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Christian philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Christians, or in relation to the religion of Christianity. Christian philosophy emerged with the aim of reconciling science and faith, starting from natural rational explanations with the help of Christian revelation.
- How Philosophy Relates to Christianity
- Two Extremes For Christian Philosophy to Avoid
- Discovering Truth from Outside
- Preserving Truth in Dark Ages
- Aquinas’s Synthesis of Philosophy and Theology
- The Unraveling of Aquinas’s Synthesis
The Bible isn’t structured in order to give a systematic answer to each question. Yet Christianity is also not neutral on the big philosophy questions. The puzzle isn’t if Christianity overlaps with philosophy, but how. In particular, the puzzle is whether Christianity answers these questions through divine revelation (e.g., the Bible) alone, or wh...
Reason Minus Faith
We see modeled in such thinkers the crucial avoidance of two extremes. Says Tertullian, we must guard against reason minus faith. After all, hadn’t Paul asked, Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (I Cor. 1:20) Paul had also warned, See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the element spirits of the world, and not according...
Faith Minus Reason
Yet, on the other hand, Christians should also guard against faith minus reason, as thinkers like Clement of Alexandria remind us. After all, Peter had told Christians to be able to “make a defense,” giving reasons for our hope (I Peter 3:15). Paul saw one of the purposes Jesus had given him the “defense and confirmation of the gospel” (Phil. 1:7). Paul apparently believed the Christian faith to be reasonable since he regularly reasonedwith nonbelievers about its truthfulness (Acts 17:2; 17:1...
Christian Philosophy: “Paul apparently believed the Christian faith to be reasonable since he regularly reasoned with nonbelievers about its truthfulness.”
How Christianity interacts with philosophy should pitch a tent somewhere between these two extremes. Christianity wasn’t merely reasoned into existence, it was revealed. And, because it was revealed by the God whose “Word is truth” (John 17:17), we should discover it to be reasonable.
With Christianity being truthful, then wherever non-Christian philosophers stumbled upon what was likewise true, Christians felt justified in using these philosophers’ insights to complement and point to the truth of Christianity. So, even while John called out the philosophy of Gnosticism (I John 4:2-3), Paul favorably quoted a Stoic poet to make ...
Augustine wrote as barbarians ransacked Rome. As the Church labored to Christianize and stabilize Europe through the early Middle Ages, Christian theologians followed Augustine’s example in philosophizing from a Christian perspective, and in so doing, adopting an appreciative posture toward philosophy, especially the branch of philosophy we call “l...
Aquinas knew that, given the truthfulness of Christianity, true philosophy could never contradict it. But this wasn’t as simple as merely saying that all philosophy that said anything against Christianity was automatically false because of its impious conclusions. Instead, Aquinas recognized philosophy as a valid study in its own right. If philosop...
Shortly after Aquinas’s seminal synthesis, theologians began tweaking it while others clearly wanted to topple it. William of Ockham takes the blame for largely unraveling what Aquinas had woven. The most effective way to do this was to attack the rational arguments given for God’s existence. Do some of these arguments show that God probably exists...
Jan 12, 2020 · It’s tempting to think of Christian worship as primarily about having a certain emotional experience, or living by a certain set of moral rules. But God wants us to love him with every part of our being, including our intellect. And the tools of philosophy are uniquely suited for such development.
Oct 15, 2021 · The general term that early Christian thinkers used to describe their intellectual work was, more often than not, simply “philosophy” or “Christian philosophy”. Christianity was regarded as the “true philosophy” over against the false philosophical schools associated with pagan thought.
- Michael J. Murray, Michael Rea
- 2002
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. St. augustine was the first, it seems, to have employed the expression Christian philosophy to designate the teaching proposed to men by the Church and to distinguish it from the different wisdoms taught by the philosophers of antiquity.
Christian philosophy is a development in philosophy that is characterised by coming from a Christian tradition. As Christianity spread throughout the Hellenic world, an increasing number of church leaders were educated in Greek philosophy.
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The Bible tells us how we may know truth, what reality is like, how we should think and act, and even what governments should do. Philosophers usually call these studies (1) epistemology: the theory of knowing; (2) metaphysics: the theory of reality; (3) ethics: the theory of conduct; and (4) politics: the theory of government.
