The Leaves are Green in Summer: Bite Size Philosophy

By José Mario O. Mandía

Since 1987, I have been giving varied courses on the Faith to different groups of people, from teenagers to men and women of different occupations (including household work). It was inspiring to see their eagerness to know their Faith better, to explore it and be able to explain it to others.
I realized, however, that exploring the intricacies of the Faith was not possible without the appropriate philosophical tools. Hence, aside from dealing with dogma, I also found it necessary to explain certain philosophical concepts and principles that the Church employs to expound the truths of Faith.
I found an opportunity to distill the more important ideas in a series of articles that appeared in O Clarim, Macau’s trilingual Catholic Weekly, from 26 January 2017 to 21 September 2018. I have retained the content of the articles as they were published. Thus, the reader will find constant mention of the article “from last week” or “next week.”
I hope that this book can provide a sneak preview of essential philosophical concepts and principles needed by a faith that seeks understanding - fides quærens intellectum.
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“It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.”
Gilbert K. Chesterton, “Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy” in Heretics
***
The author is a priest of the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, ordained by St John Paul II at Saint Peter's Basilica on 21 June 1987. He is now the director of Macau's trilingual Catholic Weekly O Clarim.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chorabooks
• Release date: May 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9789887961673

Book preview

theology

Foreword

Since 1987, I have been giving varied courses on the Faith to different groups of people, from teenagers to men and women of different occupations (including household work). It was inspiring to see their eagerness to know their Faith better, to explore it and be able to explain it to others.

I realized, however, that exploring the intricacies of the Faith was not possible without the appropriate philosophical tools. Hence, aside from dealing with dogma, I also found it necessary to explain certain philosophical concepts and principles that the Church employs to expound the truths of Faith.

I found an opportunity to distill the more important ideas in a series of articles that appeared in O Clarim, Macau’s trilingual Catholic Weekly, from 26 January 2017 to 21 September 2018. I have retained the content of the articles as they were published. Thus, the reader will find constant mention of the article from last week or next week.

I hope that this book can provide a sneak preview of essential philosophical concepts and principles needed by a faith that seeks understanding - fides quærens intellectum.

====

It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.

Gilbert K. Chesterton, Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy in Heretics

***

The author is a priest of the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, ordained by St John Paul II at Saint Peter's Basilica on 21 June 1987. He is now the director of Macau's trilingual Catholic Weekly O Clarim.

Introduction

1. Why?

Why?

That’s a good question to start with. That’s where all philosophy begins.

But we all ask that question, you might say.

That’s right. We all ask why. We all want to know the reasons behind the things that we see, the things that happen. We want to know their causes. That is part of our being human.

You mean we can be all philosophers?

That’s right. We can all be.

But what is philosophy? The English word philosophy comes from two Greek words: philia (love of friendship) and sophia (wisdom). Philosophy is the love of wisdom.

And what is wisdom? It is the knowledge of the ultimate causes.

So Philosophy, therefore, is the love of the knowledge of the ultimate causes, the search for the answer to the many why’s in life. And what does it have to do with us?

Socrates (469-399 BC) said, The unexamined life is not worth living. We have to ask questions about ourselves, about this world we live in, and about realities beyond us. Because we are beings who think and reflect, we naturally want to know if there is a meaning to our life. We feel the need to discover that meaning. We want to know the truth.

Moreover, for us Christians, philosophy plays a very important role. The very first paragraph of Saint John Paul II’s Encyclical Fides et ratio (Faith and reason) states: Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).

Let me explain three ways by which philosophy is helpful to faith.

First: philosophy can serve as a preparation for faith. A person who cultivates his natural curiosity and asks questions about the world sooner or later ends up bumping into the First Cause. A case in point is the analytic philosopher Antony Flew (1923-2010). He had decided to turn atheist when he was 15 and was the world's most famous atheist for half a century. But in 2004, he announced that he had come to believe in God. He described his conversion in his book There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.

Second: philosophy helps believers understand and deepen their knowledge of belief. Theology employs a good number of philosophical concepts and terms. These concepts and terms help us to understand why, for example, there is no contradiction between one God and three Persons, or why hell is not a creation of God but exists because of human freedom.

Third: philosophy helps us explain and defend the faith. Saint Peter exhorts us, Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence (I Peter 3:15). Philosophy is an essential tool for this defense. It helps us clarify our concepts and make our reasoning more lucid, systematic and orderly.

Join me then, in this journey of reason.

2. What’s it all about?

Last time we asked why. Now we have to ask what exactly we are going to study.

We have seen that philosophy studies the ultimate causes of things, of real things, of things that exist: philosophy studies being and its ultimate causes.

But what do we mean by being (in Latin, ens)? By being, we mean anything that exists: the paper you are holding is being, you yourself are being, the chair you are sitting on is being, the chicken wing you are eating is being. And yes, God is being. In fact, the Supreme Being! Everything that exists is being, and philosophy is interested in all of those things.

But I thought philosophy studies human thinking? you might ask.

That was what René Descartes (1596-1650) thought. His famous statement I think, therefore I am (in some future issue, I will explain what this means) started a new trend in philosophy where every philosopher can invent his own philosophy. But no, we are not interested in human opinions or fantasies. We are interested in the real world. We are interested in being. As St Thomas Aquinas wrote in De caelo (II.3), the study of philosophy does not aim at knowing the opinions of men but rather the truth of things.

Now if you think about it, there are basically three kinds of being we can talk about: the world (all material beings), man, and God. The branches of philosophy stem (1) partly from these different kinds of being (the world, man, God), (2) partly from different aspects of being (truth, good, beauty), and (3) partly from the historical perspective. The names of the branches are quite easy to figure out.

