Ontology as a Matter of Theology

Defending the nature of being

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth […] Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:1, 26-27)

For those who have been following this blog for some time, you have likely noticed that I use this platform to promote and defend orthodox, confessional Lutheran theology. I particularly focus on Lutheran liturgy, its history and importance, and its applications to contemporary life. 

The liturgy is certainly important. It is a hallmark of Lutheran theology. Without it, Lutheran theology simply could not be. Yet we must also remember that other topics exist, some of which are equally—or more—important.

Our theological focus should not only be liturgical, and our religious paradigm should extend far beyond the compartmentalization and recitation of Scripture verses. Satan tirelessly attacks the Church, even with her most cherished possession–Scripture. The devil is keenly aware of how God’s Word may be twisted in order to encourage us to question the nature of God, how God works in and amongst His people, and how we ought to understand what God reveals to us in His Word.

Such has been the way in which Satan assaults the Church. The Early Church dealt with recurring heresies that were Christological in nature. These heresies largely denied the divinity of Jesus, as well as questioned the nature of God and the relationship between the Three Persons of the Trinity. 

After the Early Church successfully quashed these Trinitarian and Christological heresies, Satan adjusted his focus from the nature of God to the ways in which God works, namely how God comes to us and allows us to come to him. Satan confused the Church’s soteriological, sacramental, and ecclesiological theology. The Reformation largely countered these attacks on God’s means of grace and how He works in the Church, and the Church of the Augsburg Confession continues steadfast in His Word.

Having been squandered on both fronts, Satan then shifted his focus to an entirely different front. He now focuses less on the nature of God and how He works in and through His people, and more on the nature of mankind itself. Beginning with the Enlightenment, Satan corrupted man’s understanding of himself, the order of creation, and how God created man. 

The devil’s anthropological assaults have produced ideologies such as social justice, feminism, gender theory, sexual identity, etc., all of which have negatively influenced some of the Church’s most powerful teachers. These dangerous and pervasive ideologies have confused and even led away many Christians—and the Church seems slow to respond.

Ancient thinkers like Aristotle, however far from the Truth they may have been, all understood that there is a universal nature of being. This is known as ontology, a philosophical branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. Though consensus is limited concerning the various proposed ontological categories, including substantial and non-substantial properties, almost every ontological philosopher has acknowledged that there is a tangible, or at least recognizable, and unchanging nature of being.

Ever since the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, this has no longer been the case. Now, not even those within the Church’s ranks can agree whether an unchanging nature of being exists. God’s ordered and authoritative creation is now “fluid.” The order of creation is merely a societal dichotomy that does not properly explain how God created the world. Some disagree that there is an order of creation at all. Many have attempted to influence the Church’s theology to reflect the degrading and demoralizing ideologies that currently take hold of almost every political and social institution in the West. 

In conjunction with this widespread apostasy, churches throughout the West have renounced the orthodox faith and doctrines that they inherited from our forefathers in the faith, in favor of unbiblical ideologies like social justice and gender dysphoria. Many denominations endorse homosexuality, abortion, “anti-racism,” and many other un-Christian teachings. Some of these churches even ordain women, homosexuals, and the like.

Because the fight against these ontological horrors is not apparently (or recognizably) theological in nature, the Church has largely been unwilling to dart to the frontlines, armed with the Word of God and armored by the Spirit, to fight this inherently theological battle. This fight is indeed theological—it is one of the most consequential theological battles in the history of the Church.

Satan has long exploited the faults of the human mind to tear us apart from the Creator of the Universe. His attacks have, until now, focused largely on the incomprehensible nature of God, and the Church stood firm. Now, Satan uses an even deadlier trick—to twist man’s understanding and perception of himself. By enticing man to question every ontological fact, even the very nature of mankind’s very essence, the devil has successfully torn us apart from the fundamental truth that God made us to have community with each other and communion with Him. In destroying our ontological understanding of reality, mankind no longer finds purpose or truth in anything—including God.

Ontology is a matter of theology—and one of the most important. If the Church cannot agree on the fundamental nature of being, then all other doctrinal disputes will be for naught. This is not merely a matter of boys being girls or men being attracted to other men, though these are certainly worthwhile discussions. Rather, this is about understanding how God created us—how He created us to be, what He created us to do, and what we fundamentally are as human beings.

The Enlightenment era’s two largest bodies of thought were rationalism and empiricism, both of which seek to understand the nature of reality through purely scientific or experiential ways. Rationalism appeals to reason as the chief source of knowledge and understanding, while empiricism appeals primarily to sensory experience or empirical analysis. While these philosophical subsets were to some degree opposed to one another, both worldviews disregard the supremacy of the Scriptures as the chief source of knowledge and agree that objectivity is not so easily understood.

