In my last post I said that the Christian/Reformed
mixture with philosophy I’ve been addressing inverts the order of knowing
assumed in Scripture and does so in a way more consistent with Descartes’ own method
of structuring the edifice of knowledge. You may recall that in his Meditations Descartes sought a
foundation for knowledge which is conceptually clear, certain, and indubitable.
And, of course, one of the first things Descartes rejects as such a foundation
for knowledge is knowledge that comes by the senses (or what I am calling
“physical seeing”). This just means that Descartes rejects at the outset what
both the Bible assumes and our common experience teaches us, namely, that there
is an important sense in which “seeing is knowing.”[1] Importantly, if what Descartes sets out to
prove succeeds, then it changes everything about how we conceive of truth and
how it is known.
Let's follow Descartes’ line of thought for a
moment. “I have learned by experience,” he says, “that those senses sometimes
mislead me, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those things which have
once deceived us.” In expressing his doubt in the senses as he does, Descartes
seems to project on the use of the senses the kind of problem one finds with
humans in their sinfulness. That is, once a person deceives us, we regard this
not merely as a single, discrete transgression but as a broader problem of
character. One who lies to us is a liar. Hence, it takes much time and an
established record of honesty on the part of such a one for us to slowly regain
our trust in them. We certainly cannot “trust wholly” what they say before then.
Does human behavior, however, serve as a fit
analogy to the senses when, seemingly, they “deceive” us? For instance, when we
see the sun moving across the sky, we now know what was not known prior to
Copernicus and Galileo and that is that the sun does not revolve around the
earth but the earth rotates and is itself revolving around the sun. But were
our eyes “deceiving” us all along? Do the eyes (or human senses in general)
actually have a volitional or moral agency, similar to humans, such that they
could “deceive” or lie to us? Is it not more accurate to say that the eyes are doing
what the eyes do but that, being as small as we are as humans (and situated as
we are on the planet), it only appears that the sun is moving across the sky?
Don’t the same eyes convey to
astronauts in outer space that it is in fact the earth rotating which causes
the appearance that the sun is moving across the sky? Did the eyes suddenly
decide to come clean and tell us the truth about whether it was the sun or
earth which does the moving or are they doing the same thing they have always
been doing but under different external conditions? My point is that Descartes enlists
a false analogy[2] to persuade us that our senses (my first
level: physical seeing) cannot be trusted for knowing truth. With these and
other—what I consider—dubious doubts,[3] Descartes intends to move
us away from the biblical and common sense notion that physical seeing is and
may be foundationally important in a veridical quest.
Once Descartes destroys this reality check of
direct, physical seeing for truth, he turns inward for his indubitable
foundation of knowing. It is important to notice, however, that in arriving at
the latter, he still places his confidence in direct seeing, although, it is a confidence of a subjective kind, one
that is directed toward his own internal ideas and thinking. What I mean is
that while Descartes rejects that kind of knowing by direct seeing which is
physical, he still relies on the idea (derived from such seeing) that knowing
comes by direct seeing. There would, indeed, be no such frame of reference for
Descartes as a possibility for knowing if in our human experience we had not
learned to associate physical seeing with knowing. More to the point, if there had been no significant success
rate in our experience for knowing by direct, physical seeing, such seeing
could not have served as an analogy for the indubitable, foundational certainty
Descartes believes he has discovered for knowledge based on a direct, mental
seeing of his own ideas or thinking. Seeing would not be associated with
clarity or “knowing for certain.”
And, again, when Descartes arrives at this
foundation—his “I think, therefore, I am”—we must keep in mind that he has no
God, no world, no other persons but himself, and no physical body. He believes
he has found something self-evidently true, namely, that as long as he is
thinking, he exists. Later, philosophers like Hume and Nietzsche will marshal
formidable, destructive doubts against every word in that statement: the “I,”
the “think,” the “therefore,” and the “am.” Postmodernism (relying on such
philosophers and pushing epistemological idealism to its logical conclusion—with
the world wars of the twentieth century in the background) will deconstruct
Descartes’ foundation for knowledge right out of existence.[4]
As stated earlier, the Christian/Reformed mixture
with philosophy I’ve been addressing follows Descartes in this inversion of the
relationship between the body and mind for knowing. That is, it keeps
Descartes’ proposal that subjectivity of an internal sort is more foundational
as truth—more real—than knowledge
gained by the senses. It defends this position by pointing to supernatural
knowledge from God which comes to the heart internally through regeneration by
the Spirit in Christ and by the understanding imparted thereby as one reads the
Bible. Put differently, Descartes’ modern theory as appropriated by (or mixed
with) Christian/Reformed theology (as
I’ve been considering it) means that what is foundational for knowledge or truth is entirely supernatural in
nature and does not have, therefore, a natural and rational component essential
to (or inseparable from) it, since because of finitude and/or sin that
component is put out of commission. Consequently, this mixture will appeal to
its knowledge of God’s self-disclosure in Scripture as its foundational truth
but it does so in what I consider an unscriptural manner—that is (and again),
by following not the direct realism of Scripture but the epistemological
idealism of Descartes in its reliance on internal (even if a spiritual
knowledge based on Scripture) over
external, physically and rationally, knowable reality.
