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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Which Came First: Philosophy or Theology?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Jim Holt, in Why Does the World Exist?, said, "If philosophy, like theology before it, has so far failed to come up with the goods...." (meaning a non-circular and non-brute-force ("goddidit") explanation as to why there is something rather than nothing).
This got me thinking: did theology come before philosophy? Western philosophy as we know it dates back at least to the presocratics Anaximander, Democritus, et al., starting in the 6th century BC(E). Was anybody doing something recognizeable as "thelogy" at that time?
Certainly St. Paul's wrangling with the Old Testament could be described as theology, as of course were the deductions of the rabbinic school he emerged from. How far back before that does theology go?
I'd be willing to place my money on philosophy as being the senior service (so to speak).
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Nicolemr
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# 28
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Posted
At the very beginning of human existence I doubt there was much difference between the two.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I think you have to grossly twist the definition of each to drag them back to the beginning of human existence.
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Nicolemr
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# 28
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Posted
That seems very odd to me.
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
Fascinating question.
I read a not wholly dissimilar discussion recently about whether religion emerged from ethics, or ethics from religion.
The writer opted for the former.
Me? I only came for the free drinks.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
That seems very odd to me.
I think you're confusing religion with theology. One can be religious, talk about religion, act out a religion, without doing theology. The vast majority of religious people do. I would probably be referred to by most Americans as a very religious person, but I spend precious little of my time -- if any, some might argue -- actually doing theology.
I don't know of anyone who places western philosophy before the presocratics.
[ 21. December 2017, 20:13: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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HCH
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# 14313
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Posted
Is this about only western philosophy?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
Is this about only western philosophy?
Pretty much, although I'd be interested to hear about eastern philosophy if someone knows. Is the question "why is there something rather than nothing?" one that eastern philosophers -- or theologians -- chewed on?
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
I think there are pitfalls in translating the categories of philosophy, theology, and religion to Indian and Chinese thought.
I'm sure human beings have been asking questions about existence and ethics and so on since they first began. But I think systematic thought with an ideal of conceptual clarity starts in the Axial age - that is the middle of the first millennium BC. Theology proper as done in the Abrahamic religions is I think the result of Jewish and Christian thinkers making use of Greek philosophical tools to talk about God. So in the Judaeo-Hellenic world philosophy is the elder.
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Golden Key
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# 1468
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Posted
mt--
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
That seems very odd to me.
I think you're confusing religion with theology. One can be religious, talk about religion, act out a religion, without doing theology. The vast majority of religious people do. I would probably be referred to by most Americans as a very religious person, but I spend precious little of my time -- if any, some might argue -- actually doing theology.
I don't know of anyone who places western philosophy before the presocratics.
Hmmmm. Actually, I agree with Nicole, about it all going back to the beginning. People wondered, asked questions. Everything came from that.
Theology is about what sort of Divine there may be, if any. Religion adds a "what are we supposed to do with that?" emphasis. Maybe the difference between theoretical and applied?
If you specifically mean formal discussion, with rules and systems, I'm not sure when that started. It could have gone on in oral cultures; but we don't know, because they didn't write it down, and outsiders didn't care about the oral tradition.
Science comes from those early wonderings and questions. (And it, or a facet thereof, used to be called "natural philosophy".)
Little kids are born scientists, philosophers, theologians, etc. They wonder mightily. And boy, do they ask questions!
That's where it all came/comes from. ("That's what philosophy, theology, religion, science, etc. are all about, Charlie Brown.")
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
I suppose this basically comes down to what one means by "philosophy", "theology" and "doing philosophy/theology".
I think often people talk about philosophy when what they're talking about is a school of philosophy - or the more loaded terms of a paradigm, worldview or even culture.
In those senses, I suppose that a "philosophy" is just a systematic way of thinking about certain things - and so "theology" is a subset of that where people thinking systematically about certain things in the context of a deity (where that concept is defined in various different ways).
