Customer Reviews

God and Philosophy, Second edition

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Thales of Miletus, whom tradition regards as the first Western philosopher, is well-known for the rationalist view that the first principle is water, and the religious statement, "all things are full of gods." (p. 1) For Gilson, this epitomizes the problems of relating philosophy and religion. How can religious and philosophical statements about God be reconciled? For Thales and the Greeks, Gilson argues that they cannot, but that it is otherwise with the Christian philosophies of Being.

On this basis, rejects the view that Greek philosophy is a rationalization of a religious viewpoint, apparently on the basis that one cannot interpret a world of personal forces in terms of things. However, F. M Cornford and others argued persuasively for the opposite view, and seem to have in great part won the battle. For example, the classic study of the presocratic philosophers by Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, as well as anthologies by Wheelwright and Barnes, begin with a consideration of their religious and mythological predecessors. So, it does not seem one can understand the origin of Greek philosophy without considering Greek religion.

How well does Gilson understand Greek religion? Is it true that "A world where everything comes from without, including their feelings and passions, their virtues and vices, such was the Greek religious world." (p. 13) As E. R. Dodds has pointed out, this did not seem to deprive them of a sense of responsibility. Before criticizing Gilson too strongly, we should remember that God and Philosophy originates in the Mahlon Powell Lectures on Philosophy at Indiana University in 1938-1939, and that Greek thought and religion are not really his specialty. Historical details aside, Gilson always raises pertinent questions.

Gilson aptly states the philosophical problem of God not only for the Greeks, but philosophers generally: "how to identify their principles with their gods, or their gods with their principles." (p. 22) Christian thought concerning the nature of God owes much to Plato's Form of the Good, Aristotle's Unmoved Mover or Self-Thinking Thought, and Plotinus' One, but it is difficult to give them a full religious value, although I cannot agree they have none at all. I may say that Gilson provides a marvelously condensed account of Plotinus' philosophy of the One which may well be basically correct. (Pp. 45-50)

For Gilson, the Greek essentialist philosophies could not help but consider God as a thing. When it comes to Christian philosophies of Being (a controverted subject), Gilson argues that the philosophical God and the religious God can be the same Being. This is a very attractive position considered in itself. I think. But, his historical analysis is less certain. It may be that many Christian thinkers have rendered the cryptic phrase for who God is in Exodus 3:1 as "He Who Is." This, however, has exegetical difficulties. Suffice it to point out that the New Revised Standard Version translates the phrase as "I AM WHO I AM," and offers two alternatives in the footnotes, "I AM WHAT I AM or I AM WHAT I WILL BE." So, while Gilson argues persuasively that religious thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas, among numerous others, have interpreted this as meaning God is Being, it doubtful whether this a good exegesis of the text.

Gilson is one of the greatest Descartes scholars, but I must forgo discussing his insights in any detail. He cites O. Hamelin for the opinion that Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, followed after the ancient philosophers as if nothing had happened in between. Gilson has very effectively attacked this view a number of times, especially as to his notion of God.

"Whatever his name, his rank, or his function, not one of the gods of Greek religion had ever claimed to be the one, sole, and supreme Being, creator of the world, first principle, and ultimate end of all things. Descartes, on the contrary, could not approach the same philosophical problem without finding himself confronted with the Christian God." (p. 79)

So Descartes' attempt to philosophize about God apart from religious revelation was doomed to failure from the start. Gilson argues that it is extremely difficult to philosophize about God apart from religious revelation, simply because philosophers must have some pre-philosophical idea of God in the first place. The God of the philosophers generally becomes a thing, a philosophical principle.

Frankly, after Descartes, the book becomes somewhat disjointed, filled with brilliant insights though it may be. I will mention Spinoza, who wished "to achieve salvation by means of philosophy only." His brand of salvation is really available, at best, to a select few, who can understand nature "as an absolutely intelligible reality." In passing, he discusses such varied thinkers as Pascal, Malebranche, Leibniz, Kant, Comte, English and French Deists, Sir James Jeans, who gets several pages, and Julian Huxley. One must remember that the book originated in a lecture series, which must have been brilliant.

