I was reading last night some works by great early theologians. It was interesting because the two were in stark contrast to one another. One, Justin Martyr, describes this synthesis between philosophy and theology. His argument is that philosophers were simply trying to describe the "Logos", the "word" as best as they could with their limited knowledge and that the truth found within their philosophies was still truth and was even "Christian" truth because it described the "Logos". He argues that the contradictions and so forth in their philosophy was only there because they had an imperfect perception of the Logos, but now that Christ has come, the Logos incarnate, we have a full picture of what it should really look like. All confusion is lifted.
Tertullian on the other hand had quite a different perspective, he said that the pagan philosophers and Christian theology had nothing to do with one another, he eludes to the the ideas found in 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 of there needing to be a complete separation between the two ideologies.
Augustine comes to the rescue of both and says that there is some truth that can be gleaned from the philosophers of old, but that we should not presume to place to much importance on their ideas. We should let Christ supersede by all means those ideas of philosophy.
As I have been studying the Emerging Church and their movement, I see a similar argument arising. One group trying very hard to be relevant to a philosophical movement (post-modernism, whatever that may be), and one group saying that we should not adopt the morias of our culture, rather change them to be Christ-like. I am wondering who our Augustine will be that will help unite the cause in understanding. It seems like the two voices that are predominant in this discussion really do take the thing entirely too far.
6 comments:
I wonder how much the prevelence of extremes has to do with money. It is harder to sell a book or promote an idea based on balance. I know those voices are out there but people want solid hard conclusions that are either black and white. Shades of gray don't get as much attention. I am normally a black and white sort of guy myself but I also think that people are too judgmental when it comes to methods and forms that should come down to personal preference. If you have a way of spreading/communicating the Gospel that doesn't contradict The Word then power to you. Paul praised God even when the Gospel was preached out of impure motives.
yeah, that's a good point. I think it is interesting that both Justin & Tertullian were writing in different cultures. One was very greek, Justin, and one was outside of the greek culture completely, Tertullian. Their methods of producing a concept of God were formed by their cultural perspective. One saw it necessary to deal with the veracity of the greeks, the other felt as though he could throw it by the way side.
Also, I like your comment about black and white selling books. What if you came up with a book series with those titles? You would need a third color though to have a triology...
;)
"Red"... maybe?
hah, yeah, I know, I'm not funny...
amen brother! your last sentence sums it up perfectly. thanks for that. (ps thanks for spawning the discussion on Heath's post. thanks for wrestling and for speaking out in the mean time. dialogue is more important than having all the answers.)
Post a Comment