Knowing and Loving God

  When philosophers today speak about believing, they define it as "accepting" a proposition; to reject it is to not believe it; and to neither accept nor reject it is to "withhold" belief. Traditionally, knowledge has been defined as "justified true belief." So technically, an opinion is a belief which has not been justified, or which is not true, or which is neither justified or true.

I think Tom Morris makes a good point when he writes,

<we want our beliefs to be true., to connect us to reality...we don't want our important beliefs to be mere opinions; we want them to constitute real knowledge. But what is knowledge? Our concept of knowledge is first of all an *attainment concept.* In basketball, we shoot in order to score. Shooting is the activity; scoring is the attainment intended. In the life of the mind, wwe believe in order to know. Believing is, in a sense, the activity; knowing is the intended attainment." (Philsoophy for Dummies, p. 44)

So the question becomes, what does it mean to know? For Descartes, "to know" meant "to be certain." And how does one atttain certainty? By accepting only ideas which are "clear and distinct." But that basically means the only things we can "know" are things that are true by definition and tautologies. Empiricists who came after Descartes insisted that the only things we can know are the things we perceive through sense perception. But then, it is difficult to be certain about what we see and hear and taste and touch and smell.

Christians often think of faith as believing, and define faith as "the certainty of things hoped for, a proof of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1, NASB) So they have debated whether faith is a form of knowledge, or not, and if it is, what that means. Augustinians see reason is a form of faith; Thomists make a distinction between faith (accepting something on authority) and reason (accepting it by being able to give evidence). All agree, though, that it is impossible to know God without faith.

As I see it, faith has both an objective aspect--the content of what is believed--and a subjective aspect--the mental state of conviction, i.e., "trust." If we are to know God, both are necessary. After all, James tell us (2:19) that the demons believe God exists (objective aspect) but do not have the subjective aspect.

Describing the typical human knowing process, Josef Pieper, the great Thomist, held that

1. Things are TRUE because they are real.

2. Things can be KNOWN because they are created.

3. Things are UNFATHOMABLE (mysterious) because they are created.

I think that things are true and real to the degree they mirror Christ, who is the Truth (John 14:6).

I agree with the Eastern Orthodox that we cannot know God IN HIS ESSENCE. We are creatures; he is Creator, so there will always be a gap. But that does not mean that we cannot know Him. I take 1 Cor. 13:12, " we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" to mean that the process of knowing God is a relationship that will continue eternally--"Further up, further in"--and that we will be like overflowing cups. We will be filled, but there will always be more to be filled with. That relationship is what I would call "love." And the beauty of it is that that relationship can begin this side of heaven.

Long ago, I wrote a blog post about how knowing can lead to loving, and loving can lead to knowing. https://medievalmind.blogspot.com/search?q=enchilada

I think we can come at it from both directions. The tragedy occurs when we think following Jesus is either a matter of only knowing, or only loving. The two are inseparable. We must simultaneously hold both John 4:7-21 and John 14:6. After all, the Beloved Disciple did!