Tag Archives: Aristotle

The Abolition of Creation and the Gender Revolution (Part One)

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Why This Series?

Recently a group of ministers from one of the most secular regions of the United States asked me to present a series of lectures on the challenges contemporary secular culture poses to the church, specifically the popular hostility toward the moral vision of life taught in the New Testament and treasured by the church for 2000 years. Some of them had read my 14-part critical review (September and October 2021) of Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships* and wanted me to follow up with a more comprehensive treatment. I proposed to address the topic under four headings:

The Abolition of Creation

The Abolition of the Biblical Text

Reclaiming Creation

Reclaiming the Biblical Text

In the next few posts, I want to develop these topics in preparation for my presentations. Perhaps readers can help me refine my thought.

The Darkening of Creation

From July 22 to August 6, 2021, I wrote a five-part review of Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to the Sexual Revolution (Crossway, 2020). Trueman explains the origin and agenda of his book in this way:

“The origins of this book lie in my curiosity about how and why a particular statement has come to be regarded as coherent and meaningful: “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” (p. 19).

Like Truman, I am curious about how this change occurred. What factors led people to abandon the moral significance of the order of nature? How could so fundamental a distinction as the biological difference between male and female be completely disengaged from human identity?** Truman began his study with Jean Jacques Rousseau and traced the sexual revolution from the 18th to the 21st century. I will interact with some of the same thinkers as Truman did, but instead of beginning with Rousseau I will begin with Galileo and the scientific revolution. Truman did not describe extensively the premodern understanding of nature and natural law. But I think it is important to explain how Plato, Aristotle, and later Christian philosophers understood and experienced nature. Only then, I think, can we understand what forces led to the abolition of creation as a source of moral guidance and spiritual inspiration. This essay will be devoted to describing the view of nature’s moral order that modern thinkers dismantled and replaced with subjective human feelings.

The Way Things Were

Before 1500, people saw nature as a unity containing different kinds of things, living and nonliving, plants and animals of different shapes and colors. Each individual thing is an organic whole, a unity, an identity. And this inner unity—a mystery in itself—reveals itself in its outer manifestations: that is in the total impact of its color, shape, smell, texture, taste, sounds, and for animals, also in their behaviors. This way of experiencing nature is a matter of common sense, which everybody possesses. Such philosophers as Plato and Aristotle, however, asked theoretical questions about our common-sense experience: what is the inner basis of the distinct identities of things? What accounts for their unified, spontaneous, and purposeful activity?

In common sense we perceive unreflectively the unity of the being and activity of living things, but stop at that unexamined perception. Practical necessity demands no more. Plato and Aristotle—each in his own way—designated the inner principle of identity “form.” And they named the power for unified, spontaneous, purposeful action “soul.” Designating the inner principle of identity as “form” assures us that this principle is intelligible or mind-like; for that is the only way to make sense of the perceptible differences among things. Matter alone cannot account for the order and qualities that differentiate one kind of thing from another.

Even though forms are too complex for us to grasp in one act of understanding in the way we can grasp a simple mathematical idea, they must be intelligible, if only to the divine mind. Likewise, the inner power for unified, spontaneous, purposeful action (soul) must be nonmaterial. Note here that the doctrine of forms and souls postulates a likeness between our inner world of mind, will, and life and the inner world of things in nature. To anticipate future posts, the scientific revolution shattered this likeness and drove a wedge between the human reality and nature.

Admittedly, giving the names “form” and “soul” and “nature” and “substance” to the inner principles of things adds nothing to our common-sense understanding of things. For what information does it add to the appearances of things to postulate a hidden cause of those appearances? But it does articulate our confidence that our ordinary perceptions of the distinct identities of things are perceptions of something real in itself, that is, the invisible reality in things that shows itself through the appearances. The appearances of things are revelations of the inner reality of things. They are not deceptive.

