The Enlightenment
The Philosopher Rene Descartes believed that the only way we could save philosophy was to find a new starting point in our thinking. Descartes wanted to find certainty in his thinking. He’s new foundation for thinking rested in systematic doubt.
Only by systematically doubting everything could he be certain he had arrived at certainty. But the one thing that Descartes found out was that he could not doubt that he was thinking, because to doubt that you are thinking means you are thinking that you are doubting. So Descartes became famous for his statement "I think therefore I am" which meant that his logical reasoning could give him certainty. Reason had become the ultimate standard in finding truth. The problem with this view is that if you reject divine revelation then your idea or knowledge of God is nothing more than your own logical construction of who God must be. Self-authenticating, rational self-sufficiency was the basis of Cartesian foundationalism. Truth is then based on our first principles and conclusions. This is also a danger we have today in talking about God when we separate Philosophy from Theology. Without divine revelation our philosophy is just our own assumption of who God must be. If Reason is the ultimate foundation for truth then logic itself would be reduced to an eternal changeless principle of identity. All facts would be wholly known by abstract thinking. If this was true what relationship do our thoughts have with objects in the world and how do they correspond rationally?
The Philosopher Spinoza basically said, "facts simple had to be what the intellect of man using the laws of logic and especially the law of contradiction said they must be.11
. But why must this be? Because if it was not our thoughts would be irrational.
To counteract this supremacy of reason, the empiricist philosophers John Locke, George Berkley and David Hume made the claim that true knowledge came into our minds, we do not invent it. For them there are no innate ideas in the mind. The mind starts of as a blank tablet. Therefore ideas are not a priori but a posteriori, they enter the mind only through experience and reflection. For the empiricists the facts had characteristics in themselves prior to us knowing them, objectivity they thought was guaranteed because the mind receives the facts just as they are. The problem with this view then is that the mind has no ordering of the facts at all. So who is relating one fact to another in a rational system. Ideas and concepts must be related to produce knowledge and if the mind is blank it will be impossible for it to recognizes anything. Also we have the same problem as Aristotle had that there are brute facts out in the world in an impersonal universe with no objective interpretation to them. The truth is our minds have concepts and categories, which we shape all the data that comes in. Our minds are limited by our sensory perceptions. We order and construct data according to our presuppositions and core beliefs. We don’t have a pure access to the facts just as they are because we are doing the interrupting of our observations.
The Philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that objects conform to the operation of the mind and not the mind to objects. For Kant the mind of reason had ultimate autonomy and absolute authority.
The Philosopher Bertrand Russell basically killed these views and all rationality when he said that the source and guide for reason was the accidental collocation of atoms firing by chance.
Friedrich Nietzsche believed that reason was a tool for desire, a tool that can only clarify the stark choices facing all humans. Reason cannot be objective and that in the end all morality and truth are arbitrary. Since every argument must begin with premises that cannot be supported. The original foundation of every argument is merely suspended in air. First principles are simply and only arbitrary choices, if they are indeed the principles upon which all other principles stand. In this regard, first principles cannot be reasonable or rational, if they are genuine first principles. For there would be no principles prior to first principles by which to judge whether the first principles satisfied them as reasonable…It is the intuition that man creates the world, rather than discovers a world in which meaning is fixed. Humans do not find truth but make truth.
For Friedrich Nietzsche reasons were based on human choices and the world was explained by our own subjective interpretations as the world outside us had none. This again does not lead us to a system of certainty in our knowledge.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Aristotle
The Philosopher Aristotle was one of Plato’s greatest students. But Aristotle made a few changes to Plato’s philosophy. He still retained the platonic view that reality consist of forms but not that they existed in some mysterious transcendent realm of ideas, finding such ideas useless as an explanatory instrument for gaining the most common feature of natural experience, change or motion.
Aristotle held that, form’s and matter existed, but they were not in separate realms. Rather the forms are an element of things in the world we perceive. For Aristotle the forms were in matter or objects. Therefore we can lookout into the world and the data in the matter will be perceived by our senses and interpreted through our reasoning.
The active intellect examines, analyzes, and tries to understand the data by abstracting the forms from the material things. The problem with this view is that our minds determine what we call knowledge by interrupting sense data by our own mental concepts. Also do brute facts just live out there in objects waiting for us to draw them out into our minds? Matter as such is non-rational and cannot be the object of intellectual knowledge. Aristotle we could say was a rationalist and empiricist playing with his subjective thoughts.
Stoicism
The philosopher Zeno founded a school on the teachings of Stoicism. Stoicism held that all reality was material. The Universe was one huge soul working together by the laws of nature. For the Stoics knowledge begins in self-authenticating sensations. To doubt them they said was self defeating, as they would be based on experiences it presumes to doubt. The universe as a whole is run by impersonal fate, which makes any system of thought to be rational or true impossible.
The stoics failed to answer how an impersonal world could explain individual facts and rationality.
The Philosopher Aristotle was one of Plato’s greatest students. But Aristotle made a few changes to Plato’s philosophy. He still retained the platonic view that reality consist of forms but not that they existed in some mysterious transcendent realm of ideas, finding such ideas useless as an explanatory instrument for gaining the most common feature of natural experience, change or motion.
Aristotle held that, form’s and matter existed, but they were not in separate realms. Rather the forms are an element of things in the world we perceive. For Aristotle the forms were in matter or objects. Therefore we can lookout into the world and the data in the matter will be perceived by our senses and interpreted through our reasoning.
The active intellect examines, analyzes, and tries to understand the data by abstracting the forms from the material things. The problem with this view is that our minds determine what we call knowledge by interrupting sense data by our own mental concepts. Also do brute facts just live out there in objects waiting for us to draw them out into our minds? Matter as such is non-rational and cannot be the object of intellectual knowledge. Aristotle we could say was a rationalist and empiricist playing with his subjective thoughts.
Stoicism
The philosopher Zeno founded a school on the teachings of Stoicism. Stoicism held that all reality was material. The Universe was one huge soul working together by the laws of nature. For the Stoics knowledge begins in self-authenticating sensations. To doubt them they said was self defeating, as they would be based on experiences it presumes to doubt. The universe as a whole is run by impersonal fate, which makes any system of thought to be rational or true impossible.
The stoics failed to answer how an impersonal world could explain individual facts and rationality.
The philosopher Socrates rejected the Sophists view of truth as being subjective and held to the notion of absolute truth. For Socrates truth was found by dialectic logic.
He believed that in side every one was a divinity and that by looking within oneself one could find truth through the process of dialectic reasoning and introspection. The problem with this view was that reason again becomes the ultimate source of truth. It makes his introspection and conclusions to be subjective claims and we may ask how does his subjective views of the world relate to the objective world.
Plato
The Philosopher Plato is classed as one of the greatest thinkers. Out of all the secular thinkers of the world I believe Plato almost had an epistemology that made sense of both our inner thoughts and their relation to the objective world outside. Plato held that that there are many concepts in our minds that we can not see in the world, such as goodness, or justice. But we know they exist as actual things. For Plato these were called the forms or ideas that exist in another realm, a world of forms. Plato believed that these concepts were eternal models of which things were on earth copies.
By human reason Plato believed that we could tap into an eternal realm of prefect immaterial changeless forms. It was almost like promoting there was a mind behind the universe, but for Plato, there was no mind just abstract ideas that float around in this other realm. For Plato when he looked into the world and saw a tree or beauty his knowledge was true because the object that he was seeing was a copy of the eternal form in this realm, which reason has access to. This is almost like the Christian view that man thinks (on a finite level) Gods thoughts (interpretation) about the universe promoting a complete unity of truth.
The problem with Plato’s views is that these forms were not in a mind and were just abstract ideas with no contents. Another problem with the perfect forms is that they could not explain all reality. As the forms are supposed to be models for everything in the sense world, but the sense world is not prefect or changeless. The forms cannot model imperfections, changeless forms cannot model change. So the imperfection and change that is seen in the world when we go and try and explain it has no rational explanation.
