Mere and Bare Christianity

My contention is that Christians practice Christianity entirely wrong. More radically put, I would even argue that most, if not all, Christians (or those who identify themselves as Christians) are worshipping the golden calf, doing what appears to be Christian, but in reality is something else. What is Christianity? In essence, it is a covenant, a promise of salvation; the laws and the gospel are devised only to articulate, navigate, and execute this covenant. Accordingly, Christianity qua covenant calls for a certain attitude, identity, or lifestyle. When I say that Christians practice Christianity wrong, therefore, I mean that Christians fail to have secured the appropriate attitude. This failure, in my view, stems from misunderstanding one’s status and relation to the covenant, specifically what sort of attitude the covenant that Christianity is actually implies. My intention in this essay is to expound on what exactly this misunderstanding consists in.

Why do you believe in God? Why did you accept Christianity? How do you know that your belief is true? Most Christians will initially answer by describing the experience that convinced or inspired them to take up the commitment, e.g., surviving an accident, learning about the scripture in youth, feeling overwhelmed or grandiose by the scenery of nature, having prayers answered, etc. But these are historical, not epistemological, answers, whereas the questions are epistemological, not historical, questions. In other words, the questions are asking for your reasons, not the origin story. Granted that these things happened, why did the incidents convince you? That is, why did you at that time (and why do you still) take them as enough evidence for your belief? In other words, why do you think that the experiences were revealing the truth of Christianity? The reason why these questions could be asked is that the described experiences themselves are open to interpretation and, therefore, do not warrant the conclusion. For instance, how does feeling overwhelmed by nature (or during sermons or praise) imply that God is real? You just had a feeling, and sometimes people feel overwhelmed by things that are unfamiliarly huge or loud. You may feel small when you see the Grand Canyon, learn about the universe, or hear about God’s plan. However, these experiences do not tell us anything beyond that the Grand Canyon is big, the universe is vast, and there are things some people preach as God’s plan. Nothing about these things indicates that there must be some supernatural being who has created the universe or has a plan as preached. In fact, other people face the same scenery, but do not have the same feeling, which is just as valid as yours insofar as the feeling is concerned. Thus, the feeling alone cannot be conclusive evidence.

What about having one’s prayers answered? There are at least three problems with taking this experience as evidence. First, what seems to be an answer could really just be a coincidence. Surely, some coincidences are very unlikely; the fact that they happen surprises us. Yet, miracles do happen. After all, they may be miraculous for all we know, but are merely works of nature; things that will happen will happen regardless of how unlikely they are. If true miracles tell us anything, it is that our predictions were wrong, not that some supernatural being intentionally brought them forward; some miracles are intentional as in the case of human interventions such as parents secretly placing presents that their children wished to Santa Claus, but these are covert works of humans, not of God. Second, our counting of answered prayers involves confirmation bias and reinterpretation. There are many cases of unanswered prayers, e.g., children dying from cancers despite the prayers of their parents. When we report that our prayers are answered, we often do not count when our prayers are not answered. It is an established psychological fact that humans are vulnerable to confirmation bias: we take into account only the incidents consistent with our beliefs and ignore counter-evidence. When we can no longer ignore counter-evidence, we often try to reinterpret or explain it away, perhaps by claiming that the death was to teach a greater lesson. At this stage, the experience is no more functioning as evidence. Third, there are other religions that use similar experiences as evidence for their gods. If the fact that some of my prayers are answered proves that my religion is true, then the same goes for other religions as well. Some of these religions are doctrinally incompatible with each other. Consequently, all of these religions are reportedly true while some of them are false due to incompatibility, which is absurd. One may claim that every religion is partially true, pointing towards one unifying religion. However, such a religion, even if it is true, is not Christianity, for it must be either too inclusive (self-contradictory) or too minimalistic (incomplete to be Christianity).

The problem in general with appealing to experience is that, in principle, no experience provides conclusive evidence. Part of what it is for something to be empirical evidence is that this kind of evidence is not meant to warrant absolute certainty. Experiences (or empirical data) are appealed to when there is the need for rationalization (or justification) in the absence of (the possibility of) absolute certainty. In our interactions with the surroundings, we are under constant pressure to make predictions and decisions about the future. Experiences, or sensations, are our only access to the physical world. Thus, it is not irrational for us to ground their judgments on experience; we must start from somewhere. What is irrational is reading too much into our experiences. Empirical knowledge is its own distinctive (language-)game, and it becomes disastrous when we use this game for wrong purposes. (Imagine making decisions about the nation’s distribution of wealth and rights solely based on the number of medals each individual wins at the Olympics.)

