Athens and Jerusalem Revisited by Julian Geran Pilon
[Leo] Strauss understood that Athens was closer to Jerusalem than many presupposed. In his 1967 essay, he concluded “[t]hat both Socrates and the prophets are concerned with justice or righteousness, with the perfectly just society which, as such, would be free of all evils.” To be sure, the two approaches define the perfectly just man differently, for
according to Socrates, [it is] the philosopher; according to the prophets, he is the faithful servant of the Lord. The philosopher is the man who dedicates his life to the quest for knowledge of the good, of the idea of the good; what we would call moral virtue is only the condition or by-product of that quest. According to the prophets, however, there is no need for the quest for knowledge of the good: God “hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” (Micah 6.8).
For America to succeed, we must acknowledge that the belief in a Creator is foundational and to be encouraged so that all other forms of knowledge are grounded in truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment