Colossians 2:8—“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy …”

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8).

ARGUMENT:

“You’re relying heavily upon logic and reason to come to your beliefs … But Paul tells us to ‘Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ’ (Col. 2:8). Our reasoning must by ‘after Christ,’ not ‘after the rudiments of the world,’ no matter how seemingly contradictory the result may be.”

(I)

1) Christ is the LOGOS of God (John 1:1) and the Bible is filled with logical arguments. If Paul were opposing logic, he’d be contradicting himself (e.g., Rom. 4:16 is esp. clearly logical) and using a logical construction in Colossians 2:8.

2) Paul is opposing ‘false’ philosophy, just as we oppose ‘false’ science.

Robert L. Dabney comments on this text:

The Colossian Christians were enticed to leave this prophet [i.e., Christ] for a shadowy philosophic theory of their day. This was a mixture of Oriental, Rabbinical and Greek mysticism, which peopled heaven with a visionary hierarchy of semi-divine beings, referred the Messiah to their class, and taught men to expect their salvation from their intercession, combined with Jewish asceticisms and will-worship. Thus we are taught, both by uninspired, but authentic history, and by intimations of the holy apostle in the Epistle itself. This fanciful scheme was supported by the ‘traditions of men’; that is to say, by the inculcation of favorite masters of this vain philosophy; and by ‘the rudiments of the world,’ by this world’s first principles, instead of Christ’s declarations. But the apostle solemnly reminded them that this philosophy was vain and deceitful; and moreover, that the price of preferring it to the Christian system was the loss of the soul. Thus, the real aim of the seducer was to despoil the soul of its salvation, and to make it a captive to falsehood and corruption (Discussions of Robert Lewis Dabney, vol. 3, p. 153).

Check out the following sermon on this passage:

https://cprc.co.uk/sermons/beware-of-philosophy/

--------------------------------------------------

(II)

More to come! (DV)