Chapter 8: Philosophy and Theology: Dialogue and Debate
8
Philosophy and Theology
Dialogue and Debate
“What,” asked Tertullian (c.160–c.220) in the third century, “has Athens to do with Jerusalem? Or the Academy with the church?” The point behind Tertullian's famous question was the relationship between Christian theology and secular philosophy, especially Platonism. The Greek city of Athens was the home of the Academy, an institution of secular learning founded by Plato in 387 bc. For Tertullian, Christian theologians inhabited a completely different mental world from their pagan counterparts. How could there be a dialogue between them? Surely pagan philosophy would contaminate Christianity, and lead it astray?
Yet others were not so sure about this attitude, and encouraged a friendly dialogue and constructive engagement with the world of secular philosophy. Was not all truth God's truth? Surely there was a case for a dialogue between Christian theology and secular philosophy? Justin Martyr (c.100–c.165) adopted a particularly warm attitude to Platonism during the second century, prompting his critics to suggest he had merely baptized Platonist ideas without interacting with them sufficiently critically. Augustine (354–430) commended a critical and selective appropriation of secular philosophy, likening this process to plundering Egypt of its riches at the time of the Exodus under Moses. Was not Moses “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7: 22)?
A similar approach was recommended by Basil of Caesarea (c.330–79) in a fourth-century lecture given to young believers who were wondering whether they should continue to read pagan works of philosophy:
We shall gladly accept those passages in which they praise virtue or condemn vice. For those who are looking for more than just pleasure and amusement in these writers will find things of value to their souls, just as bees know how to extract honey from flowers (which to us are pleasant only for their fragrance and their colour). We should use these writings in the same way as bees use flowers. The bees do not visit all the flowers indiscriminately, nor do they try to carry away the whole flower on which they alight. Rather, they take whatever seems adapted to their needs, and leave the rest behind. In the same way, we can take away from heathen books whatever helps us and is linked to the truth, and ignore the rest.
More recently, John Paul II (1920–2005) emphasized the importance of dialogue between theology and philosophy. In his encyclical letter Fides et Ratio (Latin: “Faith and Reason,” 1998), he praised the integrity of philosophy and affirmed its role in helping the church explore, defend, and communicate its ideas:
The Church cannot but set great value upon reason's drive to attain goals which render people's lives ever more worthy. She sees in philosophy the way to come to know fundamental truths about human life. At the same time, the Church considers philosophy an indispensable help for a deeper understanding of faith and for communicating the truth of the Gospel to those who do not yet know it.
Figure 8.1 Pope John Paul II (1920‒2005).
Source: © Vittoriano Rastelli/Corbis.
Christian theology and secular philosophy often deal with similar questions, even if they may answer them in different ways on the basis of different resources. How do we obtain secure knowledge? What is the status of religious language? Can God's existence be said to be “proved”? It is a huge subject, demanding several volumes in its own right to survey it adequately. In what follows, we offer what can only be a very brief introduction to the general themes of the discussion, in the hope that readers will want to take the subject further. It will help readers to set the context for
some of the major debates they will encounter in the course of their reading, including in the present volume.