The 5 ingredients of knowledge

Since I fretted about this yesterday, what happens if we just use Paul's one-sentence statement for clues on what knowledge is? Here is his statement:

For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I've committed to him until that day.

There are 5 ingredients here for knowledge:

1. Knowledge involves a relationship. Here, Paul is in relationship to Christ, but all knowledge involves some form of relationship either with a person, a thing, or a concept. Without a relationship, what we have is information, not knowledge. For example, I am aware that Mars is out there somewhere, but because I have no first-person relationship with that thing called Mars, I don't really know Mars, etc.

2. In relationship, you come to believe certain things about that person, thing or concept. So, knowledge cannot be separate from belief. Nowadays it is fashionable to separate belief from knowledge. For example, secularists say that if we can only get rid of religious beliefs (which they think are myths), then society can truly advance in the cool assurance that "objective science" will solve all of our problems. But they fail to see that this very position is a form of belief. So:

3. Knowledge involves persuasion. Or more precisely: We cannot know anything unless and until we are persuaded of that thing's truthfulness. And persuasion involves commitments of emotion, affection, preference, hope ... all of the subjective factors that are difficult to "scientifically" measure are necessarily ingredients of true knowledge.

4. Knowledge always entails a commitment. A familiar example: you won't sit on a chair unless you know it's safe to sit on. But when you know it's safe, kaboom, you just plant yourself on that chair without thinking. You've committed yourself to it. Paul knew Christ enough to have committed certain things to him ... things that we frankly do not know about. It would be fascinating to ask him someday what exactly were those things he committed to Christ ... ? So:

5. Knowledge has an end. Paul's knowledge involved awareness of a final accounting of things. This might be the least acceptable part of a definition for knowledge. But look around. All kinds of "knowledge" (read: information) is being developed indiscriminately, with no hint of what all of this information can do to us. But if Paul's statement gives clues to what knowledge is, then true knowledge necessarily involves an awareness of judgment.

For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I've committed to him until that day.

There are consequences to what we know.

Logos2Go

Daniel 12.5 But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.

Luke 11.52 "Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered."

Romans 1.28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;

2 Timothy 1.12 For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.