Truth and Knowing---Part 1

"Whence come our ideas? Are they born with us and do they become conscious in time or do we get them from sense experiences? Or does some god reveal them to us?" - S.E. Frost

I am again considering "A Clear View," written by Keith Ogorek, but this time focusing on the questions, "How do we know?" and "What can we know?"


First of all, there is the question, "How do we know?":

       The early Stoics and Epicureans believed that all knowledge was received by the senses and obtained through experiences. These people were often referred to as "empiricists".

       The other popular view was that of the "rationalists" which believed that ideas are resident in man at birth and experiences simply awaken them.

       However, from a Christian Worldview, we can know things by three different means: cognitively, empirically, and by revelation.

•   Things that we know intuitively, or without having to learn them, are referred to as Cognitive. For example, a child does not have to learn to lie; it exists within as part of his sinful nature from the beginning of his life.
•   Things that we have learned through sensory experiences or observations are referred to as Empirical. For example, a child does not have to learn to lie, but he does have to be taught that lying is wrong, and that it requires an apology to be offered.
•    All truths that we know about God are revealed to us by Him directly, and thus they are known only by Revelation. For example, God must allow us to know about Him before we can begin to live our lives for his glory.

The next question to be addressed is "What can we know?":

      Early on, there were four attempts to explain how we can know what we know.

• Herodotus believed that the world we encountered is constantly changing and shifting, so it is impossible to achieve true knowledge about it. Thus, we will never be able to understand the true nature of the world.
• Parmenides, however, believed that the world is a single unchanging, infinitely large entity, and therefore, knowledge is arrived at not through the senses but through reason.
• Plato, a student of the great thinker Socrates, taught his theory of forms, which describes a world with two layers. One layer is the world revealed to us by our senses, but there are no truths to be found in that world because it is constantly changing. The other layer is the realm of what is real and that which truly exists.
• Aristotle, student of Plato, insisted that there are forms that do not change and that they are fully present in material things. He believed that the objective world of forms is not something elusive, but something we can know.  

     Another influential thinker later on was Thomas Aquinas, who opened the way for discussion about the difference and relationship between "nature" and "grace". Aquinas caused a shift from Plato's ideas to Aristotle's, and this became known as the "Aristotelian Revolution." Aquinas described the world as having an "upper story" and a "lower story". The upper story is "characterized by the world of faith and grace, a world for which we need God's revelation." The lower story is "characterized by the world of men and world of nature as understood by reason alone."

     These two stories were divided by a "line of despair," titled as such because it caused despair for people who are struggling to find out what we can know, and what is real. Prior to 1200 AD, the upper story was given much more importance, and thus grace and the things of heaven dominated nature and the things of man.

     However, the Aristotelian Revolution led into a period called the Renaissance, during which nature began to consume grace. The material world was no longer ignored. This means that the focus was put on the lower story; the focus was put on man. This led to a view of life called Humanism, where man is the center of all things. Creativity in art and architecture flourished during this time, and artists such as da Vinci and Michelangelo were unleashed.

     This new view of humanism caused theology, philosophy and art all to become autonomous or independent of revelation or Scripture. Theology tried to explain the existence of God based solely on reason. Philosophy was beginning to be developed apart from any revelation or Scripture from God. Artists began to express reality as they saw it, without any reference to the truth of Scripture. The scope had shifted to an entirely humanistic view.

     In an attempt to restore the relationship between grace and nature, the Reformation took place around 1500 AD. Men like Luther and Calvin recognized that it was "sola scriptura" that had authority, and it was "sola Christus" whose works were more than enough for our salvation. These men brought grace back to its rightful position, but they recognized that the material world was also important, because it was created by a good God. Things like education, learning, art, economics, and just laws flourished during the Reformation. Reason was alive, but it was now tempered with revelation.The harmony between the stories was restored.

"Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." - John 14:6