"A" Judeo-Christian Theological Basis for Epistemology

Reality - That Which is Known

1. Foundation in pre-existent Trinity
   • Data about the "Pre-Creation" Trinity
     1. Decrees/Plans/interaction
     2. Love
     3. Unity of Essence (Tri-person)
   • => The Primacy of Personal Knowledge
   • => Initiation/Response
   • The Law of A and ~A (i.e. identity of sole existent)
2. Derivative Knowledge: Roots in Creation Act
   • Creative-Semantic Act (Creation = extrovertive predication; it did NOT precede it)
     1. => Cognitive
     2. => Predicable
     3. => Unity-in-diversity (relatedness)
     4. => Some can be inferred from the others
     5. => Definite, not open-ended
     6. => Applies to TEAR, activities, natural forces
     7. => Shared language within the Trinity
   • Derivative - Not infinite, the "Ontic Bubble", Wraps back on itself
3. Derivative Knowledge: Nature of Created Reality
   • Mirrors the Character of God ("Good")
     1. Integrity ("uni-"verse)
     2. Spectrum (diversity)
     3. Robustness (plenitude/complexity)
     4. Beauty
     5. Balance & Interdependencies (esp. biological)
   • Can be "Predicated Upon" by God (as subsequent act)
   • The Logos Character (inherent rationality)
   • Created reality is An Active Witness (Psalmist)
     1. "Declares glory" (Ps 19)
        • Not a passive voice
        • it sends out more than data, a message (broader than just about itself)--it somehow also includes at least SOME of its context
        • 'glory' - effervescent presence
     2. "Power and Godhead" (as apparent, Romans 1)
        • authentication is assumed (or perhaps inherent in the message => message carries context)
        • derivative character of existence
        • =>we interpret everything in a personal context
   • Created reality as "Layered/Varied" (species, colors, etc.)
     1. Varies On the Axes of: Complexity, Volition, Variation w/n a Class
     2. Static -- rocks, space-time, elements(?)
     3. Biotic - perpetuity (=> predictability); genetic relationships; plantlife; incredible amount of variation
     4. Animal - breath of life; companionship possibilities
        • habituation (=> predictability, but much wider variation); practical judgment
        • conscious ('knows his master') recognition
        • "On the threshold of Personhood" (Buber)
        • capabilities of deception (possum, camouflage, baiting)
     5. capacity for play! (e.g. puppies, kittens)
     6. Some level of 'will' and decision making (cf. Animal Minds, Donald Griffin)
     7. wide range of variation (insects vs. chimps)
     8. Man
        • self-conscious
        • next 'level' of volition
        • changeable
        • can exert will 'over' lower levels
        • some variation, but less than the lower levels
        • localized in space-time, restricted travel
        • deception
     9. Angelic
        • Personal
        • Only change once?
        • Sui Generis
        • Minimal variation(?)
        • will
        • localized in space-time, but without physical locus, access to 'heaven'
        • can influence lower level wills without affecting responsibility (Daniel 10+)
        • see more data in universe than we do
        • deception!
4. The Issue of Mankind
   • Derivative: Meaning
     1. Definition of his 'essence' (point of continuity, and discontinuity with God)
     2. Analogy as the relationship, based on semantic creation and 'language'
   • Derivative in Every Sense
     1. Exists => in relationship to all others
     2. Creature => in special relation to God
     3. Predicator => finds its context in ultimate predication--creating derivative paraphrases of God's 'talk'
   • Social
     1. language, shared basal categories + transformation of existing linguistic forms + 'stretching meanings' by juxtaposition of quasi-compatible formulations (collocational clashes--Beekman and Callow: Translating the Word of God)
     2. value in social communication (URP in Trinity)-[note: URP = Ultimate Reference Point]
     3. all language presupposes a social union (audience)
   • Categories based on creation (unity-in-diversity vs. trinity; personal 1st priority)
   • "A little lower than the angels" - the epistemic problem
     1. Our knowledge of higher beings
     2. can we understand them? (Animals understand us?; 4 year-olds understand emotions of aging?)
     3. Revelation helps, but there must be adequate category overlap
     4. Especially overlap in "personhood", upon which to lay/unlay attitudes and propensities!
5. The Issue of Sin
   • Derivative character/parasitic (Berkhower, Sin as Irrational)
   • Like a virus: has no life of its own (dormant outside the context of life); springs to life in the presence of DNA/RNA! (evil is parasitic on good: no-life by itself; only becomes alive when LIFE is around.)
   • What: a decision to 'recreate' the universe (unlike art, which does the same and is good)--organized around a different ultimate (ie around the derivative self as God!)
   • What it produces: separation (reversal of diversity-in-unity ; diversity WITHOUT unity!) in every realm
     1. - interpersonal
     2. - social
     3. - Ecology
     4. - The Cross! (even within the personal relationships of the Trinity!--Father and Son)
     5. - Epistemically
   • Evil does not map into causal models (as a-rational), but into 1) serpent -> Eve (influence/deception) models and 2) Eve -> Adam (influence/decision) models
   • Malignant will and weakening of the epistemic nature
     1. => witness of creation is weaker, response of receptors is duller
     2. => deception is a possibility (generally less than 50% - no permanently sustainable deception is possible - deception is PARASITIC on disclosure/perception/understanding)
     3. => deliberate and/or conscious suppression of truth is possible and often!
   • Sovereignty restrains deception and also lets it loose (Rom 1 and Abimelech/Sarah et. al.)

