Question #1
“What do you know, and How do know it?”
When someone asks me if I know anything, I am tempted to answer in jest, “I don’t even suspect anything?” The fact is many people today think you cannot know anything in relation to spiritual matters. That is nonsense. How could you know that it is impossible to know anything? The primary argument against spiritual knowledge began with men like David Hume who believed anything that cannot be proved in a scientific laboratory is mere sophistry. Following in Hume’s trail the philosophic school of Logical Positivism put forth the assertion, “No statement is meaningful that cannot be proved true or false.” The problem with that was, like Hume’s proposition, that it failed its own test. That statement cannot be proved true or false.
Such thinking evolved into the notion that you do not know anything that is possible to doubt. That too defeats itself. Humans have an infinite capacity to doubt. I can doubt that all other people exist. I can even doubt my own existence. But these are not reasonable doubts. They do not correspond to any of the information gleaned by our five senses, social interaction, or reasoning. It is possible to know certain things with some measure of accuracy. And it is important to discern the foundations of your knowledge.
There are at least four sources of human knowledge. We have some instinctive knowledge. You may not have the amazing instinct of a migrating bird. But you are born with some knowledge. At least you were born knowing how to frown, blink, and cry aloud. And you instinctively knew what frowning or crying meant. You have sensual knowledge that you gain from your five senses. Possibly my earliest memory comes from crawling into a red ant bed at the end of our dirt driveway. I learned quickly to avoid ant beds. You also have instructional or informational knowledge. What you are taught may be the easiest of these sources to question. How do I know something I am taught is true? But a person who can not learn from those who teach him, will not survive to adulthood. We have spiritual knowledge, knowledge that is planted in us by the Spirit of God. The majority of this may come after a person is indwelt by the Holy Spirit upon conversion to Christ. But I suspect the fact that most people on earth and in all history have believed in God or in supernatural reality is evidence of spiritual knowledge. I also think the fact that all persons are aware of right and wrong and generally agree on what is right or wrong is spiritual knowledge. And you have reasoned knowledge. Interestingly enough, this knowledge can only come from something else that you already know.
Ask yourself what you do know, especially about spiritual things, and decide how you came to know each of these things. Does something seem to be self-evident? Was it confirmed by personal experience? Did some knowledge come from revelation or scripture that you have come to trust? Did you reason it from other truths in which you have been convinced? If you cannot come to some foundational truths that other knowledge can be based upon, you will not know anything. This is true in all areas of learning.
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