Foundations 1: Epistemology

There are a number of issues that one has to have a firm grasp on in order to make progress in life, especially as a dad of a large family. The most basic one is the Gospel. If you have the Gospel right, you have satisfied the most existential threat your family and you could ever face in this life and for the entirety of your existence.

I am now beginning a series about the Gospel and topics surrounding it… primarily for my grandchildren who do not yet exist… (to my knowledge as of 5/1/2022). With this series, I am laying the foundation for the entirety of a Christian worldview of life and by extension will cover what it means to be a Christian Husband, a Christian Father and a Christian Citizen.

So here it is…

I literally can’t imagine life without certainty. Fumbling along without having solid truth and basis for life, ethics, decisions – I literally can’t imagine it. So, I have to stretch to consider the possibility of people living their lives without certainty… I imagine that there are people who may be living without having or at least knowing the basis for thoughts… which may be more ephemeral than the immediacy of day-to-day life experiences.

If you want to grow, you have to consider new ways of thinking that are outside of the normal way you have considered or thought about life. So, I start off assuming that you would have no foundation. Everyone does, but we are reallllly starting at square one. So here it is:

You have a rock-solid foundation. You don’t have to live by whim. You can be purposeful in your life and live with certainty.

In 2022 when I am writing, we live in a relativistic, post-Christian culture and society, where “your” truth is as important as “my” truth, and “my” truth is as important as “your” truth, as long as no harm is done. Often, If I have greater means than you do, then “my” truth is may become more valid than “your” truth… “might makes right”, “survival of the fittest” and all of that rot. But, what about God’s truth? There is a hierarchy of systems of truth. God’s truth is more important than ours. Truth is that which is real. Truth corresponds to reality or, the actual.

In the larger series, we are outlining the basics of what it means to be a Godly Husband, Father and Citizen. Today, we are looking at the basis of thought itself… how we are assured that we have a rock-solid basis for living, why it is important, and how we can move forward in life with a calm peace and settled assurance that our life will ultimately have the purpose and meaning that God intended it to have.

As a disclaimer, I am not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination. Like C.S. Lewis said, I am sharing these things of comparing notes, from one beggar to another, about where to find the bread. Use your own discernment, with prayer, as you are considering these things and implement them into your life. I don’t know you or your specific situation. However, by and through the leadership of Jesus Christ and His Spirit in your life, you have everything you need in order to live a life that is pleasing to God.

Growing up, my physical needs were met but in a lot of ways, but I felt as though I was the classic kid referred to in Ephesians 4:14… tossed here and there by every whim and wave of teaching. In my early twenties when I was born again, I had a peace which heretofore had not been present in my life. That peace has been and is a rock-solid basis from which to live life. Since then, my life has been a lot more certain, although the events have been more exciting, interesting and dynamic.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction” Proverbs 1:7

A precondition of knowledge exists. That precondition is God Himself, as He has revealed himself in the Bible. One must have a starting point in order to have any capability of sound thought. That starting point is a person. That person, is God.

He created the world. He inspired the Bible. He gives us faith. We have a solid platform from which to be able to live life and make decisions. We have an absolute basis for our lives that doesn’t change, and yet we also have the freedom to live a life of profit, love and faith.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1

Existence in this world that God created naturally leads to having a God-oriented world view. This God-oriented world view can be supplanted by other views by deceivers.

The reasonability of faith

Isaiah 1:18 says, “”Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.” There is a reasonability, logic and rationality about life, but more specifically about faith. Faith isn’t inherently mystical and subjective. The type of faith that God gives a person is a spiritual gift, to be sure. But, there is an inherent non-spiritual impact that it has on the individual to whom it is given. This impact isn’t mystical, as much as it is confidence inducing. I say that to avoid the ‘woo-woo’ of esotericism or a more crazy way of looking at spirituality and faith. Faith has an object- it is object oriented. Since it was given by God, its origin is supernatural… but that doesn’t mean that its impact is inherently non-natural and non-specific. Faith has as its object, God Himself.

