The first week was spent on the history of philosophy-watching R.C. Sproul videos and reading Norman Geisler's Introduction to Philosophy. During the second week we studied metaphysics, the study of being or reality answering the question, "What is real?". Epistemology, the study of knowledge, was the topic of the third week, and we answered the question, "What is knowledge?". The fourth week was spent studying the philosophy of ethics and answering the question, "What is the right?". And this past week was spent studying the philosophy of religion and summing up everything we had learned, which was very necessary because made all the topics fuse together and make more sense.
I learned so many incredible things these past five weeks; it's hard to put it into words because I have never thought about most of what I learned. I guess I will just point out what stood out most to me:
- I now can say that I have studied and read the primary texts of the ancient philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. I love that I now know who they are, what they believed in, and how they impacted philosophy, including mine. I also studied modern philosophers such as Descartes, Pascal, Locke, Berkely, Hume, and Kant. It was incredibly interesting to realize how these men have impacted the philosophy and worldviews of today including modernism and postmodernism.
- For my final paper, I was assigned to write about how philosophy is significant to the Christian faith. I loved it because I finally understood how philosophy and Christianity fit together, and how without philosophy, Christianity loses so much importance. I wonder if Christianity could even exist without philosophy; however, I wonder if any other area of study could exist without philosophy. I say this because philosophy covers critical thinking, logic, argumentation, reason, knowledge, worldviews...Without these, how are we to approach science, theology, missions, government, psychology, etc? Perhaps this is why it was so difficult for me to try to separate philosophy from Christianity and try to figure out how they work together; they are so intricately connected! I really enjoyed writing that paper and realizing how important philosophy is to all areas of study and how I can and do use it daily in all that I do.
- One of the things I realized during this module is that I rarely ever stop thinking. When I am sleeping may be the only time when my mind is at rest( I rarely have dreams). One of my readings discussed how the mind is constantly trying to summarize things and simplify concepts from large to small. This really intrigued me, because it's totally true if you think about it. :) Thinking about this made me wonder if in heaven we will think the same or if our minds will work in a different way. Will we still try to simplify? Will our minds be constantly going all the time? Will our thoughts be completely pure?
- During this module, I realized what a gift the mind is. The intellect is what sets us apart from all the other creatures, which is why we are called rational animals. God made us in his image; only us, not anything else. He gave us the gift of the mind because that's what helps draw us into a relationship with him. Reason is what we have in common with God( in addition to other things), because God is reasonable. Understanding this, it causes me to wonder if I am bringing glory to him through my mind, through my thoughts; whether I am thinking critically; whether I am using my mind to study and learn more about him through the many concepts and areas of study he has provided....It causes me to want to change the habits of my mind.
There is so much else I could discuss: reality, knowledge, more about the mind, being...Maybe someday I will write more about those subjects, but for now I will leave you with what I have written today. Enjoy!
