Which do you recommend?

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LoveMercyGrace

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I am thinking of getting a none religion 19 yr old young man a Philosophy book. He is a university student and this is not one of his classes. I have this idea -introducing him to Philosophy may …help.

I have not read any Philosophy book myself but I know this is part of a seminarians studies

Thanks for any suggestions
 
Every seminarian is required to take 2-4 years of Philosophy when they start out, as a prerequisite to entering graduate theological studies. There’s no contradiction between being a Christian and being a philosopher. St Justin Martyr was both. St John Paul II wrote an encyclical called “Faith and Reason” about why both are necessary for us to engage the truth.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Not hardly. Philosophy has been part of the academic aspect of priestly formation for centuries. I’m not sure by what your opinion on this is formed.
 
Have you ever been to seminary? Have you studied Theology at the graduate level? You need philosophy to lay the foundation.

I’m still not clear on how there’s a contradiction between Christianity being a “love-based religion” and whatever it is that you’re saying about Philosophy. Did you know that most of the terminology that we use to talk about love in the theological sense comes from the Greek philosophical tradition? Did you know that St Paul quotes philosophers? Have you read the wisdom books of the Old Testament, that are loaded with Philosophy?

Don’t close your mind to the things that can help us understand the truth more clearly. “Test everything, hold on to what is good.” It’s hardly a Christian trait to dismiss an entire discipline with no good reason to do so, especially one that’s so important to Christianity.
 
Am thinking something by Prof. Peter Kreeft (Philosophy - Boston College) would be appropriate, as he broaches the subject of transcendence. God cannot be understood in the least without some grasp of transcendence.
 
His book Fundamentals of the Faith includes a very good section on philosophical demonstrations of the existence of God. Also, his text on Socratic logic is very well done.

I would also recommend Fr Frederick Coppleston’s multivolume History of Philosophy, especially the first three volumes, which take you from the pre-Socratics up to the middle ages. The author was a Jesuit and a philosophy professor back in the 50s, and he wrote the series for use in teaching seminarians.
 
“Behold this Heart, which has loved men so much, that it has
spared nothing, even to exhausting & consuming itself, to testify to them of its love!”

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I will be celebrating the Mass of the Feast of the Sacred Heart tomorrow.

I’m not sure what this has to do with anything I’ve said. I can love Jesus and love philosophy. Philosophy is the love of wisdom. Jesus is associated with wisdom in Scripture. Philosophy can lead us to Jesus.
 
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edward_george1 said:
I will be celebrating the Mass of the Feast of the Sacred Heart tomorrow.

I’m not sure what this has to do with anything I’ve said. I can love Jesus and love philosophy. Philosophy is the love of wisdom. Jesus is associated with wisdom. Philosophy can lead us to Jesus.
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But it sounds secular so it must be bad, right?
 
End_Timer said:
According to Jesus & Paul, there are NO substitutes for love !
I’ve just skipped over Philo & must suffer the consequences
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Who said anything about substitutes? Not the priest you’re addressing, I assure you.
 
Who is advocating preaching philosophy in lieu of the gospel? It’s quite a strawman you’ve constructed.
 
Tell that to Leah Libresco, who went from being an atheist to being a Catholic by studying virtue ethics as a philosophy major at Yale. Or J. Budziszewski, one of the foremost natural law ethicists in the world, who became Christian and eventually Catholic by studying philosophy. Or St John Paul II, who was a philosophy professor. Or St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, aka Edith Stein, who was a Philosopher.
 
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That’s fine, I’ll just continue to believe that God is powerful enough to speak to us in whatever way he pleases, including through Philosophy. In this way, I find myself in good company. Fulton Sheen says as much in his Life of Christ.
 
I find the line of argument being presented to us to be a strange perversion of sola scriptura: instead of doctrine’s having to come purely from Scripture, evangelization has to come straight from Scripture.
 
I’m nominally a Protestant and I find it absurd. Few but fundies would take this position. Your typical Protestant would recognize that there are many paths to the truth.
 
Some years back, I also objected to the requirement for philosophy in seminary, as I did not see the connection to faith. But, Brother J.R. (CAF member JReducation) set me straight.
 
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