The (Thomist) Way

So, people are always making lots of money doing silly "living" translations of the Bible. ("Any fish, boys?") However, I fear that the market's a little saturated right now. But I wouldn't mind getting in on this racket, somehow... Hmm...

Question 1: Do I need to know this "doctrine" stuff for the exam?

No way (1). Seems to me like we don't need anything besides Philoso: doesn't the Bible say something about not seeking stuff that's above you? (Sirach 3:22) So why try to understand stuff that's not empirical?

No way (2). Besides, you can only know stuff that actually exists. And some dead guy said that those philosopers talk about everything that exists, so philosophy is all that really matters.(Metaph. vi)

Dude, but my friend said... "All Scripture, inspired of God is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice." (2 Tim 3:16) But if doctrine's inspired, doesn't it mean that it comes from God, and not those messy-haired profs?

IMHO, You gotta know this stuff for the exam--philosophy won't cut it. The Scriptures have a whole lot of stuff that we wouldn't have been able to figure out by just sitting around and trying to think it through (Isaiah 66:4). The Bible is the way we can know the stuff that we couldn't understand any other way! Sure, there's stuff that the philosophers figured out that's in the Bible too, like the whole existance of God. But who can understand those philosophers, anyway? Maybe a couple brainiacs. And they'd screw parts of it up. But we all gotta know God, so it's awesome that God told everyone, right there in Revelation. Sorta like "power to the people!"

'cuz... (1) Yeah, it's totally true that we shouldn't try to know what we can't know. But if you actually read the Bible, you'd see that it has stuff that we can't know on our own; but if we can know it with the Bible, then we can know it, right? (Sirach 3:25) So we should learn it.

'cuz... (2) And even if those philo profs think they know it all, well, they study it all in their obsessed-with-worldly-observations sort of way. Stuff that you learn from doctrine you learn in a different way. It's just like how astronomers and bomb-building physcists can both prove that the earth is round, but each guy does it their own way. These theologians just want do it their own way, man. So doctrine's important too, you see?