Greek philosophy

[henrikhank]

Pax!
Why did the Church need Greek philosophy?

 

[catholicscot]

Pax!
Why did the Church need Greek philosophy?

The Pope Emeritus touched on this during a lecture at Regensburg

He suggested, I think, that it was a useful tool to effect the union between faith and reason which are often considered as incompatible. I think Greek philosophy represents one way to articulate the truths of the faith in a manner which will appeal to reasonable people. However, the faith stands or falls on the person of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary, so that people can know Him and Love Him without ever having recourse to Greek philosophical concepts. Using them is simply a way of the Church being all things to all people that by all possible means some might be saved

 

[GLam8833]

I watched Fr. Mitch Pacwa on the “Threshold of Hope” show
explain that Greek philosophy was first used by Augustine to explain
God’s great revelations. He was influenced by Greek Philosophers
Plato and Cicero, and he helped defeat heresies in the Church.

 

[henrikhank]

Why is it that the people of the Old Testament did do so well without it but suddenly we needed it?

 

[Brendan]

Why is it that the people of the Old Testament did do so well without it but suddenly we needed it?

God chose certain means to bring the Good News to the Jews. He appeared in the Burning Bush and spoke through Prophets.

But God also enlightens via Reason, and thus the use of Reason and Logic to bring people to Him is also of great benefit.

For example, the use of Reason by Socrates, subsequently refined by Aristotle, to prove the existence of ONE God laid the groundwork for the conversion of the Gentiles.

Those arguments are still valid today in addressing the arguments of atheists.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Pax!
Why did the Church need Greek philosophy?

The church didn’t need Greek Philosophy. Rational inquiry about foundational issues in life and reality is a part of human existence rooted in our God-given intellect. God, who gave us humans (intellect included) His saving word, addresses all of our life including our reason. He also therefore implicitly gave us true conclusions we may draw from His word.

In the OT the book of Proverbs is ample testimony to the human power of reasoning and learning. Sirach and Wisdom the same.

 

[empther]

The church didn’t need Greek Philosophy.

True. But while Greek Philosophy is not needed,
it is useful for spreading the faith,
because the Greeks, especially Aristotle,
reasoned out many truths about God although they had no access to divine revelation.

So matters of faith that we learn from revelation are not contrary to reason as some atheists may argue but complete the knowledge which reason alone can’t reach, such as the doctrine of the Holy Trinity necessary to understand the Incarnation and other things.

Also,
that the Greeks reached some truths without revelation but through reason alone suggests the existence of the soul,
for a soul-ess animal, even if it had the intelligence to understand revealed truth at a simple level, would not persue knowledge by his reason alone if he had any because he is only a product of evolution and has no evolutionary/survival need to reason out these things and could not develop the ability to do so.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Pax!
Why did the Church need Greek philosophy?

Why are sentences better than throwing out one-worders?

And why are words better than grunts?

And why are grunts better than smacking someone on the head?

And why is smacking someone on the head better than killing them?

Its all about better understanding I supoose.

But a time does come when it gets too complicated and there’s nothing like a good shoulder rub or a tap to communicate best.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

True. But while Greek Philosophy is not needed,
it is useful for spreading the faith,
because the Greeks, especially Aristotle,
reasoned out many truths about God although they had no access to divine revelation.

So matters of faith that we learn from revelation are not contrary to reason as some atheists may argue but complete the knowledge which reason alone can’t reach, such as the doctrine of the Holy Trinity necessary to understand the Incarnation and other things.

Also,
that the Greeks reached some truths without revelation but through reason alone suggests the existence of the soul,
for a soul-ess animal, even if it had the intelligence to understand revealed truth at a simple level, would not persue knowledge by his reason alone if he had any because he is only a product of evolution and has no evolutionary/survival need to reason out these things and could not develop the ability to do so.

True. I was responding his statement that it did. IOW, the Church didn’t need philosophy: instead philosophy is a fact of life, which discovers truths about being and our existence in history, is rooted in human nature as rational, and is addressed by divine revelation.

It is certainly providential and telling that the NT is in the language used by Plato and Aristotle, et al.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

It is certainly providential and telling that the NT is in the language used by Plato and Aristotle, et al.

Not exactly, the Gospels are based on oral tradition which was originally Aramaic (and therefore more Hebrew in thinking than Greek) and on brief collections of sayings/acts of Jesus also probably in Aramaic. And lets face it the original witness to all these were mostly Jews who spoke Aramic and thought like uneducated Jews.

So there is no guarantee at all that the NT Greek (a colloquial dog’s breakfast called “Koine”) use of words is consistent in different places, times, groups. Koine is very different from the educated Greek of literature or philosophers for example.

