Why it matters for reading Scripture
Philosophy supplies the tools theology reasons with: logic, the arguments about God, and the language of being and knowing. The creeds themselves use its terms.
FoundationsHow does theology know what it knows?
Philosophy of religion is the sub-field of philosophy that examines religious concepts and claims and the questions they raise, from the divine attributes and arguments for God to evil and religious experience. It emerged as a distinct sub-field in the mid-twentieth century. For theology, philosophy supplies logic and the language of being and knowing; the creeds themselves use its terms.
Study v1.1, 6 November 2026
Philosophy supplies the tools theology reasons with: logic, the arguments about God, and the language of being and knowing. The creeds themselves use its terms.
Christian theology adopted, transformed and contested philosophy's terms and logic, from Greek being, substance and hypostasis to modern epistemology; the creeds use these terms, and analytic philosophy of religion revived from the 1960s.
Traditions divide on how far reason reaches without revelation: natural theology, analogy or univocity, apophatic limits and essence-energies, Christological terms, analytic theology, and whether philosophy may correct readings of Scripture.
Holds, with the First Vatican Council, that God "can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things", and that there can never be any real disagreement between faith and reason.
Aquinas made the other sciences the handmaidens of sacred doctrine, and held that names are said of God by analogy, which the Fourth Lateran Council bounds with an ever greater dissimilarity. Fides et Ratio (1998) calls philosophy "fundamental and indispensable to the structure of theological studies", yet says the Church "has no philosophy of her own".
Follows Gregory Palamas in holding that God's essence is "absolutely unutterable" and that God is known only through participation in his uncreated energies, and joins this distinction to the apophatic tradition, putting negation first, with Pseudo-Dionysius.
In the 1330s Barlaam of Calabria and Palamas both held natural theology possible; Palamas, who first defended dogmatic theology as a science, later revised that view as he developed the distinction between God's essence and energies. In the twentieth century Georges Florovsky led the Orthodox "return to the Church Fathers".
The Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopian and Malankara churches did not receive Chalcedon and keep Cyril of Alexandria's formula, one incarnate nature of God the Word.
Their joint commission with the Orthodox noted in 1989 that the Fathers did not use physis and hypostasis "always interchangeably", and agreed in 1990 that each family may keep its own terms, since the natures are distinguished "in thought alone". The Anglican and Oriental Orthodox statement explains that miaphysite teaching confesses "not a single nature but one incarnate united divine-human nature of the Word of God", and the Coptic Church confessed one Christ with the Catholic Church in 1973 without settling the terms.
Declared with the Catholic Church in 1994 that Christ's divinity and humanity are "united in one person, without confusion or change", and that past divisions were "due in large part to misunderstandings".
Such disputes turn on how the same philosophical words were used.
Luther wrote in 1517 that "the whole Aristotle is to theology as darkness is to light", though the Stanford entry on Luther holds that his hostility to reason is often overstated: he wanted reason kept to its proper sphere.
The Reformers set philosophy and theology apart, holding that the two have different starting points and methods, and Calvin said that scholastic philosophy had "drawn a veil over Christ to hide him". Herman Dooyeweerd argued that no theoretical thought is religiously neutral, and Nicholas Wolterstorff describes "a revulsion against arguments in favor of theism or Christianity" as characteristic of the Continental Calvinist tradition. Barth rejected natural theology and the analogia entis of Erich Przywara. Alvin Plantinga's "Advice to Christian Philosophers" (1984) held that "the Christian has as much right to his prephilosophical opinions as others have to theirs".
The Evangelical Philosophical Society, founded in 1974, exists "to glorify God through the faithful practice of philosophy"; its members are "committed to a high view of biblical authority", it holds faith "rationally defensible", and it publishes Philosophia Christi.
James K. A. Smith's Thinking in Tongues (2010) opened the Pentecostal Manifestos series; its introduction asks "what hath Athens to do with Azusa Street?", and its chapters offer a Pentecostal epistemology and a Pentecostal critique of philosophy of religion.
Holds that a belief is justified only if it is proportioned to the evidence.
W. K. Clifford's 1879 statement is the classic: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence", and Hume's rule for miracles applies the same principle to testimony.
Rejects evidentialism, as Wolterstorff (1976) and Plantinga (1983) did.
Plantinga argued that classical foundationalism excludes beliefs such as that other persons exist and fails its own test, and that belief in God is in the same boat as belief in other minds, the past and perceptual objects. He draws on Calvin's sensus divinitatis, a natural sense of God, and answered the Great Pumpkin objection by holding that candidates can be told apart without stating criteria and that basic beliefs remain open to defeat.
William Wood dates its rise from Analytic Theology (2009), edited by Oliver Crisp and Michael Rea, which set out to begin "a much-needed interdisciplinary conversation" between systematic theologians and analytic philosophers.
