It turns out that I am not the first Roman Catholic priest who has been interesting in the topic of quanutm mechanics, and how the philosophical conclusions and scientific findings may affect our spiritual or theological development and understanding.  There is another priest by the name of Diarmuid O’Murchu who has written somewhat extensively about the topic in a book entitled “Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics.”  According to some of the articles about Diarmuid, he is an Irish priest who goes around the world lecturing on this and other related topics.  It seems also that he is really not affiliated officially with the Roman Catholic Church either, which is clear from the content of the afore mentioned book.

I was giving a retreat in Arizona when I came up this book at the retreat house that I was giving my presentations in.  Of course, because of the reading I had done the previous year, the title caught my eye, and so I picked it up and thought it would be an interesting read.  Interesting it is.  To say the least.

O’muchu’s book has some really excellent points to it.  He talks about the issue of relationship of particles within an atom, and how if you remove a particle from an atom it ceases almost immediately to exist.  His science seems to be fairly in line with the science that I have encountered within other texts, and even some of his spiritual speculation- both from an Eastern and Western point of view, seems valid.

The unfortunate part of the book was that the purity of the theological, philosophical, spiritual, and scientific speculation was ruined by his own personal social agenda.  Throughout the book, in the midst of some very good thoughts and notions comes his social agendas hit you in the face.  Everything from environmentalism to women’s ordination and liberation permeate the content of the book, skewing the integrity of his other profound theological and philosophical thought.  After awhile you begin to wonder if he writes the book to simply support his social agenda, which casts a shadow on the objectivity of his academic work.

I am not saying that the social commentary his brings up in the book are not valid points for discussion- but they really don’t belong in this book.  I would say that the social commentary accounts for at least half of the book.  By the end I got tired of encountering it.  

That having been said, as in everything there are certainly some valid points both theologically and scientifically that i will address later on in these writings- specifically in the area of relationship and how both world religions and science reflect a similar expression of how relationship is vital to existence.  His notion of the “dance” that goes on within quantum theory is akin to the dance that is revealed in the relationship of the Holy Trinity.  Again, some very valid points, somewhat tarnished by his social agenda.  Further, he at times discusses Eastern thought (which certainly has some valid points to it) and the elimination of the duality that seems to exist in our perception of reality.

It is an interesting read, and I will be addressing some of the issues that O’Murchu brings up, even if I am not sure I agree with his conclusions.  The book was more thought provoking than anything, which is why it was, at time fun, and at times, very frustrating to read.  It was a good foray though for me into some of the questions and considerations of the perspective of theology and spirituality in the eyes of quantum theory.

As mentioned in the previous post, my first real opportunity to delve into the strange world of Quantum Mechanics was the movie “What the Bleep Do we Know?,” which was a movie produced in 2004 for popular consumption regarding the topic of Quantum Mechanics and spirituality.  But as all things meant for popular consumption, I realized that there had to be so much more to the story than we were actually able to experience in a 2 hour movie.  So I began to look for other sources that would help me to understand a truly “metaphysical” world.  (I use metaphysical in a more classical sense here, although not altogether in the same way.  Metaphysical in the classical sense denotes the immaterial world such as Platonic forms and the like.  Modern ideas of Metaphysics denote more of a new age spirituality.  I use it here to denote what is going on in Quantum reality, the Physics that proceeds the Physics of Newton. Truly “Ta Meta Ta Phusica” in the literal sense of the Greek.  I guess in doing this, I am proposing a new concept of “metaphysics” which would denote both a physical and quantum reality, as well as the potential “missing variable” that cause things like non-locality and entanglement- i.e. the Divine component that I suspect underlies reality as we know it, or can know it.)

So the next thing I did was to go to the bookstore and look for a book that not only explained the basic ideas of quantum mechanics to me, but took me deeper into the understanding of what we know of quantum mechanics.  The book that I found was Brian Greene’s “The Elegant Universe.”  All I can say is fascinating.  It is a well written, and often (I say often because it does get a little “heady” due to the subject matter) clear book that outlines the currently known qualities and history of quantum mechanics.  Brian Greene is able to explain things in a way that are both palatable and understandable.    I highly recommend this book to anyone who is trying to understand the modern understanding of quantum mechanics as has been developing since Einstein’s time.  The best part is that he does it without a whole bunch of equations- although those are in face provided at times in footnotes and endnotes throughout his book to support his writing.

