There is a collection of related points that I had left unsaid and that came up in the comments that I wanted to address here.
Often in discussions, the strategy of choice isn't to elevate your point, but to bring the other person's point down. For example, in the comment section of this post, Mike D challenges what he alleges is my "classical foundationalism" on the ground that it is itself inadequate. Foundationalism itself, he argues, isn't basic or axiomatic. There's no obvious reason to take a foundationalist approach so it fails its own standards. I can agree with this to a certain extent. I'm not a strict foundationalist, and I've felt a considerable degree of safe harbor in a lot of pragmatist material that Evan has passed on to me. I'm pragmatically an empiricist and a rationalist, so I'll agree to the reservations that Mike D shares. So where does this leave us? Certainly without a proof God! Simply with a disproof of an argument for a lack of proof of God. Which if I've kept this all straight in my head is still a lack of proof of God. My claim was that we have no reason to claim knowledge of any revealed religion. We are not justified by any standard of knowledge to make those sorts of claims. If we eliminate all standards of knowledge that claim of mine still stands, doesn't it? Indeed, it stands even more firmly!
It seems to me this is all very similar to (although not quite the same as) a skeptic's "brain in a vat" argument... or for the kiddies, one might say that we're "plugged into the Matrix". We can't trust our reason and our observation - they could both be fooling us. So where does this leave us? Well, as I said before it still leaves us with no firm knowledge of revealed religion, but I at least have a pretty good basis for knowledge of the Matrix, right (at least a pragmatically viable basis)? If this is all just a dream world at least it is a dream world I can make claims about. Where does it leave a believer? Still without knowledge of revealed religion, still authorizing himself to believe what he believes, but now with an accusation that all I really know is the Matrix... ok, but at least I know something that I work and operate in on a daily basis. The initial question - the question of our knowledge of God - is still exactly where we left it.
Often in discussions, the strategy of choice isn't to elevate your point, but to bring the other person's point down. For example, in the comment section of this post, Mike D challenges what he alleges is my "classical foundationalism" on the ground that it is itself inadequate. Foundationalism itself, he argues, isn't basic or axiomatic. There's no obvious reason to take a foundationalist approach so it fails its own standards. I can agree with this to a certain extent. I'm not a strict foundationalist, and I've felt a considerable degree of safe harbor in a lot of pragmatist material that Evan has passed on to me. I'm pragmatically an empiricist and a rationalist, so I'll agree to the reservations that Mike D shares. So where does this leave us? Certainly without a proof God! Simply with a disproof of an argument for a lack of proof of God. Which if I've kept this all straight in my head is still a lack of proof of God. My claim was that we have no reason to claim knowledge of any revealed religion. We are not justified by any standard of knowledge to make those sorts of claims. If we eliminate all standards of knowledge that claim of mine still stands, doesn't it? Indeed, it stands even more firmly!
It seems to me this is all very similar to (although not quite the same as) a skeptic's "brain in a vat" argument... or for the kiddies, one might say that we're "plugged into the Matrix". We can't trust our reason and our observation - they could both be fooling us. So where does this leave us? Well, as I said before it still leaves us with no firm knowledge of revealed religion, but I at least have a pretty good basis for knowledge of the Matrix, right (at least a pragmatically viable basis)? If this is all just a dream world at least it is a dream world I can make claims about. Where does it leave a believer? Still without knowledge of revealed religion, still authorizing himself to believe what he believes, but now with an accusation that all I really know is the Matrix... ok, but at least I know something that I work and operate in on a daily basis. The initial question - the question of our knowledge of God - is still exactly where we left it.
I'm a big fan of Christopher Hitchens. Some of the work of his I'm least attracted to, though, is his work on atheism. It's not very sophisticated, it can be unnecessarily aggressive, and it's largely dependent on metaphors and analogies (sometimes I feel like I'm going to puke if I hear him use the phrase "celestial North Korea" again). But there are a few things about his approach to religion that I like, one of which is his persistent refrain that "even if we grant X, then all your work is still ahead of you". He often raises this with things like the cosmological argument that we brought up earlier in the comments. He explains why he thinks it's unconvincing, but then says that even if he were to be convinced "all your work is still ahead of you" in making that knowledge useful from the perspective of revealed religion. Who is this shell of a God you've just demonstrated with this medieval logical display? How can we fill him out? What is his character? Is he even still here or did he pass from reality long ago? What does he think of us? What is his name? Even the answers to these questions (which I have no idea how one might answer) won't get you much farther than a vague Abrahamic tradition, if that. If we allow absolutely everything that Evan, Mike D, and Christopher Lake have insisted on - every sui generis epistemological get out of jail free card - we still get to a modest deism at best. That's not revealed religion! "All your work is still ahead of you," guys! And again - this is my fundamental point. We cannot know revealed religion. We authorize ourselves to believe it. And I can't stress enough that this is not some outrageous statement that I'm making. It's what (in my mind) the best positioned and most firmly founded revealed religion on the menu (Protestantism) claims for itself clearly and emphatically. Sola fide might be epistemologically inadequate, but at least it's honest and consistent.
