RazorsKiss
on the Christian God as the Basis of Knowledge
Part 1:
Overview of RK's Epistemology
Originally
published on Incinerating
Presuppositionalism on August 13, 2009
* * *
Contents:
What RazorsKiss Hoped to
Accomplish
Recently there was a debate between
presuppositional apologist “RazorsKiss” and
non-Christian Mitch LeBlanc on the topic “Is the Triune God of the Scriptures
the Basis for Knowledge?” A transcript of the debate is available here.
Mitch LeBlanc himself brought his debate with RazorsKiss
to my attention, and he and I have carried on a lengthy discussion of the
debate, particularly RazorsKiss’ statements, via
electronic correspondence.
While I do not know what RazorsKiss’ real name is, I
do know that he is part of the team over at the Choosing Hats blog. Choosing Hats, as some of you may
recall, is the home of Chris Bolt, with whom I have on several occasions, with
limited success, attempted to have a dialogue (see for instance here
and here).
RazorsKiss also has his own blog, and has posted a transcript
of his debate with LeBlanc here. This
version of the transcript also includes a question and answer section following
the debate, which is interesting to read.
Interestingly, on RazorsKiss’
own blog, there is a list of links to non-Christian internet sites,
including my blog. The section
including these links is labeled with a “content warning,” which advises
readers to “read at your own risk.” I’m not sure whether to be amused or
flattered, but I admit I’m a bit of both.
Presumably because RazorsKiss (“RK” hereafter) is a
Christian and believes that the Christian god has something to do with the
foundations of knowledge, he chose to defend the affirmative position in
response to the question on the floor, “Is the Triune God of the Scriptures the
Basis for Knowledge?” Mitch LeBlanc took up the negative.
In reviewing RK’s opening statement, I was reminded of Greg Bahnsen’s opening
statement in his celebrated debate with Gordon Stein, in that, like
Bahnsen, RK seems to present no argument at all for his position. Rather, like
Bahnsen, RK prefers simply to repeat what his position affirms without
providing any rationale for supposing any of it is true. In this way RK
presents in his opening statement little more than a lengthy description of
what his position advocates, with no case defending the claim that what he
describes is true.
RK divides his opening statement into four subtitled sections:
1) Introduction
2) Epistemology
3) Proper Epistemology
4) The Impossibility of the Contrary
In the beginning of his opening statement, RK
expresses concerns about issues which do not seem at all germane to a defense
of an intellectual position, such as his compulsion as a Christian to be
humble, to avoid pride and to resist looking down on others, accusations of
arrogance from others, etc. In the same breath, he expresses an attitude which
is hard to distinguish from “I’m right and everyone else is wrong” when he
states:
if I am correct, there is a fundamental
problem with the way the entire world thinks about the basis for their own
knowledge… I claim to have a basis for my knowledge which is utterly higher,
and transcendentally greater than I, or any other human being can ever hope to
be.
So RK’s expectations to be accused of arrogance
are understandable.
RK also announces that, on his view, everyone is “owned” by his god. Note how
RK segues into this from his expressed worries about being charged with
arrogance:
It is conceivable I suppose, to call a
perfect Being arrogant for claiming to be your Creator; to own you and the dust
of the earth man was formed from It is another thing to assert that His claim
to ownership is unwarranted. If what I say is true - God owns you. He owns me.
He owns every particle of matter, every joule of energy; established every law
we think in accordance with, and ordained every law which governs the world we
exist in, at His good pleasure.
So not only is every human being a piece of
property belonging to RK’s invisible magic being, everything else is too, and
whatever happens in the world originates from its “good pleasure.” Apparently
RK’s god finds “good pleasure” in destructive earthquakes, tsunamis which level
entire cities, babies being miscarried or aborted, the rise of dictators and
the path of blood they carve into human communities, cancer, traffic accidents,
etc. Since it owns all of us, RK’s god can do whatever it wants with us. And
since it couldn’t possibly need us, it finds “good pleasure” in sending threats
against our values.
RK has elected to defend the view that human knowledge finds its proper basis
in such a being.