Again, this book is designed for popular consumption, but moves in a direction that would only be valuable to someone who wanted to go to “the next level” in their understanding of quantum mechanics.  Greene, in the first part of his book, gives a great overview of exactly where quantum mechanics is in the modern day.

The second half of his book was a suprise though I have to admit, and a pleasant one.  After he takes to the time to explain the theory of relativity, the issue of gravity on both the macro and quantum levels- issues with wave/particle functions and the like (which I will cover late in my own writings) he delves into the modern theories regarding string theory.  Absolutely fascinating.  He admits that some people do not accept string theory.  Others, he said, himself included, see string theory as an answer to some problems that quantum mechanics cannot explain, such as the afore mentioned gravity.

I will cover this later, but the idea of string theory is that particles, on their very constituent levels are actually superthin strings of energy that vibrate at various speeds.  The speed at which they vibrate determines what type of particle exists.  Thus in string theory, a particle is both a point and a wave, as it would be a VERY tightly wound string of energy vibrating at an extremely high rate of “speed.”  What’s more, is that these strings seem to not only vibrate in our 4 dimensions (3 spacial dimensions and one time dimension) but seem to denote that there are other “unfolded” dimensions that we do not experience, and are themselves “superthin,” which they vibrate in.  Green says that there is anywhere from 11 to 26 (and others say even more to infinity!) dimensions which mathematically can exist, which would allow these strings to vibrate through mutiple dimensions.  These theories, based unfortunately more in mathematics and theory, could solved some of the problems that quantum physics cannot.  Even quantum physics has had a Copernican revolution in recent memory!  I will cover more indepth later this idea of string theory.  Pretty “heady” stuff!  There were times through the book where I could only read one or two pages because the concepts were so complex.

It must be noted that not all quantum physicists buy into the string theory.  But he makes some compelling arguments after clearly laying out the theory of quantum mechanics and its corollary problems.  I will have to say that string theory is just a theory, since there is no modern way to see if particles are really tightly wound string of energy vibrating at different rates- but the math seems to make sense…

So as we plod along this path of quantum physics and string theory, as well as theology and spirituality, I will lean on Greene’s work very heavily as a source of my own understanding of quantum theory.  As I read other books, it seems that his explanation of (at least) quantum mechanics is consistent with the explanation I found in other books and media.

After my 30 day silent retreat in the summer of 2007, I had decided that I needed some time for prayer and reflection- in essence I continued my retreat into the next few months.  During that time I wrote and I read some books, made some new friends, and reflected on the meaning of, well, everything.  I had to contend with some of the experiences that I had had in the last part of that retreat, which I mentioned above, that pertained the relationship of God’s love, and the interconnectedness of all things, from the largest bodies in space, to the particles on the quantum level.  Click here to read the previous entry where I specifically mentioned these things.

Those experiences changed my perspective on reality in many ways, and on how I viewed God, creation, relationships, love, and well- everything.  They were indeed profound experiences.

During my prayer and meditation, a friend of mine turned me on to a movie called “What the Bleep! Do we Know?”  A movie produced in 2004 that deal specifically with the topic of Quantum Mechanics, consciousness, and even delving into a general discussion of spirituality, science and religion.  It was an interesting movie, although after having read some other books, rather elementary in its approach of the real questions that it poses.  I am not sure it does a great job in answering those questions, or even fully posing the questions themselves, but it did its job and sparked my interest a little further into the subject, which I had already begun to explore a few months before.  The good of a movie lke this is that it can potentially spark interest into looking deeper into the subject matter.  The danger is that it provides just enough information to be dangerous, so that people feel that they don’t need to delve deeper into the subject matter on their own.  This movie, as in all popular renditions of science and theology, is simply a brushing up against the material, and is no way capapble of giving anyone enough knowledge to debate it or discuss it.

Again this is the danger in popular movies that simply brush the surface of a deep topic like quantum mechanics and theology, is that it gives people the impression that they have all the answers, when in fact, a movie like this poses many more questions that it answers.

