Francis Bacon in his New Organon, which was meant to
supersede the Organon of Aristotle, compiled
a collection of his thoughts concerning a variety of matters, but most
importantly, the learning process. His first statement is that man can only
learn through nature. He then states that knowledge and power are intrinsically
connected to each other. He then gives several reasons concerning the
importance of logic and reason. Bacon describes four “idols” which stand in the
way of human reason: first is that man is the measure of all things, second is
that man is stuck in a cave and should work together for “the common good”, thirdly
he says that words can cloud something’s true meaning, and finally he states
that religion and philosophy can be errant. Bacon also states that raw
experience or experimentation is useless without reason to synthesize the
information. He concludes by saying that the goal of science is to understand
nature, not just to gain experience.
Even though it was not
his intent, Bacon’s work is certainly secular. He elevates the powers of
observation and analysis above that of reason, and indeed revelation. He was
the first of many great thinkers and philosophers to quash the power of reason for
that of experience. Bacon puts such emphasis on the importance of experience in
regards to knowledge, which, as Bacon says, is power.
Rene Descartes wrote
in a similar fashion to Bacon, except that his “thoughts” became several paragraphs
rather than just a few sentences. His first statement is that good sense, or
reason is equally distributed to all men, but that some people use it better
than others do. He then proposes his own four-step method to finding knowledge:
to doubt unless something has been explicitly proven, to divide the difficulty/problem
in to manageable pieces, to begin from the simplest of the pieces of the
problem and work toward the more complex, and finally to be clear and thorough.
Descartes then goes on to say his famous statement, “I think, therefore I am” while
attempting to prove that the spirit exists separately from the physical. He
uses the example that a person can dream something that does not happen in reality;
therefore it must be separate from reality.
Descartes stressed the
role of reason in synthesizing experience. His main argument was to propose a dualism
of the spiritual and the physical. His treatment of learning is beneficial because
it is an easier path to reason and experimentation. However, he applies his
method to too much by saying that only that which can be reasoned is true.
Bacon and Descartes both
stress the vitality of experience in regard to knowledge. They stress the
importance of facts, very much like the schoolteacher and principal in Dickens’s
Hard Times. They follow in the
footsteps of Aquinas and Aristotle who all said that knowledge is useless
unless synthesized by reason. Descartes takes his philosophy too far by saying
that only things which can be proven by reason are true, which is similar to
Bacon’s statement that knowledge can only arise from observation. As the great
philosopher Immanuel Kant later said, “But although all our knowledge begins with experience,
it does not follow that it arises from experience.” Kant was correct
in saying that knowledge is connected to experience, but that it is fully
dependent on experience. Bacon and Descartes both neglect the revelation of
God, which reveals knowledge to man that cannot be accessed through experience
or reason. God would not need to reveal himself to man if man could seek God on
his own. In Romans 3, Paul says that “there is no one that seeks God.” The
fundamental flaw with both philosophers is that they believe that God can be
reasoned. The very nature of God is beyond reason. Although He has created a
rational universe that operates by predictable laws, God does not operate by its
simplicity and has qualities that cannot be reasoned such as His eternal and
infinite presence and the Trinity. Moreover, there are simple truths about
God’s existence which cannot be accessed without God’s revelation. Jesus said
that he spoke in parables to keep truths of his kingdom from those that do not
believe. As Christians, God revealed his truth to us so that we can have
knowledge and understanding of him. God’s revelation is not only necessary to
our spiritual lives, but is the source of our ability to understand our
observations. Bacon and Descartes both admitted that raw observations are
useless without synthesis, and our reason to synthesize observation comes from
God’s revelation. Without it, we would be chained in the darkness, only able to
see shadows of reality.
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