RamistThomist
Puritanboard Assessor
Rushdoony, Rousas J. Foundations of Social Order: Studies in the Creeds and Councils of the Early Church. Ross House Books: Vallecito, CA, 1998.
Do not let the subtitle fool you. This book is not an exposition of early church creeds. Rather, it is a reflection upon some themes in the early church for the purpose of attacking current humanism and statism. To be sure, many of Rushdoony’s insights are quite fresh. They just are not relevant to patristic theology. For all of my criticisms of this book, and there will be many, it is mostly well-written and engaging. When he was at his best (think before 1973), Rushdoony was a good writer.
The book begins and ends, at least structurally, around the Apostles’ Creed. The middle of the book is a discussion (not exposition) of some tangents related to the Councils.
The opening chapter illustrates the problem with Rushdoony, and this problem is in every book he wrote. He gets the first part of a fact correct and then proceeds to draw inferences that are not there. For example, he argues that the Creed (whether Apostles’ or Nicene; it does not matter) is a specific historical creed. It affirms history (Rushdoony 6). That is true. But from that claim he makes a number of assertions that simply are not in the creed. For Rushdoony, because God is maker, there is a history. Because history is ordained by God, there is an eschatology. And if there is an eschatology, it must be postmillennialism. Whether you think that is true or not, you cannot get postmillennialism from the Nicene Creed.
Nicea
Nicea was the victor of history over imagination. Or so he thinks. Rushdoony does a good job rebutting Arius and tying Arius’s views in with modern neo-orthodoxy. He clinches the argument, noting that Arius’s Jesus, not being divine, cannot reveal the Father (10). All of this is quite good, but we get no actual exposition of the Creed.
Constantinople 381
Constantinople was the triumph of certainty against skepticism. Again, we have the same methodological problem. The fathers at Constantinople, while they were most certain about their conclusions, were not concerned with skepticism.
Ephesus: The Worship of Man Condemned
Rushdoony starts off well. Nestorius saw the Word as united to man, but not become man. But what he gives with one hand, he takes away with another. He asserts, “Nestorius was a humanist whose basic religious motive was man-worship” (37). This is very close to psychologizing. How does Rushdoony even know Nestorius’s motives?
Chalcedon
He is a quiz question: what was the purpose of the Council of Chalcedon? You probably answered with something like “clarify Christ’s two natures.” Rushdoony, while affirming that, would probably say, or in fact did say, “To hand statism its major defeat” (53). Even on a historical level, this claim would not be true for many centuries. The Byzantine emperor was not a Jeffersonian farmer.
Stated another way, for Chalcedon, “If the two natures of Christ were confused, it meant that the door was open to the divinizing of human nature; man and the state were potentially divine” (54). That might be an interesting reflection from Chalceon, but it is not what Chalcedon was discussing.
The Athanasian Creed: The One and the Many
If he gets other chapters wrong, he actually does a decent job in this chapter. He begins by correctly noting this Creed has nothing to do with Athanasius. Its language is entirely Augustinian. He correctly notes, and the ESS advocates today would do well to hear, that “the only subordination in the Trinity is economic and relative, not essential” (74).
Constantinople II
Rushdoony makes some claims that are either confusing or factually wrong. For one, “the true universal is the Triune God” (86). Does he mean that other universals (justice, goodness, horse, etc) are ruled out? It is not clear. He then claims “the universals of Scholasticism became the Hellenic ideas or forms” (87). If someone makes a claim like this, he is obligated to prove it by examples. Rushdoony, true to form, does no such thing. In any case, he is wrong. Etienne Gilson (God and Philosophy) regularly proved that the Scholastics saw God as being; whereas we have being by analogy.
Filioque and Icons
Since Reformed in the 20th century did a mostly bad job on the Trinity, and few dealt with the Filioque, we must credit Rushdoony for calling attention to it.
As to iconoclasm, on one hand Rushdoony holds that images of Christ are valid. On the other hand, he rejects Nicea II, rightly noting its similarities to paganism.
Conclusion
Every notable thing about Rushdoony is in this volume, for better or worse. When he gets the facts right, he almost always draws the wrong conclusion. At other times he is simply wrong. The student would do well to read this volume after reading many peer-reviewed volumes by actual patristic scholars.
