Revelational vs. Autonomous Epistemology

The Christian and unbeliever have views of the world that are diametrically opposed. It should come as no surprise then that their views of human knowledge are antithetical as well. To see this, let’s examine how each system views man’s knowledge of a cup.

On the Christian view, when man knows a cup, he is reconstructing God’s system of knowledge. The cup owes its existence and nature to the eternal counsel of God. God’s conception of the cup is what makes the cup what it is. So God is the first to know the cup, and man simply mirrors God’s knowledge. It is in this sense that man’s knowledge is said to be analogical. Being created in God’s image, man’s conceptual structure is designed to reflect God’s mind on a created level. Thus, man’s knowledge of a cup is an analogical reflection of God’s original knowledge of the cup. 

On the unbeliever’s view, however, when man knows a cup, he is trying to know a previously unknown thing. There is no eternal counsel that makes the cup what it is. Man’s system of knowledge is original and not an analogical reflection of any prior rational system that determines the existence and nature of the cup. 

This is the major difference between revelational epistemology and autonomous epistemology. Revelational epistemology teaches man’s total dependence on God in epistemology. Autonomous epistemology asserts man’s epistemological self-sufficiency.

An autonomous epistemology is doomed to fail, though. This is because original knowledge without absolute control of the facts leads to subjectivism. 

For there to be knowledge, there must be a correspondence between the subject’s conception of a thing and the factuality of the thing. For me to know a cup, my conception of the cup must actually match how the cup really is. However, if man’s system of knowledge is original, how can he secure this correspondence?

God is in sovereign control of all of reality. His system of knowledge makes the facts what they are so His conception of a thing literally is the factuality of the thing. But man is not sovereign and he does not control historical eventuation. Thus, he cannot secure any connection between his conception of a thing and the factuality of that thing. Hence, on the unbeliever’s view, whenever man knows a thing, he is simply knowing his own conceptual framework. Subjectivism.

By adopting an autonomous epistemology man attempts to act like God. But his folly is quickly exposed because he does not possess the absolute control over history that God does. And thus, his epistemology ends up in subjectivism, unable to secure any knowledge of a mind-independent reality.

This is the folly of unbelief.

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