Dr Greg Bahnsen - Ancient & Medieval Philosophy: Introduction Part 2 (Part 2)

So the Christian worldview incorporates man's need for redemption, which shows man's inadequacy and his lost condition that involves man's guilt. And so when people want to answer philosophical questions and not own up to their guilt, their lost condition, when they don't want to see man's inadequacy because he has to have a redeemer, then they want to give up man's dependence on God. They want to give up the history of man's fall and so forth. And so they develop what we call secular philosophy, a philosophy that says, well, man's thinking is sufficient to itself and he's really all right as far as he goes. Man may not know everything he'd like to know, but there's really nothing basically wrong with man and the natural world, meaning everything, including the physical world and the non physical world short of God, that is a realm of ideals or ideas or whatever. The natural world is all there is. So the development of unbelieving philosophy, and specifically the development of Greek philosophy, which is where we'll begin, assumes man's autonomy and man's normalcy and wants to exclude the supernatural in the Christian sense of the supernatural. We'll see the difference when we get further down the line here. So what's our basic biblical worldview? We know the nature of reality, how we know what we know and how we should live. And that man needs a redeemer. He's not self sufficient, he's lost and he's guilty. The unbelieving world will reject this point of view and will have to come up then with an alternative, won't it? Here's the package deal. The story hangs together. You can't just take one part out and put some substitute part in there. If you're going to give up the biblical view of redemption, you're going to have to also give up the biblical view of ethics, which means you're going to have to give up the biblical view of how you know what you know and what the nature of reality is. So throughout the history of thought, you're going to see people struggling with this Christian, what I'm calling the Christian or biblical worldview based on God's infallible verbal revelation. I want to go on to another question, having looked at the biblical worldview. Secondly, where is meaning or order found for history? Where is meaning or order found for history? I did this so subtly and sneakily, I doubt that any of you even noticed. I have already given you some meaning for history, haven't I? I've given You a pattern or an order in terms of which history can be understood. What did I just say? It's a matter of unbelievers struggling with God's verbal, infallible revelation about the nature of reality, knowledge, ethics and man's need for redemption. The unbelieving world, not wanting to see a need for redemption, doesn't want the epistemology, metaphysics and ethic taught in God's Word either. Now, in saying that, I've already given you some string between all the events or details in the history of thought, haven't I? I know it's very broad and there's going to be a lot of variations in there, but in one way or another, you can use this string to find a pattern or order in history. Now, what if you're not a Christian, should you study history at all? If you're not a Christian and you can't study history, should you study the history of philosophy? What I'm driving at is when you pick up secular books on philosophy that begin with Thales, that gives it away right away. They say, well, real philosophy is the secularist. When they do that, can these people who are teaching the history of philosophy really give you a history of philosophy? Or is the world sound and fury signifying nothing? I would argue this is part of my apologetical technique. Presuppositionally, I would argue you can't even do the history of philosophy unless you approach it in a Christian way, from within the Christian or biblical worldview. And to illustrate that, let's ask the question, where is meaning in history found? Where is the meaning for history or order or pattern in history? Well, you can say it has no meaning. There's one alternative. Somebody can say there isn't any meaning. Everything is just chaotic and chance. It's just random. Well, if it has no meaning, if it has no pattern, if everything is random, then why do you write books on the history of philosophy? Or you can say, secondly, history has meaning, but the meaning is imposed by the mind of man. That is, there is a pattern, there is a purpose. History does show some meaning, but it's only because man's mind looks at it that way. You know what this is like? This would be like Dr. Bonson going to the airport and having a suitcase that is so full and he's trying to carry so much in it that all sorts of stuff is sticking out. But I still shut it and I've snapped it closed and here's all these, you know, shirt tails and pant legs and other sorts of things hanging out the edge. And so I take it to the airport and the person says, well, but I mean, your bag's overflowing. You can't do that. And I say, well, no problem. I take out some scissors and I just cut along the edge of the suitcase and I say, now it fits. Now it's orderly and neat and it's got meaning. It fits right into the pattern of what you're looking for. That's what unbelievers do when they try to put together a philosophy of life. There are all sorts of things that hang out and they can't get reconciled with what they're saying. So what they usually do is they just cut them off. They say, well, that's not real. That's not a real problem. That's an illusion. Or all these other really wimpish intellectual devices used by unbelievers to deal with the fact that they've imposed meaning on history. And what they've done is they've closed the suitcase. And so what they have to do is get rid of a lot of stuff that's untidy about history. Man's mind imposes it. And beyond that, of all things, there are different kinds of suitcases out there. You may impose one kind of meaning on history, but another school of thought sees history in a different way. Obviously, the way a 19th century liberal