But then "doing theology/philosophy" also seems to me to have different meanings to different people. To some, the doing part involves pushing the boundaries to get to new insights - so we have people getting higher degrees in various subjects earning Doctorates in Philosophy showing that they've come up with something new or original according to their academic examiners.
On the other hand, I think the doing part is considered by some to be part-and-parcel of the normal existence of a person who is committed to an overarching idea. A Christian, one might argue, cannot help but be doing theology because the idea requires ongoing work and because the concepts are not simple, in comparison to say accepting that this object is an pear. Or say being a Marxist requires ongoing commitment to the work needed to engage with that philosophical idea.
The problem with this latter idea is whether this expands the idea too far. If one is a town-planner, is one then somehow engaging with the philosophy of town planning? If one is a Samoan, does that in some sense make one a theologian?
As to the which-came-first question, the answer seems to me to depend both on how one is defining the above terms and also the narrative one is accepting regarding the relationship between the pre-Socratic and post-Socratic ideas in the Western philosophical tradition.
If one uses concepts such as paradigm, I think one can make an argument that Plato/Socrates offers a paradigm shift. Prior to that point one might argue that the accepted paradigm was necessarily theological. The ideas that developed were couched within an understanding that a b and c about the gods was obviously correct. But one way Socrates was shocking (or at least the way he is portrayed as being shocking) is that he "did work" by breaking through the boundaries of the accepted paradigm in ways that were arguably not theological.
But then he did it using accepted theological terms.
I don't know which came first. And I wish you'd never asked.
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rolyn
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# 16840
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Posted
First came the awareness, then the fear. From this we developed religion as mechanism to control the fear.
A degree of joy was also to be found from answering massive questions which had popped into our heads, but not those of our kindred creatures.
Then for some reason, as archeological evidence makes plain, we were strangely compelled into hauling gigantic rocks around and building things.
So in answer to OP I would say the complexity of philosophy definitely came after the initial WTF? moment.
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hatless
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# 3365
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Posted
What implications would there be for each answer?
I don’t know about chronology, but philosophy feels more foundational to me. A philosophical disagreement seems tougher than a theological one, more basic, though probably less emotionally charged. And philosophy sets the framework for theology more often than the other way round.
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
I think the distinction can be a bit arbitrary. Aristotle discusses the nature of God but is counted as a philosopher. And yet when the same arguments are developed by St Thomas Aquinas, that is considered to be theology.
I suppose there is also a sense that philosophy is what you extract from a theologian that you disagree with - so Averroes and Avicenna are philosophers if you're a Scholastic and theologians if you're a Muslim.
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Great question, my immediate response was that (Western, Hellenic) philosophy came first and as Dafyd said informed Judeo-Christian theology. Heraclitus' logos any one? And I'm astounded at the emotional depth of his contemporary the 500 BCE Greek soldier-playwright Aeschylus and his slightly later contemporaries Sophocles and Euripides. They transcended the far more ancient shaman religious role to an existential degree. Shamanism, religion, philosophy, theology with drama as far as philosophy only intriguingly seems to be the chronology to me?
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
There is really old evidence (Cro-magnon paintings) that human beings get some meaning out of stories, art, rituals, camp fire stories. We make sense of our world via representing meanings of it. I suppose theologies and philosophies are analytical means of considering these representations, and, by them, refining these prior fascinations. They are attempts to make sense of our fascinations about the lives we have been born into. We are people of wonder, people who wonder. And that seems to precede, and be the reason for, our analytic methodologies.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Western philosophy as we know it dates back at least to the presocratics Anaximander, Democritus, et al., starting in the 6th century BC(E). Was anybody doing something recognizeable as "thelogy" at that time?
They believed in gods back then, which means they must have had a reasonably coherent body of thought about who/what those gods were and what they demanded of their worshippers. That's theology as far as I'm concerned.
That said, I would agree with those who have said that when you go that far back in time the line between philosophy and theology becomes very blurred, if indeed it exists at all. To study knowledge, reality and existence was to study the gods, and to study the gods was to study knowledge, reality and existence. They were to all intents and purposes the same thing.
