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National Convivium: “Philosophy and the Christian: Seeking Wisdom in the Light of Christ” with Dr. James Eglinton
June 1, 2022 @ 6:00 pm - June 4, 2022 @ 9:00 pm
National Convivium: “Philosophy and the Christian: Seeking Wisdom in the Light of Christ”
Many are familiar with Tertullian’s ringing challenge to the Church: “What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem?” As far as this Church Father was concerned, philosophy and theology did not make comfortable bedfellows – and yet many Christians have answered his challenge with great success throughout the centuries.
But which philosophy are we talking about exactly? The Church has largely developed alongside Greco-Roman thinking, but is there one true philosophy which serves Christian theology? Should we beware of Greeks bearing gifts? And is it time for the Church to break free from philosophical categories, or embrace new ones altogether?
Our Ninth Annual Convivium Irenicum will attend to such questions, and more. We warmly invite proposals for presentations or guided discussions on the topic of how Protestantism can reclaim philosophy’s role as the “handmaiden of theology”.
The event will center around the sessions from our keynote speaker, Dr. James Eglinton, a world-renowned scholar on the life and work of the Dutch Neo-Calvinist theologian Herman Bavinck (1854-1921). We will examine Bavinck as a model for faithful philosophical theology (though not uncritically) through a number of his writings.