God in Greek and Hebrew Thought

Today, we are going to look at the different views of God held by different people in history and how that impacts Christianity today. We will focus on how ancient Hebrew and greek culture viewed God and the implications of those views. Listen on Spotify. Listen on Apple Podcasts.

I am going to vaguely define the ancient Hebrews as the Hebrew culture from around the time of Moses in 1400 BC until the Greeks conquered Palestine in 300 BC. During this time, Hebrew culture was affected by the cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. This was the time during which most of the OT was written.

How did the ancient Hebrews view God?

Before we answer this question, we need to look at how the Israelites viewed the nature of things.

Like most of the world at that time, the Israelites thought about things in terms of what they did, not what they were. This idea is called a functional ontology. These beliefs affected how the Israelites would have viewed God. According to John Walton in his book Old Testament Theology for Christians: “Due to the metaphysical inclinations of the Israelites, they would not have necessarily cared about who God is, as about what God does - because his deeds were at the core of their ontology.” So, the Israelites were concerned with how God acts and not what he fundamentally is. We see this idea in the OT. There are many passages that talk about God as a warrior, fighting for his people. Or as a creator, sustaining his creation. Or as a judge…. There are far fewer passages that seek to describe God in more general terms like all-knowing, or all-powerful.

The impact of this is that when Israelites and authors of the OT thought of God, they did not think as we do of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good god. They thought of the functions God performed. They were not as concerned with understanding god’s fundamental nature since they knew what he does. Interestingly enough, many of the descriptors we focus on for God are not what distinguished god from the other gods in the ancient near east.

John Walton also points out that while God was view by the Israelites as all-knowing, all-powerful, etc. This did not distinguish him from the other gods in the ancient near east. “However we can also find statements in the hymnology of the ancient near East that could support similar beliefs about particular gods that they worshipped. At the same time, we need to recognize that such beliefs could be held about several Gods at the same time.” In addition to the traits like all-powerful and all-knowing, most major near eastern gods were viewed as the creator of the world, and as warriors who fought for their people. Many of the attributes Christians stress in the definition of God, are not what set him apart from all the other gods in the near east. So what set him apart?

The two of the most important distinguishing features of God are his holiness and his dedication to a plan.

As John Walton points out, no other gods in the ancient near east were thought of as holy. In fact, only Akkadian, the language of the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, even had a word similar to holy. The idea of holiness is described: “Yahweh is Holy not because he conforms to some outside standard of Holiness but because he is God. Describing something as holy means that it is situated in the Divine realm. For every one or everything so designated (other than God) this is a conferred status; it is not something that can be pursued and achieved. God is by definition holy.”

God described himself as set apart and holy and conferred this status on his people. This distinguished god from the other gods surrounding him.

The second distinguishing trait is that of an ineffable plan. From John Walton, again. “Among the most persistent claims made about Yahweh is that he makes plans and carries them out here not only referring to ad hoc plans in the frame of the near future (also commonplace in the rhetoric of the ancient near East) but to long-term plans. In this claim, he is both differentiating himself from other gods who cannot do these things and expressing his sovereignty since none can subvert or challenge his plan.” God’s ultimate plan for the universe is the second thing that distinguished him from other gods.

In addition to the distinguishing features of God, the Israelites' religion was also distinguished by how they viewed themselves in relation to God. Most other near eastern cultures believed that humanity had been created to serve the gods. In return for service, humanity would get benefits. This idea is referred to as the great symbiosis. This idea of creation for servitude defined the way the people of the ancient near east viewed themselves and their relationship to the world and the gods.

In the OT, a different idea is presented. “Rather, the replacement for the great symbiosis in the Old Testament approach is the great Enterprise. This Enterprise is defined by Yahweh's plans and purposes in the cosmos in which Israel participates.” The OT presents the idea that humanity, specifically Israel, is in a relationship with God to further his purposes. God sets apart people as holy to participate in his ineffable plan. This is a very different idea then presented by the gods of any other culture at the time.

Another important factor of ancient Israelite belief is what they believed about good and evil. The concept of moral good in an absolute sense emerges first in 400 BC around 1000 years after Moses lived and after the OT was written. Instead of believing in moral good v. evil, as most people do today, the ancient world thought in terms of chaos vs. order. Chaos was bad and order was good. Before the world was created, chaos reigned. The creator god tamed chaos and instituted order. The creator was viewed as the instituter of order and not the creator of matter, emphasizing the important role of order in ancient thought.

In the OT, bad action is defined as acting contrary to God’s order; not operating against traditional morality. The original sin of eating the apple consisted of going against God’s order, not doing normally defined moral evil. OT laws with harsh punishments often violate our sense of morality but they show a strong emphasis on order. This understanding of chaos and order, changed how ancient cultures viewed right and wrong and god.

While Hebrew culture defined the beginning of the religion that became Christianity, ancient greek culture also had an immeasurable impact.

In 333 BC, Alexander the Great conquered Palestine. From this point onward, greek thought has had a great impact on Judaism and Christianity. It is important to note that much of early Christian thought dealt with reconciling Greek philosophy with Christianity. This was one of the main intellectual focuses of scholars like St. Augustine and Aquinas.

One important note: when most people think of ancient Greece and god, they think of a pantheon of colorful Greek gods like Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Poseidon. However, many Greek philosophers believed there was a singular great and perfect being that created the world. Aristotle described it as the first cause or unmoved mover who created the rest of the universe. Plato believed similarly that there was a perfect creator. So, when I refer to greek thought on god, I am referring to the philosophical ideas about god and not myths.

