Kan Ons Dit Weet?

Inleiding: Die stemnota in die familiegroep

Dit was ‘n Dinsdagaand toe die stemnota in die familiegroep opgeduik het. ‘n Bekende politikus se stem, onmiskenbaar sy stem, wat iets sê wat jou hare laat rys. Tannie Marie het dit gestuur, met drie uitroeptekens. Binne ‘n uur het dit al in vier ander groepe beland.

Die volgende oggend kom die berig: die stem is met kunsmatige intelligensie nagemaak. Die man het dit nooit gesê nie.

Tannie Marie is nie dom nie. Sy het geglo wat sy gehoor het, soos elkeen van ons elke dag glo wat ons hoor en sien. Dis juis wat die ding so ontstellend maak. As jou ore jou só kan kul, wat nog alles kan hulle jou wysmaak?

In die eerste opstel het ons gevra wat waarheid is. Ons het gesien dat waarheid ooreenstemming is tussen ons woorde en die werklikheid, en dat dit uiteindelik by die getroue God begin. Maar dit laat ‘n ongemaklike vraag oop. Al is die waarheid daar buite, kan ons dit werklik ken? Of is ons almal maar soos tannie Marie, seker van ons saak en tog bedrieg?

1. Die twyfelaar aan die woord

Ons moet die twyfelaar eers ernstig opneem. Sy argument is ouer en sterker as wat ‘n mens dink.

Ons sintuie kul ons. ‘n Stok wat in die water staan, lyk krom. Die pad lyk nat op ‘n warm dag. En nou kan ‘n rekenaar ‘n stem namaak wat jou eie ma nie van die regte een sal kan onderskei nie.

Ons verstand dwaal. Sielkundiges het lang lyste opgestel van die maniere waarop ons verkeerd redeneer. Ons glo makliker wat ons reeds glo. Ons onthou wat ons pas en vergeet wat nie pas nie. Ons is nie die koel, objektiewe denkers wat ons graag sou wou wees nie.

En die diepste probleem: ons kan nie buite onsself gaan staan nie. In 1641 het die Franse filosoof René Descartes hom ‘n bose gees voorgestel wat al sy waarnemings vervals. Hoe sou hy dit ooit agterkom? Die moderne weergawe ken ons uit die rolprent The Matrix: dalk is alles wat jy ervaar, ‘n simulasie. Dit gaan nie daaroor of dit waarskynlik is nie. Dit gaan daaroor dat jy dit nie kan uitsluit deur jou sintuie en jou verstand te toets nie, want jy sal jou sintuie en jou verstand moet gebruik om dit te toets. Jy loop in ‘n kringetjie.

Die twyfelaar is hier reg, en ons moet dit eerlik toegee. Daar is geen neutrale plek buite ons eie kop waar ons kan gaan staan om ons kop te toets nie.

2. Maar niemand leef so nie

En tog. Kyk wat gebeur sodra die twyfelaar klaar gepraat het. Hy gaan eet. Hy draai die sleutel in die kar, vertrou dat die rem sal werk, en glo sy vrou as sy sê die kinders is veilig by die skool. Die Skotse filosoof David Hume, een van die skerpste twyfelaars van alle tye, het self erken dat sy twyfel buite sy studeerkamer nie lank gehou het nie. Nadat hy saam met sy vriende geëet en ‘n speletjie gespeel het, het sy bespiegelings hom koud en belaglik voorgekom.

Dis nie net ‘n kwessie van praktiese gerief nie. Dit wys op iets wat die twyfelaar uit die oog verloor: die verskil tussen sekerheid en kennis.

Descartes wou ‘n sekerheid hê wat geen moontlike twyfel kan aanraak nie. As dít die standaard is, weet ons feitlik niks nie. Maar so werk kennis nie in die gewone lewe nie. ‘n Kind ken haar ma. Sy het nie vooraf die moontlikheid uitgesluit dat haar ma ‘n robot is nie. Sy het nie ‘n argument nie. Sy ken haar ma, en sy is reg.

