Pike: morally responsible for assumptions

Sunday, February 20, 2022
    Commemoration of Cecile Isherwood, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, Grahamstown, South Africa, 1906
Meditation:
    Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith.
    Grace be with you.
    —1 Timothy 6:20-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Assumptions based on faith are apparently an ever-present component in any system of belief—whether those assumptions include the existence of a personal God, or whether they begin with non-rational directionally-emergent forces governed by statistical probabilities. Our argument does not claim that evidences are so clear that faith is not needed. We do intend to imply, however, that the choice of a set of assumptions is a moral choice. Adherence to an epistemology is not something which merely “happens to” a person, but instead it reflects a component of his moral development. In some sense he is, in my judgment, morally responsible for adopting an epistemology even though it can be neither proved nor disproved to the satisfaction of those who oppose it.
    ... Kenneth L. Pike (1912-2001), With Heart and Mind, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962, p. 16 (see the book)
    See also 1 Tim. 6:20-21; Isa. 29:14; Acts 17:18-21; 1 Cor. 1:19-23; 2:6; 3:18-20; Col. 2:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, enlighten my mind. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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