I'd agree that Christians (as a community, rather than necessarily every Christian) should be interested and involved in philosophy. Relying on faith alone IS a philosophical position so, as everyone has a philosophical perspective on life, it helps when speaking to people that don't share our view to be able to articulate and defend our position.

I guess it depends on how you define philosophy - personally because of the course I did in 6th form I had to do a rather meaningless boring version of it that's put me off ever looking at it seriously again. I mean we were throwing things at the ceiling for an hour just to see if they still came back down and I got told off for saying I had better things to do....! If it's a case of understanding our position of faith and it's directly related to that then great, I'm all for it and I'd probably inadvertently look into it without realising it even was philosophy (most likely because I'd classify it as something different.) ...but if it's a case of writing essays on questions like "does a tree makes a noise if it falls and no-one is around to hear it", then I frankly class that as a waste of time and it doesn't interest me one bit! Must admit that a big chunk of philosophy to me seems to involve complicating simple questions or inventing ones that can't be answered sensibly and then writing essays over the fact that, surprise surprise, they can't be answered sensibly! As I said earlier though I really am biased based on previous experience and I fully admit that. I'm sure there's people around here who are interested in such things and if you are, great :-) Just not something I can see myself ever really taking part in to any great degree!

First off Larry that was a pretty good paper. Second, I'd like to apologise. I made an eloquent beautiful case for the necessity of philosophy and religious thought but then internet explorer died. It was so good that even Chuck Norris would have cried, and you'd never approach Christianity in the same way again. I may be exaggerating. But, I really do think that there is a desperate need for Christians to be philosophers. Here's a small list why: 1) Please don't take this the wrong way, I admire the faith that some people have, but whilst you may think you sound really holy when answering "I just have faith" but to the non-believer this sounds lazy, ignorant and irrational. As Larry states in his paper it's a great tool for evangelism. 2) This is a great generalisation, that I will admit right now. I've met though many believers in my life who had a grounding in faith alone and now they cannot bring themselves to worship God anymore. Faith without reason may stand up maybe once a week, every Sunday for an hour but not many other times. Faith without reason is like a tree swaying in the wind, all it takes is a stronger wind to blow it in another direction. 3) "I have faith in Jesus" said by the believer is as rationally grounded as "I have faith that you're wrong" said by the atheist. Not only does it set up a weak, relativist view but it also results in an insane worldview. 4) I actually study Philosophy at university and am fortunate enough to have been able to have heart to heart conversations with non-believers because they are astounded that I've decided to study such a subject and carry my faith. There are times when I've wondered what's the point in it all but then I've realised that every philosophy (true or false), every piece of art that contains a concept and every report in a newspaper in some way points back to God. This isn't easy to grasp but as I've been telling freshers this year "If you don't agree with something then study the crap out of it until you not only know it immaculately but can without reading any outside material be able to tear it down". I am not saying though that man can reach exhaustive truth alone, heck he can't even do it with God's help! There are many false philosophies out there that are damaging and dangerous to the Christian (and everyone else for that matter) and it's the job of the Christian to reveal where truth has become perverse and to redirect people back to the God that has revealed Himself in scripture. Fundamentally every philosophy needs to correspond to the Bible, and Christians need to be equipped in defending what they believe. xox

Would you say that Christian philosophy is more commonly referred to as Theology?

Ah, I see. Forgive me, that question wasn't meant to come across as obtuse... As far as the original question goes, I think we need to have a certain amount of understanding (possibly even empathy) towards differing worldviews and the like in order to construct a convincing argument for our own. I think that's kind of where apologetics come into play.