How The Aristotelian Mind-set Impacts Christian Liberal Theology

During the Renaissance and Enlightenment, theologians, scientists, and philosophers rebel against classical theology by championing an Aristotelian this-worldly mind-set. They openly challenge the Platonist perception of God as a spiritually perfect being who reigns over-and-above an inferior material world.

Renaissance thinkers like Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Isaac Newton undertake to shift theology from God’s immutable being per se to the exploration and development of God’s creation. Immanuel Kant summarizes the principle of Aristotelian worldliness and its role in the Enlightenment when he asserts:  “Have courage to use your reason.” 

Have courage to use your reason

In the nineteenth century, Sören Kierkegaard (1813-1855) emphasizes the God/human relationship with his perspective that the Christian God desires people to subjectively apprehend and experience him. Kierkegaard faults the Church’s otherworldliness for constraining believers with bonds of passivity and joylessness.

Other theologians of the nineteenth century deepen the Aristotelian “hands on” ethos by rallying people toward social action for the improvement of humanity. They encourage people to face, feel, and solve the practical problems of this world.  

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889), and Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918) lay the foundations for liberal theology, so-called for its human-centered concerns and doctrinal pragmatism. In their view, Jesus came not to challenge the world, to pronounce judgment upon sin, or even to be a savior, but to embrace culture and improve the human condition. For these theologians, the kingdom of God concerns the realization that God calls each person to accept and love one another in the here and now of this earthly life.

As classical theism is rejected, so, too, is the authority of Scripture. Liberal theologians lay aside orthodox doctrines considered unreasonable, such as the virgin birth, the miracles Jesus performed, or the prophecies of the Old and New Testaments. Christ is more morally inspiring than divine. He becomes the ultimate model of love and justice.

In the next generation, theologians like Paul Tillich (1886-1965) continue to find value in the Aristotelian mind-set. Tillich seeks to correlate the Biblical message with the needs of contemporary society by redefining God as the ground of Being. He argues that God is found in the form of ultimate concern embedded in the depth of people’s personalities and life-situations.

God as Ground of Being

In addition to the liberal protest, there are other challenges to the Platonist mind-set of classical theism. Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), Henri Bergson (1859-1941), and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) develop a characteristically Aristotelian fascination with God’s this-worldly immanence as the actualizing force, or entelechy, that pushes all creation toward the fulfillment of its purposes. 

In their view, God is not static and fixed, but always in flux, moving forward, co-creating history with humanity. Christ is not so much a historical person as an evolutionary cosmic process. This intuitive and pragmatic approach to Christian thought is known as process theology.  

The inherent difficulty, of course, is that God is so completely identified with the immanent Becoming of this world that the transcendent Being of the Trinity dissolves into the fabric of creation.

Late twentieth-century formulations with an Aristotelian thrust are found in the black theology of African-American James Cone, the liberation theology of Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutierrez, and the feminist theology of Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza.

Each of these individuals share frustration, even resentment, toward what they consider the rigid mind-set of a traditional theology that is caught up in abstractions to the point that it is oblivious to racial, social, and gender injustices. Theology is not simply the rational study of the Being of God, Cone asserts, but the study of God’s liberating transformation of the world. In the view of Cone and other liberation theologians, the oppressed will “risk all for earthly freedom, a freedom made possible in the resurrection of Christ.”

Liberal progressive theologians have vigorously critiqued what they consider the centuries old white male patristic dominance of Christianity. They consider it an influence that too often sides with the status quo of the ruling class and thereby crucifies Christ anew by persecuting minorities, the poor, and women. 

Christ is seen as struggling for justice alongside the victimized and marginalized against all forms of social oppression, which can even include the Church herself. In a decisive break with a centuries-old conservative praxis, the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) opened the doors to the influence of the Aristotelian mind-set, including the involvement by Catholic laity and clergy in radical social politics.

From more, read: 

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOTHEOLOGY:

Where Psychology & Theology Really Meet 

How Plato Influences Christianity

One can recognize the influence of Plato’s absolute idealism in the fourth and fifth centuries of the early church, when Greek metaphysical concepts are employed to shore up and defend orthodoxy against heretical trends, particularly Arianism, which denies the co-equal identity of Christ with the Father.

Indeed, Augustine of Hippo (354-430), a prime contributor to early church doctrine, had been well schooled in Neo-Platonism before his conversion. While Augustine quotes the Bible extensively, he tends to interpret it within the neo-Platonic framework. In Teaching Christianity, for example, Augustine writes, “If those philosophers happen to have said anything that is true and agreeable to our faith, the Platonists above all…we should even claim back for our own use what they have said.” 

