Learn & Obey

A Creative Tension Is the Wellspring of Western Civilization

As I discussed in previous Archives columns (see Salvos 31 and 36), Christian views on the relationship between Greek philosophy and the teaching of the Bible have varied over time. The extreme view, expressed by Tertullian and some later writers, is that the influence of Greek philosophy upon Christian thought has been corrupting and that a Christian civilization would do well to turn its back upon the Greeks in the name of the Bible. But there have also been a variety of harmonizing efforts (e.g., by Augustine, Aquinas, and C. S. Lewis) in which many of the conclusions of Greek philosophers have been retained, in subordination to or in coordination with the teachings of the Bible. On the whole, the latter approach has prevailed, and it could be argued that, to a large degree, Western civilization arose out of the careful harmonization of Greek philosophy with the Bible, i.e., the harmonization of Athens with Jerusalem.

This harmonization seemed possible because Plato and Aristotle offered teachings that were, often enough, compatible with biblical doctrines. There were some conflicts (e.g., Aristotle's eternal world contradicted the doctrine of creation), but those could be worked around (e.g., Plato appeared to offer a creation doctrine that could be substituted for Aristotle's view). The main point is that in the harmonization, philosophy was evaluated primarily on the basis of its conclusions rather than its method and motivation. But to understand philosophy only as a body of conclusions, without regard to its method or motivation, is to understand only half the story.

Two Great Alternatives

Someone from whom we can learn the other half of the story is the late American philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973). Strauss was a German Jew who came to America with a massive knowledge of the history of philosophy and an almost equally massive knowledge of theology—Jewish, Islamic, and Christian. He dedicated his scholarly life to re-opening the case for antiquity against modernity. He believed that the many failures of modern civilization (including the two most destructive wars in human history) warranted a revisiting of Greek philosophy and biblical revelation, to see if one or the other of them might not, after all, be sounder than the doctrines of modernity.

Prior to the rise of modernity, Strauss wrote, the two great alternatives as guides to human life were philosophy, as taught by the Greeks, and revelation, as found in the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These alternatives were distinct, but their differences did not seem absolute; thinkers within each revealed religion found agreements between the Greek philosophers and their own tradition. Strauss gives examples of such compatibility:

Plato teaches, just as the Bible, that heaven and earth were created or made by an invisible God whom he calls the Father, who is always, who is good and hence whose creation is good. The coming-into-being and the preservation of the world that he has created depends on the will of its maker. . . . On the divine concern with men's justice and injustice, the Platonic teaching is in fundamental agreement with the biblical teaching; it even culminates in a statement [Laws 905 a4-b2] that agrees almost literally with Biblical statements [Amos 9:1-3, Deut. 4:19]. ("Jerusalem and Athens," in Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, 165-166)

The Bible and Greek philosophy agree . . . regarding the importance of morality, regarding the content of morality. . . . Those theologians who identified the second table of the Decalogue . . . with the natural law of Greek philosophy were well-advised. It is as obvious to Aristotle as it is to Moses that murder, theft, adultery, etc. are unqualifiedly bad. Greek philosophy and the Bible agree . . . that the proper framework of morality is the patriarchal family. . . . They also agree regarding the problem of justice, the difficulty created by the misery of the just and the prospering of the wicked. ("Progress or Return?" in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, 246-248)

A Fundamental Disagreement

Despite such overlaps in doctrine, however, the Bible and Greek philosophy are divided by a fundamental disagreement. This disagreement becomes apparent when we see that philosophy is not primarily a body of doctrines, but a way of life. The original model of philosophy, Strauss says, is provided by Socrates, who wrote down no doctrines, but through conversation engaged in an unending critical quest for wisdom. What is essential to philosophy is not any doctrine of creation or soul or morality, but a certain kind of life—a life dedicated to the investigation and testing of all proposed wisdom. But this is very different from the life recommended by the Bible:

To put it very simply and therefore somewhat crudely, the one thing needful according to Greek philosophy is the life of autonomous understanding. The one thing needful as spoken by the Bible is the life of obedient love. ("Progress or Return?" 246)

Thus, however much particular Greek philosophers and the Bible may agree on certain teachings, their method and their motivation are entirely different. The philosopher is committed to a quest, and acknowledges no truth that has not been certified by reason. In contrast, revelation enjoins no quest, but makes an absolute demand of obedience. That demand cannot abide the philosopher's lengthy inquiry into whether the grounds for obedience are solid; the way of life demanded by revelation excludes the tentativeness, the non-committal attitude, of the philosopher. Therefore, the two ways of life, the way of Athens and the way of Jerusalem, are fundamentally incompatible.

Life Between Two Codes

It might seem, then, that Strauss agrees with Tertullian: Athens in a sense has nothing to do with Jerusalem. But while Strauss agrees about the radical difference between the Greek and the biblical attitude, he draws a conclusion quite the opposite of Tertullian's:

[T]he core, the nerve, of Western intellectual history, Western spiritual history, one could almost say, is the conflict between the Biblical and the philosophical notions of the good life. . . . [T]his unresolved conflict is the secret of the vitality of Western civilization. . . . The very life of Western civilization is the life between two codes, a fundamental tension. There is therefore no reason inherent in Western civilization itself, in its fundamental constitution, why it should give up life. ("Progress or Return?" 270)

Christians and Jews, then, should not resent but welcome the challenge to revelation posed by the life of philosophy, for it has been the constructive friction between the life devoted to detached criticism and the life devoted to loving obedience that has produced the peculiar virtues of the civilization that Christians and Jews inhabit.

 Which view is correct—Strauss's view (that the West can be preserved only by an ongoing tension between Athens and Jerusalem) or the traditional view (that the West can be preserved only by a proper synthesis of Athens and Jerusalem)? I leave that for the reader's consideration. But I note that on either view (and here the difference with Tertullian's view can be seen), we need to keep reading the old books of the philosophers alongside the old books of revelation.