Philo and Early Christian Thought

A paper I wrote for a class. Because it'd be too complicated, I'm not going to worry about formatting.

Philo and Early Christian Thought

Whatever its claims to divine inspiration, Christianity cannot pretend to have arisen independently of the intellectual and cultural landscape from which it emerged. The omnipresence of Judaism and Jewish thought within early Christian writings is obviously undeniable, and the influence of (and exposure to) Greek philosophy can also be witnessed from the very beginning; St. Paul himself is reported to have debated Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in Athens,¹ and St. John began his Gospel with the proclamation, “In the beginning was the Word [λόγος],”² identifying Jesus Christ with a term from Greek philosophy denoting rationality and animating power. According to Runia, “Christianity could not have become the Christianity that we know, if it had not accepted the challenge posed by Greek philosophy with its trust in a world-view based on rational thought.”³

In particular, Mack has identified Hellenistic Judaism, which incorporated elements of Greek philosophy into the Jewish faith (thus synthesizing the two primary traditions from which Christian thought sprung), as the “religious milieu in which many of the theological concerns and language forms common to [early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism] were first molded.”⁴ And by far the most prominent Hellenistic Jewish figure in early Christian thought (and probably in all of antiquity) was Philo of Alexandria (20 BC-50 AD), a philosopher and exegete who wrote extensively on Mosaic scripture and, as the Jesuit scholar Thomas Tobin describes it, “clearly influenced the interpretation of the Bible for centuries. His impact on patristic exegesis was immense.”⁵ The Church Fathers' respect for him, though not universal, was impressive; St. Jerome placed him among the “ecclesiastical writers,”⁶ and Eusebius mentioned a legend (whose plausibility he does not dismiss) in which Philo spoke to St. Peter in Rome.^7,8 (Not coincidentally, we owe the breadth of the extant Philonic corpus – if not its very existence – to the early Christians, who included him in the incipient Christian tradition: “Had [Origen] not taken copies of Philo's treatises with him when he moved from Alexandria to Caesarea in 233, then these would have gone lost, together with the remainder of the Hellenistic-Jewish literature of Alexandria.”)^9,10 No one contests that Philo had an enormous impact upon early Christian thought.

In this essay, I intend to probe the extent of that impact, analyzing both Philo's role within the larger Hellenistic-Jewish tradition and his place in Christian intellectual history. Doing so will allow me to determine and compare Philo's and Hellenistic Judaism's effects upon Christian thinking.

Philo is often (vaguely) classified as a “philosopher”; however, his main intention was not to construct a systematic philosophy, but instead to understand the Torah;¹¹ in fact, twenty-six of Philo's thirty-three surviving works consist of interpretations of biblical texts.¹² Though his œuvre provides us with our “first sustained reflection about pentateuchal literature and how it should be read,”¹³ Philo, unsurprisingly, drew upon a longstanding tradition of Jewish exegesis in his work. (For example, in his Quæstiones et solutiones in Genesim alone, Philo specifically attributed certain interpretations to previous Jewish thinkers over a dozen times.)¹⁴

Unfortunately, “this rich literature [of Hellenistic Jewish thought] has almost entirely disappeared,” and it is therefore frequently difficult to distinguish between the Philonic and the pre-Philonic in Philo's works, especially because Philo “is the most important and most vital representative of a wider movement, in which the biblical tradition was first brought in direct contact with the philosophical thought that was developed in Greek culture.”¹⁵ Consequently, although several pre-Clementine Church Fathers discussed topics that undoubtedly relate to themes which Philo also explored, it remains uncertain whether these connections stem from a patristic familiarity with Philo himself or from a knowledge of other related sources.¹⁶ (This confusion potentially arises even with St. John; Dodd suggests that “the cast of the [the thoughts of the author of the Gospel of John] clearly suggests that he was acquainted, if not with Philo, at least with Jewish thought proceeding on similar lines.”¹⁷ Furthermore, Philo was quite comfortable with giving multiple interpretations of single texts, often listing previous interpretations which he would sometimes qualify but rarely reject.¹⁸ Because he valued the interpretations of his predecessors enough to assimilate them into his works even when they were not altogether concordant with his own, we must wonder “at what point in this history of interpretation Philo [appeared].”)¹⁹

All of this complicates the task of separating Philo's personal influence upon Christianity from the effects of the broader Hellenistic Jewish tradition. It would be an exceedingly onerous endeavor to parse the two with any success, and I will not attempt to do so here; instead, I have merely flagged some of the obstacles preventing an elucidation of the relationship between Philo and Hellenistic Judaism.

Of course, these obstacles themselves only lead to more questions: What exactly is “Hellenistic Judaism”? In what sort of intellectual environment does Philo write? As Bentwich remarks, “It should be remembered that until the second century of the common era the mass of Jewish tradition was a floating and developing body of opinion not consigned to writing or formalized, but handed down by word of mouth from teacher to pupil, and preacher to congregation.”²⁰ Philo was not a Jewish thinker who subscribed to a particular “Hellenized” branch of Judaism; rather, Philo lived in a time (the first centuries BC and AD) when Greek philosophy had enmeshed itself into Jewish thought and in a place (Alexandria) that was the center of exchange between those two traditions.

