The Wild Wild West, The Sirens of Rome, and the Hermeneutics of Christian Platonism 

July is over and August has come. Which means only one thing—football is starting. All across Texas, teenage boys have spent these summer months running in the sweltering heat and executing dozens of drills, often without a football in sight. To the uninitiated, an afternoon run on a Wednesday in June might seem totally unrelated to a touchdown catch on a Friday night in September. But anyone who has played knows that hard physical training in the summer is the foundation for success in the fall. In fact, the whole of the summer training regimen was aimed at something beyond itself—the football season. So it is with Christian Platonism. While most of the ink spilled about Christian Platonism has to do with metaphysics (that is, a theory about the structure of reality), the discussion of metaphysics is aimed beyond itself. Metaphysics is aimed toward biblical interpretation, or hermeneutics. The reason you should care about metaphysics is because it will change the way you read the Bible.  This article will summarize and evaluate what I believe to be the ultimate^[1] claim of Christian Platonism—the claim that we must return to premodern spiritual readings of Scripture based on a Platonist metaphysic.^[2]

1. Ultimate in the sense that it follows from the other claims (i.e., the metaphysical ones) and is the end towards which those metaphysical claims are oriented.

2. For a larger overview of Christian Platonism and the philosophical concepts that undergird it, see Robert Lyon’s two essays, “What is Christian Platonism? (Part 1): An Introduction in Three Steps” and “Christian Platonism: A Preliminary Critique.”

Christian Platonism

Before examining the hermeneutics of Christian Platonism, it’s important to orient ourselves to the project as a whole. The Christian Platonism position can be broken down into three basic steps:

1. The modern church has lost both the metaphysic and hermeneutic of the early church and needs to recover them

2. The metaphysic of the early church was Christian Platonism

3. A Christian Platonism metaphysic necessitates a spiritual (i.e., an allegorical) hermeneutic

This birds-eye summary demonstrates two things: 1) multiple branches of Christian Platonism (e.g., metaphysics, hermeneutics, etc.) are interconnected and dependent on one another, and 2) the whole movement is ultimately oriented towards hermeneutics. While the basic claims of Christian Platonism have to do with metaphysics, their telos is hermeneutics. The goal of Christian Platonism is that you would read your Bible differently.

Reading Our Bibles Wrongly

A number of Christian Platonists argue that we need to return to premodern interpretations of Scripture. ^[3] That is, we need to read the Bible the way that Christians did before “modernity,” which began in the early 1600s.^[4] Such premodern interpretations, they claim, were not concerned with understanding and applying the “meaning” of the text which the author intended. Instead, premodern interpreters wanted to encounter the mystical, or better yet, to encounter the sacramental presence of Christ in the text, which they did by reading the text for its spiritual senses. Modern reading of the Bible, by contrast, is not spiritual. In particular, there are two modern approaches to reading Scripture that Christian Platonists find deficient. Historical-critical interpretation is only concerned with getting “behind” the text to reconstruct the history of “what really happened,” and thus it diminishes the word of God to a mere vehicle for the scholar’s historical study. On the other hand, grammatical-historical interpretation aims at understanding the intention of Scripture’s human authors but in doing so it too makes bible reading an intellectual exercise rather than a spiritual one. The problem, as Christian Platonists see it, is that we have forgotten how to read our Bibles spiritually.

3. See, for example Craig Carter, Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018); Hans Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017) among others.

4. Modernity is most commonly considered to have begun in 1641, with Rene Descartes’ publication of Meditations on the First Philosophy. However, the ideas that led to the philosophical revolution we call modernity began much earlier and are often traced back to the thirteenth century with William of Occam and Duns Scotus.

Allegory and The Fourfold Sense

How then do Christian Platonists propose that we recover “spiritual” reading? By returning to premodern approaches which were more concerned with encountering Christ’s sacramental presence in the text than understanding either what really happened or what the author intended.^[5] The method by which premodern interpreters sought to arrive at such spiritual encounters with Christ is known as the quadriga, or fourfold method, and this is the approach most contemporary Christian Platonists think the church today should recover. The fourfold method involves four steps, corresponding to four layers of meaning: the literal, the allegorical, the tropological (i.e., moral), and the anagogical (i.e., eschatological). For them, the literal meaning of the text is what one reads for primarily, but this literal reading ought to drive the Christian to search for deeper spiritual truths which are found in the allegorical, tropological, and anagogical readings. It is in these three “spiritual readings” that readers sacramentally encounter the presence of Christ which is mystically embodied in the text.

