The

 Beginning  
of  Knowledge  

David Feddes
Inception Are your experiences
just a dream?
 Total Recall

Are your
memories real?
The Matrix Are your senses putting you in
touch with realities outside you?
Does your mind Is the world real and
have ability to know does it have features
things outside it? that are knowable.
 Materialism/Naturalism  
Intelligence? The mind is an accidental
byproduct of a mindless process.
Intelligibility? The universe is random
interactions of matter flying through space.
No basis for confidence that our minds are
intelligent and the world is intelligible
 Just  atoms  in  a  brain?  
Materialism is the philosophy of the
subject who forgets to take account of
himself. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
If my mental processes are determined
wholly by the motions of atoms in my
brain, I have no reason to suppose that
my beliefs are true… and hence I have no
reason for supposing my brain to be
composed of atoms. (J.B.S. Haldane)
 Marx’s  reductionism  
Karl Marx claimed economic structures
dictated all ideas about truth. If so, then
Marx’s own ideas were not actually truths
but were accidental byproducts of his
economic setting and had no basis in
rationality or truth.
 Freud’s  reductionism  
Sigmund Freud claimed that unconscious
primeval urges dominate our mind.
Wishes can be a factor, but if thinking is
nothing but mental states prompted by
wishes, then Freud’s own theory would
have to be wishful thinking.
 Nietzsche’s  reductionism  
Friedrich Nietzsche said that claims about
truth or morality are just expressions of
someone’s agenda, their desire to control
things outside themselves. Human
thinking does not aim not for truth but
merely expresses this will to power.
 Darwin’s  reductionism  
The human brain is an accidental
byproduct of a mindless process. It is a
randomly evolved piece of meat with
various electrical impulses within it.
Can  any  thinking  be  trusted?  
With me the horrid
doubt always arises
whether the convictions
of a man's mind… are of
any value or at all
trustworthy. Would
anyone trust in the
convictions of a
monkey's mind, if there
are any convictions in
such a mind?
(Charles Darwin)
Not  made  for  truth  or  goodness?  
The idea that one
species of organism is,
unlike all the others,
oriented not just toward
its own increased
prosperity but toward
Truth, is as un-
Darwinian as the idea
that every human being
has a built-in moral
compass—a conscience.
(Richard Rorty)
 A  bewildered  ape?  
It is idle to talk always of the alternative of
reason and faith. It is an act of faith to assert
that our thoughts have any relation to reality
at all. If you are merely a skeptic, you must
sooner or later ask yourself the question,
“Why should anything go right; even
observation and deduction? Why should not
good logic be as misleading as bad logic?”
They are both movements in the brain of a
bewildered ape. (G. K. Chesterton)
 Wind  in  the  trees?  
If minds are wholly dependent on brains,
and brains on biochemistry, and
biochemistry (in the long run) on the
meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot
understand how the thought of those
minds should have any more significance
than the sound of the wind in the trees.
(C. S. Lewis)
By-­‐product  of  mindless  matter?  
The whole picture professes to depend on
inferences from observed facts. Unless
inference is valid, the whole picture
disappears. Unless Reason is an absolute,
all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to
believe this world picture also ask me to
believe that Reason is simply the
unforeseen and unintended by-product of
mindless matter at one stage of its endless
and aimless becoming. (C. S. Lewis)
How  can  I  trust  my  thinking?  
Supposing there was no intelligence
behind the universe, no creative mind. In
that case, nobody designed my brain for
the purpose of thinking. It is merely that
when the atoms inside my skull happen,
for physical or chemical reasons, to
arrange themselves in a certain way, this
gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I
call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my
own thinking to be true? (C. S. Lewis)
 Believe  in  thought?  
It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that
the way it splashes itself will give you a map
of London. But if I can't trust my own
thinking, of course I can't trust the
arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore
have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything
else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe
in thought: so I can never use thought to
disbelieve in God. (C. S. Lewis)
 Open  mind?  
An open mind, in questions that are not
ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about
the ultimate foundations either of
Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy.
If a man’s mind is open on these things, let
his mouth at least be shut. (C. S. Lewis)
Your mind must The world must be real
have ability to know and must have features
things outside it. that are knowable.
 Knowing  reality  outside  us  
Intelligence: People have faculties that
enable us to know things outside ourselves.
We are intelligent: capable of knowing
reality.
Intelligibility: the world and other persons
are real and can be known. Reality is
intelligible (knowable).
How can we be confident that our minds
are intelligent and the world is intelligible?
Mystery  of  the  world  
The eternal mystery of
the world is its
comprehensibility.
How can it be that
mathematics … is so
admirably appropriate
to the objects of
reality?
(Albert Einstein)
 Before  science  
Science cannot stand alone. We cannot
believe its propositions without first
believing in a great many other startling
