Philosophy is knowledge of things which are in so far as they are; that is to say, a knowledge of their nature. Philosophy is a knowledge of divine and human things. Philosophy is a study of death, both that which is deliberate and that which is natural. Philosophy is a becoming like God, in so far as this is possible for man. Now, it is in justice, sanctity, and goodness that we become like God. And justice is that which is distributive of equity; it is not wrongdoing and not being wrong, not prejudicing a person, but rendering to each his due in according with his works. Sanctity, on the other hand, is that which is over and above justice; that is to say, it is the good, the patience of the one wronged, the forgiving of them that do wrong, and, more than that, the doing of good to them. Philosophy is the art of arts and the science of sciences, for, since through philosophy every art is discovered, it is the principle underlying every art. Philosophy is love of wisdom. But, the true wisdom is God. Therefore, the love of God – this is the true philosophy.

John covers quite a bit in this passage, but he indicates that part of theosis (what he says is “Becoming like God,” or what Protestants say, “More like Christ”) is the study of philosophy. How does philosophy aid in us becoming like God? Philosophy teaches us the reality of the world. It tells us where we came from and how we know what we know. From there, we deduce how we should act. Philosophy teaches us that we should be just in our actions and go even further and be sanctified in how we act toward others, to go beyond justice.

This is how God acts towards us. God is a just God, but He acts over His justice. Justice is to give to everyone what they are due. Since all humans sin against God, what they are due is punishment. God, however, shows grace and instead of giving us what is due, He takes the penalty Himself and offers us salvation. In the Hellenistic views of the gods, they would give men their due and would only offer grace when the human could do something for the god. The true God, however, had injustice dealt to Him and instead of acting justly, He instead chose to take the penalty Himself. He would be justified in rightly punishing all men, but instead He, “…is [Him who] is over and above justice; that is to say, [He] is the good, the patience of the one wronged, the forgiving of them that do wrong, and, more than that, the doing of good to them.”

Another reason for the Christian to learn philosophy is that philosophy is the beginning of all learning. We need philosophy to better understand ethics, natural sciences, mathematics, or anything else in life. We need philosophy to better understand how marriage works, how governments work, or even how we work. Philosophy is the beginning of all knowledge and all things flow from philosophy, thus to ignore the learning of philosophy is to ignore the foundations of all subjects. How can one be properly educated when one lacks a proper foundation?

But does philosophy point us towards abstract virtues as the Stoics would say? John answers with a resounding “NO!” Philosophy does not points us to some abstract truth, but rather true philosophy (what Francis Schaeffer would call “true truth”) points us to a Person, that Person being God.

John even puts his belief into a syllogistic format:

Philosophy is the love of wisdom

God is wisdom

Therefore, philosophy is the love of God

To pursue wisdom, one must pursue philosophy. Even if a man doesn’t read all the philosophical texts, by learning to think better he becomes a better Christian. When we say “God created the world and all within,” we have made a philosophical statement, one dealing with metaphysics. To better know God, we must explore that statement and take it as far as we can.

This is why Paul warned us in Colossians to avoid the philosophies of the world. Such philosophies are not “real philosophies.” Any philosophy or philosophical truth that does not point to God is false, because it does not point to wisdom, and therefore it cannot properly be called philosophy (the love of wisdom). When Christians call philosophy an intellectual pursuit, inferior to theology, we quickly point out that philosophy is above theology in terms of study. We must first know God exists and that we can know God exists before we begin studying the acts of God. When Christians begin to adopt worldly philosophies, they have an affair with the gods of this world. To love wisdom (philosophy) is to love God; to buy into a philosophical doctrine that denies that truth exists or denies that God exists is to hate wisdom and therefore to hate God.

Thus, one of the ways to love God is with philosophy. By studying philosophy we learn how to act. If we follow through on such actions, then we become holy as God is holy. We become like God (in our justice, our sanctity, and in goodness). For a Christian to grow, he must study philosophy in some form and then act upon what he has learned.

The first book, Fountain of Knowledge, deals with philosophy and logic. The entire book (about 60 pages) explains to readers in an lucid fashion how to think properly. He doesn’t tell the reader what to think, but instead how to think.