5. The notion of Christ’s “sacramental presence” in the text is repeatedly emphasized by Hans Boersma (an Anglican priest and professor), although this language has been picked up by a number of others. See Boersma, Five Things Theologians Wish Biblical Scholars Knew (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021), 38; Scripture as Real Presence, 115–116; “God as Embodied: Christology and Participation in Saint Maximus the Confessor,” St. Vladimir’s Quarterly 67.1–2 (2023): 147–169, 153; Carter, Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition, 154.

Just what are these four senses? And how do they relate to one another? In simple definitions, the literal sense is a text’s historical meaning, the allegorical sense is its connection to Christ or his church, the tropological sense is any moral teaching that can be derived from it, and the anagogical sense is the meaning the text takes on when it is read in light of the end of all things.

Crucially, while a text may only have one literal sense^[6] it may have a great number of allegorical, moral, and eschatological meanings. These other meanings must be drawn via some connection to the literal sense, but the nature of that connection is not agreed upon.^[7] In fact, to specify the exact nature of this connection or the exact method by which one arrives at the allegorical sense might undermine the whole process, since allegorical interpretation is more of a contemplative exercise than a technique.^[8] Thus, any reading which is connected to the literal sense, considers Christ or the church, and is spiritually edifying, may be considered a legitimate allegorical meaning. Tropological and anagogical readings proceed in much the same way, except that these contemplate moral and eschatological aims connected to the literal sense. Alternatively, the tropological and anagogical senses may be considered as the moral and eschatological implications of a chosen allegorical sense, such that these depend on the allegorical reading rather than proceeding directly from the literal.

Allow me to provide a few examples:

1. An interpreter wielding the fourfold method might approach a story like Noah’s ark (Genesis 6–9) and say that the literal sense is that God judged the whole earth but saved Noah and his family in a boat, the allegorical sense is that Christ is the ark in whom believers are saved from God’s coming wrath, the tropological sense is to flee God’s wrath, be baptized, and enter into the ark of Christ, and the anagogical sense is that believers will inherit the new heavens and new earth just as Noah inherited the world after the flood.^[9]
2. Another interpreter might read the Septuagint and Vulgate rendering of Song of Songs 1:2 “your breasts are better than wine” and say that the literal sense is that Solomon’s lover was carnally intoxicated with his body, the allegorical sense is that the believer loves the teaching of Christ more than the ‘wine’ of the Old Testament, the moral sense is to lean on the ‘breast’ of that same teaching, and the anagogical sense is that one day all teaching will pass away as the soul contemplates God directly without any intermediary.^[10]
3. Still a third interpreter might read the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37) and say that literally it is a story about a man who nearly died going down to Jericho and was rescued, but allegorically it is about Adam, the first man, who was assailed by sin and Satan and left for dead, not helped by the ministry of the Old Testament (the priest or Levite), before being rescued by Christ, who placed him in the inn of the church.^[11]
4. Yet a fourth interpreter might take the story of Jael’s killing Sisera (Jdg 4:17–21) as an allegory for feminist sexual liberation, although I will spare the reader the details of what such an interpretation might look like.

Obviously, with such a wide range of potential interpretations, there must be some controls on allegory or a text can be turned into a wax nose which can be shaped to mean whatever the interpreter wants it to mean. Christian Platonists recognize this, and have proposed a few guardrails. Two of these we have just mentioned—one, there must be some connection between the spiritual senses and the literal sense, and two, the reading must be spiritually edifying (a subjective guardrail). However, by far the most important control for Christian Platonists is the accordance the reading has with traditional church teaching and/or its acceptance in the history of the church in the early church councils (Nicaea, Chalcedon, etc.). An allegory which accords with the church’s “great tradition” is a good one, and an allegory which violates this tradition is a bad one. Readings which undermine the church’s tradition must be rejected even if they are methodologically no different than a legitimate reading.^[12] Thus, according to Christian Platonists, those contemporary readers desiring to read Scripture well should interpret with the great tradition. That is, they should steep themselves in the early creeds and in the worldview of the church fathers until this worldview colors and shapes all their contemplation on Scripture and the spiritual meanings they draw from it. In other words, they should become Christian Platonists.

12. Hans Boersma, for example, argues that this is precisely what occurred with heretical Arian readings of Proverbs 8. Both Arius and Pro-Nicene fathers allegorized Lady Wisdom as Jesus Christ, but Arius refused to allegorize the word “created” in 8:22 as “begotten,” and thus Arius claimed that Christ was a created being. The Arian reading was illegitimate, however, because it denied the church’s consensus that Christ is eternally divine, even before he took on flesh in the incarnation. Thus, while Arius and the Pro-Nicene fathers followed similar methods, only the Pro-Nicene fathers did so under the guidance of the church’s consensus so only their reading was legitimate. While this footnote is an accurate representation of Boersma’s argument, Boersma fails to acknowledge that the Arians also allegorized Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8 and he only focuses on their failure to allegorize the word “begotten.” Failing to acknowledge this fact allows Boersma to polemically charge those who insist on literal readings with reading like Arians. See Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence, 161–171.