This again leaves man with his rational mind looking at a world of change that is impersonal and irrational. Also how could finite minds think on an eternal level with the forms
He believed that in side every one was a divinity and that by looking within oneself one could find truth through the process of dialectic reasoning and introspection. The problem with this view was that reason again becomes the ultimate source of truth. It makes his introspection and conclusions to be subjective claims and we may ask how does his subjective views of the world relate to the objective world.
Plato
The Philosopher Plato is classed as one of the greatest thinkers. Out of all the secular thinkers of the world I believe Plato almost had an epistemology that made sense of both our inner thoughts and their relation to the objective world outside. Plato held that that there are many concepts in our minds that we can not see in the world, such as goodness, or justice. But we know they exist as actual things. For Plato these were called the forms or ideas that exist in another realm, a world of forms. Plato believed that these concepts were eternal models of which things were on earth copies.
By human reason Plato believed that we could tap into an eternal realm of prefect immaterial changeless forms. It was almost like promoting there was a mind behind the universe, but for Plato, there was no mind just abstract ideas that float around in this other realm. For Plato when he looked into the world and saw a tree or beauty his knowledge was true because the object that he was seeing was a copy of the eternal form in this realm, which reason has access to. This is almost like the Christian view that man thinks (on a finite level) Gods thoughts (interpretation) about the universe promoting a complete unity of truth.
The problem with Plato’s views is that these forms were not in a mind and were just abstract ideas with no contents. Another problem with the perfect forms is that they could not explain all reality. As the forms are supposed to be models for everything in the sense world, but the sense world is not prefect or changeless. The forms cannot model imperfections, changeless forms cannot model change. So the imperfection and change that is seen in the world when we go and try and explain it has no rational explanation.
This again leaves man with his rational mind looking at a world of change that is impersonal and irrational. Also how could finite minds think on an eternal level with the forms
The Epistemological Failures of Unbelief
The Epistemological Failures of Unbelief
For those who take the time to study the major thinkers of history, on epistemology (How we know what we know) soon come to a conclusion that they can really tell us nothing about objective reality. As has been shown, once you reject God’s interpretation of reality and assume reality is meaningless all rational talk about the irrational becomes irrational.
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were the first irrationalist’s to try and interpret reality without God.
Eve decided that human reason alone was the standard to judge truth. Basing Truth on her opinions and reasons without acknowledging realties own interpretation.
The Greeks
None of the Greek philosophers even considered the theistic worldview as far as we can tell from their writings. Since the theistic hypothesis was excluded from the outset, Greek thinkers had the common task of explaining the world without references to the biblical God, that is of explaining the world by means of the world.
In Greek religion, the philosophical and religious absolute was fate. Fate was the ultimate power that guided everything. Fate is an impersonal force like gravity, which governs even the gods. Fate governs not only birth and death but also every part of life. The world runs on irrational chance and leaves history meaningless and human beings helpless. It also makes rational thought impossible as no thought has any more value or truth to it as all of them have no purpose or reason to correspond to reality.
A new movement began around 600 BC when some thinkers tried to understand the world without the help of religion. These philosophers rejected the gods and chose to look out at the world and reflect on it. They declared that human reason could explain reality. Reason must be autonomous, self-authenticating and subject to no other standards other than their own. If the world was impersonal then only reason could think about reality. They had to observe the world and place a theory on reality. The philosopher Thales lookout at the world and declared that all was water, and full of gods, Anaximenes declared that all was made of air. The problem with these views is that "All"goes far beyond any possible observation.
John Frame says, It is the language of a man sitting in an armchair, dogmatically asserting what the whole universe must be like. The "all" statements of those thinkers represent human reason vastly exceeding its limits. This is rationalism, an awe over the power of reason that turns it into a god.These thinkers had to make an absolute to have something to start with to define reality. If you don’t know what the basic substance of reality is how can you explain it in any theory? Again we have man labeling reality and claiming he has objective knowledge, which is false.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus tried his luck at explaining the universe. He saw that the world was always changing, nothing stayed the same, but some how these changes occur in regular patterns (order is a structure of mind). Heraclitis came to the conclusion that we must have rational minds and that also there must be a rational aspect to the universe even if we cant prove it. Are we to believe that rationality floats throughout the universe? It would make sense to say that rationality lives in a mind and that there is a mind (God) behind the universe, but not that it is just an aspect of it. Again Heraclitis bases his conclusion on his own reasoning. For if everything was in constant change rational thought would be impossible.
The Philosopher Parmenides denied that anything changed in reality. He said that "being is’. "Being is" means that nothing can change from what it "is" to what it is not. Red cannot change to green, for then red would be changing into non-red, or non-green would be changing into green. And how can that be? Where does the green come from, if the previous state is non-green? Therefore change cannot be real; it must be an illusion. Therefore the very idea of non-being must be rejected.
Parmenides held that there is no difference between "what is" and "what can be thought". Therefore having determined what can be thought by human reason, he believed he had discovered the true nature of the world.
The next thinkers were the Atomists, they believed that the world is composed of elements and reality changes as these elements combine together. Again this was their assumptions after reflecting on the world. It is nothing different than those today who say that all that exists is matter in motion, materialism or the theory of evolution. These atoms move through space and collide with each other to form objects by impersonal fate. If random chemicals are making me do what I do in my brain then how can I trust my thoughts? As I have no choice in what I believe or think. This produces irrationalism as truth and error does not exist. For we are not even in control of our minds they are dictated by fate.
The Philosopher Pythagoras believed that the human soul was divine being imprisoned in the body. Our souls are divine because they are rational. For Pythagoras reason was ultimate. He had a fascination with mathematics and abstract numbers. He thought that "all" reality could be explained by mathematical formulas. Again he tried to impose mathematical abstract formulas on reality. But why should the universe be mathematical? In an impersonal world.
Frame says, The Pythagorean, however did not ask, so far as we can tell, where the formula came from. The existence of such would seem to be a remarkable fact. Indeed it should have suggested a personal creator, for the natural home of numbers and formulas is in the mind of a person. For Pythagoreans, numbers "just are". They exist as brute facts with no interpretation. For the Pythagoreans, like the other Greeks, they were unwilling to acknowledge a rational person higher than themsleves.10 Numbers don’t just live out there imposed in matter floating around. This again leaves Pythagoras using his reason to impose his interpretation on to irrational matter.
Next came the Sophists, these philosophers believed that truth was relative and there was no such things as absolute truth. This automatically kills rational thought and gives us no knowledge of the objective world. The Sophists were more interested in ethics and politics than really explaining the nature of reality.
For those who take the time to study the major thinkers of history, on epistemology (How we know what we know) soon come to a conclusion that they can really tell us nothing about objective reality. As has been shown, once you reject God’s interpretation of reality and assume reality is meaningless all rational talk about the irrational becomes irrational.
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were the first irrationalist’s to try and interpret reality without God.
Eve decided that human reason alone was the standard to judge truth. Basing Truth on her opinions and reasons without acknowledging realties own interpretation.
The Greeks
None of the Greek philosophers even considered the theistic worldview as far as we can tell from their writings. Since the theistic hypothesis was excluded from the outset, Greek thinkers had the common task of explaining the world without references to the biblical God, that is of explaining the world by means of the world.
In Greek religion, the philosophical and religious absolute was fate. Fate was the ultimate power that guided everything. Fate is an impersonal force like gravity, which governs even the gods. Fate governs not only birth and death but also every part of life. The world runs on irrational chance and leaves history meaningless and human beings helpless. It also makes rational thought impossible as no thought has any more value or truth to it as all of them have no purpose or reason to correspond to reality.
A new movement began around 600 BC when some thinkers tried to understand the world without the help of religion. These philosophers rejected the gods and chose to look out at the world and reflect on it. They declared that human reason could explain reality. Reason must be autonomous, self-authenticating and subject to no other standards other than their own. If the world was impersonal then only reason could think about reality. They had to observe the world and place a theory on reality. The philosopher Thales lookout at the world and declared that all was water, and full of gods, Anaximenes declared that all was made of air. The problem with these views is that "All"goes far beyond any possible observation.
