Learning to See the World Theologically

“What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

Tertullian first asked this question in 197 AD, challenging the relevance of philosophical study to the Christian life. Since then, Christians in every age have worked to show that there is much that Athens has to offer Jerusalem, so long as it does not set itself up over Jerusalem as judge, but rather submits to it in service.The Church has remained committed to the belief that the faith, while it is mysterious, and so beyond our ability to exhaustively understand, is nevertheless reasonable.

This year-long course will explore the relationship and interaction of philosophy and theology by considering the fundamental questions of each. Philosophy’s first question, for example, is: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Theology responds: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Philosophy asks “from what?” and theology responds: “from nothing.” Philosophy asks “for what reason?” and theology responds: “for his own glory and pleasure.”

Thus we will see that philosophy is characteristic of humans, for it is the discipline where we gather all of our questions of meaning. Every search for God begins in such questions, and so begins in philosophy; but a search for God that never rises above that first questioning stance will never arrive at God. And so we will see that when philosophy continually looks to theology to have its questions answered, it leads to deeper and more robust faith; but when it turns away from theology and seeks to set itself up as the highest arbiter of truth, it ends in confusion, skepticism, and despair.

Texts will be taken from selections various authors, including Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Nietzsche, Augustine, Aquinas, and Chesterton.

Students will:

• study specific questions in philosophy and learn how they connect to different theological doctrines;
• read selections from major philosophers and theologians throughout the history of the faith;
• and develop arguments of their own about both philosophical and theological questions.