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Immanuel Kant argued that real knowledge was limited to the physical realm of nature open to sensory experience and scientific inquiry. Whatever exists beyond the material world, he insisted, could be apprehended only in a limited and uncertain way. Kant’s division led to what Francis Schaeffer called a “two-story” view of knowledge.

The lower story contained phenomena: nature, matter, and the particulars. This was the realm of “facts” established through reason, science, and experience. Here knowledge was concrete and certain. The upper story contained noumena: supernatural, spirit, and the universals—“beliefs” based on intuition, faith and religion. On this level, knowledge was “soft” and subjective. Between the stories was an opaque barrier, making the upper level invisible from the lower one. ("A World Without Truth", Regis Nicoll)