John Frame says, It is the language of a man sitting in an armchair, dogmatically asserting what the whole universe must be like. The "all" statements of those thinkers represent human reason vastly exceeding its limits. This is rationalism, an awe over the power of reason that turns it into a god.These thinkers had to make an absolute to have something to start with to define reality. If you don’t know what the basic substance of reality is how can you explain it in any theory? Again we have man labeling reality and claiming he has objective knowledge, which is false.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus tried his luck at explaining the universe. He saw that the world was always changing, nothing stayed the same, but some how these changes occur in regular patterns (order is a structure of mind). Heraclitis came to the conclusion that we must have rational minds and that also there must be a rational aspect to the universe even if we cant prove it. Are we to believe that rationality floats throughout the universe? It would make sense to say that rationality lives in a mind and that there is a mind (God) behind the universe, but not that it is just an aspect of it. Again Heraclitis bases his conclusion on his own reasoning. For if everything was in constant change rational thought would be impossible.
The Philosopher Parmenides denied that anything changed in reality. He said that "being is’. "Being is" means that nothing can change from what it "is" to what it is not. Red cannot change to green, for then red would be changing into non-red, or non-green would be changing into green. And how can that be? Where does the green come from, if the previous state is non-green? Therefore change cannot be real; it must be an illusion. Therefore the very idea of non-being must be rejected.
Parmenides held that there is no difference between "what is" and "what can be thought". Therefore having determined what can be thought by human reason, he believed he had discovered the true nature of the world.
The next thinkers were the Atomists, they believed that the world is composed of elements and reality changes as these elements combine together. Again this was their assumptions after reflecting on the world. It is nothing different than those today who say that all that exists is matter in motion, materialism or the theory of evolution. These atoms move through space and collide with each other to form objects by impersonal fate. If random chemicals are making me do what I do in my brain then how can I trust my thoughts? As I have no choice in what I believe or think. This produces irrationalism as truth and error does not exist. For we are not even in control of our minds they are dictated by fate.
The Philosopher Pythagoras believed that the human soul was divine being imprisoned in the body. Our souls are divine because they are rational. For Pythagoras reason was ultimate. He had a fascination with mathematics and abstract numbers. He thought that "all" reality could be explained by mathematical formulas. Again he tried to impose mathematical abstract formulas on reality. But why should the universe be mathematical? In an impersonal world.
Frame says, The Pythagorean, however did not ask, so far as we can tell, where the formula came from. The existence of such would seem to be a remarkable fact. Indeed it should have suggested a personal creator, for the natural home of numbers and formulas is in the mind of a person. For Pythagoreans, numbers "just are". They exist as brute facts with no interpretation. For the Pythagoreans, like the other Greeks, they were unwilling to acknowledge a rational person higher than themsleves.10 Numbers don’t just live out there imposed in matter floating around. This again leaves Pythagoras using his reason to impose his interpretation on to irrational matter.
Next came the Sophists, these philosophers believed that truth was relative and there was no such things as absolute truth. This automatically kills rational thought and gives us no knowledge of the objective world. The Sophists were more interested in ethics and politics than really explaining the nature of reality.
Rationalism, Empiricism and their cousin Postmodernism
Our world has just been hit by the next wave of epistemologies that being Postmodernism. For many who have reflected hard on Rationalism and Empiricism they have come to the conclusion that they are flawed and unable to give true knowledge of the world. For those the next step was Postmodernism. Postmodernism basically claims that there is no truth or real interpretation to reality. We must construct our own and this is very much like rationalism and empiricism. Certainty is based on our first principles.
Language and subjective ideas are ultimately a contingent creation of human beings. It cannot represent any objective knowable reality. Our signifiers cannot be known to connect with the signified reality outside of them. Besides, language creates our sense of reality; it cannot describe a reality independent of itself.
Nietzche claimed that there are no facts but only interpretations (or constructions) created according to ones particular need to enhance ones life, what he called the will to power. There is no true world only a perspectival appearance whose origin lies in us.6
We might think Postmodernist are mad, but in fact they have come to the logical conclusion that a world without God or of an eternal objective interpretation of world makes the idea of truth meaningless. For what Nietzche proclaimed as the age of the "death of God" was in fact the death of truth.
The problem with Postmodernism is that it claims that there is no truth, but is this an objective claim? If there is no truth is the statement true about reality?
We have clearly seen that once one reject’s God’s revelation, man loses his understanding and place in the world. By suppressing God’s knowledge man loses all knowledge. The truth is that rationalism and empiricism dose give us true knowledge of the world, because we live in God’s world. God has given all reality an interpretation and we have been created in his image with knowledge that connects to the interpreted world outside. Our thoughts correspond to objects and our facts relate to other facts because they are all related to God’s eternal unit of truth, his eternal interpretation of all things.
There is a rational relationship connecting all finite things.
Our world has just been hit by the next wave of epistemologies that being Postmodernism. For many who have reflected hard on Rationalism and Empiricism they have come to the conclusion that they are flawed and unable to give true knowledge of the world. For those the next step was Postmodernism. Postmodernism basically claims that there is no truth or real interpretation to reality. We must construct our own and this is very much like rationalism and empiricism. Certainty is based on our first principles.
Language and subjective ideas are ultimately a contingent creation of human beings. It cannot represent any objective knowable reality. Our signifiers cannot be known to connect with the signified reality outside of them. Besides, language creates our sense of reality; it cannot describe a reality independent of itself.
Nietzche claimed that there are no facts but only interpretations (or constructions) created according to ones particular need to enhance ones life, what he called the will to power. There is no true world only a perspectival appearance whose origin lies in us.6
We might think Postmodernist are mad, but in fact they have come to the logical conclusion that a world without God or of an eternal objective interpretation of world makes the idea of truth meaningless. For what Nietzche proclaimed as the age of the "death of God" was in fact the death of truth.
The problem with Postmodernism is that it claims that there is no truth, but is this an objective claim? If there is no truth is the statement true about reality?
We have clearly seen that once one reject’s God’s revelation, man loses his understanding and place in the world. By suppressing God’s knowledge man loses all knowledge. The truth is that rationalism and empiricism dose give us true knowledge of the world, because we live in God’s world. God has given all reality an interpretation and we have been created in his image with knowledge that connects to the interpreted world outside. Our thoughts correspond to objects and our facts relate to other facts because they are all related to God’s eternal unit of truth, his eternal interpretation of all things.
There is a rational relationship connecting all finite things.
Epistemology without God
Epistemology without God
Rationality
When it comes to attaining knowledge without God the process reveals that all methods turn out to be subjectivism.
Rationality basically comes down to reasoning upon ones reasons. This is done by using the laws of logic, abstract ideas and premises. When the rationalist looks out into the world to find facts he labels matter (objects) with descriptions and conclusions he has found by his reasoning on his premises. The facts are basically whatever logic says they are. The problem with this is that they have not obtained any new knowledge other than their own subjective claims. The rationalist imposes abstract logical conclusion on non-rational matter. If this is the process of gaining knowledge, then we must have unlimited knowledge because there is know other way of gaining knowledge but through our reasoning. We must know all reality exhaustively or know nothing at all.
If we live in a chance universe what can logic tell us about it? If a fact could be found it would have no rational relationship to any other fact as a fact can only be a fact when it fits with all the facts as a complete unit of truth.
The Empiricist
The empiricist trying to keep the facts from being swallowed up by logic came up with the method that the mind just receives the facts through the experiences of the five senses. The mind receives the facts just as they are without imposing logical formulas on things. The problem with this view is that non-rational matter with know interpretation behind it, like the rationalist has no facts to give. Facts just don’t come flying in to our minds. Even if there were chance facts floating around disconnected to any unit of truth mans mind would have to bring these facts together in some order and then relate them together. This would by default distort the facts. Our experiences of things are only experiences of our own senses and mental images. This still only leaves us with subjective claims.
