Phil 201

MODULE/WEEK 1 PRESENTATION: THE BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Mark Foreman: [Holding an open Bible] “Hello. Welcome back to another discussion in
philosophy 201. You know, Christians are people who take the Bible very seriously. And those
of us that do take the Bible very seriously that are involved with philosophy have a very
important question we need to ask ourselves. What is the role [lifts Bible with one hand] of the
Bible in doing philosophy?
Now before I really answer this question I wanna lay my cards on the table and tell you my
position as far as the Bible is concerned. I am a Christian who believes the Bible i-is the inspired
word of God, and therefore is the au-our final authority when it comes to matters of ethics and
faith and Christianity that we believe in. I believe that very strongly here, mmkay. But this is a
very important question that we need to ask here as we take that-as we look into it. And its
because of my high view of Scripture that I want to take the time to address this particular
question here. [Looks down at paper in hands] I would like to suggest that there are two extreme
positions concerning answering this question that I wanna look at… and then I want to look at a
more moderate position that I think is the correct one to take.
One extreme position is that there are those who promote the idea that the Bible has no role to
play in philosophy, at all, mmkay. There are some who believe that philosophy the only way to
really do philosophy is to abandon all of your convictions, all your commitments, all your values,
all your beliefs, and take start off from some sort of neutral perspective and do philosophy that
particular way. Uh-We might call this the neutral position, mmkay. They basically believe that if
one is neutral then one is totally without biased, one is totally without uh any sort of beliefs that
are affecting them and that they can then do their investigation in that particular way. Now while
that may seem to be at first, at first glance may seem to be uh appropriate and even responsible,
it actually has a number of problems with it. I just want to mention a couple of those. [Turns the
page of papers in his hand]
First of all, I think it’s highly unlikely that most persons could even do this. I mean one has to
have a starting point. One has to have a place where ya start to do your examination and your
evaluation in some way or another. Even the claim to be completely neutral has to have uh has to
be evaluated and uh examined from some perspective in some way or another. And most of our
foundational presupp-presuppositions for example that our senses are generally reliable or that
other human beings have intelligent minds or the laws of rational la-th-uh uh rationality apply to
reality. All of those involve some amount of metaphysical commitments and we just can’t simply
s-abandon all of those if we are doing any sort of philosophical investigation. Absolute neutrality
so seems to be an unrealistic and unattainable goal for the average person.
And even if it is completely neutral, my second point is that even if it was unattainable this
position just simply seems to be unreasonable. For most of us our pre-suppostitions and our
commitments are deeply engrained within us in some way or another. And seems unreasonable
to ask the average person to abandon all of their commitments, all their values and such before
they can do any sort of philosophical investigation That just seems to be extremely unreasonable

Page 1 of 5
 Phil 201

to do here in some way or another. That would be a mammoth undertaking for an-an-an
academic a-intellectual person who’s done a lot of work in this, much less the average person
doing philosophy [Turns page].
And finally I think a problem here is that it’s simply not necessary that a person abandon his or
her worldview or their commitments and take a completely neutral position before they can do
philosophy. We know from the general experience throughout the history of philosophy that a
great number of philosophic-philosophical ideas and philosophers had strong commitments that
they held. Um and that they didn’t need to abandon these before they started to do philosophy,
and there’s no reason necessarily that we should have to do it at well. Now, it does mean that we
should always examine our pre-suppositions, we should examine our-those convictions amd
commitments, they should be open to examination like anything else should be. But it doesn’t
mean we necessarily have to abandon everything. So I think that extreme is too far.
The other extreme that I want to talk about here is the idea f-that comes more from the Christian
perspective. Who-who from Christians perspectives say we don’t need to do philosophy cuz we
have the Bible. The Bible tells us everything we need and philosophy is not necessary to do that
at all, mkay. And we just simply blindly kind of accept the Bible by faith and what it says and
philosophy is not necessary. I call this the fideistic position. Fideism literally means faith alone,
mmkay. And some way or another. Now again before I criticize this position I want to confirm
my own belief, I believe Scriptures are the word of God and I think it important that we use
them, but I think we need to use them appropriately. Just like you can abuse anything, you can
abuse the Bible. And I think sometimes those who take this position…unintentionally abuse
Scripture when they say that. There are four reasons why I think this extreme position is not the
best position to take either.
First of all, there are many important philosophical issues that the Bible simply does not
adequately address. That’s not faulting the Scriptures. They weren’t designed to address a lot of
these particular issues here. For example, one branch of philosophy is epistemology.
Epistemology has to do with claims about knowledge. What does it mean to know something?
One of those areas i-in epistemology we talk about justifying our knowledge clams, how do we
know when we have enough evidence to do so. There doesn’t seem to be any Bible verse that
talks about justification or whatever it means to know something at all. Sometimes I’ll hear
people’s c-claim to hear something, they’ll say ‘well the beginning of knowledge is the fear of
the Lord’. Well that’s true but what’s that have to do with justification, kay. The Bible doesn’t
really address that particular issue. It wasn’t meant to. So that’s not really a criticism of the Bible
to say-to say that kay.
A second problem with I think this view, this fideistic view that has here is that ap-believers that
adopt this idea that all I need is the Bible often are the ones who are the worst at dreadfully
misusing Scripture. [Reading from paper] The usual way this is done is through proof-texting.
Anxiously, believers often search to discover some verse or some passage they presume will
prove a particular point all the while ignoring the serious exegetical work that goes into
interpreting Scripture. And they proof text, they’ll just throw a verse out there. Sometimes ripped
out of its context, often times not really knowing what the literary context of the passage are.

