Required reading
Systematic Theology Volume 1 by Charles Hodge (Available from Amazon or free here) - Conclude Chapter 4 (The knowledge of God).
My summary
This week Hodge continues speaking about the knowledge of God.
Today's reading answers the argument that God cannot be fully known, particularly the argument set forth by Hamilton.
We learn that such an argument teaches:
(i) only the infinite can know the infinite;
(ii) the infinite cannot know;
(iii) the absolute cannot be cause;
(iv) God is an object of faith, but not of knowledge;
(v) there is such a thing as regulative knowledge.
Throughout the reading Hodge shows answers to such teachings and their logical conclusions.
What grabbed me
I enjoyed Hodge's comments on the idea of regulatory knowledge:
'2. Regulative knowledge is, from the nature of the case, power- less, unless its subjects regard it as well founded. Some parents educate their children in the use of fictions and fairy tales ; but belief in the truth of these is essential to their effect. So long as the world believed in ghosts and witches, the belief had power. As soon as men were satisfied that there were no such real existences, their power was gone. Had the philosophers convinced the Greeks that their gods were not real persons, there would have been an end to their mythology. And if Hamilton and his disciples can convince the world that the Infinite cannot be a person, the regulative influence of Theism is gone. Men cannot be influenced by representations which they know are not conformed to the truth.
3. This theory is highly derogatory to God. It supposes Him to propose to influence his creatures by false representations ; revealing Himself as Father, Governor, and Judge, when there is no objective truth to answer to these representations. And worse than this, as remarked above, it supposes Him to have so constituted our nature as to force us to believe what is not true.'
Regulative knowledge is an absurd notion.
Next week's reading
Commence Chapter 5 (Nature and attributes of God) by reading up to the heading '6. Eternity'.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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