The Christian thinkers Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas took up the concepts pioneered by Plato and Aristotle and incorporated them into the Christian doctrine of creation. The creation as a whole and all creatures within it embody ideas and purposes that find their archetypes in the mind of God. Augustine and Aquinas used such concepts as ideas, forms, souls, and natures to designate and explain our common-sense perception of the inner unity and reality of things and of their inner power for spontaneous, purposeful action. Like the forms and souls of Plato and Aristotle, their Christian adaptations add nothing to our perceptions of the appearances of things. Nevertheless, they assert our confidence that through the appearances our minds make contact with the intelligible inner reality of things.

There is more, however, because the Christian doctrine of creation also assures us that in knowing the forms of things through the appearances, our minds also contact the mind and will of God. Thereby, our ordinary common-sense experience of nature is drawn into the religious and moral sphere. The glory of God and the nature of the good is at least partially revealed in the appearances of creatures.

Observations and Anticipations

1. Hence, we can see clearly why people living before scientific revolution of the seventeenth century would find the statement “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” (Truman, p. 19) not only false but incomprehensible. Laughable even. For if a human being appears to the senses as male, we can be certain that his inner reality (or form) is male. Forms do not deceive us by appearing in bodies as something they are not in themselves.

2. The traditional Christian doctrine of creation adds another dimension. Because the forms that give each creature its identity find their archetypes in God’s mind and embody God’s good will, they demand our respect. They are revelations of God’s wisdom and goodness. It would have struck a person living 400 years ago as impious, ungrateful, and irrational to reject one’s sex.

3. Before the modern era, common sense, the doctrine of forms, and the Christian doctrine of creation together provided a strong foundation for the conviction that a moral law is woven into the fabric of creation. Some activities are good and some are bad. Some are right and some are wrong. And these moral distinctions can be discerned by reason and common sense. For Augustine and Thomas Aquinas or any of their contemporaries, it would have seemed as irrational as it is wrong for a human being to live as an animal or a male to live as a female or a female to live as a male.

Next Time: We will see how the architects of the scientific revolution—Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, et al.—destroyed confidence in the reality of forms and souls and replaced them with atoms, space, and machines. The appearances no longer reveal the reality of things. Creation is emptied of spiritual reality, meaning, purpose, moral law, and beauty, all of which are transferred to the inner subjective world of the human mind.

*Subsequently published in revised form as Ron Highfield, The Choice: Should the Church Affirm LGBTQ+ Identities and Ways of Living (Keledei Publications, 2024).

**If you want to think about the true nature of the biological distinction between the sexes, I recommend reading Tomas Bogardus, The Nature of the Sexes: Why Biology Matters (Routledge, 2026). Bogardus is a philosopher colleague of mine. I will say more about this book in a later post.

The Politics of Jesus

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Did Jesus have political aims? Of a certain kind, yes. Let’s talk about it.

In his book Politics, Aristotle wrote:

“Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either above humanity, or below it; he is the ‘Tribeless, lawless, heartless one,’ whom Homer denounces—the outcast who is a lover of war; he may be compared to a bird which flies alone.” (Book 1.2.9).

Human beings are endowed with reason and speech, and these powers cannot be brought into full actuality apart from human community. Human nature is so rich that it cannot be realized fully by one individual, but when many people over centuries contribute their gifts, each individual can enjoy the work of all. The products of reason and speech become common property and enrich everyone. In the first paragraph of Politics, Aristotle made this significant claim: “If all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims, and in a greater degree than any other, at the highest good” (1.1.1).

Aristotle grounds the state in human nature. A being that is stateless by nature is either a god or a beast. The political order encompasses all other communities within its sphere. Unlike subordinate communities, it aims “in a greater degree than any other, at the highest good.” A family, a guild or a school will aim at the welfare of its members, a partial good. The state aims at the welfare of everyone, so that everyone may enjoy to the fullest degree the full flowering of human nature.

Let’s compare and contrast Aristotle’s thinking about the political community with the New Testament’s teaching about the church. Surely Aristotle is right that the state is an outgrowth of human nature and that a being stateless by nature is not human in the ordinary sense. The church is a human community, and Aristotle would number it among those subordinate communities that aim in a less comprehensive way at the highest good. But Christianity understands this community to be composed of a “new humanity,” “born again,” a people endowed with the “Spirit of the living God” and having under gone “the transforming of their minds.” They are in Aristotle’s words “above humanity.” A divine power is at work in the church to raise it above normal human life.

