C.S. Lewis on "Pagan Christs"

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

In his book Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis explores various themes such a judgement, death, and praising God. In Chapter Ten, titled "Second Meanings", he writes about how Christians have believed the Psalms to "contain a second or hidden meaning, an 'allegorical' sense, concerned with the central truths of Christianity, with the Incarnation, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and with the Redemption of Man. All the Old Testament has been treated in the same way. The full significance of what the writers are saying is, on this view, apparent only in the light of events which happened after they were dead."

This appraisal of how the Psalms have been interpreted in the Church is accurate, especially in regard to the Church Fathers who often allegorize Bible passages when speaking of Jesus Christ. Allegory and typology are also evident in the hermeneutics of Eastern Orthodoxy. Bible scholars of the twentieth century have been critical of this method of interpretation and have urged readers not to read New Testament views back into the Old Testament texts.

Lewis does not endorse allegorizing or the imposition of Christian beliefs upon the Psalms. He expresses his belief that the Hebrew Psalmists were not aware of the "full significance" of their writings.

Christianity holds that the Godhead is fully revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. One can affirm that without embracing the assumption that the writers of the Psalms did not grasp the pattern of the Gospel. They certainly did.

The early Hebrew believed in God Father, God Son, and the living-giving Spirit. They believed that the Father and Son are one. In John 14, Jesus explains to Phillip, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." The Father-Son relationship is expressed in the son's recognition of his Father in others. Horus was said to recognize his father in the deceased king. "Horus is a soul and he recognizes his Father in you..." (Pyramid Texts, Utterance 423)

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Horus is called the "advocate of his father" (cf. 1 John 2:1). They believed that the Son of God would be born of a woman of their ruler-priest caste and that he would crush the serpent's head (Gen. 3:15). This early Hebrew expectation was expressed in the Pyramid Texts, (Utterance 388) dating to B.C. 2200: "Horus has shattered (tbb, crushed) the mouth of the serpent with the sole of his foot (tbw)."

They believed that the Woman would conceive by divine overshadowing, as the Angel declared to the Virgin Mary in Luke 1:35: "the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God."

They hoped for a Righteous Ruler who would overcome death and lead His people to eternal life. Jesus descended to Sheol to announce his victory over death. A Horite song found at the royal complex at Ugarit speaks of the descent of Horus, the son of God, to the place of the dead "to announce good tidings."

Why must we assume that the significance of what the Psalmists wrote is apparent only in the light of events which happened after they were dead? These were Hebrew writers, and the Hebrew writers had a better grasp of the pattern of the Gospel than many Christians do today.

Many have noted the parallels between the ancient Horus myth and the story of Jesus, yet strangely, Lewis does not refer to the myth of the Horite and Sethite Hebrew. Instead, he speaks of "Pagan Christs" and notes resemblances to narratives of Adonis and Balder. He asks, "What are we to say of those gods in various Pagan mythologies who are killed and rise again and who thereby renew or transform the life of their worshippers or of nature?"

The late Joseph Campbell, the most notable mythologist of the twentieth century, would explain this "hero's journey" as an aspect of the great "monomyth", a universal narrative archetype. Campbell does not offer a detailed explanation for how this emerges universally, but he suggests that it is deeply rooted in Mankind's collective unconscious (Campbell, The Hero's Journey, p. 57).

This might explain why the resemblance between Pagan heroes and Jesus Christ are not accidental. However, Lewis explores other explanations. He speaks of anthropologists who might argue that such commonalities come from the experiences and imaginations of primitive and superstitious peoples.

Not so, say the early Church Fathers. They believed that such Pagan myths are intended to mislead people; that these are counterfeit narratives that parody the truth of the Gospel. 

Lewis, a professor of Classical and Medieval literature, believed that the divine and the diabolical play a part along with the human imagination (p. 123). He does not believe that the resemblances between the Christ event and the overcoming Pagan heroes is accidental. He writes, "The resemblance between these myths and the Christian truth is no more accidental than the resemblance between the sun and the sun's reflection in a pond, or that between a historical fact and the somewhat garbled version of it which lives in popular report..."

Another explanation is that the Pagan distortions are distilled from the primitive myth of Re, Horus, and Hathor which spread throughout the lands where the early Hebrew had dispersed in the service of the first lords of the earth, the great kingdom builders like Nimrod, the Kushite (Gen. 10).