Not much is known of the philosophical atmosphere in Alexandria before the first century BC.²¹ However, we know of several Alexandrian philosophers who wrote slightly before Philo's lifetime, one of whom, Aenesidemus of Knossos, founded a Skeptical school of philosophy around 45 BC; Stoic and Peripatetic schools also existed.²² Philo employed some of Aenesidemus' methodology in De ebrietate, drawing upon Peripatetic and Stoic doctrines as well.²³ However, the main Greek influence upon Philo was Middle Platonism, “in which the central position [was] given to Plato's physics or, more importantly, to certain interpretations of Plato's physics.”²⁴ Though the origins of Middle Platonism are unclear, what is known is that first-century Alexandria saw a turn away from Skepticism, an emphasis on Plato's Timaeus (which sketches much of Plato's physics and theology), and a “return of the notion of transcendence” – often including “an intermediate figure between that transcendent deity and the world.”²⁵ Elsewhere, Middle Platonists accentuated Plato's formulation of the purpose of life as “likeness or assimilation to God.”²⁶ Moreover, Middle Platonism possessed a thoroughly religious flavor and a propensity for allegorization of religious stories and rituals:

In general...the Middle Platonic thought of the latter part of the first century B.C., especially in Alexandria, is deeply affected by a Platonism (influenced by Neopythagoreanism) in which cult myths and mystery rites are reinterpreted and allegorized. This interest in the reinterpretation of cult myths and mystery rites...reflects the intensely religious character of much Middle Platonic thought. The attraction, then, of Middle Platonism for Jewish interpreters was not simply its conceptual structure but also the religious sensibility that was a crucial part of that framework.²⁷

All of these developments in first-century Greek philosophy, many of which became fundamental for Philo, primed it for consolidation with (and application to) religious texts. They were vital for Middle Platonism, Hellenistic Judaism, and – eventually – Christianity.

Admittedly, neither Philo nor the early Christians derived the idea of a transcendent God from Greek philosophy; that concept was present enough in the Jewish tradition. However, even before examining the Philonic texts themselves, some salient points can be made about Philo's (and, by extension, Hellenistic Judaism's) importance to Christian thought.

First, as Runia recognizes, The Church Fathers did not learn Platonism from Philo, but rather a means of

[establishing a link] between Platonist ideas and the contents of scripture. ... [Philo and Hellenistic-Jewish thought] showed how insights from the Greek philosophical tradition could be localized in the authoritative words of scripture. ... The history of [Philonic thought] in the church fathers is the process in which a long sequence of apologists and theologians takes over themes and ideas from Philo and the broader Hellenistic-Jewish tradition. These ideas are seldom abstractly philosophical. They are connected to the exposition of the biblical text or – as occurs later – introduced in polemical dogmatic discussions.²⁸

Even where Philo did not provide specific interpretations or hermeneutical principles, his writings illustrated the centrality – indeed, the necessity – of a balanced integration and synthesis of philosophy and scriptural religion. (To borrow Bentwich's bon mot, Philo offered the Greeks a “philosophical religion” and the Jews a “religious philosophy.”)²⁹ Importantly, the early Christians employed a similar methodological equilibrium that allowed them to preserve the distinctiveness of the faith while engaging the surrounding zeitgeist.

Such engagement, crucial both for Philo and for the early Christians, required a noticeably apologetic exegesis – one for believers and non-believers alike. And Philo exemplified this approach:

Why, it must be asked, does Philo artificially attach his philosophy to the Scriptures? He does so for two reasons: first, because he holds and wishes to prove that between faith and philosophy there is no conflict, and his generation worked out the agreement by his method; he does so also because he wishes to establish the Torah and Judaism upon a sure foundation for the man of outside culture. ... A superficial knowledge of the materialistic or rationalistic theories...was made the excuse for indifference to the law. ... The dominating motive of Philo's work is to show that the Bible contains for those who will seek it the richest treasures of wisdom, that its ethical teaching is more ideal and yet more real than that which hundreds of sophists poured forth daily...and lastly that the cultured Jew may search out knowledge and truth to their depths, and find them expressed in his holy books and in his religious beliefs and practices.³⁰

This external and even evangelistic focus of Philo's (with which the Fathers would, of course, wholly empathize) served as a primary impetus for his thought, as it would for the Church Fathers.³¹

But what exactly did Philo say to become so singular a figure in Christian history? What was the substance of his conclusions? How did he come to them? And in what ways did the Church Fathers agree with him?

Runia proposes two Philonic doctrines, God's immutability and his “exaltedness” (or transcendence), as partial answers to these questions; the former “gave expression to the conviction of God's faithfulness and reliability,” while the latter stresses the notion that “God, as he really is, is known only to himself.”³² (Or, as Philo has God says to Moses when asked to reveal Himself: “I bestow what is appropriate for the one who is to receive it.”)³³ According to Runia, this second idea of transcendence was particularly popular with the Cappadocian Father Gregory of Nyssa – so popular, in fact, that he appropriated the title of a Philonic text for his work on the subject, De vita Moysis.³⁴

Philo also “furnish[ed] the church fathers with numerous allegorical themes and schemes, especially in the area of physical (or cosmological), psychological and moral exposition.”³⁵ Pointing out that Philo refuses to allegorize God, Runia nevertheless cites the abilities “to connect up with and exploit contemporary philosophical ideas” and “to preserve at least partly the narrative element of the biblical text, but then at the more general level of the quest of the soul for God” as critical advantages of the allegorical method; it promotes flexibility and unity of message.³⁶ (This essentially is why Bentwich names Philo's allegorical commentaries as “the crowning point of his work.”)³⁷

Several features of Philo's allegorical method bear mentioning. For Philo, “the Torah [was] a unity, and every part of it [had] equal value”;³⁸ in Philo's words,

[T]he giving of the law...is a sort of living unity, the whole of which one ought to examine carefully with all one's eyes, and so discern with truth, and certainty, and clearness, the universal intention of the whole of the scripture without dissecting or lacerating its harmony, or disuniting its unity.³⁹

