Greek Philosophy, Christianity and the Medieval Scholastic Tradition: From Hellenism to Aristotle

Hellenistic Period

Phase transition of Greek culture: the classical era of Greek culture and the Mediterranean world (Occident) gave way to the Hellenistic and Latin culture, 323-31 BC. After the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC) and Aristotle (322 BC), the political organization and cultural conditions underwent radical changes that Greek people experienced. Following Alexander's conquests, the empire was under the direction of the Macedonians, and Greek culture spread across the conquered peoples. This diffusion of Greek culture in the Orient is called Hellenization.

Great cultural centers stood out, such as Antioch, Rhodes, Alexandria and Athens, where scientific and philosophical work flourished. Among the scholars who stood out were Euclid, Archimedes, Aristarchus of Samos, Ptolemy and Claudius Ptolemy. Because of the loss of political autonomy and the disappearance of the city-states, political organization turned toward the Roman province model. Individuals no longer took part directly in political life and, as a consequence, lost interest in public affairs. They turned instead to their private lives to find personal security and happiness. This is how the first series of philosophical currents arose, whose central objective was ethics.

Skepticism

This current denies that humans have special cognitive faculties that allow them to know the truth; nothing can be known with certainty. Pyrrho said that such things cannot be known as they are in themselves, but only as they appear to us, so there is no universally valid criterion of truth. What is good or bad is conventional and depends on customs, so no one can deliver a definitive judgment about value. The wise stance is therefore the suspension of judgment (epoché), accepting only opinions and attitudes that lead to peace of mind without defending opinions, since there is no need to assume that objective truths exist.

Epicureanism

This current was founded by Epicurus, who opened a school in Athens known as the Garden. His most important work is the Letter to Menoeceus. For Epicurus, philosophy aims to heal the soul, so that one may be happy as far as possible, and knowledge that does not lead to this end is useless. The study of happiness, therefore, aims to remove the causes of the soul's disquiet, which are based on the atomic theory of pure matter. It rests on the belief that the gods exist but do not concern themselves with human affairs. There is no fate or providence; events occur by chance. There is no death for us, since when we exist death is not present, and when death comes we no longer exist. The atoms disperse. Intense pain is not lasting, and if it is lasting it is not intense. Pleasure is easy to reach, since what we need is not hard to obtain.

Epicurus sought to free people from fear and to establish happiness in pleasure (hedonism), which is easy to attain. He proposed the rule of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, good and evil. Not every pleasure should be pursued, nor every pain avoided, if they bring negative consequences. Experience teaches that a balance must be struck through a rational principle of calculation. Desires are natural and necessary, natural but not necessary, or neither natural nor necessary. The priority is to minimize and eliminate disturbance and suffering. When we lack what we need, satisfaction comes easily, provided we satisfy natural needs moderately and seek spiritual pleasures.

Stoicism

This current was founded by Zeno of Citium, and its representatives include Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. Stoics conceive all of nature as a harmonious and organized whole, a structure that cares for everything. The body is an integrated whole governed by a passive principle and an active, rational intelligence. The universe is governed by a rational, universal law that regulates everything that happens. Nothing comes by chance; events arise from one another in an orderly and necessary way. This is called fate.

Ethics consists in living in accordance with nature, that is, in accordance with the universal reason that forms part of each person. This is the fundamental Stoic ethical principle: to live in accordance with reason. Human beings must know the world and accept, consciously and voluntarily, that everything that happens is inevitable. The wise person accepts what is beyond control and knows that worrying about fate is useless. The wise person opposes nothing external and understands that whatever opposes reason is bad, since whoever is irrational is partly in error. True understanding of the world frees one from error and from the deceptions of the senses. Therefore one should be free from passions, since happiness lies in accepting fate with a calm and tranquil spirit. The wise person, guided by reason, is free from the passions and is a citizen of the world.

Christianity and Philosophy

Christianity is a revealed religion, that is, a set of indisputable truths (dogmas) that were revealed by God. It arose within Judaism, which had spread among the Jews, and its founder was Jesus of Galilee, who was poorly understood. Paul of Tarsus was the main spreader of the doctrine. He defended the divinity of Jesus and, in line with the original Christian message, grace (the gift God gives freely), and faith in salvation. The doctrine of Christian love was developed in his epistles. The four Gospels were written later, and they recount the life and teaching of Jesus. Together with these, the New Testament was formed, which proposes a life of love for God and neighbor and a vision of eternity.

Early Christian thinkers saw in philosophy an instrument at the service of religion. Tertullian's rationalization expressed the dominance of philosophy and the first Christian synthesis, which sought to harmonize reason and faith and maintain a difficult balance.

Main Christian Tenets

1. The world was created from nothing. Creation is a free, voluntary act of a single God, necessary and implying an omnipotent being who created everything from nothing. Since God is omnipotent and governs the world, the book of divine will is clear, and determinism opposes Stoicism. Christianity defended the possibility of miracles. Greek philosophy had always held that matter was eternal and that no Greek thought of creation ex nihilo. Plotinus taught that everything derives from a process of emanation from the One, which is supreme perfection (God), and that existence is multiple and each being demands the existence of another, while unity precedes plurality.

