LoverOfWisdom: Isn't Philosophy Just Thinking Correctly?

LoverOfWisdom wrote [July 26, 2016 at 11:37 am]:

My question has to do with philosophy, I'm finishing a book that gave me the impression that we use it on a daily basis. It has a quote by C.S. Lewis, basically saying that '' if there is bad philosophy, then there is good philosophy."

Also, isn't philosophy just thinking correctly? It does mean lover of wisdom. This also being a quality of Jehovah the most high God.

JW Advisor: It has to do with what philosophy is. It is a guessing game that depends upon a premise being true, relying upon ourselves and our own knowledge and wisdom, and not upon God. Adam and Eve chose to go their own way, deciding for themselves what is right and what is wrong and thus became alienated from God. (Genesis 3:1-7) Philosophy is meant to allow people to go their own way.

The reason we do not resort to philosophy is because we already have a premise and a source of correct thinking, which is the Christ and God's written word in the Scriptures. We do not need to play a guessing game. We need only to stick ever more closely to the Scriptures. As we do so, our understanding becomes clearer. We do not need to wander about in the philosophies and empty deceptions of men.

Notice what Paul said: "Look out that no one takes you captive by means of the philosophy and empty deception according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ." (Colossians 2:8) Paul nailed it. Philosophy is an empty deception according to human tradition and the elementary things of the world, not according to Christ. Paul instructed Timothy to "guard what has been entrusted to you, turning away from the empty speeches that violate what is holy and from the contradictions of the falsely called 'knowledge.' By making a show of such knowledge, some have deviated from the faith." (1 Timothy 6:20-21)

What Paul is saying in these things is that philosophy is a source of apostate thinking, not relying upon "the mind of Christ". (1 Corinthians 2:11-16) Philosophies produce doubts and doubts cause ones to be "blown about by every wind of teaching". James said, "So if any one of you is lacking in wisdom, let him keep asking God, for he gives generously to all and without reproaching, and it will be given him. But let him keep asking in faith, not doubting at all." That is how we acquire wisdom, but regarding the use of philosophy, which relies upon skepticism and doubt, James says, "for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and blown about. In fact, that man should not expect to receive anything from Jehovah; he is an indecisive man, unsteady in all his ways." (James 1:5-8)

Now, what we can do to help our thinking is to study logic and reasoning in order to learn how to identify false reasoning. But we should not "make a show" of it. We should use our thinking ability carefully, using God's word to give us the rock foundation upon which to stand, which is Jehovah God through his Son, Jesus Christ. (Deuteronomy 32:4; Luke 6:47-49) We do not need to play a guessing game. Jehovah is our rock. Indeed, who has more wisdom than God?

To the Corinthians, who were in a place inundated by philosophers and human philosophy, Paul wrote, "For the speech about the torture stake is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is God’s power. For it is written: 'I will make the wisdom of the wise men perish, and the intelligence of the intellectuals I will reject.' Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this system of things? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not get to know God through its wisdom, God was pleased through the foolishness of what is preached to save those believing.

"For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks look for wisdom; but we preach Christ executed on the stake, to the Jews a cause for stumbling but to the nations foolishness. However, to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because a foolish thing of God is wiser than men, and a weak thing of God is stronger than men.

"For you see his calling of you, brothers, that there are not many wise in a fleshly way, not many powerful, not many of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to put the wise men to shame; and God chose the weak things of the world to put the strong things to shame; and God chose the insignificant things of the world and the things looked down on, the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no one might boast in the sight of God. But it is due to him that you are in union with Christ Jesus, who has become to us wisdom from God, also righteousness and sanctification and release by ransom, so that it may be just as it is written: 'The one who boasts, let him boast in Jehovah.'" (1 Corinthians 1:18-31)

In fact, it could not be said better than the way Solomon put it, "Trust in Jehovah with all your heart and do not lean upon your own understanding. In all your ways take notice of him, and he himself will make your paths straight. Do not become wise in your own eyes." (Proverbs 3:5-8 1984 NWT Reference Bible) Jeremiah wrote, "man’s way does not belong to him. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step." Thus, to be a follower of Christ, a worshipper of Jehovah, we must reject philosophy and adopt the loving and obedient mind of Christ in loyalty to Jehovah God.

