Friday Philosopher. Part 1: “Philosophy”

An Occasional Series on Philosophy from Dr. Mark Boone

YouTube’s Teacher of Philosophy (here)

Phileos + Sophia = philosophia, the love of wisdom.

Phileos is one of the Greek words for love, and sophia is the Greek word for wisdom.

Some people think philosophy and Christianity must be opposed. There is some reason for this: Philosophers have sometimes relied on reason to the exclusion of faith, some of the most anti-Christian ideas have come from philosophers, and so on.

But is philosophy a problem for Christians?  Both my wife and my sister-in-law have been met with disbelief from church people when they heard about me.  “He’s a believer, right?” is the sort of thing people would say.

And, of course, there’s Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits (or elemental principles) of the world, and not according to Christ” (ESV).

Does that mean Christians should avoid philosophy?

No, and here are some of the reasons why I think Christians can and should take philosophy seriously, but not take it as just an enemy to be resisted.

First, let’s remember what philosophy actually is. It’s the love of wisdom—the love, and the pursuit, of wisdom.  Christians are commanded to do this in the Bible.  The pursuit of wisdom is what the book of Proverbs is all about (chapters 1, 4, and 8 just as a start)

Second, let’s keep in mind that the history of philosophy includes a lot of solid, edifying stuff. In fact, the history of philosophy and the history of theology overlap quite a lot. A study of Augustine and Aquinas says enough.

But, of course, there’s more.  Let’s just look at a few examples.

Some philosophers give accounts of morality that feature the central biblical command to “Do to others as you would have them do to you,” like Confucius, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill.  Some philosophers develop a solid virtue theory that Christian thinkers take up, like Aristotle’s ethics theory that has been developed by Thomas Aquinas and modified by N. T. Wright (see here). Some philosophers are defending the rationality of religious faith, like Kant and William James.

And, of course, some philosophers develop actual Christian philosophies, like Boethius (here is the cartoon version) and George Berkeley (another cartoon version) and Alvin Plantinga.

And this brings us back to that verse in Colossians. What sort of philosophical captivity is Paul warning against?  Paul is talking about philosophy which is according to human tradition and the elemental principles of this world and not according to Christ.  That doesn’t mean all philosophy is bad.  It means Christians ought to not be taken captive by some philosophy—the bad kind!

Even some worldly philosophy—not a bad category in which to place the Stoic and the Epicurean philosophy Paul is dealing with in Acts 17—is worth knowing, as long as we aren’t taken captive by it.  (See why I’m a big fan of Christians knowing the real Nietzsche click this hyperlink)

But which philosophy is the bad kind?  That’s a good question, and I don’t have the final answer. But here are two good ideas:

Augustine suggests that worldly philosophy is materialistic philosophy, to be contrasted with philosophy like Plato’s that recognizes non-physical reality.  (See Augustine’s Confessions, Book 8, chapter 2.)

And then there’s the title of the journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Association (of which I am a member): Philosophia Christi. That’s Latin for the philosophy of Christ!  This is one plausible interpretation of Colossians 2:8: Philosophy is ok as long as it is the philosophy of Christ, philosophy submissive to Christ.

Here are two questions for Christians who agree with me that “Jesus is the answer”:

What actually is the question to which Jesus is the answer?  And, since we know the answer, why should we be afraid of the question?

Dr. Mark Boone (PhD Baylor University) teaches at Hong Kong Baptist University. Dr. Boone has 2,400 followers on his YouTube channel.