Die Amerikaanse filosoof Alvin Plantinga, ‘n Gereformeerde Christen, het ‘n groot deel van sy loopbaan aan hierdie punt gewy. Party oortuigings, sê hy, lei ons nie uit ander oortuigings af nie. Hulle is basies: ons glo hulle direk, soos ons glo dat ander mense ‘n binnelewe het, of dat die verlede werklik gebeur het. Sulke oortuigings is nie ongegrond nie. Hulle is gegrond in vermoëns wat behoorlik werk. ‘n Oortuiging hoef nie eers bewys te word voordat dit as kennis kan tel nie.

Maar hier keer die twyfelaar terug, met ‘n goeie vraag. Hoekom sou ons vermoëns betroubaar wees? Wie sê ons ore en ons verstand is gemaak om die waarheid te vind, en nie net om ons aan die lewe te hou nie? Ons kom in Reeks 2 (sessie 7) weer by hierdie vraag uit: as ons verstand bloot die toevallige produk van blinde prosesse is, het ons min rede om dit te vertrou. Maar as ons verstand gemaak is deur ‘n God wat self die waarheid is, en wat getrou is, dan is dit nie vreemd dat dit die waarheid kan raak nie. Dan is dit juis wat ‘n mens sou verwag.

Ons is terug by emet. Ons kan ons vermoëns vertrou omdat die Een wat hulle gemaak het, betroubaar is.

3. Die skeefgetrekte spieël

Dit klink dalk te maklik. Want die Bybel self is nie naïef oor die menslike verstand nie. Inteendeel.

Paulus skryf dat God se toorn geopenbaar word oor mense wat die waarheid deur hulle ongeregtigheid onderdruk (Romeine 1:18). Let mooi op: hulle het die waarheid. Hulle is nie onkundig nie. Hulle druk dit weg. Die probleem is nie in die eerste plek ‘n tekort aan inligting nie. Dis ‘n wil wat nie wil sien nie.

Die Gereformeerde tradisie noem dit die noëtiese gevolge van die sonde. Noëties kom van die Griekse woord vir verstand. Die sonde het nie net ons dade skeefgetrek nie, maar ook ons denke.

Maar let op hoe dit werk. Die sonde maak ons nie dom nie. ‘n Ongelowige wiskundige reken net so goed soos ‘n gelowige. ‘n Ongelowige dokter sien ‘n gebreekte been net so duidelik raak. Die skeeftrekking word sterker hoe nader die vraag aan ons eie hart kom: wie God is, wie ons is, wat ons skuldig is. Oor die getal pi lieg ons selde vir onsself. Oor onsself lieg ons heeltyd.

Calvyn het hiervoor ‘n beeld gebruik wat ek nog altyd mooi vind. Die skepping, sê hy, is soos ‘n boek wat duidelik genoeg geskryf is. Maar ons is soos ou mense met swak oë: ons sien dat daar iets geskryf staan, maar ons kan nie die woorde uitmaak nie. Die Skrif is soos ‘n bril wat ons opsit, en skielik kan ons lees wat al die tyd daar was (Institusie I.6.1).

Dis ‘n beeld wat ons nederig maak. Dit sê ons het hulp van buite nodig. Maar dit sê ook iets bemoedigends: die boek is regtig daar, die letters is regtig geskryf, en met die regte bril kan ons regtig lees.

4. Die seël en die afdruk

Kom ons gaan nog ‘n tree dieper. Selfs as die sonde weggeneem word, selfs in die hemel, sal ons kennis nooit dieselfde wees as God se kennis nie. God ken alles deur dit te maak. Ons ken dinge deur hulle raak te sien, een vir een, van buite af.