I'm not sure I could make it any clearer than that. Jehovah is our source of wisdom through Jesus Christ. So I recommend to put down the philosophy books and pick up the torture stake and follow Christ continually. (Matthew 10:38; Mark 8:34 1984 NWT Reference Bible) [July 27, 2016 at 12:58 pm]

Guest Advisor: LoverOfWisdom, that JW Advisor has pretty much covered everything with excellent scripture references. I just thought, though, maybe you are confusing philosophy with critical thinking. As the JW Advisor mentions, philosophy is a kind of guess work, whereas critical thinking is using ones ability to think and analyze information in order to reach the correct conclusion. As the Bible says, philosophy is useless, whereas critical thinking is actually useful. Think Beroeans. [July 28, 2016 at 11:24 pm]

LoverOfWisdom wrote [July 29, 2016 at 6:57 pm]:

Hmmm, I think I might be confusing philosophy with critical thinking. Good point, Guest Advisor!

So what would we call the kalam cosmological argument? It's called a philosophical argument for God's existence. Or the moral argument, that is also a philosophical argument for objective morals, which refutes relativism, which is the very thing Adam and Eve did, as the JW Advisor mentioned.

JW Advisor: KCA and CA are arguments clearly stated in the Bible for the most part, but, as I will show below, the execution of KCA by William Lane Craig is flawed, or rather, incomplete. Also, moral relativism is a rather disgusting philosophy established by Satan himself.

Kalam Cosmological Argument
Simply naming the first argument as the "Kalam Cosmological Argument" does not make it an invention of Islam or of William Lane Craig except in its signature flawed conclusion which is uniquely his, and is the part based upon Islamic philosophy. The original Cosmological Argument is not even an invention of Plato. As Dr. Craig brings out himself, the Bible very clearly states the argument in the most perfect statement ever made:

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

In fact, those words go beyond both CA and KCA. All that happened with those men mentioned above is that they put it into syllogistic form, which is an attempt at critical thinking because it allows you to analyze the validity (valid or invalid) and factualness (true or false) of the statements. But the CA syllogism and the KCA's attempt at a complex sylligism is already present in the above Bible text, which implies the whole of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, saying:

Cosmological Argument
Tertiary Premise
1. True Premise: It is true that the universe has a beginning. ("In the beginning")
    Unspoken Premise: Things that have a beginning have a cause.
2. If/then Proposition: If the universe has a beginning, then
3. Conclusion: The universe has a cause. ("created")

The Kalam Cosmoloigical Argument
Secondary Premise
1. True Premise: The Cosmological Argument (above): It is true that "the universe has a cause".
    Unspoken Premise: Things that have a cause have a catalyst.
2. If/then Proposition: If the universe has a cause ("created"), then
    Unspoken  (Ignored) Conclusion: The universe has a catalyst (Creator).
3. Primary Conclusion (Asserted): "an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful"

However, William Lane Craig's conclusion is imperfect (invalid) because it is an assertion without supporting evidence that introduces factors not covered by the syllogism, namely that the first cause (catalyst) is 1) a living being, 2) uncreated, 3) changeless, 4) immaterial, 5) timeless, 6) spaceless and 7) enormously powerful. That is not to say that his conclusion is incorrect, but that it is missing everything in between. This is lazy. While poetic, it is merely guess work if it has no syllogisms or proof. (That is why it is not actual logic, and demonstrates the flaws of philosophy.)

Thus the Bible's conclusion is superior when Paul said, "Of course, every house is constructed by someone, but he that constructed all things is God." (Hebrews 3:4) Why is it superior? Because he likened the universe to a house, which has many comparisons just in its mention, including its need for careful planning and execution. That illustration could be expanded in a number of ways to produce many syllogisms that can be tested and shown to be true.

Conclusion: The Kalam Cosmological argument is flawed logic because its conclusion does not proceed from the sum of its premises. Thus, it falls under the scope of guesswork, therefore philosophy.

Moral Relativism
Yes, Eve, in effect, embraced moral relativism, which proceeds from the false logic espoused by Satan that anyone can be moral, deciding for themselves what is right and what is wrong. Satan hid the true premise from Eve and instead used personal attacks against God to undermine her trust in the system of morals espoused by God. Untrained in the ways of logic, Eve did not seek to pursue Satan's underlying premise. The premise he espoused was "For God knows that in the day of your eating from it, you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad." (Genesis 1:5) In other words, God is a moral being who is trying to force his own system of morals upon Eve to get her to not be a moral being with self-determination, but to be a puppet of God.

