Philosophy

Sharmien V. Ventanilla II-BSA

Sir. Paredes

Philosophy and Ethics (Philosophy and Religion)

I. Scope of Report: The The The The

Minds of the Later Greek Thinkers Greco-Religious Thinkers Early and Medieval Christian Thinkers Minds of the Forerunners of Renaissance

II. Discussion The Minds of the Later Greek Thinkers There are three views of religion based on the minds of the later Greek thinkers: Epicureans Background: The taught of the epicureans were founded by Epicurus. According to Epicurus faith is necessary in order for a person to live a prudent life which later on, will bring a fuller life and lasting happiness. This group supports the belief of polytheism in which the polytheists were believer of many gods and goddesses. The view of Epicureans was from the doctrine of Epicurus. According to Epicurus, gods are human-like but far more beautiful, incorruptible (not subject to death), material, perfect, and inhabited in the world. However these gods were not interested in men and did not interact with humans, or neither create the world. These gods lived in a peaceful, contented life, free from all worries and cares of men. These gods differ in sex, needed food, spoke the languages of the Greeks. However even if Epicureans were polytheist or believer of many gods there are still some distinction: (1) although epicureans were believer of many gods this does not mean that they are worshipping of all the gods in whom they believed, (2) there are different cities that worshipped different gods, and (3) sometimes different gods were worshipped at different times. Stoics The stoic on the other hand emphasize that there is only one God related to the world just as there is only one soul per human body. According to the Stoics, God has physical characteristics, bodily, but a body of high quality features. The stoic opined that there is only one God responsible for everything in the universe. Under the stoic doctrine, each person is a part of God and that all the people form a universal family break down national, social, and racial barriers and prepare the way to the spread of Christianity. The stoics believed that God is an Omniscient God. They infer that He is the father of everything in the universe that is why He is interested in the activity of humans. According to them, God punishes the evil and rewards the good and that He lives in the farthest circle of the universe but still know all from that point.

Carneades For Cardeanes, the views of the Stoics are ridiculous. According to him men are incapable of knowing God that they cannot even prove the existence of God. According to Carneades, we must be skeptical or not easily convince or drive by any factors. The Greco-Religious Thinkers PHILO Background: Philo was noted to have some from the great Hebrew tradition. The Hebrew people emphasize the worship of "THE ONE". God is central to their psyche or their spirit. Philo insisted that the nature of God was so far from human understanding. For him, God is so far above man in greatness, goodness, power, and perfection that we cannot know what he is but one can be certain that He exists. Philo taught that God is the source of everything, is absolutely good, perfect, and blessed. Contrary to this, Philo said that God cannot come in contact with matter for He is so exalted or highly praise. However Philo taught that God gives off light which combine in one power which Philo called "Logos" or the divine Wisdom. According to him it was the divine Wisdom that create the universe, and that the "Logos" is the intermediary between God and the world. Here we can infer that God is separated from the world we dwell in. PLOTINUS Plotinus supported the same thing as Philo. He infers from Philo that that God is the source of everything but God is so perfect that we cannot know anything about Him. However, according to him, anything that people think about God is too poor to be true of him. He infers that God is far above everything we, people can think. He opined that God create the world through the means of emanations and not directly. The world also depends upon God, but God does not need the world. For from the view of Plotinus, "God is like an infinite stream which flow out but is never exhausted". For Plotinus, the main function of Philosophy is to prepare individuals for the experience of ecstasy, in which they become one with God. For him God is beyond rational understanding and is a source of all reality. Also, the universe is a product by God by a mysterious process of overflowing divine energy. For Plotinus the highest goal of life is to purify oneself of dependence on bodily comforts and, through philosophical meditation, to prepare oneself for an ecstatic reunion with God. The Early and Medieval Christian Thinkers Christianity is not really an old phenomenon for the world. The following different views of early and medieval Christian Thinkers. Apologists From the Apologists arose the tradition to bless the marriage of Christianity. According to them, through "Logos" or "Reason" God created the universe. God is the First Cause of everything including changes. They infer that because of God's existence order and reason are maintained and that all the changes in the world are within God's control. According to them, God is the source of everything, is good, and is eternal. For the Apologists God emits logos or "divine wisdom" which is for them the source why the universe was created. For

