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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: How do you know
Message-ID: <470@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Oct-84 12:42:20 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.470
Posted: Fri Oct 26 12:42:20 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Oct-84 05:58:16 EST
References: <420@uwmacc.UUCP>
Reply-To: manGoe@maryland.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
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Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
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The question of how one "knows" God is not new, and in the interests of
education and better understanding (another overworked word) I will try
to briefly present the "traditional" position.

  We are all aware that the word "know" in English contains lots of
not really well related meanings.  So when we see in the Bible the phrase
"Be still, and that I am God," what does it mean?  Protestant tradition
has consistently rejected the interpretation that we mean knowledge of
the scientific or historical type.  To say that we know God in the same
way that we know the laws of physics is to imply that we can understand how
God works, and that we can understand all his motives.  God being infinite,
however, there is no reason why we should presume to be able to understand
Him, and scripture constantly denies that he is knowable in this way.

It is also not really justifiable to say that we know God in the same way
that we know about the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The historical evidence is
thin and by the usual standards is not reliable; scripture indicates that
this is in fact intended.

We are left with the possibility of knowing God in the way that we know
our parents, the form expressed in French by the verb "connaitre": knowing
God as a person.  The theologians claim that this is in fact the way that
we can know God, and it becomes clearer when we rephrase the initial
quotation as "Be still, and RECOGNIZE that I am God."  We know God not
by historical facts, not by scientific observation and deduction, but by
recognizing him in his traces in the world, and sometimes face to face.

Charley Wingate    umcp-cs!manGoe