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To be sure, Greek philosophy has had a tremendous influence on Christianity. My pastor has told me he personally believes that Greek element might be beneficial to drop.

Bill, the image your post evokes is your pastor beginning the editing process on the Bible.

It sounds as if your pastor is treating religion more like philosophy in that philosophy begs us to question everything whereas religion relies on authority. Nobody, no matter how good or holy they are, will ever come up with anything that exceeds the authority of the Bible--or in the Catholic Church, tradition (I await any corrections and elaborations from our resident expert on Catholic theology).

Nor is this an attack on philosophy. One of the reason the West overtook the Orient is that the Chinese were stuck in something of a time warp. For them, being a good philosopher meant treating their masters as authorities not to be questioned. The best Chinese scholar was the one who mastered the classics rather than improve on them.

In the West, since the time of the Greeks, philosophy has been about doing better than one's teacher. The result has been steady innovation rather than the stasis that characterized Chinese philosophy.

Ironically, progressive liberalism has tended more toward the Chinese model than towards the traditional Western model of improving upon past masters. Freud is a prime example. Within the realm of psychoanalysis, Freud is the recognized master, and no other psychoanalyst can improve on his work. As such, psychoanalysis is based upon arguments from authority, much the same as Christianity. It is the same with modern PC. In Europe, questioning the tenets of PC is likely to land one in legal peril, while here it can cost one his job and result in social ostracism.

Bach mentioned the Frankfurt School in an earlier post. Part of this group's perversion of all values has been to make politics something based on authority and religion based upon reason. It is perversion on stilts.

I would certainly accord to your preacher the right to say and believe anything he wants. But removing the Greek influence from Christianity means the end result is no longer Christianity, but something else. Since words have meaning, I would not call anybody who does this kind of thing a Christian.

Fortunately, I actually had a productive day. Which means I can sit down to my favorite website and respond to friends like you on matters which actually require my highly connected neurons to start firing, which feels very good. I see an interesting argument taking place above me. Please allow me to introduce what I have learned in my years in seminary.

I'll just call it the "Hebrew-Greek thing": One of the most surprising things I learned in seminary was that Greek thought did NOT influence Hebraic and New Testament thought in the way most people assume. RATHER, when the Hebrews came in contact with Greek thought, their texts responded to the Greek influx by reaffirming the Hebraic worldview, but using Greek words to reveal the distinction.

So this: Gr + H = (GrH) did not happen,
but rather this: Gr + H --> (H)=/=(Gr)

You can read Plotinus into the Trinity, Plato or some Stoic into St. Paul, etc.. But the stuff of Scripture is 100% Hebrew in its integrity. (I know I'll be challenged on that - after all, the language of the NT is Greek! Yes, but the way to interpret each Greek word is to use the LXX to find the equivalent Hebrew word. The Gospel writers were thinking in Hebrew.)

Now, once you get to the Church Fathers, and later to the great Schoolmen (like my favorite, Thomas) it's another matter. In those instances, these great minds would use Greek systems of thought as a skeleton, and then alter that skeleton - often in very profound ways so that the Christian mystery would "fit" into them. For example, Thomas uses Aristotle's four causes. But whereas for Aristotle the final cause is the most perfect (because it generates form), for Thomas it is the efficient cause (because it generates being). Aristotle does not allow for infinitude of any kinds except as a potency. Thomas allows for infinitude as an actuality, as a necessary primary cause.

So, was there a Greek and Roman influence on Christianity? Well, yes of course. Just not in the way that most people think. The Greek influence was something like a virus, which helped the Hebrew core of the message of the Gospel to gain new strength and resistance to systems purely grounded in the world.

Bach, it has been longer than I care to think about since I studied the influence of Greek philosophy on the NT. But here are a couple of passages from Wiki on the matter:

"The conflict between the two modes of thought is recorded in Paul's encounters with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Acts 17:18, his diatribe against Greek philosophy in 1Corinthians 1:18-31 and his warning against philosophy in Colossians 2:8. However, as Christianity spread throughout the Hellenic world, an increasing number of church leaders were educated in Greek philosophy. The dominant philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman world at the time were Stoicism, Platonism, and Epicureanism. Stoicism and particularly Platonism were readily incorporated into Christian ethics and Christian theology."

