It is quite true that I have an MA in philosophy, I confess it. But that was many years ago, and I was young and foolish. I am very sorry. Won’t let it happen again. Let’s move on. Let the healing begin!
But seriously, to return to my view that “the coffee table is there” corresponds in a reasonable way to the coffee table actually being there, I did not come to think this way as a result of studying philosophy. I am pretty sure I knew this already. In fact, it would be safe to say that I knew this kind of thing when I was four-years-old. If my brother had kyped some of my candy, and I asked something like “wherefore did you do this thing?” I would not have been satisfied if he had appealed to the troublesome epistemological questions involved. “Who is to say if the candy was ever there in the first place?” “Mommmm!”
Philosophers are an interesting bunch. Some of them don’t think this kind of thing can be established, and write books full of words to that effect. Others do believe in this correspondence theory of truth (which they all believed before they even heard of philosophy), and they nobly rise to the defense of what everybody knows already. And yes, I got an MA in this kind of thing. They write books full of words showing (with arrows, demonstrations, proofs, and such) where all the hidden wires are between my brain and the coffee table. Now I am committed in no way to any explanation involving wires. Nor am I committed to any explanation involving invisible wires, telepathy, wishful thinking, or Farley’s ghost. I am committed to no metaphysical mechanism whatever. You see, I don’t care.
But I do think the coffee table is actually there. When I say I don’t care, this should not be taken to mean that I don’t care about the coffee table. What I don’t care about is convoluted explanations of the obvious. On this kind of issue, we should divide philosophers into two categories: those who can find their hinder parts when allowed to use both hands, and those who can’t. So I think, without any supporting philosophical apparatus, that my coffee table is there. Call me crazy, call me radical, I know. Now why do I think I have the authority to say such fevered things without resorting to the helps offered by the philosophers? The answer is that if the coffee table is not there, then I am still in my sins.
“How’s that?” you say. If I have no basis for saying the wood of the coffee table is actually there, then I (equally) have no basis for saying that the wood of the cross was there. And if the wood of the cross was not there, then Jesus didn’t die on that cross. And if Jesus did not die on the cross, then He could not have come back from the dead, especially if the tomb was not there either. And if He did not come back from the dead, then I am still in my sins.
By addressing whether there is a “there” there, I am seeking to refer to any possible combination of words that might vaporize my coffee table, or my ability to connect to it. Or to put magazines on it. Call this what you want, naive realism or whatever else you like, but I am not only convinced that I have a coffee table. I am also convinced that the apostle Paul, if he had had a coffee table, would have had a coffee table. Would have known about it too, and being the kind of person he was, it would have been a sturdy coffee table. But this claim that Paul had a coffee table would only be appropriate if he actually did. So I hope he did. But if he didn’t, we could just use something else, like the cloak he left at Troas. Was there a correspondence between the reference to the cloak and the cloak in itself? Well, if there wasn’t, we are all still in our sins.
In other words, I just believe what God plainly tells me, without demanding philosophical explanations or metaphysical mechanisms. When the Bible tells me that Jesus went to Capernaum, I just sort of believe this. And not only do I believe that Jesus went to Capernaum, I also believe as a corollary (mirabile dictu) that there was a Capernaum there capable of being gone to. Contrary to the assumptions of some, stuff in the world exists independent of the philosophers rushing up to breathlessly tell me that, good news!, my coffee table exists. God has given us a world full of stuff, and He also gave us language as His gift to enable us to talk about it. We should receive all such gifts and just enjoy them instead of taking them apart, and breaking them in the process. Just believe God, whether it involves cloaks, Capernaum, or coffee tables.
Two scenarios:
Number One:
GOD: “Adam, stay away from that tree.”
ADAM: “Okay!”
Number Two:
GOD: “Adam, stay away from that tree.”
ADAM: “Now, when You say ‘tree’ are you assuming that the thought I am forming in my mind when I think the word ‘tree,’ or, perhaps with even greater specificity, ‘that tree,’ has some sort of innate correspondence (or perhaps even other forms of correspondence) to the apparent tree ‘there’ in its quiddity?”
GOD: “You can’t talk that way. There is no sin yet.”