Q U ES TI O N I N G

O U R K N OWL ED G E
THE QUEST FOR REALITY AND SIGNIFICANCE

Book 1 – BEING TRULY HUMAN:

The Limits of our Worth, Power, Freedom and Destiny

Book 2 – F INDING ULTIMATE REALITY:

In Search of the Best Answers to the Biggest Questions

Book 3 – Q
 UESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE:
Can we Know What we Need to Know?

Book 4 – D
 OING WHAT’S RIGHT:
Whose System of Ethics is Good Enough?

Book 5 – C
 LAIMING TO ANSWER:
How One Person Became the Response to our Deepest Questions

Book 6 – S
 UFFERING LIFE’S PAIN:
Facing the Problems of Moral and Natural Evil
 BOOK 3

Q U ES TI O N I N G
O U R K N OWL ED G E
CAN WE KNOW WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW?

DAV I D G O O D I N G
J O H N LEN N OX

Myrtlefield House
Belfast, Northern Ireland
David Gooding and John Lennox have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work.

Questioning Our Knowledge: Can we Know What we Need to Know?

Book 3, The Quest for Reality and Significance
Copyright © Myrtlefield Trust, 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

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are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd., Barnard’s Inn, 86 Fetter Lane,
London, EC4A 1EN, UK.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy
Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division
of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Italics within
Scripture quotations indicate emphasis added. Scripture quotations marked (our
trans.) are as translated by David Gooding. Foreign language quotations marked
(our trans.) are as translated by John Lennox.

Cover design: Frank Gutbrod.

Interior design and composition: Sharon VanLoozenoord.

Published by The Myrtlefield Trust

PO Box 2216
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23 22 21 20 19 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
 DEDICATED TO OUR YOUNGER FELLOW STUDENTS,

REMEMBERING THAT WE WERE ONCE STUDENTS—AND STILL ARE

 CONTENTS

BOOK 3: QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

CAN WE KNOW WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW?

Series Preface xi

Analytical Outline xv

Series Introduction 1

HOW DO WE KNOW ANYTHING?

1 How We Perceive the World 43

2 False Alternatives at the Extremes 67

3 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant 101

4 Reason and Faith 135

WHAT IS TRUTH?
5 In Search of Truth 159

6 Particular Truths and Ultimate Truth 181

7 The Biblical View of Truth 197

8 Truth on Trial 213

POSTMODERNISM
9 Postmodernism, Philosophy and Literature 231

10 Postmodernism and Science 271

Appendix: The Scientific Endeavour 287

Series Bibliography 323

Study Questions for Teachers and Students 355

Scripture Index 373

General Index 375

 ILLUSTRATIONS

I.1. A Rose 5

I.2. The School of Athens by Raphael 10–11

I.3. On the Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin 27

I.4. A Touchstone 32

I.5. An Apple 35

Ap.1. Benzene Molecule 290

Ap.2. Model T Ford Motor Car 307

Ap.3. Milky Way Galaxy 318–19

 SERIES PREFACE

The average student has a problem—many problems in fact, but one

in particular. No longer a child, he or she is entering adult life and
facing the torrent of change that adult independence brings. It can be
exhilarating but sometimes also frightening to have to stand on one’s
own feet, to decide for oneself how to live, what career to follow, what
goals to aim at and what values and principles to adopt.
How are such decisions to be made? Clearly much thought is
needed and increasing knowledge and experience will help. But leave
these basic decisions too long and there is a danger of simply drift-
ing through life and missing out on the character-forming process of
thinking through one’s own worldview. For that is what is needed:
a coherent framework that will give to life a true perspective and
satisfying values and goals. To form such a worldview for oneself,
particularly at a time when society’s traditional ideas and values are
being radically questioned, can be a very daunting task for anyone,
not least university students. After all, worldviews are normally com-
posed of many elements drawn from, among other sources, science,
philosophy, literature, history and religion; and a student cannot be
expected to be an expert in any one of them, let alone in all of them
(indeed, is anyone of us?).
Nevertheless we do not have to wait for the accumulated wis-
dom of life’s later years to see what life’s major issues are; and once
we grasp what they are, it is that much easier to make informed and
wise decisions of every kind. It is as a contribution to that end that
the authors offer this series of books to their younger fellow students.
We intend that each book will stand on its own while also contribut-
ing to the fuller picture provided by the whole series.
So we begin by laying out the issues at stake in an extended intro-
duction that overviews the fundamental questions to be asked, key
voices to be listened to, and why the meaning and nature of ultimate
reality matter to each one of us. For it is inevitable that each one of
us will, at some time and at some level, have to wrestle with the fun-
damental questions of our existence. Are we meant to be here, or is it
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

really by accident that we are? In what sense, if any, do we matter, or

are we simply rather insignificant specks inhabiting an insubstantial
corner of our galaxy? Is there a purpose in it all? And if indeed it does
matter, where would we find reliable answers to these questions?
In Book 1, Being Truly Human, we consider questions surround-
ing the value of humans. Besides thinking about human freedom
and the dangerous way it is often devalued, we consider the nature
and basis of morality and how other moralities compare with one
another. For any discussion of the freedom humans have to choose
raises the question of the power we wield over other humans and also
over nature, sometimes with disastrous consequences. What should
guide our use of power? What, if anything, should limit our choices,
and to what extent can our choices keep us from fulfilling our full
potential and destiny?
The realities of these issues bring before us another problem. It is
not the case that, having developed a worldview, life will unfold before
us automatically and with no new choices. Quite the opposite. All of
us from childhood onward are increasingly faced with the practical
necessity of making ethical decisions about right and wrong, fairness
and injustice, truth and falsity. Such decisions not only affect our in-
dividual relationships with people in our immediate circle: eventu-
ally they play their part in developing the social and moral tone of
each nation and, indeed, of the world. We need, therefore, all the help
we can get in learning how to make truly ethical decisions.
But ethical theory inevitably makes us ask what is the ultimate
authority behind ethics. Who or what has the authority to tell us: you
ought to do this, or you ought not to do that? If we cannot answer
that question satisfactorily, the ethical theory we are following lacks
a sufficiently solid and effective base. Ultimately, the answer to this
question unavoidably leads us to the wider philosophical question:
how are we related to the universe of which we form a part? What
is the nature of ultimate reality? Is there a creator who made us and
built into us our moral awareness, and requires us to live according
to his laws? Or, are human beings the product of mindless, amoral
forces that care nothing about ethics, so that as a human race we are
left to make up our own ethical rules as best we can, and try to get as
much general agreement to them as we can manage, either by per-
suasion or even, regretfully, by force?

xii
 Series Preface

For this reason, we have devoted Book 2, Finding Ultimate Real-

ity, to a discussion of Ultimate Reality; and for comparison we have
selected views and beliefs drawn from various parts of the world and
from different centuries: the Indian philosophy of Shankara; the nat-
ural and moral philosophies of the ancient Greeks, with one exam-
ple of Greek mysticism; modern atheism and naturalism; and finally,
Christian theism.
The perusal of such widely differing views, however, naturally
provokes further questions: how can we know which of them, if any,
is true? And what is truth anyway? Is there such a thing as absolute
truth? And how should we recognise it, even if we encountered it?
That, of course, raises the fundamental question that affects not only
scientific and philosophical theories, but our day-to-day experience
as well: how do we know anything?
The part of philosophy that deals with these questions is known
as epistemology, and to it we devote Book 3, Questioning Our Knowl-
edge. Here we pay special attention to a theory that has found wide
popularity in recent times, namely, postmodernism. We pay close
attention to it, because if it were true (and we think it isn’t) it would
seriously affect not only ethics, but science and the interpretation of
literature.
When it comes to deciding what are the basic ethical principles
that all should universally follow we should observe that we are not
the first generation on earth to have thought about this question.
Book 4, Doing What’s Right, therefore, presents a selection of notable
but diverse ethical theories, so that we may profit from their insights
that are of permanent value; and, at the same time, discern what, if
any, are their weaknesses, or even fallacies.
But any serious consideration of humankind’s ethical behav-
iour will eventually raise another practical problem. As Aristotle ob-
served long ago, ethics can tell us what we ought to do; but by itself
it gives us no adequate power to do it. It is the indisputable fact that,
even when we know that something is ethically right and that it is
our duty to do it, we fail to do it; and contrariwise, when we know
something is wrong and should not be done, we nonetheless go and
do it. Why is that? Unless we can find an answer to this problem,
ethical theory—of whatever kind—will prove ultimately ineffective,
because it is impractical.

xiii
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Therefore, it seemed to us that it would be seriously deficient

to deal with ethics simply as a philosophy that tells us what ethical
standards we ought to attain to in life. Our human plight is that, even
when we know that something is wrong, we go and do it anyway.
How can we overcome this universal weakness?
Jesus Christ, whose emphasis on ethical teaching is unmistaka-
ble, and in some respects unparalleled, nevertheless insisted that eth-
ical teaching is ineffective unless it is preceded by a spiritual rebirth
(see Gospel of John 3). But this brings us into the area of religion, and
many people find that difficult. What right has religion to talk about
ethics, they say, when religion has been the cause of so many wars,
and still leads to much violence? But the same is true of political phi-
losophies—and it does not stop us thinking about politics.
Then there are many religions, and they all claim to offer their
adherents help to fulfil their ethical duties. How can we know if they
are true, and that they offer real hope? It seems to us that, in order
to know whether the help a religion offers is real or not, one would
have to practise that religion and discover it by experience. We, the
authors of this book, are Christians, and we would regard it as im-
pertinent of us to try to describe what other religions mean to their
adherents. Therefore, in Book 5, Claiming to Answer, we confine our-
selves to stating why we think the claims of the Christian gospel are
valid, and the help it offers real.
However, talk of God raises an obvious and very poignant prob-
lem: how can there be a God who cares for justice, when, apparently,
he makes no attempt to put a stop to the injustices that ravage our
world? And how can it be thought that there is an all-loving, all-
powerful, and all-wise creator when so many people suffer such bad
things, inflicted on them not just by man’s cruelty but by natural
disasters and disease? These are certainly difficult questions. It is the
purpose of Book 6, Suffering Life’s Pain, to discuss these difficulties
and to consider possible solutions.
It only remains to point out that every section and subsection of
the book is provided with questions, both to help understanding of
the subject matter and to encourage the widest possible discussion
and debate.
David Gooding
John Lennox

xiv
 ANALYTICAL OUTLINE

SERIES INTRODUCTION 1 PART 1. HOW DO WE KNOW

ANYTHING? 41
The shaping of a worldview for a life full
of choices 3 CHAPTER 1. HOW WE PERCEIVE
THE WORLD 43
Why we need a worldview 3

Asking the fundamental questions 9

How do we know anything? 45

First fundamental worldview The limitations of sense

question: what lies behind the perception 45
observable universe? 12 The role of epistemology 46
Second fundamental worldview A second-order discipline 47
question: how did our world come The rise of scepticism 48
into existence, how has it developed,
Forms of scepticism 50
and how has it come to be populated
with such an amazing variety Socrates 50
of life? 13 Pyrrho (4th–3rd century bc);
Third fundamental worldview Sextus Empiricus (ad c.200) 50
question: what are human beings? Examples of extreme scepticism 52
where do their rationality and moral René Descartes (1596–1650) 52
sense come from? what are their hopes
for the future, and what, if anything, The ‘brain in a vat’ analogy 54
happens to them after death? 14 Thinking more about brains
The fundamental difference between in vats 56
the two groups of answers 15 What then qualifies as
knowledge? 57
Voices to be listened to 16
The voice of intuition 17 How do we perceive the external world? 57

The voice of science 18 Defining perception 58

The voice of philosophy 20 The case for the Representative
Theory of Perception 59
The voice of history 22
Hallucinations 59
The voice of divine self-revelation 24
Mirages 60
The meaning of reality 29
Perceptual error 60
What is the nature of ultimate reality? 34 Perspectival relativity 60
Ourselves as individuals 34 Evaluation 60
Our status in the world 35 Hallucinations 61
Our origin 36 Mirages 62
Our purpose 36 Perceptual error 62
Our search 38 Perspectival relativity 63
Our aim 39 A thought experiment 63
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Final thoughts on the Representative CHAPTER 3. THE EPISTEMOLOGY

Theory of Perception 64 OF IMMANUEL KANT 101
Kant’s metaphysics 103
CHAPTER 2. FALSE ALTERNATIVES
Kant’s distinction between pure
AT THE EXTREMES 67
reason and practical reason 104
Middle ground? 69 Knowing God 107
Idealism and realism 69 Denying knowledge to make room
for faith 109
Idealism 69
Kant’s Copernican revolution 110
Realism 70
Kant’s scientific background 110
Knowledge is subjective and knowledge
William Harvey and the
is objective 72
circulation of the blood 110
Bringing the issue of subjectivity into
Newton’s theory of
focus 73
gravitation 111
Man, the knower, as Subject 73
Kant’s objections to Hume’s
The objective reality of the philosophy 113
universe 74
Sound principles and specific
Rationalism and empiricism 75 knowledge 113
The historical context of the debate 76 Kant’s aims in writing the
The dispute between rationalism Critique 114
and empiricism 78 The irony of Kant’s Copernican
Locke’s epistemological theory 78 revolution 117
The validation of ideas 79 Kant’s basic principles of a priori synthetic
An evaluation of Locke’s knowledge 117
epistemology 80 First Principle: The possibility of
Leibniz’s criticism of Locke 81 a priori synthetic knowledge 117
A serious weakness in Locke’s Analytic propositions 118
epistemology 81 Synthetic propositions 118
Evaluation of Locke’s snowball 84 Kant’s contention 119
Evaluation of Locke’s theory The proposition ‘Everything
about colour 84 which happens has its
Topic for debate: Is the greenness cause’ 119
in the grass? 86 Arithmetical propositions 119
David Hume’s epistemology 89
All geometrical propositions 120
Hume’s philosophy of mind 89 Second Principle: The transcendental
aesthetic 121
Question 1 – How do we grasp
spoken information? 91 Evaluation of the transcendental
aesthetic 122
Question 2 – What am I myself? 92
Third Principle: The transcendental
Question 3 – What causes things? 94 analytic: pure concepts of the
Evaluation of Hume’s billiard balls 96 understanding 123

xvi
 Analytical OUtline

The limits of knowability according The original false turn that humanity
to Kant 124 took in relation to God 153
Epistemology 125 Conditions for knowing God 154
An example: The rainbow 125 The test of genuine knowledge
of God 154
Psychology 127
Practical reason and the soul 128
Cosmology and theology 130 PART 2. WHAT IS TRUTH? 157

The argument from causation CHAPTER 5. IN SEARCH

and the argument from OF TRUTH 159
design 131
What we are looking for 161
Kant’s objection to the argument
from design 132 Our ambivalent attitude to truth 161

Kant’s objections to the argument Objections and rejections 163

from causation 130 Objections to the idea of universal
A critique of Kant’s ‘Critique’ 133 objective truth 163
Reason 1 – The limitations of
CHAPTER 4. REASON AND FAITH 135 language 163
Reason 2 – The limitations of
A fourth false alternative 137
knowledge 163
The limitations of pure reason 138
Reason 3 – The arrogance of
Human reason did not create the so-called objective truth 164
universe 139
Reason 4 – Objective truth
Reason’s underlying authority 140 enslaves 164
The nature of theism’s faith 142 Reason 5 – Claims to objective truth
God’s self-revelation through are elitist and undemocratic 164
creation 144 Some underlying reasons for this
The points raised by Romans rejection of objective truth 164
1:19–21 144 The past enforcement of ideologies
The false charge that men have and religions by sheer power 164
invented God 145 The globalisation of
Basic beliefs 148 knowledge 165

Objections and answers 149

Long-term consequences of the devaluation
of objective truth 166
Some reasons why people are not
aware of God 149 Conventionalism 169
The problem of evil and The definition of truth 170
suffering 149
The correspondence theory of
A basic antagonism to God and truth 170
to the idea of God 150
Aristotle’s view of truth 170
Suppression by peer pressure 150
Bertrand Russell’s view 172
Atrophy 151
The need to distinguish between
Fear 151 objective facts and subjective
The Bible’s major storyline 151 feelings 173

xvii
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

An objection to the Pragmatic truth 201

correspondence theory 173 1 Thessalonians 2:13 201
The subjective element in knowing Truth and true as openness and
the truth 175 honesty 202
The coherence theory of truth 175 Matthew 22:16–17 202
Evaluation of the coherence Mark 5:33 202
theory 176
Truth as integrity 202
The pragmatic theory of truth 178
Exodus 18:21–22 202
Questions remain 179
Jeremiah 9:3–6 202
Zechariah 8:16–17 203
CHAPTER 6. PARTICULAR TRUTHS
AND ULTIMATE TRUTH 181 Truth and true as what is real and
genuine 203
Truth at different levels 183
John 17:3 203
Different kinds of truth? 184
1 Thessalonians 1:9 203
Historical truths 186
True as what is real and eternal 203
Historicism and the truth about John 6:27, 32 203
everything 187 Truth as what is ontologically
The urge to know the whole real 204
story 188 John 4:22–24 204
The historicism of Hegel and True as what is the real thing
Marx 191 as distinct from its symbol 204
Hegel’s basic premise 192 Hebrews 8:1–2 204
Hegel’s philosophy of freedom 193
Different ways of expressing truth 205
Marx’s historicism 196
Poetic truth or truth expressed
A final comment on Hegel and through poetry 205
Marx 196
Propositional truth 206
Truths expressed in precise legal
CHAPTER 7. THE BIBLICAL VIEW
language 207
OF TRUTH 197
Existential truth 208
A preliminary word study 199
Revealed truth 208
Truth as correspondence of words
Creation 208
with the facts 200
The gospel 209
Genesis 42:16 200
Christ is himself the truth 210
John 4:17–18 200
Truth as correspondence of deeds
and words 200 CHAPTER 8. TRUTH ON TRIAL 213

1 John 3:17 200 Coming to face the truth 215

Galatians 2:13–14 201 The trial of Christ 216
Genesis 32:9–10 201 The background to the trial 217
Truth as coherence 201 The trial: first phase—Pilate discovers
Mark 14:56–59 201 the truth 218

xviii
 Analytical OUtline

The arrest (John at 18:1–11) 218 The Christian understanding

The first formal session of the of ‘logos’ 247
court (John 18:28–32) 219 Derrida’s rejection of ‘logos’ 247
Pilate’s first interview with Christ Presence 248
(John 18:33–38) 219 The inescapability of metaphysics 250
A test for truth (John 18:38–40) 221
The assertion that writing precedes speech and
An interval for reflection 222
that signification creates meaning 251
The trial: second phase—Pilate A possible interpretation of Derrida’s
discovers his own responsibility 222
meaning 253
Pilate’s first attempt to release Fitting the idea that signification
Christ (John 19:1–6) 223 creates meaning 254
The priests’ next move (John The idea is not original to
19:7–8) 223 Derrida 255
Pilate’s second interview with Conventionalism 256
Christ (19:9–11) 224
Conventionalism’s first denial 256
Pilate’s final attempts to release
Christ (John 19:12–15) 226 1. A word can denote something
that does not exist, and never did
Questions arising 226
exist, in the world 257
2. Different meanings for the
PART 3. POSTMODERNISM 229 same word in different time
periods 257
CHAPTER 9. POSTMODERNISM,
PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE 231
3. Sometimes a word contains
an evaluation 257
Introduction 233 Animals and plants 258
Literary criticism’s search for Physical things 258
truth 233
Conventionalism’s second
Postmodernism’s relation to denial 259
modernism 234
The laws of mathematics 260
Derrida’s position in the history and
The basic universal moral
practice of literary criticism 236
laws 261
Some basic principles of Derrida’s
Conventionalism’s third
theory of literary criticism 237
denial 261
Prohibition of appeal to the intended meaning
The denial that words have any intrinsic
of the author 237
meaning 262
Limits to the intentional fallacy 240
Exaggerations of reader-response Deconstruction 263

criticism 241 On deconstruction 264

Example 1 – Robert Crosman 242 The first object of its negative,

Example 2 – Stanley Fish 244
subversive criticism 264
The other object of its negative,
The denial of metaphysics 245 subversive criticism 265
Logocentrism 246 Its revolutionary opposition to all
The Stoic understanding of ‘logos’ 247 power and privilege 265

xix
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

What deconstructionists propose APPENDIX: THE SCIENTIFIC

to put in the place of traditional ENDEAVOUR 287
literary criticism 265
The clear voice of science 289
The trouble with deconstructionism’s
demolition of all traditional literary Scientific method 290
criticism 266 Observation and
Deconstruction theory refuses to experimentation 291
have its own principles applied Data, patterns, relationships and
to itself 266 hypotheses 291
Deconstructionism’s self-imposed Induction 293
inability to help anyone appreciate
The role of deduction 296
any literary text 267
Competing hypotheses can cover the
Derrida’s ideal writing 267
same data 298
What he rejects 268 Falsifiability 301
What he accepts and aims at 268
Repeatability and abduction 302
Concluding comment on Derrida 268
Explaining explanations 305
Levels of explanation 305
CHAPTER 10. POSTMODERNISM
AND SCIENCE 271
Reductionism 309

Just another story? 273 Basic operational presuppositions 313

Observation is dependent on
An overreaction to modernism 275
theory 314
A response to postmodernism: is science Knowledge cannot be gained without
a social construct? 276 making certain assumptions to start
Postmodernism’s confusion of with 315
categories 277 Gaining knowledge involves trusting
Postmodernism’s overestimate of the our senses and other people 316
subjectivity of science 278 Gaining scientific knowledge
The Sokal affair 280 involves belief in the rational
The universe is not an intellectual intelligibility of the universe 317
construct 283 Operating within the reigning
paradigms 319
Conclusion: The intellectual incoherence
of the postmodernist illusion 284 Further reading 321

xx
 Q U ES TI O N I N G
O U R K N OWL ED G E
SERIES INTRODUcTION

Our worldview . . . includes our views,

however ill or well thought out, right or
wrong, about the hard yet fascinating
questions of existence and life: What am I
to make of the universe? Where did it come
from? Who am I? Where did I come from?
How do I know things? Do I have any
significance? Do I have any duty?
 THE SHAPING OF A WORLDVIEW
FOR A LIFE FULL OF CHOICES

In this introductory section we are going to consider the need for

each one of us to construct his or her own worldview. We shall dis-
cuss what a worldview is and why it is necessary to form one; and we
shall enquire as to what voices we must listen to as we construct our
worldview. As we set out to examine how we understand the world,
we are also trying to discover whether we can know the ultimate truth
about reality. So each of the subjects in this series will bring us back
to the twin questions of what is real and why it matters whether we
know what is real. We will, therefore, need to ask as we conclude this
introductory section what we mean by ‘reality’ and then to ask: what
is the nature of ultimate reality? 1

WHY WE NEED A WORLDVIEW

There is a tendency in our modern world for education to become a

matter of increasing specialisation. The vast increase of knowledge
during the past century means that unless we specialise in this or that
topic it is very difficult to keep up with, and grasp the significance of,
the ever-increasing flood of new discoveries. In one sense this is to
be welcomed because it is the result of something that in itself is one
of the marvels of our modern world, namely, the fantastic progress
of science and technology.
But while that is so, it is good to remind ourselves that true edu-
cation has a much wider objective than this. If, for instance, we are to
understand the progress of our modern world, we must see it against

1 Please note this Introduction is the same for each book in the series, except for the final sec-
tion—Our Aim.

3
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

the background of the traditions we have inherited from the past and
that will mean that we need to have a good grasp of history.
Sometimes we forget that ancient philosophers faced and
thought deeply about the basic philosophical principles that underlie
all science and came up with answers from which we can still profit.
If we forget this, we might spend a lot of time and effort thinking
through the same problems and not coming up with as good answers
as they did.
Moreover, the role of education is surely to try and understand
how all the various fields of knowledge and experience in life fit to-
gether. To understand a grand painting one needs to see the picture
as a whole and understand the interrelationship of all its details and
not simply concentrate on one of its features.
Moreover, while we rightly insist on the objectivity of science we
must not forget that it is we who are doing the science. And therefore,
sooner or later, we must come to ask how we ourselves fit into the uni-
verse that we are studying. We must not allow ourselves to become
so engrossed in our material world and its related technologies that
we neglect our fellow human beings; for they, as we shall later see, are
more important than the rest of the universe put together.2 The study
of ourselves and our fellow human beings will, of course, take more
than a knowledge of science. It will involve the worlds of philosophy,
sociology, literature, art, music, history and much more besides.
Educationally, therefore, it is an important thing to remember—
and a thrilling thing to ­discover—the interrelation and the unity of
all knowledge. Take, for example, what it means to know what a rose
is: What is the truth about a rose?
To answer the question adequately, we shall have to consult a
whole array of people. First the scientists. We begin with the bota-
nists, who are constantly compiling and revising lists of all the known
plants and flowers in the world and then classifying them in terms of
families and groups. They help us to appreciate our rose by telling us
what family it belongs to and what are its distinctive features.
Next, the plant breeders and gardeners will inform us of the his-
tory of our particular rose, how it was bred from other kinds, and the
conditions under which its sort can best be cultivated.

2 Especially in Book 1 of this series, Being Truly Human.

4
 Series Introduction

FIGURE I.1. A Rose.

In William Shakespeare’s play Romeo
and Juliet, the beloved dismisses the fact
that her lover is from the rival house of
Montague, invoking the beauty of one
of the best known and most favourite
flowers in the world: ‘What’s in a name?
that which we call a rose / By any other
name would smell as sweet’.

Reproduced with permission of © iStock/OGphoto.

Then, the chemists, biochemists, biologists and geneticists will tell

us about the chemical and biochemical constituents of our rose and
the bewildering complexities of its cells, those micro-miniaturised
factories which embody mechanisms more complicated than any
built by human beings, and yet so tiny that we need highly special-
ised equipment to see them. They will tell us about the vast coded
database of genetic information which the cell factories use in order
to produce the building blocks of the rose. They will describe, among
a host of other things, the processes by which the rose lives: how it
photosynthesises sunlight into sugar-borne energy and the mecha-
nisms by which it is pollinated and propagated.
After that, the physicists and cosmologists will tell us that the
chem­icals of which our rose is composed are made up of atoms
which themselves are built from various particles like electrons, pro-
tons and neutrons. They will give us their account of where the basic
material in the universe comes from and how it was formed. If we
ask how such knowledge helps us to understand roses, the cosmolo-
gists may well point out that our earth is the only planet in our solar
system that is able to grow roses! In that respect, as in a multitude
of other respects, our planet is very special—and that is surely some-
thing to be wondered at.
But when the botanists, plant breeders, gardeners, chemists, bio­
chemists, physicists and cosmologists have told us all they can, and
it is a great deal which would fill many volumes, even then many
of us will feel that they will scarcely have begun to tell us the truth

5
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

about roses. Indeed, they have not explained what perhaps most of
us would think is the most important thing about roses: the beauty
of their form, colour and fragrance.
Now here is a very significant thing: scientists can explain the as-
tonishing complexity of the mechanisms which lie behind our senses
of vision and smell that enable us to see roses and detect their scent.
But we don’t need to ask the scientists whether we ought to consider
roses beautiful or not: we can see and smell that for ourselves! We
perceive this by intuition. We just look at the rose and we can at once
see that it is beautiful. We do not need anyone to tell us that it is
beautiful. If anyone were so foolish as to suggest that because science
cannot measure beauty, therefore beauty does not exist, we should
simply say: ‘Don’t be silly.’
But the perception of beauty does not rest on our own intuition
alone. We could also consult the artists. With their highly developed
sense of colour, light and form, they will help us to perceive a depth
and intensity of beauty in a rose that otherwise we might miss. They
can educate our eyes.
Likewise, there are the poets. They, with their finely honed abil-
ity as word artists, will use imagery, metaphor, allusion, rhythm and
rhyme to help us formulate and articulate the feelings we experience
when we look at roses, feelings that otherwise might remain vague
and difficult to express.
Finally, if we wanted to pursue this matter of the beauty of a rose
deeper still, we could talk to the philosophers, especially experts in
aesthetics. For each of us, perceiving that a rose is beautiful is a highly
subjective experience, something that we see and feel at a deep level
inside ourselves. Nevertheless, when we show a rose to other people,
we expect them too to agree that it is beautiful. They usually have no
difficulty in doing so.
From this it would seem that, though the appreciation of beauty
is a highly subjective experience, yet we observe:
1. there are some objective criteria for deciding what is beauti-
ful and what is not;
2. there is in each person an inbuilt aesthetic sense, a capacity
for perceiving beauty; and
3. where some people cannot, or will not, see beauty, in, say, a

6
 Series Introduction

rose, or will even prefer ugliness, it must be that their in-

ternal capacity for seeing beauty is defective or damaged in
some way, as, for instance, by colour blindness or defective
shape recognition, or through some psychological disorder
(like, for instance, people who revel in cruelty, rather than
in kindness).
Now by this time we may think that we have exhausted the truth
about roses; but of course we haven’t. We have thought about the
scientific explanation of roses. We have then considered the value we
place on them, their beauty and what they mean to us. But precisely
because they have meaning and value, they raise another group of
questions about the moral, ethical and eventually spiritual signifi-
cance of what we do with them. Consider, for instance, the following
situations:
First, a woman has used what little spare money she had to buy
some roses. She likes roses intensely and wants to keep them as long
as she can. But a poor neighbour of hers is sick, and she gets a strong
feeling that she ought to give at least some of these roses to her sick
neighbour. So now she has two conflicting instincts within her:
1. an instinct of self-interest: a strong desire to keep the roses
for herself, and
2. an instinctive sense of duty: she ought to love her neighbour
as herself, and therefore give her roses to her neighbour.
Questions arise. Where do these instincts come from? And how
shall she decide between them? Some might argue that her selfish
desire to keep the roses is simply the expression of the blind, but
powerful, basic driving force of evolution: self-propagation. But the
altruistic sense of duty to help her neighbour at the expense of loss
to herself—where does that come from? Why ought she to obey it?
She has a further problem: she must decide one way or the other. She
cannot wait for scientists or philosophers, or indeed anyone else, to
help her. She has to commit herself to some course of action. How
and on what grounds should she decide between the two competing
urges?
Second, a man likes roses, but he has no money to buy them. He
sees that he could steal roses from someone else’s garden in such

7
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

a way that he could be certain that he would never be found out.

Would it be wrong to steal them? If neither the owner of the roses,
nor the police, nor the courts would ever find out that he stole them,
why shouldn’t he steal them? Who has the right to say that it is wrong
to steal?
Third, a man repeatedly gives bunches of roses to a woman whose
husband is abroad on business. The suspicion is that he is giving her
roses in order to tempt her to be disloyal to her husband. That would
be adultery. Is adultery wrong? Always wrong? Who has the right to
say so?
Now to answer questions like these in the first, second, and third
situations thoroughly and adequately we must ask and answer the
most fundamental questions that we can ask about roses (and indeed
about anything else).
Where do roses come from? We human beings did not create
them (and are still far from being able to create anything like them).
Is there a God who designed and created them? Is he their ultimate
owner, who has the right to lay down the rules as to how we should
use them?
Or did roses simply evolve out of eternally existing inorganic
matter, without any plan or purpose behind them, and without any
ultimate owner to lay down the rules as to how they ought to be
used? And if so, is the individual himself free to do what he likes, so
long as no one finds out?
So far, then, we have been answering the simple question ‘What
is the truth about a rose?’ and we have found that to answer it ad-
equately we have had to draw on, not one source of knowledge, like
science or literature, but on many. Even the consideration of roses
has led to deep and fundamental questions about the world beyond
the roses.
It is our answers to these questions which combine to shape the
framework into which we fit all of our knowledge of other things.
That framework, which consists of those ideas, conscious or uncon-
scious, which all of us have about the basic nature of the world and
of ourselves and of society, is called our worldview. It includes our
views, however ill or well thought out, right or wrong, about the hard
yet fascinating questions of existence and life: What am I to make
of the universe? Where did it come from? Who am I? Where did I

8
 Series Introduction

come from? How do I know things?

Do I have any significance? Do I have Our worldview is the big picture
any duty? Our worldview is the big into which we fit everything else. It
picture into which we fit everything is the lens through which we look
else. It is the lens through which we to try to make sense of the world.
look to try to make sense of the world.

ASKING THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS

‘He who will succeed’, said Aristotle, ‘must ask the right questions’;
and so, when it comes to forming a worldview, must we.
It is at least comforting to know that we are not the first people to
have asked such questions. Many others have done so in the past (and
continue to do so in the present). That means they have done some
of the work for us! In order to profit from their thinking and experi-
ence, it will be helpful for us to collect some of those fundamental
questions which have been and are on practically everybody’s list.
We shall then ask why these particular questions have been thought
to be important. After that we shall briefly survey some of the varied
answers that have been given, before we tackle the task of forming
our own answers. So let’s get down to compiling a list of ‘worldview
questions’. First of all there are questions about the universe in gen-
eral and about our home planet Earth in particular.
The Greeks were the first people in Europe to ask scientific ques-
tions about what the earth and the universe are made of, and how
they work. It would appear that they asked their questions for no
other reason than sheer intellectual curiosity. Their research was, as
we would nowadays describe it, disinterested. They were not at first
concerned with any technology that might result from it. Theirs was
pure, not applied, science. We pause to point out that it is still a very
healthy thing for any educational system to maintain a place for pure
science in its curriculum and to foster an attitude of intellectual cu-
riosity for its own sake.
But we cannot afford to limit ourselves to pure science (and even
less to technology, marvellous though it is). Centuries ago Socrates
perceived that. He was initially curious about the universe, but grad-
ually came to feel that studying how human beings ought to behave

9
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

10
 Series Introduction

FIGURE I.2. The School of Athens by Raphael.

Italian Renaissance artist Raphael
likely painted the fresco Scuola
di Atene (The School of Athens),
representing Philosophy, between
1509 and 1511 for the Vatican.
Many interpreters believe the
hand gestures of the central
figures, Plato and Aristotle,
and the books each is holding
respectively, Timaeus and
Nicomachean Ethics, indicate
two approaches to metaphysics.
A number of other great ancient
Greek philosophers are featured
by Raphael in this painting,
­including Socrates (eighth figure
to the left of Plato).

Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

11
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

was far more important than finding out what the moon was made
of. He therefore abandoned physics and immersed himself in moral
philosophy.
On the other hand, the leaders of the major philosophical schools
in ancient Greece came to see that you could not form an adequate
doctrine of human moral behaviour without understanding how hu-
man beings are related both to their cosmic environment and to the
powers and principles that control the universe. In this they were
surely right, which brings us to what was and still is the first funda-
mental question.3

First fundamental worldview question

What lies behind the observable universe? Physics has taught us that
things are not quite what they seem to be. A wooden table, which
looks solid, turns out to be composed of atoms bound together by
powerful forces which operate in the otherwise empty space between
them. Each atom turns out also to be mostly empty space and can be
modelled from one point of view as a nucleus surrounded by orbit-
ing electrons. The nucleus only occupies about one billionth of the
space of the atom. Split the nucleus and we find protons and neutrons.
They turn out to be composed of even stranger quarks and gluons.
Are these the basic building blocks of matter, or are there other even
more mysterious elementary building blocks to be found? That is one
of the exciting quests of modern physics. And even as the search goes
on, another question keeps nagging: what lies behind basic matter
anyway?
The answers that are given to this question fall roughly into two
groups: those that suggest that there is nothing ‘behind’ the basic
matter of the universe, and those that maintain that there certainly
is something.

Group A. There is nothing but matter. It is the prime reality, being

self-existent and eternal. It is not dependent on anything
or on anyone. It is blind and purposeless; nevertheless it
has within it the power to develop and organise itself—
3 See Book 4: Doing What’s Right.

12
 Series Introduction

still blindly and purposelessly—into all the variety of mat-

ter and life that we see in the universe today. This is the
philosophy of materialism.

Group B. Behind matter, which had a beginning, stands some un-

created self-existent, creative Intelligence; or, as Jews and
Muslims would say, God; and Christians, the God and Fa-
ther of the Lord Jesus Christ. This God upholds the uni-
verse, interacts with it, but is not part of it. He is spirit, not
matter. The universe exists as an expression of his mind
and for the purpose of fulfilling his will. This is the phi-
losophy of theism.

Second fundamental worldview question

This leads us to our second fundamental worldview question, which

is in three parts: how did our world come into existence, how has it
developed, and how has it come to be populated with such an amazing
variety of life?
Again, answers to these questions tend to fall into two groups:

Group A. Inanimate matter itself, without any antecedent design or

purpose, formed into that conglomerate which became
the earth and then in some way (not yet observed or un-
derstood) as a result of its own inherent properties and
powers by spontaneous generation spawned life. The ini-
tial lowly life forms then gradually evolved into the pres­
ent vast variety of life through the natural processes of
mutation and natural selection, mechanisms likewise
without any design or purpose. There is, therefore, no ul-
timate rational purpose behind either the existence of the
universe, or of earth and its inhabitants.
Group B. The universe, the solar system and planet Earth have been
designed and precision engineered to make it possible for
life to exist on earth. The astonishing complexity of living
systems, and the awesome sophistication of their mecha-
nisms, point in the same direction.

13
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

It is not difficult to see what different implications the two radi-

cally different views have for human significance and behaviour.

Third fundamental worldview question

The third fundamental worldview question comes, again, as a set of

related questions with the answers commonly given to central ideas
falling into two groups: What are human beings? Where do their ra-
tionality and moral sense come from? What are their hopes for the future,
and what, if anything, happens to them after death?

Group A. Human nature. Human beings are nothing but matter. They
have no spirit and their powers of rational thought have
arisen out of mindless matter by non-rational pro­cesses.
Morality. Man’s sense of morality and duty arise solely out
of social interactions between him and his fellow humans.
Human rights. Human beings have no inherent, natural
rights, but only those that are granted by society or the
government of the day.
Purpose in life. Man makes his own purpose.
The future. The utopia dreamed of and longed for will be
brought about, either by the irresistible outworking of the
forces inherent in matter and/or history; or, alternatively,
as human beings learn to direct and control the biological
processes of evolution itself.
Death and beyond. Death for each individual means total
extinction. Nothing survives.

Group B. Human nature. Human beings are created by God, in-

deed in the image of God (according, at least, to Judaism,
Christianity and Islam). Human beings’ powers of ration-
ality are derived from the divine ‘Logos’ through whom
they were created.
Morality. Their moral sense arises from certain ‘laws of
God’ implanted in them by their Creator.

14
 Series Introduction

Human rights. They have certain inalienable rights which

all other human beings and governments must respect,
simply because they are creatures of God, created in God’s
image.
Purpose in life. Their main purpose in life is to enjoy fel-
lowship with God and to serve God, and likewise to serve
their fellow creatures for their Creator’s sake.
The future. The utopia they long for is not a dream, but a
sure hope based on the Creator’s plan for the redemption
of humankind and of the world.
Death and beyond. Death does not mean extinction. Hu-
man beings, after death, will be held accountable to God.
Their ultimate state will eventually be, either to be with
God in total fellowship in heaven; or to be excluded from
his presence.
These, very broadly speaking, are the questions that people have
asked through the whole of recorded history, and a brief survey of
some of the answers that have been, and still are, given to them.

The fundamental difference between the two groups of answers

Now it is obvious that the two groups of answers given above are dia-
metrically opposed; but we ought to pause here to make sure that we
have understood what exactly the nature and cause of the opposition
is. If we were not thinking carefully, we might jump to the conclusion
that the answers in the A-groups are those given by science, while the
answers in the B-groups are those given by religion. But that would
be a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. It is true that
the majority of scientists today would agree with the answers given in
the A-groups; but there is a growing number of scientists who would
agree with the answers given in the B-groups. It is not therefore a con-
flict between science and religion. It is a difference in the basic phi-
losophies which determine the interpretation of the evidence which
science provides. Atheists will interpret that evidence in one way;
theists (or pantheists) will interpret it in another.
This is understandable. No scientist comes to the task of doing

15
 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

research with a mind completely free of presuppositions. The athe-

ist does research on the presupposition that there is no God. That is
his basic philosophy, his worldview. He claims that he can explain
every­thing without God. He will sometimes say that he cannot im-
agine what kind of scientific evidence there could possibly be for the
existence of God; and not surprisingly he tends not to find any.
The theist, on the other hand, starts by believing in God and finds
in his scientific discoveries abundant—overwhelming, he would
say—­evidence of God’s hand in the sophisti-
cated design and mechanisms of the universe.
We pick up ideas, It all comes down, then, to the impor-
beliefs and attitudes from tance of recognising what worldview we start
our family and society, with. Some of us, who have never yet thought
often without realising deeply about these things, may feel that we
that we have done so, have no worldview, and that we come to life’s
and without recognising questions in general, and science in particular,
how these largely with a completely open mind. But that is un-
unconscious influences likely to be so. We pick up ideas, beliefs and
and presuppositions attitudes from our family and society, often
control our reactions to without realising that we have done so, and
the questions with which without recognising how these largely uncon-
life faces us. scious influences and presuppositions control
our reactions to the questions with which life
faces us. Hence the importance of consciously
thinking through our worldview and of adjusting it where necessary
to take account of the evidence available.
In that process, then, we certainly must listen to science and al-
low it to critique where necessary and to amend our presuppositions.
But to form an adequate worldview we shall need to listen to many
other voices as well.

VOICES TO BE LISTENED TO

So far, then, we have been surveying some worldview questions and

various answers that have been, and still are, given to them. Now we
must face these questions ourselves, and begin to come to our own
decisions about them.

16
 Series Introduction

Our worldview must be our own, in the sense that we have per-
sonally thought it through and adopted it of our own free will. No
one has the right to impose his or her worldview on us by force. The
days are rightly gone when the church could force Galileo to deny
what science had plainly taught him. Gone, too, for the most part,
are the days when the State could force an atheistic worldview on
people on pain of prison and even death. Human rights demand that
people should be free to hold and to propagate by reasoned argument
whatever worldview they believe in—so long, of course, that their
view does not injure other people. We, the authors of this book, hold
a theistic worldview. But we shall not attempt to force our view down
anybody’s throat. We come from a tradition whose basic principle is
‘Let everyone be persuaded in his own mind.’
So we must all make up our own minds and form our own world-
view. In the process of doing so there are a number of voices that we
must listen to.

The voice of intuition

The first voice we must listen to is intuition. There are things in life
that we see and know, not as the result of lengthy philosophical rea-
soning, nor as a result of rigorous scientific experimentation, but by
direct, instinctive intuition. We ‘see’ that a rose is beautiful. We in-
stinctively ‘know’ that child abuse is wrong. A scientist can some-
times ‘see’ what the solution to a problem is going to be even before he
has worked out the scientific technique that will eventually provide
formal proof of it.
A few scientists and philosophers still try to persuade us that the
laws of cause and effect operating in the human brain are completely
deterministic so that our decisions are predetermined: real choice is
not possible. But, say what they will, we ourselves intuitively know
that we do have the ability to make a free choice, whether, say, to read
a book, or to go for a walk, whether to tell the truth or to tell a lie. We
know we are free to take either course of action, and everyone else
knows it too, and acts accordingly. This freedom is such a part of our
innate concept of human dignity and value that we (for the most part)
insist on being treated as responsible human beings and on treating
others as such. For that reason, if we commit a crime, the magistrate

17
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

will first enquire (a) if, when we committed the crime, we knew we
were doing wrong; and (b) whether or not we were acting under du-
ress. The answer to these questions will determine the verdict.
We must, therefore, give due attention to intuition, and not allow
ourselves to be persuaded by pseudo-intellectual arguments to deny
(or affirm) what we intuitively know to be true (or false).
On the other hand, intuition has its limits. It can be mistaken.
When ancient scientists first suggested that the world was a sphere,
even some otherwise great thinkers rejected the idea. They intui-
tively felt that it was absurd to think that there were human beings
on the opposite side of the earth to us, walking ‘upside-down’, their
feet pointed towards our feet (hence the term ‘antipodean’) and their
heads hanging perilously down into empty space! But intuition had
misled them. The scientists who believed in a spherical earth were
right, intuition was wrong.
The lesson is that we need both intuition and science, acting as
checks and balances, the one on the other.

The voice of science

Science speaks to our modern world with a very powerful and au-
thoritative voice. It can proudly point to a string of scintillating theo-
retical breakthroughs which have spawned an almost endless array
of technological spin-offs: from the invention of the light bulb to
virtual-reality environments; from the wheel to the moon-landing
vehicle; from the discovery of aspirin and antibiotics to the crack-
ing of the genetic code; from the vacuum cleaner to the smartphone;
from the abacus to the parallel computer; from the bicycle to the
self-driving car. The benefits that come from these achievements of
science are self-evident, and they both excite our admiration and give
to science an immense credibility.
Yet for many people the voice of science has a certain ambiv-
alence about it. For the achievements of science are not invariably
used for the good of humanity. Indeed, in the past century science
has produced the most hideously efficient weapons of destruction
that the world has ever seen. The laser that is used to restore vision to
the eye can be used to guide missiles with deadly efficiency. This de-
velopment has led in recent times to a strong anti-scientific reaction.

18
 Series Introduction

This is understandable; but we need to guard against the obvious fal-

lacy of blaming science for the misuse made of its discoveries. The
blame for the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, for instance,
does not chiefly lie with the scientists who discovered the possibility
of atomic fission and fusion, but with the politicians who for rea-
sons of global conquest insisted on the discoveries being used for the
making of weapons of mass destruction.
Science, in itself, is morally neutral. Indeed, as scientists who are
Christians would say, it is a form of the worship of God through the
reverent study of his handiwork and is by all means to be encouraged.
It is for that reason that James Clerk Maxwell, the nineteenth-century
Scottish physicist who discovered the famous equations governing
electromagnetic waves which are now called after him, put the fol-
lowing quotation from the Hebrew Psalms above the door of the Cav-
endish Laboratory in Cambridge where it still stands: ‘The works of
the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein’
(Ps 111:2).
We must distinguish, of course, between science as a method of
investigation and individual scientists who actually do the investi-
gation. We must also distinguish between the facts which they es-
tablish beyond (reasonable) doubt and the tentative hypotheses and
theories which they construct on the basis of their
initial observations and experiments, and which
they use to guide their subsequent research. Scientists sometimes
These distinctions are important because sci- mistake their tentative
entists sometimes mistake their tentative theories theories for proven
for proven fact, and in their teaching of students fact, and in their
and in their public lectures promulgate as estab- teaching of students
lished fact what has never actually been proved. and in their public
It can also happen that scientists advance a ten- lectures promulgate
tative theory which catches the attention of the as established fact
media who then put it across to the public with so what has never ac­
much hype that the impression is given that the tually been proved.
theory has been established beyond question.
Then again, we need to remember the proper
limits of science. As we discovered when talking about the beauty of
roses, there are things which science, strictly so called, cannot and
should not be expected to explain.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Sometimes some scientists forget this, and damage the reputa-

tion of science by making wildly exaggerated claims for it. The fa-
mous mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, for instance,
once wrote: ‘Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by
scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind can-
not know.’ 4 Nobel laureate Sir Peter Medawar had a saner and more
realistic view of science. He wrote:
There is no quicker way for a scientist to bring discredit upon
himself and on his profession than roundly to declare—particu-
larly when no declaration of any kind is called for—that science
knows or soon will know the answers to all questions worth ask-
ing, and that the questions that do not admit a scientific answer
are in some way nonquestions or ‘pseudoquestions’ that only
simpletons ask and only the gullible profess to be able to answer.5
Medawar says elsewhere: ‘The existence of a limit to science is,
however, made clear by its inability to answer childlike elementary
questions having to do with first and last things—questions such as
“How did everything begin?”; “What are we all here for?”; “What is
the point of living?”  ’ He adds that it is to imaginative literature and
religion that we must turn for answers to such questions.6
However, when we have said all that should be said about the
limits of science, the voice of science is still one of the most impor-
tant voices to which we must listen in forming our worldview. We
cannot, of course, all be experts in science. But when the experts
report their findings to students in other disciplines or to the general
public, as they increasingly do, we all must listen to them; listen as
critically as we listen to experts in other fields. But we must listen.7

The voice of philosophy

The next voice we must listen to is the voice of philosophy. To some

people the very thought of philosophy is daunting; but actually any-

4 Russell, Religion and Science, 243.

5 Medawar, Advice to a Young Scientist, 31.
6 Medawar, Limits of Science, 59–60.

7 Those who wish to study the topic further are directed to the Appendix in this book: ‘The

Scientific Endeavour’, and to the books by John Lennox noted there.

20
 Series Introduction

one who seriously attempts to investigate the truth of any statement

is already thinking philosophically. Eminent philosopher Anthony
Kenny writes:
Philosophy is exciting because it is the broadest of all disci-
plines, exploring the basic concepts which run through all our
talking and thinking on any topic whatever. Moreover, it can
be undertaken without any special preliminary training or in-
struction; anyone can do philosophy who is willing to think
hard and follow a line of reasoning.8
Whether we realise it or not, the way we think and reason owes a
great deal to philosophy—we have already listened to its voice!
Philosophy has a number of very positive benefits to confer on
us. First and foremost is the shining example of men and women
who have refused to go through life unthinkingly adopting whatever
happened to be the majority view at the time. Socrates said that the
unexamined life is not worth living. These men and women were de-
termined to use all their intellectual powers to try to understand what
the universe was made of, how it worked, what man’s place in it was,
what the essence of human nature was, why we human beings so fre-
quently do wrong and so damage ourselves and society; what could
help us to avoid doing wrong; and what our chief goal in life should
be, our summum bonum (Latin for ‘chief good’). Their zeal to dis-
cover the truth and then to live by it should encourage—perhaps even
shame—us to follow their example.
Secondly, it was in their search for the truth that philosophers
from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle onwards discovered the need for,
and the rules of, rigorous logical thinking. The benefit of this to hu-
manity is incalculable, in that it enables us to learn to think straight,
to expose the presuppositions that lie sometimes unnoticed behind
even our scientific experiments and theories, to unpick the assump-
tions that lurk in the formulation and expressions of our opinions, to
point to fallacies in our argumentation, to detect instances of circu-
lar reasoning, and so on.
However, philosophy, just like science, has its proper limits. It
cannot tell us what axioms or fundamental assumptions we should

8 Kenny, Brief History of Western Philosophy, xi.

21
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

adopt; but it can and will help us to see if the belief system which we
build on those axioms is logically consistent.
There is yet a third benefit to be gained from philosophy. The his-
tory of philosophy shows that, of all the many different philosophical
systems, or worldviews, that have been built up by rigorous philoso-
phers on the basis of human reasoning alone, none has proved con-
vincing to all other philosophers, let alone to the general public. None
has achieved permanence, a fact which can seem very frustrating. But
perhaps the frustration is not altogether bad in that it might lead us to
ask whether there could just be another source of information with-
out which human reason alone is by definition inadequate. And if our
very frustration with philosophy for having seemed at first to promise
so much satisfaction, and then in the end to have delivered so little,
disposes us to look around for that other source of information, even
our frustration could turn out to be a supreme benefit.

The voice of history

Yet another voice to which we must listen is the voice of history. We

are fortunate indeed to be living so far on in the course of human
history as we do. Already in the first century ad a simple form of jet
propulsion was described by Hero of Alexandria. But technology at
that time knew no means of harnessing that discovery to any worth-
while practical purpose. Eighteen hundred years were to pass before
scientists discovered a way of making jet engines powerful enough
to be fitted to aircraft.
When in the 1950s and 1960s scientists, working on the basis
of a discovery of Albert Einstein’s, argued that it would be possible
to make laser beams, and then actually made them, many people
mockingly said that lasers were a solution to a non-existent problem,
because no one could think of a practical use to which they could be
put. History has proved the critics wrong and justified the pure sci-
entists (if pure science needs any justification!).
In other cases history has taught the opposite lesson. At one point
the phlogiston theory of combustion came to be almost universally
accepted. History eventually proved it wrong.
Fanatical religious sects (in spite, be it said, of the explicit pro-
hibition of the Bible) have from time to time predicted that the end

22
 Series Introduction

of the world would take place at such-and-such a time in such-and-

such a place. History has invariably proved them wrong.
In the last century, the philosophical system known as logi-
cal positivism arose like a meteor and seemed set to dominate the
philosophical landscape, superseding all other systems. But history
discovered its fatal flaw, namely that it was based on a verification
principle which allowed only two kinds of meaningful statement:
analytic (a statement which is true by definition, that is a tautology
like ‘a vixen is a female fox’), or synthetic (a statement which is capa-
ble of verification by experiment, like ‘water is composed of hydro-
gen and oxygen’). Thus all metaphysical statements were dismissed
as meaningless! But, as philosopher Karl Popper famously pointed
out, the Verification Principle itself is neither analytic nor synthetic
and so is meaningless! Logical positivism is therefore self-refuting.
Professor Nicholas Fotion, in his article on the topic in The Oxford
Companion to Philosophy, says: ‘By the late 1960s it became obvious
that the movement had pretty much run its course.’ 9
Earlier still, Marx, basing himself on Hegel, applied his dialec-
tical materialism first to matter and then to history. He claimed to
have discovered a law in the workings of social and political history
that would irresistibly lead to the establishment of a utopia on earth;
and millions gave their lives to help forward this process. The verdict
has been that history seems not to know any such irresistible law.
History has also delivered a devastating verdict on the Nazi the-
ory of the supremacy of the Aryan races, which, it was promised,
would lead to a new world order.
History, then, is a very valuable, if sometimes very disconcerting,
adjudicator of our ideas and systems of thought. We should certainly
pay serious heed to its lessons and be grateful for them.
But there is another reason why we should listen to history. It in-
troduces us to the men and women who have proved to be world lead-
ers of thought and whose influence is still a live force among us today.
Among them, of course, is Jesus Christ. He was rejected, as we know,
by his contemporaries and executed. But, then, so was Socrates. Soc­
rates’ influence has lived on; but Christ’s influence has been and still
is infinitely greater than that of Socrates, or of any other world leader.

9 Fotion, ‘Logical Positivism’.

23
 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

It would be very strange if we listened, as we do, to Socrates, Plato,

Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Marx and Einstein, and neglected or refused
to listen to Christ. The numerous (and some very early) manuscripts
of the New Testament make available to us
an authentic record of his teaching. Only ex-
History introduces us to treme prejudice would dismiss him without
the men and women first listening to what he says.
who have proved to be
world leaders of thought The voice of divine self-revelation
and whose influence is
still a live force among The final voice that claims the right to be
us today. . . . It would heard is a voice which runs persistently
be very strange if we through history and refuses to be silenced in
listened, as we do, to claiming that there is another source of in-
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, formation beyond that which intuition, sci-
Hume, Kant, Marx and entific research and philosophical reasoning
Einstein, and neglected or can provide. That voice is the voice of divine
refused to listen to Christ. self-revelation. The claim is that the Creator,
whose existence and power can be intuitively
perceived through his created works, has not
otherwise remained silent and aloof. In the course of the centuries
he has spoken into our world through his prophets and supremely
through Jesus Christ.
Of course, atheists will say that for them this claim seems to be
the stuff of fairy tales; and atheistic scientists will object that there
is no scientific evidence for the existence of a creator (indeed, they
may well claim that assuming the existence of a creator destroys the
foundation of true scientific methodology—for more of that see this
book’s Appendix); and that, therefore, the idea that we could have
direct information from the creator himself is conceptually absurd.
This reaction is, of course, perfectly consistent with the basic as-
sumption of atheism.
However, apparent conceptual absurdity is not proof positive
that something is not possible, or even true. Remember what we
noticed earlier, that many leading thinkers, when they first encoun-
tered the suggestion that the earth was not flat but spherical, rejected
it out of hand because of the conceptual absurdities to which they
imagined it led.

24
 Series Introduction

In the second century ad a certain Lucian of Samosata decided

to debunk what he thought to be fanciful speculations of the early
scientists and the grotesque traveller’s tales of so-called explorers. He
wrote a book which, with his tongue in his cheek, he called Vera his-
toria (A True Story). In it he told how he had travelled through space
to the moon. He discovered that the moon-dwellers had a special
kind of mirror by means of which they could see what people were
doing on earth. They also possessed something like a well shaft by
means of which they could even hear what people on earth were say-
ing. His prose was sober enough, as if he were writing factual history.
But he expected his readers to see that the very conceptual absurdity
of what he claimed to have seen meant that these things were impos-
sible and would forever remain so.
Unknown to him, however, the forces and materials already
existed in nature, which, when mankind learned to harness them,
would send some astronauts into orbit round the moon, land others
on the moon, and make possible radio and television communica-
tion between the moon and the earth!
We should remember, too, that atomic radiation and radio fre-
quency emissions from distant galaxies were not invented by scien-
tists in recent decades. They were there all the time, though invisible
and undetected and not believed in nor even thought of for centu-
ries; but they were not discovered until comparatively recent times,
when brilliant scientists conceived the possibility that, against all
popular expectation, such phenomena might exist. They looked for
them, and found them.
Is it then, after all, so conceptually absurd to think that our hu-
man intellect and rationality come not from mindless matter through
the agency of impersonal unthinking forces, but from a higher per-
sonal intellect and reason?
An old, but still valid, analogy will help us at this point. If we ask
about a particular motor car: ‘Where did this motor car begin?’ one
answer would be, ‘It began on the production lines of such-and-such
a factory and was put together by humans and robots.’
Another, deeper-level, answer would be: ‘It had its beginning in
the mineral from which its constituent parts were made.’
But in the prime sense of beginning, the motor car, of which
this particular motor car is a specimen, had its beginning, not in the

25
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

factory, nor in its basic materials, but in something altogether dif­

fer­ent: in the intelligent mind of a person, that is, of its inventor. We
know this, of course, by history and by experience; but we also know
it intuitively: it is self-evidently true.
Millions of people likewise have felt, and still do feel, that what
Christ and his prophets say about the ‘beginning’ of our human ra-
tionality is similarly self-evidently true: ‘In the beginning was the
Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. . . . All
things were made by him . . .’ (John 1:1–2, our trans.). That is, at any
rate, a far more likely story than that our human intelligence and ra-
tionality sprang originally out of mindless matter, by accidental per-
mutations, selected by unthinking nature.
Now the term ‘Logos’ means both rationality and the expression
of that rationality through intelligible communication. If that rational
intelligence is God and personal, and we humans are endowed by him
with personhood and intelligence, then it is far from being absurd to
think that the divine Logos, whose very nature and function it is to be
the expression and communicator of that intelligence, should com-
municate with us. On the contrary, to deny a priori the possibility of
divine revelation and to shut one’s ears in advance to what Jesus Christ
has to say, before listening to his teaching to see if it is, or is not, self-
evidently true, is not the true scientific attitude, which is to keep an
open mind and explore any reasonable avenue to truth.10
Moreover, the fear that to assume the existence of a creator God
would undermine true scientific methodology is contradicted by
the sheer facts of history. Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626), widely re-
garded as the father of the modern scientific method, believed that
God had revealed himself in two great Books, the Book of Nature
and the Book of God’s Word, the Bible. In his famous Advancement
of Learning (1605), Bacon wrote: ‘Let no man . . . think or maintain,
that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of
God’s word, or in the book of God’s works; divinity or philosophy;
but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in
both.’ 11 It is this quotation which Charles Darwin chose to put at the
front of On the Origin of Species (1859).
10 For the fuller treatment of these questions and related topics, see Book 5 in this series,

Claiming to Answer.
11 Bacon, Advancement of Learning, 8.

26
 Series Introduction

FIGURE I.3.
On the Origin of Species (1859)
by Charles Darwin.
One of the book epigraphs
Charles Darwin selected for
his magnum opus is from
Francis Bacon’s Advancement
of Learning (1605).

Reproduced from Dennis O’Neil.

Historians of science point out that it was this theistic ‘Two-Book’

view which was largely responsible for the meteoric rise of science
beginning in the sixteenth century. C. S. Lewis refers to a statement
by one of the most eminent historians of all time, Sir Alfred North
Whitehead, and says: ‘Professor Whitehead points out that centuries
of belief in a God who combined “the personal energy of Jehovah”
with “the rationality of a Greek philosopher” first produced that firm
expectation of systematic order which rendered possible the birth of
modern science. Men became scientific because they expected Law
in Nature and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in
a Legislator.’12 In other words, theism was the cradle of science. In-
deed, far from thinking that the idea of a creator was conceptually
absurd, most of the great leaders of science in that period did believe
in a creator.

Johannes Kepler 1571–1630 Celestial mechanics

Blaise Pascal 1623–62 Hydrostatics
Robert Boyle 1627–91 Chemistry, Gas dynamics
Isaac Newton 1642–1727 Mathematics, Optics, Dynamics
Michael Faraday 1791–1867 Magnetism
Charles Babbage 1791–1871 Computer science
Gregor Mendel 1822–84 Genetics
Louis Pasteur 1822–95 Bacteriology
Lord Kelvin 1824–1907 Thermodynamics
James Clerk Maxwell 1831–79 Electrodynamics, Thermodynamics

12 Lewis, Miracles, 110.

27
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

All of these famous men would have agreed with Einstein: ‘Sci-
ence without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.’13 His-
tory shows us very clearly, then, that far from belief in God being a
hindrance to science, it has provided one of the main impulses for its
development.
Still today there are many first-rate scientists who are believers in
God. For example, Professor William D. Phillips, Nobel laureate for
Physics 1997, is an active Christian, as is the world-famous botanist
and former Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London,
Sir Ghillean Prance, and so is the geneticist Francis S. Collins, who
was the Director of the National Institutes of Health in the United
States who gained recognition for his leadership of the international
Human Genome Project which culminated in 2003 with the comple-
tion of a finished sequence of human DNA.14
But with many people another objection arises: if one is not sure
that God even exists, would it not be unscientific to go looking for
evidence for God’s existence? Surely not. Take the late Professor Carl
Sagan and the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (the SETI pro-
ject), which he promoted. Sagan was a famous astronomer, but when
he began this search he had no hard-and-fast proven facts to go on.
He proceeded simply on the basis of a hypothesis. If intelligent life
has evolved on earth, then it would be possible, perhaps even likely,
that it would have developed on other suitable planets elsewhere in
the universe. He had no guarantee that it was so, or that he would
find it, even if it existed. But even so both he and NASA (the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration) thought it worth spending
great effort, time and considerable sums of money to employ radio
telescopes to listen to remote galaxies for evidence of intelligent life
elsewhere in the universe.
Why, then, should it be thought any less scientific to look for an
intelligent creator, especially when there is evidence that the uni-
verse bears the imprint of his mind? The only valid excuse for not
seeking for God would be the possession of convincing evidence that
God does not, and could not, exist. No one has such proof.
But for many people divine revelation seems, nonetheless, an u ­ tter

13 Einstein, ‘Science and Religion’.

14 The list could go on, as any Internet search for ‘Christians in science’ will show.

28
 Series Introduction

impossibility, for they have the impression that

science has outgrown the cradle in which it was The only valid excuse
born and somehow proved that there is no God for not seeking for
after all. For that reason, we examine in greater God would be the
detail in the Appendix to this book what science possession of con­
is, what it means to be truly scientific in outlook, vincing evidence that
what science has and has not proved, and some God does not, and
of the fallacious ways in which science is com- could not, exist. No
monly misunderstood. Here we must consider one has such proof.
even larger questions about reality.

THE MEANING OF REALITY

One of the central questions we are setting out to examine is: can we
know the ultimate truth about reality? Before we consider different
aspects of reality, we need to determine what we mean by ‘reality’.
For that purpose let’s start with the way we use the term in ordinary,
everyday language. After that we can move on to consider its use at
higher levels.
In everyday language the noun ‘reality’, the adjective ‘real’, and
the adverb ‘really’ have several different connotations according to
the contexts in which they are used. Let’s think about some examples.
First, in some situations the opposite of ‘real’ is ‘imaginary’ or ‘illu-
sory’. So, for instance, a thirsty traveller in the Sahara may see in the
distance what looks to him like an oasis with water and palm trees,
when in fact there is no oasis there at all. What he thinks he sees is
a mirage, an optical illusion. The oasis is not real, we say; it does not
actually exist.15 Similarly a patient, having been injected with power-
ful drugs in the course of a serious operation, may upon waking up
from the anaesthetic suffer hallucinations, and imagine she sees all
kinds of weird creatures stalking round her room. But if we say, as
we do, that these things which she imagines she sees, are not real, we
15 Mirages occur ‘when sharp differences in temperature and therefore in density develop
between thin layers of air at and immediately above the ground. This causes light to be bent,
or refracted, as it travels through one layer to the next. . . . During the day, when a warm layer
occurs next to the ground, objects near the horizon often appear to be reflected in flat sur-
faces, such as beaches, deserts, roads and water. This produces the shimmering, floating im-
ages which are commonly observed on very hot days.’ Oxford Reference Encyclopaedia, 913.

29
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

mean that they do not in actual fact exist. We could argue, of course,
that something is going on in the patient’s brain, and she is experi-
encing impressions similar to those she would have received if the
weird creatures had been real. Her impressions, then, are real in the
sense that they exist in her brain; but they do not correspond with
the external reality that the patient supposes is creating these sense
impressions. The mechanisms of her brain are presenting her with a
false picture: the weird creatures do not exist. She is not seeing them.
They are not real. On the basis of examples like this (the traveller and
the patient) some philosophers have argued that none of us can ever
be sure that the sense impressions which we think we receive from
the external world are true representations of the external world, and
not illusions. We consider their arguments in detail in Book 3 in this
series, Questioning Our Knowledge, dealing with epistemology and
related matters.
To sum up so far, then: neither the traveller nor the patient was
perceiving external reality as it really was. But the reasons for their fail-
ure were different: with the traveller it was an external illusion (possi-
bly reinforced by his thirst) that made him misread reality and imagine
there was a real oasis there, when there wasn’t. With the patient there
was nothing unusual in the appearance of her room to cause her dis-
ordered perception. The difficulty was altogether internal to her. The
drugs had distorted the perception mechanisms of her brain.
From these two examples we can learn some practical lessons:
1. It is important for us all to question from time to time
whether what we unthinkingly take to be reality is in fact
reality.
2. In cases like these it is external reality that has to be the
standard by which we judge whether our sense perceptions
are true or not.
3. Setting people free from their internal subjective misper-
ceptions will depend on getting them, by some means or
other, to face and perceive the external, objective reality.
Second, in other situations the opposite of ‘real’, in everyday lan-
guage, is ‘counterfeit’, ‘spurious’, ‘ fraudulent’. So if we describe a
piece of metal as being ‘real gold’, we mean that it is genuine gold,
and not something such as brass that looks like gold, but isn’t. The

30
 Series Introduction

practical importance of being able to discern the difference between

what is real in this sense and what is spurious or counterfeit, can eas-
ily be illustrated.
Take coinage, for instance. In past centuries, when coins were
made (or supposed to be made) of real gold, or real silver, fraudsters
would often adulterate the coinage by mixing inferior metal with gold
or silver. Buyers or sellers, if they had no means of testing whether
the coins they were offered were genuine, and of full value, or not,
could easily be cheated.
Similarly, in our modern world counterfeiters print false bank
notes and surreptitiously get them into circulation. Eventually, when
the fraud is discovered, banks and traders refuse the spurious bank
notes, with the result that innocent people are left with worthless
pieces of paper.
Or, again, a dishonest jeweller might show a rich woman a neck-
lace made, according to him, of valuable gems; and the rich, but un-
suspecting, woman might pay a large price for it, only to discover
later on that the gems were not real: they were imitations, made of a
kind of glass called paste, or strass.
Conversely, an elderly woman might take her necklace, made
of real gems, to a jeweller and offer to sell it to him in order to get
some money to maintain herself in her old age. But the unscrupulous
jeweller might make out that the gems were not as valuable as she
thought: they were imitations, made of paste; and by this deceit he
would persuade the reluctant woman to sell him the necklace for a
much lesser price than it was worth.
Once more it will be instructive to study the underlying prin-
ciples at work in these examples, because later on, when we come
to study reality at a higher level, they could provide us with helpful
analogies and thought models.16
Notice, then, that these last three examples involve significantly
different principles from those that were operating in the two which
we studied earlier. The oasis and the weird creatures were not real,
because they did not actually exist in the external world. But the
spurious coins, the fraudulent bank notes, and the genuine and the

16 See especially in Book 2: Finding Ultimate Reality.

31
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

imitation gems, all existed in the external world. In that sense, there-
fore, they were all real, part of the external reality, actual pieces of
matter.
What, then, was the trouble with them? It was that the fraudsters
had claimed for the coins and the bank notes a value and a buying
power that they did not actually possess; and in the case of the two
necklaces the unscrupulous jewellers had on both occasions misrep-
resented the nature of the matter of which the gems were composed.
The question arises: how can people avoid being taken in by such
spurious claims and misrepresentations of matter? It is not difficult
to see how questions like this will become important when we come
to consider the matter of the universe and its properties.
In modern, as in ancient, times, to test whether an object is made
of pure gold or not, use is made of a black, fine-grained, siliceous
stone, called a touchstone. When pure gold is rubbed on this touch-
stone, it leaves behind on the stone streaks of a certain character;
whereas objects made of adulterated gold, or of some baser metal,
will leave behind streaks of a different character.

FIGURE I.4. A Touchstone.

First mentioned by Theophrastus (c.372–c.287 BC)
in his treatise On Stone, touchstones are tablets
of finely grained black stones used to assay or
estimate the proportion of gold or silver in a sample
of metal. Traces of gold can be seen on the stone.

Reproduced from Mauro Cateb/Flickr.

