See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. – Colossians 2:8
Paul is writing to the community of faith in the city of Collosae. In as much as he writes dogmatically, he writes polemically.
Nothing about Paul’s letter is apologetic. Moreover, the letter proclaims the dogma, that is, the mysterion:
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. – Colossians 1:27
The mysterion is the event of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. But that event is now the experience, the embodiment of the self, embodied by the community of faith.
It is the objective become subjective.
Better put, however, it is a subject/subject relationship. Not an object/subject relationship.
The mysterion is the appropriation of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection into oneself.
So the move is from the category of the historical to the existential.
Kierkegaard’s thesis: truth is subjective.
But Paul’s Letter is polemical, taking a hyper-critical position against any doctrine or theory contrary to the Jesus mystery.
Anything contrary to the Jesus mystery is philosophias. It is mere speculation, theorizing, sophistry. The critique is that all philosophy that contradicts the Jesus mystery is kenos apate, meaning empty, void, nothing.
Paul’s logic is clear: either/or.
Again, either the appropriation of Jesus or nothing.
fragments of philosophy 