Flowin’ straight from the survival scrolls.
, about non-Aristotelian epistemology. This is sometimes called Middle Eastern (ME) or Hebraic epistemology. ME epistemology utilizes divine revelation as a legitimate, basic form of knowledge, the same way we accept sense perception or memory or logic, etc., as presupposed methods of knowing things.
Plantinga, armed with some Aquinas and Calvin ordinance, called the working apparatus that utilizes this epistemology the sensus divinatus; our “sense of the divine”. I’m not aware of how much Plantinga knew of ME epistemology but from what I know of his ideas and the ME method, he seems to describe some version of it. If you are a Christian or any kind of religious person you accept the ME method of knowing things of the supernatural even if you don’t name it as such.
The other side of that coin is that, if someone makes any statement at all concerning the metaphysical realm, he uses the ME epistemological method to induce this. In other words, a definitive statement about metaphysical things is intrinsically a-rational, because it does not involve the Aristotelian faculties. This includes claims of atheists, who have the tendency, de rigueur, to claim religious belief as irrational. All of the philosophical dodges involving withheld judgments of God’s existence until “scientific proof” is presented are incoherent because science is unable to measure anything metaphysical. Those who maintain a “scientific, rational” mind while at the same time insist on God’s nonexistence are using non-scientific, non-rational methods to conclude it.
It’s easy if we think of ME epistemology as a sense, like sight. There are people who look and see a tree outside of the window and maybe determine some of its qualities, and there are people who look and see no tree. Both are using their eyes, even if the latter claim that eyes do not exist in the first place and that trees do not exist because they conclude that trees must be, say, felt in order to really exist.
Looking at it this way, the only ones who can legitimately claim non-use of the ME method are strong agnostics (“No one has eyes to see this concept of the tree, so we cannot say whether or not they exist.”), and possibly weak ones (“I don’t know if we have eyes or not, but if we do we may be able to figure out if tree exist.”). If one claims Aristotelian epistemological methods are the only valid ones, then a statement about the supernatural cannot be made. Such a statement would be considered incoherent. There are no eyes to determine if the tree is not there.
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I went to a lecture last night on science and faith, and it was very good. But because the speaker was a scientist, and the audience was largely composed of scientists, she had to constantly check herself to remain in the bounds of Aristotelian epistemology. However, she did spend some time on personal revelation (how God reaches man), in addition to demonstrating how she is able to detect God’s character in the cosmos (she’s an astronomer). But the expected question came at the end: why was her “faith” portion of the lecture composed of Christianity? Well, it doesn’t take Aristotle to figure that out….she’s a Christian. That’s why.
I’m always suspect of “I see God in the cosmos” arguments because they are dependent on personal interpretations of data or the “whole picture” that only they can see. The propositions can only be appreciated by Christians, and even then, not all of them. But even if they aren’t applicable on a practical level, I can still see God using them in ways I can’t possibly understand.
Do you remember anything specific she said on that subject?
She pretty much prefaced with the content of your comment. She doesn’t see God in the cosmos so much as she sees his character, or how she perceives his character: powerful, patient, creative, etc. She’s worked with Hubble and NASA, so much of her lecture involved slides showing images of astronomical beauty, which she equates with God’s love of beauty (butterfly nebula, for example). Beauty in the universe is one of those intangibles that’s difficult to explain scientifically. Why is the ideal of beauty wired into our senses? Most of her lecture was informational, however, to demonstrate what kind of universe we have–which eventually leads to “why” sorts of questions–or at least for some people.
That’s an interesting topic…the philosophy of aesthetics. How much of it is objective and subjective? I think when we’re dealing with the universe, size has a lot to do with it because it’s relative to our size, so we may ascribe more beauty to things to nebulas or quarks because of their relative size.
One thought about that sort of thing…a lot of the photographs of space have to be color corrected/enhanced. I imagine some atomic/subatomic things are enhanced as well, or just rendered. Does it diminish beauty if their images have to be doctored.
Sorry for the tangent.
Yes, the colors are certainly doctored to give the images more “authentic” appearances, or appearances similar to what a ground-based telescope would capture, and the shapes of galaxies or nebulae change based on the perspective you have of them. But, to some, the change in perspective simply adds to the beauty. The aesthetic question is still a fascinating one, however. I don’t entirely agree with the statement that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. While it’s true on some level, humans tend to agree on much of what constitutes beauty, even if the agreement is nuanced, and appreciation will be on a spectrum. Well, there are probably numerous spectrum graphs one could make in the area of aesthetics and neurological studies that could be done in correlation with them…..oh, well. I just realized I need to be at work in a few minutes.
Thank you for being late for work in order to comment on a stupid blog post.
I should add the philosophy of aesthetics to my “to investigate” list. I should also start creating a formal “to investigate” list.