[With the
author's permission; from Theology Today, XV, No. 4 (1959)]
IS THERE A BIBLICAL METAPHYSIC?
BY EDMOND LA B. CHERBONNIER
Is there such a thing as a Biblical
metaphysic? It is sometimes held that the very phrase itself is a contradiction
in terms, that the words “Biblical” and “metaphysics” are mutually exclusive. The
present article will attempt to dispel this notion, and to show how the
development of a Biblical metaphysic could contribute to current theological
and philosophical discussion.
The first step is to clarify the
meaning of the term “metaphysics.” It belongs to a family of words which are
used in two distinct senses, the one general (or formal), the other specific
(or material). The general sense stands for a particular kind of inquiry, as
“astronomy,” for example, refers to the investigation of the stars. The
specific meaning, however, denotes the results of the inquiry. In this sense,
there are as many different “astronomies” as there are plausible answers to the
astronomer’s question, such as Ptolemaic, Copernican, or Aztec. Similarly, the
inquiry called “physics” has received several alternative answers, each of
which is itself a “physics,” whether Aristotelian, Newtonian, or quantum.
Metaphysics, likewise, in its
general sense, refers to a particular inquiry. The metaphysician asks: “What is
true always and everywhere, regardless of time or place? And how is this truth
related to the particular truths of determinate tunes and places?” Possible
answers, from the atomic theory of Democritus to the idealism of Hegel, are
also “metaphysics,” in the specific sense. When this sense is intended, the
word is often spelled “metaphysic,” without the final s. The Biblical
metaphysic is simply the systematic development of one possible answer to the
metaphysician’s question, based upon hints and latent assumptions within the
Bible.
Once the
two meanings of “metaphysics” have been distinguished, it becomes absurd to
raise objections of principle against such an enterprise. Though any proposed
metaphysic may, under critical scrutiny, prove to be erroneous, none is ruled
out in advance. All are eligible to compete, and to be accepted or rejected on
their merits;
454
455
that is, after they have been tested by the special
criteria of the discipline.
If objections of principle are
nevertheless raised against the Biblical metaphysic, the explanation probably
lies in the fact that one particular metaphysic (in the specific sense) has
historically dominated the field. Its supremacy has been so complete that not
only its advocates, but even its opponents, have often confused this proposed
answer with the metaphysical enterprise as such. When they hear the word
“metaphysics,” they automatically respond, “Plato.”
This premature assumption that all
metaphysics is necessarily Platonic is perfectly illustrated by the following
remarks of Spinoza:
“Scriptural
doctrine contain no lofty speculations nor philosophic reasoning, but only very
simple matters such as could be understood by the slowest intelligence . . . .
I should be surprised if I found them [the prophets] teaching any new
speculative doctrine which was not a commonplace to . . . Gentile philosophers
. . . . It therefore follows that we must by no means go to the prophets for
knowledge, either of natural or spiritual phenomena.”1
Correctly perceiving
that the Bible is not Platonic, Spinoza concludes that it therefore has no
philosophic import at all.
Because a majority of theologians
have tacitly concurred in his verdict, Christian thought has frequently been at
war with itself. This inner conflict has finally has finally come to a head in the present day, with the sharp
division of Protestant theology into two camps. On the one hand, the
philosophical theologian recognizes that if Christianity is to be rational, it
must contain a metaphysic. He thereupon performs a tour de force which
purports to reconcile the Bible with Plato, but which in fact simply obscures
what the Bible is saying. He is easily convicted by his counterpart, the
orthodox theologian, of violating the elementary canons of scientific exegesis.
The orthodox, however, in order to
keep Plato out of the Bible, has felt obliged to repudiate all metaphysics
whatever, and even to denounce rational theology as a kind of idolatry. Having
forfeited human reason to his opponent, he can scarcely hope to win an
argument, except by recourse to dubious methods. The theological ferment of
recent years has thus issued in a stalemate. The philosophical party, despite
its defense of reason, reads into the Bible a metaphysic which has no place
there.