Knowing - the Verb

1. Elements
   • symphony, cacophony of witnessing elements in the universe; TONS of redundancy
   • creaturely response built-in to reality (resonance model)
   • we interpret everything in a personal context
   • continuity of created universe GREATER THAN 'erosion' due to evil (but cumulative effects are observed--the entropy issue)
   • Grace GREATER THAN sin -- the presence of both preservation and 'new order' in the existing universe.
   • - the phenomena (i.e. not JUST the rock, but the reflected sound waves, photons, etc.) themselves are a witness (in all directions)
   • - the process (e.g. perception) is a witness
2. The Interplay: Model of Dialogue
   • The Model of Dialogue within the Universe (overview)
     1. - person forms question and puts it to the object
     2. - the object shouts back (Heidegger)
     3. - If the question is too 'off', major dissonance and silence (e.g. asking Penguins questions on British history)
     4. - if close enough, a 'fit'--some resonance, some dissonance (we 'feel' we are on the right track, but something is still 'missing'--it seems a bit odd still.)
     5. - interaction improves hearing! (reformulation of the question on the basis of the last feedback round, generates a 'closer' question with a better 'overlapping' semantic content to the reality). Eventually the 'object' will break through our grid and restructure the operative/interpretive model
     6. - 'insight' as a holistic response to a screaming, focused phenomena set (like a magnifying glass focuses sun's rays)
   • Insight
     1. 'non-cognitive' => sub-conscious; epistemic vividness (huge realm of the sub-conscious)
     2. Abraham Kuyper's image [we sow thought-seeds in the garden of our mind; they grow without conscious attention; we walk through the garden later and find them full-grown; we pick them!--Principles of Sacred Theology]
     3. pattern detection (the datum witnesses to the relationships and context--and MAYBE even messenger)
     4. It seems so much like eureka-type authentication ("That's it!")
   • Gestalt/Unit Perception
     1. data witnesses to membership in A and not ~A
     2. the data points to the "edges" of the pattern
     3. camouflage/optical illusion confuses us this way
3. Problems in the Interplay
   • We bring the Wrong Set of Categories/Questions
     1. but the 'correct' set of categories can be constructed in ALL languages
     2. basal categories are un-deniable (cf. the philosophic attempts to delineate them--Aristotle, Kant)
     3. categories/questions are changed/stretched/mutated by the 'speaking' data
   • Generic/Specific/Ambiguity
     1. This model predicts Hayakawa's levels of specificity in creation (as semantic)
     2. inductive data resists over-specificity and over-precision
     3. Ambiguity
        • in the data, the witness is not as clear (its voice is now 'entropy-ied' or weakened)
        • due to sample makeup -- too small a sample, too short and observation time, not uniform enough (=> too large a class)
        • theology: the issue of the will (Parable of the Gardener) to weight the data differently
        • example: revelation and Holy Writ
   • Epistemic Boundary
     1. the Epistemic Bubble -- wraps around; keeps us in
     2. the Use of analogy/metaphor in boundary work
     3. the use of empathy in the center (common experience - 'fear')
   • Precision and the "Carriers of Reality"
     1. precision vs. vocab in communication (the tradeoff between precision, range of applicability, lexicon): music, art, math, logic, common lang, technical languages
     2. over-precision: @ the boundary - making the model walk on all fours
     3. we hit the linguistic wall-and it pushes us sideways to another term of equal ambiguity/precision.
     4. how could one detect over-precision? (dissonance, paradox, denial of early-life 'folk theories', some details fall out, Procrustes)
   • Suppression of Truth
     1. What is it: on the edge of consciousness, suppressed, becomes part of character/assumptions
     2. Why: ethically driven (could be habit or model-bias or even suspension of judgment)
     3. - if the original truth witness grows in frequency, volume, or clarity, how can it stay subconscious? Won't this cause Psycho-problems? (We know it does). The power of suppression can apparently grow, but can also manifest itself in habitual behavior (e.g. handwashing by the 'guilt-ridden').
     4. examples of over-precision: overextended Scholasticism, Ptolemy
   • Malignant will
     1. hiding some data, perhaps the critical piece in pattern construction, to give a false pattern
     2. data that is more personal is easiest to do (language and lies); impersonal harder (size of a rock)
     3. example: training the dog to trick someone

