By Ajit Krishna Dasa
Epistemology, the study of knowledge, grapples with fundamental questions about how we know what we know and whether our beliefs are justified. Throughout history, various philosophical systems have sought to provide answers to these questions, ranging from rationalism and empiricism to skepticism and postmodern relativism. However, underlying all these systems is a critical debate:
Can human beings build a coherent and reliable epistemology apart from a Supreme Godhead?
As Vaishnavas, devotees of Krishna, our answer is a resounding “no.” The Vaishnava worldview argues that Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the necessary foundation for everything, including all knowledge, logic, and reasoning. In the absence of Krishna, attempts to ground knowledge ultimately collapse into skepticism or irrationalism. In contrast, the Vaishnava worldview, effortlessly provides the preconditions necessary for intelligibility, offering a coherent explanation for the reliability of logic, the uniformity of nature, and the trustworthiness of our cognitive faculties.
This article will explore the argument that epistemology without Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is impossible since true knowledge can only be built on the foundation of a rational, all-knowing, and sovereign Creator. Through this lens, we will examine the contrast between Vaishnava and atheistic approaches to epistemology, demonstrating why acceptance of Krishna, the Supreme God, is not just one possible way to understand knowledge but the only way to make sense of the world.
The Foundation of Knowledge in a Vaishnava Worldview
The importance of a rational epistemology built on the basis of Krishna, the rational, all-loving, and all-powerful God, is emphasized in the philosophy and theology of Vaishnavism. Vaishnavism asserts that Krishna, as the ultimate source of truth and reason, provides the necessary foundation for human knowledge. Here’s an explanation of how this is possible:
Krishna as the Ultimate Source of Truth and Reason
In Vaishnavism, although Krishna is not bound by the laws of logic, because He is their Creator, He is understood to be both rational and the creator of all things, including human beings. Since Krishna is omniscient (all-knowing), He has complete knowledge of all truths, and as the Creator, He has imbued the universe with order, logic, and consistency. This means that:
The laws of logic: These are reflections of Krishna’s own rational nature. Logic is not an arbitrary human invention but a reflection of Krishna’s mind. Therefore, human reasoning is possible because our minds are designed to function in accordance with these logical principles.
The consistency of the universe: The universe operates according to consistent natural laws because Krishna, in His sovereignty, upholds and governs it. This regularity, grounded in Krishna, makes empirical investigation possible.
Thus, a rational epistemology begins with the presupposition that human minds, logic, and the natural world are all grounded in the rational nature of Krishna.
Epistemology Rooted in Krishna’s Revelation
If Krishna is the foundation of all truth and knowledge, then knowing anything requires Krishna’s revelation. Vaishnavas claim that Krishna has revealed Himself in two different ways, e.g:
General Revelation: This is the knowledge of the existence of a Supreme God through the created world. Krishna has made it possible for humans to perceive with their senses and reasoning faculties, which reflect God’s rational nature, that a Supreme God is present in and behind the created world. Through this revelation human beings can come to discover truths about the world and God.
Special Revelation: This refers to Krishna’s self-revelation through sastra (scripture), where He reveals specific truths about Himself, His will, and His plan for liberation from material existence. Special revelation is necessary for understanding truths that cannot be discerned solely from nature, such as how the soul can achieve freedom from the repetition of birth and death or the deeper attributes of Krishna.
Through these forms of revelation, Krishna provides the foundational knowledge necessary for understanding reality.
Humans Created in Krishna’s Image
Vaishnavas agree with the doctrine of “Imago Dei” (being created in the image of God). This doctrine asserts that human beings are designed with faculties that reflect Krishna’s own rationality, morality, and ability to know truth. This provides a basis for human reasoning and knowledge:
Rationality: Since humans are made in Krishna’s image, they possess the ability to think logically, reason, and comprehend abstract truths. Human reason is not autonomous but is derivative from Krishna’s perfect reason.
Truth-seeking faculties: Krishna, being all-good and all-loving, created humans with faculties that are oriented toward truth. While human reason is limited and can be corrupted by selfishness and sinful activities, the overall design of our cognitive faculties, when functioning properly, is aimed at discovering truth because Krishna is the source of all truth.
The Problem of Sinful Misuse of Free Will and the Need for an Awakening of the Soul’s Epistemic Faculties
While humans are designed to know truth, the Vaishnava philosophy teaches that all souls in this world are fallen due to envy of Krishna. This sinful envy has affected not only human morality but also human reasoning. Our sinful mindset has introduced distortions into human thinking, leading to:
Cognitive biases: Humans often suppress the truth and are prone to error in their reasoning, influenced by lust, anger and pride.
Need for awakening: Because a sinful and selfish mindset has darkened the human understanding, true knowledge requires not only natural reason but also the illuminating work of Krishna, the supremely merciful Personality of Godhead. This illumination restores our ability to know and understand spiritual truths, which are otherwise veiled by our sinful desires and activities.