In ancient Egyptian, Re means "Father". The Greek "Horus" comes from the ancient Egyptian HR, meaning "Most High One" or "Hidden One". Horus' mother is Hathor who always is shown overshadowed by the Sun in ancient Nilotic iconography.

Lewis speaks of how the Romans viewed the age or reign of Saturn as something equivalent to the Garden of Eden before the Fall (p. 117). Among the Horite and Sethite Hebrew, Saturn was called "Horus, Bull of the Sky." Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were depicted with the falcon-head of Horus (Krupp 1979). According to the Pyramid Texts (Utterance 205), the Great Bull smites the enemies of his father Re.

According to the Coffin Texts, Horus is "the great Falcon upon the ramparts of the house of him of the hidden name" and he says: "my wrath will be turned against the enemy of my father" and "I will put him beneath my feet." (Utterance 148) This text is at least 800 years older than the Messianic reference of Psalm 110:1: The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

The Bull is to be sacrificed so that the deceased king may eat the sacrifice and become one with the Celestial Bull. The king is urged to rise, to "gather his bones together, shake off your dust" and enter into immortality.

Given what is known today about the biblical Hebrew, a ruler-priest caste whose point of origin was the Nile Valley, we must make a distinction between the belief that the Godhead is fully revealed in Jesus Christ, and the chronological snobbery of believing that only after His appearing can the Gospel be understood. These are two distinct assertions.

C. S. Lewis cannot be accused of chronological snobbery, which he despised. Nor should we find fault in his failure to compare the Gospel and the Hebrew beliefs concerning the Son of God. Lewis' book Reflections on the Psalms was published in 1958, eleven years before the publication of R. O. Faulkner's English translation of The Ancient Pyramid Texts. The Pyramid Texts present many of the prayers that were offered at the royal tombs and are evidence that the Hebrew hope for resurrection was connected to their belief in the Son of God. Their prayers were written on the walls of the tombs and can be studied today.

Related reading: Signs Given That We Might Believe; Jesus Christ in the Hebrew Scriptures; Abraham's Faith Lives in Christianity; The Hebrew Were a Caste; Early Resurrection Texts, Horite and Sethite Mounds

ChatGPT Failed Me

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

AI is a digital tool that is able to save time, but it has limits. It draws on language, but not on the latest information. 

I have been pioneering the science of biblical anthropology for forty years and have numerous publications in this emerging branch of anthropology. I decided to use ChatGPT is create content, but it failed. It does not recognize the distinction between theological anthropology which calls itself "biblical anthropology" and the science of biblical anthropology.

Theological anthropology considers what the Bible says about human nature, a rather speculative subject.

Biblical anthropology investigates the customs, religious beliefs, material culture, and kinship patterns of the many biblical populations. This discipline takes an empirical approach to the biblical texts by identifying anthropologically significant data to gain a clearer understanding of the ethnic and cultural diversity of biblical populations.

The technology eventually will recognize the distinction between two disparate subjects with the same label, but that may take another 40 years. 

Related reading: Generative AI Creates Content Just Like You Do - Philosophy News; Biblical Anthropology, the Science... not speculative theology; Bronze Age Populations; Don't Fear AI Generated Content

The Welcome Demise of American Fundamentalism

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Yesterday I had a conversation with a young man who told me that he is not religious. When I asked him about that, he said he had been raised by Fundamentalist parents and he had decided that Christianity must be nonsense at best, or at worst a pack of lies. 

I have heard similar stories from other former "Christians", and I wonder if their youthful experiences of religion might serve as an excuse to not examine real Christianity, the oldest known religion.

Fundamentalism began as a movement in the late 19th century within American Protestant circles to defend the "fundamentals of belief" against the liberal theological speculation that had taken hold of the Mainline Protestant denominations. In particular, the movement opposed higher critical scholarship, the dismissal or minimization of the central truths of the Incarnation, the atoning death of Jesus Christ, and his bodily resurrection.

In reacting to Protestant liberalism, the Fundamentalists failed to resource the Tradition of the Church where they would have discovered their most valuable arguments against the growing apostasy of Protestant Liberalism. Rarely did a Fundamentalist leader consider sources earlier than the 16th century. 

