RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Religion, Philosophy of
plain religious ideas by ignorance and fear and looked upon them as causes of the worst evils.
Though Stoicism permeated Christian thought with its influence, it was not transplanted like Neo-
platonic idealism or mysticism. Pseu- 5. Eclecti- do-Dionysius in coupling Neoplatonism cls ' with Christianity took much from Proclus. In his " negative theology " God the nameless transcends both positive and negative predicates. In his " affirmative theology " God the all-named embraces all realities. In addition a symbolic theology takes its nomenclature from the world of sense. Essential is the abstraction from all positive and negative attributes as God, a sort of mystical negation of knowledge combined with a transport to God and a " theosis," or deification, the final ideal of the Neoplatonists as well as of the Church Fathers, such as Clement, Origen, Hippolytus, and Athanasius. Closely following him in identifying true philosophy with religion and in the distinction of negative and positive theology was Scotus Erigena (q.v.). The procession of individual things from deity, which he conceives somewhat like the emanation theory of the Neoplatonists, he calls unfolding; the reunion of multiplicity in God is effected by the Logos. Pure pantheism, represented by Amalric of Bena and David of Dinant (qq.v.), was doubtless related from Scotus and with him branded as heretical, but mystics like Bernard and Hugo and Richard of St. Victor (qq.v.) were tolerated, although they indulged transport and absolute submission to God as the highest aim not to be attained by human will and power, but by divine grace. Not speculation, but practical mysticism in the fullest form appears with Meister Eckhart (q.v.) and his followers, who were professed pantheists. The souls fall into ecstatic transport while the body is as dead; and upon their return, no expression of what transpired is possible in words. It claims to have been where it was before its creation, where God is and he alone.
The Christian Gnostics (see Gnosticism) may be said to have made the first attempt at a Christian philosophy of religion. Their system consisted not
so much of speculative conceptions as „'. * of the presentation of a fantastic world, Fathers or Christian mythology, which was not
to be acknowledged by the Church. Aloof from this kept Justin Martyr (q.v.) who, the first of the apologists, regarded himself a Christian and philosopher, and assumed all the true and rational to be Christian also. Hellenic in speculation, he presents God as nameless and indescribable, yet one, eternal, unbegotten, and unmoved. He reigns over the heavens and first begat the Logos by whom he created the world. Less pronounced as Christian were Athanagoras and Minucius Felix. The former argues for monotheism on rational grounds. The gods are supposed to be localized, but this is impossible as God, who created the world, was in the space outside the world, where no other God could be; and, if localized there, could not concern those in the world; and he would, as circumscribed in his presence and operation, be no true God. The latter deduces the knowledge of God, though in-
complete, from the order of nature and organic adaptability, and monotheism from the unity of nature. The earliest originality of thought appears with the Alexandrine school, which entered a closer inquiry into the relation of believing and knowing; and employed philosophy to lift the former to the latter. According to Clement (q.v.) no positive knowledge of God is possible; knowable is the Logos, the mediator between God and the world, wherefore the order of the world is rational. Indebted to Philo, yet he exceeds him and the subsequent Neoplatonists in teaching that the real gnostic becomes not only like God but is incarnate god himself; and that he swathes divinity not only in special ecstatife hours but enjoys eternal rest in God. With Origen (q.v.) the conception of " restitution " takes the place of theosis; after being cleansed from sin, men are restored to the original state of happiness and goodness. His " First Principles " is an attempt to systematize Christian dogma, and presents much for the philosophy of religion; especially, in the beginning, where God is declared to be the eternal ground of all existence, and much that is Neoplatonic appears. Dependent on him are the Greek Fathers of whom Gregory of Nyssa (q.v.) was the speculative representative and the precursor of medieval scholasticism by explaining that the name God stands for the essence of deity and not the persons (hypostases), so that the three divine persons constitute one deity. His superior speculative gifts are evidenced also in the attempt to prove the church doctrines by reason, in which the Scripture was included. Augustine (q.v.) was as much philosopher as theologian, so that he may well-nigh rank as a Neoplatonist; but above speculation rises his strong religious feeling. The ground of all knowledge is in the consciousness of man's spiritual processes. The only eternal truth is God, who embraces all true being and is the supreme good. The Aristotelian categories can not be applied to him. He is " good without quality, great without quantity, a creator without want, reigning without position, upholding all things without condition, everywhere whole without place, eternal without time " (De trinitate, v. 2; Eng. transl., NPNF, 1st ser., iii. 88). He is the supreme essence, has given being, though not the highest, to things created in graded series, and upholds the world by incessant re-creation, without which it would sink into primal nothing. Here beside transcendence is immanence. The " City of God," which presents historical development from the religious point of view, at the conclusion carries the temporal over into the eternal, and marks a distinction for all time between the eternally blessed and the eternally damned.
2. Medieval: Augustine's influence upon scholasticism was considerable, especially by the Platonic and Neoplatonic elements. The axiom of Anselm of Canterbury (q.v.), " I believe that I may understand," was taken from him, and 1. Anselm from the Alexandrines preceding. Reaa son is above faith like a superstructure
' above the foundation; not to dispute its right and content, but, assuming at the outset what is to be proved, to set it forth in a clearer light. Beside the cosmological argument that the
Religion, Philosophy of