That having been said, it was a good opportunity to yet again peak my interest in the subject and delve deeper.  As I mentioned in previous posts, there are certainly some consistencies between the material that is basically presented in WTB (my abbreviation henceforth for “What the Bleep! Do we Know?”).

For instance, there are several accredited physicists who present the information on how quantum physics “works;” fellows from Harvard and Yale who are probably in the midst of the culture and the scientific research.  Therefore, some of the basic presentation of quantum mechanics appears in this movie, which are treated more in depth in some of the other works I have read.  Of course, as I mentioned above, this movie is designed to be understood by the layperson, and would probably not be appropriate for serious theological or scientific debate.

It did help me to understand some of the basics of quantum theory though.  For instance, the whole issue that things on the quantum level don’t work the same way that they do on the macro level that we exist.  For instance, the whole issue of how on the quantum level particles act both as a point and as a wave simultaneously.  I will discuss this in a later post.  The famous “double slit experiment,” which was first performed by Thomas Young in 1803, that proved that light in fact acted as a wave, and expanded later to show that particles of all types act like waves as well, and not static points as we might be lead to believe by natural perception or logic.  This experiementation of course opens the door to furhter philosophical interpretation, which the movie is happy to provide for us.

Again, what the movie begins to show is a dissonance between our perception of reality, and how things “work” on the quantum level.  The movie goes on to sloppily throw out terms like superpositioning, entanglement, as well as other rather ill-explained concepts in quatnum physics.  But again, it is a movie designed for the layperson, so to dive too deeply would probably lose the audience.  It gives just enough information to be dangerous.

Finally, applying the uncertainty that quantum discovery brings with it, the movie spends the last 45 minutes or so talking about how these particle anomalies play into our DNA, protein production, mood, consciousness, and how we interact with the world at large.  Very interesting theories, although, not exhaustive.

At any rate, I believe that we must at least encounter this movie for a couple of reasons in our discussion.  First is that it is a popular rendition of the deep philosophical and theological questions of quantum physics, and thus provides most people with their basic understanding of the issues.  It is a good starting point for more serious exploration of the topic as it was for me, although it is not the end.  I recommend that anyone interested in the issue of quantum physics as it relates to our own perceptions of both the macro and sub-atomic physics and consciousness should watch the movie.  It will certainly spark some interesting dinner party discussions.

What is even more interesting that this movie (and it was interesting) is when you actually begin to dig deeper and see just how interesting the quantum world is.  There are so many “kooky” things going on in reality at the sub-atomic level.  How does the uncertainty of the quantum world translate into the “certainty” of the one we intuitively experience?  Does it call into question all that we know and experience?  Does Des Cartes’ doubt, which I mentioned earlier, now come into direct play in our whole cosmology?  Is consciousness all that we can actually depend on existing with any degree of certainty?

Again, go see the movie, with the understanding that it only scratches the surface of the questions at hand- I find that at least in the discussion of quantum physics, the move does seem to resonate with the serious books that I have read, while I would be warey of the accompanying philosophical and spiritual discussion which follows.

Now that we have finished with a brief overview of both the western religious and intellectual traditions, which are necessary for understanding not only our modern point of departure, but also their commonalities, it is time to move into the specifically scientific realm.  The next part of this blog will deal with a synthesis of quantum mechanics as I have understood them in the books, websites, and films that I have been reading and viewing over the last year or so.  At this point it is good to remind all of you that I am a priest, not a quantum physicist or mathemetician, so there is a chance that I could be off on some of my scientific facts, and seek correction from any authority that might know more than I do in this field.

That having been said, I think that I have a basic grasp on the issues that arise from a study of both classical and quantum physics, to the point where I can intelligently discuss the philosophical ramifications, even if I can’t exactly do the math.   I understand the math to a degree, albeit conceptually, but again, nowhere near the level that I would need to have a cogent discussion with a room full of physicists.

Using the scientific findings, which I will discuss over the next few weeks, and possibly months, I will extrapolate from what I know of philosophy to produce a conceptual model of quantum physics.  From there, I will discuss the ramifications in terms of perseption of our world, thought, consciousness, and spirituality.  It is at the point of spirituality that we will begin to delve back into the theological relationship of our scientific findings.  So if you are looking for a blog on religion, or even specifically Catholic theology, this won’t be the place to look for awhile.  Rather, we will build a foundation on Quantum Mechanics, and proceed to see how it interacts with Divine Revelation and teaching as found in the Roman Catholic Church.