For Philo, no other hermeneutical perspective can be valid: “[B]y any other mode everything would appear utterly inconsistent and absurd, being dissociated from all community or equity.”⁴⁰ This means that almost every passage in scripture must have a symbolic meaning – and, indeed, Philo devoted his Quæstiones et solutiones in Genesim to answering hundreds of questions about allegorical interpretations of specific pentateuchal clauses, including the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God's indignation with Noah's generation, and such esoterica as the ordering of Shem, Ham, and Japheth's names.⁴¹ Interestingly, he (following interpreters before him) differentiated between the man created in Genesis i. 26-27 and ii. 7; one symbolized the mind, the other virtue.⁴² This is part of Philo's “allegory of the soul,” which “emphasize[d] that the figures described in the text of Genesis are also symbols of faculties and processes that are within each individual.”⁴³ Significantly, Philo considered “both [the 'literal' and the 'allegorical' or 'symbolic'] levels of interpretation legitimate,” and sought to maintain both when possible.⁴⁴ (Important exceptions include Philo's aforementioned refusal to allegorize God on the one hand and his non-literal readings of potentially anthropomorphic passages on the other.)^45,46 This method of double allegory is perhaps the defining characteristic of Philonic exegesis.

There is no room here for an exhaustive survey of the Fathers' use of allegory in biblical interpretation; however, as a representative case, we can consider interpretations of the Genesis creation accounts in Philo and in some of the Church Fathers. Are the six days of the creation story literal days? Philo offers a numerological, non-literal exposition:

It would be a sign of great simplicity to think that the world was created in six days, or indeed at all in time; because all time is only the space of days and nights, and these things the motion of the sun as he passes over the earth and under the earth does necessarily make. ... When...Moses says, 'God completed his works on the sixth day,' we must understand that he is speaking not of a number of days, but that he takes six as a perfect number.⁴⁷

Origen, who is closely associated with Philo and is known to have studied his works thoroughly,⁴⁸ echoes Philo's view, lambasting literal interpretations as absurd:

For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? ... And who is so foolish as to suppose that God...planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life...so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? ... And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.⁴⁹

But Origen's rather dismissive tone belies the variety of opinions the Fathers held.⁵⁰ St. Basil, for instance, holds a view diametrically opposed to Origen's, and specifically eschews the allegorical approach:

I know the laws of allegory, though less by myself than from the works of others. There are those truly, who do not admit the common sense of the Scriptures, for whom water is not water, but some other nature, who see in a plant, in a fish, what their fancy wishes, who change the nature of reptiles and of wild beasts to suit their allegories, like the interpreters of dreams who explain visions in sleep to make them serve their own ends. For me grass is grass; plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense. “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel.”⁵¹

It is clear, then, that Philo's writings did not sway all patristic writers. Furthermore, even those fathers who were more inclined toward allegorical interpretations often approached the Old Testament in deliberately Christian (and thus non-Philonic) ways. Bentwich (somewhat of a Jewish apologist) laments that the early Christians “[learned] from Philo to trace in the Bible principles of universal thought and profound philosophy; but...used his method and his lessons to support notions of God and the Logos which were alien to his spirit.”⁵²

Indeed, the Christian appropriation of the concept of the Logos presents another fascinating glimpse at the relationship between Philo and the Church Fathers.⁵³ For Philo, “The logos was both the power through which the universe was originally ordered and the power by which the universe continued to be ordered.”⁵⁴ It is referred to as the “idea of ideas, according to which God fashioned the world,”⁵⁵ “the man of God, who being the reason of the everlasting God, is of necessity himself also immortal,”⁵⁶ and the “second deity, who is the Word [λόγος] of the supreme Being.”⁵⁷ Unquestionably, it is central both to Philo's thought and to the thought of the early Christians; after all, Jesus himself is identified with the Logos in the Gospel of John.⁵⁸ Yet Philo obviously did not have any specific human in mind when he wrote about the Logos, nor did he ever identify the Logos with the Jewish Messiah.

Based on these two (hastily covered) examples, we can safely conclude a few things. The Church Fathers plainly felt no qualms recasting Greek philosophical (or, for that matter, Jewish) concepts in a Christian light, even if this reinterpretation was far removed from the original. (The Philonic Logos may be superficially similar to the Christian Logos, but the two are fundamentally different.) For all of the Hellenistic and Jewish influences that supplied the material (as it were) for the Christian faith, something uniquely Christian egressed of the early writings and creeds. Its vocabulary, methodology, and philosophical outlook may have been Jewish and Greek – but Christian thought cannot be reduced to the two traditions upon which it was founded.

What, then, is Philo's ultimate significance? His allegorical method granted a hermeneutical versatility that allowed the early Christians (including many of the New Testament authors) both to connect Christian ideas symbolically to Old Testament figures and events and to accommodate contemporary philosophical (and, later, scientific) trends. His exposition of Hellenistic Jewish philosophy furnished them with the philosophical lexicon and world-view necessary for Christianity to flourish in the classical world. Finally, he supplied the Church Fathers with a paradigmatic illustration of philosophically grounded exegesis, in which foundational scriptural and philosophical assumptions illuminated each other and coalesced into one truth.⁵⁹ Christianity could not have established its intellectual footing without the possibility of such a religio-philosophical synthesis, and Philo provided early Christendom an excellent rubric for such an integration. This means of unifying reason and faith set the course for the tradition which would come to dominate and define Western society for the next two thousand years.

References: Secondary Sources

Bentwich, Norman De Mattos. 1910. Philo-Judæus of Alexandria /. Philadelphia : The Jewish Publication Society of America.

Bouteneff, Peter. 2008. Beginnings : Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives /. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Academic.

Mack, Burton L. “Exegetical Traditions in Alexandrian Judaism.” Studia Philonica, no. 3 (1974-1975).

Dodd, C. H. 1953. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge Eng.: University Press.

Runia, David T. 1995. Philo and the Church Fathers : A Collection of Papers /. Vol. . 32. New York : E.J. Brill.