His next book, Heresies, deals with the heresies up to that point. What is interesting is with most he doesn’t say why they are wrong or even that they are wrong. Merely, he points out what each heresy taught and moves onto the next one.

He finally comes to An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, the biggest book in the trilogy. It is here that he lays out, in order, what we should know about God, what we should know about creation and God’s interaction with creation, what Christ accomplished on the cross, and how all of the above applies to Christians. Essentially, if Christianity had a “Buyer’s Guide” that explained Christianity (including the Bible) in detail, this book would be that guide.

What is interesting is the structure of his trilogy seems to imply that in order for a Christian to come to a deeper understanding of his faith, he must first know how to think and then know what is false. This is not to say that before one comes to Christ one must know logic and what heresies are out there, but instead before one begins to truly have a deep relationship with Christ, one must think properly.

Such a structure does make sense in light of the greatest commandment, stated by Christ in Matthew 22:37, that we shall love our God with all our hearts, minds, and souls. While I would love to give an exposition of the entire passage, for now it is best just to look at the Greek word used for “mind,” which is dianoia. This Greek word refers to the whole of the mind; it refers to our moral or immoral thoughts, to our creative thoughts, and to our faculty of reason. When Christ said to love Him with all our minds, He meant that everything we think should be done for Him, which means that it should be our best.

Since reason is included in the mind, it follows that we should understand how to reason. Proper reasoning will generally lead to proper beliefs. Improper reasoning (or an abandonment of reasoning, or even an Escape from Reason) will generally lead to improper beliefs. Likewise, where the mind goes the actions soon follow. If we believe it is good to help the poor and more good to help the poor than to spend excess money on ourselves, we will usually help the poor and think of ourselves later. The more we understand Christianity, the more we begin to live like Christ. The less we understand of Christianity, the more likely we are to deny aspects and then invent in our minds how Christ would act.

Is it any wonder that Western Christianity finds itself in such a crisis? In America, around the time of the Second Great Awakening, churches began to stop teaching members how to think properly. It wasn’t emphasized. Instead, a personal experience was emphasized far more than an intellectual acknowledgment of Christ (both are important, but often one is elevated at the expense of the other). As time progressed, around the 1960s and 1970s, the Church began to deemphasize the teaching of heresy. It became taboo to label something “heretical.” Today, the moment a person uses the term “Heresy” in a negative way, that person is immediately viewed as a fundamentalist and loses all credibility. To use the term “heresy’ is anathema in our culture. Now, we see churches ceasing to teach the basic doctrines of the faith (i.e. we don’t see many sermons on the Trinity, on the Incarnation, on the problem of evil, etc).

The reason we see a downgrade on the emphasis on major doctrines is because our congregations simply don’t know how to think. Paul said that as Christians we are to move from the milk to the meat. A new Christian doesn’t need to learn about the Trinity in detail or even the incarnation in detail; simply acknowledging that Jesus is God and human and died for our sins and rose again is sufficient. But a growing Christian must eventually move away from milk and eat meat, just like a child must do. Unfortunately, modern Christianity has moved away from the milk, but not in a good way.

We begin with the milk and as we grow older, we eat our ice cream before the main meal. We eat our desserts (the emotional feelings, the “feel-good” theology, which is important, but not the main course) before we eat the main meal (the deeper doctrines that help us to understand God and give meaning to the “feel-good” doctrines). As we get older, we might even eat our dinner salad (e.g. predestination vs free will, pre-trib rapture vs post-trib rapture, etc) or even attempt to eat some of the side items with our meal (e.g. a proper church government, when baptism should occur, etc). But very rarely do we eat our main course (e.g. who God is, what the Trinity means, what the Incarnation means, why God created, etc). In fact, we hardly nibble at the main course.

The reason for this boils down to the fact that most American Christians, like most Americans, do not think properly. If they could think logically, then teaching the deeper doctrines of Christianity wouldn’t be an issue. Instead, they have become mentally overweight. They have eaten the desserts and the fatty side items to create a feel-good Christianity. They think the dessert is the main course. Because of this, their minds become fluffy and cannot handle the more complex doctrines.

