Empiricism and Rational Christianity: Understanding Knowledge and Truth

The empiricist is one who says that the way I learn is by seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and so on. Now, in that regard, the empiricists were not irrationalists, they were not opposed to the proper use of reason. Rather they are simply saying that in the knowing process, the way in which knowledge is gained, is first of all through experience. [00:03:12]

The Christian believes that though our faith is rational, the ultimate source for our knowledge and for truth is divine revelation; so that the supreme way of knowing is by being informed by God himself. The 18th century thinkers who bought into empiricism (at least some of them) were also called rationalists, not because they saw primacy of reason over the senses, but because they wanted to limit their understanding of religion to that which can be known simply by natural reason reflecting upon the experience that we encounter in the universe, and not being dependent upon some kind of supernatural source of revelation, such as we would find in sacred Scripture. [00:04:10]

John Locke was a common sense thinker. And, he was much more concerned about our common encounter with reality rather than rational speculation. He was also an outspoken enemy to a hyper form of rationalism that became known as conceptualism. Conceptualism, in its most crude form, came to the conclusion that any idea that can be conceived of in the mind as being rational must exist in reality because the rational is real. [00:09:26]

One of the most important things that Locke gave to us was a theory of truth. He's not the only person to hold this theory but his name is often linked with it, which is called the Correspondence Theory of Truth. And, in simple terms, the theory says this: that truth is that which corresponds to reality. It's a very simple idea. [00:13:02]

In our day and age, it's an idea that is under attack every moment because this concept of truth says that truth is that which is real. And, it is therefore, objective. That what is really out there is not dependent upon how I feel about it or even how I perceive it because I am not the author of truth or the one who creates reality. I encounter reality. [00:13:44]

Locke would have no time for that kind of thinking. That would make "real" science impossible because the world would then be "according to Garp": that is it would be one thing for you, another thing for you, and a third thing for you (whatever you want it to be). [00:14:49]

If there is no such being in reality, all of my praying, all of my singing, all of my emotional satisfactions surrounding it does not have the power to create such a being. And likewise, if you're indifferent or cold toward that being and turned off by prayer and music and all the rest, your personal attitude toward this being does not have the power to destroy him. [00:16:21]

Locke says "no" to this and insists on the "a posteriori." All knowledge comes after experience. And everything is based upon this blank tablet. You're born with it, but then you have a sense perception. And that's the first data bit: you see your mother or you see a dog, you have a sensation, a perception, or you feel something, or you taste something or you hear something and those experiences are then recorded on your brain. [00:17:59]

All of your knowledge that you acquire in your lifetime -- all that knowledge is acquired through this constant series of experiences. And, in this sense, you are learning every second that you are awake in your lifetime. You're learning whether you want to learn or not learn. You never stop going to the school of experience. [00:20:05]

The mind also has the power or the ability to be active; the mind can select, it can combine, it can abstract, and it can relate different experiences. As I said a moment ago, I experience a red coat and then I experience a redhead, and then I experience a red fire engine, and now I'm getting my idea of the red, and now I can combine, abstract, and relate and come up with an idea of redness. [00:22:19]

But, the fundamental point here is that knowledge comes initially through the senses, not from the mind. This is the question of the chicken and the egg. And, it becomes of great importance in the next 100 years, from the time of Locke's analysis of it, as we will see in later sessions. [00:23:17]