Faith and Reason- Tertullian's View

This is the first of some occasional posts on the relationship between worldly wisdom (science, philosophy, etc...) and the Bible. If you have a blog and had to write a paper on something like this you would want to get some mileage on it too.

Tertullian believed that reason corrupts faith. Describing Tertullian’s view Harry Shields and Gary Bredfeldt write, “Christian theology was seen as heavenly and full of truth, whereas philosophy was deemed to be worldly and empty of truth” (25). It is possible that Tertullian came to this conclusion from the amount of time he spent refuting early heresies.

It is interesting to me that Tertullian was such an opponent of gnosticism and yet his view here appears to have been influences by gnostics. That's not to say that people who lean in the direction of fundamentalism are heretics (there are too many people to my left for me to say that) but for Tertullian to reject the benefits of philisophical reason (when it doesn't contradict or override clear Scriptural teaching) is kind of ridiculious.

As Christians we need to avoid the thinking that the Bible deals exclusively with spiritual matters and all things in the flesh are corrupt. The Bible teaches that man is fully capable of learning things apart from Scripture. Though, as the apostle Paul points out, it only adds to their judgment.

The apostle Paul claims that the most wicked of humans “knew God” (Romans 1:21) because of His “invisible attributes [which have been] clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20). Furthermore, in chapter two Paul argues that the morality of humans is the very grounds for their judgment (2:13-15). So rather than arguing like Tertullian that reason apart from faith is corrupt, the Bible argues that man’s ability to reason is good enough to provide sufficient grounds for the punishment of crimes against Him.

I hope this is beneficial.

Grace and Peace,
Stephen