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Course 25 · Lesson 2.2

Philosophical theology: clarifying and testing concepts

10 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 25 outline

Module 1: Integrating Scripture and History

  1. The four theological disciplines and the questions each asks
  2. Biblical theology: the story of Scripture from creation to new creation
  3. Historical theology: how doctrine was formed, tested and defined
  4. Tracing one doctrine from Scripture through the councils

Module 2: Integrating Doctrine and Philosophy

  1. Systematic theology: coherence among doctrines
  2. Philosophical theology: clarifying and testing concepts
  3. Faith and reason: four historic accounts of their relation
  4. When the disciplines seem to conflict

Module 3: What Is Real and What Is a Human Being

  1. Creation, contingency and the God-world relation
  2. Christian metaphysics compared with materialism, pantheism and dualism
  3. The image of God and the dignity of the person
  4. Body, soul, the fall and the hope of resurrection

Module 4: How We Know and How We Live

  1. Christian epistemology: revelation, Scripture, tradition, reason and experience
  2. Christian ethics: command, virtue and natural law
  3. How doctrine shapes prayer, worship and conduct
  4. How practice tests and sometimes corrects doctrine

Module 5: Tensions and Commitments

  1. Stating a theological tension precisely
  2. Case studies: divine sovereignty and human freedom, one God and three persons, faith and works
  3. Telling a firm conviction from an open question
  4. Auditing your own commitments: reasons, evidence and uncertainty

Module 6: Building a Coherent Worldview

  1. What makes a worldview coherent: consistency, comprehensiveness and fit with experience
  2. Independent faith and historic Christianity: where they agree and differ
  3. Outlining the synthesis
  4. Drafting, testing and revising the synthesis

All courses

Program / Course 25: Theological Synthesis / Lesson 2.2

What you will learn

  • Describe what philosophical theology does and how it differs from philosophy of religion.
  • Use three tools: definition, distinction and test of consistency.
  • Apply them to the divine attributes of omnipotence and eternity.
  • State the main reasons some Christians welcome philosophy in theology and others distrust it.

The big idea

Philosophical theology uses careful definition, distinction and logic to ask what theological claims mean and whether they hold together. It does not replace revelation. It serves it by clearing away confusion. When Christians say that God is all-powerful or outside time, philosophers ask what exactly is meant and whether the claim creates problems. The answers have shaped the great creeds and still shape debates today. Whether philosophy helps or distorts theology is itself a lasting question.

Key terms

Philosophical theology
The use of philosophical method to clarify and examine Christian doctrines and the concepts they use.
Attribute
A property said to belong to God, such as being all-powerful, all-knowing, good or eternal.
Omnipotence
The attribute of being all-powerful. Philosophers ask what this includes and excludes.
Eternity
Either timelessness (existing outside time) or everlastingness (existing through endless time). Christians have held both views.
Analogy
The claim that words such as good or wise apply to God and to creatures in related but not identical senses.
Simplicity
The doctrine, held by Aquinas and many others, that God has no parts and is not composed of separate properties.
Valid argument
An argument in which, if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.

Background

Philosophy and Christianity have had a long meeting. Paul speaks to philosophers in Athens (Acts 17). Justin Martyr in the second century treated Greek philosophy as a partial preparation for Christ. Augustine borrowed from Platonism, and Aquinas from Aristotle. In the same period other Christians were suspicious. Tertullian famously asked what Athens has to do with Jerusalem, and the Reformers criticized the way medieval theology depended on philosophy.

Today the field is lively. Philosophers of religion such as Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, both Christian, work on questions of God’s attributes, evil and the rationality of belief. Other philosophers, such as many analytic atheists, press objections. This lesson does not survey the debates. It teaches the basic tools so that a student can read them intelligently.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Define the term

Many arguments about God fail because a word is used in two senses. A statement such as God is all-powerful may mean that God can do anything whatever, including what is logically contradictory, or that God can do whatever is logically possible. Most classical theologians chose the second. Aquinas, for example, held that a contradiction is not a thing at all, so failing to do it is no limit on power.

The first habit of philosophical theology is therefore to ask what a word means, and to state the meaning before arguing.

Step 2: Draw distinctions

A distinction separates two things that are easily confused. For instance, to say that God knows what will happen is not the same as saying that God causes it. To say that God is eternal could mean that God is timeless or that God exists through all time. Different distinctions produce different positions, and one purpose of philosophical theology is to show which positions are available.

Distinctions are not tricks. They are accurate descriptions of different possibilities. A student should be able to say what each side of a distinction would mean for worship and for ethics.

Step 3: Test for consistency

A set of claims is consistent when they can all be true together. The problem of evil in its classic form says that the claims God is all-good, God is all-powerful and evil exists cannot all be true. Defenders reply that the claims are consistent given certain further truths, such as the value of free will. Plantinga’s free-will defense is the best known response. Whether it also answers the question of why there is so much evil is a separate matter that critics press.

Note that proving consistency is different from proving truth. Showing that a position can be held without contradiction is a modest result, but it often matters, because many objections claim there is a contradiction.

Step 4: Apply the tools to two attributes

Take eternity. If God is timeless, God does not change and has no before and after. This fits a long tradition from Boethius and Augustine to Aquinas. But the Bible speaks of God acting in history and responding to prayer, and some philosophers argue that a timeless being could not do so. Others reply that a timeless God can cause effects in time without changing. Another group holds that God is everlasting, within time, which fits the biblical language more closely but raises other questions.

Take omnipotence. If it means doing the logically possible, can God make a stone too heavy to lift? Most philosophers say the question is confused, because it asks for a contradiction. The example shows how a distinction can dissolve an apparent paradox.

