Abstract
There is a growing renewed interest in retrieving, reviving, and upholding the Great Tradition among evangelicals today. However, many such evangelicals have argued in such a way as to make classical theism necessarily dependent on these contested and narrow metaphysical doctrines, placing it in a tenuous place for ultimate survival. These same thinkers often villainize “modern” theology and philosophy. All that ails the world can be summarized as modern. I argue that such an approach is at odds with the classical tradition and classical theism. Rather, the project of the classical tradition is one unafraid of plundering the Egyptians for gain—even modern ones. To achieve this goal, I survey those that argue against any value for modern theology and philosophy. I then provide several paragon classical thinkers as models of what I call theological eclectic opportunism. Finally, I show how various modern metaphysical claims can assist classical theism.
The so-called “classical theism” has a storied tradition that ought to be preserved and passed on to future generations. However, a growing segment of contemporary Protestantism that is seeking to advance classical theism has often married itself to a so-called golden age of certain so-called “classical” philosophical doctrines. This marriage has created an absolutized sense of orthodoxy. Those that deviate, especially in metaphysical commitments, are destined for unorthodoxy. Many have argued in such a way as to make classical theism necessarily dependent not only on one era or school but on an individual—Thomas Aquinas—and metaphysical doctrines that are, unknowingly to them, contested throughout the tradition. These same thinkers often villainize “modern” theology and philosophy. All that ails the world can be summarized as modern. Therefore, there is a willingness to bluntly describe the theological task as one of repristination. We should endeavor to find the golden eras of theological output and repeat them.
Such historiography isn’t new. Neo-Thomism, Radical Orthodoxy, and other groups have trafficked in such narratives. However, I find this approach to be out of step with the classical tradition's own methodology. Moreover, I argue that it places classical theism, especially for Protestants, in a tenuous place for ultimate survival. Therefore, I seek to cast an alternative vision for Protestants that seek to preserve the classical theological tradition. As such, I argue that the “classical” path is one of retrieval and catholicity rather than repristination. 2 It is a catholicity that is unafraid of truth wherever it may be found—even if in the modern period. This project is not a rejection or revision of classical theism. It is not a call for “innovation” in the negative sense decried by the Nicene fathers. Rather, it is a fulfillment of the continued promise and ethos of classical theism. In fact, anything less than plundering the moderns is one out of sync with the classical tradition, or so I argue. Classical theism is to be a continued project of ressourcement and retrieval for our own age, rather than repristination.
To achieve this goal, I argue in four broad steps. First, I survey the various ways certain contemporary Protestant thinkers are newly amputating classical theism from modern resources. Here, I also define what exactly is meant by “modern.” Second, I provide several reasons why there are problems with the narrative constructed by these thinkers. Third, I provide several paragon classical thinkers as models of what I call theological eclectic opportunism, which I will suggest is part of the promise and ethos of the classical project. This is part of the catholic impulse of the classical project. Fourth, I show how various modern metaphysical claims can assist classical theism. In doing so, I show both that modern metaphysics isn’t the boogeyman it's made out to be and that it can be of great assistance.
The Latest Vision for Monolithic Repristination
Nearly all agree that classical theism's storied tradition experienced a regression around the time of the Enlightenment. Whether it be the nasty philosophers such as Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, and Kant or the revisionary theologians such as Barth, Bultmann, Hartshorne, and Dorner of later centuries, the Enlightenment's dream of progress and the scientific revolution deeply impacted the nature of theology and philosophy. The dramatic success of the new way of scientific inquiry destabilized old methods and presuppositions in nearly all fields of thought. Instead of philosophy merely being the handmaiden to theology, now it appeared that philosophy (guided by natural science) had its own unique set of authority to challenge how we think about God and the world. After all, given the major revision of previously held beliefs like the nature of the cosmos, it seems quite natural for the intellectual context to encourage rethinking everything. 3
Entire libraries are dedicated to such historical analysis of the causes and effects of the seventeenth and eighteenth century on metaphysics, epistemology, and especially religion. My intention isn’t to recount these narratives. Nor is my intention to suggest we should seek to revive radically revisionary thought. I have no interest in returning to Moltmann, Hobbes, or Descartes as paragon metaphysical luminaries (as much as some of their insights are surely useful resources in some sense). Rather, my goal, at least here, is to show how certain modern theologians, in the sense of contemporary to today, have naively taken this very broad narrative to imply that all theology and philosophy today has been so corrupted that the only way to rescue classical theism from the clutches of modernity is to repristinate a highly selective portion of the medieval era. In other words, they have advanced their own conflict thesis. But this time it isn’t between science and the Christian faith but between medieval orthodoxy and modern metaphysics.
I argue that while the Enlightenment did disrupt and challenge classical theism in many ways, the modern era is not necessarily at odds with the metaphysical underpinnings of classical theism. In fact, modernity is incredibly variegated (just like the medieval era that is oftentimes misunderstood by these thinkers) and in many ways is returning with renewed interest into resuscitating premodern and medieval metaphysics in freshly modern ways. 4 It may be news to some, but naturalism isn’t the only game in town. Neo-Aristotelianism, for instance, has seen massive growth in popularity. Therefore, to claim that modern philosophy is necessarily at odds with classical theism is misinformed. Moreover, such antimodern bias is a flawed historical methodology. It is a reverse form of chronological snobbery that assumes there is a pristine era from which to judge all other eras of history. But history is more organic and developmental than that. And its good news that modern philosophy is ripe for plundering for the future of classical theism. But before I provide such examples, I will show the logic of those that create the faux dilemma: either modernity or classical theism.
