Kenelem Foster, tran. Aristotle’s “De Anima” in the Version of William of Moerbeke and the Commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951, 504 pgs.

Summary: A paragraph by paragraph commentary by the theologian Thomas of Aquinas (c. 1224-1274) of the philosopher Aristotle’s (384-322) De Anima or On the Soul. The book is arranged with Aristotle’s text and then Thomas’ commentary. Differences and deficiencies in Thomas’ translation by Moerbeke are compared to other Latin translations and the Greek text.

According to Aristotle the soul is the non-material substance that provides the form of living things. Or as Thomas summarizes “the soul is a certain actuality and formal principle of that which exists accordingly, namely as potentially animate” (2.2.278).

This conception allows Aristotle and then Thomas to view the soul as neither wholly dualistic (absolutely separate physical and spiritual parts) nor monistic (only physical or only spiritual parts), but instead provides holism with internal distinctions.

It also allows Thomas and Aristotle to think of the soul as existing in plants as merely life seeking nourishment, in animals as sensitive soul, and in man as intellectual. Each higher animate creature has the faculties of the lower within its single soul. Non-animate things have no soul and receive their form from matter. The vegetative and animal faculties then exist in man. The soul is the life principle of the animate object and to take away the soul leads to the decline rather than the maintenance or growth of life. The form or the body of a plant or animal therefore dies when the soul is extinguished. The matter of the soulless body then returns to its material organization.

Benefits/Detriments: There are three basic benefits: 1.) Thomas provides helpful graduate-level lectures on the meaning of Aristotle’s work with a few asides to correct Averroes and Avicenna. 2.) Students of philosophical theology have an opportunity to study both Aristotle and Thomas’ interpretation of him. 3.) And finally, Thomas provides both a positive and negative example for considering non-Christian theology as a Christian theologian.

The example is positive in that Thomas carefully attempts to understand what Aristotle was teaching and appropriate the true elements into Christian theology.  But there is an almost complete lack of critique of Aristotle from revelation. As far as I can tell from Aristotle, he believed that the person was extinguished at physical death, but Thomas has such a charitable reading of Aristotle that the philosopher is found as believing in the continued existence of the soul.

Exemplar quotes: §841. And this deliberation requires some sort of rule or end by which to reckon what most needs to be done. Clearly, a man will ‘follow’, i.e. seek for, the better and more suitable alternative: which is always measured by some standard. We need therefore a measure for our actions, a criterion for discerning what is most worth doing. And this will be the middle term of the syllogism of the practical issuing in a choice. It follows that reason, deliberating, can form several images into unity—three, to be precise; for one object is preferred to another, and a third gives the standard of preference.

Thomas’ commentary and Aristotle’s De Anima are important for thinking through reintroducing non-material substances into the sciences particularly the concept of hylomorphism. Currently, the prevailing view is all that is is material substances. The general outline of Aristotle’s position on the soul, especially as described by Thomas, does not contradict the Bible. (Cf. Cooper and Muller reviews.) Recommended for theologically minded pastors and students of philosophy.

Peter Lombard, trans. Giulio Silano, The Sentences: Book Three—On the Incarnation of the Word

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010, 189 pgs.

Summary: In 3.6.3.2 (pg. 27), he quotes as Augustine (354-430) Lanfranc (1010-1089) as found in Berengar (c.1010-1080) in defense of essentially transubstantiation. Here we have simply reached the point of no return as to Peter accidentally misquoting from bad notes or quotations. Peter is correcting Augustine according to current church practice. Augustine ought to have taught the current practice of the church and so he is spoken of as if he did.

At the same time, we find that Peter is defending Augustine’s view of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will as compatible: “The work of Christ and the Father was good, because the will of Christ and the Father was good; the work of Judas and the Jews was evil, because their intention was evil. The deeds or works there differed, that is, the acts were different; but there was one thing or deed, namely the passion itself” (3.20.5.2-3, pg. 87).

Peter also follows Augustine in non-egalitarian love or ordered love: [God] loved some of them for greater goods and others for lesser goods, some for better uses and others for less good ones. For all our goods come to us from his love. And so, from all of eternity and even now, he loved and loves some of the elect more and others less, because out of his love he prepared greater goods for the first and lesser ones for the second, just as in time he confers greater goods on some and lesser ones on others, and as a result of this he is said to love these more and those less” (3.32.2.3, pg. 133). . .Yet it is not to be simply said that he loved [the reprobate], lest they be understood to be predestined, but with this qualification: he loved them insofar as they were to be his work, that is, he loved what and of what kind he was going to make them” (3.32.5, pg. 134).

