The Bible and Philosophy

 

    Although the Old and New Testaments imply many philosophical convictions about reality, knowledge, and values, the Bible is primarily concerned with God's creative, saving, and empowering acts in history. However, many perennial expressions referring to God are not found in the Bible (or in The Book of Common Prayer), e.g., immanent, ineffable, mystical, numinous, Oneness, transcendent, and Wholly Other. Frequently these terms have entered the Christian tradition by using reason that employed categories of ancient Greek philosophy. The editor proposes that these terms are among those that distort the fundamental convictions embedded in the Bible. (See the writings of E. La B. Cherbonnier and Frank G. Kirkpatrick within subsites of this website.)