Limited Skepticism
The below is a paper I wrote for my class on Modern Christian Thought and Practice.
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Central to every human issue is the question of identity. Who am I? What am I? Who was I taught to be, made to be, evolved to be? The standard Christian answer is found in the well-known concept of Imago Dei, found in Genesis: first and foremost, the human identity is as an image of God. But as important is the note that humanity is only an image of God. Humanity is a shadow on the wall of the Platonic cave: because we have fallen, we can never look like God, though we may bear some semblance. People are no more and no less than incomplete creatures living as imperfect reflections of a complete and perfect God. If these two premises are to be accepted, it is also of utmost importance to realize that all parts of human existence, including the state of our understanding, are imperfect. That is, that humanity can neither know all things nor know any thing completely. Due to the partiality of human understanding, it is imperative for us to live in a state of limited skepticism.
To hold to a view of “skepticism” means to believe that no knowledge is attainable. This means the rejection of the capability of any logic, any sentiment, or any science to determine anything at all about Truth. Descartes, one of the founders of modern skepticism, said in Meditations I, “I [have] accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and...what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation.” In accordance with this principle, it is necessary to rid ourselves of all these false opinions causing us to doubt- doing so would allow us to think objectively. Though we must recognize that we are full of biases and opinions that we will not rid ourselves of, we should try to in order to be more like God, who holds the ultimate objective perspective. He is able to see things as they really are without irrational biases and swaying subconscious desires- this is the understanding we aspire towards because we are made in God's image.
But the simple assumption that logic can bring humanity closer to Truth is an assumption that brings Skepticism out of its purest form. I am able to affirm that logic has this ability because our rationality is a reflection of God's infinite rationality. Our rationality, our sentiment, our science, and any human experience is a reflection of its divine counterpart. Therefore, it becomes necessary to adopt a view of limited skepticism. This means that though we recognize that any one thing we think is true might be false, we still hold that our beliefs are reflections of truth. Though humanity can never understand perfectly, we are obligated by the dedication of relationship to continue refining our beliefs throughout the course of our lives, abolishing that which we find is false and admitting that there are many flaws not yet seen. Through this process, our character is refined as our worldview is shaped and we grow closer to the God we pursue (yet can never understand).
It often appears as though there are many things that can be definitively said to be true. Very few would be willing to admit that statements such as “God is love” or “Jesus is man” contain elements of falsity because they are so critical to the Christian faith. But because they employ human minds and human language, they do, just like every other statement we could make. There are two ways of categorizing Truth, in the forms of Existential Truth and Natural Truth. Existential Truth concerns itself only with whether or not something exists: it may be said that something either is or is not. But because such a statement is always dependent on the (flawed) individual's (flawed) conception of the thing's existence, it is not ultimately possible to determine that something may be or not be. This illuminates the second conception of Truth: Natural Truth, those truths which are concerned with the way in which things are. Making a statement as to whether or not something exists is always dependent on the understanding of the object or idea existing: hence Existential Truth is invariably affected by Natural Truth. Because each is so dependent on the other, it is impossible to separate the two: there is no such thing as a totally correct statement (and that includes all the statements I've just made).
There are several observations which may be made in regard to the nature of Truth. Firstly, though there may be different degrees of reality, nothing can exist only halfway. If it has less existence, it is still fulfilling the entirety of the existence it ever could have had in its present form. Saying that things can exist only in part would be like saying an eight-ounce container cannot be as full as a sixteen-ounce container. They may each be filled equally and completely, though they may not hold equal amounts of air.
Furthermore, if something has ever existed, then it is still real. Time is simply an imperfect system containing the objects, ideas, or events we perceive. It is a system of boundaries which we use to simplify reality and thereby make sense of the things surrounding us. All categorizations are human attempts to understand; because they are human constructs, they are necessarily imperfect. Hence the boundary of time does not provide adequate reason to exclude something which we no longer perceive to exist from the existence which it once had. If God perceives it as existing, then it must exist; and if God exists in every moment perceived by humanity, then all things which humanity have perceived to exist must still exist within the most divinely correct understanding.