What RazorsKiss Hoped to Accomplish
In his opening statement, RK emphasizes the exclusivity of Christianity. For
instance, he claims that
every possible foundation for every way of
thinking not in accordance with [the Christian god’s] perfect ordinance is
utter, absolute folly
It is easy to make such assertions. As they say,
“talk is cheap.” But fortunately RK gives us an indication of what he hopes to
accomplish in his debate with LeBlanc:
My intent Is to
demonstrate that there is no other epistemological basis that can possibly
compare to that possessed by a Christian holding the self-revelation of the
Triune God. My goal is to show that my that any worldview attempting to argue
from other than the Christian foundation is, in fact, borrowing from that
foundation to do so. That any worldview asserting some sort
of “objective” basis for the laws of logic specifically, but for nature and
morality as well – is pure subjectivism wrapped up in an objective shell
consisting of concepts stolen from their Creator.
By “concepts stolen from their Creator,” RK
indicates what he means:
Concepts like universals. Universals which
are abstract, binding, have inherent meaning, and apply to every person –
whether they like them to, or WANT them to or not. They apply nonetheless.
Note here that RazorsKiss
is not only drawing attention to the topic of concepts – in which case I would
expect to find in his defense of the claim that the Christian god is the proper
basis of knowledge, some indication of what his theory of concepts may be – but
also what is clearly an expression of the primacy of existence – that something
is the case independent of what anyone likes or wants. All of this is most
interesting to me, especially coming from a Christian, since Christianity has
no theory of concepts (see here),
and its metaphysical foundations are entirely incompatible with the primacy of
existence (see here).
If anyone were to dispute this last point, let us ask: Would RK affirm that universals apply to a person if his god did not
want them to? I very much doubt it.
A number of statements which RK makes throughout the course of his opening
statement can be classed into three distinct categories. For instance, RK makes
several universally negative statements about non-Christians without any
argumentative back-up to support them, such as:
- “[non-Christians] do not have a
justification for their beliefs”
- “An unbelieving man has no justification
for his predication.”
- “He has no basis for his use of logicall laws.”
- “There is no area in which [a non-Chrisstian’s] thoughts, ideas or concepts
can be said to be properly grounded.”
RK clearly has a low opinion of non-Christians,
especially in regard to their understanding of things pertaining to knowledge.
Again, RK takes the attitude that he is right and everyone else is wrong. If RK
could support this position by validating the kinds of claims he makes in a
credible manner, this might be forgivable. Unfortunately, what we find is that
these statements are affirmed as if by fiat, in the manner of someone who
expects reality to conform to his pronouncements.
Next, RK makes several autobiographical statements which tellingly expose his
own ignorance on certain key matters. For instance:
- “I have yet to see an epistemological
basis which accounts for universals in any satisfying manner.”
- “The fundamental disconnect I see in seecular epistemology (and Christians who
use that same epistemology) is the universal lack of a solution from
unbelieving philosophy for problems like that of induction, the one and the
many, whether the will is free, and the like.”
- “If the unbeliever thinks he is the ulttimate, not simply the immediate basis
for epistemology - I see no possible way for that assertion to be justified.”
Statements like these tell us what RK does not
know, and/or where he’s not been looking. Specifically, they indicate a lack of
familiarity with his subject matter, which includes the content of
non-Christian teachings on epistemology. Is RK suggesting that, since he has
“yet to see an epistemological basis which accounts for universals in any
satisfying manner,” that there isn’t one? Of course, this does not follow. What
does he mean by “satisfying manner”? He does not explain this. But what he does
imply by such statements is that Christianity does provide “an
epistemological basis which accounts for universals in [a] satisfying manner.”
Again, this tells us about RK, not about the quality of such “accounts.” For
all we know, "satisfying manner" for RK may be any treatment on the
issue in question which plays to his confessional investment in the Christian
god-belief program. Thus any treatment which does not do this would
automatically be dismissed as "unsatisfying." So long as the
"account" ultimately says "God did it," it has a chance of
meeting the grade. Without this, it dies on the vine.
As for the claim that there exists in secular epistemology a “universal lack of
a solution from unbelieving [i.e., non-Christian] philosophy for problems like
that of induction, the one and the many, whether the will is free, and the
like,” again RK simply announces his own ignorance. Where is RK’s refutation of
David Kelley’s solution to the problem of induction, or Ayn
Rand’s theories of concepts and volition? Indeed, I have seen no evidence that
he has any familiarity with these to begin with, let alone that he may be
prepared to enumerate their presupposed deficiencies.
