Authoritarianism and Truth

Why there might be a unifying presupposition that explains almost everything

I have very rarely in my studies come across a statement that I can barely believe, a statement that as someone who has studied philosophy and religion just stops me in total incredulity. While I had to watch Focus on the Family’s Truth project for a class there were many things that I disagreed with, but when Dr. Del Tackett was giving his introduction to Philosophy, he floored me with just three words, “Plato was right.” No philosopher, no serious theologian, or even historian, would say without any reservation that Plato had gotten everything right. That Dr. Tackett did so and Focus on the Family then marketed their “worldview” curricula to Christian young people ostensibly says something profound about how Focus on the Family wanted people to think about truth.

I bring this up this week as the new podcast Sons of Patriarchy began, I liked what Kristin Kobez DuMetz did as an introduction to Doug Wilson’s ideology. However, I think the issue goes deeper. I also had a conversation on X where I said if you don’t understand how someone thinks about fundamental things like Authority and Truth you really will never understand how systemic ideological faults are. There is a reason Evangelical Christians are enamored with authoritarianism- they’ve been told that the very notion of what truth is, what God is, is authoritarian. Until people understand that, arguing for various doctrinal positions or political ideologies is merely shuffling a deck to find some common ground. Or we may be unknowingly moving from one “fundamentalism” to another.

Yes Let’s Talk About Plato… Again…

Why has American Evangelical Christianity embraced a Platonic ideal when it comes to truth? First, one has to understand how Plato’s way of perceiving truth works. The Greeks were obsessed with what makes X “thing” a “thing”. Whether it’s a chair, pen, burger, or anything else what they most wanted to know was what makes that thing a chair, pen, etc. Plato believed that what made that thing a “thing” was external and impressed upon that thing. That there was an outside notion, a “form” that literally was pressed upon whatever (In-formed) that made a chair a chair etc. However, this wasn’t simply a shared cultural definition. Plato believed the “Forms” were literal things, that they were eternal, immutable, and universal. The only way one could be “In-formed” was through revelation (see Plato’s Cave), to apprehend the beauty of the “Forms” then merely accept (submit) to their wisdom.

Of course, this was quickly appropriated by early Christians, namely Augustine, to explain how God and Truth worked. Augustine, “But if these reasons of all things to be created and [already] created are contained in the divine mind, and [if] there cannot be anything in the divine mind that is not eternal and unchangeable, and [if] Plato calls these principal reasons of things “Ideas”, [then] not only are there Ideas but they are true, because they are eternal and [always] stay the same way, and [are] unchangeable.” It’s also important to reiterate that these things are passively conceived, “… this argument (crucially) assumes that the intellect is passive in acquiring its concepts. According to this assumption, the intellect merely receives the cognition of its objects as it finds them.”

What does this lead Christian’s to in their understanding of truth?

1.     There is an eternal, unchanging, timeless and culturally independent source of all “truth”.

2.     Not only is this independent source of “truth” passively “received” but it is NOT understood as a matter of human reason.

3.     The ONLY appropriate response to this “truth” is acceptance and submission. To question the “truth” (reason) is to deny the very nature of the truth.

Why Aristotle Led to the Idea of America

It is in one sense ironic that Aristotle’s methodology is so radically different than Plato’s (as he was Plato’s student). For Aristotle what makes a “thing” a “thing” is inherent and essential to that thing. Moreover, the means to perceive “truth” was through reason, “By contrast, on the Aristotelian conception, the human mind actively processes the information it receives from experience through the senses.” One does not merely “apprehend” truth; but it must be observed, recognized, and reasoned through what “truth” is. This is the upheaval that ushered in the Enlightenment, science, and even the Reformation.

One of the key ideas of the Reformation was that people (the “Priesthood of Believers”) did not need another medium (like the Catholic Church) other than their own reason (Sola Scriptura) and the Holy Spirit, to come to faith and believe the truth. “Truth” was no longer the divine authority translated through the church but could be understood apart from the Catholic Church’s tradition and “authority”.

