“About this we have much to say, and it is hard to
explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you
ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles
of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on
milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid
food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained
by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the
elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a
foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God…” (Hebrews
5:11–6:1, ESV).
Having done a bit of ground-clearing in the first paper,
let’s turn our attention to what philosophy actually is. While the first paper
may have hinted at a definition, it wasn’t nearly sufficient for our purposes.
The definition I operated from, as a matter of convenience, was “to set the
mind on things above.” My three primary reasons for doing this were 1) my Christian
readers would not argue with the importance of setting one’s mind on heavenly
things. 2) I wanted to show that the Scriptures themselves draw a distinction
between elementary, earthly things and heavenly things. And, 3) I wanted to
impress into the reader’s mind that the Bible does indeed teach that we have
access to these heavenly things.
In this section of Hebrews, the author actually urges
Christians to stop thinking as children and to move on to what is mature. They
are instructed to do this by leaving the elementary doctrine of Christ, meaning
those basic teachings they had already heard over and over again, and to go on
to maturity. In other words, the writer of Hebrews is exhorting these
Christians to leave the milk and seek the meat, to take what they have learned
and learn more about those things. The pursuit of wisdom causes the Christian
to mature and to grow, which is why philosophy is absolutely indispensible to
our faith.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by
the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of
God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)
The word “philosophy” comes from two Greek words. The first
is “phileo,” meaning “brotherly love,” or as C.S. Lewis once described it,
“friendship love.” The second word, “sophia,” means “wisdom.” Wisdom is sort of
like a conductor for knowledge. It shows which knowledge is important and worth
going out and getting more of. So, “philosophy” is “the love of wisdom,” and
the “philosopher” is “one who is a loving friend to wisdom.” So when people
rail against philosophy, what they are really saying is that they despise
wisdom and the pursuit of worthwhile knowledge. But, what such people really
mean to say is that they despise the confusion of man’s opinions and
speculations with Biblical truths. Nonetheless, as we shall see, philosophy is
not man opining or speculating. It is not wise to throw out the baby with the
bath water, so to speak.
Philosophy consists of three major branches or categories. I
like referring to them as 1) The Word, 2) Revelation, and 3) Worship. Although
these are not their more academic labels, the Bible uses these terms to refer
to the same things. The academic names given to these are as follows: 1) Metaphysics,
2) Epistemology, and 3) Ethics. So, let’s deal with each of these in turn.
When I use the word “metaphysics,” it is likely to bring up
some rather questionable mental images for many of us. Perhaps it’s something
like a swami floating in the air in a meditative trance? Whatever strange,
esoteric images this word may conjure up, rest assured that’s not what is being
referred to here. Metaphysics simply deals with what real. It deals with
reality. It asks the question, “What exists?” and “What kind of a thing is it?”
You, reader, ask this question all the time, whether or not you are aware of
it: “Is that true?” Ever asked that question? You are essential asking, “Is it
real? Does that state of affairs really exist?”
“Metaphysics” comes from two Greek words: “meta,” referring
to that which is “beyond,” “transcendent,” or “encompassing.” The term also
refers to changes or transformations in the very nature or essence of
something, such as in the word, “metamorphosis.” The second word, “physis,” means
“nature,” which derives from the Latin word, “natura.” It is also where we get
the word “physics.” Metaphysics studies the physical universe, or nature, as
well as objects that exist beyond nature, in other words, “super-nature.” So
metaphysics studies being and essence. Being deals with the existence of a
thing: Does it exist? Essence deals with the nature of the thing: What kind of
a think is it? If something exists, it is a thing with a nature. It is a thing
that has content, namely, attributes. Thus, this branch of philosophy studies
the being and essence of all things, as well as causality.
