The burden of proof is on believers to prove God exists (according to atheist philosphers)

[tonyrey]

It is worth glancing at St Justin Martyr’s First Apology to understand how well Christian philosophy has served all followers of Jesus in the face of persecution:

newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htmhttp://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm

Correction: newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm

 

[inocente]

There is no point in continuing because you misinterpret and disagree with everything I write without explaining why

I explained why. There’s no misinterpretation - you quoted “one substance” and I quoted Thomas stating that makes no difference, there are two persons, and so you were wrong to claim “the words of Jesus are sufficient evidence of divine simplicity”. Don’t see the big deal, you made a mistake by quoting a verse out of context, move on.

• • and ignore statements such as:*

Look at your post #506 and you’ll see you quoted me, then said I rejected your answers, then out of the blue you said something about identity and courts. I still have no idea what it has to do with anything.

I gave you a definition you have ignored…

No you didn’t. You gave me a standard definition of “set”, but I didn’t ask for that, I asked you what you meant by “human set”, a term you used in several posts to me. I’ve never seen the term “human set” before and I’ve asked you time and again what you meant by “human set” in your posts, and you’ve never answered me. What did you mean by “human set” in your posts?

Non sequitur. The fact that Thomas does not cite John 10:30 does **not **imply that he thought it is irrelevant or proves the contrary. In fact it is his starting point in his Gospel.

Another non sequitur. “the wisdom of the world” doesn’t imply that all philosophy is foolish. If that were the case all Christian philosophy would be worthless - including that of the first apologists as well as St Augustine and St Thomas.

Hang on, you just said there was no point in continuing, now you continue.

Your opinion that Jesus is authorizing a philosophical doctrine of divine simplicity in John 10:30 isn’t shared by Thomas for the reasons he gives.

And of course Paul isn’t saying all philosophy is worthless, he’s saying that no god of the philosophers, no mere theory, hung on a cross and died for us.

 

[inocente]

I don’t “know” or recognize your category “ordinary believer,” because it is so imprecise as to be meaningless. I have no idea what your “ordinary believer” thinks or believes – nor how he arrived at those beliefs to begin with – since he is simply your mental construct. Therefore, I don’t have the problem of attempting to answer your point – whatever that point was.

Two can play that game.

Paul isn’t playing games. Consider what proportion of Catholics in the world have read Aristotle and Thomas. How many could explain the nuanced differences between the philosophical doctrines of divine spatial simplicity, divine temporal simplicity and divine property simplicity? How many even know what a doctrine of divine simplicity is? How many even know what substances and natures mean in that context? How many on a university campus, let alone on hill farms in South America and Africa?

That vast majority who don’t know the god of the philosophers, are who I’m calling ordinary believers, as when Paul writes “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth”. Ordinary people, then as now.

So, my point again: the vast majority of Catholics don’t know what your “one person with two natures” means, or why that might be an issue without an accompanying doctrine of hypostatic union, which they also couldn’t explain.

But they don’t need to, since "It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

 

[tonyrey]

There’s no misinterpretation - you quoted “one substance” and I quoted Thomas stating that makes no difference, there are two persons, and so you were wrong to claim “the words of Jesus are sufficient evidence of divine simplicity”. Don’t see the big deal, you made a mistake by quoting a verse out of context, move on.

Divine simplicity does **not **exclude one substance and three persons.
NB There is a distinction between simplicity and economy but as far as God is concerned such categories are analogical like all other human statements about the Supreme Being, e.g. “Father” and “Son”.

Look at your post #506 and you’ll see you quoted me, then said I rejected your answers, then out of the blue you said something about identity and courts. I still have no idea what it has to do with anything.

The identity of persons, whether human or divine, does not change even though they effect change.
Quote:

I gave you a definition you have ignored…

No you didn’t. You gave me a standard definition of “set”, but I didn’t ask for that, I asked you what you meant by “human set”, a term you used in several posts to me. I’ve never seen the term “human set” before and I’ve asked you time and again what you meant by “human set” in your posts, and you’ve never answered me. What did you mean by “human set” in your posts?

