Lies, Damned Lies, and Philosophy

Philosophy problems (simplified):

At one time, it was thought that you need to discover “reality”, that it is “out there” and you should attempt to understand it.

Philosopher’s though, ask nutty questions. Bishop Berkeley, following Descartes, wanted to know if there was sound in a forest of a falling tree, if no one was there to hear it? Think about that. It’s at the heart of the epistemological issue in the 21st century. There is, of course, no sound in the forest, but there are sound waves, and it takes an ear to convert those waves into “sound.” There you have it: We have only our senses to tell us what is real. But how do we know the senses tell us real things? Berkeley did not get past answering this question, and made the assumption that God provided the sensory perceptions. But in the concept of metaphysics, he accepted the impossibility of matter independent of the human mind.

The trouble in philosophy is that when you leave a crack in the door, someone will not only put their foot in it to prise it open, they’ll drive the proverbial Mack truck right through the door.

Bishop Berkeley had already driven a truck through one of Descartes’ assumptions. Descartes, starting with himself as the only indubitable reference point, concluded that God and an external world both existed. Berkeley’s question about falling trees and sound, was to make the point that if our senses alone tell us reality, then we can never know if there is sound of a falling tree if no one is there to hear it. The external world, therefore, could not be assumed. This left just God.

With this, however, Berkeley made room for another truck driver. The truck driver in this instance was David Hume, who latched onto Berkeley’s assumption and said no such assumption about God is warranted. Except Hume drove a steam roller, not a truck. It’s just a “limiting concept” to explain something for which we have no other explanation. We cannot prove God by the senses any more than we can prove that our senses tell us there’s an objective reality outside of ourselves.

In the 18th century, the rise of science and the apparent discovery of an objective world, Hume’s conclusions created more than a little consternation. Newtonian physics implied a deistic view of the world, a huge clock, wound by its Maker, but now operating on its own wellspring of physical laws. What were the implications for science, though, if all scientists are doing is playing with the constructs of their mind?

These philosophical “discoveries”, however, were not new. Since ancient times it had been stated that sense experiences cannot be trusted. But this is only true outside the Biblical idea of God, creation, man in His image, and revealed truth. In this worldview, sense experiences can be trusted. Without this backdrop – or presuppositions – man cannot get out of the world of ultimate irrationality.

Immanuel Kant set out to solve the dilemma, and turned philosophy on its head by saying that mind creates reality, not discover and understand an objective reality. He denied that possibility by concluding that since your mind determines what is “real”, there is no way to prove that what you “think” you “know” has any objective reality. Your mind tells you I spoke with you last night on the phone. Did I really do that? No way to tell, since your mind constructs reality. That conversation may have taken place in reality, or it may not. But so long as your mind says it happened, that’s what is real. There is, thus, no necessary correlation between mind and matter — things-in-themselves.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, not happy with the straight-jacket that Kant had created turned his back on traditional philosophy, especially epistemology. It had, after all, nothing to offer. Wittgenstein changed the formula: language determines reality. Wittgenstein, who never formally committed to any religion, held to some form of mystical truths which are beyond the possibility of expression in language. How he could know what these mystical truths might be, since they are beyond language, is the Achilles heel of his philosophy. According to his view, what is real and conceivable depends on the rules of grammar.

Really? Is that a “contingent” truth, or one that is fixed in all eternity, an “absolute” truth? Wittgenstein cannot answer that question, because grammar, being finite and limited, cannot make universal claims to truth.

Neither can he answer that his proposition is a universal truth, true for all times, because he has no commitment to the idea of universal truth.

This makes everything relative, and within that framework, men attempt to deny the possibility of absolute truth. This is the philosophy of the absurd, the irrational, to which we are invited to commit ourselves. Why?

Now on the views of both Kant and Wittgenstein, it should be possible for man to “create” reality, since that is in essence what he is doing. This is as close as you can get to being God. Since man cannot actually create something out of nothing, he denies God’s reality in order to make his own — either with his mind or with his words.

But pick up your Bible and read from the beginning:

1. Are there objective things? Yes. How did they get there? God created – by the word of his mouth. The ONLY instance where language really created reality.

2. He made man in his image. He did not make man a deity, another god. However that image manifests itself, the image cannot take on the attributes of God. Man’s image of God is thus analogical, but an image nevertheless. Similarly, man’s knowledge of God is analogical. Man cannot know God as God knows himself without taking on the attributes of deity. But this does not mean he does not, nor cannot have, true knowledge.

3. There is a place of objective reality which ONLY finds its reference point in God, the One who created it. That’s simply a consequence of the truth of creation. EVERYTHING finds its meaning in the Creator. In this view, God is the final reference point in human thought.

If man can determine the meaning of ANYTHING without God, then there is the ultimate idolatry, and back to the problem of Gen. 3:5, man determining what is true or false — without God.

But in order to KNOW that what he has is true, man needs a reference point that is unchangeable, and the only unchangeable reference point is God, because with Him there are no “new” discoveries. He knows everything. And if there is no infallible Scripture from God, then the very idea of truth flies out the window. Without a word from God man must depend upon himself to determine what is true or false, right or wrong.

Thus, in order to be able to argue against the Biblical worldview, you have to accept its fundamental principles, that there are universal truths. If you don’t accept this, you have only your opinion, and there are no binding reasons to accept an “opinion”. If there are only opinion, on this basis, Hitler had his opinion, and who are you to complain.

How do you know that Kant’s view is not correct? What unchangeable reference point do you have that allows you to know if his idea is right or wrong, true or false.

And what is the unchangeable reference point you have that allows you to know if Wittgenstein’s idea is the truth? Which one, Kant or Wittgenstein? Maybe neither.

If you accept the Biblical account of itself as God’s revelation to man, then you have your “unchangeable” reference point. Does the Bible confirm Kant or Wittgenstein, or give you yet another answer to the problem of “knowledge” – epistemology?

If there is no self-conscience revelation from the One who knows everything . . . then I have an idea. Let’s go beat up some little old ladies in the park. And when the judge says we did the wrong things, we can both tell him “that’s just your opinion. If you accept abortion, then you should accept our beating up little old ladies. And if you accept abortion, on the same worldview, you ought to accept Hitler, Pol Pot, Charles Mansion, Stalin, and Jim Jones.” Who knows, maybe if we argue this well, we might get let off on “good” behavior, and we can go back beating up little old ladies in the park. Obviously this is the “correct” thing to do. How do we know this? Because, with Kant, our mind determines reality, and we determine it is the right thing to do. With Wittgenstein, our language has determined this is the right thing to do.

Now . . . put those two dumb ideas next to what you read in the Bible and decide if modern philosophy is even close to answering the great philosophical questions: Who are we? What is right and wrong? And how do we know?

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1:7). Skip Moen has a good explanation of this, to make sure we don’t end up with a Greek view of the idea of “knowledge.” He translates it as “awe and reverence is [are] the beginning of proper behavioral relationship.” That reinforces the point: you cannot know what is “proper behavioral relationship” unless you begin with God and have right knowledge as to which behavior is “proper”.

You either begin with God or you end up with solipsism. But if only the self can be known, you are all alone in a world of meaninglessness, trying to give meaning to world that is already beyond your abilities to comprehend. This is the result of man attempting to be God. As Rushdoony summarized the issue, “man prefers to be an idiot god to being a learned man under God.”

This is why you must draw a conclusion, make an assertion, about Scripture such as Prov. 1:7: “The fear (awe and reverence) of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge (proper behavioral relationship).” This is the heart of a Biblical (or Christian) theory of knowledge (epistemology) and worldview.