Theory of Knowledge, part 2

Well, I had absolutely no comments on the Theory of Knowledge post. So that can only mean the either no one reads this or everyone is waiting with baited breath to see what answers I wrote, so here they are....

Theory of Knowledge

1. When should we trust our senses to give us truth?

The only truth our senses can give us is the truth of sight, sound, taste and feel, and then what they sense isn’t always correct. Sometimes what we think we see, hear, feel or taste isn’t right, therefore it isn’t truth. There is absolute truth and everything else measures against it. That absolute truth is God and His Son Jesus. Jesus said in John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (NIV). Doing something just because it feels right will get us into trouble, we must know truth and trust Him. We can do this by knowing His Word. Senses will mislead us, as in the case of two eyewitness of the same accident trusting their senses of sight and sound and yet having two different stories. Yet if a video replay were shown both would have some element of truth to their story, but both would have some elements of falsehood. Trusting our senses for truth will let us down and disappoint us.

2. “Seek simplicity and distrust it” (Alfred North Whitehead). Is this always good advice for a knower?

If you are going to distrust it, why seek it? Just because something is simple does not make it wrong, and just because it is complicated does not make it right. Jesus said in Matthew 11:29 “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” (NIV). This is a statement that would be made by a rabbi to a prospective student. And it was an invitation for that student to come and learn. When an ox was in the yoke it did not have to worry about where it was going, all it had to do was walk where it was lead. When a student was taught by a rabbi he did not have to worry, just learn, this was simple.

When we are a knower, it should make some things in life simpler. If our knowledge makes something in life simpler, should we distrust what we know? We should always be learner, but that doesn’t make what we know wrong!

3. “There can be no knowledge without emotion…until we have felt the force of the knowledge, it is not ours” (adapted from Arnold Bennett). Discuss this vision of the relationship between knowledge and emotion.

Being a minister I am passionate about what I know. If we know something and have no emotion about it, it is simply head knowledge, just facts that we can quote; like the answers on a test that we have memorized and as soon as the test is over we forget it all. But when we know something and emotion is attached to it, we know that it is in the core of our being. Like a salesman that is really sold on the product he is selling, he is excited about that product; but one that isn’t will have a hard time selling anyone on his product.

Find a person's passion and you will find their knowledge and emotion entwined in such a manner that you could never unravel nor untangle them.

Now that you have read my answers, let me hear some of yours.
until next time.....