Christian Philosophy

The Christian philosophy was born from the meeting, as of the Roman epoch, of the Greek philosophical tradition with the Christian Monothéisme.

The entry of Christian God in philosophy had several capital consequences, such as:

  • doctrines of the Creation ex nihilo which replaces the belief in the eternity of the world;
  • the assertion of human freedom and the conviction that the evil is the bad use of this freedom.
  • the assertion that the human heart is created by God at the time of the design and that it is preserved eternally by him after physical death.

These three central points modified in-depth the rational Théologie, the Cosmologie and the philosophical Anthropologie. They introduced into philosophy the concept of any divine power, a Onto-theology which rests on the equivocity of the to be (radical dependence to be it created with regard to Incréé, separation of the natural order and the supernatural order), as well as the belief in the unicity of the human person and of her moral responsibility because of its supernatural destiny.

Although all these truths first were fixed gradually, the Christian tradition considers that they were theoretically accessible to the human Raison (from where their philosophical legitimacy), but that concretely and perhaps for of the corruption of the Raison by the Original sin , it will have been necessary to await the contribution of the Révélation so that this occurs indeed.

Fathers of the Church

At the beginning of its history, Christianity was opposite two complementary requirements:
  • To look further into the faith, of to seize the truth and the deep sense, to find a formulation clear and specifies organized in body of doctrines. From there was born the Théologie.
  • To defend the new faith against the attacks of its adversaries, to see against everyone pagan incrédule. It was the work of the Apologétique. The turn of mind of apologetic was likely to involve the new religion to be denounced and with diaboliser pagan civilization as a whole and to maintain with the variation the faithful ones, to isolate them from the Paganisme. This sectarian turn of mind was at the origin of the first Monachisme and dominated the primitive Church. One finds of it the brilliance testimony at Tertullien.

The 2nd century

Tertullien condemns all the philosophers, opposes Athens and Jerusalem, the Academy and the Church. The philosophers are the patriarchs of the heretics. The refusal of philosophy involves at his place paradoxical consequences. The death of the Son of God is very believable, since foolish, resurrection is certain, since impossible, etc These paradoxes light as soon as one considers the step of Tertullien. It is a question of opposing divine Wisdom to human wisdoms and one can do it only by denying them.

However, at the same time, an opposite tendency was born. Justin supported the idea that the arrival of Wise, before Christ, took part already of the Verb of God. Consequently, all those which had lived according to the Logos among the barbarians, were Christians before the letter. For Justin, the Révélation of the Writings was the prolongation of the natural revelation. It is this conciliating attitude which ends up being essential finally and leading to a synthesis, that of the Greek thought and Christian spirit. This synthesis, which one can name Christian philosophy, has as a character essential to lead to a form of religious humanism and to give to Western humanism values and a spiritual horizon Christians.

The 3rd century

3rd century, the school of Alexandria played a great part in the development of this synthesis.

According to Clement of Alexandria, “the faith is grafted on the tree of philosophy, and when the vaccine is perfect, then the bud of the faith replaces that of the tree, it grows in the tree and makes that this one bears fruits”. To carry out this project, Clément decides to make use of philosophical concepts to interpret the biblical myths. Greek philosophy is with the service of a rationalization of the step hermeneutics. It allows the passage of the faith knowledge (from where the orthodoxe name of gnosis given to this school).

It is this step which Origène deepens to interpret the text crowned in its triple carnal direction, psychic, spiritual. This method is in direct connection with the doctrines of the tripartition of the man in body/heart/spirit as with the upward dash of the heart which characterizes the Christian thought. By a way which is clean for him, Origène made penetrate in the middle of Christianity the allegorical method already used by the hellenized Jews (see Philon of Alexandria) and before them the stoical ones.

Origene, while using of a great freedom of interpretation inside the Revelation and while not hesitating to make use of philosophy to convert the faith into knowledge, is the major craftsman of the introduction of the philosophical step within Christianity: to use the resources of the reason to formulate what is not yet dogmas while eliminating to the maximum the subjectivism and the anthropomorphism of the pagan philosophers.

With the allegorical method, which aims at the spirit, Lucien d' Antioche will prefer the method grammatico-history, more scientific and objectifies, but which aims especially the letter. It is rationalism of the school of Antioche, which avoids seizing the mystical direction of the Writings which will be born the great heresies from Arius, Nestorius, Eunomius, which is the followers.

