Writing Service-what are Tertullian and Justin Martyr saying about faith, reason, and philosophy in these passages? Are their positions in conflict? What are the implications of each perspective?
What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, and the Church with the Academy, the Christian with the heretic? Our principles come from the Porch [Stoa] of Solomon (John 10:23; Acts 5:12) who had himself taught that the Lord is to be sought in simplicity of heart. I have no use for a Stoic or a Platonic or a dialectic Christianity. After Jesus Christ we have no need of speculation, after the Gospel no need of research. When we come to believe, we have no desire to believe anything else; for we begin by believing that there is nothing else which we have to believe” (Tertullian in Kerr, p. 40).
“So when Plato said, ‘The Blame belongs to him who chooses, and God is free from blame” (Republic 617E), he took this from the prophet Moses. For Moses was earlier than Plato and all the Greek writers. And everything that philosophers and poets said about the immortality of the soul, punishments after death, contemplation of heavenly things, and teachings of that kind—they took hints from the prophets and so were able to understand these things and expounded them. So it seems that there were indeed seeds of truth in all men, but they are proved not to have understood them properly since they contradict each other” (Justin Martyr in Kerr, p. 21).
Drawing on other parts of their writings, what are Tertullian and Justin Martyr saying about faith, reason, and philosophy in these passages? Are their positions in conflict? What are the implications of each perspective?
