The title of this entry may at first sight appear extremely irreverent, and even offensive, to the pious reader, but only at first sight. On careful examination, he must see that, on the contrary, calling God a "philosopher" would be just as inappropriate and even offensive as for some wacky university out of sheer fancy to bestow upon God the honorary title of PhD.
Why raise the subject at all is of course another question, but the reason may already be obvious to anyone who has been following the American political scene for the past eight years with some minimal attention. I am referring to the well-known episode when the then President George W. Bush, in a television interview, named Jesus Christ as his “favorite philosopher.” It is true that this kind of answer may be very tempting for a religious person to come up with and to be proud of, however, beneath the thin surface it is philosophically unsustainable. Its simplistic, unphilosophical approach reflects a deep philosophical confusion as to who is God, and who can be called a “philosopher.” Incidentally and ironically, only a non-Christian, who, by his faith, or a lack thereof, rejects the notion of Christ’s divinity, can call Jesus Christ “a philosopher,” which, to him, would then denote anyone of those men searching for the truth, whose answers to important questions are always subject to immediate doubt and intense critical scrutiny, and then, only in case we choose to take them seriously and with respect, exactly because none of them can be accepted as revelations of the truth or as commands on the authority of God.
Not surprisingly, the Scriptures give the word “philosopher” a very negative connotation (as someone who dares to challenge the authority of the Apostle Paul, in Acts 17:18), and who does it in a rather rude manner: "Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say?…" (etc.) Honestly, I see nothing wrong in the philosophers’ expression of doubt. After all, they are not questioning the authority of God in this instance!
But the key to the reason why God is not a philosopher lies in Plato’s definition of philosopher in Politeia:
"A philosopher is one who desires to discern the truth."
A philosopher is a person necessarily deficient in knowledge (as all human beings are!), who sets upon the noble path of increasing his knowledge, usually by asking himself (for the purpose of learning) and others (for the purpose of teaching, and also for dialectic learning, like Socrates, and other Greeks) a host of very pertinent and illuminating questions, not so much in the hope of discovering the truth, as of being able to get closer to it.
In God, however, there can be no deficiency in anything, deficiency of knowledge included. Therefore, the philosophical spirit of inquiry cannot be posited as an attribute of God, therefore, God is not a philosopher, for that very reason!
While Philosophy is the search for the right Question, God is the definitive Answer, and the only one there is. The philosopher does not reveal the truth to us, he only pushes our mind toward the path of searching for it. On the other hand, God is the Truth Itself, being the highest point of esse, altius non. That is why it is not appropriate for a Christian, or anyone who believes that Jesus is God, to call Jesus Christ “a philosopher.”
…I feel inclined to add a personal recollection here from times long past. I was born and raised as a Russian Orthodox Christian, and you just cannot be more Christian than that, if we are talking about Soviet Russia, where the vibrant spirit of early Christianity was very much revived and amazingly well… If you doubt this, just ask... Kierkegaard! Yet, I have always been kind of philosophically unhappy, accepting the Bible not as a magnificent book of philosophy, but only as the definitive and non-arguable Word of God, because such an acceptance, if one is sincere and consistent in his faith, which is by no means the case in most cases, but was in mine, should immediately strip this great book of its immense philosophical value, by denying to the philosopher-reader of the Bible his primary tool of inquiry: doubt. If only we, Christian believers, had been allowed to regard the Bible not as the imperative word of God, but as a terrific human effort, our intellectual rewards would undoubtedly have been even greater!…
Why raise the subject at all is of course another question, but the reason may already be obvious to anyone who has been following the American political scene for the past eight years with some minimal attention. I am referring to the well-known episode when the then President George W. Bush, in a television interview, named Jesus Christ as his “favorite philosopher.” It is true that this kind of answer may be very tempting for a religious person to come up with and to be proud of, however, beneath the thin surface it is philosophically unsustainable. Its simplistic, unphilosophical approach reflects a deep philosophical confusion as to who is God, and who can be called a “philosopher.” Incidentally and ironically, only a non-Christian, who, by his faith, or a lack thereof, rejects the notion of Christ’s divinity, can call Jesus Christ “a philosopher,” which, to him, would then denote anyone of those men searching for the truth, whose answers to important questions are always subject to immediate doubt and intense critical scrutiny, and then, only in case we choose to take them seriously and with respect, exactly because none of them can be accepted as revelations of the truth or as commands on the authority of God.
Not surprisingly, the Scriptures give the word “philosopher” a very negative connotation (as someone who dares to challenge the authority of the Apostle Paul, in Acts 17:18), and who does it in a rather rude manner: "Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say?…" (etc.) Honestly, I see nothing wrong in the philosophers’ expression of doubt. After all, they are not questioning the authority of God in this instance!
But the key to the reason why God is not a philosopher lies in Plato’s definition of philosopher in Politeia:
"A philosopher is one who desires to discern the truth."
A philosopher is a person necessarily deficient in knowledge (as all human beings are!), who sets upon the noble path of increasing his knowledge, usually by asking himself (for the purpose of learning) and others (for the purpose of teaching, and also for dialectic learning, like Socrates, and other Greeks) a host of very pertinent and illuminating questions, not so much in the hope of discovering the truth, as of being able to get closer to it.
In God, however, there can be no deficiency in anything, deficiency of knowledge included. Therefore, the philosophical spirit of inquiry cannot be posited as an attribute of God, therefore, God is not a philosopher, for that very reason!
While Philosophy is the search for the right Question, God is the definitive Answer, and the only one there is. The philosopher does not reveal the truth to us, he only pushes our mind toward the path of searching for it. On the other hand, God is the Truth Itself, being the highest point of esse, altius non. That is why it is not appropriate for a Christian, or anyone who believes that Jesus is God, to call Jesus Christ “a philosopher.”
…I feel inclined to add a personal recollection here from times long past. I was born and raised as a Russian Orthodox Christian, and you just cannot be more Christian than that, if we are talking about Soviet Russia, where the vibrant spirit of early Christianity was very much revived and amazingly well… If you doubt this, just ask... Kierkegaard! Yet, I have always been kind of philosophically unhappy, accepting the Bible not as a magnificent book of philosophy, but only as the definitive and non-arguable Word of God, because such an acceptance, if one is sincere and consistent in his faith, which is by no means the case in most cases, but was in mine, should immediately strip this great book of its immense philosophical value, by denying to the philosopher-reader of the Bible his primary tool of inquiry: doubt. If only we, Christian believers, had been allowed to regard the Bible not as the imperative word of God, but as a terrific human effort, our intellectual rewards would undoubtedly have been even greater!…
No comments:
Post a Comment