A Clear View Chapter 2

           There are three ways we can know something, cognitively, empirically or by revelation.  Cognitive knowledge is intuitive; it is what we are born knowing.  For example, babies are born knowing how to cry when they are hungry.  Empirical knowledge is learned through experience or observation.  Driving a truck is empirical knowledge.  We can also know things that are revealed to us.  We can gain knowledge by revelation through reading God’s word. 

            Herodotus, Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle all had different ideas about what we could know.  Herodotus said the world was constantly changing, so we can never know the true nature of the world.  Parmenides said the world was unchanging, but could not be known by our senses or reason.  Plato and Aristotle both believed in a world with two layers. One layer was revealed to us by our senses and the other layer was a world with physical objects. Plato said the universals were not fully present in the material things, while Aristotle said they were.  Aristotle said the objective world of universals was not something separate and illusive from matter, but something that could be known.

            Thomas Aquinas helped define our understanding of what we could know by causing a shift from Plato’s ideas to Aristotle’s ideas.  The shift of ideas led to a discussion about the relationship between nature and grace.  Thomas Aquinas described the world as having an upper story, the unseen immaterial world of God and grace, and a lower story, the seen material world of man and nature.  The upper story is understood by faith and revelation is required to know it.  The lower story is understood by reason and the senses are required to know it. 

            The “Aristotelian Revolution” was a shift in focus from the upper story to the lower story.  The “Revolution” resulted in nature and humans becoming the objects of art.  Dante, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo produced amazing art and architecture during this time.  Great advances were also made in physical sciences.

            During the Renaissance, man began to see the lower story and nature as superior to the upper story.  Man defined morals, meaning and absolutes with reference to man.  Man began to trust more in his own reason, than in the upper story and thus, humanism began.  As theology, art and philosophy became separated from the upper story and no longer relied on God, theologians, artists and philosophers began to search for a universal truth that governed life and its meaning.  As a result, man looked only to himself for truth and greatly diminished the importance of the upper story.

            The Reformation was an attempt to restore a proper relationship between the upper story and the lower story.  The Reformation was in response to the exaltation of the lower story during the Renaissance.  The Reformers brought grace back to a position of importance, but did not diminish nature because God had created it.  During the Reformation education, art and music flourished.  Just laws, civil governments and economics were created.  Reason was revitalized and tempered by revelation.  The Reformers created harmony between the upper story and the lower story.