Aristotle Archives - Bob on Books

From Aristotle to Christ

From Aristotle to Christ, Louis Markos. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514011324) 2025.

Summary: Considers and appraises Aristotle’s influence on Christianity and how Christian thinkers appropriated his thought.

Louis Markos is a Platonist. And it seems axiomatic that Platonists and Aristotelians are two separate tribes, even though Aristotle was Plato’s student. Yet, if one didn’t know that Markos was a Platonist, in reading this book, one would think he was an Aristotelian. After a “yearlong dive” into Aristotle, he did not convert. But he came away with a deepened appreciation of Aristotle’s contribution both to philosophy and his influence (mostly positive) on Christian thinkers.

In this book, he addresses both of these. In so doing, he gave far more insight into Aristotle than my freshman philosophy class. And he helped me see how Christians used Aristotle as they clarified what the church believed. He does this in five parts.

Part 1: How to Think Logically

First of all, Aristotle articulated what it means to reason logically. From the law of non-contradiction to the correspondence theory of truth, Aristotle lays the groundwork for both the work of Aquinas and the scientific enterprise. Catholics, rightly or wrongly, drew from his distinction of substance and accidents in their doctrine of transubstantiation of the Eucharist. Dorothy Sayers draws on him to discuss the origin of evil. The syllogism became the basis for the Kalam cosmological argument (although Aristotle would have disagreed, believing both God and the universe were eternal. Augustine’s disagreement with Aristotle’s ideas of time led to his formulation of the timelessness of God. His ideas about the relation of body and soul also influenced Aquinas, as well as Dante.

Part 2: How to Read the Heavens and the Earth

To understand our world, we must ask questions of why, of cause. Aristotle clarified four types of cause: material, formal, efficient, and final. Markos notes how science often only recognizes two of these, the material and the efficient, failing to explain how matter can organize itself. He notes how important this also is for John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. Then Markos discusses how important this is to the argument for an Unmoved Mover. Without formal and final cause, we have only infinite regress. Yet Markos also detects the weakness in this. It can lead to the static, detached God of Deism, as it did for many in the 18th century. Finally, while we reject most of Aristotle’s cosmology in light of modern science, his belief in an ordered universe was consistent with Christian belief and Augustine’s and Boethius’ ideas of providence.

Part 3: How To Behave

Aristotle’s ideas of the soul and embodied life were vital to his understanding of ethics and virtue. Aristotle understood the importance of the choices we made in the formation of our character, and our agency in those choices. He influenced thinkers like Aquinas, Dante, Donne, and Lewis. Unlike Plato, however, he could not understand the virtue in suffering unjustly, as Christ did on the cross. However, Markos also shows how deeply insightful he was on the nature of friendship and his ideas of a life well-lived.

Part 4: How to Get Along with Our Neighbors

Much of this section draws on Aristotle’s Politics, tracing the rise of the polis from the family, and identifying the forms of government. Consistent with scripture, Aristotle warned of the danger of existing without the polis. Unlike Rousseau, we are not noble savages. Markos also introduces us to Alasdair McIntyre, and his “rescue” of Aristotle from Rousseau’s ideas, and how he enlarges with a Christian understanding Aristotle’s ideas of our telos, with its hope of forgiveness, redemption, and the welcome of God in the new creation. He shows Aristotle’s prescience in his understanding of the importance of private property for human order and flourishing. Likewise, Aristotle recognized the vital priority of the rule of law in any form of government, which Markos believe of vital relevance for our own day. He traces the direct arc from Politics to the Federalist Papers.

Part V: How to Make Beautiful Things

This last section begins with the proper use of rhetoric. As Aristotle teaches, it consists in the integrity of the person (ethos), emotional force (pathos) and an appeal to reason (logos). He uses Polycarp and his final speech, facing martyrdom, as an example. He also addresses Aristotle’s ideas of poetry and tragedy, and how Christianity may extend these.

Assessment

I read a fair part of Plato’s works earlier in life. Markos’ account was so motivating that I ordered a couple of his recommended books including The Basic Works of Aristotle edited by Richard McKeon. He makes a good case for how Aristotle provide Christians the tools to articulate and defend their faith. At the same time, he shows what Aristotle failed to see, that was illumined by scripture. Finally, he shows where Aristotle may have led some astray, particularly the Deists.

Markos is a great teacher. He is clear and readable. More than that, I appreciate his effort to read, and assess Aristotle on his own terms. Finally, from Augustine to McIntyre, Aristotle has been part of the church’s conversation. So much that is part of the “furniture” of Christian belief, that we attribute to scripture, also reflects the interaction of the church’s teachers with Aristotle. Markos helps see that.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

When Athens Met Jerusalem, John Mark Reynolds. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009.

Summary: The Christian message advanced in a Greco-Roman World prepared in many ways by both the failure of the Homeric gods and the classic philosophers. This book explores the intellectual antecedents to the gospel in pre-Socratic, Socratic, Platonic and Aristotelian thought, culminating when Jerusalem meets Athens when Paul preaches on Mars Hill.

In the third century, the Christian Tertullian asked the questions, “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? what between heretics and Christians?” For many Christians, this has been the last word on the matter and they have decided there is little or nothing of value in studying the Greek philosophers of the Classical tradition preceding the advent of Christianity.

John Mark Reynolds would argue to the contrary pointing out both how Greek philosophy prepared the way for the gospel as it groped for something beyond the gods of Homer and tried to explain why there is cosmos rather than chaos. It gave us the humility of wisdom in Socrates who knew that he didn’t know. It gave us the dilemma of the cave and the question of what is the really real. It gave us the Aristotelian mean in ethics and the cultivation of virtue. And yet it failed to deliver Greece from the power hungry Alexander, the decay of its civilization, its lapse back into pagan deities and gnostic mysteries that failed to illumine and give hope. It prepared the way for the Apostle Paul to appear on Mars Hill to speak of the “unknown God” who has revealed himself scandalously in the resurrection of his son.

The book is a useful and sympathetic survey of classical thought. Reynolds begins with the pre-Socratic philosophers in chapter 1, Socrates in chapter 2, Plato in chapters 3-7, Aristotle, the pupil of Plato in chapters 8 and 9, and finishes with the neo-Platonists, Epicureans, and Stoics in chapter 10. The end of chapter ten concludes with the preaching of Paul addressing a culture, prepared by this lineage.

If I had any criticism, it would be that this book is long on Athens and short on Jerusalem. Perhaps Reynolds felt that this is all he could do in a book of this length. Yet it seems that the whole book intentionally builds toward the intersection of Athens and Jerusalem. Reynolds spoke of giving us a whirlwind tour through the classical Greeks. I think he could possibly have given us a tighter summary and explored more of the engagement between Greek philosophy and Christian theology. Clearly this has shaped Western Christianity to the present, but the shape and critique of that engagement is sparse in this book. It is clear that Reynolds is more favorable to the Greek philosophers than either Tertullian or many moderns. Perhaps it is because he so loves his subject matter of the Greek philosophers. A more in depth discussion of that engagement could have been a valuable contribution.

This is a useful secondary text for students, particularly Christian students, reading the classics. Reynolds provides helpful context and commentary and helps show the relevance of the questions these philosophers were asking as well as the thought world Christians encountered as the gospel established a beachhead in Europe during the missionary journeys of Paul. It also serves as a helpful review for some of us who read these classics many years ago and need a “brush up.”