There are two reasons why it is a categorical mistake to draw absolute certainty (or conclusive evidence) out of experience. First, experience is inductive. Roughly put, experience, sensation, or datum is called upon when one engages in inductive reasoning, the inferential process in which one makes generalizations about the past to explain certain phenomena and predict the future. In the absence of any other way of accessing the reality (the physical world), the generalizations over the past experiences are our best shots. Nevertheless, the generalizations are only as good as the amount of collected data, for new data can point to better generalizations. Generalizations are meant to yield predictions, and the point of calling something a prediction is precisely that it is the best guess so far, yet could be wrong. For all the reasons of ordinary language philosophy, we could (and have been) call(ing) it knowledge. But this knowledge is not infallible, and that is fine because making the best available reasonable judgements in the midst of fallibility is the point of inductive reasoning. The problem is when we treat empirical knowledge (generalization) based on induction as warranting absolute certainty. Part of the western tradition in philosophy at least since Descartes could be seen as a series of failures in achieving absolute certainty about our knowledge of the world. This attempt has often been made in the manner of either elevating (or enhancing) induction to (or by) deduction or replacing induction with deduction. Inferences based on deductive reasoning such as geometry give us the impression that absolute certainty is possible if we can work out formal definitions of terms and rules for formulations and inferences. Perhaps, we may be able to come up with a few sufficiently enclosed mathematical systems that could in theory determine the truth-value for each of its propositions. However, unlike such systems, our life is not enclosed; we simply do not know what new facts about the distant past and the distant future will be discovered—this is the whole point of calling what we learn in life discovery, not recollection! One may argue that, once enough data is collected, we can take a cruise mode because the future cannot be too drastically different than the past. But why do you believe that? What warrants that the future will resemble the past? We have not experienced the future, so we do not know how drastically different it could be. One may rebut by contending that the resemblance is guaranteed by the laws of nature. But, once again, how did you discover (or posit) these laws (or constants) in the first place? The laws of nature are not things that are just dogmatically given to us, but rather our most reliable generalizations so far or inferences to the best explanations (i.e., our best way of making sense of the collected data so far).

