Interesting Thoughts on Liberal Theology from 'Lord of Spirits'
Fr. Stephen: As I say that, there are a certain number of the more-instructed who probably blanched, because they heard shades or the shade of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel when I said that. There's a ghost that haunts a lot of people. The reason I said "in a sense" is that when we say that, we don't mean what Hegel meant when he said similar things. So Hegel— When Hegel talks about "spirit," Hegel is actually very clear: he means the Holy Spirit. Hegel was a Lutheran, and if you don't understand that Hegel is a Lutheran— self-described. He always insisted he was an orthodox Lutheran. And if you don't understand that he's a Lutheran, you won't understand Hegel correctly, because he's really Lutheran. But he means the Holy Spirit.
But Hegel worked in the opposite direction. Hegel understood history as having a through-line, and Hegel is vastly influential late 19th, throughout the 20th century, in theology, in philosophy, just about everything. History has this through-line, it's going somewhere, it's progressing in a direction. Of course, 19th-century Germany and 19th-century Lutheranism were the peak of that! At least for that point. He didn't think for now it was going to be a valley. He didn't think history was at an end, but they were the peak then.
Fr. Andrew: Best so far. [Laughter]
Fr. Stephen: But that meant that whatever unfolds for him, whatever unfolds in history, the unfolding of history was the unfolding of the Holy Spirit and therefore the unfolding of God.
Fr. Andrew: Yeah, so the times equals the work of the Holy Spirit.
Fr. Stephen: So he could, having helped found the University of Berlin, see Napoleon there wrecking the place, and say, "There goes history." See Napoleon as history incarnate, because he was the one shaping what was going to come next for Europe, Hegel saw, which meant for Hegel that he was being guided by the Holy Spirit.
Fr. Andrew: Oof.
Fr. Stephen: Right. Which is not what we're saying. [Laughter] We do, however, as Orthodox Christians, believe that the history of the Church is going somewhere.
Fr. Andrew: Yes.
Fr. Stephen: We don't believe that any given generation is the peak of it, despite how sometimes you hear some Orthodox Christians talk, as if the fourth century was the denouement, or at least much better than now. [Laughter] But we look through the history of the Church to find these places that are authentically part of holy Tradition. We look through the writings. We look to find these places that constitute genuine parts of the Tradition, and we reject other places. There are more robber councils than Ecumenical Councils. There are a lot of bishops and even patriarchs who aren't saints.
Fr. Andrew: Yeah, most of them, actually. That's most of them. [Laughter]
Fr. Stephen: And emperors you have an even worse batting average! So we identify these particulars as being places where people are syngerizing with the Holy Spirit: particular people, places, writing, events. We don't take the sweep as being automatically inspired.
But the reason I wanted to spend a minute on this, with Hegel, is I think most people now, at least in the circles of people who listen to this show, or at least who aren't hate-listening to this show, I don't think people fundamentally understand how liberal theology works, and this can give us a window into how liberal theology works. Liberal theology is in keeping with Hegel, the Hegel we're rejecting on this show, just to be clear. Not promoting liberal theology, but we need to understand liberal theology and how it works.
The reason I'm just saying "liberal theology"— I'm not saying "liberal" as opposed to "conservative." I'm saying "liberal" in the sense of post-Enlightenment, that doesn't think the Enlightenment was a bad thing. [Laughter] I'm talking about post-Enlightenment theology; I'm talking about— Well, let's get to brass tacks. Liberal theology, what it does—and I'm not identifying this— I'm not talking about liberal Protestantism or Catholicism or even Orthodoxy, because there are people in all of those groups— I think fewer of them in Orthodoxy than the other two right now. I don't know about proportionally with Roman Catholicism. Liberal Protestantism is certainly the biggest liberal theological movement, but there are a lot of liberal Catholics, but the Roman Catholic Church is awful big, so I don't know percentages. There are relatively few, but there are some within the Orthodox Church. And there of course are some doing liberal theology stuff who don't identify with any of those, and whatever.
