Knowledge Of God Flashcards
God of the philosophers
Given the different ways of knowing something, what does it mean to scale it up to ‘knowing’ God? For many, ‘I know God’ means God’s existence is logically true or a widely held fact. Demonstrating God’s existence has long been an interest to philosophers of natural theology, but the problem with this approach is that this kind of knowledge is far removed from the kind of knowledge which religions talk about when they speak of God as being of love or mercy.
God of Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad (pbuh)
For most religious people, they know of God for his actions or character. According to revealed theology, this knowledge is possible because God has made himself known in a special way.
Justification
The fundamental problem for natural and revealed theology is that unlike other knowledge, the object, God, is uniquely different, and not even an object. The attractiveness of natural theology is that it offers a reasonable justification for God, and has to acknowledge the God is by definition an infinite being beyond reason. But revealed theology argues that what can be known of God is only what he reveals, and it is harder to offer any rational justification as to why we should believe it to be true. This could be an argument for the irrationality of revealed theology.
True knowledge
At the heart of this debate is an argument on what constitutes ‘true knowledge’. It could be hard facts about the world, or scientific knowledge. But is this really true knowledge? It could be because it describes physical properties of matter, but it is not in terms of understanding life. In the ancient world that was called ‘wisdom’, and considered true knowledge to be these ideas of what life is and what makes it worthwhile. To know oneself was to know one’s place in society and how to live well. For a long time this was the aim of philosophy. But the third possibility is that true knowledge is knowledge of God. If God is the source of life, then knowledge of God leads to understanding of one’s self.
Natural knowledge of God’s existence
Natural theology assumes that God is the creator of the universe and humans are conscious elements of that universe. They have a natural predisposition to know God as their creator. Natural theology says the natural world creates a point of contact between ourselves and God, telling us about his nature.
Natural theology is supported by all branches of the Christian church. Catholics teach it officially, while protestants debate the validity. this is highlighted by John Calvin‘s presentation.
The innate human sense of God
Calvin’s two works, ‘institutes of the christian religion’ and ‘catechism of the Catholic Church’, both begin in similar ways. Both state that knowledge of God is innate. The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
His thesis is set out in the opening chapter of the institutes, ‘without knowledge of the self there is now knowledge of God’. Nearly all wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. Calvin called this sense of the divine, ‘sensus divinitatis’, and sometimes referred to a ‘semen religionis’, the seed of religion, which is the natural human inclination to carry out religious rituals.
Innate knowledge
How can the claim that the knowledge of God is innate be supported? One argument is that every human society has some form of religion, so it makes sense that we are naturally disposed to know God.
The unknown God:
Paul wrote about some Athenians who had an altar to the ‘unknown god’, and his efforts to convince them that they are worshipping the one true God without realising, among their many other Gods. They may not have been aware but their quest to know the one true God is a constant.
Universal consent argument:
Suggested by Cicero, this is the idea that so many people believe in God or Gods, which suggests if nothing else that is its reasonable to do so.
Humans are religious beings:
The catechism concludes that widespread practices like prayer, sacrifice and others are so universal that one may well call man a ‘religious being’.
Human sense of beauty and moral goodness
The human sense of the beauty of the world caused by listening to good music, reading a good book, admiring a landscape or a person’s skill at certain tasks, all indicate that humans have an ‘openness to truth and beauty’, leading to knowledge of God.
Natural law:
Catholicism regards natural law as an indication of the sensus divinitatis, resting on the idea that all humans have an innate sense of goodness, fairness and justice, although they may be wrong. Small children quickly develop these ideas.
Conscience:
Calvin considered conscience to be particularly important, arguing that it is a God given faculty of the mind from being made in the image of God, and so our moral choice-making respond to God’s will of what is wrong and right. Literally, the word means ‘joint knowledge’ between ourselves & God.
Human intellectual ability to reflect on and recognise God’s existence
An important aspect of natural theology for some time has been the arguments for the existence of God, some from Aquinas’s five ways. His conclusions are that the material world could not continue to exist unless there was an uncaused causer who set up the conditions of the world, sustains all material causes and orders these causes to be purposeful. The inference from reason means that Christians call this God.