So the process by which the NT came to be written in Greek is a bit tortuous and has already jumped cultures. But has it really jumped cultures if the source material was conceptually quite unlike the final written language used? That is what makes Bible translation so hard - let alone what words mean when compared with use of those same words in another Gospel or a Letter from Paul. Their theologies and own cultures are subtly different and so too the meaning of the “same” words. And again comparing use of those “same” words with contemporary educated Greeks or the Fathers who lived 100s of years later - let alone our use today. Its not as easy as it looks.

 

[henrikhank]

So reading the scriptures with Greek philosophy creates some problems?

 

[empther]

Not exactly, the Gospels are based on oral tradition which was originally Aramaic (and therefore more Hebrew in thinking than Greek) and on brief collections of sayings/acts of Jesus also probably in Aramaic.

:bigyikes:

The Gospels are based on what eyewitnesses saw.
It doesn’t matter whether they were written in Aramaic, Greek, Chinese or Vulcan.

 

[mattdantuono]

Hello friends!

I have something to say on this, but one my favorite author has already said it better than I ever could:

“No one, of course, maintains that this mediaeval philosophy was created out of nothing, nor yet that all mediaeval philosophy was Christian - just as no one maintains that all mediaeval literature and art were created out of nothing or were wholly Christian. The true questions are, at first, whether we can form the concept of a Christian philosophy, and secondly, whether mediaeval philosophy, in its best representatives at any rate, is not precisely its most adequate historical expression. As understood here, then, the spirit of mediaeval philosophy is the spirit of Christianity penetrating the Greek tradition, working within it, drawing out of it a certain view of the world, and Weltanschauung, specifically Christian. There had to be Greek temples and Roman basilicas before there could be cathedrals; but no matter how much the mediaeval architects owed to their predecessors, their work is nevertheless distinctive, and the new spirit that was creative in them was doubtless the same spirit that inspired the philosophers of the time.” p. vii-viii

“Thomism, in short, regarded from the standpoint of philosophic speculation, is nothing but Aristotelianism rationally corrected and judiciously completed; and there was no more need for St. Thomas to baptize Aristotelianism in order to make it true, than there would be to baptize Aristotle in order to discuss philosophy with him. Philosophical discussions pass between man and man, not between man and Christian.” p 8

Gilson, Etienne (1940). The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The Dominicans and Franciscans of the 13th century were able to read Latin translations of Aristotle that suddenly opened up all kinds of philosophical vistas. Certainly Aquinas was among those who realized this new element of Greek philosophy introduced into their world (as also a corrective of certain errors inherited from Plato) was something that had to be addressed, as it seemed Western culture would not much longer be dominated by the old purely Benedictine world that had ruled since the founding of Monte Cassino.

This century was a Renaissance in its own right, producing thinkers like the Franciscans Roger Bacon and William of Ockham, and Dominicans like Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus, who would sow the seeds of later Renaissance science.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Not exactly, the Gospels are based on oral tradition which was originally Aramaic (and therefore more Hebrew in thinking than Greek) and on brief collections of sayings/acts of Jesus also probably in Aramaic. And lets face it the original witness to all these were mostly Jews who spoke Aramic and thought like uneducated Jews.

So there is no guarantee at all that the NT Greek (a colloquial dog’s breakfast called “Koine”) use of words is consistent in different places, times, groups. Koine is very different from the educated Greek of literature or philosophers for example.

So the process by which the NT came to be written in Greek is a bit tortuous and has already jumped cultures. But has it really jumped cultures if the source material was conceptually quite unlike the final written language used? That is what makes Bible translation so hard - let alone what words mean when compared with use of those same words in another Gospel or a Letter from Paul. Their theologies and own cultures are subtly different and so too the meaning of the “same” words. And again comparing use of those “same” words with contemporary educated Greeks or the Fathers who lived 100s of years later - let alone our use today. Its not as easy as it looks.

Umm! Well, actually, I was exactly right. I said: “It is certainly providential and telling that the NT is in the language used by Plato and Aristotle, et al.” The NT is, in fact, in Greek. That is in fact providential. The Greek text is what is inspired. And it is most certainly telling.

Regarding the factual points you made–and they are legitimate issues–I would offer a few considerations that also need to be in the mix.

(1) While it is true that Jesus and (generally) the apostles spoke Aramaic and lived largely in the Hebrew linguistic world, Palestine was by no means an insular Jewish ghetto. There was a far greater interplay than you let on between the Greek and Jewish worlds which goes back hundreds of years before Christ. Benedict XVI makes note of this and discusses its significance in his Regensburg Address in 2006. This includes the Septuagint and late OT wisdom literature.

