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Subsection
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Order of Contents
First Thing Known
Contra Skepticism 5+
Body-Soul Relationship 10+
Blank Slate 1
Know without Presupposing It 3
Unbelievers can Know Things
Empirical Knowledge
Analogical Knowledge of God
Aquinas
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Articles
1600’s
Perkins, William – sect. 1, ‘The Body / Soul Relationship’ in The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience… (d. 1602; Cambridge: Legat, 1606), bk. 1, ch. 9, pp. 188-99
Corbet, John – ‘Of Certainty & Infallibility’ in The Remains of the Reverend & Learned Mr. John Corbet… (London: Parkhurst, 1684), pp. 77-100
Corbet (1620-1680) was an English, congregationalist puritan, friends with Richard Baxter.
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1700’s
De Moor, Bernard – Continuous Commentary, ch. 3
section 7, ‘Is Universal Doubt Necessary for the Knowledge of God?’
Universal doubt as a starting point for theology was a novel tenet of Cartesianism. They also limited what can be known to clear and distinct perception, and used this to eliminate much traditional theology.
section 8, ‘Is Clear & Distinct Perception Necessary for the Knowledge of God?’
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1800’s
Alexander, Archibald – 1. ‘Philosophy of the Mind’ in God, Creation & Human Rebellion: Lecture Notes of Archibald Alexander from the Hand of Charles Hodge (1818; RBO, 2023), pp. 34-46
Bavinck, Herman – ch. 7, ‘The Faculty of Knowing’ in Foundations of Psychology trans. Born, Kloosterman & Bolt 2nd ed. (1897; 1921), pp. 103-77
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2000’s
Haines, David
‘Biblical Interpretation & Natural Knowledge: A Key to Solving the Protestant Problem’ in Reforming the Catholic Tradition: The Whole Word for the Whole Church ed. Joseph Minich (Davenant Press, 2019)
‘Descartes & Epistemological Metaphysics’
“The purpose of this paper is to explain Descartes’ views on Metaphysics. It is my thesis that one of the ways in which he influenced not only modern philosophy, but the way in which we do philosophy even today, is by turning metaphysical inquiry into an epistemological enterprise. That is to say, he made the critique of knowledge necessary prior to any consideration of existence, and what may or may not have it… I will attempt to show that Descartes’ view of Metaphysics, in spite of the fact that he used familiar scholastic metaphysical terminology, actually turned Metaphysics into what is today termed Epistemology. Descartes, not Kant, was the first to perform a true critique of knowledge, and to make that critique a necessary preliminary to all questions about what exists outside our minds.”
Johnson, Charles – ‘The Confused Nature of Van Til’s Epistemology’ 2020 24 paragraphs
This clear, helpful, documented and persuasive article examines the first chapter in Van Til’s A Survey of Christian Epistemology. Johnson proves and concludes that:
“…Van Til fails to communicate clearly, and at times clearly equivocates, regarding three points at the heart of his system of philosophy: [1.] whether man must know everything to know anything, [2.] whether knowledge is true if it corresponds to God’s knowledge, or on the contrary, [it is] only [true] if he consciously refers it to God, [3.] and whether this referring to God is [to] be sufficient, or whether one must be regenerate and possessing a saving faith of God in order to possess ‘true knowledge’.”
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History
Historical Theology
Book
eds. Abraham, William & Frederick Aquino – The Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theology Pre (Oxford University Press, 2022) ToC
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On Reformed History
Article
Sytsma, David – ‘Herman Bavinck’s Thomistic Epistemology: the Argument & Sources of his Principia of Science [in his Reformed Dogmatics]’ in Five Studies in the Thought of Herman Bavinck, ed. John Bolt (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon, 2011), pp. 1-56
Abstract: “Bavinck draws heavily on Aquinas’s treatment of the powers of the soul as he argues for a realist via media in contrast to modern trends of rationalism and empiricism.”
