For the Love of God and Philosophy

One of the biggest roadblocks to accepting the Bible as the Word of God is putting biblical theology in terms of philosophy (and by this I mean modern philosophy, or the formulation of thought in the tradition of the popular philosophers), rather than putting philosophy in terms of biblical theology. The philosophical categories, which have largely been fabricated in ignorance of the Bible, are often insufficient to expound the doctrines of the Bible. At the same time, many of the modern philosophical categories are created with intent to circumvent the implications of biblical theology. This same deference to man’s philosophy rather than Biblical theology is complicit in both unbelieving thought and erroneous Christian thought concerning the Bible. And back of all this lies the moral issue of sin and authority. Yes, sin is involved even when Christians are thinking incorrectly concerning the Bible. What any man accepts as truth, wherever the Bible is concerned, will be determined by the extent to which he honors his own autonomy over the Bible and vice versa. The effective mechanism for this is the Holy Spirit.

 Of course, that’s not to say that “philosophy,” in all its senses, is to be avoided. Since “philosophy” can refer to something as general as arranging ideas in an intelligible fashion, then it’s clear to see that Christians must necessarily engage in philosophy, and quite often at that, but we must make sure that such philosophy is founded upon the explicit, special revelation of God, and does not contradict God’s revelation at any point. For every issue the Bible does not speak in particular about (which are few, and many times trivial), we are forced to utilize philosophical or analytical thought. The moment a discrepancy manifests itself between your philosophy and God’s, the only acceptable recourse for a Christian to take is to jettison at least that part of his philosophy, and revisit the more basic parts of his philosophy to see whether the discrepancy is a necessary result of that philosophy. Examine whether the presuppositions of that philosophy are in line with Scripture, and if not, correct it. No philosophy, elegantly crafted though it may be, is worth denying the Bible. The same way no idol, however beautifully adorned, is worth denying God.