My first task will be to present and review a couple of books and other media that I have been reading in preparation for this project.  I will present it in a book review form, and then proceed to talk about their specific findings.  I will say this about reading books about science, that until you get to the particular theory of the author, be it in the realm of string theory, or consciousness or whatever, these books are remarkably similar to each other in their presentations on Quantum and classical physics, Einstein’s theory of matter and energy, as well as gravity as well as relativity.  The first part of these books, the consistent parts will be discussed at length, and then each particular theory will be presented.

Three books that I will discuss and use for my point of departure for a discussion of Quantum Mechanics are:

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

The Quantum Physics of Consciousness: The Quantum Mind and the Meaning of Life by Evan Harris Walker

Quantum Theology by Diarmuid O’Murchu (Another Catholic Priest, although I am not sure he is a practicing one these days.)

What the Bleep Do We Know? - A popular movie that discusses some of the basics of Quantum Physics

This list is not exhaustive of the great books and media that are out there, or that I have read, but I think they provide a good point of departure for what we are looking for for a discussion of Quantum Mechanics and their potential relationship to theology.  Certainly there is a consistency of the science of Quantum Mechanics that all the books have in common which will provide for us a basis of discussion.

What I particularly liked about The Elegant Universe, was the even deeper discussion of “String Theory,” a level even deeper than Quantum Mechanics, that raises a whole new set of questions.  We’ll get to that too I guess.

These Copernican revolutions of science during the Renaissance were of great importance to the western intellectual tradition.  Fir the first time, the pre-conceived notions that had stood for nearly 2000 had been questioned, and a new search for knowledge emerged.  With it some great thinkers that influence our own scientific methods of the current era.  New and exciting discoveries of mathematics and science began to take place, the likes of which had not been seen since the days of the Greeks.

This Renaissance, which literally means to be born again, was a rebirth into man’s curiosity into how the world works.  It is the same curiosity that spurred on the Greeks, the early and Medieval Christian thinkers, and continues to inspire us today. We are built to know and understand the world around us.

Philosophy, in the strictest sense was relieved of it’s duties of physics, biology, math, and other specific studies, and began to concentrate not on what we know but how we know it.  Philosophy became, as it is today, a study of epistemology, the study of how we know what we know, more than anything else.  We have Des Cartes and the Renaissance intellectual tradition to thank for that.

Thus Philosophy’s “children” in a sense are today’s modern sciences of chemistry, math, science, physics, and the like.  It was an exciting time of exploration and discovery, not only for the explorers of the new world, but of mankind in general.

This blog/website focuses specifically on the relationship of Quantum Physics and Catholic theology, so for the new few weeks, perhaps even months we are going to focus on a history of physics, its findings and conclusions, as well as the field of sub-atomic, or Quantum Physics, which turned most of the discoveries of Newton and his contemporaries on their heads.  Again, when revolutions come, there is resistance, but with new revolutions come new ways of thinking, and a new way to see and understand the world that we live in… an exciting world it is!

This means for a time taking a break from specifically Catholic Theology to explore the scientific discoveries and theories of the last couple of centuries- then we will return to a brief study of specifically Catholic Theologym finally putting the pieces back together at the end, seeing how they fit together, and the pcitre that they produce.

With the influx of Aristotelian philosophy emerging in the 12th and 13th centuries being tied into theological speculation, it seemed that all science and deduction would be done through the lens and for the purpose of the highest science, which was theology.  Even political philosophy followed the philosophical bent of Christianity, showing both the Pope, and the local sovergein, to share in some way shape or form in the divine reign and majesty of God.  There was even a concept called the “Divine Right of Kings,” and being a King or Queen almost became an 8th sacrament for a time, so much did the theology of that time influence everything that it touched.

But in the later part of the 15th century and the 16th century, a lot happened.  There were many “revolutions” that occured.  It is tough to know where to begin.  Everything was indeed “shaken-up.”  Everything- politics, the Church, Science, philosophy, and even theology.

