Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to bring together important, modern insights in the theory of knowledge with the implications of these theories for 'faith'. Specifically, since the revolutions in epistemology and philosophy of language initiated by Kant and Wittgenstein respectively, there has been a growing awareness in Western religious traditions of a need to re-think the notions of 'knowledge', 'truth', 'meaning', etc., but the implications of such re-thinking for 'faith' have not been drawn out. ;I begin then with Aquinas and Kierkegaard as representatives of pre-modern thinkers who have influenced Western religious thinking with their ideas about "faith' and 'knowledge'. Both saw 'knowledge' and 'truth' as a monistic totality; the lower regions were available to finite knowers and the upper regions to God alone. Faith was then a way of bridging the gap from the lower to the higher regions. Western religious thinking has followed their lead. ;In chapter 3 I offer Wittgenstein's proposal that 'knowledge' and 'truth' are not a monistic totality awaiting human discovery, but rather both concepts are dependent upon the prior notion of 'meaningfulness' and that 'meaningfulness' comes to us in the language we learn. Faith cannot bridge a gap here because there is no gap. There is no gap because there is no 'truth' which could conceivably be on the other side of the gap. ;In chapter 4 I trace Wittgenstein's influence on the philosophy of religion and in chapters 5 and 6 I present an epistemology called 'cognitive relativism'. This theory has been developed by Joseph Runzo and takes into account Wittgenstein's and Kant's important contributions. I argue that truth and knowledge are relative to what can count as meaningful in various 'world-views', and that what counts as meaningful in our world comes to us in our conceptual framework, however, 'world-views' overlap in significant ways so that rational assessment and conversion can take place. I conclude that faith cannot play the role of bridging the gap from the finite human knower to some higher truth; rather, it is a relational term describing the religious person's commitment to God as God in known in that person's conceptual framework