It is a term used by rossum I understood to mean the “human species”. If you are in doubt he is the person to ask.

Non sequitur. The fact that Thomas does not

cite John 10:30 does **not **imply that he thought it is irrelevant or proves the contrary. In fact it is his starting point in his Gospel.

Another non sequitur. “the wisdom of the world” doesn’t imply that all philosophy is foolish. If that were the case all Christian philosophy would be worthless - including that of the first apologists as well as St Augustine and St Thomas.Hang on, you just said there was no point in continuing, now you continue.

It was an afterthought and I thought it’s a pity to leave you in the dark.

Your opinion that Jesus is authorizing a philosophical doctrine of divine simplicity in John 10:30 isn’t shared by Thomas for the reasons he gives.

St Thomas certainly didn’t believe in divine complexity!

And of course Paul isn’t saying all philosophy is worthless, he’s saying that no god of the philosophers, no mere theory, hung on a cross and died for us.

That seems an idiosyncratic interpretation of:

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world…

Colossians 2:8
An Anglican bishop thought otherwise:

The apostle does not condemn “philosophy” absolutely: the philosophy and vain deceit of this passage corresponds to what he says in 1 Timothy 6:20. But though it is not condemned it is disparaged by the connection in which it is placed. The term was doubtless used by the false teachers to describe their system. Though essentially Greek as a name and an idea it had found its way into Jewish circles. Philo used it in speaking of the Hebrew religion and Mosaic law, and also of Essenism, which was probably the progenitor of the Colossian heresy. So, too, Josephus speaks of three Jewish sects as philosophies. It should be remembered also, that in this later age, owing to Roman influence, the term was used to describe practical not less than speculative systems, so that it would cover the ascetic life as well as the mystic theosophy of the Colossian heretics. Hence the apostle is here flinging back at these false teachers a favourite term of their own — “their vaunted philosophy, which is hollow and misleading.” The word, indeed, could claim a truly noble origin; for it is said to have arisen out of the humility of who called himself “a lover of wisdom.” In such a sense the term would entirely accord with the spirit and teaching of St. Paul; for it bore testimony to the insufficiency of the human intellect and the need of a revelation.

biblehub.com/sermons/auth/lightfoot/st_paul’s_attitude_towards_philosophy.htm

 

[inocente]

Divine simplicity does **not **exclude one substance and three persons.

Sure, and I linked Thomas saying that, and pointed out he said that.

The identity of persons, whether human or divine, does not change even though they effect change.

As I said, look at your post #506 and you’ll see that statement had nothing to do with what you quoted from me. Mind reader I am not.

It is a term used by rossum I understood to mean the “human species”.

That would mean in post #268 you wrote “Buddhism is certainly relevant to the topic because it is concerned with an aspect of reality which atheists reject. Do you believe it is restricted to human -]sets/-] species?”

It was an afterthought and I thought it’s a pity to leave you in the dark.

I bow to your expertise in making all things hidden.

St Thomas certainly didn’t believe in divine complexity!

Your opinion that Jesus is authorizing a philosophical doctrine of divine simplicity in John 10:30 isn’t shared by Thomas for the reasons he gives.

That seems an idiosyncratic interpretation of:
Colossians 2:8
An Anglican bishop thought otherwise:

biblehub.com/sermons/auth/lightfoot/st_paul’s_attitude_towards_philosophy.htm

There’s a perfect example of rabbits and hats. What has it to do with 1 Cor 1? With what Paul quotes from Isaiah and Jeremiah? With what he says there?

Be honest, in your headlong rush to take things out of context, did you realize that Paul doesn’t even use the same word? The NIV does indeed have philosophy in Col 2 and philosopher in 1 Cor 1. But in Col 2 Paul wrote φιλοσοφίας / philosophias / philosophy while in 1 Cor 1 he wrote συζητητὴς / syzētētēs / debater.

Great that you’re looking at commentaries, but don’t forget that on that same site you’ll find the Greek and interlinear. Have a look at the commentaries on that verse, about who Paul is referring to. As Matthew Poole says “What have they done by all their philosophy and moral doctrine, as to the turning of men from sin unto God, from ways of iniquity unto ways of righteousness, in comparison of what we, the ministers of Christ, have done by preaching the doctrine of the gospel, and the cross of Christ?”

