Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge
This book is about knowledge and about claims to knowledge in relationship to life and Christian faith. It is concerned, more precisely, with the trivialization of faith apart from knowledge and with the disastrous effects of a repositioning of faith in Jesus Christ, and of life as his students, outside the category of knowledge. This is one result of the novel and politically restricted understanding of knowledge that has captured our social institutions and the popular mind over the last two centuries in the Western world.
Serious and thoughtful Christians today find themselves in a quandary about knowledge, on the one hand, and religious belief and practice, on the other. It is a socially imposed quandary. In the context of modern life and thought, they are urged to treat their central beliefs as something other than knowledge -- something, in fact, far short of knowledge. Those beliefs are to be relegated to the categories of sincere opinion, emotion, blind commitment, or behavior traditional for their social group. And yet they cannot escape the awareness that those beliefs do most certainly come into conflict with what is regarded as knowledge in educational and professional circles of public life. This conflict has profound effects upon how they hold and practice religious beliefs and how they present them to others.
Are the central teachings of the Christian tradition things that can be known to be true if appropriately examined? Are they possible subjects of knowledge? Are there people who actually do know them to be true? Or are they things you can only believe or choose to commit yourself to, perhaps only profess? And does it really matter one way or the other? If so, why?
Consider just the Apostles' Creed:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.
This creed is widely regarded and used among Christians as an expression of belief or faith -- and possibly of mere commitment or profession where genuine belief is lacking but wanted. But can we also know that what is expressed in these beliefs is true and real? And does it matter whether we know what they express or not? Wouldn't it be enough to just believe them? That is often suggested. Mere belief as a heroic act -- or even as the result of a miracle -- might warrant God's favor.
Of course, we can fail to know the articles of the creed -- no doubt about that -- and many people do. Just as someone might, for lack of appropriate application, fail to know the multiplication tables, the order of succession of American presidents, or the capital cities of the fifty states. If we don't know those things, however, it is because of an omission on our part. We might believe them without knowing them, of course, but we also can come to know them if we make a point of it. With that everyone agrees. Not knowing them says nothing about the possibility or impossibility of knowledge of them, or about the advantages of knowing them instead of only believing them or being totally ignorant of them. Could the same be true of the Apostles' Creed? Could it be true of the other central teachings of the Christian tradition?
These are important questions for how we live our lives. Almost everyone today is prepared to say that those teachings of Christianity cannot be things we know and that, in this respect, they are like the teachings of every religion. We in the United States live under a social consensus that seems to require such a response. According to it, the teachings of religion are not possible subjects of knowledge. But we must not accept this conclusion without question, for its implications are of profound importance. They place the teachings of religion at a crushing disadvantage before all that passes for knowledge in our world. They relegate them to practical irrelevance and loosen any grip they might otherwise have on the understanding and direction of life. Is that really justified? Or is it a terrible mistake? The difference between belief and knowledge is huge and affects every area of life. Not having knowledge of the central truths of Christianity is certainly one reason for the great disparity between what Christians profess and how they behave -- a well-known and disturbing phenomenon.
We have seen how important it is for us to have knowledge, and why mere belief and commitment, though they have their unique places, cannot be substituted for knowledge, but actually depend upon it in crucial ways. To say that "the righteous (or just) shall live by faith" does not mean that they live by blind and irresponsible leaps in total absence, or even in defiance, of knowledge. It does not mean that the "just" live in a state of ignorance or stupidity. They do on occasion act in specific ways beyond what they know, but only within a framework of knowledge that makes such action reasonable. Now we must deepen these points by discussing exactly how the lack of knowledge affects our lives and, in particular, how indispensable knowledge of Jesus Christ is to life in the contemporary world.
Knowledge of Christ in the modern world mainly came through the massive system of moral values, practices, and understandings that he bequeathed to human history through his teachings and his people. This moral heritage took the form not only of precepts and principles, but of images and stories elaborated in art, philosophical thought, and social and governmental institutions as well as in familiar bits of common language and wise sayings.