And the Master of the Sentences rounds out his Augustinianism by articulating what will come to be known as limited justification or limited atonement: “He offered himself on the altar of the cross not to the devil, but to the triune God, and he did so for all with regard to the sufficiency of price, but only for the elect with regard to its efficacy, because he brought about salvation only for the predestined (3.20.5.1, pg. 86).”

There are some rather strange tensions created by Peter on the issue of the two great commandments: “But we are to love Christ as ourselves, insofar as he is man; love of him according to humanity is contained in that precept [love of neighbor]. Even insofar as he is man, we are to love him more than ourselves, but not as much as we love God because, insofar as he is man, he is less than God” (3.29.3.3, pg. 120).

The issue is that Peter believes that Jesus’ in his human nature is nothing or he allows this as a possibility (3.10.1.2, pg. 41). The ostensible purpose for making a distinction between worshiping Jesus in his human nature and in his divine nature is that to worship the “the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25) would be an act of idolatry. And so we have this rather inflammatory line, “Christ, according to his being man, is not a person or anything else.” The technical term for this is Christological nihilism, and Peter apparently picked it up from Abelard (1079-1144).

Regardless, this creates a curious tension in the worship of the elements of the mass, which is the current Roman doctrine (CCC-1378). If “Christ, according to his being man, it not a person or anything else,” then receiving his body is also nothing. This is likely why Pope Alexander III condemned such nihilism twice.

Peter Lombard, trans. Giulio Silano, The Sentences: Book Four—On the Doctrine of Signs

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010, 304 pgs.

In On the Doctrine of Signs we come to the bulk of the theological conclusions that were rejected in the Reformation by Protestants and to a great degree maintained by the post-Tridentine Roman Church.

Currently, the Roman Church teaches that Jesus’ human body upon the cross “participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them all” (CCC-1085). Christ’s atemporal body is obviously an ad hoc, extra-biblical, and mildly bizarre means of explaining a problem that Peter attempted to explain this way:

As for the body, he gave [the disciples at the first Lord’s Supper] such a one as he then had, that is, a mortal one, capable of suffering. But now we receive his immortal and impassible body; yet it does not have greater efficacy (4.11. 6.1, pg. 60).

Rather than an atemporal body summed into time, Peter’s solution was three sacrifices. Jesus sacrificed his temporal body at the first Lord’s Supper, his temporal body was sacrificed on the cross, and now his “immortal and impassable” is the current sacrifice of the mass.

Both the contemporary Roman solution and Peter’s are in formal contradiction to the Bible, reason, and the Chalcedonian Creed which declares that Jesus has “a reasonable soul and body” that is “consubstantial with us.”

Peter goes on to unintentionally illustrate the outcome of merit theology combined with continuing sanctification after death with a thought experiment: two men of equal but imperfect religious merit die and go to purgatory in 4.45.4.1-2, pg. 247. The only difference between the two is that one is wealthy and the other poor: For “the rich one, special and common prayers are offered” and for the poor one only common prayers. There’s a bit of theological poking about and then this conclusion, “those several aids conferred on the rich man a quicker absolution.” Simply put—rich people get out of purgatory more quickly than poor people. Such conclusions are antithetical and irreconcilable with the Bible and the religion of Moses, Jesus, Paul, and James.

The historical process by which the roar of the Holy Spirit and James “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you,” (James 5:1) is muted to such drivel can be traced in the citations. Augustine writes in about 410 AD: “It is not inconceivable that, after this life, some of the faithful shall be saved through a kind of purgatorial fire, and some more quickly, others more slowly. . .” Augustine’s suggestion is Peter’s dogma, and this was linked to the system of penance and merit with a pagan element of a continuing interrelationship between the living and the dead.

The system of penance was so intrinsic to Peter and his contemporaries that he writes, “But the sacrament of penance, like that of marriage, existed before the time of grace, indeed from the beginning of humankind. For each of these was instituted with our first parents” (4.22.2.3, pg. 135). The modern translator provides a biblical citation for “penance in Gen. 2, 17.” “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die,” can only be read as a penitential sacrament by reading back the developed tradition of the church into the text.

It must also be noted that Peter is not a modern or Tridentine Catholic. He writes, “It is plainly shown here that God does not follow the Church’s judgment, for sometimes the latter judges through deception and ignorance; but God always judges according to the truth (4.18.6.3, pg. 111). The pride and hubris of Trent and Vatican I remain in the future.

And though I am horrified by much of what Peter teaches, he does write this, “What is to be held? Surely, that sins are blotted out by contrition and humility of heart, even without confession by the mouth and payment of outward punishments. For from the moment when one proposes, with compunction of mind, that one will confess, God remits; because there is present confession of the heart, although not of the mouth, but which the soul is cleansed inwardly from the spot and contagion of the sin committed, and the debt of eternal death is released” (4.17.1.11, pg. 96). Here we have a rejection of penance and auricular confession as necessary for salvation.