Tobin, Thomas H. 1983. The Creation of Man : Philo and the History of Interpretation /. Vol. 14. Washington, DC : Catholic Biblical Association of America.

References: Primary Sources

Basil. 378 AD. Homily IX.

Eusebius. c. 4^th century AD. Historia Ecclesiastica.

Jerome. 392 AD. De viris illustribus.

Origen. c. 220-230 AD. De principiis.

Philo. c. 1^st century AD. De specialibus legibus.

Philo. c. 1^st century AD. De confusione linguarum.

Philo. c. 1^st century AD. De migrationi Abrahami.

Philo. c. 1^st century AD. Legum allegoriae.

Philo. c. 1^st century AD. Quæstiones et solutiones et Genesim.

Stobaeus. c. 5thc entury AD. Eclogarum physicarum et ethicarum.

1cf. Acts xvii. 16-34

2Jn i. 1

3David T. Runia, Philo and the Church Fathers: A Collection of Papers (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), 16.

4Burton L. Mack, “Exegetical Traditions in Alexandrian Judaism,” Studia Philonica, no. 3 (1974-1975): 71.

5Thomas H. Tobin, The Creation of Man: Philo and the History of Interpretation (Washington: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1983), 1.

6Jerome, De viris illustribus, XI.

7Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, II.16-17.3

8Tobin discusses Jereome's and Eusebius' opinions of Philo slightly more expansively at the beginning of The Creation of Man: Philo and the History of Interpretation.

9Runia, 7-8, 117. To be fair, Runia himself notes in his Philo in Early Christian Literature that at least one pagan author, Heliodorus of Emesa, almost certainly was acquainted with Philo; a passage from Heliodorus' Æthiopica virtually mirrors a passage from Philo's De vita Moysis.

10In his Philo-Judæus of Alexandria, Bentwich observes that one very essential part of Philo's work, referred to as “The Hexameron” (τό 'Εχημερὸν), has been lost. In this treatise, Philo apparently gave his “philosophical account of the first chapter of Genesis.”

11“For Philo scripture was limited to the books of Moses.” Runia, 15.

12Tobin, 2.

13Peter C. Bouteneff, Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 27.

14cf. Tobin, 5. Tobin lists sixteen relevant passages from the Quæstiones.

15Runia, 11, 12. Philo and Hellenistic Jewish thought are actually so intertwined in the extant literature that Runia proposes categorizing the former as “Philo” and the latter as “Philonism,” acknowledging the centrality of Philo's writings to the preservation of Hellenistic Jewish thought while differentiating his contributions from the broader tradition.

16Ibid., 10-11. “Philo is first explicitly mentioned and cited by Clement of Alexandria.” Runia cites Justin and Theophilus as specific examples of Fathers possibly acquainted with Philo's corpus before the time of Clement.

17Charles H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 41.

18cf. Norman Bentwich, Philo-Judæus of Alexandria (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1910), 100; Tobin, 32.

19Tobin, 32.

20Bentwich, 200-201.

21Tobin writes, “Serious philosophical discussion seems to have come into its own in Alexandria only in the first century B.C. There was probably no lack of philosophers in the third and second centuries in Alexandria, yet, apart from the polymath Eratosthenes (ca. 274-194 B.C.), no prominent philosophical figure was associated with Alexandria during these two centuries.”

22Tobin, 11.

23Ibid., 11. cf. Philo, De ebrietate, 171-205.

24Ibid., 11.

25Tobin, 12-17.

26Stobaeus, Eclogarum physicarum et ethicarum, II.49, 8-12.

27Tobin, 19. For a more thorough analysis, Tobin refers the reader to Antonie Wlosok's Laktanz und die philosophische Gnosis.

28Runia, 15. Runia writes this about one specific Church Father, Clement of Alexandria, not the Fathers as a wholel; however, because he is considering Clement as a “striking example” of the wider relationship between Philonic and early Christian thought, I have taken his words as referring not just to Clement, but to the Church Fathers in general.

29Ibid., 96.

30Bentwich, 92-23.

31It should be noted, however, that Bentwich mentions a polemical side to Philo which “is directed less against the Greek schools in themselves than against the Jewish followers of the Greek schools.” Bentwich, 95.

32Runia, 17-18.

33Philo, De specialibus legibus, I.8.

34Runia, 18. Also, cf. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993), 256. Runia observes that this is “the first time we have a patristic writing with almost exactly the same title as a Philonic work and covering exactly the same ground.”

35Runia, 13.

36Ibid., 13-14.

37Bentwich, 96.

38Ibid, 107.

39Philo, Quæstiones et solutiones et Genesim, III.3.

40Ibid., III.3.

41cf. Genesis ii. 9, vi. 7, x. 1; Philo, Q.G I.11, I.95, II.79.

42cf. Tobin, 32-33.

43Ibid., 34.

44Ibid. 34-35.

45cf. Runia, 14.

46cf. Tobin, 36-55. Tobin cites Genesis i. 26-27 and ii. 7 as important passages interpreted allegorically by Philo to avoid the taint of anthropomorphism.

47Philo, Legum allegoriae I.2.

48cf. Runia, 117, 120-121. Runia writes, “Clearly one of the most prominent Church Fathers who was well acquainted with Philo was Origen.”

49Origen, De principiis, IV.3.1.

50For one discussion of different early Christian perspectives on Genesis i-iii, cf. Bouteneff, 55-87.

51Basil, Homily IX.1. The scriptural quotation is from Romans i. 16.

52Bentwich, 195.

53Before I begin this discussion, I should note Bentwich's argument that the personality of the Logos was only ever intended to be figurative, and that several passages concerning the Logos in the Philonic corpus are “probably spurious.” cf. Bentwich, 155-156.Andrew Wiese, “‘The House I Live In’: Race, Class, and African American Suburban Dreams in the Postwar United States,” in The New Suburban History, ed. Kevin M. Kruse and Thomas J. Sugrue (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 101–2.