Its defenders hope to restore rigor; its critics, from theology and from D. Z. Phillips's side of philosophy, argue that it is not theological enough or that it distorts faith.
The Presocratics, recognized in antiquity as the first philosophers of the Western tradition, offer the ideas theology later took: a first principle (archē), the critique of gods pictured in human form, the logos, being, and mind (nous).27
Origen's letter to Gregory asks his pupil to take from Greek philosophy what serves Christianity, speaking of philosophy "as being ancillary to Christianity", and reads Israel's taking of Egyptian gold and silver for the tabernacle as the type of that use.28
The First Council of Constantinople confesses the Son "consubstantial with the Father" and one Godhead "in three most perfect hypostases, or three perfect persons"; the Council of Chalcedon confesses Christ "in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation".2930
Pseudo-Dionysius, who took the name of Paul's convert at Athens, writes the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology, reworking the Neoplatonism of Proclus and giving the apophatic tradition its texts.8
Anselm, whose motto was "faith seeking understanding", names God in the Proslogion "that than which a greater cannot be thought".31
Maimonides's Guide of the Perplexed reads divine attributes as negations, so that "God is powerful" means "God is not lacking in power", and holds creation not proved but preferable to eternity.32
Descartes's Meditations find a first certainty in "I think, therefore I am", argue from the idea of an infinite being to God, and hold that what is perceived very clearly and distinctly is true because God does not deceive.35
Kant's Critiques criticize the ontological, cosmological and physico-theological proofs and limit knowledge to "make room for faith", with God and immortality as postulates of practical reason; in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793) "morality inevitably leads to religion".36
The First Vatican Council's Dei Filius teaches "a twofold order of knowledge", distinct in source and object, and that "there can never be any real disagreement between faith and reason".1
John Paul II's Fides et Ratio opens: "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth."5
Name the kind of argument: deductive, inductive or probabilistic, abductive, or modal4950.
For a deductive argument, ask whether the conclusion must be true if the premises are, and whether the premises are true49.
For a probabilistic argument, weigh how probable the hypothesis is on the total evidence, as in Swinburne's Bayesian case22.
For an abductive argument, compare the rival explanations by the theoretical virtues, such as simplicity, generality and coherence with established theories, remembering van Fraassen's objection that the best explanation considered may be only "the best of a bad lot"49.
Find the premise that carries the weight, and state the argument's best-known objection.
Check for the common informal fallacies, such as begging the question, attacking the person, the straw man, equivocation and false cause51.
Read each term in its context: words such as person and nature have changed meaning or carry more than one sense5210.
Read the primary texts themselves, and keep popular phrases apart from them: "I believe because it is absurd" is not Tertullian's5354.
The works below shaped the field and are cited in this study, from the earliest to the most recent. Hover over a book, or select it, to see its author and the sources behind it.
Listed because this study draws on their published work; no association with or endorsement of Numa Verse is implied. Suggest a correction.
The words that carry the most weight in this field, each defined from the sources of this study. Turn a card over to read its definition.
No: the phrase misstates him, and Eric Osborn notes that he never said it53. In On the Flesh of Christ 5 he wrote of the death of the Son of God that it is credible "because it is unfitting", foolish by worldly standards but not a contradiction54. He did ask "What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?", yet he drew heavily on Stoic philosophy5815.
In four ways, on William Wood's account: integration, and three kinds of contrast, namely cooperation, disjunction and conflict15. Early Christians presented their faith as the true philosophy; Aquinas developed the cooperation model, in which philosophy prepares the ground for theology; and the Reformers moved to disjunction15.
Not on the 2020 PhilPapers Survey: of the 1,770 who answered the question, 18.9 percent accepted or leaned to theism and 66.9 percent to atheism4243. Among philosophy of religion specialists, 78 percent endorsed theism against 17 percent of others, the largest specialist effect in the survey as the authors report it43. The authors add that these data "do not tell us anything about whether specialist opinion correlates with philosophical truth"43.
They keep Cyril of Alexandria's formula, one incarnate nature of God the Word, in which physis is used of the one concrete reality, not a mixed nature10. The Anglican and Oriental Orthodox statement explains that this teaching confesses "not a single nature but one incarnate united divine-human nature of the Word of God", and the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox joint commission agreed in 1990 that each family may keep its own terms1110.
Fides et Ratio (1998) says the Church "has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others", while calling philosophy fundamental and indispensable to theological studies5. The First Vatican Council taught that God "can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things"1.
Reviewed and approved by Duane Herholdt, BA (Theology), Chief Executive Officer, Numa Verse
Study version: v1.1, 6 November 2026 (theology map v1.27)
Last reviewed: 9 November 2026