Knowledge - The Result

1. A look at the word: Objective K.
   • "X" vs. "I know X"
     1. - the mail comes by at noon every day
     2. - I am a business executive
     3. - my redeemer liveth
     4. - My momma loves me
   • Versus:
     1. - I feel that X
     2. - I think that X
     3. - I hope that X
     4. - I have no doubt that X
     5. - I feel certain that X
     6. - I believe that X
     7. - I would die before I deny X
     8. - I have confidence that X
     9. - I feel more that X than that ~X
   • Knowledge is just X; certainty is 'I know that X'
2. "I know" is a statement about me; not about X. (??) Or rather, it seems to be a statement about MY relationship to X , with perhaps implications for the Ultimate Personal Context.
3. Another Look at the word: Personal K.
   • "I know person P."
   • When unpacked -> predictability of behavior and response in visualized circumstances, both prospective and retrospective
   • the example of a surprise anonymous gift: "that's just like her'
   • personal disclosure (revelation) + patterns of action (that define extensions, limits, qualifications to the characteristics so disclosed)
   • it is not = confidence in P, but confidence in our understanding of P's character (static) and action (dynamic)
4. K = "a relationship that produces the ability to make accurate denotative paraphrases of the creation-witness to its own character and direction of action"

The Problem of Error

1. The central problem in this model: "How Can We be Wrong?"
2. NOTE WELL: This is the OPPOSITE problem from skepticism!! (A much better starting point!)
3. Let's set aside willful overrides (ours or theirs) for the moment
4. 1st cut: what are the ethical dimensions of cognitive mistakes?! [If EURP (Ethical URP--Jesus) couldn't make a FP (i.e. false predication), then would our FP would be sin?! (due to lack of URP?) Approach: ignorance of law is no excuse ('Israel sins and knows it not')--this argues that it WOULD be culpable. (This probably doesn't apply to the question, since the 'sin' was NOT in the ignorance, but in the violation of a specific cultic ordinance.) But ignorance ("I don't know") NOT = being false ("I know X", but I am wrong) But we may still have the EURP problem]
   • Approach 1:
     1. From life of Jesus, not knowing something (consciously) is not sin ("of that hour knows no man...not even the Son")
     2. Kenosis questions play here--to what extent can the Kenotic Figure make the cognitive errors of His race? (e.g Did He get perfect scores in school every day?--probably not, just like He probably smashed His thumb with a hammer more than once as a kid in Joseph's carpentry shop.)
     3. We often push K. down into implicit/memory or even do not get it to the articulate level (deliberately)--He tapped into it often, acc. to His plan. (The words 'knowledge' and 'memory' are related in too complex of a fashion to sort through this easily.)
     4. This does not allow us to jump to 'Jesus made a mistake' -- we have no data -- test scores etc.
     5. Some 'errors' are only issues of ambiguity or description: Ptolemy vs. Copernicus
   • Approach 2: "lies/deceptions" don't count either (we don't believe them) - Rahab, Midwives, feigning in Israel's wars
   • Approach 3: test quizzes are not 'I know' but 'I think' or 'I think that I remember' or 'it seems reasonable'--they are generally not the 'I state my integrity upon X...' kinds of propositions. The relationship to this artificial environment to ethics is probably not a good starting point for solving this issue.
   • Approach 4: There would be some ethical component in 'slothful induction' -esp. in light of I Thess 5:23.

