Reflections on Biblical and
Christian Philosophy

All Philosophy Is Religion in Disguise

Saint Augustine and John Scotus Eriugena:

St. Augustine says, "A principal point about man's salvation is the belief and teaching that philosophy or the pursuit of wisdom is not something other than religion, for those whose teaching we disapprove of are precisely those who do not share our faith."  I say, What is the practice of philosophy but the explanation of the precepts of true religion in which the first and supreme cause of all that exists is worshipped with humility and investigated by reason?  It ensues from this thought that true philosophy is true religion, and that true religion is true philosophy.  Thus every type of perfect and holy teaching wherein the rational grounds for anything is sought most earnestly and found most clearly is that branch of learning the Greeks call "philosophy" ...

John Scotus Eriugena quoting Augustine and commenting on his thoughts.  From Paul Helm, Faith and Reason, 83-84.

Herman Bavinck:

From every quarter come the demand for a new dogma, a new religion, a new faith, a new art, a new science, a new school, a new education, a new social order, a new world, and a new God.  The things offered under this label are too varied, and often also too silly, to enumerate.  Buddhism and Mohammedism and the religion of Wodan are commended to us, theosophy, occultism, magic and astrology, demonism and satan-worship, race- and hero-worship, ethical culture and the pursuit of ideals, the cult of humanity and of Jesus.  Reform movements are the order of the day.

Divergent as these tendencies may be, they all have two characteristics in common.  In the first place, the principle of autonomy, expressing itself on the one hand in anarchism of thought, on the other hand in the auto-soterism of the will.  Each individual regards himself as independent and self-governing, and shapes his own course and pursues his own way.  Having nothing to start with (that is, no first principle - Ed).... Everybody has his own religion,— not merely every nation and every church, but every person.... It has become a vogue to study and expound the religion of Goethe and Lessing, of Kant and Schliermacher, of Bismarck and Tolstoi.

But in the second place these modern movements are all alike seeking after religion, after the supreme good, abiding happiness, true being, absolute worth.  Even though the word "religion" be avoided and the new-fashioned term "world-view" preferred, in point of fact the satisfaction of no other need is aimed at than what that which used to be supplied by religion.  As to the proper definition of such a world-view, there exists considerable divergence of opinion.  But whether with Windelband we define philosophy as the theory of 'the determination of values,' as the science of 'normal consciousness,' or conceive of it with Paulsen as a mode of viewing the world and life 'which shall satisfy both the demands of reason and the needs of the heart,' in any case it is plain that philosophy is not content with a scientific explanation of reality, but seeks to vindicate the higher ideals of humanity, to satisfy its deepest needs.  Philosophy wishes itself to serve as religion, and from an attitude of contempt for all theology has veered round to a profession of being itself at bottom a search after God." (Herman Bavinck, The Philosophy of Revelation, pages 30-32, emphases are Ed's.)

"All philosophy is based upon a non-theoretical, a priori, religious commitment.  The fact is that all philosophy rests upon a fundamental existential loyalty (Ed - belief or faith).  It is founded on a radical pre-scientific choice.  It has a 'religious' root.  No philosophy maintains a purely theoretical standpoint.  All thinking is based upon assumptions (beliefs) that transcend theoretical thought." 

Henry Stob, Theological Reflections, page 176.

"Philosophy, the New Religion.  A new movement began around 600 B.C., when some thinkers tried to understand the world without the help of religion.  They were called philosophers— lovers of wisdom.  There had been wisdom teachers earlier in the ancient world, in Egypt, Babylon, and elsewhere, and the wisdom literature in Scripture (Proverbs, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes) is similar to extra-biblical wisdom literature in many ways.  But, unlike it, the Biblical wisdom teachers declare that "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10, 15:33; compare Ecclesiastes 12:13)."

"What distinguishes Greek philosophers from Greek religious and other ancient wisdom teachers is their insistence on the supremacy of human reason, what I shall call rational autonomy.  Wisdom teachers in other cultures treasured the traditions of fathers and mothers, the teachers of past generations... They saw themselves as collectors and guardians of such tradition, occasionally adding something and passing on the collection to their sons and daughters.  The philosophers, however, wanted to accept nothing on the basis of tradition.  Although Parmenides and Plato occasionally resorted to myth, they considered mythological explanations second best and, in the end, rationally inadequate.  Reason must be autonomous, self-authenticating, and subject to no standards than its own."

"Although the philosophers disagreed on much, they all agreed that the good life was the life of reason.  The them, reason not the fear of the Lord, was the beginning of wisdom; reason itself became something of a god— though they did not describe it as such— an object of ultimate allegiance, and the ultimate standard of truth and falsity, of right and wrong.... So Greek philosophy was indeed a "revolution in worldviews."  It represented a radical break from what had gone before."

John M. Frame, Revolutions in Worldview, pages 5-6.

"Philosophy and religion are identical" was the view of Saint Augustine.  (Clark, Thales to Dewey, page 251)