Introduction to Christian philosophy

Abstract

This paper revisits and reconstructs the beginning of medieval philosophy (i.e. Renaissance philosophy) from about 400CE-1650CE when Catholic Reverend Fathers used the tools of Aristotelian syllogisms to argue (in order) to establish the existence of God, not only the genuineness of the Christian religion. The, method of study is textual and historical aimed at re-defining the phrase ‗Christian Theology‘ by retracing what monastic Christian philosophy (Nnaji: 2015! OJPP) really was, particularly involving issues such as the Real Presence, Transubstantiation and the Trinitarian- Christology debates: not forgetting debates on iconoclasm, predestination and de-mythologization. The study‘s review of relevant literature touched on the Christian Apologia such as Origen of Alexandria (185CE-253CE) who encouraged Christian scholars to extract relevant teachings in paganism: ―phalasu-Sophaqu‖ (Isaiah 2:6) which meant taking good aspects of Greek teachings: A view later supported by Augustine of Hippo (354CE-430CE) though rejected by Apostle Paul (Cor.2:8) and Tertullian (160CE-225CE) Boer: 1976:50-71) who cited 2Cor; 6:14 i.e., ―what has Athens or darkness got to do with Jerusalem, i.e. light against darkness or between human reasoning and spiritual truths in Christian-Theology. The study found out that Christian philosophy has been wrongly called Christian-Theology, while the study recommends that this wrong nomenclature should be reversed since Theology uses extraordinary (logikon) human debates and opinions or ―philashoephim in Hebrew (1 Kings 18:21) to put forward (Theso) its doctrines (Sopherim).

Keywords: Introduction, Christian Philosophy, Christian-Theology.