The orthodox
party, despite
_______________________________________________
1Abraham
J. Heschel, God in Search of Man (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy,
1955), p. 321.
456
a more respectable exegesis, replaces argument
with a mixture of dogmatism and poetry.
I
Actually the present stalemate is
merely the logical outcome of the basic cleavage which haunts the entire
history of Christian thought. Today’s philosophical camp is the lineal
descendant of men like Origen and Erigena, whose Platonism could scarcely
accommodate the Bible, while the orthodox follow the example of Tertullian and
Luther, who were prepared to sacrifice reason to Scripture. Despite their
differences, these men all shared one prior assumption. Or rather, their
differences were due to this assumption. Agreeing with Spinoza. that the
Bible carries no philosophic import, they were obliged either to subordinate
revelation to reason, or vice versa.
If the conflict between these two
camps was less evident in the past than it is today, the reason is that the
greatest theologians, like Augustine or Aquinas, tried to mediate it. The most
promising method would have been to infer from the Bible a genuine philosophia
Christiana -- and indeed, some bold suggestions of this kind can be found
in their writings. However, these hopeful beginnings were not consistently
developed. Instead, the great systems of Christian theology tried to endorse
both schools at once, and to reconcile them by means of subtle dialectic.
The attempt to combine logical
contraries in a single system, however, does more credit to the theologian’s
heart than to his head. Its net effect is questionable on two counts. First, it
has delayed a solution to theology’s basic problem by sweeping it under the
rug. And second, it scarcely encourages the disinterested critic to hold Christian
thought in high regard. He has only to lift up the rug to discover in even the
greatest theologies a measure of double‑talk. Such an expose, sympathetic
but rigorous, has been made by Arthur 0. Lovejoy in The Great Chain of Being.
The following summary of his conclusions happens to refer not to Plato but to
Aristotle. Where the concept of God is concerned, however, Aristotle is, in
Whitehead’s phrase, simply a footnote to Plato:
“The most
extraordinary triumph of self‑contradiction, among many such triumphs in
the history of human thought, was the fusion of this conception of a self‑absorbed
and self‑contained Perfection ‑ that Eternal Introvert who is the God
of Aristotle‑at once with the Jewish
457
conception of
a temporal Creator and busy interposing Power making for righteousness in the
hurlyburly of history, and with primitive Christianity’s conception of a God whose
essence is forthgoing love and who shares in the grief of His creatures . . . .
Most of the religious thought of the West has thus been profoundly at variance
with itself.”2
That is, the
doctrine of the double truth runs through the great bulk of Christian thought.
Either it is made explicit, by men like Ockham, or it is concealed by
dialectical subtleties, as in the great Summas.
Theology can he expected to remain
in this dilemma as long as all parties share the same primary premise; that is,
as long as all assume that metaphysics, by definition, is Platonic. And
conversely, the way out would appear to lie in the development of a theology
which would be philosophical, though not Platonic, and Biblical, though not
illogical. In short, a Biblical metaphysic.
Contributions to this enterprise
have come from men of diverse backgrounds and interests. Most are Biblical
scholars; such as C. H. Dodd, H. Wheeler Robinson, G. E. Wright, Sir Edwyn
Hoskins, John W. Bowman, Oscar Cullmann, and James Muilenburg; some are
historical scholars, like Gregory Dix and Brooks Otis; and some are
philosophers, such as Abraham Heschel, who has worked out a philosophy of
Judaism, W. H. V. Reade, who states most of the crucial issues in The
Christian Challenge to Philosophy, and Claude Tresmontant whose two books, Essay
on Hebraic Thought and Studies in Biblical Metaphysics, contain a
systematic confrontation of Platonic with Biblical philosophy.
