Reading: The limits of perception

There is a fascinating radio program I listen to from time to time called  “Radiolab.” It is produced by the public radio station in New York City in America. The link below will take you to a podcast from the folks at Radiolab as they help us to learn about seeing.  We all know the colors of the rainbow, right?  This podcast speaks to how we perceive color and the trustworthiness of our eyesight.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/211178-rip-rainbow/

Having listened to this and watched the previous item, we have to ask ourselves, “Why is it that we do not see things or why we do see them?” In the Christian faith, we begin with faith and move on to sight – we live by faith, says St Paul, not by sight.  So we find ourselves challenged to believe in order to know.

The words of John Calvin,

“Now in describing the world as a mirror in which we ought to behold God, I do not want to be understood as asserting either that our eyes are sufficiently clear-sighted to discern what the fabric of heaven and earth represents or that the knowledge to be hence attained is sufficient for salvation.  And whereas the Lord invited us to himself by the means of created things, with no other effect than that of thereby rendering us inexcusable, he has added (as was necessary) a new remedy; or at least by a new aide he has assisted in the ignorance of our mind.  For by the Scriptures as our guide and teacher, he not only makes those things plain that would otherwise escape our notice, but he almost compels us to behold them, as if he had assisted our dull sight with spectacles” (From the Crossway Classic Commentaries Series, edited by Alister McGrath and J.I Packer, page xiii and xiv)

What does Calvin’s thought say about epistemology?