It's only really with Socrates and Plato that a distinction between the two begins to develop. As such, I'd say that neither philosophy nor theology came first as they developed in parallel from a common ancestor.
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I wonder if *one* reason for the analytic methodologies is a sort of embarrassment? E.g., feeling we're so smart and advanced, yet clearly feel like there's some sort of pull to those older ways of looking and being. So we must analyze and dissect and construct--because we're certainly not primitives!
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
Mythologies seem to go way, way, back, certainly before the middle of the first millenium BC, which is where Russell started his history of Western philosophy (with the pre-Socratics). All of the different mythologies seem to me to contain stories and explanations, intertwined.
Most of us will not know much about this so here is a link to Chinese mythology.
In both theology and philosophy, I sense an engagement with the non-rational, one might say magical, elements of our fascination with these earlier explanations. A part of us seems to like the magic, another part of us seems to be bothered by explaining the world this way. Is a shaman wise?
[ 22. December 2017, 09:53: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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L'organist
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# 17338
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Posted
Which goes first? Surely theology is only philosophy or religion or a religion?
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Western philosophy as we know it dates back at least to the presocratics Anaximander, Democritus, et al., starting in the 6th century BC(E). Was anybody doing something recognizeable as "thelogy" at that time?
They believed in gods back then, which means they must have had a reasonably coherent body of thought about who/what those gods were and what they demanded of their worshippers. That's theology as far as I'm concerned.
That said, I would agree with those who have said that when you go that far back in time the line between philosophy and theology becomes very blurred, if indeed it exists at all. To study knowledge, reality and existence was to study the gods, and to study the gods was to study knowledge, reality and existence. They were to all intents and purposes the same thing.
It's only really with Socrates and Plato that a distinction between the two begins to develop. As such, I'd say that neither philosophy nor theology came first as they developed in parallel from a common ancestor.
I can't subscribe to that definition of theology, for me its first appearance is in Aristotle's Metaphysics in his unmoved first mover development from Plato's self moved first mover. Religion and the nasty quixotic requirements of the gods ain't theology.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
What implications would there be for each answer?
None, by my lights. Since I think they developed independently, it strikes me as a matter of historic interest. I think that Greek philosophy and Hebrew theology came together after both were up and running, probably in Jewish Alexandria, and without question in pre-Nicene Christianity.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
There is really old evidence (Cro-magnon paintings) that human beings get some meaning out of stories, art, rituals, camp fire stories. We make sense of our world via representing meanings of it.
I would suggest this is mythos, not logos.
quote:
I suppose theologies and philosophies are analytical means of considering these representations, and, by them, refining these prior fascinations.
That sounds right.
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
First came the awareness, then the fear.
This is of course speculation, and my speculation runs the opposite way. I'm afraid of the dark. I invent bogeymen to explain the dangers of the dark. I don't invent the bogeymen, project them into the dark, then become afraid of my projection. That seems the wrong way 'round.
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Hmmmm. Actually, I agree with Nicole, about it all going back to the beginning. People wondered, asked questions. Everything came from that.
Did it? It seems to me that cranking out systematic answers -- which is what theology and philosophy are, in a nutshell crude definition -- requires a leisure class who can sit around writing tomes about it. Normal people have too much getting-on-with-their-lives to do to systematize their wonerings.
quote:
Theology is about what sort of Divine there may be, if any. Religion adds a "what are we supposed to do with that?" emphasis. Maybe the difference between theoretical and applied?
I think the applied came way first. There is nothing like theology in the Pentateuch. There is something like it in the post-exilic prophets, perhaps because after the exile they could compare their religion to that of the Babylonians, and start to theorize about it. Although the prophets largely wrote about God's requirements on the people and ho they fall short.
quote:
If you specifically mean formal discussion, with rules and systems, I'm not sure when that started.
People much smarter than I am put it in ancient Greece with the Presocratics. I am taking that as a starting point.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
They believed in gods back then, which means they must have had a reasonably coherent body of thought about who/what those gods were and what they demanded of their worshippers. That's theology as far as I'm concerned.
I can believe a lot about the gods without systematizing it or doing fiddly what-if's, which seem part and parcel of theology. The average pew-warmer thinks a lot about God but that doesn't make her a theologian.
quote:
To study knowledge, reality and existence was to study the gods, and to study the gods was to study knowledge, reality and existence. They were to all intents and purposes the same thing.
This is just flat wrong. Democritus, Aniximander, Pythagoras et al. were not studying the gods. There have been no good reasons given so far in this thread to push philosophy any further back, nor any evidence of systematic study of the gods. Telling stories or producing plays about the gods is not the same thing as doing theology.
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
I wonder if *one* reason for the analytic methodologies is a sort of embarrassment? E.g., feeling we're so smart and advanced, yet clearly feel like there's some sort of pull to those older ways of looking and being. So we must analyze and dissect and construct--because we're certainly not primitives!
That seems rather anachronistic, and a little insulting, like we think they should have been embarrassed, so they were embarrassed. I think it's more charitable, and more true to the evidence we have, to say they were genuinely curious, and felt "goddidit" (or "godsdiddit") to be insufficient answers to their questions. And indeed the questions they had (e.g. "what is the ultimate substance that the world is made of?") really aren't addressed at all in the mythology of their day.
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
It's a fascinating thread, mousethief. My feeling is that mythologies were the earliest attempts to explain conundrums of existence, both theology and philosophy began out of a perceived need to examine those mythological explanations more coherently, subject them to a more logical approach. But I think you may well be right that the earliest systematic theology post-dates the earliest attempts at systematic philosophy.
I think the driver is a belief that systematic thinking leads to greater clarity, better understanding.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
They believed in gods back then, which means they must have had a reasonably coherent body of thought about who/what those gods were and what they demanded of their worshippers. That's theology as far as I'm concerned.
I may be several decades behind on anthropology and on studies of Homeric mythology. But when I was growing up I think a body of opinion thought that a reasonably coherent body of thought was just what the ancient Greeks didn't have. (Likewise, other cultures where writing was an esoteric side-effect of efficient record keeping.) That is, if you'd said to an ancient Babylonian that their mythology claims that Marduk killed Tiamat but in Ur they say Enlil killed , their reaction might have been to shrug their shoulders or to say that of course that lot in Ur would say that. They wouldn't have tried to work out some consistent argument to explain why the Babylonian account was more true.
The Old Testament is full of bits that later generations have felt look like contradictions and therefore need to be explained. But the writers and compilers of the Bible don't seem to have felt the need to do so in more than a perfunctory sense.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I think the driver is a belief that systematic thinking leads to greater clarity, better understanding.
I agree. Certainly the heavy-duty theologizing that resulted in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed was for that very purpose -- to better understand the nature of God.
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
There is something like it in the post-exilic prophets, perhaps because after the exile they could compare their religion to that of the Babylonians, and start to theorize about it. Although the prophets largely wrote about God's requirements on the people and ho they fall short.
I suspect the Exile would be a natural dividing line for (you could stretch the case to Josiah) a kind of second order (academic) Hebrew Theology. With by the time of the Pharisees being well past it (with indirect regulations coming out of the consequences). At which point you have from barely older to 300 years younger.
Though some of the reasoning bit is far older in the Pentuach and the Psalms, but it is more direct the Lord is this because he (rescued us from Egypt), and whenever Job is written, and Amos's God can totally feed himself. But it is distinct.
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Not only did philosophy break away from religion, probably at the time of the Renaissance, but medicine also broke away from religion. Almost all the professions had some connection with religion. Butchery comes to mind as well.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Not only did philosophy break away from religion, probably at the time of the Renaissance,
Are you saying Plato and Aristotle were not philosophers?
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
I feel I should have linked this earlier.
From my reading, mousethief is right. it's not just Russell, but most historians of philosophy who think it started as a serious discipline in the middle of the millenium before Christ. With the pre-Socratic philosophers.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
From my reading, mousethief is right.