This speaks to Evan's point too about valid and non-valid religious axioms. Perhaps assuming the authority of the Old and New Testament specifically is a bit of a stretch, he says, but we can axiomatically identify "scripture" as "a text that is spiritually authored and inerrant" (or whatever else you want to attach to the definition). The same can be said of God - perhaps we can't axiomatically claim anything specific about God, but we can definitionally identify God. This is no different from "all bachelor's are unmarried". Every man on Earth could be married and that would still be a valid axiom. So I'm perfectly willing to axiomatically define God and scripture in this way, and accept those axioms. But again, "all your work is still ahead of you". We still don't know if such things exist even though we've defined them. And even if we knew they existed "all your work is still ahead of you" because once again you only have a modest deism. Where is the knowledge of revealed religion? We still don't have it. We're still authorizing ourselves to believe these various and sundry claims that are mixed and matched by various people across the face of the Earth.
I think people are so busy poking holes in what I've said about epistemology (which is completely valid - I'm no philosopher), that they haven't realized that their case is still left unmade. And that was really my point from the beginning - that there is no case to make. The authority for these beliefs comes from one place - from ourselves. Just be honest about it.
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- but we can axiomatically identify "scripture" as "a text that is spiritually authored and inerrant" -
ReplyDeleteProbably not what you are looking for, but it is not that sound of an axiom, given that we don't have the original texts, nor the first copy of them, but the copy of the copy of the copy, etc., with all the problems this entails.
I don't think that matters, as we're just talking about the concept here. It also doesn't seem obvious to me authorship or authority are lost with the original material text. I think you'd have to offer an argument for why that would be the case.
ReplyDeleteXenophon - I think we agree without realizing it. I'm not saying we can identify a specific text as being scriptural. But I am conceding that just as we can define "bachelor" and use that definition axiomatically, it's perfectly appropriate to define "scripture" and use that definition axiomatically.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't mean we'll find actual bachelor's in the real world. It doesn't mean we'll find actual scripture in the real world - but I'm perfectly fine with identifying it as a thing.
But of course, even then "all our work is still ahead of us"
Evan - on the copies I think he's just arguing that we have no way of deterimining the authorship of the text. We have really, really, old copies. We don't have Smith's golden disks, as it were. You can authenticate it up the wazoo, but you're not going to be able to deify it with what we've got.
ReplyDelete"It also doesn't seem obvious to me authorship or authority are lost with the original material text."
ReplyDeleteWell, there are all the obvious errors or inconsistencies in the text to consider. An obvious example is the high priest problem of Mark 2 ... the passage in Mark claims that Abiathar was high priest, whereas 1 Samuel 21 states that Ahimelech (Abiathar's father) was. A minor detail of course, but it is hard to square with the "inerrant" claim. So the question is, why would such an all powerful God author a text which has even minor errors. I am sure there are perfectly acceptable answers to this question for believers, but they are not acceptable to me.
Of course I am not going to claim that I was convinced by that sort of argument first; most of what I learned to explain my atheism came after I became an atheist.
ReplyDelete"Evan - on the copies I think he's just arguing that we have no way of deterimining the authorship of the text."
I think it is safe to say that the Gospels were not written by four guys named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Some of the letters attributed to Paul were clearly written by him; others were written by someone allied with Paul. Who John of Revelation was we have no idea (it is generally assumed by many evangelicals that he was John the Apostle - but there is no real evidence for that claim). Acts was most likely not written by Luke; indeed, it may have been written in the second century. It goes on in that way.
Xenophon -
ReplyDeleteI think you're taking it in a direction that hurts your case. Let's say that all the named authors wrote those books. There's nothing particularly meaningful in that in either direction. It doesn't make it scriptural.
Now let's say none of those named authors wrote any of those books. All that means is that later councils mislabeled them. Again, there's nothing particularly meaningful from that in either direction. It wouldn't mean they're NOT scriptural.
The authorship question boils down to supernatural authorship (either directly or by inspiration). And that's something that no amount of textual criticism, archaeology, or history can ascertain.
dkuehn,
ReplyDelete"The authorship question boils down to supernatural authorship (either directly or by inspiration)."
Sure it does; and to me that does not seem like a probable result given what we know of the history of the texts. Of course that really only addresses "sola scriptura" type arguments.
The way I look at is this way - you can drop nearly all of the New Testament except for Paul's letters and you can still be a Christian - but you are going be a different Christian than most that exist today (a Christian without the miracles and one with an actual flesh and blood Christ). In other words, the canonical texts can be added or dropped at whim; they really aren't all that important except from the perspective of sects.