Augustine of Hippo

The influence of such a perspective is revealed in the same work when Augustine writes, “God does not enjoy us, but makes use of us…For he is the one who supremely and primordially is, being absolutely unchanging.” And in discussing Jesus’ commandment to love God and others as one’s self, Augustine writes, “There is no need of a commandment that we should love ourselves…The end of the commandment is love of God and neighbor.” 

Here is depersonalization, both of God's nature and his relationship to human beings. This philosophy reflects more mechanistic than personalistic and covenantal categories. And this trend continues today when the Christian view of God takes on a distinctly Platonist tone by insisting that God is impassible, indifferent to feeling, invulnerable to suffering, and apart from humanity.

Much of the metaphysical speculation concerning God throughout the Middle Ages, including the writings of Anselm (1033-1109) and Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), demonstrates a similar preoccupation with the study of God’s Being per se, rather than reflecting the biblical narrative in which humanity is redeemed for communion with the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Anselm

 

Thomas Aquinas

Christ’s divinity is clearly affirmed, but his humanity is neglected. His existence as the representative human being who by his death and resurrection transposes ordinary people into sons and daughters of the living God is passed over. 

The Platonist mind-set gives rise to a theology from above, absolutely concerned with God but revealing little interest in persons, apart from pointing out how far short they fall from God’s ideal Being. This, then, is classical theology: a perspective that values God’s eternal intradivine life (termed the “immanent Trinity”), yet is permeated by a remoteness that separates God from his creation. This perspective shares the dualism inherent in Plato’s philosophy and is found in both Western and Eastern Orthodox traditions.

Compass theory suggests that whenever the Platonist mind-set consciously or unconsciously dominates Christian precepts, God is viewed as mechanistic, impersonal, and fatalistic. As a consequence, permanence of belief and thought overshadows the process of growth and change. 

For more, read:

COMPASS PSYCHOTHEOLOGY: 

Where Psychology & Theology Really Meet

Plato, Aristotle, and Compass Psychotheology

It is commonly accepted that the Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, made essential contributions to the foundations of Western civilization. Less recognized is how the diametrically opposed ideologies of Platonism and Aristotelianism influenced the formative centuries of Christian thought, creating theological fault-lines whose tensions reverberate to the present day.

For the purposes of compass theory, the original philosophical positions held by Plato and Aristotle assume importance for psychotheological reasons. Their philosophies, we propose, are foundational to the development of two opposing mind-sets that profoundly impact Christianity and the Western world. Here is a summary of each position.

Plato’s Transcendent Realm of “Eternal Being” 

Plato

Both a brilliant philosopher and mathematician, Plato (428-348 BC) favors the use of abstract reason in theorizing about the nature of God and humanity. It is interesting to note that Plato draws many of his examples to support such propositions from the field of mathematics, an area of study that reflects upon perfect but lifeless entities.

Beyond this spatiotemporal world, Plato hypothesizes, there exists a noncorporeal and perfect world, one of eternal being, that is nonphysical, nonspatial, and nontemporal. This is Plato’s world of Ideal Forms. A world that is in stark contrast to the imperfect shadow of this physical world in which human beings live.

Here is Plato on the subject:

This, then, which gives to the objects of knowledge their truth and to him who knows them his power of knowing, is the Form or essential nature of Goodness...And so with the objects of knowledge: these derive from the Good not only their power of being known, but their very being and reality.

At a practical level, Plato implies that the world ordinary people experience as being real—the world of changing, growing, living things—is not real at all. It is but an illusory and inferior representation of the eternal and changeless realm of Ideal Forms.

The highest and most noble aspect of the self is the mind, with its ability to contemplate abstract ideals and apply them to the disciplined life of human reason. The lowest and most ignoble aspects of the self are the emotions and bodily senses, because of their inherent “irrational” qualities.           

Since reason possesses greater stability and most accurately corresponds to the noncorporeal world of ideal being, it therefore follows that abstract thinking is superior to emotion, sensation, and intuition.

Such reliance upon reason is applied to natural theology as well. Plato attributes intelligence to God and a reasoned order to the universe. Like the Christian God, Plato’s deity is good. Indeed, God is termed the Form of the Good, positioned at the summit of the pyramid of knowledge, the perfect expression of eternal being.

