Greek philosophy to explain Christian philosophy

[phil8888]

Hi, I was looking at the Monophysitism controversy. It was resolved by saying that Jesus had two natures, human and divine, and not just one nature like Monophysites say. Anyway, this just made me think of a possible thing some Protestants might say, and I was wondering a good response.

What if someone makes the claim that the way Catholics go about theological and philosophical reasoning resembles Greek philosophy and so on, and that discussions such as on the natures of Christ, seems to use a certain type of logic and argument known to Roman and Greek cultures. So then they might make the claim that Catholicism has pagan elements in it, since Greek and Roman cultures were pagan, and I think they have actually made such claims.

What’s a good way to respond to and refute those assertions?

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Since Geneses preceded the Greeks and Romans the Old Testament, Greeks, and New Testament all share the same history. The Greek and Roman societies were pagan because they refused to acknowledge God and his creation of history. Catholism is not pagan it exists only to acknowledge God properly.

 

[as-a-child]

“All that is true belongs to us” - justin martyr

One of the 1st philosopher apologists

The problem most lay protestents have with phil. is that they only think of philosophy in three possible ways

1. It uses reason when all i need is faith
2. They have only been exposed to modern philosophy which is predominatly atheistic and existential, so it leaves them with a foul taste of using reason to explain faith…
3. Or they have heard of philosophers of the middle ages were Catholic and tried to use reason to explain scriptual truths when all you need is faith alone.

So how do you refute there argument - with logic and reason

And a few definitions:

phi·los·o·phy http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium.gif cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif (fĭ-lŏs’ə-fē) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. phi·los·o·phies

1. 
   *]Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.
   wis·dom http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium.gif cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif (wĭz’dəm) Pronunciation Key
   n.
   1. 
      *]The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight
      
      So philosophy is the pursuit of what is true, right, or lasting out of love and virtue.
      
      It’s just that modern philosophy has forgotten that fear of the Lord is the begining of wisdom.

 

[JimG]

There is nothing wrong with making use of valid elements in Greek philosophy. Should Christianity have limited itself to the ways of reasoning particular to Saducees, Pharisees, Essenes, or Judaic philosophy in general? If that were the case, western civilization would have looked quite different. Indeed, there would likely not have been any western civilization, which is a synthesis of Judaic, Roman, and Greek elements into a unifying Catholic culture.

There is nothing wrong with using elements of other cultures in our own. Should mathematics have never accepted the Arabic zero? Or the writings of Roman or Greek historians? The question is not whether or not we should use elements of other cultures, the question is whether we use them rightly, reasonably, and logically.

 

[Bishopite]

Hi, I was looking at the Monophysitism controversy. It was resolved by saying that Jesus had two natures, human and divine, and not just one nature like Monophysites say. Anyway, this just made me think of a possible thing some Protestants might say, and I was wondering a good response.

What if someone makes the claim that the way Catholics go about theological and philosophical reasoning resembles Greek philosophy and so on, and that discussions such as on the natures of Christ, seems to use a certain type of logic and argument known to Roman and Greek cultures. So then they might make the claim that Catholicism has pagan elements in it, since Greek and Roman cultures were pagan, and I think they have actually made such claims.

What’s a good way to respond to and refute those assertions?

The Greek philosophers primarily views knowledge as the primary virtue as the head (reason) guides the heart.
For the Jews, faith or fidelity was primary as the heart or virtue guides the head.
Catholicism (Christianity) synthesises the two together perfectly where faith and reason don’t contradict themselves. Some of the early church fathers studied Greek philosophy where they learned to reason. The Catholic church also took pagan holidays and Chrstianized them into Holy-days!

 

[Allen537]

It’s also important to rember that we as Catholics look at philosophy as “reason in light of truth” in the sense that we use our own sense perception and intellect to understand things of this world. And most legitimate philosophers would conciede that it is impossibe to understand everything using our limited human knowledge. And so it is faith (Revelation) that gives us a deeper and more complete understanding of not only the world around us, but of God Himself.

So it isn’t surprising that Church Doctors such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas used the knowledge gained by the greek philosophers, (Plato and Aristotle, respectively) to help mankind in our ultimate search for truth.

It is true then, since God is the creater of both the earthly and the divine, it would only make sense for Plato and Aristotle’s understanding of this world would aid us in our understanding of the Divine.

 

[drafdog]

We were better off when we left the expression of the faith in the hands of the story tellers and poets. Let in that Greek philosophy with its natures and essences and all that other imaginary nonsense and you only get trouble.

Matthew

 

[Formosus]

Greek Philosophy is employed within the New Testement books already. St. Paul has some stoic tendencies within his letters.

 

[Luke_S]

Hi, I was looking at the Monophysitism controversy. It was resolved by saying that Jesus had two natures, human and divine, and not just one nature like Monophysites say. Anyway, this just made me think of a possible thing some Protestants might say, and I was wondering a good response.

What if someone makes the claim that the way Catholics go about theological and philosophical reasoning resembles Greek philosophy and so on, and that discussions such as on the natures of Christ, seems to use a certain type of logic and argument known to Roman and Greek cultures. So then they might make the claim that Catholicism has pagan elements in it, since Greek and Roman cultures were pagan, and I think they have actually made such claims.

What’s a good way to respond to and refute those assertions?

The way to answer them is: so what if Catholicism has Greek influence? Logic, in most forms, is Aristotelian, thus anyone who uses logic is influenced by at least one greek. You would be hard pressed to say anything reasonable at all without having greek influence.

The greek philosophers (Aristotle and Plato) were desperate searchers of truth, and they did influence Christian thinking enormously. Aquinas used Aristotle’s metaphysics for most of his philosophical arguments. Augustine seemed to be somewhat of a Platonist. The point is, God is the source of all truth, so anyone who searches for truth, searches for God.

 

[Newchasm]

There is a difference between using philosophy as a language and using it as a religion. There were plenty of concepts that are greek but they fall under christianity only after some modifications. The only concern i have is that while using this language one has to be careful not to bring along all the original baggage. John and Paul were very careful how they used words like Logos and Aeons. A protestant has to be blind or stupid to not see greek philosophy already exists in the Bible. Furthermore, they have to be a heretic to not see that it exists in the formulation to describe the Trinity.

As a protestant, I am much more concerned with pagan rituals and customs in the church than using modified pagan language to describe things of faith.