Step 5: Keep the limits in view

Philosophy can clarify and test, but it cannot discover the central events of the Christian faith, such as the incarnation or resurrection, which are claims about history. It also works with human concepts, and Christian traditions have stressed that God goes beyond them. The Orthodox writer Lossky, and before him Gregory of Nyssa, stressed that God exceeds all concepts. The task is to use concepts with care and to know when they fail.

  1. What exactly do I mean when I say that God is all-powerful, all-knowing or eternal?
  2. What distinctions would help clarify the claim I am making?
  3. Are my beliefs consistent with each other, and how could I check?
  4. Where might a philosophical term be bending a biblical idea?
  5. Where does the Bible seem to speak of God in ways a philosopher would find odd, and what should I do with that?
  6. What would count as a good reason to change my mind?

Examples

Foreknowledge and freedom

If God knows exactly what a person will choose tomorrow, can the person choose otherwise? Boethius answered that God, being outside time, sees all events in an eternal present, and that knowing is not the same as causing. Others, called open theists, say God does not know free future choices in advance. The distinction between knowing and causing is the key tool.

Divine simplicity

Aquinas held that God is not made of parts, so that God’s goodness and God’s power are not separate things but one reality described in different ways. Critics ask whether this leaves the attributes meaningless. Defenders reply that it protects God from being dependent on anything. The debate shows how a technical doctrine can drive a wide range of theological conclusions.

The stone paradox

The question can God make a stone he cannot lift is often used to attack omnipotence. A philosopher notices that the question mixes two things: the power to make anything, and the power to do what cannot be done. Once omnipotence is defined as the power to do what is logically possible, the paradox disappears.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic teaching has long held that reason can establish some truths about God and that philosophy is a handmaid of theology. The First Vatican Council in 1870 taught that God can be known with certainty by the natural light of reason. The Thomist tradition makes philosophical analysis central.

Orthodox

Orthodox theologians have used Greek philosophy extensively, as in the work of Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor, but insist that God is beyond concepts. Gregory Palamas in the fourteenth century distinguished God’s essence, which cannot be known, from God’s energies, by which God is known. Many modern Orthodox writers are critical of what they see as over-reliance on Western scholastic philosophy.

Protestant

Protestant views vary. Luther and Calvin both criticized aspects of medieval philosophy, but later Protestant scholastics used philosophical method heavily. Contemporary Reformed, Evangelical and Anglican philosophers, among them Plantinga and Swinburne, are leading figures in analytic philosophy of religion. Other Protestants, following Barth, are cautious about letting philosophy set the agenda.

Jewish and secular philosophy

Jewish thinkers such as Maimonides worked on the same questions about God’s attributes in the twelfth century and influenced Christian writers. Secular philosophers such as Hume pressed objections about evidence and evil. Many contemporary philosophers regard theistic arguments as worth analysis even when they are not persuaded.

Why it matters

Every worldview uses concepts such as power, goodness, time and freedom. If those concepts are muddled, the worldview will be muddled. Philosophical tools help a student find where a belief is vague, where two beliefs collide, and where an objection depends on a hidden assumption. They also teach humility, since they show how much remains unresolved.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Philosophical theology tries to prove Christianity by logic alone.

Correction: Most philosophical theologians seek to clarify and test, not to prove the whole faith. Some arguments for God’s existence are offered, but the specifically Christian claims rest on history and revelation.

Misunderstanding: If God is beyond concepts, philosophical analysis is pointless.

Correction: The great writers who stressed God’s incomprehensibility also used careful concepts. The two attitudes work together: use the concepts, and remember that they do not reach the end.

Misunderstanding: Omnipotence means God can do anything, including the impossible.

Correction: The mainstream view is that it means the ability to do whatever is logically possible and consistent with God’s nature. Contradictions are not tasks.

Misunderstanding: Philosophy is a pagan intrusion that corrupted Christianity.

Correction: Some historians and theologians argue this. Others hold that Christians used philosophy selectively to express biblical claims. It is a debated question, not a settled one.

Knowledge check

What three tools does philosophical theology use?

Definition, distinction and consistency testing. A student defines terms to avoid ambiguity, draws distinctions to separate similar ideas, and checks whether a set of claims can be true together. These tools clarify and challenge doctrine without replacing the sources of revelation.

What are the two main views of divine eternity?

Timelessness holds that God exists outside time, with no before or after, a view associated with Boethius, Augustine and Aquinas. Everlastingness holds that God exists through endless time. Each has strengths: timelessness protects God’s unchanging nature, and everlastingness fits biblical language about God acting in history.

Why does a consistency defense not prove that God exists?

Showing that claims can be true together answers the charge of contradiction, but it does not show that they are in fact true. It removes one objection. Positive support must come from other arguments, from Scripture and from experience.

Why do some Christians distrust philosophy in theology?

They worry that philosophical concepts may bend biblical ideas into foreign shapes, or make faith seem like an intellectual exercise. Tertullian’s question about Athens and Jerusalem is the classic expression. Others reply that Christians always use some concepts, so it is better to examine them carefully.

Think it through

  1. Which divine attribute do you find easiest to affirm, and which most puzzling?
  2. When have you seen an argument fail because a word was used in two senses?
  3. What is the difference between a mystery and a muddle?

Independent assignment

Clarify one attribute

In your own notebook, write 400 to 600 words on one divine attribute (omnipotence, omniscience, eternity or goodness). State two possible definitions, explain how each would affect one doctrine (such as prayer, providence or evil), and say which you find more persuasive and why. Name one objection to your choice and how you would answer it.

Further study