iew of the world.
On the other hand, a coherently argued Christian philosophical perspective enriches the marketplace of ideas in general, and may have the added effect of refining and evaluating itself when challenged by various non-Christian points of view. After all, there is intellectual and sectarian philosophical competition within the Christian community itself. It is in this kind of intellectual environment that an examination of a Christian approach to philosophy can proceed.
The objective of this research is to explore the study of philosophy from a Christian perspective, particularly as set forth by Geisler and Feinberg in Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective. The plan of the research will be to establish the context in which Geisler and Feinberg examine, as Christians, the principal Western secular philosophical traditions, disciplines, methods, and issues, and then to discuss the manner in which they position their evaluations of such philosophical views as subject to interpretation from a perspective of orthodox Protestant Christianity.
According to Geisler and Feinberg, one of the difficulties of engaging in the philosophical enterprise from a Christian perspective is that of defining the main categories of investigation. They note that the names given to the various branches of philosophy variously overlap, converge, or compete with one another. However, they cite two main divisions: (1) analytical philosophy or conceptual analysis, and (2) speculative philosophy.
Norman L. Geisler and Paul D. Feinberg, Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1980) 13-14.
Within these main divisions, 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), what is real (metaphysics, ontology, and cosmology), what i...