Second, experiences are paradigmatic. That is, the significance of experiences (the meaning of data) often changes by the shifts in worldviews. As Kuhn has shown, the evidence for a certain scientific theory serves as evidence because, within the pertaining worldview or paradigm, the evidence-serving phenomenon is already interpreted or viewed according to the theory for which it is meant to serve as evidence. Aristotle explained that the reason why objects fall is because each object has its own appropriate position to which it travels whereas Newton explained that this is because the force of gravity is at play. For each worldview, the very same phenomenon of falling was the evidence for its own theory precisely because the falling is already interpreted or viewed as either the teleological travel or the force of gravity. Ptolemy thought that heaven revolved around the Earth whereas Copernicus thought it the other way. For each, the very same stellar movement patterns were the evidence for his own theory because they fit the theory. From the heliocentric perspective, the stellar movements look too complicated if geocentrism is true. However, why assume that truth must be simple? After all, complicated it may be, geocentric calculations make predictions just as well. This paradigmatic feature of natural science does not necessarily imply that science is circular in its reasoning or cannot discover truth. All it implies for now is that, in figuring out truth, more is involved than reference to experience. (Differently put, truth is not purely empirical.) In the First Critique, Kant explains that our conscious experience and knowledge are not passive, but rather actively involve the working of the human mind. That is, the faculty that the mind is, provides frameworks (concepts) for taking in and organizing (i.e., synthesizing) external stimuli. That is, once our initial contacts with the world have made their way into our (sub)consciousness as experiences, they have been in some sense regurgitated. (Here, I am cautious in characterizing the process of synthesis in this way because it implies that there is an unbridgeable gap between our thoughts and the reality as it is, viz., phenomenon and noumenon. Although Kant himself seems to have thought that such a gap exists, the implication of his transcendental idealism can be much more delicate and nuanced.) That the mind is active in formulating the content of experience is already implicit in the skeptical remarks on induction above. Historically, Hume was the first thinker to question the possibility of drawing absolute certainty out of induction. (Hume’s skepticism is interpreted as being theologically motivated. At his time, one of the arguments for God was the cosmological argument that identified God as the first cause. Since the knowledge of causation is inductive, Hume’s criticism has naturally led to skepticism on induction, famously known as the problem of induction.) As explained above, Hume demonstrated that inductive reasoning (specifically, the knowledge of causation) rests on a few assumptions that themselves cannot be known or proven inductively. Hume concluded that these assumptions are customs, or habits, that we develop through experiences. In response to Hume, Kant reasoned that mere habits are not normatively robust enough to yield justification. That I happen to have come to believe (by educational indoctrination or habits) that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius is one matter; that I am justified in believing this fact is another matter. For something to be justified, it must be the right move to make, which indicates that there must be rules for determining which moves are right or wrong. Kant located the source of these rules in the mind: the inferential relations among concepts form frameworks for making moves about and from experiences to conclusions—concisely put, these frameworks are the presuppositions (or principles) in inductive reasoning. (This way of understanding justification may at first seem to implicate relativism because each mind is often taken to be private and unique. However, this is a non sequitur because the fact that a mind is private does not mean that it cannot share anything in common with other minds. Also, the fact that rules are provided by the minds does not mean that the rules originate from the minds.) Coming back to our original concern, the paradigmatic features of experience (or data) suggest that the mind is active in interpreting (or formulating the content of) the experiences. Thus, even if one argues against the first skeptical point of experience above (the problem of induction) by claiming that, even if the generalizations cannot provide us with absolute certainty in knowledge or justification for the predictions, the generalized experiences themselves are certain of their own contents, the skeptical points still stand. That is, one may say, “Surely, I cannot predict that I will continue to have hands in the future based on my current experience that I have hands. But how can I doubt that I have hands now?” To which, skeptics respond, “Of course, you have the experience of hands. There is no doubt about that. But, keep in mind that this is an experience of hands because, during the experience process, certain frameworks have been presupposed, which take in your experience as an experience of hands. These frameworks might have been provided by the human mind. The important thing is that, wherever they may have come from, these frameworks cannot be justified by the experience without being circular precisely because your experiences presuppose them.” Now, there can be more than one conceptual framework as it is suggested by the fact that there are paradigm shifts. Since experiences presuppose conceptual frameworks, the truth of each conceptual framework must be determined by extra-experiential factors. Accordingly, the paradigmatic features of experience imply that experience alone cannot be the (conclusive) ground for justifying or accepting beliefs.

Here, one may take the minimalist view that the initial contact with the world, the experiential stage at which no concepts have yet been employed as to contaminate the external stimuli, could potentially serve as the ultimate authority in determining truth. After all, if the reason why experiences cannot serve as conclusive evidence is because their formulations presuppose or involve conceptual frameworks inseparable from the contribution of the human mind, could we not postulate that the early stages of the empirical synthesis (following logical positivists, call them sense data) contain pure information about the reality insofar as they are non-conceptual? Most, if not all, non-human animals lack concepts, at least those as complex as ours. But we do attribute quasi-mental contents to their behaviors. At first sight, this seems to strongly point to the possibility that there can be contents without the interventions by concepts. I have two quick responses that will be developed throughout the rest of the essay. First, granted that there could be some sort of content at the early stages, I do not think that this content is relevant to the purpose of proving or justifying the belief in God, or Christian faith. The level at which people invoke certain experiences to justify religions involve highly complex concepts such as God, divinity, sanctification, etc. Already at the low level of experiencing hands, for instance, the synthesis has already processed the external stimuli by certain frameworks. Accordingly, all the more for complex experiential reports such as that my prayers are answered, that I heard the voice of God, etc. Second, the unprocessed contents cannot serve any justificatory role. The point of synthesizing or rendering external stimuli into a piece of information that we could be conscious of is to convert it into a format that could play a role in inferential activities (the game of giving and asking for reasons). As aforementioned, the point of calling something experience is to treat it as one of the basic moves in inductive reasoning, i.e., when we need to make the best available reasonable judgment in the absence of the possibility of absolute certainty. If so, the experience must be given a content that could be part of the inferential process. The basic format in inference is propositionality (i.e., that-clause). The propositionality of a content whether it be belief, claim, or sentence (I believe/claim/write that a is F), which consists in a subject and a predicate whereby the predicate is the function of the subject qua argument, is the least a content must be equipped with in order to be a move (premise or conclusion) in the space of reasons. The components of propositionality, i.e., subject and predicate, are constituted by concepts (rules for relating terms to terms). Thus, if the content of Christian experiences is to be found at the early conceptually unprocessed stages of synthesis, then it cannot serve as a premise or a conclusion. In response to questions about Christian faith, one cannot then appeal to experiences at all.

