Classical Education Part 7: Divine Philosophy | Ep.10
Divine philosophy, also called Metaphysics, is driven by a desire to understand being. It seeks to know what can be said about everything that has existence. Of the three types of philosophy it is the least concrete. Natural science deals greatly with the physical world. Even moral philosophy examines the physical as it seeks to understand the being of man. Metaphysics moves into the abstract and seeks to know what it means to exist.
For the christian, metaphysics is a pursuit of the mysteries of God. God is being. This is communicated in Exodus 3:14 when he gives his name as “I am who I am.” He is the God that is. A christian studying metaphysics is seeking to understand the relationship of God to his creation. He is the being in which we partake.
Plato attempted to study being by looking at what he called the “forms.” He said that everything has an ideal form that makes it what it is. By this he did not mean that there is a chair or table somewhere that is the ideal of perfect table. In fact, instead of ideal it might be better to say “idea.” There is an idea of chair that exists in all of our minds. We can recognize one when we see it, and we can even distinguish it from a table. What Plato is saying with his forms is that there is some innate qualities of “chairness” that we must be present to have a chair. He wants to know what that is. Through his forms he seeks to know what makes each thing what it is.
If we look back at church history, we will notice that the church fathers seem much less interested in comprehending the truth than participating in it. Now, this is not to say that they did not try to understand what they saw. On the contrary, they tried very much to understand it. However, they realized that at the end of the day it does not matter that we understand but that we live in accordance with what we know to be true. We must submit ourselves to truth, let it become part of us, and then it will regulate our lives. This is no simple task. It is one that takes a life time to begin, and is only ever accomplished through the work of Christ.
The truth we find ought to delight us and drive us to study, but we must maintain the humility to realize that we cannot ever fully grasp reality. To do so would be to comprehend the infinite God, because God is himself being.
––––––––––––––––––
Kevin Clark and Ravi Scott Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education
If you are interested in learning more, listen to the whole episode on:
Comments
Post a Comment