From its earliest days, Christianity has openly embraced philosophical inquiry, making full use of it in order to elucidate key elements of its theological system. Philosophy played a significant role in the thought of the Fathers and their elucidation of the key Christian doctrinal elements; and this role was somewhat ratified at the council of Nicaea when it was decided to make use of a philosophical and non-scriptural term (consubtantia/homoousios) in describing the nature of Christ. The relationship remained steady with philosophy being seen as a good and honourable field of study, and this persisted through the middle ages and into contemporary Christianity, with Pope John Paul II, not only himself being a philosopher in the continental tradition, but also defending the role of and need for philosophy in Fides et Ratio.
Such a relationship is not peculiar to Christianity. Judaism and Islam are both religions whose followers took up philosophy, and there was a lot of interpenetration of philosophical thought amongst these three major religions, especially in the middle ages. Furthermore, not only historically have there been religious philosophers, but also in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries there are/have been a significant number of major philosophers who subscribe to one of the world religions noted above. One can list such names as: Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter Geach, Frederick Coplestone, Michael Dummett, John Haldane, Eleonore Stump, Bas Van Frassen, Nicholas Rescher, Hilary Putnam, Alisdair MacIntyre etc.
Given the interpenetration of philosophy and religion, the question of how a philosopher who has adopted a particular religious creed should comport himself or herself to philosophical inquiry is an interesting one. The issue I wish to open here is whether or not there can be a philosophy that is specifically religious in the required sense, that is, can there be a Christian, Jewish, or Islamic philosophy?
In the Thomistic tradition in which I specialise, this question was a pressing one. In the early days of the Neo-Thomistic movement of the early twentieth century, Thomists had to consider how a follower of the thought of Thomas Aquinas should address the relationship of Christianity to philosophy. Two particular camps emerged. One group, principally inspired by Etienne Gilson and his followers, held that a Christian philosopher can find room for Christianity in his or her philosophy insofar as Christianity functions as a kind of Bildung or world picture within which the philosophical discussion takes place. By conducting the philosophical inquiry within such a world picture, it is argued that interesting discussions begin emerge, and historically speaking many interesting philosophical discussions on the nature of the person, substance, accidents, relations, etc were developed within theological contexts. On this account then, there could definitely be a Christian philosophy insofar as it is a philosophy that takes its central issues and concerns from within a Christian paradigm. On the other hand, there were those who held that the Christian philosopher ought not to try to find a place for his or her Christianity within philosophy, but that philosophy ought to find its place in Christianity. On this account, one’s Christianity should not have a positive influence on one’s philosophy, and should remain somewhat distinct from the discussion, though one’s philosophy should of course influence one’s Christianity and have a role to play therein. Thinkers in this camp usually held that there can be Christian philosophers but no Christian philosophy; their main representative, and opponent of Gilson, was Fernand Van Steenberghen.
Recently a third opinion has emerged, led by John Wippel, that attempts to accommodate both groups. On this view, when a philosopher comes to deal with a problem there must be distinguished two elements: (i) the moment of discovery of a solution and (ii) the formal statement of the solution. According to this group, the moment of discovery of a solution to a problem can come from anywhere and have any inspiration; one often finds that philosophers, when working on a problem, will take a walk, read the paper, listen to some music, and come back to the problem with some inspiration. Thus, when considering the moment of discovery of a solution, Christianity can play a role insofar as its doctrines contain answers to philosophical questions, though they are stated in a non-philosophical manner. However, when it comes to the formal statement of the answer to a philosophical question, the inspiration that played a role in the moment of discovery drops out and only the formal elements remain. Thus, when one provides an answer to a particular philosophical problem, that answer must be based on reasons and not appeal to the original inspiration that led to the answer in the first place. Thus, in the formal statement of the solution, one’s Christianity drops out. Overall then, on this account, Gilson’s view is accommodated insofar as the doctrinal elements of Christianity can provide the context within which the inspiration occurs for a solution to a philosophical problem. On the other hand, Van Steenberghen’s view is accommodated insofar as the doctrinal elements of Christianity must drop out of the the formal statement of the solution to philosophical problems.
So what I would like to open for discussion is how you think one’s religious (or indeed non-religious) convictions should play a role in how we approach philosophical problems. Can non-philosophical influences have a positive role to play in our philosophical inquiries, and if so, what role should that be and how does it affect the inquiry?
Further Reading:
Etienne Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy.
____________, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages.
Fernand Van Steenberghen, La philosophie au XIIIe siècle.
John Wippel, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas, Chapter 1.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGaven, thanks for an interesting post. It seems to me that intellectual integrity requires that one shouldn't pick and choose the contexts in which one is willing to embrace the entailments of one's beliefs. If one holds certain religious beliefs, and yet these religious beliefs play no role in any of one's philosophical inquiries (esp. in philosophical contexts where these religious beliefs would be directly relevant), then it is hard to see how that individual does not violate some norm of intellectual integrity.
ReplyDeleteCheers Adam
ReplyDeleteSo it is certainly the case that a Christian for instance will entertain certain beliefs that impact on philosophical discussions, and that one cannot pick and choose how and where those impacts play out (unless one wants to adopt a double truth theory, but proponents of this view have been in the minority).
But I am unsure as to what exactly you hold the relationship to be. It seems to me that all three of the schools of thought listed above would agree with you, but they would disagree as to exactly the degree to which religious beliefs should influence the philosophical discussion. Thus, Gilson saw there to be quite a strong influence, Van Steenberghen thought philosophy should remain independent, and that religious belief should only have an indirect influence, e.g. providing a negative norm with which to reject a particular philosophical conclusion, whereas Wippel tries to accept both.
All three camps would accept that there has to be some sort of balance between the doctrinal commitments of a particular religious world view and the philosophical position adopted, but it is the details of such a balance that need to be determined.
For instance, it is unlikely that a Christian philosopher will adopt a philosophical system that positively rejects the existence of God; but beyond that, the Christian philosopher is free to hold that God's existence is impossible of demonstration, or that only His existence and not His nature is capable of demonstration, or that both His existence and His nature are capable of demonstration. And historically speaking, philosophers committed to the same theological position have often had serious philosophical disagreements.
So I agree that one's religious beliefs will have a knock on effect in philosophy (and vice versa), but I'd like to read more on how you think this is played out.