The Love of Wisdom

Andrew Davison

Description

From the dawn of Western thought to the present day, The Love of Wisdom tells the story of philosophy as something intensely theological, both in its insights and its wrong turns. The book will be invaluable for any student of theology or intellectual history, and for anyone who wants to see the intellectual cogency of the Christian faith at its best. The intellectual tradition of the Church emerges clearly from this book as one of the glories of the Christian inheritance.

Sujets

• Love
• Love (disambiguation)

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 19 novembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334052005
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Love of Wisdom
An Introduction to Philosophy for Theologians
Andrew Davison
© Andrew Davison 2013

Published in 2013 by SCM Press
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The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this Work

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library

978-0-334-04384-3

Typeset by Manila Typesetting Company
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For Catherine
Much better to deck oneself out in truths that others have handed down . . . than . . . refuse to do so and go naked.
Étienne Gilson, Methodological Realism: A Handbook for Beginning Realists , San Francisco: Ignatius, 2011, p. 106
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Why Study Philosophy?
1 Before Plato
2 Plato
3 Aristotle
4 The Bible and Philosophy
5 Philosophy and the Earlier Fathers
6 Neoplatonism and the Later Fathers
7 The Early Mediaeval Period
8 Thomas Aquinas
9 Late Scholasticism
10 The Renaissance and Reformation
11 The Enlightenment
12 Kant, Hegel and Romanticism
13 The Nineteenth Century and the ‘Masters of Suspicion’
14 The Early Twentieth Century
15 Literary Theory
16 Postmodernism
17 Theology and Philosophy in the Present Day
Biblical Index
Index of Names
Index of Subjects
Acknowledgements
From the ancient philosophers we learn not only ideas but also method: that philosophy is inseparable from the spiritual life and that it is a communal enterprise. In the Church I have found traditions of thought, going back to the ancient world, renewed and expanded. I have also found the ancient emphasis on friendship as the crucible of thought and the connection of philosophy with prayer and worship. My debt and gratitude, therefore, are not simply to individuals, for having read a chapter, or put me right on this point or that, nor even to particular teachers, although all of that remains. My debt of gratitude is most of all to a community of people – many of whom know one another, but not all – who have lived, eaten and drunk with me, who have travelled, prayed and disputed with me. I thank all those who have set before me the example of Aquinas: who have both contemplated and passed on to others the fruits of their contemplation.
Introduction: Why Study Philosophy?
The Scriptures warn us not to be ‘taken captive’ through philosophy (Col. 2.8; cf. 1 Cor. 1.20–5). As an aid to achieving that end, this book makes a counter-intuitive proposal: our theology is less likely to be hijacked by philosophy if we pay attention to philosophy. We can be more philosophical in order to be more theological .
We all operate within a philosophical framework. Philosophy, in this sense, is the position a person, culture or school of thought takes over what reality looks like and how its aspects fit together. Define philosophy this way, and every last person is a philosopher, and every last person has a philosophy. Everyone has a sense of how to think about time, knowledge, causation, justice and so on. There is an ‘architecture’ to the mind. As John Stuart Mill put it, the mind has ‘furniture’. 1 We may not be able to articulate these assumptions in any systematic way, but we have assumptions nonetheless. By and large, English-speaking cultures do not provide much space for us to think about these matters. It would be different if we lived in France or Iran, two countries where philosophy is prized and philosophical books sell in large quantities.
The Christian theologian will want his or her framework to reflect a Christian vision of the world, and unexamined philosophical presuppositions determine our outlook even more than examined ones. Unexamined presuppositions are the ones that it does not cross our mind to question. Fergus Kerr has described the consequences:
if theologians proceed in the belief that they need neither examine nor even acknowledge their inherited metaphysical commitments, they will simply remain prisoners of whatever philosophical school was in the ascendant 30 years earlier, when they were first-year students. 2
‘When the existence of metaphysical commitments is ignored or denied’, as Kerr goes on, ‘their grip only tightens.’ 3 I can think of two theological books, whose titles I shall pass over, where the clinching move in the argument comes straight from Hegel. The author’s conclusion, ultimately, does not rest on theological sources but upon Hegel’s conviction that a cycle of tension and resolution lies at the heart of things. Neither author wrote ‘as Hegel would say’ as part of his argument. Indeed, if either had, he might have questioned whether Hegel’s metaphysics should be given such sway.
This book takes a historical approach. Familiarity with the history of philosophy is useful, if only as a reminder that ideas have a history. However much an outlook today appears obvious to us, it has a heritage. At other times, people thought otherwise, and because we each receive our philosophical heritage in a different way, other people will think otherwise even in our own time. 4
We cannot take ourselves outside of philosophical tradition, if for no other reason than that we cannot get outside of language. In the words of Michael Polanyi: ‘The practice of speech in one particular language carries with it the acceptance of the particular theory of the universe postulated by the language.’ 5 We can, however, think critically about where we stand and what we take for granted. Polanyi’s comment need not be fatalistic. ‘Language’ here means something more specific than English, French or Lithuanian. We can all ‘learn to watch our language’, so that ‘our metaphysical inclinations are laid bare’, 6 to quote Kerr again, and start to refine it where necessary. We will do that when our philosophy is prayed through and considered alongside study of the Bible, alongside readings from the great theologians, mystics and activists of Christian history. Theology can bend our philosophy into new shapes. This is part of taking ‘every thought captive to Christ’ (2 Cor. 10.5).
The Uses of Philosophy
We all have a philosophy; it may as well be a good one. The thought of Thomas Aquinas will unashamedly provide the fulcrum of this book. His provides two good angles why philosophy is useful for the theologian: it provides tools for clear thinking, and it helps us understand people who think differently from us, as we talk to them about God. The first approach urges us to pay attention to good philosophy; the second urges us to pay attention to bad philosophy, so as to be able to explain why it will not suffice as an alternative to the theological vision.
The first use for philosophy is a consequence of the fact that we think with words and ideas. If we have to use concepts, they may as well be good concepts. Taken this way, philosophy does not provide theology with its ideas but it can help theologians to articulate the faith clearly. Gregory of Nyssa encouraged his readers to make use of the best philosophy available. He likened the Church’s use of philosophical ideas, wherever they came from, to the Israelites carrying off the treasures of Egypt. 7 If the Israelites could put the gold of Egypt to holy use, why can we not do the same with the treasures of thought?
Sometimes philosophy is helpful at its most sober, and sometimes at its most provocative. In the philosophy of the twentieth century, those two options have sometimes been taken to extremes, the sober option being called ‘analytic’ philosophy and the provocative option being called ‘Continental’ philosophy. (We will return to this distinction in the final chapter.) If we take the sober option, we had better think that the philosophy in question is right , since sobriety does not have much to offer beyond its clarity. When philosophy is of a more edgy variety, it can inspire us to be creative even when we think the philosophy is very wrong, by way of provoking us to think otherwise.
The setting for Aquinas’s second account of the usefulness of philosophy is in discussion with those who differ from us over how to think and understand the world. As he puts it, if we are talking to someone who does not accept the authority of the Scriptures, he or she is not going to think within the same scheme as the Christian. What counts for us as the best place to start will carry little weight for them. In this case, philosophical discussions come into their own: positively, since we can work towards God in terms of ‘what they concede’ and defensively, in seeking to ‘answer his [or her] objections’. 8 Our interlocutor might be an individual, but this process is also played out on a far larger scale, for instance in the media, when we are in dialogue with an entire culture. This i