Thoughts about truth, knowledge and faith

[Henry_iain]

I am starting this thread with no idea where it would lead to but I have decided to write down these thoughts because I think it will could be interesting to someone and I myself would like to hear some ideas.

Forgive me if this is a bit long. 

As a Christian, I am thinking about my understanding of scripture.

Some background: I have been a Christian since October 2000. I grew up in a Christian family and have been in church nearly all my life. My dad is a theologian and a preacher. My mother is a teacher and so I come from a strongly academic family which also includes theological He is in the Dutch Reformed Church. I was also in that church until I was about 12 or 13. After that I have been mostly in charismatic churches. There is a lot more to this and various complication in my family and home life that come into this but I think this should be enough for now.

The basic questions I have are these: How do I know what to believe? How can I be sure that a certain view is correct or not? Who do I trust to give me the truth? and How do I see the truth of scripture connect to the natural world and my real lived experience? 

As you can see, these are questions that have been asked by many people and there is probably no final answers to them, 

 

Now I want to expand on a few things and add some thoughts. They are just my ideas and could be right or wrong but they are sincerely meant and not aimed at anyone. 

I think I always believed that there must be a God. Even from a young age it just made sense to me. Many people argue that people are Christians mostly because they have been brought up that way. Yet I am quite sure that I would have become a Christian anyway even if I had not been in such a household. I have had doubts and there have been moments where I really questioned God's existence. But I could just never shake off the feeling deep down that there must be a Creator. I allowed myself many times to look at my faith as a Christian and ask myself whether, objectively, my faith was reasonable considering what I know right now. And every time I asked this it led me back to Jesus eventually. Of course, I think my objectivity is compromised, because I find Christianity attractive and want it to be true. That is just honestly my dilemma. Now let me assure you, I believe the Bible is true. I am just asking myself how this faith works practically. What is it about Christianity that makes it believable. In a way, this goes right into the idea of knowledge. What can we know? How do we know something? Is personal experience of something necessary for knowledge? After all, everybody and anybody could be wrong about just about anything. Or they could be deliberately deceiving me. To illustrate my issue let me mention this example of how we can be wrong about things: for many years I have played Monopoly. Recently I learned that I had been playing the game wrong all these years and that the rule we were breaking would have changed the whole game completely. I had simply accepted the rules that were given to me and never questioned it, trusting that they must know what they are doing. I find things like this often in far more serious subjects.

Consider this: would a person born deaf and blind be able to believe?   

This leads me to the issue of my mistrust of "experts" and popular beliefs.  I must confess that I do not know that much. Only enough to know how little I know.  When you have an abundance in something, it is easy to not fully make use if it. In my family we have an abundance in books and in people with high levels of education and knowledge. In spite of this, I struggle to understand highly technical information and I often find myself uncertain about my facts. I have always struggled to read as much as I would like to. I have tried. And this makes me feel so inferior in my family where dinner conversations are often dominated by intellectual subject. You find in my family atheists, Greek orthodox, universalists and other widely different beliefs. Most of my family, including my dad, believes in evolution and are entirely secular. It has dawned on me that knowledge really is power. Those that seem to know something can easily control and manipulate those who don't and it is this that leads me to doubt. A good argument can be wrong. For a long time I simply accepted what my dad said. After all, he is a very smart man. But as I grew older, I started to realize how he can even be wrong about subjects he is supposed to be an expert in.  So having a good argument alone does not ensure that what someone says is true. Proof is needed somehow. And even on this forum I have noticed that very often people differ even on what constitutes proof. This is also why i often avoid non-biblical books about philosophy and theology. For the sake of keeping myself from going insane with deep and difficult questions, I try to base my beliefs on Scripture and on what I can personally observe or experience. Even then I doubt my own understanding so much. I also have made a deliberate decision to stand on certain points where there is a lot of controversy in order to stop myself from being tossed around by opposing but reasonable sounding arguments.

One more thought that I have been sitting with. It has been interesting to me to look at the forums and note some of he debates going on.  I rarely allow myself to go to these ( because they only confuse and frustrate me more), except to just look at how people are presenting their point of view. I get the sense sometimes that no one has really determined what the bottom line is for each person. And in a public forums where anybody can join and have different motivations in joining as well as vastly different backgrounds, it is surely inevitable that the discussions will end up going the way they do. To someone like me, this does  not really help me learn or understand something better. I don't want to choose sides, I want to learn the truth (if this is possible. Is objective knowledge possible?) I am just not sure it can end up any other way, because I have rarely ever seen anyone change their original position on any of these debates. 

 

Edited December 20, 2017 by IainL

[frienduff thaylorde]

Your under confusion.   and this aint to be mean.    

HOW do we KNOW we love JESUS should have been the question many church leaders  asked long , long ago.

