I would love to see an epistemology that extends beyond the objective, beyond the classroom and helps us love God with all within and others as ourselves (as we love Him with our mind) I’m certain it’s an achievable philosophical objective. Perhaps we can work on that here….
Jon responds: such an epistemology needs to start with what the Bible says the unregenerate knows, what the unregenerate knows and avoids, and what the unregenerate cannot know until and unless the unregenerate become regenerate. See Romans 1:18-32 and 1 Cor. 1:21 which tell us that the unregenerate know God through the existence of everything and also in their conscience in Romans 2:15 and yet in 1 Cor. 1:21 where in the Wisdom of God, the world by its wisdom does not know God. Now, the world by its wisdom knows God because God shows Himself to everyone at every time and in every place but unregenerate people hate this knowledge and exchange it for a lie, etc. Romans 1:18-32. Now, they can never fully repress this data because the existence of themselves and everything else show forth their maker, He who is existence itself:, God. So, the world erects false wisdoms to insulate out the awareness of the true God and the world erects false gods in the place of the true God. Which is why unregenerate people have FALSE knowledge of God versus regenerate people having true knowledge of God when they have propositional knowledge of God that is true to the Scripture and to the God of Scripture and when with this propositional knowledge there is the living and on-going dynamic interactive relationship with God going on.....where propositional understanding is always being modified and corrected in the light of the actual interactive experience of God....where it is clear that knowledge of god as objective is always being developed, corrected By Him as He communicates, simultaneously on-going knowledge of Himself and us in our prayer-conversational life with Him and in all the providential circumstances that He unceasingly provides in every situation that he has us in and which he gradually teaches to pay attention to and to begin to increase our on-going awarenss of Him and how, as pagan poets said Acts 17: "in Him, we live, move, and have our being." We are enveloped by Him who gives us the power to be and to continue to be and gives us existential space where we, once regenerated, begin with the understanding and sight and hearing that He provides, 1 John 5:20, Deuteronomy 29:4 to have a true knowledge of Him and of ours selves. There is much here to learn from Scripture, from Calvin, from the early Methodist, John Fletcher who wrote a book on the Spiritual senses that was so good the modern Calvinist, Lloyd-Jones wrote a preface to the paperback version! Secular epistemology will not be all that much help here except to provide excellent analyses of concepts that are necessary for good work. Though see William Alston on "perceiving God." Note also that what I am hinting at are the existential foundations for knowing both God and oneself that God provides for His people once they are regenerated!
Peace!
Jon
This
Stephen Shields wrote:
Chris,
You wrote:
“I would be interested in Jon's take but I would look at Polanyi as an
epistemologist even though that was not necessarily his field per se. I
am not aware of any others who have been influential like Polanyi (but
there are probably others I am unaware of). A Christian scholar who has
incorporated Polanyi's thoughts is Jerry Gill.”
From the Mars Hill Audio offering that was mentioned earlier, I take it that because Polanyi came into philosophy sort of sideways (from chemistry) that he never was entirely accepted by … many?All? In the philosophy field.
Regarding Gill, are you referring to
The Tacit Mode : Michael Polanyi's Postmodern Philosophy (Suny Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought)
?
I had put that in my wish list on Amazon some time ago.
Prompted by your comment I did a search on Jerry Gill and Polanyi in the Web and came up with
“A POST-MODERN EPISTEMOLOGY
Language, Truth, and Body
By Mari Sorri and Jerry Gill
Modern philosophy has been predicated on the assumption that knowledge is exclusively a function of the mind. Using the insights of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michael Polanyi, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, the authors seek to trace out the implications of such a disembodied epistemology and critique the subject-object dichotomy that follows from these assumptions.”
http://www.mellenpress.com/html/sorrpost.html
which looks promising.
I’m looking forward at some time in the future to read Polanyi more as I continue to study other epistemologists.
I would love to see an epistemology that extends beyond the objective, beyond the classroom and helps us love God with all within and others as ourselves (as we love Him with our mind).I’m certain it’s an achievable philosophical objective.Perhaps we can work on that here….
Stephen Shields
sshields@...
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