As the ideology of nationalism began to replace the feudal system, huge countries, ones that we are familiar with today, began to emerge.  Countries like Spain, and the Venetian Empire, not to mention the Holy Roman Empire began to take shape over the feudalism of the previous centuries.  Certainly in many ways this structure endured, but for the first time people considered themselves “English” or “French,” instead of simply part of Christendom.  This nationalism gave way to many political and social changes, most of which I don’t really need to go into here.

So as these nationalistic ideals began to take over, so did the need for these nations to grow in power wealth and stature.  Thus expeditions were sent out to discover ways to exploit the riches that the world had to offer.  The most notable was the voyage by Columbus in 1492, where he discovered the “West Indies” and the “New World.”  This shook things up quite a bit I imagine.  As they began to discover that in fact that the huge universe that they came to know in Europe was a whole lot smaller than they had known about.  Now European culture was encountering, and in many cases conquering  cultures it had never come into contact with.  I have a personal belief that this sparked a revolution in the way people thought, and accepted the intellectual traditions that had been passed down to them as fact.

With the “New World” came new possibilities- not only for the state, or for riches, but in terms of thinking as well.  The possibility of discovering a whole new part of the world that henceforth had never been known must have, and certainly did open the minds of quite a few people.  Thus there the Renaissance that had begun in the 14th century, which had spawned the desire to return to ancient values, and which spurned exploreres on to explore, began to expand and question its tradition ways of thinking.

In the 16th century the Renaissance was in full swing, and a lot of things happened.  As the Renaissance was an attempt in many ways to return to the humanism of the pre-Christian west, it began to question the authority of the church.  It began to look at ancient sources for a renewal of the intellectual traditions that it had once held as unchangeable truth.  Philosophers like Bacon, Ockam, and Des Cartes began to “doubt” everything that had been given to them, and to destroy the “idols of the Marketplace,” or the generally accepted intellectual traditions.  Copernicus pointed to the skies and said that the sun did not revolve around the earth, but visa versa, and a monk named Luther nailed a piece of paper to some Cathedral doors in 1517, directly opposing the authority of a Church whose many members and leaders had become corrupt.

Not only did the Earth now revolve around the sun, but everything was turned on its head.  Des Cartes’ doubt of everything allowed him to begin a nuveax Platonism, where subjectivity, not objectivity became the norm for intellectual discovery.  Ockam’s razor cut out all the perceived fat, and Luther’s church, spreading quickly because of the new technology of the printing press, began to take root.  A religion that emphasized faith as justification.

Theology, the queen of the sciences in the universities, the basis for political and social cohesion, began to take a back seat to the other sciences.  The Church attempted to maintain its authority over the totality of knowledge, something far out of its intended reach, challenging Galileo, who later took up the mantel of Copernicus.

But this was a good thing.  Jesus gave the Church authority in faith and in morals, not in the natural sciences.  But as I have stated in the previous posts, in the first post in fact, our theology cannot contradict our science, nor can science contradict our theology if both are done well.

This was a good thing for science.  It was broken free from the shackles that theology had put on it to wonder free.  Experimentation and the scientific method developed, and great minds like Galileo and Isaac Newton began to study the earth and nature with a whole new perspective, freed from the bias that a pure and all encompassing theology had put upon it.  Theology, nor does the church have authority over how objects fall, or the orbit of the sun and moon.  It has authority over our relationship to God, His relationship to us, and our personal relationships to each other.  Natural science was now free to roam.

Of course, this went too far- theology was now completely separate from reason.  This has been shown time and time again, as in science from this point on, there was no recourse, or at least very little to theological speculation as a litmus test to science’s finding.

The other trouble, that we have seen in our time, is that science takes on an attitude that “if it can be done, it should be done.”  Without a regard to an ethical norm, one based in a divine origin, where the dignity of every human is respected, and moral and ethical norms have a universal application, it becomes difficult for science to police itself.  Thus, it is difficult to say that one progression of science is good or evil, or should be pursued.  Take the case of the atomic bomb- done first of all because it could be, and secondly as a quick solution to a long drawn out war.  There is no theological system, with the exception of one or two, that would ever ratify the use of a weapon of mass distruction such as this.  The atomic bomb however was done because it could be, and now even small countries have the ability to obliterate entire metropolitan areas.

