Is there a difference between knowing facts and knowing truth?
In short: Professor Keith Ward explores why scientific data cannot fully capture the human experience of meaning. Watch to understand how personal engagement with beauty, morality, and self-awareness forms a distinct type of knowledge that points toward something transcendent.
Ward distinguishes between scientific knowledge—which relies on quantifiable, repeatable, and value-free data—and a religious form of knowing rooted in personal evaluation. This latter form is found in history, self-awareness, and human relationships, requiring active involvement rather than dispassionate observation.
Drawing on the philosophy of Idealism, Ward suggests that experience mediates our understanding of an objective reality containing values like goodness and beauty. He proposes that this transcendent reality can be conceived as 'God'—not necessarily as a finite social person, but as a supremely valuable, mind-like source of all possible values. The goal is to explore whether the human mind can access insights from this infinitely superior reality that sense-based knowledge alone cannot provide.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Religion and Experience: Personal Knowledge - Professor Keith Ward
- Also: Religion and Experience: A Philosophical Exploration - Personal Knowledge
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