Gilson quite sensibly holds that religion is existential, that it concerns our lives. It is not how the universe works, but why, and the ultimate why is, in Leibniz's formulation: why is there something rather than nothing?

"To this supreme question, the only conceivable answer is that each and every particular existential energy, each and every particular thing, depends for its existence on a pure Act of existence."

Gilson goes on to argue that this pure Act must be self-subsistent, knowing, and free, and hence, a person.

Ninian Smart, who qualified both in the history of religions and analytic philosophy, has argued forcefully that too many philosophers who discuss religion know very little about the history of religion. Gilson, however, really knew quite a lot about religion, and his position is quite attractive. Though many of his historical interpretations are debatable, with Gilson's philosophical and literary acumen, God and Philosophy remains one of the best introductions to many of the themes of the philosophy of religion.

Gilson's book is simply a masterpiece! The brilliance of this work is shown in its clarity and simplicity of thought and development of philosophy from the ancient Greeks on. Too often philosophy reads these days have become complex and frustrating, but not with Gilson. A true Christian philosopher, it is unfortunate that a reader might think this work concludes with the idea that "God is dead." This is not the intent of Gilson at all; rather, that of the exact opposite! Find out for yourself...

Gilson brilliantly demonstrates that God's description of himself as "I AM who AM", in revelation to Moses and the Jewish people, is the foundation of western metaphysics - it is the decisive answer to the Greek's search for meaning. It was in this decisive encounter between God and his people that God showed himself to be pure Act.

"Existence is not a thing, but the act that causes a thing both to be and to be what it is. This distinction merely expresses the fact that, in our human expericence, there is no thing whose essence it is "to be" and not "to be a certain thing thing....Since the nature of no one of them (things) is "to be", the most exhaustive scientific knowledge of what they are will not so much as suggest the beginning of an answer to the question: "Why are they"? "If the nature of no known thing is "to be", the nature of no known thing contains in itself the suffient reason for its own existence. But it points to a sole conceivable cause...there must be some cause whose very essence it is "to be". To post such a being whose essence is pure Act of existing, that is, whose essence is not to be this and that but "to be" is also to post the Christian God as the supreme cause of the universe". (page 70-72).

"The true reason why this universe appears to some scienitist as mysterious is that, mistaking existential, that is, metaphysical, questions for scientific ones, they ask science to answer them. Naturally, they get no answers. Then they are puzzled, and they say that the universe is mysterious" (page 128)

For Gilson, Scientists "prefer a complete absence of intelligibilty to the presence of a non-scientific intelligibility"

"Much more common, unfortuantely, are those pseudo-agnostics who, because they combine scientific knowledge and social generosity with a complete lack of philosophical culture, substitute dangerous mythologies (progress, for example, my inference!) for the natural theology which they do not even understand (page 137). This sounds like a remarkable forewarning of what is happening in our culture where science and progress are elevated to the pantheon of the gods. Witness the complete lack of meaningful debate in the UK concering the creation of saviour siblings and human-animal hybrids for experimentation, the latter being put forward simply because there may be some benefits and hence possibly some scientific benefits.

Finally, the question which must always and everywhere be asked is "Why is there something rather than nothing"? (page 188).

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The chapter on Greek philosophy could be a bit confusing if you haven't already read into or learned about some of the ideas of, say, Plato. I much more enjoyed the second and third chapters. The Greek philosophy is necessary, though, as a backdrop to the problem of God's existence. I must say, though, that Plato's quote from the Republic about the Idea of Good was eye-opening (without knowing it his description is perfectly in line with the Christian idea of God). Another reason why the chapter on Greek philosophy is necessary is the later connections Gilson makes to it, mostly in the chapter "God and Christian Philosophy."

The third and fourth chapters were probably the best. Perhaps it is by design that each chapter is better than the last. There are some great nuggets of wisdom and insight in this book. There are a great many passages, especially in the chapter entitled "Contemporary Thought" that are written so well that you can't help but think that nobody could have said it better, and I found myself desiring to reread these passages in appreciation of what I just read. Although this chapter, I will admit, seems out of place, it was still a good read and I couldn't agree more with what was said.

