Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

don’t ask the fish.” Without God’s infusion of transcendent, or outside, wisdom,
humanity is unable to know a better way of thinking and living. “There is a way that
seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Pro. 16:25). Only this divine
infusion can pull mankind up out of the mire of his narrow existence (cf., Psa. 69:1f; Isa.
57:20-21; 2Pe. 2:22).
Blessed is the man who walks not in the
counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path
of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in
His law he meditates day and night. He shall
be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose
leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he
does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so,
but are like the chaff which the wind drives
away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand
in the judgment, nor sinners in the
congregation of the righteous. For the Lord
knows the way of the righteous, but the way
of the ungodly shall perish (Psa. 1:1-6).
The Greeks did much to influence Occidental (or Western) thinking, though as
Newbigin points out, until Christianity changed the European worldview, theirs was
essentially Asian and especially similar to the Indian (Newbigin, 1996:65). For over a
thousand years “the peoples of Europe were shaped into a distinct society by the fact that
this story (i.e., Christianity) was the framework in which they found meaning for their
lives. It was this story, mediated through the worship of the church -- its art, architecture,
music, drama, and popular festival -- that shaped a culture distinct from the great cultures
of the rest of Asia” (ibid. 68). Newbigin sees the Enlightenment as cultural regression, “a
return to the earlier paradigm” (ibid. 68). The Enlightenment worldview intentionally
dislodged the Bible as the moral driving force of European culture, and Christianity has
been marginalized in Europe since, where Paganism is now experiencing a renaissance.
For over a thousand years, a mix of Greco-Roman philosophies, animism, and
Christianity dominated the Occident. St. Thomas Aquinas, a foundational Christian
theologian, was among those who wrestled deeply with the interplay between the faith
and human reasoning. Though he “accorded primacy to revelation, he recognized an
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University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa