The Beginning 3

 Shalom Aleichem,

we meet again in the Philosophical Journey. In this writing, we will meet with philosophy and theology, gain some philosophical and theological context and later on the next writing the journey will begin. The word "philosophy" comes from Greek "philosophia" which is formed from 2 words "philo" which means love and "sophia" which means wisdom. Therefore philosophy etymologically is love of wisdom. "Theology" is also from Greek that is "theologia" where "theos" means God and "logos" means study or reasoning. So theology etymologically is the study of the divine.

We can unite these 2 studies. Philosophy is the love of wisdom, why is that? First we can define the 2 terms involved, love and wisdom. Love in this context means like, awe, and attraction. Wisdom is harder to define, but it can be said as the good and right understand and the ability to apply that understanding. However there is a deeper understanding. Love is the will to obtain the beloved and to lead the beloved towards goodness. Wisdom is none other than the understanding of what is Good and True (differentiate from mere goodness and mere truth), which means God, and the ability to apply God in life. Meanwhile, what is the understanding of God? Theology. So pure and true theology is Wisdom. Therefore philosophy is the love of theology. With that philosophy and theology are united and related.

There is a deeper commentary. Wisdom is the enlightenment of the mind and the soul, where we understand the Highest Reality. However, what is that Highest Reality if not the Divine Reality? Therefore philosophy is the love of the understanding of God. Why is it said as the love of the understanding of God and not the understanding itself? Because man cannot attain God with his own efforts. Only God can give us Wisdom or Sophia to our human mind. So man can only love without attaining with their own efforts. While theology is obtained completely from God, with the aid of philosophy to translate theological language or terminology which cannot be understood conventionally.

So philosophy is Faith, man's answer to God's calls to attain Him, and theology is God's gift to mankind, the Wisdom we desire so much. If you remember the famous painting in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, there is painted man trying to reach God and God trying to reach man, yes that is the relationship between philosophy and theology. Philosophy attempts to reach theology and theology attempts to reach philosophy. What is the union of philosophy and theology? The answer is, I cannot reveal it yet, we shall encounter it bit by bit.

The writing above is a contemplative reflection on philosophy and theology. We shall now try to explore a more formal understanding of these 2 sciences. Theology is strictly the study of God, that is all. However, philosophy is a bit more abstract, in my view it is the study of 3 things united in one thing. Philosophy is the study of Goodness and Happiness, which begins with the First Things, and there are the Last Things, and finally there are the Things in Between, or the Journey. However, we know that Goodness lies in God, so philosophy and theology is just the same, it is simply "2 different perspectives.

The difference is where theology is about God only, philosophy tends to speak of creation as well and focuses more on creation. Where theology relies on revelation as its basis of knowledge, philosophy relies on the comprehensive experience of humanity as its basis of knowledge. For that reason the two need each other, philosophy is required to translate God to the actual world, and theology is required to ensure that philosophy is aimed at God and also has its meaning. For without philosophy, theology is incomprehensible and without theology, philosophy is meaningless and useless.

Unfortunately, if we observe the history of philosophy and theology, they are not too friendly with each other and now have divorced though not fully. Theology tends to walk alone in religion without any philosophical basis, thus many people have blind faith and many as well leave their faith for they see that faith is "unacceptable by reason", well it cannot be accepted by standard human reason. If the faithful are taught easy-to-understand philosophy and the philosophical basis of each teaching, then surely more will remain for they understand and know.

Philosophy also tend to walk alone and look what happened to it, the fall of philosophy from grace and it is now seen as a prospectless and unrealistic study to be fought for. Philosophy also hit a dead end, seemingly replaced by the natural sciences which is ruled by materialism, naturalism, and physicalism. Yes philosophy once had influence, but why does it seem to no longer be heard and treated as "finished"? Even though if we are observant, it is this critical time where philosophy and its spouse theology is heavily needed to lead humanity into salvation.

Therefore in this journey we will reunite philosophy and theology. We will explore philosophical and theological concepts in a clear journey, from the beginning that is God, to creation, and finally back to God. This journey will be presented in the most clear language with many examples so you may understand these concepts well. There are 3 steps of philosophy-theology, that is Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Ethics, in that order. Metaphysics speaks of Existence, Epistemology of Consciousness, and Ethics of Experience. In the next writing the journey will officially begin and we will soon depart, see you later!