PHILOSOPHY (in the Bible)

Philosophy is mentioned only once in the Bible (Col. 2:8) and then it has a pejorative meaning:
“See that no one deceives you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ.”

The name “philosophers” also appears only once in relation to Paul’s preaching on the Areopagus (Acts 17:18):
«and some philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics disputed with him; and some said: what does this nonsense mean…».

As is clearly seen, when Paul alludes to the wisdom of the Greeks, who did not seek salvation in the scandal of the cross (1 Cor. 1:22-25), he had in mind all those systems coming from the most varied schools of thought. Greek that are known as philosophy.

Paul does not present himself as an obscurantist or as an enemy of a systematic elaboration of the Christian Message, much less as a defender of ignorance. He argued well, and in quite a few places gives evidence that he knew the culture of the time thoroughly and that he was familiar with the various currents of thought. But he alerts his faithful to make them understand that only in the cross of Christ is true knowledge and salvation for the Christian.

There are passages in the Scriptures where the sacred authors have to refute erroneous philosophical doctrines in their time and the rationalism of some of the opponents of Christianity (Lk. 20:27-40), and thus, indirectly, refers to philosophy.

Very soon the nascent Christianity had to face false teachers who wanted to introduce erroneous philosophical concepts into the Christian Message, and it is against such a mentality that the writings of St. John and the apostle Peter confront (1 Jn. 4:2-3 ).

That very long chain of eons that the Gnostics would speak of years later, already had its favorable atmosphere when Paul had to warn the Colossians (Col. 2:8) to pay attention to the history of Christ and not to vain lucubrations without biblical foundation.

Some schools of thought after early Christianity, such as Scholasticism, have contributed considerably to the obscuration of the Christian Message, since for centuries the reading of the Bible was replaced by the preaching of philosophical doctrines, and in certain periods of the Middle Ages it was considered more importantly what Plato or Aristotle said, using Scripture as a mere proof text for the most bizarre and pagan statements. This happened in the Roman Catholic communion.

There are some rabbis and Jewish writers who claim that Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato would have been inspired by the Pentateuch; and even Josephus believes that the Greek philosophers have taken some of their conceptions from Moses in how right they are about God. But it has not been possible to verify whether this influence has really existed and, in this case, to what extent it reached.