Page 2 of 5
 Phil 201

And they’ll use that to prove their particular point. Often they’ll force a verse to say something
that it was really never designed to say with or to deal with at all [turns page]. Rather than
treating the Bible as a historical document that we need to look at and examine and evaluate and
uh do e-strong exegetical work on it, it kinda treat it almost like it’s a book of quotations or like a
fortune cookie. You know you uh, look at the little verse there and you just move on here.
Without considering the literary and historical context of the verse. That’s called proof texting.
Unfortunately it’s a very common thing that occurs in evangelical Christianity and I think we
need to i-in some ways or another eliminate it. Here’s my challenge to you: don’t quote a verse,
quote a passage. Mmkay, make sure you know the-the-the context of the passage when you do
that at all like that. [Reading from paper] This quote-a-verse mentality permeates the modern
evangelical church, and I think it’s really dangerous.
A third p-problem with this fideistic view is that claiming that the Bible is all that one needs is
often ineffective in answering most philosophical questions for large numbers of people. Not
everybody is committed to accepting the Bible as the Word of God. That doesn’t mean we can’t
do philosophy with these people and m-and when we quote th-the Bible er feel like we have to
quote a verse to them, well they feel like we’re not really answering their question that they have
there. Most philosophical questions can be dealt with without supporting Scripture, mmkay. And
we don’t need to necessarily quote it to people like that in a way we’re not reaching those people
in that sense [turning page] and so there’s no reason really to use that method.
And my f-my fourth argument is that I think such a view fails to recognize that all truth is God’s
truth. It-uh he uses many avenues to communicate those truths about the w-w-world, reason,
natural revelation, tradition, all are venues in which God communicates his truth about the world.
It is true that the Bible is the final authoritative uh means to understanding God in this world. But
it’s not the only means to understanding God in this world. God has given us lots of other ways
to understand it as well. And if we think about the idea, philosophy is about searching for the
truth and all truth is God’s truth. Something isn’t more true because it comes from the Bible. It’s
just as true if it comes from reason, or natural revelation, or comes from some other place if it’s
true. Truth is truth, we need to recognize that. You don’t need to quote the Bible to make
something more true or more valid in some way or another. And I think we need to be careful
about taking that kind of attitude that we do here. Now, am I saying we should never quote the
Bible in doing in doing philosophy, of course not. I think there is a place for the Bible there. So
what I suggest is what I call the critical and strategic use of the Bible. By critical I mean we’re
using it correctly according to the correct way the Bible should be used, correct methods of
interpretation, I’m gunna mention it in a minute what I mean by that. And by strategic I mean we
use it when it’s necessary to use. We use it with other people who are believers, who accept the
Scriptures as they are and such like that. But if it’s not necessary to use or it’s not part of that
then we really probably it’s best to not u-quote Scripture as much as we possibly can here.
I would like to suggest the following six guidelines if you’re going to use the Bible in doing
philosophy. First of all, number 1, don’t feel obligated to appeal to a Biblical passage in doing
philosophy or to support a philosophical argument. Sometimes Christians feel like I can’t- I can’t
make an argument unless I have a passage or verse to support it. That’s not necessarily true.