Many leaders even in christanity don't love Christ .     scary huh.  

The question I ASK you is HOW do you KNOW YOU DO.

IF you can answer it right , then I will answer your question .   HOW do you KNOW you truly LOVE GOD .    its real easy.

[GandalfTheWise]

@IainL, I like your post.  In my life, I've asked (and still at times am asking) similar questions.  I've come to satisfactory answers for some and not for others.  I just wish I'd have started asking them earlier in life.  

As a background, I grew up in a Christian family regularly attending church.  I became a Christian when I was 12.  I was at a Lent service, the speaker gave an altar call, I responded.  He lead me in a short prayer (probably including words I'd said many times before in various liturgies), I wasn't really expecting anything, but I just suddenly felt different.  It's hard to put into words except to say that I felt a warm comfortable presence inside me that hadn't been there before.  As far as I can tell, that is what many other people describe as being born-again, having a conversion experience, or other such terms.  That was over 40 years ago.

For many years as a Christian, my "faith" started resting more and more in what I was believing.  My faith was in believing the right things.  My faith was in the Bible being perfect with no error.  My faith was in God having created the world exactly the way I believed He had done it.  In a nutshell, my faith was in a plethora of things surrounding God and His people and His word and His works, but not in God Himself.  Instead of building my trust and confidence in God by knowing Him more and more, I was building my "faith" by learning more and more details and information about why what I "believed" was correct.  My "faith" consisted of memorizing proof texts for particular doctrines, reading lots of books of "proof" why certain views were correct and others wrong.  I was a walking encyclopedia of apologetics and polemics.  I was concerned with knowing the answers to various issues Christians argued about.  Of course, I was active in ministry, prayer, Bible reading, church attendance, and being serious about living a Christian life.  But, my focus was being diverted from knowing God more and more to all these peripheral things.

At some point, I started to realize the hollowness of this approach to faith.   The issue with this was that frequently when something conflicted with things my faith was in, I had a crisis of faith.  I found myself starting to get into strong arguments defending what I "believed" because to do otherwise was to let my belief in God start to slide away.  I found myself spending excessive amounts of time, resources, and worry trying to shore up my faith.

Over time, I found that my faith started shifting from these things to simply having trust and confidence in God Himself.  Over years and decades, I simply got to know Him better and better.  My trust and confidence now rest much more simply in Who He is than the other stuff.  Many of my concerns and worries early on seem rather naive to me now.  Decades ago, I was consumed with the proofs for a young earth because to believe otherwise meant I may as well quit being a Christian and give up on God.  Now, I'm satisfied that God created everything (and I'm not concerned with the details).  Decades ago, I probably would have become a KJV only type (or something similar) because I sincerely believed that I may as well throw the Bible away if it wasn't exactly perfect in every possible way.  I now read and study the Bible primarily to learn more about God, not to slice and dice every letter and word in isolated (and often out-of-context) proof texts to argue why I am right and someone else is wrong.  Decades ago, I was worried about finding a church (and other Christians) who believed the right things. Now, I'm more concerned with finding Christians who are more serious about knowing God than in believing all the right things.

I think the scripture passage that best describes my trust and confidence in God is John 9 (especially verse 25, He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”).  Over the years, I simply have seen God do so much in my life and those around me, that I have more trust and confidence in Him.  It is those things I've seen in my life and others that is the real foundation of my trust and confidence.  It's interesting that this type of personal testimony of what they've seen actually do is an important part of the ministry of the early church in Acts.

(I need to run now.  I might expound on this later.  I don't have time to go back and check for typos here.)

 

[Henry_iain]

I will respond soon, I'm just a bit busy right now and I also need some time to think

[Henry_iain]

On 12/15/2017 at 12:12 AM, frienduff thaylorde said:

Your under confusion.   and this aint to be mean.    

HOW do we KNOW we love JESUS should have been the question many church leaders  asked long , long ago.

Many leaders even in christanity don't love Christ .     scary huh.  

The question I ASK you is HOW do you KNOW YOU DO.

IF you can answer it right , then I will answer your question .   HOW do you KNOW you truly LOVE GOD .    its real easy.

I know you have good intentions.

Let me just add something though. There are plenty of denominations in the world and even more religions and traditions outside of Christianity. There are whole schools of theology and countless books on the same subjects but saying different things. People may be  evil but mostly those who read scripture are not stupid. If the Bible was always easy to understand there would not have been so many different interpretations. 

Remember that I have been dealing with these some of these questions for more than 10 years. But I can say that in the end, allowing myself to ask these kinds of questions have actually strengthened my faith in some way. I am not so confused that I am unclear about what I believe. 