Still true today. How many people have philosophers brought to salvation compared with Catholic priests and pastors? (Think carefully before answering.) I’ll say it again: of course Paul isn’t saying all philosophy is worthless, he’s saying that no god of the philosophers, no mere theory, hung on a cross and died for us.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Still true today. How many people have philosophers brought to salvation compared with Catholic priests and pastors? (Think carefully before answering.) I’ll say it again: of course Paul isn’t saying all philosophy is worthless, he’s saying that no god of the philosophers, no mere theory, hung on a cross and died for us.

And how do you know precisely how many have actually been brought to salvation and how – as opposed to how many you think or presume have been saved?

The body count of the saved vs the unsaved is tallied where, precisely? Do you have access to that database somewhere?

The most reliable determination – as far as I can tell – for who definitely would be on the list of the Blessed, as opposed to possibly or probably, would be those actually declared saints or blessed by the Church. The rest of us are TBA.

I do know that a great many of the Church’s most effective doctors and apologists have been philosophers or at least have had some training in philosophy. You must also be aware that ALL Catholic priests and pastors have a minimum of four years training in philosophy, are you not? That would mean the Church firmly believes that philosophy is, indeed, a critical tool for explicating the beliefs of the Church to those who need to “turn from sin unto God.”

Let’s not get too carried away with your presumptions about who is or is not saved based upon your assessments of such nor get too self-assured about the value of philosophy with regard to explaining or defending the teachings of the Church.

The other side of the coin would be to point out that there appears to be a large number of those who have been drawn away from God by bad reasoning, by bad rhetoric, by badly done philosophy, by bad implications from science and by truly awful evangelists and churchian or liberal social justice types who could have been set straight with clear lessons on what is or is not to be understood, logically implied or taken away from Church teaching or studies of Scripture.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I do know that a great many of the Church’s most effective doctors and apologists have been philosophers or at least have had some training in philosophy. You must also be aware that ALL Catholic priests and pastors have a minimum of four years training in philosophy, are you not? That would mean the Church firmly believes that philosophy is, indeed, a critical tool for explicating the beliefs of the Church to those who need to “turn from sin unto God.”

Philosophy is important as a tool by which to understand more deeply what we know intuitively by faith. Philosophy is not for everybody. But those who turn from God, as you say, must be approached by people who are trained in the art of reasoning, because the unbelievers have closed their hearts to God. The only way to reach them is to show them that God is not a mere figment of imagination but, more reasonably, a living reality that they should learn to greet rather than to flee from.

 

[PRmerger]

And how do you know precisely how many have actually been brought to salvation and how – as opposed to how many you think or presume have been saved?

Yep.

And since salvation is nothing more and (certainly) nothing less than: standing before the Eternal Throne of Heaven, one has to wonder how inocente could know which of these were brought there because of philosophers and which are there because of priests.

Suffice it to say: we can know with assurance that ALL of them are there through Christ and His Body, the Catholic Church.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Yep.

And since salvation is nothing more and (certainly) nothing less than: standing before the Eternal Throne of Heaven, one has to wonder how inocente could know which of these were brought there because of philosophers and which are there because of priests.

Suffice it to say: we can know with assurance that ALL of them are there through Christ and His Body, the Catholic Church.

Ah, yes, that man Christ who is the embodiment of Wisdom (Sophia,) after whom philosophy is named.

Cf. Wisdom 2

Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
13 He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
14 He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
15 the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
16 We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
17 Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
18 for if the righteous man is God’s child, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
19 Let us test him with insult and torture,
so that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
20 Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”

And Wisdom 4

16 The righteous who have died will condemn the ungodly who are living,
and youth that is quickly perfected will condemn the prolonged old age of the unrighteous.
17 For they will see the end of the wise,
and will not understand what the Lord purposed for them,
and for what he kept them safe.
18 The unrighteous[e] will see, and will have contempt for them,
but the Lord will laugh them to scorn.

