Tertullian said, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the academy and the Church?” Greek philosophy posed a threat to sound theology in the early Church as its ideas filtered into churches, distorting the teaching of the Bible. Tertullian questioned the value of secular philosophy to theology. The question is, why should secular philosophy inform theology? We might ask the same question today, and others like it as well. What has Brussels, Paris, London, New York, Milan, Washington, Hollywood, or even Huntsville to do with the Church? Each of these centers of culture seeps into theology, distorting what we believe. To allow the world to speak with final authority on any topic is to give way to the temptation of the Serpent: “Has God really said?” See Genesis 3:1: “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” In some areas, we have bought the lie so many times that we doubt whether God has spoken to that topic at all. The claim that inserting the wisdom of Athens into Jerusalem asserts that God has left something out. That is a concerning thought. Tertullian’s question is not an academic exercise, but a pastoral plea. There is a real and present danger of diminishing our understanding of God and His love for us. A good Father does not leave His children to wander through life without guidance; He does not neglect to teach them all that is necessary to live a good life.
What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem?
However, the question is turned the wrong way round. What we ought to ask is not what Athens can do for Jerusalem, but what Jerusalem can do for Athens. It is a foundational rule of logic that one cannot arrive at a true conclusion if one begins with false premises. Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 with other supporting Scriptures, then condemn any atheistic understanding as hopelessly untrue:
- Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
- John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
The reality of God is the essential premise that informs every pursuit of knowledge. We do not want godless thinking in our churches; we want Godly thinking outside of them. It has been a great victory of the enemy to remove Godly thought from Athens, Rome, and the other centers of human culture, and to bring in the godless of all those cities to Jerusalem.
Correcting the flow of thought is a work of years and decades. It begins with asserting the relevance of theology to every other field. However, we are uneasy about making such assertions because it has become uncharted territory. We apply the Bible to our personal issues, to family, to friendships, and to clear moral failings in society.
We do not regularly apply the Bible to business, economics, sociology, psychology (this is beginning to change in some pockets of evangelicalism), the hard sciences, and our applications to art, entertainment, and government are not robust enough to satisfy our wants.
We have bound ourselves with devious ties and been pushed away by the grandiose posturing of the New Apostolic Reform deception.
We may also find ourselves afraid of failure. We should engage the world with hopes of making the world this or that, but with intentions of glorifying God. The measure of our success is not in outcomes, but in faithfulness. Fidelity is what Tertullian wished to safeguard. If we lose the distinctive doctrine of the Gospel Faith, we can not engage the world; we have become the world.
It is easy to be removed from the world, to wall off the faith in its own domain, totally isolated from the world’s corruption. But John 17 will not allow this tidy arrangement. Jesus leaves us in the world, but not of it. Strangers in a hostile land on a mission of liberation. We are to press out from our strongpoints and contest every square inch of culture. To that end, let me answer in brief the questions we have raised.
What has the Bible to do with the hard sciences? The creation of all things by an intelligent personal being makes scientific investigation profitable. God makes order, and order means discernible, rational systems. Atheistic science has no such grounds. Genesis 1 provides the critical foundation for all exploitation of physics, chemistry, and biology. Geography is much informed in the later Genesis chapters 6-9.
What has the Bible to do with psychology and sociology? Everything in the Bible is primarily concerned with matters of the human soul (psyche), and sociology is closely related. The Bible ought to be the primary text in both fields. The Psalms could be considered some, if not the, earliest examinations of the inner life.
What has the Bible to do with business and economics? We are led to believe that the application of Biblical teaching is limited to personal finance or perhaps to business ethics. In truth, God created the economy, and the laws which govern it are laid out in Genesis 1:28: “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
The Bible offers much more than regulations for pious living; it is the definitive guide to human flourishing. Scripture’s treatment of any topic is definitive. What God has said is always correct. So, when the Bible speaks to science or society, we should not only listen but also take notes and take action. Following the truth we find in God’s word is the way to human flourishing, and ignoring or discounting anything in Scripture is the sure path to suffering.
God is a good Father, and He has given us practical guidance for all of life. Wherever we find ourselves, God is there, and He is not silent.
So, one follow-up to Tertullian’s questions is, why do we prefer Athens over Jerusalem? Why have we readily accepted godless science, godless business, and more? In some cases, it may be that we were never aware of a godly alternative. World, flesh, and the devil have done a good job of suppressing those alternatives.
It might be that we enjoy the license godlessness affords us. We can bow our knee on Sunday, and play God on Monday when we go to some place where we have yet to find God. We keep God in His compartment, and conveniently out of all the others. It may be that our faith is weak, and we cannot trust that God’s way is workable.
I cannot ease all the tensions. I do not have all the answers on how to implement God’s wisdom in all of life. Jerusalem is a city like Athens, neither is sustained through the work of one man, but by the works of many. Jerusalem’s populace has the help of the One true God. I hope you have seen that God and His city are larger than church services, virtues, and comforting promises for tomorrow.
I hope Tertullian’s questions will be asked, answered, and followed up with many more questions, bringing the insights of the Holy City into all the cities where we live today.
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