I should note a word about terminology first, and what it means for “modernity” to be in apparent contrast to classical theism. In what follows, I generally use “modern” and “modernity” as chronological/historical terms (in the sense of “modern” = “today”) because this is the most common sense for the critics I engage. It is the “modern era” which is problematic. 5 However, it is important to distinguish at least two senses of “modern” (and by extension, “classical” as well). First, one can understand “modern” in the historical (or chronological) sense as referring to thought in a period of time where there is a specific mode of social life and organization. 6 In other words, modern theology is simply the theology of today. It is the theology done by those living through the traumatic transformations of the modern period: reformation, enlightenment, renaissance, war, etc. 7 Or one can understand “modern” theology in what Thomas Oden calls an “ideological” sense as referring to a set of commitments associated with a period, but which can be present in any historical period. 8
Using the terminology of modern in a historical sense has its share of dangers. A purely historical understanding of modern (or classical) can be quite complicated because historians of philosophy rarely date “modern” with the advent of the Enlightenment. It can refer to pretty much any period after the twelfth century, depending on the thinker. 9 As Roger Ariew has argued, “there is very little content to the concept of modernity except as a term of contrast with antiquity and the Middle Ages, and what is signified as “modern” changes, depending upon the specific contrast one wishes to make.” 10 Even if we wanted to pick an arbitrary date, we are doing so anachronistically. For example, the medieval themselves used the terms “modern” and they did it with the simple meaning of “current,” without importing any ideology into the term. 11
Conversely, one can use the terminology of modern in an ideological sense. For example, Bruce McCormack locates the advent of “modern” theology in the transition from theologians seeking to defend received orthodoxy to considering strategies of accommodation to new cultures and questions, revising the received wisdom from the past. He doesn’t seek to locate modern theology with one particular period or event, especially given that different regions experienced their own sociological developments at different times and rates. Instead, he suggests “modern” theology is fundamentally a transition from a “cosmologically based to an anthropologically based metaphysics of divine being.” 12 Likewise Alasdair MacIntyre, in his famed work on virtue, suggests there is a distinctively modern ethos that must be rejected in whole if one is to successfully recover a true account of virtue. 13
If “modern” is understood as an ideological term, I would agree that my project to defend modern metaphysics is a dead-end for classical theism. How could one preserve and defend a system of doctrine if one was committed to completely revising it? In fact, this is how one of the modern critics I surveyed next appears to describe “modern” at selective points in his work. For example, modernists are “liberal” Protestants. It is “modern liberal theology” that is unorthodox because it assumes philosophical naturalism. 14 Modern theology has “an entirely different starting point and an entirely different method. It is, in short, a different religion altogether.” 15 These sorts of claims fit more naturally with an ideological understanding of “modern.” But as I will show, these appear to be the exception rather than the rule. Therefore, I choose to use modern in a historical sense, with the natural vagueness it implies, since the critics of “modernity” that I survey generally operate with this definition. 16
Now, consider two recent and popular examples that advance the thesis that modernity is entirely at odds with classical theism. Take the former revisionist to classical theism, Canadian theologian, Craig Carter first. You’ll find him pejoratively blaming modern theology and philosophy for nearly all ailments of society—but you’ll especially find it villainous for theology. Carter belabors throughout his works his disdain for all things modern, especially modern metaphysics. But it is never clear what modern metaphysics means, who accepts modern metaphysics, and why it is so bad to accept modern metaphysics. What's at least clear is that modernity is a “pathological condition.” 17 It especially “hates” Platonism and Christianity. 18 Carter suggests modern metaphysics is “very different,” “incompatible,” and “contradictory” to the theology confessed and codified at Nicaea. 19 He claims it wants to fit the Bible into a naturalistic framework. 20 Central to it is a loss of divine transcendence. 21 It thinks that God is part of the universe. 22 It is revisionary. 23 It is uncritical of its metaphysical assumptions. 24 It considers the findings of physics and biology to be “unchallengeable.” 25 It rejects a transcendent God, an objectively existing telos in nature, metaphysical realism by which things have natures, and a linear concept of history. 26 It is better understood as a complete rejection of metaphysics and is a reversion to ancient mythology. 27
Given these examples, it is quite clear that Carter dislikes all that is modern, especially modern metaphysics. It would seem he is using modern in an ideological sense, given his many criticisms, but nowhere is this made clear. He regularly pits the historical eras against one another, assuming that the ideology must be pure in times past and corrupted in times present. This is why he suggests the only way forward is “Christian Platonism.” Indeed, creedal orthodoxy is so bound up with such metaphysical commitments that “disentangling them [is] nearly impossible.” 28 For it is Christian Platonism that “is the standard account shared by almost all your theological heroes prior to 1800.” 29 Christian Platonism for Carter is reflected in Lloyd Gerson's “Ur-Platonism” commitments of antimaterialism, antimechanism, antinominalism, antirelativism, and antiskepticism. These are classical dogma, and modern theology supposedly rejects all of these. 30 But of course, if I offered these statements to a room of modern philosophers, they would likely stare in disbelief—who is he talking about? There is no standard account of modern metaphysics! Some of us are Platonists, while others are Aristotelians or Humeans, and on the list goes! Much more, some of us are Platonists about a specific subdiscipline like abstract objects but anti-Platonists about other topics like epistemology! And certainly, none of us think of skepticism as a metaphysical doctrine.