Die Gereformeerde teoloë van die sestiende en sewentiende eeu het hiervoor ‘n onderskeid getref wat nog steeds nie die aandag kry wat dit verdien nie. In 1594 het Franciscus Junius, ‘n professor in Leiden, onderskei tussen argetipiese en ektipiese teologie: God se kennis en ons kennis. Herman Bavinck het die onderskeid later by hulle oorgeneem.

Die woorde klink moeilik, maar die beeld agter hulle is eenvoudig. Dink aan ‘n ou seëlring. Die ring, die argetipe, is die oorspronklike. Druk dit in warm lak, en jy kry ‘n afdruk, ‘n ektipe. Die afdruk is nie die ring nie. Dis spieëlbeeldig, dis in ‘n ander stof, dit kan selfs ‘n bietjie vaag wees aan die kante. Maar dis ‘n getroue afdruk. Elke lyn daarin is daar omdat dit eers in die ring was.

God se kennis is die seël. Ons kennis is die afdruk. Dit is nie God se kennis nie, en sal dit ook nooit wees nie. Maar dit is ook nie ‘n raaiskoot of ‘n storie wat ons self opmaak nie. Dit is ‘n werklike afdruk van ‘n werklike seël.

Paulus sê dit so: “Nou ken ek net gedeeltelik, maar eendag sal ek ten volle ken soos God my ten volle ken” (1 Korintiërs 13:12). Gedeeltelik is nie dieselfde as glad nie. Dis nederige kennis. Maar dis kennis.

5. Woorde wat reik, maar nie vasvang nie

Dieselfde geld vir ons woorde oor God. As ek sê “God is goed”, wat bedoel ek? Ek ken goedheid uit my ma, uit ‘n vriend wat my nie in die steek gelaat het nie, uit ‘n vreemdeling wat my gehelp het toe my kar langs die pad gaan staan het.

Bedoel ek dat God goed is presies soos my ma goed is? Nee, dit sou God te klein maak. Bedoel ek dan dat die woord “goed” niks meer beteken as ek dit van God sê nie? Ook nie, want dan sê ek eintlik niks nie. Die klassieke Christelike antwoord, waarop Reeks 1 verder ingaan, is dat ons woorde oor God analogies is. Hulle sê iets waars, want my ma se goedheid is ‘n werklike afdruk van God se goedheid. Maar God se goedheid gaan oneindig verder as enigiets waaraan my woorde kan vat.

Ons woorde reik na God. Hulle vang Hom nie vas nie. En so hoort dit.

6. En die wetenskap?

Hier wag ‘n onverwagse wins. Geen wetenskaplike kan deur God se oë kyk nie. Wetenskaplikes werk met modelle: die atoom as ‘n klein sonnestelsel, lig as ‘n golf, die heelal as ‘n vergelyking. Elke model word later verfyn, soms vervang. Beteken dit dat die wetenskap net stories vertel wat handig is?

Nee. Die seël en die afdruk help ons ook hier. Daar is ‘n volmaakte oorsig oor die werklikheid, maar dit is God s’n, nie ons s’n nie. Ons modelle is afdrukke: gedeeltelik, voorlopig, altyd oop vir verbetering. Maar ‘n beter model is ‘n skerper afdruk van iets wat regtig daar is. Die wetenskap kan nederig wees oor sy modelle, juis omdat dit nie nederig hoef te wees oor die werklikheid nie.

En dat die wêreld hoegenaamd so leesbaar is, dat ‘n paar vergelykings op ‘n bord die beweging van sterre kan beskryf, is nie iets wat ons toekom nie. Dis ‘n gawe.

7. Christene stem nie hieroor saam nie

Ons moet ook eerlik wees oor iets anders. Christene stem saam dat ons die waarheid kan ken. Hulle stem nie saam oor hoe ons by die geloof in God uitkom nie, en die verskil is nie onbelangrik nie.

