My professor said that believing in religious doctrine and dogma or political constructs is in opposition to philosophy

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I’m taking Philosophy of the Renaissance (I didn’t take first year philosophy, so it’s a jump for me). My professor said that believing in religious doctrine and dogma or political constructs is in opposition to philosophy whose ideal is to have freedom of thought. Or something to that extent, anyway. I guess it’s to be able to fully discern the truth.

So in the case of Catholicism, where reason is so important, can freedom of thought still exist while we have our dogmas and doctrines? As Catholics, there are multiple things aiding us to get to the truth such as the Holy Spirit, revelation, and the magisterium. But our thought of finding the truth through these things is to base our premises on dogma and doctrine.

Any thoughts on this? Can a religious person really have free thought? Is it possible that freedom of thought may lead one to religion and so religion is not actually in opposition to free thought? Although, I am not sure about this last one. I guess that’s also part of where faith comes in? Trusting that you will be lead to the truth?

I don’t know if that makes any sense. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. But any thoughts on this would be appreciated!

Thanks.
 
that’s news to a lot of Catholic Philosophers. Guess he never read Augustine or Aquinas.
 
I took “A Comparative Study of World Religions” in school and it really bummed me out, for YEARS afterwards.

I thought the class would present the beliefs of the Major World Religions in great detail so I could appreciate and understand them. Boy, was I wrong! It messed up my mind. Devout Baptists dropped the class and even circulated a signed letter denouncing the class. I admired them then and now.

I continued but I didn’t learn about the world religions, I learned how none of them mean anything, how they all derived from superstition and ignorance, and how there’s no place in the modern world for the “oppression” of religion.

I don’t know what you’re in for with “Philosophy of the Renaissance”, but I expect the Enlightenment will be lauded :bowdown: for the many accomplishments achieved in that glorious time. Please stay well-grounded in your faith. I think this may be a test of sorts for you. Make sure you pass the real Teacher’s test. Lol…but not really. Sending prayers your way, don’t be intimidated like I was. I still regret keeping my mouth shut, after 30 years.
 
MyNameIsDan said:
I’m taking Philosophy of the Renaissance (I didn’t take first year philosophy, so it’s a jump for me). My professor said that believing in religious doctrine and dogma or political constructs is in opposition to philosophy whose ideal is to have freedom of thought. Or something to that extent, anyway. I guess it’s to be able to fully discern the truth.

So in the case of Catholicism, where reason is so important, can freedom of thought still exist while we have our dogmas and doctrines? As Catholics, there are multiple things aiding us to get to the truth such as the Holy Spirit, revelation, and the magisterium. But our thought of finding the truth through these things is to base our premises on dogma and doctrine.

Any thoughts on this? Can a religious person really have free thought? Is it possible that freedom of thought may lead one to religion and so religion is not actually in opposition to free thought? Although, I am not sure about this last one. I guess that’s also part of where faith comes in? Trusting that you will be lead to the truth?

I don’t know if that makes any sense. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. But any thoughts on this would be appreciated!

Thanks.
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The professor’s comment seems like a self-contradiction. Does he really believe that dogmas are always something you shouldn’t believe? If so, that itself seems like a dogma, and is therefore something he should not believe.

I think the purpose of having an open mind is to hear new ideas, and the purpose of listening to new ideas is to find the truth at some point. In other words, I think ideas are not ends in themselves – they are supposed to lead to the truth. If you lose that purpose, I don’t think there is any reason to hear idea after idea. What does it get you if you never come to a conclusion?
 
I’m hoping Peter Plato sees this thread. Or Linus… They frequent the philosophy boards. News to me! Perhaps he meant believing in doctrine and dogma to the extent that they close off one’s drive to seek knowledge and understand other perspectives? Religious doctrine in the sense of a set of restrictions one places on oneself perhaps? I dunno. Maybe it was a test to see if you’d understand that that line of thinking itself skirts dogmatic thinking?
 
Sadly there are a lot of professors out there who are influencing others to their way of thinking.

It is good when believers in our Lord Jesus Christ recognize that and can inform themselves and learn how to articulate what they believe and why.

