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Jesus Was Not an Aristotelian

Jesus Was Not an Aristotelian

Last updated on: October 17, 2026 at 5:05 am by Frank Viola

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Jesus Was Not an Aristotelian 2026-10-07T14:08:39-04:00 Frank Viola

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Aristotle. He’s been called the father of logic, the father of the scientific method, the father of rhetoric, the father of psychology, the father of biology, the father of Western civilization …

Geesh, why not just call him “the father of all things that move.”

Seriously though, the entire educational system in the West is based on Mr. Aristotle’s logic.

Even our seminaries and Bible schools are built on Aristotelian thought.

Aristotelian philosophy gave birth to systematic theology – something that would be foreign to any first-century Christian. (I detail this in the little red book in the chapter on Christian education.)

There’s a slight chance that the rest of this article will blow your mind. But at the end, I’ll be there to pick up the pieces. Of your mind, I mean.

Jesus was not an Aristotelian.

Let me ‘splain.

You do not have to read too far into the Bible to discover that it’s peppered with conflicting ideas and salted with apparent discrepancies.

Open it up and in the very first two pages you’re sitting in the presence of a glaring discrepancy.

In Genesis 1, God created the animals before He created humans. In Genesis 2, it appears that the animals were created after the creation of humans.

The Bible affirms that Jesus is completely divine, yet it also tells us that He is fully human. He was a walking paradox.

In addition, His teachings are full of apparent contradictions.

One example: He said “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.” Yet He also said “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Scripture is clear that God is sovereign and elects humans to salvation. Yet with equal force, it teaches that “whosoever will” shall be saved.

Jesus laid down His life for His friends and died for His sheep, giving His life a ransom for many. Yet Jesus died for all.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to die daily. But we are already dead.

We are perfect in Christ, yet we are in desperate need of transformation.

We are warned to “answer not a fool according to his folly,” yet in the same breath, we’re exhorted to “answer a fool according to his folly.”

(Incidentally, if you want the Scriptural references for the above, you’ll have to find them yourself. I’m not typing them out lest my wrists fall off. Yes, there are that many.)

Our Western minds exclaim in frustration, “Come on man, which is it?”

In light of the raft of apparent contradictions that fill the pages of God’s word, not a few critics have leveled the unjust charge that the Bible is foolish and irrational.

But much of the reason behind this accusation involves the oft-misunderstood nature of divine truth.

As 21st-century Westerners, we are trained in a Greco-Western orientation to truth. This orientation is linear.

Linear thinking is built on the presupposition that all truth emerges from a prior truth. In linear thought, one rational consequence causes another rational consequence.

Truth, according to this approach, is like a chain of facts that logically lead to each other.

The linear approach is fantastic for math and science. And the West has led in technology as a result. But this approach is deficient for apprehending spiritual truth.

Why? Because spiritual truth doesn’t function in a linear way.

While the Western mindset (thanks to Aristotle) has been shaped by linear thinking, the Hebrew mindset has been framed by non-linear thought.

As such, the Hebrew mind is characterized by its ability to hold simultaneously to two or more opposing ideas.

Because the Hebrew mindset violates the rules of Aristotelian logic, it’s repulsive to the typical Westerner.

According to Western thought, if two ideas run in opposition to one another, it constitutes a contradiction or a paradox. And paradoxes lead to paralysis.

Hence, when a Westerner confronts a paradox, he becomes intellectually stuck and mentally fixated. According to Aristotelian logic, if two ideas press against each other in opposition, one of them must be false. This is known as “the law of non-contradiction.”

By contrast, paradoxes and logical contradictions present no difficulty to the Hebrew mind.

Classic Hebrew thought sees reality as possessing opposite properties that compete with each other.

Thus the Hebraic mindset possesses the full capacity to hold two or more ideas in tension (which when put into practice, can explode the head of the typical Westerner).

It also has the unique ability to be propelled forward by these seemingly contradictory ideas, instead of getting stuck by them.

Because the Bible was written from a Hebrew mindset, linear thinking constitutes a brittle approach to understanding Scripture. (While the New Testament was written in Greek, virtually all its authors were Hebrew. Luke was one exception.)

For this reason, the New Testament documents are saturated with the non-linear Hebraic mindset that works underneath all its teachings. (See C.H. Dodd’s The Bible and the Greeks for details.)

In short, Jesus transcends our Western, linear mindset.

He was NOT an Aristotelian.

For this reason, to encounter Him in Scripture, one must learn to approach the Bible practically (with an intention to respond) and personally (with a view to discovering the Person of Christ).

When we do so, the discrepancies resolve and we are able to take a nap in the presence of contradiction.

Here’s a test.

Are you troubled by the apparent contradictions found in Scripture? If so, there’s a good chance that you’re a son or daughter of Aristotle and have adopted his mindset.

If you aren’t bothered by them, but instead you regard them as beautiful yet different aspects of God’s multi-splendored light, there’s an excellent chance that you’ve laid hold of the mind of your Lord.

For more on this subject, check out the following:

Dull of Hearing

How an Insurgent Approaches Scripture

The Jesus Trilogy (testimonials from Francis Frangipane, Matt Chandler, Mark Batterson, etc.)

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