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Book
Sutanto, Nathaniel Gray – God & Knowledge: Herman Bavinck’s Theological Epistemology in T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology Buy (T&T Clark, 2021)
Amazon: “…what he considered to be the two most important aspects of epistemology: the character of the sciences and the correspondence between subjects and objects. Writing at the heels of the European debates in the 19th and 20th century concerning theology’s place in the academy, and rooted in historic Christian teachings…
This volume explores archival material and peripheral works translated for the first time in English. The author re-reads several key concepts, ranging from Organicism to the Absolute, and relates Bavinck’s work to Thomas Aquinas, Eduard von Hartmann, and other thinkers.”
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On the First Known Thing
See also the section, ‘On First Principles’.
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Quotes
Middle Ages
Duns Scotus
Sentences, bk. 1, dist. 3, question 1, tr. ChatGPT-5 as the Latin is given in Richard Field, Of the Church (Oxford: Turner, 1628), bk. 3, Answer to Berely, ch. 5, p. 253
“According to nature God is the first known, because natural knowledge proceeds from the indeterminate to the determinate. That which is indeterminate in a negative sense is more indeterminate than that which is indeterminate in a privative sense; therefore it is conceived beforehand to the latter. And that which is indeterminate privatively, according to our way of knowing, is conceived prior to the determinate; because being (ens) and thing (res) are imprinted upon our soul at the first impression, according to Avicenna (Metaphysics I.5). Therefore the indeterminate, in the negative sense, is altogether the first object of our intellect.
But rationally considered, the creature is known afterward: for first this particular good is conceived, then universal good abstracted by the second abstraction—that is, that which is indeterminate privatively—then the good abstracted by the first abstraction, namely, that which is indeterminate negatively.
And therefore it is observed by the learned that there is a twofold knowledge and apprehension of things: one distinct, the other confused. In confused knowledge, that is first apprehended by us which first affects the sense. But in distinct knowledge, ‘the most common is first known, and those things which are nearer to it are earlier, and those more remote are later; because nothing is conceived distinctly unless all the things that are included in its essential notion are conceived.’”
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Bonaventure
Journey of the Mind to God, ch. 5, tr. ChatGPT-5 as the Latin is given in Richard Field, Of the Church (Oxford: Turner, 1628), bk. 3, Answer to Berely, ch. 5, p. 253
“And to the same purpose is that which Bonaventure has: Since non-being is a privation of being, it does not fall within the intellect except through being. But being does not fall (within the intellect) through something else; because everything that is understood is understood either as non-being, or as being in potency, or as being in act. If, therefore, non-being cannot be understood except through being, and being in potency cannot be understood except through being in act, and since being names the pure act of that which is, therefore being is that which first falls within the intellect. And that being is the pure act; but this is not particular being, which is being narrowed (or restricted), because that is mixed with potency; nor analogical being, because that has the least degree of act, inasmuch as it is the least actual. It remains, therefore, that that being is the divine being.
Therefore remarkable is the blindness of the intellect, which does not consider that which it sees first, and without which it can know nothing. For just as the eye, intent upon the various differences of colors, does not see the light by which it sees the rest—and if it sees it, nevertheless does not notice it—so the eye of our mind, intent upon these particular and universal beings, does not take notice of being itself, which is outside of every genus, although it first presents itself to the mind and through it the others. Whence it very truly appears that, just as the eye of a bat is related to the light, so is the eye of our mind related to the most manifest things of nature. For being accustomed to the darkness of beings and the phantasms of sensible things, when it gazes upon the very light of the highest Being, it seems to itself to see nothing—failing to understand that this very darkness is the supreme illumination of our mind; just as when the eye sees pure light, it seems to itself to see nothing.”
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1600’s
Richard Field
Of the Church (Oxford: Turner, 1628), bk. 3, Answer to Berely, ch. 5, pp. 252-54 Field (1561–1616) was an English ecclesiological theologian associated with the work of Richard Hooker.
“…the difficulty to do good, proneness to evil, contrariety between the powers and faculties of the soul, and the rebellion of the meaner against the superior and better, are not the conditions of nature, as it was or might have been in itself before the entrance of sin, but that all these proceed from the putting of the powers of the soul, by the loss of grace, out of that course, which by the law of God and nature they were to hold.
