Two Cultures:How Two Blended in Western

European Culture4000BC - 1400 AD

Indo-Europeans / Semitic People

Hellenistic Age: A Mixing

• Alexander the Great - 300sBC

• Roman Might Emerges - 200sBC

• Alexandria, Egypt a locus of mixing multiple cultures…two in particular…

Our Indo-European Roots

• “Insight”– Vidya – Sanskrit– Idea – Greek– Video – Roman/Latin – Wissen – German (“v”)– Wisdom - English– Vision - English

• “God”– Huta - Sanskrit– Deva – Sanskrit - Dyeus– Daeva – Persian– Dios – Greek - Zeus– Deus – Latin– Tivurr – Norse – Tiwaz -Tues.

• Divine

– Gott – German– Deity – English– Gosh, Golly– Geez - Jesus

Etymology is fun!!!

Two Cultures Effect Philosophy

Indo-Europeans– Visual– Cyclical view of history

• Transmigration of soul– polytheistic

• Visions – Insight• Buddhist/Hindu religions• Unity with god(s) through

insight• Meditation, self

communion• Sculptures of gods

Semitic– Oral and auditory– Linear view of history– Monotheistic

• Judaism, Islam, Christianity

• “Hear O Israel”• God speaks through the

prophets.• Muslim call to prayer.• Jewish cantor – sings the

Torah• Recitation• Sermons• Discouragement of pictorial

or sculptural representation.

Neo-Platonism: Plato as Mystic

Nonreality or

the Not…

The Divine in all things…

God, Eternal Ideas

Man’s Soul

Raw Unshaped Matter

Plotinus of Alexandria, 205-270AD

Everything has a faint glow of God.

Touched by degrees…

Man should seek a mysticaloneness with god

Plotinus on the World

• The world is not a planned creation by a God, but the self-expression of the Intelligence, or the Soul of all.

• Good and Evil were not created; but the world is an expression of that Soul’s experience of itself.

“It is an illusion that makes you think that your neighbor is someone other than yourself”

Some Mystery Cults of the Roman Empire

• Mithraism – Persian, “cult of light”

• Manicheanism – universe between 2 equal forces, good and evil

• Neoplatonism – a singular universe touched by degrees of the One (the Good)

The Christian Mystic

Becoming one with the Divine…

“Every drop becomes the sea when it flows oceanward, just as at last the soul ascends and thus becomes the lord.”

- Angelus Silesius, 1600s, Christian mystic

The Semitic View: History asRebinding the Covenant with God

1. A promise broken1. Eden

2. Noah’s ark

3. The Covenant with Abraham

4. Jacob - Israel

5. Saul, David and Solomon – 1000BC

1. Mistakes made

6. Babylonian Captivity1. 580-540BC –

7. Prophets: Restore Kingdom of David

Awaiting the Messiah, Anointed one

Roman occupation 64BC –

Indo-European culture clashes with Semitic

– Distrust of monotheism– Imperial Cult emerges

with Augustus 29BC

Jesus, mediator: “Born of the House of David”

• Son of God, forgiver of sins• “Abba” – Father!• We are all brothers and sisters – family of man• A new covenant: Love God with all your heart, with

all your soul and with all your mind; AND, love your neighbor as yourself.

• Love your enemies: they’re family• Forgive those who spite you 70 times 7…

• Obviously a dangerous man…

The Passion– God suffers for us

Resurrection– God as man

overcomes the trial and opens a bigger path for God to work in the world and in the afterlife

– Easter…Christianity

Resurrection of Christ, Grunewald, 16th C

This Man, Antonio Ciseri, 19th c

Paul (Saulof Tarsus)

Crucifixion of Paul by Caravaggio

On the road to Damascus…

ActsEpistles - (letters)

Christianity first spreads westward…WHY?

Christianity’s Power as Philosophy• God became man

– Jesus not demigod, a lesser god; – We see Indo-European influence, not Semitic, in

insistence that Jesus was born of God-woman relationship

– This man endured in humanity and prevailed

• Jesus as a true man, the best of us…..• Semitic idea: God is a God of the human family

– Inherent equality of all: brothers and sisters

• There is always Hope• Forgiveness transcends worldly competition• Love is the most powerful force

Indo-European and Semitic Cultures

• Neoplatonism is a key intellectual step– Many of Plato’s top students interpreted and

wrote about Plato’s ideas and came up with different conclusions.

