Classical Greek culture had a profound influence on the Roman Empire, which carried it to many parts of the world. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the formative culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization. Moreover, in the second and third centuries, Greek philosophy had a major impact on Christian thinking, becoming deeply embedded in the Church’s theological framework as it developed over time.
We find Christianity tending to absorb Greek philosophical values, until by the end of the third century the line between the beliefs of educated Christian and educated pagan … would often be hard to draw. (W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, p. 368)
This happened for a number of reasons:
Some persuasive thinkers who came to Christ and became influential church leaders had a strong background in Greek philosophy and, consciously and deliberately, integrated their Greek worldview with Christian doctrine. Some of the major players:
Justin Martyr. Justin Martyr had been influenced by Platonic thought before his conversion. After he became a Christian, Justin brought many of Plato’s ideas into his teaching. As the Hebrew Scriptures were used to bring Jews to Christ, so Justin said we should use Platonic thought to reach Greeks.
Clement of Alexandria. Like Justin, Clement was a scholar who converted to Christianity. He was “strongly missionary-minded. He valued the Hebrew legacy of Christianity … but also tended to push it into the background in favor of the greatest possible accommodation with Greek philosophy.” (W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, p. 253) Sharply critical of those who were unwilling to make any use of philosophy, Clement wrote, “What is Plato but Moses in Attic Greek?”
Origen. “What Origen tried to do was to interpret Christian beliefs from a recognizably Platonic logic … he had absorbed Platonism. He told his pupils to acquaint themselves with every Greek philosophy. ‘Know thyself,’ the advice of the Delphic oracle, was elevated to a fundamental of Christian conduct … His was the decisive influence that brought Greek philosophy and Christianity together at a crucial moment when Christianity was becoming second only to the religion of the immortal gods themselves.” (W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, pp. 373-374)
Augustine (late fourth century). Augustine’s generally favorable view of Neoplatonic thought contributed to the “baptism” of Greek thought and its entrance into the Christian and subsequently the European intellectual tradition.
A belief in the fundamental legitimacy of Greek philosophy as God-given and ultimately harmonious with Scripture. For example:
Justin Martyr believed Plato’s god was the God of the Bible and Socrates was a Christian before Christ, just as Abraham was.
“The law is for the Jew what philosophy is for the Greek, a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ.” (Clement)
Accommodation of Greek philosophy, and reinterpretation of Christian truth in Greek philosophical frameworks, out of a desire to reach educated people.
Not everyone accepted this trend. For example, Tertullian wrote, “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What has the Academy to do with the Church? What have heretics to do with Christians? Our instruction comes from the porch of Solomon, who had himself taught that the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart. Away with all attempts to produce a Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic Christianity!” He was, however, in the minority.
While the actual beliefs of the Greeks were carried over in some cases (e.g., dualism), one of the most fundamental influences relates to the purpose of learning:
The distinction [between the Hebrew and Greek minds] … arises from the difference between doing and knowing. The Hebrew is concerned with practice, the Greek with knowledge. Right conduct is the ultimate concern of the Hebrew, right thinking that of the Greek. Duty and strictness of conscience are the paramount things in life for the Hebrew; for the Greek, the spontaneous and luminous play of the intelligence. The Hebrew thus extols the moral virtues as the substance and meaning of life; the Greek subordinates them to the intellectual virtues … the contrast is between practice and theory, between the moral man and the theoretical or intellectual man. (William Barrett, Irrational Man)1
Another problem has been the restating of Christian truths according to Greek frameworks and patterns. For example:
Greek logic, which has to a large extent influenced the Western world … often used a tightly contained step logic whereby one would argue from premises to a conclusion, each step tightly linked to the next in coherent, rational, logical fashion. The conclusion, however, was usually limited to one point of view – the human being’s perception of reality.
By contrast, the Hebrews often made use of block logic. That is, concepts were expressed in self-contained units or blocks of thought. These blocks did not necessarily fit together in any obviously rational or harmonious pattern, particularly when one block represented the human perspective on truth and the other represented the divine. This way of thinking created a propensity for paradox, antinomy, or apparent contradiction, as one block stood in tension – and often illogical relation – to the other. Hence, polarity of thought or dialectic often characterized block logic.
It is particularly difficult for Westerners – those whose thought patterns have been influenced more by the Greeks and Romans than by the Hebrews – to piece together the block logic of Scripture. When we open the Bible, therefore, since we are not Orientals, we are invited … to “undergo a kind of intellectual conversion” to the Hebraic world of the East. (Marvin R. Wilson, Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith, p. 150)
Jesus was certainly no theologian in any Western sense of the word, because He was a Jew. Like the prophets before Him He gave concrete biblical answers to the pressing questions of daily life – poverty, payment of taxes, feuding between relatives or colleagues, and daily subsistence. He would certainly have detested as arrogant blasphemy any attempt to unravel and neatly systematize the mysteries of God. The same holds true for Paul … whose letters addressed very concrete, contemporary, and local problems and whose style reveals unmistakably rabbinic thought forms … All of his responses, even the most well-reasoned, seem curiously fragmentary, and remain, in truly Jewish manner, open-ended both vertically as well as horizontally. (Pinchas Lapide and Peter Stuhlmacher, Paul: Rabbi and Apostle, pp. 34-35)
Western theologians were educated in Greek frameworks and patterns, and then, through the work of Western missionaries and institutions, these thinking paradigms have been exported all over the world.