These men represent not only a
variety of specialized disciplines, but also of religious traditions. They run
the gamut from Jewish to Anglican, Roman Catholic to Methodist. The remarkable
thing . about their work thus far is that, from such divergent starting points,
and often completely unknown to one another, they have converged toward a
common conclusion. On re‑examining the Bible for its own metaphysical
implications, they are confident that Spinoza, and many Christians with him,
have pre‑judged the case.
Tresmontant speaks for them all when he says:
“Certain
metaphysical requirements are implied, organically presupposed, by the
[Biblical] revelation. They provide the meta-
______________________________________________
2Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being
(Cambridge: The Harvard University Press, 1948), pp. 157, vii.
458
physical substructure appropriate to the theological
message of the Holy Scriptures. This theological message may not be
expressed in any metaphysic whatsoever, it cannot be embodied indifferently in
any structure of thought whatever. Platonism, for example, was radically unable
to receive and transmit the Biblical theology of creation, Incarnation, and
real presence . . . . The various aspects of Hebraic thought do not comprise a
rhapsody of contingent elements, fortuitously thrown together . . . rather,
they comprise the organically related parts of a coherent, systematic whole, a
logically consistent structure of thought . . . . Consequently, conversion to
Christianity or Judaism requires a metaphysical conversion which abandons the
pantheistic metaphysics of paganism in exchange for the Biblical metaphysic.”3
In other words, the hegemony of
Platonic metaphysics has been due in part to the absence of adequate
competition. The following pages will suggest, in barest outline, how a
respectable alternative might be derived from the philosophical implications of
the Bible, and will also indicate some of its advantages over Plato.
The nature of God. At no
point is the contrast between Biblical and Platonic metaphysics more obvious than
in their respective conceptions of “god.” The Platonist, in his search for what
is true always and everywhere, concludes that nothing can fill the bill save
what is itself non‑temporal and non‑spatial. Nothing can be
universally true save that which is itself “a universal.” Hence the famous
formula, “the most universal is the most real.” Impelled by this rubric, his
“quest for ultimate reality” finally ends with the most universal of all concepts,
known variously, and apparently without embarrassment, as either Being, or Non‑Being,
or both.
A “divinity” which excludes space,
time, and matter is best described in terms which negate the everyday world.
Its relation to the world is that of the Absolute to the relative, the Infinite
to the finite, the Timeless to tile temporal. None of these designations is
compatible with the God of the Bible. The Biblical God is not a universal, but
a particular ‑ a Being, not Being‑Itself. The incarnation of
Christ is no paradox. To describe it as such is to betray a Platonic point of
departure. What the Biblical conception of incarnation is shouting at the top
of its lungs is that whatever the difference
________________________________________________
3Claude Tresmontant, Études de
Métaphysique Biblique (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1955), pp. 7, 215 (referred to
below as EMB). ‑ My translation throughout.
459
between God and man may be, it
has nothing to do with space, time, or matter. It reaffirms the contention of
the book of Genesis that the nature of God himself is not incompatible with the
nature of man. That is, the difference between God and man is not primarily a
metaphysical difference. Though he exists only at the pleasure of his Creator,
a living man is quite as “real” as the living God. Any attempt to combine this
God with Plato’s in a single “system” is destined, under the logician’s
scrutiny, to split in half. The two “theologies” are ill competition with each
other. In metaphysics, as in life, there is a battle of the gods.
In plain words, the Biblical alternative
to Plato’s “Being‑Itself” is a bold anthropomorphism. There is no a
priori reason why this metaphysical hypothesis should not receive the same
consideration as any other. The present writer, however, has made a careful
search for a single rational refutation of it. His findings are exhausted by a
catalogue of phrases like “subjective,” “projection,” “wishful thinking,”
“narrow,” “crude anthropomorphism,” “primitive superstition,” “beneath a
philosopher’s dignity,” “a fog of absurd notions,” and other similar epithets,
none of which contributes a great deal to testing the Biblical answer to the
metaphysician’s question.
