Table Of ContentRethinking Philosophy in
Light of the Bible
Graven Images
Series Editor
Leonard V. Kaplan
University of Wisconsin, Madison
The Graven Images Series is intent upon publishing intellectual contemplation from the
foremost scholars of law, theology, and the humanities. In part, Graven Images returns to
the possibility of engaging the real and its analysis without losing the gains of the Enlight-
enment. Series authors and editors choose to revisit classical thought and analysis with an
aim of understanding contemporary issues, creating trust and meaning in a confused and
ever-changing modern world.
Titles in the Series
The Weimar Moment: Liberalism, Political Theology, and Law
Edited by Leonard V. Kaplan and Rudy Koshar
Theology and the Soul of the Liberal State
Edited by Leonard V. Kaplan and Charles L. Cohen
The Law Before the Law
By Steven Wilf
Cognitive Justice in a Global World
Edited by Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Thinking Jewish Culture in America
Edited by Ken Koltun-Fromm
Rethinking Philosophy in Light of the Bible: From Kant to Schopenhauer
By Brayton Polka
Rethinking Philosophy in
Light of the Bible
From Kant to Schopenhauer
Brayton Polka
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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Published by Lexington Books
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Polka, Brayton.
Rethinking philosophy in light of the Bible : from Kant to Schopenhauer / Brayton Polka.
pages cm. – (Graven images)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7391-9317-4 (cloth : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-7391-9318-1 (ebook)
1. Philosophy and religion. 2. Bible–Philosophy. 3. Philosophy–History. I. Title.
BL51.P585 2014
190–dc23
2014030919
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
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Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction: The Kantian Revolution in Metaphysics 1
2 Hegel and the Myth of the Fall 21
3 Kierkegaard on Coming into Historical Existence as the Critique
of Christendom 53
4 What Is Philosophy? Feuerbach and Schopenhauer on the
Essence of Christianity 93
5 Conclusion 153
Bibliography 159
Index 167
About the Author 177
v
Acknowledgments
I want to thank the faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York
University for the financial support that it provided for the publication of my
book. I am additionally grateful to friends, colleagues (at York University
and elsewhere), students (both former and current), and staff members (at
York) for their kindness and generosity in helping me bring my book to
completion. But they are too numerous to name here. Still, I do want to
thank, in particular, four individuals without whose kind and generous sup-
port I would not have been able to make my book a reality. It was Andrew D.
Weiner, then professor of English at the University of Wisconsin and coedi-
tor of Graven Images, who originally introduced me to his series by inviting
me to contribute to what was at that time an annual volume of essays. His co-
editor, Leonard V. Kaplan, professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin
and now the editor of Graven Images as a book series, enthusiastically wel-
comed my book to his series. I am truly grateful to both Andy and Len for
their warm support. I also thank Judith Hawley, Graduate Program Assistant
in Social and Political Thought at York University, for ensuring the prompt
dispatch of my manuscript to the publisher. Finally, I want to thank Jason
Hoult, a graduate student at York, who, as my Research Assistant, helped me
make the final revisions to my book.
vii
Chapter One
Introduction:
The Kantian Revolution in
Metaphysics
The aim that I have in my book is to show that, if we are to have a true
concept of philosophy, a concept of philosophy that is true to itself, we must
comprehend philosophy as biblical in origin, both ontologically and histori-
cally. Consistent with my earlier studies, the most recent of which have been
on Shakespeare and Spinoza, I argue how important it is to overcome the
dualistic opposition, so common today, between philosophy and theology,
between reason and faith, and between the secular and the religious. I con-
centrate here on the three philosophers that I consider the most important in
modernity: Kant, Hegel, and Kierkegaard (dwarves standing on the shoulders
of giants: Descartes and, above all, Spinoza). It is gripping to encounter
Kant, Hegel, and Kierkegaard when and as situated within a shared ontologi-
cal and historical framework. While they are, as distinctive thinkers, signifi-
cantly different from each other, their differences, we shall see, are to be
understood within a common philosophical framework that presupposes bib-
lical, not Greek metaphysics. I conclude my book, however, with Feuerbach
and Schopenhauer in order to show how untrue philosophy becomes insofar
as it is based on a distorted and, indeed, false conception of biblical ideas,
above all, in their Christian representation.
The issues, then, that confront us—both author and reader—in this study
are at once endlessly challenging and profoundly engaging. For we take on
the most demanding of modern thinkers in placing them, historically and
ontologically, within the context of the question that was famously posed by
Tertullian, the first Christian theologian who wrote in Latin, c. 200 CE: What
does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? What is the relationship between
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