The ancient roots of person-truth

The differences between idea-truth and person-truth can be traced to two ancient and powerful traditions of thought. One, a philosophical tradition perfected by ancient Greek philosophers, sought truth in abstract, universal, and unchanging principles. Its influence is so profound that the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead once wrote, “The safest general characterization of the [Western] philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” ¹ The other, a covenantal tradition that found expression in the Hebrew scriptures, understood truth as a lived, historical relationship with a personal God.¶

While the New Testament was written in Greek, its authors were spiritual heirs to the covenantal tradition found Hebrew scriptures. Old Testament scholar Norman H. Snaith insisted that to understand their message, we must look to the right intellectual tradition. He wrote, “The message of the New Testament is in the Hebrew tradition as against the Greek tradition. Our tutors [for understanding] Christ are Moses and the prophets, and not Plato and the Academies.” Theologian John Dillenberger cautioned that “to ignore Hebraic ways of thinking is to subvert Christian understanding.”¶

The philosophical tradition

To understand the origins of “idea-truth,” we must look to an influential school of thought born in ancient Greece. Let’s set the context: the gods of Ancient Greece were very different than the God we find in scripture. The gods of Olympus were more like superheroes, larger-than-life embodiments of common human virtues and vices. Outside the occasional dalliance or bit of meddling, they were not interested in human affairs and seldom responded to people who worshipped them.² When the philosophers of Athens heard Paul’s missionary message of a God who was compassionate and involved in human affairs, they responded by calling Paul a “babbler.” They said, “He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection” (Acts 17:18).¶

In this context, a class of thinkers—the philosophers—embarked on a new quest. For Greek philosophers, the quest for truth was more or less unrelated to the legends that were taught in the temples of the cities or at the hearthside in the home. It was not a quest to understand the intentions of divine persons. Rather, it was a quest to capture (via the intellect) certain rational principles or concepts. When Greek philosophers did believe in the traditional gods, they believed they operated within a broader universe that was governed by ideas. From the perspective of some, even the gods were bound by fate and could not alter the dictates of impersonal, abstract law.³ In this way, truth was distinct from any god who could carry on a dialogue with mortals.⁴¶

A foundational assumption of this new philosophical tradition was a fascination with things that do not change. They often disagreed with each other, but they almost always saw things that do not change as more fundamental than things that do change. As James Faulconer explains, this school of thought operated on the belief that “change is a defect, that whatever is ultimate must be static and immobile. What changes, including the world that we experience, is of a lesser order than what does not change.”⁵ For this reason, they also saw things that are abstract as more important than things that are particular to a specific context, and things that are outside space and time as more valuable than things that are physical and temporal. Greek philosophers analyzed and categorized objects (specific people, places, or things) in terms of unchanging characteristics, rather their specific contexts or features.¶

Plato (427–347 BC), for example, distinguished between the substance and the essence of things. The substance of a table can change. A table can be brown or black, plastic or wood, varnished or scratched, all while still being a table. However, the essence of a table cannot change (without becoming something else instead). For example, something is not a table if it is not somewhat flat and raised off the ground, or if we cannot place objects on it. These attributes are essential to the idea of a table. For Plato, this world of essences is where we find truth.¶

Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 570–ca. 495 BC) believed that truth could be found in mathematics and that the physical world conformed to universal mathematical laws.⁶ From his perspective, before we can understand the world, we must discover the mathematical realities that govern it. Mathematics has the kind of consistency we would expect if fundamental truth is unchangeable. The Pythagorean Theorem (a² + b² = c²) holds true for every right triangle in every context and is just as true today as it was in the days of Pythagoras.⁷¶

Aristotle (384–322 BC) focused his attention on the material world in addition to the world of ideas. He argued that we must ground all of our theorizing in the stubborn facts of physical reality and sensory experience. Aristotle believed that universal laws govern the world and that they will manifest in the predictable operations of the physical universe. To discover truth, from his view, we must carefully observe the world and detect these patterns. Aristotle pointed Western philosophy towards empirical observation (as opposed to philosophical speculation) as the foundation of modern science.⁸¶

Though Plato, Pythagoras, and Aristotle differed somewhat in their methods, as well as the specific conclusions of their arguments, collectively they forged and bequeathed to the Western world a powerful intellectual inheritance. This was the tradition of “idea-truth”—a worldview where ultimate reality is abstract, impersonal, and unchanging. With few exceptions, the Greek philosophers believed that anything that changes is subservient to a higher order that does not change.⁹ For that reason, ultimate truth (in this philosophical tradition) is whatever is fundamentally unchangeable—whether we are talking about the natural world or human morality.¹⁰¶