For does not the condition of man’s nature require that amongst things inquired after, thought of, and known, God should be the first? and amongst things desired and loved, nothing should be desired and loved more or before Him, nor otherwise than for Him? and is it not clear and evident, that if God be the first thing that is thought of, sought after, and loved, and that nothing be sought after or respected, but after and for God, that there will be no proneness to evil, difficultire to do good, contrariety between the powers of the soul, and rebellion of the meaner and inferior against the better and superior? surely there is none that can or will make question of it.
Now it is confessed by the best learned amongst the Schoolmen, that howsoever it be not so in the course of our understanding, in this state wherein we are, yet according to the course of the nature of our understanding simply considered, it should be so, that God should be the first thing sought after and known by us.
…
By this which has ben said [including the quotes by Scotus and Bonaventure], it is evident that according to the course of nature not disordered, nor put out of course, the first thing that is inquired after, thought of and known, is God, and that He is the first good that is desired and loved, and that no other thing is desired or loved but after Him, and for Him.
So that none of the things formerly mentioned can be found in the nature of man, unless it be put out of course. Whence grows the contrariety between the meaner and better, superior and inferior faculties of the soul, but from hence, that the soul in this state of her aversion from God, takes the beginning of all her knowledge from the senses, apprehends particular things as good upon the first view, and to be desired, which afterwards upon better consideration, in respects not considered at the first, she finds are not good nor desirable? And whence is the rebellion of the inferior against the superior, but from hence, that the superior having cast off the dependance it formerly had upon God and respect unto Him, the inferior also casts off the respect it had to it?
‘What could have been more just than that he should receive retaliation in kind? God is the life of the soul, and the soul is the life of the body. By sinning the soul willingly lost its power to live; let it unwillingly lose also its power to give life. Having freely driven away life—since it did not wish to live—let it not be able to bestow life on whom, or in what measure, it may wish. The soul would not be ruled by God; let it be unable to rule the body. If it does not obey its superior, why should it command its inferior?
The Creator found His creature rebellious against Himself; let the soul likewise find its own handmaid (the body) rebellious against it. Man was found a transgressor of the divine law; let him find another law in his members opposing the law of his mind and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin. And since sin sets a separation between us and God, let death likewise set a separation between our body and ourselves.’ Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon to the Knights of the Temple, ch. 11, ‘Of the Sepulcher’
From hence likewise is that danger of erring, whereunto man is subject; for apprehending particular things first, his knowledge is imperfect and confused; and not without much labor and danger of erring does he come to the distinct knowledge of any thing. And hence also flows that ignorance that is found in men; for taking the beginning of all the knowledge they have from the senses, they know no more touching anything than may be discerned by the accidents and outward effects of it, and so never come to know anything in the essence of it, or immediately as it is in itself. So that according to that which before I noted, out of the book called Destructorium vitiorum, as a man may know in the dark, the length, breadth and other dimensions of a thing, but not whether it be fair or foul, white or black. So men in this obscuri∣ty of discerning, may find out that there is a God, and that He is the beginning and cause of all things: but they cannot know how fair, how good, how merciful, and how glorious He is, that so they may love Him, fear Him, honour Him, and trust in Him as God, unless they have an illumination of grace.”
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Richard Baxter
Catholic Theology (London: White, 1675), sect. 1, ‘Of our Knowledge of God as here Attainable’
p. 1, margin note
“Bradwardine, bk. 1, ch. 11, p. 198. The first, necessary, incomplex principle is God, and the first, complex [necessary principle] simply is of God: Deus est [God is], etc. But yet it is not to us the primum cognitum [first thing known].”
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p. 1
“3. We neither have, nor can have here in flesh, any one proper formal conception of the Divine nature that is formally suited to the truth in the object, but only metaphorical or analogical conceptions borrowed from things better known.
4. Yet nothing beyond sense (at least) is so certainly known as God, so far as we can reach, though nothing be less perfectly or more defectively known, or less comprehended. Even as we know nothing visible more certainly than the sun, and yet comprehend nothing visible less.
…
7. God is here seen in the glass of His works, with the revelation of His Word and Spirit. And from these works we must borrow our conceptions.
8. Therefore, though the thing intended when we speak of God be transcendently and only in Him, and not in the creature, yet the first use of the words is to signify something in the creature. And therefore the creature is the famosius analogatum, though nothing to God.”
