Epistemology - How do we know what we know?
Do we know anything at all?
Can we know the truth?
Is there a (any) truth to be known?
“How can I be sure you’re telling me the truth?” It is a simple enough and obvious question. We have all asked it either silently in our heads or out loud.
Yet this question hides behind it many issues related to epistemology, the theory of knowledge. The most important one is whether there is in fact such a thing as truth. The second most important question is whether we can know it.
Most traditional attacks on the truth of Christianity have centered on whether we as human knowers could know the truth, if there were such a thing. The case made against our ability to know the truth is not unique in the sense of attacks on Christianity. Many thinkers before the advent of Christ doubted that humans could know truth. Skepticism or the teaching that people are not able to know truth is an ancient phenomenon dating back in recorded philosophical history as far as the pre-Socratic period. Hellenistic Skeptics, such as Sextus Empiricus, popularized an approach to the question of our ability to know truth which has become known as the skeptic strategy of equipollence. (see Nussbaum, Martha. Therapy of Desire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1994 Chapter 8)
Skeptics tried to show that the arguments of the Stoic rationalists on one side and the Epicurean hedonists on the other side led to an inability to decide which was correct. Since both sides present equally persuasive cases we are left in a quandary. Contrary to our expectations that quandary is not bad. Equipollence, i.e. the equal weight of arguments for and against, should lead us to suspend our judgment, i.e. to a state of epoché. In the end the goal of the Skeptic’s strategy was to lead his student to a state of undisturbed peace or stasis called ataraksia. For those tired of the wars between the Greek city states and later of the Roman conquests and wars this seemed a good goal. Better to believe nothing and live together peacefully simply following the accepted customs and habits of the land than fight and die for ideals and ideas which cannot be argued persuasively. (Much later the English skeptic David Hume argued against dogmatic religion and for accepted custom for similar reasons.)
This excursion into ancient Greek philosophy many not seem relevant to our course, but our own situation today is not unlike that of the period in which Skepticism first appeared in recorded philosophical history. Also through the ages a skeptical strategy or modified skepticism or agnosticism has resurfaced and claimed many hearts and minds precisely because of the problem of religious conflicts.
Many have reasoned after the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Wars of Religion here in the Low countries, Bloody Mary in England (Henry VIII’s Roman Catholic daughter who slaughtered Protestants) and most recently after the “religious” wars in the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East that it is better to abandon our cherished religious convictions since peace is worth giving up what are otherwise indefensible beliefs anyway.
Win Corduan begins his discussion of epistemological issues with the question of relativism. (No Doubt About It, p. 26 ff). Not only because of people’s disgust with religious wars, but also due to people’s sincere doubts about whether we can know or assert that we have absolute truth many have doubts about the certainty of faith. “Are not all true believers in the end either fanatics or misguided?”, they ask. “Is it not better to be humble and admit that we don’t have all the answers?”, they sincerely question.
As our world grows smaller with easy travel to even the remotest parts of the globe and as tele-communications and television bring the whole world into our living rooms we are confronted by a plethora or a veritable smorgasbord of choices of religions, conflicting truth claims and both attractive and disgusting religious practices.
Tolerance has become the new ideal of our age. The only place for intolerance, it seems, is in attacking “fundamentalists.”
We would consider ourselves “fundamentalists” in the sense that we do assert that we know some things certainly as truth. However, this term for most post-moderns conveys the idea of a violent Muslim mudjahadin or a rifle-toting independent Baptist militia man in Montana in the western US.
Dare we assert that we have the one and only truth? How can we defend Jesus’ claim: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by Me.” John 14:6,7 Are we not merely being arrogant? How dare we condemn millions to an eternity in hell? (For further discussion of the issue of inclusivism versus exclusivism see Corduan, No Doubt About It, Chapter 13 or McGrath, Alister E.. Christian Theology: An Introduction. London: Blackwell, 1997, pp. 531-538.)
Perhaps it is worth noting that attacks aimed at the hubris or overweening pride of those claiming to know any truth at all is not new. Nor is it a new phenomenon that people experiencing an influx of information about other cultures and religions, as well as experiencing disgust at wars of religion, have struggled with these questions and challenges. A careful study of the history of philosophy can help us avoid some pitfalls that some believers have fallen into as we try to make a case for our faith.