them, God is a pure reason personified that means that they believed that God is human or a person. St. Augustine St. Augustine emphasized the vast difference between God and the World. From his viewpoint, God is eternal, powerful, transcended, all good, all wise, absolute in many and every way; the cause of everything; the creator of the universe out of nothing. For St. Augustine everything in this world is predetermined so that God knew from the very beginning what will happen to the creation and creatures throughout eternity and has dominance over it. God for St. Augustine is the idealization of everything that man considers good and worthy. St. Augustine believed that God was one but expressed himself in the universe as three persons. John Scotus Erigena Background: John Scotus Erigina was an Irish monk in the 9th century that developed an interpretation of Christianity in identifying the Divine Trinity. Even if John Scotus Erigena supports St. Augustine that God was the source of everything he argued that God and His creation are one contrary to St. Augustine view. For him, God existence is in the world and that He is the world. For him, God is perfect goodness, power, and wisdom, however he proposed that God is never wholly known by men that although man can understand and know something about God but up to limited extent. For him, God is in reality unknowable and indefinable that men with his little brain cannot understand His nature. Agnotism Background: The developments of Christianity during the first century give rise to the belief or view of Agnotism. For the people back then believed that God had to be bridged by something or someone that is tangible. According to the view of Agnotism, the Logos was the intermediate being that it is between God and the world. Various thinkers of that time believed that Jesus was the Logos that was sent by the Father. Also, the early Christians did not only regard Jesus but were also concern of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The people believed that Jesus, the Logos and the Holy Spirit were emanations of God. From there, the concept of the Trinity arises. The Church taught God not only as one but also as Three Persons: God, Christ or the Logos, and the Holy Spirit. Modalists Modalists believed in the concept of Trinity. Modalists believed that all three persons are actually God in three forms or modes. The Logos is actually God creating; the Holy Spirit is actually God reasoning; and God is actually God being. However from the view of the Modalists, questions arises whether Logos was the same substance as God, or if Logos an emanation from God, or is it God in another form Athanasian Position Background: Founded by Athanasius, the leader of a group of early Christian thinkers.

According to Athanasius, Christ is the principle of salvation and was begotten, not made by the Father, God. Christ same with God is eternal and is of the same substance as the Father. He infers that Christ as God shares the full nature as the Father, and through Jesus, this Logos or Christ was united with a human body. Added to this, the Holy Spirit that he maintained was the third being or the third person. The Athanasian Position emphasize that God was conceived to be a Trinity of the same substance or same nature: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit Nominalism Background: Roscelinus founded the movement Nominalism. Roscelinus argued that what we see were the only real thing in the world and that the general concepts of the world were just mere names or words. He opined, that the simple things in life were the only realities and that those that are complicated and hard to explain were just were words. He infers that there could be no reality corresponding to the name God but he believed that there are three persons with different substance that is equal in power. For him, Trinity is not one but is three distinct beings. This belief was a denial in the doctrine of the Church. Realism Background: Supported by the realist, Anselm whose works primarily centered on the thought that universals exist. Realists were contrary in the belief of Nominalist. The Realist claimed that "Universals or the worldly things are the only real and that individuals are forms insofar as they are within universals". Saint Anselm Saint Anselm infer that the idea of God as a being who exist, implies that God must have existence and that man cannot argue inferentially from its existence. Abelard Frost According to Abelard Frost the Trinity is consist of Father, Holy Spirit, and the Logos. For Frost the three persons in the Trinity are the power (Holy Spirit), good will (Father), and the wisdom of God (Logos). Mysticism Background: A movement from the Church, supported by a mystic, Richard of St. Victor. Based on the mysticism view, human knowledge through reasoning rationally and logically cannot understood the nature of God, for His nature can only be achievable through mystical experience. According to mysticism, God is reached through contemplation or by deep thinking that we cannot gain an experience of Divine and the Holy. Richard of St. Victor He noted that the goal of the mystics is "the mysterious ascension of the soul to heaven, the sweet homecoming from the land of bodies, to the region of

