Western Creed, Western Identity: Essays in Legal and Social Philosophy

2. Christian Philosophy: A Sociological Category or an Oxymoron?

   CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY A Sociological Category or an Oxymoron? The theses to be entertained here can be set forth simply. To address the question “Is there Christian philosophy?” it is necessary, first, to acknowledge that there is no such thing as “Christianity.”As a sociological category “Christianity” may have some content. People the world over profess to be“Christian,”but when we look to the content of belief, we find so little in common among professed Christians that the designation becomes almost meaningless. Professed Christians subscribe to a multiplicity of faiths with varying degrees of sophistication ; they adhere to tenets, many of which are contradictory, many irrational, many unexamined. Orthodox Christianity is difficult to define even within the Roman Catholic community where a premium is placed on universality, unity, and the apostolic mandate. That is my first observation: the lack of unity in Christianity that might give meaning to the term“Christian philosophy.” The second is that both logically and chronologically, philosophy is prior to Christianity. The type of philosophy one espouses, implicitly or explicitly, either opens one to faith or closes it as an intellectual option. Furthermore, the type of philosophy one espouses determines the kind of Christianity one embraces. Classical Greek and Roman intelligence gave rise to, and forever will lead to, the institution shaped by the Fathers and Doctors of the early and medieval Church. If one starts with modern philosophical nominalism or epistemology , one will not end up in the belief system that shaped Aqui-  nas and to which the Parisian master contributed. The differences between Plato and Aristotle, for example, or between realism and nominalism, are carried through history as Christians attempt to understand their faith. Ancient skepticisms and Pyrrhonism have their modern counterparts that make belief as impossible today as those outlooks made it impossible in antiquity. The third thesis, which is likely to meet with no dissent from the orthodox but will nevertheless be challenged within the group that may be called “sociologically described Christians,” is the belief that Christianity is based on divinely revealed truths inaccessible to human reason. Such truths consist of propositions such as “Christ is God,” “Christ redeemed mankind by his sacrificial act on the cross,” “Eternal beatitude consists in union with God in a life hereafter,” and “God has revealed Himself as triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” All will admit that Christ taught truths accessible to human reason, but not all will subscribe to the literal truth of assertions that go beyond those provided by reason itself. In sum, if one distinguishes among types of Christianity, one soon realizes that for the orthodox there may be one type of relation between faith and philosophy and for the nonorthodox another. If, in the spirit of the Redaktionesgeschicte movement, the whole of Christianity can be reduced to metaphor or to moral teaching, there is no problem concerning the relation of philosophy to revelation. Supposed revelation is nothing but a poetic manner of stating truths accessible to purely human intelligence . Averroes took this approach when he identified three modes or levels of teaching, each proportioned to or determined by the audience sought. Distinguishing among religion, theology, and philosophy, Averroes held that these are but three modes of discourse corresponding to the three classes of men. Religion is truth made accessible to the common man who must be induced to live virtuously by eloquent preaching, that is, by appeals made to the imagination rather than to the intellect. Theology is the attempted rational justification of common belief, but it is only philosophy that provides the nucleus of truth contained in the fancies of the men of faith. The three apChristian Philosophy  proaches to the same truth ultimately agree with one another. The beliefs of the common people and the teachings of the theologians are simply philosophical truths adapted to inferior minds. Yet Averroes did not consider religion to be merely a rough approximation of philosophic truth. For him, it was much more. It had a definite social function that could not be fulfilled by anything else, not even by philosophy. The Koran he believed to be a miraculous book and one “divinely inspired” because he found it more effective than philosophy in raising people to the level of morality. Thus Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed can be considered true prophets and messengers of God to mankind, but their religions were only popular approaches to the truth found in...