Die klassieke benadering. Denkers soos Norman Geisler begin by wat gelowiges en ongelowiges gemeen het: logika, getuienis, die bestaan van die wêreld. Van daar af redeneer hulle stap vir stap tot by God.
Die presupposisionele benadering. Cornelius Van Til het gesê daar is geen neutrale grond nie. Wie by die menslike rede begin asof dit sonder God kan oordeel, het die stryd al verloor voordat dit nog begin het. Ons moet by God begin.
Gereformeerde epistemologie. Plantinga sê die geloof in God kan basies wees, soos die geloof dat ander mense bestaan. Jy hoef dit nie eers te bewys voordat jy dit mag glo nie.

Aletheia staan die naaste aan Herman Bavinck, in wie se werk elkeen van hierdie stemme iets van homself herken. Ons gebruik argumente, soos Reeks 1 sal wys, maar as wegwysers en nie as bewyse wat geen eerlike mens kan weerstaan nie. Ons glo nie ons begin op neutrale grond nie. En ons glo dat die geloof uiteindelik deur die Gees gewerk word, nie deur ons argumente nie. Ons gaan in Reeks 5 breedvoeriger op hierdie gesprek in.

8. Terug na die familiegroep

Hoe het tannie Marie uiteindelik geweet dat die stemnota vals is? Nie deur te bewys dat haar ore betroubaar is nie. Sy het staatgemaak op bronne wat al bewys het hulle is betroubaar: ‘n nuusdiens wat al jare lank sy werk deeglik doen, en ‘n neef wat die ding self nagegaan het.

So werk die meeste van ons kennis. Die meeste van wat ons weet, weet ons nie omdat ons dit self bewys het nie, maar omdat ons iemand vertrou wat betroubaar is. Dis nie ‘n swakheid van kennis nie. Dis hoe kennis vir skepsels lyk.

Tannie Marie het intussen ‘n nuwe reël in die groep ingestel: niks word gedeel voordat iemand twee keer gekyk het nie. Descartes sou trots gewees het. Maar hy sou seker ook die stemnota eers gedeel het.

Besprekingsvrae

Die stemnota: Het jy al iets geglo of gedeel wat later geblyk het vals te wees? Wat het jou laat glo, en wat het jou laat besef jy is gekul?
Sekerheid en kennis: Wat is die verskil tussen seker wees en iets weet? Noem iets wat jy weet sonder dat jy dit kan bewys.
Die skeefgetrekte spieël: Waarom sou die sonde ons denke oor God en onsself meer skeeftrek as ons denke oor wiskunde? Herken jy dit in jou eie lewe?
Die seël en die afdruk: Help die beeld jou om tegelyk nederig én seker te wees? Waar dink jy is Christene geneig om hulle afdruk vir die seël aan te sien?
Vir die groep: Watter een van die drie benaderings (klassiek, presupposisioneel, Gereformeerde epistemologie) spreek jou die meeste aan, en waarom?

Aanbevole Leeswerk

Johannes Calvyn — Institusie van die Christelike Godsdiens, boek I, hoofstukke 1–6 Die bekende openingsin oor die kennis van God en van onsself, die sensus divinitatis, en die Skrif as bril.
Alvin Plantinga — Knowledge and Christian Belief (2015) Plantinga se eie kort, toeganklike weergawe van sy groot werk oor geloof en kennis.