As for the final statement about the “unbeliever” thinking himself as “the
ultimate…. basis for epistemology,” it’s not even clear what this is supposed
to mean (similar statements in the presuppositionalist literature tend to be
just as vague), or what exactly RK thinks is wrong with such suppositions
(unless it’s just that he “see[s] no possible way for that assertion to be
justified,” which again only tells us about RK). Presumably RK would say that
his god is justified in thinking itself as "the ultimate... basis for
epistemology," though this strikes me as utterly incoherent since said god
is supposed to be omniscient and infallible, thus having no need for
epistemology in the first place. (I'll develop on this point further below.)
This would mean that, in principle, RK could have no beef with a person
supposing itself as the "ultimate... basis for epistemology," he just
wants to be able to say which persons are justified in this, and which persons
are not. Of course, there is nothing to stop someone from imagining a god and
claiming that it is "the ultimate... basis for epistemology" (however
this is taken to mean) and consequently denying this role to any human being.
Lastly, RK makes a series of worldview claims which his readers are apparently
expected to accept as truth on his say so (since they are presented without any
support whatsoever):
- ”God owns you. He owns me. He owns every
particle of matter, every joule of energy; established every law we think in
accordance with, and ordained every law which governs the world we exist in, at
His good pleasure.”
- “I have a Guarantor which is
self-existent, self-sufficient, able to communicate, omnipotent, omniscient,
immutable, and sovereign.”
- “I can say, with perfect certainty, thaat the Triune God of Scripture is not
only the proper grounds for all knowledge – but the only possible grounds for
all knowledge!”
- “there are no brute facts. Facts are noot neutral entities, and they cannot be
interpreted in a neutral fashion. This is because facts can only exist in
relation to other facts;”
- “There is self-existence, which then guuarantees all contingent existence.”
- “ There is omnnipotence, which can guarantee the
absolute authority of God over all His creation, including willing and thinking
creatures.”
- “ There is the omniscience and self-knoowledge of God, which guarantees that
what His creatures can know is intelligible - that creatures can, in fact,
derivatively know the facts about His creation, and those facts that He reveals
about Himself.”
- “ There is the internal ‘sense’, that CCalvin calls the ‘sensus
divinitatus’, which all men possess, as image-bearers
of their Creator - and which allow them to recognize the God that they even
sometimes deny.”
- “Can someone without the axioms that Chhristians hold ‘know’ anything? As
defined, no. They can’t.”
- “What the Christian position alone can guarantee is any contribution to
knowledge whatsoever.”
- “What my claim really entails is that aan unbeliever, trying to start from a
position of epistemic autonomy, is like a child who sits on his father’s lap -
and uses that position for the purpose of slapping his father in the face.”
- “Christianity has an answer for [the prroblems of induction, universals, free
will, etc.] - provided the Christian answers them from Scriptural revelation,
and does not adopt the same principles that unbelieving philosophy does.”
- “Since it is impossible to have knowleddge on any other basis, save that of
God’s intrinsic nature and self-communication of the properties of that nature
- it is impossible for any human system oof reasoning to have justification at
all.”
- “Christianity’s epistemology is the onlly epistemology possible - because it’s
impossible to have any other coherent, true, and justified basis for thought,
perception, knowledge, or understanding of ourselves, or the creation in which
we dwell.”
I read all of RK’s statement several times and
pored over it looking specifically for how he might support any of these
claims, but I found nothing which does support them. Of course, in regard to
this last batch of statements, RK does make an effort in his opening statement
to preempt the assessment that we are expected to accept these claims on his
own say so. Specifically, in his Introduction RK states:
I have heard the claim to “arrogance”
before. If I ever state something on my own behalf, I will grant that such an
accusation is justified. Should I comport myself rudely, as if I am superior,
or as if I think myself to be who I am because I am somehow higher - I request
that you point this out. However, as a creature - I claim to have a basis for
my knowledge which is utterly higher, and transcendently greater than I, or any
other human being can ever hope to be… Since my claim is not based on myself,
but upon a self-revelation from the Triune God described in Scripture - the
claim in this case is on the behalf of another.
But given his worldview’s appeal to an invisible
magic being which is accessible to the human mind exclusively by means of
imagination, RK is on safe ground here. For he will always be able to say that
whatever he affirms is not on his own behalf, but on behalf of an invisible
magic being which is evidently unable to appear before all who are present and
speak on its own behalf. If ever there were a formula for evading
responsibility for the things one says, RK has cornered the market. In the
question and answer section following his debate with LeBlanc, RK states, “God
is who works in me, and through me.” Of course, anyone imagining that an
invisible magic being operates behind the scenes of the things we perceive in
reality, would be able to make claims such as this. RK gives us no reason to
suppose that what he is talking about when he points to his god is anything
other than imaginary.