Over time American Fundamentalism took on new doctrines such as the Rapture, Progressive Revelation, and Young Earth Creationism. These doctrines are claimed to be "biblical". However, a deep study of Scripture does not lend substance to that claim. The concept of the Rapture is cobbled together from disparate texts. Progressive Revelation ignores that fact that the Messianic Faith we call "Christianity" aligns perfectly with the beliefs of Abraham and his Hebrew ancestors who believed in God Father and God Son. We have evidence of that in the Bible and in extra-biblical sources. The idea that the earth is 6000-10,000 years old is not accepted by Bible-believing Christians in the sciences. 

The literalism of American Fundamentalism has been its undoing. The Fundamentalists insist on six 24-hour days of creation though even the early Church Fathers did not agree on that interpretation. They insist that Noah's flood was universal against the substantial evidence to the contrary in the Bible and in the geological, archaeological, and anthropological record. They perpetuate a false understanding of the early Hebrew, pitting Cain's (evil) line against that of his (righteous) brother Seth. Today we know that both Cain and Seth were early Hebrew rulers whose descendants intermarried (caste endogamy).  Endogamy is common trait of castes, and the early Hebrew were a ruler-priest caste. 

The role of myth in reading Genesis 1-3 is lost on American Fundamentalist for whom the term "myth" suggests untruth. They lack insight into the lasting nature of myths. Fundamentalists, who favor the ever-approachable C.S. Lewis, overlook the fact that he championed myth as a way for eternal truths to be presented.

American Fundamentalism has taken on the characteristics of a cult. There is no opportunity for reasoned debate with this highly defended community. They have patented replies to every query. They claim that dating methods are flawed. They designate all who reject Fundamentalist interpretations as non-believers. They pit their belief system against the evidence of many sciences: anthropology, genetics, linguistics, archaeology, earth science, etc. They claim Scripture as their only authority but fail to read it apart from their preconceptions. 

Thousands of former Fundamentalists are floundering spiritually because they were indoctrinated in this false religion. They welcome the demise of Fundamentalism. The political alignment of Fundamentalism with Trumpism has further eroded Fundamentalism's clout.

Tragically, American Fundamentalism joins the list of false religions exported from the USA. These include Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Christian Science, the Prosperity Gospel, Second-blessing Pentecostalism, and Scientology.

Related reading: The Substance of Abraham's Faith; Judaism is NOT the Faith of Abraham; Where Judaism and Christianiy Part Ways; Early Resurrection Texts; Promoting Young Earth Creation by Undermining the Truth; New to Just Genesis?; Is Scientific Dating Reliable?; Remembering John Polkinghorne

An Anglican I Remain

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

I make no apology for being an Anglican Traditionalist. However, I will be an apologist for the Anglican Way of Christianity.

Our confession as Anglican Christians is Christ crucified, risen, and coming again. Until His arrival, we make disciples, strengthen one another, and receive Him in the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist. The kerygma and the Nicene Creed express Anglican dogma, and the Bible informs and shapes our doctrine and practice. We require nothing to be believed that is not attested by these our authorities. That is why we reject innovations, be they from Rome, the Episcopal Church, or the Church of England.

Unfortunately, some who call themselves "Anglican" have departed from this confession, aimlessly wandering the trails of modernism, process theology, feminism, and social activism. These give Anglicanism a bad name. They leave a foul smell wherever they go. It is no wonder that some seek to escape the reek. 

Some Anglicans who have left for greener pastures include G. K. Chesterton, John Henry Newman, and more recently Michael Nazir-Ali, and Gavin Ashenden. Their departure to Rome meant gain for Roman Catholics and loss for Anglicans. However, the Roman pasture has not proven to be much greener.

Recently an Eastern Orthodox friend asked me, "Why not just head east, and become Orthodox?" Here is my response:

Because our history, our ethos, some doctrines are quite distinct. As you know I spent 6 years with the Antiochian Orthodox and value those years because they renewed me after the Anglican "wars". They also connected me with sacred Tradition whereby I can identify dangerous innovations.