Unlike the ancient Hebrews, Greeks thought of things in terms of what they fundamentally were. They believed that everything that existed was made of substances. Everything had a fundamental nature regardless of action. Therefore, when the greeks thought of God, they thought of what he fundamentally was and not what he did. This is probably how most people today view reality and god.

The basic way greek philosophy viewed God was the ultimate, perfect, creator. As such he was unchanging and immaterial. The physical world was viewed as inherently flawed and imperfect therefore God only existed outside of it. Change suggested that something was imperfect, therefore God was unchanging. Aristotle thought that God could only think of what was most perfect and therefore he eternally thought only of himself. God was typically viewed as separate and disinterested in the physical world. But God gave order and purpose to the world, even if only at creation.

To sum this up: Zeno, one early Greek philosopher said: “God is an animal in Mortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world and of all that is in the world.” This quote sounds very similar to any modern Christian definition of God and very far removed from any ancient Hebrew definition of god.

The influences of Greek thought can be clearly seen in Christianity. For instance, the ontological and cosmological arguments for god’s existence both rely on greek thought. The ontological argument relies on the idea of a greatest conceivable being. The concept of the greatest conceivable being is rooted in Greek philosophy. This idea would not have been considered under ancient Hebrew thought.

The cosmological argument deals with the creation of the universe. This argument was taken from Aristotle's writings in Metaphysics. The creation of matter was not a concern in ancient Hebrew thought. These arguments are another example of how Christian thought sometimes favors Greek philosophy over Hebrew thought.

Despite the positive influence of greek philosophy on Christianity, there are some negative impacts.

Paul addresses one of these issues in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. In this, Paul criticizes the “wisdom of the world” which would have been referring to the greek influenced thought that dominated wisdom at the time. Paul says that the crucifixion of God in Christ was “foolishness to the Gentiles”. The Gentiles of the time would have believed God to be a detached perfection. A philosophically perfect being would come up with a better plan than making himself human, and thus imperfect, and dying. With a greek view of God, the crucifixion does not make any sense.

I think this highlights the larger problem that the greek philosophy view creates for Christianity. When God is viewed as a philosophical ideal, perfect in every conceivable way, it is difficult to make sense of many parts of Christianity. This is where the problem of evil stems from. If God is definitionally perfect in power and goodness, why do earthquakes happen, virus outbreaks, cancer, the holocaust, why is genocide commanded in the OT, and so on. Most people can easily conceive of a world that is at least marginally better than our own. A better world is the world a perfect God would have created. This is the most potent objection to Christianity. It is also an objection that, in my opinion, has never been refuted well.

Under the ancient Hebrew view of God, God was not thought of as definitionally perfect in power and goodness, simply the faithful and holy ruler who does good acts. There is no logical requirement for God to create a perfect universe, simply a good one. It is very defensible to say the world is good, but it defies reality to say the world even borders on perfect.

Another problem with greek thought is that good and evil are viewed as substances not merely adjectives. In greek philosophy, things are definitionally good and evil. And good and evil exist as ultimate concepts. There is a conception of an ultimate and perfect good and an ultimate and complete evil.

There are several problems with this.

First, How could a perfect God allow an ultimate and complete evil to exist? This would be contrary to his perfect will even if the evil was kept under his power. The fact that God could share the universe with something completely evil and contrary to him, is self-defeating.

Second, If good and evil exist as concepts apart from God, they are standard to which God can be compared. We can understand good and compare god to our idea of good to see if he lives up to it. This implies that there is a standard greater than God, which is good. Even if people maintain that they don’t have the knowledge to judge if God’s actions are good, there still is the issue that there is a standard of good apart from God. This means that God is not the ultimate.

Therefore, holding the greek view of God and good and evil, as most Christians do, creates irreconcilable contradictions. God cannot be perfect and ultimate and let good and evil exist as concepts.

Under an ancient Hebrew view of God, God is not a perfectly good ideal. He is a holy being who does good things. This distinction probably sounds a little like pointless world play but it has merit.

The issue is in how much God can be understood. In the Greek view, God is perfect therefore he is all-knowing, all-powerful, all good and so on. When god is thought to be these things we can in a sense understand him. We know what he is. He is a list of these attributes. He becomes easy to critique. If he is all-powerful and all good, why does the world look like it does?

Under a Hebrew view, God is holy and he has a plan to make us holy. God also does good things. Under this view, there is no pretense to understanding anything about God. He is unknowable. We cannot critique his action because we don’t even understand what he is.

While the Hebrew view of God resolves some issues, like the problem of evil, it creates other issues. Why would you believe in something you cannot understand? It is also much harder to logically prove the existence of God when you cannot assign definitional attributes to him.

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure where I stand on this issue. But, I think, it is important to recognize, believers in god throughout history have had very different conceptions of what god is. While obviously, both ideas cannot be simultaneously true, I don’t think the conception of God determines salvation or anything else important. I also think that people need to understand where their view of God comes from and consider the merit of that belief.

Thank you for listening! I hope you have learned something or gained food for thought. Please join me for the next episode of unqualified theology.

In this episode, I heavily referenced the book OT Theology for Christians by John Walton. I recommend this book for a concise overview of OT theology.