[Music] let's talk about epistemology what the heck is epistemology epistemology is essentially how one goes about discovering what is true your epistemology is your process of discovery we all have different processes of discovery and based on the way that you go about collecting data on something like the way that you're learning something and your philosophy of learning essentially is epistemology you'll arrive to certain conclusions so your epistemology is really important it's not just what you're learning but how you're learning it and how you how did you arrive to those conclusions that's your epistemology and epistemologies vary greatly and because epistemologies very greatly conclusions uh vary greatly um so i'm going to talk um about epistemology in this uh next uh whatever amount of time that we have um in this class um i'm going to come in and out of consciousness because there's a number of things that i want to kind of hit in the epistemological realm and then hopefully it lands and it makes sense for you the viewer um all right here we go so firstly authority when it comes to authority their authority is like the big question okay so when i went to bible college there's all these guys who they sort of arrived at different thoughts and took different paths in life based on what they thought were authorities you know like after four years of bible college you're sitting there and going okay um i'm more confused than ever and who is really the one who decides what is true uh for some of my friends they they were like well the eastern orthodox they were like they were um a church before the catholic church and because they kind of consolidated their power and they have like these old traditions and these old writings and we feel like they're the most close to the apostles and they have some pretty early interpretations of things uh so we're gonna be eastern orthodox okay i had some friends that went down that road i had some other friends that were just like nah these are orthodox were very mystic and and um and we don't like the mysticism that's in eastern orthodoxy and you know the the western church was critical of it and the western church is i think a bit more uh they're a bit better at being didactic and rational and reasonable um you know the western church gave us um uh augustine and aquinas um i mean i guess the eastern orthodox would claim augustine as well but he was really kind of um in the west not as asiatic and uh so they would okay i'm gonna go with catholic church the catholic we're gonna go to the catholic church because you know the is they just it's it's peter's line of succession as well you know and da da da da so long story short you know then then there's certain people that are like well um you know i i believe in the reformed tradition i believe the reform tradition has the most truth and this is why they have the most truth and so essentially i had a lot of friends that were chasing these different movements because they believe for one reason or another um but typically epistemologically okay i like the the way that this movement goes about finding the truth in authority and we're just going to start at the 40 000 foot level here but not even zoom into those movements but when it comes to authority there's really two axiomatic presuppositions that people have axiomatic meaning if you go this route then it's going to take you down this way it's really teeter-totters in this direction okay and then there's this presupposition and if you take this pre-substitution it's going to take you down a certain way uh really kind of an academic theology it's really simple uh one presupposition and by the way the presupposition is like something that you um well it's a presupposition you don't even need to explain it it's just something that you kind of presuppose and then that sort of presupposition it guides the rest of your epistemology uh there's two two of them here here we go and really simple the bible is a god book um and uh and a man book but primarily a god book as in god inspired the bible it's a god book it's a it's a god book from front to cover and then there's another one and the bible is a human book okay the bible is a human book now within that first axiomatic presupposition that the bible is a god book right so for example second timothy 3 16 okay those that was that would ascribe to the bible as a god book they'd go well because the bible says right it's a presupposition you can't like the bible doesn't say really anything but obviously um people confess what the scriptures say okay it's written in there second two three three sixteen all scriptures god breathed so for those people i would fall into that category we would go i pre i presuppose that this is divinely inspired it's what my faith has passed to me i will confess this i see it written there's internal evidence for this book no other book around makes these sort of claims about itself so i'm going to go with that one and so that's going to kind of cause me to come to certain conclusions now within that camp there's lots of fraction lots of fracture rather um but but it's completely different than the other camp that treats the bible like it's a human book and because it's a human book we should study it as a human book and it's not a god book okay so that's an example of very two very distinct epistemologies [Music] biblical authority biblical authority biblical authority the authority's my bible my bible's my authority um and he writes written a great book about this i think brian zahn has some great ideas along side of nt wright's ideas they sort of split hairs but i think splitting hairs is important uh what do people mean when they say that the bible's their authority or what do they mean by biblical