The Western Story: Roots of Modernity

Living at the Crossroads

Chapter 5

Incomparably the most urgent missionary task for the next few decades is the mission to ‘modernity’... It calls for the use of sharp intellectual tools, to probe behind the unquestioned assumptions of modernity and uncover the hidden credo which supports them...

- Lesslie Newbigin

Telling the Story

Roots of Modernity: Classical culture, gospel, medieval era

Development of Modernity: Renaissance to present

Currents of Today: Postmodernity, Globalization, and Consumerism

Spiritual Direction of Western Culture

Confessional humanism Illustrated by Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844-1900) in ‘The Madman’

“We have killed God-We have killed God--you and I! We are his murderers! . . . “How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” the madman asks. “Must we ourselves not we ourselves not become godsbecome gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

Western Faith:Rationalistic Humanism

Autonomous man is capable of defining the world (Creator) and solving problems of world to bring about a new world of freedom, prosperity, justice, and truth (Savior) with his own rational resources.

Death of God and Confessional Humanism

If God is dead, we must replace him as Creator

If God is dead, we must replace him as ruler of history

If God is dead, we must replace him as savior and redeemer

“Man . . . alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, [and] has within himself the power for its achievement” (Humanist Manifesto)

Humanism “assigns to us nothing less than the task of being our own savior and redeemer” (Corliss Lamont).

Humanism . . .

Secular Naturalistic Rationalistic Scientific

Also called . . .

Enlightenment worldview The modern worldview Modernity

Deadly foe?

Western modernity may be “a much deadlier foe than any previous counter-religious forces in human history.”

Modernity . . .

Formed by long history of interaction between classical humanism and gospel

Polanyi: Explosion of modernity result of ignition of flame of classical humanism in the oxygen of the gospel

Historical Development ofRationalistic Humanism

Roots in pagan/classical period (to 5th c.) Preserved in medieval synthesis (5th-14th c.) Re-emerged at Renaissance (14th-15th c.) Salted by gospel at Reformation (15th c.) Given tremendous thrust forward in Scientific

Revolution (16th-17th c.) Came to mature expression in Enlightenment (18th c.) Given social embodiment in social, industrial, and

political revolutions (19th, 20th c.) Under attack today (late 20th, 21st c.)

Until lions have their historians, hunters will always be the hero of the story.

-African proverb

Eras:

Cla ssi ca l Med ieva l Mod ern P ostm od er n

Classic: of the hi ghest cla ss; mostrepresen ta ti ve of the excel len ce of i tski n d ; ha vi n g recogn i zed wor th. ( Websters)

Modern : up-to-da te; n ot old -fashi oned , a n ti qua ted or obsolete.

( Websters)

Medieval: mi d d le ( med i u s) a ge( a evum) ; ou td a ted

Another way to designate eras:

Med i eva l Modern Postm od ern

Pa ga n Syn thesi s A n t i th esi s Neo-pa ga n

Cla ssi ca l

Historical Origins of Confessional Humanism in Greece

Emerged in pre-Socratic philosophers over against pagan religion of Greek culture

Culminated in Plato and Aristotle Spread throughout ancient culture

by Alexander the Great Embraced by Roman empire

Seeds of Western Worldview

Rationalism: human reason alone is capable of understanding world

Naturalism: world can be explained by natural causes

Humanism: autonomy of human beings from any transcendent authority

Plato (427-348 B.C.) Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Thi n gsMa ter i a l Tempora l

Senses Cha n ge Pa rti cu la r Opi n i on

Spi r i tua l Forms/I d ea s

Un cha n gi ngRea son

Etern a l

TruthUn i ver sa l

Platonic Worldview

rational soul

body

Plotinus (205-270 A.D.) & Neoplatonism

basic division between good spiritual world and evil material world;

human beings made up of inferior material body and superior rational soul;

bodily life in this material world is inferior to spiritual life;

human life has an otherworldly, spiritual orientation.