What this then leads to is poor practice in Christianity. Emergents wonder why conservatives are so obsessed over building mega-churches, having ministries for everyone in the congregation, and entertaining their congregations to death while avoiding helping the poor or helping the community. The reason is such churches don’t understand the deeper doctrines of Christianity and so the doctrines that flow from Christianity don’t make sense. Conservatives wonder why Emergents seem to care about social justice, but not about who God is or the deeper teachings of God. The reason is Emergents don’t think properly. They don’t understand the deeper doctrines of Christianity and so they focus on particular doctrines – that are only supposed to have meaning in a certain context – and ignore the universal doctrines.

What we end up with is two groups of Christians at each other’s throats and distrustful of each other, but they are both suffering from malnourishment. Neither side is thinking properly. Both sides take particular doctrines and make those particulars universals. In such a context, these particular doctrines lose their meaning and we have to put our own meaning into them.

The solution is for churches to start putting an emphasis on the mind. Follow St. John of Damascus’ example. Teach your congregation logic. Teach them how to think properly. While they don’t need to be qualified to be logician professors, they should have enough that they can begin to think in a proper way and recognize a fallacy when they see one. Once that is done, teach what heresies exist, but do not teach why they are heresies. Simply say, “This is what Christians for 2,000 years have viewed as a heresy and here’s what the heresy taught.” Finally, teach them the orthodox faith. Teach them the deeper doctrines. In doing so, they will learn why the heresies are wrong and will, hopefully, begin to live in accordance with what they believe. When that occurs, we will see revival. If it does not occur, we will see the death of Christianity in America.

APPLIED THEOLOGY SERIES

Introduction | The Incarnation | The Image of God | The omniscience/omnipotence of God 

What is it?

The image of God is a doctrine that isn’t exactly clear-cut, mainly because it’s never fully described in Scripture. Most theologians, however, define the Imago Dei (the Latin term for “image of God”) as the human capability to reason, have a heightened sense of emotions, understand morality, desire to create, and enjoy aesthetics. For instance, we don’t see dogs visiting art galleries in an attempt to interpret the artistic endeavors of the artist. Likewise, we don’t see a council of animals in Africa putting a lion on trial for killing a gazelle. Whereas all animals rely on nature in order to survive, humans seek to control nature and shape nature to serve humans. This is done because we are rational beings – most orthodox theologians believe this comes from being made in God’s image.

 Why is it important as a belief?

Jean-Paul Sartre, the founder of atheistic existentialism, famously said, “Existence precedes essence.” What he meant by this is that humans existed and, as a result, we created our own essence (that is, what makes us human). If this is true, then tomorrow we could, collectively, decide that being human includes infanticide of the first born child so that every parent experiences loss. There would be nothing wrong with this because we, as creatures that exist, would be creating a new essence for ourselves.

Belief in the Imago Dei has far-reaching ramifications, the first of which is that human essence precedes human existence. If created by God in His image, this means certain human traits – rationality, emotions, and moral – existed prior to human existence. They were in God’s nature and the way they would play out in humanity was in His mind. This means that our essence was in God’s plan, and that our essence preceded our existence.

This means human beings are significant, more significant than animals. The tactics of PETA of equating human suffering to animal suffering are to be ignored because human suffering far outweighs the suffering of animals – mainly because humans are in the image of God and vastly superior to animals. Taken further, the Image of God has a major impact on the field of anthropological ethics. Humans are significant because they are made in the image of God.

What Scripture supports this idea?

Genesis 1:26-28 state that humans (both male and female) were made in the image of God, which indicates the image doesn’t have to do with physicality, but instead with our essence, what Francis Schaeffer calls our “mannishness.”

Of course, the Fall of humanity occurs post-creation, leaving some to conclude that the image of God no longer exists, such as Martin Luther. Luther, however, must have ignored both Genesis 9:6 and James 3:9. Genesis 9:6 states that murder is the snuffing out of the image of God. James states that when we curse fellow human beings, we are cursing the image of God.