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Contra Skepticism
Order of
Articles 2
Quote 1
Latin 1
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Articles
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – ‘The New Jesuitic Skepticism’, pp. 118-25 in Select Theological Disputations, vol. 1, pt. 1 tr. by AI by Onku (Utrecht: Johannes a Waesberg, 1648) Latin
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1700’s
De Moor, Bernard – Continuous Commentary, ch. 3
section 7, ‘Is Universal Doubt Necessary for the Knowledge of God?’
Universal doubt as a starting point for theology was a novel tenet of Cartesianism. They also limited what can be known to clear and distinct perception, and used this to eliminate much traditional theology.
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Quote
1700’s
Jean-Alphonse Turretin
Dissertations on Natural Theology tr. William Crawford (d. 1737; Belfast: Magee, 1777), Theses concerning Natural Theology in General, pp. 4-5
“Should anyone attempt to weaken the truth of natural theology by this argument, that nothing of certainty can be discovered in human affairs, or that what is certain cannot possibly be distinguished from that which is doubtful, a confutation of the first of these puerilities does not belong to this part of the subject; for it is not our business here to demonstrate the principles of human knowledge, but to take them for granted–Let these who are so thoroughly possessed of such skeptical opinions in order to be cured of their folly apply to the metaphysicians, I had almost said to the physicians–all that our subject requires of us is to show that there is as great certainty to be found in matters of a divine nature as can possibly be met with in human affairs.
For to add only this one remark, what end can it serve to confute those by argument who attempt to destroy all reasoning, nay the very foundations of it, and who, on their own principles, are equally refuted, whether they prove their own opinion to be true, or do not prove it, whether they overcome in their disputations, or are defeated?
But that certainty is often confounded with doubt, and truth with falsehood, in every subject of our enquiry, more particularly such enquiries as have divine things for their object, cannot be denied. For this reason in particular, the candid enquirer after truth should determine nothing without caution, nothing precipitately, nothing from prejudice, from anger, from hatred, or any improper disposition. But to assert that nothing, in any of our enquiries, can be known with certainty, even when the utmost caution, sincereity and attention guide our researches, is perfectly absurd and quite inconsistent with the first principles of reason.”
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Latin Articles
Voet, Gisbert – Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht: Waesberg, 1648-1667)
vol. 1, 8. ‘The New Jesuit Skepticism about the Principles of the Christian Faith’, pp. 106-114
vol. 4, ‘Of doubt’ in 50. ‘A Syllabus of Questions on the Decalogue’, ‘On the 1st Commandment’, p. 774
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On the Body-Soul Relationship
See especially our page ‘Hylemorphism’, which view we recommend.
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Order of Contents
Encyclopedia Articles 2
Articles 4
Book 1
Historical 4
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Encyclopedia Articles
1900’s
Shaffer, Jerome – ‘Mind-Body Problem’ in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy ed. Paul Edwards (Macmillan, 1967), vol. 5, pp. 336-46
Jackson, Frank & Georges Rey – ‘Mind, Philosophy of’ in Routledge Encyclopedia Of Philosophy 10 vols in 1 (Routledge, 1998), pp. 5,521-5,525
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Articles
1900’s
Bahnsen, Greg – ‘The Mind / Body Problem in Biblical Perspective’ (Covenant Media Foundation, 1972) 10 pp.
Bahnsen espouses “substantival monism, a material body which is special for reason of its capabilities (not its added substantival ingredient).” (p. 2)
This is largely in contrast to substance dualism, where the spirit and body are each their own substances, which are joined (as in the Platonic and Cartesian traditions). Substantival monism means that the spirit and body together form one substance.
