I heard this one recently but don't recall the source. Some use it to defend their faith against those that criticize that faith.

Any ideas, and please confirm the exact wording.

I'm a new member today and glad I found this site!

"Never judge a philosophy by its abuse."
~ Saint Augustine

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Listed in: Philosophy

Thanks Doon. I'm amazed I had it right.

John

I gave up trying to find an actual source for this. I could only see it as another one of those cases of everyone saying that so-and-so "said" something.

quote:

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In Greek the love of wisdom is called "philosophy," and it was with this love that that book [Cicero's Hortensius] inflamed me. There are some who seduce through philosophy, under a great, alluring, and honorable name, using it to color and adorn their own errors. And almost all who did this, in Cicero's own time and earlier, are censored and pointed out in his book. In it there is also manifest that most salutary admonition of thy Spirit, spoken by thy good and pious servant: "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: for in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily."
~ from St. Augustine’s “Confessions”
http://www.americanreformation.org/Philosophy/Confessions/confessions.htm
http://www.student.liu.se/~bjoch509/works/augustine/confessions/book03.html

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"Before you go to bed, give up all your troubles to God. He's going to be up all night anyway."

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. For in him dwelleth all the fulness(sic) of the Godhead bodily.
~ Colossians 2:8,9