Hey Andy, can a Christian have a philosophical conversation or debate philosophy without quoting the Bible? Is it even possible for such a thing to happen? For example, most atheists do not see the need to quote other atheists, the same way I don’t need to quote George Washington Carver to tell you that I believe peanut butter is absolutely delicious.
Hi, well, here’s the thing. I mean, yeah, a Christian could have a philosophical debate without quoting the Bible, that is, if the philosophical topic isn’t about God, morals/ethics, or anything He created.
Understand, I’m not trying to be sarcastic here, but most famous philosophers are known for their takes on God. And no, you don’t need Carver to tell you that peanut butter is delicious, but honestly, I haven’t had a philosophical conversation with somebody who didn’t either quote or bring up a theory that wasn’t already thought up by another philosopher. That’s probably because it’s also difficult to propose a theory about God, or almost anything really, that hasn’t been thought up by these same philosophers, or by somebody in history. Also, on that note, in my conversations anyway, most atheists do, often, bring up past philosophers, scientists, theories, cultures, philosophy and such in their conversations, as well as quotes. And you might need to quote George Washington Carver to tell me that you believe peanut butter is absolutely delicious, since it’s said that he’d invented over 300 uses for peanuts, and you wanted to try and use his reasons for such inventions to support your belief, especially if you brought in its nutritious values and different uses to explain why you like it so much (however, according to this link, Carver was not the one who invented peanut butter).
So yeah, it is possible to not “quote” the Bible in a philosophical discussion or debate, but can we keep our faith and talks of what’s in the Bible out? I say no, for such support the origin of our opinions and knowledge of the topic.
Now here’s a question for you: can a philosophy major talk philosophy without quoting from another philosopher? Or an even tougher question: Can a philosopher today come up with a question about God that has never been asked before? I bet they can’t.
Please Leave a Reply