This eventually led to even kings rejecting the “divine authority” of the church and then (somewhat ironically) of people rejecting the “divine authority” of kings. As I’ve written before what makes America’s founding so unique isn’t that it was founded on “God given rights”. Rather what those “rights” were- the “God given” reason people have to be able to discern for themselves what governance is best suited to them. In essence that people can reason whether an ”authority” is beneficial to them or not.

Kings vs. Democracies

There has been a tension politically ever since the idea of self-governance came to be that the very “liberal” idea is inherently anti “Christian”. It makes sense, if the “Church” for millennia based its “authority” on a kind of “Platonic” revelation that simply needed to be submitted to, it makes the idea that people not only have the right to reject that authority but can think for themselves it then seems antithetical to “Biblical truth”.

This is why arguments for some kind of “divine right” authority have almost always relied on some kind of apprehension of Divine Revelation. Whether it be a “natural” appeal to family and the “Patriarchs” (Filmer’s Patriarcha), or Women Lying in Ponds Distributing Swords, Divine Right Authority needs Platonic acceptance of something imposed on the world. What’s more, the king’s “Authority” is “In-Formed” by God’s Authority and is representative if not a mediator of God.

This is why, I would argue, that when the idea of “Democratic transactional authority” comes into being (largely thanks to American liberal democracy) it is viewed with suspicion if not downright antipathy by Conservative Christians. People cannot by their own reason come to an independent idea or translation because if you fundamentally view “truth” as being eternal, immutable, et al, as stated previously someone coming to an alternative belief through their reason fundamentally denies the presupposed reality of what you have taken to be “truth”.

There’s a Reason Authoritarians are Platonists and Evangelicals have been Trained to View “Truth” Through a Platonic Lens

There is a reason Focus on the Family wanted to teach multiple generations of children “Plato was right”. There is a reason, beyond ideological affinities that Doug Wilson has moved from the “fringe” of Evangelicalism to being revealed as more “mainstream” than many historians might initially think. The reason is that Platonism and authoritarianism are symbiotic beliefs. In order to have a “Divine Right” authority that is sovereignly revealed to which the only response is submission you have to have a presupposed belief that truth (and indeed the nature of God) works that way.

In order to prescribe a certain culture as “Biblical” that is normative apart from people’s culture or experience or even reason, you simply have to put your prescription in Platonic form. You must say that whatever cultural preferences you are prescribing somehow transcend a mere cultural moment where a myriad of factors helped to make that “normal”. There MUST be a “form” for marriage, family, gender, sex that is eternal, immutable, and unquestionable. It’s a “chicken AND egg” proposition, “What we perceive as ‘normal’ must be representative of the eternal and immutable and therefore must simply be submitted to as ‘truth’ divinely revealed. Those questioning it simply are either unenlightened or irrational.”

Thus, the majority of Evangelical literature (including “worldview” apologetics aimed at young people), isn’t doing what it claims to do, namely “teaching you how to think”. Rather, it is attempting to convince people that what they already believe is rational somehow and therefore authoritative. Christian apologetics has for decades tried to make belief/faith rational and then made the leap that because it seems rational it must therefore be the product of an eternal/immutable “truth”.

The Problem: We All Take Every Authority on Faith

The problem that lies at the heart of these “Platonic” assumptions is that people simply do not merely act as passive recipients to information. Culture, education, family, socio-economic status, and a plethora of other factors affect how we receive and in fact choose what to consider “authoritative.”

Martin Heidegger is one of the first truly “post-modern” philosophers and he broke down the presumption of both “religious” and “modern” philosophy. If one were to imagine a man reading a church bulletin on Sunday, we would assume he believes in “truth” and in “God”. That “faith” takes God supposedly revealed in the Scriptures, interpreted by priests, and communicated by the church secretary as “true” in what he reads in the bulletin. The “modern” man assumes some form of “objective” truth as well. However, this is mediated by science (reason), interpreted by scientists, and finally communicated to him through journalists. Heidegger pointed out that these two men are functionally doing the same thing. They are taking something as “authoritative” even “objective” but that they are receiving that “objective” truth through multiple media and even translators. The “religious” man is choosing to believe what he believes is authoritative, and the “modern” man chooses what he sees as authoritative. It’s important to note in both cases in one sense both men in reality have less choice than they might imagine (again, culture, education, family history etc.) but they do have a choice. I once said to a fellow Seminary student that while we believed in “truth” (even that some things might be “objective”), we chose what Seminary to go to. In a real way we all, both the student body and the faculty, congregated around what we believed to be true. We could just as well have gone to a Lutheran, Methodist or Catholic Seminary. Thus, as I jokingly said to him (to his great philosophical annoyance), what we’ve decided to consider “objective” is ultimately “subjective”.