authority right because well let's talk through it okay so i want to kind of concede uh to i guess two kind of camps here but um all authorities from god right all authorities from god god breathed the scriptures ii timothy 3 16. the scriptures have authority from god any script any authority right that the scriptures have they have from god but an important distinction that that uh brian zahn makes and entity wright makes uh is that the bible's not god the bible didn't like you know it didn't die on a cross for you right it's not the the fourth member of the godhead the bible is only as good as the person who wrote it right and it is that person's words though so okay great important why is that an important distinction well it's an important distinction because you can get into bibliolatry where people just um they talk like the bible is they basically don't they don't uh take into account uh people's interpretations of it which we will get there okay which i think is it's it's a necessary it's a necessary doctrinal thing to just go okay the bible's not god but the bible is god's words and it has authority but the authority that it has is from god it's not an authority in and of itself it's it's just it's god's words but that's really important too because god has words and you can't separate them from those that's where i'm going with this john chapter one in the beginning was the word okay um now there's the word capital w and then there's the word lowercase w okay and john calls jesus the logos without getting into all the greek background of the logos um the logos capital l or capital w like jesus is the word he is god's word he's god's clearest speech as brian's on would say i love that thought um and jesus the word has words lowercase w okay so the word has words and we can't separate uh the word from his words um in fact the words words are really important and if you abide in the words words then you can call yourself his disciple but if you don't abide in his words if you somehow try to separate jesus from the things that he had to say then you're creating your own religion and you're not a christ follower now this is really cool we can actually encounter jesus in the things that he said so when we read the bible we can you can have an encounter with jesus right there in his words because his words are living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword some people would say that the word that they're in hebrews is jesus well i don't think it is i think the context in the book of hebrews there is literally about the scripture i think it's pretty easy to understand there um it's not johannine it's pauline for starters john 5 39 40 you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life these are the very scriptures that testify about me this is jesus talking yet you refuse to come to me to have life so the primary existence of the bible is to point to jesus and the primary existence of jesus words is to point to jesus sometimes people they divorce uh you know you just need to have an encounter with jesus totally yeah you do need to have an encounter with jesus you can encounter his words and as you encounter his words you have an encounter with him okay we can't separate doctrine from the personhood of christ because jesus has things to say and those things to say are really important and when you encounter the things that he has to say you encounter him you also need to encounter his the personhood of jesus christ that's important too but it'll never be one or the other it's always and only both and always and only both end and here's the cool thing you might not have a crazy awesome devotional life but if you are reading the scriptures and you're encountering jesus that way you might not be feeling much like a super charismatic pentecostal with the worship thing on and getting the tingly buttons you know getting the little butterflies in your butt a basket you know like you might not have that that super emotional experiential vibe happening like a quaker um but if you have the word of god you're encountering jesus himself okay so it's not holding sometimes it's pentecostals charismatic people who are all about experience and i'm all about experience sometimes we can hold that over people who are encountering jesus words and it's actually kind of the opposite um it's the other way around and what's actually been happening to us is people are are over exalting experience over jesus words that's kind of one of the sins of i believe what's happening in our experience driven movement [Music] we need to never separate jesus from the things that he said [Music] if you need some more proof here's some more john 15 14. you're my friends if you do it i commanded you hello right and you are my friend jesus if you do it i no that's not how it works it's not a relationship like that it's the relationship is like you're with it's like a relationship with god she's like you do you do what i say and then you're my friend i don't need to do what you say that's not how it works for you know for me to be your friend you are my friend if you do what i say john 14 15. if you love me you will keep my commandments john 8 31 if you continue in my word or continue in my teachings then you are truly disciples of mine faith comes down to i believe in jesus that's what faith comes down to i believe in jesus i believe him there are some things that i'm not necessarily sure of because some of these things are sort of you know like it's life is a bit of a puzzle but i'm certain of something i'm certain of a person he's historical he said some things he has a lot of opinions about life and i'm going to put my trust in him and thus the things that he had to say i believe jesus agnosticism comes down to i believe