It might be
uncomfortable to see eternal, and invisible things as “objects,” since we are
so acclimated to seeing objects as physical things, but that is what
philosophers originally meant by this term. There is a reason why the meanings
of such words like “object” and “subject” or “objective” and “subjective” have
been turned upside down and distorted, it’s really the same reason we don’t
care for words like “philosophy” and “metaphysics.” We will delve into the
history of this shift in thinking later, but what happened was that objective,
eternal things got supplanted by the subject, or man, the knower. Man, the
knower, became “the measure of all things” and the “determiner of truth,” so
philosophy collapsed into naturalism. The church led the assault on philosophy,
denying the knowability and the clarity of God’s speech in creation. We’ll
later look into how that happened, but suffice it to say, the reason pastors
and other Christians see philosophy as an enemy today is because they drank the
secular humanist’s kool-aid. This is
also the major reason why the church is dying off in the West.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above
proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night
reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not
heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end
of the world…,” (Psalm 19:1–4).
Moving on, the word “epistemology” also consists of two
Greek words: “pistis,” meaning “faith,” and “logos” meaning “word.” Anytime we
see the word “ology” at the end of a word, it refers to the study of it, e.g.,
biology, anthropology, psychology, Christology, sociology, theology, and so
forth. Indeed, another word sometimes used as a synonym to metaphysics is
“ontology,” meaning the study of “ontos,” or “being.” What epistemology deals
with is truth criterion. It asks the question, “How do you know that you know?”
Because of the reasons I mentioned before, epistemology is
not widely understood. Visit almost any college or university, and the
professors there think it means, “How do you know?” One professor might mean,
“How does the human brain learn?” This would be a question of interest to
neurologists, cognitive scientists, or psychiatrists. Another professor might
mean, “How do YOU know? Tell us about your journey, your upbringing, or your
past experiences.” In other words, “Tell
us about how that hamburger in your skull manipulates a meaningless existence
to determine truth and meaning for yourself.”
That’s not what epistemology means. Epistemology asks a much
deeper question about knowledge: “How do you know that you know?” To put it
another way, “How do you know that what you are saying is true knowledge, and
not opinion or mere speculation?” This question flies in the face of those who
think philosophy consists of mere human speculations. The statement, “You can’t
build a ladder of reason up to God,” should be highly problematic to the
Christian thinker for a number of reason. For one thing, it assumes that human
agency is autonomous, as though man can build up anything by his own volition.
For another, it assumes that reason and knowledge originate in the human
knower, the subject, when they do not.
The knowledge of a thing originates from the thing being
known, the object. If the object had no existence, then we couldn’t know it
because it doesn’t exist to be known. All knowledge, meaning actual knowledge
of a thing, is known to man by it being revealed to him, which is to say, by
revelation. So if a man “reasons his way to God,” it isn’t because he built his
own ladder out of nothing whatsoever, but because God revealed something of
Himself to the knower. I understand that this is the opposite of what we have been
taught to think, but we have been taught a bad definition of reason fashioned
by earlier Rationalists through the filter of Modernists and Postmodernists who
reject Rationalism. But the Bible doesn’t teach Rationalism, it teaches
Monotheism, or as the secular world sometimes calls it, Realism.
So how does philosophy separate speculation from knowledge?
Well, epistemology makes use of coherent, orderly, and systematic thinking to
do this. It’s called “logic,” which also derives its name from the Greek word
“logos.” The apostle John makes heavy use of this philosophical term, which was
well-known to the Greco-Roman philosophers of his time. The term, usually
translated as “word,” in English bibles, also means “the rational ordering
principle.”
In John 1:1, the biblical writer makes use of a second
philosophical term, “arche.” In our bibles, the words “en arche,” are
translated “in the beginning.” This is a good translation, but it loses the Greco-Roman
philosophical nuances in English bibles. The term “arche” did not just refer to
the beginning of time, but also to the first thing epistemologically and the
highest thing in existence. It is that which from all other things find their
being. It is the thing which brought all other things into existence, organized
them into a coherent system or unity, and animated them. John was declaring, to
those familiar with Epicurean and Stoic philosophies, that Jesus was “en arche
ho logos”—that One in the beginning. This is why the prologue of John’s gospel
is riddled with philosophical terminology.
What is behind logic is Jesus, the logos, or the truth.
