Knowledge and Faith in the Modern

Period

Background to the Modern Period

The seventeenth century has been called the "age of genius." This is because several
thought revolutions occurred during that century. Again, the results of earlier radical
changes in thought took their effect in that period: the Renaissance, the
Reformation, and the emergence of modern science.
A chain reaction of these several interacting forces created a climate in human
thought which ripened into a revolution in religious thought as well as scientific
discovery. The seventeenth century seemed to produce its share of persons of
genius who were also willing to take the risk of persecution, if need be, to seek the
truth wherever it would lead. Neither church authority nor Scholasticism were able to
stem the flow of new ideas and the change in outlook which was to follow.'

The Renaissance
The Renaissance or the revival of learning in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
was a time of rediscovery of knowledge. Scholasticism, in the service of the church,
had driven much ancient wisdom underground. Church authority sponsored the
views of the Schoolmen who favored Aristotle, but neglected a great deal of
ancient wisdom. During the Renaissance, therefore, people rediscovered the
broader heritage of ancient Greece and Rome. Reason in the form of human
ability anxWigflityusurped the place of heavenly concerns and took
the<*n^^SuntOf>(act, there was a tendency to

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turn away from metaphysics and theology and focus upon practical and earthly interests.
Renaissance studies were known as the humanities. But they also included studies known today
as the fine arts. The humanist was a well-rounded person. There was a disdain for scholarly work
done in monasteries. Learning was a part of an active public life.
The Renaissance looked back in order to look forward. Hindsight was a means to foresight. The
critical examination of ancient sources was to cast light upon the present and future. We may
contrast this with the mind-set of the Medievalists, as we have mentioned above. The Renaissance
person sought to put the ancient wisdom in perspectiveit was the usable past for a new period of
history. The revival of Platonic studies was one example of a return to the past for the sake of the
future. Great progress was made in the return to the classics in many fields. The controlling
purpose, however, was to seize new ideas and fresh investigations in the spirit of the age.
The Reformation
One way of viewing the Reformation is to see it as an attempt to recover the past in order to
renew the church and society in the present. When we take this perspective, we discover
Erasmus as well as Luther and Calvin. All these persons reacted against the , authority of
medieval scholasticism and went back to earlier sources. Whereas Luther and Calvin stressed mainly
the biblical and theological roots of the Reformation, Erasmus mined the ancient classical sources
as well. The place of Erasmus, much overlooked in Reformation studies, is that of a vital bridge
between Renaissance and Reformation studies.
Erasmus, Luther and Calvin, among others, sought the roots of the historic faith in the first
centuries of the church. For example, they went behind Aquinas to Augustine. Again, they
rejected the reign of Aristotle, philosophically, and adopted much of the Neo-Platonic style.
For the Reformers, the Bible became the primary source of faith. They accepted its authority
with a personal trust. But at the same time they examined biblical texts critically with the tools
of Renaissance scholarship. Erasmus was a loyal Catholic, but he provided Luther and Calvin
with a Greek New Testament. This meant that the Latin Vulgate of the medieval church was no
longer normative. Luther translated the Bible into German. Calvin applied Renaissance
scholarship to law and government as well as to the

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Bible and theological knowledge. And he examined the Bible in its historical and cultural
contexts as he looked for the original intentions of the biblical writers.
The printing press was invented to publish the Bible. This revolutionized human life. It aided
considerably the rapid spread of information. The Gutenburg Bible was printed in 1454.
Published works provided people with new ideas and independence from authorities. A period
of criticism of church and society, through the printed word, ensued.
The Scientific Revolution
The modern world-view began in earnest in the seventeenth century. This is not merely true
of theology; the same can be said of philosophy and natural science. I shall therefore classify
the "modern" period as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the "contemporary"
period as the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I am aware that such a classification is somewhat
arbitrary. It does, however, provide a framework for our discussion, which is helpful.
There were at least two discoveries toward the close of the Renaissance and Reformation
which helped to shape the modern period of thought.
First, there was the development of modern mathematics by Christopher Clarius (15371612), often called the modern Euclid. According to Clarius, mathematical demonstrations are
superior to dialectical disputations. This belief that mathematics is a fundamental science which
renders truth certain aided the development of philosophical rationalism in the following
centuries. Rationalism was Platonism pushed to its extreme. It emphasized "innate ideas" and
the ability to deduce all other knowledge from them. It is likewise obvious that this new
mindset is the basis for modern natural science.
Second, there was the introduction of exact methods of experimentation and observation.
This is especially true of the telescope developed by Galileo (1564-1642). Through it he saw
with his own eyes that the earth rotated around the sun and that there were mountains on the
moon. Both observations contradicted long and firmly held assumptions grounded in the
statements of ancient authoritiesboth scripture and tradition.
A new method emerged which represented a decisive break with the past. Galileo did not
consult the authoritieshe looked! New