and a 19th century communist saw history is much different. They interpret it differently. What they took as important in history was different. So man's mind imposes meaning on history. What that means is, I got a suitcase, you got another one who can say who's right, who's wrong. All of us are cutting the edges. What hangs out off because we can't deal with everything. Where do we find meaning in history? I said, well, it either has no meaning, in which case we shouldn't be studying history or the history of philosophy, or man's mind imposes meaning, which is all relative and everybody has loose ends that they can't tuck in anyway. Or thirdly, God's plan gives meaning to history. That is, you believe in the sovereignty of God and you think there is a history of philosophy, there is a history of politics, there is a history of baseball or whatever there is. Because all of these things that happen in history, all of these events tie into a grand plan that God has that he works all things after the counsel of his own will. And God is moving history, to use a metaphor, in a certain direction. Things are going to be tied together at the end resolved, and they will suit his purposes. Please Be aware then, if I give you these three options, I've been very simplistic. Please be aware that anybody who does history, any study of history of any sort with you, all historiography, all writing of history, is done in terms of a faith commitment. It may be a faith commitment to chaos, existentialism, there isn't any meaning. It may be a faith commitment to humanism. Man's mind imposes meaning. There isn't any objective meaning that we have to make, make it for ourselves. Thus it's relativism. Or it may be a faith commitment to the sovereignty of God, who gives order and sense to everything that takes place. But all historiography is done in terms of a faith commitment. Now, by a faith commitment, I mean a worldview. All historiography is done in terms of a basic worldview, not a worldview, but that's what studying in philosophy, right? Fundamental assumptions, a network of fundamental assumptions about reality, knowledge and ethics. And so, in the same way that I said in my ethics class that there's a Christian view of ethics and unbelievers are doing ethics unethically, that if they do ethics in terms of their worldview, we do it in terms of ours, and in terms of ours, they're not doing ethics ethically. Similarly, when an unbeliever does the history of philosophy, or when a believer does, they both do it in terms of their faith commitment, they do it in terms of their presuppositions or worldview. And so you need to know that when you read a history of philosophy, if you read Shaffer, and he's not always the most competent or detailed. But the fact is, when you read Schaeffer's discussion of the history of thought and culture, and you read Sahakian or W.T. jones or somebody else doing the history of philosophy, who's an unbeliever, they're going to see the history of philosophy differently, aren't they? They're going to draw different conclusions. They have different values, different ways of evaluating what they see. Every history of philosophy is the expression of, of a philosophy, a worldview. Let's move thirdly in our outline now to biblical principles for interpreting history. Biblical principles for interpreting history. First of all, we presuppose creation by a personal, sovereign God. This is part of our metaphysic creation by a personal, sovereign God. Secondly, we see man's place in the universe and his task as being God's image, put here to have dominion over the world under God. We see man's task in the broadest sense as subduing or having dominion over this world under God. And as his image, man is to glorify God in all things and to subdue this world, to bring it under control and to use it to glorify God. Thirdly, we see man's problem is that he did not accept his task in place under the personal sovereign creator and is now seeking to be his own little God. He is now seeking autonomy. He's seeking to be a law to himself. He's pretending, and I do mean pretend, pretending that he is self sufficient, that he can answer problems on his own, that he can figure out the meaning of life, he can get along well with others, he can resolve his intellectual difficulties all on his own. He's seeking autonomy. Fourthly, we believe that the pattern of history is that of enmity between the two seeds spoken of in Genesis 3. The pattern of history is a struggle between two forces. Those who belong to the tempter, the evil one, and those who belong to the seed of the woman, the Messiah and the pattern of history. See, this is not just a biblical story then, this struggle between the people of God and the world. We believe that that is the enduring, enduring pattern for all of history. That's the pattern in art history, that's the pattern in baseball history. That's the pattern in the history of philosophy too. All of human history, in one way or another, is an outworking of this enmity and struggle between the two seeds. The one that belongs to the Messiah, recognizing the need for redemption and to think God's thoughts after him philosophically, and the one that says we don't need redemption, so we don't have to think biblical thoughts when we do our philosophy. Of course, Augustine gave the most literary and dramatic expression to what I've just told you about the pattern of history in his famous book, the City of God. History is the struggle between the city of God and the city of man. And I don't mean to endorse everything about Augustine's philosophical outlook, but he did understand that correctly. That is the pattern of history. And then fifthly, in terms of the biblical principle for interpreting history, we believe that all things will be restored and consummated at the end of history. History is going somewhere, to use the metaphor, and it's moving toward God's consummation, the consummation of his redemptive plan and the consummation of his destructive plan. What is God's destructive plan? Well, that's the enmity of the seed that will not come to the