Conflict in Naming the Good

The Apostle Paul is many times a persona non grata in the cities of his first and second missionary journey. Luke’s telling of his story often highlights the trouble he perpetually found himself in. He is at times in trouble with Gentiles and at times in trouble with his own ethnic group.

Luke in the book of Acts many times portrays Paul and Peter as heirs of the kinds of trouble Jesus had during his own public ministry.

Life is in fact full of competing religions, ideologies, moral systems and ways of life and any significant contribution into the public dialogue concerning “the good life” will evoke opposition and conflict.

Candidates for “The Good Life” in Luke and Acts

The Narrative of a Favored People

This is easily applied to the perspective of the Jewish people at the time of Jesus. Yhwh, the god of the Hebrews, who chose them to be his nation of priests had been suffering under the brutal beasts of the pagan kingdoms. They had been under the control of Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and now Romans for centuries and they awaited the restoration of their kingdom. Even Jesus’ disciples after the resurrection ask Jesus “Lord are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” Acts 1:6

Part of the resistance and suspicion of Jesus by the Pharisees and others was Jesus’ unwillingness to support this agenda for national liberation. Jesus doesn’t support the tacit culture war being conducted by the Pharisees through their social pressure to observe the tradition of the elders. Jesus recognizes the faith of a centurion, eats with sinners and protects prostitutes and tax collectors, the worst kinds of ethnic traitors to the religious culture war.

It’s tougher for me to discern the mind or minds of the Diaspora community that Paul regularly deals with in the synagogues in what is modern day Turkey and Greece. How much were these groups still seeking national liberation from the context of living outside the promised land?

In any case they were still practicing their brand of particularism by their religious distinctiveness. They read and studied Torah, they prayed, and they worked to enfold and convert “god fearers” in their contexts.

For a people with a narrative as a favored people group the good life was devotion to their patron god, even through suffering, which would be rewarded at some time in the future. “The good” is defined or decreed by the patron god and the faithful to that god must live in obedience to the will of that god.

Christianity follows Judaism in this narrative but changes the terms. The favored people are no longer defined by ethnicity (children of Abraham, together with ethnic identity transformation through circumcision and Torah observance) but by obedience and faithfulness to Jesus, his teachings and his pattern of life. In Christianity all peoples can be grafted into Christ, united with Christ in baptism, in his death and in his resurrection.

Implicit in the Christian narrative is a story of vindication and future exaltation. The narrative arc continues past death into a fully realized kingdom of God, new heavens and new earth.

Common Religion

Common religion is defined by the impulse to get for yourself “your best life now” through spiritual or religious means. “The good life” is commonly defined in terms of favorable circumstances. It usually means abundant food, security, prosperity, attainment of personal goals and dreams, well being for friends and family, victory over one’s adversaries or competitors.

Common religion assumes a hard spirituality, believing that an immaterial universe and beings exist who have power over our material world, and uses whatever coin it has in that universe (obedience, loyalty, gifts and offerings) to influence the spiritual powers to provide what the worshiper seeks.

Common religion can have a lot in common with the “narrative of a favored people” orientation but what distinguishes it is the mercenary quality of the allegiance. A practitioner of common religion will worship whomever or whatever is offering the best deal. “The good life” as defined by the worshiper in terms of common goods we human animals desire is the foundation and definition of this category. Gods and masters may come and go, but our true god is our belly.

Dualism

In the Hellenistic world where the church would eventual grow there were also religious and philosophical groups we would call dualists. Dualisms often set the spiritual and the material against each other. In many cases “spiritual” or the immaterial was of greater value than the material. The material world was subject to decay and corruption while the spiritual or ideal world was not. Dualism appears to be best described as a bias and when applied to a variety of narrative worldviews and religions, like Christianity, it could yield some interesting outcomes.

Many of the most significant heresies that the young Christian church in the eastern Roman empire would wrestle with came in this form, but the bias was recognized by writers of the New Testament as well.

Likewise this bias could be read into the New Testament and in many ways the bias remains today.

Hard vs. Soft Spirituality

The Narrative of a Favored People, Common Religion and Dualism all assume a perspective of what I call “hard spirituality”. Hard spirituality assumes that there is an immaterial universe with gods and powers that have power over our material world. The material world is derivative of the spiritual world

This was obviously a popular perspective in much of the ancient world.

