Question Being that Christianity teaches that Jesus is Lord of all of our lives, and this therefore means that He determines how we should live, do you think that God could therefore ask us to stop studying or practicing philosophy? Could surrendering our lives to Christ entail the end of one's philosophical studies?

Accepted:
December 12, 2016

Comments

Being a Christian and a

Being a Christian and a philosopher, I hope not! "Philosophy" comes for the Greek for the love of wisdom, and given that Christianity, like Judaism, supports a rich tradition of wisdom (see, for example, "The Book of Wisdom" in the Hebrew Bible), to think God / Christ would ask us to cease being philosophical seems as likely to me as being asked to stop breathing or to only listen to Bach. But you are on to a good point in asking about when traditions or institutions or when philosophy itself might limit or caution us about the practice of philosophy. Presumably there are all kinds of practical, common sense conditions when it would be good to stop doing philosophy in the sense of, for example, debating some point on how to interpret Kant when engaged in rescuing people who are drowning (unless you are rescuing a Kantian and discussing Kant will calm the person down). We also might allow that while Socrates is commonly praised for giving up his life for his practice of philosophy, sometimes even a great philosopher (like Aristotle) might elect to stop philosophizing in a place (like Athens) where he was likely to be killed. Probably one of the more famous cases of when a worry like yours was discussed was in the 19th century when some utilitarians worried that if utilitarianism is true, conditions might arise when they should believe utilitarianism is false. To overly simplify, what if utilitarianism is essentially the thesis that each agent should bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, and believing that thesis is false would bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people?

In any case, I suggest to you that if philosophy is (essentially) the love of wisdom and a given tradition discourages such a practice, then that tradition is in some measure, suspect (it would be good to ask whether the tradition is, say, manipulative). But if in your reference to "the end of one's philosophical studies" you have in mind the foregoing of, say, graduate level or post-graduate studies of philosophy, then I can imagine cases (perhaps very rare) when religious or otherwise ethical reasons might offer reasons to stop formal philosophical study. Imagine you are highly gifted in both medicine and in philosophy, there is a shortage of medical doctors and unless you leave the field of philosophy and practice medicine there are dozens, perhaps hundreds who will suffer and die tragic, premature deaths. In such a case, it may be your ethical or even religious obligation (love of others) to forego philosophy for medicine. Who know, some of the people you rescue and heal may mature and become excellent philosophers under less stressful, dangerous conditions.