Rating: 
Summary: Twisted History
Review: It is a well written book, trying to put the political bickering into perspective has got to be hard, but Freeman has done well. The only thing I found lacking was more detail about Aquinas (Only a few pages is not enough).Highly recommend this to either religious or nonreligious person. One would definitely need to be interested in this time period though, because it is not a 'light' read, but not quite as 'heavy' as say Plato's Republic.
Rating: 
Summary: A Seriously Flawed Work
Review: It is hard to understand how an intelligent and learned person could write a book like Charles Freeman's "The Closing of the Western Mind." His entire thesis is absurd. The later classical period and the early Middle Ages do not represent the nadir of philosophy, but the recovery of its vitality following an era when Greek philosophy turned inward (Cynicism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cyrenaic philosophy, skepticism). Metaphysical philosophy recovered its vitality when it combined with the Christian religion. Greek philosophy shaped Christianity in its own image. It is simply ridiculous to assert that Christian theology is not primarily cast in Platonic and Aristotelian forms of thought. The entire theology of the Apostle Paul is a combination of Jewish religious belief and Greek metaphysics. The Gospel of John begins with the world's most famous expression of Greek metaphysical thought: "In the beginning was the word." Augustine's philosophy is steeped in Greek metaphysical ideas. What about John Scotus Eriugena? Does Freeman serious think Christianity was a static faith, that it didn't evolve over time? The reality is that Christianity continually reinvented itself over the centuries by making use of Greek philosophy. Freeman's story is the tired old tale about the decline of the intellect during the Middle Ages. In fact, intellectual life was kept alive only by the Church, and the Church developed its own sense of identity in accordance with the Greek categories of thought. Not to diminish his accomplishment in any way, but Thomas Aquinas merely systematized several traditions that had long been in place. A person like Freeman should know better than to peddle such long discredited ideas.
Rating:
Summary: A Seriously Flawed Work
Review: It is hard to understand how an intelligent and learned person could write a book like Charles Freeman's "The Closing of the Western Mind." His entire thesis is absurd. The later classical period and the early Middle Ages do not represent the nadir of philosophy, but the recovery of its vitality following an era when Greek philosophy turned inward (Cynicism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cyrenaic philosophy, skepticism). Metaphysical philosophy recovered its vitality when it combined with the Christian religion. Greek philosophy shaped Christianity in its own image. It is simply ridiculous to assert that Christian theology is not primarily cast in Platonic and Aristotelian forms of thought. The entire theology of the Apostle Paul is a combination of Jewish religious belief and Greek metaphysics. The Gospel of John begins with the world's most famous expression of Greek metaphysical thought: "In the beginning was the word." Augustine's philosophy is steeped in Greek metaphysical ideas. What about John Scotus Eriugena? Does Freeman serious think Christianity was a static faith, that it didn't evolve over time? The reality is that Christianity continually reinvented itself over the centuries by making use of Greek philosophy. Freeman's story is the tired old tale about the decline of the intellect during the Middle Ages. In fact, intellectual life was kept alive only by the Church, and the Church developed its own sense of identity in accordance with the Greek categories of thought. Not to diminish his accomplishment in any way, but Thomas Aquinas merely systematized several traditions that had long been in place. A person like Freeman should know better than to peddle such long discredited ideas.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing!!!!