The problem with the way most Christian’s have been taught and discipled as to how “truth” and “God” work, is they are actively told to ignore their participation in what they believe (this is especially true for “Reformed” Calvinists). What so many are taught isn’t that they are able to discern and believe. But rather, it’s not that what you believe, informed is a matter of faith, rather it is that you are among the “chosen” to see “reality” as it truly is. You have exited the cave of “modernism/liberalism/secularism/”Wokeness” and perceive rightly the true nature of the universe. Therefore, everyone else must submit to your perception of “true” reality even if they cannot rationalize it. Moreover, society is now divided into the “enlightened” (you and those like you) and the “deceived”.

Where this is exceedingly problematic is while people are actively choosing what they read, listen to, watch, and believe they are being told that what they are doing is merely accepting reality. Sadly, this “reality” in many cases has become befouled with rhetoric, ideology and straight up lies. To go back to my Heidegger example, the Newsmax consumer and the PBS watcher are functionally doing the same thing, yet it is the Newsmax consumer that is more likely to believe what they see as “objective” truth needing little discernment, to be taken as a matter of “faith” more than “fact”. This is because they have been trained to receive “truth” this way. Again, their ideology (or theology in many cases) means they and those they trust have a greater perception of reality that is Divinely given. In other words, Conservatives from a bedrock philosophical perspective are primed to reject factual evidence, reason, and alternative narratives in favor of an “objective truth” they have been taught that they do not get a choice to believe in.

It's not Just About an Election Either

Where this “Platonic” view of “truth” and “authority” really comes to a crisis point for the Christian is in many respects you don’t need Jesus. This was the crisis of early Christian heresies such as Arianism. A “Platonic” God the Father that is Omnipotent, Eternal, Omnipresent, and Omniscient? No problem. Jesus as God? Jesus as human is none of those things and yet is “the exact imprint of the invisible God.”

This is the same crisis for Doug Wilson, Bill Gothard and many authoritarians like them encounter. Wilson in particular has had problems with being unable to see God the Father as “Authority” (in an eternal and immutable way) and Jesus as equal to the Father. This also explains the promulgation of Eternal Subordination of the Son theology. It isn’t so much that there must be a “hierarchy”, but that God and the way they want “truth” to be understood makes their idea of God and an “eternally” submitted Jesus pretty much necessary.

What hurts people over time isn’t simply that they are being taught a way of viewing what “truth” is, they are desperately trying to get their lives to be “Informed” in ways that are simply unnatural. They are being told that there is only “one” way to do families, their marriage, even discipline their children. This is done regardless of who God has made them to be, what their marriage and life look like, or even what personalities their children have. We’re only now beginning to wrestle with the damage parents were told to inflict on their children because there supposedly was “one” “Godly” way to be as a family. What’s more those children were rarely educated to use wisdom. Children weren’t being taught “discernment” they were being intentionally taught to discriminate. People all across Evangelicalism are being taught to dismiss and deride other perspectives and information simply because it doesn’t support their presupposed ideology.

Unless we understand that it isn’t just about doctrine or hermeneutics, politics or preferences, that it comes down to what we believe about Truth and God Himself we’ll just be trying to convince people certain beliefs are “wrong”. And they still will have authoritarian tendencies.

(Thanks for reading! I’m always grateful for those who lend me their time. If you want to get my latest please subscribe and consider supporting me in making this content. If you’d like to gift a one-time gift of coffee or dinner, that would also be appreciated https://venmo.com/u/Jason-Mallow-1 Lord willing I’ll see you again next week)