007 Distorted Realities Church & Culture007 Distorted Realities

007 Distorted Realities

Church & Culture007 Distorted Realities

Church & Culture


False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here or there, if we permit the whole collective thought of a nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion.

- J. Gresham Machen

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Introduction

Philosophical dualism plagued the church Arose from the early beginnings of the church

Early church was a small group of mostly unlearned believers surrounded by an alien culture

There were language differences along with all of the cultural differences: literature, government, traditions

The culture of the day was dominated by Greek Thought

How could the early church maintain and defend its faith against the great Greek thinkers?

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Impact of Greek Philosophy The names of the great Greek thinkers are

still familiar to us today Homer, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle

All spoke in some way to the rational order of the universe Inspired the development of modern science Rational order of the universe was the

foundation of their philosophy These four promoted the eternal ideals of

Truth, Goodness, and Beauty They stood against the materialism and

hedonism of their dayChurch & Culture


Early Church Fathers

Early Christian Fathers adopted the thoughts and philosophies of these famous Greek thinkers to express their biblical faith

For the early church Greek philosophy gave them tools, a “conceptual language” with which to explain their beliefs to a sophisticated and educated world

Francis Schaeffer identifies the problem that arose from borrowing of a Greek philosophical framework by early Christian thinkers as the “two-story view” Greeks divide reality in 2 mutually exclusive spheres of

matter and spirit Physical world was less than the spiritual world and seen as

evil Salvation in the church came to be understood as

determining how best to liberate “the spirit from the material world so that it could ascend to God

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Plato’s Matter and Form

The philosophy of Plato had the greatest impact on Christian thinkers through the Middle Ages

Plato’s view of the world saw everything as being composed of what he identified as “Matter and Form” or the raw material of the world molded or ordered by rational ideas

Before your eyes start to bleed let me borrow the illustration used by Nancy Pearcey to explain “Think of a statue: It consists of marble crafted into a

beautiful shape according to a design or blueprint in the artist’s mind. Matter on its own was regarded as disordered and chaotic. The Forms were rational and good, bringing about order and harmony.”

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The Importance of Form

The realm of Form was more real than the realm of the Material

The realm of Form was immaterial and it held those things of the highest good: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty

The material world(realm) was filled with error and illusions Man’s goal to achieve true knowledge –

Man had to free himself from his “bodily senses,” Must overcome the physical realm so that he could gain

understanding in the realm of the spirit or “forms” Plato believed that Matter was preexisting from all eternity The role of the creator was to simply impose Form upon it If Matter was preexistent then it must have properties the

creator could not control The creator was never completely successful in forcing Matter into

the mold of the Forms For Plato this explained the “chaos, disorder, and irrationality

present in the world”

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Platonic Dualism

Plato’s philosophy was based on a dualism between Form and Matter Both of these were

understood as being eternal

Form stood for reason and all that was rational in the world

“Matter was inherently evil and chaotic”

FormEternal Reason

MatterEternal

Formless Flux

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Comparison of Worldviews

PLATO WORLDVIEW

Creation has two eternal parts – Matter(chaotic or evil) & Form (Reason or spiritual)

Man’s problem “metaphysical”

All matter is evil Man’s goal to escape

the material and move to Reason(spiritual)

BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW

Only God is eternal God created matter,

has absolute control over it and it was good (creation ex nihilo)

Man’s problem is sin Evil is attached to sin

and sin distorts God’s creation

Man’s goal to restore his relationship with God

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Augustine

Augustine as a Manicheist – believed in two gods, one good, one evil – later as a Platonist – Forms: Spiritual and Material

Augustine as a Christian kept the influences of his earlier beliefs He taught that “God first made the Platonic intelligible

Forms, and afterward made the material world in imitation of the Forms

He ends up with a view of creation that is similar to Plato’s Immaterial world / the Sensible world and Intellect / Senses To reach the higher world one had to reject the lower one

Augustinianism influences most of the Christian writers in the Middle Ages Boethius, John Scotus Erigena, Anselm, and

Bonaventure

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Rediscovering Aristotle

In mid-twelfth century under the cloak of the Dark Ages Muslims, Jews and Christians Scholars translate

Aristotle’s great works from Arabic into Latin Common goal: Resurrect the teachings of

Aristotle, despite the opposition and fear of the Catholic Church

Many religious scholars from the Muslim, Jewish and Christian worlds examined and embraced these “new” concepts

