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.

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