He Is Not Silent

Or, may I should title this post "A Final Word on Ontology"... :-)

Much of the focus of the past several hundred years has been on epistemology. As I've noted before, the Bible has relatively little to say about the limits of our intellect. It does, however, constantly stress how much our desires shape what we know. I Corinthians 1-3 and Psalms 119 are two passages I think of in this context.

From this perspective, right knowledge is mostly about right desires.

So, the basic ontology (beingness) of the universe, at least in regards to human decisions and actions (i.e., morality & spirituality), is clear to everyone (Romans 1). In the words of Francis Schaeffer, "He Is There and He Is Not Silent." Christian apologetics has tended to focus on how this is true in the empirical and rational realms (though the moral and spiritual has not been ignored).

However, the knowability of the physical universe via reason and empiricism can be misleading in the sense that there is a wide range of human ability to understand the rational and empirical aspects of the physical universe...few humans will ever have the intellectual capacity of a Newton, Gauss, Einstein, or Hawking.

If we try to apply the rational & empirical knowability of the physical universe in an analogical way to the spiritual and moral arena, we tend to head quickly toward some form of Gnosticism...special knowledge about the spiritual and moral that is available only to a select few.

This perspective is repeatedly denied explicitly and implicitly from Genesis through Revelation.

He Is There. He Is Not Silent. And, I suspect that if He spoke above a whisper, we would be deafened...unable to hear anything else, but still capable of (and perhaps even more predisposed to) rebellion.

Which leads to the next post...Authority, Not Power.