NOTWITHSTANDING the priceless worth of knowledge, the stupendous advances that have been made in accumulating it, and the seemingly unlimited possibilities for future learning, there are certain limitations on its acquisition. These limitations are inherent, both in the defective nature of the sources of knowledge and in the inadequacies of the human mind.
Experience is really a very meager source of knowledge. No history can be learned this way, for linear time moves only one way and does not allow us to relive the past. We can know by experience only those things that happen to us personally. Because our lives are so short, our bodies so frail, and the sphere of our activities so small, if we never learned anything except by experience, we would know very little, indeed.
The testimony by which others report their experiences opens a much broader area of knowledge. This gives us access to the cumulative experience of the human race. It constitutes a race memory. This is a source indispensable to the development of any civilization. Without it every generation would, like the lower animals, begin with no more available knowledge than that to which its ancestors had access thousands of years ago.
All that we have learned from our own and preceding generations is knowledge of this category. This includes most of what we know. However, it is a highly defective source. Witnesses are seldom fully reliable. Their observations may be faulty. Their interpretations may be false. Their prejudices may be glaring. Their honesty may be questionable. Their memories may be tricky. The imperfections of language may render their account incomprehensible or deceptive. Important, vast, and fruitful as this source of knowledge is, it must almost invariably be critically discounted and used with a caution bordering on suspicion.
Philosophers used to hold that in pure reason man has a source of knowledge free from the limitations of experience and testimony. In the mind he is unfettered by the limitations of time and space and independent of the inaccuracies of human testimony. However, the philosophers have amply demonstrated that human reason is neither pure nor free. A philosophy can be more truthful than the assumptions on which it is based, and these assumptions grow out of the limited and faulty experience of the philosopher.
Furthermore, reason can be a source of knowledge beyond our experience only if the natural processes beyond our experience are uniform with those within our experience. During the nineteenth century the concept of invariable uniformity in nature was the sacred foundation of all the sciences. Anyone rash enough to question its truth thereby branded himself an ignoramus. Then, early in the twentieth century doubts concerning its validity began to appear and spread through the various sciences. But the physicists continued to cling firmly to the concept of absolute uniformity until a few years ago when Dr. Heisenberg, one of the most respected among them, discovered that within the atom, electrons do not always behave with uniformity.
Natural Processes Not Necessarily Uniform
The possibilities of knowledge are further restricted by the shortcomings of the human mind. Basic to our thinking and to our living are the problems of time and space. However, we can comprehend these only relatively, never absolutely.
For example: If time is real, it either had a beginning or it existed eternally. Our logic tells us that one of these propositions must be true. There is no other possibility. Yet our minds cannot conceive of either one being true! We cannot picture time as never beginning. If there was never a first hour, how could there be a second, a third, and so forth? On the other hand, we cannot admit that time had a beginning. The instant we say that once there was a first hour, our minds demand to know what there was before that first hour!
We have a similar problem in considering space. Either space is limitless or comes to an end somewhere. No other logical possibility exists. If we try to conceive of space as continuing without end, we find in a few moments that this is impossible for us.
Not only in questions of time and space but also in all other areas of thought, we can cope only with that which is relative to the finite and temporal. When confronted by an absolute or an ultimate, our minds are at a loss. Whenever we approach problems of infinity or eternity our intellects can produce only meaningless gibberish.
Knowledge Often Fragmentary and Contradictory
At best our knowledge is always incomplete. Our sources and our minds can deal only with the finite, the partial, the circumscribed. Because of this, much of the knowledge we do gain is contradictory.
Three country yokels were preparing for their first trip to the city. Their mother, whose arthritis made walking upstairs painful, had heard that in the city there was a marvelous contraption that made stairways unnecessary. She repeatedly insisted that the boys be sure to examine an elevator very carefully, so that they could give her a good description of it when they returned. In one of the skyscrapers the boys decided to make their inspection. The oldest, who was mechanically inclined, asked to see what makes an elevator work. He was taken to the top of the building and shown the motors, gears, and pulleys. The second was more of a house boy and was interested in the part that the people occupied. He stepped into an elevator and looked it over very carefully from the inside. The youngest was interested in construction. He asked to see the foundations and structure of the elevator. He was taken to the subbasement, where he could look up the elevator shaft.
When they returned home their mother listened eagerly as her now sophisticated sons described the wonders of the city, climaxing their narrative with the description of an elevator. The oldest said, "An elevator is a big engine." The second disputed this. "Oh, no!" he said. "An elevator is a small room." The youngest disagreed with both of his brothers, saying, "It's not like that at all! An elevator is a dark, narrow hallway of varying length standing on end!" So, much of our knowledge is just as fragmentary and contradictory as that.