Thus, while human reason and sensory perception are gifts from Krishna, they are not infallible due to the effects of envy and sin. A proper epistemology must include reliance on Krishna’s mercy to overcome these limitations. Krishna’s mercy will be given to those who sincerely try to reestablish their lost loving relationship of servitude to Him, repenting their envy and selfishness.
Krishna’s All-Loving Nature and Epistemic Trust
The all-loving nature of Krishna provides an additional basis for epistemic trust:
Good intentions for human knowledge: If Krishna is all-loving, then His desire is for human beings to come to know the truth, both about Him and about the world He created. This love means that Krishna has provided us with reliable faculties (e.g., reasoning and sensory perception) that, when used properly, lead us to truth. His love also motivates His revelation to us, ensuring that we have access to the knowledge needed for a relationship with Him.
Moral grounding for knowledge: In a Krishna-centered epistemology, knowledge is not merely about intellectual pursuit but also about love and relationship. Knowing Krishna and knowing truth are intertwined with moral and spiritual growth. Sraddha, or faith, in Krishna is seen as the beginning of knowledge, emphasizing that true knowledge is dependent on a proper relationship with the all-loving Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna.
Krishna’s Sovereignty Ensures the Reliability of Human Knowledge
As an all-powerful God, Krishna not only created human cognitive faculties but also upholds and sustains the universe in a way that ensures the possibility of knowledge. The laws of nature, logic, and the uniformity of cause and effect are grounded in Krishna’s sovereign governance of the world. This means that:
The uniformity of nature: Our ability to rely on past experiences to predict future outcomes (e.g., the regularity of natural laws) is grounded in Krishna’s trustworthiness and sovereignty. Without Krishna’s constant upholding of the universe, the regularity of nature could not be assumed, and empirical science would not be possible.
The possibility of certainty: Because Krishna is omniscient and all-powerful, He can provide certainty in matters where human reason falls short. For example, the certainty of moral truths or theological truths revealed in sastra (scripture) is grounded in the fact that Krishna, who knows all things, has revealed them to us.
The Role of Sraddha (Faith) in Epistemology
Faith in Krishna is not opposed to reason but complements and grounds it. Faith, in this context, is trust in Krishna’s revelation and in the cognitive faculties He has given us. This kind of faith, which is not blind, provides the necessary starting point for knowledge, as it acknowledges Krishna as the ultimate source of truth. Without faith in Krishna’s reliability, rational epistemology would lack a solid foundation.
Summary: How a Rational Epistemology is Possible
A rational epistemology based on the existence Krishna – a rational, all-loving, and all-powerful God – is possible because:
1. Krishna’s rational nature grounds the laws of logic and the regularity of the universe, making rational thought and scientific inquiry possible.
2. Krishna’s revelation (both general and special) provides the necessary information for understanding the world and spiritual truths.
3. Humans, created in Krishna’s image, have been given faculties capable of discovering truth, though these faculties are marred by lust, anger, pride, etc. and require restoration.
4. Krishna’s love ensures that He desires for humans to know the truth, and His power guarantees that human cognitive faculties and the universe itself are reliable for gaining knowledge.
In this way, Vaishnava epistemology is deeply rooted in the nature and character of Krishna, providing a coherent foundation for human knowledge and reasoning.
The Foundation of Knowledge in an Atheistic Worldview
Vaishnavism argues that it is impossible to build a coherent epistemology in the absence of Krishna, the Supreme God, because Krishna is the necessary foundation for all knowledge, reason, and intelligibility. Vaishnavas argue that any attempt to establish knowledge without Krishna ends in self-contradiction and inconsistency. Here’s why:
Krishna as the Precondition for the Laws of Logic
According to Vaishnavism the laws of logic (e.g., the law of non-contradiction, the law of identity) are not arbitrary human inventions but reflections of Krishna’s rational nature. These laws are universal, invariant, and unchanging, just like Krishna. Without Krishna, there is no explanation for why these logical laws exist or why they should apply everywhere and at all times. A naturalistic or atheistic worldview lacks the foundation to account for immaterial, abstract entities like logic, which are essential for any rational thought or epistemological system.
Without appealing to Krishna as the ultimate source of logic, a worldview cannot consistently explain why logic should be trusted as universally binding or meaningful.
The Problem of Induction
In the absence of Krishna, there is no adequate reason to assume that the future will resemble the past – a problem known as the “problem of induction”. Scientific reasoning, as well as everyday reasoning, relies on the assumption that nature operates according to consistent, repeatable laws. Vaishnavism argues that only a worldview that includes Krishna, a sovereign, trustworthy God Who upholds the regularity of the natural order, can justify the belief that the universe will continue to function consistently.
Without Krishna, one cannot justify inductive reasoning, making it impossible to build knowledge based on patterns, regularities, or natural laws.
