Jesus Christ as a Philosopher?

[Politesse]

The teaching is not that you should consider everyone your friend, but to love other people whether they are your friend or not. All manner of people were brought into this world. They will exist, and you will exist, alongside one another whether or not you form any affectionate or even tolerant feelings for them in your heart. From Jesus' perspective, you can only claim to be kind if you are kind to those you do not feel deserve it; patting yourself on the back for being only transactionally kind is silly, as nearly everyone is kind to those they are personally fond of. History's pages are littered with monstrous dictators who were nothing but kind and generous to their friends and family. But in Christian thinking, at least, virtue is only virtue if it is retained in extremis.

And do we know what Confucius said about affection or tolerance for nonfriends? Quoting Confucius giving a tidbit of advice that's very specifically about friendship, and Jesus talking about affection for nonfriends, would be an example of quote mining if it was intended (as it very much appears to be) to show one of these persons was only "transactionally kind" and the other wasn't.

I didn't criticize Confucius, or even bring him up... and neither of us quoted him, though you attempted a vague paraphrase.

His concept of benevolence among human beings was actually very similar to Jesus' perspective on the kingdom of God, in many respects at least; they were in agreement that a human has a certain social duty, but that if one wished to be seen as virtuous, one must exceed the expectations of that duty, not simply meet them. As I recall, Confucius had a very skeptical attitude toward friendship, at least if it resulted in showing partiality toward some and not others, which a junzi (gentleman) should never do.

 

[ruby sparks]

"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn."

(attributed to rabbi Hillel the Elder, possible contemporary of Jesus).

The last part is sometimes expressed as “the rest is commentary”.

I’m not sure religious philosophy, possibly even just human moral philosophy as a whole, gets much better or more profound than that.

 

[ideologyhunter]

In the GOP primary debates of 2000, I remember the candidates were asked to name a philosopher who'd influenced them, and Dubya of course went for the Jesus vote, saying something like, "It was Christ, he changed my heart." When Alan Keyes had a chance to respond, he dumped on Bush for referring to Jesus as a philosopher. Apparently, to Keyes, it was disrespectful to call Jesus a philosopher and not a supernatural being or demigod or whatever.
My dictionary starts its entry on philosopher with 'a person who offers views or theories on profound questions in ethics, metaphysics, logic, and other related fields.' I think Jesus fits. There are ironies in the designation:
1- As noted in other posts, it is truly impossible for the scholar to credential all of the Jesus statements in the NT as true quotations. Especially when comparing the Synoptics to John, you have on the one hand a terse, sometimes elusive speaker who loves to teach in parables, and, in John, a philosopher-poet who speaks in extended metaphors and doesn't once use the parable as a teaching technique.
2- His followers today lack unanimity on what Jesus' philosophy teaches. Believers will tell you that you can pray to Mary as an intercessor in heaven, or that praying to Mary is idolatry; that Christians should be pacifists, non-resisters, and noncombatants, or that Jesus requires no such thing; that to follow Christ one must renounce wealth and possessions, or that Christ taught no such thing; that Torah law is done with, or that 'every jot and tittle' is in force.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn."

(attributed to rabbi Hillel the Elder, possible contemporary of Jesus).

The last part is sometimes expressed as “the rest is commentary”.

I’m not sure religious philosophy, possibly even just human moral philosophy as a whole, gets much better or more profound than that.

Nor do I think simply repeating it—as Jesus did—would make him any kind of philosopher. Normally, what distinguishes a philosopher is if they come up with something new to ponder about the human condition. Unless one wishes to count telling slaves to rejoice in their suffering as something new, all Jesus ever (allegedly) preached was the golden rule, which predates him and is, as you noted, the single moral foundation to Judaism.

The best, I think, that anyone could say of Jesus in this context is that he was just another Rabbi.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Actually, I think the embellishment of the hell concept is a new wrinkle from Mr. Jesus. Who, previous to Jesus, bore down so heavily on the eternal torment that the love god was going to bring down on most humans? Jesus had a real fix on that wailing and gnashing of teeth business.

 

[Politesse]

Well, that was much in the spirit of the times. The early Roman imperial years were not easy on the more distant provinces, and portrayals of the afterlife grew savage indeed, to meet them in like kind.

I don't know if I would consider cosmology and philosophy to be necessarily the same thing? We posit philosophies, but assume cosmologies, except in certain unusual cases of intercultural contact. I mean, do you consider your cosmology to be a philosophical conclusion?

 

[ideologyhunter]

I have a cosmology?? Sorry, I can't tell eyeliner from mascara.

 

[Politesse]

Well, exactly. We think consciously about philosophy. Most people don't give a second thought to whether the universe is what "everyone knows" it is.

 

[skepticalbip]

Well, that was much in the spirit of the times. The early Roman imperial years were not easy on the more distant provinces, and portrayals of the afterlife grew savage indeed, to meet them in like kind.

