Program / Course 13: Foundations of Apologetics / Lesson 6.1
What you will learn
- Explain Tertullian’s question about Athens and Jerusalem and correct a common misquotation of him.
- Describe Augustine’s teaching that belief and understanding work together.
- State what Anselm meant by faith seeking understanding.
- Compare the three thinkers and say what each contributes to later Christian thinking about reason.
The big idea
Early and medieval Christian thinkers asked how belief in what God has revealed relates to the use of human reason. Tertullian, writing around the year 200, was suspicious of philosophy that led away from the church’s teaching, though he used reason himself. Augustine, around two centuries later, taught that people must believe in order to understand, and that understanding in turn strengthens faith. Anselm, in the eleventh century, gave this approach a famous name: faith seeking understanding. Together they show that the tradition has seldom treated faith and reason as simple opposites.
Key terms
- Faith
- In Christian use, trust in God and acceptance of what God has revealed. Writers differ on how far faith includes assent to teaching as well as personal trust.
- Reason
- The human power to think, argue and understand. In this lesson it includes philosophy and logical argument.
- Church Fathers
- Early Christian teachers and writers, mostly from the second to the eighth century, whose work shaped Christian doctrine.
- Rule of faith
- A summary of the church’s basic teaching that early writers appealed to as a guide for interpreting Scripture and judging new ideas.
- Fides quaerens intellectum
- A Latin phrase meaning faith seeking understanding, associated with Anselm and with Augustine before him.
- Illumination
- In Augustine’s thought, God’s action in lighting the mind so that it can grasp truth.
- Heresy
- A teaching that a church community judges to contradict its fundamental doctrine.
Background
The first Christians lived in a world full of philosophy. Some of them, such as Justin Martyr in the second century, said that Greek thinkers had caught glimpses of the truth that was fully revealed in Christ. Others feared that philosophy had led people into error, since several early heresies used philosophical ideas. The tension between these attitudes runs through the whole history of Christian thought.
This lesson looks at three figures who stand at different points in that history and who are often quoted in modern discussion. Each is sometimes misrepresented, so it helps to read what they actually wrote, or at least what scholars report about it. The aim is to understand their reasoning, not to name a winner.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Tertullian and the question about Athens
Tertullian was a Latin writer from Carthage in North Africa who lived from about 155 to about 220. In his work Prescription Against Heretics he asks what Athens has to do with Jerusalem, and what the Academy, Plato’s school, has to do with the church. He means that heretics were borrowing ideas from philosophers, and that the church should hold to the teaching handed down from the apostles, not to speculation. He adds that once people believe, they need no further curiosity.
It would be wrong to conclude that Tertullian despised reason. He was highly educated, wrote in a highly argued style, and borrowed freely from Stoic philosophy. His target was a certain use of philosophy against the rule of faith. A line often attributed to him, that he believed because it is absurd, is not found in his writings in that form. A passage in his work On the Flesh of Christ says that the death of the Son of God is credible because it is unfitting, and a later summary turned this into a slogan. Scholars debate how ironically he meant it.
Step 2: Augustine and the unity of belief and understanding
Augustine of Hippo, who lived from 354 to 430, had been a teacher of rhetoric and a follower of various philosophies before he became a Christian. In his preaching and writing he repeatedly urged people to believe so that they might understand. He often connected this with Isaiah 7:9, which in the Latin version he used said that unless people believe, they will not understand.
Augustine did not mean that people should believe without reasons. He wrote that no one believes anything unless he first thinks it worth believing, and he himself gave arguments for the faith. He taught that some things are known by reason and some are accepted on trust, as a child accepts the word of parents, and that faith opens the mind to see more. He also taught that reason, once strengthened by faith, can examine what is believed. The relation runs both ways.
Step 3: Augustine on authority and reason
In an early work, Augustine describes two paths to wisdom: authority and reason. Authority comes first in time, since a learner must begin by trusting a teacher, but reason comes first in nature, since reason is what makes the learner able to judge what he is told. The idea is that trust and understanding develop together over a lifetime.
Augustine also warned that learning can be a form of pride. Knowledge sought for display or advantage can do harm. In the Confessions he describes how his own pursuit of philosophy did not satisfy him until he learned humility. For him the aim of reason was to love and know God, a theme taken up in the lesson on intellectual humility.
Step 4: Anselm and faith seeking understanding
Anselm of Canterbury lived from about 1033 to 1109. He was a monk and later archbishop. In his Proslogion he begins with a prayer. He says that he does not try to understand in order to believe, but believes in order to understand. He also says that unless he believed, he would not understand. The phrase faith seeking understanding is the original title he gave to the work.
Anselm then offers an argument for God’s existence, now called the ontological argument, which has been discussed ever since. Anselm treats the argument as a prayerful exercise by one who already believes, not as a proof meant to compel unbelievers. Some scholars read it as a work of devotion, others as a rational argument; both readings have defenders.
Step 5: Comparing the three
The three thinkers differ in emphasis. Tertullian warns against philosophy when it undermines the rule of faith. Augustine joins faith and reason in a single movement of growing understanding. Anselm shows what it looks like to think hard from within belief. None of them treats faith as ignorance, and none thinks reason alone can reach God without grace.
Later traditions have drawn on them in different ways. Catholic and Orthodox writers often cite Augustine and Anselm, with differences over Augustine on grace. Protestant reformers, especially Luther and Calvin, drew heavily on Augustine, while some Protestants appeal to Tertullian’s warning about philosophy. The lesson that follows turns to Aquinas, who built a more systematic account on these foundations.
- What did Tertullian mean by asking what Athens has to do with Jerusalem?