And Wisdom 6

9 To you then, O monarchs, my words are directed,
so that you may learn wisdom and not transgress.
10 For they will be made holy who observe holy things in holiness,
and those who have been taught them will find a defense.
11 Therefore set your desire on my words;
long for them, and you will be instructed.

12 Wisdom is radiant and unfading,
and she is easily discerned by those who love her,
and is found by those who seek her.
13 She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.
14 One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty,
for she will be found sitting at the gate.
15 To fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding,
and one who is vigilant on her account will soon be free from care,
16 because she goes about seeking those worthy of her,
and she graciously appears to them in their paths,
and meets them in every thought.
17 The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction,
and concern for instruction is love of her,
18 and love of her is the keeping of her laws,
and giving heed to her laws is assurance of immortality,
19 and immortality brings one near to God;
20 so the desire for wisdom leads to a kingdom.
21 Therefore if you delight in thrones and scepters, O monarchs over the peoples,
honor wisdom, so that you may reign forever.
22 I will tell you what wisdom is and how she came to be,
and I will hide no secrets from you,
but I will trace her course from the beginning of creation,
and make knowledge of her clear,
and I will not pass by the truth;
23 nor will I travel in the company of sickly envy,
for envy does not associate with wisdom.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Paul isn’t saying all philosophy is worthless, he’s saying that no god of the philosophers, no mere theory, hung on a cross and died for us.

No, but he is saying that the Word, the Logos, the Truth, the Wisdom of God did.

And lovers of Wisdom (true philosophers) will recognize Wisdom, whether in a manger – as the Wise Men from the East did – or on a cross – as Paul did.

 

[tonyrey]

Sure, and I linked Thomas saying that, and pointed out he said that.

As I said, look at your post #506 and you’ll see that statement had nothing to do with what you quoted from me. Mind reader I am not.

That would mean in post #268 you wrote “Buddhism is certainly relevant to the topic because it is concerned with an aspect of reality which atheists reject. Do you believe it is restricted to human -]sets/-] species?”

I bow to your expertise in making all things hidden.

Your opinion that Jesus is authorizing a philosophical doctrine of divine simplicity in John 10:30 isn’t shared by Thomas for the reasons he gives.

There’s a perfect example of rabbits and hats. What has it to do with 1 Cor 1? With what Paul quotes from Isaiah and Jeremiah? With what he says there?

Be honest, in your headlong rush to take things out of context, did you realize that Paul doesn’t even use the same word? The NIV does indeed have philosophy in Col 2 and philosopher in 1 Cor 1. But in Col 2 Paul wrote φιλοσοφίας / philosophias / philosophy while in 1 Cor 1 he wrote συζητητὴς / syzētētēs / debater.

Great that you’re looking at commentaries, but don’t forget that on that same site you’ll find the Greek and interlinear. Have a look at the commentaries on that verse, about who Paul is referring to. As Matthew Poole says “What have they done by all their philosophy and moral doctrine, as to the turning of men from sin unto God, from ways of iniquity unto ways of righteousness, in comparison of what we, the ministers of Christ, have done by preaching the doctrine of the gospel, and the cross of Christ?”

Still true today. How many people have philosophers brought to salvation compared with Catholic priests and pastors? (Think carefully before answering.) I’ll say it again: of course Paul isn’t saying all philosophy is worthless, he’s saying that no god of the philosophers, no mere theory, hung on a cross and died for us.

I shall leave others to decide whether your statements are relevant and/or correct. May you fare well.

 

[inocente]

And how do you know precisely how many have actually been brought to salvation and how – as opposed to how many you think or presume have been saved?

The body count of the saved vs the unsaved is tallied where, precisely? Do you have access to that database somewhere?

The most reliable determination – as far as I can tell – for who definitely would be on the list of the Blessed, as opposed to possibly or probably, would be those actually declared saints or blessed by the Church. The rest of us are TBA.

I do know that a great many of the Church’s most effective doctors and apologists have been philosophers or at least have had some training in philosophy. You must also be aware that ALL Catholic priests and pastors have a minimum of four years training in philosophy, are you not? That would mean the Church firmly believes that philosophy is, indeed, a critical tool for explicating the beliefs of the Church to those who need to “turn from sin unto God.”