I would add that at the time of Christ, Palestine was a backwater in terms of political, economic, and intellectual influence. So, being educated in anything other than Judaism at that time meant being educated as a Greek. And Paul was not only a Roman citizen, but an educated man. So, even if Paul railed against the Greeks--which is hard to deny--he did so on Greek terms. An intellectual fight against Greek influence at that time would have been as futile as a fish fighting water.

Here is another:

"he Church historian Eusebius suggested, essentially, that Greek philosophy had been supplied providentially as a preparation for the Gospel. Augustine of Hippo, who ultimately systematized Christian philosophy, wrote in the 4th and early 5th century,
But when I read those books of the Platonists I was taught by them to seek incorporeal truth, so I saw your 'invisible things, understood by the things that are made' (Confessions 7. 20)."

Again, the reason for this is that there was no real alternative to Greek thought as far as intellectual matters went.

It was not until the fusion of Platonic and Aristotelian theology with Christianity that the concepts of strict omnipotence, omniscience, or benevolence became commonplace. The Platonic Theory of Forms had an enormous influence on Hellenic Christian views of God. In those philosophies, Forms were the ideals of every object in the physical world, and objects in the physical world were merely shadows of those perfect forms. Platonic philosophers were able to theorize about the forms by looking at objects in the material world, and imagining what the "Perfect" tree, or "Perfect" man would be. The Aristotelian view of God grew from these Platonic roots, arguing that God was the Infinite, or the Unmoved mover.
Hellenic Christians and their medieval successors then applied this Form-based philosophy to the Christian God. Philosophers took all the things that they considered good, Power, Love, Knowledge and Size, and posited that God was "infinite" in all these respects. They then concluded that God was omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and benevolent. Since God was perfect, any change would make him less than perfect, so they asserted that God was unchanging, or immutable.
Anselm of Canterbury, a priest, monk, and philosopher defined God as the "Being than which no greater can be conceived." Almost 200 years later, Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, article 3, wrote succinctly: "By 'God', however, we mean some infinite good".
With the establishment of the formal church, the development of creeds and formal theology, this view of God as Omni-Everything became nearly universal in the Christian World.

How would you respond?

Readily, yes. We find it in Irenaeus, Origin and Tertullian. I will admit that when it comes to the vast writings of the post-Apostolic Fathers, we find an attempt to incorporate the Gospel into Greek thought -- which usually led to some form of heresy, such as Origin's apokatastasis. One post-Apostolic writer whose name escapes me, even went so far as to equate Christianity with Plotinianism, identifying the Father with the One, the Son with Nous/Being, and the Holy Spirit the Emanations -- a parallel that leads to heresy. A lot of these early Apostolic Fathers had to have their writings purified a by Church Councils and other Christian writers.

How about the attempt to incorporate Greek thought into Christianity? My understanding is that classical thought was one of Augustine's greatest temptations--and a temptation to which he succumbed on more than one occasion. Though he is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, I seem to recall there being others who are considered paragons of orthodoxy. Is this not the case?

I would add that at the time of Christ, Palestine was a backwater in terms of political, economic, and intellectual influence. So, being educated in anything other than Judaism at that time meant being educated as a Greek. And Paul was not only a Roman citizen, but an educated man. So, even if Paul railed against the Greeks--which is hard to deny--he did so on Greek terms. An intellectual fight against Greek influence at that time would have been as futile as a fish fighting water.

I don't know about that. The Pharisaical schools were flourishing until the Temple's destruction. Even the Great Rabbi Akiba had a flourishing school after the Temple's destruction.

The standard humanist explanation for why Christianity succeeded in capturing the public imagination where Stoicism, Epicureanism, Neoplatonism, and the other failed is that these were philosophy, and above the understanding of many people whereas Christianity was able to appeal to a range of intellectual capabilities. I would surmise there is a grain of truth in this explanation.

By the same token, Judaism, with all its many laws and interpretations thereof, was also very complex. But was it complex in terms of theology or philosophy? In other words, exactly what were the Jewish schools teaching?

I recall Eusebius writing those words - one revelation to the Hebrews, another to the Greeks. I'm certain that Augustine's mind was prepared for the Gospel by Plato -- perhaps we could even say the entire Mediterranean world was prepared by Greek thought -- but preparation is not revelation.

Does not preparation parallel Nietzsche's position on presumptions? What do you mean by preparation? And how could that not color what proceeds it?


But Scripture contains those concepts.

To the Greek, in-finitude was an imperfection. It was only the Hebrews who allowed for the infinite as a Good."