But the Form of the Good is an impersonal creator, and while the created universe is ordered and ordained for a purposive human destiny, this is a mechanistic rather than personalistic universe.

“The emphasis (is) most decidedly placed by Plato on the sphere of perfect Being, of true Reality,” notes philosopher of history Frederick Copleston: “On Being, rather than on Becoming.”

Such mental preoccupation with absolute ideals, based on the otherworldly perfection of God’s eternal being, defines the essence of Plato’s mind-set.

The sense world of human experience is entirely separate from the world of Ideal Forms. This separation results in dualism: an unbridgeable chasm between eternal Being and spatiotemporal Becoming—in theological terms, between the transcendence and immanence of God.

Aristotle’s Immanent World of Change and “Becoming”

 

Aristotle

Aristotle (384-322 BC) investigates this present world for the purpose of organizing data and discovering the principles of change that govern the world of sense perception. In his fascination for earthly creation, Aristotle shows considerable gifts for practical, empirical, and intuitive investigation. He favors biology as the model science, developing a curriculum for the study of imperfect but living organisms.

For Aristotle there is no dualistic separation of eternal Being from spatiotemporal Becoming, as Plato would have it. There is only one world, the world of actual things that are moving dynamically toward fulfillment. Although he accepts the concept of Plato’s eternal forms, Aristotle sees such forms as embedded in the concrete particulars of this world, as inner forces of growth and change. These forms are self-actualizing trends of the spatiotemporal world, a concept that he terms “entelechy.” 

God is seen as pure and complete actuality. There is no sense of god as a person who cares about or provides for humanity. Instead, God is a metaphysical necessity, the force behind entelechy that drives all things toward fulfillment in the here and now world of becoming.

In clear contrast to his mentor, Plato, “Aristotle was possessed by the concept of Becoming,” Copleston notes. Aristotle’s interest in this-worldly concreteness characterizes the subsequent mind-set of Aristotelianism, derived from Aristotle’s search to describe and understand the sensible world, a passion absent in the philosophy of Plato.

For more, read: 

COMPASS PSYCHOTHEOLOGY:  

Where Psychology & Theology Really Meet

 

Wittgenstein, Foucalt, Derrida, Rorty, and Compass Psychotheology

Analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), in his influential book, Philosophical Investigations, portrays philosophy solely in terms of linguistic analysis. It is no longer the task of the philosopher to investigate the nature of reality or explore the meaning of human experience, but rather to clarify the meaning of language. 

Wittgenstein

This narrow focus lops off the exploration of metaphysics, ethics, and religion, because such things as human feelings and human values, or spiritual experiences, are considered indefinable and therefore nonsensical.

In A History of Western Philosophy, W. T. Jones reveals the spiritual bankruptcy of the analytic position when he summarizes their conclusions: “We must learn to live in a world in which God is dead; we must learn to get along without Truth, or rather, we must learn to live with the one truth that there is no Truth.” 

With Wittgenstein and the analytic philosophers, the human soul is eclipsed by secular thinking devoid of spiritual realities.

Postmodernism persists in this approach by arguing that there is no way to get outside language and thought to some deeper reality. Michel Foucault (1926-1984) sees language as offering no fundamental role in knowledge, that language can be nothing more than a higher-order instrument of thought, a physical representation of ideas, with no meaning except in relation to these ideas. 

Foucault

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), the founder of deconstruction, uses this term to indicate how the “accidental” features of a text betray, even subvert, its supposedly “essential” message, thereby rendering philosophy, concepts, words themselves, suspect at every level. The theory of deconstruction attempts to show that all pairs of opposite concepts in philosophical systems are in fact self-refuting. 

Derrida

This post-structuralism position common to both Derrida and Foucault therefore contends that forms of expression such as novels and philosophical texts are completely closed systems and only possess meaning from whatever the reader brings to the material. Postmodernist concerns move beyond the world of philosophy to examine such fields as literature, art, music, theater, and architecture. 

Pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty (1931-2007) looks forward to a pragmatic utopia where people can divest themselves of the worship of anything. He rejects the notion that there are “essences” to things, such as a “true nature of the self” or a universal moral law discoverable by human reason. Persons are only confronted with “contingency,” with the ever-presence of “chance” that is surmountable through constant self-transformation or self-creation, thereby, among other consequences, rendering the autonomous self as myth. 

Rorty

Postmodern philosophy is immersed exclusively in the fragmentary and chaotic currents of change, seeing the constraints of culture everywhere, because the whole history of searching for a unified meaning of things is utterly flawed.

