Christian philosophy - Definition and Overview

Christian philosophy is a two-millennia tradition of rational thought as applied to the Christian tradition, and is very diverse in scope and content.

No survey article can do more than touch on the most major figures and traditions, each of which are covered in articles of their own. Also there has been considerable interaction with Jewish philosophy and Islamic philosophy that continues into the modern era, e.g. modern Islamic philosophy explores many issues in common with modern Catholic philosophy.

Origins of Christian philosophy

• Jesus: There is no record of any extant writing by Jesus, nor of any systematic philosophy or theology. Several accounts of his life and many of his teachings are recorded in the New Testament, and form the basis for Christian philosophy.
• St. Paul: St. Paul of Tarsas wrote a number of epistles, or letters, to early churches, in which he taught doctrine and theology, and exhorted them to Christian behavior. Also, a number of his speeches and debates with Greek philosophers and jewish religious teachers are recorded in the Biblical book of Acts. His letters became a significant source for later Christian philosophy.

Classical Christian philosophy

• Augustine of Hippo: Augustine developed classical Christian philosophy, largely by synthesizing Hebrew and Greek thought. He drew particularly from the Greek pagan thinker Plato, neoplatonism, and stoicism, which he altered and refined in light of divine revelation of Christian teaching and the Bible.

Medeival philosophy

• Anselm of Cantebury: Anselm was is best known for the Ontological Argument for God's existence, i.e, God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. But to exist is greater than not to exist. If God does not exist then he wouldn't be "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." Therefore, God exists. Anselm was one of the first western thinkers to directly engage the reintroduction of Aristotle to the West. However, he didn't have all of Aristotle's works and those he had access to were from the Arabic translations.
• Aquinas: Thomas Aquinas, was the student of Albert the Great, a brilliant Dominican experimentalist, much like the Franciscan, Roger Bacon of Oxford in the 13th century. Aquinas reintroduced Aristotelian philosophy to Christianity. He believed that there was no contradiction between faith and secular reason. He believed that Aristotle had achieved the pinnacle in the human striving for truth and thus adopted Aristotle's philosophy as a frame work in constructing his theological and philosophical outlook. He was a Professor at the prestigous University of Paris. Thomas Aquinas was a contemporary of St Bonaventure, a Franciscan Professor at the University of Paris, who's approach differed significantly from Aquinas'.
• John Duns Scotus: John Duns Scotus is known as the "subtle doctor" who hair-splitting distinctions were important contributions in scholastic thought and in the modern development of logic. Scotus' was also a Professor at the University of Paris, however, not at the same time as Aquinas. Along with Aquinas, he is one of the two giants ofScholastic philosophy which led to:
• William Ockham

Renaissance philosophy

Reformation philosophy

Martin Luther and Erasmus notably

Enlightenment philosophy

by authors who were part of or reacting to Christian norms

Modern Christian philosophy

• Karl Barth: A German survivor of both world wars, Barth wrote the massive Church Dogmatics (germ. Kirchliche Dogmatik) - unfinished at about six million words by his death in 1968. Barth emphasized the distinction between human thought and divine reality, and that while humans may attempt to understand the divine, our concepts of the divine are never precisely aligned from the divine reality itself, although God reveals his reality in part through human language and culture.
• G.K. Chesterton: An British Christian author, he applied Christian thought in the form of non-fiction, fiction, and poems addressing a variety of theological, moral, political, and economic issues, particularly the importance of seeking truth, resistance to Eugenics, and Distributivism.
• Søren Kierkegaard
• C.S. Lewis
• Knud Ejler Løgstrup
• Jacques Maritain
• John Henry Newman
• Pope John Paul II, who wrote Fides et Ratio
• Alvin Plantinga

Related Sites

• ethics
• Ethics in the Bible
• moral philosophy
• Reactionary for information on the Clerical Philosophers

This Christianity-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it (http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Christian_philosophy).

This philosophy-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it (http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Christian_philosophy).