The Hellenization Thesis

[Doom]

I've never heard it called this before, but I have encountered it frequently.

The Hellenization thesis holds that traditional Christian orthodoxy and traditional theology and theological categories were all derived from, or influenced by, Greek philosophy and that the only way to get back to "real Christianity" is to tear everything out by the roots and start over, relying on the Bible alone and no outside influences.

This thinking is behind, for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses and similar sects which are at best only quasi-Christian. But it has been growing and expanding for decades and it now undergirds most contemporary thought and thinkers it is at the root of all the crazy heresies that have developed in recent decades from the "process theology" of Richard Swinburne to "open theism" and the many and varied heresies of William Lane Craig.

This assumption that "Greek" or more generically "non-Christian' influences on the development of Christian theology is always and everywhere corrupting is wrong. But how could I possibly refute someone who thinks this way?

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Ratzinger/BXVI has written about this. I can't remember where off the top of my head.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture ... fm?id=7155

[gherkin]

It has now been 25 years or more since I read it, but I think John Courtney Murray's The Problem of God deals a bit with this. I'm not a fan of his political thought, but at the time I read this book I thought it was good. He had a name for those who tried to go back to the roots--I forget what the term was--but although I don't remember the details, the general idea was influential for me personally.

Etienne Gilson's God and Philosophy is also a great short study, and begins with a detailed treatment of Greek theology. In a sense, it would be difficult for the Greeks to influence Christian thought on God, because they had no real concept of God.

Of course, St. Thomas's work on Averroism is also highly relevant.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

In terms of how to refute someone who holds this position: It's one of those challenges that takes a paragraph or two to pose and an essay to answer.

[Doom]

I

Etienne Gilson's God and Philosophy is also a great short study, and begins with a detailed treatment of Greek theology. In a sense, it would be difficult for the Greeks to influence Christian thought on God, because they had no real concept of God.

Augustine was a Neoplantonist, while Clement of Alexandria and Origen were clearly trying to incorporate the best of Greek thought into Christianity.

Well, alleged examples of Greek influence include the entire concept of the soul and its immortality, the body/soul duality, the idea that all the anthropomorphic language that scripture uses to describe God is only analogical and not literal, the idea of divine simplicity (this is a big canard that undergirds the idea of theistic personalism, held to by Craig, Plantinga, JP Morland and many other leading evangelicals. Open Theism is based on the idea that the Bible doesn't teach that God is omniscient and the omniscience and all the traditional attributes of God all came from the Greeks. Process Theology is based on the idea that the passages in the Bible about God changing his mind are literal, God is not perfect and he is constantly striving towards perfection.

Many other examples of alleged Greek influence could be given.

[gherkin]

I don't disagree with that stuff, I'm just saying that the Greeks basically had no notion of a personal creator God. They had metaphysical principles, but not persons. There's no doubt that St. Augustine was influenced by Plotinus, among others, but Plotinus's One was not a God in the Judeo Christian sense. I guess my reply was only tangential to your question, although I do think the Murray book may be more directly related than the Gilson.

It may be worth asking some questions about the soul stuff, though. What did the Sadducees deny when they denied the afterlife? What did our Lord's hearers think when he spoke of Lazarus in heaven and the rich man in hell? What did St. Dismas understand when our Lord said that today he would be with him in Paradise? And what did our Lord mean when he said such things?

[Doom]

I really don't know how much of classical theism is based directly on Greek thought, how much came from scripture and how much was the result of theologians just applying logic to principles that are in scripture and arriving at the only consistent and logical conclusions.

What is the source of divine simplicity, it was held by the Fathers (at least the ones who were sophisticated enough to think of it), by the scholastics and by the first generation of Protestant Reformers. It wasn't really questioned until the mid-20th century when it was challenged on the grounds that it isn't scriptural, that it makes God an impersonal, unknowable force similar to Greek thought, and that scripture teaches that God is a person similar to us. The scholastics already anticipated that and argued that such language is analogical and not literal, while personalists insist that not talk biblical language strictly literally demeans scripture.

Personalise, I think leads to many contradictions and inconsistencies, but I'm not sure they care, they are intent on their literal interpretation come hell or high water.