The 4th century

At the 4th century, the cappadocians continue the work of Origène by deepening the apophatic Théologie and by integrating many elements of stoical physics (see Gregoire de Nysse). At that time where the dogmas are not fixed yet, confrontation between the Foi and the Raison is not regarded yet as a relationship between Théologie and Philosophie. What prevails, it is the idea of a philosophy born of the Révélation. According to the cappadocians, there are a pagan philosophy indicated sometimes like “philosophy of the outside” and a Christian philosophy indicated by the following expressions: spiritual philosophy , philosophical life , true philosophy . The monastery itself is named “philosophical chorus”. Gregoire de Nysse known as of David which he “teaches the way of the true philosophy”.

The 5th century

After the cappadocians, the writings of the Pseudo-Denys form a decisive stage in the final synthesis of the Néo-platonisme and Christianity: deepening and preeminence of apophatic theology locating God beyond the being and of the gasoline, complementarity of theologies positive and negative, use of the diagram of the emanation plotinienne to the service of a triadic and systematic angelology (influence of Proclus).

In the Latin world, it is the thought of Saint Augustin which forms a decisive stage in the constitution of a true Christian philosophy. It was often said that the Augustinisme is a synthesis of the Platonisme and Christianity. One can add that, until the 12th century, this synthesis dominates Christian philosophy. But, as from the 13th century, in spite of the persistence of a fort running augustinien, it is the synthesis of the aristotelism and the Fathers of the Church operated by Thomas d' Aquin which from now on will guide the philosophical destiny of Christianity.

the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages being one very long period, one must distinguish two great periods:

Early middle ages

For this period the Liberal arts, and the ecclesiastical Comput are worked out (Bède Worthy the). This knowledge makes it possible to create the schools at the time Carolingian. Philosophy is based primarily on the methods of the Dialectique and rhetoric (questions and answers).

During this time, Plato is known in occident, but not yet Aristote.

The Low Middle Ages

See also: Philosophy scholastic

In XIe and XIIe century, the principal philosophical debate within Christianity relates to the rough fight between dialecticians and anti-dialecticians.

The dialecticians are the partisans of philosophy. He think that it is possible to clear up and to even rationalize the mysteries of Christianity. Largest among them, Abélard, uses logical and dialectical arguments to give a rational explanation of the mystery of the Trinity. It is perhaps the first radical expression of Christian rationalism and médéval.

On the other hand, the anti-dialecticians (Lanfranc, Bernard de Clerveaux) are wary of the reason which is likely to dissolve the Christian mysteries in philosophy. The fight which results from it is not only intellectual: Abélard will lose its testicles there.

Within this vast debate, Anselme de Canterborry occupies a particular position, halfway between the two. It is him which develops famous the ontological Preuve, which is in the Christian world, the oldest proof of the entirely rational existence of God.

For this second period, the philosophical thought of Aristote) and sciences and philosophy arabo-Moslem women were introduced in Occident, initially by Sylvestre II, then with during a great time of translation of the works in Greek and Arabic, which covered the years 1120 - 1190.

It was Thomas d' Aquin which carried out the great theological reconciliation between the Christianisme and the philosophy of Aristote, which corresponds to the apogee of the Scolastique, phase called sometimes large scholastic . This theology was introduced into the Université S of occident, and in particular with the Université of Paris, by Albert Large the.

The Christian philosophers dialogued in certain cases with Jewish and Moslem philosophers (the philosophy of Thomas d' Aquin operated this synthesis).

Rebirth

A major change takes place starting from the Renaissance.

On the one hand, the critical Humanism the method Scholastic which is the intellectual reinforcement of medieval Christian philosophy and gives the man to the center of the world. Medieval theocentrism one passes gradually to the Anthropocentrisme of modern times. The humanistic criticism of medieval dogmatism, the refusal of the arguments of authority (Aristote, Augustin), the critical attitude with respect to the tradition and the free examination of the religion, all that shakes the old certainty. The Latin which was the language of Christianity is replaced by the written usage of the vernacular languages.

Side of the Protestant Reform, something of deep is achieved also which contributes to the separation of philosophy and theology. The return to the Writings, distrust with regard to philosophy led Calvin to work out a type of autonomous Theology, being based only on the Writings with the detriment of the pagan authors and the fathers of the Church whose authority is decreased.