Some defenders of Christianity have resorted to a form of fideism or the teaching that we must accept certain truths by faith and then demonstrate the truth of Christianity. Cornelius Van Til was one such fideist. The problem with any form of fideism is the arbitrariness with which the articles of faith to be accepted as givens cannot be defended. (For treatments of Van Til see Geisler, Christian Apologetics, pp.57-64 and Corduan, No Doubt About It, pp. 70-72.) Gottfried Liebniz long before Van Til had pointed out the difficulty of such an approach. These days with our greater knowledge of other religions we can assert almost certainly that there are other religions which can demonstrate the same sort of internal consistency. Some argue that forms of Buddhism can be internally consistent. In other words if we begin with their presuppositions, i.e. accept their givens, we will be unable to demonstrate that their teachings are false.
Obviously an adequate test for truth must also be externally consistent with our experience of life and the world around us. If we cannot live by the beliefs we claim to be true this is a major challenge to the truth of our claims. Buddhism may be internally consistent, but it is not externally consistent. As Hackett points out Buddhism can only be consistent if we deny our own experience of ourselves as individual selves. (Hackett, Stuart C.. Oriental Philosophy: A Western’s Guide to Eastern Thought. Madison, WI: Univ. of WI Press, 1979, pp. 116, 117 On the inconsistency of the Buddhist’s denial of the principle of noncontradiction see also Hackett, op. cit., p. 118 and Corduan, No Doubt About It, p 34.) Any monistic system which denies individuals are particular selves and attempts to explain individual consciousnesses as instances of one greater Mind run into great difficulty accounting for individual peculiarities, error and ultimately the problem of evil. (See Lossky, Nicholas. The History of Russian Philosophy. New York: Int. Univ. Press., 1951, pp 229, 230, also with regards to Semyon Frank’s ideas of the Absolute, p. 281ff and Geisler, CA, p. 188 ff.)
A claim to supernatural revelation by itself cannot help us ultimately. There are many holy books claiming to be “God’s Word.” How will we decide between them? We can ultimately only decide between such competing truth claims by applying both tests: internal consistency and external consistency. (See Geisler, Christian Apologetics, Chapter 8)
Some Christians (and others before them) have resorted to an appeal to intuition or mysticism. They argue that we have a direct contact with God through the Holy Spirit and so know truth without any intermediate judgments or intermediary agents or steps.
However, such appeals to intuition or mystical experience soon break down. Many religions have mystical sects. Sufi Muslims claim ecstatic experience of God. Hare Krishnas claim mystical encounters of Krishna through their worship. How can we decide among such competing claims? Ultimately all such claims are subjective and not testable. (See Geisler, CA, pp. 44, 45 & Chapter 10 passim.)
There is some truth both to the fideist view and the intuitionalist view. The fideist is correct that we must accept some starting points or presuppositions as givens. The problem is deciding which ones. The intuitionalist or mystic is correct that we do have an immediate insight of some truths and that mystical experience of God is self-verifying and doesn’t need defense. When one has experienced God one “knows” it.
The problem has to do with what we mean by knowing. There is a major question at issue here about the relation between faith and knowledge. What is the nature of faith and what is the nature of knowledge? Some feel there must be an antagonistic relationship between the two: either you have faith or knowledge, but they are mutually exclusive. Some feel that the two have nothing to do with each other: faith is of a different order than knowledge. Some feel that faith and knowledge can complement each other.
Conflict Compartmentalization Cooperation
At war No contact Mutually helpful
Cornelius Van Til Karl Barth Thomas Aquinas
Tertullian Søren Kierkegaard Stuart C. Hackett
Shestov William Lane Craig
Win Corduan
Corduan’s treatment of faith is helpful since it shows us that saving faith and knowing are not the same thing. (See No Doubt About It, p. 17-21.) Almost no one would say that knowing the truth automatically means accepting it (except perhaps Socrates, but then most folks think he was wrong about that). Many people, for instance, know as certainly as medical science can demonstrate that cigarette smoking leads to increased risk of lung cancer and emphysema, yet many otherwise intelligent people continue to smoke. Knowing the facts about Christ are not the same as knowing Christ personally. Almost no one debates this point.
The bigger issue is whether facts can help us come to saving faith and whether once we have come to faith whether faith can be replaced by knowledge or whether it is desirable to replace faith with knowledge. Obviously one cannot believe in someone of whom one has never heard. Some facts must be known. Clearly there is a component of knowledge in saving faith.
Yet it is certainly true that saving faith is more than mere knowing of facts. The assent of one’s will is necessary for belief. Mere knowing of facts is not belief. Human beings are not merely disembodied minds. We are persons with hearts, minds and wills. Belief in Christ implies a submission of my will to His. We might picture this relationship of man’s emotive, cognitive and conative or volitional elements as follows:
Mind
Emotion Will
Some would also add a fourth element, a spiritual one. In that case we could speak of four centers of “knowledge”: heart, mind, will and spirit.
