RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY | Timeline of Western Philosophy #4

The Timeline of Western Philosophy. The Ultimate History to Western Philosophy.

This is the fourth episode in a multipart series on the history of Western Philosophy. This took a tragically large amount of time to produce and I'm hoping all of you really appreciate it.

In this episode we will dive into early religious philosophy regarding the thoughts of the prophets and religious leaders to shape the West.

Religion, even if it’s a bit out of fashion in the West, still plays a major role in the world. There are billions of believers, and for thousands of years religion dominated philosophy. Even if you don’t buy all the ideas about heaven or hell or the bearded gentleman in the sky, there are so many ideas which are relevant today. So, if you’re religious, keep an open mind to some of these other ideas. And if you’re not religious, try to hang with the ideas and themes presented by these thinkers. Even if you don’t believe in God, the philosophy and genius of these thinkers can still teach you something today.


Let’s begin a little outside the West. In the areas surrounding Persia and the Middle-East, a religious tradition began to make waves. Known as Zoroastrianism, this new tradition was based on the teachings of a prophet known as Zarathustra, also known as Zoroaster.

Zoroaster is important for many reasons. For one, he’s said to have instructed Pythagoras, the triangle guy and mystic who we spoke about previously in Episode 2 (if you haven’t seen it, go check it out). Zoroastrianism also provided a different type of cosmology than the pagan worldview. Zoroaster didn’t deny the many Gods of Greece and Rome, but he did preach of a worldview much closer to the monotheistic beliefs that would follow. Zoroastrianism isn’t strictly monotheistic, per se, but it did stress the importance of a God of primary importance.

Okay, so we’ve been beating around the burning bush here. It’s finally time to discuss him. The one and only, you’ve probably heard of him, the son of God himself, Jesus H. Christ. (Hallelujah!) Like Socrates, we have very little record of the historical Jesus. Most of our evidence is from second-hand sources and testimonials written well after the fact. To understand the historical Jesus and particularly why his message was so successful, you have to understand his time. The atmosphere of apocalypse and reckoning were at a peak in the time of Jesus.

St. Augustine was quite the character. He was known to be fun-going and affable. He might be saintly, but he got around, even fathering a child with a mistress. He wrote an amazing autobiography called Confessions, where among many neurotic ramblings, he worries about his wet dreams at night. Oh excuse me, I mean “nocturnal emissions.” His personality can be summed up in one of his famous quotes, his plea to God: “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet!”

But to really understand the philosophy of St. Augustine, we need to first cover the ideas of two others. The first, is a man named Mani. You might not know much (or anything) about Mani and the religion called Manichaeism, but for a period there it was the primary rival of Christianity for monotheistic beliefs. Mani wanted to unify the major religions of the world, and thought of himself as the last prophet in a line that included Zoroaster, Christ, and Buddha.

For starters, to Augustine, the dualism of Mani is untenable. How can two powers be infinite? Each power would then limit the other. There can only be one infinite power, one God, and he is good. Evil is not some positive force, equal and in opposition to God, but is instead the lack of God. Evil happens when God’s not around.

Augustine’s marriage of philosophy and religion is a large reason the Church would unify and become so successful. In a world before science, theology was the highest form of trying to understand the world. Augustine, the man with the best, most consistent worldview provided vision in a time of chaos.

Augustine has us return to Plato, but a new Plato that has some of the inconsistencies worked out with the ideas of God. In the next episode we will see this evolution of ideas take another turn. If this age was won by a revival of Plato, the next sees a resurgence of Aristotle. The great rivalry continues.


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Chapters
0:00​ Introduction
1:55 Why should you care?
2:47 Theology, a definition
4:14 Monotheism and Zoroastrianism
7:30 The Historical Jesus
8:37 Movie Moment - The Life of Brian
10:05 Jesus and Politics
11:38 Philosopher King - St. Augustine of Hippo
13:00 Mani and Manichaeism
15:00 Adorable Animal Intermission - Hippo-Plotinus
15:40 Augustine and Neoplatonism
17:06 St Augustine, a summary
18:19 Rapid Fire
19:35 Conclusion
21:04 Book Recommendation
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