“All three major religions have had to confront the ideas of the great Greek philosopher, Aristotle. Averroes tried to integrate Aristotle with Islam. Maimonides tried to integrate Aristotle with Judaism. Aquinas tried to integrate Aristotle with Christianity. All necessarily failed. “Rationality cannot be integrated with faith; nor reason with anti-reason; nor, in philosophy, fact with fantasy. “Durant refers to Aristotle as this amazing Greek who . . . upset three religions.’ Barnes writes, ‘He bestrode antiquity like an intellectual colossus.’ Aristotle continues to upset the religions, and he now bestrides the modern Western world. His philosophy provides a proper understanding of the method of reason—and from that comes all that is good in modern secular culture: rational philosophy, the arts, the sciences, medicine, technology, prosperity. “Durant, speaking of the medieval renaissance, writes, ‘Aristotle’s philosophy was a Greek gift to Latin Christendom, a Trojan horse concealing a thousand hostile elements. These seeds of the Renaissance and Enlightenment were . . . ‘the revenge of paganism’ over Christianity.’ To put it more accurately: the Renaissance and the Enlightenment were the triumph—not the ‘revenge’—of Greek rationalism over Christianity. More precisely still, these monumental events were the triumph of Aristotle over religion.” —Andrew Bernstein theobjectivestandard/issues/2014-spring/aristotle-versus-religion/
Posted on: Mon, 05 May 2014 11:00:01 +0000
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