A historical comparison of philosophy and theology

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 15^th 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 20^th 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