This fact also shows up in discussions about the environment surrounding the emergence of the OT canon. Albert C. Sundburg writes: “we can no longer differentiate between Palestine as Hebrew and Alexandria as Greek in the matter of canon. Indeed, each of the bases upon which the Alexandrian canon hypothesis had been set have proven wrong. We now know that a significant number of diaspora Jews had settled in Palestine, Jews whose mother tongue was Greek, and that the Septuagint circulated in Palestine widely enough and long enough to have undergone a Palestinian revision.” “The Bible and the Christian Doctrine of Inspiration.” Interpretation 29 (October 1975): 355]

(2) Benedict XVI in Jesus of Nazareth (p., 221) cites Martin Hengle’s work The Johannine Question (1989) who observes that “[koine] Greek was also spoken by the upper classes in Jerusalem . . . [where] Scripture was read in Hebrew and Greek, and prayer and discussion went on in both languages.” (Hengle, 113) He speaks about a “special Hellenized Jewish upper class with its own culture” (114) in Jerusalem at the time of Christ. REgarding the author he locates the origin of the Gospel in the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem. (124ff)

It is John who noted that the inscription on the cross above Jesus’ head was “written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.” (19:20). I would also make note of the fact that there are certain plays on words in John that only work in Greek. A good example is Jn 3:3. The Greek word anothen means both “from above” and “again.” Jesus means “from above” but Nicodemus misunderstands it as “again.” That could never happen in Aramaic: it had to be conceived in Greek.

(3) Paul, a NT author, was a Roman citizen from Asia Minor, trained as a Pharisee, who wrote his letters in Greek, reflecting the style and techniques of classical Greek rhetoric.

(4) A good reading of articles in Kittle’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament shows that there is a core meaning to Greek words and their usage that runs through classical Greek, koine, Hellenistic Judaism, and the NT. Style can vary, but the words are not meaningless across times and cultural settings.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Umm! Well, actually, I was exactly right. I said: “It is certainly providential and telling that the NT is in the language used by Plato and Aristotle, et al.” The NT is, in fact, in Greek. That is in fact providential. The Greek text is what is inspired. And it is most certainly telling.

Regarding the factual points you made–and they are legitimate issues–I would offer a few considerations that also need to be in the mix.

(1) While it is true that Jesus and (generally) the apostles spoke Aramaic and lived largely in the Hebrew linguistic world, Palestine was by no means an insular Jewish ghetto. There was a far greater interplay than you let on between the Greek and Jewish worlds which goes back hundreds of years before Christ. Benedict XVI makes note of this and discusses its significance in his Regensburg Address in 2006. This includes the Septuagint and late OT wisdom literature.

This fact also shows up in discussions about the environment surrounding the emergence of the OT canon. Albert C. Sundburg writes: “we can no longer differentiate between Palestine as Hebrew and Alexandria as Greek in the matter of canon. Indeed, each of the bases upon which the Alexandrian canon hypothesis had been set have proven wrong. We now know that a significant number of diaspora Jews had settled in Palestine, Jews whose mother tongue was Greek, and that the Septuagint circulated in Palestine widely enough and long enough to have undergone a Palestinian revision.” “The Bible and the Christian Doctrine of Inspiration.” Interpretation 29 (October 1975): 355]

(2) Benedict XVI in Jesus of Nazareth (p., 221) cites Martin Hengle’s work The Johannine Question (1989) who observes that “[koine] Greek was also spoken by the upper classes in Jerusalem . . . [where] Scripture was read in Hebrew and Greek, and prayer and discussion went on in both languages.” (Hengle, 113) He speaks about a “special Hellenized Jewish upper class with its own culture” (114) in Jerusalem at the time of Christ. REgarding the author he locates the origin of the Gospel in the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem. (124ff)

It is John who noted that the inscription on the cross above Jesus’ head was “written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.” (19:20). I would also make note of the fact that there are certain plays on words in John that only work in Greek. A good example is Jn 3:3. The Greek word anothen means both “from above” and “again.” Jesus means “from above” but Nicodemus misunderstands it as “again.” That could never happen in Aramaic: it had to be conceived in Greek.

(3) Paul, a NT author, was a Roman citizen from Asia Minor, trained as a Pharisee, who wrote his letters in Greek, reflecting the style and techniques of classical Greek rhetoric.

(4) A good reading of articles in Kittle’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament shows that there is a core meaning to Greek words and their usage that runs through classical Greek, koine, Hellenistic Judaism, and the NT. Style can vary, but the words are not meaningless across times and cultural settings.

Of course, the very fact that Jewish/Aramaic history end up being recorded in “Greek” between 40 and 100 years after Jesus’s death means there was flow/movement between these originally very different cultures/religions. They are not sealed off hermetically from each other. In fact the Book of Wisdom of the Old Testament has a clear Greek conceptual influence.

