Social observers have noted the loss of traditional conventions and shared understandings, particularly among youth. Raised to question all stereotypes, youth are now unaware that types are actually grounded in typical features of the natural order and human behavior. Undoubtedly, our growing disconnection from nature and manual work–amid technologies that deliver goods to our doorstep and mediate reality to us–has contributed to this “crisis of meaning.” To rebuild historic understandings of images, symbols, and patterns, Orthodox iconographer Jonathan Pageau and Orthodox ethicist Timothy Patitsas defend a realist account of archetypes. They assert that divinely created patterns are found across human life, are attested by psychology and cognitive science, and should inform not only theology but also dialogue in the public square. Sharing a sizable platform with Jordan Peterson, Pageau has inspired a number of the curious to explore ancient Christianity, as Orthodox churches across North America report new attendees. Pageau conveys the “symbolic world” of ancient Christian figural interpretation, both of natural and cultural phenomena, from ‘light’ and ‘mountain’ to ‘hair’ and ‘monsters.’ Liturgical scholar, Patitsas, similarly finds resources for modern ethics by bringing together a Neoplatonist ontology, biblical imagery as interpreted by the Eastern fathers, and the history of symbolism within Christian art, literature and liturgy.
The popular reach of budding North American Orthodoxy merits a reasoned review by evangelicals, as it offers “ancient wisdom for the modern world.” I will employ the writings of Herman Bavinck, principally his Reformed Dogmatics and Christian Worldview, to demonstrate that a realist, biblical account of archetypes is better grounded by neo-Calvinism. I will demonstrate key similarities between Pageau-Patitsas and Bavinck, including (1) philosophical eclecticism, (2) an appreciative stance toward the findings of psychology and cognitive science, and (3) a rich literary account of biblical imagery. However, in the end Bavinck provides a superior account of archetypes, since (1) his hermeneutic corrects the allegorizing tendencies of Pageau-Patitsas, toward both general and special revelation, (2) his organic motif outperforms a hierarchical scale of being, as it grounds unity-in-diversity and ordered “forms, norms, and ideas” without the accompanying Gnostic tendencies, and (3) his compatibilist account of meticulous providence better explains how creation’s archetypes have been preserved across history, in the human psyche, and in sacred Scripture. As such, though the “symbolic world” of Pageau and Patitsas has much we can learn from, Bavinck is a superior exemplar of how to respond to today’s meaning crisis with ancient yet modern wisdom.