Peter’s project was an attempt to synthesize current church practice, past church teachings, the Bible, and reason into a coherent case book of decisions and doctrine for Roman Catholic clergy. But this multitude of witnesses are not merely “various and almost contradictory” (4.27.1.2, pg. 94), they are openly contradictory on a variety of grounds.

Peter is aware of the contradictions, because he simply fakes a large number of citations from Augustine, especially on the Lord’s Supper, and purposely does not handle Augustine’s most clear rejection of the physical presence of Christ in the elements in On Christian Doctrine—a work Peter cites in Book I. It should also be noted that the mistaken citations of Augustine appear less dense, in fact rare or or historically more reasonable (Fulgentius rather than Radbertus), in Book I, The Mystery of Trinity, but are much more common in books 3-4. The wider current church practice disagreed with Augustine the bolder Peter was in misattribution.

Further, by quoting current defenders of contemporary practice as Augustine, he leaves a trail of bread crumbs for the discerning reading. The trail is left by the Master of the Sentences for a particular kind of reader—“I leave the judgment to the judicious reader” (4.22.1.11, pg. 134) and “I leave the judgment of these to the examination of the diligent reader” (2.27.8.7, pg. 138). No astute and well-read theologian is going to accept Lanfranc quotes in Berengar as Augustine. And so Peter points the discerning reader to what was likely Peter’s true theological convictions or his private beliefs.

Benefits/Detriments: The Master of the Sentences provides a helpful introduction to medieval theology. Perhaps more importantly, he exposes the necessity of the Reformation project of grounding theology in a sufficient Scripture rather than in the traditions of man—even godly and brilliant men like Peter, Augustine, and the like.

John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989, 262 pgs.

Summary: A carefully written and researched defense of the traditional view of the soul over and against anthropological monism. Monism refers to the body and the soul being the same thing and dualism refers to the soul continuing to exist independently of an earthly body.

Under a variety of pressures, Christian scholars have been moving away from understanding the Bible to teach dualism in anthropology.  In some circles dualism has become the supposed cause of almost all ills. The more academically palatable view is now monism.

Among Christians who have a high view of Scripture, the pressure comes from a concern to decouple biblical theology from Platonic or philosophical influences, an unfortunate confusion about proper inference and speculation in developing theological outcomes from the Bible, and confusing the historical literalism of Augustine and the Reformation with Spinoza’s literalism.
Among liberals the theological pressure includes a similar mix but also a bias towards materialism and against the supernatural. The materialistic bias is so ambient as to influence all parties.

Dr. Cooper shows that accepting monism requires jettisoning some biblical texts, heavy-handed interpretation of other texts, creating unique ad hoc explanations of the intermediate state (including immediate recreation at death), requiring Paul to change his views on the soul midstream, or embracing doctrines openly rejected by the historical church and the Bible for instance soul sleep. The rational deficiencies of monism in coordination with a resurrection are no less troubling.

Dr. Cooper argues that both the Old and New Testament require dualism and that while Greek dualism is similar to the Bible’s doctrine it is not identical. He notes that historically theologians like Augustine and Calvin were incautious in describing the soul along Platonic lines and that as Cartesian and Kantian dualism captured the academic imagination theologians tended to minimize the Bible’s more holistic dualism. Yet none of these historical mistakes warrant rejecting dualism.

Exemplar quote:

Let me outline my version of dualism. . .If to be absent from the body for me is to be with the Lord—still “in Christ” and “living together with him” as I am already now, then I must exist between my death and the resurrection. And I must be able to enjoy fellowship with Christ in some way. . .That is all we know from the New Testament. It does not say more. It does not elaborate. It does not describe in detail. For anyone to say more than this is indeed to speculate.

But certain things necessarily follow from this modest biblical teaching. If this doctrine is true, then other things must also be true, for they are contained in or entailed by its truth. Simply put, the doctrine cannot possibly be true if these other things are not true. For example, if I am with Christ, then I—my essential selfhood or core person—must survive physical death. The being or entity who I am must continue to exist. In striking ways that being might be different from the being who now lives embodied on earth. . .But the being or thing that I am must continue to exist. Otherwise it would not be I but someone or something else that is with Christ (176-177).

Benefits/Detriments: An extremely helpful resource in considering the body/soul distinction biblically, historically, and philosophically. Suggested for pastors and college students.

Peter Lombard, trans. Giulio Silano, The Sentences: Book Two—On Creation

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010, 236 pgs.