This philosophical project redefined the role of the truth-seeker: no longer a person in relationship with a deity, but an intellect sifting through the messy particulars of a changing world to grasp the timeless universals. Within this intellectual tradition, the genuine truth-seeker sifts through the dynamic variety of life and looks for whatever is the same in every place, every time, and every context. It is this specific bequeathment—the elevation of the abstract over the relational—that would profoundly shape Western thought for millennia and set the stage for a dramatic transformation of Christianity (later on).¶

The covenantal tradition

In stark contrast to the philosophical tradition, the scriptures present a different kind of quest for truth. It is not a search for abstract principles that exist outside of time, but an encounter with a living God who acts within time. This is the covenantal tradition, where truth is understood through history, relationship, and divine action. To grasp this worldview, we must start with a very different understanding of “truth.”¶

The Hebrew word for truth is emeth. It does not mean a correct idea or a logical proposition. Instead, emeth means “faithfulness, firmness, reliability.” Indeed, as philosopher and Rabbi Samuel Lebens notes:¶

Similarly, in Deuteronomy, we read, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deut. 32:4). The God of Israel is a God of truth because He is without iniquity or betrayal. Truth, in this tradition, is not something you know in your head; it is someone you can rely on. It is a quality of a person in a relationship. This single concept—truth as relational faithfulness—is the key that unlocks the entire worldview of the scriptures.¶

This focus on an active, relational God is reflected in the texture of the Hebrew language. Whereas Greek philosophical texts often build on static nouns, biblical Hebrew is a language of verbs and actions. Abstract concepts are described with vivid, concrete imagery. Marvin Wilson provides a number of examples. In Hebrew writing, “[to] ‘look’ is ‘lift up the eyes’ (Gen. 22:4); ‘be angry’ is ‘burn in one’s nostrils’ (Exod. 4:14); ‘disclose something to another’ or ‘reveal’ is ‘unstop someone’s ears’ (Ruth 4:4) ... ‘stubborn’ is ‘stiff-necked’ (2 Chr. 30:8; cf. Acts 7:51).”¹¹ This is not to say that Hebrews couldn’t think abstractly, but that their primary mode of expression was grounded in the tangible, the experiential, and the active—the language of a people who experienced God in the real world.¶

When God reveals Himself in the scriptures, He does not offer a list of metaphysical attributes. Instead, He points to His actions in history: “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2). His very name, Yahweh (Jehovah), can be interpreted as a promise of active presence: “I will be there (for you).” God’s identity is His faithfulness demonstrated over time.¶

This covenantal understanding of faith is carried directly into the New Testament. When the Jewish authors of the New Testament needed to translate this concept into Greek, they often chose the word pistis. As scholar Brent Schmidt explains, pistis in this context was not just “belief,” but a “covenant, oath, or guarantee that created trust.” It was the language of relationship and commitment. Put simply, in the covenantal tradition, truth is being true—true to one’s commitments and reliable to others.¶

In stark contrast with the philosophical tradition we saw expressed in Greek philosophy, there is virtually no search for truth that is distinct from the search for God in scripture. Finding truth is the same as living in right relation to God. Scriptural writers focused on their covenant relationship with God, and any intellectual journey that did not end with the living God of Israel was a journey in the wrong direction. Indeed, as Wilson pointedly observes, “the dynamic, active presence of the living God is one of the most central unifying themes of the Hebrew Bible.”¹²¶

In short, the covenantal tradition does not elevate abstract or impersonal ideas to the realm of the Divine because abstract ideas, by their very nature, cannot act in the world—they do not do, change, or influence in the world in any way. Within this tradition, the God of Israel actively engages with the world, and the world is constantly influenced (and changed) by God’s activity. Thus, in the covenantal tradition, abstract ideas are always one step removed from His relationship with us in the world.¶

Because the philosophical tradition focuses on the abstract, Greek philosophers strove for rational and intellectual perfection, logical certainty, and the systematic representation of impersonal truth. In contrast, the writers of scripture strove for a concrete relationship with God and specific moral guidance in specific moral contexts. Most important, the covenantal tradition does not determine right conduct by looking for abstract, universal moral laws, but by consulting the commitments they had made to God and what He had commanded of them. Hebrew morality was shaped by the specific instructions that God gave to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and others.¶

