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What and How We Know
- Religious Epistemology (61) : Experience and Revelation
- Virtue Epistemology (14) : Knowlege by Virtue
- Mystery (7) : Perhaps Beyond Our Ken
Apologetics: A Course of Lectures (A.C. Armstrong: 1882), pp. 4-5.
Everything in the contest which Apologetics has to meet centers here: Is sin a reality, an abnormal condition, or a stage of education, a process of development, a lesser good? Wherever sin is, there will be opposition to holiness. It is natural for sin to oppose holiness, and to deny a holy God. ¶ The felt reality of sin is necessary to the possibility of redemption. Christianity is essentially a redemptive system. Incarnate love was crucified. A man with no sense of sin must oppose Christianity, in its doctrine of grace as well as of sin. ¶
In this statement it is by no means asserted or implied that all objections to the Bible and Christianity are only the signs and manifestations of man's inborn and inbred corruption; that historical, philological, and doctrinal criticism come invariably from a sinful unbelief — stiil less, that when reason thinks and speaks, its utterances are to be set down to the account of a godless rationalism. Far from it. There are undeniable difficulties in respect to history and science which must be investigated. There are signs and wonders which would stagger any one, unless the need of them and their historic reality can be clearly evinced. Conscience and reason have their rights. Science has its lawful sphere. We are to prove (test, try) all things — even the Scriptures, even the doctrines of our faith — and hold fast that which is good. ¶ If the Christian system cannot establish its claims and authority in the view of reason and conscience (their rights being carefully weighed and defined), it will be in vain for Church or Pope to call upon the nations to believe in their own infallible authority, as settling all questions of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, for time and for eternity. No; we are in the conflict, and it is only by going through it that we can get the victory.
Denis Frayssinous, trans. by John Benjamin Jones, Chapter One in A Defence of Christianity (Gilbert & Rivington: December 1835), pp. 33-62.
Frayssinous, a French academic and
preacher of the highest stature under Louis XVIII, begins his defense
of Christianity with an ode to truth. Along with happiness, it is our
greatest need and longing. But not only are we "made for truth", we
are, accordingly, equipped with faculties to discover it. Against
skepticism, Frayssinous advances a particularist epistemology,
arguing that some beliefs arise in us in such a way that they serve
as anchor points by which we can considerably extend our knowledge.
These moorings are marked by several qualities, namely: "perspicuity,
antiquity, universality, and immutability". For example, propositions
that are immutable "resist ignorance, prejudice, and passion". We can
no more make it so that "there should be effects without causes, than
to appoint that for the future men should live without food". Our
abilities to discern these basic truths "serve us as guides and
torches". "We are compelled to admit the existence of primary truths,
felt and perceived as soon as announced, incapable of proof, because
they themselves are the proof of every thing, primary in their
existence, they precede the experienced use of reason, as the seed
precedes the plant." Conceding that his principles for establishing
such truths avails only a meager handful of knowledge, Fraysinnous
argues that by these lights much can be inferred. "If then the chain of
our reasonings are suspended on any one of these primary and immutable
principles; if they are united together like the links of that chain,
the last held by the one preceding, until they reach the fixed point
which sustains the whole, then will the very last consequence be
inseparably united to its principle." Finally, Frayssinous addresses
the inevitable objection that, if these faculties are so wonderfully
veracious, why then the persistence of such disagreement and so many erroneous beliefs. He
continues his abbreviated response here in his second discourse, "On the Causes of Our Errors".
Disposed as I am to well-qualified particularism, Frayssinous' brief but artful
defense is a welcome alternative to his less
epistemically sanguine countrymen, such as Foucalt and Derrida. ~ Afterall
Denis Frayssinous, trans. by John Benjamin Jones, Chapter Two in A Defence of Christianity (Gilbert & Rivington: December 1835), pp. 63-88.
Truth is as much the first want as it is the first good of mankind:
yes, truth in religion, which by giving us high and pure ideas of the
Divinity, teaches us that our homage ought to be worthy of it; truth in
morality, which without rigour, as without weak indulgence, traces out
to men in all situations their respective duties; truth in policy,
which by rendering authority more just, and subjects more submissive,
protects governments from the passions of the multitude, and the
multitude from the tyranny of governments; truth in our tribunals,
which makes vice afraid, reassures and comforts the innocent, and
conduces to the triumph of justice; truth in education, which by
rendering conduct accordant with doctrine, makes teachers to be the
models, as well as the masters of infancy and youth; truth in
literature and in the arts, which preserves them from the contagion of
bad taste, from false ornaments, and from false thoughts; truth in the
commerce of life, which by banishing fraud and imposture, warrants the
common safety; truth in every thing, truth before every thing, this is
that which the whole human race from its inmost soul is ever seeking,
so thoroughly convinced are all men that truth is useful and falsehood
hurtful.