Summary: Peter Lombard presents a confused understanding of Augustine’s view of creation and anthropology modified to a semi-Pelagian to almost Pelagian theology either purposely or through ignorance of Augustine’s authentic works.

According to Peter, “For there is in the rational soul a natural will, by which it naturally wills what is good, although weakly and feebly, unless grace assists. . .” (2.24.1.3, pg. 109). This free will is described as such “because, without compulsion or necessity, it is able to desire or elect what it has decreed by reason” (2.25.4.2, pg. 118). “And yet we do not deny that there are many good things which are done by man through free choice before this grace and apart from grace” (2.26.7.2, pg. 130).

And then this lovely quote which he attributes to Jerome, but since the Renaissance is now recognized as Pelagius:

Jerome teaches in his Explanation of the Catholic Faith to Pope Damascus, where he strikes at the errors of Jovinian, Manichaeus, and Pelagius, saying: “We acknowledge that choice is free so as to say that we are always in need of God’s aid; and that both those are in error who say with Manichaeus that man cannot avoid sin, and those who assert with Jovinian that man cannot sin. Each of them takes away freedom of choice. But we say that man is always able to sin and not to sin, so that we confess ourselves to be ever free in our choice. This is the faith which we learned in the Catholic Church and which we have always held.”

It’s not clear to me that Peter Lombard is unaware that he is quoting Pelagius to support conclusions that are both non-Augustinian and unbiblical. (This will be discussed more in the review on book 3 and 4.) At the same time “among the works attributed to Augustine” were sermons, letters, and writings that were not authentically Augustinian in authorship or doctrine, and so it is possible that he’s struggling to harmonize self-contradictory teachings within what he understands is Augustine’s canon. This is occurs while he attempts to harmonize the contradictory teaching of Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Bede, and so forth. There is even an effort to harmonize these diverse teachings with the Bible.

He teaches along with others before him that the “pollution which the flesh contracts in its conception from the burning of the parents’ joining and their lustful concupiscence” (2.32.6.2, pg. 156). In other words, we are born with a sin nature or original sin, because our parents or one of our parents enjoyed conceiving us. While Augustine in his authentic works lays out the framework for this sort of doctrine, the most blatant support comes from Augustine-like quotes from Fulgentius (c. 462-527).

Peter Lombard also rejects the possibility that at conception both physical and spiritual elements of parents are passed to the child. The technical term for this is traducianism: Peter rather firmly states, “But the Catholic faith utterly rejects this and condemns it as opposed to truth since, as we said above, that faith admits that flesh alone, and not souls, is transmitted. And so it is not according to the flesh, that original sin is derived from parents” (2.31.3.1, pg. 154). Augustine was certainly more open to the possibility than this quote allows and traducianism was held by other church fathers including Tertullian.

Oddly enough he provides an explanation of the pop-culture reference to an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other: apparently this was first taught by Origen, then by Gregory of Nyssa, and popularized for posterity by Lombard (2.11.1.2, pg. 46).

He may have originated the now hoary-headed sermon illustration:

Why woman was formed from the man’s side and not from some other part of his body. But although woman was made from man for these reasons, nevertheless she was formed not from must any part of his body, but from his side, so that it should be shown that she was created for the partnership of love, lest, if perhaps she had been made from his head, she should be perceived as set over man in domination; or if from his feet, as if subject to him in servitude. Therefore since she was made neither to dominate, nor to serve man, but as his partner, she had to be produced neither from his head, nor from his feet, but from his side, so that he would know that she was to be placed beside himself whom he had learned had been taken from his side (2.28.2; pg. 77).

Benefits/Detriments: Book 2 exposes what happens when a possibly earnest attempt is made to harmonize the Bible, current church practice, and the diverse teaching of the church fathers. It’s rather a mishmash and at points incoherent.

Peter Lombard, trans. Giulio Silano, The Sentences: Book One—The Mystery of the Trinity

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010, 278 pgs.

Summary: Peter Lombard (1100-1160) or the Master of the Sentences wrote the basic theological compendium of the Middle Ages. He was a student of Abelard (1079-1142/3)—the founder of “understanding seeking faith.” Peter’s essential task was to harmonize the church authorities—the fathers and the Bible—with each other over and against heterodoxy.

The Sentences are a review of past theological debates, organized as lecture notes, for the purpose of assisting priests, canon lawyers, and theologians in developing current applications and to maintain orthodoxy. Silano, the translator, argues that The Sentences need to be read as a theological “casebook.”

In The Mystery of the Trinity, the first book of four, Peter Lombard presents a clear defense and review of the early church’s position on the Trinity. He generally follows Augustine on the issue of God’s grace, predestination, and foreknowledge in salvation and within the being of God.