Since RK seeks to defend the claim that the Christian god is the proper basis
for knowledge, I was hoping to find some discussion in his defense of this
thesis regarding the means by which knowledge is acquired and validated, that
is, the how of epistemology. Since presuppositionalists in general make
it no secret that they think their god is the source of all knowledge, that the
content of “revelation” is the what of
epistemology, what they should focus their attention is on how man
acquires knowledge, and how their proposed method of acquiring knowledge (if
there is one) coheres with their god-belief claims. Unfortunately, I found that
RK’s discussion of epistemology was limited to his concern for what he
considers the proper basis of knowledge as well as the exclusivity of
Christianity’s approach to knowledge, with no mention of anything substantive
in regard to the means or method by which one acquires
knowledge. So far as epistemology is concerned, this is a glaring oversight. He
does speak of “justification” of knowledge, but even here he does not outline
any process by which his epistemology recommends that we go about justifying
what we believe to be knowledge, so he provides nothing to be evaluated on this
matter as well. Besides, one cannot undertake the task of justifying knowledge
without understanding how that knowledge is acquired in the first place. The how
of epistemology seems not to concern RK at all.
Then again, presuppositional apologist John Frame makes a most telling
admission on this very point when he writes:
How is it that people come to believe a
Word from God which contradicts all their other normal means of knowledge? How
did Abraham come to know that the voice calling him to sacrifice his son (Gen.
22:1-18; cf. Heb. 11:17-19; James 2:21-24) was the voice of God? What the voice
told him to do was contrary to fatherly instincts, normal ethical
considerations, and even, apparently, contrary to other Words of God (Gen.
9:6). But he obeyed the voice and was blessed. Closer to our own experience:
how is it that people come to believe in Jesus even though they have not, like
Thomas, seen Jesus’ signs and wonders (John 20:29)? …I cannot explain the
psychology here to the satisfaction of very many. In this case as in others
(for we walk by faith, not by sight!) we may have to accept the fact even
without an explanation of the fact. Somehow, God manages to get his Word across
to us, despite the logical and psychological barriers. Without explaining how
it works, Scripture describes in various ways a “supernatural factor” in
divine-human communication. (a) It speaks of the power of the Word. The
Word created all things (Gen. 1:3, etc.; Ps. 33:3-6; John 1:3) and directs the
course of nature and history (Pss. 46:6; 148:5-8).
What God says will surely come to pass (Isa. 55:11; Gen. 18:149; Deut.
18:21ff.). The gospel is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16; cf. Isa.
6:9-10; Luke 7:7ff.; Heb. 4:12). (b) Scripture also speaks
of the personal power of the Holy Spirit operating with the Word
(John 3:5; 1 Cor. 2:4,12ff.; 2 Cor. 3:15-18; 1 Thess.
1:5). Mysterious though the process may be, somehow God illumines the human
mind to discern the divine source of the Word. We know without knowing how we
know. (Presuppositional
Apologetics: An Introduction, Part 1)
So for Frame, the process of epistemology (at
least so far as it concerns the believer’s “knowledge”
of the divine) is “mysterious.” I’m not sure how well this bodes well with RK,
who in his opening statement specifically expressed disagreement with the
“tendency to make [things like epistemology] mysterious – to make it something
only the initiated can truly understand.” Why, then, does Frame, when
addressing the question of how one has knowledge of a supernatural being
which Christians call “God,” throws his hands up and confesses, “We know
without knowing how we know”? While it is hard to square RK’s concern to keep
epistemological matters comprehensible, that he may privately agree with
Frame’s position on this matter would explain why the how of
epistemology garners no mention from him in his defense of the view that the
Christian god is the proper basis of knowledge.
In the second section of his opening statement, subtitled “Epistemology,” RK
acknowledges that epistemology is the branch of philosophy which addresses
questions such as
Why do we know what we know? How do we
know? How is this knowledge acquired? What is this knowledge? On what basis do
we know it? By what standard? On
what (or whose) authority? Those questions are the realm of our
discussion.
