“Don’t find a fault, find a remedy.” – Henry Ford

My resource that I would like to refer you all to is Desiring God Ministries. It is a ministry affiliated with Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis where John Piper pastors.

Erasmus c.1469 – 1536

“In regione caecorum rex est luscus.”

Which is translated “In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king”

This is interesting to me because it shows the relationship between the people and the one who is in charge. This is very true in modern day society, but with a little difference. In our post modern world it has now become the one with the loudest argument is the ruler. No longer is the reasoned argument the strongest, we live in a irrational world the finds rationale, irrational.

http://www.teachinghearts.org/dre04histempires.html#rome

check it out! – honestly, I was just surfing the web looking for a website that would be suitable for fulfilling our requirements for this class and I trampled upon this site. Okay, upon first glance it doesn’t look so hot. There is no flash whatsoever but this site is chocked-full of fantastic information. It took me all of 2 seconds (or 5 minutes) to bookmark this page because I know I will be referring back to it often. The headline of the page says “The History of the Empires in Biblical Prophecy” but it covers a broad range of things. I found the section on the crucifixion and the Messianic Prophecies particularly interesting. While this site offers no appeal for your eyeballs, it definitely does for the old noggin. Check it out, I highly recommend it!!

When asking somebody who, what or why about the separation of philosophy and theology many different answers will be given. Since there are so many different answers, I will argue for the people and ideas that made the biggest impact. One person that we cannot avoid to look at on the issue of philosophy/theology separation is Aquinas. What Aquinas did was separate what is usually called “nature and grace” on different levels. Grace on the higher (God the Creator; heaven and heavenly things; the unseen and its influence on the earth; mans soul; unity) and nature on the lower (the created; earth and earthly things; the visible and what nature and man do on earth; man’s body; diversity). Philosophy pertains to the realm in which natural reason operates and theology pertains to the realm where grace operates. In addition, Aquinas had an “incomplete view of the Fall,” says Schaeffer (which I have chosen to use much of his ideas dealing with Aquinas). Aquinas believed the will had fallen but the intellect was not affected. Through this, man’s intellect was seen as autonomous. According to Schaeffer this resulted in the development of natural theology. Natural theology is a theology that could be pursued independently from the Scriptures. “Aquinas had opened the way to an autonomous humanism, an autonomous philosophy; and once the movement gained momentum, there was soon a flood.” He did have a desire for unity though. Previous to his time there was not much emphasis on nature or the here and now. I think he wanted people to see nature as something good since God created it. I say this so that it won’t seem as if nothing good came from Aquinas. To move to my second point I will explain the community to individual shift in short. In the pre-modern era there was a sense of trust that people put in the church. If ideas were in conflict, they were able to be discussed at councils. In the modern era questions are brought forth to the church that could not be answered and that they do not want to deal with. For example, Galileo’s verification of Copernicus’s view of the universe: that the earth revolves around the sun. The church held to the view that the earth was the center of the universe. In Judges 10:13 it mentions how the sun stood still and the moon stopped. Galileo’s trail was significant to the church’s relationship to science. Philosophy is now becoming even more independent than before. William Ockham played a major part in the philosophy/theology separation. He is given credit for setting the stage for modern philosophy. Ockham was against the attempt to unify worldy and religious ideas. As an empiricist, he believed all knowledge comes from experience. To him universals are the worst mistake in the history of philosophy. “Universals are no more than concepts or words and have no reality outside the mind.” Basically raising the question, since we cannot experience them, why have them? He rejected Plato and Aristotle’s concept of universals and how Christians “modified” them to fit their worldview. One of Ockham’s lasting ideas is known as Ockham’s Razor or Law of Parsimony: the simpler theory is more likely to be true. “Don’t multiply entities beyond necessity.” The only true entity is God. He believed theories could be accomplished with lesser assumptions. He insists that theology is not a science and rejects all the alleged proofs of the existence of God.
It would not be fair to stop there on the philosophy/theology separation. David Hume came along and introduced what people call Hume’s fork, which holds that “truth must be empirically verified or based on reason. Anything not in line with these ideas must be consigned to the flames. Consequently it does not make sense to speak about God or religious truth.” Hume believed true knowledge could be found only in mathematics and experimental disciplines. Hume says, “If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.” Hume’s fork was the foundation for the verification principle. Not only were theologians cut out of philosophical discussions, but ethicists were to. In addition, to this Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) ushers in a new idea of community. Holding that, religious language makes sense in light of the religious community. So discussion about God is sensible within a religious circle because it is within these “communities” that meaning is determined.
What is to be said of all this? Can philosophy and theology work together or should they be completely separate? I would argue that they can better help each other. But to do them separately or come to them with a different mind, as some say is necessary, seems impossible. Since theology is the systematic study of God and his divinity and philosophy defined by the Greeks is the love of knowledge or wisdom and Proverbs 1:7 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, aren’t they compatible? We must admit though that since the move from a “pure” or first philosophy, the two have become very different in content. Theology deals more specifically with the Saviour, salvation, the kingdom of God and much more, while on the other hand philosophy has come to deal with abstract ideas. Likewise they are separated by their sources. The source of theology is divine revelation. Philosophy is rational and abstract. It proceeds not from faith, like theology, but seeks to base itself either on the indisputable fundamental axioms of reason, deducing from them further conclusions, or upon the facts of science or general human knowledge. Philosophy itself concludes that human thought by its nature is limited to boundaries. Without faith these boundaries cannot be crossed.