So, as in any divorce, there are pro’s and con’s- the pro is that science was now free of theological speculation which either determined, affected, or ratified its outcomes- allowing the fullest scope of human intellectual exploration.  The con though is that as in anything in life, science could not police itself.  Religion became maginalized, and the whole question of human dignity went unasked.

From Darwin to Quantum Physics, to medicine, it seems that there has been a cultural divide caused by the divorce of faith and reason.  As in any divorce, the children are caught between the two parents that created them, trying to make sense of a reality that needs both!  Thus, in our study of Quantum Physics and theology, we will try to reunite the two and end the separation that happened 500 or more years ago.  That wy we can have a free speculative science that seeks truth, and a theology that can guide and confirm what it has found.

Spread and Persecution of Christianity

The first couple of centuries of Christianity marked a remarkable spread of the faith the four known corners of the world.  Having integrated its new teachings on this life, as well as the promise of resurrection in the next, with the ideology of the Greek intellectual tradition, which was still prominent at the time, the two would be intertwined for a very long time.  It made not only appeals to Jews (who knows how many Jews were converted between the 1 and 4th centuries, but some scholars put the number in the millions) (I know I got this from the Anchor Bible Introduction to St. Paul’s letter to the Roman’s, but I will follow it up if this project goes to print.)

The first few centuries of Christianity were marked by severe persecution as well.  Many Christians were killed by Roman authorities for reasons ranging from the need to burn down the city of Rome by Nero, to the mono-theism that threatened the established religious order, to simple direct defiance to the Emperor and his regime.  Over time, Christianity made its way through the lower classes, but from the beginning, as is noted in the Bible, it made its way to the upper classes as well.  This is why it was essential for the intellectual tradition to merge with the still developing Christian theology.  Not only for its own interior understanding, but to make the faith attracted to the educated leaders as well.

Legalization of Christianity and Controversy

This is exactly what happened.  By the end of the last persecution in 305, Christianity began to have a majority over the pagan religions- not only in numbers, but in power as well, as much of the army was Chrisitan.  Seeing which ways the tides were turning, Constantine made Christianity legal, becoming one himself later in his life, and making it, essentially, the religion of the state,  He gave Christianity rights that it had never had before, and began to strip the pagans of theirs through a set of sweeping laws between 312 and 326.  He began to build basilicas- memorials to the Saints that were in Rome like Peter and Paul, and Christians could now worship in peace without fear of ever being killed for practicing their faith.

The second that the persecutions ended though, the infighting began among the Christians.  A Bishop in the East, Arius, made the claim that there was a time in which Christ did not exist, and that he was created by the Father, thus being subordinated to the Father, in turn making direct doubts on his Divinity.  This debate within the Church nearly tore it apart, and Constantine called the Council of Nicea in 325 to settle the dispute.

What is important about this is that the council directly uses terms from the established western ideology and tradition, thus sealing the marriage between faith and reason within the church.  In the formation of its creeds, it used and even developed new terms based not in the Scripture necessarily, but in the Greek tradition.  From here on, Faith and Reason would be inseparable.

Faith and Reason Inseparable: Universities

Flowing from these times a great number of theologians took the ball and ran with it- Origen and Augustine to name a couple, as well as Athanasius to develop even further the rational foundations of the faith.  Until the Renaissance hundreds of years later the two would be inseparable.

After the so-called “Dark Ages” universities and centers of higher learning were established with the primary study being theology, and probably law. The study of theology WAS science.  It was how you figued out the world we lived in, and related it to the Eternal God.  There was no science without a reference to theology.  Great theologians of the medieval period were such great names like Albert the Great, and St. Thomas Aquinas who wrote volumes and volumes of “scientific” works, that began with philosophy, and ended with theology.

It is important to note that at this time, the Aristotelian influence began to be felt in the west.  It had been lost to the western culture for many centuries, held intact by the muslim philosophers like Avveroes and the like.  It is during this time, roughly the 12 and 13th centuries that this philosophy, and its realism, began to directly impact Christianity.

Revolution on the Horizon

In our analogy of Copernicus, theology would have been like the earth that everything, incuding the sun, revloved around.  This would change very quickly with the true intellectual revolution of the modern philosophers like Bacon and Des Cartes who would flip the whole picture around, setting the universe on its head, and separating philosophy and reason from Theology.