True freedom is the ability to make the right choices. I thank the Lord for the God-given authority of the Magisterium of our Catholic faith.
 
MyNameIsDan said:
So in the case of Catholicism, where reason is so important, can freedom of thought still exist while we have our dogmas and doctrines?
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Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Jesus founded the Catholic Church.
The Church is the pillar and foundation of Truth.

As long as freedom of thought bears this in mind…go knock yourself out. 🙂

They are not our doctrines and dogmas…“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
 
Yeah. The professor’s statement is self-contradictory. By telling you what you aren’t allowed to believe in, he is restricting your freedom of thought. What he could have told you would have been to not let your beliefs contradict the truth. That is, it something is actually proven to be true and you believe the opposite just because, there might be a problem. He may have also asked you not to use your beliefs as a basis in your proofs, but rather to stick to pure logic so you aren’t begging the question, etc. But to say that you can’t believe in anything? Crazy.
 
To believe in a truth that is absolutely known to be true, and is of the essence of a religious faith, is to place oneself in opposition to both the love of wisdom and freedom of thought? What a numbskull. I think it very kind of your professor to cherry-pick, and hand you on a silver platter, such an easily refuted thesis for your term paper.

I’d be sure to listen to Peter Kreeft’s discussions of the nature of Truth and free-will.
 
How amazing that a professor who clearly knows so little about the Renaissance would be assigned to teach anything about it. That is, if you understood him correctly. But with all due respect, I’m not entirely sure you did.

As most Catholic philosophers would (and have) put it, that part of faith that is dependent on Revelation is not accessible to discovery through philosophy or God would not have had to reveal it. However, as Catholic philosophers also point out, there is nothing in Catholic doctrine that is truly contrary to well-reasoned philosophy.

For example, Revelation tells us that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Can we discern that without Revelation? No. But (as Aquinas, for instance, demonstrates) it is not unreasonable from the standpoint of philosophy to believe it.

So there is a distinction to be made, all right, but it’s not the distinction expressed in the first post.

I might mention, too, that there are a lot of philosophical systems. Some are well-reasoned and some are crack-brained.
 
MyNameIsDan said:
I’m taking Philosophy of the Renaissance (I didn’t take first year philosophy, so it’s a jump for me). My professor said that believing in religious doctrine and dogma or political constructs is in opposition to philosophy whose ideal is to have freedom of thought. Or something to that extent, anyway. I guess it’s to be able to fully discern the truth.

So in the case of Catholicism, where reason is so important, can freedom of thought still exist while we have our dogmas and doctrines? As Catholics, there are multiple things aiding us to get to the truth such as the Holy Spirit, revelation, and the magisterium. But our thought of finding the truth through these things is to base our premises on dogma and doctrine.

Any thoughts on this? Can a religious person really have free thought? Is it possible that freedom of thought may lead one to religion and so religion is not actually in opposition to free thought? Although, I am not sure about this last one. I guess that’s also part of where faith comes in? Trusting that you will be lead to the truth?

I don’t know if that makes any sense. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. But any thoughts on this would be appreciated!

Thanks.
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Some of the modern philosophers may have thought this, but most people before that time don’t think that way.
 
MyNameIsDan said:
I’m taking Philosophy of the Renaissance (I didn’t take first year philosophy, so it’s a jump for me). My professor said that believing in religious doctrine and dogma or political constructs is in opposition to philosophy whose ideal is to have freedom of thought. Or something to that extent, anyway. I guess it’s to be able to fully discern the truth.
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Perhaps your professor is deliberately trying to be provocative and hoping someone will present a solid case against his dogmatic proclamation that the ideal of philosophy is to have freedom of thought. He is hoping that someone will point out to him that his claim is self-refuting because he is using a philosophical dogma to claim dogmas are anti-philosophical. That “the ideal of philosophy is freedom of thought” IS, indeed, a dogmatic proclamation on his part.

The error, besides the above blatant one, is that the ideal of philosophy is not “freedom of thought.” Freedom of thought is a habit of mind exhibited by good philosophers, but it isn’t an ideal of philosophy.

Someone already pointed out that philosophy is love of wisdom or truth – the ideal of philosophy is knowing the truth.

