Men of Religion Ought to Study Philosophy (1970)
Sunday School Magazine 6, no. 9/10 (Nov/Dec 1952): 13–18.
Wahib Atalla (who would be ordained Bishop Gregorius in 1967) studied philosophy at the University of Cairo. He wrote a large number of articles on Christianity and philosophy (both ancient and contemporary) in the Sunday School Magazine and elsewhere, most of which are collected in Volume 4 of Mawsū‘at al-Anba Ghrīghūryūs (edited by Monier Ateya). In this early article, Atalla argues that studying philosophy is an essential pastoral tool for “men of religion” (rijāl al-dīn), which can be understood to mean either clergymen specifically, or servants more generally.
Men of Religion Ought to Study Philosophy
First, because philosophy is the highest form of human knowledge:[1]ārqā al-ma‘ārif al-bashariyya, lit. the highest of the human sciences or knowledges.
A man of religion[2]rajul al-dīn, lit. a man of religion. This may denote clergymen specifically, or Christian servants more generally. From what follows, it seems to refer to anyone in the church tasked with teaching and communicating the faith to the congregation. should speak to the people in their own language, so that he can reach them and they can reach him, and as a result, come to understand high religious truths which are far above their thoughts and feelings. You cannot speak to Frenchmen, Englishen, Germans or Italians if you have not studied the language they speak, such that you can understand them and they can understand you; otherwise, you will only make unintelligible sounds to them.[3]ḥattā lā takūn ā‘jamiyyān liday-him It is the same with culture and the humanities:[4]al-ma‘ārif wa-l-‘ulūm al-bashariyya, lit. the human sciences. they are as essential for religion as language is for communicating and relaying information. This is especially true of contemporary knowledge and science, which the people of our age discuss with each other and are familiar with.
A man of religion who is knowledgeable in the sciences of his age is better equipped to convey his ideas and the doctrines of religion to minds of the people in a manner that is relevant to their way of thinking and their feelings. For this reason, a man of religion ought to exert the utmost effort to broaden his mind with all the culture and science of his age, for this will serve as a valuable tool in successfully accomplishing his mission among the people.
This is because interpreting the Holy Scriptures and explaining doctrines, theological disciplines, religious history and church history, require the clergy to be familiar with both the natural sciences and the human sciences: from the nature of plants and animals, anatomy and physiology, to history, geography, geology, astronomy, medicine, politics, sociology and psychology, etc., and then languages, both living and extinct.
When comprehensive knowledge of all these disciplines is difficult, or even impossible for a man of religion, who should be especially knowledgeable first and foremost in spiritual disciplines[5]al-‘ulūm al-rūḥiyya, lit. the spiritual sciences. and religious teachings (since he has been separated to the practice of worship, prayer, spiritual exercises), the only option left for him to is to make do with whichever bodies of knowledge and disciplines are the most important and indispensable, and which outrank the others.
And since philosophy is the summit of all bodies of knowledge and disciplines, knowledge of philosophy takes precedence over the others and is indispensable for the others.
It is the greatest of the sciences because it makes use of the greatest intellectual faculties, and also because it is the study of thinking itself,
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upon which all the other human sciences rely. It is an investigation of principal ideas and general principles, abstracted from the material details investigated by the other sciences. For this reason, the study of philosophy is extremely important for the study of many sciences. At the very least, it can be said that philosophy paves the way for all other kinds of scientific investigation, because philosophy is more challenging and more difficult for the mind than those other disciplines, and as a result, one who studies philosophy is able to study the other disciplines with ease. The reverse, however, is not true.[6]i.e. Other disciplines do not prepare one to study philosophy in the same way that philosophy prepares one to study other disciplines.
Philosophy, as conceived by the English philosopher Spencer,[7]Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) was an English moral philosopher and philosopher of science. is the culmination (or sum) of all the sciences because philosophy is a built-up structure of human knowledge: a structure which becomes more complete and more firm as the subsidiary sciences it embraces become more advanced. Thus, the study of philosophy is the study of the general structure of all the sciences. It is therefore more fruitful and beneficial for the mind and better suited for directing one’s thoughts than the study of the other sciences, because it is also, and at the same time, the study of the general principles of all the sciences.
