Wycliffe_03 said:
k2aggie07 said:
Most people on here balk at a post with more than 150 characters. You can't have a philosophical discussion without some words.
Christianity in the East very emphatically stated that Christianity was the only true philosophy, and others grasped at what a Christian person who has been illumines has direct access to. Any philosophy not rooted in the experimental and liturgical life of Christianity is - or perhaps I would say should be - suspect. This doesn't prevent Christians from being exposed to or even utilizing other philosophy. But this is a baptizing of terminology to express what we have as truth. We've been doing this continuously since the beginning. You can see St Paul, as someone pointed out; or St John's use of Logos to describe Christ, or the later Christianization of neo-Platonist language and concepts.
The claim is that it is the one true philosophy that really matter ultimately. Eternal implications.
Not that there is no worth in other philosophies. Philosophers back in those times were seen as heroes/role models/whatever...almost how we view modern athletes of brilliant minds. I think Jesus and the apostles engaged regularly with them and had respect for them and probably agreed with much of what they had to say.
The tone of this thread is just pretty condescending, but sounds like that wasn't your intention.
personally i am trying to learn something about
(a) whether and to what extent Christians feel philosophy is necessary or useful to engage with
(b) why that is.
Let me throw out a different thought. OK so Christianity is basically a merger of christ's teachings with aspects of platonic philosophy. Clearly the early church felt it important to draw from what was then cutting-edge philosophy to elaborate their faith and make it relevant to societies they wanted to convert. Later, you get the scholastics engaging with Aristotle. That's pretty much what Catholicism still is, right? In my experience Protestants are usually ignorant of all of that (i certainly was raised to believe that anything pre-reformation was unimportant) and since their guys are really theologians and not philosophers per se (luther and calvin), the various strains of protestantism ostensibly exist in a philosophical and historical vacuum (outside of the seminaries, of course).
My question, then, is to what extent do orthodox and catholic folks engage with any philosophical developments since, say, Aquinas, and for protestants, any philosophy at all, really.