Feuerbach

The question of gaining knowledge about God is an ancient one. Is there a god? Can we know about him/her/it? How can we know about him/her/it? What is he/she/it like? All these and more are questions which people have sought to answer for years. One small wave of discussion in the ocean of conversation concerning this topic is the idea that shared experience of all humankind leads us to a knowledge of God. Is there a shared experience among all humans that gives us common ground upon which to stand? Is there something that we all have in common that links humanity and forms a foundation upon which we can build our knowledge of God?

Augustine seemed to argue that indeed there was such a common ground. This common ground is our shared experience of frustration with the world. Things ought not to be as they are. We cannot put our finger directly on it, but we know there is something missing. This is summed up with his famous quote, (speaking to God) “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Karl Barth, similarly ,points to conscience as that shared experience among all men which brings us to knowledge of the righteousness of God. He argues in the opening of his work The Word of God and The Word of Man that such knowledge cannot come through our reasoning alone, nor can it come by communication from one man to another, but instead it is found seated in the depths of man’s conscience. All men have the experience of conscience, thus it appears (at face value at least) that this experience is common among men and able to give us knowledge of God.

Yet Ludwig Feuerbach’s critique of such an idea of shared experience challenges well this notion. Is this idea of conscience, or frustration and longing for fulfillment simply human awareness of itself and nothing more? Has anyone really spoken about God, or was it simply a projection of our own thoughts and fears?

So does shared experience lead to any common ground upon which we can find knowledge of God? Is this the right starting point for knowledge of God, the wrong starting point, do we need a starting point or can we obtain a starting point? What do you think?