“Soft spirituality” doesn’t hold this assumption. Soft spirituality talks about the good, talks about meaning, talks about virtue and value even within a materialisticly conceived universe.

For materialists the material world is not derivative nor dependent upon a spiritual world or being, it stands on its own. There are many in the West today that are materialists (although I think still a small minority of people) but there were fewer still in the ancient world. Materialists still define and pursue “the good” in the world, and today many might still embrace the word “spiritual” as describing that quest but for them the word “spiritual” means something softer, less concrete, less foundational, more adjectival.

Paul in Athens

The groups that Paul seemed to have gotten into trouble most with are those with a narrative of a favored people and common religious types.

Luke names jealousy as the motivation for a lot of the conflict between Paul and synagogue leaders in Pisidian Antioch and Thessalonica (first and second missionary journeys respectively). Conflicts with civic officials seem to mostly revolve around economic issues (Philippi and soon Ephesus), disturbing the peace and suspicions about loyalty to Caesar.

Paul will find conflict in Athens as well but now with an entirely new group of people, the philosophers. Luke names the Epicureans and the Stoics.

Both Stoics and Epicureans are commonly called “materialists” and I would add to them the category of “soft spiritualists”.

The Epicureans took their name from Epicurus (341–270 B.C.), whose philosophical and ethical worldview was based on the materialistic atomic theory of Democritus. Even the gods were viewed as in essence material in this system. Pleasure was seen as the chief end in life, and the highest pleasures were seen not as the sensual ones but as the pleasures of the mind, in particular αταραξια or tranquillity—being free from both passions and superstitious fears. The gods were seen as modeling this quality, being far removed from the lives of human beings and taking no real interest in them. A motto, written by Diogenes, an Epicurean, in about A.D. 200, sums up this belief system: “Nothing to fear in God; Nothing to feel in death; Good [pleasure] can be attained; Evil [pain] can be endured.”

The Stoics were basically panentheists, believing there was a divine rational ordering principle that was in all things and beings. God’s relationship to the world was seen as analogous to that between the soul and the body. Like the Epicureans, the Stoics were essentially materialists, for even the essence of God and of soul was seen as made up of highly refined matter. The goal of the Stoic system was to live in accord with the rational principle that indwelt all things, and so to live according to nature. Like the Epicureans, the Stoics emphasized the preeminence of the rational over the emotions, believing in self-sufficiency or autonomy (αυταρκεια) as the highest good. They were also highly principled in regard to ethical and civic duties.

Witherington, B., III. (1998). The Acts of the Apostles: A socio-rhetorical commentary (514). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Paul Accommodates His Audience

The story of Paul in Athens begins with Paul’s emotional reaction to seeing the idols in the city. Paul was not some rube from the sticks of Galilee, Paul was an educated Roman citizen who grew up in the Eastern Roman Empire. The form of religious expression in Athens clearly offended Paul’s religious sensitivities but we don’t find him being offensive in dealing with the Athenian intelligentsia. While they are overtly and obviously dismissive towards him, we see him treating them with respect and being as generous as possible with them in his discourse.

Paul is taken to the Areopagus, perhaps in something similar to a soft arrest for an interrogation of sorts. Paul will use this to present his ideas.

We see almost right away that Paul swallows the offense he clearly initially experienced and speaks in the most winsome, generous terms he could muster regarding the proliferation of idols in Athens. He does not set any limits on who would be available to turn to the ideas and god he is presenting.

Next Paul delineates his god from the god or gods of the Stoics and Epicureans. His God is not a happy but disinterested deity un-involved with the world. He is the creator God, active and involved. He is not one with the world, he is the source of the world but stands apart from it.

Paul also contrasts his god from the gods of common religion. This god cannot be bought. He is not in our spiritual marketplace trading favors for gifts and loyalty.

This God is close to us (Stoics would warm to this, Epicureans would doubt) and we are related to him. Paul uses quotes from poets and philosophers they would be familiar with and favorably disposed towards.

Paul critiques the idolatry he is offended by in the softest possible terms and he expresses the generous mercy of this God by overlooking what is done out of human ignorance. This is very generous compared to Romans 1 which has a tougher critique.

After all of this Paul turns to the idea of a God who judges the world by Jesus who was raised from the dead, and this is where he finally loses most of his audience.

