Hi Steve, You ask a very important epistemological question. I believe how you answer the question of how we know anything, and what are the presuppositions of our thought, determine what we ultimate think about the world.
Our knowledge can come from us, our own minds, or be revealed by God, or some other spirit. These are the only 3 ways I can think of to ground an epistemology in. But to side step this for now, let me say that it seems that cultures start out as religious, and then the theological ideas spread to other areas of thought, they permeate the culture. And this can be true even if the culture is no longer religious at all. For example, Newton's ideas of nature clearly were grounded in his theology. Later, this same ideas derived from an understanding of God, became imputed to the natural world. Nature was divinized. Now it was the laws of nature that were absolute, eternal, and omnipotent. And indeed man thought his reason omniscient, as he thought the laws of nature omnipresent. The basic idea is that culture is an integrated phenomenon. So it should not be surprising that the same ideas in theology show up in other fields. But if we look at modernism and modern science, its easy to show that the analogy Descartes used is true. We find philosophical-metaphysical ideas at the roots, the trunk is physics, and clearly and intentionally the thinkers of the 17 and 18th century then applied the fundamental ideas of physics to the branches-the other disciplines. All was explained in therms of matter in motion, and it was a perfect matter, a uniform matter, in a uniform, or perfect motion. But if you look closer still, and it is very easy with Newton, you can see the theological ground this tree of knowledge grew out of. Newton is quite explicit about his theology and how it relates to his natural philosophy. Its a bit trickery maybe in the post modern world. But here too, you see the same ideas expressed across every discipline, and you can see how they are related to eastern theology and philosophy. And if you look closely at the German Idealist philosophers, its very easy to see the connections between their theology and philosophy. And the influence of their philosophy can surely be seen throughout the rest of our post-modern culture. And as many a truth is said in jest, so some are said in sarcasm or spite, as in Horse's post. Every culture, in every age, has an idea about what is the Ultimate Reality,or God. And it is from answering this questions that the archetypes are derived. Again, even when a culture is no longer religious in the same way, even when it denies its former belief, the old ideas hang around and are applied in a different way. See the post on Ideas and Gods, and note the quote from Rupert Sheldrake. Thanks, Jon On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 11:56 AM, Steven Peterson <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi Jon, > > On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 8:44 PM, Jon Bennett <[email protected]> wrote: > > Guys, > > The fundamental ideas about space, time and matter, etc. like everything > > else, are determined by certain,archetypal ideas that are the basis of > the > > metaphysics of each age. > > > > These same ideas show up in art, music, literature, philosophy, politics. > > And they were originally derived from theological ideas. > > Do theological ideas come from somewhere different than do ideas in > art, music, philosophy, etc.? > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
