The Research On The Epistemology Of Tertullian’s Fideism

Tertullianus, anglicized as Tertullian, was an early Christian theologist, who has been regarded the “the father of Latin Christianity”. His formulation of Trinity and Dyophysitism provides a theological foundation afterward for the Orthodoxy in both the West and the East. In Tertullianus’ theological system, the rationalistic truth epistemology in Greek philosophy tradition is totally abandoned. He condemned the heretical formulation of Christian truth with philosophical conceptions; meanwhile, he deemed that the absolute truth could only be recognized in the apocalypse of exceeding finity, while it was faith that deviated and exceeded human finity. Tertullianus considered Bible as the picturesque scroll of God’s salvation in human history so that he could avoid a philosophical dispute on rational thinking and analysis. Bible is regarded as the picturesque scroll of God’s salvation in human history, in which God was the leading role of the sacred salvation, and meanwhile He eventually decided the evolution of human history.Tertullian explicitly defined the trinity as Father, Son, Holy Spirit, all of which are one essence and showed separately in different historical times. This is also known as “oikonomia.” The theory of “oikonomia”, originated from God’s apocalypse to Jews, experienced through Jesus Christ’s teachings in Gospel, and finally evolved into the phase that apostles were continuously led by the spirits of Father and Son in the course to God and blessed in His truth. Tertullian’s Fideism epistemology started with the theory, and he exclaimed that only receiving the revelation from God and the truth on the basis of faith and trust could Christians possibly find that it was a feasible course of cognition, which was the road of the truth and still that of the Christ faith. As an important part in Tertullian’s Fideism theology, Fideism epistemology is designated on given cognitive objects and has its peculiar cognitive mode. On the foundation of trusting Jesus Christ, apostles accepted the Message from God and lived in the truth, and such cognitive mode is premised on the exclusion of rational philosophical thinking and cognition.In conclusion, Tertullian’s Fideism, which is a resolution to the predicament of the late Greek philosophy on the cognition of truth and also the interpretation and defense for the original Christian doctrines, was filled with rational factors of Greek philosophy, his argumentation system of “three persons, one substance” was deeply influenced by the stoics and Plotinus, and Plato’s thinking was partly visible in his Dyophysitism, although he defended faith against reasoning. According to the modern Christian historian Gonsales, Tertullian was not blindly irrational because he believed that some cases were too miraculous to be understood by rational thinking, such as the power of the crucifix and the baptism. However, faith must be carried out on the basis of the impossibility beyond reasoning, Tertullian exclaimed, the truly important thing for Christians was the real revelation from God, while the unrestricted critical thinking would be a big mistake. Therefore, to some extent Tertullian himself also adopted some Greek philosophical conceptions and vocabulary to construct his Christian theology system, but he strictly separated reasoning and faith, which meanwhile was defended as the final objective.Tertullian systemized the Fideism epistemology, in which he adopted rational factors, which was different from the early Christian churches’ construction course, and which profoundly influenced the Christian doctrines and theologists of late period.