There
is often much debate between issues that are philosophical and those which are
theological. Philosophy is most certainly a broad term but can be defined as;
the study and attempt to address fundamental issues such as knowledge
(epistemology), reality (ontology), values (axiology), reason and logic. Theology
however is the study of God, who God is and how God acts in the world, this can
be broken down further into the investigation of the person and works of Jesus
Christ (Christology) issues of salvation (soteriology) and judgement day
(eschatology). While these two seem distinct there are some overlaps, for
example arguments for God’s existence and the problem of evil and suffering.
Philosophy
as we know it today begins in 400bc with Plato. Plato is still today having a
major influence on both philosophy and theology. Much of Plato’s philosophy is
built around what he thought of God. Plato took his idea of values from what he
called the Forms; these were
transcendent, immutable and timeless spirits of the metaphysical reality of
things that existed in the World, Plato believed that the highest of these
forms were those of Beauty, Truth and Goodness. Plato’s influence was so great
that the early Church fathers deliberately omitted any biblical teaching that
began with Plato. For example the Nicaean heresies of Arianism (the belief that
Jesus was not of one being with the Father and not eternally begotten) Arias
argued from the Gnostic position that God would not lessen himself by making
himself man as Platonists believed matter to be inherently evil, furthermore it
negated the significance of the cross to merely man dying for man. Docetism (the belief that God only appeared to
make himself man but was actually an illusion caused by God) was based on
similar grounds. Many could not accept that God who is sovereign would sully
himself by entering the finite and material world. This heresy also suffers
from the lessened significance of the cross as an illusion would not suffer and
die as Jesus did. These heresies are the key factors that led to the Nicaean
Creed.
Augustine
of Hippo (400CE) wrote extensively about Christianity, God and how the bible
should be interpreted. He is arguably most well-known for the Augustinian
theodicy, his solution to the problem of evil and suffering, Augustine
maintains that God’s creation was wholly good but humans in their rebellion
against God rejects his created order. This theodicy deals both with a problem
in logic, the inconsistent triad, and a question of God’s nature which is based
in Platonic thought as it argued total depravity of man and that God created
order out of chaos. Into the Middle Ages Catholicism took a deeper move into
reason with St. Thomas Aquinas and his five ways. These apologetic arguments
were based on rationality and things that were observed in the world. However
Luther in the 15th Century made a clear rejection of Aquinas and his
philosophy, and all philosophy that dealt with God, Luther firmly believed that
all philosophy was a way for man to attempt to reach God. This would involve
man raising himself up to heaven which Luther believed to be impossible and
almost heresy. Luther argued that philosophy was meaningless as it dealt with
human concerns and didn’t appeal to revelation, the act of God becoming man in
Jesus Christ and revealing himself to us.
During
the Enlightenment people had more or less forgotten about Jesus and tended to
stick to a light deism, this was a time where reason and progress were more
dominant forces than the pre-modern values of God and Church. Martin Buber,
Immanuel Kant and Benedict Spinoza reason the same position, although through
different means, that God is unknowable to man. Spinoza reinterprets scripture as
an account of God’s chosen people rather than God’s relationship with humanity.
Spinoza found it difficult to accept
that a sovereign God could have a relationship with humanity, and as a Jew did
not accept the personhood of Jesus Christ. Martin Buber used his philosophy of
human interaction in which he asserted there were to types, “I and Thou”, the
relationship between two people in which each person had a reciprocal
connection to each other. “I and it”, the relationship between a person and an
object in which no matter how much the person understands of the object the
object does not understand the person. (Sidebar; which of these two does the
relationship between you and I fall into?) Buber goes on to say that as humans
we cannot know anything of God, but he has omniscience over us, in this way, we
are no more connected to God than I am to the chair I am currently sitting on. This
makes the incarnation all the more significant. Kant agrees to some extent but
does argue that we can know some things of God; we can know he is a being of
order and by our own ethical sense know that he is a moral being. Kant goes on
to say that reason can take us to God, but there is a ceiling on reason and the
gap between God and man that is left is an unbridgeable epistemic distance.
Karl
Barth in the early 20th century begins a period known as
neo-orthodoxy (although Barth himself rejects this term) his theological works are
partially a response to Kant’s view of God, Barth values God’s sovereignty
highly and agrees that there is a limit to how far reason can take on to God,
but he goes on to say that while there is an epistemic distance it is overcome
by revelation. Barth believes that Jesus makes himself known to us through his
incarnation and reveals himself as God in man. However critics of Barth claim
that this is not a theological revelation and is in-fact an extension of Hegel’s
secular reasoning, as when God makes himself man in Christ he is constraining
himself to the limits of human understanding. Bonhoeffer shares the same belief
but argues that when people claim that God is unknowable it is something of a
cop-out to protect God’s power, Bonhoeffer begins to explore this idea of God’s
vulnerability but was executed before he could finish his work.
In
conclusion based on the positions laid out have realised that I can accept
Jesus as God incarnate, however I find difficulty in the idea of God the
father, Kant would say that this is how one should see the Father, while Barth
would agree that the human understanding of God is limited to what we know of
Jesus Christ. So from a philosophical aspect I could be a disciple of Christ,
however this belief would be something I have arrived at through my reason
which is not the true essence of faith in God, as Bonhoeffer says “A God that
would let us prove him would be an idol.”
"The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and end with something so paradoxical that no-one will believe it." - Bertrand Russell
