Abstract

This paper reconstructs Justin Martyr’s justification for giving evaluative priority to practical rather than theoretical activity when determining whether a human life qualifies as godlike. I argue Justin does so because he believes reason—expressed in both practical and theoretical contexts—is the location of value in human life, but that necessary limits on theoretical success mean we should look primarily to someone’s practical activities when determining the overall value of that person’s life. To show this, I first reconstruct key elements of Justin’s action theory, demonstrating the centrality of reason to his understanding of practical action. Then, I show that Justin believes reason’s expression in practical contexts is valuable in two ways, first, human reason stands in a value-conferring relationship to the divine, and second, practical action is directly imitative of God's creative activity. I then argue that Justin believes God’s essence is unknowable, which provides several possible reasons to grant evaluative priority to practical rather than theoretical activity. Throughout, my analysis of Justin aims to show the intrinsic interest of Justin’s philosophical reflections while also offering a new perspective on how to interpret accounts of godlikeness in contemporaneous philosophical sources.