Second, because the study of philosophy benefits the mind:
Among all the sciences, nothing benefits the mind itself as much as philosophy. A man of religion, inasmuch as he is a thinking man, or rather a thought-leader,[8]qā’idān lil-fikr, lit. a leader of thought. gladly welcomes these marvellous benefits.
1 – Philosophy polishes the mind:
In the study of philosophy, the mind practices the solving of problems, the disentangling of riddles and abstractions. This makes thinking about other difficult issues easier, and [renders the mind] better prepared and better equipped for deducing, explaining and evaluating. In this respect, the mind is like a piece of wood with bumps and irregularities: with much sanding, pressure and the repeated application of the carpenter’s plane on its surface, it becomes polished and its irregularities disappear, so much that a man can run his hand along it without hurting or scratching himself, because it has now become smooth to the touch. It is the same with a mind that has exercised itself in thinking and applied itself to philosophical questions and difficulties.
2 – It makes the mind capable of thinking deeply:
Philosophy is a [kind of] continuous, deep thinking that makes use of the highest faculties of reason and takes the greatest possible advantage of them, putting them to work with the greatest efforts. Consequently, a person attains wonderful intellectual benefits, because every day they grow in their capacity to think deeply and conduct penetrating investigations in the realm of intellectual concepts, without the influence of the senses.[9]al-baḥth fī majālāt al-mudrikāt al-‘aqliyya al-mujarrada ‘an al-‘awāriḍ al-ḥissiya, lit. investigation in the fields of intellectual concepts, denuded of sensory coincidences (or symptoms). Probably referring to the idea, at least as old as Plato, that philosophical thinking requires to think ‘with the mind alone’ and without any interference from the bodily senses.
In this way, the thinker becomes equipped for the study of theology. For this reason, the students of the Theological School of Alexandria used to study philosophy before theology.
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3 – It gives the mind precision in research:
As philosophy is distinguished by its depth, it is also distinguished by its precision. Logic, which is the first of the philosophical disciplines, means the precise use of terms and concepts. Accordingly, the history of philosophy presents us with various philosophical sects who differ from each another only slightly in terms of their starting points, but subsequently grew so far apart that they became flatly contradictory to one another. Philosophers even tried to use or create philosophical terms specifically to express one particular intellectual meaning. These terms might seem very close to each other in pronunciation or form, but still carry some difference in meaning, whether small or great. All of this accustoms the mind to take special care and precision, to suspend judgement, to double-check every step before moving on to the next, to avoid mixing up terms with similar meanings, and to choose terms carefully, ensuring that each word signifies nothing more or less than it ought to.[10]A non-literal translation: ‘adm al-khalṭ bayn al-alfāẓ al-muwāfiqa li-l-ma‘ānī takhayyarān māni‘ān falā yakūn al-lafẓ awsā‘ min al-ma‘nā walā aḍyaq minhu.
If a philosopher is justly characterised as one who enjoys the intellectual virtues, without which he does not deserve the title of philosopher, then a man of religion — as someone who thinks about the most difficult and exalted questions — must also possess this precision along with all the other philosophical virtues, so that he can be precise in his terms and sound in his speech and judgement, able to convey his expressions to the people so that they will understand his precise meaning. No one is fit to be a leader of thought except a man who says what he means and means what he says, who thinks clearly and expresses it soundly.
When he deals with a theological problem, he does so in the manner of a careful, sober thinker, who never moves from one idea to the next before he has connected the previous idea to the one that comes after it.[11]qabl ān yusallim mā qablihā limā ba‘dahā, lit. before he has surrendered or delivered the previous idea to the subsequent idea. In this way, his investigations will be sound, satisfying, and persuasive.[12]hu wāfiyya, shāfiyya, wa muqni‘a kāfiyya
4 – It fosters or trains the faculty of good critical thinking:[13]al-naqd al-ṣaḥīḥ, lit. sound criticism, in the sense of critical examination or inquiry.
The conflicts that emerge between philosophers over various intellectual questions and the points of agreement and disagreement that arise between them demand that we never accept any ideology or opinion lightly in our thinking, but must rather weigh up every idea contained therein, in order to see what truths and what mistakes are in it. This is good critical thinking, which is widely practiced by a great portion of philosophers and students of philosophy.
