In the Christian view, human reason might once have been sufficient when, in the paradisiacal state, it still possessed its original resonance with divine intelligence. But after man’s rebellion and fall from grace, his reason was increasingly obscured and the need for revelation became absolute. Relying on and developing an exclusively human reason was bound to result in dangerous ignorance and error. Indeed, man’s fall itself was caused by his stealing the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, his first and fatal step toward intellectual independence and proud self-reliance, and a moral transgression of God’s exclusive sovereignty. By grasping such knowledge out of the divine order, man had instead been intellectually blinded, and could now be illuminated only by God’s grace. Thus was the secular rationality so esteemed by the Greeks considered of doubtful value for salvation, with empirical observation largely irrelevant except as an aid to moral improvement. In the context of the new order, the simple faith of a child was superior to the abstruse reasonings of a worldly intellectual. Christian theologians continued to philosophize, to study the ancients, and to debate doctrinal subtleties—but all within the defined boundaries of Christian dogma. All learning was subservient to theology, now the most important of all studies, and theology found its unshakable basis in faith.
In a sense, the Christian focus was more narrow and sharp than the Greek, and entailed less need for educational breadth. The highest metaphysical truth was the fact of the Incarnation: the miraculous divine intervention into human history, the effect of which was to liberate humanity and reunite the material world with the spiritual, the mortal with the immortal, creature with Creator. The mere grasp of that stupendous fact was enough to satisfy the philosophical quest, and that fact was fully described in the Church scriptures. Christ was the exclusive source of truth in the cosmos, the all-comprehending principle of Truth itself. The Sun of the divine Logos illuminated everything. Moreover, in the new self-awareness of the late classical and early Christian era, most acutely epitomized in Augustine, the individual soul’s concern for its spiritual destiny was far more significant than the rational intellect’s concern with conceptual thinking or empirical study. Faith alone in the miracle of Christ’s redemption was enough to bring the deepest saving truth to man. Despite his erudition and appreciation for the intellectual and scientific achievements of the Greeks, Augustine proclaimed:
When, then, the question is asked what we are to believe in regard to religion, it is not necessary to probe into the nature of things, as was done by those whom the Greeks call physici; nor need we be in alarm lest the Christian should be ignorant of the force and number of the elements; the motion, and order, and eclipses of the heavenly bodies; the form of the heavens; the species and the natures of animals, plants, stones, fountains, rivers, mountains; about chronology and distances; the signs of coming storms; and a thousand other things which those philosophers either have found out, or think they have found out.… It is enough for the Christian to believe that the only cause of all created things, whether heavenly or earthly, whether visible or invisible, is the goodness of the Creator, the one true God; and that nothing exists but Himself that does not derive its existence from Him.7
With the rise of Christianity, the already decadent state of science in the late Roman era received little encouragement for new developments. Early Christians experienced no intellectual urgency to “save the phenomena” of this world, since the phenomenal world held no significance compared with the transcendent spiritual reality. More precisely, the all-redeeming Christ had already saved the phenomena, so there was little need for mathematics or astronomy to perform that task. The study of astronomy in particular, being tied to astrology and the cosmic religion of the Hellenistic era, was discouraged. The monotheistic Hebrews had already had occasion to condemn foreign astrologers, and this attitude persisted in the Christian context. With its planetary deities and aura of polytheistic paganism, and with its proneness to a determinism antithetical to both divine grace and human responsibility, astrology was officially condemned by Church councils (with Augustine especially seeing the need for confuting the astrological “mathematicians”), as a result of which it gradually declined despite its occasional theological defenders. In the Christian world view, the heavens were devoutly perceived as the expression of God’s glory and, more popularly, as the abode of God and his angels and saints, and the realm from which Christ would return at the Second Coming. The world as a whole was understood simply and preeminently as God’s creation, and thus efforts at scientifically penetrating nature’s inherent logic no longer seemed necessary or appropriate. Its true logic was known to God, and what man could know of that logic was revealed in the Bible.
God’s will ruled every aspect of the universe. Because miraculous intervention was always possible, the processes of nature were at all times subservient to divine providence rather than to merely natural laws. The scriptural testaments were thus the final and unchanging repository of universal truth, and no subsequent human efforts were going to enhance or modify, let alone revolutionize, that absolute statement. The relationship of the good Christian to God was that of child to father—typically a very young and naive child to the infinitely greater, omniscient and omnipotent Father. Because of the great distance between Creator and creature, the human capacity to comprehend the creation’s inner workings was radically circumscribed. Truth was therefore approached primarily not through self-determined intellectual inquiry, but through Scripture and prayer, and faith in the teachings of the Church.
