Aristotle’s Influence
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 NASB
In the beginning – We just can’t get away from the opening verse, can we? Genesis 1:1 stands as a clarion call for everything that’s different about the Hebrew worldview. Not only does it soundly deny all of the opening ideas of the competing ancient mythologies, it resists Hellenization from the inter-testamental period through the development of Christian dogma. Hebrew thought challenges even our fundamental convictions about God, space and time, probably because most of our convictions have roots in Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle, not Moses.
Consider this comment on the theological understanding of Maimonides, the great Jewish sage (and, by the way, a student of Aristotelianism).
“The denial of imperfections is the only intellectual means that Maimonides allowed himself to apply in the act of learning to know God. [This is called the via negativa in the works of Thomas Aquinas.] He thus realized that God has no qualities, that He is not a being subject to an impression. God cannot suffer any influence, nor can He have any affect. He possesses no faculties, so that he has no inherent strength. Nor does He have a soul, so that shame and the like, health and illness, and so on, are alien to him. There is no relationship between God and time, between God and space, between God and a thing created by Him.”[1]
This citation may seem difficult to comprehend. After all, it describes a God who is wholly other than human beings. This is a God who has no essential connection with anything in our world, anything in the created cosmos, a God who is completely and utterly beyond anything we can conceive. And that is precisely the point. With the philosophical base of Plato and Aristotle, God must be absolutely other. Plato and Aristotle located all imperfection, all corruption, all “sin” (if they would have used the term) in the created order. Material being was in and of itself evil. Therefore, God, by definition, can have no relationship whatsoever with anything that describes the created order. While Maimonides does not follow this logic to its necessary end, others do. And they conclude that such a God is totally unknown to human beings. All those words in the Bible are merely inadequate analogies, human anthropomorphisms, about a God who really can’t be known. In the end, the silence of the true mystic is the deafening roar of the universe.
If you thought that all this kind of philosophical speculation is just theological excess and spiritual nonsense, then you haven’t investigated the origins or the “official” doctrines of Christianity. The influence of Parmenides’ idea of perfection, transported via Plato and Aristotle, forms the basis for Christian and Jewish thinking about God’s attributes. In particular, this singular idea (that perfection allows for no alteration in qualities) predetermines our development of the idea of God’s essence and ends with a statement like Maimonides—that God can have no essential connection to His own creation. Don’t for a moment think this is trivial. Most Christian preachers were taught variations or remnants of this philosophical reasoning. They just don’t preach it for the obvious reason that no one would bother to worship a completely unknowable God. Under this philosophical umbrella, biblical revelation becomes nothing more than cultural cultic religious practice. Knowing the real God of the universe is simply impossible.
Now let’s consider Genesis 1:1. If Parmenides is right (and subsequently all those who follow his idea of perfection), then Genesis 1:1 is utter nonsense. From God’s point of view, there cannot be a “beginning” since that would imply He has some relationship to the created order. “Beginning” is an entirely human idea, incapable of being associated with the wholly other God. Furthermore, since God cannot experience change of any kind, He is completely unrelated to anything that happens after the so-called “beginning.” It doesn’t take a genius to see the striking incoherence of biblical claims once you adopt this view. Nevertheless, Hellenized Christianity and Judaism both absorbed the Greek proposition. The result has been devastating, although even astute believers rarely speak about the implications. And for non-believers, this logical train is the absolute confirmation that talk about God is ridiculous.
Ah, but now you know. (And if you really want to understand how this affects Christian—and Jewish—thinking and practice, you can read God, Time and the Limits of Omniscience). Now you have a hint about the enormous impact of a simple little idea like perfection. Now you will have to investigate. “Where did my beliefs come from?”
Topical Index: beginning, perfection, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, Genesis 1:1
Applause!
Have you read Dan Juster’s “The Biblical World View–An Apologetic” by any chance? If so, do you have any observations to share?
My wife tells me that this is way too complicated for most readers. My apologies. I will try to restrain my academic bias in future posts. I just get so excited to see how the history of ideas explains so much of why we believe as we do.