things, such as the existence of the
external world, the reliability of our
senses, memory and informants, and the
validity of logic. If we do believe these
things, we already have a world far wider
than that of science. (Mary Midgley).
 Matter  penetrated  by  mind  
Acknowledging matter as somehow akin to
and penetrated by mind is not adding a new,
extravagant assumption to our existing
thought-system. It is becoming aware of
something we are doing already. The
humbug of pretending that we could carry on
intellectual life in an intrinsically
unintelligible world is akin to the humbug of
pretending that we could live without
depending on other people. (Mary Midgley).
 Universe  saturated  
with  rationality  
Unless all that we take to be knowledge is
an illusion, we must hold that in thinking
we are not reading rationality into an
irrational universe but responding to a
rationality with which the universe has
always been saturated. (C. S. Lewis)
 Source  of  the  world  
In the beginning, God created the
heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
It is he who made the earth by his power,
who established the world by his wisdom,
and by his understanding stretched out
the heavens. (Jeremiah 10:12, 51:15)
Source  of  understanding  
For the LORD gives wisdom; from his
mouth come knowledge and
understanding. (Proverbs 2:6)
He gives wisdom to the wise and
knowledge to those who have
understanding (Daniel 2:21)
God gave Solomon wisdom and
understanding beyond measure. (1
Kings 4:29)
The  beginning  of  knowledge  
• Who has put wisdom in the inward
parts or given understanding to the
mind? (Job 38:36)
• It is the spirit in man, the breath of
the Almighty, that makes him
understand. (Job 32:8)
• The fear of the LORD is the beginning
of knowledge; fools despise wisdom
and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7)
God gives your mind God made a real world
the ability to know with features that are
things outside it. knowable.
 Faculties  for  knowing  
Senses: see, hear, smell, taste, touch
Memory: recalling events and experiences
Introspection: knowing things about my inner
state
Sympathy: awareness of what others think,
feel, and believe
Credulity: believing what others tell us
Induction: expecting the future to be like the
past in some sense; learning from experience
 Faculties  for  knowing  
• Reason: grasping truths that are prior to, or
independent, of experience
a. Basic arithmetic (2+1=3)
b. Simple logic: If all cats have whiskers, and
Princess is a cat, Princess has whiskers.
c. Seeing logical relationships and deductions
• Conscience: sense of right and wrong
• God-sense: awe at divine reality
 The  God  sense  
• God created man in his own image.
(Genesis 1:27)
• He has put eternity into man's heart.
(Ecclesiastes 3:11)
• The spirit of man is the lamp of the
LORD, searching all his innermost parts.
(Proverbs 20:27)
• … having the eyes of your hearts
enlightened (Ephesians 1:18)
 God’s  reality  can  be  sensed  
For what can be known about God is plain to
them, because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his
eternal power and divine nature, have been
clearly perceived, ever since the creation of
the world, in the things that have been
made. (Romans 1:19-20)
 Suppressing  the  God  sense  
Men… by their unrighteousness suppress the
truth. For what can be known about God is plain
to them, because God has shown it to them. For
his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power
and divine nature, have been clearly perceived,
ever since the creation of the world, in the things
that have been made. So they are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they did not honor
him as God or give thanks to him, but they
became futile in their thinking, and their foolish
hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they
became fools. (Romans 1:18-22)
 Becoming  fools  
• Suppressing the God sense distorts our
other faculties and destroys the real basis
for confidence that we know anything.
• The fool says in his heart, “There is no
God.” (Psalm 14:1, 53:1)
• There is no fear of God before his eyes…
he has ceased to be wise and to do good…
For with you is the fountain of life; in your
light we see light. (Psalm 36)
Logic  participates  in  Logos  
Unless I were to admit an unbelievable
alternative, I must admit that mind was
no late-come epiphenomenon; that the
whole universe was, in the last resort,
mental; that our logic was participation
in a cosmic Logos” (C. S. Lewis)
 Logos  and  Light  
In the beginning was the Word [Logos],
and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. He was with God in the
beginning. Through him all things were
made; without him nothing was made that
has been made. In him was life, and that
life was the light of men… The true light
that gives light to every man was coming
into the world.… the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us. (John 1:1-14)
 Original  Image  of  God  
He is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn of all creation. For by him all
things were created… all things were
created through him and for him. And he
is before all things, and in him all things
hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17)
Jesus is the eternal Logos, the logic of the
world and the light of human intellect.
 Beginning  of  Knowledge  
• The realities we know about begin with God:
He is the Source of all realities, their patterns,
and their purposes.
• Our ability to know begins with God: He is
Source of our mental faculties.
• Jesus is the eternal Logos, the logic of the
world and the light of human intellect.
• Ignoring God darkens and distorts knowledge.
• Taking God seriously enlightens our minds
and sheds light on realities around us.