In the ancient world merchants would always carry a touchstone

with them; but even so it would require considerable knowledge and
expertise to interpret the test correctly. When it comes to bank notes
and gems, the imitations may be so cleverly made that only an expert
could tell the difference between the real thing and the false. In that
case non-experts, like ourselves, would have to depend on the judg-
ments of experts.
But what are we to do when the experts disagree? How do we

32
 Series Introduction

decide which experts to trust? Is there any kind of touchstone that

ordinary people can use on the experts themselves, or at least on
their interpretations?
There is one more situation worth investigating at this point be-
fore we begin our main study.
Third, when we are confronted with what purports to be an ac-
count of something that happened in the past and of the causes that
led to its happening, we rightly ask questions: ‘Did this event really
take place? Did it take place in the way that this account says it did?
Was the alleged cause the real cause?’ The difficulty with things that
happened in the past is that we cannot get them to repeat themselves
in the present, and watch them happening all over again in our labo-
ratories. We have therefore to search out and study what evidence is
available and then decide which interpretation of the evidence best
explains what actually happened.
This, of course, is no unusual situation to be in. Detectives, seek-
ing to solve a murder mystery and to discover the real criminal, are
constantly in this situation; and this is what historians and archaeol-
ogists and palaeontologists do all the time. But mistakes can be made
in handling and interpreting the evidence. For instance, in 1980
a man and his wife were camping in the Australian outback, when
a dingo (an Australian wild dog) suddenly attacked and killed their
little child. When, however, the police investigated the matter, they
did not believe the parents’ story; they alleged that the woman herself
had actually killed the child. The courts found her guilty and she was
duly sentenced. But new evidence was discovered that corroborated
the parents’ story, and proved that it really was a dingo that killed
the infant. The couple was not fully and finally exonerated until 2012.
Does this kind of case mean, then, that we cannot ever be certain
that any historical event really happened? Or that we can never be
sure as to its real causes? Of course not! It is beyond all doubt that, for
instance, Napoleon invaded Russia, and that Genghis Khan besieged
Beijing (then called Zhongdu). The question is, as we considered ear-
lier: what kind of evidence must we have in order to be sure that a
historical event really happened?
But enough of these preliminary exercises. It is time now to take
our first step towards answering the question: can we know the ulti-
mate truth about reality?

33
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

WHAT IS THE NATURE OF ULTIMATE REALITY?

We have thought about the meaning of reality in various practical

situations in daily life. Now we must begin to consider reality at the
higher levels of our own individual existence, and that of our fellow
human beings, and eventually that of the whole universe.

Ourselves as individuals

Let’s start with ourselves as individuals. We know we exist. We do

not have to engage in lengthy philosophical discussion before we can
be certain that we exist. We know it intuitively. Indeed, we cannot
logically deny it. If I were to claim ‘I do not exist’, I would, by stating
my claim, refute it. A non-existent person cannot make any claim. If
I didn’t exist, I couldn’t even say ‘I do not exist’, since I have to exist
in order to make the claim. I cannot, therefore, logically affirm my
own non-existence.17
There are other things too which we know about ourselves by
intuition.
First, we are self-conscious, that is, we are aware of ourselves as
separate individuals. I know I am not my brother, or my sister, or
my next-door neighbour. I was born of my parents; but I am not just
an extension of my father and mother. I am a separate individual, a
human being in my own right. My will is not a continuation of their
will, such that, if they will something, I automatically will the same
thing. My will is my own.
My will may be conditioned by many past experiences, most of
which have now passed into my subconscious memory. My will may
well be pressurised by many internal desires or fears, and by external
circumstances. But whatever philosophers of the determinist school
may say, we know in our heart of hearts that we have the power
of choice. Our wills, in that sense, are free. If they weren’t, no one
could ever be held to be guilty for doing wrong, or praised for doing
right.
Second, we are also intuitively aware of ourselves as persons, in-
trinsically different from, and superior to, non-personal things. It is

17 We call this law of logic the law of non-affirmability.

34
 Series Introduction

not a question of size, but of mind and personality. A mountain may

be large, but it is mindless and impersonal. It is composed of non-
rational matter. We are aware of the mountain; it is not aware of us. It
is not aware of itself. It neither loves nor hates, neither anticipates nor
reflects, has no hopes nor fears. Non-rational though it is, if it became
a volcano, it might well destroy us, though we are rational beings. Yet
we should not conclude from the fact that simply because such im-
personal, non-rational matter is larger and more powerful that it is
therefore a higher form of existence than personal, rational human
beings. But it poignantly raises the question: what, then, is the status
of our human existence in this material world and universe?

Our status in the world

We know that we did not always exist. We can remember being little
children. We have watched ourselves growing up to full manhood
and womanhood. We have also observed that sooner or later people
die, and the unthinking earth, unknowingly, becomes their grave.
What then is the significance of the individual human person, and of
his or her comparatively short life on earth?
Some think that it is Mankind, the human race as a whole, that
is the significant phenomenon: the individual counts for very little.
On this view, the human race is like a great fruit tree. Each year it
produces a large crop of apples. All of them are more or less alike.
None is of any particular significance as an individual. Everyone is

FIGURE I.5. An Apple.

Apple trees take four to five years
to produce their first fruit, and it
takes the energy from 50 leaves to
produce one apple. Archaeologists
have found evidence that humans
have been enjoying apples since
before recorded history.

Reproduced with permission of © iStock/ChrisBoswell.

35
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

destined for a very short life before, like the rest of the crop, it is
consumed and forgotten; and so makes room for next year’s crop.
The tree itself lives on, producing crops year after year, in a seemingly
endless cycle of birth, growth and disappearance. On this view
then, the tree is the permanent, significant phenomenon; any one
individual apple is of comparatively little value.

Our origin

But this view of the individual in relation to the race, does not get us
to the root of our question; for the human race too did not always ex-
ist, but had a beginning, and so did the universe itself. This, therefore,
only pushes the question one stage further back: to what ultimately
do the human race as a whole, and the universe itself, owe their ex-
istence? What is the Great Reality behind the non-rational matter of
the universe and behind us rational, personal, individual members
of the human race?
Before we begin to survey the answers that have been given to
this question over the centuries, we should notice that though sci-
ence can point towards an answer, it cannot finally give us a complete
answer. That is not because there is something wrong with science;
the difficulty lies in the nature of things. The most widely accepted
scientific theory nowadays (but not the only one) is that the universe
came into being at the so-called Big Bang. But the theory tells us that
here we encounter a singularity, that is, a point at which the laws of
physics all break down. If that is true, it follows that science by itself
cannot give a scientific account of what lay before, and led to, the Big
Bang, and thus to the universe, and eventually to ourselves as indi-
vidual human beings.

Our purpose

The fact that science cannot answer these questions does not mean, of
course, that they are pseudo-questions and not worth asking. Adam
Schaff, the Polish Marxist philosopher, long ago observed:
What is the meaning of life? What is man’s place in the uni-
verse? It seems difficult to express oneself scientifically on such

36
 Series Introduction

hazy topics. And yet if one should assert ten times over that
these are typical pseudo-problems, problems would remain.18
Yes, surely problems would remain; and they are life’s most im-
portant questions. Suppose by the help of science we could come to
know everything about every atom, every molecule, every cell, every
electrical current, every mechanism in our body and brain. How
much further forward should we be? We should now know what we
are made of, and how we work. But we should still not know what
we are made for.
Suppose for analogy’s sake we woke up one morning to find a
new, empty jeep parked outside our house, with our name written
on it, by some anonymous donor, specifying that it was for our use.
Scientists could describe every atom and molecule it was made of.
Engineers could explain how it worked, and that it was designed for
transporting people. It was obviously intended, therefore, to go places.
But where? Neither science as such, nor engineering as such, could tell
us where we were meant to drive the jeep to. Should we not then need
to discover who the anonymous donor was, and whether the jeep was
ours to do what we liked with, answerable to nobody, or whether the
jeep had been given to us on permanent loan by its maker and owner
with the expectation that we should consult the donor’s intentions,
follow the rules in the driver’s handbook, and in the end be answer-
able to the donor for how we had used it?
That surely is the situation we find ourselves in
as human beings. We are equipped with a magnifi- Must we not ask
cent piece of physical and biological engineering, what our relationship
that is, our body and brain; and we are in the driv- is to whatever we
er’s seat, behind the steering wheel. But we did not owe our existence
make ourselves, nor the ‘machine’ we are in charge to? After all, what
of. Must we not ask what our relationship is to if it turned out to be
whatever we owe our existence to? After all, what if that we owe our
it turned out to be that we owe our existence not to existence not to an
an impersonal what but to a personal who? impersonal what but
To some the latter possibility is instinctively to a personal who?
unattractive if not frightening; they would prefer

18 Schaff, Philosophy of Man, 34 (emphasis added).

37
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

to think that they owe their existence to impersonal material, forces

and processes. But then that view induces in some who hold it its
own peculiar angst. Scientist Jacob Bronowski (1908–74) confessed
to a deep instinctive longing, not simply to exist, but to be a recog-
nisably distinct individual, and not just one among millions of oth-
erwise undifferentiated human beings:
When I say that I want to be myself, I mean as the existentialist
does that I want to be free to be myself. This implies that I want
to be rid of constraints (inner as well as outward constraints)
in order to act in unexpected ways. Yet I do not mean that I
want to act either at random or unpredictably. It is not in these
senses that I want to be free, but in the sense that I want to be
allowed to be different from others. I want to follow my own
way—but I want it to be a way recognisably my own, and not
zig-zag. And I want people to recognise it: I want them to say,
‘How characteristic!’ 19
Yet at the same time he confessed that certain interpretations of
science roused in him a fear that undermined his confidence:
This is where the fulcrum of our fears lies: that man as a spe-
cies and we as thinking men, will be shown to be no more than
a machinery of atoms. We pay lip service to the vital life of
the amoeba and the cheese mite; but what we are defending is
the human claim to have a complex of will and thoughts and
­emotions—to have a mind. . . .
The crisis of confidence . . . springs from each man’s wish to
be a mind and a person, in face of the nagging fear that he is a
mechanism. The central question I ask is this: Can man be both
a machine and a self? 20

Our Search

And so we come back to our original question; but now we clearly

notice that it is a double question: not merely to what or to whom

19 Bronowski, Identity of Man, 14–5.

20 Bronowski, Identity of Man, 7–9.

38
 Series Introduction

does humanity as a whole owe its existence, but what is the status of
the individual human being in relation to the race as a whole and to
the uncountable myriads of individual phenomena that go to make
up the universe? Or, we might ask it another way: what is our sig-
nificance within the reality in which we find ourselves? This is the
ultimate question hanging over every one of our lives, whether we
seek answers or we don’t. The answers we have for it will affect our
thinking in every significant area of life.
These, then, are not merely academic questions irrelevant to
prac­tical living. They lie at the heart of life itself; and naturally in
the course of the centuries notable answers to them have been given,
many of which are held still today around the world.
If we are to try to understand something of the seriously held
views of our fellow human beings, we must try to understand their
views and the reasons for which they hold them. But just here we
must sound a warning that will be necessary to repeat again in the
course of these books: those who start out seriously enquiring for
truth will find that at however lowly a level they start, they will not be
logically able to resist asking what the Ultimate Truth about every­
thing is!
In the spirit of truthfulness and honesty, then, let us say directly
that we, the authors of this book, are Christians. We do not pretend
to be indifferent guides; we commend to you wholeheartedly the an-
swers we have discovered and will tell you why we think the claims
of the Christian gospel are valid, and the help it offers real. This does
not, however, preclude the possibility of our approaching other views
in a spirit of honesty and fairness. We hope that those who do not
share our views will approach them in the same spirit. We can ask
nothing more as we set out together on this quest—in search of real-
ity and significance.

OUR AIM

Our small contribution to this quest is set out in the 6 volumes of this
series. In this, the third book in the series, we consider the fundamen-
tal question that affects not only scientific and philosophical theories,
but our day-to-day experience as well: how do we know anything?

39
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

The part of philosophy that deals with this question is known as epis-
temology, and our first four chapters consider some of its major prob-
lems, key thinkers and big ideas. We take the following four chapters
to look at the question of how we should define truth and whether
there is any such thing as absolute truth. Among the many voices
we listen to, we let the Bible speak for itself, as we look at the various
facets of truth it addresses. We also look in some detail at the trial of
Jesus Christ and its significance for the question of knowing the truth.
Finally, in our last two chapters, we pay close attention to postmod-
ernism, both its theory and its potential to affect ethics, science and
the interpretation of literature.

40
HOW DO WE KNOW ANYTHING?
 CHAPTER 1

HOW WE PERcEIVE
THE WORLD

Epistemology starts by asking how, and by

what means, and to what extent, we can
gain not just opinion but true and certain
knowledge of the world of things around us.
And in that connection it asks if we can know
for certain whether the world of human beings
and things owes its existence to a Creator;
and if so, can we know what he is like?
 HOW DO WE KNOW ANYTHING?

It might well seem a silly question to ask: ‘How do we know any-

thing?’ when in fact we all know that we know ten thousand and
one things and run our daily lives on the basis of knowing them. We
know that the world is full of material things like houses and chairs,
rocks and rivers, vegetables and machines. We know intangible things
like 3 × 3 = 9, and the laws of logic and that other people have minds
as we ourselves have. We know historical things, such as that Caesar
Augustus was emperor at Rome, and that Hitler never succeeded in
capturing St. Petersburg. We instinctively know some moral truths,
such as that it is wrong to torture children; and we know from experi-
ence that not everybody is honest and tells the truth. We even know
hypothetical things, such as what would happen if we were to drive a
car at 120 kph straight into a solid stone wall.
All these things and hundreds more besides, we feel we know
so well that we do not necessarily stop to think how we know them,
or whether we are justified in claiming to know them. We not only
know these things but we believe them to the extent that we are pre-
pared to commit ourselves to acting on the basis of this knowledge.
Life would become impossible if we didn’t. Why, then, should we
bother to discuss how we know things? And why should we be called
upon to justify our claim to know them?

The limitations of sense perception

Some easy examples will help. For centuries the vast majority of peo-
ple believed that the earth was stationary and that the sun went round
the earth. As far as people’s sense perceptions were concerned, no
one felt that the earth was rotating about 1,600 kph and carrying its
inhabitants round the sun at 108,000 kph (no one feels it even now).
Their senses told them that the earth was immobile; but their senses
misled them.

45
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Sight can mislead us. Travellers in a desert sometimes see ahead

what they interpret as an oasis with water and palm trees; but when
they arrive at the spot, there is nothing there but sand. What they
saw was a mirage.1 How, then, can we be certain that our sense per-
ception of the external world is normally reliable?
If, in reaction to this, we try to ignore our senses and rely solely
on reason to get to know the world around us, we shall soon discover
that reason too has its limits. If you are sitting in your room, reason
cannot tell you whether or not there is a red car parked out of sight
round the corner in the next street. To find that out you will have to
go and look—and trust your senses! In cases like this, reason cannot
begin to work until it has got some factual evidence to work on.
At another level, we all know that juries have sometimes reached
wrong verdicts, acquitting the guilty, or condemning the innocent.
Let’s assume that in these cases they did their best to understand
the propositions put before them, and honestly believed that their
verdicts were true. But obviously, sincere belief was not enough to
guarantee they were true. How and by what tests could they rightly
have been expected to justify their belief? Could they ever have been
certain that their belief was true? In some countries the standard set
to juries is that a guilty verdict should be beyond reasonable doubt!
Does it matter if juries can never be absolutely certain that their ver-
dicts are true?

The role of epistemology

The term epistemology comes from two Greek words: epistēmē—

‘knowledge’, and logos—‘science’, or ‘study’. It is the name given to
that branch of philosophy that is concerned not with what we do
believe but with what we are justified in believing.
It starts by asking how, and by what means, and to what extent,
we can gain not just opinion but true and certain knowledge of the
world of things around us. And in that connection it asks if we can
know for certain whether the world of human beings and things
owes its existence to a Creator; and if so, can we know what he is like?

1 For a discussion of this and similar illusions refer to the Series Introduction.

46
 How We Perceive the World

Epistemology also invites us to consider how far our prejudices,

values and even our methods of scientific investigation limit or even
distort the impressions we receive.
Quantum physicists tell us that the very means they must use
to investigate elementary particles so affects those particles that the
scientist cannot simultaneously determine both the location and the
velocity of any one particle. It is also well known that a scientist’s per-
sonal worldview can affect the interpretation he places on the results
of his experiments, and on the theories he forms (see Appendix: ‘The
Scientific Endeavour’).
Epistemology, then, is devoted to challenging our claims to sure
and certain knowledge.

A second-order discipline

It is probably true to say that epistemology is one of the biggest, most

complicated, and therefore most disputed, fields of philosophy. Cer-
tainly at its advanced levels it becomes intensely technical. In this
chapter we shall investigate some, at least, of the major theories and
positions that have been, and still are, held in
this field. We can do no more than that in our
limited space; but we hope to do enough to It is only when we
whet people’s interest to take up the subject have discovered and
themselves and to investigate it further. learned many things,
This much, however, we should under- that epistemology will
stand right from the start: epistemology is a invite us rationally to
second-order, and not a first-order, discipline. justify our beliefs and to
That is to say, we do not first have to under- explain how we know
stand, still less to solve, all the problems that these things to be true.
epistemology raises, before we can usefully be-
gin the fascinating task of understanding the
world around us, and of making valid discoveries about ultimate re-
ality and how we are related to it. It is only when we have discovered
and learned many things, that epistemology will invite us rationally
to justify our beliefs and to explain how we know these things to be
true. In other words epistemology does not lay down how we should
go about discovering new knowledge. It invites us to test the knowl-
edge that we believe we have discovered to see if it is true knowledge.

47
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Look at the progress of life itself. A baby is born with an instinc-

tive urge to get to know and understand itself and the world around
it. Watch a baby grab hold of its foot, bring it to its mouth, and so
begin to discover that this thing, whatever it is, is a part of itself.
Listen to a child interminably asking ‘Why this? Why that?’ It is, in
fact, astonishing how much a child has learned by the time it is five
(without having studied the abstract theories of epistemology about
how we can justify our claim to know anything!). Much of what it
has learned, moreover, will prove to be permanently valid, though
from time to time, of course, critical reflection will rightly modify, or
even eliminate, some of its beliefs.
Similarly at the other extreme, it would be a methodological
mistake for scientists to regard epistemology as a first-order disci-
pline, and to feel that, before they may rightly attempt to make any
discovery, they must first solve by abstract reasoning epistemology’s
theoretical question ‘How can we have any true perception of the ex-
ternal world?’ Instead they adopt what epistemologist Edmund Hus-
serl (1859–1938) described and commended as the proper standpoint
for scientists to take, the ‘dogmatic standpoint’ as he called it:
The right attitude to take in the pre-philosophical, and, in a
good sense, dogmatic sphere of inquiry, to which all empirical
sciences (but not these alone) belong, is in full consciousness
to discard all scepticism together with all ‘natural philosophy’
and ‘theory of knowledge’, and find the data of knowledge there
where they actually face you, whatever difficulties epistemolog-
ical reflection may subsequently raise concerning the possibility
of such data being there.2

SCEPTICISM

The rise of scepticism

As far as Europe is concerned it was some of the early Greek philoso-

phers who first became aware that there are questions to be asked
about the means we have to get to know the world around us. And so
2 Ideas, 95 f., emphasis in original.

48
 How We Perceive the World

epistemology was born. However, it was not long after that that scep-
ticism raised its head. Now the Greek verb skeptomai, from which the
noun scepticism is derived, basically means ‘to investigate carefully’,
or ‘to examine critically’; but the noun ‘scepticism’ came eventually to
denote the philosophical attitude that claims that nothing at all can
be known for certain. The best we can achieve is to have more or less
right opinions about the practical concerns of life; but beyond that
we must reserve our judgment.
It came about this way. At first the early Greek thinkers studied
the universe as they saw it and tried to work out what it was made
of and how it worked.3 It did not occur to them to question that they
had direct apprehension of the world around them. They took it for
granted that the world was what it appeared to them to be. Their aim
was to probe beneath its surface and discover the basic substance or
substances of which it was made, and the processes that kept it work-
ing together as one harmonious whole.
But then, one of them, Heraclitus, came up with the theory that
the universe is held together in tension by an alternating flux be-
tween equal and opposite forces. Heat is presently overcome by cold,
and cold eventually by heat, and so on, thus maintaining an equilib-
rium. That means, as he saw it, that everything is constantly chang-
ing. How, then, other philosophers, like Plato, asked, can you have
full and certain knowledge of anything in the world, if that thing,
and the world itself, is constantly (even if imperceptibly) changing?
All you can have is a more or less right opinion about it.
Parmenides, by contrast, maintained that change is an illusion.
Our senses tell us that change is everywhere taking place; but our
senses, he said, deceive us. Reason, so he claimed, proves that change
is impossible. We must, therefore, if we would have true knowledge
of the world, trust reason and not our senses.
Difficulties arose with contrasting views like these. Schools of
philosophy were formed, and each maintained that its theory was
the only right one, claimed to prove it by a long string of arguments
and taught it to its students as dogma.
Almost inevitably this conflict of rival dogmas led to scepticism

3 For further discussion of all of the Greek thinkers mentioned, see Book 2 in this series:

Finding Ultimate Reality, Ch. 2.

49
 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

among other philosophers. It is an epistemological stance still advo-

cated by some thinkers today.
Scepticism comes in various strengths, from mild and limited, to
strong and extreme. As we consider some of those forms, we should
observe, among other things, their motivation.

Socrates ( 470–399 bc )

Later members of Plato’s Academy held that Socrates himself was a

sceptic, because he went about questioning prominent people in the
city who thought they knew the answers to life’s big questions, such
as what is justice, and courage, etc. He soon was able to expose the
fact that their claim to knowledge was invalid; but when they rounded
on him and asked him what the answers were, he would reply that he
didn’t know either. The result was that he publicly embarrassed many
prominent ‘experts’ and demolished generally accepted, but un-
thought-out, beliefs. Unfortunately, some
young men at the time got the impression that
Socrates did not rejoice the role of philosophy was simply to debunk
in his ignorance, or traditional moral beliefs, without putting any-
suppose that life’s great thing else in their place.
questions were necessarily That, in fact, was the last thing Socrates
unanswerable, and make intended to do. Apollo’s oracle at Delphi had
that an excuse for not declared him to be the wisest man on earth;
continuing vigorously and he had taken that to mean that his wis-
to seek the truth. His dom lay in the fact that he knew that he did
awareness of his own not know, whereas others thought they did
ignorance acted for him know when they didn’t. But Socrates did not
as a spur to seek the truth. rejoice in his ignorance, or suppose that life’s
great questions were necessarily unanswera-
ble, and make that an excuse for not continu-
ing vigorously to seek the truth. His awareness of his own ignorance
acted for him as a spur to seek the truth; and he hoped that when
he showed other people that their current beliefs were not true, the
shock of their demonstrated ignorance would act as a similar spur
to them. His scepticism, therefore, if we may call it so, was of a very
healthy kind. All of us need a dose of it from time to time in order to
challenge our invalid beliefs and to spur us to seek the truth.

50
 How We Perceive the World

Pyrrho ( 4th–3rd century bc ); Sextus Empiricus ( ad c.200 )

Pyrrho was the first representative of so-called Pyrrhonian scepti-

cism. Amid the welter of contemporary philosophical theories he ar-
gued that the reasons in favour of a belief are never better than those
against—hence he refused to commit himself to any positive belief.
Centuries later Sextus Empiricus wrote a number of works de-
tailing the historical development of this school of scepticism. He
compiled a long series of arguments, arranged formally in groups,
that his adherents could then have ready to hand to justify their scep-
ticism, by presenting on each occasion contradictory claims about
the same subject. Let’s take a couple of examples.
The same tower, they pointed out, that from a distance looks
round, will from near at hand look square. In other words the same
faculty of sight that claimed the tower to be round, now claims it to
be square. From this they deduced that you cannot trust eyesight.
Or take human sacrifice to the gods. The Scythians argued that it
was right; the Greeks that it was wrong. In other words moral argu-
ments of similar (so they claimed) strength could be used to support
directly opposite views.
We need not stop to critique the arguments they used to support
their form of scepticism. The interesting thing to notice here is what
they aimed to achieve by their scepticism, namely, a state of unper-
turbedness, happiness and peace of mind—what the Greeks called
ataraxia. It was not that this blissful state of mind was simply the
natural result of their philosophical thinking. It was that they delib-
erately designed their process of thinking to make sure it achieved
this result. That process was in three stages:
Stage 1 a ntithesis: that is, the deliberate collection and
presentation of contradictory claims about any one
and the same subject.
Stage 2 e pochē: that is, suspension of judgment, on the
grounds that, the arguments for and against being
of equal strength, it was impossible rationally to
decide which was right.
Stage 3 a taraxia: unperturbedness, peace of mind. One is
then freed from dogmatism and can live peacefully

51
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

in the world, following one’s own inclinations and fit-

ting in with the laws and customs of any society one
happens to be living in.
It is to be feared that many people still in our modern world
practise this same kind of scepticism, and do so for the same rea-
son. Thinking seriously about life’s big questions and deciding ration-
ally between different worldviews can be hard work; and if it means
questioning the generally accepted but unthought-out views of con-
temporary society, it can unsettle one’s peace of mind. Many people,
therefore, take up the sceptic’s stance and so justify their refusal to
think about life’s big questions. But it is the coward’s way out.
On the other hand, some serious modern philosophers, whom
no one would ever think of charging with cowardice, have come to
the conclusion after vigorous thinking that some form of partial (if
not complete) scepticism is unavoidable.

René Descartes ( 1596–1650 )

Descartes has a reputation for extreme, if not obsessive, doubt and

scepticism, but it is not really deserved. His great masterpiece, Medi-
tations on First Philosophy (published in 1641), sets out the core of his
philosophical system. In the Synopsis to that work he wrote:
The purpose of my arguments is not that they prove what they
establish—that there really is a world and that human beings
have bodies and so on—since no one has ever seriously doubted
these things.4
To understand, then, the famous passages in which he describes
his doubts, we must see them against his background. As a boy he
was thoroughly trained in the dogmatic scholastic philosophy of the
time, about which he later wrote:
I observed with regard to philosophy that despite being culti-
vated for many centuries by the best minds, it contained no
point which was not disputed and hence doubtful.5

4 Cited in Cottingham, ‘Descartes’, 202.

5 Discourse, part 1, cited in Cottingham, ‘Descartes’, 201.

52
 How We Perceive the World

From the title of this work (Discourse on the Method of Rightly

­ onducting Reason and Reaching the Truth in the Sciences) we can at
C
once see that Descartes’ predominant interest was in science, rather
than in philosophy strictly so-called. For him the precision of mathe-
matical reasoning was more attractive, and yielded more certain results,
than philosophical argument had hitherto achieved. He confesses:
those long chains, composed of very simple and easy reason-
ings, which geometers customarily use to arrive at their most
difficult demonstrations, gave me occasion to suppose that all
the things which fall within the scope of human knowledge are
interconnected in the same way.6
His book Le Monde (‘The World’, or ‘The Universe’), composed
in the early 1630s, dealt with physics and cosmology. In it he aban-
doned the centuries long Aristotelian tradition that from the moon
upwards the motion of the heavenly bodies was divinely perfect,
whereas sublunary motion was imperfect. He held that the matter of
the universe was the same throughout, and obeyed uniform physical
laws. He therefore offered a comprehensive explanation of the uni-
verse based on simple mechanical principles.7
His project, however, of explaining the workings of the universe
on the basis of strictly logical mathematical and mechanical princi-
ples, naturally ran up against the difficulties posed by the vague and
often misleading impressions of the external world that we receive
through our senses (like the straight stick that in water appears bent).
Descartes therefore set himself to the task of leading the mind away
from the senses, since, as he puts it:
the senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to
trust wholly those who have deceived us even once.8
Even so he concedes, that in spite of the fact that visual appear-
ances may mislead us, in many situations doubt would be absurd.
For instance, he observed that no argument, however strong, based
on the supposed unreliability of the senses, could cause him to doubt

6 Discourse, part 2, cited in Cottingham, ‘Descartes’, 201.

7 In his time such views were dangerous; and on hearing of Galileo’s condemnation he with-
drew his book from publication.
8 Meditations, Meditation 1, cited in Cottingham, ‘Descartes’, 202.

53
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

that he was at that moment sitting by the fire holding a piece of paper
in his hands.
It was at that point, then, and in pursuit of doubting all that could
reasonably—and unreasonably—be doubted, in order to find and es-
tablish a ground of knowledge that could not possibly be doubted,
that he set about conjuring up doubts in what he called their most
‘hyperbolical’, or exaggerated form.
He began by admitting that ‘there are no certain marks to dis-
tinguish being awake from being asleep’; and that therefore, though
he believed he was sitting by his fireside, he might in fact be in bed
dreaming that he was sitting by his fireside.
From that he proceeded to raise radical doubts about whole
classes of external objects and ended up by deliberately imagining
the possibility that he was being systematically deceived by a mali-
cious demon bent on tricking him in every possible way. Perhaps,
he says, ‘the sky, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external
things’ are nothing but ‘the delusions of dreams which he has de-
vised to ensnare my judgment ’.9
His thought experiment was severe; but at last he reached a firm
foundation for certain, indubitable knowledge: he could not doubt
that he was doubting! And if he was doubting, then he existed, for
if he didn’t exist he couldn’t doubt. He expressed that certainty in a
phrase that has since become famous: ‘Cogito, ergo sum’, ‘I am think-
ing, therefore I exist’.
Descartes recognised, of course, that certainty attained on this
basis was but temporary: he could be sure of his existence only as
long as he was doubting. But starting from this small glimpse of cer-
tainty, he endeavoured to construct a whole system of reliable knowl-
edge. Its ultimate guarantee was the existence and character of God
who would not allow his creature to be demonically deceived as to
the reality of God and his creation.

The ‘brain in a vat’ analogy

A modern form of extreme scepticism substitutes for Descartes’ ‘evil

demon’ argument, the so-called ‘brain-in-a-vat’ argument. This al-

9 ‘Descartes’, 202.

54
 How We Perceive the World

leges that what I have hitherto taken for granted to be my genuine

experience of the external world would be no different if the actual
fact was that my brain had been removed from my body, placed in a
vat of nutrients, and wired up to a computer that was providing me
with a coherent sequence of nevertheless misleading experiences. In
that case, the sceptic points out, any evidence I might appeal to, any
argument I might use, to prove I was not a brain in a vat, could have
been planted in my brain by the computer. How then, the sceptic asks,
can you prove your brain is not in fact in some such analogous condi-
tion? ‘Unless you can prove it’, he adds, ‘your claims to have genuine,
day-to-day knowledge of the external world are illegitimate. And (he
asserts as a parting shot) you have no hope of proving it.’
Commenting on this, and other sceptical arguments Professor
C. J. Hookway remarks:
Of course, such challenges have no role in our ordinary prac-
tice of making and defending views: if we were to invoke them,
we would appear silly or mad.10
Quite so. Most people would agree. But Hookway continues:
But the significance of this is unclear: it might be a sign that
these sceptical doubts are unnatural or improper, that the le-
gitimacy of our beliefs is not affected by our ignoring them. If
that is correct, then we could safely avoid any engagement with
arguments in the sceptical canon.11
Once more, many people would agree that such sceptical argu-
ments are unnatural and improper. But Hookway himself seems to
regard scepticism as unanswerable:
If, on the other hand, it simply reflects the ways in which we
cope practically with the fact that scepticism is unanswerable
(by ignoring it), then it would be evasion of responsibility to
ignore sceptical arguments . . . Several contemporary philos-
ophers, notably Barry Stroud, suspect that scepticism may be
unavoidable.12

10 ‘Scepticism’, 795.
11 ‘Scepticism’, 795.
12 ‘Scepticism’.

55
 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Hilary Putnam, on the other hand, has argued that a brain in a

vat could not even formulate the thought that it is one.13
More deserves to be said, at least from a practical point of view,
about the ‘brain-in-a-vat’ analogy. I am a
human being with a human brain. So is the
These deceptive computers sceptic. He suggests that my human brain
in the sceptic’s analogy, might be like a brain in a vat, wired up to
that feed our human brains a computer that is constantly feeding my
with false ideas, what or brain with misleading experiences. Well, if
whom do they represent? my human brain is like that, so is his: for
In real life computers have what ground has he for thinking that his
to be programmed by brain is different from mine? And if his
intelligent beings. Who brain too is wired up to a computer that is
is supposed to have feeding it with false experiences, then his
programmed the computers very suggestion that I should regard my
in the sceptic’s analogy? brain as being in a vat comes from a simi-
larly deceptive computer. In other words, if
I, for the sake of argument, accept his hy-
pothetical analogy, I must conclude that his proposed analogy itself
comes from a deceptive source and is perverse, and that he cannot
prove it is not. Why should I believe it? Any further discussion would
be useless.
And then there is another point. These deceptive computers in
the sceptic’s analogy, that feed our human brains with false ideas,
what or whom do they represent? In real life computers have to be
programmed by intelligent beings. Who is supposed to have pro-
grammed the computers in the sceptic’s analogy?
There is, of course, no need to push the details of the analogy
beyond what it was intended to illustrate. But if there were any truth
in the analogy as a whole, it would spell the end of all philosophical,
scientific and practical reason.
But the analogy is useful, for it drives us to decide what, in real
life, is the source and status of human rationality. If human rational-
ity is the gift of God, the Creator, and is used in true dependence on
him, then we can be sure it is an essentially good, healthy and reli-

13 Reason, Truth and History, Ch. 1.

56
 How We Perceive the World

able instrument. But if we start out with the assumption that there is
no God and that human rationality is the product of mindless forces
and that it must not allow the existence of God any place in its pre-
suppositions, then we must not be surprised if extreme scepticism
uses its powers of reason ultimately to argue that human rationality
is invalid and deceptive.

What then qualifies as knowledge?

The philosopher G. E. Moore (1873–1958) was impatient with scep-

tical arguments that we could not know for certain that there is an
external world. Holding up his hands before him, he affirmed his
knowledge that he had two hands, and, since hands were objects in
the external world, he concluded that there was an external world.
According to C. J. Hookway,14 some philosophers admire Moore’s
robust claim that our knowledge that there is an external world is di-
rect, instinctive and incorrigible: it needs no defence. Others have
criticised it. At the level of everyday practical life, they admit, it needs
no defence; but at the philosophical level it does. But that raises the
question of the relation of philosophy to daily life. Is it really so, that
we have no right to be certain that there is an everyday external world
until philosophy has proved that there either is, or isn’t?
Wittgenstein15 stated that the certainty of the existence of the
external world stood fast for him as it did for Moore. His criticism of
Moore was that Moore should not have called his certainty knowl-
edge. However, it is difficult to think that no one has the right to
claim to know, for example, that the sun exists until philosophy has
first proved it does.

HOW WE PERCEIVE THE EXTERNAL WORLD

By ‘external world’ we mean, of course, the objective world around us:

the world of people, things, events and facts. That being so, the com-
mon sense answer to the question ‘how do we perceive the external
14 ‘Scepticism’.
15 On Certainty, para. 151.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

world?’ would be ‘through our senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and
smell; and then by study and classification of the information with
which the external world provides us through those senses’.
But, as usual, to the philosopher things are not quite so simple.
Philosophers seek to understand the actual process that is going on
when we perceive something in the external world; and even at this
primary level there is already a difference of opinion.

Direct Realism and the Representative Theory of Perception

At one extreme in the debate stands Naive, or, Direct Realism. It as-
serts that under normal conditions we have direct perception of the
external world. I see a tree, for instance, and I perceive its existence
and its qualities simply by looking directly at it, touching it, smelling
it even.
At the other extreme in the debate stands the Representative
Theory of Perception. It asserts that we never perceive a tree, or any-
thing else, directly. When we look at a tree, what happens is that
our minds receive certain subjective impressions or representations
of the tree; and it is these subjective representations—sense-data as
they are called—that we directly and most immediately perceive, not
the objective tree itself. And it is on these sense-data that we depend
for our knowledge of the tree. Some philosophers who espouse this
theory liken it to watching a football match, not directly, but on a
television screen, but this theory does not claim that we are neces-
sarily conscious of these subjective sense-data, as we would be of a
television screen, or that we formally infer from the sense-data the
existence and the features of the tree. But nonetheless it maintains
that this is what is really happening; what we perceive are simply
these subjective sense-data, not the tree itself, and our knowledge of
the tree is built on them.
The implication of this theory should now be clear: if it were
true, we could never check the accuracy of our subjective impres-
sions of the objective world against the objective world itself, because
however much we studied the objective world we would never per-
ceive it itself, but only some subjective impression of it. We might
decide that one set of sense-data were better than another (though
by what standard should we judge?); but we could never be sure that

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 How We Perceive the World

any set of sense-data represented the objective reality with complete

accuracy.

Defining perception

Before we try to understand the two extremes in the debate and to

assess their comparative value, we ought to decide what is meant by
‘perception’, because it seems to be used in different senses in differ-
ent contexts.
Sometimes it is used as though it meant no more than ‘seeing’,
even when ‘seeing’ is being used in its basic visual sense:
‘The doctor saw the telltale signs that the body had been poisoned.’
‘The doctor perceived the telltale signs that . . .’
But often ‘perception’ implies a simultaneous gathering of infor-
mation from an observation that ‘seeing’ does not necessarily im-
ply. So it would make sense to say ‘He saw his wife dressed up in this
strange clothing, but did not realise that it was his wife’; but it would
not make sense to say ‘He perceived his wife dressed up in this strange
clothing but did not realise that it was his wife.’ ‘Perceiving’ his wife
here means recognising that it was his wife.
Again, there is a difference between seeing an event and seeing
a fact about that event. One can see a robbery taking place without
necessarily realising that it is a robbery. But one cannot say, coher-
ently, ‘I saw the fact that a robbery was taking place, but I did not
realise that it was a robbery.’ When it comes to observing facts, then,
‘seeing’ and ‘perceiving’ carry the same implication of understanding.
The word ‘perceive’ can also be used of seeing through or past
obstacles or outward appearances and catching sight of the reality be-
hind them. So behind what you at first thought was foliage, you might
perceive a camouflaged soldier.
In our discussion of the Representative Theory of Perception
(hereafter referred to by the initials RTP) we must from time to time
ask ourselves in what sense the term ‘perception’ is being used.

The case for the Representative Theory of Perception

The case for RTP is built largely on the claim that it can explain illu-
sionary experiences better than Direct Realism can.

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 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Hallucinations
During some illnesses, or through drug taking, people can experience
hallucinations. They may see a red, white and blue polka-dotted snake
coming at them through a hole in their bedroom wall and be con-
vinced that it is real, though of course it is non-existent. RTP alleges
that Direct Realism cannot account for this
type of experience, for Direct Realism claims
During some illnesses, that we have direct visual perception of the ex-
or through drug taking, ternal objective world. If, then, that were so,
people can experience how could it ever explain how anyone could see
hallucinations. They a red, white and blue polka-dotted snake, when
may see a red, white such things don’t exist in the external world?
and blue polka-dotted RTP claims that it can explain this state of
snake coming at them affairs.
through a hole in their Neither in hallucination nor in genuine
bedroom wall and be vision is the observer directly perceiving the
convinced that it is real, objective reality of the external world. In both
though of course it is cases what the observer is directly aware of is
non-existent. the subjective sense-data in his own brain. The
difference is that in genuine vision the cause of
the sense-data is an objective reality, outside of the viewer, whereas
in hallucination the cause of the sense-data is some subjective distur-
bance in the observer’s brain, drugs in the bloodstream or psycho-
logical maladjustment. Since RTP can explain what Direct Realism
cannot, so the argument goes, RTP must be correct.

Mirages
Travelling on a long, straight road in the heat of summer, many people
have on occasions seen ahead what looked to them like a large sheet of
water. Arriving at the spot, they have found no water there. The fact is,
they have simply seen a mirage. On this basis RTP claims that when
they saw the water ahead, they could not have been directly perceiv-
ing objective reality. Direct Realism, therefore, it is alleged, must be
wrong in this case.

Perceptual error
A straight stick, dipped in water, will appear bent, though it is not. Ac-
cording to RTP, you could not have been in direct perceptual contact

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 How We Perceive the World

with the stick when it appeared bent. Direct Realism is wrong again,
so it seems.

Perspectival relativity
Looked at directly from above, a square table will appear square.
Stand at one corner, and look diagonally across to the other corner,
and the table will appear to be rhomboid. But the table cannot ob-
jectively have both shapes. Therefore, Direct Realism’s theory that
we have direct perceptual contact with objective reality, must have
been wrong on one of these occasions; and if on this one occasion,
how can we be sure that it will not be wrong on hundreds of other
occasions as well?

Evaluation of the Representative Theory of Perception

If these, then, are the main arguments in favour of RTP, how cogent
are they? Let’s review them.

Hallucinations
No one, not even extreme naïve realists, would deny that our visual
mechanisms can, at times, be distorted through drugs or illness. All
would admit that the sufferer who sees a red, white and blue polka-
dotted snake in an hallucination is not in direct visual contact with an
objective reality. But to generalise on the basis of that exceptional ex-
perience in illness, and claim that even in health one could never have
direct perception of reality, would be a non sequitur.
Moreover, if someone claimed to be seeing a red, white and blue
polka-dotted snake, anyone else would know he was hallucinating,
because no such coloured snakes exist. But suppose someone in an
hallucination says he sees a brown rabbit sitting on the carpet. In
that case, according to RTP, his sense-data would be exactly the same
as they would be if there were an actual brown rabbit sitting on the
carpet. Then by sight alone he could never discover the difference
between a rabbit seen in hallucination and a real one since the sense-
data would be the same. But there is one thing he could do, if he were
willing. He could stretch out his two hands and touch, or even grab,
the real rabbit. But never with his real hands could he touch the hal-
lucinated rabbit.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

This reminds us that we have, not one but, five senses and that
we can check the information we receive from one sense against the
information received through another. Moreover, each of our senses
can at times provide us with information unexpectedly, and therefore
before reason has had time to take it in and digest it. But that is not al-
ways so. Reason often works along with our senses and uses them as a
team of instruments to discover what it wants to know. Reason, think-
ing sight has been careless, can direct the eyes to look again in order
to obtain more exact and detailed information. Reason in a blind man
can order his fingers to make direct contact with an object; and then
reason cooperates with the sense of touch to discover whether the ob-
ject is rough or smooth, round or square, hot or cold, etc. It is a mis-
take, then, to concentrate too much on visual perception, and to treat
reason as some second, delayed stage in the process of perception.

Mirages
In the Series Introduction at the start of this book we considered the
difference between hallucinations and mirages, and found that in the
case of a mirage it would not be true to say that we are not visually
in contact with objective reality. A woman seeing what to her looks
like a sheet of water on the road ahead is actually observing a real
objective atmospheric phenomenon. Admittedly she misinterprets
what she sees; but the phenomenon itself is real enough. When she
gets to the point in the road where she thought she saw water, the at-
mospheric phenomenon will have disappeared, and all she will see is
the bare road. She may not understand what it was that caused her to
think she saw water; but she will have witnessed, whether she realises
it or not, an instance of the refraction of light in certain atmospheric
conditions and its effects in the external world.

Perceptual error
The example of a straight stick that appears bent when a part of it
is submerged in water, has been quoted thousands of times down
the centuries. It is perhaps surprising to find philosophers still quot-
ing it in support of RTP, when scientists have long since shown what
causes the stick to look bent in water. When a light-wave crosses the

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 How We Perceive the World

boundary between one transparent medium (like air) and another

(like water), it changes speed. Moreover if the wave strikes the water
at an oblique angle, one end of it has entered the water and has re-
duced speed, while the other end is still outside the water and travel-
ling at normal speed. The result is that the wave’s direction is bent, a
phenomenon called the refraction of light. And that is why a straight
stick, partly submerged in water, will look straight outside the water
but bent inside.
We have no need to dwell further on the details of the phenom-
enon; but for our purposes, we should recall from our physics books
the experiments by which the scientists discovered refraction: they
guided a beam of light through the air, then through another me-
dium like glass, set at an oblique angle. They measured the difference
in the speed of the light and measured the extent of the bending of
the light wave, and with the help of trigonometry worked out the
refractive index.
The point is this: what will RTP say about all this investigation of
the behaviour of light? Did the scientists conduct it all without any
direct objective perception of light, simply by perceiving the subjec-
tive sense-data inside their own heads?

Perspectival relativity
The fact that a square table looks rhomboid when viewed from one
corner need deceive no one, whatever his or her sense-data. We can
measure the angles at the corners of the table and thus know it is
square; and common sense will tell us that a wooden table does not
change its shape by being looked at from a different angle. Nor does
it prove that we never have direct perception of the table. How could
we measure the angles of the table if we could not see directly enough
to position the protractor in the right place and read off the angles?
And obviously we must read off the angles before they can become a
sense-datum in our heads! Moreover, the phenomenon of perspecti-
val reality is so well known that it deceives no thinking person. As-
tronomers take it for granted: they will explain the appearance of
some object in the sky by saying, for instance, that it is in fact a spiral
galaxy that we are looking at edge-on, and therefore cannot actually
see that it is spiral in form.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

A thought experiment

Until now we have been studying instances of visual perception, be-

cause it is to cases of apparently misleading visual perception that
RTP appeals to support its theory. But, as we have said, to concentrate
solely on visual perception could be a mistake. In addition to our five
senses we have reason and memory; and often two or more senses can
be applied together, and memory and reason can join them simulta-
neously to achieve direct and correct perception. Let’s do a mental
experiment to show this is so.
Suppose we stand in the middle of a straight railway track. As we
look along the track, the two rails will appear to converge in the dis-
tance, until we can no longer distinguish them. At that moment our
sense-data will record that they have coalesced.
Presently a train comes up behind us. We step out of the way and
the train goes by. As it recedes into the distance, the train will appear
to get smaller, and according to RTP our sense-data duly record an
ever diminishing train.
But now reason and memory come into play. Reason tells us that
locomotives cannot get smaller just by travelling (unless its speed ap-
proaches that of light!), and memory of trains we have travelled on
reminds us that trains don’t get smaller as they proceed. So now, al-
though our visual perception sees the train getting smaller, we actu-
ally know that it is the same size as when it passed us. That means
that as we watch the train reach the distant point where the rails look
as if they coalesced (and still look so in our sense-data) we can use
the known size of the locomotive as a distant means of measuring
the distance between the two rails at that point, and know with total
confidence that the rails, in spite of appearance, are the same distance
apart there as where we stand.
All this is going on in our heads simultaneously. Initial visual per-
ception suggested the rails were coalescing. Now visual perception
allows us to see what happens when the train reaches the point of ap-
parent coalescence; and we see that the train does not come to a halt
but keeps going; and reason simultaneously perceives with absolute cer-
tainty that the rails cannot have coalesced but are as far apart as usual.
In other words, it is not necessarily always true that vision produces
subjective sense-data that reason subsequently turns into valid con-

64
 How We Perceive the World

cepts. In a knowledgeable person reason and memory can work along-

side of vision to help achieve true perception of objective reality.

Final thoughts on the Representative Theory of Perception

Commenting on the RTP, philosopher Roger Scruton remarks:

it seems to say that we perceive physical objects only by perceiv-
ing something else, namely, the idea or image that represents
them. But then, how do we perceive that idea or image? Surely
we shall need another idea, which represents it to consciousness,
if we are to perceive it? But now we are embarked on an infi-
nite regress. Wait a minute, comes the reply; I didn’t say that we
perceive mental representations as we perceive physical objects.
On the contrary, we perceive the representations directly, the
objects only indirectly. But what does that mean? Presumably
this: while I can make mistakes about the physical object, I can-
not make mistakes about the representation, which is, for me,
immediately incorrigible, self-intimating—part of what is ‘given’
to consciousness. But in that case, why say that I perceive it at
all? Perception is a way of finding things out; it implies a separa-
tion between the thing perceiving and the thing perceived, and
with that separation comes the possibility of error. To deny the
possibility of error is to deny the separation. The mental rep-
resentation is not perceived at all; it is simply part of me. Put
it another way: the mental representation is the perception. In
which case the contrast between direct and indirect perception
collapses. We do perceive physical objects, and perceive them
directly. . . . And we perceive physical objects by having repre-
sentational experiences.16
In other words there is no third intermediate and quasi-­
independent thing called sense-data between our perception and ob-
jects in the external world. The sense-data, or representations, are our
perception of the external world; and that perception of the world is
direct.

16 Modern Philosophy, 333.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

That does not mean that direct perception is never mistaken. The
fact is that when it comes to using our senses to gain information
about the external, objective world, humankind has had to learn to
use its five senses correctly, and interpret their information correctly;
and each one of us individually has to do likewise. A youth may hear
a musical sound, as sound waves enter his ear and then his brain,
and yet misjudge from what musical instrument it comes. Experi-
ence, sight, instruction, memory will all be necessary before he can
immediately recognise from what instrument the sound comes. But
that doesn’t mean that he didn’t originally hear the sound directly. A
person recently blinded will need to develop an increasingly sensi-
tive touch in order to read Braille. And since light behaves as we now
know it does, we have to learn to see and how to gather correct infor-
mation from eyesight. From time to time, moreover, we misinterpret
what we see, hear, touch, taste and smell, and we have to learn to use
our senses with greater discernment. But none of this means that we
cannot have direct perception of anything at all in the external world.

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 CHAPTER 2

FALSE ALTERNATIVES
AT THE EXTREMES

As to those impressions, which arise from the

senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion,
perfectly inexplicable by human reason, and
it will always be impossible to decide with
certainty, whether they arise immediately from
the object, or are produced by the creative
power of the mind, or are derived from the
author of our being.
—David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
 MIDDLE GROUND?

We cannot study epistemology long without discovering that several

of the debates that have arisen in this area of philosophy each present
us with two extreme positions and invite us to choose between them.
Here are some of those extremes:
I. Idealism and realism
II. Knowledge is subjective and knowledge is objective
III. Rationalism and empiricism
IV. Reason and faith
In this chapter we will consider I and II and spend longer on III,
especially as it pertains to John Locke and David Hume. Our next
chapter will be given over to Immanuel Kant’s contribution to epis-
temology, and we will give the following chapter over to IV.
Common sense might at once suggest that, as so often in life,
the truth lies neither at one extreme nor the other, but somewhere
in the middle. In the course of history, however, and to this present
day, great minds have aligned themselves firmly with one extreme
or the other; and if we are going to understand the history of human
thought, and the seriously held views of our fellow human beings
round the world, we must try to understand what views they hold
and the reasons for which they hold them.

IDEALISM AND REALISM

First, let’s consider the meaning of the terms.

Idealism
What it is not. In everyday life an ideal is a concept of perfection, of a
maximum good, of the best of all possible situations, be it private and

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

personal, or public and political. ‘Ideal behaviour’ is the best behav-

iour one can imagine, to which we all aspire, even though in practice
we all fall short of it. Idealism in this context, therefore, denotes the
attitude that pursues perfection even though it often has to tolerate,
and put up with, non-ideal realities. But this is not what idealism
means in epistemology.
What it is. Idealism is a metaphysical theory about the nature of
reality. It asserts that what is real is in some way confined to, or at
least related to, the contents of our minds.1
An extreme form of idealism was adopted by the Irish philoso-
pher George Berkeley (1685–1753). He held that things exist only as
they are perceived by us (or by God): they have no existence indepen-
dently of our perceiving them.2

Realism

Realism stands at the opposite end of the spectrum to idealism,

though nowadays perhaps no one stands at either extreme. It would
be better, therefore, to explain the difference this way: to assert that
our knowledge of things is largely mind-dependent is to move in
the idealist direction; to assert that something is somehow mind-­
independent is to move in the realist direction.
Obviously, it would be silly to maintain that everything is in
every way independent of minds: it is, for instance, through our
minds that we perceive pain. If there were no minds there would be
no pain. On the other hand, most people would agree that if every
mind in the whole world forgot that the Andromeda galaxy existed,
and never thought of it again, it would not cease to exist. Not every-
thing, then, is in every way dependent on minds.
Again, when it comes to our perception of things, it is obvious
that all the information we can gather about reality is mediated to
us through our minds. The amount of knowledge, therefore, that we
can receive and understand is limited by the powers and concepts
1 We should not confuse Plato’s Theory of ‘Forms’, or ‘Ideas’ (see Book 2: Finding Ultimate

Reality, Ch. 2) with Idealism. Plato held that the Ideas, or Forms, exist eternally independent
of us and of our minds.
2 Berkeley was actually an empiricist in the tradition of John Locke, whom we shall discuss

presently. But, incongruously enough, Berkeley was a metaphysical idealist, and denied the
existence of matter.

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 False Alternatives at the Extremes

of our mind. At the same time, when we put questions to external

reality in our effort to discover what reality is like, the answers are
provided by that reality itself. Nicholas Rescher (b. 1928), who calls
himself a pragmatic idealist, expresses it thus:
Perhaps the strongest argument favouring idealism is that any
characterisation of the real that we can devise is bound to be
a mind-constructed one: our only access to information about
what the real is through the mediation of mind. What seems
right about idealism is inherent in the fact that in investigating
the real we are clearly constrained to use our own concepts to
address our own issues; we can only learn about the real in our
own terms of reference. But what seems right about realism is
that the answers to the questions we put to the real are provided
by reality itself—whatever the answers may be, they are substan-
tially what they are because it is reality itself that determines
them to be that way. Mind proposes but reality disposes.3
A realist, on the other hand, would wish to qualify Rescher’s re-
marks. It is certainly true to a large extent that ‘in investigating the
real we are clearly constrained to use our own concepts’. But it is
equally important in investigating the real, that
we do not, consciously or unconsciously, come
to regard our own concepts as the fixed criteria Realists, like Einstein,
by which we judge reality. have started from the
In the course of the last century, radically assumption that the
new scientific understanding of reality has come universe has its own
about. Realists, like Einstein, have started from inherent intelligibility
the assumption that the universe has its own in- independent of us,
herent intelligibility independent of us, whether whether we eventually
we eventually discover and understand it, or discover and
not. They were prepared, therefore, not to rest understand it, or not.
content with the concepts of classical Newto-
nian physics, but to open their minds to possible
higher levels of reality’s own deep-lying structures and to grasp them,
not so much by laborious deductive reasoning based on their already
formed concepts, but initially by direct intuition. The result has been

3 ‘Idealism’, 429. In this article Rescher lists eight different forms of idealism.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

a vast increase in our knowledge and understanding, an invigorating

challenge to envisage counter-intuitive states of affairs, and also an
awe-inspiring awareness that reality has still greater depths of intel-
ligibility that for the time being go beyond our cognitive powers and
imagination.
Rescher is certainly right to emphasise the fact that when we put
our questions to reality, it is reality itself that provides the answers,
and therefore we must always be prepared to submit our minds to
reality. But it is by listening to, and learning more about, reality that
we also come to know what are the right and sensible kinds of ques-
tions to put to it.
The ancients conceived of the earth as being flat and immobile.
They therefore asked what happened to the sun when it sank below
the edge of the earth every night. Did it go out, and then get reborn
every morning? Or did it travel beneath the earth and come up in the
east at daybreak? Their questions were unanswerable on the basis of
their fundamental concepts. Better observation of the astronomical
reality led them to abandon their former concepts, in favour of better
theories. They were then in a position to put more suitable questions
to reality.

KNOWLEDGE IS SUBJECTIVE
AND KNOWLEDGE IS OBJECTIVE

Once again, let us start by defining the terms.

The noun subject, in many languages, is used in different senses. It
can denote, for instance, a subject that we study at school, like chem-
istry or literature. Or we can use it of the subject, that is, the topic, of
a conversation.
In grammar and syntax, however, subject has an almost opposite
meaning. In the sentence, ‘Maria is reading a book’, ‘Maria’, we say,
is the subject of the verb: she is the one who is doing the reading. ‘The
book’, by contrast, is the object of the verb, the thing that suffers the
action of the verb, that undergoes the reading.
If as a potter I make a vase, then I am the subject who does the
making, the vase is the object that is made. Moreover, as the subject
I bring my creative powers of intellect and aesthetic sense to bear

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 False Alternatives at the Extremes

upon the basic material, clay, and create something new and beauti-
ful. In that process I am the one who is active; the clay is passive.
It is in this sense that we shall be using the term subject in this
part of our study. The issue at stake will be as follows: in getting to
know and understand the world around us, are we just passive learn-
ers on whose mind the universe imposes and impresses its objective
facts that we must accept and submit to? Or, are we active and crea-
tive subjects? And is it so that the only significance that the universe
has is what we give it by our own creative thought?

Bringing the issue of subjectivity into focus

This is an issue that pervades the whole of the voluminous writings

of Nicolai Alexandrovitch Berdyaev (1874–1948). He reacted very
strongly against the views of the English philosopher John Locke
(1632–1704), the father of English empiricism. Locke, as we shall see
in our next section, held that our minds are like a blank piece of paper
on which the external world makes its impressions. We have no direct
perception of the external world. It is only when that world has made
its impressions on our mind and provided it with sense-data, that
our intellect can begin to deduce from them their significance. The
external world is our teacher; it supplies the facts that we submissively
accept and try to understand.
Berdyaev would have none of this; he felt it robbed man of his free-
dom and status. To Berdyaev man is the great Subject. It is his creative
spirit that perceives, if not creates, the significance of the objective, or,
to use his word, the ‘objectified’, world of matter. It is man that decides,
and gives to the world, its meaning.

Man, the knower, as Subject

One can agree with Berdyaev, to this extent at least, that when it
comes to getting to know the world and indeed to the administra-
tion of it, man is not a passive object that simply receives the impres-
sions that the world makes upon him. He is a subject who can take
the initiative.
We can see that in the advance of science. Röntgen, Madam
­Curie and Rutherford did not sit around waiting for the atom to dis-
close its inner structures to them. They took the initiative, creatively

73
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

thought up ingenious experiments in order to make the atom yield

up its secrets, and then made use of the most sophisticated math-
ematics to interpret them.
That said, however, it would be an unbalanced view so to empha-
sise man as Subject, as to belittle, or even to denigrate, the objective
reality and proper dignity of the universe.

The objective reality of the universe

If man is the Subject who knows, it surely follows that his knowledge,
to be genuine, requires some genuine Object, so that it can be knowl-
edge of something. Moreover, if that knowledge is to be worthwhile
having, the Object of that knowledge must exist and have its own
inherent value. A man’s knowledge, moreover, that was not genuine
knowledge of a real object, would be subjective in the bad sense of
that term.
Moreover, if we start off with the value judgment that the crea-
tion of matter and of the universe was some kind of a ‘fall’, we are
bound to come up with a false evaluation of the universe, and of
its Creator. There is, however, a centuries-long tradition that regards
the material universe as an unfortunate state brought about by the
mixing of the World Soul or Spirit with matter by some minor de-
ity. We meet this view in Hinduism and Neoplatonism, and it has
been repeated by a succession of mystical thinkers.4 In this view true
knowledge is to penetrate beyond matter, not to its inner structure
and workings, but to the World Spirit of which it is a passing illusory
embodiment. It is to this existentialist, mystical view that Berdyaev
seems to have been inclined:
To the existential philosophy of spirit the natural material
world is a fall, it is the product of objectification, self-alienation
within existence. But the form of the human body and the ex-
pression of the eyes belong to the spiritual personality and are
not opposed to spirit.5
This view of the world is not that of the Bible. According to the
Bible the creation of the material world was not a fall, not a ‘self-es-
4 See Book 2 in this series for an analysis of this view in Hinduism (Ch. 1) and Neoplatonism

(Ch. 2).
5 Beginning and End, 104, emphasis added.

74
 False Alternatives at the Extremes

trangement and an exteriorization of spirit by which it is ejected into

the external’.6 That is an old Gnostic view of matter. The creation of
the objective material world was God’s deliberate action, an expres-
sion of his mind; and the result he pronounced ‘very good’ (Gen 1:31).
Nor was the human spirit eternally existent, and part of the
World Spirit, that has emanated out of God and temporarily been
imprisoned in matter, as Hinduism and Gnosticism teach. Accord-
ing to the Bible, man’s spirit and intelligence were created by God out
of nothing, just as the universe was. Man’s spirit is not part of God.
Though created and constantly maintained by God, and though con-
stantly pointing away from itself to its Creator, Nature has its own,
God-given (if limited), objective autonomy, value and significance.
Its autonomy, then, and inherent value are not to be devalued by a
false spirituality. It is not true that if you looked deeply into the cre-
ated universe you would eventually come across the uncreated Spirit
of God, as a substratum of matter.
This means that if we would get to know and understand the
universe around us, subjects though we are, and capable of creative
thinking, we must humbly submit our minds to the objective real-
ity of the universe, as science constantly does, and let the universe
teach us God-created facts about itself; and the truth of our discov-
eries must always be tested, not against our subjective judgment, but
against Nature’s objective facts.7

RATIONALISM AND EMPIRICISM

To understand the debate between Rationalism and Empiricism we

must, of course, begin by defining the terms. Rationalism comes from
the Latin word ratio, which means, among other things, ‘reason’. Em-
piricism is based on the Greek word empeiria which means ‘experi-
ence’. Merely to say that, however, will scarcely explain why, in the
context of man’s attempt to understand the universe and his place
in it, there ever arose a debate between reason and experience. Why
should anyone ever have thought that reason and experience were in
6 Berdyaev, Beginning and End, 87.
7 It should be noticed that Berdyaev fully approved of the scientific study of the universe,
though he was strongly, and rightly, opposed to materialism (Beginning and End, 86–8).

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

any way opposed to each other? Is it not common sense to view them
rather as partners in the noble shared adventure of getting to know
the majestic reality of the universe?
Unfortunately, the early rationalists and the early empiricists
have often been represented as being members of two opposite camps
that shared little common ground. In actual fact, that is far from the
truth. The early rationalists did not deny that experience of objec-
tive reality was absolutely necessary. If we can have no experience
of the universe, reason has nothing to work on and explain. And the
empiricists for their part freely admitted that reason plays, and must
play, an essential part in the interpreting and understanding of our
experience of the external world.
What then was the difference between so-called rationalists and
so-called empiricists? To put it simply for the moment—though we
shall need to explain this ‘explanation’ more fully later on—it was a
question of the relative importance of reason and experience in the
attempt to understand the universe. Rationalists tended to give the
priority to reason; empiricists tended to give the priority to experi-
ence. Even so, we shall not fully understand this debate and the emo-
tions that it continues to excite right up to the present time, unless
we first briefly investigate the historical context in which it arose in
modern Europe.

The historical context of the debate

The debate surged into prominence as a result of the intellectual

movement known as the Enlightenment, which began in the seven-
teenth century. Its motivation and moving spirit were eventually de-
scribed by Immanuel Kant as the
emergence of man from his self-imposed infancy. Infancy is
the inability to use one’s reason without the guidance of an-
other. It is self-imposed, when it depends on a deficiency, not of
reason, but of the resolve and courage to use it without external
guidance. Thus the watchword of the enlightenment is: Sapere
aude! Have the courage to use your own reason.8

8 See ‘Beantwortung der Frage’, 35.

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 False Alternatives at the Extremes

In consequence the Enlightenment has come to be known as ‘the

Age of Reason’. Too long, it was felt, people had through lack of cour-
age allowed themselves to behave like infants and to accept views
and beliefs imposed on them by the authority of church and state.
Now they were at last emerging from intellectual infancy into ma-
ture adulthood, unafraid to form and hold views and beliefs that they
had arrived at by their own powers of reason.
Certainly education in the schools and universities of Europe at
the time was long overdue for reform; and men like Galileo Galilei
(1564–1642) and Isaac Newton (1642–1727) broke free from the out-
moded abstract cosmological theorizings of Plato and Aristotle and
began empirically with open minds to investigate the actual God-
created objective realities of the universe.
Plato, for instance, with his dualistic thought, had divided epis-
temology into two distinct areas: the Intelligible World of the eter-
nally unchanging Forms, of which we could hope to achieve genuine
knowledge, and the Sensible World, where everything is changing, of
which we can have only more or less right opinion.
Aristotle’s dualistic cosmology likewise sharply distinguished
between celestial mechanics and terrestrial mechanics. For him ideal
and perfect movement was circular, and such movement was to be
seen in the celestial realm from the moon upwards. But below the
moon movement was rectilinear, and thus an instance of the imper-
fections of the sublunary realm. The moon also was thought to have
a soul, in the sense of having its own source of motion.
But then Galileo pointed his telescope to the sky and observed
craters on the moon, spots on the face of the sun and the phases of
Venus. So now technology showed that from the moon upwards all
was not in Aristotle’s sense ‘perfect’.
Then Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation and gave
it mathematical expression. Aristotle’s dualistic cosmology, therefore,
was shown not to be true. The universe was one, and the law of gravi-
tation applied everywhere. The same intelligibility marked the whole
universe, and all was open to be investigated by human intelligence.
One can understand, therefore, how these brilliant successes of
‘rational’ empiricism—as distinct from the authoritarian dogma of
traditional philosophy—transformed people’s attitudes to the ac-
quirement of knowledge of the universe. No longer were they to be

77
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

dependent on abstract philosophy, or natural theology. Now rea-

son, and human reason at that, was to be the ultimate source of all
knowledge and the judge of its truth. Not that they were all atheists:
Descartes, Locke and Leibniz (1646–1716) were theists. Newton was
a deist, but anti-religion Spinoza (1632–77) was a pantheist. David
Hume (1711–76) was an atheist, and Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) a
believer in God, in the immortal soul and in the life to come.

The dispute between rationalism and empiricism

But simply making reason supreme did not solve all the problems of
epistemology. After all, if reason was going to explain the universe,
reason was obliged to admit right from the start that abstract reason-
ing did not, and could not, create the universe. It would need first to
get to know the facts about the universe before it could begin to study
and explain them. How then did you get to know the facts?

Locke’s epistemological theory

Locke’s view, which he expounded at great length in his famous work

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (dated 1689), was that
all our knowledge of the world is a posteriori, that is, it comes after,
and derives from, experience. He rejected the rationalist theory that
we start with primary, self-evident, notions, which somehow are im-
planted in our minds at birth—innate ideas as they have come to be
called—which we know even before we start to study the external
world and which we then use in order to analyse the world and sub-
ject it to our understanding.9 At birth, he maintained, our minds are
like a blank piece of paper, void of any letters, and without any ideas.10
From where, then, does the mind receive all the necessary materials
for reason to work on and turn into knowledge? ‘To this I answer,’
says Locke ‘in one word, from experience. In that all our knowledge
is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself.’ 11
He then goes on to explain that our knowledge, from which all
our ideas spring, is fed by two fountains:

9 See An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1.2.1.

10 A ‘tabula rasa’.
11 See Essay 2.1.2 ff.

78
 False Alternatives at the Extremes

1. our senses. Objects in the external world affect our senses,

and those senses convey to the mind distinct perceptions of
these external objects, and so we come by the ideas we have
of yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, etc.
2. the operations of our own minds. These furnish the under-
standing with another set of ideas which we could not get
from external objects, namely, perception, thinking, doubt-
ing, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing and all the dif-
ferent actings of our own minds.12
Locke, then, did not deny or despise the role of reason. Without
reason we could never perceive the significance of the ideas received
by our senses. He did not deny what rationalists like Descartes and
Leibniz claimed, that it is by reason that we perceive the laws of logic
(e.g. that A cannot be the same as non-A, and that an external angle
of a triangle equals the sum of the opposite two angles). What he did
claim, however, in contrast to the rationalists, was that these logical
powers of reasoning are not implanted in a child at birth: they simply
develop in a child as it grows up and learns to reflect on the numer-
ous ideas with which the senses have furnished its mind.13 Nor did he
deny the validity of abstract thought, as we can see from his remarks
about the validation of ideas.

The validation of ideas

According to Locke, abstract truths of, say, mathematics, require no
validation beyond their logical coherence. The reason for that is that
their ‘archetypes’, as he called them, are internal to the mind. They do
not pretend to have ‘substance’, that is, they do not claim to be objects
that actually exist in the external material world. The mind lays down
their axioms and by logical deduction builds up its theorems. Whether
the formal system thus constructed can be shown to be consistent with
external reality or not is irrelevant to the validity of the system. It did
not claim to represent anything in the external world. The only vali-
dation required is to demonstrate the logical coherence of the system.
If however it were claimed that this system did represent some actual
state of affairs in the external world, then its validity would depend on

12 See Essay 2.1.2–4.

13 See Essay 2.1.6 ff.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

its being tested against this external reality. Similarly, all the concepts
we arrive at by reasoned reflection on the sense-impressions made on
our minds by objects in the external world must be checked for their
validity against those objects themselves.14

An evaluation of Locke’s epistemology

We can safely say, therefore, that the difference in epistemology
between empiricist Locke and rationalists like Descartes does not
amount to very much. Each agreed that both reason and experience
have their part to play in our acquirement of knowledge. Their main
disagreement was over whether or not human beings are born with
certain innate ideas in their minds.
(a) Both agreed that unborn infants have simple ‘thoughts’ and
‘ideas’, such as pains and sensations of warmth. Neither held
that infants had profound philosophical thoughts.
(b) Both agreed that it was capacity for thought—not necessar-
ily actual thinking—that distinguished human beings from
animals.15
(c) Both agreed that assent to certain mathematical proposi-
tions (such as 3 + 2 = 5), or to logical laws (such as it is im-
possible for the same thing to exist and simultaneously not
to exist), does not depend on experience. But Locke argued
that a person must first go through a process of learning
before he grasped these ideas. Descartes maintained that
these ideas were innate; but he would admit that many peo-
ple consciously assent to them only after laborious thinking.
(d) Locke maintained that innate concepts without ­experience
would be insufficient to account for the phenomena of
human knowledge. Descartes put it the other way round:

14 An interesting example of these principles is to be seen in the work of the Russian math-

ematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevski and others. By sheer abstract mathematical reason-
ing they independently discovered non-Euclidean geometry. Logically coherent in itself, their
theory did not attract widespread interest until it was discovered that actual space-time has
the features of non-Euclidean geometry.
15 See Book 1: Being Truly Human, Ch. 3 for Noam Chomsky’s view that human babies are

born, not of course with a ready-made language, but with an inborn language faculty that
allows them to learn whatever language their society speaks and to understand the logical
concepts which its grammar and syntax express.

