Because we do not have exhaustive knowledge of the universe—because we do not know how any one thing relates to all other things—we will only ever know anything in part. Certainty in our knowledge must come from the One who knows all things, who can assure us that this would still be true even if we were aware of every factor. Yet to trust God for this certainty is to confess that He is in control, that He knows more than us, and that He is trustworthy. This is to have faith in Him. Scripture tells us that every single human being is hostile towards God, is unable to follow God’s law because they hate Him (Rom. 8:6-9). So no human being, apart from the Holy Spirit, will submit to God as their absolute epistemic authority: we will all continue to follow our own reason and ideas of rationality. Paul writes in Romans that every man sees God in creation yet rebels against Him and creates idols, deifies the creature. This means that each of us commits epistemic suicide from birth. By rejecting God’s revelation, by rejecting His absolute claims for obedience presented in Scripture and creation, we exclude God from every fact we consider.
If God’s interpretation is the right interpretation and if every event and object is put in place by God, held in being by God, created by God, and finds its meaning in God’s plan; then to interpret any event or object apart from God is to give up from the beginning any chance of rightly knowing anything. Because of common grace—our inability to be %100 consistent in our rebellion against God—humans discover truths about God’s creation. But this is never the whole truth. It is never completely right because their ultimate reference point is man not God the creator. For these reasons, the Christian worldview presents an epistemology that opposes every other worldview. In the place of a creaturely authority, it holds God as the final authority. In the place of an optimistic view of man, it acknowledges the radical depravity of man. And instead of a fragmented approach, it presents a holistic union of the subject, object, and norm. Having considered epistemology, we are in an appropriate place to consider our last perspective on the Christian worldview, life or ethics.
The Christian Worldview (1): Introduction
The Christian Worldview (3): Epistemology (a)
The Christian Worldview (3): Epistemology (b)
“M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, and M32 and M110 on September 20th, 2014” flickr photo by Tycho’s Nose https://flickr.com/photos/tychosnose/15303567282 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND)
