kelly jolley

Read *CUP* Part 2 Section 2, 5.

What is it to be an objective Christian?  What does it look like played out? Christianity as an objective truth will manifest, says Kierkegaard, in an outward, defensive stance.  He says “The task is to become a Christian and to continue being one… [one is not to] defend the whole of Christendom against the Turk— instead [the Christian is to be] protecting one’s own faith against the illusion of the Turk”=Perhaps I have the wrong read on this, but it seems in this case that the message of Christianity for the individual thus must be translated into a polemic instead of an evangelistic message.  If so, this stands quite contrary to the last command of Christ to “make disciples of all nations” If this be the case, Christianity has some major problems within it’s sectarian nature. At what point in this schema do denominational differences become not simply preferential, but rather excommunicable? It's a hard question to answer.  Certainly when there's a difference in passion or subjectivity in relation to God. This doesn't seem to be the whole story though.The problem with a cookie cutter religion is that 1) the goal of the religion is no longer to be changed but to change yourself to fit the mold of it's morality and standards and 2) if you somehow manage to meet the requirements of all that is Christianity, anyone who falls short is a total failure in the whole faith. It looks pretty difficult to build a church, since everyone has to be orthodoxically and orthopraxically perfect (or near there).

            What objectivity does to doctrine is makes it not a set of principles whereby faith is strengthened or explained in part,  but, as Kierkegaard states, “it will be the ‘what’ of faith that decides whether or not one is a Christian”.  In this stream, the Christian must work to bring himself out of error, whereby he sees his fault in doctrine and seeks to conform himself in order to be a Christian.  Nay, he does not conform his doctrine because he is a Christian.  He is corrected in doctrine so that he may maintain his Christianity. It is then, not so important what has gone on in the individual, but rather with the individual (if baptism, doctrine, or another objective truth, act) is that which Christianizes you. Christianity, under this system, is impossible. At any given moment you may flow in and out of Christendom, simply based on if you have purposely or accidentally believed, thought, or acted wrongly. Much can be be said of Kierkegaard's formulation for the subjective faith's rightness or wrongness in formulation; however, Kierkegaard seems to have nailed it on this, in that there is no true possibility of objective Christianity.

Tertullian's Paradox

Reading Tertullian's Paradox, I stumbled upon a quote that I found incredibly intriguing in light of the entire semester in Philosophy of Religion.  Williams says, 

"For here again the initial faith is in a belief that is itself comprehensible: the belief that the poem has a meaning, if one can only find it. But in the case of religious belief it is just the belief itself, and not a prior belief about its comprehensibility, that one has, on the position being discussed, to take on faith, in the hope that afterwards it will become clear what it means. Here again I encounter the same difficulty: for if you do not know what it is you are believing on faith, how can you be sure that you are believing anything? And a fortiori how can such belief be the means to something else, viz. coming to understand?"

What Tertullian proposes is that we must engage a paradox. Tertullian's Paradox has a lot to do with the idea that we are to be like Christ by not being like him. He was put to shame, we are no longer shameful and examples of the like.  It is that to be as Christ wants us to be, we need not be like Christ necessarily. The paradox extends into knowledge. Simply because the resurrection is impossible to believe by any type of evidentiary proof we must believe it! He says of the resurrection, "It is certain because it is impossible!"

Now what I find here is that Williams takes this claim, that on faith one must accept the tenets of Christianity to understand Christianity at all, and 'pulls an Anselm', so to speak.  I have found myself incredibly frustrated in the mire of Anselm's writings.  In my estimation, Anselm sees faith as a starting point to a greater understanding and knowledge whereby faith is no longer needed, but simply was a prerequisite to something much greater.

I see much of that thought in Williams' interpretation of Christianity and the paradox here. What Williams'
want is a prerequisite of believability or credence before he would accept anything like a resurrection.  As we have seen with Kierkegaard, his willingness to believe based on scholarly deliberation is useless.  However, if he is right that Tertullian is Anslem-like in his paradox, I am again perplexed. Williams does say in the aforementioned quote that faith is to believe in the incomprehensible.  How he manages to move from that to "if you do not know what it is you are believing on faith, how can you be sure you are believing anything?" in two sentences is beyond me.  To answer his question, it's not a matter of believing that, rather a believing in (excuse my ending in a preposition). Williams disregards that to believe, for the Christian, is to trust there is a God who saves. Williams clearly wants a Christianity who believes there is a God, empirically proven.  I find it truly frustrating that he can not comprehend that faith is not an empirical proof and we do not move from faith to knowledge, casting faith aside.