There is nothing wrong with appealing to experiences in justifying one’s Christian faith if this is restricted to temporary, conditional, and often instrumental beliefs. At the most, in appealing to experiences, one could say that the best evidence so far gathered strongly suggests (to oneself) that God exists. This evidential claim, of course, must be evaluated against counter-evidence and alternative interpretations. Moreover, no matter how much data has accumulated, there will never be conclusive evidence, absolute certainty, for the alleged truth of Christianity. This rather inconclusive and defeasible nature of inductive reasoning is not problematic for natural science because science prevails on human fallibility. What makes science powerful is precisely that its defeasible nature allows for advances in knowledge via trial and error. Science starts with the admission of the truism about the human condition that we do not know many things and we cannot know everything. The inductive methodologies of science are the investigative processes that take into account this human condition in its attempt to produce the best available reasonable judgments. (Although we cannot be everywhere, we must start from somewhere and end up somewhere else.) Now, I think that it will frustrate many Christians to hear that what they regard as the ground of their faith is only a subfield of folk-science so that, although they may have some (personal) reasons for their beliefs, these reasons are in principle inconclusive and prone to challenges by natural science and comparative religious studies. This is because Christianity, like many other religions and ideologies, are sought after because one expects to acquire the sense of identity and the direction and meaning of life. There is a significant difference between one’s theory being false and one’s direction of life being misled. For this reason, I think that most Christians will not give up on the idea that their experiences should warrant absolute certainty. If what renders normal experience inconclusive is its epistemic vulnerability to counter-evidence, alternative interpretations, human fallibility, and paradigm shifts (i.e., plurality of conceptual frameworks), then could not there be a special kind of experience that is undisturbed by human fallibility in grounding our beliefs?—uncompromising Christians may ask.

The idea of self-justified belief is not an unfamiliar notion in philosophy. In fact, what has sparked the beginning of modern philosophy by Descartes is the search for this kind of belief (or ground for beliefs), also known as the first principle, foundation, unmoved mover, etc. Naturally, the philosophical approach assuming that there must be such an absolute bedrock has come to be known as foundationalism. Roughly speaking, there have been historically two camps: rationalist foundationalists sought to come up with an axiomatic system that deductively provides such a ground; empiricist foundationalists, with a descriptive language that encodes sense data. The general consensus in contemporary philosophy is that the foundationalist project of both strains (culminated in logical positivism) has reached its dead end. Nevertheless, for some reason, the folk-theological strain of foundationalism has survived (not because it has successfully rebutted philosophical challenges, but perhaps because it has ignored them). This particular strain postulates revelation as the special kind of experience that requires no inferential interventions. There may be different intuitions about the idea of revelation. I will discuss below what I identify as the two prevailing intuitions about this idea.