Evaluation and Critique

While there is something to be said for the concerns of many Christian Platonist scholars that we read Scripture spiritually and not just historically, there are a number of problems with their proposal. The most obvious concern is the question of how we can know what the Bible teaches. If there are multiple allegorical meanings of any given text, how are we to know whether a given interpretation accords with what the text teaches or is a misuse of the passage? This is a vital question, particularly when we are speaking of a book which bears divine authority and which we are bound to believe, obey, and stake our lives on. If we say with the Christian Platonists that the tradition of the church establishes right readings, then the question becomes—which tradition? While there may be a basic consensus on the two natures of Christ, no such consensus exists on justification, church government, or baptism. If the tradition is to guide us on these issues, there must either be one authoritative tradition which supersedes the others, or one living voice of the tradition which adjudicates between the competing traditions of the past. In other words, tradition can only serve as a guardrail to allegorical interpretation if you have a magisterium—an authoritative clearing house that decides what traditions are right and which are wrong. For Roman Catholic exegetes this is the Vatican, which possesses the authority to speak for the tradition and establishes which views belong to the accepted tradition and which belong to other non-accepted traditions. Evangelicals, however, can appeal to no such magisterial authority. Thus, if evangelicals are to rely on allegorical interpretation to establish these doctrines, they are left with two choices: either allow “every man to do what is right in his own eyes” (Judg. 21:25) or heed the sirens’-call and convert to a church with a magisterium—both of which are unbiblical options. To put it another way, the path of Christian Platonism ultimately leads to the Wild Wild West or the Arches of Rome.

The Platonists are right about one thing, however. It remains essential to read the Bible “spiritually”—but not quite in their way. One can (and must) read the Bible spiritually within the literal sense rather than by allegorizing. Much of the hermeneutical angst which has facilitated the move back to the fourfold quadriga method of interpretation is due to a improper constricting of the “literal sense” to the bare facts of history (as in historical criticism). If one is left with the choice to either read Scripture for mere historical facts like a liberal academic or read allegorically for practical edification, it is easy to see why so many are converting to Christian Platonism! However, the best understanding of the literal sense is not just the historical data the text presents, but the meaning which the original author conveyed^[13]as well as the whole array of its implications and applications. Some of these implications are developed by the Holy Spirit and later human authors of Scripture within the canon,^[14] and other implications bear direct significance on our own lives. The meaning of a given text is singular but carries many implications. Thus, when we read Scripture, God still addresses us via the significance and implications of the text. Exegesis is not simply a historical excavation, but an encounter with the living God. Yet the way God addresses us is by the implications that naturally arise from the texts’ singular, intended meaning. In this way, rightly practiced grammatical-historical interpretation is spiritual reading. It is an encounter with the voice of the living God who addresses his church in the meaning of Scripture and its implications. Moreover, these implications are exegetically verifiable—for an implication to be legitimate, it must follow from the meaning which the author conveyed in his text. In this way, Scripture retains its authoritative, objective voice and operates as the final authority on doctrine and life without requiring the intervention of a magisterium.

13. By the meaning the author conveyed, I mean what is typically meant by “that which the author intended.” However, I use the word conveyed rather than intended in recognition of the fact that we do not have access to the inner psychological state of now-dead authors, but we do have access to their public speech acts in the text. Cf. Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in this Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 159–162.

14. The process of recognizing the way the Holy Spirit develops these implications through the biblical authors across the canon is what we call “biblical theology.” These implications often take on new and increased significance in light of new acts and revelation of God, and thus there is real development and escalation in biblical theology as the history of redemption unfolds.

Conclusion

Christian Platonism may seem like an erudite ivory tower philosophical fad that is passing through the seminaries, and perhaps it is. But the heated discussions of seminary classrooms trickle down to the pew as soon as the next graduating class of seminarians are given pulpits. Why is it so important to resist Christian Platonism? Because at the end of the day, we want to understand our Bible better, and we want to have confidence to do so. Christian Platonism undermines confidence that we can understand the meaning of the text, and it subtly drives us toward either edifying relativism or Roman Catholicism (or another top down hierarchical church structure). All Christians, and especially pastors, are responsible for ensuring that the Bible continues to speak with authority and clarity in their church. Christian Platonism, however, asks that we surrender either the clarity of the Bible (for multiple allegorical meanings) or its authority (to popes, councils, prophets, or some other highest interpreter). Faithful Christianity demands that we do neither, and thus, the allegorical hermeneutic of Christian Platonism must be rejected.