The Disruptive Resurrection Again

Luke notes that once again it is the claim of the resurrection of Jesus that grabs his listener’s attention and draws their disdain. Why would this be?

1. Static verses Narrative dynamics: To the best that I can imagine in my limited knowledge of the Stoics and Epicureans both philosophies saw “the good” and its attainment as a rather static reality rather than a narrative one. A person attains “the good” as a status and holds this in life. The Stoic by attaining virtue in his own personal behavior while remaining indifferent to what he cannot control. The Epicurean in modeling the indifference of their gods.

The resurrection assumes a narrative flow in which present suffering and decay gives way to future glory and incorruptibility.

2. Offending the Dualist bias: Even though both philosophical schools were materalistic in nature, their “good” clearly had a immaterial, soft-spirituality quality. The resurrection is foolishness to the Greeks. As the later Gnostic Gospel of Judas revealed the idea that Jesus, after being freed from his body by death would once again take up his crucified body (scars and all) seems ludicrous.

3. A narrative of divine accountability and loyalty: While the Stoics and the Epicureans had definite ideas of “the good” and were very much ethically oriented, the notion that this Jewish carpenter Jesus, whose identity was established by a resurrection from the grave would stand in judgment over them must have seemed completely beyond the pale.

Realistic Account

One of the thing that strikes me about this story is out realistic Luke’s telling of it is. It would be tempting, I’m sure, to tell his readers a sweet story about how Paul was welcomed by the smartest people in the world at that time. Instead we have a story of intellectual disdain.

Paul is treated like a “blabberer”, a poser, an ignorant guy espousing foreign religions. The disdain for Paul is palpable in the story and the missionary fruit meager. No tale of “3000 were added to their number that day.”

Luke seems very aware of the cultural conflict the telling of “the good news and Jesus’ resurrection” presented for that group of people. The amazing thing is that anyone at all was interested enough to follow, given the cultural barriers that people would face in believing a narrative like this.

Paul’s Poise and Generosity

What’s more impressive is both how poised Paul is and how generous he was towards his audience. Paul had his own emotional baggage to deal with in his emotional reaction to the city and its idols. We can understand this response given his background. Paul does not come into the city hot and self-righteous. He comes humble, faithful, doing his best to translate this strange new message into terms that would be understood and attractive to his listeners, even though probably in most cases the attempt would be futile if not dangerous. Paul goes as far as he can in showing commonalities between the worldviews while also being honest about their disagreements. It would actually do a disservice, and express a passive-aggressive mirroring disdain if he didn’t fully disclose the nature of his message.

What Paul does in Athens through rhetoric is return good for evil. While he is being mocked, he respects. While others are being dismissive, he is engaging generously.

Athenian practices of taking seriously the life of the mind were both valued and important. What is unhelpful in that practice is actually what the Athenians were doing in their dismissal and contempt. Supposedly the value of open inquiry and public testing of ideas is something that broad groups of people can agree upon and Paul eagerly engages this from below.

What we see revealed is the human heart beneath the mind. The heart rightly invests one’s self in the content of the mind, and our emotions naturally respond with revulsion and offense to things we oppose, yet what the practice of the mind requires is that we extend generosity both by attempting to communicate as best we can in the frame of reference of our audience while at the same time sharing honestly what we believe.

The Emotional Irony

Paul comes preaching a religion from a passionate, involved, emotional God and does so displaying emotional self control, controlling his offense and disdain at the idolatry of the city.

He is faced by two philosophical groups who are all about emotional control. Both of these groups preach emotional suppression and elimination as a virtue. What they do not preach is humility and their lack of humility gets expressed in emotional disdain and contempt.

What we see even in the scorning and rejection of Paul is the power of the gospel. Paul rejects assuming a victim mentality, which is the low expression of superiority and entitlement, and disdain, the high side of both. He absorbs the emotional hit that he feels by virtue of his beliefs and his culture and approaches his audience with utmost generosity.

In return those who are supposedly in control emotionally but have no ethic of humility shower him with abuse and scorn, again, not unlike Paul’s master Jesus. He will not be crucified outside of Athens, but rather roasted on the inside.

The Gospel at Work

Where this goes for Paul is actually connecting with some people there. Even though the Greeks don’t have a culture of valuing humility there was enough in Paul’s message and demeanor to have others learn enough there to continue to learn and to potentially begin a church in Athens.