Unfortunately, such rhetoric is not limited to Carter alone. Hear from former American Southern Baptist, now Anglican, theologian Matthew Barrett next. Barrett, unlike Carter, is more targeted in his approach. He typically equates modern theology with popular evangelical thinkers such as William Lane Craig, Wayne Grudem, and J. P. Moreland that have embraced social definitions of the Trinity. Yet he also makes similar sweeping claims throughout his works. 31 For example, Barrett claims that “modern thinkers have transformed theology into anthropology.” 32 Therefore, he seeks to rescue us from “inhaling the smog of modern theology.” 33 Modern Christianity turns out to be a “haunted house.” 34 And when discussing the attributes of God he says that “modern and contemporary Christian thought has either despised them or neglected them altogether, preferring instead a God who is like us rather than distinct from us and above us.” 35 Which is why he claims that modernity is at odds with historic orthodoxy. 36 It operates with a hermeneutic that is entirely neutral. 37 Similarly, when discussing the Trinity it is modern Trinitarianism that is snuffing out the orthodox Trinity. 38 And so on. Now, to be fair, Barrett is far less polemical than Carter when it comes to modern metaphysics. And it's typically clear when read in context that he has the aforementioned thinkers in his mind (e.g., Craig, Grudem, and Moreland). Yet these criticisms of “modern thinkers” remain sloppy. Those that would fit the bill, like the ones McCormack has in mind when he describes “modern theology,” are not the primary target for Barrett. Carter and Barrett do criticize the likes of Hume, Hegel, and Kant. But they similarly lump in contemporary theologians and philosophers that are quite traditional and very much outside the bounds of what those like McCormack would understand “modern theology” to be. Certainly, Craig, Grudem, nor Moreland, for example, would be categorized as modern in this sense—even if they’ve rejected or modified classical theism. 39
In Barrett's most recent volume, he has more forthrightly linked his usage of modern with the older terms: via moderna vs. via antiqua. The idea seems to be that these conceptual terms map back onto this old debate in a one-to-one fashion. Therefore, whoever is classified with the via moderna is bad, unorthodox, and nonclassical, and whoever is of the via antiqua is good, orthodox, and classical. He argues like John Milbank that the “Scotus-Ockham” metaphysic is “blameworthy for cutting the cord of participation and giving birth to modernity.” 40 Scotus is the villain who sinks “the metaphysical ship of classical theism.” 41 Therefore, in line with Radical Orthodoxy, the late medieval scholastics are to blame for modernity. 42 It is not Barrett alone who is indebted to Radical Orthodoxy. Craig Carter praises the work of John Milbank and Radical Orthodoxy as being “very helpful in understanding the role of the breakdown of medieval realism and the growth of nominalism in the development of modernity.” 43 Carter even calls his project one of “historiographical revisionism” drawing on the work of Milbank to energize such a creative project to overcome modern theology. 44 In sum, their approach, though Protestant, appears curiously similar to neo-Thomism wherein philosophy and theology progresses until Thomas and regresses after, with every deviation from the angelic doctor. 45 This isn’t to say anything about the status of those like Thomas or medieval theology in general (I happen to believe the medieval period is a high water mark for theological reflection and that Thomas is a wonderful theological companion). It is, however, an argument about the supposed complete disintegration of theology since 1274.
Problems in a Medieval Paradise
The narrative constructed by the likes of Carter and Barrett, largely borrowed from others like John Milbank, and sometimes others like Étienne Gilson, contains several pertinent problems. First, there is no golden age of historical or theological development. The classical project is one of continued retrieval and progress. More will be said about this in the following section. Second, relying on figures like Milbank to narrate the history of medieval and modern theology and philosophy is a tenuous position, given it has been roundly discredited.
46
Even apart from Milbank and Radical Orthodoxy, the overall narrative is more polemical than careful history. As Trent Pomplun has explained at length: Catholic writers largely dismissed eclecticism in favor of an ill-defined Thomism. Even so, the Catholic genealogies of the late nineteenth-century took their inspiration almost wholly from the secular and liberal Protestant historians that preceded them; if they attacked Descartes, Locke and Kant—with Duns Scotus or Scotists occasionally caught in the crossfire—they happily borrowed the elevation of Thomas and the vilification of Scotus from the very modern philosophers they opposed.
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Next, these terms are far narrower than supposed. They reflect a very specific older debate about the true doctrine of Aristotle and not the wide-ranging metaphysic that is supposed to be captured by the term “modern.” With the growth of the German Empire, the via moderna became the theological and philosophical villains of the day. These nasty nominalists attributed definitions to terms and not things and thus denied, principally, the “correct” interpretation of Aristotle that was found in the via antiqua of Thomas, Scotus, and Albert the Great. 51 So, the main battleground centered on the method used to interpret Aristotle and the authorities one relied on. If you relied on newer sources and denied the older ways of understanding Aristotle, then you were of the via moderna. Which is why in 1474 the French King Louis XI banished the so-called nominalists, rendering the proper resources to be those such as Aristotle, Averroes, Albert the Great, Thomas, Bonaventure, and Scotus. 52
I briefly retell this history because if one hopes to equate modern—and any theologian or philosopher one happens to not like besides Thomas—with the via moderna one will find a term that is too vague to define what is supposedly toxic to orthodoxy. Nominalism in the fifteenth century just isn’t a thesis about whether order exists in the universe, whether moral norms exist, etc. It is limited in scope.
