Note: This is a transcript of an audio recording of a Bible study talk by Nathan Conkey, titled “The Influence of Aristotle and Plato on Christianity.” It has been lightly edited by Claude AI for readability: misspellings corrected, sentences and paragraphs formed, and banter/interjections marked. Scripture references are highlighted inline and listed at the bottom. The speaker’s informal, conversational style has been preserved throughout.
The Influence of Aristotle and Plato on Christianity
Speaker: Nathan Conkey Setting: Informal Bible study / home gathering
Introduction
[Banter: The host introduces Nathan Conkey, noting he has “a green shining eye of night” and that he is going to speak on “The Influence of Aristotle and Plato on Christianity.”]
We’re going to look at two lenses today. When you’re reading the Bible and you have glasses on or contacts, what is between you and the Bible? A lens.
In fact, there’s not just one lens. So, if you have blue-coloured lenses, what colour is your Bible going to be? Blue. You get the general idea.
When we look at the Bible, there is stuff in our eye — stuff that acts as a lens through which we see, and it changes the way we see the Bible. This is one of those lenses.
The Two-Storey Universe: Spirit and Matter
Have any of you come from a Roman Catholic background? If you talk to a Roman Catholic, it’s a very strange experience. They have the Bible, but within five seconds they’re talking about purgatory, about predecessors — things that just aren’t in the Bible. It’s easy for us to see their faults, because we have our own vision of the world through which we see the Bible.
Now, picture two circles — or imperfect shapes, one on top of the other. The higher one, let’s call it Spirit. The lower one, let’s call it Matter. Which one is better? Better. Which one is worse? Matter. Upper storey, lower storey. This is a pattern for all paganism.
All paganism splits reality into two separate things: Spirit (good, high, better) and Matter (bad, low, worse). There is only a small area where they overlap — a tiny intersection — and that becomes very significant.
[Interjection from audience: “Well, technically you could see an emotion — if someone’s sad, you can kind of see it.”] That’s a good point. But what you’re seeing is the matter — the face, the flesh — responding to the invisible emotion. The emotion itself is intangible. You can’t hide it when you’re angry, when you’re sad. The invisible thing is working on the material body.
What Belongs to the “Spirit” Category?
Spirit, in this pagan model, means anything you cannot touch, smell, or taste — anything intangible. Things like:
- Emotions — you cannot build a house out of an emotion
- Thoughts — intangible, invisible
- Philosophy and theology — the domain of professional thinkers
[Banter: Discussion about what philosophers drive — probably electric cars, not pick-up trucks, because you can’t see electricity. Farmers are stuck with matter; monks and university professors are in the spirit category.]
Who thinks for a living? Philosophers. Monks in monasteries. University professors. These people are associated with the “upper storey” — the spirit realm. And anyone who works with matter — furniture salesmen, boat dock repairers, house inspectors — is, by this system, in the “lower storey.”
The Problem for Christianity
Now let’s bring this closer to home.
In this pagan model, where does God live? Top or bottom? Top — in the Spirit realm. And where do we live? Bottom — in the Matter realm. What’s the problem?
We can’t get to Him.
And where does the Bible belong? Most people, even Christians, instinctively put it at the top — in the Spirit realm. Which means: how does the Bible get down to us?
Only through a priest.
The Priest as Mediator
In paganism, what do you call the special person who opens the doorway between this world and the next? A priest. A priest is a person cut off from the rest of the world. Some priests of Baal literally mutilated themselves to disconnect from the world of matter. Hindu holy men who barely eat, who sit motionless for hours — they are considered very holy precisely because they do as little as possible in the material world.
[Interjection: “Sounds very similar to the scandal around the Capitol, Jamestown.”]
A man from this group shared a story about someone who asked their minister a question — a genuine, curious question about something the minister had said in his sermon. An elder rebuked him: “Don’t you ever ask the minister a question again.” That sounds crazy to us — unless you’re operating in this pagan two-storey system. In that system, the pastor/priest belongs to the Spirit realm. He is consecrated, set apart. You don’t question him. He’s your link to the upper storey.
And notice: in this system, the pastor doesn’t concern himself with money, with economics, with the material world. Why would he? That’s all lower-storey stuff.
Experts as Modern Priests
[Banter: Reference to Anthony Fauci and COVID-19 mandates as an illustration — not a direct endorsement or dismissal of any position, but used as a cultural example.]
The expert class functions the same way. Think about how we were told, during the COVID years: “Trust the experts. Do your own research? How dare you.” The assumption was that scientific knowledge lives in a transcendent spirit realm that only the credentialed priest-expert can access. The ordinary person cannot get to it directly — they must receive it through the expert.
That is not a Christian idea. That is paganism dressed in a lab coat.
[Interjection from audience: “Isn’t that the same as the ‘you have your truth and I have my truth’ idea?”]
In a way, yes. There is a version of this where everyone is their own priest. But most people who say “I just do what I think is right” are actually following the priests and experts around them — they just don’t realise it.
