Epistemological Crisis

Try saying that without spitting: "epistemological". Not easy. What is epistemology? It is, in essence, thinking about thinking. It is the Pilate of philosophy: "What is truth?" It asks what knowledge is and how it can be acquired. Not "What is true?" as much as "How do you know that what is true is true?" It is a question of Truth.

The Bible says that we humans have a genuine crisis here--an epistemological crisis. What is truth? Modernism argued that truth was determined by means of reason. Post-modernism isn't so sure. Once the Age of Reason ruled, but we're now in the Age of Empathy where reason isn't the king, but feelings rule. "Truth is defined by how I feel." This concept begins with "Don't bother me with facts; I know I'm right." But the Bible says it isn't a matter of the current historical age; it is a human problem. Consider:

The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. (2 Cor 4:4)

Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Heb 3:13)

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer 17:9)

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor 2:14)

Humans are described by God as "blinded", "hardened", "deceitful", and "not able to understand." And that's just a sampling. Paul gives a more comprehensive description in his epistle to the church in Rome:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Rom 1:18)

The problem here is not lack of information. It is active "Truth suppression." He says, in fact, "What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them." (Rom 1:19). It is willful. It is self-imposed. Ironically, it started in the Garden when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That knowledge started the suppression of Truth.

So, here we are, muddling about, trying to solve the world's problems. Take, for instance, ISIS (or ISIL or Al-qaeda or whatever other Islamic threat you'd like to name). We're thinking, "You know, a military strike here and a purple-finger vote there ought to solve this" and what we're seeing is it's not working. That's because there is a fundamental breakdown of Truth in the ISIS mind. They believe that killing innocents and abusing women and children and imposing sharia law will solve the problems of the world. They're wrong. But those trying to solve that problem suffer from the same problem--a Truth decay. The problem solvers suffer from the same problem. They're blinded, hardened, suppressing the truth. Solutions from those with a deceitful heart don't solve problems of deceitful hearts.

So, philosophy argues about Truth and calls it "epistemology", not realizing that human philosophy is predicated on a denial of truth. And we raise our hands and say, "Um, excuse me. We have a genuine solution." "No thanks," they tell us, because "the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Cor 1:18). The solution is being "transformed by the renewal of your mind" (Rom 12:2), but they don't want to hear it. Because they're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. All sorts of solutions abound, from science to politics to military options to humanitarian efforts, but what's needed is "the word of the cross", the change of heart (Ezek 36:26). We have that solution. So we shouldn't hold back on it, even though it is a stumbling block to some and foolishness to others (1 Cor 1:23) because, as we've seen, Natural Man has an epistemological crisis and we have the only answer^[1].
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^[1] I know, that sounds arrogant. "They're all sick in the head but we have figured it out." That's not the claim. Here's the claim. The Maker has stated "You guys have this heart problem" and The Maker has declared "Here's the answer." We wouldn't have known that they have that heart problem because we have the same one, but we have it on Good Authority from One who does not have the problem and knows us intimately that we do have this problem and what the solution is. To say back to The Maker, "You don't know what you're talking about. That's arrogant!" would be the ultimate arrogance.