One of the things I have come to realize as I have read up on Christian history is that the impact Christianity had on all areas of life cannot be over-stated. Ever since the Enlightenment, Church history has largely suffered slander, whereas most people associate the time of history between the rise of Constantine and the dawn of the so-called Enlightenment as “the dark ages.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
When it comes to philosophy in particular, it must be emphasized that the rise of Christianity to prominence in the Roman Empire in no way stifled philosophical inquiry. In fact, Christian philosophers continued to use much in classical philosophy in their own arguments for the superiority of Christianity. In that respect, what was begun with the likes of Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, and Tertullian, was continued with a wide-range of Christian thinkers who were not just devout churchmen, but were also philosophical giants of the time, far surpassing the Greek philosophers of the classical period.
Now, to modern readers who are largely ignorant of both early Church history and classical philosophy, debates over the relationship between the Father and the Son, the life of the Trinity, and the nature of Christ seem speculative and pointless. “You see?” they say, “Such religious debates brought hostility and terror to a previously peaceful pagan Roman Empire! Christianity destroyed the glory of ancient Rome!” We have already addressed how “the glory of ancient Rome” was nothing short of brutal and pessimistic, but we must now address the charge that the Christian debates were just the ravings of religious fanatics.
The Christian Revolution in Philosophy: Rooted in the Historical Reality of Christ
If one looks at the seven ecumenical councils, one will see that although they convened to address theological and church-related issues, many of the debates that took places at those councils were, in fact, philosophical debates. The fact is that the historical reality of the death and resurrection of Christ opened the door to a revolution in philosophy.
Plato (as well as other Greek philosophers) held to the idea that the universals in the World of Forms could never directly interact with the particulars in the ever-changing material world. Yet the Christian Gospel clearly proclaimed that that was exactly what had happened: The Word became flesh. Therefore, that claim of the incarnation forced philosophers to re-think the nature of God, human beings, and the material world—and yes, the nature of Jesus Christ as well. Therefore, the issues debated in the seven ecumenical councils were not just frivolous and irrelevant “religious issues.” They were ultimately debates over the nature of reality itself: God, mankind, and the material world, with the historical reality of Christ providing the catalyst for such a revolution in philosophical thought.
Therefore, when early Church Fathers like Basil of Caesarea (330-379 AD) openly criticized classical philosophers who “willfully and voluntarily blinded themselves to knowledge of the truth,” he wasn’t attacking philosophy itself, but rather those philosophers who refused to consider the historical claims of Christianity and the impact they had on understanding the nature of reality. Basil, like the Christian thinkers before him, like the Christian thinkers of his day, and like the Christian thinkers after him, was an expert in classical philosophy who embraced the philosophical task.
My Brief Bit on Saint Augustine (354-430 AD)
There was one man, though, who has dominated Western thought: Saint Augustine of Hippo. Augustine’s story is fairly well-known. He is undoubtedly the most influential western Church Father, having left an incredibly significant impact on both Catholicism and Protestantism. Yet it would be wrong for anyone to characterize Augustine was not simply a theologian, or simply a bishop, or simply a churchman. Augustine may very well have been the single most significant philosopher, political thinker, and academic—Christian or pagan—of all time, at least in the West.
Although his mother was a Christian, Augustine had a pagan father, and was decidedly anti-Christian during the first part of his life, in which he was a lawyer, an orator, and an academic heavyweight. He would often ridicule Christianity for being a religion of irrationality and superstition, but after meeting the formidable Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, Augustine came to see that not only did Christ truly raise from the dead, and not only was salvation only found in Christianity, but that Christianity provided a more secure philosophical foundation for making sense of the world.
Once Augustine was baptized and later became the bishop of Hippo, he embarked on a literary career that changed Western thinking. In his work, Contra Academicos, he engaged in a rather rigorous refutation of the skepticism of the New Academy, which claimed that knowledge of the world is ultimately impossible. If that was the case, said Augustine, that even the most basic truths are questionable. This is similar to what we hear today. The man who says, “The only absolute truth in the world is that there are no absolute truths,” is uttering a nonsensical argument. For in trying to prove that there are no absolute truths, he is staking a claim that his statement is absolute truth. It would be the equivalent of a man drawing a circle, pointing to the circle, and saying, “This thing that I have just drawn, that you see before you, is not there…it does not exist.”
“I Believe in Order that I Might Understand”…What???
Augustine is also famous for saying, “I believe in order that I might understand.” Many moderns point to this statement and make the claim that even the mighty Augustine of the Christian faith was admitting that faith was irrational, unreasonable, and was antithetical to true knowledge. “Faith” and “reason” are polar opposites, and never the two will meet. Of course, that is precisely not what Augustine was saying. In fact, he was stating a profound truth when it comes to epistemology (the theory of knowing). All knowledge is based upon a presuppositional faith commitment. One’s presuppositional worldview will affect how one goes about understanding the world around them.
Perhaps an analogy will help. Everyone has presuppositional faith commitments that affect how they see and understand the world. That presuppositional faith commitment is much like a pair of glasses that will hopefully bring knowledge of the world into clearer focus. But the fact is that no human being has perfect eyesight, so to speak. Everyone needs glasses, therefore in order to attempt to “truly see” the world, everyone puts on glasses. Now, properly speaking, nobody can clearly see the glasses they put on, for as soon as they take the glasses off to look at them, their bad eyesight comes into play, and the glasses themselves are blurry to their naked eye. Once the glasses are put on, though, not only can one see and understand the particular things in the world more clearly, one will be more able to clearly see and understand the other “glasses” that other people are wearing.