The Consequences for Church Life
Have you ever mentioned to another Christian what the Word of God says about economics, about money, about business — and gotten a complete blank look? That response makes perfect sense if this two-storey model is operating in the background. Because in this system, where does money belong? Bottom. Lower storey. The Bible is up top. The Bible can’t speak to money. The Bible only speaks to church things.
[Interjection from audience: “A modern application of this — in a lot of American churches, when someone gets saved, the immediate move is to make them a youth pastor or a church worker, as though that makes them more spiritual.”]
Yes. Exactly. In this system, being a pastor is better than being a furniture salesman. But is that what the Bible says? Is it possible to be a bad pastor? Of course. Is it possible to be a faithful Christian furniture salesman? Of course. But this system has created the idea that church work is holy work, and material work is less-than.
[Interjection: “There’s no question-and-answer sessions in a lot of churches — you don’t ask the minister a question. You sit there, and if the sermon made you feel good, that’s the measure of success.”]
Right. And what happens pastorally? Someone comes to their elder or pastor with a real, material problem — a financial crisis, a relational breakdown — and the pastor says, “I’ll pray for you.” He’s not going to help them with matter. Matter is not his domain.
[See James 2:14–17: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”]
The Gnostic Problem: Denying the Incarnation
[Interjection from audience: “This is basically what the Gnostics believed — that all matter is bad, so they denied the Incarnation.”]
Precisely. And this is exactly where this pagan framework hits the Christian faith hardest. What did the Pharisees say when Jesus claimed to be the Son of God? “God can’t become man.” The Greek philosophers laughed at Paul in Athens at the idea of a bodily resurrection. Gnostics wrote thousands of words — and denied the Incarnation.
[Acts 17:32: “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’”]
If matter is bad and spirit is good, then God becoming flesh is unthinkable. A bodily resurrection is offensive. But the Bible says God had to become man — or we are lost.
[John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”]
This two-storey thinking, even in diluted form, makes God feel distant. If you have even a little of this in your eye, you will feel that God is far away, that He cannot be involved in your daily material life — your work, your finances, your marriage.
How Do You Become a “Good Christian” in This System?
There are two main strategies this system produces.
The thinking route: Some people climb toward the Spirit realm through knowledge. They read theology books, attend conferences, argue fine doctrinal points online. They prove their spirituality through precise thinking. Books are good. Theology is good. But these people treat intellectual attainment as a way to merit access to the Spirit realm. They accumulate status through theological precision.
The emotional route: Others try to emote their way into the Spirit realm. They get themselves into a frenzy through music, movement, worship atmospherics. There was a group of Greek Orthodox monks who practiced gazing at their navels for hours — “navel gazing” — to work themselves into a spiritual state. This is the same principle at work in certain worship-performance cultures — smoke machines, hours of music, worked-up emotions as a ladder into the upper storey.
[Banter: “I’ve seen people listening to Hillsong — they’re on a ride, they’ve got the smoke machines going, they get themselves worked up…”]
None of this is how we become good Christians. The biblical measure is not how many theology books you’ve read, nor how emotionally intense your worship experience is.
[James 2:18: “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”]
The proof of being a good Christian is obedience — good works as defined by the Word of God. Not church works exclusively. Not emotional intensity. Faithful obedience in every area of life, including the material world.
The Right Picture
The correct view is that we live in one world — not split between spirit and matter. God made one world and called it good.
[Genesis 1:31: “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”]
The Word of God speaks to all of life — economics, family, work, government, culture. The pastor is not more holy than the farmer. The theologian is not more spiritual than the man who fixes boat docks. The Kingdom of God is not a small intersection — a thin religious zone — while the rest of life is secular and beyond God’s reach.
[Interjection from audience: “In this system, where does power come from? You can never have the power of God operating in daily life — you have to look to Uncle Sam.”]
Exactly. If God lives in a separate upper storey and we live in the lower, then we must find power elsewhere — in government, in experts, in institutions. But the Christian vision is different. God is present. His Word governs all things. His people are called to apply it everywhere.
Conclusion
This two-storey framework — Spirit good, Matter bad; priests as mediators; ordinary life as spiritually irrelevant — is a lens that distorts how we read the Bible. It is not the Christian vision. It is Greek paganism. And we have all, to some degree, absorbed it.
The work is to get this dirt out of our eye, so we can see the Bible as it really is: the Word of a God who made the material world, entered it Himself, and rules over every corner of it.
[Banter at close: Discussion of a dog who delivered six puppies unassisted. The host thanks the Lord for the provision.]
Scriptures Referenced
| Reference | Content |
|---|---|
| James 2:14–17 | Faith without works is dead — “be warmed and filled” without meeting material need |
| James 2:18 | Show me your faith by your works |
| Acts 17:32 | The Athenians mock the resurrection of the dead |
| John 1:14 | The Word became flesh and dwelt among us |
| Genesis 1:31 | God saw everything He had made, and it was very good |
Note: The speaker alludes to these passages thematically in several places. Direct verbal quotations were not made during the talk; the references above reflect the biblical texts the arguments are grounded in.