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knowledge flowed from experiments which opened up the possibilities for modern science. In
philosophy, this pointed the way to eighteenth-century empiricism. Empiricism looked back and
looked forward. It developed one side of Aristotle, but not the Aristotle of the Schoolmen. Its
stress was on sense data as a primary source of information from which all other knowledge
could be validly induced.
Rationalism
The Rationalism of the seventeenth century was developed by Descartes (French), Spinoza
(Dutch) and Leibniz (German). Since Spinoza and Leibniz built upon the foundation laid by Rene
Descartes, we shall briefly introduce the others, but lift Descartes up for fuller treatment.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was a Dutch Jew who made his living grinding lenses. Descartes had
left behind a significant problem on which he worked. Mind and body appeared to be two separate
and incompatible substances. How did they function together? Spinoza accepted Descartes'
mathematical model for synthesizing all knowledge into one system. Spinoza went on to tighten
its systematic consistency by insisting that there is but one substance (in two aspectsthought
and extension). The one divine substance he sometimes called God and sometimes called Nature.
Spinoza is a monist, who may be considered either as an atheist or as a "God-intoxicated" man,
depending upon which dimension of his system is being considered as normative.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a son of a university professor at Leipzig. He was
educated at Leipzig, studied philosophy and travelled extensively. Leibniz is said to have met Sir
Isaac Newton and Spinoza. He was known as a mathematician, scientist, historian, diplomat,
theologian and philosopher. Leibniz was involved in many pursuits. Thus much of his
philosophy is to be found in letters, memoranda and articles. He had a great deal in common
with Descartes and Spinoza.
Leibniz hoped to systematize all conceivable knowledge in a rational scheme consistent with
the principles and certainty of mathematics. His program was to accomplish two things: First, he
sought a perfect universal scientific language that would reduce all thoughts to mathematical
symbols. Second, he developed calculus. Here Leibniz is similar in his pursuit to Isaac Newton, but
he appears to have worked independently.

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It was Leibniz's intention to bring all thought under the control of symbolic logic. He is
known for his thesis of "pre-established harmony" as well as his assertion that this is the "best
possible of all worlds" (theodicy). Furthermore, he reclaims some of the atomism of Lucretius
in his monadic theory of the universe. The thought Leibniz stimulated in science, philosophy
and theology is considerable.
Empiricism
Rationalism did not succeed in solving many issues of ultimate concern, during its reign in
the seventeenth century. Thus in the eighteenth century empiricism arose as a possible
alternative.
In Great Britain this new philosophical movement was growing. The continental movement
(rationalism) had stressed the mathematical side. The British movement, on the other hand,
emphasized the side of observation and experiment. It was characterized by an empirical and
inductive approach to knowledge. All knowledge was said to be acquired by induction from
sense experience alone.
Isaac Newton was the scientist-mathematician of the British movement. The philosophers
were: Locke (English), Berkeley (Irish) and Hume (Scottish). We shall look briefly at Newton,
Locke and Berkeley, and select Hume for more thorough examination.
In science and mathematics, Sir Isaac Newton led the way. Newton was born in 1642, the
year Galileo died. He elaborated the essentials of calculus and discovered that white light is the
presence of all colors. His most important achievement was to grasp the principle of gravity.
Newton wrote his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687. His ideas were
associated with the emergence of the Age of Enlightenment. It was believed that humans had
come of age: that we will be able to solve all of our problems through human intelligence. The
method of observation and experimentation took charge.
Following Newton's lead, three British philosophers set out to develop the empirical
method. These were Locke, Berkeley and Hume. For more than a century these thinkers (and
others influenced by them) attempted to work out the metaphysical and epistemologi-cal
implications of Newtonian science. They found knowledge to be based on what could be derived
by induction from sense experience.
John Locke (1632-1704) took an approach almost opposite to Descartes. At birth, according
to Locke, our mind is a tabula rasa,