To answer your question: I am not sure what answer you expect. I can think of many things that could answer it. But I will say that I love God because of who He is and what He has done. I love God because He first loved me. So I obey him as best I can. I am not perfect yet, but I seek to obey him. Jesus said if we love him we would obey his commands and he then goes on to say that his command is that we love one another. I think the answer you are looking for must come from there. 

 

[Henry_iain]

On 12/16/2017 at 4:29 PM, GandalfTheWise said:

@IainL, I like your post.  In my life, I've asked (and still at times am asking) similar questions.  I've come to satisfactory answers for some and not for others.  I just wish I'd have started asking them earlier in life.  

As a background, I grew up in a Christian family regularly attending church.  I became a Christian when I was 12.  I was at a Lent service, the speaker gave an altar call, I responded.  He lead me in a short prayer (probably including words I'd said many times before in various liturgies), I wasn't really expecting anything, but I just suddenly felt different.  It's hard to put into words except to say that I felt a warm comfortable presence inside me that hadn't been there before.  As far as I can tell, that is what many other people describe as being born-again, having a conversion experience, or other such terms.  That was over 40 years ago.

For many years as a Christian, my "faith" started resting more and more in what I was believing.  My faith was in believing the right things.  My faith was in the Bible being perfect with no error.  My faith was in God having created the world exactly the way I believed He had done it.  In a nutshell, my faith was in a plethora of things surrounding God and His people and His word and His works, but not in God Himself.  Instead of building my trust and confidence in God by knowing Him more and more, I was building my "faith" by learning more and more details and information about why what I "believed" was correct.  My "faith" consisted of memorizing proof texts for particular doctrines, reading lots of books of "proof" why certain views were correct and others wrong.  I was a walking encyclopedia of apologetics and polemics.  I was concerned with knowing the answers to various issues Christians argued about.  Of course, I was active in ministry, prayer, Bible reading, church attendance, and being serious about living a Christian life.  But, my focus was being diverted from knowing God more and more to all these peripheral things.s

At some point, I started to realize the hollowness of this approach to faith.   The issue with this was that frequently when something conflicted with things my faith was in, I had a crisis of faith.  I found myself starting to get into strong arguments defending what I "believed" because to do otherwise was to let my belief in God start to slide away.  I found myself spending excessive amounts of time, resources, and worry trying to shore up my faith.

Over time, I found that my faith started shifting from these things to simply having trust and confidence in God Himself.  Over years and decades, I simply got to know Him better and better.  My trust and confidence now rest much more simply in Who He is than the other stuff.  Many of my concerns and worries early on seem rather naive to me now.  Decades ago, I was consumed with the proofs for a young earth because to believe otherwise meant I may as well quit being a Christian and give up on God.  Now, I'm satisfied that God created everything (and I'm not concerned with the details).  Decades ago, I probably would have become a KJV only type (or something similar) because I sincerely believed that I may as well throw the Bible away if it wasn't exactly perfect in every possible way.  I now read and study the Bible primarily to learn more about God, not to slice and dice every letter and word in isolated (and often out-of-context) proof texts to argue why I am right and someone else is wrong.  Decades ago, I was worried about finding a church (and other Christians) who believed the right things. Now, I'm more concerned with finding Christians who are more serious about knowing God than in believing all the right things.

I think the scripture passage that best describes my trust and confidence in God is John 9 (especially verse 25, He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”).  Over the years, I simply have seen God do so much in my life and those around me, that I have more trust and confidence in Him.  It is those things I've seen in my life and others that is the real foundation of my trust and confidence.  It's interesting that this type of personal testimony of what they've seen actually do is an important part of the ministry of the early church in Acts.

(I need to run now.  I might expound on this later.  I don't have time to go back and check for typos here.)

 

My pastor always talks about "having faith in faith" I have come to a similar place mostly. I focus on my relationship with God as a whole and not as a set of teachings. In my church we also often talk about "head knowledge" which simply means that you can know about God without knowing him personally.This is why I love 1 Cor 8: 1-2

Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. ² If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. ³ But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.

Knowledge also leads to sorrow and I know this because I have experienced it personally. However, I take comfort in this because it means I don't have to worry whether there might be some "hidden knowledge" that is somehow going to keep me away from God. 

The thing is I love Truth (truth is a Person not  a teaching) and I love Jesus and all I really want to do is sincerely follow him and become more like him. Whatever it takes I am willing to do. Whatever I need to  believe I am willing to believe. As long as it leads me towards him. But it is always so I can know him more intimately and I believe I have found this intimacy in recent times. 

I especially like that last thing you say about testimony. It is this point that convinces me that you cannot teach or guide someone online easily (in my opinion). Because it does not really allow you to see how the other person lives their daily life. I rarely even take advice from people who do not have an established  relationship with me because there is no way they can know what I really need to hear without knowing what my life is like. We often say things in a way we understand them but so often we have different definitions and connotations with certain words so that we can never be sure another person knows what we are saying unless we already know them. Which is why I think church needs to really be focused on relationship and a community that can get to know each other. 

