"Objective Truth"

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Originally posted by caleb_woodrow
I’m fine with saying that we interpret everything through our minds, but I am not going to submit that we cannot have knowledge of objective truth because of this. Namely because I don’t think the bible is the only objective truth we can have knowledge from. I had a priori knowledge of mathematical concepts and logical laws before I ever read the bible. ...

This is interesting. This comes up a lot because people confuse logical priority with temporal. Saying Scripture is objectively true does not mean we can not know things in the sense of have certain beliefs - but that the epistemic justification of the truth of the belief is always going to be wanting apart from Scripture. You may "know" things (in the informal sense) before you learn the Scriptures - but these beliefs may not be objectively true. The logical priority that justifies knowledge often comes after one thinks they "know" something.
 
Originally posted by armourbearer
This subject seems to be moving in a neo-orthodox direction, who are accustomed to accuse conservatives of bibliolatry. The Bible teaches that depraved men have knowledge of the truth, only they hold it in unrighteousness. Or, in Jude's phrase, what they know, they know naturally, as brute beasts.

I think they (the unregenerate) know things only in the sense that they believe true things - not because they can justify the truth of the things they believe. Epistemologically, they know nothing at all. Ironically, only the Christian can provide the justification for their beliefs - that God has written some things (the Law, knowledge of God's existence) onto their hearts (minds).
 
I think I prefer the realist philosophy of the Holy Ghost to your idealism. If the Scriptures say they "know," then they "know," and woe be to the man who argues with God.
 
Originally posted by Vytautas
Our worldview is a collection of sensations and it does not contain all of the possible sensations. So truth can be apart from our worldview.

Our worldview is the framework through which we understand things. This includes how we interpret sensations - but is not the sensations themselves. Ones worldview determines what one believes is true - regardless of whether what we believe is in fact true. So truth can be "apart from our worldview" if we use a false framework.


Originally posted by Vytautas
I affirm the creature and Creator distinction meaning that we cannot know same truth as God knows it. We are created as analogs which is the image of God.

Then all is subjective and the Scriptures are pointless - for we can never know them. But we have the mind of Christ. We have the Spirit that makes it possible for us to know the exact same truths God knows - the very truths He has revealed to us in his Word. Not all the truths God knows, but the ones He wants us to know and has shown us.
 
I admit that the last sentence of mine you quoted was not a good argument. Yet, I still contend that I can have objective knowledge of mathematics that aren't deduced from scripture. Of course then you reply that "Basic arithmetic is deducible from scripture. And geometry is tautological. Same for calculus." Yet, I can't see how you can 'deduce that geometry and calculus are tautological' from scripture...
 
Btw, I think some people here are underestimating the process of self-deception in respect to
epistemological knowledge. From reading Romans 1 I see nothing less than knowledge in this sense.

[Edited on 10-16-2006 by caleb_woodrow]
 
Originally posted by Civbert
Originally posted by Vytautas
Our worldview is a collection of sensations and it does not contain all of the possible sensations. So truth can be apart from our worldview.

Our worldview is the framework through which we understand things. This includes how we interpret sensations - but is not the sensations themselves. Ones worldview determines what one believes is true - regardless of whether what we believe is in fact true. So truth can be "apart from our worldview" if we use a false framework.

I will grant your conception of what a world view is. However, to interpret what is truth requires propositions that judge what the truth is. I guess you would say that these propositions are the framework by which we judge what are the true from the false.

Originally posted by Vytautas
I affirm the creature and Creator distinction meaning that we cannot know same truth as God knows it. We are created as analogs which is the image of God.

Originally posted by Civbert
Then all is subjective and the Scriptures are pointless - for we can never know them. But we have the mind of Christ. We have the Spirit that makes it possible for us to know the exact same truths God knows - the very truths He has revealed to us in his Word. Not all the truths God knows, but the ones He wants us to know and has shown us.

We do not have to know the same way God knows things. Why do our minds have to intersect with the divine? Can we not have the human mind of Christ and not the divine one? The Scriptures are accommodation for our humanness of which God stooped down as it were so we could understand. I used to believe that we can know the same things God knows, but I changed my mind recently because that idea is an illegitimate search for religious certainty.

The Confession speaks plainly in Chapter VII Section I: The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.
 
Originally posted by armourbearer
Originally posted by Vytautas
The Confession speaks plainly in Chapter VII Section I: The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

The condescension enables fruition of God Himself, not some analogy of God.

Is there are difference between Ectypal theology and Archetypal theology or is it a false dichotomy?
 
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