Last night we continued our look into how we as Christians justify our claim to know things, especially things about God. Here are the notes:
A Christian Epistemology, Part 3: What things can we know?
First, a little recap. Here are the questions we’re addressing: How can Christians claim to really know God? How can they claim to have a true knowledge of God, especially one that is more accurate than other concepts of God? How can we really know anything? Or maybe, how can we really know anything except by direct experience?
There are are least five assumptions behind questions like these, and were using these studies to address and examine them.
The assumptions behind all these questions:
- That the source of our knowledge is within—what we can figure out with our own brains. That our brains are limited, and that these limits are the limits of our knowledge.
- That if God exists, he could not give, or has not given, or would not give, information about Himself and the world. (…That God doesn’t exist in any meaningful way.) There has been no authoritative information given about the world or about God.
- That if a being such as God did give information, we could not understand it in any more than some partial, vague way. In other words, if God spoke, He would be unable to communicate truly and accurately to the minds that He made. He would be limited by our minds. So He can make us, but not communicate to us.
- That in order to know anything meaningfully, we must know exhaustively. Since we can’t know everything about God, we can’t claim to know anything about God.
- Since no one is there to explain the world to us, it is up to us to figure it all out using our minds. We do this by observing objects and analyzing data. In other words, knowledge is impersonal.
Last night we looked at assumption #4–That in order to know something meaningfully, we must know it exhaustively. Here are some implications of assuming this:
- Since we can’t know everything about God, we can’t claim to know anything about God.
- Since God is “beyond us” we can’t claim to know anything about Him with any clarity.
- Since we can’t know everything about the Bible, we can’t claim any certain knowledge of God’s communication.
Now, why should we assume this idea to be true? Is it true of any other thing we seek to know? What do we know exhaustively? Is this true of any relationship we have? Can we know another person exhaustively? Is this true of any communication we have? Do we ever know everything about what someone says to us?
The answer to each of these questions, of course, is no. Instead, we operate on knowledge which is incomplete, but accurate enough, and true. Here’s how it works: For Things, we learn enough to be able to use them as we need to. This is knowledge that leads to a correct use of the thing, without possessing all knowledge about the thing. For Relationships, we maintain a working, growing knowledge of that person which helps us understand them as much as we need to in order to carry on the given relationship. We revise what we claim to know about that person as we continue to be in relationship to them. But at every point in the timeline we could say that we have some true knowledge of the person. For Communication, we count on enough overlap in meaning of the words and sentences another person uses to be able to understand their speech. We count on the ability to question and clarify in order to continually refine our understanding of the person’s communication. (For written communication, we count on normal uses of language—the ability of an author to encode his or her thoughts onto the page, and our ability to decode those letters as we read to recreate the author’s intention. We depend on the author’s intelligence and effectiveness as a writer. If the author is an effective writer, we will be able to understand what he or she intended us to understand.)
Applying this to God:
Since we never know everything about anything, and yet we are able to operate very well in the world based on the knowledge we do have, why should we apply this criteria of knowledge to God, and to His communication to us, the Bible? To deny the ability to know God, we must deny the ability to know anything.
Christians make no claim to know God exhaustively, but we do claim to know God truly. This is the distinction we need to make when we speak with people. And, as we saw in the last study, we don’t claim to know God because we are superior in any way to anyone else, but simply because He has communicated to humanity in a way we can understand.
As for God’s communication, we do not claim to have exhaustive or perfect knowledge of what God has said. No one claims to know everything about the bible. And we all acknowledge our limitations when we read it. But since we believe in a God that made us and is able to communicate to our minds, we believe we can know truly and accurately the things He has communicated, as much as He has allowed us to know.
To sum this up: We believe we know God like we know any other person, as He communicates to us, and we live our lives relating to Him. We are able to maintain a growing knowledge of who He is, which at any time in our life, can be basically true.
Looking at the scriptures: See 1 Corinthians 2:7-16, 8:4, 13:9-12, 15:3-6, 15:58; and Ephesians 5:5
In Hebrews 11:6, we see that we can know, and must believe:
- God exists. (A certain God, the one in 1:1-2)
- God rewards those who seek Him. (see Gen 15:1) God is worth seeking.
Finally, here is a list of around 20 very basic affirmations about God and life which we as Christians can claim to know, with certainty, based on information God has communicated to us.
1. Things we can know about God.
He exists. (Gen 1:1)
He is only one. (Deut 6:4)
He is personal. (Deut 4:24)
He made everything. (Heb 11:3)
He speaks in a way we can understand. (Deu 5:24)
He has certain attributes. (Love, Holiness, Glory, Transcendence, etc…) (Exod 20:5)
2. Things we can know about Humanity.
We are made in God’s image. (Gen 1:27)
We have purpose in God’s plan (Gen 1:26)
We are marred through sin and condemned to death. (Gen 2:17)
We can be saved through Jesus. (Acts 16:31)
3. Things we can know about the Universe.
It was created by God. (Jer 10:12)
It is marred through sin. (Rom 8:20)
It displays His glory. (Psalm 19:1)
It is destined for destruction and eternal glory. (Rev 21:1)
4. Other things we can know.
Jesus existed. (John 1:14)
Jesus lived perfectly and did miracles. (Acts 10:38)
Jesus died on our behalf and rose again. (1 Cor 15:3-4)
Jesus is returning. (Acts 1:11)
Jesus is God. (Titus 2:13)
Faith in Him is necessary for salvation. (Acts 4:12)
Ignorance is not good news. Our culture preaches a message that must, logically and inevitably, lead to the admission of total ignorance. We preach that there is a God who exists and has made Himself known, so that we can know–Him, ourselves and our world.