Meghan Sullivan - Theological Epistemology: How Can We Know God? (Part 1)

Can we know God? If so, how? We can we believe in God. But is such belief justified? How to apply the principles of epistemology to knowledge of God and belief in God? What would make belief in God justified true belief?

[soldieroftruth]

Relax guys, it’s only part 1. I’d like to hear more though.

[BradHolkesvig]

Without hearing the voice of God during this temporary generation, you can only wonder if he's real. The promise is that all created men will hear his voice in the next generation.
John 5:
25: "Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
26: For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself,
27: and has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man.
28: Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice.

[uremove]

I like the idea that our word “God” is just a pointer to something beyond any concept, and hence the prohibition in Judaism of speaking the name. Do we really know the nature of anything we refer to, even in Science eg. “Gravity”? Newton’s idea was vastly different from Einstein’s, and still the thing we point to changes meaning as we discover more...

[gvlle]

If I may add to this conversation... I think she is being obtuse because she wants to do the quistion justice as a trained theologian.

Some people may want simple, straight to the point answers. I get that, and I think that she does too. However, I believe that she is trying to avoid answering directly because is a actually a complicated theological and philosophical question. And her training as a theologian has groomed her to treat is as such. And particularly to engage in the kind of conversation that encourages further thinking, rather than shutting down discourse. Jesus may have done the same thing at times when telling a parable and them leaving his listeners to ponder the story rather than giving the moral outright. Het interviewer is satisfied with the conversation because he is looking for conversation and engagement rather than answers.

I am fairly certain that a person in need of pastor care and counselling, or a simple Bible study, would receive a more concrete answer if they asked her the same question.

[frederickj.]

Here's yet another example to ponder of why some smart, educated people have called theology an academic discipline without a subject. You'll find Jimmy Hoffa before you find a useful conception of God in this. You might as well call this theological "epistemology" [sic] the Sergeant Schultz philosophy: "I know nothing. Noth-ing!"

[reenatai]

If I believe in a diety that created the universe but I dont believe in the abrahamic god then I'm an Doesnt make sence to me

[sigmata]

So you simply presuppose there is a god then? You also presume the claims about it's properties can occur in reality, rather than only within your imagination, and you operate as if you can know these claims are accurate?
You have to presume that belief itself is a reasonable process to engage in, as well, without checking what the consequence of invoking a belief is?
You top this off by simply accept every claim there has ever been made at face value first, rather than attempting to determine if reported experiences can be misinterpretations of non-supernatural experience.

If a person has an experience and they claim it's supernatural, how is that specifically different to a delusional person's reports of their personal experience?

If you claim there is a omnipotent entity in existence, that claim includes the ability to directly alter your personal experience of reality.
In other words one of the consequences is there is no base line unaffected experience that you can rely upon to then make pattern claims about the nature of experience. All experiences are subject to this omnipotent deity's whim. You can no longer apply reason to any experience because you can't tell if it's authentic or a manufactured one for you personally (or even a select group). Reason depends on sufficient order in our experience of reality. When your perception of order is compromised you can't know if you are experiencing is accurate in any fashion at all.

It gets worse as the existence of such beings include the possibility of lesser beings with the ability to alter your personal experience to such an extent that you can't tell what is real as well. This is exactly the same kind of problem as a mind which has only ever experienced a simulated reality. This problem is completely insurmountable. In such a case, any claims about truth are automatically false because the assumptive foundations for truth cannot be established or made distinct from your personal interpretations of personal experiences.

All deities which have reports about them that include claims they "know everything" or they are "the truth" are false because they cannot know themselves whether they are subject to illusion or simulations and they should know enough to know this. In that sense they know they can only claim something is consistent with their experience rather than it be an absolute "truth". They too could be existing within a simulated environment for instance.

Similarly if there is some framework in which they don't use interpretations of their experience to know what is happening they are so alien to living beings that their motivations and moral outlooks are completely incompatible to us. It certainly doesn't make reports about their moral system or moral evaluations valid without the method these deities are using being made available to us for examination. If we were, as some claims about deities state, a created sentient life, then our inability to examine the method by which this deity evaluates it's knowledge and makes moral assertions, is a design flaw of a profound kind and equivalent to being directly evil.

[bobwalshywalsh]

Do these people know how insane their ideas are ?
What i hear is " IM GONNA LIVE FOREVER"
I'm sorry to tell you your parents lied to you.

[myopenmind]

She’s just dancing around avoiding the question.

Why are these theists so obtuse?

[johnbrowne]

She never answered the question. Pitiful.😥

[blackwolf]

Why don't he just
pick a side? This dude just goes in circles. He never has an answer only questions.