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How Conservatives Reconcile Bible-Bound and Constitution-Respecting Worldviews

By Alexandra York

November 20, 2023

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So why is he pictured in support of both diametrically opposed philosophers when all the other figures are clearly positioned on one side or the other?

Raphael’s brilliant and famous “School of Athens” tells the whole story. Everyone knows about the main figures of mystical Plato pointing to the heavens and realistic Aristotle gesturing toward the ground, but what about the others depicted in the fresco? We see all secondary opposites flanking the two philosophers: Euclid is balanced by Pythagoras, Diogenes by Epicurus, Ptolemy by Hypatia, and so on. But one man is represented twice: on Plato’s other-worldly side standing next to Pythagoras and on Aristotle’s, gazing with admiration up at the champion of earthly practicality. His name was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola but called simply “Pico.” So why is he pictured in support of both diametrically opposed philosophers when all the other figures are clearly positioned on one side or the other?

This question is tantalizing because for over 2,000 years philosophers and theologians, scholars and novelists, and writers of all persuasions (including this author) have endlessly argued the supremacy of Plato over Aristotle or Aristotle over Plato. Because of this debate the societal influence of each has seesawed in historical influence ever since their original disparity in ancient Greece. All who addressed the ideas of these two greatest giants of Western-civilization philosophy have focused on the fundamental irreconcilability between them, and “The School of Athens” (painted between 1509–1511) has been an enduring artistic touchstone dramatizing this impasse.

The answer is as fascinating as the question.

The answer is as fascinating as the question: Pico’s dual presence is unnoticed by most, but it is an accurate and telling portrayal of his adoration for both philosophers because this eccentric and eclectic Renaissance humanist exalted both of them and went way farther than Aquinas in proposing syncretism between the two. Furthermore, his propositions have formulated the basis for American Christian religious-practical behavior from life in the colonies right on up to today’s religious-political conservativism practiced by those now labeled “the far Right.”

Let us explore:

By his early twenties and going to study at the Medici-sponsored Marsilio Ficino’s Platonist Academy in Florence, Pico already read Greek, Latin, Arabic, Chaldee, and Hebrew. He also was aptly versed in mathematics, science, literature, and philosophy. Thus, as a prominent nobleman’s religiously Catholic son who earlier had been educated in Bologna and Padua, he was well learned in both medieval and ancient scholastics. Shortly after arriving in Florence, he took a break to study at the (Aristotle-leaning) University of Paris but soon returned to Florence for the continuation of his schooling before traveling on to Arezzo and then moving around because of a romantic scandal there followed by threat of the Plague. Born in 1463 and dying (allegedly by poison) at the young age of 31 in 1494, this energetic humanist wrote countless provocative treatises during his brief lifetime, many of which paved the way for thinkers who carried humanism forward as it took root, bloomed, and then blossomed into full Renaissance thought. He was (and still is) best known, however, as the controversial figure who wrote The Dignity of Man, an oration to be delivered as a challenge for dispute to Catholic authorities in Rome when he was only 24.

This work evolved from his monumentally large and ambitious plan to harmonize Plato and Aristotle.

This work—now known as Oration on the Dignity of Man—evolved from his monumentally large and ambitious plan to harmonize not only Plato and Aristotle but also to establish one common spiritual-philosophical ground by merging every mystical school of thought from Paganism and Zoroastrianism to the Jewish Cabala to Christ’s and Mohammed’s teachings into one theoretical Christian unity that would assure all of humankind’s happiness in all places for all time.

The overwhelmingly erudite Oration discourse maintains that when “God the Father, the Mightiest Architect” finished his work creating the universe and everything within it, including all of its living creatures, He “still longed for some creature which might comprehend the meaning of so vast an achievement, which might be moved with love at its beauty and smitten with awe at its grandeur.” Thus, he decided to bring forth Humankind.

In God’s speech to the newly formed Adam, Pico gives these words to The Almighty:

We have given you, Oh Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor any endowment properly your own, [sic] in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgment and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws which We have laid down; you by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature . . . We have made you a creature of neither heaven nor earth . . . in order that you may, as free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine.

Amid much argumentative turmoil, many Medieval Christian (Catholic) scholars had accepted portions of Aristotle’s earthly ethics via his notion of a Prime Mover which compatibly coincided with God as a First Cause Creator. Aquinas had gone farther by putting forth the idea that faith and reason can be synchronized by accepting that Truths are authoritatively conveyed by Revelation from God (Plato), but we come to know completely the truths of faith only through the virtue of wisdom—sapientia—which is gained by reason, intelligence, and verifiable knowledge (Aristotle).

“…thus bringing Aristotle’s worldly principles firmly into the very individual-oriented operational center of the Christian religion.”

Pico, however, innovatively grants humankind the faculty of free will to reason—“through your own decision”—thereby providing the prerequisite mental ability required to activate the reasoning process necessary to form judgements as to which values will be chosen to best serve a self-created path to intelligent and correct character formation and behavior. It will be these personal choices, then, that determine the methodology by which humans can gain Aquinas’s virtuous wisdom thus bringing Aristotle’s worldly principles firmly into the very individual-oriented operational center of the Christian religion. Yet, by fully recognizing the higher superiority of an almighty Creator-God, he also remains true to the mystical belief that an unseen, unknowable (except via faith) God exists not only to fashion reality but also with the power and authority to confer His desired attributes to Man. [Sidebar: In this regard we may posit that Pico was the first Christian Deist, meaning that God as “the Mightiest Architect” created the world and all contained within it (including humankind) but granted Man the power of reason to fashion his own character, behavior, and future. In this sense, we also must recognize Aristotle as the first of all Deists because his Prime Mover did not interfere with humans’ earthly life, and he was also the first to name reason as the primary survival tool for Man.]