For whatever experiences with have to understand it, it must go through categories of the mind. It is again our imposed categories of unity, causality, certainty, order, logic, abstract concepts and judgements shape the impression we sense. This still gives us the problem of getting to true facts in an impersonal universe without forcing our experiences of the things through the categories of our minds. What ever we observe we interpret subjectively.
Without God knowledge of reality is impossible…
Rationality
When it comes to attaining knowledge without God the process reveals that all methods turn out to be subjectivism.
Rationality basically comes down to reasoning upon ones reasons. This is done by using the laws of logic, abstract ideas and premises. When the rationalist looks out into the world to find facts he labels matter (objects) with descriptions and conclusions he has found by his reasoning on his premises. The facts are basically whatever logic says they are. The problem with this is that they have not obtained any new knowledge other than their own subjective claims. The rationalist imposes abstract logical conclusion on non-rational matter. If this is the process of gaining knowledge, then we must have unlimited knowledge because there is know other way of gaining knowledge but through our reasoning. We must know all reality exhaustively or know nothing at all.
If we live in a chance universe what can logic tell us about it? If a fact could be found it would have no rational relationship to any other fact as a fact can only be a fact when it fits with all the facts as a complete unit of truth.
The Empiricist
The empiricist trying to keep the facts from being swallowed up by logic came up with the method that the mind just receives the facts through the experiences of the five senses. The mind receives the facts just as they are without imposing logical formulas on things. The problem with this view is that non-rational matter with know interpretation behind it, like the rationalist has no facts to give. Facts just don’t come flying in to our minds. Even if there were chance facts floating around disconnected to any unit of truth mans mind would have to bring these facts together in some order and then relate them together. This would by default distort the facts. Our experiences of things are only experiences of our own senses and mental images. This still only leaves us with subjective claims.
For whatever experiences with have to understand it, it must go through categories of the mind. It is again our imposed categories of unity, causality, certainty, order, logic, abstract concepts and judgements shape the impression we sense. This still gives us the problem of getting to true facts in an impersonal universe without forcing our experiences of the things through the categories of our minds. What ever we observe we interpret subjectively.
Without God knowledge of reality is impossible…
The Materialist's Worldview
The worldview of materialism is basically that the universe came into existence from nothing and has evolved by chance. Their metaphysics is that all that exists is the physical world of matter in random motion, that is what all reality is when it is broken down to its smallest particle.
The worldview of materialism is totally impersonal and irrational and fails to account for the intelligence of Reason, Logic, personal rational experience of reality and morality.
Impersonal
Many have asked me what the word impersonal means, so I will define the word for clarification.
Impersonal; means that there is no personal (or rational) relationship to anything in the
universe.
If the universe exploded into being from nothing then there is no rational control on the effect. There is no rational control behind any action, it is exploding and evolving by chance. All the parts of the explosion have no rational relationship to each other and have no structure that they must follow. There is no designed function that any particle or entity is bound to act according to. Everything is in random movement evolving by chance.
If the particles of matter have evolved to form our brains then there is no reason why we should trust them as they have been created by random chance. Each cause and effect of the process of evolution has evolved by chance. That means that our brains have been preprogrammed by chance. If we are only our brains as the materialist likes to believe then we didn’t have any control in shaping them. Our thoughts are according to the chemical make up and reactions that happen in our heads and if this was preprogrammed by chance then there is no rational relationship in our thinking or any rational reason why our thoughts should tell us anything about the impersonal world outside our minds. Why should logical formulas correspond to an impersonal world. Is the universe running according to logic? I don’t think so. We can’t just impose a chance concept on reality.
The materialist’s worldview also makes our personal experiences of reality irrational to. Why should we expect our personal experiences to tell us anything rational. The environment we live in is matter moving by random chance. If there are no relationships in nature how can we understand our experiences? If there is no order or structure with meaning (an interpretation to reality) how are we to relate to what we are experiencing. Some atheists like to say that the universe is ordered, but order is a concept of mind and not inherit in matter as a substance. Order is a rational relationship or law that something must follow due to its design.
The worldview of materialism is totally impersonal and irrational and fails to account for the intelligence of Reason, Logic, personal rational experience of reality and morality.
Impersonal
Many have asked me what the word impersonal means, so I will define the word for clarification.
Impersonal; means that there is no personal (or rational) relationship to anything in the
universe.
If the universe exploded into being from nothing then there is no rational control on the effect. There is no rational control behind any action, it is exploding and evolving by chance. All the parts of the explosion have no rational relationship to each other and have no structure that they must follow. There is no designed function that any particle or entity is bound to act according to. Everything is in random movement evolving by chance.
If the particles of matter have evolved to form our brains then there is no reason why we should trust them as they have been created by random chance. Each cause and effect of the process of evolution has evolved by chance. That means that our brains have been preprogrammed by chance. If we are only our brains as the materialist likes to believe then we didn’t have any control in shaping them. Our thoughts are according to the chemical make up and reactions that happen in our heads and if this was preprogrammed by chance then there is no rational relationship in our thinking or any rational reason why our thoughts should tell us anything about the impersonal world outside our minds. Why should logical formulas correspond to an impersonal world. Is the universe running according to logic? I don’t think so. We can’t just impose a chance concept on reality.
The materialist’s worldview also makes our personal experiences of reality irrational to. Why should we expect our personal experiences to tell us anything rational. The environment we live in is matter moving by random chance. If there are no relationships in nature how can we understand our experiences? If there is no order or structure with meaning (an interpretation to reality) how are we to relate to what we are experiencing. Some atheists like to say that the universe is ordered, but order is a concept of mind and not inherit in matter as a substance. Order is a rational relationship or law that something must follow due to its design.
Man created in God's Image
Man has many thoughts and concepts that go through his head each day as he thinks. He has many thoughts and opinions about life. But how is man to know what is true and what is false in knowledge, right and wrong in morality and what the purpose for his existence on earth is. For man to come to any conclusion on his thoughts and opinions there must be a standard that man must judge his thoughts against to distinguish truth from error. This standard can not be his own reason’s. For how could reason be the ultimate judge? When it is our "reasoning" that we are want to judge. Reason is not an ultimate authority but a tool to find true knowledge.
Because man is created in the image of God he has the knowledge of God inherent in him. He has knowledge of the outside world programmed into his mind to understand the external world. Man thinks God’s thoughts on a finite level and is always on a journey to learning more. This is very different than innate ideas that are in idealistic philosophies. The idealist has abstract ideas that do not correspond to the outside world and are not related to a complete unit of truth. For the external world to them is impersonal and meaningless. For the Christian his thoughts are true if they correspond to God’s interpretation of the world. Because God knows every facts relationship to the rest, man can on thinking God’s thoughts (on a finite level) understand how his thoughts can relate to objects in the world and be more than subjective claims. Because he is thinking with a unity of truths, which come from the whole and are based on an eternal interpretation of all things. God’s thinking is what gives unity, meaning, coherence and intelligibility to nature, history, reasoning and morality.
Divine Revelation
The only way that man can know he is thinking right is to judge his thoughts against divine revelation. Nature clearly reveals God’s existence and manifests his attributes throughout it. But it is scripture as a Divine revelation from God that instructs our intellect and desires to true knowledge. True knowledge is ethical and it binds us to use to correctly. It is divine revelation that defines what reality is, how we are to act and what is right and what is wrong. It is divine revelation that places us as a part of reality into a rational relationship with the rest of reality. There is a purpose for us, and object’s function according to a plan and design.
Because man is created in the image of God he has the knowledge of God inherent in him. He has knowledge of the outside world programmed into his mind to understand the external world. Man thinks God’s thoughts on a finite level and is always on a journey to learning more. This is very different than innate ideas that are in idealistic philosophies. The idealist has abstract ideas that do not correspond to the outside world and are not related to a complete unit of truth. For the external world to them is impersonal and meaningless. For the Christian his thoughts are true if they correspond to God’s interpretation of the world. Because God knows every facts relationship to the rest, man can on thinking God’s thoughts (on a finite level) understand how his thoughts can relate to objects in the world and be more than subjective claims. Because he is thinking with a unity of truths, which come from the whole and are based on an eternal interpretation of all things. God’s thinking is what gives unity, meaning, coherence and intelligibility to nature, history, reasoning and morality.