The order of creation
In the institutes, Calvin makes a distinction between knowledge of God as a creator and a redeemer, known as the duplex cognitio domini, or two-fold knowledge of God. As creator, the most obvious indications of his existence are design and order.
Order and design
‘Wherever you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of his glory’. This extract from Calvin is not so much an argument from design as an expression of what can be known about God from creation. This is also connected to Calvin’s principle of accommodation, which states that because human minds are finite, they will never know God from their own reason. So God manifests himself through creation in a way we can understand, adapting himself to human needs. Using this principle Calvin explains that God reveals himself in nature, like nature is a sort of mirror or reflection of his own nature
Purpose
William Paley‘s argument from deign has become widely known as an argument for God’s existence. It rests on the analogy of a watch, which when we see it we will assume has a creator because it is designed and purposeful. In a similar way we observe the world and see it is designed and purposeful and assume a world-maker, or God, who is infinitely powerful. There are many objections to design arguments. One is that nature is truly more brutal that beautiful, meaning God is cruel not loving. A more problematic argument is that Darwin’s notion of evolution by natural selection means nature has no final cause but develops to survive. Nature without a purpose makes God redundant.
Process
In response to these objections, the latest design argument developed by a group of theologians is influenced by quantum physics and quantum uncertainty. This is called process theology. They argue that God and the world act in tandem, God is involved in the natural process of things to maximise their greatest potentials at any moment of time. In other words there is no great end for nature, for every moment is an end in itself and God is constantly involved. This means God is not totally different and unknowable like in classical theology, but one who loves his creation, suffers with it and desires full potential for everything. Process theologians don’t make a sharp distinction between natural and revealed theology as every moment in creation is a revelation of God’s participation.
The fall and human finiteness
In theory, knowledge of God could bring humans into a relationship with God via sensus divinitatis, creation and conscience. but this simple knowledge overlooks the problem of human corruption from the fall. If Adam had not sinned, then everyone would have known God and achieved a state of perfect happiness, but this was not what happened. Calvin argued that only knowledge of God as the redeemer can bring humans into a full and complete relationship with God, and regenerates us. True knowledge is salvation in Christ.
The Catholic position is that the fall did not cut humans off from God, but confuse and distract their desire for him. Original sin is seen in ‘religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world…..; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, the attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God’. God reveals his plan ‘freely’ through the prophets and in Jesus.
Faith
Belief that God has revealed himself is not something which can be worked out by reason alone. It requires faith. But even faith needs some reason otherwise it would be random and meaningless. In Catholic teaching faith is not independent from reason, but a willed assent to a set of propositions. It is one thing to demonstrate the existence of God, but it is another to believe it to be true. Aquinas made the following distinction:
Unformed faith:
Having intellectual reasons why, such as believing in the afterlife being possible but not accepting it as truth. even the devils believed in God but did not trust him to save them.
Formed faith:
One which wills to accept what is believed through intellect. Believing the evidence for the resurrection is trustworthy. This takes time and effort, through prayer and worship, to know and accept.
Firm and certain knowledge:
Calvin defines faith similar to Aquinas, but criticises his lack of putting Christ at the centre. He argues that firm knowledge is only possible as revealed by Christ and sealed by the holy spirit.
Willingness to believe:
Faith is ‘given to anyone who is wiling to accept it’ and according to Calvin, a cognitive process when a person is willing to believe in knowledge of redemption in Christ. It is both a cerebral and spiritual moment ‘sealed upon our hearts’
Grace
Both Catholic and Calvin’s protestant theologies regard faith alone as not enough to know God. God’s grace is needed to complete the relationship. Aquinas argues faith can only ultimately be justified through grace through the holy spirit. For Calvin the gift of the holy spirit is to aid in the creation of a person’s faith by repairing damage done by the fall.
Revealed knowledge of God in Jesus Christ
Calvin doesn’t make a sharp distinction between general and special revelation. Scripture as special revelation offers knowledge of God as creator, but only the final revelation in Christ contained in the NT resolves any possible contradictions. The Bible should be read from a trinitarian perspective; through God as faith, Christ as mediator and the holy spirit which inspires and sustains the interpretation. However even knowledge of God mediated in Christ cannot tell us what the essence of God is. The principle of accommodation means Christ is the image or likeness of the invisible God, appearing in a way that human minds can understand.