Further, if one is familiar with the varied nature of these thinkers classified as the via antiqua one will notice that a simple binary between modern and premodern, as proposed, is certainly insufficient to explain what “modern” means. For example, Scotus is the villain of many stories today, especially of those told by Carter and Barrett, and yet he is part of the via antiqua. To claim that Scotus is a nominalist, denies participation, or affirms a univocity of being is simply to either misread Scotus or rely on secondary sources. 53 But Bonaventure, too, differs markedly from Thomas on any number of doctrines and is yet part of the via antiqua. Even more, the via moderna itself is incredibly variegated. It is not possible to assume whatever was classified by its term is identical to whoever the bad guys are, whether Ockham or someone else. 54
The Promise of Eclectic Opportunism
The problems with the Barrett-Carter paradigm don’t end with a selectively biased retelling of history. Fundamentally, it is a revision of the classical project. Those that view history in the simple binary of modernity versus orthodoxy are faced with a dilemma. If all that is modern is toxic, how are we to do theology? The path forward for classical theism then becomes a project of repristination of times past, oftentimes in North American evangelical contexts of an unnuanced and uncritical Thomism, because modernism is apparently irreconcilable with classical theism. Modern metaphysics is a toxic smog that must be avoided at all costs. While I don’t contest that some (or even much) modern theology and philosophy is irreconcilable with classical theism, I argue that such a totalizing methodology is at odds with the classical tradition itself (besides the fact that it is false as a thesis). Instead, the tradition has modeled what I call an eclectic opportunism. I will prove this by canvassing Augustine and Thomas, the patron saints of classical theism, by summarizing the historical work of Richard Muller, and finally by focusing on the thought and practice of Herman Bavinck.
Defining Eclectic Opportunism
Now it's necessary to lay out a few definitions. Before explaining the eclectic opportunistic model, I should give a brief word about the framework of the model being grounded in a project of retrieval rather than a project of repristination. In its essence, theological retrieval values the past for the benefit of the present. It is a research program that begins with careful historical research and reappropriates the insights gleaned for a modern context. 55 The past, rather than being dead and gone, speaks to us today and provides both a conceptual grammar for healthy theology and imaginative resources for further theological work. 56 Therefore, theologies of retrieval listen and learn from the Christian tradition while at the same time building upon their work in creative and faithful ways. The past functions as both a resource to receive and a resource to inspire. Therefore, the end goal for theologies of retrieval in hearing from the tradition is not revolution, restoration, or repristination. The end goal is a serious and creative use of the past for the present. 57
In contrast to theologies of retrieval are theologies of repristination. Theologies of repristination calcify doctrinal discoveries of ages past in stone. They make them immovable as if there was a golden age of doctrinal development that is immovable and final.
58
In our case, they canonize and lionize certain figures such as Thomas Aquinas. But such an approach, in all its antimodern modern bias, is not consistent with the classical tradition. It is well rejected by the late John Webster who says: However necessary “anti-modern” protest may be on certain occasions, however much it may empower the re-engagement of neglected constructive tasks, it should not betray theology into the illusion that all that is required for successful dogmatics in the present is the identification and repudiation of an error in the past. Such a stance can indicate the same illusion of superiority as that sometimes claimed by critical reason. Moreover, it can fail to grasp that the problem is not modern theology but simply theology. All talk of God is hazardous. Modern constraints bring particular challenges which can be partially defeated by attending to a broader and wiser history, but there is no pure Christian past whose retrieval can ensure theological fidelity.
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Now, classical theism, historically speaking, has inhabited a certain intellectual spirit that I call “eclectic opportunism.” 60 By eclectic opportunism I mean two things. First, the classical tradition is eclectic in its usage of sources. It is not beholden to any one philosophical school—be it Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Humean, or Berkeleyan. It is willing to incorporate a vast array of resources that together build a beautiful symphony in support of its doctrinal claims. In the spirit of true scholasticism, the classical theologian, like the Scholastic master, is one who acknowledges truth wherever it may be found and carefully distinguishes and resolves disputes among varied authorities. 61 While there are definite fault lines wherein the tradition (and subsegments of the tradition as well!) have leaned—far more deeply Platonic than Skeptic, etc.—there is no one main “school.” Some are more neo-Platonic like Augustine. Others are more Aristotelian like Thomas or Berkeleyan like Edwards. But each of these thinkers, despite their varying metaphysical commitments, is within the classical tradition—though some are more daring and creative than others. While they each have different instruments and each hit different notes at times (some of which emphatically disagree), they harmonize to perform a symphony that is consistent with regard to the articles of the faith and classical theism. The fundamental reason for this is that it is Christianity that is the primary theological “school” that each classical thinker inhabits and defends. Other philosophical schools are merely appendages to the true central commitment. It is Christianity that is the “universal philosophy” and not Platonism, Aristotelianism, or anything else. 62
Second, by opportunism, I mean that the classical tradition's construction of theology is what Scott Shalkowski has called a “context-relative matter.” 63 In other words, there is a reason certain thinkers gravitate to certain philosophical schools and utilize them. They present an opportunity to advance and defend classical theology that didn’t previously exist. There is a reason Augustine is neo-Platonic and Thomas is Aristotelian—because those philosophical schools were the best philosophy of the day. They considered it natural to assume that old and outdated frameworks—while useful for their previous advocates—could be hindrances to further clarity and defense of the tradition. 64
Therefore, eclectic opportunism as it relates to the classical tradition is in one sense a “dogmatic minimalism” wherein the metaphysical commitments that undergird classical theism seek to say as little as doctrinally possible while making clear that certain ways of thinking are off-limits.
