Dear Mervin and @Jay313 ,
This thread is about the loss of appeal of the evangelicals and mainstream Christian religions over the past 30 years. My thesis in the beginning was that people leaving the church for the respite of science would be attracted to a Christianity that was logical and in harmony with science. One that could logically answer the the questions that I posed above.
The only time in history that these conditions existed was from the time of Homer to Socrates. This are not my personal judgement. I have referenced in the past the opinions of Erwin Schrödinger and Jacob Burkhardt, who are both far more qualified to make this this judgement.
It is true that I romanticize the following words of Schrödinger because this is my hope for an enlightened Christianity int he future:
To put it dramatically, once can imagine a scholar of the young School of Athens paying a holiday visit to Abdera (with due caution to keep it secret from his Master), and on being received by the wise, far-travelled and world-famous old gentleman Democritus, asking him questions on the atoms, the shape of the earth, on moral conduct, God and the immortality of the soul – without being repudiated on any of these points. Can you easily imagine such a motley conversation between a teacher and his student in our days? Schrödinger, Erwin. “Return to Antiquity.” Nature and the Greeks, by Erwin Schrödinger, … Cambridge: U, 1954. N. pag. Print.
A couple problems with this … the Christian church didn’t even exist in that time period.
Second, even if you’re only referring to just a more generalized religious ethos and its harmony with science … then we should also note that modern science didn’t yet exist then either. So yes – one should be surprised to discover there had been any disharmony between two things neither of which even existed yet!
They do both exist now. And trying to hearken back to times when neither had been birthed yet will not be a viable way forward. Biologos is all about seeing our way forward with these things as they exist now.
My point was that at least two founders of modern science gained great wisdom in this period, as did the founders of Christianity. I would hope that Biologos could learn from it also.
But you also forget that there were many decedents of Noah who remained true to the teachings of Yahweh were waiting for the arrival of the Logos, unlike the Jews. So yes, Christianity has actually existed long before his coming. That is what the founders of democracy and medicine were - Christ-like.
Historical revisionism is quite the fad these days. But topping that off with a comment like, “I guess you have not studied history carefully,” is ludicrous to the point of insanity. The study of history is a never ending task and it is the proclamation by ideologues that they have the one true understanding of history which we should be most wary of, if not contemptuous.
I still don’t think it is coherent to imagine that Christianity has “founders” before Christ. Yeah - so there are good people on the BC side of the timeline and we can reflectively attribute even creation itself as the work of the spirit of Christ. But to pick out two Greek figures to identify specifically as “the Christian founders” or even “founders of science” is not going to be a compelling case on this site or much anywhere else where people attend to any wider consensus. Yes, we can pick out Greek thinkers like Democritus (or Thales or Aristotle among others) as being important and influential thinkers. But I propose that they would be more like “stepping stones” on a long journey that eventually has us at “modern science” now - and while that is an impressive enough status, they must nonetheless share it with dozens or hundreds of other greats all up and down time since then (and those would only be the ones we know about). Even calling any of Newton, Galileo, Bacon, Copernicus, or Albertus Magnus, etc… “fathers” of science is probably a dubious exercise at best as they too are obliged to have stood on the shoulders of giants as well as having many giants clamber up on theirs in centuries since. Anybody who wants focus put on one or two luminaries as the founders of science as we know it has adopted a simplistic view in the extreme.
Back to Justinian… He endorsed the council of Chalcedon 451 which rejected and opposed the teachings of the Eutyches and the monophysites. This DID leave behind a sector of Christianity refusing to agree with this redefinition of Christianity, namely the oriental orthodox churches. The principle issue was Eutyches particular rebuttal of Nestorian objections to calling Mary “the mother of God,” by claiming that Jesus was a fusion of human and divine elements. Thus the monophysite claim that human and divine natures were combined in a synthesis, was refuted by the council of Chalcedon declaring that the human and divine natures of Jesus were “without confusion [i.e. mixture], without change, without division, without separation.”