And RK is correct: it is these kinds of questions
which epistemology is supposed to address, specifically what knowledge is, and
how is it acquired and validated. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, when RK
gets to a point where he starts talking about his theistic epistemology, he
seems preoccupied with aligning knowledge as such with his god-belief as its
proper ground and authoritative basis, and says essentially nothing about the method
by which knowledge is acquired and validated. Since he acknowledges that “those
questions are the realm of our discussion,” I found this oversight rather
disappointing. If the Christian god is considered to be the proper ground and
standard of knowledge, by what means does one acquire and validate knowledge?
Since, as we will see, RK claims that knowledge is based specifically on axioms
which clearly assume the existence of the Christian god, his knowledge of his
god must somehow be immediate, such as when the rest of us (in the real world)
see a tree or speeding car. But how? That’s what I
want to know.
This question has vital importance, for just in considering it we should be
aware of a fundamental disconnect on the part of the Christian position which
RK seeks to defend. Claiming that the Christian god is the ground and standard
of knowledge suggests that the Christian god’s own cognition in one way or
another serves as the model for human cognition, that there is an analogous
relationship between man’s knowledge and the knowledge allegedly possessed by
the Christian god. As Bahnsen puts it,
man’s thinking must follow after or replicate
God’s thinking on the level of a creature, thus being ‘analogical’ and
recognizing two levels of knowing (original and derivative, absolute and
subordinate). (Van Til’s
Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p. 100n.31)
Elsewhere Bahnsen states that
man knows anything he knows (whether the
world or God Himself) by thinking ‘analogously’ to God’s thinking” (Ibid., p.
169n.40).
These and similar assumptions are the basis behind
Van Til’s infamous dictum that “man thinks God’s
thoughts after him” (Van Til, “Nature and Scripture,”
p. 278; quoted in Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings
& Analysis, p. 225). As Van Til explains:
Since the human mind is created by God and
is therefore in itself naturally revelational of God,
the mind may be sure that its system is true and corresponds on a finite scale
to the system of God. That is what we mean by saying that it is analogical to
God’s system. (Introduction to Systematic Theology, p. 181)
Given the fundamental disparity between the nature
of man’s mind and that attributed to the Christian god by the Christian
worldview, I find this thesis utterly incredible. Man is neither omniscient nor
infallible, and must develop his knowledge of reality through his own fallible
efforts by applying a method to the data he gathers through his senses (i.e.,
an operation of his sense organs, which is a biological activity). It is
through his senses that man has awareness of objects distinct from himself, and
it is of these objects that he seeks to develop his knowledge. His knowledge is
thus not automatic, nor is there any guarantee that he will discover any
particular fact. On the other hand, however, the Christian god is said to be
both omniscient and infallible, possessing all knowledge for all eternity,
without error, gap or need of correction, as an inherent part of its alleged
existence, not as a product of some procedure it elects to undertake. Its
knowledge is not the result of a methodological process which it performs on
data it discovers independent of itself through a biological process. Contrary
to man’s knowledge, the Christian god’s knowledge would be automatic. It “just
knows.” Naturally, anyone could imagine a being which “just knows” everything, and it is no secret that this is what Christians
are doing when they claim that their epistemology has such a standard. But in
so doing they ignore crucial distinctions which have direct bearing on the
nature, method and basis of man’s knowledge. The Christian god’s “knowledge”
would be automatic, inalterable and infallible, while man’s knowledge is
procedural, developing and open to correction. Given these facts, how can the
former at all serve as any kind of standard for the latter? What possible
relevance could it have, since regardless of what some invisible magic being
may know, man still needs to go through the motions he needs to go through in
order to acquire and validate his knowledge? RK certainly does not anticipate
this question, even though it is wholly relevant to the position he advocates.
But the fundamental distinctions do not stop there. There is also the issue of
the orientation between the respective subjects of knowledge and the objects of
knowledge which needs to be taken into account. In the case of man, the
orientation between subject and object is known as the objective
orientation. This means that the objects of man’s consciousness exist
and are what they are independent of his conscious activity. For
instance, the flower that a man sees is the kind of flower it is, has the
number of petals it has, and is located where it is, regardless of whether he
perceives it, identifies it as a flower or as a motor vehicle, likes it, wishes
it were someplace else, etc. His conscious activity has no causal bearing on
the flower’s identity qua flower. This is the primacy of existence principle,
the very basis of the concept of objectivity. It is on the basis of this
principle that we can affirm such truths as wishing doesn’t make it so
and believing a claim will not make it true.