The friend replied that it didn't make sense that people choose to be outside the One True Church, and had I tried the Western Rite, to which I replied:

The tendency to triumphalism among some Orthodox is troubling. It is so contrary to the Orthodox emphasis on humility as a primary virtue. Also, the Orthodox exclusive use of the Septuagint for study and as the text behind the Divine Liturgy is a problem since it leans into the Greek perspective of the soul rather than the biblical Hebrew understanding of the Soul-Body unit. Further, a detailed study of the planting of Christianity in the British Isles reveals a patrimony easily as old as that of Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, and Constantinople. With the Great Schism of 1054, Constantinople became the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Byzantine liturgy, which I prefer greatly to the Western Rite, developed contemporaneously with other early liturgies of the Church and is not objectively superior to them, only different.

The friend then pointed to brilliant men who left the Anglican Way for Orthodoxy, including Jon Braun, Peter Gilquist, Patrick Henry Reardon, and Stephen Freeman. She asserted that these men were "on a search for the truth. For the TRUE Church."

It should be noted that some Orthodox are not orthodox in every aspect of their theology. David Bentley Hart and Alvin Kimel, both former Anglicans, are examples. Kimel has waffled a great deal over the years. He was a priest in the Episcopal Church who left for Rome and then converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. He and Hart have been promoting apocatastasis, a belief that the restoration of creation to a condition of perfection will involve escape from eternal separation from God for those who have willfully rejected God.

The departure of great Anglican thinkers for either Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy suggests that Anglicanism is a natural pad for launching people in different directions. However, it seems that former Anglicans rarely go to Protestant denominations because what we have found satisfying in Anglican Christianity is lacking among Protestants. We are conscious of divine mystery, the efficacy of the Sacraments, the importance of sacred tradition in the interpretation of Scripture, the beauty of holiness expressed in reverent worship, the wisdom of the Church Fathers, and the necessity of the universal Creeds.

A Crisis of Authority and the Burden of Central Authority

The confusion within Anglicanism is the result of a crisis of authority. Our collegial polity has been weakened by a club mentality among the bishops. None wish to give offense to their fellow members. When they should have stood in defense of the Faith once delivered, they showed themselves complacent. Complacency leads to decline and decline leads to decadence.

Some who were raised by modernist Anglican clergy wandered far from the orthodox faith and led others astray. Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne are examples. Both were raised in the Church of England. They put forward a view of God as one affected by temporal processes. In Hartshorne’s process-based conception God always changes. This is not the orthodox view of God as eternal and immutable.

For Anglicans the authority of Scripture and Tradition is central to our identity. While we share a rich heritage of reason and intellectual acumen, we do not disregard these authorities in favor of philosophical speculation about God and humans. That is fatal to our identity.

Some Anglican clergy dabbled with spiritualism. James Pike was raised Roman Catholic and became an agnostic. After WWII, Pike and his second wife, Esther Yanovsky, joined the Episcopal Church and Pike became an Episcopal priest. He was charged with heresy three times, though the charges were dropped. He rejected the central dogmas of the Christian Faith touching on the Incarnation and the Trinity. In October 1966, he was formally censured by his fellow bishops, but he was never deposed. That same year his son James Jr. committed suicide, an event that prompted Pike to try to communicate with his dead son using a medium.

The crisis of authority within Anglicanism is also demonstrated in the liturgical revisions of the Episcopal Church in the 1970s. The Episcopal priest and theologian, Urban T. Holmes, understood that ECUSA's liturgical revisions drew more on Process Theology and modern philosophy than on Scripture, Tradition, and the Church Fathers. In reference to the Episcopal Church 1979 Prayer Book, he wrote, "It is evident that Episcopalians as a whole are not clear about what has happened. The renewal movement in the 1970s, apart from the liturgical renewal, often reflects a nostalgia for a classical theology which many theologians know has not been viable for almost 200 years. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer is a product of a corporate, differentiated theological mind, which is not totally congruent with many of the inherited formularies of the last few centuries. This reality must soon ‘come home to roost’ in one way or another."

Holmes added, "The church has awakened to the demise of classical theology."

If Holmes believed that "classical" or orthodox theology is not viable, he should have left the priesthood.

