Aristotle studied under Plato, and while he advanced the Platonic tradition in many respects, he

also turned a lot of Platos teachings on their heads. For example, Plato taught that the heavenly
world contained forms which gave meaning and identity to the individual things on this earth.
So there is a perfect chair in heaven that defines chairness, and the chairs on earth are imperfect
copies of that chairthey are chairs only insofar as they conform to the heavenly chair. Aristotle,
on the other hand, explained that the essence of a chair did not exist in heaven as some universal
principle, the essence of a chair lives within each earthly chair.
The implications of this are huge (believe it or not). Aristotle was saying that rather than looking
to some heavenly principle to determine the meaning of things on earth, we need to look at the
individual things around us, and from there we can find some sort of meaning or essence that we
might call a universal principle. Is that making sense? In essence: meaning doesnt come down
from the clouds, it comes from observing the things we can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell.
Whereas Plato distrusted the senses, Aristotle believed that truth would be found through the
senses.
Basically, Aristotle became the patron saint of modern science. His method of learning was not
about revelation (waiting for a voice from heaven), he was all about observation (the scientific
method). Beginning with the Renaissance and culminating in the Enlightenment, God was
continually being pushed to the fringe of society. People became increasingly confident in mans
ability to explain his world apart from divine revelation. They grew optimistic about mans ability
to approve his world. They saw a golden age just around the corner, and science and reason would
lead them there.
Notice that it wasnt science that was leading people away from God. Rather, it was the assumption
that science was capable of explaining everything about our world apart from God. Aristotle gave
people confidence that they didnt need to look to God for the answers, they could find them
through observing the objects around them.
And here is where Aristotle began to mess up the church. Christians began to concede that yes,
people can explain the world apart from God by observing the natural world. Yet they insisted that
you couldnt know God without revelation. So religion is important for your spiritual life, but
everything else can be explained sufficiently through science. Its an oversimplification, but
essentially, the church decided that there were two types of things in this world (spiritual things
and natural things) and there were two separate ways of knowing those two types of things
(revelation/faith and science).
Ultimately, this box we have allowed ourselves to be placed in has grown smaller and more
constricting. The secular world grants us our faith, but we are told that it is a private matter. Faith
belongs in our hearts, not our public discourse, our workplaces, or our politics. The amazing thing
is that Christians have largely gone along with this.
Aristotle was a wise and fascinating man, but lets not allow his influence to keep our Christian
worldview sequestered off into the realm of private prayer. The Bible still speaks to every area of
human existence. We can and should explore the individual things in this world, but we should do
so with the conviction that nothing in creation makes sense apart from the Creator.