Besides our having incomplete and contradictory knowledge, our interpretations of it are often completely false, because we see and explain life as centered in man. Experience proves this to be unsatisfactory. Our universe gives indications of another depth of reality that is unseen. Our own life demands for its ultimate fulfillment a reality outside and beyond ourselves.
Even if our sources of knowledge were not incomplete, contradictory, and false, they still would not fulfill the demands of our beings. At their best they tell us what was, what is, and under certain conditions, what may become. But there is that within us which is not satisfied by mere existential knowledge. It demands evaluation. It seeks a comparison of that which was with that which should have been. It questions that which is in its pursuit of that which ought to be. It looks beyond that which may become in its quest for that which ultimately shall be. When our sources of knowledge assure us concerning a set of facts that these things are true, we still want to know, "Are they good?"
Fourth Dimension of Knowledge
This is another dimension of knowledge that confronts us at the extremity of our mental processes. Our three sources of knowledge cannot penetrate it. We have no access to it unless by some means it reveals itself to us. Christianity declares that this is possible! The Christian religion identifies this other dimension outside and beyond ourselves as God. We live with a sense of obligation. We feel that we are being judged from beyond ourselves. Christianity calls this universal human experience conscience, and interprets it as a relationship in which God makes demands and judgments upon man.
In addition, it is maintained that God has spoken from beyond concerning Himself in the events recorded in the Bible, particularly in the life of Jesus Christ. In this revelation of the divine character and will is to be found the knowledge which supplements our inadequate knowledge. It supplies the basis for a synthesis of our contradictory knowledge. It provides a normative criterion for the identification of false knowledge gained through experience, testimony, and reason. For these almost incredible claims the Christian offers no proof. He recognizes that they can be accepted only by taking the leap of faith. Without this they are foolish utterances. But to him who accepts such a concept in faith it proves more adequate to the problems of life—yes, to the perplexities of the twentieth century—than any alternative philosophy ever offered mankind!
Christian Education Includes All Dimensions
The Christian school introduces its students to all three of the human sources of knowledge and seeks to develop a facility in their use. It endeavors to inculcate the youth with an urge to roll back the frontiers of human knowledge. It encourages the most intense and critical employment of every instrument to enlarge the bounds which circumscribe our information. These methods, activities, and objectives the Christian school holds in common with all other institutions of learning.
In addition, it seeks to bring each student into contact with that other, deeper dimension of knowledge through which only an understanding of our being, our existence, and the things that concern us most deeply can be acquired. The Christian school holds that divine revelation is not merely another source of knowledge but that it offers a unique kind of knowledge which makes all other knowledge meaningful. It reveals the Infinite in which our finite has its roots. It reveals the Eternal on which our temporal is based. It reveals the perfect by which our imperfection is judged. It reveals God as the source of all knowledge, irrespective of how, when, where, or by whom it may be discovered. "From God, the fountain of wisdom, proceeds all the knowledge that is of value to man, all that the intellect can grasp or retain."—Counsels to Parents and Teachers, p. 360. "He [God] is the originator of every ray of light that has pierced the darkness of the world."—Ellen G. White in The Review and Herald, Nov. 10, 1891.
Thus, revelation offers more than knowledge. It imparts wisdom. It bestows insight.
In recognizing this place of pre-eminence for revelation in its epistemology, the Adventist school becomes not merely a link between man and his past, but a bridge between man and God! This we were told more than a half century ago by one who was herself a medium of revelation: "Whatever line of investigation we pursue, with a sincere purpose to arrive at truth, we are brought in touch with the unseen, mighty Intelligence that is working in and through all."—Education, p. 14.
Only through receiving by faith the self-revelation of God, can the inadequacies, the contradictions, the falsifications, of other knowledge be resolved. Only by a complete commitment to the God thus self-revealed can the basic conflicts of human experience be solved.
Throughout our lives we will be conscious of tensions between what is and what should be, between what we are and what we ought to be, between what we feel we must do and the limitations on what we can do, between the demands of our individuality and the requirements of society. The solution to these can be found only in a knowledge of the character and will of the self-revealing God. This knowledge is absolute and ultimate. It is the revelation of the Infinite and the Eternal.
Surely, every addition to revealed knowledge is an addition to human power. Revealed knowledge is, indeed, power. There is no revealed knowledge that is not power. I would rather excel others in revealed knowledge than in any power. Truly, the only jewel that will not decay is revealed knowledge. It is revealed knowledge that Solomon termed wisdom. And Wisdom, speaking through the revelatory experience of this wisest of all kings, declared:
Take my instruction instead of silver,
And knowledge rather than choice gold;
For wisdom is better than jewels,
And all that you may desire cannot
compare with her.
(Prov. 8:10, 11, R.S.V.)