But this is not the orientation between subject and object which the Christian
god, as described by the Christian worldview, is thought to have with respect
to the objects of its alleged knowledge. The orientation between subject and object
which the Christian god is supposed to enjoy is the subjective
orientation. Unlike the relationship between man’s consciousness and its
objects, the relationship between the Christian god’s consciousness and its
objects is characterized by the primacy of consciousness. In this case, the subject
holds metaphysical primacy over its objects. That is, the objects of the
Christian god’s consciousness are what the Christian god chooses them to be.
Their existence, nature and capacity for action are dependent on the Christian
god’s conscious activity. Christian apologist Mike Warren made this crystal
clear when he wrote the following:
In knowing a flower, for example, God
knows everything about the flower. Humans can have that flower as an object of
their knowledge as well, so there is a similarity in the knowledge; but a
difference is that humans cannot know the flower exhaustively. Not only is
there a quantitative difference between divine and human knowledge of the
flower, but there are qualitative differences. God knows the flower originally.
Everything about the flower originates from His own
consciousness. Indeed, God's thinking about the flower makes it so.
In contrast, humans know the flower as something originating external to them.
Their thinking about the flower does not make it so. Human knowledge claims
about the flower can be incorrect, unlike God's perfect knowledge. (Post to the
Van Til List dated February 26, 2004, quoted in Confessions
of a Vantillian Subjectivist; italics added)
The orientation assumed here between subject and
object in the case of the Christian god’s consciousness is precisely the
opposite of that belonging to man. While the objective orientation identifies
the proper relationship between the subject of man’s consciousness and any
object of his awareness, theism is inherently characterized by a fundamental
subjectivism. The influence of theism’s inherent subjectivism has a direct
bearing on epistemology, as Bahnsen unwittingly acknowledges:
In God’s thinking, there are no facts that
are newly discovered or contingent (or, as Van Til
sometimes put it earlier in his career, God’s knowledge is exclusively
analytical, not synthetical). This is because God is
the Creator of all facts, and the facts are what they are in terms of God’s
sovereign plan; thus, to know anything “outside” Himself,
God need only “analyze” or consult his own mind. (Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis, p.
165n.33)
For the Christian god, wishing
does make it so. And unlike man, who must discover facts which exist
independent of his conscious activity and conform his knowledge of them to
their nature by applying an objective method, the Christian god creates facts
out of the exercise of its own will. To put it succinctly, for man (i.e., in
reality) facts are objective (since they are what they are independent
of man’s conscious activity), but for the Christian god (i.e., in the
believer’s imagination) facts are subjective,
(since they are what the Christian god wants them to be). Consequently,
to claim that man’s knowledge finds its basis in the Christian god is to affirm
that objectivity is grounded in subjectivism. But this is absurd.
So to go back to Van Til’s claim above, let us ask:
What “correspondence” could a mind geared with
the objective orientation between itself as a subject and any objects it
perceives or considers, have to a mind which enjoys
precisely the opposite orientation between itself and anything distinct from
it?
Of course, Van Til does
not consider the issue from the perspective of the proper orientation between a
subject and its objects, and from what I have seen,
neither do any of his followers. Thus, given the implications which I have
brought out here, it is not surprising that RK considers none of these
distinctions in his comments about epistemology, even though it is undeniable
that such distinctions would bear on those questions which he himself has
raised.
Unfortunately for RK, however, since his worldview affirms a subjective
basis for all knowledge (both in the case of his god’s knowledge as well as
man’s), he cuts off from himself any objective means by which he can
reliably distinguish between what is real and what he may merely be imagining.
This failure to make such a critical distinction in human cognition, a
distinction which is wholly germane to the matter at hand, brings into question
all of RK’s god-belief claims. This includes RK's appeal to the so-called “sensus divinitatus,” to which he
refers as an “internal ‘sense’” through which his god presumably guides and
communicates to him. The "sensus divinitatus" is associated in Christianity with
"the indwelling of the Holy Spirit," and appeals to the "sensus divinitatus" tend to
call to mind the notion of "the Force" in the Star Wars epic.
It is an imperceptible phenomenon possessing great power with which the
believer considers himself positively aligned and which, he claims, guides his
thinking, choices and actions. In the post-debate question and answer session,
RK describes the workings of this alleged faculty in the following manner:
it’s the equivalent of having the author
of the book standing over your shoulder, and correcting your faulty
understandings, and continually adjusting your noetic
“issues” as He also works to sanctify you in obedience to that revealed Word…
It’s not me, it’s God in me… God is who works in me, and through me.