To fight against the Protestantism, the catholic Counter-Reformation gives to the honor the Thomisme like catholic philosophy par excellence and the Summa Theologica replaces from now on the Sentences of Pierre Lombard in the cycle of academic works. Is authors like Vittoria and Francisco Suarez (see school of Salamanque) make shine Christian philosophy by adapting the thomism to the topical questions (the colonization of America right? do the Amerindians have a heart, are intended to be slaves, must be evangelized?) But the movement cannot resist the opening of the modern thought, because by rejecting the science of Galileo, the philosophers of the Counter-Reformation cling to an exceeded cosmology. Benoît XIV will make publish the writings on the Héliocentrisme of Galileo only in 1741 and 1757. Henceforth, separation between the faith and the reason will nothing but do deepen (see Relation between science and faith).

Modern times

The traditional Age

Descartes, says one, is the father of the modern Philosophie. However, Descartes is presented itself in the form of a Christian philosopher. If it at all does not take support on the Writings and the Fathers of the Church and if there is in its work a strict autonomy of philosophy, if the purely theological questions are carefully put aside, it does not remain about it less than essential points of the Cartésianisme (ontological Preuve of the existence of God, Dualisme of the heart and body, immortality of the heart) are in agreement with the Christian dogmas. However, the modern spirit of Descartes, which will be criticized by the later Christian philosophers (see Lucien Laberthonnière), is marked in its physique mechanist who seems to exclude any idea from divine Providence and in a general design which tries to reduce the action of God in the world to the pure act of creation, after which, Pascal will criticize, it leaves the world delivered to itself. This maximum reduction on behalf of divine intervention in the world is heavy consequences and characterizes a major tropism of the modern Rationalisme.

However, the traditional age does not know the decline of Christian philosophy. On the contrary Malebranche seizes the Cartesianism and tries the imposing synthesis with the Augustinisme. As one often said, the 17th century is the golden age of the augustinism. Thus, Augustin is the supreme authority of Pascal. Through its work, Christian philosophy is confronted directly with the requirements of modern science. The order of the grace is opposed to the order reasons without removing them and the spirit of smoothness transcends the geometrical spirit.

Two camps are opposed then:

  • the Jansenists, representing augustinism, attempt to underline the misery of the man without God and nothing of human works.

  • the Jésuites react by revalorizing human freedom, source of creation. In morals, they privilege the examination of the particular cases to the detriment of the great principles and work out a Casuistique which was often caricatured. Their economic dynamism and their active evangelism the growth until in China where, thanks to them, the first historical confrontation between Christian thought occurs and thought Chinese.

Leibniz, philosopher Christian if it is, will remember this confrontation. Defender of an oecumenical vision very advances some over his time, Leibniz is the last monument at which Christianity, rationalism and universalism are strongly solidarized.

The Age of Enlightenment

The 19th century

The 20th century

The end of and the beginning of the 20th century are crossed by several large philosophical currents of Christian inspiration:

Representatives of this international current (Gabriel Marcel, Leon Chestov, Berdiaeff) and those which are located in its proximity (Jaspers, Scheler, Landsberg, Miguel Unamuno, the Personnalisme of Emmanuel Mounier, Buber…) in common have a dramatic design of the human existence, the importance attached to the human person, the report/ratio with others, the positivity of the intersubjectivity in the constitution of oneself, the denunciation of the sources of alienation of the human person (objectivisation, collectivism…).

Certain theologists have a very critical approach of the modern thought. Thus, Henri de Lubac denounces the Idéologie S, and wishes to return to the sources of interpretation and the Herméneutique according to the Four directions of the Writing. In the same way the neothomism criticizes the Modernisme, the Matérialisme, the Marxism, etc

Others like Tillich, underlined the positive contributions of Marxist sociology and regard the existentialism as an essential anthropological key to include/understand the major sources of the relationship of the man with God, his need for transcendence, etc Moreover, Emmanuel Mounier underlines the Christian origin of the existentialism.

One observes also a renewal in the field of the ethical with Paul Ricœur, and in the field of the history of philosophy with Henri Gouhier.

In 1998, the pope Jean-Paul II, as well as the Cardinal Ratzinger, worked with a Encyclique which defines the bases of Christian philosophy, and its relationship with the Théologie: Fides and ratio . This encyclical points out the constant innovation of the Pensée of saint Thomas d' Aquin.

Christian philosophers

For the medieval period, to also see: List of philosophers scholastics

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