spirit, the surrender of the self in and to God". However he infer that it is not based on the capability of man neither on his skills to achieve God. It is only God that can give man the blessings and the will to understand Him, also to experience a mystical one and that man has to wait for this action from God. Thomas Aquinas Background: The philosophy of Thomas Aquinas was greatly influence by Aristotle. Also called the Angelic Doctor and the Prince of scholastics, an Italian philosopher and a theologian. Thomas Aquinas adjust to the philosophy of Aristotle. For Aquinas, God is pure form. This idea is actually from Aristotle. Aquinas allocated the principle of the "prime mover" which is God. He infer that God is the unmoved mover. To explain, God must be unmoved in order to be focus to create movement in the universe. From the concept of Aristotle, Aquinas infer that things are related in a graduated scale from lower forms of existence to the highest forms of existence. Like, less object to more perfect object. He infer that at the summit of this scale, God which is perfect can be found. He also emphasize that God is the first and final cause of the universe. John Duns Scotus Background: John Duns Scotus was a theologian and a philosopher. Born in 1266 and died in 1308. For John Duns Scotus, God is a pure form or pure energy that God is the first cause of everything. He is completely free, so free that He can will or not will just as He wants. For Scotus, God is the cause of the universe that has a purpose in creating and ruling the universe. For him philosophy and theology were distinct but complementary for theology uses philosophy as a tool. In his viewpoint, the primary concern of theology is God and his own nature. Scotus argue that through faith a person may know with absolute certainty that the human soul is incorruptible and immortal. Meister Eckhart He infer that God is inconceivable, and indefinable spiritual substance and that God unite everything. According to Eckhart, God cannot reveal Himself but can only be known only through the concept of the Trinity. For him, the Three Persons of the Trinity flow out of God and back into Him that God is the ground of the universe and all things are in God. The famous statement of Eckhart was "I’m God communicating Himself. I am immanent in the essence of God. He works through me. As I return to God in the mystic experience, I become one with God again". The Minds of the Forerunners of Renaissance Renaissance institutions were deeply rooted in older patterns of life and traditional ways of thought, and these institutions were slow in adapting to new conditions. The prestige of the church also suffered when some church leaders sold their services, violated the biblical laws they were entrusted with upholding, and lived no differently than secular merchants and political figures. Furthermore, the leaders of the growing city-states, as well as the new monarchs, had much less need of an alliance with the Catholic Church to maintain power than they had in the past. Nicholas Cusa

Background: A German cardinal, scholar, mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. He is also a doctor of canon law. He argued that true wisdom lies in the recognition of human ignorance and that knowledge of the deity is possible only through intuition, a higher state of intelligence. According to Nicholas Cusa, man could have an immediate intuition to God by mystic's experience and that through this mystic experience with God, man solves the contradictions and inconsistencies existing in the nature of God. Cusa infer that through reason, we cannot know God, but beyond reason is this "learned ignorance", or innocence that brings the supersensible experience of God. Giordano Bruno Background: An Itallian Renaissance philosopher and poet. He was imprisoned for eight yeas for immoral conduct and was burned at the stake in Campo dei Fiori on February 17, 1600. Due to his studies based on the science of astronomy. He believed that God is immanent in this vast universe. He infer that God is unity or God unite all the opposites in the universe, a unity without opposites, which the human mind cannot learn. Jacob Boehme Background: He received only an elementary education but was an assiduous student of the Bible and the works of the Swiss alchemist and physician Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus. From an early age he believed that he saw visions, and throughout his life he claimed to be divinely inspired. Jacob Boehme emphasizes that everything exists and intelligible only through its opposite. Thus, he believed that evil is a necessary element in goodness for without evil the will of a person cannot distinguish right form wrong. According to Boehme, God is the union of all opposites in the universe and that God is the original source of all things. He infer that man sometimes are blind to see divine things that can make opposites things united but God all these opposites are balanced and united.