Dang. Thank goodness that degree in philosophy was not for nowt.
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
mt--
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Hmmmm. Actually, I agree with Nicole, about it all going back to the beginning. People wondered, asked questions. Everything came from that.
Did it? It seems to me that cranking out systematic answers -- which is what theology and philosophy are, in a nutshell crude definition -- requires a leisure class who can sit around writing tomes about it. Normal people have too much getting-on-with-their-lives to do to systematize their wonderings.
Yes. I stand by that. Everything we're talking about came from wonderings and questions. Respectfully, I don't think philosophy and theology are necessarily "about cranking out systematic answers". They're about those basic wonderings and questions. What, why, how, who? Theology puts extra emphasis on "who".
I don't think you have to be a member of a leisure class to ponder those. And--with all respect to the philosophically diplomaed ![[Biased]](wink.gif) --I don't think that philosophy and theology that produces tomes of systems is better than those questions.
![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
(My personal leanings are much more towards the wonderings and questions. If I say I made it to the second page of the "Summa Theologica"... Wasn't a matter of not understanding. Just utterly not the way I work. Felt like a strait jacket, inside a box, inside a cage.)
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif) ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
quote:
quote:
Theology is about what sort of Divine there may be, if any. Religion adds a "what are we supposed to do with that?" emphasis. Maybe the difference between theoretical and applied?
I think the applied came way first. There is nothing like theology in the Pentateuch. There is something like it in the post-exilic prophets, perhaps because after the exile they could compare their religion to that of the Babylonians, and start to theorize about it. Although the prophets largely wrote about God's requirements on the people and how they fall short.
But where did all of that come from? What was the beginning?
quote:
quote:
If you specifically mean formal discussion, with rules and systems, I'm not sure when that started.
People much smarter than I am put it in ancient Greece with the Presocratics. I am taking that as a starting point.
Fair enough. ![[Smile]](smile.gif) Not claiming to be smarter than anyone. But IMHO formal discussion could've happened anywhere, all over the world. Those are the accepted systems that are written down, from cultures both respected and idolized.
FWIW, YMMV, etc.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Everything we're talking about came from wonderings and questions. Respectfully, I don't think philosophy and theology are necessarily "about cranking out systematic answers". They're about those basic wonderings and questions. What, why, how, who?
Then perhaps we need two threads. One for the technical meaning of the two terms, which is what I am asking about, and one in which "philosophy and theology" mean "basic wondering about what, why, how, and who." The latter question, your question, is interesting. But it's not the question I am asking.
It's as if I asked "Which came first, Sears or JC Penney?" and you said, "People have been buying and selling for millenia."
quote:
And--with all respect to the philosophically diplomaed --I don't think that philosophy and theology that produces tomes of systems is better than those questions.
Certainly not. But the question is not whether one is better. I can ask about Sears and JC Penney without claiming that Sears is better than mom and pop shops. It's just that the question is about Sears.
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If I say I made it to the second page of the "Summa Theologica"... Wasn't a matter of not understanding. Just utterly not the way I work. Felt like a strait jacket, inside a box, inside a cage.)
To me it felt like drinking sand. Not my cup of tea either.
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But where did all of that come from? What was the beginning?
I think that's unanswerable. Which is why I didn't ask it.
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IMHO formal discussion could've happened anywhere, all over the world.
Could have. But we don't have evidence of it. We do have evidence of the Presocratics, and of the Rabbinical schools. There might have been writing before the Phoenicians. But until evidence of it shows up, they will be credited as the first writers.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Egyptian texts about Maat or the Epic of Gilgamesh, or Zoroastrian texts seem to me to be a theology, of a sort, and would pre-date Greek philosophy.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I can't speak about that other stuff, but a story like Gilgamesh isn't theology. It's a story. I think you are making a category error, again conflating mythos and logos.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Net Spinster
Shipmate
# 16058
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Posted
There is the article on Metaphysics in Chinese Philosophy in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which traces it to the 4th century BCE (in so far as 'metaphysics' can be used in Chinese philosophy).