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They take the ecumenical creeds and their own traditions confessional statements as guardrails from which to theologize. Such eclectic opportunism is well summarized by Brendan Case: I take it that the practice of constructive theology requires a potentially reckless disregard for the sub-disciplinary boundaries that cordon off the various theological sub-disciplines from one another and from the other university disciplines. This is because the theologian is bound to think and speak and write under the discipline of the LORD's unified self-revelation in the Old and New Testaments as they have been received in the broad catholic theological tradition…
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But even more, eclectic opportunism is deliberately eclectic in its philosophical commitments. It functions in this way because it seeks to be reserved in its theological claims that could be beholden to any one philosophical program. Such an approach avoids placing classical theism at the mercy of transient fashion. 68 Given the eclectic opportunist's rejection of any specific tribe as totalizing of the entire tradition (certainly, one should inhabit their own tradition as they seek to resource the greater tradition), this approach allows one to take history far more seriously than in a project of repristination, wherein one can be all too tempted to valorize one's heroes.
Yet the eclectic opportunist isn’t a totally unstructured scavenger through the theological and philosophical junkyard. Resourcing ourselves is only useful insofar as the resources lead us to thinking about God in a faithful way. 69 This is why eclectic opportunism must remain catholic not only in the sense of being ecumenical and open to various doctrinal claims that are not classified as “dogma” but also in the sense of seeking to retrieve and build from what organically grows from the catholic root of doctrine. This posture naturally coincides with many of the discussions on the development of doctrine. Doctrine, as it develops and “grows” and deploys new resources (modern or otherwise), does not lose the catholic sense. The classical eclectic opportunist believes we can and must articulate doctrines in new ways without changing the doctrine into new things. 70 Doctrine is not mummified but always growing, organically. 71 What distinguishes true growth and acceptable newness rather than aberration and innovation is that when catholic doctrine grows, and is enlarged, it is so according to its own nature. 72 It retains the same type, principles, and organization. 73
Augustine and Aquinas as Eclectic Opportunists
Let's focus briefly on two paragon examples of classical theism in Augustine and Thomas. Augustine is rather famous for his claim to “plunder the Egyptians.” 74 The logic behind his claim is that we ought to always be ready to plunder the very best of our neighbor's philosophy and take it captive to Christ. We are given “mines of providence” wherein we did not create but dug and received treasures. 75 As he argues, “a person who is a good and a true Christian should realize that truth belongs to his Lord, wherever it is found, gathering and acknowledging it even in pagan literature…” 76 I’d wager that if Augustine were alive today, he’d want us to understand how we can take modern thought captive to Christ as well. He would wonder what quantum physics could do to buttress our understanding of God and the world—modifying where necessary and rejecting where incompatible. He would look to modern metaphysical debates in analytic philosophy over the nature and location of properties and seek to plunder the good and reject the bad.
Thomas, on the other hand, might even be more interested in plundering modern metaphysics. He would seek to rework the most cutting-edge and persuasive areas of philosophy and Christianize them—just as he did with Aristotelianism. The very same motivation he had to take Aristotle captive to Christ would lead him to take modern metaphysics captive to Christ. Roman Catholic theologian Michael Gorman is surely fair in his analysis that “Aquinas is, for the most part, rather opportunistic and occasional in his use of comparisons or similitudes in theology.” 77 Again, this doesn’t mean Thomas or Augustine are reckless in their philosophical commitments. It doesn’t mean they are scavenging as homeless theologians. However, it does mean they aren’t content with assuming the validity of schemes not clearly given in Scripture and are willing to buttress classical theology with new developments as they come. Their methodological program would lead them to engaging the latest and best philosophy in the service of Christianity and classical theism.
Richard Muller, Reformed Orthodoxy, and Eclectic Opportunism
But it wouldn’t be merely thinkers like Augustine and Thomas dabbling with modernity if they were alive today—the Reformed Orthodox would drink from the well of modern metaphysics just as deeply—filtering out the bad and ingesting the good. Eating and drinking are ideal examples for their practice. They would take something foreign to their substance as Christians and ingest what was edible and transform something that was previously separate from them into virtual parts of them that sustain their lives.
Consider historian par excellence Richard Muller's take on how theologians of the past sought to drink from both the tradition and the contemporary progress in metaphysics. He says, “the relative philosophical cohesion of any one of the many theological systems of the later Middle Ages, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries was not achieved by an exclusive allegiance to a particular thinker in the classical tradition.”
78
Elsewhere again, “the object of the scholastic theologian or philosopher was, typically, not so much to be “Aristotelian” as to be the formulator and mediator of a Christian philosophical model that both used and refused various elements of the classical tradition.”
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Now, listen to Muller at length describe the logic of the Reformed permutation of the classical tradition: The philosophy (or philosophies) of the late sixteenth and seventeenth century Reformed ought to be understood as a concerted effort to draw on the tradition of classical and western thought for the sake of constructing a philosophical perspective suitable both to the altered theological and churchly context and to the academic needs of the rising Protestant colleges, academies, and universities of the post-Reformation era. What is more, in the course of these debates, the Reformed orthodox did not merely look backward into the Christian philosophy of the scholastic past, they stood in dialogue with the philosophy of their own time and often can be seen to parallel (perhaps even sometimes anticipate!) the work of thinkers like Malebranche and Leibniz. To call such theology and philosophy “Aristotelian” rather misses both its content and its context. Thus, the “Aristotelianism” of the Christian tradition in its movement through the Renaissance and Reformation into the era of orthodoxy appears, not as a philosophical program rooted in the historical Aristotle but rather as a highly variegated tradition grounded in long-standing discussions of the hylomorphic understanding of substance and its corollary, a conceptualist theory of knowledge that grounds knowledge of a thing in the thing and/or in the ability of the knower to abstract forms from things.