Not only is the conception of God as
Someone remarkably free from legitimate metaphysical objection; it also
possesses a positive strength of its own, a strength described in the following
words by the British philosopher, W. H. V. Reade:
“When
fear of anthropomorphism induces men to reject the idea of a personal God, they
simply delude themselves. What they propose is just as anthropomorphic as what
they reject, and the only evident result will be that they have provided an
inferior substitute for God. Whether it be the “unmoved Mover” of Aristotle,
the id quo maius nihil of Anselm, or any similar abstraction, no hypothesis of
that kind will ever prove anything but the failure of logical ingenuity to
establish the existence of any Being who can be
worshipped as God. The reason is that
personality, however indefinable, is the highest “category” that we possess.
Whenever we are promised something infra-personal, we may be certain that
something infra‑personal is what we shall get. Between divine and human
personality the distance is doubtless immeasurable, but to attempt to improve
the situation by taking refuge in the impersonal is a counsel of despair . . .
. The savage makes a debased idol because his notion of human personality is
debased.”4
_______________________________________________________________________
4W.H.
V. Reade, The Christian Challenge to Philosophy (London: SPCK, 1951), p.
67.
460
While
the Platonist, in his search for what is true regardless of place or time,
postulates a realm of being beyond space and time, the Bible’s answer to
the same question is the “Living God.” As the participle “living” implies,
timeless categories are far less applicable to such a God than frankly temporal
words. He speaks, acts, judges, forgives, loves, creates, redeems -- in short,
he engages in those purposive, intelligent. activities which are distinctive of
a free agent. The key words by which the Bible describes God are all verbs.
When the Christian theologian
objects, as even Calvin did, that a God who “does things” cannot be “the infinite”
or “the absolute,” he is simply saying that if Plato’s metaphysic is correct,
then the Bible’s is false. But he sometimes forgets to add,” ‑ and vice
versa.”
One may readily agree with Plato
that “ultimate reality,” whatever its nature, must provide the philosopher with
a fixed point of reference, a lodestar around which his system may be securely
oriented. But where Plato concludes that these “eternal verities” can be found
only outside the flux of time, the Biblical metaphysic is focused upon the
person of God. It does not look beyond time, but focuses upon his
steadfastness within time.
“He is the
living God, and stedfast forever” (Dan. 6: 26).
“. . .with
whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1: 17).
“For I am the
Lord, I change not” (Mat. 3: 6).
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever”
(Heb. 13;8)
This is the Bible’s answer to the
metaphysician’s quest for a truth which never fails. The difference between
this answer and Plato’s is the difference between that which, by definition,
cannot change, and him who, de facto, does not change. Until
anthropomorphism is found wanting on logical grounds, there is no reason of
principle why the “quest for ultimate reality” should not lead the
metaphysician to look for the kind of God who could say, “I am the Truth.”
To object that terms like “the
absolute” and “the infinite” are, “necessary principles of thought” is really
to beg the question.; They are simply corollaries of the Platonist’s prior
premise that “the’ most universal is the most real.” The adequacy of this
premise is
461
the point at
issue: does it satisfy the criteria of metaphysical inquiry? Its record is not
unimpeachable. For thoroughgoing Platonism regularly obscures or denies the
distinction between “being” and its opposite, “non‑being,” thereby
violating the most important of all logical rules, the principle of
consistency. And self‑contradiction remains self‑contradiction,
whether marketed as “the courage to embrace tension” or “the humility to accept
paradox.” Prima facie evidence thus suggests that the Platonic, rather
than the Biblical Cod, obliges its followers to contravene the principles of
thought.
III
Faith and reason. The whole problem
of “faith and reason” is radically recast within a Biblical context. Or rather,
it ceases to be a problem at all. The problem only arises within a Platonic
framework, where faith acquires either of two meanings. Either it is a kind of
half‑way house between doubt and certainty, and definitely subordinate to
the latter, or it is equated with the extra‑cognitive moment of mystical
illumination, which allegedly transcends the distinction between subject and
object. In either case, it has been reduced to a kind of apprehension, and in
neither case can it be reconciled with reason.
