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Philosophy And Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

C. W. H. Sutton
Affiliation:
St. Peter's Hall, Oxford.

Extract

I. Since the beginnings of philosophy, in all cultures which have produced any, religion and philosophy have been closely tied up together, and have often been uneasy yoke-fellows, each at times feeling it a duty to combat the other. I think there are two main reasons for this, (a) All higher religions develop a theology, or systematic statement of doctrine; the philosopher tends to regard this as a spurious kind of philosophy or science that deliberately neglects inconvenient facts; while the theologian in his turn suspects the philosopher of ignoring important data which he ought to consider, viz.: the phenomena of concrete religion, (b) Akin to this is the tendency of both parties to use the word “God” in a different sense; Pascal’s objection that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not the God of the philosophers is prima facie justified. Nevertheless both parties might have a claim to use the word.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1951

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References

page 200 note 1 S. Hampshire in Mind, No. 234, p. 247.

page 200 note 2 H. Butterfield: Christianity and History.

page 201 note 1 Vide esp. Klopfer and Kelly: The Rorschach Technique.

page 203 note 1 Cf. A. Guillaume: Prophecy and Divination, passim.

page 204 note 1 Probably it is preferable to say that even our own images are only known to us as described to ourselves; but this is not of importance for our present purpose.

page 205 note 1 Cf. Cromwell: “True knowledge is not outward and literal but inward and spiritual, transforming the mind to it.”