80
 False Alternatives at the Extremes

experience without an element of innate concepts would be

insufficient to account for what we know.
The difference is not so very great, after all.16

Leibniz’s criticism of Locke

Leibniz is famous because, among other things, independently of
Newton he invented the infinitesimal calculus. In epistemology he
was a rationalist and criticised Locke’s theories more severely than we
have just done. He insisted on the absolute distinction between what
he called necessary truth and contingent truth. A necessary truth is
something that is true in all possible worlds; its contrary is impossible.
A contingent truth is something whose contrary could have been pos-
sible. So 2 + 3 = 5 is a necessary truth. It would be true in all possible
worlds. Its contrary is impossible. On the other hand, ‘Wellington
beat Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo’ is a contingent truth. Though
that is what in fact happened, and therefore is now unalterably so, it
could have been different. It is not logically inconceivable that Napo-
leon could have defeated Wellington.
Leibniz held, then, that knowledge of necessary truths is a priori
knowledge. Its propositions are seen to be, not only true, but necessar-
ily true, independently of any experience. That is because, so he held,
the soul right from the start contains the sources of various concepts
and doctrines. In other words the concepts and doctrines are innate.
Leibniz, therefore, disagreed strongly with Locke’s idea that at
birth a child’s mind is like a blank piece of white paper, and that all
that is eventually written on it comes from experience, and that ab-
stract reasoning can reflect only on what experience has provided.
On the basis of experience, Leibniz argued, Locke might show that
something was true; but he could never show that something must
be necessarily true. Only innate concepts could do that.

A serious weakness in Locke’s epistemology

We need not stay to adjudicate between Leibniz and Locke, because be-
fore we leave Locke we must notice a weakness in his epistemology that
has had a long-lasting and unfortunate effect on some of his successors.

16 See the detailed discussion in Kenny, Brief History of Western Philosophy, 208–12.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

In the first place he seems to have taught an early form of the

Representative Theory of Perception, the difficulties of which we dis-
cussed in Chapter 1. According to Locke the steps in the process of
our coming to know objects in the external world are:
1. The objects affect our senses.
2. Our senses convey into the mind what nowadays would be
called sense-data, but which Locke called perceptions, or
ideas, of these objects.
3. Our mind brings its own powers of thought to bear upon
these perceptions, or ideas, and thus comes to understand
them.17
Then Locke turns his attention to what it is in external objects
that has the power to cause the sense-impressions, and thus the ideas,
in our minds. Whatever it is that has this power he calls a quality
of the external object. As an example, he cites a snowball. It has the
power ‘to produce in us the ideas of white, cold and round [shape]’.
The power in the snowball that produces these ideas in us, he calls
‘qualities’ in the snowball.18
Next, however, he divides these qualities in external objects into
two groups:
1. Original or primary qualities. These are: solidity, extension,
figure (shape), motion, or rest, and number.19
2. Secondary qualities, such as colours, smells, sounds, tastes,
etc.20
With that he comes to the point of this analysis:21
(a) The ideas produced in our minds by the primary qualities
of external objects, are resemblances of them, and their pat-
terns do really exist in the objects themselves.

17 The student should be warned that Locke seems to use the terms ‘perception’ and ‘idea’ in-

discriminately. Sometimes he speaks as if the sense-impressions made on the mind by external

objects are ‘perceptions’ and ‘ideas’. Sometimes he speaks as if the sense-impressions are con-
verted into ‘perceptions’ and ‘ideas’ by the mind’s reflection on the sense-impressions. Cf. e.g.
Essay 2.1.2–4 and 2.8.7–8.
18 Essay 2.8.8.

19 Essay 2.8.9.

20 Essay 2.8.10–14.

21 Essay 2.8.15.

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 False Alternatives at the Extremes

(b) The ideas produced in our minds by the secondary qualities

do not resemble these secondary qualities at all. There is
nothing like our ideas existing in the objects themselves.
He then sums up the practical benefit, as he sees it, of making
these epistemological distinctions: ‘whereby we may also come to
know what ideas are, and what are not, re-
semblances of something really existing in
the bodies we denominate from them’.22 If our senses convey to
The practical issue at stake here is very us from the external world
important. If our senses convey to us from perceptions and ideas that
the external world perceptions and ideas are fallacious and do not
that are fallacious and do not correspond to correspond to anything
anything in the external world, we need to in the external world, we
be made aware of that fact and then correct need to be made aware of
our ideas. But how shall we correct our false that fact and then correct
ideas? For if our minds are helplessly de- our ideas.
pendent on our senses for the information
about the external world without which our
minds cannot start thinking, how shall we correct our false ideas
about the external world? Locke tries to show us by sheer logic that
our false ideas are not true; and that they must have been caused in
us by qualities in the object that bear no resemblance to our ideas.
How helpful is his logic?

Evaluation of Locke’s snowball

According to Locke our senses convey to our minds three ideas from
the snowball: (1) an idea of shape (spherical); (2) an idea of coldness;
and (3) an idea of whiteness.
Now shape (extension, or figure) is supposed by Locke to be a
primary quality in the snowball. Therefore our idea of the snowball’s
shape, resembles, or corresponds to, the actual, objective shape of
the snowball.
But coldness is said to be a secondary quality of the snowball.
Our senses convey to our mind the idea that the snowball is cold. But
this time our idea is false: it does not resemble anything objective
in the snowball. It is, in fact, caused by certain primary qualities in
22 Essay 2.8.22.

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 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

the snowball that are not themselves cold. In other words our idea of
cold is a subjective idea in our mind, not corresponding to anything
in objective reality. And to confirm the fact that our idea is only sub-
jective, Locke points out that to someone whose hands are warm, the
snowball will seem very cold; to someone whose hands are already
cold, the snowball will not seem very cold. It is solely a matter of sub-
jective impression.
We need not deny that the intensity of the feeling of cold is in
part subjective and varies from person to person. Nor do we need to
deny that the snowball does not itself experience what we mean by
‘feeling cold’. It has no nervous system and does not feel anything.
Nor is it self-conscious. But to say that there is no coldness in the
snowball answering to our idea of coldness is surely factually inac-
curate. Stick a thermometer into a snowball and it will measure its
degree of coldness. Do the same with a hu-
man body and the thermometer will tell you
Locke’s theory about how hot, or cold, the body is. And in so far as
colour raises fascinating the degree of heat, or cold, depends on the ex-
questions that have tent of the vibrations of the atoms, snowballs
not been completely share this feature with human beings. As hu-
answered even yet. man beings we give a name to our subjective
experience of low temperature: we call it ‘cold’,
or, ‘feeling cold.’ In this respect the snowball
is different from us; it has no subjective experience of cold. It doesn’t
call it anything. It is not conscious; we are.
Then what about whiteness (colour)? According to Locke col-
our is a secondary quality. A substance in the snowball creates an
impression of whiteness in our mind; but the substance itself is not
white—it has no colour. Whiteness is no more in snow than sickness
or pain are in a poison that causes sickness and pain in us.23 If the
snowball looks to us to be white, that is merely a subjective sensation
that we experience. It is not objectively true of the snowball itself.
Locke’s theory about colour raises fascinating questions that
have not been completely answered even yet. So let us now debate
them.

23 Cf. Essay 2.8.17.

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 False Alternatives at the Extremes

First, here are two philosophers who insist that the colours we
see when we look at objects in the external world are actually in
those objects, and are not merely sensations caused in our heads by
those objects.
N. O. Lossky rejects the causal theory of perception, and describes
his own intuitive theory thus in his History of Russian Philosophy:
According to the intuitive theory the objects’ sensory q ­ ualities—
colours, sounds, warmth, etc., are transsubjective; i.e., belong
to the actual objects of the external world. They are regarded as
mental and subjective by the adherents of the causal theory of
perception according to which the stimulation of sense organs
by the light rays, air waves, etc., is the cause that produces the
content of perception. Lossky has worked out a co-ordinational
theory of perception . . . with regard to the part played by physi-
ological processes in perception. The gist of it is that the stimu-
lation of a particular sense organ and the physiological process
in the cortex are not the cause producing the content of percep-
tion, but merely a stimulus inciting the knowing self to direct
its attention and its acts of discrimination upon the actual ob-
ject of the external world.24
Similarly (though from a different philosophical position) An-
thony Kenny comments on Locke’s account of the secondary quali-
ties (i.e. those qualities in objects that cause sensations of colour in
us but have no colour themselves):
Locke is basically correct in thinking that secondary qualities
are powers to produce sensations in human beings, and he has
familiar arguments to show that the sensations produced by
the same object will vary with circumstances (lukewarm water
will appear hot to a cold hand, and cold to a hot hand; colours
look very different under a microscope). But from the fact that
the secondary qualities are anthropocentric and relative it does
not follow that they are subjective or in any way fictional. In
a striking image suggested by the Irish chemist Robert Boyle,
the secondary qualities are keys which fit particular locks, the

24 History of Russian Philosophy, 252.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

locks being the different human senses. Once we grasp this,

we can accept, in spite of Locke, that grass really is green, and
snow really is cold.25

Topic for debate: Is the greenness in the grass?

First consideration: It is not enough to consider just two things: (1) our
own subjective sense-impressions, and (2) the apparently green grass.
We must also consider light, for it conveys to our faculty of sight the
impression of the grass that we receive. Obviously, in the dark we
don’t see either the grass itself or what colour it has (if it has any col-
our). Is light, therefore, entirely neutral? Does it simply convey the
colour green, inherent in the grass itself, to our faculty of sight, with-
out in any way changing the colour? This raises a second question.
Second consideration: What is the nature of light? Scientists all
seem to agree on this at least: visible light is ‘but a small part of the
whole spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, which ranges (with in-
creasing frequency and decreasing wavelength) through radio waves,
microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma
rays.’ 26
Within the whole spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, we are
also told that, ‘Visible light is electromagnetic radiation whose wave-
length falls within the range to which the human retina responds,
i.e. between about 390 nanometres (violet light) and 740 nanometres
(red). White light consists of a roughly equal mixture of all visible
wavelengths, which can be separated to yield the colours of the spec-
trum, as was first demonstrated conclusively by Newton.’ 27
We should note the implications of this. We cannot see infrared
radiation, though we can feel it as radiant heat. At the other end of
the visible spectrum we cannot see ultraviolet radiation, though too
much exposure to it can cause skin cancer. This obviously implies
that what wavelengths, and, therefore, what colours, we see is in part,
at least, decided by our subjective, internal mechanisms of sight. This
information will be useful later on; for the moment let us turn to an-
other consideration.

25 Brief History of Western Philosophy, 212.

26 Pearsall and Tumble, Oxford English Reference Dictionary, 1392.
27 Pearsall and Tumble, Oxford English Reference Dictionary, 829.

86
 False Alternatives at the Extremes

Third consideration: Is the colour in the light and not in the grass?
If, like Newton, we take a prism and split up white light into the vari-
ous wavelengths that combine to make white light, what we then see
is a whole range of colours just as we do when sunlight is refracted in
the water droplets of a rainbow. Is it, then, that the colour is in fact in
the light? The water droplets in the rain shower had no colour before
the sunlight was refracted in them, any more than Newton’s prism did
before a beam of light was passed through it.
Or take another example. A lump of iron heated in a forge will
emit visible light, the colour of which will change from dull red, to
brilliant red, to white, as the temperature of the iron rises. Similarly
stars; and from the colour of the light which they emit (red in the
case of, say, Betelgeuse, and blue in the case of the Pleiades) astrono-
mers can deduce their temperature, their chemical elements, and the
direction of their movement (red-shift or blue-shift).
Is not the colour, then, in the light? After all, if you take a large
sheet of white paper and shine a red light on it, the paper will look
red; but obviously in this case the red colour is not in the paper, but
in the light. But we must not make hasty decisions.
Fourth consideration: Having talked of the spectrum of colours
emitted by the various wavelengths of visible light, and having con-
stantly referred to, say, the green wavelength or the violet wavelength,
scientists will then turn and define colour as:
the sensation produced on the eye by rays of light when re-
solved into different wavelengths, as by a prism, selective re-
flection, etc. (black being the effect produced by no light or by
a surface reflecting no rays, and white the effect produced by
rays of unresolved light) . . . Opaque objects appear coloured
according to the wavelengths they reflect (other wavelengths
being absorbed).28
This explanation is at least unambiguous: the colour is not in the
light. When therefore scientists talk of, say, the blue wavelength of
visual light, they must be using a kind of shorthand for ‘that wave-
length, which, while not blue itself, causes a sensation of blue in
our head’.

28 Pearsall and Tumble, Oxford English Reference Dictionary, 286.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Similarly, when we see, say, grass and to us it looks green, the

colour is not in the grass, neither is it in the light. What happens is
that the grass contains various pigments. When white light falls on
the grass, these pigments reflect only one of the wavelengths in the
light, namely the one which, when it enters our eyes, causes us to see
green. The rest of the wavelengths are absorbed by the pigments in
the grass and are not reflected. The colour, then, is in our head, and
not in the grass.
At this, Locke, if he were alive, would perhaps say, ‘I told you so;
I was right after all.’
Fifth consideration: How, then, and by what mechanisms does a
wavelength of light, itself colourless, entering our eye, somehow cause
us to see colour? We are told that in the pigmented area of the retina
there are thousands of cells called, from their shape, ‘rods’ and ‘cones’,
which secrete various chemicals; and it is these cells that produce the
colours for us to see. But at this point another question arises that we
ought to take to the biologists to let them answer it for us.
How do these cells enable us to see colours? Is it that a certain
wavelength of light reflected off grass falls on some of these cells and
causes the chemicals in them to glow with a green hue? And if so, is it
that since the retina is part of the eyeball, when we look at grass, the
eye is immediately flooded with green colour, and so sees the grass
as green? And what causes after images? That is to say, if we look at a
bright red colour for half a minute, and then shut our eyes, we shall
see a green coloured after image. Does this mean that some chemical
reaction in the pigments of the rods and cells is still going on even
after we shut our eyes and thus for the time being stops any further
light entering the eye, so that our eye is still ‘seeing’ even when it
is shut?
Sixth consideration: Who or what does the seeing? We are told
that the cells of the retina transform the incoming radiation into
nerve impulses that neural pathways then convey to the visual cor-
tex. But that raises another question at which the quotation from
Lossky hints (see above). If ‘seeing colours’ finally means that nerve
impulses arrive on the visual cortex of the brain, and the brain then
interprets them as colours, are the nerve impulses themselves col-
oured? If not, how does the brain, which has never ‘seen’ colours, but
only registered nerve impulses, know to interpret them as colours?

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 False Alternatives at the Extremes

And what or who receives this interpretation? Is the visual cortex

of the brain the final end of the line? Or does it report its findings to
the conscious self, or person, who is simultaneously using his or her
eyes, brain, and all the other senses combined along with memory, to
look directly at the world and to understand its variegated features?
What, finally, is consciousness?

David Hume’s epistemology

The Scottish philosopher David Hume was born in 1711 and died in
1776; but still today he is famous and much quoted. Professor Justin
Broackes The Oxford Companion to Philosophy describes Hume as
perhaps the greatest of eighteenth-century philosophers.29 Professor
Ernest C. Mossner prefaces his Introduction with the remark: ‘David
Hume is the greatest of British philosophers.’ 30
Hume is certainly famous for his scepticism and for his hostility
to religion and metaphysics. An atheist himself, he naturally denied
that there was, or even could be, any convincing evidence for the
existence of God, or for miracles;31 and he is therefore understand-
ably regarded as an eminent leader of thought by those who find such
scepticism attractive. But his scepticism carried him further. He also
denied that there is such a thing as the human self; and most fa-
mously of all he denied that we can have certain knowledge of causa-
tion. If this were true, it would eliminate not only religious belief but
a foundational principle of science.
It is the fact, however, that Hume’s scepticism arose out of his
epistemological theory about how the human mind works. To evalu-
ate his scepticism, therefore, we must first try to understand his phi-
losophy of mind.

Hume’s philosophy of mind

Hume was an empiricist in the tradition of Locke. Like Locke (though
with a more precise usage of terms) he based his philosophy of mind
on what has come in modern times to be known as the Representa-

29 Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 377..

30 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 7.
31 See our discussion of his views on these things in Book 5: Claiming to Answer, Ch. 4.

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 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

tive Theory of Perception (RTP). Since we have already studied that

theory we need only summarise it briefly here.
With Hume this theory is developed at great length, in great de-
tail and with many subdivisions and subtle distinctions. But its basic
principle is as he states it in the opening sentences of his Treatise of
Human Nature (THN): ‘All the perceptions of the human mind re-
solve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call impres-
sions and ideas.’ 32 (Note that Hume uses the terms impressions and
ideas in a somewhat different sense from Locke.)
Impressions, he goes on to explain, comprise all the sensations
that are made upon us by the external world, and also the impres-
sions made on our souls by our passions and emotions.
Ideas are derived from these impressions. The impressions al-
ways come first. Ideas are faint images of the impressions; but other-
wise they exactly represent those impressions.
The intellect then reflects on these ideas and
According to Hume’s thus it gets its knowledge of the external world
theory, the mind never and of the soul’s emotions and passions.
has direct cognitive When he says that ideas are exact images
access to the external of impressions, the word ‘image’ seems to im-
world, or even to its own ply visual representation. Indeed, the main
passions and emotions. instance he quotes is the visual impressions
his room made on him when he looked at it
with his eyes open, and the ideas he formed
in his mind of those impressions when he shut his eyes.33 The ideas,
he said, were exact representations of the impressions he felt when his
eyes were open.
How then, we ask, do ideas provide us with exact images of the
impressions that the external world makes on us via the non-­visual
senses: hearing, feeling, taste and smell? Hume seems not to tell us,
though he constantly repeats that ‘all our ideas are copied from our
impressions’.34 (At this point it would be worth reading again the quo-
tation from Roger Scruton at the end of Ch. 1.)
According to Hume’s theory, then, the mind never has direct

32 THN 1.1.1.1; Norton edn, 7.

33 THN 1.1.1.1.
34 THN 1.1.3.4.

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 False Alternatives at the Extremes

cognitive access to the external world, or even to its own passions

and emotions. Always between the intellect with its powers of reason
and the external world is a screen formed of ideas that are themselves
only images or representations or copies of impressions. Modern ad-
vocates of RTP do in fact claim that we are like people who never
watch a football match directly but only on a television screen. Hume
tells us, moreover, that the only true ideas we can have are those
which are copies or images of impressions. (It should be noted that,
when Hume talks about impressions being made upon the mind, he
does not mean ‘mind’ in the sense of reason or intellect.)
So let us consider what his theory has to say in answer to three
test questions.

Question 1 – How do we grasp spoken information?

Suppose a mathematics lecturer sets out to explain to us the abstract
idea of ratio and does so merely by speaking without writing anything
on the blackboard. He points out that four is two times two, and sixteen
is two times eight. Therefore four is to two as sixteen is to eight.
Two questions arise:
(a) How do we actually come to hear what he is saying?
(b) How do we come to understand it?
How do we hear? Is it that through our ears the sound of his voice
makes an impression on our senses? Then an exact copy or recording
of this impression is made and becomes an idea; then reason’s ‘inner
ear’ listens to this idea, and reason begins to reflect on it? Are there
two sets of ears: the external ears and then an internal one? Or do the
external ears conduct the sound of the lecturer’s voice direct to the
listening intelligence?
How do we understand? The crucial thing about the sound of the
voice is not the mere sound in itself but the fact that the sound is
carrying information. It is that information that we are intent on
grasping. On what part of the mind does the information make its
impression? Must we think that the information first reaches the
mind as a sensation, which becomes an impression, which is then
copied and becomes an idea, and only then can the intellect begin to
study the information? Or is it not so that our intellect, using hear-
ing as an instrument, involves itself directly in trying to grasp and

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

understand the information as it leaves the lecturer’s mouth? In other

words, are not the lecturer’s voice and our hearing simply the chan-
nels that convey the information direct from the lecturer’s reasoning
mind to ours? What do you think?

Question 2 – What am I myself?

When Hume comes to the question whether or not each human be-
ing has a personal self, he tells us that he experimented on himself
by introspection:
For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call my-
self, I always stumble on some particular perception or other,
of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure.
I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and
never can observe any thing but the perception. When my per-
ceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long I
am insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And
were all my perceptions removed by death, and I could neither
think nor feel, nor see, nor love nor hate after the dissolution of
my body, I should be entirely annihilated.35
Let us examine the logic of Hume’s statement. He tells us that
when by introspection he looked inside to discover his ‘self’, he could
never catch his ‘self’ without a perception; in fact he could never ob-
serve anything but a succession, or bundle, of perceptions. His self
was non-­existent. So there was nothing in which these successions
of perceptions could inhere. They were, we may suppose, like a suc-
cession of images flitting across a television screen but with no self
there to gather and coordinate them in some coherent, meaningful
narrative.
But this is very odd, for notice how Hume describes his experi-
ment:
When I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always
stumble on some particular perception . . . I can never catch
myself . . . without perception and I can never observe anything
but the perception.36

35 THN 1.4.6.3, emphasis in original.

36 THN 1.4.6.3, emph. added.

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 False Alternatives at the Extremes

Grant, then, that the self could not be found. But who or what
was this ‘I’ that was trying to find it? Was it too nothing but a bundle
of incoherent, un-united perceptions? And who or what was the ‘I’
that, having discovered that its self did not exist, wrote down its find-
ings in this Treatise of Human Nature?
And then this ‘I’ makes a truly astonishing statement. It now tells
us that ‘when my perceptions are removed . . . as by sound sleep, so
long I am insensible of myself and may truly be said not to exist.’ 37
So at night, not only are the perceptions removed, but this ‘I’ itself is
non-existent! That’s bad enough; but earlier we were told that even
during the day the ‘I’ could never find itself, was never sensible of
itself. That must mean that both by night and by day the self that
couldn’t be found, and the ‘I’ that couldn’t find it, could truly both
be said to be non-existent!
Of course, this ‘I’ that David Hume keeps talking about as not
having discovered itself, is none other than David Hume himself.
Translated from philosophical language into everyday speech, his
statement runs: ‘David Hume himself discovered that his self did not
exist, and being by night and day insensible of his self, he might have
been truly said to have been permanently non-existent.’ It sounds
implausible.
Now one might regard all this inconsistency as not worthwhile
thinking about, were it not for the fact that the question ‘What am I?’
is fundamental to our significance, dignity, self-esteem and mental
health. The Bible insists that we are persons made in the image of a
personal God and that we can know ourselves personally loved by
that personal God. Hume of course will not have it that there is a
God; but here he tries to prove in addition that the human self is non-
existent even in life, and at death is annihilated. (He does not appear
to explain how an already non-existent thing can be annihilated.)
The trouble lies with the epistemological theory that he uses to
demolish the existence of the human self. The Representative Theory
of Perception is false. It represents the relation of a thinker to his or
her thoughts as that of an internal viewer having perceptions of im-
ages on some internal screen in the head. But a human being does
not have to search around inside herself to see if her self has made

37 THN 1.4.6.3, emph. added.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

an impression on her mind that can then be converted into an idea

that her reason is subsequently able to detect. The normal human
being is directly aware of herself as a living, thinking, acting, lov-
ing, suffering individual person, in direct relation with the external
world, other persons, and, we hope, with God himself. Certainly she
can think of her reason, sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, emotions,
memory, powers of imagination and body and note their different
functions. But the person is not just one more part among all the
other parts, any more than the driver of a car is just another part of
the car along with the engine, the brakes, the gearbox and the wheels.
The person is the whole man, or woman, and being in charge of the
wonderful complex of powers that is himself, he can call on any one
of them, or any combination of them, reason and senses, mind and
body, simultaneously to investigate the external world directly and
to get to know it. Hume’s epistemology, by contrast, disintegrates
the human personality, and eventually dissolves it into nothingness.
(Nothingness is, of course, the final destiny that all atheists hope for.)

Question 3 – What causes things?

It is to Hume’s credit that he raised the question of causation and
forced it on the world’s attention ever since. It is a large and complex
subject, and we cannot begin to do justice to it here. But there is one
aspect of Hume’s theory of causation that springs directly out of his
theory of perception and therefore deserves study in this context.
Introducing the subject of causation, he first remarks:
It seems a proposition, which will not admit of much dispute,
that all our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions, or,
in other words, that it is impossible for us to think any thing,
which we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or
internal senses.38
We recognise at once his epistemological theory: we cannot
(properly) think of any thing until the external world has first made
impressions on us, which have then been copied and turned into
ideas that are thus made available to our reason.
He then observes:

38 EHU (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding) 7.4, emphasis in original.

94
 False Alternatives at the Extremes

When we look about us towards external objects, and consider

the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single instance, to
discover any power or necessary connexion; any quality, which
binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an ­infallible
consequence of the other. We only find, that the one does actu-
ally, in fact, follow the other.39
As an illustration of what he means, he cites what we see actually
happen, and what we don’t see, when one billiard ball strikes another.
The impulse of one billiard-ball is attended with motion in the
second. This is the whole that appears to the outward senses.
The mind feels no sentiment or inward impression from this
succession of objects: Consequently, there is not, in any single,
particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can
suggest the idea of power or necessary connexion.40
Nowadays we should speak of the transfer of energy from the
first billiard ball to the second. But energy is invisible, and even ad-
vanced science does not know what energy is. It is understandable
that Hume in his day should claim that outward senses saw only
that when one ball hit the other, the other moved: there was noth-
ing else to be seen: nothing to ‘suggest the idea of power or necessary
connexion’.
But then Hume’s epistemological theory obliged him to say that
if our outward sense did not see, or feel, that necessary connection, ‘it
was impossible for our minds to think it’. Where, then, we may ask,
do we get the idea of this necessary connection from? The answer
that he gives is that when we see one event follow another time after
time, the sequence becomes so fixed in the imagination that the mind
automatically, as though determined, infers that the second event is
caused by the first. But, Hume points out, however many times this
sequence of events is observed to happen, we still don’t actually see
any necessary connection between the two events, and cannot logi-
cally claim that the first event was the cause of the second.
From this Hume then drew a startling conclusion: when we see
the second billiard ball move, it is our mind that infers from the

39 EHU 7.6.
40 EHU 7.6.

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 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

motion of this second ball that the cause of this motion was the first
ball. Then our mind transfers this inference to the event in the ex-
ternal world, as though it were a fact in the external world, though
we have no right to do so, since we never actually saw the ‘cause’. We
have, then, no right to infer causes from effects.

Evaluation of Hume’s billiard balls

We must not blame Hume for not knowing the results of modern sci-
ence. But even in his day he was wrong to say that if you could not see
in some substance, just by observing it, some power that could neces-
sarily cause some effect, you could not rightly claim that it was the
cause of some subsequent event. The ancient world observed that
death constantly followed the drinking of certain liquids, and they
called them poisons. They could not actually see by observation what
it was in the liquid that had this lethal power;
nor could they see what exactly it was that this
Nuclear radiation liquid did inside the body to kill it. But reason
cannot be seen, inferred that death following the drinking of the
heard, felt, tasted or liquid was caused by the liquid. And reason (and
smelled. But observing common sense) were right! Subsequently chemi-
the genetic damage cal analysis has shown exactly what it is in the
and death that follows poisonous liquid that causes death and exactly
exposure to high how it affects the cells in the body.
dosages of radiation, Nuclear radiation cannot be seen, heard,
reason infers that felt, tasted or smelled. But observing the ge-
radia­tion is the cause netic damage and death that follows exposure
of these effects. to high dosages of radiation, reason infers that
radiation is the cause of these effects. To say that
reason is wrong in this case to infer cause from
effect, because the cause and its essential power cannot be visually
observed, would be philosophical pedantry at its worst.
In 1764, one of Hume’s contemporaries, Thomas Reid (1710–96),
an experimental scientist, wrote a critique of Hume’s theories in a
book deliberately entitled An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the
Principles of Common Sense. He argued that the notion that we arrive
at our conception of things through intermediary ideas in the mind
that are themselves images of impressions made on the mind by ex-
ternal objects is altogether contrary to the actual way we come to

96
 False Alternatives at the Extremes

know things. When we see a tree, for instance, the tree does not give
us a mere idea, or image, of a tree; our mind there and then makes
the judgment that the tree exists with a certain shape, size and posi-
tion. And as for Hume’s argument that it is invalid to infer a cause,
or an object’s existence, from its effects, Reid points out that that is
precisely what we do in the case of gravity and magnetism.41
Similarly E. L. Mascall has likewise pointed out that in addition
to sense-data, we have a non-sensory intellectual element in percep-
tion which does not consist of inference drawn from the sense-data.42
Rather it uses sense-data as an instrument through which the intel-
lect grasps in a direct, but mediate, activity, the intelligible extra-
mental reality, which is the real thing.
Bertrand Russell’s verdict on Hume’s philosophy is:
Hume’s philosophy, whether true or false, represents the bank-
ruptcy of eighteenth-century reasonableness. He starts out, like
Locke, with the intention of being sensible and empirical, tak-
ing nothing on trust, but seeking whatever instruction is to be
obtained from experience and observation. But having a bet-
ter intellect than Locke’s, a great acuteness in analysis, and a
smaller capacity for accepting comfortable inconsistencies, he
arrives at the disastrous conclusion that from experience and
observation nothing is to be learnt. There is no such thing as a
rational belief: ‘If we believe that fire warms, or water refreshes,
‘tis only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise.’
We cannot help believing, but no belief can be grounded in rea-
son. . . . The growth of unreason throughout the nineteenth
century and what has passed of the twentieth is a natural sequel
to Hume’s destruction of empiricism.43
Russell’s verdict is severe but deserved. The trouble with both
Locke and Hume, and those who followed their school of thought,
was not empiricism, which rightly teaches that our knowledge of ob-
jective reality must be based on that reality, and all the beliefs that
we hold about reality must be checked for truth against that reality.

41 See the extended discussion of Reid’s work in Kenny, Brief History of Western Philosophy,

241–3.
42 Words and Images, 29–45.

43 Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 610–11.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

The trouble with Locke and Hume was the screen they erected be-
tween reason and reality. Reason was never allowed to have direct
perception of reality, not even in association with the senses. Always
impressions, copied by ideas, had to come first; reason must be con-
tent to come second and try to understand through these ideas what
sense impressions had gathered from the external world.
Hume himself puts it this way:
My intention then . . . is only to make the reader sensible of
the truth of my hypothesis, that all our reasonings concerning
causes and effects are derived from nothing but custom; and that
belief is more properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogni-
tive, part of our natures.44
In this way Locke and Hume erected a barrier between reason
and external reality. We earlier noticed that Plato divided knowa-
ble reality into two utterly distinct worlds: the Sensible World, about
which we can form opinions through our senses, and the Intelli­gible
World knowable by the intellect. Aristotle divided the universe into
two realms: that from the moon upwards, which was perfect, and
that below the moon, which was imperfect. Locke and Hume for
their part divide our powers of perception and understanding: our
senses, which have direct access to reality and must always have first
place, and our reason, which does not have direct access and can
only come second. Locke and Hume will not allow us human beings
to be integrated persons who can use reason and senses as a coopera-
tive team working simultaneously in unison to perceive and under-
stand reality directly.
A lesser, but still serious, failing in Locke’s and Hume’s epistem­
ology is what Professor T. F. Torrance has called ‘the tyrannical as-
sumption that all knowledge must ultimately rest upon a form of
sense-perception’, and particularly on visual perception.45 Hume ad-
mittedly speaks of other senses besides sight; but his main emphasis
is on visual impressions. Ideas, he says, are ‘images’, ‘copies’, ‘exact
representations’ of impressions, and the main illustration he gives
of this is that, when he shut his eyes and thought of his room, the

44 THN 1.4.1.8.
45 Theological Science, 21.

98
 False Alternatives at the Extremes

ideas he formed of it were exact representations of the impression he

felt when he looked at it with his eyes open.46 But when it comes to
conveying information by speech direct from one mind to another,
hearing is more important than sight, as we saw earlier, when we
considered the case of a school teacher explaining to a class the ab-
stract idea of ratio.
Professor Torrance reminds us that according to the Bible, when
God communicated his law to Israel, he commanded them to notice
that they saw no form, or image, of God: they only heard his voice
(Deut 4:12–15). Since epistemology will eventually involve us in ask-
ing how we can know that there is a God, the importance of rational,
verbal communication of God’s mind to ours without the interven-
tion of visual images will become crucially significant.
But perhaps the final irony of Hume’s epistemological system
is this. His whole theory is based on the assertion that we gain our
knowledge of the external world from the impressions it causes on
our minds. But when he comes to discuss causation he admits:
As to those impressions, which arise from the senses, their ulti-
mate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly inexplicable by human
reason, and it will always be impossible to decide with certainty,
whether they arise immediately from the object, or are pro-
duced by the creative power of the mind, or are derived from
the author of our being.47
So for all his empiricism he could not be sure that his impres-
sions of the external world were not mere figments of his own mind—­
unless perhaps there was a God who created the whole system.
But now we must turn to the famous German philosopher Kant,
to see how he attempted to solve the disastrous implications of
Locke’s and Hume’s epistemology.

46 THN 1.1.1.3.
47 THN 1.3.5.2, emphasis in original.

99
 CHAPTER 3

THE EPISTEMOLOGY
OF IMMANUEL KANT

Infancy is the inability to use one’s reason with­

out the guidance of another. It is self­imposed,
when it depends on a deficiency, not of reason,
but of the resolve and courage to use it without
external guidance. Thus the watchword of the
enlightenment is: Sapere aude! Have the cour­
age to use your own reason.
—Immanuel Kant, ‘Beantwortung der Frage:
Was ist Aufklärung?’
 KANT’S METAPHYSIcS

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is generally regarded as the last and

greatest of the Enlightenment philosophers. The book that made him
famous is his Critique of Pure Reason, first published in 1781, with a
second revised edition in 1787.1
Paul Guyer and Allen Wood in their edition of the Critique say
of it that it
is one of the seminal and monumental works in the history of
Western philosophy. . . . In the more than two centuries since
the book was first published, it has been the constant object
of scholarly interpretation and a continuous source of inspira-
tion to inventive philosophers. To tell the whole story of the
book’s influence would be to write the history of philosophy
since Kant.
To feel the pulse-beat of this philosopher we could do no better
than to read again his summary of what the Enlightenment stood for,
which we quoted in the previous chapter.
The emergence of man from his self-imposed infancy. Infancy
is the inability to use one’s reason without the guidance of
another. It is self-imposed, when it depends on a deficiency,
not of reason, but of the resolve and courage to use it without
external guidance. Thus the watchword of the enlightenment is:
Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own reason.2
Now metaphysics in Kant’s day had for long centuries concerned
itself with humankind’s major questions: Is there a God, and can it

1 All references are to the English translation by Norman Kemp Smith, fi rst printed in 1929.

The letters A and B plus numerals in the margins in this translation indicate passages from the
second edition (B) that have been incorporated into the first edition (A).
2 See ‘Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufk lärung?’, 35.

103
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

be proved? Is man really free? Has man an immortal soul? Is there a

life to come? Kant’s philosophy seeks answers to all these questions.3
Naturally, Kant was against mere superstition. He was also
impatient with all dogmatism, particularly on the part of philoso-
phers who claimed that by pure reason they could prove God’s exist-
ence, the immortality of the soul and the reality of the life to come. It
is well known that Kant thought that none of these things could be
proved on the basis of pure reason; it is less well known, but equally
true, that he was a believer in God, in the immortality of the soul and
in the reality of the life to come; and he was opposed to all forms of
scepticism that held that theology, philosophy and science could not
give us any certain answers on these matters.
Moreover, though Kant was an ardent believer in the natural
sciences, they raised for him a special problem. Newton had dis-
covered the universal law of gravity and had expressed it mathemati-
cally. This suggested to many people that the universe was a gigantic
machine working according to relentless mechanical laws. If, then,
human beings were part of the universe, and therefore part of this
system of unvarying and inexorable causes and effects, how could
man be said to be free? How was free thought even possible? And if
humans were not free, how could they be held to be morally respon-
sible for their actions? It was a main part of his purpose in writing
the Critique of Pure Reason to investigate to what extent these ques-
tions could be answered by pure reason.

Kant’s distinction between pure reason and practical reason

It would be important, therefore, that right from the start we should

notice exactly what the book’s title is: the book is not about reason
in general, but about pure reason as distinct from practical reason.
Subsequently Kant wrote another book entitled Critique of Practical
Reason (published 1788); but even in the Critique of Pure Reason he
spends considerable space towards the end of the book emphasising
the difference between pure and practical reason. Let us see how this
difference affects the answers he gives to the questions he faced about
ultimate reality, God, the soul and the life to come.

3 Pure Reason, B 7.

104
 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant

Pure reason: it is impossible, he says, to prove by pure reason the

existence of God, the immortality of the soul and the life to come.4
Practical reason: he asserts his personal moral belief thus:
I must in all points conform to the moral law. . . . There is only
one possible condition under which this end can connect with
all other ends, and thereby have practical validity, namely, that
there be a God, and a future world. . . . Since, therefore, the moral
precept is at the same time my maxim (reason prescribing that it
should be so), I inevitably believe in the existence of God and in
a future life, and I am certain that nothing can shake this belief.5
And then when it comes to the scientific investigation of nature,
though he recognises the order and purposiveness everywhere
observable throughout the world and how this seems to point to God
the Creator (‘the physico-theological argument’ as he calls it), his
conviction is that on the basis of pure reason this argument is unable
to give any determinate concept of the supreme cause of the world. It
cannot therefore serve as the foundation of a theology that is itself, in
turn, to form the basis of religion.6
However, on the basis of practical reason, he holds that this ‘phys-
ico-theological’, or design argument, is the only satisfactory hypoth-
esis for the investigation of nature:
Purposive unity is, however, so important a condition of the
application of reason to nature that I cannot ignore it, espe-
cially as experience supplies me so richly with examples of it.
But I know no other condition under which this unity can sup-
ply me with guidance in the investigation of nature, save only
the postulate that a supreme intelligence has ordered all things
in accordance with the wisest ends.7
And then Kant goes on to express his personal belief:
Consequently, as a condition of what is indeed a contingent,
but still not unimportant purpose, namely, to have guidance

4 See, e.g. A 592 ff./B 620 ff.

5 Kant, Pure Reason, A 828, B 856.
6 See Kant, Pure Reason, A 628–9, B 656–7.
7 Kant, Pure Reason, A 826, B 854.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

in the investigation of nature, we must postulate a wise Author

of the world. Moreover, the outcome of my attempts [in expla-
nation of nature] so frequently confirms the usefulness of this
postulate, while nothing decisive can be cited against it, that I
am saying much too little if I proceed to declare that I hold it
merely as an opinion. Even in this theoretical relation it can be
said that I firmly believe in God. This belief is not, therefore,
strictly speaking, practical; it must be entitled a doctrinal belief,
to which the theology of nature (physico-theology) must always
necessarily give rise. In view of the magnificent equipment of
our human nature, and the shortness of life so ill-suited to the
full exercise of our powers, we can find in this same divine
wisdom a no less sufficient ground for a doctrinal belief in the
future life of the human soul.8
The question naturally arises: if Kant professes himself bound in
actual practice, both in scientific investigation of nature and in the
basic presuppositions of the practice of morality, to believe in God,
then what does he mean by saying that God’s existence cannot be
proved by pure reason? What, according to him, is pure reason?
A rough and ready preliminary answer would be that it is the
kind of abstract reasoning that we use in arithmetic and geometry,
which yields absolutely certain and indisputable, necessary truths,
such that their contrary is utterly unthinkable and unimaginable.9
On the other hand, Kant maintains, for the results of such reasoning
to be fruitful, they must demonstrably correspond to real objects of
possible experience; otherwise they are empty.10 You can, for instance,
reason in your head according to indisputably correct arithmetic
that 10 × 10 = 100; and the result is logically true. But such reasoning
does not create any money in your bank account. You cannot take
the result arrived at by pure reason and on that basis alone argue that
it proves that you have, say £100 in the bank. The only way you could
prove that £100 actually exist in the bank in your name (or should
do, if no one has stolen them) is by experience, that is, by going to the

8 Kant, Pure Reason, A 826–7, B 854–5. Bracketed words are in original.

9 Kant, Pure Reason, B ix–x.
10 See Kant, Pure Reason, B xxx.

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bank and getting hold of them. Conversely, if such experience were

for some reason impossible, and even the possibility of such experi-
ence unthinkable, then you could never prove by pure reason that
you had money in the bank.
In the same way, Kant maintains, by pure reason you can con-
struct in your head logical arguments for the existence of God, but
by itself that would not prove that in actual fact God does exist. (Inci-
dentally, he elsewhere points out that pure reason cannot prove that
God does not exist.)11 Therefore pure reason would advise people
to base their faith in God’s existence on practical reason, which is,
according to Kant, what the mass of people (as distinct from phi-
losophers) do anyway. And rightly so, for ‘belief in a wise and great
Author of the world is generated solely by the glorious order, beauty,
and providential care everywhere displayed in nature’.12

Knowing God
If we bracket out the adverb ‘solely’ in the above quotation there is
truth in Kant’s argument. The Bible likewise says:
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the crea-
tion of the world, in the things that have been made. (Rom 1:20)
And it is also true, as Kant points out,13 that when people become
too engrossed in abstract, speculative, reasoning as to whether God
exists or not, it diverts their attention from the powerful evidence for
God’s existence that is staring them in the face, if only they allowed
practical reason to point them to that evidence.
But let’s return to that troublesome adverb ‘solely’. Why does
Kant say that belief in God is generated solely by the glorious order,
beauty and providential care displayed in nature? Is no other expe-
rience of God available to us? Kant appears to reply, ‘No’. God, he
states, is not an object of possible experience, and to argue that he is,
is mere speculation. We cannot have certain knowledge of God but
only faith that God exists:

11 Kant, Pure Reason, A 830/B 858.

12 Kant, Pure Reason, B xxxiii.
13 Kant, Pure Reason, B xxix–xxx.

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even the assumption—as made on behalf of the necessary prac-

tical employment of my reason—of God, freedom, and immor-
tality is not permissible unless at the same time speculative
reason be deprived of its pretensions to transcendent insight.
For in order to arrive at such insight it must make use of prin-
ciples which, in fact, extend only to objects of possible experi-
ence, and which, if also applied to what cannot be an object of
experience, always really change them into an appearance, thus
rendering all practical extension of pure reason impossible. I
have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order
to make room for faith.14
So according to Kant, we can have faith that God exists; but we
cannot know for certain that God exists. We can believe that God
exists, but we can have no experience of God. He is beyond all possi-
ble experience. If we claim to have experience of God, we are putting
our faith in speculation and mere appearances. ‘No one, indeed,’ he
says, ‘will be able to boast that he knows that there is a God, and a
future life.’ 15
At this, of course, the Bible will protest. Admittedly God is not
simply an ‘object of experience’, though he can rightly be experienced
as such. He is the Great Subject who has taken the initiative in making
it possible for us to get to know and experience him, as in his grace he
chooses to ‘know’ us personally and individually (Gal 4:9). This was
the precise purpose of Christ’s coming to earth: ‘no one knows the
Father’, he said, ‘except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses
to reveal him. Come to me, . . . and learn from me’ (Matt 11:27–29).
Perhaps the most famous of all Christ’s parables was the one in
which he likened himself to a shepherd and his disciples to sheep. In
the course of that parable he says: ‘I am the good shepherd. I know
my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I
know the Father’ (John 10:14–15). His mission, indeed, was that peo-
ple should ‘know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you
have sent’ (John 17:3). And as for experience of God here in this life,
Christ asserted that all who receive him and put their faith in him,
experience ‘being born of God’ (John 1:12–13; 3:1–16).

14 Kant, Pure Reason, B xxix–xxx.

15 Kant, Pure Reason, A 829/B 857.

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 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant

In consequence, the constantly repeated affirmation of the early

Christians, arising out of their personal experience, was: ‘We know
that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so
that we may know him who is true; and we
are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ’
(1 John 5:20). If Christ, then, says that knowl- The constantly repeated
edge and experience of God are possible in affirmation of the early
this life, and our experience bears that out, Christians, arising
Kant’s assertion that ‘No one indeed will be out of their personal
able to boast that he knows that there is a God’ experience, was: ‘We
will sound strange indeed. In the first place, it know that the Son of
is not a question of boasting. A little child is God has come and has
not boasting when it says that it knows its given us understanding,
father, since the relationship with its father so that we may know
was not something that the child has achieved him who is true; and we
by its good works. The relationship is a result are in him who is true,
of its birth. Similarly, with the believer in in his Son Jesus Christ’
Christ. The relationship with God that allows (1 John 5:20).
a believer to know God as Father is not
achieved by meritorious works. It is bestowed
on the believer as an act of God’s grace: ‘And because you are sons,
God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba!
Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an
heir through God’ (Gal 4:6–7).

Denying knowledge to make room for faith

If Kant were alive today he would doubtless shake his head gravely
and repeat what he said at the end of the long quotation above: ‘I have
. . . found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for
faith’; in other words, if it could be logically proved that God exists,
then there would be no room left for faith.
This idea is widespread, but it is, in fact, not true. The Bible indi-
cates, somewhat ruefully, that the demons know for certain that God
exists. They have no choice whether they shall believe it or not. But
that does not stop them believing in God’s existence (Jas 2:19), even
though they continue to defy him.
It has been indisputably demonstrated according to chemical
laws that certain drugs inevitably have a deleterious effect on the

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brain. Instead of that proven fact eliminating faith, it is faith in that

scientifically demonstrated fact that keeps some young people from
taking drugs in spite of peer pressure. Lack of faith in the scientifi-
cally proved fact is not the inevitable result of its being proved. Lack
of faith is perverse and tragically leads some people to yield to peer
pressure and to take drugs, with all too often disastrous results. The
same is true of smoking, and the proved fact that it damages the
lungs.

Kant’s Copernican revolution

In his book Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics 16 Kant confides

in us that he was aroused from his dogmatic slumbers by recalling
the works of David Hume (which we have just studied). Two things
about Hume’s philosophy troubled Kant: one was Hume’s ideas on
causation, the other was Hume’s contention that we have no access
to knowledge of the external world except through the impressions
made by the world on our senses. To understand why these two things
troubled Kant we must first take a brief look back to the beginnings
of modern science.

Kant’s scientific background

Though recognisable as modern science, at its beginning science in
Europe was still regarded as a branch of philosophy known as natural
philosophy. It still retained many of the basic philosophical ideas and
concerns that had been developed by the ancient traditions of Plato
and Aristotle. It was these ideas and concerns that motivated the early
scientists to debate among themselves what was the true method­
ology that scientists ought to adopt in their research and what logical
principles had to be followed in the interpretation of the results they
achieved, if their interpretations were to be regarded as correct and
reliable. Let’s take some examples.

William Harvey and the circulation of the blood

In 1628 William Harvey published a book, On the Motion of the
Heart and Blood in Animals, in which he announced his discovery of

16 p. 7.

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the circulation of the blood. He had made this discovery largely by

what he called ‘ocular experiments’, that is by actually looking at the
heart’s behaviour by means of anatomical dissection and vivisections.
Descartes announced that as a result of his own study of anatomy
he agreed with Harvey that the blood does indeed circulate round
the body and that the heart plays a central part in this process. But
Descartes disagreed about how the heart did this and what actually
caused the blood to circulate.
Harvey maintained that the heart was a muscle and, by regular
contractions, acted like a pump to drive the blood around the body.
Today we know that Harvey’s theory was right. Descartes, however,
had a different theory, which we need not stay to consider; it had
some plausibility, yet it was wrong. What interests us is the reason
Descartes gave for rejecting Harvey’s theory.
Harvey, he argued, could not explain how a muscle could have
the supposed power to contract on its own in this way. All other mus-
cles, he said, simply control the voluntary movement which humans
themselves freely initiate. Merely to point to the fact that in vivisec-
tion the heart could be observed to contract regularly did not prove
that the heart initiated this contraction, or even that it was this con-
tracting that caused the blood to circulate. Perhaps it was the cir-
culation of the blood that caused the heart to contract. Harvey had
observed the contractions; he had observed the blood circulating; he
had not observed which of the two was the cause of the other.
Harvey’s theory, then, could not be accepted as proven true,
unless he could explain what caused the heart to contract in the
first place. In other words he would have to explain not merely
the ma­terial the heart was made of but the form or nature of the
heart and the cause of its powers, if his explanation was going to be
accepted as a truly philosophical explanation. All agreed that inter-
esting facts and opinions could be obtained by experiment; but to
turn these opinions into solid knowledge, they would have to pass
the test of strict philosophical reasoning regarding causes.

Newton’s theory of gravitation

Newton’s famous inverse square law of gravitational attraction was
similarly attacked and rejected on several grounds by contempor­
ary scientists and philosophers. Newton claimed that his law was

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deduced by mathematical logic from the actual observed phenomena

of the behaviour of the moon and the planets. It was not, therefore,
an unproven hypothesis.
His critics, however, insisted that it was only a hypothesis, and a
very implausible one at that. It involved the idea that some invisible
‘gravitational force’ could be the cause of one object affecting another
at a distance without the objects having any direct or indirect con-
tact. Such an idea, they maintained, was unacceptable to true natural
philosophy.
The great and famous Leibniz joined in the criticism. He argued
that Newton’s inverse square law merely described the fact that plan-
ets orbit a fixed point, the sun; but it did not explain what caused this
orbital motion. To say that some gravitational force made them orbit
the sun did not identify any natural agency that might plausibly be
regarded as causing their motion. Obviously Newton did not think it
was in the nature of planets to orbit of their
own accord in this way: he held that they
Obviously Newton did not were being made to do it. By what natural
think it was in the nature of force then? To postulate some external
planets to orbit of their own invisible force and simply call it gravity
accord in this way: he held explained nothing. Where did this gravita-
that they were being made tional force come from? What caused it?
to do it. By what natural Newton, said Leibniz, could not answer
force then? To postulate the question. His theory, therefore, was
some external invisible force tantamount to saying that this gravita-
and simply call it gravity tional force must be maintained by some
explained nothing. Where constant miraculous, supernatural power—
did this gravitational force which was not an explanation that would
come from? What caused it? satisfy natural philosophy.
Newton, said Leibniz, could Advances in scientific discovery have
not answer the question. shown us that Harvey and Newton were
right and Descartes and Leibniz wrong
on these points. Science has come down
on the side of Harvey’s theory, leading to advances in cardiac medi-
cine. And science has come down on the side of Newton’s theory,
even though not all difficulties in the understanding of gravitation
and energy have been resolved. Nevertheless we can admire the cau-
tion of the early scientists in refusing to accept a scientific theory,

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­however plausible, until it was fully proved; and we can understand

their insistence on the necessity of rigorously explaining the true
causes of things.

Kant’s objections to Hume’s philosophy

Hume had argued, as we have seen, that it is never possible for us
to observe causes. He reasoned that our only source of knowledge
of events in the external world is through the impressions those
events make on our mind. Kant saw at once that if Hume’s argument
were true, not only would it make knowledge of causation impos-
sible: it would be destructive of all pure philosophy.17 He felt he had
to accept Hume’s claim that all the content of our knowledge of the
external world must come from the world itself. But he felt equally
strongly that the logical principles by means of which we understand
and make sense of this knowledge are not derived from the external
world: they are supplied by the logical powers inherent in the human
mind. We do not learn the truths of mathematics and the concept of
cause and effect, i.e. that everything that happens has its cause, from
experience of the world a posteriori; we know these truths a priori,
independently of any experience. In other words, the external world
provides us with all the information about itself; but we provide the
logical principles and powers necessary for the analysis and under-
standing of that information.18

Sound principles and specific knowledge

There is a key difference to be observed between the principle of cause
and effect and knowledge of actual causes and effects. Kant freely
admitted, indeed he insisted on the fact, that a priori understanding
of the law of cause and effect cannot by itself predict in advance what
the actual cause of some particular event will turn out to be. Only
empirical investigation can do that—if indeed it is possible to do it at
all. But a priori knowledge of the law of cause and effect will assure
us that there must have been a cause, whatever it was.19
Let’s illustrate to ourselves the importance of the distinction that
Kant is making here. Take an apple, for example. It starts off being
17 Kant, Pure Reason, B 19–20.
18 See Kant, Pure Reason, B 1.
19 See Kant, Pure Reason, B 289–294.

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firm and rosy red. Eventually it goes rotten, soft and mushy brown. A
priori knowledge of the law of cause and effect cannot tell you what
has actually caused this particular change. What it can tell you and
insist on, however, is that this change must have been brought about
by some cause or causes. This in turn will drive the chemists to look
for, and if possible discover, the cause. But even if the cause could
not be found, the a priori knowledge of the law that there can be
no effect without a cause, would convince people that there must be
some cause for the apple’s going rotten, even if we cannot discover it.
It is this a priori conviction that drives modern cancer research.
The exact cause or causes of many cancers is still not known. But
from the a priori law of cause and effect scientists infer that the effect,
cancer, must be produced by some cause or causes; and so they con-
tinue research to find the cause in the hope that, having found it, they
may be able to devise a cure. And when the cure is found, they will
regard their medicine as the cause of healing.

Kant’s aims in writing the Critique

Kant’s belief, then, was that ‘though all our knowledge begins with
experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience’.20
Some knowledge about things in the external world can be known a
priori, that is, before we have experience of them. He thought, how-
ever, that he could combine this rationalist view with what he had
come to see was the valid element in Hume’s empiricism, namely, that
all the content of our knowledge of the world must come by experi-
ence of the world.
In the Critique, therefore, he set out to do two things:
1. rigorously to demonstrate that there is such a thing as
a ­priori synthetic knowledge (what this means we shall
see in a moment); and
2. to demonstrate by logical argument the limitations of
pure reason.
In his introduction to the second edition of his Critique, however,
he confessed that to have any hope of achieving the first objective we
must be prepared to accept a revolution in our attitude to knowledge

20 Kant, Pure Reason, B 1.

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of objects in the external world, like the revolution that Copernicus

instituted in cosmology.21
Before Copernicus’s revolution people had tried to explain the
movements of the heavenly bodies on the supposition that the heav-
enly bodies all revolved around the human spectator. Despairing of
achieving any success on this basis, Coperni-
cus adopted the hypothesis that the true situ-
ation might be the direct opposite: it might Kant’s suggested
be that the human spectators were revolving Copernican revolution in
round the heavenly b ­ odies. Proceeding on epistemology was only
this hypothesis Copernicus opened up the a heuristic hypothesis
way to the eventual establishment of the fun- adopted in the struggle
damental laws of the motions of the heav- to reconcile the truth of
enly bodies and Newton’s discovery of the empiricism with the truths
universal law of gravitation. of rationalism. But the
Similarly, Kant suggested, we must give suggestion that the universe
up asking, as Locke and Hume had done, must conform itself to our
how our knowledge can conform to objects preconceived principles of
in the external world. Instead we must pure reason or else forfeit
adopt the opposite supposition that for true the possibility of being
knowledge of objects in the external world known, smacks of hubris.
to be possible, those objects must conform
to our reason and our categories of under-
standing. On that basis, he argued, it could then be seen that while a
posteriori experience of the external world supplies all the content of
our knowledge, a priori knowledge is necessary for the understand-
ing of that content. The external world, known by the senses, will still
provide the raw material of knowledge, but our knowledge of a priori
principles will impose on it the structure of our understanding.
Now scientists frequently adopt an hypothesis as a heuristic tool
for investigating nature; and Kant’s suggested Copernican revo-
lution in epistemology was only a heuristic hypothesis adopted in
the struggle to reconcile the truth of empiricism with the truths of
rationalism. But the suggestion that the universe must conform itself
to our preconceived principles of pure reason or else forfeit the pos-
sibility of being known, smacks of hubris.

21 Kant, Pure Reason, B xvi–xvii.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

To start with, it raises a fundamental question: what exactly is it

that we are seeking to do in science? All agree that, whatever it is we
are trying to do, we must bring all our powers of reason to bear upon
the task. All agree that we cannot just be passive: we must actively
use our reason to design experiments that oblige nature to answer
the questions we put to it. But are we using our rational and practical
powers to listen to nature in order to discover nature’s own inherent
intelligibility and order? Or are we seeking to impose our precon-
ceived sense of rational order on nature, thus injecting into nature’s
material an intelligibility that it did not possess until we forced it to
submit to our rational principles?
There are places in the Critique where Kant comes perilously near
the second of these alternatives. He admits that there are things about
nature that reason can learn only from nature, and that these things
we must allow nature to teach us and not allow reason ­fictitiously to
invent them. But then in a typical Enlightenment attitude he adds:
reason has insight only into that which it produces after a plan
of its own . . . [reason] must not allow itself to be kept, as it were,
in nature’s leading-strings . . . [reason] must adopt as its guide
. . . that which it has itself put into nature.22
Is human reason, then, we ask, so absolutely perfect that it could
never be taught a higher order of rationality than it already pos-
sesses? It never seems to have occurred to Kant that nature, being the
creation of the divine mind, might have an intelligibility of a higher
order than he ever conceived of.
To Kant, Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics were the
last word in rationality. Experience has taught us otherwise. Ein-
stein’s openness to the possibility that the universe might have
a sophistication subtler and more complicated than we had ever
thought before, led to the discovery that, at higher levels, Newtonian
physics no longer applies and is superseded by quantum physics; and
that space-time is not structured according to Euclidean, but non-­
Euclidean, geometry. The universe’s rationality is a hierarchy of lev-
els; we have not yet scaled its utmost heights.

22 Kant, Pure Reason, B xiii–xiv.

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 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant

But Kant’s ‘Copernican revolution’ extends beyond the realm

of science. As we have seen, he holds that practical and moral rea-
son assure us that God exists. But then he adds that because pure
reason cannot, with its limited powers, prove that God exists, he
must remain, as far as pure reason is concerned, beyond all possible
experience. This is, as the ancient Greek tragedians might say, the
Enlightenment’s hamartia, its fatal flaw.

The irony of Kant’s Copernican revolution

One other thing seems to have escaped Kant’s attention: his sup-
posed Copernican revolution in philosophy directed mankind in
the opposite direction to what Copernicus’s revolution in cosmol-
ogy did. Before Copernicus, man thought he was the centre; and the
sun, the planets and the constellations all circled around him. That
supposition severely hindered man’s true understanding of cosmol-
ogy. Copernicus suggested that man was not the centre: the sun was.
Before Kant, people thought that for a true understanding of the uni-
verse man’s ideas had to conform to the universe. Kant’s revolution
proposed that from now on the universe had to conform to man’s
understanding, or forfeit the possibility of being known. Man was
now the centre and man’s own powers of pure reason the final judge
of what could be known for certain. We shall find that this attitude
dug a deep, arbitrary, unbridgeable chasm between what is potentially
knowable and what is not.

KANT’S BASIC PRINCIPLES

OF A PRIORI SYNTHETIC KNOWLEDGE

First Principle:
The possibility of a priori synthetic knowledge

To understand what Kant means we must first remind ourselves of

the difference between what are called analytic propositions and syn-
thetic propositions.23

23 See Kant, Pure Reason, A 6–10/B 10–14.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Analytic propositions
All propositions, said Kant, take the form of subject + predicate. In
analytic propositions, the predicate does not add any information that
is not already contained in the subject. Simple examples are:
(a) A triangle is a figure that has three sides. The subject is ‘a tri-
angle’; the predicate is ‘a figure that has three sides’. But the
predicate tells us no new information that was not already
contained in the subject. The word ‘triangle’ by itself means
‘a figure that has three sides’. The predicate merely explains
what the term ‘triangle’ means. It adds no new information.
It simply analyses the meaning of ‘triangle’.
(b) A widow is a woman whose husband has died. Once more
the predicate adds no new information beyond that involved
in the subject (a widow).
(c) All bodies are extended. Of course they are extended, for in
philosophical terms that is exactly what a body is: something
that has size and shape and is not just a mathematical point.

Synthetic propositions
In synthetic propositions the predicate adds information that is not
included in the meaning of the subject. The predicate ‘puts together’
(the meaning of the word synthetic) some new information along with
the meaning of the subject. Some examples are:
(a) This triangle was drawn by Boris. The fact that this triangle
was drawn by Boris could not have been deduced from the
meaning of the term ‘triangle’. It adds information additional
to what is implied in the subject.
(b) This widow is Hugo’s sister. But you could not have known that
she was Hugo’s sister simply by knowing what the word widow
means. Once more the predicate has supplied new information
not necessarily contained in the meaning of the subject.
(c) This body is heavy. By definition all bodies are extended, but
not all bodies are heavy; some are light. If this particular body
is heavy you could not have known it just by thinking about
the term ‘body’ in your head. You must either be told about it
or discover it by experience.

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 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant

Kant’s contention
It is Kant’s contention, then, that simply by the power of in-built prin-
ciples of reason we can gain new knowledge—synthetic knowledge—
about objects and events in the external world in advance of seeing
them, and independently of experiencing them. He gives examples.

The proposition ‘Everything which happens has its cause’

Kant argues as follows:
In the concept of ‘something which happens’, I do indeed think
of an existence which is preceded by a time, etc., and from this
concept analytic judgments may be obtained. But the concept
of a ‘cause’ lies entirely outside the other concept, and signi-
fies something different from ‘that which happens’, and is not
therefore in any way contained in this latter representation.24
The predicate, then, ‘has its cause’, adds information that was not
inherent in the subject ‘Everything which happens’. It is therefore
a synthetic proposition. Moreover, Kant claims, this knowledge is
not drawn from experience, which could only give us a contingent
truth. The truth we gain in this proposition is necessary (‘everything
that happens has, and must have, a cause’) and universal (‘everything
that . . .’). This synthetic knowledge is, therefore, to be recognised as
a priori.

Arithmetical propositions
The particular example he quotes is 7 + 5 = 12.25 He admits that 7 + 5
(the subject) is an invitation to add the two numbers together, and
hence that the predicate 12 might seem to have been implied in the
subject. If so, the proposition would simply be analytic (like ‘a tri-
angle is a figure with three sides’). But Kant insists it is not so. What
the resultant number is when 7 is added to 5 is not stated in the sub-
ject: it must be worked out in the head, and then it supplies a new
piece of information. Kant adds that this is seen more clearly with
bigger ­numbers—by which he presumably means something like

24 Kant, Pure Reason, A 9/B 13.

25 Kant, Pure Reason, B 15–16.

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173 × 5642 = ?, in which the predicate, whatever it turns out to be, is

not obviously contained in the subject.
The modern empiricist John Hospers is one among many philoso-
phers who would disagree with Kant here. Write out the subject 7 + 5
as single digits 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1, he argues,
and it is at once evident from the subject that you have 12 digits! 26 On
the other hand, Bertrand Russell vigorously supported Kant.27 He
admitted that a child learns that 2 + 2 = 4 from
experience of, say, two toy bricks and another two
This apparent
toy bricks add up to four toy bricks. He will then
power of anticipating
come to see that the same applies to all kinds of
facts about things
things. Eventually he will abstract this arithmetical
of which we have
principle from all particular instances of it. He will
no experience is
‘see’ that 2 + 2 = 4. Thereafter he will know that the
certainly surprising.
principle applies universally. In consequence,
–Bertrand Russel, while he cannot know who will be the inhabitants
Problems of Philosophy
of London a hundred years from now, he will know
for certain in advance that any two of them plus
another two of them will make four of them. ‘This apparent power of
anticipating facts about things of which we have no experience’, says
Russell, ‘is certainly surprising.’ 28

All geometrical propositions

That the straight line between two points is the shortest, is, says Kant,
a synthetic proposition.29 The concept of ‘the shortest’ is wholly an
addition to ‘the straight line between two points’: it cannot be derived
through any process of analysis from the concept of ‘the straight line’.
Nor, in order to know that this proposition is true, do we have to mark
out two points on a piece of paper, measure the length of a straight
line between the two points, compare it with the measured length of
curved lines between the points and thus, and only thus, from experi-
ence gain the a posteriori knowledge that the straight line here is the
shortest. We know by intuition that the proposition is true a priori.

26 Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, 136–40.

27 Problems of Philosophy, 59–60.
28 Though he adds: ‘Kant’s solution of the problem, though not valid in my opinion, is interest-

ing’, p. 60.
29 Kant, Pure Reason, B 16–17.

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 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant

By examples like these, then, Kant felt that he had proved that we
have a priori synthetic knowledge. Bertrand Russell 30 concluded that
likewise our knowledge of the laws of logic is a priori:
1. The law of identity: ‘Whatever is, is’;
2. The law of non-contradiction: ‘Nothing can both be
and not be’;
3. The law of excluded middle: ‘Everything must
either be, or not be’.
To use one of his examples, once we know that a tree is a birch
tree, we automatically know, without any further information from
experience, that it cannot be an oak tree.
On the other hand, N. O. Lossky in his History of Russian Phil­
osophy disagrees with Kant. He writes:
The existence of truths, bearing the character of general and
necessary synthetic judgements, unable to be proved either
inductively or deductively, does not necessarily lead to Kant’s
apriorism: it can be established also by a different means,
for instance, on the basis of intuitivism, as this is proved in
N. Lossky’s Logic (73–8).31

Second Principle:
The transcendental aesthetic 32

Kant loved long words! What he meant by ‘aesthetic’ is that part of

knowledge that we gain through some sensory experience or other.
What he meant by ‘transcendental’ is the understanding of the sen-
sory experience that we derive not from something actually existent
in the external world, but from something within us, what he calls
‘pure forms of sensory awareness’.
This internal awareness, he argues, makes us see the external
world in a framework of space and time. But space and time are not
themselves realities, are not actual features of the external world that

30 Problems of Philosophy, 57, 59.

31 Lossky, History, 166.
32 Kant, Pure Reason, A 19–49/B 33–73.

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exist objectively even when we are not looking at the world. It is as if

we could never look at white snow except through red-tinted glasses.
We should always see snow as red; we couldn’t see it any other way.
But the redness is not a quality or property of the snow: it is in the
glasses that we cannot help using to look at the snow. As he says:
‘Space does not represent any property of things in themselves.’ 33
Kant’s argument is this. Suppose I experience some sensation,
and I think it was produced by some object outside of me. Even to
think that, I have to presuppose the idea of space outside of me and
represent that idea of space to myself. This representation of space
cannot, therefore, be empirically obtained from the relations of outer
appearances. On the contrary, this outer experience is itself possible
only through that representation. Time, likewise, he says, is the form
of inner sense by which the mind experiences the succession of its
inner experiences.34
To sum up, then: when we observe the external world, things
appear to us to move in space and to change in time. But that is the
only way they can appear to our apparatus of perception. In them-
selves space and time are nothing.

Evaluation of the transcendental aesthetic

These ideas of space and time cannot but appear to us as frankly non-
sense. We may wonder, therefore, how Kant ever arrived at them. As
we have earlier noticed, Kant held that all geometrical knowledge
is a priori (prior to experience of the external world) and synthetic;
and to him geometry was the science of space, since figures enclose
and define space. Now, unfortunately for him, in his day Euclidean
geometry was the only known theory of space, and Kant naturally
thought that its basic principles were a priori, necessary, unalterable
truths that we bring to bear on the external world as our inherent
way of perceiving it.
But not long after Kant, mathematicians began, by abstract rea-
soning, to discover consistent non-Euclidean geometries. The ques-
tion then eventually arose whether the structure of space-time is
formed according to Euclidean or non-Euclidean geometry. The only

33 Kant, Pure Reason, A 26/B 42.

34 Kant, Pure Reason, A 23/B 37–8.

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 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant

way of settling that was by scientific investigation. But how could

that have been possible, if, as Kant claimed, the intuition of spatial-
ity had been built a priori into every scientist’s mind in one single
in­escapable form, that of Euclidean geometry?
Moreover, there is evidence to show that in fact Kant got his ideas
of space from Newton. When he remarks, ‘Consequently, the origi-
nal representation of space is an a priori intuition, not a concept’,35
he seems to be restating Corollary V of Newton’s Principia Math-
ematica. He certainly accepted Newton’s idea of infinite space; but if
so, how could it be, as Kant claimed, a necessary intuition built into
every human mind? Kant’s whole idea of the ‘Transcendental Aes-
thetic’ is misconceived.

Third Principle:
The transcendental analytic: pure concepts of the understanding

Under this heading Kant lists the concepts that the understand-
ing contains within itself, and by which alone it can understand
anything.36
Table of Categories
I. Of Quantity: Unity, Plurality, Totality.
II. Of Quality: Reality, Negation, Limitation.
III. Of Relation: Of Inherence and Subsistence
Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)
Of Community (reciprocity between agent and patient)
IV. Of Modality: Possibility — Impossibility
Existence — Non-existence
Necessity — Contingency

In other words, these are the basic principles, built into our
minds, which we bring to bear on the external world in order to
under­stand it. It is not a question of our understanding conform-
ing to the external, objective world, so that that world may mould

35 Kant, Pure Reason, B 40.

36 Kant, Pure Reason, A 80/B 105–6.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

our understanding of reality. It is a question of the external world

submitting and conforming itself to our categories of understanding.
Anything that does not so conform itself to us, forfeits the possibility
of ever being understood.
This, then, is the mechanism behind Kant’s so-called ‘Coperni-
can Revolution’.