Technically Artistotelianism holds to substantival monism, as the spirit (or form) and body (or matter) make up one substance. However there are significant differences between Aristotelianism and Bahnsen’s view, which has certain, significant similarities to a view of materialism where what may be mental and immaterial about man is fundamentally dependent (or supervenient) on his material nature. Mind appears to be a function or feature of the body for Bahnsen:
Bahnsen: “Properly understood, language referring to ‘mind’ is actually speaking (not of an immaterial substance) of certain kinds of intelligent behavior. ‘mind’ is related adjectivally and adverbially, not substantively, to body. Man is neither a ghost nor a machine; rather he is a complex psycho-physical organism capable of a peculiar and complete sort of behavior called ‘intelligence’ (and I would add, morality).” (p. 10)
Bahnsen’s similarity to, dependence on and synthesis with certain aspects of modern philosophies respecting methodology, epistemology and metaphysics (or the lack thereof) on this subject is evident (which his bibliography confirms; especially Wittgenstein, p. 9). Bahnsen states as the advantages of his view:
“…while my alternative does not render human nature any less mysterious than the official dogma, it has the
two-fold advantage of more properly locating the mystery and alleviating unnecessary philosophical problems which are set forth against the dual substance view in this day.”
Yet Bahnsen is seriously weak on death and the intermediate state (if his view can even adequately explain these things, which it is not clear it can):
“…death can be seen as the loss of ‘life-breath’ (=”spirit”; e.g. Ps. 104:29), and the dead can be affirmed to still have self-conscious life by being called ‘spirit’ (though very infrequently in scripture to be sure), but nowhere does scripture imply that man is a dual substance which divides as he dies (unless you read the Bible through Cartesian glasses).” (p. 12)
“Man is a personal body created in God’s image. The Bible makes quite clear that man’s hope is in resurrection of the body, not release from the body (John 2:19-22; Lk. 24:40; Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor; 15:3-4, 44, 48-49; 2 Cor. 5:1-5; Isa. 26:19; 66:22-23; Dan. 12:2). Moreover, it is embodied existence which is the criterion of future judgment (2 Cor. 5:10; Heb. 9:27). We may not know all the answers with respect to the intermediate state…”
The reformed orthodox, drawing on the Aristotelian philosophy of the Medievals, do a much better job carefully delineating how death is unnatural to the constitution of man, and yet how the human spirit may exist as incomplete apart from the body. Bahnsen is not recommended on this subject; the reformed orthodox are.
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2000’s
Feser, Edward – ‘Inventing the mind-body problem’ in ch. 5, ‘Descent of the Modernists’ in The Last Superstition: a Refutation of the New Atheism (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 2008), pp. 184-199
Feser is a Romanist, Neo-Thomist professor of philosophy.
Freeman III, Walter J. – ‘Nonlinear Brain Dynamics & Intention According to Aquinas’ in Mind & Matter, 6(2) (2009), pp. 207-34
Freeman is a neuro-scientist.
Abstract: “…The core concept of intention in Aquinas is the inviolable unity of mind, brain and body… This conception of the self as closed, autonomous, and selforganizing, devised over 700 years ago [by Aquinas]… In my experience there is no extant philosophical system than that of Aquinas that better fits with the new findings in nonlinear brain dynamics. Therefore, a detailed reading and transcription of basic terms is warranted, comparing in both directions the significance of key words across 700 years from medieval metaphysics to 21st
century brain dynamics.”
“Questions of how the brain can a priori create its own goals and then find the appropriate search images in its memory banks are not well handled. The loss of the Cartesian pilot has left a large gap in the theory, because no one wants a homunculus, but no one has a replacement…
Recognition of ‘dissipative structures’… of ‘macroscopic order parameters’… and of ‘positive entropic information flows’ by various authors writing on self-organization in chaotic systems has opened new avenues to pursue the age-old question of how goals and their derivative expectancies arise in brains. Proposed new answers are expressed in terms of “circular causality”…
My aim in this essay is to compare the language used in the theory of dynamical systems to describe active perception in experimental animals with the language used by an eminent philosopher [Aquinas] to describe the process in humans.” – pp. 209-10
“Hence this essay can be regarded as an annotated multilingual glossary, attempting to interrelate the words of 13th and 20th century philosophers with the words of 20th century neuroscientists.” – p. 211
“When discussing the brain Aquinas showed that he was clearly aware of its importance for the functions he analyzed… He wrote in several passages of the ‘turning back’ of the intellect within itself (reflectio), suggesting that he comprehended and dealt with what is now often called ‘circular causality’.” – pp. 211-12
“The systems for mechanization of brain function that were introduced by Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza and Willis in the 17th century have served well for the design and development of the measurement systems and tools providing new data, but the machine metaphors of computation, representation, and information processing are incompatible with these data… The philosophical system that most clearly and unequivocally conforms to this experimental finding is that of Thomas Aquinas.” – p. 232
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Book
Feser, Edward – Philosophy of Mind: a Beginner’s Guide (1999) 270 pp. ToC
Feser is a Romanist professor of philosophy and an Analytical Thomist.