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a blank tablet. All of our ideas originate in sense experience. Ideas

come
from
outside
the
mind.
According
to
Locke,
matter
causes
sensations. Matter was understood to be the stuff external to us that
had
power
to
cause
sensations
received
by
our
sight,
hearing,
taste,
touch and smell.
*
George Berkeley (1685-1753) was disturbed by Locke's deistic God. In fact, he took exception
to much that Locke had said. He therefore sought a different method. He reasoned that if people
believed that the source of all our ideas was inert, unthinking matter, they would become
materialists, even atheists. Berkeley was also a devoted empiricist, but he approached the subject
from a different angle of vision. He insisted that the nature of our experience indicates that no
idea exists in human experience unless it exists as perceived by some mind. He goes on to assert
that the only mind capable of causing all the richness and diversity that we experience with our
senses is the mind of God. It is God, therefore, and not matter that causes sensations. God,
according to Berkeley, is the only sufficient source or cause of all sensations and ideas everywhere.
Having looked at several collaborators in the rationalism and empiricism of the modern
period, we now take up with greater intensity three representative thinkers. Descartes set the
stage for Rationalism. Hume was perhaps the greatest of the British Empiricists, especially in his
arousal of Kant. It was Kant who attempted, in his critical philosophy, to synthesize rationalism
and empiricism in his system. All of these thinkers had a profound impact upon theology as
well as philosophy. They therefore have an important place in our discussion on the impact of
philosophy upon theology.2

The Cartesian Method

We turn now to Rene Descartes and his theory of knowledge. Descartes, a central figure in the
"scientific revolution" of the seventeenth century, was born in 1596. This was fifty years after
Copernicus had proposed that the earth rotates daily on its axis and revolves yearly about a
central sun. He died in 1650, some forty years before Newton's formulation of the laws of
mechanics and universal gravitation. In other words, his generation was pivotal to the transition
from the medieval world to the modern period of science, philosophy and theology. Descartes and
his contemporaries participated largely in this period of transition.3

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Astronomy was the science that set the pace for the advances in the early seventeenth
century. In 1610 Galileo did his work. His observations, already mentioned, proved to be an
insurmountable obstacle to the Ptolemaic earth-centered model of the universe, and shattered the
Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology. Descartes was to echo Galileo's assertion that mathematics is
the key to grasping the nature of reality. The language essential to understanding the "book of the
universe" was mathematics. It was the mathematical skills of Kepler that enabled him to develop
his theory that the planets move in elliptical as opposed tocircular orbits. Descartes himself
produced Optics, in which he discussed the problems of telescope design. In 1620, Francis Bacon
published his Novum Organon, in which he put forward a set of precepts for the investigation
of natural phenomena and their causes. Bacon's new method of induction aided empirical
research in the struggle to understand the universe. Descartes came upon the scene amidst a
growing awareness of the importance of conducting experiments and observation in the quest for
knowledge. It would be his role to establish the philosophical foundation to undergird the
growing scientific revolution.
Descartes did his work at a time when the attainment of knowledge was considered difficult. It
was associated with occult powers and forces. The acquisition of knowledge was also
controlled and restricted by religious authority and theological beliefs. Descartes was convinced
that he had as his destiny the founding of a new philosophical system. This mission, as he saw it,
was not mysterious and did not depend upon superhuman intellectual endowments. Descartes
saw knowledge as a very simple thing. He insisted that truth is readily accessible by the
ordinary human intellect. True knowledge is open rather than hidden, simple rather than
complex, clear and certain rather than full of doubt.
Early in his writings, Descartes asserted that philosophical knowledge has three main features:
unity, purity and certainty.
Descartes rejected the scholastic conception of science as a set of separate disciplines, each
with its own methods and level of precision. The separatist view claimed the authority of
Aristotle. Descartes appears to have reverted to the Platonic notion of philosophy as a unified
system. In his view, the various elements of the system are coherent and inter-linked as a set of
theorems in mathematics. All things which fall under the category of human knowledge are
interconnected, and each link in a long chain is simple and easily understood.