Exemplar quotes:

And so the property by which the Father is Father is that he always begot; and this same property is called fatherhood or generation. And the property by which the Son is always the Son is that he is always begotten by the Father; and this same property is called sonship, or geniture, or birth, or origin, or ability to be born. Similarly, the property by which the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit or Gift is that he proceeds from both; and this property is called procession (1.27.3, pg. 147).

Augustine, Against Julian: “He has mercy according to freely given grace, but he hardens according to judgment which is rendered for merits. And so it is given to be understood that, as God’s reprobation is to not will mercy, so for God to make obdurate is not to have mercy; not that anything is inflicted by him which man is made worse, but only that is not granted by which he may become better” (1.41.1.1, pg. 224).

Benefits/Detriments: A very dense but clear defense and explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Peter Lombard gathers together the best of Augustine’s work and the other church fathers. I am fully convinced by his arguments on the Trinity about the importance of maintaining the language and distinctions of begotten, and procession (contra Grudem).

Peter Lombard seems to be making room for declining from Augustine’s view of salvation, but he does not take this step in his material about God.

John W. Cooper, Panentheism—the Other God of the Philosophers: from Plato to the Present

Baker Academic, 2006, 358 pgs.

Summary: An exceedingly helpful book for Christians attempting to understand modernity written by Dr. John W. Cooper of Calvin College and recommended by Paul Helm. It draws together the historical strings of modernity and Christian liberalism with alacrity.

Traditional Christian and Jewish theology have argued that while God is immanent creation remains wholly separate from God. God categorically transcends creation even as he remains present everywhere. God’s Being is separate from the universe. At the same time there has been a minority view among Christian theologians called panentheism. Panentheism is the view that while God is greater than the universe, God’s Being is in every part of the universe. In pantheism God’s being is the universe.

The philosophical roots of panentheism can be found in Plato’s most careful theological dialogue called the Timaeus as well as in other scattered references. In this openly speculative dialogue, Plato locates “the world in the World-Soul” (35). Thus a stream of interpretation concluded that “the Soul of eternal divine Reason can be identified with the World-Soul of Timaeus, then the World-Soul is an aspect of God, and Plato is a panenetheist” (Ibid.).

Dr. Cooper does not believe this is a necessary reading of Plato (I agree), but this reading captured the imagination of Plotinus (204-270) who developed what came to be known as Neo-Platonism. Plotinus’ position is panentheism:

Plotinus worked out the unresolved issues in Plato’s philosophy and developed a unified account of reality in which the divine Mind/Demiurge, the World-Soul, and the universe emanates hierarchically from the Good, that is, the divine One. The One is both infinite and utterly transcendent, yet it includes or contains everything that emanates from it (39).

As scholastic Christian theology developed, it often borrowed theological concepts and vocabulary from Greek philosophical thought. A 5th century Christian writer now known as Pseudo-Dionysius—originally the author was thought to be Paul’s first convert at Athens (Acts 17:34)—blended panentheism with orthodox Christianity. Pseudo-Dionysius’ mystical theology heavily influenced the likes of Thomas of Aquinas and others, but also created a stream of panentheistic practice, mysticism, and theology as a minority position within Western theology.

Cooper then argues that these mystics and theologians—John Scotus Erugena (810-877), Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260-1327), Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), Jakob Bohme (1575-1624)—lay the groundwork for Hegel, Heidegger, Tillich, and Moltmann. And he argues this conclusively through citation of these men’s own writings. Essentially, academic Christian liberalism is panentheism. There are also more conservative forms found in Jonathan Edwards’ philosophical works and Samuel Coleridge (1772-1834).

Modern popular thought among academics and in less rigorous venues tilts heavily towards materialism and human freedom as a value. So the acceptable and confirming public and academic stance must take a high view of man and his sovereignty. Prior to the Enlightenment popular thought was enframed by Augustinian theism and tilted heavily towards God as separate from creation and a lower view of man. With the sweeping away of the Augustinian consensus on theology proper and anthropology, the theological and philosophical imagination is now enframed by human freedom and a limited God. The popular imagination demands human freedom and posits the problem of evil as the basic proof against traditional theism.

Conceptually panentheism offers some unique rhetorical advantages to traditional theism for a materialistic age. (I am not suggesting that it offers a more accurate view of God or reality.) The theologian can affirm the popular consensus of evolutionary theory while maintaining a mostly transcendent God who is not responsible for evil. The philosopher is given a god of the gaps that allows him to explain how an unintelligent-purposeless-lifeless cosmos produced an intelligent-purposeful-living philosopher—the cosmos is within a philosophically necessary deity.

