United in Reverence
Christopher Jackson on Christian Orthodoxy & the Self-Revelation of God
Christians should hesitate to lay down Trinitarian dogma. So says Hilary of Poitiers as he begins a lengthy discourse on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. This seeming inconsistency stems from a dual understanding of orthodoxy that conservative Christians must regain: orthodoxy as a boundary to separate correct from false teaching, and orthodoxy as the incomprehensible self-revelation of God.
American conservative Christians, whether Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant, enthusiastically proclaim right teaching and set it apart from wrong. Well-trained and battle-hardened by defending against liberalism such necessary doctrines as the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the authority of the Scriptures, they expertly bulwark the faith. Contemporary challenges like the sexual revolution and postmodernism spur conservatives to contend for objective truth and morals.
Moreover, iron sharpens iron, and conservatives hone one another as they defend the particularities of their traditions and oppugn the distinctions of others'. For example, through their encounter with Roman Catholicism, Protestants have formulated defenses for Sola Scriptura and polemics against papal doctrine. Likewise, Roman Catholics champion papal doctrine while disputing Sola Scriptura. In such ways, conservatives skillfully and enthusiastically fortify themselves against false belief. Thank God.
Hilary on Orthodoxy
But in all this wall-building to separate correct from incorrect teaching, many conservatives have embraced one sense of orthodoxy while shunning the other, which is also vital. Too many of them lack the view of orthodoxy expounded by Hilary of Poitiers in De Trinitate:
And you . . . in devout willingness to learn must break down the barriers of prejudice and half-knowledge. . . . First he must take his stand upon the sure ground [substantia = homoousios] of God, as holy Jeremiah says, that since he is to hear about that nature [substantia] he may expand his thoughts till they are worthy of the theme, not fixing some arbitrary standard for himself, but judging as of infinity. And again, though he be aware that he is a partaker of the Divine nature, as the holy apostle Peter says in his second Epistle, yet he must not measure the Divine nature by the limitations of his own, but gauge God's assertions concerning Himself by the scale of His own glorious self-revelation. . . . Since then we are to discourse of the things of God, let us assume that God has full knowledge of Himself, and bow with humble reverence to His words. For He Whom we can only know through His own utterances is the fitting witness concerning Himself. (Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate, NPNF, 2nd series, 9:45)
According to this sense, the faithful student of the Scriptures ceaselessly pursues the knowledge of God, but he is hindered by his finite human nature. That which is finite cannot comprehend that which is infinite, and even God's self-revelation, his Word, does not allow comprehension but demands rather that we "bow with humble reverence." The only one who can fully know God is God himself. This sense of orthodoxy, propounded by Hilary, might be pictured as a compellingly beautiful mountain, something that does not allow comprehension but rather commands awe.
Hilary indeed sets perimeters around correct belief. Yet he indicates that this "boundary" sense of orthodoxy is secondary and necessary only in response to errorists:
The errors of heretics and blasphemers force us to deal with unlawful matters, to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass on forbidden ground. Faith ought in silence to fulfill the commandments, worshipping the Father, reverencing with Him the Son, and abounding in the Holy Ghost, but we must strain the poor resources of our language to express thoughts too great for words. The error of others compels us to err in daring to embody in human terms truths which ought to be hidden in the silent veneration of the heart. (De Trinitate, 52)
The pluralism of the American scene demands that conservative Christians do much wall-building. Errorists abound and, therefore, so must boundaries. And yet, in all this passionate partitioning, I fear that many conservatives have forgotten the understanding of orthodoxy that Hilary contends is primary: the incomprehensible self-revelation of God.
Christopher Jackson is Associate Pastor at Saint John’s Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, in Lexington, Kentucky. He and his wife Mary have three children.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on christianity from the online archives
30.6—Nov/Dec 2017
on Benedict XVI on the Fairest of the Sons of Men by Michael Martin De Sapio
18.10—December 2005
on an Apostle’s Encounter with the Son’s Children by Anthony Esolen
27.5—Sept/Oct 2014
on Growing Vegetables as a Primer in Moral Philosophy by Rachel Lu
more from the online archives
30.2—March/April 2017
on Reading Don Quixote in Its Original Christian Context by Luis Cortest
33.2—March/April 2020
on How Bodily Resurrection Informs Social Justice by W. Ross Blackburn
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