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Descartes sought a system free of any taint of falsity. Purity was the second characteristic of true
knowledge. As he observed the prevailing doctrines, they appeared to contain some elements of
truth, but this truth was corrupted by a large mixture of incoherence and inaccuracy. He looked to
mathematics, especially arithmetic and geometry, to illustrate an expression of purity of truth.
These sciences make no assumptions that experience might render uncertainthey are pure and
simple. The high standards characteristic of mathematics were a constant inspiration for
Descartes as he did his philosophical work.
The notion of certainty is perhaps the most important characteristic of true knowledge for
Descartes. In ordinary usage we may know something without claiming absolute certainty for its
truth. Descartes considers philosophy as of a higher order than an ordinary quest after truth. The
philosopher, in his view, is the seeker after wisdom or understandingone who desires a level of
knowledge that is above the ordinary. Descartes begins by offering intuition as the basis for
acquiring certain knowledge. It is through lumen naturale, "the light of nature," or lux rationis,
"natural light," that we arrive at self-evident truth by means of intueri, intuition. But this
approach left serious questions. How does one go beyond mathematics? How does one treat
complicated issues? And, how does one direct intuition when it does not hit its target?
This independence from intuition is manifested in Descartes's earliest major work, Regulae, or
Rules for the Direction of the Understanding. About a decade later, he seems to have grasped the
difficulties involved in the search for true knowledge. He provides more details and plots out a
plan in this pursuit. He suggests an orderly manner of seeking knowledge by direction of thought
beginning with the simplest and most easily known objects and ascending little by little to
more complex levels of knowledge. In his famous Discourse on Method he outlines a new and
much more dynamic philosophical approach, the method of doubt. He goes on to show how the
systematic rejection of beliefs which are open even to the slightest doubt can serve as a vehicle for
the discovery of a reliable starting point in philosophy.
Method was central to Descartes and his system of thought. He decided to doubt everything he
had ever learned until he came to some clear and evident idea, a first principle, that could not be
doubted. He came to the conclusion that he could not doubt that he was doubting. If he was
doubting, then he was thinking. And if he

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was thinking, then he existed as a thinking being. His first principle, therefore, became, jepense,
doncjesuis, "I am thinking, therefore I exist." The Latin formulation, cogito, ergo sum, is more
familiar. According to Descartes, human nature is basically mind, to which body is attached.
Rationality is the key to reality. Through this method, associated in his thinking with
mathematical certainty, Descartes believed that he could come to certain knowledge of
everything. He began with an idea within himself that seemed obvious to his reason. Then by
rational deduction he went on to demonstrate the existence of everything including God and
the world. Through his world-view and by his philosophical method, he initiated an outlook based
upon the proper use of the mind as the basis for all true knowledge. This Cartesian perspective
was soon to influence science and theology as well as philosophy. This was the problem that
Spinoza, Leibniz and even Kant would tackle.

David Hume's Theory of Knowledge

The skepticism of David Hume (1711-1776) has had a powerful effect on the course of religious
thought since his time. It questioned the attempt of philosophers to demonstrate religious truths
such as the existence of God and immortality. During his youth, Hume lost interest in the
Calvinist teachings of his native Scotland. These teachings were grim, austere and gloomy.
Superstitions and fanaticism made the situation more hopeless. At an early age, therefore, Hume
abandoned the whole of Calvinist doctrine. Unfortunately, he appears to have equated Calvinism
with religion in general. Thus his aversion of Calvinism, as he knew it, affected his attitude toward
religion in any form. And yet, intellectually, he continued to be interested in religion for all of his
life. Religion was more a subject for investigation. It was something he observed in others and
in societyit was not something that informed his life or personal convictions. Hume seemed
to be at home in the cultural world of Edinburgh. He did not appear to be disturbed by sin and
had no sense of need for divine aid. It was his view that popular religion is irrational; it perverts
and weakens all of intellectual and moral life. Hume's major influence as a skeptic is not related
to his attacks upon "popular" religion; it is rather his criticism of "natural" religion. Having
dismissed revealed religion, he focused his attention upon the religion of reason. During the
Age of Reason, this version of religion was founded upon the scientific view of nature