His answers to the worldview questions of who is well-off, who is a good person, and how to become a good person were of unequaled power. They have been the socially and institutionally dominant ones in the Western world. They compare favorably, at the very least, to serious and systematic answers to those questions from other sources through the ages. They have stood up well under the most intensive theoretical scrutiny, but they have done even better as a guide to living admirably -- even heroically -- in the circumstances of ordinary life for ordinary people. Is it possible to know that God exists? This question is central to our work here, for knowledge of God is what Christ is primarily about. "He is the image of the invisible God," was the language of the apostle Paul (Col. 1:15), and he himself is recorded as saying, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father"(John 14:9). It was his scandalous claim that "no one knows ...who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Luke 10:22; Matt. 11:27). His early followers were described as those who "through him ... have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that ... faith and hope are set on God" (1 Pet. 1:21). If there is no God, or if knowledge of God is impossible (as it certainly would be if there is no God), what is left of "Christ" is really nothing at all -- or worse still, it is a huge deception. It might still be something impressive or inspiring on a human scale, for on that scale who really stands higher than Christ? But it could not then be redemptive of the torn and hapless human condition. He would be just another "gentle cynic" as some of our "Jesus scholars" now say. So our first order of business now is to deal with the challenging and timeworn issue of the existence of God.
We have now found a firm basis for knowing that there is a vast nonphysical being underlying -- perhaps also interpenetrating -- the reality of the physical universe. We have pointed out that, although this is a knowable fact, no one has to know it. There are many people who do not know it. Either through neglect or resolve, they can refuse to seek out or attend to the considerations that would naturally lead to their knowing that there is a reality other than the physical world, one of magnificent proportions and intriguing character. The fact that some or many people do not know this or even deny it has of itself no bearing whatsoever upon whether it is knowable or whether some or many others do in fact know it.
Those who really do know Christ in the modern world do so by seeking and entering the kingdom of God. Everything else we have discussed here is meant to lead up to that. To know Christ in the modern world is to know him in your world now. To know him in your world now is to live interactively with him right where you are in your daily activities. This is the spiritual life in Christ. He is, in fact, your contemporary, and he is now about his business of moving humanity along toward its destiny in this amazing universe. You don't want to miss out on being a part -- your part -- of that great project. You want to be sure to take your life into his life, and in that way to find your life to be "eternal," as God intended it.
Christian pluralism " here means a pluralism derived from the understanding of God brought to earth by Jesus Christ, that is, a pluralism based upon the generosity and justice of the God revealed in Christ. Such a pluralism seems impossible to many. If Christians and Christian teachers have knowledge of essential points about God, Jesus Christ, and his spiritual life, that can only mean that those who disagree with them on those points must be mistaken. That seems unavoidable, a mere matter of logic. But by an unwarranted transition that has become customary today, this is taken to mean that Christians think they are better human beings than those who disagree with them and, conversely, that those who disagree with them are inferior, not as good, not equal.
But if that is true -- this unfortunate train of thought continues -- Christians surely must be unloving and arrogant toward those who disagree with them: atheists, agnostics, unbelievers of all kinds, and people of other faiths -- perhaps even other Christians who differ on certain points of Christian teaching. Isn't it unloving and arrogant to think that you are right and others are wrong? Today that is widely assumed to be so.
Who is to bring the knowledge that will answer the great life questions that perplex humanity? Who is to teach the world -- the "nations," people of all kinds -- the knowledge that belongs to Christ and his people? In any subject matter the responsibility to teach falls upon those who have the corresponding knowledge. With respect to Christian knowledge, the primary responsibility to teach falls upon those who self-identify as spokespeople for Christ and who perhaps have some leadership position or role in Christian organizations. I shall use the word "pastors" for such people, but the word is here to be taken very broadly; it refers not just to those who hold a position with that title -- though it is especially for them.
The most important thing that is happening in your community is what is happening there under the administration of true pastors for Christ. If you, as a pastor, do not believe that, then you do not understand the dignity of what you are supposed to be doing. Whatever your situation, there is nothing more important on earth than to dwell in the knowledge of Christ and to bring that knowledge to others.