Evan - on the copies I think he's just arguing that we have no way of determining the authorship of the text. We have really, really, old copies. We don't have Smith's golden disks, as it were. You can authenticate it up the wazoo, but you're not going to be able to deify it with what we've got.
ReplyDeleteRight, I don't think I've denied any of that. My response was to the fact that he's questioning the soundness of the axiom of scriptural authority on the basis of material considerations that don't strike me as being obviously directly relevant to the text's authority as scripture. So my point is the same as yours... the outcome of authentication of the material text doesn't seem to obviously say much about its authority.
In other words, the canonical texts can be added or dropped at whim; they really aren't all that important except from the perspective of sects.
ReplyDeleteThat seems clearly wrong, as the canon itself was clarified and sealed by bishops and ecumenical councils rather than sectarian bodies.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteIt is a fairly direct assault on the traditional explanation of spiritual authorship or inspiration.
So yeah, spiritual authority in the texts can still be mustered, but you have to do it somewhat differently than it has generally been done.
"That seems clearly wrong, as the canon itself was clarified and sealed by bishops and ecumenical councils rather than sectarian bodies."
ReplyDeleteSeveral centuries after they were written, and largely with the idea of settling one or another controversy in favor of a particular camp. What the Church did adds no authority to the texts - except for those who believe in the Church's authority in the first place.
Well, okay, if you're going to define any religious body whatsoever as a "sect", then sure. I think the terminology fails to become helpful at that point, though.
ReplyDelete"That seems clearly wrong, as the canon itself was clarified and sealed by bishops and ecumenical councils rather than sectarian bodies."
ReplyDeletePssht - tell that to Priscillian, jerk!
Just kidding - I don't want to veer this towards Dan Brown or anything like htat.
First, its true that you haven't been given a "proof" for the existence of God or any other religious claim. But that's the point - I'm rejecting the evidentialist challenge. Why should I think I need a proof to have knowledge? I think I hear you saying "you can't believe in God without some sort of argument or proof, that's irrational, it’s begging the question" - I'm rejecting that. I'm saying that claim itself can't be substantiated and that it rests on an epistemology that doesn't work - a sort of Enlightenment evidentialism (epitomized in the Clifford quote on the other post) that crumbles under the weight of its own claims (what’s Clifford’s evidence for that belief?)....
ReplyDeleteI don't find it necessary to make a positive case for religion for it to (possibly) be knowledge and well, I do find it necessary to start with epistemology because you're making a lot of epistemological claims - claims that I think just don't work. Rejecting classical foundationalism doesn't entail rejecting "all standards of knowledge". Epistemology (and reality) is just more complex than that. I’m not proposing a race to the bottom, I have no interest in crippling all foundations for knowledge (I hold to a limited version of foundationalism); I’m just attempting to show that the clean epistemological world (where faith and reason are quarantined off from each other) that you have been proposing doesn’t work.
So, I think you're assuming too much here. When you say that there is no religious knowledge, you seem have a specific conception of knowledge in mind. One that I think you haven't substantiated - or if you have - one that fails. I'm not exactly sure what you think the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge are but I gather you think that to have knowledge a belief must be demonstrable or explicit from neutral grounds - you need to know how you know (and know how you know that, etc until we can rest on some settled axioms). So (for you) for a belief to be justified as knowledge means to have evidence or an argument ultimately based on axioms (maybe you’ve backed off of this a bit but I don’t think so).
It’s just that claim that can’t stand. I think the distinction between internalism and externalism in epistemology is useful here. An internalist thinks the believer has to have awareness or access to some inferences (from things we know directly) to have knowledge. An externalist thinks that this isn't the case and that we can perfectly well have knowledge via reliable knowledge producing mechanisms. To my mind the internalist route fails because it always go the way of classical or Kuehnian foundationalism - it demands an infinite regress or it defines what can count as foundations in a way that shoots itself in the foot.
I’m not proposing that just anything at all can serve as a foundation for knowledge, what’s needed is a working epistemological model that accounts for foundations (and reliable knowledge producing mechanisms) and I think Christian theology gives us resources for thinking that such a model exists that can allow characteristic Christian beliefs to be believed in the basic way (axiomatically). At least from a Christian perspective that is, again I’m not arguing for the truth of those theological claims - only saying that if true we have good grounds to think there is rational grounding for religious knowledge.
I realize these are muddy epistemological waters (and I’m not sure if I’m helping move the discussion along) but I think your starting from the wrong place - your conception of justification and knowledge. And its that conception of justification and knowledge that you’re using to say that there just can’t be any religious knowledge.
Just to get this out of the way, the first person to identify twenty-seven texts with the New Testament was the anti-Arian Athanasius in 367 C.E.
ReplyDeleteEvan,
I realize that some people only like the use the word "sect" to refer to newly created religious groups, but I find that sort of definition to be silly. We shouldn't valorize a religion just because it is old.
dkuehn,
ReplyDeleteSome day apparently I'll have to read Dan Brown.