A man of religion must be a critical thinker and not a regurgitator,[14]nāqidān lā nāqilān, the rhyme is lost in translation, but the point is that the clergyman ought to be a critic (nāqid) of ideas rather than someone who unthinkingly transfers or conveys them (nāqil) without evaluation. and his duty requires him to read everything and investigate it, so as to benefit from the good in it and expose its evils.[15]The original 1952 article reads yaṭraḥ thamarahu (reject its fruits), which is corrected in Monier Ateya’s 2004 collection to yaṭraḥ sharrahu (reject its evil). (Bishop Gregorius, Philosophical Studies, Bishop Gregorius Collection Vol. 4. (ed.) Monier Ateya (Cairo: Sharikat al-Ṭaba‘a al-Maṣriyya, 2004)): 18.
This is in order to provide guidance to individuals in his flock about the points of strength and weakness in the writings they are reading, protecting them from stumbling blocks and errors, and leading them to truth and righteousness.
5 – It guides him in the discovery of fallacies:
Sophisms or fallacies are [the subject of] a field in the discipline of logic, which is one of the branches of philosophy, which— 15 —
teaches a person how to detect errors and fallacies that people fall into whether in writing or speaking; therefore, they are not dazzled by every argument or deceived by the mere sound of words.
The man of religion stands in great need of this philosophy which will be a great help to him in the discovery of fallacies into which the haughty enemies of truth fall; for unless his methods are greater than theirs, and more capable of revealing the inanity of their proofs and exposing the methods of their accusations and defences, he will not be able to defeat them. Therefore, in the realm of polemical theology,[16]‘ilm al-lāhūt al-jadali the theologian needs philosophy in order to persuade, refute, reply and defend.
Third, the study of philosophy is useful for religion:
Philosophy is useful for religion in two respects:
1 – It confirms the truths of religion in the clergyman’s mind:
For some believers, religion consists of exalted truths that cannot be understood or even made understandable.[17]lā yastaṭā‘ fahmaha wa lā yumkin al-tawaṣṣul ilā fahmaha As a consequence, their conviction is weak; they doubt the faith the moment someone criticises them for their religion, and they are assailed by doubt and troubled by uncertainty. But the philosophical man of religion has confirmed his religion with the evidence of reason, and is therefore firm in his conviction and able to stand fast in the face of doubts. There is no question of faith which he has not comprehended with his mind, contemplated in his heart, and carefully considered within himself in a clear, discerning and methodical manner. For such a man, religion is transformed into a human reality which can be proved by rational evidence, instead of a religion imposed upon him by a higher authority, which he accepts by force.[18]ba‘d in kān dīnān ‘āliyyān min salṭa āmana bihā maqhūrān, lit. whereas before it was an exalted religion of authority which he believed after being oppressed.
In the eyes of many, religion is against philosophy, and philosophy is the enemy of religion. But for the man of religion who has studied philosophy, this supposed enmity has become baseless, and he is never troubled by the proofs and evidences deployed by the enemies of religion. He is assured of his religion and the things he teaches have been firmly established in his heart with evidence from both reason and revelation.[19]al-‘aql wa-l-naql, lit. “reason and what-has-been-transmitted.” In Islam, the relation between reason (‘aql) and the revealed text of the Quran (al-naql) is often debated by scholars. See for instance Sabrina al-Faarsiyyah, “Reason and Revelation (‘Aql wa Naql),” The Hadith Disciple, February 16, 2018, https://thehadithdisciple.wordpress.com/2019/02/16/reason-and-revelation-aql-naql/. A Western parallel might be the Christian debate about the relation between faith and reason, or reason and revelation. Either way, Bishop Gregorius’ point here is that a Christian philosopher’s religious beliefs are well-founded both from sources of revealed authority and the exercise of reason. In sum, to the same extent that philosophy seems to be an enemy of religion to the general populace, it becomes a servant of religion for the religious philosopher.
