Session 1 - Introduction to Philosophy

In this first session we will give an introduction to the topic of philosophy,

exploring the four major areas within philosophy.

We will also look at what the Bible says on the topic, and the foundation for

Christian philosophy

Philosophy broadly

The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence

The term philosophy is taken from the Greek word, (phileo) meaning "to love" or

"to befriend" and , (Sophia) meaning "wisdom." Thus, "philosophy" means "the

love of wisdom".

What does the Bible say?

Some Christians say the Bible is against philosophy (and being a philosopher)

Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition,

according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”

The verse does not say we can’t study philosophy. It warns against being held

captive by its empty deception.

Philosophy helps sharpen the mind, develop logic skills, and aids in articulating ideas. It can be extremely useful if used properly.

On the flip side, it can destroy your faith if you don’t know why you believe

what you believe.

For an unstable Christian, philosophy is probably the most dangerous class you

could take in college.

Paul quotes philosophers in his writings

Epimenides in Titus 1:12, “One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy

gluttons.”Aratus in Acts 17:28, “for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own

poets have said, ‘For we also are His offspring.'”

There is nothing wrong with studying others to better understand what they believe

Epistemology

Study of the origin, nature, and limits of human knowledge.

Some historically important issues in epistemology are:

- Whether knowledge of any kind is possible, and if so what kind

- Whether some human knowledge is innate (i.e., present, in some sense, at birth)

or all significant knowledge is acquired through experience.

- Whether certainty is a form of knowledge

- Whether the primary task of epistemology is to provide justifications for broad

categories of knowledge claim or merely to describe what kinds of things are known and

how that knowledge is acquired.

What makes you unique as a person? The information you have compared to others?

Are you (your identity) really information?

The information that you have will influence who you are and what you do

What does the Bible say on the topic of Epistemology?

John Calvin believes that there can be no knowledge (period) without the

knowledge of God

Romans 1:18-28: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them,

for God has shown it to them…

This view comes from Romans 1

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being

understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without

excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were

thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they

became fools,…

and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible

man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave

them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among

themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is

blessed forever. Amen…

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged

the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the

natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing

what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And

even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things

which are not fitting;”

Does everyone know who God is, and many people are simply suppressing that truth?

Calvin is not saying that non-believers are dumb and know nothing, his argument is

that all knowledge and wisdom is found in God, and non believers know God (although

they suppress the truth) and that is how they can know things.

We will return to this idea when discussing Presuppositional Apologetics.

Proverbs 1:7: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise

wisdom and discipline.”

Ecclesiastes 2:26: “To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth

to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after

the wind.”

Logic

The science that studies the formal processes used in thinking and reasoning.

The goal in logic is to take the information that you have, the ideas that you have, and

examine them to see if they are true or false.

We do this by comparing information to the rules of logic and looking for fallacies.

We will spend an entire week talking about logic, and learning how to identify logical

fallacies within apologetics

Many fallacies will be obvious to you, you’ll know something is wrong with the

argument/position, but some will not be so obvious.

We will also spend quite some time exploring where these laws come from.

Ethics

Moral principles that govern a persons or groups behavior

Ethics deal with what we ought to do, what is morally right and morally wrong

Ethics govern your actions and behavior, and also deal with morality (and what is

right and wrong)

Many of the philosophical questions you will be asked in apologetics are under ethics

(and morality)

For example, why does God allow (and command) the Israelites to go into the promise land and massacre some of

the tribes there?

This is questioning the ethical behavior of the Israelites, and God

Answer?

Put the situation in context!

God gives the pagans 400 years to repent and turn away from their ways

They choose not to, and remain in their sinful ways

A judge who upholds justice and punishes evil isn’t immoral for doing so

The question could be asked why God waited so long. Why did God give them so

much time to change?

Balancing Love and Justice

If the Nephilim theory is correct, that would also explain why the Israelites did

what they did

God is not immoral in either case!

Another question: How can a loving God send

people to hell?

If the police caught a mass murderer who had kidnapped and killed over twenty

children by burying them alive, when he goes before the judge what is the

moral things to do?

Let him go? Or punish him for his actions?

Most would agree it would be wrong

for the judge to not punish the evil

that was done

But suppose the murderer has given millions of dollars (stolen from banks) to charities all

around the world, and he’s fed and supported hundreds of children who are

starving… Is it now immoral for the judge to

punish him? No.

Metaphysics

Instead of trying to explain this in more detail, I will give you a few examples. Keep

in mind, some questions people call “metaphysical” may be easy to answer

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy involved with examining and discussing the ultimate nature of reality. The term comes

from meta which means “after” and phusika which means “physics”

Can things exist that are not in time?

Is there anything that must be true of absolutely everything that exists?

This doesn’t seem like too hard of a question for us, the answer is yes, God.

