God & Knowing - What does it mean to "Know"?

[Jon Twitchell]

I'm not quite sure where I'm taking this thought...

I'm watching the latest Ray Vanderlaan DVD. And in the second session, he suggested that when an easterner uses the word "know," they aren't talking about empirical knowledge but experiential knowledge. In other words, it's not about knowing something with your brain, but experiencing something with your heart.

In some sense, we've always known this. We apply it to individuals when we talk about salvation, by saying things like, "It's not enough to have all the right answers, you have to know Jesus in your heart...," or, "your head knowledge has to migrate to your heart and transform you...," etc.

But Ray made a step that I've never made--he applied that concept to God. In context, he was talking about God testing the Israelites--so that he could "know" how they would respond. But this is not about God's "omniscience," but about God's "experience." Put another way, God wasn't trying to learn with His brain--but with His heart.

Just wondering how this plays out in an open theism discussion.

Go.

[John Brickley]

Jon,

This is an interesting question and it is a point at which the English language falls short. In Portuguese we have 2 words for knowledge (this also exists in Spanish and I would suspect the other Latin languages as well) one is Saber (to know) and it corresponds with wisdom and knowledge, the other is conhecer (to know) and that corresponds with the knowledge of a person. This is much more helpful in talking about our knowledge of God. There is certainly a sense in which both are in play, but we are able to talk about both distinctly and that helps to understand better the nature of knowledge and the relationship.

John

[Dennis Bratcher]

I'm not quite sure where I'm taking this thought...

I'm watching the latest Ray Vanderlaan DVD. And in the second session, he suggested that when an easterner uses the word "know," they aren't talking about empirical knowledge but experiential knowledge. In other words, it's not about knowing something with your brain, but experiencing something with your heart.

In some sense, we've always known this. We apply it to individuals when we talk about salvation, by saying things like, "It's not enough to have all the right answers, you have to know Jesus in your heart...," or, "your head knowledge has to migrate to your heart and transform you...," etc.

But Ray made a step that I've never made--he applied that concept to God. In context, he was talking about God testing the Israelites--so that he could "know" how they would respond. But this is not about God's "omniscience," but about God's "experience." Put another way, God wasn't trying to learn with His brain--but with His heart.

Just wondering how this plays out in an open theism discussion.

I would not use the word "experience," but rather something more along the line of "relationship."

Knowledge related to a body of facts or data is alien to most of Scripture. In Hebrew the verb "know" is not about our modern concept of knowledge, but about relationship with a person that may also involve "experience" in the sense of familiarity.

For example:


Gen 4:1 Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain . . .

Gen 22:12 He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."

Ex 3:7 Then the LORD said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 3:8 and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians . . .

Amos 3:2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth. . .

Etc.

None of that excludes knowing facts (there are other Hebrew words for "knowledge"), but the facts are not external and disconnected from relationships or from the practicality of living (especially in the Wisdom literature).

Most classic theological views of God's foreknowledge are based in Greek ontological categories in which knowledge is about absolute data that is to some degree external to and independent of human existence. That, along with an amalgamation of other ideas (such as a concept of time that is also external to present experience) allows absolute predestination as well as absolute foreknowledge of future events. Much of open theism rejects those assumptions, although it takes different shapes depending on what assumptions replace them.

Grace and Peace,

Dennis B.