2 – It confirms people in religion:
There are two kinds of people when it comes to philosophy. One group is ignorant of philosophy, but fearfully protects religion from it because they have heard that it is hostile to religion and that the geniuses of philosophy rejected religious principles. However, when religious scholars study the views of philosophers and philosophical trends, the people will come to see that the study of philosophy does not
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shake the faith of the pious, but rather encourages and reassures them in their religion, demonstrating that their religion has nothing to fear from philosophy. On the contrary, it causes their faith to grow more firm and secure.
The second group is comprised of philosophers or students of philosophy who are so fascinated by philosophy and so zealous for it that they believe that it is precisely the religious man’s ignorance of philosophy that makes him so religious, supposing that if a religious man were to begin to philosophise, the foundations of his faith would be shaken. But if a religious man studies philosophy, he will be able to repel the assaults of such arrogant opponents, and demonstrate the soundness of the truths of the faith by means of philosophy, beating them into retreat by turning their own weapons against them; thereafter, they will no longer attack religion or its proponents.
It is true that St Paul the Apostle declined to declare Christ by means of philosophical proofs, lest the religion of Christ be turned into a mere philosophical trend, or the power of the Holy Spirit to persuade hearts and satisfy souls be obscured. Nonetheless, we must not forget that St Paul himself was a student of philosophy and was greatly influenced by the philosophical curriculum. His writings are distinguished for their brilliant philosophical methodology, which is why many historians and scholars of the history of philosophy consider the Apostle Paul a great philosopher, even dubbing him “the philosopher of Christianity.” This fact is beyond dispute, and it is testified to by St Peter, who was St Paul’s colleague and partner in the apostolic ministry, who writes at the end of his second letter:
Trust that the longsuffering of our Lord (is) for your salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you; as also (he has done) in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction (2 Pt 3:15–16)[20]ASV, slightly modified to match the Arabic. Phrases within brackets were added by the author for clarity.For this reason, the Lord God elected him to be a chosen vessel “to bear His name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15). Thus, he became an apostle to the Gentiles, just as St Peter was an apostle to the Circumcision (Gal 2:8, 9). And because he had studied the philosophy of the Gentiles, he was able to understand them, and to understand their thoughts, and to address them using their own approach, methodology and intellectual language. As an example of this, take this episode reported in the Book of Acts:
Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know
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what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” So Paul departed from among them. 34 However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them. (Acts 17:18–34, NKJV).
How could the apostle’s message have been received with such eager acceptance by a crowd so well-versed in philosophy and philosophers if he had not himself been a student of philosophy? And how could they have put any credit in his person or been assured of his views if he had not spoken to them in a purely rational manner, and with a truly philosophical method, which demonstrated his familiarity with their intellectual world and the sayings of their scholars and philosophers?
We certainly believe in the divine inspiration of the apostles and the prophets, but we know too that inspiration allows every prophet and apostle to use his own characteristic methods to express sacred and perfect ideas. This freedom of method is what justifies the study of philosophy for men of religion: it provides them with a sublime method of communicating, writing and speaking.
Therefore, the study of philosophy is good for religion and men of religion, even though men of religion are not men of philosophy alone, but also men of inspiration, who correct the errors of the intellect with inspiration, and complete the human truth with the addition of divine truth. They are believers in reason without fanaticism, and in religion without complacency.[21]mu’minīn bil-‘aql fī ghayr ghurūr, wa bil-dīn fī ghayr kasl. In light of what is said above, the intended meaning is probably that the philosophical man of religion believes in the power of reason to discover the truth while still recognising the limitations of human reason, and likewise believes in the importance of revealed religious truths, without using revelation as a justification for intellectual laziness. If men of religion were philosophers and the philosophers of the world religious, all men would come to know the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Reader Wahib Atalla— 18 —
