Transcript Session 1 – Introduction to Philosophy

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
This view comes from Romans 1
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…
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
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”
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
Can things exist that are not in time?
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
Is there anything that must be true of
absolutely everything that exists?
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 & Monism
All 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.”