Clearly the idea of covenant was central to Hebrew thinking and practice. However, the Hebrews thought of these covenants not as concepts but as specific commitments made with God by a particular people at a particular place and time.¹³ This is why history was deeply important to the Hebrews. The Hebrews valued a strict remembrance of God’s covenants with man, often through physical, actionable rituals (such as animal sacrifice or ritual cleansing) and communal practices (such as annual feasts and celebrations). These rituals and celebrations preserved in their collective remembrance the promises of God and their commitments to Him.¶

Another way to illustrate the difference between the philosophical and covenantal traditions is by comparing Aesop’s fables with the parables of Jesus. Aesop (620-564 BC) was an Ancient Greek storyteller who told tales that involved talking plants or animals (such as the Tortoise and the Hare, or the North Wind and the Sun). Aesop’s fables were meant to teach moral lessons (usually to children) through stories. The “moral of the story” is usually expressed as a universal maxim or moral principle and is far more important than the story itself. The story is merely a way to illustrate the idea in a memorable way.¶

In contrast, the parables of Jesus express more than universal maxims or abstract principles. In fact, Jesus’s audience may not have universalized the lessons of a parable at all. The meaning depends on the life circumstances of the hearer. For example, consider the parable of the prodigal son: sometimes we are the son, other times we are the father, and other times we are the elder brother. In the parable of the lost sheep, sometimes we are the ninety and nine, and other times we are the lost sheep. At yet other times, we are the shepherd.¶

Parables introduce narratives that we can live and relive in different ways in the unfolding situations of our lives. All of sacred scripture is the same: passages that mean one thing to a rebellious teenager may have a different meaning for a new parent, and still yet a different meaning for a bereaved spouse. The message cannot be universalized or summarized as a list of principles to follow. The particulars of the story matter and are meant to be carried with the hearer (or reader) into his or her varying contexts.¶

For example, Nephi “likened” the scriptures to his situation by comparing his family’s experience to the story of Moses, the children of Israel, and their collective struggle to escape the bondage of Pharaoh. He did not sit down and reason out some sort of universal, abstract principle based on Moses’s experience. Rather, he saw himself and his family as the Israelites, Jerusalem as Egypt, Laban as pharaoh, and their journey as from captivity, through the wilderness, toward a land of promise. He brought the story, with all of its rich detail and nuance, into his context.¶

There is danger in “summarizing” the covenantal tradition, precisely because its less-abstract nature tends to resist tidy summation. Nonetheless, we can safely contrast the philosophical tradition’s focus on the abstract and universal with covenantal tradition’s focus on the particular and the concrete. The Greek philosophers valued things that do not change; the writers of Hebrew scripture emphasizes that which is dynamic and active. In addition, the philosophical tradition separated the idea of truth from the idea of a personal, acting God, while the covenantal tradition does not. In the covenantal tradition, abstract ideas are less important than our relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.¶

Apostasy and Restoration

A few hundred years after Christ’s death, the “fullness” of the gospel of Jesus Christ was no longer taught or practiced in its original, pristine form. Latter-day Saints often refer to this as the Great Apostasy. This apostasy was (at least in part) due to those within the Church who relied on philosophy and reason in lieu of ongoing revelation. President Dallin H. Oaks taught that, following the death of Christ, “there came a synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christian doctrine in which the orthodox Christians of that day lost the fullness of truth about the nature of God and the Godhead.”¹⁴¶

Many scholars refer to this process as the “Hellenization” of Christianity. This was not a simple problem of translation. The New Testament authors, though writing in Greek, were steeped in the covenantal tradition and successfully conveyed its core truths. Rather, the challenge arose over the next few centuries as Christian theologians sought to explain their faith to a Roman elite educated in the Greek philosophical tradition. To make Christianity appear rational and intellectually respectable, they began to use the language, categories, and—most importantly—the assumptions of the philosophers.¹⁵¶

As early Christians adopted these philosophical assumptions, they reshaped their understanding of God in far-reaching ways. They began to describe God not just in the relational terms of the Bible, but in the metaphysical terms of Plato and Aristotle. Because this philosophical tradition prioritizes the abstract and unchangeable, Christian scholars began to think of God as immutable, an abstract being without body, parts, or passions who exists outside space and time, everywhere and yet nowhere at all.¹⁶ President Oaks taught:¶