Messiah, that tries to Develop a culture and a philosophy over against the Bible and God will culminate that. See, you know where unbelievers unbelieving history is going. I couldn't have said this as the first sentence this morning, but I can say it now. Unbelieving history is going to hell and it's working its way out. It's a principle of autonomy and rebellion. Refusing to come to the Savior will eventually be worked out in the philosophy of hell. Separation from God forever. Let me move on to the next point in our outline underneath my introductory comments. E Enduring questions for those listening by tape. A Was are comments on the history of Western I know that's an incomplete sentence, but I was explaining why we're studying history, not problems of Western, not Eastern philosophy. B was our lengthy discussion of what philosophy is. C When did it begin? D We started to talk about the meaning of history, looking at the biblical worldview, asking the question secondly, where is meaning found in history? And thirdly, laying out some biblical principles for interpreting history. Coming out to E. In the outline, I'd like to discuss the enduring questions that arise. I've given you, I hope, a Christian and a biblical approach as we come up to the Greek period. I've reminded you that there is a philosophy in the Bible itself, and I've done a very, very low level summary of what that philosophical perspective is. But what are some of the questions that have come up, especially as unbelievable, have approached this issue? What are some of the questions that they have raised that are the enduring problems or questions in philosophy? Before I list these for you, let me first of all point out ideas have consequences. Ideas have consequences. You mustn't think, as you study the history of philosophy that this is just what a bunch of people who sit around with too much time on their hands have come up with speculating about, well, what is real and how do we know what we know? Philosophers are pressed to answer questions because we run into difficulties trying to make sense out of our explanations about the way the world works or history or human nature, what have you. And so philosophers come up with answers in an attempt to be practical. And they are practical. You do not understand the history of cultures and societies if you do not understand the philosophies of life that lead people to think the way they do and behave the way they do. Ideas have consequences in our day and age, isn't it obvious enough to us if you do not believe, for instance, that an unborn child is in fact a human being, or if you don't believe that there's a sovereign, holy, absolute God that governs our sexual relations and how we treat our children. What consequences are going to come of either one of those? We're going to say, well, you know, it doesn't make any difference on how you treat. Of course it does. There are people who murder their unborn babies, what we would call murderous Christians, because they don't see that the fetus is a child. They don't see that anything that is a human being is made in the image of God and therefore has the protection of life. Ideas have consequences. What if you think that when it comes to sex that the only thing that really counts is personal pleasure? So it's different strokes for different folks. What kind of culture do you develop? Do you develop a culture that has strong family ties and commitments and loyalty? Do you have a culture that has marriages that stay together? No, you have a culture that will be characterized by a high divorce rate and sexual perversion. Ideas have consequences. If you believe that man is nothing more but evolutionary slime, he's just like the furthest development of evolutionary development coming out of the primal ooze, then are you going to worry too much about going to war or killing people or committing suicide? Will you have a high view of human life if we're nothing more than another animal? Of course you won't. Ideas have consequences. So when we look at these enduring questions, the first thing I want to point out to you is the way you answer these questions is a reflection of your worldview that in itself is going to have great consequences for you individually and socially and, of course, eternally. Secondly, before we list some of the enduring questions questions, be mindful of the principal antithesis that exist between believers and unbelievers as they try to answer these questions. The principal antithesis that exists between believers and unbelievers as they attempt to answer these questions. This is the enmity that we referred to previously in the lecture. Christians try to think God's thoughts after him. So Christian philosophy is an attempt to answer questions about reality, knowledge and ethics in a way that submits to God's revelation. The non Christian philosophy is an attempt to answer questions about reality, knowledge and human behavior by not submitting to God's revelation. Or as I put it, unbelievers are constantly working against the Christian view that says man is inadequate, man is guilty, man needs redemption, he needs to submit to God. The unbeliever is trying to find an unredeemed and therefore autonomous approach to his worldview and answering his philosophical questions. And that Creates enmity or antithesis. This has to be stressed today because so often Christians who study philosophy, and sadly Christians who teach philosophy, approach it as though we're all in the soup together here. You know, we all have common notions and a common starting point and common standards. And here is how some people have tried to answer these questions, Christians and non Christians alike. And here's how other people have done so. It's not like that. Though Christians may emulate the world often enough, the fact is there is a distinctively Christian approach and there are any number of non Christian approaches. And all of the non Christian approaches have this in common. They are really just differences within the family. They are family squabbles among those who do not wish to submit to