Jesus Christ in the Old Testament Session 2

augustinehippo1 / 2 weeks ago

Session Two: Christophanies, or Appearances of Christ

As we “walk backward to Bethlehem” together, we’ll see that the Old Testament Scriptures are not only full of prophecies of the Messiah, but also the presence of the Messiah, as he reveals himself to His people in manifold ways.

Session Notes

What We Will Learn Today

1. The implicit prophecy of the Incarnation in the creation of Adam and Eve
2. Why God forbade the making of divine images in the old covenant
3. The difference between chronos and kairos time
4. Christ as the Malak Yahweh
5. Christ as the Word, Wisdom, Glory, Name, Power, and Man of God

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• What does “walking backward to Bethlehem” mean?
  • The Hebrew word for “in front of” (qedem) is the same word for “past”
  • The word for “behind” (achar) is the basis for the word for “future” (achareet)

Luther writes in his Genesis commentary that, in saying the Adam and Eve were created in the image of God,

“Moses wanted to intimate dimly that God was to become incarnate…Because he was created in the image of the invisible God, that statement is a dim intimation, as we shall hear, that God was to reveal Himself to the world in the man Christ. These seeds, as it were, of very important facts the prophets have carefully gathered from Moses and considered,” (AE 1:87).

The Prophets read and studied the Bible just as we do

Adam and Eve were made in the image of God. Jesus is the image of God.

Everything post-Torah is inspired interpretation and expansion.

• The Torah forbids the making of divine images. Why?
  • This is to make Israel wait until God himself discloses his own image in the incarnation.

Christmas is forecast in the Ten Commandments.

Two Versions of Time in the Old Testament

1. Chronos, from which we get chronological, is the moment by moment, day by day, gradual progression of time from the past into the future
2. Kairos, on the other hand, is the occasional explosion into chronological time of God’s time.
   God works in chronos and kairos time

Genesis 16:7,9-10
The angel of the Lord say I will greatly multiply your offspring, not that God will.
Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “Thou art a God who sees”

Genesis 22:11-12
Once more, he speaks with divine authority and identifies himself with God.

Exodus 3:2-7
We meet the Son of God again in Exodus 3 at the burning bush.

Exodus 20:20-22
Here, the one who would eventually accomplish his own saving exodus of the world sends Moses.

Exodus 23:20-21
God says that his name is in this Messenger.

The Son also appears as:

1. The Glory of God
2. The Wisdom of God
3. The Word of God
4. The Man of God

The OT is not just full of the prophecies of the Messiah, but the presence of the Messiah, as he reveals himself to his people in manifold ways.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Chad Bird holds master’s degrees from Concordia Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College. He draws upon his expertise as a former professor of OT and Hebrew to cohost the podcast, “40 Minutes in the OT.” Chad has authored several books, including his latest, “Upside-Down Spirituality: The 9 Essential Failures of a Faithful Life.” He has written for Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, and elsewhere. He and his wife, Stacy, have four children and two grandchildren.

Fair Use Notice: While many Christian writers do allow faithful reproduction of their work with all due credit, most of the other articles on this site have the specific permission of the author to use their work. However there is some copyrighted material on this site, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to our efforts to advance understanding of Christian issues. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Philosophy in Christian Perspective Session 5

Session Five: Scholasticism
In this session we explore Scholasticism.

Session Notes

What We Will Learn Today

That scholasticism was an intellectual movement, carried out in emerging universities. Scholasticism was content with the sophisticated analysis of Christian belief as well as other areas of knowledge.

That some later thinkers rejected the medieval scholastic approach to knowledge as too complicated, speculative, and lacking in eloquence.

That scholastics typically saw theology as the Queen of the Sciences, while philosophy and reason served as the Handmaid of Theology.
That some scholastic thinkers tried to prove the existence of God through either a priori or a posteriori arguments.
How some Franciscan thinkers contributed to the increasing emphasis upon empirical evidence for beliefs, and the importance of observation in science.
How these same Franciscans were often ignored because of their political disagreements with the Roman Catholic church.

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Medieval Scholastics as “Cathedrals of the Mind” – How so?

Medieval scholastic thought is complex, elaborate, and handled with extraordinary care.

