Propositional Metaphysics: Being, Order, and the Ground of All Explanation is a monumental work of Christian philosophy and theological metaphysics, representing more than forty-five years of study, reflection, pastoral experience, and intellectual discipline by S. C. Sayles. It is not merely another contribution to Christian thought-it is a comprehensive reconstruction of metaphysics itself, grounded in Scripture as the final court of appeal and articulated through propositions that force clarity, precision, and accountability.
Sayles argues that every worldview and every intellectual system-whether philosophical, scientific, or theological-depends on an unspoken metaphysical architecture. Modern thinkers often deny metaphysics or claim to transcend it, yet they rely on hidden authorities, unacknowledged jurisdictions, and untested assumptions about being, truth, reason, causation, and meaning. Propositional Metaphysics exposes these concealed structures, bringing them out into the open and evaluating them under the only rightful authority: the Word of God. Across its structured architecture, the book unfolds eighteen major propositions dealing with the most fundamental questions of existence:
- Being as actuality, not potentiality
- The Logos as the ground of all existence and intelligibility
- Information as the created substrate of reality
- The triune structure of the shamayim
- Truth as ontological correspondence
- Consciousness as participation in ordered creation
- Causation as a derivative of divine order
- Authority and jurisdiction as the ultimate preconditions of meaning
- Deception and anti-ontology as rebellion against divine order
and much more.
One of the book's most distinctive contributions is its development of Jurisdictionalism, Sayles's mature philosophical methodology. Jurisdictionalism insists that every argument, every claim to knowledge, and every metaphysical assertion must name the court under which it stands. Reason cannot ground reason. Science cannot ground existence. Consciousness cannot ground the conditions for consciousness. All explanation requires a transcendent authority capable of grounding truth, order, intelligibility, and meaning. Only the Creator possesses this authority; only His speech defines reality.
In this light, Propositional Metaphysics becomes more than a philosophical treatise. It functions as a corrective to modernity's intellectual confusion, offering a framework in which being, mind, truth, causation, information, and moral order are no longer scattered concepts but harmonised under the rule of the Logos. Sayles demonstrates that the intelligibility of the cosmos is not an accident but an imprint of the divine mind, and that the human soul's search for truth is meaningful only when conducted within the court of God's self-revelation.
As the chapter structure unfolds, readers encounter a meticulously crafted metaphysical system that begins with the nature of being itself and proceeds with rigorous precision toward the architecture of consciousness, the nature of information, the structure of causation, the hierarchy of the heavens, and the limits of explanation. The result is both intellectually demanding and spiritually clarifying, offering a view of reality that is coherent, ordered, and anchored firmly in divine authority.