(1) Revelation as the source of divine knowledge

By definition, God is perfect. He is also omniscient. Accordingly, God knows everything and cannot be fallible in His knowledge. Whatever knowledge God has, this knowledge warrants absolute certainty. Now, if such a being infuses His knowledge, His point of view, His way of perceiving the world, into us, would we not attain infallible knowledge? If there can be any experience that is self-justified, it must be the experience that could be had by the divine being. If so, our experiences can be conclusive if they are imbued with the divine perspectives. Call the divinely inspired experiences revelations. Insofar as God could be viewed as an epistemic agent (which itself may be debatable), this way of reasoning is largely unproblematic. The controversy arises when one further claims that, not only is it possible with humans to be imbued with the divine perspectives, some have already had revelations. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that some do indeed have revelations. The contents of these revelation-experiences are either communicable or incommunicable in human language. If they are communicable, the contents are subject to the same rules of logic that govern human language (what can be claimed, what warrants which statements, etc.). If so, the contents of the revelations must be verifiable by human reasoning. If so, the revelation-experiences are subject to the same standard of evaluation as any ordinary inductive reasoning is, in which case they are not self-justified after all. If the contents are incommunicable (or intranslatable), then they are irrelevant. Worse, there is no way of determining whether the contents are true or false, or even meaningful; they are fundamentally not subject to the standard of evaluation that governs human language and reasoning. From our perspectives, such a “content” is no different than a random jumbling noise. Truth is a value, a property of a statement or proposition. A statement is true by its correspondence with reality and its coherence with other statements. If there is no way for us to understand an utterance, then we cannot judge whether what this utterance expresses corresponds with reality or cohere with other statements (or whether this utterance even expresses anything). The prophet may counter-argue by claiming that the reason why his utterances sound meaningless to them is because we do not see the world in the way he does, which is available only through the divine perspectives—the “you only know once you see it” situation. This is where academic skepticism enters the debate: how do you know that the world is as you experience it? You cannot appeal to your own perception because the truth and accuracy of that perception is precisely at stake. As Davidson puts it, one cannot get out of his own skin to see if his perceptions correspond with reality; if he does, what about this new perception? The claim that I (certainly) know that there is a table in the room is different from the claim that there is a table in the room. When I tell you that there is a table, I am making a claim about the state of the affairs. Of course, I could be wrong. If I was right, it turns out that I had knowledge (i.e., my belief was justified and true). If I was wrong, I had no knowledge (no matter how certain I felt about my belief). When I say that I know that there is a table, I could mean this in two ways. First, I could just be emphasizing my conviction or ensuring you that I have good (inductive or abductive) reasons for having this belief. By this emphasis or ensuring, I do not mean to establish infallibility. Again, I could be right or wrong, and whether I had knowledge all along is conditional on this result. Second, I could be making a claim about my own knowledge-status. That is, by saying that I (certainly) know (that I am right about the fact) that there is a table, I am going more than just emphasizing my conviction or reasons. What I am doing here is making a second-order judgment about my own judgment or belief, i.e., whether I am in fact right about the state of affairs. In our ordinary goings-about, our conversations do not normally go into the second-order context. It is already implicit in our everyday life that, unbeknownst to us, we could be right or wrong: we just go by the best guess, which is what we ordinarily mean by knowledge. People make predictions. Depending on the reliability of the predictions, we treat some of them as knowers, a sort of social status, which is our way of acknowledging their epistemic authority on certain matters. But the predictions could be wrong. If they turn out to be right, we continue to grant the status of knower to the reliable predictors. However, if not, we say that they did not really know it after all. Absolute certainty is when the predictions are guaranteed, and it is quite a different context to be claiming this virtue. We often accidentally slip into this context by emphasizing our convictions and reasons too much. However, the fact of the matter is that, if we turned out to be wrong, we did not know it after all. Let us say that we turned out to be right, could we say not only that we knew it all along, but also that we knew that we knew it all along? No, because no one can peek into the future to see that one’s predictions were correct (although we often jokingly yell, “I knew it!). If we could do that, why make predictions at all? Academic skepticism is challenging the idea that one could ever attain second-order knowledge which is the source of absolute certainty. And, of course, we do not have access to such knowledge. In fact, such knowledge does not even make sense because, as mentioned, why make predictions when you can just know that your predictions are true? Knowledge by definition is justified and true belief. That is, in order for a psychological state to be knowledge, it must have three components: (a) it must be a belief; (b) it must be justified; (c) it must be true. Now, a belief is a psychological disposition that is committed to the truth of its (propositional) content. If I believe that there is a table in the room, I am disposed to commit myself to the truth of this that-clause, i.e., to that this proposition corresponds with reality and coheres with other propositions. Justification is the way I figure out whether the content of my commitment is true. If I have no justification for my belief, even if the belief has been true all along, I have no access to this fact. Lastly, my belief should really be true. Sometimes, I may have good justifications for certain beliefs which turn out to be false. Our best shots (justifications) are not always the guarantee. (For more, read about the Gettiers Problem.) The careful analysis of the concept of knowledge reveals that fallibility is built into knowledge. Because justification is our way of accessing truth, and justification does not guarantee truth, there is always some level of uncertainty in whether we have knowledge. Knowledge is not a state we reach once and for all. Rather, it is an ideal that we pursue in the game of giving and asking reasons for our beliefs. Experience, or perception, is the empirical form of justification. If so, there is no way to ensure—by the very nature of knowledge—that our experience guarantees truth. The (often misunderstood) main argument of academic skepticism is that second-order knowledge (absolute certainty) is impossible, if not conceptually absurd to begin with. Surely, the general consensus in philosophy rejects academic skepticism. But this is really a rejection of the overstatement of the truism (revealed by academic skepticism) that the normal context of knowledge and justification does not call for second-order knowledge; the overstatement is the following non sequitur: since absolute certainty is impossible, no knowledge (even the ordinary, first-order kind) is impossible. Coming back to the topic of revelation, the prophet’s insistence on the indisputable authority of his experience is the claim of second-order knowledge. The prophet is not only putting forward that God exists or emphasizing his convictions or personal reasons. He is further insisting that he knows that he has knowledge, i.e., he knows that his justification (perception) guarantees truth. But the proper understanding of academic skepticism shows that such a concept of knowledge is absurd or, at least, impossible with humans.