Scripture, though it doesn’t go into detail on what exactly the image of God means, does state that even after the Fall, we are still in God’s image. It also seems to state that humans are significant, regardless of their eternal state, because of this image.

How can this belief be applied?

This one probably has more obvious applications than some of the other doctrines I intend to explore. Though there are multiple applications – such as embryonic stem-cell research, abortion, child labor, slave labor, totalitarian governments, a heightened sense of justice for those who violate the image of God, and so on – I instead want to focus on a grander application of this doctrine, namely in just how we look at and treat other human beings.

Too often Christians befriend non-Christians for the sole reason of trying to lead that person to Christ. The non-Christian is valuable only as long as he remains open to the idea of accepting Christ. The moment he closes off that openness, he loses his value in many Christian’s eyes. Though we can act righteously and say, “No, not I,” put yourself in the following scenario:

You wake up to turn on the news and see that Richard Dawkins, a longtime opponent of Christianity, has killed over from a heart attack. Many Christian leaders come out saying that this is an act of God, God’s wrath has finally poured out, and that He has taken His vengeance. Where do you place yourself on this? Are you happy that Dawkins is finally dead, never to spew out his illogical and hateful thoughts against Christianity (and make no mistake – Dawkins thoughts are illogical and hateful)?

We can come out and say we would act differently, but we are humans, we probably wouldn’t. When a personal enemy or someone who has caused us pain or strife suffers his or her own trials, we celebrate. We rejoice in that person’s suffering. Think of how many Christians said that hurricane Katrina was God’s way of punishing New Orleans.

Though we worship a just God who does judge the nations, we are not to celebrate in the death or suffering of a rival or of a non-Christian. We are to befriend and care for human beings, not because of the evangelistic opportunity they may provide, but because they are human beings. We care for humans because they are human. We care for them because, being human, they are made in the image of God.

When we watch children starve in some far-away land, we’re not watching foreigners suffer, we’re watching the image of God suffer before our eyes. When we hear about the killing fields in Sudan, we are hearing about how fellow image bearers, who have the same essence as us, are being put to death. When we learn of the child prostitutes in Southeast Asia, who have been forced into this lifestyle through slavery, we are learning about little images of God give up their innocence. In all of this, we are watching the image of God be violated.  

As Christians, we should want to change these situations – not just for the evangelistic opportunity, but because we don’t want fellow human beings to suffer. If we, as Christians, believe in the image of God, then we must look at all humans as significant and equal and must seek to treat them with dignity.

What other applications to this belief exist? What else should the Imago Dei motivate us to do (or not do)?

APPLIED THEOLOGY SERIES

Introduction | The Incarnation | The Image of God | The omniscience/omnipotence of God 

What is it?

One of the central aspects of Christian theology is the belief in the Incarnation – that Christ came down and became human, taking on a human nature, but keeping His divine nature. It is also generally accepted that the incarnation is a mystery, that is, there really is no comprehensive or even adequate understanding of how the incarnation works. The best work dealing with this subject is Athanasius’ On The Incarnation, but even this work only shows how the incarnation works logically – it doesn’t explain how it actually works.

Why is it important as a belief?

One of the better summarizations of why the incarnation – that Jesus is both God and human – is found in Peter Kreeft’s book Because God is Real: Sixteen Questions, One Answer (Ignatius Press, 2006):

If it’s not possible for Jesus to be both fully divine and fully human, then either (a) Jesus is only the perfect human being but not God, or else (b) He’s only God but not a real human being.

a.     If He’s only a human being, then He can’t forgive our sins. He can’t be our Savior from sin. And He can’t rise from the dead or raise us up from the dead. And He can’t unite us to God and take us to Heaven. For no merely human being can do any of that.

b.     If He’s not fully human, if His human nature was only an appearance, like a movie or a dream, or “virtual reality”, then He didn’t really grow or tire or feel pain and frustration like us, so He can’t really understand our pains and weaknesses. God was never a human baby. God never had a mother. God was never a teenager. God never had to learn a trade like carpentry. God never got hungry and tired and lonely and angry and frustrated. God never suffered and died.

