Athens and Jerusalem Revisited

God Again

Creating in Love or Judging in Wrath? You Decide!

Michelangelo, Detail of Sistine Chapel

(Image from Wikipedia)

Over at Maverick Philosopher, Bill Vallicella has posted "Athens and Jerusalem at Loggerheads Over the One Thing Needful," citing Leo Strauss's argument that "Western civilization ... has two roots ... in radical disagreement with each other" ("Progress or Return?"The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, p. 246). Here, Strauss is referring to Greek philosophy and the Bible, what Tertullian preferred to call Athens and Jerusalem in posing the famous question, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"

Strauss presents the fundamental incompatibility in this way:

"To put it very simply and therefore somewhat crudely, the one thing needful according to Greek philosophy is the life of autonomous understanding. The one thing needful as spoken by the Bible is the life of obedient love." (p. 246)

Strauss quickly adds that the Western tradition has often harmonized and synthesized the two because "because Greek philosophy can use obedient love in a subservient function, and the Bible can use philosophy as a handmaid." He notes, however, that "what is so used in each case rebels against such use, and therefore the conflict is really a radical one," and by "radical," he means that the conflict derives from the two fundamentally distinct, opposing roots (p. 246).

Rémi Brague explores similar territory in his excellent book Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization (2002), about which I've previously posted, but Brague doesn't draw Strauss's pessimistic conclusions.

Let me add to this discussion. The Western concept of God has at its heart a radical ambiguity, namely, God as:

1. ontological ground

2. existential threat

The first comes largely from Greek philosophy, the latter largely from the Bible.

God as ontological ground stems from Greek philosophy and is perhaps best expressed in the cosmological argument, which (due to my laziness) I'll borrow from Wikipedia:

1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. Nothing finite and dependent (contingent) can cause itself.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, there must be a first cause; or, there must be something which is not an effect.

In other words, every contingent thing depends upon something, so there must, ultimately, be something absolutely noncontingent to serve as the ontological ground of everything contingent. This 'something' is what we call God, and understood in this way, God guarantees our existence.

God as an existential threat stems from the biblical emphasis upon God's holiness, which the Hebrew scripture presents as an active force that endangers any human who approaches too closely, as Uzzah discovered to his misfortune when he touched the extraordinarily holy Ark of the Covenant:

2 Samuel 6:1 Again, David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. 2 And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the LORD of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims. 3 And they set the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah: and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drave the new cart. 4 And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab which was at Gibeah, accompanying the ark of God: and Ahio went before the ark. 5 And David and all the house of Israel played before the LORD on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals. 6 And when they came to Nachon's threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. 7 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God. (2 Samuel 6:1-7 (KJV))

Even the high priest has to take care about approaching the extraordinary holiness inhering in the Ark of the Covenant (aka Ark of the Testimony):

Leviticus 16:12 He is to take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the LORD and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and take them behind the curtain. 13 He is to put the incense on the fire before the LORD, and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the Testimony, so that he will not die. (Leviticus 16:12-13 (KJV))

The mortal threat noted in both of these passages comes through God's holiness as a power almost automatically hostile to human beings, and understood in this way, God threatens our existence.

In commonplace terms, these two poles in the Western concept of God -- ontological ground and existential threat -- are understood as two roles of God: God as Creator and God as Judge, especially as presented in Genesis and Revelation, respectively.

Unlike Strauss on the 'two things' needful, I don't claim that these two poles are utterly irreconcilable, nor that the Western tradition's understanding of God reduces entirely to this ambiguity -- nor that this ambiguity can be found in no other religious tradition -- but I do think this ambiguity is central to the Western concept of God.