I said “not exactly”. Which means “close but not quite the same”.
The degree to which the writings and deep concepts behind words do correspond is dependent on the period in question (obviously 1000BC will be less hellenised than 120AD)and the characteristics of the author writing (eg Matthew versus “John”).

Typically it seems to be the high philosophy and literary style of a culture’s aristocratic leisured classes that is last penetrated by an “invading” culture/religion. This was only finally achieved by Christianity (Greek and later Latin) in the writings of the Fathers 100s of years later. Skilled use of use of Greek philosphy to advance Christian theology was certainly prefigured and purposefully pursued in the Gospel of John with his opening lines “In the beginning was the Word (Logos)”. Interestingly John (or rather the “school” of John that wrote the Gospel) for all their Greek learning saw no merit in advancing Jewish/Christian concepts by use of the Greek word “soul” for it appears not once in that Gospel. At least not in the english translations I have quickly checked, I haven’t looked at the original Greek text.

.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Yeah, with those clarifications I think we’re largely on the same page. Just a few perspectives.

Of course, the very fact that Jewish/Aramaic history end up being recorded in “Greek” between 40 and 100 years after Jesus’s death means there was flow/movement between these originally very different cultures/religions. They are not sealed off hermetically from each other. In fact the Book of Wisdom of the Old Testament has a clear Greek conceptual influence.

Right. And for at least 200 yrs before Christ Jews of the Diaspora used Greek to express Hebrew ideas, thus building up out of Greek a vocabulary to express them.

The degree to which the writings and deep concepts behind words do correspond is dependent on the period in question (obviously 1000BC will be less hellenised than 120AD)and the characteristics of the author writing (eg Matthew versus “John”).

True.

Typically it seems to be the high philosophy and literary style of a culture’s aristocratic leisured classes that is last penetrated by an “invading” culture/religion. This was only finally achieved by Christianity (Greek and later Latin) in the writings of the Fathers 100s of years later. Skilled use of use of Greek philosophy to advance Christian theology was certainly prefigured and purposefully pursued in the Gospel of John with his opening lines “In the beginning was the Word (Logos)”.

Agreed, in general. But Paul’s Hellenistic background and the synthesis of Judaism and Greek culture that it represents cannot be neglected–it wasn’t his creation alone. This shows up in his composing his letters in Greek, his use classical rhetorical skills and the education they reflect, his knowledge of Stoic natural law theory especially in Romans, his illustrations being not from Palestinian agrarian life but Greek city culture, and his use of Hellenistic ideas like physis (nature) should not be overlooked. [see Fitzmyer, *Paul and His Theology: A Brief Sketch. p., 29]

Also after the conquests of Alexander Greek replaced Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world. Paul’s letter to the Romans is in Greek!

Interestingly John (or rather the “school” of John that wrote the Gospel) for all their Greek learning saw no merit in advancing Jewish/Christian concepts by use of the Greek word “soul” for it appears not once in that Gospel. At least not in the english translations I have quickly checked, I haven’t looked at the original Greek text.

Right on “soul.” The Greek psyche does occur twice in 12:25, but there it means “life” rather than the Platonic dualist conception of the separated soul. But it should also be understood that while using Greek culture Israel never hesitated to distinguish themselves from it. This can be seen doctrinally in the book of Wisdom and also ethically, especially in sexual ethics. [see Raymond F. Collins, *Sexual Ethics and the New Testament]

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Yeah, with those clarifications I think we’re largely on the same page. Just a few perspectives.

Right. And for at least 200 yrs before Christ Jews of the Diaspora used Greek to express Hebrew ideas, thus building up out of Greek a vocabulary to express them.

True.

Agreed, in general. But Paul’s Hellenistic background and the synthesis of Judaism and Greek culture that it represents cannot be neglected–it wasn’t his creation alone. This shows up in his composing his letters in Greek, his use classical rhetorical skills and the education they reflect, his knowledge of Stoic natural law theory especially in Romans, his illustrations being not from Palestinian agrarian life but Greek city culture, and his use of Hellenistic ideas like physis (nature) should not be overlooked. [see Fitzmyer, *Paul and His Theology: A Brief Sketch

. p., 29]

Also after the conquests of Alexander Greek replaced Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world. Paul’s letter to the Romans is in Greek!

Right on “soul.” The Greek psyche does occur twice in 12:25, but there it means “life” rather than the Platonic dualist conception of the separated soul. But it should also be understood that while using Greek culture Israel never hesitated to distinguish themselves from it. This can be seen doctrinally in the book of Wisdom and also ethically, especially in sexual ethics. [see Raymond F. Collins, *Sexual Ethics and the New Testament]
Thanks for the further insights.

 

[CrossofChrist]

She didn’t. But it sure is useful and convenient.