Furthermore, to extend the analogy further, some glasses are better than others. A bad pair of glasses might have the wrong prescription, and might make things more blurry to the reader, so much so that it might ultimately further damage the eyes of the one who wears them. Some other glasses might improve one’s vision a little, but not fully, so that things are not seen as clearly as they could be.
With all that said, Augustine’s statement, “I believe in order that I might understand,” is really stating a fundamental epistemological truth: everyone must put on glasses in order to see clearly. In fact, it is the “putting on of the glasses,” (i.e. one’s faith commitment) that makes it possible to see and understand things in the first place. Simply put, all knowledge is dependent on faith. Or to put it another way, without faith, no knowledge is possible. And the only way to find out if a particular faith commitment is true, is to “put on its glasses,” take a walk around, and see if you are still bumping into things. If it’s the right prescription, you will have the same reaction as I did when I got my first pair of glasses at 15. I walked out of the optometrist’s office, and astonishingly remarked to my mom, “Oh, I can see the leaves on the trees!”
The Impact of Augustine on Politics
The specifics of all that Augustine wrote on are too many to address here. He wrote works refuting Manichaeanism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. He also extensively wrote about the doctrine of the Trinity, as well as numerous other topics. These controversies were all “religious,” to be sure, but they were all based on fundamental philosophical issues regarding the nature of human beings, the reality of the material world, and (obviously) the reality and nature of God. The revelation that came about in Christ affected the philosophical perceptions regarding all of these things.
In addition to his famous work, Confessions, in which he gave an autobiography of his life and his journey to the Christian faith, Augustine’s other ground-breaking work was City of God, written in the aftermath of the devastating sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 AD. Some have called it the first true theology of history.
Augustine also was somewhat of a political philosopher, in that he was one of the first to clearly articulate and define what the relationship between the State and the Church should be. The Church should not run the government, and neither should the State exercise power over the Church. Nevertheless, says Augustine, due to the fact that every secular empire is ultimately transitory, whereas the Church’s mission is eternal, the Church should essentially act as the moral conscience in society, and therefore the government. In his book, Christianity on Trial, Vincent Carroll sums up Augustine’s argument in this way: “Empires rise and fall in the natural order of things, but the church’s mission stands apart from any passing secular institution. Because the true church endures, it is government’s duty to take instruction from religion, not the other way around” (13).
Augustine stated that the government’s primary task was to keep order in society, and to protect its citizens from any enemies. But once that order is secured, when it comes to promoting the welfare of society, the state should listen to the moral conscience of that society, which as Augustine argued, was the Church. Augustine was wise enough to see that total separation between Church and State is an impossibility. He was also wise enough to see that there had to be a clearly role for the State, so that it would not abuse its power, and so that the Church could remain distinct from it. He argued that such a distinction was necessary, so that, far from trying to run the State, the Church could live out its mission to be the light of conscience and of God’s goodness in society.
Augustine on Genesis…and How It Impacts the Creation/Evolution Debate
Another important work of Augustine’s, especially in light of the modern “evolution vs. creationism” debate, was his Literal Commentary on Genesis. Although it might hurt the egos of many six-day creationists, Augustine had some very harsh words for those who willingly reject scientific knowledge about the created order, and instead cling to a wooden and simplistic interpretation of Genesis 1-11:
“Even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to, as being certain from reason and experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel [a non-Christian] to hear a Christian…talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.”
At the same time, though, Augustine was quick to point out that an intricate knowledge of the created order was actually not that important, and actually quite irrelevant, in living a truly Christian life:
“…there is no need to be dismayed if Christians are ignorant about the properties and the number of the basic elements of nature, or about the motion, order, and deviations of the stars, the map of the heavens, the kinds and nature of animals, plants, stones, springs, rivers, and mountains… For the Christian, it is enough to believe that the cause of all created things…is…the goodness of the Creator.”
For Augustine, as should be for every Christian today, all truth was God’s truth, even if it was found in the works of pagans (or atheists!). Christians who reject certain truths, simply because they are discovered or misused by non-Christians, are not doing anyone any favors. As Augustine stated, not only do they invite derision of the Christian faith, but they are missing an opportunity to further fulfill their calling as image-bearers of God, namely to offer up everything to God to further His kingdom and bring Him glory.
Let’s Sum Up…With a Bit of Sex
Augustine, as brilliant as he was, was not infallible or perfect. I would take issue with a number of his theological and philosophical claims, most notably his notion of Original Sin. No, I don’t deny that all human beings are born sinful, but Augustine’s claim that sex would have been passionless before Adam and Eve sinned, and that the pleasure part and passion of sex was a result of sin—well, that’s rather odd. According to Augustine, the reason why you are sinful is that you were conceived in sin—literally. Your mom and dad were in the throes of passion when they conceived you—such passion that causes the man to have an erection that he can’t control. Therefore, you were conceived in a sinful act in which your mom and dad were not in control of their passions. In Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin, sin becomes the ultimate STD.
Granted, that is an incredibly over-simplistic description of Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin, and I haven’t even touched upon the larger historical background and teaching of what others were saying about the topic at the time—but my point is simple: Augustine didn’t get everything right! Nevertheless, in Augustine we see an example of a Christian using his talents and gifts to build up the Church, and fully engage with (and ultimately transform) the culture around him. Simply put, the one man who most affected Western civilization was Augustine.
In any case, let me recommend a great movie on Augustine: Restless Heart. Here’s the trailer.
