What is the Greek philosophy influence of Christianity view of God according to the bible?

Answers (2)

Through the early centuries of the Common Era, Greek culture continued to influence the Roman Empire, and Greece preserved its intellectual achievements, Athens possessing one of the chief universities in the Roman Empire. Constantine endeavored to fuse Christianity with certain pagan practices and teachings, and his own course set the stage for such fusion religion to become the official religion of the empire. This made Greece a part of Christendom
Christ’s pure teachings are a matter of record—they are preserved in the Holy Scriptures. For example, Jesus clearly taught that Jehovah is “the only true God” and that the human soul is mortal. (John 17:3; Matt. 10:28) Yet, with the death of the apostles and the weakening of the organizational structure, such clear teachings were corrupted as pagan doctrines infiltrated Christianity.
A key factor was the subtle influence of Greek philosophy. Explains The New Encyclopædia Britannica: “From the middle of the 2nd century AD Christians who had some training in Greek philosophy began to feel the need to express their faith in its terms, both for their own intellectual satisfaction and in order to convert educated pagans.” Once philosophically minded persons became Christians, it did not take long for Greek philosophy and “Christianity” to become inseparably linked.
As a result of this union, pagan doctrines such as the Trinity and the immortality of the soul seeped into tainted Christianity. These teachings, however, go back much farther than the Greek philosophers. The Greeks actually acquired them from older cultures, for there is evidence of such teachings in ancient Egyptian and Babylonian religions.
As pagan doctrines continued to infiltrate Christianity, other Scriptural teachings were also distorted or abandoned
For more information on this subject and others, please go to the source below jw.org "Online Library." Also for free downloads, publications or read online. You can read online the Book "What Does The Bible Really Teach."

Votes: +0 / -0

I may be wrong, and my apologies if it is, but the above answer seems to be claiming that there is the Bible on the one hand and then there is a subsequent practice of Christianity or understanding of Christian doctrine that was "tainted" by pagan, especially, Greek thought. It seems your question, though, is asking about Greek influence on the Christian view of God in (?) (I think you mean, rather than "according to" since nowhere does the Bible say, "so the Greek influence here is..."). Even most believing Christian Biblical scholars would concede, first, that John is heavily influenced by a mixture of Greek thought (especially Platonic doctrine of an ideal, i.e. supra-material, realm of forms) and gnostic thought (which itself borrows from Greek philosophy and mysticism, Phythagoras, e.g.). There is no documentation attesting to a direct influence. And, like almost any claim about Biblical authorship, it is not accepted by all academic scholars (i.e. scholars who study the Bible using secular, historical-critical methodology), but there are convincing cases to be made, based on the teachings in the gospel, for John having been well-read in Greek thought. It is also thought by some (again, no direct evidence) that Luke may have actually been a gentile, a Greek, and some have argued for an influence of Greek literary style seen in his writing, not seen in the other synoptics (though they were all composed in koine Greek, so at the very least by partially hellenized Jews). A more solid case can be made that Paul was a thoroughly hellenized Jew and a Roman citizen. In a very general sense, a view of God as the unmoveable mover, eternal, constant, without contradiction, a spirit outside of creation can be found in Paul and John, a view which it could be argued is influenced by Aristotle's view of the necessary origin of all things as an "unmoved mover" itself not subject to the laws of cause and effect and eternal, unchanging, etc., a view that doesn't seem to come up very much in the Old Testament. But granted, this theological conception of God was mostly crafted later by theologians like Augustine but especially Aquinas. The consensus among secular scholars is that the New Testament was not written in some kind of vacuum sealed off from Greek influence (how could the authors write--not just speak, but write--koine Greek without being at least somewhat immersed in Greek thought?), but as to in what specific respects and which particular doctrines derive from Greek philosophy, this is partly a matter of historical scholarship but primarily a matter of textual interpretation (exegesis) and comparative philology (comparing Biblical texts with Greek philosophical texts), and different scholars have different opinions.

Votes: +0 / -0