Using Philosophy to Prove that Christianity Shouldn’t Be Philosophical
A super-reductionistic reason why
A brief study of Church history and its theology will reveal a heavy influence of philosophy. For starters, some great names in philosophy such as Descartes, Kirkegaard, and Pascal were all Christians.
Moreover, and most importantly for our discussion, if one looks at the formulation of Christian doctrines, Greek philosophy is everywhere. The concept of the Trinity is an exercise in metaphysics and the work of Thomas Aquinas is a scholastic philosophical masterpiece. For as long as there has been Christendom, there have been ‘smart people’ trying to philosophize it away.
Now, I’m no philosopher. And I can imagine that some people would scoff at me making such a simple analysis (it’s below) and thinking that I have solved an unsolvable riddle. Let me just condescend and say I’m not trying to do that even though I may take a jab and stab here and there.
Laying the foundation
I’m not a philosopher, but I can see when things contradict. You don’t have to be rocket science to know that 2 + 2 doesn’t equal 5 and that ketchup doesn’t go on pizza (sorry Brazil).
I have to do some groundwork first but I promise to get to the point quick.
For the sake of this thought experiment I want us to think about some terms that are philosophical and often associated with God.
God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, infinite, immaterial, and eternal. Now, there are other terms (like aseity) but for the sake of time, energy, and brain waves, we will stick to these.
Omnipotence simply means that God is all-powerful. Omni means all and powerful means what it means. God, therefore, has complete power over the universe and creation.
Omniscience means that God is all-knowing or if you want to be cool, all-science. God has all the intellectual capacity and knowledge to make the grand complexity of the universe orderly.
Omnipresent means that God is all-present. God is everywhere. Which would make perfect sense if he is the creator.
These terms are qualities of God by necessity. God must be omnipotent or have all-power of the universe or he wouldn’t be God. This is how the reasoning goes.
Infinite, immaterial, and eternal.
God is infinite because everything in the created world is finite. If God were finite he wouldn’t be God. Likewise, the created world is material. Therefore, God must be immaterial or spirit. If God weren’t eternal he would be temporal and, therefore, created.
It is this razor-sharp and impressive logic that many Christians throughout the centuries have used to conceptualize God. This is often referred to in Christian circles as Theology Proper.
The issue
Christianity is all about Christ.
The Bible makes the radical (and I believe true) claim that Jesus is God. He is the Logos (Jn 1:1) who was in the beginning with God. And this Logos became flesh and dwelt among us (Jn 1:14). The claim at the beginning of John’s Gospel is that Jesus is not a mere man but a God-man and then he explains what that means in the rest of his Gospel.
Jesus is God.
The book of Hebrews calls Jesus the “exact representation” of God’s being (cf: Hebrews 1:3)
However, the Bible also makes it very clear that Jesus is man. He is the God-man. Jesus ate, got tired, felt anxious, etc. (We could include numerous Bible verses here).
Much of Church history is dedicated to understanding this hypostatic unionand how to make sense of the juxtaposition it creates. The conclusion is that Jesus is 100% God and 100% man and has two wills and operations, one divine and one human.
The entire point is that theologians want to describe Jesus in philosophical terms and, therefore, for the sake of the conversation, Jesus and his nature are said to correspond to the terms cited above.
Jesus is simultaneously omnipresent but confined to a corporeal body.
What?
Reason or Revelation?
I could write a book on this so I will cut to conclusions.
Firstly, many apologists (Christians who like to defend the faith) like to act like the Christian faith is based on reason and not revelation. Wrong.
Christianity is a revealed religion. Jesus is that revelation. To look at Jesus is to see God. This is what I believe.
Therefore, when apologists talk about the cosmological or teleological arguments for God I shudder.
Why?
My Argument
Here’s my argument.
Using philosophical terms, God is described apophatically.
God must be immaterial because the created universe is material.
God must be eternal because the created universe is temporal.
God must be infinite because the created universe is finite.
God must be necessary because all created things are contingent.
God must be immutable because all created things are mutable.
The Christian belief is that the historical Jesus is and always will be God.
Therefore,
The immaterial God became material.
The eternal God became temporal.
The infinite God became finite.
The necessary God took on contingency.
The immutable God became mutable.
In my estimation this renders the philosophical verbage of God to be completely contrary to the Christian depiction of God in Christ.
The conclusion is this: Either Jesus is not God and the philosophical conception of God is correct, or Jesus is God and the philosophical conception of God is wrong.
This means that all appeals to God’s existence in these philosophical categories are totally misleading. You can’t talk about God being infinite and then try to explain a finite incarnate Christ. To do so is not honest.
Conclusion
I believe Jesus is God but I believe it because of revelation. It is the Bible that perfectly reveals God. Jesus is the exact representation of the God revealed in the Bible (Hebrews 1:3).
Instead of thinking about God as an omnipotent power out there, think of the contingent God in a manger who would grow up, in accordance with the Scripture, to die on the cross for your sins.
There should be no place in Christianity for rational speculation about terms that don’t make sense of anything. For millennia, the God of the Bible revealed in His Son and manifest in His Spirit, has changed people, and, therefore, the world.
God doesn’t use arguments or philosophy. He uses his Son through the Spirit to orchestrate his grand salvation plan.
It’s that simple.