Panentheism also opens the door for “deep ecumenicalism,” because forms of Buddhism, Islamic thought, New Age mysticism, and Christianity, along with basic paganism can find common ground in affirming “the value and freedom of the world while emphasizing the world’s dynamic integration within a real transcendent divinity” (236).

Religiously the “main difference among world panentheisms is whether the Divine is thought of as ultimately personal or impersonal. In the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, personal theism predominates. . . In primal and Asian religions, the prepersonal Force predominates (236). Thus mystic physicists, secular philosophers, Buddhists, progressive Catholics, liberal Protestants, feminists, and so forth can all agree about some fundamental aspects of reality and deity.

Dr. Cooper completes the books with a brief academic defense of classical theism and carefully demarks the possible orthodox modifications of classical theism.

Benefits/Detriments: I can add nothing to Paul Helm’s recommendation from the dust jacket: “This is a groundbreaking attempt to demonstrate the philosophical background of much modern Christian theology, to identify its ‘natural religion.’ Written with the utmost clarity and quiet passion, it greatly helps to sharpen the differences between classical theism and other views. Though dissenting from panentheism and from the theologies it fosters, John Cooper nevertheless writes with courtesy and good sense, letting the record speak for itself. The book is a model of lucidity and fair-mindedness.”

Henry Louis Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche

Content from 1908, E-Book

Summary: An intelligent review and summary of Nietzsche’s canon, by the autodidact, debunker, and newspaperman H. L. Mencken (1880-1956). Fredrick Nietzsche (1844-1900) is the father of the most popular form of nihilism. His adherents include the likes of Adolf Hitler and David Brookes, and he has influenced everyone from Heidegger to Leo Strauss. The book includes a dated but accessible biography and history of Nietzsche’s work. Mencken’s purpose in writing the book was not as an academic review but to offer nihilism as a way of life for his readers.

According to Mencken and Nietzsche (1844-1900), human beings are driven by the “ever-dominant and only inherent impulse in all living beings, including man, . . the will to remain alive—the will, that is to attain power over those forces which make life difficult or impossible” (Loc. 42-44).

There are essentially two strategies for remaining alive; the first is as a collective parasite on the powerful and the second is as the powerful. The parasites function as those who limit the powerful from enjoying all that their intrinsic powers will allow. The parasites must have social order, morality, and peace to live; but they maintain this peace by subjecting the great and the great’s impulse to obtain power.

Mencken and Nietzsche offer, “the the gospel of prudent and intelligent selfishness, of absolute and utter individualism” (Loc. 1449-1450). The individual must stand up to the parasites because, “every time he lifts up some one else, he must, at the same time, decrease his own store, because his own store is the only stock from which he can draw” (Loc. 1874-1875).

The parasites subjugate the individual through social structures like religion, morality, and collective violence (i.e. policemen, army). Since the pressure to conform to society is mental, the key to mental health and a wholesome life comes through skepticism alone: “Therefore, argues Nietzsche, it is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better. It makes him lose his fear of hell and his consciousness of sin. It rids him of that most horrible instrument of senseless and costly torture—his conscience. ‘Atheism,’ says Nietzsche, ‘will make a man innocent” (Loc. 3078-3079).

Because the conscience and any sense of limits on human behavior is detrimental to human mental well being, it must be wiped away along with things like punishment for crimes since this only “augment fear, intensify prudence and subjugate the passions” (Loc. 2991-2994).

The only thing that should limit a human being is their ability to maximize pleasure and limit personal suffering. And so “the best possible system of government was that which least interfered with the desires and enterprises of the intelligent individual” (Loc. 2756-2759).

In contrast to the “intelligent individual,” the ignorant and inefficient exist essentially to maximize their small pleasures and serve the intelligent elite. Once they have exhausted their purpose, they are to be eliminated: “The earth has no room for cumberers and pensioners. For them the highest of duties is the payment of natural debt, that there may be more room for those still able to wield the sword and bear a burden in the heat of the day” (3152-3154). “The enlightened regulation and control of death belongs to the morality of the future. At the present religion makes it seem immoral, for religion presupposes that when the time for death comes, God gives the command” (3160-3164). The elite can be trusted to make such decisions because it “is now possible, not only to approach facts with an unbiased mind, but also to make critical examination of ideas” (3519-3520).

Mencken correctly points out that Nietzsche’s ideas dominated the background of public thought in his day and especially in ideas of the popular figure of Teddy Roosevelt: [Roosevelt] “has a quite uncanny factually of impressing [his followers], driving them and convincing them against their will. And among other things, he has made embryo Nietzscheans of them, for in all things fundamental the Rooseveltian philosophy and the Nietzschean philosophy are identical” (3703-3705).

