For anybody who knows Tim Keller it appears impossible that he, the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, would ever give up his faith. However, I was watching the film version of Keller’s bestselling book, The Reason for God, and was surprised to hear him affirm such a possibility. When asked by one of his non-believing interlocutors whether Keller thought that there might be some convincing arguments against Keller’s belief Keller replied by saying that he has two grounds for belief. First, he said, is the rational ground – there are many good reasons to believe that Christianity is true. Second, Keller grounds his faith in religious experience. If…
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Christian Relativism Anyone?
After an accumulation of facts, meticulously researched in the most objective way possible, a researcher has the task of presenting the facts in a coherent way. The question is: can he do this without imposing his own political ideology, psychological leanings or scientific paradigm? Historian, Mark Noll, suggests that there are three attitudes available in response to the question. The scientistic attitude requires a scrupulous attention to method. If we get the method right the rest will follow. This attitude is held by positivist scientists and requires the adoption of a verificationist methodology modeled on an “empirical conception of the physical sciences.” The ideological attitude suggests that “historical writing exists…
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Dogma, Disagreement and Doubt
If I believe p and someone who is equally rational, has access to the same evidence and spends a similar time as me looking at it believes not p, should I doubt p? This is the question of disagreement and there are two ways to respond to it. The conciliation view is that disagreement with an “epistemic peer” (someone who has approximately equal intelligence, expertise and exposure to the evidence as oneself) obliges one to lower confidence in p. The steadfast view, on the other hand, is that there is no obligation to lower one’s confidence in p. Conciliation is motivated by the thought that if someone else comes to the opposite conclusion…
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Learning Conditions
There are three conditions necessary for human learning. First, it must be possible, in principle, for human beings to obtain knowledge. They must be able to come to true beliefs. Second, it must be possible for human beings to make sense of experience; the world must be intelligible. Third, it must be possible for human beings to communicate with one another. A teacher has to be able to impart knowledge to the student. The question is: what reality would provide all three conditions? Answer: the God of the Bible. First, God is omniscient. Since God knows all things, past, present and future, God cannot be mistaken about anything. God defines…
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The Dogma of Doubt
It is now mandatory to doubt. To claim to know anything with certainty is to fall foul of dogmatism, the stubborn refusal to subject beliefs to any test for truth. But is certainty the same as dogmatism? And isn’t the demand for universal doubt merely another form of dogmatism? First, to the latter point. It seems that to demand doubt is to assume a universal knowledge claim – something like: it is not possible to be certain of the truth of any belief, or, no human being can be certain of any belief, or even, no belief can produce certainty. Such claims, although different, have the added premise that no…
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Riffing on Tripartite
The precondition of knowledge has traditionally been whether what is known is true, believed and justified: p is known iff p is true, S believes that p is true, and S is justified in believing that p is true. This definition of knowledge has been challenged by Paul Gettier and since then epistemology has revolved around what counts as justification for a belief (See the Warrant series by Alvin Plantinga for a good response to Gettier). I intend not to delve too far into the problem. Only make a few comments as the definition relates to Christian beliefs. First, the nature of truth. Christian Theism (CT) holds that God knows…
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Epistemology in the Psalms
Psalm 19 and Psalm 139 form a good basis for a Biblical epistemology. Psalm 19 describes human knowledge of God via the created order and the word of God. Revelation of God in the created order is clear and available to all human beings; it is unavoidable. Revelation in the word is clear, but only available to those to whom it has been given. Once special revelation has been accepted, believed in and loved, the general revelation of God in nature is seen rightly, leading to worship of the true God. In Psalm 139 we see the knowledge that God has of human beings. It is comprehensive, grounded in his creation of human…
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Augustine’s Epistemology
The central question for philosophy, says Cornelius Van Til, is the question of the one and the many or the universal and the particular.1 The question is central to the Greek philosophers especially as found in Plato. Plato, confronted with particularity in experience, advanced a universal realism, a realm of forms from which the soul is able to draw on ideas which connect particular things. For instance, a particular “chair” is connected (or participates) with a universal form, “chair.”2 The problem of the one and the many continues to plague philosophy in the modern period. David Hume contends that universals are nominal, found solely in discourse about particulars.3 The question…