At a loss for a better conclusion, I will leave these as the Barthian in A.N. Pryor's dialogue, with a Scripture:

...They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
(Romans 9:32-33 ESV)

A.N. Pryor's Dialogue

In A.N. Pryor's dialogue on religion, Psychoanalyst says something very interesting, something I think is worthy of a bit more inspection.  He says:

Only in this way are genuine atheists made. Atheists by pure persuasion are usually, perhaps always, afflicted with a guilty conscience; the urge to believe is still in them, and they either try to quench it by becoming violent or unfair in their attacks on religion, or try to satisfy it by inventing milk-and-water religions like that of Modernist here, using religious language to describe anything they find impressive or moving or mysterious. Barthian and Catholic may be mad, if you choose to use the word that way; but there are many worse forms of insanity, even among atheists.

Psychoanalyst thinks that everyone has an insatiable urge in them to believe; whether it be to believe in God, or the supernatural, or that which can not be seen is hard to say. Generally, he thinks this feeling results in belief in God. You can not escape the feeling, it seems.  The atheist by pure persuasion is the one that when driven to crisis is forced to see the roots of his beliefs; he sees that his beliefs simply come from this inner urge to be religious not from any true God or created desire from God.

What I find most interesting is the result of the urge to believe.  It can result in belief, clearly. It can also result in non-belief, such as the purely persuaded atheist cited from Psychoanalyst above. The result of the purely persuaded atheist can result in unfair attacks on religion.  This is not so hard to believe when you consider the works of men like Richard Dawkins, who have moved away from the polite discourse of Bertrand Russell and into an über-Nietzsche like snarkiness that discards all religious feeling or sentiment and declares the religious person insane or stupid.

With that said, none of these are nearly as interesting or though provoking as what Psychoanalyst says of Modernist. He says he is one who uses "religious language to describe anything they find impressive or moving or mysterious" and calls his religion essentially watered down. Ouch. What is most compelling is that he does not lump the Modernist in with the religious.  Instead, if you look at the syntactical form, you see instead that Modernist has been labeled an Atheist by Psychoanalyst himself (also an atheist). It takes one to know one, right? It is reminiscent of Donagan, way back when in the semester, speaking of the demythologizing of religion. There's a point at which Scripture loses it's authority to a group of people and they then demythologize religion so much so that it ceases to be religious at all and instead becomes more of a social organization united in faithless social justice or 'religious talk'. Psychoanalyst says they call anything they find especially moving or mysterious religious, which doesn't seem far off from the truth.  I wonder if Psychoanalyst would not accuse the Modernist of a functional pantheism. Again, not unlike Donagan, I find Pryor's describe here (via Psychoanalyst) of Modernist to be especially damning to the point of saying you would be better off abandoning religion altogether and being a purely persuaded atheist, than to be a Modernist (aka Mainline Protestant, Liberal Protestant).

Confessions, Books 4,5,7

Book 4 of the Confessions drips with the blood of Ecclesiastes. In the book of Ecclesiastes, it is said "better is a house of mourning than a house of prayer". The preacher calls out that "All is vanity"! Nearly the entire book is a call to see that every man's end is death, and everything in between birth and death is worthless eternally. It has been said by many a Christian that the point of Ecclesiastes is that death looks down upon us all, and we can do nothing but cry out to God.

It seems that Augustine himself begins to feel the same sentiment in the face of death. Augustine says:

With this grief my heart 'was steeped in shadow.' Look where I would, I saw only death...The soul had nothing to answer.  And if I urged it to 'have hope in the Lord,' it remained inert-- rightly, since the man it had lost was more real and cherished than that wraith it was asked to rely on.

We can see that upon his death,  Augustine felt pushed away from the Lord.  It is interesting to note that he, for some reason, urged his soul to 'have hope in the Lord' and yet was unable. The sight of death seemed to have told him that his only hope was the Lord. He saw that to trust in the Lord may could save him from his sorrow, even his own death.  Yet he was unable, deeming the man who had just passed more real that God ever was to him.

Augustine goes on to say this:

My weariness with life was weighty, but so was my fear of death. The more I loved my friend, the more I hated and feared as the most obscene enemy of all the death that had taken him from me-- it seemed about to gulp down all of humanity, as it had him.

