Crisis of the Age

The fundamental crisis of the twentieth century [and 21st] is neither political, nor social, nor economic. It is intellectual, and the primary intellectual problem is neither metaphysical nor ethical: It is epistemological(1). No attempt to solve the various problems and end the seemingly interminable crises of the twentieth century will be successful unless it is recognized that the justification of knowledge is always the ultimate problem, and that unless this problem is solved, no other problem can be.

In past centuries the secular philosophers have generally believed that knowledge is possible to man. Consequently they expended a great deal of thought and effort trying to justify knowledge. In the twentieth century, however, the optimism of the secular philosophers has all but disappeared. They despair of knowledge. Like their secular counterparts, the great theologians and doctors of the church taught that knowledge is possible to man. Yet the theologians of the twentieth century have repudiated that belief. They also despair of knowledge. This radical skepticism has filtered down from the philosophers(2) and theologians(3) and penetrated our entire culture, from television to music to literature. The Christian in the twentieth century is confronted with an overwhelming cultural consensus—sometimes stated explicitly, but most often implicitly: Man does not and cannot know anything truly.

What does this have to do with Christianity? Simply this: If man can know nothing truly, man can truly know nothing. We cannot know that the Bible is the Word of God, that Christ died for sin, or that Christ is alive today at the right hand of the Father. Unless knowledge is possible, Christianity is nonsensical, for it claims to be knowledge. What is at stake in the twentieth century is not simply a single doctrine, such as the Virgin Birth, or the existence of Hell, as important as those doctrines may be, but the whole of Christianity itself. If knowledge is not possible to man, it is worse than silly to argue points of doctrine—it is insane.  Excerpts from Robbins article, A Program for Our Time.

(1) Epistemology is a division of philosophy that investigates the nature of knowledge.  It seeks to discover whether mankind can truly know, with absolute certainty, in contrast to simply forming various hypotheses or opinions.

(2)  David Hume (1711-1776), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).

(3)  Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889), Karl Barth (1886-1968), Emil Brunner (1889-1966), Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), Paul Tillich (1886-1965), H. Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962).  

Also see:  Contrasting Bases for Knowledge