the redemptive need of that is proclaimed in the Bible and do not wish to be submissive to God. They want to be autonomous, a law unto themselves. Thirdly, first point was that ideas have consequences. Don't think this is irrelevant. Secondly, don't forget the antithesis that in principle exists. Oh, I should have said it is in principle. Sometimes unbelieving philosophers do say correct things. Not saying they're totally insane or stupid people. They do live in God's world. They are still the image of God. They cannot suppress the truth in such a way that they lose all contact with the truth. So unbelievers do sometimes come to the truth. I said earlier, they borrow from the Christian worldview sometimes, but they can never make it fit. They can never integrate all of their philosophy around those truths that they find in putting principle. Then there's an antithesis. And thirdly, the trend in unbelieving philosophies is toward dialectical tension. The trend in all unbelieving philosophies is toward dialectical tension. By dialectical tension I mean there's a yes and no struggle going on within the unbelievers worldview. As he attempts to put together a world and life view, he finds things that just cannot go together. And yet he has to have both of them. He can't make sense of that. This oil and water combination of things. And let me give you what I think some of these enduring dialectical tensions are the sorts of tension or conflict, internal conflict that you'll find in unbelieving worldviews. And I'm giving it to you, it's kind of like a back of the book approach. I want you to have some of the answers that come from people studying these things so that as you go now to study Plato or Aristotle or whatever, you can start Seeing these things for yourself and say, that's right. How does he bring these two things together? Unbelievers had difficulty bringing together rationalism and irrationalism in their worldviews. That is to say, they have difficulty explaining how everything has to be reasonable and yet there are aspects of reality that are beyond the human mind and are unpredictable and not subject to man's expectations. Some mind must know everything and perfect, yet no human mind knows everything. And so all unbelievers are unrational or irrational to some degree. How do they bring those two together? Why is it okay for the human mind to be limited and yet some minds got to know everything for anything to make sense. How do they bring rationalism and irrationalism together? Another dialectical tension is between unity and diversity. You'll find aspects of the unbelievers philosophy that reflect unity or continuity either in his view of reality or knowledge, what have you. But on the other hand, he's got to account for diversity too. It isn't enough for you to understand human nature. You've got to have some way of explaining why there's differences within human nature. Why some people have this kind of sense of humor and some people have a different why some people choose this way of life and some people are different. The unity principle, human nature does not account for the diversity that we find in the choices people make. A third kind of dialectical tension that we see in the history of philosophy, different schools of thought and have difficulty bringing together permanence and change. Is reality permanent or is reality always changing? There are some philosophers that stress the stable aspects of the natural world. Other philosophers stress the fact that everything's always in flux. Which is it? How do you bring these two together? A fourth dialectical tension that you should be looking for is between monism and atomism. The monist says everything is unified and is ultimately one. For all the differences and changes that you can find at base, reality is one or one kind of thing or one basic principle. The atomist goes the other way. The atomist says no reality is made of, made up of things that are different from one another, that are discrete. There's a plurality of ultimate things that are real. And of course we see that in our day and age when people think that everything is ultimately made up of atoms or subatomic particles. Is everything one or is everything many? Monism or atomism. A fifth dialectical tension is between universals and particulars. Universals and particulars. In a sense, two ness must be recognized by everybody. The concept of two have I Gone over this with you before. You know what I'm getting at? I sometimes will write two on the board. In fact, I got a two right there. Let's look at that. Is that two right there that I'm pointing to? If somebody says yes, it is, then of course I just erase it. And I say, well, there goes two. There's no more two ness. So let's not use the word or the number two anymore, because I just destroyed two. No, no, that's not two. Well, then there's another one. Let's say we erased all the two and took it off all the tape recorders in the world, so there's no two anywhere. Would the concept of two or the mathematical entity two cease to exist? No, what you have on the board is a particular instance of two, an instantiation or a writing out of two. But you don't have the number two up there, or else I've just destroyed the number two when I erase it. Well, two is a universal then, just like duckness is a universal, or human nature is a universal. But on the other hand, we have instances or particular twos in particular ducks, in particular humans. And every philosophy has got to bring together the universal and the particular. Which is more important? What's the relationship between them? And then finally we see a dialectical tension in unbelieving philosophies between, on the one hand, having laws and standards for behavior or for society, but on the other hand, wanting to grant freedom, individuality and novelty. Not just in politics and ethics, though, it's also in metaphysics. Is the real world characterized by law like behavior? Everything's predictable and uniform. Or is the real world characterized by novelty, individuality and freedom? I know that you cannot appreciate it