Both Paul and Augustine testified to the overwhelming power and supremacy of God’s will, in the potential spiritual devastation of God’s damning judgment of an impure soul, but also most benignly in Christ’s redemptive act for mankind by his death on the cross. Both men had experienced their own religious conversions—Paul on the road to Damascus, Augustine in the garden at Milan—as dramatic biographical turning points, forcefully impelled by the intervention of divine grace. Only by such intervention were they saved from continuing a life the self-defined direction of which could now be seen as futile and destructive. In light of these experiences, all merely human activity, whether independent willfulness or intellectual curiosity, now appeared secondary—superfluous, misleading, even sinful—except as it might lead to fully God-directed activity. God was the exclusive source of all good and of man’s salvation. All heroism, so central to the Greek character, was now concentrated in the figure of Christ. The human surrender to the divine was the only existential priority. All else was vanity. Martyrdom, the ultimate surrender of the self to God, represented the highest Christian ideal. As Christ was self-giving in the highest degree, so should all Christians strive to be like their Redeemer. Humility, not pride, was the distinguishing Christian virtue, requisite for salvation. Selflessness in action and thought, devotion to God and service to others: only through such an emptying of self would the power of God’s grace fully enter and transform the soul.
Yet humanity was not considered diminished by such an asymmetrical relationship, for God’s grace and love alone were all-sufficient for humanity’s true needs and deepest desires. In comparison with these divine gifts, all worldly satisfactions were pale imitations, of no ultimate value. Indeed, here was the astounding proclamation made by Christians to the world: God loved mankind. God was not only the source of the world order, not only the goal of philosophical aspiration, not only the first cause of all that exists. Nor was he just the inscrutable ruler of the universe and stern judge of human history. For in the person of Jesus Christ, God had reached out from his transcendence and displayed for all time and all humanity his infinite love for his creatures. Here was the basis for a new way of life, grounded in the experience of God’s love, the universality of which created a new community in mankind.
Thus Christianity bequeathed to its members a pervasive sense of a personal God’s direct interest in human affairs and vital concern for every human soul, no matter what level of intel
ligence or culture was brought to the spiritual enterprise, and without regard to physical strength or beauty or social status. In contrast to the Hellenic focus on great heroes and rare philosophers, Christianity universalized salvation, asserting its availability to slaves as well as kings, to simple souls as well as profound thinkers, to the ugly as well as the beautiful, to the sick and suffering as well as the strong and fortunate, even tending to reverse the former hierarchies. In Christ, all divisions of humanity were overcome—barbarian and Greek, Jew and Gentile, master and slave, male and female—all were now as one. The ultimate wisdom and heroism of Christ made redemption possible for all, not just the few: Christ was the Sun, who shone alike on all mankind. Christianity therefore placed high value on each individual soul as one of God’s children, but in this new context the Greek ideal of the self-determining individual and the heroic genius was diminished in favor of a collective Christian identity. This elevation of the communal self, the human reflection of the Kingdom of Heaven, founded on the shared love of God and faith in Christ’s redemption, encouraged an altruistic sublimation, and at times subjugation, of the individual self in favor of a greater allegiance to the good of others and the will of God. Yet on the other hand, by granting immortality and value to the individual soul, Christianity encouraged the growth of the individual conscience, self-responsibility, and personal autonomy relative to temporal powers—all decisive traits for the formation of the Western character.
In its moral teachings, Christianity brought to the pagan world a new sense of the sanctity of all human life, the spiritual value of the family, the spiritual superiority of self-denial over egoistic fulfillment, of unworldly holiness over worldly ambition, of gentleness and forgiveness over violence and retribution; a condemnation of murder, suicide, the killing of infants, the massacre of prisoners, the degradation of slaves, sexual licentiousness and prostitution, bloody circus spectacles—all in the new awareness of God’s love for humanity, and the moral purity that love required in the human soul. Christian love, whether divine or human, was not so much the realm of Aphrodite, nor even primarily the Eros of the philosophers, but was the love, epitomized in Christ, that expressed itself through sacrifice, suffering, and universal compassion. This Christian ethical ideal of goodness and charity was strongly promulgated and at times widely observed, an ideal certainly not lacking in the moral imperatives of Greek philosophy—particularly in Stoicism, which in several ways anticipated Christian ethics—but now having a more pervasive influence on the mass culture in the Christian era than had Greek philosophical ethics in the classical world.
The more formidable intellectualized quality of the Greek notion of the Godhead and the philosopher’s individual ascent (however passionate that process was for Plato or Plotinus) was replaced in Christianity by the emotional and communally shared intimacy of a personal, familial relationship with the Creator, and by the pious embrace of revealed Christian truth. In contrast to the previous centuries of metaphysical perplexity, Christianity offered a fully worked out solution to the human dilemma. The potentially distressing ambiguities and confusions of a private philosophical search without religious guideposts were now replaced by an absolutely certain cosmology and an institutionally ritualized system of salvation accessible to all.
But again, with the truth so firmly established, philosophical inquiry was seen by the early Church as less vital to spiritual development, and intellectual freedom, basically irrelevant, was carefully circumscribed.8 True freedom was found not in unlimited intellectual speculation but in Christ’s saving grace. The Christian religion was not to be considered on a par with Hellenic philosophy, let alone with the pagan religions, for its unique revelation held the utmost significance for man and the world. The Christian mystery was not the arguable result of ingenious metaphysical reasoning, nor another viable alternative to the various pagan mysteries and mythologies. Rather, Christianity was the authentic proclamation of the supreme God’s absolute truth, belief in which would change not only the individual’s personal fate but the destiny of the world. A sacred doctrine had been entrusted to Christians, and fidelity to that trust, as well as the integrity of that doctrine, needed to be maintained at all costs. Eternal salvation was at stake for all humanity.
