Re: The Thomas Trap
Moorad Alexanian (alexanian@UNCWIL.EDU)
Sun, 22 Nov 1998 12:05:36 -0500 (EST)
At 09:49 AM 11/21/98 -0500, George Murphy wrote:
>Robin Mandell wrote:
> ............................
>> It is possible and scripture hints that in this case the inherent
>> knowledge is placed in a human by the creator.Not so with
>> geometry.Would not that make it different.
>
> It goes beyond what Scripture says to say that God gave us an "inherent
>knowledge" of the creator. We are able to hear God's Word which tells us
who God is
>and God's will for us. But the problem is that we turn away from that &
construct
>gods for ourselves, which is what Rom.1:18-31 is about. Any appeal to
"inherent
>knowledge" of God, like appeals to a knowledge of God supposedly available
in nature,
>(cf. Kant's "starry heavens above & moral law within") thus are fraught
with danger &
>must continually be checked against & controlled by revelation.
>
>George L. Murphy
>gmurphy@raex.com
>http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
If you have no inherent knowledge of something, there is no amount of
reading or hearing that will allow you learn anything about that something.
I gave the example of the alien who may not understand what love is, a human
experience which is meaningless to science, because it/he/she has no a
priori knowledge of that human feeling. It is true that different people
conclude different things from that a priori knowledge. However, once one
makes conclusions from that inherent knowledge, then one has to test the
"correctness" of those conclusions from the external data and the
conclusions of others. For instance, as you mentioned, the a priori
knowledge of space and time lead Kent to the "incorrect" conclusion that
spacetime is Euclidean. That does not negate the existence of our inherent
knowledge of space and time. I ask you, what does being created in the image
of God mean?
Moorad