Scholasticism
A system of inquiry in which theology and philosophy studied formally in the emerging universities of Europe, using the method of disputation as its primary method of learning.
Not everyone thinks of the Scholastics fondly…
Some joked and said that scholastics were interested in irrelevant questions like “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

Line of thinking adopted by Scholastics
St. Augustine said that “belief is nothing else than to think with assent.”
For the scholastics, philosophy was important because it served theology.
They described the relationship between the two by calling theology queen of the sciences and by calling philosophy the handmaid of theology.

quodlibet, Latin for “whatever”
St. Anselm, drawing on the approach of St. Augustine,
life of the mind was one where belief sought understanding.
His famous phrase credo ut intelligam means “I believe in order that I may understand.”

St Anselm’s ‘Ontological Argument’ for God’s Existence
He argues that if we grant that the definition of God is the greatest conceivable being, then a non-existent God is not as great as an existing one.
To say that God does not exist would thus be like saying the very foundation of reality isn’t real. Or existence is not.

Criticism of Philosophical Theism
It does not create Christians
Biblical faith: not the abstract idea THAT God exists but rather a trust that the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob was faithful to his people, and will be faithful to us.

Aquinas used Aristotelianism

Aquinas’ Important 5 Ways
The first of these is based on the idea of an unmoved mover.

Secondly, we see that everything that is has been caused to exist by something else. God is the uncaused cause of everything.

Third, we see that the world is full of things that are contingent. That is, they might or might not have come to be.

The contingent world depends on something else that is necessary: that is, it has to be something that doesn’t depend on something else. We call this necessary being, God.

Fourth, we observe that there are various levels of perfection in the world.
There must be a pinnacle of these perfections. We call this most perfect being, God.

Fifth was Universe ‘Designer’ Argument
As we look about the world, we see that there are complex things that have unique designs. To say something is designed implies that they have a designer. We call this universal designer, God.

Aristotle vs Anselm
Anselm emphasized a priori reason (that is, reason that takes place prior to empirical observation of the world),
Aquinas emphasized a posteriori reason (that is, reason that takes place after experience of the world).
Aquinas argued from cause to effect, whereas Aquinas argued from effect to cause.
Anselm developed an argument meant to produce intellectual certainty.
Aquinas assembled five arguments that produced what he considered to be a highly probable conclusion.
Anselm used a single deductive argument to make his case.

Mystics vs. Aquinas
Mystics: God could be experienced but not comprehended by reason or language.
All we could do, according to the mystical tradition was to say what God was not.
This tradition is sometimes called apophatic theology or negative theology and its method is called the via negativa.
Aquinas’ approach was to say that our language about God is not perfect, but approximates what is important to know about God.
Aquinas’ approach is called the via analogia, or way of analogy.
This belief led Catholic ethicists in ensuing centuries to emphasize the importance of natural law.

Other later medieval thinkers brought in radically new ideas that eventually led to the development of modern science.
Roger Bacon (c. 1214-1292)
William of Occam (c. 1300 – c. 1349)
First, he advocated an epistemological principle that today is called Occam’s Razor.


Late Medieval Philosohpy’s eventual contribution to the Reformation:
Via Antiqua –emphasized that God had to act in a certain way
Via Moderna—distinguished between the potential ordinata and potentia absoluta
Their conclusion: God chose the economy of salvation freely.

What was the basis of our justification: Facere quod in se est –do your best and God will do the rest
We see this still reflected in Roman Catholic inclusivism (John Paul II and Francis I)
Martin Luther agreed with the late medievals on divine voluntarism
BUT The criterion was not doing our best, it was solely on the unconditional atoning work of Christ.

Further Reading
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
Alister McGrath, Intellectual Origins of the Reformation

Philosophy in Christian Perspective Session 4

Session Four: Neoplatonism and Early Medieval Philosophy
In this session we explore Neoplatonism and early medieval philosophy.

Session Notes

What We Will Learn Today
First, how neoplatonism affected the hierarchical thinking of early medieval thought.
Second, the ways in which Neoplatonism affected thinkers from each of the major Abrahamic religions.


Neoplatonism profoundly influenced early Medieval thought
It kept many of Plato’s original ideas, but instead of focusing on creating the just Republic, as Plato did, Neoplatonists were a bit more otherworldly.
From this point on in our exploration of philosophy we will see that there are many intersections between religious and philosophical conversations in the West.
Indeed, they resonated with a tendency toward mysticism, which is the attempt to become unified with the ultimate source of all things.

Some call this source God and early Christian thinkers picked up on this idea to the extent that for some, Neoplatonism was the proper philosophy for Christian believers.