54Tobin, “Creation in Philo of Alexandria” in Creation in the Biblical Tarditions, ed. Clifford and Collins (Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1992), 116.

55Philo, De migrationi Abrahami, 18.

56Philo, De confusione linguarum, 11.

57Philo, Q.G. II.62.

58cf. John i. 1-18.

59Not that Philo was by any means systematic in his approach. cf. Bentwich, 167.

Freud, Evolutionary Psychology, and Religious Experience - An Expansion

I would like to expand on one of the points considered in the previous post, and expound upon one of my own.

As for the second point, I completely agree that most psychological theories on religion are based on the "assumption that religious belief is unjustifiable." I think this is particularly important to keep in mind, because, as far as I know, religions claim to be true. Many - if not most - Christians would not be Christians if they did not believe (for example) that Jesus rose from the dead. If such an event occurred, then there is no need for a psychological explanation for religion - religious belief is justified by fact.

7. Freud writes, "[I]t is a very striking fact that all this [religion] is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be." I find this assessment to be patently untrue. While there are some Christians who will revise the teachings of Jesus to justify their prior beliefs, most Christians feel challenged by his teachings in one way or another. I wish that my religious beliefs could justify my pride or ambition or selfishness. But they don't. They challenge me to be very different than I would otherwise be in order to obtain salvation. True, they may grant me the opportunity for an eternal world beyond this life, but I don't find that desire particularly strong to begin with. Religion is an answer to my search for truth, a truth which is radical and discomforting to my natural state, not an opiate to appease me.

Metaphysics and the Historical Jesus

(N.B.: I have no solid data on the religious and metaphysical beliefs of historians beyond my own impressions of the American, Canadian, and English academies. This means that I have to generalize substantially. Nevertheless, I feel that this will not detract significantly from my argument. If anyone knows of any evidence that would contradict my claims about historians, I would love to see it.)

Most scholars of the historical Jesus who believe that he rose from the dead are theists. Most historians who do not share this belief are non-theists. Makes sense, right?

Yes - and no. Of course, theism seems to be a "prerequisite" for belief in Jesus' literal resurrection - but the inverse is not true. One need not be committed to atheism to disbelieve the resurrection; one could be, for example, a Jew or a Muslim.

Why I find this interesting is that the vast majority of historians (as far as I know) who leave Christianity do not become non-Christian theists, but atheists or agnostics. In other words, they are modifying not only their historical views but also their metaphysical views - their belief in God, belief in the soul, &c.

Why? What is the connection between metaphysics and history?

Some thoughts:

1. If we think of the evidence for the resurrection probabilistically (which we can only do as a heuristic for quantifying different degrees of certainty), then one connection between metaphysics and this particular (alleged) historical event becomes clear.

Belief in the literal resurrection of Jesus presupposes a few metaphysical beliefs (e.g., belief in a personal, loving God). Let us suppose that we can "calculate" the "probability" of the resurrection's having happened by multiplying the "probability" that the metaphysical requirements are met by the "probability" that the historical evidence is sufficient. (I am not at all saying that this probabilistic meanas of thinking is how we should think of the resurrection; it is simply one means of illuminating the role metaphysics plays in our evaluation of the evidence.)

If that is the case, then the probability that the literal resurrection happened varies directly with the probability that these metaphysical requirements are met. If we double the chances that the metaphysical requirements are met - say, from 40% to 80% - we also double the chances that the resurrection happened. In the case of the resurrection, our metaphysical beliefs should - and do - influence our historical analyses.

2. Why do many historians who leave Christianity leave it for atheism? Are their historical beliefs motivating a change in their metaphysical beliefs or vice versa?

As I noted above, our historical beliefs concerning Christianity are largely dependent on our metaphysical beliefs. If God does not exist, then the resurrection is impossible; if God does exist, then the resurrection is not only possible, but (in my unscholarly opinion) very likely. (Of course, the relevant metaphysical discourse goes beyond the mere existence of a "god" to a discussion of such a being's qualities.)

However, I do not see that our historical beliefs should influence our metaphysical beliefs to a similar extent - or at all. If I were to reject the resurrection, I would still be some sort of theist. Some of my idea of Who God - the part that is specifically Christian - would change. But the core belief would remain. This is because I believe in God on philosophical grounds, not on historical grounds. I do not see that there is any reasonable alternative.

Therefore, when Christian historians abandon the faith for atheism or agnosticism - in other words, when they simultaneously reject both historical and metaphysical propositions - I cannot help but question their philosophical approach.

(Of course, this transition may not always occur simultaneously. I may disagree with a former Christian who comes to believe that God cannot exist and then, on the basis of that belief, rejects the resurrection - but at least I can say that he has not put the historical cart before the metaphysical horse. The same reasoning would apply, mutatis mutandis, to a Christian who came to believe that the historical evidence for the resurrection was lacking but remained a theist.)

3. One interesting possibility this leads me to consider: Perhaps Christians should evaluate the historical treatment of the resurrection given by atheists quite differently from the historical treatment of the resurrection given by non-Christians who nevertheless believe that the resurrection is at least metaphysically possible.

I say "Perhaps" because I only think that would really be true in an ideal world in which historians always had their philosophy on straight.

4. Another thought: In a way, there isn't that much of interest that an atheist can say about the resurrection. Consider, as an analogy, the following "blurb" from a fictional scholar:

"Many people believe that a round square appeared two thousand years ago. They believe this based on certain historical evidence such as eyewitness testimony. But obviously, no round square appeared...because the eyewitness testimony is shabby."