(2) Revelation as expert experience

Here is a philosophical better way of arguing in favor of revelation. Experts such as radiologists and chicken sexers can see things that others do not. Yet, they do not necessarily know or have to know how to justify their perceptions. What they have is surely knowledge. Could we not then argue that there is at least one kind of experience that is self-justified and that revelation is one form of this kind of experience, viz., expert experience? Expert experience or knowledge is surely an interesting phenomenon that is a subject of study across various academic disciplines. Also, the fact that we would like to attribute knowledge (or, more precisely, the status of knower) to experts who do not necessarily have justifications for their perceptions may seem to imply that their experiences are self-justified. But there is one crucial difference between experts and prophets (or spiritualists). The experts claim knowledge of things in the physical world: medical conditions, chicken sex, etc. whereas the prophets claim that of the spiritual world, whatever that may be—by ‘spirit’ they mean something that is beyond human understanding, but then what could it be? Naturally, there are other ways to verify the claims of the experts. Once the experts are shown to be reliable in producing truth, we may not try to verify their claims every time, but simply take their opinions for granted. However, their claims are in principle always verifiable. It is in respect to their reliability which can be publicly shown that we attribute knowledge to the experts. (One may object by arguing that someone who lives on an island by himself can still be a knower without anyone socially attributing that status to him. Let us say that this Robinson Crusoe figure is an expert in coconuts. He may know about coconuts without knowing how to justify his perceptual ability to distinguish coconuts. This is okay because one could be a knower without knowing that they know. However, who is attributing that status to Crusoe here? If it is us, then Crusoe’s status is in fact being socially attributed by people living outside the island, albeit via imagination and hypothesis. If it is himself, then he is capable of doing more than just blindly getting it right by perception. Crusoe may not be able to justify or explain why he can accurately spot coconuts, but he can verify the reliability of his perception through other means such as tasting or smelling. Of course, he could still be wrong, and fake coconuts could get him one day. Yet, as it has been explained above by academic skepticism, one need not have absolute certainty to be in possession of knowledge.) In some sense, the justification is outsourced to the rest of the community the experts are members of; epistemic virtues such as justification and knowledge could be complex social phenomena. The experts themselves might not know how to justify their perceptions or claims. However, this does not mean that their claims are in principle unjustifiable or self-justified. Moreover, experts are not infallible; they are merely (much) more reliable than the others. It may turn out that all radiologists were wrong and the patient really had a bone fracture. As established above, knowledge is not something that we achieve once and for all. Rather, it is an ideal that we pursue whereas our social practices of attribution tracks down who is most likely in possession of knowledge. We simply cannot speak beyond this social game of giving and asking for reasons within which the coin of knower is constantly being tossed around. Unlike experts, prophets speak of things that, by their own definition of the subjects of their expertise, cannot in principle be verifiable by any other means than their own perceptions. By setting the subjects of their expertise to such matters, viz., the spiritual realm, prophets seek to transcend the social game of reasoning. However, we have seen above that this is an absurd move. Let us say that we observe that the prophets consistently make accurate predictions about the future. To that extent, we may grant the status of knower to them. But we can do this without affirming that they also have knowledge of the supposed spiritual matters. Just as we may have limited knowledge of the expert perception itself, the actual mechanism of the prophet perception may remain mysterious. But employing the language-game of ‘God’, ‘spirit’, ‘divine’, etc. to quasi-explain this mystery only masks our ignorance. We may really never figure out why certain predictions consistently get things right and could only indirectly attribute knowledge to them via the (public) reliability-test. To that extent, we could identify prophets as experts. It becomes problematic when the prophets (and their followers) abuse this title to wield authorities that are not granted—in the name of divine revelation, or self-justified experience. Within the social game of giving and asking for reasons and of tossing the coin of knowledge, nobody is entrusted with absolute and unquestionable authority. To the extent that the notion of revelation is invoked, as far as I see it, the intention is precisely to claim such an invalid authority.