THE LIMITS OF KNOWABILITY ACCORDING TO KANT

Having thus established to his satisfaction pure reason’s powers of

a priori understanding that are in-built into the human mind, Kant
turns his attention to what there is for the mind to understand.37 Here
the main question for Kant is: How much of this objective reality can
actually be known? His theory is, as we shall now easily recall, that for
the content of our knowledge of the external world we depend solely
on experience. But for our understanding of that content we depend
on our in-built powers of sensibility and pure reason.
But as soon as we ask, ‘How much then can we know?’ we imme-
diately become aware of the severe limitations that Kant’s Coperni-
can revolution imposes on the knowability of things.
Pure reason, so Kant argues, lays it down that some things, like
the universe as a whole, the human soul and God himself, lie beyond
all possible experience—in this life at least—and because they are
beyond all possible experience, they are unknowable to pure reason.
Whatever new knowledge empirical science claims to obtain
and however sound it is empirically, if it does not conform to our in-
built and unchangeable concepts of rationality, the claim cannot be
allowed.
With this in mind we come to the four major areas where Kant
in the name of pure reason lays down limits beyond which we can-
not rightly lay claim to any knowledge: they are epistemology, psych­
ology, cosmology and theology.

37 Kant, Pure Reason, A 293 ff./B 349 ff.

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 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant

Epistemology

The first impassable gulf that Kant’s Copernican revolution digs in

the pathway of knowledge lies between how things appear to us (that
is, their outward appearance) and what they are really like in them-
selves (that is, their inner structure, substance, form and nature).
Kant divides the whole of reality into two groups:
1. phenomena, Greek for ‘things that appear’, that is,
‘appearances’
2. noumena, Greek for ‘things that are thought’
The second label, noumena, needs some explanation. It can be
applied to things we think about in our head; but, in that case, if these
things have nothing that answers to them in the external world, they
are, from a practical point of view, empty thoughts and imaginations.
The label can also apply, however, to things that actually exist in the
external world. But in that case the difference between phenom-
ena and noumena is all-important. The phenomena of these actu-
ally existent things are their appearances, that is, how they appear
to us. These we can know. But the noumena of these things denotes
what these things are in themselves. Now we can, if we choose, think
about what things-as-they-are-in-themselves might be like. But all
that we can validly think about them is that they are a completely
unknown something. According to Kant, we can never know what
things in themselves are like. Therefore in many contexts in the Cri-
tique the singular noumenon (plural, noumena), ironically enough,
comes to mean a something that cannot be known.38

An example: The rainbow

In this passage Kant chides people for thinking that, while the rainbow
of colours in a sunny shower is a mere appearance, the rain is ‘the thing
in itself ’. Not so, he insists: ‘in the world of sense, however deeply we
enquire into its objects, we have to do with nothing but appearances.’ 39
By this he seems to mean that however deeply empirical science
enquires into its objects of study, it can never get beyond appear-
ances; for he continues:
38 Kant, Pure Reason, B 312.
39 Kant, Pure Reason, A 45–6/B 62–3.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

We then realise that not only are the drops of rain mere appear-
ances, but even their round shape, nay even the space in which
they fall, are nothing in themselves, but merely modifications
or fundamental forms of our sensible intuitions, and that the
transcendental object remains unknown to us.40
To say that we cannot know what rain-in-itself is by just looking
at it would be justifiable. But the idea that however deeply we enquire
into it we have to do with nothing but appearances, seems, in the
light of scientific discovery, to be a gross exaggeration. We now know,
thanks to science, what water vapour is, how it condenses into water
droplets, what water is composed of, namely hydrogen and oxygen,
what hydrogen and oxygen atoms are made of, and their nuclei, and
so on. How much more deeply have we got to enquire into water
before we get beyond ‘appearances’ and know what ‘water-in-itself’ is
like? To insist on this impassable gulf between the outward appear-
ance of objects that can be known and the underlying material and
structure, which gives objects their outward shape and appearance
and yet supposedly cannot ever be known, is completely false.
In this connection it is informative to trace the unfortunate
influence that Kant’s theory has had on modern science. T. F. Tor-
rance remarks:
In every field of enquiry we establish genuine knowledge in
terms of its internal relations and intelligibility—the very points
that were and still are being denied by Kantian and Heideg­
gerian forms of philosophy. The difference that has come about
can be vividly indicated by pointing to the debate between
Ernst Mach and Max Planck in quantum theory over the ques-
tion of the reality of atoms. Mach claimed that atoms do not
have any existence in reality and are no more than symbols that
we use in the theoretical conventions of physics, for it is impos-
sible to know things in their internal relations. But of course we
can, and it is precisely by penetrating into the internal struc-
ture of atoms that physics has made such startling advance
in our knowledge of nature, but in so doing it destroyed the

40 Kant, Pure Reason, A 46/B 63.

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 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant

Kantian and Machian thesis that phenomenological knowledge

was restricted to external relations or appearances.41

Psychology

The second impassable gulf that Kant digs lies between our mental
and our spiritual powers in the realm of psychology, or as he puts it,
between the ‘I’ and the soul.42
Descartes asserted: ‘I think, therefore I am.’ St. Thomas Aquinas
asserted: ‘I am, therefore I think.’ Descartes made the activity of
thinking the basis of his certainty that he existed. Aquinas made the
certainty of his existence the ground of his
ability to think. It is a fact that no one can
logically deny his or her existence. To say ‘I Descartes asserted:
deny I exist’ is logical nonsense. If I didn’t ‘I think, therefore I am.’
exist, I couldn’t even deny I exist (or any- St. Thomas Aquinas
thing else for that matter). asserted: ‘I am, therefore
Kant’s interest in this area is to demon- I think.’ Descartes made
strate that simply by pure reason one cannot the activity of thinking
prove that the ‘I’ that thinks, is a real sub- the basis of his certainty
stance, still less that it is an immortal soul. So that he existed. Aquinas
he fastens on claims like those of Descartes made the certainty of his
and Aquinas and argues that any statement existence the ground of
like, ‘Whenever I think, I am conscious that his ability to think.
it is I who is thinking’, is simply an analytic
statement. Necessarily, ‘I’ is the subject of the
sentence all the way through. But the predicate, he maintains, does
not tell us any additional information beyond what is contained in
the subject, namely that ‘I think’ and ‘I am conscious that I think’. It
does not tell us what the ‘I’ is.43
Now, says Kant, as we have already seen, we can think in pure
thought any number of things; but unless these thoughts correspond
to something empirically observable, they are empty; in which case
pure reason has inadvertently become mere speculation. The only

41 Ground and Grammar of Theology, 42–3.

42 Kant, Pure Reason, B 406 ff.
43 See Kant, Pure Reason, A 348 ff.

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way, he maintains, that a person could know that the ‘I’ was a def-
inite, simplex, substance, like a soul, for instance (and not a mere
group of impressions or mental activities), would be for the ‘I’ to be
able to observe this soul empirically as an object. But, even if it could
do that, says Kant, all that the ‘I’ would actually observe would be
mere ‘appearances’ of its soul, mere ‘phenomena’. The self, or soul, as
‘a thing-in-itself’ would, as far as pure reason is concerned, remain a
completely unknowable noumenon.
At this point, it must be said, Kant’s argumentation borders on
the bizarre. In all debates about the human soul or spirit, the issue
at stake is whether a human being is nothing but matter, or whether
there is a non-material component in man’s make-up.44 By definition
this non-material soul or spirit would be invisible. To argue, then,
that for pure reason to admit the existence of this invisible compo-
nent it would have to be empirically observable, and even then all
you could observe would be its external appearances, is ludicrously
beside the point. ‘Appearances’ is the language of visual observation.
And if pure reason is going to refuse to believe in the existence of
anything that is invisible and has no visual appearance, then it must
refuse to believe in gravity, atomic radiation and magnetism.45

Practical reason and the soul

Having then proved to his satisfaction that the existence of the soul
or spirit cannot be proved by pure reason, Kant proceeds to expound
what the attitude of practical reason should be towards this question.
At first, it sounds more positive.
At Critique B 419 he admits that each one of us has (what he
calls) the apperception that ‘I think, . . . as identical subject in every
state of my thought’, and that we know this unity of consciousness
because without it we could not make sense of experience. He further
admits that one cannot explain this apperception of the ‘I’ in soulless
­material terms.46 He even goes so far as to say that practical reason

44 For a fuller discussion of this topic see the discussion of the Monist/Dualist debate in Book

1: Being Truly Human, Ch. 5.

45 It is only fair to Kant to say that he ran into this absurdity because he allowed himself

to be convinced by Locke’s and Hume’s empiricism and their representative theory of per-
ception. This obsession with visual perception is also to be found in modern continental
phenomenology.
46 Kant, Pure Reason, B 420.

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 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant

would lead us ‘to regulate our actions as if our destiny reached infi-
nitely far beyond experience, and therefore beyond this present life’.47
However, he advises us that practical reason would lead us to con-
centrate on objects of experience only, and would thus keep us ‘from
losing ourselves in a spiritualism which must be quite unfounded so
long as we remain in this present life.’ 48
Once more we must ask: on what ground or authority does
Kant’s practical reason assure us that what Kant calls ‘spiritualism’
must be quite unfounded so long as we remain in this present life? It
depends, of course, what he means by spiritualism. Perhaps he was
referring to spiritism or occultism or excessive emotionalism mas-
querading as true spirituality, all of which are unhealthy and some
positively dangerous.
But Kant notwithstanding, there is a true spirituality, and one
does not have to wait until the life to come before one can experience
it. ‘God is spirit,’ said Christ, ‘and those who worship him must wor-
ship in spirit and truth’ (John 4:24). Christ spoke of our need in this
life to be ‘born of the Spirit’, that is, of the Spirit of God (John 3:1–8).
Christ, moreover, has the power to impart to men and women the
Spirit of God (John 7:38–39); and those who receive this gracious gift
know the practical reality of the experience which Christ’s apostle,
Paul, describes this way:
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you
did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you
have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry,
‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit
that we are children of God. (Rom 8:14–16)
God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy
Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom 5:5)
Now this New Testament language is the language, not of
abstract thinking, whether philosophical or theological; it is clearly
the language of experience. Since, then, Kant’s own fundamental
principle of epistemology is that the content of all our knowledge
is provided by experience, we naturally ask by what principle, and

47 Kant, Pure Reason, B 421.

48 Kant, Pure Reason, B 421.

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by what authority, does he place the possibility of this experience

beyond the boundary of this life?
Perhaps he would say that such spiritual experience is not an
object of experience such as his practical reason advises us to con-
centrate on. Admittedly, God, Christ and the Holy Spirit are not an
object of experience, if by object is meant a material object. But if
Kant is saying that the only things available for our experience in
this life are observable material objects, then he is handing us over to
the very materialism that he professed to reject.
But then, Kant held, as we shall now see, that pure reason could
not prove that God exists; and as for experience, God is not an object
of possible experience.49 We can form a speculative idea of God, but
such an idea calls ‘for an extension of our knowledge beyond all lim-
its of experience, namely, to the existence of a being that is to cor-
respond to a mere idea of ours, an idea that cannot be paralleled
in any experience.’ 50 If this is true, we must admit that it would be
extremely difficult for anyone to have a personal relationship with a
mere speculative idea. Let us now consider, therefore, Kant’s reasons
for this thesis.

Cosmology and theology

We may take these two areas of knowledge together because they are
linked in Kant’s thought.

The argument from causation and the argument from design

One of the traditional arguments for the existence of God has always
been what Kant calls the cosmological, or the physico-theological,
argument. Simply put, it says firstly that everything in the universe is
contingent, that is, it has at some stage come into being, and therefore
must have been caused by something else. If that is true of everything
in the universe, it must be true of the universe as a whole: it too must
have a cause. Then, unless there is going to be an infinite regress of
causes, the cause of the universe’s existence must be a something that

49 See Kant, Pure Reason, A 636/B 664.

50 Kant, Pure Reason, A 637–8/B 665–6.

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 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant

did not owe its existence to anything else. It must be, not merely a first
cause, but the uncaused cause of everything else.
The second argument is that the universe shows everywhere over-
whelming evidence that it is a vastly complicated mechanism in which
each part is deliberately and precisely designed to fulfil its particular
function. Therefore the simplest and best possible explanation of it
is that the universe is the creation of a divine Creator and Designer.51

Kant’s objection to the argument from design

Now Kant is impressed by this second argument, as we earlier saw;
but nevertheless he holds that it is not sufficient as proof for the exist-
ence of God. Why not? It is for two reasons. First, in his own words:
The purposiveness and harmonious adaptation of so much in
nature can suffice to prove the contingency of the form merely,
not of the matter, that is, not of the substance in the world. . . .
The utmost, therefore, that the argument can prove is an archi-
tect of the world who is always very much hampered by the
adaptability of the material in which he works.52
But this argument is based on Kant’s own presupposition that we
can know the outward form of things but not their inner substance.
But in his day no one knew the amazingly complicated engineering
of the cell, or the marvels of the inside of an atom. To say that these
evidences of design point only to an architect of the outward form of
matter, and not a creator of its inner substance is not plausible.
Second, the argument from design, says Kant, points at best only
to a designer, perhaps a very wise designer, but not to a being of the
character we might suppose an almighty God would have.
The Bible would agree. It never claims that creation reveals God
as ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in stead-
fast love and faithfulness’ (Exod 34:6). What creation reveals is the
Creator’s everlasting power and divinity (Rom 1:20); and that, when
Kant is dealing with practical and moral reason, he admits. What the
Bible goes on to claim is that the God who revealed part of himself in

51 For a discussion of this evidence see John Lennox’s book God’s Undertaker: Has Science

Buried God, Chs. 4 and 5.

52 Kant, Pure Reason, A 626–7/B 654–5.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

creation, has fully revealed himself in holy Scripture and supremely

in Christ who is God incarnate. By this additional revelation, God
has bridged what for us would otherwise be an impassable gulf.

Kant’s objections to the argument from causation

The first cosmological argument that we mentioned above, namely
that God is the necessary uncaused cause of the universe—this argu-
ment Kant rejects entirely, for three reasons.
The first objection is that we can profitably talk of objects in the
universe that are objects of observation, or possible observation. But
we cannot profitably even think of the universe as a whole because it
goes beyond all possible observation.
But modern science would hardly listen to this argument. It seri-
ously attempts to reach justified conclusions about the size, age, rate
of expansion and density of the universe as a whole, and even about
the ‘dark matter’ in the universe.
The second objection is that: ‘The principle of causality . . . is
only valid within the field of experience, and outside this field has
no application, nay, is indeed meaningless.’ 53 The only causes that
we can know are either phenomena that we can observe, or, given
observable things like stars, we can know that there must have been
a cause of those stars in a previous state of affairs that in principle, at
least, could have been observed. But God is by definition unobserv-
able. We have no right to infer from some observable thing or event
an unobservable cause.
But science constantly explains observable phenomena in terms
of unobservable causes. Geiger counters click because they register
invisible particles. Lines in cloud chambers indicate the effect of fast
moving causes, i.e. electrons, protons, etc.
The third objection is that, if the supreme being were the cause of
the series of natural causes of things and events in the universe, he
must be part of that natural series. If the supreme being is not part
of the series, ‘by what bridge can reason contrive to pass over to it?
For all laws governing the transition from effects to causes . . . refer
to nothing but possible experience, and therefore solely to objects

53 Kant, Pure Reason, A 636/B 664.

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 The Epistemology of Immanuel Kant

in the sensible world, and apart from them can have no meaning
whatsoever.’ 54
The Bible’s answer to Kant’s problem here is, as Kant must have
known well, that God is the uncaused cause of the universe and all its
systems of cause and effects, because he created the universe; but that
he himself is not part of the universe and its systems because he cre-
ated the universe not out of himself, but out of nothing by his word.
But, of course, to Kant’s pure reason divine revelation was irrel-
evant. Pure reason would accept that experience of the external
world was the sole provider of the content of
its knowledge; but pure reason itself was the
sole interpreter of that content. And accord- Any idea that God
ing to his Coper­nican revolution, anything himself could reveal
that did not conform to, or could not be himself, or anything at
proved by, pure reason was by definition all, to pure reason,
unknowable. God himself could not tell pure was out of the question.
reason anything. Practical reason might Human reason must
regard God as a necessary postulate of moral- be the sole and central
ity. Practical scientific investiga­tion might judge of everything.
regard the Creator as a helpful hypothetical
origin of the purposiveness and order in the
world. But if pure reason could not prove God’s existence or deter-
mine his character, God himself must remain unknown and beyond
all experience. Any idea that God himself could reveal himself, or
anything at all, to pure reason, was out of the question. Human rea-
son must be the sole and central judge of everything.

A critique of Kant’s ‘Critique’

The time has come, therefore, to pose a question to Kant. Pure reason
owes its powers, so he tells us, to the two Forms of Sensibility and to
the Categories of Understanding. Who or what then put these powers
in the human mind? What authority stands behind the categories of
understanding to give them their validity? If pure reason claims that
the law that ‘everything that happens has its cause’ is an a priori prin-
ciple of pure reason, from what source or cause did pure reason get

54 Kant, Pure Reason, A 621–2/B 649–50.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

this principle? If Kant were a modern, he might well reply that pure
reason’s powers simply evolved out of mindless matter (which would
immediately cast doubt on the validity of pure reason). But Kant was
not a modern. He professed to believe in God. Then ultimately the
divine author of the world, as he called him, must have put these
powers in the human mind. If so, how odd it is that God-given pure
reason could not provide Kant with any certain knowledge of God,
or experience of him—unless it is that Kant’s Copernican revolution,
which puts man’s reason at the centre of the universe, perverts rea-
son’s true relation to God.

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 CHAPTER 4

REASON AND FAITH

In the practical affairs of life wisdom is

more important than pure reason, and it is
wisdom that regulates reason, rather than
reason wisdom. The very word ‘philosophy’
means ( in Greek) not ‘love of reason’ but
‘love of wisdom’; and according to the an­
cient book of Proverbs (1:7 ) the beginning
of wisdom is not the pursuit of rationality,
but the fear of the Lord.
 A FOURTH FALSE ALTERNATIVE

So far we have discussed three of four pairs of issues which confront

epistemology: idealism and realism, subjective knowledge and ob-
jective knowledge, rationalism and empiricism. Now we must tackle
the fourth pair: reason and faith. We shall find that, as with the other
three pairs, so with this: it is not a question of rejecting one or the
other, either reason or faith, but of using both reason and faith, each
in its appropriate context.
To many people, however, reason and faith are mutually exclu-
sive terms. Reason, they feel, delivers proved and indubitable facts
which everybody who is of sound mind must in the end accept; and
these facts, once accepted, constitute genuine, certain knowledge.
Moreover, once they have been established by reason, you don’t have
to try to believe them: you know them. Not to accept them would be
irrational. As examples people often cite the facts established by sci-
ence, though science is far from being an operation of unaccompa-
nied pure reason.
Faith, by contrast, they feel, has to do with things that, by defini-
tion, cannot be known for certain or proved to be true. That is why
you have to have faith to believe them. If they could rationally be
proved, they say, and thus known for certain, you would not need
faith in order to accept them as true. Reason and faith, then, are to
their way of thinking mutually exclusive.
This, as we shall remember from our last chapter, was Kant’s
view. He held that only pure reason could deliver sure and certain
knowledge. Since, then, according to him, the existence of God could
not be proved by pure reason, no one could know for certain that
God exists: ‘No one, indeed, will be able to boast that he knows that
there is a God.’ 1 Curiously enough, his idea, that no one could know
that God exists, seemed to gratify him, because in his view this very

1 Kant, Pure Reason, A 828–9/B 856–7.

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uncertainty made possible the exercise of faith: ‘I have . . . found

it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.’ 2
Nevertheless, he held that in the interests of moral behaviour it was
necessary to postulate the existence of God, and on those grounds he
personally felt morally certain that God exists.
Many people, however, find it impossible to adopt Kant’s dou-
ble stance. They hold that Kant’s denial that God’s existence can be
proved by pure reason effectively removes the topic of God’s exist-
ence from any rational discussion. They have no objection if other
people choose to believe in God; but for themselves they decide that
faith in a God whose existence cannot be proved is irrational. The
only rational way to live, they feel, is not to believe anything that
cannot be proved by pure reason.

REASON

The limitations of pure reason

A moment’s reflection, however, will show that all of us do in fact

believe in a hundred and one things that have never been proved by
pure reason. We must ask ourselves therefore: if it is not irrational to
believe in these things, why is it irrational to believe in God?
From childhood, for instance, we have all believed in the exist-
ence of the other members of our family, or of our class at school,
without their existence having been proved by pure reason. What is
more, we believe that other people have minds, as we do ourselves,
which is even more difficult to prove by pure abstract reason.
In illness, we are obliged to trust the diagnosis and the treat-
ment given by surgeons—and we are prepared to risk our lives on it,
though proving them right in advance by pure reason is out of the
question. Our knowledge of history is likewise largely dependent on
the opinion of expert historians; and by definition historical events
are not necessary, universal truths such as pure reason delivers. They
are contingent truths; their contraries are not unthinkable; they

2 Kant, Pure Reason, B xxx.

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could have been otherwise. They cannot be proved by pure reason.

We do not regard it as irrational to be guided here by the principles
of high probability and trust in credible authority.
Or take the universe. How did we come to believe in its existence,
and on what grounds do we continue to believe that it exists? Was it
that at first we did not know if it existed, or were uncertain whether it
existed or not, until someone sat down beside us and proved its exist-
ence by pure reason; and then, and only then, did we know for certain
that the universe existed? No, indeed not. The vast majority of us have
known for certain that the universe exists, ever since we have known
anything. Its existence did not have to be proved. We were immedi-
ately and directly aware of it. It was a given; and we discovered it by
experience through our senses.
As any philosopher would point out, it would be very difficult, or
even impossible, in fact, to prove the existence of the universe by pure
reason. We ourselves are part of the universe. If, then, we did not al-
ready exist, and take our own existence for granted, we could not even
question whether the universe exists or not, let alone prove it does. In
other words, we would first have to assume that part of the universe,
namely ourselves, exists, before we could even begin to prove its exist-
ence. But we surely do not regard ourselves as irrational for believing
in the existence of the universe without first proving its existence by
pure reason.
Of course, it may well be objected that believing that the uni-
verse exists is different from believing in God’s existence. We have
come to know that the universe—and we ourselves—exist, through
experience, through our senses and practical reason; our knowledge,
therefore, is based on a large amount of indubitable evidence. But, so
the objection goes, we cannot get to know that God exists by such
means, can we? Does not belief in God’s existence require an act of
naked faith without any evidence? No, not really; but we shall deal
with that question presently. For the moment we must continue with
the limitations of reason.

Human reason did not create the universe

This point is so obvious that at first it might seem trivial; but actually
it is of fundamental importance when we come to assess the validity

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of our cognitive faculties. Let’s consider once more the scientific in-
vestigation of the universe.
Science, as we know, employs not pure reason alone, but practi-
cal reason, intuition, experiment, and heuristic hypotheses, etc. Its
goal, however, at least in the opinion of most scientists, is not to im-
pose on the matter and workings of the universe our human sense of
order but to unveil and discover the universe’s own order and intelli-
gibility. That means, of course, that science has always had to assume,
before it started its investigations, that the universe does have an in-
herent order and intelligibility. If it didn’t, scientific research would
never discover them, and research would be fruitless and pointless.
Even now, after all their successes, scientists still have to make
this basic assumption, if scientific research is to be thought still
worth pursuing. The behaviour of elementary particles presents us
with quantum phenomena that for the moment outstrip our reason,
intuition and powers of imagination. Various theories are proposed;
none is universally accepted. The same is true of the question of hu-
man consciousness: no one yet understands it; no theory has pro-
duced general agreement. In this situation, for research to continue
requires faith—faith that nature’s intelligibility and order will not pe-
ter out into unintelligible chaos (though for all we know they might
eventually involve a level of intelligibility higher than we can at pre-
sent grasp).
Faith, then, in something that has not yet been proved, still is, as
it always has been, a prerequisite for scientific investigation of the uni-
verse. Shall we therefore accuse science of irrationality? Of course not.

Reason’s underlying authority

If we have not already done so, we need to realize that pure reason
is not our only cognitive faculty. We have others: intuition, the five
senses, practical reason and memory. All agree that among the other
faculties, reason, both pure and applied, has an important regula-
tive role. Even so, it would not be true to say that reason should be
given the supreme regulative function. In the practical affairs of life
wisdom is more important than pure reason, and it is wisdom that
regulates reason, rather than reason wisdom. The very word ‘philo­
sophy’ means (in Greek) not ‘love of reason’ but ‘love of wisdom’; and

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according to the ancient book of Proverbs (1:7) the beginning of wis-

dom is not the pursuit of rationality, but the fear of the Lord.
Moreover, in naming their intellectual discipline ‘the love of wis-
dom’, the early Greek philosophers, like Plato, pointed to the impor-
tance of right motivation in the pursuit of
wisdom, namely love. Certainly when it comes
to knowledge of our fellow human beings, love ‘If anyone imagines that
and its closely related qualities of empathy and he knows something, he
compassion are more likely to arrive at a true does not yet know as
diagnosis and understanding of a person’s be- he ought to know. But
haviour and actions, than is the cold, dispas- if anyone loves God,
sionate logic of pure reason. A person who he is known by God’
loves her botany, zoology, music, literature or (1 Cor 8:2–3)
physics is likely to achieve a deeper and richer
understanding of her subject than a student
who studies these things simply because she is compelled to. And the
same thing is true when it comes to knowledge of God: ‘If anyone
imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought
to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God’ (1 Cor 8:2–3).
But we must return to pure reason and the question of what
author­ity lies behind it. Kant spent many pages describing the ‘Cat­
egories of Pure Reason’ that, according to him, determine what we
can and what we cannot know about the universe, about God, the
soul and the life to come. Whatever does not conform to our cat­
egories of pure reason, he claimed, cannot be known by us. But Kant
never told us from what or where the categories of pure reason derive
their authority.
Obviously we human beings did not create our own powers of
reason. We can develop them by use and practice; but we did not
originate them. How can it be, then, that pure reason in our tiny
heads can give us anything near a true account of reality? Is pure
reason (or any other of our cognitive faculties) an instrument delib-
erately designed to enable us to discover, recognise and believe the
truth? What original authority, and hence what reliability, does pure
reason have?
Atheists, of course, deny any deliberate design by a creator. But
they still believe that reason does have a proper function and pur-
pose in the same sense as, say, the heart does. The heart’s purpose

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is to pump the blood round the body; whereas a cancerous growth

has no proper purpose or function within the human body: it results
from purposeless, chaotic growth.
Moreover, atheists reveal their belief that the faculty of reason is
in this sense ‘designed’ to fulfil the purpose of discovering the truth,
by asserting that belief in the existence of God results from a mis-
use of reason. Obviously if reason had no proper function, no one
could be accused of misusing it. But many follow Freud’s contention
that all the apparently rational arguments put forward by believers
for the existence of God are in fact driven and perverted by a hid-
den, subconscious wish-fulfilment-mechanism: the desire to con-
struct for themselves a crutch to help them through life’s difficulties;
whereas reason, unperverted, would achieve its proper purpose and
discover the truth, namely atheism.
The irony of the atheists’ position, however, becomes apparent as
soon as one enquires about the origin of our human faculty of reason.
For atheists hold that the driving force of evolution, which eventu-
ally produced our human cognitive faculties, reason included, was
not primarily concerned with truth at all, but with survival. And we
all know what has generally happened—and still happens—to truth
when individuals, or commercial enterprises, or nations, motivated
by what Richard Dawkins calls their ‘selfish genes’, feel themselves
threatened and struggle for survival.
How, then, is it rational to believe in the theory (not, we note,
proved by pure reason) that the evolution of our faculty of reason
was not directed for the purpose of discovering the truth; and yet ir-
rational to believe that our faculty of reason was designed and created
by our Maker to enable us to understand and believe the truth?

THE NATURE OF THEISM’S FAITH

Epistemology, by its very nature, is especially interested in proposi-

tions or statements. The reason for that is that it is concerned, not
with whom we know, so much as with what we know and with how
we can justify our claim to know what we know. To test our claim it
must first get us to state it; and it prefers us to state it in propositional
form, i.e. in the form ‘I know that so-and-so is such and such’. If, for

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instance, I say ‘I know that there is life on other planets’, I can then
set about examining my claim to know this, and how I know it, and
whether the fact, which I claim to know, is true.
If, on the other hand, I make a non-propositional statement, as for
instance, ‘I feel a pain in my stomach’, epistemology, with its merely
rational analysis, cannot so easily set about examining its truth. A
doctor might examine me and decide that I have no reason to feel a
pain in my stomach. But if I feel a pain, who is to tell me that I don’t?
If, moreover, I issue a command, such as ‘Please shut the door’, the
question, ‘Is this true or not?’ does not arise;
epistemologists, as such, would not be inter-
ested in it. Similarly epistemology does not A theist’s faith does not
concern itself so much with knowledge of rest first and foremost in a
persons. If I say ‘I know my grandmother as proposition, or in a number
a person’, epistemology cannot so easily an- of logical arguments that
alyse the truth of this statement. support that proposition.
If, then, epistemologists meet someone The theist’s faith rests in
who says ‘I believe in a kind and loving God’, a person, the living Lord
they will tend to rephrase this statement of God, who has so revealed
faith in the form of a proposition: ‘I believe himself that the believer is
that God exists and that he is kind and lov- directly aware of him.
ing’, and then to ask how the speaker knows
these facts, and how he can prove that they
are true. An atheistic epistemologist is likely to add: ‘If you can’t first
prove that there is a God (and you can’t), it’s no use your claiming to
know that he is kind and loving.’
A theist (if he understands his faith) might well decline the chal-
lenge first to prove that God exists, before saying anything about his
qualities. That is not because there are not powerful arguments to
support faith in God’s existence: there are.3 But the challenge rests
on a false assumption. A theist’s faith does not rest first and foremost

3 The ‘ontological’ argument states that everything we observe in the universe is contingent,

that is, it owes its being to something else. The sum total of these contingent beings is what
we call the universe. It too, therefore, is a contingent being. There must therefore be a non-­
contingent, necessary, Being which is the source of all other, contingent, beings but which
itself does not owe its existence to any other being. This is what is meant by ‘God’. If there were
not such a Being, nothing at all would exist. For more on the ‘cosmological’ argument see John
Lennox’s book God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God, Chs. 4 and 5. We have dealt with the
‘moral’ argument in detail in Book 1: Being Truly Human, Ch. 3.

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in a proposition, or in a number of logical arguments that support

that proposition. The theist’s faith rests in a person, the living Lord
God, who has so revealed himself that the believer is directly aware
of him. A believer in God, therefore, being told that he must first
prove that God exists before claiming to know anything about God’s
attributes, might well consider that demand to be like telling a sheep
that it must first prove that its shepherd exists before it can know the
shepherd and be fed by him.
A believer’s basic position, then, is this: his faith in God is
grounded objectively in God’s self-revelation; and subjectively it is
acquired through a God-created and implanted instinct that, when
it is not atrophied or repressed, as it can be, naturally perceives and
responds to that divine, objective, self-revelation.

God’s self-revelation through creation

A biblical passage that expresses this point forcefully runs as follows:

What can be known about God is plain to them [lit: ‘in them’,
Gk. en autois], because God has shown it to them [Gk.: autois].
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and di-
vine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation
of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are
without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not hon-
our him as God or give thanks to him. (Rom 1:19–21)
This passage is making a number of points:
1. God has taken the initiative in making himself known to us
by first creating us and placing us in a universe designed and
created to express, not merely his existence, but something
of what he is like.
2. What the visible creation objectively shows us is two of his
attributes: his eternal power and divinity.
3. We perceive these things directly, intuitionally, not by a long
process of discursive, logical reasoning.
4. So that we could perceive the significance of what we see
as we contemplate God’s creation, he created within us, not

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only our cognitive faculties in general, but an instinctive fac-

ulty of awareness of God.

The implications of God’s self-revelation

Point 1 seems eminently reasonable. If God is the self-existent, trans-
cendent Lord and Creator of all, and if there are going to be creatures
capable of recognising and getting to know him, he must take the
initiative in making himself known to them and in choosing by what
means and to what extent and on what terms he may graciously al-
low them to get to know him. To that end he must create in them the
necessary faculty for receiving that knowledge and set the goal to be
aimed at in imparting that knowledge of himself to them. The al-
mighty Creator God could not, without ceasing to be himself, reduce
himself to a mere object, not even the biggest object in or outside the
universe, which human beings could investigate and get to know in
whatever way and by whatever means they might choose. Getting to
know something sets up a relationship between the knower and the
known. God is the Great Subject, and we human beings are in the
first place simply objects that he created, but objects that he so created
that by his grace they could themselves become subjects that might
come to know him. But obviously the relationship that would thus be
formed would be by his initiative and on his terms.

Creation shows God’s power and divinity to men and women

Point 2 seems likewise realistic. It does not claim that God’s love and
mercy can be read off the surface of creation. The two things about
God that can be perceived through creation are said to be his eternal
power and divinity, that is, his Godhead.
That the universe expresses and exhibits unimaginably vast power
is a self-evident fact acknowledged by everyone without exception;
and throughout history humankind has also felt and expressed the
stark contrast between the brief span of human life and the everlast-
ingness of the universe. Modern science has but increased the con-
trast. The crucial question is the nature of the source of that power.
What the universe shows, according to our passage, is that the source
of that power, as to its nature, is deity. That is, it is more than human;

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it is, to say the least, supernatural and superhuman. The source is God.
Atheists and agnostics often allege that people who believe in
God are guilty of anthropomorphism. They have created God in their
own image and think of him in human terms and categories but sim-
ply on a larger scale (just as, so it is said, elephants would think of
God as an almighty elephant if they ever got round to thinking about
it). It is a very ancient criticism, but it is not true. It was long ago an-
swered by Jewish philosophers such as the Alexandrian, Aristobulus,
known as ‘the Peripatetic’ (mid-second century bc). Thoughtful be-
lievers know that when the Bible speaks of God’s hands and eyes, etc.,
it is using poetic, metaphorical and analogical language.
The substantive point that our biblical passage is making is this:
it is evident from creation that our Creator is, not less, but more, than
we are. If we are persons (and not just matter or machines or mere
animals) then our Maker is certainly not less than personal. If we
have eyes and can see, he is not blind. If we have tongues and can
communicate, he is certainly not dumb. And he who has given us
ears to receive communications and minds to understand them, is
certainly able to communicate with us, if he so pleases.4
It is the atheist, in fact, who is irrational here. He has to believe
that humankind’s source was something much less than humankind
itself, such as mindless matter, or a very clever but abstract set of im-
personal, mathematical laws.5
But there is more to this prime self-revelation of God to man:
it sets out with unmistakable clarity what the basic relationship be-
tween man and God, between the creature and the Creator, is and
ever must be. It is not a relationship of reciprocal equality. It can
never be that. The human race exists and lives in utter dependence
on God, whether they acknowledge it or not.
Kant, of course, and a good many others, would claim that it is
philosophically unsound to jump to conclusions about the invisible
qualities of God on the basis of the visible universe. But the objection
is invalid. Faced with a dead body, a detective can rightly conclude
on the basis of the visible evidence before him that the death was
not natural, nor suicide, but the result of an intention to murder—
4 Cf. the argument of Ps 94:9, ‘He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the

eye, does he not see?’

5 See Paul Davies’s theory, Book 2: Seeking Ultimate Reality, Ch. 3.

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though neither the detective nor anyone else has ever seen an inten-
tion. An intention itself is invisible: only its effects are visible.

Creation shows God’s power and divinity in men and women

Points 3 and 4 above assert that through creation God has made his
eternal power and divinity evident, not only to men (Gk. ­autois), but
in them (Gk. en autois). That is to say, that along with all of a human’s
other cognitive powers, God originally placed in human beings a fac-
ulty of direct awareness of God that can be activated by our contem-
plation of the created universe. This means that
we perceive God’s power and divinity, not by
some logical process, by first laying down some Along with all man’s
axiom and then deducing each step by careful other cognitive powers,
logic until we prove to ourselves the proposi- God originally placed
tion that God exists. No, we perceive these at- in human beings
tributes of God intuitively, in the same way as a faculty of direct
we perceive that a rose is beautiful or that the awareness of God that
universe exists. can be activated by our
This is only fair; for there are multitudes contemplation of the
of men and women who have neither the lei- created universe.
sure nor the ability to engage personally in so-
phisticated philosophical argument in order to
prove the existence of God. Yet for a man or woman’s knowledge of
God to be real and living, each man and each woman must come to
know God for himself and herself and enter thus into his or her own
relationship with God. No one can know God by proxy or at second
hand. If therefore, God had so arranged it that one could not begin
to know God unless one had first proved by philosophical reason-
ing that God exists, such elitism would have been grotesquely unfair
of God.
And there is yet more to be said about this direct awareness of
God. God is not against reason. Reason is one of his own gifts to the
human race; and he exhorts people to use it to the full in its proper
context (1 Cor 14:20). But God has not given humans reason so that
they can, independently of God’s self-revelation, decide whether God
exists or not. Human reason is not the arbiter in this matter. If men
and women pridefully think that the only route to knowing whether
God exists is by first using their reason independently of God to prove

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whether he exists or not, God may well bypass them, while he makes
himself directly known to the humble. Christ put it this way: ‘I thank
you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these
things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little
children’ (Matt 11:25). And the New Testament adds: ‘in the wisdom
of God, the world did not know God through wisdom’ (1 Cor 1:21).

Basic beliefs
In the past few decades there has been a revival of interest among
philosophers in the fact that we all believe in various things simply be-
cause we are immediately aware of them. Our belief, in these instances,
is not dependent on the evidential basis of some other propositions;
in other words our belief is not arrived at by logical deduction or in-
ference from some premise. These beliefs are called ‘prior beliefs’ by
some philosophers,6 or ‘properly basic beliefs’ by others.7
Examples are:
1. perception. You pass by a garden and see that some roses have
burst into bloom. You do not then begin a logical process:
‘I have an impression of redness of a certain shape; from that
I construct the idea of a rose; and from that I deduce that it
was a rose in bloom that made this impression on my mind;
therefore, and on that ground, I finally believe that some roses
are now in bloom.’ No, we are immediately and directly aware
of roses in bloom, and we believe it solely on that basis. We do
not require it to be proved to us on some other basis.
2. memory. Some memories can be confused or mistaken. But
some are so luminous and vivid that we are absolutely sure
that they are true. Asked what I had for dinner last night,
I might hesitate for a moment, but then the memory comes
flooding back so vividly, that I reply with every confidence:
‘soup, beef and potatoes’. I require no external evidence to
prove it.
3. a priori truths. That 1 + 1 = 2 is not a truth that has to be
proved on the basis of some other propositions or by deduc-
tion from some premise. I am immediately aware that it is

6 See, e.g. Richard Swinburne, Faith and Reason, 36–7, 43.

7 See, e.g. Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 175 ff.

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true. I ‘see’ it, and I need no other evidence on which to base

my belief that 1 + 1 = 2.
In that same way belief in God’s existence is properly basic. It is
occasioned by the contemplation of the wonders of creation, from
the majesty and awesomeness of the night sky to the perfection of a
baby’s fingernails, and by the awareness, which wrongdoing brings,
of having transgressed the moral law and of being guilty before its
Author. Kant, though he argued that God’s existence would not be
proved by pure reason, yet confessed: ‘Two things fill the mind with
ever new and increasing admiration and awe the more often and
more enduringly reflection is occupied with them: the starry heav-
ens above me and the moral law within me.’ 8

To sum up so far then. A theist’s faith is based first and foremost, not
in philosophical and logical proofs of God’s existence, but in God’s
self-revelation. Secondly, a theist does not deny the importance of
true propositions about God. The Bible itself demands that ‘whoever
would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he re-
wards those who seek him’ (Heb 11:6); and there for you are two
propositions to start with that have to be believed. At the same time,
a theist recognises that a belief in a logically proved proposition, even
about God, is not the same thing as a faith in a personal God arising
as a response to his personal self-revelation.

AWARENESS OF GOD

The claim that our Creator has made us with an inbuilt awareness of
God is liable to be met by an immediate protest: ‘It is not true. I have
no such inbuilt awareness of God.’ And if a theist answers: ‘That’s
because there is something wrong, some defect, in you’, it will appear
to many people, not to strengthen, but to weaken, the theist’s case.
Anyone, they will say, could prove that there are ten moons circling
the earth, if, when people object that they cannot see them, they are
told ‘that’s because there’s something wrong with you’. When, there-
fore, many people claim that they have no awareness of God, a theist
8 Kant, Pure Reason, Guyer tr., 1.

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will want to investigate their reasons. But they are by no means all
the same.

Reasons for claiming no awareness of God

The problem of evil and suffering

This is, perhaps, the most common reason why thoughtful and sen-
sitive people reject faith in God. The existence of widespread, enor-
mous evil, pain and natural disasters seems to them to make the
existence of God unthinkable—unless God should turn out to be a
monster; in which case they would refuse to believe in him or worship
him anyway. Ivan Karamazov, in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic novel
The Brothers Karamozov, is typical. Faced with enormous cruelty to
children, with the corruption and power politics that he saw in the
church, and, above all, God’s apparent failure to intervene, he found it
morally impossible to maintain faith in God, even though he did not
deny God’s existence. Dostoevsky makes him say: ‘It isn’t God I don’t
accept, Alyosha, it’s just his ticket that I most respectfully return to
him.’ 9 This is a genuine and serious difficulty; we shall try to answer
it in one of the later books in this series.10

A basic antagonism to God and to the idea of God

One example is Professor Thomas Nagel: ‘It isn’t just that I don’t be-
lieve in God and, naturally, hope there is no God! I don’t want there
to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.’ 11 Or this from
Professor Paul Davies: ‘I’m assuming that God did not intervene to
make life. I don’t want that.’ 12

Peer pressure
In his day, Nietzsche described the suppression of awareness of God
by the peer pressure of the political, social and educational establish-
ment of his day:

9 Dostoevsky, The Karamazov Brothers, 320.

10 See Book 6: Suffering Life’s Pain.
11 Last Word, 130.

12 Wilkinson, ‘Found in space?’, 20. Cf. the array of similar sentiments listed in ‘The motiva-

tion behind dogmatic atheism’, Book 1: Being Truly Human, Ch. 2 (p. 63).

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Pious or even merely church-going people seldom realise how

much good will, one might even say wilfulness, it requires nowa-
days for a German scholar to take the problem of religion se-
riously; his whole trade . . . disposes him to a superior, almost
good-natured merriment in regard to religion, sometimes mixed
with a mild contempt . . . The practical indifference to religious
things in which he was born and raised is as a rule sublimated in
him into a caution . . . which avoids contact with religious peo-
ple and things . . . how much naivety . . . there is in the scholar’s
belief in his superiority . . . in the simple unsuspecting certainty
with which his instinct treats the religious man as an inferior
and lower type which he himself has grown beyond and above.13

Atrophy
The absent-minded professor is proverbial. He is so totally engrossed
in his particular subject that he ceases to be aware of the practicali-
ties of life. In another person an early interest in music, art or poetry
can be so overlaid and stifled by business concerns that eventually
it atrophies. So is it with awareness of God. Neglect it and overlay it
for years with other dominant interests, and, as Christ put it in his
famous parable, the thorns grow up and choke it.14

Fear
Some people are afraid that if they acknowledge God it will lead to
loss of personal freedom and will restrict their lifestyle. Others are
loath to accept that there is a God, for the thought of God awakens
feelings of guilt that they have tried to repress and forget.

The Bible’s answer for why people are not aware of God

Doubtless there are many other causes why people profess not to have
any awareness of God—though even atheists have been known in
times of acute danger, instinctively to call out to God to save them.
But according to the Bible these causes all stem from, and are a con-
tinuation of, what happened when the race was young.

13 Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, para. 58 (Hollingdale, 65–6).

14 Matt 13, Mark 4, Luke 8.

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 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

If one reads the Bible as a whole, and follows its developing sto-
ryline, one discovers that it bears witness to what Bible scholars
have called the progress of revelation. God did not reveal everything
about himself all at once, as soon as he had created the first man
and woman. The Bible records rather what could be called God’s
progressive education of the human race from its morally innocent
babyhood, through its moral childhood, teenage and eventual ma-
ture adulthood, each stage being promoted by a further revelation
of himself.
The culmination of the Bible in the New Testament, however,
makes clear that, right from the very start, God’s purpose in the cre-
ation of humankind was to have creatures with whom he could have
ever increasing, personal relationship. The human race’s experience
of God, therefore, was never intended to consist merely in knowing
certain propositions about God—though they would certainly learn
many propositions about him. The human race’s experience of God
was intended to be an ever growing, con-
scious, filial relationship. For that purpose
There is no true knowledge men and women were created with such
of God outside of some faculties as made them immediately aware
relationship with him. When of God, as a little child is immediately
God makes himself known aware of its human father. At later times
to us, it is always in some the Bible speaks of God treating his people
relational situation. He never as a father does a growing child and teen-
reveals himself as a merely ager (Gal 4:1–3), by putting them under
theoretical proposition. the firm but loving discipline of the Ten
Commandments and many laws beside
and, where necessary, chastising their dis-
obediences (Deut 8:1–6). But here again the underlying purpose was
to encourage not only developing character and good behaviour but
a relational response of love for God and neighbour: ‘You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your might’ (Deut 6:5); and ‘You shall love your neighbour as
yourself’ (Lev 19:18).
The culmination of this process was designed to be the sending
of the Son of God into the world with authority to effect for all who
would receive him their ‘adoption as sons of God’. They would re-
main human still. They would never become God. But they would

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no longer be merely creatures of God; they would become children

of God in a genuine ontological sense.15
Knowledge of God, then, in the Bible is relational knowledge.
That relationship between God and his people is described in various
ways: Creator and creature, God and man, Father and child, Father
and grown-up son, Shepherd and sheep, Lover and bride, Husband
and wife, Redeemer, Saviour, Friend, Lord, Master, Counsellor, final
Judge. There is, indeed, no true knowledge of God outside of some
relationship with him. When God makes himself known to us, it
is always in some relational situation. He never reveals himself as a
merely theoretical proposition.

The original false turn that humanity took in relation to God

This false turn, according to the Bible, was not occasioned by any lack
of evidence for God’s existence. It arose in the area of man’s relation-
ship with God. A relationship that has no boundaries is scarcely a
relationship. In human affairs, for example, a marriage that is not
bounded is not true marriage. So God set a boundary condition to
man’s relationship with him, by forbidding him to eat of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 3). But man was not content to
stay within the boundary. He grasped at knowledge independent of
God. Man would be as God, and make up his own mind about what
was good and what was evil, as though in this respect man could
stand on equal terms with God.
According to the Bible this was the basic lie that Satan insinuated
into man’s thinking, for no creature can in any absolute sense ever
be independent of the Creator (see Gen 3). But the initial temptation
to grasp independence of God has spread like a virus down the cen-
turies. Multitudes have suppressed the awareness of God, says the
Bible (Rom 1­ :18–32). One telltale result of it is that they are no longer
grateful for the wonderful gifts of life. They are glad of them, and
enjoy them. But the lovely natural human instinct to be grateful to
the giver for good gifts given has died in them. Denying the Creator,
they have no one to be grateful to. It’s very difficult to be grateful to a
protoplasm or a mindless Big Bang. And denying the true God, men

15 See John 1:11–13; Rom 8:14–17, 26–30; 1 John 3:1–2.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

make themselves idols, deifying the forces of nature or human rea-

son or human passion.16
But for a man or woman to live as if there were no Creator is
to live an unrealistic untruth, and in alienation from the source of
his or her being. For a man or woman in that condition to demand
that God, in some kind of Kant-like Copernican revolution, submit
himself to human reason as the ultimate arbiter as to whether or not
he may rightly be thought to exist or not, is both sad and logically
absurd. The brains and breath he uses to make his demand depend
on the Creator.

Conditions for knowing God

All true knowledge of God, then, is relational and not just theoretical,
and it carries lifelong practical implications. On our side, therefore,
it depends on our willingness to swallow our pride, give up our inde-
pendent stance and enter into personal relation with God. And God
for his part, of course, lays down the conditions upon which he is
prepared to make himself known to us.
1. We must start by acknowledging that he exists and that he
rewards those who diligently seek him (Heb 11:6).
2. Our seeking must be in earnest. We may not treat God cas-
ually. ‘You shall seek me and find me, when you shall search
for me with all your heart’ (Jer 29:13).
3. We must turn from our idols, whether material or mental.
And if we have up until now put our ultimate trust in human
reason, and made of it an idol in the place of God, we must
repent of that misuse of reason as well (see 1 Cor 1:18–31).
4. We must be prepared to do the will of God, when he shows
it to us. In this connection Christ himself said ‘If anyone’s
will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching
is from God or whether I am speaking on my own author-
ity’ (John 7:17).
Anyone who treats the question of God’s existence as a matter
of mere academic interest with no implications for the way he runs

16 See the longer discussion of this topic in Book 1: Being Truly Human, Ch. 2.

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his life, will not get far in his knowledge of God. On the other hand
Christ has given us his assurance:
And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you
will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who
asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who
knocks it will be opened. (Luke 11:9–10)

The test of genuine knowledge of God

But we must finally return to epistemology’s demand that, if we claim
to have knowledge, we must be prepared to justify our claim. If then
we claim to know God, what kind of justification would be appro­
priate to validate our claim to have this kind of knowledge? The Bible
admits epistemology’s demand and replies:
And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we
keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does
not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in
him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God
is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever
says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which
he walked. (1 John 2:3–6)
In other words true knowledge of God will lead to living and lov-
ing as Christ lived and loved.

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WHAT IS TRUTH?
 CHAPTER 5

IN SEARcH OF TRUTH

Great is truth and strongest of all.

1 Esdras 4:35

Buy the truth and do not sell it.

Proverbs 23:23
 WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

In this and the following three chapters we set out to examine the
question: What is truth? We shall be concerned not merely with the
content of truth, i.e. what facts, propositions or beliefs are true, but
with the nature of truth, i.e. what does a belief or a statement have to
be in order to qualify as being true? In other words, how should we
define truth?
In addition we shall be asking whether there is such a thing as
absolute truth, which is objectively true and exists independently of
us and of our beliefs or feelings, or whether there is no absolute truth
about anything but only various, partial truths which we create for
ourselves, or society creates for us, by choosing to accept them or to
construct them out of life’s experience. In other words, is there such a
thing as absolute truth which everybody must accept simply because
it is true; or is there only ‘truth for us’, which we accept because we
like it and it suits us, but which is not necessarily true for others if it
does not suit them or they don’t like it?
Now this is a very far-reaching topic since it affects our lives, not
only academically, but practically, individually, socially, commer-
cially, legally, politically and religiously, and carries implications for
what we regard as history and art, and for our standards of behaviour
in family life, at work and in sport. Since this is so, we ought, perhaps,
to begin by considering our own personal attitude to truth.

Our ambivalent attitude to truth

Whatever theoretical philosophy or theology says about the nature

of truth, all of us know in our hearts that there is another level to the
question of truth besides the academic and intellectual discussion
of it. Truth, however we define it, has an uncanny and indisputable
authority that silently, yet insistently and undeniably, calls for our

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submission and loyalty. Not only our submission: we expect others

to bow to it as well.
Suppose you were brought before a court charged with a serious
offence that you had not in fact committed. Suppose further that the
prosecution’s case was very cleverly contrived and coherent and per-
suasive but nonetheless false. You would, of
course, put forward the true facts, as you knew
Truth, however we define them, to prove your innocence. But suppose
it, has an uncanny and the judge in giving his verdict announced that
indisputable authority that there was no such thing as objective truth; and
silently, yet insistently and therefore he was not interested in trying to de-
undeniably, calls for our cide what the truth of this case was. Each side
submission and loyalty. was entitled to its own story, and it was wrong
for either side to claim that the other side’s
story was wrong. All truth was culturally de-
termined anyway; and he, therefore, was going to decide the case not
on the ground of truth, but on the ground that the prosecution’s case
appealed to his sensibilities and cultural background.
You would be outraged, as would all right-minded people, for
without regard for objective truth there can be no justice. At one
level, therefore, we all believe in truth, and demand that it be upheld.
But on other occasions and in different circumstances we find the
truth unwelcome and do our best to avoid it, or hide it, or misrepre-
sent it or deny it outright.
The interesting thing, however, is that when we compromise our
allegiance to the truth, and substitute some falsehood for it, we still
show by our subsequent actions our awareness of the intrinsic au-
thority of truth. None of us would ever say, publicly at least: ‘I know
that such and such is true, but I hate the truth and am not prepared
to accept it. I shall do all I can to oppose and destroy the truth and to
propagate in its place what I know to be a lie’ (though heaven knows
that this has been the hidden inner motive of many individuals and
even governments in the course of history).
And yet again, if we succeed in suppressing the truth and prop-
agating a falsehood in its place, we do not of course advertise our
version as falsehood. We still call it the truth, thus bearing witness,
even in our falsehood, to the authority of truth, which we have now
betrayed. There is obviously a reason why we do not call it falsehood:

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no one would believe a falsehood—that is, no one would publicly

admit to believing a falsehood knowing it to be false, though often
people privately and indeed publicly have preferred to go along with
a falsehood rather than risk unpopularity or worse by standing up
for an embarrassing truth.
Right at the outset, then, as we begin to study what truth is, we
need to face this curious ambivalence in our personal attitude to
truth and then to ask ourselves what the reason is for this ambiva-
lence. It could affect our decisions as to what truth is.

OBJECTIONS AND REJECTIONS

Objections to the idea of universal objective truth

Perhaps there has never been a period in this last two thousand years
like our present one when the idea of universal objective truth has
been so widely and thoroughly disputed and denied. Let us briefly list
some of the main reasons given for this attitude to truth and then try
to understand how they have arisen.

Reason 1 – The limitations of language

All human language consists of symbols, the meaning of which is
culturally determined by the particular society that created them.
Meaning can be transferred from one person or from one society
to another only by conveying the meaning expressed in one set of
symbols through another alien set of symbols invented by a different
society, and therefore carrying the cultural and emotional connota-
tions of that second different society. In such a process, it is claimed,
no universal, objective truth, even if there were such a thing, could
survive completely undistorted. What truth survived could not but
be relativised by the process.

Reason 2 – The limitations of knowledge

For anyone to claim to possess the total truth about anything in par-
ticular or about the universe in general is manifestly false. Neither
science nor philosophy could achieve anything like such total know­
ledge. All knowledge is therefore only relatively true.

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Reason 3 – The arrogance of so-called objective truth

All truth is culturally conditioned: what is truth for one culture is not
truth for another. In a multicultural world, for one culture to claim
that it alone has the truth and all others are false is insufferably ar-
rogant, and leads in the end to violence.

Reason 4 – Objective truth enslaves

The concept of universal objective truth is oppressive. It demands
total submission; it pays no regard to individual personality, and it
destroys the creativeness of the human spirit. The fact is that each hu-
man spirit must be free to create truth for itself. We do not necessarily
create the external facts; but we create the truth about them.

Reason 5 – Claims to objective truth are elitist and undemocratic

The philosopher/scientist Roger Bacon (c.1214–92) maintained that
‘knowledge is power’. Many thinkers nowadays assert the contrary,
that ‘power is knowledge’. They hold that it is experts in various dis-
ciplines who gain power simply because they are regarded as experts.
They then use that power to create knowledge that they proceed to
impose on the general populace, even when that ‘knowledge’ is not in
fact true and is subsequently discovered to have been false.

Some underlying reasons for this rejection of objective truth

The past enforcement of ideologies and religions by sheer power

Past and recent history contains notable examples.
In ad 303, for instance, the Roman emperor Diocletian decided
to re-impose the universal authority of pagan Rome’s state religion.
To that end he not only persecuted Christians, as several of his prede-
cessors had done: he decided to uproot and destroy Christianity itself
root and branch. All Christian books and Bibles had to be handed in
for confiscation, on pain of death. Free thought in religious matters
was not to be allowed.
In mediaeval times and for centuries thereafter, Christendom
­itself—or major sections of it—used its influence with the State not
only to persecute Jews and Muslims, and those whom it regarded as
heretics, but to forbid individual Christians to possess copies of the

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Bible and to read and seek to understand them for themselves. They
had to accept as truth whatever the Church declared truth to be. In-
dividual understanding and conscience were not allowed.
In the twentieth century ideologies of the right and of the left
were in many countries universally and ruthlessly enforced; and sci-
ence, philosophy, literature, art and music were rigorously censored
and compelled to conform to standards set by the ruling ideology.
Possession of the Bible was, of course, made difficult or impossible.
It is understandable, therefore, that nowadays in many quarters
great, systematic philosophies, scientific theories, theologies, and
ideologies, or ‘metanarratives’ as they are called, are distinctly out
of favour. Hegel’s philosophy, for instance, and Marxism, which took
over Hegel’s idea of dialectic, purported to give an undeniable ex-
planation of the laws of history past, present and future, and of the
whole universe, and dominated the mind and behaviour of millions.
History itself has discredited them, as we shall later see. Likewise
Christianity is often dismissed without a hearing as self-evidently
false because it too offers a universal ‘metanarrative’.
Christianity will, of course, protest against the charge that the
objective and universal truth it proclaims enslaves people either
mentally, emotionally or spiritually. Christ himself asserts the op-
posite, namely that it is knowledge of the truth that sets people free
(John 8:31–34). But then the undeniably exclusive claim of Christ—‘I
am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me’ (John 14:6)—offends the multiculturalism of our
modern world and is peremptorily dismissed on that ground.

The globalisation of knowledge

This brings us to one more, very potent, reason why the concept of
absolute, objective truth goes ever more rapidly out of fashion now-
adays: the globalisation of knowledge. The marvels of information
technology fill people’s minds with a torrent of instantaneous in-
formation about every conceivable subject (though not necessarily
with genuine understanding of each subject) from every quarter of
the globe. People, therefore, become acquainted, if only superficially,
with many religions, philosophies, ideologies, scientific theories, etc.,
in a way and to an extent unthinkable half a century ago. And under
the impact of this welter of information they conclude that any one

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philosophy or religion that claimed itself alone to be true must be

either ignorant or arrogant. Truth, if it is to be found at all, must be
achieved by judicious selections and combinations taken from all the
varied partial truths on offer.
How, then, shall we respond to this situation? Unless we are to
abandon all critical thinking and simply absorb uncritically a mix-
ture of bits and pieces of mutually contradictory doctrines, we must
attempt to discuss the truth claims of the theories, ideologies, reli-
gions and philosophies that we encounter.
But to do that we shall have to use language, and many claim that
language by its very nature, being culturally conditioned, can never
arrive at, or convey, absolute objective truth. Presently, therefore, we
shall examine that claim; but first let us briefly survey the conse-
quences that can arise when people in general come to believe that
there is no absolute truth binding on everyone.

LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES OF THE

DEVALUATION OF OBJECTIVE TRUTH

Over two and a half millennia ago the prophet, social critic, and re-
former Isaiah gave this description of contemporary society:
For your hands are defiled with blood
and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies;
your tongue mutters wickedness.
No one enters suit justly;
no one goes to law honestly;
they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies,
they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. . . .
Their webs will not serve as clothing;
men will not cover themselves with what they make.
Their works are works of iniquity,
and deeds of violence are in their hands. . . .
The way of peace they do not know,
and there is no justice in their paths;

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they have made their roads crooked;

no one who treads on them knows peace. . . .
transgressing, and denying the Lord,
and turning back from following our God,
speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.
Justice is turned back,
and righteousness stands far away;
for truth has stumbled in the public squares,
and uprightness cannot enter.
Truth is lacking,
and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.
(Isa 59:3, 4, 6, 8, 13–15)
From his distant century Isaiah is a witness to us of the social
disintegration that follows when a society loses its sense of the sa-
credness and inviolability of objective truth. We notice his repeated
charge: ‘your lips have spoken lies . . . they speak lies . . . conceiving
and uttering from the heart lying words . . . truth has stumbled in the
public squares . . . truth is lacking.’ What he is describing is not the
telling of an occasional untruth in a moment of panic or temptation,
but the deliberate adoption of a policy of deceit not only in private
life but in the centres of public life.
First to suffer are the law courts, where dishonest pleas and
trumped up charges are used intentionally to pervert the very justice
that the law courts exist to maintain.
Secondly, he mentions the squares: the centres in the ancient
world of public, social and commercial activity. Here too the old
standards of truth and truthfulness have decayed: it is thought to be
‘mature’ and ‘clever’ and ‘astute business practice’ for a merchant to
misrepresent the quality of his goods in a voice dripping with appar-
ent heartfelt assurances of honesty! And for the city elders to encour-
age the citizens to believe that they are looking after their interests,
and are determined to see justice done, though all the while they
have accepted bribes not to prosecute the mafia for corruption.
The result, says Isaiah, is widespread injustice and violence; and
the effect on many an individual citizen is to make him feel that if
he refuses to play the same game, and dares to act honestly, he will

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‘make himself a prey’, that is, he will become a victim of dishonesty

himself.
Now let us hear the verdict of a modern philosopher and social
critic. In his book Truth Decay, Douglas Groothuis argues vigorously
that far from objective truth robbing the individual of his freedom,
it is the loss of public respect for the sanctity of objective truth that
little by little eats away at the foundations of individual and civic lib-
erty. It is worth quoting him at length:
Truth decay has ramifications for all religious truth claims
. . . But truth decay also affects every other area of life, from
politics to art, to law to history. If the idea of objective truth
falls into disrepute, politics devolves into nothing but image
manipulation and power mongering . . . Social consensus and
the duties of shared citizenship become irrelevant and impossi-
ble as various subsets of the population—differentiated by race,
ethnicity and sexual orientation—grasp for power by claim-
ing unimpeachable authority on the basis of their cultural
­particularities . . .
If law is not grounded in a moral order that transcends any
criminal code or constitution, it becomes a set of malleable
and ultimately arbitrary edicts. If no objective facts can be dis-
cerned from the past, a novel cannot be distinguished from
history, nor mythology differentiated from biography. History
becomes a tool for special interest groups who rewrite the past
on the basis of their predilections, without the possibility of
rational critique from outside the group. If there is no beauty
beyond the eye of the beholder, art becomes merely a tool for
social influence, political power and personal expression; the
category of obscenity is as obsolete as the ideal of beauty.
. . . culture wars break out after the breakdown of a consensual
understanding of truth as objective and knowable through ra-
tional investigation and persuasion. When reasonable debate
serves no purpose in achieving a knowledge of truth, all that
remains are machinations of power—whether the cause be ra-
cial, sexual or religious.1
1 See pp. 25–6.

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Here, then, is plenty for vigorous, rational debate. But debate can
only be carried on by using words. If, then, as some claim, words are
so culturally conditioned that they cannot express genuinely objec-
tive truth, rational debate can never lead us to truth. All it could do
would be to make us aware of irreconcilably different prejudices and
opinions. It is, therefore, to a consideration of language as a possible
vehicle for truth that we now turn.

CONVENTIONALISM

Conventionalism is a theory of linguistic philosophy associated with

such names as Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), Gottlob Frege
(1848–1925) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951). It holds that all
meaning is relative. But if so, then since all truth claims are meaning-
ful statements, it would follow that all truth is likewise relative.
On this view, meaning is arbitrary and relative, since it is deter-
mined by culture and context. Language of itself does not possess
some inherent, essential meaning. Linguistic meaning derives from
the experience of the people whose language it is. Words are symbols,
and the same symbol can be used by different people to mean differ-
ent things. In English, for instance, the sound represented by the let-
ters g–i–f–t means ‘a present’, ‘something given’, and then ‘a special
aptitude’, ‘ability’, ‘power’ or ‘talent’. In German the very same sound,
represented by the very same letters, means ‘poison’, and then ‘viru-
lence’, ‘fury’, ‘malice’, ‘rage’.
But notice what this does not mean. The fact that the sound
(word) ‘gift’ refers in German to something very different from that
same sound (word) in English does not mean that an Englishman
can never be brought to understand the reality to which the Ger-
man sound (word) refers. Nor does it mean that the truth about this
reality, namely that it will kill you if you ingest it, is culturally deter-
mined, and therefore only relative. It is an absolute truth that holds
true in every nation under the sun, whatever symbol/sound/word is
used to denote it.
Logically the conventionalist theory is self-contradictory. When
a conventionalist says ‘All meaning is relative’, he has to suppose that
he is uttering a meaningful statement, that all people in the world

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will agree with, when they understand it. His statement, then, is a
‘non-conventional’ statement that nevertheless purports to claim
that all statements are conventional.2

THE DEFINITION OF TRUTH

Let’s start with what appears to be a simple observation derived from

everyday life: each of us has a concept of truth. We say things like:
‘I don’t think Natasha was telling the truth when she said that
she was at Susie’s house last night.’
‘Tell me the truth, doctor; is this illness terminal?’
‘I wish I knew whether he was telling me the truth.’
‘It is true that Paris is the capital of France.’
‘It is not true that I have a million pounds in the bank.’
These and a thousand and one similar expressions reveal that all
of us know what truth and falsehood are and, what is more, we ex-
pect others to know it too, and we expect them to tell the truth; we
can get very angry if we discover that someone has deliberately told
us an untruth.
Yet once we attempt to formulate what exactly we mean by truth,
we shall discover, as philosophers have done long since, that clear
definition is not as easy as we think. We shall also discover that in
recent years the concept of truth has itself been radically questioned.
So let us now look at some of the theories of the nature of truth.

The correspondence theory of truth

Aristotle’s view of truth

Perhaps the most famous expression of this is that given long ago by
Aristotle:

2 We must distinguish, of course, between ‘meaning’ in the sense of what a word refers to, and

‘meaning’ in the sense of what the thing referred to means to us, i.e. whether we like it or not,
value or detest it, believe in it or not. The word ‘God’ is a ready example.

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 In Search of Truth

To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false,

while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not,
is true; so that he who says of anything that it is, or that it is not,
will say either what is true or what is false.3
Aristotle’s principle applies both to the existence of things and to
the qualities of things.
Existence. All agree that the earth exists. If I say of the earth that
it exists, then what I say is true because the earth does in fact exist,
and my statement corresponds with the fact. If, on the other hand, I
were to say that the earth does not exist, then what I said would be
false, since my statement would not correspond with the fact.
Qualities. Water not only exists but it has a certain quality,
namely, wetness. If I say that water is not wet, then what I say about
water is false, for my statement does not correspond with the fact.
Conversely, if I say that water is wet, then my statement corresponds
with the fact, and it is therefore true.
On the basis of these simple examples we can begin to define the
nature of truth according to the correspondence theory. Truth is a
property of statements, propositions or beliefs about something that
is external to the statements themselves. In other words it is state-
ments, propositions and beliefs that are said to be either false or true;
but the criterion by which they are judged to be either false or true
lies outside those statements, propositions or beliefs. It lies in the
state of affairs to which they refer. If they correspond to that state of
affairs, they are true; if not, they are false.
Example 1. If I state that Napoleon was defeated at the battle of
Waterloo, my statement is true; and it is true, not because of some-
thing intrinsic to that statement which you could discover by investi-
gating the statement itself, but because of something which happened
in the past, something entirely outside the statement itself to which
nevertheless the statement corresponds.
Example 2. If, on the other hand, I state or believe that Napoleon
won the battle of Waterloo, my statement or belief is false, no matter
how sincerely or firmly held my belief is. It is false because of some-
thing that happened in the past, something outside the statement
itself that does not correspond to that statement.
3 Metaphysics, iv.7 (Ross trans.).

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It is, then, because of this correspondence (or non-correspond-

ence) of statements, propositions or beliefs with the facts, that this
theory of truth is called the correspondence theory. A moment’s re-
flection will show that this is the common sense view of truth by
which most of us live our lives most of the time.

Bertrand Russell’s view

The philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell was a staunch
defender of the correspondence theory of truth. In his well-known
book The Problems of Philosophy, he laid down criteria that he re-
garded as essential for any theory of truth. They are that any such
theory:
1. must hold that the very idea of truth implies that its oppo-
site is false;
2. must make truth ‘a property of beliefs’; but
3. must make truth ‘a property wholly dependent upon the
relations of beliefs to outside things’.4
This means, according to Russell, that
The truth of a belief is something not involving beliefs, or (in
general) any mind at all, but only the objects of the belief. A
mind, which believes, believes truly when there is a correspond-
ing complex [of facts] not involving the mind, but only its ob-
jects. This correspondence ensures truth, and its absence entails
falsehood. Hence we account simultaneously for the two facts
that beliefs (a) depend on minds for their existence, (b) do not
depend on minds for their truth. . . .
It will be seen that minds do not create truth or falsehood. They
create beliefs, but when once the beliefs are created, the mind
cannot make them true or false, except in the special case where
they concern future things which are within the power of the
person believing, such as catching trains. What makes a belief
true is a fact, and this fact does not (except in exceptional cases)
in any way involve the mind of the person who has the belief.5

4 Problems of Philosophy, 89.

5 Problems of Philosophy, 93–4.

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 In Search of Truth

The need to distinguish between

objective facts and subjective feelings

The temperature of a room is an objective fact. It can be measured by

a thermometer. It is the same for everyone who is in the room, what-
ever their feelings.
A temperature of 5° centigrade in a room might seem warm to
somebody coming in from the outside where the temperature is -20°.
It would simultaneously seem cold to a person coming in from an
outside temperature of +40°. The different ways in which people feel
the temperature is a subjective matter. It does not alter the objective
truth of the statement that the temperature of the room is 5°.
If, on the other hand, I say ‘I feel cold’, my statement refers to an
objective state of affairs—my state of feeling cold. If, then, I am re-
ally feeling cold, my statement is true, since it corresponds to what I
am actually feeling. If, however, I am not feeling cold, but say I am,
my statement does not correspond to the actual state of affairs, and
is therefore false.
Someone recommends a medicine to his friend, saying it is good
for arthritis, and his friend replies: ‘It may be true for you, but it isn’t
true for me: I have arthritis and took that medicine and it did me no
good.’ What are we to deduce from this? Are we to think that there
is no such thing as objective truth: all truth is relative, and what is
true for some people is not true for others? No. The fault here was
that the original statement, ‘This medicine is good for arthritis’ was
not exact, and therefore, strictly speaking, it was not completely true,
because it did not correspond with all the facts. It should have run,
‘This medicine is good for some forms of arthritis but not for others’;
then it would have corresponded with all the facts.

