An essay on metaphysics, epistemology, and common ground (18m audio)
In 1978, I began with a conditional: If there is a supreme deity, that being must be omniscient and omnipresent. From there, I drew a consequence. Such a being could communicate a directive clearly to any human being, regardless of the systems of thought through which people understand the world.
If that is so, then no one tradition can claim exclusive ownership of the message merely because it arose within that tradition. A genuinely universal message must be intelligible across human differences. What could count as the “word” of such a being, I reasoned, is what human systems of thought share—not what one system asserts against the others.
That idea became a filter. I used it to set aside dogma, delusion, and the denials people make against one another, and to look for what remained. The proposal is simple to state. Its implications are not.
From divine power to a test of meaning
My argument begins in metaphysics: with a claim about what a supreme being would be like. If that being is omniscient, it knows every human mind and every barrier to understanding. If it is omnipresent, it is not confined to one place, people, language, or historical moment. If such a being intends to give humanity a directive, it would seem capable of making that directive available to humanity.
My argument then turns to epistemology: How could I—or anyone—recognize such a directive? My answer is not “because an institution says so,” or “because a text is ancient,” or “because my community accepts it.” I propose a criterion based on share-ability. A message meant for all humanity should not depend entirely on a local authority or a specialized code that only some people can access.
That is a reversal. Instead of asking which tradition has the best claim to be universal, I ask what any claim to universality must be able to do. It must cross boundaries.
This does not prove that a supreme being exists. Nor does it prove that anything shared by humans was put there by a deity. I offer a conditional test: if a divine message is intended for all people, then its fundamental content should be communicable across human differences. The test evaluates what a supposed revelation must be like; it does not, by itself, establish its supernatural origin.
That distinction makes my argument stronger, not weaker. It keeps me from claiming more than I have shown.
What do I mean by “shared”?
Human beings do not share one language, culture, religion, philosophy, or account of reality. Even within a single community, people disagree. So I cannot sensibly mean that everyone uses the same words, tells the same stories, or agrees on every doctrine.
I mean that people can recognize a principle through different vocabularies and traditions. One person may express it as a command from God; another as a duty to a neighbor; another as a rule of fairness; another as a condition for living together. The formulations differ, but perhaps they point toward overlapping moral realities.
That kind of overlap is not unanimity. People may agree that cruelty is wrong while arguing fiercely about what counts as cruelty, what justice requires, or how competing duties should be balanced. I treat common ground as a starting point for inquiry, not a complete manual for life.
It also matters what kind of “sharing” I have in mind. A belief can be widespread and still be false. A prejudice can cross cultural boundaries. Agreement, by itself, is not a truth-maker. So my filter is not “Whatever most people believe is divine.” It is closer to this: What can people, from different starting points, examine, test, and recognize without having to surrender their capacity to think?
That changes shared-ness from a vote into a discipline. It asks me to seek common ground while remaining willing to challenge it.
The epistemic force of my filter
My filter has two jobs. First, it blocks the easy conversion of human authority into divine authority. A claim does not become God’s word just because a leader, scripture, nation, or community declares it so. Second, it asks whether a supposed universal message can be understood beyond the conditions of its origin.
This resembles an idea in political philosophy called public reason: rules that bind people with different beliefs should be justifiable in terms those affected can, in principle, assess. The point is not that everyone must agree, or that religious reasons are worthless. It is that authority over others needs reasons that do not simply assume the truth of one contested doctrine. A shared standard can protect people from being ruled by claims they have no fair way to evaluate.
My proposal reaches beyond politics. I ask whether a message attributed to God should be publicly intelligible to humanity—not merely compelling inside the tradition that transmits it. That is more demanding than “my scripture says so,” but it is also more respectful of someone who has not already accepted that scripture.
There is a related Kantian thought: religious language may express moral duties in the form of divine commands, while human reason still has a role in assessing what we ought to do. That does not settle the question of revelation, but it helps clarify how a religious formulation and a reasoned moral principle might converge without being identical.
Why this matters in ordinary life
I do not see this as only an argument about theology. It concerns how I treat other people when our deepest explanations differ.
Imagine that someone says, “You must obey this rule because my revelation commands it.” My filter asks a prior question: Is there a reason here that can be communicated to people who do not share that revelation? If the rule affects everyone, can its human meaning—its consequences for harm, dignity, fairness, trust, or freedom—be made intelligible to everyone involved?