The Bible’s
concept of truth is different. On the one hand, it is true that the apostle
John says to the saints: “you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you have
all knowledge” (1 Jn. 2:20). Again, he says, “But the anointing that you have
received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach
you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no
lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him” (1 Jn. 2:27). And Paul says, “The
Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom.
8:16). In his gospel, again, the apostle John says, “When the Spirit of truth
comes, he will guide you into all truth” (Jn. 16:13).[5] Scriptures like this truly teach (as
Christian/Reformed theology emphasizes) that knowledge of the truth comes to
the heart of believers by the Spirit in a special way. It is, indeed,
appropriate when a Christian speaks with a certainty that comes from God
internally as spiritual confirmation of one’s status as a child of God and all
that Scripture says as God’s Word. This is, indeed, foundational as truth even subjectively so.
But it is not the whole story for how, according
to Scripture, we are to understand truth. Notice that in the apostle John’s
dealing with the error of Gnosticism and in order to establish the public
nature of the truth of the gospel, he does not point to what Christians believe
or a Christian way of knowing confirmed to the heart of a believer by the
Spirit and the teaching of Scripture but to physical
seeing (that is, sensory perception) and mental seeing (basic apprehension) as a critical aspect of knowing:
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning
the word of life...that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you,
so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with
the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 Jn. 1:1-3). What do I mean? If
there is a question of true knowledge, of reality, with respect to the public
truth of the gospel, the apostles appeal to every day knowing or what I’ve been
calling court room epistemology. That is, when people in general ask: “How do
you know that what you claim about Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, is
true?” The apostles in response ground this claim in an ordinarily and universally knowable reality. In other words,
they were saying to the whole world concerning Jesus’ life on earth—things like
his miracles, teachings, and resurrection from the dead: “We saw. We heard. We touched. We
connected with reality the way people normally do. If you had been here, you
would have seen and heard the same things. This is how we know our message is
true and why we commend it to you for your belief.” In doing this, they
implicitly recognized that neither finitude nor sin prevents the basic human
ability to know things requisite for their testimony to be meaningful and carry
weight as confirmation of the truth for all people, places, and times that
Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah.
That is, physical and mental seeing which I have
classified as the first two levels of knowing are critically important for
establishing the truth of the gospel which the apostles preached. On the other
hand, the apostles never said to people in general: “We have had this
experience of regeneration. We have embraced certain Christian beliefs or
presuppositions based on Scripture. We commend our Christian worldview to you
for your consideration. Please consider how coherent our beliefs are and how
incoherent your beliefs are by comparison. Consider what the Bible says. Here,
take these scrolls. Read them. See for yourselves. Consider how Jesus is
presented within our Christian perspective as the Messiah, as I go my way and
pray that the Lord will open your eyes.” Such an appeal is, as I’ve been
claiming, indirect and subjective in nature. The apostles never spoke that way.
They were objective in their appeal. They
pointed away from themselves to things that were objective and knowable by
every one. That is, they didn’t point indirectly to their presuppositions
but directly to the person and reality of Jesus Christ. They knew that when
people are persuaded (see Acts 17:1-4) that Jesus is Lord, the power and
implications of that foundational truth alters their unbelieving
presuppositions and begins the process of establishing in them the full range
of biblical and Christian presuppositions about God.
One may find many places in Scripture where we see
this appeal to what is ordinarily knowable by our natural and rational
faculties as confirmation that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. For example,
when John the Baptist is in prison (Matt. 11:2-5) and has doubts whether or not
Jesus is the Son of God, he sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he truly is
“the one who is to come.” Notice what Jesus doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, “Ask
John what the Spirit is saying in his heart about me.” He could have said this,
and it would have been true. It would even have been a significant,
non-negotiable part of settling John’s internal doubts. But what does Jesus say
to these disciples? “Go and tell John what
you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the
lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor
have good news preached to them.” Notice, Jesus doesn’t say, “What I hear and see,” but “what you hear and see.” The implication is
that everyone could see these things and that human knowing in general is not
defective for perceiving and apprehending the miracles Jesus worked. In other
words, these disciples were no different from other humans. It wasn’t their
special perspective or presuppositions based on being John the Baptist’s
disciplies that made their testimony to what they saw and heard of Jesus’
ministry compelling as a confirmation that Jesus truly is “the one who is to
come.” This is, again, what I’m calling “court room epistemology.” It is
ordinary knowing, and it is foundational in an important sense as a
confirmation—in the face of doubts—that in reality Jesus truly is the Messiah,
the Son of God.
