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To Know
By John R. Gavazzoni
There is such a thing as knowing absolutely. Though deduction might be involved in the process one goes through on the way to meeting head-on some facet of the Truth, deduction won't get you there. Actually, deduction just rides in on the coattails of one being drawn into absolutely knowing. I'm not talking, of course, about absolutely knowing everything. I'm talking about an encounter with the Spirit of Truth whereby one is granted an entrance into the realm of absolute knowledge, but not all at once into all its breadth, length, height and depth.
Knowing absolutely belongs entirely to the spiritual realm, to fellowship with God whereby God shares something of His own knowledge. It is important to understand that all (true) knowledge of God is God's knowledge of Himself shared. St. John connected the anointing which all believers have received with knowing: "ye have an unction (anointing) from the Holy One, and you know...." Knowing comes first in divine fellowship, upon which we are clothed with power. Jesus made that distinction, announcing, "the Spirit of the Lord is upon me BECAUSE He has anointed Me....."
The "upon" pertains to power/ability to give to others what has been made known by the anointing. There is no absolute knowledge from science. Science, actually, is about probing into the unknown but never reaching any absolute conclusion. ScientISM loves to proclaim, "the science is settled." But when its devotees do so, they admit that....by such a proclamation, at that moment, and as they continue to bloviate....they cease to be scientists. Even when deduction gives some clarity to how our world works, that clarity falls short of knowing absolutely the thing deduced. In fact, be sure, there is some element of error within the clarity.
Recently I watched several interviews of one of the world's great thinkers, a man of unquestionable academic standing. Time and time again, with what seemed to be an endowment of humility, he would answer propositions from the interviewer with, "well, I suppose, but we don't really know," or "I don't think we'll ever know." Though, I'm sure, the politically-correct thinkers in the world of academia would like to at least marginalize his influence in their community, if not finding some way of silencing him completely, he, living in that world, much of his mentality is occupied with being amused at the absurd claims about what many intellectuals insist they know. Frankly, he was more refreshing for me than a lot of what I read from fellow believers.
This knowing is a big subject in scripture, particularly in the New Testament: "And this is life eternal (actually life eonian), that ye might know...." "And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding that we may know...." "....till we all come in the faith and knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man (humanity)....." (Note, in that last quotation, that's the Son of God's faith and the Son of God's knowledge, not OUR faith in Him, or OUR knowledge of Him.) The Son of God's knowledge, in His glorified state, is absolute. That knowledge pertains, at its heart, His knowledge of the Father. The Son knows the Father as the Father knows Himself.
More: "that ye might know, with all the saints, what is the breadth, length, height and depth, and to know the love of Christ...." The work of the Holy Spirit begins with persuasion that utterly convinces, and from that conviction, comes "the assurance of faith." What happens, though, in so many cases, is that God grants us a bit of absolute knowing , i.e., revelation, and we, with the encouragement of others in complicity with our audacity, think, "Oh, goodie, let's see what kind of structure I can build upon this revelation that will give me a reputation of a teacher of note among my brethren."
"We know and believe the love God has for us." Not, "there seems to be some basis for a conclusion that God loves me, therefore I'll dare to believe He does." "We know...." Yes, that's normative for the believer, but that knowing, by God's design, is subjected to a cacophony of soulish noise as to existentially bring to bear a soulish competition to that knowing that is intrinsic to being born of God.
Movements inspired of God in their inception, sooner or later go off track, as those, whose mental bent, especially, leans strongly toward abstract thought, ends up thinking out of sync with that pure, primitive knowing within their spirit. They are those most inclined to build intellectual castles in the sky. What follows is that those less given naturally to abstract thinking, listening to the former, think, "This guy really seems to know what he's talking about. I'm going with him." The progress from revelation to understanding is fraught with the propensity to add to the Word given. When the Lord drew me to Himself, instantly I knew, absolutely, that Jesus was real and alive, my Lord and Savior. Then, within barely a few weeks, I was told by my early mentors what I was supposed to believe. I succumbed to a great degree, but there was that pressure from within of true knowing that caused me to realize, "Something's not quite right in what's being told me."
One can't "run the race" wearing hip-high boots and carrying a backpack full of bricks. Strip down for the race, my dear fellow believers. Become healthily skeptical about your deduced conclusions. Keep always in mind that "we see as through a glass darkly (as in a cloudy mirror)." There's a lot of truth in the observation that the Greeks turned Christ into a philosophy, the Romans turned Him into an empire, and the Europeans made of him a culture, while we Americans have turned Him into a business....all such proclivity arising from theological deduction displacing "we have known and believed the love God has for us."
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