The result was that the dynamic, living, passionate, caring, and embodied God described in the pages of Old and New Testament (and the Book of Mormon) was replaced by the sort of abstract, unembodied, and timeless entity described in the pages of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers.¶

In this way, the God who could weep with his loved ones at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35), the God who “groaned within himself” and was “troubled because of the wickedness of the house of Israel” (3 Ne. 17:14), and the God whose joy could be full as he called little children to him and blessed them “one by one,” weeping yet again (3 Ne. 17:21), became a thing of the primitive past. By the time of the Reformation, the Western world had moved so far away from the living God of the Bible that Martin Luther argued that, even though “God is represented [in the Bible] as being angry, in a fury, hating, grieving, pitying, repenting,” nothing of the sort “ever takes place in him.”¹⁸¶

In other words, God became an abstract idea to believe in rather than a person to relate to. Religion became a set of dogmas to mentally assent to. As Brent Schmidt puts it:¶

In short, Latter-day Saints have good reason to be suspicious of what happens when Greek philosophy is used as the primary lens for interpreting the gospel. For example, James Faulconer argues that “Greek … models of thought cannot do justice to the true and living God.”¹⁹ In fact, he argues that because of the prevalence of Greek thought in the Western world, “[M]ost of what passes for talk about God, whether positive or negative, is talk about a god who is not the God of Israel,”²⁰ nor the God who appeared to Joseph Smith in the spring of 1820.¶

As Latter-day Saints, we believe that Christ’s Church has been restored in our day through modern revelation. We believe that God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ visited Joseph Smith and anointed him to be a prophet and a spokesman, just as they had anointed Moses, Samuel, and Saul of Tarsus before him. And, in that moment (and on other occasions), Joseph Smith observed the physicality and living concreteness of God as the Father and the Son counseled with him face to face and gave him instructions in a particular place and at a particular time—as well as for a particular place and particular time.¶

Through Joseph Smith, God re-established the original apostolic Christian church, complete with divinely appointed prophets and apostles who have been commissioned to officiate covenants with God through sacred ordinances. Joseph Smith was also instrumental in restoring our understanding of God as the concrete, embodied, and relational being worshipped by the ancient Israelites.²¹ In short, the restored Gospel as taught by Joseph Smith re-emphasizes the covenantal tradition, rather than the philosophical tradition.¶

For example, the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi declared: “[T]he fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved” (1 Nephi 6:4). Likewise, Moroni testified of “a God of miracles, even the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and it is that same God who created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are” (Mormon 9:11). The scriptures of the Restoration (the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price) thoroughly depict God as the person-truth we described in the previous chapter.¶

Footnotes

1. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2010), 39. It might also be accurate to characterize the intellectual history of the Western world as a centuries-long critical dialogue between Plato and Aristotle. For an excellent articulation of that viewpoint, see Arthur Herman’s excellent book The Cave and the Light: Plato versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization (New York, NY: Random House, 2013). ↩

2. The distinguished philosopher Daniel Robinson explains, “The gods of Homer have their favorites among mortals and even occasionally breed with them, but in general the Olympians are preoccupied with their own affairs, often indifferent and even contemptuous of human lives and limitations.” From Daniel Robinson, An Intellectual History of Psychology (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 16. ↩

3. Daniel Robinson explains further: “[The gods of the Greeks] must be propitiated, never aroused to anger or envy. But they are also not looked to for answers to the abiding questions or for solutions to the problems of life and mind. In the matter of fundamental truths and their implications, we are left to our own devices, for, in these matters, the gods themselves are limited. Even the mighty Zeus must consult the fates if he would know the end result of his designs.” From Robinson, An Intellectual History, 17. ↩

4. Even Plato’s Demiurge—a sort of artisan God who fashioned the world out of a chaos of pre-existing materials—was thought to be of a lesser order of perfection than the Eternal Forms, a knowledge of which the Demiurge employed in the creation of the world. See Francis M. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997). ↩

5. James Faulconer, Scripture Study: Tools and Suggestions (Provo, UT: BYU Press, FARMS, 1999), 136. ↩

6. Jeffrey C. Leon, Science and Philosophy in the West (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1999). ↩

7. Well, not exactly. The Pythagorean Theorem only holds true for Euclidean geometry (that is, the geometry of planes). It breaks down entirely in non-Euclidean geometries (such as on a globe). This illustrates the main idea of this book: how the world looks and what counts as truth depends on our starting point. ↩