Even though the book is fairly old (1969), Gilson's thoughts on science in relation to metaphysical questions is still very applicable (a shame that it is still the same way in modern science as it was 40 years ago). I think somebody on any side of the spectrum, and in between, with relation to their beliefs about the existence or non-existence of God could get something from this book. Of course, for a Christian who enjoys philosophy, as I am, this book was an interesting and fun read to say the least. A Christian philosopher would most likely get more out of this book, but I still think that anyone who enjoys philosophy and wants a good introduction to the topic of God could gain insight from this book. Therefore, I would recommend it to any student of philosophy.

For the new student learning philosophy, Gilson is very readable and the necessary starting point. He presents a comprehensive review of western philosophy, which is not easy. Nonetheless he gives a baseline from which to assess the various philosophies that developed and deviated over the centuries. Gilson left me wanting to learn more about the great Scholastic philosophers and thus read more of the subject, especially his work. I think this book is a great place for wanna-be serious thinkers to get their philosophical legs under them.

Gilson's book is a very rewarding read. Much is made of the influence of Greek philosophy on Christianity, but
Gilson pinpoints the key difference between the two: "He who is" (Christianity) versus "that which is" (Greek philosophy).

What's significant too in a book of this kind, as Jaroslav Pelikan points out in the forward, is that Gilson does not
focus on the usual suspects -- Marx, Freud, Darwin, and Nietzsche. But instead focuses on Kant.

Towards the end of the book, Gilson offers what Presbyterian theologian R.C. Sproul has called Gilson's choice:
"Today our only choice is not Kant or Descartes; it is rather Kant or Thomas Aquinas.
All other positions are but halfway houses on the roads which lead either to absolute
religious agnosticism or to the natural theology of Christian metaphysics."

This book has many merits, not the least of which is to give the reader a deep
appreciation of Christian metaphysics and how it can be a natural fit with one's
Christian faith. Although I've sampled Aquinas, I finished the book feeling challenged
to read him more extensively.

God and Philosophy is an outstanding exposition how the thought of 'God' has emerged into what Eitenne Gilson has persuaded himself to believe as "HE WHO IS." EG first begins this task by exploring the notion of 'God' in Greek philosophy from Homer's Iliad to Plato and Aristotle. Then, EG explores the early Christian tradition of 'God' from Augustine to Aquinas. Next, EG contrasts Descartes' 'God' with Spinoza's 'God'. Finally, EG investigates the problem and brings to light the error that has been rampant from Greek philosophy to Contemporary Thought of 'God'. The problem has been an existential one. That is, an existential notion of 'God' has been lacking. The error has been utilizing the method of "science" or the "science of metaphysics" in our search for 'God'. This method does not get us any closer to finding 'God' as "HE WHO IS." Lacking an existential notion of 'God' takes us further away from finding 'God' and only gives us a 'God' as an "object of knowledge" (109) but not 'God'. I agree for the most part with EG. Because we have not found "HE WHO IS that which is" (both Being and Essence) we have created a world full of gods. "For when gods fight among themselves, men have to die" (137) - physically and existentially, emphasis mine. Based on man's anthropomorphic grounds in his affirmation of 'God' "HE WHO IS" never was... Indeed, "God is dead!"

I got the book for my cousin for Christmas. I read about half of it and it was well written, not so much circular logic like most philosophy books.

i gave this book 4 stars because it has motivated me to pursue more study on Aquinas. as for the book itself, it's far from perfect. i agree with the other reviewer in that, towards the end of the book, Gilson's thoughts seemed to lose structure and purpose. By the last chapter, I was scratching my head trying to figure out what his point was in adding another chapter. it was fairly organized right up to the discussion of the Deists, which seemed to be just thrown in so that no part of natural theology in the modern period would be left out. I could appreciate a few pages discussing the faults with following a strict scientism, which has seduced contemporary thinkers, but to devote an entire chapter to saying the same thing over and over again is just a waste of time. Overall, it was worth reading, but I doubt anyone will be convinced by any argument presented in this book. I think Gilson is preaching to the converted, because i doubt anyone but fellow Thomists and Christians agree with Gilson's assessment of the history of the relationship between religion and philosophy. If you've not familiarized yourself with Aquinas' thought, however, reading this book might challenge you to do so.