A Philosophy of the Christian Religion

For the Twenty-first Century

Nancey Murphy

• Publisher: SPCK Publishing
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780281066926
• eBook ISBN: 9780281066933
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

A Philosophy of the Christian Religion offers a new kind of introduction to the subject. Whereas most introductions in the past have attempted to deal with religion in general, this book focuses on philosophical issues of special importance to Christianity. In doing this, Nancey Murphy also takes full account of how conceptual revolutions in philosophy now mean that what older introductions termed 'standard problems' have changed from the way they were dealt with in earlier eras.

At the same time, this new introduction helps the reader to better understand how contemporary issues have come to take on their current force by placing them within the context of the most sophisticated account available of human reason: Alasdair MacIntyre's tradition-constituted rationality.

Contents

Part One: A Brief History of Reason
1. Ancient and Medieval Ways of Knowing the Divine
2. Modern Epistemology and the Possibility of Theology
3. Faith in Late Modern Reasoning
4. Faith and Reason for the Twenty-First Century

Part Two: Crises in Modern Christianity
5. Three Epistemological Crises for Christianity in Modernity
6. The Problem of Special Divine Action
7. Modern Problems of Evil and Suffering
8. Science and Christianity
9. Christian Anthropology, Philosophy, and Science
10. The Development of Modern Naturalism

Part I

A brief history of reason

Overview of Part I: A brief history of reason

A frequent topic covered in philosophy of religion is “faith and reason.” It constitutes a chapter in some texts; in others, it could be considered the main topic of the book. Yet it is too slippery to be considered to be a single, “perennial” problem. One prominent version has been the relation between the Christian belief system and other worldviews of the times. In Colossians, Christians are warned to make sure “that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ” (Col. 2.8 nrsv). And indeed, the development of theology in the first centuries of the church involved careful reflection on various philosophies and competing religions of the time. Neoplatonism (to be described below) came largely to be seen as an ally, the dualistic Gnostic religious movements as enemies.

Another important version of the issue is the question of the extent to which patterns of reasoning whose sources lie outside of Christianity could or should be used in support of Christian claims. Here again, “faith” refers to the content of the Christian belief system. There has been significant debate about the extent to which Paul used conventional argument forms developed by ancient philosophers. In the late Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) showed that Aristotelian reasoning could be used to argue for the truth of certain parts of theology, later called natural theology, but maintained that much of it depended on revelation. As accounts of the nature of reasoning have developed from the Middle Ages up to the present, scholars have continued to debate the relevance and value of new developments for showing the rationality of the Christian worldview.

In the modern era, a third version of the problem of faith and reason emerged. Due to the Reformation emphasis on “faith alone,” the act of believing (of having faith) has come to be contrasted, for some, with accepting claims on the basis of evidence, or of reason more broadly understood. Thus, the question has arisen of whether it is necessary or even appropriate to test Christian beliefs against external standards of rationality.

Diogenes Allen (1932–2013) writes that the “two main sources of Christian theology are the Bible and Hellenic culture, especially Greek philosophy.”1 Looking at the history of Christianity over time, we might say, very roughly, that during the ancient period Christian theology came to be more and more influenced by Greek philosophies, so that by the beginning of the Middle Ages (which I shall date somewhat arbitrarily with the death of Augustine in 430) the two streams of thought had become inextricable. Again, speaking roughly, the beginning of the modern era (in the seventeenth century) marked the beginning of the sep­aration of Christianity from an increasingly secular worldview—what I shall call a competing “Naturalist Tradition.” Therefore, it is tempting to represent the history of thought in the West by an hourglass-shaped figure, with the Hebraic and Greek strands gradually converging, and then, in modern times, philosophy and the empirical sciences branching off (Figure 1).

Figure 1 A simplistic “hourglass” figure to represent the merging of ancient and medieval Christianity with philosophy (by 430) and the beginning of the split between theology and secular thought in modernity (c.1630 with the publication of Galileo’s Dialogues)

However, a better image for the development of Christian thought in relation to the reasoning of the times might be a tree, with various roots tangling together and flowing to a single trunk, and farther along, with various branches, and then more streams of thought branching off again (Figure 2). The simpler hourglass shape correctly represents the fact that philosophy and theology simply cannot be understood apart from one another in the medieval period. Yet the Hebraic strand is itself complex, and by the time of Jesus it had incorporated a variety of influences. Thanks to source criticism, it is possible to determine earlier and later points of view in the Old Testament (OT); and by comparison with the writings of other cultures of the times, to discern their influences in the texts. To a more limited extent, New Testament (NT) authors can be seen to represent different viewpoints.

Figure 2 A more realistic “tree” figure to represent the large number of “roots” of the Medieval Synthesis, and its many branches, religious, scientific, and philosophical

There had already been influences of Greek philosophy on Hebraic thought by Jesus’ day. The fact that NT authors used the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint (thought to have been completed around 250 bc), is important in that the Greek vocabulary introduced conceptual changes wherever there were no exact equivalents to the Hebrew terms.2 There have been arguments about whether parts of the NT, such as the Gospel of John and Paul’s letters, were influenced by Greek philosophy; the current consensus appears to be that they were. The intentional adoption of Greek and Roman philosophies for the purposes of apologetics and the development of theology was well underway by the end of the second century.

Chapter 1 will provide a sketchy history of the flowing together of streams of thought in the ancient and medieval periods, only bringing out some of the more interesting twists and turns in the interactions between theology and philosophy. Our primary examples will be Platonic influences in Augustine’s theories of knowledge and truth, and Thomas’s re...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Figures
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I
• Overview of Part I: A brief history of reason
• 1 Ancient and medieval ways of knowing the divine
• 2 Modern epistemology and the possibility of theology
• 3 Faith in late modern reasoning
• 4 Faith and reason for the twenty-first century
• Part II
• Overview of Part II: Crises in modern Christianity
• 5 Three epistemological crises for Christianity in modernity
• 6 The problem of special divine action
• 7 Modern problems of evil and suffering
• 8 Science and Christianity
• 9 Christian anthropology, philosophy, and science
• 10 Naturalism and Christianity as competing large-scale traditions
• Conclusion
• Further reading