Perhaps the eyewitness testimony truly is shabby - but the main grounds for the scholar's skepticism of the appearance is not historical, but metaphysical. Assuming that the scholar doesn't believe that round squares can exist, he will have to analyze the putative "eyewitness testimony" presupposing that no appearance happened.

The point is not that atheists and non-Christians are shoddy historians. They are often excellent historians. The point, rather, is that one's metaphysical framework has a tremendous impact on one's historical opinion concerning the resurrection - even if that historical opinion is a scholarly one.

Thus, when an atheist historian challenges a Christian historical claim, I must meet his challenge - but I must also remember that he is operating within a (faulty, in my opinion) philosophical framework that prejudices him against certain interpretations of historical events.

5. An interesting question for non-theist historians: "If God existed, how plausible would Jesus' resurrection be?" I'm not sure a non-theist could answer that question very well; I say that because I know that is difficult for me, a theist, to consider "If God did not exist, then..." questions.

(6. At this point, you might be thinking, "What about Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christian theists?" For the most part, this post does not apply to Jewish and Muslim scholars of the historical Jesus. The main reason for this is that almost all of the people who study the historical Jesus are either Christians or former Christians. However, I will briefly note that Jews and Muslims, though they are monotheists, might still have metaphysical scruples with Christianity related to concepts such as the Trinity. This means that they may, for all intents and purposes, be as committed to the metaphysical impossibility of the resurrection as atheists would be.)

Freud, Evolutionary Psychology, and Religious Experience

Just read an interesting summary of some of Freud's ideas about religious belief and experience. (I also read parts 1 and 2 of the series.) A few thoughts:

1. The distinction Beck makes between the question "Is religious belief true?" and the question "Why is there religious belief?" is very important to keep in mind. You'd be surprised by the extent to which anti-religious discourse centers on the latter and not the former.

2. Often implicit in the question "Why is there religious belief?" is some assumption that religious belief is unjustifiable. In other words, people who pose the question "Why is there religious belief?" are often really asking, "Given that religion is implausible, why is there religious belief?"

3. Freud writes, "We shall tell ourselves that it would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent Providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be." (Or, as Beck puts it: "[F]or Freud, the fact that the very thing we vitally wish for is precisely the thing we believe to be the case seems a bit too coincidental.") In Freud's mind (as in the mind of many other people), potential psychological explanations for religious belief count as evidence against religion - the questions "Why is there religious belief?" and "Is religious belief true?" are somehow linked.

4. For some (hypothetical) fact to constitute evidence against religion, it must be a fact that would be incompatible with a particular religious worldview. But there is no prima facie reason to believe that God would design us not to be psychologically inclined toward religion; on the contrary, most religious people (or at least monotheists) would agree with St. Augustine's assertion in the Confessiones: "Thou [i.e., God] hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee." This is an important point to remember: For a fact to count against a certain belief, it must be incompatible with that belief. But the "facts" which Freud discusses - our natural inclination to desire that God exist - are not incompatible with most religious systems.

Of course, a non-religious account of religious belief and experience (such as Freud's) can possibly neutralize some arguments for religion that are grounded in design or experience. But it cannot neutralize religion itself.

In fact, I could construct an argument from Freud's psychological theories for the opposite metaphysical conclusion. I could "spin" the psychological evidence the other way: Given that we are psychologically inclined toward belief in God, is it not reasonable to conclude that God was somehow involved in our creation? Is it truly plausible that evolution accidentally inclined us toward belief in a fictional being completely unlike anything else in existence? Or that evolution would lead us to some philosophical abstract for our emotional consolation? (This echoes C.S. Lewis' line from Mere Christianity: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.")

I am not saying that this is a good argument; in fact, I would be wary of it, because I am not an evolutionary psychologist. But the point remains.

5. As Beck notes, religious belief and experience are multifaceted and powerful phenomena. It will not suffice simply to identify some experience associated with "religion" and explain that experience. Religious experience varies tremendously within and among religious traditions. Can the same evolutionary hypothesis explain Benny Hinn, Laozi, and everything in between? I doubt it.

In my opinion, the fact that this entire debate is centered around "religion" betrays a central conceit of those opposed to "religion" - a tendency to group all "religious" people together. But from a psychological perspective, this hardly seems reasonable, given how differently a Taoist and a Pentecostal will "experience" "religion."

6. None of this necessarily means I disagree with any or all of the theories proposed by evolutionary psychologists concerning religion.

Galaxies and G.K. Chesteron

In The Everlasting Man, G.K. Chesterton wrote:

Modern people...seem to forget, for instance, that a man is not even certain of the Solar System as he is certain of the South Downs. The Solar System is a deduction, and doubtless a true deduction; but the point is that it is a very vast and far-reaching deduction and therefore he forgets that it is a deduction at all and treats it as a first principle. He might discover that the whole calculation is a miscalculation; and the sun and stars and street-lamps would look exactly the same.

Recently, a rather enormous miscalculation was discovered. Harvard researchers found that our galaxy is 50% more massive than previously thought.

...As if we didn't have enough reasons to recognize Chesterton's genius already.

Everything You Know About Mediæval Europe Is Wrong

Well, kind of. Or not really. But some things you (thought you) knew about Mediæval Europe, or at least about twelfth-century England, are wrong.

I am assuming, of course, that most people conceive of Europe during the "Dark Ages" as almost uniformly Christian - as I once did. But Peter of Cornwall, as quoted by Robert Bartlett in his England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, gives us reason to believe otherwise:

"There are many people who do not believe that God exists, nor do they think that a human soul lives on after the death of the body. They consider that the universe has always been as it is now and is ruled by chance rather than by Providence."

Probably not what you would have expected from a prior writing centuries before Hume and Spinoza. Incidentally, this is yet another indication of the strong historical ties between atheism and belief in an eternally old universe.

