Knowledge of God

Am I a Christian simply because I was born in a Christian context?

“How do you know?”

This is an epistemological question. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that explores how we know things. Questions about how we know what we know might seem simple at first, but when we really start to drill down into them, they can become quite complex. We know different things in different ways. Take the following questions:

• How do I know my name is David?

• How do I know I was born in Fort Worth, Texas?

• How do I know I’m typing on a computer as I write this?

• How do I know I had yogurt and cereal for breakfast this morning?

• How do I know how to play an E-chord on the guitar?

• How do I know that John Wesley was a priest of the Church of England?

• How do I know that chocolate cake is delicious?

• How do I know I love my family?

• How do I know that murder is wrong?

• How do I know that I can’t be inside the house and outside the house at the same time?

• How do I know God exists?

• How do I know that, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself?

• How do I know I am saved?

We know the answer to some of these questions simply by direct observation. I know I’m typing on a computer as I write this because it is immediately apparent. I know I was born in Fort Worth, Texas, because my parents told me. I know what I had for breakfast because I remember. I know I love my family because of my feelings, attitudes, and actions toward them. Some questions about knowledge may require more complex answers. I know murder is wrong through moral reasoning related to other moral claims I hold to be true. I know God exists for a variety of reasons, including my own experience, logical reasoning, and testimony. I know I am saved through the spiritual senses that God has given to each of us. Whenever we try to answer the question, “How do you know?” we are engaged in the work of epistemology.

Earlier this week I traveled to my former home of Dallas, Texas, to attend the second annual William J. Abraham Lecture at Southern Methodist University. The speaker was Dr. John Greco, the Robert L. McDevitt and Catherine H. McDevitt Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. His presentation was entitled “Knowledge of God?”

It was a fitting topic for a lecture series dedicated to Billy Abraham. Billy was obsessed with questions of epistemology. He was particularly interested in epistemology as it relates to divine revelation. What is divine revelation? In what ways do we have access to it? How does it relate to other sources of knowledge, such as scientific investigation or historical research? We often think of Billy as a theologian, but he was first and foremost a philosopher. He was insatiably curious, however, and so his work extended into systematic theology, Wesley studies, evangelism, biblical interpretation, and even politics.

Why did the title of Greco’s lecture end in a question mark? He notes that we are often surprised at the fact that we can and do have knowledge of God. At times we act as if we are simply fideists—we believe as an act of will without any proper warrants for doing so. If someone were to ask us why we are Christians rather than Muslims or Hindus, we might simply shrug and say we’re Christians because of an accident of birth. We were born into a predominantly Christian context, and thus we are Christians. Had we been born in Pakistan or India, however, we would probably be Muslim or Hindu. In fact, this may be true. Yet many people seem to leap to another conclusion: because our belief is tied to our cultural context, we cannot say we have true knowledge of God. After all, if we had been born Muslims, we would feel just as strongly about the truth of our beliefs as we do as Christians. Thus we can’t claim with integrity to have knowledge of the truth. We’re stuck in a swamp of doctrinal relativism.

Greco rejects such relativism. To do so, he uses the analogy of scientific diversity. Imagine two cultures, one in which it is believed that the common cold is caused by germs, and another in which it is believed that colds are caused by evil spirits. We were born into a the first type of culture, not the second. We believe colds are caused by germs, which is, in fact, a true belief. Thus our true belief depends upon the fact that we were born in the right place and time. We can see, then, that some settings give us access to knowledge we would not have otherwise. This applies to religious knowledge no less than to scientific knowledge.

Greco thus points us to the social turn in epistemology. In other words, we are social beings, and our social environment shapes our understanding of the world. Some social environments help us to attain knowledge, and some lead us to believe falsehoods. It’s important, then, that we locate ourselves in epistemically enabling social environments.

Yet how do we know that our social environment is preferable to some other? In the case of our faith claims, how do we know that our tradition (our religious social environment) is preferable to some other? Questions like these are difficult. Nevertheless, the point is that we shouldn’t throw our hands up as if we are helpless before such questions. We should not resign ourselves to relativism. We will have to bring all the resources available to us to answer them, but we can arrive at reasonable conclusions.

I wish Greco had gone a bit farther into this last point. I suspect he might say something like this: when we are trying to gauge the truthfulness of our faith claims over against some other tradition, we should consider a variety of factors. For example, we might ask, does one tradition make better sense of human experience than another? Is there historical evidence that suggests one tradition might have a greater claim to truth than another? How does each tradition contribute to human flourishing? Are the traditions coherent? No doubt there are many additional relevant questions.

But anyway….

Watch the lecture yourself. Prof. Greco is a very fine thinker. I believe you’ll find his remarks accessible and edifying.