me i believe me i'm unsure of a lot of things i don't necessarily i don't know if god could even really you know prove himself but what i'm really sure of is material okay and my you know and empiricism whatever the heck that means even though we know empiricism doesn't really even you know like you can't empirically know everything we'll never know once again what it's like to be a rabbit we can't get inside their heads right empiricism has limits um and you have limits um in my opinion agnosticism and atheism are a greater leap of faith because they're putting you're putting faith in yourself and in material and we know this about human history and we know this about the human heart and we know this about the human situation that you you don't do good things that you're not trustworthy humans aren't trustworthy they've never been trustworthy they'll never be trustworthy especially in the great the greater things we can't create anything right like we're just not we don't create stuff we just we're chemists we mix stuff uh but we don't create something all of this came from from from nothing we know that or rather from someone and that someone is jesus christ he is the word he is the logos if jesus is right about being god he's right about everything else and so my epistemology is while it's in this person because it's in this person and i believe who he says he is that he is who he says he is thus i believe everything else that he has to say and that's kind of the root of my epistemology all right let's talk about the crisis of democracy we're changing gears here and we're going to talk about uh what's happening sort of in culture in over the last probably 200 years so we've rejected this is what's happened this is where we are in history we've rejected traditional forms of authority because of abuses right okay abuses of kings abuses of the aristocracy abuses of the church etc not trusting external authority anymore kings church aristocracy we place all of our trust on reality as it is interpreted by ourselves it's a very large load to bear we listen to everything through the filter of what seems right to me or what this means to me why because we don't trust external forms of authority anymore right so now the locus of interpretation has is on the self like every every single person i am the interpreter now because i don't trust anybody i don't trust the church i don't trust uh the government i don't trust foreign authority for good reasons you know um but not all good reasons actually if you think about it we you know like okay i don't trust the aristocracy so now we have a hegemony okay which is uh not an inherited uh power and wealth rather create created power and wealth um i don't think that mark zuckerberg is any more trustworthy than any english aristocrat that lived in the 16th or 17th century i just don't believe that uh firstly because those a lot of those aristocrats in fact all of them they're all born into wealth you know like they didn't become a greedy person like like they were the aristocracy is full of average guys i can trust average guys i don't know if i necessarily trust greedy guys who like you know uh mr burns who you know like rid yourself of faith and family and friends and then you'll be rich you know like that's kind of how the capitalist uh drink dream goes uh so i think i've and are there still abuses happening but at the hands of the rich yeah are democratic democratically uh elected government uh cause abuses uh yeah yeah like big time so what is well we trade a king for a democratically elected government what's been the change i i i'd trust a king you know call me crazy but you have continued power for at least 30 to 40 years okay i'm getting just waxing a little eloquent here and then it's a normal person right it's not somebody who necessarily uh you know came into the thing you know like it's a typically a king inherited by birthright he's a regular guy i i i'm give me the regular guy uh any day of the week over the guy who's trying to make something of himself okay forgive the rant all you americans i'm with you i'm a canadian i like i love democracy do i maybe yes no but should we like necessarily be like a little bit like skeptical of it uh yeah [Music] all right so the the self has become the locus of interpretation right because we don't trust we don't trust the aristocracy we don't trust the government we don't trust the the church anymore so now everything is on you to interpret and this isn't christian thought it's not christian thought for you to have to be the sole interpreter of everything it's just not a christian epistemology let's talk about finding truth for a second so christian thought rejects uh the modern notion of the idea of total objectivity for example like science doesn't even exist in total objectivity nobody believes that anymore uh the heisenberg uncertainty principle you might have heard of it uh from uh uh jurassic park when uh jeff uh goldblum you know was talking about the heisenberg uncertainty principle when you when you observe something you change it um but uh that's very fairly nuanced but even in science it's like science we're learning that scientific is no no longer means i love david foster walls he had he wrote this uh this this essay called uh present tense please read it and in it he he discusses how um scientific is not synonymous with unbiased or neutral right we're learning that right like you can find a science a scientist and he can gather a bunch of data and you can pay him hey man can you find something that you know can you find that cigarettes are good for you yeah totally you know like um what's your budget right um christian thought rejects post-modernity so we reject the idea that that the the idea of total