Athens and Jerusalem by Shestov Lev; Fotiade Ramona; Martin Bernard

Author:Shestov, Lev; Fotiade, Ramona; Martin, Bernard [Shestov, Lev]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2016-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

III

On the Philosophy of the Middle Ages

[Concupiscentia Irresistibilis]

“If you wish to subject everything to yourself, subject yourself to reason.”

—Seneca

“. . . all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me . . . Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”

—Matthew 4:9–10

I

One of the latest works of Etienne Gilson, the eminent historian of the philosophy of the Middle Ages, is entitled L’esprit de la philosophic medievale. Its subject, however, is much more comprehensive than one would assume from the title. Here, indeed, he speaks not only as a historian of philosophy but as a philosopher. Utilizing the rich historical and philosophical materials gathered in the course of long years of fruitful work, he raises with rare mastery and solves one of the fundamental and most difficult of philosophical questions: Was there a Judeo-Christian philosophy and—this is particularly important—how was such a philosophy possible and what novelty did it bring to human thought?

At first glance it seems that the expression “Judeo-Christian philosophy” contains an inner contradiction, especially in the sense that Gilson confers upon it. According to Gilson, the Judeo-Christian philosophy is a philosophy which has as its source the biblical revelation. At the same time he believes that every philosophy worthy of the name is a rational philosophy which is based on evidence and leads, or at least tends to lead, to demonstrable, indisputable truths. But all revealed truths, Gilson insistently and even, one might say, joyously emphasizes, have disdained demonstrations. “Greek thought,” he says, “did not attain the essential truth that the biblical word ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one’ with one blow and without a shadow of proof1 proclaims.”2 And further, “Here again not a word of metaphysics, but God has spoken, the matter is settled, and it is the Book of Exodus that sets up the principle on which the whole Christian philosophy will henceforth be suspended.”3 And for the third time: “Nothing is better known than the first verse of the Bible, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ Here again not a trace of philosophy. God no more justifies in a metaphysical way the statement of what He does than the definition of what He is.”4 And so it is throughout Scripture: God does not justify Himself, does not prove, does not argue, that is, He delivers His truths quite otherwise than does metaphysics. Nevertheless the truths that He proclaims are as convincing as those that our natural reason succeeds in producing and, above all, they are self-evident. Gilson repeats this with the same insistence when he declares that the biblical truths are not at all concerned about their demonstrability. “The first of all the commandments is this: ‘Hear, O Israel,’” he quotes Mark 12:29 and adds immediately, “But this ‘I believe in one God’ of the Christians, the first article of their faith, appeared at the same time as a rational, irrefutable self-evidence.

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