Greek Philosophy and Hebrew Theology

Are you a Greek or a Hebrew?

“What kind of question is that?” you may ask. Maybe you’re looking at the title of this post and thinking, “I’m neither a philosopher nor a theologian. Is this post for me?” Yes, it is.

I’m talking about worldview.

The Greeks worshiped a pantheon of gods, but these gods were too human. Instead of awe-inspiring deities, it was more like soap opera characters with superpowers. So the Greeks started to reject the idea that a higher power existed. Instead, impersonal Nature was the driving force in the universe.

Because of this, the Greeks had no cause to believe that divine revelation existed. Instead, they tried to determine absolute truth based solely on human reason. The problem was (and still is) is that in such a situation, truth becomes muddled. Black and white merge into grey, and virtues are subjective. The Greeks pursued philosophy because they had no answer to the question, “What is truth?”

On the other hand, no one remembers the Hebrews for their philosophers, because they didn’t have any. They had no use for them. See, the Hebrews did not believe the power of human reason was sufficient to find truth; it’s too subjective. In order to find truth, divine revelation is necessary, as it came from God our Creator, definer of the universe, and is therefore objective.

Such a society produces theologians, people who study God, and all their philosophy (that is, way of thinking) is concerned more with the practical application of the truth revealed to them. The Halakha (part of the Talmud) is full of various rabbis’ teachings on how to apply principles found in the Torah to everyday life (“halakha” literally means “the way of walking”). The Hebrew question wasn’t, “What is truth?” but rather, “How do we live the truth?”

Thousands of years later, western civilization still reflects the Greek view. Even those who are Christians still subscribe to Greek ways of thinking, and quite often teaching in contemporary churches does not reflect the view that all Scripture is God-breathed. Living the truth has been traded for feel-good, self-improvement type of teachings, which leave many of us grappling with the idea of ‘dying to self,’ among other Biblical concepts.

So: do you use your reason to find the truth, or do you use it to figure out how to live the truth?

Are you a Greek, or are you a Hebrew?