An objection to the correspondence theory

The correspondence theory has been criticised by the British philoso-

pher P. F. Strawson (1919–2006) in a famous interchange with J. L.
Austin (1911–60).6 Strawson rightly understood the correspondence
theory to imply two major things:

6 Austin et al., ‘Truth’.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

1. facts are actual entities that exist before and independently

of any statement made about them; and
2. statements made about facts are true or false to the degree
in which they correspond to the facts.
But Strawson held that the theory must be false, because, accord-
ing to him, we never have access to the bare facts themselves. The
only way we can know about facts is by making a statement about
them. All we have are statements, our own or other people’s, about
the facts. All we can do, therefore, is to compare one statement about
the facts with another statement about the facts.
Likewise, L. J. J. Wittgenstein (1889–1951), who in his early pe-
riod had held the correspondence theory, abandoned it later in life.
He argued that when we try to test the truth of our judgment about
a fact with the fact itself, all that we can really do is to compare our
first judgment with some second judgment, not with ‘the fact itself’
independently of any human judgment.
But to argue like that is virtually to deny that we can have any
objectively true knowledge of the external world at all—and the de-
nial is false. At one time and for long centuries people believed and
stated that the sun orbits the earth. Later people came to believe oth-
erwise and stated that the earth orbits the sun. Modern astronomers
insist that the earlier statement was false, the second true. But how
can the second statement be judged to be truer than the first, unless
we have access to the facts and can assess the comparative truth of
the statements by observing how well, or otherwise, they correspond
with the facts?
Philosopher John R. Searle argues7 against Wittgenstein and
Strawson that facts are non-linguistic entities, ‘because the whole
point of having the notion of “fact” is to have a notion for that which
stands outside the statement but which makes it true, or in virtue of
which it is true, if it is true’.8 Summing up, Searle says,
The assignment of ‘true’ to statements is not arbitrary. In gen-
eral, statements are true in virtue of conditions in the world
that are not parts of the statement. Statements are made true

7 Construction of Social Reality, Ch. 9.

8 Construction of Social Reality, 211.

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 In Search of Truth

by how things are in the world that is independent of the state-

ment. We need general terms to name these how-things-are-in-
the-world, and ‘fact’ is one such term. Others are ‘situation’ and
‘state of affairs’.9
We can see the force of what Searle is saying by reflecting on the
fact that the earth was a planet orbiting the sun before there was
anyone to make a statement about it. Facts are independent of state-
ments made about them.

The subjective element in knowing the truth

The fact that we have to interpret the knowledge we gain, and that
our knowledge is limited, does not mean that there is not an objec-
tive truth out there for us to study. The very fact that scientists per-
sist in attempting to get an ever enlarged and increasingly accurate
understanding of reality shows that at least they presuppose the cor-
respondence theory of truth, namely, that there is an objective reality
which invites our progressive understanding of it.

The coherence theory of truth

Perhaps the most widely held alternative to the correspondence theory

of truth is the coherence theory of truth. Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel and
the British philosopher F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) all subscribed to
various versions of it. In this theory the criterion of truth is not
whether a given statement, proposition or belief corresponds with
some external reality; it is simply whether that
statement, proposition or belief coheres with all
An incoherent narrative
the other statements, propositions or beliefs
is obviously not true.
within the system of which it is a member.
The system of thought to which the coher-
ence principle most obviously applies is mathematics. A mathemati-
cal proposition is regarded as true if it coheres with the axioms and
the other propositions in its particular system. In other words, to be
true a mathematical theory must be internally coherent.
Similarly many systematic theologians will assess the truth of a

9 Construction of Social Reality, 219.

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proposed doctrine by whether it coheres with the accepted axioms of

their system: if it does, it is true; if it doesn’t, it is false.
Likewise in a criminal court one of the first things a judge will
look for in the testimony of a witness or of an accused person is
whether that testimony is coherent. If the accused person says at the
beginning of his statement that he was in Tokyo at the time of the
murder, and then later says that he was in Shanghai, his statement is
incoherent and will be rejected.
Coherence is also a criterion much used by historians in order to
assess the validity of differing accounts of past events. An incoherent
narrative is obviously not true.10

Evaluation of the coherence theory

It is clear, then, that coherence is a negative test for truth: if a state-
ment is incoherent, it cannot be true. Coherence, therefore, is a nec-
essary condition: all statements must pass this test, if they are to be
regarded as true. But while it is a necessary condition, it is not by itself
a sufficient condition for truth.
Russell argues that there are two major reasons for which we
must reject the coherence theory as a sufficient condition for truth.
First, it is possible to think of two internally coherent theories or sto-
ries that are nevertheless mutually contradictory.
Story 1. All life is a dream, and all people and objects we perceive
are dream objects with no real existence. Such a story could be pre-
sented as internally coherent.
Story 2. Equally coherent internally, as is Story 1: real people and
real objects exist in a real world.
These two stories, though both internally coherent, are mutually
contradictory. They cannot both be true—and incidentally, we know
which one isn’t true!
Similarly, while mathematics insists that any theory be inter-
nally coherent, mathematical imagination can construct any number
of internally coherent systems that are mutually inconsistent. This
can happen in mathematics because its theoretical systems do not
necessarily correspond with reality.

10 Though if two or three ostensibly independent witnesses were found to give word-for-word

exactly the same account of an event, one might suspect collusion of some sort.

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The same thing happens in fiction: one could write two novels
about the same hero, each novel coherent in itself but completely
contradicting the other novel. One can do this because it is fiction;
but it shows that internal coherence is not enough to settle the ques-
tion of truth.
The second problem with the coherence theory is a logical one. In
order to be internally coherent a theory or story must observe the law
of non-contradiction in logic: one cannot introduce into the theory
or the story two contradictory statements about the same thing. A
historian, for example, cannot state within one and the same book
that Napoleon won the battle of Waterloo and that he lost the battle
of Waterloo.
What then, we must ask, is the status of this law of logic? Does it
apply simply to a particular story or is it valid and applicable to eve-
rything in the whole universe?
Suppose it is valid and universally applicable. Then obviously it
exists independently of any particular story and lies not inside but
outside each story. That means that to be true, each story has to con-
form to an external law or standard of truth and this principle seems
strongly to resemble the correspondence theory of truth.
But suppose this external law of logic is not valid either in the
case of some particular story or in the case of any other story
throughout the universe. Then each and
every story will be coherent with each and
every other story, no matter what contradic- From the perspective of
tions and inconsistencies exist between the correspondence theory
them. In that case the two statements ‘I’m a of truth, the coherence
millionaire’ and ‘I’m completely bankrupt’ theory selects a prominent
could be regarded as mutually coherent, and characteristic of truth and
because coherent, simultaneously true. But mistakenly elevates it to
this is obvious nonsense; and it forces us to a definition of truth.
conclude that to be a valid criterion of truth,
the inner coherence of any story must sub-
mit to the external law of truth: the principle of non-contradiction.
From the perspective of the correspondence theory of truth, the co-
herence theory selects a prominent characteristic of truth and mis-
takenly elevates it to a definition of truth. The same holds for a

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number of other theories of truth including the next that we will

consider.

The pragmatic theory of truth

This theory is associated with the names of American philosophers

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), William James (1842–1910) and
John Dewey (1859–1952), who, although they (like all other philoso-
phers!) did not all teach quite the same thing, essentially believed
that true beliefs are defined to be those which provoke actions which
lead to desirable or successful results. Now, of course, we should all
surely agree that true beliefs are a good basis for action, but, as Rus-
sell and others have pointed out, we all know also that actions based
on true beliefs can sometimes lead to disastrous results, whereas ac-
tions based on false beliefs can sometimes lead to good results. A man
driving at night in a lonely part of the country might see flames ap-
parently coming from a house. Thinking the house is on fire he goes
to investigate and discovers that it is only a harmless fire burning
rubbish. However he finds a woman lying by the fire unconscious as
a result of a fall, and is able to take her to hospital and save her life.
His initial belief was false, but it led to good results.
On the other hand, a man might abandon a ship in the true belief
it was sinking and try to swim for the shore only to drown in strong
currents, whereas if he had stayed on the ship he would have been
rescued by another ship which happened to come by just before the
first ship sank. In this case the man’s belief was true, but the result of
believing it was fatal.
If, then, beliefs are to be judged true if they lead to good results,
and false if they lead to bad results, we shall have to conclude that in
the first of these two examples an initial false belief (that a house was
on fire when in fact it wasn’t) was true; and in the second example, a
true belief (that the ship was sinking, which in fact it did) was false.
But this is nonsense; and it shows that the pragmatic theory of truth
is inadequate. In past years crude surgical methods have sometimes
saved lives and sometimes hastened death. Nowadays the very best
and most modern surgical techniques carry no guarantee of suc-
cess in every case. Of course, constant bad results will motivate sur-
geons to devise better techniques. But to make success or failure the

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absolute and unvarying criterion of truth is false. Many a criminal

has successfully, from his point of view, escaped justice by mounting
a defence based on persuasive lies.
Finally, it has been frequently pointed out that the correspond-
ence theory of truth is superior to all the others for the simple reason
that they all depend on the correspondence theory, even as they at-
tempt to deny it. For to say ‘this theory of truth is true’ means that it
corresponds to the truth about truth.

Questions remain

When we have examined some of the underlying reasons why some

people react negatively to the idea of objective truth, examined some
of the consequences of rejecting it and tried to understand how truth
is defined by those who hold a variety of theories about it there are
still issues that we must explore as we consider the nature of truth.
Whichever view we adhere to, we all have to wrestle with different
levels, and even different kinds, of truth. The question of how particu-
lar truths are related to ultimate truth comes into our experience so
regularly that we may well cease to think about it. But we must now
consider how that question arises, in every area of life, but particu-
larly in relation to the truth about human history.

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 CHAPTER 6

PARTIcULAR TRUTHS
AND ULTIMATE TRUTH

Those who start out seriously enquiring for

truth will find that at however lowly a level
they start, they will not be logically able to
resist asking what the Ultimate Truth about
everything is.
 TRUTH AT DIFFERENT LEVELS

Experience of life soon teaches us that the truth about things is to be

found at different levels. Take water once more as a simple example.
Level 1. At this level it is true to say that water can exist as a liq-
uid, as a gas (steam) and as a solid (ice). But even at this level the one
truth that water is wet is not equally applicable to all its three possible
forms: steam is in fact dry and invisible until it mixes with air.
Level 2. At the level of the constituent elements of water, the truth
is that water is composed of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen. But nei-
ther of these gases is wet. If, therefore, we wish to consider the truth
about the qualities of water at Level 1, we must ‘leave behind’ the
truths of water at Level 2, however true they were at that level.
Level 3. At the atomic and subatomic level the two elements are
made up of atoms and particles in the same sense as all elements are;
though the distinguishing truth about them would be the particular
selection and ratios of their component particles.
Now while all these facts are, each in its turn, true of water, if we
wish to think of water qua water, we must concentrate on the truth
that belongs specially to that level.
But the truth about water is not exhausted by the account of what
water is made of: it must take account of what its purpose and func-
tions are in relation to Earth’s total system. It has several such func-
tions; but since on Earth water is a substance without which life as we
know it would be impossible, modern science understandably seeks
to discover whether water is exclusive to our Earth, or whether it ex-
ists on any other planets in our solar system, or on any other planets
that may be orbiting other suns elsewhere in the universe. But once
we start asking about the purpose and function of water within the
universe as a whole, it will not be long before we ask what is the
truth about the origin, purpose and function of the universe itself.
That is the nature of truth. Those who start out seriously enquiring
for truth will find that at however lowly a level they start, they will

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not be logically able to resist asking what the Ultimate Truth about
every­thing is.
This is noticeably true when we begin to ask about ourselves as
human beings. At one level the truth is that we are made of the dust
of the earth; and if modern cosmologists are right in saying that the
heavy elements necessary for life on Earth were produced in the ex-
plosions of supernovae, then we are made of stardust. At a higher
level it is true that we are made of atoms, molecules, genes, cells. But
so are plants, and at another level of truth we are more than plants.
At this higher level we can consider our stomach, liver, kidneys,
lungs, heart, limbs, head, tongue, eyes, brain and even intelligence
which we have in common with the higher animals, though even
in the features we have in common there are significant differences.
A human hand is a very different thing from an animal’s claw. The
truth is that a human is not just a superior animal.
At a higher level still, one thing that uniquely distinguishes hu-
mans is the fact that they have minds that can investigate and un-
derstand the laws by which the universe works, though there is no
evidence that the universe—the stars, the galaxies, etc.—­understands
how it works. But more than that: the human mind can transcend
the universe and ask how the universe began, where its laws came
from, what its purpose is, how it will end. And what is more, the hu-
man mind instinctively knows itself to be immeasurably superior to
mindless matter however vast the quantity of it is.
If, therefore, we ask what is the truth about us human beings, it
would be irrational to restrict ourselves to the truth at one or two of
the lower levels. Truthfulness itself will demand that we ask what the
truth is about humanity at the highest level: our relationship to the
universe as a whole—and to what lies behind and beyond the uni-
verse. In other words: what is the Ultimate Truth?

Different kinds of truth?

Experience of life seems also to teach us not only that truth is to be

sought at different levels, but that there are different kinds of truth.
People speak of factual truth, scientific truth, poetic truth, mathe-
matical truth, philosophical truth, moral truth, existential truth, etc.
From a practical point of view, at least, these distinctions are helpful.

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 Particular Truths and Ultimate Truth

We need, however, to tread carefully here. C. S. Lewis argued1

that the difference between so-called factual, scientific and poetic
truth was really a question of different kinds of language used to
describe the same basic truth. He cited three sentences each describ-
ing the same phenomenon, severe cold, but each in a different style
of language:
(1) ‘It was very cold.’
(2) ‘There were 13 degrees of frost.’
(3) ‘Ah, bitter chill it was! | The owl, for all his feathers was a-cold;
| The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass, | And
silent was the flock in woolly fold; | Numb’d were the Beads-
man’s fingers.’ 2
He then described the first sentence as Ordinary language, the
second as Scientific language, and the third as Poetic language. The
first sentence aimed to convey the information that it was very cold in
ordinary everyday factual language. The second was intended to con-
vey the information about the coldness in precise, scientifically meas-
ured terms. The third was intended to convey
to our imagination the idea of how cold it was
by describing its effects on birds, animals and The interesting thing is
people. But the truth being conveyed, namely that when we speak
that it was very cold, was the same in all three about these several
sentences. Lewis then went on to suggest that varieties, scientific truth,
there are ideas and concepts that perhaps only poetic truth, moral
poetic language, aimed at the imagination, can truth, etc., the word
convey; but they are nonetheless true for that. ‘truth’ is the constant
We could debate Lewis’s argument for a element common to
long time, but that is not our point here. In all these varieties.
ordinary life we can readily see the difference
between, say, a necessary universal truth deliv-
ered by mathematics, such that 5 × 5 = 25, and an existential truth
discovered by long experience over many generations and expressed
in traditional proverbial form, such as ‘Pride goes before a fall’. The
interesting thing is that when we speak about these several varieties,

1 ‘The Language of Religion’, Christian Reflections.

2 Lewis here cited John Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes, I, 1–5.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

scientific truth, poetic truth, moral truth, etc., the word ‘truth’ is the
constant element common to all these varieties. This surely suggests
that there is a basic comprehensiveness about the idea and concept of
truth that overarches all these varied areas of human experience and
knowledge, though it cannot be confined to any one of them. Chris-
tians, at least, would account for it by saying that ‘all truth is God’s
truth’, meaning that all truth, at every level, has its ultimate source
in the Creator.

Historical truths

It goes without saying that we know numerous indubitable historical

facts; and if we choose to refer to these facts as ‘historical truths’, there
is no reason why we shouldn’t. That is the way we talk. We commonly
say, for instance, that it is true that Alexander the Great defeated the
Persians and led his troops into India; or that it is true that Roald
Amunsden (1872–1928), the Norwegian explorer, was the first man
to reach the South Pole (in 1911); or that Yuri Gagarin was the first to
conduct a manned space flight (in 1961).
But in addition to numerous true facts about the past, we can
rightly talk about historical truths in the sense of lessons we can learn
from a study of history. A knowledge of the past, of the movements of
thought, the development of politics, the national and international
struggles that have preceded us, can help us to understand the pres­
ent conditions and attitudes prevalent in our contemporary world.
Awareness of understandable, but exaggerated, reactions to one ex-
treme in the past can help us to perceive the reason for an unfortu-
nate tendency in society to go to an opposite extreme in the present.
Secondly, historians can point to the consequences of certain
trends in the past, and so warn us not to make the same mistakes in
the future. From this knowledge of the past they could even suggest
what effect policies being at present adopted are likely to have in the
future; though the past is never exactly repeated, and the interpreta-
tions put on the past by present historians are often modified by later
historians.
But in this context we need to distinguish between genuine his-
tory on the one hand, and what may be called historicism on the other.

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 Particular Truths and Ultimate Truth

HISTORICISM AND THE TRUTH ABOUT EVERYTHING

It is common knowledge that some physicists and cosmologists hope

one day to be able to construct a ‘theory of everything’, that is, one
unified theory that will describe the workings of the whole universe,
regarded as one unified whole. It is an ambitious quest. But while
such a theory might explain how the whole universe works, and, con-
ceivably, even how it started, there is something that, by definition,
it will never explain simply by studying the universe itself. It will
never explain why the universe is there in the first place, that is, why
there is something and not nothing. More importantly, it will never
explain what the purpose of the universe is. To learn the purpose for
the universe’s existence you would have to look outside the universe,
or at least receive the necessary information from a source outside
the universe. To take a simple illustration, if someone were to bake
a cake, experts from a variety of disciplines could each tell us some-
thing about it, but no one could tell the purpose for which the cake
was made, simply by studying the cake. For that we would have to ask
the person who baked it.3
The same thing is true about history, that is, the history of the
human race. If we regard the universe and the history of the human
race within it as a closed, self-contained unit and try to work out the
truth about human history simply by studying that history without
any information from outside, we shall inevitably fail.
There are some obvious additional reasons why this is so. First,
if history is defined as everything that everyone who has ever lived
has thought, said, done and experienced since the world began, then
what we know about history is infinitesimal. How could we discover
the truth about the history of the human race so far, simply by study-
ing such a tiny slice of the evidence?
The second obvious reason is even more compelling: the history
of the human race has not finished yet, and we cannot tell, simply
by looking at human history so far, how it is going to end. We did
not join the river at its source. No one has traversed it to its end.
How could we, located as we are, simply by looking at history so far,

3 See our further discussion of the principle involved as illustrated by the story of Aunt Olga’s

cake in the Appendix: ‘The Scientific Endeavour’, and the section ‘Explaining Explanations’.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

predict with any certainty how and when and where it will end—still
less what the purpose and goal of history as a whole is?

The urge to know the whole story

It is natural for us to look to see if there are any discernible laws in

history that might provide some information, at least, as to how the
future will develop, so that life ceases to be a purposeless journey to
an unknown destination. Some philosophers, indeed, have felt it to be
the proper task of philosophy to discover the purpose of the universe.
The British philosopher C. E. M. Joad (1891–1953) wrote:
It is the business of philosophy, as I conceive it, to seek to un-
derstand the nature of the universe as a whole, not, as do the
sciences, some special department of it, but the whole bag of
tricks to which the moral feelings of the Puritan, the herd in-
stinct of the man in the street, the religious consciousness of
the saint, the aesthetic enjoyment of the artist, the history of
the human race and its contemporary follies, no less than the
latest discoveries of science contribute. Reflecting on this mass
of data, the philosopher seeks to interpret it. He looks for a clue
to guide him through the labyrinth, for a system wherewith to
classify, or a purpose in terms of which to make meaningful.4
The question remains, however, how could we possibly discover
laws that might be thought to have governed universal history so far,
simply by studying what we know of history?
We know some things, of course. We know that no empire, how-
ever great, has proved permanent. We know that from time to time
in different parts of the world brilliant cultures and civilisations have
arisen, sometimes for no apparent reason, like the spectacular Greek
culture of the fifth century bc. Some have lasted millennia, as did
that of ancient Egypt; some for but a comparatively short while, like
that of Greece which we have just mentioned. All in the end have pe-
tered out, or have been absorbed by some other more powerful civi-
lisation. Some have disappeared without trace, like the Indus Valley,
or Harappan, civilisation of northern India; or the brilliant Minoan

4 Book of Joad, 213.

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 Particular Truths and Ultimate Truth

civilisation in Crete, which was lost to history until rediscovered at

the beginning of the last century.
The progress of science and technology in the last two centuries,
and now the astonishing advances in information technology in the
last half century and right up to the present, have certainly created
the impression in the minds of many that pro-
gress is a law of history. But if we choose to look
at other areas of life, it is doubtful whether any Progress has clearly
progress worth speaking of has been made at not marked the whole
all. There is no evidence to suggest that our spectrum of human life.
leading experts are any more intelligent than
their counterparts in the ancient world, even
though they know vastly more than the ancients did; and when it
comes to morality there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the
modern developed world is no better, perhaps even worse, than the
ancient Roman empire in its decadent years. Progress has clearly not
marked the whole spectrum of human life.
Information technology and the activities of multinational com-
mercial complexes are rapidly leading to even greater globalisation.
In the West, the Industrial Revolution led eventually to the twentieth
century, the bloodiest in the whole of known human history. Is there
some law of history that guarantees that globalisation will lead to
world peace?
But how could we possibly know what the ultimate goal and
meaning of history is, merely by looking at past history? History, as
Shakespeare reminds us, is like a play, and we human beings have
our entrances, and for a while play our different parts on the stage.
Then we have our exits.5 But we are not the author of the play; we
are not even spectators looking on from the outside of the play. We
are just actors and, simply as actors in the play itself, we don’t know
exactly whereabouts in the play of world history we are. Only the
author knows that; and only the author knows how and when the
play will end.
And then there is another question, and that concerns not the
whole play, but ourselves as individual players. We do not know when
our final exit from the stage will be nor how long the play will go on

5 See Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII, ll. 139–166.

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after we have departed. We have a more urgent question, therefore:

what is the truth about the purpose, goal, destiny and significance
of our individual lives both in relation to the whole play and to its
author—if there is one? How could we possibly know that, merely
by looking at that tiny amount of past world history that we happen
to know about, or by conjecturing about that part of history that
has not yet happened? Only someone who stood outside history and
could see how it started, and how and when it will end, could tell
us that.
According to the Bible, of course, there is such a one who stands
outside and above history and sees the end from the beginning. In
the Old Testament, he announces himself in this way: ‘I am God,
and there is no other . . . declaring the end from the beginning and
from ancient times things not yet done’ (Isa 46:9–10). And in the
New Testament he describes himself in these words: ‘“I am the Alpha
and Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to
come”’ (Rev 1:8). His was the first, and his will be the last, word in
human history. He began it all, and he is its goal. He is the one who
revealed and expressed himself in the creation of the universe and
thus gave it significance; and the full meaning of history will be seen
when as its goal God fulfils his purpose ‘to bring all things in heaven
and on earth together under one head, even Christ’ (Eph 1:10 own
trans.).
But this is not something that we can read off the surface of hu-
man world history. We know these things—if we know them at all—
as revealed by God through the law, the prophets, the apostles and
supremely through Jesus Christ.
There have been and still are, of course, many who do not accept
the Bible as God’s revealed truth; and some of these have claimed to
have discovered, by their own unaided intellectual powers, the laws
of history. On the basis of these laws they have then claimed to tell
us the truth about history’s development so far and, with undeniable
truth, to predict how history will inevitably develop in the future.
We call their theories ‘historicism’ as distinct from history. Histori-
ans are content to draw limited lessons from the past and to make
sober predictions about where modern trends may eventually lead us
in the near future. Historicists are not content with that. They claim
to know the truth about the whole of history, past, present and future.

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The historicism of Hegel and Marx

The two most famous historicists in comparatively modern times

have been G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) and Karl Marx (1818–83). In
the early nineteenth century, and especially in the so-called ‘remark-
able decade’ of 1838–48, the influence of Hegelianism was powerful
and extensive. Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812–70) reports that
Hegel’s works
were discussed incessantly; there was not a paragraph in the
three parts of the Logic, in the two of the Aesthetics, the En-
cyclopaedia and so on, which had not been the subject of des-
perate disputes for several nights together. People who loved
each other avoided each other for weeks at a time because they
dis­agreed about the definition of ‘all-embracing spirit’, or had
taken as a personal insult an opinion on the ‘absolute personal-
ity and its existence in itself’.6
Commenting on the appeal of Hegelianism at that time, Andrzej
Walicki suggests that
Both as a philosophy of reconciliation and as a philosophy of
action, Russian Hegelianism was above all a philosophy of re-
integration; a philosophy which helped young intellectuals in
overcoming their feeling of alienation and in building bridges
between their ideals and reality.7
And that is easily understandable in the light of Hegel’s domi-
nant idea that the whole of reality, the universe and the human race,
in spite of all their apparent differences, are actually One Integrated
Whole—or at least, the laws of history are inexorably moving every-
thing on towards that final integration.
A superficial reading of Hegel’s works might give the impres-
sion that Hegel’s philosophy was, broadly speaking, Christian; but as
N. O. Lossky observed, ‘in his [Hegel’s] system God is not the Creator
of the world, and his system is not theism, but pantheism.’ 8

6 Byloe i dumy, Garnett trans., 398; see further Vol. 2, Ch. 24 for the reception of Hegel in

Russia.
7 Walicki, ‘Hegelianism, Russian’, 340.

8 Lossky, History of Russian Philosophy, 23. It might be more exact to call it panentheism.

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Hegel’s basic premise

His philosophical thought (as distinct from his historical theory)
starts by postulating pure being, which according to him, is content-
less. That shows at once that in postulating pure being as his prime
concept he is not thinking of the Being of God, which is infinitely
far from being contentless. But from this beginning he goes on to il-
lustrate the universal law that according to him controls and guides
everything. Since ‘being’, as he conceives of it, is contentless, and
‘contentless’ is equivalent to ‘nothing’, the beginning of things is
composed of ‘being and nothing’! Thus the beginning of things, he
maintains, contains in itself a contradiction—how can ‘being’ be con-
sistent with ‘nothing’? This internal conflict, therefore, by the univer-
sal law of dialectic, proceeds to resolve itself by ‘becoming’ something
or other. His words are:
The beginning contains being and nothing, it is the unity of be-
ing and nothing, for it is non-being which is at the same time
being, and being which at the same time is non-being.9
We notice that Hegel is not content to say that the beginning
contains a combination or even a unity of ‘being’ and ‘non-being’. He
insists that ‘being’ is ‘non-being’ and vice versa. In other words, two
opposites are not merely joined together: the two opposites are iden-
tical. But this is not only nonsense, it is a contradiction of fundamen-
tal logic. Lossky comments:
According to traditional formal logic everything is subject to
the laws of identity, contradiction and excluded middle, so
that ‘every A is A’ and ‘no A can be non-A’. Hegel regards such
logic as an expression of rationalistic abstractions inapplicable
to the concrete living reality in which, on the contrary, every-
thing is contradictory and ‘every A is B’, since the presence of
contradictions, conflicts and struggle between opposed princi-
ples compels being to progress and develop. . . . Hegel considers
every change to be an embodied contradiction. In truth, how-
ever, every change is a unity of opposites, but not their identity
violating the law of contradiction.10
9 Hegel, Logic; or Wissenschaft der Logik I:68, 77–80 (Vol. 3, 1833 edn)
10 Lossky, History of Russian Philosophy, 346, 347.

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Hegel’s philosophy of freedom

The implausibility of Hegel’s philosophy of freedom is seen in the way
he depicts the climax of historical development:
The History of the World is the discipline of the uncontrolled
natural will, bringing it into obedience to a Universal principle
and conferring subjective freedom. The East knew and to this
present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and Roman
world, that some are free; the German World that All are free.
The first political form therefore which we observe in History
is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third
Monarchy.11
It so happened that at the time when Hegel was extolling monar-
chy in a free society as the grand climax of world political history, he
was living under the recently reformed Prussian monarchy. Though
he does not explicitly identify his ideal State with the reformed Prus-
sian monarchy, his description of it is so similar to that monarchy
that Schopenhauer (1788–1860) accused him of selling himself to his
employer (Hegel was a professor in the national university of Berlin);
and after his death his disciples, the so-called Young Hegelians, con-
sidered that he had been untrue to the core of his own philosophy.
Actually he seems not to have regarded the Prussian monarchy as the
last word in political world history, for he considered that the future
of the world lay in America ‘where . . . the burden of the world’s his-
tory shall reveal itself’.12
On the other hand Hegel maintained that with his own system of
philosophy, the history of philosophy had reached its final goal and
end! Kenny well sums up Hegel’s position:
In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, he displays ear-
lier philosophies as succumbing, one by one, to a dialectical
advance marching steadily in the direction of German Ideal-
ism. A new epoch has now arisen, he tells us, in which finite
self-consciousness has ceased to be finite, and absolute self-­
consciousness has achieved reality. The sole task of the history
of philosophy is to narrate the strife between finite and infinite
11 Philosophy of History, Sibree, 104 (Dover), 121 (Baloche).
12 Cited from Kenny, Brief History of Western Philosophy, 277.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

self-­consciousness; now that the battle is over, it has reached its

goal.13
To understand how Hegel came to such extraordinary conclu-
sions we must briefly survey his metaphysics. At the heart of his sys-
tem stands the German word Geist, which can mean either Spirit or
Mind.14
‘Spirit’, says Hegel, ‘is alone Reality. It is the inner being of the
world, that which essentially is, and is per se.’ 15 Yet to start with, Spirit
is empty of content. It is only potential and needs to develop its po-
tential. Hence it creates us, and thus our finite minds, or spirits, are
part of the Absolute Spirit. By observing us the Absolute Spirit recog-
nises itself in us. And as we think and develop our philosophies the
Absolute Spirit comes to self-consciousness of itself through us! So
the finite minds of human beings come to see that the world beyond
them is not hostile to them, but part of themselves, since Mind, or
Spirit, alone constitutes what is real, and each finite mind is part of
Mind. At the same time Mind itself realises the goal of its fully devel-
oped potential through us human beings and our thinking.
Professor Peter Singer, himself not altogether unsympathetic
with the rest of Hegel’s philosophy, comments shrewdly on this fea-
ture of it:
One curious aspect of . . . the Phenomenology [of the Mind] is
that it seeks to understand a process that is completed by the
fact that it is understood. The goal of all history is that mind
should come to understand itself as the only ultimate reality.
When is that understanding first achieved? By Hegel himself in
the Phenomenology! If Hegel is to be believed, the closing pages
of his masterpiece are no mere description of the culmination
of everything that has happened since finite minds were first
created: they are that culmination.16

13 Kenny, Brief History of Western Philosophy, 278.

14 Hearing him speak about the Absolute Spirit, Christians might at first think that he meant
by it the person of the Holy Spirit, as depicted in the New Testament. But though he uses
Christian terminology, Hegel is actually a pantheist or panentheist.
15 Phenomenology of the Mind, 86.

16 ‘Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich’, 342.

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 Particular Truths and Ultimate Truth

So, then, as Anthony Kenny notes, ‘the self-awareness of the Ab-

solute comes at the end, not at the beginning . . . and is brought into
existence by the philosophical reflection of human beings. It is the his-
tory of philosophy which brings the Absolute face to face with itself.’ 17
Perhaps the saddest feature of Hegel’s system is, as Peter Singer
points out, the exaggerated, unwarranted optimism that his dia-
lectic of history spawned. Doubtless he genuinely believed that his
dialectic was the law of history that held out the sure prospect of
overcoming conflict between human beings and thus bringing about
a rational and harmonious community. As an example of how it
worked you could start with the ethics and morality of Athens in
the days of Socrates. They were built on mere custom. Then Socrates’
questioning led eventually to the downfall of customary morality
and its replacement during the Reformation by a morality based on
the individual conscience. Yet this in turn proves unsatisfactory and
unstable; and so it makes way for a synthesis of the two moralities
in the formation of the rational State where each citizen sees that
he shares reason, or Mind, with every other citizen, and that true
freedom consists not in individual isolation but in freely cooperat-
ing with all others in the community of the State which is in fact the
ideal Self-­expression of Absolute Spirit.
So far the theory of dialectic. But Hegel thought he saw it virtu-
ally fulfilled in the Prussian monarchy. The German spirit, he held,
was the spirit of the new world. Its aim was the realisation of absolute
truth as the unlimited self-determination of freedom. Accordingly
he divided German history into three periods:
1. the period up to Charlemagne which he called the Kingdom
of the Father;
2. the period from Charlemagne to the Reformation which he
called the Kingdom of the Son; and
3. the period from the Reformation up to and including the
Prussian monarchy which he called the Kingdom of the
Holy Spirit.
By what kind of dialectical law of history, we wonder, would he
have accounted for Hitler’s Third Reich, if he could have foreseen it?

17 Brief History, 278.

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Marx’s historicism

Hegel was a virtual pantheist, or panentheist; Marx was an atheist.

Marx rejected Hegel’s Idealism and embraced extreme Realism. He
took over Hegel’s idea of dialectic, however, even though he ‘stood
Hegel on his head’. He genuinely thought he had discovered a law of
history that by its irresistible working, along with man’s co­operation,
would bring in an eventual utopia. It spawned in him, and in mil-
lions of others round the world, an even greater optimism than He-
gel’s theory had generated—but with what disappointing results we
now know.

A final comment on Hegel and Marx

There is, then, one historical truth, at least, that a consideration of He-
gel’s and Marx’s philosophies can teach us. The law that they thought
they discovered in history was never in history itself: it was imposed
on history by their philosophies. It is, in fact, impossible for human
reason to predict what is the ultimate purpose and goal of history
simply by studying past history. God alone, who stands above the
river of time and sees the end from the beginning, knows that. But
according to the Bible he has communicated to us all that we need
to know about it (but which we could never have known by reason
alone) through his revealed truth. It is to the Bible’s concept of truth
that we must turn in our next chapter.

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 CHAPTER 7

THE BIBLIcAL VIEW OF TRUTH

Here lies the basic difference between atheism and

theism. To the atheist the universe is not a revelation
of anything. It is simply a brute fact with nothing to
tell us about anything outside itself. . . . The Bible,
by contrast, asserts that the universe is the vehicle of
God’s self­revelation of his power and divine nature;
and that to regard the universe itself as the Ultimate
Reality, and the matter and forces of nature as the
Ultimate Powers, is The Fundamental Falsehood . . .
 A PRELIMINARY WORD STUDY

The semantic range of the ancient languages in which the Bible was
written allow for a great breadth of meaning. It will be useful, there-
fore, to examine those original words and how they are used in the
biblical context. The Old Testament was for the most part written
in Hebrew, and a few chapters in Aramaic. The New Testament was
written in Greek.
In Hebrew the main word for truth, ’ emet, is polysemic, that is,
in some contexts it is used to express one meaning, in other con-
texts another. This is, of course, a common characteristic of words
in many languages.
1. ’ emet in some contexts means ‘truth’ as distinct from ‘false-
hood’ or ‘lies’.
2. ’ emet in other contexts means ‘reliability’, ‘trustworthiness’,
‘faithfulness’.
In Greek the main words for truth are the noun alētheia, the ad-
jectives alēthēs and alēthinos, and the adverb alēthēs. Their meanings
cover the range:
1. what is true, as distinct from false
2. what is open and honest as distinct from dishonest
concealment
3. what is true as distinct from pretence and hypocrisy
4. what is genuine as distinct from fake
5. what is real as distinct from illusory
6. what is permanently valuable as distinct from only tempo-
rarily valuable
7. what is the actual reality as distinct from a symbol of that
reality
8. what is the real thing as distinct from a mere copy or model
of the real thing.

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This group of Greek words does not have the meaning ‘reliable’,
‘trustworthy’, or ‘faithful’ as does the Hebrew word ’ emet. It is not
that the Greek language cannot express these meanings that are so
closely associated with the idea of ‘truth’. It is simply that when Greek
wishes to express the idea of reliability, trustworthiness or faithful-
ness, it uses the noun pistis (= both ‘faith’ and ‘faithfulness’) and
the adjective pistōs (= ‘faithful’, or ‘worthy of belief and trust’). Here,
then, are some examples of the range of meanings of these Hebrew
and Greek words as used in the Bible.

Truth as correspondence of words with the facts

Genesis 42:16
Joseph sets his brothers a test ‘that your words may be tested, whether
there is truth in you’. He has charged them with being spies; they have
denied it, and have given him their story. He now insists that they
prove that their story corresponds with the actual facts.

John 4:17–18
Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”;
for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not
your husband. What you have said is true.’
The woman had tried to hide her present marital situation by
telling a half-truth. Christ acknowledged that her statement, strictly
speaking, corresponded with the truth, but he showed himself aware
of the other half of the truth about her actual situation.

Truth as correspondence of deeds and words

The Bible is concerned, not only that our statements should corres­
pond with the facts of the case, but that our attitudes, deeds and be-
haviour should correspond with what we say we believe and with our
promises, both in religious and secular contexts.

1 John 3:17
If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need,
yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in

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him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed
and in truth.

Galatians 2:13–14
And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him . . .
But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth
of the gospel . . .
This was a case of religious hypocrisy: men who professed to
believe the Christian gospel were contradicting by their behaviour
what they claimed to believe.

Genesis 32:9–10
And Jacob said, ‘O God of my father Abraham . . . who said
to me, “Return to your country . . . that I may do you good,” I
am not worthy of . . . all the faithfulness [truth] that you have
shown to your servant.’
What Jacob means by ‘truth’ here is that God has been true to his
promises: he has not made promises and then failed to fulfil them.

Truth as coherence

Mark 14:56–59
For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony
did not agree. And some . . . bore false witness . . . ‘We heard
him say, “I will destroy this temple . . . and in three days I will
build another . . .’ ” Yet even about this their testimony did not
agree.
We earlier saw that coherence is not by itself a sufficient test for
truth. On the other hand a story that is incoherent cannot possibly
be true.

Pragmatic truth

1 Thessalonians 2:13
when you received the word of God, which you heard from us,
you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is [lit.
‘in truth’], the word of God, which is at work in you believers.
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We earlier saw that if we define truth as something that produces

good results, there will be cases where the definition does not hold,
since believing something as true can sometimes lead to bad results.
But in practice the mark of what is truly God’s word is that it proves
to be not just words and theory: it actually works and produces good
results in the lives of those who believe it. And they, for their part,
are responsible to ‘do the truth’, that is to practise it. Truth, in the
Bible, is not simply a theory that we mentally assent to: it is a belief
that has to be practised, as we saw from 1 John 3:17 above.

Truth and true as openness and honesty

Matthew 22:16–17
They sent their disciples to him [Jesus] . . . saying, ‘Teacher, we
know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully,
and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not
swayed by appearances. Tell us, then . . .’

Mark 5:33
But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in
fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the
whole truth.
In other words she concealed nothing, she did not try to get away
with telling half-truths.

Truth as integrity

Exodus 18:21–22
Look for able men . . . who fear God, who are trustworthy [lit.
‘men of truth’] and hate a bribe, and place such men over the
people . . . And let them judge the people.

Jeremiah 9:3–6
They bend their tongue like a bow; falsehood and not truth
has grown strong in the land . . . Let everyone beware of his
neighbour and put no trust in any brother, for every brother is a

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 The Biblical View of Truth

deceiver . . . and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their
tongue to speak lies . . . Heaping oppression upon oppression,
and deceit upon deceit.

Zechariah 8:16–17
Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates [i.e. in your
law courts] judgments that are true and make for peace . . . love
no false oath.
Truth in all three of these instances is integrity of character,
faithfulness, untouched by bribery and corruption, or by partiality
and favouritism.

Truth and true as what is real and genuine

John 17:3
that they should know you, the only true God.

1 Thessalonians 1:9
you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.
Here truth and true speak of what is real and genuine, as dis-
tinct from what is fake or spurious, specifically in consideration of
God and idols. The Bible is insistent that there is only one God. He
is the true God, i.e. he is the real, the genuine, God. All forms of idol
worship are deceptions and falsehoods. Compare how the Old Testa-
ment describes a worshipper of an idol: ‘he feeds on ashes; a deluded
heart has led him astray, and he cannot . . . say, “Is there not a lie in
my right hand?”’ (Isa 44:20). Similarly Romans 1:25: ‘they exchanged
the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature
rather than the Creator.’

True as what is real and eternal

John 6:27, 32
Do not labour for the food that perishes, but for the food that
endures to eternal life . . . my Father gives you the true bread

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from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from
heaven and gives life to the world.
Here ‘true’ is what is real and eternal, as distinct from what is
merely physical and temporary. Christ is not denying that we need
physical food and must work for it. But the life that physical food
maintains is only temporary; the life that the ‘real’ food maintains
is eternal.

Truth as what is ontologically real

John 4:22–24
You worship what you do not know . . . the true worshippers
will worship the Father in spirit and truth . . . God is spirit, and
those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
Truth in this context is what is ontologically real and distinct
from what is merely imaginary and illusory. Christ was here talking
to a Samaritan woman. He was not criticising the sincerity of her
worship: he was pointing out that she did not really know the God
she tried to worship. Her concept of him was not ontologically true,
only imaginary and illusory. If someone praised Black Beauty under
the impression that it was a painting of a beautiful woman, when in
actual fact Black Beauty was the name of a famous horse, his praise
of Black Beauty would not be true to the ontological reality that he
imagined he was praising. Worship of God must be true to what God
is really like.

True as what is the real thing as distinct from its symbol

Hebrews 8:1–2
We have such a high priest, one who sat down at the right hand of
the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places,
in the true tent [or, tabernacle] that the Lord set up, not man.
True here is what is the real thing as distinct from what is merely
a symbol of the real thing. The elaborate tabernacle faithfully set
up by Moses at God’s command was real enough in that it actually

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existed and was approved by God, as were the subsequent temples

built in Jerusalem. But it was only a symbol, a copy and shadow of
the true tabernacle that is God’s heavenly dwelling place. The writer
of Hebrews here encourages his readers to concentrate on reality
rather than on mere symbol.

DIFFERENT WAYS OF EXPRESSING TRUTH

It is plain to see that in the Bible there are, in the sense we earlier
discussed, different kinds of truth or, better said, different ways of
conveying truth.

Poetic truth or truth expressed through poetry

Not only are the books of Job and Psalms written as poetry, but so
are major parts of the prophetic books like Isaiah and Jeremiah;
and we interpret them accordingly. In the famous shepherd psalm,
David says:
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. (Ps 23:5)
The language, taken literally, describes a banquet provided by a
host who would anoint the head of each guest with perfumed oint-
ment and see to it that his glass was constantly filled. But no one sup-
poses that David is here talking of a literal banquet. Yet what he says
is nonetheless a truthful expression of God’s care and provision for
him that he had experienced in the desert, when he was being perse-
cuted by King Saul.
Similarly, when the psalmist describes the absolute completeness
of God’s forgiveness by remarking: ‘As far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us’ (Ps 103:12), he is
not implying that sin and guilt are entities that can be removed and
placed at an enormous physical distance from us. He is expressing in
vivid figurative language the truth that when God forgives, he prom-
ises never to rake up again the guilt of our sin and haunt us with it
(see the same thing said in straightforward language in Heb 10:17).

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Propositional truth

In this connection special interest attaches to the so-called ‘amen-­

formula’ with which Christ introduced many of his statements. ’āmēn
is a Hebrew word, connected with a verb that carries the idea of af-
firmation and certainty. So, for instance, if a
priest or judge put a person on oath and repeated
Faith in the statements, the terms of the oath and the solemn conse-
propositions and quences that would follow perjury, the person
promises uttered by concerned would respond with the word ’āmēn.
Christ and God is He or she thus affirmed the oath, and agreed to
regarded as being its terms. Similarly, at the end of a public prayer
ultimately based on or confession the congregation would say ‘amen’,
a person’s estimate thus affirming their agreement. And since, when
of the moral character people took an oath before God, they were ap-
and trustworthiness pealing to God to witness their oath, God is
of Christ and God. sometimes referred to in the Old Testament as
‘God of the Amen’ (cf. Isa 65:16); translated in
many languages as ‘God of Truth’.
Christ was unusual in that when he made solemn statements,
whether propositions or promises, he frequently prefaced (not ended)
those statement with the word ’āmēn, often repeating it in order to
lay double emphasis on their utter truthfulness and certainty. Exam-
ples are:
Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. (John 3:3)
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes
him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judg-
ment, but has passed from death to life. (John 5:24)
Now, as we have said, ’āmēn is a Hebrew word, and the New Testa-
ment was written in Greek. Naturally, therefore, in the New Testament
Christ’s words are normally translated into Greek. But the apostles
were obviously so impressed with Christ’s repeated emphatic affirma-
tion of the truthfulness of his statements that, in recording them, they
have often simply transliterated the Hebrew word ’āmēn, rather than
translate it. That means that as we now read these words, we are reading

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the actual words spoken by Christ, as J. Jeremias demonstrated.1

Similarly, at Revelation 3:14 Christ applies the term ’āmēn not
only to his statements and promises but to himself: ‘The words of the
Amen, the faithful and true witness’. Faith, therefore, in the state-
ments, propositions and promises uttered by Christ and God is re-
garded as being ultimately based on a person’s estimate of the moral
character and trustworthiness of Christ and God. One cannot sepa-
rate the truthfulness of the statements from the truthfulness of the
persons who make them. So, for instance, in a famous passage the
Christian apostle, John, first argues that not to believe a statement
made by God is to call into question God’s personal truthfulness:
Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he
has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concern-
ing his Son. (1 John 5:10)
And then John cites the statements that God has made and ex-
pects people to believe simply on the ground that God has made
them:
And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this
life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has the life; whoever
does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:11–12)

Truths expressed in precise legal language

At various places the Old Testament takes the forms of a legal cov-
enant. When these covenants are interpreted in the New Testament
great emphasis is laid on the precise wording of the original covenant
and on exact representation of its terms. An example is:
To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made
covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified.
Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring
[lit. ‘seed’]. It does not say ‘And to his offsprings [lit. ‘seeds’]’,
referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring
[seed]’, who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came

1 New Testament Theology, 35–6.

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430 years afterwards, does not annul a covenant previously rat-

ified by God, so as to make the promise void. (Gal 3:15–17)

Existential truth

The Bible records not only propositional statements of Christian doc-

trine, but also the testimony of people who claim to have proved these
doctrines to be true in their own practical experience. A good ex-
ample is that of Paul, the Christian apostle, who first relates his own
experience and then on that basis, asserts his conviction of the truth
and trustworthiness of Christian doctrine:
formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent.
But I received mercy . . . and the grace of our Lord overflowed
for me with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is
trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am foremost.
(1 Tim 1:13–15)

Revealed truth

In a number of places the New Testament uses the term ‘the truth’ to
denote the body of divinely revealed truth in regard to:

Creation
men, who . . . suppress the truth . . . For what can be known
about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and di-
vine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the crea-
tion of the world, in the things that have been made . . . they
exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and
served the creature rather than the Creator. (Rom 1:18–20, 25)
Here lies the basic difference between atheism and theism. To the
atheist the universe is not a revelation of anything. It is simply a brute
fact with nothing to tell us about anything outside itself. One can
study what it is made of, how it works, and one can deduce the regu-
lar principles its working seems to follow and call these principles

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laws. But one is not allowed to ask whether the universe reveals a
creative Mind behind its existence because by definition, according
to atheism, there is no Mind behind the universe for it to reveal.
The Bible, by contrast, asserts that the universe is the vehicle of
God’s self-revelation of his power and divine nature; and that to re-
gard the universe itself as the Ultimate Reality, and the matter and
forces of nature as the Ultimate Powers, is the Fundamental False-
hood in contradistinction to the Fundamental Truth about the uni-
verse and our place and significance in it.
The Bible further predicts that when atheism finally produces its
fully developed harvest, its fundamental falsehood that there is no
God will develop into the further falsehood that man, the highest
product of evolution, is God and should act as God (2 Thess 2:3–4,
9–12). It will be the final logical outworking of the deception early
instilled, according to the Bible, into mankind’s heart and imagina-
tion: ‘you shall be as God’ (Gen 3:5).

The gospel
when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation
(Eph 1:13)
so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you
(Gal 2:5)
Who hindered you from obeying the truth? (Gal 5:7)
From these few examples, and many others like them, it is evi-
dent in the New Testament that ‘the truth of the gospel’ and ‘the
truth’ (tout court) often refer to the same thing. Truth is essentially
the revealed truth of the gospel message. So to believe the gospel and
thus become a Christian is ‘to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (cf.
1 Tim 2:4; 2 Tim 3:7). As to the origin and the communication of this
gospel, the New Testament talks in this fashion:
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the
truth. (John 16:13)
the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I
did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I re-
ceived it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Gal 1:11–12)

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The gospel, as being truth, is also distinguished from myth and

legend. Foreseeing what would happen all too often in the subse-
quent centuries Paul remarks:
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound
teaching, but . . . will turn away from listening to the truth and
wander off into myths. (2 Tim 4:3–4)

Christ is himself the truth

For a true understanding of the Christian gospel, it is important to

notice that Christ not only claimed to teach the truth: he claimed to
be the truth. He was the Son of God, in what the theologians call hy-
postatic union with the Father; and though he became truly human,
he never ceased to be God. He was simultaneously God and man. He
was, therefore, God revealing himself in human form:
No one has ever seen God; the only God [or, ‘the only One, who
is God’], who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
(John 1:18)
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:9)
I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me. (John 14:6)
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of
his nature. (Heb 1:3)
By him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible
and invisible . . . all things were created through him and for
him. (Col 1:16)
Since everything in heaven and earth was created by God and
for God, the ultimate truth about everything—about its origin,
mainten­ance and goal—is God. According to the Bible, Christ is that
God incarnate (i.e. in the flesh). In Christ we have eternal truth and
historical truth, eternal truth expressed in time and historical truth
of eternal significance. The historical facts of the life, death and res-
urrection of Christ are the truth about God. To know the only true
God and Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, is to experience eternal

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life already begun here in time (John 17:3). So John, who at the Last
Supper reclined at table next to Jesus, subsequently writes:
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us
understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we
are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true
God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
(1 John 5:20–21)
Now, of course, not everyone accepts that Jesus is the truth, nor
did they when he first made his claims. The opposition to his claims
was at times severe, culminating ultimately in his arrest, trial and
crucifixion. The issues involved in that trial speak to the question of
truth directly and are the subject of our next chapter.

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 CHAPTER 8

TRUTH ON TRIAL

You have brought about my death in the belief

that through it you will be delivered from sub­
mitting your conduct to criticism, but I say that
the result will be just the opposite. . . . If you
expect to stop denunciation of your wrong
way of life by putting people to death, there is
something amiss with your reasoning. This way
of escape is neither possible nor creditable.
—Socrates, in Plato’s Apology
 cOMING TO FAcE THE TRUTH

It is a characteristic of truth that when we know something to be true

we are expected to believe it and, where appropriate, to act accordingly.
And so it comes about that when we stand face to face with truth and
deliberate what we are going to do with it, it is not the truth that is on
trial, it is we ourselves who are being judged by the truth.
Socrates long ago made this point when at the conclusion of his
trial he addressed those who had voted for his execution. He had de-
voted his life to searching for the truth and doubtless had irritated
many prominent people by exposing their false beliefs and urging
them to join with him in seeking the truth. But they regarded such
seeking for the truth as subversive of society and of their power. So
they brought him to court on a charge of subverting the young, tried
him and sentenced him to death. Of course, it was tacitly understood
that if he had been willing to give up his goading of the Athenians to
search for the truth, he would have been allowed to escape death by
going into voluntary exile. But that he refused to do. His final words
to the court about those who voted for his execution have been im-
mortalised by Plato in the Apology:
When I leave this court I shall go away condemned by you to
death, but they will go away convicted by truth herself of de-
pravity and wickedness. . . .
I tell you, my executioners, that as soon as I am dead, venge-
ance shall fall upon you with a punishment far more painful
than your killing of me. You have brought about my death in
the belief that through it you will be delivered from submitting
your conduct to criticism, but I say that the result will be just
the opposite. You will have more critics . . . If you expect to stop
denunciation of your wrong way of life by putting people to
death, there is something amiss with your reasoning. This way
of escape is neither possible nor creditable. The best and easiest

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way is not to stop the mouths of others, but to make yourselves

as good men as you can.1
Socrates’ words have proved more true than he could have
known. Millions have read them since and have expressed their con-
demnation of his executioners. Still today we admire his stand, and
that of his many successors who in the course of history have dared,
against mighty odds, to believe that ‘one word of truth outweighs the
world’,2 and that truth in the end will prevail.
And now another trial and, at its heart, the question of truth.

THE TRIAL OF CHRIST

christ For this purpose I was born and for this purpose
I have come into the world—to bear witness to the
truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.
pilate What is truth? (John 18:37–38)
All four Christian Gospels record the trial of Christ before Pontius
Pilate, the Roman procurator of Judaea (ad 26–36),3 who eventually
sentenced him to death by crucifixion. John, however, in the Fourth
Gospel, gives brief accounts of two private interviews that Pilate con-
ducted with his prisoner in the course of the trial. For the reader who
has first read the whole Gospel, these two accounts pulsate with nu-
ances, ironies and universal implications that turn this local, histori-
cal trial into the supreme show trial of all time.
Socrates was put on trial because of his persistent searching for
the truth. But according to the Fourth Gospel, Christ never searched
for the truth: he was the truth incarnate, come into our world to ex-
press, not only by his words, but by his person, by his life, death and
resurrection, what God is really like, and so to dispel the fundamen-
tal lie about the character of God insinuated into the human heart
by God’s inveterate enemy (see John 8:31–47). See the trial of Christ
1 Plato, Apology, 39b–d, (Tredennick, 23–4).
2 A Russian proverb, famously quoted by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his 1920 address to the
Swedish Academy. ‘Alexandr Solzhenitsyn—Nobel Lecture’.
3 While ‘procurator’ is a more widely known title, ‘prefect’ may be more accurate, according

to Roman inscriptions of that period.

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as John intends us to see it and the irony of the situation is awesome:

as the ultimate truth, God incarnate submits to being put on trial for
his life before one of his creatures.
It will be worthwhile spending time and effort analysing the is-
sues at stake in John’s account of the trial. We shall find that as far as
Pilate was concerned, there were two major phases in the trial. In the
first he discovered the truth of the case before him, namely the inno-
cence of Christ; in the second he discovered the awesomeness of the
authority given to him to decide what should be done with the truth.

The background to the trial

The Prosecutors. The case against Christ was led mainly by the aristo­
cratic high priest and the other chief priests. Under the Romans the
high priest was a state official in the sense that he was appointed by
the Romans. To emphasise that point, the Roman procurator kept the
high priest’s official robes under lock and key in his own possession,
allowing whatever high priest he approved of to wear them on only
those occasions that the procurator saw fit.
On the other hand, the high priest had extensive powers. To start
with, he was in charge of all matters pertaining to the national tem-
ple; and the dues that came to him from the sacrifices offered by the
worshippers, and by the hundreds of thousands of the pilgrims at
the feasts, made him a very wealthy man. In addition, he was presi-
dent of the Jewish Council that controlled all civil and commercial
activities in the province. Consequently, he had substantial influence
both with the procurator and with Rome itself. It was a love-hate
relationship.
The charges against Christ. There were two:
1. A political charge. Christ, they alleged, was inciting the popu-
lace to regard him as the messianic king of the Jews and was foment-
ing popular uprising against the imperial power of Rome. He was
guilty of treason against the emperor (John 19:12).
The priests had their own special reasons for urging this charge
against Christ. He had publicly denounced the commercialisation
of the temple (2:13–22); and if he succeeded in leading a popular
uprising against the Romans (such as others eventually did lead in
ad ­66–70), the result, they felt, would be disastrous, not only for the

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nation and their capital city, but for the temple itself. They decided
that pre-­emptive action must be taken to get Christ executed (John
11:47–53).
2. A religious charge. Christ was charged with the extreme blas-
phemy of claiming to be the Son of God in a unique sense, thus mak-
ing himself equal with God (5:18; 19:7). This, in Jewish law, was an
offence punishable by death.

The first phase of the trial:

Pilate discovers the truth

The arrest (John at 18:1–11)

Details of the arrest indicate that the high priest must have had some
prior communication with the Roman authorities, informing them
that Jesus was a dangerous insurrectionist, and that any attempt at
arresting him would be met with armed resistance. For the arrest-
ing party, led by Judas to Gethsemane, was made up of two bands of
soldiers:
1. Officers and men of the temple-guard, i.e. Jewish men un-
der the command of the captain of the temple, who was one
of the chief priests (v. 3). But in addition:
2. A detachment of Roman soldiers.4
As things turned out, in making this arrangement the priests
were unwittingly laying evidence against their own case; for when
the arresting party reached Gethsemane, Jesus made no attempt to
use force to avoid arrest. Instead, when one of his hot-headed disci-
ples drew a sword and with bad aim cut an ear (instead of the head)
off a servant of the high priest, Jesus immediately commanded him
to sheath his sword. And then for all to hear, he announced that he
regarded his arrest and all that was to follow as God’s will to which
he was determined to submit. With that, he voluntarily handed him-
self up, on the sole condition that his disciples were let go free (v. 8).

4 The Greek word speiran in 18:3, is the standard Greek translation of the Latin cohors. The

soldiers from this cohort are said to have been led by a chiliarch (v. 12), which means ‘a leader
of a thousand men’, but which had become the standard Greek translation of the Latin ‘mili-
tary tribune’. He was a commander of a cohort of about 600 men. We are not to think however
that the commander took all 600 of his men to arrest Jesus.

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It is unthinkable that the officer in charge of the Roman detach-

ment should not have reported this to his captain and he to Pilate
himself, which, no doubt, accounts for the way Pilate reacted when
the priests brought Jesus before him.

The first formal session of the court (John 18:28–32)

Pilate’s first move was to demand a formal statement of the charge
against Jesus, which seems to have taken the priests aback, for they
answered rather lamely with a vague, non-specific charge: ‘If this man
were not a criminal, we should not have delivered him up to you’
(vv. 29–30). Pilate’s brusque response was to
order them to take the prisoner away and
try him under their own law, which he Pilate’s first move was to
scarcely would have done if he still thought demand a formal statement
that the man his soldiers had helped to ar- of the charge against Jesus,
rest was involved in fomenting political in- which seems to have taken
surrection against the emperor (v. 31). the priests aback.
But under the Romans the Jewish court,
as Pilate well knew, had no legal right to in-
flict the death p
­ enalty; and the high priest was determined to get J­ esus
executed if he could. He therefore insisted that Pilate conduct the case
under Roman law. Pilate’s response was to adjourn the court as he re-
tired to conduct an interview with the prisoner in private.

Pilate’s first interview with Christ (John 18:33–38)

The first thing Pilate wanted to hear from the prisoner’s own mouth
was whether he regarded himself as the King of the Jews.
But the question could not be answered with a simple yes or no;
for the terms ‘king’ and ‘kingdom’ meant different things to differ-
ent people. If ‘king’ and ‘kingdom’ were the labels that Pilate, left
to himself, was putting on Christ, on his teaching and activity, then
Pilate would understand the terms in a political sense; and in this
sense Christ must deny that he was a king. Christ was not in political
competition with the emperor Tiberius at Rome.
On the other hand, in another sense, he was ‘the King of Israel’.
Indeed a week earlier, he had allowed himself to be acclaimed by the
crowds as ‘the King who comes in the name of the Lord’. He had rid-
den into Jerusalem on a donkey, surrounded by hundreds, if not a

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few thousands, of followers, deliberately fulfilling an Old Testament

prophecy describing the coming of Jerusalem’s king (Zech 9:9; John
12:12–19). If it was this incident, among other things, that the Jewish
religious authorities had reported to Pilate, Christ had no intention
of denying it nor the claim he had thereby made.
But the high priest was misinterpreting this incident (whether
in ignorance or deliberately, we shall see in a moment). Christ was
not, as they were now making out he was, the leader of an organised
band of freedom fighters, ready to fight to the death in a holy war on
behalf of their religion, in order to oust the Roman imperialists from
their country.5
The only way that Christ could answer Pilate’s question, there-
fore, was to explain to him the nature of his kingdom and the power
by which he would establish it:
My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this
world, my servants would have been fighting 6 that I might not
be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from this
world. (18:36)
As we have earlier suggested, Pilate already knew what happened
in the garden. He knew, then, that what Jesus was now saying was the
truth. But Jesus had referred to his kingdom. That must imply that
he thought of himself as a king. Could it be, then, that his refusal to
let his followers fight to avoid arrest was merely pragmatic tactics
in view of the presence of armed Roman soldiers? If released now,
would he later on, given the right conditions, attempt to set up his
kingdom by raising armed insurrection?
Pilate probed further, for he could take no risks: ‘You are a king
then?’
Jesus’ answer put the matter beyond doubt. His refraining from
violence in Gethsemane was not temporary pragmatism: it sprang
from the nature of his kingdom. Its power to gain people’s allegiance
was, and could only be, truth:
5 This was the motivating factor behind a band of freedom fighters who made the attempt in

the war of ad 66–70 already mentioned.

6 In Greek the tenses in this hypothetical conditional sentence can refer either to the present,

i.e. ‘my servants would now be fighting’, or to a past process: ‘my disciples would have been
fighting’. This second translation is to be preferred. Christ is referring to what happened in
Gethsemane when he forbade his disciples to fight in order to prevent his arrest by the Jews.

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 Truth on Trial

You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for
this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the
truth. Everyone who is of the truth, listens to my voice. (v. 37)
‘What is truth?’ said Pilate as he turned and made for the door.
He was not necessarily being cynical. Certainly, truth, in the ab-
solute sense that Jesus obviously intended, may well not have been
something that, in Pilate’s thinking, had much to do with the mili-
tary and political affairs in which he was involved. It was the kind of
thing that philosophers and religious people talked about. For him-
self, however, he was now convinced that a man who abjured vio-
lence and was concerned only with truth, whatever that was, was no
political rival to the emperor. This much, at least, seemed true: Jesus
was innocent of the charge brought against him by the priests.
But the priests had been adamant: Jesus was the leader of a po-
tentially violent insurrection. Were not the priests sincere? Were they
not also, in their way, concerned with the truth? Pilate decided to
test them.

A test for truth (John 18:38–40)

Apparently, it was a custom once a year at the great religious feast of
Passover for the Roman procurator to release one Jewish prisoner as
a goodwill gesture. So Pilate first announced that he, as the Roman
procurator, found Jesus to be completely innocent of the charge of be-
ing a revolutionary insurrectionist against Rome. He then proposed
to honour the yearly custom and release Jesus. Would they agree?
‘No’, they shouted; for according to them Jesus was an insurrection-
ist, and they wanted no dealings with such extreme, messianic, and
potentially violent, religionists. ‘No!’ they shouted again and again,
‘not this man, but Barabbas!’ (v. 40).
It takes only five words (in Greek) for John, the writer of the Gos-
pel, to comment on the priests’ choice of Barabbas: ‘Now this Barab-
bas was an insurrectionist’ 7 (v. 40 esv mg). Enough said! But at least
Pilate now knew for certain what the truth was and who was telling
it. And it wasn’t the priests.

7 The Greek word here translated ‘insurrectionist’ is lēstēs. Literally it means ‘a robber’, or ‘a
brigand’. But it is used by the historian Josephus to denote political insurrectionists, freedom
fighters, among whom Josephus includes Barabbas.

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An interval for reflection

Naturally the testimony of Christ before Pilate exercised a powerful
influence on the early Christian churches and shaped their concept
of their mission to the world and of the only means they must use
to spread the Christian faith. Imprisoned by the emperor Nero, the
Christian Apostle Paul eventually wrote to a younger colleague:
I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things,
and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pi-
late made the good confession, to keep the commandment un-
stained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord
Jesus Christ. (1 Tim 6:13–14)
The kingdom of Christ is not just one more earth-born kingdom
among all the others. Its power base is not on earth. It is an invasion
of our world from another world. It is not in competition for worldly
power with other kingdoms, and it is not in league with any of them.
It is not ultimately based, as all other kingdoms are, on physical force.
Its mission is to witness to the truth; and genuine acceptance of truth
cannot be induced in the human heart by force: it can be achieved
only by the power of truth itself. Any attempt to compel people by
force either to accept or to retain the Christian faith is a virtual denial
of that faith. The sole head of Christ’s kingdom is Christ himself (Col
1:18), and its headquarters is where Christ is in heaven (3:1). Therefore,
exclusive identification of his kingdom with any particular earthly
culture, nation or empire unwarrantably obscures its true universality
(Matt 28:18–20). The concern of those who use violence to further any
religion whatever has little to do with truth. Truth, by definition, is
not something that can be promoted by violence or by the threat of it.

The second phase of the trial:

Pilate discovers his own responsibility

Now Pilate must face the awesome responsibility of having to decide

what to do with the truth. By this time Pilate has discovered three
things:
1. Jesus was telling the truth.
2. The charge brought against him by the priests was false.

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3. The priests nonetheless were determined that Jesus be

executed.
In spite of it, Pilate was equally determined to release what he
considered to be an innocent man. The problem was, how could
he pacify the opposition and get them to accept his decision? The
priests had gathered an excited crowd behind them, baying for the
prisoner’s blood (see Luke 23:13–25; Mark 15:10–15). To deny them
their quarry could have sparked off a riot—and the emperor in Rome
would not have liked that.

Pilate’s first attempt to release Christ (John 19:1–6)

He hit upon the tactic of making Jesus’ claim to be king look ridicu-
lous, and Jesus himself so forlorn and contemptible a figure, that the
priests might see how absurd their accusation was that such a man
posed any realistic threat to the emperor.
First, he had Jesus flogged.8 Then he allowed his soldiers to dress
Jesus up as a king with a mock crown of thorns and a robe, ridicul-
ing his supposed kingship with verbal and physical abuse. Then he
went out and announced to the priests and people that he was about
to bring Jesus out to them so that they might see for themselves that
he found no guilt in him. So Jesus came out wearing this mock royal
garb, and Pilate cried out ‘Look at the fellow’.9
But the priests were unmoved and still demanded his cruci­fi xion,
at which Pilate bristled and told them to take Jesus and crucify him
themselves. He knew they couldn’t, of course; they had no legal
power to do so. But Pilate was not going to give in to them and use
his legal power as a Roman magistrate to execute an innocent man
for the sake of gratifying their religious prejudices.

The priests’ next move (John 19:7–8)

The priests now saw that they were getting nowhere with the political
charge: Pilate had emphatically rejected it twice. How then were they

8 Roman magistrates were allowed to flog non-Roman citizens when they were brought to

court, even if they were innocent. They did it just to put the accused ‘in the right frame of
mind’, and as a warning not to create further trouble.
9 The traditional translation ‘Behold the Man’ is too majestic. In contexts like this the Greek

word for ‘man’ (anthrōpos) carries a mixture of contempt and pity.

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to get Jesus executed? They tried their second, and this time, their real,
charge against Jesus: ‘We have a law, and by that law he ought to die,
because he made himself the Son of God’ (v. 7).
A religious charge like that, however, was not competent to a Ro-
man civil court; but nevertheless it instilled a certain amount of fear
into Pilate (v. 8).
To start with, Jerusalem at Passover time, with thousands of pil-
grims joining with the local population, was like a powder keg. Any
real or imagined insult to the Jewish religion from the Roman procu-
rator could easily spark off a massive riot. If Jesus’ teachings were of-
fensive to Jewish religious sensitivities, Pilate must be careful how he
released Jesus.
But secondly, Pilate had another concern. He was not an atheist,
but a pagan, who believed in the possibility of god-like men appear-
ing on earth. He would have known ancient myths, like that of the
god Dionysus who was said to have visited the city of Thebes in hu-
man form. The king of Thebes in his stubborn ignorance had abused
and then imprisoned him—and suffered an horrendous fate in conse-
quence.10 So Pilate retired once more to interview Jesus in private, to
discover, if he could, just who this prisoner was that stood before him.

Pilate’s second interview with Christ (19:9–11)

The question that now agitated Pilate, as once more he faced the pris-
oner, was no longer ‘What have you done?’ but ‘Where are you from?’
This innocent, yet unusual, man, who talked of his ‘coming into the
world’ as if it had been deliberate and for a deliberate purpose, namely
to bear witness to the truth, and who was now alleged to have claimed
that he was the Son of God—where in fact was he from?
It is, by the way, a question that eventually arises when anyone
starts to think seriously about truth. From where does truth get its
authority? Is it merely from human consensus? Is truth the product of
each individual’s subjective judgment? Or is truth an objective stand-
ard that is above and outside our subjective and ever-changing world
of thought?
But Jesus made no answer, and that irritated Pilate. After all he
was the ultimate authority in this situation, wasn’t he?

