All of them, in order: an innate knowledge of God, reason to confirm Him, revelation to guide, science within its limits, and trustworthy testimony to carry it. Feelings alone prove nothing.
Does it rely on revelation, reason, science, intuition, tradition, or personal experience?
Reason and science, checked by shared experience. Revelation is rejected as unverifiable; intuition and tradition may suggest ideas, but nothing counts as settled until the evidence supports it.
Reason and science, tested by public evidence. Revelation is set aside not out of contempt but because rival revelations contradict one another and offer no independent way to check between them; personal experience counts as data about the person, not yet about the world.
Revelation first — God's self-disclosure in Christ and Scripture — with reason, tradition, and experience in its service. Aquinas argued that reason alone can reach some truths about God, while others, like the Trinity and the Incarnation, come only by revelation.
Revelation first, carried by tradition, with reason as a partner: Saadia Gaon and Maimonides held that true revelation and sound reason cannot finally conflict. Reform Judaism adds ongoing experience, treating revelation as progressive rather than complete at Sinai.
Chiefly personal experience and reason, trained by practice and guided by the Buddha's teaching. The Kalama Sutta tells inquirers not to accept a claim merely from tradition, scripture, or a teacher's prestige, but to test it by its fruits.
All of them, in a worked-out order: the classical schools list valid means of knowledge (pramanas) — perception, inference, and testimony — with the Veda as the decisive testimony on matters beyond the senses. Vedanta adds direct experience (anubhava), and the bhakti traditions weigh devotion and the guru's word heavily.
Primarily revelation: Guru Nanak said he spoke only as the Lord's word came to him. Personal experience of the Name and the community's tested tradition support it; reason is respected but does not sit above the Guru's word.
Reason and shared experience for the business of the state. Holyoake defined secular knowledge as knowledge founded in this life and testable in it; revelation is neither denied nor adopted — it is left free, outside the state's reach.
Reason, science, and lived experience. Revelation is rejected as an authority; tradition and intuition may be weighed as human testimony, but nothing is exempt from examination.
Reason and evidence first, with revelation and tradition moved from public authority to private liberty. One wing partly dissents: Hayek taught that evolved traditions and institutions carry more wisdom than any single planning mind.
Reason, experience, and empirical evidence — not revelation; feminism as such claims no revealed truth, though religious feminists also argue from within their own scriptures, and secular feminists from rights alone.
On tradition, shared history, and sentiment, supported by historical scholarship — not on revelation. Herder pointed to language and folk culture as the evidence of nationhood; Renan pointed to memory and consent.
Herder's writings on language and Volk; E. Renan, What Is a Nation?
THE SAME WORDING, PUT TO EVERY WORLDVIEW — EACH ANSWERS IN ITS OWN TERMS, IN ITS STRONGEST FORM
Didn't He Say