History of Christian Thought: The Church Fathers

Many readers will perhaps be puzzled by the appearance of a book with this title. What exactly is Christian thought? And why should we be bothered about its history? We might think, after all, that most Christian doctrine is to be found in the Bible, especially the New Testament, and that all Christian writers have ever done is explain it to their contemporaries. Why study the ways in which they explained it in the past? In fact, the study of the history of Christian thought is both important and fascinating in its own right. If you are a Christian yourself, then you should certainly be interested in why Christianity teaches the things that it does. It may be true that the essentials of Christianity are taught in the New Testament, but the way we read the New Testament today is the product of centuries of speculation and development. And the thought of those who have reflected on the Christian faith in the past remains a treasury of inspiration to those doing the same thing now. ~ Jonathan Hill, The History of Christian Thought

I have been reading about the history of Christian ideas and how some of what we Christians believe came to be and evolved through the ages. Now that I’ve finished the first section of the book, ‘The Church Fathers’, which details some of the theological developments of the first 500 centuries of Christianity, I would like to note down some things that I found interesting.

This part of the book gives an overview of the lives of some of the greatest Christian thinkers of all time, together with their ideas and how their ideas influenced the Christian world not only in their time, but today as well. Church fathers like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo and Cyril of Alexandria were important Christian thinkers of their time who struggled through issues like humanity, evil, God, the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity. Sometimes we take these ideas for granted, as if the Bible is so clear on such matters. We talk about it as if they are so easy. But these people really went through a hard time trying to express their ideas and thoughts. It took about 400 years for Christians to finally decide on what we casually refer to as orthodoxy. Justin Martyr, for example, believed only in a duality, and only argued for the divinity of Jesus. It was because it never occurred to the Christians at that time that the Holy Spirit could be God! Origen argued for a Trinitarian view, but held that God the Father is superior to the Son, who is superior to the Holy Spirit. It was Augustine of Hippo whose thinking most influenced orthodox Christian views. We still hold on to much of his ideas about the Trinity, original sin and God’s grace. What I can see here is that not everything we believe as Christians come from the Bible alone. Some of them came about through hundreds of years of Christian thinking, interpreting and rationalizing. So we as Christians need to be careful next time we say we believe something because ‘the Bible says so’. Sometimes, it is just what we believe the Bible says. Even though truth is absolute, our interpretations of the Bible may not be absolute.

On the whole, Christians had focused on God’s relationship to humanity in general, not to individual human beings. Most people did not have a strong sense of personal individuality. To ancient Christians, it is humanity as a whole – or the Church – that is saved; the individual believer is saved by being a member of that group, not through personal merits or qualities. Augustine changed all that. The emphasis on the individual’s emotional and spiritual voyage and relationship to God and others would become so central in Western thought that it is hard to imagine a world without it. In the West, in the hands of the medievals and the Reformers, Christianity would become a religion of the individual. Even modern Western philosophy and science rest ultimately on this strong distinction between the subjective self and the objective world that the self experiences and observes. ~ Jonathan Hill, The History of Christian Thought

What interests me also is how much Greek philosophy such as Platonism and Stoicism affected Christian ideas. Our dividing reality into the physical realm and spiritual realm is so very Greek! Even the word ‘Logos’ or ‘the Word’ used in John’s gospel had its roots in Greek ideas about God. So I think a lot of us Christians need to be more careful next time whenever we accuse another Christian of being influenced by modern philosophies and thinking. Much of our beliefs had their roots in ancient culture and philosophies as well! There is no doubt that our culture and philosophy will influence our interpretation of the Bible, even though some of us may believe that the Bible is the sole authority.

Another curious thing is how much politics, hatred and subversion tainted much of the councils and the development of Christian theology. To think that a bishop who ordered a follower of the city government to be tortured publicly, ordered his supporters to attack Jewish synagogues, whose followers dragged a female opponent into the church before stripping her naked, tearing her to pieces and burning her remains, can be responsible for an important theological contribution is simply quite astounding. It’s funny to see one council attacking the beliefs of a previous council with each having their own sets of supporters. And not everyone agreed with the creeds and doctrines laid out through those councils. Those bishops who didn’t agree, or who formed their own movements were normally exiled. So we also need to be careful the next time we say that the books of the Bible were chosen by ‘godly Christians’ who were sensitive to the Spirit of God when deciding on the Bible canon. Politics were involved. Majority votes, tradition and apostolic succession were also involved. God does sometimes work through ‘not so godly people’!

Just some thoughts...