Neoplatonic Philosophers
Plotinus (c. 204 – 270) He was Jewish, as was the much later Moses Maimonides (1135-1204)
Augustine (354-430) was later honored as a Christian saint, and influenced all subsequent Western theology.
Al-Farabi (872-950) and Avicenna (980-1037) were Muslim.

In each case, these thinkers used Neoplatonic ideas to resolve different questions about the problems of biblical (or Koranic) revelation, language about a God beyond our world, and the problem of evil.

What was so attractive about Neoplatonism?
Changelessness
Mystics seek to get around the troubling debates about religious teaching, and connect directly with the source of being that might be described as “beyond being” if he or it could be described at all.
If we identify the Neoplatonic concept of the One with the monotheistic concept of God, we find that Christian mystics, Kabbalists, and Sufis all hoped to directly experience God without spending so much time trying to use words to describe God.

Plotinus and the Hierarchy of Being
Plotinus thought that something called Spirit emanated from the One.
Something called the Soul emanated from that. He believed that the world itself had a soul.
We can see the influence of hierarchical thinking by observing the way royalty (the top tier of society) in Medieval England
Represented by objects and animals that likewise are at the top of their respective hierarchies.

Reflecting on Christian Perspective
mysticism in the strain of Neoplatonism shows up throughout the two thousand years of Christian history.
Luther’s mysticism (a la Theologia Germanica) might be called a mysticism of the Cross.
For St. Augustine, Neoplatonic thought helped him convert to Christianity
The Problem of Evil
The first clear formulation of the problem of evil is attributed to the philosopher Epicurus
if there is an all-powerful, all good God, who created everything, did God create evil?

St. Augustine’s Response to the Problem of Evil
Neoplatonic ideas about the nature of being and the universe to understand this problem
He argued that, in a technical sense, evil does not exist. Evil is only a twisting or perversion of the good.
Evil is more like a hole or a fracture than an actual substance.
Consider light vs dark

Baptizing Plato with St. Augustine’s thinking
On Innate Knowledge….For Augustine, since souls are given life by the biblical God, human beings have certain patterns engrained in their minds not because they saw them in a past life, but because their minds are gifts from God.

Key elements of Neoplatonism
Arose during the crisis of the third century AD.
Made use of the ideas of Plato, but with more of an otherworldly emphasis.
Influenced mystical traditions in the three Abrahamic faiths.
Emphasized a hierarchy of being, with the world ultimately emanating from The One, the source of all things visible and invisible.
Believed that evil is not a substance, but a corruption of the good.

Suggested Readings
Augustine, Confessions
Paula Remes and Steven Gerrard, Neoplatonism (University of California Press, 2008).
Also check out the Theologia Germanica and perhaps see how that fits with Luther’s Freedom of the Christian

Jeff Mallinson is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Concordia University. He is the author of the book, “Sexy: The Quest for Erotic Virtue.” He earned his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.

Fair Use Notice: While many Christian writers do allow faithful reproduction of their work with all due credit, most of the other articles on this site have the specific permission of the author to use their work. However there is some copyrighted material on this site, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to our efforts to advance understanding of Christian issues. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Jesus Christ in the Old Testament: Session One

Session One: The Bible That Jesus Read (Introduction)

In this session we'll discuss how the Old Testament is the Bible that Jesus read.

Session Notes

What We Will Learn Today

1. What We Call the OT, Jesus and His First Followers Simply Called the Bible
2. The Torah as Scripture’s Christological Foundation
3. Scripture as a Hyperlinked Text
4. Different Approaches to OT interpretation
5. The Emmaus Approach
6. The Bible’s Opening Christological Word