at this point. Don't expect you to. Please trust me, though, that what I have just given you is about as important a key to your doing a Christian analysis of schools of philosophy as you're going to find. Look for these tensions. By the way, unbelievers are not going to flag them for you. They're not going to say by the way. Did you notice that I have a tension between universals and particulars in my philosophy? I on one hand say that everything is uniform and continuous, and yet I believe that there's freedom and randomness. They're not going to point that out for you. You've got to pick that up. So this is kind of a little grid, if you will, to kind of sort through the philosophies that are thrown at you. When you get Sartre's philosophy, put it through this grid and look for these kinds of tensions by which he cannot make sense of things. Sartre tells you everyone is radically free, so no one can tell you what to do. So there he wants to emphasize freedom, individuality, and so forth. But how does he harmonize that with his telling us no one can tell us what to do? There he has law, likeness and standards in his philosophy. See what I mean? Really, this will prove helpful. Think in terms of rationalism, irrationalism, unity, diversity, permanence, change, monism, atomism, universals, particulars, laws. But freedom, individuality. Those tensions will be found in unbelieving philosophies throughout. So the first three things I've said leading up to these enduring questions is, remember that ideas have consequences. This is very practical, important. It's not some kind of speculative, abstract thing that has no relevance. Secondly, remember the antithesis in principle, the antithesis that will exist between the way Christians answer philosophical questions and unbelievers answer them. Thirdly, notice that the way unbelievers answer these questions will lead to dialectical tensions, will lead to internal conflicts. They cannot have a coherent world and life view, starting with their autonomous principle. When they will not submit to God, they will not see the need for redemption and thinking God's thoughts after him. Then their philosophies will be characterized by dialectical tensions. And now fourthly, then, the list of enduring questions. These are the questions that you want to keep in front of you as you study individual philosophers. How do they deal with this? How do they deal with that? These will help you understand why they're talking about the things they're talking about. As we are on the threshold of studying the beginning of group Greek philosophy, secular philosophy, remember first A underneath 4, here 4 is the list of enduring questions. Remember A that philosophy is an extension of man's desire to find explanations. Man seeks to explain, to understand the world in which he lives. Philosophers want to find explanations for what we have learned in science and how everything is united. A desire to find explanations. How do things happen? And why do things happen? How do things happen? And why do things happen? That's where philosophy begins. But then this leads us into arguments over the answers to those questions. How did things happen? And why did they happen? And so philosophy becomes an attempt to justify our explanations, which is to say, an attempt to justify our methods and standards of thought and research. An attempt to justify our explanations and to resolve the internal conflicts that are found in our explanations. 4a is remember that philosophy begins with the desire to find explanations the how and why questions. But even more to justify those explanations and resolve internal questions, conflicts. How do you explain the world? How do you explain the way things happen? How do you explain human behavior or how we ought to act? Philosophers say, well, how do you justify your answer to those questions about explanations? And how do you resolve the conflicts that come up in the way you answer questions here, the way you answer questions there? Secondly, the enduring questions in particularly Greek philosophy show us man's desire to understand nature. Man's desire to understand nature. And by nature, I mean the matter in motion that we find all around us, the environment of our daily lives. Matter in motion. How do we understand nature? Here are some subordinate questions to that general question. What is the stuff of which the world is made? What is the thing that's most basic to the world in which we live? You want to know about the natural world to say, what's the natural world made of? Secondly, how is change possible? How is there any process of development or change in the world at all? Why don't things just stay the way they are? Thirdly, is there identity through change? Once you say the thing are changing, then does anything stay the same through the change? We can see the way Pete looks right now and how tall he is and so forth. But we probably could ask his mother for some baby pictures and we'd see that he was a lot shorter and didn't talk the same way that he does now, and so forth and so on. So there's been changes in Pete's life. Why do we call both the baby that we see in the picture and the fellow who's sitting at the table with us, Pete? Is there identity through change? Well, that's not just true of persons. What about a table? If you paint a table white when it was brown, is it the same? Is there any identity through change? What if everything's made up of atoms that are moving? Is there any identity between the thing at t where and the thing at T2 as we move from one second to another or one hour to another. So that's the question of identity through change. Fourth, what's the relation between the underlying stuff of which everything is made and the changing appearances? This relationship between the underlying reality and the different appearances and that reality offers us? And within naturalistic, secular philosophy, all of these questions come down to a conflict between atomism and teleological idealism. I'm going to explain that, so don't get too far away here. I'm saying that these questions about