Satan's real premise was: "I don't want to be ruled by God and I want to have others follow after me and the way to do that is to get people to become dissatisfied with God's rule over them just as I have. I felt restricted, therefore I will make them feel restricted by helping them to crave freedom apart from God." (Jude 16)

Thus, moral relativism is most definitely satanic philosophy. It is also a rejection of God's right to rule us. The correct thinking is that God created us, therefore he knows more about our needs than we do and we should trust him to set out guidelines for our benefit.

However, inversely, William Lane Craig's moral justification route is also a flawed philosophy. The claim to God-given moral superiority, as Craig espouses, is a crime of modern religious thought that allowed Catholics to persecute and kill anyone that did not belong to Abrahamic religion and even other Abrahamic faiths and Christian sects. It is the excuse behind the persecution and murder of many people, including atheists and pagans.

It is the age-old premise that we know morals because God first presented morals to us. An atheist or anti-theist purist who rejects all things based upon theocentric (deist) religion can therefore not be moral. This ignores the fact that we are provided with consciences that develop a system of morals throughout our life, apart from God. (Romans 2:14) That does not mean those morals will be correct in comparison to God's morals, but they create a system all the same. Even sociopaths and psychotics have their own system of morals, though often those morals are askew and do not include a concern for human life.

Mankind is moral because we are thinking beings. God is moral because he is a thinking being. If religionists were taught to be moral by God's law, then who taught God? Do you see the flaw? Morality is a natural outflow of intelligence and self-awareness. That is exactly why Adam and Eve could determine right and wrong for themselves. That part is not a lie. Even God said, "Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad." (Genesis 3:22)

The lie is in suggesting that they could do so flawlessly on their own. It does not take God's law to tell us that murder is wrong. Pure logic could bring us to that conclusion. For example, we do not want to be killed because we fear ceasing to exist, and we do not want someone we care about to cease to exist, therefore it is wrong for they or us to be killed by our estimation, and if it affects me that way, it no doubt affects others that way, thus purposefully killing someone is wrong. God is not required to bring one to that conclusion. God certainly gave us a conscience when he created us. But it is a part of our free will to pay attention to that conscience or not and to form our own opinions about things, but it was Satan who merged opinion with morality, saying that we could form our own opinions about what is right and wrong without reliance upon God. Who, by the way, is the most intelligent being in existence and knows more about morality than anyone else in the universe he created ever could. Thus, we are under obligation to trust God's system of morals more than anyone else's in more ways than one.

So yes, moral relativism, along with moral justification, are flawed philosophies and their very nature is dependent upon guesswork. Atheists are not wicked by virtue of their not adhering to God's laws. (Romans 2:12) God does not need to guess, and he does not want us to have to guess either. Thus, trust in God's word, not in philosophy, just as God's word says:

"Trust in Jehovah with all your heart
And do not lean upon your own understanding.
In all your ways take notice of him,
And he himself will make your paths straight."

 —Proverbs 3:5-6 (1984 NWT Reference Bible)

[July 28, 2016 at 11:07pm]

Paul showed that we are not under Law. (Romans 6:14) If we are not under law, then by Dr. Craig's line of reasoning, we are "lawless". However, it is by Jehovah's undeserved kindness (Grace) that we get a reprieve from law while doing our utmost to act righteously. Atheists, too, can act righteously of their own accord by their own nature. (Romans 2:14) Thus morality is not an invention of God, but a system of moral standards has been clearly defined in God's word for our benefit.

I respect Dr. Craig, but he is a theologian (God philosopher) and his dependence upon these two philosophies (KCA and Moral Justification), which pop up in nearly every debate he is in, are corrupt ideas with no correct basis in Scripture. The Trinity is also a philosophy he subscribes to, so we can see that just being good at debate is not enough to be wise. The Scriptures alone should be the source of all teaching. (2 Timothy 3:16, 17) [July 30, 2016 at 4:54 pm]

Guest Advisor: Insight On the Scriptures, Vol. 2: Philosophy

Men's empty reasonings, [which] confuse, befuddle, and muddy the clear waters of truth are typically the way I describe the babblings of the "world's" so-called wisdom. Even as scripture highlights, God's word is "foolishness" to unbelievers. In contrast, we as Jehovah's Witnesses, have come to accept that God's word can indeed make us well-rounded as a person, qualified to teach "the Word." 2 Timothy 3:16, 17 [July 31, 2016 at 12:26 pm]