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1. Christ wasn’t to be read *into* the OT but read *out* of the text. The Scriptures testified of him.
2. The Torah as the foundation of Scripture
   1. Torah = Teaching (or teaching of God)
   2. Everything after Deuteronomy is Inspired Commentary
   3. The entire Bible is already compressed into the first five books
3. Rabbi Isaac said, “That which the prophets were destined to prophesy in every generation they received at Mt. Sinai,” (Exodus Rabbah 28:6)
4. Luther, “Moses is the source from which the holy prophets and also the apostles, inspired by the Holy Spirit, extracted divine wisdom. This being the case, we shall not live up to our calling better and in greater harmony with God’s will than by leading our followers to this source and showing them in our own way the seeds of divine wisdom which the Holy Spirit, through Moses, has sown in such a manner that neither reason nor the power of human nature, if it does not possess the Holy Spirit, can see or understand them,” Preface to the Commentary on Psalm 90 (AE 13:75).
5. “And here we challenge them to show us one word in all the books outside Moses that is not already found in the books of Moses,” Avoiding the Doctrines on Men (AE 35:132).
6. The Christological Layers of the Bible:
   1. Torah
   2. Prophets
   3. Writing
   4. New Testament.
7. Everything builds on each other
8. Why wouldn’t Paul be quoting Christ?
   1. Because he didn’t have to, they were both quoting the Old Testament
9. Scriptural archeology:
   1. Digging through the layers of the text the build off of each other
10. Layers of the text:
    1. New Testament - like top soil, dig deeper and find;
    2. The Prophets, dig deeper and find
    3. The Psalms, dig deeper and find
    4. The Historical Books, dig deeper and find
    5. The Torah
       1. They all build off of each other
11. When Jesus walks on water He is illustrating in action what all the Old Testament was leading up to.
12. "And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."Genesis 1:1 (ESV)
13. "And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground..." Exodus 14:22 (ESV)
14. "And all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan." Joshua 3:17 (ESV)
15. Approaches to reading the Old Testament
    1. A Museum
       1. Somewhere we can look around and then leave
       2. Somewhere to learn a few things
       3. Interesting, but not life changing
    2. A Spiritual gym
       1. A place to work on buffing up certain areas of your life
       2. Working to accomplish a goal
       3. Used as morality tales for what we should do
       4. Doesn’t lead us to ask “How is this story about Christ?”
    3. A Vast Desert With Occasional Oasis
       1. Long stretches of useless detail with the occasional messiantic prophesy
       2. Strips the OT of the Spirits power
16. These all miss the point, Chrsit says,
    1. “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” John 5: 39 (ESV)
17. The Most Important Question:
    1. How in these words is Christ speaking of himself to the church?
       1. With this question, we are at last going in the right direction.
18. The Bible is like a hyperlinked text in that verses from all throughout are connected and refer back and forth to each other.
19. And he said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Luke 24:25-27 (ESV)
20. Berashit = In the beginning
    1. This is the start, right?
    2. More than just a temporal marker
21. be-rashit – rosh – head – beginning
22. Proverbs 8:1 “Does not wisdom call out?”
    1. Hokma = Wisdom
23. Wisdom is described as a person from the beginning
    1. Proverbs 8:22-23 “The LORD possessed me, [Wisdom], the beginning [raysheet] of his way, before his works of old. From everlasting I was established, from the beginning [mayrosh], from the earliest times of the earth.”
    2. The Targum, “In Wisdom, God created the heavens and the earth.”
    3. Col. 1:18, “He is also the head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning [arche], the firstborn from the dead.
    4. Rev. 3:14, “The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the Beginning [arche] of the creation of God.”
    5. Fair Use Notice: While many Christian writers do allow faithful reproduction of their work with all due credit, most of the other articles on this site have the specific permission of the author to use their work. However there is some copyrighted material on this site, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to our efforts to advance understanding of Christian issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Philosophy in Christian Perspective Session 3

Session Three: Hellenism and Rome
In this session we take a look at Hellenism and Rome.

Session Notes

What We Will Learn Today
How Greek philosophy spread throughout the Mediterranean world.
How Roman thinkers had different philosophical concerns from Plato and Aristotle
What Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics thought about the nature of the good life.

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Alexander the Great

Aristotle had been a tutor of Alexander the Great, the son of Philip of Macedon.
Alexander famously spread Greek culture into areas he conquered.
We call this culture Hellenistic, and the thought that developed after this movement we call Hellenism.
Alexander was an incredibly successful military leader.
But, he died at the young age of 32.
While Hellenism continued to affect Mediterranean culture, the political grip of Alexander’s successors eventually faded, giving rise to a new world power: Rome.

Roman Dominance
Eventually, Roman power reached far enough to include Athens itself.
But back in 155 BC, Athens had a problem with Rome’s handling of affairs.
The Romans were demanding a fine of 500 talents of gold, which was equivalent to more than 35,000 pounds of the precious metal. Athenians didn’t want to pay this heavy sum. So they sent three philosophers, from three of its dominant schools, to reason with the Romans.

Carneades, an Academic skeptic and follower of Plato, (what was Academic skepticism)
Critolaus, head of the Aristotelian School, and
Diogenes, who was head of the Stoic School.
These delegates were able to reduce the fine to only 100 talents.
More importantly, they spent their time in Rome spreading their philosophical ideas.