In its own words: I want to know why some people believe in gods, and what the psychological and social consequences of those beliefs are. I read the research, and when I find something juicy I write it up and post it here! Who am I? Well, I'm a medical writer by profession, living and working on the south coast of England (Hove, actually). I have a PhD in biotechnology, and an interest in what makes people tick.
The Niomachean Ethics of Aristotle, trans. Robert William Browne (George Bell and Sons: 1889), pp. 252-4.
Now he that sees, perceives that he sees; and he that hears, that he hears; and he that walks, that he walks; and in every other case, in the same manner, there is some faculty which perceives that we are energizing; so that we perceive that we are perceiving, and understand that we are understanding. But this is the same as saying that we perceive or understand that we exist; for existence was defined to be perceiving, or understanding. Now, to perceive that one is alive, is of the number of those things which are pleasant in themselves: for life is a good by nature: and to perceive the good which is inherent in one's self is pleasant. But life is eligible, and particularly to the good, because existence is to them good and pleasant; for by the consciousness of that which is absolutely a good, they are pleased.
The True Intellectual System of the Universe, Vol II (Gould & Newman, 1838), pp. 554-7.
Christ came not into the world to fill our heads with mere
speculations, to kindle a fire of wrangling and contentious dispute
amongst us, and to warm our spirits against one another with nothing
but angry and peevish debates; whilst in the mean time our hearts
remain all ice within towards God, and have not the least spark of true
heavenly fire to melt and thaw them. Christ came not to possess our
brains only with some cold opinions, that send down nothing but a
freezing and benumbing influence upon our hearts. Christ was vitae
magister, not scholae: and he is the best Christian, whose heart beats
with the purest pulse towards heaven; not he, whose head spinneth out
the finest cobwebs. ¶
He that endeavors really to mortify his lusts, and to comply with that
truth in his life, which his conscience is convinced of, is nearer a
Christian, though he never heard of Christ, than he, that believes all
the vulgar articles of the Christian faith, and plainly denieth Christ
in his life.
The True Intellectual System of the Universe (Gould & Newman, 1838), pp. 550-1.
Ink and paper can never make us Christians, can never beget a new nature, a living principle in us; can never form Christ, or any true notions of spiritual things, in our hearts. The gospel, that new law, which Christ delivered to the world, it is not merely a dead letter without us, but a quickening spirit within us. Cold theorems and maxims, dry and jejune disputes, lean syllogistical reasonings, could never yet of themselves beget the least glimpse of true heavenly light, the least sap of saving knowledge in any heart. All this is but the groping of the poor dark spirit of man after truth, to find it out with his own endeavors, and feel it with his own cold and benumbed hands. Words and syllables, which are but dead things, cannot possibly convey the living notions of heavenly truths to us. The secret mysteries of a divine life, of a new nature, of Christ formed in our hearts, they cannot be written or spoken, language and expressions cannot reach them; neither can they be ever truly understood, except the soul itself be kindled from within, and awakened into the life of them. A painter that would draw a rose, though he may flourish some likeness of it in figure and colour, yet he can never paint the scent and fragrancy; or if he would draw a flame, he cannot put a constant heat into his colours; he cannot make his pencil drop a sound, as the echo in the epigram mocks at him. All the skill of cunning artisans and mechanicks cannot put a principle of life into a statue of their own making. Neither are we able to enclose in words and letters the life, soul, and essence of any spiritual truths, and, as it were, to incorporate it in them.
Certain Doubts, a blog devoted to matters epistemic, began on June 9,
2004. The blog was originally sponsored by the University of Missouri
when its administrator Jonathan L. Kvanvig was professor of philosophy
and chair of the philosophy department there. It has since moved to
Baylor University, being housed there since the fall of 2006. The list
of contributors is a who’s who of contemporary epistemology, and any
epistemologists who are not on the list should feel free to contact the
site administrator if they wish to be a contributor.