They then concluded that God was omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and benevolent. Since God was perfect, any change would make him less than perfect, so they asserted that God was unchanging, or immutable.

Again, these ideas predate Greek thought and are in Scripture.

Anselm of Canterbury, a priest, monk, and philosopher defined God as the "Being than which no greater can be conceived." Almost 200 years later, Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, article 3, wrote succinctly: "By 'God', however, we mean some infinite good".

Good scholastic arguments, but why would they be Greek?

With the establishment of the formal church, the development of creeds and formal theology, this view of God as Omni-Everything became nearly universal in the Christian World.

You just exceeded my level of competence here, as I'm not familiar enough with the details to argue these points one way or the other.

One of these days, I intend to get back to studying Christianity. In fact, I hope to make an in-depth study of premodern Medieval thought the way I have with fascism and Marxism. But right now I am neck-deep in studying liberalism so I can understand people like you, Bill

I] In the main, I would agree that the relationship between Greek and Hebrew/Gospel thought can't be reduced to my account -- which was a summary caricature. But my point remains that Christianity is far less of a fusion between two worlds than most believe. More of an "adaptive appropriation," let us say of the Greek by the Christian. Christian revelation could usefully employ Greek categories and systems only by transcendentalizing those categories and making major changes to their systems.

I think logic would dictate that if there were no real changes between Old Testament and New Testament thinking that Christianity would be little more than Judaism with Christ. Since this obviously isn't the case, are those changes original to the minds of Christian thinkers? Or was there substantial influence from another quarter?

Now, as for the liturgy that's a different story entirely! Greek and Roman elements are clearly present there. [/I]

Yes, that is my understanding. But the liturgy is part of Christianity.

Oh my I'm getting a brain workout.

How about the attempt to incorporate Greek thought into Christianity? My understanding is that classical thought was one of Augustine's greatest temptations--and a temptation to which he succumbed on more than one occasion. Though he is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, I seem to recall there being others who are considered paragons of orthodoxy. Is this not the case?

BTW the Alexandrian School of theology was very Platonistic in its approach -- just to be fair to your position. Some Church Fathers didn't start out too well. Athens was a big university town in the 4th century (or 5th or 6th?), and I recall one future Church Father going there and having the time of his life!

The standard humanist explanation for why Christianity succeeded in capturing the public imagination where Stoicism, Epicureanism, Neoplatonism, and the other failed is that these were philosophy, and above the understanding of many people whereas Christianity was able to appeal to a range of intellectual capabilities. I would surmise there is a grain of truth in this explanation. By the same token, Judaism, with all its many laws and interpretations thereof, was also very complex. But was it complex in terms of theology or philosophy? In other words, exactly what were the Jewish schools teaching?

Why exactly Christianity caught on is unknown to me. Rabbinic Judaism provided a rich exegetical and mystical tradition. And there were many traditions of interpreting the Law. Apparently it's a fascinating study to discover what was being taught then, but I don't know enough about it.

Does not preparation parallel Nietzsche's position on presumptions? What do you mean by preparation? And how could that not color what proceeds it?

Preparation as presumption? Hmmm. Preparation = the mind being open to grace. There is properly no proceeding from, say, Plato to Christ. There is rather a fertile ground in the mind prepared for Christ's reception. Presumption seems to connote something distinct.


I think logic would dictate that if there were no real changes between Old Testament and New Testament thinking that Christianity would be little more than Judaism with Christ. Since this obviously isn't the case, are those changes original to the minds of Christian thinkers? Or was there substantial influence from another quarter?

Judaism was also a preparation (see above) for the reception of Christ. In some ways there is continuity, but what was radically new I think was God becoming man, showing us the way, and making final atonement for sin -- new stuff.

Now, as for the liturgy that's a different story entirely! Greek and Roman elements are clearly present there. [/I]

Yes, that is my understanding. But the liturgy is part of Christianity.[/quote]

[I] Touche![/]

In the interest of bridging some gaps, they made the bible in (japanese) comic form:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_Bible_(series)


[img][800:893]http://anthonyuu.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/mary-manga_messiah_miracle_of_wine_at_cana-1024x893.jpg[/img]



Jesus is now a badass superhero! Satisfied now, Librarian?


Thread is now saved thanks to me!
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/4021391616/h6BEFA469
BAD........ASS!


I know it's not very politically correct but you might even call me the Jesus of this thread! You have all been saved........by me!

LOL -- Sorry guys, Librarian and I were being very Aspie-ish and got lost in our own worlds!