Hoping to Escape the Chaos

The crisis of authority in Anglicanism has led many to seek refuge with other sacramental bodies. The departees have gone to churches where authority is either centralized, as with the Pope and the Magisterium, or is sustained by synods of Orthodox bishops who resist modernism and innovation. Within those churches, there are rebellious persons who try to impose their will. There are feminists campaigning for women priests. There are reactionaries demanding the Latin Mass as their right. There are theological and liturgical debates, and jurisdictional conflicts among the Orthodox ethnicities. The necessary imposition of ecclesial authority tends to homogenize and invariably some people will resist conforming.

Anglicans excel at resisting homogenization. It comes of our history under Rome, the bloodshed of the 16th century in England, and the iconoclasm of the Puritans. Some regard the Thirty-Nine Articles as their Confession. Others regard the Articles as important to Reformed theology but take the universal Creeds as the only proper reflection of the catholic Faith. Some use the Book of Common Prayer as a resource out of which they pick prayers and rites. Others uphold the liturgies of the 16th century through the mid-20th century as the historic Anglican formularies which are not to be tampered with. 

Some Anglicans ordain women and believe this practice does not impinge on the Gospel. Others believe rightly that this development stabs at the heart of the Gospel since the priesthood ultimately is about the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, and this innovation breaks with catholic tradition, and is without the consent of the Church worldwide. 

There also is a huge range of aesthetic expressions in Anglican churches. Some maintain the elegant architecture of the great cathedrals. Some are scrubbed clean of embellishments and resemble Congregational places of worship. Some are warehouses with big screens and platforms for praise bands. These variances express different theological perspectives, yet all claim to be “Anglican”.

Let us consider also the great intellects who remained Anglican in the face of this crisis of authority: C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Evelyn Underhill, William Temple, Austin Farrer, Matthew Green, and John Stott. Additionally, the Anglican Way of Christianity has many millions of adherents in Africa and Asia where there has been less pressure from their cultures to adopt modernism, feminism, and innovations that break with tradition.

I remain an Anglican in good company! An Anglican I remain against the current spirit of the age.

Related reading: Change Coming for The Episcopal Church?; Anglicans and Process Theology; The Priesthood in England (a 4-part series); Alice C. Linsley's Speech at the International Catholic Congress of Anglicans; Patrick Henry Reardon, "Days of Trials"

Derrida's Hostility to Phonocentrism

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Phonocentrism is the belief that uttered sounds and speech are inherently superior to written language. Phonocentricists maintain that spoken language is the primary and most fundamental method of communication whereas writing is a derived method of capturing speech. 

Some writers have argued that philosophers such as Plato, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Ferdinand de Saussure have promoted phonocentric views. Walter Ong (1912-2003) expressed support for the idea of phonocentrism. He drew on the work of Eric A. Havelock, who suggested a fundamental shift in the form of thought coinciding with the transition from orality to literacy in Ancient Greece. 

Ong viewed writing as a laboriously learned technology which effects the first transformation of human thought from sound to sight. This transition has implications for structuralism, deconstruction, religion, and anthropology. Ong argued that the general culture of the United States is particularly non-phonocentric.

In 1962, Jacques Derrida, a young French-speaking Algerian of Jewish parentage took interest in this subject, having read a set of lectures by the Oxford philosopher J. L. Austin (1911-1960). Austin's "How to Do Things with Words" contained a theory of the different kinds of speech acts. Beginning in 1946, Austin made a distinction between constative speech and performative speech. Austin was not particularly interested in the distinction between what is spoken and what is written. The philosophical points he made apply to both forms of communication.

Derrida, however, found importance in the distinction and felt that in Western culture and Philosophy too much emphasis had been placed on the spoken word.

Jacques Derrida used the term "phonocentrism" to criticize what he saw as a disdain for written language. He argued that phonocentrism developed because speech, being more immediate than writing, has been regarded as closer to the presence of subjects. He believed that the binary opposition between speech and writing is a form of logocentrism, in which words and language are taken as a fundamental expression of an external reality.

This was problematic for Derrida whose deconstruction of narratives suggests that the notion of meaning is far more complex. Derrida's opposition to phonocentrism came from his attack on what he called "the metaphysics of presence". Derrida characterizes as the metaphysics of presence the tendency to conceive fundamental philosophical concepts such as truth, reality, and being in terms of ideas such as presence, essence, identity, and origin—and in the process to ignore the crucial role of absence and difference. For Derrida negative space is presence. Here we perhaps see some influence from his Hebrew background. The horned altar of the Hebrew was a negative (apophatic) solar image.