Summum Bonum = Highest Good
Roman society during the time of its exposure to new philosophical questions was undergoing rapid change, cultural turbulence, and a flood of new ideas and religions from all over the region.

Three major philosophies that became popular in Rome, but originated in Greece
Epicureanism: sought a life of moderate pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
Stoicism: sought a life of serenity in the midst of cultural and political turbulence.
Skepticism (Pyhrronic Skepticism): sought a life free from intellectual turmoil or dogmatic error achieved through the suspension of intellectual judgment.

All Three Schools sought one thing in different ways: Tranquility

Important Features of Epicureanism
Lucretius is Roman Epicurean poet and philosopher

According to him, nothing was controlled by an intelligent design.
atomism, the belief that the physical universe is made up of individual and indivisible bits, or “atoms.”
Believed in the importance of avoiding physical pain and pursuing moderate pleasure
Epicureanism is the default religion of affluent, secular western society.

Important features of Stoicism
First, Stoics focused more on ethics than abstract ideas
Second, they believed that virtue is its own reward and is sufficient for happiness
Third, they sought self-control as a way to overcome the irrational influence of human emotion.
Major takeaway from Stoicism? Consider the Serenity prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
The focus here is on the idea that life is full of uncertainty and often injustice.
All we can do in such a turbulent situation is to live wisely and virtuously and take satisfaction in our personal integrity.
A superb Roman example of stoicism in action is the Roman philosopher Seneca (4 BC-AD 65).

What interested the stoics?
Their famous interest in apatheia, which we might translate to apathy, isn’t a lack of caring, but an attempt to have a profound joy that comes from virtue, rather than a constant pursuit of temporary and fleeting pleasures.

Features of Skepticism
Skepticism refers to any school of thought that seeks to be comfortable with doubt and to avoid unjustified beliefs.
Consider Sextus Empiricus
“Skepticism is an ability, or mental attitude, which opposes appearances to judgments in any way whatsoever, with the result that … we are brought firstly to a state of mental suspense and next to a state of ‘unperturbedness’ or ‘quietude.’”

Sextus divided intellectual world into three parts
Dogmatists believe that some beliefs can be known to be true.
Pyrrhonic Skeptics aren’t sure whether we can know anything for certain.
Academic Skeptics, taking their cues from the later Platonic Academy are certain only that we can’t know anything for certain.
Academic skepticism, according to Empiricus, is too bold in that it asserts dogmatically that nothing can be known.

Key elements in Pyrrhonic Skepticism
First, It seeks mental quietude by suspending judgment about debated ideas.
Second, It defines “dogma” as assent to all unfounded beliefs.
Third, It is concerned to take note of empirical data or “appearances” in the physical world.
Fourth, It recognizes that theories are “underdetermined” by data.
Finally, since we can’t know for sure what to believe, we should follow our community and family traditions to live peacefully.

Reflecting on Christian Perspective

The Christian summum bonum (highest good)?
Westminster Shorter Catechism: Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Dr. Mallinson describes the summum bonum of Christianity to be peace with God and subsequent service to humanity by sharing the grace and forgiveness of God to a hurting world.
Skepticism helpful?
..of course Christians, through revelation, believe they have the truth…believe it or not has some value (suspending judgment because we recognize our own finite and fallen reason
Using this method for this empirical world… Luther seems to have appreciated aspects of this … also it reminds us we are works in progress.
Stoicism?
we don’t eliminate our passions. we redirect them toward a hurting world. And this can bring emotional pain. we welcome this in solidarity with other human beings, whom we love in the name of Christ.




Further Reading
Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Moral Epistles. Translated by Richard M. Gummere. The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1917-25.
Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (50 B.C.)
http://classics.mit.edu/Carus/...
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism
http://www.oswego.edu/~dhorace...
Christopher Gill. The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Oxford University Press, 2009.

Fair Use Notice: While many Christian writers do allow faithful reproduction of their work with all due credit, most of the other articles on this site have the specific permission of the author to use their work. However there is some copyrighted material on this site, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to our efforts to advance understanding of Christian issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Philosophy in Christian Perspective Session 2

Session Two: Aristotle

In this session we take a closer look at Aristotle and his work.

