Journal: Journal of the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies
Volume: JIRBS 06:1 (NA 2019)
Article: The Superiority Of Pre-Critical Metaphysics: Why We Need To Recover Christian Platonism
Author: Craig A. Carter

JIRBS 6 (2019) p. 5

The Superiority Of Pre-Critical Metaphysics:
Why We Need To Recover Christian Platonism

Craig A. Carter^*

^* Craig A. Carter is Professor of Theology at Tyndale University College & Seminary, Toronto, and author of Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis.

What is “Christian Platonism”? Why is it important? Why do we need to recover it? Many of those who have read my book, Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition,1 as well as those who have heard me talk about my upcoming book defending the trinitarian classical theism of the Great Tradition as the teaching of Scripture, have wondered why I insist on arguing for what I call “Christian Platonism.” The following is my attempt to answer that question as succinctly as possible. To do this, I must explain my take on the following topics as clearly as possible:

• The Nature of Theology and the Role of Metaphysics in Christian Theology
• The Church Fathers and Platonism
• The Impact of the Enlightenment on Christian Theology
• The Liberal Project as a Response to the Enlightenment
• The Twentieth Century Revival of Trinitarianism as Revisionist
• The Recovery of Historic Orthodoxy and the Role of Metaphysics

To cover all this ground in one short essay is a tall order. However, the essential thesis I wish to defend is that the church fathers Christianized the Platonist tradition to create a synthesis of faith and reason, which is integral to historic Nicene orthodoxy, and this synthesis has broken down over the past few centuries due to the pressures of modernity. The Christian Platonist tradition emerged as

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a result of church fathers such as Augustine utilizing biblical revelation concerning Christ and the metaphysical implications of Nicene orthodoxy to correct the philosophical views then current in the tradition stemming from Plato and Aristotle. This process continued for about a thousand years culminating in the great synthesis of Thomas Aquinas. In modern textbooks this tradition is termed scholastic realism and is usually identified as having originated in the Thomistic synthesis of biblical revelation and Aristotle. Thomism is one example of Christian Platonism, but so are the Reformed Scholasticism of Francis Turretin and the Puritanism of John Owen. There are Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant versions of Christian Platonism. So, a term like Thomism is too narrow to replace Christian Platonism and so is Augustinianism. Yet both Thomism and Augustinianism would be types of Christian Platonism. We often stress the differences b...