Faith isn’t lacking in reasonability. Faith isn’t irrational.

Faith is defined, short definition from Strong’s Concordance, as “Belief, trust, confidence; fidelity”. Hebrews 11:1 further describes faith, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

It is a completely normal thing that in some regards is a lot less ‘spiritual’ than some would say. Faith does involve critical thinking; by critical thinking, I take that to mean the capability of being able to make distinctions using your thoughts. Making distinctions is a necessary component of being able to think. Making distinctions is also a necessary component of making decisions. An example is that If you can’t distinguish between two ideas or concepts or thing / entities that are actually different, then your capabilities are diminished. If you can’t think in similar categories and make reasonable comparisons, then you are also lacking in your thinking capabilities. You shouldn’t as a habit be conflating terms and categories. Conflating means, “to blow together.”  So think of using this word when you want to talk about two things getting thrown together and combined.” Conflating isn’t usually done in a well-thought-out way.

This capability of making distinctions is something inherent to our design as human beings and is seen all the way back in the garden of Eden,

“Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.” Genesis 2:19.

Adam could not have named the animals without being able to understand and discern their distinctions. This understanding is not ultimately mystical. It is as easy as being able to say, “this one has a duck bill, and that one doesn’t” on some level. As human beings, we name things. We make distinctions. We do this so that we can live life in a reasonable way.

On the other hand, sin, craziness, a lack of certainty and confused thinking all go hand in hand. Sin causes the crazy thinking in this world and in your life. Your rightful feelings of shame because of your sin cause you to want to minimize the shame. If you do not go to God for help in this, one of the tendencies you will have is that you will want to have fewer distinctions and operate according to fewer distinctions. This is one of the ways that people try to salve a guilty conscience.

Faith has God as its object. God is inherently invisible. But, faith is not irrational even though it is based in someone who is not seen. Rationality, thinking, and logic are not inherently conflicting with faith.

Saving faith is a gift of God:

Ephesians 2:8,9,10 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

You realize that you have it (saving faith) when you have it. Being born again, like being born, is an act in which you are acted upon. You were not consulted about being born. Although it includes your volition to a point, your volition is not the causal factor. I say this to counter the popular teaching, by way of Billy Graham and others, that when a person becomes a Christian, they have “made a decision” for God. My point is that the only way they could have made the decision in the first place is by way of God’s giving them the grace to do so. Can you think of even one place in the Bible, as an example, where the person who has saving faith, was saved because they made a decision? Making the decision was not the causal factor in their salvation. I would argue that God is the causal factor in every person’s salvation… less they boast about it. Any decision is evidence, but not the cause.

By the way, I will as best as possible be defining my terms as I go. Definitions from the Bible will be completed using BibleHub.com’s Strong’s reference search engine. Other words, I am defining using Google. I may bring in other sources as needed from time to time. The point behind my doing things in this way is this- the knowledge is readily available. Even as dubiously trustworthy sources as the internet have sufficient truth present to be able to guide you. How much more so other older books such as Strong’s concordance.

Also, another disclaimer, I am not a paid theologian… I don’t yet do this to make a living. Also, I am not trying to associate with any specific camp, group, denomination or other affiliation. I am a Christian primarily.  I would prefer to think of myself as a Biblicist- one who reads the Bible in order to do what it says… to live out the good principles it contains in order to live life for God… but that’s another topic for another day. Any association with a denomination is because of how well they individually fall in line, from my understanding, with God’s word.

Volition – “the faculty or power of using one’s will”

Causal – “relating to or acting as a cause.”

We must live in this world and make decisions. Usually making decisions is more like making soup than necessarily a clear-cut type of thing. We are responsible before God for the decisions we make and because of that accountability, we need to make sure that we are making the best decisions possible.

Accountable – “required or expected to justify actions or decisions; responsible.” God is the one doing the requiring. God is the one who has the expectations. He is the one whom we must satisfy.