Thirdly, because both human minds and human language are imperfect, only statements of negation can be accurate. It has been determined that only a part of any attribute we apply to an object can be true; if even this does not apply to God, and we are able recognize this fact, then our statement of recognition is true. Clement of Alexandria recognized this in Stromateis as he described the futility of human attempts to label God. He said that “because of our helplessness, we use nice names so that our mind may have these things to lean upon and not wander at random. For one by one they do not contain information about God, but all together they are indicative of the power of the Almighty.” Because “God is invisible and beyond expression by words,” the only use for affirmative statements about truth is in “indicating” something about Truth. The reason God must be ineffable is because, as stated in my second observation about the nature of Truth, any term used to describe anything is human-constructed, so it cannot describe its subject correctly. Language has a finite nature that requires the speaker to make generalizations or assumptions and these generalizations cannot be completely correct. In On Grammatology, Derrida uncovers this concept as he says that “no information can be given...which can be presented tangibly in the form of assertions.” Therefore we must study what is not True in order to understand what is. More than that, negative statements always contain an element of truth just like Affirmative statements always contain an element of falsity. Because the terms being used contain elements of falsity, negating the existence of any one thing necessitates the negation of those things about the term which are actually false. Therefore, the negation of any partially-false statement would be partially-true.
However, even if all statements we think are false are partially true, it is not necessarily right for us to dwell on these concepts. It could be extremely harmful, for example, to teach that God is not Love or that Jesus is not Man. If we still assume the existence of God and the nature of Man as God's image, then it is necessary to keep pursuing God, leaning upon that which we have learned about him so that we do not wander. If we taught that God is not Love or Jesus is not man, then we would no longer pursue God because there would be no direction. But it remains of utmost importance to recognize that though there are thousands of reasons we may very firmly think things, we'd be playing God if we claim to know anything. Unless we feel comfortable playing God, we must never make definitive statements of truth about reality and judge positions that are in opposition to ours. We must live with the assumption that anything and everything we believe is partially false and spend our lives trying to eliminate those bad parts.
The ability to refine our minds and become more like God is the process that ultimately brings us closer to God. We will never be able to learn humility and submission to him if we are adamant that we are correct. If we are unwilling to recognize something might be false, then we will never be open enough for correction. Our purpose is to strive for Correction, Righteousness, and Perfection, but we cannot rightfully believe that we are such perfection. After all, as Genesis has it, the first time people decided they were right was the first time they were separated from God.
Works Consulted
Clement of Alexandria. Stromateis. Comp. John Ferguson. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2005. Print.
Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Radford, Va: Wilder Publications, LLC, 2008.
Dyer, Wayne W. Your Erroneous Zones. New York, NY: HarperPaperbacks, 1993.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich., and Allen W. Wood. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Cambridge Univ., 2007.
Hume, David, and P. F. Millican. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.
Plato, and G. M. A. Grube. Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 1992.
___________________________________________________________________________
Central to every human issue is the question of identity. Who am I? What am I? Who was I taught to be, made to be, evolved to be? The standard Christian answer is found in the well-known concept of Imago Dei, found in Genesis: first and foremost, the human identity is as an image of God. But as important is the note that humanity is only an image of God. Humanity is a shadow on the wall of the Platonic cave: because we have fallen, we can never look like God, though we may bear some semblance. People are no more and no less than incomplete creatures living as imperfect reflections of a complete and perfect God. If these two premises are to be accepted, it is also of utmost importance to realize that all parts of human existence, including the state of our understanding, are imperfect. That is, that humanity can neither know all things nor know any thing completely. Due to the partiality of human understanding, it is imperative for us to live in a state of limited skepticism.
To hold to a view of “skepticism” means to believe that no knowledge is attainable. This means the rejection of the capability of any logic, any sentiment, or any science to determine anything at all about Truth. Descartes, one of the founders of modern skepticism, said in Meditations I, “I [have] accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and...what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation.” In accordance with this principle, it is necessary to rid ourselves of all these false opinions causing us to doubt- doing so would allow us to think objectively. Though we must recognize that we are full of biases and opinions that we will not rid ourselves of, we should try to in order to be more like God, who holds the ultimate objective perspective. He is able to see things as they really are without irrational biases and swaying subconscious desires- this is the understanding we aspire towards because we are made in God's image.
But the simple assumption that logic can bring humanity closer to Truth is an assumption that brings Skepticism out of its purest form. I am able to affirm that logic has this ability because our rationality is a reflection of God's infinite rationality. Our rationality, our sentiment, our science, and any human experience is a reflection of its divine counterpart. Therefore, it becomes necessary to adopt a view of limited skepticism. This means that though we recognize that any one thing we think is true might be false, we still hold that our beliefs are reflections of truth. Though humanity can never understand perfectly, we are obligated by the dedication of relationship to continue refining our beliefs throughout the course of our lives, abolishing that which we find is false and admitting that there are many flaws not yet seen. Through this process, our character is refined as our worldview is shaped and we grow closer to the God we pursue (yet can never understand).