10 See Euripides, Bacchae.

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‘You will not speak to me?’ he said impatiently with great emphasis
on the ‘me’. ‘Do you not know that I have authority to release you and
authority to crucify you?’ (19:10). Pilate was doing his best to get the
Jews to accept Jesus’ release; but Jesus must cooperate with him for, in
the end, Jesus’ life or death depended on his decision, and the burden
of authority to make this decision lay heavy on Pilate.
But Christ was not denying Pilate’s authority as the emperor’s ap-
pointee with the power of life and death in his hands. Nor was Christ
about to refuse to submit to Pilate’s authority. But Pilate must be
made to consider by whose authority this whole situation had come
about.11
How and by whose authority had it come
about that Pilate had been born into this There is no doubt what
world, had grown up, entered the Roman Christ meant when he
army, been appointed procurator of Judaea by told Pilate that the whole
the emperor, and now sat here not only with situation had been
authority from the emperor, but with the hu- given him ‘from above’.
man power of free will to decide whether the But it meant that the
Son of God should be released or be crucified? responsibility that Pilate
As we listen to the story, it is easy enough carried was awesome.
to see that sooner or later we have to ask the
same question about ourselves. The majority
of us will never have in our hands the power of life and death over
another human being. But we do find ourselves born into this world
(not by our own decision), with intelligence to understand the claims
of truth in general and the particular claim of Christ to be the truth
and above all with the free will to decide whether to believe his claim
or to banish both it and him from our lives. And the question still
is: by whose authority has this all come about? Anyone’s? Or has the
whole situation been thrown up by mindless evolutionary chance so
that questions about truth are ultimately meaningless?
There is no doubt what Christ meant when he told Pilate that the
whole situation had been given him ‘from above’. But it meant that

11 When Christ remarked ‘You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given

you from above’, the word for ‘authority’, in Greek, is feminine in gender, but the word for ‘it
(had been given)’ is neuter. This means that ‘what had been given from above’ refers not merely
to Pilate’s authority, but to the whole situation in which Pilate now found himself with author-
ity to decide whether Jesus should be released or be crucified.

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the responsibility that Pilate carried was awesome. He knew beyond

doubt what the truth of the case was: Christ was innocent. To hand
him over to crucifixion would be to sin against the truth. But if Jesus
was the Son of God, to crucify him would be sin against ultimate
truth, that is God himself. Even so, said Christ, his sin would be less
than that of the Jewish high priest. The priest professed to believe in
the God of truth, but he had used the authority of his religious office
in the name of God to get Christ executed on the basis of a lie.

Pilate’s final attempts to release Christ (John 19:12–15)

From this point on Pilate made repeated effort to release Jesus. But
the priests blackmailed him. They had influence in Rome. If they
took steps to let Tiberius gain the impression that they had brought
a leader of insurrection to Pilate, and Pilate had acquitted him . . . !
Pilate saw the point. He made one last effort to escape their trap by
appealing to their patriotism, if not to their religion. ‘Shall I crucify
your king?’ he asked. ‘We have no king’, replied the chief priests, ‘but
Caesar’ (v. 15). No king at all beside Caesar? To get rid of Jesus they
now denied a fundamental tenet of their Jewish faith and all that their
inspired prophets had said about their King Messiah.

Questions arising
If Jesus was, as the gospel claims, God incarnate, why did he not tell
Pilate so in plain straightforward words?
But if he had said ‘I am God incarnate’, what could pagan Pilate
have made of the claim? And would Pilate have believed his plain
statement?
But Christ could have shown himself to Pilate in all his divine
majesty and proved to Pilate that he was the Son of God.
Yes, and have frightened Pilate out of his wits, so that he no longer
retained any self-control or ability to come to a free decision? The is-
sue at stake was truth, and truth does not behave like that. Moreover,
Pilate knew enough truth to know that Christ was not guilty of the
charge against him. Pilate must make his decision on the basis of
what truth he knew, and he would be held accountable for that and
not for what he didn’t know.
But there is a far bigger question. How is it credible that the Cre­
ator of the universe should endow his human creatures with free will

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and then become human himself and put himself in a position where
his creatures could put him on trial, and, if they chose, use their free
will to decide to crucify him?
But that, says the Bible, is precisely what the truth about God
is. Away beyond the high priest’s machinations, the fears and vacil­
lations of Pilate and the raucous shouting of the fevered mob, the
Son of God was ‘delivered up according to the definite plan and fore-
knowledge of God’ (Acts 2:23) to achieve four divine purposes:
1. To expose the falsity of his enemy’s lie that God is a tyrant
and that God’s word is meant to enslave man.
2. To demonstrate by the horrors of the Son of God’s cruci­
fixion the effect on the human heart of believing the
enemy’s lie.
3. To demonstrate the truth about God and his attitude even
towards his sinfully rebellious creatures so as to win their
hearts back by his demonstrated love and to set them free
by his truth (1 John 4:10).
4. To induce man’s repentance towards God and to make a
just and honourable way for man to be reconciled to God
through the death of his Son (Rom 5:10–11).
This in true fact is the answer to Pilate’s question: What is Truth?

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POSTMODERNISM
 CHAPTER 9

POSTMODERNISM,
PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE

Truth is what appears true to each individual

or community. Facts are not objective entities
to which our thinking must conform: it is we
who, in discussion with others, decide what
the facts shall be. Particularly to be rejected
is any theory, ideology or religion that claims
to have the ‘big story’, the metanarrative that
gives the universal truth about everything,
which everybody must accept.
 INTRODUcTION

‘Postmodernism’, like its philosophical predecessor, ‘modernism’, is

an umbrella term that denotes not a particular theory so much as
an attitude shared by many contemporary thinkers in such diverse
fields as art, literature, philosophy, social studies, architecture, city
planning, science and religion. In this chapter we are to study post-
modernism’s attitude to literary criticism, chiefly as represented by
the work of its most famous exponent, Jacques Derrida (1930–2004),
though, of course, some of his views are but extensions of views held
by others, whether postmodernists or not.
The question immediately arises, why do that here? This present
part of our book is devoted to epistemology, to such topics as, how
do we know anything? How do we know that what we claim to know
is true; and can we know the ultimate truth about anything? Is there
such a thing as objective truth, which is universally true for every-
body regardless of whether they recognise it or not, accept it or reject
it? What, then, has literary criticism got to do with epistemology?

Literary criticism’s search for truth

The answer to the questions we have just raised is that serious literary
criticism is a form of search for truth.
At the basic level it seeks carefully to establish exactly what the
text before it says; and when that involves translation from a foreign
language, and particularly an ancient foreign language, it requires
especial care. The question is: do the translation and the exegesis
truly represent the original text?
Secondly, it must decide what the text means by what it actually
says. What it says and what it means could be two different things.
Suppose a character in a novel says: ‘Mr Smith must be a master of
logic to have come to that conclusion on the basis of this evidence’; he
may be speaking ironically. In that case he means the very opposite

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of what he actually says. Literary criticism, therefore, involves in-

terpretation of texts, just like science involves interpretation of the
physical universe.
Serious literature like, say, Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, Euripi-
des’ Bacchae (or ‘Maenads’), Shakespeare’s Hamlet, or novels by Fyo-
dor Dostoevsky and Jane Austen, are not just interesting stories to be
read for their entertainment value only. They discuss fundamental
problems of the human condition. Sometimes the discussion is left
open-ended; sometimes the author eventually makes his own posi-
tion clear. In any case, literature of this kind challenges the reader’s
presuppositions, views and values and raises not only epistemologi-
cal and aesthetic, but also social, moral and metaphysical questions.
Serious literary criticism, therefore, can hardly avoid facing these
questions and asking where the truth lies.
In this chapter, then, we examine the philosophy that lies behind
postmodernist literary criticism and the effect that that particular
philosophy has on postmodernist treatment of literature.

Postmodernism’s relation to modernism

The term ‘postmodernism’ is obviously meant to contrast with ‘mod-

ernism’, though in actual fact postmodernism still shares certain fun-
damental attitudes with the ‘modernism’ out of which it developed
and against which, in other respects, it is a reaction.
Modernism made human reason the final judge and criterion of
all truth in heaven and on earth.1 If there was a God, and even if
it was thought that he might have revealed some truths to human-
kind, nevertheless God’s existence and his revelation must both face
the bar of human reason and pass its scrutiny before they could be

1 ‘Modernism’ in the sense in which we speak of it here is to be distinguished from the term

‘modernism’ as applied to the period of Russian literature that extended from 1895 to 1925, and
is held to have been initiated by a lecture published in 1893 by Dmitry Merezhkovsky, entitled
‘On the reasons for the decline and on the new currents in contemporary Russian literature’.
Evelyn Bristol characterises this Russian modernism thus: ‘The epoch of modernism began
as a clear rebellion against the materialist legacy of the 1860s. . . . Where the older genera-
tion had rejected supernatural religion, the new intellectuals took a keen interest, not only in
Russian Orthodoxy but in religions of all sorts’ (‘Turn of a Century: Modernism, 1895–1925’,
387–8). This Russian modernism then, was very different in its stance from the attitude gener-
ally known as modernism in the West.

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accepted as true. That said, modernism agreed that there was objec-
tive truth ‘out there’ in the world and in the universe and that with
diligent research it could be discovered, understood and defined.
To the postmodernist way of thinking, however, modernism has
proved disappointing. Since the Enlightenment, modern man has
looked to human reason, and particularly to science, to liberate the
human race from the enslavement of supersti-
tions and tyrannies of all kinds, religion included.
Instead, for postmodernists, modernism has itself For postmodernists,
become an enslaver. It has spawned great univer- modernism has itself
sal, all-embracing, all-­ explaining theories—​ ‘big become an enslaver.
stories’ or ‘metanarratives’, as they are called—that
have then been tyrannically enforced on people,
crushing their spontaneity and creativity and suppressing independ-
ence of thought. Moreover, the disastrous world wars of the last cen-
tury, some brought about by supposedly scientific theories of racial
superiority, others by the subjugation of millions under enforced
Marxist ideology, and all of them backed up by terrific armaments
produced by the progress of science and technology—all this, in post-
modernist eyes, leaves modernism self-condemned.
It is understandable, then, that in reaction to this, postmodern-
ism should resent being told how to write, or interpret, literature and
should wish to be free to write and interpret without any external
constraints or principles imposed from outside the individual’s own
judgment. Like modernism, postmodernism still makes the human
race the centre and arbiter of all things, but not now humankind as a
whole, nor any body of so-called experts or ‘authorities’, but each in-
dividual, or at least each individual’s community. This means that ac-
cording to postmodernism there is no objective truth about anything
that, once discovered, must be accepted by every rational human
being. Truth is what appears true to each individual or community.
Facts are not objective entities to which our thinking must conform:
it is we who, in discussion with others, decide what the facts shall be.
Particularly to be rejected is any theory, ideology or religion that
claims to have the ‘big story’, the metanarrative that gives the univer-
sal truth about everything, which everybody must accept. Marxism
in its day was one such metanarrative. Modern science is another.
And the claim of Christ—‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

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No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6)—is felt
to be especially offensive and intolerable.

Derrida’s position in the history

and practice of literary criticism

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) became famous for the ‘deconstruction’

which he practised on literary texts, and which he recommended that
all other critics should likewise practise. His methodology has been
widely influential. What it means, we shall consider later on; but a
survey of statements about deconstruction taken from some of his
followers will give us a preliminary idea of where Derrida stood in
relation to other theories of criticism.2
As a mode of textual theory and analysis, contemporary decon-
struction subverts almost everything in the tradition, putting
in question received ideas of the sign and language, the text, the
context, the author, the reader, the role of history, the world of
interpretation, and the forms of critical writing.3
[Deconstruction] undoes the very comforts of mastery and
consensus that underlie the illusion that objectivity is situated
somewhere outside the self.4
Deconstruction is the active antithesis of everything that
criticism ought to be if one accepts its traditional values and
concepts.5
From these few descriptions it is clear that deconstruction is noth-
ing if it is not uncompromisingly and deliberately anti-­tradition, sub-
versive and revolutionary. Now it is always helpful to be reminded,
as we are by deconstructionism, that we must not adopt any theory
unthinkingly but must always submit received opinion to careful
scrutiny and questioning. But whether all traditions of belief and of
criticism throughout history right up until Derrida appeared were all

2 These quotations are cited from Ellis, Against Deconstruction, 68–9.

3 Leitch, Deconstructive Criticism, ix.
4 Johnson, ‘Nothing Fails Like Success’, 11.
5 Norris, Deconstruction, xii.

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so perverse and misguided that they all needed to be totally subverted

is, of course, another thing.

Some basic principles of Derrida’s

theory of literary criticism

We must remind ourselves here that not all of the following principles
are peculiar to Derrida. Some were advocated by critics who preceded
him and are still held by critics belonging to other schools. On the
other hand, where Derrida took over previously held views, he often
developed them in his own way and integrated them into his own
system:
1. Prohibition of appeal to the intended meaning of the author
of a text.
2. The denial of metaphysics in any sense of the term, and the
denial that meaning exists before words or that words con-
vey a pre-existent meaning.
3. Assertion that writing precedes speech and that significa-
tion creates meaning.
4. Denial that words have any intrinsic meaning. Assertion
that the meaning of a word is always deferred, which thus
allows unlimited ‘play’.
5. The practice of deconstruction. To deconstruct a discourse
or text is to show how it, like all other discourses or texts,
undermines the very philosophy it asserts.
6. Derrida’s ideal writing.
We shall now examine these in turn.

PROHIBITION OF APPEAL TO THE INTENDED

MEANING OF THE AUTHOR

For many centuries it was a fundamental principle of literary criti-

cism that to be true an interpretation of a text must discover and then
expound the meaning that the author of the text intended. After all,
the text would not exist unless the author had decided to write it in
order to express the meaning he intended to convey; and the words

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of the text were those which the author chose in order to express that
meaning.
But in 1954 William K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley, under
the heading ‘The Intentional Fallacy’,6 questioned this basic rule of
interpretation. Their thesis was plausible. We ourselves have learned
from experience that a living author, whether speaking or writing,
can sometimes fail to express himself clearly. He may intend to say
one thing but actually say another. He may in-
tend to make one impression on his readers but
As long as an author in fact create an altogether different effect.
is still living, he can be Moreover, some of his words and sentences can
asked what meaning be ambiguous. In addition, the psychological
he really intended to and emotional connotations that a word had
convey; but once he is for the author might not be the same for his
dead, he is unavailable readers. (In standard British English, to say
for questioning. that a woman is ‘homely’ means that she is un-
pretentious. It can therefore be a commenda-
tion, if not a compliment. In American English
to say that a woman is ‘homely’ would be an insult. It would mean
that she is unattractive if not positively ugly.)
Then there is the inevitable limitation of writing compared with
speech. A speaker can convey meaning by intonation, tone of voice,
pitch, softness or loudness, emphasis, speed or hesitation in delivery,
and by gesture of the hands and facial expression, none of which can
be satisfactorily indicated in writing.
Furthermore, a world class author, writing in the white heat of his
genius, can produce effects beyond what he consciously intends, but
which later readers perceive. The Bible itself says that some Old Testa-
ment prophets, speaking by the inspiration of God, sometimes spoke
more than they knew at the time of their speaking (1 Pet 1:10–12).
As long as an author is still living, he can be asked what meaning
he really intended to convey; but once he is dead, he is unavailable
for questioning. We are left simply with the text; we must make of it
what we can. It has an authority of its own; we do not need to attempt
the impossible and reconstruct the thoughts and intentions that the

6 In Verbal Icon, 3–20.

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author may have had in his head. At least, that is what the Intentional
Fallacy Theory says.
Since 1954, then, this theory has gained almost universal accept-
ance, and is not limited to followers of Derrida. Paul Ricoeur (1913–
2005), for instance, is not normally regarded as a deconstructionist,
(though Derrida was originally a pupil of his); yet Ricoeur insists that
even in the case of texts that originated as a medium of authorial
discourse (like, say, the written text of a lecture delivered orally by
its author) the interpreter’s goal must be to discover the sense of the
text, without appeal to the author’s intended meaning. Ricoeur states:
With writing, the verbal meaning of the text no longer coincides
with the mental meaning or intention of the text. This intention
is both fulfilled and abolished by the text, which is no longer the
voice of someone present. The text is mute.7
Writing renders the text autonomous with respect to the inten-
tion of the author. What the text signifies no longer coincides
with what the author meant; henceforth, textual meaning and
psychological meaning have different destinies.8
And again:
The text’s career escapes the finite horizon lived by its author.
What the text says now matters more than what the author
meant to say, and every exegesis unfolds its procedures within
the circumference of a meaning that has broken its moorings to
the psychology of its author.9
As an illustration of the principle of interpretation of literary
texts that Ricoeur is arguing for, we may cite the practice that obtains
in Britain in regard to the interpretation of legal texts. When Parlia-
ment passes an Act, it is Parliament’s intention that the wording of
the Act shall convey exactly the meaning that Parliament intends.
But sometimes it subsequently happens that the meaning of the Act
is disputed in the courts, and then a judge is called upon to settle the
dispute. In deciding the exact meaning of the Act, the judge does not

7 Interpretation Theory, 75.

8 Hermeneutics and Human Sciences, 139.
9 Hermeneutics and Human Sciences, 201.

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 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

ask what was the meaning that Parliament had in mind. He decides
the meaning of the Act on the basis of the actual words that stand
in the text, regardless of what Parliament thought it was saying when
the Act was written. It is held that this is the only fair and just way
to interpret the Act. How could a citizen conform his practice to the
demands of the Act, if he could know what the Act meant only by
going behind what its words actually say and imagining what was in
the minds of the members of Parliament when they passed the Act
perhaps fifty or more years ago?

Limits to the intentional fallacy

The intentional fallacy, then, is certainly valid up to a point; but its

validity could be, and often is, exaggerated. Here are some counter-
vailing considerations:
Some texts contain within themselves an explicit statement by
the author of his or her intention. The Fourth Gospel in the New
Testa­ment is a case in point. It is a mixture of nar-
rative and discourse and certainly invites, and in
Some texts contain the course of history has received, multiple inter-
within themselves an pretations. But towards the end the author explic-
explicit statement by itly states the purpose and the intended effect he
the author of his or had in mind (John 20:30–31). Granted that an in-
her intention. terpreter cannot now consult the author, John,
but if he takes the text seriously, how can he not at
least take into account the explicit statement of
the author’s intention that the text contains? (It is of course for the
interpreter to decide how well, or otherwise, what the author wrote
fulfils the intention he had in writing it).
Second, just because here and there in a text the author’s inten-
tion may not be indisputably clear, it does not follow that the author’s
intended meaning is nowhere clear at any point in the text.
Sometimes, even if we cannot be sure of the author’s intended
meaning, we can be absolutely sure of what he did not intend.
As an example of this third point we may cite the ancient Greek
myth of Oedipus, which relates that he was fated to murder his father
and marry his mother. Freud, as we know, appealed to this myth in
support of his theory that young boys get jealous of their father’s

240
 Postmodernism, Philosophy and Literature

r­ elationship with their mother, conceive a desire to murder him, then

suppress the desire, which later on in life causes them psychological
disturbance. Freud called this psychological condition the Oedipus
complex.
Now the Greek tragedian Sophocles wrote a play called Oedi-
pus Tyrannus. As the play progresses it becomes apparent that, just
as the myth relates, earlier in life Oedipus had murdered his father
and married his mother. We can, however, be absolutely certain that
Sophocles did not intend his play to be a study of the psychological
condition that Freud was later to call the Oedipus complex; for in his
play Sophocles represents Oedipus as discovering that earlier in his
manhood (not in his boyhood) he had murdered a man who he did
not even know at the time was his father, and had married a woman
who similarly he did not know was his mother. We cannot, of course,
consult Sophocles himself; but the details of the text that Sophocles
wrote forbid the application of Freud’s theory to its interpretation.
Oedipus was not jealous of his father, and he killed the old man who
he did not know was his father because the old man pushed him off
the road and beat him on the head with a rod.
It may not be much to be able to deduce from the text of a play
what the author’s intended meaning was not. But it is a very impor-
tant something, because it sets a limit to what an interpreter may
claim to be the meaning of the play.

Exaggerations of reader-response criticism

Like the intentional fallacy, the reader-response theory of literary

criticism that stresses what the text means to a reader, rather than
the author’s intended meaning, has a certain obvious validity. If any
communication of meaning is to take place, a text must have, not only
an author, but a reader; and it is no more than might be expected if
one and the same text appeals to different readers in different ways.
If, then, a reader declares ‘this is what the text means to me’, we can-
not argue that the reader is wrong in saying so. ‘This’—whatever ‘this’
is—is in fact the meaning that this reader takes out of the text.
On the other hand there is a limit to the meanings that can legit­
imately be taken out of the text. If a visitor to the Louvre in Paris
stands in front of the Mona Lisa and declares ‘This painting appeals

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to me as the most beautiful family scene that was ever painted’, we

shall hardly regard it as a valid spectator-response. The Mona Lisa
just is not a painting of a family group. The visitor must be dreaming
or fantasizing to imagine it is. The same is true of a literary text: the
question must be asked whether the meaning which a reader says he
takes out of the text, is in fact consistent with what the text itself says.
But just here we need to make an important distinction that
some reader-response critics seem to overlook. They seem to think
that being free from the necessity to consider the meaning intended
by the author of the text is automatically the same as being free from
any necessity to be constrained by what the text itself says. But that
is false. The interpreter of a text is surely not free to make the text
mean anything he or she likes regardless of the language it is writ-
ten in, its vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and logic. If the reader were
so free, there would be no point in starting with the text at all: the
reader might as well start with a blank sheet of paper and write his or
her own composition without pretending to be interpreting any text.
Yet this is the kind of interpretation that some forms of reader-
response theory champion. Here are some examples.

Example 1 – Robert Crosman

The statement ‘authors make meaning’, though not of course
untrue, is merely a special case of the more universal truth that
readers make meaning. . . . a poem really means whatever any
reader seriously believes it to mean. . . . the number of possible
meanings of a poem is itself infinite.10
Let’s consider this example.
1. ‘authors make meaning’ . . . is a special case of the more univer-
sal truth that readers make meaning. . . . a poem really means what-
ever any reader seriously believes it to mean.
What is this saying? We all know, for instance, that a musical
score has to be ‘interpreted’, and one conductor’s interpretation of a
work by, say, Tchaikovsky can be very different from another conduc-
tor’s interpretation. But an interpretation of Tchaikovsky must still
be an interpretation of Tchaikovsky. An interpretation of the Funeral

10 Crosman, ‘Do Readers Make Meaning?’, 151, 154.

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 Postmodernism, Philosophy and Literature

March by Tchaikovsky that so disregarded not only Tchaikovsky’s

intentions but also his score and made it resemble one of Chopin’s
lighter pieces would not in fact be an interpretation of Tchaikovsky at
all, but a different composition altogether. To say that ‘a poem means
whatever any reader seriously believes it to mean’, would imply that
a listener who seriously believed that the Funeral March was in fact
a joyful wedding serenade, would be giving a valid interpretation. It
would, however, convince very few people.
2. ‘The number of possible meanings of a poem is itself infinite.’
This surely is an exaggeration. If a poem had an infinite number
of possible meanings, it would imply that a poem has no particular
meaning at all; it can mean literally anything. And if that were true
and applied to all poems, then it would mean that amid all the pos-
sible permutations of the infinite number of possible meanings, there
would be one, at least, in which the bitterly sarcastic Satires of Juve-
nal, the deadly serious Il Inferno of Dante, and any love poem you
like, could all be said to mean the same, as long as anyone seriously
believed they did.
3. ‘A poem really means whatever any reader seriously believes it
to mean.’
Interestingly enough, reader-response-theorists and decon-
structionists are not prepared to have this principle applied to their
own writings. They protest vigorously if any reviewer misinterprets
what they have written. Derrida, for instance, demands that when
he writes an article or a book, his critics should take pains to under-
stand it in the sense he intended and not in some other sense. So he
comments on a critic’s lengthy review of a text of his:
I can be reproached for being insistent, even monotonous, but it
is difficult for me to see how a concept of history as the ‘history of
meaning’ can be attributed to me. . . . I find the expression rather
comical. . . . Nor can I go through, line by line, all the proposi-
tions whose confusion, I must say, rather disconcerted me.11
But how can a literary critic argue for, and expect us to believe in,
a principle of literary criticism that he is not prepared to have applied
to his own works?

11 Derrida, Positions, 45–6.

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Example 2 – Stanley Fish

What we have here then are two critics with opposing inter-
pretations, each of whom claims the same word as internal and
confirming evidence. Clearly they cannot both be right, but just
as clearly there is no basis for deciding between them. One can-
not appeal to the text, because the text has become an extension
of the interpretive disagreement that divides them.12
This certainly is a striking view, for if it were true, it would spell
the end of virtually all literary criticism; and not of literary criticism
only, but of all commercial contracts as well. Suppose two business-
men make and sign a contract. Subsequently they disagree about the
meaning of a paragraph, sentence or even a word in the contract. Un-
able to reach a decision themselves, one of them sues the other in
court, and the case comes before a judge. According to Fish’s theory,
the judge could not—or would not be allowed to—appeal to the text
of the contract in order to settle the dispute! Why not? Because, so
Fish says, the text of the contract is precisely what is in dispute.
But this argument goes against both common sense and legal
practice. Just because two people disagree about the interpretation of
a sentence or word in a text does not mean that both interpretations
must automatically be regarded as equally valid and unquestionable.
The judge would have every right to appeal to the text—what else did
they appeal to him for?
Upon examination of the text, the judge might conceivably find
that the wording of the text was so hopelessly ambiguous and con-
fused, that the two businessmen should drop the case and sue for mal-
practice the lawyer who drew up the contract for them. But that would
by no means be the only possible verdict. The judge might well decide:
(a) that the arguments brought by the plaintiff were completely
fallacious, or
(b) that the arguments brought by the plaintiff, while not one
hundred percent decisive, were far more cogent than those
brought by the defendant, or
(c) that the text of the contract, interpreted strictly, meant

12 Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class?, 340.

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neither what the plaintiff, nor what the defendant, had

taken it to mean, but something altogether different.
The same is true of literary criticism. After centuries of worldwide
study there are still many places where Shakespeare’s meaning is dis-
puted. It would be foolish for a critic to claim that his interpretation of
all these passages was the final truth and altogether beyond correction
or improvement. But he might well claim that the arguments for his in-
terpretation were more and stronger than those for any other interpre-
tation on offer (which is what most literary critics normally claim) and
that his interpretation should stand until some other critic discovered
weaknesses in it and put forward another interpretation supported by
more cogent arguments. Just because two critics disagree about the
meaning of a line in Shakespeare does not mean that no other critics
may examine that line, decide which of the first two critics had the bet-
ter arguments on his side, or put forward a better interpretation.
This, at any rate, is how not only literary criticism, but all research
is practised and makes definite progress. If it had been true a century
ago that because scientists sincerely disagreed about the nature and
the structure of the atom, one could not appeal to the atom itself in or-
der to settle the dispute, because the atom was the very thing that was
in dispute, it would have stopped scientific investigation in its tracks.
On the other hand, to have claimed that the nature and structure of
the atom were whatever any scientist sincerely believed them to be
would have been, as we now know, simply untrue. Some theories have
proved more true than others, for the simple reason that their authors
have applied themselves more persistently and with more precision to
the objective evidence of the atom, instead of accepting that any opin-
ion seriously held is as valid as any other opinion, regardless of the
objective evidence. Some interpretations of literary texts are likewise
better than others because they are based on closer examination of the
text and are argued for with better arguments.

THE DENIAL OF METAPHYSICS

The prohibition of appeal to the intended meaning of the author of

a text, is, as we have seen, a doctrine that Derrida shared with other

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systems of literary criticism besides his own. The denial of any kind
of metaphysics is likewise an attitude that is held not only by other
literary critics, but also by many linguists and philosophers and oth-
ers who make no pretension to literary criticism. But with Derrida the
denial of metaphysics lies at the very heart of his literary theory, so
that it both characterises and motivates his criticism. We shall hardly
understand the details of his theory unless we first come to perceive
what he meant by denying metaphysics in the context of literary criti-
cism, and why he felt so strongly about it.

Logocentrism

According to Derrida a false idea has for centuries permeated and

vitiated not only literary criticism but also a good deal of philosophy
and linguistic theory. It is ‘logocentrism’. It lies at the heart of meta-
physics; and if metaphysics is eventually to be completely got rid of,
as Derrida hoped it would be one day, then logocentrism must be
demolished. Derrida therefore set out to demolish it.
But what is logocentrism? Unfortunately it is difficult to find in
Derrida’s writings, or in those of his followers and exponents, any
clear, detailed definition of the term. At first sight it might look as if it
denoted the mistake of concentrating on words
rather than m­ eaning—a fault that any expert in
Derrida did not believe translation from one language to another
that there is any such knows must be avoided. To translate a Russian
thing as meaning until text into Japanese word for word, as if each par-
words are either spoken, ticular word in Russian had an exact equivalent
or preferably written, by word in Japanese to represent it, would result in
us human beings. a very wooden, unidiomatic Japanese, if not in
complete gibberish. A translator must first ask
what meaning the Russian words in a phrase or
sentence are being used to convey; and having extracted that mean-
ing, must proceed to choose the Japanese words and phrases that will
best convey the meaning to the Japanese readers.
But in Derrida’s thought logocentrism is not the fault of concen-
trating on words rather than meaning. In fact, as we shall later see, he
did not believe that there is any such thing as meaning until words
are either spoken, or preferably written, by us human beings.

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The Stoic understanding of ‘logos’

To understand what ‘logocentrism’ means in Derrida’s philosophy we

should recall the use of the Greek term logos (the first component in
‘logocentrism’) by the ancient Stoics and then by the New Testament.13
To the Stoics logos was the principle of rationality that lies behind and
permeates the whole universe, so giving it rational sense, significance
and meaning. Man himself, the Stoics held, is composed of matter
and logos, that same logos that permeates the universe. This principle
of rationality in humans is what allows us to perceive the rational
purpose and meaning of life and behaviour.

The Christian understanding of ‘logos’

In the New Testament Logos is not an impersonal rational principle:

it is a title of the second person of the Trinity, by whom the universe
was created. He is the one who, in creating the universe, expressed the
mind and intentions of God, and created the mathematical, physical,
chemical and biological laws by which the universe works; who in ad-
dition gave us human beings rational minds so that we can perceive
that the universe is not composed simply of brute matter but is the
expression of the mind of a personal Creator. Moreover, our rational
minds can perceive that the rationality of the universe existed both
before, and independently of, us. We did not, and do not, create the
mathematical laws according to which the universe works by studying
and thinking about them. The rationality of the universe expressed the
mind of God long before we came on the scene, let alone discovered it.
It was considerations of this sort that led early philosophers and
scientists like Bacon and Leibniz to talk of Nature as one of God’s two
books (the other being the Bible) in which we can read the laws of
the Creator.

Derrida’s rejection of ‘ logos’

It is precisely this idea, then, that Derrida labels logocentrism and

which he resolutely denies and seeks to abolish. For him there is
no meaning, it just does not exist, until we human beings speak, or
13 See the detailed discussion in Book 2: Finding Ultimate Reality, Ch. 3.

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preferably write: it is our words that create meaning. He complains

that in metaphysical thought the idea constantly reoccurs that
There is only one Book, and this same Book is distributed
throughout all books. . . . there is only one book on earth, that
is the law of the earth, the earth’s true Bible. The difference be-
tween individual works is simply the difference between indi-
vidual interpretations of one true and established text.14
This, to Derrida, is the view of Leibniz, and he protests:
Nothing is more despairing, more destructive of our books
than the Leibnizian Book.15
And then he states his own view:
To write is to know that what has not yet been produced within
literality has no other dwelling place, does not await us as pre-
scription in some topos ouranios [‘heavenly place’], or some di-
vine understanding. Meaning must await being said or written
in order to inhabit itself, and in order to become, by differing
from itself, what it is: meaning.16
What Derrida means by saying that for meaning to become mean-
ing it must differ from itself, we must examine later. For the moment
we may sum up Derrida’s own meaning so far by quoting the com-
ment of Nicholas Wolterstorff:
If meaning is not anterior to signification but a creature of sig-
nification, of our signification, then there is no divine Book
on which we are to model our books, no divine thoughts after
which to think our thoughts. The God of Leibniz—indeed the
Jewish God—will have to go.17

Presence

There is yet a third term that in Derrida’s thought is connected with the
logocentrism and metaphysics and which has had a baneful effect on

14 Writing and Difference, 9–10.

15 Writing and Difference, 11.
16 Writing and Difference, 11.
17 Divine Discourse, 161.

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literary criticism. That term is presence; and the core error of meta-
physics has been to make people regard, or sense, the fundamental
concepts of human thinking as a kind of presence. Derrida complains:
Metaphysics represents ‘the determination of Being as presence
in all senses of this word. It could be shown that all the names
related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the center have al-
ways designated an invariable presence—eidos, archē, telos, en-
ergeia, ousia (essence, existence, substance, subject), aletheia,
transcendentality, consciousness, God, man, and so forth.’ 18
As with other technical terms in Derrida’s philosophy so with
presence: he does not make it clear what exactly he means by the term.
We might perhaps illustrate its meaning simply (though Derrida
might regard it as an oversimplification) thus: you enter a completely
dark room. You sense there is someone else there. You cannot see who
it is, or what he or she is like. You simply sense or feel a presence. So
it is with us and God. God is not just a concept that people, whether
philosophers or not, have built up in their minds. Metaphysics makes
people feel that God is a living being, present to himself, that is, self-­
conscious, aware of himself in all his infinite person, character and
power, with no need of anything outside of himself to compare him-
self with in order to define himself. At the same time he makes people
aware of himself, not as an intellectual concept that they have created
by their own thinking, but as an independent, self-existent omnipres-
ence, of whom an ancient poet wrote: ‘Where shall I go from your
Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?’ (Ps 139:7).
Simultaneously, metaphysics (of the sort that Derrida doesn’t
like) has regarded this God, this presence, as the centre, not only
of the universe, but of all significance and meaning, without which
the universe and all human thought about it and about man himself
would be ultimately incoherent. An ancient Greek (perhaps Epime-
nides) put it: ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;19 and the
New Testament puts it: ‘He is before all things, and in him all things
hold together’ (Col 1:17).

18 Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse, 157, citing Derrida, Writing and Difference, 279–80. The

Greek words cited here mean: eidos = form; archē = beginning, or, basic principle; telos = end,
goal, ultimate form or purpose; energeia = actuality; aletheia = truth.
19 Famously quoted by the Apostle Paul in Athens (Acts 17:28).

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Similarly, when Derrida says that metaphysics has always repre-

sented the fundamental principles, like Form, Purpose, Truth, etc.,
as an ‘invariable presence’, perhaps he means that metaphysics has
regarded them as objective principles which exist independently of
us. They would be like the mathematical laws according to which the
universe runs and develops. According to many modern mathemati-
cal physicists these laws are not created by our thinking but have
always existed independently of us, and have, only comparatively re-
cently, been discovered by us.
At any rate, the widely recognised exponent of Derrida’s thought,
Jonathan Culler, appears to say something very similar. He describes
the logocentrism of metaphysics, as Derrida calls it, as: ‘the orienta-
tion of philosophy toward an order of meaning—thought, truth, rea-
son, logic, the Word—conceived as existing in itself, as foundation.’ 20
Derrida, then, was an implacable foe of metaphysics, as he un-
derstood it, with its logocentrism and its ‘presence’, and he was intent
on deconstructing it, and thus doing away with it. In a moment we
shall go on to consider the further arguments he raised against it,
and what they have to do with literary criticism.
But before we do that, it will help us to see things in due propor-
tion, if we first consider Derrida’s final verdict on metaphysics: it is
that metaphysics is inescapable! Much as he disliked it, much as he
would have liked to get rid of it, not even he could think, speak or
write without using its basic concepts and terms.

The inescapability of metaphysics

Faced with the questions: What strategies can be devised for escaping
metaphysics? How would language itself work, if one could banish
from it all metaphysics? Derrida’s constant reply runs: ‘I do not be-
lieve, that some day it will be possible simply to escape metaphysics.’ 21
By this Derrida does not mean that after he has demolished met-
aphysics with rationally unanswerable arguments some thinkers will
still irrationally retain belief in it. He means that to demolish meta-
physics one must employ valid arguments, but that the only valid

20 On Deconstruction, 92.
21 Positions, 17.

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arguments available have to be taken from within metaphysics. One

therefore has to assume the validity of metaphysical arguments in
order to use them to destroy the validity of metaphysics. For Derrida
the concept of a sign and a signified was part and parcel of metaphys-
ics; and he writes:
But we cannot do without the concept of the sign, for we cannot
give up this metaphysical complicity without also giving up the
critique we are directing against this complicity . . . And what
we are saying here about the sign can be extended to all the
concepts and all the sentences of metaphysics [scilicet which he
needs to use to overturn metaphysics] . . . These concepts are
not elements or atoms, and since they are taken from a syntax
and a system, every particular borrowing brings along with it
the whole of metaphysics.22

THE ASSERTION THAT WRITING PRECEDES SPEECH

AND THAT SIGNIFICATION CREATES MEANING

Derrida, in his widely read book Of Grammatology, sets out to de-

velop a thesis:
I shall try to show later that there is no linguistic sign before
writing.23
This to most people is very strange, for spoken language is a sys-
tem of linguistic signs, and spoken words are still what they always
were from the beginning: primarily sounds. By common scholarly
consent, moreover, spoken words were linguistic signs long before
anyone invented a series of written signs to represent, as best they
could, the sounds already in use as words.
We can, in fact, trace the history and development of various sys-
tems of writing: pictograms, ideograms, hieroglyphics, cuneiform,
alphabets; and it is as clear as anything can be that spoken language
was not invented in order to express the meaning of these written
signs, but that the written signs were invented to represent, as best as

22 Writing and Difference, 355–6.

23 p. 14.

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they could, the spoken signs. In other words, historically speaking,

speech came before writing.
It still does. Still today there are spoken languages that have not
been reduced to writing. Still today all children (except those unable
through disability) speak before they can write. And there are many
adults who speak their mother tongue but can nei-
ther read nor write it, although it has long since
Still today there are been reduced to writing. Historically and practi-
spoken languages cally speaking it is simply contrary to the facts to
that have not been say that writing was prior to speech.
reduced to writing. Similarly, when it comes to literature, oral
trad­itions often preceded written traditions. The
epic poems that Homer eventually wrote down be-
gan life as oral sagas that professional singers sang at the banquets of
the heroes. Even as late as the early decades of the nineteenth century
men were discovered in Yugoslavia who could recite by memory very
long epics that had been handed down orally from father to son for
generations without ever having been written down.
It is strange, therefore, to find Derrida setting out to develop a
thesis that runs counter to the well-known and long-established facts.
One naturally tries to think of possible interpretations of his thesis
that would rescue it from this predicament. Could it be, for instance,
that he means that writing has, not a temporal priority over speech,
but a priority of value or usefulness? He remarks, for instance, that
If ‘writing’ signifies inscription and especially the durable in-
stitution of a sign (and that is the only irreducible kernel of the
concept of writing), writing in general covers the entire field of
linguistic signs.24
According to this, then, writing has the advantage over speech in that
it is durable, whereas speech evaporates, so to speak, as soon as it is
spoken.
But even this is not true, or, at least it is no longer true. With
the invention of audio-recording devices and computer hard disks
speech can be as durable as writing. Moreover, writing as a visual
representation of speech suffers from its inability satisfactorily to rep-

24 Grammatology, 44.

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 Postmodernism, Philosophy and Literature

resent the many devices which speech can use (tone, pitch, emphasis,
etc.) to convey meaning. Writing, therefore, as a visual medium is
inferior to films and videos, which can visually and durably record
the gestures of hand, eye and facial expression that accompany speech
and enhance its ability to communicate meaning.
But Derrida’s thesis only gets stranger still when he continues the
paragraph from which we quoted above. He goes on to say:
writing in general covers the entire field of linguistic signs. In
that field a certain sort of instituted signifiers may then ap-
pear, ‘graphic’ in the narrow and derivative sense of the word,
ordered by a certain relationship with other instituted—hence
‘written’, even if they are ‘phonic’—signifiers.25
Originally when he said ‘there is no linguist sign before writ-
ing’, he seemed to imply that writing was different from speech and
predated it. Now in this paragraph he talks about something that he
calls ‘writing in general’ which covers the entire field of linguistic
signs. If ‘writing’ here means what ‘writing’, as normally understood,
means, it is no surprise—it is stating the obvious—to say that in the
entire field of linguistic signs covered by ‘writing in general’ there
appear ‘graphic’ signifiers. How not? For ‘graphic’ is simply a Greek
word meaning ‘written’. But it is a surprise to be told that ‘writing
in general’ includes other ‘phonic’ signifiers; for ‘phonic’ is a Greek
word for ‘voiced’, that is, ‘spoken’. And it is an even greater surprise
to be told that these ‘voiced’ signifiers, that is, orally spoken words,
must be classified as ‘graphic’ (written) signifiers, even though in
fact they are ‘phonic’. Derrida seems to be redefining the meaning of
‘writing’ as he goes along.26

A possible interpretation of Derrida’s meaning

Although Jonathan Culler is a an exponent of Derrida’s thought, he

nevertheless admits that the traditional ranking of speech above writ-
ing is true to the actual facts of history and experience. But then he
argues that those who adduce these facts do so
25Grammatology, 44.
26Could it possibly be that by a ‘phonic’ sign he means something like italics or underlining,
which, though written signs, indicate what would be emphasis in an orally delivered text?

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to demonstrate not just a factual or logical priority of speech to

writing but a more portentous general and comprehensive pri-
ority. Speech is seen as in direct contact with meaning.27
According to this interpretation, Derrida’s strange claim that
writing is prior to speech is not really about that at all: his purpose in
making the claim is to deny the view that speech is in direct contact
with meaning. If Culler is right and this is the real purpose behind
Derrida’s argument, then a number of things can be said about it.

Fitting the idea that signification creates meaning

What Culler says fits in with Derrida’s contention that signification
creates meaning. According to Derrida, meaning is not something
that can exist by itself and then be communicated by being put into
words and conveyed to others. Meaning does not exist until it is actu-
ally signified, that is, either spoken or written.
But it is difficult to convince people that this is true, especially if
they are listening to a speaker delivering a speech. They naturally
suppose that he thought out what he was going to say and the mean-
ing he wished to convey before he said it. They
might admit that he used words to think out in
According to Derrida,
his mind the meaning he wished to convey. But
meaning does not
they might also suppose that, having decided in
exist until it is actually
his mind the exact meaning he wanted to con-
signified, that is, either
vey, he then had to decide what words he must
spoken or written.
use to convey that meaning precisely to his au-
dience. Suppose, in addition, that the speaker
was a Russian philosopher about to address a French audience. He
might in his mind first think out his meaning in Russian, and then
translate the meaning (not the words) into French, and finally ‘sig-
nify’ his meaning by communicating it in French words.
In all this the average person might well conclude, first, that the
speaker’s intended meaning was logically prior to the words he even-
tually spoke; and secondly, that the words he spoke were in more
or less direct contact with his meaning. No ordinary person would
think that no meaning existed until the French words he used cre-
ated the meaning.
27 On Deconstruction, 100.

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 Postmodernism, Philosophy and Literature

Of course, it might happen that some of the French words he used

were, unknown to him, ambiguous or carried offensive connotations.
At question time, therefore, someone might ask him: ‘When you said
so-and-so, did you really mean such-and-such?’ The speaker would
not reply: ‘I did not have any meaning in mind before I spoke; like
you I had to wait for the words that came out from my mouth to cre-
ate some meaning or other.’ He would rather say: ‘No, I did not mean
that. I obviously expressed my meaning badly. Let me choose other
words to express my meaning more exactly.’ That done, the audience
would likely comment: ‘That makes sense. Now we know what you
meant.’ They would feel that his words had direct contact with his
predetermined meaning, not that the words had created his meaning.
But suppose, like Derrida, you refuse to believe that there exists
any such thing as meaning that can then be put into words and com-
municated to some other person; but rather that meaning does not
exist until signification (words) creates it. And suppose you hold, as
did Derrida (as we shall presently see), that written words have no
intrinsic meaning but are open to an almost infinite number of dif-
ferent interpretations. What literary theory would you prefer?
First of all you would prefer a written text to a living speaker.
Then you would accept the intentional fallacy without reserve; for
that would excuse you from having to ask what meaning the author
was intending to convey by the words he wrote in his text. Thus you
would be able to start with written words and be free to extract from
those written words an infinite play of meanings just as you pleased.
It might then be tempting for you to develop an argument that writ-
ing has, and always has had, priority over speech.

The idea is not original to Derrida

The denial that speech is in direct contact with reality is a theory
that was advanced by philosophers and language theorists long before
Derrida. As we’ve noted, if Culler is right, Derrida’s strange theory
that writing is prior to speech is really meant to deny that speech has
direct contact with meaning, or indeed with reality. That is a much
more serious theory and one that is widely held by distinguished
philos­ophers. Its leading features are:
(a) Its advocates tend to hold conventionalism.

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(b) It denies that language simply refers to things in the world

and labels them.
(c) It denies that concepts expressed in a language are real es-
sences existing independently of language.
(d) In particular it denies that human language can tell us any-
thing objective about God.
We must briefly examine each one of these.

Conventionalism

Conventionalism holds that language has no essential element in

itself: language is the creation of the society whose language it is.28
Linguistic meaning is derived from, and therefore is relative to, the
experiences of the particular culture that had those experiences.
There are no trans-cultural forms.
There is a certain amount of truth in this view of language; but it
is easily exaggerated. It is certainly true that the individual symbols
(i.e. words) in any language are mostly conventionally relative. So, for
instance, an object which in English is denoted
by the symbol tree, is denoted in French by
It is certainly true that arbre, in German by Baum, in Greek by dendron
the individual symbols and in Russian by derevo. Similarly, the objects
(i.e. words) in any represented in English by ‘oak’, ‘tree’, and
language are mostly ‘acorns’, are represented by different symbols in
conventionally relative. Russian. But it is important to notice that while
the individual symbols are culturally relative,
the meaning of a sentence made up of these cul-
turally relative symbols, is not itself culturally relative. The meaning
of the English sentence ‘Oak trees bear acorns’ is exactly the same
when expressed in Russian words as it is in English.

Conventionalism’s first denial

Conventionalism denies that language simply refers to things in the
world and labels them. The denial is certainly true to a great extent,
and one can readily think up examples of the different ways in which
it is true. Consider three examples.
28 See also Ch. 5 on Conventionalism, 169.

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 Postmodernism, Philosophy and Literature

1. A word can denote something that does not exist, and never did
exist, in the world
The word ‘centaur’, taken from the Greek kentauros, denotes a crea-
ture whose body and legs are those of a horse but whose torso and
head are those of a man. Such creatures, however, never did exist: they
are figments of mythological imagination.
Similarly ‘phlogiston’ was the word used by eighteenth century
scientists to denote a substance that chemists of that time supposed
to exist in all combustible bodies, and to be released by combustion.
Further research showed that there was no such substance.

2. Different meanings for the same word in different time periods

A word in one and the same language can at one time in history be used
as a label for one thing and at a later time as a label for something dif-
ferent. In older English ‘closet’ meant ‘cupboard’; it still means some-
thing similar in American English, in the sense of a built-in wardrobe.
In later English its meaning became restricted to a ‘water closet’ (WC).
In that sense in today’s English ‘closet’ has gone completely out of fash-
ion, and has been progressively replaced by various euphemisms such
as ‘lavatory’ or ‘bathroom’, and in American by ‘restroom’.

3. Sometimes a word contains an evaluation

Sometimes a word not only labels an objective thing, but also con-
tains an unspoken subjective evaluation of that thing, which is cultur-
ally determined. English and German both use the same word ‘warm’.
But water described as ‘warm’ in German would normally be many
degrees hotter than water described as ‘warm’ in English. The same
word then carries different subjective evaluations.
Now this last example illustrates a point that is immediately rele-
vant to our present discussion. The fact that the word ‘warm’ carries a
different subjective connotation in German from what it does in Eng-
lish does not imply that there is no objective phenomenon in the world
denoted by the subjectively neutral word ‘temperature’. There is such
an objective phenomenon that actually exists in the universe, and it
can be measured by objective standards (Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin).
So, then, some words do refer to things in the world and act as
labels for them; and it will be instructive to digress for a moment to
consider how we get such words.

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Animals and plants

The biblical story tells that God brought the animals to Adam and let
Adam name them. Adam, then, invented the names, the words, the
labels; but Adam did not create the animals by naming them. The
animals existed before he did and continued to exist. The names he
gave them may have incorporated his personal evaluation of them.
But again, that does not imply that the words did not refer to really
existent animals. Later scientific classification has given us more ex-
act terms that help us distinguish varieties of the same species; and
the same is true of the scientific classification of plants. But in both
cases the more precise names have come about by closer study of the
actually existent, objective realities. And of this we can be sure: man’s
naming of the animals did not create the detailed facts about them.

Physical things
The word ‘atom’ is a good example. When the Greeks first invented the
term they used it to describe what at that stage was only a theoretical
concept. They had never seen an atom, nor had rigid proof or even
indisputable evidence that atoms existed. But from the observation
of physical objects they formed the concept that the physical world
must be composed of an infinite number of tiny particles, so basic
that they could not be further divided. Hence the name they gave to
these conjectured particles: atom = something which cannot be split.
We still use the word ‘atom’ today; but strictly speaking the word
is a false label since we now know they can be split. Does this mean
that because this word is now an inexact label, it does not refer to any
objective reality? No, of course not. We now know that there are such
things as atoms, but that they can be subjected to fission or fusion;
and the results of atomic fission or fusion are not theoretical concepts
but all too real facts.
Observe, therefore, what has happened to the word ‘atom’. We
still use it, but it no longer means exactly the same as it originally
meant. The change in meaning has come about however, not because
the word never referred to an objectively real, tiny particle of matter,
but because closer study of that objective reality has increased our
understanding of that reality, and so the meaning of our word ‘atom’
has adjusted itself accordingly.

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Conventionalism’s second denial

Conventionalism denies that concepts expressed in a language are
real essences existing independently of language. Let’s start with a
simple example that shows that sometimes concepts exist before lin-
guistic means are invented to express them. Ancient Greek had two
syntactical constructions, each designed to join clauses together and
to indicate the logical connection between the ideas in the first clause
and the ideas in the second. The one construc-
tion was the word hina followed by a verb in
the subjunctive; the other was the word hōste Conventionalism denies
followed by a verb in the indicative. that concepts expressed
These two constructions express two dif- in a language are real
ferent concepts: one (hina + subjunctive) indi- essences existing inde­
cates an intended result, brought about by the pendently of language.
deliberate premeditated act of some agent. The
other (hōste + indicative) indicates the simple
unintended consequence of some act. The difference in concept is the
difference between, for example, deliberate murder on the one hand
and accidental homicide on the other.
To understand the difference in meaning of these two construc-
tions you will first have to have clearly in your mind the conceptual
difference between a deliberately intended result and an accidental,
unintended consequence.
The question arises: did the ancient Greeks first come across these
two constructions in their language, then wonder what they could
possibly signify, and only subsequently discover the concepts that
they expressed? Or was it rather that some one or ones first had the
concepts and then invented constructions to express those concepts?
Contrary to many theoretical linguists, Noam Chomsky ar-
gues that babies are born with an innate ‘language faculty’, which
among other things specifies a ‘universal grammar, that is, a set of
constraints on the structural possibilities available in the languages
of the world. This enables a child to grasp the logical order and con-
cepts that are presented to it in whatever language it encounters in its
early life.29

29 Knowledge of Language.

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Jerry Fodor writes:

There literally isn’t such a thing as the notion of learning a con-
ceptual system richer than the one that one already has; we
simply have no idea of what it would be like to get from a con-
ceptually impoverished to a conceptually richer system by any-
thing like a process of learning.30
And E. Bates, D. Thal and V. Marchman give their opinion:
If the basic structural principles of language cannot be learned
(bottom-up) or derived (top-down) there are only two possible
explanations for their existence: Either universal grammar was
endowed to us directly by the Creator, or else our species has
undergone a mutation of unprecedented magnitude, a cogni-
tive equivalent of the Big Bang.31
We return, then, briefly to the difference in concept between a
deliberately intended result, and an unintended consequence. A little
child who has thrown a toy brick at his brother and injured him does
not have to be very old before it can understand what ‘on purpose’
means when his mother asks: ‘Did you do that on purpose? Did you
mean to do it?’

The laws of mathematics

It is the long-held scientific view that the workings of the universe are
not haphazard. The universe works according to mathematical laws.
Nor does it matter which number system is used, whether the sexa­
gesimal system of ancient Babylonians or the modern decimal sys-
tem. It is obvious, moreover, that the universe ran according to these
principles long before humans used mathematics to describe them.
The laws of mathematics, says the mathematician Roger Penrose, are
discovered, not invented, by humans.32 Mathematical concepts and
language, then, do refer to self-existent realities. They are the expres-
sion of the Creator’s rationality imposed on, and through, his creation.

30 J. A. Fodor, ‘Fixation of Belief and Concept Acquisition’, 149.

31 ‘Symbols and Syntax’, 30.
32 Penrose has long maintained, taught and defended this position. See, for example, his book

The Road to Reality.

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The basic universal moral laws

It is likewise obvious that moral concepts like ‘it is wrong to torture
children for the fun of it’, are not created by human language. They
are instinctive, or as the Bible puts it, they are ‘the law written . . . on
[our] hearts’ (Rom 2:15), that is, by the Creator. That is why, as the In-
tuitionists say, we simply intuit these ethical duties, rather than create
them by rational argument.

Conventionalism’s third denial

Conventionalism denies that human language can tell us anything
objective about God. It is often argued that there is no such thing as
a private language. The person who claims to know God, is already
using the term ‘God’ that was invented by the society in which he or
she lives; and the word simply expresses ideas that society itself has
thought up. By definition, then, it cannot tell us anything objective
about what God is like, or indeed whether he exists or not. All it can
tell us is what society thinks about itself and about its own feelings
about the universe.
Now this view of things might well be true if the assumption on
which it is based were true. That assumption is that even if there is a
God, it is beyond all doubt that he has left it to our unaided thought
to find out what we can about him. But this is only an assumption.
The Bible claims the contrary is true, that God our Creator has not
left us to find out by our reasoning whether he exists or not and what
he is like. God has taken the initiative and spoken through creation,
through the moral concepts he has written in our hearts and through
the prophets of the Old and New Testaments. Moreover, in speaking
to us God has condescended to speak to us in our human languages,
though in doing so, he has given some of our human words a fullness
of meaning they did not have before. What is more, in order to speak
to us finally, he has spoken through the eternal Logos, not only using
our human language but becoming human himself.
This, then, is the Bible’s assertion; the evidence for its truth will
be discussed in a later book in the series.33 Meanwhile we must get
back to Derrida.

33 See Book 5: Claiming to Answer: How One Person Became the Response to our Deepest

Questions.

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THE DENIAL THAT WORDS HAVE ANY INTRINSIC MEANING

The denial that words have any intrinsic meaning corresponds to the
assertion that the meaning of a word is always deferred, which thus
allows unlimited play:
This field is in effect that of play, that is to say, a field of infinite
substitutions . . . One could say . . . that this movement of play,
permitted by the lack or absence of a centre or origin, is the
movement of supplementarity.34
One could call play the absence of the transcendental signified
as limitlessness of play, that is to say as the destruction of onto-
theology and the metaphysics of presence.35
The second quotation above reminds us that at the heart of Der-
rida’s literary criticism is his determination to banish all metaphysics
and what he calls onto-theology, that is, the theology of Being. Yet we
shall also remember that, contrariwise, he himself admits elsewhere
that it is impossible, even for him, to dispense with all metaphysical
concepts. But he tries hard. So in order to prove that there is no logos,
or fixed centre, or presence, he maintains that words have no intrinsic
meaning; and to prove that, he cites the fact that to know what a word
means one must wait and see what the next word
or words in the sentence mean.
To talk of limitless One could easily think of thousands of exam-
play of meaning is ples of this. Take the word ‘operation’: it can mean
a wild exaggeration. a military operation, a surgical operation, a me-
chanical operation, etc. If it stood in isolation by
itself, one could not tell what kind of operation
it signified; only the other words in the context could show us that.
Therefore, says Derrida, the meaning of the word is ‘deferred’ until
one arrives at the next word or words, and they then make clear what
the first word means in this context.
To say this, of course, is to say nothing new or particularly il-
luminating. But to say that this shows that the word ‘operation’ has

34 Derrida, Writing and Difference, 365.

35 Derrida, Grammatology, 50.

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no intrinsic meaning at all is just not true. It has a core meaning that
remains constant in all the connotations that it has acquired in the
course of its history (it comes from the Latin opera/operatio = work/
working). To go further and claim that, because one cannot tell which
connotation is intended until one has read the context, this makes
possible a limitless play of meaning is nonsense. Of course, if one in-
sists on taking each word by itself out of its context and concentrat-
ing on its range of possible connotations—as Derrida’s technique of
deconstruction tends to do—then one can juggle with its several pos-
sible meanings. But even so to talk of limitless play of meaning is a
wild exaggeration.
But then, confronted with a text, why would any sensible literary
critic want to take each individual word by itself in isolation from the
context in which it occurs?
This question, however, leads us to the next principle of Derrida’s
literary criticism.

DECONSTRUCTION

Here again are some quotations from well-recognised adherents of

Derrida’s system. They describe not only what deconstructive criti-
cism does, but also what it deliberately sets out to do and what its
motivation is for doing it.
1. ‘To deconstruct a discourse is to show how it undermines
the philosophy it asserts.’ 36
2. ‘Deconstructive discourse, in criticism, in philosophy, or in
poetry itself, undermines the referential status of the lan-
guage being deconstructed.’ 37
3. ‘As a mode of textual theory and analysis, contemporary
deconstruction subverts almost everything in the tradition,
putting in question received ideas of the sign and language,
the text, the context, the author, the reader, the role of his-
tory, the work of interpretation, and the forms of critical
writing.’ 38
36 Culler, Deconstruction, 86.
37 J. Hillis Miller, ‘Deconstructing the Deconstructors’, 30.
38 Leitch, Deconstructive Criticism, ix.

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4. ‘Sooner or later, we learn, deconstruction turns on every

critical reading or theoretical construction. When a decision
is made, when authority emerges, when theory or criticism
operate, the deconstruction questions . . . As soon as it does
so it becomes subversive . . . Ultimately, deconstruction ef-
fects revision of traditional thinking.’ 39
5. ‘The clearest distinction between traditionalist and decon-
structive logic resides in the difference in their attitude
toward the exercise of power . . . [and] the abdication of the
power to dictate taste.’ 40
6. ‘A deconstruction, then, shows the text resolutely refusing
to offer any privileged reading . . . Deconstructive criticism
clearly transgresses the limits established by traditional
criticism.’ 41
This, then, is how deconstructionism describes itself.

On deconstruction

We see that its aim is negative: It ‘undermines’, ‘subverts’, ‘trans-

gresses’, ‘turns on’ (i.e. turns round and attacks). But we notice sev-
eral other things about it.

The first object of its negative, subversive criticism

First and foremost it attacks, undermines and subverts all traditional
interpretation. It is, of course, a good and healthy thing to question
traditional interpretation and not to take anything on authority, and
to adopt only that which proves to be good. But to the deconstruction-
ist there is by definition nothing good in traditional literary criticism
and interpretation, for it was all founded on false presuppositions and
logic. As Christopher Norris writes:
Deconstruction is the active antithesis of everything that
criticism ought to be if one accepts its traditional values and
concepts.42

39 Leitch, Deconstructive Criticism, 261.

40 Flieger, ‘The Art of Being Taken by Surprise’, 57.
41 Leitch, ‘The Book of Deconstructive Criticism’, 24–5.
42 Deconstruction, xii.

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This is the language of the revolutionary. He can see no good at

all in the past. All must be swept aside, and a completely new order
brought in.

The other object of its negative, subversive criticism

This is nothing less than the authority of the text itself. The revolution
proceeds by ‘undermining the referential status of the language [scil.
of the text] being deconstructed’. No matter what the author intended
to refer to, the deconstructionist sets out to show the reference was in-
valid. And anyway, the legitimacy of even enquiring what the author’s
intention was has been ruled out in advance.

Its revolutionary opposition to all power and privilege

An interesting psychological feature of deconstructionists is that they
do not simply criticise some traditional theories of literary criticism—
for we all do that. They, by contrast, feel that all traditional literary
criticism is a tyrannical use of power and privilege employed to dic-
tate people’s taste; it must be undermined, subverted and completely
overturned. This reaction, however, is surely extreme. Suppose, for
instance, we are faced with a text in ancient Chinese, and none of us
knows ancient Chinese. Then there comes a scholar who knows the
language. Is he not in a privileged position to tell us what the text says?
Of course we shall wish to check his translation by appealing to other
scholars who know ancient Chinese. But how could we dispense with
their privileged knowledge and insist on our freedom to interpret the
text ourselves even if we don’t know the language?

What deconstructionists propose to put

in the place of traditional literary criticism
Barbara Johnson points to what this is when she says: Deconstruction
‘undoes the very comforts of mastery and consensus that underlie the
illusion that objectivity is situated somewhere outside the self’.43 But if
there is no objectivity outside the individual self, where shall we find
it? Inside each individual self? But that would mean literary-­critical
anarchy. Nowhere at all? That would spell the end of literary criticism
as a social or academic activity.

43 Johnson, ‘Nothing fails like success’, 11.

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The trouble with deconstructionism’s demolition

of all traditional literary criticism
Suppose that one day deconstruction manages to abolish all traditional
criticism, and itself becomes the universal theory. Fifty or a hundred
years from now it will have become the traditional view. How then
ought the revolutionary critics of that time to deal with deconstruc-
tionism?

Deconstruction theory refuses to have

its own principles applied to itself
Derrida writes:
Justice in itself, if such a thing exists, outside or beyond law,
is not deconstructible. No more than deconstruction itself, if
such a thing exists. Deconstruction is justice.44
And John D. Caputo adds:
Justice is not deconstructible. After all, not everything is de-
constructible, or there would be no point to deconstruction.45
These two statements are remarkable. Earlier we saw that accord-
ing to Derrida there are no objective values, or basic principles, that
can be comprehended by us and then expressed in words. The word
‘justice’ does not refer to some objective ‘presence’. To suppose it does
is to hold the false idea of logocentrism and transcendental signi-
fication. But now Derrida and Caputo wish to assert that there are
such objective values: justice and deconstruction; and they are good
in themselves, intrinsically and inherently good (‘present to them-
selves’, to use Derrida’s own technical terms). So here are Derrida
and Caputo both contradicting the basic principles on which Der-
rida based his whole theory of literary and linguistic criticism.
Moreover, we were earlier told that ‘to deconstruct a discourse is
to show how it undermines the philosophy it asserts’.46 Now Derrida
and Caputo, in the name of deconstructionism, are contradicting

44 Derrida, ‘Force of Law’, 14–15.

45 Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, 131.
46 Culler, Deconstruction, 86.

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deconstruction theory itself, and then trying to defend deconstruc-

tion theory by claiming that while every other text and theory of lit-
erary criticism must be deconstructed, deconstruction theory itself
must not be deconstructed. What is this but an expression of power
and privilege claiming immunity from critical questioning which it
applies to everything else? Here, to use Culler’s terms, is deconstruc-
tion undermining the philosophy of deconstruction which it itself
asserts.

Deconstructionism’s self-imposed inability

to help anyone appreciate any literary text
The first necessity for critiquing a text fairly is not an uncritical ac-
ceptance of all it says but a certain positive sympathy or empathy with
the author that makes an effort to understand what the author was
trying to say. Destructionism’s total negativity, its determination to
subvert, undermine and deconstruct the text’s intended meaning by
atomistically concentrating on the supposedly infinite play of mean-
ing of individual words, virtually guarantees that it will never help
anyone to appreciate the worth, however imperfect, of any text: not
even of the masterpieces.

DERRIDA’S IDEAL WRITING

The question arises: how would Derrida himself go about writing a

literary work, if he ever did? Given his own principles, he could not
assume that he had an idea, a meaning, that he intended to express by
writing a text. Nor could he hope that anyone would ever try to un-
derstand what he meant to say anyway. But how can one write words
without intending to say anything? Let Derrida himself explain:
To write is to draw back. Not to retire into one’s tent, in order to
write, but to draw back from one’s writing itself. To be grounded
far from one’s language, to emancipate it or lose one’s hold on it,
to let it make its way alone and unarmed. To leave speech. To be a
poet is to know how to leave speech. To let it speak alone, which
it can only do in written form. To leave writing is to be there
only in order to provide its passageway, to be the diaphanous

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element of its going forth: everything and nothing. For the work,
the writer is at once everything and nothing. Like God.47

What he rejects
On the one hand the theological encyclopaedia and, modeled
upon it, the book of man.48

What he accepts and aims at

On the other a fabric of traces marking the disappearance of an
exceeded God or of an erased man.49
to retake repossession of his language . . . and to claim respon-
sibility for it against a Father of Logos.50
[writing which] runs the risk of being meaningless, and would
be nothing without this risk.51
[writing which risks] meaning nothing [in order] to start play.52

CONCLUDING COMMENT ON DERRIDA

It is clear to see that underlying and motivating Derrida’s theory of

literary criticism is a certain rebellion against authority whether of the
author, or of the text, or of language, or of metaphysics, or of tradition
or of power and privilege of any kind. It is a help in understanding
this characteristic to know Derrida’s academic background. John M.
Ellis points out:
An unusual degree of rigidity and conservatism prevailed in
French universities in the mid-sixties when deconstruction

47 Writing and Difference, 85. But if a writer is only a passageway for writing to pass through,

where does the writing come from in the first place? For further reading on all of Derrida’s
ideas quoted in this section, see Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Divine Discourse.
48 Writing and Difference, 371.

49 Writing and Difference, 371.

50 Writing and Difference, 90.

51 Writing and Difference, 90.

52 Positions, 14, cited from Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse, 166–7.

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 Postmodernism, Philosophy and Literature

emerged. . . . Nowhere was conservative literary history and bi-

ography more pedantic or ossified, and nowhere was there more
conformism in what was taught to university students. There
was one truth, and it was contained in Gustave Lanson’s literary
history of France, which students were required to commit to
memory. Any deviation from this basic truth provoked a mas-
sive, unified reprisal, and that fact constituted a very real repres-
sion of any alternative possibilities.53
Perhaps only those who have suffered under compulsion to adopt
a ‘correct’ theory of literary criticism enforced by some central au-
thority can understand the resentment of authority that builds up in
the minds of students who are not allowed to think for themselves.
But it is a pity if, as seems to have happened in Derrida’s case, such
resentment leads to the other extreme of rejecting all authority of
author, text, language, metaphysics, logos and God himself.

53 Against Deconstruction, 83–4.

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 CHAPTER 10

POSTMODERNISM
AND ScIENcE

The application of science in some countries

has given them simultaneously the most
advanced weaponry and the most awful civil
wars, poverty and famine. Postmodernism,
therefore, not without reason, often openly
attacks science as the villain involved in
horrific aggression, environmental pollution,
alienation and exploitation.
 JUST ANOTHER STORY?

Postmodernists tend to hold that the claims that scientists make are
exaggerated, because they do not recognise the ways in which their
reason is beclouded. For example, some postmodernist thinkers as-
sert that the laws of nature that have been discovered by scientific
investigation are nothing but social constructions, that is, they are
products of the scientists’ own social culture, rather than reflections
of how the universe actually works.
Richard Rorty (1931–2007), who was a postmodern pragmatist,
wrote:
The pragmatist tells us that it is useless to hope that objects will
constrain us to believe the truth about them, if only they are ap-
proached with an unclouded mental eye, or a rigorous method,
or a perspicuous language. He wants us to give up the notion
that God, or evolution, or some other underwriter of our pres-
ent world-picture, has programmed us as machines for accurate
verbal picturing, and that philosophy brings self-knowledge by
letting us read our own program.1
For Rorty, the postmodern pragmatist shares
the Baconian and Hobbesian notion that knowledge is power, a
tool for coping with reality. But he carries this Baconian point
through to its extreme. . . . He drops the notion of truth as cor-
respondence with reality altogether, and says that modern sci-
ence does not enable us to cope because it corresponds, it just
plain enables us to cope.2
Rorty cites Kuhn and Dewey in support: ‘Kuhn and Dewey sug-
gest we give up the notion of science travelling towards an end called

1 Consequences of Pragmatism, 165.

2 Consequences of Pragmatism, xvii.

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“correspondence with reality” and instead say merely that a given vo-
cabulary works better than another for a given purpose.’ 3 What they
seem to be saying is that we have found a set of (scientific) words
which describe the motion of the planets better than any other set of
words; but, they maintain, what we cannot say is that these words are
getting close to the truth of the real situation.
On the postmodern view, all scientific endeavour to understand
the universe is conditioned, and more or less distorted, by the back-
ground culture of the scientists themselves. They regard science,
therefore, as ‘just another set of narratives,’ so that when scientists
give us an explanation of some feature of the universe, that is just
their story about it. Other people could make up another equally
valid story. They are all just stories. This inevitably means that we
reach the absurdity of not being able to tell the difference between
astronomy and astrology. Rorty again:
It is useless to ask whether one vocabulary rather than another
is closer to reality. For different vocabularies serve different
purposes, and there is no such thing as a purpose that is closer
to reality than another purpose . . . Nothing is conveyed in say-
ing . . . that the vocabulary in which we predict the motion of
a planet is more in touch with how things really are than the
vocabulary in which we assign the planet an astrological sig-
nificance. For to say that astrology is out of touch with reality
cannot explain why astrology is useless: it merely restates that
fact in misleading representationalist terms.4
However Rorty is inconsistent in his attitude to science:
The idea that one species of organism is, unlike all the others,
oriented not just toward its own increased prosperity but to-
ward Truth, is as un-Darwinian as the idea that every human
being has a built-in moral compass—a conscience that swings
free of both social history and individual luck.5
Rorty’s statement is very interesting. He obviously is a Darwin-
ian and holds himself that Darwin’s theory is true. But how does he
3 Consequences of Pragmatism, 193.
4 Richard Rorty in his introduction to John P. Murphy’s Pragmatism, 3.
5 ‘Untruth and Consequences’, 36.

