The Impossibility of Knowledge Without God

Imagine coming across a strange piece of art—say, a mysterious sculpture. You can either make sense of it on your own, giving it your preferred interpretation, or you could ask the maker of the sculpture. In the absence of information from the maker of the sculpture, the piece of art is subject to a variety of interpretations and one can only speculate as to the purpose, meaning, and proper interpretation of the sculpture. 

This highlights the key difference between the Christian and unbelieving epistemological schemes. The Christian has information from the creator of the universe and interprets it based on that information. The unbeliever does not possess such information—in fact, the unbeliever says that the universe has no maker. But if the sculpture has no maker, then there is no proper interpretation of it. To try to make sense of it is to try and find meaning in a meaningless object. The unbeliever is relegated to the realm of speculation and guesswork.

Imagine, once again, coming across an object so large that it is impossible to see all of it—one can only experience a small part of it. Can one understand a part of the object without understanding the whole? A holistic perspective is needed for understanding parts of an object. An engine is unintelligible to someone who does not possess knowledge of vehicles or machines. In the case of our imaginary large object, without a holistic perspective of the object, one can only speculate and guess as to how to properly interpret the parts of the object one experiences. 

This is the same predicament we as humans are in with respect to the universe. The universe is vast and we can only ever experience a small fraction of it. It is impossible for us attain a holistic perspective of the universe—on our own, at least. Without this holistic perspective, knowledge of the parts unattainable. Guesswork and speculation is the best we can hope for. In the Christian view of things, however, we possess information from the One who possesses a holistic perspective. Hence, knowledge of the parts of the universe which we experience is possible. The non-Christian does not have such epistemological resources. 

This is something the history of philosophy has repeatedly taught us. Whenever man attempts to gain knowledge of  the universe, while neglecting its Creator, he is doomed to end in speculation, guesswork, and abject failure. He does not know which metaphysical principle—unity or plurality—should govern his thinking. He does not know whether the universe is uniform, or if novelty rules the day. He oscillates wildly between pure rationalism and pure irrationalism in history. He may posit the ultimacy of invariance (Parmenides), or the ultimacy of flux (Heraclitus); a unifying realm of Ideas (Plato), or the bruteness of the facts (Hume); the passivity of the mind (Locke), or the activity of the mind (Kant); but in the end, there is no ultimate epistemological foundation for any of his speculations. Without a God’s-eye-view of the universe, knowledge of it is impossible. And one can only attain this God’s-eye-view through divine revelation. Revelation, then, is an indispensable epistemological foundation. 

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