Within the Biblical metaphysic,
however, faith is not reducible to a mixture of certainty and doubt, or to any
special mode of apprehension. Rather, it is a voluntary relation of absolute
trust in him who alone holds the answers to Plato’s questions. As Reade
describes it:
“Faith
is neither what Plato and Aristotle understood by ‘knowledge,’ nor what they
meant by ‘opinion’; neither the certitude of exact science, nor the state of
uncertainty which prevails when science is lacking . . . . Faith . . . is not
in essence an attitude or mental condition relative to any kind of impersonal
facts, but rather a vivid consciousness of absolute trust in a Person.”5
In the Biblical world‑view,
the primary words all refer to those activities which distinguish persons from
the impersonal, and especially to those which characterize relations between
persons. The metaphysical priority is reserved for transactions between free
agents: purpose, covenant, loyalty, promise, love, trust. forgiveness, repentance,
gratitude, deception, betrayal, sin, and judgment.
_________________________________________
5Reade,
op. cit., pp. 64, 106.
462
Once this metaphysic is established,
the “problem” of faith and reason disappears. The only question is whether God
is in fact trustworthy. Once a person asks this question, he is prepared to
receive the Biblical proof for the existence of God. It is neither the
ontological argument nor any variation of the cosmological argument, both of
which presuppose an un‑Biblical conception of God. The Biblical God never
asks men to believe without evidence, from the burning bush to doubting Thomas,
but the evidence is of a kind appropriate to a Living God: the fulfillment of
his promises. Hence, the very great significance which the Biblical writers
attach to the fulfillment of prophecy:
“Let all the
nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them
can declare this, and show us former things? Show the things that are to come
hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods . . . .
“I am God, and
there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient
time the things that are not yet done, saying. My counsel shall stand, I will
do all my pleasure . . . . I have purposed it, I will also do it” (Is. 43: 9,
41: 22; 46: 9‑11).
God’s existence is proved, not by
the philosopher’s ingenuity, but by God himself. The only problem is to
persuade the philosopher to ask the right question.
IV
The one and the many. The
Achilles heel of all philosophy of Platonic stamp, whether Oriental or Western,
is the impossibility of explaining the relation of the one to the many, the timeless
to the temporal., the infinite to the finite, the absolute to the relative. All
attempted explanations amount in the end to what Kierkegaard calls “solution by
superscription”; that is, while they purport to solve the problem, they really
only state it in other terms, such as “reflection,” “participation,”
“emanation,” and the like.
For the Bible, the relation of God to the world is that
of Creator to creation. That is, he is related to the world as an agent is
related to his act. Because his act is free, you can never deduce it from the
“essence” of the agent (which is possibly one reason why this solution has not
occurred to the Platonist). But once the act is given, it is perfectly
reasonable to account for it as an expression of the agent’s will. The famous
problem of “the one and the many” is thus only
463
a problem for
a metaphysic from which free agents are excluded. In the Biblical metaphysic,
for which free agents are central, the Creator is related to his creation by an
act of will. Moreover, the Bible is not obliged, as Platonism is, to disparage
the created world as in some sense a distortion and contradiction of we
reality. On the contrary, it can be the best possible medium for the self‑expression
of God. Far from being “unreal” or “impregnated with the stigma of non‑being,”
it is the object of his keen concern (“not a sparrow falls to the ground . .
.”). As such, it enjoys the highest possible claim to importance in the eyes of
men. The Biblical God, alone among candidates for his title, can create a world
which is not the negation of himself.
Moreover, human beings, whom he has
endowed with a somewhat similar creative capacity, stand in the same relation
to their own acts as God to his. The consequence is that every human word and
deed is fraught with metaphysical significance. It either enhances or impedes
the over‑all purpose of God. In the words of Jesus, “Every idle word that
men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by
thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned”
(Matt. 12: 36, 37). The small decisions and casual interchanges of daily life
are thus transmuted from a hum‑drum round of tedium and trivia into a
dimension of unlimited opportunity, from Plato’s meaningless shadow play into
the frontier of the Kingdom of God.