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Lest you remain unconvinced and think I am selling the classical birthright for a mess of stew, hear from Richard Muller once more: The Reformed theology of the orthodox era reflects primarily the later medieval and Renaissance modifications of Christian philosophy (again, Thomist, Scotist, and nominalist) and only secondarily a classic Aristotelianism. It is certainly more useful to characterize many of the Reformed orthodox as holding a form of modified (sometimes highly modified) Thomism often with Scotistic or nominalistic accents, sometimes with strong affinities for the philosophies of the day, whether that of Suarez or of Descartes, than to speak of them as simply Aristotelian.
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Herman Bavinck as Master Eclectic Opportunist
Finally, consider the modern—and classical—theologian Herman Bavinck. For Bavinck, modern insights and appropriations are not diametrically opposed enemies.
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Cory Brock has argued at length, through examining Bavinck's usage of Friedrich Schleiermacher, that Bavinck is “orthodox yet modern.” While Bavinck is resolutely committed to his orthodox and confessional tradition, modern theology is given space to advance dogmatic theology, so long as it refrains from contradicting the tradition.
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He blends, as Brock and Sutanto put it, “principled orthodoxy and irenic learning.”
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He is able to blend these two worlds because there is no pristine era of theology. Repristination of any specific era of theology is a fool's errand. The goal of the dogmatic and the classical thinker is reappropriation, and, thus, modern insights and modifications are necessary.
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As Brock puts it, “dogmatics looks back but pays attention above all to today.”
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This vision of dogmatics fits well with Bavinck's own claims regarding retrieval: With Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli we differentiate that which is essential and truly reformed, from that of the spirit of the age. We do not return to them after the fact, to repristinate them and their work as much as to respect their value in general … but through their teaching, better than even they, to hold fast to and speak out a reformation principle … not to return to them but to go forward from them is our motto.
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But it is not only Bavinck's posture toward modern resources that is amiable to my aims. It is his theological and philosophical eclecticism. Bavinck is not beholden to a single philosophical tradition. Consider his claim on the need for a specific tradition of philosophy for the Christian faith: Theology is not in need of a specific philosophy. It is not per se hostile to any philosophical system and does not, a priori and without criticism, give priority to the philosophy of Plato or of Kant, or vice versa. But it brings along its own criteria, tests all philosophy by them, and takes over what it deems true and useful. What it needs is philosophy in general.
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Plundering Modern Metaphysics
Thus far, I have argued that the posture of plundering the Egyptians is replete throughout the classical tradition. No one philosophical school or metaphysical system is required for classical theism. Some are certainly more congenial but that must be argued since none are codified. The ethos of the classical tradition is not restoration through repristination. Rather it is a creative usage of past and current resources in defense of catholic doctrine for the present moment. 92 Therefore, given the classical impulse to plunder and the unfortunate rejection of modern resources in total by some modern theologians, I now offer two modern metaphysical schemes that can be of great aid to classical theism alongside a rebuttal to a potential objection. I do not intend to be anywhere near exhaustive. One could explore ontological emergence where properties of wholes or systems are not reducible to any of the intrinsic properties or the parts. 93 There are also numerous areas besides metaphysics, for example, that could be highlighted and even appropriated. One could look to the steady work of theologian Kevin Vanhoozer and his theological appropriation of modern literary theory for reading the Bible. 94 One could similarly look to Jennifer Herdt and her work to redeem the German bildung tradition. 95 But for my purposes, my goal is simply to show that modern metaphysics can be useful and shouldn’t be shunned as wholly problematic.
A brief word of clarification is in order on three important topics before I begin. First, once again, what I mean by modern is not a technical ideological claim. I mean it more generally in the colloquial and historical sense as “what is contemporary.” The work that is being done now. Second, I do not mean to suggest we need to overturn all that is “classical” in metaphysics. I actually think Neo-Aristotelianism is the right way to think about metaphysics. And the reality of “modern” metaphysics is that this Neo-Aristotelianism is now at the very forefront of philosophical discussion instead of the older Enlightenment microphysicalist view of the world. 96 However, I still wouldn’t lose sleep if it turned out to be wrong. The point being that classical theism is nimble enough to use different metaphysical frameworks. And it is a very good thing to hold doctrine that can accommodate such differences. Third, even if we use modern in an ideological sense, the core commitments of a “classical” metaphysic are quite thin. In fact, it can be hard to discern a true unifying set of beliefs. Yet there are some ideas that are common to the classical era, however one dates it, that should give us a sense for what might be true of classical in an ideological sense. Prior to the Enlightenment there is a wide consensus commitment to a substance-based ontology. 97 Substance, in this sense, refers to things that bear properties, underlie change, persist through time, and have a nature and principle of unity. 98 Likewise, there are some metaphysical concepts like “natures” that cannot be wholly rejected if one is to affirm classical doctrine like the Christology of the ecumenical councils.
Location and Modern Metaphysics
I begin with the modern metaphysics of location and its usage for classical theism. The reason theories of location are useful is because classical theism has affirmed God's omnipresence. While omnipresence isn’t unique to classical theism alone—it does require a particular sort of omnipresence that preserves divine simplicity and immutability. God must be omnipresent in a way that doesn’t implicate him in parthood or change. Moreover, he must really be present everywhere—at least in some sense. This isn’t to say the metaphysics of location is useless for other aspects of theology. It is also a bountiful harvest for other doctrines like the eucharist and the nature of ecclesiology in general. 99
Now, there have been significant advances in our understanding of location over the last several decades. I’ll try to summarize the various senses here to start. Some of this is indeed rather technical, especially for theological literature, but much in modern metaphysics is technical, though I believe the payoff can be worth it. To start, I take location to be a primitive concept. For example, when I say “I’m in the dugout” or “I’m in my house” or “I’m in the dining hall” I am located at each place.