We see Augustine in this deep pit of despair wherein he feels as if all of humanity itself is but nothing. Death swallows up all, consuming everything in it's path.  Perhaps this is hyperbole but it seems to be the route Augustine is on in feeling.  As one who has lost, I can personally testify to the destructive feeling of death. Death, says the Preacher of Ecclesiastes, is all of our end. "Remember your creator in the days of your youth!" cries the Preacher.  Augustine is an good example of this.  Though he would in his sin push away God, seeing death made it to where he could not forget him, even calling out to him to give him hope.  This experience certainly had to have played a major role in his conversion.  AFter all, in Christianity, to see death is to begin to see sin or at least it's affect.  I think it no coincidence the next part of the book is about Materialism..

Read *CUP*, Part 2, Section 2, 1-3.

In Part 2, Section 1, there is an interesting bit by Kierkegaard bit on immortality in which he calls immortality subjectivity's most passionate interest. He has an ironic quote as well:

"When, with perfect consistency from the systematic point of view, one abstracts systematically from the interest what that makes of immortality, God only knows, or even what the sense is in wishing to prove it, or what kind of fixed idea it is to bother oneself about further."

God only knows, he says.  It seems Kierkegaard is humorous. Immortality, he thinks, is the most subjective of points whereby we have passionate interest.  What is it about immortality that makes it more passionately interested than anything else? Life is one of the highest goods in the universe.  Thus, eternal life would seem to be among the highest things of which one could have interest. Kierkegaard thinks the the ethical culminates in immortality as well.  He says that without immortality that the ethical simply leads to 'use and wont', a truly utilitarian view.

I wonder about how he is using immortality here, though.  That, I suppose, is the purpose of this journal. He says that immortality is subjectivity's most passionate interest and as the quote above shows, can not be proved, per sé.  He speaks of immortality as that which can not be proven, as that which is ultimate, as that which one must most subjectively relate or else the ethical itself is without meaning. If I am not mistaken, it looks on the surface as if Kierkegaard is using immortality in exchange with the idea of God himself.

If that is the case, I think Kierkegaard has a major problem, which is this: if immortality is interchangeable with the God, then what we are subjectively relating to is not God but ourselves. What if the gift of God were not immortality? Would we still not have an ultimate duty to truth? Does one only desire truth because it will give him immortality?  If that is the case, it seems that immortality has usurped God in our passions. This seems to be a major problem for Kierkegaard if it is indeed what he is doing, am I am at a loss to figure out how to respond.

CUP Part 1

Kierkegaard:

Faith does not come from straightforward scholarly deliberation, nor does it come straightforwardly.  On the contrary, in this objectivity, one loses the infinite, personal, impassioned interestedness that is the condition of faith, the ubique et nasquam [everywhere and nowhere] in which faith can come into being.

If there is a quote which gives you the general drive of the book Concluding Unscientific Postscript, this is it. There's something about it in particular that when I read it I immediately circled it and wrote EXPLORE THIS beside it. To many, apologetics is an essential skill for the Christian. We must be able to give a defense for our faith, not just to talk about it, but to convince people. Kierkegaard, frankly, thinks that's utter garbage. Of course you can not argue someone into Chrisitanity, and you can never defend it enough that someone would believe it.

So if you can't argue someone into faith or defend it so that they see faith not only as something plausible, but so that they begin to have it themselves, then what is it to have faith? Kierkegaard thinks objective talk about faith loses the infinite, personal, impassioned interestedness that is the condition of faith.  With that said then, clearly to have faith is to have the infinite, personal, impassioned interestedness. Infinite; what does it mean to be infinite? It seems like it means to live in some sort of infinite relation to God. Personal seems to be to have personal relation to God. This are trite definitions, but I think they are really wrapped up in the last one: Impassioned interestedness.

Kant's idea of interestedness is one I studied a decent amount in Aesthetics with Dr. Shelley.  One of the commentaries on the theory gave an example about a theater own who went to the show in his theater but sitting in his box with counting the amount of people and drinks sold to figure out how much money he had made that night. The writer said that this man was not truly attending to the show but was rather attending to his money. He was there and cared about the show, but his attention was really on something else.  I think that is a point that can be made here with what Kierkegaard is saying.  If one is concerned with constant defense of the idea of God, with objective talk, or scholarly deliberation, he is not really attending to God at all.  He may be attending to the idea of God; perhaps he is attending to winning an argument, or scholastic achievement.  To attend to God, however, one has to be relating to God himself with impassioned love, not some other object, topic, or scholastic goal. If God is not central to any talk of God, we aren't dealing with God at all, only the idea of God.

CUP, Appendix and Declaration

In the Appendix and then Declarations to Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard does something pretty peculiar-- he disowns the text. He says that the work isn't worth being considered authoritative since he is but a mere humorist. Next, he comes back again as Kierkegaard as renounces his former renunciation (made under the pseudonymous Climacus). It all begs the question: "Why?"