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developed, in Britain, by Newton. According to this view, God had created the world and imposed
order upon it by means of immutable laws. Since the order of nature is God's handiwork and a
product of God's intelligence, it constitutes a revelation of God's power and wisdom. This
Newtonian picture of the^universe was accepted widely in the Britain of the eighteenth century. A
Ideological argument for God's existence stemmed from it which was somewhat different from
that which was inherent in the cosmological argument of Aquinas. It is the Newtonian argument
with which Hume is primarily concerned in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
As we have seen, two directions resulted from the scientific method stemming from Kepler,
Copernicus and Galileo. These were the rationalist and empiricist movements. The first was known
as continental rationalism, espoused by such thinkers as Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. We are
now concerned with the second direction of the scientific revolution which developed in the British
environment. The scientific method took on an empirical trend and emphasized observation and
experimentation. Newton stood at the fountainhead of this empiricist movement. He was a
mathematician, but insisted upon verification of his physical theories by an appeal to sense
experience. This had a decisive effect upon British empiricist philosophers, like Locke and Hume.
The empiricists asserted that knowledge originates not in self-evident reason but from
experience, and that even the most complex ideas are derived from what Locke called "simple
ideas" of "sensation" and "reflection" by a process of comparison and composition. This
empiricist view questioned the validity of metaphysical speculation by abstract reasoning. It
insisted upon testing the meaning and truth of every general idea by tracing it back to its origin in
experience.
Hume carries the empirical theory of knowledge to extremes. He reacted to Locke and
Berkeley, but disagreed with both. He accepted Locke's conclusion that there are no innate ideas,
and that all ideas in our minds come from our senses. But when asked "What causes our
sensations?" Hume said, "We don't know!" All we know, based upon sense experience, is that we
do have sensations. Hume attempts to show that many metaphysical speculations have no
grounding in experience. He insists that it is from sense experience alone that we have knowledge.
And based upon this assertion, we do not know with certainty that cause and effect are connected,
that there is an external world, a self, or God. All ideas could be

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explained psychologically. By custom or habit, we associate ideas with experiences where there is
no connection which can be demonstrated. Hume asserts that we may retain our beliefs for
practical purposes, if we wish to do so. But as philosophers we should be honest enough to
admit that empirically we know almost nothing.
Hume raised some lasting issues in philosophy and theology. It was his challenge to the
important beliefs of the Christian faith that stimulated profound reflection. We must appreciate
his thought in itself. But equally important is the fact that he stimulated the mind of Kant, who
used all of his genius to respond to the profound issues raised by Hume.

Kant and His Problem

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) attempted to bring the rationalism of the Continent and the
empiricism of Britain together. This, however, was no easy task. This is why the genius of this
giant intellect is so evident in Kant's critical philosophy.
Kant was born in Konigsberg, Germany. He travelled little and remained close to home. He
was an ivory-tower bachelor lost in his books. But his thought revolutionized metaphysics,
ethics and theology. We still must grapple with problems he raised.
Kant was influenced by Christian Wolff, who transmitted the tradition of Descartes and
Leibniz. It was his study of David Hume that "awakened him from his dogmatic slumber."
Kant read Rousseau avidly. In Rousseau, Kant was introduced to feeling and conscience. This
was something absent in both logical arguments and sensory experience.
In his philosophy, Kant seeks to reconcile the scientific view of nature formulated by Newton
with his own profound convictions, derived largely from Christianity. He held the conviction that
there is a moral order which transcends the world of the senses. On the one hand, he had a
profound interest in the sciences and accepted the dominant Newtonian conception of nature,
which he had encountered at his university at the age of sixteen. On the other, he was deeply
affected by Pietism in his family and early study. German Pietism emphasized moral earnestness
and strict discipline. It stressed the urgency of the moral law written upon the heart. It pointed
to the radical evil in human nature and the need for a complete change of orientation to attain
the good life. Pietism had a permanent and positive impact on Kant. And yet, because of the