Bibliografie

Bavinck, Herman. Gereformeerde Dogmatiek. Deel 1. Kampen: J.H. Bos, 1895 (2de uitg. Kok, 1906–1911). Eng.: Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, Prolegomena. Baker Academic, 2003. – Argetipiese en ektipiese kennis; die beginsels van kennis.
Calvyn, Johannes. Institusie van die Christelike Godsdiens. Boek I, hfst. 1–6. 1559. – Die sensus divinitatis en die Skrif as bril.
Descartes, René. Meditationes de prima philosophia. 1641. Eerste meditasie. – Die bose gees wat alle waarnemings vervals.
Geisler, Norman L., en Frank Turek. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Crossway, 2004. – ‘n Gewilde voorbeeld van die klassieke benadering. (Lees veral hoofstuk 1; die latere hoofstukke steun op “intelligente ontwerp”, wat Aletheia nie onderskryf nie.)
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. 1739. Boek 1, deel 4, afdeling 7. – Die twyfelaar se twyfel wat nie die etenstafel oorleef nie.
Junius, Franciscus. De vera theologia. 1594. Eng.: A Treatise on True Theology. Vertaal deur David C. Noe. Reformation Heritage Books, 2014. – Die oorsprong van die onderskeid tussen argetipiese en ektipiese teologie.
Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief. Oxford University Press, 2000. – Basiese oortuigings, behoorlik werkende vermoëns en die noëtiese gevolge van die sonde.
Plantinga, Alvin. Knowledge and Christian Belief. Eerdmans, 2015. – Die kort weergawe vir ‘n breër leserspubliek.
Van Til, Cornelius. The Defense of the Faith. Presbyterian and Reformed, 1955. – Die presupposisionele benadering.

Can We Know It?

Introduction: the voice note in the family group

It was a Tuesday evening when the voice note showed up in the family WhatsApp group. A well-known politician’s voice, unmistakably his, saying something that made your hair stand on end. Aunt Marie had sent it, with three exclamation marks. Within an hour it had reached four other groups.

The next morning the report came out: the voice had been faked with artificial intelligence. The man never said it.

Aunt Marie is not stupid. She believed what she heard, the way each of us believes what we hear and see every day. That is exactly what makes it so unsettling. If your ears can fool you like that, what else can they talk you into?

In the first essay we asked what truth is. We saw that truth is a match between our words and reality, and that it begins, finally, with God, who is faithful. But that leaves an uncomfortable question. Even if the truth is out there, can we really know it? Or are we all a bit like Aunt Marie, sure of ourselves and yet deceived?

1. The sceptic’s case, at its strongest

We should take the sceptic seriously first. His argument is older and stronger than people think.

Our senses fool us. A stick standing in water looks bent. The road looks wet on a hot day. And now a computer can fake a voice your own mother couldn’t tell from the real one.

Our reasoning strays. Psychologists have drawn up long lists of the ways we reason badly. We believe more easily what we already believe. We remember what suits us and forget what doesn’t. We are not the cool, objective thinkers we would like to be.

And the deepest problem: we cannot step outside ourselves. In 1641 the French philosopher René Descartes proposed the thought experiment of an evil spirit falsifying everything he perceived. How would he ever find out? We know the modern version from the film The Matrix: perhaps everything you experience is a simulation. The point is not that this is likely. The point is that you can’t rule it out by testing your senses and your reasoning, because you would have to use your senses and your reasoning to test them. You are in a circle.

The sceptic is right about this, and we should admit it honestly. There is no neutral place outside our own heads where we can stand to make sure our heads are working.

2. But nobody lives like that

And yet. Watch what happens the moment the sceptic finishes his argument. He goes to dinner. He turns the key in the car, trusts that the brakes will work, and believes his wife when she says the children are safe at school. The Scottish philosopher David Hume, one of the sharpest sceptics of all time, admitted that his doubts did not survive long outside his study. Once he had dined with friends and played a game, his speculations seemed cold and ridiculous to him.

This is not just a matter of practical convenience. It points to something the sceptic confuses: the difference between certainty and knowledge.

Descartes wanted a certainty no possible doubt could touch. If that is the standard, hardly anyone knows anything. But that is not how knowledge works in ordinary life. A child knows her mother. She has not first ruled out the possibility that her mother is a robot. She has no argument. She knows her mother, and she is right.