I will have more to say about this later, but
TGC’s and Phillips’ belief that because of human finitude truth is subjective
and because of sin truth is unknowable—and that the remedy to this problem is a
supernatural knowledge which comes by the Spirit without a basis in physical
and mental seeing (due to the problems just mentioned)—implies that, had John
been thinking appropriately, what Jesus told
John’s disciples would not at all have alleviated John’s doubts. The reason
is that though Jesus appealed to something other than his perspective or
presuppositions — that is, to the works themselves he was doing — John could have
thought to himself: “My disciples could have come under the bias, slant, or
coloring of Jesus’ presuppositions.” My point is that there is a reality that
is reliably knowable by physical and mental seeing, and it is critically
important precisely because it transcends presuppositions. It is what forms
presuppositions in the first place as well as has the power to alter them.
In Scripture, when it comes to confirming the
truth of the gospel, we see this appeal to the first two levels of knowing repeatedly.
For instance, when Peter says that the apostles were not following cleverly
devised myths when they preached the gospel of Christ, Peter appeals to his
eyewitness testimony pertaining to the transfiguration of Jesus on the
mountain, when Elijah and Moses suddenly showed up. That is, when the questions
arise, “Are these things real? Is this message of the gospel true to reality?
Or just fiction?,” the apostles reply, “We saw. We heard.” As in a court room,
the implication is: we saw and heard what
anyone would have seen and heard had they been there.
Because of this eyewitness testimony, Peter
continues: “We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed” (2 Pe. 1:19). Notably,
this wording comes from the ESV text edition of 2011. In the 2007 edition, the
ESV translated the same passage: “And we have something more sure, the
prophetic word.” In this earlier translation, then, Peter is understood as
appealing to his eyewitness testimony but then contrasting that with “something
more sure”—God’s Word. The idea is that biblical truth is more real or reliable
than truth based on what has been seen and heard. Without being privy to the
thinking of the translators behind this way of translating 2 Peter 1:19, this
translation seems to fit the way presuppositionalism understands the
relationship between God’s Word and attesting miracles with eyewitness
testimony, etc. I mean that presuppositionalism regards Scripture as conveying
reality to us in a way that is superior to anything knowable in ordinary
reality (even if it is the miracles of Jesus) as known by physical and mental
seeing. However, the ESV’s 2011 change in translation of this verse is not only,
in my opinion, the correct rendering of the text but also consistent with the
relationship Scripture presents between God’s Word and miracles as conveyed by
the eyewitness testimony of the apostles. The latter view miracles as
confirmation that God’s Word is true (not the other way around; see John
20:30-31 and Hebrews 2:3-4) and do so, implying (1) that there is an integrity
in human knowing at the first two levels of seeing (physical and seeing) such
that eyewitness testimony can serve in such a confirming role; (2) that there
is knowable, universal, and objective truth with
which biblical truth itself is consistent. In sum, God is not giving us
fairytales and imparting the Spirit to our hearts to confirm such. He gave us
his Son in fulfillment of prophecies and provided miracles attested to by the
eyewitness testimony of the apostles as a confirmation in a universally
knowable reality that what God had revealed in his Word concerning his Son had
truly come to pass.
[1] I intend this expression, “seeing is
knowing,” in a simple, qualified, yet important sense. I will elaborate on this
more when I explore in future posts the biblical assumptions for knowing but here I am not
making any grand or unreasonable demands for seeing as knowing. I only mean
that under normal conditions we generally and regularly do have successful
knowing based on physical seeing. For instance, I am presently seeing the
screen of my laptop as I type and not a tree or dog or the clouds; moreover,
this knowledge that my laptop is here in front of me is reliable or true
knowledge.
[2] I understand the fallacy of false analogy as
an appeal to the similarity of two different things for the sake of
reaching a certain conclusion, without noting a significant dissimilarity which
causes the argument to fail.
[3] Descartes also doubts whether he is awake
or dreaming because there have been times when he thought, for example, he was
sitting in front of his fireplace, when in fact he was only dreaming. But,
unless we are inclined, for some reason, to cultivate or give place to such
doubt, is it not a fairly simple and routine matter to determine whether we are
dreaming or awake? Can we not clear that up in a matter of seconds?
Additionally, Descartes entertains the thought that we may be part of a demon’s
imagined world, like characters in a video game. Again, unless we are motivated
by some inclination to chase unwarranted conclusions, what evidence is there
for such a supposition?
[4] Regrettably, postmodernism will also think
that the villain is foundationalism itself—that belief in absolute reality as
knowable accounts for why there are wars in the world and if we could all see
that there are no metanarratives, we would not take our beliefs so seriously
and just peacefully celebrate the differences in our various religions and
worldviews. But there is no avoiding of foundations behind what we believe or claim to know. The
Bible certainly presents (and common sense requires, in certain respects) truth
as foundational in nature.
[5] This has, of course, primary application
to the apostolic role for establishing the canonical truth of Scripture (what
we call the “New Testament” Scriptures). There is, I believe, a secondary and
important sense in which the Spirit leads all believers through
Scripture into all truth.
