Is There Frivolity in Philosophy?

              “How can you be so frivolous and selfish as to think of anything but the salvation of human souls?”[1] In his 1939 sermon, “Learning in Wartime”, C. S. Lewis asks his listeners to consider this question. Specifically in the context of practicing academia during the second World War, Lewis worries, “Why should we—indeed how can we—continue to take an interest in these placid occupations when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance? Is it not like fiddling while Rome burns?”[2] In his use of the word ‘frivolous’, Lewis perfectly captures the struggle of doing work which feels unimportant, while also being aware of the evils in the surrounding world. Earlier this year, I wrote a short paper on Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, defending the martyr’s method of attaining happiness as being non-elitist and available to all, no matter their situation or intellectual capability. Later that day, there was a homeless woman in distress outside my dorm, and my roommate and I brought her food and water in an attempt to console her. We were glad to help, but I immediately felt ridiculous for the paper I had written earlier that day; the mere thought of leaving the food and water at home, and instead bringing the woman, whose name was Patricia, a copy of Boethius’s Consolation, was absurd enough to make me and my roommate laugh. She needed actual, physical help, and whatever nobility I had felt earlier that day for turning in a half-decent philosophy paper evaporated. Due to other circumstances outside my control, the start of this year had been rough in general, and this incident only added to my disenchantment with cultivating the mind, especially in an academic context—how could I be so frivolous and selfish as to sit in my comfortable room, typing away about an ancient book, while people in need sit right outside my doorstep? I do not want to convey a sense of fake virtue, convincing the reader that I am so humble and kind that I would rather help others than do something I truly do enjoy. But there was a sense in which the work I was doing felt meaningless and, indeed, frivolous, and thus Philosophy, the very one whose degree I was pursuing, became unattractive to me.

             At the beginning of his Consolation, Boethius, once a Roman senator, finds himself in prison, accused of treason against King Theodoric the Great. He has lost everything he loved, and weeps bitterly, awaiting his execution. Philosophy, embodied in the form of a woman, appears to Boethius, encouraging him to “reveal the wound,” so that she may help him. [3] He embarks on an angry rant, cursing not only the evil men that saw to his imprisonment, but his own honesty and goodness at large. He cannot fathom how he, a man who has always been good and behaved, could find himself in such an unfortunate situation; he recalls fondly those days when he sat in his comfortable library spending hours with Philosophy: for what? Boethius even has a moment of wishing he had been dishonest, entertaining that to be out of prison would be preferable to virtue—and to many readers, he may seem correct. His attitude mirrors that of the older brother in Jesus’s parable of the Prodigal Son: while the younger son squandered their father’s wealth, the elder did everything right; and yet, he never got a celebration or feast like the younger brother did when he returned home. Lady Philosophy finds her once-faithful practitioner completely disenchanted with her; and yet, by the end of the text, Boethius, despite his circumstances, has indeed been consoled, and is able to find true happiness in God. Thus, inspired by the restoration of my own faith in philosophy, this paper will show how Boethius makes his triumphant return to the pursuit of wisdom, and explore what it means for our everyday lives as Christians. The central questions then becomes: Why practice philosophy?

        First, I must be clear that I am actually asking: why should we, as Christians, practice philosophy? Christians have a tendency in the modern age to approach challenging problems at first from an secular worldview, maybe for the sake of being more convincing to those who do not start with our same premises. However, as philosopher Alvin Plantinga suggests in his paper, “Advice to Christian Philosophers”:

My counsel can be summed up on two connected suggestions, along with a codicil. First, Christian philosophers and Christian intellectuals generally must display more autonomy—more independence of the rest of the philosophical world. Second, Christian philosophers must display more integrity—integrity in the sense of integral wholeness, or oneness, or unity, being all of one piece. Perhaps 'integrality' would be the better word here. And necessary to these two is a third: Christian courage, or boldness, or strength, or perhaps Christian self-confidence.[4]

In examining my own pursuit of wisdom, and trusting the words of Boethius, Christian self-confidence is necessary, and it is in this spirit that we will proceed with Christian premises: that there is a loving God, that we have immortal souls, and that we have a responsibility to spend our time wisely.  