Later in the Oration, Pico becomes more detailed regarding his own desire to equally honor both Plato and Aristotle: “In the first place, we have proposed a harmony between Plato and Aristotle, such as many before this time indeed believed to exist but which no one has satisfactorily established.” He then goes on to name the failed thinkers: Boethius, John the Grammarian, Scotus, and Thomas (Aquinas), “and others in which Averroes and Avicenna, have heretofore been thought to disagree, but which I assert are in harmony with one another.”

And in conclusion for those who have become interested in this great individualist, himself, Pico outlines his own new method of philosophizing on the basis of numbers (relying on the old, but, in his view, somewhat faulty methods of Pythagoras); his theses concerning the value of magic (a popular practice in many guises both secular [elixirs] and religious [miracles] at the time); the need for mystical doctrines to be kept secret “from the profane multitude by means of riddles”; his conception of the manner in which the poems of Orpheus and Zoroaster ought to be interpreted; and why his critics are wrong to fault him for anything (because of his young age).

He ends by repeating his challenge to Church authority:

And now, Reverend Fathers, in order that this claim may be vindicated by the facts, and in order that my address may no longer delay the satisfaction of your desire—for I see, Reverend Doctors, with the greatest pleasure that you are girded and ready for the contest—let us now, with the prayer that the outcome may be fortunate and favorable, as to the sound of war-trumpets, join battle.

Pico’s actual disputation with the Church Fathers did not take place because it was suspended by Pope Innocentius VIII, but we know that lack of the physical debate didn’t hinder Pico’s everlasting influence on the future tenets of Christianity via his writings, many of which were widely circulated among influential Church intellectuals contemporarily and then published well after his lifetime, especially the innovative and persuasive Oration. We also now know why this religious but worldly man is depicted twice in Raphael’s “School of Athens” and how Aristotle’s down-to-earth realism regarding rational human behavior finally entered solidly into the philosophy of Christian religion. [Sidebar: A nod to a monk named Martin Luther must be given, here, because he formally broke with the authoritarian (and by then massively corrupt) Catholic Church and fostered a spin-off “Protest” form of Christianity that claimed individuals by faith alone may deal directly with God for moral guidance and absolution of sins without going through mediators such as priests and popes. This is relevant because Pico’s “free will” was by Luther’s time well established, so that identification alone allowed Luther to posit his extension of it to include individual agency with the ability to connect with God personally. It also is relevant because it was these “protest”ant Christians who emigrated from Europe to America.]

From the day Christianity reached North American shores via the protestant pilgrims, Christians of all denominations have faithfully believed in God and at the same time employed reason and industry—to live a life of what Aristotle called “practical wisdom,” acting in accordance with their human nature to decide what is best for themselves.

From the day Christianity reached North American shores via the protestant pilgrims, Christians of all denominations have faithfully believed in God and at the same time employed reason and industry—”whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgment and decision”—to live a life of what Aristotle called “practical wisdom,” acting in accordance with their human nature to decide what is best for themselves. In order to act in such a way as to benefit their own “Self,” they, then, must be free to do so, which brings us to the reason why so many American Christians (although guided morally and ethically by religious faith) tend to be politically conservative. Fundamentally, “conservative” in the political realm means adherence to the intentions of the Framers of the Constitution of the United States as specified in that document and even more specifically for their own personal freedoms the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights that accompany it. [Sidebar: It should be noted that many of the Founding Fathers were Deists themselves as far as religion was concerned, so the debt for that notion to find such lasting presence in the Christian religion and from there to the creation of the secular American Constitution is remarkable indeed and goes all the way back to Aristotle and Pico.]

The rights enumerated in the constitution—to practice their chosen religion, the right to speak their mind, the right to bear arms to protect themselves physically, the right to assemble, and guarantees against government interference in their personal lives without just cause—all of these rights protect individuals from other individuals and from the government itself. The Constitution guards the freedom and individual rights of We the People, and these personal freedoms and rights are the vital concerns for American political conservatives of all religious, nonreligious, and philosophical persuasions. They are, however, especially relevant to Christian conservatives because for centuries they have been assimilated into the very moral and ethical precepts of their religious life as well as—via The Constitution—their civic life.

Except for a few areas where their religious convictions spill over into politics (abortion, homosexuality, marriage, etc.) and seek to interfere in the private lives of others…

The personal agency for practical matters within the larger moral dictates of an otherwise religiously prescribed behavioral authority also explains why so many Christian entrepreneurial small business owners, independent contract workers, and hands-on tradespeople tend to be politically conservative—they want to control their own lives and their own livelihood—and why almost all conservatives of every stripe resist governmental regulations and laws that conflict with their individual judgement. Except for a few areas where their religious convictions spill over into politics (abortion, homosexuality, marriage, etc.) and seek to interfere in the private lives of others by restricting certain of their full constitutional rights, on a fundamentally philosophical level God (Plato) and his (perfect) unworldly religious edicts remain revealed from heaven via the Bible to guide their moral-ethical life while reasoned practicality (Aristotle) guides them in their existential work-a-day life. Hence, the fact that the Christian religion formally accepts the tenets of both philosophers under its generously wide umbrella is what provides a consistency of sorts that allows faith and reason to live together in harmony.

Ergo: The Christian Bible (Plato) and the United States Constitution (Aristotle) do stand together but with different functions for religious conservatives in America. Regarding this largely workable arrangement, Christians are indebted to a young man named Pico who so eloquently and determinedly solidified that balance for them as an integral part of their entire world view.

 

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