Here is a basic outline on religious epistemology and how this impacts our quest to know there is a God. There is much more to be said. But I just wanted to point out some of the terms here. Hope it helps.
I. Epistemology: Is the branch of philosophy concerned with questions about knowledge and belief and related issues such as justification, truth, types of certainty.
a. Justification: a belief is said to be justified when a person fulfills his or her duties in acquiring and maintaining a belief. A belief is said to be justified when it is based on a good reason/reasons or has the right grounds or foundation.
b. Knowledge: Knowledge is a belief that is true and warranted or properly accounted for. In other words, knowledge excludes beliefs that are just true accidentally.
Example: It is 12:30 pm and through an antique shop window I happen to look at a non-working clock, which happens to indicate 12:30. I would not be warranted in concluding that it’s 12:30 P.M. I may have belief that is true- the first components of knowledge—but I happened to get lucky. That does not qualify as knowledge; it’s not properly warranted (which completes the definition of knowledge). NOTE: This example was taken from Paul Copan’s True for you, but not for me: Deflating the Slogans that Leave Christians Speechless.
II. Common Sense Beliefs: Beliefs we take for granted in the common concerns of life, without being able to give a reason for them:
a. Testimony: We rightly accept what others tell us without having first established that they are worthy of trust. Without testimony, we could never be able to learn a language or accept something we learned before checking out for ourselves.
b. Our senses: We trust our senses on a daily basis/we trust our cognitive faculties. We rely on introspection, intuition, and perception on a daily basis.
c. Memory: Memory is a pervasive, bedrock of our intellectual existence.
d. Perception: apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind; cognition; understanding.
Regarding perception and Romans 1:18-21, Norman Geisler says:
“Paul insisted that “the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14). They cannot even “know” him. But Paul does not say that natural persons cannot perceive truth about God, but that they do not receive (Gk. dekomai, “welcome”) it. Paul emphatically declared that the basic truths about God are “clearly seen” (Rom. 1:20). The problem is not that unbelievers are not aware of God’s existence but that they do not want to accept him because of the moral consequences this would have on their sinful lives. They do not “know” (Gk. ginomskom, which frequently means to “know by experience). They know God in their mind (Rom. 1:19–20), but they have not accepted him in their heart (Rom. 1:18). “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’ ” (Ps. 14:1). (BECA, pg 540).
In Romans 1:18-21, God’s knowledge is described as “eternal power and divine nature.” Paul lays out the basic principle of cause and effect. Paul says since God is the Designer (God is the cause), His “everlasting power and divinity” are seen “through the things that are made” (this is the effect). Even though I doubt that Paul was familar with the phrase, “Inference to the Best Explanation,” Paul was communicating to his audience that God’s fingerprints can be inferred from “the things that have been made.”
In Rom. 1:18, the word “suppress,” means “to consciously dismiss in the mind,”to “hold down”, or to “hold back by force or to dismiss.” However, that which is “suppressed” is not destroyed. As much as humans try to suppress the truth of God’s existence, the human mind is still aware of their moral accountability to Him. In relation to this passage, Paul says God’s revelation says is not hidden or concealed. The reason this revelation is clear is because God shows it to him.
In other words, God makes knowledge of Himself available to man! The creation gives a cognitive knowledge of God’s existence but not saving knowledge. However, according to Romans 1:18-21, man is not left in ignorance about God.
Theologians, philosophers, and apologists have made significant comments in relation to Romans 1:18-21. Here are a few of them:
1. ” The revelation of God in nature is mediate, but it is so manifest and so clear that it does not necessitate a complex theoretical reasoning process that could be achieved only by a group of geniuses. If God’s general revelation is in fact “general,” in that it is plain enough for all to see clearly without complicated cosmological argumentation, then it may even be said to be self evident. The revelation is clear enough for an unskilled and illiterate person to perceive it. The memory of conscious knowledge of the trauma encounter with God’s revelation is not maintained in its lucid, threatening state, but is repressed. It is “put down or held in captivity” in the unconsciousness. That which is repressed is not destroyed. The memory remains though it may be buried in the subconscious realm. Knowledge of God is unacceptable, and as a result humans attempt to blot it out or at least camouflage it in such a way that its threatening character can be concealed or dulled.” (Sproul, R.C, Gerstner, John and Arthur Lindsey. Classical Apologetics: A Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing.1984, 46-59).