            We must begin by establishing a definition of philosophy that is precise enough for our needs. Socrates, in Plato’s works, repeatedly asserts that philosophy is the love of wisdom.[5] Thus, to practice philosophy is to pursue wisdom out of love. It is reasonable to conclude, then, that practicing philosophy ought to be done honestly and in good faith, and there is evidence of this in Scripture—Proverbs 9:8 states, “Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.”[6] In this passage, we ought to see ourselves both in the shoes of the one rebuking, and also the rebuked: to find joy in being corrected is to truly love wisdom, and it takes the utmost humility and honesty. Therefore, we will say that to practice philosophy, or to philosophize, is to pursue wisdom in humility and honesty.

            Before tackling the question of why we should practice philosophy, there is a hidden question looming behind: why, as Christians, should we do anything at all? As we saw Lewis articulate earlier:

We have to inquire whether there is really any legitimate place for the activities of the scholar in a world such as this. That is, we have always to answer the question: “How can you be so frivolous and selfish as to think about anything but the salvation of human souls?” and we have, at the moment, to answer the additional question, “How can you be so frivolous and selfish as to think of anything but the war?”[7]

Thankfully, Lewis provides some consolation to the listener for this unsettling prospect. He explains:

Before I became a Christian I do not think I fully realized that one's life, after conversion, would inevitably consist in doing most of the same things one had been doing before: one hopes, in a new spirit, but still the same things…There is no question of a compromise between the claims of God and the claims of culture, or politics, or anything else. God's claim is infinite and inexorable. You can refuse it: or you can begin to try to grant it. There is no middle way. Yet in spite of this it is clear that Christianity does not exclude any of the ordinary human activities. St. Paul tells people to get on with their jobs.[8]

Getting on with one’s work is a common sentiment in the Epistles, but Lewis is likely referring specifically to 2 Thessalonians 3:10, where Paul instructs, “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.’”[9] The church in Thessalonica had ceased to work, and was patiently waiting for Christ’s return; but as Paul and Lewis both recognized, to be Christian is not necessarily to remove yourself from the world completely—you are still a human being, after all. A society where every Christian person goes off into the woods to pray and read their Bibles would not succeed, and the number of faithful would decrease over time. This does not invalidate the reality of our situation, with regards to salvation, but to believe that following God means to fill our entire day with religious rites is to risk misidentifying how we are called to live in the world. Lewis says, “The solution of this paradox is, of course, well known to you. ‘Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.’ All our merely natural activities will be accepted, if they are offered to God, even the humblest: and all of them, even the noblest, will be sinful if they are not.”[10]

            Why should we do anything? Because everything that we are able to do can, and ought to, be done for the glory of God. But this alone does not provide a satisfactory answer for why we should practice philosophy specifically. Here, we must revisit Boethius’s Consolation, and Thomas Ward’s commentary on the work, After Stoicism, will prove a useful source in understanding it.

            As explained, Boethius finds himself in miserable circumstances. He has lived well, practiced virtue, done everything honestly and for God’s glory, and yet he is now in one of the worst situations imaginable. Boethius laments, “Surely the severity of Fortune’s attack on me needs no further mention; it is [self-evident]. Look at the mere appearance of this place. Is it the library of my house which you [Lady Philosophy] chose yourself as a place of sure repose and where you so often used to sit with me discussing all the topics of philosophy?…This, then, is how you reward your followers.”[11]

He is angry at Lady Philosophy, and his anger feels justified—we are told all our lives to behave, and the notion that this would bring good fortune is an understandable rationale. However, as was also mentioned before, Boethius is not incorrect in this intuition, but rather in his identification of the reward he desires. Thomas Ward comments, “Like the great philosophers before him, he has attended to his studies and has tried to do good in the world. He has been rewarded only by treachery and suffering.”[12] Boethius’s response does not surprise Lady Philosophy, though now that he has indeed revealed the wound, she identifies what is wrong with him: he has forgotten what he is. She asks him:

            ‘Do you remember that you are a man?’

            ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ I said.

            ‘Can you, then, tell me what man is?’

            ‘Are you asking me if I know whether man is a rational and mortal animal? I do know it and I acknowledge that that is what I am.’

            ‘Are you sure you are not something more?’

            ‘Quite sure.’