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come to believe that Darwinism is true, if Darwinism teaches that no

organism, not even Rorty himself, is oriented towards the truth? This
is simply incoherent.

AN OVERREACTION TO MODERNISM

The strong anti-scientific element in postmodern thinking can easily

disguise the fact that postmodernism is in a very real sense an over-
reaction to a modernism which has overreached itself. This is demon-
strated by the modernist doctrine of scientism: that science is the only
source of truth and that everything will ultimately yield to scientific
analysis. Scientism is based on a true idea: that science is a valid means
of gaining knowledge of the universe. However the flaw in scientism
is that it exaggerates this truth until it becomes the completely false
notion that science is the only valid method of deriving truth.6
Another central doctrine of modernism is the idea of progress.
Here again this is based on the valid idea that progress is both possible
and desirable. However when this doctrine gets elevated to the idea
that, by applying science, progress is inevitable, the idea can easily go
sour. The application of science in some countries has given them si-
multaneously the most advanced weaponry and the most awful civil
wars, poverty and famine. Postmodernism, therefore, not without
reason, often openly attacks science as the villain involved in horrific
aggression, environmental pollution, alienation and exploitation.
In order to understand postmodernism, we need to realise that it
has (understandably) reacted against these extremes of modernism,
dismissing scientism and the myth of progress as the power agenda
of the dominant culture. Science, for the postmodernist, is merely the
scientists’ ‘story’, a merely human invention whose ‘real’ purpose is
to reinforce and carry forward an agenda of social dominance of the
elite scientific culture. Anthropologist Matt Cartmill puts the basic
thesis of the postmodern critique like this:
Anybody who claims to have objective knowledge about any-
thing is trying to control and dominate the rest of us . . . There

6 See the Appendix: ‘The Scientific Endeavour.’

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

are no objective facts. All supposed ‘facts’ are contaminated

with theories, and all theories are infested with moral and po-
litical doctrines . . . Therefore, when some guy in a lab coat tells
you that such and such is an objective fact . . . he must have a
political agenda up his starched white sleeve.7

A RESPONSE TO POSTMODERNISM:
IS SCIENCE A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT?

Now whether or not we agree that that science is merely ‘their story’,
to be fair to the postmodern critique we must ask the question: could
it be that science and technology are sometimes motivated by a social
or political agenda? The answer to that question is yes. Now of course
there are good social and political agendas, the obvious one being
scientific research for solutions to the problems of disease. Another is
for the discovery of alternative energy sources, and we could think of
others. But science has been, and is, also used for social and political
agendas which are not good: some countries have poured so much
of their resources into the production of sophisticated weapons of
mass destruction that their citizens live in economic deprivation; and
uncontrolled exploitation is ruining the delicately balanced environ-
ment of Planet Earth. There is a lot to criticise, and one cannot help
but be sympathetic to such criticisms of the abuse of science.
But that brings us to the point: we need here to distinguish things
that differ—the abuse of science from science itself. Let us take an ex-
treme case as an illustration. Suppose a clever scientist has a grudge
against society and wants to poison a city’s water supply. Using his
knowledge of chemistry he secretly develops a new and powerful
poison but, before he can use it, is fortunately apprehended by the
police. The fact that he has developed the poison with an evil motiva-
tion arising out of his social situation does not mean that either the
chemical laws he uses or the poison he makes have been produced
by contemporary theories of society! One taste of the poison would
soon show how ridiculous that view is! Thus we need to distinguish
between science itself (the chemical laws which the scientist uses to

7 ‘Oppressed by Evolution’.

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 Postmodernism and Science

produce his poison) and the ethical question concerning the use to
which science is put.
That distinction is vital. For it is certainly true, as the postmod-
ernist claims, that science has given us the technology to produce
weapons of mass destruction. But we need to remember that, just as
fire both burns and warms, so lasers not only guide missiles, they are
also used to repair faulty eyesight. We cannot fairly blame science
for the evil ends to which it is sometimes put, but there is no doubt
that the use of science is something which needs to be subjected to
serious moral analysis. However, science itself is not in a position to
give us the necessary moral criteria. As Einstein pointed out: ‘What
we call science has the sole purpose of determining what is. The de-
termination of what ought to be is unrelated to it and cannot be ac-
complished methodically.’ 8
If science is not in a position to give us those moral criteria, nei-
ther is postmodernism. How could it conceivably be in a position to
produce a moral analysis, if, as postmodernism claims, all truths (and
therefore all moral truths) are equally valid! By failing to make the
necessary distinctions postmodernism actually knocks the ground
from under the valid criticisms it is making.

Postmodernism’s confusion of categories

Physicist Alain Sokal maintains that much of the nonsense contained

in the postmodern critique of science is in fact generated by confusing
two or more of the following levels of analysis:
1. Ontology. What objects exist in the world? What statements
about these objects are true?
2. Epistemology. How can human beings obtain knowledge of
truths about the world? How can they assess the reliability
of that knowledge?
3. Sociology of knowledge. To what extent are the truths known
(or knowable) by humans in any given society influenced
(or determined) by social, economic, political, cultural,

8 Einstein, Letters to Solovine, 119–21.

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and ideological factors? Same question for the false state-

ments erroneously believed to be true.
4. Individual ethics. What types of research ought a scientist
(or technologist) to undertake (or refuse to undertake)?
5. Social ethics. What types of research ought society to en-
courage, subsidize, or publicly fund (or, alternatively, to dis-
courage, tax, or forbid)? 9
Each of these levels of analysis is, of course, important for scien-
tists and others to consider. The postmodern confusion arises, not
from the fact that these levels all exist and are important, but from
failure to distinguish between them.
Our example involves such confusion of levels. Let us look at it
again. The clever chemist has discovered a new poison. At the onto-
logical level he can say that this poison exists and it has such and such
properties (level 1). However, it was his social grievance that moti-
vated his research (level 3). This grievance is, in a real sense, a ‘social
construct’, it arises out of the man’s experience of society; but his sci-
ence did not arise in this way.
Note that we are not commenting here on whether his grievance
was legitimate or not, simply on the fact that it is a social construct.
In other words, the sheer fact of being a social construct is not to be
regarded as being necessarily a bad thing. That is a separate issue.
There are many grievances arising from social pressures that we all
would regard as legitimate—for example, the industrial exploitation
of children.

Postmodernism’s overestimate of the subjectivity of science

It is fair to say that there is a subjective element in science. The idea of

a completely independent observer, free of all preconceived theories,
doing investigations and coming to unbiased conclusions that consti-
tute absolute truth, is simply a myth. First of all, there is no such thing
as a completely independent observer. In common with the rest of
humanity, scientists have preconceived ideas, indeed, worldviews that
they bring to bear on every situation. Secondly, we can scarcely ever
9 Sokal, ‘Social Text Affair’, 14–15.

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 Postmodernism and Science

make an observation without resting on some prior theory; for exam-

ple, we cannot even take a temperature without having an underlying
theory of heat. Thirdly, when we set up our theories they tend to be
underdetermined by the data, that is, more than one theory could ac-
count for the same set of data. If, for example, we plot our data on a
graph as a finite set of points, elementary math-
ematics will tell us that there is no limit to the
number of curves that we can draw through that It is fair to say that there
particular set of points, that is, the data repre- is a subjective element
sented by the points on the paper do not deter- in science. The idea
mine the curve that we should draw through of a completely
them (although of course, in any particular case, independent observer,
there may well be physical principles which sig- free of all preconceived
nificantly restrict our choice). theories, doing
All of this most scientists will freely admit. investigations and
By its very nature, science possesses an inevita- coming to unbiased
ble degree of tentativeness. On the other hand conclusions that
scientists will also want to point out that the de- constitute absolute truth,
gree of tentativeness is extremely small in the is simply a myth.
overwhelming majority of cases. The fact is that
science-based technology has been spectacularly successful in fun-
damentally changing the face of the world: from radio and television
to computers, aircraft, space probes, X-rays and artificial hearts. It is
sheer nonsense, therefore, to assert that the elements of tentativeness
and subjectivity in science mean that science is a social construct. As
physicist Paul Davies says:
Of course, science has a cultural aspect; but if I say that the plan-
ets moving around the sun obey an inverse-square law of gravi-
tation and I give a precise mathematical meaning to that, I think
it is really the case. I don’t think it is a cultural c­ onstruct—it’s
not something we have invented or imagined just for conveni-
ence of description—I think it’s a fact. And the same for the
other basic laws of physics.10
It is self-evident, is it not, that if we believed that the science that
led to the construction of a jet aircraft was merely a subjective social

10 Wilkinson, ‘Found in space?’

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construct, none of us would ever get on a plane? Or, to put it another

way, one sure method of finding out whether the law of gravity is a
social construct or not would be to step off the top of a skyscraper!

The Sokal affair

One consequence of their attitude to language is that postmodernist

writers often use scientific terminology in a completely absurd way—
at least in the view of the scientists who, after all, invented the termi-
nology in the first place. This was brought to worldwide attention by
physicist Alain Sokal whom we have cited. He submitted a cleverly
constructed spoof article to a prestigious journal, Social Text, which
publishes much postmodern literature. In the article, impressively but
(to a scientist) nonsensically, entitled ‘Transgressing the boundaries:
towards a transformative hermeneutic of Quantum Gravity’, Sokal
appeared to take the postmodern stance and appeared to criticise the
modernist ‘dogma . . . that there exists an external world, whose prop-
erties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of
humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in “eternal”
physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit im-
perfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by . . . the “objective”
procedures of . . . the (so-called) scientific method.’ He then made the
startling claim that
feminist and poststructuralist critiques have demystified the
substantive content of mainstream Western scientific practice,
revealing the ideology of domination concealed behind the fa-
çade of objectivity. It has become apparent that physical ‘reality’
no less than social ‘reality’ is at bottom a social and linguistic
construct; that scientific ‘knowledge’, far from being objective,
reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power rela-
tions of the culture that produced it.
The editors of the journal, suspecting nothing, published the
article, apparently because it appeared to fit in with their own pre-
dilections. However, Sokal then revealed that his article was a par-
ody from beginning to end, full of complete nonsense dressed up in
pseudo-scientific language! He had deliberately constructed it in the
postmodern fashion in order to reveal the fact that postmodernism

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was itself largely nonsensical. The resulting storm in the press, par-
ticularly in France, the home of many postmodern writers, showed
that Sokal had scored a direct hit on a very big nerve.
For Sokal, like most scientists, believes in an objective world
which can be studied; and that scientific theories, though not
amounting to ‘truth’ in any absolute sense, give scientists an increas-
ingly firm handle on reality—as exemplified, say, in the development
of the understanding of the universe, from Ptolemy to Galileo, to
Newton, to Einstein. They believe that they are reaching a better and
more accurate understanding, even though they are aware that the
advance of science often involves, as in the case just mentioned, a
paradigm-shift: that is, a shift in the basic large framework within
which science is being carried out at any point in history.11 For exam-
ple, Ptolemy’s paradigm was that of a universe with the earth at its
centre and all the heavenly bodies circling round it. Copernicus and
Galileo were responsible for a paradigm-shift to the notion of a solar
system. Einstein’s discovery of relativity resulted in a further para-
digm-shift in the understanding of space-time that had been current
since Newton, and so on.
Most scientists are well aware of these issues and take the view
that, although paradigm-shifts are involved and the subjective el-
ement can never be completely eliminated, nevertheless science is
getting a tighter and tighter grip on reality. Lewis Wolpert, FRS,
Professor of Biology, University College, London puts it this way:
‘Although social processes play a role in science, scientists change
theories because the new ones provide a better correspondence with
reality.’ 12 And again:
No amount of rhetoric is enough to persuade others of the va-
lidity of a new idea, but it can make them take it seriously—
that is, follow it up and test it. But persuasion ultimately counts
for nothing if the theory does not measure up to the required
correspondence with nature. If it does not conform with the
evidence, if it is not internally consistent, if it does not provide
an adequate explanation, the authority and all the other social

11 The idea of a paradigm was introduced in a famous book by Kuhn (Structure of Scientific

Revolutions). See the Appendix: ‘The Scientific Endeavour’, 319.

12 Unnatural Nature of Science, 103.

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factors count for nothing: it will fail. Such a failure is undoubt-

edly culturally determined, the culture being one that adopts a
scientific approach.13
Nor is Sokal himself unaware of the social dimension to science.
Indeed, he regards it as uncontroversial that:
1. Science is a human endeavour, and like any other human en-
deavour, it merits being subjected to rigorous social analysis. . . .
2. At a more subtle level, even the content of scientific debate—
what types of theories can be conceived and entertained, what
criteria are to be used to decide among competing theories—is
constrained in part by the prevailing attitudes of mind, which in
turn arise in part from deep-seated historical factors. . . .
3. There is nothing wrong with research informed by a political
commitment as long as that commitment does not blind the
researcher to inconvenient facts. Thus, there is a long and hon-
ourable tradition of sociopolitical critique of science, includ-
ing antiracist critiques of anthropological pseudoscience and
eugenics.14
However, Sokal goes on to say that over the past two decades
certain sociologists and literary intellectuals have become greedier:
they want to attack the normative conception of scientific in-
quiry as a search for truths or approximate truths about the
world; they want to see science as just another social practice
which produces ‘narratives’ and ‘myths’ that are no more valid
than those produced by other social practices.15
And the results are absurd. Take, for example, a front-page article
in the New York Times of 22 October 1996 concerning the conflict
between two views of the origin of certain Native American popu-
lations. One view was the archaeological account that humans first
came to America across the Bering Strait from Asia; the other was
the Zuni myth that native peoples have lived in America ever since

13 Unnatural Nature of Science, 118.

14 Sokal, ‘Social Text Affair’, 10.
15 Sokal, ‘Social Text Affair’, 10.

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 Postmodernism and Science

their ancestors emerged from a subterranean spirit-world. It seems

perfectly obvious that both views cannot be correct. And yet, in-
credible as it may seem, Roger Anyon, a British archaeologist, was
quoted as claiming: ‘Science is just one of many ways of knowing the
world . . . [The Zunis’ worldview is] just as valid as the archaeological
viewpoint of what prehistory is about.’ 16 However, if we are talking
about truth claims, then the two accounts contradict each other. A
man who claims the earth is flat and a woman who claims it is spher-
ical cannot both be right!
The absurdity of the postmodern relativisation of truth is also
evident from another fact.

The universe is not an intellectual construct

Scientists do not construct by their reason either the universe or the

laws by which it works. Theirs is a path of discovery. The universe was
there and working long before anyone tried by reason to understand
and formulate how it works. Scientists have to allow the universe to
impose its nature on them and determine which theories make sense
and which do not. That is precisely what distinguishes scientific theo-
ries from social constructs. To say, as does the well-
known sociologist of science Harry Collins, that ‘the
natural world has a small or nonexistent role in the Many a theory
construction of scientific knowledge’ 17 is sheer non- has been slain by
sense. Scientists are not free to say what they like an obstinate fact!
about the universe and claim it to be true. They are
realists and believe in the existence of an objective
universe. They put their hypotheses to the test, abandoning or modi-
fying them should the universe not behave in the way they suggest.
Many a theory has been slain by an obstinate fact!
If we are seeking the truth about the universe and about human
beings, our basic assumption clearly is that the truth is already there
to be discovered. Our reasoning can create abstract mathematical
systems and sometimes those systems can be shown to describe how
the universe works. But our mathematical reasoning does not create
16 Quoted in Stolzenberg, ‘Reading and relativism’, 50, who cites Boghossian, ‘Sokal Hoax’, 27

who cites ‘Indian Tribes’ Creationists Thwart Archaeologists’, New York Times, 22 Oct. 1996.
17 Collins, ‘Stages in the Empirical Programme of Relativism’, 3.

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the universe or its laws: it merely describes them. This is not a weak-
ness or fault in reason or rationality: it is merely a question of the
importance of our recognising what is the proper scope and function
of human reason.
This is a very important point. Atoms have to exist in order to
be split. If they did not exist then no one could have split them, and
nuclear bombs would not exist. The existence of the atom and the
motivation for splitting it are two entirely different things (confusion
between levels 1, 3, 4 and 5 of Sokal’s analysis).

CONCLUSION: THE INTELLECTUAL INCOHERENCE

OF THE POSTMODERNIST ILLUSION

In rejecting the notion of objective truth completely, postmodernists

themselves are in danger of joining the mythmakers. What is more,
common sense tells us that no one actually believes their myths. If
you are buying a rope to climb a mountain, you will insist on know-
ing the truth about the strength of that rope. You would not accept
the statement that the rope is strong enough and the statement that
the rope is not strong enough as being both equally true. You know
that there is a truth about the rope that can be discovered and dem-
onstrated, and you will not be content until you have discovered it
because your very life depends on it.
Richard Dawkins, critical of those who pour scorn on the search
for truth, writes:
no philosopher has any trouble using the language of truth
when falsely accused of a crime, or when suspecting his wife of
adultery. “Is it true?” feels like a fair question, and few who ask
it in their private lives would be satisfied with logic-chopping
sophistry in response.18
Dawkins is right. In everyday life all of us assume that there is
ascertainable truth. Suppose, again, just to ram this important point
home, that you claim to have two million pounds in the bank and
the bank manager claims that you have nothing at all in the bank.

18 Unweaving the Rainbow, 21.

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 Postmodernism and Science

Everybody agrees that both claims cannot be true. They will also
agree that there is an absolute truth about how much, if anything,
you have in the bank. Postmodernism disappears at the bank door!
Moreover, if the presupposition that there is no such thing as ab-
solute truth were itself true, it would have other serious implications
far beyond science itself. It would spell the end of true justice—for a
judge could not decide between a guilty and a non-guilty verdict on
the ground of indisputable truth. Decision would rest on the arbi-
trary power and authority of the judge. We would then be depend-
ent on totalitarian authority to decide what truth and justice were.
That would spell the end of morality—for nothing could be said to
be finally right or wrong. It would also spell the end of any sense of
human ­freedom—for if truth is relative then, in the end, truth will
be decided by power. Here, once more, postmodernists are incon-
sistent for in their complaints about the unfairness of various power
structures and in their insistence on tolerance and justice, they are
appealing to moral absolutes that are independent of themselves. As
C. S. Lewis says:
Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real
Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this
a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try
breaking one to him he will be complaining, ‘It’s not fair.’ 19
Some people feel positively comforted by postmodern relativ-
ism. It makes them feel both free and secure: free, because they are
no longer under necessity to seek and to be governed by unyielding
authoritative truth; secure, because no one can question the truth
of what they have chosen to believe, since the category of truth does
not exist. And the uncertainty that they inevitably feel about life’s
ultimate questions is quietened by the thought that everyone else is
in the same boat: no one can be certain about anything. Uncertainty
has become their refuge from reality. But their refuge is an illusion:
it cannot forever protect them from reality; for the basic principle on
which postmodernism rests is not only false, it is self-contradictory.
Its basic principle is that there is no such thing as absolute truth;
and yet it insists on laying down this principle itself as an absolute

19 Mere Christianity, 6.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

unquestionable truth. But the statement ‘it is an absolute truth that

there is no such thing as absolute truth’ is self-referential nonsense.
For if the statement is true, it declares itself to be false, which is
absurd.
However, there is a final note of caution to be sounded. Although
much of the postmodern critique of science is absurd as we have seen,
there is at least one aspect of it which could have a positive function
in alerting our attention to the possibility (although most scientists
will be well aware of it anyway) that there are occasions when sci-
entists might be influenced by strong preconceived philosophical or
political commitments to give an interpretation to observed facts of
nature which is scarcely warranted by those facts (essentially Sokal’s
point 3 above, warning of the danger of strong commitments blind-
ing the scientist’s mind to inconvenient facts). It should be empha-
sised that these occasions will be rare and are hardly ever likely to
occur in the scientific investigation of repeatable processes—of how
things work. They are much more likely to occur when scientists are
investigating how things came to be, the origins of the universe and
of life, or when science is unduly influenced by the financial gain to
be made by its application to technology.
Our conclusion, then, is that the postmodern criticism of genu-
ine science fails both in practice and in principle. Genuine science is
not a social construct. It attempts to understand a universe that is not
of its own invention, and even though it cannot guarantee absolute
truth, it believes that there is truth to be found and that it is getting
an increasingly accurate picture of that truth. For that reason it is a
worthy subject to pursue.

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APPENDIX:
THE ScIENTIFIc ENDEAVOUR

The doing of successful science follows

no set of cosy rules. It is as complex as
the human personalities that are involved
in doing it.
 THE cLEAR VOIcE OF ScIENcE

Science rightly has the power to fire the imagination. Who could
read the story of how Francis Crick and James D. Watson unravelled
the double helix structure of DNA without entering at least a little
into the almost unbearable joy that they experienced at this discov-
ery? Who could watch an operation to repair someone’s eye with a
delicately controlled laser beam without a sense of wonder at human
creativity and invention? Who could see pictures from space show-
ing astronauts floating weightless in the cabin of the International
Space Station or watch them repair the Hubble telescope against the
background of the almost tangible blackness of space without a feel-
ing akin to awe? Science has a right to our respect and to our active
encouragement. Getting young people into science and giving them
the training and facilities to develop their intellectual potential is a
clear priority for any nation. It would be an incalculable loss if the
scientific instinct were in any way stifled by philosophical, economic
or political considerations.
But since one of the most powerful and influential voices to
which we want to listen is the voice of science, it will be very impor-
tant for us, whether we are scientists or not, to have some idea of what
science is and what the scientific method is before we try to evaluate
what science says to us on any particular issue. Our aim, therefore,
first of all is to remind ourselves of some of the basic principles of sci-
entific thinking, some of which we may already know. Following this,
we shall think about the nature of scientific explanation and we shall
examine some of the assumptions that underlie scientific activity—
basic beliefs without which science cannot be done.
Then what is science? It tends to be one of those things that we
all know what it means until we come to try to define it. And then
we find that precise definition eludes us. The difficulty arises because
we use the word in different ways. First of all, science is used as short-
hand for:

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1. sciences—areas of knowledge like physics, chemistry,

biology, etc.;
2. scientists—the people who work in these areas;
3. scientific method—the way in which scientists do
their work.
Often, however, the word science is used in expressions like ‘Sci-
ence says . . .’, or ‘Science has demonstrated . . .’, as if science were
a conscious being of great authority and knowledge. This usage,
though understandable, can be misleading. The fact is that, strictly
speaking, there is no such thing as ‘science’ in this sense. Science
does not say, demonstrate, know or discover anything—scientists do.
Of course, scientists often agree, but it is increasingly recognised that
science, being a very human endeavour, is very much more complex
than is often thought and there is considerable debate about what
constitutes scientific method.

ScIENTIFIc METHOD

It is now generally agreed among philosophers of science that there is

no one ‘scientific method’, so it is easier to speak of the kind of thing
that doing science involves than to give a precise definition of science.

FIGURE Ap.1. Benzene Molecule.

In 1929 crystallographer
Kathleen Lonsdale confirmed
Kekulé’s earlier theory
Benzene
about the flat, cyclic nature
of benzene, an important
milestone in organic
chemistry.

Reproduced with permission of © iStock/

hromatos.

290
 Appendix: The Scientific Endeavour

Certainly observation and experimentation have primary roles to

play, as well as do the reasoning processes that lead scientists to their
conclusions. However, a glance at the history of science will show that
there is much more to it than this. We find, for example, that inex-
plicable hunches have played a considerable role. Even dreams have
had their place! The chemist Friedrich August Kekulé was studying
the structure of benzene and dreamed about a snake that grabbed its
own tail, thus forming itself into a ring. As a result he was led to the
idea that benzene might be like the snake. He had a look and found
that benzene indeed contained a closed ring of six carbon atoms! The
doing of successful science follows no set of cosy rules. It is as complex
as the human personalities that are involved in doing it.

Observation and experimentation

It is generally agreed that a revolution in scientific thinking took

place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Up to then one main
method of thinking about the nature of the universe was to appeal
to authority. For example, in the fourth century bc Aristotle had ar-
gued from philosophical principles that the only perfect motion was
circular. Thus, if you wanted to know how the planets moved, then,
since according to Aristotle they inhabited the realm of perfection
beyond the orbit of the moon, they must move in circles. In a radical
departure from this approach, scientists like Galileo insisted that the
best way to find out how the planets moved was to take his telescope
and go and have a look! And through that telescope he saw things like
the moons of Jupiter which, according to the Aristotelian system, did
not exist. Galileo comes to embody for many people the true spirit of
scientific enquiry: the freedom to do full justice to observation and
experimentation, even if it meant seriously modifying or even aban-
doning the theories that he had previously held. That freedom should
be retained and jealously guarded by us all.

Data, patterns, relationships and hypotheses

In summary form, the most widespread view, often attributed to

Francis Bacon and John Stuart Mill, is that the scientific method
consists of:

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1. the collection of data (facts, about which there can be no

dispute) by means of observation and experiment, neither
of them influenced by presuppositions or prejudices;
2. the derivation of hypotheses from the data by looking for
patterns or relationships between the data and then making
an inductive generalisation;
3. the testing of the hypotheses by deducing predictions from
them and then constructing and doing experiments de-
signed to check if those predictions are true;
4. the discarding of hypotheses that are not supported by the
experimental data and the building up of the theory by
adding confirmed hypotheses.
Scientists collect data, experimental observations and measure-
ments that they record. As examples of data, think of a set of blood
pressure measurements of your class just before and just after a
school examination, or of the rock samples collected by astronauts
from the surface of the moon.
There are, however, many other things that are equally real to us,
but which scarcely can count as data in the scientific sense: our sub-
jective experience of a sunset, or of friendship and love, or of dreams.
With dreams, of course, heart rate, brain activity and eye movement
can be observed by scientists as they monitor people who are asleep
and dreaming, but their subjective experience of the dream itself
cannot be measured. Thus we see that the scientific method has cer-
tain built-in limits. It cannot capture the whole of reality.
Scientists are in the business of looking for relationships and pat-
terns in their data and they try to infer some kind of hypothesis or
theory to account for those patterns. Initially the hypothesis may be
an intelligent or inspired guess that strikes the scientists from their
experience as being a possible way of accounting for what they have
observed. For example, a scientist might suggest the (very reasonable)
hypothesis that the blood pressure measurements in your class can
be accounted for by the fact that examinations cause stress in most
people! To test the hypothesis a scientist will then work out what he
or she would expect to find if the hypothesis were true and then will
proceed to devise an experiment or a series of experiments to check if
such is indeed the case. If the experiments fail to confirm expectation,

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 Appendix: The Scientific Endeavour

the hypothesis may be modified or discarded in favour of another

and the process repeated. Once a hypothesis has been successfully
tested by repeated experimentation then it is dignified by being called
a theory.1
It is now generally agreed by scientists themselves and philoso-
phers of science that our account so far of what the scientific method
is, is not only highly idealised but also flawed. In particular, contrary
to what is asserted about observation and experimentation above, it
is now widely accepted that no scientist, however honest and careful,
can come to his or her work in a completely impartial way, without
presuppositions and assumptions. This fact will be of importance for
our understanding of science’s contribution to our worldview. It is
easier, however, to consider that topic after we have first had a look at
some of the logical concepts and procedures that underlie scientific
argumentation and proof.

Induction

Induction is probably the most important logical process that scientists

use in the formulation of laws and theories.2 It is also a process that is
familiar to all of us from a very early age whether we are scientists or
not, though we may well not have been aware of it. When we as young
children first see a crow we notice it is black. For all we know, the next
crow we see may well be white or yellow. But after observing crows day
after day, there comes a point at which our feeling that any other crow
we see is going to be black is so strong that we would be prepared to
say that all crows are black. We have taken what is called an inductive
step based on our own data—we have seen, say, 435 crows—to make a
universal statement about all crows. ­Induction, then, is the process of

1 The terms hypothesis and theory are in fact almost indistinguishable, the only difference in

normal usage being that a hypothesis is sometimes regarded as more tentative than a theory.
2 Note for mathematicians: the process of induction described above is not the same as the

principle of mathematical induction by which (typically) the truth of a statement P(n) is estab-
lished for all positive integers n from two propositions:
(1) P(1) is true;
(2) for any positive integer k, we can prove that the truth of P(k+1) follows from the truth
of P(k).
The key difference is that (2) describes an infinite set of hypotheses, one for each positive
integer, whereas in philosophical induction we are generalising from a finite set of hypotheses.

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 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

generalising from a finite set of data to a universal or general statement.

A famous example of the use of induction in science is the deriva-
tion of Mendel’s laws of heredity. Gregor Mendel and his assistants
made a number of observations of the frequency
of occurrence of particular characteristics in each
Induction, then, of several generations of peas, like whether seeds
is the process of were wrinkled or smooth, or plants were tall or
generalising from short, and then made an inductive generalisation
a finite set of data from those observations to formulate the laws that
to a universal or now bear his name.
general statement. But, as may well have occurred to you, there is
a problem with induction. To illustrate this, let’s
turn our minds to swans rather than the crows we
thought about just now. Suppose that from childhood every swan
you have seen was white. You might well conclude (by induction)
that all swans are white. But then one day you are shown a picture
of an Australian black swan and discover that your conclusion was
false. This illustrates what the problem with induction is. How can
you ever really know that you have made enough observations to
draw a universal conclusion from a limited set of observations?
But please notice what the discovery of the black swan has done.
It has proved wrong the statement that all swans are white, but it has
not proved wrong the modified statement that if you see a swan in
Europe, the high probability is that the swan will be white.
Let’s look at another example of induction, this time from chem-
istry.
Particular observations:

Time Date Substance Litmus test result

0905 2015-08-14 sulphuric acid turned red
1435 2015-09-17 citric acid turned red
1045 2015-09-18 hydrochloric acid turned red
1900 2015-10-20 sulphuric acid turned red

Universal or general statement (law): litmus paper turns red

when dipped in acid.
This law, based on induction from the finite set of particular ob-
servations that are made of particular acids at particular times in

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 Appendix: The Scientific Endeavour

particular places, is claimed to hold for all acids at all times in all
places. The problem with induction is, how can we be sure that such a
general statement is valid, when, in the very nature of things, we can
only make a finite number of observations of litmus paper turning
red on the application of acid? The story of the black swan makes us
aware of the difficulty.
Well, we cannot be absolutely sure, it is true. But every time we
do the experiment and find it works, our confidence in the litmus
test is increased to the extent that if we dipped some paper in a liquid
and found it did not go red we would be likely to conclude, not that
the litmus test did not work, but that either the paper we had was
not litmus paper or the liquid was not acid! Of course it is true that
underlying our confidence is the assumption that nature behaves in
a uniform way, that if I repeat an experiment tomorrow under the
same conditions as I did it today, I will get the same results.
Let’s take another example that Bertrand Russell used to illus-
trate the problem of induction in a more complex situation: Bertrand
Russell’s inductivist turkey. A turkey observes that on its first day at
the turkey farm it was fed at 9 a.m. For two months it collects obser-
vations and notes that even if it chooses days at random, it is fed at
9 a.m. It finally concludes by induction that it always will be fed at 9
a.m. It therefore gets an awful shock on Christmas Eve when, instead
of being fed, it is taken out and killed for Christmas dinner!
So how can we know for certain that we have made enough ob-
servations in an experiment? How many times do we have to check
that particular metals expand on heating to conclude that all metals
expand on heating? How do we avoid the inductivist turkey shock?
Of course we can see that the problem with the turkey is that it did
not have (indeed could not have) the wider experience of the tur-
key farmer who could replace the turkey’s incorrect inductivist con-
clusion with a more complicated correct one: namely the law that
each turkey will experience a sequence of days of feeding followed
by execution!
The point of what we are saying here is not to undermine science
by suggesting that induction is useless, nor that science in itself can-
not lead us to any firm conclusions. It simply teaches us to recognise
the limits of any one method and to found our conclusions, wherever
possible, on a combination of them.

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The role of deduction

Once a law has been formulated by induction, we can test the valid-
ity of the law by using it to make predictions. For example, assum-
ing Mendel’s laws to be true, we can deduce from them a prediction
as to what the relative frequency of occurrence, say, of blue eyes in
different generations of a family, should be. When we find by direct
observation that the occurrence of blue eyes is what we predicted
it to be, our observations are said to confirm the
theory, although this sort of confirmation can never
Deduction plays amount to total certainty. Thus deduction plays an
an important role important role in the confirmation of induction.
in the confirmation It may be that what we have said about induc-
of induction. tion has given the impression that scientific work
always starts by looking at data and reasoning to
some inductive hypothesis that accounts for those
data. However, in reality, scientific method tends to be somewhat
more complicated than this. Frequently, scientists start by deciding
what kind of data they are looking for. That is, they already have in
their mind some hypothesis or theory they want to test, and they
look for data that will confirm that theory. In this situation deduc-
tion will play a domi­nant role.
For example, as we mentioned above regarding observation and
experimentation, in the ancient world, Greek philosophers supposed
as a hypothesis that the planets must move in circular orbits around
the earth, since, for them, the circle was the perfect shape. They then
deduced what their hypothesis should lead them to observe in the
heavens. When their observations did not appear to confirm their
original hypothesis completely, they modified it. They did this by re-
placing the original hypothesis by one in which other circular mo-
tions are imposed on top of the original one (epicycles, they were
called). They then used this more complicated hypothesis from
which to deduce their predictions. This theory of epicycles domi-
nated astronomy for a long time, and was overturned and replaced
by the revolutionary suggestions of Copernicus and Kepler.
Kepler’s work in turn again illustrates the deductive method. Us-
ing the observations the astronomer Tycho Brahe had made avail-
able, Kepler tried to work out the shape that the orbit of Mars traced

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against the background of ‘fixed’ stars. He did not get anywhere un-
til he hit on an idea that was prompted by geometrical work he had
done on the ellipse. That idea was to suppose as a hypothesis that the
orbit of Mars was an ellipse, then to use mathematical calculations to
deduce what should be observed on the basis of that hypothesis, and
finally to compare those predictions with the actual observations.
The validity of the elliptical orbit hypothesis would then be judged
by how closely the predictions fit the observations.
This method of inference is called the deductive or hypothetico-
deductive method of reasoning: deducing predictions from a hy-
pothesis, and then comparing them with actual observations.
Since deduction is such an important procedure it is worth con-
sidering it briefly. Deduction is a logical process by which an asser-
tion we want to prove (the conclusion) is logically deduced from
things we already accept (the premises). Here is an example of lo­gical
deduction, usually called a syllogism:
P1: All dogs have four legs.
P2: Fido is a dog.
C: Fido has four legs.

Here statements P1 and P2 are the premises and C is the conclu-

sion. If P1 and P2 are true then C is true. Or to put it another way, to
have P1 and P2 true and C false, would involve a logical contradic-
tion. This is the essence of a logically valid deduction.
Let’s now look at an example of a logically invalid deduction:
P1: Many dogs have a long tail.
P2: Albert is a dog.
C: Albert has a long tail.

Here statement C does not necessarily follow from P1 and P2. It

is clearly possible for P1 and P2 to be true and yet for C to be false.
It all appears to be so simple that there is danger of your switch-
ing off. But don’t do that quite yet or you might miss something very
important. And that is that deductive logic cannot establish the truth
of any of the statements involved in the procedure. All that the logic
can tell us (but this much is very important!) is that if the premises
are true and the argument is logically valid, then the conclusion is
true. In order to get this clear let us look at a final example:

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P1: All planets have a buried ocean.

P2: Mercury is a planet.
C: Mercury has a buried ocean.

This is a logically valid argument even though statement P1 and

statement C are (so far as we know) false. The argument says only that
if P1 and P2 were true, then C should be true, which is perfectly valid.
This sort of thing may seem strange to us at first,
but it can help us grasp that logic can only criticise
Logic has to do with the argument and check whether it is valid or not.
the way in which It cannot tell us whether any or all of the premises
some statements are or conclusion are true. Logic has to do with the way
derived from others, in which some statements are derived from others,
not with the truth of not with the truth of those statements.
those statements. We should also note that deductive inference
plays a central role in pure mathematics where
theories are constructed by means of making de-
ductions from explicitly given axioms, as in Euclidean geometry. The
results (or theorems, as they are usually called) are said to be true if
there is a logically valid chain of deductions deriving them from the
axioms. Such deductive proofs give a certainty (granted the consist-
ency of the axioms) that is not attainable in the inductive sciences.
In practice induction and deduction are usually both involved
in establishing scientific theories. We referred above to Kepler’s use
of deduction in deriving his theory that Mars moved in an ellipse
round the sun. However, he first thought of the ellipse (rather than,
say, the parabola or the hyperbola) because the observations of Brahe
led Kepler to believe the orbit of Mars was roughly egg-shaped. The
egg shape was initially conjectured as a result of induction from as-
tronomical observations.

Competing hypotheses can cover the same data

But here we should notice that when it comes to interpreting the data
we have collected, different hypotheses can be constructed to cover
that data. We have two illustrations of this.
Illustration from astronomy. Under the role of deduction above
we discussed two hypotheses from ancient astronomy that were put

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forward to explain the motion of the planets. Successive refinements

of the epicyclic model appeared to cover the data at the expense
of greater and greater complication in that more and more circles
were necessary. Kepler’s proposal, by contrast, covered the data by
the simple device of replacing the complex array of circles by one
single ellipse, which simplified the whole business enormously. Now,
if we knew nothing of gravity and the deduction of elliptical orbits
that can be made from it by means of Newton’s laws, how would we
choose between the two explanations?
At this point, scientists might well invoke the principle sometimes
called ‘Occam’s razor’, after William of Occam. This is the belief that
simpler explanations of natural phenomena are more likely to be cor-
rect than more complex ones. More precisely, the idea is that if we
have two or more competing hypotheses covering the same data, we
should choose the one that involves the least number of assumptions
or complications. The metaphorical use of the word ‘razor’ comes
from this cutting or shaving down to the smallest possible number
of assumptions. Occam’s razor has proved very useful but we should
observe that it is a philosophical preference, and
it is not something that you can prove to be true
in every case, so it needs to be used with care. The principle
Illustration from physics. Another illustra­ sometimes called
tion of the way in which different hypotheses ‘Occam’s razor’, after
can account for the same data is given by a com- William of Occam
mon exercise in school physics. We are given a . . . is the belief that
spring, a series of weights and a ruler and asked simpler explanations of
to plot a graph of the length of the spring against natural phenomena
the weight hanging on the end of it. We end up are more likely to be
with a series, say, of 10 points on the paper that correct than more
look as if they might (with a bit of imagination!) complex ones.
lie on a straight line. We take an inductive step
and draw a straight line that goes through most
of the points and we claim that there is a linear relationship between
the length of spring and the tension it is put under by the weights
(Hooke’s law). But then we reflect that there is an infinite number
of curves that can be drawn through our ten points. Changing the
curve would change the relation between spring length and ten-
sion. Why not choose one of those other curves in preference to the

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straight line? That is, in the situation just described, there are many
different hypotheses that cover the same set of data. How do you
choose between them?
Application of Occam’s razor would lead to choosing the most el-
egant or economical solution—a straight line is simpler than a com-
plicated curve. We could also repeat the experiment with 100 points,
200 points, etc. The results would build up our confidence that the
straight line was the correct answer. When we build up evidence in
this way, we say that we have cumulative evidence for the validity of
our hypothesis.
So far we have been looking at various methods employed by
scientists and have seen that none of them yields 100% certainty, ex-
cept in deductive proofs in mathematics where the certainty is that
particular conclusions follow from particular axioms. However, we
would emphasise once more that this does not mean that the scien-
tific enterprise is about to collapse! Far from it. What we mean by
‘not giving 100% certainty’ can be interpreted as saying that there is
a small probability that a particular result or theory is false. But that
does not mean that we cannot have confidence in the theory.
Indeed there are some situations, as in the litmus-paper test for
acid where there has been 100% success in the past. Now whereas
this does not formally guarantee 100% success in the future, scien-
tists will say that it is a fact that litmus paper turns red on being
dipped in acid. By a ‘fact’, they mean, as palaeontologist Stephen
Jay Gould has delightfully put it, ‘confirmed to such a degree that it
would be perverse to withhold provisional assent to it’.3
On other occasions we are prepared to trust our lives to the find-
ings of science and technology even though we know we do not have
100% certainty. For example, before we travel by train, we know that
it is theoretically possible for something to go wrong, maybe for the
brakes or signalling to fail and cause the train to crash. But we also
know from the statistics of rail travel that the probability of such an
event is very small indeed (though it is not zero—trains have from
time to time crashed). Since the probability of a crash is so small, most
of us who travel by train do so without even thinking about the risk.
On the other hand we must not assume that we can accept all

3 Gould, ‘Evolution as Fact and Theory’, 119.

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proposed hypotheses arrived at by scientific method as absolute fact

without testing them.
One of the criteria of testing is called falsifiability.

Falsifiability

Karl Popper put the emphasis not on the verifiability of a hypothesis

but on its falsifiability. It is unfortunate that Popper’s terminology can
be a real source of confusion, since the adjective ‘falsifiable’ does not
mean ‘will turn out to be false’! The confusion is even worse when
one realises, on the other hand, that the verb ‘to falsify’ means ‘to
demonstrate that something is false’! The term ‘falsifiable’ has in fact
a technical meaning. A hypothesis is said to be falsifiable if you can
think of a logically possible set of observations that would be incon-
sistent with it.
It is, of course, much easier to falsify a universal statement than
to verify it. As an illustration, take one of our earlier examples. The
statement ‘All swans are white’ is, from the very
start, falsifiable. One would only have to discover
one swan that was black and that would falsify it. The term ‘falsifiable’
And since we know that black swans do exist, the has in fact a
statement has long since been falsified. technical meaning:
However, there can be problems. Most scien- a hypothesis is said
tific activity is much more complex than dealing to be falsifiable if
with claims like ‘All swans are white’! you can think of a
For example, in the nineteenth century obser- logically possible
vations of the planet Uranus appeared to indicate set of observations
that its motion was inconsistent with predictions that would be
made on the basis of Newton’s laws. Therefore, it ­inconsistent with it.
appeared to threaten to demonstrate Newton’s
laws to be false. However, instead of immedi-
ately saying that Newton’s laws had been falsified, it was suggested
by French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier and English astronomer
John Couch Adams (unknown to each other) that there might be
a hitherto undetected planet in the neighbourhood of Uranus that
would account for its apparently anomalous behaviour. As a result
another scientist, German astronomer Johann Galle, was prompted
to look for a new planet and discovered the planet Neptune.

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It would, therefore, have been incorrect to regard the behaviour of

Uranus as falsifying Newton’s laws. The problem was ignorance of the
initial conditions—there was a planet missing in the configuration be-
ing studied. In other words, some of the crucial data was missing. This
story demonstrates one of the problems inherent in Popper’s approach.
When observation does not fit theory, it could be that the theory is
false, but it could equally well be that the theory is correct but the data
is incomplete or even false, or that some of the auxiliary assumptions
are incorrect. How can you judge what is the correct picture?
Most scientists in fact feel that Popper’s ideas are far too pessimis-
tic and his methodology too counter-intuitive. Their experience and
intuition tell them that their scientific methods in fact enable them
to get a better and better understanding of the universe, that they are
in this sense getting a tighter grip on reality. One benefit of Popper’s
approach, however, is its insistence that scientific theories be testable.

Repeatability and abduction

The scientific activity we have been thinking of so far is character-

ised by repeatability. That is, we have considered situations where
scientists are looking for universally valid laws that cover repeatable
phenomena, laws which, like Newton’s laws of motion, may be experi-
mentally tested again and again. Sciences of this sort are often called
inductive or nomological sciences (Gk. nomos = law) and between
them they cover most of science.
However there are major areas of scientific enquiry where re-
peatability is not possible, notably study of the origin of the universe
and the origin and development of life.
Now of course we do not mean to imply that science has nothing
to say about phenomena that are non-repeatable. On the contrary, if
one is to judge by the amount of literature published, particularly,
but not only, at the popular level, the origin of the universe and of
life, for example, are among the most interesting subjects by far that
science addresses.
But precisely because of the importance of such non-repeatable
phenomena, it is vital to see that the way in which they are accessible
to science is not the same in general as the way in which repeatable
phenomena are. For theories about both kinds of phenomena tend to

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be presented to the public in the powerful name of science as though

they had an equal claim to be accepted. Thus there is a real danger
that the public ascribes the same authority and validity to conjec-
tures about non-repeatable events that are not capable of experimen-
tal verification as it does to those theories that have been confirmed
by repeated experiment.
Physical chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi points out that
the study of how something originates is usually very different from
the study of how it operates, although, of course, clues to how some-
thing originated may well be found in how it operates. It is one thing
to investigate something repeatable in the labora-
tory, such as dissecting a frog to see how its nervous
system functions, but it is an altogether different How the universe
thing to study something non-repeatable, such as works is one thing,
how frogs came to exist in the first place. And, on yet how it came
the large scale, how the universe works is one thing, to be may be
yet how it came to be may be quite another. quite another.
The most striking difference between the study
of non-repeatable and repeatable phenomena is that
the method of induction is no longer applicable, since we no longer
have a sequence of observations or experiments to induce from, nor
any repetition in the future to predict about! The principal method
that applies to non-repeatable phenomena is abduction.
Although this term, introduced by logician Charles Peirce in the
nineteenth century, may be unfamiliar, the underlying idea is very
familiar. For abduction is what every good detective does in order to
clear up a murder mystery! With the murder mystery a certain event
has happened. No one doubts that it has happened. The question is:
who or what was the cause of it happening? And often in the search
for causes of an event that has already happened, abduction is the
only method available.
As an example of abductive inference, think of the following:
Data: Ivan’s car went over the cliff edge and he was killed.
Inference: If the car brakes had failed, then the car would
have gone over the cliff.

Abductive conclusion: There is reason to suppose that the

brakes failed.

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However, an alternative suggests itself (especially to avid readers

of detective stories): if someone had pushed Ivan’s car over the cliff,
the result would have been the same! It would be fallacious and very
foolish to assume that just because we had thought of one explana-
tion of the circumstances, that it was the only one.
The basic idea of abduction is given by the following scheme:
Data: A is observed.
Inference: If B were true then A would follow.
Abductive conclusion: There is reason to
suppose B may be true.

Of course, there may well be another hypothesis, C, of which we

could say: if C were true A would follow. Indeed, there may be many
candidates for C.
The detective in our story has a procedure for considering them
one by one. He may first consider the chance hypothesis, B, that the
brakes failed. He may then consider the hypothesis C that it was no
chance event, but deliberately designed by a murderer who pushed the
car over the cliff. Or the detective may consider an even more sophisti-
cated hypothesis, D, combining both chance and design, that someone
who wanted to kill Ivan had tampered with the brakes of the car so that
they would fail somewhere, and they happened to fail on the clifftop!
Inference to the best explanation. Our detective story illustrates
how the process of abduction throws up plausible hypotheses and
forces upon us the question as to which of the hypotheses best fits
the data. In order to decide that question, the hypotheses are com-
pared for their explanatory power: how much of the data do they
cover, does the theory make coherent sense, is it consistent with other
areas of our knowledge, etc.?
In order to answer these further questions, deduction will often
be used. For example, if B in the detective story is true, then we would
expect an investigation of the brakes of the wrecked car to reveal worn
or broken parts. If C is true we would deduce that the brakes might
well be found in perfect order, whereas if D were the case, we might
expect to find marks of deliberate damage to the hydraulic braking
system. If we found such marks then D would immediately be re-
garded as the best of the competing explanations given so far, since it
has a greater explanatory power than the others.

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Thus, abduction together with the subsequent comparison of

competing hypotheses may be regarded as an ‘inference to the best
explanation’. This is the essence not only of detective and legal work
but also of the work of the historian. Both detective and historian
have to infer the best possible explanation from the available data af-
ter the events in which they are interested have occurred.
For more on the application of abduction in the natural sciences,
particularly in cosmology and biology, see the books by John Lennox
noted at the end of this Appendix. Here we need to consider a few
more of the general issues related to the scientific endeavour.

EXPLAINING EXPLANATIONS

Levels of explanation

Science explains. This, for many people encapsulates the power and
the fascination of science. Science enables us to understand what we
did not understand before and, by giving us understanding, it gives
us power over nature. But what do we mean by saying that ‘science
explains’?
In informal language we take an explanation of something to be
adequate when the person to whom the explanation is given under-
stands plainly what he or she did not understand before. However,
we must try to be more precise about what we mean by the process of
‘explanation’, since it has different aspects that are often confused. An
illustration can help us. We have considered a similar idea in relation
to roses. Let’s now take further examples.
Suppose Aunt Olga has baked a beautiful cake. She displays it to
a gathering of the world’s top scientists and we ask them for an expla-
nation of the cake. The nutrition scientists will tell us about the num-
ber of calories in the cake and its nutritional effect; the biochemists
will inform us about the structure of the proteins, fats, etc. in the
cake and what it is that causes them to hold together; the chemists
will enumerate the elements involved and describe their bonding;
the physicists will be able to analyse the cake in terms of fundamen-
tal particles; and the mathematicians will offer us a set of beauti-
ful equations to describe the behaviour of those particles. Suppose,

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then, that these experts have given us an exhaustive description of

the cake, each in terms of his or her scientific discipline. Can we say
that the cake is now completely explained? We have certainly been
given a description of how the cake was made and how its various
constituent elements relate to each other. But suppose we now ask
the assembled group of experts why the cake was made. We notice
the grin on Aunt Olga’s face. She knows the answer since, after all,
she made the cake! But if she does not reveal the answer by telling us,
it is clear that no amount of scientific analysis will give us the answer.
Thus, although science can answer ‘how’ questions in terms of
causes and mechanisms, it cannot answer ‘why’ questions, questions
of purpose and intention—teleological questions, as they are some-
times called (Gk. telos = end or goal).
However, it would be nonsensical to suggest that Aunt Olga’s an-
swer to the teleological question, that she made the cake for Sam’s
birthday, say, contradicted the scientific analysis of the cake! No. The
two kinds of answer are clearly logically compatible.
And yet exactly the same confusion of categories is evidenced
when atheists argue that there is no longer need to bring in God and
the supernatural to explain the workings of na-
ture, since we now have a scientific explanation
Although science can for them. As a result, the general public has
answer ‘how’ questions come to think that belief in a creator belongs
in terms of causes to a primitive and unsophisticated stage of hu-
and mechanisms, it man thinking and has been rendered both un-
cannot answer ‘why’ necessary and impossible by science.
questions, questions of But there is an obvious fallacy here. Think
purpose and intention. of a Ford motor car. It is conceivable that a
primitive person who was seeing one for the
first time and who did not understand the prin-
ciples of an internal combustion engine, might imagine that there
was a god (Mr Ford) inside the engine, making it go. He might fur-
ther imagine that when the engine ran sweetly that was because Mr
Ford inside the engine liked him, and when it refused to go that was
because Mr Ford did not like him. Of course, if eventually this primi-
tive person became civilised, learned engineering, and took the en-
gine to pieces, he would discover that there was no Mr Ford inside
the engine, and that he did not need to introduce Mr Ford as an ex-

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planation for the working of the engine. His grasp of the impersonal
principles of internal combustion would be altogether enough to ex-
plain how the engine worked. So far, so good. But if he then decided
that his understanding of the principles of the internal combustion
engine made it impossible to believe in the existence of a Mr Ford
who designed the engine, this would be patently false!

FIGURE Ap.2. Model T Ford Motor Car.

Introducing the world’s first moving
assembly line in 1913, Ford Motor
Company built more than 15 million
Model Ts from 1908 until 1927.

Reproduced with permission of © iStock/Peter Mah.

It is likewise a confusion of categories to suppose that our under-

standing of the impersonal principles according to which the uni-
verse works makes it either unnecessary or impossible to believe in
the existence of a personal creator who designed, made and upholds
the great engine that is the universe. In other words, we should not
confuse the mechanisms by which the universe works with its Cause.
Every one of us knows how to distinguish between the consciously
willed movement of an arm for a purpose and an involuntary spas-
modic movement of an arm induced by accidental contact with an
electric current.
Michael Poole, Visiting Research Fellow, Science and Religion, at
King’s College London, in his published debate on science and reli-
gion with Richard Dawkins, puts it this way:
There is no logical conflict between reason-giving explanations
which concern mechanisms, and reason-giving explanations
which concern the plans and purposes of an agent, human or
divine. This is a logical point, not a matter of whether one does
or does not happen to believe in God oneself.4
4 Poole, ‘Critique of Aspects of the Philosophy and Theology of Richard Dawkins’, 49.

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One of the authors, in a debate with Richard Dawkins, noted

how his opponent was confusing the categories of mechanism and
agency:
When Isaac Newton, for example, discovered his law of gravity
and wrote down the equations of motion, he didn’t say, ‘Mar-
vellous, I now understand it. I’ve got a mechanism therefore I
don’t need God.’ In fact it was the exact opposite. It was because
he understood the complexity of sophistication of the math-
ematical description of the universe that his praise for God was
increased. And I would like to suggest, Richard, that some-
where down in this you’re making a category mistake, because
you’re confusing mechanism with agency. We have a mecha-
nism that does XYZ, therefore there’s no need for an agent. I
would suggest that the sophistication of the mechanism, and
science rejoices in finding such mechanisms, is evidence for the
sheer wonder of the creative genius of God.5
In spite of the clarity of the logic expressed in these counterpoints,
a famous statement made by the French mathematician Laplace is
constantly misappropriated to support atheism. On being asked by
Napoleon where God fitted in to his mathematical work, Laplace re-
plied: ‘Sir, I have no need of that hypothesis.’ Of course, God did
not appear in Laplace’s mathematical description of how things work,
just as Mr Ford would not appear in a scientific description of the
laws of internal combustion. But what does that prove? Such an ar-
gument can no more be used to prove that God does not exist than it
can be used to prove that Mr Ford does not exist.
To sum up, then, it is important to be aware of the danger of con-
fusing different levels of explanation and of thinking that one level of
explanation tells the whole story.
This leads us at once to consider the related question of reduc­
tionism.

5 Lennox’s response to Dawkins’s first thesis ‘Faith is blind; science is evidence-based’, ‘The

God Delusion Debate’, hosted by Fixed Point Foundation, University of Alabama at Bir-
mingham, filmed and broadcast live 3 October 2007, http://fixed-point.org/index.php/video/
35-full-length/164-the-dawkins-lennox-debate. Transcript provided courtesy of ProTorah,
http://www.protorah.com/god-delusion-debate-dawkins-lennox-transcript/.

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Reductionism

In order to study something, especially if it is complex, scientists often

split it up into separate parts or aspects and thus ‘reduce’ it to simpler
components that are individually easier to investigate. This kind of re-
ductionism, often called methodological or structural reductionism,
is part of the normal process of science and has proved very useful.
It is, however, very important to bear in mind that there may well be,
and usually is, more to a given whole than simply what we obtain by
adding up all that we have learned from the parts. Studying all the
parts of a watch separately will never enable you to grasp how the
complete watch works as an integrated whole.
Besides methodological reductionism there are two further types
of reductionism, epistemological and ontological. Epistemological re-
ductionism is the view that higher level sciences can be explained
without remainder by the sciences at a lower level. That is, chemis-
try is explained by physics; biochemistry by chemistry; biology by
biochemistry; psychology by biology; sociology by brain science;
and theology by sociology. As Francis Crick puts it: ‘The ultimate
aim of the modern development in biology is in fact to explain all
biology in terms of physics and chemistry.’ 6 The
former Charles Simonyi Professor of the Pub-
lic Understanding of Science at Oxford, Richard The ultimate goal
Dawkins, holds the same view: ‘My task is to ex- of reductionism is to
plain elephants, and the world of complex things, reduce all human
in terms of the simple things that physicists either behaviour, our
understand, or are working on.’ The ultimate goal
7
likes and dislikes,
of reductionism is to reduce all human behaviour, the entire mental
our likes and dislikes, the entire mental landscape landscape of our
of our lives, to physics. lives, to physics.
However, both the viability and the plausibility
of this programme are open to serious question.
The outstanding Russian psychologist Leo Vygotsky (1896–1934) was
critical of certain aspects of this reductionist philosophy as applied
to psychology. He pointed out that such reductionism often conflicts

6 Crick, Of Molecules and Men, 10.

7 Dawkins, Blind Watchmaker, 15.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

with the goal of preserving all the basic features of a phenomenon

or event that one wishes to explain. For example, one can reduce
water (H2O) into H and O. However, hydrogen burns and oxygen is
necessary for burning, whereas water has neither of these properties,
but has many others that are not possessed by either hydrogen or
oxygen. Thus, Vygotsky’s view was that reductionism can only be
done up to certain limits. Karl Popper says: ‘There is almost always
an unresolved residue left by even the most successful attempts at
reduction.’ 8
Furthermore, Michael Polanyi argues the intrinsic implausibility
of expecting epistemological reductionism to work in every circum-
stance.9 Think of the various levels of process involved in building an
office building with bricks. First of all there is the process of extract-
ing the raw materials out of which the bricks have to be made. Then
there are the successively higher levels of making the bricks, they do
not make themselves; bricklaying, the bricks do not self-assemble;
designing the building, it does not design itself; and planning the
town in which the building is to be built, it does not organise itself.
Each level has its own rules. The laws of physics and chemistry gov-
ern the raw material of the bricks; technology prescribes the art of
brick making; architecture teaches the builders, and the architects
are controlled by the town planners. Each level is controlled by the
level above, but the reverse is not true. The laws of a higher level can-
not be derived from the laws of a lower level (although, of course
what can be done at a higher level will depend on the lower levels:
for example, if the bricks are not strong there will be a limit on the
height of a building that can be safely built with them).
Consider the page you are reading just now. It consists of paper
imprinted with ink or, in the case of an electronic version, text ren-
dered digitally. It is obvious that the physics and chemistry of ink and
paper can never, even in principle, tell you anything about the sig-
nificance of the shapes of the letters on the page. And this is nothing
to do with the fact that physics and chemistry are not yet sufficiently
advanced to deal with this question. Even if we allow these sciences
another 1,000 years of development, we can see that it will make no

8 Popper, ‘Scientific Reduction.’

9 Polanyi, Tacit Dimension.

310
 Appendix: The Scientific Endeavour

difference, because the shapes of those letters demand a totally new

and higher level of explanation than that of which physics and chem-
istry are capable. In fact, explanation can only be given in terms of
the concepts of language and authorship—the communication of a
message by a person. The ink and paper are carriers of the message,
but the message certainly does not emerge automatically from them.
Furthermore, when it comes to language itself, there is again a se-
quence of levels—you cannot derive a vocabulary from phonetics, or
the grammar of a language from its vocabulary, etc.
As is well known, the genetic material DNA carries information.
We shall describe this later on in some detail, but the basic idea is sim-
ply this. DNA, a substance found in every living cell, can be looked
at as a long tape on which there is a string of letters written in a four-
letter chemical language. The sequence of letters contains coded in-
structions (information) that the cell uses to make proteins. Physical
biochemist and theologian Arthur Peacocke writes: ‘In no way can
the concept of “information”, the concept of conveying a message, be
articulated in terms of the concepts of physics and chemistry, even
though the latter can be shown to explain how the molecular ma-
chinery (DNA, RNA and protein) operates to carry information.’ 10
In each of the situations we have described above, we have a se-
ries of levels, each one higher than the previous one. What happens
on a higher level is not completely derivable from what happens on
the level beneath it, but requires another level of explanation.
In this kind of situation it is sometimes said that the higher level
phenomena ‘emerge’ from the lower level. Unfortunately, however,
the word ‘emerge’ is easily misunderstood to mean that the higher
level properties emerge automatically from the lower level proper-
ties. This is clearly false in general, as we showed by considering brick
making and writing on paper. Yet notwithstanding the fact that both
writing on paper and DNA have in common the fact that they encode
a ‘message’, those scientists committed to materialistic philosophy
insist that the information carrying properties of DNA must have
emerged automatically out of mindless matter. For if, as materialism
insists, matter and energy are all that there is, then it logically follows

10 Peacocke, Experiment of Life, 54.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

that they must possess the inherent potential to organise themselves

in such a way that eventually all the complex molecules necessary for
life, including DNA, will emerge.11
There is a third type of reductionism, called ontological reduc-
tionism, which is frequently encountered in statements like the fol-
lowing: The universe is nothing but a collection of atoms in motion,
human beings are ‘machines for propagating DNA, and the propaga-
tion of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object’s sole
reason for living.’ 12
Words such as ‘nothing but’, ‘sole’ or ‘simply’ are the telltale sign
of (ontological) reductionist thinking. If we remove these words we
are usually left with something unobjectionable. The universe cer-
tainly is a collection of atoms and human beings do propagate DNA.
The question is, is there nothing more to it than that? Are we go-
ing to say with Francis Crick, who won the Nobel Prize jointly with
James D. Watson for his discovery of the double helix structure of
DNA: ‘  “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your
ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no
more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their
associated molecules’? 13
What shall we say of human love and fear, of concepts like beauty
and truth? Are they meaningless?
Ontological reductionism, carried to its logical conclusion, would
ask us to believe that a Rembrandt painting is nothing but molecules
of paint scattered on canvas. Physicist and theologian John Polking-
horne’s reaction is clear:
There is more to the world than physics can ever express.
One of the fundamental experiences of the scientific life is
that of wonder at the beautiful structure of the world. It is the
pay-off for all the weary hours of labour involved in the pursuit
of research. Yet in the world described by science where would
that wonder find its lodging? Or our experiences of beauty? Of
moral obligation? Of the presence of God? These seem to me

11 Whether matter and energy do have this capacity is another matter that is discussed in the
books noted at the end of this appendix.
12 Dawkins, Growing Up in the Universe (study guide), 21.

13 Crick, Astonishing Hypothesis, 3.

312
 Appendix: The Scientific Endeavour

to be quite as fundamental as anything we could measure in

the laboratory. A worldview that does not take them adequately
into account is woefully incomplete.14
The most devastating criticism of ontological reductionism is that
it is self-destructive. Polkinghorne describes its programme as ulti-
mately suicidal:
For, not only does it relegate our experiences of beauty, moral
obligation, and religious encounter to the epiphenomenal
scrap­heap. It also destroys rationality. Thought is replaced by
electrochemical neural events. Two such events cannot con-
front each other in rational discourse. They are neither right
nor wrong. They simply happen. . . . The very assertions of the
reductionist himself are nothing but blips in the neural net-
work of his brain. The world of rational discourse dissolves into
the absurd chatter of firing synapses. Quite frankly, that cannot
be right and none of us believes it to be so.15

BASIC OPERATIONAL PRESUPPOSITIONS

So far we have been concentrating on the scientific method and

have seen that this is a much more complex (and, for that reason,
a much more interesting) topic than may first
appear. As promised earlier, we must now con-
sider the implications of the fact that scientists, The widespread idea
being human like the rest of us, do not come to that any scientist,
any situation with their mind completely clear if only he or she tries
of preconceived ideas. The widespread idea that to be impartial, can
any scientist, if only he or she tries to be im- be a completely
partial, can be a completely dispassionate ob- dispassionate
server in any but the most trivial of situations, observer in any but
is a fallacy, as has been pointed out repeatedly by the most trivial of
philosophers of science and by scientists them- situations, is a fallacy.
selves. At the very least scientists must already

14 Polkinghorne, One World, 72–3.

15 Polkinghorne, One World, 92–3.

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

have formed some idea or theory about the nature of what they are
about to study.

Observation is dependent on theory

It is simply not possible to make observations and do experiments

without any presuppositions. Consider, for example, the fact that
science, by its very nature, has to be selective. It would clearly be
impossible to take every aspect of any given object of study into ac-
count. Scientists must therefore choose what variables are likely to
be important and what are not. For example, physicists do not think
of taking into account the colour of billiard balls when they are con-
ducting a laboratory investigation of the application of Newton’s laws
to motion: but the shape of the balls is very ­important—­cubical balls
would not be much use! In making such choices, scientists are in-
evitably guided by already formed ideas and theories about what the
important factors are likely to be. The problem is that such ideas may
sometimes be wrong and cause scientists to miss vital aspects of a
problem to such an extent that they draw false conclusions. A famous
story about the physicist Heinrich Hertz illustrates this.
Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory predicted that radio and light
waves would be propagated with the same velocity. Hertz designed
an experiment to check this and found that the velocities were dif-
ferent. His mistake, only discovered after his death, was that he did
not think that the shape of his laboratory could have any influence
on the results of his experiment. Unfortunately for him, it did. Radio
waves were reflected from the walls and distorted his results.
The validity of his observations depended on the (preconceived)
theory that the shape of the laboratory was irrelevant to his experiment.
The fact that this preconception was false invalidated his conclusions.
This story also points up another difficulty. How does one decide
in this kind of situation whether it is the theory or the experiment
that is at fault, whether one should trust the results of the experiment
and abandon the theory and look for a better one, or whether one
should keep on having faith in the theory and try to discover what
was wrong with the experiment? There is no easy answer to this ques-
tion. A great deal will depend on the experience and judgment of the
scientists involved, and, inevitably, mistakes can and will be made.

314
 Appendix: The Scientific Endeavour

 nowledge cannot be gained without

K
making certain assumptions to start with

Scientists not only inevitably have preconceived ideas about particu-

lar situations, as illustrated by the story about Hertz, but their science
is done within a framework of general assumptions about science
as such. World-famous Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin writes:
‘Scientists, like other intellectuals, come to their work with a world
view, a set of preconceptions that provides the framework for their
analysis of the world.’16
And those preconceptions can significantly affect scientists’ re-
search methods as well as their results and interpretations of those
results, as we shall see.
We would emphasise, however, that the fact that scientists have
presuppositions is not to be deprecated. That would, in fact be a non-
sensical attitude to adopt. For the voice of logic reminds us that we
cannot get to know anything if we are not prepared to presuppose
something. Let’s unpack this idea by thinking about a common at-
titude. ‘I am not prepared to take anything for granted’, says some-
one, ‘I will only accept something if you prove it to me.’ Sounds
­reasonable—but it isn’t. For if this is your view then you will never
accept or know anything! For suppose I want you to accept some
proposition A. You will only accept it if I prove it to you. But I shall
have to prove it to you on the basis of some other proposition B. You
will only accept B if I prove it to you. I shall have to prove B to you
on the basis of C. And so it will go on forever in what is called an
infinite r­ egress—that is, if you insist on taking nothing for granted
in the first place!
We must all start somewhere with things we take as self-evident,
basic assumptions that are not proved on the basis of something else.
They are often called axioms.17 Whatever axioms we adopt, we then
proceed to try to make sense of the world by building on those

16 Lewontin, Dialectical Biologist, 267.

17 It should be borne in mind, however, that the axioms which appear in various branches of
pure mathematics, for example, the theory of numbers or the theory of groups, do not appear
out of nowhere. They usually arise from the attempt to encapsulate and formalise years, some-
times centuries, of mathematical research, into a so-called ‘axiomatic system’.

315
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

axioms. This is true, not only at the worldview level but also in all of
our individual disciplines. We retain those axioms that prove useful
in the sense that they lead to theories which show a better ‘fit’ with
nature and experience, and we abandon or modify those which do
not fit so well. One thing is absolutely clear: none of us can avoid
starting with assumptions.

 aining knowledge involves trusting

G
our senses and other people

There are essentially two sources from which we accumulate knowl-

edge:
1. directly by our own ‘hands-on’ experience, for example,
by accidentally putting our finger in boiling water, we
learn that boiling water scalds;
2. we learn all kinds of things from sources external to
ourselves, for example, teachers, books, parents, the
media, etc.
In doing so we all constantly exercise faith. We intuitively trust
our senses, even though we know they deceive us on times. For ex-
ample, in extremely cold weather, if we put our hand on a metal
handrail outside, the rail may feel hot to our touch.
We have faith, too, in our minds to interpret our senses, though
here again we know that our minds can be deceived.
We also normally believe what other people tell us—teachers,
parents, friends, etc. Sometimes we check what we learn from them
because, without insulting them, we realise that even friends can
be mistaken, and other people may set out to deceive us. However,
much more often than not, we accept things on authority—if only
because no one has time to check everything! In technical matters
we trust our textbooks. We have faith in what (other) scientists have
done. And it is, of course, reasonable so to do, though those experts
themselves would teach us to be critical and not just to accept eve-
rything on their say-so. They would remind us also that the fact that
a statement appears in print in a book, does not make it automati-
cally true!

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 Appendix: The Scientific Endeavour

Gaining scientific knowledge involves belief

in the rational intelligibility of the universe

We all take so much for granted the fact that we can use human rea-
son as a probe to investigate the universe that we can fail to see that
this is really something to be wondered at. For once we begin to think
about the intelligibility of the universe, our minds demand an expla-
nation. But where can we find one? Science cannot give it to us, for
the very simple reason that science has to assume the rational intel-
ligibility of the universe in order to get started. Einstein himself, in
the same article we quoted earlier, makes this very clear in saying that
the scientist’s belief in the rational intelligibility of the universe goes
beyond science and is in its very nature essentially religious:
Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly im-
bued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This
source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion.
To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the
regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is,
comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scien-
tist without that profound faith.18
Einstein saw no reason to be embarrassed by the fact that sci-
ence involves at its root belief in something that science itself cannot
justify.
Allied to belief in the rational intelligibility of the universe is
the belief that patterns and law-like behaviour are to be expected in
nature. The Greeks expressed this by using the word cosmos which
means ‘ordered’. It is this underlying expectation of order that lies be-
hind the confidence with which scientists use the inductive method.
Scientists speak of their belief in the uniformity of nature—the idea
that the order in nature and the laws that describe it are valid at all
times and in all parts of the universe.
Many theists from the Jewish, Islamic or Christian tradition
would want to modify this concept of the uniformity of nature by
adding their conviction that God the Creator has built regularities

18 Einstein, Out of My Later Years, 26.

317
 QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE
FIGURE Ap.3. Milky Way Galaxy.
The Milky Way galaxy is visible from earth on clear nights
away from urban areas. Appearing as a cloud in the night
sky, our galaxy’s spiral bands of dust and glowing nebulae
consist of billions of stars as seen from the inside.