Session Notes

What We Will Learn Today
The different epistemologies of Plato and Aristotle
How these epistemologies affect their views on ethics and aesthetics
The importance of virtue for Aristotle’s ethic
How Aristotle used the golden mean to define the virtues
How fulfilling a person’s purpose with excellence leads to happiness

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Introducing Aristotle

If Alfred North Whitehead was right that all Western philosophy is a footnote to Plato, Aristotle was Plato’s most important footnote.
Arguably, though he was a creative and important thinker of equal significance.
Though he was born in Stagirus Greece in 384 BC, he came to Athens to join Plato’s famous Academy at the age of 18, and stayed there until Plato’s death.
After that, he left Athens to become the tutor of Alexander the Great.
Unlike Plato, Aristotle was interested in the natural world, and while many of his interpretations of nature have been disproven, the scientific world owes lot to his emphases, interests and observations.
Aristotle taught on diverse subjects, from rhetoric to zoology, poetry to politics. For this reason, his influence is widespread.

The School of Athens painting
Around the year 1510, the Renaissance artist Raphael painted his famous School of Athens.
While it contains many important philosophers, the very center of the painting focuses on Plato and Aristotle.
Raphael’s depiction of these two thinkers helps us understand their different perspectives on the best way to understand goodness, truth and beauty.

Significance of hands in The School of Athens
Plato is the character pointing with one finger, upward.
Aristotle has a hand out in front of him and his fingers are spread out.
Their hands are as they are in the painting because Plato was famously most concerned with the realm of universal ideas or forms, while Aristotle was most interested in observing the many particular things in this world in order to understand universal principles.

Plato and Aristotle compared
There are other important differences between Aristotle and Plato.
While Plato emphasized reasoning from first principles to particular applications, Aristotle sought to first understand and arrive at general principles by observing and drawing conclusions from the particular things we experience in this world.
While Plato wanted to establish knowledge that could be considered certain, Aristotle thought that knowledge focused on what was probable.
Another way of thinking about this is that Plato worked from cause to effect.
This is called a priori reasoning, that is, reasoning that takes place prior to experience.
In contrast Aristotle sought to work from effects to causes. This is called a posteriori reasoning, that is, reasoning that takes place after experience.
To understand these two ways of reasoning, think of Plato as a top down thinker and Aristotle as a bottom up thinker.
We shouldn’t take any of these generalizations too far, but these differences can help us understand the variance between these two men on other topi
As we learned in the last lecture, philosophy is concerned with the good, the true and the beautiful.
That is -- ethics, epistemology, and aesthetics.

As we consider Plato and Aristotle, we can see that their different epistemologies affected the way they viewed ethics and aesthetics.
For instance, in the realm of ethics, Plato wanted to understand the abstract idea or form of the good, whereas Aristotle wanted to understand how to do good in the world and be a virtuous individual.
When it came to aesthetics, especially art and literature, Plato didn’t have a high view of visual art and he didn’t like fictional stories because they were only copies of something particular in the world.

Aristotle and Plato on Aesthetics
Since Plato believed that the physical world was itself a copy of some idea in the realm of ideas, art seemed to be little more than a copy of a copy.
Aristotle, on the other hand, had a higher appreciation for the way art and stories can help us process human emotions. Maybe you remember the term catharsis from high school English class. Catharsis refers to the purging of emotions through art and literature, and is discussed in a work by Aristotle called the Poetics.
Aristotle also thought that stories had a teaching value.
Stories didn’t always depict what was, they could also give us models to which we could aspire.

Dialog vs. Lecture
Plato, using dialogs, often leaves the reader to make up his or her own mind.
Aristotle, however, is sometimes dense and his work is sometimes viewed as a little bit boring.
This is because, while Plato wrote dialogs, much of what we have from Aristotle are, in fact, modified lecture notes.

Different views on Education
Since Plato believed we were born with innate ideas, dialog could help bring latent knowledge out of the mind.
Aristotle, however, saw purpose of education to be about filling student minds with new knowledge, through verbal instruction, and then teaching them the critical thinking skills necessary for applying information to life.

Reflecting from a Christian perspective
The value of the created world and physical embodiment
Empirical orientation is better for apologetics in our age, at least to the extent that we are looking for probabilistic evidence rather than abstract certainty …
A posteriori reasoning… that is, reasoning from effect to cause, or drawing conclusions after exploring the world is important and we will learn that this approach helped develop Christian apologetic arguments.
Aristotle had a different concept of God when compared to the biblical picture.
He believed the world was eternal, while Christians teach creatio ex nihilo
Aristotle’s divine mind was impersonal whereas the God of Christianity is personal and engaged in the lives of humans.