It often appears as though there are many things that can be definitively said to be true. Very few would be willing to admit that statements such as “God is love” or “Jesus is man” contain elements of falsity because they are so critical to the Christian faith. But because they employ human minds and human language, they do, just like every other statement we could make. There are two ways of categorizing Truth, in the forms of Existential Truth and Natural Truth. Existential Truth concerns itself only with whether or not something exists: it may be said that something either is or is not. But because such a statement is always dependent on the (flawed) individual's (flawed) conception of the thing's existence, it is not ultimately possible to determine that something may be or not be. This illuminates the second conception of Truth: Natural Truth, those truths which are concerned with the way in which things are. Making a statement as to whether or not something exists is always dependent on the understanding of the object or idea existing: hence Existential Truth is invariably affected by Natural Truth. Because each is so dependent on the other, it is impossible to separate the two: there is no such thing as a totally correct statement (and that includes all the statements I've just made).
There are several observations which may be made in regard to the nature of Truth. Firstly, though there may be different degrees of reality, nothing can exist only halfway. If it has less existence, it is still fulfilling the entirety of the existence it ever could have had in its present form. Saying that things can exist only in part would be like saying an eight-ounce container cannot be as full as a sixteen-ounce container. They may each be filled equally and completely, though they may not hold equal amounts of air.
Furthermore, if something has ever existed, then it is still real. Time is simply an imperfect system containing the objects, ideas, or events we perceive. It is a system of boundaries which we use to simplify reality and thereby make sense of the things surrounding us. All categorizations are human attempts to understand; because they are human constructs, they are necessarily imperfect. Hence the boundary of time does not provide adequate reason to exclude something which we no longer perceive to exist from the existence which it once had. If God perceives it as existing, then it must exist; and if God exists in every moment perceived by humanity, then all things which humanity have perceived to exist must still exist within the most divinely correct understanding.
Thirdly, because both human minds and human language are imperfect, only statements of negation can be accurate. It has been determined that only a part of any attribute we apply to an object can be true; if even this does not apply to God, and we are able recognize this fact, then our statement of recognition is true. Clement of Alexandria recognized this in Stromateis as he described the futility of human attempts to label God. He said that “because of our helplessness, we use nice names so that our mind may have these things to lean upon and not wander at random. For one by one they do not contain information about God, but all together they are indicative of the power of the Almighty.” Because “God is invisible and beyond expression by words,” the only use for affirmative statements about truth is in “indicating” something about Truth. The reason God must be ineffable is because, as stated in my second observation about the nature of Truth, any term used to describe anything is human-constructed, so it cannot describe its subject correctly. Language has a finite nature that requires the speaker to make generalizations or assumptions and these generalizations cannot be completely correct. In On Grammatology, Derrida uncovers this concept as he says that “no information can be given...which can be presented tangibly in the form of assertions.” Therefore we must study what is not True in order to understand what is. More than that, negative statements always contain an element of truth just like Affirmative statements always contain an element of falsity. Because the terms being used contain elements of falsity, negating the existence of any one thing necessitates the negation of those things about the term which are actually false. Therefore, the negation of any partially-false statement would be partially-true.
However, even if all statements we think are false are partially true, it is not necessarily right for us to dwell on these concepts. It could be extremely harmful, for example, to teach that God is not Love or that Jesus is not Man. If we still assume the existence of God and the nature of Man as God's image, then it is necessary to keep pursuing God, leaning upon that which we have learned about him so that we do not wander. If we taught that God is not Love or Jesus is not man, then we would no longer pursue God because there would be no direction. But it remains of utmost importance to recognize that though there are thousands of reasons we may very firmly think things, we'd be playing God if we claim to know anything. Unless we feel comfortable playing God, we must never make definitive statements of truth about reality and judge positions that are in opposition to ours. We must live with the assumption that anything and everything we believe is partially false and spend our lives trying to eliminate those bad parts.
The ability to refine our minds and become more like God is the process that ultimately brings us closer to God. We will never be able to learn humility and submission to him if we are adamant that we are correct. If we are unwilling to recognize something might be false, then we will never be open enough for correction. Our purpose is to strive for Correction, Righteousness, and Perfection, but we cannot rightfully believe that we are such perfection. After all, as Genesis has it, the first time people decided they were right was the first time they were separated from God.
Works Consulted
Clement of Alexandria. Stromateis. Comp. John Ferguson. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2005. Print.
Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Radford, Va: Wilder Publications, LLC, 2008.
Dyer, Wayne W. Your Erroneous Zones. New York, NY: HarperPaperbacks, 1993.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich., and Allen W. Wood. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Cambridge Univ., 2007.
Hume, David, and P. F. Millican. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.
Plato, and G. M. A. Grube. Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 1992.
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