Kierkegaard is certainly isn't saying that the theory is wrong, in fact, he never says that.  Nor does he say that it needs fixing. At no point does he say that it is a joke or comedy, as the work of a humorist, or that it needs work in any way.  So what is he doing?  It seems the only thing he could possibly be doing is to let the argument stand on it's own merit. To disown the idea is not to say it is wrong.  Instead, it is simply to let the argument itself stand by itself, inviting anyone to engage with the argument on it's own merits.

It's hard to say why Kierkegaard does this.  I think he does it because writing pseudonymously is tricky.He is writing as a non-believer to "so-called believers" who really are 'objective believers' to show them that if there's a Christian faith, they aren't a part of it.  However, all along it's Kierkegaard.  The dialectic doesn't progress the same written as theologian Kierkegaard, but nor does it have great credence from the humorist Climacus.  It looks really as if Kierkegaard is simply letting the argument stand on it's own merits. He allows for Climacus to disown the theory, then refutes that it shouldn't be taken seriously.  So rather than allow people to wonder if this is what Kierkegaard thought, or if he's saying that a non-believer who doesn't understand would say as Climacus did, he lets the idea go altogether.  Now, regardless of authorship, we are free to engage the text without such questions.  Such is my best guess.

CUP; Preface, Contents, Introduction

In the Introduction to Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Johannes Climacus goes to discusses the systematic dialectic often employed when we talk about faith.  Climacus says it promises everything and yet yields nothing.  So what's the problem with the system?  He seems to think there are 3 problems. I think it would be best to talk a little more in depth about what, precisely, those problems are.

1. The system presupposes faith as something given (a system that has no presuppositions).
2. Further, the system divorces faith from passion; which, in itself, is insulting to faith and shows that faith has never been something that is a 'given'.
3. The system's total presupposition that faith is 'given', so to speak, "dissolves into conceit into which the system  has deluded itself, that it knew what faith is".

What I take Climacus to mean in the first problem is this: in the systematic dialectic of faith, faith is treated as a tool, or, as a means to an end.  What that end may be is up for debate, but the faith is simply a presupposition within the discussion and otherwise irrelevant or overwhelmingly regarded less than it should be. Faith is, in this case, penultimate at best. This is a problem for Climacus, who, it seems, would rather think of faith less as a path or a pair of shoes, but more as the whole journey itself. This is incredibly important in regards to the second problem.

The second problem follows from the first, in that faith, then, is divorced from passion. This is going to be major for Climacus.  Faith can not be seen merely as an objective reality, but as something in relation to us. If faith becomes an objective reality, we are no longer talking about a God in relation to us.  If faith is something given us by God, or at the very least something we have IN RELATION to God, then we can not divorce it from passion.  

Kierkegaard, Fragments 4-5

I am incredibly intrigued and engaged by Kierkegaard's discussion on why God must have become man.  Why, to use his analogy, the King could not simply send his most honorable man in his stead. Why?  Why does this not satisfy the King? Kierkegaards says that the God knew that "between man and man the Socratic relationship is the highest and truest." I was apparently pretty deeply mistaken in my assessment of the Socratic role in Kierkegaard's tale.  I was under the impression that under this system, the Socratic method had been thrown off. It looks as if I was wrong, however, as he says man and man share this relationship.

The Socratic relationship, however, can't bring one to knowledge of the truth. Kierkegaard says "if God had not come himself, all the relations would have remained on the Socratic level; we would not have had the Moment, and we would have lost the Paradox." Kierkegaard thinks that the Teacher had to give man the condition to see the truth, namely, Himself. Without the condition to see the truth, man could never arrive at the truth through any line of Socratic questioning.  I am less concerned with this, the Paradox, and more concerned with the role of the Socratic questioning between two who have been given the condition.

Once two have been given the condition to see the truth and accept that truth, what role does the Socratic play? Socrates' whole idea on the Socratic method is rooted in the pre-existence of the Soul.  The only way I can understand this idea working is in a homeostatic, ecclesiastical manner.  After thinking it out, it seems that the role of the church is to remind one another of the Gospel of Christ (i.e. the Truth). The only way we can do this is if we've been given the condition to see the truth and accepted that truth.  Somehow, be it homeostasis or otherwise, we are united with Christ in our 'salvation'. The only way I can see the Socratic working man to man after the Moment is if, through faith in Christ, we are able to draw forth knowledge from one another by way of our union with Christ. I am confuse what role the Socratic plays between believers.  Perhaps, the Socratic has no role in Salvation but every role in other types of knowledge, whereas the Teacher only deals with salvific truth.