I don't know if I would consider cosmology and philosophy to be necessarily the same thing? We posit philosophies, but assume cosmologies, except in certain unusual cases of intercultural contact. I mean, do you consider your cosmology to be a philosophical conclusion?

This seems to confuse general and specific. Example: all bananas are fruit but not all fruit are bananas.

 

[Politesse]

Well, that was much in the spirit of the times. The early Roman imperial years were not easy on the more distant provinces, and portrayals of the afterlife grew savage indeed, to meet them in like kind.

I don't know if I would consider cosmology and philosophy to be necessarily the same thing? We posit philosophies, but assume cosmologies, except in certain unusual cases of intercultural contact. I mean, do you consider your cosmology to be a philosophical conclusion?

There seems to confuse general and specific. Example: all bananas are fruit but not all fruit are bananas.

In that case, if simply having a cosmology is a philosophical position, then the correct answer to the OP is that all religious leaders in all times are philosophers, since all have posited some manner of cosmology.

 

[skepticalbip]

Well, that was much in the spirit of the times. The early Roman imperial years were not easy on the more distant provinces, and portrayals of the afterlife grew savage indeed, to meet them in like kind.

I don't know if I would consider cosmology and philosophy to be necessarily the same thing? We posit philosophies, but assume cosmologies, except in certain unusual cases of intercultural contact. I mean, do you consider your cosmology to be a philosophical conclusion?

There seems to confuse general and specific. Example: all bananas are fruit but not all fruit are bananas.

In that case, if simply having a cosmology is a philosophical position, then the correct answer to the OP is that all religious leaders in all times are philosophers, since all have posited some manner of cosmology.

I don't see a problem with that characterization. The question would be how correct their philosophy is... there are a hell of a lot of piss-poor and confused philosophers and philosophies. This is probably why there is so much heated disagreements between philosophers.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Yes, to be serious for a minute (an effort, for me), my 4-volume The World's Great Thinkers (a fine set from Random House in 1947) has Man and Spirit: The Speculative Philosophers as the final volume. It includes selections from St. Augustine, the Upanishads, Spinoza, Pascal, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and William James -- such a spread as to be incoherent to anyone seeking orthodoxy. So I've not encountered the trope that excludes cosmology or any religious theorizing from the realm of philosophy. Not sure when/where it originated.

 

[Politesse]

Philosophers generally are an affront to orthodoxists and doctrinaires. Philosophy absolutely requires relative independence of thought, and while the philosopher may use the ideas of their culture and times as a springboard, they generally end up taking things in unexpected (and to some, offensive) new directions. As Jesus himself is said to have once quipped, "What Prophet was ever accepted in his hometown?"

 

[Politesse]

By the by, it's not so much that I think cosmology should be excluded from philosophy. Nothing should be excluded from philosophy, rational consideration is a boon to all quarters. But I do think that cosmology is not necessarily philosophy. As it is apt to not be considered, even by otherwise intelligent people, as something that might be fundamentally in error. When I read Plato, I expect a fundamentally Hellenistic cosmology in the background. When I read the Gita, I expect a Hindu one. Both works comment on cosmology, and to the extent that they contribute to a new understanding therof, that is a philosophical enterprise. But Plato did not invent the Hen or the Olympians, nor the Gita Karma and the Devas. These were the common assumptions of their day, not aspects of their author's respective invention.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Yes, to be serious for a minute (an effort, for me), my 4-volume The World's Great Thinkers (a fine set from Random House in 1947) has Man and Spirit: The Speculative Philosophers as the final volume. It includes selections from St. Augustine, the Upanishads, Spinoza, Pascal, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and William James -- such a spread as to be incoherent to anyone seeking orthodoxy. So I've not encountered the trope that excludes cosmology or any religious theorizing from the realm of philosophy. Not sure when/where it originated.

1. God is one, supreme among gods and men, and not like mortals in body
or in mind.
2. The whole [of god] sees, the whole perceives, the whole hears.
3. But without effort he sets in motion all things by mind and thought.
4. It [i.e. being] always abides in the same place, not moved at all,
nor is it fitting that it should move from one place to another.
- Xenophanes

One might argue that theology as we know it entered into Greek theology with Xenophanes' speculations. Thales, usually given the honor of being the first philosopher was, like many early Greek philosophers, a naturalist.

 

[lpetrich]

1. God is one, supreme among gods and men, and not like mortals in body
or in mind.
2. The whole [of god] sees, the whole perceives, the whole hears.
3. But without effort he sets in motion all things by mind and thought.
4. It [i.e. being] always abides in the same place, not moved at all,
nor is it fitting that it should move from one place to another.
- Xenophanes

That's the sort of thing that sophisticated theologians claim that "God" is like -- even though we can't possibly be made in the likeness of such an entity.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Not just an entity -- a male entity. He'd get tetchy if TSA checkers got close to his junk.