In my “Review: The Path is Very Long” I made some claims about Radix Fidem that some of my readers might question whether or not they are accurate portrayals. Fortunately, Catacomb Resident published “Academic Faith” only a few hours after I published that review. Perhaps it was even a response to my post, who knows. It is well-timed regardless, and supports much of I claimed.

This is an interesting claim. I don’t dispute it, per se, it’s just interesting. I could probably say the same thing about what I do here: an academic approach to faith in Christ.

As I stated in my previous post, I agree with quite a bit of what Catacomb Resident and the Radix Fidem group teaches, much of the substance and philosophy, but (as I will clarify below) I disagree that it is valid Christianity. Consequently, I treat it the same way I would treat the work of a Mormon or like that of the agnostic Bart Erhman: valuable academic scholarship, but not Christian.

This is a pretty typical Radix Fidem claim, an excellent summary.

Defining “feudal submission” as commitment to Jesus as Lord, “works” as expressions of faith, and “salvation” as peace with God (if defined as logically equivalent to salvation from death and sin) is just Protestantism wrapped up in slightly different terminology. Even Evangelical Christianity embraces Covenant theology, so that isn’t a particularly unusual part.

However, the rest of the claims are less compatible. Everything is viewed as if the nature of God himself is properly viewed in terms of an earthly form of government, that of the feudal lord of the Ancient Near East. Scripture does not deductively teach this, though Catacomb Resident and others certainly draw inductive inferences towards this conclusion. The idea that creation itself is fundamentally tribal and feudal is almost purely speculative, so the conclusion that religion should also be does not logically follow.

So much for academic faith.

And here we delve immediately into the fundamental error of Radix Fidem. It’s the one thing that is purely non-Christian. It is the one primary thing that has to be fixed before Radix Fidem can be truly useful to the average Christian.

Catacomb Resident is clearly placing the flesh at opposite ends from the spirit. He is distinguishing between the ‘head’ and the ‘heart’ as if thinking (of fleshly origin) and having faith (of spiritual origin) are different things that can be separated. He explicitly states that your will—of the heart and spirit—is separate from your intellect—of the head and mind.

As an academic issue, we are forced to conclude that this philosophy of the division of self does not come from the Hebrews, but from Greek philosophy (e.g. its conception of ‘soul’) and from the later centuries of the early church. It is not found in the ancient Hebrews, Jesus, Paul, the other apostles, the very early church, nor even in the recent Assyrians who retained the Ancient Near East practices.

The separation of thinking/flesh from the spiritual/heart is a distinctly Western concept and, as we’ll see, Catacomb Resident relies on the language of the West to describe it.

Let’s review, again, what I wrote in “Traditions of Men.”

As an academic issue, that’s a piece of the modern evidence. It comes from a culture much closer to the 1st century culture than the one that Radix Fidem purports to emulate, except the former militates against the authenticity of the latter. To use modern lingo, Radix Fidem is LARPing.

Now let’s examine the most ancient of the possible evidence: the Hebrew Shema. There we find critical evidence against Radix Fidem’s anachronistic view. Here is what I wrote in “Traditions of Men:”

The heart was the center of both feelings and emotions as well as knowledge and the comprehension and understanding of the mind. The heart was the core of being, and so encompassed the entirety of what it meant to be a living person.

It is not only incorrect to say that the intellect is somehow opposite or otherwise opposed to faith, it is incorrect to say that the heart and mind are not one-in-the-same. Catacomb Resident’s claim is so far from fundamental reality that he couldn’t concoct a belief that is farther from reality than the one he is promoting here. His view is flatly contradicted by the words of Jesus himself.

So much for academic faith.

In English, a language strongly subject to Western influences, the word faith can take on the meaning of a religious belief that is not based on evidence and proof. The term “blind faith” and “mystery” both capture this sense, the latter of which is used by many denominations to ‘explain’ doctrines which cannot be explained. When Radix Fidem teaches about finding the truth of God, its deemphasis on relying on the mind reflects this incredibly common Western mode of religious thinking. Blind, unthinking faith is virtuous and pure, while the use of logic and reason is heresy.

But this Western understanding of faith is foreign to an Ancient Near East culture.

A Hebrew who put his faith in God was putting his faith in his feudal Lord, upon which he had full and complete confidence rooted in the knowledge of God. There was nothing blind or mysterious about that faith, indeed, it was completely justified. I’m reminded of this rarely mentioned Old Testament story:

Micah’s faith was concrete. There was nothing mystical (mysterious) about this expression of faith. He had his own priest—by mutual consent—and he was at peace with God. His faith and deeds cohered completely with his understanding of God and God’s promises. His faith was justified.

Radix Fidem has an anachronistically modern view of faith.

Let’s share a few definitions:

This is what Radix Fidem teaches: that the flesh is evil and that the essential spiritual truths are found through mystical means after (or because of) the rejection of the flesh. Read again what Catacomb Resident wrote:

One’s heart includes the intellect and emotions, so the admonition here is irrational. But more importantly is that this false claim is based on a gnostic premise, a rejection of physical realities.

The Bible calls Satan ‘The Adversary.’

First, Catacomb Resident was quick to note that the human intellect is garbage, of minimal use. Even if it is true that we can’t understand the finer points of how Satan operates, that doesn’t mean that there is an inherent problem with our intellect. Catacomb Resident could have described the intellect and the understanding of how Satan operates as orthogonal to each other, but instead he puts them on a collision course because his prior theological commitments demand it.

Second, see how, above, I didn’t disagree with what Catacomb Resident’s description of Satan, his fall, and his role as the Adversary? That’s because scripture itself describes that. Catacomb Resident colors it in non-biblical language, but I could cite book, chapter, and verse that says the same thing. I don’t need any additional extra-biblical references. But not so the rest of the paragraph by Catacomb Resident:

Did you catch that? He views earth as a dungeon in which we are stuck with Satan.

Sound familiar? Catacomb Resident views salvation as an escape from the bounds of the dungeon that is life on earth. Salvation is found in a spiritual connection, where flesh ties detract from it.

This may sound like standard Christian teaching, except that standard Christian teaching comes to this conclusion without pitting all of created matter against us, as if the create created by God were the pure opposite of God, instead of being, by default, amoral in nature or even of creation reflecting the image of its creator.

Catacomb Resident’s theology teaches that Christ came to give us the means to appropriate blessings, and that those blessings are associated with our deeds. In doing so it veers subtly into works-righteousness. Recall how he defined salvation:

Salvation as described here is not merely achieving peace with God, but is the collective results of seeking peace with God. Catacomb Resident may talk about election and predestination, but his own words betray an underlying works-righteousness by the seeker seeking and by the collective.

1 Peter teaches us that in our obedience to Christ—after we are saved—in the midst of suffering, we glorify him, but this has nothing to do with achieving salvation, that is, obedience does not allow us to achieve peace with God. Only Christ achieved that, on the cross. That is faith, and it includes loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and your mind. That is the nature of faith. If you reject loving God with your mind, then you are rejecting faith that Jesus told you to have.