Philosophy from a Christian Perspective
The purpose of this resear
This is an excerpt from the paper...
The purpose of this research is to examine philosophy from a Christian perspective. The plan of the research will be to set forth a review of the principal philosophical traditions and disciplines, including reference to methodology, tools, and persistent issues, and then to discuss the relationship of Christianity to such philosophical views.In order to examine philosophy from a Christian perspective, it is useful to be aware of the main categories of philosophical investigation. According to Geisler and Feinberg, one of the difficulties in this regard is the problem of definition; that is, various names have been given to branches of philosophy. However, Geisler and Feinberg cite two main categories: (1) analytical philosophy or conceptual analysis, and (2) speculative philosophy (Geisler and Feinberg 13-14). Within these categories, which deal with analysis or clarification on one hand and with description or normative prescription on the other, are contained various explorations of what is true or known (epistemology and logic), real (metaphysics, ontology, and cosmology), or valuable or good (axiology/aesthetics, ethics). Prevailing methodological conventions of philosophy have changed from the ancient to modern periods. Geisler and Feinberg (39-43) identify three major ancient methods of philosophical argument, associated, respectively, with Socrates, Zeno, and Aristotle. The Socratic method is one of interrogation, a persistent questioning that elicits answe
. . .
theological questions (consistent with the temper of the times) assuming priority. The single most prevalent preoccupation of medieval commentators who were contemporaries of Aquinas was the problem of being as a philosophical concept. In particular, Aquinas uses Aristotle's view of reality to explain what must inevitably become orthodox Christian doctrine. The nature of being (indeed the whole of the natural world) can be reasoned, at least to the point at which faith or revelation must account specifically for those things that cannot be reasoned. But Aquinas does not ascribe to the ideal "reality" of the incorporeal world the actual nature of anything; in this, he specifically departs from Platonist notions of existence versus essence. In this connection, Pegis comments:
There are not many philosophical aberrations that were either inherited or developed by the thinkers of the thirteenth century that St. Thomas does not trace to the Platonic metaphysics, psychology and epistemology. Whether the problem be the nature of God and the divine goodness, the procession of creatures from God, their constitution and unity, their causality and autonomy under the creative causality of God, the unity and economy of man's composite being--
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Geisler Feinberg, Feinberg Christian, Accordingly God, Tillich Essential, Mover God, Tillich II, Augustine's Aquinas's, Geisler Feinberg's, Church Freemantle, Aquinas Augustine, geisler feinberg, human experience, geisler feinberg's, figure christ, philosophical argument, method associated, tillich ii, christian philosophy, concept god, god world, philosophy christian perspective, geisler feinberg describe, according geisler feinberg, philosophy geisler feinberg, geisler feinberg cite,
Approximate Word count = 5941
Approximate Pages = 24 (250 words per page)
|