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Given this, I define several further senses of location as follows thanks to modern metaphysical construal's:
Note initially the distinction between being entirely located somewhere and being partly located somewhere. If I am entirely located in the baseball dugout, no part of me could be located anywhere else. If I am partly located in the baseball dugout, it is possible that I am also partly located on the baseball field. Next, note the distinction between being entirely located somewhere and being wholly located somewhere. Being entirely located is an exclusive relationship while being wholly located is nonexclusive and is conducive to multilocation. If I am wholly located somewhere, it is possible for me to be wholly located at a distinct nonoverlapping place in space. Finally, notice the mutually exclusive relationship between exact location and multilocation. If an object is multilocated it cannot be exactly located anywhere since exact location requires standing in the exact same spatial relations to the location.
Why is all of this relevant? Because these modern distinctions offer a renewed pathway to explaining and defending older theories of divine omnipresence. And in this, we owe a great debt to the work of those that have deployed these resources like Ross Inman. He has sought to translate the ways theologians have thought about God's omnipresence into these sorts of modern metaphysical categories. He's explained that there are two primary ways theologians have thought about the location of the divine—as fundamentally located at each and every place or as derivatively located at each and every place. By fundamental location, Inman explains that God would be located in his own right—not in virtue of standing in any relation to some distinct property whereas if God were to be derivatively located somewhere he would be located in virtue of standing in some relations to some distinct entity. 102
Without getting bogged down in the details, Inman goes on to argue that the derivative model (which thinkers like Thomas would be categorized under since his vision of omnipresence reduces to the causal nexus of God's power and action) lacks both historical support and metaphysical robustness. On the derivative model, God is literally nowhere whereas the fundamental model indicates that God is everywhere. 103 And it is thanks to the modern models of ubiquitous extension that Inman is able to cash out such a view of omnipresence. 104 Essentially, given the nature of fundamental location, God is wholly multilocated everywhere.
And thanks to modern metaphysics it isn’t totally mysterious (though it is indeed somewhat mysterious—just less so) to suggest that something can be wholly multilocated. There are even standard entities that wholly exist in two or more exact places. First, consider the universal charge −1. On any standard version of universals, it is shared by all electrons and multilocated where each and every electron is located. 105 Consider also any enduring object. If it is wholly located at two distinct times, multiple location must be possible since I am wholly located at both. 106
The reason I bring these examples in is because these are grounded in modern metaphysical advances. It is the modern metaphysical work of philosophers today that buttresses a classical understanding of divine omnipresence. Do we absolutely need these metaphysical explanations to affirm classical omnipresence? No. It's been held at least since Augustine. But these advances are great aids to both understanding and defense that shouldn’t be rejected simply because they are “modern.”
Modality and Modern Metaphysics
Second, we ought to consider the modern metaphysics of modality for the sake of divine simplicity. Instead of requiring revision of classical theism, modern modality can aid in solving some of the more pressing supposed problems for classical theism. Modality is about ways a proposition can be true or ways in which an item has a property: necessarily, contingently, or possibly. 107 I’ll take the concept of possibility as primitive. If something is possible, it could be otherwise. The blue coffee mug on my desk could possibly be red. I could possibly become President of the United States. Etc. To be necessary is for it to be impossible that it's not the case. It is necessary for 2 + 2 = 4. It is necessary that I am a human—there is absolutely no possible world wherein I become a GMC Sierra or a Crocodile (well, as long as you take kind essentialism as true). To be contingent is for it to not be necessarily the case yet nevertheless be the case. Take my blue coffee mug again. It is contingently blue since it is currently blue but could be red.
Beyond these basic distinctions, it can get tricky, since there are numerous senses of possibility and necessity (and contingency too, but I will leave that aside since the main focus is on necessity and possibility). And depending on the thinker, there are more or less senses of necessity. Bonaventure, for example, had at least three main categories with numerous subheadings. 108 So, let's think about necessity first. Aristotle recognized at least two senses of necessity. First, there is an absolute necessity that means that something must be (the necessity of the consequent) or de re necessity. It would be contradictory to be otherwise. 109 But within absolute necessity, things can be distinguished. There is a narrow sense in which things are logically necessary like the truths of logic. But there is also a wider sense of logical necessity like the truths of mathematics, that red is a color, and no numbers are human beings. 110 Nowadays, in modern philosophy, these get called logical and metaphysical necessity. Second, there is a hypothetical necessity belonging to a causal or contingent event (the necessity of the consequence) or de dicto necessity. 111 These are typically categorized under causal or natural (e.g., physical) necessity. 112 Take a few examples of these senses of necessity. While something may be naturally necessary given the physical laws of the universe (like for me to be unable to jump to the top of Mount Everest because of that pesky gravity), if the laws were changed, it very well could be possible. So, this is not a strictly logical necessity. It lacks absoluteness. There are conditions in which it wouldn’t be necessary.
Now, let's take stock. Absolute necessity is a necessity that cannot fail to be the case, whereas hypothetical necessity is a necessity that cannot fail to be the case given some other proposition (or conjunction of propositions). The core difference is that under hypothetical necessity, it is not absolutely fixed. It is only necessary under certain circumstances. Therefore, absolute necessity would be like logical necessity while hypothetical necessity would be such as causal, natural, or some other sense of necessity.