"We shouldn't valorize a religion just because it is old."
ReplyDeleteUmm... okay. I didn't know that taxonomy implies some sort of value hierarchy. I wasn't trying to say that a religion enjoys more "valor", but simply that it's not a sect.
RE: "I'm rejecting the evidentialist challenge."
ReplyDeleteIs this another way of saying you're accepting my position?
Mike, let's be clear - I'm not telling you you NEED evidence. I'm claiming that whether you think you do or not, you don't have it. You're inappropriately reading that into my question. Belief and knowledge are two different things. I'm trying to accomplish two things here: (1.) disabusing that blogger of the idea that the authority for his beliefs come from anywhere other than his own heart and/or brain (ie - not scripture or some hierarchy), and (2.) reasserting the point that faith is the only foundation of any revealed religion.
The comfort level that people have with that is going to vary. You're obviously fine with it. It's made Xenophon an atheist. But the fact that you reject the evidentialist challenge seems to me to suggest that my essential point isn't lost on you.
And who is this Clifford guy anyway?
ReplyDeletedkuehn,
ReplyDeleteHe's a very large dog: http://pbskids.org/clifford/index-brd-flash.html
RE: "It’s just that claim that can’t stand. I think the distinction between internalism and externalism in epistemology is useful here. An internalist thinks the believer has to have awareness or access to some inferences (from things we know directly) to have knowledge. An externalist thinks that this isn't the case and that we can perfectly well have knowledge via reliable knowledge producing mechanisms."
ReplyDeleteI am an externalist then - I think perhaps I initially came out too strong on epistemology, but I thought that was what this post was intended to remedy.
"I didn't know that taxonomy implies some sort of value hierarchy."
ReplyDeleteEver since Diderot's encyclopedia - at least.
Following on Mike's comment, I also think... if one wanted to do so... that one could accept all of Daniel's points and talk about religious claims as not really "knowledge". As Daniel says, this doesn't dismiss religious claims, but rather forces them to lean heavily on "faith". The difficulty with that is what was brought up on the facebook conversation... the danger of making faith only understandable as some sort of fideism. This can be a powerful way of approaching theological knowledge (think Barth's response to Harnack, where he basically says there's really no way to distinguish between a fanatic and a believer in the true religion), but it also has obvious shortcomings.
ReplyDeleteI think that sometimes just conceding that theology isn't a "science" or that theological beliefs are not "knowledge" is a sensible thing to do, if someone is just stubbornly strict about the definitions of these things. The other option would be to pursue the Pascalian "reasons that the reason knows not of". Daniel's point about the "race to the bottom" is that we've done everything except build up these other "reasons" in a constructive manner. It's difficult, though, to do all of this in one conversation. The critical and deconstructive efforts are a handful in their own right, and I think it's fair enough to say that we've got plenty to work with as it is, and that the race to the bottom doesn't necessarily have the purpose of justifying the structure of religious belief.
Ultimately deconstructing standards of knowledge is no way to justify revealed religion. Nihilism and chaos is the cheapest path to both atheism and clapboard proselytism. I'm not advocating the former here, and I don't get the impression you guys are advocating the latter. Let's just be straight about the implications of only being able to muster ad hoc epistemologies. They may be valid, but I wouldn't personally put all my eggs in that basket, particularly eggs as important as the form and fate of the universe.
ReplyDeleteI think Evan gets close to the core of the issues here. I don't think there is a strict separation between faith and knowledge whether we're talking about explicitly religious belief or not and it seems like Daniel's comments assume one. So I have an interest in arguing against that.
ReplyDeleteI should admit I have no interest in the original blog post about the Catholic convert - I didn't even read it.
What I have an interest in is Daniel's pitting faith against knowledge because I don't think it works theologically or epistemologically. I'm not a Barthian.
"Ultimately deconstructing standards of knowledge is no way to justify revealed religion."
ReplyDeleteWhen those standards don't actually work and are self defeating we have every reason to deconstruct them whether that has an upside for religious belief or not.
Let's just be straight about the implications of only being able to muster ad hoc epistemologies. They may be valid, but I wouldn't personally put all my eggs in that basket, particularly eggs as important as the form and fate of the universe.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why you think any alternatives we're gesturing towards are ad hoc.
"I'm not sure why you think any alternatives we're gesturing towards are ad hoc."
ReplyDeleteExactly. It seems like Daniel has all epistemological matters settled and any effort (regardless of the counter arguments) and any hinting towards other models is willy nilly.
Mike D -
ReplyDeleteI feel like you're assuming I'm saying more than I actually am, and again I'm not sure why. I thought the point of this particular post was to clear that up.
I AGREE that we may have to second guess strict foundationalist. That's why I've clarified that pragmatically I figure something like a foundationalist approach is a great place to start. But I've raised exactly zero objections to your challenge to foundationalism, Mike.
