Perspective: Jesus and Socrates

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Jesus and Socrates

How a Philosophy Class Strengthened My Faith

For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Galatians 5:14 (NRSV)

I believe that Love is the answer

I believe that Love will find the way

From "I Believe" by Blessid Union of Souls

It was just over twelve years ago when I began my freshman year in college.  At the university I attended, the seniors always had the first opportunity to register for classes, for they were the ones who were scrambling to complete all of their academic requirements in time to graduate.  The freshmen, on the other hand, had to battle it out for the seats that remained in whichever classes hadn't been filled to capacity after everyone else had already registered.  When I registered for my first term during orientation, my adviser suggested that I pick out as many as twelve classes to be sure that I got the three I needed for the term.  A few days later, I found myself registered for one of the classes toward the bottom of my list, an introductory course in western philosophy.

Before I took this course, I didn't know very much about the realm of philosophy except that it was supposedly very difficult, but I found the course to be surprisingly enjoyable.  The class taught me to think about things in new ways, and the reading assignments proved to be welcome diversions from the headache-inducing calculus problems and Java programming assignments that made up the rest of my coursework.  I enjoyed the course so much that I took another philosophy course with the same professor during my sophomore year.  Maybe I would have majored in philosophy had I not been so worried about finding a job after college.

At the beginning of the course, the class studied some of the writings of Plato, a Greek philosopher who lived four hundred years before the time of Christ.  Plato wrote primarily in dialogues - or conversations - between his teacher Socrates and other people.  One that stands out in my memory is a dialogue between Socrates and a friend named Euthyphro.  Socrates is awaiting a court trial because someone has accused him of corrupting young people with his teachings.  On the way to court he meets Euthyphro who is bringing murder charges against his own father.  Because of the complexity of the case, Socrates asks Euthyphro how he can be sure that his actions in pressing charges are righteous.  The two then engage in a discussion about the nature of righteous actions.

Socrates is seeking the Form of all righteous actions.  In other words, he wants to know what makes certain actions righteous.  Euthyphro suggests that any action loved by the gods is righteous and that any action hated by the gods is wicked.  After the two work their way around the fact that the various gods in the Greek pantheon have different values, as evidenced by the fact that they are often in conflict with each other, Socrates decides to dig deeper.  He asks, "Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?"¹  In other words, are certain actions considered righteous because the gods appreciate them?  Or do the gods appreciate certain actions specifically because those actions are righteous?  This question is known to philosophy nerds as the Euthyphro dilemma.²

Though some Christians have a tendency to portray philosophy professors as antichrists hellbent on destroying the faith of young people,³ my philosophy professor was a devout Catholic who had no problem speaking in Christian terms.  When he presented the Euthryprho dilemma to the class, he asked, "Is something good because God says so, or does God say so because it is good?"

This question would ultimately change the way I approach matters of faith.

In general, Christians understand the Bible to be, in some way, the inspired word of God.  From the Law of Moses, to the words of the prophets, to the teachings of Christ, to the letters of early Christian saints, the Bible contains many rules, guidelines, and discussions concerning morality.  In debates about moral issues, many Christians will cite passages of the Bible and say, "The Bible says it; I believe it; and that settles it."  Because of my brief encounter with philosophy, such an answer is no longer good enough for me.  I want to know why the Bible says what it does.  I want to know why God loves certain actions and hates other actions.

The Euthryprho dilemma offers us two options, both of which seem somewhat problematic to me.  One side of the dilemma suggests that God decides what is righteous and what is wicked.  Many Christians would be just fine with such a concept, but, to me, it makes the difference between right and wrong seem somewhat arbitrary.  I am reminded of a certain American president who said, in the midst of a scandal, "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal."  The other side of the dilemma suggests that there is some standard of righteousness that exists apart from God.  If this is the case, then God would have to be bound by this standard in order to be truly righteous.  Can a sovereign God be bound by a standard that the same God did not create?⁴

With such brain-liquefying questions, is it any wonder that St. Paul would warn his readers not to be taken captive by philosophy?⁵  Is such questioning actually productive?