Anything that devalues God and his wisdom, whether that thinking try to upstage God's wisdom by claiming it is better, or outrightly discrediting God's wisdom by some contradictory teaching, that seems to be the contrast scripture draws between God's wisdom and the philosophy of men (alienated from God's thinking). [July 31, 2016 at 12:35 pm]

JW Advisor: It is "guesswork" in exactly the sense that the article you linked to highlighted. (Thank you for the link, by the way.) The article said that it was a "human endeavor", that it lacks in God's thoughts. It also says that it seeks to "interpret" through "speculation" based upon "the whole of human experience."

Since we're covering definitions, some may be confused about the difference between philosophy and the scholastic discipline known as "critical thinking" (Logic and reasoning), which is not actually the discipline of being "critical", (a misnomer) but of being careful to analyze. The probably reason LoverOfWisdom's confusion may be because critical thinking was actually discovered, expounded and refined by philosophers over many centuries.

The difference between the two is that each and every philosophy is disputed and has counter-philosophies and refutations, but while there are many systems of critical thinking, they all share the basic belief that critical thinking is a correct and valuable practice, meaning that everyone gets benefit from it and therefore it is universally agreed that it is an actual thing and not simply guesswork, though much guesswork has taken place to get us to the point of understanding it.

These things are all universally agreed aspects of logic and reasoning:

Syllogisms produce accurate and verifiable results. In fact, we have whole disciplines of theoretical science based upon it. So it has solid footing.

Along with it are the understandings of premises, if/then propositions, and grounds/claims/conclusions. (Nomenclature depending on how it is used and who you ask.) Indeed, it is so reliable that computer programming language itself is based upon it and is the perfect expression of logic in a mechanical form. Thus, it is all a proven fact.

Of great benefit, also, is identifying the common formal and informal fallacies. Regardless of the list of fallacies you use, they are all technically correct, but simply with different means of defining the differences between different types of fallacies. The fallacies are real, but the definitions of those fallacies differs according to preference.

The word "argument" has become a misnomer in modern language, as it has come to be associated with debate, even violent disputes, so a better term is simply "line of reasoning". Thinking about it in those terms can help us to maintain a peaceful attitude when trying to persuade ones. Also, debate is two-sided. As long as we make it clear that we are there to teach and not debate, we can avoid debate. Thus, the ones listening can either accept our statements and ask us questions, or not. We want to avoid any discussion with non-believer who is trying to instruct us.

However, there is one drawback in all of this, and that is becoming "puffed up" on account of knowledge, as Paul warned us about. (1 Corinthians 8:1-3) Someone who is puffed up over their knowledge about logic and reasoning and the many fallacies is lacking in love. Thus, it is one thing to be very well versed in critical thinking, but another to let it cause you to become a debater wanting only to show off his skill as it once did me. I eventually learned that it was not loving to debate and that the Scriptures teach us that God despises debates. (Proverbs 3:7; Ecclesiastes 7:8; Romans 12:16-18; 1 Timothy 2:8, 6:3-5; 2 Timothy 2:23-26)

So instead of just making accusations and spouting off names of fallacies, we need to exercise love and patience and carefully show ones where their thinking is deviating, not with logic terms, but with explaining by analogous examples, like Jesus and Paul. (Paul's house analogy is a supreme example of this.) Also, instead of trying to formulate and analyze syllogisms, we should reform syllogisms into coherent statements such as the perfect statement at Genesis 1:1.

It is by these means that we can persuade ones by use of the Scriptures and our faith in Jesus Christ. (Acts 9:22; 17:11; 19:8; 2 Timothy 3:14-17) In fact, without basing our lines of reasoning upon Jesus Christ, we will only be misled. (1 John 4:1-3) [July 31, 2016 at 4:23 pm]

LoverOfWisdom wrote [August 2, 2016 at 7:57 pm]:

Agreed. Thanx for explaining the difference for me, I now can see the difference between the two. Much appreciated!

JW Advisor: You are very welcome. That is the wonderful thing about belonging to Jehovah's organization, we can speak in agreement and draw ever closer because of it, and as a result draw ever closer to our God. Thank you for bringing your question to us. May the peace of our God Jehovah guide you. [July 2, 2016 at 10:40pm]