Judaism and
Christianity contain within them unique and extraordinary experiences of divine
reality. The experiences must be studied and remembered. These experiences
ever form the living core of Jewish and Christian faiths.
Christianity is
essentially derivative. Its primary and grounding experiences occurred in Jews,
who in turn had been formed by the experiences, beliefs, practices of Jewish
culture, including Hebrew and Aramaic languages. To these we could add
Hellenistic and Greek linguistic influences on nascent Christianity. Later, the
Christian experiences and surrounding culture underwent continuing modification
and development through more Greek, Latin, and German cultures, and so on. The
process is unending.
Christian faith
is not fully original or unique. The core experiences--such as the vision of
Christ risen, faith in the atoning death of Jesus, and so on--occurred, as
noted, in souls already steeped in Jewish faith and culture. The experiences
never existed in a vacuum, nor can the original experiences be fully recovered,
but are always known through one’s interpretation. The struggle is to minimize
the filtering effects of one’s personality and culture, and to understand the
original experiences as well as possible. That is the work for disciplined
scholars well trained in philosophical detachment.
Christianity as
it exists is highly dependent on other thought forms. It is impossible to read
any Christian writer, even the best, and not see the mental influence of other
mental cultures. And the best Christian thinkers were immersed in the best
philosophy available to them. Of Christian mystics, perhaps only Paul and John
(and if there be other NT forms of mysticism, perhaps they, too) moved within
Jewish thought forms without much influence of Greek paideia and
philosophy. But even here, one can see Greek thought influences in both Paul
and John. As for later Christian spiritual writers, they are all derivative: both from the original Christian experiences (as in Paul and John, evident in
the Gospels), but from the mental culture in which each writer was steeped.
Augustine’s Christian theology, for example, seems inexplicable without Plotinus
nurturing his mind; and Thomas Aquinas shows the influence of Plato and
Aristotle, as well as Plotinus and Augustine, and others, on every page.
One must seek to
understand both the original Mosaic, prophetic, and apostolic experiences, and
the philosophies in which these experiences have been articulated, explored,
developed, lived. Someone who seeks to understand the best that Christianity
has to offer must study not only the Scriptures with their formative experiences
and religious cultures, but such philosophical minds as Plato, Aristotle, the
Stoics, Plotinus. And one should be well acquainted with the ancient Gnostics
and other religious cultures that became kneaded into Christian faith and
practice.
Much of
contemporary Christianity is superficial because it lacks experiential grounding
and philosophical articulation. A major problem in the contemporary churches is
that Christian experience is not only neglected, but articulated in highly
defective thought forms, such as modern psychology, Marxism (and its
derivatives, such as liberation theologies), Hegelianism, liberal democratic
thought, and so on. These contemporary ideologies and thought forms are
insufficient for articulating the experience of divine union in Christ, which
lies at the core of Christianity. As a consequence, Christians in the pews--or
those who have walked away--are left poorly nourished and largely unacquainted
with the treasures of Christ.