Reproduced with permission of © iStock/Viktar.

into the working of the universe so that in general we can speak

of uniformity—the norms to which nature normally operates. But
because God is the Creator, he is not a prisoner of those regularities
but can vary them by causing things to happen that do not fit into
the regular pattern.
Here, again, commitment to the uniformity of nature is a matter
of belief. Science cannot prove to us that nature is uniform, since we
must assume the uniformity of nature in order to do science. Other-
wise we would have no confidence that, if we repeat an experiment
under the same conditions as it was done before, we shall get the
same result. Were it so, our school textbooks would be useless. But
surely, we might say, the uniformity of nature is highly probable
since assuming it has led to such stunning scientific advance. How-
ever, as C. S. Lewis has observed: ‘Can we say that Uniformity is at
any rate very probable? Unfortunately not. We have just seen that all
probabilities depend on it. Unless Nature is uniform, nothing is ei-
ther probable or improbable.’ 19

19 Lewis, Miracles, 163.

318
 APPENDIX: THE ScIENTIFIc ENDEAVOUR

Operating within the reigning paradigms

Thomas Kuhn in his famous book The Structure of Scientific Revo-

lutions (1962) pictured science as preceding through the following
stages: pre-science, normal science, crisis revolution, new normal sci-
ence, new crisis, and so on. Pre-science is the diverse and disorgan-
ised activity characterised by much disagreement that precedes the
emergence of a new science that gradually becomes structured when
a scientific community adheres to a paradigm. The paradigm is a web
of assumptions and theories that are more or less agreed upon and
are like the steelwork around which the scientific edifice is erected.
Well-known examples are the paradigms of Copernican astronomy,
Newtonian mechanics and evolutionary biology.
Normal science is then practised within the paradigm. It sets the
standards for legitimate research. The normal scientist uses the para-
digm to probe nature. He or she does not (often) look critically at
the paradigm itself, because it commands so much agreement, much
as we look down the light of a torch to illuminate an object, rather
than look critically at the light of the torch itself. For this reason the

319
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

paradigm will be very resistant to attempts to demonstrate that it is

false. When anomalies, difficulties and apparent falsifications turn
up, the normal scientists will hope to be able to accommodate them
preferably within the paradigm or by making fine adjustments to the
paradigm. However, if the difficulties can no longer be resolved and
keep on piling up, a crisis situation develops, which leads to a scien-
tific revolution involving the emergence of a new paradigm that then
gains the ground to such an extent that the older paradigm is even-
tually completely abandoned. The essence of such a paradigm shift
is the replacing of an old paradigm by a new one, not the refining of
the old one by the new. The best known example of a major paradigm
shift is the transition from Aristotelian geocentric (earth-centred)
astronomy to Copernican heliocentric (sun-centred) astronomy in
the sixteenth century.
Although Kuhn’s work is open to criticism at various points, he
has certainly made scientists aware of a number of issues that are
important for our understanding of how science works:
1. the central role that metaphysical ideas play in the develop-
ment of scientific theories;
2. the high resistance that paradigms show to attempts to
prove them false;
3. the fact that science is subject to human frailty.
The second of these points has both a positive and a negative
outworking. It means that a good paradigm will not be overturned
automatically by the first experimental result or observation that ap-
pears to speak against it. On the other hand, it means that a para-
digm which eventually proves to be inadequate or false, may take a
long time to die and impede scientific progress by constraining sci-
entists within its mesh and not giving them the freedom they need
to explore radically new ideas that would yield real scientific advance.
It is important to realise that paradigms themselves are often in-
fluenced at a very deep level by worldview considerations. We saw
earlier that there are essentially two fundamental worldviews, the
materialistic and the theistic. It seems to be the case in science that
there is sometimes a tacit understanding that only paradigms which
are based on materialism are admissible as scientific. Richard Dawk-
ins, for example, says, ‘the kind of explanation we come up with must

320
 Appendix: The Scientific Endeavour

not contradict the laws of physics. Indeed it will make use of the laws
of physics, and nothing more than the laws of physics.’ 20 It is the
words ‘nothing more than’ that show that Dawkins is only prepared
to accept reductionist, materialistic explanations.

Further reading
Books by John Lennox:
God and Stephen Hawking: Whose Design Is It Anyway? (Lion, 2011)
God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (Lion, 2009)
Gunning for God: A Critique of the New Atheism (Lion, 2011)
Miracles: Is Belief in the Supernatural Irrational? VeriTalks Vol. 2. (The Veritas
Forum, 2013)
Seven Days That Divide the World (Zondervan, 2011)

20 Dawkins, Blind Watchmaker, 24.

321
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 STUDY QUESTIONS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

PART 1: HOW DO WE KNOW ANYTHING?

CHAPTER 1: HOW WE PERCEIVE THE WORLD

The problem stated
1.1 Are our senses always reliable? Can any of them mislead us?
1.2 Are there things which reason, by itself, cannot decide? If so, what kinds
of things are they?
1.3 What is epistemology? How does it come by its name?
1.4 What is meant by saying that epistemology is a second-order discipline?
Why is that important?
1.5 What is the difference between a scientist’s approach to the external world,
and a philosopher’s?
1.6 Do you think we can know anything for certain about the external world?
1.7 What is scepticism? How did it first arise?
Forms of scepticism
1.8 Would you classify Socrates as a sceptic? If so, on what grounds?
1.9 How did some of Socrates’ admirers misinterpret the purpose of his
philosophical method?
1.10 How did Pyrrhonian sceptics try to prove that it was impossible to know
anything for certain? Were their arguments sound?
1.11 Consider the example of the tower. Were the sceptics right in deducing from
it that eyesight is always unreliable?
1.12 What were the motives behind the scepticism of philosophers like Sextus
Empiricus? Do you approve?
1.13 Does the fact that we cannot know everything about everything mean that
we cannot know anything for certain about anything?
Examples of extreme scepticism
1.14 Why was Descartes interested more in science than in philosophy?
1.15 In what respects did Descartes’ assumptions about the universe differ from
the Aristotelian tradition?
1.16 How did Descartes regard the information we get from our senses?
1.17 What was Descartes trying to achieve by doubting all he possibly could?
1.18 What for Descartes was the final guarantee of the possibility of reliable
knowledge?
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

1.19 Put in your own words the sceptic’s ‘brain-in-a-vat’ argument. What is he
seeking to prove by this analogy?
1.20 Why do some philosophers say that the sceptic’s challenge is unanswerable?
1.21 Have we any reason for supposing that our human brains are anything like a
‘brain in a vat wired up to a computer’?
1.22 Do you agree that there is a fatal flaw in the sceptic’s analogy that forbids our
taking it seriously? If so, what is it?
1.23 What do you think is the source of human rationality? What gives it its
validity?
1.24 How did G. E. Moore try to establish that we can know that the external
world exists? Are you convinced by his demonstration?
How do we perceive the external world?
1.25 What do you understand by the terms Direct Realism and the Representative
Theory of Perception?
1.26 If the Representative Theory were true, what would its implication be for the
possibility of our perceiving what the external world is really like?
1.27 What are the different connotations of the verbs ‘seeing’ and ‘perceiving’?
1.28 What is the difference between seeing an event and seeing a fact?
1.29 What are the main kinds of argument brought against Direct Realism?
1.30 What is a mirage? Is it true to say that when a person sees a mirage, he or she
is actually seeing a real objective phenomenon? If so, what phenomenon?
1.31 Why does a straight stick, partly submerged in water, look bent?
1.32 What is meant by the laws of perspective?
1.33 Why is it important not to depend on one sense alone?
1.34 What does the thought experiment with the train teach us?
1.35 What are the strengths and weaknesses of
(a) the Representative Theory of Perception;
(b) Direct Realism?
1.36 Explain Roger Scruton’s argument in your own words.
1.37 Do you think that we can have direct perception of at least some things in
the external world?

CHAPTER 2: FALSE ALTERNATIVES AT THE EXTREMES

Idealism and realism
2.1 What do you understand by the philosophical term ‘Idealism’?
2.2 How would you describe the difference between ‘Idealism’ and ‘Realism’?
2.3 What is meant by saying that if there were no minds, there would be no pain?
2.4 How would you refute George Berkeley’s views?
2.5 Would a flower in a remote valley have any fragrance if no one ever smelt it?
2.6 Is it true to say that when we study nature we can understand only what fits
in with our preconceived concepts?

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2.7 Cite examples of the way that modern scientific discoveries have changed
previously held concepts.
2.8 Are you an idealist or a realist?
Knowledge is subjective and knowledge is objective
2.9 In what sense is the term ‘subject’ used in epistemology?
2.10 What is meant by saying that in solving problems or in getting to know the
world of physics, botany, biology or cookery we have to use creative thinking?
2.11 Do the constellations in the sky have any significance beyond what we give
them? Or do they provide an objective way of marking the seasons, whether
we notice them or not?
2.12 By what processes did John Locke think that we human beings gain
knowledge of the external world?
2.13 Why did N. A. Berdyaev reject Locke’s view?
2.14 How different is the Bible’s view of the material world from that espoused by
Hinduism and Neoplatonism?
2.15 What is meant by saying that, to be true, our knowledge of the external
world must always be checked against objective reality?
Rationalism and empiricism
2.16 What is the meaning of the actual words ‘Rationalism’ and ‘Empiricism’?
2.17 What is the difference between Rationalism and Empiricism as positions in
epistemology?
2.18 What was the Enlightenment and why was it so named?
2.19 What slogan did Kant give to the Enlightenment thinkers? What did it mean
in its historical context?
2.20 In what sense was Aristotle’s view of the universe dualistic?
2.21 What effect did Galileo’s and Newton’s discoveries have on Aristotle’s
cosmology?
Locke’s epistemological theory
2.22 According to Locke by what means and processes do we acquire our
knowledge of the external world?
2.23 Did Locke, the empiricist, disagree with Descartes, the rationalist? What
similarities were there between their views?
2.24 What was the basic difference between empiricism and rationalism?
2.25 What did Leibniz mean by ‘necessary truths’ and ‘contingent truths’? Give
examples of the difference between them.
2.26 What, according to Leibniz, was the basic weakness in Locke’s empiricism?
2.27 What validation did Locke say was necessary for abstract mathematical
theories? What is the significance of N. O. Lossky’s work?
2.28 What kind of ideas have always to be checked for validity by reference to the
external world?
2.29 Do you think human beings are born with certain innate ideas already in
their mind? What would you say about Noam Chomsky’s suggestion?

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A serious weakness in Locke’s epistemology

2.30 What does Locke mean by the term ‘ideas’? From what two sources do we
acquire them and how?
2.31 What, according to Locke, are primary qualities and what are secondary
qualities?
2.32 What difference does Locke see between ideas caused in our minds by
primary qualities in an object, and ideas caused by secondary qualities in
that object?
2.33 Locke says that a snowball has the power to produce in us three ideas. What
are they? And which of them is a primary quality in the snowball, and which
a secondary quality?
2.34 What would you say to someone who said that our idea that a snowball is
cold is false, and that there is no coldness in the snow?
2.35 What is happening when we see a lump of iron in a furnace glow red and
then white? What is the cause of this phenomenon?
2.36 Are some stars really red, and some really blue? Or is that merely how they
look to us?
2.37 Is grass really green?
2.38 What is visible light?
2.39 Is it true to say that colour is in the light?
2.40 What are the rods and cones in the eye? What is their function?
2.41 Would you say:
(a) it is my eyes that see? or
(b) it is my brain that sees? or
(c) it is I who see?
David Hume’s epistemology
2.42 What, according to Hume, are impressions and ideas?
2.43 What does Hume think is the process by which we come to know things?
2.44 How do we grasp spoken information?
2.45 How do you answer the question: What am I? Are you conscious of yourself
as a distinct, individual personality?
2.46 Would you say that when you are asleep you are non-existent?
2.47 What would you say is the significance of the human self? What is a human
being? What do you mean by a ‘person’?
2.48 What does Hume try to prove by his example of two billiard balls?
2.49 Was Hume right to say that we cannot rightly infer causes from effects? Give
examples to support your view.
2.50 Do you think that something can begin to exist without a cause?
2.51 What is meant by saying that Hume’s epistemology disintegrates the human
personality?
2.52 What is meant by saying that nothingness is the final destiny that all atheists
hope for? Is it true?
2.53 Why is communication by spoken word superior to visual communication?

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CHAPTER 3: THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF IMMANUEL KANT

Kant’s metaphysics
3.1 What is meant by calling Kant an Enlightenment philosopher?
3.2 What is the gist of his description of what the Enlightenment stood for?
3.3 What according to Kant is the difference between pure reason and practical
reason?
3.4 What effect did this distinction have on Kant’s philosophy?
3.5 Kant says that in order to engage in profitable investigation of nature, he had
to assume a divine Author of the universe. What led him to that assumption?
Would you agree with him?
3.6 On what moral grounds did Kant believe it was necessary to believe in God?
3.7 Would you agree with Kant that in order to make room for faith in God, you
must deny the possibility of rationally proving God’s existence?
3.8 What does Christ say about the possibility of knowing God in this present life?
Kant’s Copernican revolution
3.9 Why was the question of causation so important to Kant?
3.10 On what ground did Descartes reject Harvey’s explanation of the circulation
of the blood?
3.11 What was Leibniz’s argument against Newton’s theory of gravitation?
3.12 Why did Hume say that our ideas of causation are invalid?
3.13 How did Kant try to reconcile Hume’s empiricism with his own rationalism?
3.14 Where did Kant say that we get our idea of causation?
3.15 What lesson is the example of the rotten apple meant to illustrate?
3.16 What change in the process of our getting to know the external world did
Kant propose by his ‘Copernican revolution’?
3.17 What is meant by saying that nature has its own created intelligibility?
3.18 What should our true attitude to nature be in scientific research?
3.19 In what sense was Kant’s proposed Copernican revolution in philosophy the
very opposite of Copernicus’s revolution in cosmology?
3.20 What did the Greeks mean by ‘hubris’?
Kant’s First Principle of a priori synthetic knowledge
3.21 What is the difference between analytic propositions and synthetic
propositions?
3.22 Which of the following propositions are analytic and which synthetic?
(a) The sun rose at 6 a.m.
(b) The moon is the body that circles the earth.
(c) Tuesday comes after Monday.
(d) Tuesday was a wet day.
3.23 Would you agree that 7 + 5 = 12 is a synthetic proposition? If not, why not?
3.24. What are the laws of logic? How can we know for certain in advance that
they will always be true?

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3.25 What logical law forbids us to think that a birch tree is also an oak tree?
3.26 How does Kant seek to prove that our knowledge that ‘a straight line
between two points is the shortest’ is a priori synthetic? Are you convinced
by his argument?
3.27 Does it strike you as strange that we can know some things about objects
in advance without having first experienced them, met them, or heard
about them?
Kant’s Second Principle of a priori synthetic knowledge
3.28 What does Kant mean by the ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’?
3.29 What did Kant think that space is? Did he think that it really exists? If not,
how do we come to imagine it does?
3.30 Do you think that space is something? Or is it just nothing? And if it is
nothing, how can it be said to exist?
3.31 What, according to Kant, is time?
3.32 What is the difference between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries?
3.33 If Kant got his ideas of space from Newton, what does that show us about
Kant’s ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’?
3.34 Would a modern astronaut have the same idea of space and time as Kant?
The limits of knowability according to Kant: epistemology and psychology
3.35 What does Kant mean by the term phenomena?
3.36 What does Kant mean by the term noumena?
3.37 What did Kant say about the possibility of our knowing what a rainbow is,
and what rain is?
3.38 Would science agree that we cannot know what rain is in itself? Would you?
3.39 How were the views of Ernst Mach about the question of the reality of atoms
influenced by Kant’s theories?
3.40 What is meant by saying that Kant put an impassable gulf between our
mental and spiritual powers?
3.41 What do you understand by the terms ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’?
3.42 On what ground did Kant say that we cannot know by pure reason that we
have a soul? Does it make sense to you?
3.43 What, according to Kant, is the attitude that practical reason has towards the
existence of the soul?
3.44 Did Kant think that a human being is composed of nothing but soulless
matter?
3.45 Why did Kant say that we ought to concentrate on objects of experience only
rather than on spiritualism?
3.46 What kind of spiritual experience does the Bible offer for our enjoyment?
The limits of knowability according to Kant: cosmology and theology
3.47 What is the first traditional argument, given here, for the existence of God?
3.48 What is the second traditional argument, given here, for the existence of God?

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3.49 What was Kant’s objection to the argument from design?

3.50 What does Kant mean by saying that the purposiveness and order of the
universe could only prove the existence of an architect of the universe, not
a Creator? And why does he say it? Would you agree?
3.51 What does the Bible say we can learn about God from creation?
3.52 What would modern science say about Kant’s claim that we should not infer
non-observable causes from observable effects?
3.53 What do you think about Kant’s argument that if God were the cause of the
series of all the causes and effects in the universe, God would have to be part
of the series? What does the Bible say about it?
3.54 What is meant by saying that Kant’s Copernican revolution perverts the true
relation between reason and God?
3.55 What would you say is the source of man’s power of reason?
3.56 When Kant said that God’s existence cannot be proved by pure reason, what
did he mean by pure reason; and how is pure reason different from practical
reason?

CHAPTER 4: REASON AND FAITH

A fourth false alternative
4.1 Why do some people regard ‘faith’ and ‘reason’ as mutually exclusive
terms?
4.2 What kinds of things do we all believe in without their first having been
proved by pure reason?
4.3 In what sense is science dependent on faith?
4.4 What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?
4.5 In what way does love affect the success of our cognitive faculties?
4.6 Do you think that our cognitive faculties are designed for a purpose just like
the heart is? If so, in what sense are they designed and for what purpose?
4.7 Would you say that it is, strictly speaking, irrational to believe that God
created our faculty of reason? If so, why? What alternative origin of reason
would you suggest?
The nature of theism’s faith
4.8 Why is epistemology concerned with our knowledge of facts rather than our
knowledge of persons? What is the difference between the two?
4.9 If an atheist were to argue that you must first prove philosophically that God
exists, before you are justified in saying anything about his qualities, how
might a theist reply?
4.10 What is meant by ‘the ontological argument for God’?
4.11 What is meant by ‘the cosmological argument for God’?
4.12 What is meant by ‘the moral argument for God’?
4.13 Read again the passage cited from Romans 1:19–21. What would you say are
the major points it is making?

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The points raised by Romans 1:19–21

4.14 What is meant by saying that God must take, and has taken, the initiative in
making himself known to us?
4.15 Is it true to say that if someone lets us get to know him personally it sets up
a relationship between the known and the knower? Would that be true of our
being allowed to get to know God?
4.16 What two things about the Creator are said to be made evident to us through
creation?
4.17 What is meant by anthropomorphism? Do you think that humans have
created God in humanity’s image?
4.18 ‘Theists believe that the human race’s Source is greater than the human race
is. Atheists believe that the human race’s Source was less than the human
race is.’ Discuss.
4.19 Give examples of what is meant by intuition. What is meant by claiming that
we perceive God’s power and divinity in the same way as we perceive a rose
is beautiful?
4.20 Christ said that God hides some things from the wise. What things? And why?
4.21 What do modern epistemologists mean by ‘prior beliefs’ or ‘properly basic
beliefs’? Give some examples. What has this got to do with belief in God?
4.22 Do you feel the same as Kant did, when he contemplated ‘the starry heavens’?
4.23 What would you say is the difference between mental assent to the
proposition that God exists, and personal faith in God?
Objections and answers
4.24 In your experience what are the main reasons that people give for not being
aware of God?
4.25 Which of those reasons in your judgment is the strongest?
4.26 What do Bible scholars mean by the progress of divine revelation?
4.27 What is meant by saying that knowledge of God is relational and not just
theoretical?
4.28 By what analogies and terms does the Bible describe God’s relation with
those who believe in him?
4.29 What false turn did early humanity take in relation to God according to the
Bible?
4.30 ‘To live as if there were no Creator is to live an unrealistic untruth.’ Discuss.
4.31 How would someone who claims to know God, justify his claim?

PART 2: WHAT IS TRUTH?

CHAPTER 5: IN SEARCH OF TRUTH

Our ambivalent attitude to truth
5.1 Do you agree that our attitude to truth is ambivalent? If so, why is it
ambivalent?

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5.2 Would you ever be prepared to say publicly ‘I hate the truth, and shall do all
I can to suppress it’? If not, why not?
5.3 In what way does the question of truth affect:
(a) sport;
(b) business;
(c) history;
(d) marriage and family life;
(e) justice?
5.4 Consider the five objections listed, which are sometimes given for rejecting
the idea of objective, universal truth. Argue for and against any one (or all)
of them.
5.5 State what you understand by the term ‘metanarrative’. Why have
metanarratives fallen out of fashion?
5.6 To what extent, if at all, is it justifiable to impose intellectual acceptance of:
(a) an ideology; or,
(b) a religion,
by force?
5.7 Why, do you think, has the Bible been suppressed at various times in the course
of history by such diverse elements as paganism, atheism and Christendom?
5.8 What worldwide effects do you foresee will result from the globalisation of
knowledge?
Long-term consequences of the devaluation of objective truth
5.9 What has the pursuit of truth got to do with education?
5.10 If social cohesion depends ultimately on mutual trust, on what basis can
trust be built if not on truth?
5.11 Is there any real difference between a history book and a novel? If so, what is it?
5.12 What should be the aim of a historical documentary film? Is it to convey the
truth, or to entertain? Some producers of documentaries have changed the
historical facts in some places in order to gain the sympathy and therefore
the better interest of the viewers. Is it right to mix fiction with history?
5.13 Is it possible for a businessman always to tell the truth? Is falsehood
acceptable, or is it always wrong, even in business?
5.14 On what grounds, or by what standard, would you be prepared to say that
something is a true work of art?
5.15 If in the course of some dispute you said ‘the truth is on my side’, what
exactly would you mean by the truth?
Conventionalism and the definition of truth
5.16 What is ‘conventionalism’? Do you think that its basic contention is true?
Give your reasons.
5.17 What is meant by saying that languages are merely sets of symbols whose
meanings are culturally determined? Give examples from any two languages
you know. Does it mean that all truth conveyed by language is only relative?

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5.18 Do you agree with the contention that we all have an idea of what truth is?
Give examples from everyday life that illustrate your view.
5.19 What is the correspondence theory of truth? How valid are the objections
made against it?
5.20 What is the coherence theory of truth?
5.21 What is meant by saying that coherence is a necessary but not a sufficient
condition for truth?
5.22 What is the pragmatic theory of truth? Cite arguments for and against the
pragmatic theory.
5.23 Which theory of truth makes most sense to you?

CHAPTER 6: PARTICULAR TRUTHS AND ULTIMATE TRUTH

6.1 What is meant by talking about different levels of truth?
6.2 Do you think that there are different kinds of truth? If so, give examples.
6.3 What do Christians mean by saying that all truth is God’s truth?
6.4 What kind of lessons can we learn from history?
6.5 What is the difference between history and historicism?
6.6 Is it possible by studying past history to predict how the future will turn out?
If not, why not? If yes, on what basis?
6.7 What does Hegel mean by dialectic?
6.8 Why does Lossky say that Hegel’s theory breaks a fundamental law of logic?
Do you agree?
6.9 What is there about Hegel’s thought that leads people to say that he was a
pantheist or a panentheist?
6.10 What did Hegel mean by ‘Spirit’ or ‘Mind’?
6.11 Does Hegel’s theory about the development of human freedom match the facts
of history? Is there no slavery and slave trade anywhere in the world today?
6.12 Is the morality of the modern world better than, say, that in the Roman
Empire?

CHAPTER 7: THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF TRUTH

A preliminary study of the word and its usage
7.1 In light of the Hebrew word ’emeţ do you see any relation between the idea of
‘truth’ on the one hand, and of ‘faithfulness’ and ‘reliability’ on the other?
7.2 Read 1 John 3:17, Galatians 2:13–14 and Genesis 32:9–10 again and then
discuss:
(a) What is hypocrisy?
(b) Why does it matter if, in religious contexts, someone acts inconsistently
with his professed beliefs? Can the same thing happen in other walks
of life?
(c) What damage do I do to other people if I constantly break promises that
I have made to them? What damage do I do to myself?

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7.3 Read Exodus 18:21 again. In light of the fact that in some countries bribery
is endemic and is almost a way of life, discuss the following:
(a) If you had been unjustly defrauded, would you see nothing wrong
if the fraudster bribed the judge and jury to deliver a verdict in his
favour?
(b) Is it wrong for a government official to demand and accept bribes?
(c) What exactly is wrong with bribery?
7.4 Read Jeremiah 9:3–5 and Zechariah 8:16 again. Discuss: what are the
social, commercial and political effects if people come to accept that
misrepresentation, deceit, falsehoods, lies, broken promises and agreements
are the normal and only-to-be-expected way of life?
7.5 Read John 4:22–24 again; then discuss the question: is religious worship true,
provided only that the worshipper is sincere and finds worship aesthetically
and emotionally satisfying?
Different ways of expressing truth
7.6 Read Psalm 23 and then discuss its poetic imagery:
(a) Attempt to express its meaning in modern prose. Can it be done
successfully?
(b) What is meant by ‘the valley of the shadow of death’?
(c) What does ‘dwelling in the house of the Lord’ mean?
7.7 Of what relevance and importance is the truth or otherwise of the
propositions of the marriage contract for the successful development of a
secure personal relationship between husband and wife?
7.8 If someone asked you your name, and you told him truthfully what it was,
and the person refused to believe you and implied that you were a liar, how
would you feel?
7.9 ‘Experience is worth a ton of theory.’ Do you agree? Or is true theory
important for validating experience?
7.10 ‘For an atheist the universe is not a revelation of anything. It simply means
what human reason decides it means.’ Explain and discuss.
7.11 ‘Truth is exclusive; by its very nature it must deny its contrary.’ Do you
agree?
7.12 Some philosophers have maintained that the contingent facts of history can
never teach us eternal, necessary truths. Do you suppose that Christians
would agree? If not, why not?
7.13 What, according to the Bible, does ‘eternal life’ mean?

CHAPTER 8: TRUTH ON TRIAL

Coming to face the truth
8.1 What is meant by saying that when we stand in front of the truth and decide
what to do with it, it is we who are on trial?
8.2 Why, do you think, did the citizens of ancient Athens regard Socrates as a
subversive influence?

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8.3 What other famous trial scenes do you know of in history or in literature?
Cite any you know.
8.4 Is the proverb true that ‘one word of truth outweighs the world’?
The trial of Christ, its background and first phase
8.5 When Constantine the Great converted to Christianity, he is said to have put
the sign of the cross on the military standards of his armies. Was that a good
thing for Christianity, or a bad thing?
8.6 Can genuine belief in an ideology, or a religion, be produced by force?
8.7 Why, do you think, did the Jewish high priests choose Barabbas rather than
Jesus?
Pilate discovers his own responsibility
8.8 Do you feel sorry for Pilate?
8.9 What would you have done if you had been Pilate? Would you have had the
courage to release Jesus?
8.10 What was it about Jesus that so antagonised the Jewish priests?
8.11 What in your mind does the Christian symbol of the cross stand for?
8.12 When Jesus said that he came into the world to bear witness to the truth,
what do you think he meant by ‘truth’?
8.13 In what way was there more to the death of Jesus than, say, the death of
Socrates or of any other martyr for truth in the course of history?
8.14 Study the painting by Nikolai Ge (in 1890) entitled ‘What is truth? Christ
and Pilate’.1 How do you interpret the gesture that Ge has given to Pilate?
Is it meant to express cynicism, impatience or something else?

PART 3: POSTMODERNISM

CHAPTER 9: POSTMODERNISM, PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE

Introduction
9.1 What fields of thought does postmodernism cover?
9.2 What reasons have we for discussing in the context of epistemology
postmodernism’s attitude to literary criticism?
9.3 How would you describe the relation of postmodernism to modernism?
What are the similarities and the dissimilarities between them?
9.4 Why do postmodernists tend to resent any external constraints on their
freedom to interpret literature in any way they please?
9.5 What do postmodernists mean by the term ‘metanarratives’? Why don’t they
like them?
9.6 What are Jacques Derrida’s position and significance in the history and
practice of literary criticism?

1 [online] http://www.dartmouth.edu/~russ15/russia_PI/Russian_art.html.

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Prohibition of appeal to the intended meaning of the author

9.7 What do you understand by ‘The Intentional Fallacy Theory’ in literary
criticism?
9.8 What reasons can you adduce in favour of this theory?
9.9 What attitude does Ricoeur take to this theory?
9.10 How does the way a judge interprets an Act of Parliament support the theory?
9.11 What obvious limits must be put to the theory?
9.12 What use did Freud make of the Oedipus myth? What did he mean by the
Oedipus complex?
9.13 The ancient Greek tragedian wrote a play based on the Oedipus myth. To
what extent can we, on the basis of the text of this play, be sure of what the
author did not intend the play to mean? Why is that important?
Exaggerations of reader-response criticism
9.14 What do you understand by the reader-response theory of literary criticism?
9.15 To what extent can we say that the meaning of a literary text is simply the
meaning that any reader sees in it? Are there any limits to this point of view?
9.16 What point is the reference to the Mona Lisa meant to illustrate?
9.17 What is meant by saying that being free from having to consider the
intentions of a text’s author does not imply that we are free not to take the
text itself seriously?
9.18 What features of a text constrain our interpretation of it?
9.19 ‘A poem really means whatever any reader seriously believes it to mean.’
Do you agree? Derrida does not like it when this principle is applied to his
writings. What conclusion do you draw from that?
9.20 Are there any limits to the different interpretations that various conductors
put upon a musical score?
9.21 ‘The number of possible meanings of a poem is itself infinite.’ What would
the implications be if this were true?
Questions raised by the quotation from Stanley Fish
9.22 Read again the quotation from Stanley Fish on page 244. On what ground
does Fish say that if two people disagree about the meaning of a text, you
cannot appeal to the text in order to decide which of them is right?
9.23 Is it true to say that if Fish’s principle were true it would spell the end of
literary criticism? Why would it?
9.24 What would a judge do if two businessmen disagreed about the
interpretation of a business contract, and one of them sued the other in
court? Would the judge refuse to consult the text of the contract in order to
reach his decision? If not, why not?
9.25 What possible decisions could the judge come to over the two men’s
conflicting interpretations of the contract?
9.26 No one can say that his or her interpretation of a large literary work is the
final truth. But does that mean that any one interpretation is just as good as
another? If not, why not?

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9.27 Would it be true to say that the nature and structure of the atom are
whatever any scientist seriously believes them to be?
9.28 Would it be right to say that, if two scientists disagreed about the
interpretation of nuclear particles, there would be no point in continuing to
study nuclear particles?
The denial of metaphysics
9.29. Why cannot a translator of a Russian text into Japanese translate word for
word?
9.30 ‘Translate meaning, not words.’ What does this mean, and how does one go
about it? Is ‘meaning’ somehow different from words?
9.31 What did the ancient Stoics mean by the term ‘logos’? What relation did this
logos have to the universe and to man?
9.32 What does the New Testament mean by the term Logos? What relation does
the Logos have to creation and to man (see John 1:1–4)?
9.33 What does the term ‘logocentrism’ mean in Derrida’s philosophy and
literary theory? What does his rejection of it imply?
9.34 What does Derrida mean by ‘the Leibnizian Book’? And why does he repu­
diate it?
9.35 ‘Meaning must await being said or written in order to become what it is:
meaning.’ What do you think Derrida means by this?
9.36 Read again Wolterstorff’s comment on Derrida’s theory. Is Wolterstorff’s
conclusion logically true?
Presence
9.37 Have you ever been in a dark room and sensed that there was someone
present, although you could not see or hear him or her?
9.38 What do you think Derrida means by presence as applied
(a) to God in himself?
(b) to God in relation to us?
(c) in relation to the names related to fundamentals, principles and to the
centre of all things?
9.39 How does Jonathan Culler explain the logocentrism of metaphysics in
­Derrida’s thought?
9.40 Derrida is the implacable foe of metaphysics. Why then does he say that it is
logically impossible, (a) to escape metaphysics, and (b) to disprove it?
9.41 In light of that, why do you think he persists in trying to escape it?
The assertion that writing precedes speech and that signification creates meaning
9.42 ‘Words are primarily sounds.’ What does this mean?
9.43 What evidence is there that speech preceded writing?
9.44 What various forms of writing have there been in the course of history?
9.45 What do you think Derrida means by claiming that ‘there is no linguistic
sign before writing’?

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 Study Questions for Teachers and Students

9.46 Do you agree with Derrida’s claim? If not, why not?

9.47 Why, do you think, may Derrida have found the idea attractive that writing
has priority over speech?
9.48 What advantages has writing over speech?
Conventionalism’s first denial
9.49 What do philosophers and language theorists mean when they deny that
language has direct contact with reality?
9.50 What does conventionalism hold about language?
9.51 To what extent is conventionalism true?
9.52 In what respects is it not true?
9.53 ‘A word can denote something that does not exist, and never did exist, in the
world.’ Cite examples of this.
9.54 Cite examples of words in your own language that over the centuries have
changed their meaning.
9.55 What is the difference in meaning between the English word ‘warm’ and the
German word ‘warm’?
9.56 What does this difference not imply?
9.57 If, as Derrida holds, signification creates meaning, did our word ‘dinosaur’
create the dinosaurs?
9.58 What is meant by saying that the word ‘atom’ originally referred only to a
theoretical concept?
9.59 Has this concept proved wholly, or in part, true to reality?
9.60 Why has the meaning of the word ‘atom’ changed over the course of history?
Conventionalism’s second and third denials
9.61 What logical concepts do the two Greek syntactical constructions mentioned
in the text express?
9.62 Why would you have to have these logical concepts clear in your mind in
order to understand what these two constructions express?
9.63 What is the logical difference between murder and accidental homicide?
How important is the difference?
9.64 What does Noam Chomsky mean by claiming that a child has an innate
language faculty? Do you think he could be right?
9.65 Read again the quotation from Bates, Thal and Marchman. What alternative
explanations of universal grammar do they give? Which do you think
is more likely to be true?
9.66 Do you think a child of five could understand what ‘doing something on
purpose’ means as distinct from doing something without intending to
do it?
9.67 Do you think that scientists create the principles according to which the
­universe runs? Or do they just discover them?
9.68 How, do you think, people come to feel that torturing children for fun is
wrong?

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QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

9.69 On what supposition does the idea rest that human language cannot
tell us anything about God? Do you think that the supposition has been
proved true?
The denial that words have any intrinsic meaning
9.70 What does Derrida mean by saying that the meaning of a word is always
deferred? Give examples to show in what sense that is true.
9.71 Does this mean:
(a) that no word has any core meaning?
(b) that this deference of meaning makes possible an infinite play
of meanings?
9.72 What does Derrida mean by ‘deconstructing’ a text?
9.73 ‘Deconstruction is negative, and the terminology it uses is that of a
revolutionary.’ What does this mean? Is it a fair judgment of Derrida’s
theory?
9.74 What are the objects of deconstruction’s negative, subversive criticism?
9.75 ‘Derrida’s literary criticism is motivated by opposition to all forms of power
and privilege.’ Comment.
9.76 ‘What deconstruction wishes to put in place of traditional literary criticism
would lead to literary-critical anarchy.’ What does this mean? Is this true?
9.77 ‘In refusing to have deconstruction applied to his own theory, Derrida
contradicts his own theory.’ How?
9.78 ‘Derrida’s theory offers no real positive help towards understanding a
literary text.’ Is this true? If so, why?
9.79 What do you understand by the ideal that Derrida sets before him in writing
a literary work? What sense does it make to you?
9.80 Do you think that Derrida’s experience as a student in the French
universities in the 1960s helps us to understand his own attitude to literary
criticism? Does it engender in you any sympathy for him?

CHAPTER 10: POSTMODERNISM AND SCIENCE

10.1 Does the fact that science can be motivated by political or social
considerations invalidate its truth claims?
10.2 What evidence would you advance for the idea that science, though
influenced by culture, gives us results that are independent of culture?
10.3 Why can science not give us the moral apparatus with which to criticise its
activities? Where are such moral criteria to be found?
10.4 Explain the ‘Sokal affair’ in your own words. What do you deduce from it
about the validity of the postmodern critique of science?
10.5 Should scientists be free to say what they like about the universe regardless
of any facts? In your opinion, are there any objective facts about the
universe?
10.6 What are some of the consequences of rejecting the idea of absolute truth?

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 Study Questions for Teachers and Students

10.7 Subject for a debate: ‘This house believes that postmodernism is

intellectually incoherent.’

APPENDIX: THE SCIENTIFIC ENDEAVOUR

Scientific method
A.1 In what different ways have you heard the word ‘science’ used? How would
you define it?
A.2 How is induction understood as part of our everyday experience and also of
the scientific endeavour?
A.3 In what ways does deduction differ from induction, and what role does each
play in scientific experiments?
A.4 Do you find the idea of ‘falsifiability’ appealing, or unsatisfactory? Why?
A.5 How does abduction differ from both induction and deduction, and what is
the relationship among the three?
Explaining explanations
A.6 How many levels of explanation can you think of to explain a cake, in terms
of how was it made, what was it made from, and why was it made? What can
scientists tell us? What can ‘Aunt Olga’ tell us?
A.7 In what ways is reductionism helpful in scientific research, and in what ways
could it be limiting, or even detrimental, to scientific research?
A.8 How do you react to physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne’s statement
that reductionism relegates ‘our experiences of beauty, moral obligation,
and religious encounter to the epiphenomenal scrapheap. It also destroys
rationality’?
The basic operational presuppositions of the scientific endeavour
A.9 What is meant by the statement ‘Observation is dependent on theory’?
A.10 What are some of the axioms upon which your thinking about scientific
knowledge rests?
A.11 What does trust have to do with gaining knowledge?
A.12 What does belief have to do with gaining knowledge?
A.13 According to physicist and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, how do
new scientific paradigms emerge?

371
 SCRIPTURE INDEX

OLD TESTAMENT Jeremiah 6:27 203–4

book 205 6:32 203–4
Genesis 9:3–6 202–3 7:17 154
1:31 75 29:13 154 7:38–39 129
3 153 8:31–47 216
3:5 209 Zechariah 8:31–34 165
32:9–10 201 8:16–17 203 10:14–15 108
42:16 200 9:9 219–20 11:47–53 217–8
12:12–19 219–20
Exodus NEW TESTAMENT 14:6 165, 210,
18:21–22 202 235 –6
34:6 131 Matthew 14:9 210
11:25 147 16:13 209
Leviticus 11:27–29 108 17:3 108, 203,
19:18 152 13 151 210–11
22:16–17 202 17:28 249 n. 19
Deuteronomy
28:18–20 222 18:1–11 218–19
4:12–15 99
6:5 152 18:12 218 n. 4
Mark 18:28–32 219
8:1–6 152 4 151
18:33–38 219–21
5:33 202
18:37–38
Job 216
14:56–59 201
18:38–40
book 205 221
15:10–15 223
19:1–6 223
Psalms 19:7–8 223 –4
Luke
book 205 19:7 218
8 151
23:5 205 19:9–11 224 –6
11:9–10 154
94:9 146 n. 4 19:12–15 226
23:13–25 223
103:12 205 19:12 217
111:2 19 John 20:30–31 240
139:7 249 1:11–13 152 n. 15
1:12–13 108
Acts
Proverbs 2:23 227
1:18 210
1:7 140–1 17:28 249 n. 19
2:13–22 217
Isaiah 3:1–16 108
Romans
book 205 3:1–8 129
1:18–32 153
44:20 203 3:3 206
1:18–20 208
46:9-10 190 4:17–18 200
1:19–21 144–5
59:3, 4, 6, 8 166–7 4:22–24 204
1:20 131
59:13–15 166–7 4:24 129
1:25 203, 208
65:16 206 5:18 218
2:15 261
5:24 206
5:5 129
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Romans 2 Thessalonians OTHER ANCIENT

5:10–11 227 2:3–4 209 LITERATURE
8:14–17 152 n. 15 2:9–12 209
Aristotle
8:14–16 129
1 Timothy Nicomachean
8:26–30 152 n. 15
1:13–15 208 Ethics 11

1 Corinthians 2:4 209 Metaphysics

1:18–31 154 6:13–14 222 iv.–7 170–1

1:21 147
2 Timothy Euripides
8:2–3 141
3:7 209 Bacchae 224, 234
14:20 147
4:3–4 210 Lucian of Samosata
Galatians Hebrews Vera
1:11–12 209 1:3 210 Historia 25
2:5 209 8:1–2 204–5 Plato
2:13–14 201 10:17 205 Apology
3:15–17 207–8 11:6 149, 154 39b–d 215–6
4:1–3 152 Timaeus 11
James
4:6–7 109
2:19 109 Sophocles
4:9 108
5:7 209 1 Peter Oedipus
1:10–12 238 Tyrannus 234, 240–1
Ephesians
1:10 190 1 John Theophrastus
1:13 209 2:3–6 155 On Stone 32
3:1–2 152 n. 15
Colossians 3:17 200, 202
1:16 210 4:10 227
1:17 249 5:10–12 207
1:18 222 5:20–21 211
3:1 222 5:20 109

1 Thessalonians Revelation
1:9 203 1:8 190
2:13 201 3:14 207

374
 GENERAL INDEX

A basic beliefs 148–9

abduction 303–5 Bates, E. 260
Adams, John Couch 301 Beardsley, Monroe 238
adoption (thrology) 129, 152–3 being, pure 192
aesthetic, transcendental 121–3 Berdyaev, Nicolai Alexandrovitch 73,
afterlife 14–15, 108. See also death; 74–5
heaven Berkeley, George 70
agency 305–8 Big Bang theory 36, 153–4, 260
alētheia 199, 249 biology 305, 309
alēthēs 199 Bradley, F. H. 175
alēthinos 199 Brahe, Tycho 296–7, 298
’āmēn 206–7 ‘brain in a vat’ analogy 54–6
analytic, transcendental 123–4 Bristol, Evelyn 234 n. 1
anthropomorphism 146 Broackes, Justin 89
anthrōpos 223 n. 9 Bronowski, Jacob 38
antithesis 51 business, dishonesty in 167–8
Anyon, Roger 283
appearance 125–7 C
Aquinas, Thomas 127 Caputo, John D. 266–7
archē 249 Cartmill, Matt 275–6
Aristobulus 146 causation 85, 89, 94–9, 110–14, 130–1,
Aristotle 11, 21, 77, 98, 110, 170–1, 291 132–3, 307
arithmetic 106, 119–20 chiliarch 218 n. 4
astronomy 28, 77, 111–13, 296–7, 298–9, Chomsky, Noam 80 n. 15, 259
301–2, 319–20 Christ See Jesus Christ
ataraxia 51–2 Christianity 14
atheism 141–2, 208–9, 306 . See also civilisation
independence from God Egyptian 188
and God as Creator 24 Greek 188
Austen, Jane 234 Harappan 188
Austin, J. L. 173–4 Indus Valley 188
authorial intent 237–45 Minoan 188–9
authority 217, 224–5 235, 285 , 290, 291, ‘cogito, ergo sum’ 54
302–3, 316 coherence theory of truth 175–7
and deconstruction 264, 265, 269 cohors 218 n. 4
of reason 140–2 Collins, Francis S. 28
ultimate/supreme xii Collins, Harry 283
axioms 79, 315–16 colour 84–9
consciousness in direct experience 34
B contingency 81, 130, 131, 143 n. 3
Bacon, Francis 26, 247, 273, 291–2 contradiction 169–70, 192
Bacon, Roger 164 conventionalism 169–70, 255–61
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Copernican revolution 110, 115, 117, 124, dogmatism 48, 51, 52, 104, 110, 150
125, 133–4, 154, 319, 320 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 150, 234
Copernicus, Nicolas 114–15, 117, 281, dualism 77
296 duty/duties xiii, 7, 9, 14
correspondence theory of truth 170–5,
177, 273–4 E
cosmology 53, 77, 130–3 education 3–4
counterfeit vs. reality 30–3 Egyptian civilisation 188
creation 78, 208–9 Greek civilisation 188
biblical view of 74–5 eidos 249
Crick, Sir Francis 289, 309, 312 Einstein, Albert 28, 277, 281, 317
Crosman, Robert 242–3 Ellis, John M. 236, 268–9
Culler, Jonathan 250, 253–4, 255, 263, emergence 311–12
267 ’ emet 199, 200
empeiria 75
D empiricism 70 n. 2, 75–99
Darwin, Charles 26–7 compared to rationalism 75–8
data defined 75–6
collection 291–3, 298–301 and Hume, David 89–99
sense 97 and Locke, John 78–99
Davies, Paul 150, 279 energeia 249
Dawkins, Richard 142, 284, 307–8, 309 Enlightenment, the 76–7, 103–34, 116,
320–1 117, 235
death 14, 15 . See also life after Epimenides 249
death epistēmē 46
deception 53–5, 56 epistemology 46–8, 125–7, 277
deconstruction 236–7, 263–7 defined 46
and authority 264–5 epochē 51
and literary appreciation 267 equilibrium 49
and objectivity 265–7 ethics 278
and power 265 Euripides 224, 234
and privilege 265 evil, problem of 150
deduction/inference 292, 296–8, 303–5 evolution (organic) 13–14, 28, 142
defined 291–2 existentialism 38
Derrida, Jacques 233, 236–7, 239, 243, experience xi, xii, xiv, 4, 9, 26, 34, 75–8,
245–51, 261–3, 266–9 80–1, 114, 292, 302, 312, 314, 315–16
and logocentrism 246–50 of God 108–9, 117
Descartes, René 52–4, 78, 80–1, 111, 112, a posteriori 113, 115
127 a priori 113
design in nature 13, 105, 130–2 consciousness in direct 34
determinism 17, 34 spiritual 128–30
Dewey, John 178, 273–4 experimentation 110–11, 291, 292, 295,
dialectic 192, 195, 196 320
dialectical materialism 23 explanation 305–13
Diocletian 164
Direct Realism 58–61 F
dishonesty in business 167–8 facts 258
divine revelation 24–9, 131–2, 133, 143–9, nature of 173–5
196, 208–11, 261 objective 173
DNA 28, 289, 311–12 faith 107–8, 109–10, 316–17

376
 General Index

and reason 137–55 love of 145, 152, 155

and science 140 mercy of 145
and theism 142–9 as personal 143–4, 145–6
fallacy, the intentional 238, 240–1, 255 power of 145
falsifiability 301–2 relationship with 152–5
feelings (subjective) 173 and revelation 24–9, 131–2, 133, 143–9,
Fish, Stanley 244–5 196, 261
Flieger, Jerry Aline 264 will of 154
flux 49 wisdom of 148
Fodor, Jerry 260 God as Creator 26–7, 28, 46, 191, 306–7.
Forms (Plato) 70 n. 1, 77 See also God
Fotion, Nicholas 23 atheism and 24
free will 17, 34, 225, 226–7, 312 of humanity 14–15, 26
freedom 108–9, 163, 168, 193–5, 235 of rationality 14
Frege, Gottlob 169 and science 26–9
Freud, Sigmund 142, 240–1 of universe 317–18
gospel 209–10
G Grootuis, Douglas 168
Galileo Galilei 17, 53 n. 7, 77, 281, 291 guilt 34
Galle, Johann 301 Guyer, Paul 103
Geist 194
genes 142, 184 H
geometry 106, 120–1 hallucinations 59–60, 61–2
Euclidean 116, 122–3 hamartia 117
non-Euclidean 116, 122–3 Hamlet (Shakespeare) 234
globalisation of knowledge 165–6 Harappan civilisation 188
Gnosticism 74–5 Harvey, William 110–11, 112
God. See also God as Creator heaven 15
awareness of 149–53, 249 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 23,
belief in 105–9 175, 191–6
character of 54, 204, 207, 216 Hegelianism 191
dependence on 146 Heraclitus 49
existence of 54, 56–7, 89, 105–8, 109, Hero of Alexandria 22
117, 130–4, 137–9, 142, 147–8, 154, Hertz, Heinrich Rudolf 315
306–8 Herzen, Alexander Ivanovich 191
cosmological argument for 105, high priest 217, 218, 220
130–3, 143 n. 3 hina 259
moral argument for 143 n. 3 Hinduism 74–5
proof of 107, 147–9, 153 historicism 186–96
ontological argument for 143 n. 3 history 22–4, 33, 176, 186, 196
physico-theological (design) and God 196
argument for 105, 130–3, and reality 33
143 n. 3 of philosophy 193–5
experience of 108–9, 117 purpose of 196
gratitude to 153 Hobbes, Thomas 273
and history 196 Holy Spirit 129–30, 194 n. 14, 195
image of 14 Hookway, C. J. 55, 57
independence from 153 Hospers, John 120
knowledge of 107–10, 133–4, 141, hōste 259
154–5, 261 human

377
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

freedom 108–9, 163, 168, 193–5 intent, authorial 237–45

mind 51–2, 70–2, 79, 81–2 89–91, 172, interpretation 110–11, 242–3, 255, 263
194–5 legal 239–40, 244–5
progress 189, 275 of literary texts 239–40
reason 234–5 intuition 17–18, 34–5, 121
human irrationality 138–9, 146
rights 14–15, 17 Islam 14, 317–8
spirit 75
humanity. See also man
J
individual significance 35–6
James, William 178
nature of 14–15
Jesus Christ
origin of 36, 302
arrest of 218–20
purpose of 14, 15, 36–8
and ethics xiv
rights of 14–15, 17
and human rationality 26
superior to non-personal beings 34–5
influence of 23–4
Hume, David 78, 89–99, 110, 113, 114,
kingdom of 219–21, 222
115, 128 n. 45
as revealer of God 24, 26
and causation 94–9
trial of 216–27
and ideas 90–1
as truth 210–11
and impressions 90–1, 93–5
Joad, C. E. M. 188–90
philosophy of mind 89–91
Johnson, Barbara 236, 265
and Representative Theory of
Judaism 14, 317–8
Perception 89–91
judgment 174, 235
and self 92–4
analytic 119
Husserl, Edmund 48
final/eternal 206
hypotheses 111–12, 291–3, 296–7, 298–301,
legal 203
304–5
subjective 75, 224,
hypothetico-deductive method 292,
suspension/reservation of 49, 51
296–8, 303–5
value 74
justice 167, 285
I
idealism 69–70
defined 69–70, 71 K
ideas (Hume) 90–1 Kant, Immanuel 76, 78, 103–34, 146–7,
defined 90 149
validation of (Locke) 79–80 basic principles of a priori synthetic
idolatry 154, 203 knowledge 117–24
ignorance 50 his Copernican revolution 110–17
illusion 29–30, 49 and cosmology 130–3
image of God 14 critique of 133–4
immortality 78, 104, 105, 108, 127 epitemology of 125–7
impressions (Hume) 90–1, 93–5 and Hume 110, 113, 114, 115
defined 90 and knowing God 107–10
independence from God 153 and limits of knowability 124–34
induction 292, 293–5, 296, 298, 317 practical reason 104–7, 128–30, 133
Indus Valley civilisation 188 and psychology 127–30
inference/deduction 292, 296–8, 303–5 pure reason 104–7, 115, 124, 127–8,
defined 291–2 130, 133–4
information 91–2, 310–12 his scientific background 110–17
Intelligible World 77, 98 and theology 130–3

378
 General Index

Kekulé, Friedrich August 290–1 Lewis, C. S. 185, 285, 318

Kenny, Anthony 85–6, 193–4 Lewontin, Richard 315
kentauros 257 life
Kepler, Johannes 296–7, 298–9 after death 14–15, 108 . See also
knowability, limits of 124–34 death; heaven
in cosmology 130–3 origin of 36
in epistemology 125–7 literary criticism 233–69
in psychology 127–30 denial of metaphysics 245–51
in theology 130–3 Derrida, Jacques 236–7
knowledge 4–8, 57 logocentrism 246–50
globalisation of 165–6 and truth 233–4
innate 78–9, 80–1 literature, Russian 234 n. 1
objective 72, 74–5 Lobachevski, Nikolai
phenomenological 125–7 Ivanovich 80 n. 14
a priori (synthetic) 81, 113–14, 117–24 Locke, John 70 n. 2, 73, 78–89, 97–8, 115,
sociology of 277–8 128 n. 45
subjective 72–4 evaluation of epistemology 80–4
and truth 163 and innate knowledge 78–9
Kuhn, Thomas 273–4, 281 n. 11, 319–21 theory of colour 84–9
validation of ideas 79–80
logic 113
L
laws of 79, 121
language 166, 169–70, 185 , 205, 263,
logical positivism 23
280–1
logocentrism 246–50, 266–7
Aramaic 199
Logos 14, 26, 46, 247–8, 268, 269. See
Greek 199–200
also reason/reasoning
Hebrew 199
Lonsdale, Kathleen 290
and intrinsic meaning of words
Lossky, N. O. 85, 121, 191, 192
denied 262–3
Lucian of Samosata 25
limitations of 163
legal 207–8
and truth 163–4, 169–70 M
universal grammar 259–60 Maenads 234
Laplace, Pierre-Simon 308 man. See also humanity
Lanson, Gustave 269 at centre of universe 117, 235
law(s) as machine 37–8, 312
of contradiction 192 as subject 73–4
of dialectic 192 Marchman, V. 260
of excluded middle 121, 192 Marx, Karl 23, 191, 196
of identity 121, 192 Marxism 165, 235
of logic 79, 121, 192 Mascall, E. L. 97
of mathematics 247, 260 materialism 12–13, 75 n. 7, 320–1
moral 261 dialectical 23
of nature 247 mathematics 53, 176
of non-affirmability 34 laws of 260
of non-contradiction 121, 177 matter 70 n. 2
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (von) 78, as bad/evil 74
81, 112, 175, 247–8 meaning 246–8, 254–5, 256–7
Leitch, Vincent B. 236, 263–4 deferred 262
lēstēs 221 n. 7 intrinsic 262–3
Le Verrier, Urbain 301 of life 247

379
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

metaphysics and 262 observation 132, 291, 293–4, 296, 314,

mechanism 305–8 320
Medawar, Sir Peter B. 20 ‘Occam’s razor’ 299, 300
memory 34, 64–5, 66, 89, 140, 148, 312 . ‘ontological’ argument for existence of
See also mind God 143 n. 3
Mendel, Gregor 294, 296 ontology 262, 277, 278
Merezhkovsky, Dmitry 234 n. 1 onto-theology 262
metanarrative(s) 165, 235–6, 274, 275–6 opinion 49
metaphysics 89, 103–34, 320 organic evolution 13–14, 28, 142
metaphysics ousia 249
denial of 245–51
and meaning 262 P
Mill, John Stuart 291–2 panentheism 191 n. 8, 194 n. 14, 196
Miller, J. Hillis 263 pantheism 191, 194 n. 14, 196
mind (human) 51–2, 70–3, 79, 81–2, 172, paradigm shift 114–17, 281, 291, 319–21
194–5 . See also memory
Parmenides 49
philosophy of 89–99 peace of mind 51–2
Minoan civilisation 188–9 Peacocke, Arthur 311
Peirce, Charles Sanders 178, 303
miracles 89
Penrose, Roger 260
mirages 60, 62
perception 70, 73, 79, 82, 92–4, 97–8, 148 .
modernism 233, 275–553
See also Representative Theory
defined 234 n. 1
of Perception (RTP)
relation to postmodernism 234–6
causal theory of 85
Moore, G. E. 57
co-ordinational theory of 85
moral laws 261
defined 59
morality 277, 285 perceptual error 60, 62–3
Mossner, Ernest C. 89 persecution 164–5
myth 282–3, 284 perspectival relativity perspectival
relativity and 61, 63
N phenomena 125
Nagel, Thomas 150 Phillips, William D. 28
Naive Realism 58–61 philosophy 15, 16, 20–2, 23, 263
nature, design in 105, 130–2 history of 193–4
necessity 176 of mind 89–99
Neoplatonism 74–5 natural 110–13
Newton, Isaac 77, 86–7, 111–13, 123, physico-theology 105–6
281 physics 53, 299–300, 309–11
Newtonian physics 116 Newtonian 116
Nietzsche, Friedrich 150–1 quantum 116
nomos 302 pistis 200
Norris, Christopher 236, 264–5 pistos 200
non-rationality/the non-rational 14, 35, Plantinga, Alvin 148
36. See also rationality Plato 11, 21, 49, 98, 110, 141
noumenon/noumena 125, 128 theory of Forms 70 n. 1, 77
poetry 205, 242–3, 263
O Polanyi, Michael 303, 310
object, defined 72–3 Polkinghorne, John 312–3
objective values 266 Pontius Pilate 216–27
objectivity 266 Poole, Michael 307

380
 General Index

Popper, Karl R. 23, 301–2, 310 realism 70–2, 196

postmodernism 233–69 naive/direct 58–61
relation to modernism 234–6 reality 29–35
and science 273–86 definition/meaning 29
power external 29–30
and truth 164 and history 33
pragmatic theory of truth 178–9, 273–4 ultimate 34–5
Prance, Ghillean 28 vs. counterfeit 30–3
prediction(s) 22–3, 292, 296–7, 301, 303, reason/reasoning 17, 21–2, 24–5,
314 64–5, 79–80, 116, 147. See also
presence 248–50 rationality
preference(s) 7, 37, 299 authority of 140–2
presuppositions 14–16, 21, 278–9, 292, and evolution 142
293, 313–21 and faith 137–55
and axioms 315–16 human 133, 234–5
and intelligibility of universe 317–18 limitation(s) 46
and observation 314 practical reason 104–7, 117, 128–30,
and paradigms 319–21 133
prior beliefs 148 pure reason 104–7, 115, 117, 124, 127–8,
privilege 265 130, 133–4, 137–9
probability 300, 318 atheism and 141–2
progress, human 189, 275 categories of 115, 123–4, 133, 141,
properly basic beliefs 148 146
propositions 206–7 limitations of 114, 117, 138–9
analytic 117–18, 127 redemption 15
arithmetical 119–20 reductionism 309–13, 320–1
geometrical 120–1 Reid, Thomas 96–7
synthetic 117, 118–19 religion 15, 89, 105, 235
psychology 127–30 repeatability 302–5
purpose Representative Theory of Perception
of humanity 14, 15, 36–8 (RTP) 58, 59–65, 82, 89–91, 93
of universe 188–90 evaluated 61–3
Putnam, Hilary 55 hallucinations 59–60, 61–2
Pyrrho 51 mirages and 60, 62
perceptual error and 60, 62–3
Q perspectival relativity and 61, 63
qualities (Locke) 82–5, 171 Rescher, Nicholas 71, 72
quantum physics 116 revelation
divine 24–9, 131–2, 133, 143–9, 190,
R
196, 208–11, 261
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da
progressive 151–2
Urbino) 11
Two Book view of 26–7
ratio 75
revolution
rationalism 75–8
in scientific thinking 291, 296
defined 75–6
Ricoeur, Paul 239
rationality 14, 25–7, 34–5, 56, 247,
rights, human 14–15, 17
317. See also non-rationality;
RNA 311
reason/reasoning
Rorty, Richard 273–5
reader-response theory 241–5
rules xii, 8, 21, 37, 291, 310
Crosman, Robert 242–3
Fish, Stanley 244–5

381
QUESTIONING OUR KNOWLEDGE

Russell, Bertrand 20, 97, 120, 121, 172, Searle, John R. 174–5
176, 178, 295 self 92–4
self-consciousness 34
sense (experience, perception) 29–30,
S
45–6, 48, 53–6, 57–63, 79, 98, 110, 113,
Sagan, Carl 28
115, 121, 139, 316
‘Sapere aude!’ 76, 103
sense-data 58–9, 60, 61, 63–4, 65, 73, 82,
Saussure, Ferdinand de 169
97
scepticism 48–56, 89, 104
senses (five) 64, 79, 82, 83, 98
and ‘brain in a vat’ analogy 54–6
Descartes and 52–4 Sensible World 77, 98
Pyrrho and 51 SETI 28
rise of 48–9 Sextus Empiricus 51–2
Sextus Empiricus and 51–2 Shakespeare, William 189, 234, 245
Socrates and 50 significance, individual 35–6
Schaff, Adam 36–7 signification 251–61, 266
Schopenhauer, Arthur 193 Singer, Peter 194–5
science 4, 15–16, 18–20, 26–9, 105, 110, skeptomai 48–9
287–321. See also scientific
sociology 4, 309
method of knowledge 277–8
abuse of 276–7 Socrates 9, 21, 50, 195, 215–16
defined 289–90 Sokal, Alan 277–8, 280–1, 282, 284, 286
explanation 305–13 soul. See also spirit
and faith 140 human 106, 127–30
and God as Creator 26–9 immortality of 78, 104, 105
limitation of 19–20, 36–7, 292, 306, World 74–5
317, 320 space 121–3
and postmodernism 271–86 speech 251–61
and morality 277 speiran 218 n. 4
presuppositions 313–21. See also Spinoza 78, 175
presuppositions spirit 75, 194–5 . See also soul
as a social construct 276–84 Absolute Spirit 194–5
subjectivity of 278–80 Holy Spirit 129–30, 194 n. 14, 195
scientific method 110, 139–40, 245, World 74–5
290–305 . See also science spiritualism 129
abduction 303–5 spirituality 129
axioms 315–16 State, the 17
data collection 291–3 Stoicism 247
deduction/inference 292, 296–8, Strawson, P. F. 173–4
303–5 subject, defined 72–3
experimentation 291, 292, 295 subjectivity 175, 278–80
explanation 305–13 suffering, problem of 150
falsifiability 301–2 sufficiency 176
hypotheses 283, 291–3, 296–7, 298–301 summum bonum 21
induction 293–5, 296, 298 supernatural, the 112, 145–6, 234 n. 1,
observation 291, 294, 296, 314 306
paradigm shift 291, 319–21 Swinburne, Richard 148
repeatability 302–5 syllogism 297–8
trust and 316
scientism 275 T
Scruton, Roger 65 technology 286

382
 General Index

telos 249, 306 necessary 81, 119

Ten Commandments. 152 objective (absolute) 161–3, 169, 173,
Thal, D. 260 235, 275–6, 284–6
‘the intentional fallacy’ 238, 240–1, 255 attitude to 161–3
theism xiii, 13, 16, 24–9, 191, 317–18, 320– consequences of rejecting 166–8
1. See also atheism; pantheism objections to 163–4
and faith 142–9 oppresses 164
theology 130–3 as openness and honesty 202
and knowability 130–3 poetic 205
onto- 262 and power 164
physico- 105–6 pragmatic 201–2
theory/theories/theorems 79, 245, pragmatic theory of 178–9
278–9, 282, 292–3, 296, 298, 314–15 a priori 148
‘theory of everything’ 187 propositional 206–7
Theophrastus 32 and qualities 171
time 121–3 as real and eternal 203–4
Torrance, T. F. 98–9, 126–7 as real and genuine 203
touchstone 32–3 relative 169
trust 138, 316 revealed 190, 208–10
truth 46, 50, 137, 142–3, 159–180, 181–96, source of 186
197–211, 213–27, 233–4 ultimate 183–4, 210–11, 216–17
authority of 224 universal 119
biblical view of 197–211 as what is ontologically real 204
Christ himself as 210–11 as what is the real thing as distinct
as coherence 201 from its symbol 204–5
coherence theory of 175–7 Two Book view of revelation 26–7, 247
contingent 81, 119, 138
as correspondence of deeds and U
words 200–1 ultimate reality and individuals 34–5 .

as correspondence of words with See also reality

facts 200 uniformity 317–18
correspondence theory of 170–5, 177, universal grammar 259–60
273–4 universe 187, 283–4
defined 170, 171 intelligibility of 317–18
and existence 171 origin of 286, 302, 317–18
existential 208 purpose of 188–90
and freedom 165, 168 utopia 14–15, 23, 196
and gospel 209–10 V
in Greek language 199–200 validation of ideas 79–80
in Hebrew language 199 Verification Principle 23, 301
historical 186 Vygotsky, Leo 309–10
incarnate 216
as integrity 202–3 W
and justice 167 Walicki, Andrzej 191
kinds of 184–86 Watson, James D 289, 312
and knowledge 163 Whitehead, Sir Alfred North 27
and language 163–4, 169–70, 205–8 Wimsatt, William K. 238
levels of 183–4 wisdom 140–1, 148
and mind 172 Wittgenstein, Ludwig J. J. 57, 169, 174

383
Wolpert, Lewis 281–2
Wolterstorff, Nicholas 248, 268 n. 47
Wood, Allen 103
world (external) 57–65
Representative Theory of Perception and 58–65
sense perception and 57–63
World Soul (or Spirit) 74–5
worldview 3–9, 15–29, 320–1
defined 8–9
worship 19, 129, 150, 203, 204, 208, 217
writing 251–61, 267–8
 ABOUT THE AUTHORS

David W. Gooding is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Greek at

Queen’s University Belfast and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
He has taught the Bible internationally and lectured on both its
authenticity and its relevance to philosophy, world religions and
daily life. He has published scholarly articles on the Septuagint and
Old Testament narratives, as well as expositions of Luke, John, Acts,
Hebrews, the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament, and several
books addressing arguments against the Bible and the Christian
faith. His analysis of the Bible and our world continues to shape the
thinking of scholars, teachers and students alike.

John C. Lennox is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University

of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow in Mathematics and the Philosophy of
Science at Green Templeton College. He is also an Associate Fellow
of the Saïd Business School. In addition, he is an Adjunct Lecturer at
the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, as well as being a Senior
Fellow of the Trinity Forum. In addition to academic works, he has
published on the relationship between science and Christianity, the
books of Genesis and Daniel, and the doctrine of divine sovereignty
and human free will. He has lectured internationally and participated
in a number of televised debates with some of the world’s leading
atheist thinkers.

David W. Gooding (right)

and John C. Lennox (left)

Photo credit: Barbara Hamilton.

Myrtlefield Encounters

Key Bible Concepts

How can one book be so widely appreciated and
so contested? Millions revere it and many
ridicule it, but the Bible is oen not allowed to
speak for itself. Key Bible Concepts explores and
clari�es the central terms of the Christian gospel.
Gooding and Lennox provide succinct
explanations of the basic vocabulary of Christian
thought to unlock the Bible’s meaning and its
signi�cance for today.

�e �e�nition o� C��isti�nity
Who gets to determine what Christianity
means? Is it possible to understand its original
message aer centuries of tradition and
con�icting ideas? Gooding and Lennox throw
fresh light on these questions by tracing the
Book of Acts’ historical account of the message
that proved so effective in the time of Christ’s
apostles. Luke’s record of its confrontations
with competing philosophical and religious
systems reveals Christianity’s own original and
lasting de�nition.
Myrtlefield Encounters

Christianity: Opium or Truth

Is Christianity just a belief that dulls the pain of
our existence with dreams that are beautiful but
false? Or is it an accurate account of reality, our
own condition and God’s attitude toward us?
Gooding and Lennox address crucial issues that
can make it difficult for thoughtful people to
accept the Christian message. ey answer those
questions and show that clear thinking is not in
con�ict with personal faith in Jesus Christ.

e Bible and Ethics

Why should we tell the truth or value a human
life? Why should we not treat others in any way
we like? Some say the Bible is the last place to
�nd answers to such questions, but even its
critics recogni�e the magni�cence of Jesus’
ethical teaching. To understand the ethics of
Jesus we need to understand the values and
beliefs on which they are based. Gooding and
Lennox take us on a journey through the Bible
and give us a concise survey of its leading events
and people, ideas, poetry, moral values and
ethics to bring into focus the ultimate
signi�cance of what Jesus taught about right and
wrong.
 Clear, simple, fresh and highly practical—this David Gooding/John
Lennox series is a goldmine for anyone who desires to live Socrates’
‘examined life’.
Above all, the books are comprehensive and foundational, so
they form an invaluable handbook for negotiating the crazy chaos of
today’s modern world.
Os Guinness, author of Last Call for Liberty

These six volumes, totalling almost 2000 pages, were written by two
outstanding scholars who combine careers of research and teaching
at the highest levels. David Gooding and John Lennox cover well the
fields of Scripture, science, and philosophy, integrating them with
one voice. The result is a set of texts that work systematically through
a potpourri of major topics, like being human, discovering ultimate
reality, knowing truth, ethically evaluating life’s choices, answering
our deepest questions, plus the problems of pain and suffering. To get
all this wisdom together in this set was an enormous undertaking!
Highly recommended!
Gary R. Habermas, Distinguished Research Professor & Chair,
Dept. of Philosophy, Liberty University & Theological Seminary

David Gooding and John Lennox are exemplary guides to the deepest
questions of life in this comprehensive series. It will equip thinking
Christians with an intellectual roadmap to the fundamental conflict
between Christianity and secular humanism. For thinking seekers it
will be a provocation to consider which worldview makes best sense
of our deepest convictions about life.
Justin Brierley, host of the Unbelievable? radio show and podcast

I would recommend these books to anyone searching to answer the

big questions of life. Both Gooding and Lennox are premier scholars
and faithful biblicists—a rare combination.
Alexander Strauch, author of Biblical Eldership