If either of these two “heresies” is true – if Jesus is not fully divine or if Jesus is not fully human – then we have no hope of Heaven. And that’s as big a difference to our lives as anything can possibly be. (p. 14)

What Kreeft points out is that if Jesus is not God, then He is no better than a righteous human – He holds no authority. If Jesus is not human, then He didn’t really live like us or take on our sufferings like we do, meaning He’s not an adequate example on how to live (or a proper sacrifice).

What scripture supports a belief in the incarnation?

The Catholic Encyclopedia states:

The Latin incarnatio (in: caro, flesh) corresponds to the Greek sarkosis, or ensarkosis, which words depend on John (1:14) kai ho Logos sarx egeneto, “And the Word was made flesh”.

In other words, the word “incarnation” is a Latin translation of the Greek word ensarkois, which is the idea presented in John 1:14. The whole of the New Testament, specifically the four gospels, explains how Christ was both God and man. The article linked to the Catholic Encyclopedia does an excellent job of showing the numerous passages that refer to Jesus being both man and God.

How can this belief be applied?

This belief is seemingly hard to apply to our everyday lives because we are not God, have never been God, and will never be God – so how can we be incarnated? We can’t come down as God in human form. Though perplexing, there are applications of the incarnation. The one I can think of the most is Missions. I was speaking with my friend from the Philippines the other day about American missionaries. He said it isn’t uncommon in his country and other countries in Southeast Asia to have American missionaries living like millionaires. They may only get $2,000-$3,000 a month from America, but when the currency is exchanged, they become the equivalent to millionaires in the country they’re “evangelizing.” They live in nice homes, have two cars, and continue to live the American lifestyle while “reaching out” to people.

An incarnational way of living, however, requires a drastically different approach to typical American missions. Just as Christ emptied Himself, took on human flesh, leaving behind the glory of Heaven, so we too must leave behind our wealth, our Americanism, our culture, and seek to embrace the new culture we find ourselves in. When living in a foreign nation we should seek to live amongst the people, adopting their way of life, eating their food, dressing like them, talking like them, and thinking like them. This doesn’t mean we adopt their philosophies, but merely that we learn to think like the indigenous people and understand their thought process and worldview.

We can look at Paul saying that we should become “all things to all people,” not meaning that we act like them or adopt their philosophies, but simply that we take on their culture, learn how to reach out to their culture, and embrace those people.

When Christ took on human flesh, though He adopted human culture (specifically the Jewish culture He found Himself in), He stood on principles of truth. He spoke their language, He knew their thought process, He knew their worldview, He lived amongst them, He ate their food – but not once did He adopt their philosophy. Instead, he took their culture and interjected it with the Truth of God. Likewise, in missions, we should do the same.

What other applications to the incarnation exist? There must be applications in everyday life, I was merely pointing out one.

Introduction | The Incarnation | The Image of God | The omniscience/omnipotence of God 

I’m going to start a series (I’ll attempt to have the first post up tonight) on how to apply theology. Often times we spend great lengths discussing what a theology means, but I think we should also discuss the application of each theological point. 

All true theology has a practical application. This is not to say that theology is true only if it has a practical application, but that because it is true it can be applied. This involves all forms of theology, including ecclesiology, soteriology, theology proper (theology about the nature of God), Christology, and so on. 

The purpose of this series is two-fold:

1) To show the importance of theology – often times people want us to live the right way and live as Christians and leave theology to the Cemeteries seminaries. I want to show that this view is completely wrong – one cannot live a good life until one has proper theology. This doesn’t mean a person has to have a formal education on philosophy, but simply understands that certain things about Christianity are true and certain things are false. If we abandon theology, or treat it as unimportant, it will eventually affect our actions. 

2) To show that theology is more than reading a book – in Christian circles, when people think theology they think “study.” They think it’s all about reading a book and getting to know God better. While this is partially true, there is also an application to theology. I want people who are book smart to learn that theology expands beyond the intellect (it is not anti-intellect and it uses the intellect, but theology also requires using all other aspects of humanness) and requires that we act on theology as well. 

I don’t know how long this series will be, but I expect it to be sporadic as I want to write about other stuff as well.