Eastern Orthodox Ecclesiological Presuppositionalism: A Mistaken Foundation

Some Eastern Orthodox apologists have sought to adapt a form of Presuppositionalism in their defense of the Eastern Orthodox Church (EOC). Eastern Orthodox Presuppositionalism (EOP) is an ecclesiological epistemology, and even narrower still it is a sectarian epistemology, i.e. anti-catholic. In other words, according to EOP, the epistemological ground or cause of knowledge is said to be rooted in Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology, for EOP holds that the EOC is a precondition of intelligibility and knowledge. In contrast, Reformed Presuppositionalism (RP) is rooted in the Verbum Dei, with its epistemological ground seen to be God’s Word, and its epistemological consequence being unto and causative of ecclesiology. Put more simply, the RP position is that we can know the Church because of the transcendentally fundamental nature of God’s Word, not vice versa. The EOP position is that we know God’s Word because of the Church, thus causing the Scriptures and epistemology to submit to the Church (i.e. to ecclesiology).

Now, if the Church becomes a precondition for knowledge, then the Church becomes a viciously circular precondition for its own self-knowledge, and hence self-attesting, self-justifying, and finally irreformable, which is just what we see in the Eastern Orthodox Church (EOC). In other words, EOP epistemology ceases to be Bridal, ceases to be receptively and responsively confirmatory of the Bridegroom’s Word but rather determinative. But does this epistemological attitude or posture find support in the Canonical structure of the Eastern Orthodox Church? It would seem so, for as the universally accepted and unchallenged Council of Jerusalem of 1672 declared in Decree 2:

Wherefore, the witness also of the Catholic Church is, we believe, not of inferior authority to that of the Divine Scriptures. For one and the same Holy Spirit being the author of both, it is quite the same to be taught by the Scriptures and by the Catholic Church. Moreover, when any man speaks from himself he is liable to err, and to deceive, and be deceived; but the Catholic Church, as never having spoken, or speaking from herself, but from the Spirit of God — who being her teacher, she is ever unfailingly rich — it is impossible for her to in any wise err, or to at all deceive, or be deceived; but like the Divine Scriptures, is infallible, and has perpetual authority.

In light of the foregoing, it is clear that the EO position formally elevates the Church's voice speaking in Council to the level of God's voice speaking in Scripture, placing the Church's word on par with God's Word, seeing in them no substantive difference. They see the origin of each being the same Spirit, and so according to the internal logic of their position each must have the selfsame kind or level of authority. Thus, at the very least, the error of EO ecclesiology ends up rendering the Church's word into the functional equivalent of God's Word and, since the EO cannot "in any wise err," then there is no possibility for a consistent EO to ever conclude that the EOC could ever in any way need reformation or even possibly be reformable. According to the force of their Decree, the EOC is rendered a divine authority "not of inferior authority to that of the Divine Scriptures," making them also an "infallible" source, standard, and precondition for knowledge of divine truth, and hence self-justifying. At the very least, taken together, this would seem to justify seeing and treating EO epistemology as an ecclesiological epistemology.

In reality, and more consistent with early Patristic witness, God's Word is and so has the highest authority. The reason this is so is that internally, metaphysically, the Scriptures are the Word of God, the Self-revelation of the uncreated mind and will of the Triune God who condescended to cause these to subsist in the form of recorded or inscripturated human language. They are His living Voice. They, the Scriptures, are therefore not merely inspired human speech, not merely spiritually influenced, but God's own Word speaking through man. This is what gives Scripture its unique, ultimate authority, because God's Speech has ultimate authority intrinsically. The Church, by contrast, is Bridal, is a creature, is receptive, existing on the side of created being (though, of course, indwelt by the Holy Spirit). But, as Bride, it is only through God’s creative and maintaining Word that the Church is made to be, to exist, God’s Word being the sole cause of the Church and the Scriptures, and so the sole ground of man’s knowledge. This is how there can be a Berean Principle, which exists to show that recourse to God’s Word is recourse to the more fundamental. EOP, however, makes the Church to be not only the arbiter but also the determiner of God’s truth such that recourse to the Berean Principle is rendered moot and impossible.