God becomes human in Christ because he accommodates to us. this is why Calvin describes Jesus as the mediator and mirror of the divine, reflecting the qualities of God which would otherwise be hidden from us, and as a mediator he is the means by which sinful humans are reconciled into the knowledge and love of God. The catholic position agrees but adds that Christ is the full and final revelation of God, and it is the role of faith to re-think this for every generation. There is also the question of whether non-christians can know Jesus at all, or whether this knowledge is exclusive to Christians.
The Bible and life of the church
Christian revealed theology considers the Bible to be more than a historical document, but a witness to God’s action in the world. This knowledge cannot be gained by experience alone. For catholics and protestants ‘God is the author of sacred scripture’ and its words are ‘under the breath of the holy spirit’.
But as the catechism warns, Christianity must not be reduced to the Bible, because it is not a religion of a book, but of a universal God. So natural theology must also be taken seriously. Ultimately Calvin argued that knowledge of God the redeemer is revealed in Christ, the Bible read from this perspective prepares for him in the OT and culminates in the events of his life, death and resurrection in the NT. Even natural theologians recognise the Bible as significant for knowledge of God, but for different reasons. from a natural theology perspective, the bible is a collection of experiences of God from early hebrews to the first christian communities. The important knowledge of God comes from personal experience and an encounter with God.
The natural / revealed theology debate
At the heart of Calvin’s theology is ambiguity. Did he have a natural theology or is his theology based entire on explaining revelation? He seems to present two very different Gods: the creator God who is a transcendent grand cause detached from the world, and the redeemer who is a personal, loving being, closely involved with the world. The tension between the two is a source of debate among theologians.
Catholicism is less ambiguous embracing natural theology for allowing a general knowledge of God, although many say it is not just preparation for knowledge about God, but of God.
The Barth / Brunner debate
The questions Calvin raises became the focus of a deliberated debate between Emil Brunner and Karl Barth.
The debate illustrates some of the tensions in Calvin’s theory of knowledge, namely that if humans are in a state of sin, how can they know and be prompted to be open to God’s grace unless God reveals himself generally in nature? On the other hand God’s grace is not something that we can ask for and we can only know God because he chooses to let himself be known.
Brunner thought Calvin’s argument that God’s ‘sparks of glory’ in nature provided a point of contact with God to enable humans to have some knowledge of God’s existence, no matter how vague. Barth completely disagreed. He argued instead that Calvin’s teaching on the fall was that we are so distorted by it that there is no point of contact between God and humans. So how can they differ so greatly?
Brunner’s proposal
Brunner’s argument follows Calvin’s notion that God’s general revelation in nature as a point of contact enables humans to become aware of God’s commands and of their sinful state. But he argued that this is not enough for redemption revealed in Jesus. The limited purpose of natural theology is to offer ‘the possibility of a discussion pointing towards such evidence of the existence of God’. Brunner argues thus:
Imago dei:
The image of God in humans after the fall has been destroyed but only at a material physical and emotional level. At the formal or spiritual level the human image of God remains uncorrupted. The formal image allows humans to be addressed by God by the material image is almost entirely corrupt.
General revelation:
God communicates through nature which reflects his own nature. But humans are blinded by sin and are nearly incapable of receiving this communication of grace, they only know God exists. Nature is a point of contact but no more.
Barth’s reply
Barth’s decisive answer is ‘no’. Barth’s view is that human nature is completely corrupted by the fall and that there are not points of contact in nature that humans can use to know God. Only God can reveal himself if he so chooses. His disagreement is three-fold:
The formal self cannot inform the material self of God’s existence:
Barth argues that humans may be uniquely different from animals but the fall has so utterly blotted out the material self’s ability to know anything about God that it is impossible for the spiritual self to inform the material self in any way about God. Barth accuses Brunner of not taking into account the corruption of the material self enough; it is utterly unable.
Alvin Plantinga
The accusation is that natural theology offers sound reasons to believe in God whereas revealed theology does not. Alvin Plantinga considers that in fact it is the other way round. In revealed theology we find reasonable justification for beliefs, and natural theology can never offer this. Plantinga’s argument in rooted in Calvin’s and is called reformed epistemology.