Let’s not get too carried away with your presumptions about who is or is not saved based upon your assessments of such nor get too self-assured about the value of philosophy with regard to explaining or defending the teachings of the Church.

The other side of the coin would be to point out that there appears to be a large number of those who have been drawn away from God by bad reasoning, by bad rhetoric, by badly done philosophy, by bad implications from science and by truly awful evangelists and churchian or liberal social justice types who could have been set straight with clear lessons on what is or is not to be understood, logically implied or taken away from Church teaching or studies of Scripture.

You want to defend philosophy, fine, but the message of the Cross was perfection for Paul.

No one can improve on perfection, yet you sound as if you’re saying the message wasn’t good enough for the Church until philosophers made it more rational. What was Christ’s message lacking before Thomas? How did God slip up, that His message had to be fixed by human wisdom? How has the Church changed its message since Paul’s day?

Imho, for the Church as well as for Baptists, Jesus did not make a mistake in choosing non-philosophers as apostles. Philosophy may (arguably) be a bit of icing on the cake as far as saving souls is concerned, but there’s a reason the Church isn’t built on Aristotle.

 

[inocente]

I shall leave others to decide whether your statements are relevant and/or correct. May you fare well.

I shall leave others to decide why you couldn’t produce an answer. Best wishes for your voyage, where are you off to?

 

[PRmerger]

You want to defend philosophy, fine, but the message of the Cross was perfection for Paul.

There is no need to include a “but”.

The good old Catholic both/and here (again).

“You want to defend philosophy, fine, AND the message of the Cross was perfection for Paul”.

Incidentally, no one can know what the message of the Cross was, were it not for the Catholic Church.

It is the CC that discerned that Paul’s epistles were theopneustos.

Neither you, nor I, can decide for ourselves what belongs in the Bible.

For that, we defer to the CC.

 

[inocente]

“You want to defend philosophy, fine, AND the message of the Cross was perfection for Paul”.

If the message is perfection then no philosophical modification or addition can add to its perfection.

Although I guess it’s easy enough for philosophers to modify the Nicene Creed:

We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the
Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through -]the Prophets/-] philosophers.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Paul isn’t playing games. Consider what proportion of Catholics in the world have read Aristotle and Thomas. How many could explain the nuanced differences between the philosophical doctrines of divine spatial simplicity, divine temporal simplicity and divine property simplicity? How many even know what a doctrine of divine simplicity is? How many even know what substances and natures mean in that context? How many on a university campus, let alone on hill farms in South America and Africa?

The real question is whether the Catholics, as a whole – and the world around them – would have been far better off had a much larger proportion of Catholics read Aristotle and Aquinas and could therefore explain much better than they do the subtle nuances between the various philosophical doctrines? I think yes – and not a subtle nuanced ‘yes,’ but an unmitigated one.

That vast majority who don’t know the god of the philosophers, are who I’m calling ordinary believers, as when Paul writes “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth”. Ordinary people, then as now.

So, my point again: the vast majority of Catholics don’t know what your “one person with two natures” means, or why that might be an issue without an accompanying doctrine of hypostatic union, which they also couldn’t explain.

And again: the question isn’t whether the vast majority do or don’t know, but whether they would be much better off knowing the meaning of those doctrines and being able to clearly explain them so that they aren’t kowtowed into silence by the pretext that Catholic beliefs are indefensible, stupid, or vestiges of middle age or bronze age ignorance.

Think about it. Is the Christian world better or worse off because people (philosophers, really) like Socrates, Aristotle, Justin Martyr, Origen, Boethius, Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Kierkegaard, CS Lewis, Elizabeth Anscombe and countless others spent time and energy attempting to explicate Christian or theistic beliefs so those outside the belief system could try to understand it? I say far, far better off.

You would have to make the case that all of these should have just stuck to hill-farming or some such, and let God do all the explaining and redeeming. Perhaps you should read a bit on the idea of secondary causation.

