Another Practical Guide to the Logic, Philosophy, and Thoughts of Christianity

Section 1 - Article 13

Article 13 - Is knowledge useful?

In this article, the importance of knowledge is discussed in relevance to how it can be useful, and the point of it with regards to the belief in an omnipotent God.

Knowledge is good. Most, if not all mistakes stem from ignorance. Disobedience can arguably be attributed to "not knowing better". Yet, as one learns, they generally realize that there are a lot more to which they do not know. Everything around us is intricately interconnected. In many disciplines, especially the scientific ones, attempts to simply things often result in the discard of important information. Yet, facts remain that the truth can be more complex than simple, and also more simple than complex.

Let us analyze an example drawn from Child development psychology.

Babies and children imitate adults. When an adult frowns, the baby frowns in response. Yet, facial expressions have been found to influence mood. Therefore by frowning, the baby can get a little moody. Mood affects neurocognitive processing, which can affect hormones. The hormones in turn affect body development and the immune system. When the immune system is compromised, the child becomes further irritated, and therefore the parent is worried and frowns. This can result in further feedbacks that can affect personality. The personality of an individual affects the social world around us and the chain reaction goes on, from a frown.

Of course, the above example is slightly exaggerated, but everything starts from a first ripple. There is much we have yet to discover, namely the actual mechanisms of things and how they affect the effects. The world is unfortunately highly interconnected, complex. Though exaggerated, there are psychological and biological basis for the above example. There is a limit to what anyone can understand and know/learn. In some sense, it is a dangerous world. The music we listen to can be the expression of someone's personality or mood, and it does not simply bounce off our ears, but rather like almost everything in our environment, is capable in affecting, influencing, convincing, and changing us both consciously and unconsciously with unknown significance.

Yet, the believer must recognize that all things give glory to God. Logically, it is difficult to attribute such interdependent interconnected systems to anything other than an original plan by an intelligent creator. The world is intertwined, and there is no isolation in interconnected development despite our expectations. The modern world, filled with electromagnetic waves, friends, relatives, the air, the temperature, the sound of animals, the presence of ourselves, all influence us, for good, or for bad.

Taking the complex intertwining of the world and all within it, it is difficult for any learned or wise person in the world to deny the existence of God. Methodological agnostism does not allow the denial of a creator, and if everything is looked in the theological perspective, it really is evidence that God is omnipresent. We are encompassed, there is no area that is "outside God" or where there is no God. Even the denial of God cannot remove God. Knowledge merely allows a token appreciation of God and His ways. Insufficient knowledge can result in self-complacency and denial of God. Yet, real education changes thoughts, ideas, and perspectives. Assimilation of knowledge alone is not real education nor learning just as there is a difference between knowing and applying. Knowing how a heater looks does not mean knowing its purpose and what it does.

Everything has a history, a purpose, a reason, and a point. And everything serves to glory God.

Knowing about DNA does not tell you its history, its reason, its purpose, its point for existence. It may provide clues to how it works, but everything else is unknown and uncertain unless God is in the picture. DNA, comprising of the 4 bases: A, G, C, T, has some possible meanings to the 4 letters.

AGCT - And God Created Them

GCAT - God Created All Things

TGCA - Then God Created All

All roads lead to Rome, just as all knowledge lead to God, for God is the source of all knowledge. Some roads take a longer winding path, and people in pursuit of it can get lost in it if they do not know where the road leads. However, as long as the pursuit of knowledge has the final destination of God in mind, and the curiosity or thirst for knowledge remains, all things will lead to God. It does this in the same way that all stories reflect the authors, thus all creation reflect God.

Yet as most things in this relative world, there are two sides to every coin, and two poles to every magnet. With every positive, there is a negative. Since creation is NOT God, but merely a product, there are also aspects and elements within it that is NOT God, just as the story is NOT the author. Yet, since all things were created for the glory of the Creator, the absence of the complete Creator in His creation allows the contrast of where the Creator is in His creations. Without this contrast, there is no visible God in creation. Just as to see light, darkness has to be present to provide a contrast. If there is no unhappiness, happiness cannot be understood; without evil, goodness is invisible.

Why then this contrast in creation? For whose benefit is it all for? Is it for the Creator Who sees and knows all of His creations? No, the contrast is for the benefit of the free-willed, for them to see the visible God in His creations; for the glory of the visible yet uncreated God. Every mirror reflects, but the image produced is not being the object itself, and this is how creations such as knowledge reflect God.

Knowledge gained without knowing God is meaningless and foolishness. Knowing about God without knowing God is lacking wisdom.

Seek the object that the mirror reflects and not the image. All knowledge must be interpreted in the knowledge of the Truth - the one objective standard, for all knowledge gained otherwise is relative to the Truth.

On the note of relativity to the Truth, one can look at the example of good and evil, which without the Truth, are subjective concepts. A mother who steals to feed the infant is a "better" person than a murderer. However, the mother who steals to feed the infant is a "worse" person than a mother who does not. Yet the mother who does not is a "worse person" than a philanthropist. What allows an objective standard to determine what is good and what is evil is then? What is the objective standard of all knowledge if everything is relative? The one standard, the one and only Truth, is the Creator God - the One who defines Holy. Man cannot define Holy for they are not the standard, nor can they ever fully know the standard without revelation.

Authoritarian countries maybe safer than democratic-ruled countries, is this therefore better? Democratic countries have freedom to knowledge and education yet is this therefore better? Which is thus good and which is not? There are both pros and cons for each proposition in the spectrum. Welfare states protect the incapable, sheltering the weak and needy, but it encourages laziness. Meritocracy encourages determination and responsibility, but neglects the weak. How do we judge? Who are we to? And if were to, what measure do we use? What standard should be followed? The lazy will want welfare, the needy too, yet the rich and capable want meritocracy. By whose standard or measure do we follow then?

Similarly, do the seashells found on the top of the Himalayas provide evidence that they are fold mountains that were once under the Caspian Sea? Or does it provide evidence of Noah's great flood? Or both?

One evidence, multiple interpretations.

The "God's module" in the frontal lobe of the brain activated in "divine experiences" has been found. Yet is this proof of God? Or did Man create God from his mind as an evolutionary advantage?

Evidences and knowledge needs interpretations, and all interpretations must be according to the one Truth, the one objective standard. When used correctly, knowledge reflects the Truth, thereby bestowing knowledge of the Truth. Similarly, one need not turn around while driving to see someone approaching when they can gauge from the reflection in the mirror, yet the person in the reflection is coming from the front. Acknowledging the presence of the object by seeing the reflection without seeing the object itself is faith and trust. Optical illusions play on this very trust and faith. And this faith and trust can save lives. Faith and trust is needed in many aspects, just as driving depends on faith on speedometers, mirrors, steering wheel and brakes. Surely it is foolish and unnecessary to demand to witness the object itself in spite of a clear reflection.

And this mirror is creation itself in the form of knowledge.