Mind
Emotion Will
Spirit
It is certainly true that we experience the world physically as bodies connected to minds, hearts and wills, and many Christians would also include spirits. The relationship of the mind to the body (and the other centers of “knowing) has occasioned much debate in the history of philosophy.
Traditionally Rationalists have emphasized the role of the mind or logic over the role of experience or sensory awareness or feeling. Empiricists have emphasized the role of sense perception over the role of the mind. To strict Rationalists experience is unnecessary for true knowledge since knowledge of the truly real is the rational which can be known a priori, from what is inherent in the mind itself. For strict Empiricists the mind is a blank slate or tabula rasa on which experience writes. Empiricist John Locke had the dictum, “There is nothing in the mind which was not first in the senses.” Gottfried Liebniz, a thorough-going Rationalist replied wittily, “Of course there is nothing in the mind which was not first in the senses, EXCEPT THE MIND ITSELF!”
Others like the Voluntarists, such as St. Augustine, Duns Scotus, Blaise Pascal and others, have argued for the primacy of the will in “knowing.” Some more modern figures like Friedrich Nietzche and pragmatists like C.S. Pierce, William James and John Dewey have emphasized the role of the will over either sense perception or rationality. Modern psycho-analytic philosophers, such as Jacques Lacan, following Ludwig Feuerbach and Sigmund Freud have emphasized the irrational nature of man and explained “rationality” as mere rationalization of what one really wants. What drives people is not rationality, but passion or desire; in some thinkers’ views purely sexual drives.
More mystical thinkers have emphasized the role of the spirit in “knowing.” Mystical oneness with God or simply an intuitive grasp of self-evident truths have served as a ground for all other “knowledge.”
The truth, it seems, is somewhere in the middle. Stuart Hackett and Norman Geisler, among others [along with William Lane Craig], argue for a rational empiricism or an empirical rationalism. Hackett believes that Kant was correct in his deduction of the transcendental categories of reason, but wrong to limit them as only regulative principles of pure reason. He argues that they must be also the ontological or metaphysical laws of being or noumenal reality itself. (See our “On Kant’s epistemology.)
Part of the problem is that the English word “know” is a very poor word linguistically. It conveys many semantic fields. “Adam knew Eve.” “I know the Pythagorean theorem.” “I know Jesus as my savior.”
Bearing in mind this discursus about the relation of faith and knowledge, our various ways of knowing and the other elements of our personality involved in faith, let us return to the question of skepticism or relativism. However humble or desirable such a view might seem these days any form of skepticism, whether more modest as in Kant’s agnosticism or more bold as in the Logical Positivists’ rejection of God-talk, ultimately reduces to a form of skepticism . Finally, all skepticism is self-defeating. (See Geisler, CA, Chapter 1)
Consider the skeptic’s claim: “I know that I cannot know anything certainly.” The obvious contradiction contained in this statement is usually not so blatantly stated, but all skepticism reduces to this claim. Either the statement is true, in which case it is self-defeating, i.e. if it is true it would rebut itself. In other words I would know at least one thing certainly, i.e. the truth of this statement, but then it obviously could not be true. Or the statement is false. If it is false we don’t have to worry about it.
Even if we accept a less stringent view of the skeptic’s claim there is another inherent problem with the skeptic strategy. If the skeptic can lead us by a method to equipollence, epoche and ataraksia then he refutes himself. There is a way to reach “the truth” that “there is no truth.” In effect he refutes himself by successfully convincing us that there is no truth. He has used the ladder to reach the top and then kicked it away saying it cannot help us.
If the skeptic argues that it only “happens” by accident he is really denying what has actually occurred. He has given his pupil exercises, e.g. logical puzzles or conundrums, to convince him of the fact that logic cannot help us decide what is true. Either his method worked or it didn’t. In either case he refutes his own stated belief that there is no truth.
This argument against the skeptic may sound like a sort of pragmatism. (See Corduan passim) Corduan spends some time considering pragmatism since it is very influential in the US. “If something works it must be right.”, argues the pragmatist. However, as Corduan points out such a pragmatic approach begs the prior question of why the pragmatic approach works at all. Many more exalted forms of modern and post-modern agnosticism try to hold open the possibility of such a “pragmatic” or heuristic approach. “It doesn’t matter whether there is an ultimate truth.”, argues Hillary Putnam. “It only matters whether the logic in question solves the problem posed.” For example, it doesn’t really matter whether light is a composed of particles or waves. The math works and the problem (lighting the room) is solved. We don’t need to answer the question about which of these theories is right. One theory works in some circumstances and another works in others.
