True Cognitions

Can there be a criteria by which one may decide if a cognition is true? How can we "test" the truth or objective validity of our knowledge? Call these questions the problem of the theory of knowledge.

In order to solve this problem, we should have to have a criterion by the application of which we could decide whether or not a cognition is true. But this criterion would itself either be or not be a cognition. If it is a cognition, it would fall within the area of what is problematic, the validity of which is first to be solved with the aid of our criterion. Accordingly, it cannot itself be a cognition. But if the criterion cannot be a cognition, it would nevertheless - in order to be applicable - have to be known, i.e., we should have to know that it is a criterion of the truth. But in order to gain this knowledge of the criterion, we should already have had to apply it. In both cases, therefore, we encounter a contradiction. A "validity criterion" is consequently impossible.

Is there a solution?

(Apologies to L. Nelson)

Mystery Within Us

The Apostle Paul says: "Who has known the mind of the Lord?" (Rom. 11:34). To this I would add, "Who knows his own mind?"

Let those who pretend that God's nature is within their comprehension explain their own nature first. Do they understand the functioning of their own mind? How does it comprehend knowledge? We are made in the image and likeness of God. Our minds are, in a sense, diminished copies of God's. If I suppose I can comprehend the original, but experience that I cannot comprehend the diminished copy, what does this say of me?

Catechism

I. THE LIFE OF MAN — TO KNOW AND LOVE GOD

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

So that this call should resound throughout the world, Christ sent forth the apostles he had chosen, commissioning them to proclaim the gospel: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (1) Strengthened by this mission, the apostles "went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it." (2)

Those who with God's help have welcomed Christ's call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ's faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer. (3)

Notes:
(1) Mt 28:18-20.

(2) Mk 16:20.

(3) Cf. Acts 2:42.

Where Does Thinking Occur?

Not in the head! To think thinking occurs with or in the head is the root of a great deal of misunderstanding. The idea of thinking as an occurrence in the head makes thinking something occult: such insuperable difficulties this creates for understanding one another!