Nathan Jacobson » Making the Most of Our Disagreements
The great variety of contradictory religious views is for many reason enough to conclude that there is no truth to be had in such matters, that no one religion is at all likely to be closest to the truth. For example, in his debate with Dinesh D'Souza, John Loftus makes the gravamen of his case against the Christian God these inter-religious and intra-religious disagreements, arguing that in effect they cancel each other out in virtue of the mutually exclusive nature of their claims.1 He does not see, apparently, that by such reasoning, the ageless debate between naturalists and theists is also cancelled, each position nullified. Indeed, every point of view falls prey to such a criterion. When we look within naturalism, we also find denominations and sects, a cacophony of diverse and contradictory positions on fundamental questions. It turns out, the problem of pluralism is an equal opportunity employer. Worldviews are like personalities. Each one is unique. Though there are types of personalities, just as there are broad worldview categories, none is identical. Whatever our worldview, that view must countenance the fact that many others think it mistaken. This is the problem of pluralism. The implication of this reality, however, need not be the defeat of any particular set of beliefs. Rather, the proper response is epistemological. It begs modesty, a profound intellectual humility about our take on reality. And second, it should serve as a call to personal responsibility for our beliefs, and therefore to the epistemic virtues, for there is no consensus on ultimate questions that we can simply adopt by proxy.
Protagoras on Knowledge of God said...
The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens, Jacqueline de Romily and Janet Lloyd (Oxford University Press: 1998), p. 104.
Eusebius tells us that it was the opening sentence of Protagoras' treatise on the Gods, and it is attested by numerous citations. It runs as follows: "About the gods, I am not able to know whether they exist or do not exist, nor what they are like in form; for the factors preventing knowledge are many: the obscurity of the subject, and the shortness of human life." The last words have sometimes been omitted, but they are important. They indicate the ground upon which Protagoras took up his position and the nature of his agnosticism. All that mattered to him was what could be known; and the Greek word (eidenai) that is used twice in this sentence means, precisely, knowledge: not belief, not faith.
Understanding Religious Conviction (University of Notre Dame Press: 1975), p. 118.
There is, however, a form of the fallibility principle which is both significant and acceptable. It holds that even one's most cherished and tenaciously held convictions might be false and are in principle always subject to rejection, reformulation, improvement, or reformation.
"Are There Secular Reasons" at The New York Times (February 22, 2010).
Whether the argument appears in its softer or harder versions, behind it is a form of intellectual/political apartheid known as the private/public distinction: matters that pertain to the spirit and to salvation are the province of religion and are to be settled by religious reasons; matters that pertain to the good order and prosperity of civil society are the province of democratically elected representatives and are to be settled by secular reasons. As John Locke put it in 1689 (“A Letter Concerning Toleration”), the “care of men’s souls” is the responsibility of the church while to the civil magistrate belongs the care of “outward things such as money, land, houses, furniture and the like”; it is his responsibility to secure for everyone, of whatever denomination or belief, “the just possession of these things belonging to this life.” ¶
A neat division, to be sure, which has the effect (not, I think, intended by Locke) of honoring religion by kicking it upstairs and out of sight. If the business of everyday life — commerce, science, medicine, law, agriculture, education, foreign policy, etc. — can be assigned to secular institutions employing secular reasons to justify actions, what is left to religious institutions and religious reasons is a private area of contemplation and worship, an area that can be safely and properly ignored when there are “real” decisions to be made. Let those who remain captives of ancient superstitions and fairy tales have their churches, chapels, synagogues, mosques, rituals and liturgical mumbo-jumbo; just don’t confuse the (pseudo) knowledge they traffic in with the knowledge needed to solve the world’s problems.
Roderick M. Chisholm in The Foundations of Knowing (University of Minnesota: 1982), pp. 61ff.
1
"The problem of the criterion" seems to me to be one of the most important and one of the most difficult of all the problems of philosophy. I am tempted to say that one has not begun to philosophize until one has faced this problem and has recognized how unappealing, in the end, each of the possible solutions is. I have chosen this problem as my topic for the Aquinas Lecture because what first set me to thinking about it (and I remain obsessed by it) were two treatises of twentieth century scholastic philosophy. I refer first to P. Coffey's two-volume work, Epistemology or the Theory of Knowledge, published in 1917.1 This led me in turn to the treatises of Coffey's great teacher, Cardinal D. J. Mercier: Critériologie générale our théorie générale de la certitude.2 ¶ Mercier and, following him, Coffey set the problem correctly, I think, and have seen what is necessary for its solution. But I shall not discuss their views in detail. I shall formulate the problem; then note what, according to Mercier, is necessary if we are to solve the problem; then sketch my own solution; and, finally, note the limitations of my approach to the problem.
