We began by calling attention to the alien principle of abstraction as truth. Because Greek philosophy saw ultimate truth as an abstraction, as an idea, not a person, truth and knowledge required for them the process of abstraction.
Truth is a distillation from the material context of reality.
To know the truth about things meant not getting behind or beyond things, but getting to the heart of things, to what lies beneath the surface, person, or thing. To grasp the influence of this pagan principle, let us see its application in everyday life by countless churchmen. They insist on abstracting the heart or essence of a man from the totality of his life and actions. The end result, in any Christian sense, is that all men are in the practical sense unknowable, because their heart or essence is something radically different perhaps from the actual and concrete fact of their lives. The Bible requires us to regard the historical man as the real man.