Kierkegaard, Fragments 3: The Folly of Seeking Metaphysical Proof For God

Climacus speaks with fairly strong language in regards to seeking metaphysical proof for the existence of God. "Generally speaking," he says, "it is a difficult matter to prove that anything exists..."  As a student struggling through Metaphysics now, I can attest to the truth of that statement.  It is because of this that Climacus says he "always reason from existence, not toward existence".  This, to me, is incredibly appealing in regards to speaking of God.  He even points out arguments when have been reduced to degrees of being, which to him is silly talk, considering one being can no less be than another, truly.

"As long as I keep hold on the proof, the existence not come out... but when I let go of the proof, the existence is there". Climacus is moving toward the idea that when we form these tightly wound proofs by which we are bound, we make existence nearly formulaic and impossible to recognize.  If we, however, let go of our proof, existence is-- dare I say-- obvious.  That being the case, seeking some sort of metaphysical proof for the existence of God is incredibly useless.

It reminds me a bit of, if you will allow me to draw the parallel, Christian apologist Cornelius Van Til (which I understand is a BIT ironic considering Kierkegaard's attitude toward apologists).  Van Till is famous in Reformed Evangelical circles for Presuppositional Apologetics.  Seeing the folly of a metaphysical proof for or against God, he began to say that if we can not reason for a common 'field of apperception', if you will, then we may not speak of God at all.  Only when we presuppose the existence of God and his revelation can we ever begin to talk about what he may be like or how he acts.  This, it seems, is incredibly similar to where Kierkegaard is headed when he says:

If in the moment of beginning his proof it is not absolutely undetermined whether God exists or not, he does not prove it.

If the relation is not clear at first, allow me to explain. Building off the Kantian idea of disinterest, Climacus thinks that any proof that starts when any idea of whether God does or does not exists will be impossible to prove.  We must be completely disinterested from the result, i.e. disinterested, if we are to prove anything!  And that- that is impossible!  Thus, if we are to reason for God, is must be from him and not toward him.

Kierkegaard, Fragments 1-2: The Importance of "No Mere Outer Cloak"

In his Fragments, Climacus (Soren Kierkegaard) makes an especially important emphasis on the servanthood of The God, The Teacher, or as I will refer to him henceforth, Christ.  This form of a servant, he says is no mere cloak. He says:

He is the God; and yet he has not a resting-place for his head, and he dares not lean on any man lest he cause him to be offended. He is the God; and yet he picks his steps more carefully than if angels guided them, not to prevent his foot from stumbling against a stone, but lest he trample human beings in the dust, in that they are offended by him.

then later:

But the servant form is no mere outer garment, and therefore the God must suffer all things...Every other form of revelation would be a deception in the eyes of love; for either the learner would first have to be changed, and the fact concealed from him that this was necessary; or there would be permitted to prevail a frivolous ignorance of the fact that the entire relationship was a delusion.

These two quotes are incredibly important to understand why Climacus thinks it important that the servant-form is no mere cloak.  First, we must remember the point about a man in Error.  Climacus thinks that one who is in Error can not merely be turned from error as the same man.  As he says in Chapter 1 of Fragments, there must be a new birth.  God loves, he says, those in Error though only despite the Error.  In love, he wishes to turn them from it.  And thus enters the brilliance of the first quote above:  God, in his love moves carefully, not restraining himself, but rather orchestrating all things wisely to bring man from Error to his love.

However, God simply "not trampling" humans is not the full extent of love.  That, it seems, would be a mere outer garment of servant-form.  True servant form suffers, says Climacus. He must suffer as we suffer to bring us from our suffering to his love/glory.  Thus the second quote above.  The point that follows, then, is that anything other than total revelation of himself would be a mere cloak of love.  And yet, God, truly loving has chosen to embody himself as we are embodied.  This same God, Climacus notes, than if anyone sees they die, has left his true glory to embody the servant form to bring us out of our servant form. Not unlike the story of the King, this kingly God desires to bring those he loves out of slavery to royalty.

True love would not deceive the one into thinking that they are not in need of change.  Nor would the one be told of how they fall short to the God and yet be allowed to ignorantly think they are accepted.  To do so would make the entire relationship a delusion.  The latter can not happen.  The former is not love. Both would be a mere 'outer cloak of love, not true love'. So what?  The God had to embody servant form.  A mere outer cloak would not save, would not bring rebirth.  As Climacus notes, love does not merely alter the beloved, it alters itself.