The American philosopher Alvin Plantinga, a Reformed Christian, has spent much of his career on this point. Some beliefs, he says, we do not infer from other beliefs. They are basic: we believe them directly, the way we believe that other people have an inner life, or that the past really happened. Such beliefs are not groundless. They are grounded in faculties that are working properly. A belief does not have to be proved before it can count as knowledge.

But here the sceptic comes back, and he has a point. Why should our faculties be reliable? Who says our ears and minds were made to find the truth, and not merely to keep us alive? We will meet this question again in Series 2 (session 7): if our minds are simply the accidental product of blind processes, we have little reason to trust them. But if our minds were made by a God who is himself the truth, and who is faithful, then it is not strange that they can reach the truth. It is exactly what you would expect.

We are back with emet. We can trust our faculties because the One who made them is trustworthy.

3. The warped mirror

That may sound too easy. Because the Bible itself is not naïve about the human mind. Quite the opposite.

Paul writes that God’s wrath is revealed against people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth (Romans 1:18). Notice: they have the truth. They are not ignorant. They push it away. The problem is not first of all a lack of information. It is a will that does not want to see.

The Reformed tradition calls this the noetic effects of sin. Noetic comes from the Greek word for mind. Sin has bent not only our actions but our thinking.

But notice how it works. Sin does not make us stupid. An unbelieving mathematician calculates as well as a believing one. An unbelieving doctor sees a broken leg just as clearly. The bending grows stronger the closer a question comes to our own hearts: who God is, who we are, what we owe. We rarely lie to ourselves about the number pi. About ourselves we lie all the time.

Calvin used an image for this that I have always loved. Creation, he says, is like a book written clearly enough. But we are like old people with weak eyes: we can see that something is written, but we can’t make out the words. Scripture is like a pair of spectacles we put on, and suddenly we can read what was there all along (Institutes I.6.1).

It is a humbling image. It says we need help from outside. But it also says something encouraging: the book is really there, the letters really are written, and with the right spectacles we can really read.

4. The seal and the impression

One step deeper. Even if sin were taken away, even in heaven, our knowledge would never be the same as God’s knowledge. God knows everything by making it. We know things by noticing them, one at a time, from the outside.

The Reformed theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries made a distinction for this that still doesn’t get the attention it deserves. In 1594 Franciscus Junius, a professor at Leiden, spoke of archetypal and ectypal theology: God’s knowledge and ours. Herman Bavinck later took the distinction over from them.

The words sound difficult, but the picture behind them is simple. Think of an old signet ring. The ring, the archetype, is the original. Press it into warm wax and you get an impression, an ectype. The impression is not the ring. It is mirror-reversed, it is in a different material, it may even be a little blurred at the edges. But it is a faithful impression. Every line in it is there because it was first in the ring.

God’s knowledge is the seal. Our knowledge is the impression. It is not God’s knowledge and never will be. But neither is it a guess or a story we make up for ourselves. It is a real impression of a real seal.

Paul puts it this way: now we know in part, but one day we shall know fully, even as we are fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). In part is not the same as not at all. It is humble knowledge. But it is knowledge.

5. Words that reach but do not grasp

The same holds for our words about God. When I say “God is good”, what do I mean? I know goodness from my mother, from a friend who didn’t let me down, from a stranger who helped when my car broke down on the side of the road.

Do I mean that God is good exactly as my mother is good? No, that would make God too small. Do I mean the word “good” means nothing when I say it of God? Not that either, because then I’m saying nothing at all. The classical Christian answer, which Series 1 explores further, is that our words about God are analogical. They say something true, because my mother’s goodness is a real impression of God’s goodness. But God’s goodness goes infinitely beyond anything my words can hold.

Our words reach towards God. They do not grasp him. And that is exactly as it should be.

6. And science?

Here there is a surprising bonus. No scientist can see through God’s eyes. Scientists work with models: the atom as a little solar system, light as a wave, the universe as an equation. Every model is later refined, sometimes replaced. Does that mean science just tells useful stories?

