Epistemological Self Conciousness

What is epistemological self-consciousness? That is a mouthful, but let's break it down a little bit. I think it's a very important thing to keep in mind when doing apologetics and really touching on very foundational issues.

Epistemology, Worldview, and the Three Pillars of Reality

The field of epistemology pertains to the study of knowledge. It basically relates to questions of how we know what we know, how knowledge is gained. Is knowledge gained through sense experience, intuition, divine revelation, or rational reflection?

These are epistemological questions which deal with one's theory of knowledge. How a person answers these questions is really going to reflect their epistemological position. Epistemology is one of the important fundamental philosophical foundations of one's worldview.

There are typically three pillars that characterize someone's worldview perspective. Those three pillars have typically been summarized as metaphysics, one's theory of reality, epistemology, one's theory of knowledge, which I just defined, and ethics, which deals with issues of right and wrong, how should we live our lives.

How a person answers these questions with respect to epistemology is going to reflect their worldview. It's going to reflect their epistemological position. The late Greg Bonson, who was a Christian philosopher and a very well-known presuppositional apologist, he's defined epistemological self-consciousness in this way.

One who is epistemologically self-conscious engages in a way that fully comports with his theory of knowledge. That is, his behavior and reason are perfectly consistent with his basic commitments regarding the world and knowledge, things like that.

This requires a consistency between one's theory and one's practice. If you say that knowledge is gained one way, are you acting consistently? Are you self-conscious of your epistemology? Epistemological self-consciousness is basically to think and act in a way that is consistent with your worldview.

Why Epistemological Self-Consciousness Matters in Apologetics

This is very important for apologetics. On the one hand, the believer is going to want to argue and reason in a fashion that is consistent with his commitment to Christ. Yet on the other hand, the apologist will want to encourage the unbeliever to be epistemologically self-conscious so that the deficiencies of his worldview become manifest upon analysis.

We want to push the unbeliever to be epistemologically self-conscious. We just want them to be consistent in that regard. When we speak of epistemological self-consciousness, to be epistemologically self-aware, this is not just apologetic terminology for the believer.

This is something that we want to push the unbeliever on when we're engaging in the apologetic encounter. We want the unbeliever to be consistent so as to point out, for example, when he's borrowing from worldview principles that are not his own, namely the Christian worldview.

Because we are convinced that the unbeliever is unable to ground intelligible experience and knowledge on his own, we want him to lay out his worldview with no help from the Christian. We don't want him to borrow from the Christian worldview so that the unbeliever can see the futility of their unbelief and their need for Christian truth and coherence.

Being epistemologically self-conscious allows us to remember our commitment to the Triune God of Scripture while also pressing the unbeliever to the irrationality that his worldview takes him when consistently followed through to its end.

This issue of consistency is vitally important. The presuppositional apologist is often characterized as one who asks fundamental questions like, how do you know, and this is a famous one, by what standard?

Critics have expressed their annoyance at such questions, claiming that it's nothing more than attempts to trip up the other person and ask them philosophically hard questions. And we'll be told that this line of questioning and argumentative technique is nothing more than the presuppositional script that they follow.

And we often repeat it over and over again and it gets the unbeliever to say something silly. However, this isn't really the case. The purpose of such line of questioning is to push the unbeliever to be epistemologically self-conscious.

You want to remember that phrase. And we want the unbeliever to be aware of their own worldview and come to grips with the implications of that worldview. So this line of questioning is often necessary, given the fact that many unbelievers simply take for granted the truth of their presuppositions.

They take for granted the possibility of understanding facts in a neutral fashion. They take for granted that man's reasoning is just fine as far as it goes. They take for granted this issue of the autonomy of human reason.

And that we as presuppositionalists, we don't think that autonomy and neutrality is possible. But we're not going to grant the possibility of those things to the unbelievers. So this fact is made evident in that even after the unbeliever explains or the believer, rather, explains that everyone has a worldview, that everyone will interpret facts through the lens of that worldview, that the believer and the unbeliever operate under completely different competing paradigms, the unbeliever is going to respond, Yeah, but what evidence do you have of your God?

And, of course, by evidence, they mean an independently verifiable sort of evidence, a neutral fact that points to our God. Now, of course, such a request completely ignores the issues of interpretation of facts, given one's worldview context.

It's to completely miss the nature of the disagreement between the believer and the unbeliever. It is to fail to be epistemologically self-conscious. And for this reason, the believer asks the fundamental questions that are often hand-waved away as unimportant and part of a deceptive, argumentative strategy to avoid dealing with the real issues.

But, of course, this is not the case. Thus, much of the work done by a presuppositional apologist, especially in the early stages of the dialogue with the critic of Christianity, it must involve questioning, analysis, cross-examination, in order to make manifest the unbeliever's implicit assumptions about knowledge and reasoning.

Cornelius Van Til and the Call to Challenge Unexamined Presuppositions

Now, much of our apologetical task consists of making men face up to the critical issues pertaining to their theories of knowledge. As Cornelius Van Til has said, there are too many epistemological loafers, and it's the job of those who defend the faith to prod and challenge them, rather than letting them get away with certain fundamental assumptions.

So, what is epistemological self-consciousness? It is to be aware of your worldview, more specifically, to be aware of your theory of knowledge, and to make the unbeliever become aware of the things he takes for granted, to help the unbeliever be aware of his own presuppositions and the fact that he is not neutral with respect to epistemological questions, the how-do-you-know sorts of questions.

So, while epistemological self-consciousness might be a mouthful, it is a super important concept, and it's a very important concept and vocabulary term or phrase, if you will, within the presuppositional language.

All right? Well, that's it for this video. Hope this is helpful. Take care, and God bless. Bye-bye.