Special Case: Divine Revelation

1. Basic model is personal revelation
2. Radical cognitive/consciousness continuity between Author/recipients; peripheral discontinuity
3. How do we know a person P? - patterns of experience; they condition each subsequent experience (hermeneutical context). That is, how I interact with Joe today forms an interpretive context for tomorrow's dealings with him.
4. Sample patterns from 'invisibles': The man Friday, the nightshift roommate
5. Now where are the evidences/audit trails of this Person?
   • Nature
   • 1st person disclosure//2nd and 3rd person descriptions (The Book)
   • History (from the Book)
   • History in my life (providence)
   • Theology/Doctrine (me/history)
   • Other believers
6. The issue of Hermeneutics
   • the nature of semantic units-within-units
   • the dialogical model: part-whole-part-whole...
   • the context is always the beginning
   • we interpret all things in a personal context
   • our view of God is a starting point, at some level (we bring that set of 'questions' to the data)
   • experience is like a developing book, later chapters define/refine earlier ones
   • our starting point must be basically a belief in His goodness (Heb 11!)
   • patterns and macro patterns in providence function as semantic units-within-units
   • All of these semantic units "swirl and dance" in our lives (e.g. the Bible, providence, wise counsel, etc.)
7. Disclosure and Trust

Theistic vs. Christian Epistemology

1. Theistic: = order, personal, relational, telic (revelation, blessing)
2. Christian: The person of Christ
   • His Nature as one person, one consciousness etc.
   • Christ knows things - and so forms the EURP (~=> unity of natures) - URP of ethics of precision
   • Christ's growth in wisdom didn't imply sin
   • (His suppressed knowledge of the 2nd coming date?) - subconscious link suppressed by Father? - but he manifested early and special giftedness: filled with wisdom, early questions in the temple
   • Christ knew more than simply humans (e.g. what was in man, the Father, heaven)
   • MAJOR: The embodiment of God, and our consequent observation of His life, behavior, and patterns, makes the revelatory content SO MUCH MORE 'objective' , 'controlled' , and 'concrete' that a transcendental-only theistic system! Even the prophets, with their lives and words could not come close to the blinding revelation in an Incarnate God! (Heb 1.1-3)
   • We have to Be very careful here in drawing conclusions from our provisional (AT BEST!!!!) understanding of the conscious mind of the Incarnate Son of God!
3. Christian: The Work of Christ
   • Redemption: Cross removes deception in eternity, but finite => learning => mistakes? The down-spiral is not operational in all areas to that same extent as before the Cross? The "Irruption" of Kingdom in time generates 'new creation' and 'new life' amidst the old...this allows the 'witness' of these pockets of 'new creation' to carry a GREATER EPISTEMIC payload than the older stuff..(e.g. transformed lives 'witness' louder and more often than do 'legalistically-controlled' lives.)
   • The Giving of the Spirit:
     1. His general role - suppression of worst in us, heightening of the best in us
     2. Often increases our communicative abilities (e.g. teachers), our productive abilities (e.g. admin, helps), our perceptive abilities (e.g. mercy, empathy).
     3. His major role in epistemology (when the above is applied to knowing, learning, teaching)
        • revelation (John 14-17; Scripture)
        • illumination (from within/behind the personality center)
        • authentication (Corinthians)
        • sanctification (without which we can 'forget forgiveness' (2 Pet 1.9)// protect us from our own deception-hearts // grow in K. of God // self-transcendence and introspection)
     4. His work in the church: history of doctrine, canon, etc. (apostolic memory)

To be continued....