Why do Christians want absolute certainty anyway? The fundamental question is this: Do they seek it for the glory of God or rather for their own psychological comfort? As I wrote above, it is extremely discomforting to swallow that one’s sense of identity and the direction and meaning of life is at the bottom full of uncertainty. Getting the chicken sex wrong is not too worrisome, but getting one’s life wrong is. I think that it is in this subconscious attempt to secure psychological comfort that Christians are secretly replacing God with the golden calf. It is quite a scary thing to consider that our own salvation, our own concept of what God is like, and our own idea of our relation to divinity could become the idol. We may utter with our lips the sound, “j-e-s-u-s” or ‘j-e-h-o-v-a-h”, yet this sound could still fail to refer to the right target. All of our evangelical language-games employing various terms and phrases, the activities of making phonetic sounds in front of the scriptures, could in fact be a series of noises. Just as the geocentrist experts (and the whole community that put trust in their reliability) have been deluded all along, Christians could have been engaging in meaningless behaviors. The whole point of calling our basic mental states ‘beliefs’ is to admit this possibility; a belief is a commitment, and commitments could be betrayed. Against this uncertainty, it is quite tempting to attempt to elevate ourselves beyond the space of reasons and claim victory. But let me ask you this. The very act of claiming to know things beyond human understanding, of assuring to have attained self-justified knowledge, and of being confident in oneself that one’s vision is in tune with the divine perspectives—don’t you think that this very act is a blasphemy? Isn’t this exactly what Lucifer has done in his rebellion against God, i.e., equating himself with the divine? One may object by contending that, in Christianity, we are no more dealing with knowledge; it is not that we know that God exists; rather, we believe that God exists, and this state of mind that belief is, is something else, it may be argued. But the very concept of belief is caught up in the social game of giving and asking for reasons. What it is to believe that p is literally to be disposed to commit oneself to the truth of the (propositional) content of the psychological attitude that belief is. If you say that your belief is something other than this epistemic matter, then so be it. Whatever you call ‘belief’ is something else entirely and not a belief. You have exited the space of reason, and this is where our rational conversation stops. There is nothing much I could do anymore. But I will tell you this. If God can only operate in the realm that cannot be felt by or interact with our faculty of synthesis, then He is quite causally and normatively powerless. However, if we could interact with God’s realm, then there is always a way for us to make sense of this realm from our end. After all, why did God come in flesh rather than just make us divine? Why is God logos and not mythos?

The proper attitude for Christians to have is humility accompanied with the acceptance of the real state of humanity: uncertainty. Humans are mortal. Due to mortality, humans are limited and fallible. So we engage in inductive reasoning. We log into this game of reasoning by first and foremost acknowledging that our reference to truth is defeasible. This very concept of limit is built into human language, and that makes us worth saving. Once we see that humility is the primary virtue of Christianity, then it becomes rather difficult for us to judge one another, at least with full assurance and permanence. If I am in principle imperfect no matter how perfect I feel like I am, who am I really to judge imperfection in others? We are all on Neurath's boat (or the Ark of Noah) together, repairing and amending our mistakes and flaws here and there as a community. But this boat-community is holding together in hope of eventually making it into the Land of Promise (truth), the new heaven and the new earth where death is no more, viz., New Jerusalem. To believe in God (i.e., to put one’s trust or commitment to God) is to accept this nomadic reality of humanity full of uncertainty, which is to lose confidence in one’s own beliefs about the world. The very admission of one’s congenital incertitude in the transient world, viz., confession, is the very beginning of the Christian journey. Whatever I thought I had, they never belonged to me. Thus, I must give them away and be on the road. To follow Jesus is to deny oneself totally—this includes one’s own (Cainian or Peterian) endeavor to do the work of God. So here is a better way of responding when one is asked, “Why do you believe in God? Why did you accept Christianity? How do you know that your belief is true?” One must say, “I do not know,” and bless the interlocutor after nodding with a smile. As Wittgenstein remarked, whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. It is not in my authority to speak of what does not rest on my tongue. Only when I realize this Sisyphusian wheel of suffering and put on the cross my own concept of God could Jesus finally do what He was sent to the Earth for. Maranatha.