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spinner of webs
Posts: 1093 | From: San Francisco Bay area | Registered: Dec 2010
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
There is the article on Metaphysics in Chinese Philosophy in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which traces it to the 4th century BCE (in so far as 'metaphysics' can be used in Chinese philosophy).
Nice! So within 100-200 years of the origins of cosmogeny among the Greeks.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Does the answer to the question depend on where in the world and what culture?
When I've run into traditional people (hunter, gatherer) living the north in Canada (not so much these days, people have moved from the bush into Reserves and communities), when conversation has reached such issues, I've told that everything is considered to be alive and connected. They do read the signs in the environment very sensitively, don't see anything really as threat except on an immediate basis (weather, lack of food, some aspects of animal behaviour), and seem to contentedly comfort themselves with a sense of fitting into the natural order. There is really not much sense of a personified deity, but rather something similar to a general benign positive fitting into the environment. I am reminded of the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts"**
I am thus wondering if philosophy and theology are conflated and not differentiated in hunter-gatherer societies, and think perhaps the farmer societies (which all of Europe and most of Asia are), and wonder if pastoral societies (herders, ranchers) might have another different orientation, though I guess the Hebrews carried God around in a box in the desert for 40 years. Which all makes me say that very question in the OP constitutes in imposition of structure that is based on the farmers.
I think it is important realize that there is an unconsciously applied notion of the cultural superiority of Europe and Asia because they colonized and conquered other peoples, and thus the tendency to use this as the frame of reference. Which we should realize and not just unmindfully accept.
**the tune has been re-purposed to the Lord of the Dance lyrics, degraded and maladroit in my view.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
I do think there's a tendency to believe the Greeks when they tell us how great they are.
(I think it's now official that the similar English Dept's tendency for everything to be invented by Shakespeare reflects them having a limited reading. And for the sciences yesterday I learned that even the "standing on the shoulder's" is 300 years older than I thought, and thus about 300 years less vision)
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I can't speak about that other stuff, but a story like Gilgamesh isn't theology. It's a story. I think you are making a category error, again conflating mythos and logos.
Are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John not theologians then? How curious. If we were discussing the philosophy of Camus and Sartre, would we regard Nausea and The Plague irrelevant to the topic? How odd. Did not Plato and Nietzsche write dialogues, attributing their views to historical figures to make a point? It's almost as if analysis and story are both ways, in which human beings explore their condition.
Put it another way. On your account Julian of Eclanum and Augustine were doing theology when they argued about the meaning of the first three chapters of Genesis. What was the guy who wrote the first three chapters of Genesis doing? Macrame?
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Put it another way. On your account Julian of Eclanum and Augustine were doing theology when they argued about the meaning of the first three chapters of Genesis. What was the guy who wrote the first three chapters of Genesis doing? Macrame?
Mythology. Or rather, the recording thereof.
Look, just because I talk about God doesn't mean I am engaging in the discipline of theology. As I told GK, if you want to bend the word to mean that, knock yourself out, but that's not what this thread is about. I'm talking about a metareligious dialogue. Sartre was not writing (or recording) mythology, he was deconstructing an existing social narrative.
The Grand Inquisitor speech was a discourse in theology. Most of the rest of Brothers Karamazov was a story with religious themes, but not theology. When a 3 year old sings "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so" she is not doing theology.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I think it is important realize that there is an unconsciously applied notion of the cultural superiority of Europe and Asia because they colonized and conquered other peoples, and thus the tendency to use this as the frame of reference. Which we should realize and not just unmindfully accept.
You have fallen into the same trap as Golden Key. I ask which of two department stores came first, and you conclude that I think department stores are superior to mom and pop operations. I'm not talking about what is superior. I am merely looking at two phenomena and asking which is the elder.
Whether or not these phenomena are superior to those of any other culture (or any other phenomena in our own) is an interesting and important question. It richly deserves its own thread, no question. But it's simply not what the OP is asking.