objectivity but we also reject the idea that um that because total objectivity cannot be achieved all that's left is subjectivity and that you can't know the truth at all okay which is the postmodern idea so we draw we reject modernity but we also reject postmodernity um that all that is is subjectivity and the truth can never be found christian thought believes that truth pre-exists right like john chapter one right like the truth pre-exists the truth is a person his name is jesus christ he's true and everything that he says is true because he's true and he's the one that's pre-existent and and through him all the worlds were created in hebrews chapter one so uh this is jesus we believe that truth is pre-existing um number one and it does so externally so the truth is not in me the truth is outside of me because the truth i am not pre-existing there's only one person who's pre-existing we also believe that truth uh in our world is external we because we believe that all truth is transcendent so all truth has come from god who is true and all his words are true and he's created uh a world where there's balance and there's order and what we do in science does is actually just uncovers god's like truths that pre-exist truths that are external truths that live outside of us and we just uncover them but they've always been there for example you know like it's a truth that man can fly well tell people that 200 years ago we didn't believe it then come along the wright brothers and then boom we uncover that men indeed can fly that we can get in these machines and we can fly around it's pretty cool stuff but we uncovered that so all truth is found subjectively so for example the subjective self nathan pinocchio through my lens my sitting here i can subjectively uncover truths that uh that exist outside of myself even though i have limits okay i can still find truth and the subjective self uncovers truth there's this concept in in uh james k ka james k smith uh explains it in his book the fall of interpretation it's uh a very hard read i don't recommend it uh but i also highly recommend it this concept of empirical transcendence empirical transcendence the the idea of empirical transcendence and this is it sounds like really really uh learned and academic but it's not okay i'm just gonna like break it down for you and then you're gonna be super smart a tree a tree is empirically transcendent it's externally it's out it's external it's outside of myself it is empirical that a tree is a tree and if you think if your subjective self gets into a car and you you're coming up on a street and there's a tree on the corner and you decide ah that's not that's not a tree that's a nothing and you try to cut across a lawn you know not turn take a right and you drive into the tree you will destroy your car and you will discover and uncover empirical transcendence that tree exists outside of yourself it is external to yourself it's empirical that it's there that it's matter that it's dense that it's real it's right and it's transcendent right like uh it it it's a truth that you discover outside of yourself externally and so in this way interpretations of truth um are not infinite but they're finite and and we can get some we can uncover uncover truth um so uh what do i mean by that well you can call a tree a lot of different things you could call it a bouncy castle you could you could describe it as a guitar pedal uh but the end of the day there's only going to be so many uh uh correct because we use the tree um okay what is a tree well that's okay that's it does it have a root no uh does it have foliage no uh is there like a you know like a uh is there wood was it made of you know what i mean like so there's finite descriptions we there could be six of us when we're looking at the same tree and we can describe it a little bit different but at the end of the day there's limited descriptions i'm not going to describe that tree as a car well it has four wheels and it's long on the ground and it's red and blue with flaming stripes on the side of it you're hearing me so even though we're subjective we can uncover things the subjective self can uncover truth that is external and empirical uh there are things in life that are empirically transcendent they exist and you can't change that [Music] so subjectivity doesn't mean that criteria of observation and interpretation don't exist okay okay so yes i am subjective but it doesn't mean that there aren't some tools and some criteria that i can go about finding things you're like like touching the tree you know like looking at the tree examining the tree right taking drawing the tree criteria of observation exists christian thought also teaches contrary to liberalism that man is a social creature created for relationship with god this is this is huge uh in our epistemological um study here and uh and and we're created for for a relationship with god and we're creating a relationship for man what that means so liberalism by the way holds the idea that the more that you liberate yourself from religion from others um from you know the more you're you're you're an individual the more you will discover yourself christianity completely rejects that christianity actually runs in the opposite direction the more that you're connected to god the more you discover yourself the more you're connected to other people the more you discover yourself liberalism is you know get rid of those those people and discover what's inside of you we christians go you will never know what's inside of you until you're in a relationship with god and others okay now that actually comes into play in biblical interpretation biblical interpretation involves an anthropology anthropology meaning like a a doctrine of humanity and