I Think Therefore.....

Ahhh! Is there thinking before coffee? If you haven't had your second cup you likely finished my title with, "..therefore I am." That rational thought would not come for some centuries. As civilization moved forward the discipline of thinking was a new discovery. Western society, philosophy, theology, science, and religion and most of what we are was finding its foundation in the exercise of rational thought. Though there are other great thinkers for sure, the Greeks are where we Westerners usually begin. Socrates challenged those who heard him to enter into "dialogue" with one's self and others for the purpose of being rational. Socrates established that the universe was rational, could be explored by reason and that one could reach a spiritual peace through such intellectional pursuit.
Plato took up where Socrates began by surmizing reason to be that which comes to us from outside ourselves. Thought is that which captures us or draws us towards itself. That which draws us is real and perfected whereas this world is only an imperfect reflection of that which is. Plato called this perfected otherness, "forms". The universe was based on these "forms" that existed out beyond what we know. Like other Greeks, Plato and Scorates did not quibble over multiple gods but took such as a fact of existence. Near the end of his writings Plato devised a creation "myth", not to be taken literally, but a parable of sorts to give a path for reasoning to follow. Such myth enabled a person to enter the process of thought and since thinking was divine, thinking put the thinker into participation with that which was God. Plato's mythological Creator was a divine craftsman, skillfully putting the universe in order. But this was not the ultimate God for that God was too far removed to be knowable. Like Socrates, Plato's universe was intelligible, knowable, and achievable through the spiritual exercise of thought.

Aristotle linked more concretely Plato's idea of the universe being intelligible and the concept of "forms" with reason being man's form and therefore to reach completeness as a human one must pursue reason. Reason is a divine activity and therefore man could practice it only in so far as touching that within that is divine. Aristotle thought creation itself to be both divine and the center of the all that exists. These two points would later cause great consternation with future theologians of the Chruch and would shape Western thought for centuries to follow. Like Plato, Aristotle's God was far removed and not the Creator but the "First Cause" that set it all in motion. And like many of the great thinking movements of their time, these three thinkers thought "philosophy" to be a spiritual discipline.

If this sounds a bit unusual to you it is likely because we have long accepted that rational thinking, the pursuit of answering the big questions about life, is a natural part of what we are suppose to be doing. These early Greeks laid that foundation for us. Philosophy was the first efforts at science even though the two would later separate into distinct disciplines and divide again with theology as well as spawn others like pyschology. This Greek world was developing about 300 years before the birth of Jesus and about the time most Protestants identify the ending of our Old Testament when those prophets of Judaism were sharpening the concept of monotheism. In many ways the Greek culture was more sophisticated, more highly developed, and very progressive but the people in the wilderness of Palestine had something to offer the world as well.

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