Materialism (Democritus, Epictetus, and Lucretius) Idealism (Berkeley)

Democritus (c. 400 BCE) was a pre-Socratic thinker who claimed that reality is composed exclusively of infinitesimal indestructible “Atoms” (in Greek the word ‘atom’ literally means “unbreakable”) thus his theory was called “Atomism” These tiny “seed-like” particles exist in a cosmic “void” and move around according to forces that arrange themselves into various patterns, but none are ever lost or destroyed. This idea became the basis for modern physics and chemistry. We have no extant writings of Democritus.
Later on a Roman thinker Epictetus (c. 100 CE) based his Stoic ethical theory on the theory that reality is comprised of a single entity, namely matter but his entity is identical with Divinity, a view called Pantheism. Epictetus’ metaphysics differed markedly from that of Democritus in his claim that the universe or Realty is Divine.
A Roman poet Lucretius wrote “On the Nature of Things” in praise of Epictetus worldview. The basic claim of Materialism is that material reality is all there is. All mental, emotional, and “spiritual” realities reduce to it and are fully explainable according to its principles of its processes. It is difficult if not impossible to construct an experiment or argument to prove or disprove this view. The issue is: can mental and or emotional or “spiritual reality be “reduced” to or explained (completely determined) by physical reality?
There is a “free will” argument that in my opinion shows that they cannot be so reduced. It goes like this – and is called “Truth’s Debt to Freedom.” Focusing on the meaning of “determined by” one can ask if the claim that all things are entirely determined by physical forces is “true”. If that claim itself is really fully and completely determined by physical forces what does it mean to claim that it is “true?” The notion of truth is lost in the shuffle here because if the claim itself, that all things are determined, is entirely explained and determined by physical forces, then it makes no sense to claim that it is “true.” If the person espousing the idea of determinism has no choice but to do so and, vice versa, then the notion of “truth” is meaningless. Determinism is incoherent or false.

Idealism – Plato, et al and George Berkeley

We’ve elsewhere already considered Plato’s complicated version of this point of view. Bishop George Berkeley’s version is absolutely unique. Bertrand Russel claimed that while it is impossible to disprove Berkeley’s theory, no one takes it seriously. Berkeley began with Locke’s simple approach to human perception. Simple ideas arrive through our sense and impress themselves on the “blank tablet” of our minds. We then, according to Locke, compound these simple ideas, and so on. Locke admitted that we have no direct idea or knowledge of where these ideas come from. He said they come from “something we know what we not what.”
Berkeley first argues that the distinction that Locke and we make between our sensations and the external reality (things, etc.) is both impossible to make (show me something external to my sensations) – we cannot separate our sensations from what they are supposed to be “of”. We never experience “material” reality at all – only our sensations. The notion of “external reality” is both bogus and unnecessary. Our “ideas” of things is all we have is and all we need. Secondly, Berkeley argued that what holds our experiential perceptual world together is not some “mystical” physical world but God’s active mind. God is the cosmic source of all our ideas and “sense” perceptions – the cosmic Mind that creates and structures our experiential reality. We think God’s thoughts after Him –literally. Reach to touch the back of your chair which you cannot see and God makes sure your hand’s sensations feel it. And so on for all our experiences of the so-called “physical world.” Reality is comprised entirely of Ideas, in God’s mind and ours. And Berkeley argued that this constitute a “proof” of God’s existence as well. God’s mind must exist to explain everything else. Reality is entirely “mental”, God’s mind and our “sensations” are all that are real.

We used to think of Jesus and his Nazareth compatriots as essentially backward uneducated Galilean country folk who probably could not read or write and who were ignorant about the rest of the world. Although the town of Sepphoris was known of down through the middle-ages, it was not rediscovered and explored archeologically until the 20th century. It turns out that this town was and is located just four miles from Nazareth and was the major Roman city in Galilee during Jesus’ time.
Sepphoris was a small metropolis and significant in the Roman view of the land of Palestine. Recently conquered and rebuilt by the Romans during Josephus’ time in the final decades of what we call the pre-Christian era, this city sported a large theater, many business sites as well as a large marketplace. Indeed, it appears to have been rebuilt during the very years covered by the early chapters of the New Testament Gospels. In fact, it would seem likely that Jesus’ father Joseph, who was a carpenter, might well have been employed in the Roman rebuilding of this town. Perhaps even Jesus himself may have worked there as a carpenter during the years prior to the beginning of his preaching ministry.
I had a faculty colleague in the late 1960s who actually spent some summers doing archaeological work at Sepphoris. He, along with other biblical scholars, remain puzzled as to why there is no mention of this town in the Gospels. It would surely seem that carpenters, and other workers like Joseph, would have been employed in the rebuilding of this town, and yet it goes entirely unmentioned in the New Testament. After all, it was just an hour’s walk from Nazareth, and even Josephus the Jewish/Roman historian mentions this little city several times in his Jewish Antiquities.
Indeed, it seems very strange that in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry, when he visits numerous villages around his home of Nazareth, there is no mention of Sepphoris. After all, the two towns were only about four miles apart. If indeed Jesus grew up in this immediate area, one would surely expect there to be some reference to this town, no matter how brief. A quick look at a map of the area in that time reveals that there were numerous towns and villages spotted all around the region northwest of the Sea of Galilee, many of which, such as Capernaum, Tiberias, and Cana, are referenced in the Gospels as having been visited by Jesus.
This geographic mystery concerning an important city being completely neglected in the Gospel accounts is paralleled by the by the absolute lack of any biblical references to Jesus’ early life, specifically the years between his birth and the beginning of his preaching ministry. There were, to be sure, other attempts to fill in the gaps concerning Jesus’ youth and upbringing, but these have all been set aside by biblical scholars as fanciful. They revolve around stories of how Jesus was able to bring his carved animals to life and beat his childhood friends at races. Apparently the Gospel writers deemed any details about Jesus’ early years to be superfluous to the story of his adult preaching and healing ministry.
Still, it remains puzzling that there is no biblical reference at all to any of Jesus’ life as a child or young man. Scholars conjecture that he began his public ministry around the age of 27 or 30. All things prior to those years are seen as this should be enough. irrelevant. We gain some insight into those years by extrapolating from his manner of speech and behavior during his public ministry, but such speculations yield very little. Perhaps for the purposes of conveying the meaning of his message and life these are sufficient. Nevertheless, I remain spiritually curious about the further details and extrapolations.
Without anything more to go on, I nonetheless enjoy speculating about want sort of person Jesus was simply as a person. I can imagine him arriving for work at Seppforis full of life and openness toward others, careful to cut the boards well and nail the nails straight, as well as enjoying the opportunity to contribute to his family ‘s wellbeing. The fact of the town of Sepphoris opens up this possibility.