Hierarchy Saves
Hans Boersma on How We Participate in the Eternal Word
I got an interesting email the other day. A dear colleague and friend wrote an article discussing my work on sacramental hermeneutics. He agreed on the need to retrieve patristic and medieval modes of reading Scripture. He loved the quadriga—the traditional fourfold reading of Scripture, which aims not just at the historical meaning but also looks for the allegorical, moral, and eschatological senses of Scripture. And I was thrilled to note his reason for such a recovery: only by treating Scripture as a sacrament—searching for the real presence of the hidden treasure inside the Old Testament—do we truly read it christologically.
"But why not let go of your participatory ontology?" he asked.
My friend balked at the Platonic metaphysic undergirding patristic and medieval hermeneutics. According to him, the Platonic notion of participation, which holds that this-worldly things are grounded in, or participate in, other-worldly forms or ideas, denigrates this world. Christian Platonists, my friend objected, treat the eternal Logos as more real than created things and cannot but downgrade salvation history, because they're always tempted to gaze up at the "really real." The basic objection was clear: to move from a sacramental hermeneutic to an underlying sacramental (or participatory) ontology is to lapse into escapism—an escape from created reality.
It's a common objection. Even those whose love for Jesus drives them to a sacramental reading of the Old Testament flinch when it comes to the metaphysical underpinnings that animated this hermeneutic for many centuries. The bogeyman of Platonic dualism—this-worldliness versus other-worldliness—hovers like a specter over nearly every form of contemporary Christianity.
The truth is, the hierarchical structure of Christian Platonism should assuage such fears. I realize that, to modern ears, this will sound like a counterintuitive claim: the hierarchical worldview of the Middle Ages propped up dualism by apotheosizing heavenly and spiritual things while relegating earthly and material things to the bottom of the heap—or so we've become convinced. Turning to the Platonic notion of hierarchy in order to safeguard the significance of created things seems like advertising cigarettes by touting their health benefits.
I'll embark on the defense, nonetheless. There is no shortcut, for hierarchy is the mode of participation, and so the latter is understood only by clarifying the former. Besides, the payoff is worth it, for hierarchy saves the appearances by recognizing every created thing as a theophany—a manifestation of God.
Dionysius's Four Convictions
Dionysius the Areopagite is much reviled for his hierarchical view of the universe. I suspect that, for many, his very use of the term hierarchy is enough to give him the cold shoulder. No matter his shortcomings, this Neoplatonist Christian offered a participatory metaphysic that should remove the fears of even the most inveterate skeptic of Christian Platonism. It is a metaphysic made up of four basic convictions.
1. God is not a being.
That is to say, God is not one of the beings that make up the hierarchy of the universe. Situating God at the very top of the universe—whether as the highest rung of a hierarchical ladder or as the one exception to an otherwise egalitarian universe—is not an act of piety but a mythological reduction of God to one of many beings. For Dionysius, God doesn't occupy just one rung on the ladder. If God is transcendent, he must transcend the ladder itself. For Dionysius, God makes himself present in the ladder. God is the ladder—while at the same time infinitely transcending it. For God to be transcendent, he must be immanent; for God to be immanent, he must be transcendent.
Hans Boersma is the Saint Benedict Servants of Christ Professor in Ascetical Theology at Nashotah House Theological Seminary.
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
31.1—January/February 2018
on Taking the Measure of the Deserving & the Undeserving Poor by Martin Bordelon
18.10—December 2005
on an Apostle’s Encounter with the Son’s Children by Anthony Esolen
more from the online archives
33.2—March/April 2020
Christian Pro-Family Governments?
Old & New Lessons from Europe by Allan C. Carlson
33.4—July/August 2020
Our Views on the President Are Not Crucial by S. M. Hutchens
23.1—January/February 2010
It’s Bent on Bringing Down the House on the Family & the Church by Douglas Farrow
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