nature, what is the stuff it's made of? How does it change? Is there identity through change? What's the relation between the underlying stuff and the appearances that it offers us? All of those questions finally resolved into two general schools of thought in the Greek period. The atomistic school of thought and a school that I'm calling teleological idealism. Atomism tells us, Remember, these are both responses to the basic question, how do you understand nature? That's what we're under right now in the outline. How do you understand nature? The atomist says, nature is made up of little small bits or a particular set of or plurality of things relating to each other. And there is nothing beyond the world of those particular bits or elements of nature. That is, it's an impersonal, mechanistic world. That's one way to approach things. Everything is broken down into the smallest bits of matter, and they are changing and moving mechanistically. Another school of thought says, no explanation is not just mechanical. To understand nature, you must also understand something of purpose. There is purposiveness in the world. There's a reason why things happen that goes beyond causation. That's the teleological side of this. There are those who want to say, there's something more to this world than matter in motion. There's some purpose that things are moving toward, or there's some human purpose, that human beings are more than just matter and motion, that they make choices and they exist for a certain reason or purpose or end. The other part of that designation, teleological idealism, is the idealism part that says there's something more than the physical world. There are ideas or forms or patterns that exist. In addition to the rocks and the trees and the grass that's out there, There is a realm of reality that we can call ideal, where triangularity exists, where the number two exist and the concept of a horse or horseness exists. So there's more to this world than matter in motion. There's also the ideal world or the world of ideas. And of course, the idea world will also then leave room for such things as justice, beauty, love, so forth. And so while the materialist might say, well, there's nothing but matter in motion. Go live for all the pleasure you can get. A person who is a teleological idealist will say, live up to your human nature. Try to realize certain ideals of beauty and love and justice. Understand that watershed, the difference between the atomistic approach and the idealistic approach to answering philosophical questions. Questions you'll see that in the Greek world. Now, this is Important. Both of those answers are, from our perspective, naturalistic answers. Both of those answers are attempts to settle philosophical questions without submitting to the revelation of God. You have to understand that though Plato and others will speak of God or gods, they do not mean the same sovereign, transcendent God revealed in the Scripture. The only gods they're going to allow are going to be gods that, from our point of view, are underneath the line between creator and creature. They're going to be natural gods. They're not going to be the sovereign, singular creator God of Scripture. And so you'll have philosophers that talk about gods, but more importantly, philosophers that will talk about principles, universals and ideas and ethical norms and so forth. There'll be philosophers who want to argue against the atomist, against the materialist and the determinist of this world, but they're not offering a Christian answer. Why am I pointing this out? Why am I trying to show you that both the atomist and the idealist are, as it were, dealing with a philosophy that's naturalistic? It's part of the order. Because so many Christians look at that choice and they say, oh, obviously we're on the idealist side. You know, Plato wasn't a Christian, but he was real close to Christianity. And basically we are Platonists in our approach. Because he had ideals, he thought there was a purpose to human nature that went beyond matter and motion. Plato saw the world beyond nature, beyond the physical world, as more real and important than the physical world. But you see what a deceptive thing that is. That's not Christianity. That's not Christian philosophy. Just because you have something that goes beyond the physical world, that incorporates abstract entities like ideas or even ethical norms. The fact is, Plato had no way to explain those, and he certainly did not want to explain them by confessing his sin and bowing to the sovereign Creator before whom he was guilty for trying to be autonomous and so forth. Plato did not want to bow the knee to his Creator and trust in the Messiah. Obviously he didn't even know the promise of the Messiah. As far as we know, Plato was developing an autonomous philosophy. So what he offers us that goes beyond the material world still doesn't go beyond the material world far enough, if I can put it that way. He still only has a. This worldly otherworldliness. If you can understand that sentence, then you have been following along very well. He has a. This worldly otherworldliness. For him, otherworldly principles like triangularity or justice are still part of this world. Given. Given the Christian's View of the Creator creature distinction. Under the enduring questions. First of all, we saw the desire to find explanations and thus justify explanations and resolve internal conflicts. Be watching for that. That's what motivates the Greek philosophers. They want to explain how and why. But then they have to justify their methods and their standards. And they have to resolve the conflicts that come up. Secondly, I said, be watching for how they understand nature. They want to understand nature, matter and motion. And that will lead to questions like what's this stuff nature is made out of? How is change possible? Is there identity through change? What's the relation between the underlying stuff and the changing appearances? Idealism says everything is united by a purpose toward which things are moving. And ideas are ideals that go beyond the