Polytheism

The gods are limited in power and divided from one another. Thus we cannot always count on them to reward the human beings who serve them or who are just. While we can to some extent understand the world, we can not expect the world to be orderly or use our knowledge to bring it under our control..

Monotheism

God is all-powerful and good. The world He created is orderly and just. God rewards human beings who fear and love him.

Humanism

The world is orderly and lawful. Doubts can be raised about the existence of God or his willingness to intervene in the world. But the orderliness of the world makes it possible for human beings to control it through natural science and good political and social orders.

The reward of a good life is found in the goods of this world. The good we should focus on, then, are the external or instrumental goods of wealth, honor and power. We need these goods to get any other goods we desire.

.

The Polis (The Funeral Oration): Human beings can only attain the goods of life through their commitment of their time, wealth, and possibly lives to their polis. There are no guarantees of collective or individual success since each polis is typically in constant struggle with others. But a polis consisting of dedicated citizens can, for a time, win wealth, and power. And a united and daring polis, comprised of dedicated citizens, can win individual and collective honor for eternity.

The Family vs. the Polis: While, for Creon, the polis provides us with both security and the possibility of transcending the family, for Antigone, the primordial attachments of family, which creates us and protects us even against the polis, must take precedence over that of the polis. Sophocles suggests that there is ultimately no grounds for choice here. And Plato’s Republic shows us that the attempt to meld family and polis runs up against our concern for our own well-being and that of those closest to us.

Land of Milk and Honey: Though we human beings are capable of knowing right from wrong, we are incapable of living as we should without God’s help. God intervenes in history to help us, by (1) giving us, in stages, the fundamental commandments that we must follow if we are to prosper and (2) by showing us, in his relationships with Noah and then the Israelites, that he rewards those who follow his commandments and punishes those who reject them.

While God frees the Israelites from slavery in order to make His power known to all, he seems to prefer that, by  living together under the commandments, the Israelites gain the capacity to secure the goods of this world through their collective effort.

Galileo’s new science offers the possibility of a mathematized understanding of the natural world, one that presupposes the orderliness of the world but does not suppose that the world is created for our purposes.

The new science does, however, give us hope of mastering nature.

Machiavelli’s virtue looks much like vice in an older sense. Machiavelli teaches that, if we learn how not to be good, through force and fraud we can do evil and yet have a reputation for doing good. By being virtuous in this new sense, we serve both ourselves and the people, who benefit from the peace (or empire) created by our cruelty and the low taxes (and booty) created by our avarice. Machiavelli invents the notion that good, unintended consequences can result from bad actions and thus jettisons the distinction between monarchy and tyranny. Similarly his principality comes to look republican, in that the prince serves the people. And his republics look princely, as they are governed by  the struggle between the great for the support of the people.

The reward of a good life makes us partly independent of the goods of this world and brings us pleasure in the pursuit of moral virtue for its own sake and the self-esteem or spirited (thymotic) good that comes from recognizing our independence from fortune.

Aristotelian Moral Virtue places a commitment to living a virtuous life above the commitment to any particular polis, including one’s own. A morally virtuous person has less need for external goods of money, wealth, friends and, more generally, good fortune. His life is focused on the internal goods of the practice of excellence including that of virtue. It is in these practices that a good man can receive the pure pleasure that comes only from developing and exercising our faculties. A morally virtuous person is also more likely to secure the external goods he or she needs, because he is virtuous. There are no guarantees against the worst fortune. But a morally virtuous person can take pride in living a life that, in being independent and principled rises above the concerns of most people.

A nation of priests and a Holy People: While the Israelites (and other people) come to first for safety and well-being, the Hebrew Bible teaches that human beings live best when their prime aim comes to be a love of God and when they, as a result, seek to deepen the covenant with him. Yet while God promises a land of milk and honey—and the Israelites make war to conquer the land—that land has fixed boundaries, boundaries that are meant to constrain the tendency to imperialism. Similarly, the Israelites desire for wealth is limited by the  Sabbath and the moral requirement of taking care of widows and orphans. The limits God sets on the land and wealth the Israelites may accumulate is made possible (and acceptable) only when the Israelites place their service to God first in their lives. The Hebrew Bible teaches that this world is good except in so far as human beings sin. Thus it is our obligation to make the world better.

Reiterative universalism: In becoming a holy people, the Israelites are meant to teach other peoples of God. The Hebrew Bible looks forward to the day when each people from their own covenant with God based on the Ten Commandments. This provides the only prospect of ameliorating the struggle between peoples.

The teaching of Qu’ran is similar in that it, too, seeks peace based upon devotion to God, but does not demand that all become Muslims.

The reward of a good life enables us to transcend the goods of this world.

Philosophy: For Plato and Aristotle, the life of philosophy is that which is most independent of fortune. For the good the philosopher seeks, knowledge, is least affected by fortune and is most easily shared by true friends.

Biblical wisdom: In  Rabbinic Judaism and in Islam, the study of the law, while of great service to the people, also comes to be an independent good.

Kingdom of Heaven: Matthew offers little hope for this world but envisions an apocalyptic transformation of it. Those who are lacking in spirit and put all their hopes in Jesus can expect an eternity in heaven, a reward for the persecution they face in this world.

Romans: Jesus Die for Our Sins Paul’s account of the importance of Jesus combines two different approaches; (1) The Crucifixion Jesus’s crucifixion is God’s sacrifice of his son. This sacrifice expiates the sins (and, on some views, the original sin) of mankind. To believe in Jesus is thus be freed from God’s condemnation of us for our sins. (2) The Resurrection offers human beings the possibility of the most profound moral transformation. Jesus’ resurrection is proof of the promises of God that he has the power and will to resurrect us. To accept this is to be transformed, to begin to live in the kingdom of heaven in this world.

While the Qu’ran teaches that this world is good, it also teaches that human beings can gain salvation in heaven by believing in God and doing good works.