FAITH AND PHILOSOPHY

Can faith be defended with logical argument against its detractors? Faith, we have seen, was for Clement a phenomenon of exploding wonder. Surprised by grace, it grew with the help of rule and tradition. However, some of Clement's critics were reluctant to go ‘beyond reason’. Therefore he set out arguments for faith so that it was linked with reason. The danger was that, in defending faith, he might lose the touch of wonder which stimulated growth. Instead, he found the same stimulus to wonder in the philosophers; philosophy and faith were both ruled by his two values of audacity and wisdom. He reminded philosophers that they got nowhere unless they took risks; there could be no wisdom without audacity. Philosophers too found it necessary to hope, choose, perceive, listen to God and find ultimate and unproved truths. They had to make judgements, to move upwards and never lose sight of the summit. Outside the church, criticism of faith was indeed intense. Celsus (and Galen) claimed that Christians always said, ‘Only believe’, and never gave reasons for their creeds (Cels. 1.9).

Clement had to meet the objections of Gnostics as well as philosophers against the importance which he gave to faith. He turned to Paul, John, Hebrews, Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Stoics, Epicurus and others. Middle Platonism blended Plato with Aristotle and the Stoics. Faith was preconception, assent, perception, listening to God in scripture, acceptance of unprovable first principles, judgement by criterion.