physical world. But not to God, not to the sovereign creator, God. Thirdly, an enduring question that you'll see in the Greek period and thereafter. Is reason an instrument for obtaining objective knowledge of reality? Is reason an instrument for obtaining objective knowledge of reality? Can the mind of man finally get answers to these questions? But notice the way I put it. Is reason an instrument for obtaining objective knowledge of reality? I mean, everybody has their opinion. They have all these conflicting opinions. Can reason resolve those conflicting opinions? Can we find an objective reality, a world that is publicly accessible and not just a matter of my projection and the way I happen to see things? Is there an objectivity to the world that reason can put me in touch with? That is one of the most crucial, enduring questions in philosophy. Is reason an instrument? So I trust reason, and is it an instrument for obtaining objective knowledge of reality? A subordinate question to this is, how should we reason? Should we look and see? Is that our approach to finding out. Go out and look and see, observe the world. What we call the empirical approach based on observation and experience. I draw my conclusions. Do I take the look and see method or do I take the method of stopping and reflecting? Stopping and reflecting doesn't emphasize observation, but trying to work out and gain clarity in my concepts and my logic and my internal reasoning. Which approach to reasoning should I take? Look and see Experimental or stop and reflect? Rational. These are two basic approaches to the theory of knowledge, observational and rational. And then, fourthly, an enduring question that the Greek philosophers and others have to face. By what kind of values should man live? By what kind of values should man live? Subordinate questions to that basic summary question. Are there objective values, especially if the world is purely natural? If there's nothing but matter in motion? Are there objective values by which man should live? Or is everybody on his Own. So that's the first question. And then secondly, is man morally distinct from the animals and unique from the animals? Is there a kind of lifestyle that men should follow that animals don't, that we don't require of them? Is man morally distinct from the animals? Greek philosophers had to answer that question, not just Christians and evolutionists in the 20th century. Is man distinct? Man morally distinct? And thirdly, should reason control passion? What should guide a man's life? His common sense and his reasoning ability, or his passions and emotions? Should reason control passion? What's the place of pleasure in making ethical choices? What's the place of honor and justice in making ethical choices? What's the place of moderation or peace of mind or apathy? Although apathy has negative connotations today that it didn't then. Apathy in Greek is the alpha primitive with what we might have as the word passion. Without passion, that is, without getting involved. Should I just hold back and be moderate, have peace of mind? Is there a place for that? That was quite an ideal in Greek philosophy, the ideal of moderation or apathy, peace of mind. The fourth enduring question that I looked at is by what kind of values should man live? Are there objective values? Is man morally distinct? Should reason control passion? What's the place of pleasure, honor, justice, moderation? Now, do me a favor. Before I bring today's lectures to a conclusion. As you look back at the four issues that I have raised as enduring questions in philosophy, please help me identify which set of questions represent epistemology. Pat, Questions referring to. Ethics. A little bit louder. Question referring to objective knowledge. Reality. Number three. Reason for obtaining. Of diversity. Exactly. Is reason an instrument for obtaining objective knowledge of reality? Is an epistemological question. And subordinate would be the question. Well, how should we use our reason? By looking and seeing or by stopping and reflecting? Good. Pat, what is the metaphysical question? The idea of matter and motion. Change. Yeah, Matter and. Well, wait a minute. I think you. I'm sorry. You got it right. I'm sorry, I looked at this wrong. The question is how do we understand nature, matter and motion? Or the first question is how and why? So the first two are really metaphysical. Okay. I'm going to draw a distinction here, though. I'm glad. Number two is the metaphysical set of questions. And. And I'll talk about number one in a second. Ethics. Where do we find ethics? Pete? Number four, obviously, what kind of values should man live by? And those sorts of things. Well, what is number one, then? Number one represents the basic thrust of philosophy, to find explanations and to justify those explanations and resolve conflicts. So number one would correspond to our earlier discussion, what is philosophy? It's an attempt to find explanations and so forth. And then 2, 3 and 4 would correspond to the divisions of philosophy that we have studied. Now I'm going to give one more set of enduring questions, and what they represent is our discussion of the meaning of history, and especially this biblical principles for interpreting history. The question of the antithesis between the believing and the unbelieving approach to philosophy. So would you say that number one will be referential? Number one represents the basic task of philosophy, what it's doing. Number two represents the metaphysical subdivision, number three, three the epistemological subdivision, number four, the ethical subdivision. And now number five, I'm going to ask some questions that reflect the ultimate antithesis between the Christian and the non Christian approach to philosophy. These four questions are the most important of all. Then is man's mind self sufficient? Is man's mind self sufficient? Whenever you read a philosopher, be looking for his implied answer or implicit answer, maybe explicit answer to that question, but whether he brings it right out in the open and waves a flag, what's he think about