Jesus the Great Philosopher by Jonathan T. Pennington

Author:Jonathan T. Pennington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Living;Jesus Christ—Teachings;Wisdom;REL012000;REL006000
ISBN: 9781493427581
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2020-09-17T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 12. Stoicism coins, used by modern practitioners to remind them of core Stoic practices such as amor fati and premeditatio malorum [Photo by Brian Renshaw]

Modern life is filled with stresses, anxieties, disappointments, frustrations in relationships and work, and fears about the future. Health scares, worries about the safety of our children, pain in marriage, job loss—all of these situations evoke many emotions that can be overwhelming. Stoicism’s practical habits of focusing our energy only on what we can control—our choices and our emotional responses—are very helpful. I’ll go out on a limb and say that I think Stoicism is probably the second-best philosophy available to humans because of its emphasis on being centered, emotionally stable, and developing constructive virtues. If I weren’t a Christian, I would buy the coins, practice the morning and night meditations, read books like Donald Robertson’s How to Think like a Roman Emperor and Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle Is the Way, and seek to live by educating my emotions through Stoic practices.

I still do a lot of those things. But I believe there is a philosophy of the emotional life that is more comprehensive and effective than even the best of Stoicism—the Christian philosophy. And beyond practicality, the Christian philosophy also has the distinct advantage of being true—rooted in the historical and theological reality of the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. It is a philosophy for the whole of life rooted in a metaphysic more comprehensive than Stoicism.

The Christian philosophy is indeed “for those of us who live our lives in the real world.” It is a religious philosophy that includes divine revelation and revealed ethics. Christianity has nuanced, complicated, and lofty theological constructs. But for all that, it is no less practical when it comes to our complex emotional lives. Indeed, because of its height, depth, and complexity, the whole-life Christian philosophy provides a robust and far-reaching practical approach to our emotions.

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