On God's revealed truth

Last night, I had a dream. I wish I could remember what it was about, but I cannot. All that I remember is how real it felt, how much the experience resembled waking reality. Upon waking from it, I felt as though I had slipped from one reality to the next. It is a sensation that I expect most are familiar with.
Yet almost immediately after waking from this dream, a thought struck me: if this dream seemed so real, how can I be certain that what I experience now, even as I write is any more real? Being in possession of such a mind as loves to consider such philosophical questions, it was hardly as though this was the first time that consideration had occupied my psyche. Yet new meaning was given to it when considering it in this context.
Epistemology is such a terribly difficult matter, it seems to me. After waking this morning and giving it a little thought, it struck me how much knowing is like lifting an object: it’s not so hard, presuming it’s a fairly light object, as long as I am standing on another object. Epistemology in its fundamental levels is somewhat analogous to trying to lift an object while floating through outer space. In order to really know anything, it seems that we must first know something. Of course, this results in an infinite regress that brings us nowhere, so I must correct myself and say that to know anything, we must first assume something. We must, in a sense, "create" an object on which we can stand, with which all subsequently encountered objects can have relation.
Is this not what all knowledge must rest upon? We claim to know all manner of things, such as the nature and appearance of the world around us through science. Yet we need to first assume that our senses are reliable. I don’t see how we can conclusively prove that they are, but I believe we must make this assumption if our conscience reality is going to make any sense to us. We must also make the assumption that basic principles of logic are trustworthy, or else the entire framework of our perception of the world is apt to fall to pieces But now I get to the real crux of the matter: if we give such credence to the empirical and rational aspects of human experience, what difference is there in respecting other aspects of experience as worthy foundational assumptions? As a theist, I feel that the belief in a God is a valid conclusion of rational principles applied to observations of physical and metaphysical reality. However, I hardly arrived at my belief in God by starting with my own epistemological blank slate and proceeding upwards. Nobody, in practice, really arrives at his or her beliefs this way; after arriving at a set of beliefs, they are justified using these epistemological methods, and sometimes beliefs are, indeed, altered by this process, if the thinker has a proper attitude of intellectual honesty and genuine respect for truth. The epistemological base from whence I first believed in God was simply what my parents told me. It has obviously matured since then, but at the core of this belief is something experienced apart from the empirical, or even, strictly speaking, from the rational. Epistemologically speaking, I see no reason why what I perceive with my physical senses is inherently superior to what I perceive with my internal sense of awareness of moral realities of obligation to an order of reality higher than myself, or a sense of personal relation to God. In terms of human experience, which is the filter through which all reality must be known, the realities without are no more real than the realities perceived within. The main difference is that the latter cannot be as convincingly demonstrated to others who do not share the same experience, simply because there is nothing substantial to show them, or a way to allow their consciousness become contingent to my own in the same way that it might become contingent upon a perception or proposition that can be equally considered by both parties.
I, like most Christian theists, regard the Bible as an epistemological authority. It is not a primary epistemological source, in the sense that in my complete ignorance, a book fell into my hands one day and I arbitrarily decided that I would choose to view it as a source of reliable truth. In other words, I have to know other things before I can place confidence in Scripture, but, having arrived this position, there are countless things that I could not have known but for this revelation. That, it seems, is how epistemology works: the primary assumptions are not themselves sufficient, they are only stepping stones leading us to that which is. In my Christian worldview, God is the absolute centerpiece and foundation of all reality. He is the first of all things, even if He cannot be first in my personal epistemological experience. So, how can arrive at this position where I place faith in an archaic collection of writings known as the Bible? That is a big question in itself, and I believe that it deserves it’s own installment.
To be continued.....