This may be true enough for lighting our houses and even for other engineering issues, but it begs the question of why ANY theory ever works. If our “logic” is only our construct placed on phenomena why do we expect it ever to work. Our logic may not be “God’s logic” as Leibniz long ago admitted, but it must be at least analogous to the realities we are working with for there to ever be any sort of successful science.
In the realm of faith pragmatism will not suffice. It may serve as a negative test for the truth of a religion. (This is the point of Francis Schaeffer’s reductio ad absurdum approach. cf. The God who is There, the end of Section IV, chapter 1 and chapter 2 on “Taking the roof off.”) If I cannot live by my beliefs successfully in the world that is a pretty clear case that they are not true. Of course we must be careful what we mean by success. If the world is an antagonistic system to God’s order we won’t be “successful” by the world’s standards. But if our religion tells us that this world is an illusion and salvation is only to be found in becoming non-existent that seems very counter-intuitive, i.e. it runs against our natural desire to live on as individuals conscious of our own person. Hindus who deny the reality of the physical world go on eating.
Ultimately a religion will “work” only if it based on truth. We cannot affirm as true what will not work either in our experience (reality) or what is logically contradictory. (Geisler calls this unaffirmability.)
On the other hand we must accept what we cannot deny. (Geisler calls this actual undeniability. Hackett call this logical necessity.) Anyone who thinks or speaks or writes uses three basic logical principles: the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction and the law of excluded middle.
the law of identity A = A
the law of non-contradiction A ¹ -A
the law of excluded middle Between A & B there is no C
Or if you prefer word definitions
(from Copi, Irving M. Introduction to Logic 6th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1982, p. 319
“The Principle of Identity asserts that if any statement is true, then it is true.
The Principle of Contradiction asserts that no statement can be both true and false.
The Princple of Excluded Middle asserts that any statement is either true or false.”
(See Corduan, NDAI, p. 34)
When a monist claims that he is an instance of a greater singular consciousness he utters nonsense. He experiences himself as an individual and writes sentences to other individuals. Anyone who uses language must conform to the law of identity. He or she expects others to understand the words used. The monist expects to communicate. If there were only one mind why write at all? Also as Corduan points out it is foolish to imagine that God has forgotten himself. Who needs or wants such an impotent God? (On the Buddhist’s or monist’s identification of himself with God see Corduan, NDAI, p. 94 and Geisler, CA, p. 187, 188.)
The law of non-contradiction then seems to be at least one of the basic self-evident principles that all people accept wittingly or not. Despite discussions attacking “Aristotelian” or “male” logic there is no other logic. We cannot think in any other way. It is actually undeniable.
It also seems actually undeniable that I exist. The person who denies his or her own existence is contradicting him or herself. Someone must be present to make the denial.
Rene Descartes produced a simple syllogistic argument which was based on one by St. Augustine.
Major premise: I doubt, therefore I think.
I think, therefore I am.
minor premise: Though I am imperfect,
I have a knowledge of the perfect.
(I am a limited, contingent being.)
Conclusion: But knowledge of the perfect cannot arise from an imperfect mind.
Therefore, must be a Perfect Mind which is the origin of this idea.
(There must be a non-contingent cause of my existence.)
(See Geisler, Christian Apologetics, p. 30, 31)
One can perhaps using “methodological doubt” go so far as to doubt that all else around one exists, but one cannot doubt that one is doubting. It is actually undeniable.
This “psychological” proof for the existence of God is a form of the cosmological argument. In other words something undeniably exists, i.e. the one doubting. The one doubting is not eternal or necessary. Since by the principle of causality all effects require an adequate cause there must be an uncaused cause of my current existence as a dependent being or creature.
The law of causality then seems to be another of the self-evident principles by which we all think.
The English skeptic, David Hume, tried to debunk Christianity by attacking the law of causality. Hume said in effect that we could not demonstrate causality at all, but that due to a close connection between events in time we came by custom or habit to expect certain events to follow others. Hume’s Treatise on Human Understanding so upset Immanuel Kant that he wrote his three great Critiques: the Critique of Pure Reason, the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgment to try and recover enough ability for reason to ground the natural sciences. (See our “On Kant’s epistemology”) Kant hoped to stop short of full-blown skepticism and claim a more modest form of agnosticism. However, ultimately Kant’s categories cannot save the situation unless they correspond to the laws of reality themselves. If the categories of our thought are only regulative principles of our own understanding and do not correspond to the actual metaphysical laws governing the world outside of our consciousnesses we can have no expectation that our science will work at all. (See Hackett, The Resurrection of Theism). It is necessary to follow the dialectic of thought and critique pure reason, but the result must be a chastened, but strengthened ideal realism. We must leave naive realism, but we must return to realism nonetheless. (See Lossky, Nicholas O.. The Intuitive Basis of Knowledge: An Epistemological Inquiry. London: Macmillan,1919.)