My point is that that challenge still leaves us in a rut with revealed religion. We've established the INADEQUACY of epistemology, which I'll reemphasize again I'm perfectly fine with. It doesn't solve the God problem.
Acknowledging that "knowledge" can be rather tenuous and not as distinct as some would make it may indeed bring it in closer relation to what we call "faith". This is the whole point of why I raised the brain in a vat/Matrix issue. I want to agree that even our epistemology may be "self-authorized" to a certain degree if indeed we are just brains in vats. But that reinforces my initial point about revealed religion - it doesn't weaken it.
A confident foundationalist would say there's a lot we can be sure of, but we can't be sure of God. A pragmatic foundationalist would say there's a lot that we can at least claim a working, useful knowledge of, but we can't claim a working, useful knowledge of God (I'm kind of in this camp). A real skeptic might say we don't have knowledge of anything really, but that skeptic still has to concede that we don't have anything like knowledge of God. This is my point.
So we should be honest about epistemology just as we should be honest about faith. Knowledge and faith don't have to be sharply distinguished (I personally think there is at least some distinction, although I would agree it's not a sharp one).
But while we're honest about this, I'm also just pleading that we not be epistemological vandals. Let's maintain the working knowledge of things we have, because reducing our standard operating proceedure further than that throws everything into disarray and chaos and does absolutely nothing to advance our understanding of God.
"I'm not sure why you think any alternatives we're gesturing towards are ad hoc."
ReplyDeleteBecause they seem to be designed to address a specific problem. That seems to me to be the definition of ad hoc.
NOT the critique of foundationalism. For the umpteenth time I buy that - it's valid.
"Exactly. It seems like Daniel has all epistemological matters settled and any effort (regardless of the counter arguments) and any hinting towards other models is willy nilly."
ReplyDeleteGeez man - did you read this post? Did you read any of my comments?
Because they seem to be designed to address a specific problem. That seems to me to be the definition of ad hoc.
ReplyDeleteOur whole point is that they're not specific to the problem of theological knowledge, though. That would be the fideist route.
"Our whole point is that they're not specific to the problem of theological knowledge, though. That would be the fideist route."
ReplyDeleteWell perhaps you should clarify which ones you're refering to then.
Now, I did mention knowledge of God as being something spectacular and non-repeatable, but this was only when I discussed it in the context of a rationalist or an empiricist framework. Which is our whole point. It only looks singled out in that way when we take the rationalist/empiricist options as the only valid epistemological frameworks. Once this false dilemma has been critiqued, though, there's no longer a sense of theological knowledge being unique.
ReplyDeleteI probably haven't paid enough attention to your movement in this post, rather focusing on the arguments in the first. Stil...
ReplyDelete"A pragmatic foundationalist would say there's a lot that we can at least claim a working, useful knowledge of, but we can't claim a working, useful knowledge of God (I'm kind of in this camp)."
This still seems to assume that we can't claim a working knowledge of God because we can't establish his existence and attributes based on (something like) the axioms you've outlined. Is that right?
If so, its a minor shift. Since I'm saying that for the believer the existence God and characteristic Christian doctrines can serve as foundations themselves I'd want to reject that as well. We as in global humanity may not have a working knowledge of God deduced from first principles but it doesn't follow that no one does.
Well dude, I mentioned the "spectacular and non-repeatable" point when I was discussing why we should take a "reject the null" position before you even commented!
ReplyDeleteBut OK, let's remove rationalist/empiricism (presumably for that Clifford reason... but it seems to me that's just a reason to qualify rationalism/empiricism, not a reason to remove it). So get that out of the way, and how do you conclude that "there's no longer a sense of theological knowledge as being unique".
Is your point essentially that when you remove all definition and structure everything is equally undefined and unstructured? If the rule is false there's no point in structuring by the rule?
OK, then what's next - do we proceed without a rule?
And again - how does this get us anywhere with any given revealed religion? It doesn't!
RE: "This still seems to assume that we can't claim a working knowledge of God because we can't establish his existence and attributes based on (something like) the axioms you've outlined. Is that right?"
ReplyDeleteYes and no. I don't have a reason to believe based on what I've outlined. But I also don't have any other reason to believe based on any other outline that anyone else has provided. So it's hardly an exaltation of a particular epistemological outline. I'm aware I may just be a brain in a vat. I accept the limitations that that implies, and I recognize that that still leaves me with no way of evaluating claims of revealed religion EXCEPT through an appeal to the self-authorization to believe (ie - faith).
In other words, I think even in my pragmatic position, I think you're putting way too much emphasis on an epistemology that I myself am openly questioning and ready to abandon if need be.
RE: "Since I'm saying that for the believer the existence God and characteristic Christian doctrines can serve as foundations themselves I'd want to reject that as well."
