Theology, when done rightly, necessitates philosophy; and philosophy, when done truthfully, requires theology. Theology is, after all, “Queen of the Sciences.”[1] In their broadest senses, theology and philosophy are the same thing.[2] Every level and specific application of theology uses the tools of philosophy. The preeminence of Christ also entails an ultimately theological basis for philosophy. In this article, I hope to show that good philosophy is a necessary and Christ-exalting ally to theology.
1. Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology: From Canon to Concept, Vol. 1 (Brentwood, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), 21–22. Wellum writes, “Systematic theology is the ‘queen of the sciences,’ the capstone and culmination of all the disciplines, especially the theological disciplines. As such, biblical, historical, and philosophical studies contribute to the overall theological task of applying renewed reason to the study of the triune God and all things in relationship to him.”
2. Which is to say that in another sense they are not the same thing.
When I say theology and philosophy are the “same thing,” I refer to their subject matter and much of their methodology. I do not mean that they are impossible to differentiate from one another once one moves beyond their broad definitions or that the two are necessarily or absolutely identical. As one progresses to more fine-grained understandings of each discipline, differences do arise. The relation between theology and philosophy is thus worth exploring further, even if that relation is admittedly difficult to articulate.
Theology and Philosophy are Friends, Not Enemies
Philosophy is technically the love of wisdom, while theology is the study of God. But these definitions are broad and etymological in nature. Philosophy is traditionally divided into metaphysics (What is the nature of reality?), epistemology (How do we know?), and ethics (How ought we live?)—with subdivisions within each. Everything has a philosophy. For example, there is philosophy of language, art, mathematics, history, and science. As Alvin Plantinga once quipped, philosophy is essentially thinking hard about something. Perhaps the harder one thinks about various topics, the better a philosopher that individual is. Philosophy, then, pertains to every topic a human being might possibly think about. If a subject can be thought of, then a philosophy of that subject exists.
Like philosophy, theology can be divided into various branches. Exegetical, systematic, biblical, historical, analytic, contemplative, philosophical, pastoral, and practical are all different types of theology (although not everyone agrees upon each of these). Nevertheless, like philosophy, theology is thinking about something in its relation to God, whether politics, education, marriage, or childrearing. Accordingly, there does not appear to be anything that cannot be thought of in relation to God. Philosophy and theology are thus, at the very least, alike in many ways. Not only do they both pertain to anything that may be thought about, but they address much the same subject matter.
In this way, then, we might even say that there is no ultimate difference between philosophy and theology. Why? Because God is the truly wise one. And any philosopher who truly seeks wisdom will arrive at God.[3] Equally, any faithful theologian will think his thoughts after God. Indeed, one might think hard about any topic in its relation to God such that philosophy and theology are virtually indistinguishable from one another. As mentioned above, it would nevertheless be a mistake to think of the two disciplines as identical. Upon closer examination, the terms “philosophy” and “theology” are used as descriptors of particular activities in virtue of degree of their relations to either thought itself or to God. A Socratic dialogue might, for example, take into account the question and nature of life after death but be considered “philosophy” rather than “theology.” Yet when the Apostle Paul writes about life after death, it is generally understood to be theology rather than philosophy. The strength of “rather than” is not absolute, but admits of degrees. In truth Socrates is doing both philosophy and theology, even if his theology does lead us to the one, true and living God. Equally, Paul is doing both theology and philosophy, as his cogitation about God leads him to a true philosophy of life.
3. This is not an endorsement of pre-dogmatic natural theological proofs discussed below, but in God “we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17.28)
In this way, we can see how philosophy and theology—or is it theology and philosophy? —are friends, not enemies. That being the case, their emphases as well as their contexts differ significantly. For this reason, room exists for differentiating philosophy and theology, but not at the expense of their shared properties or, when related rightly, their symbiotic relationship. Indeed, the best theologians and the best theology regularly rely on doing philosophy, and that is what I will now consider.
Theology Requires Philosophy at Every Level
Obviously, if theology and philosophy are friends and not enemies, then theology will be found partnering with and depending upon philosophy at every level. Again, this is true in general, but it is also true when theology is much more narrowly defined. Indeed, every specific application of theology will rely in some sense upon the use of philosophy. Let’s consider a few examples.
For starters, exegetical theology requires a philosophy of language, biblical theology requires a philosophy of history, and systematic theology requires the philosophical discipline of logic. At the same time, a proper understanding of language, history, and logic are only possible given what theology says about them by way of its explication of divine revelation.[4] Theology, then, rather than philosophy, is always closer to the principium in play (that is, the most basic principles).[5] Even if theology and philosophy overlap as described above, it does not follow that the content or conclusions of all theology and philosophy are good or true, nor does it follow that all uses of philosophy in a methodological sense are consistent with the first principles of Christian theology.[6]
4. I do not have the space to provide a philosophical demonstration of this claim here, but see, for example Antifragile Apologetics: the Physical Resurrection of Jesus Christ in Biblical Worldview. The following section of this essay nevertheless makes a brief Scriptural case for the futility of philosophy outside of Christ.