The one thing that gets me though, is my environment. There are so many voices speaking to me sometimes. Especially because I am living with my parents who don't believe like I do, I find myself alone because I feel like I can't really express my heart to them (believe me, I have tried, and it always ended up in pain). My own parents would label me as a fundamentalist because they think I am extreme because I seek to really do what the Bible says and because I expect to see the Bible prove itself true in the real world around me rather than believing in what the "real world" is like. I say this  because one of my greatest needs right now is to be able to live out my faith more fully in spite of opposition. 

[enoob57]

Faith in faith is an empty road of humanism... it is the created being trying to stilt oneself up by created essence! God reveals what true faith consist of

Romans 10:17 (KJV)

[17] So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

It can be understood in this fashion: all that we have began in has been under the influence of satan and we ourselves were his by rebellion of prodigy thru Adam! Therefore all is suspect and we unless born with capacity to house God once again within us -> have only the error... As we take in God's Word with It's profundity of formation we begin to see as God sees and literally faith grows within us to the point of belief that is able to cause us to reach out in the hope that becomes within us by that faith

Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

It literally transforms us into a hope of that which is not seen based on God's promises found in His Word... we are a people no longer of here and now but that of substance readily fitted for that which will be - a sinless eternity where sin has never been considered nor can be....

It is our flesh that desires more when in fact we are to reckon it dead, separated from God, without the substance of hope... The new birth of spirit conjoined with God Himself in the Person of The Holy Spirit resonates His Fruit within us when we walk in that s/Spirit of Life and no longer listen to that which we were born in by first birth...

We become His Breath direct by a moment by moment pleasure of our God's will 

John 3:8 (KJV)

[8] The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

We see this in the formation of the New Testament Church and in one generation by obedience to this type of life they were turning the world upside down... why because they were living epistles of what would be the written Word of God. A completed revelation of God to us whom He loves for all eternity...
Love, Steven

 

[frienduff thaylorde]

12 hours ago, IainL said:

I know you have good intentions.

Let me just add something though. There are plenty of denominations in the world and even more religions and traditions outside of Christianity. There are whole schools of theology and countless books on the same subjects but saying different things. People may be  evil but mostly those who read scripture are not stupid. If the Bible was always easy to understand there would not have been so many different interpretations. 

Remember that I have been dealing with these some of these questions for more than 10 years. But I can say that in the end, allowing myself to ask these kinds of questions have actually strengthened my faith in some way. I am not so confused that I am unclear about what I believe. 

To answer your question: I am not sure what answer you expect. I can think of many things that could answer it. But I will say that I love God because of who He is and what He has done. I love God because He first loved me. So I obey him as best I can. I am not perfect yet, but I seek to obey him. Jesus said if we love him we would obey his commands and he then goes on to say that his command is that we love one another. I think the answer you are looking for must come from there. 

 

ITS about ALL his sayings being loved.   not just pick a few here and their .  IF any of our doctrines allows for the twisting of any of HIS sayings. that doctrine is dung .

SO yeah its tied into observing ALL , not most , not part or some , BUT ALL things he commanded.    Which would include Him as the only way

which would include not to repay evil with evil, which would include remarriage as adultery , which would include..............getting the point .  TIS bout ALL his sayings.

THIS alone shows us what and who we truly love.  for many can say gay marriage is abomination, which IT IS,   yet they say it as they hug they third , fourth , even fifth wife.

YEAH we got problems and major ones in the churchs .     

[frienduff thaylorde]

2 hours ago, Yowm said:

I get a little squeamish when I start hearing the question, "How do we know we know?" This is the trail the Emergents went down and made shipwreck of their faith. 

Faith is a gift, a privilege of sorts, that comes as a gracious work of God upon our hearts and minds granting us the confidence in His Word which ultimately points to Jesus.

Jesus stood before Pilate as Pilate asked, 'What is truth'? The Truth was right there and Pilate missed Him completely.

I believe Paul laid out a great goal for us all...

For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Ye a doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
(Php 3:3-10)

YEAH but their how do we know we know jesus was focused on a false sensual love.

mine has an answer.  IF YOU LOVE ME KEEP MY SAYINGS.  that alone is how we know ITS CHRIST we love and not some other man twisted version that is taught.

 

[Sower]

On 12/19/2017 at 5:38 AM, IainL said:

The thing is I love Truth (truth is a Person not  a teaching) 

1Jn_1:5 And this is the message which we have heard from Him, and we announce to you: God is light, and no darkness is in Him, none!