That question can restrain coercion. It makes it harder to use private certainty as a public weapon. It also makes room for religious people to contribute moral insight without requiring everyone else to accept their theology first.
I can apply the same habit in relationships. When someone claims that their way of life is the only decent one, I can ask what value lies beneath the claim. Is it care? Honesty? Reciprocity? Protection from harm? If the value is real, perhaps we can discuss it across our differences. If the claim depends on humiliating or silencing people who do not share its authority, my filter exposes that dependence.
And I must apply it inwardly. The standard cannot only test other people’s dogmas; it must test my own. I can call a conviction “universal” when it is merely familiar, comfortable, or advantageous to me. The question “Could this be shared?” becomes ethically serious when I ask it of myself before imposing my answer on someone else.
The hard problem: universal clarity and human interpretation
My argument contains a tension worth preserving. If an omniscient, omnipresent deity can communicate clearly to every person, why do people disagree so profoundly about what such a deity has said?
One possible response is that a message may be clear at a basic level while its applications remain contested. People may understand a general principle yet disagree about its limits, priorities, or consequences. “Do not harm” sounds clear, but difficult cases raise questions about what harm means and how it should be weighed against other goods.
Another response is that communication can be clear while reception is imperfect. People misunderstand, defend their interests, inherit assumptions, or interpret experience through social and psychological pressures. But this answer has a cost: if I explain every disagreement by saying that the other person has failed to hear the message, my theory becomes impossible to test. I could turn it into a way of protecting my own interpretation from criticism.
My filter offers a partial safeguard. Instead of deciding that disagreement proves one side spiritually defective, I ask what can survive open scrutiny across differences. That makes humility part of my method. A claimed message that can be recognized only by those already committed to it has not yet met my proposed standard of universal communication.
Still, no practical test can guarantee that humanity has found the whole truth. Common ground may be incomplete; people may share blind spots; future generations may see what we miss. I understand my filter not as a machine that certifies divine truth, but as a method for refusing premature certainty.
What my filter can (and cannot) establish
The strongest version of my thought is not that everything humans share must come from a God. It is that a message genuinely intended for all humanity should have some content accessible across human differences, and that claims requiring exclusive allegiance to one human system deserve special scrutiny.
That distinction helps me avoid three mistakes:
- Majority rule as truth: Widespread belief does not automatically make a belief true.
- Surface sameness: People can use different words for similar principles, or the same words for different principles.
- False completeness: Shared principles may guide us without resolving every moral or metaphysical question.
I can put the method into practice by asking:
- What is the claim, separated from the authority asserting it?
- What human experience or reason could make it intelligible to people outside its tradition?
- Can it be applied consistently, including when the consequences fall on me?
- Does it survive honest disagreement, or does it require silencing dissent?
- What remains uncertain even after I make the strongest shared case?
Those questions do not guarantee agreement. Their purpose is more modest and more useful: to make our disagreements answerable to one another.
A practice of faith, or a practice without faith
I can understand my approach religiously: perhaps the deepest divine communication is not a hidden code reserved for insiders, but a truth that can meet human beings wherever they are.
I can also understand it without settling the existence of God. Even if I suspend judgment about a supreme deity, I can use the same filter as a standard for humane living: I should not treat my private certainty as sufficient reason to govern someone else; I should seek principles I can explain across difference; and I should remain alert to the ways my beliefs may disguise self-interest as universal truth.
That is why I think this idea matters to an ordinary reader. It offers a way to take conviction seriously without making conviction sovereign. It lets me search for what is true while recognizing that other people are not merely obstacles to truth; they are participants in the test of whether my claims can be shared.
The most compelling consequence of my 1978 thought may be this: if a truth is truly for everyone, then the path toward it cannot require me to deny anyone else’s humanity. Shared understanding may never mean total agreement. But the effort to find what can be understood across our differences can itself become a moral practice—one that resists dogma without lapsing into the claim that nothing is true.
Source annotations
- Public reason: “Public Reason,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A scholarly secondary overview of the idea that rules exercising authority over people should be justifiable to those subject to them, despite deep disagreement. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/public-reason/
- Kant and religion: Allen W. Wood, “Religion and Reason,” in Kant and Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 1–26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108381512.002. A secondary scholarly discussion of rational religion, divine commands, and the relation between reason and revealed religion.
