Some of the Church Fathers based their thought on Greek pagan philosophers. Why is that?
Today, we wouldn’t touch paganism with a 50 foot pole. Christ warned us against pagans. Exorcists say paganism today is a form of satanism.
So if paganism is so awful, why did the Church let itself be influenced by pagan philosophy instead of sticking to what we learnt from the Jews and the revelations from Christ?
Firstly, the “pagan” philosophers articulated a necessarily monotheist universe with a vision of the divine that debunked paganism’s excesses in depicting the divine as indulging in human vice. This was a monumental achievement and is also the reason why philosophers were frequently persecuted by their societies for their moral insistence under the specious allegation of impiety or “introducing false gods”. In that sense Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were by no means “pagan”’; if they were, then their host societies would not have tried to kill them (Socrates and Aristotle). Plato was spared persecutions because of the eccentricity of his philosophy on one hand that limited its influence in the practical and also because he was closely connected with Socrates, the killing of whom Greeks and the whole world had largely come to regret and perceive as a horrible crime. But the pagan world’s tolerance of philosophy was again pushed beyond its limits in the case of Aristotle who was not so associated with Socrates.
Secondly, many Christian theologians -both Protestant and Catholic- work very hard to try to reconcile modern science and faith. Science has its own drive, rules and logic that makes it serve as a more or less unbiased middle man in the debate between faith and reason; however, it frequently challenges and is sometimes used as a platform to attack Christian faith and even all religion generally. But would someone charge Catholic and Protestant theologians of betrayal for sometimes using what is known and demonstrable in science for the sake of defending the truths of faith? E.g. modern research that shows that classical vice and sin actually damages our brains? Certainly not.
Philosophers tried to identify the most basic rational certainties of the world and investigated what this would mean or what follows from it. The discoveries of philosophy paved the way for a rational understanding of nature and its basic truths became common sense. Our language is absolutely awash with philosophical concepts and truisms.
- Form (e.g., information)
- Potential, potentiality
- Actual, actuality
- Energy
- Principle of causality
- Logic, logical
- Fallacy
- Essence, the essential
- Physics, the physical
These and countless other terms, ideas and concepts are all directly derived from “pagan” philosophy. We could scarcely imagine a world or conceive of what we take as common sense and for granted without these concepts or ideas; it is hard for us to imagine a time where these ideas and concepts were new or theoretical and controversial; but there was such a time. Today we take them for granted.
Philosophy served as and can still sometimes serve as a middle ground between faith and reason. It still has much to teach us - logic hasn’t gone away, for example.
Finally, science requires a philosophy to defend it. Science takes for granted a great deal before it begins to investigate the workings of nature. It is surprising how few scientists can actually defend the merits of science against, e.g., sceptical attacks and sophistry: they are not necessarily trained in rigorous logic, perhaps have never felt a need to define just what makes something “real” or a “being” and certain forms of sceptical objections can baffle them. Science presupposes a rational and coherent philosophy or at least what we take for common sense or knowledge today; however, science itself can sometimes, as it progresses, even attack this or seem to contradict it. Only good philosophy could possibly hope to temper scientific excesses or absurdities on strictly rational grounds; faith, of course, can and does often do the same, but faith has its own logic and rules.