(Hat tip to Peter van Inwagen.)

van Inwagen on the Origins of Human Rationality

From the fifth of his lectures on the problem of evil:

"It is not a discovery of evolutionary biology that there are no miraculous events in our evolutionary history. It could not be, any more than it could be a discovery of meteorology that the weather at Dunkirk during those fateful days in 1940 was not due to a specific and local divine action. Anyone who believes either that the coming-to-be of human rationality or the weather at Dunkirk had purely natural causes must believe this on philosophical, not scientific, grounds. In fact, the case for this is rather stronger in the matter of the genesis of rationality, for we know a lot about how the weather works, and we know that the rain clouds at Dunkirk are the sort of thing that could have had purely natural causes. We most assuredly do not know that rationality could have arisen through natural causes - or, at any rate, we do not know this unless we somehow know that everything in fact has purely natural causes. This is because everyone who believes that human rationality could have arisen from purely natural causes believes this solely on the basis of the following argument: Everything has purely natural causes; human beings are rational; hence, the rationality of human beings could have arisen from purely natural causes because it did so arise in fact."

Liberal vs. Conservative Values

So Experimental Theology posted about a thesis on morality that explains the moral differences between liberals and conservatives.

The blogger, Richard Beck, summarizes Jonathan Haidt's five moral foundations:

Harm/Care: Harming others, failures of care/nurturance, or failures of protection are often cited as reasons for an act being “wrong.” Some virtues from this domain are kindness, caretaking, and compassion.

Fairness/Reciprocity: Inequalities or failures to reciprocate are often cited as evidence for something being “wrong.” Some virtues here are sharing, egalitarianism, and justice.

Ingroup/Loyalty: Failure to support, defend, and aid the group is often cited as evidence for “wrongness.” Virtues include loyalty, patriotism, and cooperation.

Authority/Respect: Failure to grant respect to culturally significant groups, institutions, or authority figures is often cause for sanction. Virtues include respect, duty, and obedience.

Purity/Sanctity: Anything that demeans, debases, or profanes human or religious dignity or sacredness is also a cause for sanction. Virtues include purity, dignity, and holiness.

Research has shown that liberals and conservatives differ in the degree to which they deploy these moral grammars. Specifically, liberals tend to emphasize the first two: Harm and Fairness. Conservatives, by contrast, often appeal to the last two: Authority and Purity. This is not to say that liberals or conservatives restrict themselves to these warrants, but they do display moral tendencies with some warrants being used more than others or some warrants held as more vital than others.

I think there is definitely some truth to this thesis. (After all, isn't there a little bit of truth to almost all ideas?)

I think of the difference between one of my best friends and myself. As a conservative, I am much more disturbed by premarital sex than my liberal friend is. In fact, she barely understands my disgust with it, while I cannot comprehend how she is so at ease with it. This seems to confirm the hypothesis.

Yet I still doubt if this hypothesis is accurate. I think conservatives value stay-at-home mothers much more than their liberal counterparts. After all, children need to be cared for, and it is unfair for them to not have a proper upbringing. Yet conservatives also feel that mothers have a “duty” to care for their children, whereas liberals seem to apply this concept of “duty” more... liberally. Even if the conservative mentality is that of Authority/Respect and not Harm/Care or Fairness/Reciprocity, I would say that the categories are not as easily classifiable as is suggested. A mother's duty comes from conservatives' sense of justice and obligation to take care of children.

For a firmer counterexample, I think of race relations. When looking at the issue of affirmative action, conservatives talk about equality and fairness for all people, including whites. It often seems that liberals today demand “respect” for what they deem culturally significant groups – minorities.

Liberal human rights campaigns are often couched in terms of human “dignity.” Conservatives are the ones who demand “justice” for the victims of violence. Compassionate Conservatism seems to defy this system of classification. Democratic soldiers appear to negate this hypothesis.

After taking the test, it revealed some more insight: Republicans are ranked almost evenly on all five categories, while Democrats rank much more highly on the first two. Essentially, Democrats care little for Authority or Purity, whereas Republicans care about all moral factors.

The more interesting component of what Beck discusses is the “disgust-factor” which is addressed in this recent New York Times article. The article essential states that Republicans tend to feel more disgust than Democrats, and thus are psychologically different. This appears easy to link to the fact that conservatives value purity more than liberals.

Yet I wonder if the difference in values system might stem from other, more relevant differences. The Democratic Party is much more secular than the Republican Party, and I can easily understand why religious people would be more affected by moral situations involving purity. Christians are also called to fulfill their duties and act with respect for authority, whereas secular humanists feel more of an obligation to help other human beings. I think that these religious differences may be more key to understanding morality than simple political affiliation.

Needless to say, much more research needs to be done on the subject before I will grant it any weight.

Lewis on Prayer

From Lewis' essay "The Efficacy of Prayer":

"Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of man? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate. He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers; or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to cooperate in the execution of His will. "God," says Pascal, "instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality." But it is not only prayer; whenever we act at all, He lends us that dignity. It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so."

Calvin on Certainty

I think there's an idea floating around that faith used to mean "complete lack of doubt," and that recent Christian attempts to "reconcile" faith with doubt are just products of modern or existentialist thinking. It makes sense that Kierkegaard would write about the leap of faith (or, in his own terms, the leap to faith) - but would Paul think in the same way?

I'm not going to analyze Paul's writings for existential angst, but I will point out a relatively modern-sounding quotation from John Calvin I recently saw:

"When we inculcate that faith ought to be certain and secure, we conceive not of a certainty attended with no doubt, or of a security interrupted by no anxiety; but we rather affirm, that believers have a perpetual conflict with their own diffidence, and are far from placing their consciences in a placid calm never disturbed by any storms. Yet, on the other hand, we deny, however they may be afflicted, that they ever fall and depart from that certain confidence which they have conceived in the divine mercy."