Notes:
| ↑1 | ārqā al-ma‘ārif al-bashariyya, lit. the highest of the human sciences or knowledges. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | rajul al-dīn, lit. a man of religion. This may denote clergymen specifically, or Christian servants more generally. From what follows, it seems to refer to anyone in the church tasked with teaching and communicating the faith to the congregation. |
| ↑3 | ḥattā lā takūn ā‘jamiyyān liday-him |
| ↑4 | al-ma‘ārif wa-l-‘ulūm al-bashariyya, lit. the human sciences. |
| ↑5 | al-‘ulūm al-rūḥiyya, lit. the spiritual sciences. |
| ↑6 | i.e. Other disciplines do not prepare one to study philosophy in the same way that philosophy prepares one to study other disciplines. |
| ↑7 | Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) was an English moral philosopher and philosopher of science. |
| ↑8 | qā’idān lil-fikr, lit. a leader of thought. |
| ↑9 | al-baḥth fī majālāt al-mudrikāt al-‘aqliyya al-mujarrada ‘an al-‘awāriḍ al-ḥissiya, lit. investigation in the fields of intellectual concepts, denuded of sensory coincidences (or symptoms). Probably referring to the idea, at least as old as Plato, that philosophical thinking requires to think ‘with the mind alone’ and without any interference from the bodily senses. |
| ↑10 | A non-literal translation: ‘adm al-khalṭ bayn al-alfāẓ al-muwāfiqa li-l-ma‘ānī takhayyarān māni‘ān falā yakūn al-lafẓ awsā‘ min al-ma‘nā walā aḍyaq minhu. |
| ↑11 | qabl ān yusallim mā qablihā limā ba‘dahā, lit. before he has surrendered or delivered the previous idea to the subsequent idea. |
| ↑12 | hu wāfiyya, shāfiyya, wa muqni‘a kāfiyya |
| ↑13 | al-naqd al-ṣaḥīḥ, lit. sound criticism, in the sense of critical examination or inquiry. |
| ↑14 | nāqidān lā nāqilān, the rhyme is lost in translation, but the point is that the clergyman ought to be a critic (nāqid) of ideas rather than someone who unthinkingly transfers or conveys them (nāqil) without evaluation. |
| ↑15 | The original 1952 article reads yaṭraḥ thamarahu (reject its fruits), which is corrected in Monier Ateya’s 2004 collection to yaṭraḥ sharrahu (reject its evil). (Bishop Gregorius, Philosophical Studies, Bishop Gregorius Collection Vol. 4. (ed.) Monier Ateya (Cairo: Sharikat al-Ṭaba‘a al-Maṣriyya, 2004)): 18. |
| ↑16 | ‘ilm al-lāhūt al-jadali |
| ↑17 | lā yastaṭā‘ fahmaha wa lā yumkin al-tawaṣṣul ilā fahmaha |
| ↑18 | ba‘d in kān dīnān ‘āliyyān min salṭa āmana bihā maqhūrān, lit. whereas before it was an exalted religion of authority which he believed after being oppressed. |
| ↑19 | al-‘aql wa-l-naql, lit. “reason and what-has-been-transmitted.” In Islam, the relation between reason (‘aql) and the revealed text of the Quran (al-naql) is often debated by scholars. See for instance Sabrina al-Faarsiyyah, “Reason and Revelation (‘Aql wa Naql),” The Hadith Disciple, February 16, 2018, https://thehadithdisciple.wordpress.com/2019/02/16/reason-and-revelation-aql-naql/. A Western parallel might be the Christian debate about the relation between faith and reason, or reason and revelation. Either way, Bishop Gregorius’ point here is that a Christian philosopher’s religious beliefs are well-founded both from sources of revealed authority and the exercise of reason. |
| ↑20 | ASV, slightly modified to match the Arabic. Phrases within brackets were added by the author for clarity. |
| ↑21 | mu’minīn bil-‘aql fī ghayr ghurūr, wa bil-dīn fī ghayr kasl. In light of what is said above, the intended meaning is probably that the philosophical man of religion believes in the power of reason to discover the truth while still recognising the limitations of human reason, and likewise believes in the importance of revealed religious truths, without using revelation as a justification for intellectual laziness. |
How to cite this text (Chicago/Turabian):
Atalla, Wahib (Bishop Gregorius). “Men of Religion Ought to Study Philosophy” [Yajib ‘alā Rajul al-Dīn inn yadris al-falsafa], Sunday School Magazine 6, no. 9/10 (Nov/Dec 1952): 13–18. Translated by Samuel Kaldas and edited by Nader Dreta for Archive of Contemporary Coptic Orthodox Theology. Sydney, NSW: St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College. https://accot.stcyrils.edu.au/gr-philstudy/.
(For more information, see Citation Guidelines)
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