 

Triads, D-F: What It Is To Know

As an Eastern father, Gregory of Palamas does not hold to a sort of catechetical knowledge of God.  This cataphatic knowledge, he thinks, is misguided.  He quotes another man in his writings who says "...the observance of the commandment can not remove the darkness of ignorance from the soul."  So then, the question must be this: What is it to know of God?  Can we know anything? As Gregory says, "What does not even remove ignorance cannot give knowledge!"

Certainly he does not think that God is altogether unknowable.  There is a sense in which we can know him. But what sense is it? Gregory speaks of contemplation much more than knowledge.  It's an interesting distinction he makes, one in which the contemplate God without truly knowing all of him.  Gregory says that if we use 'knowledge' in the transcendental sense, "...all contemplation, which depends on knowledge, since nothing surpasses the indwelling and manifestation of God in us, nothing equals it, and nothing approaches it."  Contemplation depends on a certain kind of knowledge, but truly what is happening is we are contemplating the depths of our union with God, our deification in Christ. There is, to Gregory, this "human composite, which is united to His hypostasis" that we find ourselves contemplating. So in contemplating the power and mercy of God, etc., effectual in us and in contemplating the divine without some sort of certain catechesis, we grow more into his deity.

I wonder, however, to what extent this apophatic reaches.   Clearly not to the Trinity, since he uses the Biblical terms of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in regards to God.  Yet, he doesn't seem to try to explain the Trinity.  He does, however, speak of our hypostasis with Christ in our deification speaking of the union of deity and likeness of man in Christ.  Quite the doctrinal statement.  The Eastern church is a Nicene Creed endorsing church.  So perhaps he simply thinks that he can not expand any further than the Creed.  It seems to me a profound contradiction to imply that we can "know" of God, simply contemplate and subscribe to an apophatic type of theology and yet speak of the hypostasis of Christ.  Perhaps I have botched his formula, but he seems to be working from a theological contradiction.

Gregory, Triads A,B: Philosophy Does Not Save

Are we then to say that those who hold such a philosophy possess the wisdom of God, or even a human wisdom in general?...In my estimation, this "wisdom" is not even worthy of the appellation "human"...

What then should be the work and the goal of those who seek wisdom of God in creatures?  Is it not the acquisition of the truth and the glorification of the Creator? 

It's clear Gregory doesn't think that philosophy saves.  At one point he goes so far as to call it "demonic".  That's a bit of a stretch, in my opinion.  But why would he do that? Philosophy, he thinks, doesn't lead to a glorification of God.  Somehow this has to work into his entire body of theology.  So here's what I want to say:  Gregory, as stated above, doesn't think philosophy possesses the wisdom of God; in fact, it cannot, since it does not lead to the glorification of God and acquisition of truth in God.

Part of Gregory's theology is that we are "in Christ" in such a way that we experience him.  Due to his apophatic beliefs, we do not experience him in some of of systematic theology or mere intellectual assent, but something altogether different.  I want to call it a mingling of energies.  In so doing, we need much more than truths about God.  We must encounter God.  What philosophy does is objectifies God in such a way that he is not experienced or contemplated; rather, he is just thought about.  Due to this as the aim of his full theology, Gregory thinks philosophy not only does not save, but is demonic.  From his framework it makes perfect sense, even if it isn't necessarily right.

Anselm, Guanilo

In Anselm's Reply to Guanilo, there is a particular section which I think requires special attention. It is the following

...But I say with certainty that if it can be so much as thought to exist, it must necessarily exist. For that which a greater cannot be thought cannot be thought of as beginning to exist.  By contrast, whatever can be thought to exist but does not in fact exist, can be thought of as beginning to exist.  Therefore, it is not the case that that than which a greater cannot be thought can be thought to exist, but does not in fact exist.  If, therefore, it can be thought to exist, it does necessarily exist.

Anselm obviously thinks there is some sense in which an object conceived exists.  Perhaps I'm a bit confused, but he seems to be saying there is a sense in which our thoughts exists, in some sort of way.  As thoughts of a thing exists, necessarily that thing exists within the thought.  That must be the only way in which he thinks that things come into existence through thought.  When he says "whatever can be thought to exist but does not in face exist, can be thought of as beginning to exist," I do not hold him to an idea such as us having a divine creative power.

It is clear Anselm doesn't think we are "Creators" in that sense.  Rather, Anselm is saying more about the power of thinking, I believe, than about the creative power of man.  Thoughts must exist, perhaps not tangibly, but in some sort of objective, spatial-temporal sense.  That is the only way is that the talk he is using can work. So if one should stand on a rooftop and shout loudly and with full conception "UNICORNS EXIST!", then they do, in some sense.  They exist as a thought conceived in the mind, a thought which can not be unthought, and in that sense, they exist.