Review: It is sad when "an intellectual" rehashes lies, misconceptions, and long ago corrected myths about Christianity. I'm so glad I checked this book out of the local library and did not pay for it. I would have demanded a refund! The best response to this shallow attempt at "scholarship" is to give intellectual antidotes to the poison. To read how Christianity helped keep the western mind open without our brains falling all over the place you should read: Christianity and Western Thought: A History of Philosophers, Ideas and Movements: From the Ancient World to the Age of Enlightenment by Colin Brown The Making of Europe: An Introduction to the History of European Unity; Medieval Essays; Religion and the Rise of Western Culture (all three by Christopher Dawson) The last book alone undoes the nonsense of the accusation that Christianity is "anti-intellectual" One more excellent response to a typical myth about Christian non-thinking is Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians by Jeffrey Burton Russell Most recently Robert Wilken's The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God. This masterpiece of intellectual history "chronicles the emergence of a specifically Christian intellectual tradition... Wilken shows that the energy and vitality of early Christianity arose from within the life of the Church. While early Christian thinkers drew on the philosophical and rhetorical traditions of the ancient world, it was the versatile vocabulary of the Bible that loosened their tongues and minds and allowed them to construct the world anew, intellectually and spiritually." It is time for another world class historian like Russell or Dawson to write a book entitled-Inventing the Dumb Christian and A Retarded Oppressive Christianity: The Last Acceptable Bigoted Lie So to finish with a quote from the author of this dismal distortion of the role Christianity played in the western intellectual tradition, "Keep the western mind open and good reading!"
Rating:
Summary: Amazing!!!!
Review: It is sad when "an intellectual" rehashes lies, misconceptions, and long ago corrected myths about Christianity. I'm so glad I checked this book out of the local library and did not pay for it. I would have demanded a refund! The best response to this shallow attempt at "scholarship" is to give intellectual antidotes to the poison. To read how Christianity helped keep the western mind open without our brains falling all over the place you should read: Christianity and Western Thought: A History of Philosophers, Ideas and Movements: From the Ancient World to the Age of Enlightenment by Colin Brown The Making of Europe: An Introduction to the History of European Unity; Medieval Essays; Religion and the Rise of Western Culture (all three by Christopher Dawson) The last book alone undoes the nonsense of the accusation that Christianity is "anti-intellectual" One more excellent response to a typical myth about Christian non-thinking is Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians by Jeffrey Burton Russell Most recently Robert Wilken's The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God. This masterpiece of intellectual history "chronicles the emergence of a specifically Christian intellectual tradition... Wilken shows that the energy and vitality of early Christianity arose from within the life of the Church. While early Christian thinkers drew on the philosophical and rhetorical traditions of the ancient world, it was the versatile vocabulary of the Bible that loosened their tongues and minds and allowed them to construct the world anew, intellectually and spiritually." It is time for another world class historian like Russell or Dawson to write a book entitled-Inventing the Dumb Christian and A Retarded Oppressive Christianity: The Last Acceptable Bigoted Lie So to finish with a quote from the author of this dismal distortion of the role Christianity played in the western intellectual tradition, "Keep the western mind open and good reading!"
Rating: 
Summary: Closed Mind
Review: The Closing of the Western Mind is an entertaining history of the Church through St. Augustine. It exposes many interesting anomalies in Church history like the Fathers of the Church who were neither members nor believers when they received their political appointments to their bishoprics. It suffers from an inaccurate statement of its premise and an indirect approach to its real conclusion. The stated theme is that the Church gradually abandoned rational thought, exemplified by Greek philosophy, as it became institutionalized. The author is somewhat schizophrenic about this, however, since he does credit Paul and his adherents with following the Platonic vein of philosophy. At the end of the book, the Church adopts Aristotelian philosophy through Aquinas. Anyone who believes the stated premise of the book might consider this positive. However the author then goes on to explain why this approach fails. In my opinion the author has taken a twisted route in explaining, that, in his opinion, Christianity is not supportable with either of the main branches of Greek philosophy. The author argues Platonism was doomed to failure since there is no valid platform of assumptions on which to base conclusions. He demonstrates this was the case through Augustine. The consequence was disarray within the leadership of the Church and the creation of competing factions within it. This collided with the political need of the Empire for stability and the emperors felt compelled to control Church doctrine to promote tranquility. What he demonstrates is that the Church lost the ability to control its own doctrine and how the Church was controlled by the Empire through the Empire's wealth. He fails to explore the internal reaction of the Church against this condition. He then abandons the interesting history of the struggle between the Empire and the Church for dominance. He jumps to Aquinas, leaving an unexplored gap of several hundred years. Aquinas promoted the Aristotelian vein of Greek philosophy which helped revive learning in the Church and in the west in general. This doesn't seem to satisfy the author, who uses this chapter to claim Aristotle's philosophy will fail like Plato's because Christianity itself isn't philosophically supportable. He provides several examples of how Christ's teachings conflict with Aquinas' conclusions, like the idea of a "just war". The author makes some vague statements meant to convey the idea that persecution of the Church by the Church was more significant than of the Church by the Empire. The author fails to be convincing, which is unfortunate since this is a very interesting subject in itself and more than likely a supportable premise. He also makes a very topical excursion into the tolerance for other religions practiced by early Islam. Christianity isn't the only religion to drift from its early concepts. The book is interesting and worth reading, but the author should have been more direct in stating his real purpose and arranging his facts to support it. He quotes Dostoyevsky's imagined exchange between the Inquisitor and Christ towards the end of the book, which probably conveys the author's true view of the Church. The Inquisitor condemns Christ for interfering with the Church. As some other reviewers have stated, he has picked his facts carefully and ignored some significant evidence of the preservation and continuation of learning within the Church.
