Pantheism and Philosophy

Acts 17:16 ... at Athens, [Paul's] spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. 22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, [7] 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; [8] as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ [9] 29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” 32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
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In college I wrote an imagined dialogue between the apostle Paul and Socrates based largely off of this passage. It was well researched, but I think a bit boring to read and most likely misguided on several of the Socratic elements. On rereading the passage today, several years later, it occurs to me that Paul’s context is complex. Coming just a few hundred years after Socrates, there are a number of philosophic schools well established in the culture, some of which are religious and others of which are less so. Socrates’ philosophical foundation has already worked into the fabric of the culture, trivializing the gods. Pantheism nevertheless prevails among the masses and there is a feeling that one god may have been lost in the shuffle. Paul is moved to address this with the Truth, a concept which the philosophers are dubious about to begin with. But they like to be challenged and to have something provocative to discuss, so Paul gets his chance to make a case. The tone of his argument seems very similar to Plato’s Apology as he intelligently lays out the nature of the true God. He even quotes Athenian poetry as a support of his argument. But what sets Paul apart is his representation of ultimate Truth as a personal deity and the intentional good will of that being. Unlike Socrates, who believes it would be impossible, destructive and even undesirable for all men to emerge from the cave of nonreality, Paul presents all men with a direct imperative to seek the all powerful, personal God and find Him.