Can We Acquire Knowledge of Ultimate Reality?

Can humans acquire knowledge of ultimate reality, even significant or comprehensive knowledge? I argue that for all we know we can, and that is so whether ultimate reality is divine or non-divine. My strategy involves arguing that we are ignorant, in the sense of lacking public or shared knowledge, about which possibilities, if any, obtain for humans to acquire knowledge of ultimate reality. This follows from a deep feature of our epistemic situation—that our current psychology strongly constrains what we can conceive about the extent to which human intellectual and other psychological capacities might develop in the future. This mean that many possibilities for such development remain open to us epistemically, including the possibility that we might come to understand vastly more about ultimate reality than we currently do, even if ultimate reality is divine. I also argue that there is room to rationally hope that that is so. Can we acquire knowledge of ultimate reality, even significant or comprehensive knowledge? The answer I wish to offer is that for all we know we can, and there is room to rationally hope that we can. That is true, I shall maintain, whether ultimate reality is divine or non-divine, and if it is divine, whether it is personal or nonpersonal. At the end of the chapter I shall discuss a common response to my position. However, before presenting and defending my answer, I must first briefly discuss ultimate reality, knowledge acquisition, and kinds of possibility.