Here I will list out the things, both immaterial and material, that I can know the existence of with absolute certainty--there is no way I can be wrong about these conclusions. This will be one of my longer posts in recent times. I provide more details about the eight things in this list in other articles, some of which are footnoted appropriately. This serves as a condensed summary of much of the metaphysics I have dissected throughout the life of my blog (I do not mean Christian metaphysics, but things demonstrable by reason unaided by Scripture).
Truth [1]
Truth is the way reality is. Even if no matter and no minds existed, truth would exist by pure necessity. It is utterly impossible for there to not be a way that reality is, and thus it is utterly impossible for there to be no such thing as truth. The intangibility of truth and the fact that it would exist even if no matter did proves that truth is an immaterial thing. Anyone who denies or argues against the existence of truth only proves in the process that he or she is hopelessly incorrect.
Logic [2]
Logic is a set of rules that are omnipresent, inescapably governing all of reality. As with truth, logic exists by pure necessity and exists totally independently of all matter and minds. It does not rely on matter or minds to exist. Starting with the law of identity (something is what it is), law of non-contradiction (something cannot be and not be the same thing at the same time), and the law of excluded middle (something either is or isn't a certain way), logic branches out into a vast series of connections between concepts that reveal what does and does not follow from a given thing or proposition. There is no way for these laws to be limited or false. Logic, like truth, is immaterial, although it governs the entirety of the material world, and anyone who denies it only proves it in the process.
Space [3]
Space is merely a place/area where matter could reside, though there might be no matter at all in a particular area of space, and that is all that it is. By its very nature, space existed prior to the beginning of the material world. It exists with or without the presence of matter. To demonstrate this to myself, I only need to realize that even if no atoms existed--no atoms at all--there would still be a dimension of space that could hold matter. Like truth and logic, space exists by necessity. It cannot not exist.
My consciousness/mind [4]
Consciousness is the ability to perceive, and a mind is the sum of all of a being's conscious activities like thinking, perceiving, willing, and experiencing. Apart from a mind there can be no knowledge, for without a mind there would be nothing that could know anything. Consciousness itself as a concept is distinct from the individual conscious experiences within it, like particular memories, sensory perceptions, or desires. No being with a mind can doubt that it possesses a mind without proving that it does; mental events and consciousness cannot be illusions, for to experience an illusion one must have them. Mind and its consciousness, along with logic, are strictly immaterial things, regardless of their relationships to any physical parts of the body.
My body [5]
In the same way that the act of perceiving proves to a conscious mind that it exists, the experience of physical sensations proves to a mind that it possesses a body that houses its consciousness and that also houses senses that perceive external stimuli. Just as my immaterial mind grasps immaterial things like logic and thoughts, my physical body and its senses grasp material objects. It is physical sensations, not the process of looking down and seeing what appears to be my body, that actually prove to me that matter exists and that I have a body. Experiencing physical sensations proves only that I have a body, meaning that it could have a drastically different appearance than the one that I perceive.
The external world [6]
The external world could refer to either all matter outside of one's mind, including both one's body and the material world outside of that body, or just to the world outside of one's body. In this case, I mean the latter, having already addressed knowledge of my body's existence. My physical senses inform me that I am contacting something physical that exists outside of my body. These senses and sensations demonstrate to me that an external world exists, although I cannot discover if my senses are being deceived in some way so as to misrepresent the actual appearances of things. Thus I do not know if I am a brain in a vat or if my sensory perceptions are being misdirected by God or a demon. I only know that irrespective of whether or not my senses are deceived, my senses exist and they perceive actual sensory stimuli, and thus an external world beyond them exists.
Time [7]
With all things, to know the truth about them one must analyze the most basic, irreducible concepts involved with them. Only from an infallible foundation can one work upwards, which in the case of time is the present moment. The present moment is "right now"; it is the moment of time that is occurring. In order to deny that the present moment exists, a person must exist in the present moment, meaning all arguments against the existence of any time at all are self-defeating. As I have explained before, in a footnoted post, having memories of past events does not establish that those events took place. This means that I cannot ultimately know if I and/or the universe were created five minutes ago, which would in turn mean that I cannot know for sure if the past has existed for five minutes--or even for two seconds. The only amount of time I can be absolutely certain has elapsed is a single moment, for by the time I have even began to focus on the brevity of the present moment it has already slipped away and been replaced by another moment of time. Thus the present moment exists and by the time I realize it exists the past contains at least one elapsed second.
The uncaused cause [8]
I know that my conscious mind exists and I can prove that an uncaused cause exists by pure necessity, a thing that has existed without beginning and that created the material world. This is known to be necessary because of the impossibility of infinite regress, self-creation, and beginning to exist without a cause. I call this uncaused cause God. Yet the often-neglected issue is that I cannot prove that my conscious mind and the uncaused cause are not one and the same. However, there is no evidence that this is the case and much evidence that seems to contradict this possibility. I cannot manipulate the matter around me with my mind, I have no memories of creating the physical universe, and I know for sure that I am not omniscient. But none of these truths proves that I am not the uncaused cause--my mind could have always existed, like truth and logic, and I could have created the material world and time, fashioned a body for my consciousness to inhabit, and then locked away or destroyed my powers and my memories of using them. Either way, my mind is not the only thing that exists and thus solipsism is not true; truth and logic exist as intrinsically necessary immaterial things that do not depend on my existence either way, and my body, the external world beyond my body, and time all still exist.
There are other things that I know exist with absolute certainty that simply fall into the aforementioned categories in some way, two examples being thoughts and motion. Thoughts are individual activities or occurrences in a mind that cannot exist outside of a mind, and motion is just a property of something that is moving; motion doesn't exist on its own apart from a thought or stimuli that moves. What are some things that cannot be proven to exist? The following are included in this category: values (morality, beauty, meaning), other minds (as I stated above, I might be the uncaused cause), and the specific external objects I perceive (I know there is an external world but not that it is as my senses directly perceive). I do not and cannot, with my current epistemic limitations, prove these things or truly know if they exist or not. Inability to prove them does not mean that they do not exist, only that I and other beings with my limitations cannot prove them. The best conclusion one can draw in favor of these things is that they can seem to exist, and that there is evidence that supports them. But no amount of mere evidence ever amounts to a proof. I have addressed the specifics of moral epistemology and general epistemology all throughout the life of my blog, so I will not cover these particular issues again here.
Since I cannot prove the existence of other minds or values, does this mean I do not live committed to Christianity and Christian ethics? By no means! There remains a great deal of evidence that makes Christianity, which agrees perfectly with the existence of each of the things addressed in the above list, seem very probable. Probabilism can be used as a legitimate methodology as long as people admit that beliefs reached on probabilistic grounds only seem probable to them and cannot be rationally held to be true, just recognized as seemingly probable.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/09/truth-how-things-are.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-refutation-of-naturalism.html
[2]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-immateriality-of-logic.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-infallibility-of-logic.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/05/einstein-on-empty-space.html
[4]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/aspects-of-consciousness.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/consciousness-cannot-be-illusory.html
[5]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/dreams-and-consciousness.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/examining-meditations-part-6-mind-body.html
[6]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-external-world.html
[7]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/thoughts-on-time.html
[8]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html
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