– Attests to Plato’s universality

• 2 Cultures Blended through Christianity in Europe

Neo-Platonism: Plato as Mystic

Nonreality or

the Not…

The Divine in all things…

God, Eternal Ideas

Man’s Soul

Raw Unshaped Matter

Plotinus of Alexandria, 205-270AD

Everything has a faint glow of God.

Touched by degrees…

Man should seek a mysticaloneness with god

St Augustine 354-430AD

• A Christian with a Neo-Platonist background– Welds Plato into Christian theology

• Two realms• God could not create evil...evil is a turning away

from the good, absence of good• The City of God v. The City of Man

– The state is a remedial function; not originally intended as it is

– The state is full of selfish, ungodly motives

• Why was the Roman Civilization falling apart?

City of God / City of Man

The divine in all things…

City of God Eternal Ideas

Man’s SoulNature

City of Man -A product of the human condition; necessary due to the fall of man.

-A product of our struggle

-Lacks the divine

Augustinian Philosophy

1. The ideas for all things existed within God always but were at a given time created out of the Void.

2. There is a clear division between spirit and body

3. The City of Man manifests in the absence of God.

4. Eternal competition exists between God and worldly forces inside and outside, until judgment day

Why did the Middle Ages begin?(400-1400 AD)

What was life like then?• Roman Empire broke into three cultures

• Greek philosophy took an important backseat in those cultures…

• RC (Western) Middle Ages - Neoplatonism

• Byzantine (Eastern) Middle Ages - Plato

• Islam’s Formative Period – Aristotle

Thomas Aquinas 1225-1274

• Reexamination of Aristotle– On the foundation of Averroes, a Muslim from

Toledo, Spain

• Faith and Reason are compatible

– 5 Proofs for the existence of God

– Read Falcone: Chapter 8; On Aquinas

Aquinas (1225-1274)• “As fat as he was indefatigable”• Beginning at age 5 studied with

Benectine monks in Naples– Aristotle: Greek pagan– Averroes: Spanish Muslim– Maimonides: Spanish Jew

• Joins new Dominican order– Parents kidnapped him!

• Attended University of Paris 1245• Professor of Philosophy 1256• Summa Theologica

Aquinas questioned prevailing concepts, such as…?

1. Is the Platonic form of a being the same as his spirit or soul?

2. If our spirit is form or essence, then where does the universal humanness end and individual character begin?

3. Were we meant to ignore the Earthly City w/ blinders on, focusing only on the afterlife – as in Augustine’s City of God?

4. How does the body connect with the soul if the body belongs to the realm of the City of Man and soul to the City of God? Is the body evil?

5. Since the pagan Aristotle had been interested in the natural world is there anything problematic with a fascination in the natural world?

Which Aristotelian Views Does Aquinas Take?

• Man can’t help but want supreme happiness, which is …

• God-Man relationship: “vision of God”

• Summon Bonum: action in accord with reason (divine gift) to achieve salvation

• So Virtue is: – Intellectual virtue - knowing it– Moral virtue - doing it

Intellect

Will

Appetite

What is the relationship between reason and faith?

• Reason and Faith are not contradictory but symbiotic– Reason depends on premise– Faith is strengthened by Reason

• If reason could prove faith false, there would be no faith

• Yet faith comes first when we assume many things…

Man is joiner of two universes“Like a horizon of the corporeal and the spiritual”

– As long as man has both spirit and body, both parts must be understood

– Man needs education to deal with temptations of the world

– With God’s grace and both types of reason, Man can achieve the happiness of both realms.

spiritual

corporeal

Requires Inferior reason

Requires Superior reason

Brings pleasure

Brings joy

Aquinas’ 5 proofs of God

Argument from:

– Motion– Efficient cause– Necessity– Gradation– Design

• Which are most reasonable? Least reasonable? Why?

Good Actions Must Meet All 4 parts…

1. Intrinsic “material” or value of act2. Intention of actor3. Circumstances which affect actor/action4. End results

(Sort of like Aristotle’s 4 causes…)• Make up a hypothetical situation…

– “Alfred and the old lady with the flat tire…”– Or…think of your own situation and analyze…– Do these criteria make sense? Why or not?

4 types of law

• Eternal law - God’s way; abstract, but discernable through reason

• Natural law – seen in nature; reflection of eternal law and extension of it in our world; points the way on how man should shape his own laws– The Enlightenment thinkers would run with this in late

1600s ; ie Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau

• Human law - man’s laws made by state; necessary to keep man’s fallen nature in check

• Divine law – as revealed by prophets, scripture