Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 8
INTRODUCTION WITH A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE. This realization of the progressive advance of our mental faculties though welcome on one count, is rather unwelcome on another. It puts to question the very reliability of our mental rational deductions during different stages of our development. . Is it not likely that the same facts fed to the human brain at different stages of its development may have resulted in different conclusions? If the objective realities appear different when observed from different vantage points, if the conclusions drawn by the unbiased human mind also differ in different ages, then will it be justified to adjudge them as only justified truths? With our faculties of deductive logic and reasoning alone at any point in time, we cannot pronounce any knowledge we possess to be absolute truth. . The issues we are about to discuss are concerning the instruments which may lead to knowledge and the manner in which any knowledge could be ascertained as truth. If all human vantage points are actually placed on a moving platform, with constant change in the angle of vision, how can any knowledge or piece of information we obtain be declared, with any certainty, to be the truth? There is one vantage point, that of God the Creator, which is eternal and constant. Hence, if the existence of an Omniscient,. Omnipotent, Omnipresent God is proved and if He is. Eternal, Infallible, Transcendent, All-Powerful and. Possessor of absolute attributes then and only then could the possibility of gaining knowledge of eternal truth through Him arise. But this hypothesis is only conditional on the premise that not only does such a Supreme Being exist, but that He also communicates with humans. It is this communication of God with humans which is called revelation in religious terminology. 8