Know Why You Know

The question of how and why we know what we know is not dead. It is alive in philosophy of religion once again and it is at the heart of the North American cultural context. Unfortunately, the Christian God’s present action has been left out of the formulation of why we know in critical respects by major evangelical scholars. True enough, it is possible to find many references to the Christian God in recent philosophy of religion writings. Yet at the same time these references are almost comparable to dutiful bows of the authors to Christian theology by using the right words in passing, but not the robust implications of a God who acts today. The situation is much as Rabbis in Jewish community after Christ’s coming, rejecting Jesus, but still expounding the Torah on a regular basis. They can tell you what the text says or what the community thinks but where is God in giving and convicting of the knowledge from the text? The dutiful bows have little or no impact in providing positive ideas in the process or limiting contradictory ones on epistemology. Rather the acquisition of knowledge and confirmation of it as such is oftentimes placed only into the lap of the one who receives truth (the believer(s) in Jesus). They are asked to give warrant to their beliefs as if the human mind were the period at the end of the epistemological sentence, the summum bonum, and the end all be all. This is done with an occasional insight of the Holy Spirit initiating something or working against sin. Rarely in my awareness will you find more than a role in understanding something clearly from a text. We are looking for God’s role in assurance that our knowledge in Christ is indeed knowledge (real). We want to know: How is it that a human believer is able to have knowledge outside of probability arguments (inductive) methods alone? There are already plenty of those. Does theology have anything to add here for guidance on an additional epistemology beyond just probability (induction)? Modernism’s influence upon Christian writers is immense in the narrow focus on probability (inductive) projects as beneficial and commended as they are. Still, some in recent times should be congratulated for seeing the error of relying only on the finite human to offer the level of certainty as described in the Scripture regarding Christian belief. Unfortunately while recognizing the error others have made, these new Christian writers sometimes fall into an equally distracting error. They have sold out to postmodernism in discerning what it means to have knowledge (know why you know).

This selling out is successively followed much of the time by an unsatisfactory redefining of the word “certainty” as something much less than it has historically meant in Christian doctrine. How are we to escape this disempowering philosophical situation, where your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth (or my community’s truth)? I believe we can do more than tell our stories loudly as an apologetic. Christian theology definitely has room for probability arguments (induction). However, Christian theology’s breadth of claims regarding how we gain knowledge without induction gives us a correction to balance out discussion and help you witness to those considering Christ as Savior. We need a type of Christian knowledge to go with faith that does not rely on percentages (Jas 1:6) as the working ideal. We need firm and settled belief which satisfies the conditions of knowledge (Gen 40:8; 2 Tim 3:14). This is where interacting with major contemporary Christian writers Donald Carson and James K. A. Smith comes into the discussion, so as to suggest improvements in evangelical dialogue of how we know God’s truth is true, or ‘knowledge.’

The goal of this reorienting how we talk is to help you and the church in our time better serve the lost by talking to the error of the lost directly where Scripture offers the greatest challenge to their fortress structure of excuses. This reorientation to the emphasis on non-probability argument also found in Scripture will also serve your assurance of knowledge in personal devotion. We need to derive our objectivity about basic level convictions of truth from God’s being and activity in the salvation event of you, the believer(s). This is more promising than simply appealing to natural human cognitive abilities in claiming, since that got us in the error of modernism centuries ago and then existentialism in the 20th century and then postmodernism soon after until now. You are warranted to claim Christian truth is knowledge self-evidently from God working in your life (first level knowledge like ‘the Lord is God’), but also that you know that you know it (second level knowledge). This distinction will be helpful.

In service of this goal, the following chapter will begin exploring the inadequacy of Carson’s points about knowledge in several of his works. Carson has thoughtfully engaged with postmodern writers. However, weaknesses exist within Carson’s system that reduces the effectiveness of his criticisms while reasoning with a postmodern about knowledge and thus the Christian faith. There is further warrant available to the Christian beyond themselves, which Carson’s discussion does not bring in to strengthen his argument. We’ll sharpen his critique by emphasizing an additional move in the last chapter as to why Bible study methods can even work.