Aristotle is also on target when he asserts that every community aims at a good that gives it purpose, unity and identity. However, Aristotle’s “highest good” is limited to this world, this life. Christianity asserts that human beings should aim at a goal higher than the common good of the whole community within this life. God created human beings in the image of God, and human nature, empowered by the grace of the Spirit, can participate in the divine nature and attain eternal life. From Aristotle’s viewpoint, the church’s aim is off target; it aims too high and it demands too much of mere mortals. It is bound to fail.

The New Testament presents the church as the community founded by Jesus Christ. It is indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit and directed to God the Father. In analogy to Aristotle’s view of the state, the church is based on the nature of the new humanity and is necessary for the full flowering of this new human being. Christians are not “birds that fly alone,” but they really do fly. The Christian is not only a human being endowed with reason and speech but also someone united with Christ, who dwells in heaven and yet fills the universe. The Christian has received the life-giving Spirit and has been freed from the power of sin and death. Unlike Aristotle’s natural human being, the Christian lives by faith and not by sight.

The church is the community whose threefold purpose is (1) to enable the new powers and virtues that have been given to believing and baptized human beings to come into full use and benefit the whole church and through the church the whole world; (2) to embody as far as possible in the present the perfect community of heaven, the Father, Son and Spirit and the coming Kingdom of God, which is the union of human beings and God in the perfect divine/human fellowship; and (3) to call the whole world to rise up not only beyond the beastly nature of the stateless one, the ‘Tribeless, lawless, heartless one.’ It also calls human beings beyond the best political order human beings can create. She serves the whole human race by calling it to its final destiny and revealing its true dignity.

Hence to normal human beings, Christians will always appear to have their heads in the clouds. Their values are a bit askew. They are always rejoicing but never take pleasure in evil. They are serious about everything but in despair over nothing. The Christian is as courageous as a lion but as gentle as a lamb; they have wills as hard as steel but hearts as soft as wax.

The church will never subordinate itself to the political community because the good it seeks is higher than the good sought by the state. The virtues she promotes—love, faith and hope—are better than those the state values. She seeks heaven while the state grasps at earth. The state is built on violence and coercion, and it seeks wealth, power and worldly security; the church is built on freedom and love and seeks treasure in heaven. The church is the temple of God, the city of God, the body of Christ. The state is human nature writ large, with all its strengths and weaknesses.

For Aristotle, human beings are “political animals” whose destiny is achieved, if at all, only in this life. For Christianity, human beings are more; they are ecclesiastical animals whose destiny lies in eternity, in the divine life.

Says Who? Faith and the Contemporary Moral Crisis (#3)

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Last week (#2) we concluded that we call a thing “good” when we want to express the relation of being “good for” between it and something else. To say a particular hammer is good is to say that it is good for doing what hammers are meant to do. In analogy, to say a particular human being is “good” is to say that this human being is capable of doing and actually does what human beings are meant to do. In the same way, a particular human action is good if it does for human beings what human actions are meant to do for human beings.

Notice that hammers, human beings and human acts can be called “good” only if we know what they are meant to be and do. And the idea that human beings are meant to be and do certain things and not others implies that they possess natures and ends. Put as simply as I can, a nature (or essence) is the design plan or structure of a thing that makes it the kind of thing it is. Inherent in the idea of a design plan of a thing is its proper function and purpose. Just as a hammer’s design plan suits it for driving nails but not for threading needles, human nature directs human beings to certain ends and not others. And certain acts enable human nature to function properly to achieve its intended end and others do not.

The idea of the good is relevant to moral issues only if human beings possess natures that determine the conditions under which they can function properly to achieve the end at which their nature aims. Without the idea of human nature and its end, the “good” will always be reduced to the “pleasant”. And the pleasant is not a moral category. Whether you find a certain activity pleasant or not cannot by itself demonstrate whether or not it is good for you. As we will see in the course of this series, at the center of our contemporary moral crisis is the loss of faith or even the explicit rejection of the idea that human beings possess natures and ends. Human nature and its ends have been replaced by the arbitrary human will. (See the series on the God and the Modern Self for more on this shift.)