Reliability of Human Cognitive Faculties
As we have seen, according to Vaishnavism humans are created in the image of Krishna and endowed with rational faculties that are designed to understand the world. This provides a basis for trusting that our senses, memory, and reasoning faculties are generally reliable and aimed at truth. However, without Krishna, the Vaishnava argues that one cannot justify the reliability of human cognitive faculties. For example, if human minds are the product of random, unguided evolutionary processes (as naturalism holds), there is no reason to trust that these faculties are truth-oriented, only that they may be survival-oriented.
Without Krishna, there is no foundation for trusting that human reasoning and perception lead to truth, rendering any epistemological system groundless.
Moral and Ethical Grounding for Knowledge
Knowledge also involves moral elements, such as the pursuit of truth, intellectual honesty, and the rejection of contradictions. In a Vaishnava worldview, these values are grounded in Krishna’s moral nature – Krishna is truth, and He commands honesty, consistency, and intellectual integrity. Without Krishna, the Vaishnava argues that moral norms governing the pursuit of knowledge (e.g., the duty to reason properly, avoid fallacies, or seek truth) lack any objective foundation.
Without an objective moral grounding, there is no reason why one “ought” to pursue truth or reason consistently, undermining any effort to build a stable epistemology.
Circularity in Atheistic Epistemologies
Vaishnavism argues that all atheistic worldviews ultimately fall into a form of vicious “circular reasoning” when attempting to justify knowledge. For instance:
Empiricism relies on sensory experience to prove the validity of sensory experience, which is circular.
Rationalism assumes the validity of human reasoning to validate reasoning itself, without providing an external grounding for why human reason should be trusted.
These systems, by presupposing their own validity, fail to account for why sensory experience or reasoning are trustworthy in the first place. By contrast, Vaishnavas claim that the Vaishnava worldview does not face this problem because it acknowledges that knowledge begins with Krishna’s revelation. The circularity in the Vaishnava worldview is “virtuous” because it appeals to the self-authenticating ultimate source of all truth – Krishna Himself – rather than relying on finite, fallible human capacities.
Knowledge and the Concept of Revelation
In a Vaishnava epistemology, knowledge is possible because Krishna has revealed Himself to humanity through both “general revelation” (the created world) and “special revelation” (scripture). This revelation is necessary for human beings to have any true knowledge, particularly knowledge of ultimate truths such as the nature of reality, morality, or Krishna Himself. Vaishnavas argue that without Krishna’s revelation, humans are left in ignorance and speculation because they cannot access truth independently.
Without Krishna’s self-revelation, humans would be trapped in epistemological subjectivity and uncertainty, incapable of knowing anything for certain.
The Futility of Autonomous Human Reasoning
Vaishnavas hold that when human beings attempt to reason autonomously – separating their reasoning from Krishna – they are left with a self-defeating worldview. This means that non-Krishna epistemologies are inherently flawed because they begin by rejecting the very foundation necessary for coherent knowledge.
Autonomous reasoning, by ignoring its dependence on Krishna, ends up undermining itself, leading to skepticism or irrationalism.
Summary: Epistemology Requires the Existence of Krishna
In summary, from a Vaishnava perspective, epistemology without Krishna is impossible because:
1) The laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, and the reliability of human reasoning cannot be justified without Krishna as the foundation.
2) Atheistic epistemologies either fall into circular reasoning or fail to account for the necessary preconditions of knowledge.
3) Only a theistic worldview, with its acknowledgment of Krishna’s revelation and His role as Supreme Creator and Sustainer, provides the coherent and consistent basis for human knowledge.
Therefore, Vaishnavas conclude that Krishna is not just one possible foundation for knowledge – He is the “necessary precondition” for any rational epistemology.
Conclusion: Krishna as the Necessary Foundation for Knowledge
In the final analysis, the Vaishnava worldview reveals that any attempt to construct a coherent epistemology without Krishna is doomed to failure. Without the grounding of a rational, sovereign Creator, we are left without a foundation for the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, or the reliability of human cognition. Atheistic worldviews, while claiming autonomy in their reasoning, ultimately rely on borrowed assumptions from the theistic framework to justify knowledge, consistency, and truth.
By contrast, the Vaishnava worldview, centered on the existence of the all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving Krishna, provides the necessary preconditions for intelligibility. It is only through Krishna’s revelation, His upholding of natural order, and His creation of human beings in His image that we can confidently pursue knowledge and truth. Far from being a leap of blind faith, acceptance of Krishna offers the only solid ground for reason, logic, and science to stand.
In conclusion, epistemology without Krishna is not just incomplete; it is impossible. True knowledge begins and ends with Krishna, the ultimate source of all truth. Therefore, the pursuit of wisdom and understanding must start with the acknowledgment that Krishna is the source of all knowledge.
Ajit Krishna Dasa 
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