Benefits/Detriments: Mencken’s reading of Nietzsche is a bit idealistic and his faith in “science” and an unbiased elite is staggering, yet he understands and teaches Nietzsche basic philosophy as a way of life in a popular format.

The book still serves as a helpful overview of Nietzsche’s work, and it helps us to understand Mencken’s conspiracy against Byran at the Scopes’ trial. Further it proves that America’s decline into moral relativism is long standing. Mencken was but one of the supporting cast that introduced nihilism to the public.

Recommended for college students and pastors, but please realize that Mencken and Nietzsche are teachers of evil. They call evil good; and God says this of them in Isaiah 5:20-21, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!”

Albert Schweitzer, Out of My Life and Thought

Mentor Books, 1953, 213 pgs.

Summary: Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) is billed by the cover as “one of the twentieth century’s greatest men.” He was brilliant. His accomplishments in interpreting Bach, the construction and preservations of pipe organs, theological publications, and as a medical philanthropist in Africa are extraordinary. Much of this is traced in Out of My Life and Thought.

Schweitzer had realized that modern liberalism or the emerging Post-Enlightenment thought destroyed the possibility for positive culture. The driving impetus of his philosophy was first to be nice and second to give other people a reason to be nice. Corporate niceness allowed for the possibility of an environment where Bach, Mozart, philosophy, architecture, and human health could be appreciated and preserved. Positive culture was the social space necessary for Schweitzer and his friends to enjoy the finer things. Schweitzer was also rather fond of Jesus, not so fond as to suggest that Jesus was God, but at least a likeable and important teacher (48).

Yet having accepted that the Bible can’t be true in the details, Schweitzer could find no universal platform to build culture. The other great teachers—Confucius, the Brahmans, the Stoics couldn’t be really true either because their teaching was culturally bound and therefore not universal: but then he had an epiphany:

Lost in thought I sat on the deck of the barge, struggling to find the elementary and universal conception of the ethical which I had not discovered in any philosophy. Sheet after sheet I covered with disconnected sentences. . .Late on the third day. . .there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase, “Reverence for Life.” The iron door had yielded; the path in the thicket had become visible. Now I had found my way to the idea in which affirmation of the world and ethics are contained side by side! Now I knew that the ethical acceptance of the world and of life, together with the ideals of civilization contained in this concept, has a foundation in thought (124).

...The ethic of Reverence for Life, therefore, comprehends within itself everything that can be described as love, devotion, and sympathy whether in suffering, joy, or effort. The world, however, offers us the horrible drama of Will-to-Live divided against itself. . . [The thinking man] cannot bring about [life without death] because man is subject to the puzzling and horrible law of being obliged to live at the cost of other life, and to incur again and again the guilt of injuring and destroying life (126).

The ethic of Reverence for Life is the ethic of Love widened into universality. It is the ethic of Jesus, now recognized as a logical consequence of thought (180).

It goes on, but the brilliant Schweitzer now felt justified for being nice to big complex things and feeling guilty about killing small simple things. Or as he puts it, “every time I have under the microscope the germs which cause the disease, I cannot but reflect that I have to sacrifice this life in order to save other life” (181).

Schweitzer said these things with a great deal of charisma, wrote with capital letters and hyphenated words, spoke with a gentle German accent, and had a dramatic persona, but I am at a loss on how this can be taken seriously. We must kill to live, but must reverence life. Our reverence is directed toward life as life. Who or what decides what sort of beings may be deprived of life for our survival and pleasure? Hitler wanted to preserve German life and extinguish Jewish life. Schweitzer wants to extinguish the life of the flavivirus (the virus that causes Yellow Fever) but maintain human life. If one reverences life as life, who decides?

Nietzsche, Hitler, Genghis Kahn, gangbangers, and the local psychopath, have decided “will to power” decides what life is reverenced. There is no essential difference between the wicked tyrants’ philosophy and Schweitzer except his hoped for outcome of positive culture.

Benefits/Detriments: The book is helpful illustration of Romans 1:22, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools. . .” Perhaps of historic interest. (Might every evangelical mission board read of his promise to not preach in Africa which he quickly reneged on.) I am not sure if the best response to the waste of such a mind is to weep, laugh, or turn away in horror.

Schweitzer’s system offers nothing but a guilty conscience and an excuse to warm your hands over the dying embers of Western civilization as you’re nice to your neighbor.

Pierre Duhem, To Save the Phenomena: An Essay on the Idea of Physical Theory from Plato to Galileo

The University of Chicago Press, 1969, 117 pgs.