Skip
Please don’t restrain. There are a lot of us out there who have realized for years something was not quite right in what we were being told. You have just pulled it together better than most I have read. I worked as a financial guy in Higher Ed for a long time so I actually enjoy your “academic bias.”
Well, this was a fun one to read while coming off anesthesia! I’d have to agree with your beloved, except that I’d say, ‘too complicated for most readers of other blogs.” Your readers can handle a fastball like this every now and then, but this would have given Joel Osteen’s readers a headache and RC Sproul’s readership a heart attack.
My beliefs?
They came from God.
Directly.
He revealed Himself to me.
As Jesus reveals to all in Scripture:
“Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son,
and the one whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
Mat 11:27
Hi Rich,
I am not sure if you are being sarcastic or you really believe that you had a direct revelation from God. I suspect that most of what you believe is the result of your cultural influence, your reading of Scripture, the prompting of the Spirit in your life and the residue of those things you have not yet investigated. But if you really did mean that God spoke to you “directly,” then you would be the only person I ever knew who got his theology directly from the divine source. If that’s true, I want to know everything he told you.
Hi Skip,
I have heard God audibly, or His Angelic voice Representative, twice in my 58 years of life, one of those times, watching “Him” or His Manifestation in Physical form also. Neither of those times had a thing to do with doctrine. I think that’s why the experience shook me to the core and, had I not already been sitting, I would have fallen down.
The first time I met “Someone” representing Him, I was 15 yoa and had lost my sweet mother to a torturous cancerous death 6 months prior. I was on summer break and staying with my best friend’s family who had just recently moved away from me and our home town. We were in a park on a hot summer day, just lying around after a long walk. The park had an open view on 3 sides; the other side was walled off by large hedges with ? maybe a very narrow passageway to the graveyard on the other side. SUDDENLY, my girlfriend became very sleepy and went into an unshakable sleep. She NEVER was a sleeper. Late to bed, early to rise sort of kid.
Then, I saw a man coming close to me… out of nowhere. He was slender, plain, and wore one of those grey work jumpsuits. He carried a grey lunch pail. I was stunned and frightened. I kept calling my friend to wake up. I kept nudging her.. she wouldn’t wake up! The man came right up to me and, in a very soft voice said, “It will be ok.” Then, he slowly walked toward the bushes and thru them… or the walkway. Somewhere! I ran to watch Him… he was GONE! That would not have been humanly possible. I didn’t know it at the time but those words were like an armor for me… that next year was one of the most tragic of my life… even worse than losing my mom.
The other time, I was a single mother of 3 small children and in ministry as a teacher of kindergarteners and first graders. (Ministry equates to a financial stipend but the richest life in the world!) I was outside hanging up laundry when I heard this deep bellowing Voice say: “PRAY!”
My knees became weak and I almost stumbled as I RAN TO MY PRAYER CLOSET and began praying and praying… nothing specific… just praying like crazy for a long time.
When God, or His Representative, actually speaks audibly or shows up physically, you KNOW.
Hi Skip,
I have heard God’s voice twice in my life.
Each time His message was personal, not
theological.
I can’t describe His voice adequately, since
it’s beyond description.
But you know it when you hear it!
The details are far longer than this blog is prepared
to accept. Many folks do, however, know of my
testimony. Likewise I know several friends who have
had similar experiences. Stunning encounters.
So I know I’m not the only one!
Word Up
~ In the beginning (again) was the Word. ~
~ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ~
~ He (the Word) was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.. ~
Aristotle, (and others) Who is the Living, Resurrected and (now) Reigning Word of God? The written God-breathed words of God testify and give witness to the Living Word. Who might this be?
John saw Him and gave us this testimony: …His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His Name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses.…
Here is where we might part ways- (for) ~ The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and only Son, who came from the Father, – full of grace and truth ~
~ For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Yeshua The Messiah has come in the flesh; such a person is a deceiver and antichrist ~ (2 John 1.7)
In this, are we united? – or divided? A baby was born in a barn in Bethlehem.
