The Great Books are central to humane learning and study of the liberal arts. While there will remain some dispute over exactly which books ought to be in the canon of Great Books, the list contains those volumes which have most profoundly influenced western civilization over time. They include works by Plato, Aristotle, and Aeschylus; Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas; Nietzche, Marx, and Freud. The Great Books include philosophy and poetry, theological treatises and plays, scientific works and novels. All have contributed to human understanding; each one has captured some aspect of human learning in the pursuit of wisdom.
Ultimately, however, the Great Books can only be a mirror, summary, and exposition of the truth found in the greatest book of all, God’s Word, the Bible. Jesus affirmed in his High Priestly prayer: “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). The Scriptures are “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2Tim. 3:16-17). Moreover, “every word of God proves true” (Prov. 30:5), “the words of Yahweh are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times” (Psa. 12:6), “the entirety of [his] word is truth” (Psa. 119:160). The Bible’s claim is not merely to be true but to reveal and be the truth, objectively. Therefore, to whatever extent truth is found in the Great Books, it is a reflection and elaboration of truths made known in the Bible.
This is not to say that the Scriptures reveal all the truth that can be known. The Bible affirms that God’s glory is known both in God’s Law (Psa. 19:7-11) and in the natural world which he created (Psa. 19:1-6). Therefore, truth may be discovered outside of the Scriptures, but not which is contrary to the Scriptures. “God is responsible for all good things: of some, like the blessings of the Old and New Covenants, directly; of others, like the riches of philosophy, indirectly” (Clement of Alexandria, 169). Students of the humanities may plunder the wealth of the Greeks and Romans, Stoics and Epicureans, sufi and samurai, even skeptics, in a manner reminiscent of Israel’s plundering of the Egyptians (cf. Origen, 177-179).
Wisdom may be acquired in various ways: from personal experience, from shared human experience, and from hearing God's Word with godly fear. But perfect wisdom, true wisdom, comes from divine revelation received in the fear of God (Prov. 1:7; 9:10). The “wisdom of this world” is actually foolishness insofar as it contradicts godly fear and divine revelation (1Cor. 1:18-2:16). As Clement of Alexandria rightly observed: “The Savior’s teaching is sufficient without additional help, for it is ‘the power and wisdom of God.’ The addition of Greek philosophy does not add more power to the truth” (175). Worldly “truth” that defies biblical truth is not true. Worldly “wisdom” that shuns the fear of God is not wise. But to say that extra-biblical literature is unnecessary is not to say it is unhelpful. Unbelievers may be very wise, in a worldly way, and there is much that can be learned from them in the Great Books and the story of their lives. But their wisdom and insight can never match or correct the perfect wisdom and truth revealed by God in the greatest book of all, the Bible.
How then are we to read and learn from Great Books? We must do so by reading them through the lens of God’s book. As Basil the Great counseled young men in the 4th century: “You should not surrender to these men [authors of great literature] once for all the rudders of your mind, as if of a ship, and follow them whithersoever they lead; rather, accepting from them only that which is useful, you should know that which ought to be overlooked” (182-183). The insights of the best ancient authors are like “the reflection of the sun in water” (Ibid.), the sun itself being God’s own revelation. Basil goes on to describe how one ought to imitate what he finds to be virtuous in pagan literature and shun what is evil (183-187). He admits that “we Christians shall doubtless learn all these things more thoroughly in our own literature” (187), referring to the Christian Scriptures, but the great theologian and Church Father recognized the opportunity and advantage of learning virtue from the pagan writers whose works amply illustrate it (188).
Many will demur and insist that the Bible is, at most, only one more contribution to the great conversation and not the greatest of all. But this is not the general consensus of the last two thousand years during which even skeptical and agnostic authors have acknowledged the foundational nature of Scripture’s influence upon western civilization and the crucial role it has played in informing western thought. Whether the Bible’s own testimony of itself is accepted or not, the impact it has had is undeniable. A student of the humanities would do well to read with the Bible in one hand and the Great Books in the other. The one who does so may soon discover that in God’s own revelation “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).
–JME
All quotations are from The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be an Educated Human Being, edited by Richard M. Gamble (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2017).