Summary: Pierre Duhem (1861-1916) was a French physicist and developer of the history of the philosophy of science. He was also a strong Roman Catholic and a humbling thorn in the flesh for his contemporaries in the French academy. Apparently, he delighted in piquing them.

The common historical narrative is that Galileo was an enlightened scientist who was censored and cowed by the bigoted and reactionary Catholic Church. There is of course some truth to the myth or it wouldn’t have stuck. Galileo was a brilliant scientist and the Catholic Church was often bigoted and reactionary, but. . . and it’s a significant conjunction, Galileo (1564-1642) and his cohorts were making some claims about natural philosophy or science that were irrational, and Bellarmine (1542-1621), other Catholics, and Osiander (a mostly Protestant—c.1496-1552) attempted to correct their unreasonableness.

The basic issue is that the Greek philosophers had “proved” there were two forms of physics—earthly and celestial. The celestial sphere was unchanging and the earthly sphere allowed for change and flux. While the rules that governed these two physics were analogues, they operated differently. Plato’s system was the most rigid, but Aristotle’s was similar. This philosophical doctrine cohered to Christian theology, because the Bible clearly teaches a difference between heaven and earth. Greek physics was then modified and incorporated into Christian hermeneutics and theology with little or no ado for about a thousand years (cf. review of the Lewis’ Discarded Image).  Aristotle would not have claimed and likely barely recognized the system that developed.

Prior to the Renaissance astronomy as a science was merely a hypothesis that described and helped predict observable phenomena.  As long as one merely attempted a tentative hypothesis as an explanation of all known phenomena, no one was concerned about which theory one held to if there was no direct contradiction with a known truth.  Generally within the church, Aristotelian metaphysics (ontology, epistemology, cosmology, etc.) was understood as truth and God’s Word was interpreted through the divided Greek physics. As physics, mathematics, and optics matured, more and more evidence or observation of phenomena accumulated that the physics of the celestial was identical to the physics of the earth.

Galileo rejected the Aristotelian divided physics and the metaphysics because of his observation of changing phenomena in the celestial realm. While this is bold and important, he also assumed that his hypothesis for explaining the phenomena was true. In his mind if his hypothesis had more explanatory power of his experience than the Aristotelian model, his hypothesis must be true.

“Galileo’s notions of the validity of the experimental method and the art of using it . . . conceive[d] of the proof of a hypothesis in imitation of the reduction ad absurdum proofs that are used in geometry. Experience, by convicting one system of error, confers certainty on its opposite” (109).

Such a view led to accurate critiques by contemporaries like this: “no matter how numerous and exact the confirmations by experience, they can never transform a hypothesis into certain truth, for this would require, in addition, demonstration of the proposition that these same experiential facts would flagrantly contradict any other hypothesis that might be conceived” (111).

Two misadventures were occurring at the same moment: for the first time true science, a observable united physics, and the official position of the church were at loggerheads. Second, the scientists in rightly critiquing the false physics of the church stepped beyond the limits of science into the realm of absolute truth instead of hypotheses and probability. Both parties were denying the truth, and both were destroying the possibility of reconciliation as long as they clung to a provable falsehood. The fissure between religion and natural philosophy/science occurred over both parties’ misunderstanding the truth of things.

Duhem stops here, but I want to add the following:

Prior to the Enlightenment a modified Aristotelian/Platonic metaphysics (ontology, epistemology, cosmology, etc) provided the shared background for theological and philosophical discussion. This included natural philosophy and science. The Greek metaphysics was simply assumed by the church because it cohered reasonably well with the earthly and heavenly division described in the Bible and no one was really holding to any other position. It is important to note that several passages of Scripture do not support a divided physics (Matt. 2:9; 2 Peter 3:7, 12;  Ps. 102:26-27) within observable creation.

When the natural philosophers discovered that the physics of the earthly and celestial realms were identical, the discovery discredited the epistemological or metaphysical framework of both the church and Aristotle. Historically the epistemological vacancy was filled up with developing forms of materialism in Epicureanism and Stoicism among the emerging natural philosophers and academy.

The general tenor of Enlightenment thought, materialism, excluded the possibility of God and God speaking; thus the scientific and religious fissure became axiomatic. Most theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, understood their options as holding to a metaphysics that denied known physical phenomena or attempting to create some sort of working theological system within the framework of Enlightenment thought. Compromise with Enlightenment thought was progressively corrosive leading to the different forms of liberalism. Many Christians faced with an untenable “orthodoxy” and a soul-killing liberalism chose fideism or pietism, thus undermining the role of right reason as a means to understand reality.

Benefits and Detriments: The book lacks sympathy or much information about the Protestant response, but I lack the historical background to critique Duhem on his brief consideration of the Protestants.