Alexander Leitch, "Summary of the Argument" in Ethics of Theism (Harvard: 1868), pp. 15-46.
It has been said by a great mind, that confusion is worse than error.1
Erroneous statements and opinions, in their naked deformity, are
generally too hideous to win the regard and confidence of men even in
their present depraved condition; while the manifestation of what is
true, in its simple grandeur and pure light, is often too bright and
fair to be agreeable to the eye and the heart of man. The great work
which a lover of truth finds to do, is to separate the
conglomerate mass of knowledge, or what men call knowledge, into its
two component parts, the true and the false. What is false owes all its
plausibility and power to its being associated and mingled with what is
true. What is true, is rendered dim and uncertain and weak by being
blended and confounded with the erroneous. The human mind is like a
thrashing-floor. The honest inquirer will be constantly using the fan,
to separate the chaff from the wheat.
Ethics of Theism: A Criticism and its Vindication (Harvard: 1868), p. 15.
Erroneous statements and opinions, in their naked deformity, are
generally too hideous to win the regard and confidence of men even in
their present depraved condition; while the manifestation of what is
true, in its simple grandeur and pure light, is often too bright and
fair to be agreeable to the eye and the heart of man. The great work
which a lover of truth finds to do, is to separate the
conglomerate mass of knowledge, or what men call knowledge, into its
two component parts, the true and the false. What is false owes all its
plausibility and power to its being associated and mingled with what is
true. What is true, is rendered dim and uncertain and weak by being
blended and confounded with the erroneous. The human mind is like a
thrashing-floor. The honest inquirer will be constantly using the fan,
to separate the chaff from the wheat.
On Natural Theology, Vol. 1 (Robert Carter & Brothers: 1857) pp. 71-3.
The prima facie evidence for a God may
not be enough to decide the question; but it should at least decide
man to entertain the question. To think upon how slight a variation
either in man or in external nature, the whole difference between
physical enjoyment and the most acute and most appalling of physical
agony may turn; to think how delicate the balance is, and yet how
surely and steadfastly it is maintained, so as that the vast majority
of creatures are not only upheld in comfort but often may be seen
disporting themselves in the redundance of gaiety; to think of the
pleasurable sensations wherewith every hour is enlivened, and how much
the most frequent and familiar occasions of life are mixed up with
happiness; to think of the food, and the recreation, and the study, and
the society, and the business, each having an appropriate relish of its
own, so as in fact to season with enjoyment the great bulk of our
existence in the world; to think that, instead of living in the midst
of grievous and incessant annoyance to all our faculties, we should
have awoke upon a world that so harmonized with the various senses of
man, and both gave forth such music to his ear, and to his eye such
manifold loveliness; to think of all these palpable and most precious
adaptations, and yet to care not, whether in this wide universe there
exists a being who has had any hand in them; to riot and regale oneself
to the uttermost in the midst of all this profusion, and yet to send
not one wishful inquiry after that Benevolence which for aught we know
may have laid it at our feet — this, however shaded from our view the
object of the question
may be, is, from its very commencement, a clear outrage against its
ethical proprieties. If that veil of dim transparency, which hides the
Deity from our immediate perceptions, were lifted up; and we should
then spurn from us the manifested God — this were direct and glaring
impiety. But anterior to the lifting of that veil, there may be
impiety. It is impiety to be so immersed as we are, in the busy objects
and gratifications of life; and yet to care not whether there be a
great and a good spirit by whose kindness it is that life is upholden.
It needs not that this great spirit should reveal Himself in characters
that force our attention to Him, ere the guilt of our impiety has
begun. But ours is the guilt of impiety, in not lifting our attention
towards God, in not seeking after Him if haply we may find Him.
James S. Spiegel (Moody Publishers: Feb 2010), 144 pages.
