A Survey of Christian Epistemology

There is a special value in studying Greek epistemology since it has not been brought into any contact with Christianity: antitheistic epistemology appears here without intermixture of theistic elements.

Moreover, Plato’s views may be taken as a fair sample of all antitheistic speculation to the present day. We may say that Plato first tried to interpret reality in terms of the sense world. Then he tried to interpret reality in terms of the Ideal world. Finally he tried to interpret reality in terms of a mixture of temporal and eternal categories. In this way Plato exhausted the antitheistic possibilities. Modern epistemology presents no more than variations on these themes.

Chapter 4 Historical Survey C. Mediaeval Epistemology: Its Starting Point As we took Plato for a representative of Greek epistemology, so we may take Augustine for a representative of early Christian epistemology.

We would note that Augustine’s thought, though in many ways Platonic, is fundamentally the polar opposite of Plato’s thought. Plato assumed that the human mind can function independently of God; Augustine held that man’s thought is a thinking of God’s thoughts after him. Accordingly, Augustine did not seek to interpret reality by any of the three Platonic methods. He sought rather to give a philosophy of history in terms of the counsel of God. Augustine found in the conception of the Trinity the union of the logical principles of identity and difference, while Plato had sought for the origin of diversity in the sense world.

Chapter 5 Historical Survey D. Mediaeval Epistemology: Its Climax Instead of developing further the great differences between the two main types of epistemology, Scholasticism attempts to harmonize the Greek and the theistic traditions.

The problem of the “universals” was treated by the Scholastics with an underestimation of the fact that epistemological terminology is not a neutral something.

Accordingly, the main question in epistemology, i.e., that of the relation of the finite to the divine mind, was subordinated to the less important question of the relation of the finite mind to finite laws and “facts.” The result was that though there was much valuable discussion of details, the main issue between theism and antitheism was not clarified but obscured by Scholasticism. The issue remains obscure in the Roman Catholic church to this day.

Chapter 6 Historical Survey E. Modern Epistemology: Lutheranism The Reformation as a whole was a great advance in the direction of the clarification of the issue between theism and non-theism. This advance was possible because the theologians of the Reformation period developed Christian doctrine on its subjective side.

This helped to bring Christianity into an indissoluble union with theism so that it was seen that the one cannot be defended without the other. This in turn helped to do away