Rating:
Summary: Facing the Truth
Review: The truth of Charles Freedman's "The Closing of the Western Mind" can be found in almost any Calculus or Physics textbook where the timeline of mathematical or scientific achievement is given. You will a find a thousand year or longer black hole where mathematical/scientific progress come to a screeching halt, and nothing of any consequence occurs for a millennium. Where is this black hole located? Right at the end of Greek/pagan era spanning the middle ages and coming to a close at the start of the Italian renaissance.
My calculus textbooks lists the many great mathematicians of the Hellenistic world(Zeno, Euclid and so on).The last of this line was Diophantus(often called the "Father of Algebra") who lived sometime in the second or third century C.E. The next entry is 1545 C.E. when Tartagalia, Cardano and Ferrari began to work with cubic roots and quadratic equations. What happened to what we call Western Civilization, in the 1200 years between Diophantus and Tartagalia and Co.? In a word Christianity.
Contemporary Western civilization is best described as a dynamic society. We live and work differently than did our parents and we expect our children will lead different lives than we do. We take change and progress as a given. This dynamism is a result of enormous scientific/technological development and innovation. This development and innovation rests on a belief of the merits of rational inquiry and intellectual freedom.
Historically, most people have lived in static societies where little changed for hundreds or thousands of years. If you lived in pre Columbian America, among the aboriginal people of Australia prior to it's conquest, or as a serf in Christian Europe of the middle ages you lived pretty much as your parents had lived, and your offspring would live a very similar life. At the time of the ancient Greeks most societies were static in nature and the majority of the humanity lived in static cultures. The dynamic Greek cultures were the shining exceptions to this state of affairs. The basis of Greek dynamism was a cultivation of intellectual, literary and religious freedom. The Greek thinker was blessed with a level of free inquiry into the nature of man, God, & the universe, not seen again in the West until after the European Enlightenment, and still not available in many parts of the world today.
The sprit of reason and rational inquiry seems distressing easy to quash; additionally it seems that one of the first actions of dictatorial regimes is to quash this sprit and the practitioners of it. Think of the collapse of Italian science after the Pope exhibited the instruments of torture to Galileo, of Hitler's suppression of the "Jewish Science" of nuclear physics. On the other hand many of the great inventors of the industrial revolution were Presbyterians and other non conformist Christians who previously would have been suppressed by the Church. Religious freedom and by extension intellectual freedom seems not only a "Good" in it's own right but a sure fire method of supplying the society that endorses it with an endless supply of scientists, artists, writers, thinkers & philosophers.
Suppression of free thought is of course, not the exclusive province of theocratic societies. You would be hard pressed to find a more static or intellectually suffocated society than North Korea. Think also of the fifty year "Dark Age" that befell Eastern Europe during the period of Soviet repression in the Cold War.