Sharmien V. Ventanilla II-BSA Philosophy and Ethics (Philosophy and Religion)

I. Scope of Report:

Sir. Paredes

The The The The

Minds of the Later Greek Thinkers Greco-Religious Thinkers Early and Medieval Christian Thinkers Minds of the Forerunners of Renaissance

II. Discussion The Minds of the Later Greek Thinkers There are three views of religion based on the minds of the later Greek thinkers: Epicureans Background: The taught of the epicureans were founded by Epicurus. According to Epicurus faith is necessary in order for a person to live a prudent life which later on, will bring a fuller life and lasting happiness. This group supports the belief of polytheism in which the polytheists were believer of many gods and goddesses. The view of Epicureans was from the doctrine of Epicurus. According to Epicurus, gods are human-like but far more beautiful, incorruptible (not subject to death), material, perfect, and inhabited in the world. However these gods were not interested in men and did not interact with humans, or neither create the world. These gods lived in a peaceful, contented life, free from all worries and cares of men. These gods differ in sex, needed food, spoke the languages of the Greeks. However even if Epicureans were polytheist or believer of many gods there are still some distinction: (1) although epicureans were believer of many gods this does not mean that they are worshipping of all the gods in whom they believed, (2) there are different cities that worshipped different gods, and (3) sometimes different gods were worshipped at different times. Stoics The stoic on the other hand emphasize that there is only one God related to the world just as there is only one soul per human body. According to the Stoics, God has physical characteristics, bodily, but a body of high quality features. The stoic opined that there is only one God responsible for everything in the universe. Under the stoic doctrine, each person is a part of God and that all the people form a universal family break down national, social, and racial barriers and prepare the way to the spread of Christianity. The stoics believed that God is an Omniscient God. They infer that He is the father of everything in the universe that is why He is interested in the activity of humans. According to them, God punishes the evil and rewards the good and that He lives in the farthest circle of the universe but still know all from that point. Carneades For Cardeanes, the views of the Stoics are ridiculous. According to him men are incapable of knowing God that they cannot even prove the existence of God. According to Carneades, we must be skeptical or not easily convince or drive by any factors. The Greco-Religious Thinkers PHILO Background: Philo was noted to have some from the great Hebrew tradition.

The Hebrew people emphasize the worship of "THE ONE". God is central to their psyche or their spirit. Philo insisted that the nature of God was so far from human understanding. For him, God is so far above man in greatness, goodness, power, and perfection that we cannot know what he is but one can be certain that He exists. Philo taught that God is the source of everything, is absolutely good, perfect, and blessed. Contrary to this, Philo said that God cannot come in contact with matter for He is so exalted or highly praise. However Philo taught that God gives off light which combine in one power which Philo called "Logos" or the divine Wisdom. According to him it was the divine Wisdom that create the universe, and that the "Logos" is the intermediary between God and the world. Here we can infer that God is separated from the world we dwell in. PLOTINUS Plotinus supported the same thing as Philo. He infers from Philo that that God is the source of everything but God is so perfect that we cannot know anything about Him. However, according to him, anything that people think about God is too poor to be true of him. He infers that God is far above everything we, people can think. He opined that God create the world through the means of emanations and not directly. The world also depends upon God, but God does not need the world. For from the view of Plotinus, "God is like an infinite stream which flow out but is never exhausted". For Plotinus, the main function of Philosophy is to prepare individuals for the experience of ecstasy, in which they become one with God. For him God is beyond rational understanding and is a source of all reality. Also, the universe is a product by God by a mysterious process of overflowing divine energy. For Plotinus the highest goal of life is to purify oneself of dependence on bodily comforts and, through philosophical meditation, to prepare oneself for an ecstatic reunion with God. The Early and Medieval Christian Thinkers Christianity is not really an old phenomenon for the world. The following different views of early and medieval Christian Thinkers. Apologists From the Apologists arose the tradition to bless the marriage of Christianity. According to them, through "Logos" or "Reason" God created the universe. God is the First Cause of everything including changes. They infer that because of God's existence order and reason are maintained and that all the changes in the world are within God's control. According to them, God is the source of everything, is good, and is eternal. For the Apologists God emits logos or "divine wisdom" which is for them the source why the universe was created. For them, God is a pure reason personified that means that they believed that God is human or a person. St. Augustine St. Augustine emphasized the vast difference between God and the World. From his viewpoint, God is eternal, powerful, transcended, all good, all wise, absolute in many and every way; the cause of everything; the creator of the universe out of nothing. For St. Augustine everything in this world is predetermined so that God knew from the very beginning what will happen to the creation and creatures throughout eternity and has dominance over it. God for St. Augustine is the idealization of everything that man considers good and worthy.

