RC Talk - The Official Blogs of Ratio Christi Chapters

By Eric Chabot: Director: The Ohio State University

Epistemology: Knowledge By Testimony

We all know that many events that we study in history are things in the past. Since historians can’t verify the events directly (they weren’t there to participate in the events), they rely on things such as written documents (both primary and secondary sources), external evidence/archaeology, and the testimony of the witnesses to the events. As a Christian, I share the faith of the early witnesses to the life of Jesus. Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that investigates the nature and origin of knowledge. We as humans come to know things by a variety of ways such as reason and logic, intuition, by making inferences, personal and religious experience, the scientific method, listening to authorities on a subject matter, and trusting the testimony of others.

Epistemologically speaking, one of the tools that plays an important element in discovering the past is the testimony of witnesses. New Testament faith is portrayed as knowledge based upon testimony.

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Thanks to all who attended our Fall meetings for 2012. We will have the new meetings (including time, location, and topic) up for the Winter term-2012 over the next few weeks.

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Dr. Frank Turek will be back at OSU on Feb 29th, March 1st, 2012 for a two day presentation of I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist. The time will be at 7:00 pm on both nights.

The location will be at The Student Union- Great Hall Meeting Room, 1739 N. High Street , Columbus, OH 43210.

In the I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist seminar, we answer four major questions to establish why Christianity is the most reasonable worldview:

1. Does Truth Exist?Christianity cannot be true, nor can any other worldview (including atheism), if truth is relative or just true for you but not for me. The seminar will show you why truth is absolute and knowable, and how you can logically refute anyone who claims it isn’t.

2. Does God Exist? There can be no Word of God unless God exists. You’ll see three powerful arguments for the existence of God — two scientific and one philosophical. Those arguments will be established without any reference to the Bible.

3. Are Miracles Possible? If miracles don’t happen as most university professors believe, then Christianity is nonsense. The seminar will show you that not only are miracles possible, but the greatest miracle of all has already occurred and we have scientific evidence for it.

4. Is The New Testament True? Unless truth exists, God exists, and miracles are possible, the New Testament doesn’t have a prayer. But after establishing those points, you’ll see the Top Five Reasons to believe the New Testament is historically accurate — Jesus really did die and rise from the dead for the sins of the world. From the accuracy of the New Testament, the accuracy of the Old Testament can be established as well

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