Truth is a single, unified thing. It doesn’t change or contradict itself. And
truth is revealed in all the things God has made. To be rational is an
acknowledgement that there really is a rational, ordering principle behind all
of nature, that it must be objective, unchanging, binding on all other things,
eternal, invisible, and infinite. To deny the existence of truth or any part of
its essence is also to deny the validity of your own statements and claims. Logic
does not judge God, and it certainly does not build “a ladder of reason” up to
Him, but it does judge our statements about everything, including those about
God. It separates the rational from the irrational, the valid from the invalid,
or the possible from the impossible. Logic affirms everything, but judges our
statements about those things.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress
the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has
shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the
world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For
although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him,
but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were
darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of
the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and
creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity,
to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the
truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the
Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” (Romans 1:18–25)
Sin and denial of God is intrinsically irrational. If God
truly is the rational ordering principle and creator of all things, then it
follows that all things accord to Him. What this means is man does not sin
because he is using “human reasoning,” but that he isn’t being reasonable at all.
Instead, he is suppressing the truth, the reality of how things really are,
unconsciously, in his unrighteousness. He does it because he is a thing, with a
fallen and sinful nature.
We will return to the topics of epistemology, knowledge, and
logic in a future paper. There is much more to be said, and this branch of
philosophy is going to be the primary focus. First, we still need to further
articulate what “knowledge” really is. Second, we need to into some good depth
concerning logic, its laws, what it is, and so forth. Third, classical
philosophy fell away from Western thought because of a lot of very bad ideas
about epistemology from the period of the Enlightenment to our own times. All
other worldviews, or so-called “philosophies,” actually fail truth criterion
rather miserably, which will be demonstrated in these papers. For the time
being, suffice it say that all of nature is merely an echo of the utterances of
God, and both Scripture and reason bear witness to this invincible truth.
Ethics is the third branch of philosophy. It too comes from
the Greek, “ethos,” which means “character.” It asks the question, “In light of
the way things are, how then should we live?” How a man is to act, depends upon
what sort of reality this is, which is why ethics comes after metaphysics and
epistemology. To put the law at the top, which Scripture does not do, or at the
center of existence, is called “legalism.” For those of you with some biblical
knowledge, this was why Jesus told the religious leaders that the Sabbath was
made for man, not man for the Sabbath, then declared Himself as being greater
than the Sabbath (cf., Mark 2:27). Jesus was declaring to them the actual order
of the universe in terms of the law’s relationship to Himself and the Sabbath’s
relationship to man, revealing its purpose in God’s design.
So ethics comes out of what kind of reality existence
actually is. Man beholds the things of God because they are speech from the
mind of God to the mind of man, either he will see and worship, or turn away
and sin. But if all is nature, then there really is no reason to act in
accordance with any ethical standard, since none exist except in the human
imagination. Matter and molecules are not sufficient causes for ethical
standard by any rational criteria whatsoever. We have just as much cause to
react to the imagined morality of others as we do a madman babbling about
monsters under his bed. Either there is
something real that is sufficient in itself to cause an objectively binding
law, or no such thing exists at all. The naturalist is stuck with this hairy
dilemma, no matter how he tries to tap dance his way out. He will fail the
logical test of cause and effect.
However, worship is central and foundational to Christian
ethics. Since all things are made by Him, and through Him, and for Him, as John
1:3 and Romans 11:36 tell us, and since God made all things, both visible and
invisible, as Col 1:16 declares, there exists no thing that is not for God. As
it is written, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to
the glory of God,” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Although it does indeed equip us to make a defense, philosophy
is not merely a matter of apologetics. Even though it arms us to effectively attack
the strongholds of the Lord’s enemies, it is more than just polemics as well.
As necessary as philosophical thinking reason is in those endeavors, its
primary purpose is to behold the things of the Lord, both the visible and the
invisible, in order to discover and to know their purpose and their design that
we may worship in Him as He created us to do. The search for knowledge, wisdom,
and truth in the Lord is how we grow into maturity as disciples of the Lord,
Jesus Christ. To prefer the elementary teachings, for their childish simplicity,
is unbiblical, preferring the milk of the Gospel over the weightier matters of
the Gospel, the meat of the word. The
teacher that encourages the sheep to not use their minds, keeping the flock
from reaching maturity, will have to give an account to the Lord one day. Let
us pray that we all use our minds in an orderly, purposeful way to consider the
many, many things our Father has revealed to us.