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Historical
On the 1600’s – 1700’s
Goudriaan, Aza – ch. 4, ‘The Human Being: His Soul & Body, Special Status & Conscience’ in Reformed Orthodoxy & Philosophy, 1625–1750: Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus Van Mastricht & Anthonius Driessen Buy (Brill, 2006) See especially pp. 252-59 on Driessen.
If body and spirit form one substance, as matter and form respectively, per the Aristotelian/Thomist hylemorphist view of Voet and Mastricht, there is little difficulty in conceiving that the spirit can affect the body. If however, per Descartes, the body and soul are two different substances of a completely different kind, then the issue of how the two can interact at all becomes pressing.
Driessen was very much influenced by the growing Cartesianism of the day. Upon such a paradigm, three main views could be conceived as to how the body and soul related: (1) Physical Influence; (2) Occasional Causes; (3) Pre-Established Harmony. Driessen argued for the first option. Goudriaan explains and surveys them all.
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On the 1600’s
Sutton, John – ‘Soul & Body in Seventeenth-Century British Philosophy’ in ed. Peter Anstey, The Oxford Handbook of Seventeenth-Century British Philosophy (Oxford UP, 2013), pp. 285-307
Garber, D. & Wilson – ‘Mind-Body Problems’ in eds. D. Garber & M. Ayers, The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, I (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998), pp. 838–867
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Whether or in What Way the Mind is a Tabula Rasa, or a Blank Slate
Quote
1600’s
Francis Turretin
Institutes of Elenctic Theology (P&R), vol. 1, 1st Topic, 3rd question, ‘Whether Natural Theology may be Granted’, sect. 11, p. 9
“The mind of man is a tabula rasa not absolutely, but relatively as to discursion and dianoetical knowledge (which is acquired necessarily by inferring one thing from another); but not as to apprehensive and intuitive knowledge.
For even according to Paul, the work of the law is in such a manner written in the hearts of the Gentiles that they do by nature the things contained in the law. Hence is a twofold inscription upon the heart of man: the one of God in the remains of his image and the natural law; the other of the Devil by sin.”
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That One can come to Know Things without Presupposing Them, including God
See also ‘On the Innate vs. Acquired Knowledge of God’.
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Quotes
1500’s
Francis Junius
A Treatise on True Theology trans. David Noe (1592?; RHB, 2014), ch. 10, ‘Natural Theology’, p. 146
“We call principles those things which are known per se by the light of nature, which are known immediately, and which are unmoved or immutable, such that from them at last definite knowledge arises.
From these principles the faculty of reason deduces fixed processes, like rivulets from springs. It compares the principles of nature with the truth of reality or separates them from one another. It joins causes with effects and from these forms conclusions. It decides which things are common and which unique.
Finally, it so orders everything that it acquires knowledge of all those things which the reason of a person can trace down and follow.”
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1600’s
Gisbert Voet
‘Disputation On the Ways of Knowing God’, pt. 2 tr. Michael Lynch (1665; 2024) at Translationes Lyncei
“§1. We have laid out the concept of the natural knowledge of God based on the mainstream orthodox view. What is left is to demonstrate the wider agreement on this by quoting different authors… These authors do not just generally affirm this natural knowledge of God, but also distinctly break it down into parts or species which they explain: the innate or implanted or subjective type; and the acquired or added or objective or discursive or demonstrative type, derived a posteriori from observing effects.”
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Francis Turretin
Institutes of Elenctic Theology (P&R), vol. 1, 3rd topic, question 1, “Can the existence of God be irrefutably demonstrated against atheists? We affirm”, sect. 22, p. 177
“Althought God is not manifest to the senses comprehensively as he is in himself, yet he can be perceived apprehensively as shining in his works, appearing in signs, heard in the word and manifested in the fabric of the whole universe.