what how man's made and how he best functions and how he best learns we assert that the truth can be found as we reach outside of ourselves and weigh the text against the testimony of others with other people so it's not something that you're doing all by yourself and if i get rid of those people and i just interpret this myself then i'm going to find the conclusion well no that's not how it works the self as authority is why christian fundamentalism exists like people taking verses out of context reading it the way they want to immediate readings you know people think that by reading the bible immediately like if i just read it right now just read whatever it means to me that's what it means this type of tradition is not getting back to what the bible really means or like a plain reading of scripture as if that exists no there are none of those the way to get back to what the bible really means is to do that with the rest of christian community and the people that have been interpreting it for 2000 years that's how we find the center right a great way to create a cult is to read the bible immediately and do your little soap and write down everything that it means to you that's not what the scripture means the scripture means what the holy spirit meant to say through what paul meant to say authorial intent is what the holy spirit is saying the holy spirit's not saying what it means to you necessarily you know like that's so arbitrary you're hearing me no there's a prophetic realm that we're not going to discuss that i believe there's so i believe there's one interpretation and there's many applications of scripture so there's one interpretation and that doesn't change there are many applications of scripture and when people kind of understand their theology and their doctrine and they have a framework then the holy spirit can speak to them and then they can have like different uh not different meanings but different applications of it um but reading the bible instinctually is how we form cults don't form a cult okay don't read the bible and interpret it necessarily by yourself interpret it with scripture so commentaries are an example are a humble way to read the bible god isn't trying to speak to you through what the bible uh by what the bible means to you but rather by what it meant to them the bible was written for you but it's not written to you so you need to find out what it meant to them so then you can know what it's saying for you okay after fundamentalism essentially after so i just popped a lot of your balloons and you're going oh my god now i can't read the bible no read the bible you need to read the bible you need to read the bible tons um even if you don't know what things mean you know you need to read it's like dribbling reading the bible's like like it's like building that basic you know if you want to become a basketball player you need to learn the dribbling then when you get older that you know you're not thinking about the dribbling anymore and you're learning this the schema of the game and you're learning how to participate with others and you're learning strategy etc but read the bible familiarize yourself with that but don't think that every everything instinctual is what the text means it's just foolish um and i'm sorry for people who've told you that hear my canadianism coming up sorry um after fundamentalism i've never i popped that balloon oh dang it so now i can't read instinctually well no you have two choices now okay number one turn politely to postmodernism and it's false humility oh nobody knows like so we can all just like share what we think about this oh it's so humble like nobody really knows right or number two embrace the courageous task of wrestling with scripture and wrestling with the history of christian thought and interpretation it's it's it's it's so frustrating and it's it's a wrestle and it's a wrestle with a pig um but it's gonna it's it's the right thing to do that's the direction to head in [Music] okay let's talk about quickly this structure of authority okay so we got god okay number one we've got god and then scripture okay so scripture number two but god first and then scripture has authority because it has because it has uh it's god's words god is the ultimate authority then so you've got god he has scripture then you have the creeds okay the creeds were created uh for example the apostles creed right 12 articles in there they are essentially as good as the scripture that they're taken from the church kind of got together and they're going like there's all these heresies and there's people trying to like destroy what jesus is trying to say so like let's get together and let's confess one or like two things or four things or how many things we need to discuss let's argue with one another and let's look at these passages of scripture and these things will be authoritative we'll believe these things and these are the things that it'll mean to be a christian god scripture creeds and then after god scripture creeds it gets it's kind of like a cake okay god scripture creates pretty easy author authorities right uh but there's gonna be a lot of things like uh okay so for example like baptism you know like so where does baptism fall um because uh okay god's authority uh uh okay um i wanna know what baptism is scripture okay the scriptures there's baptism stuff in there the creation saying oh yeah it's creed say that you know people be baptized mean the ethnician creed um but then if i need to find out what is the right way to do baptism there's this kind of layer cake of cake is a great example because i love cake of different authorities that can help round out and it's really it's that wrestle uh that humble wrestle with other people with history with right