Herman Bavinck and Thomas Reid on Perception and Knowing God
Nicholas Wolterstorff argues that Kant had erected an epistemological boundary between mental representations and external reality that precipitates an anxiety in modern theologians about whether one can properly refer to God. As a way past this boundary, Wolterstorff's Reformed epistemology re...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
[2018]
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| In: |
Harvard theological review
Year: 2018, Volume: 111, Issue: 1, Pages: 115-134 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Bavinck, Herman 1854-1921
/ Reid, Thomas 1710-1796
/ Perception
/ Cognition theory
/ Knowability of God
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| IxTheo Classification: | KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history KDD Protestant Church NBC Doctrine of God NBE Anthropology VA Philosophy VB Hermeneutics; Philosophy |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Nicholas Wolterstorff argues that Kant had erected an epistemological boundary between mental representations and external reality that precipitates an anxiety in modern theologians about whether one can properly refer to God. As a way past this boundary, Wolterstorff's Reformed epistemology retrieves Thomas Reid's account of perception as an alternative to Kant, according to which knowledge of external objects is direct and immediate. Further, Wolterstorff points to the Dutch neo-Calvinist Herman Bavinck as one who bears many reidian elements in his epistemology, especially in the way in which Bavinck argues that the epistemic accessibility of the external world ought to be taken for granted. The thesis of this present paper, however, is that a closer investigation of Bavinck's account of perception reveals that he, unlike Reid, accepts the gap between mental representations and external objects, such that representations are those through which we know the world. Bavinck affirms that a correspondence between the two can be obtained by an appeal to the resources found in Christian revelation. In effect, what emerges in a close comparison of Bavinck and Reid is that Bavinck's account is an alternative theological response to the kantian boundaryone according to which mental representations correspond with external objects because both participate in an organically connected cosmos shaped by a Triune God. |
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| ISSN: | 1475-4517 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0017816017000414 |