Christian Philosophy: Metaphysics

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For the first topic I want to cover in this Christian philosophy series on my blog, I want to cover metaphysics. Now, the question to begin this post with, obviously, is “What is metaphysics?” Metaphysics can be defined as “the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality…”[1] To eliminate the (in my view) unnecessary words in this definition, let’s reduce this definition to “the study of the nature of reality.” So, before going any further, let’s exegete this definition. First, metaphysics is a “study.” That is, metaphysics is a deep look into a subject. Second, metaphysics is a study of the “nature” of something. “Nature” is, simply, what something is. So, metaphysics is the study of what something is. Third, metaphysics is the study of what is “reality,” or how things truly are, and it is here where we’ve fully exegeted this definition.

But our defining work is not yet done. Because it’s not merely “metaphysics” we are after here, but Christian metaphysics. For the definition of Christian as an adjective, I refer you to my previous post, the introductory post of this Christian philosophy series, where I show how the adjectival definition of Christian is “according to Christ.”[2] So, Christian metaphysics is Christ’s teaching of what reality is.

Now, all that leads us to the question, the answer of which will give us a summary of Christian metaphysics: “What does the Bible say reality is?” As we Christians have recognized throughout history, the Bible teaches that there are only two kinds of existence: the Creator and the creation. In other words, there is God and everything He has made. Those are the only two categories of being. This is Christian metaphysics in a nutshell.[3]

[1] Wikipedia’s “Metaphysics” article (accessed April 26, 2022), which credits this definition to this reference: "Metaphysics". Encyclopedia.com. [2] https://www.awriterforchrist.com/post/christian-philosophy-an-introduction [3] While I cannot recommend all of John Piper’s teachings, I do want to give credit by acknowledging that this work of his, which I’ll link here, was used of God to shape my thinking on Christian metaphysics: https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/i-am-who-i-am