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critical nature of his mind he could not accept fanaticism or moral hypocrisy. Thus, there develops
a conflict in his mind between his Christian piety and the scientific view of the world. It is to his
credit that he held on to the fundamental beliefs of an ethical theism throughout his life. A strong
challenge to him was to find a way to belief that could be reconciled with modern science.
Kant wanted to know how knowledge is possible. He set out to provide a transcendental
critique of human knowing. By transcendental, Kant meant something which did not reside in
human experience, but made human experience possible. His transcendental critique sought for
the a priori (prior to experience) conditions in the mind itself that made knowledge possible.
According to Kant, rationalism and empiricism are at once partly right, but are limited and
dependent upon each other. Empiricism is correct in the assumption that the material of our
knowledge comes from the senses. If we had no sense data, we would have no knowledge. But
rationalism has the advantage when it insists that the form of knowledge was supplied by the
mind. Kant argues that we could have no knowledge if certain categories of our minds failed to give
meaningful shape to the data that the senses provide.
Kant sees no problem concerning the possibility of a priori analytic judgments. Such judgments
are those in which the predicate merely explicates the subject without adding anything to it. They
depend for their truth upon the law of contradiction, since their denial involves a logical
contradiction. His problem, therefore, is limited to the possibility of synthetic judgments, or those
judgments in which the predicate amplifies the subject and extends our knowledge.
According to Kant, mathematics, natural science and metaphysics consist of propositions which
are not only a priori but also synthetic. Such judgments do not arise from our experience, and yet
they add something to our knowledge. For instance, the judgment that 5 + 7 = 12, or the
judgment in physics that "every event has a cause," is a synthetic a priori judgment. This is so since
in neither case can the predicate be found by analysis of the subject (to be contained in the subject).
Kant's problem can be expressed in these questions: How are synthetic judgments a priori
possible? How are such judgments possible in mathematics, natural science and metaphysics?
Kant's response is a type of "Copernican revolution" in epistem-ology. His theory of knowledge
begins with the bold assertion that for objects to be known they must conform to the mind, not
the mind to objects. He assumes that the mind is active rather than

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passive in the process of knowing and that it adds something of its own. The content of our
knowledge is derived from sense experience; the form is imposed by reason, and this provides the a
priori element in knowledge. Our knowledge has two sources: sensibility and understanding.
First, we have the capacity to receive impressions. Second, we have the power to know an
object through these representations. The object is given to us through sensibility. It is thought
in relation to what is given and that is understanding. Thus, without sensibility no object would be
given. Without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty,
and intuitions without concepts are nonsensical or blind. In order, therefore, to respond to the
question of synthetic a priori judgments it is necessary to analyze sensibility and understanding
further.
An analysis of sensibility discloses that although it is a faculty of receptivity through which
objects are presented to us by means of impressions, it also contains certain forms of intuition,
i.e. space and time. Sensibility imposes these types of impressions upon its object. It is therefore
impossible for us to experience objects except as they conform to space and time as forms of our
sensibility. Our sense impressions are ordered in relation to one another in space and they
occur in succession to one another in time. But they are ordered in these ways, not because
space and time are objective realities in which objects are located and events occur, but because
they are subjective forms which we bring with us to all sense experience. In this manner we are
able to relate our impressions to one another. Thus, we see how a priori forms of intuition belong
to our sensibilities.
At the same time, the understanding, as a faculty of thought, affects the object thought, for
example, through its categories of substance and cause. It is through substance and cause that
the understanding is able to relate its manifold sense impressions to one another and organize
them into a coherent whole of objects of experience. The categories are not "innate ideas." They
are, rather, forms of synthesis belonging to our understanding and brought into play when
impressions are presented to it by our sensibility.
According to Kant, it is by means of these categories and the principles of understanding
through which they are applied to sense impressions that it becomes possible to experience
objects in space and time as a coherent and organized whole. These categories and principles are
a priori. It is through these entities that understanding expresses itself as a synthesizing faculty, as it
thinks upon all objects

