Greek philosophy demanded logical answers to the great questions of life. Pagan religious systems broke down under the scrutiny of the philosophically trained Greek mind.  Pagan systems were exposed as incoherent and societies were prepped to discard them in favor of a religious system that made sense.  As Greg Koukl has argued (I am paraphrasing), Christianity resonates with our deepest intuitions about the way things really are.  This is not so in a mystical sense but in a logical sense.

My own younger brother is member of a religious cult known as Eckankar. It is a 1960s creation from a mixture of eastern mysticism, transcendentalism, etc.  I have argued to him the illogical incoherence of his religious beliefs and presented the gospel to him on several occasions noting the logical coherence of Christianity, which is understood through the groundwork provided by the Greek philosophers.  Oddly, my brother agrees that Christianity “makes more sense” than any other religion, calling it “very tight,” yet he simply rejects its major tenet “that someone else can pay for your sins.”

Hellenistic philosophy, even prior to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, was already wrestling with the concept of logos.  Logos is the notion that there is a reason, order, and logic which unifies and governs the universe.  The concept of logos was never exhaustive in answering questions, however, but it reached its perfection in Christ.  Or, to say it another way, logos begged the Christ.  He gave flesh, bone, experience, and proof to what, for centuries, was only held conceptually until He personified it.  In the beginning was the “logos.”

Anyone familiar with this aspect of Greek philosophy will no doubt see Jesus as at least a candidate for logos. I would use logos to lay the groundwork for the existence of God in the person of Christ, not only providing the reason, order, and logic for the universe, but also its purpose and the actual agency  of creating it.