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Tool: The Influence of Greek Culture on Christian Theology

Greek culture had incredible impact on Christian theology. But was that for better, or worse?

Malcolm Webber

Classical Greek culture had a profound influence on the Roman Empire, which carried it to many parts of the world, for which reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the formative culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization. Moreover, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Greek philosophy had a major impact on Christian thinking, becoming deeply embedded in the church’s theological framework as it developed over time.
 
"We find Christianity tending to absorb Greek philosophical values, until by the end of the third century the line between the beliefs of educated Christian and educated pagan … would often be hard to draw." (W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, p. 368)
 
Why this happened:
    • Some persuasive thinkers who came to Christ and became influential church leaders had a strong background in Greek philosophy and, consciously and deliberately, integrated their Greek worldview with Christian doctrine. Some of the major players:
      • Justin Martyr. Justin Martyr had been influenced by Platonic thought before his conversion. After he became a Christian, Justin brought many of Plato’s ideas into his teaching. As the Hebrew Scriptures were used to bring Jews to Christ, so Justin said we should use Platonic thought to reach Greeks.
      • Clement of Alexandria. Like Justin, Clement was a scholar who converted to Christianity. He was “strongly missionary-minded. He valued the Hebrew legacy of Christianity … but also tended to push it into the background in favor of the greatest possible accommodation with Greek philosophy” (W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, p. 253). Sharply critical of those who were unwilling to make any use of philosophy, Clement wrote, “What is Plato but Moses in Attic Greek?”
      • Origen. “What Origen tried to do was to interpret Christian beliefs from a recognizably Platonic logic … he had absorbed Platonism. He told his pupils to acquaint themselves with every Greek philosophy. ‘Know thyself,’ the advice of the Delphic oracle, was elevated to a fundamental of Christian conduct … His was the decisive influence that brought Greek philosophy and Christianity together at a crucial moment when Christianity was becoming second only to the religion of the immortal gods themselves.” (W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, pp. 373-374)
      • Augustine (late 4th century). Augustine’s generally favorable view of Neoplatonic thought contributed to the “baptism” of Greek thought and its entrance into the Christian and subsequently the European intellectual tradition.
    • A belief in the fundamental legitimacy of Greek philosophy as God-given and ultimately harmonious with Scripture. For example:
      • Justin Martyr believed Plato’s god was the God of the Bible and Socrates was a Christian before Christ, just as Abraham was.
      • “The law is for the Jew what philosophy is for the Greek, a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ.” (Clement)
    • Accommodation of Greek philosophy, and reinterpretation of Christian truth in Greek philosophical frameworks, out of a desire to reach educated people.
Not everyone accepted this trend. For example, Tertullian wrote, “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What has the Academy to do with the Church? What have heretics to do with Christians? Our instruction comes from the porch of Solomon, who had himself taught that the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart. Away with all attempts to produce a Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic Christianity!” He was, however, in the minority.
 
While the actual beliefs of the Greeks were carried over in some cases (e.g., dualism), one of the most fundamental influences relates to the purpose of learning:
 
"The distinction [between the Hebrew and Greek minds] … arises from the difference between doing and knowing. The Hebrew is concerned with practice, the Greek with knowledge. Right conduct is the ultimate concern of the Hebrew, right thinking that of the Greek. Duty and strictness of conscience are the paramount things in life for the Hebrew; for the Greek, the spontaneous and luminous play of the intelligence. The Hebrew thus extols the moral virtues as the substance and meaning of life; the Greek subordinates them to the intellectual virtues … the contrast is between practice and theory, between the moral man and the theoretical or intellectual man." (William Barrett, Irrational Man)15
 
Another problem has been the restating of Christian truths according to Greek frameworks and patterns. For example:
 
"Greek logic, which has to a large extent influenced the Western world … often used a tightly contained step logic whereby one would argue from premises to a conclusion, each step tightly linked to the next in coherent, rational, logical fashion. The conclusion, however, was usually limited to one point of view – the human being’s perception of reality.
 
By contrast, the Hebrews often made use of block logic. That is, concepts were expressed in self-contained units or blocks of thought. These blocks did not necessarily fit together in any obviously rational or harmonious pattern, particularly when one block represented the human perspective on truth and the other represented the divine. This way of thinking created a propensity for paradox, antinomy, or apparent contradiction, as one block stood in tension – and often illogical relation – to the other. Hence, polarity of thought or dialectic often characterized block logic.
 
It is particularly difficult for Westerners – those whose thought patterns have been influenced more by the Greeks and Romans than by the Hebrews – to piece together the block logic of Scripture. When we open the Bible, therefore, since we are not Orientals, we are invited … to “undergo a kind of intellectual conversion” to the Hebraic world of the East." (Marvin R. Wilson, Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith, p. 150)
 
Jesus was certainly no theologian in any Western sense of the word, because He was a Jew. Like the prophets before Him He gave concrete biblical answers to the pressing questions of daily life – poverty, payment of taxes, feuding between relatives or colleagues, and daily subsistence. He would certainly have detested as arrogant blasphemy any attempt to unravel and neatly systematize the mysteries of God. The same holds true for Paul … whose letters addressed very concrete, contemporary, and local problems and whose style reveals unmistakably rabbinic thought forms … All of his responses, even the most well-reasoned, seem curiously fragmentary, and remain, in truly Jewish manner, open-ended both vertically as well as horizontally. (Pinchas Lapide and Peter Stuhlmacher, Paul: Rabbi and Apostle, pp. 34-35)
 
Western theologians were educated in Greek frameworks and patterns, and then, through the work of Western missionaries and institutions, these thinking paradigms have been exported all over the world.
 
Here is an extract from A Christian Critique of the University by Charles Habib Malik, a Christian scholar and former President of the UN General Assembly:
 

The university is one of the greatest institutions of Western civilization … [being] more distinctive of Western civilization than of any other.

 

The original model of this institution is the Brotherhood of Pythagoras and the Academy of Plato. All universities trace their ultimate origin to these two ancient Greek intellectual communities …

 

The reason the universities of the world are Greek in ultimate origin stems from the nature of knowledge and the nature of the genius of the Greeks. The Greeks, more than any other people, displayed an irrepressible and unbounded passion for the exercise of reason and an incredible curiosity to investigate and know everything; and the university is nothing if it is not the home of free inquiry and unfettered curiosity …

 

According to Malik, more than by anything else, Western civilization is defined by total fearlessness of and openness to new knowledge – an insatiable thirst to know everything that can be known, a belief that everything that can be known should be known. This is knowledge for its own sake – whether or not it is of any practical significance. This explains why Western societies are content to spend billions of dollars in scientific research on outer space, when multitudes of people still live in poverty on our own planet. This is why some Christian theologians spend their lives studying nuances of obscure doctrines when hundreds of entire people groups still do not have a single church.

… There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be … always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. (2 Tim. 3:1-7)

This is knowledge for its own sake and we inherited this passion from the Greeks. Moreover, this disposition is instilled in our traditional Christian learning institutions.

All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas … When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” (Acts 17:21, 32)

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. (1 Cor. 1:18-25)

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