How to respond to these developments? 

Dan and Kate Montgomery's Compass Psychotheology affirms the existential search for meaning at every level of thought—the postmodernists’ interest in breaking down barriers between philosophy and the arts, psychology, and science; and their interest in taking language seriously, breaking down linguistic interpretation, and exploring the effects of words on cultural application. 

Dan & Kate Montgomery

The problem is that once begun on a process of breaking down, without the transcendent or even immanent presence of the Trinity to encompass such exploration, the search only spirals into further dissolution and lack of ability to draw any conclusions because no words suffice, since no word has meaning, no unity exists, no overarching, explanatory theory, all is fragmented, nothing is sure. No center that holds. 

All is undone. All leads to a single human being left with one’s own thoughts, if they are thoughts, one’s own body, if there is a body, no way to communicate clearly with another human being, for no language is trustworthy, and certainly nothing as extravagantly unnecessary and nonsensical as a Creator, let alone one who is three Persons, a Triune God who made this human being in God’s image, for loving friendship and ongoing dialogue. No, nothing like that.

How The Scriptural Self Compass Challenges Churches

Why do you suppose Jesus Christ encountered his churches with so specifically in Revelation 2? The Bible tells us why: So that “all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds," Jesus says, "and I will repay each of you according to your deeds” (Rev 2:23).

In the final analysis local churches don’t belong to a denominational headquarters, but are living components of the Body of Christ, and as such do well to develop the balance found in Christ’s personality. Paul concurs, “so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:2-3).

To that end, compass personality theory suggests that churches, as temporal expressions of God’s community on earth, can with good benefit discern and correct any tendencies to exaggerate one or more Self Compass points to the exclusion of others.

Scriptural Self Compass

By purposefully initiating congregational stretches into lesser used compass points, Christ’s personality wholeness becomes more fully manifested “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Eph 4:12-14).

To the church in Pergamum, Christ offers this salute: “I know where you live—where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality” (Rev 2:12-14).

The Pergamum congregation has manifested the Love and Weakness compass points, being faithful witnesses to Christ and enduring the vulnerability of severe persecution. Now Jesus wants them to round out their compass virtues by confronting false teachers (Assertion) and standing firm in the Gospel (Strength).

Standing Firm

A church that exaggerates the Love compass point takes on people-pleasing and theatrical-histrionic traits. There will be much friendliness, tolerance, and even service to the community through caring projects. The services will be warm, compassionate, and enthusiastic. So what’s wrong with this? 

Assertion is missing, which can cause interpersonal naivety about sin, people not knowing how to handle negative emotions and darker realities of human nature like egotism, aggression, and swindling. 

Christ in his earthly life knew the essence of human nature and didn’t trust people’s perceptions carte blanche. He cared for the disciples but sometimes reproved them. He didn’t court people’s favor or placate them, but spoke the truth in love. Following in his footsteps, the Love-stuck church learns to teach and live the whole Word of God, including learning how to diplomatically confront unrighteousness, stand fast against eroding cultural influences, and balance Love with Assertion in order to deepen often superficial relationships.

For more, read: 

Christian Personality Theory: 

A Self Compass for Humanity 

Christian Personality Theory

Auguste Comte, Humanism, and the Christian Faith

It's a bit odd for me to single out one person in the history of western philosophy, and say, "Look at this and you foresee America's future." Especially when this man lived from 1798-1857. That's around the time Beethoven was dazzling Europe with his nine symphonies.

Auguste Comte, a Frenchman, lived in that transitional time when Christianity was being uprooted and replaced by science and the scientific method. He coined the term "altruism," and came to be called the father of sociology and the father of the philosophy of science -- no small accomplishment.

Why is his thought so important in 21 century America? I'll tell you in capsule summary what beliefs he championed, and then perhaps you can judge for yourself if this view has purchase in America today.

Comte believed that Christianity was finished, done, kaput.

Humanity no longer needed fairy tales and superstitions to grant meaning to life. Yet he knew people had an instinctual need, a passion even, to worship what he called Grand-Etre, the Supreme Being. So in God's place he substituted Humanity itself. He instituted a calendar of saints to celebrate the new humanism, mostly renowned scientists and intellectuals. He also created a catechism, near the end of which he says, "Humanity definitely occupies the place of God."

The sacraments of humanism included Initiation at the age of 14, then Admission at the age of 21 when a person becomes able to serve humanity. Destination or career choices takes place at 28, and Retirement at age 63.