~ Here is how the birth of Yeshua the Messiah took place. When His mother Miryam was engaged to Yosef, before they were married, she was found to be pregnant from the Ruach HaKodesh. Her husband-to-be, Yosef, was a man who did what was right; so he made plans to break the engagement quietly, rather than put her to public shame. But while he was thinking about this, an angel of ADONAI appeared to him in a dream and said, “Yosef, son of David, do not be afraid to take Miryam home with you as your wife; for what has been conceived in her is from the Ruach HaKodesh. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Yeshua, [which means `ADONAI saves,’] because He will save His people from their sins.” All this happened in order to fulfill what ADONAI had said through the prophet, “The virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and they will call him `Immanu El.”a (The name means, “God is with us.”) When Yosef awoke he did what the angel of ADONAI had told him to do — he took Miryam home to be his wife, but he did not have sexual relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named Him Yeshua.
(Please) Welcome the Word
~ But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name ~ (John 1.12)
The song from South Pacific, “You have to be carefully taught,” is a good illustration of from where our beliefs come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUE-4rlcjCc
Thank you, Skip. Anything on the history of ideas is appreciated.
Without Yahshua we may not know God as it is our privilege to know Him.
“His Name shall be called Emmanuel, that is El with us.”
Our little world is the lesson book of the universe. God’s wonderful purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, will be the theme of our study throughout the endless ages. Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in the stake of Messiah their science and their song. It will be seen that the glory shining in the face of Yahshua is the glory of self-sacrificing love. And, in the meek and lowly One is manifested the character of Him who dwells in the light which no man can approach unto.
The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God’s throne. From the beginning, the Father and the Son knew of the apostasy of Satan, and the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He forsaw its existence, and made provision to meet it. So great was His love for the world, that He covenanted to give his only-begotten Son. John 3:16 And the Son chose to step down from the throne of the universe, that He might bring light and life to the perishing in this world.
Yahshua was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. “With His stripes we are healed.” In Yahshua we become more closely united to God than if we had never fallen. In taking our nature, the Saviour has bound Himself to humanity by a tie that is never to be broken. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder.”
Here, where the Son of God tabernacled in humanity; where the King of glory lived and suffered and died – here, when He shall make all things new, the tabernacle of God shall be with men, “and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.” And throughout the endless ages the redeemed will praise Him for His wonderful Gift – Emmanuel, El with us. Halleluyah!
Skip, when I read your comment about what your wife said, this text came to mind. No offense intended.
(WoY) And as he thus spoke for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.
Chabad.org has an online version of the Tanach: The Complete Jewish Bible with Rachi Commentary. It translates the verse: In the beginning of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth.
A recognition that the opening word does not have a definite article and therefore should not be translated “in THE beginning.” I have written about this before.
Skip,
NEED SOME HELP!!
Not being a philosopher, I’m struggling to understand the conclusion that should be drawn after reading TW (Aristotle’s Influence). Are you saying that by believing God is perfect, we automatically must assume He has no qualities, no inherent strength, no essential connection with anything in this world and is unknown to human beings? Haven’t read the book yet.
What I am saying is the if we accept the GREEK idea of perfection, that implies a God who CANNOT change (logically) and therefore eliminates anything that we would use to describe God as a person, e.g. remembering, feeling, planning, anticipating, instructing, caring, loving, because a God who can change (in Greek thought) is no longer a PERFECT (nothing needs to be added nor can anything be taken away) God. What I am saying is that this idea does not fit the God revealed in Scripture at all, but it is nevertheless the foundation of almost all Christian theology.
I did read the book. I was not an easy read. But I’m glad I did.
BTW I am reading John Walton’s book
“The lost World of Genesis 1”
If nothing else I’m so grateful to be jettisoned out of the evolution vs creation science spiral.
Approaching warp 9 =:/
My genetic background is a mixture, but it is mostly northern European. I have wondered sometimes if my ancestors worshiped stoic gods, because my forbears were nothing if not stoic. I was raised to be seen and not heard, and taught by implication that maturity was a condition of revealing no emotion. All emotions were suspect, if not downright ‘bad’.
