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As dedicated Christians they did not need to ignore philosophy, but to redefine it in such a way as to eliminate certain of the ideas that had come down to them from the Greek philosophers of the previous age. At the same time they retained much of the great philosophy of the past and found to be of great value as helping them to understand the realities of their Christian thought. As an example, we may begin to understand that although they questioned some of Plato's thought, among other distinctions they valued that made by Plato between the 'sensible realm' (aistheton genos) and the 'intelligible or noetic realm' (noeton genos).

'The first is in constant process of change, the second unchanging. The one consists of phenomena, appearances, destructible things; the other of truly real (ontos onta), indestructible things.' (Constantin Cavarnos: 'The Hellenic Christian Philosophical Tradition,' P21)

They accepted subjective observations as valid, but with certain provisos to prevent the introduction of errors into these observations. For example:
They rejected as not based on observation both intellectually speculative conclusions and all opinions verified neither by observation nor contemplative inspiration.
They refused to accept purely intellectual argument as being valid.
They distinguished between imaginary content and direct observation.

This definition was still defended by Palamas in his Triads around the year 1340.

Palamas himself is reported as having been a trained Aristotelian philosopher before he became Christian, so that his great work, the Triads, was founded on the reasoning behind his own personal decision as well as defining the basic elements of those early fathers in a single formulation.

The philosophy of these saints- of course - took much from Biblical sources, seeing parallels between these and those classical ideas that they had retained: At the same time it would not be right to say that they retained only those classical ideas which agreed with the ideas of the Gospel. They set a more empirical standard, although few modern scientists would recognise it as such.

In fact, a proper understanding of the way they thought then showed that the best of them did not argue by simple comparison of ideas, but found agreement through experiential observation of the ideas and through the exact contemplative knowledge that develops out of clear observation of this kind. Its terminology was built on that of Saint Paul, whose basic terms were still being followed - and still understood - more than a thousand years later, for example by Gregory Palamas in his Triads. With the splitting of the Roman Empire, the relation of many churches to this Philosophy of God, the unique knowledge with its intuitive source that had sustained the church for a millennium, changed its character. This point in history can be identified very precisely from Palamas' text.

This happened first and most fully in Western Christendom. There, the Philosophy of God had never been widely established, despite the activities of key individuals such as Cassian.

PHILOSOPHERS

Philosophers Page 1

Philosophers Page 2

Philosophers Page 3

PRAXIS PAST

praxis web 4 ARCHIVES

including most of the text articles from praxis Web 4. Main texts are listed with simple descriptions under CONTENTS and more fully under ABSTRACTS

* CONTENTS

* ABSTRACTS

A New Vision

The Ark

A Different Christianity

Philosophers of God

St. Gregory Palamas

Cross-fertilisation

Abstraction & attention

Lost Doctrines

Lost Christian truths

The Royal Road