            ‘Now I know the other cause, or rather the major cause of your illness: you have forgotten your true nature.’[13]

Ward correctly notes, “Boethius has incorrectly identified himself; he has forgotten who he is: a philosopher dedicated to a life of virtue.”[14] He mourns the loss of all the pleasures of an earthly life, such as his wife, children, comfortable home, money, and political power. And he is not wrong to do so, because Lady Philosophy herself admits these are good things. But it is his failure to see beyond these earthly goods that leads him to answer that he is an animal, and why his visitor spends the next few chapters reminding him why these goods (wealth, power, fame, pleasure, and the like) are not the ultimate Good. One could imagine an alternate ending to “the Prodigal Son” in which the older brother understands that the real prize was having remained with his father all these years. Eventually, the two conclude that God is the ultimate Good, and thus the ultimate reward that Boethius never lost, even when he was thrown into prison.

            What is the significance of this conclusion in relation to the question? It speaks very importantly to the problem of misfortune and circumstance. Boethius, for his goodness and virtue, has a reward that, if he chooses, he can never lose: the ultimate Good. Though he may not be able to receive the Good yet, it is only through philosophy that he can clear away the obstructions and realize its accessibility. The tools for consolation were within him all the while, but in this moment, he failed to see them. From Lady Philosophy’s perspective, it is as if a man cried when he spilled his milk, but refused to acknowledge the cow he was sitting on. Thus, with philosophy as a tool for seeing the ultimate Good, and thus a step in the journey of attaining happiness, we begin to have a picture of why philosophy should be practiced.

            But we are not yet finished with the Consolation, because philosophy is not only a tool for the realization of our proximity to the ultimate Good. As the title of the book implies, philosophy is also able to console Boethius in many ways. To be consoled is not only to be comforted and put at ease, but to be reoriented onto the right path. Of course, in any practical situation, simply telling a person, “God exists, so you can be happy” is not going to do much good—so too with Boethius. Having accepted the loss of his earthly goods, he tells the Lady, “The greatest cause of my sadness is really this—the fact that in spite of a good helmsman to guide the world, evil can still exist and even pass unpunished.”[15] And later, after discussing Divine providence and foreknowledge, “I understand, and I agree it is as you say. But is there room in this chain of close-knit causes for any freedom of the will?”[16] Boethius is no longer as upset as he was at the start, but he still has his concerns: namely, the problem of evil, and of reconciling free will and Divine providence. Lady Philosophy does her best to answer his questions, but eventually has to admit, “The reason for this blindness is that the operation of human reasoning cannot approach the immediacy of divine foreknowledge.” Some things are simply unanswerable. But her efforts are not in vain; as Ward explains, “Philosophy cannot disclose God’s plans at this level of detail; she can only offer support for the general claim that God ensures that things work out for the good.”[17] Some questions can be answered, some can only come close—but either way, there is philosophy, and therein lies consolation. To philosophize well is to be unafraid to deal with personally difficult questions, which will differ from person to person. C. S. Peirce, in his paper “The Fixation of Belief”, writes, “The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief…Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief;…With the doubt, therefore, the struggle begins, and with the cessation of doubt it ends.”[18] Though uncomfortable, doubt is normal, and is the first step to pursuing the truth.

           Spiritual consolation and providing a path to contentment are both wonderful personal reasons to philosophize, but there are reasons outside of our own experiences. For one, Lewis points out, “To be ignorant and simple now—not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground—would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”[19] In fact, not only can philosophizing well do good in the world, but as the theologian John of Damascus argues, we, as Christians, ought to think well, because God created us to do so. At the beginning of his Philosophical Chapters, Damascene writes, “Now, ignorance is proper to irrational beings, while knowledge is proper to those who are rational. Consequently, one who by nature has the faculty of knowing and understanding, yet does not have knowledge, such a one, although by nature rational, is by neglect and indifference inferior to rational beings.”[20] To be rational well requires thinking well, and so to practice good philosophy is to fulfill our God-given capacity as rational creatures. This explanation by Damascene stands in ironic contrast to Boethius’s answer when asked what kind of a thing he is—Boethius includes the word “rational” in his definition, but fails to consider its implications.