Many of these ideas challenged the Catholic Church The re-discovery of Aristotle brought with it a new

birth of ideas and possibilities that literally changed the face history This controversial event caused riots at major

European universities Introduced a whole new concept of the natural

world and the soul of man

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Aristotle

His philosophies addressed the way the world works, cause and effect, and the emphasis on reason over faith A comprehensive system: Ethics, science, aesthetics, politics as well

as philosophy Teaches that the world is eternal Western religious tradition adapts Aristotle to fit its needs

Thomas Aquinas bases his arguments for the existence of God on Aristotle’s concepts of an Unmoved Mover and First Cause

It is difficult to grasp the depth of Aristotle’s influence on Western religions Some are aware of the effects of Aristotle’s works on Christianity Few are aware of the that all three Western religions were impacted

and challenged by the writings of the fourth-century B.C. philosopher Today’s religions still bear the effects of Aristotle’s teachings

and their incorporation into doctrines Perhaps it’s a stretch, but not much of one, to suggest that

without the Aristotle we could still be living “in some very dark ages.”

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Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle Attempts to “Christianize” Aristotle’s philosophy

Rejected what was unscriptural and tried to interpret the rest to be compatible with Christianity (As we saw with Plato)

Keeps a dualistic framework- uses nature/grace Uses Aristotle’s definition of nature which is

teleological, or all natural processes tend to move toward a purpose of a goal

This counters Plato’s idea that the material world is inferior

Aquinas argues that creation (nature) is good because it is “the handiwork of a good creator”

This denies the need for asceticism so common at the time.

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Aquinas’ Nature and Grace Aquinas’ use of Aristotle’s definition of nature creates

problems If the nature of things-their goal or purpose-was inherent, then

there was no need for God The world was fully capable of reaching its purpose without God For mankind this meant that we could reach our purpose by

using only our natural abilities - without God The Bible’s primary theme is about relationships,

especially that between God and man Aquinas dealt with this problem by developing the

dichotomy of nature/Grace “In the state of pure nature man needs a power added to

his natural power by grace . . . in order to do and to will supernatural good”

This led to the idea that there were two distinct ends or goals; and earthly one and a heavenly one

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Heaven and Mammon

Aquinas’ dichotomy split man in half, allowing man to follow after two masters: the church and the state

The dichotomy of nature/grace evolved the concept of spiritual dualism Common man could only achieve natural or earthly

ends Religious ‘elites,” the professionals, were capable of

achieving spiritual perfection The religious professionals took over the spiritual

duties that lay people were unable to perform Prayers, leading masses, pilgrimages, doing and

leading acts of charity – all done on behalf of the common folk

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The Reformers

The Reformers strive to overcome medieval dualism They want “to recover the unity of life and knowledge under the

authority of God’s word” Argue that the scholastics had placed to much emphasis on

reason apart from divine revelation Reformers reject the spiritual elitism implied by the

nature/grace dualism Priesthood of all believers (1 Pe 2.9) Rejected monasticism – we are not called to a life of separation

from participation in the creation order of family and work but rather we are embedded in the creation order

Martin Luther’s use of the term vocation to level the playing field, includes all workers – even laborers

All occupations were seen as ways of obeying the Cultural Mandate – participating in God’s work in maintaining and caring for His creation

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Reformers and the Doctrine of Grace

Reformers reject Aquinas’s definition of grace as something that was added to nature

The Reformers understood grace to be not something added to human nature but rather that it was as God’s “merciful acceptance of sinners, whereby He redeems and restores them to their original perfect state”

The Reformers “restored spiritual significance to the activities of ordinary life, performed in obedience to the Cultural Mandate

Contrast of “the monastic call “from the world” with the biblical call “into the world”

Calvin’s Protestant Work Ethic “The individual believer has a vocation to serve God in the world-

in every sphere of human existence Elevated ordinary work and gave the worker a new dignity Christ is to be served in every part of creation and this is also

true “in our everyday work”

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No Words to Explain the Truth The Reformers rejection of the dichotomy of

nature/grace didn’t last The Reformers were unable to develop a new

terminology to express their theological truths Without a new vocabulary they were left without a

way to defend their beliefs against attack Much of the world withdrew back into the safe

womb of scholastic dualism Educators continued to teach Aristotle’s logic and

metaphysics Dualism continued to contaminate much of

Christianity and its traditions – even up until today In our next session we will look at how Christianity

came to escape from dualism

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