Luther’s view of Aristotle
Luther’s disputation against Scholastic Theology we come across thesis: #44 … no one can become a theologian unless he becomes one without Aristotle.
And #50 … the whole Aristotle is to theology as darkness is to light
Context: overreliance on Aristotle as THE PHILOSOPHER by medieval scholastics
Luther and Melanchthon set about reforming education in Germany
Turn Aristotle not for theological truth but for flourishing in everyday life.

So what’s going on with Luther and Aristotle?
Luther was talking about our relationship to God when he said in thesis # 41: Virtually the entire Ethics of Aristotle is the worst enemy of grace.

Virtue Ethics
Aristotle was interested in developing a certain kind of character in a person so that he or she would respond instantly to each new situation in a virtuous way.

Translating Virtue
Word virtue comes from the Latin word for manliness.
What was meant was being a true and authentic human, the best specimen of a person.
But we use this Latin-derived word to translate the Greek word arête, which can mean excellence in general.
When it comes to ethics then, think of virtue as excellence of character.

Can virtue be taught?
Aristotle believed young people can be trained to develop habits of character or virtue.
Even when we don’t want to be good, by practicing virtue, it eventually becomes a part of who we are.

The Golden Mean
For Aristotle, this was discovered by finding the middle point between the vice of excess and the vice of defect.
Take, for instance, the virtue of courage. Aristotle’s approach defines courage as the point that is equidistant between the vices of cowardice (a lack of bravery) and recklessness (too much bravery).

To what end do we practice virtue?
Aristotle thought that these beliefs serve an important purpose: happiness.
But happiness isn’t simply a feeling of euphoria or momentary giddiness. It is deeper than that.
To illustrate, consider the 35th American President, John F. Kennedy.

Fulfilling your purpose
Happiness for Aristotle had a lot to do with fulfilling one’s purpose, design or end.
The Greek word for this is telos.
This concept is incredibly important to understand Aristotle’s view of human life and even science.
Consider the example of the acorn

Connecting the dots to Christian thought
Happiness is fulfilling your calling according to virtue.
Consider Luther’s doctrine of vocation
Some Christians, such as those in the tradition of Martin Luther are uncomfortable with the language of virtue because they associate it with self-righteousness and legalism.
Consider Luther’s Freedom of the Christian though….
Not legalism, but a new life made possible in Christ.
Christians can look to the virtues found in the way of Jesus and emphasized in the Bible, such as Paul’s so-called theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.

Further reading

Primary sources:

Aristotle, Poetics
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristo...
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristo...

Secondary source:
Mortimer Adler, Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy (New York, NY: Touchstone, 1997)
JUN 04, 2019

PHILOSOPHY
ARISTOTLE
EPISTEMOLOGY
ETHICS




ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Jeff Mallinson is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Concordia University. He is the author of the book, "Sexy: The Quest for Erotic Virtue." He earned his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.

Fair Use Notice: While many Christian writers do allow faithful reproduction of their work with all due credit, most of the other articles on this site have the specific permission of the author to use their work. However there is some copyrighted material on this site, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to our efforts to advance understanding of Christian issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. 

Philosophy in Christian Perspective: Session 1

Session One: Introduction to Philosophy


In this session we introduce the subject of Philosophy.

Session Notes


What We Will Learn Today
The importance of Socrates and Plato for all subsequent Western philosophy
Plato and dialectic form
The meaning of the word philosophy and its sub-fields
How Christians might think about the thinkers we will explore
The Importance of Athens


_____________________________________________________________


Preliminary Thoughts
This course is a cursory overview
It is for anyone; beginners or those seeking a refresher


Topics Not Covered in this Course
Eastern philosophy
Women of philosophy


Topics Covered in this Course (and session)
The importance of Socrates and Plato for all subsequent Western philosophy
That Plato wrote in dialog form because he believed we are born with innate ideas, and dialog brings these to consciousness
The meaning of the word philosophy and its sub-fields
How Christians might think about the thinkers we will explore
The Importance of Athens
“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”- Alfred North Whitehead.


While there is an important truth in this quotation, we shouldn’t take it too literally.


