Do Philosophers Rule?
People who talk a lot about the Christian “worldview” sometimes give the impression that our cultures and the way people behave are shaped by the writings of philosophers, and there’s some truth to that. Ideas do have consequences, and the philosophers have done something to shape the way people think and behave.
But perhaps we attribute too much to philosophers. Why do people fall away from Christ? Sometimes because they’ve read ungodly philosophers, but I suspect more often because they want to sleep with their girlfriends or just aren’t interested in church or have a conflict with someone in the church.
Furthermore, as Mark Driscoll points out in The Radical Reformission, people hold to a number of conflicting philosophies at the same time. Or they believe one thing — or claim to — and then act in a way which directly conflicts with that belief.
Besides,
Most people don’t spend time discussing the differences between early and late Wittgenstein and the effects of his thought on their moral decison-making because they are preoccupied with whether their jeans make their butts look big or if it’s just that their big butts make their butts look big (p. 95).Â