Augustine wrote about God being outside time entirely and how he sees everything

as in the now

Why do I experience things right now and only remember past experiences? What is

the present moment, the arrow of time, time itself, the process of change and memory?

Can we visit the past? Is remembering something traveling back in time?

Scientifically you can answer this question, “now” is a length of time according to

quantum mechanics

Other types of questions you may get that fall into the realm of metaphysics would be:

Where did everything come from? Why is there something instead of nothing?

As a Christian you may not think this to be a complicated question to answer, but there

are many people who can’t answer this

Where did everything come from? The Bible (God) tells us (Genesis 1)

What is the purpose of life?

Many people don’t know what the purpose of existence is!

The Bible tells us why we were created and what the purpose of life is

We were created to have a relationship with, and bring glory to God

The purpose of life is to worship God and tell others about Him

There are different worldviews that people hold to which you need to be familiar with:

Materialism is the belief that matter is the only thing that exists and that all things can

be reduced to matter (and energy since matter is a form of energy).

These individuals would be atheists

They also run into some problems when examining our universe:

If material (matter) is all that exists, and everything functions by rules of science, how

can we trust what we think, after all, our brain is just chemical reactions?

Could the idea of materialism have been a bad chemical reaction (and is wrong?)

Where do immaterial things come from? Laws of nature, laws of logic, love, beauty?

Deism is the position that God, who is without beginning or end, created

the world, set it in motion, but is not involved in the world.

World Union of Deists say: “Deism is the recognition of a universal creative force

greater than that demonstrated by mankind, supported by personal observation of laws

and designs in nature and the universe, perpetuated and validated by the innate…

ability of human reason coupled with the rejection of claims made by individuals and

organized religions of having received special divine revelation.”

Deism is refuted if Jesus Christ is God (and by many other things) the incarnation is the ultimate interaction between God

and Creation

There is trouble explaining morality if we can only examine nature (not revelation)

Agnosticism is a philosophical position that the existence of God is not knowable. The

word “agnosticism” comes from the Greek, ”a” meaning without, and gnosis,  meaning knowledge. It literally means

"without knowledge" but is usually applied to the topic of God.

Agnostics are generally atheists who do not believe in absolutes, therefore they won’t absolutely say God doesn’t (or can’t) exist

Atheism comes from the negative a which means ‘no,’ and theos which means ‘god.’

Hence, atheism in the most basic terms means ‘no god.’

People claim to be atheists for many reasons, they deny it is a belief system

They assume the default position is that no God exists, while we might see the existence

of God as the more natural starting place (which their belief system denies)

Animism (Latin anima meaning

‘soul’) is the belief that within all creatures and

objects (natural and manufactured) is a soul

This idea is present in a lot of Native American spirituality

The Bible would refute this idea, obviously rocks don’t go to heaven or hell

Polytheism and Henotheism

Poly meaning many Theos meaning god

The idea of many gods, and the idea of a great

god and then lesser gods under him, goes back a

long way

Old Greek, Roman, Egyptian etc. religions had a list of gods associated with

different things

Hinduism is the largest religion in the world today that promotes

polytheism (and henotheism)

Mormons would also believe in polytheism, that there are many (an unlimited number)

of gods in the universe(s)

The Bible refutes this view (over and over)

“Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye

may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.”

- Isaiah 43:10

“Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the

first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God” - Isaiah 44:6

Pantheism & MonismAll is god, or god is one (all there is)

This is the idea behind many spiritual religions of the day

Buddhists are a large group who would fall into this

category. Your goal is to be absorbed into the

everything and nothingness of the universe (Nirvana)

Many new age folks would also fall into the category of pantheism (as would a lot of the

similar environmental movement)

The Bible makes clear distinctions between the Creator and the creation, and shows

that God is separate from his creation

You also have to explain how the universe got started. You don’t have something

greater than the universe to get it going

Pluralism (universalism) is the belief that reality consists of many parts. There are

different types of pluralism in different areas of study. Religious pluralism would teach

that different religions are true even though they might contradict each other.

A worldview or philosophy that allows for contradictions is hard to correct

This is the idea (relative truth) that is becoming very popular today

Skepticism is the philosophical position which doubts that knowledge can be

attained absolutely, yet it does not say that things cannot be known

Most people who count themselves as skeptics are atheists or agnostics

It’s becoming a more common term, because everyone should be skeptical

about things, right?

Theism is the position that there is a god or gods who created the world and

have interacted with it

Within theism is polytheism and monotheism

The great monotheistic religions are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Within monotheism you can have Unitarian or Trinitarian

Roadmap from here:

We will spend a session looking at logic

We will look at the evidence for a God

We will look at the history of Philosophy (and great Christian philosophers)

We will examine different methods of apologetics (classic, Presuppositional etc.)

Memory Verse

Proverbs 1:7: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise

wisdom and discipline.”