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presented to it. We able to know in advance the general form which all objects of experience must
take. Understanding can think them only by imposing its character upon them and making them
conform to its structure. The content of our knowledge of objects, however, cannot be anticipated,
but must come tus through experience.
There is a constructive result from the critical examination of sensibility and understanding.
Synthetic a priori judgments of mathematics and natural science are possible as forms of sensibility
and categories and principles of understanding are imposed by reason upon impressions.
But there is a reverse impact in Kant's reflection. His negative conclusion has had a profound
impact upon metaphysics and theology. Since space and time and the categories are applicable only
to objects presented by the intuition of the senses, we can have knowledge only of things as they
appear to us, phenomena. On the other hand, "things-in-themselves," noumena, are beyond our
capacity to know. If we had the power of non-sensual or intellectual intuition, it could be possible
for "things-in-themselves" to be presented to us and be known by reason. But this is not the case.
We lack such power. Sensible objects, therefore, can be known through reason, while
supersensible objects cannotthe latter are beyond the reach of reason.
Kant, however, leaves room for objects beyond sense and the reach of reason: "things-inthemselves." There are at least two reasons for this. First, it is necessary to account for that
which is given in experience. Second, reason possesses certain "Ideas," such as freedom and God,
which do not correspond to objects in the world of phenomena, but which suggest transcendent
objects in the world behind phenomena. On the one hand, sensibility and understanding make
mathematical and scientific knowledge of the sensible world of phenomena possible. On the other
hand, reason can know only that there are "things-in-themselves" beyond phenomena; it cannot
know what they are.
Epistemology was pushed to center stage in Kant's critical philosophy. The question is not
"What do we know?" It is "How do we know?" We no longer ask how knowledge could conform
to the nature of objects outside ourselves. Now, said Kant, we make nature! Nature was understood
as a system of objects manifesting an order on which predictions could be based. Kant
contended that the human mind provided that order. Objects, therefore, conformed to human
understanding. Yet, knowledge was objective because all

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people's minds were structured so as to order the same sense data into identical patterns.
According to Kant, there is also a noumenal worlda world outside human sense experience,
Kant wanted objective knowledge in the moral realm as well as in the scientific. For Kant the realm
of human values is more important than the realm of nature. But one cannot acquire the
knowledge of moral values either from reason or sense experience. Knowledge of the noumenal
world lies inside the individual. Morality is a postulate of the practical reason. All people have
within, Kant believed, a sense of oughtness that rightly guides them. This he designated the
categorical imperative. On the basis of this "inner sense," people could obtain a practical certainty
of a rational faith which assures the existence of God, freedom of choice and immortality. Thus, the
faith which Kant uproots through pure reason is brought back and secured through practical
reason.
Kant in this manner attempted to reconcile the mechanistic view of modern science with the
view based upon empirical evidence. The mechanistic view of modern science rightly applied to the
world of appearances. Empirical evidence and mathematical reasoning enabled people to
understand and, to some extent, control the world as,they perceived it. At the same time, Kant was
able to hold to a belief in human freedom and moral responsibility that exempted humans from
being just another cog in the cause-and-effect chain of natural science. Humans belong to two
worlds, the phenomenal and the noumenal.

Descartes, Hume and Kant and the Future of Religious Thought

In this chapter I have provided the historical context of the modern period of religious thought in
the West. After looking at several movements and persons who set the stage for this period, I
treated the thought of Descartes, Hume and Kant with more intensity. I presented Descartes as
the mind behind the scientific and rationalistic tendencies of the time. Sir Isaac Newton was
mentioned as the natural scientist and mathematician who helped to shape the world-view of the
modern period. However, it was Hume, the radical empiricist and religious skeptic, who as a
philosopher raised the issues to a crisis level. It was Hume, as we have seen, who stimulated the
mind of Kant to struggle with concerns raised by the rationalists on the continent and the
empiricists in Britain. And it is through

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Kant's critical philosophy that many problems raised during that period are still under investigation
in philosophy, ethics and theology.