On Living Your Philosophy

Nowadays, if a philosopher finds he cannot answer the philosophical question ‘What is time?’ or ‘Is time real?’, he applies for a research grant to work on the problem during next year’s sabbatical. He does not suppose that the arrival of next year is actually in doubt. He insulates his ordinary first order judgments from the effects of his philosophizing

– Myles Burnyeat, The Original Sceptics (1998), p. 92

I recently attended an open lecture at the Presbyterian Theological Centre, in which UK philosopher/theologian/blogger Paul Helm spoke about the intellectual biography of John Calvin. One of his central points was that although Calvin wrote in the sixteenth century, his writings are much more at home in and indebted to the world of ancient thought, rather than modern thought. Helm suggested that it makes more sense to read him in light of Plato, the Stoics and Augustine, then it does to read him in light of medieval, early modern or Enlightenment figures. Helm used the above quote from the brilliant classicist and philosopher Myles Burnyeat to bring all this into focus.

Burnyeat argues that what classified the ancient philosophers was a commitment to live their philosophy.  These days, he says, philosophical activity is thought to be more theoretical inquiry then it is life guiding wisdom. Philosophers are expected to write logically tight, rigorously argued, interesting and abstract papers, rather than wander the market place in search of an honest man (like Diogenes did), or heroically stare death in the face because you are convinced of the maxim that nothing can harm a good man after death (like Socrates did).

Helm’s point was that Calvin bought into this ancient conception of philosophy, and it permeated his thinking about religion. Religion is far from a theoretical, cool, abstract, detached type of inquiry (at one point, Helm surprisingly stated that Calvin derisively refers to this kind of activity as ‘theology!’), but religion is meant to energize and guide your life, it is meant to be the practical wisdom that you consult in all things.

I found this to be a really interesting suggestion from Helm, and one I will keep in mind as I read Plato and (hopefully!) Calvin/Calvinists. But I suspect that his allegedly neutral-historical-lecture had an implicitly pointy provocation.

I felt like Helm was suggesting that those Christians who claim to stand in Calvin’s legacy ought to think about whether they are of a similar frame of mind. Do we tend to insulate our first order beliefs from our religious convictions? Do we live our religion? Are we more like the ancient philosophers whose knowledge and thoughts led them to do certain (crazy!) things? Or are we more like the insulated academic who professes to be a specialist in radical theories of time, but has no doubts that tomorrow will come like it always has? Are we insulating ourselves from our knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ?

Christianity and Philosophy – Which Paradigm?

What ought a Christian think about an activity like philosophy? Throughout Christian history various stances have been adopted towards philosophy, two of which I find pretty unattractive and a third of which seems the most promising.

1.   Christianity is Philosophy

This view, which has been variously expressed by some of the early Church Fathers, is one way to read Hegel’s philosophy, and is an idea flirted with by some Nineteenth and Twentieth Century liberal theologians, tends to say that Christianity is the culmination of all true philosophy – it is the best philosophy. At a more basic level, this view holds that Christianity is the same type of thing as all other philosophies, it just happens to be the one which is correct. This is kind of like saying that Christianity is just another potato in a barrel full of potatoes – it just happens to be the best potato. It therefore blows open the door to affirming certain philosophers, to whose ideas you are attracted, as unconscious Christians. Just as it makes sense to speak of Nietzsche as an unconscious post-modern before postmodernism, or as Rousseau as an unconscious Kantian before Kant, so it makes sense to endorse certain figures as unconscious Christians. In this way, it establishes a very wide scope for who can be said to be articulating Christianity since it is essentially of a kind with what other philosophers are doing. At its extreme, then, this conception of philosophy has no problem seeing Christianity as a mixture of ideas derived from the bible and early Christian communities, and any number of philosophical systems – a position of which many Christians are suspicious. At the very least, this approach to philosophy and Christianity seems wrongheaded, and to simply describe Christianity as a philosophy seems not to be exhaustive.

2.    Philosophy is the ‘Devil’s Whore!’

This is a phrase attributed to the always cool, calm and collected Martin Luther. Such sentiments are in fact as old as Tertullian, who said:

What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and Church? What between heretics and Christians?…Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition! We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus, no inquisition after enjoying the gospel! With our faith, we desire no further belief.  (On the Proscription of Heretics)

This view, plainly, sees philosophy as a dangerous vice, and prescribes a total separation of the two. It is helpful to view this position as an overreaction to the problems entailed in position 1. It strongly claims that Christianity and philosophy are of a completely different kind, and that therefore philosophy ought never to be able to set the agenda for Christianity, or influence the shaping of doctrine or life. While this response is understandable – particularly for Luther in contending for scripture alone – it seems to preclude any fruitful relationship between the two.

 

3.   Augustine

The third option is the position often attributed to Augustine. Augustine held that philosophy can be one unique, interesting, and potentially illuminating, way of expressing what is true about the world, in virtue of a reality which a different discipline is more apt to fully describe. What I like about this approach is that it maintains that philosophy on its own is able to produce results, that these results are interesting and unique and can help us understand the world better, whilst maintaining that there is another discipline that is able to more fully describe reality – biblical revelation and theology.  Whilst not denying that non-Christian philosophers can have genuine discoveries, insights or knowledge, Augustine held that philosophy does not provide some sort of objective vantage point from which people can get closer to objective truth apart from revelation, and a place from which all other disciplines can be scrutinized.

What do you think? Have I been too quick to dismiss (1) and (2) in favor of (3)? Do you think there is another way to describe the relationship?