an amateur poet's epistemology
or an amateur epistemologist's poem,
part 1 (i make no promise of further parts)
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yeah i know that we don't know
just how much that we don't know
or even why we know
all that we think we know
and it's true that Truth is real
or even nothing can't be true
and you can't question your existence
if there's no such thing as you
still the questions are always bigger
than the answers i can find
so there must be something more
than just me, myself, and i
but if there's more here than just me
that must include what i perceive
for what use is it to doubt
all that i can hear or see?
because the gap between thinking
and living such a thing
would divide me from all of you
that are listening to me
so the questions are still bigger
than the answers we can find
and there must be something more
than just you and i and why
4 comments:
I just happened by your site and took a look. This poem / epistemology is very thought- inducing.
But what thoughts does it induce?
It would appear that there is a cultural predisposition towards agnosticism, or irrationally, even completely towards atheism. Many find some degree of morbid comfort in pronouncing that we are alone, and that we are a random infinitesimal speck within the grand scheme of the ever-expanding universe. Therefore, it is concluded, how can we know anything? Why should we even try?
Moreover the assumption, if not conviction, is made that there is nothing out there beyond ourselves - if, in fact we actually exist ourselves. The reasoning although deep and sophisticated fails to apprehend any ultimate credibility other than the status of the 'absurd'. It reminds me of the student who asked her philosophy professor "how can you prove that we exist" only to be answered by "did someone say something?"
A personal conviction of mine is that truth can be known; maybe not all of it, but enough truth has been revealed by the "something more" that your poem points to.
Too often what's at issue is our inability to ask the right questions. Rather than being a conduit for apprehending the unexpected - and perhaps more solid answers - our questions are often loaded with assumptions that already set the frame-work for an expected, or anticipated, response.
When Albert Schweitzer (I'm quite sure it was he) articulated that theologians look down the deep dark well of biblical scholarship only to see a reflection of themselves at the bottom, he hit on something. Often our questions and postulations are offered up in the same way - somehow they are posed for the simple conscious / unconscious purpose of validating ourselves (the ones who believe we may not even exist).
Indeed the proverb is true: "The fool has said in his heart, 'there is no God.'"
I sure hope I have not over-stayed my welcome.
May God's grace and peace be upon you!
interesting.
the true atheists are courageous folk who usually should be (as Ravi Zacharias says) more accurately labeled "anti-theists".
agnosticism is the pretense of those wishing to avoid the issue, but the human heart cannot ride the fence.
suggestions of non-existence or solipsism are inescapably self-defeating.
watchmaker-theists have the humility to acknowledge the reality of a transcendent Creator, but for varying reasons i do not fully understand, they are uncomfortable with one that is truly immanent and active.
your comment points to what i could not rhyme into part one of "the questions": revelation. i believe revelation by the "something more" is the only sound foundation for most knowledge. the gift of reason alone can only prove our existence, each other's existence, and our Creator's existence. it doesn't get us much further on its own.
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