Some Call it Mythology (Part 1)
A brief glimpse into the Classical Western worldview.
The architects of the western view of reality, ethics and human behavior were of the Socratic school. As we will see, this classical meta-narrative was adopted by the emerging Christian philosophical tradition. Philosopher Bertrand Russell (1946) observes,
In all history, nothing is so surprising or so difficult to account for as the sudden rise of civilization in Greece . . . What they achieved in art and literature is familiar to everybody, but what they did in the purely intellectual realm is even more exceptional. They invented mathematics and science and philosophy; they first wrote history as opposed to mere annals; they speculated freely about the nature of the world and the ends of life . . . [men were so astonished they] . . . were content to gape and talk about the Greek genius (p. 15).
Metaphysics
Both Plato and Aristotle wrestled with how to articulate a “real” or authentic understanding of things experienced in the world. Behind the sense of the transcendent, Greek philosophers struggled with the metaphysical assumptions of polytheism.
The universe was governed and guided by a pantheon of deities. These deities they inherited by the influence of the cultures of former conquered and subjugated empires, e.g., the Babylonians, Persians, Medes, Assyrians and Egyptians (Russell, 1945). Equally, as Greece and her world were subjugated by the Romans, they too adopted the former pantheon, and like Greece, the Babylonian Ba’al, known to the Greeks as Zeus became Jupiter.
The ancient world also functioned with a sense of mystery: that the origin of the world around them was beyond the senses, transcending experience. Plato, in the Republic called this mystery, ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, “the idea of the good,” from which all things are derivative. Cicero later called this concept the Summum Bonum and Paul the Apostle in an Athenian public debate identified this “idea” as God (cf. Acts 17).
John the Apostle co-opted Philo Judæus and referred to Jesus as the λόγος, the uncreated Word (cf. John 1.1, 14, 18). Paul also imported Philo’s idea of the logos as that which holds all things together (Hebrews 1:1-4), but unlike Philo, this “principle” was God himself; the man Jesus is termed the character of God’s ineffable substance (not a created demiurge).
Axiology/ Ethics
In terms of ethical obligations in the ancient world, “the gods also became associated with morality . . . a breach of the law became an impiety” (Russell, 1945, p.5). Russell observes that the Code of Hammurabi was “asserted by the king to have been delivered to him by Marduk” (p. 5). In classical Greek culture, the answer to the ethical problem stems from a polytheistic mythology, which resulted in the ethical dilemma in Socrates’ Dialogue With Euthyphro: is [a thing] right because the gods command it or do they command it because it is right? Both Plato and Aristotle rejected the popular metaphysical explanations of the culture in favor of a naïve objective realism (Aristotle) or idealism (Plato).
For Plato, the Good is what is demonstrably harmonious and orderly in nature, the arts and human behavior. For Aristotle, the Good is objectively virtuous and leads to consequent human happiness or εὐδαιμονία.
Epistemological Assumptions
In the classical world, Aristotle observed a fundamental law of non-contradiction at work in the human reasoning process and this law was a necessary pre-condition for intelligibility. In other words, in order to communicate consistently without nonsense, one has to employ this law. Aristotle asserts in chapter four of his Metaphysics, “It is impossible for the same thing to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in the same respect” (Gottlieb, 2011, para. 4). Expressed another way in Algebra is the Law of Identity: A ≠ non-A.
Gottlieb (2011) summarizes Aristotle thus:
Aristotle says that [the principle of non-contradiction] is one of the common axioms, axioms common to all the special sciences. It has no specific subject matter, but applies to everything that is. It is a first principle and the firmest principle. Like modus ponens, as Lewis Carroll memorably showed, [the principle of non-contradiction] does not function as a premise in any argument. Unlike modus ponens, [the principle of non-contradiction] is not a rule of inference. Aristotle says that it is a principle which ‘is necessary for anyone to have who knows any of the things that are’ . . . it is no mere hypothesis (para. 12).
Aristotle grounds the existence of this principle in the nature of being; “. . . in things themselves, [sic] i.e., in re as their form from which the mind (intellect) abstracts them in getting to know things . . .” (Hunnex, 1986, p. 9). Aristotle argues in book three of the Metaphysics, that it is the business of the philosopher to investigate the first principles or axioms of math or science; things about “being” which the mathematician or the scientist assume exist in nature. It is in being, discernible by the senses of experience, that the law of non-contradiction shows itself: as is.
Gottlieb, P. (Summer 2011). Aristotle on non-contradiction, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Retrieved November 4, 2012 from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/aristotle-noncontradiction/.
Hunnex, M. D. (1986). Chronological and thematic charts of philosophies and philosophers.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan.Russell, B. (1945). A history of Western philosophy. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Looking forward to part 2
Wow, this is excellent. I was not aware of this post until now. I like how you articulated the meaning of "logos" here; "Paul also imported Philo’s idea of the logos as that which holds all things together (Hebrews 1:1-4)."