Runia on the Hellenization of Christianity

From David T. Runia's Philo and the Church Fathers:

"[I]n retrospect the process of [the Hellenization of Christianity] was inevitable. By this I do not wish to say that it could not have gone differently. This is a matter of pure speculation. What I want to emphasize is that Christianity could not have become the Christianity that we know, if it had not accepted the challenge posed by Greek philosophy with its trust in a world-view based on rational thought. ... The process of Hellenization took place, but it did not penetrate to Christianity's heart. This heart is to be located in the Gospel, and within it, at the cross of Jesus Christ. This nucleus stays out of the reach of both Philonism and Platonism."

Gratitude

I always find it disconcerting when people ask me what my cafeteria is like. If you've ever seen Annenberg, you'll understand why the term cafeteria doesn't quite do it justice. The only sad thing about having such an incredible eating facility is that after eating there three meals a day, seven days a week, you begin to take it for granted. You forget how beautiful the building is, how much time went into producing the stained glass, how much effort was expended on its construction.

I feel that my developed indifference to the beauty of Annenberg and the skill of those who created it is similar to our acquired apathy to to the beauty of the world and the incredible nature of the God who created it.

Imagine what the world must appear like to a newborn: a strange set of colors, movements, and objects appearing randomly and without reason. It is only as the years begin to wear on us that we begin to treat the world as though it could not be any other way. As we begin to see the same beauty year after year, we begin to take sunrises and sunsets for granted. After a couple decades, we forget our love for first winter snowfalls and sunny summer days, crisp spring air and autumn's vibrant hues. We lose our sense of wonder at the world. We seek visible miracles while overlooking the fact that our very existence is a miracle in and of itself.

I love the random moments when I look at my dining hall and realize what I have been taking for granted because they remind me to thank God not only for the material things He gives us: food, shelter, and money, but for the fact that anything material even exists.

As Oscar Wilde said, "The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."

Andúril

We are now featuring a new blogger: Sword Reforged.

Valedictory Address

This is the speech I gave at my high school graduation.

Before I begin, I'd like to thank Dr. Laurie, Mr. Laurie, Ms. Butts, Mrs. Shienvold, Mrs. Cvammen, Mr. Gulotta, the administration, deans, faculty, guidance, my peers and my family. Also, thank you to all the friends and family of the graduates for joining us.

It is now my honor to give a final valedictory address before we all blindly plunge into adulthood, following Life's ever-winding road. I have only a few words of advice to give, and though they might seem trite or corny now, I think they are very important.

Life can at once seem extremely beautiful, profound, and terrifying; our understanding of it is only imperfect and flawed. But among all doubts and uncertainties, among all the travails and absurdities of existence, I have always been sure of one thing: love. In my mind, there's nothing else really worth talking about.

Love is, unfortunately, a tired word, one reiterated unceasingly in our songs, farewells, and text messages. We "heart" nearly anything, from new bands to New York, from McDonald's to McSteamy. We constantly tell people we love them, and almost exclusively devote our literature, music, and cinema to the subject of love.

And yet, despite all our professions of love, despite all our emphasis, we still live in a desperate, crying world, a world that is beautiful but fragile, in which "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." We live in a world that all too often is lonely, cruel, and empty – a world, in short, that lacks love.

I have often wondered why a world that so obviously desires love would be so lacking in it, why a world that so idolizes love so desperately needs it. Although no one can be sure, I think our error often lies in not understanding love.

Love is not just a passion or a feeling, not just an attraction or an emotion. Love is nothing more or less than a willingness to sacrifice oneself for others, to value the well-being of others above our own.

Virtually since birth, we have been deluged with messages of individuality and self-discovery. We have placed a primacy on what we want to do, on what we want to be, and I fear we have forgotten that a life lived for oneself is no life at all.

I was asked to speak about the future, about the paths we all will pursue, about where the Road will lead us. I could have spoken about careers, crossroads, or choices, but I believe now and always that where we go and what we do will mean nothing if we do not love the people around us. Health, knowledge, and comfort are all stale and meaningless without this sincere love. "One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love."

Every day, we are blessed with the irreplaceable opportunity to brighten the lives of those around us, to make this world beautiful with our kindness and concern for others. We can love with our actions, love with our thoughts, and love with our words. We can't all be rich or famous or pretty or smart – but we can all love, even when it is difficult.

About two years ago, five Amish schoolchildren were murdered in a small Pennsylvania town. The response of the Amish community to such a tragedy was beautiful and powerful: love. The Amish, whom we often mock, loved and forgave in a way we rarely would, inviting the murderer's family to the funeral. As one grandfather watched his granddaughter's burial, he told the young Amish boys, "We must not think evil of this man."

I have been given the opportunity to speak today because of my academic performance. But the honest truth is that grades aren't what really matter. What matters is the people around us. Today, I am truly honored to share this moment with people who aren't just classmates, but friends. Many of you have sacrificed time, energy, and sanity for me and for each other, and that sacrifice is beautiful. I am proud beyond words that my three co-speakers and I never competed for accolades, but supported each other every step of the way, and I know all of us had friends like that during these past few years. Class of 2008, you are beautiful, intelligent, and talented people, but I respect you most for your kindness and compassion.

I can't tell you which college you should have chosen, which field you should major in, or which career you should enter. But I can make you one promise: if you love, if you are truly willing to dedicate yourself to friends, to family, to acquaintances, and even to strangers, it'll all be worth it. It won't be easy, it won't be safe or cautious – but it will be beautiful. "Love is strong as Death..." As we embark anew upon the Road, I hope we all can remember what the Beatles said: “All You Need Is Love.” Congratulations, Class of 2008.