DYF: Hume's Critique of Causality and the Basic Reliability of Sense Perception - My Thoughts

Phew! That post title is a doozy!

Despite its long title, the chapter actually turned out to be a fairly simple one. As the title indicates, Sproul talks about David Hume's critique of causality and the basic reliability of sense perception. Although it originally sounded like it was going to be about two different topics, it was actually about two connected topics: the reliability of the five senses.

Hume made a critique about causality that, apparently like most arguments that philosophers made, wound up being very misunderstood. A lot of people held and still hold that Hume argued against causality in general, and believe that he disproved and demolished it. But actually, he didn't so much argue against causality as he did against sense perception.

Hume argued that, while effects do have causes, we cannot truly perceive those causes with our five senses. He said that we only see things and then make assumptions about them. We only assume that it's the rain that makes the grass wet. We only assume that someone punching a guy in the face broke the guy's nose. But our senses aren't truly reliable. They are severely limited and can't tell us what really caused what.

Sproul's argument for the basic reliability of our senses is a lot simpler than I expected. He says, along with Immanuel Kant, that if our senses are unreliable, we can't know anything. If our senses aren't reliable, all of science falls apart because science is about making observations. He doesn't argue that our senses are infallible; they can certainly deceive us. But he argues that they are basically reliable. They must be because they are the only window we have to the physical world. We have to rely on them. Hume is correct in that our senses are limited in what they can perceive. But they are not unreliable.

This is Biblical as well. Sproul cites 2 Peter 1:16-18 as Biblical evidence for the reliability of eyewitness testimony:

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased," we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

Notice the wording Peter uses here. "We did not follow cleverly devised myths...we were eyewitnesses of his majesty...we ourselves heard this very voice borne for heaven...we were with him on the mountain." Peter is arguing that he heard and saw the glory of Christ with his own eyes and ears, and that was proof to him that this whole Jesus thing wasn't some kind of crazy made-up story. If his senses were unreliable, then this would mean absolutely nothing. But clearly this has to hold weight for us Christians, because otherwise this passage of Scripture means nothing to us.

So our senses aren't perfect, nor are they absolutely transcendent. But they are reliable. They need to be. We need them to be. Otherwise, how can we know anything about the world around us? How could prophets and apostles know what God spoke to them? How can we know a God who gave us a book through which He communicates with us? If our senses are unreliable, how can we understand this book? How could the apostles and prophets hear God and know what He said? If our senses are unreliable, we couldn't understand the Bible. The apostles and prophets could not have understood God properly. But if our senses are reliable, then we can understand. We can "taste and see that the LORD is good" (Psalm 34:8).