Anselm is quite the conundrum, but he is altogether non-committal. He doesn't explicitly say we can create with out mind.  He never tries to say we can think things into existence.  But he implies that very thing.  But what is the nature of that existence?  I don't see any way it could be more than simply a conceived thought. That which is thought, exists necessarily in some way, but not necessarily tangibly.  If this is not what he's thinking, it's pretty clear he is wrong.  As it is, it's not really clear if he's wrong or not- in fact, it's not really clear what he's trying to do at all.

Anselm, Proslogion

In his Proslogion, Anselm give a proof for the existence of God.  Of the major parts of this proof, Chapters 2 and 3 are likely the most important to his argument.  Chapter 2 is "That God truly exists.  Chapter 3 is "That he cannot be thought to not exist".  In chapter 2, Anselm makes an important move; namely, that nothing greater than God can be thought to exist. He then goes on to say "that which is greater cannot be thought cannot exist only in the understanding.  For if it exists only in the understanding, it can be thought to exist in reality, as well, which is greater."

I must admit, I'm a bit confused with the move Anselm is trying to make. A sounds a bit like the greatest thing that can be thought can be understood therefore must necessarily exist.  Obviously, since it's the greatest thing that can be thought, it can not be thought that there is that which is greater. Regardless, his point is that God exists.  That's really all we need to get to his more important point which is "That he cannot be thought not to exist."

Anselm doesn't think that anyone could think of God as nonexistent.  Certainly it is absurd to conceive of something from nonexistence.  If nonexistence is some sort of property of an object, then the object doesn't exist, and therefore has no properties.  It reminds me of Descartes ontological argument, which, though not a logical proof, simply can not be wrong.  If he thinks, he is.  If he thinks he is, he couldn't have thought in the first place.  Same logic applies here, wherein if God is thought to not exist, then he isn't thought.  The problem I have with this is that it leads that God CERTAINLY exist. I'm not so sure.  Certainly, it follows that God may exist or could exist or is conceivable of existing.  But I'm not sure that conceiving in the mind necessitates existence.  That seems to be the move Anselm is trying to make.  And in terms of 'seeming', it seems to be wrong.

Augustine, Confessions (bks. 2-3)

Augustine is famous for his story (among many, many other things) of his youthful offense of stealing pears.  On the surface, they are just pears and Augustine is a punk kid.  But surely that's not why he tells the story.  After all, if that is it, then the pear story has no more significance than to say that Augustine had a discipline problem as a youngster and should've been in trouble with the authorities.  I think he's speaking to something deeper though.

In the story of stealing the pears, Augustine is pretty explicit in his detail in regards to the stealing of pears being simply for the sake of doing bad.  I think what Augustine was doing rather was speaking to the depth of his sin apart from God.  Why is it so important to him that he is not stealing the pears to eat?  After all, doesn't he say that he gave most of them to the swine or simply threw them away? It seems the most important part of the tale is not that he stole the pears, but that he stole for the sake of stealing.

Augustine, in my opinion, is clearly making the point that though we sin with or without God, without God we sin for the sake of sinning.  We indulge the deepest of the evil within us- that is, doing that which is bad for its own sake.  It is the clear and pointed manifestation of our rebellion against the will of God.  And why do we do this?  It is to gain that completion God created us to seek only in him. As the Augustinian quote is often said 'our soul can not find rest till it finds rest in thee', or something to that effect.  I believe the Wills translation says 'stability' but the effect is the same.  The thrill and fleeting joy of our sin, we believe, will satiate us.

Nothing could be further from the truth however,  Just as Augustine says in regards to our seeking sexual pleasure to fulfill our desire for intimate love,"...though nothing is more intimate than your love..." making the point that what we are really doing as human sinners is seeking God where he is not-- that is, in sinful things.  This, I think, is important in relation to where Augustine is going.  It is important that we realize our evil for it's own sake in rebellion against God and finding completion in him.  Until we see that, Augustine seems to say, we will not see our need for a Savior.

It is a striking thought.

Plato, Apology

As we read Plato's Apology, we see Socrates under trail for corrupting the youth and blaspheming the gods.  Upon his conviction, he makes a ridiculous request that makes some, people who didn't even vote him guilty, vote for him to get the death penalty. Socrates, it seems is not shocked by this.  So the question to me is clearly: "Did Socrates commit suicide?," in a manner of speaking.