Do not let the subtitle fool you. This book is not an exposition of early church creeds. Rather, it is a reflection upon some themes in the early church for the purpose of attacking current humanism and statism. To be sure, many of Rushdoony’s insights are quite fresh. They just are not relevant to patristic theology. For all of my criticisms of this book, and there will be many, it is mostly well-written and engaging. When he was at his best (think before 1973), Rushdoony was a good writer.
The book begins and ends, at least structurally, around the Apostles’ Creed. The middle of the book is a discussion (not exposition) of some tangents related to the Councils.
The opening chapter illustrates the problem with Rushdoony, and this problem is in every book he wrote. He gets the first part of a fact correct and then proceeds to draw inferences that are not there. For example, he argues that the Creed (whether Apostles’ or Nicene; it does not matter) is a specific historical creed. It affirms history (Rushdoony 6). That is true. But from that claim he makes a number of assertions that simply are not in the creed. For Rushdoony, because God is maker, there is a history. Because history is ordained by God, there is an eschatology. And if there is an eschatology, it must be postmillennialism. Whether you think that is true or not, you cannot get postmillennialism from the Nicene Creed.
Nicea
Nicea was the victor of history over imagination. Or so he thinks. Rushdoony does a good job rebutting Arius and tying Arius’s views in with modern neo-orthodoxy. He clinches the argument, noting that Arius’s Jesus, not being divine, cannot reveal the Father (10). All of this is quite good, but we get no actual exposition of the Creed.
Constantinople 381
Constantinople was the triumph of certainty against skepticism. Again, we have the same methodological problem. The fathers at Constantinople, while they were most certain about their conclusions, were not concerned with skepticism.
Ephesus: The Worship of Man Condemned
Rushdoony starts off well. Nestorius saw the Word as united to man, but not become man. But what he gives with one hand, he takes away with another. He asserts, “Nestorius was a humanist whose basic religious motive was man-worship” (37). This is very close to psychologizing. How does Rushdoony even know Nestorius’s motives?
Chalcedon
He is a quiz question: what was the purpose of the Council of Chalcedon? You probably answered with something like “clarify Christ’s two natures.” Rushdoony, while affirming that, would probably say, or in fact did say, “To hand statism its major defeat” (53). Even on a historical level, this claim would not be true for many centuries. The Byzantine emperor was not a Jeffersonian farmer.
Stated another way, for Chalcedon, “If the two natures of Christ were confused, it meant that the door was open to the divinizing of human nature; man and the state were potentially divine” (54). That might be an interesting reflection from Chalceon, but it is not what Chalcedon was discussing.
The Athanasian Creed: The One and the Many
If he gets other chapters wrong, he actually does a decent job in this chapter. He begins by correctly noting this Creed has nothing to do with Athanasius. Its language is entirely Augustinian. He correctly notes, and the ESS advocates today would do well to hear, that “the only subordination in the Trinity is economic and relative, not essential” (74).
Constantinople II
Rushdoony makes some claims that are either confusing or factually wrong. For one, “the true universal is the Triune God” (86). Does he mean that other universals (justice, goodness, horse, etc) are ruled out? It is not clear. He then claims “the universals of Scholasticism became the Hellenic ideas or forms” (87). If someone makes a claim like this, he is obligated to prove it by examples. Rushdoony, true to form, does no such thing. In any case, he is wrong. Etienne Gilson (God and Philosophy) regularly proved that the Scholastics saw God as being; whereas we have being by analogy.
Filioque and Icons
Since Reformed in the 20th century did a mostly bad job on the Trinity, and few dealt with the Filioque, we must credit Rushdoony for calling attention to it.
As to iconoclasm, on one hand Rushdoony holds that images of Christ are valid. On the other hand, he rejects Nicea II, rightly noting its similarities to paganism.
Conclusion
Every notable thing about Rushdoony is in this volume, for better or worse. When he gets the facts right, he almost always draws the wrong conclusion. At other times he is simply wrong. The student would do well to read this volume after reading many peer-reviewed volumes by actual patristic scholars.