Basic knowledge
The dream of scientists and philosophers is to begin with a piece of knowledge so certain it cannot be doubted. Once this is established, all other claims can be based on this idea. This may be a law of physics or an irreducible fact. However, these claims are hard to establish. Scientific knowledge changes and scientists these days prefer to talk of possibilities instead of certainties. It is unlikely there will ever been a foundation of knowledge, but a broad agreement which is reasonably considered true. Basic knowledge is a belief which is held to be true because it just is so and makes sense of so many other experiences. Others must play the role of showing an alternative explanation that fits better. Plantinga’s argument is certain that Christian revealed truths are basic.
Sensus divinitatis
Plantinga argues that there is no separate natural theology for the knowledge of God but a general religious sense which makes it reasonable to make Christian claims. These are claims of the sensus divinitatis, not natural theology which Plantinga so fiercely rejects. So he argues that if there were no God there would be no claims to know him, but many people do claim this, so it can be counted as basic knowledge.
Responding to the atheological objector
A typical Christian might claim to know that God exists, that God speaks to him and that God forgives him. But according to the atheological objector, there are many reasons to suggest why these beliefs are no more than wish fulfilment or conditioning. They may be held to be contradictory, such as evil being incompatible with the omnibenevolent God. Religious experiences may be neurosis or hallucination. Religious claims like miracles lack hard evidence. These objections all together justify considering theistic knowledge as irrational, and the conclusion of the objector is that God does not exist.
Plantinga’s response is that although there can be no incorrigible proof of one’s belief, there can be good reasons enough to maintain it. In response to arguments against God’s existence, the theologian may have to sift a whole range of strong and weak arguments for and against God’s existence, but it becomes apparent that there is no single argument that is convincing proof that God does not exist.
This doesn’t mean that the theologian has to come up with a more substantial reason to defeat the objector. Plantinga says: ‘all i need to do is refute the argument; i am not obliged to go further and produce an argument for the denial of its conclusion.’ So in conclusion Plantinga argues that belief in Gods existence is not more or less rational than an atheist’s non belief.
Fideism and revealed theology
Despite the best efforts of reformed epistemology there are many who consider that it falls into the error of fideism. The accusation is that by ruling out reason, there is no means of testing true or false religious beliefs. The RCC outlawed fideism preferring instead a midpoint of rationalism of natural theology and the faith position of revealed theology. The strength of natural theology is that knowledge of God is reasonable and can be held consistently with other religions as well as scientific and philosophical views.
Is natural theology christian theology?
The challenge to natural theology is whether it justifies Christian claims such as the divinity of christ, the resurrection, heaven and hell etc. Critics argue that as natural theology’s tendency is to reduce these claims then Jesus was no more than a teacher and prophet, the resurrection is a symbol of hope over despair and no more, and heaven is just a political goal of the world transformed.
Natural theology and the imagination
One response to the criticism that natural theology undermines Christian belief is that it does not rest only on the place of reason to test and interpret religious claims. Douglas Hedley argued that while reason has its place in philosophy, the imagination is also essential. Consider how Plato provides imaginative stories or analogies to demonstrate what reason is unable to. The simile of the cave in the republic still prompts discussion about the purpose of philosophy, and other issues, because its prompts the imagination alongside reason.
The imagination shares the characteristics of faith; it is intentional and conscious. While it can only refer to fantasy, we can use it to understand other states of mind, when planning the future and when working out problems. Though experiments are very common among philosophers when dealing with complex issues.
Dante’s extraordinary poetic descriptions of hell, heaven and purgatory are not intended to be factual but poetically true. Likewise the NT writers were are that the deep mysteries they were trying to convey could often only be done through symbol, analogy, allegory and story. The reader must engage their imagination with the narrative, and failure to do so results in a lack of true knowledge.
The author of John’s gospel is very much aware of what happens when the imagination is not used and symbols are treated at face value. he recounts a story of how Nicodemus entirely misunderstands Jesus’ analogy of being born anew, thinking it means literally re-entering his mother’s womb. There is intentionally no simple explanation of what being born anew really means because the reader must connect with it and reflect upon in using their imagination.