Anthony Kenny explains, "Derrida 'deconstructs' the opposition between speech and writing and gives the privileged position to the written text, the one furthest from the control of the author, the one most capable of diverse and superseding interpretations. Some have seen Derrida's attacks on the metaphysics of presence as an enterprise, in a very different key, parallel to Wittgenstein's demolition of the notion of private language." (A. Kenny, Philosophy in the Modern World, Vol. 4, p. 92)

For Derrida, presence and absence are a binary opposition worth exploring. This applied even to his personal preferences. On his reluctance to be photographed and his insistence that no image of himself would appear on his book covers, Derrida said, "For me, writing means to withdraw myself, even if one appears when one writes because publishing means appearing in a certain way. But I didn’t want my appearance to be framed by the contemporary uses of photography where they show the author writing or in a head shot. So I thought it was very important to exclude all forms of photography and all public images of myself." 

Peter Salmon notes, "Jewish, French, Algerian, Derrida’s identity was complicated, and he strove to apply this complexity to all he touched. Part of thinking like Derrida involves taking those things we take most for granted – such as our identity, such as our language – and looking for unexplored assumptions, contradictions and absences."

Derrida’s deconstruction reveals great complexities of meaning in written texts, ideas, myths and human customs. He wanted to know what dominates and blocks what seems not to be present. He ascribes to subordinate objects a more substantial existence than the shadow they cast, or their “trace.” He wrote: "Deconstruction cannot limit itself or proceed immediately to neutralization: it must, by means of a double gesture, a double science, a double writing, practice an overturning of the classical opposition, and a general displacement of the system. It is on that condition alone that deconstruction will provide the means of intervening in the field of oppositions it criticizes" (Metaphysics).

Derrida explores the hidden presence. In so doing, deeper and/or unfamiliar meanings emerge. His method involves neutralizing the shouting voice in order to hear resonances of underlying voices. He looks for Plato behind Aristotle, for mystery behind logic, and for the metaphysical behind the physical. His reversals are a strategic intervention to free western philosophy from the constraints of empiricism, materialism, and linear logic. 

This project necessarily drives one toward the written word which stands still long enough to be deconstructed.

Related: Walter Ong: Oral Cultures and Early Writing; Derrida's Style of Writing; Something Older; Thoughts on the Logos; Peter Salmon, Divide Opinion as Derrida Did

Anglicans and Process Theology

Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000)

Alice C. Linsley

One of the errors of Process Theology, as expounded by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, is that God is affected by temporal processes and is "becoming" alongside humanity. In Hartshorne’s process-based conception, humans change for a while, whereas God always changes. This is not the orthodox view of God as immutable. 

The order of Creation makes it evident that there is a distinction between the Creator and the creation, and the very definition of God implies an eternally existent Being outside of the created order. Logically, God cannot change. Isaiah 57:15 says that God "inhabits eternity." He created time and is therefore outside of time.

Hartshorne, like Whitehead, was the son of an Anglican clergyman. Historically, Anglicans have posited unorthodox views of God. Bishop George Berkeley said, "We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature", and he introduced the concept of panentheism which means that all is in the one God. Hartshorne preferred the term dipolar over panentheism. In Hartshorne’s philosophy, God’s perfection is seen in the evolution and the creativity of living beings, and God is conceived as dualistic—both free and unfree, conscious and unconscious, and eternal and temporal.

Hartshorne departs from orthodox views in his description of the actuality of God (i.e., how God exists). A God who exists necessarily is not necessary or unchanging in terms of divine responsiveness to creaturely changes. Hints of Pragmatism and Darwinian assumptions are evident in his thought.

For William James, Pragmatism was a way to apply Darwin's theories to philosophy. The mid-century Pragmatists believed that humans have survived and evolved because organisms with the ability to reason logically are naturally selected over organisms without reasoning.

However, we have good reason to question Darwinian assumptions about human change. Despite the Darwinian nomenclature employed by paleoanthropologists, the oldest Hominid fossils do not reveal dramatic changes between the oldest of the species (3 million years) and modern humans (300,000 years). And given the record of artifacts, human inventiveness has existed from the beginning. It is pure speculation to say that human nature has changed through the many millennia of our existence.

