Fear and Trembling

How do we know what we know? How do we know what is true? How do we evaluate one idea against another? How do we interpret the information our senses provide us? What do we see? Hear? Touch? Smell? Taste? These questions fascinate me. I first began to ask questions like this as I studied Human Factors Engineering (HFE) in graduate school. HFE is a branch of engineering that studies how a human being interacts with their environment, usually with respect to how we obtain information and how we perform work. We looked at basic types of mistakes that people make, the way we obtain information from our senses, the way we process that information, the way we decide to act, and the way we activate machine controls to act on that processed information. The field includes ergonomics , but it includes much more than that. One of the things we learned right off the bat was that the way we interact with our environment is a process. Think of a black box with arrows going into the left side fo...

Two of my favorite modern parables are printed below. The first is one of my favorites not because I agree with its conclusions, but because I admire the way its point is made. From Anthony Flew: Let us begin with a parable. It is a parable developed from a tale told by John Wisdom in his haunting and revolutionary article "Gods." Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, "Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no gardener." So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. "But perhaps he is an invisible gardener." So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Well's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movement...

God establishes reason, and without Him, we have no reason to be reasonable. We reason by the laws of logic combined with facts we observe. For example, the Law of Non-contradiction, that A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same relationship. These abstract, conceptual principles must be accounted for if any discussion on any topic is to take place. Only God can account for these laws. His thinking upholds ours. If the laws of logic are based on human thinking, then we have to realize that people are different and the laws may differ from person to person. They are no longer absolute. Some particular examples follow. If the laws of logic are just social conventions, then they are not absolute, and they can be ignored at will. My social network is, after all, different from yours. How do we avoid the conclusion that all of our thinking is not the result of mere instinctive reactions to our environment? Since our environments are all different, we would all reach dif...

Question to R. C. Sproul: Some modern theologians believe that we can’t prove God’s existence. They say that devising proofs for God’s existence is a useless exercise; it’s just a matter of faith; we don’t need reasons. Is that approach consistent with the Bible? Part of R. C.’s Answer: No, I don’t think it’s consistent with the Bible at all. I believe, first of all, that we can prove the existence of God. I think we can do more than just give evidence. I think we can argue compellingly for the existence of God, at least in terms of a self-existent, eternal being. Further, I think Aquinas was absolutely right when he developed the concept of a “necessary being”. What do we mean by a “necessary being”? We mean that this particular being is one who is both ontologically necessary, that is, that he is a being who cannot not be, as well as being a being who is logically necessary. When I say that God is logically necessary what I mean is this: it is illogical and inconceivable that you can...

How do we know what we know? How do we know what is true? How do we evaluate one idea against another? How do we interpret the information our senses provide us? What do we see? Hear? Touch? Smell? Taste? These questions fascinate me. I first began to ask questions like this as I studied Human Factors Engineering (HFE) in graduate school. HFE is a branch of engineering that studies how a human being interacts with their environment, usually with respect to how we obtain information and how we perform work. We looked at basic types of mistakes that people make, the way we obtain information from our senses, the way we process that information, the way we decide to act, and the way we activate machine controls to act on that processed information. The field includes ergonomics , but it included much more than that. One of the things we learned right off the bat was that the way we interact with our environment is a process. Think of a black box with arrows going into the lef...

God establishes reason, and without Him, we do not have reasons for reasons. We reason by the laws of logic combined with facts we observe. For example, the Law of Non-contradiction, that A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same relationship. These abstract, conceptual principles must be accounted for if any discussion on any topic is to take place. Only the Christian God can account for these laws. His thinking upholds ours. If the laws of logic are based on human thinking, then we have to realize that people are different and the laws may differ from person to person. They are no longer absolute. Some particular examples follow. If the laws of logic are just social conventions, then they are not absolute, and they can be ignored at will. My social network is, after all, different from yours. How do we avoid the conclusion that all of our thinking is not the result of mere instinctive reactions to our environment? Since our environments are all different, we would...

Many contemporary believers do not feel the need to have a rational basis for their Christian faith. For example, Robert Webber’s comment in Ancient-Future Faith (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1999, p. 185): …Christianity is not provable outside itself through the scientific method. One must come to the Christian faith believing that it is true and embrace it as such without any dependence on data outside the faith. Christianity requires trust, a believing embrace, a willingness to step inside its story apart from any dependence on historical, scientific, or rational persuasion. So, according to Webber, Christianity requires a blind leap of faith for entrance. I always think of the Indiana Jones movie where he must jump across a chasm not knowing whether there is anything to catch him as he falls. When he jumps, he falls onto a bridge that was hidden from view by exquisite camouflage. Is that kind of leap the requirement, or are there reasons to believe what we believe? Let’s l...