- What evidence shows that Tertullian did use reason, despite his warnings?
- In what sense does Augustine say that people believe in order to understand?
- Why does Augustine say that authority comes first in time but reason first in nature?
- What does Anselm mean by faith seeking understanding?
- Which of the three thinkers seems closest to your own view, and why?
Examples
A slogan that was not said
A popular writer claims that Tertullian said he believed because the claim is absurd, and uses it to show that faith rejects reason. A student finds that the phrase does not appear in his writings in that form, and that the passage in question is a rhetorical argument about the unlikeliness of the incarnation. The student concludes that the slogan misleads.
Trust and understanding
A child is told by her parents that she was born in a certain year. She accepts it without proof. Later she sees the certificate and the photographs, and her trust becomes understanding. Augustine uses examples like this to show that trust often comes first, and that understanding grows from it. This is a constructed example.
A prayer before an argument
Anselm opens the Proslogion with a prayer asking God to teach him how to seek. He then turns to argument. A student reading it notes that the order is part of the message: reasoning is placed inside worship, not set against it.
Different perspectives
Roman Catholic
Catholic teaching honors Augustine and Anselm as Doctors of the Church. The First Vatican Council taught that faith and reason cannot truly contradict one another and that each helps the other. Catholic writers read faith seeking understanding as a model for theology.
Eastern Orthodox
Orthodox theologians also revere the early Fathers, though they know Augustine less than the Greek Fathers and sometimes question aspects of his teaching on grace and the Trinity. They stress that knowing God is a matter of transformation through prayer and the sacraments, in which reason has a place.
Protestant, especially Reformed and Lutheran
The Reformers admired Augustine’s emphasis on grace and the primacy of God’s word. They warned against speculation beyond Scripture, which has led some Protestants to cite Tertullian approvingly. Others, in the Reformed scholastic line, took up Anselm’s method.
Evangelical apologists
Some apologists see in Augustine and Anselm a basis for starting from faith, and others, such as Christian philosophers who defend the ontological argument, see them as precursors of philosophical theology.
Historians and critical scholars
Historians stress that the three belonged to very different settings, Roman North Africa, the late Roman Empire and medieval England and Normandy, and warn against turning them into slogans. They also note that the Fathers inherited and used much Greek philosophy.
Why it matters
The relation of faith and reason is a question that every thoughtful believer meets. The Fathers show that Christian thought did not begin with a choice between belief and reason, and they model a way of thinking that is rooted in worship and trust but not afraid of argument. It also helps students to avoid slogans: the idea that Christians have always despised reason is false, and so is the idea that they have always worshiped it.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Tertullian said that he believed because the claim is absurd.
Correction: The slogan does not appear in this form in his writings. A passage in his work on Christ’s flesh has a similar but different sense, written in a rhetorical style, and scholars debate how to read it.
Misunderstanding: The Fathers rejected philosophy.
Correction: Some were wary of it, but many, including Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Augustine, used it freely. Even Tertullian drew on Stoic ideas.
Misunderstanding: Faith seeking understanding means believing first and thinking later.
Correction: The phrase describes a continuing movement. Faith is the setting in which understanding grows, and understanding in turn strengthens faith.
Misunderstanding: Anselm meant his argument to convince atheists.
Correction: Scholars disagree about his intent. Many read the Proslogion as an act of devotion by a believer, while others see it as aimed also at the unbeliever.
Knowledge check
What did Tertullian mean by asking what Athens has to do with Jerusalem?
He was warning that heretics borrowed ideas from philosophy and that the church should hold to the teaching handed down from the apostles. He did not reject all reason. He was an educated writer who produced carefully argued works and used Stoic ideas himself.
What was Augustine’s view on the relation of faith to understanding?
Augustine taught that people believe in order to understand, and that understanding in turn deepens faith. He said that trust comes first in time, since learners must begin by trusting a teacher, while reason comes first in nature. The two work together over a lifetime.
What does faith seeking understanding mean in Anselm?
It means that a believer, starting from trust in God, tries to grasp more fully what is believed and why. Anselm said that he did not seek to understand in order to believe, but believed in order to understand. The phrase was the original title of his Proslogion.
Is the ontological argument a proof meant for unbelievers?
Scholars disagree. Anselm presents it in the form of a prayer, and some see it as an expression of the believer’s search for understanding. Others read it as a rational argument addressed also to those who deny God. Philosophers still debate its merits.
What do the three thinkers share?
None treats faith as ignorance and none supposes reason alone can reach God without grace. They differ in emphasis: Tertullian warns against misuse of philosophy, Augustine joins belief and understanding, and Anselm shows how to reason from within faith.
Think it through
- Do you trust things before you understand them? In which areas of life is that wise?
- Where do you see a tension between faith and reason in your own experience?
- Is it fair to quote a slogan from a thinker without reading the work it comes from?
- What would it mean to place your thinking inside prayer?
Independent assignment
Reading a primary text
In your own notebook, write 500 to 700 words. Read the preface and first chapters of Anselm’s Proslogion (in the library). Summarize what Anselm says about the relation between faith and understanding. Then compare it with what this lesson reports about Augustine. Note any phrase that you found surprising. Keep this for yourself.
Further study
- Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics Read chapters on heretics and philosophy, including the passage about Athens and Jerusalem.
- Augustine of Hippo, Confessions Read the first book and the account of his conversion in Book 8.
- Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion Read the preface and first chapters.
- Justin Martyr, The First Apology Compare a more positive early view of philosophy.
- Isaiah 7:9 Read the verse that Augustine connects with believing in order to understand.
- 1 Corinthians 1 Read verses 18 to 25 on the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world.