Tuesday, May 6, 2014

The Search for Truth-How Should Orthodox Christians relate to Philosophy Today?

The following is a blog entry written by Samuel Kaldas. Sam is Coptic youth currently study in Sydney Australia and if the title of the blog did not give it away his major is Philosophy. I have been in communication with Sam for over a year and our dialogues and close friendship have developed fruitful dialogues about many things ranging from church topics to philosophy topics to talks about Father Matthew the Poor or just nonsense talks about the most silliest things you can think off. Sam currently has begun a blog called This Great Mystery and he has build a team around him who constantly write and post on this blog. Thank you for sharing this Sam and if anyone else would like to write on the blog you can get a hold off me anytime! Thank you! Enjoy.
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Philosophy is simpler than it sounds. Really. Its so simple, in fact, that children tend to do very good philosophy with no formal training. For one, children tend to ask a lot why questions - to the point that it can become annoying. Even at university levels, philosophy never really becomes much more than a very formal, systematic and professional way of dealing with the kinds of questions that children ask: Why cant I do that? Who am I exactly? Does my dog have feelings like I do? How do I know that youre a real person and not just a robot?

To practically minded people, philosophy can look like a waste of time. It doesnt have many practical applications: no philosopher will ever get to watch their work curing cancer or making cars faster. But the questions philosophers ask arent simply idle curiosities, with no relevance to the real world. On the contrary, it could be argued that philosophy has a greater influence on the real world than any branch of science or engineering. Why? Because philosophy attempts to answer the questions that give meaning to every other aspect of human life: Whats the point of life? What is a human being? Do we have free will? What is truth? What is right and wrong? Is there a God? A cultures answers to those questions will tell you what kind of people they are; in a very real sense, philosophy is the measure of a societys soul. Other disciplines can make things bigger, better and faster, but only philosophy is concerned with what we ought to do with our ever-growing power.

Clearly, philosophy is important. But lets be frank: philosophy makes a lot of Copts nervous. If youve studied philosophy and mentioned that fact at church, youve no doubt heard things like, I don’t know man, the last guy I knew who studied philosophy became an atheist,” or “Be careful, dont get pulled in.And to be fair, philosophys reputation as a ‘dangeroussubject isnt totally underserved. Philosophy is one of the only academic disciplines which demands that you put everything you believe on the line, including your beliefs about God, human purpose and meaning. No-one cares what engineers or doctors do on a Sunday or what they believe about right or wrong, so long as their religious beliefs dont impact their work. In philosophy however, youre required to justify all your beliefs, including and especially religious ones, and pit them against a host of other beliefs all vying for your attention. That has caught many a young Christian off-guard. It doesnt help that although things vary from college to college, philosophy tutors and lecturers at secular universities can often be critical of religion.



So what are we to do? Does the hostile climate of contemporary philosophy mean that Christians ought to stay right away? As Orthodox Christians, were used to looking to the early church for guidance; and when it comes to the question of how Christians ought to relate to philosophy, the early church has some very interesting things to say indeed. One particularly helpful example, I think, is the story of St. Basil and St. Gregory - the authors of the two most frequently used Coptic liturgies. Its a little known fact that these two saints became good friends long before either them were ordained, and that they first met at university. Not a Christian university, but the ‘secular(‘paganmight be more accurate) university of Athens, where they studied philosophy.

The intellectual climate at the Athenian university back then was no less hostile to Christianity than it is today.  In fact, it was hostile to pretty much everyone. If modern universities are marketplaces of ideas, the Athenian university in Basils time was the battlefield of ideas; the rivalries between professors and competing schools of thought were extremely heated, and frequently broke out into very real violence (Wenzel 2010). New students were particularly vulnerable: a pagan called Libanius was once welcomed to the university by being kept against his will in a small room until he agreed to attend only the lectures of his captorsteacher. This kind of thing doesnt seem to have been uncommon. Remembering his school days, St. Gregory would later say of the Athenian students: They are just like men devoted to horses and exhibitions, as we see, at the horse-races; they leap, they shout, raise clouds of dust, they drive in their seats, they beat the air …” (Orat. 43, Ch. 15) The philosophy classes of Athens were hardly friendly places.