Armed with these modal distinctions, classical theists can solve apparent problems for divine simplicity like the puzzle of modal collapse advanced by critics like R. T. Mullins. 113 Mullins has argued at length that divine simplicity destroys God's freedom because it entails that everything is necessary—including God's creation of the world and this world in particular. But with modern modal metaphysics, classical theists can argue that while the willing of God is absolutely necessary, the reference of the willing is hypothetically necessary, which does not lead to a modal collapse in the sense that Mullins argues. 114
Consider the topic further. The distinction between absolute and hypothetical necessity rests on the distinction between God's absolute power (what God could will) and God's ordained power (what God has willed). 115 So, once a certain action has taken place, it becomes necessary that an effect be caused (e.g., creation). While divine simplicity would equate God's ordained power with his will this does not remove the hypothetical ability of his absolute power to create a different world or to not create at all. So, God's act of actualizing is hypothetically necessitated by his choice. 116 However, the hypothetical necessity of this act doesn’t imply it was absolutely necessary. 117 Since God has the natural capacity to do otherwise (he could have hypothetically done otherwise), creation is contingent. Consider two examples to make this plain. First, think about Socrates running at T1. If this is true at T1, it is necessary that he runs at T1 because it is impossible that he simultaneously be running and sitting at T1. However, it is not absolutely necessary. He could have been sitting at T1. 118 In another possible world, Socrates may have chosen to sit or to lay down. Or think about God's predestining of Jacob. Prior to God's decree, it was not necessary that Jacob be predestined. He could have been passed over. But once decreed, it's necessary relative to—or on the hypothesis of—the decree. 119
This sort of hypothetical necessity is compatible with divine freedom because the necessity of God's will is absolutely necessary only in a natural sense. God is constrained by his own nature (being unable to will evil, etc. which is traditional on standard accounts of divine omnipotence). But God is free from obstacle and is completely self-directed. 120 So, God's will is free in the sense of having no external cause or obligation. There is no coercion or coaction. 121 There is no principle external to God, whether physical or metaphysical, that explains his action. 122 God is the sole source of his decree, and his creating is not logically necessary. It is not entailed by the laws of logic or the nature of deity. 123 Therefore, God's acts are not absolutely necessary. They are free because what possibilities actualized depend on nothing other than God's will. 124 Such a modern explanation turns out to be an expansion of thinking from those like Turretin who argues, “because he could be without them without any detriment to his happiness, he is said to will them freely.” 125 So, creation is not necessary because had God not willed it, it would not have occurred. Even if God eternally wills something, it doesn’t change its logical status. 126
Given this quick foray into modern metaphysics, it seems evident that the antimodern modern theologians like Carter and Barrett have failed to drink deeply of the ethos of the eclectic opportunistic tradition and have also failed to properly grapple with modern metaphysics. These modern metaphysical advancements are not at odds with classical theism. Rather, they remain handmaidens. And this isn’t true for classical theism only but for the entire host of classical orthodox theology. There are riches within our grasp. We need only do the hard work of pillaging.
Modern Revisionist Metaphysics?
While these two examples may appear amendable to classical theism, maybe those who are allergic to modernity associate it with things like panentheism (e.g., Hegel's introduction of temporality into metaphysics). Therefore, these examples of positive uses of modern metaphysics miss the mark of the criticism. Analytic philosophy is not what the detractors of modernity have in mind. 127 Two remarks are in order. First, as I’ve sought to show, modern philosophy in the sense of contemporary, which is exclusively dominated by the analytic tradition, includes more than just Hegel and obviously ideological revisionary aspects. We cannot collapse modern in an ideological sense with modern in a historical sense. The two are distinct. Second, even if one were to seek to deploy resources from those like Hume and Hegel, there may be aid within them—though that may be harder to see. Consider one brief example.
I take it that some in the Reformed tradition, like John Calvin, would be rather amendable to a sort of neo-Humean account of the laws of nature—modern and “revisionary” as it may be. This isn’t a universal claim to anyone being a Humean in the robust sense of taking his entire system but in a piecemeal eclectic sense. Today, there are broadly two ways of thinking about the laws of nature. On one view, there is some sort of universal-like thing that is identical to what we think of as the laws of nature. The sun rises and sets each day because of this. Conversely, there is a sort of Humean account wherein the laws of nature are nothing over and above events themselves, like how a movie is nothing more than the sequence of frames.
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The laws of nature on this view are just the regularity we observe in nature, like the sun rising and setting, and are not governed by anything else in nature.
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Interestingly, Calvin sounds much more like a Humean on the laws of nature. For example, he says: The sun does not daily rise and set by a blind instinct of nature but that he himself, to renew our remembrance of his fatherly favor toward us, governs its course. Nothing is more natural than for spring to follow winter; summer, spring; and fall summer—each in turn. Yet in this series one sees such great and uneven diversity that it readily appears each year, month, and day is governed by a new, a special, providence of God.
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Conclusion
Throughout this essay, I have argued that modern metaphysics is not necessarily at odds with classical theism. I have claimed that the antimodern modern theologians of the pop-Thomistic movement have failed to properly grapple with the internal logic of the classical tradition and thus have amputated themselves from a host of treasures lying within Egypt ripe for appropriation. My thesis has not been that modern philosophy is perfect. In fact, much should be jettisoned. However, my thesis has been that it can be of great aid, and we shouldn’t reject the wisdom of the light of nature simply because it's in a different era than our favorite heroes. While there is always the temptation to return to the “glory days” of times past wherein theology was perfect and pristine we ought not bury our talent in anxiety that it will be lost.