The new atheists are on the warpath. They come armed with arguments to show that belief in God is absurd and dangerous. In the name of societal progress, they promote purging the world of all religious practice. And they claim that people of faith are mentally ill. Some of the new atheists openly declare their hatred for the Judeo-Christian God. Christian apologists have been quick to respond to the new atheists’ arguments. But there is another dimension to the issue which begs to be addressed — the root causes of atheism. Where do atheists come from? How did such folks as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens become such ardent atheists? If we are to believe them, their flight from faith resulted from a dispassionate review of the evidence. Not enough rational grounds for belief in God, they tell us. But is this the whole story? Could it be that their opposition to religious faith has more to do with passion than reason? What if, in the end, evidence has little to do with how atheists arrive at their anti-faith? That is precisely the claim in this book. Atheism is not at all a consequence of intellectual doubts. These are mere symptoms of the root cause—moral rebellion. For the atheist, the missing ingredient is not evidence but obedience. The psalmist declares, “The fool says in his heart there is no God” (Ps. 14:1), and in the book of Romans, Paul makes it clear that lack of evidence is not the atheist’s problem. The Making of an Atheist confirms these biblical truths and describes the moral and psychological dynamics involved in the abandonment of faith. ~ Product Description
The Unknown God: Agnostic Essays (Continuum: 2004), pp. 106-9.
Humility is a virtue which concerns one's assessment of one's own merits and defects in comparison with others. The virtues, as Aristotle taught us, concern particular passions; they assist reason to control these passions. The relevant passion in this quarter is the raging tempest of self-love: our inclination to overvalue our own gifts, overesteem our own opinions and place excessive importance on getting our own way. Humility is the virtue that counteracts this prejudice. It does so not by making the judgment that one's own gifts are lesser than others, or that one's own opinions are falser than others — for that, as St Thomas says, would often lead to falsehood. It does so, rather, by making the presumption that others' talents are greater, others' opinions more likely to be right. Like all presumptions, the presumption of humility is rebuttable; it may be that for a particular purpose one's own gifts are more adapted than those of one's neighbours; on a particular topic it may be that one is right and one's neighbour wrong. But only by approaching each conflict of interest and opinion with this presumption can one hope to escape the myopia that magnifies everything to do with oneself by comparison with everything to do with others.
David M. Holley (Wiley-Blackwell: Jan 19, 2010), 256 pages.
Philosophers typically assume that the appropriate way to reflect on God’s existence is to consider whether God is needed as a hypothesis to explain generally accepted facts. In contrast, David Holley proposes that the question of belief should be raised within the practical context of deciding on a life-orienting story, a narrative that enables us to interpret the significance of our experiences and functions as a guide to how to live. Using insights from sociology and cognitive psychology to illuminate the nature of religious beliefs, Holley shows how removing religious questions from their larger practical context distorts our thinking about them. Meaning and Mystery makes abundant use of illustrative material, including examples drawn from television shows such as Joan of Arcadia, from films such as Stranger Than Fiction, as well as from literature such as Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Flatland, and Leo Tolstoy’s A Confession. Challenging the way philosophy has traditionally approached the question of God's existence, this book will be of interest to anyone who wants to think seriously about belief in God. ~ Product Description
Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood (Oxford University Press: January 2010), 352 pages.
Out of the ferment of recent debates about the intellectual virtues, Roberts and Wood have developed an approach they call "regulative epistemology." This is partly a return to classical and medieval traditions, partly in the spirit of Locke's and Descartes's concern for intellectual formation, partly an exploration of connections between epistemology and ethics, and partly an approach that has never been tried before. Standing on the shoulders of recent epistemologists — including William Alston, Alvin Plantinga, Ernest Sosa, and Linda Zagzebski — Roberts and Wood pursue epistemological questions by looking closely and deeply at particular traits of intellectual character such as love of knowledge, intellectual autonomy, intellectual generosity, and intellectual humility. Central to their vision is an account of intellectual goods that includes not just knowledge as properly grounded belief, but understanding and personal acquaintance, acquired and shared through the many social practices of actual intellectual life. This approach to intellectual virtue infuses the discipline of epistemology with new life, and makes it interesting to people outside the circle of professional epistemologists. It is epistemology for the whole intellectual community, as Roberts and Wood carefully sketch the ways in which virtues that would have been categorized earlier as moral make for agents who can better acquire, refine, and communicate important kinds of knowledge. ~ Product Description