Instead of doing Christian Jihad, I was able to do a book report over one of Francis Schaeffer’s books: How Shall We Then Live? This is actually one of my favorite books and I have no problem reading it more than once. The idea of the book is over the rise and decline of western thought and culture. If anybody wishes to understand how western civilization thinks and lives the way it does, Schaeffer explores this topic better than most. It’s not a dry read either. Actually if someone gets into it, it’s hard to put down and leave. What Schaeffer has done in this book is start from the Ancients and explore history all the way up to the 1900s’ and show how ideas have been changed and infiltrated. In his book we meet very familiar people but also people that are rarely mentioned and yet have made a great impact on civilization. I believe this book is very much needed if we want to understand the ideas that have gipped our culture and how they came into being. I must add that Schaeffer is mediaeval. In a sense that in the middle ages people where not just disciplined in one subject as we are today. Schaeffer seems very well disciplined in the arts, history, literature and philosophy therefore making him more versatile.
In the beggining of this book Schaffer first establishes terms. Such as, what is meant by presuppositions. Schaeffer defines it as the basic way an individual looks at life, his basic worldview, the grid through which he sees the world. And it is these presuppositions that people live more consistently with. Also what is interesting is that Schaeffer says in order to understand where we are in today’s world we must trace three lines in history: the philosophic, the scientific and the religious. I say its interesting because there has been a neglect of the philosophical in order to help understand the world. The place where it’s most neglected is within the Christian community.
Schaeffer doesn’t spend much time in the Greek and Roman era, even though he says these eras cannot be neglected when discussing western civilization. For anyone who has read any of Schaeffer’s books will see that his favorite place to start when discussing ideas is with Aquinas. He starts there I believe because it is through, some would say a misunderstanding of Aquinas’s writings, Aquinas that philosophy and theology are made two different disciplines and reasoning becomes more autonomous than before. From this point on he shows what happened to the middle ages, the renaissance and reformation, the enlightment, the rise of modern science, and then what happened to the arts and literature. Not saying that Aquinas started everything put its easier to see where people took an idea and ran with it. To me its one of the best books, but that may also be because i’m a Schaeffer fan.

I’m going to recommend a audio source that can be found through itunes. The title is History of Christianity and its taught by Dr. Maxie Burch. He has at least eleven podcast covering the mediaeval period and there a little more than an hour long for each. I know that is kind of long but if you like history its well worth the time.

“Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.” – Augustine

“You made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds its place of rest in You.” -Augustine

I liked the second quote because all through history there is seen a restless search for life’s meaning. The first quote because history has also shown that much learning makes hard for humility.

My name is Keith Starks and I am from Midwest City, Oklahoma. Since my dad was in the military we did a lot of traveling when i was young. I’ve lived in Japan, England, Arkansas, New Mexico and Texas. England was my favorite, besides the fact that I love Midwest City because its my home. I graduated from Midwest City High in 03. Worked at a car shop and went to college part time. My favorite subjects are history and philosophy. Also to mention i have two brothers and one sister. My youngest brother graduated in 05 and my sister is in 7th grade. I’ll end saying i was saved in 02.