Know that You Know that You're KNOWN

some thoughts on truth and knowledge

I had the pleasure of avoiding the phrase “do you know that you know that you know” for thirty-two years, but a few weeks ago, a friend of mine gracefully introduced this phrase into my life, and it captures one of my major problems with the way I used to approach God, faith, and the B-I-B-L-E.

Usually I write down who says these sorts of things in my notebook, but I failed to this time. Based on the notebook entry next to it, I can narrow down who it was, but as of now I don’t know who to blame for this one.

But the context of the conversation was the premise behind Pete Enn’s book The Sin of Certainty. In it, and works by similar authors, the idea is presented that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt; the opposite of faith is certainty.

That is, when we base our relationship with God on being certain about a list of facts or doctrines, we are building our relationship with God on the foundation of our own certainty and intellect instead of, well, relationship.

When the rains descend and the winds blow and beat upon this house causing our certainty to fail, our relationship with God goes with it.

My friend Jordan recently asked me, “What did deconstruction mean to you?” And, honestly, it was letting go of the need to know that I know that I know. It was letting go of the need of certainty. It was discarding the idol of my own mind and intellect. It was learning to rest long enough for grace to catch up. It was discovering what it means to know that I know that I’m KNOWN.

Trampolines and Dominos

At a yearly youth retreat we attend called Winterfest, my favorite Winterfest speaker gave a great illustration in his Sunday sermon on trampolines and dominos.

While he was speaking, several ten-feet (3 meters to my Canada friends) high dominos were behind him on the stage. I don’t remember what the labels were, but I can make some up:

“What is the age of the earth?”

“Which John wrote Revelation?”

“Was Jonah swallowed by a whale or fish?”

“Who wrote the Pentateuch?”

“How much wood could a woodchuck…?”

He talked about how many people have a faith like a set of dominos; when one thing falls, the whole faith collapses.

Moses might not have written every word of the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures? Faith destroyed.

The book of Jonah might be figurative? No more Jesus.

The earth wasn’t created last Thursday? Throw out the Bible.

Instead, Phil invited us to think of our faith as a trampoline, which he had behind him on stage. As he jumped and talked about different kinds of knowing and how difficult Scripture can be at times, he revealed that he had one of the springs in his pocket.

Yet the trampoline was still functional. He could still safely jump.

When our faith is like a domino rally, one change destroys the whole thing, but when our faith is like a trampoline, we humbly embrace our ignorance as we continue to jump. Not every doctrine has to be all-or-nothing. Not every debate needs to be a zero-sum game.

Sunset and Apologetics

I say all this to say that apologetics used to be helpful to me. There was a season in my life where I really needed it. But just as we eventually have to move from Proverbs (where everything works) to Ecclesiastes (where nothing seems to work), I had to move beyond apologetics because it seemed to be hurting more than helping.

But why?

Apologetics stopped working as much for me because I was changing how I know. The ways of knowing were being reordered in my head, and I found myself moving away from the purely intellectual, modernist, literalistic way of knowing that made me feel so secure and certain for so long.

Even if we are saved by grace through faith, if this faith is something I work my whole life to get and maintain, isn’t that just salvation through merit in different clothes?

And does the Bible work like that anyway?

Do we need to harmonize the gospel accounts? Do we need to nail down who was there at the tomb on the first day and when? Do we have to reconcile Genesis with science? Was it ever intended to work like that at all?

What is this other way of knowing that was taking precedent in my mind?

Well, I put it like this to a really good friend of mine:

When I watch a sunset, I feel infinitely loved. I wish I could systematize that, bottle it up, and hand it to you, but that would kill it. All I can say is that I feel known, seen, and in the Presence of something much bigger than myself.

The Infinite and Mystery

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—
We murder to dissect.

“The Tables Turned” — William Wordsworth

“We murder to dissect.” That explains my relationship to God, faith, and the Bible.

Faith was all about coming to the right conclusions through an intense process of study and reason. Anything less than that was no good.

But there is a fatal flaw at the foundation of this entire approach: the infinite and mystery, by definition, is something that is beyond total comprehension.

