Question Why are questions about God considered both religious and philosophical but questions about Jesus or Krishna are considered purely religious?

Accepted:
March 9, 2011

Comments

It's not altogether clear to me that it is correct to draw such a sharp distinction between philosophical and religious questions: for one thing, certain philosophers, like Augustine, Anselm, Bonaventure, and others deny that such a distinction may be drawn; for another thing, depending on what's at stake in appealing, say, to Jesus, one may invoke Jesus while giving a 'purely' philosophical answer to a question. For example, consider the following question treated by the early modern philosopher Nicolas Malebranche (I simplify somewhat to focus the issue as sharply as possible): Why does a completely self-sufficient God create the finite world? Malebranche's answer is that God creates the world in order to incarnate Jesus Christ, on the grounds that only if an infinite being is joined to the finite world will the world merit being created by God. Malebranche appeals to Jesus in this context in order to provide a sufficient reason for God's creation of the world--a sufficient reason, I should note, that would be rejected by many, if not most, Christian philosophers, including Malebranche's contemporaries--and consequently Malebranche appeals to Jesus in this context in order to answer a philosophical question about God's reason or justification for creating the world.

Attention to Christian philosophy reveals other respects in which Jesus is invoked in order to answer 'philosophical' questions--I can't speak to Krishna, since I know far too little about Hinduism--for example, discussions of the metaphysical status of the persons of the Trinity, the nature of the Incarnate Christ as both man and God, and the function of Christ as penal substitute for human sin or as teacher or....--it is nevertheless fair to say that most treatments of Jesus are not philosophical, but religious or theological, or, as in the examples of the Trinity, the metaphysical status of the Incarnate Christ, and Jesus's theological role just cited, BOTH philosophical and religious or theological. One reason for this may lie in the fact that most discussions of Jesus fall within the province of revealed theology and thus depend on the New Testament and the nature of Christianity, whereas 'philosophical' investigations of religion in general and Christian religion in particular fall within the province of natural theology, and admit of resolution by reason alone.

Question Why are questions about God considered both religious and philosophical but questions about Jesus or Krishna are considered purely religious? Accepted:March 9, 2011

Question Why are questions about God considered both religious and philosophical but questions about Jesus or Krishna are considered purely religious?

Accepted:
March 9, 2011