Re: knowledge & proof [was "wee people"]

Dave,

I thought of another approach. I hope you find this more congenial, because I appreciate the thoughtful feedback I often get from participants on this list. Also, your comments below helped me see things in a new way:

Dave: ...Begin from the fact that solipsism cannot be disproved, though Descartes' /cogito/ stands. The rest of Descartes is rationalization, the importation of what he had learned from medieval philosophy and claimed to reject. Solipsism is incompatible with the existence of a deity other than oneself. This directly contradicts your claims to know that God exists as surely as you know your own existence.

Don: How do we really know we exist? It's true that it's possible to know we exist from contemplating our own thinking, but in the real world people know they exist long before they're even able to contemplate their thinking. So, to get closer to the truth, Descartes' /cogito ergo sum/ needs to be modified: I interact, therefore I exist. The newborn infant interacts with his parents: they touch, clean, caress, feed, hold, etc., and in so doing they convey the message to the child that he is real. He gets his identity largely through interacting with his parents and other caregivers. "I'm real because real people treat me as though I'm real." Personal interactions reinforce personhood.

My strong claims for knowledge of God's existence have similar roots. The child knows that his parents are at least as real as he is, because he gets his sense of reality from them. By interacting intimately with him they define him. God has interacted intimately with me in such a way that I'm similarly convinced of his reality. Through interaction God redefined me in a manner somewhat similar to the way in which my parents defined me originally. All my personal assurances about personal existence have their roots in these interactions. It would not normally even occur to me to try to get such assurance from contemplating my thinking.

These arguments don't satisfy the solipsism objection, but solipsism's an abstract philosophical concept that I can't take seriously. If that means my dues don't get paid, so be it. Your argument, I think, is that the most compelling way for me to know I exist is to contemplate my thinking; consequently, because of the solipsism possibility, I necessarily know my own existence more compellingly than the existence of any other entity. The above thoughts indicate I don't believe this is how the world works.

In any case, the above thoughts say what I mean when I make strong claims for knowledge of God's existence. If a person outside yourself gives you your sense of personal reality, that person must be as real as you are.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: D. F. Siemens, Jr.<mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
  To: dfwinterstein@msn.com<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 11:26 AM
  Subject: Re: knowledge & proof [was "wee people"]

  Sorry, nowhere close. I tried to explain, but clearly did not succeed. Begin from the fact that solipsism cannot be disproved, though Descartes' /cogito/ stands. The rest of Descartes is rationalization, the importation of what he had learned from medieval philosophy and claimed to reject. Solipsism is incompatible with the existence of a deity other than oneself. This directly contradicts your claims to know that God exists as surely as you know your own existence.
  Dave

  On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 01:57:10 -0800 "Don Winterstein" <dfwinterstein@msn.com<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>> writes:

    Dave,

    I'm not sure what you mean by "'knowledge' in a strict philosopher's sense."

    Some facts are shareable--e.g., physical constants--because people can do their own measurements. Knowing such constants would certainly constitute knowledge by most standards. My dividing line comes between knowledge that is shareable and knowledge that is by its nature subjective. The stuff of knowledge includes facts, abstract relationships (explanations, etc.) and personal relationships. By a "shareable" fact I mean one that can in principle be accessed independently of a particular person's psyche.

    From experience I know that God exists as firmly as I know I exist. So I claim to have proof of God's existence. This experience by its nature is not shareable, so people can benefit from my witness only if they believe me. They can never have my experience, so they can have neither my (subjective) knowledge nor my proof.

    In order to prove anything, the person to whom you are attempting to prove the thing must accept your axioms and presuppositions. For a proof to be truly objective--valid for all imaginable audiences--it should require no axioms or presuppositions. But communication in the ordinary sense is impossible without such, so there can be no proof without such. This is saying that there is no such thing as objective proof of any kind unless there is also an agreed-upon set of basic assumptions.

    If you can get someone to accept your assumptions, you may be able to prove to him that God exists just as the medieval scholastics did, not so? I've observed that people usually undermine proofs by challenging the (usually unstated) assumptions.

    Not that any objective proof of God's existence would have any value. St. Anselm claimed the value of logical proofs was not to convince but to "gladden the understanding." These days we'd simply suspect that one or another of our assumptions might prove unfounded, because we know philosophy is a weak reed to lean on.

    (Are we playing in the same ballpark?)

    Don

      ----- Original Message -----
      From: D. F. Siemens, Jr.<mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
      To: dfwinterstein@msn.com<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>
      Cc: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
      Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 6:45 PM
      Subject: Re: The wee people

      Don,
      I evidently should have explained that I used "knowledge" in a strict philosopher's sense. The common definition (inadequate) is "justified true belief." I have no objection to a looser sense, indeed, am happy to speak of scientific knowledge while recognizing that it may change, though truth is one and unchanging. I should add that there is a relevant difference between the knowledge (loose sense) that may be transmitted from person to person and the inner witness God grants us.

      I say dogmatically that there is no proof of God's existence. Yes, there are evidences, and there are claimed proofs. But some years back I pointed out the hole in a claimed proof. ("A Response to Williams' Theistic Argument," Bulletin of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, 15:37-41 (1992)).The literature contains discussions of the holes in the standard arguments. In the absence of proof we do not know (strict sense) that God exists. Therefore the life of the Christian is one of faith, not knowledge. Note the term "believer" and II Corinthians 5:7. It is Gnostics who claim to know, to have penetrated to esoteric knowledge of ultimate reality.
      Dave
Received on Fri Nov 5 03:52:10 2004