Arabic Thought and Its Place in HistoryO'Leary, De Lacy
ReligionIslamic
Arabic Thought and Its Place in History
O'Leary, De Lacy
Philosophy, Arab
If we regard the main test of educational efficiency
as being in its research product and not simply the promulgation of
material already attained, then Nestorianism was not an educational
success: and it seems that this should be the supreme test, for
knowledge is progressive, and so the smallest contribution towards
further progress must be of more real value than the most efficient
teaching of results already achieved. Yet it would be difficult to
over-estimate the importance of Nestorianism in preparing an oriental
version of Hellenistic culture in the pre-Muslim world. Its main
importance lies in its being preparatory to Islam which brought forward
Arabic as a cosmopolitan medium for the interchange of thought and so
enabled the Syriac material to be used in a wider and more fruitful
field.
Although Nestorius had been condemned, the Church was left with a
problem. The objection was true that, if the Logos and the rational
soul in Christ were fused together so that the rational soul or spirit
lost itself in its source, the Logos dwelt in an animal body and the
full humanity of Christ disappeared. The Nestorian view of a temporary
“connection” was now condemned as heretical, but was it necessary to
go to the other extreme of “fusion” which was the logical result of
the Alexandrian teaching? The Church wished to be philosophically
correct and yet to avoid the conclusions which might be drawn from
either view in its extreme form. In fact philosophy ruthlessly pressed
home was the danger of which the Church was most afraid, feeling in
some dim realm of sub-consciousness that the deposit of faith did
not quite fall into line with science, or at least with the science
then in fashion; and the Church’s real enemies were the enthusiasts
who were confident that doctrine and philosophy were both absolutely
true. Nor have we, even in these days, altogether learned the lesson
that both are still partial and progressive. Islam had to go through
exactly the same experience in her day and came out of it with very
similar results, that is to say both the Christian and Muslim churches
finally chose the _via media_ adopting the philosophical statement of
doctrine but condemning as heretical the logical conclusions which
might be deduced. The Alexandrian school, elated perhaps at its victory
over Nestorius, became rather intemperate in the statement of its
views and pressed them home to an extreme conclusion. At once the
warning prediction of the Nestorians was justified: the teaching of a
“fusion” between the Logos and the rational soul in Christ entirely
undermined his humanity. Another controversy ensued and in this, as in
the former one, neither side suggested any doubt as to the psychology
or metaphysics borrowed from the Aristotelian and neo-Platonic
philosophies, that was throughout assumed as certain, the problem was
to make Christian doctrine fit in with it. Now those who opposed the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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