Philosophers from Aristotle onward attempted to describe the perennial and essential features of human nature and the ends toward which it is naturally directed. Aristotle’s work on this subject in Nicomachean Ethics exercised profound influence on western ethical thought, and it still commands respect today. Although I value such naturalistic ethics and I am happy that many thinkers engage in it, as a Christian theologian I cannot limit myself to examining human nature apart from my faith in God as the Creator of human nature, Jesus Christ as the perfect example of a good human being and union with God as the end of human nature.

For Christian moral thought, the idea that human beings possess natures and an ends is securely grounded in the confession of God as the maker of heaven and earth. God created human beings “in his image and likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Throughout the Bible God deals with human beings as if they were designed to function properly by doing certain things and not others. Certain individuals are set forth as examples of “good” human beings. Jesus Christ serves as the supreme example of a perfect human life. Certain commands direct us to engage in activities that show us the best of which human beings are capable, chiefly the commands to love God above all else and our neighbors as ourselves. The resurrection of Jesus Christ and our union with him in faith and baptism ground our hope of eternal life and union with God in the general resurrection.

In sum, the Christian understanding of the good is determined by the following convictions: (1) the most important characteristic of human nature is that it is the image and likeness of God, (2) human nature’s proper function is to image the perfect character of God in the world as informed by the example of Jesus Christ, and (3) human nature is directed by its Creator toward the end of eternal life and union with God. Nothing can be considered good or good for human beings that contradicts or inhibits these three principles.

These three foundational principles provide us with the lenses with which to read the Bible along with the church to fill out in greater detail the character of a good human being, that is, a picture of what the Creator intended human beings to do and become.

To be continued…

Creation–Can You Hear it Sing?

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Lately, I have been thinking about the idea of divine creation. For centuries Christians—and most Jews and Muslims too—have asserted “creation from nothing” (creatio ex nihilo). The central point of this idea is that God required no building material out of which to make the universe. For, if God had needed anything other than God’s own power and will to create, we could not think of God as the absolute Lord of creation—a really scary thought! To accomplish this task God would require help from something else. The Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle understood that beings in the world are ever changing, coming into existence and going out of existence. But they also knew that something had to be eternal or nothing would exist, which would be inconceivable…because if nothing existed there would be no mind to conceive and no concepts to think. For them it was axiomatic that the eternal and unchanging world of intelligible forms and ideas exists necessarily. It deserves to be called divine precisely because it is self-sufficient and necessary. Aristotle was so clear that true being is eternal and unchanging that he declared that “from nothing, nothing comes into existence” (ex nihilio, nihil fit). Hence even matter is eternal and does not come into existence or go out of existence. It is always there to be shaped like the potter’s clay into different beings.

The Christian teaching of “creation from nothing” does not directly contradict Aristotle because it does not say that creation sprang into existence from nothing; existing things come from God and God is eternal. So Christian teaching agrees with Aristotle that “from nothing, nothing comes into existence.” Since God is eternal, there never was a time when there was absolutely nothing. But matter is not divine or eternal or necessary. Christianity asserts only one eternal being, God.

The idea of “creation from nothing” has profound implications in many areas of thought and life. I will mention only one. Everything, everyone, and every event that was, is and will be depends totally on God, and God alone, for its fundamental existence. Taking this truth seriously could change your life. Learn this skill: when you feel yourself relying on, serving, worshiping, working for, overvaluing, fearing or desiring anything in creation let it immediately trigger the realization that that creature also depends absolutely on God. Now let that thing direct you to its God and yours. God is the source of every good thing and the answer to every threat found in creatures, no matter how beautiful, powerful or good. If you learn this practice you might find yourself becoming a more thoughtful person, more aware of God than before. And in a world as beautiful and dangerous as ours that’s got to be a good thing.

I have found the works David Burrell, Robert Sokolowski, Michael Dodds, and Thomas Weinandy very helpful on the topic of creation.

rch