01-13-08-ss

THINKING LIKE JESUS AND SOCRATES

Dr. Gary VanDeWalker
Dr. Robert Hughes

Evangelical Free Church of Mount Shasta

Lesson Two:    What can you really know?
(Also called a scary word: Epistemology)

1.    There are three ways you can know something:
    ---You can know facts
    ---You can know something directly, by acquaintance
    ---You can know a skill

2.    Christianity can be know all three ways
    ---You can know theological/biblical facts
    ---You can know God by acquaintance (John 17:3)
    ---You can gain bible study skills (learn Greek, use reference books…)

3.    Another question is “What is true knowledge?”
    --True Knowledge requires belief
        ---If I don’t believe it, I don’t know it
    --True Knowledge requires truth
        ---What I know must be true
        ---Sincerity does not make true knowledge
        ---Something is true when:
            -It matches reality
            -Its belief is warranted

4.    The temptation is to be the skeptic.
    --The naïve skeptic is a skeptic no matter what
    --The academic skeptic demands absolute certainity
    --The justified skeptic accepts certain knowledge, but believes other types of
        Knowledge can never be certain

5.    The naïve skeptic is an absurd position

6.    Absolute certainity is a trap
    --“Prove to me, with absolute certainity, there is a God.”
    --“Prove to me, with absolute certianity, there is no God.”

7.    The justified skeptic is harder to reconcile.
    --They must be asked, “What can we know?”
    --“In this case, what can be known?”
    --The skeptic must be challenged to answer what is reasonable about knowledge
    --If the justified skeptic is not reasonable, then he becomes the naïve or academic

8.    There is a need for an outside source to identify knowledge, a view that encompasses all of human experience. The world should be challenged if Christianity does not indeed give this foundation. 2 Timothy 3:16

New International Version (NIV)