But they don’t need to, since "It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

Which means, essentially: “Boast in the Truth – that which truly is.”

 

[Peter_Plato]

If the message is perfection then no philosophical modification or addition can add to its perfection.

Although I guess it’s easy enough for philosophers to modify the Nicene Creed:

We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the
Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through -]the Prophets/-] philosophers.

Perfection of what?

Perfection of each human being in Christ, perhaps? Since human beings have minds – are rational animals in the Aristotelian view of things – then perfection would seem to include perfection of the intellectual faculty, i.e., that part of us that recognizes the truth.

For an object lesson on how understanding helps us to grasp what our perfection is all about, you might try:

youtube.com/watch?v=MtTeCyrgjIQ

or

youtube.com/watch?v=QmHXYhpEDfM

 

[tonyrey]

I shall leave others to decide why you couldn’t produce an answer. Best wishes for your voyage, where are you off to?

Heaven eventually, I hope … All being well we shall meet there.

 

[inocente]

The real question is whether the Catholics, as a whole – and the world around them – would have been far better off had a much larger proportion of Catholics read Aristotle and Aquinas and could therefore explain much better than they do the subtle nuances between the various philosophical doctrines? I think yes – and not a subtle nuanced ‘yes,’ but an unmitigated one.

And again: the question isn’t whether the vast majority do or don’t know, but whether they would be much better off knowing the meaning of those doctrines and being able to clearly explain them so that they aren’t kowtowed into silence by the pretext that Catholic beliefs are indefensible, stupid, or vestiges of middle age or bronze age ignorance.

Think about it. Is the Christian world better or worse off because people (philosophers, really) like Socrates, Aristotle, Justin Martyr, Origen, Boethius, Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Kierkegaard, CS Lewis, Elizabeth Anscombe and countless others spent time and energy attempting to explicate Christian or theistic beliefs so those outside the belief system could try to understand it? I say far, far better off.

You would have to make the case that all of these should have just stuck to hill-farming or some such, and let God do all the explaining and redeeming. Perhaps you should read a bit on the idea of secondary causation.

The children of hill farmers in North Africa learn the Quran, and have done for centuries, because it is believed to be important.

In the same way, the Church could and would have taught the philosophies you admire to children in every village where there’s a priest, had it agreed with you. It doesn’t. One reason, presumably, is that without the majority sticking to hill farming and to fishing and other work, no one would have anything to eat. It’s not remotely possible for everyone to live in ivory towers thinking beautiful thoughts.

Still, as long as we’re agree that philosophers haven’t changed the message of the cross over the years.

Which means, essentially: “Boast in the Truth – that which truly is.”

Not if you mean it only becomes truth after being massaged by philosophers. There is an emotional content, a passion, in Paul’s hyperbole, which cannot be converted into logic, just as Christ’s sacrifice transcends logic.

Perfection of what?

Perfection of each human being in Christ, perhaps? Since human beings have minds – are rational animals in the Aristotelian view of things – then perfection would seem to include perfection of the intellectual faculty, i.e., that part of us that recognizes the truth.

For an object lesson on how understanding helps us to grasp what our perfection is all about, you might try:

youtube.com/watch?v=MtTeCyrgjIQ

or

youtube.com/watch?v=QmHXYhpEDfM

I think you’re mixing philosophy with apologetic there. Theologians and ministers don’t need Aristotle to preach Christ crucified. The opposite, unless you care to argue that Aristotle and the other philosophers you like were prophets sent by God.

I strongly disagree that learning Aristotle is in any sense necessary to salvation. Paul writes that it is because of God “that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption”. That’s perfection, and it’s foolishness to think that mere human wisdom can improve on Christ crucified.

A laborer who knows God is in no sense inferior or less perfect for not knowing Aristotle.

PS Sorry I kept skipping days, been very busy.

 

[inocente]

Heaven eventually, I hope … All being well we shall meet there.

Not sure that’s possible, given the old joke about Peter being asked by newcomers why part of heaven is walled off. Peter tells them that beyond the wall are the Catholics, “they believe they’re the only ones here and we don’t want to disappoint them”.