Why the "Communal Ontology"?
A Plea for the "Baptism of Philosophy"
In the online Orthodox Christian community, the question of the salvation of the “heterodox” is often discussed. It makes sense that this is such a popular question, as most Orthodox Christians one encounters online are converts whose family and friends are not Orthodox. The typical answer one will receive (we will ignore the hyper-rigorists and the hyper-liberals) is that we know the Orthodox Church provides the normative means of salvation but that canonical boundaries do not limit God’s activity. Thus, is it possible for Protestants, Catholics, and even atheists to be saved? The answer is that one should not speak of the eternal destinies of individuals who die outside the Church. Still, one must not compromise the Church's consistent teaching that the promise of salvation is given to Herself alone.
However, there is a sense in which the question “Will there be [insert non-Orthodox] in heaven?” is nonsensical. The answer is of course not. This is because an essential aspect of salvation is the full revelation of the truth, and since we believe that all non-Orthodox people lack the truth in varying degrees, to be saved and to be non-Orthodox is a contradiction in terms. It is also true that in heaven, there are no “Orthodox Christians,” not because the Church lacks the truth, but because the division between the Church and the world that exists on account of sin is not present in heaven. The division of the human race into mutually incompatible categories (emphasis on division, not distinction as such) is overcome in the God who unites all with all. The Church calls every secular or non-Orthodox philosophy “worldly” for the precise reason that they, like this world, are temporary, and insofar as they are eternal (that is, insofar as they possess the truth), it is not on their own account, but rather their unrecognized participation in the truth of the Christian faith. The bold claim of the Orthodox Church is that the faith it proclaims is identical to God’s truth, which is, of course, the objective truth.
For the past year or so (since I was baptized and received a blessing to discuss the Orthodox faith online), I have been outspoken about my affirmation of the Christian–and specifically Orthodox–faith. Before this, I had made YouTube videos almost exclusively on philosophy, very rarely touching on theology. However, as the reader likely knows, I did not simply abandon philosophy once I began making videos on Christian theology, but I have made a conscious effort to integrate philosophy into it, demonstrating how modern philosophers (including Hegel, Nietzsche, Zizek, Derrida, and others) can be “baptized” into the Christian faith. Like I said above, all truth possessed by the world is not on its own account but by its possession of “stolen goods” (to use the language of many Church fathers to describe grace outside the canonical Church) owned by the Church alone. I think that perhaps the most important thing for the modern Church to do is to show the world the riches it possesses. We must show that we can not only account for the truths found in worldly philosophies in a non-arbitrary way but can integrate them within a broader system of (divinely revealed) ideas that elucidate the aforementioned truths to an even greater degree than the systems they have been traditionally associated with. The most significant example of this so far for telosbound has been our work on the philosophy of Slavoj Zizek.
We have done all our work of “baptizing philosophy” through what we’ve called the communal ontology. But what is the communal ontology? Simply put, it is Orthodox Christian metaphysics. Why, then, do we use the name “communal ontology”? There are a few reasons.
The first reason is that there is an inherent danger in engaging with worldly philosophies. While I can know for certain that when I say, “Christ possesses both divine and human natures,” I speak infallible truth, this same certainty is not present when I say, “Zizek’s subject is the abyss of hell.” That being said, I hold to my thesis concerning Zizek’s subject, and I think it is consistent with Orthodox Christian metaphysics and theology. Nonetheless, this thesis holds no dogmatic weight and is obviously not an essential belief for any Orthodox Christian. By using the name “communal ontology,” we can risk being more speculative than if we were expressly speaking “for” the Orthodox Church. Speaking on behalf of the Church has never been our intention, nor is it appropriate.
The second reason is that in modern Orthodox theology, we have seen an incredible development of the personalist theology and metaphysics of the fathers, especially in the work of Fr. Pavel Florensky, Fr. Dumitru Staniloae, St. Sophrony of Essex, Met. John Zizioulas (whose work inspired the name “communal ontology”), and Fr. Nikolaus Loudovikos. All of these theologians have emphasized communion–and specifically the communion of persons–as the highest and most essential Christian notion. After all, communion is the idea that links together the two most essential Christian doctrines, the Trinity (God is communion) and the Incarnation (God communed with man). With a specific and intentional emphasis on communion, we have found our engagements with modern philosophy fruitful.
The third and final reason we use the term communal ontology is similar to why Orthodox Christians refer to themselves as a particular faith amongst many (while boldly proclaiming our possession of universal truth). As discussed above, there are no “Orthodox Christians” in heaven as a distinct group because all have received the fullness of the truth (only present on earth in the Church). But in this time, since all have yet to receive the truth, humanity is fractured into distinct worldviews, ideologies, and philosophies. It is necessary that the truth “condescend” by adopting a specific name (and while “Orthodox Christian metaphysics” was an option, we do not use it for the two reasons above) to engage with modern philosophy in all its different forms. I like to think of the baptism of philosophy with the communal ontology as akin to Christ’s kenosis in the precise sense that it consists of the universal truth (Orthodox Christian metaphysics) entering into the divided world (modern philosophy) as a particular. Only through becoming a particular (while remaining the universal truth) could Christ save all the divided particulars from their delusions and falsehoods. The communal ontology aims to do exactly this in the context of modern philosophy. I sincerely ask anyone interested in this project of ours to reach out to us, engage with our work, and do your own work of “baptizing philosophy.”
To conclude this post, I will lay out what we consider to be the two “axioms” of the communal ontology. In the future, I will expand on both in detail (and perhaps we will discover additional axioms), but for now, I will just briefly describe each.
Identity is a unity of self and other. Self-identity is not self-relational, but immanent/intrinsic to every identity is its union with the other. This idea has been traditionally referred to as “perichoresis.”
Communion is hierarchical. It is not mere “relation” because relation can be conceptualized as solely horizontal. For the communal ontology, the ultimate ground of all relations must be the infinite God, who stands above (while being present in) the creation. Communion involves the condescension of the higher and the reciprocation of the lower, which is both an eternal divine reality (the Father gives Himself wholly to the Son, who then reciprocates this total giving) and a created one (God gives Himself to man, and man gives thanksgiving to God).