5. Wellum puts this well when he writes, “The Bible’s framework is not the technical vocabulary of philosophers; nonetheless, Scripture has its own philosophical view, including metaphysics.” See Wellum, Systematic Theology, 142. I do not intend to conflate divine revelation and theology here, but to emphasize the explicitly theological character of that form of reasoning which is most closely based in revelation and serves as a basis for the philosophy it uses.
6. Obviously, some particular contents of philosophy will not be consistent with theology either, but here I focus on the discipline or method of philosophy itself.
This means that theology requires philosophy at every level without depending upon philosophical argument in any pre-dogmatic sense. In other words, theology that coheres with biblical revelation must never submit to philosophies sourced from ideologies developed independent of God’s Word. Instead, true theology and true philosophy must always treat Scripture as first order.[7] While philosophy (thinking hard about something) will be present in every theological inquiry, it is important to distinguish philosophy as servant from philosophy as master.
Rightly Relating Philosophy and Theology
If we accept the claim that philosophy is a servant and not a master (with sources unto itself), then this will have sweeping implications for personal faith and apologetics, especially as it relates to natural theology. For consider the implications set forth by philosopher Michael Sudduth: “The pre-dogmatic function of natural theology . . . entails a more positive use of theistic arguments to establish the faith. Here reason has become a principium of the dogmatic system. Consequently, reason plays a substantive and formative role in the dogmatic system, including the subtle implication that faith, or at least the reasonableness of faith, rests on the prior establishment by reason of Christian doctrine.”[8] Natural theology as inferential argumentation is integral to the theological endeavor, but never its basis as in the function Sudduth focuses on above. Nor does philosophy serve properly as ‘handmaiden’ to theology without explicitly or implicitly resting upon revelation or its derivatives. The philosophy Sudduth describes here is inconsistent with Christian theology.
7. This is not to deny the place of general revelation; the ‘Book of Nature.’
8. Michael Sudduth, The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology (England: Ashgate, 2009), 53.
Equally inconsistent is Hans Boersma, who argues, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, “No Plato, No Scripture,” which is the title of the chapter in his book wherein he argues it.[9] Three observations are in order. First, because general revelation is always involved in the interpretation of special revelation and because it is possible for people to read Scripture through metaphysical assumptions they hold apart from Scripture, something like an incipient form of a specifically Platonic metaphysic may thus inform one’s reading of the Bible even on a subconscious level.[10] But second, the important point to note in comparing and contrasting various metaphysics with the Bible is that the particular tenets of a biblically consistent metaphysic never take logical priority over special revelation. Finally, if Scripture does not explicitly or implicitly endorse a holistic metaphysic, then all metaphysics brought to the Bible merely beg the question in favor of themselves being the proper biblical metaphysic to the exclusion of others. In that case, the theologian will not be able to say whether any metaphysic is biblical or not, but only that some metaphysic may be inconsistent with itself, which one would expect of every metaphysic that is also inconsistent with Scripture.
9. Hans Boersma, Five Things Theologians Wish Biblical Scholars Knew (Westmont, Illinois: Intervarsity, 2021).
10. For example, one might argue that modern readers of Scripture import a type of dualism into the text of Scripture upon the basis of unexamined assumptions imbibed from a Platonic view.
The solution to this problem is to recognize that while Scripture is hardly a metaphysics textbook, it has metaphysical assumptions and assertions. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” is loaded with metaphysical implications. And thus, the Bible is not silent on the matter of metaphysics, nor should theologians be. Whatever truths pagan philosophers happen upon are already contained in general or special revelation. The approach described here for metaphysics applies equally as well to epistemology and ethics.[11]
11. See for example James N. Anderson, “A Biblical Epistemology,” Analogical Thoughts.
To engage one more philosopher-theologian, James Dolezal claims that “biblical theology, with its unique focus on historical development and progress, is not best suited for the study of theology proper [i.e., the being, nature, and attributes of God]. The reason for this is because God is not a historical individual, and neither does His intrinsic activity undergo development or change. This places God beyond the proper focus of biblical theology.”[12] But surely this comment left to itself is an overstatement. God has, after all, revealed himself through the narrative of Scripture, which is far superior to human reasoning about God. Thankfully, Dolezal clarifies, writing, “The contemplative approach to theology proper treats God as an ahistorical being and seeks to discover the timeless truths about Him by thinking through the implications and entailments of those things He has revealed to us in creation and Scripture (and this certainly includes those things revealed about God in the unfolding course of redemptive history).”[13] Here again, philosophy is needful for theology proper, but not when it is divorced from revelation or theology.
