Unscrewed(01-01) Knowing Stuff

Hank Fox (not verified) in his comments to my earlier post, takes me to task for lack of clarity and insufficient meat.

Gadfly, um ... forgive me, but it doesn't sound like you've really thought all that much about this stuff. You've tossed out some fairly predictable comebacks, but not much MEAT -- thoughtful substance.
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Your initial post contained a couple of worthwhile points, but even that wasn't much fun to read. And a construction such as "There is no cause/effect relation that originates in the world of sense which guarantees a corresponding inbreaking from any world outside of the senses. If man is to know anything about a world beyond the senses, it must make itself known to him, he cannot require it to be made known" is virtually opaque.

OK - it's always good to know how you're coming across and talking above people's heads doesn't help anything. So, thanks Hank, for the admonishment. Being "fun to read" is probably not a criterion that I will ever attain though I do hope to be "worthwhile."

The "big idea" of this post is to build on the previous post, hence the numbering.

The question that comes across most often in the discussion thus far seems to center on this: "So what?" Or, to expand a bit: "If there is a world beyond the senses and I cannot see it, hear it, touch it, smell or taste it, why do I care?"

I think two main points bear on the answer. First, just because we cannot sense something doesn't mean it isn't a threat or something advantageous to us. Two, just because we cannot sense something doesn't mean we cannot know anything about it.

Consider this: Just because a person is blind and unable to see other people doesn't mean that those people don't exist. The same situation would obtain if all the other senses were stripped from that person also. Further more, if the person who was deprived of all their senses was born in that condition, there is no possible means that they would possess to obtain knowledge about the other people around them. But that doesn't mean that the other people around them could not affect them.

Though they may not feel the heat, yet if they were subjected to high temperatures, they might die. If they were not sustained with nourishment they would starve. Etc. The point is this - Christianity does posit the existence of a separate realm of existence that is occupied by various beings and this realm is not separate from the sphere of our own habitation. For those who care, you can find an example in 2Kings 6:16-18. So, it is not inherently irrational or illogical to believe that such beings exist. It is not even superstitious nor unsophisticated to believe these things. It is simply a matter of drawing conclusions from a given presupposition.

Further more, it is possible that these beings can have an effect on us. Because they are immaterial to our senses does not mean that they are inept or incapable of dealing with things. If an angel can roll away a stone from a grave then such a being can do other stuff also. The fact that no one has ever captured an angel, to my knowledge, and subjected him (or her) to scientific examination does not disprove their existence.

So - it is not illogical to believe in a universe ("cosmology") consisting of things sensible and things insensible.

Next question: Can we know anything about things insensible? This one sets the stage for the necessity of "revelation."

In addressing this question we have to deal with what it means to "know" anything. Reams of books even more obscure than my own writings have been written on this topic and I will not even attempt to give a rigorous answer.

I will answer only this: To know something is to have sufficient confidence in it such that you order your life and actions in such a way as to accomodate it. As I said - for those of you out there who have experience with philosophic discussion - this is only a working definition, not a precise one.

What is implicit in this definition is the idea of a threshold, a level of confidence so that it results in a corresponding lifestyle . I admit that there is a blurring here - the distinction between "faith" and "knowledge" is not hard and fast. So be it. I think it would be readily acknowledged that such is the case throughout the range of human experience. When we cross the line from believing something to be true and knowing something to be true is often not all that clear.

So, with that working definition, we can address the question of whether or not we can "know" anything about the insensible realm. The answer, as I mentioned in the discussion on the previous post, is yes. We can "know" something about the insensible realm if beings in that realm undertake to make something known to us.

Taking up the virtually opaque statement to which Hank referred, I will try to be a little more clear - but it is an essential point for any true appreciation for the logic of Christianity.

We cannot "know" anything about the insensible realm by devising some experiment or setting up some point of observation so that we "prove" its existence. A successful experiment, by definition, must be repeatable and consistent in its results. There must be a "cause/effect" relationship in place which provides the basis for the experiment to work. If I drop a ball, on the earth, 300 times, then I expect the outcome of the experiment to always be the same (within certain variations). There is no such "cause/effect" relationship existing which takes a "cause" in the world of the senses and has an "effect" in the insensible world that is then registered back in the sensible world. This observation grows directly out of the presupposition. It is by definition true. The insensible world is, by definition, not subject to empirical validation and hence any attempt at rigorous scientific proof for its existence is negated.

Which doesn't guarantee that it doesn't exist. To assume that it does is to adopt the other of the two initial presuppositions.

So, if there is to be any knowledge of the insensible world - then it is incumbent upon that world to make itself known to us through sensible means. Christians believe that there are beings (pre-eminently a Being) who have the capacity to do this and who have in the past. Some believe this is a continuing activity. All believe it will certainly happen again in the future.

Such a belief, I contend is not illogical, unsophisticated nor superstitious.