8. For an engaging look at Aristotle’s influence down through the ages, and most especially in our modern era, see Arthur Herman, The Cave and the Light: Plato versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization (New York, NY: Random House, 2013). ↩

9. Some might suggest that Heraclitus (535 B.C.–475 B.C.) is an exception. He is famous for having claimed that “everything flows” and “a man cannot step into the same stream twice.” Heraclitus emphasized the universality of change. However, this exception simply highlights the rule. According to Thorlief Boman, for example, “This high estimate of change and motion is un-Greek; Heraclitus stands alone among Greek philosophers with his doctrine.” In addition, Heraclitus postulated an unchanging logos that governed change in the world, and so some do not consider him an exception at all. See Thorleif Boman, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, trans. Jules L. Moreau (New York, NY: Norton, 1960), 51-52. Further, Heraclitus’s expression of his ideas was labored and difficult, largely because “the Greek language which, unlike Hebrew, was not capable of giving adequate expression to such ideas.” Plato himself said of Heraclitus and his ideas, “The maintainers of this doctrine have as yet no words in which to express themselves, and must get a new language.” See Boman, Hebrew Thought, 51-52. ↩

10. Noel Reynolds explains this idea well: “One of the most fundamental and perennially attractive contributions of early Greek thinkers was the concept of nature—the idea that behind all the variety and vagaries of human experience there might be a solid, regular, and permanent reality. Nor did they limit this insight to the physical and material world, but rather they also glimpsed (or diligently sought) the possibility of finding ultimate truth in matters pertaining to human morality and the good.” From Noel Reynolds, “The Decline of Covenant in Early Christian Thought,” in Noel B. Reynolds, ed., Early Christians in Disarray: Contemporary LDS Perspectives on the Christian Apostasy (Provo, UT: BYU Press, FARMS, 2005), 309. ↩

11. Wilson, Our Father Abraham, 137. ↩

12. Marvin R. Wilson, Exploring our Hebraic Heritage: A Christian Theology of Roots and Renewal (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2014), 24. ↩

13. This emphasis on the particular distinguishes Hebrew ways of thinking from Greek philosophical approaches. Thomas Cahill explains this crucial difference: “Everything about the core values of the Jews and Christians was foreign to the Greeks and Romans, who in their philosophy had decided that whatever is unique is monstrous and unintelligible ... only that which is forever is truly intelligible and worthy of contemplation. The ideal is what is interesting; the individual is beside the point. In contrast, for the Hebrews, the particular and the contextual was of vital interest instead.” From Thomas Cahill, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2003), 259. ↩

14. Dallin H. Oaks, “Apostasy and Restoration,” Ensign, May 1995, 84. ↩

15. For example, Noel Reynolds explains: “[A]lready in apostasy, the third-century Christians were in deep trouble. Official persecutions were increasing. They were plagued by a rapidly multiplying diversity of Christian doctrines and sects—each claiming to be the true heir of Christ and the apostles. There was no central leadership to help them distinguish between the true and the false. ... Threatened with the utter demise of Christianity, they turned to well established and widely admired principles of Greek philosophy for a solution.” From Noel Reynolds, “What Went Wrong for the Early Christians?” in Noel B. Reynolds, ed., Early Christians in Disarray: Contemporary LDS Perspectives on the Christian Apostasy (Provo, UT: BYU Press, FARMS, 2005), 12. ↩

16. Religious scholar Henry Jansen explains that, over time, Christian thinkers and theologians increasingly “borrow[ed] a number of fundamental concepts from Greek philosophy, viewing the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle as most nearly approximating the Bible and using it extensively for the conceptualization of the biblical depiction of God.” From Henry Jansen, Relationality and the Concept of God (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Rodopi, 1995), 82. ↩

17. Oaks, “Apostasy,” 85. ↩

18. Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will, trans. Henry Cole (New York, NY: Feather Trail Press, 2009), 33. ↩

19. James Faulconer, “Appendix 2: Hebrew versus Greek Thinking,” in Scripture Study: Tools and Suggestions (Provo, UT: BYU Press, FARMS, 1999), 136, italics added. ↩

20. Ibid., 137. ↩

21. Indeed, the evidence seems so compelling that it has led at least one Latter-day Saint thinker to claim, “Twenty-first Century Mormons and Hebrew Christians at the meridian of time are one and the same.” From David Thomas, Hebrew Roots of Mormonism (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 2013), 247. ↩