            There is an objection against what we have concluded so far that ought to be considered. Some may be concerned that there is something about philosophizing that is antithetical to the concept of faith, and that Boethius’s concerns about God are impious for prying too far into Divine mysteries. After all, when Thomas the Apostle declares that he will not believe until he sees Christ’s wounds, Christ responds, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”[21] However, the Bible encourages pursuing wisdom constantly, because encompassed within wisdom is knowing when to simply have faith. Certainly there is a time when one ought to accept things the way they are; after all, Boethius is satisfied even when Lady Philosophy admits that the solution to one of his concerns goes beyond his intellectual capacity.[22]

            Philosophy is not about prying, but about pursuing wisdom, which can take many forms. Boethius mistakenly thinks that philosophy is an activity to be practiced only within his comfortable library, not realizing that it is a state of mind that anyone can have at any moment. It will look different for every person, depending not just on their circumstances, but also on their intellectual capacity. Many Christians may not ever feel the disconcerting pressure of the problem of evil, or of free will; but a Christian of lesser intellectual capability than Boethius might instead have concerns about problems that were simple enough to have flown under Boethius’s radar entirely. For example, since virtue seems to have come quite naturally to Boethius, it is not difficult to imagine a situation where someone might struggle to do the right thing, when Boethius would not.

            As just mentioned, there is also a time to stop philosophizing; or, at least, it may seem that way. For example, the heretic Arius, concluded with his own reason that Christ, the Son, was a very high creature, but not one with the Father, because he believed that to be “begotten” meant that there was a time in which Christ did not yet exist. And if Christ has not always existed, and the Father has, then they could not be of the same essence. Arius relied on his human understanding of the term “begotten” and followed it to its logical conclusion, and eventually to his own excommunication.  It is clear that had Arius been wise, he would have ceased this pursuit of knowledge, and so this may seem like an instance where philosophy ought to be stopped in its tracks. However, we will find that this is not actually to cease philosophizing, because as rational animals, we always ought to think well; here, the philosophy is having the wisdom to recognize that this pursuit of knowledge needed to stop. Like Lewis recommends, one is literally combatting bad philosophy with good philosophy.

            We are indeed rational animals—we have no choice but to think. So think well, because to cease thinking at all is to be non-rational and base. My disgust with myself for writing that Boethius paper was unjust; obviously, it would have been ridiculous to bring Patricia a copy of the Consolation, but in realizing this truth, even in jest, was to combat bad philosophy with good. My mistake, of course, was in being tempted towards non-rationality: to desire, even briefly, to throw philosophy out the window, and cease thinking entirely.  Knowing what to do in any situation, and being able to find contentment no matter the circumstance—this is wisdom; wisdom that can only be obtained by pursuing the Good, for the Good, in good faith. Lewis concludes:

If we thought that for some souls, and at some times, the life of learning, humbly offered to God, was, in its own small way, one of the appointed approaches to the Divine reality and the Divine beauty which we hope to enjoy hereafter, we can think so still.[23]

            [1] C. S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time,” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Macmillan, 1949), 45.

            [2] Learning in War-Time, 43.

            [3] Boethius. 1999. The Consolation of Philosophy. Translated by Victor Watts. London: Penguin Books Ltd. (Orig. pub. 1969). 9.

            [4] Alvin Plantinga, “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” Faith and Philosophy 1, no. 3 (July 1984): 254.

            [5] Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997), Republic, 485d.

            [6] Proverbs 9:8 (NIV).

            [7] Learning in War-Time, 45.

            [8] Ibid., 47.

            [9] 2 Thess. 3:10 (NIV).

            [10] Learning in War-Time, 48. 

            [11] Consolation of Philosophy, 9.

            [12] Thomas Ward, After Stoicism (Elk Grove Village, IL: Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, 2024). 28.

            [13] Consolation of Philosophy, 20.

            [14] After Stoicism, 30.

            [15] Consolation of Philosophy, 85. 

            [16] Consolation of Philosophy, 118.

            [17] After Stoicism, 171. 

            [18] Charles Sanders Peirce, “The Fixation of Belief,” in Philosophical Writings of Peirce (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1955). 10. Peirce was my sixth cousin, five times removed!

            [19] Learning in War-Time, 50.

            [20] St. John of Damascus, “Philosophical Chapters,” in Writings, trans. Frederic H. Chase Jr., vol. 37 of The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1958). 7.

            [21] John 20:29 (NIV).

            [22] Consolation, 116. Boethius says, “It will be as good as rest to be able to see the things which most delight me. At the same time, since your argument has stood firm on every side and its trustworthiness has remained undoubted, there need be no doubt about what comes next.” Boethius avoids falling into the Thomistic vice of curiosity.

            [23] Learning in War-Time, 54.