(2) It is a false assumption that there is nothing in the intellect which was not before in some sense. For universals are in the intellect and never were in any sense. A mind is known as also an angel, yet they are never pereceived or seen except from their effects.
Why therefore may not God be most certainly known in the mind from his works and a posteriori, although we cannot perceive Him with our eyes or any of the other bodily senses.”
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Unbelievers can Know Things
Order of Contents
Bible Verses 26
Quote 1
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Bible Verses
Old Testament 10
Gen. 3:7 “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked…”
Ex. 7:5 “And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.”
1 Kings 9:27 “And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon.”
1 Kings 20:13 “there came a prophet unto Ahab king of Israel, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou seen all this great multitude? behold, I will deliver it into thine hand this day; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.”
2 Kings 19:19 “O Lord our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even thou only.”
Esth. 1:13 “Then the [pagan] king said to the wise men, which knew the times, (for so was the king’s manner toward all that knew law and judgment:”
Prov. 14:10 “The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.”
Prov. 20:11 “Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.”
Prov. 27:23 “Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.”
Prov. 31:23 “Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.”
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New Testament 16
Mt. 16:3 “And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”
Mt. 25:26 “His lord answered and said unto him, ‘Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not…'”
Mk. 1:24 “Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.”
Lk. 12:47-48
“And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”
Lk. 20:19-21 “the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him… for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them… And they asked him, saying, Master, we know that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou the person of any…“
Jn. 9:20 “His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind:”
Jn. 19:4 “Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.”
Acts 19:15 “And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?”
Acts 19:34 “But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.”
Acts 24:22 “And when Felix heard these things, having more perfect knowledge of that way, he deferred them,”
Rom. 3:20 “for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
Rom. 10:19 “But I say, Did not Israel know?”
1 Cor. 2:11 “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?”
James 4:17 “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”
Jude 1:10 “but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.”
Rev. 12:12 “the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”
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Quote
1200’s
Thomas Aquinas
Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. 1, ch. 11
“But because we are unable to see his essence, we come to know his existence not in Himself, but in his effects…
For God is that in which all things are known, not so that other things are unknown unless He is known, as happens in self-evident principles, but because all knowledge is caused in us by his outpouring.”
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That One can Know Things Empirically
Bible Verses
Old Testament
Gen. 8:11 “And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.”
Gen. 9:24 “And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.”
Gen. 12:11 “when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:”
Gen. 29:5 “And he said unto them, Know ye Laban the son of Nahor? And they said, We know him.”
Gen. 31:6 “And ye know that with all my power I have served your father.”
Gen. 33:13 “And he said unto him, My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and the flocks and herds with young are with me: and if men should overdrive them one day, all the flock will die.”
Judges 13:21 “But the angel of the Lord did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the Lord.”
1 Sam. 20:39 “But the lad knew not any thing: only Jonathan and David knew the matter.”
1 Sam. 23:9 “And David knew that Saul secretly practised mischief against him…”
1 Sam. 26:17 “And Saul knew David’s voice, and said, Is this thy voice, my son David? And David said, It is my voice, my lord, O king.”
2 Sam. 11:16 “he assigned Uriah unto a place where he knew that valiant men were.”
Job 29:16 “I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.”
Isa. 28:24-29
“Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.
For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.”
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New Testament
Mt. 16:3 “And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”
Mt. 24:32 “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:”
Mk. 15:45 “And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.”
Lk. 7:37 “And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,”
Acts 12:14 “And when she knew Peter’s voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in, and told how Peter stood before the gate.”
Acts 16:3 “Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek.”
1 Cor. 5:6 “Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?”
1 Cor. 14:7 “And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?”
1 Cor. 16:15 “(ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints)”
2 Cor. 13:6 “But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates.”
Eph. 6:21 “But that ye also may know my affairs, and how I do, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things:”
Phil. 2:22 “But ye know the proof of him, that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel.”
1 Thess. 4:2 “For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.”
1 Tim. 3:5 “(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)”
2 Tim. 1:15 “This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.”
2 Tim. 3:14 “But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;”
Phile. 1:21 “Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say.”
