A Priori Assumptions

One of the principal questions of philosophy is the question "What is real?" This branch of philosophy is called Ontology or Metaphysics. A second branch of philosophy, Epistemology, is the question of "How do we know?" or "Where does knowledge come from?" The third branch of philosophy, Ethics, concerns the question of "What has value." Religion concerns itself with all three branches of philosophy.

The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804), in his treatise A Critique of Pure Reason attempted to establish a system of metaphysics based on what he called a priori knowledge. A Priori knowledge is knowledge available without the need for experience. Knowledge that develops based on experience he called a posteriori. Kant was able to identify only two concepts other than the self that could be called a priori, space and time. Kant reasoned that space could be known a priori because if we remove all things that we can experience from space, we cannot eliminate the idea of space. His reasoning for including time followed a similar logic. Time, he further reasoned was internal to the observer and could not be an illusion, whereas space, being external to the observer could be illusion. His predecessor Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) reduced what he could say was true was the Latin cogito ergo sum - I think therefore I am.

These guys were a lot smarter than I am, so I'm not going to try to develop a system of Metaphysics or Epistemology of religion. But if that is all that we have as a priori knowledge, we have a problem. In order to function in the world, we need to be able to decide what is real and what is not real, what knowledge to trust and what to not trust. So each of us has to make assumptions. For example, a "Realist" assumes that the things he can see, taste, smell, hear, and touch, as well as those things that he can measure with instruments, or that cause an effect he can detect with his senses, are real. In general, we go through our lives without even thinking about what our assumptions are. since these assumptions are based on experience - generally - we can think of them as a posteriori.

But when it comes to the ideas of religion, things are not so easy. Our religions require us to make assumptions a priori - without an experience to ground them on, or at best, without a shared - or even share-able - experience. For example, for someone to believe in Jesus, there must be an a priori assumption that the Judeo-Christian god is real, that all the stories in the Christian Bible are true, and that the creeds that describe His divinity are correct. An atheist with an a priori assumption that there is no god cannot possibly accept Christianity. Thomas Jefferson, who was a deist had an a priori assumption that there was a god that created the universe, set the spheres to spinning, then sat back and watched without interacting with our world. To Jefferson, Jesus was a great philosopher, but not deity. The a priori assumptions of the Jew about what the Messiah will be like, and the a priori assumptions of the Muslim about the nature of Allah make it impossible for them to accept Jesus as God; they see him as a great rabbi (teacher) or prophet but cannot go beyond that. 

The great religious arguments all stem from differences in our a priori  assumptions: 

• Creationism vs Evolution - The Evangelical creationist assumes that the Bible is the inerrant, immutable, and literal word of God, and further assumes that anything that contradicts the Bible or conflicts with it is illusion. The realist makes the assumption that what he sees, touches, etc. is real and is unwilling to entertain the assumption that the Bible is inerrant. 
• Catholicism vs Protestantism - The Catholic assumes that the Bible is the word of God, but that it needs a priest to interpret it, and assumes that the Pope is God's representative on Earth, and is infallible with regard to faith and morals. The Protestant assumes that the Pope, and indeed all men, is fallible, but that the Bible is inerrant. 
• Islam vs Christianity - Islam assumes that Mohammed (p.b.o.h.) was the supreme prophet and that the Quran contains Allah's direct revelations to Mohammed, and that Allah has not been to Earth in a mortal state. Christianity assumes that the G-d of Israel is real, and that Jesus was his incarnation on Earth. 

The important thing to keep in mind is that these assumptions are exactly that, assumptions. Assumptions that we use to make our life decisions. Since, as Descartes tells us, the senses can be fooled, we can no more "prove" that what we perceive in the world is "real" than we can "prove" that there is a god or gods. Although a certain practice may work with a particular set of assumptions, we should not expect it to work the same way given a different set of assumptions. 

Having reached this conclusion, there are two more things I must do. The first is that I must apologize to anyone that I've offended because I tried to impose my a priori assumptions on their beliefs. 

The second is to identify a principle that I should follow in moving forward with this journey; that in evaluating any religious practice or philosophical/theological framework, I should try to identify the underlying assumptions as part of the process. In effect, I need to ask "what do I need to accept as real in order to accept this concept?" And to also ask, "What happens to this concept if I apply a different set of assumptions?"