
Re: III. The Christian World View
Hi Seespotrun, interesting comment on Richard Tarnas. I think why the shift happened from the old pagan rational diversity to Christian uniformity was that as the Roman Empire grew and evolved, conflict over ideas became a source of material conflict. To maintain unity, the empire started with its own mythology, and switched to Christianity when they found the story of Jesus resonated more with how the dominant people wanted to understand history. The idea of Christ as a redemptive prophet who brings the empire to account was a compelling narrative. So, when Roman 'rule of law' met Christian 'rule of faith', they were reconciled under the view that 'faith is law'.
That is interesting to ask if our reading back on the Greeks assumes a more important position for philosophy than it actually had. Maybe the lost mysteries of pagan ritual and belief were more decisive than the philosophy of the Academy and Lyceum for how Christianity intertwined with Greek culture? For later Christian orthodox theologians, Plato and Aristotle were more congenial than were the popular mythologies. So mythology was suppressed in favour of a combination of philosophy and creed. After a while even the support of philosophy was ignored by the focus on the creed as the statement of truth.