St. Paul is an extremely vital figure in not only the emergence of Christianity as a world religion, but also of its integration into Greek Philosophy.  It is through Saint Paul that the message of Jesus reaches the rest of the contemporary world, and it must do so by using philosophical concepts and terminology that was in vogue at the time.

Therefore it is in St. Paul that we first see the merging of philosophical thought, which was the science of the time, as well as the theological.  The two would remain intertwined for the next 1200 years or so, until the great enlightenment.

This proved to be an effective evangelization tool for the gentile converts to Christianity.  Paul was a big fan of finding where people were and evangelizing them.  The best example is his sermon in the Areopagus where he points out the statue of the “unknown” god, and says that it is the God of Jesus Christ.  Thus we see Paul’s willingness to put the kerygma, that is the fullness of revelation in Jesus Christ, into terms that the Greeks could easily understand.

Many of Paul’s philosophical concepts are borrowed from Platonism, which found its way into the theological thought of such great theologians as Origen as well as St. Augustine of Hippo.

Johannine Tradition

The other major tradition that is found in the scriptures was that which followed St. John, the evangelist/apostle.  The major addition found here was the use of the term LOGOS, or “Word” to describe who Jesus was.  John’s gospel is a departure in many ways from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the so-called “synoptic gospels.”  They are called this because all three contain similar stories and sources for their creation.  John’s gospel was written last of the gospels and probably well after St. Paul himself had been martyred.  Most scholars tend to put this gospel at the end of the 1st century.

As to whether it was written by John himself or a member of the tradition that followed the apostle John is up for grabs in my mind, but the important thing is that the final version of the gospel, as we have it today, embraces the idea of LOGOS, which we discussed above is the uniting divine intellectual presence that hold everything together.  This shows that by the end of the 1st century of Christianity, Christian thought had become melded with the intellectual traditions of the time, which had been passed down from the Greeks which we covered in previous chapters.

It is my thought that two things happened to accomplish this.  First is that there were many more “gentile” or non-Jewish Christians by the end of the first century who brought with them their philosophical and intellectual traditions.  The second is that Christianity wanted to set itself apart from other religions to become not only a religion, but one that was rational.  Perhaps this move was one of the things that solidified Christianity’s ability to survive, in that it could contend with the thought of the time.

This melding of faith and reason is a halmark of the Church from very early on, and as Christianity gained popularity in the world, so the western intellectual tradition became inseparable from it, at least for the next thousand years or so.

Jesus of Nazareth

According to the so-called “History of Salvation,” God was preparing the earth, and humanity, for its redemption little by little.  The entire history of Judaism is a gradual revelation that God is not simply some far off metaphysical concept, or some idol to contain the essence of a god, but that God is a personal being that is capable of having a relationship with humanity.  A personal relationship.  In addition to this ability to have a personal relationship, He guides us (the 10 Commandments) and he even cares for us!

There is no better way to see this that the culmination that is found in Jesus Christ.  As Henry De Lubac says, Jesus did not simply “appear on the scene.”  Rather Jesus arives in the middle of this context that we have previously discussed in terms of Abraham and Moses.  This time though, the revelation of God as a personal being who cares for us is not done in a veiled way, but in the actual person of Jesus Christ.

The “Historical” Jesus

There is little doubt to the fact that Jesus existed, that he formed some kind of movement, had some radical ideas, and even that he was crucified for those particular movements and ideas.  Pretty much everything else we “know” about Jesus of Nazareth seems to be up for grabs by the scholars, theologians, and even the layman on the street.  Everything from his words to his works have been questioned- some notable (more appropriately, famous, which doesn’t mean they are correct) scholars even debating whether or not what we have received about Jesus is more Paul of Tarsus, rather than the actual Jesus Himself.  (That will be covered in the next section.)

There is however a continuity to the teaching of Jesus that not only continues this idea of God being a personal God, but also that he said what he said.  When we look at the Gospels, specifically the so-called synoptics, Matthew Mark and Luke, we see that there is common elements that do not appear in Pauline works.  Common phrases, stories and references that are alien to the Pauline Corpus that we have.  Thus, despite the fact that there is so much critcism of this “historical” Jesus, it is reasonable to at least believe that Jesus said what, in fact, we believe he said.  Not only that but the tradition in John also tells us that in theological reflection in the 60 of so years after Jesus, there are again elements that are considered that are foreign to the Pauline Corpus.