It's like you're saying, "You shouldn't be asking that question, you should be asking the question that *I* find interesting and important."
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I can't speak about that other stuff, but a story like Gilgamesh isn't theology. It's a story. I think you are making a category error, again conflating mythos and logos.
Are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John not theologians then? How curious. If we were discussing the philosophy of Camus and Sartre, would we regard Nausea and The Plague irrelevant to the topic? How odd. Did not Plato and Nietzsche write dialogues, attributing their views to historical figures to make a point? It's almost as if analysis and story are both ways, in which human beings explore their condition.
Some thoughts:
Although the Gospel writers were interpreting data, their relationship to later theologians is that they are primary data.
While analysis and story are both ways of exploring the human condition, they are distinct. And I think the terms philosophy and theology are primarily reserved for the former.
That said, analysis and story can be mixed in any given work: there is a continuum between them.
Philosophy and theology are I think both second-order activities. That is, one resorts to them when one's first order practice of religion and telling stories about religion or one's first order practice about practice one's civic life (in so far as those are separate) break down and one loses one's place.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Put it another way. On your account Julian of Eclanum and Augustine were doing theology when they argued about the meaning of the first three chapters of Genesis. What was the guy who wrote the first three chapters of Genesis doing? Macrame?
Providng source material for theologians like Julian of Eclanum and Augustine.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
When a 3 year old sings "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so" she is not doing theology.
Though it’s perhaps worth noting here that when asked to summarize his life’s theological work, Karl Barth reputedly said ”Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” (As for whether he really said it, see here.)
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Though it’s perhaps worth noting here that when asked to summarize his life’s theological work, Karl Barth reputedly said ”Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Was he thereby saying, "I was wasting my time. I could have just sung Sunday School rhymes at you"?
Aquinas is reported as having said his whole life's work was as straw compared to the glory of God, or something like that, although ingoB denied mightily that he said any such thing. But he certainly was doing theology. Oh dear god was he doing theology.
I agree with Dafyd*. Theology and philosophy are second-level ("meta") undertakings.
I mentioned the question to Josephine of what the writer of the first 3 chapters of Genesis was doing, and she said, "storytelling." Of course.
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*doing more to hasten the apocalypse than tRump could possibly do.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Was he thereby saying, "I was wasting my time. I could have just sung Sunday School rhymes at you"?
Of course not. I wasn’t disagreeing with you; I’m in pretty complete agreement with you about what theology is and entails. It just that the particular example you chose reminded me of that story about a very thorough and rigorous theologian.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Was he thereby saying, "I was wasting my time. I could have just sung Sunday School rhymes at you"?
Of course not.
Sorry. My tongue was very firmly planted in my cheek.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
mt--
I was simply focusing on your subject-line question, which was repeated in the OP.
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--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
mt--
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
I wonder if *one* reason for the analytic methodologies is a sort of embarrassment? E.g., feeling we're so smart and advanced, yet clearly feel like there's some sort of pull to those older ways of looking and being. So we must analyze and dissect and construct--because we're certainly not primitives!
That seems rather anachronistic, and a little insulting, like we think they should have been embarrassed, so they were embarrassed. I think it's more charitable, and more true to the evidence we have, to say they were genuinely curious, and felt "goddidit" (or "godsdiddit") to be insufficient answers to their questions. And indeed the questions they had (e.g. "what is the ultimate substance that the world is made of?") really aren't addressed at all in the mythology of their day.
*I'm* not saying anyone *should* be embarrassed. Just speculating about *one* possible factor behind the emphasis on systematic, analytic methodologies is the common human tendency to think we're all that, and those before us were primitive. And to also have a niggling feeling that maybe there was something there. Which causes some embarrassment.
So, very often, humans will build up systems, and analyze from a "well, they may have had *something*, but they didn't realize what they had, and we can do it better" basis, rather than "we're all wandering in the dark; how did *those* fellow wanderers cope? And did they leave behind any candles and snacks?"
That's all.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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