Natural Philosophy | Ep.7
This week we begin to dive into philosophy. But first, we need to figure out what philosophy is. Philosophy is the study of wisdom. It comes from the greek word φιλία (philía) which means brotherly love and σοφῐ́ᾱ (sophíā) which means wisdom. Thus, a philosopher is not merely someone who seeks to have a lot of wisdom, but he is one who loves wisdom. Philosophy moves beyond a mere intellectual exercise to an exercise that encompasses the whole person. It is convinced that knowledge is the foundation of truth, and seeks knowledge to find truth and not through a mad grab for power. The knowledge a student of philosophy finds them becomes part of him through the process of discovery. It shapes and molds, and through his study he becomes a different person.
What today we call “science” even as recently as two or three hundred years ago would have been referred to as “natural philosophy.” Post enlightenment there was a shift in the way people thought about natural philosophy. Previously, nature had been something to be admired and imitated by our creations and inventions. However, post enlightenment we began see natural philosophy as a way to bend nature to our will to do what we want it to do. While man is certainly placed over creation in scripture and commanded to subdue it, we are also to marvel, as many of the Psalms do, at the beauty, majesty, and splendor of what God has made. We often forget this latter reality, and instead marvel over the ways we can use nature to our advantage.
The philosophers divided philosophy into four causes: material cause, formal cause, final cause, and efficient cause. The material cause tells us what something is made of, the formal cause tells is what its form is, the final cause tells us what it is for, and the efficient tells us what caused the thing to occur. Often times today we tend to neglect the formal and final causes. We are content to know cause and effect, but we no longer seek to know what a thing is for its own sake. Even less are we concerned with asking “what is this thing for.” To fulfill the the calling for which we were created, we need to relearn how to look at the world with awe and wonder. We need to remember how to examine a thing for what it is and not merely what we can make it do. This is what natural philosophy attempts to do.
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Kevin Clark and Ravi Scott Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education
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