Andrew Meredith’s Reviews > The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God > Status Update

"Knowing is knowing what we ought to believe. To justify our knowledge is to establish the presence of that ethical "ought.'' And once that "ought" is established, we must apply it to all the rest of life (the applications are the meaning!). All of our decisions should be reconciled with what we know to be true. We must live in truth, walk in truth, do the truth. Knowledge, therefore, is an ethically responsible orientation of the person to his experience. To know is to respond rightly to the evidence and norms available to us. On the basis of this concept of knowledge, the unbeliever 'knows nothing truly.' In no area of life does he respond to God's revelation in ethical rightness. There is another kind of knowledge mentioned in Scripture that the unbeliever does have. lt is parallel to Christian knowledge in some ways, and it renders the unbeliever responsible for his decisions before God. It may be called "knowledge' because of its external conformity (in some respects) to the divine law, but its radical ethical disorientation introduces severe distortion."

"We are seeking, that is, a belief that we can live with. Francis Schaeffer describes John Cage, the composer, as a man whose philosophy says that all is chance--randomness--a philosophy that he seeks to express in his music. But as an amateur mushroom-grower, Cage does not abide by his philosophy of chance. Rather, he presupposes an order, a world of law. Some fungi are mushrooms, others toadstools, and it matters which ones you pick to eat! Thus Cage is unable to apply his philosophy of randomness to all of life; he cannot live with it. This fact casts doubt on whether he really believes it or not. I would say that he believes it, but not strongly or consistently; he also holds other beliefs inconsistent with this one (because he cannot escape God's revelation). Thus he is not able to apply his unbelief to all the areas of his life."

The question of the existential perspective: "Can I live with this belief?"

"Of course, a Christian epistemology will reject any kind of radical subjectivism. But there is some truth in a pragmatic concept of truth, nevertheless. Scripture does tell us that in the long run, only Christianity "works,'' that is, only Christianity brings the full, eternal blessing of God on those who believe. And, of course, what "'works'' is at the same time what is in accord with God's law. Note frequent correlations between obedience and blessing in Scripture (e.g., Ps. 1). And what 'works' is also correlative with objective reality. We receive God's blessings when we recognize reality as God has made it and act on that recognition."

Another way of saying this is to say that the justification of belief aims at persuasion. To justify our beliefs is always an attempt to persuade ourselves, if no one else. Our goal when we communicate is not just to establish the validity and soundness of our propositions, but to persuade our hearers.

This persuasion is especially the work of the Spirit. Two people can be presented with the same Gospel, and the same evidence, and one goes away mocking while the other believes. What's the difference? The light has shown on both, but the Spirit has opened the eyes of the one to see it. The Word has been spoken over both, but the Spirit has opened the ears of the one to hear it.

Here it is helpful to differentiate "seeing as" from "seeing." We can bring facts to people's minds, and even lead them to agree with a series of events, but there is a massive perspectival difference, for instance, between describing a particular scandal as "recreational dalliance," "inappropriate relations," "cheating," or "adultery."

So all three of the perspectives together are equally necessary for knowledge (justified, true belief). But that often raises a strong objection among Christians:

"The strongest objection against such mutual, reciprocal priorities among the three perspectives is that which comes from the "normativists'-the normative perspective absolutely must be prior because Scripture is prior. It is, after all, our supreme authority. This objection, however, fails to recognize that there is a difference between the Bible and the 'normative perspective.' The two are not the same. The normative perspective is not the Bible; it is my understanding of the Bible in its relations to me and all creation. Under the normative perspective, I examine all of my knowledge, focusing on Scripture (but also on other forms of God's normative revelation). Under the normative perspective, I look at all of my knowledge as "application of Scripture." So understood, the normative perspective is certainly important, but it is not the Bible, and the primacy of Scripture does not of itself entail the primacy of the normative perspective. Especially is this the case since the other two perspectives also deal with Scripture: the situational looks at it as the central "fact' in the authority structure, the existential as the most authoritative subjective datum. Ultimately, the three perspectives differ only in emphasis or focus. Each includes the other two, and so the three all cover the same territory; they have the same content."