Personally I think that philosophy has something to offer the Christian faith.  Paul also encourages his readers to "test everything" and to "hold fast to what is good."⁶  Testing everything includes testing matters of faith and religion.  I believe that philosophical inquiry, as demonstrated by Socrates, is one way to test everything to find what is good.  Despite Paul's warning, I believe that philosophy has actually strengthened my faith, for, as I pondered these questions, I realized that Jesus actually answered Socrates's question a few centuries after Socrates asked it.

One day, a scholar of the Scriptures approached Jesus with a philosophical question of his own.  He asked, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"  There were 613 commandments in the Jewish Law, and this scholar wanted to know which of these commandments Jesus considered the most important.  Jesus replied,
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."⁷

Jesus then made a rather bold statement, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."⁸  Basically, Jesus said that anything the Jewish Law commands or any exhortation from the ancient prophets stems from the commandments to love God and to love other people.  Perhaps one could even go so far as to say that all God really wants from us is to love, that all God was trying to achieve by giving the Law and speaking through the prophets is to teach humanity how to love.

Perhaps love is the answer to Socrates's inquiry: perhaps love is what makes an action truly righteous.  To use the philosophical lingo of Plato and Socrates, perhaps it could be said that love is the Form of all righteous actions.

Love might very well be the litmus test to determine whether or not an action is truly righteous; however, naming the standard of righteousness does not completely solve the Euthryphro dilemma.  We can still ask ourselves whether love is something God defined and created or something apart from God to which God must be bound in order to be righteous.

I do not know if the early Christian theologian St. John was familiar with the writings of Plato, but I believe that he actually offers us a solution to the Euthryprho dilemma.  In a letter addressed to the early Church, he writes a lot about love, the standard by which all actions are judged as righteous or wicked.  He argues that, if a person loves, then he or she knows God and that, if a person does not love, then he or she does not know God.  He then makes a very provocative statement about God:

God is love.⁹

Perhaps the standard of righteousness is neither something created by God nor something existing apart from God.  Perhaps the standard of righteousness is the very nature of God.¹⁰

Many have turned to the Bible in their pursuit of what is right and good, resulting in an obsession with all things "biblical."  If you browse the religion section of your local bookstore, you will find books about biblical leadership, biblical marriage, biblical gender roles, biblical worldviews, biblical finances, biblical politics, and even biblical weight loss.  To seek merely what is "biblical" is to fall short of the goal, for all things biblical are meant to point us to all things loving.  According to Jesus, all religious instruction is meant to teach us how to love, and, according to St. John, when we learn how to love, we come to know God.

In some Christian circles, older folks try to "prepare" young people so that, when they step out of the safety of their bubble into academia, their faith won't be destroyed by religion or philosophy classes.  When I went to college, taking such classes actually strengthened my wavering faith.  My brief love affair with philosophy taught me to approach my faith in fresh new ways and helped me to find a reason to keep believing.  In fact, it might be one reason I am still a Christian today, for it has helped me to keep my focus on what is most important.

Love is the answer,

and God is love.


Notes:

1. Plato.  Five Dialogues.  Translated by G.M.A. Grube and revised by John M. Cooper.  2002, Hackett Publishing Company.  p.1-20
2. See Wikipedia: Euthyphro dilemma.
3. I think about a certain film that shares a name with a certain Christian pop song.
4. See Wikipedia: Euthyphro dilemma, section: Explanation of the dilemma.
5. Colossians 2:8
6. 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (NRSV)
7. Matthew 22:34-39 (NRSV)
8. Matthew 22:40 (NRSV)
9. 1 John 4:7-8
10. This was essentially the conclusion reached by Christian philosophers like Anselm, Augustine, and Aquinas.  See Wikipedia: Euthryphro Dilemma, section: False dilemma response.

The photograph featured in this perspective was taken by Wikipedia user DIMSFIKAS is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.  The statue of Socrates is located in front of the Academy of Athens.