Fast forward to the Old Testament. Emotions all over the place! There’s the great Almighty throwing jealous rages and having remorse and CHANGING HIS MIND, no less! I finally decided that I probably should make an effort to go through and catalog all the emotions that He expresses and study them just as an example for myself, so that I could learn what a proper emotional reaction even looks like! Well, so far I have been having fun and life just got a whole lot more interesting!
“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched by our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.” Heb. 4:15
Thank you for sharing, Daria. Your story reminded me of my youth. I had an audible Voice in my ear, too, while I was praying, instructing me to do something I I would have never considered correct, and when I asked why, I got the answer that if I did not, it would be “death and destruction”. I decided I wanted to live, so I obeyed. My world fell apart right after that, just like yours did, and I came that close to suicide, In fact, but, looking back, I could see that I did not make that choice because I had obeyed.
Great quote, Jenafor!
Thank you so much, Skip!
Ahhh…now that’s language I can understand.
Thanks Skip.
P.S…John & I were at Cafe des Artistes last night w/ Thierry & Rose Blouet. They both send their greetings to you, with fond memories of the lecture you gave last year at their restaurant.
How nice to be in PV. Wish we could be there. Greet Thierry and Rose.
~ The Word, which gives life! He existed from the beginning. We have heard Him, we have seen Him with our eyes, we have contemplated Him, we have touched him with our hands! The life appeared, and we have seen it. We are testifying to it and announcing it to you – eternal life! He was with the Father, and He appeared to us. What we have seen and heard, we are proclaiming to you; so that you too may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Yeshua the Messiah. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. And this is the message which we have heard from Him and proclaim to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in Him – none! If we claim to have fellowship with Him while we are walking in the darkness, we are lying and not living out the truth. But if we are walking in the light, as He is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of His Son Yeshua purifies us from all sin. If we claim not to have sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, then, since He is trustworthy and just, He will forgive them and purify us from all wrongdoing. If we claim we have not been sinning, we are making Him out to be a liar, and His Word is not in us ~ (1 John 1 My children, I am writing you these things so that you won’t sin. But if anyone does sin, we have Yeshua the Messiah, the Tzaddik, who pleads our cause with the Father. Also, he is the Kapparah for our sins – and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world ~
“The denial of imperfections is the only intellectual means that Maimonides allowed himself to apply in the act of learning to know God. [This is called the via negativa in the works of Thomas Aquinas.] He thus realized that God has no qualities, that He is not a being subject to an impression. God cannot suffer any influence, nor can He have any affect. He possesses no faculties, so that he has no inherent strength. Nor does He have a soul, so that shame and the like, health and illness, and so on, are alien to him. There is no relationship between God and time, between God and space, between God and a thing created by Him.”[1]
If you thought that all this kind of philosophical speculation is just theological excess and spiritual nonsense, then you haven’t investigated the origins or the “official” doctrines of Christianity. The influence of Parmenides’ idea of perfection, transported via Plato and Aristotle, forms the basis for Christian and Jewish thinking about God’s attributes. In particular, this singular idea (that perfection allows for no alteration in qualities) predetermines our development of the idea of God’s essence and ends with a statement like Maimonides—that God can have no essential connection to His own creation. Don’t for a moment think this is trivial. Most Christian preachers were taught variations or remnants of this philosophical reasoning. They just don’t preach it for the obvious reason that no one would bother to worship a completely unknowable God.
Hi Skip…obviously this whole concept is still troubling me. I keep coming back to it.
I understand that perhaps the “origins” of the Christian doctrines began with the stated concepts above, but wouldn’t you agree that the Church has done SOME growing and maturing over the centuries. I know it still has many flaws, but I’ve never heard anyone in the Church even come close to making these charges/claims about God. And I doubt if any pastor is secretly hiding these beliefs from the congregation in order to keeping people coming. If so, their doing a darn good job of keeping it concealed. Any church I have ever been in preaches a strong, influential, loving, forgiving, prayer answering, connected God who became human, died & rose to show His love-plan for us. In spite of all the the inaccurate doctrines the churches are peddling (or hiding) these days…I just don’t see this “perfectionism concept” as one of them. But then again…I’m not a scholar/researcher/philosopher.