Since Comte realized that Reason itself could not carry the day on such a proposed new direction, he added Feeling and Activity as an afterthought. Altruistic service to humanity would be fostered through an education process that hero worshiped all who brought prosperity, scientific advances, and social progress to society. Even a flag was designed to inspire love and loyalty to Humanity.

Who would create human values and resolves ethical issues? Why, experts, of course. Certainly not the people themselves, who could never represent the most disciplined and highly trained minds. Certainly not God, who never existed in the first place. And certainly not the Bible, which needed replacement by thousands of scientific studies, journal articles, and books showing people how to conduct every aspect of existence, helping all of life become "a continuous and intense act of worship," focused from birth to the grave on the truly human moral standard of "living for others."

In place of the theological notion of Providence—or divine guidance to nations and individuals—Comte stressed human effort and good intentions. He states that "we must look to our own unremitting activity for the only providence by which the rigor of our destiny can be alleviated."

Above all, there must be the supremacy of the intellectual elite, because only experts can understand the technical problems of administering a complex mass society. Though he had unmitigated positive optimism for the worship of Humanity, he died too soon to see his theories made real. But made real they were, and many in America and Europe draw their perceptions of life's meaning from experts in science and technology, the humanities, and the sociopolitical governance of Western nations.

But Comte was wrong about his primary assumption. He was wrong that Christianity had died and needed replacing with sociology and humanism. In fact, during the next century and a half there came an outpouring of the Holy Spirit greater than the world has ever known, affecting a billion people, according to Harvey Cox at Harvard Divinity School. Thus Christianity is still a major force in the world today, now about 1/4 of the world's population, and a recent Gallup poll reporting that 78% of Americans declare themselves Christian. 

Compass psychotheology suggests that God's plan for humanity always includes a remnant of believers who are not assimilated into the humanistic social matrix of their day, but who derive their identity from Christ and their values from Scripture. These individuals respect experts in modern fields of human endeavor, but retain the right to define the purpose of their lives through worshipping the Holy Trinity and look beyond contemporary society to the coming transcendent-eternal Kingdom of God.

Indeed, a major distinction between Auguste Comte, the father of sociology and the founder of the philosophy of science, and Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Father and the founder of Christianity, is that Comte is dead and Jesus is alive.

How To Choose Christ's Will for Your Life

With full access to the Self Compass, comes more freedom to choose Christ's will for your life.  

Instead of a single compass point rigidly exaggerated, there are four that rhythmically embrace the entire personality, yielding 360 degrees of creative choice in intrapsychic and interpersonal behavior. You find a freedom to choose which compass point is needed in a given situation. 

You recognize manipulative behavior and grow a “pure heart” in Christ, relatively free of ulterior motives (1 Pet 1:22).

Self Compass Living

Take, for example, a person choosing to outgrow the Narcissistic Boaster personality pattern by movement into the Weakness compass point:

• “Maybe I am not quite the prize I like others to think I am.”
• “Perhaps others are as entitled as I am to a seat on the subway.”
• “I could tell my co-worker what a good job he did on his presentation.”

This mobilization of love and humility allows them to feel a gentler pride in their accomplishments, now freed from the craving to be admired.

Out of this process surfaces the virtue of autonomy: a sense of independent self-governance without the edge of narcissism. With it evolves a more democratic leadership style that encourages others by offering constructive input.

• Redeemed Boasters use the self-confidence so evident in their own behavior to show esteem for others: building them up, rather than disdaining them. 
• The value of interdependence grows clear as they receive appreciation for group contributions, and in turn affirms and compliments others.
• Self-regard and poise grow more out of surrender to God than to our former conceit.

For every redeemed personality pattern, then, Self Compass living offers a rich behavioral repertoire grounded by the LAWS of personality as evidenced in Christ’s earthly life. 

The growing person functions within the certainty of these LAWS and grows more Christlike in the process. Yet each individual is free to uncover the unique stamp of his or her ineffable style.

-->

How comforting to know there is a compass of righteousness that clearly defines growth and wholeness in the Lord. Jesus says, “Those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (Jn 3:21). 

This is done imperfectly. Indeed, the self-correcting polarities of Love/Assertion and Weakness/Strength account for such fallibility. But when combined with a core reliance on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, these rhythmic polarities yield a Self Compass for living, the Trinity way.

For more, read: 

COMPASS PSYCHOTHEOLOGY:

Where Psychology & Theology Really Meet