I'm just trying to understand on what basis you say that. Or why you say that for Christian doctrine but not Muslim doctrine. I'm completely in the dark as to your reasoning on that distinction.
RE: "We as in global humanity may not have a working knowledge of God deduced from first principles but it doesn't follow that no one does."
Well obviously. Presumably God has a working knowledge of God, for one thing.
I know you want me to be the spitting image of a cocky scion of the Enlightenment, but really I'm not.
ReplyDeletedkuehn,
ReplyDeleteI thought that was my role. :)
I would have loved to have attended one of Baron d'Holbach's famous parties.
Oh I could party with them - and I even have a lot of respect for them. But that was so 18th century. Keynes hadn't even come along yet - not even Malthus had come along yet! It was a great start, to be sure.
ReplyDelete"But I also don't have any other reason to believe based on any other outline that anyone else has provided."
ReplyDeleteThat's true, no one has been providing an "reasons to believe" for you. I'm not saying that is a totally useless enterprise but its not one I'm interested, at least here.
Rather what I'm doing is attempting to defend the a specifically Christian theological model whereby we do have rational knowledge of God. I haven't explained what that model might look like. Only that your (early) moves that would preclude such a model don't work. So I'm not commending anything to you just defending what seems like a misconstrual of faith as specifically non rational (and Evan and I might disagree here depending on how hard to push the fidest discussion).
I don't know if we're removing rationalism/empiricism... what we're doing is saying that this isn't an exhaustive account of our knowledge. Which is why I titled my first post as I did: "Epistemology as a Two-Party System?" A three-party or four-party system doesn't do away with Republicans and Democrats, it simply recognizes a wider scope, and (and this is what's relevant for the current discussion) it no longer understands party politics as implying merely two parties.
ReplyDeleteSo get that out of the way, and how do you conclude that "there's no longer a sense of theological knowledge as being unique".
I'm working through Kant's Prolegomena right now, so I'll draw from that. In the Preamble he says (when clarifying the possibility of metaphysics as a science):
"The characteristics of a science may consist of a simple difference of object, or of the sources of cognition, or of the kind of cognition, or perhaps of all three conjointly."
In talking about "theological knowledge", I think what Mike and I are trying to say is that this "science" (knowledge producing inquiry) is distinguished by its "difference of object" and its "sources of cognition", but not so much by its "kind of cognition". It only seemed to be unique in this third characteristic when we were talking about rationalism and empiricism as the only too options for "kinds" of cognition, but we all seem to acknowledge that the situation isn't nearly so strict. The point isn't so much to say that knowledge of God is exactly like knowledge of one's name, but it is to say that we aren't just making up new rules as we go along in order to suit our supernatural fantasies.
"I know you want me to be the spitting image of a cocky scion of the Enlightenment, but really I'm not."
ReplyDeleteI really don't! I just think your way of defining terms has a certain whiff of the faith/reason dichotomy - a whiff that is becoming less and less distinct.
RE: "Rather what I'm doing is attempting to defend the a specifically Christian theological model whereby we do have rational knowledge of God.... Only that your (early) moves that would preclude such a model don't work."
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to have a strict foundationalism to see that you can't assume what you're trying to prove! I have no doubt that GIVEN a Christian theology, you can get some mileage out of it. The whole concern is why there is a Christian model in the first place!
RE: "Which is why I titled my first post as I did: "Epistemology as a Two-Party System?" A three-party or four-party system doesn't do away with Republicans and Democrats, it simply recognizes a wider scope"
Which is a large part of the reason why I wrote this post - because I realized you thought I was thinking of it in terms of a two-party system, which was not really what I intended. I presented two standard and important sources of knowledge. I'm honestly at a loss for much BESIDES them, but that's not the same as saying there is none besides them.
Agreed with Mike's last (longer) comment, and I personally don't feel like we've dodged anything by not laying out a new rule. Simply laying the groundwork that we have so far is a large enough task in its own right, as I've said above.
ReplyDeleteI also think that Mike and I might possibly disagree in certain areas, although I'm not sure. It will be interesting to see as we have more conversations over time. I'll say for myself personally that I have not comfortably settled anywhere in particular, and that I wouldn't really want to put down in any explicit fashion my understanding of the constructive basis of theological knowledge. I think that I can be ecclectic on this, perhaps to a fault, but I will plead still being in graduate school. :) Ask me again in ten years for a systematic account!
As you probably could have guessed (or maybe not - I'm having a lot attributed to me), the Kantian point is fine.
ReplyDeleteBut it all still seems to be in the realm of prospect and assertion to me. So it may not be amenable to standard forms of knowing. I've never challenged that - that was right there in my first post! This seems to be as far as we've gotten.
We can't see atoms or microbes or distant planets. It's not amenable to empiricsm (all these things are amenable to reason, but let's leave that aside for the moment). But we still don't just assert them - we develop other indirect ways of knowning. I suppose my earlier critique of "ad hoc" ways of knowing was inappropriate, because that's certainly how we've "known" these things.
