Philosophy is derived from the Latin roots phil which means “love” and sophia which means “wisdom and understanding”.   Thus philosophy is the love of wisdom and understanding.  And those who pursue philosophy search for wisdom and understanding. And wisdom and understanding were given to God’s people through His statutes.  For as they were commanded “keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’” (Deuteronomy 4:5-6)  But His people did not follow God’s statutes, thus His wisdom and understanding were not theirs. 

And the Father would bestow His wisdom on His Son. “Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.  The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:1-2)  And the Son would bestow His wisdom on His servants.  “For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute.’” (Luke 11:49)

But those who despise wisdom depart from the truth.   For “the wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way, but the foolishness of fools is deceit.” (Proverbs 14:8)  For those who despise wisdom seek to fill their own selfish desires. “He who separates himself seeks his own desire, He quarrels against all sound wisdom. A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind.” (Proverbs 18:1-2)  But wisdom shall judge each man on that day.  For as the Son said “everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.  Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

And those who love wisdom search for the truth, for they seek to understand God’s words.  For “the sum of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.” (Psalms 119:160) And the truth of the Word was manifest in the flesh. “For the Law was given through Moses; but grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17)   And the truth would bring Light to this world.  But “this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.  For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:19-21)

And the prophets of old have sought for the truth.  For prophecy is derived from the Greek root prophetia which means “to know the will of God”. And whoever does the will of God is a child of God. For as the Son said “whoever does the willof God, he is My brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:35) And be doing the will of God we vanquish the ignorance of foolish men. For “such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.”  (1 Peter 2:15-16)  And the greatest philosophers have sought for the truth.  For as Plato said, “Is it not a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is?   For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.”   Thus the logical assumption would be to search for the truth.  For as the Son said “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)  And in searching for the truth we can expound upon the thoughts of the philosophers and prophets.  And by truth we shall know things as they truly were, things as they truly are, and things as they truly shall be.

                                                                  

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