How Do You Know?

According to the dominant, modernist view of knowledge that is pervasive in our society, we cannot know anything unless it has been proven to us using the scientific method. Consequently, science holds a position in our society that it doesn't deserve. Tolstoy spoke out against the emphasis on science when he said,"Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only question important to us 'what shall we do and how shall we live?'" I am not going as far as to say that science is strictly meaningless, but for those asking existential questions, it offers no absolute answers. We as humans are not capable of absolutes, that is why we have faith.

Many beings hold to a more pure form of rationalism, but there is no value-neutral, air-tight, scientific fact. Every piece of knowledge is subject to human perception and human people use faith when they claim any idea as truth. Every act of knowing is connected to a person. When trying to understand this, it helps if you use a Frisbee analogy that belongs to Ester Lightcap Meek. She describes knowing as, "A risky disposing of our beings, a passionate commitment to trust things we cannot fully justify at the time of effort. Just as the person who truly lays out for a Frisbee risks crashing to the ground, with or without the Frisbee....Human knowing involves actively struggling to rely on a collection of as of yet unrelated particulars to achieve a focus on a coherent pattern or whole." This doesn't make reality simple, neat and tidy in the way that our modernist friends wanted to make it for us, but it is more accurate. Reality is many shades of grey not black and white.

This is not to say that there is no absolute truth. I believe in an ultimate power who has created absolute truth, but only He knows it absolutely. He has revealed enough of it for us to get through this life honoring Him. In our endless struggle to obtain more of God's absolute knowledge, we ultimately use faith, not science. For example, right now I am sitting in a brown office chair as I type this. Last time I posted to this blog I was sitting in this chair and the time before that as well. In fact every day I sit in this chair and each time I do, it holds me. Consequently, I have faith that this chair will hold me tomorrow when I come to sit in it. In the same way, I could take the most seemingly value-neutral, air-tight scientific "fact" and say the same thing. Take the idea that 2+2=4, for example, I know that 2+2=4 because I added it yesterday and all throughout my existence and it has always added up to 4. Therefore, I have faith that if I did this addition tomorrow it would still equal 4. That is the only way I know this equation works. The same logic can be applied to knowing the most elusive of beings-God. He held me yesterday, He holds me today and He will hold me tomorrow.