Introduction
The place of philosophy within the Christian faith for as long as Christians have been articulating this faith in writing. With that said, the history of the Church is not an entirely separate timeline from the history of philosophy. Quite often throughout world history, the two lines intersect. As pastors and thinkers within the Church began articulating the faith as a safeguard against heresy, they also had to respond to the various philosophies of their time. As people continue to ponder the nature of true knowledge and what is real, the Church joins in this pursuit, but with the distinct and foundational assumption that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, and thus is the divine mind and “Logos” behind all reality and real knowledge. At various times and various places, various people have used the resources allotted to them by their time, to both empirically and rationally attempt to systematize an understanding of the created world’s seen and unseen realities. As such, it is necessary to consider the nature of philosophy and religion in general, and how these entities relate to each other.
How Should Christians View Philosophy?
In the work Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy, Graham Oppy, a self-proclaimed “metaphysical naturalist” (Oppy 21) creates a dichotomy between Christianity as merely a religion, and philosophy as inquiry (Oppy 21-23). This is an oversimplification, as it assumes Christianity is useful primarily for its practicality. Rather, Christianity itself presents a story, a worldview in which everything that is, finds itself. As such, everyone is bound to this story, and to be a Christian is to wake up to this story and embrace it wholeheartedly. Christian philosophy contends for this story. It contends that it is the story to which all are bound. That is to say, the story of man and what exists is not Hegel’s dialectic, but is in fact the world which Christianity presents in its Scriptures, and ultimately in its founder Jesus Christ.
Theology then, is the inquiry which falls under the supremacy of this story. Christian philosophy is the proper application of what philosophers have observed about reality throughout history. In this way, Philosophy in general is the use of man’s God-given faculties to determine and articulate what really “is”. It is attempting to discover the nature of reality without any presuppositions about what it “should be”. In an essay describing how Thomas Aquinas speaks to Christianity and Philosophy, Mark Jordan points out from Aquinas that
“…the theologian takes truth from the philosophers as from usurpers…theology serves as a corrective to philosophy…the impure motives of philosophy – vanity, contentiousness, arrogance – [are] transformed into the motives of the Christian believer. Philosophical inquiries ought always to serve a theological end” (235-236).
As such, regarding the attempts of historic philosophers to articulate the nature of reality, Christians should take such attempts and either utilize or reject them to proclaim the reality which the Christian faith proclaims.
The Inherent Benefits and Potential Dangers of Philosophy
Benefits
Throughout the past two millennia, through philosophical inquiry, attempts have been made to consider the nature of reality, and how man might be reconciled to this greater reality. One of the benefits of such philosophical inquiry lies in operating upon the assumption that truth is found in God, and that God has revealed himself, thus making truth accessible. Saint Augustine makes such a connection with ultimate truth and God in Confessions, where he writes,
“And I entered and beheld with the eye of my soul (such as it was), above the same eye of my soul, above my mind, the Light Unchangeable…He that knows the Truth knows what that Light is; and he that knows It knows eternity. Love knoweth it. O Truth Who art Eternity! And Love Who art Truth! And Eternity Who art Love! Thou art my God, to Thee do I sigh night and day” (Augustine VII.10).
Here Augustine clearly implies that the transcendent God who defines such things as Truth and Love is knowable. So then, the benefit of Christian philosophy lies in the fact that the endeavor of philosophical inquiry inevitably ends with a God desiring to be known and encountered.
Dangers
At its core, philosophy is about examining life and reality, much to the pleasure of Socrates who said, “…the life which is unexamined is not worth living…” (Apology 38a5-6). As such, philosophy over the centuries has been able to pose great questions regarding human existence and purpose. However, if philosophy consists purely in examination of life with only temporary answers that come and go with time, then this is a process which is doomed to leave one hopeless. Philosophy is done by human beings, and does not contain within itself a satisfactory framework to understand the world through. It does not supply a sustainable worldview with the answers it provides. As is observable from the history of philosophical thought, answers come and go with time. In light of this, philosophy is at its best when it is being used to consider the nature of human reality, and seeking truth about said reality from outside humanity itself.
The Relationship Between Philosophy and Theology
Although this is perhaps an oversimplification, it could be said that philosophy articulates and examines, and theology reveals knowledge. In other words, philosophy can only make the best guesses as to what is “behind the curtain” as it were. It can empirically or rationally examine the way things are in the material world in order to gain a best guess at what lies behind the universe, whether it be a Divine Mind or simply nothing. Thus, philosophy articulates such guesses. Theology, however, is the only discipline which makes proper assertions as to what lies “behind the curtain”, because theology is based not upon human articulation first and foremost, but rather upon truth that is revealed from outside of humanity itself. Additionally, because theology is rooted in truth from outside oneself, it could be said that what (or rather, who) lies “behind the curtain” is the one pulling back said curtain to reveal himself. Theology is thus the body of revealed knowledge from the one who “pulls back the curtain”.
In pulling back this “curtain”, some philosophers from years past are revealed to be closer to the truth than others. Plato, for example, was one such philosopher who was closer to the truth. Plato picked up on the idea that something ultimate defines those things we feel such as Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Love, etc. (The Republic, Book VI). Through Platonic philosophy, one can consider that there is an ultimate concept, or “form” of beauty as Plato calls it, in which all beauty is sourced and defined by. The same can be said for the “forms” of Truth, Love, etc. However, only through theology can one properly identify what these forms are, and in what (or whom) they are sourced. While Plato took these “forms” to be impersonal and even transcendent over God, Christian theology affirms that ultimate Beauty, Love, and Goodness exist not as independent concepts, but as characteristics of the divine being over the universe.
It is theology like this which is able to take the observations of philosophers throughout history, and place them within a theological framework defined not by humanity’s own observation, but by revelation from God. It is through such subjection of philosophy to theology that allows one to see the light of truth and exit Plato’s Cave, as it were (The Republic, Book VII, 514a-521d). Thus, any philosopher who claims to have “seen the light” without God in the picture is lying. No philosopher can claim they have found the truth unless an outside source (God) has deemed their observations and conclusions on reality to be true. Philosophy without theology can neither confirm nor deny what it asserts about reality. Returning to the forms example, theology is what bridges the gap between considering ultimate beauty and love as concepts, and encountering such ultimate beauty and love in the divine being in whom these things are sourced. Theology makes the assertion that the divine mind or “Logos” which the Greek philosophers sought has revealed itself in Jesus Christ.
Bibliography
Encyclopedia Britannica. “The Confessions.” Saint Augustine. Augustine. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer J. Adler. Trans. Edward Bouverie Pusey. Vol. 18. Chicago: William Benton, 1952. 54 vols. 48.
Jordan, Mark D. “Theology and Philosophy.” The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas. Ed. Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump. Cambridge University Press, 1993. 235-236.
Plato. “Apology of Socrates.” 12 December 2019. The Center for Hellenic Studies, https://chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/plato-the-apology-of-socrates-sb/.
Plato. The Republic. Translated by Desomond Lee, 2nd ed., Penguin, 2007.
Zondervan. Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy, HarperCollins Christian Publishing, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/lbc/detail.action?docID=5608148.
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