Religious language. The
problem of specifically “religious” language, currently receiving such
solicitous attention, disappears within the Biblical metaphysic. In Platonism,
the language of the everyday world, since it is characterized by the “subject‑object
structure,” cannot apply to the “divine”. At best, it can be used only suggestively,
to stir up in the hearer a hint of what can never be said but only intuitively
felt. Within such a metaphysic, one is bound to conclude that “religion is the
poetry men live by.” And one is also saddled with the insoluble problem of
which poetry is “more true.”
The Biblical doctrines of creation
and incarnation, however, imply exactly the opposite. They imply a continuity between the language of the spatio‑temporal
world and the language appropriate to God himself. As Tresmontant vividly puts
it:
“The advantage
of the Hebraic method of metaphysical communication . . . consists in its being
universally comprehensible. [It]
464
takes departure from what is most concrete and common,
from the universally human. It is not allied with any particular culture; with
all the contingencies which accompany it, nor with a particular system of
abstractions generally reserved for a privileged class . . . . The Biblical
parable is equally intelligible to the Galilean peasant, to the Corinthian
docker at the time of St. Paul, and to the contemporary worker in the factories
of Paris. One must add, especially to them. The sense of the meaningfulness of
manual labor, the love for the concrete, which characterize the parables, are
looked upon as a deficiency by the Platonic mentality.”6
In the Bible, there
is no technical vocabulary, and hence no problem. of relating “religious
language” to ordinary speech.
V
Epistemology. Consistently
with this position, the Biblical metaphysic contains no special “problem of religious
knowledge.” It makes no appeal to “mystical intuition” or “religious insight”
or any other special faculty beyond the range of ordinary human experience.
What it does do is to dethrone that kind
of knowledge which has been so highly exalted by scientist and philosopher
alike, the knowledge of general principles. Plato, for example, would hold that
the universal is logically prior to the particular (“the most universal is the
most real”), and that knowledge of universals is therefore of greater
consequence than knowledge of particulars. The Bible maintains the exact
opposite. As Reade puts it:
“He [Plato]
thinks of doxa (be it opinion, “belief” or “faith”) as a mental
condition determined by and relative to a class of objects [i.e.,
particulars] which, because they are not perfectly real, can never be perfectly
known . . . . Whereas in Plato’s estimation, the objects of opinion
[particulars] are inferior to the objects of science because, they are too
concrete, in Christian estimation, on the contrary, the objects of science are
inferior to the objects of faith because they are too abstract. . . Abstract
thinking, in fact, yields the maximum of certainty and the minimum of truth.”7
The rationale
for this inversion of the Platonic hierarchy of knowledge is quite simple. The
Biblical metaphysic recognizes that even, the most all‑embracing
principle of science or philosophy is still the product of someone’s mind. The
individual thinker is therefore
______________________________________________
6Claude Tresmontant, Essai sur la Pensée Hébraïque
(Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1953). pp. 66, 67 (referred to below as EPH). ‑
My translation throughout.
7Reade, op. cit., pp. 64, 106, 145.
465
logically
prior to his thoughts, rather than vice versa. To reverse this priority,
as the Platonist does, is like saying that a book is logically prior to its
writer. It amounts in the end to believing in a sort of disembodied “thought,”
apart from any thinker (“thought and being are one and the same”).
The Bible is not so credulous as
that. While it might agree with Plato in measuring the significance of a thing
in terms of logical priority, it finds this priority not in abstract universals
but in the concrete individual who creates them. In Biblical philosophy, the
free agent is father to the thought. The knowledge of universals, though of
very great usefulness to men, is thus subordinated to the knowledge of persons.
