Kelley positions the roots of Western civilization in the Homeric and Platonic world of ancient Greece, but unlike many Christians and previous generations and today will brook no compromise with this "enlightenment paganism" as a valid expression of culture. He shrewdly observes that today's increasing calls for a return to the medieval synthesis of Christian and classical civilization is misdirected: "Should we accept the argument of those who wish to restore the displaced ideals represented by the medieval synthesis of Christianity and Humanism? Can such salvage operations succeed? Is it possible to remake Western civilization on the same basis from which it first sprang up? If so, why should one accept that it will turn out better the second time?" Kelley's answer is unequivocal: "There are but two options available: that which comes from God and His revealed Word, or that which arises from man's sin-darkened imagination" (pp. 16-17).

Kelley observes Plato's attempt to depersonalize the pagan religion of th

Kelley moves on to discuss "The Grand Synthesis" of the medieval world: pagan classicism and historic Christianity. Like Christopher Dawson, Alister McGrath, and other deeply informed observers of this era, Kelley is aware of the dominating influence of monasticism on it. It was not merely one religio-cultural factor among many, but in many ways was the dominating feature of medieval life. Kelley believes the origins of the monastic ideal in certain aspects of pagan Greek philosophy, and correctly suggests that "Christianity's eventual triumph over the ancient pagan world was tragically undermined by an opposing development, the incursion into the life of Christianity of a deeply rooted pagan outlook that took hold as monasticism" (p. 83). The Platonic dualism, according to which matter, material substance, and the things of this world were considered vastly inferior to the world of eternal Forms and Ideas, heavily influenced Christian monasticism, as did the Gnostic heresy. Further, monasticism carried on that aspect of the pagan Greek philosophical tradition which divided humanity into the elite and the masses: for Plato and company, the philosopher-kings comprised the elite, while for the monastics, those who separated themselves from the "world" and devoted themselves exclusively to a pious devotion to God constituted, in fact, the Christian elite. Kelley notes, moreover, how the ancient Greek notion of man's coming to the fullest measure of his humanity in civic or political association was perpetuated in the monastic ideal of the Christian elite communing together in the monastery (p. 87). Even St. Augustine, while recognizing many flaws of the patristic monastic order and, certainly, the pagan heresies from which it sprang, did not break decisively with this monastic ideal and thus bequeathed to the later Middle Ages, along with his sound, Biblical theology, a certain measure of monastic paganism. Kelley is surely correct, therefore, in labeling monasticism "a false Christianity" given virtually free reign until the Protestant Reformation (pp. 82-83).

The startling technological and scientific achievement of the Enlightenment led its intellectual elite to presume that the same successes accomplished on what were thought to be purely rationalistic grounds would serve as a pattern for social engineering:

[K]nowledge not only meant power over the forces (a Newtonian term) of nature, but power over men and society. Even as man can engineer the workings of nature to benefit his life, so, too, he can superintend the workings of society to create better order and harmony between human beings. Indeed, in the new Enlightenment faith, the two were viewed as being necessarily interrelated. Baconian optimism allowed modern man to think that he could erect a culture and civilization from a blueprint discovered in nature by an infallible method of reasoning. (p. 259)

This is a reverent, learned, profound, and penetrating work that probably will not get the widespread recognition it deserves. The evangelicals and fundamentalists are too anti-intellectual to take it seriously. The Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are too ecclesiocentric not to be offended by its full-Biblical foundation. Even the Reformed, from whom it should get nothing but praise, may ignore it since it would require of them a greater responsibility than they are willing to undertake. But it is a great book nonetheless, and it deserves wide reading. One recommendation: I wish the author had brought the work up to the present period by addressing the issue of postmodernism, the leading ideo

Some common words found in the essay are:
Enlightenment Romanticism, Indeed Enlightenment, Christianity Humanism, God God, Alister McGrath, Forms Ideas, Protestant Reformation, European Enlightenment, Romanticism Kelley, Christianity Aristotelian, western civilization, ancient pagan, european enlightenment, monastic ideal, enlightenment romanticism, pagan greek, medieval ecclesiocentrism, human reason, renaissance enlightenment romanticism, institutional church, medieval life,
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