What is Christian Philosophy and for what purpose does it serve?

public hermit said:

Tertullian's rhetoric on this issue is great, but he also employed methods, language, and concepts that came from philosophy's influence on him. And, those who were more open regarding their use of philosophical tools and concepts made a clear distinction between the philosophies of their day and their faith in Christ, that the latter was the priority, including Origen.

Poor Origen. In his own day, he was so beloved. People said when he preached the Word came alive. The only person who didn't like him was one jealous bishop in Alexandria. Lol. The council a few hundred years later that condemned Origenism and the circumstance surrounding it are altogether suspect, grain of salt I say. He should be read on his own merits, I think. He is by no doubt one of the earliest systematic thinkers and one of the faith's greatest exegetes. I say that admitting he had some ideas that were out there.




I was told a story, perhaps apocryphal, about Barth's early lectures on Schleiermacher. He gave the lectures with a bust of Schleiermacher on the desk; Barth was a severe critic of Schleiermacher's systematic theology. At any rate, at the end of the series, after he had shown all the flaws in S's system, he smashed the bust into pieces. I don't know what that says about Barth, but that would have been entertaining to see.

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FireDragon76 said:

I'm not a fan of Barth's simplistic historicism ... He blamed Schleiemacher for everything bad Germany did ... what we know today about the power of demagogues ...

In my my, Neo-Orthodoxy is a theological dead end. It pretends to reject liberal theology, but it's deeply indebted to it, but wants to continue to use Biblicist style religion as a cudgel (and Bonhoeffer recognized this as well).

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