But that didnt dissuade either saint from entering the fray. Many years later, at St. Basils funeral, St. Gregory praised his friend for having emerged from this clamour of conflicting opinions and deceitful rhetoricians as a humble but powerful Christian voice:

… as to what he was to his masters, what he was to his classmates, equalling the former, surpassing the latter in every form of culture, what renown he won in a short time from all, both of the common people, and of the leaders of the state; by showing both a culture beyond his years, and a steadfastness of character beyond his culture. An orator among orators, even before the chair of the rhetoricians, a philosopher among philosophers, even before the doctrines of philosophers … So much deference was paid to him in every respect by all.” (Orat. 43, Ch. 13)

The intellectual and social world at Athens was deeply hostile to Christianity, and yet, with the help and guidance of Christian teachers (Ch. 21), the two young saints were not only able to keep their faith alive throughout their time there, they even strengthened it. Their peers may not have agreed with them, but they respected them as philosophers among philosophers, even before the doctrines of philosophers.

So why exactly would St. Gregory and St. Basil would persevere through such a hostile environment? Probably, they had realised for themselves something that St. Clement of Alexandria had argued centuries earlier. Philosophy,said St. Clement, is characterized by investigation into truth and the nature of things (this is the truth of which the Lord Himself said, I am the truth).” Philosophy, ancient and modern, hostile or not, is always the search for truth. And for Christians, Christ is the truth, which makes philosophy nothing more than the search for Christ. St. Gregory described his friendship with St. Basil as growing chiefly because of their united commitment to philosophy: “… as time went on, we acknowledged our mutual affection, and that philosophy was our aim, we were all in all to one another, housemates, messmates, intimates, with one object in life, or an affection for each other ever growing warmer and stronger.(Ch. 19) For these saints, as for many of the Church Fathers, philosophy was a fundamentally Christian activity; St. Clement even went so far as to say that philosophy was to the Greeks like the Law was to the Jews (Stromata 1.5). To the Christian, any search for truth can only lead to Christ.

There are many more examples of ancient Christian philosophers: from St. Justin the Martyr to Pope Peter of Alexandria, and even St. Paul the Apostle who debated with the philosophers in the Athens long before St. Basil and St. Gregory would arrive there three centuries later (Acts 17:15-34). And fortunately, theres no shortage of contemporary Christian philosophers either; St. Vladimirs Seminary Press just published a book (Turning East - see below) featuring interviews with sixteen Orthodox Christian philosophers, many of whom dont teach at Christian universities.

None of this is to deny that philosophy can be extremely difficult, and even dangerous when done badly - its certainly not everyones cup of tea, and all students of philosophy, including the Christian ones, absolutely must be skeptical and discerning with their teachers and peers. But budding Orthodox philosophers need more than warnings and horror stories: they need teachers like St. Basil and St. Gregory who can enter the confusing din of conflicting voices and and emerge as humble and respected philosophers among philosophers.Whats more, they need to be trusted to enter that din themselves, because even though He might be hard to hear amidst all the angry voices, Christ is in that din too.

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Further reading/Bibliography:

What is Philosophy?’’, Florida State University Website: <http://philosophy.fsu.edu/content/view/full/36588>.

St. Gregorys Funeral Oration for St. Basil (Orat. 43), (esp. Ch. 11 and Chs 15-22) - <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310243.htm>.

St. Clement’s Stromata - Book 1, Chs 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 - <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02101.htm>.

Also: Clement of Alexandria: The Original Christian Philosopher” by Mark Moussa - <http://www.coptic.net/articles/clementofalexandria.txt>.

St. Justin Martyrs First Apology, Chs 2-3 <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm>.

St. Basils Address to the Youth on the Right Use of Pagan Literature, <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/basil_litterature01.htm>.

Turning East: Contemporary Philosophers and the Ancient Christian Faith, SVS Press - <http://www.svspress.com/turning-east-contemporary-philosophers-and-the-ancient-christian-faith/>.


Wenzel, A. (2010). Libanius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Ideal of Athens in Late Antiquity” in Journal of Late Antiquity. Vol. 3, Number 2, Fall 2010.

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