Divine Revelation
The only way that man can know he is thinking right is to judge his thoughts against divine revelation. Nature clearly reveals God’s existence and manifests his attributes throughout it. But it is scripture as a Divine revelation from God that instructs our intellect and desires to true knowledge. True knowledge is ethical and it binds us to use to correctly. It is divine revelation that defines what reality is, how we are to act and what is right and what is wrong. It is divine revelation that places us as a part of reality into a rational relationship with the rest of reality. There is a purpose for us, and object’s function according to a plan and design.
For the Christian the Trinity is our God and is the foundation for every finite thing that has been created. Every cult or religion that exists is dogmatic in rejecting the doctrine of the trinity. Does the trinity really matter? And is the trinity the only foundation for knowledge of the world and of our-selves? It is these questions that I hope to answer . We will also look at the different methods the history of thought has tried to gain knowledge with.
Whither one believes in God or not one must get his chain of thinking started in his philosophical journey. Our starting place will be that as humans we experience that reality exists.
Reality exists
When we reflect on life we soon come to the conclusion that we exist and that we are part of some reality. Did this reality always exist or did it come into existence? For now it does not matter how you answer the question because each option will lead you to an ultimate answer. If the world which we find our-selves in has always existed then the world is eternal, self-existent. But if the world has not existed forever and has come into existence then there must be another source for its existence. Some where in the chain of cause and effect there has to be an eternal ultimate starting point, an uncaused entity.
Reality exists, so there must be an eternal foundation for its existence. As reality can not come into existence from nothing. Nothing has no power and from nothing, nothing comes. To explain it simple there has to be a starting point, which does not need a cause for its existence.
This foundation is either rational or impersonal, God or the universe. If it is God and science is correct, the universe had a beginning then God is the eternal foundation for all finite reality. If it is not God then the universe is impersonal (irrational) with no meaning to it or behind it. Also this universe would have to of had existed forever, being eternal.
The universe is not eternal
That fact that science has proved the universe came into beginning from the Big Bang means that it is not eternal and needs a cause for its existence. There are only two options to chose form. The source is a rational eternal God who projects his thoughts into reality or the universe comes into being by chance. Ether the universe is governed by a rational mind or it is governed by irrational chance.
Is reality Meaningful?
Is reality meaningful, is there a purpose for our existence, what is the meaning of life? These questions can not be answered without understanding what the word "Meaning" means. Meaning is a mind interpretation of reality. If God exists then the universe is rational. There is a mind behind all objects connecting them all and there functions and purpose to one rational plan. There is an eternal mind, which has infused meanings into his creation. Reality has an interpretation. Without an interpretation the universe is irrational.
For those who think they can escape the problem
There are always some who think they can escape the problem. They have told me that "Yes" the external world is irrational or as the atheist likes to remind me arrational, but our minds are rational. So we can make up our own meaning…But this does not work as if the universe is meaningless what was the cause for our rational minds, non- intelligence? If so then there is no real distinction between what is rational and what is irrational if non-intelligence produced our rational minds from some mindless random evolution process. What are our thoughts corresponding to? But also if our minds are rational and the world is irrational with no interpretation to it. What can a rational mind say rationally about an irrational world? Do minds relate to random matter in motion.
Do facts exist in an uninterpreted universe?
This question will be studied more in a latter section, but for now we shall asked the question "If one man looks out into the world can he discover "facts". A fact is an interpretation of an object. For true facts to exist objects must have their own interpretation. An impersonal or irrational world would have no facts to find. As brute facts without an interpretation do not exist and if they did how would one fact have any rational relation to any other fact as a true fact is true when it corresponds with all the facts of reality. For this to happen there has to be an eternal mind with all knowledge with the true interpretation of reality. Man just looking into a world and describing it does not give us true knowledge but subjective opinions. Labeling is not learning new facts.
So let’s talk rationally
If we are to talk rationally to one another then the world must be rational and have a rational source for our rational mind and the rational relationship between all facts in the universe. If this is true then God exists…
The Trinity and reality
For the Christian the biblical God is the Trinity. The trinity is one eternal being with three persons. May sound very strange at first, but will become the eternal reality that explains the reality you experience in this world.
We will now see why any eternal God will not do and that theism without the trinity is just an abstract idea. The trinity is that the Father and the Son and the Sprit is God, three person in one being.
A Personal God and a personal world
The Trinity gives us the eternal foundation for an absolute personality. God is a personal rational being. In the trinity there is completely personal relationship without residue. To be personal is to be in a relationship with some one. The God of the trinity has been from all eternity a personal God in total fellowship with each member of the trinity. The Father and the Son and the Spirit are an eternal personality. It is part of his nature which flows into everything else he creates.
And for that reason it may be said that all man’s actions are personal too. Man’s surroundings are shot through with personality because all things are related to the infinitely personal God.
If God was not the creator of the universe but chance was the universe would be depersonalized as nothing would or should correspond to any rational relationship.
Of all the gods in all the religions of the world, only the triune God of the Bible is truly and wholly personal. Consider the non-Christian theism embraced by Jews and Muslims, the belief in a single god (not trinity) who rules the world. By itself, theism will not suffice to give us a truly personal god, for a god who is utterly and simply one – a mere monad- fails to have the qualities we know to be essential to personality. Although an absolute monad, like the god of Islam is the most exalted non-Christian idea of deity, a monad is a being whom is eternally alone with no other to love, no other with whom to communicate, and no other with whom to have fellowship. In the case of such a solitary god, love, fellowship, and communication cannot be essential to his being. To conceive of a god who does not know love, a god that has never shared, a god for whom a relationship with another is eternally irrelevant, is to conceive of an abstraction, an idea or a thing more than a person.
If to make this god more personal a believer in such a deity suggested that his god loved the world after he created it, the result would be a god who changes in time and who needs the world in order to grow into his self realization as a god of love, a god who becomes personal only with the help of the creation. Suppose one asserted that the monad loved the world from eternity? Then the personality of his deity and his attribute of love would still depend for their existence on the world he created. Creation would be a necessary act of self-becoming. For unless this deity created the world, he would not realize what love was.
A belief in a monad personal god is not possible, but to those who hold to it they are trying to exalt the monad ethically by demoting him ontologically, for he is no longer absolute, no longer transcendent. In fact a god who does not have these qualities as eternal attributes would have to have an ultimate cause beyond himself for his own existence.
What we have said here about love applies to other attributes of God also. In the Bible words like righteousness, faithfulness, and goodness refer to divine attributes that ultimately require the doctrine of the Trinity. None of these notions can be defined biblically apart from the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit. Even outside of the biblical worldview they cannot really be defined apart from the contents of interpersonal relationships. Righteousness for a triune God means that each of the person’s respect and preserves the boundaries of the others. The Father honors the Son and does not allow the infringement of what belongs to the Son. Goodness refers to their mutual seeking of blessing for one another, faithfulness to their keeping their word with one another. In absence of a relationship among persons, these and similar words become so utterly abstract that meaning disappears.
Man made in the Image of God
The Trinity also has great importance in the doctrine of mankind. The Bible and most theism religions claim that man was created in the image of God. But when one has a god that is not a trinity, it makes mans image an impersonal being. What would it mean to say that we are created in the image of the lonely monad? If mans image was to correspond to its god then it would be an impersonal non-social being. Mankind would have no concept of love or fellowship or relationships as its creator lacks these attributes in himself. If human society is a reflection of the ultimate reality we must ask, "what meaning does human society have in a god who is eternally alone, a non-social being, and lacks the ability to love." What is the point of a solitary god creating a world and filling it with people? What can man say to such an impersonal deity? Society would not function at all and would be totally impersonal and selfish.
