CHRISTIANITY AND PHILOSOPHY

Intro: Medieval European culture was dominated by the Church, and the classical philosophy of Plato and Aristotle was only gradually assimilated into Christian teaching

THE Church wielded considerable social and political power in medieval Europe, and also controlled access to learning. Education was provided by the Church and necessarily followed Christian doctrine, while institutions like libraries and universities were funded by the Church and staffed by monastic orders. Monks preserved and translated many ancient texts, mostly of Greek philosophy and latterly acquired from Islamic scholars and scribes.

Scholasticism was a method of tuition that used rigorous dialectical reasoning both to teach Christian theology and to scrutinise these texts. Clerics and academics used methods of reasoning developed by Plato and Aristotle to assess the compatibility of ideas with Christian doctrine. The theories of philosophers including Augustine and Thomas Aquinas were also carefully examined, and either adopted to defend Christian dogma or dismissed as heretical. Scholasticism played an important part in the integration of philosophical ideas into Christianity, remaining the prominent ethos for Christian education and theology until supplanted by humanist and scientific ideas during the Renaissance.

Existence of God: the ontological argument

With the rise of scholasticism and the Church’s embrace of Aristotelian logic in the 11th century came a renewed interest in reconciling matters of faith with reasoned argument. One of the founding fathers of the scholastic movement was Saint Anselm of Canterbury, best known for proposing the so-called ontological argument for the existence of God.

Anselm asks us to imagine the most perfect being possible. The logic and reasoned arguments pledged by him are difficult to interpret and understand, but it leads us to a conclusion that the most perfect being possible must exist – in Anselm’s words, “God is that, than which nothing greater can be achieved”. From that premise he methodically shows that if God exists in our imagination, then an even greater God is possible: one that exists in reality.

Yet, contemporaries of the time such as Gaunilo of Marmoutiers pointed out that the logic put forward by Anselm was flawed, because “his reasons could be used to prove the existence of anything.” Later philosophers, notably Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant, showed that while the argument presented a notion of God’s essence, it was no proof of His existence.

Pascal’s wager

Today, it is generally agreed that there can be no logical proof either way for the existence of God, and that this is purely a matter of faith and belief. Philosophical speculation on the subject, however, continued well into the so-called “Age of Reason”. One novel take on the problem was raised by the distinguished mathematician Blaise Pascal in the 17th century.

“Pascal’s wager” examines whether, given that we have no proof of His existence, it is a better bet to believe in God or not. Pascal weighs up the pros and cons in terms of the consequences: if God exists and I deny his existence, I run the risk of eternal damnation; if He exists and I accept His existence, I earn eternal life in Paradise; but if He doesn’t exist, it will make no difference to me. Pascal devised a matrix in which different options are placed.

On balance, then, it is a safer bet to believe in His existence. Although Pascal’s wager is an interesting exercise in logic and rudimentary game theory, it is based on some unsound and shaky assumptions. For example, Aristotle’s idea of an “unmoved mover” or first cause is a direct challenge.

Creating Eternity

A major stumbling block for Christian philosophers trying to integrate Aristotelian ideas into Christian doctrine was Aristotle’s assertion that the universe has no end and no beginning. This contradicts the Biblical description of God’s creation of the world.

Thomas Aquinas, however, believed that since human reason and Christian doctrine are both gifts from God, they cannot be contradictory.  Using his ‘God-given’ reason, he argued that Aristotle was not mistaken in his concept of an eternal universe, but that God was indeed its creator: in the beginning, God created the universe, but could have also created a universe that is eternal.