Greek philosophy was not the only product of the sprit of free inquiry that the Greek polis encouraged, and arguably not even the most important. The other fruits of this unfettered intellectual atmosphere were Greek architecture, literature, science and government.
Finally, if the church did not suppress the tradition of rational thought then where are the achievements of the middle ages? Where are the great scientists, dramatists, writers & architects of this period?. There are so few accomplishments in this period that it is aptly named the Dark Ages.
The thesis advanced by some, that by uncritically copying the works of the ancient Greek writers, Christian monks were carrying on the Greek intellectual tradition is rather sad. The idea of turning a person into a human copying machine would not be one celebrated by the Greeks, nor should it be celebrated by us. At the same time that the Christian monks were robotically copying the books of Aristotle, the Arabs were reading and building on his texts. They, and not the monks were the successors to the Greek intellectual tradition.
Rating: 
Summary: Argument is incorrect and analysis is flawed
Review: The well written and decently researched book contains a argument that is very common, basically that Christianity and the monolithic church ruined the western mind. The author builds and rehashed Gibbons original thesis and tries to paint a picture of how the church, beginning in the 6th century, tried to suppress free thought and debate. While the church certainly did crush those it didn't agree with the books basic thesis is deeply flawed. It was the Romans that crushed Greek thought by defeating them. Rome was an exuberant, lascivious culture but not one that had deep philosophical debate. This the western ideals of the Greeks and the obsession with reason was swept under the carpet long before the coming of the Universal Church. The author argues that the church suppressed the western mind. But it was the church that condoned sending the voyages that discovered the 'new world' and it was the church that built its own observatory and it was Saint Thomas Aquinas who wrote the book on rationalizing the existence of god. While this argument is pertinent the book contains many problems. The reality is, of course, that western interests with scientific study and philosophy survived during the dark ages and saw a massive come back in the Renaissance, which took place right under the noses of the Popes in Rome. If the church was so backward the Renaissance would not have been as vibrant as it was, seeing as how the church was based in Italy, the center of the renaissance.
Rating:
Summary: great narrative and rich background material
Review: This book is a chronological narrative of the events between Greek thought and the onset of the "dark ages" from an interesting perspective. Most impressive was the compiling of facts Freeman brought together to build a picture of how history's great minds formed truth and influenced intellectual thought. If you believe or have believed in Christ and simply have the curiosity of how people who have lived before you believed in Christ wouldn't you be curious about how they believed in him? In reading this book you'll appreciate how the author speaks with the voice of a journalist and not only describe the idiosyncrasies of the individual players in the book but also describe their influences from predecessors as well as describe how they and their contemporaries either fought for control or tried to maintain the balance of spiritual doctrine. In reading this book you will definitely appreciate how Christianity evolved as Paul writes his epistles or how the orthodox bishops of different regions fight over the doctrine of God and Jesus. It answered questions I had like: How did Rome turn from pantheism to Roman Catholicism? How and why did Constantine assimilate pagan traditions and Christian teachings? Plato and Christianity seemed to have a similar theme in the idea of the Forms and God in terms of what believers should pursue, is there a connection between them? Where did the institution of monasteries and nunneries come from? I wasn't disappointed with the prose either. The book reads easy as an academic endeavor and yet the reading prose is dense enough to warrant a second reading. Anybody willing to put some time and effort into reading a subject like this will not be disappointed with this book.
Rating:
Summary: Gibbon did it better
Review: This book is warmed over Gibbon. The thesis of the book can be best summed up as nasty Christians and their squabbles led to the Dark Ages and the eclipse of reason for a thousand years. Gibbon had the same argument and delivered it with a style, alas, that Mr. Freeman does not approach. Of course the thesis is completely wrong. The ancient world was in an intellectual dead end long before Christianity came on the scene. It was the much maligned Middle Ages that produced the intellectual trends that led humanity, for better and worse, to surpass in many ways the intellectual accomplishments of the ancient world. This book represents history on a comic book level, and contains a fair amount of Christian bashing. Polemics make poor history.
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