1 Jn. 1:1-3 “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life. (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you…”
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On our Knowledge of God being Analogical
Quote
1600’s
Richard Baxter
Catholic Theology (London: White, 1675)
sect. 1, ‘Of our Knowledge of God as here Attainable’, pp. 1-3
“3. We neither have, nor can have here in flesh, any one proper formal conception of the Divine nature that is formally suited to the truth in the object, but only metaphorical or analogical conceptions borrowed from things better known.
4. Yet nothing beyond sense (at least) is so certainly known as God, so far as we can reach, though nothing be less perfectly or more defectively known, or less comprehended. Even as we know nothing visible more certainly than the sun, and yet comprehend nothing visible less.
5. It is not true, which many great metaphysicians assert, that the quiddity of God is totally unknown to us: for then it could not be life eternal to know Him; nor would a mere negative knowledge cause in us a sufficient positive love or joy or trust, etc. But to know that we cannot know Him would but infer that we cannot love Him: for we love not an unknown good.
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7. God is here seen in the glass of His works, with the revelation of His Word and Spirit. And from these works we must borrow our conceptions.
8. Therefore, though the thing intended when we speak of God be transcendently and only in Him, and not in the creature, yet the first use of the words is to signify something in the creature. And therefore the creature is the famosius analogatum [the better known analogue], though nothing to God.
9. In the use of these notions we must still profess that we apply them to God no farther than to signify his perfections. And all words must be as little as may be used of Him in strict disputes which imply imperfection, when better may be had; but the highest are to be preferred.
10. And we must still profess that we take none of these words to be formal, proper, univocal terms, lest the concealed metaphor or impropriety occasion false conceptions of God and unworthy of Him, and also tempt men to run them further by false inferences.
11. God’s nature is most simple, undivided; and so must an adequate conception of Him be. But man can have no such conception of Him, but must know what he can know of this one God by many partial inadequate conceptions.
12. Yet must we be very careful that these inadequate analogical conceptions be orderly, and not—as (I will not say how commonly) it is done by some—a confused heap. For the mind that so conceiveth of Him greatly injures itself and Him; and the tongue and pen that so describes Him dishonors Him…”
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sect. 3, ‘The several inadequate conceptions which in order make up our knowledge of God’
“21. By the knowledge of our own acts we know our powers and the nature of our own souls (though imperfectly). And by the knowledge of our souls, we know the nature of other intellectual spirits. And by the knowledge of ourselves and them, and the Scripture expressions of his attributes, we know so much of God as we can here know. And accordingly must speak of him, or be silent. For we have no higher notions than such as are thus analogical, expressing that which is in God in an inconceivable eminency and transcendency, by words which first signify that which is formally in the soul (as is said).”
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Thomas Aquinas’s View
Quote
Aquinas
Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. 1, ch. 3
“For, since the principle of all the knowledge which the reason acquires about a thing is the understanding of that thing’s essence—because, according to the Philosopher’s teaching (2 Posterior Analytics 3, 9) the principle of a demonstration is what a thing is—it follows that our knowledge about a thing will be in proportion to our understanding of its essence.
Therefore, if the human intellect comprehends the essence of a particular thing, such as a stone or a triangle, no truth about that thing will surpass the capability of human reason. But this does not happen to us in relation to God, because the human intellect is incapable by its natural power of attaining to the comprehension of his essence.
For our intellect’s knowledge, according to the mode of the present life, originates from the senses: and thus things which are not objects of sense cannot be comprehended by the human intellect except insofar as knowledge of them is gathered from sensibles. Now sensibles cannot lead our intellect to see in them what God is, because they are effects unequal to the power of their cause.
And yet our intellect is led by sensibles to the divine knowledge so as to know about God that he is, and other such truths which need to be ascribed to the first principle. Accordingly, some divine truths are attainable by human reason, while others altogether surpass the power of human reason.
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Furthermore, the same is made abundantly clear by the deficiency which we experience every day in our knowledge of things. For we are ignorant of many of the properties of sensible things, and in many cases we are unable to discover the nature of those properties which we perceive by our senses. Much less, therefore, is human reason capable of investigating all the truths about that most sublime [divine] essence.
This agrees with the saying of the Philosopher, where he says that our intellect is like the eye of a bat in relation to the sun in relation to those primary things which are most evident in nature (1a Metaphysics 1, 2).”
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