12. James E. Dolezal, All that is in God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), xv.
13. Dolezal, All that is in God, xv.
To this end, the metaphysical approach of Steve Wellum is far better. Speaking of the relationship between philosophy and theology in the formation of classical theism, he writes,
In fact, heresy arose when people reflected on the nature of God apart from the theology, concepts, and categories of Scripture. It was Greek philosophical categories that were unable to make the “person-nature” distinction or speak of shared relations within God, let alone account for the incarnation of the divine Son. Although the Nicene (and later Chalcedonian) Creed employed extrabiblical language, it correctly identified the God of the Bible from the Bible’s storyline and framework, not an alien one. For this reason, the Nicene Creed accurately gives us the triune God in continuity with Scripture, not in continuity with Greek philosophy.[14]
14. Wellum, Systematic Theology, 687. See also 688-694 in the same work.
Critically, there are many points of philosophy, especially as it relates to the nature of God as one, undivided being in three persons, that could never be known fully from philosophy apart from divine revelation.[15] Nevertheless, philosophy does provide us with a fuller understanding of God in a well-developed systematic theology grounded in the underpinnings of divine revelation. Once again, philosophy and theology are friends when both are constrained by God’s Word.
15. Chris Bolt, “One Witness to the Word: The Self-Attestation of Scripture,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 26.3 (2023): 10–29. So also with other doctrines; for example, “Since Scripture is special revelation, not general or natural, it follows that the doctrine of Scripture ultimately comes from the explicit testimony of Scripture or inference from it. Thus, all other aspects of the doctrine of Scripture such as canon, authority, truth, infallibility, inerrancy, perspicuity, sufficiency, and the like depend upon the self-attestation of Scripture. Appealing to Scripture to establish Scripture as the word of God is not any more problematic than appealing to Scripture to establish other attributes of the word of God (or even other doctrines like the Trinity). What we know of Scripture comes from Scripture itself.” Ibid., 12–13.
Theology Entails Philosophy By Christ’s Preeminence
Returning to Paul, the philosopher-theologian, we find the apostle engaging philosophy directly in Colossians 2:8, where he says,
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit,
according to human tradition,
according to the elemental spirits of the world,
and not according to Christ.” (Colossians 2:8)
Today, many Christian theologians see themselves as principally opposed to philosophy so that they can build a theology largely devoid of any extrabiblical influence. Whether they embrace the label or not, this is a kind of “biblicism” that fails to appreciate or employ the right use of reason and the tools of philosophy. The major problem with such an approach—and there are many—is that it fails to account for the nature of Scripture’s own testimony to the philosophy according to Christ within the context of a Christian view.
As we have seen, one cannot escape philosophy. The question becomes whether one must always, in the nature of the case, carry out philosophy ‘outside’ of Christ, or if one can do philosophy under the Lordship of Christ and his Word. Theologian Lane Tipton (following Herman Ridderbos) rightly believes that in Colossians 2:8 the apostle Paul actually speaks of a deep, presuppositional conflict of entire worldviews, rather than an outright rejection of all philosophy as such.[16]
16. Lane Tipton, “Paul’s Christological Interpretation of Creation and Presuppositional Apologetics,” in Revelation and Reason: New Essays in Reformed Apologetics, ed. K. Scott Oliphint and Lane G. Tipton (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2007), 107–108.
Understood rightly, Paul is issuing a general warning against all false philosophies, as well as warning against a very specific problem at Colossae. Tipton comments on the “according to” (kata) clauses in Colossians 2:8 to argue,
If [quoting Ridderbos] ‘it is preferable . . . to take the first kata as denoting the origin or source of the ‘philosophy’ (‘human tradition,’ as opposed to divine revelation), the second kata as describing its content or substance,’ then it is best to take ‘the third kata as introducing the negation of the two preceding clauses.’ This would mean that the ‘essential weakness of this ‘philosophy’ was that Christ was neither its source nor substance.’ As a result, Paul’s theology of creation and redemption, as well as Christ’s preeminence in both (1:17 and 18), makes the particular problem at Colossae the occasion for an ad hoc application of comprehensive ‘philosophy according to Christ.’[17]
17. Tipton, Paul’s Christological Interpretation, 107–108.
If Tipton is correct, then somewhat ironically, far from leading us to reject philosophy in part or in whole, this passage promotes a philosophy according to Christ. Of course, language itself only makes sense upon the basis of the pre-existent, personal, powerful Word (John 1:1); history only makes sense if nature exhibits regularities in accord with God’s providence (Col. 1:17); and logic only makes sense if grounded in something outside of an ever-changing, contingent realm (Exod. 3:14; John 8:58), and so we can also begin to see the futility of philosophy outside of Christ.
Conclusion
In the end, we need to see that the Bible makes it plain that reasoning and argumentation are a Christian duty, so long as they are controlled by the revelation of God. As Proverbs 1:7 puts it, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Far from having nothing to do with knowledge, wisdom, and instruction, the LORD has everything to do with them. The apostle Paul can similarly say, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom. 12:2) So the mind is not the enemy of Christian discourse, but the very means by which we may know and make known the will of God.
In fact, we are in sin and open to falsehood if we do not reason according to Christ. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” God does not condemn the use of the intellect he has granted us, but controls and commands us how to use it in submission to him. One may object that these verses refer only to the ethical aspect of our minds’ contributions, or that nothing is demonstrated with regard to extrabiblical philosophical exercises as pertains to theology, but both the preeminence of Christ as well as the impossibility of philosophy done outside of Christ have it that such passages do not preclude philosophy, but rather promote it when carried out “to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
In the end, therefore, philosophy and theology are not enemies, but friends, so long as they are reconciled to one another in Christ.