But liberal theology essentially, like Hegel, takes whatever point in time they stand at as being the apex of history to that point. This means— And I've critiqued it this way on the show before, but I'm going to do it again. This means that liberal theology is always innately chauvinist, at least somewhat racist, colonial, because, again, you have to take your culture and civilization as being the apex, which means the other ones who might disagree with you are somehow primitive, backward, unenlightened, etc. So there's always overtones of that, always overtones of that within liberal theology. But you take your point as being the apex of history to that point, and you ascribe the developments that have led to that apex as being the work of the Holy Spirit.
So if now we, European-derived Western culture, have a new understanding of gender or sexuality or biological sex or any other ethical, moral issue of who God is, whatever—whatever has developed historically, in this Western—dare I say often white—culture, whatever is developed in that culture, this is the work of the Holy Spirit that has brought us to this, and therefore it is endorsed, and we re-shape our theology based on this. So a new understanding of gender that arises within culture and society is, for them—the work of God has brought that about within society.
Fr. Andrew: Yeah… This is where you hear people use language like "the right side of history."
Fr. Stephen: So it doesn't matter if the person questioning that is from the same culture but who says, "Hey, I don't this historical development—" they're doing more like what we're advocating for, which is saying, "Well, no, we have to sift through this and say what is from God and what isn't"; or if it's someone from another culture, who might have another skin color, might be from another continent. It doesn't matter who's questioning it: whoever's questioning it is innately backwards, is innately rejecting the work of the Holy Spirit in the world.
Fr. Andrew: Yeah, this is also where you hear people say things like: "It's 2023!" Like that's an argument! "It's current year!"
Fr. Stephen: Yeah, but you have to understand, this is their understanding. And this is why trying to take any kind of approach with them, of "well, but this previous understanding…" or "this thing from the past," no matter what it is, fundamentally doesn't work, because they have this underlying presupposition that their culture now at this point in time is the apex of all human cultures and civilization and that God has brought it there. This is why, when I— when you hear me critiquing liberal theology, it's often from what sounds like a liberal perspective, like I'll say to people who express these ideas— They'll be attacking, for example, African bishops in their own church for not going along. What's nice about me using that example is there are at least three different denominations I could be talking about.
Fr. Andrew: [Laughter] That's right! Yes, right.
Fr. Stephen: When they, as white, bourgeois Americans or Europeans, attack African bishops and call them "backwards" and all of these things for not being on-board with their new liberal consensus, I will call them white supremacists, because that's what that is.
Fr. Andrew: Colonialism.
Fr. Stephen: Right? That is colonialism. It's: all the things they claim to hate, they're actually doing. But that's why I— If people hear me critique it that way, I know some people might get confused, but that's why I critique it that way, because that's the only critique that can function on their own presuppositions. That's the only critique that's valid from their— based on their own presuppositions. Any critique from tradition is going to fall flat on its face, because they've substituted—instead of our understanding of tradition, they have this alien understanding of history, so trying to talk tradition doesn't work. That's the only kind of critique—
And that's because, ultimately, that line of thinking is an ouroboros. It's a snake eating its own tail. It can't— Its first principles are incoherent. That's why you can critique their beliefs based on their beliefs, because they don't fit together. But so, we add that at the end this is the deviant view of how the Spirit works and how Tradition works, that we need to be aware of, because I don't think we can have productive dialogue with people who have imbibed liberal theology and who are coming at things from that perspective when we come at them from a completely alien perspective that shares none of their presuppositions. I don't think there's any way for that to be productive, other than, you know, maybe just saying, "You have to abandon everything you think you know. Change everything," which may work sometimes, and maybe if you show them how self-refuting their own ideas are, maybe that'll help that happen, but there's a fundamental lack of communication between those who have fallen prey to that kind of liberal theology and the rest of us. That it would be good for their sakes if we could find a bridge to try to bring them back to the truth.
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