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Dr. Patrick contends here that traditional Western philosophy is theological in its arguments, with the exception of the likes of Lucretius and the Epicureans. Thus, the legacy of Greek and Roman philosophy has always intersected and eventually contributed to the basic vocabulary and logic of Christian theology, becoming a continuity fulfilled in revelation rather than a rejected inheritance. Plato’s contention that God is good and loves mankind binds with Aristotle’s conception of God as the “unmoved mover” and Cicero’s “reasonable” deity that governs the cosmos in Christian theology, and these thoughts were interpreted and synthesized by the great St. Augustine. Although earlier fathers, such as Tertullian, denied the value of the Greek and Roman legacy, apologists as early as Justin Martyr claimed the noblest pagans as part of the essential background of Christian thought. St. Augustine was the most important of the early fathers to recognize the Western philosophers as part of the Western Christian tradition.
St. Augustine recorded in his Confessions that a lost work of Cicero’s was the first book that caused him to pursue philosophy: a drive that “directed his thoughts towards God,” according to our speaker. Later, after his conversion, St. Augustine used Cicero’s works on duty to interpret the role of Christian leaders in the Church. Dr. Patrick contends that Cicero’s qualified influence best illustrates Christianity’s claim on the natural wisdom of the pre-Christian world, and the transcendent truth Christianity affirms in that world.
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