For me this kind of hair splitting represents a rather excessive confidence in the ability of human beings to understand any such things, which to me seems ludicrous. It is one of the reasons I have a hard time taking seriously any of the council creeds beyond the first in Nicaea 325 AD. For me it is sufficient to say that God’s omnipotence includes the power to be whatever He chooses including 100% human with all its limitations, but that doing so is an expression of His divinity and so He remains 100% God – which is not defined by power or anything which the limitations of humanity excludes.
But is this oriental orthodoxy anything like what Shawn is claiming? Quite the contrary they are very much like the other orthodox churches and the differences in beliefs are as minute as the hairsplitting dispute described above.
Dear Mervin,
Jesus Christ has existed since the beginning (John 1:1), so it is only logical that He has been honored well before His becoming man 2,000 years ago. In fact, each of the prophets attempted to establish Christianity, to prepare the people for His coming. It was only the enlightened Greeks (Ionians) that were successful in their efforts. Yes, many of the Greeks were pagan polytheists, but there was another aspect of Greek society that was truly Christ-like.
All this demonstrates, first of all, consummate political aptitude. At the same time, the Athenians rise far above all other Hellenes onto the throne of education, art, and superior social graces.
The central location helped greatly to bring this about, but a more basic reason is the happy blend of rural and commercial life and the most favorable set of conditions ever encountered on earth. It was as if Nature had for centuries saved up all its resources to expend them at that time…
It is hard for us to give a fair judgment between Athens and Sparta, since we owe an infinitude to Athens and nothing to Sparta, and because Sparta did not hold on to any venerable primitive piety in the face of rapid Athenian progress, but from the beginning maintained a depraved rule of force over subjugated fellow Hellenes. We do not know, however, whether without such an adversary Athens would not soon have degenerated in other ways, e.g., gone in for conquests of the of the Sicilian campaign and other adventures. Burckhardt, Jacob, and Harry Zohn. “Antiquity.” Judgements on History and Historians. Translated by Harry Zohn, Etc . London: George Allen & Unwin, 1959. N. pag. Print.
Burckhardt identifies the two forces in this world that have battled since the beginning of time - Materialism (Sparta) versus Enlightenment (Hellenes). Sparta won the battle in 399 BC by killing Socrates and the battle continued after the coming of Jesus. But again, materialism won over enlightenment with Justinian sealing the deal. It is this materialist view that has survived until today, with some enlightenment coming in at the reformation. But the shadow of Sparta and Rome still weighs heavy on Christianity.
Words need to mean things, Shawn, at least roughly in line with the cultural convention. So when I use the word “Christian”, I am speaking (as most would today) of someone who is a follower of Christ as he was explicitly revealed in His incarnation. So while Christ’s Spirit was there even from the beginning (no disagreement there), and yes there were plenty of prophets and others who were guided by that Spirit (still no argument), we still generally reserve the word ‘Christian’ as a descriptor for those who actually knew or now know of the incarnate Christ. (Matt. 13:17) “…many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it …”. And we also read (in Acts I believe) that “in Antioch they were first called ‘Christians’”. This isn’t to militate against the spiritual status of all peoples prior to Christ’s earthly ministry. Of course Christ’s grace is not so limited. I’m only following the convention of thinking of ‘Christian’ as a designation for those who self-identify with that religious movement now in our “A.D.” period of history. This may or may not have any correlation with their actual spiritual status as we all learn (shuddering) from the words of our Lord Himself. I realize that this word has many different legitimate uses (and I may alternate between several myself as context demands), so I certainly won’t be dogmatic about mine here being the only culturally recognized one. I just think that yours (regarding people prior to Christ’s earthly ministry here) may be stretched beyond most culturally recognized uses of that word - at least among those who attend to scriptures.
You privilege a few wise Greeks as the forerunners who prepare the way for Christ, but I think I’ll stick with scriptures on all this that have the prophets of old, and finally John the Baptist as the ones who prepare the way for Christ.