It is because of the trinity (that being three person’s that are One) that it gives us these eternal relationships and there existence. There is unity with individuals in the Godhead. The One and Many reflects in to creation and gives society many members who can live in relationships that manifest unity from there oneness in being, the human race.
Trinity and Revelation
Out of the three views of theism they all claim to have a book given by special revelation. For a God to communicate to the world, this God must a least able to communicate. But why should an eternal monad communicate when communication would be contrary to its very nature. Why would one who is silent from eternity seek to communicate?
Why should the Trinity reveal himself? Because he is a triune God for whom the fellowship and mutual communication of the Father, Son, and Spirit is essential. It is not even possible to think of the trinity as not communicating as it is an aspect of his covenantal life as God. The three, eternal, personal, persons of the trinity talk to each other. Also because the second person of the trinity is called the "Word" he has a personal word to reveal to his personal creatures.
Whither one believes in God or not one must get his chain of thinking started in his philosophical journey. Our starting place will be that as humans we experience that reality exists.
Reality exists
When we reflect on life we soon come to the conclusion that we exist and that we are part of some reality. Did this reality always exist or did it come into existence? For now it does not matter how you answer the question because each option will lead you to an ultimate answer. If the world which we find our-selves in has always existed then the world is eternal, self-existent. But if the world has not existed forever and has come into existence then there must be another source for its existence. Some where in the chain of cause and effect there has to be an eternal ultimate starting point, an uncaused entity.
Reality exists, so there must be an eternal foundation for its existence. As reality can not come into existence from nothing. Nothing has no power and from nothing, nothing comes. To explain it simple there has to be a starting point, which does not need a cause for its existence.
This foundation is either rational or impersonal, God or the universe. If it is God and science is correct, the universe had a beginning then God is the eternal foundation for all finite reality. If it is not God then the universe is impersonal (irrational) with no meaning to it or behind it. Also this universe would have to of had existed forever, being eternal.
The universe is not eternal
That fact that science has proved the universe came into beginning from the Big Bang means that it is not eternal and needs a cause for its existence. There are only two options to chose form. The source is a rational eternal God who projects his thoughts into reality or the universe comes into being by chance. Ether the universe is governed by a rational mind or it is governed by irrational chance.
Is reality Meaningful?
Is reality meaningful, is there a purpose for our existence, what is the meaning of life? These questions can not be answered without understanding what the word "Meaning" means. Meaning is a mind interpretation of reality. If God exists then the universe is rational. There is a mind behind all objects connecting them all and there functions and purpose to one rational plan. There is an eternal mind, which has infused meanings into his creation. Reality has an interpretation. Without an interpretation the universe is irrational.
For those who think they can escape the problem
There are always some who think they can escape the problem. They have told me that "Yes" the external world is irrational or as the atheist likes to remind me arrational, but our minds are rational. So we can make up our own meaning…But this does not work as if the universe is meaningless what was the cause for our rational minds, non- intelligence? If so then there is no real distinction between what is rational and what is irrational if non-intelligence produced our rational minds from some mindless random evolution process. What are our thoughts corresponding to? But also if our minds are rational and the world is irrational with no interpretation to it. What can a rational mind say rationally about an irrational world? Do minds relate to random matter in motion.
Do facts exist in an uninterpreted universe?
This question will be studied more in a latter section, but for now we shall asked the question "If one man looks out into the world can he discover "facts". A fact is an interpretation of an object. For true facts to exist objects must have their own interpretation. An impersonal or irrational world would have no facts to find. As brute facts without an interpretation do not exist and if they did how would one fact have any rational relation to any other fact as a true fact is true when it corresponds with all the facts of reality. For this to happen there has to be an eternal mind with all knowledge with the true interpretation of reality. Man just looking into a world and describing it does not give us true knowledge but subjective opinions. Labeling is not learning new facts.
So let’s talk rationally
If we are to talk rationally to one another then the world must be rational and have a rational source for our rational mind and the rational relationship between all facts in the universe. If this is true then God exists…
The Trinity and reality
For the Christian the biblical God is the Trinity. The trinity is one eternal being with three persons. May sound very strange at first, but will become the eternal reality that explains the reality you experience in this world.
We will now see why any eternal God will not do and that theism without the trinity is just an abstract idea. The trinity is that the Father and the Son and the Sprit is God, three person in one being.
A Personal God and a personal world
The Trinity gives us the eternal foundation for an absolute personality. God is a personal rational being. In the trinity there is completely personal relationship without residue. To be personal is to be in a relationship with some one. The God of the trinity has been from all eternity a personal God in total fellowship with each member of the trinity. The Father and the Son and the Spirit are an eternal personality. It is part of his nature which flows into everything else he creates.
And for that reason it may be said that all man’s actions are personal too. Man’s surroundings are shot through with personality because all things are related to the infinitely personal God.
If God was not the creator of the universe but chance was the universe would be depersonalized as nothing would or should correspond to any rational relationship.
Of all the gods in all the religions of the world, only the triune God of the Bible is truly and wholly personal. Consider the non-Christian theism embraced by Jews and Muslims, the belief in a single god (not trinity) who rules the world. By itself, theism will not suffice to give us a truly personal god, for a god who is utterly and simply one – a mere monad- fails to have the qualities we know to be essential to personality. Although an absolute monad, like the god of Islam is the most exalted non-Christian idea of deity, a monad is a being whom is eternally alone with no other to love, no other with whom to communicate, and no other with whom to have fellowship. In the case of such a solitary god, love, fellowship, and communication cannot be essential to his being. To conceive of a god who does not know love, a god that has never shared, a god for whom a relationship with another is eternally irrelevant, is to conceive of an abstraction, an idea or a thing more than a person.
If to make this god more personal a believer in such a deity suggested that his god loved the world after he created it, the result would be a god who changes in time and who needs the world in order to grow into his self realization as a god of love, a god who becomes personal only with the help of the creation. Suppose one asserted that the monad loved the world from eternity? Then the personality of his deity and his attribute of love would still depend for their existence on the world he created. Creation would be a necessary act of self-becoming. For unless this deity created the world, he would not realize what love was.
A belief in a monad personal god is not possible, but to those who hold to it they are trying to exalt the monad ethically by demoting him ontologically, for he is no longer absolute, no longer transcendent. In fact a god who does not have these qualities as eternal attributes would have to have an ultimate cause beyond himself for his own existence.
What we have said here about love applies to other attributes of God also. In the Bible words like righteousness, faithfulness, and goodness refer to divine attributes that ultimately require the doctrine of the Trinity. None of these notions can be defined biblically apart from the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit. Even outside of the biblical worldview they cannot really be defined apart from the contents of interpersonal relationships. Righteousness for a triune God means that each of the person’s respect and preserves the boundaries of the others. The Father honors the Son and does not allow the infringement of what belongs to the Son. Goodness refers to their mutual seeking of blessing for one another, faithfulness to their keeping their word with one another. In absence of a relationship among persons, these and similar words become so utterly abstract that meaning disappears.
Man made in the Image of God
The Trinity also has great importance in the doctrine of mankind. The Bible and most theism religions claim that man was created in the image of God. But when one has a god that is not a trinity, it makes mans image an impersonal being. What would it mean to say that we are created in the image of the lonely monad? If mans image was to correspond to its god then it would be an impersonal non-social being. Mankind would have no concept of love or fellowship or relationships as its creator lacks these attributes in himself. If human society is a reflection of the ultimate reality we must ask, "what meaning does human society have in a god who is eternally alone, a non-social being, and lacks the ability to love." What is the point of a solitary god creating a world and filling it with people? What can man say to such an impersonal deity? Society would not function at all and would be totally impersonal and selfish.
It is because of the trinity (that being three person’s that are One) that it gives us these eternal relationships and there existence. There is unity with individuals in the Godhead. The One and Many reflects in to creation and gives society many members who can live in relationships that manifest unity from there oneness in being, the human race.
