Epistemics of Divine Reality

Epistemics of divine reality or Epistemology of God, a branch of the epistemology of religion, studies the philosophical arguments and theories related to the sources, nature, possibility, scope, and extent of the knowledge of God, Divine Reality, Ultimate Reality, or the Absolute.
Epistemics refers to the noetic mechanics involved in coming to some knowledge. While epistemology refers to the study of knowledge, epistemics goes beyond this to combine psychological and philosophical studies in human knowledge to understand the why and how of epistemic (or knowledge-related) conclusions. In his Epistemics: The Regulative Theory of Cognition, Alvin J. Goldman used the term Epistemics to describe his theory that advocated a reorientation of epistemology. Despite the change in terminology, however, Goldman maintains that his epistemics is continuous with traditional epistemology and the new term is only to avoid opposition. Epistemics, in Goldman's version, differs only slightly from traditional epistemology in its alliance with the psychology of cognition. Epistemics stresses the detailed study of mental processess and information-processing mechanisms that lead to knowledge or beliefs. His epistemic method was rational since it sought to relate reality to rationality. He argued, for instance, that since only non-being can differentiate being from being, and since non-being is equal to nothing; therefore, being is undifferentiated and one. Parmenides' disciple Zeno is famous for his paradoxes known as Zeno's Paradoxes. Each of the paradoxes seek to prove that empirical reality is to be considered as an illusion if rationality of reality is to be maintained. This he proved by showing that empirical ideas like motion, division, relation, and extension are rationally absurd. Ultimate reality is argued as being rational, singular, and simple.
The Upanisads teach Advaita or non-dualism, the doctrine that Reality is without a second, i.e. non-dual. Non-dualists avoid the term monism since it evinces some form of positive description. The way of talking about Brahman or the Absolute, the advaitins maintain is via negativa. Gaudapada has argued in his Karika on Mandukya Upanisad that the empirical outlook of pluralist reality cannot be rationally sustained. Analysis of consciousness-states show the unreliability of experiences. However, the substrata, the experiencer or the Self cannot be denied. Thus, the Self alone exists as the Unqualified Brahman. Gaudapada, further discusses the rational problems related to the theories of empiricists such as the Samkhya's.
Immanuel Kant's Copernican Revolution in epistemology, advanced in his Critique of Pure Reason called for a reversal of the center of epistemology. It was the sense-data that conformed to the mental categories and the mind to the world. This theory cancelled all empirically oriented traditional arguments for the existence of God as superfluous. God cannot be proved by means of rational arguments. Kant, however, thought that God's existence needs to be supposed as the grounds for ethical reality.
Experience and rational epistemics in conflict
David Hume prior to Kant argued from the empirical angle against the existence of the Biblical God. To him, empirical reality gives more evidence of a weak god or a plurality of gods than a good and powerful God. He criticized the traditional arguments for God's existence by arguing that all such arguments assume a lot by looking at fragments of experience. Experience cannot be the source of universal laws; therefore, arguments based on causality and design cannot be considered as tenable.
Polytheism is an example of pluralistic epistemology which doesn't allow rationalization of experience but accepts plurality of being as given in sense data as the only reality.
Existential theology
To Soren Kierkegaard, belief in God is a leap of faith. God's existence cannot be proved. Kierkegaard's epistemics is fideistic in approach. He considered God's existence as unprovable. In this he agreed with Kant. He argued that faith comes before the proofs. One reasons from existence and not towards existence. Truth is subjectivity as faith is subjectivity. Truth is only significant when embraced by faith. Thus, faith is the means by which God can be known.
According to James Ross, knowledge involves volition. His essay on 'Rational Reliance' argues that man believes by exercise of his will. Of course, emotions also play an important role as motivators of will; however, one's will to rely on information from tradition or any social media is prompted by the experience of finding them credible. One of his essays is entitled "Unless You Believe You Will Not Understand: The Sickness Only God Can Cure" Thus, faith is thought to have been rescued in the field of epistemology.
Alvin Plantinga argues against the evidentialist contention that all belief must be based on evidence. This, Plantinga believes leads to an infinite series of contingent evidences. He argues that there must be some beliefs at the base of our noetic-structure that can be properly considered to be basic. Richard Swinburne is also of the same idea. These basic beliefs cannot be argued and are axiomatic to the believer. Thus for the theist, belief in God is properly basic and is in need of no ultimate evidence.
Phenomenological methods
Husserl called pure phenomenology the science of pure phenomena. The most important object for phenomenology, however, was not phenomena itself but reality as it presented itself to the knower in his consciousness; therefore, phenomenology has also been called the science of consciousness. For Heidegger the goal becomes the study of the reflective being or Dasein. The concern is not a transcendent entity like the God of Christianity but being-in-the-world itself. The concern, thus, becomes a very empirical one.
Fideism
Indian philosophy generally recognizes three sources (or pramanas) of knowledge: direct perception (pratyaksha), inference (anumana), and verbal testimony (sabda). Revelation was considered an important source of knowledge in the West as well. Thomas Aquinas considered revealed knowledge as given by divine grace and impossible by natural means.. The relationship between faith and reason is a subject of debate in philosophy of religion. Rational fideists like Plantinga, James Ross, Blaise Pascal and Richard Swinburne stress that though faith is a necessary precursor to knowledge of God, yet it is not devoid of intellectual responsibility. In one sense, Kant may also be considered to be a rational fideist when he rejects rational and empirical proofs for divine existence and turns to ethics for justification of belief in God. According to him, God's existence is needed to be assumed in order for ethics to be possible. Kant, however, cannot be considered to be a total fideist since in his theory God is more a conjecture or hypothesis than a known reality. Rational fideism, however, takes into consideration the metaphysical passions of the human and seeks a rational way in which subjective faith can find justified anchor in an objective rationality.
Epistemology of Science and Divine Epistemics
Epistemology of Science is a branch of the philosophy of science. The scientific method of observation, hypothesis, and experiment is obviously an empirical one advanced by Francis Bacon. While the American Society for Psychical Research has tried to document cases and find a scientific answer for supernatural reality, there are others who hold that supernatural reality is a myth. Creation scientists like those at ICR. hold that the complicated intricacies involved in the structure of the universe and life point to the existence of a Great Designer, God. Hume and Kant showed that the epistemics of science cannot provide knowledge of the true world. The view that science represents the real world is known as scientific realism. Many hold that scientific realism isn't tenable in the modern world which regularly witnesses modifications and alterations of scientific theories once held to be true. Epistemology of science, however, may work out some philosophical grounds for a scientic methodology that can be implemented in the field of divine epistemics as well. Are there two different methodologies of researching: the scientific, for the material world and the theological, for the spiritual world? Or there is just one. That is a question which must be answered by the Epistemics of Divine Reality.

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