Knowledge of persons, of course, can
never be attained by the methods of science and philosophy alone. In fact, if the
person chooses to “clam up,” it can be attained by no method at all. It is
always dependent upon his own initiative. And this is all that is meant by
revelation: one free agent voluntarily discloses something of himself to
another by his words and his deeds; that is, through particular, historical
events. To say that the Bible is the revelation of God is simply to say that it
records the words and mighty acts by which he made himself known to a particular
people at times and places of his own choosing. To a Platonist, the notion that
ultimate reality can best be known through particular, spatio‑temporal
occurrences is a contradiction in terms. Within the Biblical metaphysic, on the
contrary. this is simply the normal way, indeed the only way, in which to
become acquainted with a free agent. Particularity, far from being a “scandal,”
has the highest metaphysical credentials, for God himself is a “particular.”
It follows, of course, that
knowledge of God, like the knowledge of any free agent is radically a
posteriori. His character could not possibly be inferred by means of the
general principles of science and philosophy. Authoritative pronouncements on
the subject - such as the familiar claim that “God cannot be a being besides
other beings” ‑ are simply indirect ways of saying that the theologian
can read God’s mind. The way to preserve the mystery of God is to acknowledge
his freedom. One is then less inclined to legislate for him than to wait and
see what new thing God will do ‑ to see whether he has in fact chosen to
create other beings besides himself.
Could anything be more obvious than
that he has in fact done so?
466
Nevertheless,
the Bible understands perfectly that seeing is not believing. It is one long
chronicle of men’s refusal to believe in spite of what they saw and heard. This
is precisely the point of the parable of the sower, as also of the prophetic
words, “Neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Lk. 16:
31).
This view contradicts the common
(and ultimately Platonic) notion that Christian “faith” is simply an interpretation
of events, as though these same events could be interpreted equally well from a
number of different perspectives. According to the Bible, only one
interpretation can do justice to all the facts. Other interpretations, when
subjected to critical scrutiny, will be found wanting. Moreover, the correct
interpretation is usually quite obvious. The Bible therefore draws its line of
distinction, not between those who see events “from the standpoint of faith”
and those who do not, but between those who believe what they see and hear, and
those who do not. The latter can be refuted by objective evidence, even though
this by no means suffices to change their minds. Because Biblical theology does
acknowledge objective standards of verification, both logical and factual, it
is perfectly equipped for the enterprise of apologetics. It is not obliged to
oscillate between moral indignation and righteous relativism.
VI
Correlation of truth and goodness.
By showing that specific knowledge of God can only be obtained a posteriori,
through his concrete words and deeds, the Biblical metaphysic sets limits for
itself. It uses a priori reasoning to discover the limits of a priori
reasoning. Knowledge so obtained, though indispensable to the rational quest
for God, is formal only. It can correct mistaken conceptions of God, it can
tell the philosopher where to look for him, and even how to recognize him. But
specific knowledge d persons, and
consequently of God, no metaphysic could ever provide.
In
short, the function of metaphysics is to lead the philosophic horse to water.
No amount of philosophizing, however, can take him further. Metaphysics can
help a man to think, but cannot make him drink. Whether he does so depends not
merely upon what he thinks, but also upon what he wills. At this point,
Biblical epistemology passes over into ethics.
467
This analysis inverts, another of
Plato’s most cherished assumptions. Where he so stoutly maintained that
goodness is a consequence of knowledge, the Bible reverses this order. The most
important kind of knowledge, the knowledge of persons, depends upon !he
orientation of the will and the heart. It is quite possible to be an expert
scientist, an expert Platonist, or even an expert Biblical metaphysician,
regardless of one’s ethics. But knowledge of persons presupposes a certain
emotional and volitional relationship. Where this is lacking, knowledge is impossible.
Hence the prophecy: “Ye shall hear, but not understand; and ye shall see, but
not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross” (Acts 28 :26 27).
