Epistemology I - How Do We Know?

Before getting into specifics about authority as seen by the individual, family, church, and government, I'm going to take a short detour into epistemology. Although this topic is complex and deserves a longer treatment, I probably need to cover a few basics before I can clearly discuss some aspects of the created order. So, a few brief comments on the topic of epistemology, or, how we know what we know.

The question of "how we know what we know" has a long history. In the Western world, it has tended to focus on such issues as how knowable a specific area is, how reliable our senses are, and how we structure and use knowledge. Although I may discuss those issues later, my purpose is focus on what seems to me to be a plausible Biblical understanding.

Bottom line up front: My impression from the Bible is that there is far more admonition about our attitude and our actions than about what we think of as knowledge…"study to show yourself approved…" is a relatively rare command. I don’t think that’s because it’s unimportant. It’s obviously important, but the inference I draw is that the basic facts are hidden not so much by our lack of factual information or our inability to grasp the plain meaning of a text, but our unwillingness to see what those facts (or the text) means to our life...because we don't want to live in accordance with those facts (I Cor. 1-2). We want to be our own god.

So, what is the traditional Christian understanding of how we know? Two sources are generally defined:

• Special revelation, and
• General revelation.

Special revelation is that which is directly from God (generally understood to be the Bible), and general revelation is everything else (specifically, nature, and our conscience).

Here's my current understanding (from both general and special revelation) about how we know what we know:

1. Since God is social (a triune being), we, being created in his image, are social. We interact with each other and with God.
2. God created the universe, humans, and language.
3. Language is the primary vehicle by which we know.
4. The purpose of knowledge is primarily to inform both action and disposition ("emotions"). This implies that a core aspect of knowledge is an understanding of cause-effect structures (i.e., "how do I create a cause such that the desired effect is achieved?"), and an understanding of how knowledge shapes emotions.
5. Action has its origins more in the emotions than in reason...emotion is "what to do", reason is "how to do it".
6. Our ability to know is fallen. Specifically, our ability to map language to meaning is partial and flawed, as is our ability to discern whether our desires are consistent with God's will, as is our ability to fully grasp cause-effect structures in all domains (i.e., physical, social, moral, emotional, etc.).
7. God knew all of this before we were created. Therefore, his communication with us takes all this into account.
8. If God is who he says he is (in both general and special revelation), it seems that we can be sure that we can gain an understanding of both general and special revelation that, while partial and flawed, is capable of generating emotions and actions that are both sensible and pleasing to God. I'm going to deliberately ignore a discussion of how Calvinism or how the Spirit or etc. might shape this understanding.
9. As I said previously, the Bible seems to spend much more time talking about shaping the emotions than it does shaping our ability to reason (i.e.,"study to show yourself approved..."). The two obviously cannot be untangled, but it seems to me that those overly influenced by modernism place too much emphasis on the power of reason and the pitfalls of emotions, and those overly influenced by post-modernism place too much emphasis on the power of emotions and the pitfalls of reason.

Which leads to two primary lines of attack on general and special revelation. The first has its roots in modernism, and the second in post-modernism.