St. Augustine believed that God was one but expressed himself in the universe as three persons. John Scotus Erigena Background: John Scotus Erigina was an Irish monk in the 9th century that developed an interpretation of Christianity in identifying the Divine Trinity. Even if John Scotus Erigena supports St. Augustine that God was the source of everything he argued that God and His creation are one contrary to St. Augustine view. For him, God existence is in the world and that He is the world. For him, God is perfect goodness, power, and wisdom, however he proposed that God is never wholly known by men that although man can understand and know something about God but up to limited extent. For him, God is in reality unknowable and indefinable that men with his little brain cannot understand His nature. Agnotism Background: The developments of Christianity during the first century give rise to the belief or view of Agnotism. For the people back then believed that God had to be bridged by something or someone that is tangible. According to the view of Agnotism, the Logos was the intermediate being that it is between God and the world. Various thinkers of that time believed that Jesus was the Logos that was sent by the Father. Also, the early Christians did not only regard Jesus but were also concern of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The people believed that Jesus, the Logos and the Holy Spirit were emanations of God. From there, the concept of the Trinity arises. The Church taught God not only as one but also as Three Persons: God, Christ or the Logos, and the Holy Spirit. Modalists Modalists believed in the concept of Trinity. Modalists believed that all three persons are actually God in three forms or modes. The Logos is actually God creating; the Holy Spirit is actually God reasoning; and God is actually God being. However from the view of the Modalists, questions arises whether Logos was the same substance as God, or if Logos an emanation from God, or is it God in another form Athanasian Position Background: Founded by Athanasius, the leader of a group of early Christian thinkers. According to Athanasius, Christ is the principle of salvation and was begotten, not made by the Father, God. Christ same with God is eternal and is of the same substance as the Father. He infers that Christ as God shares the full nature as the Father, and through Jesus, this Logos or Christ was united with a human body. Added to this, the Holy Spirit that he maintained was the third being or the third person. The Athanasian Position emphasize that God was conceived to be a Trinity of the same substance or same nature: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit Nominalism

Background: Roscelinus founded the movement Nominalism. Roscelinus argued that what we see were the only real thing in the world and that the general concepts of the world were just mere names or words. He opined, that the simple things in life were the only realities and that those that are complicated and hard to explain were just were words. He infers that there could be no reality corresponding to the name God but he believed that there are three persons with different substance that is equal in power. For him, Trinity is not one but is three distinct beings. This belief was a denial in the doctrine of the Church. Realism Background: Supported by the realist, Anselm whose works primarily centered on the thought that universals exist. Realists were contrary in the belief of Nominalist. The Realist claimed that "Universals or the worldly things are the only real and that individuals are forms insofar as they are within universals". Saint Anselm Saint Anselm infer that the idea of God as a being who exist, implies that God must have existence and that man cannot argue inferentially from its existence. Abelard Frost According to Abelard Frost the Trinity is consist of Father, Holy Spirit, and the Logos. For Frost the three persons in the Trinity are the power (Holy Spirit), good will (Father), and the wisdom of God (Logos). Mysticism Background: A movement from the Church, supported by a mystic, Richard of St. Victor. Based on the mysticism view, human knowledge through reasoning rationally and logically cannot understood the nature of God, for His nature can only be achievable through mystical experience. According to mysticism, God is reached through contemplation or by deep thinking that we cannot gain an experience of Divine and the Holy. Richard of St. Victor He noted that the goal of the mystics is "the mysterious ascension of the soul to heaven, the sweet homecoming from the land of bodies, to the region of spirit, the surrender of the self in and to God". However he infer that it is not based on the capability of man neither on his skills to achieve God. It is only God that can give man the blessings and the will to understand Him, also to experience a mystical one and that man has to wait for this action from God. Thomas Aquinas Background: The philosophy of Thomas Aquinas was greatly influence by Aristotle. Also called the Angelic Doctor and the Prince of scholastics, an Italian philosopher and a theologian. Thomas Aquinas adjust to the philosophy of Aristotle. For Aquinas, God is