Trinity and Revelation
Out of the three views of theism they all claim to have a book given by special revelation. For a God to communicate to the world, this God must a least able to communicate. But why should an eternal monad communicate when communication would be contrary to its very nature. Why would one who is silent from eternity seek to communicate?
Why should the Trinity reveal himself? Because he is a triune God for whom the fellowship and mutual communication of the Father, Son, and Spirit is essential. It is not even possible to think of the trinity as not communicating as it is an aspect of his covenantal life as God. The three, eternal, personal, persons of the trinity talk to each other. Also because the second person of the trinity is called the "Word" he has a personal word to reveal to his personal creatures.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
First principles can not be demonstrated
If Rationalism and Empiricism are based on first principles which cant be proved then it is impossible to reject Christianity on the basics that it is just a faith. Rationalism and Empiricism are also based on faith, as they have to place their trust in their first principles to be true about reality. This does not then mean that every faith is irrational, but it does mean that each faith must be able to explain reality as a whole and have a system that gives us knowledge of the external world. The question comes down to "What Faith can explain reality and our relationship to it the best".
It will not do just to say that Reason or Empiricism has access to the truth or the facts and Christianity is just a blind religious faith. For making logical conclusions from ones assumptions about one mental states about the world, even if valid all depend on unproven original assumptions.
Just as the theorems of geometry are deduced from axioms, so the conclusions of behaviorism are deduced from the assumption that the mind is a physiological process, utilitarianism from the assumption that pleasure is the good, and gravitation from a theory of space and time.
What are Facts?
In this section we will look at "What is a Fact?" and "How does one get to a Fact?"
A Fact is a state of affairs. A fact is not a thing or object, but an interpretation of an object. If reality as a whole is meaningful then it must have an eternal interpretation of all things. There must be a mind behind the universe infusing meaning into the creation. A unit of truth (mind) relating one fact to another according to a plan and purpose.
So what is a fact? A Fact is an interpretation!
How does one get to a fact, this depends on what worldview you hold to. For those who reject God there are no facts to be found as there is no interpretation to reality as a whole or as a part as the part must find its meaning in the whole. This is the major problem with rationalism and empiricism they look out into the world to find external facts but there are none because there is no interpretation to reality. Facts of knowledge do not just hang out in the universe with no interpretation waiting for us to find them. An impersonal universe has no facts. A true external fact is known when mans mind thinks according to God interpretation of that one fact in its total relationship with the rest. Man must think on a finite level God’s thoughts about reality. If reality as a whole is not a unit of truth with a single interpretation than the rationalist and Empiricist are just labeling matter in motion with there own subjective abstract names and concepts. This is not true knowledge, but just subjective claims of their own mental states. We are not interested in what we think? But are interested in what the facts are in themselves. If there was not a unity of truth or a single interpretation of the whole of reality (God’s mind) then even if man could find a fact what relationship would it have to any other fact in a universe evolved by chance? In a chance universe nothing would be relating to each other at all in a rational manner.
For the Christian all the facts are part of God’s personal plan and serve his personal purpose; all of the laws by which we relate the facts (whether conceptually, logically, or causally) are a reflection of God’s personal mind and his ordering of reality. Man’s mind was created to imitate God’s thinking with respect to those personally qualified facts and personally qualified laws. God’s personal influence over all the objects of knowledge as well as the mind of man, and his purpose to have man understand and control the facts of his environment, provide for the possibility of the mind accurately apprehending the extramental world. Everything and every event must be ultimately related to God (who controls the relations between things and between events) in order to be part of a coherent and intelligible system. But for the non-Christian, the impersonal, spatio-temporal universe makes facts impersonal.4 The facts are "brute" facts that are particulars unrelated to any plan or interpretation. The universe consists of purely random matter moving completely according to chance…The non-Christian takes for granted that this kind of authority belongs to him. Man presumes to interpret and explain himself by his own finite internal principles and to give the original interpretation to the brute facts in a random universe. This process just produces irrationalism. Those who reject God think Chance produced reason and then reason reasons about the irrational universe.
It will not do just to say that Reason or Empiricism has access to the truth or the facts and Christianity is just a blind religious faith. For making logical conclusions from ones assumptions about one mental states about the world, even if valid all depend on unproven original assumptions.
Just as the theorems of geometry are deduced from axioms, so the conclusions of behaviorism are deduced from the assumption that the mind is a physiological process, utilitarianism from the assumption that pleasure is the good, and gravitation from a theory of space and time.
What are Facts?
In this section we will look at "What is a Fact?" and "How does one get to a Fact?"
A Fact is a state of affairs. A fact is not a thing or object, but an interpretation of an object. If reality as a whole is meaningful then it must have an eternal interpretation of all things. There must be a mind behind the universe infusing meaning into the creation. A unit of truth (mind) relating one fact to another according to a plan and purpose.
So what is a fact? A Fact is an interpretation!
How does one get to a fact, this depends on what worldview you hold to. For those who reject God there are no facts to be found as there is no interpretation to reality as a whole or as a part as the part must find its meaning in the whole. This is the major problem with rationalism and empiricism they look out into the world to find external facts but there are none because there is no interpretation to reality. Facts of knowledge do not just hang out in the universe with no interpretation waiting for us to find them. An impersonal universe has no facts. A true external fact is known when mans mind thinks according to God interpretation of that one fact in its total relationship with the rest. Man must think on a finite level God’s thoughts about reality. If reality as a whole is not a unit of truth with a single interpretation than the rationalist and Empiricist are just labeling matter in motion with there own subjective abstract names and concepts. This is not true knowledge, but just subjective claims of their own mental states. We are not interested in what we think? But are interested in what the facts are in themselves. If there was not a unity of truth or a single interpretation of the whole of reality (God’s mind) then even if man could find a fact what relationship would it have to any other fact in a universe evolved by chance? In a chance universe nothing would be relating to each other at all in a rational manner.
For the Christian all the facts are part of God’s personal plan and serve his personal purpose; all of the laws by which we relate the facts (whether conceptually, logically, or causally) are a reflection of God’s personal mind and his ordering of reality. Man’s mind was created to imitate God’s thinking with respect to those personally qualified facts and personally qualified laws. God’s personal influence over all the objects of knowledge as well as the mind of man, and his purpose to have man understand and control the facts of his environment, provide for the possibility of the mind accurately apprehending the extramental world. Everything and every event must be ultimately related to God (who controls the relations between things and between events) in order to be part of a coherent and intelligible system. But for the non-Christian, the impersonal, spatio-temporal universe makes facts impersonal.4 The facts are "brute" facts that are particulars unrelated to any plan or interpretation. The universe consists of purely random matter moving completely according to chance…The non-Christian takes for granted that this kind of authority belongs to him. Man presumes to interpret and explain himself by his own finite internal principles and to give the original interpretation to the brute facts in a random universe. This process just produces irrationalism. Those who reject God think Chance produced reason and then reason reasons about the irrational universe.
We all have unproven Presuppositions
Does man have pure access to reality? Meaning does he interprets the objective facts as they truly are or does he condition them with his methods of thinking? These are interesting questions which not many people take time to ask.
Do facts come straight into our minds already interpreted or do we interpret what we see? As it is minds that think and do the interpreting, it is man that interprets what he sees. There are different kinds of methods that we use to interrupt reality. They consist of rationalism, Empiricism, subjectivism and irrationalism. We live in a world that is very much more interested in Reason than in blind Faith’s. But what I hope to show latter is that all three views are based on Faith. The battle is not against Reason VS Faith, but Faith VS Faith.
When we come to use one of these methods for attaining knowledge, we must also remember that these methods are also conditioned upon our metaphysical presuppositions. All of us think out of and through a worldview. A worldview is based on preconceived ideas and theories, which we presumed to be true before we even start thinking. These presuppositions condition every thing we interpret. Presupposition are basically first principles, we do not prove but just assume. Every person must have does have a framework through which he understands the world as a system and his relation to it. Everyone by necessity has a particular way of looking at the world, which serves to organize ideas about the world in his mind. Any rational act by definition operates in terms of a particular outlook on the world. Lacking an interpretive worldview would be like looking at the world with out any context. Presuppositions provide the authoritative standards by which you evaluate life issues.
