Episode 238: Is There a Philosophy of the Cross?

In this episode, inspired by an essay that appeared in the Expository Times, we talk about the relationship between Christianity and philosophy. Specifically we consider what Christ crucified, "the foolishness of God," has to do with the philosophical enterprise. You can find the essay we discuss here: This is the Von Balthasar quote referenced: Neither religious philosophy nor existence can provide the criterion for the genuineness of Christianity. In philosophy, man discovers what is humanly knowable about the depths of being; in existence, man lives out what is humanly livable. But Christianity disappears the moment it allows itself to be dissolved into a transcendental precondition of human self-understanding in thinking or living, knowledge or deed. It thus seems at first that the extrinsicist and historical approach of the newer apologetics is the only way forward. This approach does not altogether collapse before philosophy and existence, but only because they both serve to justify the approach in a secondary and subsequent sense. Once the act of faith has been carried out as faith in the historical kerygma, it fulfills metaphysics and ethics even as it elevates them. -Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Love Alone is Credible (Kindle Locations 418-424). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.