Three times infinity and one million times infinity are equal because they are both equal to infinity. This math problem may confound our rational minds, but infinity isn’t a really big number; it is larger than any natural number and, by definition, incalculable. We can’t count to it. We can’t measure it. We can only “approach it.”

Ok, enough of that. I did far too many integrals in college math.

The point is that, in the rational mind, we can only approach God.

God can not be conquered, captured, or put into a box. Anything that we put into a box and call “god” will always be less than God. Our creeds, our songs, and our sermons may approach God, but there will always be more to be recited, sung, and preached as we dive into this mystery.

As Richard Rohr says, mystery is not something that cannot be understood; mystery is something that can be endlessly understood.

How, then, do we know God?

Perhaps Wordsworth was onto something in the last stanza of “The Tables Turned’:

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

“But Why?” and Other Important Questions

But then there’s the problem of evil, and it is a big problem. In fact, it is the question for me. If I could have any theological question answered, this would be it.

If I was omnipotent, that is, if I had unlimited power, I would snap my fingers and erase cancer, do away with violence, and probably do something silly like make the temperature comfortable year-round, which might make penguins very angry.

But while I can imagine what I would do if I was omnipotent, it is not possible for me to imagine what I would do if I was omniscient, that is, if I had all knowledge.

God is typically described in three ways: omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

But I’d like to add a fourth: omni-agape—all loving.

This fourth term actually matters a whole lot because while I can imagine what I might do if I were omnipotent, I know that it is impossible to imagine what I would do if I were all knowing and all loving.

I barely know the consequences of my actions now. Sometimes I’ll do something and it will affect my life in thirty different ways I had never taken into account. And so while I may wish to turn off the natural disaster switch or press a button and, safely, erase all nuclear weapons (really, what were we thinking with that one, right?), it is impossible for me to know the consequences of that.

But what about this fourth one—all loving?

If God is omni-agape, as revealed by Jesus, then I have to trust that somehow, someway all of this will be made right. I don’t know how it works. I don’t know what God’s plan is. But if God really is all loving, then I have to trust that there is some meaning behind all of this.

So I give myself permission to scream “But why?” I give myself permission to cry out, to lament, to say, “There is no way this could ever be fair.” And, at the same time, put my trust in infinite love.

People come up with conspiracy theories because they think that there has to be some reason people are so evil and cruel. Why? Because it is much scarier to believe that they do all of this for no greater reason at all. The conspiracy theory offers a level of comfort through ascribing order to a seemingly random and cruel world.

And I guess that’s where I’m at. I have to trust that the cross and resurrection mean something, that Jesus’s love and compassion for the crowds is how God really feels, and that there has to be something greater than all of this pain and evil and sickness.

Not knowing the answers to these questions really makes part of me, the part that knows that I know that I know, super uncomfortable, but the part that watches the sunset and jumps on the trampoline with a few springs missing, the part that knows that I know that I’m known, believes that the God who knows me perfectly will love perfectly.

This Passage Again

And now we’re back to an old friend—one of my favorite passages.

Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge, but anyone who loves God is known by him. 1 Corinthians 8:1–3

Allow me to have some creative liberty with this one and borrow a line from our friend James.

“Oh, you know that there is one God and these idols are really not that big of a deal and you have no problem eating this meat? You do well, but that’s not even the knowledge that counts. Even that fact can give you a big head. But if you learn to love, then you’ll build up the body of Christ. If you claim to know anything, even that there is only one God, but you don’t love, then you’ve missed the whole point. What you should do is love because to love is to be known by God, and being known by God is far better than knowing facts about God.”

In another place, Paul said,

Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental principles? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? Galatians 4:9

Or rather to be known by God…

See, that’s what it’s all about.

To know that you know that you are known.

And we know that we know that we’re known through only one thing.

And that one thing isn’t doctrine, exegesis, syllogisms, or authorized worship.

That one thing is love. Because the only thing that counts for anything is faith expressing itself in love (Galatians 5:6).

And anyone—yes, anyone—who loves is known by God and knows God with a knowledge that is far deeper and more true than the kind of knowledge acquired through study and reason—the kind of knowledge that only comes through sunsets, hugs from our family and friends, or singing songs around a campfire.

Our omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omni-agape God knows you far better than you could ever know God, and that is something to be embraced.