Another basic principle we must accept then, i.e. which is actually undeniable, is that the laws of logic are at least analogous to the laws of reality. When we think logically we think the same way as God. Despite the danger of such a statement (It can seem a great hubris or arrogance.) we are still limited and there is room for humility. We CAN know SOME truth. To paraphrase Francis Schaeffer, “We know some True Truth.” However, we don’t know ALL truth. Our knowledge is not comprehensive. We CAN know AS God knows, but we CANNOT know ALL that God knows.
At this point it is useful to indicate the place and role of special revelation. Since we can only know some limited things a priori, i.e. prior to experience, we require that God tell us some things which we would not otherwise be able to know unaided.
God reveals in His Word truths which we could not know either due to our inability to deduce them from self-evident principles or because of our own willful separation from Him and self-imposed (or inherited) ignorance and lack of acumen. We CAN know of Him through use of our reason and our experience of creation (Rom. 1:19, 20), but we CANNOT know why we are separated from Him (the Fall ) or how to be reconciled to Him (salvation) apart from special revelation, i.e. His telling us in His Word or through His Prophets, Son and Apostles.
This distinction is clearly made by St. Anselm in his attempts to demonstrate the viability of faith in the existence of God and in his attempt to lay out the logic of the plan of salvation. Anselm believed that he had demonstrated that God must exist by definition. (Only God and God alone must exist by definition, according to Anselm’s logic. See handout of Classical arguments for the existence of God.) Humans could (if they were persistent enough and intelligent enough) arrive at the conclusion a priori, by logic alone, that God exists from the very definition of the term God.
However, no human no matter how intelligent would ever arrive at the reason for his separation from God (though he might be aware of it), for the plan of salvation (that Christ must be born of a virgin and be the God-man) apart from God’s special revelation in the Word. Anselm was able a posteriori, after the fact of special revelation to follow God’s logic, but he could never have a priori, before that special revelation, arrived at such knowledge. (See Anselm of Canterbury. Why God Became Man and The Virgin Conception and Original Sin. Trans. Joseph M. Colleran. Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1969)
In some sense this discussion brings us back to the question of the relationship between faith and knowledge. If we have demonstrated that Jesus must have been born of a virgin to accomplish our redemption have we thereby negated faith? If we can demonstrate the truth of beliefs do they cease to be beliefs?
In one sense they do cease to be mere beliefs. We come to a more mature understanding. However, we must still exercise our wills to live by the beliefs we now better understand. We must still assent with our wills and submit to the Lordship of Christ in our lives. We may now have a warrant for our belief, but believing includes an element of will which no amount of understanding negates or makes unnecessary.
So it seems that we do know some things certainly. On the basis of these self-evident principles using the two tests of unaffirmability and actual undeniability we can decide amongst competing truth claims or world views.
After we have surveyed various world views we can then return to the question of how we can establish objectivity in our knowledge of past events. Logically it would maker more sense to turn immediately to a survey of competing world views. However, we will assume for know that all of us are theists, i.e. that we believe in a separate, all-powerful, all-knowing, good, personal God.
If we have demonstrated the existence of such a theistic God then we can immediately dispense with arguments between supernaturalism and naturalism. If there is a God who is both transcendent and immanent then He can intervene in history if He so chooses. If He tells us in His Word that He has so intervened in history, i.e. through miracles such as the parting of the Red Sea and the virgin birth, we can prove these miracles in the same way we would prove a murder had occurred - using the forensic (or legal historical) method. (See Geisler & Anderson, Origin Science charts handed out and passim).
Before turning to a discussion of Miracles in which we will discuss the forensic (or legal historical) method we will first spend some time discussing the classical arguments for the existence of God.
(See handout Classical Arguments for the Existence of God.
If you want further discussion of these arguments you are referred to:
McGrath, Alister E. Christian Theology: An Introduction, pp. 157-162;
also Geisler, CA, pp. 31, 43, 44, 217, 223, 224, 251- 253;
also Corduan, NDAI, pp. 51-54, 55-58, 109-119;
also Raeper, William & Linda Smith. A Beginner’s Guide to Ideas, pp. 32-39;
also Brown, Colin. Christianity & Western Thought Vol. 1, pp. 111-118,123-129, and look up the Ontological, Cosmological and Teleological arguments in the index and follow the references;
for original texts of these arguments see Hick, John (ed.), Classical and contemporary readings in the philosophy of religion 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970, passim)