pure form. This idea is actually from Aristotle. Aquinas allocated the principle of the "prime mover" which is God. He infer that God is the unmoved mover. To explain, God must be unmoved in order to be focus to create movement in the universe. From the concept of Aristotle, Aquinas infer that things are related in a graduated scale from lower forms of existence to the highest forms of existence. Like, less object to more perfect object. He infer that at the summit of this scale, God which is perfect can be found. He also emphasize that God is the first and final cause of the universe. John Duns Scotus Background: John Duns Scotus was a theologian and a philosopher. Born in 1266 and died in 1308. For John Duns Scotus, God is a pure form or pure energy that God is the first cause of everything. He is completely free, so free that He can will or not will just as He wants. For Scotus, God is the cause of the universe that has a purpose in creating and ruling the universe. For him philosophy and theology were distinct but complementary for theology uses philosophy as a tool. In his viewpoint, the primary concern of theology is God and his own nature. Scotus argue that through faith a person may know with absolute certainty that the human soul is incorruptible and immortal. Meister Eckhart He infer that God is inconceivable, and indefinable spiritual substance and that God unite everything. According to Eckhart, God cannot reveal Himself but can only be known only through the concept of the Trinity. For him, the Three Persons of the Trinity flow out of God and back into Him that God is the ground of the universe and all things are in God. The famous statement of Eckhart was "I’m God communicating Himself. I am immanent in the essence of God. He works through me. As I return to God in the mystic experience, I become one with God again". The Minds of the Forerunners of Renaissance Renaissance institutions were deeply rooted in older patterns of life and traditional ways of thought, and these institutions were slow in adapting to new conditions. The prestige of the church also suffered when some church leaders sold their services, violated the biblical laws they were entrusted with upholding, and lived no differently than secular merchants and political figures. Furthermore, the leaders of the growing city-states, as well as the new monarchs, had much less need of an alliance with the Catholic Church to maintain power than they had in the past. Nicholas Cusa Background: A German cardinal, scholar, mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. He is also a doctor of canon law. He argued that true wisdom lies in the recognition of human ignorance and that knowledge of the deity is possible only through intuition, a higher state of intelligence. According to Nicholas Cusa, man could have an immediate intuition to God by mystic's experience and that through this mystic experience with God, man solves the contradictions and inconsistencies existing in the nature of God. Cusa infer that through reason, we cannot know God, but beyond reason is this "learned ignorance", or innocence that brings the supersensible experience of God.

Giordano Bruno Background: An Itallian Renaissance philosopher and poet. He was imprisoned for eight yeas for immoral conduct and was burned at the stake in Campo dei Fiori on February 17, 1600. Due to his studies based on the science of astronomy. He believed that God is immanent in this vast universe. He infer that God is unity or God unite all the opposites in the universe, a unity without opposites, which the human mind cannot learn. Jacob Boehme Background: He received only an elementary education but was an assiduous student of the Bible and the works of the Swiss alchemist and physician Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus. From an early age he believed that he saw visions, and throughout his life he claimed to be divinely inspired. Jacob Boehme emphasizes that everything exists and intelligible only through its opposite. Thus, he believed that evil is a necessary element in goodness for without evil the will of a person cannot distinguish right form wrong. According to Boehme, God is the union of all opposites in the universe and that God is the original source of all things. He infer that man sometimes are blind to see divine things that can make opposites things united but God all these opposites are balanced and united.