Anglicans and Process Theology

For Anglicans the authority of Scripture and Tradition is central to our identity. Further, we share a rich heritage of reasoned observation of the natural world. To disregard our Anglican heritage in favor of philosophical speculation about God, humans, and the order of creation is fatal to our identity.

Process Theology continues to influence many prominent Anglicans. Consider this statement from Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who was writing about humans and the environment:

"...the human task is to draw out potential treasures in the powers of nature and so to realise the convergent process of humanity and nature discovering in collaboration what they can become."

In 2009, The Episcopal Church sought funding for a part-time advocate for environmental stewardship of water. Resolution A516 was titled "Sacred Acts for Sacred Waters". Here is the explanation:

"Scripture teaches us that God made the waters as part of Creation. Throughout Scripture and in liturgical practice, water has had deeply understood sacramental roles culminating with the water of baptism. Science and everyday experience confirm the description in the Scriptures of water as life-giving for all Creation. Millennium Development Goal #7 seeks to provide adequate supplies of life-giving water for all people.

Within Creation water undergoes a cycle. Water flows from sources, is contained, distributed, sometimes purified, used and then collected and distributed for further purification before rejoining the flow. In our reality the water of Creation is the result of complicated combinations of the natural processes set in place by the evolution of Creation and by many human interventions."

There it is again, Process Theology, with a thin veneer of a sacramental (or shamanic) theology. It is clear that Process Theology interacts with political ideologies to produce what is termed a "Woke" consciousness.

The Episcopal priest and theologian, Urban T. Holmes, understood that the liturgical revisions of the 1970s drew more on Process Theology and modern philosophy than on Scripture, Tradition, and the Church Fathers. In reference to the Episcopal Church 1979 Prayer Book, he wrote, "It is evident that Episcopalians as a whole are not clear about what has happened. The renewal movement in the 1970s, apart from the liturgical renewal, often reflects a nostalgia for a classical theology which many theologians know has not been viable for almost 200 years. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer is a product of a corporate, differentiated theological mind, which is not totally congruent with many of the inherited formularies of the last few centuries. This reality must soon ‘come home to roost’ in one way or another."

Holmes added, "The church has awakened to the demise of classical theology."

Holmes was honest, and if he believed that "classical" or orthodox theology is not viable, he should have left the priesthood.

C.S. Lewis addresses the problem in a speech he delivered in 1945 on "Christian Apologetics" to Anglican priests:

"It seems to the layman that in the Church of England we often hear from our priests doctrine which is not Anglican Christianity. It may depart from Anglican Christianity in either of two ways: (1) It may be so “broad” or “liberal” or “modern” that it in fact excludes any real supernaturalism and thus ceases to be Christian at all. (2) It may, on the other hand, be Roman. It is not, of course, for me to define to you what Anglican Christianity is--I am your pupil, not your teacher. But I insist that wherever you draw the lines, bounding lines must exist, beyond which your doctrine will cease to be Anglican or to be Christian: and I suggest also that the lines come a great deal sooner than many modern priests think. I think it is your duty to fix the lines clearly in your own minds: and if you wish to go beyond them you must change your profession.

This is your duty not specifically as Christians or as priests but as honest men. There is a danger here of the clergy developing a special professional conscience which obscures the very plain moral issue. Men who have passed beyond these boundary lines in either direction are apt to protest that they have come by their unorthodox opinions honestly. In defense of these opinions they are prepared to suffer obloquy and to forfeit professional advancement. They thus come to feel like martyrs. But this simply misses the point which so gravely scandalizes the layman. We never doubted that the unorthodox opinions were honestly held: what we complain of is your continuing your ministry after you have come to hold them. We always knew that a man who makes his living as a paid agent of the Conservative party may honestly change his views and honestly become a Communist. What we deny is that he can honestly continue to be a Conservative agent and to receive money from one party while he supports the policy of another."

Related reading: What Christians May Safely Disbelieve; The "Process" Worldview

Plato and Christian Theology

 

Andrew Louth, “The Necessity of Platonism for Christian Theology”. 

Delivered remotely to the King’s College Chapel, 17 January 2021.

Link to full video: 2021 Robert Crouse Memorial Lecture.

Copious Flowers provides some pertinent excerpts of the address.

Related reading: Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt