We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
We may often be reluctant to say we know too much about God, self, other and world, but is it possible to be too epistemologically modest?
8 comments:
Can we know too much about God? How much can we know?
Lukas,
Thanks. Well, yes, I think we can claim to know too much about God, or at least assume we do. The problem would be to want to know God, as God knows God. Better to know and want to know as known because to aim to know God in a Godlike manner is inappropriate to being non-God.
Hence saying to know too much about God is "a problem"/"inappropriate" (as you phrase it) and therefore we only reluctantly do it.
Now the other side. "We know nothing/we can not know anything." This seems to be ignoring Gods revelation. At least from a theological perspective...?
Lukas,
True. Desires to know too much are as off the mark as desires to know too little. There are two dangers here, not merely one. I believe that we can be too modest in our knowledge claims, but sometimes there is so much around that is so epistemologically im-modest, it pushes one in the other direction and one's modesty can become too great.
I’m not sure I’m comfortable with how the question is phrased. What constitutes standard “epistemology” could be considered on the one hand overly restricting to knowledge, to the point where it itself is arrogantly presumptuous in its claims about what we can’t know precisely cause it refuses to recognize non-conventional epistemologies. And what we do know about God comes primarily from these non-conventional epistemologies, which some folks are uncomfortable bringing to discussions and others have doubts pertaining to them (which I think is understandable).
But I think the attempt to know God via standard philosophical epistemological methods failed utterly, and moreover distorted our knowledge to the point of producing much false knowledge of God which contradicts the knowledge we have received. - Josh
Yes. Some go too far, afraid too say we can know anything with any kind of certainty/confidence/assurance...
There's a difference between confidence and arrogance, and it's a fine but significant distinction.
Joshua,
Thanks. There is plenty of 'false knowledge' around. I agree with you that many philosophical perspectives fail to give us knowledge of the Creator and Redeemer.
Renea,
Thanks. Well put. And might we add between humility and relativism.
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