Page 3 of 5
 Phil 201

There’s no rule saying that at all here [reading from page]. One can usually offer non-Biblical
reasons most of our philosophical positions. If these reasons are solid and true than there value is
equal to any Biblical support that you can offer, mmkay. And strategically I suggest that again
you only use the Scriptures when you need to with people who accept the Scriptures already that
are true there, one that is indispensable to your argument here and when you’re addressing a
fellowship of believers here. Don’t use them otherwise.
My second guideline is: avoid proof-texting. If you do uh choose to appeal to the Scriptures in
you philosophical work, be sophisticated okay when you do so and accurate in your handling it.
Um avoid merely proof texting a passage here mmkay. Here’s a solid guideline that I always
suggest people, never quote a p-passage of Scripture unless you can explain its literary and
historical context. If you can’t do that, if you don’t know where it came from, if you don’t know
what it’s about, if you don’t know what’s going on in the author’s purpose in writing that
passage, you shouldn’t be using it, kay. Now that means you’re gunna [points hand into camera]
have to do some hard work. You’re gunna have to do the work of exegesis, you’re gunna have to
use that…but if you hold the Bible to be the Word of God, then it deserves the hard work that
you should be putting into it and not just simply throwing passages out [reading from paper]
right and left, okay. Once you are confident of the original context, strive to ensure that your
interpretation and the application line up with that context. That’s very important in doing that.
And that takes me to my third point. Be prepared to explain how the passage applies to the
philosophical issue in accordance with its literary and historical context. If you choose to appeal
to Scripture in doing philosophy, it’s not enough to just interpret it and apply it correctly, you
also need to show how it applies to the point that your trying to make in that philosophical
position. That’s very important, mmkay. If you’re t-arguing about a position in philosophy, that
passage needs to be lining up on what that issue is about there and you have to show that.
My fourth guideline is recognize the difference between the Biblical text and you’re
interpretation of the Biblical text [turns page]. Don’t conflate the two, every time one opens the
Bible, we’re interpreting it. We’re interpreting it according to basic pre-suppositions that we
hold, to basic philosophies that we already hold, to our basic views of the reality, and we’re
interpreting Scripture in that particular way. Don’t confuse your interpretation with the text
itself. A lot of people do that, mmkay. Recognize those two are sometimes a-er often times are
two different things there, mmkay. And so make sure that you understand that. Now there’s
nothing wrong in realizing we interpret the Bible as we read it as long as we’re aware of that,
mmkay. And we’re aware to consider to look at our interpretation to see if it is correct. My fifth
point, is recognize the possibility of alternative reasonable interpretations of difficult passages.
There are some passages of the Scripture that are pretty obvious to know what they’re talking
about, they’re not real difficult to understand. But there are many passages where it is very
difficult to know what’s going on. D-Usually due to a lack of data. We don’t know the exact
context, we’re not exactly sure what was happening there. And so the passage is questionable,
we’re not sure what it’s talking about there. Be open to hearing other interpretations, what other
people have to say about those difficult passages. Recognize that, and be willing to listen to them

Page 4 of 5
 Phil 201

and be willing possibly to change your own interpretation based upon new data that you learn
upon a particular passage there.
[reading from paper and pointing at camera] And my final guideline is to beware of and take
seriously the historical orthodox teachings of the text as developed throughout the history of the
church. Kay, we have 2,000 years of church history that have been basically dealing with the text
here. Mmkay, and we need to take seriously what the church has said. And that doesn’t mean just
because something is traditional that it’s right, of course not, mkay sometimes traditions can be
wrong. But it does mean we should take it seriously. And if you hear something new or
something faddish or something way out different than’s been going on in the history of the
church, that’s something that a yellow light should go off in your head and should tell you that I
need to be cautious here about accepting that particular interpretation.
I believe that if we use these critical guidelines, if we approach the text this way we’ll have a
balanced approach in using it for philosophy. We’ll avoid the two extremes of not using it at all
or just depending upon it blindly by faith without really taking the time to critically examine
what’s really going on there. I have a high view of Scripture, I think Scripture does play a part in
doing philosophy there. If we use it correctly. When you use Scripture, if you use it in your
papers or your discussion boards or your essays that you write for this particular course. We’re
going to be looking for these guidelines as we grade that particular paper. I wanna make sure that
you learn to use Scripture correctly if you’re gunna use it in doing philosophy. Hope you [points
at camera] have a good day.”

Page 5 of 5