Why would anyone propose “freedom of thought” as an ideal? That simply implies that the ideal is to think whatever you want whenever you want to for whatever reason YOU want. That would be close to the definition of irrationality. Hardly an “ideal” of philosophy.

As a habit of mind, freedom to think means to be free from coercion, bias or prejudice to come to know the truth. It might be asked of the professor: What happens when we come to the truth on some question or other? Should we then be “free” to ignore the claim that truth has on us for the sake of freedom itself? To capriciously deny the truth by freely choosing to think something clearly false IS the truth just for the sake of exhibiting “freedom of thought?”

His “ideal” of freedom to think would seem to entail that if freedom trumps truth, then truth is valueless because freedom to think is the absolute “ideal” of philosophy. Certainly, that can’t be correct.

If knowing the truth is correctly identified as the “ideal” of philosophy – which I think most philosophers would agree is true – then dogma or doctrine functions more like a premise, an axiom in a proof or even a conclusion in an argument. If true, we are no more “free” to deny dogma than we are to deny self-evident premises, axioms of logic or conclusions in a valid and sound argument. In that sense, we are bound to truth in whatever form it comes BECAUSE it is the truth. We are not “free” to dissent just for the sake of freedom of thought.

That does not mean that philsophers cannot dispute the truth of dogma or doctrine because we are free to dispute claims that some proposition or axiom is self-evident, but we can only dispute those having good grounds for doing so, NOT just 'cause I am free to do so.

Philosophers are bound by the rules of logic and philosophical principles such as the law of non-contradiction, the law of identity or the principle of sufficient reason. We are not “free” to abandon them just for the sake of having freedom of thought as an ideal in philosophy. That would be no different than having absurd thoughtlessness as the ideal.

He could build no case for it being so since to do so involves having rules of logic and philosophical principles as starting points (or dogmas) which constrain our freedom to think philosophically in order to convince anyone of his claim that freedom IS the ideal.
 
I’d think that the idea is your from of thought leads you to certain conclusions. If those conclusions lead to a certain political or religious affiliation, then that’s that. So I doubt over could convincingly argue that either belief system is inherently as constraining as he claims. Now, whether or not most people are actually arriving at their convictions via reason…

And that’s ignoring what I suspect is a flawed premise (free thought= philosophy). Sounds like maybe that’s his philosophy, but I don’t think it’s at the root of philosophy in general.
 
*“The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”

“We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.”

“What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.” *

GK Chesterton
 
zerubabel said:
*“The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”

“We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.”

“What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.” *

GK Chesterton
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:aok:
 
MyNameIsDan said:
I’m taking Philosophy of the Renaissance (I didn’t take first year philosophy, so it’s a jump for me). My professor said that believing in religious doctrine and dogma or political constructs is in opposition to philosophy whose ideal is to have freedom of thought. Or something to that extent, anyway. I guess it’s to be able to fully discern the truth.
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The way you’ve described it seems to me to be your professor suggesting that you start your philosophical journey with a blank slate. That is, with no preconceived notions (an extremely difficult undertaking). You should start out wondering:

‘I wonder where this is going to go.’

As opposed to:

‘I know where it’s going, I wonder how we’re going to get there’.

And this might sound a little radical, but why not talk to your professor about it, so he can clarify what he means.
 
Bradski said:
The way you’ve described it seems to me to be your professor suggesting that you start your philosophical journey with a blank slate. That is, with no preconceived notions (an extremely difficult undertaking). You should start out wondering:

‘I wonder where this is going to go.’

As opposed to:

‘I know where it’s going, I wonder how we’re going to get there’.

And this might sound a little radical, but why not talk to your professor about it, so he can clarify what he means.
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This is all very laudible sounding rhetoric until we begin to try to understand any important issue and begin to be inclined in one direction over another.

What you appear to be saying is that anytime someone begins to go anywhere on their so called “philosophical journey” THAT movement in any one direction over another will be demonstrating “bias” merely by going somewhere.

The hidden point you seem to be making is that a person should end up with as blank a slate as they began with since the blankness of the slate is what makes it the preferred state.

Better to be mindless, then?
 
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