A worldview is a lens in which every belief is filtered through and understood.
Some of these include,
Materialism, that all that exist is the material world of matter (That the spiritual realm does not exist)
Atheism, that there is no God.
Pantheism, that all reality is God.
Buddhism, that reality is an illusion.
Evolution, that the universe has evolved by chance.
Rationalism, that all-true knowledge comes through logical formulas.
Empiricism, that all-true knowledge comes from observation of the senses.
Subjectivism, that all knowledge is based on subjective experience and feelings.
All of these worldviews are lenses in which people interpret the world they see. No one is neutral, the Atheist, Christian or materialist has presuppositions which shape how they interpret reality. We all bring prior beliefs to reality, beliefs we have not proven but are our starting points in thinking. As I said, it is mind’s that interprets what they see by the concepts and ideas in their heads. We label reality with our labels and descriptions. First principles are the foundation of knowledge. The problem comes down to who has the right interpretation of reality. Is reality that easy to define? Does description ever discover facts out -side our minds or is all knowledge condition by our presuppositions?
The truth is without God there is no objective facts out in the world for man to know (this will be explained latter). For all man is doing is describing his own mental states and this is subjectivism. If knowledge is limited to rationality, empiricism or subjectivism then we will know only about our minds and not about the real world.
Lets take the worldview of materialism for moment, if there is no God then the world is impersonal and has evolved by chance. Reality has no basic interpretation or meaning for being here. Our minds have been created by random irrational reactions from the process of evolution. In this worldview why should we think that reasoning and logical formulas should correspond to the outside world? And why should our reasoning be rational if irrational forces of evolution have created it?
Nothing follows from the laws of logic, taken alone, except possibly more laws of logic. From propositions about our mental states, nothing follows except further propositions about our own mental states. If we start with our own first principles, which we have to get thinking started, we have already preconditioned its conclusions. The conclusions must follow necessarily from the premises. If this is the case then our first premises, which cannot be proved becomes the final authority in all things. This makes rationalism and empiricism no different than subjectivism and no better than Faith. All these views have become as dogmatic as blind Faith. Knowledge then comes down to Faith VS Faith.
Do facts come straight into our minds already interpreted or do we interpret what we see? As it is minds that think and do the interpreting, it is man that interprets what he sees. There are different kinds of methods that we use to interrupt reality. They consist of rationalism, Empiricism, subjectivism and irrationalism. We live in a world that is very much more interested in Reason than in blind Faith’s. But what I hope to show latter is that all three views are based on Faith. The battle is not against Reason VS Faith, but Faith VS Faith.
When we come to use one of these methods for attaining knowledge, we must also remember that these methods are also conditioned upon our metaphysical presuppositions. All of us think out of and through a worldview. A worldview is based on preconceived ideas and theories, which we presumed to be true before we even start thinking. These presuppositions condition every thing we interpret. Presupposition are basically first principles, we do not prove but just assume. Every person must have does have a framework through which he understands the world as a system and his relation to it. Everyone by necessity has a particular way of looking at the world, which serves to organize ideas about the world in his mind. Any rational act by definition operates in terms of a particular outlook on the world. Lacking an interpretive worldview would be like looking at the world with out any context. Presuppositions provide the authoritative standards by which you evaluate life issues.
A worldview is a lens in which every belief is filtered through and understood.
Some of these include,
Materialism, that all that exist is the material world of matter (That the spiritual realm does not exist)
Atheism, that there is no God.
Pantheism, that all reality is God.
Buddhism, that reality is an illusion.
Evolution, that the universe has evolved by chance.
Rationalism, that all-true knowledge comes through logical formulas.
Empiricism, that all-true knowledge comes from observation of the senses.
Subjectivism, that all knowledge is based on subjective experience and feelings.
All of these worldviews are lenses in which people interpret the world they see. No one is neutral, the Atheist, Christian or materialist has presuppositions which shape how they interpret reality. We all bring prior beliefs to reality, beliefs we have not proven but are our starting points in thinking. As I said, it is mind’s that interprets what they see by the concepts and ideas in their heads. We label reality with our labels and descriptions. First principles are the foundation of knowledge. The problem comes down to who has the right interpretation of reality. Is reality that easy to define? Does description ever discover facts out -side our minds or is all knowledge condition by our presuppositions?
The truth is without God there is no objective facts out in the world for man to know (this will be explained latter). For all man is doing is describing his own mental states and this is subjectivism. If knowledge is limited to rationality, empiricism or subjectivism then we will know only about our minds and not about the real world.
Lets take the worldview of materialism for moment, if there is no God then the world is impersonal and has evolved by chance. Reality has no basic interpretation or meaning for being here. Our minds have been created by random irrational reactions from the process of evolution. In this worldview why should we think that reasoning and logical formulas should correspond to the outside world? And why should our reasoning be rational if irrational forces of evolution have created it?
Nothing follows from the laws of logic, taken alone, except possibly more laws of logic. From propositions about our mental states, nothing follows except further propositions about our own mental states. If we start with our own first principles, which we have to get thinking started, we have already preconditioned its conclusions. The conclusions must follow necessarily from the premises. If this is the case then our first premises, which cannot be proved becomes the final authority in all things. This makes rationalism and empiricism no different than subjectivism and no better than Faith. All these views have become as dogmatic as blind Faith. Knowledge then comes down to Faith VS Faith.
I was not always a presuppositionlist and about three years ago I had never really heard of the word. But when I started to read thinkers on this method I was convinced that it was the most Biblical method to defend the Faith. One must presupose that God exists to explain reality as whole. If reality as a whole, of which I am part of is not rational or meaninful then any thinking about reality is irrational and meaningless. So for me to understand my self in a rational world there must be a rational mind behind the universe or I am left with my meaningless abstract thoughts labeling an impersonal irrational world. ( more will be said latter)
The thinkers that have shaped my mind the most in apologetics have been,
Cornelius VanTil, John Frame and Greg Banhsen.
This thinkers have done their homework...Van Til's work is what the other two base most of their thinking on. John Frame writes about things that are so deep in a way that is so understanding. That is the gift of a teacher. As for Greg Bahnsen, well this man was just out of this world when it comes to understanding worldviews. This is why Bahnsen has been called the man Atheists fear. Sadley he died a few years ago.
some books I recommend are,
John Frame,
Doctrine of God, Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, Apologetics to the Glory of God, Cornelius Van Til An Analysis of his thought.
Greg Bahnsen
Van Til's Apologetic Readings & Analysis, Pushing the Antithesis, Always Ready.
Cornelius Van Til
A Survey of Christain Epistemology, An Introduction to Systematic Theology.
Another new thinker is Ralph Smith with his book "Trinity and Reality.
The thinkers that have shaped my mind the most in apologetics have been,
Cornelius VanTil, John Frame and Greg Banhsen.
This thinkers have done their homework...Van Til's work is what the other two base most of their thinking on. John Frame writes about things that are so deep in a way that is so understanding. That is the gift of a teacher. As for Greg Bahnsen, well this man was just out of this world when it comes to understanding worldviews. This is why Bahnsen has been called the man Atheists fear. Sadley he died a few years ago.
some books I recommend are,
John Frame,
Doctrine of God, Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, Apologetics to the Glory of God, Cornelius Van Til An Analysis of his thought.
Greg Bahnsen
Van Til's Apologetic Readings & Analysis, Pushing the Antithesis, Always Ready.
Cornelius Van Til
A Survey of Christain Epistemology, An Introduction to Systematic Theology.
Another new thinker is Ralph Smith with his book "Trinity and Reality.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Well here is a another blog site, as my last one died on me. I will be using this website to explain presuppositional Apologetics which I believe is the best method to defend the Faith. I will also be writing on other topics as people engage thoughts and questions. Life is about thinking and if all knowledge is ethical then we should push on to reflect truth.
Blessings, lets hope this blog works...
Blessings, lets hope this blog works...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)