthodoxy.
The above explained, it is clear that the Canon of Truth and Presuppositionalism have very little if anything in common. However, it is easy to lead unsuspecting persons to conclude they are the same. This is because the hermeneutical claim of those holding to the Canon of Truth is that Scripture can only be read as Scripture, that is as the Scripture of the Church, if read according to the Christ of the Gospels. Such a claim superficially sounds like Presuppositionalism, but it is not. It is a hermeneutical understanding of a tradition whose activity is its goal and identity. The Church reads the Scriptures according to Christ to reveal Christ to build up the Church as the Body of Christ. As this activity is what the Church is then a reading of Scripture opposed to this activity is false according to the presupposed criterion of being inimical to the aforesaid activity which constitutes the Church. While this reasoning may be extended to rejecting certain philosophical ideas which would contradict the Scriptures, the Canon of Truth is not itself a philosophical system, rather it is something open to and compelling theological elaboration, and thus can never serve to justify closing the systems or concepts used in its explication.
4. Intellectual Tradition and Argumentation
After distinguishing Presuppositionalism from the Canon of Truth, we must inquire what we are to make of Orthodoxy’s dogmatic metaphysical claims and theological tradition. If it is not a system, completed and triumphalist, then how should it be viewed? To begin with, it must be affirmed that Scriptural revelation is pregnant with metaphysical meaning and that Orthodox dogmatics makes metaphysical claims, but again, there is no finished system. Therefore, like the fathers in their own time, to properly engage Orthodoxy’s intellectual tradition one must discern what specific metaphysical claims are essential explications of the Canon of Truth, the new avenues of thought they open for further contemplation in dialogue with other philosophies and cultures, and whether there are differing ways to express the same truths from different vantages.
Of course, when I say “like the fathers” I mean the best of them or the fathers at their best, and this is because to engage in intellectual tradition one must not only emulate but must also judge rationally. Just as there is a great difference between what many people canonized as Saints did and actual saintliness, so there is a difference between the intellectual attitudes of certain patristic authors and the ideal of theology as an intellectual discipline. Saintliness is characterized by humility, serenity, cruciform love, and, according to Martyr Pavel Florensky, especially by a beauty of holiness and wholeness of being. It is not characterized properly by end-times paranoia, cultural chauvinism, nostalgia for dead political forms, ignorance of science or medicine, etc. Likewise, to follow and continue in the stream of a theological tradition with great intellectual riches, one should not take anti-intellectualist, triumphalist, seclusionist, etc., attitudes as exemplary.
The above said, theological tradition is a dialogue, and one enters it willingly, submits to a common faith and certain metaphysical principles, and within this arena of historical voices, complimentary and competing, one has vast room to think and create. In fact, to be part of the Orthodox theological tradition does not mean to be confined to its own thinkers. It does mean to be committed to its faith and have a special regard for its theologians, but all the theological and philosophical traditions of the world are open to be learned from and brought into dialogue. In this dialogue an Orthodox will attempt to show that his tradition truly and persuasively theologizes about God, but there is no reason they cannot learn from others, even find better concepts and language in the pursuit of a more refined God-talk. Such was the case for centuries, and perhaps has never stopped being the case.
However, what about metaphysical arguments for the truth of Orthodoxy, meaning the Orthodox conception of God, as opposed to other religions? They are good and useful. Human beings change their minds and ways of life according to reasons, and a truer, more refined understanding of God, mankind, the world, etc., are good reasons to convert. As Orthodox Christianity claims to reveal the fullness of God’s revelation and lead mankind to the fullness of its end in God, it must strive for intellectual refinement. But, if for no other reason than to avoid becoming jaded, one must remember that theology as an intellectual discipline is the domain of free personal creativity and rational judgement, not of external authority or the pious collective. Insofar as philosophical theology is concerned its goal is greater and more refined knowledge of God, man, and the world for the theologian and those able to dialogue with him, even those of other traditions, more so than it is directed to the masses of the Church.
This is not to say that theology is for a select group alone. The theologian wishes to contribute to the building up of the whole Church. However, seeking a refined view of God, a systematic way of viewing the world in light of this theology, and pushing the envelope in applying theology to hard questions, are things the theologically minded can only do themselves and in dialogue with those of similar attitudes and convictions. Unless the hierarchy are amiable to and actively taking part in such thought, hoping to build up an Orthodox ethos and identity consciously in tune with the best of its theology and tackling difficult issues, the theologian and those of like mind can only be reasonably concerned with those of similar attitude to them. That is, those for whom things like a refined view of God, a systematic theological view of reality, and the necessity of tackling new questions and overcoming false accretions, are of utmost importance.
Conclusion
I hope I have successfully illustrated the incompatibility of Presuppositionalism with Orthodoxy as an historical tradition, as well as its distinction from the Canon of Truth which itself invites proliferation of thought and explication, rather than triumphalist ossification. I also hope that the current trend in Orthodox apologetics, or in popular Orthodox relations to other Christians and religions online, comes to reflect the reality of how Orthodox tradition actually developed in relation to other ideas and confessions. This would bring much more glory to God than an environment and attitude in which God-talk is subordinate to polemic.
[2] Our consciousness integrates our experience into a unity from a multiplicity and is, itself, a unity, as ultimately our consciousness, the “I” or our subjectivity, is a simplicity in which it is its act and vice versa. Our personal experience of truth, goodness, and beauty is only known from this unified perspective, and ultimately themselves must be grounded in the One that is completely simple. That is, the One in which there is no unfulfilled potential or passivity, but rather complete actuality, Who simply “Is.” It is this that rational nature is oriented towards as the good, true, and beautiful, precisely as the creature’s truth, goodness, and ultimate bliss, insofar as the creature participates in and is moved towards the One’s simplicity.
[3] See Fr. John Behr’s “Reading Scripture” Public Orthodoxy, Dec 12, 2017. https://publicorthodoxy.org/2017/12/12/reading-scripture/. See also the anthology by Sts. Gregory the Theologian and Basil the Great, The Philocalia of Origen. Trans., Rev. George Lewis (Edinburgh, UK: T&T Clark, 1911), 1-30, 51-52.
[4] For the ancients to “know” something was to participate in it. Sight and light were common analogies for this noetic and participatory knowledge, e.g., being enlightened through baptism to see God. This kind of knowledge is what St. John the Theologian refers to when he says, “the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him (1 Jhn 2:27).” Thus, the Apostles were granted all truth by their participation in the one who is Truth, but this did not entail anything like a system of concepts.
[5] Indeed, certain fathers made very strong claims about the status of Greek philosophy and culture. St. Justin Martyr argued that the great Greek philosophers were Christians before Christ (Apology 1.46), and his own theology was platonic with emendations to accommodate Christian doctrine. Clement of Alexandria entertained the idea that Greek philosophy was given by God to the Greeks as a tutor towards Christ, in the same way as the Law was given to the Jews (TheStromata, 1.5). St. Basil the Great also, in his Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature, argues that study of the Scriptures should be preceded by learning in all the best aspects of one’s culture, the arts and philosophy especially, so that Scripture can be engaged properly.
Another excellent piece. Keep up the great work!
Thank you. This is very helpful to me personally.