Hence also the words of Jesus to his disciples: “Perceive ye not, neither
understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened?”(Mk. 8: 17). The plain inference
is that knowledge of God depends upon the quality of one’s will, that hardness
of heart produces hardness of head.
Conversely, the prerequisite to
knowledge of God, as to knowledge any other person, is a positive orientation of
the heart. This explains the frequency of such Biblical phrases as “being in
the truth.” They assume that before the ultimate truth can be known, one must
be the right relation with him who is the Truth. This right relation as the
Bible conceives it, is loyalty culminating in love. Hence this strong
correlation between fidelity and truth, a correlation perfectly expressed by
the phrase “to be true”; that is, true to someone. And hence also the equally
strong correlation between falsehood and fidelity or deceit. “Through deceit
they refuse to know me, saith the Lord” (Jer. 9:6). To be false is to
remain in ignorance.
In the Biblical metaphysic, however,
the verb “to be” is generally used metaphorically. To “be false” is shorthand
for “to behave falsely,” to “play the harlot.” The “state of being,” such as
ignorance, is always dependent upon a prior act of betrayal. The verse is
expressed in the common Biblical phrase, “doing the truth.” The following
citations are representative of the several contemporary authors who have begun
to develop this most unplatonic conception:
“We have to
love in order to know. . . . Right living is a way to right thinking.”8
_________________________________________________
8Abraham
J. Heschel, op. cit., pp. 281, 283.
468
“For the
Church . . . the two tasks, the doctrinal and the practical, are inseparable;
on Christian truth depends Christian practice, while conversely, without the
practice the truth cannot be discerned.”9
“Knowledge and
life comprise one whole . . . . Intelligence is not separated from life . . .
[nor] from action, [but] is an act which involves the whole man. It proceeds
from the heart of man, as an act of his freedom. It is dependent upon this
primordial, original act of choice.”10
These passages are simply variations on a theme of Hosea:
“There is no
truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying, and
killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out . . .” (Hos. 4:
1, 2).
This close
correlation of goodness with knowledge, and evil with ignorance constitutes a
direct challenge to that kind of theology which would make a virtue of
agnosticism.
VII
Conclusion. Merely to state a
position, of course, is a far cry from validating it. Yet until it does receive
explicit statement, it can scarcely be critically evaluated. Owing to the
widespread assumption that all metaphysics is Platonic, however, the Biblical
metaphysic has sometimes been denied a fair hearing. Its critics, both orthodox
and philosophic, have assumed that any deviation from Plato must either end in
irrationalism or else be swallowed up in an omnivorous ontological trap. The
present article, by sketching briefly some of the points at which Platonic philosophy
is contradicted by Biblical, has tried to show that such criticism reflects a
prejudice, and thereby to remove one of the principal obstacles to the further
development of the Biblical metaphysic.
Though it has yet to undergo the
full rigors of logical analysis, at some points this metaphysic does appear to
enjoy a philosophic advantage over Plato. If it should successfully challenge
his long preeminence, it could also provide the basis for a theology which
would be truly ecumenical. By satisfying the demands of both reason and
Scripture a could heal the breach which has for so long bedeviled; Christian
thought.
One of the principal architects of
the Biblical metaphysic is sufficiently confident of the outcome to exclaim:
__________________________________________
9Reade, op. cit., p. 191.
10Tresmontant, EPH, pp. 125 f.
469
“Lift up your
head, O Jerusalem, and see those who have been oppressing you, endlessly
reproaching you with having transgressed the rights of reason and introduced
irrational myths into Hellenic order. What remains of the arguments with which
they have been wearying you? Behold, thou who hast preserved the faith: the
real Himself shown that you were right!”11
Christian and Jew need scarcely be
surprised at these sanguine words. For what could be more characteristic of the
Creator‑God than to vindicate the Bible with the philosopher’s own weapons, to silence
Spinoza at the bar of reason itself?
______________________________________________
11 Tresmontant, EMB, p. 34.