Here is an extract from A Christian Critique of the University by Charles Habib Malik, a Christian scholar and former President of the UN General Assembly:
The university is one of the greatest institutions of Western civilization … [being] more distinctive of Western civilization than of any other.
The original model of this institution is the Brotherhood of Pythagoras and the Academy of Plato. All universities trace their ultimate origin to these two ancient Greek intellectual communities …
The reason the universities of the world are Greek in ultimate origin stems from the nature of knowledge and the nature of the genius of the Greeks. The Greeks, more than any other people, displayed an irrepressible and unbounded passion for the exercise of reason and an incredible curiosity to investigate and know everything; and the university is nothing if it is not the home of free inquiry and unfettered curiosity …
According to Malik, more than by anything else, Western civilization is defined by total fearlessness of and openness to new knowledge — an insatiable thirst to know everything that can be known, a belief that everything that can be known should be known. This is knowledge for its own sake — whether or not it is of any practical significance. This explains why Western societies are content to spend billions of dollars in scientific research on outer space, when multitudes of people still live in poverty on our own planet. This is why some Christian theologians spend their lives studying nuances of obscure doctrines when hundreds of entire people groups still do not have a single church.
… There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be … always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. (2 Timothy 3:1-7)
This is knowledge for its own sake and we inherited this passion from the Greeks. Moreover, this disposition is instilled in our traditional Christian learning institutions.
The following table outlines some key contrasts between the Greek (Western) paradigm and the biblical paradigm:
All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas … When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” (Acts 17:21, 32)
For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)
A Dramatic Contrast
The Nicene Creed was adopted in AD 325 at the First Council of Nicaea. Here is the full text:2
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Who, for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried, and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church; I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
It is immediately apparent that both the content and the form of this creed are vastly different from Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 – 7) and Paul’s and others’ New Testament letters.3
This demonstrates the profound influence of Greek philosophy upon the Church’s frameworks of thinking by the end of the third century.
It is impossible for anyone, whether he be a student of history or no, to fail to notice a difference of both form and content between the Sermon on the Mount and the Nicene Creed. The Sermon on the Mount is the promulgation of a new law of conduct; it assumes beliefs rather than formulates them; the theological conceptions which underlie it belong to the ethical rather than the speculative side of theology; metaphysics are wholly absent. The Nicene Creed is a statement partly of historical facts and partly of dogmatic inferences; the metaphysical terms which it contains would probably have been unintelligible to the first disciples; ethics have no place in it. The one belongs to a world of Syrian peasants, the other to a world of Greek philosophers. (Edwin Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, p. 1)
For Further Reflection
What did Paul say about the Greeks and how did he specifically contrast the Greek paradigm with a Christ-centered paradigm?
What strong beliefs have you held that you can now attribute to the influence of Greek thought?
How does becoming aware of the differences between the Greek and the biblical paradigms affect you personally?
Based solely upon their own words:
To Jesus (and the biblical writers), what does it mean to know God?
To the writers of the Nicene Creed, what does it mean to know God?
What are the implications of all this for theological education today?
The New Testament takes this one step farther. Our primary goal as Christians is not right external behavior but inward union with Christ from which all external behavior proceeds.
The text here is of the enlarged form of the Nicene Creed, AD 381. For details of the various versions, please see Creeds of Christendom by Philip Schaff.
This is not to suggest that the specific doctrinal points made in the Nicene Creed are erroneous. However, its approach to “Truth” is significantly different from the writings of the New Testament.
This Greek thought is really very subtle in the Church today. This article opened my eyes to a lot of things. This is a really serious problem in the church today. Academics in particular today have difficulty embracing biblical thought because of the influence of this Greek thought. One day, as I was sharing with a university lecturer about how we can build up research students and help them to stay on the centrality of Christ despite their study so that they too can build up others, he told me that he personally has been much influenced by the thought of authors who excelled in his field. He says that this has had a big impact on his Christian faith, because some of the logic was contrary to biblical thought. The university system is a great danger for Christians if we don't change the way we approach our studies. The current situation in the church bears witness to the fact that this Greek culture simply hasn't worked and that we need to go back to the Scriptures, since the same people who have been trained in universities and institutions lead badly and don't even know God for the most part. Since then, we've been looking God on how to serve them. Our intellectuals today are in a perpetual quest for knowledge but are not transformed and do not have the personal experience of the person of Jesus Christ. So there's a huge gap between our theoretical knowledge of God and his involvement in our lives.