The man is going to be banished.  Not a terrible penalty, and at least he would be alive. But instead he requests this: to be pampered by the government.  He wants a house, food, and protection as provided by the government.  Shortly, he wants to be treated as an Olympian victor. That's absurd.  By the standard of the court, he is a criminal.  Criminal's dont get treated like kings, and Socrates is not stupid enough to think that.  So what is he doing?

Socrate's seems to think that the gods have deemed his the wisest man alive.  As such, it has become his duty to spread his wisdom around the world.  So being exiled elsewhere and forced to pay a fine simply won't do.  So why not just ask to stay and get a harsher punishment, but not death? It seems Socrates is committing suicide.  I think that Socrates simply can not imagine living without philosophizing in Greece.
He says:

Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living

Life, to Socrates is not worth living if not for his philosophy.  He must have it, or he will be dead (regardless of his 'vital signs', so to speak).  So it certainly seems what Socrates has done is to commit suicide.

Augustine, Confessions (Bk. 1)

Augustine, in his Confessions, Book 1, uses his own childhood as a opportunity for worship.  By worship, I mean a recognition of the providence of God in his life and blessings thereof. He also uses the imagery of his childhood to show complete dependence on God. This is clear from the very first paragraph of the book.

Man, 'confined by a nature that must die,' confined by this evidence of his sin, the evidence that you rebuff the over-weening, yet man would still appraise you, since you made us tilted toward you, and our heart is unstable until stabilized in you.

This quote, famous in it's own rite, is telling of Augustine's belief in the inborn dependence of humanity on God for fulfillment from the very beginning of their being. As he contemplates his very existence he first becomes familiar with the reality that there is a God, and he is not Him.  Not only is he not him, but he can not contain him or relate to him- quite the conundrum.

In his search to see who the true God, Augustine recognizes and points out the 'graces' in his life.  Such as a child draws to the breast of his mother is the relationship of man to God.  Augustine praises God for his creating him in a manner by which he will do that and find sustenance.  Augustine uses his infancy as a metaphor for relation to God in general.  He says,

Who is there to remind me of my sin before I spoke?--'no one being clean of sin, not a speechless child with but a day upon the earth'-- who will remind me....

A powerful, and controversial it seems, statement on the human condition.  I certainly agree with Augustine in drawing this analogy. Such as the infant must rely upon the breast of his mother, so we rely on God.  Yet, as he said in the aforementioned quote, man is 'confined by a nature that must die', making it rebel against the very 'breast' that sustains it.  So it seems, Augustine is right in drawing the analogy that it is the grace of God that draws us to himself, such as it is the care of the mother that draws the infant to feed.  Obviously, most skip their infancy in biographical writing, seeing as we don't remember it firsthand.  That said, I think Augustine's using it to foreshadow his coming spiritual revolution that was much the same is profound.

  

Plato, Euthyphro

In Plato's Euthyphro, Socrates and Euthyphro get into a discussion about the very nature of holiness.  Euthyphro is on his way to put charges against his father for the death of another man and Socrates is appalled.  Euthyphro, however, thinks it quite virtuous.  Socrates then asks him roughly the following: what is virtue?  Euthyphro replies basically: 'What I'm about to do.'  Humble man, that Euthyphro.

Perhaps simply to mess with him, Socrates engages the question further.  He arrives at the following question, and the one to which I will examine.  "Are pious things pious because the gods say they are, or do the gods say pious things are pious because they are?"  So, to recap, in regards to holy things- are they holy because they have some sort of innate pious feature or because the gods (or God) has decreed they are holy?  Quite the question.

I wonder, however, is it the right question to ask? Are those the only options?  Is it possible that God, acting as creator, sees uncorrupted creation as good? Seemingly, a creator God would set the rules for existence. So, that being the case, if a Creation simply meets its purpose in "being", is it not good?  It seems that that purpose would be an extension of the very nature of God himself.  And what happens if we move back and forth between poly- and mono- theism.  Would the answer remain the same?  What if the question was formulated in Trinitarian terms?  All that to say this: I'm not so sure that the question is logically the best options for explaining the piety of things.

But I digress.
Socrates seems to think that God's love results in the piety of the thing. Euthyphro otherwise thinks that the love of God explains the piety (i.e. the piety is a feature of the thing itself). Neither can be right.  After all, one would exalt the good of the object to a point that it demands the gods love, and the other does not explain why the gods love something.  It is somewhat circular.
This is exactly what Socrates means when he says,

And are you not saying that what is loved of the gods is holy; and is not this the same as what is dear to them-do you see? 

We are left without an answer.  It seems to me that questions that have no answers are often simply bad questions.