Throughout the Enlightenment, a large-scale religious regression occurred that saw the Church lose thousands of members. Many considered themselves Christian, though this identity was nominal at best; these groups and individuals held to rationalist and empiricist ideals that pushed God aside. There no longer existed certainty in the Scripture—everything was subjected to reason.

These unbiblical philosophies led to the rise of postmodernism, which is purported to question the fundamental elements of Western philosophy and challenge the idea that an objective reality exists. Indeed it has; postmodernism rejects the certainty of knowledge and denies the existence of an objective morality. 

Unfortunately, postmodernism has also been taken to its worst practical extreme, and there no longer exists a necessary and common understanding of the meaning of reality or a shared expression of purpose. Postmodernism has gone far beyond questioning the mere content of the West’s philosophical understanding of reality, now denying the very existence of reality itself. Hence, a sort of “post-postmodernism” thrives today.

Thus, boys can be girls and men are encouraged to marry other men because nothing has any meaning. If humans are, under the current philosophical paradigm, ambiguous creatures whose being can be boiled down to the existence of atoms, what need is there for any shared communal order? Why would society place restrictions on something that doesn't even matter? Such is the moral dilemma postmodernism has forced on the West.

This is an inherent attack on the Church. Not only this, but an attack on the Church’s foundation—Christ. Postmodernism leaves no room for the divine, as the divine cannot be rationally explained. Morality, which is invariably linked to the spiritual, has no place in a purely rationalistic world. Attempts have been made to rectify the two, but to no avail. Man cannot tangibly perceive the spiritual or divine realm, and its effects on us are experientially “zero;” thus there is no need to think of the divine. No Creator, therefore, could be responsible for man’s being. No religion could make sense of the nature of man’s being. Creation has no order—existence is but a scientific enigma.

Satan has finally played his deadliest card, and it has been effective. Many within the Church think that we can have our cake and eat it, too—this ontological kerfuffle could not possibly affect faith. Except it does, and this thought demonstrates that the devil’s trickery is challenging to overcome. 

First, these ontological abuses confuse the nature of God. He is the Creator of the Universe. He made man, male and female, in His image. What does our ontological confusion say about the image into which we are created? We would be faithless if we confessed that an alternative creation exists, one in which man has no connection to his Creator. We decimate our nature as human beings when the image of God is lost on us.

Secondly, God’s order of creation serves a purpose. It is the reflection of His nature in us. Just as God created male and female to be joined in the inseparable bond of marriage, so also is Christ inseparably joined to His bride, the Church. As God has created mankind to love, so also is God’s nature love, to love what is good and thereby despise what is evil. We are created to be communal beings, as our God is a communal Being, whose desire is that all be joined to Him forever.

Unfortunately, this cannot be the case. Adam’s fall has corrupted our nature and dispensed of the spiritual and tangible link mankind once had shared with God. That the Lord physically walked alongside Adam in the Garden is unthinkable to us today—and is therefore Satan’s springboard to stir up confusion amongst the Church. Our punishment for sin is the devil’s most effective tool.

When we fall for such satanic trickery, we forsake the faith that God has given to us in Holy Baptism, when His Spirit first descended upon us. Failure to recognize the natural order of creation, and man’s place in the world, unfailingly leads to apostasy. There is no salvation apart from a biblical confession of the nature of God, His work amongst us, and the true order of creation, which orders and structures all things as God so intends. This is most clearly stated in the Athanasian Creed, which many churches will confess this Sunday on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, which declares:

Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith. Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally. And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.

And again:

This is the catholic faith; whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved.

Ground yourselves, therefore, in the clear Scriptural confession of the Creeds. Remain steadfast in the faith. Do not waver, even when the world despises you for your proclamation of the Word. Know that all things serve a purpose; our confession matters. Faith in God, which is necessary for salvation, includes a clear, Biblical confession of reality. Our purpose as human beings, that is to love and serve God alone, cannot be done apart from this confession. Attempting to appease the world and serve the Lord is but a dream. One cannot serve two masters; and serving the master of this world, the devil, deprives you wholly from the Lord and His gifts, including eternal life.

Thus, ontology does matter. Understanding reality as God intends, confessing His order of creation and our place in the world, and doing what is truly good and right are foundational elements of the Christian life. The Church must stand ready to confront the evil doctrines of the world while many are perishing in our midst. This is our call as Christians: do not neglect it.