Responsibility has to do with paying the bills. If you are responsible, that means you will do the thing you are responsible for, and pay the bills about it if you fail.

Much of life is spent, sadly, trying to explain away our actions and blame them on someone else. Genesis 3:13 “Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Or the entirety of Romans 2. See future references to the hypocrisy index.

We will be judged by God. We will be assessed. 2 Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” For believers this is true. For non-believers, this is also true, “And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.” Revelation 20:12 For believers, our outcome based on having been saved is that we will go to heaven. Unbelievers will go to hell… which is why salvation is needed in the first place… to avoid hell.

So, we are all ultimately responsible for our actions and will give an accounting of ourselves to God, regardless of who we are. For most of us, this accounting will happen after we die, although there is some measure of it happening every day while we are alive.

Responsibility – “the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone”. Essentially, responsibility means that you must pay for the things you are responsible for when you mess up. You are also to ensure, as much as is possible, that they do not mess up in the first place so that you don’t have to somehow pay for them to be cleaned up.

Your foundation is rock solid. It isn’t transitory… therefore you can relax.

“As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;” Ephesians 4:14.

“Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell– and great was its fall” Matthew 7:26,27

“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” Matthew 25:23

As Christians, we are not trying to hit every Fad that is out there… we are trying to live and build a life that will stand when times get hard, and we are also trying to build a life so that when we die, we hear Jesus tell us, “…well-done good and faithful servant”. No other reason is sufficient. No other person, objective, goal, or desire is large enough to warrant bending every thought toward it. No one other than Christ.

Starting here has everything to do with raising a family. Otherwise everything is hit or miss, you are faddish. You are tossed about by everything that happens to you, rather than being rock solid. In one sense, raising a family is actually for the weak, the cowards and those who know they really can’t do it or do it well. Why? Because you are actually starting from a place of strength. That place is called meekness and humility. You are the only who can actually do a good job, because you realize that it is an impossible task for you apart from God’s Grace. That’s where the joy comes in, though- God wants to give you the grace to meet the challenge you face.

Our purpose here isn’t to go into a full entire extreme in-depth detailed analysis as to why I have come to the conclusions I have… although my thoughts have been shaped over the past approximately thirty-four years and reflections on my 52 years. I will give you some of the basics and general directions that have formulated my opinions on these matters and you can continue the study at your own pace on an as-needed basis. As well, my purpose here isn’t to contend with trolls, or even refute all of the arguments that exist. That has been done elsewhere and by people more skilled than myself. My goal is to hit on those points that are relevant and specific to being a better Husband, Dad and Citizen. I am interested in applying the real-world implications of thinking these thoughts in a manner that provides certainty amid uncertain and relativistic behaviors and living and practices.

You can know stuff –

Proverbs 1:7 – “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

It is impossible to know anything at all (epistemology) without fearing God.

Psalm 22:9, “Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts.” The earliest you can think and begin to learn about God’s kindness happened when your mother fed you. You began to know that you can trust ‘someone out there’ to take care of you. Your mother ought to be the most trustworthy person you know.

I will be providing daily word studies of each of the words used in the Strong’s Concordance for these and other verses I mention on the podcasts.

Proverbs 9:10 – “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”

Ephesians 3:19 – “and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”

Indicates that even with the best of the things that one can know and the resulting fruitfulness that can come into your life by having any specific knowledge about anything large or small, having love for Jesus Christ goes way past the knowledge, resulting understanding, and effects of wisdom that such knowledge could engender.

Hebrews 11:1 – “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:6 – “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

You can be certain about the things that you do and believe. God hasn’t left us in a fog. Faith isn’t irrational.

“The transcendental proof for God’s existence is that without Him it is impossible to prove anything. The atheist world view is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic, or morality.” Greg Bahnsen

Even an atheist has a basic commitment to his faith of atheism. Problem is that he cannot be internally consistent with the implications that such a worldview has. However, the Bible is internally consistent and especially externally consistent, in that what it says matches exactly with what exists.