Before we look at the different fields of study, it is good to have a background in Logic. Philosophy is indeed based on common sense, but that common sense has to be organized in a systematic way. Logic, the science of correct thinking, helps us attain this goal.

The branch of philosophy that studies the material world is called Philosophy of Nature; it is also called Cosmology. The branch that studies man also goes by many names: Philosophy of Man, Philosophical Psychology, or Rational Psychology. Ethics studies the goodness and evil of human acts. When we inquire about society, it is called Social and Political Philosophy. If we want to know more about human knowledge and truth, we study Philosophy of Knowledge (also called Gnoseology or Epistemology). The study of language is, as you guessed, Philosophy of Language. If we want to know about God (using human reason alone, not the Bible), we study Natural Theology; it is also called Theodicy. The relation between man and God is studied in Philosophy of Religion.

There are other subjects that derive from Philosophy of Man such as Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Education, Philosophy of Law. Since we can inquire into everything that exists, the list of specializations can go on and on.

When we study being in general, the subject is called Metaphysics. In Philosophy of Knowledge (mentioned earlier), we study being from the point of view of truth. From the point of view of good, it is Ethics (also mentioned earlier). And when we look at the beauty of being, we are studying Aesthetics.

The history of Western philosophy is usually divided into four: Ancient, Medieval, Modern and Contemporary. Studying history helps us build on what others have discovered, and also helps us avoid the mistakes of the past.

Now that we have looked at the map, we are ready to set out on our voyage of discovery.

3. Do you think I have a brain?

Now that's an odd question, don't you think? In fact, I am going to ask a few odd questions today. All of these questions fall under one big question: How did you get to know the things that you actually know?

Why is this question important? Because we are naturally inquisitive animals, and when we are given some information or data, we naturally would like to know the source of that data before we accept it. Today, we will talk about three ways by which we get to know things and to do that, we will ask three sets of questions.

The first set of questions are questions like the following: Are you reading this essay? Is it hot or cold? Are you seated, standing, or lying down? Are you indoors or outdoors? Is it daytime or nighttime?

You can answer these questions very quickly, I know. Now, let me ask: How did you know that?

I guess your answer will be something like, It's obvious, or I can see (or feel) it. In other words, this first set of questions elicits an answer based on what we directly observe. So we can say that some of the things we know come from direct observation, from what our senses perceive. But is it the only way of knowing? It does not seem so.

Now for the second set of questions.

Let us use the question I asked above: Do you think I have a brain? You may laugh at that question. You might --I hope-- say something like, Yes, or I guess so.

Now let me ask again: How did you know that? This time you cannot say that you observe it directly because you cannot see my brain. So how do you know I have a brain? Well, you might say, I can see signs of intelligence, or something similar.

Let me ask another: Do you think some human being wrote this essay? Maybe you will say, Yes. But what about the possibility that while everyone in the office was out, a monkey came in, and started jumping around the keyboard and produced this essay? Possible? Possible, but highly unlikely.

In both questions about my brain and about this essay, we don't get the answer from direct observation, but rather through reasoning based on information that we have observed.

Science uses both the first and the second ways: it observes phenomena around us and then uses reasoning to get to the causes of those phenomena. Note how limited our knowledge would be if we only accepted the existence of things we directly perceive with our senses.

Now for the third set of questions.

Do you know your birthday? When were you born?

Next question: Are you sure about that? Most people say yes, they are pretty sure.

Did you check the calendar when you came out of the womb? I have not met anyone who did so but everyone says they know they were born on that day. No one says, "I believe I was born on such date." Hmmm, isn't that interesting? We know something that we have not directly observed. Neither can we use reasoning to figure out our date of birth. So it seems we can know things that we cannot directly see or reason about. But how do we know? Through someone who informs us about the fact. It is knowledge based on another person's testimony; it is knowledge based on trust, on human faith.

Much of our knowledge comes in this way. That is why we go to school. We acquire knowledge from others who have in turn acquired it from others.

Once we have established a person's credibility, we learn to accept the information he gives us.

Society is possible because of this kind of knowledge. Science also uses it (e.g. how do you know the distance between the earth and the sun?). And religious belief employs this kind of knowledge as well. But we will take that up in another series.

Philosophical Anthropology (I)

4. Can we talk about something we don’t know?

What happens when someone tries to talk about something he doesn’t know anything about? We say he talks nonsense. This is what we will tackle today. But first, a brief review.

In the first article of this series, we asked why we need philosophy. We have recalled Socrates’ dictum that the unexamined life is not worth living. Philosophy precisely helps us think about our life. Moreover, philosophy is useful for faith in at least three ways: it prepares a person to understand the faith; it helps him deepen his knowledge of it; and it is also an aid in explaining and defending the faith. Faith needs philosophy and reason. Faith without understanding turns into superstition, says Pope Benedict XVI.

In the second article, we touched on the three kinds of reality that philosophy studies: the world, man, and God and the different branches arising from these.

Last week, we discussed the three ways by which we obtain knowledge: direct observation; reasoning; and the information provided by another (a witness) -- a knowledge based on trust or faith.

Now, to go back to today’s topic. Can someone speak about something if he does not know anything about it?

This connects to another question: can I know something if it does not exist? In other words, is it possible for me to know nothing?

I guess you will say no to both questions. And the answer reveals to us three realms, three worlds in which we move: the realm of the real world (the world outside myself); the realm of our sensations, feelings and thoughts; and the realm of language.