The nature of reality and how to live well was also explored by sages from
Egypt
China
Africa


Meaning of Philosophy
Hebrews called the quest for understanding CHOKMAH
Greek speakers called it Sophia meaning wisdom
Philo meaning love and Sophia meaning wisdom
Philosophy = the love of wisdom


Socrates: Started
Love of wisdom lead Socrates to ask questions
Socrates most famous student is Plato
Plato wrote down Socrates teachings and his own thoughts
Many since have sought to answer questions raised in Socratic Dialogue


Question: Who is a Philosopher?
Anyone who asks thoughtful questions about the world is exploring philosophy
The three most important question for ancient philosophers
How we should behave
What we should believe
What should we create and appreciate


Subfields of philosophy
Ethics = What is good
Logic = What is true
Metaphysics = What is the nature of reality
Ontology = What is the nature of being
Epistemology = What is knowledge
To keep things simple, when we ask about truth we will focus on epistemology, since epistemology uses logic to make claims about metaphysics and ontology, among other things.
Exploration of Beauty = Aesthetics
Axiology
Subfield of philosophy exploring ethics and aesthetics
Not a term used in this course


Sub-Fields continued...


Philosophy is the exploration of the
Good
True
Beautiful


Think of this in terms of
Good = Ethics
True = Epistemology
Beautiful = Aesthetics


Sophists
Challenged by Socrates
Claimed to be experts on the topics of goodness, truth, and beauty
Charged for their instruction
Taught verbal debate
Said to be clever but not wise


Sophistry: A term of derision and usually refers to educated people who try to win arguments without really caring about the truth of the matter.


Socrates/Socratic Method

Didn’t charge for instruction
Claimed to only have questions
Must look at Plato’s writings to understand
Dialogs
Plato’s dialogues show Socrates challenging those who claimed to teach wisdom
It is unlikely to find a clear thesis
Go with the ride and pay attention to Socrates’ challenge to unfounded authority


What can be learned from Socratic Method
Socrates and Plato use dialog to find truth from the mind through conversation/dialectical process


Socrates Continued
Compared to a gadfly
Gadflies irritate horses causing them to gallop
Socrates irritated and spurned society to ask important questions
Compared to torpedo fish
Torpedo fish shocks predators as defense
Socrates shocked those who claimed to be wise


Philosophy for Socrates involved either stirring someone to move away from falsehood (like a gadfly) or slowing them down when they were going toward falsehood (like a torpedo fish).


Socrates Death
Socrates’ questions irritated and embarrassed too many important Athenians.
He was convicted of
Corrupting the youth
Impiety for challenging teachings of the gods
He viewed death as liberation from bondage
He cared about the stability of Athens and respected its political structures.
Because of this he drank hemlock tea instead of allowing his friends to bribe guards and save him from prison
Christian reflections
Some thought he’d go to heaven


Dialogues Continued
Unclear how much portrays Socrates original thoughts and how much is Plato’s thoughts
Innate knowledge
Socrates, in the dialog called the Meno, shows how a slave boy has innate knowledge of geometry. If this is true, he argues, there might be other innate ideas that need only to be coaxed out of a mind by an artful teacher. This leads to several important Platonic concepts.


Key Contours of Platonism
Logical deduction from general principles to particular cases is most important for philosophical thinking.
Mathematics is an important foundation for philosophy.
Opinions are unreliable
Ideas possess more reality than appearances.
Philosophy is important for engineering the state and vital for a properly governed society.
This belief caused him to be skeptical of Democracy


Christian Reflection
Sin affects our ability to know the truth with certainty, using our own minds.
Luther called reason “the devil’s whore” because, when we get too arrogant about our ability to arrive at philosophical certainty, it leads us to think we can understand how God runs things.
Tertullian:
Philosophy is the root of heresy


Summary
You might already see the reason the history of philosophy is sometimes described as a footnote to Plato
Even when thinkers disagreed with Plato, they were responding to his initial questions and key themes


Further Reading: Primary Sources
Plato, Apology: Available for free at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html
Plato, Dialogue of the Cave (found in the larger work the Republic)
Plato, Crito: Available for free at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/crito.html
Plato, Meno: Available for free at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/meno.html


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR


Jeff Mallinson is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Concordia University. He is the author of the book, "Sexy: The Quest for Erotic Virtue." He earned his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. 

Fair Use Notice: While many Christian writers do allow faithful reproduction of their work with all due credit, most of the other articles on this site have the specific permission of the author to use their work. However there is some copyrighted material on this site, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to our efforts to advance understanding of Christian issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.