Christian Philosophy?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Charlemagne_II
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

Charlemagne_II

Guest
Some people claim Christianity and Philosophy must be separated as much as you would separate Church and State.

Jacques Maritain in his book Christianity and Democracy took the opposite view.

Yes, reason rather than faith is the hallmark of philosophy, but if philosophy leads us to believe in the existence of God, and if reason leads us to believe that Christianity is the true religion concerning this God, why should not Christianity be used to nurture and nudge philosophy in the right direction?

The Church’s teaching on natural law, for example, is very much a philosophical notion that is rational, supra-rational, and consistent with common sense.

The attempt to cut off philosophy from religion (as atheists like to do) is very much like the attempt to cut off science from religion.

I prefer the view of Pope Pius XII.

“True science to an ever-increasing degree discovers God as though God were waiting behind each closed door opened by science.”

Yes, I think there can be a Christian science as well as a Christian philosophy.
 
I think some people want to divorce philosophy from their religion because their religion makes no sense! Philosophy is simply the logic of what we believe. So these people are basically saying their religion either doesn’t need , or doesn’t have any logic. If you faith has no logic, how can it be seriously defended? It cant. Believers will either just believe because they want to believe, but you will never reason them out of it until they come to a point where they are ready to accept reason over their unreasonable beliefs. As Catholics we may disagree with the conclusions of some non Catholic theology, but at least there is some logic to it and it is reasonable. We may disagree on some of the premises upon which their conclusions are built, or disagree on the ultimate strength of the conclusion, but there is at least some systematic logic and philosophy at work. Some believers, while loving Jesus Christ cant put a coherent argument together as to why they believe in Sola Scriptura or Once Saved Always Saved except that they think what they read in the bible says its so. Nevertheless, the fact they love Christ is the power of Grace! Thank God!
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Some people claim Christianity and Philosophy must be separated as much as you would separate Church and State.
Click to expand...
Those who hold to the latter error are already victims of the former error.

I’d direct them to the Angelic Doctor ASAP.
 
One of the problems with modern philosophy today is that it repudiates any association with true religion. Without such an association, philosophy is like a withering branch that must ultimately die because it is not nourished by divine truths. Logic may sustain it for a while. Subjective appeal may sustain it a while longer in the minds and hearts of a few loyal advocates. But ultimately it dies on a dry and barren desert. Think of the secularist philosophers Voltaire and Rousseau, widely and wildly popular in their age, but barely remembered and read today.
 
Speaking of Christian philosophy, there is a sense in which politics should also be Christian. At one time Politics was very much Christian. It was certainly Christian at the time of the Founding of the nation. It was Christian when the underground railroad (large subsidized by Christian communities) helped transport slaves in the South to freedom. It was Christian when Christian communities unanimously supported the wars on Nazism and Communism. It was Christian when Rev. Martin Luther King marched with many other people of faith to establish integration throughout the land.

Today Christians are told to mind their own business. They are told to stay in their private closets and not mix in public forums as if they had no such right. They are told to shut up with respect to opposing abortion rights, gay rights, same-sex marriage rights, etc. And many Christians have shut up. As though shutting up were now the politically correct thing to do. But all this shows is that the triumph of evil in America is so powerful that good men and women fell impotent and hopeless about being heard and having any effect on the downward spiral of morals in America.
 
Strongly criticized for saying so in the 1940s, Maritain insisted that the Gospels were the only reliable foundation for a viable democracy. Now we see the Gospels being trashed, and our democracy being trashed along with them.
 
Original Christianity is a simple philosophy unrelated to dogmatic beliefs.
 
Aristotelian philosophy seems compatible with Christianity, as Saint Thomas Aquinas showed.

Platonism, with its wacky, possibly hallucinogenic induced, hierarchy of forms, and Darwinian proto-Nazi society in The Republic, needs to be approached with extreme caution.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
They are told to stay in their private closets and not mix in public forums as if they had no such right. They are told to shut up with respect to opposing abortion rights, gay rights, same-sex marriage rights, etc. And many Christians have shut up.
Click to expand...
For public forums read secular forums and you’d be spot on. Unless, of course, you have some secular arguments that you’d like to bring to the table. Then all are welcome. Even encouraged.
 
ANV said:
None, that’s why it’s a simple philosophy unrelated to dogmatic beliefs.
Click to expand...
On what basis do you declare that original Christianity is a simple philosophy?

I submit that Christianity is not a philosophy, nor a ideology. Rather it is a relationship with the Son of God, who taught the way of life that leads to eternal happiness.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top