How do you know what you know? When we have a conversation with someone about God or the Bible we
usually ask questions about the content of our faith. People who are curious
about faith typically ask content questions as well. Someone may say, “What do
you believe?” And underneath the question of belief is usually the question of
knowledge, “What do you know to be fact?” But more and more in our postmodern
world, people are asking a different question.
People can believe all sorts of things that aren’t
true. How do you know what is true? This is not a new search in the postmodern
world. People have always asked the “big questions” about truth and knowledge.
These are the questions that are addressed by the field of study known as “epistemology.”
Epistemology asks, “What is knowledge?” In other
words, “What is the nature of knowledge?” How does it work? How do people know
what they know? How does one arrive at knowledge? On the surface these may seem
like simple questions but they are not. Trying to explain theories of knowledge
is like trying to define that word you use all the time and know what it means
but you just can’t come up with a satisfactory definition.
The answers to these questions have not only
changed over time but the answers actually mark historical epochs. A certain
set of answers belong to a period we know as pre-modernism. Another set of
answers define the era known as modernism. The relatively new questions that
are being posed about knowledge and the answers now being given mark some of
the parameters of postmodernism.
To be sure, premodernity, modernity and
postmodernity are about much more than epistemology. But epistemology, the
philosophy of knowledge, lies somewhere near the core. You might be thinking
right about now, what does all this have to do with teaching a Bible study? It
actually has everything to do with it. If you are speaking to someone about
what you hold to be “true” and they are coming from a completely different
understanding of knowledge, you may as well be speaking a foreign language.
The core question this lesson seeks to address
is: “Is it possible there is a God and is it possible to know?” What this
lesson will not be is an exhausted list of “proofs” of God or evidences of God.
Many good books have been written on this subject that are worthy of your time.
This lesson will talk about ways of knowing that open the possibility that the person
you’re talking to could offer a “Yes” to the question, “Is it possible there is
a God?”
In short, we will give you the tools to help
someone say, “Yes, it is possible there is a God.” Notice, there is a big difference
between saying it is possible there is a God, and there is a God. This language is carefully chosen and is part of the whole
conversation about knowing. To the question, “Is it possible to know there is
God?” the answer would have to be, “It depends. It depends on what you mean by know.”
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