My concern is that we've actually presented a case for knowing these mysteries and we've followed through with it in short order.
Maybe there is a valid alternative way to know God. I have never once denied the prospect. But the only options offered at the moment are extrapolations from feelings or intuitions, old texts, and venerated men in robes. This is what is offered, and it seems to me to be inadequate. I'm fine with other ways of knowing. What are they? I'm asking for defense and consistency, not necessarily reason or empiricsm.
I don't see anything - which is why I come back to self-authorization. And again, that's not a BAD place to come back to. It's the very heart of Christendom for more than a few Christians.
RE: "me again in ten years for a systematic account!"
ReplyDeleteDoes Tricia know you're going to be a grad student for ten more years :-D
What I think is interesting about these conversations is that they really are Enlgihtenment era... and not just Daniel's arguments, but Mike's and my own as well. None of the positions we're pushing here are all that new. The fact that the epistemological conversation has not progressed a ton (of course it has in many ways, but I mean that the same dilemmas are still seen as worth rehashing) is an interesting thing in itself. Perhaps it says something about the validity of our knowledge of epistemology itself? (Mike also hinted at this when he asked what Clifford's evidence for evidentialism was)
ReplyDeleteRE: "I personally don't feel like we've dodged anything by not laying out a new rule"
ReplyDeleteI suppose you haven't dodged, but you've done two things:
1. Strengthened my point by highlighting that no thing can truly be "known", reinforcing that God can't truly be "known", and
2. Not challenged the point by offering a way that God can be known (which is odd because if you're so insistent that there is a way one would think you could provide it).
And then you fall back on the "well who really cares if God can be known" - which again from the beginning I've said it's fine if you don't care if he can be known. You don't need to care. You can just have faith. That's standard Christianity. That's fine.
So I suppose you haven't dodged in the strictest sense, but you've alternatively strengthened, refrained from challenging, and then assented to the implications of my initial point!
I'm fine with that!
What?
ReplyDeleteHow have I highlighted that no thing can be truly known? Why must I present the alternative to appropriately challenge your initial point? And when did I imply that one doesn't need to care whether God can be truly known?
Sorry Evan - responding to you and Mike both because you both made comments to the same effect. I'm summing up the challenges, none of which seem to have been really all that challenging to my point.
ReplyDeleteAs for presenting the alternative - you're not obligated to do anything. But when I say "it doesn't meet X, Y, Z, I certainly can't think of anything else it meets, so it seems to be self-authorized", simply saying "Well X, Y, and Z aren't the end of the story [I never said they were], and that you can know God", that doesn't really get us anywhere does it? This is an active discussion - you aren't obligated to provide a counter-argument, but without one it seems to me my point still stands.
I'm fully amenable to the idea that there is a prospect that my point doesn't stand. That alone doesn't do the work of knocking it down.
"You don't have to have a strict foundationalism to see that you can't assume what you're trying to prove!"
ReplyDeleteWhose trying to "prove" anything? I say "you don't need an argument for the existence of God for that belief to be rational and even for it to be knowledge" then you say" yeah but you haven't even given me an argument for the existence of God". What?
"1. Strengthened my point by highlighting that no thing can truly be "known", reinforcing that God can't truly be "known", and"
We've done no such thing. You seem to think that the breakdown of the original epistemological stances you outlined means that nothing can truly be known. That's not the case - you just need a better epistemology of knowledge and justification.
"2. Not challenged the point by offering a way that God can be known (which is odd because if you're so insistent that there is a way one would think you could provide it)."
I've been avoiding laying out that "model" because it just takes time. It'd be something like that outlined by Alvin Plantinga in Warrented Christian Belief building on the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit as a knowledge producing mechanism. Do we really want to have that discussion?
Evan and I might have some differences here and I also don't want to be too dogmatic about my position. I'm also not the postmodern anything goes type of guy that I might be coming off as.
My main beef is (still) with the underlying epistemology that you seem to be holding on to when you use the word knowledge.
I also think Evan's comment on the two party system is pretty spot on.
(For what it's worth) I unfortunately haven't read through Plantinga's work, but the sketchy knowledge I have of Reformed Epistemology sounds good to me, and I imagine that I stand in at least some sort of family resemblance or broad sympathy with it. I don't know of anything in it that I would object to, at least.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I figured that. I'm in broad agreement with Reformed Epistemology with some caveats about they way they have done their epistemology. I think if there were any differences between us (right now anyway) it would be along Barthian/fideist lines.
ReplyDeleteRE: "Whose trying to "prove" anything?"
ReplyDeleteI AM!!!!
If you want to come to the blog and say "I'm not particularly interested in that endeavor", that's fine. But recognize the point of the posts! (1.) to disabuse the convert of his romanticization of Catholicism, and (2.) to question whether we can ever prove it and therefore establish the faith on... well... faith!