this? Is man's mind self sufficient? Two, is there an objective moral or is there an objective moral order? The difference between key philosophies or schools of philosophy will often be staked on that question. Is there an objective moral order? Or is everybody just choosing for themselves their values? Thirdly, is there public truth accessible by reason? Is their public truth accessible by reason? Is their public truth accessible by reason? And the fourth major question that we should keep in our mind, kind of summarizing all of this introductory material. What is man's place in the universe? What is his dignity and what is the meaning of life? That's all one question. What is man's place in the universe? What is man's dignity and what is the meaning of life? What is man's place in the universe? What is his dignity and what is the meaning of life? I realize I've given you a heavy suit of armor to wear around now by these introductory remarks, but I think it'll make all the difference in the world to your ability to take in now all these schools of thought and individual philosophers and interpret them correctly, know why they're asking the questions or answering them the way that they are, and to see how that sets over against Christianity. I want to end today's lectures by looking at those last four things, the resultant questions that I gave as the fifth set of enduring questions. I'm going to look at those four and just offer our Christian perspective. Is man's mind self sufficient? No, for two reasons. First, it's not self sufficient because man was created to think God's thoughts after him. Man is not original. Man was made by God and can only function within the atmosphere, to use a metaphor of God's existence and the way God sees things. Secondly, man's mind is not self sufficient because on top of being created, man needs to be redeemed. Man is not sufficient to himself. He is lost in sin and that is creating his problems. The second question was is there an objective moral order? The non Christian world will struggle with that and come at it from all different perspectives. The Christian answer is yes, there's an objective moral order because man is more than an animal. Man is created in the image of God and God's own character is the standard by which all men must live. That is moral. It's beyond the physical world and it's objective. It's universal. Thirdly, is there public truth accessible by reason? Yes, there is. For all the differences of opinion and even the great antithesis between the Christian and the non Christian approach to philosophy, truth is nevertheless public in one truth is not many. There aren't many truths depending upon which kind of glasses you are wearing. There are many opinions. But the truth is objective, it is public, and it is accessible by the instrument God has given us of thinking. Reason understood as the instrument God has given man to intellectually understand the world and to live in it. Reason can access the public truth of God. Notice the way I've answered this question. When I say there's public truth, that isn't to say everybody sees it properly. There are a lot of opinions that get in the way. And when I say it is accessible by reason, I don't mean reason as a final ultimate judge or standard, but reason as an instrument that God has given us. Our minds living subject to his direction and the framework that he has given us within which to think. And fourthly, what is man's place in the universe, his dignity and is there meaning of life? Man's place in the universe is he's created by God as the highest creature. He's created as the image of God and has dignity. Therefore, because he is not merely an animal, he's not merely a turnip. Man lives as God's image and to please God. That is man's place in the universe created by God over the rest of the created order, having dignity and the meaning of life. Yes, there's meaning in Life, it is headed somewhere. And meaning is found in a personal relationship with one's creator, which is possible now only through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. And that will lead to eternal life in the new heavens and new earth, the new creation that is coming now. Most of what I've given you from the Christian perspective, I trust this old hat. You will know this. I may have organized it in a way that somewhat unique and striking for you, but we have a Christian philosophy and I'm not going to belabor that. Our task is to study the history of Western philosophy. Now, as the antithesis begins to build, as the Greeks, starting with Thales, say, we don't want to take this redemptive route. We don't want to submit to God. We wish to be autonomous. How then will they answer the question, Is man's mind self sufficient? Is there an objective moral order? Is there public truth accessible by reason? And what is man's place in the universe, his dignity and the meaning of life? Take those questions and these principles and perspectives, and we can begin now by studying our textbook. And those who are listening by tape may not be useful, the Sahakian text that we are. The only reason I chose Sahakian is because it's all in one volume. I didn't want to burden you, but there are much better discussions in the history of philosophy. One of the best is the five volumes by W.T. jones. That is a main resource for my lectures. And then even more than that, Frederick Copleston's, I think, 16 volumes, volumes, which is very thorough and so forth. There are other one or two volume sets you can look at as well, but those listening by tape, if you're not using Sahakian. Our preparation for the next lectures will be to read the Milesians, to read about Heraclitus, Parmenides, and perhaps the metaphysical pluralists like Empedocles and Axagoras and Democritus. But I can't be sure we'll get quite that far in our lecture tomorrow. The early Pre Socratics is where we'll begin. And then we'll move on to the Pythagoreans and especially, as Sahakian calls it, the problem of man. The various attitudinal philosophies, the Cynics, the Sophists, the Stoics, schools of thought such as that.