Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J. F.

Buch: The Way to Nicea

Titel: The Way to Nicea

Stichwort: Unterschied: griechische - hebräische Kultur

Kurzinhalt: ... that the Greeks achieved the differentiation of consciousness that created the world of theory ... The Hebrews, however, took quite a different route. They did not undermine myth by theory but, schooled by divine revelation,

Textausschnitt: 108b Going back, first, beyond all the differences between the Hebrews and the Greeks, and back beyond every difference between any one culture and any other, to what is at the root of all cultures, we recall B. Malinowski's1 contention, that primitives display no less intelligence and reasonableness than anybody else, as long as they are involved in the practical tasks of daily living; that it is only when they move outside the familiar sphere of immediate experience that myth and magic invade, envelop and dominate everything. (Fs)

109a But if we leave the primitive aside, and move on to the ancient high civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Crete, of the valleys of the Indus and the Hoang Ho, or, on the American continent, of the Incas, the Mayas and the Toltecs, we find that while the external circumstances are vastly different from those of the primitives, the basic pattern is more or less the same. The area over which man exercises his practical intelligence has increased enormously: all the arts of construction, of writing, of calculating, and of organisation, are being impressively cultivated; yet political and religious life is still dominated by myth and magic. According to K. Jaspers there came a turning-point, a kind of axial period, between the years 800 and 200 B.C., when, with the destruction of the great, stable empires, men were more or less forced to develop their individual use of reason, and, accepting their responsibility as persons, undermined the power of myth.2 (Fs)

109b There were, however, notable differences in the manner in which this development took place. It was through literature, philosophy and science that the Greeks achieved the differentiation of consciousness that created the world of theory, which then directed and controlled the everyday world of practical common sense. One might say, then, that the Greeks drew out and developed from natural human capacities the instrument that of its very nature is opposed to myth and magic. The Hebrews, however, took quite a different route. They did not undermine myth by theory but, schooled by divine revelation, they broke its power, while remaining within the common sense world of practical living and retaining its categories. For they conceived God as a person, whom they identified with and recognised in certain concrete events: it was God who, in the Patriarchs and in Moses, and through the prophets, performed such and such deeds, said such and such, gave such and such commands, made such and such promises and issued such and such threats to the people. In conceiving God in this way, the Hebrews did not manage to avoid all anthropomorphism, nor did they succeed in explaining that what was symbolic was only symbolic; yet they had a truer knowledge of God than did the Greeks, they were more fully liberated from myth, and they had available more efficacious means for living a good life.3 (FS)