If that's not your interest, that is perfectly fine but it is what this series of posts was about. If you want to assert your model without proof I've never said you shouldn't. I'm wondering, though, why you're asserting it here when you're clearly assuming the whole point of the question.
RE: "You seem to think that the breakdown of the original epistemological stances you outlined means that nothing can truly be known."
Imputation FAIL. Not at all, Mike. But it does remove one way of knowing, which strengthens my point. I'll take this opportunity to distinguish between "strengthening" my point and "proving" my point.
RE: "It'd be something like that outlined by Alvin Plantinga in Warrented Christian Belief building on the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit as a knowledge producing mechanism. Do we really want to have that discussion?"
We can if you want. You're actually welcome to gues blog on that very topic. My first point would again be "why is the knowledge mechanism implicit in that which we are trying to make a claim for" (namely, the Holy Spirit).
RE: "My main beef is (still) with the underlying epistemology that you seem to be holding on to when you use the word knowledge."
I think I've been through this umpteenth plus one times now. I really don't know what else to say about it.
RE: "I also think Evan's comment on the two party system is pretty spot on."
I agree. I'm a little confused about the attempt to direct it at me, but I agree its spot on.
RE: "Whose trying to "prove" anything?"
ReplyDeleteI AM!!!!
Calm down, buddy. Perhaps we both misread you, but I took you to meant that we were trying to prove something. I think what we were doing was more a matter of critiquing your attempted "proof" if that's what you want to call it (and it seems to be).
*guest blog.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I've always liked this practice. If anyone else wants to guest blog about anything, please feel free to raise it with us. I think we can accomodate that. We'd probably want to read it first - not because we want to censor substance, but just to make sure the attitude/approach is right. We like to think we have standards here :)
Are we really going to extend that invitation indiscriminately? I think you've attracted too much of a fringe readership in your economics posts to make that a very good idea. :)
ReplyDelete"Calm down, buddy"
ReplyDeleteThe faux peacemaker is a fantastic blog persona - the trick is implementing it first. It can be used to great effect.
I'm quite calm. He asked who was trying to prove anything. I took it as a question, the answer to which I thought was obvious from reading these posts. And from the beginning in these posts, I thought it was obvious that the lack of a proof is a pretty personal question. We seem to have at least three reactions to the lack of proof here, and I've never second-guessed the integrity of any of them.
Have we exhausted this conversation? I mean, it's been fun, and I think it's been a generally good way of thinking through things even if we haven't reached any real conclusion... but is there much else to add?
ReplyDeleteNot that folks can't go on, but I don't want to feel bad for logging off and getting back to work. :)
I suppose we have exhausted - I'm genuinely interested in a Platinga post. Mike, I read your post on fundamentalism and Platinga and enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteI think there's some lingering confusing on what I'm actually claiming here, but if I haven't cleared that up yet I doubt it will be done.
"I'm just misunderstood" is entirely too sentimental a way to close an argument, Daniel.
ReplyDeleteYou're right of course, but I figured communicating the same idea with "ya'll are dumbasses" would have been too harsh.
ReplyDeleteYeah I fear that we've moved into talking past each other. And Daniel its your post so you get to set the terms of the debate and insofar as I've strayed from those....me culpa.
ReplyDeleteI'd be happy to do a post though and try to get lay out more clearly what Reformed Epistemology is and why its relevant here.
So did this inch close to a FAOST comment record?
So did this inch close to a FAOST comment record?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure... we've got some competition, though. Daniel's posts are the lion's share of what's on here, and he mostly posts economics stuff that can draw out a lot of Austrians and libertarians. The comment sections can get awfully long (and boring, I might add!).
rather...mea culpa
ReplyDeleteI think it probably is... I'm not sure how to tell. If not, we can keep posting inanities to make it one.
ReplyDeleteOn the point of the posts - I have no problem with taking it in other directions, and as I said I'm intrigued by what you've offered. The point is there is clear interest in what we can have rigorous knowledge of. That's not necessarily a shared interest, and tangents are always welcome - but it shouldn't be a mystery or a surprise either!
I probably overreacted to that anyway. Often "who cares about X?" isn't a literal question, it simply means "I acknowledge you care about X and you are wrong to". Perhaps that's all you meant, and that obviously is perfectly valid.
I wonder if this discussion suffered from cross-disciplinary dialogue troubles. Honestly, I can consistently understand what Evan says - I think probably because we broadly are working with the sames terms and concepts (and he wisely stayed away from positive epistemic claims). Whereas I felt like I needed to translate Daniel's terms into my own - and I'm sure something was lost there.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have a problem with you caring about X - I think I had a problem with how you argued for it and what you inferred from it(I think).
So when I write something up I'll send it along and you guys can see if you want to move that conversation along.
Just add to a little levity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8gsIuEvEs0
ReplyDelete