2. Former atheist J. Budziszewski:
” I am not at present concerned to explore Paul’s general claim that those who deny the Creator are wicked but only his more particular claim that they are intellectually dishonest. Notice that he does not criticize nonbelievers because they do not know about God but ought to. Rather, he criticizes them because they do know about God but pretend to themselves that they don’t. According to his account, we are not ignorant of God’s reality at all. Rather, we “suppress” it; to translate differently, we “hold it down.” With all our strength we try not to know it, even though we can’t help knowing it; with one part of our minds we do know it, while with another we say, “I know no such thing.” From the biblical point of view, then, the reason it is so difficult to argue with an atheist—as I once was—is that he is not being honest with himself. He knows there is a God, but he tells himself that he doesn’t. How can a person explain how he reached new first principles? By what route could he have arrived at them? To what deeper considerations could he have appealed? If the biblical account is true, then it would seem that no one really arrives at new first principles; a person only seems to arrive at them. The atheist does not lack true first principles; they are in his knowledge already, though suppressed. The convert from atheism did not acquire them; rather, things he knew all along were unearthed.” ( Geisler, N. L. and Paul K. Hoffman. Why I Am A Christian. Leading Thinkers Explain Why They Believe. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House. 2001, 49).
3. ” Our original knowledge of God and his glory is muffled and impaired; it has been replaced (by virtue of sin) by stupidity, dullness, blindness, inability to perceive God or to perceive him in his handiwork. Our knowledge of his character and his love toward us can be smothered: it can be transformed into resentful thought that God is to be feared and mistrusted; we may see him as indifferent or even malignant. In the traditional taxonomy of seven deadly sins, this is sloth. Sloth is not simple laziness, like the inclination to lie down and watch television rather than go out and get exercise you need; it is, instead, a kind of spiritual deadness, blindness, imperceptiveness, acedia, torpor, a failure to be aware of God’s presence, love, requirements.” (Plantinga, A. Warranted Christian Belief. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2000, 214-215).
The Worship of Nature
Even though the argument that Paul lays out in Romans 1:18-21 is getting some support from the latest work in cosmology, I don’t expect that this will make much of a difference to many skeptics. If you read on through the rest of the passage in Romans 1, we see that an exchange takes place. The idolatry comes into the picture. People worship the creation rather than the Creator. In other words, God is not the Primary Cause anymore. Hence, nature (without any agency) can explain all the observable complexity in the cosmic and biological realm.
This is why it is imperative to remember that without metaphysics one would not be able to construct a worldview. Philosophical or metaphysical naturalism refers to the view that nature is the “whole show.” Naturalism (as currently discussed and advocated by Richard Dawkins, some atheists, etc) is not a discovery of science. It must always be viewed as a presupposition of science as presently practiced. Both Dawkins and Francis Crick both admit that while the world shows every indication it is designed and have purpose, they add one qualification; it only looks that way. In other words, while the design is evident, it can be explained without resorting to any Designer.
Let’s look at Richard Lewontin’s comments in his January 9, 1997 article, Billions and Billions of Demons summarizes how naturalistic philosophy impacts the entire scientific process:
” Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.”
Also see David Snoke’s The Apologetic Argument
Regarding memory, trusting testimony, and our senses, all three of these points impact how we approach the Bible and for that matter, anything else in antiquity. Nobody was there to observe the past. Therefore, we trust written documents that contain the testimony of witnesses who used their senses and their memory and ended up recording what they saw, heard, touched, etc.