2. The mystery of the Incarnation. God became man in Jesus. This conception introduced a linear view of history, in contrast with the cyclical character of the Greek mentality on which modern mentality is based.

3. Human beings were created in the image and likeness of God, the Father of all. This involves universal brotherhood and the equality of all human beings, a principle that had antecedents in Stoicism and helped ground modern human values.

4. The love and forgiveness of others, including enemies. Anna Arendt noted that the discovery of forgiveness in human affairs was Jesus' achievement, in contrast with the natural cycle of revenge or automatic offense.

Christianity would later need to explain its doctrine with greater precision, drawing on Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas. It defended itself against attacks from pagan thinkers, and Christians turned to cults or sought to resolve through reason the relationship between faith and reason. The emergence of heresies threatened the Church: Gnosticism held that human salvation is reached through supreme knowledge superior to faith, a view highlighted by Priscillian. Manichaeism maintained the existence of two principles, a good god (Ormazd) and an evil one (Ahriman). Arianism, founded by Arius, denied the dogma of the Trinity by affirming that Christ did not share the same nature as the Father.

Patristics

The task of defense, and the gradual approach of Christianity to philosophy, was carried out by the Fathers of the Church, whose work can be divided into three stages. The first is characterized by the defense that Christians made against attacks from other religions, and by the Church Fathers' use of philosophy, a function known as apologetics. Its most notable figure was Tertullian. The second stage covers the councils of Nicaea (325) and Chalcedon (451), where the divine nature of Jesus was established, with Saint Augustine of Hippo standing out. The third period is one of cultural decline, characterized by the reworking and refinement of Christian thought, where Pseudo-Dionysius, Boethius and Saint Isidore of Seville stand out.

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Among the patristic thinkers, Augustine stands out for his Confessions and The City of God. Reading Cicero led him to seek wisdom and happiness. In the first stage, he was attracted to Manichaeism, defending the existence of good and evil. Disappointed, he passed through a brief skeptical period and then turned to Neoplatonism, which led to his conversion to Christianity. He tried to integrate faith with philosophy in a Christian Platonism, where thought and faith are not limited to two sources, since both lead to truth. Philosophy and religion are not opposed; they are mutually related, though faith is primary in his final defense, which gives primacy to faith over philosophy, and philosophy over theology. Reason began its work by helping to achieve human faith, since to believe is to think. Human beings are capable of knowing universal, immutable, and necessary truths, which are not subject to change, through natural light. This light is the presence of God in the soul, who makes knowledge of the truths of existence possible. Augustine's fundamental reasoning can be summarized as follows: to think the truth is to find it within oneself, and to find God one must turn inward. For Christianity, the human being is a fallen creature who has been redeemed, a supernatural condition. Neoplatonic thought, used by Augustine, holds that the understanding seeks the supreme truth, which is intangible and immaterial, and whose object is the reason itself, which may explain the existence of all reality.

Scholasticism

The set of theories and ontological speculations developed by Christian thinkers is called Christian philosophy. The name Scholasticism derives from the monastic and cathedral schools that grew up, and later, under Charlemagne's palatine school, and from schools run by municipalities. Through their own methods, scholastic masters described their teaching in two forms: the lectio, the first class of the master on a text, and the disputatio, the discussion among students in which arguments for and against a thesis were raised. The aim was to explain revealed truths using philosophy, and both were combined in commentaries and summaries. Scholasticism is divided into three stages: its formation, its height, and its decline. The appearance of universities, which arose with a sense of grouping professors and students, took place in Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Naples, Bologna, Padua, Palencia and Salamanca. These institutions acquired international validity, and the incorporation of the Dominicans and Franciscans into them was a factor in the Christianization of philosophy.

Aristotelianism

Medieval thought was characterized by the absolute predominance of Platonic inspiration, influenced by Saint Augustine. Of Aristotle's works, only the parts of the Logic were known in the Latin West through Boethius. In contrast, in the Arab and Jewish world Aristotle was already known through Avicenna, who gave him a Platonic reading. Maimonides attempted to reconcile the Old Testament with philosophy and was known, among others, as the commentator on Aristotle. Three classes of truth were distinguished: the lowest level, where ordinary people live and are satisfied without the need for proofs; a higher level, where there is ontological content supported by probable arguments; and a third level, reserved for philosophers, who demand rigorous demonstrations and are capable of interpreting them.

Aristotle offered philosophy the rigor and system that surpassed the Platonic approaches of medieval philosophy. His works, which arrived in the Latin West around the thirteenth century, were received with enthusiasm by many, but also with criticism, since some of their ideas contradicted Christianity. Averroism emerged as the main intellectual current of commentary on Aristotle, represented by Averroes and Siger of Brabant. Its three central claims were: the world is eternal, since God does not create the world and does not know it; individual immortality does not exist, since the soul is immortal only through the universal active intellect, which is unique to all human beings; and the double truth, according to which a philosophical truth may contradict a theological one, since each has its own domain of validity. This current sought to separate reason and faith, which provoked a reaction from theologians who defended the subordination of reason to faith. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas sought to Christianize Aristotle, and it was Thomas who, by reconciling Aristotle with Christianity, achieved the synthesis that became the cornerstone of Scholastic philosophy.