Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

POWER OF THE GREEK PHILOSOPHY3 59appointed, giving assurance of this to all by nHim up from the dead."The fitness of this doctrine for the circumstwhich it was given will appear if we reflect that itw s uttered in the high place of philosophy, at theuest of its two most powerful sects, and that itcontains a summary of the relation between God andman which will vainly be sought in Plato or Aristotle,or in the whole line of Greek philosophers from Thalesto Plotinus. For with the utmost simplicity andprecision St. Paul declares there to be One God, whois a living God, inasmuch as He is the Creator of allthings, and by the fact of creating the Absolute Lordof all beings. He gives life and breath to all, andwants nothing of them. He has made every nationof men of one blood, and predetermined the times andboundaries of their habitation over the whole eartleaving them to search and feel after Him, yet remainingso close to every one of His creatures, that theylive, move, and have their being in Him, and are Hisoffspring. The fact that they are His offspring oughtto prevent their conceiving the Deity to be like anywork of man's hand or thought graven in gold orsilver or stone, for how much nobler is the mind ofman himself than any such works, and this mind isonly a faint reflex of the Creator. However, Godpassing over, as it were, the times of this ignorance,now calls on all men in the whole world to repent,because He will judge not this or that people but thewhole earth in j'ustice, by the Man whom He hasappointed, giving proof of this appointment to all byraising Him from the dead.If we compare this proclamation of St. Paul withthe evolution of Greek thought from Seneca to Plotinus