with the church so you're not interpreting alone so here we go the patristics the patristics are the early church okay um the early church fathers okay so we're talking like origin we're talking athanasius we're talking um guys like that augustine um guys that lived you know within about 500 years 600 years after jesus uh passed uh into the heavens as our high priest uh it's um you got the patriotistics is there and and now the participatristics alone isn't good enough because you can find the patriots were were it was the wild wild west of theology in the early days of the church so you can find a patristic to say something that like for example the patriotics are divided over whether christians uh can be in the military okay they just are um you can find a patriotistic that says no no christian should be in the military you could find a patricia that says yes christians can be in the military um it's not enough the reason why the creeds were created because the patristics were divided okay uh the reason why the the cyanides happened the reason why the councils happened was because the patristics were divided so the church began to create some some agreement and some unity because it needed it now uh exegesis the the second layer of cake this is in no particular order um exegesis like as in returning to the text like actually reading the bible uh imagine that uh reading the original greek what are these what do these original greek words mean is there any um uh are they used in other you know extra biblical use you know is there is there is there a precedent for this word to be used in different ways how is it used contextually how is this word used in different contexts okay interesting what's the context here holistically what's happening here in scripture um number three church tradition so so yeah number one patristics number two exegesis exegesis is gonna be your right wrestling with the with the passages number three church tradition what is the church tradition how has the church translated or interpreted this passage how's the church dealt with this issue what did augustine say about it uh what did aquinas say about it what did uh the reformers say about this what did westley say about this um what's the church con is there is there's like a general consensus on baptism yeah there is a general consensus it's a command and you should do it and it's necessary for salvation um tempered with the thief on the cross right like um four uh reason uh reason is that ability that we have to look in scripture and uh for example like talking about the trinity okay the trinity is not a biblical word um but it's there in scripture we see father son holy spirit we see three unique distinct persons go eternal etc so we create doctrines um using reason but and the church loves reason it's a gift of god but reason's not the only thing that we use so you know like you can't so for example when it comes to annihilationism annihilationism is reasonable but is it exegetical uh no it's not and is it uh in church tradition um not really um and is it in the patristics in some places yes but in some places no so once again you we have to kind of we have to mush these things together and then finally i'd add one more your local congregation what church does god put you in that's important you know like if you want to be if you believe in the power the power of the holy spirit then you should be in a pentecostal church and there will be an uh a new metallic um hermeneutic that pentecostals will have like they see the holy spirit in everything as they should okay uh like the book of acts it's about the holy spirit so so what's the community that you're a part of that's the community that you're part of then like submit to the community that you're part of and take the emphasis that you're a part of um and that way you can find um those sources and i'd call those five sources uh micro authorities and biblical interpretation so in your epistemology the way that you do your interpre interpretation consider church history uh consider the so god scripture creeds consider uh the patristics consider exegesis consider church history consider reason is this rational is there what's some of the theology and the and that teasing out philosophically there's nothing wrong with philosophy i'm in philosophizing you know and theologizing and seeing the the whole gamut here of scripture and seeing how things fit together um and then your local community and as you do that your epistemology man that'll be rock solid don't be that dude who's like oh you know like man it's just like whatever you honor or something bro like you know how could you possibly know anything like it's just that's not christianity that's not christianity christianity is not eastern mysticism christianity has a definite epistemology it's clear it's concise um god's not the author of confusion he brings clarity i don't see paul the apostle scratching his head and talking about existentialism okay no that's not christianity christianity we come to conclusions we have conversation but we come to conclusions and we employ we work on our epistemology and we work on our methods of interpretation and when we're wrong we admit that we're wrong and where we haven't read something we read something but we battle through it and it's always great when i see people online quoting patristics and quoting you know like it's awesome because that means that we're struggling through it and people aren't of their own private interpretation but we're trying to struggle kind of together and that's the humility and the beauty of christianity it has this beautiful humanness and this anthropology that we're doing interpretation together subjectively but uncovering um the truth in god's word [Music]