No. The seal and the impression help here too. There is a perfect view of reality, but it is God’s, not ours. Our models are impressions: partial, provisional, always open to improvement. But a better model is a sharper impression of something that is really there. Science can be humble about its models precisely because it doesn’t have to be humble about reality.

And that the world is readable at all, that a few equations on a board can describe the motion of the stars, is not something we are owed. It is a gift.

7. Christians don’t agree on this

We should also be honest about something else. Christians agree that we can know the truth. They do not agree about how we come to believe in God, and the difference matters.

The classical approach. Thinkers like Norman Geisler start with what believer and unbeliever share: logic, evidence, the existence of the world. From there they build a case for God, step by step.
The presuppositional approach. Cornelius Van Til said there is no neutral ground. Whoever starts from human reason as if it could judge without God has lost before beginning. We must start with God.
Reformed epistemology. Plantinga says belief in God can be basic, like the belief that other people exist. You don’t have to prove it first before you may believe it.

Aletheia stands closest to Herman Bavinck, in whose work each of these voices recognises something of its own. We use arguments, as Series 1 will show, but as signposts and not as proofs no honest person can resist. We don’t believe we start on neutral ground. And we believe faith is finally the Spirit’s work, not the work of our arguments. Series 5 goes into this conversation more fully.

8. Back to the family group

How did Aunt Marie finally know the voice note was fake? Not by proving her ears were reliable. She trusted someone she had reason to trust: a news service that has done its job carefully for years, and a cousin who checked the thing himself.

That is how most of our knowledge works. We know most of what we know not because we proved it ourselves, but because we trust someone trustworthy. That is not a weakness of knowledge. It is what knowledge looks like for creatures.

Aunt Marie has since introduced a new rule in the group: nothing gets shared until someone has looked twice. Descartes would have been proud. Though he would probably have shared the voice note first, too.

Discussion Questions

The voice note: Have you ever believed or shared something that later turned out to be false? What made you believe it, and what made you realise you had been fooled?
Certainty and knowledge: What is the difference between being certain and knowing something? Name something you know without being able to prove it.
The warped mirror: Why would sin bend our thinking about God and ourselves more than our thinking about mathematics? Do you recognise this in your own life?
The seal and the impression: Does the image help you to be humble and confident at the same time? Where do you think Christians tend to mistake their impression for the seal?
For the group: Which of the three approaches (classical, presuppositional, Reformed epistemology) appeals to you most, and why?

Bibliography

Bavinck, Herman. Gereformeerde Dogmatiek. Vol. 1. Kampen: J.H. Bos, 1895 (2nd ed. Kok, 1906–1911). ET: Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, Prolegomena. Baker Academic, 2003. – Archetypal and ectypal knowledge; the principles of knowledge.
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Book I, ch. 1–6. 1559. – The sensus divinitatis and Scripture as spectacles.
Descartes, René. Meditationes de prima philosophia. 1641. First Meditation. – The evil spirit who falsifies all perception.
Geisler, Norman L., and Frank Turek. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Crossway, 2004. – A popular example of the classical approach. (Read chapter 1 especially; the later chapters lean on “intelligent design”, which Aletheia does not endorse.)
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. 1739. Book 1, part 4, section 7. – The sceptic’s doubt that does not survive the dinner table.
Junius, Franciscus. De vera theologia. 1594. ET: A Treatise on True Theology. Translated by David C. Noe. Reformation Heritage Books, 2014. – The origin of the distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology.
Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief. Oxford University Press, 2000. – Basic beliefs, properly functioning faculties and the noetic effects of sin.
Plantinga, Alvin. Knowledge and Christian Belief. Eerdmans, 2015. – The short version for a wider readership.
Van Til, Cornelius. The Defense of the Faith. Presbyterian and Reformed, 1955. – The presuppositional approach.

Proloog 2 — Kan Ons Dit Weet?Prologue 2 — Can We Know It?