Three Schools

From Gospel Translations

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal described man as a creature of profound paradox. Humans are creatures of the highest grandeur and the lowest misery, often at the same time (but not in the same relationship, of course). Part of our grandeur is located in our ability to contemplate ourselves. Whether animals are “self-conscious” in the sense that they can reflect upon their origins and destinies or cogitate about their place in the grand scheme of things is a debated point, but that man has a complex and superior ability to do these things allows for little debate.

This gift of contemplation is not without its downside: pain. Our misery is often enhanced by our ability to contemplate a better life than we presently enjoy, often coupled with the awareness that we are incapable of gaining or achieving the ideal life. This is the stuff of which dreams and nightmares are made.

We may enjoy good health, but not perfect health. We can imagine life free of aches and pains, tooth decay, and crippling diseases, but no one has yet found a way to insure such physical freedom. We all face the certainty of agony and of death.

The poor man can dream of riches untold, but be frustrated when the lottery passes him by. Even the rich man can contemplate an even greater abundance of wealth, and while abundance has a finite limit, desire does not.

Sick or healthy, poor or rich, successful or unsuccessful, we can be plagued by the vexing problem that life could provide a better state than we presently enjoy.

The biblical escape hatch from perpetual frustration for dreams unrealized, aspirations not met, and hopes dashed to pieces is the spiritual virtue of contentment.

We find a model for this virtue in the Apostle Paul’s declaration in Philippians 4:11, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.”

When Paul uses the word “content,” he uses the Greek word autarkes, which means “self-sufficing, ” i.e., “co-independent of circumstances,” (see also 2 Cor. 9:8). The word Paul uses is from the same root as the Greek word ataraxia, which has been borrowed as the brand name for a modern tranquilizer.

Socrates spoke of the concept when he was asked the question, “Who is the wealthiest?” He replied, “He that is content with least, for ataraxia is nature’s wealth.”

The New Testament mentions two schools of philosophical thought that were in vogue during apostolic times. These were the schools of Stoicism and Epicureanism, whose representatives Paul encountered at Mars Hill in Athens. Though their two schools differed sharply with respect to cosmology and metaphysics, they shared a common practical goal for living: the quest for ataraxia. The Stoics understood this in terms of what they called “imperturbability.” The Stoics constructed a type of material determinism by which humans have no power over their circumstances. Life “happens” via fixed external causes. Our circumstances are a result of what happens to us. The only arena over which the self has any significant control is the inner arena of personal attitude. What we can control is how we feel about what happens to us. The goal of Stoic training was to gain the inward state of imperturbability so that, whatever transpired outwardly, the person maintained an inner peace that left him unbothered. This is the classical Stoic attitude of the so-called “stiff upper lip.”

The Epicureans were more proactive in their search for ataraxia. They sought to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. They were refined hedonists who sought a proper balance between pleasure and pain. Yet, they never solved the “Hedonistic Paradox,” which decreed that if you fail to gain the pleasure you seek you are frustrated, but if you gain the pleasure you seek you are bored. So, in terms that anticipate Pascal’s paradox, one was left in a state of either frustration or boredom, neither of which captured the contentment of ataraxia.

Paul’s view of contentment differed radically from that of the Stoic or the Epicurean. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, eschewed the credo of “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” This hedonistic view which was discussed in Ecclesiastes is a view of ultimate pessimism that held no place in Paul’s theology, especially in light of the resurrection.

In like manner, Paul categorically rejected the passive resignation stance of Stoicism. Paul did not believe that our circumstances are ordered by blind, impersonal forces. He had no room for fatalism or mechanistic determination. He was an activist who pressed toward his goals, and who called us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. He did not advocate a quietism which declared, “Let go and let God.”

The contentment of which Paul spoke is not a being “at ease in Zion,” by which a godless complacency leaves the soul moribund and the spirit inert. He was never “content” to rest on his laurels or to relax his zeal for ministry.

At countless points Paul expressed his discontent and dissatisfaction concerning the errors, vices and failings of the church, and concerning his own shortcomings. There were many tasks to be finished and problems to be solved in his own life and ministry that required zealous effort on his part.

His contentment was directed to his personal circumstances or the state of his human condition. He expanded his statement of contentment by writing, “I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need” (Phil. 4:12).

Here we notice that Paul speaks of learning and knowing. The contentment he enjoyed was a learned condition. He learned the secret or the mystery of contentment. That secret is partially revealed to us in his following declaration, “I can do all things in Him that strengthens me.”

Paul’s contentment rested in his mystical union with Christ and in his theology. For the apostle, theology was not an abstract discipline removed from the pressing issues of daily life. In one sense it was life itself, or the key to understanding life itself. Paul’s contentment or satisfaction with his state or condition of life rested upon his knowledge of the character of God and his knowledge of how God works. His was not an ataraxia based upon passive resignation to the impersonal forces of nature. His was a contentment based on the knowledge that his steps and human condition were ordered by the Lord. Perhaps it was Paul’s understanding of the providence of God, more than anything else, that was his secret to biblical contentment. He understood that every good and perfect gift comes from God, and that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Paul understood that if he was abased he was fulfilling the purpose of God, and if he abounded he was also fulfilling the purpose of God. For Paul it was a matter of submission to the divine vocation that was the key to his relentless joy.

In our partly sanctified lives, there lurks the godless temptation to assume that God owes us a better condition than we presently enjoy. Such is the misery of sin, which misery is defeated by the triumph of God’s saving and providential grace. It is in this grace that Christian contentment may be found.