A Hermeneutics of Suspicion

by Bishop Chrysostomos of Etna

 

 

One of the principles of contemporary scientific inquiry is that we proceed to establish an hypothesis by first attempting to reject it: by attempting to prove the so-called null hypothesis. Any hypothetical relationship that we confirm, by the same token, is always expressed in terms of a set criterion of probability that the disproved null hypothesis is indeed true. Modern science more assiduously avoids the introduction of wrongly affirmed hypotheses into the body of scientific data than it does the exclusion of wrongly rejected hypotheses into that body. Thus the essentially "negative" approach to truth.

The "negative" approach to the establishment of scientific "facts" has served the natural and social sciences well (though one might argue that a heuristic view of science—approaching all hypotheses as valid and worthy of investigation—is more expansive in its scope). Yet, it is an approach, when combined with the naive notion that the methodologies of the natural sciences can be applied universally, which has had a very negative effect on other fields of learning, especially theology. More often than not, less sophisticated investigators have come to think that good scholarship lies in the ability to debunk and to doubt a principle, while careful explication and investigation of an assumed truth is somehow unscientific. This hermeneutics of suspicion has come with full force to the Orthodox theological world in the form of a modernistic spirit of inquiry foreign to traditional Orthodox scholarship.

The natural sciences draw their hypotheses about the world from empirical investigation. An effect is established as a principle or law when it is confirmed by replication and the high probability that the effect is everywhere and at all times present under specified conditions. Orthodox theology also confirms its data by observation and replication, but its hypotheses are drawn from revelation. Whereas the natural sciences make probable statements about hypotheses drawn from deduction, theology confirms its revealed truths by their effects on the empirical world. Orthodox theology, therefore, is not unscientific in the sense of being oblivious to empirical data, but unlike the natural sciences, its methodology lies in a positive affirmation of spiritual principles in the real world.

An Orthodox theologian begins his study by affirming the existence of God and by applying the affirmations of that existence in revelation—whether Scriptural, Patristic, or experiential—to his own person and to the world around him. There is no possibility of the "negative" methodology that characterizes the natural sciences; nor can an Orthodox theologian approach theology as our tradition understands it in a spirit of doubt. The objective element in an Orthodox theologian's intellectual pursuit is his ability to capture, internalize, and then to express and articulate the spiritual truths which he encounters in Scripture and in the Fathers. His very objectivity lies in the authenticity of what he experiences. And that authenticity disallows a spirit of doubt and negativity.

It is a sad but true fact that many of our contemporary Orthodox theologians know little of the Patristic way of theology. They are thus neither theologians nor fully Orthodox in their thinking about and understanding of things spiritual. Indeed, most Orthodox theological thinkers, especially in America and Western Europe, are so immersed in the categories of Western theological science that they hardly understand that Orthodox theology is not a deductive science. An Augustinian theology prevails not only in the heterodox West, but holds forth strongly in the westernized spirituality of most of contemporary Orthodoxy—again, especially in America and in Western Europe.

Moreover, other Orthodox theologians confront the West, as Chrestos Yannaras once noted, with a sense of inferiority. A hermeneutics of suspicion and doubt, indeed, of snide sarcasm among the less savory advocates of this "science," often intimidates them. They therefore abandon the Orthodox way of scholarship and unwittingly adopt a methodology of inquiry which is inimical to Orthodoxy itself. As I read in a column in Orthodox Tradition some time ago, would-be experts on the Liturgy begin their classes with silly remarks about the "decrepit" state of contemporary Orthodox worship, undoubtedly unintentionally falling to blasphemy in the immature desire to imitate the negative spirit of their Western theological mentors. This is a sad state of affairs, for it deprives these individuals of their own Orthodox identity and, at the same time, serves to perpetuate a Western ascendency in theological scholarship which is neither fair nor productive.

We Orthodox must begin to defend our traditional approach to theology and cease imitating or being intimidated by the theological schools of the West. For example, I recently served as a reader for a fine doctoral dissertation written by an Orthodox clergyman, a thorough and analytical investigation of first quality. One of the other readers—non-Orthodox—commented that the paper, while well written and interesting, lacked the methodological rigor of what one would expect from a paper by a Western Christian scholar. Though openly confessing his ignorance of Patristics and displaying an obvious ignorance of Orthodox scholarship, the same reader made reference to the uncritical nature of Orthodox scholarship in general. He suggested that a spirit of "suspicion" in approaching the Orthodox attitude toward the subject matter of the dissertation might have made it more provocative and might have freed it from the ostensible limitations of Orthodox scholarship.

As is usually the case, the reader in question had no extensive knowledge of the Fathers. How, then, could he comment on the methodology of a theological system based on the Patristic witness? Moreover, sweeping criticism by those ignorant of the foundations of the scholarship which they are assessing is as unscientific and unobjective as the reader presumes Orthodox scholarship to be. I made this quite clear to the student who had written the thesis and made my views known, as well, to the other members of his dissertation committee. In following such a course, I brought into focus the fact that the negative scholarly methodologies of the West are not the exclusive paths to objective knowledge. Rather, they are often the source of unobjective thoughts and observations, as in the case of the negative comments about this dissertation.

One must learn to look at Western criticism for what it is: more often than not, it is the product of limited knowledge or of deep resentment of the expansive and impressive body of knowledge that constitutes the theology of the Orthodox Church. Viewing the West in this more objective way, unintimidated by its supposedly superior methodologies, one can turn with full faith to Orthodox studies. Uninhibited by Western prejudice, the Orthodox scholar can insist that Westerners allow the existence of methodologies which, while quite different from their own, are nonetheless quite rigorous and scientific within their own right.

With regard to the Orthodox Faith, we as Christians have fixed responsibilities within the Church. We should therefore discourage our Orthodox students, theologians, and leaders from adopting the snide suspicion and cynicism that mark much of Western theological studies. When we approach Scripture, the Fathers, and the teachings of the Orthodox Church with doubt, we are mocking the very meaning of Faith. As Soren Kierkegaard once remarked—if I may paraphrase from memory—, a philosophy which begins with doubt is like teaching a soldier to stand at attention by asking him to fall on the ground in a dead heap. Likewise, any attempt to set forth Orthodoxy by a methodology of doubt is doomed to fall in on itself. If faith in the truth of the revelatory foundations of Orthodoxy is missing, any theology thus set forth is, again, neither Orthodox nor—by an Orthodox reckoning— theology. Such "theologies" we must reject.

We traditional Orthodox scholars are not the inferiors of our Western brethren. We, too, can understand the scientific method. Many of us are very competent statisticians. Many of us understand well the assumptions of contemporary philosophy and the burning issues in the philosophy of science. We are not ignorant of the ways of Western theology. Nor, to be sure, are we so bold as to criticize Western theology without knowing thoroughly its ways and presuppositions—a boldness all too frequently to be observed in Western scholars as they approach the Orthodox East. We have, therefore, every right to speak candidly and forcefully to the heterodox West. After all, they proffer their often unfounded criticism of our scholarship with a knowledge of the intellectual world limited to their Western experience, while we have at hand a world-view which encompasses both the Western world and its Eastern roots.

In living, writing about, and protecting our ancient Faith, we Orthodox have a positive witness before the modern world. Let us not sacrifice it before a methodology of doubt that unfairly renders our way to knowledge "unscientific."

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VII (1990), No. 2, p. 13.