Since RK offers no argument to support his claim
that he (and everybody else!) possesses such a faculty, we are presumably supposed
to accept his claim that he benefits from such privy guidance courtesy of the
supernatural on his say so. But his claim that every human being possesses this
“internal ‘sense’” indicates that, if each of us turns the focus of our
attention inwards, into the internal workings of our psyche, we should find
evidence of the faculty he’s talking about. Curiously, however, if I introspect
when reading a book and suppose that its author is standing over my shoulder
and guiding my understanding of what I’m reading, I am certainly honest enough
to acknowledge that all I am really doing is imagining
at this point. If the “sensus divinitatus”
has the same look and feel of imagination, RK’s Christianity is in big trouble.
But I expect that Christians like RK would resist this identification. In so
doing, of course, they would be implying that they have better knowledge of
what’s going on in my psyche than I do (and yet RK wants us to warn him when
he’s verging on arrogance). So I have some questions for RK.
Suppose RK thinks he has received input from his god through this faculty he
calls “sensus divinitatus.”
How does he know it’s not his imagination? What distinguishes the input coming
to him through the “sensus divinitatus”
from the products of his own imagination? Both are “internal,” and if the “sensus divinitatus” can be
referred to as an “internal ‘sense’,” I don’t know why the imagination cannot
also. What about deceiving spirits, such as those dispatched by the Christian
devil? How would RK distinguish communications he claims to have received from
his god through the “sensus divinitatus”
from those originating from this nefarious personality? Here’s another
question: What kind of content is communicated to the believer by the “sensus divinitatus”? Its source
is said to be omniscient, infallible and omnipotent. RK claims "It's not
me, it's God in me." Thus he claims that he acquires his knowledge from an
omniscient and infallible mind "who works in me, and through me." So
presumably it could tell RK what I had for breakfast this morning, or who my
boss was in June 1995. Surely his god knows these things. Why would it withhold
this information from believers? Wouldn’t the display of such knowledge be an
impressive witnessing tool? Or is there some reason why the believer will never
have access to this kind of information in spite of having direct lines to an
omniscient mind?
We should also ask if the “sensus divinitatus”
redundant in any way. Does it only provide knowledge to the believer which he
can acquire through other means, such as by reading what Jesus said in Matthew
chapter 5, or consulting an Almanac to learn how many people live in Tokyo?
Does the “sensus divinitatus”
deliver knowledge which could not possibly be accounted for in some other way,
whether by imagination, consulting public records, using one’s sense organs, or
simply inferring conclusions from data gathered in a mundane manner?
Or does RK expect us just to accept his claim that he and everyone else
possesses such a faculty on his own say so and forego such inquiries such that
we never learn about how it functions and what is capacities are? RK does
understand how it works, does he not? If so, he should be able to explain it.
If not, then how can he claim that what he “knows” as a
deliverance through such a faculty is at all reliable and sourced in the
divine? Unless he can explain how one can reliably distinguish between what he
calls the “sensus divinitatus”
and what he may merely be imagining, why should we believe it’s the former and
not the latter? RK does acknowledge that he has the ability to imagine, does he
not?
If I cannot distinguish the “sensus divinitatus” which RK says I have within me, from my own
imagination, how does RK distinguish it from his own imagination? Of course it
would do him no good to appeal to the “sensus divinitatus” itself to address
this question, since if “sensus divinitatus”
is in fact his own imagination, he would be appealing to his imagination
instead of to a divinely inspired portal of communication from the
supernatural. So this would get him nowhere. Besides, it would only perpetuate
the mysteriousness of RK’s epistemology insofar as its recommended method
of acquiring and validating knowledge is concerned (which is of central
importance to epistemology). So again, since RK is capable of imagining things,
and people are generally capable of confusing what they imagine with reality, RK
needs to address this matter, and he needs to address it seriously, with a
detailed explanation of just how one (anyone, since he claims we all possess
this elusive faculty) can reliably distinguish it from what may really only be
one’s own imagination. Failing this, his case for knowledge finding its basis
in the Christian god, since it makes appeal to the "sensus
divinitatus," will never get off the ground.
To Part 2.
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Back to RazorsKiss on the Christian God as the Basis of Knowledge