Glen Hughes
I Don’t Know! The Epistemological Quest
“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight,” says the Lord.
Jeremiah 9:23,24
How do we know what we know? The journey towards knowledge is one that has direction but it doesn’t have a goal. There is no end point. We can never in our quest for knowledge know all that there is to know. The inability to know is a universal problem. When Jesus came to this earth no-one knew him. Nathaniel may have asked if any good thing could come out of Nazareth. But Jesus knew Nathaniel, and Jesus knows each of us. The gospel has power, not because of our ability to know God perfectly, but because of God’s perfect ability to know us. Jesus knows you and me perfectly. Jesus knows everything and is not distracted, discouraged or dissuaded by our failures. He knows that if he persists in his friendship with us that we will be safe to be saved.
But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?
Galatians 4:8,9