Aren't faith and knowledge mutually exclusive?

I read this lot from behind the sofa, still there

 

It depends upon one's understanding of the word knowledge. In the Bible the word tends to imply a relationship. Take Genesis 4:1 which says that "Adam knew his wife", knew in this instance means made love. The same applies to spiritual relationships. Jesus says in John 10:14 "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me", this refers to the saving relationship between Him and those who follow Him. The same applies to John 8:32 where He tells His disciples "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

For Tozer faith and knowledge are affairs of the heart and far from being exclusive they are interdependent. I've come to know the Lord through faith.

 

Gotcha!

You missed one.

 

 

Religious faith is to knowledge as junk food is to properly-balanced sustenance. The more you consume of the former, the less room you're leaving in your overall diet for the latter

 

Are you God Botherers still going on?

 

Define religious faith and knowledge in the context of this simile. I'm looking forward to being at liberty to use words such as epistemology and a priori without objection.

 

I doubt God has been even vaguely bothered by most of what has been said in this thread (other than trying to suppress the occasional holy giggle), and now the thread is drifting into semantics I suspect he will have refocussed on more weighty matters.

 

Sorry Turbo, I have not been able to contribute to the thread as much as I would have liked but I see that you posted later on referencing this question so in short, yes, whether you have two perfectly working eyes or not has little relevance to whether someone is spiritually blind. By believing in other faiths, as a Christian, I would suggest that their eyes are not in perfect working order.


In my opinion, common sense is a perception. To my mind it is common sense to think that there is a creator in order for there to be a creation, others would disagree and therefore deem it to be common sense to think we just 'happened'.

 

 

We cannot live on bread alone, if we do we would not live long (in context of eternity) and we wouldn't live a particularly healthy life during our time on earth either. I would suggest that faith in Christ and the word of God is the well balanced sustenance to the junk food that is 'wordly knowledge' (if I have presumed correctly as to what you mean by that term).

 

Amen.

 

Another great work by Glen Scrivener:

 

Thank you very much for informing your perception on other faiths, SRSport. It's entirely different to mine, and we are entitled to our perceptions. To me, it's the ones (Christians; like your good self) who think that Christianity is the ONLY faith which is capable of guiding one to the One, need to go to the Specsavers.

I have tremendous respect for the people who follow common sense; along with, or without having any religious faith. I see them close to God (in vicinity, not in comparison) without any religious faith label. That's my perception, though. I would like to say that I respect your narrow perception of seeing Christianity as the ONLY way to the One, but I don't. Never mind, though.

No further questions on the 'blindness' issue.

 

Religious faith = any belief system based on the existence of some supernatural or mystical force(s) or entity(s)
knowledge = facts or information about anything or anyone obtained and/or which are supported by testable evidence

 

Don't you mean supposed existence?

 

What kind of amateur nutritionist would ever suggest that bread eaten on its own is a balanced or complete food? It certainly wasn't me. Likewise, only a complete bore (or a raging lunatic) would propose that we devote our entire existences to becoming human encyclopedias. That still doesn't mean though that there aren't plenty of cultural or intellectual pursuits other than religion (music, the arts, sport, etc) which can help develop us into more complete and rounded individuals, but which still fall firmly outside the scope of the directly utilitarian. To go back to my original analogy, just because I eat healthily most of the time, doesn't mean I don't like to splurge on a big juicy burger now and then, and if the weather's good enough, maybe even wash it down with a nice cold beer

 

I understand that it suits your purposes to build this straw man

But please just because you are ignorant of the science don't assume everyone is

 

That really goes without saying, given the qualifiers of supernatural and mystical that follow later in the sentence

 

So what does science have to say about creation and what came before it? The singularity of infinite density is about as far as it gets and then silence or fudging.

 

well I'm not sure what you mean by "fudging"

but in a way science does put "placeholders" - like say "dark matter" to intellectually ring fence inevitable gaps in our knowledge

but what it does not do is insert a "miracle"

we know since the beginning of human existence that we have had gaps in our knowledge, we know religion seeks to fill these gaps with miracles

and we know EVERY occasion science provides us the answer

here is start - part 1 of 2 that looks at what we know and how we know it


what will be interesting is what happens when we find life or strong evidence of life (however basic) in the rest of our solar system / galaxy / universe

 

So we're dealing here with knowledge as defined by a logical positivist. What about a theist's definition of knowledge? Who's to say which definition is right without falling in to the trap of regression? From an epistemological perspective we can both be right and both wrong. I say the existence of the eternal Father is a concrete basis upon which to build knowledge, you say it's turtles all the way down and thus omit a solid foundation.

According to Hebrews 11:1, "...faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Neither you nor I, nor anyone for that matter, can 'see' the foundation of knowledge, it is beyond our reach. Yet I 'feel' the love of the triune Godhead, I am assured of the Father's existence by His Son, I have the hope that this affords and my faith is the platform for my knowledge.

What platform do you have for your knowledge?

 

Science is obliged to fudge on the subject of a creator or what might have been going on before the universe appeared. It cannot see beyond big bang, the singularity, dark matter, space/time and whatever else it employs to conceal the fact that, as Sir Patrick Moore used to proclaim: 'They just don't know.'

 

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” - Heisenberg

 

Agreed, we don't know

Religion claims too

That IS the difference

 

What, other than the fact it's a definition which wouldn't pass muster in a single other field of human endeavour, outside of religious study? Who cares, that alone is more than big enough a failing to dismiss it as mere linguistic distortion, if one is being kind, or blatant fraud, if one is being harsher.

Sorry, but no dice. Yes, it's possible in theory that we can both be right, just as it's in theory possible that I'll win the Euromillions jackpot twice a week, every week for the rest of my days on Earth. The problem here is that you expect the rest of the world to turn a blind eye to that massive difference in odds, for no other reason than the strength of your conviction that something is real, despite neither you or anyone else having a single piece of tangible evidence for it.

What use are foundations for a castle built of thin air? None that I can think of.

I think I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that it will be thousands if not millions of years before humans will ever develop the means to observe exactly what lies at the centre of the Earth. Believe it or not though, that's not going to stop it from spinning round, or stop generation after generation of people on it from living their lives quite happily without being able to do so. Or in other words, sometimes it's better to just accept there are some things you simply don't have the means of knowing, rather than trying to fill in those gaps in your knowledge with any old tosh just for the hell of it.

Anyhoo, I'm off to eat a burger now, cheers

 

Good post

Enjoy the burger

 

Well written. As someone who's a theist both spiritually and philosophically, here's my response to your claim that the foundation of my 'knowledge' is baseless.

https://www.scoobynet.com/1019401-go...l#post11638752

The above is my evidential testimony. My internal, subjective witness is for me the more compelling. I have metaphorically seen, heard and felt Jesus - I know Him in my heart. A physicalist with a hard and unwilling and unchanging heart cannot 'know' this transforming, salvific experience. They may be able to explain it in terms of bio-chemistry in the same way as I can understand the beauty in nature owing to a grasp of phi. It must be plainly stated, though, that the reductionist, the physicalist, the logical positivist and the proponent of scientism cannot 'know' the joy unspeakable unless he receives it by the grace of God. Travel the road to Damascus, seekers, you may just meet Christ on the way.