The Gospel of John uses words that are usually translated as witness, testimony, to bear witness, or to testify. The total usage of these words in John’s Gospel is larger than any of the Synoptic Gospels. The book of Acts is the next book with the most references to the terms related to eyewitness testimony. We see in the following New Testament passages where testimony and witness is used as a means to verify events:
• Luke 1:4: “Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received”
•Acts 2:32: “This Jesus God raised up, and we are all witnesses of it”
• Acts 3:14-15:But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses.”
• Acts 5:30-32: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross. “He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. “And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.”
•1 John 1:1: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life”
•Acts 10:39 : “We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and (in) Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.”
•Acts 4:19-20: “Peter and John, however, said to them in reply, “Whether it is right in the sight of God for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges. It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.”
•1 Peter 5:1: “So I exhort the presbyters among you, as a fellow presbyter and witness to the sufferings of Christ and one who has a share in the glory to be revealed.
•2 Peter 1:19: ” We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
•John 21:24: “This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.”
•1 Corinthians 15: 3-8: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”
To see more on this topic, see our post “Can We Trust Eyewitness Memory?” and James Warner Wallace’s book Cold Case Christianity.
III. We know things by appealing to authorities:
a. Nobody can learn everything and nobody can be a master on every subject matter. All people appeal to authorities. Now this doesn’t mean authorities are without their biases and worldview commitments. Also, authorities can be challenged. But there is simply no possible way of gathering knowledge apart from appealing to authorities.
IV. Answering self-defeating claims:
a. “We can’t know” is one of genuine knowledge: “I know that we can’t know.” This argument already assumes knowledge of the truth to be able to detect mistakes and deception.
b. “There is no truth”: Is that true?
c. “There is no objective truth”: Is that objectively true?
V. Skepticism and God’s Existence:
Strengths of Skepticism:
a. Skepticism can be healthy and constructive. After all, we shouldn’t be gullible and naïve, believing everything we hear or read.
b. Religious/Revelatory Claims are contradictory: We are required to provide reasons and evidence for what we believe.
To see more about this issue, see our post The First Question in Discussing the Existence of God
Weaknesses of Skepticism: (NOTE: Points a-e are adapted from How Do You Know You’re Not Wrong? A Response to Skepticism by Paul Copan).
a. Skeptics are more skeptical about religious beliefs than anything else!
b. Skeptics aren’t truly skeptical about two fundamental things they take for granted: (a) the inescapable logical laws that they’re constantly using to disprove the claims of those who say they have knowledge or (b) that their minds are properly functioning so that they can draw their skeptical conclusions!
c. Being less than 100% certain doesn’t mean we can’t truly know. We can have highly plausible or probable knowledge, even if it’s not 100% certain.
d. The skeptic does not realize we don’t have to have absolute certainty to know something; we know many things that we aren’t absolutely certain about, and this is legitimately called “knowledge.”
e. The hyper-skeptic is in a position that ends up eliminating any kind of personal responsibility or accountability.
f. Skeptics need to be clear about what kind of approach they are taking to the existence of God (i.e., religious experience, induction, deduction, a historical approach, empirical approach, inference to the best explanation, etc). Of course, to demand God show everyone a sign is to misunderstand the nature of God. The nature of the object determines how we know it, not the other way around.
VI. Explanation, Argumentation, and Probability
a. Explanations try to show how something happened. That is, what is the cause for something that has happened, The truth of the event is already assumed.
b. Arguments try to show something is true given the truth if the premises.
c. Probability tries to show something might be true given the truth of the premises.
Deductive Arguments: In a deductive argument, the premises are intended to provide support for the conclusion that is so strong that, if the premises are true, it would be impossible for the conclusion to be false.
(Premise 1)…….All the books on that shelf are science books.
(Premise 2)…….This book is from that shelf.
(Conclusion)……This book is therefore a science book.
Inductive Arguments: In an inductive argument, the premises are intended only to be so strong that, if they are true, then it is unlikely that the conclusion is false.
(Premise 1)…….This book is from that shelf.
(Premise 2)…….This book is a science book.
(Conclusion)……All the books on that shelf are science books.