That is for another book though I think, and another, better scholar than myself to contend with.  The matter is that it is probably safe to believe that not only did Jesus exist, but taught what we believe he taught, and died in the manner that has been passed down through the generations.

Jesus’ revolution

Jesus’ revolution is twofold.  This is where the convergence of the roots of the intellectual tradition, establish by the Greeks and discussed earlier, meets the evolving “revelation” of God to the people of Israel.  Jesus is not merely a religious figure, but by the writing of John’s gospel in the 90’s or so, Greek philosophical thought has merged with the social, theological, political and religious teachings of the man Jesus of Nazareth.  It is in this convergence, for the purposes of this particular study that we must look.

We will revisit the specific teachings of Christ later in this study, but for now, it is important to see that Jesus was not only “Copernican” for the Jews, but the whole world as well.

Affect on Judaism and Western Religion

There is probably no figure that has effected western religion than Jesus of Nazareth.  During His, time, Jesus established the church in order to carry forth his memory and his message into the rest of the world and through time.  As God says in the Simpsons, 9 out of 10 religions fail in their first year, but there was a resilience and a popularity that instantly characterized Christianity in opposition to the many cults and religions of the ancient world.  The church, and its message spread quickly, and integrated itself in the culture with amazing speed.  From the ends of the empire, and even the world, Christian missionaries spread the message of Jesus, and despite persecution from both Jews and Pagans alike, continued its movement for the next 200 years or so.

Christianity gained popularity not only among the soldier class, Jews, and rich women, which aided its spread throughout the empire.  It integrated elements of the western religion and philosophy, as well as the empire into some of its practices, and eventually became, to the detriment of paganism, the religion of the empire.  Christianity, once it arrived, was the to stay.

Through its first centuries of existence, millions of people converted to Christianity, including a majority of Jews themselves.  It continued to spread as the Roman Empire itself spread, along with its message the God was a god who dwells among us.  Along with this new found spirituality and theology, came the integration of Greek and western philosophy.  Christianity did not just affect social, economic, and theological aspects of Roman culture, but the intellectual tradition that followed.

Affect on Western Intellectual thought

As the message of Christianity spread, and more reflection took place, it naturally encountered the predominant intellectual tradition at the time, which, as we have noted above, was heavily influenced, if not totally permiated by, Greek philosophical reflection and introspection.

By the time John, or whoever the evangelist was who wrote the gospel of John, was written there is obviously already a synthesis that occured between the experience of Jesus Christ, specifically through the Church that he had established and was spreading at an unprecedented rate.  Already, by the end of the first century, and only 60 or so years after Christ, philosophy and theology began to merge together.

This is evident as the Gospel of John begins with heavily loaded philosophical language.  It is an attempt by the Christian community to understand their faith and reconcile it with their experience.  I am not sure that this had ever been successfully done before.  This is, in fact, why Socrates was killed.  In his attempt to reconcile Greek mythology and theology with his philosophical thought, the irrationality of the whole system began to appear, and he was labeled an atheist, as well as one who corrupted the youth by pulling them away from the established religious belief.

Here was a religion though that tried to support itself with rational thought.  The way that it does this, even in the scripture, is to equate Jesus with the idea of LOGOS.  As mentioned above, LOGOS was the idea that everything that exists is permiated with a rational divine intellect that guides, forms, and moves everything along.  It was this eternal LOGOS upon which reality was based.  To say that Jesus was this LOGOS was to claim many things- first and formost that this religion was one that was not only based on faith, but one based on reason.

In addition to the Johannine tradition, the Pauline tradition is also loaded with philosophical concepts, mostly Platonic in their basis.

It is from this point, and especially after the legalization of Christianity in 412 by Constantine that in the west, theology and philosophy (and later the sciences) were intertwined until the Renaissance tried to pull them apart again.  Thus, the effect of Jesus of Nazareth was far reaching, not only in religious terms, but also in how He affected the domininat intellectual tradition.