What are principles Christians use for philosophical issues?

Answer

I am not certain I understand the question. In short, philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom through intellectual means and self-descipline. Philosophy involves the act of questioning nearly everything and developing a set of belief's or a "philosophy" based on the answers. Religion in any form is almost counter-philosophical. Rather than ask questions, a person indoctrinated into a religion is taught to believe what they are told. It relies on faith rather than real wisdom.

Of course there is much blending of the two. Nearly everyone questions their religion and forms opinions off the main path of that religion. This is why there are so many different religions and even denominations within single religions. So the line between religion and philosophy is quite blurry.

By definition, a Christian is a person who believes that Jesus Christ is the son of God put on this Earth to die for our sins and was raised into heaven after his death to symbolize the everlasting life that we may all achieve by following in his path. Once you get past that though, each denomination has it's own ideas as to the meaning of it all, and how various teachings of Jesus should apply to the great questions in life such as why we are here, where we are going, and the differences between right and wrong. Some follow passages that say that drinking alcoholic beverages is a sin while others drink wine as part of the ritual. To some it is right to "turn the other cheek" while to others you should give the shirt off your back to get a sword to strike down the enemy. To some you should be kind to everyone regardless of their beliefs and differences , while to others it is perfectly acceptable to slay homosexuals and abortion doctors.

So there are no set of "principles" that Christians rely upon when deciding philosophical issues. The short anser instead is that each person or group looks to the bible and decides arbitrarily which passages they wish to follow and then does so while largely ignoring larger philosophical issues and then on occasion when their philosophy conflicts with the teachings they have chosen, they will move to a different denomination more in line with their philosophy.

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