Roots of Western Worldview in Gospel

Gospel enters Roman culture as an alternative, comprehensive way of life Confessed Jesus as Lord over

against Caesar Declared itself to be public

community, new humankind and not private religion

Roots of Western Worldview in Gospel

Gospel enters Roman culture as an alternative, comprehensive way of life

Two comprehensive visions of life: Clash inevitable

Gospel also translatable Danger of contamination and

unfaithful contextualization

Changing Relation to Culture

In Roman empire church lived in antithetical relation to culture

With Constantine (311 A.D.) Rome became “Christian”

Church established as part of empire Vulnerability to idolatry of empire

Medieval Synthesis

Cla ssi ca l /pa ga n

Gospel

Medieval Synthesis

4th c. 13th c.

Early

-Pla to + Gospel

-Augusti n e ( 354-430 AD)

Late

-Ar i stotle + Pla ton i c gospel

-Aqu i n a s ( 1225-1275 AD)

Plato and Augustine (354-430)

Plato’s philosophy: New expression in Plotinus

Plotinus pivotal in Augustine’s conversion Merges Platonic philosophy and gospel Both Scriptural and Greek strands in

thinking Synthesis influential in Western culture

. . . it was Augustine’s formulation of Christian Platonism that was to permeate virtually all of medieval Christian thought in the West (Tarnas).

Escape from this world to the next, from self to God, from flesh to spirit, constituted the deepest purpose and direction of human life. . . . In Augustine’s vision [carried on in medieval period] . . . the transcendent spiritual realm was the only realm that genuinely mattered (Tarnas).

Biblical Story

Movement to...

gospel and Spirit Kingdom ofGod

Resurrectedbodies on

renewed earthHorizontalCreational

God’s rule by

Platonic Vision

Spi ri tual realm ( destiny of soul)

VerticalEthereal

Biblical Story Recast by Augustine

Movement to...

Gospel

Heavenly ci tySpi ri tual bodies

Spi ri t

God’s rule

Post-Augustine Otherworldliness

...especially after Augustine, salvation was seen less in such dramatic historical and collective terms, and...could be fulfilled only when the soul left behind the physical world and entered the celestial state...Escape from this world to the next, from self to God, from flesh to spirit, constituted the deepest purpose and direction of human life (Tarnas).

Neoplatonic ChristianityThe early Judaeo-Christian belief in redemption of the whole man and the natural world shifted in emphasis, especially under the influence of Neoplatonist Christian theologians, to a belief in a purely spiritual redemption in which man’s highest faculties alone--the spiritual intellect, the divine essence of the human soul--would be reunited with God... the devout Christian perceived himself as a citizen of the spiritual world, and his relation to the transitory physical realm was that of a stranger and pilgrim (Tarnas).

Sense of Universal History

The Hellenic sense of history was generally cyclical, the Judaic was decisively linear and progressive, the gradual fulfillment in time of God’s plan for man . . . Augustine’s strong sense of God’s government of history--as in his dramatic scenario of the two invisible societies of the elect and the damned, the city of God and the city of the world, battling through creation’s history until the Last Judgment--still reflected the Judaic ethical vision of God’s purposefulness in history (Tarnas).

Late Medieval Synthesis(13th-14th c.)

Aristotle

I nterest i nthis world

Platoni c Christiani ty

Otherworldy

Plato (427-348 B.C.) Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Aquinas’ Two Realm Theory

Spiri tual

Material

Eternal

Temporal

Superior

I nferior

God/Angels

Creation

Theology

Phi losophy/Science

Faith

Reason

Revelation

Natural law

Grace

Nature

Fits in Aristotle

Tension of Thomas’ Two Storeys

The Christian mediaeval synthesis presented by Thomas is one of extreme tension, and in the dynamic of historical development had effects which were to prove self-destructive: there was to be an unprecedented and all-embracing movement of secularization and emancipation ‘at the lower level.’ (Hans Küng)

Limited Autonomy to Total Autonomy

While scholastic theologians [had] granted a limited degree of autonomy to the realm of our natural life (and natural reason), the Renaissance humanists so greatly expanded the autonomy of nature that there was no longer any need for the realm of grace. If God and Christianity were already basically irrelevant to most of life, why not make their irrelevance complete?

Salting Effect of GospelThe medieval period was “the first great attempt to translate the universal claims of Christ into political [and cultural] terms.”

As a result of the one-thousand-year synthesis, “the Gospel was wrought into the very stuff of [Western Europe’s] social and personal life.”

“We still live largely on the spiritual capital which it generated”

(Newbigin)