Knowing Part IV

Today, we have a prejudice of doubt over faith. We believe that if something can be doubted, it should be. However, we fail to apply this to every aspect of our lives.
We hear phrases like “blind faith” or “leap of faith” and assume that it is less true if things are accepted on faith. We believe that faith is for things we cannot prove. The problem is that we cannot prove anything with certainty. So, how do you go about knowing things?
Let’s first talk about doubt…
Doubt can be a very good and a very dangerous thing.
How can it be good?
How can it be dangerous?

The problem with doubting anything that CAN be doubted is that anything can be doubted. If we doubt everything, we can have no true knowledge. It is not a genuine belief (but an intellectual abuse) to only hold things that can be believed with total certainty. So long as we live, we will assume certain things to be true and others to be untrue based on a belief commitment, rather than certainty.
Is this a problem for you?

Let’s talk about how you know anything at all.
What comes first, Knowledge or Belief (Faith)?
Does the order matter??
Augustine said, “credo ut intelligam”
“I believe in order to know”. Similarly, Newbigin said, “One does not learn anything except by believing something and – conversely – if one doubts everything one learns nothing.”
Further, the Bible says something similar: Proverbs 9:10 – The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
What does this mean? “Fear of the LORD” does not mean being scared or afraid, but trusting and revering God. Knowledge is based of faith in God. Knowledge has everything to do with following Him. How are we to understand this?

We spoke earlier of knowledge being incomplete. We said that if we have an all-knowing friend, we can know all that He would reveal to us and complete our lacking knowledge. Obviously, God is the only one who is outside of space and time and is the only one who can tell us the fullness about the past, present or future. He would serve as our all-knowing informer/friend. We may know some things correctly already, but it is based on faith. I must be careful here to point out that truth is truth whether we believe it or not, but that is not the question at hand. The question is how can we be sure of what we know?

God is outside of time and only He knows for sure, so unless He is deceitful, He is the only way we can attain knowledge completely. We will one day “know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12), but that will not happen until God reveals Himself to us completely. God knows everything about my past, present and future and one day He will reveal Himself. For now, I must rely on what He reveals. He revealed what He has to bring me to Him. Acts 17 says, “He made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist…”
This knowledge is personal. This knowledge is one where we can learn from the all-knowing knower.

Personal Knowledge:
We typically seek knowledge by asking questions which we formulate based on our experiences of the world. In this enterprise we are in control of the situation. We decide what questions to ask which will affect the nature of the answers. This is how science works.
But there is another kind of knowing. Many other languages use a different word for it, but we do not. It is the kind of knowing that we seek in our relationships with other people. We are not in full control in this type of knowing. We may ask a question, but we must also answer questions put by the other person. We can only come to know others in the measure in which they are willing to share. The resulting knowledge is not our own achievement; it is also the gift of others, and never complete.
Example:
Have you ever had a conversation about somebody behind their back?What happens when they walk in the room? You have two options – stop talking about them or change the way you talk about them.
If you ask questions of that person who enters the room, you have to listen to their response. You can begin to see how this type of knowing is different than scientific knowing. When we are discussing how to know God, we are talking about a personal knowledge where the questions we ask are not discovered, but answered by a personal being.

Also, we may be asked questions by the person who entered the room. The God who entered the room in our discussion has a question for us…
Luke 9:20, Jesus said “who do you say that I am?”
Our answer to that question will not be based on some fact which science has uncovered, nor by some strange method of inquiry which will give us certainty. It can only be answered by relationship.
“Personal knowledge is impossible without risk: it cannot begin without an act of trust, and trust can be betrayed. We are here facing a fundamental decision in which we have to risk everything we have. There are no insurance policies available.” Newbigin