Being a Christian isn’t ultimately about knowing facts or having water-tight arguments. Although those exist, being a Christian has to do with being in right relationship to God. Being / existence. Ontology.

You aren’t going to get too far down the road unless you have a few things worked out. We are swimming in a sea of relativism, and therefore we need to know why we can know anything at all.

You don’t start life wondering if you exist, you simply are and you cry out for food once you have been born. Your cry was satisfied. That establishes the basis of your beginning to trust that others have your good in mind, and that they want to help you- they want to teach you and train you in ways that are helpful for your short, mid and long range success.

  • Epistemology defined is “the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.” (https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/epistemology)

Basis of Knowledge is faith: precondition of knowledge

Scripture verse the fear of the Lord is the beginning of both wisdom and knowledge; you need both. Define both.

Knowledge is the dots, understanding is connecting the dots, wisdom is utilizing both in order to act in a way that does the right thing at the right time for the right reasons in the right ways in a manner that pleases God and is thereby right.

Relative objectivity requiring framework for consciousness

You can’t have knowledge without fear of God. You can’t have wisdom without the fear of God. You can’t have understanding without the fear of God. Everyone who exists really operates from this basis to one degree or another. Not everyone acknowledges that they do this, nor does everyone say that God is the source. See Romans 1 for more information in this regard.

Inspiration Direct God ordering of words; superintending. 2 Peter 1:21 “for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

Christian worldview is that you are a creature created by creator Ex nihilo out of no pre-existing material.

We and the rest of the entire universe is sustained by His power; stupid to think you can go against it successfully.

Problems of translation from one language to another: Love as in Greek.

Nuance as the fine points of application of scripture. It’s not just about the gospel, which is crystal clear, but it is about how you live your life on a daily basis. Hebrews 4:7 – “Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” – Today is the day of salvation

Meaning can be elusive. Experience of life in the now is really all we have.

Basis of knowledge being faith, faith is inherently a spiritual thing.

Neither your thoughts, ideas, feelings, nor Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, Carl Rogers, nor Abraham Maslow or any other person on the planet are the basis for knowledge and interpretation of knowledge. God is. The God of the Bible is the basis for knowledge, and that knowledge rightly understood and rightly applied is the basis for living a wise life as defined by God.

Law of noncontradiction – “In logic, the law of non-contradiction (LNC) (also known as the law of contradiction, principle of non-contradiction (PNC), or the principle of contradiction) states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, e. g. the two propositions “A is B” and “A is not B” are mutually exclusive. Formally this is expressed as the tautology ¬(p ∧ ¬p).

One reason to have this law is the principle of explosion, which states that anything follows from a contradiction. The law is employed in a reductio ad absurdum proof.

To express the fact that the law is tenseless and to avoid equivocation, sometimes the law is amended to say “contradictory propositions cannot both be true ‘at the same time and in the same sense'”.

Bootlegging in my worldview so that yours can make a semblance of sense.

If you come to the same conclusions that I have, what it produces is certainty of how to think, how to speak, and how to behave. This certainty produces confidence and in turn brings about clarity in your lives and in the lives of those whom you lead.

So where are we as a result of my having gone over these points:

  1. There is no knowledge without faith. God is the basis for faith and is thereby the basis for knowledge, understanding and informed action.
  2. Because God is our basis for knowledge, we can have a real confidence in doing the things He wants us to do. Peace is possible.

Notes:

Scripture references:

  • Ephesians 2:1
  • Ephesians 4:14
  • Philippians 2:12, 13
  • Isaiah 1:18
  • Hebrews 11:1
  • Ephesians 2:8,9,10
  • Genesis 3:13
  • Matthew 25:23
  • Genesis 2:19
  • 2 Corinthians 5:10
  • Revelation 20:12
  • Psalm 22:9

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