In this argument, even if the premises are true, you could not conclude, with certainty, that all of the books on the shelf are science books just from the two pieces of information given in the premises.
Abduction/Inference to the Best Explanation
C.S. Lewis said that “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” (see The Weight of Glory). To apply what Lewis says, we might utilize what is called inference to the best explanation. The inference to the best explanation model takes into account the best available explanation in our whole range of experience and reflection. For example, when we look at these features of reality, which provides a more satisfactory explanation:
- How do you explain the Origin of the Universe?
- How do you explain the Mathematical Fine-Tuning of the Universe?
- How do you explain the Terrestrial Fine-Tuning of Planet Earth?
- How do you explain the Informational Fine-Tuning of the DNA molecule?
- How do you explain the Origin of Mathematical Laws?
- How do you explain the Origin of Logical Laws?
- How do you explain the Origin of Physical/Natural Laws?
- How do you explain the Origin of the First Cell?
- How do you explain the Origin of Human Reason?
- How do you explain the Origin of Human Consciousness?
- How do you explain the Origin of Objective Morality?
- How do you explain Ultimate Meaning in Life?
- How do you explain Ultimate Value in Life?
- How do you explain Ultimate Purpose in Life?
To see a short example of this approach online see, The Return of the God Hypothesis by Stephen C. Meyer or Paul Copan’s God: The Best Explanation
Another example of this approach is seen in a book like A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature by Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt.
VI. Probability comes in degrees: Degrees of Probability
a. Virtual Certainty: Where the evidence is overwhelmingly in its favor( the law of gravity)
b. Highly probable: Very good evidence in its favor (There was a man named Jesus who lived 2,000 years ago and was crucified)
c. Probable: Means there is sufficient evidence in its favor (Paul wrote Galatians and 1 Corinthians)
d. Possible: Seems to have evidence both for and against (The Shroud of Turin is the cloth that covered Jesus when he was in the tomb)
e. Improbable: Insufficient Evidence in its favor (Life can come from non-life)
f. Highly Improbable: Very little evidence in its favor (The events in the Book of Mormon took place)
g. Virtually Impossible: Almost no evidence in its favor (George Bush is a Martian)
VII. Kinds of Certainty
a. Mathematical Certainty: ( 7+5+12)
b. Logical Certainty: (There are no square circles)
c. Existentially Undeniable: ‘I exist’
d. Spiritual (Supernatural) Certainty: ‘I experience the Holy Spirit in my life’
e. Historical Certainty: Since history is inductive, we can only arrive at probabilities
f. Pragmatic certainty: If something works or has beneficial consequences. This is challenging since someone could believe something works that does not correspond to reality.
VII. What is Certitude, Doubt, and Beyond A Reasonable Doubt?
Certitude
In order for a judgment to belong in the realm of certitude, it must meet the following criteria:
(1) It cannot be challenged by the consideration of new evidence that results from improved observation
(2) It can’t be criticized by improved reasoning or the detection of inadequacies or errors in the reasoning we have done. Beyond such challenge or criticism, such judgments are indubitable, or beyond doubt.
Doubt
A judgment is subject to doubt if there is any possibility at all (1) of its being challenged in the light of additional or more acute observations or (2) of its being criticized on the basis of more cogent or more comprehensive reasoning.
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
A courtroom analogy is helpful here: a jury is asked to bring in the verdict that they have no reason to doubt- no rational basis for doubting- in light of all the evidence offered and the arguments presented by the opposing counsel. Of course, it is always possible that new evidence may be forthcoming and, if that occurs, the case may be reopened and a new trial may result in a different verdict. The original verdict may have been beyond a reasonable doubt at the time it was made, but it is not indubitable-not beyond all doubt or beyond a shadow of a doubt–precisely because it can be challenged by new evidence or set aside by an appeal that called attention to procedural errors that may have invalidated the jury’s deliberations- the reasoning they did weighing and interpreting the evidence presented. NOTE: This was adpated from Mortimer Adler’s Six Great Ideas.
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