If the Church itself becomes the precondition of its own knowledge, rather than the Church’s knowledge being caused by a more fundamental source (i.e. the Word of God speaking to man), then the Church’s self-knowledge becomes functionally self-caused and self-justifying, and only those inside the Church have access to any certain knowledge. This is often evidenced in the context of the EO when they lionize the EO "phronema," which in turn functions to energize the "No True Scotsman" fallacy when people give any reason for why they left the EO. If someone left, it must be because they did not "get it." This scenario happens frequently because for the EO they have become their own cause and guarantee for certitude, as they are their own prior condition for true knowledge. In other words, there being no superior referent (for according to their conciliar testimony the Scriptures are not above but equal in authority), what is true is therefore necessarily true because they say it is true. This epistemology breeds the structural sectarianism, authoritarianism, and even neo-gnosticism that can be found in the EO and its cult of the “holy elder,” which is again anti-catholic. This becomes immediately self-referential, unable to escape bias confirmation for, recall, in a radically communitarian epistemology all ostensibly true assertions are known to be certainly true because the community says so. It is a radical subversion of the ordering of truth, and in this way communitarian epistemology (i.e. EO epistemology) fails because, trapped in a vicious circle, it makes its claim to truth the sufficient criterion of truth. 

In a radical discontinuity from the early Church Fathers, according to EO epistemological ordering, the EOC is institutionally alone that which determines and umpires Scripture, where the canon of Scripture is not that which determines and umpires them. The canon is something that they articulate, define, and govern, for Scripture is not metaphysically “self-attesting” in their schema. In other words, according to EO Presuppositionalism, knowledge of X is declared true because the community says X is true, as an effect caused by their saying it (whether this be in Mariology, iconophilia, Toll Houses, etc.), and in this way the EO as community is itself the precondition of its own intelligibility, in themselves the self-attesting standard and source of truth. Moreover, in this way they makes themselves the author and arbiter of the canon of Scripture and the rule of faith, not merely the receptive witness and submissive adherent of these. In this way they furthermore make it impossible for themselves to submit to something objective to themselves, for by elevating themselves to infallibility they have confused their ecclesiological being with the standard of truth, of equal authority with Scripture. Thus as community they render a statement unfalsifiably true by virtue of their act of saying, for this is the meaning and force of their ecclesiological presupposition: X is known to be true (or false) because the EOC is the equal organ of God’s revealed truth on earth and it has spoken on X. It is "quite the same" to be taught by them as to be taught by Scripture. And how do they know this to be certain? They themselves declared it, and they cannot "in any wise err." It becomes not "thus sayeth the Lord," but "thus sayeth the Church." Confirmation (i.e. epistemic certainty) is thereby not principally had by looking into the Scriptures, but to the Church’s layering of extra-Scriptural conciliar decisions, decrees, anathemas, canons, hymns, etc.

According to Reformed Presuppositionalism, however, God and His creative Word are the presupposition of all true and certain knowledge, and therefore also knowledge of the Church. This means that God’s Word has both the metaphysical and epistemological priority which causes the Church both to be and to be able to know itself as Church. God alone, i.e. from the divine side, He establishes the canon of Scripture and the rule of faith. In this way access to the Word is epistemologically fundamental to the Church, not access to the Church a precondition for knowledge. For God's Word creates the Church, and as such it is only by means of God’s Word that the Church can be or be known, even to itself. Making the Church a precondition for knowledge therefore begs the question because it forever relegates the Word of God to a subordinate consequence of the Church’s prior knowing of itself as the Church. This makes the Church into the Church merely because it says so, and makes knowledge certain merely because as Church it declares it certain. Reformed Presuppositionalism, however, in affirming the objective, epistemological priority of God’s Word, God’s Word being God’s own Self-revelation, avoids this problem because RP’s metaphysical ground and epistemological foundation are not on the side of created natures, but in the Self-revelation of God through His own living and active Word, the Scriptures. 

The Church, being the Bride of Christ, however, cannot become its own precondition for certain knowledge, because the Church is forever on the side of created natures and as such depends subordinately upon God's Word both for its perpetual existence and its certain knowledge. The Church’s unity with Christ, including her partaking of the divine nature, is “Bridally” or mediately participatory through the created human nature of the incarnate Christ and incorporation in Him, without any metaphysical confusion of natures, whereas Scripture’s internal unity with Christ is directly participatory because it is God’s own living and active Word to man. Making the EOC into a precondition for knowledge ends either in epistemological authoritarianism (a "command epistemology") and fideism or irresolvable agnosticism for, unlike God’s self-attesting Word, which is a metaphysically fixed and divine point of reference, the Church’s continuous encounters with schisms and factions highlight that the key item in question is precisely that of determining which Church is the “true” Church, a question that is unanswerable according to EOP's own epistemological criteria without begging the question. 

-Rev. Joshua Schooping