Safeguarding the faith was thus the first priority in any question of philosophical or religious dialogue; hence that dialogue was often curtailed altogether lest the devil of doubt or unorthodoxy gain a foothold in the vulnerable minds of the faithful. The more intellectually esoteric and doctrinally unconstrained forms of early Christianity, such as the widespread Gnostic movements, were condemned and eventually suppressed with as much intense antagonism as was shown to paganism. It was especially the antihierarchical Gnostics who pressed the orthodox Church to a firm definition of Christian doctrine in the second and third centuries. For to protect what was perceived by the postapostolic Church as the unique and, in a sense, fragile essence of the Christian revelation—the simultaneous humanity and divinity of Christ, the simultaneous unity and trinity of God, the original goodness of the Creation yet its need for redemption, the New Testament as the dialectical fulfillment of the Old—against a growing number of conflicting sects and doctrines, leading early Christians concluded that the beliefs of the faithful must be established, disseminated, and sustained by an authoritative Church structure. Thus the institutional Church, as the living embodiment of the Christian dispensation, became the official guardian of the final truth and the highest court of appeal in any matters of ambiguity—indeed, not only the court, but also the prosecuting and punitive arm of the religious law.
The shadow side of the Christian religion’s claim to universality was its intolerance. The Church’s view of Christian conversion as a private religious experience fully contingent on individual freedom and spontaneous faith stood in stark counterpoint to a not infrequent policy of forcibly imposed religious conformity. With the final ascendance of Christianity at the end of the classical era, the pagan temples were systematically demolished and the philosophical academies officially closed.9 Just as the strict ethical puritanism that Christianity had inherited from Judaism opposed the unrestrained sensuality and immorality it perceived in pagan culture, so too with equal stringency did Christianity develop a theological puritanism that posited itself against the teachings of pagan philosophy and any unorthodox conceptions of Christian truth. There were not many true paths, nor many gods and goddesses, differing from one place to the next and from one person to the next. There was but one God and one Providence, one true religion, one plan of salvation for the entire world. All mankind deserved to know and have this one saving faith. And so it was that the pluralism of classical culture, with its multiplicity of philosophies, its diversity of polytheistic mythologies, and its plethora of mystery religions, gave way to an emphatically monolithic system—one God, one Church, one Truth.
Contraries Within the Christian Vision
Here we may begin to recognize the outlines of two significantly different aspects of the Christian world view. Indeed, on first impression one might discern two entirely distinct world views that coexisted and overlapped within Christianity, and that were in continual tension with each other: whereas the one outlook was rapturously optimistic and all-embracing, its complement was sternly judgmental, restrictive, and prone to a dualistic pessimism. But in fact the two outlooks were inextricably united, two sides of the same coin, light and shadow. For the Church contained both perspectives, and at its essence was their effective point of intersection. Both views were enunciated in the Bible, in both New and Old Testaments, and both found simultaneous expression, in varying ratios, in all the major theologians, councils, and doctrinal syntheses of the Church. Yet it will be useful for us to distinguish the two perspectives and define them separately, thereby clarifying some of the complexities and paradoxes of the Christian vision. Let us attempt first to describe this internal dichotomy, and then to understand how the Church endeavored to resolve it.
The emphasis of the first view considered here was on Christianity as an already existent spiritual revolution that was now progressively transforming and liberating both the individual soul and the world in the dawning light of God’s revealed love. In this understanding, Christ’s self-sacrifice had initiated the fundamental reunion of humanity and the created world with God, a reunion prefigured and commenced by Christ and reaching fulfillment in a coming age with Christ’s return. The stress here was on the inclusiveness of redemption, the breadth and power of the Logos and the Spirit, God’s present immanence in man and the world, and the resulting joy and freedom of the Christian faithful who constituted the Church, the living body of Christ.
The other side of the Christian vision focused more emphatically on the present alienation of man and the world from God. It therefore stressed the futurity and otherworldliness of redemption, the ontological finality of God’s “otherness,” the need for strict inhibition of worldly activities, a doctrinal orthodoxy defined by the institutional Church, and a salvation narrowly limited to the small portion of mankind constituting the Church faithful. Underlying and consequent to these tenets was a pervasive negative judgment regarding the present status of the human soul and the created world, especially relative to the omnipotence and transcendent perfection of God.
Again, neither side of this inner polarity within the Christian framework was ever separated from the other. Both Paul and Augustine, the first and last of the ancient theologians who defined the Christian religion passed on to the West, were strongly expressive of both views in an indissoluble though somewhat uneasy compound. Yet because the differences in emphasis between the two sides were so marked, and because the two perspectives often seemed to derive from entirely different psychological sources and religious experiences, it will be valuable to treat them with separate and highly dichotomized descriptions, as if they were in fact fully distinguished from each other.
Passion of the Western Mind Page 16