In the first few sections of the second book, Aristotle stresses the idea that virtue is developed by habit. Once he makes this claim, he spends the rest of the book showing that virtues can be developed by habitually making a certain choice, but that we should check our motives while doing so. To me, this echoes the New Testament (namely Romans, Philippians, and James). I do not believe that Aristotle was a "Pre-Christ Christian," but the point he is making is definitely similar to the points Paul and James make later about the necessity of checking your motives and consciously choosing to make the right choices. It is kind of amazing how close some of these Pre-Christ philosophers were to actually finding God.
Side note: Robert Frost ("and that made al the difference") and Sigmund Freud (the entire paragraph about our actions since infancy being based on pleasure and pain) straight up copy some of Aristotle's principles.
P.S. I commented on Daniel and Abigail's posts.
We can't allow ourselves to assume we are being good and pure. It is too easy to let ourselves off the hook and stumble. Would have been interesting to see what would have happened if these Pre Christ philosophers did realize God's existence. Would have totally changed philosophy.
ReplyDeleteI agree! As I was reading, I definitely thought more than once how similar some of his words sounded to what we as Christians believe. It made me like Aristotle more, knowing that whether he knew it or not, some of what he said was very agreeable with certain things in the Bible.
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