Andrew Meredith’s Reviews > The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God > Status Update

Most importantly, the Christian will recognize the lordship of God in the field of knowledge. God is sovereign, and He coordinates law, object, and subject so that the three cohere; a true account of one will never conflict with a true account of the others. We do not need, then, to choose one of those three elements, make it the "'key' to knowledge, and pit it against the other two. Indeed, in most cases, to seek such a "'key' is idolatry; it is an attempt to find an infallible guide other than God's Word in Scripture, to find some other absolute criterion of truth."

"God rejects the wisdom of the world and calls His people to a special wisdom of His own that is sharply at odds with the world's values. Believers are to stand for God's wisdom and against false teaching, even under the most difficult challenges. This is a touchy subject for modern people; intellectual authoritarianism is difficult to present attractively! Intellectual freedom, academic freedom, freedom of speech and thought—these are important values in our time. Can modern people be brought to worship a God who is an intellectual authoritarian? That depends, of course, on God and His grace. The fact is, however, that this authoritarianism is the source of true intellectual freedom. Human thinking must be subject to a norm, to a criterion. If we reject God as our norm, we must find another (rationalism) or despair entirely of knowledge (skepticism). Rationalism brings intellectual bondage to human systems, and skepticism is intellectual death. When we serve God, however, our minds are set free from human traditions and from the death of skepticism to accomplish their great tasks."

"Non-Christians as well as Christians have presuppositions. Everyone has them because everyone has some commitment that at a particular time (granted, it may change) is "basic" to him. Everyone has a scale of values in which one loyalty takes precedence over another until we reach one that takes precedence over all the rest. That value is that person's presupposition, his basic commitment, his ultimate criterion. Theologically, the point can be expressed this way: when people forsake the true God, they come under bondage to idols. When they reject the true standard, they adopt a false one."

If all our knowledge is ultimately justified by Scripture, then how should we justify our belief in Scripture itself? By Scripture, of course! Scripture justifies itself.

But, aren't all circular arguments fallacious? "No system can avoid circularity, because all systems (as we have seen)—non-Christian as well as Christian—are based on presuppositions that control their epistemologies, argumentation, and use of evidence. Thus a rationalist can prove the primacy of reason only by using a rational argument. An empiricist can prove the primacy of sense-experience only by some kind of appeal to sense-experience. A Muslim can prove the primacy of the Koran only by appealing to the Koran. But if all systems are circular in that way, then such circularity can hardly be urged against Christianity. The critic will inevitably be just as "guilty" of circularity as the Christian is. Circularity in a system is properly justified only at one point: in an argument for the ultimate criterion of the system."